In addition to court challenges to all this repressive legislation, I'd strongly suggest boycotts of the states that have passed these draconian laws. If they want to turn their states into repressive, intolerant theocracies, I want no part of them. I won't visit them as a tourist, I won't attend conventions in their state, I won't do business there, and I won't buy their products. Let them return to the 19th Century and see how that works for them while the rest of us embrace the challenges of the 21st Century.
28
Anyone who thinks the Handmaids Tale world is a ways off is kidding themselves, I think. I just finished watching season 2 again and the parallels to what is going on now are deeply disturbing. We may not have a Gilead yet, but the Gilead attitude is alive and poised to explode. I urge any woman concerned about this issue to see the series too. It is just the wake up call we need, at a time when being perturbed just isn't enough.
13
“Pro-life” is a misnomer for the current Forced Birth laws, which are merely aimed at punishing women for having sex with or without consent.
To help these Forced Birth activists back up their claim of being “pro-life” I propose that by mandate every Forced Birth law be coupled with the following:
1. That fathers of the resulting children be tracked through DNA testing and held legally responsible for supporting both children and mothers until they are financially independent.
2. That should the fathers fail or be unable to comply, financial responsibility be legally transferred to each lawmaker who voted for the Forced Birth laws – with wages garnisheed and penalty of fines and jail time for non-compliance.
That would dramatically shift the burden of those Forced Birth laws from women seeking abortions to the bills’ authors, who oppose actual pro-life legislation: social programs that support children and the poor, public education and publicly funded health care. And it would quickly reduce the spread of Forced Birth laws.
27
Are those pro-life people sincere enough to call for the shutdown of the tobacco industry?
Until the answer is "Yes. This is done," I have no interest in hearing from these self-righteous hypocrites.
9
Take-away on these comments:
To the good men out there who are responsible, who do not take parenting lightly, who do step up and care for children they help conceive, who contribute even when not commanded by courts to do so, who share hands-on child-rearing, even if not in the same household -- someone here (me) recognizes that all men are not -- as some suggest -- simply knuckle-dragging heathens. Just do not expect kudos from whose who see all men as the enemy.
4
I just love those Baby Boxes. Love Rose Mimms's ideas for installing more of them all over Arkansas. Adore that she'll add bunches in fire stations and who knows where else -- maybe drive-in theaters would be good; maybe at town dumps next to the recycle bins. Can't wait to hear how it all works out.
3
It disgusts me that we allow men to have a voice in this discussion.
13
Just give a giant carbon emission reduction tax credit for each abortion. That will help save many more fully baked humans. Oh, and stop sending humans to die in useless wars.
5
This whole topic makes me sick in the stomach. Why are we still talking about abortion rights like our grandmothers? Come on women use birth control!! We are in 2019!
5
@Roberta Consoli
Should we now go to jail for failing to properly use birth control methods? Or be locked up if we allow ourselves to be raped? So we're in 2019, and make mistakes, so what? They're our mistakes to correct.
15
Perhaps if the anti-abortion crowd transferred some of their concern from the unborn to the living, we might get some responsible gun laws.
20
The same power that can tell a woman she can't have an abortion, can tell a woman she MUST have an abortion. That is why "choice" is the only answer. If we go backwards into taking women's bodies away from women, we are not free and we are not following the Constitution.
16
Personhood begins with the first breath. Before that the fetus is part of the woman’s body. It’s the woman—the breathing woman—we should all, including our government, be concerned with. Her well being.
13
I love hearing from all the angry feminists. heir only argument is "Rob you aren't a woman so what you say doesn't matter". Nice try but I am sure there are more than a few women who feel the same way. This is a societal issue. I hate to break it to you but omen do have a choice. They can choose to be responsible and use birth control consistently. They can be responsible and choose to abstain until they can financially and emotionally afford a child. They have the RIGHT to refuse sex. They have the right to choose who and when they sleep with someone. That is a woman's RIGHT. But once they "choose" to have sex they bear the responsibility for whatever ensues. Maybe its not fair but that is how it is. I don't get to choose who I sleep with. That's just the way it is too. With rights come responsibility. It is utterly irresponsible and childish to make the argument that its okay to kill an unborn child as we would put down a puppy in a pound just because she is unwanted. Just as it is irresponsible to rationalize it with the fact that it cannot survive outside the mother's body so its then okay to kill it. Yes its not perfect. Yes there are injustices such as rape and incest and I dont really know what do do about those situations but seriously. An inconvenient baby. Come on. You want rights? Grow up and take some responsibility.
7
I heard Gillabrand today on TV saying that there needs to be a national law allowing abortions. She also condemned Trump for saying that the Alabama law goes too far. How dare Trump comment against the anti abortion law. Unfortunately, Margaret Brennan never asked her how many bills she had introduced into the Senate for abortion rights during the Obama Administration.
1
A few minutes ago, I read the president's comment in another article about abortion. “If we are foolish and do not stay UNITED as one, all of our hard fought gains for Life can, and will, rapidly disappear!” Hard fought gains for Life??? What hypocrisy! This same president is building his booming economy at the expense of the Arctic National Refuge, the Gwich’in who are spiritually and physically linked to this landscape and its wildlife; endangered species such as the gray wolf, marine and land habitats, and the organizations whose main purpose is to preserve our public lands! His only agenda is to boost the production of oil and gas drilling, coal mining, all sources of fossil fuels. How can he be caring for Life when his economic agenda produces excessive amounts of carbon pollution that is slowly killing us and our planet!
9
When American Law is manipulated by religious groups whose hierarchies exclude women on purpose, it needs to be exposed as an end-run around voters having the ultimate power in our democracy.
This is not about weeping over a fertilized egg, this is about taking power from half of America.
We have to vote people out of office who distort religion and law to benefit themselves.
16
There won't be an Earth for all the "saved babies" to live on if we don't get our energy into fixing global climate disaster. Abortion is a power issue. It is not logical to make it illegal. It's like making vasectomies illegal.
10
What is the goal of striking down Roe v Wade? State's Rights.
The Anti-Abortion "movement" is a Trojan Horse used to wrest national power back to state capitols where public opinion can be more easily influenced. It's an effort that will Balkanize the country. Abortion is just a convenient tool to pry the door with.
6
The steps taken by these pro-life legislators begs the question of how much funding did they provide for education, school lunch programs, prison reform, climate change, health care, and affordable housing? Did they mandate sex education in the public school system in their respective states? Will they be funding birth
control for woman who cannot afford it? Have they expanded Medicaid in their State so poor families can afford another birth?
Just asking.
11
I always refer to them as "anti-choice". It's a perfect description. Given the demographic's support for capital punishment and disdain for universal healthcare the term "pro-life" is inaccurate.
12
The Anti-Abortion Activists are disingenuous at best and fraudulent at worst. The Responsibility for the life of a child extends far beyond birth. That child's multiple needs must be provided over the coming years to give that child the ability to pursue a meaningful and happy life. But these activists abandon these children just when they need continued support the most. For many of these children, this abandonment constitutes child abuse.
10
When you make comment about Robert Northam, you should include the fact that he is a pediatric neurologist and he was describing what typically happened when a severely compromised baby is born. Dr. Northam may not always be articulate but he is an expert on the issues that arise when a severely compromised child is born.
12
@Quinn
It was very unfortunate that his remarks were taken so out of context. These are very sad situations that should never be the subject of political grandstanding. Ever.
3
Anti abortion movements, growing popularity thereof are an indication that after decades of seeing the far left write the agenda of what is acceptable in terms of political correctness, conservatives r fighting back, and this is a rare victory amidst many defeats. If there is nothing wrong with preserving life and opposing abortion even after the child is breathing on his own, maybe the next victory will come in the form of an acceptance, despite LGBTGQ of the biblical concept that marriage is between a man and a woman!Time perhaps to explode the myth that same sex marriage is the majority view in the country, whereas in fact it is shared only by a loud,imperious, intolerant minority. Seeing a presidential candidate like Mayor Pete get up on stage and kiss his husband turns me and I am sure millions of other Americans off!Simply not right.All the principles that majority of us were brought up to believe:faith in the Constitution, in the wisdom of our Anglo Norman ancestors, in Christianity and the superiority of our way of life to any other r now under attack.There is a deep and abiding strain of anti Americanism out there, exemplified by , just 1 example, Spike Lee's statement at Oscars that slavery took hold in 1619 when pilgrims landed.If it's such a bad country, Mr. LEE, why does everyone want to come here?
2
An "unborn human being. A baby." "[A]n innocent unborn.
child." These are conclusions without any substantial fact or common sense logic and cannot be the basis of any constitutional enforceable law. Whim, capriciousness, or arbitrary preference or any rule supported by religion, or law by acclamation, cannot pass a constitutional challenge. Roe is based on acknowledged science and common sense logic and must stand for privacy, as it does against oppression of women or any other law without basis in substantial fact
12
This issue is part of what some are calling religious freedom. It’s not anything about the freedom of religion defined in the first amendment to the U.S. and is in fact opposed to that. Our first amendment freedom of religion is about freedom of conscience and government not interfering. This is about dominant religious groups having their values reflected in civil society, no tolerance in the courts for laws that defy those their religions have received from divine authority, no government that defies the will of divine authority expressed in their religions. What is at stake is liberty.
5
They make me sick, taking women's rights to choose away. They want a world that doesn't exist: where mommies stay home, take care of any children and daddies go to work, and then, let's have a game of jacks when daddy comes home. Oh, to play make believe instead of reality: women have the right to choose if they want to have children or not. And, what really gets me? None of these people really care about the children or the mothers. They wouldn't help them but they have to save those unborn souls. For what? To live a life of poverty, drug addiction in the Christianist world, for these people are not Christians. They don't turn the other cheek but strike out and destroy lives.
30
Once again, evangelicals show their contempt for free American women. And once again, there is no mention of males, whether they are husbands, fathers, rapists or doctors. No mention of forced births or the fact that it's currently estimated that the cost of raising a child, from birth to age 18, is $233,610.
Who's going to pay those bills? Jesus? Nope. Trump? Never. By all rights, it should be the state that forces the unwilling woman into an unwanted birth. But those costs should also be borne by the anti-abortion fanatics whose selfish, authoritarian and completely wrongheaded lies forced the women into this position.
Saying an ovum or a fetus is identical to a living, breathing "child" is the Big Lie of the anti-abortion movement, which happily conflates a newly fertilized egg with an actual born child. And who's on the forefront of this anti-abortion legislation? Christian men. The same men who wave grisly photos and scream "Murderer" at clinic employees. And who won't put up a single nickel to pay the costs that they themselves want to force onto these unwilling victims of organized evangelical hatred.
29
New Rule: Any (and I mean ANY) elected official; circuit court or federal judge; and Evangelical Christian preacher, who has the unmitigated gall to say something/anything equally blatant, and imbecilic, with reference to a "benefit" or a "silver lining" over pregnancy resulting from rape or incest; will be subject to (where applicable) immediate disbarrment; removal from office, or the ministry; and be subject to up to nine months of automatic jail time; upon release be required to lifetime community service, aiding women who were victims of the aforementioned; along with mandatory sensitivity training.
People like these cannot afford to be stupid; too much of that is running rampant over this hot-button issue.
9
@Ponsobny Britt And no one is running more rampantly that Trump. With any luck, his unholy coupling with evangelicals who champion the banning of all abortions will help defeat him at the polls. Women have no rights under evangelical rules, but they'll be voting in the elections and the primaries, many for the first time.
1
If you are intellectually honest, everyone is anti-abortion. The issue is whether or not you are pro-choice, or pro-life. Labeling pro-life people as “anti-abortion” activists is exactly how they want to be characterized. I am certain that they would not like the print media referring to them as “anti-choice.”
1
Keep it in perspective......Empires rise, they get successful, their birth rates fall, they import labor, the labor population grows, the empire starts to stumble. U.S. fertility has fallen sharply for decades, immigration offsets the fall by providing needed flesh and blood to run the economy.
Now immigration is under attack and fertility is being mandated by law in numerous areas. There is a smell of desperation in the air when our populations women are mandated by law to give birth regardless of their choice and in all circumstances, rape and incest included.
The simplistic minds of the lowest common denominator of the population are being manipulated by religio-conservative doctrine to increase fertility under threat of law.
More enlightened countries offer excellence in paid parenting birth leaves from work for both wives and husbands, excellent daycare, nutrition, superior education and some offer a 'bounty' for additional children. These are positive incentives to increase birthrate.
https://knoema.com/atlas/United-States-of-America/topics/Demographics/Fertility/Crude-birth-rate
5
Interesting we don't see big business lining up to leave these states they way they did for LGBT bathroom rights. I am really beginning to hate men.
11
I would like to see a detailed background and family history for all these "crusaders" against a woman's right to privacy. I guarantee they are separated by one or two degrees from a rape, incest, abuse, abortion that is driving their hypocritical behavior. When they speak I do not hear righteousness; I hear shame and fear of discovery. Sunshine on this movement to force women into submission and poverty would be a wonderful end to them all.
13
“Pro Life” seems to end abruptly at guns and the death penalty for this crowd.
16
And yet these are the very people who forbid sex education and birth control of any kind. Not 1 out of 100 have adopted unwanted or unloved children. So for me it put up or shut up. Stop forcing women to carry babies put there by men who can walk away without so much as good bye and NEVER deal with the consequence of their actions.
And if you think abortions will stop because of these people, I have ocean front property in Yuma you’ll love. Rich men will simply put their girl friends on a flight to CA or NY or wherever logic prevails. Poor women will die in back alleys yet again in AMERICA!
These activists do far more harm than the goody two shoes people expect. It breaks my heart for these poor children while these “smart” anti-life people go around contributing to more of them!
It’s proof they are really NOT pro child as they scream “somebody take care of this baby! I just make sure they are born but give no help what so ever after birth.”
Pro child, not really when you look at the big picture. Oh yes, I forgot. Lock those children in cages. It’s just more pro-lifers doing what they do best, harming children.
15
Banning ABs should only be considered once the infrastructure for child care and safety is established. These old (and some younger) whites dudes who want to make decisions for everyone is not current America. If the pseudo-religious are so eager to push their way of living on others, they must be willing to accept and manage the fallout.
3
Shoulda voted for Hillary instead of Jill Stein, folks!
This battle is over. Roe is toast. And just wait: There is a clear and very plausible path to a federal abortion ban in the United States. When Trump wins in 2020 (and if you think he’s going to lose, I’m sorry, you’re clueless), if the GOP takes the House as well, they’ll kill the Senate filibuster and pass a federal abortion ban by a simple majority, and then the battle is absolutely over. All because of the left.
(And I’m a lifelong Democrat)
3
Not merely because of the Left, no.
1
@Robert Completely, 100%, totally because of the left. The left that has gifted two presidencies and 4 Supreme Court seats to the GOP in the last twenty years.
The laws require nothing of the half of the “creation of life” for which males are accountable. Why? A new criminal class is being created, those seeking abortion, and it is all women.
If these embryos and fetuses are human beings, every one has a father. If the forced birth laws require the woman to become a mother, why do they not require the ejaculator to become a full fledged father with an equal or greater obligation to provide for this child?
These laws are vile, disgusting, and blatantly discriminatory.
17
The counter-scientific myth that an embryo is a baby from conception is one of the most pernicious and successful pieces of propaganda from the anti-abortion coalition. An embryo is not a baby; it is a collection of DNA which will trigger the formation of an eventual infant. Along the way there are many places where the environment of the womb and the mother’s body will affect what genes are expressed and what features will be formed, and how. The presence of a twin affects this process; so do physical and emotional stress on the mother and chemicals and pollutants from the outside environment, to name a few. These factors can affect the health of the child over its lifetime. Mothers don’t just incubate a fetus; in many ways we and the environment around us build and create the person it will eventually become. The decision whether to undertake this process is one for the woman, not for an ignorant and impersonal government with no apparent stake in the outcome of the process except to force birth regardless of its cost to women and society.
17
Most people support abortion early in the pregnancy, in cases of rape and safety and adverse prenatal diagnoses. However, I feel like the we went for overreach and now are seeing a rebound. This was avoidable. I think the movement gained momentum when Virginia Governor said "the infant would be kept comfortable." That was a wake up call to activists and centrists alike.
1
Please stop trying to be clever; only right-to-lifers claim that anybody “supports abortion,” and twists what Ralph Northam actually said like this.
2
The abortion bans and restrictions may appear to be extreme to some. But there were others who felt the pro abortion bills that were passed in Virginia and New York where babies can be aborted right up until birth and beyond were even more extreme. Very little opposition to the abortion bills but lots of outrage over the abortion bans.
Why are people so angry about saving lives? Shouldn't we be saving babies and not killing them. We have already lost million because of roe v Wade. When do we say enough is enough. Until now the pro life movement was active but silent. Then all of a sudden the pro life voices started speaking out against this travesty and taking real action. They have certainly made a difference in pulling out the stops of abortion. They will continue until there is a total ban on abortion. Their aim is to save lives and stop destroying them.
2
"Shouldn't we be saving babies..."
But pro-choice people ARE trying to save them. From miserable lives as the unwanted children of the most impoverished women and girls in the country.
4
It should read: We have already lost MILLIONS because of roe v Wade. It has been 60 million who have been lost in fact. If this does not make one cringe in disgust, nothing ever will.
1
Unfortunately the only goal of these bills is to push an agenda that supports life until birth. After that none of these people care at all about the life that follows.
8
I’m pro-choice, but I have two thoughts on consistency:
1. States who want to ban abortion, with exceptions for rape or incest. If abortion is “murder”, the child being aborted for rape or incest (here through no fault of their own) are also being “murdered”.
2. If a doctor performing an abortion gets 99 years in prison (more time than a rapist often gets), what about the mother? Abortion doctors don’t go out looking for clients. A woman desiring an abortion presents herself to him/her for that service. Doesn’t that make her an accomplice? The abortion wouldn’t happen if the woman didn’t present herself. Compared to 99 years for the doctor, isn’t that worthy of, say, 5 years? In the absence of doctors, self-induced abortions may make a big reappearance. What then? If the mother performs her own abortion, will it be 99 years?
If SCOTUS outright bans abortion, there will be national upheaval. If SCOTUS allows states to pass whatever they want, there will be intrastate upheaval with national implications. Businesses may shun full ban states; citizens may move in or out, etc etc. It’s a mess.
1
@Squawk - Jail doctors and women, men (fathers) go free.
2
I shudder to think of what these activists will target next if they are successful in having access to abortion extremely limited or outright banned in the United States.
Will it be redefining the definition of marriage? Making Christianity the national religion? Legalizing discrimination based on one’s religious beliefs? Mandating the teaching of creationism (aka “intelligent design”) in public schools?
With the judicial system leaning further and further to the right anything seems possible.
9
Leveraging the power of the state to target a victim by gender for involuntary participation in someone else’s self-chosen and uninvited fundamentalist beliefs is obscene.
Exclusion of females in the hierarchy of these groups is producing deformation of American law.
Insistence on compliance to some unelected sect leader’s self-interested proclamations as a substitute for law is unacceptable.
The resulting “logic” to use a kid or rape victim as some sort of incubator by the state is insanity itself.
4
Political and religious extremists are fanning the flames of patriarchy, and they must be stopped from claiming power that does not belong to them. These folks strive to suppress a woman’s right to govern her life and manage her personal health issues, including birth control, pregnancy, and abortion.
The reality is that many pregnancies are the result of force, poverty, and crimes committed by abusers, too often the result of rape and incest.
Instead of giving lip service to the birth matter we should get on board with technology and create a database to store the genetic ID of every person born in the United States. This would identify the parental ID of every child born, and give all men and proponents of the patriarchy the ability to rejoice and be glad to acknowledge and support every child for which they are responsible.
People of means and power have always found a way to obtain an illegal abortion for an unwanted child, but ordinary folks cannot do this. The poor and the sexually abused are left with two options – obtain an unsafe back alley abortion or bear an unwanted child who will grow up poor and with little opportunity for a good life. The poor among us are usually the ones fighting our wars. The ugly words sung in the 1920s should not pertain to today’s world: “The rich get richer and the poor get (poorer) children.”
2
Flash back about one generation to the start of the anti-same-sex-marriage movement that swept through most states of the U.S. resulting in state constitutional amendments enshrining "one-man-one-woman" definitions of marriage. It's deja-vu all over again.
3
The abortion issue is a red herring issue to keep voters voting against their own interests. Meanwhile their pocket gets picked. Tax cuts for the rich anyone?
8
Exactly. The wealthy - who have and always will obtain safe, private abortion no matter its legality - wield this and other social issues as political weapons. It fires up the base who will vote against their interests and continue lining the pockets of the privileged and corporations.
5
The anti-abortion movement is about the control and subjugation of women. The talk about protecting children, sanctity of life, etc, is a cover for an agenda that aims to turn back the clock and put women in their place. Why are these guardians of life silent when US policies are starving to death countless children in other countries? They are some of the biggest supporters of our wars and ongoing policies that have killed thousands of people in poor countries and territories.
7
Pro choice movement lost ground in the 90s when they seemed to argue abortion as a right only for incest and rape and women's health. That weakened their argument for abortion at any time (per Roe), and the privacy protection. Abortion should be about equality and a woman's right to her body. The govt. shouldn't have a say over a person's body.
2
The extreme reactionary anti-abortionists will bring this issue to a head and they will lose once and for all.
There is NO state in which more than 25% of the voters approve of an abortion ban.
2
This "movement" is being driven by the same kind of evil, greedy individuals that drove slavery in this nation and generated the Civil War. Wikipedia estimates U.S. Civil War dead at 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers along with an undetermined number of civilians.
This current effort is to enslave women, all women,no exceptions. I think that we are just a short step away form states like Alabama to try split off from the United States and create their own little Slave States. Anyone who does not see that making it "legal" to enslave woman is just a blink away from making it legal to enslave any group, say Jewish or Muslims or Buddhists or Gay people, is not thinking.
Hopefully, we learned from our last experience with these kind of individuals that they need to be dealt with rapidly and firmly. We really do not need to have another civil war.
5
And the same mindset that set in motion the medieval age of Inquisition where millions were burned at the stake for. It converting to Christianity! Same mentally. A very dangerous and evil one!
I appreciate the dispassionate coverage of how the recent success of the anti-abortion activists has happened. It allows any of us who are unhappy with such developments to understand the situation and how it came about. We can scream and yell and shake our heads, or we can figure out what this means for all Americans, particularly women and girls, and we can determine what we are willing to do to change it, both personally and collectively.
The divide between states that adopt such laws and states with a different view of women’s rights to control their own bodily processes and make medical decisions for themselves is already great and is growing daily. If we are business people with interests in both groups of states, we must determine what that divide means for our businesses, particularly for the quality of life of our female employees and customers. If we travel for pleasure, we will have to decide how comfortable we are traveling to and visiting places with laws that grant men personal medical autonomy but not women. (A number of the involved states boast of great vacation and tourist destinations.) If we live in an anti-abortion state, we may need to determine whether we can continue to do so if such laws are upheld, particularly if we have daughters. We will all, of course, have to determine our voting choices in the future to make our preferences for state and federal abortion positions known and in order to prevent the further spread of laws oppressing women.
15
Religion was assuredly the apple in Eden. If the devil exists, superstition is his most effective tool, and the pulpit trumps the pitchfork in spreading evil. Again, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament practiced on the altar of every church, synagogue and mosque on Earth.
23
@William Burgess Leavenworth: I'm not so sure about the latter two...
Wow! A quick Google search on all the three shows these folks to be political activists with absolutely questionable knowledge of human biology. They have no credentials whatsoever to comment on the finer aspects of fetal biology let alone draft laws and regulations on abortions. Restricting women's rights because of some stupid line in some stupid flavour of a religion draws parallels with extremism predominant in the Middle East. Laws should make sense in the modern day and age. No wonder the states passing such laws are the still the poorest and least educated- more undeveloped than developing countries world wide. Great job America! Let's hope God blesses those at-risk mothers before He blesses these United States...
26
The path they are taking will ban abortions at conception. No exceptions. RU-486 will be outlawed
6
Labeling them"anti-abortion activists"?
Well, there you go again.
I’m sure we all apologize for accuracy.
Whoops, folks, thanks for playing. We are not in charge of each other's beliefs. Shall we agree to disagree? I don't believe in bung-it-in instant ensoulment at the time of conception; I believe it typically happens with the first breath. So, not murder in my view, which puts my approach to it on a different footing.
Make sure everyone who can reproduce has access to effective birth control. Make sure kids have what they need. Make sure pregnant women and parents of all kinds get healthy support. Make sure there are healthy communities to grow up in. Take responsibility for your own impact on the world. Don't get anyone pregnant without a negotiated contractual agreement (such as marriage), and work to end rape and the abuse of women.
I've been doing my part for decades--I've fought men off, on my own behalf, and on behalf of several other females. I escorted women who were seeking birth control and took the shoving, spitting and abusive language intended for them. I do my part to make it a fit world for everyone. You do yours.
13
No one is stopping males from getting a vasectomy.
It's quick, cheap and solves all problems.
Males create unwanted pregnancies.
And then, there are the venal, violent males who rape and destroy the lives of young girls and women with incest rape.
25
Imposing one-dimensional thinking on multidimensional human beings is medieval.
18
Photos show these “activists” doing what is known on Chicago’s South side as playing pocket pool.
Curious indeed.
4
The State can tell you what you can do with your own body. For example, you cannot sell your body parts. You cannot rent your body for sex. Curiously enough, the “right to privacy” is not universally applied in all cases, just selective cases. You have no sovereignty over your own body. I just hope that in the future, science and/or philosophy do not prove us wrong in the basic questions surrounding abortion. After 35 million abortions and counting, it would be one of the biggest genocides in history. Our society will be judged to be on the wrong side of history, barbaric and selfish.
5
The red states are passing laws to force pregnant women into slavery; the peculiar institution of enslaving child and adult females to create offspring for the state.
Of course this is happening in the slave states. They have never stopped being slave states, the only change is in who is enslaved. Now it is gender rather than skin color.
If you are female, the fetal worshiping person sent to your state legislature by either your own action or inaction may well pass laws to limit your rights, put you in jail, or execute you. (see the attempt in Texas)
All politics is local. Ignore this truth at your peril.
23
Don't mourn - ORGANIZE against this travesty.
15
We need to defeat the Grand Ol' Party in the next presidential elections! They are taking us back to the last century, where a small, very rich minority set all the rules.
We also need to stop the power of religion in anything that is political and make them pay their fair share in taxes!
The religious (also in New York and New Jersey) are clearly abusing their powers, bribing politicians, and have way too much influence in everybody's way of life.
I want freedom of religion - I want separation of church and state!
What is happening in this county? Will we face more riots and deaths on the streets before this gets any better?
15
Oh what a mountain of hypocrisy!! This is violation of women's rights over their bodies in the name of ...religious "freedom"! I ask whose religion? Does religious freedom means the freedom to shove their religion down the throat of those who do not share their religion?
In my religion man was created in the image of God. However the fetus at 8 weeks when it gets a heartbeat also has a tail for another 4 weeks. The devil has tail not God. In my religion it is a grotesque blasphemy to say that God has a tail. Saying that the fetus is a baby is a sin and very big blasphemy because the fetus has a tail.
Also until the fetus takes a breath (spiritum) it simply does not have the Holy Spirit. Without breathing the fetus is just part of the woman's body just like ANY other part of the woman's body. It is equally vile for anyone to force themselves on what happens to this part of a woman's body than ANY other.
Killing a breathing baby is murder punishable with death in the Bible yet causing an unwanted abortion is punishable with a fine to the woman's husband (read the Bible people before putting words in God's mouth.) So in my religion it is crystal clear not only the fetus in nor a baby but saying that a fetus with a tail and no air in its lungs is a baby, is in a vile blasphemy.
What happened to MY RELIGIOUS FREEDOM? Why should a woman be forced to decide whether to keep her fetus or abort it on some politician's religion and not on her own?
18
It's going to take a huge turnout from the Democrats in 2020 to turn this steam engine around. Hopefully, Susan Surandon, Jill Stein and Ralph Nader will stay out of the way this time. BTW, did you ever Google Jill Stein Vladimir Putin photo. Yes, she met with him prior to the 2016 election. We just can't allow the Russians to interfere with our election process.
17
You know, running two articles in a row with headlines like “Inside the Network of Anti-Abortion Activists Winning Across the Country… The raw cultural momentum of the anti-abortion movement has taken over, and it shows no signs of slowing.” accompanied by glam shots of these zealots actually helps to normalize the truly extremist forced birthers movement. Stop pandering.
13
I’m tired of superstitious clowns demanding that grownups buy into their dingbat definitions of terms and claims about science.
Science, my foot. They’ve no idea—and less interest—in what they’re talking about. And no, I do NOT have to take your gimcrack fantasies about when human life begins.
26
The only real way to stop abortion, legal or otherwise, is for every boy to have a vasectomy. First, they can store their sperm in a federal run sperm bank and then “snip, snip!” When a couple is ready for a child, they can get some of the man’s sperm from the federal bank. No unwanted pregnancies! I’m sure these men won’t mind their bodies being regulated by the government if it means ending abortion. Right?
19
If you cannot speak out against religion, you cannot defend women against misogynist psychological terrorists who call them murderers. These are the same people in a newer time that called them witches. You can't fight that with finesse. You need a club and a gun.
13
The 'abortion issue' is settled law and has been since 1973. This recent activity is about the right wing's lust for power and deep desire to make others suffer, as it gives them great pleasure.
15
@Eugene Debs Before male doctors got involved in delivering babies (and spreading disease through unwashed hands) midwives advised during gestation and knew the herbs necessary to promote abortion.
4
Power and control.
1
Carrying a child that is the result of rape or incest would be more than inconvenient. I went to school with a girl whose mother was the result of rape - a brother raping his 11 year old sister. Do you think that ‘inconvenient’ really covers the physical and mental trauma done to that 11 year old girl?
10
@Elizabeth Smith - Is the brother the sister/father and
or uncle to his sister's child, his son/daughter;niece/
nephew? What are these relationship called?
These people are not pro-life, they are pro-birth. If they were pro-life they would stump for outlawing the death penalty, stopping wars, caring for people and the environment, and doing their level best to help the poor, children, the aged and disabled. Their religious hypocrisy is gob-smacking.
16
I can’t wait until women, forced to carry to term unwanted pregnancies, bring their newborn infants to the state capital building and Governor mansions and just leave them for those individuals to take responsibility and raise those newborns.
9
These anti abortion zealots have a sick need to feel sanctimonious and morally superior by judging others without doing anything themselves. Who better to judge than young women (the only ones who get pregnant) and their sex lives?
It’s easy to blame others for decisions made in crisis when you will never face that crisis yourself. These misguided folks get a lot of fake self satisfaction by falsely claiming they “protect unborn babies” and “value life.”
Valuing life through all its ups and downs requires courage and action. And it’s the born babies, with all their urgent lifelong needs, who need protecting.
12
I have a question for Mr Reeves. What will you do when your daughter is pregnant at age 16?
8
Their goal: Ban abortion and ban every single thing society can provide to make unwanted and unintended pregnancies rare.
5
Quite amazing how many people, having never even glanced at a medical textbook, become armchair experts overnight. The worst part of all this anti-abortion guff is that it’s all a front for a malignant form of Christianity that pushes a bigoted, white middle class version of the bible.
Little ants who think the Big Golfer actually exists, and worse, thinks they’re special.
11
The rank hypocrisy and scientific ignorance of conservative christians is breathtaking. And as for Alabama's contorted Catch 22 logic as to when a woman can have an abortion - in the period before she knows she's pregnant - I just wonder about the sanity of the minds that came up with it. If Alabama, and similar states, prove anything it is that time travel to the past is possible.
7
@Garry Taylor My great-great grandfather's generation simply did not perform post-birth abortions on enough of them between 1861 and 1865.
3
Can we not flood the markets in these regressive regions with birth control and morning after pills? One prevents conception, the other works well before six weeks of pregnancy. Or are these next on these zealots’ hit list?
And where are the legal obligations and criminal penalties that attach upon conception to the father?
9
@Julie B: I can see a scenario in which the purchase of such pills are outlawed. Pregnancy tests would be behind the pharmacy counter and require their State ID be recorded, much like current Sudafed laws, forwarded on to the state. I suppose women could randomly purchase them and pass them on, underground, to others as needed. They might curtail purchases by making it illegal for post menopausal women to purchase them. Certainly the state of video surveillance and facial recognition software could be utilized to apprehend law breakers, not to mention surveillance of web purchases of the pills. Even now, the web suspects pregnancy based on buying prenatal vitamins or searching for infant clothes. So the state could definitely track who is pregnant.
Far fetched? Paranoid? Not necessarily, given the zeal and determination of legislators drunk on their new found powers.
4
Also: mandatory vasectomies for each and every legislator who supports these bills, regardless of his age.
11
While the left spends its time in circular firing squads, bickering over who's more "progressive" than whom, the Christian right is organizing, lobbying, and even having more babies, in preparation for future political battles.
The political battlefield is going to be theirs for at least a generation, and in that time there's no telling how much damage they'll be able to do.
4
We are not bickering, we are carefully checking out each of our brilliant candidates. And the venerable ACLU and Planned Parenthood are fighting in the courts.
Why are these people called “pro-life?”
Why aren’t they called “anti-choice?”
The decision of the American media to allow the fraudulent label “pro-choice” corrupts the American soul. For the most part, those who label themselves “pro-life” give no evidence whatsoever of supporting human life of all kinds. They’ve given plenty of evidence that they’re pro-death. Start with the death penalty and the absence of government support for motherhood, then work your way on from there.
It’s not “pro-life.”
It’s “anti-choice.”
It’s “pro-death.”
It’s about time the American media stopped being bullied and said so.
11
Be Prepared...Lots and lots of mostly poor American babies are on the way. The second Baby Boom generation is coming.
4
@jahnay The millennial generation is larger than the Baby Boom generation and they are not having a lot of babies because they are economically hamstrung.
1
A massive reaction to Roe v Wade has been long overdue. From the very beginning, the desire for unfettered access to abortions was hardly unanimous. And even those who were pro were concerned primarily with pregnancies that were caused by rape or incest, or which seriously threatened the host mother's life. They never imagined legalized abortion becoming a massive means of birth control whereby, annually, over 800,000 fetuses are terminated with e extreme prejudice by Planned Parenthood alone. Over the years and decades, rather than leave well enough alone, the nosiest elements in the feminist movement clamored for every more liberalized abortion options, up to the point where New York State's progressive bachelor governor celebrated the greenlighting of abortions on the cusp of actual birth wth pink lighting atop the Empire State Building. Having overplayed their hand, the radical feminists and abortion celebrants are now facing a long overdue backlash from the many - if not most - Americans who see "pro choice' as the euphemism it is, a euphemism for legitimizing what others believe is the murder of unborn children.
2
Majority of Americans support choice!
3
Fanatics force their values on us because elections are rigged, especially in Red states. If we don't like the tyranny of the minority, we need a national system of election laws.
8
This article is sorely lacking in context, namely the fact that a very small percentage of Americans actually support this "cultural movement" as the Times so euphemistically calls it. Alabama's law is not the "most restrictive," it's the most extreme. What percentage of Americans think a 12-year-old incest victim should have to give birth to her own father's baby? What percentage of Americans think that a woman who has been raped and beaten within an inch of her life should then have to co-parent with her rapist? What percentage of Americans actually believe that inducing a menstrual cycle to flush out a bundle of cells is murder? What percentage of Americans think a woman should have to carry around a dead fetus until her body spontaneous expels it? Abortion is not just some abstract legal right, it's a medical procedure that saves the lives of women and girls.
Discerning readers don't care if there is a national coordinated strategy or just a network of state-level activists that take inspiration from one another. We want to know how and why we live in a democracy where extremist policies can be pushed through state Legislatures like this. And for god's sake stop reporting on politics like it's a horse race, and start focusing on the people who these laws impact.
16
I have never heard a “pro-life” activist refer to the state-sponsored murder of citizens aka capital punishment. The pro-life movement is really a “pro-fetus” movement, they don’t care if people are murdered after they’re born. These people speak endlessly about the sanctity of life and then don’t say anything about school shootings or capital punishment. It’s a movement of phonies who just want to control women’s bodies. When the pro-life folks start lobbying against capital punishment I’ll begin to listen to them.
8
@ScottC Fundamentalist religionists simultaneously fear and desire women. That's why their laws seek to keep women in a sort of slavery. Next: they'll be painting women on the walls of their caves, alongside the mammoths and cervids.
6
If these anti abortion activists demand that all abortions be ended, they should also demand that the father be identified, and forced to marry the woman he got pregnant, or provide at least half of the child support through, say, age 22. If the father for some reason cannot provide this support (dead, or incapacitated) then the government will pay the support.
Now, try to imagine anti abortion activist supporting these positions, and it exposes their shear hypocrisy.
6
Agree! I suggest that in Alabama, Utah, Georgia, Missouri or any other state outlawing abortion, the sperm donors should be FORCED to pay child support until age 18! Imagine then how many men would actually support anti-choice!
1
The anti-abortion movement is an attack on secular democracy masquerading as a concern for life. Where are these same activists on the death penalty, gun control or war?
Theocracy ought to be anathema to every American who believes that every person, not the church and not the state, ought to have agency over her or his body. This includes the decision to bear children and for each of us to end his or her life with dignity.
8
What happens in a marriage when the husband wants the pregnancy to continue and the wife does not? Who prevails?
Do men ever have any sovereignty in these matters?
From the tenor of many comments, men are reviled, considered totally irreponsibile, unwelcome to have their own views and not authentic unless they, too, are faced with a pregnancy. Well, in the case I pose, they are faced with it, and are responsible.
So, what happens? Just curious about how this would work. Are men just annoying sperm donors in the world of women's choice?
This is asked without animus, just curiosity about viewpoints.
3
no. men do not have sovereignty. they do however have the right to actively work on a supportive long term relationship which both partners welcome creating a family. men do not have sovereign rights over women.
8
It’s the woman’s body and so she prevails
2
OK, this has gone far enough. 'Pro-life' women need to insist these legislatures make it a crime for a man to have sex without using a rubber unless he has a signed consent from a woman to impregnate her, and he agrees in it pay for her pre- and post-natal healthcare, to support her financially during a reasonable maternity leave period, and to pay child support for 18 years.
A national DNA database should be created to assure men comply with this reasonable restriction on their role in creating innocent babies who might otherwise be murdered.
It takes two to tango and it's time to make both of them pay.
6
The patriarchy and their consorts can construct as many dams as they like to stop the flow of rivers, but with rising tides good luck with that approach.
2
Heal thyself of the desire to impose your false interpretations on the innocent. Then stop the traumatized girl from giving herself an abortion in the back alley with the kind of "Christian" help she desperately needs.
If I was a women I would move out of these states whether I would personally not get an abortion or would.
6
@rixax I foresee a rising market in coat-hanger manufacturers.
1
I have never heard any of the anti-abortion advocates offering to adopt the children of women who believe they are financially or emotionally unable to care for a child of an unwanted pregnancy.
5
They aren't "winning across the country" - they are winning where their gerrymandering and packing techniques are most effective. But religions are the enemy of civil, secular society. These people see the majority of sane persons who do not believe in invisible friends as the enemy, and we should respond in kind - with all force necessary.
9
I’m an adoptive parent of two children and absolutely cringe at the concept of “safe haven baby boxes.” We have open adoptions and a deep respect and love for our children’s biological parents. Adoption is a difficult choice they made in very difficult circumstances—not their only option forced on them by misogynist backwards male legislators. No woman should be forced to drop her baby at a fire station—what a ridiculous outdated concept. Women are fully capable of making reproductive decisions not out of shame and fear but out of love.
5
Americans are moderate on abortion and other issues.
But, when state and federal districts are drawn so that those with hard right views are assured election, we see the mutations of process and policies.
It's the districts and the money stupid.
Imagine millions of us using a simple app to make a mass demand politicians could not ignore.
"We The People 250."
A constitutional amendment that does the following:
1) maximum contribution to any candidate for public office - $250. Applies to any level - city council to president.
2) same $250 limit for "political speech" (if a person or group wants to air a commercial taking a political view, the funds for that commercial, that political speech, can only be garnered in maximum $250 chunks. No billionaire or organization can command the airwaves with massive buys of political speech.)
3) all congressional districts drawn by non-partisan panels. California does this now.
4) no lobbying after leaving Congress. No employment by any company on which the politician voted.
5) full, complete disclosure of all financial holdings and tax records from any candidate and all sitting politicians.
6) automatic registration to vote if one is a citizen.
7) mailed ballots - done successfully in Oregon now. Paper and audits can't be hacked.
Our government is not for sale.
Our brave soldiers throughout history did not die for that.
We turn 250 in eight years.
This ammendment will be our early birthday present to America.
10
what gives anyone the right to dictate to another person how they MUST treat their body and whether or not they want to bring children into the world?
i'm 66 years old and this is the MOST bizarre concept i've encountered in my entire life.
7
A fund should be created to finance travels for women to states with less restrictive abortion laws.
Can we make this go viral?
4
I’m thinking there are many Americans that should read Patricia Highsmith’s “People Who Knock On The Door”.
The degradation of a woman is deplorable.
7
As many as HALF of all pregnancies might end in miscarriage. Is God to be held accountable by all these emotional religious folk who want to force their emotional religious views on the rest of us?
Or are these naturally failing pregnancies also going to be the fault of the seemingly fertile mother, not for actively seeking to void the pregnancy but for not doing enough for the embryo, like praying too little or sinning too greatly?
At what point are we to jail mothers for not baptizing their children?
Should we take a moment to tip our hats to Al-Qaeda and acknowledge that they actually did more than we thought when they took down those twin towers?
4
If you call that winning, I’m happy to be called a loser. History will not treat these folks well.
2
Please stop calling this "force" pro-life or anti-abortion. It's the "extreme forced birth" movement; it's the "women's bodies are not their own" movement; it is certainly NOT pro-life in any reasonable sense of the term.
9
There’s no point in engaging in attempts to ‘dialogue’ with the leadership or activists in the anti-abortion movement. They are absolutists who have wrapped themselves in religiosity and closed their hearts and minds to any evident contradictions.
The answer is to 1) win the country back in 2020; 2) have Congress enact statutory protections; 3) term limit federal judges; 4) revoke tax exemptions for alleged religious organizations engaging in political activities and/or discriminatory practices.
13
The Right to Privacy.
The fundamental right that these lawmakers want to take away from over half of the population.
The Handmaids Tale, coming soon to a state near you.
7
@Ron Brown
My thoughts exactly. Terrifying.
1
Why do extreme, minority positions become law in a democracy? Because most of the people don't vote. We've been told for years that this day would come, yet most Democrats just shrug or say, "no, it will never happen, that's just a scare tactic".
4
I’m actually doing this: I am researching where my products are manufactured, and if they are made in states that pass these laws, writing the companies saying that I will be making different purchase choices in the future. Many cars are assembled in Alabama, for example.
11
@Orange Nightmare. To that end, Alabama is home to vehicle assembly plants for Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Hyundai, and Toyota-Mazda (announced 2018) as well as an engine assembly plant for Toyota.
7
"Activists have been buttressed by many of the nation’s conservative churches, which have increased their emphasis on abortion policy in recent years."
OK. If these churches are writing our laws, it's time to revoke their tax exempt status.
Let them pay for the feeding, housing, education and ongoing care for these children and the mothers forced to bear them.
12
Pro-life = affordable health care, pre-K and equitable education, liveable wages, affordable housing, a sustainable environment not victim to the devastating ravages of climate change. The trump party is against all of this.
The trump party glories in taking children and infants from their parents, putting them in cages, then losing them indefintely in an unnavigable bureaucracy or renting them out to "christian" families. The trump party is a lot of things, but it isn't even close to "pro-life."
10
The abortion rights debate is just another cog in the long con that is the GOP's battle to trick Americans into voting against their interests. With swing state margins in the tens of thousands and now that demonizing the LBG community is a bring too far for most mainstream voters (left off the "T" because the GOP still has no problem creating caricatures of trans people to play on voters' fears), the GOP has returned to one of their old standbys: the small minority of Americans who are single issue voters with regard to abortion rights.
Nevermind the rational argument that a true "pro-life" position, like the one espoused by the Catholic Church, requires opposition to the death penalty and support for universal healthcare and social programs. Nevermind that millions of children live in poverty in America, and millions more lack access to basic healthcare and good educations. No, no, those realities don't sway these single issue voters. Only out-of-context, graphic photos suggesting that abortion is akin to butchering a newborn baby -- and not the removal of a small, non-viable embryo as in nearly 99% of procedures - keeps these voters coming to the polls, voting for tax breaks for billionaires, the gutting of hard-earned social programs, and the indefinite funding of the military-industrial complex along the way. Sadly, my optimism is waning. Poor education and the proliferation of propaganda outfits like Fox News make the battle for rationality lost.
6
How about chain gang work teams for the unemployed fathers of all these babies. If the men had to pay a steep price they would surely demand to use a condom.
Europe has fewer abortions and family planning is openly discussed taught in all schools.
Safe, legal and rare.
You can’t change society if you are only changing one legal element. You have to provide education, access and support to implement real change.
8
Shocking that a country like the United States is going backwards. Most developed countries have moved passed the discussion whether abortion is legal or not. This discussion is a waste of time. Are these pro-life activists also against the death penalty? I don’t think so - and how do they explain that double standard?
7
This nation was founded on the basis of separation of church and state. The evangelists have always hated this concept and fought against it.They are angry that this nation was not declared a christian state and god was not mentioned. They have now won their victory and their religion is now ruling our country.
6
Single-issue candidates poison the body politic. Just like with Prohibition, which took 100 years to go full cycle in our politics and society. We are about 50 years into the cycle, and the anti-abortion platform has delivered us into the hands of Donald Trump, cloaked by a GOP that cares only about money and power, not people. The unintended consequences and ramifications are truly mindboggling.
2
Republicans and conservatives generally are opposed to government intrusion and just about always to regulation of any type... EXCEPT when it comes to pretty much anything related to sex, and especially to women and sex, and therefore strongly to abortion, which their rhetoric and behavior implies is an unfair escape from the punishment women deserve for the sin of engaging in sex, whether it is their choice or not. the conservative argument is couched in religious morality, but out of the other side of their mouths comes relentless support for war, for guns, for the death penalty, and a general belligerence to sustaining life after birth. but, when it comes to abortion (you could also say to women as fully human), they are all in for as much regulation as possible. politically, this is a always a winning strategy for conservatives. what gives people the notion they should be making important and intimate decisions for other people in this one area but not in others? there is some mechanism at work, and it isn't morality. it is not about revering the sacredness of life; it is about domination. like rape.
5
"Republican control over state legislatures, built since the Tea Party wave in 2010, has made much of the anti-abortion movement’s success possible."
Yes.
Sure, they have momentum. But they also cheated to get to where they are.
3
What, you mean these guys all happened to think of this atrocity at the same time? In the run-up to an election? Not very likely.
2
The GOP are making a calculated political gamble that the
Dems are weak and will not do anything to stop their extremism.
This is based upon the Dems complete weak responses to the Mueller report, and how weak they are acting about gathering so called information.
The GOP act with extremism when the Dems are weak - and Nancy really seems like she is protecting Trump from impeachment.
This anti-abortion attack upon women's right to choose and define their own bodies is all about the weakness of the Dems.
Get real Dems and start doing your elected jobs.
8
@PropagandandTreason: The whole universe of liberties reserved by the people is under threat by these voyeurs of other people's lives.
4
@Steve Bolger
Extremists exploit the weaknesses of their enemies, and this anti-abortion attack upon women's bodies is due to the profound weakness and inaction of the Dems.
The question is will the people vote for the Dems in 2020 when they are acting like a prop-up for Trump.
The Dems were elected in the Midterms to counter act Trump and the extremism of the GOP. yet they are making up excuses not to act now and start impeachment hearings.
Is Nancy making the Dems weak?
If so, then get her to stand aside and let the young and powerful Dems lead the party.
1
Where are the men in this picture? The men who produce the sperm that fertilizes the egg? Where is the responsibility that they have in each pregnancy described, defined and legislated? Perhaps their bodies should be altered, as a matter of law, to prevent them from impregnating a woman until such time as it is a mutually agreed upon path. What I find most chilling is that all of the legislation being enacted is directed towards women. What an unconscionable and glaring omission.
14
I believe the issue of abortion was inserted into politics in the 1970s as a distinguishing GOP issue. And now it's become the land-mine of legislation. How did we get here? I appreciate the attempt at morality. Life is sacred. It's the hypocrisy that bugs me. Do anti-abortion enthusiasts also legislate against sending troops into deadly battles? Do they protest the execution of criminals? (And don't tell me it's okay to kill people who break the law.) Life - all life - is either sacred or it's not. And let us not forget the Congressman who opposed abortion until his mistress got pregnant. And please, if MEN bore children instead of women... seriously, would we even be having this discussion? I believe there would be abortion clinics on every street corner. No I can't prove it, I just know it.
12
Is it constitutional to pass a law saying all Muslims must have a specific medial treatment? Or no African American may undergo a specific medial treatment? Is is legal to insist that people with a physical disability must not do anything to change their body? Or that no man may have a specific procedure done?
If not, then how on earth can laws be passed that tell 51% of the population that they cannot have an abortion?
10
Pro-choice activists do not force pregnant women to have abortions. So why do pro-life activists force women to bear children that, for a multitude of reasons, they do not wish to- even in cases of rape, even in cases of incest - ? What is wrong with these people?
14
@Alexandra: They project all they know to be evil about themselves onto everyone else.
4
Banning access to healthcare (YES ABORTION IS HEALTHCARE) affects poor black women the most in these states. Look at the cast of characters in this article. This isn’t about protecting life - it’s about control, it’s white supremacy in action. We need more BIPOC women in positions of power.
9
The idea here is to flood the courts with these laws in hopes one will stick.
Now we have two rapist on the courts who may side with these forces.
I see nothing but violence if the court goes along with these unconstitutional laws.
11
Democrats appear to be weak, disorganized and divided; else they would be able to stop these anti-abortion legislation. Now that the legislation has passed, they should be able to transform the event into a rallying cry; thus, turning adversity into opportunity.
Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters 'Deplorables' and Republicans used that single word to hammer democrats throughout the election, destroying Hillary Clinton's chances of becoming president.
Now Republicans have given Democrats a golden opportunity in the form of their zeal for passing anti-abortion legislation. If they were well-organized, Democrats would be seizing this opportunity to start the largest mobilization of their supporters ever, and use it to bring "Trump-democrats" back into the fold.
But alas; the only thing they seem to be doing is talking, talking, and some more talking!
4
@Eddie B. Never has a shoe fit better than "deplorables" describes Trump's grab bag of monomaniacal voters.
3
The group should be required to pay for the birth and the upkeep of the child.
3
Anti-abortion activists are also making headway in disrupting the UN's annual women's rights conference. This year, they cyberharassed and bullied the facilitator of the negotiations on the outcome document, a Kenyan diplomat. One group, C-Fam, that attends the conference and makes its politics known, is an official delegate of the US govt.
This is only step one. Once Roe v. Wade is overturned and sent back to the states, you'll see the red states banning the most effective forms of birth control -- the pill, the morning after pill, and IUDs. Then they'll have to figure out how to enforce these laws. Women will be persecuted and it will get uglier than it already is.
8
This people might call themselves "The Scarlet Letter Punishers" but their can't call themselves "pro-life"--until they also embrace:
an end to the death penalty
total support for addressing climate change by protecting "life" in the environment
universal pre-school education
financial support for single mothers and poor families and a livable wage for all
an end to wars initiated by the United States
quality universal health care coverage for all citizens
If the Supreme court votes in favor of one of these extremist anti-women abortion court challenges rather than the settled law of Roe v. Wade, then ED prescription medications must be banned as well and men who cheat on their wives must wear a large scarlet letter A vest at all times.
4
I believe the issue of abortion was inserted into politics in the 1970s as a distinguishing GOP issue. And now it's become the land mine of legislation. How did we get here? I appreciate the attempt at morality. Life is sacred. It's the hypocrisy that bugs me. Do anti-abortion enthusiasts also legislate against sending troops into deadly battles? Do they legislate against executing criminals - and don't tell me this kind of killing is okay because those people broke the law. Life - all life - is either sacred or it's not. And let us not forget the Congressman who opposed abortion until his mistress got pregnant. And lastly, if MEN bore children instead of women... please, would we even be having this discussion? There would be abortion clinics on every corner. No I can't prove it, I just know it.
4
Abortion is a poor way to achieve birth control, but achieve it we must. 7.6 billion people in the planet is just ridiculous, never mind 9 billion or whatever is forecast. Many people equate pro life with anti abortion. Yeah right. Pro human life on a short term basis, maybe. But not pro life, human or otherwise, for the long run.
8
Make no mistake; this is not about protecting precious life, or there would be Healthcare for all, abolishment of the death penalty, and sensible gun control. This is about vengeance for Original Sin. Religion has felt the need to control women’s urge for self-determination since the dawn of time, blaming Eve and every woman since for leading Adam to eat and enjoy that beautiful, delicious, juicy, forbidden fruit; she tempted him, and he succumbed to her desire - so seductive and powerful was she! The evangelical and religious zealots have tried ever since to ensure that woman’s oppression and submission is seen as a virtue. Listen up, Religion: women have awakened, and we are more determined than ever! You have now gone too far!
7
This is an indication that these people have NO lives. Liberals support the environment, poverty issues, income inequality, LGBTQ issues, the arts, human trafficking, etc. You name it we support it. Conservatives have two issues guns and abortion. That's it. So sure they are motivated. Too bad they aren't as motivated when kids come into the world. Too bad they don't seem motivated to do something about gun violence so kids stop dying in schools.
8
This attack on women's rights is already energizing the Pro-Choice movement. Especially their disregard for victims of rape and incest. Until now they could claim to be some sort of "pro life" but now it is clear they are just anti-women and seeking to control women's bodies. Until now it was a potential threat, now it is a clear and present danger to women's rights. We will now see Democratic gains in the Senate and White House 2020. The agenda is National Right to Abortion Services laws and expansion of the Supreme Court to counter a SCOTUS that is now completely out of touch with the Constitution and American values and morality.
4
Safe, legal and rare
We need free long term birth control that allows women to easily and safely plan their lives
Try to find a US baby up for adoption where the birth mother passed a drug and alcohol test and doesn’t smoke. It’s nearly impossible. These women have messy, complicated lives- like the rest of us. Why would you want to bring millions of drug damaged babies to life? The brain damage is for life.
6
@Deirdre - Agreed. The women least likely to reliably use contraception, if they use it at all, are drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill, and young teens. Those are the people most likely to give birth and the least able to even produce a healthy baby, let alone able to care for a child.
A huge percentage of children in foster care were unwanted children who were resented, neglected, abused, and sometimes tortured. Every year there are also children killed by their parents. Statistics also show that about 1/3 of unwanted children spend their adult lives in the US prison system.
5
And they prey upon others ignorance about embryonic and fetal development. It's not a fetus until the pregnancy is 9 weeks along or 2 weeks after the last menstrual period. That fetus cannot survive independently outside the uterus until about 7 months unless extraordinary and expensive technological measures are taken. There are no guarantees that even with those measures taken an infant that premature will survive and have a life worth living.
Why aren't these activists focusing on helping women receive prenatal care? What about flooding our elected officials with letters and emails demanding paid parental leave for more than 3 months after the child is born? How about requesting more monies to provide all parents with quality day care that doesn't eat up almost all their take home pay? What about educating themselves on the real reasons for late term abortions rather than assuming that such a procedure is done "on request" for any reason at all?
If these "pro life" people truly care about life they would fight for birth control to be cheaper, for informative sex education in schools (abstinence only doesn't count), for all pregnancies and subsequent births to be desired by the parents, and for better financial, educational, and emotional support for families with severely or even mildly handicapped children. That they fight to bring more unwanted children into the world shows that they are NOT pro life; they are pro punishment.
5/18/2019 10:58pm
9
I heard the crisis pregnancy centers will help them get baby clothes.
2
These anti-reproductive rights laws are simply a continuation of the 2,000 year history of “Christians” forcing their beliefs on everybody. It used to be burning people at the stake. Now there’s a bit more subtlety in their war against reason
6
It has been said recently that the Democrats shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to winning elections. Now we are not in a tone of normal behavior. But I still think the reaction to being steam rolled by a radical fringe group of religious zealots and oligarchs will indeed backfire.
Just ask the Republican women who gave the Democrats a 40 seatHouse majority in 2018 and ejected a Democrat giver or of Kansas.
I’d say the tea leaves fur the Gop are more like a death spiral prediction than anything else.
Their self immolation.
1
Just wondering if while these states make it difficult or illegal for a woman to get an abortion, if they are increasing the penalties for rape and incest. I bet I know the answer.
3
Or enforcing strict child support for men who are half the equation in this. Again no.
3
A traditional religious practice is a vehicle for transforming oneself. There is a reason ethics is not some bumper sticker.
It is not legislating and promising No Help to some kid in a body not ready for reproduction whose father or priest or local crack dealer has violated and then patting oneself on the back.
It is not an institutionalized form of abetting or allowing molestation for those without the power to protect themselves. It is not requirements For Other People.
Fundamentalism is a near heretical deformation of the core teachings of Christianity and other religions.
3
When will the pro choice voters stop feeding the anti choice narrative? Anti choice voters are not any more “Pro life” than Pro choice voters. As if those who disagree are Anti Life? One is either for a woman’s right to choose, or against it. Please, stop fueling their misogynistic marketing plan.
4
Thank you for that! It’s about time someone gave the movement a more appropriate and accurate name: anti-choice. A simple shift like that forces an entirely different conversation that focuses on the misogyny in these laws instead of on the “immorality of women” who seek abortions. There are many men who force or coerce women into sex. Those women didn’t choose to have the sex that led to them becoming pregnant in the first place and now they are being forced and coerced into carrying those pregnancies to term.
1
I cannot shake the feeling that some (not all) anti-abortionists are against others enjoying sex and want to punish them for it. I even feel in some cases anti-abortionists get a sick thrill out of speaking out about the most personal and intimate reproductive decisions of others.
To me, many anti-abortionists just scream, 'I don't understand sex and I am clueless about humanity and love'
3
@FF559
Oh, I think many people who have given birth can look back nine months and remember a wonderful romp. Just sayin'...
Lighten up.
1
We are in a very mixed up time. The anti abortion activists seem to be winning but are anti life in every thing else. They support war and killing of women and children . They support coal use which is destroying our water system with toxic chemicals and which is killing humanity slowly and the animal world. They need to be for every ones life and the animals also. Very sad.
4
The ONLY issue in the abortion debate should be "when does human life begin"? If an abortion occurs before life begins, then there cannot be murder. If an abortion occurs after human life has begun, then there is a murder but the normal exculpatory defenses of self-defense and to take a live to save another come into play if the mother's life is at risk.
State legislatures are where the difficult sorts of questions such as "when does life begin?" should be addressed under our constitutional rule of law. And that is exactly what is happening right now: some State legislatures have made the judgment that human life begins at conception, others at six or twelve weeks, others after the third trimester. Some States have declined to make even late-term abortion a murder, which is their legislative right and duty.
The US Supreme Court is not the place to define murder. Roe v. Wade is based on an inferred "right to privacy", not on any obvious constitutional right. That makes it shaky. The Federal government doesn't generally regulate murder, that being a traditional State prerogative in our Constitutional system.
The Federal government should get out of the abortion debate and leave it where the constitution puts it: with the States. If the citizens of a State like or dislike a pro- or anti-abortion law, the remedy is the ballot box. Some States will be pro-abortion, others will be anti-abortion. So be it.
@Robert Atkinson: The US states have no reason to exist at all, other than to create and perpetuate unequally protective laws. They are waging a cultural war on each other that will blow up the nation.
6
@Robert Atkinson
Civil rights are not up for a vote.
3
@Julie M
Well of course they are. Civil rights are up for votes all the time. Sometimes, the courts determine that a legislation granting or limiting a civil right runs afoul of the Constitution. In many cases, there are conflicting civil rights: the right to free speech is constrained by hate speech laws, for example. In the abortion debate, the right to life contends with the right to control your body with the underlying central question being "when does human life begin?" Once that is answered, the laws are easy and those are precisely the questions that legislatures are designed to answer on behalf of society as a whole, subject to the Constitution's protection of individual's rights. Roe v. Wade is very shaky constitutional law.
1
When does the soul enter the body? Because I believe ensoulment occurs at birth, I do not believe abortion is murder. However, no mortal knows the definitive answer to this question. Therefore, whether abortion is murder is not a medical question, but a religious question, and due to The First Amendment, no one has the right to enforce their religious beliefs onto anyone else.
9
@Margaret Kramar: Ensoulment only begins at birth. The "soul" is the operating system software we develop for living among other people by experiencing life.
3
@Margaret Kramar
But that is only your belief. Other's believe that life begins at conception. Others believe that life begins at "viability" and others at birth. Once there is life, taking the life is murder unless there is a recognized exculpatory justification such as self-defense.
"Thou shall not kill" is a religious precept. Are you actually suggesting that murder laws violate the First Amendment. That would be silly.
Legislatures have the responsibility to make the difficult decisions such as "when does life begin?" If a majority of the people disagree, they elect an new legislature. Democracy is messy but the alternative of authoritarian diktat is worse.
These anti-abortion activists will soon clash with anti-crime conservatives over the impact of unwanted pregnancies on crime rates. A 2001 analysis in the Quarterly Journal of Economics showed evidence that legalized abortion was a critical factor in declining crime rates in places were abortions were legal. We could predict that the new laws will lead to millions of new unwanted pregnancies in the coming years, and a wave of child maltreatment leading to delinquency and crime. The failure of these activists to include support for the women who now will carry these children to term will force this tradeoff. Even under the best of circumstances, unwanted pregnancies will undermine parenting and increase poverty, with predictable effects on crime. Is this really want conservatives want?
10
Yes it is. Is this road to totalitarianism something that could be predicted?
2
This is nothing more than a cynical attempt to whip up the base in. 2020. I doubt these cases will even make it to the Supreme Court, but if they do I have my doubts that Chief Justice Roberts would vote to overturn precedent. I could be wrong, of course, but believe these new laws must be seen in through the lens of politics.
3
politics and religion: an unAmerican unholy alliance. wasn't freedom from the demands of state religion the key reason the Pilgrims left England for America?
2
Do any anti-abortion activists or legislation demand that male parent pay for at least half of expenses incurred in raising the child to age of majority?
If not, why not?
13
@vishmael
Because the issue is when does life begin, not who pays for the life.
You seem to be putting a price on a human life and suggesting that the life should be terminated if the price isn't met. If there is human life -- the root question -- that life is as priceless as the life of a rich person.
BTW, I'm not against such requirements but they are beside the point.
1
Personhood begins with the first breath. Forced birth is against my religion
If a girl or woman is to be forced to bring a pregnancy to term, then the father must be forced to pay his share. As he will do none of the physical work, his share can be calculated in monetary terms.
In order to become pregnant, ever, a women bleeds for 35 years, is pregnant for 9 months, goes through labor for, on average, 14 hours and then delivers in excruciating pain.
So, figure the number of work hours at 24 hours a day, 4 days a month, 12 months a year, for 35 years equals 40,320 hours of work to bring one pregnancy to term. At the current US minimum wage (though college and graduate school educated women would realistically make much more) of $7.25 per hour, the woman’s physical work contribution on a strictly monetary basis would be $292,320.
So the father, paying his share over 18 years, would be forced by the State to provide $16,240 each year until the child turns 18.
This male responsibility (ie his share of the work) should be mandated and enacted into any law which transfers control of pregnancy to the State.
If not, women could sue the US Government and the father for undue burden and discrimination based on sex, as only the woman is being forced to work when the man is allowed to default on his share.
9
Anti abortion campaigns are taking place without any clear coordination because of a value behind - abortion is taking away precious lives. It is value driven instead of strategy driven. Deliberately or not, this is not mentioned in the article.
This isn’t value driven. It’s power driven.
8
For all those who want to send a message of opposition to those states enacting bans on abortion:
Don't buy products or use services produced by companies based in those states;
Discourage companies from hosting or attending conventions in those states;
Don't not spend your tourism dollars in those states;
Don't send your children to colleges in those states
Maybe when the economies of those states are negatively impacted, the (mostly male) state legislators will re-think passing these draconian, backwards abortion ban laws.
7
I don’t get the dissenting views in the legislation? Why not call for a ban on all abortions if the goal is to save a human life, save for cases of imminent threat to the mother’s health?
2
How will this work for the GOP at the end of the day? If RvW is overturned, what will be the wedge issue that drives voters to the polls for them? Economic policies don’t serve their supporters well? The GOP needs the tension of RvW to keep their voters on the hook. My guess: these state laws will be fought in the courts, and the issue won’t reach the Supreme Court . The GOP gets credit for moving the anti-choice ball farther down the field and keeps this wedge issue to drive voters to the polls for 2020.
3
The core holding of Roe v. Wade is that a woman's choice regarding abortion is protected by the Constitutional right to privacy. The right to privacy has been held to protect many decisions related to personal relationships -- birth control, intermarriage, and gay sex among them.
The right to privacy isn't going anywhere. The Court is not about to rule that intimacy based decisions are subject to the whims of local government. So if Roe v Wade is to be reversed, the Court will have to rule that the public interest in outlawing abortion outweighs the right to choice and is distinct from all other privacy matters.
The public interest in abortions has been recognized to allow for laws that assure that abortions are safe. But what is the public interest in the abortion decision itself?
There is only one rationale that has ever been presented to justify outlawing abortions. And that is that abortion is murder. If abortion is murder, obviously it can be outlawed. Otherwise it can't be.
Will the Supreme Court rule that abortion is murder? the only possible grounds for such a ruling are religious.
If the Court rules that a religious belief is enshrined in the
Constitution, nothing it decides after that will be worthy of credibility.
8
@michjas
Not quite. Roe v. Wade established the trimester standards and explicitly permits total bans on abortions in the third trimester and regulation of abortion in the second trimester. Roe permits unlimited abortion only in the first trimester.
The trimester approach is based on "viability": the Court determined that human life exists in the third trimester and gave the third trimester fetus preeminent protection. During the second trimester, where viability is less certain, Roe permits contending issues to be taken into account.
The problem with Roe is that the "viability" standard -- that is human life -- is becoming earlier and earlier due to modern science. If there is ever a true test tube baby brought to term outside a womb, then Roe would support the idea that human life begins at conception. Until then, the Alabama law is probably unconstitutional but the probation of abortion after a fetal heartbeat may well be within the realm of Roe's "viability" logic.
The Constitution doesn't define murder. That is a function for the State legislatures, subject to Constitutional limits.
Democracy is messy.
A person —someone the state should care for—begins with the first breath. That is my strongly held religious belief. Forced birth is wrong.
The Times does a disservice to the issue by framing this debate as “anti-abortion” vs “abortion rights.” This is not about abortion. At issue here is sovereignty over a woman’s body and the choice she may make with respect to her health and well-being. One may be “pro-choice” and “anti-abortion” at the same time, recognizing that the ultimate decision belongs to the woman whose body is impacted. Until such time as a fetus can exist outside the womb, there is no life to speak of. This debate is about a woman’s right to choose. You are pro-choice or anti-choice. Pro-sovereignty or anti-sovereignty.
18
Exactly. It’s the woman’s body. No one has the right to force a woman to bear a child.
If the right's stance on abortion, particularly that of evangelical Christians, was really about valuing life and preventing abortions, they would be the staunchest proponents of birth control, sex education, and other efforts to reduce unintended pregnancies; prenatal health care to support the health of the mother and unborn baby; and social programs and policies like Head Start, CHIP, SNAP, etc. to support young children and families.
The fact that they oppose all those things proves that their anti-abortionism has nothing to do with valuing life and everything to do with their beliefs about: 1.) sex, which is that any sex act other than one between a married man and woman that produces a child is sinful and evil, and 2.) women, which is that they have no place in society - certainly not in the workforce or any seat of power - other than as a wife and mother.
11
A great report that would make our Founders proud of what they bequeathed to us.
Indeed, as some below have commented that "abortion" or more the so called "right to abortion" is becoming indefensible because its proponents have crossed the line. Especially the Virginia situation.
I found it ironic that this quote from a Planned Parenthood official:
“We are in the fight of our lives.”
Whose fight are they really on??
I would rather have these debates on "lives" in our legislature where our elected folks represent us than a bunch of judges.
Our Founders bequeathed us a "republic by the people of the people and for the people." Nowhere were judges mentioned.
I finally add a quote from Mr. Lincoln:
“If the policy of the government upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court,” he said, “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.”
3
@Neil - The VA law was intended to prevent women with a fatally flawed fetus from having to carry it to term. When the fetus is nonviable and is expected to die in utero, endangering the woman's life, or die at or shortly after birth, the VA law says if such a fetus unexpectedly survives birth, it must be put on life support. That gives doctors and the parents time to assess the infant's condition and prognosis.
The parents can then decide whether to take the more humane course and provide comfort measures until nature takes its course (it's exactly like Hospice), or whether to insist that all medical technology be employed to add a few hours or days of life, even though all the medical technology in the world can't overcome a fatal condition. I should know. My grandson was one of those kept alive through massive medical intervention, and all it did was prolong his life for two weeks. Two full weeks of horrendous pain and medical interventions with no anesthesia, because he was so weak it was thought anesthesia would kill him.
1
Where did our founders say that a woman was an incubator and therefore the state can force a woman to bear a child?
Pro-choice people have no one to blame but themselves, for not anticipating this. How out of touch must you be to expect the anti-abortion movement to suddenly disappear or, at least, play nice?!!
After Roe v. Wade, pro-choice folks went to sleep, thinking the issue was settled. However, as with almost all deeply entrenched and passionately held subjects, a law does not suddenly change people's thinking or even much of their behavior, let alone their fundamental values. The anti-abortion people did not go to sleep. To the contrary, they dug in, organized, and developed a long-term strategy.
Meanwhile, pro-choice folks were so complacent they allowed the anti-abortion movement to rebrand itself as the "pro-life" movement, even allowing ostensibly objective sources such as P.B.S. and N.P.R. to use the term, "right to life", when they could have organized and said, "Either call it what it is or no more donations from us."
A dozen or so years ago I saw a study reported in the Times that said, unlike through most of our history, people were no longer moving solely to places where there were better economic opportunities but, rather, to places where people were like them in values and culture. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, it will not outlaw abortion. Rather, it will further divide this country by in this manner by states.
3
Democrats are taking the bait, unfortunately. Why are we even talking about this? Abortions have been declining since 2008, presumably because of the widespread availability of birth control pills. Why don't Democrats ever point that out?
And,it wouldn't surprise me if mifepristone and similar abortion-inducing drugs soon became widely available - legally or not - on the internet, especially if Republicans are successful in their anti-abortion drives.
In the meantime, the best advice is for both men and women to move to blue states. They are the ones with strong economies and little chance for anti-abortion activists to prevail politically.
5
@Professor M - Many, many people cannot move because of jobs, family ties, or economics. Why not suggest that people stay put and FIGHT?
2
Excuse me, those are abortion activists who are winning NOW across America. Once the masses of America, the people who are generally less educated, less passionate, and who shift with the tide, realize that they themselves, or their wives and girlfriends, are directly affected, and will have to bring an unwanted pregnancy to full term, their inaction will shift, and the activists will be on the run. Then there’s the increasing reports of those women who receive a backroom abortion or attempt one themselves. This is a temporary victory.
1
They are “winning” because they are using the same strategies as the Republicans are using against the Mueller report. Deny what the statistics say, deny how abortions, especially mid to late term, are really used, deny the legitimate experience of women and parents suffering through a brutal decision and create a false narrative about their “evil” intentions and actions. Hope people don’t think too hard about it.
6
Abortion is a medical issue and always has been. Forcing a woman with a medical condition. a survivor of rape or incest, or a woman under the age of consent to carry a baby to term is a form of slavery. The antiabortionists are terminating the woman's constitutional rights as soon as she becomes pregnant.
11
carrying out an abortion may be a medical issue, but the surrounding issues are religious - in fact, specific to some religions but not to others. the procedure itself is not mentioned in the Constitution, but a ban on the establishment of an official state religion is. my own religion, for example, takes an extremely dim view of dentistry, especially the cleaning of women's teeth. should I therefore be able to impose a ban on dental hygiene for all women so they will conform with my beliefs whether they accept them or not, and no matter the consequences for their own mouths?
3
Reading through these comments just shows how much ignorance there is around abortion and women's health. Study after study shows that abortion bans don't reduce abortion, it actually increases the rate of abortion.
But yet so many commenters seem to think that abortion bans will stop abortions. Nothing could be further from the truth. Abortion is as old as mankind and goes on whether abortion is illegal or not, but poor and vulnerable women are put most at risk with abortion bans. It's simply amazing that so many can't even do basic internet research to figure out the facts. Misinformation goes completely unchallenged.
Here are the facts. One recent study by the Guttmacher Institute found that Switzerland had the lowest abortion rate at 5 per 1,000 women despite having one of the least restrictive abortion laws. The U.S. rate is 13 per 1,000 women, the same as Britain's, the report found. In fact, many Latin American countries where abortion is illegal or severely restricted have some of the world's highest rates of abortion.
Fact is, we know how to reduce the abortion. We can follow the example of other countries such as Switzerland and the Netherlands where there is extensive sex education in schools, proper funding of women's clinics and comprehensive legislation to protect women from being fired because they are pregnant (recent lawsuits against Amazon stunningly shows that this does happen in America in 2019). But the far right isn't interested in these solutions.
14
I wouldn’t have an abortion myself except after rape or for health issues. I don’t mind other women having them though.
But when this article considers it restrictive to not allow an abortion after 18 weeks of pregnancy, I can’t agree. In Europe except for England and Holland most countries allow abortions in a time frame that is shorter and women see it as normal. In France for example abortion is allowed within 12 weeks of pregnancy (14 weeks since the last period).
A lot of women here now use the day after pill when they’ve had unprotected sex. You can get it over the counter.
Why does the day after pill not get promoted in the US?
It seems like the best solution. No heartbeat then.
6
The day after pill is very expensive and not available everywhere
Many drug store chains refuse to sell it
It’s up to the pharmacist
Long term birth control (IUD) can cost $1500
The day after pill can cost $75
The medical abortion medication can cost $500
none of it is affordable, easily accessible or consistently covered by insurance and that is the mission of the anti choice movement.
8
Because the Christians equate it to abortion. There's no reasoning with them.
4
@MALINA
Sadly, we’re not as civilized as Europe.
25% of Texans have no health insurance and no access to Medicaid because our accessibility standard is very restrictive.
If we had science based sex Ed, access to reasonable “well woman” health care and access to reasonable contraceptives, we too would only need access to abortion after 18 weeks for maternal or fetal health issues.
2
According to the bible, life is "life" only after the first breath. The religious right seem to miss that.
7
It is time for those who oppose abortion to be required to have some skin in the discussion. They should be required to adopt and raise the children they “save” instead of abandoning them once born. Life and the responsibilities for it do not end at birth and neither should the anti-abortion activists.
5
While I disagree with almost everything these anti-abortionists do, I think the Safe Haven Baby Box is a brilliant idea and the only truly „pro-life“ thing I’ve seen coming out of that movement. Now many throw your support behind paid parental leave, financial support for parents and kids, and decent early-childhood support programs and then maybe I’ll believe the term „pro-life“ to be appropriate.
3
This movement calls to mind the awful Terri Schiavo case. Many of us were appalled that the government would involve itself in a family's painful decisions.
If these severe laws are upheld there will be a never ending series of terrible news reports and court cases - women dying from ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages and serious medical issues - women hauled into court due to suspicion of having somehow terminated a pregnancy (reported by a nosy neighbor, frenemy at work or bitter ex boyfriend?)...
7
The legality of abortion is an extremely contentious issue and it is not surprising to me that states are working to restrict it. These legislators are put in office by their citizens, so if citizens disagree, they can vote in others to change the law.
Like gay marriage, or legality of cannabis, if a person wants to live in a state with these types of rights, he or she can move to those states. I think it is unfair for others to want to legislate what should or should not be allowed in other states. Let each state decide what its citizens are comfortable with.
12
@Bob Smith: I disagree. It should not be up to the states, but up to the woman in consultation with her doctor. The state has no business legislating what women should do with her uterus. Just like the state cannot compel me to donate a kidney to a person who would die without a transplant, even if I were the only compatible donor, the state cannot compel me to go through with an unwanted pregnancy that will always carry health risks and have irreversible consequences for my physical and psychological health and future options, before the fetus is viable.
35
@Bob Smith
The argument is fundamentally deceptive. “Let’s allow the states to decide.” Decide what? Who shall have rights and who shall not? In that case, you’ll need to tell us that Loving v. Virginia was wrongly decided and states should be allowed to tell people whom they can marry.
If Americans don’t shudder in the face of these arguments, they’ll surrender their fundamental liberties on the altar of anger. Having voted for Trump, they seem eminently prepared to do so. Maybe they can live with the country they’re creating. They’ll find out the hard way.
9
Gerrymandering. The legislators who are currently in office are not necessarily reflective of the majority of the voting population in their state or in the country. A minority of voters put the current employee who sits in the Oval Office. Should the majority move to another country?
7
These pro life activists and their supporters are "winning" because abortion has become indefensible. No amount of rationalizing or deflection can change the fact that abortion is the deliberate murder of an unborn human being. A baby. I'm not very religious, in fact I don't even go to church but I can see that there is rarely if ever a reason to kill an innocent unborn child. I'm sorry if the woman is inconvenienced. She can carry the child to term and give her up for adoption. In this day of freely available birth control there is no excuse for this. I suspect more and more people see that fact and that is why the Pro Life movement is gaining traction and momentum. They simply are on the "right" side of the argument.
97
Should the man who inseminated her also “be inconvenienced,” and if so, how?
298
@Rob Then don't get an abortion. Wait. You will never be in a situation where you would ever want or need to have an abortion so there's another solution. Never have sex with a woman unless both of you want to have a child in 9 months. Or better yet get a vasectomy. And finally get a biology textbook that tells you in a scientific way and not a religious way about the development of the embryo and the fetus.
339
Embryos are not babies.
321
I would take their efforts as sincere and well meaning if they coupled their legislation with universal access to free contraception, science-based sex education in schools, and universal childcare. Also, if they were really about protecting human life they would favor gun control and oppose the death penalty and mass incarceration. Instead they are hypocrites who only care about sticking it to the libs and reasserting some bygone notion of patriarchy.
532
I am pro-life.
I am against (among many other issues): homophobia; xenophobia; sexual assaults against women and vulnerable adults; assault weapons; war; death penalty; domestic violence; child abuse; Trump’s refugee policies; present criminal justice system polices that create mass incarceration of millions of Americans; the training of foreign nationals and military in the use of torture; the use of torture. I am in favor of: support for single mothers and dads; universal healthcare and national scholarships for colleges and trade schools; policies and laws to end poverty, homelessness; funding to treat addictions and mental illness. This not an all inclusive list — my list is longer.
36
@Garry
Good for you, Garry - but Chad was not talking about you personally. He was talking pro-life politicians, and their base, who, collectively, do not support the things he's written about. He doesn't need to prove that every single pro-life person holds these values - political campaigns and legislation history speak for themselves.
34
@Garry If being pro life means outlawing abortion then you are in favor of the deaths of women on the tables of abortion doctors or in their own homes, from self induced abortions. This is not theoretical. According to Reuters fact box, in Latin America, bout 900 women died as a result from unsafe abortions in 2014, many of them poor, rural women. And about 760,000 women a year in the region are treated for complications from unsafe abortion, including infections and bleeding.
26
Imagine if this same effort had been put into insuring that every child had healthcare, adequate nutrition, safe housing, and a good education.
632
Now that would cost money. Can't have that. No,no,no.
24
@Barbara T
I was thinking the same thing.
8
@Barbara T
that "this same effort" has not "insured" (sic) every child is no argument in favor of killing those who may or may not be or may not, have nutrition, safety and opportunity guaranteed prior to birth.
1
I have no doubt given the maternal/ infant mortality rate in Alabama that concern for the child in that state ends after birth. But as someone who is pro-life for the whole life I simply don’t understand how killing our own offspring can be seen as a choice. It’s not. It’s an indication of how badly we have failed women and children in this country when abortion is viewed as a solution to a problem.
13
@JR
Some women don't want to be pregnant in the near future, and use birth control which unfortunately sometimes fails. Rather than completely ruin their lives they terminate the pregnancy in the first trimester. The later terminations are mostly due to health issues (a friend terminated due to a fast moving uterine cancer) or the discovery of severe fetal defects (missing organs, no brain, etc).
5
@Cal
No one’s life is “ruined” by a pregnancy. That is a lie foisted on women by those who profit from abortion. Life changing and life ruining are not the same. Rather than embrace the powerful gift we are given to carry children it is instead treated like a cancer that needs to be cut out. Women deserve better than abortion and if both sides focused on supporting women and families with affordable daycare and healthcare at the very least, it might be the common ground needed. A right that destroys a living human being is not a right but an enslavement to evil.
@JR - My mother was an older mother. She felt she was too old to bear or care for a child, and my father was even older, at 50. There was no abortion then, so she had me and then killed herself. She left two motherless children and a husband who couldn't care for them. We were split up and parceled out to reluctant relatives. If I'd been aborted I'd never have known the difference and four people's lives wouldn't have been ruined. Yet some people believe they should have the right to dictate the entire course of other people's lives - people they don't know and will never meet and whose circumstances they apparently don't care about. Nor do they care what happens to that unwanted child after birth.
2
To those who insist that anti-choice people adopt unwanted children: if you were a child, would you want these people, people who think women do not have the right to control their own bodies, to adopt you? Do you think they respect a child's right to protect and control their own body? People who don't respect women tend not to respect children, either.
47
Secular government based upon the consent of the governed, liberal democracy, liberties that insure that individuals be left to follow their consciences and to express their minds with having to conform with those of the communities in which they live are values that characterize our modern world. They are not acceptable to many religious communities because they exclude God and the moral values of their religions.
The pro-life advocates oppose our laws regarding abortion because they respect liberty instead of forbidding abortion which they see as violating God’s will and God’s law. They would make our laws conform with God’s will and God’s law. They reject the modern world regarding this issue.
Many of these same people reject evolution for the same reason that they reject the legitimacy of abortion laws. They reject the modern world regarding that issue.
The undoing of the modern world may not end with liberty concerning abortion laws nor rejection of science that contradicts their beliefs.
12
If evangelicals and other on the Religious Right respect “Gods will,” then they should respect a woman’s right to choose abortion when she deems fit. After all; their God gave mankind free will; the technology for safe abortion; and women the intellect to make difficult choices in their own self-interest.
3
I wonder how many of the "pro-life" writers also believe in capital punishment. If someone is both pro-life and pro-death, that someone has no moral imperative.
29
What an assumption ! On what base?
Some perhaps but the Roman Catholic Church opposes abortion, contraception, and capital punishment.
I will not travel to any state, nor do business in any state, that restricts a woman’s right to choose. The same goes for states with loose gun laws. I urge others to do the same.
71
I can't see that conservatives forcing their will on others via voting restrictions, trying to make the US whiter again, cheating on SCOTUS nominations, etc, etc, etc will work in the long run.
This looks like winning the battle but losing the war. No one has ever changed hearts and minds by forcing their views on others.
40
@ms
It’s been working just fine for them for half a century. Why would they stop now ?
@ms: These colossal fools are undermining the whole concept of unwritten liberties reserved by the people that are not enumerated in the Constitution.
1
RvW may well be overturned but I’m not entirely sure that’s a bad thing. At this point, anything that further emphasizes the yawning cultural divide between the red and blue regions of the country and thereby paves the way for a discussion about how to arrange for a peaceful divorce sometime in the next generation or two is okay in my book.
17
@Michael: Under the theory of delegation of powers, no distinctive majority of living people has deferred to Congress to decide how best to manage their own bodies.
7
Then you don’t know what Roe vs. Wade was and is. It’s saved thousands of women’s lives from back alley abortions, stopped women being prosecuted for miscarriages that were suspected abortions (yes, this was a thing), allowed for safe and affordable access to birth control reducing the number of abortions, allowed for open (and fact-based) education about reproductive health without blame or shame.
It is huge. It stopped the State control of pregnancy and returned control to women (the ones who actually do all the work involved in building and producing every human being in this planet).
54
Whenever and wherever fundamentalists take power, first thing they do is take away women's rights. It happened in Iran and elsewhere. We need to do all we can to protect women's control over their bodies and their health, and their family planning.
100
When the students at the universities in Iran protested, the male and female students stood and fought side by side. The moment the revolution was done, the male students turned to the female students and said sit down, shut up, and put your veil on.
I don’t think anti-choice women realize what the State control of pregnancy really means. It means the State control of women and girls. If a fetus at any stage is to be protected as if it were an independent citizen with rights apart from and superseding those of the mother, then any situation deemed by the State that may pose a perceived (or legislated) threat to the fetus can and will eventually be controlled by the State.
Stress can be deemed harmful to a fetus. Stress can be caused by having a demanding job (doctor, lawyer, legislator); having a job at all can be stressful; driving can be stressful; voting can be stressful; anything could be legislated against women between the ages of 12 and 50. As a girl or woman can become pregnant at any time, blanket restrictions could be imposed on females of child-bearing years against almost anything (and whether or not they were pregnant, simply based on their potential to become pregnant). If anyone questions this being possible, look at how women have been treated throughout the world and throughout history - even in this country. It’s appalling and sickenly thankless.
Laws banning a woman’s right to chose to terminate her pregnancy is not an end, it is a means.
58
These so-called pro life zealots are at the heart of it exercising a power grab. Most of the men in this venture are 70+. You'll be dead in 10 years and this hysteria will wane. I suspect the women will carry on, but you will not prevail!
33
One needs to only examine what happened to Romania after the 1966 decree outlawing abortion. It worked, and the year after it was enacted the average number of children born to Romanian women jumped from 1.9 to 3.7. When I was in my Ph.D. program at the University of Michigan studying Population Studies, Romania was an extraordinary outlier in the world. They soon decreed that all birth control would be eliminated to support their pronatalist agenda. After I left school, I went to work in Romania and saw the "lost generation" of unwanted children living under bridges and in orphanages and this is what I see happening here in the USA, at least in 20 states heading this direction. We need to stop this madness in its tracks. If women are to be so punished, then the men are equally responsible for all results after the sperm leaves his body and that includes realistic child-support until the child turns 22.
105
Until politicians on the left are capable of offering up more than “its a woman’s choice,” they will continue to lose.
Dems need to change the conversation and go where those on the right claim to be at: the life of the child. You do this by discussing the painful truth of child neglect and chronic childhood trauma in this country and throughout the world. You talk about the lack of universal healthcare in the US to provide the Mother and Child with a strong start. Talk about the lack of maternity leave.
What continues to anger those on the right, and fuel their conviction, is the emphasis the left puts on the woman. It’s because they believe women should be married if they have sex. So get around all that anger by going where they claim to be concerned-the child’s quality of life.
If taken there in debate it should become clear that as awful as abortion is, it is the better option than more unwanted and traumatized children in this world.
21
Talk about personal sovereignty. That is the only legitimate argument.
@Jennifer Sweet - I've tried that argument. Forced birthers insist that any life, no matter how horrific, is better than death.
1
The forced birther groups in these states get a lot of money from the republicans for their crusade and support the GOP to get them re-elected. Sure, there are religious zealots who honestly believe this nonsense, but many are in it for the money they can garner. It is cynical politics at its finest.
The men and women who espouse forcing women to give birth let the father off scot free. One would be a little more inclined to believe it was some worthy cause if they put in laws saying the father should be jailed or put to death, or at the very least have to begin child support at the moment of conception. When this is brought up they are silent.
The only way of taking back the rights of women over their own bodies is to vote these politicians out starting at the state and city level.
What a sad and cruel country the GOP has formed.
32
We need to change our understanding of this topic, quickly. And the media plays a big role.
One: This is about women's rights and human rights. It is not about a fetus. This is about maintaining an underclass of vulnerable women, especially poorer and blacker women and it is about the need for some people - virtually always white people - to create issues justifying their supposed moral superiority. The supposed 'heartbeat' bills have nothing to do with a real 'heartbeat,' as medical professionals attest whenever asked.
Two: The notion that "pro-lifers" are concerned for the lives and rights of the child is a fantasy, as manifested but the absence of free prenatal health care, child care, appropriate care for poor children, etc.
Three: Abortion is, in fact, not something women necessarily regret, nor should they be burdened with "explaining" or justifying it or establishing their maternal credentials by saying they have other children. It is a medical procedure used all over the world and it is their choice as human beings.
Four: This is about power. It is about a group of anti-modern, culturally backward people looking to turn back the clock against modernist forces.
88
@Scott
Excellent points.
2
Could the 3 folks you mentioned be asked to provide the talk they would give their daughter or wife if she were the victim of a rape?
What exactly is your plan to turn a vicious criminal act into a full-term pregnancy to accommodate your own fundamentalist belief system? And what is your plan for victims of incest?
Why should other Americans even be included in a bizarre religious belief requirement? The incest birth requirement is child abuse or not in your system?
53
There appears to be a religious thread within the Pro-life advocates.
"The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits government from encouraging or promoting ("establishing") religion in any way. ...
The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment gives you the right to worship or not as you choose. The government can't penalize you because of your religious beliefs."
Practice your religion in the privacy of your own home, but for goodness sake, desist from forcing other to live their lives by your 2,000 year old belief system,
50
@AlanG: An "establishment of religion" is an unprovable belief held only on the basis of faith. All projections of human nature onto the whole universe are establishments of religion.
4
Actually that’s called, “anthropomorphism,” Steve. It may well be a basis of religion—see Freud, “Future of an Illusion”—but it ain’t the same thing.
You get what you vote for; that’s my feeling after reading the article that the majority of women in Alabama support abortion restrictions. Of course, the rich GOP woman will simply fly to a blue state for her abortion, ever ready to square her Christian beliefs with her personal dilemma. The poor will suffer, as always.
40
I wonder if those who so honor the USSC's work in Roe will likewise honor the present-day court if it declines to find a constitutional right to abortion and overturns Roe as wrongly decided? One will be as arbitrary, or as inevitable, as the other.
3
@Robert
4 of the current $COTU$ members were nominated by presidents that did not win the popular vote and 2 of the 4 were ‘consented’ to by Senators that represent less than 1/3 of Americans.
3
@Blank- Interesting observation. But does that mean we have some form of majority standard for validating USSC opinions? That is contrary to the rationale for judicial review, that the constitution and "legal reasoning" (supposedly finding, not creating the law) would prevail, as opposed to rule by popular opinion. You know, tyranny of the majority.
Who knows where this is going, are they going to claim next that birth control is not permissible and/or available to women. If I lived in the USA in a Trump heavy anti abortion state like Alabama, I would start a movement to invite all women whose husbands are extreme anti-abortionist to abstain from having sex with them. A woman must have control of her own body - what better way to protest.
28
I hope all the 2016 Jill Stein voters are pleased with their votes. Had they voted for Hillary, Gorsuch and Kavanuagh wouldn't be on the Supreme Court and the right to choose would not be at risk.
81
@Bob
I hope all the clinton voters who threw the election away with their votes are happy. Great candidate - the only one capable of losing to trump. People like you could have supported a good candidate and we wouldn't be in this situation. But instead of admitting and apologizing for your faults, you blame others.
2
Hello?! Where are the rules for men having sex and making babies? Why is this a woman only issue?
44
it's not a women only issue. but every time a man tries to have an opinion, "no uterus, no opinion" gets thrown out
Can’t you understand that a man does not have the right to tell a woman what she can or cannot do with HER body. Can’t you understand that?
1
The question that ultimately will be answered by the Supreme Court and will determine the future of ROE Vs WADE is “When is a human being a human being with rights guaranteed by the Constitution?” Based on the science behind the study of human life, it’s most like likely going to be somewhere between conception and viability. The answer and choices made based upon that determination will reflect the ethics, morality and scientific understanding of human life in this complex world.
3
So a woman has no rights after getting pregnant, even as a criminal act?
25
A human being is a human being when it can “be” outside another’s body. I am not a host for a human being. My rights supersede any creature’s that lives within me. Period.
4
@Barbara Ann Gleason Roberts
Life begins at birth. Period.
2
I wonder if someone should remind these anti-abortionists that it's not just white women who get pregnant. I'm guessing that would dampen the zealotry, or perhaps redirect it toward ensuring that those who are born are then given care, an opportunity for a good life, and assurance that, should they falter, there is a strong safety net to catch them.
10
After Roe v. Wade is gutted and is replaced by 51 different abortion laws (50 states plus D.C.), the next target for pro-life activists will be to ban persons giving information about contraceptives. Don't forget it was only 55 years ago that the Supreme Court overturned a conviction of a medical doctor for violating a state's law banning any person giving information to MARRIED COUPLES about contraceptives. (Griswold v. Connecticut). In the Griswold case, three justices dissented from the majority ruling and would affirmed the medical doctor's conviction.
As such, don't be surprise if states at the bidding of pro-life activists to start enacting legislation banning any person giving information about contraceptives.
30
One of the most impactful results of the introduction of the birth control pill was young women finishing college and going to graduate schools, because they could plan their pregnancies.
So many anti-abortion rights activists have no idea what the ramifications will be from their efforts - ramifications that will be paid not by them, but by their own daughters and granddaughters.
24
@Richard:The US states are only obstacles to equally protective law for all.
1
Ok I get it from most of the comments here. Convicted murderers have a right to life because there is a tiny chance they may be innocent. But an 8 month old fetus does not.
11
It is simply not your business. I do not force you to abort.
35
@RK
Convicted murderers are already alive. A fetus has no consciousness. No woman has an abortion at 8 months- at least unless it is a very dire case of some kind-- I don't know of a doctor who would do that. Strawman argument.
53
Nobody aborts a pregnancy in month 8 unless there is a very serious medical emergency. You know better.
54
"...many Southern Baptist churches would preach far more frequently against divorce, fornication and premarital sex, said Wayne Flynt, one of Alabama’s most influential historians and an ordained Baptist minister. “There has been a huge shift,” he said, “and a narrowing of focus to abortion and same-sex marriage.”
Uh, yeah because you've finally transitioned on issues that won't create any uncomfortable squirming in your pews; unless, of course, we're talking about closeted gay evangelicals and those lay members who have had an abortion, but can not talk about it for fear of ostracization.
In churches that focus on these outside issues, you're now preaching to the choir. Thumbs up? Jonathan Edwards might not think so.
10
I assume that those that oppose abortion for religious reasons also adhere to the rest of the church's doctrine on being pro-life such as gun control and abolition of the death penalty. No?
41
@Bosox rule True. They should. Death penalty is barbaric. It is not man's job to take life. It is God's. The converse can be applied to the pro-choice too. They don't want govt to control them on that issue, but why then ask for gun control and more socialist economy?
1
if its not mans job to take life, then why are they not all vegans? for that matter, plants are alive...
2
Unwanted pregnancy is a form of slavery imposed by unChristians posing as God.
42
How about a "Mom box" from these religious folk that is not a coffin?? Every single law should be accompanied by the maternal and infant death rate in these states. Which we all know belies their "life" arguments. It is not consistent enough to warrant respect.
I would like some creative legislation about :
Regaining the tax monies raked off for these political/religious entities gaming our democracy. This $$$ should be returned to our healthcare system.
Requiring legislators to ground any law having to do with medicine in actual fact and dealing with questions froma panel of experts, not theocrats- so many are dangerously ignorant about biology.
A Class Action suit protecting the rest of the American public from religious fundamentalists who seek to impose their "sharia law" requirements for women. Not too many centuries ago a sperm was said to have a completely formed homunculus in it that was the pre-formed baby- I guess that became inconvenient when male responsibility quit being "a thing" to fundamentalists.
26
@Kay Johnson. How about religious freedom? Guess you don’t believe in that. How about no tax money to Planned Parenthood. “Not too many centuries ago” - exactly what is your reference for that? And if you want to bring up make responsibility, how about if the father gets a say in whether is child is killed? I guess 52 million abortions just isn’t enough for some people.
5
@Jackson
Well, if a guy gets someone pregnant, then by all means, step up. After all, his irresponsibility was responsible for the whole process occurring. You seem to want the victimhood but no responsibility.
14
You’re argument, if it’s that, is off track.
You bring up Planned Parenthood (as so many ideologues do), as if their primary purpose is performing abortions.
It is not.
Planned Parenthood provides, first and foremost, healthcare for women! Whether it’s mammograms or screenings for other cancers, these are services needed. Abortion procedures are not what this organization is focused on, but makes available to women.
A choice. And not an easy one, for sure!
So please, before carrying on about how you’re “pro-life” (really, just “anti-abortion for any reason, based on recent states’ votes) I suggest that you take a long, hard look at our society and how we, and you yourself, are protecting those children born into no family structure, or a family that isn’t able to provide at all.
Have you adopted a child? Have you become a foster parent? Do you volunteer at an orphanage?
Planned Parenthood provides women with information to try and prevent us from having this discussion, as well as helping women stay healthy.
4
Those who are in favor of unrestricted abortions should be out marching and protesting daily. Their placards could read “Unborn babies have no rights”.
10
@Robert Borman, do pregnant women get to vote twice?
41
@Robert Borman
Please grow up. And take responsibility for making absurd statements that no one believes. It is easy to look up facts on your computer.
24
Perhaps advocates of State controlled pregnancy should carry placards that read:
“Our 11 year old daughter was gang raped and left for dead by four 35 year old men and her mom and I are just overjoyed to be welcoming our first grandchild! That is if our daughter doesn’t die in childbirth”
maternal death from childbirth is 5x higher in girls under 18 (ie children) than women who are are fully grown.
14
To all those women out there praising the anti-choice women of Alabama and lionizing Phyllis Schlafly and her ilk, here's something to keep in mind: Southern women were equally enthused supporters of slavery and the plantation system, of the treasonous Confederacy, and of Jim Crow and segregation. Who stitched all those KKK robes? You got it. Your proud heritage now is about continuing to do what pleases men, demonstrating your virtue by not thinking too deeply about the real world complexities of abortion, and by throwing innocent girls and women, raped, poor, and particularly women of color, under the bus.
77
The shift on the Right is not surprising:
“A few decades ago, many Southern Baptist churches would preach far more frequently against divorce, fornication and premarital sex, said Wayne Flynt, one of Alabama’s most influential historians and an ordained Baptist minister. “There has been a huge shift,” he said, “and a narrowing of focus to abortion and same-sex marriage.””
Evangelicals have had to rely on trump, whom they have forgiven for his adultery and practicing unsafe sex. They can’t evoke his behavior in their argument against reproductive choice, so they don’t.
6
In the 1970s Evangelicals wanted more followers, so they looked through a list of possible topics they could hype to get more people to fill the pews. They picked being against abortion rights for the sole reason that they could market it easily and rile people up without much effort, education, or complexity. They brought in the Republicans, a minority party, who desperately wanted to gain voters (and the money and power they brought with them).
The anti-abortion rights parade was founded on a church’s pathetic need for more converts (and their money) and a political party’s thirst for power (and money).
Babies didn’t factor into the decision at all.
17
The legal foundations for Roe the Griswold and Baird cases, both discussed in Roe by the court. Griswold established the right to privacy for married couples and Baird extended that right to the unmarried. Later, the court used the same principle to extend that right to gays and ultimately sanction gay marriage. Thus, it is not just abortion that is at stake here, it is all those other court rulings which are now in legal jeopardy. It is also worthwhile to grasp that the essence of fascism is the determination of the state to control, not merely public behavior but also the private acts of the its subjects. Orwell warned us about how easy it could be to lose the foundations of citizenship. That is what at stake.
32
All those court rulings you point to stretch the right against unreasonable search and seizure beyond recognition, but the “rights” that were created are not absolute but subject to a balancing process. Thus in Roe v. Wade the right to abortion was balanced against the so-called “state interest” which apparently is anti-abortion. Missing from the equation is the right of the unborn who is treated as a non-person who can be thrown away like a piece of garbage. Does this seem morally right to you?
4
A person is someone who has taken a breath of life. Funny how the forced birthers don’t care at all about the woman—or about so many live and suffering children.
I am a 72 year old mother and grandmother, appalled that this country is returning to these laws (and worse) my generation thought we had long put to rest. I remember well what happened to my college classmates, when they became pregnant before Roe - and they were the privileged ones. When Roe was passed, I held my infant son and wept that mothers would no longer have to bring babies into the world who would not be loved or cared for properly or nurtured to their full potential as I could do for my child. I consider myself Christian, and to me there are crueler fates than never being born or being born at the wrong time.
I strongly support the Democratic candidates with the courage in this climate of hate to speak out in support of women’s rights, family rights, and even the rights of an embryo or fetus to be born to a parent who is prepared to give the best start possible. Life is too hard to do otherwise.
52
@Pshaffer Exactly. It is just wrong to bring a child into this world if the parents are not ready, willing, and able to give that child the loving attention and nurturing every child deserves. And it is the prospective mother who is best positioned to decide whether she is ready to become a mother or not.
2
This headline is entirely misleading. Just because gerrymandering, vote suppression and representatives who don't represent their whole constituincies have allowed state houses to pass draconian legislation doesn't mean that the majority of Americans support this kind of thing. 58% of Americans still support a woman's right to choose while only 37% oppose it. We are not being truly represented by out representatives. It is not like the times to exaggerate and I hope they will show more balance on this issue.
34
@Rebecca Hogan. Thank you. The Times’s headline is hyperbole that advances a false “wave.”
Vasectomy is preferable to anti-abortion. It is less dangerous, less painful and less costly. Instead of passing anti-abortion laws, the US should make male vasectomy the law.
62
@Grandma
Wouldn't the appropriate comparison be if alabama was passing a law requiring tubal ligation? Misandry is popular for the times reader base - way to participate in it! Women in alabama put those politicians in office. They are just as responsible as men.
1
What will motivate inert millennials to pay attention? In my college classroom, students glued to their Instagram, tweets, and swipes know nothing about this. I give up. Maybe a couple decades of forced reproduction will do the trick. I'm glad I won't be around to find out.
27
Time to invest in the morning-after-pills and pregnancy-test and airlines the provide cheap flights for pregnant women to states that allow abortions.
14
Vasectomies are birth control.
Super cheap, covered by insurance and safer than having your tooth pulled, Edward.
16
@Lissa absolutely. But tell that to someone under 30 years old... I like your idea in any case
I’m not convinced that this is a reflection of “raw cultural momentum.” The governor of Georgia won because he oversaw his own election and suppressed the votes of those who he knew would not vote for him. If the outcome of the Georgia governor’s race were different (without voter suppression, e.g.), Georgia would not have passed a stricter law. Gerrymandering, voter suppression and voter apathy has delivered this moment. One in four women will have an abortion by age 45. I assure you that they aren’t all Democrats.
47
If abstinence is foreign to your nature, how about birth control? Or is that too much to ask?
7
Does it cost money?
5
@Edward
Rape and incest survivors are offered neither by the fanatics behind this wave of legislation.
Apparently they don't feel the need to ask anyone anything- and criminals who molest are basically offered parental rights by uninvolved parties who are distorting American law.
24
All methods of birth control have failure rates.
21
Little petty white men who want to be able again to dictate women who is in control.
A longtime religious fight of Christian activist who look for domination of the female world.
Supported from the very top down of the leadership of all of Christianity, so they will be able to continue abuse young men and women without any resistance or punishment.
Their hypocrisy is beyond believe, they have promised their allegiance to Trumps authoritarian regime to achieve these very dark and criminal goals.
Separation of Church and State is the number one rule in the Constitution, these extremists
want to overturn, so they can keep playing by their own rules and let the women know that there is no voice for them ever.
The writers of the Constitution would have deservedly thrown them in jail already.
14
The country is sick, and it's getting sicker with each passing day. The sad part, is no one sees it.
16
How in the world can these people call themselves "Pro Life" when the are pro Death Penalty, Pro War and pro guns, while at the same time they are against birth control, education and decent health care for the mothers and their children?
25
Anti-abortion? They are pro-LIFE. If you’re going to use the preferred term for the “pro-choices crowd, show some neutrality and use the preferred term for the pro-lifers.
7
They are not pro-life, they don't campaign for children after they are born, they are not campaigning against death penalty, they don't campaign to decrease gun violence. Their specifically focus is abortion. So, antiabortion is exact description who they are. Pro-choice people do not campaign for everybody has abortion, they campaign that anybody should have a wide range of choices including abortion. So, pro-choice is more accurate description.
49
@Eva Klein
Actually, my much preferred term is ANTI-CHOICE, since they are against giving women a choice. It reflects more neutrality to call the two sides:
pro-choice and anti-choice.
Neutrality is invoked when the key terms are kept in tact.
35
@Eva Klein, nope. You don't get that much respect for your preferred term when your arguments are lies.
17
One difficulty with the abortion debate is that a pregnancy lasts nine months and the fetus develops radically during these nine months. One can recognize different levels of morality for an abortion over these nine
months. And yet the only two words we have for the various positions are "pro-choice" and "pro-life".
There are actually lots of people who are in favor of contraception and who are tolerant of early abortion but who are strongly opposed to abortion of a healthy fetus in the second and third trimester. I am one such person.
But there IS no word in our vocabulary for such people. So those who oppose all abortions and even contraception occupy the center stage on one side. Those who want no limits on abortion occupy the center stage on the other side.
What about the others? They do not have a NAME! I think we should look for a name for people who support contraception, even public funding, but who oppose the abortion of healthy second and third trimester fetuses.
10
@Ludwig There is. It is called pro-choice. Most developed countries allow unrestricted abortion early in a woman’s pregnancy, and a near-total ban after 20 weeks.
17
And your proposal is?
Mercury, France allows unrestricted abortion only for ten weeks. Germany for 12. India for 12. But as far as I know, NO one on either side of our abortion debate has suggested that we emulate these three countries.
Indeed. New York allows abortion for 24 weeks, more than twice as long as France. The New York law and the French law should not be described by the same word "pro-choice".
So I am afraid your suggestion will not clarify the debate. Ironically, the new law in Georgia (but not Alabama) comes closest to the French law.
All of these activists have donated one of their kidneys, are on the bone marrow registry, and regularly give blood .... correct? Because they clearly believe that one _must_ (no choice here) give of one's own body if would prolong the life of another person (or potential person).
30
@GBR. And, of course, they have all taken their share of responsibility for the children already born who do not have a loving parent capable and willing to do the enormous work required to bring a child up—to the age of 22, I might add, not 18. Yep, all these anti-choice folks have eagerly volunteered to adopt children now living in foster care, including children with special needs.
5
The women in the anti-abortion movement are often members of conservative households, where they a back seat. The movement gives them a great opportunity to show leadership and come together for a holy purpose.
The callous disregard for other women is unfortunately predictable from evolution. Women survived millennia of polygamy by cutting down other women's opportunities. Women who rise professionally or act as free agents evoke fits of jealousy from other women. The best way to cut such women down is to make them bear children.
12
If the State of Alabama is so gung ho on sending doctors to prison for 99 years for terminating an unwanted pregnancy - why should Alabama doctors have second thoughts about refusing treatment to a troglodyte politician? “The doctor is unfortunately occupied with a more critical case.. Sorry for your loss...It just couldn’t be helped...”
11
I can see the poor and uneducated will continue to produce multitudes of babies and the educated and sophisticated will have access to personal abortion mechanisms.
Science and sense make this ridiculous use of tax payer money to avert abortions obscene on the basis of the nation still a leader in infant mortality a national disgrace.
10
For the “Bernie or Bust” voters who chose bust when he did not win the nomination, this is what we meant by Trump as president being an existential threat to our democracy.
50
@Other
So its the sanders supporters - not the clinton voters who refused to consider the views of others and who supported a terrible candidate...one who managed to lose to trump. Wow. Talk about delusional.
2
I guess Hillary was unable to convince some voters.
Dems should look out! Victories for pro-life forces in state legislatures and, what's this I now read, an unexpected win for conservatives in Australia? are meaningful signs. Leftists everywhere sound indignantly entitled, strident and condescending; most people don't like being ridiculed and laughed at for supporting sensible moral values. Maybe they don't know it, but Democrats are backing themselves toward the edge of the political cliff, in 2020 they'll carry San Francisco and . . . ?
7
... Illinois.
3
@Ronald B. Duke if your idea of "sensible moral values" is expressed best by Donald Trump then I'll take a pass. You know the old saying about fools of a feather flying together? Thought not. Oh & the unexpected conservative win in Australia is a reflection of a divided electorate much like here. It's misguided to predict anything about 2020 for you or me for that matter. Trump may win, or not, the legislator will remain divided, or not. People supporting "sensible moral values" like bigotry and religious extremism may be ridiculed and laughed at, or not. Limo liberals (I'm not one) will carry San Francisco, yep for sure. Working class liberals will predominate elsewhere, most likely. Trump will remain a world class grifter with a clueless "base", yep on that one too.
17
For Ronald B Duke: who should get a vasectomy. It is cheaper and less painful than an unwanted pregnancy believe you me. No diapers, no nervous breakdowns, no suicide, and no starving infants.
20
I was always pro-choice. I found Gloria Steinem's dedication in her book to the doctor who (illegally) performed her abortion very moving. So consider, please, what it would take to have someone like me reconsider the issue. Argue all you want, but some on the pro-choice side will never be happy until they get everyone to agree that "abortion is a good thing," as one commenter the other day said. Many commenters have said they resent having to think of abortion as "a necessary evil." Maybe there shouldn't be shame involved, but it should also require more introspection than getting your nails done. I'll tell you the exact moment I thought the pro-choice camp pushed the issue too far. I was watching the pilot episode of Grown-ish, the spinoff of one of my favorite shows, Black-ish. There was one Plan B joke and one abortion joke (insert canned laughter here) in the first half hour. When did "safe, legal, and rare" become fodder for sitcoms? When did smart, educated women decide that not using birth control was no big deal, and that neither were the consequences? It is that kind of dismissive, defiant, cavalier attitude that brought us where we are today. Blame Republicans, evangelicals, whoever, all you want, but the left did a pretty good job of sabotaging Roe themselves.
11
This is historically inaccurate. Many second wave feminists considered abortion a celebration of their rights. One wrote an article recounting how liberated she felt marching for women’s rights while she was enduring post-abortion cramps.
You seem to have been duped by the abortion mythology presented on television. Girls and women get accidentally pregnant all the time, but they always miscarry in the nick of time, or surprise! Decide to add a baby to the cast of the show.
The reality has never been that way. Most women feel relieved after their abortion, not guilty. And why would they feel guilty about removing something that is no larger than the tip of a ballpoint pen?
Most of the developed world allows no restrictions on abortions until the 20th week of pregnancy, at which point it is banned in almost all cases. This seems eminently sensible to me. Unfortunately, because of the extremism of the right, the left accurately sees that giving the slightest ground will simply lead to even further incursions into a woman’s right to control her uterus.
13
I blame you.
You have two jokes from a sitcom and a few anecdotes — that’s how you decide what another person does with regards to her body and future?
You want to legislate away privacy because you don’t like jokes on sitcoms? You extrapolate a few, or even a hundred, people you think are cavalier about the decision to abort to mean everyone is cavalier?
There are lots of things that people may not take as seriously as me or you, but that doesn’t mean that we begin legislating simply because we’re offended.
Would you like to put all of your life decisions on the table for such scrutiny?
What is offensive to me is how many people are like you: you think everyone must care about your opinions/beliefs, and those who don’t agree/abide should go to prison.
It is simply not your business. Period.
33
@Anonymous
TV is not real life last anyone looked.
Offering anecdotal wisps of "proof" for hard attitudes is just absurd. Women are not cavalier about raising children and deciding with their own partners and doctors what is best for their family.
19
Believe you me they are not winning. There are millions of us women out here that have a lot to say about exactly what happens in reality. And these people do not even understand the first thing about what is reality.
25
The states that voted against, or did not vote for, the Equal Rights Amendment are the SAME states going all in on banning abortion.
The role of women in these states were aptly laid out by Phyllis Schlafly and the Conservative groups focus on “traditional” roles for women.
20
Ms. Warren wrote that a law guaranteeing access to abortion would be legal under the Constitution’s commerce and equal protection clauses. But David S. Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University who studies abortion issues, said the commerce clause argument was probably the only viable one.
Forget religion, forget morality, forget it all. When the sanctity of life is reduced to the commerce clause, there’s no going back it’s past the point of no return. If the religious right is upset about abortion laws now, I can’t wait to see their reaction to the Democratic primary debates.
2
@John Doe, upsetting the reactionary religious right, that's about the only interesting thing that will come out of the debates. As to "the sanctity of life" you can spare us the faux outrage that one is passed. For conservatives and predatory capitalism we are all commodities to be used, bought and sold. No sanctity required.
12
When a woman is reduced to being a container, by the very people she spent 35 bleeding for, 9 months of pregnancy for, 14 hours of excruciating labor and delivery for, our country has sunk so low into thanklessness and self-congratulatory cruelty, we should be ashamed of ourselves.
The way women are treated, talked about, and seen in this country is appalling. Girls and women build and produce every human being in this country and on this planet. What a self-centered, bunch of thankless children we are - all of us. Religions that blame every problem on women, say that the first human was born of a “male” deity (not kidding), the first woman was born from the first man (not kidding) - not a problem that he lacks a womb, we’ll say she was born out of his chest from a rib - can anyone say ...serious womb envy. If you can’t build a human being, you must control it.
24
@Other, I remember as a kid all through Sunday school we were all led to believe that men had one less rib because of that. What a relief to learn in college anatomy class that men and women both have the same number, thereby giving me one more to break. Life’s not fun for a lot of reasons nor makes little sense either. Sorry it couldn’t be easier.
2
In 1983 I was the executive director of the American Society for Law & Medicine; we held a conference entitled, Defining Human Life, in March 1982 in Houston, Texas. The papers of that conference were published as "Defining Human Life: Medical, Legal and Ethical Implications. " At that time a Human Rights Amendment to the US Constitution was being proposed. In the intervening 37 years I would suggest that much that we discussed and debated then is still relevant today. I urge folks interested in facts and history search out the book.
2
The Roberts court might not even hear these cases, and these laws are still illegal and will not take effect immediately. The ACLU is already suing and will win, just like they always do.
These are also racist and classist laws which will affect predominantly lower income and minority women. Rich, white women will still get abortions, often paid for by the same white men pushing these agendas.
Anyone with half a brain knows this. The regressive politics of the right are undermined by its adherence to 19th Century, Victorian and Edwardian values than to 21st Century political, scientific, and sociopolitical research. The only things that need to be relegated to the dustbin of history is the systemic racism, classism, and misogyny of the 19th Century.
Furthermore, the laws in GA and AL were the red of illegal voter suppression and legislative sleight-of-hand, as noted in this very newspaper. They’re not winning; they’re cheating, because they know their opinions are in the minority.
Also noted in this paper is the idea that Roberts is no guarantee of a vote, or even if his court will agree to hear the cases. Moreover, by the time any of these cases even get that far (if, indeeed, they do) the window of opportunity will likely be closed.
This is political opportunism rooted in 19th Century thinking, and nothing more. It says something that many in these legislative bodies don’t know what a uterus is. They’re idiots, not politicians.
29
Is it a racial bias?
3
It’s a long overdue reaction of anger and disgust to Roe v. Wade. Disguised as a judicial opinion, it was nothing but a political concession to the women’s libbers of the time who wanted to treat the human fetus like it was a disposable piece of garbage. The Court shouldn’t have touched it but left it to the states to decide which is what is finally happening now.
7
@Edward, yep that's your opinion & its just as disposable as your hypothetical "human fetus". Your lack of legal training is evident in the rather shallow take on Roe v Wade. Like freeing the slaves and giving women the right to vote you want it left up to the states because abortion like contraception would have remained illegal in many of them. The only anger and disgust I feel is directed towards those men who consider women as receptacles and tools for reproduction instead of liberation which you clearly despise.
17
of course, to treat women merely as a vessel for fetus is much better, right? To force her to sacrifice her body and to risk her health and her life for fetus it is OK. Of course, we don't demand that dead people were the set of organ replacement. We do worry about dignity of the dead people, but not alive women. Isn't that disgusting?
16
It seems as if we’ve regressed to the 1840’s and 1850’s with “free” states and “ slave” states in a run up to a new Civil War. The similarity between the Old Confederacy and now is equally striking. Of course, the new slaves are women who are also being enslaved by mainly white males and their evangelical Christian allies. With their Jeff Davis occupying The White House and his Kentucky Colonel the Senate and conservative Catholics dominating the Supreme Court, the situation seems dire. But, unlike 1860, women have the right to vote and they have a staunch female leader on the House. The Union and its Constitution will once again prevail along with its “freedom of religion” that prevents others from legislating their religious views while depriving women of their religious freedom and control over their bodies and their essential “right to life.”
21
Paul: thank you for an articulate and truthful assessment. One wonders if these despicable and cruel zealots had the chance, would they reinstitute slavery? If they could get away with it, I’d bet they would! It’s beyond my comprehension that these people are so benighted, but we know it’s a ploy with the politicians: to keep the populace ignorant, and to keep white men in power and rich at the expense and rights of all others.
2
The idea that anybody, but particularly any man, can tell a woman she must carry an unwanted pregnancy needs to be slapped down hard. The nerve of some busy bodies is just incredible.
52
Vasectomy prevents abortion.
68
@Alan C., so all men who don’t want to be asked to take responsibility for an accidental pregnancy should get one then.
8
Enough is enough. Hitler made this argument and succeeded in implementing it.
Read your history, men!
Trying to control a woman’s body is slavery and slavery was outlawed. Women need to fight for their lives and vote these overwhelmingly old, mostly white men out of office!
51
The problem we are dealing with is a group of people who believe due to their religion that once an egg is fertilized that is it. It is a "person". Forget all the philosophical arguments about personhood. A large body of scientific knowledge shows that a developing fetus does not have a fully functional nervous system capable of feeling pain until the third trimester. The idea of a "heart beat" existing at 6 weeks is also incorrect. It is more of a flutter produced by cells that will inevitably be a heart. We need to educate the masses better. We need to provide individuals easier control over their own bodies. And stop trying to force women into servitude by removing bodily autonomy.
33
@Andrew I'm not particularly religious and far from a hard core evangelical. The very idea of abortion especially after six weeks makes me cringe. I am college educated (Masters) and not ignorant. Your comment reeks of elitist "we know best" and your "need to educate the masses better" is particularly pungent.
3
@Andrew
Wrong: Neural branching begins at 8-9 weeks.
Wrong: “Heart cells” “fluttering” propel the fetal circulatory system as a functioning heart does.
Wrong: The miseducation of “the masses” is in the ignorance of fetal physiology and the fact that the unborn fetus with formed neural pathways does feel pain. Just because it can’t scream or otherwise express that pain doesn’t make it any less real or reprehensible.
Wrong: “We” don’t need to “provide easier control” to people, but provide them with more accurate medical information about fetal development and the senseless brutality of abortion of fetuses with formed nervous systems.
3
@JR
I can't imagine any woman knowing she is pregnant after only 6 weeks. The pregnancy test wouldn't necessarily show positive at such an early time. And many women have irregular periods...
2
With all the interest in my uterus, you would think the next NFL draft pick, pizza, beer and THC were coming out of it. Seriously, guys, it’s not that interesting. Move along.
33
The GOP would spend a billion dollars to save a single unborn child, yet, they are unwilling to do anything about the 3,000,000 homeless children currently living on the streets in this country.
Their whole, "Life is precious!" stance is nothing but a big, fat, fake, pompous, pious, moral pose. The fact is that the GOP couldn't care less about the unborn. They only pretend to in order to score cheapest and most base political points.
Why do Republicans care about the rights of gun-owners and unborn children to the exclusion of all others? Because their "morality" is based on solely on money and political expediency.
"Life is precious!" - That's rich coming from the people who lied us into the Iraq War in order to line their own pockets.
88
@Chicago Guy. Pro Birth is the word for them. They are obviously not pro life by any reasonable measure of the term.
.
The American Religious Right views a fetus as a precious thing. They view a newborn as precious - I think (hope). After that - the child is a burden and should fend for itself.
These good “ Christians” care nothing for the children, it’s just a get-rich-quick scheme.
21
Trump and his right wing SCOTUS giveth.
Trump and his right wing SCOTUS taketh.
Blessed are the ways of Trump and his right wing SCOTUS!
2
Never underestimate humans emotionally fueled propensity for myopia. Both sides are approaching this battle with the quaint 1970’s belief that our morals have any effect against the fundamental forces of exponential technological innovation fueled by capitalistic microeconomics, or Supply & Demand
The drug war has browbeaten all of us with examples that, where there is a market, there will be providers, and they will be unstoppable. And they won’t be your 1900's back alley amateur surgeon, sporting a coat hanger and a rap-sheet of botched D&C victims. They will be exactly what America worships: Silicon Valley and Chinese wiz kids, setting up clandestine online markets overnight, peddling cheap, safe, and simple aborticide technology, using anonymous Abortcoin™️ currency and the unregulated magic of the USPS. It will be the AirB&B of RU-486(v2.0). And the first person who invents the perfect abortion pill, will both make a fortune and end this pathetic culture war forever.
So if you are pro-choice, stop fretting and start coding. If you are a pro-lifer, savor your cute little victories now, because once you pull of the epic blunder of overturning Roe vs. Wade, you will wither under the unstoppable capitalistic force that always brushes prohibitionists aside without pause. Our laws might be the rudder on our great ship, but markets are the seas and innovation is the wind.
14
@Casey Jones, clever Casey but as in all things capitalistic the poor will be left behind. The market can make corrections but it isn't the least bit compassionate about who gets the services or the rewards. Your example of drug use is telling, I wonder if you hear?
2
@Casey Jones
There is no 'perfect abortion pill'. There will always be circumstances where medical intervention is required.
Then what ? The 'miscarriage' is traced back to a suspect abortion pill order. The doctor is jailed for performing a follow-up D&C. The woman is punished, probably with fines which are used to ensure reproductive compliance. The sperm donor goes on to impregnate another woman . . . . no penalty for him !
1
@John Chastain
These same people passing these laws are also the people who don't want birth control covered by insurance plans or Narcan delivered by first responders or new drug rehab group homes opened in their towns or guns regulated so that mentally ill can't purchase them at gun flea markets. They look to eliminate hungry people from getting food stamps and push people off their medicaid rolls. Real life lovers.
"Pro life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that they don't want to know about you." - George Carlin
42
The bottom line is that the anti-abortion crowd does not believe that I am competent to decide whether I am able and equipped to have a child. This kind of gotcha legislation (so YOU couldn't control your sex drive! so you made yourself available to rape!) is about control and punishment.
I'm sure that some of these anti-abortion folks have strong religious feelings. But, they are their feelings, not mine.
Yeah, it is my body, in the end.
29
"Religious conviction" are the new watchwords of the extremists who wish to foist their beliefs - whether about abortion or about LGBTQ prejudices, on the majority of the American population.
Why these uneducated simpletons feel a necessity to hamstring the rights of their fellow citizens is a mystery. These bigots use words like "God's will" to justify their intolerance.
Unbelievable that, in the 21st century, with all that is now known of cosmology and evolution, there are still such simple minded, 7th century cretins around who claim their intolerance is the province of some "gods".
18
Where is the separation of church and state?
These zealots are forcing their religious views onto everyone else - that's wrong!
I want freedom from religion - NOW!
53
Agreed. The irony is the separation of church and state was to protect religious belief. It’s funny how so many people think that religious belief should be involved in the state, because they are absolutely sure that it will be their religion that will be the state religion. Their belief that will be “the” belief all others must obey, because the State says so.
Just watch as we become a theocracy and the State starts restricting Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, Jews, 7th Day Adventists, Hindis, Buddhists, Unitarians - because all those faiths and beliefs are not the one evangelical belief adopted by the State - so they have to go.
First they came for ...
8
@Marcus Aurelius
Well said!
So is the Susan B Anthony Foundation prepared to pay for the 19 yrs after a child is born before he/she becomes an adult?
15
Power to the people. At least we can all agree about that.
1
This onslaught by anti-abortionists, coordinated or not, is no doubt an attempt to take advantage of the right-leaning SCOTUS, in hopes of overturning Roe v Wade.
However it is also readable as another distraction from the more critical investigations of the current administration, and is in no way an issue that belongs on the political agenda.
8
The GOP planned all these States to act on anti-abortion as they were expecting Trump to have been facing impeachment hearings with the publication of the Mueller report.
This is all about a massive deflection tactic to protect Trump.
10
Don't worry.
This will all get reversed.
Look at the Jim Crow, and the Gay Marriage outrage.
Republicans and the evangelicals always push their agendas too far.
Eventually, clear thinking and perhaps even justice will prevail.
9
The conventional wisdom is that the majority, 60 or 70% of Americans want abortion to be legal with or without some restrictions and only a small minority support complete prohibition. So the prochoice political people and their supporters sit back and think this tide shall fade. This is exactly what the gun control advocates think when they see that 90% of Americans support background checks and 70% support assault weapon bans. When Roe v Wade passed prochoice went on holiday and anti abortion gathered steam. The pro choice forces are either naïve or lack the passion of the pro life forces. Like the NRA which continues to block these changes, massacre after massacre, the pro life forces will probably prevail even with a future of 11 year old girls raped and pregnant, septic abortions and even suicides. Now it is time for prochoice to fight the long game. Culture wars will never end.
9
Pro choice voters have not until now believed the threat to women's freedom to be real. Now they do, and their complacence is at an end. The future is socially liberal, it is secular, and it is not going to stand for keeping women barefoot and pregnant. Watch this become a major motivator in the 2020 election. Republicans are not just going to get swept out of office, they will get vacuumed out of office. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
23
Not if any of us assume someone else will fight on our behalf.
All hands on deck to fight for human rights and women’s rights!
13
What about the men who impregnated them. They obviously did not care what they did with their sperm. In the movie”Legally Blond” this is called reckless abandonment of sperm. The men was be responsible and bay for the child for 21 years. If they don’t they should be jailed. By not paying for the child they produced they are causing harm to the child. If men really believed life is so precious they would use safe sex. Truth is they don’t as long as they can get away with.
3
@Sue Last I checked outside of rape it takes two people to make a decision to have sex. Why didn't the women involved insist that their male partners use a condom and/or use one of the multiple types of birth control available to women?
And it is incredibly hypocritical (and typical) for women to argue that the fetus is not a child and may be aborted at HER convenience but if she wants it then it is a child and her male partner must be held liable for child support, regardless of his feelings about whether he's ready to be a father or not.
Talk about lack of logic....
I am so tired of white men trying to oppress and colonize anyone who doesn’t look like them. This is not about protecting the sanctity of life it is all about power and oppression. Not a single one one of these evangelical hypocrites gives a fig newton about the “fetus” once it becomes a baby. Their war against the infirmed and the impoverished proves that. I never imagined The Handmaid’s Tale was in reality a docu-series. I am counting the days to the 2020 election.
27
And once you are born, anti-abortionists don't care about you. As most anti-abortionists are conservatives, this is a decidedly anti-woman approach on their behalf.
They would force women to have unwanted babies and then say "now it's born, you are on your own."
What blatant hypocrisy.
24
@Ambrose Let's review their mind. If you view fetus as a living being - then what is being committed in abortion is a crime. Now once the baby is born, of course it is parent's responsibility. To decide to undergo abortion based on financial expense of taking care of a baby is akin to killing of your old folks at home or handicapped family members so that you could live better with that extra money saved. Would you propose to do that too?
2
@Sri
Your analogy is inexact because adult handicapped persons are people in the moral sense of having the same moral status as you or me.
That is indisputable.
What is disputable is whether the same applies to the fetus and you argue in a circle to say it does.
8
@Sri Is that family member living in my uterus? Because if yes, then I have a right to expel them.
If my brother needed a kidney, I’d happily give him one. But he doesn’t have a right to my kidney, even if he would die without it. He doesn’t even have a right to a pint of my blood.
10
As a mental health practitioner and woman, I am terrified, but more so in my role as a professional. While these laws make “exceptions” for acute threat to the woman’s life, how is that determined? Women with some DSM diagnoses can titrate off riskier classes of medication and make it through a *planned*, long hoped-for pregnancy with partner, familial and professional support. Some “white knuckle” through trimesters, balancing their and the fetus’s health. Then there are those with acute, chronic mental illness who ambivalently cling to life, attempting to manage instability in relationships and instrumental activities of daily living. Some are on life-saving medication that are contraindicated to pregnancy. They grieve not only the impact of their illnesses on their ability to find an empathic supportive partner but also one that understands their “choice” not to procreate.
Shall I start documenting in their chart now the absolute risk to their health should they encounter an unplanned pregnancy or have to cease psychotropic medication? Or do we institutionalize them until their services as brood mare are complete? Either way, I would need to add a new facet to risk assessment: “forced birth”.
Mental illnesses are so poorly understood by the general public - even more so in religious communities who focus on prayer as panacea.
My heart breaks. I don’t want my patients to die, and I have no good answers.
45
I am grateful you spoke up.
Abortion is brutal and terrible, but we who believe it should still be a woman’s choice can not let this theft of our basic freedom to have control over our lives and bodies and this basic human right happen.
12
@Clinical Social Worker thank you for your vision. I am schizoaffective and had my tubes tied when I was 28. I saw the difficult choices mentally ill women had to make concerning children and decided not to have any. I was terrified of an accidental pregnancy before my operation. When I was young it was the medication that stood between life and suicide. I would have killed myself if I had to stop the medication. And I love children, I would have loved to be a parent. As difficult as the choices are for someone with a mental illness, it helps us to have as many options as possible. Now I am nearly menopausal and no longer suicidal. I too fear for the young mentally ill women who have unwanted pregnancies. Because of our diagnosis we already have very little power. Yes, I too think they will be forced pregnant without meds, maybe. And oh, what hells their minds will decend into. Naturally the woman will need to be locked up and supervised for the safety of mother and child. Its a dark future but very similar to how we had no rights or control in the past. Warehoused in psychiatric hospitals.
10
This effort is really not about politics nor about healthcare - it's about taking a moral stand that the unborn baby is to be protected and given a chance at life (except if the mother's life is at stake). I believe the overwhelming majority of mothers agree that what's in the womb is a human being deserving of the rights and protections of citizens. The right-to-life movement and its lobbyists are to be commended for standing up and undoing the untold harm done to millions by deadly laws.
4
Here’s an idea: you want the fetus so much - take it out at 12 weeks, gestate it in a lab and then you raise it.
Ohh? Don’t want that responsibility? Well then don’t stick it on anyone else
10
@Jamie You don’t have to rely on your belief. You can look at ample polling. Unfortunately, it would tell you that you are wrong. But it’s easily available on google if you care to look.
3
Your “overwhelming majority” is fiction, pure and simple.
2
There are laws for humanely killing lobsters (they must be made unconscious by electric shock or decapitation to prevent them from suffering in boiling water) - but no laws to humanely abort human embryos who have a fully developed nervous system and can feel pain by week 12.
5
So we can develop an ethical, less barbaric procedure to end a pregnancy.
2
@LA 3 NYC
That is simply incorrect. Please get your facts off of webmd, or some fact-based medical site. Most research indicates that fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks, but even then, their nervous system is far from fully developed.
6
@Mercury S
Not sure where you get your info but 20 weeks is wishful thinking, not science.
It seems almost every article on anti abortion forces features the same characters from central casting:
White - check
Mostly male - check
Affiliated with a religion or religious movement - check
Well to do- check
GOP voters - check
Don’t give a hoot the majority of the country disagrees with their extreme positions- check
Believe every fetus is a future soldier and NRA member - check
17
I doubt very much that I’m alone of one who opposes abortion on demand and would fail passing your identity test since I am only a white male and mostly vote Republican. After that none of your labels would I check off on your Roe vs Wade Census....
Perhaps this is why 2016 was defiantly gratifying and a precursor for the next election...
I believe personhood begins with the first breath and that we should be far more attentive to the live breathing children living in poverty in the richest nation the world has ever known. The live breathing woman is not an incubator.
Where's the integrity in a person (or religious organization) who is both pro-life and pro-war?
9
@Silver Girl Same as in a person who wants govt control over guns, economy and everything else but not on abortion.
2
@Sri Still no. Try again.
All of those fighting to make abortion illegal, please now give as much or more energy and resources to making birth control easily and cheaply available, making the fathers of these unwanted babies responsible for the childrens’ wellbeing and upbringing, and ending poverty across this country. Single mothers are among the poorest in our country. Please don’t add to their numbers.
463
@Galfrido
children in poverty in America has also reached record highs.
36
@Galfrido
Why? The anti abortion folks want single women to not have sex.
25
@Alice's Restaurant: Johnson's policies did not create the modern automated global economy that decimated the industrial-based economy of the 1960's or kill labor's power. Patrolling women's uteri will not bring back an strong labor unions or pensions. Killing women's right to choose will not keep companies from outsourcing or automating husbands jobs.
9
I’m ambivalent about abortion, but I do know this for sure: Being responsible for one's body, being pro choice, at the root level means choosing not to become pregnant when you and your partner are not prepared to raise a child. Of course, some women become pregnant against their will, but that’s a small fraction of pregnancies and can be dealt with separately.
6
@Johnny Stark Very sane advice. I agree. But the so-called women's rights activists see you are limiting their choices there too by having a go without any anxiety of pregnancy issues which according to them can be easily dealt later now by abortion. Also we can extend your argument a bit further and then say even contraception is prevention of life to blossom - should we then indulge only when we need a baby? Ideally yes. But can we?
2
@Johnny Stark - Says the man who never experienced a birth control failure and became pregnant.
16
Hi
She was the pill and I was using a condom and both failed. Stuff happens.
10
I will never, ever vote for any candidate, for any office, who is not loudly PRO-CHOICE. Neither will most of the people I know. If you want to watch a wave of single-issue pro-choice voters go to the polls, stay tuned. Liberal / progressive left and libertarian right agree on this issue. You do not legislate away my right to choose whether I carry a pregnancy to term. You do not legislate away my right to make my own health-care decisions, or my right to bodily autonomy. Period. Ever.
20
One of the problems with all laws re abortion is the standard for "exceptions", and the process whereby a woman would receive "permission". Ectopic pregnancies, eclampsia, and a host of other life threatening conditions can and do develop. These require very quick medical response--from a licensed physician--NOT from a few dozen men in a legislative body who are making a point over a woman's dead body. If I know my misogynists, these fellows will devise a complex and time consuming series of hoops for women and doctors to navigate. One more of the many reasons there should be no laws regarding abortion by a governmental body. This is a medical and personal decision which should be allowed to be made in private.
19
The treatment for ectopic pregnancy or eclampsia is NOT an elective abortion.
1
A ruptured ectopic pregnancy is a fertilized egg that has a) not yet implanted in the uterus and b) has eroded through the Fallopian tube, rendering it non-viable and causing life-threatening hemorrhage. The woman loses that tube. And as a labor and delivery nurse with 34 years of experience, I have indeed encountered patients who developed early, severe pre-eclampsia, necessitating the termination of the non- viable pregnancy to save the mother's life.
11
@Ann Perhaps you might contact Mayo Clinic and offer them your corrections to their analysis of these conditions....
8
To deny this movement is a concerted effort is disingenuous. Of course it's concerted. Of course it's strategic. To admit such a sweeping effort would look like influence and corruption.
10
To these people, rights begin at conception and end at birth. After being born, the question becomes whether a baby/child/adult is a "cost center" to be eliminated at little or no cost, or whether one is a profit center.
To those unfortunate to be born with serious defects, their parent are to be impoverished by their care, unless they are (1) already rich, or (2) Republican elected officials. In the latter case, the family will be supported at the expense of the 99%.
11
And on and on it goes.. While other western democracies are trying to come to grips with the global challenges of climate change, pollution, immigration, unemployment, cyber-warfare, income inequality etc., in America we have GOP politicians, evangelical “lobbyists” and citizen zealots concentrating all their efforts on how to force women to give birth whatever the circumstances of the pregnancy. What is happening in Alabama, Missouri, and a slew of other states passing regressive and punitive legislation aimed at controlling the reproductive decisions of women is beyond outrageous and has no place in a 21st century liberal democracy.
24
Wondering if these “activists” actually think outlawing abortion will stop it? Imagine their impotent rage when they realize they’ve only marginally reduced the abortion rate. (Mainly among the most disadvantaged women and girls in society.)
And one reason this will be so it that any “successes” they may have will create a backlash. The other side will then go on offense - and one always want to be on offense.
7
I can hardly wait. I can hardly wait until other states follow Alabama's lead and outlaw abortion. Ohio. Louisiana. Maybe South Carolina.Missouri? Even Utah? (Best would be Texas, but it won't happen there.) I can hardly wait until Toyota and Mercedes Benz and Google (and Dell?) and those other companies seeking low wages and no unions leave those states for others in the US that have...what? Less crazy legislatures? I can hardly wait until the universities in these states can no longer import faculty from the United States, not to mention Europe, China, Japan.
I can hardy wait. I can hardly wait until the rest of the states of the United States agree to assign their presidential electors to the winner of the total electoral vote. And the United States Senate reads the writing on the wall.
I can hardly wait. But my guess is that the United States Supreme Court will save those states' bacon; it will see the obvious future and forestall it. But, if I'm wrong, I can hardly wait.
10
@Kenneth Lane You may as well say you can hardly wait for US to be split into two.
1
@Sri But it already has, my dear Sri. Even in those states I mentioned, it is the larger cities against their surroundings. Just look at the data from the last two elections.
2
@Kenneth Lane
Well I would hope that parents of daughters would consider these anti woman states as off limits for college, for one thing.
I have a professional career and have had to move for work several times. I would never relocate to a state where my rights and physical safety could be compromised. I imagine that at least some women who pay attention to this news would also refuse to relocate to these states, or start looking to move.
1
For every action there is a reaction[Newton]The extreme position taken by NY State resulted in the reaction taken by the other side.If you do a late term abortion and kill the fetus, or not provide needed care, is removed from the criminal code.If the mother's life is in danger means emotional pain and suicidal risk God save us.
2
@Gdk If a woman is suicidal over her late term pregnancy, then at least one person is going to die, no? Why is it that you get to decide that?
Regardless, this is a straw man. Women late in their terms want to deliver. Only a woman with a severe mental disturbance would seek an elective abortion in the third trimester, and she would have to find a doctor willing to perform it. Doctors who specialize in late-term abortions all have criteria for the patients they will take. The idea that a woman comes in at 8 months, winks at her doctor and gets an abortion is a sick myth that the right pushes to demonize their opponents.
1
Many people who are pro-life (including Rev. Jerry Falwell) have said the new anti-abortion law passed by Alabama and other states go too far because they doesn’t allow exceptions for incest or rape. I disagree. The objection to abortion by those who are pro-life (or more accurately anti-abortion) is that human life is sacred and abortion at any stage of development from fertilized egg to fetus to delivery is murder and under law should not be allowed. But by their own definition every child conceived is an innocent life regardless of how it came into being. Is a baby resulting from rape or incest any less innocent than one resulting from ignorance, carelessness or birth control failure? If you follow their line of reasoning and religious beliefs there can be no exceptions; and women impregnated by a rapist or uncle or father must be forced to carry their baby to full term.
9
Hey Congressional Democrats , doesn't legislation start in the House? How about TODAY, writing a bill an bringing it to a vote to protect the right of the individual to control her own body? Why wait when you have the votes now? Hello? Hello? anybody there?
Make the President veto it. Make the Senate go on the record. DO IT NOW.
6
Just to demonstrate how far-fetched right wing, anti-abortion proponents' arguments can be, I heard one of them shout out, "The choice is made at the moment of conception." Conception can occur days after healthy enter the womb. What are they talking about?
8
@Glenn Thomas I believe the thinking here is that sex makes babies and even contraception fails sometimes. So, at the time the baby is conceived--the "choice" to be open to pregnancy has already been made.
1
I’d like to know more about what motivates these people—misogyny? Theology? Crass political calculation? I confess to being mystified, although for the politicians, the latter seems like the Occam’s razor.
7
@JoeFF All the prolifers I know sincerely believe that the unborn are human beings, albeit very tiny ones in the early stages. Science supports this; the tiniest of human embryos will continue to grow and get larger and more fully developed unless it is stopped. For the pro-life community, defending the unborn is a human rights issue. You may not agree or understand but that is the motivation.
6
@cjchus Exactly. Somehow people think fetus is a non-entity. They need to be a bit more sincere in evaluating their beliefs and truths.
3
But that is not my belief. Personhood begins with the first breath. Forcing a woman to give birth is wrong.
I must be honest and say that some days when I was doing my pro life volunteer work I had been discouraged to think that maybe the movement had not really made significant gains. But then I read positive articles like this and hear about the great strides that are now being made among the anti-abortion crowd and I cheer right up.
I would not have stopped volunteering as I am as determined as ever but this just gives me the energy and encouragement to increase my volunteer time. We cannot ever give up because saving the life of the unborn is paramount. We must defend them no matter what obstacles are put before us. We will triumph because good always overcomes evil. And sparing innocent lives is so important.
4
This. Are you reading this?
This. Is. What. We. Need. To. Be. Doing. With our time. With our wallets.
With great tenacity and patience, we too must fight theocracy, forced birth and the new slavery.
18
@KMW
Consider me an obstacle, please. Women are quite capable of managing the many difficult choices about their health and their bodies at any time during their pregnancy with their physician and family. And, on the other hand, I will never be an obstacle in your choice. Your health is your private and very personal business, not mine.
16
@KMW if good "always" overcomes evil then your on the wrong side. There is nothing more evil then the will to dominate and control others and in the end KMW that is what your advocating. There isn't one time in human history were "true believers" like you didn't rationalize whatever it takes, its the mark of the fanatic, The unquestioning belief in the rightness of their cause. Even the burners of witches believed they were doing the "lords" work. Ignorance is its own excuse & so many anti abortion comments are full of it.
13
Democrats need to remind their voters in every single election that they are not just voting for future improvement and problem solutions. Every election is a rearguard action to preserve what has been done. You need to vote to preserve Medicare and Social Security and National Parks and the Clean Air Act and The Civil Rights Act of 1965 in EVERY ELECTION. Nothing stays done unless you vote to keep it that way in every election.
38
As presidential candidate Maryann Williamson not long ago remarked here in the comments section of the NY Times, the fastest growing spiritual group in America is the "unchurched". And I would wager than the numbers of agnostics and atheists in America is either as large, if not larger, than the "unchurched".
And, unlike the organized religions behind this push to return reproductive rights to the back alleys of America, neither atheists, agnostics, nor the "unchurched" receive a tax exemption.
If we want to stop this endless lurch towards religious totalitarianism, perhaps elimination of the tax exemption for organized religions would be a good place to start. And let's also see the next Democratic administration pursue a comprehensive prosecution of the Catholic Church for its decades long conspiracy to shield pedophile priests.
I sincerely believe that abortion should be rare but legal in America; but it will be never become rare so long as religious conservatives continue to oppose every sensible effort to promote contraception availability, safe sex, and comprehensive, science-based sex education.
38
@Matthew Carnicelli: The tax preferences given to liars who claim to know what God thinks are utterly outrageous and unquestionably unconstitutional.
9
The Alabama law won't prosecute a woman who has an abortion but will prosecute doctors who perform them. (This seems to be illogical. If the doctor is guilty of murder, isn't th e woman an accessory to murder?)
Suppose a woman has a medical abortion? Is the doctor guilty because he or she prescribed the medication? Is the woman guilty because she "performned" the abortion?
Who is responsible for the medical costs of poor women who injure themselves trying to self-abort? Who is responsible for caring for the children of women who die in botched abortions? What do the men and women of Alabama expect to happen when abortion is outlawed? Do they believe the law will stop women from having abortions in spite of the evidence? Are they unaware of the harm this law will cause women. Or do they just not care?
10
Americans have the right in many states to end a life if they feel threatened, but no right to privacy if threatened by an unwanted pregnancy.
12
women will have their cycles digitally tracked and recorded. once there is a gap they will be inspected for pregnancy. if they are pregnant they will be remanded to forced birthing centers for the duration of the pregnancy. if married, the child will be returned. if not married, the child will be kept by the church.
11
@true patriot, & many of the true believing anti abortionists commenting here will be happy to participate in the policing of women and gladly hand the children over to the truly deserving ones.
2
Gullible, authoritarian people who think superficially. Liberty and justice and liberal democracy are hard to establish and to maintain when there are large populations of people whose beliefs result in completely disparate views about right and wrong behavior. These right wing elected officials are shallow minded people who just do what people who they think are smarter than themselves tell them to do, no thinking for themselves. They are the kind of people that turn good government into tyrannies and don’t even know it.
Abortion is a medical procedure to end pregnancies at the decision of wine and their doctors. There are moral choices that both consider before performing them. Religious fanatics object to any person making such decisions. They think that God controls everything that happens and any actions taken to interfere defy God’s will. In the Bible, God destroys unholy communities. These people object to sinning but they fear God’s wrath if they allow, too. Abortion is the perfect example of liberty leading to damnation and why it must be limited, in right wing mentality.
Make no mistake, Republicans are not considering the consequences of supporting religious conservatives wishes so complacently.
4
Abortion is a medical procedure to end pregnancies at the decision of wine and their doctors.
@Casual Observer, that’s the weirdest typo I’ve ever seen. Usually I can read right through them but yours just gave me some serious pause for thought. Maybe best to lay off calling others names.
1
Not name calling. Genuinely, no right wing people admit that their arguments about abortion ignores the fact that conflict over Roe v. Wade is about liberty verses their religious beliefs. Because of that their efforts lead to no liberty for anyone. If they thought the issue through on their own, they would leave people to make their own choices.
Freedom of religion means that’s those of us who do not believe are also free to practice our like to be free from religion. Objection to Abortion is a religious issue not a scientific one. It is extremely troubling that the religious beliefs of few is becoming law of land. I am deeply disturbed by this “pro-life” movement. These people often grab the popcorn when people are put to death, often vilify the poor and those who do not look like them. Their often against social services of any kind and their entire motivation is simply imposing archaic religious beliefs on the masses against our will. This will stop, because there are many like me who would REFUSE to accept such narrow minded bogus movements as anything other than an extremist religious movement driven by patriarchy and backwards mentality. There is nothing pro-life about them, these people are inherently anti-life.
23
There will always be abortions. They used to be illegal. Then they became legal. Soon they might be illegal again. I've been around long enough to have seen it both ways. This is what I know: Legal is better.
24
This rightwing abortion extremism is a frightening attack on the rights of women and the separation of church and state. For instance, forcing a woman who has been raped to carry the perpetrator's baby to term is, without hyperbole, torture. (The Alabama legislators call it "god's miracle.") A woman has the same inalienable right as a man to life, liberty and happiness. The separation of church and state is a vital part of our democracy.
23
It is also a direct attack upon freedom of religion, which is freedom of conscience. The anti-abortionists argue that people have no right to end pregnancies voluntarily because their religion tells them that.
3
I plan to boycott all travel to states that are waging a war against women. I also will not purchase any products from those states as well. I hope to see other groups do the same.
37
@Jacquie
Who would go to those states if they didn't have to and do they even produce anything?
3
Who would have thought: America — once a champion of the separation of church and state — is becoming a theocracy, thanks to citizens who can't bother voting.
30
Backwards repressive movement underway. The government should stay out of woman’s bodies. Trump, Pence who is his his cagey stay under the radar VP and the corrupt GOP expect this right wing payback for their support. McConnell, Cruz, Rubio are part of the kiss up crew in a huge way. Every republican that feigned dissent on any matter was simply walking a line with their voter base but in reality were fake all the way as the facts show. Supporters of this are not men of religious conscience but more men of tax cut allegiance and power tripping with personal deals of self interest. Will any be less well off when Trumps gone? Not one. Will they adopt the unwanted babies if women under many circumstances go though delivery and give up the unwanted babies?
6
I think that the majority of Americans are allowing the "Pro-Life" group to keep a descriptive title which they do not deserve. Many in the Pro Life group are just Pro-Birth.
'Right to Life' should imply the right to a decent life and this is something that the Evangelical and other conservative Christian Republicans would tell you is in the hands of God post-birth, or worst case scenario; after a life of deprivation on Earth, possibly a wonderful post-life with their Savior. Pro-Lifer politicians seem to consciously avoid improving the lives of children and mothers in our vast underclass with their lack of support for quality childcare, early education, a healthy environment, livable minimum wage, etc. Yeah, we know. Pray on it.
And why give in to these religious zealots' belief that abortion destroys a soul or is even murder? If so, then what's up with God's big plan? Studies now show that there's as many miscarriages as there are abortions in the USA. (Of the pregnancies in 2010, 65% resulted in live births, 17% were miscarried and 18% ended in abortion.)
The MEN who the bible 2,000 years ago (pre-medical science) had no idea what was happening in a woman's womb but they were interested in controlling it...
Show me how we've changed.
38
The fierce abortion debate has not changed many minds but has entrenched each opposing side in the absolute certainty that the opposing side maintains their position for the very worst possible intentions. iGen and subsequent generations will have to sort this out as current generations are incapable.
1
@Bill Cullen, Author There are at least 15 places in the Bible that show that life starts when a baby breathes at birth or later. It starts in Genesis. At one point a child was not counted until it survived one month, There were no anti abortion laws either at the time the Bible was written or about the time of the stories in the Bible.
6
@eyes wide open: the pro-choice side may very much be pro-birth control, wanting children to be planned and wanted. However, no pro-choicer is just pro-abortion as if that’s all they want is to abort pregnancies. Only the so-called pro-lifers intend to force their views onto everyone else.
5
I have a idea for the Democratic state representatives and senators in the states of Alabama, Georgia, Utah, Ohio, and other states with highly restrictive anti-abortion laws. Introduce "Supporting Life" legislation, which would give a safety net to mothers that cannot support a child. This would include under the age of consent mothers, rape and incest victims, babies with disabilities, couple with poverty incomes, etc. Benefits should include income subsidies, daycare, educational opportunities, social services support, health care services, etc. I would be surprised if the anti-abortion conservatives would support this legislation.
26
@Steve Blum
Here's where men miss the point.
This isn't just about economics. Whether people can afford to have and raise a child.
This is also about something else: women having control over their bodies and their lives.
Money and benefits for pregnant women and financial help to raise children if needed are all well and good.
But that doesn't take the place of our freedom.
That's the bottom line here.
Our freedom.
84
@Steve Blum I had the exact same thought. Since Roe will probably eventually go down, we should start legislation like this now. Or, forget the abortion issue.
We should just plain start legislation like that now anyhow.
2
@fast/furious
Well said.
2
The pro-life approach is strategically no different than what took place a little more than two centuries ago in England as they confronted the stain of slavery. William Wilberforce and a host of allies worked tirelessly in the face of countless critics until the moral opinion of the nation swung and the legislative vote reflected that. They opposed pro-slavery opponents whose argument was sometimes hauntingly similar to the pro-choice position today ("my body, my property"), proclaiming that the slave was not a second class citizen but was worthy of protection. May it be the case for the unborn in our own time.
5
@Scott
That can be flipped the other way.
Women are not slaves. We don't belong to men. We don't belong to your churches. Your ideology doesn't own us.
We belong to ourselves. Body and soul.
Trying to force women to bear children they do not want or cannot raise or who simply do not want to be pregnant IS slavery.
Let women decide. Not you. Not your church. Not your culture.
Roe v. Wade had been settled law for over 40 years.
Except for you people, this has worked. If you don't want to have an abortion, don't have one.
If you don't want to carry your pregnancy, you have a choice. It's your body. It's your life.
41
Nice self-back-patting, Scott, but the essence of what makes a slave a slave is the enforced, complete lack of choice.
10
@Scott
Sorry, Darling, you lost me there. (You and the Trump Republican party of white racial resentment, and making America great again for white men alone.) You want to take away the freedom and the inalienable rights of women. And your desire to do so is just like the anti-slavery movement?
11
Making abortion illegal will never stop women from having them. Never ever. Abortion was available before Roe vs. Wade and will be available if it's overturned. People who think they can simply stop abortion by making it illegal are completely deluded. What they will accomplish is making it less safe.
38
In order to stop abortion you would have to stop sex period.
2
This country and its people can be so primitive at times. Even after 26 years as an immigrant here I am still shocked how, in the 21st century women are still fighting this battle. Religion just clouds everyone’s judgment on issues that shouldn’t be legislated.
33
Thank you for identifying the real culprit.
8
Men need to be punished for getting a woman pregnant. If we're going to enact such unfair laws towards women, men need to take responsibility too. If you don't believe in abortion don't have one. If you're a man, you can't decide what women do with their bodies!
38
In multiple States, where a child is conceived as a result of rape, give child visitation rights to the rapist.
7
I question the credentials of these people who define themselves as "Pro-Life." While they are pro-fetus there seems to be zero support for what is required for a sustained life. Their attitude is once you are born, thank us and you are on your own.
In none of the laws presented or passed are their provisions for: lifetime medical care for people born with serious medical problems and conditions; funding to make sure that the child will have a home that is safe; that the parents can get paid employment that makes enough to pay for them and their child(ren) to provide the food, clothing, medical care, education, and other necessities; there is no funding to care for the children who will be abandoned; no funding to create safe towns and cities for them to live in; to make it law that they are equal citizens and cannot be discriminated against because of their birth, gender, race, or any other aspect of their lives; that at age 18 all will get the right to vote unrestricted by their zip-code, gender, race or other aspects of their lives; to end the practice of the death penalty; and others too numerous to detail here.
The Pro-Life folks aren't really pro-life, they are pro-power to inflict their beliefs onto the rest of the population, to end recreational sex, to keep their fellow citizens "in their place" while holding the reigns of power for themselves.
36
Excellent, excellent comment.
2
I am reminded of the great success achieved by the Prohibitionists. This is the same misguided attempt to have the government curb any and all behavior disliked by the same group of wrong minded ultra religious puritanical meddlers... Keep your religious beliefs to yourselves and keep government out of my personal life. Guns in the hands of everyone, death penalties, war and prisons are fine. Helping people in need is awful and unjust. What is wrong with these people?
16
Religious values also prompted the legislative fight to end to British and US slavery and gave birth to the American civil rights movement led by Rev. Dr. Martin King, Jr.
Not PRO-LIFE, they ate anti-choice. They want their particular religious views rammed down the throats of women across the country- very much like the Taliban and very other religious group that wants to control women’s lives.
I am pro-life - really pro-life. I want to protect the lives of women and girls who find themselves in pregnancies that cannot be sustained. I want them to have the ability to safely make the right choice for themselves and their families.
17
Your comment brings back to mind something I have said over many years. There's a reason why you don't hear about people being pro-abortion: it's because no one is pro-abortion. We are Pro-Choice.
6
We now know exactly what “Make America Great Again” really means: we’re all joining Mr. Peabody and Sherman on a ride in the ‘Way Back Machine,’ back to the Appalachian south during the late 19th century post-Reconstruction era. We’ll get rampant white supremacy, an ‘aristocracy’ holding sway over a vast underclass of uneducated, poor white sharecroppers, factory workers and miners, bible-thumping snake-oil salesmen, and primitive superstition passing itself off as that ol’ time “Christian” religion.
Elmer Gantry waits in the wings, ready to fleece the flock. Funny, he looks a lot like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Robert Jeffress... hey, over there, is that a baby Donald Trump?
479
@chambolle
Beautiful!
2
@chambolle. You nailed it. This is a continuation of the rich, white male conservatives to once again rule over the lower classes, women and minorities. The uneducated and poorer Americans that support them have been preyed upon and duped. But their numbers grow and their voting power increases as the movement generates more of them through higher priced education, unobtainable housing, and social media hype and propaganda. I’m honestly very scared for the future of this world.
1
Be pro choice.
CHOOSE BIRTH CONTROL and NEVER face the lifelong consequence of aborting.
14
That is until birth control / contraception is illegal too. & that is also part of the so-called right to life agenda. Forced celibacy and forced pregnancy are the agenda, you on board for that too?
18
@Moe-Larry-Cheese
"A 2016 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine examined the rate of unintended pregnancy in the United States from 2008 to 2011 and found that 45 percent of pregnancies in 2011 were not planned. That’s 2.8 million unintended pregnancies, of which more than 40 percent would end in an abortion."
More responsibility and birth control would help.
2
Yes. I never could understand why so many men go around recklessly having unprotected sex. What’s wrong with them?
So, if women aren’t allowed bodily autonomy, men shouldn’t have it either. Collect and freeze sperm, then mandate vasectomies for all males ages 16 and over.
Do that, and four things will surely follow: 1) abortion rates will plummet (though not disappear due to dangerous pregnancies); 2) child abuse and neglect rates will plummet; 3) “oops” babies and rape babies will no longer happen; and 4) fewer women will be beaten and/or murdered by their so-called loved ones.
13
The organization, 40 Days for Life, has also been very active in the anti-abortion movement for over 10 years. They have branches in every state and in many countries around the world. I partake in this very important cause and they have made great gains in saving babies from abortions. They quietly keep vigil in front of Planned Parenthood and many women have been convinced by their genuine concern to have their babies.
They assist these women and babies in any way necessary and help with housing, job training and employment. Many are alone but with this assistance and caring attitude they have found support. Many have said that because someone showed some concern for them and their babies, they decided not to abort. They often join our ranks and have told us how glad they decided to give birth. They have absolutely no regrets.
6
I had an abortion- it was the correct choice for myself and my family. I then went on to have 3 other pregnancies that went to term and produced real babies. I adore my children and am grateful for their lives but I know the difference between them and the collection of cells of the pregnancy I ended - safely and legally
19
@KMW. Ok but are these women/babies completely supported until the children are grown? Are women that chose to give up their babies supported with lifetime psychological care? Are good paying jobs provided for women that lose theirs because of the pregnancy? Child care? Are these women supported with birth control and family planning so that future unwanted pregnancies do not occur? I know in some very limited instances the answer might be yes. But in most it is not. To me being "Pro-Life" means placing emphasis on the feet already on the ground (and this absolutely means helping immigrant children at risk of death). I'm not pro abortion. But I'm absolutely disgusted by the hypocrisy expressed by most in the "Pro-Life" movement and think a better way might actually be to support women. I'm guessing that might be the quickest way to reduce abortion rates.
9
Did you pay for prenatal and postnatal care? Provide health insurance? A job? Daycare? Decent housing?
8
No one is "winning" anything. So stop trying to pull that one off on us. They're actually losing because these draconian laws they've produced will probably not get the approval of the Supremes and the backlash against them will be astronomic.
In my book, that's called LOSING
14
If you are appalled by what’s happening please consider monthly donations to planned parenthood or similar organizations that care about the health of girls and women.
23
If we are going to force women to have these babies, there has to be a consequence for men. The father should be “on the hook” for financial support till adulthood, at a minimum. Or jail.
Both men and women have responsibility here.
38
Humans are the cancer of the planet.
Any effort to curtail a cancerous growth shouldn't be stymied.
16
"winning across the country"????
Grossly inaccurate. These people will never have majority support.
And women will never surrender our personhood.
17
If these new state anti-abortion laws are passed without majority support, then all these state legislators are committing political suicide.
2
Women can't do this alone. Every pregnancy involves a man. Somehow, when it comes to abortion, she has a name and he is anonymous.
16
With DNA this will end.
This contradicts Roe vs Wade, and is supremely wrong.
8
So what if all of this effort fails? By a wide margin, Americans support abortion rights. Extreme measures that will force rape victims to have babies aren’t going to win in the court of public opinion. What if SCOTUS upholds Roe v Wade? Or what if the court overturns Roe, abortion is placed on the state ballot — and the majority of voters continue to support reproductive rights. I wonder if any of you pro-life folks might tell me — what then?
11
Unrestricted abortion is not supported by Red state legislators because they must believe their constituents will re-elect them based upon support for these new laws.
The reality is that rape and incest and failed contraception accounts for less than 1 percent of abortions
That means people are just being flat out irresponsible and careless.
So we've got millions of people all fired up about protecting the right of people who are too careless to use contraception to end the beginning of a human life.
2
And you suggest these careless people should be responsible for infants?
6
What about the man, he got the woman pregnant.
2
@Luciano Careless or not, it’s my uterus. I’ll thank you not to mandate what I store in it based on your judgments about my sex life.
1
Well, liberals finally have a real grievance to complain about. Restricting women's options with extreme anti-abortion laws is a terrible thing. But liberals brought this sad event on themselves by passing partial birth abortion laws in blue states like New York and supporting Planned Parenthood's selling fetal tissue to the highest bidder. These actions are repulsive and have created a revulsion and response that I fully understand. Abortionists have gone even further and stated, as per the governor of Virginia, that infanticide is a viable option if a partial birth abortion results in a live baby. Like in so many other matters, the extreme actions of liberals have generated an extreme counter response.
9
Do you spend much time making stuff up and yelling at it like this?
9
@Alex
I know several women who had to have late term abortions. One had conjoined triplets - either two had to die so one would be saved, or all three would perish. She chose to save one. The other women had had severe fetal defects identified - one with no brain, another with no lungs.
Gov Northam was referring to these types of tragic pregnancy outcomes - that is, would the parents want to choose comfort care or would they want the doctors to try to keep the infant alive through extraordinary means.
Would you really want the State to become involved in this kind of awful scenario? I recall the 'Terri Schiavo' case with horror and had hoped we would all perceive the danger of letting politicians bring the power of the State to bear against a family.
So one group is “anti-abortion” and the other group is “pro-choice”? Why not “pro-life” and “pro-abortion”? More semantics and euphomysms to obscure what’s really at stake: the fate of life in utero and the ability to snuff it out.
3
@Rain Parade What about the word "choice" do you not understand? OK, let me explain it to you.
"Choice" means deciding what you, as the mother, want to do if you become pregnant. Maybe your birth control failed. Maybe you weren't ever educated in birth control. Doesn't matter. The government or people with different religious beliefs should not be able to control your life.
It should be your choice, not theirs.
7
@Rain Parade People are not pro abortion. I have not met a single person to wants to have an abortion as a chosen activity, like dance class. Why is a group of cells which might turn into a baby after 9 months of gestation more important than the needs of a fully grown woman who does not want or cannot afford a child, or a child who is a victim and becomes pregnant because of incest or rape?
8
Will the wives, daughters and girlfriends of reactionary "pro life" zealots be able to obtain abortions in the face of these outrageous laws? You bet they will!
25
@iPlod Precisely. Those with means can always get an abortion in California or some other pro-choice state. This is slavery for minorities and the very poor.
4
@Eyes Wide Open When abortion was illegal they were performed in doctor's offices, apartments, motel rooms, back alleys and, for the well off, other countries. Secret clinics indeed. Many women died or were left with serious injuries. I'm sure many "pro life" proponents think that's just fine and that the women who died deserved it. Your eyes aren't as open as you think they are.
3
So let me get this straight: in these so-called “right to life” states, abortion is considered “murder,” while guns are all about “freedom.” Got it. Just trying to keep their hypocrisy straight.
27
believe what you want to believe leave me out of your decision making- if it will be punishable, then each and every guy much be named a " unidicted co-conspirator" and be subject, without exception to pay for 1/2 of every dollar the child needs, plus cant leave the state of residence of the father, plus once dna proves paternity, involuntary vasectomy. whats the matter guys?? not what you had in mind?
5
"Power always thinks it is doing God's service, while it is violating all of his laws." -- John Adams
17
How about reversible vasectomies for all males when they hit puberty?
12
@Rebecca. Good idea and for consistency with their religious doctrine, reversal occurs only after marriage.
4
Pro Birth is not Pro Life.
You cannot be in favor of the death penalty, pass cutbacks to children’s health care , access to affordable food or quality education, allow religious objections to insurance coverage for birth control and call yourself pro life.
The United States is headed in the direction of countries like Brunei, Syria, Qatar and Guatemala.
24
I’m waiting for the laws that hold the impregnator equally responsible for half of all finances and half of all childcare. But no, the expectation is that women should be forced to bear the emotional and financial burden of the pregnancy, the post-birth expenses, and the child’s entire life. They just want to punish and shame women and to keep them financially dependent.
26
This isn’t an issue of “moral” or “religion”, this is an issue of human bioethics. All this talk should hang more on scientific bioethics and less on moral or religious leanings.
At 8 weeks, the human fetus has developed neural branching and formed neural pathways - it can feel pain.
By 12 weeks, the entire basic physiology is formed, including brain, heart, eyes, ears, internal organs, even fingerprints. It moves, hiccups, kicks around - it’s not “a mass of tissue”, it’s a living being and again - it can feel pain.
A common argument is that “a woman chooses what she does with her own body”, but the fetus isn’t “the woman’s body”, it’s an enervated, live human body of another person.
Having said all that, it’s unconscionable that arrogant politicians across the country presume to lump victims of rape, incest, pedophilia, and victims of crippling genetic mutations into the same restrictive legislations based on their arbitrary notions of “morality”.
In some cases, like the above, abortions are a bioethical necessity in order to alleviate victims’ suffering, and can be performed in a humane way that takes fetal physiology into consideration.
Since Roe v Wade, however, a general free-for-all mentality toward abortion without consideration to fetal physiology has rampantly inflicted untold amount of suffering to the unborn. This must be remediated, especially late term & post-neural development abortions. This is why the push for legislative restriction is working.
3
@LA 3 NYC
A person cannot be compelled by the State to donate blood, bone marrow, organs - even if the would be recipient is their minor child who would die without the donation. This holds true if the parent's reckless actions placed the child in such a precarious medical state. A corpse also has bodily autonomy. Its tissues can't be taken without consent.
How is refusing to provide life support to an embryo or fetus any different. The abortion pill doesn't kill the embryo/fetus but merely turns off life support.
@LA 3 NYC This is junk science, pushed by forced-birth advocates.
Fetuses can feel pain at 27 weeks. Pain requires neuron receptors on the body, a spinal cord that can carry the signals, and a brain developed enough to process those signals. While pieces to that train are built through the pregnancy, they don’t not get fully wired until the last trimester.
Let's hope this wave within the anti-abortion cause does not die down. I will gladly be of service to the movement in any way that I can. I will travel to any state where they need support for the cause. I will donate money and time whenever necessary.
I am passionate about pro life and want to save the unborn from death. With the gains that have been made, we cannot go back. We can only go forward and proceed as determined as we have never been before. We can do it and want to reach our end goal which is to end abortion for good.
4
If you want to “end abortion for good” try universal sex education and birth control. I want to end ignorance for good but it’s not working
23
@KMW. Then you’ll ensure all women have birth control? That all kids get comprensive sex Ed? That men are held equally responsible for preventing unwanted pregnancies?
19
You know, it would be great if you could direct all that passion, drive and available funds towards the medical care, education, housing, and other support structures for all the children already here, as well as the women now forced to bear them. Somehow, I’m not seeing much concern for them in your statements. For my part, my donations to Planned Parenthood, NARAL and the ACLU will go off in the mail today.
17
The fight to preserve abortion rights must be front and center for all Democrats; it is even more important than the Mueller investigation or the impeachable offenses committed by Donald Trump and Bill Barr. Such medieval laws being passed by what might be called the “confederacy” illustrate how conservative religious beliefs end up superseding a woman’s rights. Hopefully individual states can at least preserve such rights. But a long and painful battle is upon us.
11
@Peter ERIKSON and yet Peter the DCCC is supporting a number of anti choice “democrats” who also support Trump.
Democrats had better wake up. They are seen as not committed to women or anything else.
To all of you purist far left progressives who bemoan, that there’s “no difference” between the mainstream Democratic Party and the GOP, just how much more evidence do you need to understand how false that equivalency is?
11
I've always felt pro choice advocates are in a terrible messaging bind.
Whatever they say, however abortion rights are presented, it still comes down to people marching in the streets for the right to kill a fetus that within months would have become a living breathing human being.
4
@Luciano. You need to read up on why certain medical procedures occur.
5
Now abusive partners need only impregnate their partner to ensure she’s always tethered. It also means women with severe addiction issues and mental health issues will be forced to be mothers. How anyone can celebrate these things as wins is disheartening. Women will die based on these new laws from suicide or attempts to self abort.
19
While campaigning, republicans were very honest about their goals: overturn Roe v Wade, get ride of ACA and appoint conservation judges and Supreme Court justices to achieve these goals.
Further, seems to me, voters who agreed with flawed argument that Obamacare/government wrongly interferes with doctor patient relationships - yet, when it comes to women's reproduction health, there will be push for government regulating doctor patient relationships, are getting the government they deserve.
7
This is what life was like before abortion was legal.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/abortion-doctor-carved-up-his-patient-in-trumps-old-neighborhood
72
Ok, so the antiabortion activists claim that their intent is to save innocent lives. Their lack of concern for babies once born aside, if they want to save lives they would do far better to crusade to ban the sale of assault weapons. However, it seems their intent is to use government to control womens' bodies and ultimately to put women "in their place". I recall that the chair of our science department once said (in 1975) that "Women have no place in science". Another at Marquette University became visibly angry at "those damn feminists!") (this was in 1996). So, I believe it's less about "saving babies" than about instituting regressive conservative political policies that seek to restore men's predominance in society and relegate women to the role of homemaker.
19
These people hate women and children once they are born. But for some reason they are obsessed with a clump of cells.
29
A clump of cells? Seriously?
3
@Misplaced Modifier
It’s not a “clump of cells”. If you research fetal development you can get more accurate information about what it is.
3
Condensed to its Essence :
Fetus=Person
Woman=Livestock.
VOTE, Women. While we still can.
38
I recommend that every abortion proponent take up his/her second amendment guarantees. It is unconscionable that we might have our freedoms proscribed while led like lambs to the slaughter.
6
It seems to me unlikely that Donald Trump has ever paid for an abortion, but I am prepared to believe that Michael Cohen has paid for several.
18
Why the stop at heartbeat? Why not egg and the sperm? Maybe these Alabama Republicans should be upstaged .... tell them to stop killing their sperms or they would be jailed for 99 years?
(Dear New York Times: This is sarcasm)
10
Interesting that half of the pregnancies are "unplanned".
Best as I know, many of the men who are leading the anti-abortion wave were involved, and they knew damn well what they were doing, and THEY weren't planning.
Can they be sterilized if they are the father of an unplanned child after six weeks?
25
“Winning” does not equal “Passing blatantly illegal laws so that they can be challenged in court and possibly upend the law of the land, Roe vs Wade”. Please update your headline. Thanks.
239
These " fetal heartbeat " bills are simply cruel. My sister and I have both taught middle school students, grades 6-8. I can't tell you how many girls we've witnessed over the years that have become pregnant. Typically, they don't know the signs of pregnancy. Often they have been abused by a family member and have been threatened to " keep the secret." Some have been taken advantage of by older boys. Some have willingly had sex.
Lately, one girl didn't realize she was pregnant until she was eight months along...way past the point of having an abortion. It was heartbreaking to witness.
These children have no idea how to take care of themselves much less a baby. Going through a pregnancy at 12 -14 years old is needless. Life threatening. Traumatic.
What are these people thinking? Are they and the states that pass these Bills willing to be liable for these unwanted pregnancies? Bear the costs of pregnancy, childbirth and upbringing? Because these children can't.
Is this their way of shaming people? Of filling adoption agencies with babies? Of ensuring a circle of poverty? Of trauma?
It makes me sick to think about all the unforeseen consequences of these Bills.
Let's take care of the children who have been born who face a life of hunger, neglect, lack of a good education and a meaningful future.
It is puzzling we are even having this discussion when the vast majority of this country support Roe vs Wade.
154
Progressive efforts to generally improve our lives will always struggle to maintain settled decisions (such as abortion law) against people with single-minded religious conviction. The refusers. Such is the best and worst of humanity - the perseverance of belief.
9
@Aaron: There is no settled decision about what the Congress is prohibited from doing with respect to religion. It is the most in one's face dishonesty in the USA.
1
Women's reproductive rights advocates have to take the conflict to the churches and Sunday schools of their adversaries if they want to effectively counter the ascension of patriarchal authority to prevent safe, medical abortions. If women's reproductive rights advocates do not, they should expect contraception to also become prohibited.
7
We have come to the predictable moment when the facade of the pro life movement comes off and we come face to face with the religious extremism that is at its foundation. This is a movement that plans to replace constitutional law with religious law and in so doing usher in the horrors of a theological state. We can pretend to talk about this issue using logic or political platforms or cultural differences but the issue remains one of supremacy. What is more important in the construction of law? Is it the secular constitution with its emphasis on equal rights and majority rule or is it the religious beliefs of an extremist minority that has used wedge issues to gather an unrepresentative share of political power and begun to dismantle what the majority conceives of as the rule of law. This battle is out in the open now and it will spread to issues other than abortion. Are we a theocracy or a democracy? That is the question the courts and Congress now have before them.
18
These people are not against abortion, nor are they pro-life. Making abortion illegal does not end abortion, and in fact causes high rates of death from botched abortions among women. So, no, these are people imposing their specific religion on other people. the irony here is that, many of these people, being conservative generally, are also the ones or cousins of those ,who have been screaming bloody murder about keeping Sharia Law from taking over the United States. I don't really see a difference between them and that. It's all about oppressing and controlling women.
11
They are against trusting that others who consider their own circumstances can make choices that contradict what they have been told are the correct ones.
They oppose modern political culture which is secular and does not rely upon religious authority. It’s not Sharia Law but upon the idea that religion should be the foundation of all civil social life. They like to think of themselves as promoting religious freedom while ignoring the fact that Freedom of Religion is based upon freedom of conscience and the necessary separation of church and state that it requires.
Banning abortions won’t stop abortions. It will only make all abortions unsafe.
A better solution would be to prevent unwanted pregnancy. To be truly pro-life, to advocate for both the life of women and future babies, we should focus on making every last pregnancy a wanted one.
15
How many of these people who are so intent on making certain that every pregnancy produces a new baby have a plan for how women who don't have the financial ability to care for that child will provide him or her with food, adequate shelter, healthcare, childcare and stability, among other things, given that over the past couple decades this country's economic and social support networks have been dismantled? And do they have a plan for how, in a country with an abysmal health care system, children born with deformities, disabilities and/or chronic illnesses will receive the care they need and how their parents will get the support they deserve?
11
Unless a man or woman, boy or girl, mother or father, priest, pastor or rabbi, the father of the fetus, the father of the girl/woman involved, the mother of the person involved, the victim of rape or incest, "consensual rape" (what a joke, obviously they have NEVER been in that situation!) has been through this themselves, then they have no business speaking to this issue, none. The hurt one must fact to make this decision is not found in any law book, but in the broken heart of the decision maker. Sometimes that decision must be made, and it is the decision that lasts a lifetime. Furthermore, I am afraid that a good part of these resolves are a result and backlash to late term abortion laws that have been recently passed.
3
Why is this not being framed as an equal rights issue? Men can leave town or simply deny parental responsibility while the woman has no such options.
8
It's not a wave, it's just the curve of the bubble. The world has moved on in the fifty years since this fight started. If anything, we are a more secular nation now and less likely to take a religious interpretation of a law lying down. Women will not be intimidated into a subservient state by the mystical rantings of old white men. Bring it on because even if they win they lose. Representation will change, governments will change and the laws will change. The thing about a wave is, you can just as easily be drowned in one as to be lifted upward. Be careful what you wish for, especially if what you wish for, harms so many others.
8
The interviews I read this week after these laws passed never ask what these people are doing to support life after birth.
Ask the question.
I assume that can do more than one thing at a time, so what are they doing to support women and children immediately post-partum and throughout life?
6
The mentality of religious fanatics is that God actively manages people’s lives. They offer charity to gain points with God not to relieve suffering which they attribute to God’s will not the absence of human intervention as most people do.
If they want to prevent abortions, then make sex education mandatory for males and females. Provide easy, cheap access to reproductive healthcare including contraceptives. Educate women, and provide opportunities for them. Hold young men responsible for fathering a child and enforce laws and punish rapists with more than a slap on the wrist. These actions will reduce the need for abortion by significant numbers. This is proven.
11
I'm not in favor of legal abortion except in some very narrow circumstances. But I do recognize it as the law of the land.
What I don't understand is why it appears to take some women so long to decide they don't want the baby they are carrying. We now have pregnancy tests that can be used practically after hanging up the nightgown. If it's positive and one does not want a child, why on earth would one wait months to terminate the pregnancy? Is it really unreasonable that it can't be decided upon in the first 6-8 weeks?
Late term abortion is brutal and many doctors cannot bring themselves to even do these unless the life of the mother is at stake. And a baby aborted live? It is impossible to even contemplate such.
It always bothers me to hear abortion rights presented as a woman's right to her own body. Did she become pregnant by osmosis? In reality, very few abortions are done on victims of rape. In most cases, it's a case of "regret". We have inexpensive, reliable birth control out there. No one need become pregnant unless she is careless or wants a baby. Most abortions are not teens who have made a bad unprotected choice - it's women in their 20's.
If we want women to have the right to a legal, safe abortion, perhaps we need to all agree on some limitations to that right. Setting that limit at 6-8 weeks seems reasonable to me.
2
I’m guessing from your questions that you’re not a resident of a small town in a state which may require more than two visits to determine pregnancy and then schedule an abortion. Birth control is not always readily available or foolproof, womens’ periods can be irregular and make it harder to actually confirm pregnancy, and older women with established families who find themselves pregnant even after using birth control may not want to add or cannot cope with another child, to list one example. Then there’s a host of medical conditions which can show up anytime in pregnancy and threaten the mother’s life - preeclampsia, ectopic pregnancy, fatal birth defects incompatible with life appearing late in pregnancy, an incomplete miscarriage, etc. You may troubled about what you see as the ready availability of abortion (and really, it’s not), but what’s troubling for me is your lack of knowledge or awareness about any of the situations I’ve mentioned, which women find themselves in every day, and your readiness to pass judgment on those who have to navigate those situations.
5
@India
Many women don't have regular cycles and wouldn't know they are pregnant until at least 8 weeks have passed. In fact I'm not sure how early a pregnancy test would turn positive. It certainly isn't positive right away. I think though that most women would know they were pregnant within the first trimester. And that is when most abortions are performed. The later ones are mostly due to health issues and/or serious fetal defects, which can only be identified after 20 weeks.
1
So now we are back to the Victorian era with drop-off boxes where women can deposit their discarded babies? If this is not the most grotesque thing I’ve read in a long time, I don’t know what is. So let’s just embrace the rest of the reproductive strategies of the Victorian age. Among them: baby farms where unwanted children were sent to die (see Dickens); maternal mortality approaching fifty percent; and of course, the river which generously accepted corpses of the newborns. And don’t forget children malformed, crippled, disabled, cognitively and developmentally challenged, rejected by their families and overlooked by society. We now have the medical means to prevent the birth of such children. But instead the “pro-lifers” push for laws to increase their number (how else would you interpret the law to prevent abortion on the basis of fetal abnormality?). Pro-life? No, pro-suffering.
9
What makes Republicans think that just getting to the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v Wade? Kavanaugh hasn't exactly rubber stamped GOP policies. He's not exactly David Souter, but he's certainly not Antonin Scalia either.
3
My biggest problem with this "wave" of legislative victories for anti-abortion activists is that politicians would decide women who are raped must bring the fetus to term. Pro-choice supporters should be focusing on this issue. We need to hear from women who were raped. We need graphic stories that get media attention. When more women (and men) recognize how horrific this bill is, they will never vote for a Republican again. When Republicans have less power in Congress, these bills stand no chance of passing.
9
anti abortion views are religious. the us was not supposed to be a religious state. it becomes one. Christians cannot accept to live in a democracy and want to change America for the worst. abortion cannot be banned in a democracy. abortion cannot even be fought in a democracy.
4
The no choice people will protect a fetus with their own lives…until that child is born,when they lose all interest. They don't feed, clothe, vaccinate, educate, protect, nurture, house, inspire, enrich or love it. Then the tiki torches come out, the death penalty Is made legal & guns are everywhere . With those people it's all about the timing.
8
The hypocrisy is being both anti-abortion and anti-financial aid in an amount that would equalize the offspring of single mothers with the offspring of coupled mothers. It's very easy to hold strong beliefs as long as they hit someone else in the pocketbook.
3
The eventual result of these prohibitive laws will be to keep those Southern states even more backwards, even further behind the rest of the US in terms of wealth & forward movement. Why would any millennial, intellectual or well educated person move down there, get a job or start a business with this type of regressive social attitude? It will further exacerbate the economic divide between the well-off coastal elites & the poorer country folk. The certain poverty serves the Southerners right!
7
To be fair, there are things worse than not being in the economic elite. Not everyone aspires to Manhattanite ethics or lifestyle.
@Nathan But they sure want the tax dollars that come from those Manhattanites. How else are they going to support their regressive policies?
1
What energized the anti-abortion/pro-life movement in its current phase was Governor Northam's description of how the law would let a viable aborted baby die and Governor Cuomo's pink-light celebration of a similar practice in NY.
Nothing could have given the movement its current self-organizing power the way these highly publicized incidents have. They drew a stark line between two cultures that usually overlap in American life: One in which human life is inviolable (even given by God), and one in which a woman's right to choose the life or death of a viable fetus/infant is supreme. Real abortions are more complicated matters, and most people, when they are calm, understand this. But Cuomo and Northam put something intolerable in the face of what had been a more or less dormant movement. So here we are.
2
The future is frightening.
Wikipedia: “Anti-abortion extremists are considered a current domestic terrorist threat by the US Department of Justice.
Anti abortion violence has included kidnapping, stalking, assault, attempted murder, and murder”
Just 1 example:
“In 2015, a shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado left three dead and several injured. The suspect had previously acted against other clinics, and referred to himself as a "warrior for the babies" at his hearing.”
Our traditional “guns for all everywhere” politics and NRA influence will combine with the extremist anti abortion ideology now given more legitimacy by elected officials in various states.
Could we have expected legal abortion to be so threatened in the 21st Century? This and health care will be the biggest election issues. Let’s see which 2020 candidates are in line with modern civilization, and which would only weakly respond to the roll back to religious authoritarianism.
6
Don’t treat this as some super smart covert activity. Liberals and moderates KNEW what Trump represented in 2016. Liberals and moderates KNEW what denying Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court hearing was all about.
Got caught up with Clinton’s supposed Wall Street money and email farce.
Some policy or issue was going to take a fatal body blow if Trump won. It turns out it is going to be women’s rights and her right to choose. Trust me, they are not done. Control of women is the foundation to rebuilding patriarchy. Remember, these are the people that opposed ERA.
Voting matters. Played footsie with Bernie and Jill Stein. Got played by Russians on the Internet and you all believed the hype. There is a cost to this kind of stupidity.
Unfortunately, women will bear that brunt of it once again.
10
Where is the legislation to support the unborn child? Housing, food, clothing
and education? Where is the bill that punishes the father or rapist equally?
Lacking those measures, please do not call these advocates “pro life; hypocrites is more accurate.
8
Are folks proposing that all pregnant women give birth?
That’s preposterous...
They can’t stop abortion pills coming in the mail!
100
@Good Morning Should
Don't think "they" won't try. The Executive branch's mechanisms to do just that -- or at least try to do so -- are likely already in place.
19
@Good Morning Should
Misopristol in these states will be illegal. Still, perhaps the woman can get it through the mail, perhaps not. The thing though is that the woman should not have to hide it. With it, she could become the target of blackmail or violence by someone who finds out.
The situation is similar to a transgender woman going to a female bathroom: in 99.99% of the cases nobody knows, and nobody cares. However, if Republicans had their say, if she is found out, she may be convicted with a felony and has to register as a sex offender. What power does that give to someone who happens to know that she visits a women's bathroom.
15
@Good Morning Should
No. If there is no life, abortion pills are fine. If there is life, then abortion pills are the same as cyanide pills: poisons that take a life.
Focus on the only relevant questions: when does human life begin? and who makes that difficult decision?
I can't answer the first but "legislatures" is the answer to the second question.
Public opinion on abortion has not moved left the way issues like gay marriage have because it is a more nuanced issue than the anti and pro abortion sides portray. Most people's opinion on abortion depends as much on factors like the age of the fetus, the health of the mother and if there was rape or incest. People's opinion on abortion which ranges from anti birth control at one end of the spectrum to anti late abortions on the other where most people feel abortion is acceptable somewhere in the middle range of a pregnancy. This has created a very contentious stalemate over abortion rights after Roe v. Wade. The most conservative factions in our society have been able to chip away at at the stalemate because a conservative Supreme Court let them and because most of the population did not care enough to oppose gradual changes. Conservatives have also been able to use clever PR to portray the issues around late term abortions as the norm. By going for an all out victory conservatives will turn a short term advantage into a long term defeat. Moderates who are very much aligned with centrist pro-abortion forces have not been active on the issue because they did not really believe the right to abortion was threatened. Like Trump's election the extreme laws being pushed now will bring them off the sidelines. In the end the right wing Christians pushing these laws will be seen as a menace to social norms and will really be marginalized they way they have always feared.
17
I need to see proof of the left/moderates rallying around anything and translating that to votes.
Women are going to either move to a new state or accept their traditional role in these states.
A lot of states opposed to abortion were also opposed to ERA. Phyllis Schlafly would be ecstatic.
2
@JS What 'extreme' laws are being pushed by this administration? I can't think of any that I'd describe as being anywhere near extreme even.
A few days ago you replied to a post of mine & you claimed Trump is breaking the law by closing SOME points of entry on the southern border. Which laws? Which international treaties is he supposedly breaking?
You also claimed Trump was ignoring a "legal" subpoena. Firstly, I wasn't aware there was such a thing as an "illegal" subpoena, I thought all subpoenas were "legal".
Regardless, Trump is not breaking any laws with what he is doing, he is exercising his Constitutional authority & evoking Executive (in his case, presidential) privilege. That is 100% lawful.
As many people have pointed out, it was remarkable how Trump gave such total cooperation to SC Mueller's investigation. Trump authorised ALL family & associates to comply fully, McGahn gave 30 hrs testimony for example, same with many others. 1.4m documents handed over & not once was Executive Privilege evoked in regard to anything.
I think it's more than reasonable for the President to say, at this point, enough is enough. Two yrs, four investigations, huge sums of money, process offences being committed (Flynn, Papadopulos, Stone) as a result of this totally unnecessary SC investigation, all for WHAT, all to learn beyond a doubt that there was no collusion with the Russians after all. Were they worth it? Do you want MORE?
1
@kojak, yep. Oh by the way the investigation did not "prove" there was no "collusion" since "collusion" is not a legal term and it wasn't investigated. As far as conspiracy, apparently the multiple contacts between Trump's people and various Russian operatives didn't rise to the standard for legal prosecution and Trumps people were so inept that even the Russians couldn't work with them. Besides as I'm sure your aware Ruddy the Consigliere IE Trump's mouthpiece said that "colluding" with the Russians wasn't illegal to begin with. But obstruction of justice is and of that Trump is guilty, guilty, guilty. Was it necessary or worth it? Well that's in the eye of the beholder. If your an apologist for a deeply corrupt grifter like Trump I guess maybe not. For the rest of us, well maybe, we'll see.
4
I remember my parents telling me of a conversation they had with a pro life woman on Cape Cod in the mid 1980s during one of their meetings. She was a soft spoken woman who mentioned that it may take some time but they would one day pass anti-abortion legislation. She said determination and hard work would be the result of ending abortion.
Both this woman and my parents are deceased but they would be so happy and proud of the anti-abortion laws that have been passed to save the unborn. I carry the torch that my parents left behind and am so excited to be working for this anti-abortion movement that has finally after all these years made a difference in saving the lives in the womb. This makes me want to work even harder and never give up. I cannot because if we have come this far we must continue to end roe v Wade. I am passionate about this goal. We will succeed with so many in this cause.
5
@KMW
How will you feel when women start dying from obtaining unsafe abortions?
I am passionate about maintaining complete autonomy over my body and you have no right to hold a fetus' life above my own.
25
@KMW
You should understand that these 'wins' are not due to any genuine majority of support but because of completely unethical and anti-democratic manipulations and machinations of an authoritarian and entirely un-Christian in its behavior corrupt Republican party. If it was truly about saving lives then universal health care, shelter, gun control, immigrant children, and justice in the job market would be the focus of legislators. Just compare America's record to other nations on such measures and it becomes quite obvious that we are not a 'pro-life' country in any of the daily ways that truly matter.
13
The passion of the religious extremist engaged in a quest of coercion and domination over others is an oppressive thing. Like the extremists that control other reactionary conservative movements (guns, immigration, anti government tea party types etc) the anti abortionist is a rigid dogmatic purist undeterred by any sense of proportion or decency. Nothing matters but the quest and the damage they do in service to it is irrelevant. One wonders where it will end. I personally don’t think they will be content until forced pregnancy is the norm and contraception is again illegal as it was not so many decades ago. It has become a ignorant fetish for some and a act of tyranny for others. Only a charlatan like Trump could attract the devotion of both the true believer and the oppressive thug at the same time. Sad
12
I certainly can understand how a person, as a matter of conscience, can be pro-life. What I don't understand is how they believe they have the right to impose their beliefs onto everyone else.
It is ironic that the GOP has embraced the pro-life platform as the GOP had traditionally been the party of limited governmental intrusion. But now, in one of the most personal decisions that a person may ever make, the GOP wants full governmental intrusion. More than that, the GOP also wants to cut funding to children's health care, nutrition, education and all other programs that support children and families.
The GOP really is a Pro-Fetus party; their concerns end at birth.
262
@Paul R It’s easy - they believe it’s murder. If you are on a jury, would you say a person is innocent if they killed someone you didn’t know.
1
you are correct sir or ma'am
1
They’re not even pro-fetus, they’re just anti-women. Refer to their IVF stance in Alabama. Gave away the game.
22
I think all women should withhold sex until men recognise them as having equal rights - a sex strike so to speak.
52
@RamS Equal rights? Equal right to terminate an unborn's life? Since when did men have the right to have final say on whether an unborn should be terminated or not? Where abortion is lawful then it is the women, mothers, who enjoy the right to decide on an abortion or not, not a man's.
1
@kojak until a man volunteers to have a uterus grafted unto his body and thus carry the pregnancy to term, he has the right to disapprove of abortion, but he does not have the right to force any woman to carry a pregnancy to term if she does not want to. #mybodymychoice
11
@kojak, "unborn" is a disingenuous term that is meant to confuse and muddy the waters of debate. Biologically even monthly cycles are part of the "unborn" potential. Perhaps we should consider the eggs sacred like the sperm in Monty Python's humorous sketch. In the extreme fringe of the men's rights movement there is a push to give sperm donors (yep I'm trolling irresponsible males) the right to contest abortions and force pregnancies to their conclusion. So you think its not about control? hmm
5
This is not about abortion - these people are religious nuts who want to turn America into a theocracy.
Abortion is more visible than "religious freedom" which was too slow and they were impatient and needed a loud issue for 2020.
With Trump in the White House, they chose to step it up and tackle all of it now.
Control women? NO. Own women! Women are chattel! That's what these anti-abortion activists are all about.
We have to stop them.
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@Mimi They want women's lives to be secondary to their fertility -- like livestock.
18
@Mimi So, what women who oppose abortion are really all about is controlling other women, have I understood you right? Why d'you suppose these women are so determined to control other women, to the extent that they would use an issue like abortion as their trojan horse?
Don't you allow for the slight possibility that maybe these pro-life women actually believe in what they say they do, that this is ALL about human life & that it has absolutely zilch to do with being in control of other women?
1
@kojak, it doesn't really matter if its a cynical act of control to return us to the time of back ally abortions and illegal contraception or that these women actually believe a zygote is a baby. The results are the same & control is the outcome. If some of them see themselves and other women as "livestock" for their men and the lord then so much the better eh.
15
“Across the Country”: Indulging in a bit of hyperbole again, are we, NYT headline writers? I haven’t noticed that the wave of anti-abortion legislation has hit California. Nor will it.
27
Nor Oregon nor Washington nor NY nor Massachusetts nor Colorado nor Alaska nor Hawaii nor Connecticut nor Maine nor Maryland nor nor nor nor.
7
It's all fun and games until a Republicans mistress gets pregnant.
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Have any of these activists who cheer on anti-abortion bills ever even considered some of the serious results of their actions.Do they know that Oc-Gyn physicians pay the highest malpractice premiums in the medical field- their premiums are $85,000 to $200,000 per year.With more strict abortion laws they could be sued much more often and for higher amounts-if a woman is forced to carry a pregnancy and then does not survive or if a a baby needs intrauterine surgery and does not live the doctor will face bigger law suits and premiums will rise.Eventually the OB-GYN field will attract fewer physicians and everyone will suffer.Already the United States ranks low on rankings of developed countries on the. Number of live births.It ranks 33 out of 36 in a ranking of countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation.Why is healthy mothers and healthy babies who will be loved and nurtured not a priority?
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@JANET MICHAEL
My only consolation, unfortunately, when reading about these glory tactics by sadistic monsters legislating death for women and girls in the name of life, is that health care providers and insurance companies will run for their lives straight out of Alabama, Utah, Missouri and Georgia beginning immediately. Health insurance companies may be the most maligned corporations on earth, but they are not stupid and repelled by litigation. Endless lawsuits and prison sentences for physicians and patients who are pregnant or give birth is very expensive. Voodoo medicine is next in Utah, and highly religious southern states. Voodoo medicine is currently practiced by so called "fertility clinics" who have no qualified medical staff as they exist to "counsel" frightened, pregnant girls out of an abortion for great sums of money. It's all a scam, in the name of "life." Blue states have not yet succumbed to this nonsense, and, to date, see through this dangerous "medicine." But sadly, girls and women who live in these terrorist states will die by the droves. The activists featured in this article are simply the new manicured, clean Gods of the Deep South, aroused by sexual control and power that includes killing pregnant girls and women. Southern extremist leadership is always unhealthy, very religious, very white, and very ignorant.
15
Why do you assume these folks care if women die in childbirth? When they don’t include exemptions for maternal health, their priorities are pretty clear.
16
Now that religious extremists are in the driver's seat, we are seeing their true agenda unfolding.
Is there any doubt the goal of "pro-life" America is to outlaw ALL abortions with no exceptions? Is there any doubt the goal of "pro-life" America is to make women-controlled contraception as unavailable as possible, preferably illegal.
Right-wing and fundamentalist religious activists believe women should be at home taking care of the children, and women should be giving birth to more children. They believe divorce should be extremely difficult, or impossible, to obtain. They believe fornication is wrong (but the punishment should fall on women). They believe taxes should pay for their children to attend Christian schools, and that religious instruction should be allowed in public schools.
If you think I'm exaggerating, google some of the legislation being introduced in red state legislatures, where Republicans control both houses and the governor. This article makes it clear they are on a roll, dreaming of what their vast power can accomplish next.
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@Madeline Conant They want women out of the job market so they don't have to compete with us. As an added benefit, they don't have to deal with women who have the power of financial self-determination.
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@Centrist. Exactly. They want women to be dependent on men, which is what happens when you have children and cannot work outside the home. If you're dependent, you can't leave, even if you want to. And for those who point out that women are behind some of these restrictions: maybe they just don't want other women to have choices they didn't have.
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@Mom of 3
Growing up, I saw first hand the unhappiness of my mother, my grandmother and one of my aunts - all in marriages they had come to hate, but couldn't leave as they had no money of their own. My grandmother told me over and over, don't follow my path...
5
“A few decades ago, many Southern Baptist churches would preach far more frequently against divorce, fornication and premarital sex, said Wayne Flynt, one of Alabama’s most influential historians and an ordained Baptist minister. ‘There has been a huge shift,’he said, ‘and a narrowing of focus to abortion and same-sex marriage.’” There is still an emphasis on divorce, fornication and premarital sex. If you take away the possibility of abortion and make contraception so difficult as to be unobtainable, the only recourse is abstinence. These people are still living in the 19th century, and they want the rest of us to live there too.
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@Ockham9. Contraception is not difficult to obtain anywhere in this country it only requires the will to do so.
1
A few decades ago many southern Baptists churches would preach racism and segregation alongside their usual rants on human sexuality and immorality. It’s not a coincidence that the churches that preached against racial and gender equality are at the forefront of the anti abortion crusade. After all it’s about repression and domination of the targeted group. It’s a different song but the same tune and control is still the desired outcome.
7
@Thomas Smith, there are and always have been places in this country where contraception is not only difficult to obtain but downright impossible. This is true in part because pharmacists can now refuse to fill prescriptions based on religious grounds even where access to pharmaceuticals is limited. & then there's the cost. For many poor women the potential annual cost of over a thousand dollars and the refusal of states like Texas to accept federal funding puts contraception out of reach. But as a man you wouldn't know anything about that now would you.
6
Judging by the ways these laws are framed, justified, and marketed, one of their objectives is to enforce traditional sexual morality by making the results of immorality more inescapable and likely to occur. Justifying these laws as expressions of the will of God allows similar justifications for bans on birth control methods, and bans on giving people (particularly young people) information about how to obtain sexual satisfaction without risking pregnancy. The availability of such information decreases the occurrence of situations where abortion is an option, but God does not want this to happen unless it happens in the right way, through individual self-control and resistance to sexual urges.
5
@sdavidc9 Please clarify what you're trying to say.
One can only fully comprehend this issue if one is female. The combination of male majority state legislators who also proudly wear their NRA rating on their sleeves is beyond comprehension. The lack of empathy and medical knowledge is an embarrrssment .
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Mary, the anti abortion / reproductive rights crowd has always had a base of evangelical & conservative women within it. From Phyllis Schlafly to concerned women of America you have women opposed to abortion & contraception. The deeply repressive legislation passed in Alabama was signed by its women governor. Yes conservative mostly white men have played an excessively influential role in this sad state of affairs but too many women are unable to put the role of their gender in perspective. It’s a culture and religion issue as much as it’s a gender / sexuality one & many women are not on your side.
11
Language matters New York Times. I want to believe that it is beneath your collective intellectual capacity to use the term anti-abortion- which prioritizes the procedure over the woman having it- rather than anti-choice, or even more accurately, pro-suffering and subjugation to life endangering alternatives. If we do not start naming this advocacy that hurts women accurately, we allow the distancing that focusing on the procedure, rather than the woman who is choosing this procedure to be prioritized. Take responsibility for the violence this erasure of the women through language enacts. Procedures don’t need protecting, but women do.
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It never appears that pro choice advocates really have the woman’s best interest.
If they really did shouldn’t they also demand law makers that convicted rapists never have freedom again in their life time?
Or not encourage premarital sex?
Or demand law makers to enforce restraining orders with electronic monitoring devices and if the man is that threatening jail them into a work release program...
This list could go on for pages but how many people march against domestic violence or the early release of a rapist?
2
@Katherine Guillen I'm not sure forming a circular firing squad does anything more than empower anti-abortion crusaders. I would think that given the current state of affairs it might be best to forgo the pointless argument over semantics.
@Katherine Guillen
You suggest the word "pro-suffering" instead of "anti-abortion." How about the term "forced birther"?
It's short, it's easy to remember, and it presents a true image of those who want women to endure a kind of slavery.
This reflects the fundamental flaw in religious thinking: We’re right and you’re wrong. But why isn’t it enough, if you feel you are on morally solid ground and are following the precepts of the god you have imagined into being, to be satisfied with believing you are right?
Something in the religious impulse seems to require adherents to not only proselytize, but to impose their sense of moral correctness on others. I get the need to grow your religion by convincing others to join, but why does it matter to you if others commit what you have defined as sin? Feel free to create congregations with everyone you can convince to join with you and accept your terms, but leave alone those who don’t. That’s how a democracy works.
The thing that the religious strive mightily to ignore is that there are a wide variety of religions out there, all proclaiming with righteousness the same maxim: we’re right, they’re wrong. Seems to me they can’t all be correct can they? It also seems likely to me that any god worth devoting oneself to ought to have the capacity to bend the argument in his (or her) favor. Since the existence of widely varying faiths show this to be untrue, it seems likely that the human conception of the nature of god is riddled with holes that expose the clearly human foundations of religious belief.
It would be better for these believers to demonstrate their faith and leave it to god to deal with abortion and whether or not it is a sin.
17
@Marshall Doris Don't get what you're talking about.
The unfortunate truth is that these people work harder, longer, and more passionately than most of us. We've gotten lazy since Roe, but they still have a bright, shining goal to shoot for. And they're winning. It's great to throw rocks at them here, but when you're finished go to the Planned Parenthood or ACLU sites and give until it hurts you a little bit. These organizations are in the trenches fighting this effort in courts across the land. If we sit and do nothing to help them, we are part of the problem.
21
"a sustained effort by a network of disparate activists, each with their own strategy honed over decades of work". The leftist activists should take note of this. Stridency & constant "in your face" protests don't seem to have had as much effect, even with the elections of like minded politicians, as keeping quiet & being patient.
3
@Hilda, if you had ever seen an anti abortion protest you would know stridency and "in your face" harassment and intimidation looks like. But I suspect you already do.
5
@John Chastain Yes, most definitely there are those "people" in every crowd. But how many of those protests are happening versus the number of leftist protests? The leftist don't just protest against racism, unfairness & other causes, they go after any individuals that they happen to disagree with.
These people are not pro life. They're pro birth. If the push was to restrict gun rights these very same people would cry assault on their Constitutional rights. To the pro choice people that is exactly what pro birth people are attempting to do to American women. Women have a Constitutional right to govern their own bodies when deciding if, when and how they'll share their bodies. American women do not need to be ordered or dictated to. They're adults with same rights as their male counterparts.
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@Independent American "Women have a Constitutional right to govern their own bodies"??? Where did you get this notion from? Abortion, reproductive rights, are NOT mentioned anywhere in the Constitution whatsoever, therefore I have no idea what you are talking about.
Equality under the law is a Constitutional right. The right to medical decisions in privacy via HIPPA laws. Where in the Constitution does it state women's reproductive organs or their medical decisions are to be regulated?
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@kojak
Read the 9th and 10th amendments.
2
I think it's time for Democrats to adopt a new vocabulary. "Pro-life" is really Anti-choice and should be called so. "Conservatives" want to "conserve" nothing in this kakocracy. So "Anti-preservationists"? Whatever the word "conservative used to mean is null. There is no middle way anymore. Either I have my reproductive rights intact and preservation of policies geared to clean environmental issues, or I don't. The GOP is "anti" humanity. Call it like it is.
29
@maureen The democrats are the ones who are really pro-life if you look at the policies they support for those who have been born.
The "pro-lifers" are just pro-birthers. Then you are on your own
6
@maureen "Anti-humanity"?? LOL So it's to be against humanity if one believes in preserving innocent life where it is at all possible? But to approve of the practise of terminating a healthy, heart-pumping, soon to be thriving new life, that's for the good of humanity, is that what you'd have us believe?
@kojak - " innocent life"
Zygotes, blastocysts, embryos, and fetuses are not "innocent", as they lack the capacity for innocence. A product of conception that causes complications that injures or kills the pregnant woman is not "guilty", because it lack the capacity for guilt just as it lacks the capacity for innocence. Stop the lies.
2
The US has no universal health care so who is going to pay for the prenatal and birthing costs for women forced to carry children they don't want? The US has a higher maternal death rate than most highly developed countries but these activists think it is okay to force a woman to give birth and put her life at statistical or actual risk. They would force an 11 year-old child who was raped to go through the physical and emotional trauma of giving birth. But I bet that they would strongly support the death penalty for an unwanted child who grew up to commit a serious crime.
The US is regressing on a daily basis and we know from history that women always pay the highest price in backward societies. It is hard to believe that this is all really happening.
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@Lucy
You are looking at this logically. That’s not the focus of conservatives. This is a statement of ideology and values, not meaningful public policy.
Women and girls of all economic status will have their futures dictated to them. If they don’t want the child or can’t raise it, I can guarantee that IF the child is an attractive “adoption” candidate that there will be expedient processes set up to get that child into an evangelical home.
2016 was a 40 year decision. Too bad people conned themselves.
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@Lucy: Your response to your question is very simple. Pro-Life (really?), conservative Republicans do not care about the life of unwanted children and of the women forced to carry a unwanted pregnancy to term.
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@Lucy
Right on Lucy. As I will continue to say, these people are NOT Pro Life, they are pro-fetus. This psychotic obsession with controlling a woman's uterus and thus her body is not about caring for life, it is about subjugating women. Period.
How many of these people do you see protesting the death penalty? How many are arguing for better care for children born into severely economically deprived environments? If you can count them on two hands I'd be surprised.
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No one advocates that abortion is a great thing...women don’t look forward to abortions — they hope to never have one. No one is forced to get an abortion they don’t want (well, except young girls impregnated by an older married man). If you don’t want an abortion, don’t have one.
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The point is not personal choice on the abortion issue, the point is to enforce the religious beliefs of a minority on everyone else under the guise of the abortion issue.
It’s either the Bible or the Constitution, which side are you on?
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@Claudia Vandermade
Just the other day a reader said, and I quote, "Abortion is a good thing." Another said she had several abortions and didn't think twice about any of them. Yet another said abortion (not the procedure itself but the right to have one) was something to celebrate. Yet another said she was tired of people treating abortion as a necessary evil. Not sure everyone shares your views.
6
@Anonymous Citing your 2nd example of the reader saying the right to have an abortion is something to celebrate, I agree. I had an abortion 24 years ago and not only was it not traumatic in the least, but it was the right choice, and had a positive ripple effect. I’m typing with one hand while holding my WANTED young daughter’s sweaty hand as she falls asleep. She has a dad around and we can afford to give her all she needs. Unwanted, underprivileged kids— often barely parented by stressed out single moms short on resources of all kinds, on the other hand, grow up angry. These corrupt politicians are enabling the gun industry, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were all by design.
37
I’m so tired of the abortion issue. I wouldn’t personally have an abortion, but I don’t feel a need to impose my morality on everyone else. I have relatives that are against abortion and vote primarily on that issue. It feels like the world is crashing down around us these days- climate change is ever accelerating and our democracy is crumbling. Sometimes I want to shake my relatives and everyone else like them and ask them to wake up! What kind of future will all these unwanted children have, anyway?
857
It is not that your relatives are asleep, rather they are unconscious and are playing out the propaganda instructions that they hear everyday on their propaganda TV. You can’t wake up the unconscious, you have to revive them with a powerful stimulus and hope that they have not suffered too much brain damage while they were under. It will take a revolution to break the hold that propaganda has on these people so viva the revolution!
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@Angela Simmons. all law is morality. Climate change, abortion, immigration, penal reform. All laws reflect someone's values. The question isn't will morality be imposed but whose morality and why.
32
Abortion is a public health necessity. About 20 - 25% of conceptions spontaneously abort. Doctors will not help a woman with a spontaneous miscarriage for fear of participating in what others might call an abortion. Women will have to prove that it was God’s will and not a clothes hanger. A missed abortion caused the death of a woman physician in Ireland when she could not convince doctors that her fetus was dead. There are a number of medical conditions that make carrying a baby to term very difficult. There are ectopic pregnancies (where the embryo is not in the uterus) that can kill the mother by rupturing inside her fallopian tube and causing her to bleed to death. There are missed abortions (the baby dies and is not expelled) that can cause an infection and death of the mother. There are blighted embryos, there are chorioadenomas (a rapidly growing placental/uterine cancer that presents with a positive pregnancy test). Then there is IVF. Will IVF be allowed when we know that more embryos are created then are needed? We have the highest maternal death rate in the industrialized world. How can we force a woman to endure a pregnancy that could kill her. Where are the rules of self-defense? When men's personal safety is questioned they draw a gun and kill the offender. See: Treyvon Martin, unarmed, killed because of a "perceived" threat. Dying from pregnancy is very real.
156
I wouldn’t buy a used car from any of them
34
The worst aspect of what’s happening is no exception for rape or incest. Can you imagine a 15 year old girl being forced to deliver her father’s baby?...and then forever looking at the child and seeing her father? Adoption is not always the answer because adoptive parents can be just as bad as society in general. In the case of rape and incest, especially, pregnancies are not “miracles from God”. Recently I read of a southern right wing legislator who got his mistress pregnant. His first suggestion?...keep it quiet and get an abortion. Would that also be his advice if his teenage daughter got pregnant?....or his wife got raped? Perhaps thats why, in the case of Alabama, a woman having an abortion will not be criminally charged.
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Pregnancy is a medical condition, and like all medical conditions, there are myriad differences in the way it can progress.
None of the legislation takes into account the high rates of miscarriage that occur naturally: will a woman risk arrest if she seeks medical care or her doctor performs a D&C after a miscarriage? What about a fetus that dies in the womb. Will a law enforcement officer need to certify that there is no heartbeat before the procedure can be performed?
And what about in vitro fertilization? All those unused embryos: are they considered people under the personhood laws? If a couple inserts three embryos and only one implants, is that a form of abortion? Will it be illegal to reduce a multiple pregnancy to save the lives of the remaining fetuses?
Perhaps if these legislators had to grapple with the nuances of human reproduction before they write such sweeping and ignorant laws they'd realize why these decisions should be left where they belong: with a woman and her doctor.
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@Elizabeth A
These "people" don't understand or care about any of these things. They want to control women, full stop.
3
The "anti-abortion activists" have taken on the same characteristics as terrorist organizations like Hamas or Al Qaeda. They utilize a distorted of view of a sacred text in a select manner to suit their own value system to aggressively thrust it upon others by force. Anti-abortion activists have attacked and killed physicians, clinic workers and patients all in an effort to further their own movement. You could substitute the words "anti- abortion activists above and substitute with "Al Qaeda" and the result would be the same. It's time to call them what they are: terrorists.
214
Most of the movement’s core supporters appear to in the former Confederacy. One observer referred to them as members of Y’all Qaeda.
5
Agreed. They are domestic terrorists and have been domestic terrorists for decades. Christian nation? Oh, please.
4
The founding fathers fleed from government oppression of dictating religious belief. And thus the US and its Constitution were created. We now need to flee from the reverse: from religious beliefs governing our laws. Having religious beliefs dictate laws is what we see as Sharia law in other parts of the world. Do you as an American want that?
88
These saintly men (and women) must support expanded family planning. That would say birth control, as did Margaret Sanger, who also opposed abortion, and provision of financial support for victims and the offspring of rape and incest.
They can not in good conscience oppose such an idea.
9
@Joan In California They'll never support that, because the goal is to punish women for having sex. There's nothing else involved.
35
@Mike S. This makes less than no sense. I have never met a man who wanted to inhibit women from having sex. This is because, quite simply, men want to have sec and usually with women.
Although it’s surprising that religionists hold so much sway in these apparently backwards states, it all boils down to John Roberts. Will he set the country back 50 years or honor precedence?
67
That game is over. These people were hand picked and nurtured for this. Hats off to Conservatives. They always outmaneuver the Left.
Women who have a choice can move. Those that don’t have the means have lost some freedom. It’s happened before.
3
What's a wealthy White-Alabama family to do with their loss of reproductive rights? I don't suspect carry to birth.
38
Especially if the father is not from a “reputable” background or genetic make up
1
All of these people will have the blood of women on their hands. Are they also advocating for access to healthcare, for sexuality education so that children and young people understand how their bodies function, for access to contraception, for family friendly policies?
Thoughts, prayers and handing a mother a pack of diapers is not a solution.
57
@sanderling1 - Don't be silly, they're not going to give the mother diapers or anything else, not equal pay, affordable health care or a clean and safe environment for her child to grow up in.
7
Do these folks even have a clue that they are undercutting the whole idea that there are rights or powers "reserved by the people" that no legislature may infringe under the US Constitution? Or is that their fundamental objective?
22
Man. For a party that claims to abhor government interference in the private lives of citizens, somehow they always seem to do whatever they can to interfere in the private lives of citizens.
672
They do honor the private lives of citizens, it is just that they define as a citizen only members of the elite rich who rule the country. The rest of us are considered invisible wage slaves when we are considered at all and no slave has ever had rights. It is fitting that they take control of middle class vaginas since that allows them to take control of middle class populations and cull the herd as they see fit. They have never hidden their goals in this area and the only mystery that remains is how so many of the herd think that the butcher is their friend. They will believe that right up to the moment they become dinner.
30
@Shawn
Yes! I've always drawn the line at my private parts. Not available for public consumption, wear shirt and pants, all that. Then here comes the evangelical right wanting to have their grand old party down there. Guess I was being too conservative.
22
@Shawn Except guns. They're really good at preventing government from acting to stop the significant healthcare crisis of mass shootings.
5
Its simply magical thinking to believe that such bans will end abortion. We'll simply revert to the informal - and dangerous - cottage industry that women resorted to prior to Roe v. Wade, albeit with much more severe legal punishments. More unwanted children and poverty are the likely outcomes - hardly a very "Christian" outcome in my view.
Given the fervor that many seem to have adopted in their support of the "right to life," I remain mystified that a similar effort is not underway to ban capital punishment and end America's involvement in multiple wars. If life is indeed sacred, how can these other efforts to take lives not be equally abhorrent.
96
They don't care if women die.
In fact, they probably think a woman deserves it as a punishment from "god."
7
The weakness of these so-called “pro life” groups is that they are in bed with the Tea Party and love Austerity almost as much as they hate Abortion.
.
I don’t expect the “pro life” groups to understand it, but if they were really Pro Life, they would want every Life to be lived to its fullest. They would be the loudest voices against cuts to Public Education and Children’s Healthcare. They would support gun control as a way to save Human Lives. But they don’t. They say they are pro life when all they really want is for children to be born. What happens next doesn’t matter to them.
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@ZAW
Compassion seems to be a foreign word to these people. It does not knit together action and "what happens next". It does not imagine the spiritual suffering that the woman aborting may very well experience. Open your hearts, people, and stop screaming!
5
Roe vs Wade is simple and still the law of the land and will not be overturned.
Supreme Court Ruling
In June 1970, a Texas district court ruled that the state’s abortion ban was illegal because it violated a constitutional right to privacy. Afterward, Wade declared he’d continue to prosecute doctors who performed abortions.
The case eventually was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Jan 22, 1973, the Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, struck down the Texas law banning abortion, effectively legalizing the procedure nationwide. In a majority opinion written by Justice Harry Blackmun, the court declared that a woman’s right to an abortion was implicit in the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment.
The court divided pregnancy into three trimesters, and declared that the choice to end a pregnancy in the first trimester was solely up to the woman.
In the second trimester, the government could regulate abortion, although not ban it, in order to protect the mother’s health.
In the third trimester, the state could prohibit abortion to protect a fetus that could survive on its own outside the womb, except when a woman’s health was in danger.
12
Please see Gloria Steinem's take on these anti-abortion laws:
(-48 hour waiting period, permission of parents, note from MD, travel to a faraway clinic where one is confronted by shouting people bearing signs and pictures of fetuses. She suggests that all of these hurdles should be placed before those wanting to buy guns - with travel to the one faraway gun shop in the state, with people out front bearing pictures of slain loved ones and shouting "murderer".
Something to ponder!
508
“Safe Haven Baby Boxes project, to install and promote secure boxes at hospitals and fire stations for women to surrender their infants...”
I’m a librarian. We have a box outside the library for people to securely deposit their books. What sick, sick, twisted individuals want to increase the number of INFANTS being dropped off in boxes outside buildings, to strangers. Do they think we can just check infants in and put them on a shelf for someone to take an interest in and take home?
51
@LWib
It's worse than that, no one has given one thought to what happens to the welfare of a baby who has been deposited into a drop box. The moment a baby is born is when right to lifer's lose interest in it.
9
@LWib. California has a law where women can drop off a baby at a firehouse or hospital without fear of of being punished. The difference is that there is no box involved! They just hand over the baby in person.
5
@LWib This is probably modelled on a successful project in Germany to decrease the number of abandoned babies. The birth boxes there are set up to keep the baby warm and safe while first-responders are alerted immediately to the location when it is used.
My proposal is instead of putting them in hospitals and fire stations, we place them in front of the legislators' homes that passed this bill and make them responsible for all costs of caring for the baby until age 21 (a few extra years for good measure).
I've written elsewhere that I expect the rate of infanticide to increase aside from increased deaths among women. That has happened in other countries when women have few options.
3
Caution - beware. Anti-abortion leaders intend for these extremist laws to make Supreme Court rulings look like so-called "middle ground" with abortion restrictions. But the "compromise" will still gut Roe v Wade. .
17
The anti-abortion movement owes most of its recent success to voter suppression, gerrymandering and the pernicious "Citizens United" decision that injected unlimited corporate dollars into our electoral processes. Without the Russian meddling into Electoral College vote totals, the anti-abortion movement would be facing a far less influential future. Pretending that religious fundamentalists & their neo-fascist allies enjoy decisive democratic support is disingenuous, at best. Their margin of success reflects the distortions in our democracy imposed and sustained by well-funded, corrupt, anti-democratic elements in our society. The obvious criminality of the Trump Administration is the firewall upon which it all now depends. Donald Trump himself personifies the morality of their cause.
78
The best thing about all of this is the coming death of the GOP. Now that they have made their backers tic, cut taxes and services, stacked the Supreme Court- the only thing left for them to do is go bomb all the countries they hate and cut entitlements!
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They aren’t winning, the headline is misleading. None of their arguments have standing in the context of federal law. There laws upend privacy, which is what the current abortion law turns on. These laws violate the constitutional right of privacy between a woman and her doctor. What is Georgia going to do, start a pregnancy registry? It’s all quite ridiculous, and no one in the media seems to confront the untrue claims these pro-fetus law makers are making. It’s a shame really.
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@Jude, their "winning" because they quite rightly expect the conservative judicial activists on the supreme court to either overturn Roe or restrict abortion out of existence.
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You forgot to mention that Governor Northam was talking about infants so severely deformed they cannot survive. Of course it's parents and physicians who need to decide how to proceed with such children-who else? The way the "pro-birth" fanatics have twisted his words shows how devious, depraved, and detached they are from the realities of pregnancy and childbirth. I'm sorry to see that the NYTimes doesn't provide the context that would expose them and inform us readers.
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I'm 67 1/2, so abortion bans won't affect my mostly-lived life, but when I think of all the work my generation put in to make abortion legal and safe, it just makes me sad and discouraged to see it going the other way. Well, for 46 years women were free to choose, and in many, if not most, states they still are, so I guess we became complacent, and now a new generation has to carry on the fight. As so many others have noted, abortions won't go away, but safe and legal ones might.
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@gramphil Women were free to choose when this Country was founded in 1789. Women were free to choose for almost 100 years and even when there were restrictive laws, many were not enforced. Then the change in the Catholic doctrine in 1869 made abortion a major sin, this Country followed.
Of course, slaves were not allowed abortions even when it was legal. Now, the largely slave states are at it again.
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Once Roe goes down it will be replaced with a decision that upholds national abortion restrictions so the blue states will have their laws over turned. What do you think this is, a democracy? Read your Bible and you will find no support for democratic government anywhere.
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States that choose to restrict or eliminate abortions are morally obligated to institute broadly available, ongoing and generous support for the care, feeding and education of the resulting unwanted children.
In the meantime, as I understand it, the new abortion laws contain an exclusion for serious risk to the life of the mother. I would argue that being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term is an unequivocal and existential threat to the emotional and psychological health of the woman and will irreparably alter the course of her life.
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@David Eike
Government support for the care, feeding and education of unwanted children increases the size and reach of government, so small-government conservatives do not support this. Religious groups will provide such support because the children can be raised as future members. The children are therefore not unwanted by everyone, since religious groups will fight over them.
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@David E.: I like your ideas, but I think dealing with the unwanted children of forced pregnancies should go a step further. Each and EVERY lawmaker that was involved with this abortion ban bill shall be REQUIRED to adopt at least one, if not more, of these unwanted children. They are the ones that forced women to bear children they did not want/that were unplanned/that they cannot afford, and so on. Surely these lawmakers (old white men all) will be glad to show their concern for unwanted children by adopting one or more, right? (crickets ...). I mean, they say every little cluster of cells deserves love and care, so they will be lining up to adopt these children, right? (crickets again ...)
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@David Eike. Yes. They absolutely do. But for most “pro life” activists, the pseudo-morality of forcing women to bear children (oh I’m sorry, “saving unborn lives”) eclipses everything else.
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It must, because these activists are in bed with politicians who slash education, children’s healthcare, and social programs while looking the other way when water systems and the air is poisoned, and it doesn’t seem to bother them. They voted for a the most morally and ethically corrupt President we’ve ever had, just because he said he was “pro life.”
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