US Politics Thread

[Kieran]

You're not reacting to statistics. You're assuming. Who has provided a statistic that the main reason for abortion is financial inability? The stats I have provided do say that more women in 2014 than in the previous study were low-income, so you might surmise that, but there are many reasons to have an abortion. That said, why is the inability to provide for a child NOT a good reason not to have it? A significant number of women who have abortions already have kids. They, and their families may already be struggling. You might suggest giving a child up for adoption rather than abort it, but there is significant mental stress in that choice.

Perhaps if the US system provided more support for low-income families, it wouldn't be such a problem, but the US is woeful in this.

Call it what you will but if there are stats showing that financial anxieties or poverty cause women to abort a baby, then that’s contraception after the fact. You can play around with it, but effectively that’s it.

Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives​

The reasons most frequently cited were that having a child would interfere with a woman's education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%); that she could not afford a baby now (73%); and that she did not want to be a single mother or was having relationship problems (48%).

What are the different reasons to have an abortion?​

Around 40% of people in the study mentioned a financial reason for needing an abortion. Most of them had general financial concerns or said they could not afford to support a child.

Now, we can sympathise but we can’t deny that they’ve chosen to use abortion as a post factum contraception…

 

[Kieran]

Must have missed the follow up question. There is no such thing as a "day after" or "hour after" the first trimester. It's rarely known the exact day of conception, so don't be a git. I mention the first trimester, because it's long been a benchmark, and I think it's reasonable. After that, I think there should be consultation with a doctor. Frankly, the US is adopting laws that may decide that, in many states. There are women that just don't even know they're pregnant until it's too late for a first trimester abortion. But look at the stats I've provided in the links. Post-first trimester abortions are rare.

I’m not being a git, I’m trying to understand what kind of rights you think a woman should have regarding this, after the first trimester. And if you think the baby in the womb should ever be considered to have rights?

When you look at statistics that show that 20% of pregnancies were aborted in 2020, isn’t there a part of you feel uncomfortable about that?

 

[Moxie]

Call it what you will but if there are stats showing that financial anxieties or poverty cause women to abort a baby, then that’s contraception after the fact. You can play around with it, but effectively that’s it.

Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives​

What are the different reasons to have an abortion?​

Now, we can sympathise but we can’t deny that they’ve chosen to use abortion as a post factum contraception…

I said that some women use birth control as contraception and that there are financial reasons for opting for abortion. What do you want?

I'll ask my question again. What would you see as legislation in the US, or is this you just opining?

 

[britbox]

The gist I'm getting from you Moxie, is a demand for all rights and none of the responsibility for women, but the reverse for men. I'm not into cultural wars based on sex - both have an equal responsibility.

 

[Kieran]

I said that some women use birth control as contraception and that there are financial reasons for opting for abortion. What do you want?

It’s that some women use abortion as contraception.

I'll ask my question again. What would you see as legislation in the US, or is this you just opining?

It’s both of us opining. I would like to see as legislation in America what American people choose as legislation. I’m glad they removed Roe v Wade fit the simple reason that courts should only interpret laws, not make them…

 

[Moxie]

I’m not being a git, I’m trying to understand what kind of rights you think a woman should have regarding this, after the first trimester. And if you think the baby in the womb should ever be considered to have rights?

When you look at statistics that show that 20% of pregnancies were aborted in 2020, isn’t there a part of you feel uncomfortable about that?

I think that the woman holds dominion over the baby in her womb. I do not think it has rights that override hers and her decisions. No, I'm not uncomfortable with 20% of pregnancies aborted in 2020. People have sex, and that results in undesired pregnancies. There are too many people in the world, as it is. Choices have to be made.

 

[Kieran]

The gist I'm getting from you Moxie, is a demand for all rights and none of the responsibility for women, but the reverse for men. I'm not into cultural wars based on sex - both have an equal responsibility.

This is the crux of things, where people want so many rights but what about their responsibility to the child they’re carrying, just like they were once carried? I get the hard cases, but tens of millions over the last few decades? 20% of pregnancies in 2020?

It’s heartless. I don’t get that…

 

[Kieran]

I think that the woman holds dominion over the baby in her womb. I do not think it has rights that override hers and her decisions. No, I'm not uncomfortable with 20% of pregnancies aborted in 2020. People have sex, and that results in undesired pregnancies. There are too many people in the world, as it is. Choices have to be made.

Don’t give me that ‘noble abortion’ angle: they’re doing it for Greta. They’re saving the world by killing babies in the womb. The fact of the matter is, we’ve had it too good for too long in the west and now we’re decaying, both morally and in our appreciation of life, and how lucky we are to have it…

 

[Moxie]

The gist I'm getting from you Moxie, is a demand for all rights and none of the responsibility for women, but the reverse for men. I'm not into cultural wars based on sex - both have an equal responsibility.

Then you haven't been reading what I wrote. The truth is, as you know, that the responsibility for raising children falls on the main to women. Which is why I say that they should have a choice, first and foremost, whether or not to have them. A child affects everything they do, from how they manage their household, to their finances, and how they get ahead in the work world, and academically. It can also affect their marital life, when they have more kids than they and their partner can manage.

i have not been demanding responsibility from men, just asking about it in the context of this conversation. You're reading in. I have suggested that they have a part in birth control, and asked about moral responsibility, mostly in the sense of where is the blame for men who make women pregnant, resulting in an abortion? There has been a lot of blaming women around here. As I said, it takes two to tango.

 

[Moxie]

This is the crux of things, where people want so many rights but what about their responsibility to the child they’re carrying, just like they were once carried? I get the hard cases, but tens of millions over the last few decades? 20% of pregnancies in 2020?

It’s heartless. I don’t get that…

Who is heartless? So much moralizing, so little empathy. If men are so disturbed by this, where is the campaign to keep men from having sex with women that they don't want to have children with? Too much emphasis is put on the women, the more obvious player in this play, but let's face it: men tend to be the aggressors in straight sex. Women have an inclination to wait, which is probably as much inherent as anything else, because we're the ones that get pregnant.

 

[Moxie]

Don’t give me that ‘noble abortion’ angle: they’re doing it for Greta. They’re saving the world by killing babies in the womb. The fact of the matter is, we’ve had it too good for too long in the west and now we’re decaying, both morally and in our appreciation of life, and how lucky we are to have it…

If you don't think that overpopulation is a problem, keep your head in the sand. I didn't say "noble abortion," you did. This is a complicated problem, as I have acknowledged. For those of you who see it as a moral issue, I understand, as I have said. I have only been trying to argue my side. No need to sneer or get so tetchy.

 

[Kieran]

Who is heartless? So much moralizing, so little empathy. If men are so disturbed by this, where is the campaign to keep men from having sex with women that they don't want to have children with? Too much emphasis is put on the women, the more obvious player in this play, but let's face it: men tend to be the aggressors in straight sex. Women have an inclination to wait, which is probably as much inherent as anything else, because we're the ones that get pregnant.

The emphasis is on the women because they’re the only ones who can carry our future in their womb and they’re choosing in huge numbers in the west to abort. There’s seemingly no empathy there from them, for the child they’re carrying. They can kill it for no reason, apparently. On a whim. If you find that it’s moralising to point that out, then maybe that’s because you sense that something is amiss in the scale of this business.

I certainly see no morality at play in it…

 

[Kieran]

If you don't think that overpopulation is a problem, keep your head in the sand. I didn't say "noble abortion," you did. This is a complicated problem, as I have acknowledged. For those of you who see it as a moral issue, I understand, as I have said. I have only been trying to argue my side. No need to sneer or get so tetchy.

I’m not sneering and nor am I tetchy. I actually found it funny when you brought up overpopulation. They’re not aborting babies because of overpopulation…

 

[Moxie]

The emphasis is on the women because they’re the only ones who can carry our future in their womb and they’re choosing in huge numbers in the west to abort. There’s seemingly no empathy there from them, for the child they’re carrying. They can kill it for no reason, apparently. On a whim. If you find that it’s moralising to point that out, then maybe that’s because you sense that something is amiss in the scale of this business.

I certainly see no morality at play in it…

Again...I have tried to lay out lots of reasons why women feel the need to have an abortion. I understand that only rape and incest work for you, and maybe life of the mother. That's your position. But there absolutely is morality at play in it. You believe that babies are being killed, and that's immoral. That is your right.

I believe we have reached the end of where we can go with this. I understand your position, and I hope you understand mine. We don't have to agree. The rest is for legislation, and for people to make individual choices.

 

[mrzz]

and some even that a foetus is only a cluster of cells, to which I generally respond by stating the obvious: so are f**king you, you idiot.

This is the sentence of the year to my eyes.

But it gives me an opening to tell you where I differ from your general position:

There is a technical/scientific reason to consider time after conception as an important variable: the (completely) different phases of evolution of a fertilized egg. The egg develops into a blastocyst, an embryo, then a fetus.

The discussion of when life actually begins is a complicated one. Human life, even more so. I have zero doubt a fetus is a living human being, a little doubt about an embryo, and I am relatively convinced that a blastocyst is still not a person. But I know perfectly well that all this is more than debatable.

So, the time frame I would be confortable with is 8 weeks at best (I am being generous here). After that I have zero doubt that abortion is essencially murder. It is a convenient murder to some, which is precisely why its supporters will never yield. Convenience trumps principle, specially where there are no principles to begin with.

 

[Fiero425]

This is the crux of things, where people want so many rights but what about their responsibility to the child they’re carrying, just like they were once carried? I get the hard cases, but tens of millions over the last few decades? 20% of pregnancies in 2020?

It’s heartless. I don’t get that…

This seems to be the universal complaint; the birth of a child! No one seems to give a damn about how they're treated afterwards! Too many are ignored, passed around to different people to take care of, then separating them from a parent upon a separation or divorce!

 

[britbox]

This is the sentence of the year to my eyes.

But it gives me an opening to tell you where I differ from your general position:

There is a technical/scientific reason to consider time after conception as an important variable: the (completely) different phases of evolution of a fertilized egg. The egg develops into a blastocyst, an embryo, then a fetus.

The discussion of when life actually begins is a complicated one. Human life, even more so. I have zero doubt a fetus is a living human being, a little doubt about an embryo, and I am relatively convinced that a blastocyst is still not a person. But I know perfectly well that all this is more than debatable.

So, the time frame I would be confortable with is 8 weeks at best (I am being generous here). After that I have zero doubt that abortion is essencially murder. It is a convenient murder to some, which is precisely why its supporters will never yield. Convenience trumps principle, specially where there are no principles to begin with.

This is the sad reality and why the world is in the state it's in. People may grumble about morals as being "old-fashioned", but without any, or at very least not aspiring to a moral framework places the human race no higher than beasts. Isn't a conscious supposed to distinguish us from that? Oh... just let somebody else decide under the guise of "legislation"... again shirking any personal responsibility and delegating thought and responsibility to others.

 

[Moxie]

This seems to be the universal complaint; the birth of a child! No one seems to give a damn about how they're treated afterwards! Too many are ignored, passed around to different people to take care of, then separating them from a parent upon a separation or divorce!

We don't often agree, but you're right on this one. Those who most push for anti-abortion legislation in this country are the very same who won't support programs to help support poorer families and children. Reagan was the first to organize the right against abortion, but he made a villain of the "welfare queen." The love and care for babies does not extend ex utero in this country, particularly for poor ones.

 

[Moxie]

So, the time frame I would be confortable with is 8 weeks at best (I am being generous here). After that I have zero doubt that abortion is essencially murder. It is a convenient murder to some, which is precisely why its supporters will never yield. Convenience trumps principle, specially where there are no principles to begin with.

Spoken like a person who has never been pregnant or faced the possibility of it. You do understand that 8 weeks is barely enough time to realize that one is pregnant. It's definitely not really enough time time to figure out what you want to do about it, and organize getting an abortion, if you need one, in the US, where it can be complicated, time consuming and expensive to get one, which now often involves traveling, waiting periods, etc. The draconian laws that this country has adopted, in many states, has actually made keeping within your "moral" time-frame even harder.

I've known all of the men on this thread for a long time, so it is reasonable to assume that you are past your salad days, and comfortably ensconced in monogamous relationships. I would hope that such moral rigidity extended to your younger years, as well, and none of you ever had unprotected sex outside of marriage, or had sex with anyone you didn't want to have a child with. I'm sure you'd all have been gentlemanly enough to pay for the abortion, at least, if you had ever even known. I'm sorry, but I think you all sit on a rather comfortable thrown for such high-handedness. The first one being that you're all men. (And I didn't say that first. Britbox posted Dave Chapelle's opinion on that point.)

 

[Kieran]

This seems to be the universal complaint; the birth of a child! No one seems to give a damn about how they're treated afterwards! Too many are ignored, passed around to different people to take care of, then separating them from a parent upon a separation or divorce!

That’s right. It’s a strange set of values. You could look at the stats and say that a community that’s okay with not valuing life in the womb is bound to not hold much value for life when it’s born, but I’d say this is only a part of it…