US Politics Thread

[Kieran]

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.)

Oh the old gender whine. The bloody patriarchy shouldn’t have its say, it’s caused all the trouble etc. Fact is, we don’t need to have played tennis at a high level to hold strong opinions. Moral issues can exist beyond our personal experiences, but we’re still bound to deliberate on them, since we live also in the same society as women do, and we have a right to say what sort of society we want to live in. This is not an issue only for women…

 

[Kieran]

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.

That’s very interesting. I’m sure you’ve met a certain type of person who complains about Man interfering with Nature, and Man is always the villain of the piece. A new desperately needed affordable housing estate is being built, but the whiny SJW who would normally be complaining about the housing crisis now complains about the effect of the building work on the environment.

F**king humans are the worst, they’re destroying the [insert species here] habitat where the [species] has lived peacefully forever, raping and eating its own, and living in harmony with the rest of violent nature until corrupt Man came along to create a LITERAL genocide!

Then ask them about their abortion and they’re like, it’s people like me who fought for centuries to gain these human rights to stop human life from happening.

Well, from reading your post, there are more stages between conception and birth than I was aware of. But if nature runs its natural course, all the stages after conception result in a baby?

 

[britbox]

That’s very interesting. I’m sure you’ve met a certain type of person who complains about Man interfering with Nature, and Man is always the villain of the piece. A new desperately needed affordable housing estate is being built, but the whiny SJW who would normally be complaining about the housing crisis now complains about the effect of the building work on the environment.

F**king humans are the worst, they’re destroying the [insert species here] habitat where the [species] has lived peacefully forever, raping and eating its own, and living in harmony with the rest of violent nature until corrupt Man came along to create a LITERAL genocide!

Then ask them about their abortion and they’re like, it’s people like me who fought for centuries to gain these human rights to stop human life from happening.

Well, from reading your post, there are more stages between conception and birth than I was aware of. But if nature runs its natural course, all the stages after conception result in a baby?

Lol. That SJW scenario reminded me of Rik Myall's last movie.

 

[Kieran]

Lol. That SJW scenario reminded me of Rik Myall's last movie.

If I’m ever reincarnated I want to come back as a deadly virus to help with depopulation

Poor old Rik Mayall, loved him! Funny enough was listening to his old mucker Ade Edmondson on desert island discs last week and he broke down terribly when he came to Rik’s death. Very sad! Very funny man…

 

[britbox]

If I’m ever reincarnated I want to come back as a deadly virus to help with depopulation

Poor old Rik Mayall, loved him! Funny enough was listening to his old mucker Ade Edmondson on desert island discs last week and he broke down terribly when he came to Rik’s death. Very sad! Very funny man…

A true quote by Prince Phillip. Not a pleasant character.

 

[Moxie]

Oh the old gender whine. The bloody patriarchy shouldn’t have its say, it’s caused all the trouble etc. Fact is, we don’t need to have played tennis at a high level to hold strong opinions. Moral issues can exist beyond our personal experiences, but we’re still bound to deliberate on them, since we live also in the same society as women do, and we have a right to say what sort of society we want to live in. This is not an issue only for women…

I'm not railing against the patriarchy. I'm specifically talking about you self-righteous bastards!

 

[Kieran]

I'm not railing against the patriarchy. I'm specifically talking about you self-righteous bastards!

The really funny thing is, we’re not being self righteous at all. This thing is a six inch putt. The point of it all is that if you value your fellow humans you must acknowledge that their life began in the womb and that if one out of every five are being killed in there - often through the most barbaric medieval procedures - it’s not nothing. It’s far too many, and it’s a scandal.

That’s why I said elsewhere that in a hundred years when people look back at our society, on this they’ll judge us very harshly…unless we’ve become even more depraved and selfish by then…

 

[mrzz]

But if nature runs its natural course, all the stages after conception result in a baby?

I can clearly see your point here. Yes, all of them result in a baby, but that is not the point. The point is not what they potentially will be, but what they are. Again, the question is, when (new) human life begins? You could make a case that at the very early stages what we have is simply a special kind of cell, from the mother, carrying the father's genetic information. Can we be absolutely sure that once sperm meets the egg, new life has begun? We cannot -- at least I cannot. We can have our own answers to that question, but those will reflect our beliefs.

But when we look at later stages, for example the fetus stage, then it is very easy to make the case, apart from anyone's beliefs, that we are talking about life, new life. That's why the distinction is important for me

 

[Kieran]

I can clearly see your point here. Yes, all of them result in a baby, but that is not the point. The point is not what they potentially will be, but what they are. Again, the question is, when (new) human life begins? You could make a case that at the very early stages what we have is simply a special kind of cell, from the mother, carrying the father's genetic information. Can we be absolutely sure that once sperm meets the egg, new life has begun? We cannot -- at least I cannot. We can have our own answers to that question, but those will reflect our beliefs.

But when we look at later stages, for example the fetus stage, then it is very easy to make the case, apart from anyone's beliefs, that we are talking about life, new life. That's why the distinction is important for me

Are you saying that when the sperm meets the egg there is a pre-foetus process that isn’t necessarily a new life? It inevitably results in a new life once it’s process is done, but at that stage the egg and sperm haven’t yet fully joined? They’re still distinct and separate?

 

[Federberg]

I can clearly see your point here. Yes, all of them result in a baby, but that is not the point. The point is not what they potentially will be, but what they are. Again, the question is, when (new) human life begins? You could make a case that at the very early stages what we have is simply a special kind of cell, from the mother, carrying the father's genetic information. Can we be absolutely sure that once sperm meets the egg, new life has begun? We cannot -- at least I cannot. We can have our own answers to that question, but those will reflect our beliefs.

But when we look at later stages, for example the fetus stage, then it is very easy to make the case, apart from anyone's beliefs, that we are talking about life, new life. That's why the distinction is important for me

we might say that it's the woman's decision, and it's her right. But it has to be within strict time limits. No one has yet explained to me why a woman's so called freedom trumps a human life. By all means let's construct a fiction about when life starts, but once we've come to that determination, I don't think it's unreasonable to forbid abortion after that. So let's say up until 4 months as an example. Once we're past that... it is what it is. Or that's how it seems to be it should be...

I have this horrible feeling that a lot of these modern feminist thinkers seem to believe their bodily autonomy is inviolate at all times. Heck if some of them have their wish I wouldn't be shocked to see them advocating being able to terminate babies that have already been birthed..

 

[Kieran]

we might say that it's the woman's decision, and it's her right. But it has to be within strict time limits. No one has yet explained to me why a woman's so called freedom trumps a human life. By all means let's construct a fiction about when life starts, but once we've come to that determination, I don't think it's unreasonable to forbid abortion after that. So let's say up until 4 months as an example. Once we're past that... it is what it is. Or that's how it seems to be it should be...

I have this horrible feeling that a lot of these modern feminist thinkers seem to believe their bodily autonomy is inviolate at all times. Heck if some of them have their wish I wouldn't be shocked to see them advocating being able to terminate babies that have already been birthed..

Well, this has been debated in relation to Barack Obama and his vote against a bill that would protect babies who survive abortion. Imagine, they used to just let such a baby die without comfort care…

 

[Moxie]

I can clearly see your point here. Yes, all of them result in a baby, but that is not the point.

No, they don't all result in a baby. Any number of miscarriages happen even before a woman realizes she's pregnant. 30% is a number I've read.

The point is not what they potentially will be, but what they are. Again, the question is, when (new) human life begins? You could make a case that at the very early stages what we have is simply a special kind of cell, from the mother, carrying the father's genetic information. Can we be absolutely sure that once sperm meets the egg, new life has begun? We cannot -- at least I cannot. We can have our own answers to that question, but those will reflect our beliefs.

But when we look at later stages, for example the fetus stage, then it is very easy to make the case, apart from anyone's beliefs, that we are talking about life, new life. That's why the distinction is important for me

When life begins is a deeply complicated and much-debated question. Good luck finding one answer, even in science. If you get it, LMK.

 

[Moxie]

we might say that it's the woman's decision, and it's her right. But it has to be within strict time limits. No one has yet explained to me why a woman's so called freedom trumps a human life. By all means let's construct a fiction about when life starts, but once we've come to that determination, I don't think it's unreasonable to forbid abortion after that. So let's say up until 4 months as an example. Once we're past that... it is what it is. Or that's how it seems to be it should be...

I myself have suggested that the first trimester, which is 3 months, is the standard benchmark, and most abortions happen, in the US, in that period. The vast majority. As I have said above, abortions that happen after that are generally related to fetal abnormalities, the threat to the life of the mother, and including when the fetus dies in utero. Because it's considered an "abortion" in some states, women have been left to carry inviable fetuses that threaten them with sepsis, which can quickly cause death. There have to be exceptions.

I have this horrible feeling that a lot of these modern feminist thinkers seem to believe their bodily autonomy is inviolate at all times. Heck if some of them have their wish I wouldn't be shocked to see them advocating being able to terminate babies that have already been birthed..

I hope this is just a bad joke.

 

[Moxie]

The really funny thing is, we’re not being self righteous at all. This thing is a six inch putt. The point of it all is that if you value your fellow humans you must acknowledge that their life began in the womb and that if one out of every five are being killed in there - often through the most barbaric medieval procedures - it’s not nothing. It’s far too many, and it’s a scandal.

That’s why I said elsewhere that in a hundred years when people look back at our society, on this they’ll judge us very harshly…unless we’ve become even more depraved and selfish by then…

No, it qualifies as self-righteous, your self-assurance as to your moral position, with no empathy for the circumstances of others. As I said before, I understand that if you believe that abortion is murder, it's difficult to make concessions. However, you, and others here, have made the concession for cases of rape and incest, and maybe, I'm not clear, to save the life of the mother. The potential child is innocent of the sins of the father, and yet you make a concession. That's not being 100% all-in for abortion as murder.

The other reason I say you're all being self-righteous is that you sit in a comfortable position with not so much skin in the game anymore. You're all middle-aged and no longer sowing wild oats. Such a convenient time to be standing hard against abortion. I have no doubt as to the sincerity of your beliefs. I just have a problem with your lack of empathy for a lot of women who face hard choices. I don't see any of you even acknowledging that they might be hard choices. The reason I'm fighting with you all so much on this is basically that: you're all so convinced and intractable.

You've said more than once that in 100 years, history will judge us poorly on this issue. It's interesting that you keep going to the long-view. How do you know? History might also find that we were troglodytes for suppressing women's rights to abortion, and health-care as much as we have. I'd stick to the present. The anti-abortion movement in the US has limited women's access to good, low-cost health care in a huge way, and this is a step backward.

 

[mrzz]

Are you saying that when the sperm meets the egg there is a pre-foetus process that isn’t necessarily a new life? It inevitably results in a new life once it’s process is done, but at that stage the egg and sperm haven’t yet fully joined? They’re still distinct and separate?

Yes. That's what I am saying, that is not necessarily new life just yet. We cannot even say that it will inevitably result in new life. The process is not inevitable. To our current knowledge, even if everything is in place, the woman is perfectly healthy, fertilization occurred normally, the egg grew at the normal rate, etc... even still sometimes the process just fails. It could be due to things we still don't know, it could be just because the process is random in nature. Also, there might be natural factors that will prevent the egg/blastocist/embryo/fetus from evolving, which are beyond our control. By the way, @Moxie, I guarantee you I know from experience that miscarriages do happen.

But, again, the question is where life begins. We cannot run away from a question just because it is a hard one. Can I prove you that life does not begin just when the egg meets the sperm? Surely I can not. But there are good arguments for it. One could make the case that at the very early stages all we have are ordinary cells (that belong to the mother) carrying genetic information from both mother and father. And who said it all happens in an instant? You snap your fingers and, voilà, new life. It could be a smooth transition from potential new life to life.

On the other hand, it is quite easy to demonstrate that new life begins before parturition. The fact that you can perform a C-section and get a baby alive is direct evidence of that. It defies common basic logic, experience and pure human instincts to assume otherwise. It is not an honest position, and does not merit a response.

As I said above, my personal opinion is that new life begins between two to eight weeks after conception.

 

[Kieran]

No, it qualifies as self-righteous, your self-assurance as to your moral position, with no empathy for the circumstances of others.

You’re the one who said you have no problem with abortion for any reason at all in the first trimester. So how do you measure empathy? That it might only say, yeah go ahead and kill anything in your way, you poor diddums.

Your country killed off one-fifth of all pregnancies in 2020, and you have no problem with that. What percentage would be problem for you? Would it be 50%? What about 100%, would you have a problem with that?

Don’t give me that victim narrative - without acknowledging the life that was killed. But you seem to have no sympathy at all for any of the aborted.

If my view qualifies as ‘self righteous’ then it’s as easy for me to conclude that yours is just yet another example of the fake compassion that’s typical of the left.

As I said before, I understand that if you believe that abortion is murder, it's difficult to make concessions.

Do you believe that a foetus is a natural stage of human life? And by the way, did I use the word murder?

However, you, and others here, have made the concession for cases of rape and incest, and maybe, I'm not clear, to save the life of the mother. The potential child is innocent of the sins of the father, and yet you make a concession. That's not being 100% all-in for abortion as murder.

I didn’t make concessions for any specific reason at all. But I’m quite aware of the hard cases, which tend to be extreme situations where it’s better to abort, which would include saving the life of the mother ahead of the baby, if the choice is that stark. I have said that to stop mass killings of babies like in 2020, I’d concede the hard cases. They’re not called hard cases for no reason.

But there are too many soft cases. You live in a country of wealth and excess. This is excess, and poverty.

The other reason I say you're all being self-righteous is that you sit in a comfortable position with not so much skin in the game anymore. You're all middle-aged and no longer sowing wild oats. Such a convenient time to be standing hard against abortion. I have no doubt as to the sincerity of your beliefs. I just have a problem with your lack of empathy for a lot of women who face hard choices. I don't see any of you even acknowledging that they might be hard choices. The reason I'm fighting with you all so much on this is basically that: you're all so convinced and intractable.

This is sentimental and wrong. Who said we have no empathy? You know very little about my life, so what you’re saying here is irrelevant. We’re discussing an issue. We know that people have hard choices. Take that as given in future, please. But don’t give us this idea that you have more empathy just because you only see one side of the discussion and have absolutely no empathy for baby that could have been born.

Do you know how violent the abortion procedure can be? You think they feel no pain? Check your empathy before you check for mine.

You've said more than once that in 100 years, history will judge us poorly on this issue. It's interesting that you keep going to the long-view. How do you know? History might also find that we were troglodytes for suppressing women's rights to abortion, and health-care as much as we have. I'd stick to the present. The anti-abortion movement in the US has limited women's access to good, low-cost health care in a huge way, and this is a step backward.

I don’t keep going to this. I think I said it twice. It’s to give a helicopter view of it. To make you see that 60m+ abortions is excessive and that maybe you might think of the baby in the womb for once, instead of only women’s rights. When a woman becomes pregnant it’s complex. It’s not just a simple game where she has dominion over life and death. And yes, in 100 years people might disagree with me. I don’t think so, unless we’ve become more ‘liberal’ and uncaring. That’s not impossible either.

I agree with your last sentence though, if it’s true. I think they ought to have kept that part of the clinics open and don’t know enough about it to know why they didn’t…

 

[Kieran]

Yes. That's what I am saying, that is not necessarily new life just yet. We cannot even say that it will inevitably result in new life. The process is not inevitable. To our current knowledge, even if everything is in place, the woman is perfectly healthy, fertilization occurred normally, the egg grew at the normal rate, etc... even still sometimes the process just fails. It could be due to things we still don't know, it could be just because the process is random in nature. Also, there might be natural factors that will prevent the egg/blastocist/embryo/fetus from evolving, which are beyond our control. By the way, @Moxie, I guarantee you I know from experience that miscarriages do happen.

But, again, the question is where life begins. We cannot run away from a question just because it is a hard one. Can I prove you that life does not begin just when the egg meets the sperm? Surely I can not. But there are good arguments for it. One could make the case that at the very early stages all we have are ordinary cells (that belong to the mother) carrying genetic information from both mother and father. And who said it all happens in an instant? You snap your fingers and, voilà, new life. It could be a smooth transition from potential new life to life.

On the other hand, it is quite easy to demonstrate that new life begins before parturition. The fact that you can perform a C-section and get a baby alive is direct evidence of that. It defies common basic logic, experience and pure human instincts to assume otherwise. It is not an honest position, and does not merit a response.

As I said above, my personal opinion is that new life begins between two to eight weeks after conception.

Thanks again, brother, another great reply to chew on. So if the process fails at that early stage, it could be due to fragility somewhere, or rejection, or something random and not deliberate on anybody’s part, but that nature can be hard to predict?

It’s very interesting but also it feeds into the discussion of when life begins in a tantalising way. One thing we know is that life begins in the womb, nobody can reasonably dispute that unless they’re ideologically predisposed to not wanting to believe it, but we don’t know exactly when it begins.

I wouldn’t need knowledgeable at all at that level to argue that the early process is not important with regards to the question of when life begins, because obviously it is. This is also obviously data that suggests it might not necessarily start at conception.

Miscarriages are a not really the topic at hand. Everybody knows they are unfortunate, but different in substance and cause to abortion…

 

[Federberg]

I hope this is just a bad joke.

only partially. Wasn't it you I was debating with an age ago when the whole transgender thing started, and implied that I was ridiculous for asking what would be the difference if someone identified as an animal rather than the wrong gender? Well we're here now. Perhaps I'm simply more imaginative than you are or perhaps I'm just more willing to follow the fucked up logic of your side to the obvious end point

 

[britbox]

only partially. Wasn't it you I was debating with an age ago when the whole transgender thing started, and implied that I was ridiculous for asking what would be the difference if someone identified as an animal rather than the wrong gender? Well we're here now. Perhaps I'm simply more imaginative than you are or perhaps I'm just more willing to follow the fucked up logic of your side to the obvious end point

I think we raised concerns about women's sports, men identifying as women to access female facilities, prisons etc and (paraphrasing a little) but that would never happen and mocked for the alarm. I think intuition is a better word than imagination.

 

[Moxie]

You’re the one who said you have no problem with abortion for any reason at all in the first trimester. So how do you measure empathy? That it might only say, yeah go ahead and kill anything in your way, you poor diddums.

Your country killed off one-fifth of all pregnancies in 2020, and you have no problem with that. What percentage would be problem for you? Would it be 50%? What about 100%, would you have a problem with that?

Don’t give me that victim narrative - without acknowledging the life that was killed. But you seem to have no sympathy at all for any of the aborted.

If my view qualifies as ‘self righteous’ then it’s as easy for me to conclude that yours is just yet another example of the fake compassion that’s typical of the left.


Do you believe that a foetus is a natural stage of human life? And by the way, did I use the word murder?

Read your above. You believe that the embryo is a life, and that life is killed by abortion. That's murder, in your definition. How can it be otherwise? That's why I say that it's a hard conversation, when we're on different sides of it. I side with the mother, and you with the unborn fetus.

I didn’t make concessions for any specific reason at all. But I’m quite aware of the hard cases, which tend to be extreme situations where it’s better to abort, which would include saving the life of the mother ahead of the baby, if the choice is that stark. I have said that to stop mass killings of babies like in 2020, I’d concede the hard cases. They’re not called hard cases for no reason.

But there are too many soft cases. You live in a country of wealth and excess. This is excess, and poverty.

And we have an increasing disparity of wealth-to-poverty ratio here, and poverty is a big reason that women have abortions. With more poverty, and fewer safety nets, women and families will choose to abort children they can't afford to raise. This is not uncommon, in favor of the children they already have.

This is sentimental and wrong. Who said we have no empathy? You know very little about my life, so what you’re saying here is irrelevant. We’re discussing an issue. We know that people have hard choices. Take that as given in future, please. But don’t give us this idea that you have more empathy just because you only see one side of the discussion and have absolutely no empathy for baby that could have been born.

Do you know how violent the abortion procedure can be? You think they feel no pain? Check your empathy before you check for mine.

I don’t keep going to this. I think I said it twice. It’s to give a helicopter view of it. To make you see that 60m+ abortions is excessive and that maybe you might think of the baby in the womb for once, instead of only women’s rights. When a woman becomes pregnant it’s complex. It’s not just a simple game where she has dominion over life and death. And yes, in 100 years people might disagree with me. I don’t think so, unless we’ve become more ‘liberal’ and uncaring. That’s not impossible either.

That is very much your opinion of the future. However, neither of us can predict it.

I agree with your last sentence though, if it’s true. I think they ought to have kept that part of the clinics open and don’t know enough about it to know why they didn’t…

I'm glad we agree on this, but I'm sorry you felt the need to add "if it's true." I have made this point in several ways, including with articles and podcasts. I don't expect you to have paid attention to all of it, but I would have hope that some of it might have sunk in. The reasons for them disappearing and being defunded is multi-pronged, but all relating to anti-abortion legislation. Because many women's health clinics also provided abortions, their funding got cut in many of the more conservative states. If by "they" you mean "the various states" could have kept funding for all other services provided, especially to younger and low-income women, I suppose they could have, but they didn't. They chose to starve them out completely.

Another reason that clinics that provide abortions have closed is violence and intimidation. Yet another, particularly in the fall of Roe v. Wade, and subsequent state-by-state legislation is that healthcare providers are unclear as to what they can and cannot do, or can or cannot say to a patient, even offering advice without risking jail, to the point that they leave the state, and choose to practice elsewhere. The problem isn't in every state, just in the conservative ones, who have passed very strict laws about abortion.

You can see here that women's healthcare is better in the liberal states:

Best States for Women's Healthcare - 2022 Study - SmartAsset

smartasset.com

Mississippi ranks the lowest, (as it does in many things,) where abortion is completely illegal now. In all circumstances. In states where anti-abortion was a high priority, women's healthcare became a low priority, particularly for low-income women. Like everything else in this country, if you have the money, no worries.

If you're really interested, you can download an article here. This pre-dates the fall of Roe v. Wade, in terms of impact on women's health, due to women's health clinic closures.

The Impact of Women's Health Clinic Closures on Preventive Care - American Economic Association

The Impact of Women's Health Clinic Closures on Preventive Care by Yao Lu and David J. G. Slusky. Published in volume 8, issue 3, pages 100-124 of American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2016, Abstract: We examine the impact of women's health clinic closures on women's preventive care...

www.aeaweb.org