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@Frank said in US Politics:
Clarence Thomas sounds like he isn't finished yet
And a nicely succinct article following the logical conclusions:
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This post is deleted!
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@chimoaus said in US Politics:
I do always find it interesting how we all share our opinions based on our upbringing, religious and political beliefs. Very few of us ever comment from a position of experience or a full understanding of the issue.
I don't have strong opinions on abortion one way or another, but I'm not sure this argument is valid. You don't have to have experience of slavery or concentration camps to know that the slave trade and the Nazis were evil and utterly, morally wrong.
If we want to lower that number perhaps far more needs to be done on education, contraception and the availability and ease of access to condoms and the morning after pill.
Spot on.
The cynic in me can't help but wonder how many of those 70,000 pregnancies were the result of the male not wearing a condom and pressuring the female into non protected sex.
To be fair, the woman had a choice - otherwise isn't it rape?
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I applaud the decision today and I couldn't care less if I am labelled a woman-hater or out of touch or whatever.
I view unborn babies past a certain time in the pregnancy as humans and having rights. i.e., the right to life. This is the foremost right and the reason pro-life people believe what they do.
This decision is about protecting their rights because they can't speak for themselves.
Not keen on unborn babies (outside of rape and incest) being killed because it's not "convenient" for the mother and/or father.
My views are no doubt out of step with the modern world and the tendency to not want to take responsibility for their actions and the resulting consequences, but tough shit.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
@chimoaus said in US Politics:
The cynic in me can't help but wonder how many of those 70,000 pregnancies were the result of the male not wearing a condom and pressuring the female into non protected sex.
To be fair, the woman had a choice - otherwise isn't it rape?
I wish that was the case, I think the majority of the population are uneducated on how the disadvantaged and poor live. We think people have choice but for many it is just survival and all they know. The rates of domestic violence in this population is sickening and the majority of the time it is a male offender.
These males use their power to control woman and sex is just one of the many things they demand and get. I suggest most woman in domestic violence situations would have suffered sexual assault but rarely report it. It would not surprise me that many of the woman who seek abortions are the victims of domestic violence and abuse.
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@Frank I respect your beliefs and can understand your position. I just think it is way more complicated. I don't think many woman have an abortion out of convenience, that is a little dismissive of the trauma these woman go through when making these decisions.
One would have to be very callous to terminate a pregnancy without grappling with the morality of it. What would be beneficial is to have long form conversations with woman who have had abortions. Try to get an understanding of why they chose termination, what is their story that made them take this extreme measure to terminate their own fetus.
I suggest we would find the reasons would be very complicated, personal and likely very different to what we assume or think.
Nothing is black and white and every woman would have their own story. Taking away their choice will likely lead to some very poor outcomes now and in the future.
I don't think any forum post will ever change one's mind on this matter as we have all made our minds up. I think an open mind and actually talking with those impacted would be very helpful.
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@chimoaus said in US Politics:
Nothing is black and white
Herein lies the American problem. It's either one extreme or the other.
I have just upvoted consecutive posts on either side of the argument.
There's a middle ground where termination is justified.
And further to this, this Supreme Court decision does not "ban" abortion.
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@booboo said in US Politics:
@chimoaus said in US Politics:
Nothing is black and white
Herein lies the American problem. It's either one extreme or the other.
I have just upvoted consecutive posts on either side of the argument.
There's a middle ground where termination is justified.
And further to this, this Supreme Court decision does not "ban" abortion.
Add in feelings being more important than facts, consistent reasoning and logic and you have a tinder-box.
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@Nat said in US Politics:
Sad sad news, undermining decades of women's rights. Of course those most affected will likely be poorer women who can't afford to move out-of-state for an abortion - how can they manage? Even though it's been coming, the impact today feels ... shattering
It’s true. When people are spoonfed dogshit and expected to believe it’s chocolate ice-cream, news can be pretty confusing. Even shattering.
Now, back to reality.
One, it was never a “right” because it was never codified into law. Biden has the Presidency, Congress and Senate. He promised he was going to get the law codified, but like Obama before him never even attempted, and for a very good reason. The law as the abortion-rights extremists demand is that there be zero restrictions for any abortion. Zero. The only other nations on the planet that have as permissive an abortion policy to what these American whackjobs demand is China and North Korea. It’s a club of two, and American abortion activists want USA to be the third.
This is “undermining rights”? Is this really progress? Is this the future you want?
The Supreme Court threw Roe back at the legislature, arguing correctly it doesn’t belong in the judiciary branch. They don’t make laws, they interpret them; and Roe v Wade could not be propetly interpreted, it has always been a mess, as even the most celebrated liberal SCOTUS darling Ruth Bader Ginsburg insisted for 50 years.
What was being waged by this current SCOTUS was the “right” of the “baby” in Mississippi, where abortion is restricted after 15 weeks and the “baby” is protected, which puts Mississippi in the same company as the rest of the western world, rather than unrestricted abortions which the abortionists want Mississppi and other States placed in the same category as China and North Korea — unlimited abortions with zero restrictions and no questions asked.
I don’t expect the average person to understand this — even Macron and other ignorant European leaders are protesting the U.S. Supreme Court decision when their OWN abortion policies are at least and generally MORE restrictive than anything in Mississippi. If you believe there are unrestricted abortions in Europe, then you have been badly misled.
And here’s where Biden’s promise of codifying Roe into law was always a non starter:
When you ask most Americans whether they support abortion, you’ll find a majority do, usually somewhere in the 55-60% percentile.
That would be me. That’s my personal position. I believe a woman should have the right to abortion and abortion access — within reason.
See, when you poll WHEN abortions should be permitted — e.g. in a third trimester, or 8th month of pregnancy — that number collapses to 15-18%.
Again, I fall within that percentile. Is that unreasonable? Does that make me a totalitarian anti-choice fascist?
So while a majority of Americans believe in abortion rights, only a very slim minority believes in unrestricted abortions. Some extremist abortion activists — I call them psychopaths — believe a parent should even be able to dispose of a human child up to five years old. Surely, there has to be a point where a fetus becomes a viable human life. Hell, there are babies who have been delivered during a second trimester who are healthy today, so: What’s your number? Supplemental: If I support abortion rights, but do not support aborting babies at, say, 42 weeks, does that position make me pro-choice or pro-life? Serious question for somebody who is shattered.
The court has thrown the law back at the States. Those states will determine their own laws. It’s possible that a culturally conservative state like Utah will ban abortion altogether; whereas liberal states like California and Massachusetts might permit partial-birth abortions, if that’s what the voters of those states want.
And this is where the pro-choice movement is losing. Americans don’t want unrestricted abortions. Period. That’s strictly for population-control dystopian tyrannies in China and North Korea. Most Americans want SOME sane protection for the unborn. That’s not unreasonable.
And opinions are only hardening. You just have to look at the polling from the past two decades.
- Science. Ever since advent of ultrasounds, polling for unrestricted abortions has gone down. You can call a fetus a “just a clump of cells” or call it “fetal matter” the same way you dismiss something as “fecal matter,” and people kinda believe it. But evidence has demonstrated that when you show them an ultrasound, they don’t see a clump of cells, they see themselves. Which is why many people are okay with first-trimester abortions BUT totally repulsed by third-trimester abortions.
There is nuance here; just don’t expect your activist local news media clowns to weigh any of it.
- Immigration from South and Central America. Sure, the liberals and Democrats want them naturalized into the United States as quickly as possible, but biting them in the arse is the not-so-little-secret that a majority of them are Catholics and women inmigrants are especially disgusted by abortion. So, more ultrasounds and more immigrants means unrestricted abortion is going to be decreasing in popularity from it’s 18% high mark.
So, please, for the sake of your own sanity, tamp down the sky-is-falling hysteria. Abortion is not going away in the United States, it’s just that now it’s more likely their laws will align something closer to the laws of most of Europe and the rest of the civilized world, and not mirror what we see in North Korea. Is that really such an awful triggering tragedy that we get “shattered” by it?
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See, this is just embarrassing, and most of it cause-and-effect idiocy from our clownshow world leaders and sub-mental transnational news media.
(What really pains me is that even people like Marc Thiessen, who is not a bright guy, are having to explain this for the children.)
Oh, it gets worse. Pure dystopia. It looks like the United States is now going to have a new abortion policy as regressive as, god-forbid, Canada. This is literally Handmaid’s Tale.
Can the Justin Trudeaus and Emmanuel Macrons please shut up, stop exposing their double-standards and hypocrisy with their superhottakes lecturing others, and allow the People of the United States to make and enact their own Laws? Too much to ask, I know.
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@Kid-Chocolate said in US Politics:
Can the Justin Trudeaus and Emmanuel Macrons please shut up, stop exposing their double-standards and hypocrisy with their superhottakes lecturing others, and allow the People of the United States to make and enact their own Laws? Too much to ask, I know.
Was reflecting overnight that NZ abortion laws only liberalised 2 years ago. Before that it was in the Crimes Act (1961). So it's hardly like NZ has been this bastion of leadership... and our Foreign Minister voted against the second and third readings (for what it's worth) before critiquing the decision publicly.
Also, the nice thing about NZ was that most folk don't get too riled up about stuff. We were a pretty relaxed country, and could liberalise without massive headaches. I also had to change present to past tense, because I don't know what the hell NZ is doing any more. It's a threadjack, so I'll stop.
Final thought: the big issue for me is upsetting precedent, rather than the actual decision. You can think Roe was poorly argued (RBG and a number of jurists did), but this is removing rights from people. The article I published earlier spoke to this; move past the individual cases, this is a court that is removing and restricting rights, rather than supporting and enlarging them. And the list keeps going - Miranda, effective counsel, privacy/abortion so far, and what's next?
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@Nat said in US Politics:
Sad sad news, undermining decades of women's rights. Of course those most affected will likely be poorer women who can't afford to move out-of-state for an abortion - how can they manage? Even though it's been coming, the impact today feels ... shattering
But where should this decision be made. By elected representatives. Or appointed judges. And I'm within reason in favour of abortion. But maybe judges in the past have made a bad decision and this had righted it. Leave it up to the states to decide. Or decide at a national level. But by elected reps. Not a court
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@chimoaus said in US Politics:
@Frank I respect your beliefs and can understand your position. I just think it is way more complicated. I don't think many woman have an abortion out of convenience, that is a little dismissive of the trauma these woman go through when making these decisions.
One would have to be very callous to terminate a pregnancy without grappling with the morality of it. What would be beneficial is to have long form conversations with woman who have had abortions. Try to get an understanding of why they chose termination, what is their story that made them take this extreme measure to terminate their own fetus.
I suggest we would find the reasons would be very complicated, personal and likely very different to what we assume or think.
Nothing is black and white and every woman would have their own story. Taking away their choice will likely lead to some very poor outcomes now and in the future.
I don't think any forum post will ever change one's mind on this matter as we have all made our minds up. I think an open mind and actually talking with those impacted would be very helpful.
I do find this a telling critique of a number of very vocal people.
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@nzzp said in US Politics:
@Frank said in US Politics:
Clarence Thomas sounds like he isn't finished yet
And a nicely succinct article following the logical conclusions:
Nothing prevents the will of the people being reflected in the constitution. Other than their elected representatives...
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@antipodean said in US Politics:
I do find this a telling critique of a number of very vocal people.
Not sure I see that as a valid argument or critique.
Substitute "women" for "the unborn" and you can pretty much use it to "argue" Biden and the Democrats only really care about women's rights and things like Roe v Wade when it's easy - as evidenced by their abandoning of woman in Afghanistan to the mercy of the Taliban and shrugging their shoulders.
But that's the problem with the abortion debate in the US, I guess. Both sides claiming a unique moral superiority and seeing the other side as evil barbarians.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
@antipodean said in US Politics:
I do find this a telling critique of a number of very vocal people.
Not sure I see that as a valid argument or critique.
Substitute "women" for "the unborn" and you can pretty much use it to "argue" Biden and the Democrats only really care about women's rights and things like Roe v Wade when it's easy - as evidenced by their abandoning of woman in Afghanistan to the mercy of the Taliban and shrugging their shoulders.
I don't see how that analogy works. Women can advocate for themselves.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
@antipodean said in US Politics:
I do find this a telling critique of a number of very vocal people.
Not sure I see that as a valid argument or critique.
Substitute "women" for "the unborn" and you can pretty much use it to "argue" Biden and the Democrats only really care about women's rights and things like Roe v Wade when it's easy - as evidenced by their abandoning of woman in Afghanistan to the mercy of the Taliban and shrugging their shoulders.
But that's the problem with the abortion debate in the US, I guess. Both sides claiming a unique moral superiority and seeing the other side as evil barbarians.
Decisions are made about lives all the time by governments and those that are directly affected usually have little to no say. The hypocrisy from politicians that claim a moral standing here to 'protect a life' would be funny if it wasn't so impacting.
Let's see some follow up that says life saving drugs have to be made available to those they will save. That median barriers must be funded on major roads (proven to reduce deaths by 60%). The obvious gun laws needed to stop access to military weapons etc etc
The 'unborn' are a very easy hook to hang morality hats on.
I get the legal arguments about the constitution etc but this decision was unlikely to have happened without the driver of desire from a belief system and the power to implement it.
The knowledge that the divisive situation between the political groups would grab this result and empower those that supported one group to advance their cause well beyond the situation the ruling was about is what emboldened Thomas.
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