Aboration ban

I think condoms are a good idea.

Nobody wants to pay for any of it. It's a lot of lip service to an ultra-conservative base and a push to control women. No one's looking to jail or fine baby daddies for abortions (I concede there is a push to jail and fine abortion providers who of course can be of any gender. But it's disingenuous to not acknowledge that these laws come down extremely heavily on one gender. Hint: it's not the one with the dangly bits). And when I last looked, it took two to tango.

Once Alabama, etc. start talking about that, and they also talk about all of the social services which will be needed to accommodate the increased number of births (and potentially abandoned children, babies born addicted to something or with fetal alcohol syndrome), bigger classrooms, and eventually people who the economy won't be able to support when the jobs dry up, then maybe we can talk. And once they also start funding birth control and sex education, we can talk some more. If these folks really, really, really want to "save the children", then they need to acknowledge that there's a hefty price tag that needs to accompany that. Washing their hands of everything once the baby's head starts crowning? Make no mistake about it -- that's cruel.

If they don't, then this is all just a bunch of cynical bullshit.

I think both sides greatly oversimplify abortions.

One side wants to make it solely a "woman's issue" which really politically convenient. It is not particularly fact based. It ignores the fact that a significant amount of women believe that their should be laws making some or all abortions illegal.

The other side wants to talk about only life. They ignore the rights of women, and men, to end a pregnancy.

I lean on the pro-choice side. I believe that most abortions should be safe legal and rare. I do believe that it is legitimate to legislate late term abortions. That being said I disagree with several of the the pro-choice talking points reiterated by Jespah here.

- It is a ridiculous to say that people oppose abortion as a "push to control women". There are lots of women who oppose abortion. People support abortion because they believe it ends a human life... you can disagree with them, but don't slander them by telling lies about their motives.

- It is ridiculous to put people in boxes... to say say that everyone who supports laws restricting abortion don't also support sex education, birth control, welfare. There are many people, including one of the most powerful religious organizations in the country that support both social services.

There are liberal religious groups that oppose abortion (meaning they want laws against it) and also oppose war, support immigrant rights and stand up against the death penalty.

- It is ridiculous to ignore the fact that it is not an us versus them. There is a large spectrum of views on abortion; I think most Americans feel uncomfortable with late term abortions being legal. You can believe that certain restrictions on abortion should be law, but not others.

The abortion issue has turned into two groups of angry people yelling insults at each other. No one is listening. No one is searching for common ground. It is just hatred, fear and anger.

The "late term abortion" is a made up concept meant to intimidate and scare. There is NO procedure for that or even a doctor willing to perform such an activity.

There IS a procedure called a Cesarean Section when a fetus is in distress or is not strong to withstand going through the birth canal. These fetuses are extremely malformed and will not live long after being taken from the womb. Procedures like this are performed with great care, with the emphasis on giving the family a chance to hold their child and say goodbye.

To want to make the process illegal is cruel and inhuman.

You are being silly. The term "late term abortion" has been around since at least Roe V Wade. The Supreme Court has allowed restrictions on abortion after a certain point in the pregnancy.

You are on one extreme. The people who want to ban all abortions are on the other extreme. There is an awful lot of American women and men who hold sincere well-meaning and reasonable beliefs between these two extremes.

Fear mongering isn't "silly." It's lies are meant to deceive, to throw a wrench into a heartbreaking decision.

Burying a child shouldn't be a political maneuver.

However well meaning and reasonable is it may sound, it will never be the truth on what actually happens.

I think you are confusing your terms.

The term "late term abortion" simply means an abortion that happens in the later stages of a pregnancy. This is a legal standard... in the Roe V. Wade decision the Supreme Court said that abortion could be restricted in the third trimester (except for the health of the mother). There is also understandable public discomfort for late term abortions because at the later stages of a pregnancy, when the fetus becomes viable.

I think the term you are confusing is "partial birth abortion". If this is the term you were thinking about, then I agree with you (and I wouldn't use this term). It is a term of political outrage used by the right.

We don't have to choose between these two extremes. Both the pro-choice and the pro-life sides use extreme rhetoric and insults.

Reasonable people reject both extremes, and most end up somewhere in the middle.

I think you've never faced the issue.

This relates to other threads, but it is relevant here too...

There are millions of women and men who reject both extremes, and fall somewhere in the middle. For example many women and men want laws protecting the right to abortion for the first trimester, but would like abortion restricted for the third trimester (with certain exceptions).

Pro-life extremists (represented by the Republicans) say these are murderers. Pro-choice extremists (represented by the Democrats) say these voters are backwards and hate women.

There is a rather important election in 2020. Many of these voters are in the middle and could be persuaded to vote either way. Do you think it might be worthwhile for the Democrats to reach out to these voters, or at least to stop insulting them?

I think that voters should know the truth, without the rhetoric that comes with it. Scare tactics and name calling isn't the truth nor is it helpful in any way.

Being educated as to why certain things happen the way they do shouldn't be insulting. It is backwards to hold women accountable for the unforeseen death of their child. To allow the common decency to grieve in their own terms should be a matter of fact, not opinion.

I am agreeing with you Neptune. I don't know if you are accusing me of saying something that I didn't say. As I said, I am a moderate that leans to the pro-choice side... I believe that abortion should be safe, legal and rare, but I also believe that it is reasonable to make restrictions for the last trimester.

My point is that both sides are using scare tactics and name calling. The cost of the extremism of both the pro-choice and the pro-life sides is any reasonable discourse.

I am curious, you haven't really explained your place on the spectrum. Is is reasonable to have laws limiting abortion after some point of fetal development in the third trimester?

I am not understanding why you think I am confused in any way. Bolding your point does not make me wrong.

The only extremists here are the ones shouting derogatory names. That's NOT the Democrats. The only reasonable discourse is to quit shouting derogatory things.

Since there is no such thing as a third trimester abortion, then I have no interest in having a law either for it or against it.

Part of the challenge is having empathy for people who don't agree with you.

You have acknowledged that there are well-meaning women and men who believe that their should be law restricting abortion. Many of these fall somewhere in the middle... between the two extremes.

People on the Democratic side say plenty of derogatory things. Instead of excepting that people have differing opinions about life and choice they accuse them of "wanting to control women", and "being anti-healthcare"...

Hopefully you can understand why people might feel that these are derogatory... particularly when they support healthcare, and are women themselves.

The extremists on the pro-choice side tend to put everyone who disagrees into a box, and then labels them as backwards, controlling and oppressive.

Do you really not see this?

There's a vast difference of using derogatory names and empathy.

Maybe someone who hasn't buried a child should consider that.

There's also a difference between empathizing with others and abusing the empathy of others to shame them into deferring to worse-victim authority.

It's one thing to have insight into something because you've experienced it. It's something else to seek power over others by shaming them for daring to think and speak their mind about something they haven't experienced.

People have the responsibility to respect others, but also the duty to apply their best reasoning to thinking about and discussing issues.

Shaming people into shutting up about an issue in this way is anti-democratic.

The only shame is what you bring onto your self-righteous diatribe.

At no time did I specify anyone needs to "shut up." This clearly is a comprehensive for you so let me re-iterate.

There is no such thing as third semester abortions. The term is used as scare tactics to manipulate the general public into false outrage. If you continue to disregard the truth then you refuse to have empathy for grieving families.

The rest of your post has absolutely no bearing on the discussion, therefore no need for it to go any further. That isn't a dare, that's the truth and the reality.

It is funny how similar Neptuneblue and Livinglava are. They represent different ends of the political spectrum, but they will argue their political talking points to ridiculous ends even when they fly in the face of facts.

There is no question that abortions happen in the third trimester. Most of them are for medical complications. Not all of them are, there are documented third term abortions that are not medically necessary. But Neptune isn't arguing that third trimester abortions are justified... she is arguing that third trimester abortions don't exist.

Both sides deny facts to make political points.

I was responding to this, what you said:

There is a lot to empathize with involving relationships, pregnancy, abortion, miscarriages, and other forms of child loss.

For you to shame someone into accepting something you're saying by telling them they haven't buried a child is repressive. We have to think about these things even before we ever deal with them, and who would wish such things on anyone anyway?

Telling someone that they haven't been through something themselves so they don't have anything to say about governing others fundamentally undermines the whole idea of governance as something that goes beyond the individual's freedom to do whatever suits them according to their own sensibilities.

If we were going to abandon everything to individual self-determination, then plenty of people would take advantage of that situation.

Furthermore, I am not discussing these issues of abortion as any kind of self-righteousness. I used to be pro-choice, but I've had many people approach me with critique, many of them female; and I feel that people who are anti-abortion have been squelched and ignored using all sorts of unfair tactics, such as telling them that they only have the right to make decisions regarding their own bodies and no one else's.

The fact that human life spawns within the female body puts special responsibility on women that men don't have to bear, but it doesn't validate any and all moral choices any woman wants to make regarding her body and pregnancy. Regulating abortion is as legitimate as laws against suicide, drug abuse, etc. because even though individuals are only killing or abusing themselves by doing such things, their self-abuse affects others and, what's more, people who are out of control have the right to intervention on their own behalf. Obviously there is a lot of potential for abusing others in the name of doing it for their own good, but that doesn't mean truly doing something for someone's own good isn't a good thing to do.

The relevance of third-trimester abortions are as follows:

With Roe v. Wade, abortion is blocked against regulation. If abortion was regulated, a situation the medically warrants a third-trimester abortion would be considered within the context of a criminal investigation/trial, the same way justifiable homicide is considered as part of judicial procedures where someone got killed.

Now there are stand your ground laws that exempt people from arrest and trial if it is clear that they felt reasonably threatened and chose to defend themselves with force rather than retreating.

So you could say that Roe v. Wade creates a kind of stand-your-ground law situation for abortion where everyone involved in an abortion is blocked from arrest/trial. So just as there was a situation where someone shot a guy in front of his 5-year old son because of an argument over a parking spot and was released with impunity because of stand-your-ground, there are situations where the right of abortion is abused and the culprits go free because of Roe v. Wade.

So the issue isn't whether some particular third-trimester abortion couldn't qualify as justifiable homicide because someone chose to save the life of their wife against the merits of protecting the life of a baby who was unlikely to survive anyway; but such a homicide can only be ruled 'justifiable' by closely examining the specific details of a situation.

It is wrong to use the fact that some rare cases might occur that justify third-trimester abortion to legitimate all abortion according to whatever prerogative is behind the decision in whatever situation it occurs. Each situation is unique, but that doesn't mean that all situations are equally justifiable.

The important thing is to shift the assumption of legitimacy away from total liberalization of abortion in order to allow governments to regulate sexual culture and steer people away from harmful lifestyle choices. Once upon a time, abstinence was the norm and people waited for marriage to have intercourse. The clearer the laws are about consequences of sex like unintended pregnancy and abortion, the easier it will be for people to resist the sexual culture and peer pressures that lead young people to make bad decisions.

In other words, abortion laws help young people abstain from sex and focus on other things. As long as abortion is legal, they can continue to tease each other about virginity and boast about sexual conquest, etc. without taking the bigger picture into consideration, which involves risk-taking with pregnancy, disease, and mental health of themselves and others. Instead of encouraging young people to play with fire regarding their emerging sexuality, the law should send a clear warning about the consequences of intercourse so that they are deterred from getting themselves and others into trouble.