Rachel Maddow on Brett Kavanaugh’s threat to Roe V Wade (access to abortion in the USA)

As an openly pro life bod on the board, I'll give my perspective. For a lot of pro lifers, the connection between contraception and abortion is pretty ingrained - they think one leads to the other, really. It's termed a 'contraceptive mentality', and the thinking goes that if you are using contraception and it fails, which is reasonably likely depending on the method, then you're already likely to more readily consider abortion.

It's a little more complicated in the US situation, because some people view the contraception angle through the financial window because of their very specific healthcare system and aversion to 'socialized medicine'. Others are slightly more nuanced about it from a conscience view, like the nuns who felt it would be wrong to provide contraception which directly goes against their faith - which is partially tied into a similar mindset as the first reason I mentioned (although Humanae Vitae is much more about contraception leading to women being devalued as objects than it is about leading to abortion).

For my own view, I'm believer in the complicated realities of a world where not everyone agrees and therefore compromises have to be made. Contraception is not a straightfoward topic - I know a number of women, for example, who have very sharply moved away from the contraceptive pill because they are unhappy with what it does to their bodies. I have been part of a movement that saw any attempt to not have children as a sin, and suffered the consequences physically, so I'm not going to say that contraception has no place for anyone.

But yes, on the broader point, it doesn't make an awful lot of sense to be anti-abortion and anti-contraception, practically speaking. I'm very much a realist, and while I am definitely anti-abortion (though I prefer pro life, because that references my motivation better), I recognize that in a world where not everyone agrees with me, or lives a life where an unplanned pregnancy is not a possibility, then contraception is a sensible middle ground. Again, as I always try to say when I talk about abortion in FWR, I am not trying to proselytise anyone, I merely bring it up because the question was asked about pro lifers thought processes and justifications, and as I'm here, I can answer.

firms run by religious nuts with an objection to contraception being allowed to put exemptions in their company health care schemes so that contraception wasn't covered Devil's advocate: the US system is very different to ours. Under US law employers didn't have to offer medical insurance. Under the ACA ("Obamacare") they do if the company has more than 50 employees. The employer plan has to cover at least 60% of "typical health expenses". So you could have employer sponsored health insurance and still lose your house, basically. Now bearing in mind that prior to the ACA there was no legal requirement at all, and even now it is fairly limited, for some companies this seems like limiting religious expression. Again, very different to the UK, we are somewhere between the US and France in terms of secularism and the idea that a major fast food retailer like chick fil a being closed on a Sunday so employees can "worship if these choose" seems totally alien to us.
My point in short was that in compelling those who do not believe in contraception to pay for other people's the law was seen as unfair. I'm struggling to think of an analogy for here, perhaps the introduction of unlabelled halal meat as a default supply in prisons, schools and hospitals? Some people take great exception to paying for that through taxes. Make of it what you will.

WRT Roe v Wade, I hope it doesn't get overturned. There are already places with no providers at all (In 2014, 90% of U.S. counties had no clinics providing abortions.)

I am also a RM fangirl and I'm fascinated with US politics.

Ova - me to I can't wrap my head around the No abortion / No contraception thing... Then I don't understand teaching kids abstinence either....

I also really don't get the Rep no abortion but no support to look after the kids either. I also find the Pro Abortion rhetoric weird. Pro choice means pro abortion?!

Rep are for low govt involvement but they want a say in how many kids women have? odd

That's the prism to view in from ova! Freezing funding for Children's Health Insurance, for example, would suggest that the interests of children are not paramount priorities.

This is what I can't quite wrap my head around with many pro-lifers. It makes no sense to be anti contraception if you want to lessen the number of abortions happening. The only way that contradiction makes sense is if you view it through the prism of controlling women rather than caring about the unborn.

I'm another Rachel Maddow fan girl.

Ova: right leaning Supreme Court probably won't overturn Roe vs Wade as such but will try to move legalities/funding around abortion back to an individual state control. Probably okay in California but many other states not so much.

If my understanding of American constitutional politics is right (and mine is also a bit flakey), this is precisely why Roe vs. Wade is under attack - because quite a lot of the back-door restrictions (hospital admitting privileges, ultrasounds a week apart, time limits etc.) have been tested in court and found to be unconstitutional. The US tries to devolve as much power as possible to individual states: federal wide laws, including case law like Roe vs. Wade, are used very sparingly - but when they do crop up, they have very far-reaching consequences on individual states. Which is precisely why the anti-abortion lobby want to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

I think you're absolutely right that it would take a case going all the way up from lower courts to overturn it, though.

Worth reminding ourselves that Trump's last pick for supreme court, Gorsuch, is not just anti-abortion but anti-contraception. He was the judge who ruled in favour of firms run by religious nuts with an objection to contraception being allowed to put exemptions in their company health care schemes so that contraception wasn't covered.

I'm not an expert in US politics by any means but what I think is likely based on everything I've read is that a right leaning Supreme Court probably won't overturn Roe vs Wade as such but will try to move legalities/funding around abortion back to an individual state control. Probably okay in California but many other states not so much.

There is a risk that it would be overturned but I believe to do this a relevant case would have to make it through the lower courts and up to the Supreme level for this to happen. I don't think the SC has power to just randomly add or take away laws.

Happy to be corrected on any of this by those with a better understanding of US law.

What a horrible horrible story.

Rachel Maddow is wonderful.