Why is the USA banning abortion?

[MindPalace]

It is absolutely horrifying that 21-26 US states are actively considering outlawing abortion. There are no exemptions for rape or incest in many of the proposals.

I see lots of news articles on this eg this one

amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/08/oklahomas-move-to-ban-abortions-is-a-prelude-of-america-without-roe-v-wade

But I can’t find one setting out the reasons why. Why on earth would they want to set back hard-won women’s rights?

And Poland as well. It’s quite scary.

Sorry if there is another recent thread on this btw.

Having spent time working with Americans and in America I found that it is not always the progressive, modern country people think it is. In many ways they feel way behind the times, however it is a big country and there are huge regional differences. Many Americans are very religious, church going people - they like to get married young, have big families etc. Abortion upsets half the voting population so it becomes law.

What makes this worse is that the social care in the country is almost non existent. Unless you have a good job, supportive family etc you are screwed.

You're suggesting rad fems are "pro life?

There's a huge crossover between anti-trans and pro-life in US states banning abortion

www.vox.com/2022/3/20/22987539/anti-trans-anti-abortion-laws-texas-florida-idaho

www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2022-03-30/arizona-governor-signs-anti-abortion-anti-transgender-bills-into-law

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/lizzo-sxsw-texas-abortion-transgender-laws-b2035732.html

www.npr.org/2022/03/15/1086114214/missouri-idaho-abortion-gender-affirming-treatments

@speakout

Women deserve equal rights, why don’t disabled people?

Do the right of a disabed individual- or indeed any individual trump the needs of a woman?

I was really clear about this question.

Women deserve equal rights, why don’t disabled people? Just to be really clear, I’m not proposing promoting the rights of the disabled at the expense of women and their rights. I’m saying the laws regarding when it is legal to abort a disabled baby should be the same as when it is legal to abort a non-disabled baby.

@NotBlueforYou

Whatever your personal beliefs on abortion. The fact is that woman have always gotten abortions, and they always will get abortions. Backstreet abortions would likely be more traumatic to the woman and the foetus than most clinical ones. So, providing woman with a safe option is important. Women should have the right to decide about their own bodies, especially in cases such as rape and ectopic pregnancies.

However, there are some aspects of current abortion practices that are utterly indefensible. The ableist and eugenic practices that are happening right now in this country are shocking. The current abortion laws in the UK regarding disabled foetuses are just legalised and socially accepted genocide of a group of people with a supposed protected characteristic.

It’s completely legal to abort a pregnancy at 40 weeks if the foetus is found to have a disability, including something like a cleft lip which is completely fixable with surgery and after surgery will have no lifelong implication other than a tiny scar.

So, it’s legal to abort a baby that is completely capable of surviving on its own and living a normal life because at birth, the baby won’t be perfectly healthy. Say a 1-year-old fell over and cut their lip and needed surgery to repair it, do we say no, let’s just kill them, they will have no quality of life anyway? No, of course not.

Its disgusting, but not surprising. Parents constantly say that they don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl, they would love it either way, as long as its healthy. With the huge glaring implication that they wouldn’t love their baby if it wasn’t healthy. And that isn’t just conjecture, something like 90% of babies diagnosed with down syndrome in the womb are aborted.

I feel sorry for the children of parents that say they would only love their child if its healthy. If they get sick it must be devastating. They are unwell and having to be worried if their parents still love them? It must be so frightening, what happens if they don’t get better?

Its considered horrific sexism when people get abortions because the foetus is a girl, so it follows that it is horrific ableism when people get abortions because the foetus is disabled.

And the argument that disabled babies won’t thrive and would have a poor quality of life doesn’t work because what quality of life are girls born into today? 1 in 2 women are sexually assaulted and 1 in 5 women are raped.

What exactly is so unappealing about letting a disabled baby experience life? Even if it is a short and non-typical life. I have an incurable disability that causes me pain every day and I would choose life with the disability over no life every time. Sometimes I wonder if the suffering of the disabled baby isn’t the problem. The real problem is the accommodations the parents don’t want to make.

Women deserve equal rights, why don’t disabled people? Just to be really clear, I’m not proposing promoting the rights of the disabled at the expense of women and their rights. I’m saying the laws regarding when it is legal to abort a disabled baby should be the same as when it is legal to abort a non-disabled baby.

I disagree strongly. I think Down Syndrome especially justifies abortion. We have modern medical testing to attempt to prevent these births, to prevent diseases, disability etc. I think knowingly bringing a disabled child into the world is abhorrent. It is different of course if the disability is not detectable or happens after birth. But we have these tests to detect/prevent Down Syndrome and Spina Bifida. It is no more 'ablist' or 'eugenics' than vaccines are. Otherwise you are calling our scientists and modern civilised medicine 'ablist' and 'eugenics'. It's all about trying to bring a healthy child into the world, to prevent suffering, disability, disease, poverty etc.

NotBlueforYou

You suggest that some women terminate at 40 weeks because their baby has a cleft pallate.

Just nonsense.

Can you show evidence of this?

Late abortions in the UK are very rare. The whole idea of eugenic abortions is just a red herring.

I can't help but think there's a link between the lack of babies for sale adoption which is linked to the pandemic.

I definitely think money is behind this. It's fucked up I know that much.

@Babochan88

Hopefully because they realise how awful it is to allow laws that kill children. Yes. It’s a woman’s body - but you have no right to take a life.

Its a woman's body. That's all there is to say. It's not up to anyone else to decide that a woman should be forced to carry a child she does not want. If you want it so damn much, she can have it taken out and hand it to you in a Petri dish. Women are still entitled to choose what to do with their own bodies. They are not merely incubators.

NotBlueforYou
Women deserve equal rights, why don’t disabled people?

Of course they deserve equal rights, But not at the expense of using someone else's body for survival.
The reason for abortion doesn't matter, a woman's right to her own body trumps all.

If Republican politicians were that concerned about the protection of infant life, they might worry more about the fact that American infant mortality rates are worse than in most other developed countries, and tend to be worse in the 'pro-life' states than in the more liberal states.

@midsomermurderess - In hindsight it was a bit of an arseholish comment, so I apologise….but you’d be surprised. I’ve encountered the hardline conservative Christian types online before who genuinely seem to believe women are popping on down to their local clinic at 20+ weeks pregnant just for the crack, on some sort of jolly

@HangingRock25

You think aborting disabled babies because they are disabled because you want to only bring healthy children into the world isn’t eugenics?
What definition of eugenics are you using?

eugenics

noun
noun: eugenics

1. the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. Developed largely by Sir Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, eugenics was increasingly discredited as unscientific and racially biased during the 20th century, especially after the adoption of its doctrines by the Nazis in order to justify their treatment of Jews, disabled people, and other minority groups.

Nobody aborts a full-term baby for a cleft lip FFS!

Religion.

[quote NotBlueforYou]@HangingRock25

You think aborting disabled babies because they are disabled because you want to only bring healthy children into the world isn’t eugenics?
What definition of eugenics are you using?

eugenics

noun
noun: eugenics

1. the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. Developed largely by Sir Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, eugenics was increasingly discredited as unscientific and racially biased during the 20th century, especially after the adoption of its doctrines by the Nazis in order to justify their treatment of Jews, disabled people, and other minority groups.[/quote] @NotBlueforYou You are accusing our best doctors, scientists and modern medicine of being eugenicists then. Medicine is the study of prevention of disease and disability. So you are calling all doctors eugenicists.

Having had a termination I chose to a good few years ago and also having had a tfmr last year due to abnormalities that were incompatible with life I find this horrifying. If I had been made to carry my child to full term with his problems he would of lived a total of 3 days at the most minimum a few hours. I can't believe people are actually trying to take away a woman's choice of carrying on a pregnancy it's inhumane

I gather that there are differing degrees of cleft palates - with some it's relatively minor and easily fixed, but others it's much more of a complete cleavage.

Ground E terminations (post 24 weeks due to disability) in UK are very rare due to our pre natal care. Two Drs must certify baby would be severely handicapped. Just a cleft lip needing one surgery to fix clearly wouldn’t meet definition. Last stats I could see were 2018 with 283 tfmr ground E. Those stats will include none UK women and girls travelling here as they can access legal termination.

It’s very Handmaidens Tale. Poor girls, those from religious families and students give their babies to richer infertile people
They are often involved in picking and choosing and I’m sure at least the adoptive parents pay out all sorts of costs
Some of My American friends find it shocking that our girls either keep babies or have abortions. No one has them and gives them up
Also they don’t understand how children here in care that are available for adoption are usually those that sadly have been removed

*several sweeping generalisations but you get my drift

I wondered when someone would bring eugenics into this. I know 2 women who have had terminations for Down Syndrome. One foetus also had huge structural issues, including brain damage - caused by the extra chromosome, the other couldn't bear to bring a child with a learning disability into the world, especially not knowing how bad it would be. Both were lovely, caring women. Eugenics - the idea of getting rid of everyone with a certain condition - had nothing to do with it at all. You can't force people to have disabled children if they feel they can't bring them into the world, for whatever reason. Both women were heartbroken when given their diagnosis and I understand why. Try to have some empathy with parents in their position, please.

@PutinSmellsPassItOn

I can't help but think there's a link between the lack of babies for sale adoption which is linked to the pandemic.

I definitely think money is behind this. It's fucked up I know that much.

Yes, good point re. the private adoption industry in the US. There's a lot of $$$ in that.

"I hate this argument, it's ridiculous and makes no sense at all."

I don't give a shit what you think.

If someone stands outside a clinic and hurls abuse at a woman, showing her fake ass pictures of aborted foetuses and screams that she's going to hell and as a result of that she is too scared to proceed then they should fucking we'll pay for that.

If campaigners win and women are legally banned from accessing abortion then they should fucking pay for the children that exist as a result of that forced birth.

You think that's ridiculous.
I think that's a fair consequence of removing the right to bodily autonomy from women. 🤷‍♀️

@IncompleteSenten

I think if someone campaigns against abortion they should be allocated a child and be legally required to pay child support until that child is 18, then allocated another one. Fuckers..

Or bring the child up themselves.

There are some toe curling responses on this thread I suspect made by people who have never had shitty news or shitty choices to make.

One thing I know for sure this is a moot point if you have a good education and money. The laws dont touch the rich. The poor uneducated girls will suffer here the most. These are the woman who the least choice in the first place.

I agree @WhiteJellycat