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.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

One state had included not aborting ecoptic pregnancies in their bill.

Well that's just a death sentence for the woman. wtf

@SalsaLove

The far right Christian movement has gained lots of power over the past 20 years. This includes coalitions of anti-abortion, gun loving, white supremacist types.

This

US women should stop having sex. That might make the fuckers sit up a bit.

@MindPalace

But what is specifically making them change their laws now?

They’re not trying specifically now…it’s been this way since 1973 Roe v Wade. There is a very strong evangelical church in USA, including baptist etc. there folks have a lot of political leverage and money to fund campaigns.

Add to that most USA citizens are way more conservative ( with small c) than Europeans . They have very different culture about personal responsibility coming from the idea of “self made” American dream. It all goes hand in hand with their fear of socialist policies like universal free health care, social security support, or even maternity or parenteral leave ( there is no legal requirement for maternity leave in USA). Many peoples views are firmly in the camp of you are entirely responsible for your own poverty, hardships and if you worked harder or were less irresponsible this wouldn’t happen.
Many are pretty unforgiving in their self centred/focused views - hence gun laws (I’ve got to be able to defend myself against the baddies) and capital punishment ( these evil people deserve to die- punishment as retribution not rehabilitation)
A significant number of people in USA are very poorly educated, rely on very partisan media (remember no BBCor C4), and have extremely limited horizon…never travelling outside state let alone to another country with a different culture. This is why a significant minority genuinely believe they invented democracy and that USA is THE greatest country in the world…they literally know very little of the outside world

West coast and east codes tends to be more liberal and better/more broadly educated but huge swaths of mid west and southern states have a population with these being the majority views, hence the civil war

And also hence trump…which brings back to why now? States can ban abortion under individual state legislatures, but these can be challenged and over ruled by the USA dental legislation under Roe v Wade. Trump and his electorate made sure to replace empty posts in the Supreme Court with Right wing anti abortion candidates…in USA people vote in their judges and police commissioners so these positions are political. The key reason was to be able to over turn challenges from states on Roe v Wade and make abortion illegal at national level again.

Whilst us now has a democrat government, the Supreme Court carries that trump legacy. It is the best opportunity for the anti abortionists to undo Roe v Wade since 1973.

The lack of education shows up in some of the state laws . Congress members passing laws that insist it is illegal to abort an ectopic pregnancy and that medics must re-implant the pregnancy ..despite that being unicorn thinking. Read what Todd Atkinson had to say about “legitimate” rape here …it defies belief that this man was elected to congress let alone got through school being so ignorant
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_and_pregnancy_statement_controversies_in_the_2012_United_States_elections

Because the composition of the Supreme Court has changed and previously these laws would have been struck down. Could be a wake up call to women in Republican states about what they are really voting for

@Brideandprejudice

Some people bare for it and some are against it so obviously things will move in both directions.

You might find it hard to believe that they're thinking about making them illegal, but others find it equally horrifying that they are legal.

Yes, quite.

Those in favour of abortion are seemingly unable to comprehend that there is a sizable amount of people who are against it.

The answer to "why now" is because Trump appointed three Supreme Court Justices (of nine), which means that these bills won't be struck down as unconstitutional.

In fact, a lot of these are test cases. The idea is that they get sued over them, they get taken up the legal ladder, and they make it to the Supreme Court.

The goal is to overturn Roe v Wade.

There isn't a legislative right to have an abortion in America, certainly not on a federal level. It's something that's been adjudicated by the courts. Anti-abortion legislation has been overturned by the judiciary, because Roe was "settled."

Roe is about to become unsettled, and then all bets are off.

The world has become polarised. Theres no middle ground so that's what your seeing in these laws.

This is fucking petrifying.

I’ve had two in my life and I am absolutely certain that my life, education and tax paying capabilities are vastly different to if I hadn’t been able to.

It’s absolute insanity that anyone take that choice away from women.

With 26 states against abortion, that’s over half the 50 states against it.

www.guttmacher.org/article/2021/10/26-states-are-certain-or-likely-ban-abortion-without-roe-heres-which-ones-and-why

Even in places where it's legal they can make it very hard to access abortion.

US women should stop having sex. That might make the fuckers sit up a bit.

Marital rape laws are fairly shitty so I don't think it would make much difference.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape_in_the_United_States#:~:text=Marital%20rape%20in%20United%20States,the%20offence%20vary%20by%20state.

I looked it up and the US senate has got 50-50 senators but the Democrats represent 40 million more people. Yet Mitch MConnel stonewalled Obama’s Supreme Court nominee but Ruth Bader Ginsberg was barely cold before they got to choose their pick.

Thus the Supreme Court is Republican (and can ban abortion) but America is not.

Those in favour of abortion are seemingly unable to comprehend that there is a sizable amount of people who are against it.

Not at all.

I can understand why someone doesn’t want one, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to have one if I wanted one.

If someone doesn’t believe in them, ‘prolyf hunni’, they don’t have to have one..

Just so you know, OP, in absolute numbers it’s MILLIONS of American support banning abortion (I can’t call it pro-life, it’s not pro- the pregnant woman’s life). So you’re not talking about a few enclaves of hardcore evangelical nutcases in rural Missouri or wherever. This is a mainstream stance, with millions of people either actively against abortion or at least not caring either way (older women who have completed their families, men, whatever) and happy to go along with it if it means a Republican (ideally Trump) in the White House again.

Don’t forget, over 75,000,000 people actively voted for Trump the second time round. That’s almost as many men, women and children as live in the whole of the UK.

You’d be horrified by how normalized and widespread batshit sentiments are in parts of this country. The ideas were always there but Trump emboldened a lot of people to speak up and encourage each other to more extreme views, in the name of “freedom”. If his politics weren’t so odious and downright criminal that wouldn’t be a bad thing. But as it is…well, here we are.

And to think the USA sees itself as the bastion of freedom and democracy around the world

Many of the GOP men who are completely against abortion are completely pro abortion when their mistress gets pregnant. It's about controlling women's bodies. That is all.

Yes, that’s me. I can’t comprehend the anti-abortion stance at all. But I do respect those who are brave enough to explain their views here, as it is probably difficult given the strong views of others on MN.

@Verity226 I am able to accept that people don't like abortion and would not have one themselves.

What I struggle with is anyone else deciding that they have the right to decide whether I give birth or not.

I also struggle with these same people seemingly being unwilling to champion good quality sex education, free contraception, support for families including paid maternity leave, income support, universal health care, basically anything that would prevent unwanted pregnancy or support those in the situation.

I also struggle to understand how having a gun which can kill people is ok, but having access to abortion isn't ok.

@JanetPluchinsky

Banning abortion doesn’t stop abortions though. It just stops safe, legal ones.

America is a crazy place.

Absolutely this. I was fervently anti-abortion until a junior doctor who worked part time at a clinic talked me down.

A handful of women will be bullied into keeping a baby they don’t want by these laws. Some of those few might love the child, some will be forever emotionally indifferent, some will actively resent and reject the child. The majority will try other means to induce abortion- wire coat hangers etc.

These laws do not prevent abortion, they prevent safe and clean abortion.

If people are dead set against abortion then I thought that contraception would be cheap and available but I don't think this is the case.

It seems that it is another way of keeping poor women poor. Contraception is not covered by health insurance (but viagra is), abortion is increasingly hard to access and expensive, delivering in hospital is eye wateringly expensive. Maternal death rates are the highest in the developed world. Religious groups have alot of political power.

The sooner we stop thinking of the US as as a civilised country the better. It is only the land of the free if you are reasonably wealthy, white and male.

Those in favour of abortion are seemingly unable to comprehend that there is a sizable amount of people who are against it.

Abortion has always existed. So long as there has been pregnancy there has been abortion and no amount of legislation will change that.

What legal abortion does do is give access to safe abortions that preserve the lifeand health of the woman (or girl) and end the pregnancy quickly/humanely.

Banning abortion sends it underground and then women and girls start dying.

Re the ectopic pregnancy piece…Ohio…it’s not as posters said JUST that they ban abortion for ectopic pregnancy but they insist on reimplanting😱🤔🤦‍♀️
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/29/ohio-extreme-abortion-bill-reimplant-ectopic-pregnancy?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I don't find any of this surprising, sadly, although I am still a bit gobsmacked at the amount of MNers this week actually choosing to believe Boris Johnson cares about women!

@BuffyFanForever

It is absolutely not about hating women. Half of the babies aborted are women! It is due to the continuing scientific and medical knowledge being gained. There are many babies born at 20weeks who now survive and thrive (this is the abortion limit in this country which is shocking). Yes there are strong lobbyists in the US who are Christian but there are also many other people who support the rights of babies to not be harmed.

If you think American anti-abortion activists give a damn about what happens to babies after they’re born, you either know nothing about American politics or you missed A LOT. These governments that are forcing women to bear children are also making huge cuts to what little social safety net the US has (and they don’t have much - no such thing as council housing, no such thing as 30 free hours for childcare, there’s NO FEDERAL MATERNITY LEAVE, they don’t even have a blip on what the UK has and the UK isn’t half of what it used to be). I mean, they deliberately cut funds used to feed the very hungriest and poorest Americans and gave those same funds to anti-abortion “clinics” in ten states. ( theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/04/states-divert-federal-welfare-funding-anti-abortion-clinics ). And this is just the beginning. In many cases, people may have abortions because they’re unable to afford the child. So now politicians force them to have a child AND they’re removing any aid to pay for that child. And I don’t mean social housing, because there’s almost no social housing at all in the US, so they’ll probably have very precarious housing. But at least they might have food; oh wait, no they won’t, because the very same politicians keep trying to cut all those benefits (look up what Trump tried to do to gut the SNAP food for the hungry program - a federal judge had to stop him). I also find it amazing that when I spoke to several of the most rapid conservative American women, I was shocked, or I shouldn’t have been, to discover, that so many of them seemed to have had abortions in their youth, but “truly regretted and repented of it to God” so now wanted to stop anyone else having abortions. Got it - so an abortion saved the trajectory of their lives, but they want to stop that option for anyone else. I just can’t stand any of this. The churning hypocrisy, the complete government forgetting of the children the second they’re born in terms of providing no benefits, and so much more. It’s all so, SO wrong.

As for the answer to your question, OP: it’s the growth of the religious right in the US. They have become extremely vocal, much more rabid, Republicans have become much more fringe (imagine half the country as if there are 100 million Nigel Farages, except even MORE socially conservative), and they’re dominant in all the states except for some on the coasts and one or two in the middle.

I try to never get involved in politics on MN or anywhere else, but this is one topic that should just disgust all of us. American politicians who support this are supporting banning abortions, and then once those children are born, they don’t care if they starve or die homeless or abused. How can anyone support that?

Boris Johnson would sing the National Anthem naked in Primark's front window whilst accompanying himself on a kazoo jammed between his flabby arsecheeks if he thiught it was going to win him votes.