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.

For many individual voters, the issue will be a sincerely-held belief that abortion is equivalent to murdering innocent babies, and that will always trump the right of a woman to choose whether or not to become a mother. (This wouldn't necessarily be seen as inconsistent with capital punishment, or gun deaths, or deaths due to military action, because of the "innocent babies" thing.)

It's not a viewpoint I share, but I can respect that for some people that is a sincerely-held belief that they think is for the greater moral good. Unfortunately of course that view conflicts with my rights if it becomes law.

For lawmakers and those in power, I think it's more mixed. I think some probably do have sincere beliefs--the influence of conservative Christianity is huge in US politics. For some, however, I think PP are correct that it's an extension of Nixon's culture war; it's a handy issue to get the voting base riled up about.

I'm not sure it's as Machiavellian as "keep the poor, especially working-class women, poor and downtrodden so they can't rise up and demand better conditions through forced pregnancy," I think it's just political opportunism. Issues like foreign policy, healthcare, taxation, the environment, education, etc. are more easily muddied and will be less compelling to voters. Abortion has been turned into a black and white "it's murdering babies" issue and the conservatives can count on ALWAYS turning the vote of their base against any pro-choice candidate.

@DoYouRememberTheInnMiranda

Because many people believe a foetus should have the same right to life as a born person from conception, and that killing it is murder.

That the right of the foetus to life overrides the right of the woman to bodily autonomy.

The foetus is welcome to go off and live its best life after being removed from my body.

I mean we don't medically attach humans to other humans who need to use their liver because their own one is failing. Which is the direct consequence of one life being legally mandated to parasitically attach itself to another's in order to save its life, right? Or is it just women who aren't allowed bodily autonomy?

@MindPalace

If my geography is right (it may not be), a woman in Austin, Texas, (the capital) will have to travel to Wichita, Kansas (my guess as it’s near the border) for the nearest abortion clinic.

545 miles away. How is a woman supposed to do that in any case, but particularly if she is or a low income or wishes to keep her abortion a secret - that is not a day trip distance away?

I’m so angry.

As a woman in Northern Ireland, comments like this really frustrate me. Where is your anger about Northern Irish women having to travel, across water not just land, for abortions up until very recently, and still quite regularly as pointed out by previous posters. Where is your anger that the DUP still want to ban abortion, under religious grounds?

To be clear, I am in 100% agreement that what is happening in the US is abhorrent. I just wish women in GB would realise that views and laws like those being discussed are also happening in the UK too

Pro-life views clearly don’t extend to providing free medical care to all, to enable the poorest in society to - shock horror - actually live.

This is not melodramatic - people without medical insurance do actually die because they can’t access appropriate medical care.

If someone could explain the moral difference between this and abortion, it would be great…

Get people riled up enough to only focus, and vote, on one issue, and you can do whatever else you would like in the background whilst counting on them voting for you even against their own interests

And we would be fools to think this isn't happening here in the uk.

Why do you assume I am not angry about NI either? I just saw an article about the US situation today.

It’s disgraceful that the law to allow abortion in NI hasn’t actually yet been converted into more clinics being opened.

I’m sorry I frustrated you - it wasn’t my intention to ignore the plight of fellow UK women, and I apologise if I gave that impression.

@Supersimkin2

In all fairness, Orem babies can be born & kept alive earlier and earlier in the pregnancy - late abortions are getting a lot closer to a killing than feminists like me want to admit.

So maybe you should be asking the question why women opt for 20/21/22/24 week abortions. What is it that makes a woman decide she can no longer continue with the pregnancy at that stage of development ?

And maybe people should be a bit more honest about the life experiences of the tiny number of very pre term babies that do survive early delivery , the intensive invasive support they are then subjected to, the irreversible physical damage that they often suffer, the long term very painful and life limiting health issues they are left with. There are good reasons why human gestation takes around 40 weeks.

The answer I would think is follow the money. Who benefits from those policies?

In all fairness, Prem babies can be born & kept alive earlier and earlier in the pregnancy

Do not ever conflate the issue of premature babies and abortion.

The statistics on survival rates are very misleading and using the argument about preterm survival as an argument about abortion completely ignores the other statistics about neonatal and childhood deaths, and severe, life-limiting disabilities.

Conflating these based on survival rates would lead people to believe that large numbers of very preterm babies are surviving to adulthood without substantially being affected by it. That just isn’t true.

You cannot stop abortions. You can only stop safe abortions. You can make them illegal, leaving only unsafe ones available.
You also can’t stop all women having safe abortions. Wealthy women who can afford to go abroad will be fine.

For the benefit of those who have been misinformed about how early babies survive, such as @BuffyFanForever , I enclose this image about a 23 week premmie. You wouldn't wish this excruciating suffering on anyone bar Hitler maybe.

The text of which, states: *"Hello I'm a micro preemie born at 23 weeks. One of my ears fell off, my genital organs are inside out, my nerves are now forced to develop exposed to the elements and every touch starts to increasingly hurt. I have a blood clot, that is 1cm in diameter in my tiny little heart and poop coming out of areas poop just shouldn't come out of, not to mention have seizures every few hours and my pituitary gland is damaged beyond repair, to the point I'll never be able to regulate my own body temperature for the rest of my painful life.
But I'm glad God sent me to suffer in excruciating pain, to make you happy and parade me around like some kind of miracle for attention and donations. After all, you're only pro life and not pro quality of life.

Infants born at 22-23 weeks gestation have a 1 to 7% chance of survival. Of those survivors, greater than 99% will suffer profound neurodevelopmental impairment. By profound neurodevelopmental impairment, I do not mean the child will have a learning disability, or need to walk with canes, or have mild cerebral palsy. I mean the child will suffer from intractable seizures, need a feeding tube because of being unable to swallow, have varying degrees of blindness and deafness, have spastic quadriplegia and be wheelchair bound, never speak, never crawl, never walk, never run, etc. Thousands of micro-preemies die in excruciating death, so that pro-life groups can parade and misrepresent the few survivors around, only because they think abortion is icky. Let this sink in for a while..."

@BlessedByTheShitFairy

Get people riled up enough to only focus, and vote, on one issue, and you can do whatever else you would like in the background whilst counting on them voting for you even against their own interests

And we would be fools to think this isn't happening here in the uk.

Unfortunately it’s a tactic that has been, is being, and will be utilized internationally.

I respect anyone's right to disagree with abortion, I would never force anyone to have one. Perhaps the anti-choice people could reciprocate that respect and mind their own business.

A pregnancy is a potential human, imo there is no personhood until after a successful delivery. I understand women who are delighted to be expecting will think very differently but the reality is you do not have a baby until it's delivered. To pit the rights of a potential human against those of a human actually in existence and decide the potential human is more important is despicable.

You can use all sorts of arguements to debate when personhood begins for a foetus but you cannot argue that a pregnant woman does not have personhood. You cannot convince me you value the sanctity of human life if you can so easily disregard the rights of a living breathing woman.

Sorry about the bold fail.

@MindPalace

If my geography is right (it may not be), a woman in Austin, Texas, (the capital) will have to travel to Wichita, Kansas (my guess as it’s near the border) for the nearest abortion clinic.

545 miles away. How is a woman supposed to do that in any case, but particularly if she is or a low income or wishes to keep her abortion a secret - that is not a day trip distance away?

I’m so angry.

That’s the plot of the film unpregnant. It’s a teen road trip movie but very eye opening as to just how hard it would be to access a legal procedure in some states. The plot is a high achieving 17 yr old who lives in Missouri and needs to travel all the way to New Mexico. She can’t have medical termination as she’d need two spaced appointments. Her only option is surgical but she then needs someone to collect her. Plus logistics of funding procedure and 2000 mile road trip.

Because the world is having a religious revolution and as with most religions woman should have nothing to say. We are here to reproduce and serve men

@UhtredsLatestPaganHussy

I read an interesting article a while ago that explained that abortion wasn't even a hot topic issue for right wing evangelicals up until the early 70s. Once they realised it was an issue they could use to their advantage all that changed.

🤔🥴because abortion in USA was ILLEGAL until 1973🤦‍♀️

@Escarpahell

Have a read of Before You Know It by John Bargh - he explains how America inherited its puritanism from the original Protestant settlers and, unlike other modern societies, has hung on to it for over 400 years. Fascinating stuff.

It's weird though. America is puritanical but absolutely obsessed with porn and drugs. It now strikes me as an extremely backwards country.

@MindPalace

Pro-life views clearly don’t extend to providing free medical care to all, to enable the poorest in society to - shock horror - actually live.

This is not melodramatic - people without medical insurance do actually die because they can’t access appropriate medical care.

If someone could explain the moral difference between this and abortion, it would be great…

I would be interested as well in understanding the moral difference

abortions are getting a lot closer to a killing than feminists like me want to admit

That is totally not true.

You say it, and others, like as if a baby is born naturally at 20 odd weeks and then just exists like any other full term baby. It’s absolutely ridiculous. They usually have traumatic births where every effort is made to keep them inside and then NICU for weeks if not months with heavy medical intervention.

Stop acting like the woman’s body is just a roof over its head, the woman’s body IS everything to that baby, it cannot survive outside without it.

It is absolutely about hating women. A woman is raped and forced to go along with the pregnancy. The child is unwanted and the woman’s mental and physical health suffers. The baby suffers. What happens to the man? Absolutely nothing. If you don’t want an abortion, don’t have one, but don’t take away the rights of women that do. How dare people dictate what happens to a woman’s body? Can you imagine the outcry if men who raped were forced to be castrated? Forcing women to have unwanted babies (and let’s face it take care of them as the man isn’t going to) is positively medieval. I cannot believe this still happens.

@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.

Can I get a source on your made up claim that many babies born at 20 weeks survive?

Thank you.

I was (and am) heartbroken by the loss of that pregnancy, cannot imagine also being punished for an abortion or being left to die, and my children left without their mother, for a pregnancy that was never viable.

Only 1.4% of US abortions occur after 21 weeks, almost exclusively to save the life of the mother, or because the baby cannot survive. Unfortunately, many serious anomalies can still not be detected before 20 weeks. Unless this changes, a tiny number of late abortions will be required, unless we want mothers to carry a baby for 19 weeks, only to see it die at birth.

A friend of mine went through the utter trauma of aborting a baby at 23 weeks because he did not have kidneys and would only have survived a few hours, at best, if born. The fact that another baby, who did not have the same anomalies, would have stood a minute chance of survival if born at 23 weeks was totally irrelevant.