I'll be blunt. What does me being a white male have to do with anything? You are a black woman. Does you being black have anything to do with abortion? If I was a black male would that change your argument in any way? Does it help to portray yourself as a victim? You wonder why I voted in a poll on this forum? Were only females supposed to vote? You say I came up with an extreme exception. Sure, intelligent people don't usually vote for absolutes. My example was extreme and wouldn't come up often, so by your own words, I must favor a woman's choice to have an abortion. I said you have a chip on your shoulder. You say you have a chip on your shoulder. So, we are in agreement. Why do you keep bringing up race?
What do you think it does in the context of this discussion? Think about it! Why do you think you should have a say in determining women's human rights and bodily autonomy? Shouldn't those rights be absolute? Why is it that the majority of those who are currently voting to deny and limit women their fundamental human rights and rights to their bodily autonomy in the US are predominately white males? So, when you ask "what does me being a white male have to do with anything?", consider the context and the reality of your being a white male in this discussion. It really isn't that hard. Do you really want me to answer that? Are you actually saying you don't understand or have no clue? Let's consider some facts. Maternal mortality rates are much worse for women of colour, than they are for white women. Women of colour will be more significantly impacted and their mortality rates will increase, because of the abortion bans. Now, consider why I, as a black woman, might be invested in this discussion? What does this debate mean for me and all other women, Seattle? Consider the historical context of black women and particularly our bodies: Within the United States, people of colour have a deeply complex and painful history of controlled reproduction. This history extends from slavery to the eugenics movement to today.5 The reproductive justice framework was brought to life by twelve Black women who defined reproductive justice as the right to bodily autonomy, to have children, not have children, and parent children in safe and sustainable communities. This framework6,7 allows for understanding reproduction and reproductive opportunities in the context of several injustices. For example, multiple states have recently held policies that require the use of long-acting reversible contraception to qualify for welfare.8 From 2005 to 2013, more than a quarter of women who underwent tubal ligation procedures were unlawfully sterilised without consent in California State Prisons,9 a policy that disproportionately affected women of colour. Multiple factors disproportionately impact women of colour’s right and ability to parent. Criminalisation in pregnancy, disproportionate referrals to child protective services, forced deportation and separation of families, environmental injustice and policing of Black communities are just a few examples. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9704102/] So, what does being a woman of colour have to do with this subject? Consider, who wields most of the power in the US? It's not women of colour. Who is voting to ban access to abortion, putting women and particularly women of colour, at risk? It's mostly white men. Do you see how that works? Do you see how this debate and people such as yourself seeking to set limits on women's bodies and our fundamental human rights by coming up with extreme examples to justify your setting limits on our bodies, might be problematic? Consider the facts and consider history, particularly when it comes to women's bodies, women's rights and especially the rights of women of colour. Take your time. It should come to you eventually! Not at all. I am wondering why such a poll has to exist in the first place. Human rights are absolutes, yes? So, why is there even a poll discussing what rights women should have when it comes to their own bodies? Are we somehow less human when we are pregnant? Why do our rights go out the window when we are pregnant? So much so that here we are, discussing why you felt it necessary to invent an extreme example to justify limiting the rights and bodily autonomy of women... No, you favour them if they fit within your parameters of what you believe women should have the right to do with our bodies. It's not for you to decide or have a say on. It's not even for me to decide for other women. It should be up to the individual woman to decide for herself as she sees fit. Oh, when it comes to this subject and when I see people making up extreme examples to limit women's human rights, I do have a chip on my shoulder. Hell, I'd say it was a boulder on my shoulder. But not for reasons you think. I have a boulder on my shoulder about it because I am so goddamn tired of seeing men trying to decide what rights I and every other woman should have and I am so, so tired of seeing men, discussing whether we should have bodily autonomy or not and how much. And you have no idea of just how tired and fed up I am, to see men come up with ridiculous examples to justify their belief that my rights and that of every woman and girl, should be limited. Why do I keep bringing up race? I doubt I kept bringing it up. I brought it up because race is so intrinsically tied to abortion access, maternal health, access to healthcare, women's human rights and bodily autonomy.
Does a late term baby have no rights? Being white just means I'm in the majority in my country. Is that a problem?
When I admin'd a science/philosophy website a few years ago, it was an absolute certainty that any thread on abortion would devolve into yelling, bickering, vituperation, and gallons of flying spittle. Anyway, I am struck by how the same arguments and analogies endlessly loop. And how divorced from common sense and science many of them are. It's funny: everyone can see that an acorn in not an oak tree, and I would not be morally chastised for making acorn bread or have my actions equated to the felling of a protected oak forest. But that's where we are with frozen blastocysts (which the media always mislabels as "embryos")(thanks, idiot media, for furthering the RW spin there). There's also the endless hypocrisy of people who talk about the sanctity of sentient life while dining on hamburgers or pork chops. A strong case can be made that a cow is more sentient and suffers more than a first trimester embryo/foetus, but I rarely see the Life Defenders marching with placards outside slaughterhouses. I also greatly appreciate the lone female (maybe lone - you'd be surprised at the masks people wear on science websites) comments on bodily autonomy and medical privacy from an intrusive state. IIRC some famous writer on women's rights wrote something like, "If men got pregnant, abortion would not be a crime, but rather a sacrament." I can't rememer who exactly said it, but I think that really nailed it.
What baby? And how do you define "late term"? Are you going to go with science, political or religious belief? The reason I ask is because the right and pro-life groups consider a fertilised egg to be a "baby". So, how do you wish to define late term? And once you've done that, can you please explain how or why the rights of the "late term baby" should supersede the rights of the mother? Does the mother have no rights past a certain point in the pregnancy? Or does she lose her rights to bodily autonomy and healthcare, once you consider it to be a "baby"? I'll pose you an example. Say she is at 24 weeks (keep in mind that late term abortions don't happen past 33 weeks at a maximum) - but there's some conjecture as to where she is along in the pregnancy and it could be a week or two off and you'd need an ultrasound to measure accurately. She develops a life threatening illness and goes into cardiac arrest. The baby's lungs aren't developed enough and its chances of survival are slim. You are her doctor. Do you wait for the ultrasound before you do an emergency c-section and/or hysterectomy, because "does a late term baby have no rights?"..? Being a white male just means you get to determine when a woman's rights over her own body ends. Not the woman or women in question. She does not have a say in the matter. Because the decisions being made about women's bodily autonomy is being made by white men, such as yourself. And yes, that is very much a problem.
I don't think anyone on here is against women, black women or black people. VAT is more eloquent than I am. I think the thread has run it's course.
That's great! Unfortunately, decisions about abortion do impact women and particularly women of colour and minorities. These decisions about their bodies are not being made by them, but mostly by men who are in effect, taking away their bodily autonomy and human rights in the process. This thread follows the exact same pattern as all other abortion discussions take. Not just on sciforums, but on all platforms as well as in public, legal and political discourse. Has this thread run it's course? Perhaps. Has the issue and discussion run it's course? Absolutely not.
What can we do? White men? The only thing we can do is vote for the people who will ensure those rights exist for women. That's all we can do.
Yes how one votes is very important… an most often that means not votin republican… an equally important is bein on the lookout for wolves in sheeps clothin who say ther for a womans right to choose… yet insist on the option to place limits on women havin full autonomy over ther own bodies Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Moderator note: I have split off Sarkus's ad hominem attacks to a separate thread, so that the rest of us can have a discussion about the thread topic here without distracting interruptions. For those who are interested to read more of Sarkus's endless repetitive attacks on me, you can find the whole sorry mess here: Sarkus trolls a thread about abortion
My youth just flashed before my eyes.. And I am now traumatised. You can consider the discourse. That's a start. At the end of the day, those rights for women can be taken away at any time, as we are now seeing and have seen for decades now. Voting to change or to ensure those rights is just a part of the whole pie. We should consider what is driving this desire or need to deny women our autonomy. Where does it stem from? Is it to protect the life of the 'unborn'? Or does it go deeper than that? Consider how the Catholic Church was once taken to court over the death of twin foetuses and argued in court that they weren't 'persons'. So the concept of personhood is quite convenient, is it not? I'll put it this way. Abortion has always been about controlling women and women's bodies. Abortion is always about the moral failings of women. If the argument was truly about protecting human life, then the gun control would be a thing.
Dont expect wolves. Why wolves? Wolves don't do on these sites. They are busy being righteous.... right wing.... Christian..blah
Good pont... the right wing righteous are more dangerous than any group of wolves Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Can't help but to think of Katie Britt's response to the SOTU here. Everyone is so focused on how bizarre and hilarious it was--I mean, I've watched it three times just for the laughs--but there was some pretty dark stuff in there. She just threw in that bit about Alabama protecting IVF, with no context, no explanation, just that. What the hell?
Propaganda.They were terrified the IVF story would become a talking point and just wanted to take its legs out but sometimes less said is more effective (stopping digging)
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Attorney Marc Elias↱ explains today's Supreme Court oral arguments in a Fifth Circuit anti-abortion case: Today the Supreme Court heard a frivolous case to ban medicine. The good news, is that it will dismiss the case for lack of standing. The scandal is that it never should have needed to consider it, except for right-wing judge shopping and the ultra-conservative 5th Circuit. The obvious response is to invoke the Verrilli Standard, and ask, ¿This Supreme Court, Your Honor? † Actually, let us start with a simple idea one might see in a movie or television show, a joke in which we watch the audience watch something else, such as tennis. It's a straightforward bit in which we hear the sounds of the match, and the audience, in unison, turns their heads from side to side, in time to the sounds, as if watching the ball go back and forth. Ping-pong? Of course. Marital disputes? Yes, that joke has been done. Politics? Well, only if you insist. † So, here's the thing: It's easy to look at what Elias says as if it is merely a political argument. "Frivolous," he says, but the thing is, it's not just an arbitrary word; if you just watch the argument go back and forth, side to side, in time to the rhythm of the heat, you might be missing something. Because, there is, actually, truth. And no, it's not the most permanent of truths, but insofar as this is how we get here, no, Elias is not wrong: If we look at the record laid down by the Judiciary, then the "frivolous case to ban medicine" is, indeed, frivolous. It's kind of an if/then: If history, case law, and procedures of the courts are held consistently, then the case should not be coming before the Supreme Court. This is one of those things, where if A, B, and C, then 1, 2, and 3. While the historical irony¹ of how we get to this case is its own grotesque menagerie, the frivolity is observable in the need for circumstantial inconsistency. Not only is there an obvious question of standing, but any decision in favor of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine² will need to be extraordinarily bounded in order to not spill over into anything else. For instance, if the Court is to rule, as AHM hopes, against milfepristone, then every drug the FDA handled similarly during approval is similarly disrupted; the effort required for a majority to craft a decision winnowed down to just this one drug would require undignified effort. Early assessments of this morning's oral arguments suggest the Court is wary of upholding the decision out of the Northern District of Texas³, but it is worth noting that, in this, two justices invoked the Comstock Act, a set of nineteenth-century indecency regulations. And while it might seem, in that back and forth between political factions, some manner of hyperbole to suggest two Supreme Court justices are seeking to revive the Comstock Laws, it is a matter of recorded fact that one of those justices, Clarence Thomas, has already signaled, in writing, his intention to pursue Griswold, a 1965 Supreme Court decision that overturned P.T. Barnum, undercut the Comstock Laws, and is essential to the American assertion of a right to privacy. † The cynical analysis wonders how the Roberts majority will work around the implications of Court standards. Inasmuch as that would seem to imply there are standards, yes, there are, and the Judiciary has been building the record of that standard, its intentions, and evolution for over two hundred thirty years. It's kind of like an episode↗ out of Florida, when a politically conservative majority on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals had occasion to remind a district judge, Aileen Cannon, of those very standards. And in the tennis back and forth, maybe that seems like one side of the story, but compared to the record of how we got here, there really is truth insofar as there really are facts. Such as when Eleventh Appeals literally reminded Judge Cannon how the law works, citing, "Brailsford, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 1, 4 (1794)". That's not a routine back and forth, but a crushing overhand smackdown so resounding as to remind everyone in the audience that one of the players in the match doesn't belong on the court. † Thus, we might consider, per what is observable and knowable: Yes, the case is, as Elias said, frivolous, and yes, it seeks to ban medicine; additionally, Elias' assertion of a lack of standing is appropriate according to the established record of how this all is supposed to work. Scandal? Well, even the Supreme Court seems to find the circumstance offputting, but "scandal" might seem a little much if we apply its most severe implications. And as for what the Court never should have needed to consider, I guess we could split a cilium about what strange circumstances might challenge the word never. Still, it's an awkward and unwieldy moment for the Supreme Court that would not have come about except for right-wing judge shopping and the ultra-conservative 5th Circuit. And that last is accurate, too; it is observable and knowable that conservative attorneys shopped for Judge Kacsmaryk, and that the Fifth Circuit is extraordinarily conservative. But amid the politicking of facts, there is, in fact, a weak link in Elias' logic. † The "Verrilli standard" is an inquiry in response. The short form is, simply that once upon a time (Burwell v. King, 2015), Justice Scalia struggled to establish a counterintuitive circumstance for some argumentative purpose, leading to the notoriously tempermental jurist grilling U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli: "You really think Congress is just going to sit there while all of these disastrous consequences ensue?" Scalia demanded for the sake of his fallacy, suggesting "it happens all the time" that Congress fixes a law after the courts have their say. Verrilli was not intimidated, instead pretending mild surprise before calmly asking, "This Congress, Your Honor?" and everyone laughed. † This Supreme Court, Your Honor? That's the weak link in Elias' logic, the Supreme Court. "The good news," he says, "is that it will dismiss the case for lack of standing." And if we could rely on this Supreme Court according to the established record of the judiciary, I could easily agree. Moreover, in the moment I accept, partly on the breadth of the spectrum, analytical chatter suggesting the Court really doesn't like the case, and isn't willing to be seen going so far to achieve that outcome. But, still, that's the thing. Even the part with Gorsuch inquiring of attorney Hawley, to "give [her] one more shot", while separating the Court from a "relatively new remedial course this court has never adopted", which reads and sounds as it does, cannot be taken as any assuring omen. In Dobbs, for instance, the case that opened the gates for decisions like Kacsmaryk's, the Supreme Court majority adopted a new doctrine invented in a lower court only a few years before, by a federal judge named Brett Kavanaugh. Yes, that Brett Kavanaugh. You know, the one who now sits on the Supreme Court. "The good news," says Elias, "is that it will dismiss the case for lack of standing." This Supreme Court, Your Honor? ____________________ Notes: ¹ Compared to the history of political arguments, conservative jurists are openly behaving in a manner they used to accuse of liberals, as an "activist" Court seeking to "legislate from the bench". Those who recall Chief Justice Roberts and his conservative colleagues described as "originalists" understand the implication; the Roberts Court majority does not attend originalism, but instead the opposite, an activist judiciary seeking to legislate from the bench. ² We might note the word, "Hippocratic", and consider the Christianist revival↗ for context; while the easy association with the "Hippocratic oath" (i.e., "First, do no harm") stands out according to the a basic association with medical practice, invocations of Hippocrates and what is Hippocratic are also, and perhaps more directly according to the underlying politics, associated with cultivating and enforcing ostensibly "Christian" standards, laws, and guidelines for society. ³ Recent revisions to judiciary policy, ostensibly intended to constrain and discourage "judge shopping", are widely perceived as responding in large part to Judge Kacsmaryk's handling of controversial cases. @marcelias. "Today the Supreme Court heard a frivolous case to ban medicine. The good news, is that it will dismiss the case for lack of standing. The scandal is that it never should have needed to consider it, except for right-wing judge shopping and the ultra-conservative 5th Circuit." X. 26 March 2024. Twitter.com. 26 March 2024. https://bit.ly/3Vxujl2
Have been reading about the Comstock Act recently, and how if it is once again re-interpreted that it might have a devastating impact on access to contraceptions. For those interested, this NY Times article sets out the basics. For the past good few decades the Act has been limited in scope, in part, to the mailing of drugs that would be used unlawfully. But increasingly the Republicans, and pro-life supporters are looking to get the law expanded to its original scope. In response, some are arguing that the Act should simply be repealed by Congress, but if Trump gets in then it is quite possible that he will let his newly-formed right-wing-DoJ off the leash and charge people/companies based on it for what is currently accepted as legal. Interestingly, Trump has been reported as "leaning towards" a 15-week national ban on abortions - so allowing it up to 15 weeks, but banned afterward, and with further exceptions - but his reasoning is because "you have to win elections". Which may well mean that it's a campaign pledge that he has no intention of keeping. Maybe like his pledge to uphold the Constitution, right?
Marilyn Lands(D) just flipped a red seat in the state legislature of Alabama by a margin of over 20 points. She did so by running on the issue of reproductive rights.
