Alabama bans abortion

[Yukaphile]

Do you mean carry them to term? Yeah, that's all layers of fucked up. What IS it about reproduction that brings out such... insanity and cruelty to human beings?

[Draco Dracul]

Do you mean carry them to term? Yeah, that's all layers of fucked up. What IS it about reproduction that brings out such... insanity and cruelty to human beings?

Yes, because the Alabama bill gives no exemptions for rape or incest. It also does not provide an exemption for non-viable births, so if the fetus never develops a brain you still have to carry it to term.

[Yukaphile]

Thank you. That's why I hate that mindset.

[Yukaphile]

Even if Darth wants to rules-lawyer this, I think we can safely speculate as to the reasons.

[Mecha82]

Ah yes, Alabama. Place were incest is okay but not abortion for any reason. This is what happens when you let religious nutcases to run things.

[Yukaphile]

As Darth would tell you, that's an assumption, a condescending dismissal towards Southern states as places full of inbred rednecks. I'm sure the historical reason for why that stereotype is popular probably has some basis of truth to it, but it hardly applies to millions of people. And those on the right-wing anti-choice movement would do the same in Northern states too. Like perhaps Wisconsin. It doesn't matter. That's why I say I hate the mindset, not the person. Unless they're objecting to abortion becasue they're guilty of rape, for example. I mean, seriously, some states wanna give rapists the right to decide if they can veto their victims aborting... that's FUCKED UP on all levels. SMH

[Darth Wedgius]

And you make assumptions too, assuming the bill has positives, that it isn't all negative. Unless you're suggesting state Democrats compromised with them? Which is possible. I'm also not "bewailing the supposed motives of people," I just think this is a huge step backwards and whatever tiny costs we might have theoretically gained are going to be drowned out by all the bad it unleashes. Even if you wanna argue their motives aren't bad, the end result will lead to a worse world, with more people suffering, and a specific type of people among that. I have every right to feel upset about that.

I do. Again, this is depressing, and I'm not even attacking people here, just a mindset I hate that's going to make the world a darker place where more people suffer.

The unborn can't make sentient decisions. The woman, her partner, can. I think the potential for a new child to live should be superseded by the mother who is already here. And her partner, yes. And punching people is not a good comparison. This is about childbirth and pregnancy, people who wanna regulate it, for whatever motives and reasons we wanna debate, and how childbirth is a huge burden and trauma on women. We gotta be more sensitive to that kinda stuff.

The bill has factors that may be positives to the people behind it, protecting what they may see as human lives. That wouldn't be a positive?

And if someone has to be sentient for their life to count, we're in tricky territory. Anyone in a coma is pretty much up for grabs for whatever organs they have would be good for a transplant.

[Darth Wedgius]

Maybe you're misunderstanding me, or maybe we just both have different ways of looking at the world. I don't think those disagreeing with me are evil, but I do think what they did in Alabama is wrong, and that if you wanna rules-lawyer this, yeah, of course we can't speak to their motives, but we can safely guess it. Even ignoring that, I just see this as the first step to more active oppression on women and reproductive issues, which out-of-touch lawmakers, religious groups, or anyone else shouldn't ever touch. It's like with Prohibition. I guess the only question is where it gets funded from, because if I maintain that lawmakers and religious groups and outsiders shouldn't regulate family planning, then who funds it? The government would mean lawmakers get a say because they're paying for it. A corporation would mean business suits should have some say because they're paying for it. That's where I think it becomes very complicated, but I still have my own subjective opinions on this, as do you.

I don't get how the two are the same past really quibbling over semantics. I mean, I've already conceded to you that on a pure hardcore technicality, since we don't know their motives, we can't say what it is. But I feel it's safe to speculate given it's a red state, a state with strong religious beliefs, and in the South. Is that discrimination? Yeah, to some degree, but I've spoken with many hardcore extreme right-wingers, of all ilk, don't get me wrong, not just men, women, and also a few minorities, who don't want women and even men to choose when they have children. It's not even those people I'm attacking so much as this mindset, that we gotta regulate morality, we gotta ban contraceptives because of a religious mindset (those kicking up the biggest fuss are, indisputably, people who think it's either abortion or just think we should keep multiplying "as per the good book," or that people should wait to get married before having sex, all sorts of ignorant nonsense they have no business forcing onto others), we gotta ban abortion, it's murder, and so on. There has been a movement ever since the 1970s to not only repeal Roe v Wade, but to ban birth control services and stuff that basically prevents pregnancy, because of all sorts of pseudo-moral/religious reasons, and it's gaining strength with certain lawmakers who, for whatever reasons you wanna think, give in and pass those laws. You maintain they're legitimately worried about the child. I think there's a strong strain of misogyny in there. They are not sensitive to the fact this is a woman's body, and she will have to do all the hard work, regardless of men, and they even go so far as to think a rape victim shouldn't get an abortion, or somehow convince themselves that birth from rape is not possible (refer to Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" comment to get a clear idea as to this). I don't get why this is so upsetting for you for me to say that, past the fact I am not a right-winger, not particularly religious, and I'm strong on women's rights and civil rights. As I said, I don't think it makes those disagreeing with me evil, because I legitimately have a friend who is a left-wing Socialist, a "dirty red" as he calls himself, who is pro-life. Not anti-choice, here. I distinguish the two. Pro-life. The idea of wiping out a potential future life that could do so much good is very upsetting to him. I feel as if his concerns are more in favor of the potential of life and a child that could grow up to do so much good. Anti-choice, imo, carries a lot of religious judgment to it, moral crusading, and misogyny. Pinpointing which is hard, since from what I just described, I feel as if Fuzzy would call my friend anti-choice. The difference, I think, lies in the political motivations. He's a left-winger who is not a fan of capitalism, and believes in intersectionality, and has opposed attacks on women before. Those in the right wing pushing these lies or passing them tend to be very old-fashioned, older people, and... bear with me here, you'll probably call this an assumption, but I've met a few like this... are anti-SJW, hate political correctness, and think white men are the real victims now, while women and minorities are super privileged and favored by our society. I think that view is an extreme, as much as claiming white men are the devil. Granted, not everyone who is anti-choice or "pro-life" thinks that way, you can't boil down everyone to that mindset, but as you go further right and further left, you do tend to share a lot of similar views, it's how that ideological spectrum goes. And as I said, I'm not a hard leftist or righter. Is a lot of this making assumptions? Perhaps, but from my own past experience in dealing with a handful of them, and how their leaders discuss this in the political sphere. I ultimately hate the mindset, not the people. And I do hate how we're going backwards on women's rights at lightning speed.

The problem is that much of your argument has been bewailing the supposed motives of people, not the positives or negatives of the bill. You don't know the motives, so you're arguing against phantoms.

And I'm repeating this, but that some people on the right say or do X doesn't mean that these people on the right are passing this bill because they believe X. Not everyone on the right holds all the same beliefs, and you should know that.

Arguing against the bill is fine, though arguing that it's a woman's body so it's her choice seems to me to presuppose that the unborn are not people who are involved. Like if I said I could punch anyone in the face because my fist is part of my body, and no one should tell me what to do with my body. But at least that's arguing against the bill.

Okay, one of the negatives of the bill are that 12 year old girls raped by their fathers are going to have the career their child-siblings to term despite the extreme risk associated with pregnancy at that age.

Sort of. There is an exemption for the life of the pregnant woman, but a doctor may not always catch a risk until it's too late. But at least that's attacking the bill, not the straw man someone puts behind it.

[Yukaphile]

No, because of the end result. That's not positive, that makes them misguided extremists.

That's irrelevant. A coma patient is already here, is born. They won't put trauma on another person's body. We're talking civil rights and body autonomy here.

[Darth Wedgius]

The Reagan administration included actively ignoring the AIDS crisis for the sake of wiping out gays

Any evidence of that motive?

I mean they laughed as the it killed people.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/art ... a99877bafb

People laugh at tragedies all the time.

People do laugh at tragedies all the time though. Ever heard of dark humour?

And in this case the joke is that they actively hindered the research and response to AIDS until it had started crossing over to white suburbanites by which point it had become a pandemic.

References?

The article I linked actually references that it was initially treated as a nonissue despite having, at the time of the press conference, a 33% mortality rate because it was the "gay plague".

Reagan didn't begin responding in earnest until it was given a face in Ryan White a young hemophiliac from Indiana. And even then it was focused more on moral crusading than actual research in to treatment with those at the CDC being told "Look pretty and do as little as possible"

That reference indicate that the Reagan administration was motivated by wanting limited government, not by "hate." There's a difference between "they should do more to save group X" and "they hate group X."

That's a reasonable assumptions, unless you start taking action when the same incident starts affecting group y and your efforts are primarily focused on helping group y despite group X being hit harder. Which is exactly what happened during the AIDS crisis.

You mean when it started hitting kids who got blood transfusions? Well, people are often motivated more by suffering children. It's an illogical failing I'm usually polite enough to ignore. I'm not sure I'd call that a stigma, though. It's more of an anti-stigma towards kids.

But if you mean when it got more into the general populations... yes and no. If a disease is less likely to hit you or your loved ones, it's often going to be less important to you. If suddenly you or your loved ones might be susceptible to it -- if, for example, prevention has changed from "don't have unprotected gay sex" to "don't have unprotected sex or need a blood tranfsion," that's a pretty good motivation. And if enough of the public wants that taken care of, the government will often change its priorities.