231–240 of 331 posts
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Being pregnant does not make you a mother.
This kind of semantic argument does absolutely nothing to help anyone. Mother in place of 'mother-to-be' is extremely common in use. If you were arguing that a pregnant person can identify as a father/father-to-be then you should probably have stated that.
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I think this completely ignores the moral issues of later term abortions. I am an atheist, and I am disturbed by the idea of a voluntary abortion after 20 weeks. Voluntary meaning no medical necessity. I think Republicans have latched onto this issue and Christianity in America has adopted it, but there is far more at play here than just Christian nationalism.
What issue? What are the numbers on non medical necessity abortions post 20 weeks? Why 20 weeks? Are the voting populace or politicians knowledgeable enough about pregnancy to be able to legislate these things without exposing doctors and women to unnecessary legal risk? And again, back to the numbers, does the is even need legislating? Are women or doctors haphazardly running around killing perfectly viable fetuses…
I live in New York. Abortion is legal for any reason up to 24 weeks, and then legal for any medical reason beyond 24 weeks.
Nationally, about 1.3% of all abortions are after 20 weeks. I don't have further data as to what percentage of that 1.3% were due to medical reasons. Big round numbers here 1.3% is roughly 8,500 20+ week abortions in the US per year.
> Why 20 weeks?
With current technology it is roughly where viability starts to climb from 0%. Possibility of feeling pain and/or terminating a living, viable, being. At 24 weeks the viability can be as high as 70%. It is okay that you do not find this disturbing, but I do find it disturbing. It's disturbing to me to think about voluntarily terminating a pregnancy after 20 weeks with no medical issues for the child or mother.
If given an option this is how I would vote. Unfortunately, there is no nuance in most American political issues. I don't have a choice to vote on allowing abortions for any reason up to 20 weeks, or for any medical reason afterward. I typically get to choose between "ban all abortions" and "allow almost all abortions."
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> makes it quite fair to imply it is the Republicans that represent less than a plurality of voters. Clearly that's not true, since Republicans are currently two points ahead of Democrats on the generic Congressional ballot: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/generic-ballot/ The House popular vote more accurately reflects nationwide sentiment because both parties have an incentive to campaign in every state.…
> Clearly that's not true, since Republicans are currently two points ahead of Democrats on the generic Congressional ballot: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/generic-ballot/ Rayiner. Dude. First, using the word 'plurality' the way you introduced it is confusing at best, and possibly just wrong. Second, the 538 poll aggregation has massive margin for error. Filter down to just the polls rated A+ and you onl…
The polls literally show Republicans with a plurality in the generic ballot.
> Second, the 538 poll aggregation has massive margin for error.
And in the last several cycles, polling error has undercounted conservatives.
> How confident are you that a 5% swing from Democrats to Republicans over the past year represents an actual ideological change mapping directly to abortion ideology?
I didn't say any of that, and I don't think that's true. My point is refuting this idea that Republicans are some sort of minority party. We're a closely divided country, as demonstrated by the fact that the GOP has won an absolute larger number of votes in more than half of House elections since 1992, and regularly pulls ahead of Democrats on the generic ballot.
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> nothing precludes states from legislating morality You seem to be confused or at least "cloudy" about some things. The U.S. has the concept of separating religion from government ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state ). Government does and should regulate behavior. But, morality based on religious beliefs becomes a problem, when the beliefs of particular religious groups are imposed on othe…
> The U.S. has the concept of separating religion from government Realizing that this is getting more deeply into politics... GOP Rep. Boebert: ‘I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk’ - https://wapo.st/3u7AkGL > Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who faces a primary election Tuesday, says she is “tired” of the U.S. separation of church and state, a long-standing concept stemming only from a “stinking lett…
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IMO, it's held "weakly" because there's a christian majority in the government at large (and the SC in particular). As such, the morality they advocate for just happens to also align with morality as defined by their faith. If you hold a different morality (in particular the Jewish or Muslim views on abortion rights), you're just SOL because you're not a majority.
The Supreme Court has fewer deeply religious people than the country as a whole, because of the appointment process. The religious wing of the Democratic Party (conservative Hispanics and Black people) is excluded, while the religious wing of the Republican Party has to share appointments with economic libertarians (Kennedy, Roberts, etc). That's besides the point regardless. The "Establishment Clause" prohibits the…
Legal or not according to the intent of "separation of church and state", it's holding us back as a country.
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A link to the decision: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf (Everything I'm writing about is under Held ) Morality plays in some way. Basically, Roe tried to rewrite and ignore some history, according to the court, in order to establish an implicit privacy principle in the constitution. Where the morality comes in is that the court clearly fears things like hooking and drug use (which they me…
> They kept referring to this as "ordered liberty" which I took for morality. I don't think that's what that meant. I think the meaning was more along the lines of "liberty, but not everything-goes liberty." It's defined in the dictionary as "freedom limited by the need for order in society" ( https://www.merriam-webster.com/legal/ordered%20liberty ), and appears to be legal/political science jargon with some history…
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This kind of semantic argument does absolutely nothing to help anyone. Mother in place of 'mother-to-be' is extremely common in use. If you were arguing that a pregnant person can identify as a father/father-to-be then you should probably have stated that.
I am arguing that using more emotionally charged language like “baby” and “mother” in place of a “fetus” and “pregnant woman” is manipulative.
Further, attempt to stick to those words when consoling someone who lost their wanted pregnancy would come across as needlessly callous. . "I'm so sorry you lost that fetus, that's really tough experience for many formerly-pregnant people"
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For what it's worth, a major source of annoyance for traditionalist Catholics is that there are many people who identify themselves as Catholic but don't subscribe to the more controversial moral teachings of the Church. It's probably about 50/50, just like the rest of American society.
It is also a major annoyance for progressive Catholics, that traditionalists pick and choose which Church teachings they agree with. Immigration being a big example. Also working towards the "common good" is something conservative Catholics balk at. And they dismiss the Pope's encyclical on respect for the environment, and some even don't think the Pope is a good pope. Let's face it, both sides pick and choose. The C…
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I think this completely ignores the moral issues of later term abortions. I am an atheist, and I am disturbed by the idea of a voluntary abortion after 20 weeks. Voluntary meaning no medical necessity. I think Republicans have latched onto this issue and Christianity in America has adopted it, but there is far more at play here than just Christian nationalism.
I'm pro-choice. That said, after 20 weeks one really needs to consider that the fetus can feel pain .
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> Not conceiving children is clearly not the same as killing them after conception. I don't think anyone is advocating killing children. Aborting a fetus, sure, but a fetus isn't a child any more than an acorn is an oak tree.
Ah you got me. If we call it a foetus then killing it clearly has no moral implications. Naming makes all the difference.
Are you murdering potato plants when you eat french fries?
Does munching on peanuts make you peanut hitler?
If I have caviar, am I responsible for the murder of thousands of fish?