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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Bauglir]

By my understanding, they define abortion differently than the medical community. One of those nice ways of making sure we can talk past each other. Usually, the pro-life definition thinks of it as any medical or pharmaceutical intervention whose aim is to prevent a zygote from maturing into an infant, which would include a morning-after pill (which is distinct from birth control pills that are supposed to be taken regularly as a prophylactic). I do not agree with this definition, which mostly serves to allow people to get up in arms about "murdering children" rather than to provide any sort of clarity of meaning. But, eh.

This nitpick in no way detracts from the batshit insanity of arguing that a 12 year old girl should be carrying an infant to term. There are already so many things wrong with that scenario, why does this need to be added. I mean, is this nonsense really the best argument against this court decision?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

So, recently probable witch Nate Silver released his prophetic visions of the future of same-sex marriage support in the United States. It is a VERY interesting read. His ultimate conclusions have also been distilled into map form, here.

Edit: Correct link added.

[Sheb]

That piece is two years old.

[Frumple]

That's, uh. Recent on a historical time scale! Hell, it's practically less than a second ago on a geological time scale. That's pretty recent. For a certain sense of recent. *coughs* MSH obviously meant recent in the Entish sense.

Flip side, it would mean that the actual map thingy should be somewhere between the 2012 and 2016 predictions. So it's a checkable prediction, I guess.

[Leafsnail]

By my understanding, they define abortion differently than the medical community. One of those nice ways of making sure we can talk past each other. Usually, the pro-life definition thinks of it as any medical or pharmaceutical intervention whose aim is to prevent a zygote from maturing into an infant, which would include a morning-after pill

Even under this definition morning-after pills (as used in America) are not abortions.  They prevent conception, and the idea that their mechanism is to kill zygotes is a widespread misconception (there are pills that do this but they aren't approved for use as emergency contraception in the US).

[Bauglir]

By my understanding, they define abortion differently than the medical community. One of those nice ways of making sure we can talk past each other. Usually, the pro-life definition thinks of it as any medical or pharmaceutical intervention whose aim is to prevent a zygote from maturing into an infant, which would include a morning-after pill

Even under this definition morning-after pills (as used in America) are not abortions.  They prevent conception, and the idea that their mechanism is to kill zygotes is a widespread misconception (there are pills that do this but they aren't approved for use as emergency contraception in the US).

Well, I'll be damned. That professor was either misinformed, or a liar. I'd been taught they prevented implantation into the uterine wall. My bad!

[RedKing]

By my understanding, they define abortion differently than the medical community. One of those nice ways of making sure we can talk past each other. Usually, the pro-life definition thinks of it as any medical or pharmaceutical intervention whose aim is to prevent a zygote from maturing into an infant, which would include a morning-after pill

Even under this definition morning-after pills (as used in America) are not abortions.  They prevent conception, and the idea that their mechanism is to kill zygotes is a widespread misconception (there are pills that do this but they aren't approved for use as emergency contraception in the US).

Well, I'll be damned. That professor was either misinformed, or a liar. I'd been taught they prevented implantation into the uterine wall. My bad!

That is also a mechanism for preventing pregnancy. However, strictly speaking that doesn't kill the zygote. The fact that the zygote can't implant means it gets flushed out of the body later on (which then kills it).

What it basically does is trick the body into thinking it's already pregnant, which causes most of the processes needed to get pregnant to shut down.

[Bauglir]

Oh, yeah, I was specific about whether or not it kills it (it doesn't have to, it just needs to prevent maturation), but the way I'd worded it (and understood its definition by most groups opposed) did necessitate fertilization.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That piece is two years old.

That piece is actually the wrong piece. This is the correct piece.

[Zangi]

By my understanding, they define abortion differently than the medical community. One of those nice ways of making sure we can talk past each other. Usually, the pro-life definition thinks of it as any medical or pharmaceutical intervention whose aim is to prevent a zygote from maturing into an infant, which would include a morning-after pill

Even under this definition morning-after pills (as used in America) are not abortions.  They prevent conception, and the idea that their mechanism is to kill zygotes is a widespread misconception (there are pills that do this but they aren't approved for use as emergency contraception in the US).

Well, I'll be damned. That professor was either misinformed, or a liar. I'd been taught they prevented implantation into the uterine wall. My bad!

That is also a mechanism for preventing pregnancy. However, strictly speaking that doesn't kill the zygote. The fact that the zygote can't implant means it gets flushed out of the body later on (which then kills it).

What it basically does is trick the body into thinking it's already pregnant, which causes most of the processes needed to get pregnant to shut down.

Don't you people muddle the details with your medical science on em simple folk!  Taking them morning-after pills is downright abortion of a fetus!
*Turns to address another group of people.*
Don't you good hardworking Americans let any of em commie socialist liberals tell you otherwise.

[Leafsnail]

That is also a mechanism for preventing pregnancy. However, strictly speaking that doesn't kill the zygote. The fact that the zygote can't implant means it gets flushed out of the body later on (which then kills it).

It's a rather odd situation.  The makers of morning-after pills have to mention this as a possible mechanism on their label... even though there's no scientific evidence at all that this ever happens (the fact that the label is required is likely a hangover from the fact that the mechanism of the pills was not fully understood when they were first released, and they wanted to cover all the bases).  Scientific evidence at the moment says that the mechanism is actually about delaying ovulation, and that if you've already conceived the morning-after pill won't help you at all.

[FearfulJesuit]

Rick Santorum's an imbecile. As if we didn't know that. It is worth noting, since 2016 is always in the background, that Mr. Sweater Vest has a very good shot at winning the nomination. That would mean an instant win for any Democrat, I suspect. (With the possible exception of...Elizabeth Warren? Maybe not even her; though she's a Massachusetts liberal and has all the baggage that goes along with it, I don't think anyone, even most mainstream Republicans, would characterize her as a lunatic, and she certainly doesn't have the stigma that Santorum does.)

He's spreading.

'Spect we're going to have another very, very embittered, schismatic primary fight for the GOP this go-round, although the exact parties are going to be a bit different. Romney carried the business wing's banner in November, but he's a done deal. I suspect we're going to see a long, drawn-out and hopefully entertaining fight to the near-death between the Religious Right (Santorum, maybe Perry again?), the libertarians (Rand Paul), and some sort of milquetoast would-be reformer (very possibly a woman; Martinez, Ayotte, Haley, Jindal?)

I spend far too much time thinking about the primaries. God Bless AMERICA, the land of the free and the home of never-ending election season. One of these days I'll succumb to the temptation to use my reserved OP post for infrequently updated primary candidate analysis.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

'Spect we're going to have another very, very embittered, schismatic primary fight for the GOP this go-round, although the exact parties are going to be a bit different. Romney carried the business wing's banner in November, but he's a done deal. I suspect we're going to see a long, drawn-out and hopefully entertaining fight to the near-death between the Religious Right (Santorum, maybe Perry again?), the libertarians (Rand Paul), and some sort of milquetoast would-be reformer (very possibly a woman; Martinez, Ayotte, Haley, Jindal?)

Probable witch Nate Silver posits that the GOP consists of five partially overlapping factions. In the coming GOP Civil War, events up until now suggest we're going to see three sides in total: a Religious Right-Tea Party alliance, a Reformer-Libertarian alliance, and the Establishment desperately trying to keep it all together.

[Cthulhu]

I like that.  I always saw them as a triad though.  Religious conservatives, military conservatives, and economic conservatives, united in a desire for hegemony but divided in other aspects, and needing to satisfy all three blocs to succeed, which is why Republicans tend toward such ridiculously contradictory views, like Small Gubmint vs. 700 Billion Dollar Military Budget, or Small Gubmint vs. Legislating Who Can Touch your Dick, or Christian Values vs. Fuck Poor People, Dude.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I like Silver's model better, and it explains the contradictions just as well. The contradictions arise in part from the groups with no overlap and a shared rhetoric. The Religious Right and Moderate-Reformists both say they want small gubmint, but that means completely different things to each of them. Nonetheless, at the end of the day they both get called Republicans.

Silver's inclusion of the Establishment is also very important to the model. Because the establishment has overlap with each of the four other factions, representing their foothold in controlling the greater party, it has the least "purist" members of any faction. This is not exactly surprising when one considers that to be a Pure Establishment Republican means being for each of the other four factions equally in the name of strengthening the GOP's institution. As before, there are not many informed people out there who could say they'd vote for members of all four other factions with equal enthusiasm, because several pairings would have little-to-no overlap.

As for the GOP Civil War, it is starting now with the breakdown of a critical link in the factions: the Libertarian-Tea Party overlap. As the Tea Party is driven more towards a state of frenzied far-right rhetoric, the Libertarians who originally allied with them in part are shying away (and thus by definition are moving closer to the Moderate-Reformers). With this link broken, the party is immediately divided into centrist-to-center-right (Libertarian-Reformer alliance) and right-to-far-right (Tea Party-Religious Right alliance) wings. The Establishment is stretched thin because what was previously a four-way fight with equilibrium has turned into a two-way tug of war between the two alliances. This will only further deplete the already small "Pure Establishment" as polarization increases. In the end, what we are seeing now is turning the GOP into two different parties with the same name, even more than they were before.