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[Dunamisdeos]

So hey, real question: The biggest political hot spot right now seems to be these abortion bills. Are we in fact capable of discussing that here in detail without getting the thread locked and/or hating on each and every other person present forevermore?

[Loud Whispers]

skub justice warriors

[Kagus]

So hey, real question: The biggest political hot spot right now seems to be these abortion bills. Are we in fact capable of discussing that here in detail without getting the thread locked and/or hating on each and every other person present forevermore?

Which ones? I heard about New York doing something, mainly due to a clusterfuck of rage it illicited on Facebook.

[Dunamisdeos]

So hey, real question: The biggest political hot spot right now seems to be these abortion bills. Are we in fact capable of discussing that here in detail without getting the thread locked and/or hating on each and every other person present forevermore?

Which ones? I heard about New York doing something, mainly due to a clusterfuck of rage it illicited on Facebook.

That one and the one pitched in (wait for it) VA and ostensibly supported by our newly-favorite local scandalmonger (ding ding ding) Governor Northam.

Srsly it's important but let's just be careful, I'm sure we all have strong opinions for various reasons. Respect is key to understanding!

[smjjames]

So hey, real question: The biggest political hot spot right now seems to be these abortion bills. Are we in fact capable of discussing that here in detail without getting the thread locked and/or hating on each and every other person present forevermore?

Which ones? I heard about New York doing something, mainly due to a clusterfuck of rage it illicited on Facebook.

Theres the Virginia one where conservatives are claiming that it amounts to outright infanticide and are pretty pissed over that one, but I don't know the details. Don't know anything about the New York one though. I only really know about the Virginia one as it got brought up as background to the recent racism scandal with Northam. Might have heard something about it before that, but otherwise I don't know the details of what they're raging over.

edit: Actually, I think I remember, there was something about setting the limit to 25 weeks or something, or maybe that was a different state.

[hector13]

So hey, real question: The biggest political hot spot right now seems to be these abortion bills. Are we in fact capable of discussing that here in detail without getting the thread locked and/or hating on each and every other person present forevermore?

Which ones? I heard about New York doing something, mainly due to a clusterfuck of rage it illicited on Facebook.

That one and the one pitched in (wait for it) VA and ostensibly supported by our newly-favorite local scandalmonger (ding ding ding) Governor Northam.

Srsly it's important but let's just be careful, I'm sure we all have strong opinions for various reasons. Respect is key to understanding!

bt ur st00pid lmao

[Loud Whispers]

Which ones? I heard about New York doing something, mainly due to a clusterfuck of rage it illicited on Facebook.

Virginia & New York democrats are pushing for an extension of abortion term limits to extend past the prior limit regarding the survivability of foetus
As is now, it's considered legally and ethically acceptable to abort a late-stage baby if it would severely and irreversibly damage the health of the mother, up to and including killing the mother, and/or there is a similar threat to the viability of the baby to live through any pregnancy. The skub proposal seeks to expand late-stage abortion provided medical health professionals assess there is a threat to the physical or mental health of the mother, removing stipulations of the abortion being absolutely necessary to the survival of the mother, or survival of the child being impossible, as this proposal will allow for the abortion of healthy children who would survive if they had been delivered - without carrying a penalty of homicide or manslaughter on any health professional doing such a procedure. Especial attention is being paid to the vagueness of the 'harm' in question, the removal of an empirically observable assessment of the harm, the development of a baby which would survive being born being aborted, the removal of an ethical imperative as a limit e.t.c. e.t.c. liberal crime squad aaectivate

[smjjames]

Besides, when isn't there a clusterfuck of rage over anything abortion related.

They seem extra pissed over the Virginia one though, something about also aborting babies with severe fetal abnormalities to the point where they wouldn't survive birth, I may not be identifying their target of rage correctly though.

[Dunamisdeos]

From what I can tell it's another third-term abortion bill that allows abortion up to the moment the baby is born, similar to New York. When asked if Northam supported the bill, he says:

Appearing to discuss what would happen if a child was born after a failed attempt at abortion, he said, “the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

Anyway, being involved in various generally-conservative circles, the rage I hear seems related to a few repeating points:

1) An actual, medically necessary third-trimester abortion is ridiculously rare. Situations that DO require it already do not carry penalty under law. If this is the case, there is no reason to expand upon it aside from wanting to perform these abortions outside of medically necessary cases.

2) The VA bill can be interpreted as defining a baby with defects as protected only if the mother wants the baby, whether it is born or no. This seems to have been borne out by Northam's ham-handed comments. It is also in direct opposition to previous longstanding pro-choice assurances that such a thing could never be possible and that abortion would never progress to terminating a born infant.

3) I believe it's the VA bill that (correct me if I'm wrong) removes the requirement that abortion must be performed at a hospital. I have no idea what could motivate this, it's major surgery, where else would you want this done?

That said, I've seen a lot of similar sentiments by non-conservatives on this subject.

I can't say I'm in favor of these abortion bills, personally. I feel like we do need to enshrine protections firmly into law that an abortion should be an option in specific  medically-necessary cases, but I don't see the benefit in relaxing these standards to this degree. I'm actually worried that the backlash could reverse views on abortion that should be reversed. What do you guys think?

[Loud Whispers]

Besides, when isn't there a clusterfuck of rage over anything abortion related.

They seem extra pissed over the Virginia one though, something about also aborting babies with severe fetal abnormalities to the point where they wouldn't survive birth, I may not be identifying their target of rage correctly though.

This article articulates why people are absolutely livid

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Democratic leaders are overplaying their hand and exposing the harsh reality of their platform. Their promotion of abortion rights after viability doesn’t line up with widely accepted medical evidence or public opinion. Research from the pro-abortion-rights Guttmacher Institute contradicts the claims that abortions after 20 weeks are most often necessary in heart-wrenching medical emergencies. One study summarized the available data as
suggesting that “most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.” It looked directly at those who sought abortions for other reasons, finding that these women tended to be young, poor, or both, and often delayed their abortion because they had to find money to travel to and pay for the procedure.*

Some physicians argue that late in a pregnancy, killing a healthy fetus is never required to save a mother’s life; that delivery of the fetus via Cesarean section is both faster and safer. “During my time at Albany Medical Center I managed hundreds of [high-risk] cases by ‘terminating’ pregnancies to save mother’s lives,” the former abortion provider Anthony Levatino testified to Congress in 2012. “In all those hundreds of cases, the number of unborn children that I had to deliberately kill was zero.”

In cases of third-trimester abortion for “fetal viability” exceptions, meanwhile, it should be obvious that no fetal deformity or disease is cured by killing the afflicted unborn child. Consider this testimony from Omar Hamada: “I want to clear something up so that there is absolutely no doubt. I’m a Board Certified OB/GYN who has delivered over 2,500 babies. There’s not a single fetal or maternal condition that requires third trimester abortion. Not one. Delivery, yes. Abortion, no.”

To argue for abortion on the grounds of fetal abnormality amounts to defending the selective killing of human beings with disabilities or terminal illnesses; whether these abortions stem from callousness or misplaced compassion makes little difference to the life at stake.

It is unsurprising that abortions this late in pregnancy are vastly unpopular with the American public. Gallup polling from 2018 found that only 13 percent of Americans favor making third-trimester abortions “generally” legal, and only 18 percent of Democrats shared that position. Women reject late-term abortion at an even higher rate than men. A Marist survey from earlier this year found that 75 percent of Americans would limit abortion to, at most, the first three months of pregnancy, and majorities of Democrats and those who describe themselves as pro-choice agreed.

By defending more expansive abortion rights even in the face of these facts, Democrats are exposing an uncomfortable reality that they would rather not acknowledge: They embrace abortion as a woman’s right to end the life of her fetus at any stage—not the right to end her pregnancy.

At 24 weeks, and now even as early as 21 weeks, newborn infants have survived outside the womb with the help of neonatal intensive care. In Cuomo’s New York—and possibly someday soon in Northam’s Virginia—healthy, viable fetuses even after 24 weeks could easily be killed in the womb rather than delivered.

This is why the abortion-rights movement has long relied upon euphemisms to obscure the unpleasant truth about the right they advocate. Phrases like women’s rights, the right to choose, and reproductive freedom dominate their advocacy, along with dismissive jargon like clumps of cells.

But in defending bills that expand the right to abort viable fetuses, Democrats are giving away the game. Most people, even those who favor some abortion access, instinctively recoil from what they see. These late-term abortion bills do more than reveal Democratic radicalism. They draw back the veil of euphemism to expose abortion for what it is: At every stage of pregnancy, it is the taking of a human life. For the anti-abortion movement, it is a pivotal moment to insist upon that truth.

What do you guys think?

To be concise I think it's far too late in the pregnancy to be aborting without any actual imperative

[Kagus]

People were misunderstanding the New York one as being "let's murder and eat healthy fetuses!" rather than being tied into health concerns for the mother and/or child. Can't really blame people for not reading past suggestive headlines, now can we?

One pleasant fellow argued that the law was unnecessary, as "it is impossible to abort a fetus that is already dead". As for terminating pregnancies that would result in significant harm and/or death for the child and mother, that was countered with "should we just shoot cancer patients now?"

It was a shining day for philosophical thought and discourse.


Interesting that this should be coming up now... There's been a bit of a hubbub in Norway recently about conservative christian parties trying to remove similar protections that are already in place here. This was mostly championed with reading the subclause about terminating later-stage pregnancies that showed "dangerous genetic defects", which obviously meant people with Downs syndrome specifically, and then decrying the law as "discriminatory" because it was singling out and killing all the lovely folks with Downs and discriminating against them. "This is 2018, the time for bigoted and discriminatory laws has long passed".

So, yeah. Truth is inconvenient, rage fits in a bag.

[smjjames]

From what I can tell it's another third-term abortion bill that allows abortion up to the moment the baby is born, similar to New York. When asked if Northam supported the bill, he says:

Appearing to discuss what would happen if a child was born after a failed attempt at abortion, he said, “the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

Anyway, being involved in various generally-conservative circles, the rage I hear seems related to a few repeating points:

1) An actual, medically necessary third-trimester abortion is ridiculously rare. Situations that DO require it already do not carry penalty under law. If this is the case, there is no reason to expand upon it aside from wanting to perform these abortions outside of medically necessary cases.

2) The VA bill can be interpreted as defining a baby with defects as protected only if the mother wants the baby, whether it is born or no. This seems to have been borne out by Northam's ham-handed comments. It is also in direct opposition to previous longstanding pro-choice assurances that such a thing could never be possible and that abortion would never progress to terminating a born infant.

3) I believe it's the VA bill that (correct me if I'm wrong) removes the requirement that abortion must be performed at a hospital. I have no idea what could motivate this, it's major surgery, where else would you want this done?

That said, I've seen a lot of similar sentiments by non-conservatives on this subject.

I can't say I'm in favor of these abortion bills, personally. I feel like we do need to enshrine protections firmly into law that an abortion should be an option in specific  medically-necessary cases, but I don't see the benefit in relaxing these standards to this degree. I'm actually worried that the backlash could reverse views on abortion that should be reversed. What do you guys think?

I don't see the point of terminating born infants. I could see it coming up if the baby has such severe abnormailities that they'd be severely disabled, but that's a completely different controversey and ethical quagmire onto itself.

I don't have a strong position or much of an opinion on it myself other than that it should be the womans choice.

As for the removing the requirement for it to be at a hospital, maybe it refers to abortion clinics? No idea what that one is about.

Besides, when isn't there a clusterfuck of rage over anything abortion related.

They seem extra pissed over the Virginia one though, something about also aborting babies with severe fetal abnormalities to the point where they wouldn't survive birth, I may not be identifying their target of rage correctly though.

This article articulates why people are absolutely livid

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Democratic leaders are overplaying their hand and exposing the harsh reality of their platform. Their promotion of abortion rights after viability doesn’t line up with widely accepted medical evidence or public opinion. Research from the pro-abortion-rights Guttmacher Institute contradicts the claims that abortions after 20 weeks are most often necessary in heart-wrenching medical emergencies. One study summarized the available data as
suggesting that “most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.” It looked directly at those who sought abortions for other reasons, finding that these women tended to be young, poor, or both, and often delayed their abortion because they had to find money to travel to and pay for the procedure.*

Some physicians argue that late in a pregnancy, killing a healthy fetus is never required to save a mother’s life; that delivery of the fetus via Cesarean section is both faster and safer. “During my time at Albany Medical Center I managed hundreds of [high-risk] cases by ‘terminating’ pregnancies to save mother’s lives,” the former abortion provider Anthony Levatino testified to Congress in 2012. “In all those hundreds of cases, the number of unborn children that I had to deliberately kill was zero.”

In cases of third-trimester abortion for “fetal viability” exceptions, meanwhile, it should be obvious that no fetal deformity or disease is cured by killing the afflicted unborn child. Consider this testimony from Omar Hamada: “I want to clear something up so that there is absolutely no doubt. I’m a Board Certified OB/GYN who has delivered over 2,500 babies. There’s not a single fetal or maternal condition that requires third trimester abortion. Not one. Delivery, yes. Abortion, no.”

To argue for abortion on the grounds of fetal abnormality amounts to defending the selective killing of human beings with disabilities or terminal illnesses; whether these abortions stem from callousness or misplaced compassion makes little difference to the life at stake.

It is unsurprising that abortions this late in pregnancy are vastly unpopular with the American public. Gallup polling from 2018 found that only 13 percent of Americans favor making third-trimester abortions “generally” legal, and only 18 percent of Democrats shared that position. Women reject late-term abortion at an even higher rate than men. A Marist survey from earlier this year found that 75 percent of Americans would limit abortion to, at most, the first three months of pregnancy, and majorities of Democrats and those who describe themselves as pro-choice agreed.

By defending more expansive abortion rights even in the face of these facts, Democrats are exposing an uncomfortable reality that they would rather not acknowledge: They embrace abortion as a woman’s right to end the life of her fetus at any stage—not the right to end her pregnancy.

At 24 weeks, and now even as early as 21 weeks, newborn infants have survived outside the womb with the help of neonatal intensive care. In Cuomo’s New York—and possibly someday soon in Northam’s Virginia—healthy, viable fetuses even after 24 weeks could easily be killed in the womb rather than delivered.

This is why the abortion-rights movement has long relied upon euphemisms to obscure the unpleasant truth about the right they advocate. Phrases like women’s rights, the right to choose, and reproductive freedom dominate their advocacy, along with dismissive jargon like clumps of cells.

But in defending bills that expand the right to abort viable fetuses, Democrats are giving away the game. Most people, even those who favor some abortion access, instinctively recoil from what they see. These late-term abortion bills do more than reveal Democratic radicalism. They draw back the veil of euphemism to expose abortion for what it is: At every stage of pregnancy, it is the taking of a human life. For the anti-abortion movement, it is a pivotal moment to insist upon that truth.

What do you guys think?

To be concise I think it's far too late in the pregnancy to be aborting without any actual imperative

Yeah that's.... an entire sub-controversy or even it's own separate ethical controversy from the subject of simply aborting fetuses. I can see it slippery sloping into a whole other tank of worms when you start getting genetics involved.

It also sounds like Northam's ham-handed (by dunamis's description) attempts at handling it have only made it worse.

[Gentlefish]

You quoted the same thing twice?

But in cases of "severe disability or terminal illness" I think it's fair. So long it's terminal in terms of days or months rather than decades or so. It saves heartache and medical bills if they choose to abort someone who won't see their first birthday.

It's the severe disability I'm leery of. What's severe enough to abort, mentally or physically? What quality of life is enough for us to say what's worth letting live?

[smjjames]

Whoops, I put the wrong quote in for the first one, fixing.

@Gentlefish: That's where the ethical quagmire comes in, how do you determine severe enough to terminate (though euthanaisia would be a more appropriate term here, even if euphenising it a little)? Who determines it? Kagus also made a point with Downs syndrome a couple posts back.

[PTTG??]

Can I be a Social Justice Necromancer?