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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   36282 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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A minor observation from the political ads in my area:

Abortion gets mentioned a lot in Democrat ads about Republicans, and always with the suffix: "even in cases of rape or incest".

The words "abortion", "choice", "termination" etc. are completely absent in Democrat ads about our ballot initiative to make partial birth abortion legal. It's all doctors saying stuff like "the government shouldn't come between me and my patients". One ad I had to check to see what it was about because a doctor started talking about how things happen in surgery and sometimes you have to make hard choices etc. Nothing at all to contextualize it to abortion. If my view of the initiative came from ads, I wouldn't know it was about abortion at all. The ads are all generically medical.

The combination of "Republicans want to take your most precious right of abortion from you!" combined with "hey, vote for this vague medical reform to stop government interfering with doctors!" is pretty interesting.

"the government shouldn't come between me and my patients"

"unless I want to prescribe Ivermectin or HCQ"

"Unless I want to prescribe anything" really. Or do anything. The medical field is heavily regulated on every level.

Less than you think. Doctors are supposed to be able to prescribe approved drugs for off label uses. Excluding drugs scheduled under the Controlled Substances Act of course.

Pharmacies refusing to fill prescriptions for Ivermectin and HCQ was really unprecedented.

The FDA is only supposed to have labeling power, it's not supposed to be able to micromanage treatment.

Sure, but they're "approved" drugs. Even when doctors are free to prescribe them it's still very explicitly under the state umbrella.

Makes sense: I imagine that a majority of swing voters are neither in favour of complete bans on abortion, nor in favour of "anything goes."

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