Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
- 66
- 1
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Related to @IGI-111 's post: https://www.themotte.org/post/1754/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/310065?context=8#context.
After the recent federal elections, the victorious conservative CDU are looking to give themselves financial leeway by undoing the the so-called "debt brake", written into the constitution, which strictly limits how much debt the government can build up to balance its budget. In order to do so, they called upon the old parliament to quickly push through a slew of constitutional changes including the relaxation of the debt rules. In order to collect the required two-thirds majority, the CDU has given the Greens a constitutional commitment to climate neutrality by 2045.
In order to govern, the CDU aims to form a coalition with the Social-Democrats. And those have now announced their demand: Unconditionally legalize abortion. A trifle compared to what the greens got, who will not even be part of the coalition.
During the election the CDU played the part of the culture-warriors standing up for conservative Germans. They broke taboos to demand a crackdown on immigration, painted the Greens as agents of deindustrialization and poverty, and made a stand on balancing the budget without further debt. But that was then, and now it's time to jettison the drama in favor of getting along with everyone except the nationalist AfD who, I remind you, received the second-largest share of votes.
This is pretty much telling the stupid neo-nazi tinfoil hats that yes, they were right, the establishment is entirely willing to conspire against the people, democracy is a sham and the constitution is a worthless piece of paper.
Looking forward to a great four years.
"The people" are only the 20% that voted for AfD?
It sounds to me like the CDU gave away nothing and got everything they wanted. Support for abortion in germany is in excess of 70% and as for the green stuff thats far away and the constitution can obviously just be changed (like this time) if it becomes a problem.
If Wikipedia is to be believed, abortion in Germany is banned except for when it's necessary for saving mother's life and also the ban is not enforced for the first 12 weeks. I think that's something that not only 70% of US population, but the majority of Republicans would be ok to sign up with. It's interestingly how Germany with it's Euro-leftist tendencies and seemingly wide support for abortions, has the laws that if implemented in the US, would be universally called "far-right abortion ban".
That's because Europe hasn't had a US style batshit insane anti-abortion movement outside small rare niches. Meaningful opposition to abortion has been almost purely from catholic conservatives where the dynamics have been different and that faction has fairly decisively lost the battle. The result is that abortion is viewed as a practical health issue where the de facto status is what matters instead of what the official wording is. So you have things like Germany's "prohibited in theory but in practise entirely legal" where the nominal prohibition is kept due to a technicality and as a way to allow conservatives to signal "morally appropriate behavior".
You're leaving out the part where abortion is only legal the first 12 weeks, which progressives in the US think is a far-right abortion ban but which here in germany is considered perfectly fine by most.
No, I’m explaining why people in Germany and Europe overall consider that state as ”Abortion is legal.”. There is no meaningful group trying to ban abortion and thus no opposite group pushing for equally ridiculous policy in the other direction. Then it becomes a boring matter for medical professionals and ethics theoreticists to debate over 12 vs 16 weeks. You can’t run up furor over those sorts of numbers, particularly when people are just going to look at neighbouring countries with very similar rules.
The whole conversation started with how there is a push towards ridiculous permissiveness. As you note there is no corresponding push to criminalize it, so this entire Myth of the Reasonable European seems to be on very shaky ground.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link