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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   30127 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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Texas tries to put Planned Parenthood out of business again(and might succeed this time)

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/15/texas-abortion-planned-parenthood-lawsuit/

Last year, the state filed a federal lawsuit claiming Planned Parenthood improperly billed Medicaid for $10 million in payments during the period when the state was trying to remove the organization from the program.

Texas is seeking more than $1.8 billion in reimbursement, penalties and fees.

So Texas wants to lawfare Planned Parenthood out of being able to operate. This isn't new. What is new is this part:

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a conservative who previously worked on anti-abortion cases as a religious liberty lawyer, will hear arguments from both sides today in Amarillo.

"A conservative who previously worked on anti-abortion cases as a religious liberty lawyer" is a technically accurate description of Matthew Kacsmaryk. It is, however, leaving out the context that was the judge who suspended FDA approval for mifepristone, had only previously worked for conservative activist groups, and also got handpicked by the plaintiffs. There is a 0.0% chance he will rule in favor of Planned Parenthood under any circumstances.

So what's the practical effect?

The 2022 lawsuit, filed by Paxton before he was impeached this year, argues that Planned Parenthood erred by not appealing the initial termination through administrative channels and instead pursuing the case through the courts.

Though they’re seeking to claw back $10 million in payments, they’ve asked the judge to order Planned Parenthood to pay an additional two times that value, plus civil penalties and interest from the day the payment was billed as well as expenses, costs and attorneys fees.

The estimated $1.8 billion payment would likely bankrupt Texas’ three Planned Parenthood affiliates several times over at a moment the organization argues they are needed more than ever.

So basically similar to what New York tried with the NRA. It should go without saying that while I find Planned Parenthood an unsympathetic defendant, this would not be happening to a less politically charged organization and 180 times the overbilling amount is just absurd. Also the legal interpretation seems dubious and probably would've been dismissed by a less biased judge.

I do want to point out some incredible naivety:

“Our organization knows we always have to be making decisions that are the most ethical and the most compliant with any rule or regulation out there, so it just felt like a great injustice,” she said. “I had hoped that if you play by the rules and do the right thing, it will turn out right, but that’s not the case.”

PP is, uh, not going to get left alone in the culture wars, and that's their fault for constantly making themselves a target in every way they can come up with. It's fair to point to people who don't have access to whatever healthcare services they provide(do they actually provide mammograms? The claim seems debunked but the people who did the debunking are not fans of PP) but trying to paint Planned Parenthood as an innocent victim of broadsides unleashed for no reason, even if it's playing pretty hardball, is not totally in contact with reality. Planned Parenthood is not in any universe apolitical and their side did after all start the trend of trying to punish the opposition.

It really is so wonderfully charming how devoted Texas Republicans are to ensuring poor and underclass women are forced into having more babies than they currently do. This certainly won’t lead to problems down the road, because impoverished single mothers famously raise the most well-adjusted sons who commit crime at well-below-average rates.

Hopefully SCOTUS eventually limits this specific form of depressing ridiculousness.

I've gotten flack for making the argument that if pro-lifers really believed abortion is murdering babies, they'd actually act like babies are being murdered. But unlike you, I actually believe pro-lifers do, in the abstract, believe abortion is morally wrong. Which is why I find your argument kind of silly. It's also commonly presented even more strongly by HBDers: "Do you really want those people breeding more?" That's a good argument if you believe the progressive framing that pro-lifers don't actually care about babies at all and banning abortion is purely a way to punish women/own the libs. But if they really do believe abortion is wrong, then of course it's wrong even if it means more of "those people" are breeding, and arguing that they should be in favor because the kind of women who have abortions are mostly the kind of women you want to have abortions is missing the point.

Not to pile on to a totally unrelated thread as I do just that; but a conception that allows both views (and which I think is true in most cases) is anti-abortion as a cultural signifier.

Ie, most compelled-birthers (probably) have no real concept of what a fetus is and (probably )do not believe in their hearts that an embryo is alive (which we can observe from the prevalence of abortions among anti-abortionists being only marginally smaller than everyone else of their race and class).

It's not that they are doing it to own the libs, it's that they are doing it because they have to do it to be part of the club, style of thing.

  • -14

This comment is kinda borderline, it's gotten two reports and I might overlook it if you weren't already on thin ice for boo-outgroup and weakman responses. I'm not going to perma-ban you, or even tempban you this time, because I think maybe this comment looks like progress in the right direction? But I am warning you.

In case you find this confusing, notice that the substance of your argument is fine (pro-life arguments as a social signal is a perfectly defensible position, presumably the same is true for pro-choice arguments, and most run-of-the-mill arguments, really) but your presentation is not. In particular, "no real concept of what a fetus is" and "do not believe in their hearts that an embryo is alive" are weak men. As the rules note:

We want to engage with the best ideas on either side of any issue, not the worst.

I do think it's possible for sizable groups of people to be systematically mistaken about certain object-level facts, and to hold their positions on the basis of these mistaken claims. I also think it's possible for sizable groups of people to be systematically inaccurate about their own beliefs, both through wilful dishonesty and through unconscious error. I don't want to debate the validity of any particular example, but I do think that such things are at least possible, and therefore these are legitimate claims that people should be allowed to defend here.

Do the mods agree? If no, why not? If yes, what is the preferred mode of presentation for these sorts of claims? (If we need to work with a particular example, let's say that someone really does believe that pro-life advocates are systematically mistaken about certain biological facts about fetuses - what is the best way to present that claim in a way that doesn't violate the rules?)

It looks to me like nara is explicitly saying that you can make those claims, you just have to A) provide evidence, and B) frame it in a way that is less antagonistic, dismissive, and strawmanny.

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