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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25512 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 18, 2024

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I guess I'll start us off with a quick one:

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2024/03/17/trump-gop-must-endorse-three-exceptions-for-abortion-to-get-elected/

This isn't an article so much as a clip-n-quote of something Trump said. I'll copy paste here because it's not long and this way you won't have to click the link:

When asked about the rape, incest and life of mother exceptions, Trump said, “If you look at France, if you look at different places in Europe with, if you look at a lot of the civilized world, they have a period of time. But you can’t go out seven months and eight months and nine months. If the Republicans spoke about it correctly, it never hurt me from the standpoint of elections. It hurt a lot of Republicans. I think you have to have, you have to have the three exceptions.”

He added, “I tell people, number one, you have to to with your heart. You have to go with your heart. But beyond that you also have to get elected, OK? And if you don’t have the three exceptions, I think it’s very, very hard to get elected. We had a gentleman from Pennsylvania who was doing pretty well. He refused to to go with the exceptions, and he lost in a landslide for governor. Nice man lost in a landslide. You have to go with the exceptions. The number of weeks, I’ll be coming out with a recommendation fairly soon. I think it’ll be accepted.”

I'm pro-life and believe life begins at conception, not just as a Christian, but much more importantly because I consider it the cleanest and most sane policy from a secular perspective. Because to me it seems obvious the only way to avoid making Tenochtitlan-sized mistakes at some point along our path is to avoid meddling with the primeval forces of nature and attempting to play God in the first place.

Once you start introducing 'exceptions,' you're just immediately back to condoning all abortion. "My health is at risk because if I'm not permitted to abort I might harm myself" is a free at-will golden ticket as long as you're able to memorize and repeat a sentence of that length.

Trump, quite obviously, doesn't really feel strongly about abortion and is attempting to pick the most palatable position. That's the problem about integrity in politics - none of the voters have any so it's almost always counterproductive for your electability if you do.

But taking the tack that "the GOP must accept exceptions" instead of "the issue must be returned to the states" is another huge own goal from the New York liberal Trump. If you're going to have a slippery real estate mogul as your standard bearer, you're going to end up with some very ugly and counterproductive wheeling and dealing for the movement.

Once you start introducing 'exceptions,' you're just immediately back to condoning all abortion. "My health is at risk because if I'm not permitted to abort I might harm myself" is a free at-will golden ticket as long as you're able to memorize and repeat a sentence of that length.

This is completely incoherent and, though I hope to not fall afoul of the rules, inhumane to me. "Zero exceptions" means that you're going to have to own every single one of the nasty and truly horrific instances that show up. When an 11 year old girl shows up pregnant because she was raped by her uncle, you're going to have to look her in the eyes and tell her that actually if we abort the deformed and most likely non-viable foetus that's going to have a 100% chance of killing her upon delivery it might encourage other people to have unnecessary abortions - so she should write her will now. This isn't a hypothetical I plucked out of the ether, either - I feel like it is important to point out that the three exceptions are generally understood to be rape, incest and the life of the mother. That's what you're ruling out when you say no exceptions - that it is better for an underaged rape victim to pointlessly suffer and die because to do otherwise would be "meddling with the primeval forces of nature and attempting to play God".

Of course the issues don't end there - when you actually have a "no exceptions" policy, you're going to have to do some vigorous enforcement. Whenever a woman miscarries or has a stillbirth, you're going to have to send the police in while she grieves to make sure she didn't do anything untoward - after all, maybe that miscarriage was the result of taking a herbal abortifacient or engaging in risky behaviour to induce the death of the child. Every stillbirth and miscarriage becomes a potential crime scene, and if you're serious about "no exceptions" then you're going to have to have a police investigation every single time.

For the record, I'm personally a traditionalist when it comes to abortion - i.e. it is totally fine to get an abortion or simply leave the baby on the side of a wolf-covered mountain until they're a few years old (if they survive, great. if not, the gods didn't favour them anyway).

When an 11 year old girl shows up pregnant because she was raped by her uncle, you're going to have to look her in the eyes and tell her that actually if we abort the deformed and most likely non-viable foetus that's going to have a 100% chance of killing her upon delivery

How do you know it's deformed? You can't assume problems down to inbreeding if the parties are not the result of inbreeding themselves, it takes a few generations to reach Spanish Habsburg levels.

Also it isn't 100% likely to kill her, while this story seems very dubious, maybe it's true. If a precocious puberty five year old could survive, so can an eleven year old.

I am now going to sit back and wait for the mods to scold you for using emotive language and being heated and obsessed with this topic. I've gotten rebukes before for my hobbyhorses, so let's share the love.

EDIT: If pro-abortion types would stick to "abortion for incestuously raped 11 year olds", I'd take that bargain. But they don't and they won't. How many of the people having conniptions over "forced birth" in Texas are at risk of being incestuously raped 11 year olds? But those are the cases that get trotted out when it comes to legal abortion, the same way that trans activists use intersex people as "there is no gender binary, bigot" shields.

This survey comes from 2005, I'd really like to see an updated version, but the vast majority of abortions are for financial reasons. Rape/incest are so miniscule, if we only permitted abortions for those reasons, that would be 1% of all abortions carried out. This is why the pro-abortion side are so hysterical; if the bargain was "we pro-lifers will give in on rape/incest/life of the mother, if you pro-abortion say those are the only permitted abortions", then they would lose the majority of the abortions carried out. No more "oops, I got drunk and we fucked without precautions, I'm not ready for a baby" fix-ups.

The reasons most frequently cited were that having a child would interfere with a woman's education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%); that she could not afford a baby now (73%); and that she did not want to be a single mother or was having relationship problems (48%). Nearly four in 10 women said they had completed their childbearing, and almost one-third were not ready to have a child. Fewer than 1% said their parents' or partners' desire for them to have an abortion was the most important reason. Younger women often reported that they were unprepared for the transition to motherhood, while older women regularly cited their responsibility to dependents.

•Reasons in 2004. Among the structured survey respondents, the two most common reasons were "having a baby would dramatically change my life" and "I can't afford a baby now" (cited by 74% and 73%, respectively—Table 2). A large proportion of women cited relationship problems or a desire to avoid single motherhood (48%). Nearly four in 10 indicated that they had completed their childbearing, and almost one-third said they were not ready to have a child. Women also cited possible problems affecting the health of the fetus or concerns about their own health (13% and 12%, respectively).‡ Respondents wrote in a number of specific health reasons, from chronic or debilitating conditions such as cancer and cystic fibrosis to pregnancy-specific concerns such as gestational diabetes and morning sickness.

The most common subreason given was that the woman could not afford a baby now because she was unmarried (42%). Thirty-eight percent indicated that having a baby would interfere with their education, and the same proportion said it would interfere with their employment. In a related vein, 34% said they could not afford a child because they were students or were planning to study.

In the in-depth interviews, the three most frequently stated reasons were the same as in the structured survey: the dramatic impact a baby would have on the women's lives or the lives of their other children (32 of 38 respondents), financial concerns (28), and their current relationship or fear of single motherhood (21). Nine women cited health concerns for themselves, possible problems affecting the health of the fetus or both as a reason for terminating the pregnancy.

And it's why I won't give an inch on any "but surely only a monster could object" appeals, because I've seen it doesn't stop there. "Oh, life of the mother, but what if it's not an immediate physical risk? Okay, what if it's not physical, how about mental? Okay, what about if the mother threatens suicide? Okay, what if the mother threatens suicide because she would have to drop out of college to have the baby?" and every time the new "just this one little concession" is given, then the next "just this one little concession" is immediately on the table for "but surely only a monster could object".

I mean, the problem for pro-lifers is the vast majority of moderates are OK with "oops, the condom broke or I forgot my birth control" when it's their daughter, sister, et al whose about to go to college, and tells them they missed their period. Which is why in every single vote on the matter, no matter how extreme the pro-choice bill is written, it passes. Even in places like Kentucky, Kansas, and Montana.

Because yes, American's may not like 'up 'til birth' extremists like me (because I trust women and doctors not to be crazy), but if given a choice between me or the median pro-lifer who wants to ban abortion after six weeks, they'll choose no limits every damn time.

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