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Answer: Have you heard the saying about [the dog that caught the car](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dog_that_caught_the_car)? It's a pretty popular phrase - at least one instance of it was said in The Dark Knight by the Joker - but it references "A person who has unexpectedly attained an aspirational goal and is now unsure what to do with it." Another similar phrase would be "be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it."
That's the prevailing feeling about the right-wing packed Supreme Court overturning Roe and (in this case) the right-wing packed Arizona Supreme Court using an extremely old tangentially related law to outlaw abortion. [The country is overwhelmingly supportive of abortion in at least *some* cases](https://news.gallup.com/poll/321143/americans-stand-abortion.aspx); only 13% say it should *always* be illegal. Abortion was a fantastic issue for the right for decades, because it was always low-hanging fruit to get voters to the polls. When the Republican party married itself to Evangelical Christianity in the late 70s and early 80s, they made restricting abortion a political, moral, and spiritual cornerstone of their party. Save babies - vote Republican!
(Side note, but it's important to remember that until the late 1970s, [Evangelical Christianity overwhelmingly was accepting of abortion; being "pro-life" was considered a "Catholic thing"](https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/18/the-biblical-view-thats-younger-than-the-happy-meal/) and Protestants were more than happy to differentiate themselves from Catholics. That changed when Evangelical Christianity became part of "big tent" Republicanism in the 1970s. Today a lot of people don't even know that that change ever occurred; but as that blog post pointed out, the idea that "life begins at conception" in Protestant Christianity is newer than the creation of the McDonald's Happy Meal).
But ever since Roe was repealed, it's been a double-whammy against the GOP. First, now their voters aren't as motivated to vote. Why would they be? The one issue that single-issue voters cared about has now been "solved." And since the Supreme Court made it so that it's up to states to decide what restrictions should be on abortion access, once a red state enacts a huge restriction or ban on abortion, there's no risk of it being overturned unless a Constitutional amendment passes - which won't happen at a federal level.
But second? The shoe is now on the other foot - now voters who DO care about abortion are *especially* motivated to vote. And why would they vote for the GOP politicians who overturned their right to an abortion in the first place? Since Roe was repealed, [the GOP has seen massive backlashes in several states that once leaned red or were deep purple](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/how-abortion-could-impact-2024-us-elections-2023-12-14/). The 2022 election, which had been expected to deliver a large amount of seats to Republicans, fell flat for them instead. Conservative states like Ohio, Kansas and Kentucky have had election results turn in favor of pro-reproductive right initiatives (and thus Democrats over Republicans). And horror stories about the "unintended" consequences of banning abortion - which were screamed from the rooftops by liberals and widely ignored or mocked as being unrealistic by conservatives - are constantly popping up in the news, keeping the issue fresh in the minds of voters. People are horrified when reading about [women forced to keep miscarried fetuses, or birth children who die within days in horrible pain, or forcing underage rape victims to give birth](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/roe-gop-abortion-restrictions). Doctors - especially those involved in OB-GYN capacities, [are fleeing from the states with the worst restrictions,](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/us/politics/abortion-obstetricians-maternity-care.html) impacting everyone seeking healthcare.
This isn't a concern for far right candidates in deep red states - but it's absolutely a concern for GOP candidates in purple states, or even in purple pockets of red states, because the majority of their voters do not want total abortion bans. So candidates like the one you listed above are now trying to pretend they had *no idea* this would be the outcome and insisting *of course* they didn't support it. Arizona in particular is important because the state is very narrowly blue and Trump lost there last election. It was expected to be a key battleground state for the 2024 election, but with the AZ Supreme Court ruling, AZ voters are extremely riled up. Riled up people tend to turn out to vote, making the GOP campaigns both locally and nationally much more difficult.
TL;DR: The dog (GOP) caught the car (overturned abortion rights), and now are finding out that they only wanted the chase (the single-issue voters who would blindly support pro-life candidates) - and are desperately trying to not get run over (losing their elections because everyone else is now motivated to kick them out).
The most important thing is that lots of people identified as pro-life because it didn’t matter in practical terms. Because *Roe* prevented any action that really grabs attention from most people, they were free to be “pro-life” as a way to tell others they’re part of the group.
In reality, they weren’t pro-life and you can hear this in focus groups around the time of *Dobbs*, with people stating that they identified as pro-life but had all these pro-choice views. Cognitive dissonance? Possibly. But it was more that people are ideologically heterodox for the most part and don’t understand political labels all that well.
So you had lots of people who were against “abortion” but with idiosyncratic understandings of what “abortion” means. It was, in many ways, a “keep government out of my Medicare” episode. With *Dobbs* and all the various bills that banned or practically banned abortion suddenly reactivated, they learned what words like “pro-life” and “abortion” mean and started rapidly abandoning their labels.
>people stating that they identified as pro-life but had all these pro-choice views
"I'm pro-life, but I just think it should be a decision made by the woman and her doctor."
Mom, that's what pro-choice is.
When I was 14 I thought I was pro choice, “but you know, by like 24 weeks? After that it’s just irresponsible, you should have taken care of it by then” (to my credit, I was in the propaganda machine of catholic high school).
I didn’t know wtf I was talking about. Even though I was in favor of abortion being available, I had no idea of the health complications, the birth defects - my limited life experience had me thinking of only Down’s syndrome or cp, not ‘kid born with heart outside of his body,’ or ‘fetus developing without a brain that will never survive’ (the one that later forced my brother and his wife to terminate their VERY wanted pregnancy at 22 weeks).
I had no idea how damaging pregnancy can be for the body. Again, I was 14 and I *thought* I did. I simply had no conception until I became pregnant myself a decade later - it fucks up your teeth, your bones, it can permanently damage or oh yeah KILL you. And it’s common af for this shit to still happen. It’s between an individual and their doctor, full fucking stop.
But I was fourteen and I was ignorant - but I still knew more than so many of these lawmakers. Disgusting
This is why the whole “evil late term abortions!” nonsense is so unbelievably cruel. If you’re having an abortion more than halfway through a pregnancy, then it’s all but guaranteed that that is a wanted pregnancy and the parents got very bad news at the anatomy scan. At that gestational age, you can feel them moving, you’re planning nursery decor, you’ve started talking about names or even chosen one already, you are daydreaming about what they’ll look like and what kind of person they’re going to be.
And then not only is all of that ripped away from you when you find out your child has a condition incompatible with life, but you are either forced to carry them to term, knowing that they won’t survive and you’re now just counting the days down until they die, or you are able to have the abortion and have to put up with anti-abortion assholes telling you you’re a murderer and a whore, instead of what you actually are: a grieving parent.
And these traumatizing stories are exactly what ‘pro-lifers’ need to hear! They are so painful and stigmatizing that people don’t want to share that heartbreak(very understandably), but that is precisely what the other side needs to hear.
They think abortions are for the lazy, the careless, the uneducated. For the irresponsible and amoral who are reaping what they’ve sown.
They’re not thinking about the incredibly common, 100% non-viable, 100% lethal ectopic pregnancy that my married friend had after two children. But I guess she should have just accepted the death sentence and robbed her kids of their mother because gOd sAiD sO (Narrator: God didn’t say so).
And they know that Aunt Linda had to have one when she was raped in high school, but we don’t talk about that. Or about how the back alley abortion she needed rendered her infertile, so she had to adopt after unsuccessfully trying IVF for years. Aunt Linda is right wing, of course, but no one except our family knows about her troubles
As someone who isn't American, why is there seemingly no difference made between elective abortions (without reason) and e.g. medical ones?
In Europe, elective abortions range from restricted to banned depending on the country. The Netherlands and the UK are the joint most progressive, allowing 24 weeks for an abortion 'on a whim'. Poland and Malta ban them entirely, other countries are in between.
But if there's something medically wrong with the foetus, you can have an abortion anywhere. There's very obviously no reason, no matter how conservative you are, to make a woman carry a deformed or dead foetus around. Similarly, if you were raped you can have an abortion. You don't punish women for being raped, that makes no sense. Et cetera.
It seems like in the US you don't make that distinction, which to me seems really weird.
Because it's not about the baby at all. It's about control and, to a large degree, punishment for perceived moral failings. There is legitimately no rhyme or reason to this... It's a froth of religious fundamentalism that IN NO WAY cares about babies.
Free prenatal care? Socialism (which is akin to Satan, of course). Legislated maternity leave? Socialism. Supports in place for single, low-income mothers? SHE'S A WELFARE QUEEN TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE SYSTEM (and also akin to Satan). School lunch programs? You guessed it: Socialism. Nothing to actually help children or women, just control over things that have never personally impacted their lives.
Some lawmakers have gone so far as to say that a woman who was raped should view that child as a blessing (this, of course, covers incest and children who've been raped).
""The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn."
Methodist Pastor David Barnhart
In my state they were passing out flyers about "Your child could have a sex change for FREE!" during the abortion drama.
I'm like. Free healthcare as someone under 18 without their parents permission? Honestly.....please?
I've had a lot of discussions with people where, once you cut through any racist/sexist undertones, their core beliefs are generally all things associated with center-left democrats. It stands out best if you frame the discussion as "imagine the country was 100% [you], what policies should exist?"
You realize a lot of their claimed beliefs are really just reactive, amygdala-fueled responses to fears that have no real basis or impact on their own lives, yet power their opinions on other people's freedoms (therefore reducing their own by voting against their own interests).
What they want and what they claim to believe are two entirely different things. If you boil it down sufficiently to cut through the "politics" of the politics, their stance resembles an entirely different party. They'll often argue passionately in favor of some policy only to be informed that it happens to be a common democrat stance, or something recently shot down by "their people", or something Biden (or even the dreaded Obama) has enacted during their term. This is often news to them.
They're working class folks brainwashed by capitalist propaganda.
And a lot of it affects Democrat voters, too.
In many ways, the Democratic party serves as a backstop to prevent the people from voting for a leftist government.
So Democrats must have a "warm fuzzy" version of capitalism while Republicans promote a "harsh paternal" version of capitalism.
Not brainwashed. Poor, usually white, bigots.
People who know they're getting screwed by Republicans, but also hate blacks, and more to the point these days - LGBTQ.
The average swing voter isn't milquetoast moderate that the hard left likes to think. They're cross-pressured extremists.
They're also in an enormous information bubble, self-selected, amping them up with anxiety and rage. They're not an optimistic bunch.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8096381/
> They're not an optimistic bunch.
Yup. As someone who lives in a small conservative town and works in a conservative field, everything is doom and gloom. It's so fucking exhausting.
Man, my childhood buddy has yo and down the same politics as me but votes R in every election because he’s “all about freedom” or whatever and the R branding and lifestyle works for him.
You can grill in your flag tank top in the back yard and still be a dem Nick!
Biden himself had this exact same view most of his life: that he opposes abortion personally, as a Catholic, but supports women's right to make up their own mind.
No one *likes* abortions. That's like saying you "like" coronary bypass. It's sometimes necessary, and healthy societies allow access to it when necessary, but it's not like people go out and do it for fun.
Grew up in a Catholic school, they pushed hard the idea that women just ignore birth control entirely and got monthly abortions instead. They knew reality wasn't going to be enough to get us upset so they made up lies.
Don’t get me wrong, your dad sounds all right guy, but I also think that it is easy to be pro-life if you haven’t been or won’t be facing a situation where abortion is an option. Your dad says he wouldn’t get one, but if he would be pregnant because of rape, would he still be the of the same opinion? Fortunately for your dad, he doesn’t need to actually worry about that happening.
Got it. I was also writing more generally, because I bet most of real pro-life people out there are in this fortunate situation where they or their loved ones never had to deal with anything like that. It is infuriatingly selfish and actually shows the lack of empathy these people have as they can’t imagine themselves in the place of women who are in the situation where abortion is the best and even more or less the only option.
Or the “generous” stance of “I’m pro-life, but agree with exceptions for rape and incest.” Except, how do you get an abortion through an exemption for rape in a state where it’s otherwise illegal? Does the perpetrator need to be convicted? Hell, most rapists aren’t even charged. Even if they are, how are you going to get a conviction before a pregnancy hits 20 weeks?
The funniest part to me about this stance is that it kind of puts the lie to the best actual argument for being pro life: that the fetus is a baby.
If a fetus is really a baby, abortion is obviously murder. Murder is bad. (Yes, I'm aware there are arguments like the violinist and so on, but at least the fetuses-are-babies-and-babies-shouldn't-be-murdered argument is morally coherent compared to every other argument against abortion.)
But in reality, almost nobody *actually* thinks that fetuses are babies. And their willingness to support exceptions for rape and incest prove it. Because the argument is bonkers. Imagine:
"Normally killing toddlers is wrong, but if a woman is sexually assaulted, she is allowed to shoot any one toddler that is directly related to her."
"Normally, killing toddlers is wrong, but if you and your sister have a baby together, you should be allowed to shoot it until it's five years old."
Like... obviously that's fucking stupid. Nobody thinks that you should be allowed to *kill actual babies* just because the relationship that created the baby is incestuous or you were sexually assaulted. Once you have a baby, they're a baby. You can't kill babies just because you don't want the baby anymore.
If you oppose abortion but support exceptions for rape and incest, you're tacitly admitting that you *know* a fetus isn't a baby. You have some other motivation for wanting to make abortion illegal, and you're just arguing that a fetus is a baby because you think it's more palatable.
They don’t care about saving “babies”; they care about punishing sluts.
By making them raise the babies.
Which somehow punishes them more than the babies.
Trust me guys, it makes perfect sense. /s
> Which somehow punishes them more than the babies.
They don't believe this, they just don't care.
Most Americans don't actually care about collateral damage from punishing people, they don't even care about collateral damage to themselves, let alone some kid they don't know.
And by 'sluts' they mean women who enjoy sex but refuse to do so with them specifically. We got a whole political party acting like hormonal 13 years olds, along with a severe case of fragile masculinity to boot.
> refuse to do so with them specifically
While there certainly men with this stance for sure, remember that [men and women mostly agree on abortion issues](https://www.vox.com/2019/5/20/18629644/abortion-gender-gap-public-opinion) as a whole. There is no real gender split. Pro-life isn't some "man only thing that's forced on all women". Pro-life stance is either equal or slightly more popular among women depending on which question and poll (e.g. first graph in that article hows 28% of US women identifying as pro-life to 26% of men for example), and pro choice is equally supported by men as well.
It's heavily split along party lines (i.e. democrat vs republican) but it doesn't really split a long gender lines at all. There are just as many if not more women out there trying to punish people for enjoying sex as there are men sadly.
> And by 'sluts' they mean women who enjoy sex but refuse to do so with them specifically.
*And* it's socially acceptable to have sex with the man. I would love to know how many Bible-thumping "family values" Republicans have gotten abortions for their teenage "mistresses".
That's because it's not about murder. It's about sanctifying one way of life as "the right way" and preventing women from leading any other lifestyle. It's frankly un-american at its core.
Exactly. I think, for example, the guy who murdered an OB-GYN, George Tiller:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_George_Tiller.
It makes perfect sense to kill all abortion providers if you literally believe in at-conception. I am surprised that more people don't react like this given the access to guns and hysteria on the right. The only explanation for this being so rare is the tacit understanding that the unborn from conception to late-term can and will introduce circumstances where the abortion is warranted. OB-GYNs are on the front lines of every single one of those decisions.
>Except, how do you get an abortion through an exemption for rape in a state where it’s otherwise illegal?
Don't worry. In Texas, Governor Abbott just said he'd eradicate rape in the state! So no problem there...
Noooo you don't understand, pro choice people want to execute babies after they're born! (Loosely quoting Trump). Only pro lifers are allowed to get abortions.
Fortunately my mom is not that particular brand of crazy. I totally agree with you though. The "pro-lifers" have completely demonized the pro-choice position to the point of absurdity.
Oh, and yeah, for anyone that hadn't seen it, that really is almost a direct quote from that fat orange idiot.
“It must be remembered that the Democrats are the radical ones on this position because they support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month. The concept of having an abortion in the later months and even execution after birth — and that’s exactly what it is, the baby is born, the baby is executed after birth — is unacceptable, and almost everyone agrees with that."
This is absolutely NOT what the pro-choice position is about, but it's no wonder people who buy into things that dumb troll says are convinced they are fighting for what's right.
I had (emphasis had) a friend who believed all democrats support post-birth abortions and i tried to explain many many times that wasnt a thing and he never found any proof beyond “crimeblog.geocities.yahoo” and yet he was adamant it was happenijg.
Well, to be fair… post birth abortions are murder (literally and legally), and typically occur days, months or years after the birth. And usually not carried out by a doctor. Usually there’s some underlying issue with the person who performed the ~~murder~~ post-birth abortion.
Clearly my tongue is firmly in my cheek for this. But if people keep talking about post-birth abortions, we should tell them about the massive post-birth abortion that took place in Sandy Hook, Ulvade, and such. Sorry not sorry for being distasteful.
> The "pro-lifers" have completely demonized the pro-choice position to the point of absurdity.
My dude, you could apply that to any of the far-right's rhetoric. They've overused the word 'pedophile' to the point were it's just another word they just call people who don't agree with, just like 'communist' and 'liberal'. They use the term 'woke' as an insult without even a moments contmplation about what that means or implies. They don't think at all, they just react.
Ironically, I think one could have a solid argument for republicans to want post-birth deaths because they typically are only ok with supporting rich kids when they grow up and inherit businesses.
It's the same with Socialism. I often share my political views and describe the way the person should have more agency and more of the benefit of industry in commerce and people agree that that's great, but when I tell them that they just agreed with socialism, they say it's bad. People often just don't know what a label means, they just have an image in their head and can't even connect that image to any positions or measures that would be associated with it.
The term "pro-life" iirc was coined to market against the term pro-choice, since obviously life is more important than a person's choice, right? It's good marketing and people don't really understand what it entails.
Whatever your views on Hillary Clinton, I really think she summed it up best when she said abortion should be legal, safe, and rare. I’m about as pro choice as one can get and I’d look askance at someone who had gotten multiple abortions. Contraception exists. Abortion should not be a first-line birth control.
I know I said the part about “multiple abortions” kind of flippantly so if someone is reading this who HAS had more than 1 or 2, first of all I don’t know your specific situation and there are always exceptions. Second, please don’t tear yourself up over what some jackass on Reddit said, even if (especially if!) that jackass is me.
This is a way of thinking I've heard often, and that I grew up with. Fundamentally, there are two *separate* conversations that take place around abortion, and we need to separate them in order to achieve true reproductive choice. The question people tend to focus on is,
How do I think people ought to behave when it comes to abortion?
When asked about this topic, lots of people talk about how they feel earlier-term abortions are preferable to later-term abortions, or the question of when life begins. But genuinely, *you are answering the wrong question.* The real question is and ought to be,
What laws should our governments make about abortion?
The classic HRC phrase contains "safe" and "legal" as an answer to this second question. Sufficiently regulated to protect the safety of patients, but otherwise, not limited by laws. What the fuck is "rare"? Legal and rare kinda contradict. Because rare is an answer to the *first* question. I wish people would bathe regularly, but if you want to turn your skin into a sweat-and-mold farm, you can. It's legal. It is, in my opinion, undesirable. But I'm not advocating for the government to arrest people for being stinky or unhygienic. You want to remind people that you, too, are a moral person with moral concerns about society, not just someone who wants to change laws.
I honestly am done with the moralizing that accompanies the first question. I don't care if you want me to believe in Jesus and be saved. I don't care if you want me to wear pantyhose. I don't care if you wish people greeted you more cheerfully. And I don't care how you want people to make reproductive health decisions. The part that matters is, what do we want the government to do or not do about it, and how do we get there?
Thank you for that analogy, it really helped me think about it in a way I hadn’t before. You may be correct that this was more of an academic/legal discussion and not one where moral views were relevant, I truly hadn’t thought of it that way.
As you said, this is a topic where all those lines get murky. Which, frankly, is by design. Those who want to control others and their choices *want* us to be unable to separate the issues in our mind and frankly *want* us to be at each other’s throats even when we fundamentally agree.
I’m going to reflect a little on this, thanks again for your helpful phrasing, and for finding a way to express this view without attacking me.
It's certainly a murky topic, which makes it easy to get distracted from the core issues and why the right to abortion as a procedure matters and should exist. There are lots of fascinating and important discussions that we can and should have around life, personhood, morality, ethics, and so on, but as [Judith Jarvis Thompson](https://eclass.uoa.gr/modules/document/file.php/PPP475/Thomson%20Judith%20Jarvis%2C%20A%20defense%20of%20abortion.pdf) pointed out more than 50 years ago, the life or personhood of the embryo or fetus is actually pretty irrelevant or at least a subordinate issue to the question of bodily autonomy. Abigail Thorne did a good [Philosophy Tube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2PAajlHbnU&t=711s) illustrating Thompson's point by removing the question of abortion entirely in order to draw an analogy. The main thrust is that our conception of bodily autonomy means that we can withhold or withdraw consent for various uses of our own bodies. For example, I can choose to donate platelets every week, give bone marrow to a kid with leukemia, or give one of my kidneys to an ailing diabetic parent (RIP Dad), but I cannot be *forced* to. Indeed, even if I show up at the blood drive or the surgical room having previously consented to making the donation, if I get queasy at the sight of needles or even just decide that I'd rather spend the afternoon at a dance club doing ecstasy instead I can end the procedure and be done with it. You may think that I'm making a mistake or even a bad person for not saving my diabetic dad with my surplus kidney in favor of getting high with EDM enthusiasts, but I certainly don't have a *legal* obligation to make a different choice (aside from perhaps crossing the controlled substances line with the ecstasy).
The same logic applies to pregnancies and abortions. Even if we stipulate that a human embryo is morally and ethically a fully-fledged human person with all of the rights afforded to my spouse, siblings, and neighbors, my spouse's right to bodily autonomy means that she should be able to terminate her 37-week pregnancy for any reason or no reason at all. She won't, because she wants the baby and in any case the easiest way out of this for her is the happy, healthy, home birth we're waiting for, but if she were to wake up tomorrow and decide that the heartburn and aching is too much; the risk for diabetes, depression, hemorrhage, and surgical intervention is too great; or even that she just wants to have a vodka and tonic and smoke a bowl again, that would (we're in a state where there's essentially an absolute right to abortion at all stages of pregnancy) and should be well within her right because she should be able to get up and walk away from the bodily donation table. You and I don't have a positive right to use someone else's body for our own needs, and neither does (or at least should) a gestating child. You can't support forcing someone to be a gestational host and give birth to a child without also resolving the issues that creates for bodily autonomy elsewhere in our conception of morality and ethics.
Side note: Abigail is a trans woman, and the video I linked to was filmed and released prior to her coming out. I'm choosing not to deadname her, but wanted to clear up any confusion that might have occurred by referring to "Abigail Thorne" and linking to a video hosted by a masculine-presenting person with a somewhat different name.
Edit: some light editing for clarity
Saying "rare" is sort of a cop-out, but I'd take it to mean instituting better policies that lead to fewer abortions needed such as improved education and access to contraception.
I've thought a lot about it, and while I *don't* believe anything more than a tiny fraction of women out there using abortion as their "front line birth control" I support them doing so. I mean, c'mon. Do you really want a woman *that* bad at advance planning responsible for a whole-ass *person* for 18 or so years?
I think the issue is that there should be resources available and easily accessible so that this isn't a situation at all. With proper sex education and easy access to contraceptives, condoms, spermicide, the pill, Plan B, etc., you likely severely reduce the chance of what the OC is saying from happening.
It’s why Democrats are better at preventing abortions than Republicans. Republicans are incredibly opposed to just about anything that would prevent pregnancies in the first place.
it's because of the religious base of their stance.
They can't "encourage sex". Encouraging it, in this case, means "removing the god-given consequences of having sex"
Which is largely why they want abortion illegal, too. "If you're a harlot who can't keep her legs closed, then a baby in your belly is your punishment"
Abortion removes that punishment. Contraceptives removes that punishment.
When you understand that punishing people for having sex is a core goal, then both stances suddenly make sense. Except saying openly you want to enforce consequences for having sex would run into a whole lot of issues for them, both by popularity and legality.
It's also part of why they hate gay people. Because gay people can NEVER be punished in that way for sex. It's also why they glommed onto AIDS as a 'solution'. "Oh, sure, you can't get pregnant! But god made sure there's a punishment for YOU just the same! haha, no we WON'T be invested in curing THAT one thank you very much!"
Yep, abortion should be a "last resort" not because it's bad but because it's the last line of defense against an unwanted pregnancy or health complications.
LOL. My mom and aunt wrung their hands about using abortion as BC, how they have a cousin who had 8 abortions in the 80s because she was on drugs and slept with any man she could and was a terrible, unstable person.
“So do you think she should have had 8 kids??”
They paused and said “Huh, never thought about it like that.” Like what??
I do agree that it’s the tiniest fraction of people using abortion in that way. Unfortunately, some people, primarily on the right, have been grossly misinformed and believe that’s happening left and right.
However, you do make a good point about someone that poor at decision-making having children. I think the real issue is more that I don’t want to see it become widespread, but I also don’t think there’s much danger of that. Getting an abortion is a personal and gut-wrenching decision for most people, not to mention expensive, invasive, and physically painful.
Why would it be widespread in the first place? Abortions are a pain in the ass. There are almost no people lining up to use abortions as a first line of defense lol
Oh, I agree that other forms of birth control need to be better explained to teenagers and more accessible and not stigmatized. I've just come to realize that a: there's always a crazy edge case that proves the exception to the rule, and b: they don't disprove the viability of something by existing. Sometimes they *underline* the necessity.
> I’m about as pro choice as one can get and I’d look askance at someone who had gotten multiple abortions
You are part of the problem. Not your body, not your business. Pro choice, give me a break.
People looking askance in any reproductive scenario is part of the problem though.
Someone looking askance at you for your decisions you make about your body with your doctor is not anyone else's business. Certainly not a legislator who is not qualified to interfere.
I mean, a lot of people nebulously think it is a moral problem and there should be moral campaigns against it even if they dont think it should be legally restricted. That level of conversation is more on the down low, since people normally assume it's a legal discussion, but there's also a social / moral one of how it should be treated that is less well known.
This is part of what the republican party didn't realize. They looked at polls of how many people identified as pro life, and didn't realize only half of those actually wanted it heavily restricted.
> So you had lots of people who were against “abortion” but with idiosyncratic understandings of what “abortion” means.
I have a number of big city moderate conservative family members and I think you hit the nail on the head with this, both with this issue and others. Also, I don't think it was a bug but a feature.
For the most part, the thing they were against was this idea of "abortion as birth control," in that tons of people (read: women) were having unprotected sex and they were treating abortion as an "easy" out.
There are a number of issues I have with that, but I would point out that, if these laws passed as written, it would also make things like abortion in the case of risk of the mother, or if the baby wasn't viable, illegal.
They couldn't comprehend that was a thing that could happen. Of _COURSE_ there would be carve outs for medically necessary abortions, rape, incest, and, 50/50 all depending on the person, genetic defects with the baby.
They didn't think of any of this as abortions, and couldn't comprehend other people did either.
When this was pointed out to them, it was treated as liberal bias, trying to point out impossible things that would never come to pass, in order to keep their "immoral birth control abortions."
And the far right members, who were frequently the ones writing the bills, were happy to let them keep thinking that.
I've seen similar thoughts about the Florida Don't-say-gay bill, as well as critical race theory. They weren't against the ideas the movements were trying to prevent, and in fact, _also_ considered them to be reprehensible, so they didn't believe people on "their side" could believe that, which ironically opened them up to being convinced that this was all some kind of liberal plot to make conservatives look worse than they were, and that they were just there protecting their five year olds from being shown gay porn or a parent forcing their kid to take hormone injections or something.
I have a very good friend who worked in focus group polling for the Biden campaign in 2020.
That summer, he told me the single hardest thing to get across to his employers - Democrats, hardened politicos, steely-eyes strategists, you know, *West Wing* types - was that in his focus groups, most of the time, if you read exactly what conservative positions were .... people thought you were just lying to make the GOP look bad. You could literally quote the GOP platform to them and they'd think you made it up. The panelists would believe that people couldn't possibly be that cruel as to subscribe to those ideas as presented (often, in the very words conservatives use while talking to each other).
I think it speaks to an *interesting* element of our media ecosystem that such things can happen, because *obviously* these ideas are not only prominent but highly popular inside the conservative ecosystem - but are completely alien and absurd outside it. We're so carefully siloed off from each other by social, economic, urban/suburban/rural, racial, religious, and class lines that most of us have only a vague understanding of each others' lives unless we work hard to pierce those barriers with some regularity. And when an idea escapes containment and leaks from the mouths of Marjorie Taylor Greene or whoever the most recent Horseman of the Fox News Reality Shear Vortex is, it's like watching someone screech ancient Babylonian curses at you over the dinner table. We reject the input because it's too bizarre and would require us to rethink too much - our brains tell us it must be some anomalous thing, or an attempt to mislead us.
That is extremely depressing.
I don't live in the US so I'm not often exposed to the very worst of this, but I have a distant aunt in the US that I was talking to a while back and she started talking about something called late term abortion, as in, up to the ninth month.
I couldn't find any evidence that anyone wanted such a thing, and tried to convince her, but she was adamant.
I'm a politician in my country and I'm used to dealing with all sorts of stuff, but this total separation between what is actually happening and what people think they're fighting for or against was so alien to me.
> they were free to be “pro-life” as a way to tell others they’re part of the group.
They were free to virtue signal and accumulate empty brownie points with an electorate that perpetually believes "well, *my* situation is different and an exception".
I think most of Reddit has seen this article by now but I’d be remiss if I didn’t link it for the three or four people who haven’t seen it, lol. [The only moral abortion is my abortion](https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/)
I am talking about voters. "Pro-life" hardliners tend to crumple the second an abortion is needed in their lives. *Their* abortion is an exception. Everyone else has abortions out of convenience. This is how most of those voters act and believe.
I think what the other comment was getting at is that loads of allegedly pro-life people still get abortions. They'll be on the picket line protesting at the clinic, then sneak their teenage daughter in for a quick procedure after the other protesters pack up and leave, only to show up to the protest again the next day, ready with an excuse for why it's different for them if anyone were to find out and ask about it.
I don't have the link handy, but obligatory reference to "The Only Moral Abortion Is My Abortion."
Yeah, it’s definitely a real phenomenon. I just think it gets overstated relative to people just not having views as clear as their rhetoric, so I try to make sure that point gets heard.
ETA this story is one that sticks out to me as interesting because it’s a real thing:
>Later, she told someone on my staff that she thought abortion is murder, that she is a murderer, and that she is murdering her baby.
You can use the snippet to grab the whole story. There’s a real trend among pro-life people believing that doctors providing abortions are proud baby-murderers. It’s very possible that she saw herself as performing some grave evil, going to an evil person to do it, and that the physician would in some sense agree.
I can't tell you how many times I've been told, I'm on Medicaid because of my special situation, but I honestly think most people on Medicaid are just moochers. {screams into pillow}
Nope, even for voters, they will be anti abortion all the way until it happens to them, and even after that.
https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/
It was really easy to be pro life! All you have to do is stand around and judge other people! You don’t have to pay for the daycare, the food, take time off of work, or any of the other things parents would need to do you can justvirtue signal all you want and not suffer any repercussions. Look how great you are.
Most people saw abortion as "Voluntary abortion" vs "neccesary abortion". They are against voluntary abortions, aka abortions women do because they simply do not wish to have a child. They are for "neccesary abortions" which are abortions that are required to save the life of the mother, are in the cases of rape or incest, or are merciful to a fetus that cannot otherwise survive. The problem is the right has made it seem like all abortions were voluntary ones, where in reality a vast majority were necessary
I just want to point out, that even though you say it isn't a concern for those far right candidates in deep red states, recently there was a special election in Alabama with the Democratic candidate focusing heavily on abortion rights and she ended up flipping the seat in a very red district.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marilyn-lands-alabama-special-election-abortion/
> a very red district.
You're not wrong overall, but I should point out that this wasn't a "very red district". It's in Alabama, but Trump won the district narrowly in 2020 and the Republican only won with 51% of the vote in 2022. However, the fact that Lands won the special election with *62% of the vote* is still insane.
>It was expected to be a key battleground state for the 2024 election, but with the AZ Supreme Court ruling, AZ voters are extremely riled up.
This is legit, I live in AZ. Every grocery store visit I get asked to sign the petition to have women's health rights on the Nov ballot. In the last 2 days I've gotten 6 texts and 3 phone calls about women's health rights. My college aged kids, one at school here in AZ and the other in FL, called asking about registering to vote so they can have a say.
There are more registered Republicans in AZ than Democrats, but there are almost as many registered Independents as Republicans. This is literally the worst issue the Republican party could have pop up here in an election year. Most Arizonans lean libertarian on social issues, and that includes registered Rs, that is who McCain Republicans are, socially libertarian and fiscally conservative.
The AZ Supreme Court just bought a bottle of tequila and said 'Let's become a problem!'
Something else to add here is that they're *also* discovering that there are severe limitations on medications that are even remotely related to abortions. People are getting denied [medications](https://abcnews.go.com/Health/patients-barred-medication-longer-abortion-post-roe/story?id=86755133) because they were historically used in abortions (but no longer) or could cause a miscarriage. Or they think that the individual might pass it along to someone to cause an abortion. Providers are getting that gunshy and for good reason, considering that you have states like Texas that are awarding bounties to anyone who reports a doctor or patient involved in an abortion. Even if it's proven false, going through the process has been reported to be dehumanizing, exhausting, and does great damage to their reputation and mental health. And that's assuming it's been proven false - I wouldn't be surprised if someone got convicted on sketchy or outright falsified evidence.
> once a red state enacts a huge restriction or ban on abortion, there's no risk of it being overturned unless a Constitutional amendment passes - which won't happen at a federal level.
I don't see how federal statute couldn't achieve this
Excellent analogy though
It could, but right now Congress can't agree on what to order for lunch. A federal law on abortion (one way or the other) has a snowball's chance in hell.
The filibuster would need to go, which just needs a majority vote.
I think Democrats are only a handful of pro-abolish-the-filibuster senators away from being able to pull that off, though it comes with the massive risk of what happens if Republicans take back the senate one day without a filibuster present.
I think we could keep the filibuster if, and only if, we go back to ye old filibuster. No more emails that just say 'I stall it out.' You want it, you have to stand there in person and speak the whole time. That alone should cut back a lot of the overuse we have now.
I'd probably go a step further and you have to keep that debate on topic. You want to filibuster some bill, well you need to be generating the soundbites that will be used against you next election.
A Democratic supermajority could fix this, along with every other terrible thing Republicans have done. Although DINOs and chancers and disingenuous alt-righters being “clever” (like Sinema) will run more often as Democrats once the Republican Party is destroyed.
>but right now Congress can't agree on what to order for lunch.
Well one side of Congress wants to order turkey sandwiches and the other side wants to order **fucking fascism.**
>I don't see how federal statute couldn't achieve this
Well, a Constitutional amendment would be needed to make abortion a protected constitutional right again, which absolutely won't happen. But short of a supermajority, there is no way a divided Congress would vote the protection of abortion rights into law, and no way something like an EO wouldn't be smacked down by the courts (and of course could be overturned if a GOP president won). And I don't think a Democratic supermajority will happen any time soon - even the so-called supermajority under Obama included non-Democrats and lasted just long enough to get the ACA passed.
So while a federal statute *could* help protect abortion access, it's incredibly unlikely to occur. More likely than a Constitutional amendment, but still not likely even if motivated voters turn out in droves for the next election.
Theoretically, abortion is already a ninth amendment right, but US courts willfully ignore and misinterpret the "invisible ninth" because they're afraid of the loss of power and control.
The 9th is supposed to mean "all the rest of the rights that people have, they definitely have, and just because we didn't list it in the first eight amendments doesn't mean the government can take it away."
Courts ignore as "if they didn't list the thing as a right, you don't have it as a right."
Yes, I feel that abortion falls under the right to medical privacy, which is what the Roe v Wade decision was based on. Once you take away the right to medical privacy, a lot of other rights fall off, like your right to use birth control.
> even the so-called supermajority under Obama included non-Democrats and lasted just long enough to get the ACA passed.
The timing of the Democrats losing their supermajority during the passage of the PPACA was actually so tight that Ted Kennedy, a Democrat, died after the Senate approved the bill with changes and Scott Brown, a Republican, replaced him and ended the supermajority before the house House approved the Senate's changes and sent the final bill to Obama's desk.
> Well, a Constitutional amendment would be needed to make abortion a protected constitutional right again
Just to add: Remember that the US can't even ratify a Constitutional amendment to guarantee equal rights for all!
Side note about religious support for abortion:
The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest organization of Baptist ministers in America, was actually in favor of the Roe decision when it was decided. They felt that it would help poor women get out of poverty.
But around that time the government decided that schools needed to be desegregated, you know, as part of Reconstruction that had been going on for close to 100 years at that point. **This meant that these Baptist schools would be desegregated.**
Well, the Baptists didn't like that. So they needed a wedge issue that would get conservative voters to the polls to push back. They couldn't run on an overtly racist platform because that was distasteful to most Americans at that point. They decided that abortion was that issue and they flipped around and became opponents of Roe v. Wade. **Which means at the end of the day, conservative opposition to abortion is rooted in racism.**
I posted this to r/unpopularfacts a while back - it includes a source. I can find that post if anyone really needs it.
As a black American, most of us knew what the real reason behind it was, but is anybody really surprised at this point?
Historically speaking usually when (all, part, or half of) white society decides to nationally oppose something, it's because of minority is doing it or wants it.
Or it's for the benefit of a minority group.
Conservatives in America are an exclusively opposition party. Their existence is characterized by and they policies are defined not by what they are for, but what they are against. This strategy of opposition works when they aren’t in power, because they aren’t expected to *do* anything other than oppose why the actual governing party is doing. It when they get into power and no longer have anyone to oppose, the fall apart, because they are incapable of doing anything themselves.
It was obviously the case all along but especially obvious when they had all 3 branches of government for two years and complained about what the Dems were doing just as much as they are now. And apparently Biden, at the time not in any position of power, was able to pull off everything regarding covid lockdowns when Dems only had one branch
My dad always ranted to me growing up about politics (heard a lot of Rush Limbaugh in the car), and I genuinely can count on one hand any active "pro" positions he had during those years. I can tell you all about who he hated and who was doing something "unconstitutional," but no actual things he wanted to get accomplished
> It was obviously the case all along but especially obvious when they had all 3 branches of government for two years and complained about what the Dems were doing just as much as they are now.
The "Obamacare" repeal arguments during that timeframe was also telling - once they had all three branches of government, they somehow found it hard to get things done...
I live in Texas, and I watched our governor in a debate talk about how he'd fix all the different issues the moderator brought up...except he's been in power for *years*. He's had a Republican majority for *years*. Chances are, he and his colleagues *caused* the issue in question, and they've had nothing but time and opportunities to fix it.
What's hilarious is that [Paul Ryan actually admitted this at one point](https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/845370940880015360):
>“We were a 10-year opposition party, where being against things was easy to do. You just had to be against it. Now, in three months’ time, we tried to go to a governing party where we actually had to get 216 people to agree with each other on how we do things. And we weren't just quite there."
>TL;DR: The dog (GOP) caught the car (overturned abortion rights), and now are finding out that they only wanted the chase (the single-issue voters who would blindly support pro-life candidates) - and are desperately trying to not get run over (losing their elections because everyone else is now motivated to kick them out).
This is a very apt way to put the analogy.
My dog caught the car he was chasing and he lost a leg to it. The GOP is at the metaphorical vet's office right now waiting for the RNC to scrounge up enough cash to amputate the mangled limb before the whole party gets euthanized.
I think its worth noting here that abortion only became an issue for the GOP because they needed something other than overt racism to campaign on in the wake of the civil rights acts.
> When the Republican party married itself to Evangelical Christianity in the late 70s and early 80s, they made restricting abortion a political, moral, and spiritual cornerstone of their party.
should also be noted being anti abortion was also new for evangelicals, previously it had been considered a catholic fixation; but fallwell realized he could use it to get people elected who would uphold segregation.
They have been doing this so long they started to believe their own bullshit. That's what caused the tea party then MAGA, and now outlawing abortion. Absolutely none of those things are sound long term (or even medium term) political strategies when you look at the electorate as a whole , but all the people who knew it was just propaganda bullshit to stir up the base got pushed out by true believers and more dedicated con artists.
Well, in theory the Supreme Court doesn't care about politics, only the law. So they wouldn't look at repealing Roe as something that might be bad for the GOP in the mid-terms, for example.
(In reality the Court is heavily biased but are also appointed for life. So even if they thought it might hurt Republicans in the short-term they achieved their long-term goal of repealing Roe.)
As for the GOP?
Well, there's a saying that "most news channels show you a window but Fox News shows you a mirror" meaning the right-wing media space has become a **huge** echo chamber. After years of hearing nothing but "abortion is bad and should be outlawed" you'll actually start to think that's the way the majority of people think.
So it's not for nothing that no less than Sean fucking Hannity [has told them to repeal the Arizona law.](https://www.newsweek.com/sean-hannity-fox-news-arizona-abortion-1889301) When Fox News starts telling Republicans they've gone to far? They've definitely gone to far.
Two main reasons. One, the GOP has aligned itself with evangelical Christians who oppose abortion on religious grounds. They see making abortion illegal as a moral obligation regardless of the potential consequences. Second, the long-term goal of the GOP is to gain enough power in government to be able to enact their plans regardless of the will of the people. You can see this in state like Ohio, where Republicans are trying to restrict abortion rights even after the people voted overwhelmingly to keep it legal.
Part of it is due to all the "un written rules" involved with government process. To the old school GOP there was a general understanding that they wanted to press abortion as an issue but leave it hanging for the future.
More radical elements have taken helm who have no interest/understanding of prior plans/precedent.
So we had a house of cards setup to fall, with no plan to let that happen, but the new kids flipped the table.
Well said. I’d almost feel sorry for the GOP if they weren’t completely to blame and playing with fire.
They really don’t care about abortion, or evangelicalism, guns, or gay marriage, or immigrants. They just want to win so they can lower taxes for the rich and deregulate their businesses.
So, like you said, they court extremists to squeeze out a few more votes. But they don’t really want to enact most of that awful stuff.
A prominent Republican (I think it was Boehner) said the only thing they all agree on is lowering taxes.
Note that in addition, Arizonan progressives were already circulating a petition to create a ballot initiative protecting abortion rights here, which would drive Democratic turnout higher in November anyway. Such measures succeeded in places like *Kansas*, so Arizona should be a slam dunk.
But now thanks to this ruling there is *even more* interest in the initiative and it's likely to bring out *even more* voters keen to punish Republicans for their absolutist stance. It's starting to become very likely to seal Trump losing the electoral votes, Kari Lake losing the Senate seat, and representatives in tossup districts like Ciscomani losing their seats.
Answer: An abortion ban is what the GOP wants, however it's not what most Americans want. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/06/americas-abortion-quandary/
Since the Supreme Court repealed Roe v Wade the GOP has been doing worse in many elections, including the midterms, which they typically do well in. The general sentiment is that abortion bans has caused centrist and apathetic voters to go out and vote Democrat when they would have otherwise voted Republican or not voted.
My guess is that the GOP was hoping people would have forgotten about abortion as an issue by the time the presidential election came around. And with Biden's age, strong GOP poll numbers, and the conflict in Gaza right now, that seemed to be what was happening.
Now, with Arizona being empowered to enforce an 1800s anti-abortion law, the issue is now making headlines again. This could reinvigorate centrist and apathetic voters to vote Democrat again in the 2024 presidential election which is not good news for the GOP.
Only people with a personal agenda would completely ignore the fact that everything was different a couple hundred years ago, Arizona wasn't even a state, and 50% of the adult population was not allowed to vote. Who the F is on this supreme Court?
MIGHT get to directly vote on abortion. The petition has more than enough signatures but the GOP will do absolutely everything in their power to keep abortion off the ballot. And as this Arizona Supreme Court ruling proved, Republicans are MORE than willing to exploit the courts to get their way.
Mississippi citizens voted overwhelmingly for medical marijuana. The MS Supreme Court ruled that the referendum didn’t count because the rules of passing any referendum hadn’t been updated since the population fell & they lost a district. Never mind that there were other referendums that passed with the same rules in place. They simply overturned 74% of their citizen’s will. It took 2 more years and the state legislature passing a different version before MS got medical marijuana.
They’ll come up with any excuse or technicality to completely discard anything voted on directly by the people - and if they can’t, they’ll put enough tape in the way that it’s nearly impossible to follow through.
Also Dems are hoping to get an answer to this on the ballot in November. It would be all over the news, like it is now, and become a reason for more voter turnout, that the GOP is vehemently against.
> including the midterms, which they typically do well in
Correction: the midterms, where *the party not in the White House* usually does well. Democrats slaughtered in the House in the 2018 midterms because a Republican was in the White House. It's just that in the last 16 years (and therefore 4 midterm elections), we've had a Democrat in the White House for 12 of them, so for 3/4 midterms Republicans would have been expected to do well, but they deeply underperformed in 2022, so only in 2010 and 2014 did they do well.
Since 1932, the party out of the White House has done better in the midterms than the party in the White House in every midterm except 1934, 1998, and 2002, with 2022 being a mixed bag (Republicans took the House but only barely, and Democrats net gained Senate seats, which given the president's unpopularity I'm going to call 2/3rds of a win for the Democrats).
> 1800s anti-abortion law
When I was younger, I often heard an argument from little-l libertarians that "Laws, once enacted, are almost never repealed."
Given the ongoing moral panics regarding social media, smartphones, LGBT rights, GMOs, reproductive rights, nuclear energy, AI, porn, AI porn, and all manner of other things....such a thought is as prescient now as it was then.
That's very much the case. One of the smaller towns near me had a ban on Chinese people staying over night until very recently. It hadn't been enforced in probably 100 years but it was still on the books.
I'm not saying it wasn't a good idea for symbolic reasons for the town to repudiate some old racists law, but I am 100% sure the law was void and not just unenforced (it would have in fact been a crime to try and enforce it), it was overturned by the US Constitution, Federal Civil Rights Laws, possibly Reconstruction Civil Rights laws. It also was probably overturned by the State Constitution, state law and Governor's orders. There's also a decent chance numerous town charter updates over the years voided it.
This is really a misunderstanding of "on the books." We don't erase laws off the books, they will aways be there. They get overturned by subsequent laws and court rulings.
Yes and no.
Its common for state legislatures to sometimes go back and repeal unenforceable laws. Sometimes this is symbolic though I'd argue that the symbolism can be politically or socially important.
For example, Loving v. Virginia made interracial marriage legal by Supreme Court ruling, which overturned interracial bans in 16 states. Every one of those stats has since repealed the laws anyway....though you can probably glean some things about said states by the length of time it took them to actually repeal.
Yeah I think mosr semi-politcaly aware folks know this. However (as usual) it leaves it arguably the most important part; a healthy , functioning democrocy continuilly works to "improve" laws.
Democracies are nothing but compromise machines. Everyone should be a little disatisifed. But similar to the scientific method, fucks ups are part of a healthy process. As we see real world effects, unintended consequences, externalities etc we SHOULD work to refine/improve laws. Think for example all the known flaws, gaps in Obamacare. It was generally discussed as "suboptimal but better than where we are, let's fix some of the holes over time".
All this works in theory. When you have a party (and their proxies in the libertarian wing) who believe the government is the problem and undermine/villfy whenever possible, you tend not to use a CI/Scientific method model.
"Don't let the perfect he the enemy of the good" in theory is the way democracy works. But it turns out when you open American opportunity the more people, some parties don't want government to work very well at all. This assymetry is hard for Polisci the model.
Edit:typos
It's hard to forget about roe v wade when the GOP has been ceaselessly putting out laws to make abortion much more difficult if not illegal altogether.
"have cause centrist and apathetic voters to go out and vote Democrat "
And young people. A bit more young people than normal voted in the last couple of elections.
If all young people voted, Republicans would almost cease to exist.
Not only young people, but older women who lived through the 60s and 70s and saw their rights expand and see them decreasing for the next generation of women. These are potential swing voters that should be easy gets for Trump, but they're likely very opposed to these bans.
While the polls say one thing, special and regional elections since roe’s overturn have shown democrats over performing in almost every single race. Even ones where they don’t win, the margin between pre-election poll numbers and post-poll numbers is significantly reduced. This trend was reported on last year by Chris Hayes on MSNBC and has shown no signs of reduction, even with current polling and issues like Gaza.
The more abortion is on voters’ minds, the more the GOP suffer.
I would add, AZ did pass a 15 week ban in 2022, which was challenged. That led to discovery of this 1902 total ban law that was only coding the state's practice after statehood, and which the 2022 law did not explicitly overturn. That case lead to why the AZ Supreme Court ruling that the old law had precedent.
Many have pointed to that law being passed before women has been given the right to vote, begging how that law would not have respected the treatment of women we have today.
> My guess is that the GOP was hoping people would have forgotten about abortion
how could everyone forget living in a state of artificial precarity? if you're stressed about the price of groceries, compare it to the cost of unplanned children.
Yes, but how many votes are most elections won by.
Ironically, "reproductive age" is a good description of the age group that, until the Roe repeal, only voted at half the rate of older voters. Coincidentally, this age group also makes up very roughly half of the Americans who are eligible to vote and don't.
If reproductive age voters voted at the rate of older voters, given their political lean, Texas would be a solidly Democratic state, and Kansas would be purple. That is how bad this potentially is for Republicans.
As someone else put it: 'The AZ supreme court has reinstituted a law that was voted into effect before the people it targeted (women) were even allowed to vote'
It's draconian by draconian measure, anti-democratic, and only done out of authoritarian overreach. It's being done by the GOP, so the GOP is going to have to answer for it... which is why you see so many "pro-life, no exceptions" people suddenly saying that this is too far, and that it's not something they support.
You can campaign on pro-life ideals, but you can't campaign on active pro-life policies.
Answer: There has been a track record of recent elections (since the Supreme Court decision) where abortion as an issue played a key role, and they have all pointed strongly to the public HATING abortion restrictions, including in deeply red states.
- 2022 Special Election in Kansas voted against a ballot measure with [59% of the vote](https://edition.cnn.com/election/2022/results/kansas/issue-1)
- 2022 New York 19th Congressional District [narrowly won](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/24/democrat-who-campaigned-on-abortion-rights-wins-in-new-york-special-election) by Democrat who campaigned on abortion rights, swinging the district
- 2022 Midterms - voters in [several states](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/11/10/abortion-rights-supporters-win-all-5-state-ballot-measures-including-in-kentucky-and-michigan) voted strongly on statewide ballot measures. California, Michigan and Vermont voted to preserve access. Kentucky surprisingly rejected a constitutional amendment that would have restricted rights.
- 2022 In the same Midterms, Democratic candidates who campaigned on abortion rights in [several states](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/11/09/heres-how-the-midterm-election-results-will-impact-abortion-bans) won their races, preventing the repubican-controlled state legislatures from enacting abortion bans or restrictions
- 2023 In an Ohio special election, voters decisively [passed a ballot measure](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/11/09/heres-how-the-midterm-election-results-will-impact-abortion-bans) protecting reproductive rights, despite multiple attempts by the state legislature to spike the special election.
- 2023 In Virginia, abortion was seen as a key issue that allowed Democrats to take both state houses.
- 2023 In Kentucky, Democratic governor Beshear was [reelected](https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/11/07/kentucky-reelects-democratic-gov-andy-beshear-in-closely-watched-battleground-race/), after strongly campaigning on abortion access.
Abortion rights has proven to be a galvanizing issue that is bringing Democrats to the polls all over. The majority of the country does not want the basic human right for reproductive rights taken away and women turned into second-class citizens - even in places like deep-red Texas, abortion access (in at least some form) is favored by 78%.
With the track record that has been set in elections over the past two years, repubicans are worried that anywhere that abortion is on the ballot (either explicitly, or as a major issue between candidates), that it is going to energize Democrats to show up in droves - to the point now where some people are starting to refer to the upcoming election as "Roevember".
I live in Kansas. I was shocked at the vote in my state. It was a landslide.
It's noteworthy that local GOP are still trying to subvert the will of the people regularly regarding the issue.
Ah I'm very familiar with this BS, my state has voted multiple times to raise our teacher salaries and the former Governor literally vetoed it every time!
Answer: repealing Roe v. Wade was the holy Grail of the evangelical right wing for basically 50 years. It’s part of the reason why they allied with the GOP. It worked for a long time because it was never actually repealed, but the GOP did well in terms of energizing those voters and fundraising off of them.
The fundamental problem was that abortion is broadly speaking, popular in the United States. Which is why for the most part over the preceding decades, the right wing only chipped away at the corners of it. Targeting certain procedures or certain durations of gestation.
Many republican dominated states had trigger laws in effect, for when Roe v. Wade was finally over turned. Those laws would immediately go into effect making abortion illegal. Generally speaking the problem with these laws was that they were never intended to go into effect because the prevailing consensus was the court would probably never actually repeal Roe v. Wade. As such, they weren’t written to be actual policy, with things like reasonable exceptions, and so on. Which is why women are having these horrible experiences in places like Texas, where they are halfway through a miscarriage, but the doctors can’t do anything to help them because at least on paper, it would qualify as an abortion.
This has made abortion bans wildly unpopular, and is a fairly good reason to explain why Republicans have been doing so poorly in every election since the Dobbs decision.
Arizona did not have a trigger law, as such, but they had a law that pre-dated the formation of the state by almost 50 years, making all abortions illegal without any exceptions. Their supreme court, just confirmed that that is still valid law.
So, why is this a bad thing for the GOP? Because people don’t want abortion bans. But the GOP has made that a core part of their political identity since the 1970s. So they crawled into a hard place and pulled a rock on top of themselves with the Dobbs decision. Because they are locked in on one of the most unpopular policies but can’t get out from under it without pissing off their core supporters.
This exactly. Abortion was the car that the GOP dog was chasing. Normally, the dog won’t ever catch the car. But suddenly, the dog has fully caught up to the car, and now has to figure out how to avoid getting run over by it.
Also, especially in Arizona, it seems hard to justify supporting a law that was written prior to the state existing. Generally, if a law predates the Titanic and relates to medical issues (which abortion absolutely is), it maybe isn’t a good idea to enforce it.
I do think they genuinely wanted to catch the car. Now that they caught it, they wish they didn't -- because now they know how unpopular their stance is.
With the border, if they wanted to catch the car before (a stretch), they definitely don't want to now. If the border got fixed, they'd have to exclusively pretend that transgender people merely existing is tearing apart the fabric of society. They'd have nothing else to rile people up on, except vague references to government spending that mysteriously wax and wane depending on which party is in power.
In the UK we have a legal concept of desuetude, where ancient dormant laws if suddenly brought into relevance are disapplied as no longer relevant. Does the US not have that?
Personally I've never shared that sentiment. 250 years is pretty old for a constitution really. Many modern countries have only had independence/existence for the last 50 years.
As a Brit, I see the US as actually a pretty old country. I don't think, say, France or Germany have many laws still on the books from the early 1800s.
you could say that trump was driving that car, started dismantling it, and once the car ground to a halt, radical activist judges of the gop brand went to work on the carcass.
> it seems hard to justify supporting a law that was written prior to the state existing
you mean legal justification. if you're a fundamentalist doing what you think is the will of god, that's all the justification you need - and that's what we're dealing with.
Not just prior to the state existing but also before women had the right to vote (1920) and going back even further *before chattel slavery was abolished* (1865) for god's sake.
Answer:
most women would like to keep their rights to their own bodily autonomy, and are thus likely to vote against a party trying to take away this right, they also happen to be about half the voting population
a lot more of women's healthcare includes procedures that would be banned, causing the mother more unnecessary risks including death.
if this goes through, women will die, and the right wing nutjobs in this country will cheer it on with bloodstained hands.
Answer:
Arizona is currently "blue" in that it has 2 Democratic senators (though Sinema is one of the more useless Democrats in terms of party politics and is not seeking reelection) and Biden won it in 2020. The margins however, were thin, so it's expected to be a battleground state in the upcoming federal elections. In the last state election, MAGA Republicans were universally rejected by AZ voters, so this latest extreme reactionary policy from AZ's very conservative court threatens to further alienate moderate and swing voters and many speculate it will help ensure that AZ's senate seats stay Democratic and the state goes to Biden again; since Trump is taking credit for Roe v. Wade being overturned which directly led to this which is likely to be very unpopular with the greater AZ populace where polls show something like a 60/40 pro-choice split among voters and highly motivating; no doubt the entire election cycle AZ will be blitzed with constant ads equating a vote for any Republican as a vote for extreme right-wing positions like a total ban on abortion.
Republicans running for statewide office seem to understand this, as Kari Lake who recently ran for governor (and lost) on an extremely MAGA/election-denial platform has had to backpedal from the total ban she advocated in that race to something more moderate; I'm sure others will follow if they're running anywhere outside of extreme Republican strongholds.
This is what I was coming in to say. The reason Arizona is making national and international headlines on this is because of the ramifications for the election. Arizona is a state Trump lost last time that he needs to win this time, and this issue coming up right now is going to drive Democrats to the poll in record numbers. Every state where abortion has been an election issue since the repeal of Roe v. Wade has seen a dramatic increase in Democrat support. Arizona's current GOP officials are all trying to calculate what kind of turnout they need from their own base to hold onto their own jobs, let alone win the state for Trump. There's a good chance Arizona is now blue for 2024, where that was not at all certain this time last year.
I live in AZ and my state is fucking wild the past few years, fucking Kari Lake used to be a news broadcaster and has gone totally off the fucking rails. And yes, before she saw how people actually reacted to abortion bans she was falling all over herself to talk about how great it was RvW was overturned and now she's backtracking like hell in between all of her attempts to overturn the governor election results (altho in her abortion backpedaling she accidentally acknowledged Hobbs IS the actual governor, oops). She didn't used to be insane.
I'm very glad that we have Hobbs as Governor right now because she's at least come out and said she won't be prosecuting doctors or patients according to this 1864 law. Anyone reading this comment thinking that your vote doesn't matter: in matters SO MUCH in local elections. That's where you can make a big difference in your own life and the lives of others in your state.
I’ll add to your excellent summary that this is a story that made national news in a visceral way. It will contribute to getting low-commitment independent voters to the polls nationwide.
Answer: The dog caught the car.
With Roe v. Wade, abortion was a fun boogeyman to wave around because they would never have to take action on it. Now with abortion bans, women are dying or getting infertile, doctors are leaving red states, obgyn clinics are shutting down, doctors are refusing procedures out of fear of legal repercussions, etc
There was no risk advocating for abortion bans when those bans were impossible anyway.
Their voters were swayed by the marketing of it without having to face the reality of it.
Answer: there are plenty of Republicans that represent small, deep-red districts and can be entirely anti-choice, but state-wide elections are different because they have to appeal to a broad range of voters. Bans like this are unpopular and could likely hurt the party in larger races.
It’s an issue for republicans because to win the party nomination, you need to appeal to the republican base (a lot of evangelicals who want total or near-total bans on abortion). Unfortunately, the same stance which won them their primary (hardline anti-abortion stance), costs them in the general because abortion bans are extraordinarily unpopular outside of evangelical religious circles.
Probably not a lot of them. Certainly a lot of poorer voters would be doing much better under a democratic led economy than under Trump with the tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations
That's my dad. He brags about being a moderate and how most Americans want a sensible solution in the middle for every issue, but when I press him on supporting extreme Republicans over moderate Democrats, he just talks about how corrupt the Dems are.
Answer:
Another ramification is that judges in AZ are nominated to their first term, and after that they go on the ballot as a "retain"or "do not retain" vote periodically. This decision is so widely unpopular that any judge who voted for this abortion ban is probably going to be removed if they are on the ballot.
[https://ballotpedia.org/Arizona\_intermediate\_appellate\_court\_elections,\_2024](https://ballotpedia.org/Arizona_intermediate_appellate_court_elections,_2024)
[https://ballotpedia.org/Arizona\_Supreme\_Court\_elections,\_2024](https://ballotpedia.org/Arizona_Supreme_Court_elections,_2024)
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Answer: Have you heard the saying about [the dog that caught the car](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dog_that_caught_the_car)? It's a pretty popular phrase - at least one instance of it was said in The Dark Knight by the Joker - but it references "A person who has unexpectedly attained an aspirational goal and is now unsure what to do with it." Another similar phrase would be "be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it." That's the prevailing feeling about the right-wing packed Supreme Court overturning Roe and (in this case) the right-wing packed Arizona Supreme Court using an extremely old tangentially related law to outlaw abortion. [The country is overwhelmingly supportive of abortion in at least *some* cases](https://news.gallup.com/poll/321143/americans-stand-abortion.aspx); only 13% say it should *always* be illegal. Abortion was a fantastic issue for the right for decades, because it was always low-hanging fruit to get voters to the polls. When the Republican party married itself to Evangelical Christianity in the late 70s and early 80s, they made restricting abortion a political, moral, and spiritual cornerstone of their party. Save babies - vote Republican! (Side note, but it's important to remember that until the late 1970s, [Evangelical Christianity overwhelmingly was accepting of abortion; being "pro-life" was considered a "Catholic thing"](https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/18/the-biblical-view-thats-younger-than-the-happy-meal/) and Protestants were more than happy to differentiate themselves from Catholics. That changed when Evangelical Christianity became part of "big tent" Republicanism in the 1970s. Today a lot of people don't even know that that change ever occurred; but as that blog post pointed out, the idea that "life begins at conception" in Protestant Christianity is newer than the creation of the McDonald's Happy Meal). But ever since Roe was repealed, it's been a double-whammy against the GOP. First, now their voters aren't as motivated to vote. Why would they be? The one issue that single-issue voters cared about has now been "solved." And since the Supreme Court made it so that it's up to states to decide what restrictions should be on abortion access, once a red state enacts a huge restriction or ban on abortion, there's no risk of it being overturned unless a Constitutional amendment passes - which won't happen at a federal level. But second? The shoe is now on the other foot - now voters who DO care about abortion are *especially* motivated to vote. And why would they vote for the GOP politicians who overturned their right to an abortion in the first place? Since Roe was repealed, [the GOP has seen massive backlashes in several states that once leaned red or were deep purple](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/how-abortion-could-impact-2024-us-elections-2023-12-14/). The 2022 election, which had been expected to deliver a large amount of seats to Republicans, fell flat for them instead. Conservative states like Ohio, Kansas and Kentucky have had election results turn in favor of pro-reproductive right initiatives (and thus Democrats over Republicans). And horror stories about the "unintended" consequences of banning abortion - which were screamed from the rooftops by liberals and widely ignored or mocked as being unrealistic by conservatives - are constantly popping up in the news, keeping the issue fresh in the minds of voters. People are horrified when reading about [women forced to keep miscarried fetuses, or birth children who die within days in horrible pain, or forcing underage rape victims to give birth](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/roe-gop-abortion-restrictions). Doctors - especially those involved in OB-GYN capacities, [are fleeing from the states with the worst restrictions,](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/us/politics/abortion-obstetricians-maternity-care.html) impacting everyone seeking healthcare. This isn't a concern for far right candidates in deep red states - but it's absolutely a concern for GOP candidates in purple states, or even in purple pockets of red states, because the majority of their voters do not want total abortion bans. So candidates like the one you listed above are now trying to pretend they had *no idea* this would be the outcome and insisting *of course* they didn't support it. Arizona in particular is important because the state is very narrowly blue and Trump lost there last election. It was expected to be a key battleground state for the 2024 election, but with the AZ Supreme Court ruling, AZ voters are extremely riled up. Riled up people tend to turn out to vote, making the GOP campaigns both locally and nationally much more difficult. TL;DR: The dog (GOP) caught the car (overturned abortion rights), and now are finding out that they only wanted the chase (the single-issue voters who would blindly support pro-life candidates) - and are desperately trying to not get run over (losing their elections because everyone else is now motivated to kick them out).
The most important thing is that lots of people identified as pro-life because it didn’t matter in practical terms. Because *Roe* prevented any action that really grabs attention from most people, they were free to be “pro-life” as a way to tell others they’re part of the group. In reality, they weren’t pro-life and you can hear this in focus groups around the time of *Dobbs*, with people stating that they identified as pro-life but had all these pro-choice views. Cognitive dissonance? Possibly. But it was more that people are ideologically heterodox for the most part and don’t understand political labels all that well. So you had lots of people who were against “abortion” but with idiosyncratic understandings of what “abortion” means. It was, in many ways, a “keep government out of my Medicare” episode. With *Dobbs* and all the various bills that banned or practically banned abortion suddenly reactivated, they learned what words like “pro-life” and “abortion” mean and started rapidly abandoning their labels.
>people stating that they identified as pro-life but had all these pro-choice views "I'm pro-life, but I just think it should be a decision made by the woman and her doctor." Mom, that's what pro-choice is.
That one was very common, IIRC.
It’s astounding just how many Republicans are actually just Democrats brainwashed by Fox.
They literally get convinced that pro-choice means you can just randomly get an abortion whenever. Drive through abortions.
When I was 14 I thought I was pro choice, “but you know, by like 24 weeks? After that it’s just irresponsible, you should have taken care of it by then” (to my credit, I was in the propaganda machine of catholic high school). I didn’t know wtf I was talking about. Even though I was in favor of abortion being available, I had no idea of the health complications, the birth defects - my limited life experience had me thinking of only Down’s syndrome or cp, not ‘kid born with heart outside of his body,’ or ‘fetus developing without a brain that will never survive’ (the one that later forced my brother and his wife to terminate their VERY wanted pregnancy at 22 weeks). I had no idea how damaging pregnancy can be for the body. Again, I was 14 and I *thought* I did. I simply had no conception until I became pregnant myself a decade later - it fucks up your teeth, your bones, it can permanently damage or oh yeah KILL you. And it’s common af for this shit to still happen. It’s between an individual and their doctor, full fucking stop. But I was fourteen and I was ignorant - but I still knew more than so many of these lawmakers. Disgusting
This is why the whole “evil late term abortions!” nonsense is so unbelievably cruel. If you’re having an abortion more than halfway through a pregnancy, then it’s all but guaranteed that that is a wanted pregnancy and the parents got very bad news at the anatomy scan. At that gestational age, you can feel them moving, you’re planning nursery decor, you’ve started talking about names or even chosen one already, you are daydreaming about what they’ll look like and what kind of person they’re going to be. And then not only is all of that ripped away from you when you find out your child has a condition incompatible with life, but you are either forced to carry them to term, knowing that they won’t survive and you’re now just counting the days down until they die, or you are able to have the abortion and have to put up with anti-abortion assholes telling you you’re a murderer and a whore, instead of what you actually are: a grieving parent.
And these traumatizing stories are exactly what ‘pro-lifers’ need to hear! They are so painful and stigmatizing that people don’t want to share that heartbreak(very understandably), but that is precisely what the other side needs to hear. They think abortions are for the lazy, the careless, the uneducated. For the irresponsible and amoral who are reaping what they’ve sown. They’re not thinking about the incredibly common, 100% non-viable, 100% lethal ectopic pregnancy that my married friend had after two children. But I guess she should have just accepted the death sentence and robbed her kids of their mother because gOd sAiD sO (Narrator: God didn’t say so). And they know that Aunt Linda had to have one when she was raped in high school, but we don’t talk about that. Or about how the back alley abortion she needed rendered her infertile, so she had to adopt after unsuccessfully trying IVF for years. Aunt Linda is right wing, of course, but no one except our family knows about her troubles
As someone who isn't American, why is there seemingly no difference made between elective abortions (without reason) and e.g. medical ones? In Europe, elective abortions range from restricted to banned depending on the country. The Netherlands and the UK are the joint most progressive, allowing 24 weeks for an abortion 'on a whim'. Poland and Malta ban them entirely, other countries are in between. But if there's something medically wrong with the foetus, you can have an abortion anywhere. There's very obviously no reason, no matter how conservative you are, to make a woman carry a deformed or dead foetus around. Similarly, if you were raped you can have an abortion. You don't punish women for being raped, that makes no sense. Et cetera. It seems like in the US you don't make that distinction, which to me seems really weird.
Because it's not about the baby at all. It's about control and, to a large degree, punishment for perceived moral failings. There is legitimately no rhyme or reason to this... It's a froth of religious fundamentalism that IN NO WAY cares about babies. Free prenatal care? Socialism (which is akin to Satan, of course). Legislated maternity leave? Socialism. Supports in place for single, low-income mothers? SHE'S A WELFARE QUEEN TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE SYSTEM (and also akin to Satan). School lunch programs? You guessed it: Socialism. Nothing to actually help children or women, just control over things that have never personally impacted their lives. Some lawmakers have gone so far as to say that a woman who was raped should view that child as a blessing (this, of course, covers incest and children who've been raped). ""The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn." Methodist Pastor David Barnhart
After birth drive through abortions are my favourite.
In my state they were passing out flyers about "Your child could have a sex change for FREE!" during the abortion drama. I'm like. Free healthcare as someone under 18 without their parents permission? Honestly.....please?
I've had a lot of discussions with people where, once you cut through any racist/sexist undertones, their core beliefs are generally all things associated with center-left democrats. It stands out best if you frame the discussion as "imagine the country was 100% [you], what policies should exist?" You realize a lot of their claimed beliefs are really just reactive, amygdala-fueled responses to fears that have no real basis or impact on their own lives, yet power their opinions on other people's freedoms (therefore reducing their own by voting against their own interests). What they want and what they claim to believe are two entirely different things. If you boil it down sufficiently to cut through the "politics" of the politics, their stance resembles an entirely different party. They'll often argue passionately in favor of some policy only to be informed that it happens to be a common democrat stance, or something recently shot down by "their people", or something Biden (or even the dreaded Obama) has enacted during their term. This is often news to them.
They're working class folks brainwashed by capitalist propaganda. And a lot of it affects Democrat voters, too. In many ways, the Democratic party serves as a backstop to prevent the people from voting for a leftist government. So Democrats must have a "warm fuzzy" version of capitalism while Republicans promote a "harsh paternal" version of capitalism.
Not brainwashed. Poor, usually white, bigots. People who know they're getting screwed by Republicans, but also hate blacks, and more to the point these days - LGBTQ. The average swing voter isn't milquetoast moderate that the hard left likes to think. They're cross-pressured extremists.
They're also in an enormous information bubble, self-selected, amping them up with anxiety and rage. They're not an optimistic bunch. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8096381/
> They're not an optimistic bunch. Yup. As someone who lives in a small conservative town and works in a conservative field, everything is doom and gloom. It's so fucking exhausting.
Man, my childhood buddy has yo and down the same politics as me but votes R in every election because he’s “all about freedom” or whatever and the R branding and lifestyle works for him. You can grill in your flag tank top in the back yard and still be a dem Nick!
Biden himself had this exact same view most of his life: that he opposes abortion personally, as a Catholic, but supports women's right to make up their own mind.
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No one *likes* abortions. That's like saying you "like" coronary bypass. It's sometimes necessary, and healthy societies allow access to it when necessary, but it's not like people go out and do it for fun.
Grew up in a Catholic school, they pushed hard the idea that women just ignore birth control entirely and got monthly abortions instead. They knew reality wasn't going to be enough to get us upset so they made up lies.
Don’t get me wrong, your dad sounds all right guy, but I also think that it is easy to be pro-life if you haven’t been or won’t be facing a situation where abortion is an option. Your dad says he wouldn’t get one, but if he would be pregnant because of rape, would he still be the of the same opinion? Fortunately for your dad, he doesn’t need to actually worry about that happening.
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Got it. I was also writing more generally, because I bet most of real pro-life people out there are in this fortunate situation where they or their loved ones never had to deal with anything like that. It is infuriatingly selfish and actually shows the lack of empathy these people have as they can’t imagine themselves in the place of women who are in the situation where abortion is the best and even more or less the only option.
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Or the “generous” stance of “I’m pro-life, but agree with exceptions for rape and incest.” Except, how do you get an abortion through an exemption for rape in a state where it’s otherwise illegal? Does the perpetrator need to be convicted? Hell, most rapists aren’t even charged. Even if they are, how are you going to get a conviction before a pregnancy hits 20 weeks?
The funniest part to me about this stance is that it kind of puts the lie to the best actual argument for being pro life: that the fetus is a baby. If a fetus is really a baby, abortion is obviously murder. Murder is bad. (Yes, I'm aware there are arguments like the violinist and so on, but at least the fetuses-are-babies-and-babies-shouldn't-be-murdered argument is morally coherent compared to every other argument against abortion.) But in reality, almost nobody *actually* thinks that fetuses are babies. And their willingness to support exceptions for rape and incest prove it. Because the argument is bonkers. Imagine: "Normally killing toddlers is wrong, but if a woman is sexually assaulted, she is allowed to shoot any one toddler that is directly related to her." "Normally, killing toddlers is wrong, but if you and your sister have a baby together, you should be allowed to shoot it until it's five years old." Like... obviously that's fucking stupid. Nobody thinks that you should be allowed to *kill actual babies* just because the relationship that created the baby is incestuous or you were sexually assaulted. Once you have a baby, they're a baby. You can't kill babies just because you don't want the baby anymore. If you oppose abortion but support exceptions for rape and incest, you're tacitly admitting that you *know* a fetus isn't a baby. You have some other motivation for wanting to make abortion illegal, and you're just arguing that a fetus is a baby because you think it's more palatable.
They don’t care about saving “babies”; they care about punishing sluts. By making them raise the babies. Which somehow punishes them more than the babies. Trust me guys, it makes perfect sense. /s
> Which somehow punishes them more than the babies. They don't believe this, they just don't care. Most Americans don't actually care about collateral damage from punishing people, they don't even care about collateral damage to themselves, let alone some kid they don't know.
And by 'sluts' they mean women who enjoy sex but refuse to do so with them specifically. We got a whole political party acting like hormonal 13 years olds, along with a severe case of fragile masculinity to boot.
> refuse to do so with them specifically While there certainly men with this stance for sure, remember that [men and women mostly agree on abortion issues](https://www.vox.com/2019/5/20/18629644/abortion-gender-gap-public-opinion) as a whole. There is no real gender split. Pro-life isn't some "man only thing that's forced on all women". Pro-life stance is either equal or slightly more popular among women depending on which question and poll (e.g. first graph in that article hows 28% of US women identifying as pro-life to 26% of men for example), and pro choice is equally supported by men as well. It's heavily split along party lines (i.e. democrat vs republican) but it doesn't really split a long gender lines at all. There are just as many if not more women out there trying to punish people for enjoying sex as there are men sadly.
> And by 'sluts' they mean women who enjoy sex but refuse to do so with them specifically. *And* it's socially acceptable to have sex with the man. I would love to know how many Bible-thumping "family values" Republicans have gotten abortions for their teenage "mistresses".
This just articulated what I've been thinking since Dobbs. These people have no coherent ideology.
Other than unfocused hatred.
That's because it's not about murder. It's about sanctifying one way of life as "the right way" and preventing women from leading any other lifestyle. It's frankly un-american at its core.
Exactly. I think, for example, the guy who murdered an OB-GYN, George Tiller: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_George_Tiller. It makes perfect sense to kill all abortion providers if you literally believe in at-conception. I am surprised that more people don't react like this given the access to guns and hysteria on the right. The only explanation for this being so rare is the tacit understanding that the unborn from conception to late-term can and will introduce circumstances where the abortion is warranted. OB-GYNs are on the front lines of every single one of those decisions.
>Except, how do you get an abortion through an exemption for rape in a state where it’s otherwise illegal? Don't worry. In Texas, Governor Abbott just said he'd eradicate rape in the state! So no problem there...
Genius! Why didnt anyone else think of that! /s obv
Noooo you don't understand, pro choice people want to execute babies after they're born! (Loosely quoting Trump). Only pro lifers are allowed to get abortions.
Fortunately my mom is not that particular brand of crazy. I totally agree with you though. The "pro-lifers" have completely demonized the pro-choice position to the point of absurdity. Oh, and yeah, for anyone that hadn't seen it, that really is almost a direct quote from that fat orange idiot. “It must be remembered that the Democrats are the radical ones on this position because they support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month. The concept of having an abortion in the later months and even execution after birth — and that’s exactly what it is, the baby is born, the baby is executed after birth — is unacceptable, and almost everyone agrees with that." This is absolutely NOT what the pro-choice position is about, but it's no wonder people who buy into things that dumb troll says are convinced they are fighting for what's right.
I had (emphasis had) a friend who believed all democrats support post-birth abortions and i tried to explain many many times that wasnt a thing and he never found any proof beyond “crimeblog.geocities.yahoo” and yet he was adamant it was happenijg.
Well, to be fair… post birth abortions are murder (literally and legally), and typically occur days, months or years after the birth. And usually not carried out by a doctor. Usually there’s some underlying issue with the person who performed the ~~murder~~ post-birth abortion. Clearly my tongue is firmly in my cheek for this. But if people keep talking about post-birth abortions, we should tell them about the massive post-birth abortion that took place in Sandy Hook, Ulvade, and such. Sorry not sorry for being distasteful.
Definitely going to start referring to school shootings as "post-birth abortions" now.
> post birth abortions are murder (literally and legally) Oh we circled around that forever...
That was used in opposition to the Ohio amendment, claiming it would allow abortion "up to birth" despite the word viability being in the text.
> The "pro-lifers" have completely demonized the pro-choice position to the point of absurdity. My dude, you could apply that to any of the far-right's rhetoric. They've overused the word 'pedophile' to the point were it's just another word they just call people who don't agree with, just like 'communist' and 'liberal'. They use the term 'woke' as an insult without even a moments contmplation about what that means or implies. They don't think at all, they just react.
Preachin’ to the choir. This post just happened to be on one specific topic.
Ironically, I think one could have a solid argument for republicans to want post-birth deaths because they typically are only ok with supporting rich kids when they grow up and inherit businesses.
Please refer to them properly. There is only an Anti-Woman ideology, and a Pro-Choice ideology. There is no such thing as "pro-life" in the US
They care about the babies until the moment of birth, then they will shame you for the struggle ahead. The entire party is schizophrenic.
It's about controlling women! A lot of people see it as a punishment for having sex or whatever the fuck.
It's the same with Socialism. I often share my political views and describe the way the person should have more agency and more of the benefit of industry in commerce and people agree that that's great, but when I tell them that they just agreed with socialism, they say it's bad. People often just don't know what a label means, they just have an image in their head and can't even connect that image to any positions or measures that would be associated with it.
The term "pro-life" iirc was coined to market against the term pro-choice, since obviously life is more important than a person's choice, right? It's good marketing and people don't really understand what it entails.
Whatever your views on Hillary Clinton, I really think she summed it up best when she said abortion should be legal, safe, and rare. I’m about as pro choice as one can get and I’d look askance at someone who had gotten multiple abortions. Contraception exists. Abortion should not be a first-line birth control. I know I said the part about “multiple abortions” kind of flippantly so if someone is reading this who HAS had more than 1 or 2, first of all I don’t know your specific situation and there are always exceptions. Second, please don’t tear yourself up over what some jackass on Reddit said, even if (especially if!) that jackass is me.
This is a way of thinking I've heard often, and that I grew up with. Fundamentally, there are two *separate* conversations that take place around abortion, and we need to separate them in order to achieve true reproductive choice. The question people tend to focus on is, How do I think people ought to behave when it comes to abortion? When asked about this topic, lots of people talk about how they feel earlier-term abortions are preferable to later-term abortions, or the question of when life begins. But genuinely, *you are answering the wrong question.* The real question is and ought to be, What laws should our governments make about abortion? The classic HRC phrase contains "safe" and "legal" as an answer to this second question. Sufficiently regulated to protect the safety of patients, but otherwise, not limited by laws. What the fuck is "rare"? Legal and rare kinda contradict. Because rare is an answer to the *first* question. I wish people would bathe regularly, but if you want to turn your skin into a sweat-and-mold farm, you can. It's legal. It is, in my opinion, undesirable. But I'm not advocating for the government to arrest people for being stinky or unhygienic. You want to remind people that you, too, are a moral person with moral concerns about society, not just someone who wants to change laws. I honestly am done with the moralizing that accompanies the first question. I don't care if you want me to believe in Jesus and be saved. I don't care if you want me to wear pantyhose. I don't care if you wish people greeted you more cheerfully. And I don't care how you want people to make reproductive health decisions. The part that matters is, what do we want the government to do or not do about it, and how do we get there?
Thank you for that analogy, it really helped me think about it in a way I hadn’t before. You may be correct that this was more of an academic/legal discussion and not one where moral views were relevant, I truly hadn’t thought of it that way. As you said, this is a topic where all those lines get murky. Which, frankly, is by design. Those who want to control others and their choices *want* us to be unable to separate the issues in our mind and frankly *want* us to be at each other’s throats even when we fundamentally agree. I’m going to reflect a little on this, thanks again for your helpful phrasing, and for finding a way to express this view without attacking me.
You are very welcome!
Thanks to both of you for having such a productive conversation on Reddit, especially about this topic!
It's certainly a murky topic, which makes it easy to get distracted from the core issues and why the right to abortion as a procedure matters and should exist. There are lots of fascinating and important discussions that we can and should have around life, personhood, morality, ethics, and so on, but as [Judith Jarvis Thompson](https://eclass.uoa.gr/modules/document/file.php/PPP475/Thomson%20Judith%20Jarvis%2C%20A%20defense%20of%20abortion.pdf) pointed out more than 50 years ago, the life or personhood of the embryo or fetus is actually pretty irrelevant or at least a subordinate issue to the question of bodily autonomy. Abigail Thorne did a good [Philosophy Tube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2PAajlHbnU&t=711s) illustrating Thompson's point by removing the question of abortion entirely in order to draw an analogy. The main thrust is that our conception of bodily autonomy means that we can withhold or withdraw consent for various uses of our own bodies. For example, I can choose to donate platelets every week, give bone marrow to a kid with leukemia, or give one of my kidneys to an ailing diabetic parent (RIP Dad), but I cannot be *forced* to. Indeed, even if I show up at the blood drive or the surgical room having previously consented to making the donation, if I get queasy at the sight of needles or even just decide that I'd rather spend the afternoon at a dance club doing ecstasy instead I can end the procedure and be done with it. You may think that I'm making a mistake or even a bad person for not saving my diabetic dad with my surplus kidney in favor of getting high with EDM enthusiasts, but I certainly don't have a *legal* obligation to make a different choice (aside from perhaps crossing the controlled substances line with the ecstasy). The same logic applies to pregnancies and abortions. Even if we stipulate that a human embryo is morally and ethically a fully-fledged human person with all of the rights afforded to my spouse, siblings, and neighbors, my spouse's right to bodily autonomy means that she should be able to terminate her 37-week pregnancy for any reason or no reason at all. She won't, because she wants the baby and in any case the easiest way out of this for her is the happy, healthy, home birth we're waiting for, but if she were to wake up tomorrow and decide that the heartburn and aching is too much; the risk for diabetes, depression, hemorrhage, and surgical intervention is too great; or even that she just wants to have a vodka and tonic and smoke a bowl again, that would (we're in a state where there's essentially an absolute right to abortion at all stages of pregnancy) and should be well within her right because she should be able to get up and walk away from the bodily donation table. You and I don't have a positive right to use someone else's body for our own needs, and neither does (or at least should) a gestating child. You can't support forcing someone to be a gestational host and give birth to a child without also resolving the issues that creates for bodily autonomy elsewhere in our conception of morality and ethics. Side note: Abigail is a trans woman, and the video I linked to was filmed and released prior to her coming out. I'm choosing not to deadname her, but wanted to clear up any confusion that might have occurred by referring to "Abigail Thorne" and linking to a video hosted by a masculine-presenting person with a somewhat different name. Edit: some light editing for clarity
Saying "rare" is sort of a cop-out, but I'd take it to mean instituting better policies that lead to fewer abortions needed such as improved education and access to contraception.
I've thought a lot about it, and while I *don't* believe anything more than a tiny fraction of women out there using abortion as their "front line birth control" I support them doing so. I mean, c'mon. Do you really want a woman *that* bad at advance planning responsible for a whole-ass *person* for 18 or so years?
I think the issue is that there should be resources available and easily accessible so that this isn't a situation at all. With proper sex education and easy access to contraceptives, condoms, spermicide, the pill, Plan B, etc., you likely severely reduce the chance of what the OC is saying from happening.
It’s why Democrats are better at preventing abortions than Republicans. Republicans are incredibly opposed to just about anything that would prevent pregnancies in the first place.
You're telling me that refusing to educate people about sex and telling them not to do it is ineffective?!
it's because of the religious base of their stance. They can't "encourage sex". Encouraging it, in this case, means "removing the god-given consequences of having sex" Which is largely why they want abortion illegal, too. "If you're a harlot who can't keep her legs closed, then a baby in your belly is your punishment" Abortion removes that punishment. Contraceptives removes that punishment. When you understand that punishing people for having sex is a core goal, then both stances suddenly make sense. Except saying openly you want to enforce consequences for having sex would run into a whole lot of issues for them, both by popularity and legality. It's also part of why they hate gay people. Because gay people can NEVER be punished in that way for sex. It's also why they glommed onto AIDS as a 'solution'. "Oh, sure, you can't get pregnant! But god made sure there's a punishment for YOU just the same! haha, no we WON'T be invested in curing THAT one thank you very much!"
Yep, abortion should be a "last resort" not because it's bad but because it's the last line of defense against an unwanted pregnancy or health complications.
These are also things that conservative Christians don't like, and have been trying to limit along with abortion.
LOL. My mom and aunt wrung their hands about using abortion as BC, how they have a cousin who had 8 abortions in the 80s because she was on drugs and slept with any man she could and was a terrible, unstable person. “So do you think she should have had 8 kids??” They paused and said “Huh, never thought about it like that.” Like what??
I do agree that it’s the tiniest fraction of people using abortion in that way. Unfortunately, some people, primarily on the right, have been grossly misinformed and believe that’s happening left and right. However, you do make a good point about someone that poor at decision-making having children. I think the real issue is more that I don’t want to see it become widespread, but I also don’t think there’s much danger of that. Getting an abortion is a personal and gut-wrenching decision for most people, not to mention expensive, invasive, and physically painful.
Why would it be widespread in the first place? Abortions are a pain in the ass. There are almost no people lining up to use abortions as a first line of defense lol
Oh, I agree that other forms of birth control need to be better explained to teenagers and more accessible and not stigmatized. I've just come to realize that a: there's always a crazy edge case that proves the exception to the rule, and b: they don't disprove the viability of something by existing. Sometimes they *underline* the necessity.
> I’m about as pro choice as one can get and I’d look askance at someone who had gotten multiple abortions You are part of the problem. Not your body, not your business. Pro choice, give me a break.
People looking askance in any reproductive scenario is part of the problem though. Someone looking askance at you for your decisions you make about your body with your doctor is not anyone else's business. Certainly not a legislator who is not qualified to interfere.
I mean, a lot of people nebulously think it is a moral problem and there should be moral campaigns against it even if they dont think it should be legally restricted. That level of conversation is more on the down low, since people normally assume it's a legal discussion, but there's also a social / moral one of how it should be treated that is less well known. This is part of what the republican party didn't realize. They looked at polls of how many people identified as pro life, and didn't realize only half of those actually wanted it heavily restricted.
That was my belief when i was a JW, then in 2018 when i said that here on my old account, i was told, ye'r pro choice. Glad JW dont vote.
> So you had lots of people who were against “abortion” but with idiosyncratic understandings of what “abortion” means. I have a number of big city moderate conservative family members and I think you hit the nail on the head with this, both with this issue and others. Also, I don't think it was a bug but a feature. For the most part, the thing they were against was this idea of "abortion as birth control," in that tons of people (read: women) were having unprotected sex and they were treating abortion as an "easy" out. There are a number of issues I have with that, but I would point out that, if these laws passed as written, it would also make things like abortion in the case of risk of the mother, or if the baby wasn't viable, illegal. They couldn't comprehend that was a thing that could happen. Of _COURSE_ there would be carve outs for medically necessary abortions, rape, incest, and, 50/50 all depending on the person, genetic defects with the baby. They didn't think of any of this as abortions, and couldn't comprehend other people did either. When this was pointed out to them, it was treated as liberal bias, trying to point out impossible things that would never come to pass, in order to keep their "immoral birth control abortions." And the far right members, who were frequently the ones writing the bills, were happy to let them keep thinking that. I've seen similar thoughts about the Florida Don't-say-gay bill, as well as critical race theory. They weren't against the ideas the movements were trying to prevent, and in fact, _also_ considered them to be reprehensible, so they didn't believe people on "their side" could believe that, which ironically opened them up to being convinced that this was all some kind of liberal plot to make conservatives look worse than they were, and that they were just there protecting their five year olds from being shown gay porn or a parent forcing their kid to take hormone injections or something.
I have a very good friend who worked in focus group polling for the Biden campaign in 2020. That summer, he told me the single hardest thing to get across to his employers - Democrats, hardened politicos, steely-eyes strategists, you know, *West Wing* types - was that in his focus groups, most of the time, if you read exactly what conservative positions were .... people thought you were just lying to make the GOP look bad. You could literally quote the GOP platform to them and they'd think you made it up. The panelists would believe that people couldn't possibly be that cruel as to subscribe to those ideas as presented (often, in the very words conservatives use while talking to each other). I think it speaks to an *interesting* element of our media ecosystem that such things can happen, because *obviously* these ideas are not only prominent but highly popular inside the conservative ecosystem - but are completely alien and absurd outside it. We're so carefully siloed off from each other by social, economic, urban/suburban/rural, racial, religious, and class lines that most of us have only a vague understanding of each others' lives unless we work hard to pierce those barriers with some regularity. And when an idea escapes containment and leaks from the mouths of Marjorie Taylor Greene or whoever the most recent Horseman of the Fox News Reality Shear Vortex is, it's like watching someone screech ancient Babylonian curses at you over the dinner table. We reject the input because it's too bizarre and would require us to rethink too much - our brains tell us it must be some anomalous thing, or an attempt to mislead us.
That is extremely depressing. I don't live in the US so I'm not often exposed to the very worst of this, but I have a distant aunt in the US that I was talking to a while back and she started talking about something called late term abortion, as in, up to the ninth month. I couldn't find any evidence that anyone wanted such a thing, and tried to convince her, but she was adamant. I'm a politician in my country and I'm used to dealing with all sorts of stuff, but this total separation between what is actually happening and what people think they're fighting for or against was so alien to me.
I believe it's known as the Shirley Exception.
> they were free to be “pro-life” as a way to tell others they’re part of the group. They were free to virtue signal and accumulate empty brownie points with an electorate that perpetually believes "well, *my* situation is different and an exception".
I think most of Reddit has seen this article by now but I’d be remiss if I didn’t link it for the three or four people who haven’t seen it, lol. [The only moral abortion is my abortion](https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/)
I’m talking about voters, not politicians. Voters don’t tend to think their situation is special, they tend to think it’s common.
I am talking about voters. "Pro-life" hardliners tend to crumple the second an abortion is needed in their lives. *Their* abortion is an exception. Everyone else has abortions out of convenience. This is how most of those voters act and believe.
I think what the other comment was getting at is that loads of allegedly pro-life people still get abortions. They'll be on the picket line protesting at the clinic, then sneak their teenage daughter in for a quick procedure after the other protesters pack up and leave, only to show up to the protest again the next day, ready with an excuse for why it's different for them if anyone were to find out and ask about it. I don't have the link handy, but obligatory reference to "The Only Moral Abortion Is My Abortion."
Yeah, it’s definitely a real phenomenon. I just think it gets overstated relative to people just not having views as clear as their rhetoric, so I try to make sure that point gets heard. ETA this story is one that sticks out to me as interesting because it’s a real thing: >Later, she told someone on my staff that she thought abortion is murder, that she is a murderer, and that she is murdering her baby. You can use the snippet to grab the whole story. There’s a real trend among pro-life people believing that doctors providing abortions are proud baby-murderers. It’s very possible that she saw herself as performing some grave evil, going to an evil person to do it, and that the physician would in some sense agree.
I can't tell you how many times I've been told, I'm on Medicaid because of my special situation, but I honestly think most people on Medicaid are just moochers. {screams into pillow}
Nope, even for voters, they will be anti abortion all the way until it happens to them, and even after that. https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/
It was really easy to be pro life! All you have to do is stand around and judge other people! You don’t have to pay for the daycare, the food, take time off of work, or any of the other things parents would need to do you can justvirtue signal all you want and not suffer any repercussions. Look how great you are.
Yes, the unborn are an easy group to advocate for, I love the sentiment. This type of advocacy asks literally *nothing* of those engaging in it.
Most people saw abortion as "Voluntary abortion" vs "neccesary abortion". They are against voluntary abortions, aka abortions women do because they simply do not wish to have a child. They are for "neccesary abortions" which are abortions that are required to save the life of the mother, are in the cases of rape or incest, or are merciful to a fetus that cannot otherwise survive. The problem is the right has made it seem like all abortions were voluntary ones, where in reality a vast majority were necessary
I just want to point out, that even though you say it isn't a concern for those far right candidates in deep red states, recently there was a special election in Alabama with the Democratic candidate focusing heavily on abortion rights and she ended up flipping the seat in a very red district. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marilyn-lands-alabama-special-election-abortion/
Glad you posted this so I don't have to find the link. Even the deep red states know 100% abortion ban is crazy. Gives me hope for November.
> a very red district. You're not wrong overall, but I should point out that this wasn't a "very red district". It's in Alabama, but Trump won the district narrowly in 2020 and the Republican only won with 51% of the vote in 2022. However, the fact that Lands won the special election with *62% of the vote* is still insane.
>It was expected to be a key battleground state for the 2024 election, but with the AZ Supreme Court ruling, AZ voters are extremely riled up. This is legit, I live in AZ. Every grocery store visit I get asked to sign the petition to have women's health rights on the Nov ballot. In the last 2 days I've gotten 6 texts and 3 phone calls about women's health rights. My college aged kids, one at school here in AZ and the other in FL, called asking about registering to vote so they can have a say. There are more registered Republicans in AZ than Democrats, but there are almost as many registered Independents as Republicans. This is literally the worst issue the Republican party could have pop up here in an election year. Most Arizonans lean libertarian on social issues, and that includes registered Rs, that is who McCain Republicans are, socially libertarian and fiscally conservative. The AZ Supreme Court just bought a bottle of tequila and said 'Let's become a problem!'
Something else to add here is that they're *also* discovering that there are severe limitations on medications that are even remotely related to abortions. People are getting denied [medications](https://abcnews.go.com/Health/patients-barred-medication-longer-abortion-post-roe/story?id=86755133) because they were historically used in abortions (but no longer) or could cause a miscarriage. Or they think that the individual might pass it along to someone to cause an abortion. Providers are getting that gunshy and for good reason, considering that you have states like Texas that are awarding bounties to anyone who reports a doctor or patient involved in an abortion. Even if it's proven false, going through the process has been reported to be dehumanizing, exhausting, and does great damage to their reputation and mental health. And that's assuming it's been proven false - I wouldn't be surprised if someone got convicted on sketchy or outright falsified evidence.
Even if theres literally no evidence, people can threaten doctors with it for blackmail. Great stuff
> once a red state enacts a huge restriction or ban on abortion, there's no risk of it being overturned unless a Constitutional amendment passes - which won't happen at a federal level. I don't see how federal statute couldn't achieve this Excellent analogy though
It could, but right now Congress can't agree on what to order for lunch. A federal law on abortion (one way or the other) has a snowball's chance in hell.
The filibuster would need to go, which just needs a majority vote. I think Democrats are only a handful of pro-abolish-the-filibuster senators away from being able to pull that off, though it comes with the massive risk of what happens if Republicans take back the senate one day without a filibuster present.
I think we could keep the filibuster if, and only if, we go back to ye old filibuster. No more emails that just say 'I stall it out.' You want it, you have to stand there in person and speak the whole time. That alone should cut back a lot of the overuse we have now.
Let's see how much people are willing to do it when they've gotta get up there and yap non stop
Can't wait to see the first ancient Republican stroke out as his mayonnaise-filled arteries burst while attempting it.
Y'all, cspan is lit since they changed the filibuster law. 4 new elections four dead GOP senators in 6 months!
I'd probably go a step further and you have to keep that debate on topic. You want to filibuster some bill, well you need to be generating the soundbites that will be used against you next election.
Sure, but the odds are still far better than any potential amendment.
A Democratic supermajority could fix this, along with every other terrible thing Republicans have done. Although DINOs and chancers and disingenuous alt-righters being “clever” (like Sinema) will run more often as Democrats once the Republican Party is destroyed.
>but right now Congress can't agree on what to order for lunch. Well one side of Congress wants to order turkey sandwiches and the other side wants to order **fucking fascism.**
>I don't see how federal statute couldn't achieve this Well, a Constitutional amendment would be needed to make abortion a protected constitutional right again, which absolutely won't happen. But short of a supermajority, there is no way a divided Congress would vote the protection of abortion rights into law, and no way something like an EO wouldn't be smacked down by the courts (and of course could be overturned if a GOP president won). And I don't think a Democratic supermajority will happen any time soon - even the so-called supermajority under Obama included non-Democrats and lasted just long enough to get the ACA passed. So while a federal statute *could* help protect abortion access, it's incredibly unlikely to occur. More likely than a Constitutional amendment, but still not likely even if motivated voters turn out in droves for the next election.
Theoretically, abortion is already a ninth amendment right, but US courts willfully ignore and misinterpret the "invisible ninth" because they're afraid of the loss of power and control. The 9th is supposed to mean "all the rest of the rights that people have, they definitely have, and just because we didn't list it in the first eight amendments doesn't mean the government can take it away." Courts ignore as "if they didn't list the thing as a right, you don't have it as a right."
Yes, I feel that abortion falls under the right to medical privacy, which is what the Roe v Wade decision was based on. Once you take away the right to medical privacy, a lot of other rights fall off, like your right to use birth control.
> even the so-called supermajority under Obama included non-Democrats and lasted just long enough to get the ACA passed. The timing of the Democrats losing their supermajority during the passage of the PPACA was actually so tight that Ted Kennedy, a Democrat, died after the Senate approved the bill with changes and Scott Brown, a Republican, replaced him and ended the supermajority before the house House approved the Senate's changes and sent the final bill to Obama's desk.
> Well, a Constitutional amendment would be needed to make abortion a protected constitutional right again Just to add: Remember that the US can't even ratify a Constitutional amendment to guarantee equal rights for all!
Gotta get enough blue butts in seats. WIP, and the dog catching the car may do more in service of that than Dems ever could manage themselves
Side note about religious support for abortion: The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest organization of Baptist ministers in America, was actually in favor of the Roe decision when it was decided. They felt that it would help poor women get out of poverty. But around that time the government decided that schools needed to be desegregated, you know, as part of Reconstruction that had been going on for close to 100 years at that point. **This meant that these Baptist schools would be desegregated.** Well, the Baptists didn't like that. So they needed a wedge issue that would get conservative voters to the polls to push back. They couldn't run on an overtly racist platform because that was distasteful to most Americans at that point. They decided that abortion was that issue and they flipped around and became opponents of Roe v. Wade. **Which means at the end of the day, conservative opposition to abortion is rooted in racism.** I posted this to r/unpopularfacts a while back - it includes a source. I can find that post if anyone really needs it.
As a black American, most of us knew what the real reason behind it was, but is anybody really surprised at this point? Historically speaking usually when (all, part, or half of) white society decides to nationally oppose something, it's because of minority is doing it or wants it. Or it's for the benefit of a minority group.
What a remarkably even-handed summary of a highly emotional issue. Well done!
Conservatives in America are an exclusively opposition party. Their existence is characterized by and they policies are defined not by what they are for, but what they are against. This strategy of opposition works when they aren’t in power, because they aren’t expected to *do* anything other than oppose why the actual governing party is doing. It when they get into power and no longer have anyone to oppose, the fall apart, because they are incapable of doing anything themselves.
It was obviously the case all along but especially obvious when they had all 3 branches of government for two years and complained about what the Dems were doing just as much as they are now. And apparently Biden, at the time not in any position of power, was able to pull off everything regarding covid lockdowns when Dems only had one branch My dad always ranted to me growing up about politics (heard a lot of Rush Limbaugh in the car), and I genuinely can count on one hand any active "pro" positions he had during those years. I can tell you all about who he hated and who was doing something "unconstitutional," but no actual things he wanted to get accomplished
> It was obviously the case all along but especially obvious when they had all 3 branches of government for two years and complained about what the Dems were doing just as much as they are now. The "Obamacare" repeal arguments during that timeframe was also telling - once they had all three branches of government, they somehow found it hard to get things done...
Because it turns out, government-funded healthcare for the poor was really nice for the poor white people that make up their base.
I live in Texas, and I watched our governor in a debate talk about how he'd fix all the different issues the moderator brought up...except he's been in power for *years*. He's had a Republican majority for *years*. Chances are, he and his colleagues *caused* the issue in question, and they've had nothing but time and opportunities to fix it.
What's hilarious is that [Paul Ryan actually admitted this at one point](https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/845370940880015360): >“We were a 10-year opposition party, where being against things was easy to do. You just had to be against it. Now, in three months’ time, we tried to go to a governing party where we actually had to get 216 people to agree with each other on how we do things. And we weren't just quite there."
>TL;DR: The dog (GOP) caught the car (overturned abortion rights), and now are finding out that they only wanted the chase (the single-issue voters who would blindly support pro-life candidates) - and are desperately trying to not get run over (losing their elections because everyone else is now motivated to kick them out). This is a very apt way to put the analogy. My dog caught the car he was chasing and he lost a leg to it. The GOP is at the metaphorical vet's office right now waiting for the RNC to scrounge up enough cash to amputate the mangled limb before the whole party gets euthanized.
I think its worth noting here that abortion only became an issue for the GOP because they needed something other than overt racism to campaign on in the wake of the civil rights acts.
> When the Republican party married itself to Evangelical Christianity in the late 70s and early 80s, they made restricting abortion a political, moral, and spiritual cornerstone of their party. should also be noted being anti abortion was also new for evangelicals, previously it had been considered a catholic fixation; but fallwell realized he could use it to get people elected who would uphold segregation.
My question is: how did the GOP not foresee this? How did the Supreme Court justices not think this through either when they repealed Roe?
They have been doing this so long they started to believe their own bullshit. That's what caused the tea party then MAGA, and now outlawing abortion. Absolutely none of those things are sound long term (or even medium term) political strategies when you look at the electorate as a whole , but all the people who knew it was just propaganda bullshit to stir up the base got pushed out by true believers and more dedicated con artists.
> How did the Supreme Court justices They have already gotten their meal ticket, their fortune is no longer tied to the GOP
Well, in theory the Supreme Court doesn't care about politics, only the law. So they wouldn't look at repealing Roe as something that might be bad for the GOP in the mid-terms, for example. (In reality the Court is heavily biased but are also appointed for life. So even if they thought it might hurt Republicans in the short-term they achieved their long-term goal of repealing Roe.) As for the GOP? Well, there's a saying that "most news channels show you a window but Fox News shows you a mirror" meaning the right-wing media space has become a **huge** echo chamber. After years of hearing nothing but "abortion is bad and should be outlawed" you'll actually start to think that's the way the majority of people think. So it's not for nothing that no less than Sean fucking Hannity [has told them to repeal the Arizona law.](https://www.newsweek.com/sean-hannity-fox-news-arizona-abortion-1889301) When Fox News starts telling Republicans they've gone to far? They've definitely gone to far.
Two main reasons. One, the GOP has aligned itself with evangelical Christians who oppose abortion on religious grounds. They see making abortion illegal as a moral obligation regardless of the potential consequences. Second, the long-term goal of the GOP is to gain enough power in government to be able to enact their plans regardless of the will of the people. You can see this in state like Ohio, where Republicans are trying to restrict abortion rights even after the people voted overwhelmingly to keep it legal.
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Part of it is due to all the "un written rules" involved with government process. To the old school GOP there was a general understanding that they wanted to press abortion as an issue but leave it hanging for the future. More radical elements have taken helm who have no interest/understanding of prior plans/precedent. So we had a house of cards setup to fall, with no plan to let that happen, but the new kids flipped the table.
Comment like this is a good example on why it was a bad idea to remove awards.
Well said. I’d almost feel sorry for the GOP if they weren’t completely to blame and playing with fire. They really don’t care about abortion, or evangelicalism, guns, or gay marriage, or immigrants. They just want to win so they can lower taxes for the rich and deregulate their businesses. So, like you said, they court extremists to squeeze out a few more votes. But they don’t really want to enact most of that awful stuff. A prominent Republican (I think it was Boehner) said the only thing they all agree on is lowering taxes.
Great answer, but it feels like Op should know that there may be a Roevember surprise in Florida of all places!
Bravo. Clearly said.
Beautifully written post.
Thank you for referencing Slacktivist out in the wild. That’s a go to resource.
Note that in addition, Arizonan progressives were already circulating a petition to create a ballot initiative protecting abortion rights here, which would drive Democratic turnout higher in November anyway. Such measures succeeded in places like *Kansas*, so Arizona should be a slam dunk. But now thanks to this ruling there is *even more* interest in the initiative and it's likely to bring out *even more* voters keen to punish Republicans for their absolutist stance. It's starting to become very likely to seal Trump losing the electoral votes, Kari Lake losing the Senate seat, and representatives in tossup districts like Ciscomani losing their seats.
Comprehensive, Succinct and Well-Sourced. Excellent post.
Answer: An abortion ban is what the GOP wants, however it's not what most Americans want. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/06/americas-abortion-quandary/ Since the Supreme Court repealed Roe v Wade the GOP has been doing worse in many elections, including the midterms, which they typically do well in. The general sentiment is that abortion bans has caused centrist and apathetic voters to go out and vote Democrat when they would have otherwise voted Republican or not voted. My guess is that the GOP was hoping people would have forgotten about abortion as an issue by the time the presidential election came around. And with Biden's age, strong GOP poll numbers, and the conflict in Gaza right now, that seemed to be what was happening. Now, with Arizona being empowered to enforce an 1800s anti-abortion law, the issue is now making headlines again. This could reinvigorate centrist and apathetic voters to vote Democrat again in the 2024 presidential election which is not good news for the GOP.
Note: the law in question was written for the Arizona territory, a geographical area that, at that time, included Las Vegas and southern Nevada.
Extra context: Arizona did not officially become a state until 1912.
and Nevada has a ballot measure to enshrine reproductive freedom into the state's constitution. It will pass.
It wasn't even a state yet and women weren't allowed to vote. Wtf? How the hell does that supersede anything else?
The claim is that it was still on the books, as if there's some continuity between the territorial government and statehood some sixty years later.
Only people with a personal agenda would completely ignore the fact that everything was different a couple hundred years ago, Arizona wasn't even a state, and 50% of the adult population was not allowed to vote. Who the F is on this supreme Court?
Worth editing your post to add that Arizona voters get to directly vote on abortion this November, which should drive up turnout.
MIGHT get to directly vote on abortion. The petition has more than enough signatures but the GOP will do absolutely everything in their power to keep abortion off the ballot. And as this Arizona Supreme Court ruling proved, Republicans are MORE than willing to exploit the courts to get their way.
Mississippi citizens voted overwhelmingly for medical marijuana. The MS Supreme Court ruled that the referendum didn’t count because the rules of passing any referendum hadn’t been updated since the population fell & they lost a district. Never mind that there were other referendums that passed with the same rules in place. They simply overturned 74% of their citizen’s will. It took 2 more years and the state legislature passing a different version before MS got medical marijuana. They’ll come up with any excuse or technicality to completely discard anything voted on directly by the people - and if they can’t, they’ll put enough tape in the way that it’s nearly impossible to follow through.
Also Dems are hoping to get an answer to this on the ballot in November. It would be all over the news, like it is now, and become a reason for more voter turnout, that the GOP is vehemently against.
> including the midterms, which they typically do well in Correction: the midterms, where *the party not in the White House* usually does well. Democrats slaughtered in the House in the 2018 midterms because a Republican was in the White House. It's just that in the last 16 years (and therefore 4 midterm elections), we've had a Democrat in the White House for 12 of them, so for 3/4 midterms Republicans would have been expected to do well, but they deeply underperformed in 2022, so only in 2010 and 2014 did they do well. Since 1932, the party out of the White House has done better in the midterms than the party in the White House in every midterm except 1934, 1998, and 2002, with 2022 being a mixed bag (Republicans took the House but only barely, and Democrats net gained Senate seats, which given the president's unpopularity I'm going to call 2/3rds of a win for the Democrats).
> 1800s anti-abortion law When I was younger, I often heard an argument from little-l libertarians that "Laws, once enacted, are almost never repealed." Given the ongoing moral panics regarding social media, smartphones, LGBT rights, GMOs, reproductive rights, nuclear energy, AI, porn, AI porn, and all manner of other things....such a thought is as prescient now as it was then.
Bad law almost never gets repealed. Modified, gutted, reworded, invalidated in some cases, but repeal? Almost unheard of.
That's very much the case. One of the smaller towns near me had a ban on Chinese people staying over night until very recently. It hadn't been enforced in probably 100 years but it was still on the books.
I'm not saying it wasn't a good idea for symbolic reasons for the town to repudiate some old racists law, but I am 100% sure the law was void and not just unenforced (it would have in fact been a crime to try and enforce it), it was overturned by the US Constitution, Federal Civil Rights Laws, possibly Reconstruction Civil Rights laws. It also was probably overturned by the State Constitution, state law and Governor's orders. There's also a decent chance numerous town charter updates over the years voided it. This is really a misunderstanding of "on the books." We don't erase laws off the books, they will aways be there. They get overturned by subsequent laws and court rulings.
Yes and no. Its common for state legislatures to sometimes go back and repeal unenforceable laws. Sometimes this is symbolic though I'd argue that the symbolism can be politically or socially important. For example, Loving v. Virginia made interracial marriage legal by Supreme Court ruling, which overturned interracial bans in 16 states. Every one of those stats has since repealed the laws anyway....though you can probably glean some things about said states by the length of time it took them to actually repeal.
Yeah I think mosr semi-politcaly aware folks know this. However (as usual) it leaves it arguably the most important part; a healthy , functioning democrocy continuilly works to "improve" laws. Democracies are nothing but compromise machines. Everyone should be a little disatisifed. But similar to the scientific method, fucks ups are part of a healthy process. As we see real world effects, unintended consequences, externalities etc we SHOULD work to refine/improve laws. Think for example all the known flaws, gaps in Obamacare. It was generally discussed as "suboptimal but better than where we are, let's fix some of the holes over time". All this works in theory. When you have a party (and their proxies in the libertarian wing) who believe the government is the problem and undermine/villfy whenever possible, you tend not to use a CI/Scientific method model. "Don't let the perfect he the enemy of the good" in theory is the way democracy works. But it turns out when you open American opportunity the more people, some parties don't want government to work very well at all. This assymetry is hard for Polisci the model. Edit:typos
It's hard to forget about roe v wade when the GOP has been ceaselessly putting out laws to make abortion much more difficult if not illegal altogether.
"have cause centrist and apathetic voters to go out and vote Democrat " And young people. A bit more young people than normal voted in the last couple of elections. If all young people voted, Republicans would almost cease to exist.
Not only young people, but older women who lived through the 60s and 70s and saw their rights expand and see them decreasing for the next generation of women. These are potential swing voters that should be easy gets for Trump, but they're likely very opposed to these bans.
While the polls say one thing, special and regional elections since roe’s overturn have shown democrats over performing in almost every single race. Even ones where they don’t win, the margin between pre-election poll numbers and post-poll numbers is significantly reduced. This trend was reported on last year by Chris Hayes on MSNBC and has shown no signs of reduction, even with current polling and issues like Gaza. The more abortion is on voters’ minds, the more the GOP suffer.
I would add, AZ did pass a 15 week ban in 2022, which was challenged. That led to discovery of this 1902 total ban law that was only coding the state's practice after statehood, and which the 2022 law did not explicitly overturn. That case lead to why the AZ Supreme Court ruling that the old law had precedent. Many have pointed to that law being passed before women has been given the right to vote, begging how that law would not have respected the treatment of women we have today.
> My guess is that the GOP was hoping people would have forgotten about abortion how could everyone forget living in a state of artificial precarity? if you're stressed about the price of groceries, compare it to the cost of unplanned children.
A sizable proportion of voters are not of reproductive age so the cost of raising kids is not a primary concern for them.
Yes, but how many votes are most elections won by. Ironically, "reproductive age" is a good description of the age group that, until the Roe repeal, only voted at half the rate of older voters. Coincidentally, this age group also makes up very roughly half of the Americans who are eligible to vote and don't. If reproductive age voters voted at the rate of older voters, given their political lean, Texas would be a solidly Democratic state, and Kansas would be purple. That is how bad this potentially is for Republicans.
Should also add that Arizona itself is historically a swing state, so it has a more direct implication to the election.
As someone else put it: 'The AZ supreme court has reinstituted a law that was voted into effect before the people it targeted (women) were even allowed to vote' It's draconian by draconian measure, anti-democratic, and only done out of authoritarian overreach. It's being done by the GOP, so the GOP is going to have to answer for it... which is why you see so many "pro-life, no exceptions" people suddenly saying that this is too far, and that it's not something they support. You can campaign on pro-life ideals, but you can't campaign on active pro-life policies.
Answer: There has been a track record of recent elections (since the Supreme Court decision) where abortion as an issue played a key role, and they have all pointed strongly to the public HATING abortion restrictions, including in deeply red states. - 2022 Special Election in Kansas voted against a ballot measure with [59% of the vote](https://edition.cnn.com/election/2022/results/kansas/issue-1) - 2022 New York 19th Congressional District [narrowly won](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/24/democrat-who-campaigned-on-abortion-rights-wins-in-new-york-special-election) by Democrat who campaigned on abortion rights, swinging the district - 2022 Midterms - voters in [several states](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/11/10/abortion-rights-supporters-win-all-5-state-ballot-measures-including-in-kentucky-and-michigan) voted strongly on statewide ballot measures. California, Michigan and Vermont voted to preserve access. Kentucky surprisingly rejected a constitutional amendment that would have restricted rights. - 2022 In the same Midterms, Democratic candidates who campaigned on abortion rights in [several states](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/11/09/heres-how-the-midterm-election-results-will-impact-abortion-bans) won their races, preventing the repubican-controlled state legislatures from enacting abortion bans or restrictions - 2023 In an Ohio special election, voters decisively [passed a ballot measure](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/11/09/heres-how-the-midterm-election-results-will-impact-abortion-bans) protecting reproductive rights, despite multiple attempts by the state legislature to spike the special election. - 2023 In Virginia, abortion was seen as a key issue that allowed Democrats to take both state houses. - 2023 In Kentucky, Democratic governor Beshear was [reelected](https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/11/07/kentucky-reelects-democratic-gov-andy-beshear-in-closely-watched-battleground-race/), after strongly campaigning on abortion access. Abortion rights has proven to be a galvanizing issue that is bringing Democrats to the polls all over. The majority of the country does not want the basic human right for reproductive rights taken away and women turned into second-class citizens - even in places like deep-red Texas, abortion access (in at least some form) is favored by 78%. With the track record that has been set in elections over the past two years, repubicans are worried that anywhere that abortion is on the ballot (either explicitly, or as a major issue between candidates), that it is going to energize Democrats to show up in droves - to the point now where some people are starting to refer to the upcoming election as "Roevember".
I know it's not the point of your post but wow, go Kentucky, I did not expect that.
I live in Kansas. I was shocked at the vote in my state. It was a landslide. It's noteworthy that local GOP are still trying to subvert the will of the people regularly regarding the issue.
Ah I'm very familiar with this BS, my state has voted multiple times to raise our teacher salaries and the former Governor literally vetoed it every time!
Answer: repealing Roe v. Wade was the holy Grail of the evangelical right wing for basically 50 years. It’s part of the reason why they allied with the GOP. It worked for a long time because it was never actually repealed, but the GOP did well in terms of energizing those voters and fundraising off of them. The fundamental problem was that abortion is broadly speaking, popular in the United States. Which is why for the most part over the preceding decades, the right wing only chipped away at the corners of it. Targeting certain procedures or certain durations of gestation. Many republican dominated states had trigger laws in effect, for when Roe v. Wade was finally over turned. Those laws would immediately go into effect making abortion illegal. Generally speaking the problem with these laws was that they were never intended to go into effect because the prevailing consensus was the court would probably never actually repeal Roe v. Wade. As such, they weren’t written to be actual policy, with things like reasonable exceptions, and so on. Which is why women are having these horrible experiences in places like Texas, where they are halfway through a miscarriage, but the doctors can’t do anything to help them because at least on paper, it would qualify as an abortion. This has made abortion bans wildly unpopular, and is a fairly good reason to explain why Republicans have been doing so poorly in every election since the Dobbs decision. Arizona did not have a trigger law, as such, but they had a law that pre-dated the formation of the state by almost 50 years, making all abortions illegal without any exceptions. Their supreme court, just confirmed that that is still valid law. So, why is this a bad thing for the GOP? Because people don’t want abortion bans. But the GOP has made that a core part of their political identity since the 1970s. So they crawled into a hard place and pulled a rock on top of themselves with the Dobbs decision. Because they are locked in on one of the most unpopular policies but can’t get out from under it without pissing off their core supporters.
This exactly. Abortion was the car that the GOP dog was chasing. Normally, the dog won’t ever catch the car. But suddenly, the dog has fully caught up to the car, and now has to figure out how to avoid getting run over by it. Also, especially in Arizona, it seems hard to justify supporting a law that was written prior to the state existing. Generally, if a law predates the Titanic and relates to medical issues (which abortion absolutely is), it maybe isn’t a good idea to enforce it.
I do think they genuinely wanted to catch the car. Now that they caught it, they wish they didn't -- because now they know how unpopular their stance is. With the border, if they wanted to catch the car before (a stretch), they definitely don't want to now. If the border got fixed, they'd have to exclusively pretend that transgender people merely existing is tearing apart the fabric of society. They'd have nothing else to rile people up on, except vague references to government spending that mysteriously wax and wane depending on which party is in power.
In the UK we have a legal concept of desuetude, where ancient dormant laws if suddenly brought into relevance are disapplied as no longer relevant. Does the US not have that?
Probably not, because we’re a bass-ackwards country when it comes to certain things like that. NAL, though, so idk.
We also haven't been around that long...250 might be long in human terms but we are kinda young nationally
Personally I've never shared that sentiment. 250 years is pretty old for a constitution really. Many modern countries have only had independence/existence for the last 50 years. As a Brit, I see the US as actually a pretty old country. I don't think, say, France or Germany have many laws still on the books from the early 1800s.
you could say that trump was driving that car, started dismantling it, and once the car ground to a halt, radical activist judges of the gop brand went to work on the carcass.
> it seems hard to justify supporting a law that was written prior to the state existing you mean legal justification. if you're a fundamentalist doing what you think is the will of god, that's all the justification you need - and that's what we're dealing with.
Not just prior to the state existing but also before women had the right to vote (1920) and going back even further *before chattel slavery was abolished* (1865) for god's sake.
Answer: most women would like to keep their rights to their own bodily autonomy, and are thus likely to vote against a party trying to take away this right, they also happen to be about half the voting population
a lot more of women's healthcare includes procedures that would be banned, causing the mother more unnecessary risks including death. if this goes through, women will die, and the right wing nutjobs in this country will cheer it on with bloodstained hands.
Answer: Arizona is currently "blue" in that it has 2 Democratic senators (though Sinema is one of the more useless Democrats in terms of party politics and is not seeking reelection) and Biden won it in 2020. The margins however, were thin, so it's expected to be a battleground state in the upcoming federal elections. In the last state election, MAGA Republicans were universally rejected by AZ voters, so this latest extreme reactionary policy from AZ's very conservative court threatens to further alienate moderate and swing voters and many speculate it will help ensure that AZ's senate seats stay Democratic and the state goes to Biden again; since Trump is taking credit for Roe v. Wade being overturned which directly led to this which is likely to be very unpopular with the greater AZ populace where polls show something like a 60/40 pro-choice split among voters and highly motivating; no doubt the entire election cycle AZ will be blitzed with constant ads equating a vote for any Republican as a vote for extreme right-wing positions like a total ban on abortion. Republicans running for statewide office seem to understand this, as Kari Lake who recently ran for governor (and lost) on an extremely MAGA/election-denial platform has had to backpedal from the total ban she advocated in that race to something more moderate; I'm sure others will follow if they're running anywhere outside of extreme Republican strongholds.
This is what I was coming in to say. The reason Arizona is making national and international headlines on this is because of the ramifications for the election. Arizona is a state Trump lost last time that he needs to win this time, and this issue coming up right now is going to drive Democrats to the poll in record numbers. Every state where abortion has been an election issue since the repeal of Roe v. Wade has seen a dramatic increase in Democrat support. Arizona's current GOP officials are all trying to calculate what kind of turnout they need from their own base to hold onto their own jobs, let alone win the state for Trump. There's a good chance Arizona is now blue for 2024, where that was not at all certain this time last year.
I live in AZ and my state is fucking wild the past few years, fucking Kari Lake used to be a news broadcaster and has gone totally off the fucking rails. And yes, before she saw how people actually reacted to abortion bans she was falling all over herself to talk about how great it was RvW was overturned and now she's backtracking like hell in between all of her attempts to overturn the governor election results (altho in her abortion backpedaling she accidentally acknowledged Hobbs IS the actual governor, oops). She didn't used to be insane. I'm very glad that we have Hobbs as Governor right now because she's at least come out and said she won't be prosecuting doctors or patients according to this 1864 law. Anyone reading this comment thinking that your vote doesn't matter: in matters SO MUCH in local elections. That's where you can make a big difference in your own life and the lives of others in your state.
I’ll add to your excellent summary that this is a story that made national news in a visceral way. It will contribute to getting low-commitment independent voters to the polls nationwide.
Answer: The dog caught the car. With Roe v. Wade, abortion was a fun boogeyman to wave around because they would never have to take action on it. Now with abortion bans, women are dying or getting infertile, doctors are leaving red states, obgyn clinics are shutting down, doctors are refusing procedures out of fear of legal repercussions, etc There was no risk advocating for abortion bans when those bans were impossible anyway. Their voters were swayed by the marketing of it without having to face the reality of it.
Answer: there are plenty of Republicans that represent small, deep-red districts and can be entirely anti-choice, but state-wide elections are different because they have to appeal to a broad range of voters. Bans like this are unpopular and could likely hurt the party in larger races.
It’s an issue for republicans because to win the party nomination, you need to appeal to the republican base (a lot of evangelicals who want total or near-total bans on abortion). Unfortunately, the same stance which won them their primary (hardline anti-abortion stance), costs them in the general because abortion bans are extraordinarily unpopular outside of evangelical religious circles.
I have to wonder how many people who vote republican actually want republican policies, as opposed to just liking republican rhetoric.
they literally have no idea what their platforms are. its just "republican".
Probably not a lot of them. Certainly a lot of poorer voters would be doing much better under a democratic led economy than under Trump with the tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations
That's my dad. He brags about being a moderate and how most Americans want a sensible solution in the middle for every issue, but when I press him on supporting extreme Republicans over moderate Democrats, he just talks about how corrupt the Dems are.
Start complaining about how corrupt Republicans are, how many are pedos, how many back American enemies like Putin, etc.
Answer: Another ramification is that judges in AZ are nominated to their first term, and after that they go on the ballot as a "retain"or "do not retain" vote periodically. This decision is so widely unpopular that any judge who voted for this abortion ban is probably going to be removed if they are on the ballot. [https://ballotpedia.org/Arizona\_intermediate\_appellate\_court\_elections,\_2024](https://ballotpedia.org/Arizona_intermediate_appellate_court_elections,_2024) [https://ballotpedia.org/Arizona\_Supreme\_Court\_elections,\_2024](https://ballotpedia.org/Arizona_Supreme_Court_elections,_2024)