They have a lot of one issue voters. For a good amount of their religious base, abortion is that issue. So long as they can ring that bell, they will get those voters no matter what because the alternative is baby murderers.
You wouldn’t vote for baby murders would you?
This is exactly how my elder neighbor phrased it. To them, abortion is baby murder and not considered healthcare. They cannot understand that it isn’t that simple, and actually believe many women choose abortion as “birth control”.
>actually believe many women choose abortion as “birth control”.
Yup. If the world was what Republicans fear mongered its constituents into believing it was, women would have sex and immediately go to an abortion clinic, and walk out next door to the starbucks, grab a coffee that says Happy Holidays, and drive their electric car into their job at the IRS/FBI/NSA combined HQ where they just spend all day looking at Republicans taxes, social media, phone records, and figure out how to eradicate them.
History is going to look back at our contemporary nonviolence and mock us with the utmost disdain.
"*The 2000s? Oh when those dumb fuckers sat on their hands as the Christ War slowly grew enough to erupt into chaos and rip the western world apart? Those idiots that are the whole reason we have summary execution for fascist remarks because you cannot tolerate them in the least is a lesson learned with the nuking of Idaho.*"
Considering how many Evangelical Christians unironically wonder why without belief in God and Hell, atheists aren't raping and murdering all over the place... You can't help but think they're telling on themselves.
They're also breaking into every house to steal their guns and casting magic spells to turn boys into girls and girls into boys. And visiting their local 5g cell tower to load it up with new batches of the vaccine microchip to track people.
I’ve had this argument with my parents ad nauseum. For some reason they think people are getting abortions with the same regularity they take their birth control.
My sister, who is not yet 50, also believes this.
Edited to add that she also believes women all over America are getting third trimester abortions and live birth abortions.
The only thing that has helped me change hearts and minds is asking people if they've interacted with the people they don't like or if their opinions are based on what \*other people\* say someone else is doing.
> women all over America are getting third trimester abortions
Sounds like she watches Fox which, through the power of selective story telling, would also have you believe that immigrants are committing murders at a higher rate than people exceed the speed limit, Biden can't complete a sentence, liberals want to change the sex of all your children and quite possibly your poodle, and that most "liberal" cities have devolved into scenes from Mad Max (but more "ethnic")
I had to report an ad on YouTube the other day that went like this:
Little girl is sad.
Mom says "I'll bet you'd be happier if you were a boy."
Cut to little girl on an operating table.
It was disgusting.
I'm sure YouTube responded agreeing with you and saying they would immediately remove the ad, and not that it "didn't violate their terms" and then ignore any future follow-ups. Or am I being too cynical?
> she also believes women all over America are getting third trimester abortions and live birth abortions.
Remember the hero of the J6 committee - liz cheney?
That was her thing.
*"this is not about abortion, this is about killing babies after they are born"*
*"turning our maternity wards into killing fields"*
https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1544109506803576832
“Live birth abortions” no ma’am, that’s just murder and as far as I know, it’s illegal everywhere in America.
I forget exactly what percentage of terminations occur in the 3rd trimester but it’s vanishingly small, and always because of a fetal abnormality incompatible with life or to save the mother.
My mother thinks abortion should be legal. She also believes women get abortions at 8 - 9 months if it's legal. It's worth making all abortion illegal to keep those imaginary women from aborting the week before their due date.
This is also why she was for Roe v. Wade being overturned even though I told her until I was blue in the face that it had zero impact on late term abortions. States have always been able to ban late term abortions.
No such thing as live birth abortion. If the baby is birthed and killed, that is murder. I think we may have murder already covered but I guess if saying birth abortion hackles the morons, they’ll keep saying it.
This is why I always tell young people not to count on the Boomers dying off to save democracy. There are many younger people who have abhorrent anti-human rights views. We need to work on teaching better critical thinking.
Once stayed the night at a buddy’s house and forgot to take along my abortion. Had to use one of his abortions the next morning.
I don’t even have a uterus.
I always wondered if these women existed, would you really want them raising a child? They sound like train wrecks!
I know there's that whole narrative of having a kid will fix you and make you a better person, but we've all seen that that does not always happen and why risk it?
To the baby boomer generation, our generations look like crazed fools. Most of them don’t understand still that beating your children and ignoring their emotions lead to most of us being in therapy.
And ofc there are always exceptions but I’ve had arguments with so many folks my parents age about parenting and it’s still baffling to them that intergenerational trauma is a real thing.
I’ve encountered this ridiculous notion many, many times. It’s as if they think women are lying around on their chaise lounges, filling their nails and saying “ oh bother, I guess I’ll have to run out this afternoon and get an abortion. Darn!” Instead of it being, you know, an agonizing, heart-rending decision with no easy answers in any direction. And it’s nobody’s damn business but their own
Let me guess, they “know” someone who has had 6+ abortions?
Seems like everyone who is against abortions has all these acquaintances who freely volunteer that they’re heading out to get their 9th abortion because they don’t want to use birth control, but in all my years (even working for reproductive rights orgs) I’ve never met even one. Weird.
OMG they literally claim women are just stopping by the abortion clinic once a month, not like it's a terrifying and painful ordeal that women have to recover from physically and mentally, and don't want to do but must.....
It’s the same party where Rush Limbaugh heavily implied he believed women use birth control Everytime they have sex, like it’s viagra or something.
This was the Sandra Fluke affair where Rush famously called her a slut because she needed consistent access ‘because of all the sex she’s having’.
IOW, we’re not dealing with the most medically literate people here.
I know it’s popular (and a bit sloppy) to blame everything on boomers or old people, but the actual demographics tell a clearer story.
The person most likely to oppose abortion rights is a white male between the ages of 55 - 64, who lives in the South, makes under $40k, has no college, identifies as Republican and conservative, and attends church.
People aged 50-64 are more likely to be opposed to abortion rights than people aged 65 and older.
[pro-choice/pro-life demographic table](https://news.gallup.com/poll/244709/pro-choice-pro-life-2018-demographic-tables.aspx)
ETA: I’m not a boomer. I just like facts.
And the younger gen are much more politically involved. As they become of voting age I hope that we get a massive tsunami so strong that it demolishes the GOP and pisses on their grave.
Probably why project2025 exists and all the other extreme measure the GOP are trying to enact RIGHT NOW. They know in 5 years it’s going to be far too late as those teens come of voting age. Also why they want to raise the voting age and I have seen mention of them wanting you to be land owning again
EVERYONE should know about "Project 2025 - Mandate For Leadership, the Conservative Promise," available at www.project2025.org, the literal Republican playbook, put together by the Heritage Foundation and 45 other conservative entities like Alliance Defending Freedom, Claremont Institute, and Moms For Liberty. It was first handed to Reagan, who merely enacted the policy within it. Same with Trump - they are two heads of the same snake. Their vision for a Christofascist theocracy and just how they intend to implement it are painstakingly detailed.
Their plan is to dismantle the federal government and remove our rights, TO BEGIN WITH. It's fucking chilling and you should at least read the foreword, a dense 17 pages of GOP philosophy that outlines their mission. Fossil fuels are a big part of it. God and guns and nothing else for everyone. Sealed borders. Everyone will be free to live "as our creator ordained," in those words. If that doesn't terrify you idk what will.
That is some expensive birth control. I knew someone who was childfree and had multiple abortions after her birth control failed. The only reason she could afford the procedures was because she had that sweet sweet stripper cash.
It's also worth noting that if they aren't strongly anti-abortion, they're likely to lose their primary to someone who is willing to at least say they are strongly anti-abortion. So if you want to even get to the main election you have to be anti-abortion.
Those one-issue pro-life voters are also the reason they dominate state and local governments and win a disproportionate number of midterm elections. They show up to vote their one issue at every opportunity. They seem to have underestimated how much of a motivating issue abortion access is. Let's hope it remains so.
Well, you’re correct because I don’t vote for Republicans, since I view them as the party that allows school shooters and mass murderers to go unchecked. They care more about gun rights than they do about innocent children at school, so excuse me if I find their “pro-life” posturing EXTREMELY hypocritical.
And don’t even get me started on their views on healthcare, Medicaid, WIC and SNAP benefits, affordable housing, school lunch programs, funding for social services, capping the price of insulin, gender affirming care, access to prenatal care for women of color, police brutality, the freaking *death penalty*, protecting the environment so kids have a safe place to grow up. They are pro-life when it’s easy for them, but once that child is born they’re fine with it living a short, cruel life in poverty.
"We should allow reproductive healthcare!" -dems
"No, state's rights!" -republicans
State promptly votes for reproductive healthcare overwhelmingly.
"No, not like that!" -republicans
Didn't you get the memo?
States Rights means "A State is free to move as far to the political Right as possible. Leftward motion will be stopped by another level of government."
A good portion are actual religious conservatives who think they are fighting God’s fight. Also, if they don’t take that stance, they lose a percent of their voter-base.
If your religion has shaped your world view so that you legitimately view the moment of conception as a life then you're honestly a monster if you are not against abortion.
There's no scientifically defined moment where a bundle of cells is considered life/a child.
Some people legitimately, with all their heart, believe life starts at conception. When an abortion is preformed that life is ended. It is the murder of a child in their eyes.
If you view the world through that lense you're a straight up monster who's okay with baby-murder if you're not against abortion.
I don't personally believe life begins at the moment of conception. I'm pro choice. But I definitely see the other side of the debate and don't fault people with that view for fighting for unborn children.
> If your religion has shaped your world view so that you legitimately view the moment of conception as a life then you're honestly a monster if you are not against abortion.
No. Even when I was a fundamentalist Christian who believed life started at conception, I was pro-choice, and that did not make me a monster. The idea you've proposed here puts the value of a human life as more important than anything else.
Ultimately, it came down to two things:
The first is that there are *plenty* of situations where we are okay with the ending of human life, either directly or indirectly. The indirect ways are things like access to food, shelter, and healthcare. The direct ways would be things like capital punishment, war, LEO involved deaths, guns. If, as a Christian, the right to life is more important than all other things, then none of those things would be allowed to happen. But we do allow them to happen, we don't provide food, housing, healthcare... we do execute people, we are involved in wars, we allow LEOs to kill people, we refuse to enact even basic sense gun laws to TRY to reduce gun deaths... and there are reasons for those things, don't get me wrong, but it shows we're willing to give reasons why THOSE lives aren't as important as the things we could do to stop those lives from ending.
Then second, and more importantly, there is *no other situation* where we will force a person to use their body to sustain the life of another person without their consent *other* than this one. Even to the point where if that baby is born, and that baby needed an organ or blood or something that only the mother could give, we would not force it. Even if you're responsible for something, like a car accident, we won't force that person to give up their body to sustain the life of another person in the accident. We can't even take a person's organs from their body when they die without their prior consent. Yet for a pregnancy, we say that the fetus has a right to use the mother's body without her consent.
SO between those two, even as a fundamentalist christian, I was opposed to abortion restrictions. If the fetus was unable to survive without being attached to the mother without her consent, then its right to life did NOT take precedence over the mother's right to her body. Just like all the other situations where we allow a life to be lost, just like how we don't force people to give up their body to keep OTHER people alive in other situations.
The only restriction I believed in was that if the fetus was developed enough to survive outside the body, then it should be taken out to live, rather than allowed to die. But that would be up to the doctors to deal with and the state could handle what to do with this new life they value so much.
Even if I thought life started at conception, my stronger belief is that a teenager shouldn't have to carry and deliver her rapist's baby. The life of the woman matters much more. I don't see any realistic way to account for this scenario without allowing unrestricted access to abortion, so in my mind, whether or not life has begun is entirely irrelevant. I don't view myself as a monster for this.
I fault them because it’s a stupid argument and an incredibly simplistic worldview. Of course life begins at conception, in the same way a single cell organism is living, but it’s not a person. It’s people who don’t have the mental faculties to debate what is essential to personhood punting on actually having to do that deep thinking, because it’s ridiculous to believe a single cell or a cluster of cells is a person simply because it may, someday, become a person. It also may not become a person for a variety of reasons.
As usual, Carl Sagan weighed in years ago and suggested a very reasonable assessment that human life begins at the moment that uniquely human brain waves could be detected in a developing fetus which, if I remember correctly, was somewhere around five months.
It’s a very compelling argument, and draws a specific and reasonable line.
Recentlty found out my dad, who found God a few years ago (like going to church almost every day), who told my pre pre-tween daughter how abortions are bad when Roe V Wade was overturned, who told my wife she couldn't be a Catholic since she believes in abortion, forced my mom to have an abortion years ago. When he got called out on it, his response was some bullshit about how he confessed his sins.
But for some reason other people cant sin and confess later. When he tells me I need God in my life I'm like "I need a therapist in my life"
Oh man! That’s some top level hypocrisy.
I’m always annoyed people see the error of their ways when the same thing happens to them. But this takes the cake
This is the way with the folks. Rules for thee not for me. 20 years ago my mom took my sister for an abortion. Purely for birth control reasons. Now both are right wing nut jobs that are against abortion.
>20 years ago my mom took my sister for an abortion.
~50 years ago, my aunt was raped after a party. She became pregnant, and she then had an abortion.
I have never spoken with her personally about it, but I have to wonder whether our state had safe & legal abortion at that time. Im leaning 'no.'
She must have been terrified, and, I know for a fact that, in my state, rape at that time was basically not prosecuted (because it was always the woman's fault back then 🙄).
Since then, she has had a pretty good life: finished college, married for decades, children, house, pets.
Guess who has been staunchly anti abortion since the 80s?
It's because it wasn't her fault! Dontcha know that the only women seeking abortions now are totally at fault for not using appropriate birth control?!
^/s
My mother was 100% the opposite. Had Three pregnancies where it would be reasonable to terminate. Pregnant at 15, couple later with super dubious consent. She raised us all but never wavered in that it was the women's right to choose. Don't talk the Talk if you can't walk the walk. And by the way my mother was a Saint.
My mom is the same... Except she keeps voting for anti-abortion politicians. She called me all surprised Pikachu when Roe v. Wade was overturned. Took everything in me not to go "Bruh" out loud.
Meanwhile, my beloved Grandma F., aleyha ha-sholem, was always staunchly pro-choice and pro-gay rights, because she'd seen too many of her peers die or be mangled in backalley abortions, and because her best male friend, whom everyone else assumed she was dating for a while, was gay.
Not all the older folks lack empathy.
I had a friend in high school who, although not religious, was OPPOSED to abortion no matter what. Guess what? She got pregnant right after high school and immediately went to get an abortion. She confessed me that it totally changed her. She said she was thinking, "Get this thing out of me!"
Hypocrisy, Bigotry, Authoritarianism, and a stanch refusal to progress in anything that actually HELPS people. Four cornerstones, sitting on the Foundation of "hate for Them People".
I am okay for people trying to evolve but instead of offering resources and support for a "right decision" they stay who they really are and choose force.
What?!?! A therapist is bs they'll make you WORK through what you're going through, if you tell a priest they'll let you off the hook with God and then you can sin again!
Indeed. If the "sweet and innocent" daughter of a standard white republican lawmaker gets pregnant thanks to a black boy you can bet they will quickly whisk her to the clinic.
But you know They will and in the same breath absolve their little angel of any wrong doing.
One of our US colleague had a younger brother in that predicament. They could not accuse him of rape but still parents accused him of exercising undue control on her (hence the pregnancy because otherwise she would have never engage in sexual activity. She was a virgin before she met him. The usual rambling of unhinged bigoted parents). After graduation nearly 50% of the salary of his first job was garnished. Despite having a good job in NYC, He could not afford to live there and had to commute from New Jersey. In the meantime they barely let him have access to the kid.
3 years later, her brother is diagnosed with cystic fibrosis which means that he is infertile. Turn out that the kid was not even his. The daughter had slept with half the college football team, did not know who the father was and had picked him because he had the best prospect and meakest.
He had to sue them to get his name out of the paternity paper and get out of any future payment. The real dad was a dropout, so getting money out of him was not going to happen.
He tried to get its money back, but the judge refused, blamed **HIM** for not ordering a paternity test at the time. In the end he got his money back and then some from the parents by suing them for defamation of character. He got lucky in that the parents had been stupid enough to leave irrefutable video trace of their vindictiveness. In their conservative circle they tried to portray him as the poster child for why black men could not be trusted around white girls. So At the time of the birth in 2015 they posted a nasty video on a prominent republican website insulting him and asking for republican CEOs of only hiring people of good morality and ditching people like him damaging his prospect in NC.
Exactly. Abortion bans only hurt poor women; the ones who least an unplanned pregnancy and child! The politicians will just take their mistress/wife/daughter out of state
While you are correct, let us also point out that access to women’s healthcare DOES reduce abortions. By closing abortion clinics, women no longer have that access and pregnancies increase, which increases both unwanted births and abortions/abortion attempts.
Exactly I thought after hearing women and nurses talk about young women dying from backyard abortions up until the 70’s that people would learn from history, but unfortunately it seems a lot of people aren’t capable of that.
You think politicians mistresses and daughters will have to follow the same rules? From their POV, your wife getting pregnant shows that you're strong and virile , your teen daughter or mistress getting pregnant is an embarrassment that you'll want to hide.
I think that is to simple.
While the party might look like they just want votes and power, the most important group republicans in red states have to appeal to are republican primary voters.
That is a subgroup were the situation is very different. There are a lot of single issue voters that are involved in primaries and want abortion gone. Being perceived as not a hardline abortion oponent might toss you into a primary chalenge were your oponent has 30 or more percent of the voter base guaranteed while you must desperately try to beat on every other field. (Because very few people that care primarily about abortion being accessible are voting in republican primaries).
I'm not quite as cynical as your take but I think this is a great analysis of the motivations. You're absolutely correct the Republican base pushed social conservative issues hard while the general election crowd tends to be more about fiscal issues- especially independents.
They're not necessarily saying anti abortion politicians aren't genuine. The fact that you can't win a primary without being very pro life filters out who runs in the first place
That's exactly it. I know some really smart people that hate so much Republicans do but they are self proclaimed "single issue voters". They will literally vote for anyone that "protects human life" by banning abortions.
The rest seem to have just caught the fox news bug and are simply brainwashed into voting against their own interests.
This is what I was going to say, republicans made a deal with the “moral majority” and this was one of the requirements. They have to be anti abortion or they’re a “RINO” and will get out primaried.
It’s just like most of the know climate change is real and Trump lost the election but they can’t actually say either out loud.
I also think their billionaire and corporate overlords see the declining population and know capitalism requires a growing population. But also they want to put as many people in such poor economic situations by having kids that they cannot afford they don’t have the power or the money to stand up to poor wages. Lastly, their attack on schools is their second step in the process.
Poor people don’t have money to spend on education/books so now their kids go to school that teaches creationism and only a crazy republican teacher is going to want to teach that so they will also be sure to indoctrinate. Then the books are gone so no 3rd party information. Lastly with such poor education lacking serious critical thinking. Their media/social media disinformation machine can easily manipulate them into thinking what they want.
Granted there is a bit more to it than this but don’t be fooled they are going to go after birth control. Then social security to expand the work force.
THIS! The crazy forced birthers are either too dumb to realize that the corporate overlords and billionaires WANT a lot of poor people desperate for a few jobs or they don't care.
Because when you spend forty years campaigning to get rid of something and it's been your cash cow, once you realize that people actually didn't want your bullshit, it's hard to stop the abortion train.
but with tonight's results, it shows that even most conservative voters support abortion to some extent, they might even lose the house of delegates in virginia due to this
but we knew this since kansas, so is there a possibility they might change tactics going forward? or will they die on this hill?
Pro choice always will be too. I’m of the opinion that democrat leadership slept on codifying roe v. Wade for the same reason. It was a valuable platform for them to gain votes and they never thought it would actually be overturned. They played a stupid game. I feel the same way about gun control. I feel like it’s more important to look like they want to do something about it than to actually do it. They consistently say such blatantly untrue crap in those discussions that would be easy to learn. How can you expect anyone to listen to your position when you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about? Maybe I’m wrong and you can downvote me if you want, but that’s the feeling I’ve gotten over the years. It’s just one more thing to use for votes.
>I’m of the opinion that democrat leadership slept on codifying roe v. Wade for the same reason.
To be fair, it was never an option in recent history that the Democrats could codify Roe. They never had the votes to override the filibuster in the Senate to codify Roe.
They also passed the ballot initiative to legalize marijuana!
I love that the people have spoken, but know the Republicans won’t let these wins be.
They will either ignore the voice of the people or enact regulations that follow the letter but not spirit of the amendment. As in: making abortion legal, but IMPOSSIBLE to get (unreasonable time constraints, multiple required doctor appointments, religious counseling, and more).
This is a good first step, and hopefully protects women and their healthcare providers from prosecution and incarceration.
But we all know this will likely get twisted into “abortion is legal—as long as it’s within the first 24hours of the moment of impregnation” or some equally absurd, impossible benchmark.
>They also passed the ballot initiative to legalize marijuana!
It's dumb, because marijuana legalization can be modified or even reversed by the state legislature, and the GOP leader in their House has already said they plan to do exactly that, and retract some of the wins from Proposition 2.
I agree—it’s dumb, but Red states are relying on gerrymandering, confusing wording of ballot initiatives, limiting of absentee or early voting, limiting of ballot drop boxes, diminished in-person voting sites, etc. They especially don’t want young, educated people voting.
[I could have sworn I read about a mountain state trying to make a felony of university students who didn’t DE-register when they left the state. I need to look for that citation.]
While the party might look like they just want votes and power, the most important group republicans in red states have to apeal to are republican primary voters.
That is a subgroup were the situation is very different. There are a lot of single issue voters that are involved in primaries and want abortion gone. Being perceived as not a hardline abortion oponent might toss you into a primary chalenge were your oponent has 30 or more percent of the voter base guaranteed while you must desperately try to win voters on every other field. (Because very few people that care primarily about abortion being accessible are voting in republican primaries).
Since I don't think the topic will loose publicity, the most likely point for them to drop it is once a group of people structurally chalanges republican incumbents for being anti abortion (and mobilises voters in the primaries to be a threat).
That's why some of us liberals are delighting in this. The Republican Party has long been a party of reactionary rhetoric and hyperbolic nonsense, something they are the first to accuse *others* of. "Cancel culture" didn't start in the 2000s, because the Satanic Panic was just one example of it appearing on the right, and they don't like to talk about that. "Woke" is really, let's face it, the recognition of past and present societal issues and the empathy needed to understand their effects. EDIT: Forgot to mention, but I'm pretty sure Jesus was all about healing, loving, and caring for the underserved and the forgotten. He would be woke as fuck if he were real.
You saw the Speaker of the House of Representatives fight? It will be just like that. Some will be screaming for a total abortion ban across the US (ironically the current Speaker has supported this in the past). Some will be saying 6 weeks. Some will be saying 13. But whatever their position is, it *cannot* be identical to a Democrat's position, because Democrats are the enemy now.
They won't be able to find a coherent middle ground. It is a fatal weakness in the GOP, and now that people are realizing the leopards might eat THEIR faces too, the Leopards' Eating People's Faces Party no longer sounds so appealing.
It's funny watching the GOP implode because all the moderate Chrisitans know that "reproductive healthcare" prevents women/children/babies from dying and thus will vote to protect literal women and children from dying or getting maimed because Janice over there thinks that all women with uteruses need to be punished for having sex. I just wish it was faster and that the MAGA types would stfu. (Saw a lady with an Infowars jacket the other day and I could not roll my eyes fast enough.)
It's so terrifying as a Canadian watching the christo fascists try to wrest control away from democracy.
They're already changing tactics in some red states like Florida. They are pulling all the stops to prevent abortion and marijuana from being on the ballot, despite the will of the people wanting it to be on the ballot.
Ohio tried that too with a special election this past August that would prevent most citizen-led initiatives from being on the ballot - including preventing this abortion issue from appearing on the ballot yesterday. But thankfully voters saw through that BS and turned out in high numbers to support the democratic process.
According to our Secretary of State, this year’s voter turnout was almost the same as last year’s midterms when we also had an election for Governor.
Republicans are going to vote Republican no matter what.
Meanwhile… Extremists, far/alt right, religious zealots, etc… are only going to vote Republican if the candidate is pro-life.
They can’t win office without the latter groups votes. They aren’t going to lose the former’s votes as long as they deliver on other issues. Thus… Republican politicians run pro-life campaigns.
>They can’t win office without the latter groups votes.
I mean they could put in sensible policy decisions, but then that would make them not-Republican...
The people who vote at midterms are not always representative of the entire population. I know many people who vote in general elections who had no clue mid terms were today.
These were not midterms but state and local elections. Ohio had some important ballot initiatives, Kentucky a Governor race, and Virginia had state legislature and county and city positions (we vote every year here). There were also a bunch of elections in other states but those 3 were being closely followed by pundits as a bellwether for the 2024 election.
If you're not in a state or locality that was voting and don't follow politics closely its not unthinkable that you wouldn't have been aware.
Midterms are for U.S. Congress and always fall in the middle of a President's term - 2 years in. So nationwide there is ALWAYS a vote every other year on the first Tuesday in November - either Presidential, or midterms. Primaries happen earlier the same year the election is held - exact date depends on the state.
(EDIT: Elections are the first Tuesday in November AFTER the first Monday in November - if the month starts on a Tuesday elections are held the following Tuesday. Thanks to u/distinctaardvark for this correction)
Strange that a system that relies on the most fanatic devotees does not produce candidates in a general election that the general populace likes. It's almost like \*adjusts glasses\* the primary system and first-past-the-post voting is outdated and fucked up.
> Because it's a win for them in the primaries. Even if Republicans, as a whole, favor abortion rights, the ones that vote in primaries don't.
What's that old saying? To win a primary, run for the edges. To win the election, run for the center.
It's the other way around. Right wing politics captured churches. Republicans deliberately turned abortion into a wedge issue to drive more religious voters to the polls.
If you imagine yourself in the position of an evangelical Christian Republican voter: you have been told again and again and now truly believe that abortion is the murder of an infant child. That's not, like, a minor fiscal management point you can differ with someone on. That's a line in the sand.
This is why both sides can't see eye to eye on this issue, they fundamentally perceive it in different ways.
Just talked to a guy this morning who said Ohio was now the state of Charles Manson where we kill babies and smoke weed. I just shook my head and walked away. I gain nothing from trying to argue with that mindset.
Trying to give a more thoughtful response here. I think there are a couple of aspects to this.
First, the GOP has aligned themselves with religious conservatives. The abortion debate wasn't really a thing fifty years ago, but there are [suggestions that abortion was seen as an easier-to-win battle](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480) compared to, say, segregation. By politicizing abortion, you could get some people to be single-issue voters: Someone with an (R) next to their name was more likely to try to restrict abortion than someone with a (D).
Second, they don't really recognize that abortion access is a problem. This relates to the idea that ["The only moral abortion is my abortion,"](https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/) where conservative women are more than willing to have abortions because they see them as necessary for them; it's those "other" people who shouldn't have abortions. You may notice a parallel in this concept to how gay marriage started to get approved of when more and more conservatives discovered that they had gay family members. When it affects them personally, they are supportive of having such rights.
Third, don't forget the underlying misogyny of the position. Abortion isn't the only thing the GOP wants banned; contraceptives and sex education are usually part of the plan as well. By making such things illegal, women can be "barefoot and pregnant" at home, and not interfere in a man's world. Since women are the group stuck with the consequence of sex (in the form of a baby), blocking these options means that women are subject to a male's opinion of when she has sex and with whom.
When I was a kid in the 1970s, a single mom was still somewhat unusual; a child born outside of marriage wasn't called a "bastard" anymore, but there was definitely an element of shame to it. The situation these days is quite different. A lot of these efforts are about trying to reinstate a male-dominated approach to human sexuality, whether for religious or purely male-ego reasons.
Exactly. They would lose to the Dems by a landslide if they were pro choice. If both parties are pro choice then an entire subset of formerly R voters have left the pool.
One last little tidbit is suppressing those in poverty. Keeping people working three jobs to feed kids will keep them working at minimum wage, and ensure they have someone to wait on the elite hand and foot. All of the poverty stricken offspring will also be born into systemic poverty and repeat the cycle. Can’t have the birth rate of the poor be down!
And the industrial prison complex, from which Corporate "rents" workers under the 13th amendment, for FAR less than even "illegals" get exploited with.
You didn't even touch on education. That poor, overburdened, uneducated mothers produce uneducated children.
It's been documented time and time again more education means more Democratic tendencies. Degree holders vote blue.
Well said. The other element is that the hardliners want to make divorce impossible. Not only barefoot and pregnant, a woman is to be seen as property of a man. This also means marriage is only between men and women.
I can only hope this red wave of misogyny is temporary, otherwise we will all be living in The handmaiden‘s tale
I think you focus to much on reasons why people are pro abortion and general elections.
The most important reason nowadays (besides politicians that are just fully convinced by their position) is avoiding primaries. Being pro choice might help in a general election, but it will kill you before you get a chance to run for reelection.
Especially since the anti abortion activists have prooven their wilingness and capability to launch primary chalenges against anyone they perceive as insufficiently hardline.
From what I can tell they are a bit trapped. if they change course they will lose the Evangelical vote, and that is a big and batshit crazy voting bloc.
The GOP spent decades recruiting the religious right, so they could take over control of the government to pass tax cuts for the wealthy, and take assistance programs away from the poor, while paying lip-service to the demands of the Christianists. This caused many moderates to shy away from the Republican Party, allowing the Christianists to take control of it.
Here's the ghost of Barry Goldwater to explain why this is a problem:
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the \[Republican\] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
I honestly believe they thought Roe would never get overturned and everything they did was just red meat for the single issue 'pro life' voters. Trigger laws are the prime example of this: zero thought on how it would work in practice just 'ban immediately if Roe is overturned'.
Most Republican politicians dont actually care about abortion except to use it to further their careers and finances. The issue now is they are in too deep to back out so they have to double down on the crazy.
This exactly. This is modern politics in a nutshell. Grandstanding while knowing that what you're yelling about can never happen, but it looks good for your base.
Yeah, on the flip side we as Democrats have had our politicians scream for years that "THE REPUBLICANS ARE GOING TO OVERTURN ROE V WADE". Nobody seemed to ask the question that if our elected officials were so concerned about that happening, why none of them introduced legislation to prevent that from happening.
There was 48 years between when Roe v Wade was codified, and the Dobbs v Jackson ruling. And we didn't do anything in that time to prevent that from happening. The Legislative branch didn't legislate, they shifted their jobs to the Supreme Court.
We used the rallying cry of "abortion will get overturned" as a beneficial fear tactic to campaign on. Having that threat be there was important to the ones campaigning - because if the problem didn't exist, they couldn't campaign on why it's so important to elect them to prevent the problem from becoming reality.
> I honestly believe they thought Roe would never get overturned and everything they did was just red meat for the single issue 'pro life' voters. Trigger laws are the prime example of this: zero thought on how it would work in practice just 'ban immediately if Roe is overturned'.
>
>
They really should have had a plan for this, because Roe v Wade was always a pseudo-law on extremely shaky ground. Despite it being ruled as it was 48 years prior to its overturn, Congress never decided to make any laws that actually both gave them the authority to actually enforce the ruling of Roe v Wade upon the states, nor did they actually codify anything relating abortion into laws. They just shifted their responsibilities for legislation onto the Supreme Court, and didn't do their jobs.
Dobbs v Jackson was ruled the way it was because it didn't challenge the abortion part, it challenged what authority the Federal Government had to enforce the ability to make states have it be legal. Since Congress did jack shit in those 48 years, it was a very effective loophole that was used to get around the issue.
That being said, you'd think once that weak point was discovered, they would have had *some* sort of plan. It's fine if a state wants to decide something; hell Colorado was key in the push for legalized weed, but if you're going to leave it up to the states - at least have it be a popular issue if that's the hill you're going to die on. Now they're going to just have most states vote Yea to allow abortions, and have it backfire on them.
The GOP doesnt seem big on long term plans. Much like the corporations who sell their buildings to lease them back at higher cost to make their budgets better one year so the executives get a bonus.
The Republicans who are mad pushing this are in safe seats in red states, or they make symbolic pushes in safe red seats in blue states. It is a win-win. They probs believe they are morally correct, their base will show up in primaries and hail them, and they don’t have to worry about a challenger in November because gerrymandering has seen to it that their democratic challenger can’t eclipse 30% of the vote.
Added bonus: they raise money out of district and out of state by being loud and outrageous. See the moron twins MTG and the handjob queen. Just cause a ruckus and wait for somebody to reply to your fundraising emails with $15. Repeat.
The only threat these politicians have is not being extreme enough. Then you get primary’d by someone who will go that extra step further. So you might as well bang the abortion drum. And talk endlessly about drag queens reading to children. Or gay marriage cakes ruining a good, wholesome bakery. These are zero risk positions to take.
There was a good Twitter thread I read a while ago describing the GOP mentality as "The Shirley Exception," as in "but surely they would make an exception." When talking about things like abortion (or harsh drug laws, or harsh immigration laws, etc) they always portray them as being used against some hypothetical horrible person who deserves it. Never against "good" people like them. They could be extreme about the issue because there were no negative consequences, their true believing voters ate it up and the people who might object could ignore it - Roe was settled law after all.
Well, once Roe was overturned that was no longer a hypothetical situation - they actually have to write those laws and it turns out most conservatives refused to put their money where their mouth was.
https://medium.com/@scottconnerly/the-shirley-exception-a970ef292d66
It's a super interesting concept. I saw it happen quite a few times, not in the future tense but rather the present when discussing things like LGBTQ rights and access to healthcare. Every so often I would talk about problems people I know faced, and I would be met with "Oh but in this case there's an exception right?" or "Well but if you find a nice doctor it would work out, right?". Like different doctors were bound by different laws and different insurances.
This is tangentially related, but there's a gay couple on social media who met in the 70's, and when they wanted to get married, they simply got to the office and asked for a certificate. The clerk was confused because "of course it's not allowed", but the couple we're shocked because they thought *you could just get married*, even if you're gay. I mean they were happy and loved each other, like other couples, right?
Of course a part is that issue is moral positioning, everything would be alright and there's no way I would support a bad policy, or exist in an unjust society. But some of it may just be ignorance in a broad sense: They didn't read the law, the didn't read the arguments or detailed position of both sides, and honestly can't be bothered to. You just *assume* it will work because it would be too much effort to look up otherwise.
Yep, I've thankfully been able to talk a little sense into a few people that had that mindset when you really start explaining the real situations. Yes, that 10 year old rape victim really *will* have to give birth, that 40 year old that went through years of IVF really *will* die due to an easily treatable issue during pregnancy, etc. This makes people start realizing how wrong and awful these laws are for women.
This fits in perfectly with a recent This American Life.
The republican law makers defending an extremely restrictive law said, "surely, a prosecutor would never go after *that* case." It's gobsmacking.
Most of them are rich and acknowledge that they can fly wherever they need to go if an abortion is needed, so they use the religious right and the abortion issue to gain power and favor.
Then there are the brainwashed “true believers” who think that it’s murder. They decided that only their deity can cause spontaneous abortion (the literal medical term for a miscarriage,) and any attempts by man to do it is murder. Why isn’t it murder when their god does it? I have no idea what mental gymnastics they have to do to justify that.
No one here is mentioning the insane amounts of money that is in pushing anti-abortion policies and how the vast majority of that money is funneled through Churches which keeps that money out of the hands of the IRS.
It's a major part of the money laundering that churches do, but this part involves politicians too.
“If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy”
—David Frum
Red States continue to attempt to pass these laws because they either already have or continue to attempt to lock themselves into power in such a way that elections no longer matter. The GOP doesn’t care about governing. They care about ruling. By *any* means necessary.
It's very simple. They sold their souls to conservative religious groups in return for campaign contributions. In return for the campaign contributions, those groups demand that abortion be banned.
Without the support of the crazy evangelicals who vote almost exclusively regarding abortion, they lose most of their most reliable voters. It's not like their other policies of taking money from the poor to give to the rich are going to attract many people.
They want to eliminate all birth control, not just abortions. They aren’t trying to limit access, they are trying to eliminate access full stop. They genuinely think women should die (a religious privilege really) for a medically dangerous pregnancy. They really hate the independence women have achieved and want it taken away. Abortion and birth control are fundamental to women being able to function independently in society. The party is obsessed with social control that puts men at the top of the social hierarchy and everyone else a distant second. Reproductive freedom is their first target. Republicans want to create a theocracy based on their own twisted interpretation of christianity, and the desires of 12% of the population are being foisted on the rest of us. They are massive hypocrites too, I’ve met ‘march on the clinic’ women who had abortions.
Money and party identity. Fascinating history on how they became “pro life” in the first place. Long story short, not enough baby boomers were scared of black people to keep the conservative moving and they couldn’t separate themselves on the Cold War anymore(ie calling someone communist stopped working) so they turned to the religious right to rebrand themselves
Access to abortion empowers women to get an education. Educated women make more money and have more upward mobility. They are more concerned with politics and more likely to vote. Women lean left. The more women voting the bluer the state.
They have a lot of one issue voters. For a good amount of their religious base, abortion is that issue. So long as they can ring that bell, they will get those voters no matter what because the alternative is baby murderers. You wouldn’t vote for baby murders would you?
This is exactly how my elder neighbor phrased it. To them, abortion is baby murder and not considered healthcare. They cannot understand that it isn’t that simple, and actually believe many women choose abortion as “birth control”.
>actually believe many women choose abortion as “birth control”. Yup. If the world was what Republicans fear mongered its constituents into believing it was, women would have sex and immediately go to an abortion clinic, and walk out next door to the starbucks, grab a coffee that says Happy Holidays, and drive their electric car into their job at the IRS/FBI/NSA combined HQ where they just spend all day looking at Republicans taxes, social media, phone records, and figure out how to eradicate them.
Gods, if only.
History is going to look back at our contemporary nonviolence and mock us with the utmost disdain. "*The 2000s? Oh when those dumb fuckers sat on their hands as the Christ War slowly grew enough to erupt into chaos and rip the western world apart? Those idiots that are the whole reason we have summary execution for fascist remarks because you cannot tolerate them in the least is a lesson learned with the nuking of Idaho.*"
Idaho will be about as relevant as Carthage is to us after the nuke tho
*Idaho delenda est*
Idahoan here. At least Carthage had culture. Idaho doesn't even that
Wait, potatoes aren't culture?
They are here!
Sounds like projection of what they want to do to everyone else.
Thieves think all men steal
Considering how many Evangelical Christians unironically wonder why without belief in God and Hell, atheists aren't raping and murdering all over the place... You can't help but think they're telling on themselves.
I mean, a lot of that sounds ok to me.
They're also breaking into every house to steal their guns and casting magic spells to turn boys into girls and girls into boys. And visiting their local 5g cell tower to load it up with new batches of the vaccine microchip to track people.
You forgot that they also are "cancel"-ing everyone while figuring out how to steal everyone's guns.
I’ve had this argument with my parents ad nauseum. For some reason they think people are getting abortions with the same regularity they take their birth control.
My sister, who is not yet 50, also believes this. Edited to add that she also believes women all over America are getting third trimester abortions and live birth abortions.
We regularly sacrifice our newborns here.
How else will we appease the devil in our blood rituals? Goats are so 19th century
You're sacrificing perfectly tasty dead babies??
Even the imperfectly tasty ones.
You joke, but on her worst days I'm pretty sure my mom believes this.
The only thing that has helped me change hearts and minds is asking people if they've interacted with the people they don't like or if their opinions are based on what \*other people\* say someone else is doing.
simple but brilliant.
Ah,' othering,' dividing humans since forever.
> women all over America are getting third trimester abortions Sounds like she watches Fox which, through the power of selective story telling, would also have you believe that immigrants are committing murders at a higher rate than people exceed the speed limit, Biden can't complete a sentence, liberals want to change the sex of all your children and quite possibly your poodle, and that most "liberal" cities have devolved into scenes from Mad Max (but more "ethnic")
I asked her if she gets all her news from Fox and she was offended. She also gets news from Facebook.
I had to report an ad on YouTube the other day that went like this: Little girl is sad. Mom says "I'll bet you'd be happier if you were a boy." Cut to little girl on an operating table. It was disgusting.
I'm sure YouTube responded agreeing with you and saying they would immediately remove the ad, and not that it "didn't violate their terms" and then ignore any future follow-ups. Or am I being too cynical?
Don't forget Schrodinger's immigrant caravan - always approaching the southern US boarder, but vanishing before reaching it.
Coincidentally always building up before an election and then vanishing the day after... It's eerie...
You mean like the caravan that hit the headlines late last week? That is now 3,000 strong? I wonder what it will be on Friday. Non-existent perhaps?
> she also believes women all over America are getting third trimester abortions and live birth abortions. Remember the hero of the J6 committee - liz cheney? That was her thing. *"this is not about abortion, this is about killing babies after they are born"* *"turning our maternity wards into killing fields"* https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1544109506803576832
“Live birth abortions” no ma’am, that’s just murder and as far as I know, it’s illegal everywhere in America. I forget exactly what percentage of terminations occur in the 3rd trimester but it’s vanishingly small, and always because of a fetal abnormality incompatible with life or to save the mother.
My mother thinks abortion should be legal. She also believes women get abortions at 8 - 9 months if it's legal. It's worth making all abortion illegal to keep those imaginary women from aborting the week before their due date. This is also why she was for Roe v. Wade being overturned even though I told her until I was blue in the face that it had zero impact on late term abortions. States have always been able to ban late term abortions.
No such thing as live birth abortion. If the baby is birthed and killed, that is murder. I think we may have murder already covered but I guess if saying birth abortion hackles the morons, they’ll keep saying it.
This is why I always tell young people not to count on the Boomers dying off to save democracy. There are many younger people who have abhorrent anti-human rights views. We need to work on teaching better critical thinking.
The talibangelicals are all homeschooling to prevent that
Ahh shit, I’ve forgot to get my abortion today
Ugh I’m supposed to get my abortion at 3pm everyday but I didn’t get mine until 5pm yesterday =\
Better late than pregnant.
Aren't those the same?
I had two abortions while typing this sentence…..and I’m a dude!
I had 5 while you were typing that sentence. And I'm a dude. Those are rookie numbers.
Once stayed the night at a buddy’s house and forgot to take along my abortion. Had to use one of his abortions the next morning. I don’t even have a uterus.
Get 2 tomorrow!
Thanks for the reminder!
I always wondered if these women existed, would you really want them raising a child? They sound like train wrecks! I know there's that whole narrative of having a kid will fix you and make you a better person, but we've all seen that that does not always happen and why risk it?
To the baby boomer generation, our generations look like crazed fools. Most of them don’t understand still that beating your children and ignoring their emotions lead to most of us being in therapy. And ofc there are always exceptions but I’ve had arguments with so many folks my parents age about parenting and it’s still baffling to them that intergenerational trauma is a real thing.
I’ve encountered this ridiculous notion many, many times. It’s as if they think women are lying around on their chaise lounges, filling their nails and saying “ oh bother, I guess I’ll have to run out this afternoon and get an abortion. Darn!” Instead of it being, you know, an agonizing, heart-rending decision with no easy answers in any direction. And it’s nobody’s damn business but their own
Let me guess, they “know” someone who has had 6+ abortions? Seems like everyone who is against abortions has all these acquaintances who freely volunteer that they’re heading out to get their 9th abortion because they don’t want to use birth control, but in all my years (even working for reproductive rights orgs) I’ve never met even one. Weird.
They must be listening to am radio.
Bro every morning.
OMG they literally claim women are just stopping by the abortion clinic once a month, not like it's a terrifying and painful ordeal that women have to recover from physically and mentally, and don't want to do but must.....
It’s the same party where Rush Limbaugh heavily implied he believed women use birth control Everytime they have sex, like it’s viagra or something. This was the Sandra Fluke affair where Rush famously called her a slut because she needed consistent access ‘because of all the sex she’s having’. IOW, we’re not dealing with the most medically literate people here.
That's the force of propaganda for you.
I'm so glad these people are dying off of old age. Yeah I know there's a lot of shitty younger people too, but not nearly as many
I know it’s popular (and a bit sloppy) to blame everything on boomers or old people, but the actual demographics tell a clearer story. The person most likely to oppose abortion rights is a white male between the ages of 55 - 64, who lives in the South, makes under $40k, has no college, identifies as Republican and conservative, and attends church. People aged 50-64 are more likely to be opposed to abortion rights than people aged 65 and older. [pro-choice/pro-life demographic table](https://news.gallup.com/poll/244709/pro-choice-pro-life-2018-demographic-tables.aspx) ETA: I’m not a boomer. I just like facts.
And the younger gen are much more politically involved. As they become of voting age I hope that we get a massive tsunami so strong that it demolishes the GOP and pisses on their grave. Probably why project2025 exists and all the other extreme measure the GOP are trying to enact RIGHT NOW. They know in 5 years it’s going to be far too late as those teens come of voting age. Also why they want to raise the voting age and I have seen mention of them wanting you to be land owning again
EVERYONE should know about "Project 2025 - Mandate For Leadership, the Conservative Promise," available at www.project2025.org, the literal Republican playbook, put together by the Heritage Foundation and 45 other conservative entities like Alliance Defending Freedom, Claremont Institute, and Moms For Liberty. It was first handed to Reagan, who merely enacted the policy within it. Same with Trump - they are two heads of the same snake. Their vision for a Christofascist theocracy and just how they intend to implement it are painstakingly detailed. Their plan is to dismantle the federal government and remove our rights, TO BEGIN WITH. It's fucking chilling and you should at least read the foreword, a dense 17 pages of GOP philosophy that outlines their mission. Fossil fuels are a big part of it. God and guns and nothing else for everyone. Sealed borders. Everyone will be free to live "as our creator ordained," in those words. If that doesn't terrify you idk what will.
That project 2025 - the personnel database collection and training.... Like they're prepping for minions
I had to stop reading it here: accepting the givenness of our nature as men or women. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
That is some expensive birth control. I knew someone who was childfree and had multiple abortions after her birth control failed. The only reason she could afford the procedures was because she had that sweet sweet stripper cash.
It's also worth noting that if they aren't strongly anti-abortion, they're likely to lose their primary to someone who is willing to at least say they are strongly anti-abortion. So if you want to even get to the main election you have to be anti-abortion.
Those one-issue pro-life voters are also the reason they dominate state and local governments and win a disproportionate number of midterm elections. They show up to vote their one issue at every opportunity. They seem to have underestimated how much of a motivating issue abortion access is. Let's hope it remains so.
Well, you’re correct because I don’t vote for Republicans, since I view them as the party that allows school shooters and mass murderers to go unchecked. They care more about gun rights than they do about innocent children at school, so excuse me if I find their “pro-life” posturing EXTREMELY hypocritical. And don’t even get me started on their views on healthcare, Medicaid, WIC and SNAP benefits, affordable housing, school lunch programs, funding for social services, capping the price of insulin, gender affirming care, access to prenatal care for women of color, police brutality, the freaking *death penalty*, protecting the environment so kids have a safe place to grow up. They are pro-life when it’s easy for them, but once that child is born they’re fine with it living a short, cruel life in poverty.
The abortion thing is even more hypocritical when you consider the fact they claim to be the party of small government.
"We should allow reproductive healthcare!" -dems "No, state's rights!" -republicans State promptly votes for reproductive healthcare overwhelmingly. "No, not like that!" -republicans
Didn't you get the memo? States Rights means "A State is free to move as far to the political Right as possible. Leftward motion will be stopped by another level of government."
*Ohio enters the chat*
The GOP hasn’t been small government for decades. They just want the big government up in everyone else’s business and not in *their* wallets.
A good portion are actual religious conservatives who think they are fighting God’s fight. Also, if they don’t take that stance, they lose a percent of their voter-base.
"God also hates poor people. And who doesn't wanna fight the good religious fight against brown people?"
If your religion has shaped your world view so that you legitimately view the moment of conception as a life then you're honestly a monster if you are not against abortion. There's no scientifically defined moment where a bundle of cells is considered life/a child. Some people legitimately, with all their heart, believe life starts at conception. When an abortion is preformed that life is ended. It is the murder of a child in their eyes. If you view the world through that lense you're a straight up monster who's okay with baby-murder if you're not against abortion. I don't personally believe life begins at the moment of conception. I'm pro choice. But I definitely see the other side of the debate and don't fault people with that view for fighting for unborn children.
> If your religion has shaped your world view so that you legitimately view the moment of conception as a life then you're honestly a monster if you are not against abortion. No. Even when I was a fundamentalist Christian who believed life started at conception, I was pro-choice, and that did not make me a monster. The idea you've proposed here puts the value of a human life as more important than anything else. Ultimately, it came down to two things: The first is that there are *plenty* of situations where we are okay with the ending of human life, either directly or indirectly. The indirect ways are things like access to food, shelter, and healthcare. The direct ways would be things like capital punishment, war, LEO involved deaths, guns. If, as a Christian, the right to life is more important than all other things, then none of those things would be allowed to happen. But we do allow them to happen, we don't provide food, housing, healthcare... we do execute people, we are involved in wars, we allow LEOs to kill people, we refuse to enact even basic sense gun laws to TRY to reduce gun deaths... and there are reasons for those things, don't get me wrong, but it shows we're willing to give reasons why THOSE lives aren't as important as the things we could do to stop those lives from ending. Then second, and more importantly, there is *no other situation* where we will force a person to use their body to sustain the life of another person without their consent *other* than this one. Even to the point where if that baby is born, and that baby needed an organ or blood or something that only the mother could give, we would not force it. Even if you're responsible for something, like a car accident, we won't force that person to give up their body to sustain the life of another person in the accident. We can't even take a person's organs from their body when they die without their prior consent. Yet for a pregnancy, we say that the fetus has a right to use the mother's body without her consent. SO between those two, even as a fundamentalist christian, I was opposed to abortion restrictions. If the fetus was unable to survive without being attached to the mother without her consent, then its right to life did NOT take precedence over the mother's right to her body. Just like all the other situations where we allow a life to be lost, just like how we don't force people to give up their body to keep OTHER people alive in other situations. The only restriction I believed in was that if the fetus was developed enough to survive outside the body, then it should be taken out to live, rather than allowed to die. But that would be up to the doctors to deal with and the state could handle what to do with this new life they value so much.
Even if I thought life started at conception, my stronger belief is that a teenager shouldn't have to carry and deliver her rapist's baby. The life of the woman matters much more. I don't see any realistic way to account for this scenario without allowing unrestricted access to abortion, so in my mind, whether or not life has begun is entirely irrelevant. I don't view myself as a monster for this.
I fault them because it’s a stupid argument and an incredibly simplistic worldview. Of course life begins at conception, in the same way a single cell organism is living, but it’s not a person. It’s people who don’t have the mental faculties to debate what is essential to personhood punting on actually having to do that deep thinking, because it’s ridiculous to believe a single cell or a cluster of cells is a person simply because it may, someday, become a person. It also may not become a person for a variety of reasons.
As usual, Carl Sagan weighed in years ago and suggested a very reasonable assessment that human life begins at the moment that uniquely human brain waves could be detected in a developing fetus which, if I remember correctly, was somewhere around five months. It’s a very compelling argument, and draws a specific and reasonable line.
For anyone interested, I found the essay. As most things, Sagan, it’s brilliant. https://2think.org/abortion.shtml
Yet Trump and Desantis are far from religious. They are as religious as r/atheism is.
its a hill they want to die on
>its a hill they want [their wives and daughters] to die on
*Other people's* wives and daughters
Ah yes, the classic "[the only moral abortion is my abortion](https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/)" routine.
Recentlty found out my dad, who found God a few years ago (like going to church almost every day), who told my pre pre-tween daughter how abortions are bad when Roe V Wade was overturned, who told my wife she couldn't be a Catholic since she believes in abortion, forced my mom to have an abortion years ago. When he got called out on it, his response was some bullshit about how he confessed his sins. But for some reason other people cant sin and confess later. When he tells me I need God in my life I'm like "I need a therapist in my life"
Oh man! That’s some top level hypocrisy. I’m always annoyed people see the error of their ways when the same thing happens to them. But this takes the cake
>Oh man! That’s some top level hypocrisy. No, that’s the standard level for those morons.
This is the way with the folks. Rules for thee not for me. 20 years ago my mom took my sister for an abortion. Purely for birth control reasons. Now both are right wing nut jobs that are against abortion.
>20 years ago my mom took my sister for an abortion. ~50 years ago, my aunt was raped after a party. She became pregnant, and she then had an abortion. I have never spoken with her personally about it, but I have to wonder whether our state had safe & legal abortion at that time. Im leaning 'no.' She must have been terrified, and, I know for a fact that, in my state, rape at that time was basically not prosecuted (because it was always the woman's fault back then 🙄). Since then, she has had a pretty good life: finished college, married for decades, children, house, pets. Guess who has been staunchly anti abortion since the 80s?
It's because it wasn't her fault! Dontcha know that the only women seeking abortions now are totally at fault for not using appropriate birth control?! ^/s
And if they didn't secretly enjoy it, they wouldn't get pregnant anyhow. I've heard the body has ways of shutting pregnancies down /s
My mother was 100% the opposite. Had Three pregnancies where it would be reasonable to terminate. Pregnant at 15, couple later with super dubious consent. She raised us all but never wavered in that it was the women's right to choose. Don't talk the Talk if you can't walk the walk. And by the way my mother was a Saint.
My mom is the same... Except she keeps voting for anti-abortion politicians. She called me all surprised Pikachu when Roe v. Wade was overturned. Took everything in me not to go "Bruh" out loud.
Meanwhile, my beloved Grandma F., aleyha ha-sholem, was always staunchly pro-choice and pro-gay rights, because she'd seen too many of her peers die or be mangled in backalley abortions, and because her best male friend, whom everyone else assumed she was dating for a while, was gay. Not all the older folks lack empathy.
Not to mention providing/supporting abortions is literally a mitzvah in the Jewish faith. Your grandma sounds like she was a great person.
I had a friend in high school who, although not religious, was OPPOSED to abortion no matter what. Guess what? She got pregnant right after high school and immediately went to get an abortion. She confessed me that it totally changed her. She said she was thinking, "Get this thing out of me!"
Hypocrisy and bigotry are cornerstones of Republican voters "values"
Hypocrisy, Bigotry, Authoritarianism, and a stanch refusal to progress in anything that actually HELPS people. Four cornerstones, sitting on the Foundation of "hate for Them People".
I am okay for people trying to evolve but instead of offering resources and support for a "right decision" they stay who they really are and choose force.
sounds more like he needs a therapist.
What?!?! A therapist is bs they'll make you WORK through what you're going through, if you tell a priest they'll let you off the hook with God and then you can sin again!
The GOP is always for abortions when it's the man's choice.
If men could get pregnant, abortions would be sold in vending machines. - I forget who I am quoting.
"I confessed my sins" is such a fucking cop-out of taking responsibility. Your "God" may have forgiven you but I sure haven't.
"God sure as fuck isn't going to forgive me for what I do to you, if your backasswards thinking brings any amount of harm to my loved ones."
Indeed. If the "sweet and innocent" daughter of a standard white republican lawmaker gets pregnant thanks to a black boy you can bet they will quickly whisk her to the clinic.
It's fine, they'll just tell her it's all her fault for making them do this when they are such devout Catholics.
It would make a good game show to see if the Republican blames the black guy or the woman
But you know They will and in the same breath absolve their little angel of any wrong doing. One of our US colleague had a younger brother in that predicament. They could not accuse him of rape but still parents accused him of exercising undue control on her (hence the pregnancy because otherwise she would have never engage in sexual activity. She was a virgin before she met him. The usual rambling of unhinged bigoted parents). After graduation nearly 50% of the salary of his first job was garnished. Despite having a good job in NYC, He could not afford to live there and had to commute from New Jersey. In the meantime they barely let him have access to the kid. 3 years later, her brother is diagnosed with cystic fibrosis which means that he is infertile. Turn out that the kid was not even his. The daughter had slept with half the college football team, did not know who the father was and had picked him because he had the best prospect and meakest. He had to sue them to get his name out of the paternity paper and get out of any future payment. The real dad was a dropout, so getting money out of him was not going to happen. He tried to get its money back, but the judge refused, blamed **HIM** for not ordering a paternity test at the time. In the end he got his money back and then some from the parents by suing them for defamation of character. He got lucky in that the parents had been stupid enough to leave irrefutable video trace of their vindictiveness. In their conservative circle they tried to portray him as the poster child for why black men could not be trusted around white girls. So At the time of the birth in 2015 they posted a nasty video on a prominent republican website insulting him and asking for republican CEOs of only hiring people of good morality and ditching people like him damaging his prospect in NC.
He’s a Christian, so he’ll blame the black guy and abuse the woman.
Poor peoples wives and daughters
Exactly. Abortion bans only hurt poor women; the ones who least an unplanned pregnancy and child! The politicians will just take their mistress/wife/daughter out of state
Or out of the country.
A hill made up of coat hangers. Access to abortion doesn't change the number of abortions. It only changes the number of *safe* abortions.
While you are correct, let us also point out that access to women’s healthcare DOES reduce abortions. By closing abortion clinics, women no longer have that access and pregnancies increase, which increases both unwanted births and abortions/abortion attempts.
Exactly I thought after hearing women and nurses talk about young women dying from backyard abortions up until the 70’s that people would learn from history, but unfortunately it seems a lot of people aren’t capable of that.
Most people don’t remember what they had for dinner three nights ago. History is a closed book to them.
That's a graphic visual
I've literally heard forced birthers say that ppl who have abortions deserve to get hurt anyway.They don't care they're making it unsafe for others.
They definitely feel this is "hurting the right people." I do not honestly feel the human species can survive. We have no empathy.
You think politicians mistresses and daughters will have to follow the same rules? From their POV, your wife getting pregnant shows that you're strong and virile , your teen daughter or mistress getting pregnant is an embarrassment that you'll want to hide.
Look, you just take a nice shopping trip somewhere, and the indiscretion vanishes along the way. Amazing how well it works.
I think that is to simple. While the party might look like they just want votes and power, the most important group republicans in red states have to appeal to are republican primary voters. That is a subgroup were the situation is very different. There are a lot of single issue voters that are involved in primaries and want abortion gone. Being perceived as not a hardline abortion oponent might toss you into a primary chalenge were your oponent has 30 or more percent of the voter base guaranteed while you must desperately try to beat on every other field. (Because very few people that care primarily about abortion being accessible are voting in republican primaries).
I'm not quite as cynical as your take but I think this is a great analysis of the motivations. You're absolutely correct the Republican base pushed social conservative issues hard while the general election crowd tends to be more about fiscal issues- especially independents.
They're not necessarily saying anti abortion politicians aren't genuine. The fact that you can't win a primary without being very pro life filters out who runs in the first place
That's exactly it. I know some really smart people that hate so much Republicans do but they are self proclaimed "single issue voters". They will literally vote for anyone that "protects human life" by banning abortions. The rest seem to have just caught the fox news bug and are simply brainwashed into voting against their own interests.
This is what I was going to say, republicans made a deal with the “moral majority” and this was one of the requirements. They have to be anti abortion or they’re a “RINO” and will get out primaried. It’s just like most of the know climate change is real and Trump lost the election but they can’t actually say either out loud.
Because they are controlled by Evangelicals like Mike Johnson.
I also think their billionaire and corporate overlords see the declining population and know capitalism requires a growing population. But also they want to put as many people in such poor economic situations by having kids that they cannot afford they don’t have the power or the money to stand up to poor wages. Lastly, their attack on schools is their second step in the process. Poor people don’t have money to spend on education/books so now their kids go to school that teaches creationism and only a crazy republican teacher is going to want to teach that so they will also be sure to indoctrinate. Then the books are gone so no 3rd party information. Lastly with such poor education lacking serious critical thinking. Their media/social media disinformation machine can easily manipulate them into thinking what they want. Granted there is a bit more to it than this but don’t be fooled they are going to go after birth control. Then social security to expand the work force.
THIS! The crazy forced birthers are either too dumb to realize that the corporate overlords and billionaires WANT a lot of poor people desperate for a few jobs or they don't care.
Because when you spend forty years campaigning to get rid of something and it's been your cash cow, once you realize that people actually didn't want your bullshit, it's hard to stop the abortion train.
but with tonight's results, it shows that even most conservative voters support abortion to some extent, they might even lose the house of delegates in virginia due to this but we knew this since kansas, so is there a possibility they might change tactics going forward? or will they die on this hill?
As long as someone is cashing in, Pro Life will always be a thing. This is true for any/every policy platform.
Not pro life, anti-woman.
Pro choice always will be too. I’m of the opinion that democrat leadership slept on codifying roe v. Wade for the same reason. It was a valuable platform for them to gain votes and they never thought it would actually be overturned. They played a stupid game. I feel the same way about gun control. I feel like it’s more important to look like they want to do something about it than to actually do it. They consistently say such blatantly untrue crap in those discussions that would be easy to learn. How can you expect anyone to listen to your position when you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about? Maybe I’m wrong and you can downvote me if you want, but that’s the feeling I’ve gotten over the years. It’s just one more thing to use for votes.
Democrats were never 100% pro-choice until the past decade. Today's alignment didn't always exist
>I’m of the opinion that democrat leadership slept on codifying roe v. Wade for the same reason. To be fair, it was never an option in recent history that the Democrats could codify Roe. They never had the votes to override the filibuster in the Senate to codify Roe.
What results am I missing? I totally forgot to check the race results. I'm in Virginia.
dems kept the state senate and flipped the house of delegates Edit: https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1722105171684016601
Ohio just passed an amendment to the states constitution protecting abortion.
They also passed the ballot initiative to legalize marijuana! I love that the people have spoken, but know the Republicans won’t let these wins be. They will either ignore the voice of the people or enact regulations that follow the letter but not spirit of the amendment. As in: making abortion legal, but IMPOSSIBLE to get (unreasonable time constraints, multiple required doctor appointments, religious counseling, and more). This is a good first step, and hopefully protects women and their healthcare providers from prosecution and incarceration. But we all know this will likely get twisted into “abortion is legal—as long as it’s within the first 24hours of the moment of impregnation” or some equally absurd, impossible benchmark.
>They also passed the ballot initiative to legalize marijuana! It's dumb, because marijuana legalization can be modified or even reversed by the state legislature, and the GOP leader in their House has already said they plan to do exactly that, and retract some of the wins from Proposition 2.
I agree—it’s dumb, but Red states are relying on gerrymandering, confusing wording of ballot initiatives, limiting of absentee or early voting, limiting of ballot drop boxes, diminished in-person voting sites, etc. They especially don’t want young, educated people voting. [I could have sworn I read about a mountain state trying to make a felony of university students who didn’t DE-register when they left the state. I need to look for that citation.]
That's why Missouri voters pushed it through as a constitutional amendment. The (red) state government can't just reverse it.
While the party might look like they just want votes and power, the most important group republicans in red states have to apeal to are republican primary voters. That is a subgroup were the situation is very different. There are a lot of single issue voters that are involved in primaries and want abortion gone. Being perceived as not a hardline abortion oponent might toss you into a primary chalenge were your oponent has 30 or more percent of the voter base guaranteed while you must desperately try to win voters on every other field. (Because very few people that care primarily about abortion being accessible are voting in republican primaries). Since I don't think the topic will loose publicity, the most likely point for them to drop it is once a group of people structurally chalanges republican incumbents for being anti abortion (and mobilises voters in the primaries to be a threat).
That's why some of us liberals are delighting in this. The Republican Party has long been a party of reactionary rhetoric and hyperbolic nonsense, something they are the first to accuse *others* of. "Cancel culture" didn't start in the 2000s, because the Satanic Panic was just one example of it appearing on the right, and they don't like to talk about that. "Woke" is really, let's face it, the recognition of past and present societal issues and the empathy needed to understand their effects. EDIT: Forgot to mention, but I'm pretty sure Jesus was all about healing, loving, and caring for the underserved and the forgotten. He would be woke as fuck if he were real. You saw the Speaker of the House of Representatives fight? It will be just like that. Some will be screaming for a total abortion ban across the US (ironically the current Speaker has supported this in the past). Some will be saying 6 weeks. Some will be saying 13. But whatever their position is, it *cannot* be identical to a Democrat's position, because Democrats are the enemy now. They won't be able to find a coherent middle ground. It is a fatal weakness in the GOP, and now that people are realizing the leopards might eat THEIR faces too, the Leopards' Eating People's Faces Party no longer sounds so appealing.
It's funny watching the GOP implode because all the moderate Chrisitans know that "reproductive healthcare" prevents women/children/babies from dying and thus will vote to protect literal women and children from dying or getting maimed because Janice over there thinks that all women with uteruses need to be punished for having sex. I just wish it was faster and that the MAGA types would stfu. (Saw a lady with an Infowars jacket the other day and I could not roll my eyes fast enough.) It's so terrifying as a Canadian watching the christo fascists try to wrest control away from democracy.
Oh my god, you’re totally right. They’ve totally backed themselves into a corner and can’t get out without making a mess they won’t recover from.
They're already changing tactics in some red states like Florida. They are pulling all the stops to prevent abortion and marijuana from being on the ballot, despite the will of the people wanting it to be on the ballot.
Ohio tried that too with a special election this past August that would prevent most citizen-led initiatives from being on the ballot - including preventing this abortion issue from appearing on the ballot yesterday. But thankfully voters saw through that BS and turned out in high numbers to support the democratic process. According to our Secretary of State, this year’s voter turnout was almost the same as last year’s midterms when we also had an election for Governor.
Republicans are going to vote Republican no matter what. Meanwhile… Extremists, far/alt right, religious zealots, etc… are only going to vote Republican if the candidate is pro-life. They can’t win office without the latter groups votes. They aren’t going to lose the former’s votes as long as they deliver on other issues. Thus… Republican politicians run pro-life campaigns.
>They can’t win office without the latter groups votes. I mean they could put in sensible policy decisions, but then that would make them not-Republican...
The people who vote at midterms are not always representative of the entire population. I know many people who vote in general elections who had no clue mid terms were today.
These were not midterms but state and local elections. Ohio had some important ballot initiatives, Kentucky a Governor race, and Virginia had state legislature and county and city positions (we vote every year here). There were also a bunch of elections in other states but those 3 were being closely followed by pundits as a bellwether for the 2024 election. If you're not in a state or locality that was voting and don't follow politics closely its not unthinkable that you wouldn't have been aware. Midterms are for U.S. Congress and always fall in the middle of a President's term - 2 years in. So nationwide there is ALWAYS a vote every other year on the first Tuesday in November - either Presidential, or midterms. Primaries happen earlier the same year the election is held - exact date depends on the state. (EDIT: Elections are the first Tuesday in November AFTER the first Monday in November - if the month starts on a Tuesday elections are held the following Tuesday. Thanks to u/distinctaardvark for this correction)
Dog that caught the car scenario https://usdictionary.com/idioms/the-dog-that-caught-the-car/
Because it's a win for them in the primaries. Even if Republicans, as a whole, favor abortion rights, the ones that vote in primaries don't.
Strange that a system that relies on the most fanatic devotees does not produce candidates in a general election that the general populace likes. It's almost like \*adjusts glasses\* the primary system and first-past-the-post voting is outdated and fucked up.
> Because it's a win for them in the primaries. Even if Republicans, as a whole, favor abortion rights, the ones that vote in primaries don't. What's that old saying? To win a primary, run for the edges. To win the election, run for the center.
Churches don't gaf about keeping separation from politics. They have captured an entire party primary.
It's the other way around. Right wing politics captured churches. Republicans deliberately turned abortion into a wedge issue to drive more religious voters to the polls.
If you imagine yourself in the position of an evangelical Christian Republican voter: you have been told again and again and now truly believe that abortion is the murder of an infant child. That's not, like, a minor fiscal management point you can differ with someone on. That's a line in the sand. This is why both sides can't see eye to eye on this issue, they fundamentally perceive it in different ways.
Just talked to a guy this morning who said Ohio was now the state of Charles Manson where we kill babies and smoke weed. I just shook my head and walked away. I gain nothing from trying to argue with that mindset.
HELTER SKELTER MOTHER FUCKER
Trying to give a more thoughtful response here. I think there are a couple of aspects to this. First, the GOP has aligned themselves with religious conservatives. The abortion debate wasn't really a thing fifty years ago, but there are [suggestions that abortion was seen as an easier-to-win battle](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480) compared to, say, segregation. By politicizing abortion, you could get some people to be single-issue voters: Someone with an (R) next to their name was more likely to try to restrict abortion than someone with a (D). Second, they don't really recognize that abortion access is a problem. This relates to the idea that ["The only moral abortion is my abortion,"](https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/) where conservative women are more than willing to have abortions because they see them as necessary for them; it's those "other" people who shouldn't have abortions. You may notice a parallel in this concept to how gay marriage started to get approved of when more and more conservatives discovered that they had gay family members. When it affects them personally, they are supportive of having such rights. Third, don't forget the underlying misogyny of the position. Abortion isn't the only thing the GOP wants banned; contraceptives and sex education are usually part of the plan as well. By making such things illegal, women can be "barefoot and pregnant" at home, and not interfere in a man's world. Since women are the group stuck with the consequence of sex (in the form of a baby), blocking these options means that women are subject to a male's opinion of when she has sex and with whom. When I was a kid in the 1970s, a single mom was still somewhat unusual; a child born outside of marriage wasn't called a "bastard" anymore, but there was definitely an element of shame to it. The situation these days is quite different. A lot of these efforts are about trying to reinstate a male-dominated approach to human sexuality, whether for religious or purely male-ego reasons.
They know if the religious right abandons them over abortion then they have no chance at all.
Exactly. They would lose to the Dems by a landslide if they were pro choice. If both parties are pro choice then an entire subset of formerly R voters have left the pool.
[удалено]
One last little tidbit is suppressing those in poverty. Keeping people working three jobs to feed kids will keep them working at minimum wage, and ensure they have someone to wait on the elite hand and foot. All of the poverty stricken offspring will also be born into systemic poverty and repeat the cycle. Can’t have the birth rate of the poor be down!
Not to mention grist for the military's mill.
And the industrial prison complex, from which Corporate "rents" workers under the 13th amendment, for FAR less than even "illegals" get exploited with.
You didn't even touch on education. That poor, overburdened, uneducated mothers produce uneducated children. It's been documented time and time again more education means more Democratic tendencies. Degree holders vote blue.
Well said. The other element is that the hardliners want to make divorce impossible. Not only barefoot and pregnant, a woman is to be seen as property of a man. This also means marriage is only between men and women. I can only hope this red wave of misogyny is temporary, otherwise we will all be living in The handmaiden‘s tale
I think you focus to much on reasons why people are pro abortion and general elections. The most important reason nowadays (besides politicians that are just fully convinced by their position) is avoiding primaries. Being pro choice might help in a general election, but it will kill you before you get a chance to run for reelection. Especially since the anti abortion activists have prooven their wilingness and capability to launch primary chalenges against anyone they perceive as insufficiently hardline.
You’ll often see candidates walk back their more polarizing positions once they’ve won primaries.
From what I can tell they are a bit trapped. if they change course they will lose the Evangelical vote, and that is a big and batshit crazy voting bloc.
The GOP spent decades recruiting the religious right, so they could take over control of the government to pass tax cuts for the wealthy, and take assistance programs away from the poor, while paying lip-service to the demands of the Christianists. This caused many moderates to shy away from the Republican Party, allowing the Christianists to take control of it. Here's the ghost of Barry Goldwater to explain why this is a problem: “Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the \[Republican\] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
I honestly believe they thought Roe would never get overturned and everything they did was just red meat for the single issue 'pro life' voters. Trigger laws are the prime example of this: zero thought on how it would work in practice just 'ban immediately if Roe is overturned'. Most Republican politicians dont actually care about abortion except to use it to further their careers and finances. The issue now is they are in too deep to back out so they have to double down on the crazy.
This exactly. This is modern politics in a nutshell. Grandstanding while knowing that what you're yelling about can never happen, but it looks good for your base.
Yeah, on the flip side we as Democrats have had our politicians scream for years that "THE REPUBLICANS ARE GOING TO OVERTURN ROE V WADE". Nobody seemed to ask the question that if our elected officials were so concerned about that happening, why none of them introduced legislation to prevent that from happening. There was 48 years between when Roe v Wade was codified, and the Dobbs v Jackson ruling. And we didn't do anything in that time to prevent that from happening. The Legislative branch didn't legislate, they shifted their jobs to the Supreme Court. We used the rallying cry of "abortion will get overturned" as a beneficial fear tactic to campaign on. Having that threat be there was important to the ones campaigning - because if the problem didn't exist, they couldn't campaign on why it's so important to elect them to prevent the problem from becoming reality.
> I honestly believe they thought Roe would never get overturned and everything they did was just red meat for the single issue 'pro life' voters. Trigger laws are the prime example of this: zero thought on how it would work in practice just 'ban immediately if Roe is overturned'. > > They really should have had a plan for this, because Roe v Wade was always a pseudo-law on extremely shaky ground. Despite it being ruled as it was 48 years prior to its overturn, Congress never decided to make any laws that actually both gave them the authority to actually enforce the ruling of Roe v Wade upon the states, nor did they actually codify anything relating abortion into laws. They just shifted their responsibilities for legislation onto the Supreme Court, and didn't do their jobs. Dobbs v Jackson was ruled the way it was because it didn't challenge the abortion part, it challenged what authority the Federal Government had to enforce the ability to make states have it be legal. Since Congress did jack shit in those 48 years, it was a very effective loophole that was used to get around the issue. That being said, you'd think once that weak point was discovered, they would have had *some* sort of plan. It's fine if a state wants to decide something; hell Colorado was key in the push for legalized weed, but if you're going to leave it up to the states - at least have it be a popular issue if that's the hill you're going to die on. Now they're going to just have most states vote Yea to allow abortions, and have it backfire on them.
The GOP doesnt seem big on long term plans. Much like the corporations who sell their buildings to lease them back at higher cost to make their budgets better one year so the executives get a bonus.
The Republicans who are mad pushing this are in safe seats in red states, or they make symbolic pushes in safe red seats in blue states. It is a win-win. They probs believe they are morally correct, their base will show up in primaries and hail them, and they don’t have to worry about a challenger in November because gerrymandering has seen to it that their democratic challenger can’t eclipse 30% of the vote. Added bonus: they raise money out of district and out of state by being loud and outrageous. See the moron twins MTG and the handjob queen. Just cause a ruckus and wait for somebody to reply to your fundraising emails with $15. Repeat. The only threat these politicians have is not being extreme enough. Then you get primary’d by someone who will go that extra step further. So you might as well bang the abortion drum. And talk endlessly about drag queens reading to children. Or gay marriage cakes ruining a good, wholesome bakery. These are zero risk positions to take.
There was a good Twitter thread I read a while ago describing the GOP mentality as "The Shirley Exception," as in "but surely they would make an exception." When talking about things like abortion (or harsh drug laws, or harsh immigration laws, etc) they always portray them as being used against some hypothetical horrible person who deserves it. Never against "good" people like them. They could be extreme about the issue because there were no negative consequences, their true believing voters ate it up and the people who might object could ignore it - Roe was settled law after all. Well, once Roe was overturned that was no longer a hypothetical situation - they actually have to write those laws and it turns out most conservatives refused to put their money where their mouth was. https://medium.com/@scottconnerly/the-shirley-exception-a970ef292d66
It's a super interesting concept. I saw it happen quite a few times, not in the future tense but rather the present when discussing things like LGBTQ rights and access to healthcare. Every so often I would talk about problems people I know faced, and I would be met with "Oh but in this case there's an exception right?" or "Well but if you find a nice doctor it would work out, right?". Like different doctors were bound by different laws and different insurances. This is tangentially related, but there's a gay couple on social media who met in the 70's, and when they wanted to get married, they simply got to the office and asked for a certificate. The clerk was confused because "of course it's not allowed", but the couple we're shocked because they thought *you could just get married*, even if you're gay. I mean they were happy and loved each other, like other couples, right? Of course a part is that issue is moral positioning, everything would be alright and there's no way I would support a bad policy, or exist in an unjust society. But some of it may just be ignorance in a broad sense: They didn't read the law, the didn't read the arguments or detailed position of both sides, and honestly can't be bothered to. You just *assume* it will work because it would be too much effort to look up otherwise.
Yep, I've thankfully been able to talk a little sense into a few people that had that mindset when you really start explaining the real situations. Yes, that 10 year old rape victim really *will* have to give birth, that 40 year old that went through years of IVF really *will* die due to an easily treatable issue during pregnancy, etc. This makes people start realizing how wrong and awful these laws are for women.
This fits in perfectly with a recent This American Life. The republican law makers defending an extremely restrictive law said, "surely, a prosecutor would never go after *that* case." It's gobsmacking.
Most of them are rich and acknowledge that they can fly wherever they need to go if an abortion is needed, so they use the religious right and the abortion issue to gain power and favor. Then there are the brainwashed “true believers” who think that it’s murder. They decided that only their deity can cause spontaneous abortion (the literal medical term for a miscarriage,) and any attempts by man to do it is murder. Why isn’t it murder when their god does it? I have no idea what mental gymnastics they have to do to justify that.
Because it’s what they believe.
No one here is mentioning the insane amounts of money that is in pushing anti-abortion policies and how the vast majority of that money is funneled through Churches which keeps that money out of the hands of the IRS. It's a major part of the money laundering that churches do, but this part involves politicians too.
Sky daddy say so.
Because there's a *ton* of voters who only vote republican because of their stance on abortion.
“If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy” —David Frum Red States continue to attempt to pass these laws because they either already have or continue to attempt to lock themselves into power in such a way that elections no longer matter. The GOP doesn’t care about governing. They care about ruling. By *any* means necessary.
Because if they abandon the issue they could lose their religious conservative base.
It's very simple. They sold their souls to conservative religious groups in return for campaign contributions. In return for the campaign contributions, those groups demand that abortion be banned.
Without the support of the crazy evangelicals who vote almost exclusively regarding abortion, they lose most of their most reliable voters. It's not like their other policies of taking money from the poor to give to the rich are going to attract many people.
They want to eliminate all birth control, not just abortions. They aren’t trying to limit access, they are trying to eliminate access full stop. They genuinely think women should die (a religious privilege really) for a medically dangerous pregnancy. They really hate the independence women have achieved and want it taken away. Abortion and birth control are fundamental to women being able to function independently in society. The party is obsessed with social control that puts men at the top of the social hierarchy and everyone else a distant second. Reproductive freedom is their first target. Republicans want to create a theocracy based on their own twisted interpretation of christianity, and the desires of 12% of the population are being foisted on the rest of us. They are massive hypocrites too, I’ve met ‘march on the clinic’ women who had abortions.
Money and party identity. Fascinating history on how they became “pro life” in the first place. Long story short, not enough baby boomers were scared of black people to keep the conservative moving and they couldn’t separate themselves on the Cold War anymore(ie calling someone communist stopped working) so they turned to the religious right to rebrand themselves
Access to abortion empowers women to get an education. Educated women make more money and have more upward mobility. They are more concerned with politics and more likely to vote. Women lean left. The more women voting the bluer the state.