Let’s hope somebody is listening.
Oh, and to the 19% referenced in the video: fuck off.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Let’s hope somebody is listening.
Oh, and to the 19% referenced in the video: fuck off.
Echoed. And as I see North Dakota featured, it’s a good as time as any for a plea for any help at all for the Red River Clinic, the only one standing in all of ND. They do fantastic work, and anything anyone could spare would be more than welcome, 50 cents, a dollar, anything, can help to keep Red River going. http://www.redriverwomensclinic.com/Pro-Choice%20Support.htm
Elect state legislators and governors who are not rightwing doofuses.
For those who can’t watch videos, there’s a summary at Rawstory: John Oliver absolutely destroys GOP lawmakers whose restrictive anti-abortion laws go ‘too f*cking far’
Warning because desperate folks’ stories really are that bad:
– And fight gerrymandering and anti-democratic voter ID laws.
– And pressure churches to take the anti-abortion and patriarchal BS out of their platforms and off their radio stations.
– And push for evidence-based sex ed in schools and widely available adult education.
– And ensure contraception and related health care coverage are available to everyone.
– And fight rape culture and the assumption that women exist to be incubators for their owners.
ps: Gosh it’d sure be nice if we could just elect some Democrats who’d do all that work for us wouldn’t it. -Signed, a voter in the rural deep South.
The sad thing is that Britain’s laws are also too restrictive – extremely so in Northern Ireland. The US should be more liberal than the UK given the underlying law (Roe v. Wade and even Casey provides a far greater right of reproductive freedom to women than British laws do). The problem is that states keep passing unconstitutional laws and the lower courts keep whittling away at women’s rights.
She will have to look elsewhere in the house. Like a closet where the coat hangers are.
1. Making abortion illegal doesn’t stop abortions. It just makes it harder and far more dangerous. In the USA, the rich would just fly to Europe and do some shopping. The middle class would go to Mexico or Canada and do some shopping. The poor would just suffer more one way or another.
2. DIY abortions are becoming more common in the USA. There is a black market for RU 486 and/or prostaglandins. I don’t know much about it except that it exists.
Welcome to the 1950’s again.
Welcome to the GOP future. Where women die from DIY abortions.
It’s like the 1950’s Or maybe the 1850’s.
to add to Pteryxx’ list at #3:
A 13 year old rape victim who can’t get an abortion
Lynna:
Sure thing, right after you get rid of all the rightwing doofuses living in the States who support them.
Not only do they force women to watch ultrasounds in the hope they will reconsider, they force doctors to lie about the “risks” of abortion? I thought telling lies was a crime, especially for the medical professionals, that they not only have to get informed consent, listing the very smallest possible risks; but to have them also tell blatant lies to exploit the patient’s incomplete understanding is a form of malpractice. It is why people go to doctors in the second place, because a doctor has a more complete set of information related to the malady under discussion. So they institute a law, that when a doctor obeys it can get him sued for medical malpractice. Sneaky way to get doctors to abandon the practice of abortion services. A way to make something both illegal and legal simultaneously.
.
, has become the new trigger phrase, superseding “pro-life” as the code phrase for “women are baby factories, nothing more, and must remain pumping babies out regardless of the wohmahn’s attitude”
Seriously, getting rid of elected rightwing doofuses would help with a lot of things, but abortion access isn’t necessarily one of them. Plenty of cis male Democrats don’t know anything about abortion or how uteri work, or how uterus-owners have to address such realities, either.
May as well post this here: Period pain a public health issue
Notable, especially the comments, for discussion of how most doctors don’t know anything about non-textbook periods, and most uterus-owners have never gotten to discuss their periods with others and learn about the wide range of ways periods can present, much less what is or is not normal. Think Great Wall of Vagina but about menstruation.
Anyway, I think the main reasons anti-abortion mythology gets such traction in the US are misogyny-driven ignorance about sex ed, misogyny-driven ignorance and callousness about pregnancy, and the religious forced-birth movement – and only one of those is specifically Republican.
Caine: That’s just it–even in many of those states, we don’t actually have to ‘get rid’ of anyone–the folks who already support access to abortion are numerous enough that if they would just show up to freakin’ vote, we’d win things handily.
Caine @10 and Petryxx @4, excellent points. Yeah, it’s not that easy. Already, during the primaries, we are seeing a common pattern: record turnout for Republicans in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, and (woe), lower turnout for Democrats. In addition to all the issues mentioned by Petryxx and Caine, Democrats simply do turn out to vote.
In other news:
John Kasich, the governor of Ohio and the occasionally reasonable Republican candidate for president, just showed his rightwing side again. He signed another law attacking Planned Parenthood.
Link
Worth noting that one of the clips Oliver showed representing some of the more reasonable “anti-s” was the statement, “I’m against abortion, personally, I would never have one but I would never force anyone else to be denied an abortion”.
Even though every reader here may agree with that sentiment, I think it is worth spotlighting.
As has been previously noted, the UK’s abortion laws are hardly what PZ or most of the people in this forum would seem to want: abortion legal through the 24th week, but damned hard to get after that. But this kind of law is pretty normal throughout western Europe: France, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, and the rest usually allow abortions through 20 or 24 weeks or so, but ban it after that. Australia’s abortion laws vary by state but are mostly similar to Europe. South Korea and Taiwan are mostly more conservative than Europe, while Japan is more liberal.
So here’s the question: Do we really want abortion laws like the rest of the civilized world? It would mean losing all those obnoxious and damaging restrictions that are now being added in red states, but it would also mean losing third-trimester abortions and adding parental consent for minors. Fair trade? I would say yes, but I’m curious what everyone else here thinks.
If “the rest of the civilized world” includes Canada, note that in Canada abortion is allowed pretty much on demand with no time limit: Dr. Jen Gunter in 2012
Freemage @ 13:
It doesn’t work that way in ND. Sure as fuck didn’t work that way in SD. Here, those in favour of following the law (Roe) and choice are seriously outnumbered. I’ve explained the dire, draconian state of affairs in South Dakota until I’m fuckin’ blue in the face, doesn’t matter, no one cares, it’s fuckin’ South Dakota, which barely exists on people’s radar.
slithey tove @ 15:
Oh fuck no. I have heard that trite sentiment so many godsdamn times, for fucking decades, and I’m sick to death of it. It’s a way of reinforcing the stigma attached to abortion, this insistence by every other pro-choice woman on the planet, who must declare, for all to know, “oh, I would never, ever do that, but…” Fuck that noise. It’s the same old godsdamn story – only fallen, used, soiled, disgusting b!tches obtain an abortion, by god, good women don’t do that, they would never! That shit needs to die, die, die, die, die. Did I say it needs to die? It does. Upon being asked about abortion, the right answer is “I can only choose for myself, not others, so I am pro-choice” or something along that line. For every person who says “oh, I wouldn’t”, they are adding to the stigma while making sure they don’t get covered with abortion cooties.
Joel:
I’m against that.
Chiming in, as I often do when this topic pops up, to note that my state, Va, nearly had one of those heinous legally mandated rape by transvaginal ultrasound laws (it was softened to mere harassment at the last minute). I’ve tried to look up information on its current state but google’s only giving me stuff from when it was enacted in 2012.
Fair for who? Really? Discussing which abortion restrictions are somehow better or more acceptable just comes down to which pregnant people get thrown under the bus. Working single parents vs raped teenagers? Incest victims vs poor people with no way to drive 200 miles? Folks with contraceptive failure vs those with wanted pregnancies that go badly wrong after 24 weeks? Rich vs poor? Innocent vs sluts?
Fuck all of that noise. Abortion is basic medical care and should be available to anyone. ANYone.
rpjohnston: The best source of info for tracking abortion data in the US is the Guttmacher Institute. RH Reality Check is probably the best roundup of current news.
Guttmacher state trends for 2015:
Guttmacher abortion restrictions state-by-state
Guttmacher overview of Virginia:
#18 Caine, what are you saying? I must have misread it.
#15 shows the quote that says “I don’t believe in it, but would never deny someone else the choice”. Then you point out that the only correct answer to you is “I am pro-choice and can only choose for myself”. Um, isn’t that exactly what the original quote said as well, that they personally choose not to, but want that choice to be available to all?
The only addition that i can see is they offered their opinion on the subject as well, and opinions aren’t something to be afraid of. They agree on the right to choose, and they chose not to. Not ONCE did they say “only bad women do it”, only that THEY PERSONALLY wouldn’t do it.
That’s what choice is…they chose to place a higher value on their potential baby than someone else does. Just because they have the right to chose doesn’t mean that have to always chose to abort you know! And since it’s their body, they don’t have to explain that choice to anyone, no matter which they decide to go with.
ps: So Virginia does in fact have a heinous ultrasound law, AND a parental consent law for minors, “civilized nation” or no.
Why don’t more people even know what the abortion restrictions are in their own state? That’s not an accusation. The stigma about abortion and icky lady parts is such that even people who would object to these restrictions don’t hear about them. They’re sneaked through legislative sessions and under the radar in most media. It takes work and research to even find out what’s going on – which is yet another hurdle to overcome, both in agitating for abortion access, and actually getting it. Say you’re a poor or marginalized teenager in Virginia who just found out you’re pregnant. You’re most likely going to find out about all these restrictions for the first time when they block you.
The law in Northern Ireland is among the most restrictive in Europe: “Abortions are only permitted in [Northern Ireland]’s health service if the life of a mother is directly under threat or in cases in which there would be lasting long-term negative effects on her health by continuing with the pregnancy.”
The above synopsis is from Northern Ireland law on abortion ruled ‘incompatible with human rights’ (November-2015), which also notes (my added boldfacing):
Another from Dr. Jen Gunter on the death of Dr. Morgentaler in 2013, who almost single-handedly made abortion legal in Canada: When abortion was illegal in Canada
As a resident, she asked a senior OB/GYN what it was like. Warning because the medical descriptions are horrible and I quote a bit below.
Because of the new restrictions being passed all over the US, folks who care need to be alert for mortality to start rising from self-induced abortions. The states probably will fight tracking of such statistics and try to camouflage them among mortality from increasing poverty, pollution, lack of health care or whatever. Besides, if most of the emergency rooms in a state or county belong to Catholic organizations, they might fudge medical records to hide the fact that some patient of theirs died due to the desperation their policies helped to cause. (See: Savita Halappanavar.)
Texas might be seeing such a rise shortly.
mamba,
Conversation #1:
Person A: “What is your position on abortion?”
Person B: “I would never do it myself, I just couldn’t abort a baby, but I don’t think everyone should have to do the same as me.”
Conversation #2:
Person A: “What is your position on abortion?”
Person B: “I think everyone should be able to decide what to do with their own bodies. I personally wouldn’t choose abortion, but those who want should be able to”
Conversation #3:
Person A: “What is your position on abortion?”
Person B: “I think everyone should be able to decide what to do with their own bodies.”
Person A: “Would you haven an abortion?”
Person B: “No, I wouldn’t”
How we talk matters. I don’t know the exact wording of the question asked in the video, but if someone feels the need to answer a general question with a rather defensive I would never, only afterwards saying that not everyone should be forced to make the same decision, it adds to the stigma around abortion. It reinforces the idea that abortion is something terrible, but this generous person is willing to let other people do it, if they really have to.
I used to be pro-choice and of firm belief that I would never, under any circumstances have an abortion myself. And that was ok. What wasn’t ok was, that I answered like the folks in the video if asked about being pro-life. I felt it necessary to defend myself, to frame abortion as shameful before saying that I’m ok with other people having one.
Caine 18: FWIW, a few years ago I personally mailed coat hangers to the majority of South Dakota legislators, along with a helpful note pointing out that some of their constituents would soon be needing one.
Irisvanderpluym @ 28:
That is worth more than you’ll ever know. You have my heart. I’d love to think the pile of hangers (I sent some too, along with many others, back in ’06) might have caused a thought in that mega-creep Napoli’s head, but I doubt it did.
The bit where the physician was having to tell the patients bullshit about breast cancer risk and then immediately saying it’s not true is downright embarrassing. Humanity is failing hard.
Just piping in with Caine’s 18. The problem I have with the statement is just that which Caine describes: it continues the idea that an abortion is something to find shameful, that ‘good’ folk would never do. In fact, the majority of abortions are sought by people who already have children.
Also, just a reminder, not everyone who needs abortion is a woman. I know a trans man who was raped and needed an abortion, and was damned glad to be Canadian. Assuming it’s not too much trouble – I know it is for some – just keep in mind that not everyone with a uterus identifies as a woman. Please note I’m not saying every single time you must say “women and other people with uteri,” just ask that you remember trans people exist.
CaitieCat @ 31:
Oh fuck, all my apologies, CaitieCat. Normally, I make every effort to use people rather than women, but sometimes I forget when my anger runs off with half my brain. I will do better, and thank you for the reminder. I am so sorry the man you knew was raped, but I’m very glad he was Canadian, and got the medical procedures required. I hate to think of what he would have gone through here in the States.
@blf #25
Kill the baby right after delivery, you get less. /s
“Pro-lifers” don’t care about lives outside the uterus.
As someone who thinks abortion is bad (but is still pro-choice), I think I should weigh in here to defend that view. At least in my case, when I say abortion is bad, I do not mean that it’s shameful or that only bad people would choose it; I mean that it should only be chosen if the alternatives are worse. Sometimes the alternatives are worse, in these cases abortion is the best, right, proper, etc choice. And the person in the best position to weigh the consequences (and the only person with a real right to make the choice) is the person who is actually pregnant. It’s not a question of shame, it’s a question of weighing alternatives.
(BTW, I don’t have a uterus, but if I did and I were pregnant, I can imagine situations where I would want an abortion. Most obviously, if I were pregnant from a rape: fuck-that-get-it-out-of-me-NOW!)
Mind you, I think there should be shame associated with abortion, but for the people who make abortion-is-the-best-option situations more common:
– People who restrict access to birth control.
– People who oppose real sex education.
– Rapists (and yes, we’re well beyond mere shame here).
I’ll also add people who make abortion a worse option than it has to be, by making it less safe, more difficult, more embarrassing, etc.
So, basically, the people I think should be ashamed of abortion are republicans and rapists.
There are still problems here in Canada that restrict abortion access, sadly. It is legal, but smaller centres don’t have specialized clinics, or lack places that perform them. Abortion access is limited in PEI, and people often have to travel to NB or NS. The situation has improved in NB, as the rule requiring two doctors to sign off indicating it is medically necessary is not longer in place when getting an abortion at a hospital. But they still do not fund abortions at private clinics.
Gordon Davisson:
According to whom? You?
Many pregnant people feel strongly that giving birth to a live infant is a worse alternative. Are you saying that determination is not fully theirs to make, that there should have to be some reason beyond that, or else we deprive people the right to direct their own medical care?
Gordon Davisson @ 34:
Oh great, so you support the continuing stigmatization of abortion. And please, don’t pretend otherwise, because you had plenty of opportunity to read and comprehend before you decided to pontificate.
Oh? What alternatives, Gordon? C’mon, let’s hear them – can’t be many. What in the fuck is it to you, exactly, if I, a person you don’t know, and never will know, has a termination for no reason at all, except it’s what I feel like doing? Why in the fuck does any person owe you, or anyone else some sort of justification for a termination that you feel is something you might be able to condone? Guess what, Gordon? That would be seriously piling on the stigma of abortion, because anyone who seeks a termination is trying to have a medical procedure done, a medical procedure which is none of your fucking business, at all, in any sense. It’s no one’s business, outside of the person needing the medical procedure and their doctor and healthcare peoples.
You can imagine shit all you like, but you. do. not. understand. one. fucking. thing. Not one.
Gordon Davisson @ 34:
Interesting statement.
About how much shame should someone feel about an abortion, may I ask, to satisfy you? Just your rough sketch, what would you consider an equally shameful event?
This is not a gotcha question, I’m honestly curious here.
CJO @ 36: As I said, the person in the best position to weigh the consequences (and the only person with a real right to make the choice) is the person who is actually pregnant.
Caine @ 37: Please reread what I said. I did not say that someone who has an abortion owes me or anyone else an explanation, or that it’s any of my business, or any of the other things you seem to think I’m implying.
Gordon @39,
Well, I’m glad to hear it. So you just came here to muse publicly that you “think abortion is bad” despite not being in any position (by your latest explanation) to make that determination? You might want to think for a minute before you wade in to discussions like this; you seem unprepared.
(Note Anri misreading your qualification of whom, exactly, you think should be feeling the shame associated. Not your fault exactly, but you’re somehow managing to make bch is not best-form communicatinnal and near-self-contradictory mumblings on the topic inflammatory, which is not exactly what I’d call communicating effectively)
Anri @ 38: If someone had an abortion, and it was (in their judgement) the right thing to do for them in their particular situation, then: none.
On the other hand, if a parent kept their child out of sex ed, and denied them access to birth control, and the child got pregnant/got their partner pregnant (assuming it’s an unwanted pregnancy)… well, actually, in that case the parent should be ashamed whether or not there’s an abortion. But I’m not sure how to quantify that; sorry.
Ugh. browser glitches while writing that last.
Final sentence in my 40 should read:
“Not your fault exactly, but you’re somehow managing to make banal and near-self-contradictory mumblings on the topic inflammatory, which is not exactly what I’d call communicating effectively.”
CJO, I didn’t come here to muse about how “abortion is bad”; I came here to watch John Oliver rip some idiots to shreds. Saw that, (and baby sloths!) happy now. But then I read the comments and saw what I think is an overreaction to the idea that abortion isn’t completely wonderful. I’m sorry if you thought my comment was unclear; if I could write better, I would.
Yes, I think you’ll find that abortion is an unfavorable option compared to never having had a pregnancy to terminate in the first place. However, shit happens, and people don’t have the magic power to prevent conception on a whim.
I fail to see how abortion is anything but an absolute godsend for allowing people to forgo a dangerous, life-changing condition they have no desire to experience.
It’s like saying “I don’t think medicine is good because not getting sick is better.”
Gordon Davisson #41,
Please tell us about the cases when someone has an abortion and it wasn’t the right thing to do.
There must be lots – right?
Gordon,
It’s a medical procedure. I don’t see why a value judgment of any kind should be applied to it. Those who need it should have access to it, and the rest of us should butt the hell out, is my view, and I hold the same view regarding any medical procedure you care to name.
But you said, up front, that you “think it’s bad.” If you in fact do not think that it goes a little way past bad writing.
In the context of a public conversation about abortion policies, the question of what you’d personally choose to do in any given situation is completely and utterly beside the point. For this particular discussion, there’s one real question to be answered: Do you agree that the final decision rests with the pregnant person?
If yes, then there’s no real reason to go into under whether you might make one decision or another, in this situation or that. People’s circumstances are so different, that it really doesn’t inform the discussion in any way. I don’t think it’s productive and it very easily lends itself to a stigmatization of people’s decisions, which is part of the problem.
E.g. note the guy in the video who calls himself pro-life, despite describing a position that’s clearly pro-choice. In a simple survey, he might easily check the box for pro-life and this would then be used by lobbying groups and politicians to advocate the completely banning of all abortion. Never mind that he doesn’t actually support that; his phrasing of his position is such that he ends up supporting it anyway.
So, basically, what Beatrice said in #27.
Gordon – if you’re taking the position that abortion is somehow a bad thing, and then qualifying that you don’t think it’s bad because of standard abortion-shaming tropes A through Z, then what reason remains for you to think abortion is bad at all? What’s left to dislike besides that it’s icky and medical, like everything from dental fillings to colonoscopies? Because if you’re trying to counter the straw narrative that prochoicers think abortions are wonderful fun and everybody should have a few at the mall between lunch and the movies, well… you are NOT helping. Stop that.
OT, but I recently returned from a trip to Colorado, where I was able to buy cannabis oil salve and some cannabis candies for my chronic back pain. For the first time in months, I was pain-free.
Now that I’m back in Texas, it’s “Hello, pain!”.
Why can’t this country be sensible about women’s health and all people’s pain relief?
Gordon Davisson:
I don’t get the joke. Are you defining the concept of “badness” for us in a new way, but in the most inept and confusing way you can? Isn’t it a good or morally neutral thing to (for instance) not steal from someone, and isn’t it the case that it can/should be chosen if the alternatives are worse? Stealing from them would be a worse thing to do (that is the bad thing, if you ask me), and it makes no sense to say that not-stealing is also bad.
To claim that by calling it bad, that means we should only do it if the alternative are worse, doesn’t leave us any good or neutral options, which seems incoherent to me. If the point of making a moral claim is to talk about what people should and shouldn’t do, based on what actual effect it will likely have in the world, there needs to be some logically possibly option remaining that we can (permissibly) do. Otherwise, I may as well say “you should be omnipotent, because it’s good to be omnipotent.” The trouble is that you can’t do anything about it, nor can anyone else do anything about it, even if it were something that would be beneficial to someone in any way whatsoever. Thus, nothing morally wrong has taken place: it’s not “bad” (as the word is normally understood) to fail to be omnipotent. You may want to express some kind of preference for omnipotence over the alternatives, but that isn’t a moral statement that makes some kind of judgment about what a person actually can and should do.
What sort of person would benefit from reading this? Do you think someone is out there right now, getting an abortion or doing some other bad thing (“bad” according to you), and they would not have realized, if not for your helpful and clear and totally coherent advice, that they should make a better decision instead of a worse one? Who, specifically, is thinking to themselves “I should get an abortion, and I know the alternatives are not worse” or “I should get an abortion, and I know it’s a bad thing”? So, never mind the implications for law or public policy or morality in the broadest possible sense … first of all, what the fuck would such a person mean by that?
@Gordon Davisson:
‘The first rule of holes: When you’re in one stop digging.’
— Molly Ivins
A couple of years ago I got some dental implants, necessitated by years of neglect. I mean, I brushed my teeth regularly, but didn’t go to the dentist, and so some of the teeth were rotting away and needed to be pulled. This was a fairly invasive procedure that required some pretty strong local anesthetics and a prescription for potentially addictive pain killers (which I never filled; my tolerance for pain outweighs my fear of addiction). During the procedure the dentist could easily have slipped and killed a nerve or to, potentially rendering me partially paralyzed in the mouth, unable to speak clearly, and so on.
And yet no one tried to shame me (though I felt some self-induced shame when I received the bills, but that’s the damned US health care system in action), and no legislators have passed laws insisting that dentists have admission privileges at local hospitals, or that dental offices have corridors wide enough for two gurneys to pass. And I haven’t seen billboards with dead teeth pointing out that extraction kills a living tooth.
So what’s the difference here?
joel@16,
Would you rather eat your shit plain, or mixed up with enough chocolate ice cream that you barely notice it (of course, that only works if you’re lactose tolerant and not allergic to chocolate)?
I know that’s not what you’re trying to say, but that’s how it comes across. To be clear, both options ultimately rob people* of their right to control their own bodies, and so neither is ok.
*Women in the first draft; thanks for the reminder, CatieCat.
Gordon Davisson
It will probably work out better if you stop digging but…
would you be willing to tell us why you think abortion is “bad”?
—
I think that pregnancy is potentially lethal and it is not to be entered into lightly.
Not getting pregnant in the first place is preferable to terminating a pregnancy but that doesn’t make abortion “bad”.
Gordon,
When asked to explain why you think “abortion is bad”, you’ve instead said that keeping children out of sex ed and denying birth control is bad. That’s answering a different question.
You’ve made several posts here and have yet to explain why you’re “someone who thinks abortion is bad”.
I knew watching this would make me angry and depressed. Seriously America? Glad I live in Australia.
@#14, Lynna, OM
Golly, do you suppose it could have anything to do with the fact that the Democrats spent the first 2 years of the Obama administration giving the Republicans control of all the discourse and concessions they had no leverage to demand, and then spent the next 5 years saying, in effect, “well, we no longer have an absolutely overwhelming majority in both houses of Congress, guess we shouldn’t bother even trying to accomplish anything at all”? Maybe that people feel like the Democrats take no stands on issues and have the same ties to corruption as the Republicans (thanks, Hillary Clinton, taking hundreds of thousands at a time from banks and massive corporations is such a terrific publicity move for anyone trying to get out the vote) and that voting for them won’t accomplish anything? Maybe that the Obama and Clinton administrations have been overall bad for blacks and hispanics, by most statistics (more black incarceration under both, lower black employment under both, more deportation under both, cuts to government aid under both, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum)?
Nah. It must just be that young people and minorities are lazy. After all, they owe the Democrats their vote. No need to earn it, it should just happen.
@#18, Caine
Just wondering: how do you feel about the Democratic Party’s political rhetoric that “nobody likes abortion” and we should fund sex ed and contraception to cut down the number of abortions?
(I would be in favor of a law requiring every obstetrician and midwife to mention abortion as an option when talking to the newly-pregnant, and be required to give out contact information for abortion clinics when asked. It would make a heck of a lot more sense than the laws being passed restricting abortion. Which is probably why it will never happen.)
Well, that *should* be called the standard of care, if antis hadn’t been walling off “abortion doctors” and “abortion clinics” from the rest of medical care both physically and conceptually (pun intended). Unfortunately, both Catholic ethical directives and laws in some states specifically forbid medical personnel from mentioning abortion or giving referrals, formal or informal, to abortion providers. They have laws forcing abortion providers to give referrals to crisis pregnancy centers instead: (bolds mine)
John Oliver also mentioned the case of an Alabama provider who’s already been forced to move his clinic once to comply with TRAP laws. Some background from RHR, posted yesterday:
From the first try in 2015:
ps: Apologies for the missed close tag in my previous. Preview doesn’t work anymore.
Joel Re “adding parental consent for minors” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillick_competence
What is striking to me is just how far to the right the Republican Party has become on this issue. Here is Marco Rubio, who is seen as the “establishment” candidate with the best chance of winning the nomination, on how he sees abortions in the case of rape:
I will give Rubio, and those like him, credit: if you really believe that abortion is equivalent to the murder of a living, breathing, thinking child, with memories and consciousness, then it’s not unreasonable to decide that we shouldn’t allow the killing of one child to spare another child years of mental and physical suffering (and possible death).
But that is precisely why it is so disgustingly vulgar to describe abortion as murder. Drawing such a monstrous equivalence allows for such a monstrous conclusion to be drawn. However, it’s not really less rational than the stance that “abortion is murder, but we should allow it in the case of rape”, given the faulty premise. I wish the stance of “abortion is murder, but” was held to greater account in mainstream media.
Correct me if this comparison is faulty, but I like to draw a comparison with The Matrix: except, in this case, the actual Matrix doesn’t exist, and humans are just grown, harvested, and kept alive in vats, forever unconscious. If a human in such a condition was taken off its “life support”…would that be “killing” that person? If that person had never been conscious, would they be losing…anything?
It really makes no sense to me that people can think that there can be nothing more important than protecting the “life” of those who have never been conscious.
Also: Any parent who would tell me that it would hurt just as much to lose, say, a 13-year-old child to cancer, as a 1-month-old baby, I must admit, I look at with a great deal of side-eye. While they are both devastating to the parent, the magnitude of suffering for the child is inordinately greater. If your sense of pain comes primarily from your sense of what you have lost, rather than from the depth of the fear, pain, and suffering that the one you loved went through, well…
littleknown
Well what? We’re allowed to be sad about the loved ones we lose, even those who die peacefully in their sleep. The dead are dead, and grief is for the living. What an offensive sentiment.
qwints
Thank you for the objection. A revised, and better way to say it might be:
I should not have made it about suffering. It’s absolutely fine to grieve over who you have lost, and how they died is only a part of that grief. What I meant to express is that it seems to me that many people’s sense of loss is much more possessive than empathetic.
Here’s what I do think about suffering: I have a problem with finding the pain and suffering of a 1-month-old to be as distressing as the pain and suffering of a 13-year-old.
PZ, have you seen Samantha Bee’s new show yet? So far, it’s amazing, and I think you’d love it.
This British guy has been trying to explain the insanity of American abortion laws to Americans for years now, and no one’s listened yet.
Take Caine’s post at #1, for example. The fact you only have one place where it is possible to get an abortion in a state that is 1 and a 1/2 times the size of England is fucking mental.
/OT
Hi everyone! *waves*
Gordon Davisson
Gods, you’re a special kind of idiot. Literally every single person who has ever had an abortion has chosen it because the alternatives were worse. This is irrelevant of the reason they had. Whether it was “either the fetus dies or I die” or “I don’t want a baby” or “I don’t want to be pregnant”. In every single case the pregnant person looked at their options and said “yup, given that I can’t magically travel back in time and prevent conception, abortion is the best alternative for me”. Nobody ever said “it would be much better if I continued this pregnancy, but I guess I must have an abortion now because I willingly choose the worse option.” This includes fucked up choices like “I’d love to become a parent but I would not know how to feed a baby and me” .
+++
Of course those “baby lovin’ pro-lifers” don’t just want dead women, they also want dead babies. Because infanticide is the tool used for millennia to deal with this. Dead babies in dumpsters, dead babies in fields, dead babies buried in flower pots.
@#65, Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk-
<sarcasm>No, no, Giliell, don’t you know that women just love to have intrusive surgical procedures? After all, the fetus is removed through the vagina, so it can’t be anything other than sexually stimulating! Just like childbirth!</sarcasm>
(…I just realized that that’s quite possibly something your average Republican male actually believes.)
Nah, what people really mean when they say abortion “should only be chosen if the alternatives are worse” is “if the alternatives are worse in my entirely rational and disinterested assessment“. They don’t think that women get abortions for funsies, they just think they’re too stupid and emotional to make the “right” decision.
One aspect John Oliver did not cover was the experience of the patients attending these Ambulatory-Surgical-Center-compliant facilities. Here’s an RHR article from 2015 comparing two clinics constructed by Whole Woman’s Health – one before the omnibus Texas TRAP law HB2, and one after. Warning because it will be rage-making. (Pronouns edited by me.)
The Institutionalization of Abortion Stigma: What Care at an Ambulatory Surgical Center Can Look Like
Taking away patients’ escorts and clothing. Strapping them down… *ragecough*
Much more at the link, including the expense of crash equipment and expireable medications that go to waste because abortions are so safe – something John Oliver did mention.
Dunc
Wait, you mean it was just garden variety common as horseshit “I know better than those women*” misogyny?
*Used intentionally, because those people think in the binary and are motivated by misogyny
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Pteryxx
That’s so fucked up.
I had to have a D&C after a miscarriage, which describes the second scenario, apart from people trying to shame me. The uncaring treatment by some of the hospital staff were among the things that made one of the worst days of my life even worse. The caring treatment by others was what kept me from totally freaking out. Forcing hospital staff to be uncaring assholes is cruelty and malice beyond cartoon-villain level.
@littleknown
I appreciate your apology, but I still strongly disagree with you. Discounting a person’s suffering because of their age or development is a really bad idea with a history of really bad consequences.
@littleknown,
I take it you’ve never found yourself sitting outside an examination room while your 3-month-old is getting a spinal tap.
littleknown:
A bit of advice, littleknown – you should be, and stay, completely unknown, as you’re a remarkably shitty excuse for a person.
What a Maroon:
Oh gods. Meningitis? I can only imagine the anguish for all of you. Spinal taps are not fun, to say the least. Hard to explain the fear and pain to a 3 month old babe, too.
Transcript of the John Oliver segment by me and some friends, errors and other weirdness are mine/ours. Thanks so much friends.
Thanks Caine. Not meningitis, just a fever on a Saturday night, but at that age they don’t fool around. Turns out he had neutropenia so he ended up spending a week in the hospital.
Yep. The doctor had actually sent me away so I hung out in the cafeteria for what I thought was a long enough breakfast. So I was entirely unprepared. As a parent that was probably the worst feeling I’ve experienced.
Thanks for the transcript Pteryxx, I can’t really watch the video at work.
That story about the 13 year old in Texas has made me very, very sad.
This is the fucking problem with pro-lifers. They make all their shitty decisions based on umbers on a page and imagined, overly simplified situations. And they forget that it’s real people and complicated, real life situations we are dealing with. Argh, fuck pro life people.
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