For decades, the goal of the anti-abortion forces was to overturn the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court precedent that said that women had a constitutional right to get an abortion subject to certain limits. Anti-abortion zealots felt that those limits were too lax. They wanted a total ban on abortions and with the overturn of Roe, much more restrictive bans could be enacted by state legislatures. Indeed many legislatures in red states had already drafted those bills and were just waiting for the opportunity to pass them.
And it played out just as expected with red states across the nation passing sweeping legislation that made getting abortions all but impossible in those states. What was unexpected (at least by me) was the widespread backlash that this provoked all across the nation. As is often the case, it is only when a right is taken away that people realize how much they value it. It turns out that a majority of people, while they may not go all the way with unlimited abortion access at any time during the pregnancy, were highly uncomfortable with either total bans or with restrictions that made it far too onerous to obtain. As a result, we saw popular referenda overturning such restrictive laws even in deep red states.
So now the anti-abortion forces that for so long had been on the offensive, now find themselves on the defensive and are seeking to promote the idea that. they are not zealots who want to criminalize women who seek abortions and the doctors who provide them. They now seek to project a kindler, gentler image.
While Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are planning a cascade of ads and events to coincide with the 51st anniversary of Roe v Wade, hundreds of anti-abortion activists gathered on the National Mall in Washington DC on Friday in hopes of re-energizing a movement that has repeatedly stumbled since Roe’s overturning.
Originally organized around the goal of overturning the Roe precedent that established federal abortion rights, the March for Life has seen what was once its greatest victory become a political liability. In the 18 months since Roe’s demise, abortion rights supporters have trounced anti-abortion activists in state-level ballot referendums. Yet the march’s message was largely similar to past years: speakers and attendees alike talked about the need to make abortion “unthinkable” rather than just illegal – with scant details on how to make that happen.
“We don’t want to just go in and be the bad guys,” said Elijah Persinger, a 19-year-old from Fort Wayne, Indiana. “We want to make make people understand and help them understand the science behind things and the logic that we’re going by as well.”
…But the crowd on Friday seemed relatively sparse. When the US House speaker, Mike Johnson, stood on a podium to speak, he was met with only muted applause – despite being a high-profile attendee for the march. The greatest response came when he mentioned Biden: when he said that the president’s administration planned to restrict funding to crisis pregnancy centers, the crowd booed loudly.
Organizers also spoke from the stage about the need to support maternity homes and crisis pregnancy centers, facilities that aim to convince people to keep their pregnancies.
“Christians don’t mean to impose what we believe on anyone. But this nation was founded as a Christian nation,” said Laurel Brooks, a march attendee from North Carolina.
Yeah, right. Imposing what they believe on everyone is exactly what these people want to do and saying they don’t is not going to convince anyone but the faithful.
Meanwhile, Democrats are hoping that the energy unleashed by the efforts to ban abortion will spill over into the elections this year, just as it did in the 2022 and 2023 races.
Democrats, meanwhile, are hoping sustained outrage over Roe will propel them to victory up and down the general election ballot.
The Biden campaign is now launching a paid media campaign, timed to Roe’s anniversary, to target women and swing voters in battleground states.
Harris plans to appear on Monday in Wisconsin to spotlight post-Roe attacks on reproductive rights before holding a campaign rally alongside Biden in Virginia.
In the November 2023 state elections, Virginia Republicans tried to take control of the state legislature by promising to enact a “reasonable” ban on terminating pregnancies that were 15 weeks or beyond – an effort that failed.
After decades of demonizing women who seek abortions and the doctors and clinics that provide them with the most extreme rhetoric as child-killing murderers, to claim that they should not be portrayed as ‘bad guys’ is a bit much.
“Christians don’t mean to impose what we believe on anyone. But this nation was founded as a Christian nation,” said Laurel Brooks, a march attendee from North Carolina.
The self-contradiction is almost funny. (Oh, and whatever happened to the “secular pro-life” crowd? I haven’t heard a peep from them since the Dobbs ruling.
If they sought a kinder, gentler image, they must have had to hang up on Ron DeSantis’s and Ken Paxton’s booking agents about twenty times apiece.
“We don’t want to just go in and be the bad guys,” said Elijah Persinger,”
Then stop. Being an asshole is a choice.
Also: Can you yourself get pregnant? No? Sit down and shut up.
Isn’t going to work.
The vast majority of the forced birthers and female slavers are in it for exactly those reasons.
The cruelty is the whole point.
In Realityland, their latest effort is the exact opposite of kinder and gentler.
In a lot of Red states such as Missouri, Texas, Idaho, etc., the GOP keeps trying to pass bills making getting an abortion, murder, a death penalty offense.
The GOP and the fundie xians won’t stop until there are public executions of women who get caught getting an abortion.
This isn’t hypothetical.
Abortion is already a death penalty offense in Georgia.
Then there are the Red State female slavery laws.
The Fugitive Pregnant Women Fleeing Red States Laws.
These laws are also in Alabama and Idaho, so far.
Don’t look at what these liars claim.
Look at what they are doing.
Abortion as murder, a death penalty offense.
Women as slaves without the freedom and right to travel wherever they want to like everyone else.
This reminds me of one of the white christian nationalist organizers from Pennsylvania who said (paraphrasing to the best of my memory) “Non-christians have nothing to fear from us because we won’t prosecute them for not being christians”. Wow, gee thanks a whole bunch. How gracious of you.
This is all just a bad attempt at marketing, like trying to sell dog poo flavored ice cream. No one wants to be seen as a bad guy. No one. Unlike a fictional Bond villain, no one gets up in the morning, rubs their hands together gleefully, and says with a big smile, “What evil can I do today?” No one does that. No one.
…except maybe Roger Stone, but I’m not convinced he’s human.
[meta]
raven:
That is a ridiculous claim, and some might say odious because it makes light of true chattel slavery.
You know, what Black people endured in your country for so long.
I know it’s supposed to be hyperbole, but good grief!
At least be specific and say “pregnant women”, if you must bullshit thus.
Equating slavery to being restricted in one’s travels is about as accurate as Trump calling the application of the law towards him a witch-hunt.
No need to gild the lily, especially with falsehoods.
John, you’ve finally crossed one of my lines.
I don’t have any interest any more in your attempts to fill up your empty life by being an internet troll.
Please find someone else to harass and stalk.
1. It’s not a ridiculous claim at all.
Name one other group of adults in our society who aren’t free to travel?
There aren’t any. Prisoners maybe.
Pregnant women haven’t committed a crime, haven’t been arrested, or sentenced and yet it is now illegal in some places to travel out of state.
Supposedly. I doubt those laws are constitutional and enforceable.
2. “At least be specific and say “pregnant women”,”
John Morales, you realize your are stupid, right.
This is dumb even for you.
I even thought of that when I wrote what I wrote.
There is no easy way to tell pregnant women from non pregnant women at least early in their pregnancy. You can’t tell by looking until a pregnancy is well along.
Which means, any women who can pass for under 50 or so might be pregnant.
They might be subject to these laws.
I don’t know how Texas intends to enforce their travel restrictions.
Maybe just arrest young women without a convincing explanation for why they are traveling and administer a pregnancy test.
John Morales, once again since you have personality problems and are mentally slow.
Please find someone else to harass and stalk.
You’ve got nothing to say that is the least bit interesting or worthwhile and I don’t want you any where near me.
For the rest of you.
When you don’t have control over your own body or ability to go where you want, what are you?
A slave.
This is something a creep like John Morales will never have to deal with.
And, anyone who thinks about it can figure it out.
Here is one such analysis.
At least someone from the Mainstream Media agrees with me.
Some of them are even…lawyers.
Read it yourself and make up your own mind.
They even see the parallels with the modern Fugitive Pregnant Women Laws.
Wow, you really are psychologically fragile, raven.
“Please find someone else to harass and stalk.”
You imagine you are being harassed and stalked?
Some may call that paranoia.
I treat you no different from any other commenter.
Look: you make silly bullshit comments about travel restrictions being slavery, I respond.
I addressed what you wrote. You got all indignant.
“John, you’ve finally crossed one of my lines.”
You are not immune to critique, no matter how annoyed you are that I address your claims.
If that’s your line, it ain’t evident to me.
—
I have commented regarding your comments for many years now, sometimes in criticism (as here), sometimes in approval, no more and no less for you than for any other commenter.
Q: “Name one other group of adults in our society who aren’t free to travel?”
A: Prisoners.
Heh.
So, if there is no easy way to tell pregnant women from non pregnant women at least early in their pregnancy, in what way are they supposedly enslaved by having their travelling out of their resident jurisdiction disallowed?
Really. So pregnant women can be sold and bought, right? They can be whipped so as to provide sexual favours, right? They can be bred for new slaves and for profit, right? And so forth.
Seriously, adducing the reidout-blog is about as useful as adducing Trump.
Bah.
—
Heh. I can read what you write, you know.
Heh heh heh. You, of course, will have to deal with it, not being at all creepy.
(At least I don’t make light of real slavery for rhetorical effect)
Be aware, raven, of the weight of your claim.
One citation, one very brief snippet:
Injured Humanity; Being A Representation of What the Unhappy Children of Africa Endure from Those Who Call Themselves Christians, Published by Samuel Wood.
New York, New York, 1805.
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/horrors-slavery-1805
@raven, 7/8:
https://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2023/11/11/a-clear-eyed-look-at-the-situation-in-israel-gaza-and-the-west-bank/#comment-5266760
I cannot recommend this comment enough. It has immeasurably improved my experience of FtB.
As to the content of your comment re: slavery, try actually thinking for a whole continuous minute about the travel bans and how they could work. Remember, these people are evil, not stupid. They’ve not enacted a law expecting that pregnant women will be stopped at the state border and quizzed on their reproductive status, and arrested if a blue line appears on the stick. That would be stupid, and your objection to it is a waste of your energy tilting at a straw man, and makes you look silly.
The point of these laws is NOT for them to be applied directly, but instead for it to be understood that WHEN (not if) some busybody back home snitches on the fallen women who go out of state to get the abortions (and in some states collects the bounty, IIRC), then in addition to whatever charges they may face for having got one at all, they will definitely also be hit by the trivially-easy-to-prove charge that they illegally crossed state lines for the purpose.
In other words, they KNOW that their laws banning the abortion may struggle when faced with an actual court, but they know also that if they load up other charges which are much easier to get a conviction on, it will have a chilling effect.
Comparisons with slavery, however prominent the people making them you can link to, are egregious because not even the scum who enact these laws were picturing them being used in advance, dragging pregnant women back into the state before they can exercise their rights over their own bodies. They were always intended to be applied after the fact, and thus be an additional stressor, and they’ll work because of that at least on some people (i.e. mostly poor, mostly brown people). There’s no need to exaggerate how bad it is.
sonofrojblake:
Ah, Marcus’ retroscope theory. Not entirely without merit.
But you really should employ the indefinite article, because, for example, another reason is chilling the climate, as is appeasing the hardliners, as are multiple others.
Simplified my life, too. Now I just do the whatever comment about your comments I deem appropriate, as always, but I can assume you aren’t gonna do the usual bluster-and-back off dance in response.
So that’s nice. I approve. Cheers.
Of course, it just means you don’t get to read my retorts, not that they don’t exist or that others don’t see them. Not that I insinuate your desire be less lonely in that sad status of wilful ignorance and thus your appeal for company. FWIW, I entirely endorse needy people such as you using whatever cognitive crutch they think they need. I’m not heartless!
(Also, good point about slavery. How often people forget I sometimes endorse them, yet get upset when I dispute them. Ah well)
Comparisons with slavery, however prominent the people making them you can link to, are egregious because not even the scum who enact these laws were picturing them being used in advance…
That is a non-sequitur, and does not invalidate raven’s comparison at all. The comparison is still valid for all the reasons raven described (which you have not refuted). Loss of ownership of one’s own body is kind of a salient feature of slavery, and the anti-abortion zealots have explicitly said, on many occasions and for many years, that their intent is to deprive pregnant women of self-ownership.
PS: Fuck you, John, you’re being an obnoxious asshole for no good reason. You really need to step back a bit and think about your motivations.
@Raging Bee -- it’s not a non-sequitur. (Do you even know what one is? Evidence suggests not.)
The point of the comparison is that laws against crossing borders are like the laws targetting escaped slaves… except (and this absolutely does follow), they are not like that.
Specifically, there’s no realistic scenario in which anyone would ever be prevented from crossing a border for the purposes of getting an abortion. Plus, and this is a killer, these “no going over the border for an abortion” laws are entirely predicated on the assumption that the abortion procurer is, once they’ve had the procedure, going to return home, voluntarily. I’m not aware of any laws (horrify me by telling me I’m wrong) that sanction the legal physical pursuit of abortion-havers across state lines and enforcing their return in custody from the state they went to. So again, y’know, not like slavery.
Comparing that with slaves having to sneak out of a slavery-endorsing state to seek permanent residence in an anti-slavery state is so different the comparison is offensive.
Already stated my specific reason here, RB.
I don’t think much of making light of real slavery for rhetorical effect.
There are no “Red State female slavery laws”. Women are not “slaves”.
It’s way beyond hyperbole. It is a falsehood.
I don’t excuse falsehoods just because they’re made in a good cause.
Now, you might not think that’s a good reason, but I obviously do.
Loss of travel is not loss of ownership of the body. Losing a right is not automatically slavery.
What? Are we going to fight about “how much” slavery this is? If I was not allowed to travel to another state for specific healthcare because I’m male, and/or was told that I would be forced to father a child, I think the word “slavery” just might pop into my head. Granted, no one would have the right to buy or sell me, but I would not be equal to other humans in the eyes of the law. Maybe I’d be, I dunno, 3/5ths of a human? Just saying…
Of course not, jimf.
I accept that you claim that you think women indeed are slaves in a number of states of the USA, and that they are forbidden to travel out of state and that they are being forced to father (!) a child.
(About as accurate as saying abortion is the murder of babies and thus homicide)
I notice South Carolina is one of those states.
Nikki Hailey is from that state.
It follows Nikki Hailey is a slave, according to some, who is not allowed to travel interstate, and is being forced to have children. Maybe, dunno, 3/5ths of a human?
(https://democrats.org/news/trumps-bans-south-carolina-republicans-banned-abortion-before-many-women-know-theyre-pregnant-thanks-to-trump/)
[OT]
Reminds me of a news article I read not long ago:
(https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-67860456)
To drive the point home, the situation is bad enough and motivational enough without needing to extravagantly caricature the reality for added emotional impact to the degree it’s become risible and evidently false and thus indicative of emotive psychological manipulation. Like what raven tried to do.
So. Actual real and current news, which is bad enough, and surely emotive enough:
https://apnews.com/article/abortion-oklahoma-ban-medical-emergencies-265a21152acf1279932e04cad1154951
https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-abortion-14-weeks-bill-referendum-b30271e482ffab0b19f50797bde6062c
Specifically, there’s no realistic scenario in which anyone would ever be prevented from crossing a border for the purposes of getting an abortion.
I’ve recently read of police or vigilantes in some counties explicitly proposing to monitor highway traffic to/from neighboring states where abortion is still legal. And if getting an abortion is a crime, then police can, and will, try to catch people who cross state lines to commit a crime.
Plus, and this is a killer, these “no going over the border for an abortion” laws are entirely predicated on the assumption that the abortion procurer is, once they’ve had the procedure, going to return home, voluntarily.
What the fuck else do you think they’ll do — buy fake IDs and go on the lam for the rest of their lives?
I’m not aware of any laws (horrify me by telling me I’m wrong) that sanction the legal physical pursuit of abortion-havers across state lines and enforcing their return in custody from the state they went to.
Several states are at least proposing bills to criminalize women who get abortions. Some even want to make that a CAPITAL crime. This is all in the news — do try to keep up.
Comparing that with slaves having to sneak out of a slavery-endorsing state to seek permanent residence in an anti-slavery state is so different the comparison is offensive.
You know who else tends to get offended by such comparisons? Racists seeking to re-enslave Blacks without technically violating the laws against it. Also, no one here is saying that bans on abortion are EXACTLY LIKE Antebellum chattel slavery — we’re saying that stripping women of certain basic rights, such as bodily autonomy and freedom of movement within their country, are among the things normally done to slaves (and I notice you fail to address the former bit altogether). So if all this talk offends you, tough shit.
RB:
But you are indeed saying it actually is slavery. For real.
Um, Nikki Hailey. Remember? No bodily autonomy, no freedom of movement within their country, as you see it.
You honestly are making the argument that a woman who is pregnant is a slave, but the moment she is not pregnant she is no longer a slave. So very stupid!
I would say that’s disingenuous, but honestly, I think it’s just stupidity.
That is not all you are saying; you are quite literally saying that women truly are slaves purely on that basis.
Let’s see if I can get through your conceptual fog: slaves were expected to follow the rules, so therefore anyone who is expected to follow the rules is perforce a slave.
That’s the very same “logic” as you employ there.
I’ll spare you my opinion about blowhards who can dish it out, but who can’t handle it themselves.
(Surely I don’t offend you, O tough guy!)
#18 jimf
Then every loss of a putative right, to any degree, is slavery. Congratulations, the word slavery no longer means slavery, it now means ‘loss of rights’ and now we will have to coin a new word to mean what we currently understand to be slavery.
@Raging Bee, 23:
Oh you read recently did you? You’re still not thinking. They can propose all they like… to do what? Stop any car containing a woman of reproductive age? Good fucking luck with that. Also you might like to consider that the police need something called “probable cause” to do anything more than demand your license and registration. Check out Youtube -- it’s stuffed to the gills with videos of people stopping for the police, handing over their paperwork, and waiting patiently until the police officer gets the message that “I don’t answer questions” doesn’t give them probable cause to do anything, and lets them go. As for vigilantes -- it’s the US. They try to stop a car they’re lining themselves up for getting shot. It’s all just bluster and you’re falling for it.
Again you display the imagination of a housebrick. What the fuck else I think they’ll do is the perfectly legal other thing they could do which is decide to go and live in a different, less horrible state. They don’t need fake ID for that, or anyone’s permission, just the will. Why wouldn’t you even think of this as a possibility? You appear incapable of imagination altogether, it’s weird.
This is just baffling. I asked you to tell me if there are any laws permitting the PHYSICAL PURSUIT ACROSS STATE LINES AND EXTRA-JURISDICTIONAL ARREST of abortion customers… and you replied that they’re criminalising abortions -- as though that wasn’t already the subject of the conversation we’re having. Are YOU paying ANY attention?
Well yeah, but they’re also done to e.g. burglars and murderers. It doesn’t make a comparison with them meaningful or useful.
Again you display the imagination of a housebrick. What the fuck else I think they’ll do is the perfectly legal other thing they could do which is decide to go and live in a different, less horrible state. They don’t need fake ID for that, or anyone’s permission, just the will.
They’d also need money saved up for the move, in addition to the cost of the procedure itself, plus at least a real prospect of finding a job and affordable housing in whatever less horrible state they move to. Your failure to remember this makes you sound like a total fucking ignoramus.
It also makes you sound like Chief Justice Roberts, who, in his Dobbs ruling, flat-out admitted that he knew his court were enabling some truly draconian crackdowns on women’s basic rights, but then said it was all totally okay as long as those women had some other state to go to. Both you and Roberts can take your bad-faith know-nothingism and shove it right back where it came from.
This is just baffling. I asked you to tell me if there are any laws permitting the PHYSICAL PURSUIT ACROSS STATE LINES AND EXTRA-JURISDICTIONAL ARREST of abortion customers… and you replied that they’re criminalising abortions — as though that wasn’t already the subject of the conversation we’re having. Are YOU paying ANY attention?
I’m at least partially describing the overall picture of what’s happening here in the USA, and you’re just narrowly focusing on one relatively tiny part of that picture, possibly because you can’t bear to face up to the whole picture. This is yet another example of bad-faith know-nothingism; to which the only appropriate reply I can think of is “Fuck off to bed.”
Then every loss of a putative right, to any degree, is slavery.
That’s not what any of us are saying, Holms, and you know it. I, for one, am not talking about just any “putative right,” I’m talking mostly about a very specific, basic right, which is bodily autonomy; and so is jimf to whom you’re responding.
(Also, what do you mean by the phrase “putative right(s)?” As opposed to…what, exactly?)
To drive the point home, the situation is bad enough and motivational enough without needing to extravagantly caricature the reality for added emotional impact to the degree it’s become risible and evidently false…
What have either raven or I said that’s actually false? Are the actions of forced-birthers, and their consequences, merely fiction?
@Raging Bee, 27:
Just like escaping slaves then? Oh hang on, they didn’t wait until they’d saved up enough, had the prospect of a job and affordable housing, they just got the fuck out of the terrible situation they were in, because the situation they were in was FUCKING SLAVERY. Almost like it’s not just quantitatively different, but actually qualitatively different to the thing you’ve been comparing it to. And with the quoted bit above, you display a glimmer of comprehension of that difference, but can’t connect the dots. smh.
Yeah, you but you conveniently haven’t answered the question, I suspect because you know the answer and recognise that it doesn’t support you.
“Women as slaves without the freedom and right to travel wherever they want to like everyone else.”
False, on a number of levels.
Level 1: restrictions do NOT apply to “women”, they apply only to people who not just can become, but by definition already are, pregnant.
Level 2: restrictions as drafted do not in point of fact affect the right to travel, they affect the right to return home without worrying about being prosecuted. You might not like or even understand the difference, but they’re not the same thing, so again -- false.
Level 3: “slaves” -- nobody is forcing these women to become pregnant (the objections are not restricted to victims of rape and incest, they’re general -- as they should be), nobody owns them, nobody can buy or sell them. The comparison is odious.
D’you see?
Another comment section poisoned by Morales. I’d appreciate if he would use the same distinctive picture here that he does on Myers’s blog. It makes it easy to know what comments to skip.
Level 2: restrictions as drafted do not in point of fact affect the right to travel, they affect the right to return home without worrying about being prosecuted.
That, “in point of fact,” affects their right to travel. Your refusal to acknowledge this — and your pattern of nitpicking over narrow “points of fact” while ignoring the much broader (and more painfully obvious) picture of what’s happening all over the USA — raises serious questions about your motives.
…nobody is forcing these women to become pregnant…
First, actually, “in point of fact,” LOTS of women are coerced or forced to have sex without decent (or any) means of contraception; LOTS of women live in isolated, backward, religious-authoritarian communities where they’re explicitly told their purpose is to bear as many babies as their men want to knock them up with; and LOTS of other women are forced by circumstances beyond their control to terminate pregnancies they’d actually wanted to carry to term. Oh, and even the most consistently effective means of contraception sometimes fail, and other times aren’t made available to those who might choose to use them.
Second, nobody ever forced me to drive a car — does that mean I’m not entitled to any medical attention if I’m injured in a crash?
And third, and most importantly, bodily autonomy is a basic human right, enshrined in the US Constitution, therefore your choices cannot be used to deny or abridge that right.
You’re joking, right? You must be, the US constitution has never given a shit about that.
Um, remember that bit about “The right of the people to be secure in their persons”? Yes, it IS in the Constitution. I just looked it up.
RB:
That women are slaves in some states.
No, neither the actions nor their consequences are merely fiction, what’s fiction is that it entails slavery.
—
captainjack:
Sure, for some, countering falsehood is poisoning a thread. Fine.
It would have been but the one comment, mind you, had it not led to agitated blustering to which I responded.
I refer you to #12. You too can put blinkers on.
(it’s a bit sad that you find a thumbnail image easier to read than an actual name, but hey… all types)
RB @35:
Ah, the famous quote mining technique. Never works. I just looked it up, too.
Fourth Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I appreciate that this is probably a futile effort, but would indentured servitude not be a better model than slavery?
Jazzlet, no. Indentured servitude is contract-based.
The issue at hand is law-breaking and its consequences within the jurisdiction where that law applies.
Now, it’s a shit law for multiple reasons, it can’t possibly work, it’s motivated by misogyny and ideology, but that’s what it is.
(Might as well talk about wage slavery)
—
And that’s the thrust of this post — that those who agitated for these laws and used to talk in absolutist terms now have what they wished for, and are trying to back away from their previous rhetoric and stance.
To be fair, captainjack has a point: when I challenged the bullshit about the anti-abortion laws being the same as slavery for women, this thread got derailed from that thrust.
That being the patent insincerity of the claims about not wanting to control women’s reproduction for purely ideological reasons.
In my link @20, there’s this (emphasis in original):
She’s not indentured, she’s not a slave. Yet she is a woman in one of those states.
In fact, she’s the only remaining Presidential postulant candidate remaining other than Trump.
(Mind you, she’s 52, so unlikely she will become pregnant — no risk of being a slave, therefore)
Well, John, you certainly are a legend in your own mind.
captainjack, heh. Nah, I have higher standards than that.
(I get that a lot; people project their own opinion about me to me)
“captainjack, heh. Nah, I have higher standards than that.
(I get that a lot; people project their own opinion about me to me)”
Then maybe it’s so.
Ah, the famous quote mining technique. Never works. I just looked it up, too.
I quoted the relevant part, which acknowledges that people have a right to “be secure in their persons…” The rest of the amendment doesn’t negate that acknowledged right. Furthermore, our laws currently acknowledge, at least in theory, that bodily autonomy is a basic right, and that rape, coerced sex, non-consensual medical procedures such as forced sterilization, lobotomies, organ harvesting, etc., and willful denial of appropriate medical services, are considered wrong because they violate that same right.
That women are slaves in some states.
Excuse me while I belabor the obvious: For the THIRD TIME HERE, we are not saying women “are slaves;” we are saying that laws banning abortion and restricting women’s ability to get them strip women of bodily autonomy, and are thus forcing women down from full equality toward a status closer to slavery. Sort of like how all those Jim Crow laws forced Black people down from legal equality toward a status more like slavery, even though Blacks weren’t, techically, legally, slaves. (And yes, historians of that period did call it “re-enslavement.”) In both of those cases, it’s perfectly appropriate to compare such rollbacks of human rights to (re)enslavement, because stripping people of basic human rights is a characteristic of enslavement, whether or not anyone chooses to call it such.
The issue at hand is law-breaking and its consequences within the jurisdiction where that law applies.
No, dumbass, the issue is the content, effects and consequences of the laws themselves.
If you’re going to bicker and argue about what we said and what we meant, you need to at least read and understand what we actually said first.
Or, you know, you can just admit you’re addicted to the attention and making incredibly stupid insulting arguments just to get more. Your choice…
Raging Bee, thanks for the clarification.
Secure from what? You didn’t quote that part, I did.
Except under certain circumstances. What circumstances? You didn’t quote that part, I did.
I mean, yes, it was a relevant part, but it most certainly was not the relevant part.
(Surely you don’t imagine what the exceptions are and the applicable jurisdiction is irrelevant)
Fine. Since you are not saying women “are slaves” (you weren’t, you were saying women are slaves without the scare quotes) then we are in agreement, no?
We concur: women are not slaves.
Heh. You know https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law ?
Maybe I should make one whenever someone tries to patronisingly condescend at me)
But hey, since I am such a dumbass, perhaps you can elucidate the substance of your supposed distinction.
Can you tell me what, in your opinion, is the salient distinction between law-breaking and its consequences and the content, effects and consequences of the laws themselves?
If you’re feeling generous, do you perhaps care to clarify how my inclusion of the jurisdictional clause is somehow not worth mentioning in your own summation?
(Thanks in advance)
Indeed. I cannot dispute that at all.
So, you assert that women are not slaves and those aren’t slavery laws, right?
You neither said nor meant that. I get that now.
So.
You and I both think it’s false to claim those laws make slaves of women, though I was the only one of the two of us to actually state that, until now.
(Is it not nice to come to a full agreement? All’s well that ends well!)
[meta]
Heh. The kitty is fluffing itself up to look intimidating.
Here I am going on about truthfulness, and you want me to make a false claim?
And not just to lie about it, but to pretend that I am somehow conceding that falsehood.
Of course it’s my choice, O Raging Bee, and I choose not to admit to a falsehood.
—
You know, you yourself could admit to getting upset and annoyed when I point out incorrect claims or failures of inference or quote mining or suchlike. And instead of getting indignant about criticism and going into full “fuck off” bluster mode, you could either accept or dispute the criticism without the pathos.
And now you’re going all “meta” on us? Buh-bye, see ya ’round…
Raging Bee:
Heh. You really are not grasping things, are ya?
Not in the sense you imagine; I directly addressed what you wrote, not stuff about why you wrote it or the applicable circumstances. No.
In this context, the tag [meta] indicates a comment that is not related to the actual post topic related to the topic, but instead (as in this case) the conversation itself.
In short, a comment about the comments yet not about the central topic.
You do that all the time, of course, it’s just that it’s never occurred to you to flag those comments thus.
Heh. I remember I used to have fun with the ‘pitters thus, they even gave me the cognomen “meta Morales” for it. They tried to be feisty, it was fun. I even went there for a bit of banter.
But I digress.
Not even a mediocre quality flounce, that one. Cheer up, though. Chin up! I’ve actually seen worse.
Again, I made a comment @6. One. Every subsequent comment is a response to comments to or about me. As is often the case.
Point being, whether or not you stick your flounce, it won’t change my commenting style.
If I come across a comment that I believe merits a rejoinder, it won’t matter whether it is you or someone else, or even when they announce they have blocked me. It’s not personal ab initio, though of course I don’t cavil at getting personal in return if someone persistently does it to me.
I’m neither a saint nor a masochist.
Be aware that it will stay at that one observation until and unless someone disputes me about it, or opines about me on the basis that I made that comment and about how I made it. You know, what you think is confusing [meta] stuff. Look for yourself, for example, in recent threads. One comment by me, because nobody went on about it. After that, generally a 1-1 ratio of responses to retorts. Takes two to do that.
Anyway, I notice you haven’t disputed what I wrote:
“You and I both think it’s false to claim those laws make slaves of women, though I was the only one of the two of us to actually state that, until now.”
From the principle that silence signifies assent, and from the fact that you commented at me after I made that proposition, it follows that you assent to it.
But then, that’s what I wrote @6, from whence all the hooplah arose. Weird how we ended up arguing about whether or not those laws constitute slavery when we both say that they do not. Ah well.
Anyway. See ya around, no worries, mate!
@captainjack ,32 -- read the first bit of post 12.
[meta + OT]
There you go, captainjack.
The benefits of blinding yourself to me: cf. #48 & #36.
(As they say, ‘ignorance is bliss’)
@Raging Bee, 33: love how you skip blithely past point 1. Then again, I can at least credit you with the wit to realise you’ve lost that one and can’t argue with it -- well done!
Wow, that is a terrible analogy. First of all, what on earth makes you think you have any right to drive a car? There is no such right. And the privilege you are granted by the state to legally operate a motor vehicle can be stripped from you by that same state at a moment’s notice for dozens or hundreds of reasons, temporarily or permanently, and nobody who matters has ANY problem with that because it makes perfect sense. You’re really not very good at this.
#43: “we are not saying women “are slaves;” ”
But…
#4: “Then there are the Red State female slavery laws.” Not “similar to” -- just “slavery laws”.
#4: “Women as slaves without the freedom “. Not “women LIKE slaves”.
#9: “When you don’t have control over your own body or ability to go where you want, what are you? A slave.” Not “what are you like?” -- what ARE you?
Have you actually read what people are reacting to here, or do you just log in and start typing?
Okay…so are any of those statements you quoted actually wrong? Like, if you don’t have ownership or control of your own body, what DOES that make you, if not a slave? I guess you could insist on calling it something else, but that doesn’t change its obvious similarity to slavery. Is loss of self-ownership not really a well-known and relevant characteristic of enslavement? The documented experiences of actual slaves — which does include loss of self-ownership and non-consensual sex and childbearing — strongly suggests it is.
In any case, go ahead and keep on trying to be the conversation police if it makes you feel good…the rest of us will just stay focused on actual reality.
@32 captainjack
I agree, although it takes two to tango. For my part, I think I’ve had enough of this. I’ll be leaving now.
@51: in #43 you said, in theae exact words:
“we are not saying women “are slaves;””
And now you’re saying you are saying that. Do YOU know whether you think that? Because you seem confused… I’m not policing anything (how could i? No power, no jurisdiction), just observing that you and raven engage in counterproductive hyperbole in a situation where the bald reality is already plenty bad enough.
How do you know our rhetoric is “counterproductive?” Do you have actual news or incidents to show this? Or you just another reactionary trying to tell other people how they’re supposed to talk about what’s important to them?
That’s right, focus on one word. Skip lightly past the question about the consistency of what you wrote, you’ve nothing to gain there, other than coming across as more confused.
“How do you know our rhetoric is “counterproductive?””
Is it your perception that you’re successfully making your point? Or do you think actively alienating people who broadly agree with you is productive?
In the news: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/25/abortion-after-rape-laws-bans
I know, it annoys me too that there’s a total for the rape pregnancies but only a monthly figure for the abortions. Still, it’s pretty fucking horrific.