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@Drone: I agree with all of that. I was trying to respect Intro’s wishes and not go off into another direction with the discussion. But I mean, there’s no actual reason somebody with a methotrexate prescription for an autoimmune disorder needs to be affected by Dobbs. Pro-life legislators could have written the legislation more carefully and achieved all of their goals without any of this collateral damage, and I would still think the policy is a disaster.
But right now it feels like there’s nothing the pro-choice side can do very soon, so the next question is just how far are the red states gonna take it. We know they’re almost certain to ban any kind of “family planning” abortion, at least from 6 weeks, and likely from conception - that’s not popular, of course, but somehow that’s never mattered less in our democracy. What’s less certain: what will exceptions for life of the mother look like? What about rape and incest? And maybe scariest, what exactly are they going to try to do about abortion happening in other states?
After that the next question is “how can we stop them?” and I’m afraid to say that question looks pretty bleak to me. All of this stuff is deeply unpopular, so in theory they should pay an electoral penalty. Maybe we can vote them out and reverse the policy at the state level? But I don’t think there’s a serious chance of that in most cases. That’s just not how our politics work anymore.
At the national level I can imagine Democrats with a slightly larger Senate majority creating a narrow filibuster exception to pass a federal abortion protection bill. I’ve talked before about RFRA and the likely possibility that SCOTUS would eventually just throw that out, too, but it would be still worth a lot. Trouble is, Democrats are extremely unlikely to keep the house and expand their Senate majority. If they were prepared to really go to the mat for abortion, and campaign hard on enacting federal legal protections for abortion, they might stand a chance - again, it’s not remotely ambiguous what the *popular* policy would be - but I just don’t think Pelosi or Schumer or basically any of them are capable of it.
GH and plasmid think (if I understand them right) we need to stop putting our hopes in election victories to get the policy change we need. I don’t know what their alternate plan is, but I sure hope it works. I suspect the words “direct action” are involved but I have no idea how that concept would apply in this case. I always get a “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” feeling when they talk about it.
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On July 05 2022 01:09 ChristianS wrote:
@Drone: I agree with all of that. I was trying to respect Intro’s wishes and not go off into another direction with the discussion. But I mean, there’s no actual reason somebody with a methotrexate prescription for an autoimmune disorder needs to be affected by Dobbs. Pro-life legislators could have written the legislation more carefully and achieved all of their goals without any of this collateral damage, and I would still think the policy is a disaster.
But right now it feels like there’s nothing the pro-choice side can do very soon, so the next question is just how far are the red states gonna take it. We know they’re almost certain to ban any kind of “family planning” abortion, at least from 6 weeks, and likely from conception - that’s not popular, of course, but somehow that’s never mattered less in our democracy. What’s less certain: what will exceptions for life of the mother look like? What about rape and incest? And maybe scariest, what exactly are they going to try to do about abortion happening in other states?
After that the next question is “how can we stop them?” and I’m afraid to say that question looks pretty bleak to me. All of this stuff is deeply unpopular, so in theory they should pay an electoral penalty. Maybe we can vote them out and reverse the policy at the state level? But I don’t think there’s a serious chance of that in most cases. That’s just not how our politics work anymore.
At the national level I can imagine Democrats with a slightly larger Senate majority creating a narrow filibuster exception to pass a federal abortion protection bill. I’ve talked before about RFRA and the likely possibility that SCOTUS would eventually just throw that out, too, but it would be still worth a lot. Trouble is, Democrats are extremely unlikely to keep the house and expand their Senate majority. If they were prepared to really go to the mat for abortion, and campaign hard on enacting federal legal protections for abortion, they might stand a chance - again, it’s not remotely ambiguous what the *popular* policy would be - but I just don’t think Pelosi or Schumer or basically any of them are capable of it.
GH and plasmid think (if I understand them right) we need to stop putting our hopes in election victories to get the policy change we need. I don’t know what their alternate plan is, but I sure hope it works. I suspect the words “direct action” are involved but I have no idea how that concept would apply in this case. I always get a “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” feeling when they talk about it.
I've been pushing people to donate or work with abortion networks throughout red states since a lot of them have been around for decades and know what they're doing to make the most change happen outside of the governmental sphere. I hope it's enough
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On July 04 2022 17:34 ChristianS wrote:
I still don’t think you’re understanding how laws work. If states write laws saying terminating pregnancies is murder, and don’t write in explicit exceptions for ectopic pregnancy treatment, what determines whether ectopic pregnancies are legal to treat? Maybe no DA in the state would prosecute. Or if they did, maybe no jury would convict. Does that mean it’s “legal”? Because personally I’d go pretty far out of my way to avoid being tried for murder even if I was quite confident I’d be acquitted. I bet you would, too!
What I “conceded” is that no state that I’m aware of has *explicitly* banned terminating an ectopic pregnancy. In Missouri’s case, that means the question is whether the legal system could prosecute, and if so, whether doctors are willing to take that risk and treat anyway.
I linked a source earlier of a woman who was charged with manslaughter because the DA thought she had caused her own miscarriage with drug use. Did she? Almost certainly not, but she still got 4 years and a felony on her record. Other people are getting civil or criminal penalties for overdosing on fentanyl and transmitting the dose to first responders by touch - even though fentanyl can’t be transmitted by touch.
My point is that “this law could be construed to say what you’re doing is illegal, but that would be an ignorant, short-sighted interpretation “ is still an extremely unsafe place to be. If hospital lawyers were advising doctors to wait until it became a true medical emergency to treat, that’s a cowardly course of action but it might have been good legal advice.
The solution is to enact clear, unambiguous legal protections for this stuff that obviously shouldn’t be illegal, but first the Introverts of the world (ideally the ones in policy-making positions) have to acknowledge the existence of the problem.
To wind this down, I'm saying there is no ambiguity. The legal history is clear and in most states that passed new laws in the last decade, it's explicit. If there are states where hospitals really think it isn't clear it will be dealt with swiftly, this is simply not something pro-life people want to stop, and given what I've said about it so far the reasons should be obvious. If they really are 1/50 pregnancies tbsn I assume that we will quickly find out how many hospitals actually think there's a problem ans get quick clarity from the state AG. I don't even know how many of these stories are real. So no, it seems an extremely individualized problem if it is one at all
On July 04 2022 20:48 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2022 10:48 Introvert wrote:I just don't think the 10 year girl example is a good one for the overall abortion discussion. It's such a vanishingly small number of abortions before these bans went into effect that they aren't great for big policies. They are better discussed as exceptions to more general bans instead of working the other way through. I have sympathy for both positions and while the number of "medically necessary" abortions are very small I could see it being a serious threat to a girl that young. So that's the basis on which I could justify it. But something like 97% of abortions are not health related at all, so it's not the right case through which to make sweeping claims. + Show Spoiler +On July 04 2022 10:06 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2022 09:26 Introvert wrote:On July 04 2022 09:17 ChristianS wrote:On July 04 2022 08:45 Introvert wrote:On July 04 2022 08:24 ChristianS wrote:On July 04 2022 07:55 Introvert wrote:
I'll pop back in here really fast
First, I focused on ectopic pregnancies for two reasons.
1) I had to pick to avoid a sprawling conversation I did not and do not have time for. Bur because it's a relatively common thing, it doesn't seem like dodging to me. Other stuff can be discussed at other times. I in fact briefly talked about things like miscarriages here before.
2) it's getting a lot of attention here and elsewhere, it's not picking a random thing and just zeroing in on that.
But I am in fact right, and at this point everyone has to concede as much. At the time Roe was overturned, and before, no state bans treating ectopic pregnancies and a bunch have that explicitly written into their laws. I don't know how many of those stories are even true. But if they are they are tragedies based on false readings of state law. NOT "ambiguities" in state law but simply false readings of it or ignoring it altogether. If for some reason a hospital is or was confused, that will quickly pass because the law is clear. Current law in Missouri says treating ectopic pregnancies is ok, and there is no law saying otherwise. The Missouri house members who voted on their final bill pointed that as well as the fact that, again, treatment is not an abortion. So any confusion should short lived. There isn't the political will to ban it, as that would be stupid. Every time someone tries or it LOOKS like they are trying it fails.
Tldr, treating ectopic pregnancies is banned nowhere, thanks for the confirmation now don't go around saying that it is, that could be quite bad thanks
Finally, people should remain calm because as I am attempting to point out, much of the anger is based on incorrect or misleading indo. I'm not saying be dispassionate about other's suffering, but that the anger is not grounded in what is actually happening. I want babies to live yes, but I don't want mothers dying because they can't get treatment they need. Thankfully the few legitimate cases of confusion should rapidly decline in frequency as the laws are put into practice. Could you provide a source on the bolded? Because otherwise this whole post says basically nothing. "Doesn't explicitly ban treating ectopic pregnancies" =/= "has provisions for medical emergencies that might or might not protect treating ectopic pregnancies" =/= "explicitly protects treating ectopic pregnancies." Edit: "The treatment isn't abortion" seems like nonsense? The treatment results in the pregnancy not continuing. That's an abortion, no? Not off the top of my head. Last i saw it was actually in a story mentioning the Missouri house legislatures who alao said other state laws protected it. But as I said early, no state pre-Roe laws banned it either, so unless a trigger law explicitly does... I'm not an expert, but it's a different procedure, done on a pregnancy that is never viable. No, a doctor can’t re-implant or move your ectopic pregnancy into your uterus. Ectopic pregnancies can’t grow into fetuses: A pregnancy won’t survive if it’s ectopic, because a fertilized egg can’t grow or survive outside your uterus.
Untreated ectopic pregnancies can cause internal bleeding, infection, and in some cases lead to death. When you have an ectopic pregnancy, it’s extremely important to get treatment from a doctor as soon as possible.
Treating an ectopic pregnancy isn’t the same thing as getting an abortion. Abortion is a medical procedure that when done safely, ends a pregnancy that’s in your uterus. Ectopic pregnancies are unsafely outside of your uterus (usually in the fallopian tubes), and are removed with a medicine called methotrexate or through a laparoscopic surgical procedure. The medical procedures for abortions are not the same as the medical procedures for an ectopic pregnancy.
Ectopic pregnancies are dangerous when left untreated and can’t lead to a baby. If you’re pregnant and have severe pain or bleeding, go to the emergency room right away. If you have any other symptoms of ectopic pregnancy, contact your doctor or nurse as soon as you can. The earlier an ectopic pregnancy is found and treated, the safer you’ll be.
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/pregnancy/ectopic-pregnancyStates have always treated it differently from everything I've read. So... you're not actually claiming that there's explicit legal protections for treating ectopic pregnancies in Missouri law. You're also not claiming there's any settled jurisprudence on whether the text of the Missouri trigger law (which only actually took effect, like, a week ago) could be applied to treating ectopic pregnancies. So you're claiming... what? That a DA probably wouldn't choose to prosecute? That you think if the case is tried, that it's likely to come out in the doctor's favor? You understand that both of those scenarios imply legal risk, right? I don't actually think you're too dense to understand the concept of legal risk, so what is it you're actually saying? And when you've repeatedly asserted it's "not an abortion" you're really just saying "well I wouldn't consider it an abortion because the fetus would have died anyway"? Because some of the treatments clearly do kill the fetus. So all you're actually saying is "ectopic pregnancies are nonviable" which we already knew, so why are you repeating it over and over? I absolutely guarantee "it's only abortion if you kill it in the uterus" is not actually a thing you believe. No, I'm saying I can't source it here on my phone atm. I read that it is protected in Missouri law, I don't have the text of the law. It's not the law they recently passed, if that's the confusion. The link I provided from the biggest abortion provider in the country says they aren't the same, states treat them as not the same, therefore I say, on the basis of authority outside my own, that they are not the same. And vsrious pro-life groups consider them differently. An entopic pregnancy cannot lead to a child being born and is a threat to the woman. Crudely put, that child will be/is dead no matter what. So yes. I can totally draw a distinction between that and an abortion. The status of the fetus as a person/ potentially a person is overridden by those other factors. So you're saying there *is* explicit legal protection for treating ectopic pregnancies in Missouri law that all these hospitals' lawyers missed, you just can't find a source for it? This seems like one of those "big if true" situations. If you ever do find a source I'd love to see it! I have no interest in this semantic distinction, you're welcome to define "abortion" however you like. I doubt you actually put much stock in Planned Parenthood's opinion on this matter or any other, but it sounds like we're in agreement that terminating an ectopic pregnancy is the only moral course, and the law should explicitly and unambiguously exempt doctors and patients from any legal punishment for that treatment. Good! Seems like a real shame that doctors (and their lawyers) in a number of states think they're putting themselves in legal jeopardy doing it, no? Maybe we can extend that same sentiment to people being denied medications like methotrexate because they're potential "abortifacients"? Or to people who had to travel to another state for chemotherapy for the same reason? Seems like some pro-life legislation across the country has put a lot of people in legal jeopardy for no good reason! I'm going out of my way not to bring up other issues that seem pretty flagrant (still haven't heard whether you're okay with the 10-year-old rape victim being forced to carry it to term, for instance) because you seem really eager to escape the discussion. But it sounds like we might be able to find agreement that all these people deserve stronger legal protections, and states that failed to do so should rectify that immediately? To your Missouri question, so far as I know the "confusion" comes from the fact that the 2019 law could be interpreted to ban ectopic treatment but the provision was removed. Therefore, the the recent law they passed doesn't speak to it either way, but other laws in the state specifically allow treatment for entopic pregnancies. So the confusion is from only looking at the 2019 law, basically. That of course assumes that the story is true. Ans I don't know how widespread it is either. At the very worst it will be sorted very quickly. Broadly speaking ok, I do agree that judging the merits of policies based on outliers and edge cases is not the best way to assess them. See voter ID pushes and welfare cutbacks due to fraudulent activities there. The prevalence of those is low enough, and WAY lower than the perception in some quarters that on balance my judgement is that more harm than good is done trying to completely eliminate them. That being said, if I were to directly be asked if a fraudulent vote, or welfare claim is a bad thing, I would be able to instantly answer in the affirmative there. If I had my magic wand I’d do that, I don’t (yet) but I can quite clearly state a position there. If I, on the other hand solely deflected every such question into ‘those are outliers’ without stating my vague moral position, a pretty reasonable conclusion to come to is that I don’t care about those things. It should be very, very easy to say a 10 year old rape victim should be able to get an abortion in that particular circumstance, even if it’s couched in language about keeping it very restrictive overall. I think it consistently follows that if abortion is murder, that doesn’t magically change in such cases. I would also assume that some people who hold the initial position will also follow that line of logic. How many and how influential? I don’t know. I would happily wager that a sizeable chunk the most zealous types who harass women at clinics with ‘abortion is murder’ think that child rape victims should carry to term, but it’s a moral position they refuse to own because it’s not exactly a good look. Abortion repeal is the GOP’s baby, gestating over decades. There were laws already on the books. Either they somehow failed to consider many eventualities, or at least codify them properly, or in some cases that was actually an intended consequence. They can go back and fine tune in the former case, it’s really rather simple.
I actually did discuss that question about rape before, back when the draft leaked I thought, at least i thought i did. It is like Drone said, many prolifers, idk about most, still oppose those exceptions. So do I, in principle. But they are such a small percentage of abortions that if allowing those exceptions makes banning the rest more feasible, then I'm ok with it. I just think it wasn't relevant to what we were discussing or being asked.
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On July 05 2022 01:15 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2022 17:34 ChristianS wrote:
I still don’t think you’re understanding how laws work. If states write laws saying terminating pregnancies is murder, and don’t write in explicit exceptions for ectopic pregnancy treatment, what determines whether ectopic pregnancies are legal to treat? Maybe no DA in the state would prosecute. Or if they did, maybe no jury would convict. Does that mean it’s “legal”? Because personally I’d go pretty far out of my way to avoid being tried for murder even if I was quite confident I’d be acquitted. I bet you would, too!
What I “conceded” is that no state that I’m aware of has *explicitly* banned terminating an ectopic pregnancy. In Missouri’s case, that means the question is whether the legal system could prosecute, and if so, whether doctors are willing to take that risk and treat anyway.
I linked a source earlier of a woman who was charged with manslaughter because the DA thought she had caused her own miscarriage with drug use. Did she? Almost certainly not, but she still got 4 years and a felony on her record. Other people are getting civil or criminal penalties for overdosing on fentanyl and transmitting the dose to first responders by touch - even though fentanyl can’t be transmitted by touch.
My point is that “this law could be construed to say what you’re doing is illegal, but that would be an ignorant, short-sighted interpretation “ is still an extremely unsafe place to be. If hospital lawyers were advising doctors to wait until it became a true medical emergency to treat, that’s a cowardly course of action but it might have been good legal advice.
The solution is to enact clear, unambiguous legal protections for this stuff that obviously shouldn’t be illegal, but first the Introverts of the world (ideally the ones in policy-making positions) have to acknowledge the existence of the problem. To wind this down, I'm saying there is no ambiguity. The legal history is clear and in most states that passed new laws in the last decade, it's explicit. If there are states where hospitals really think it isn't clear it will be dealt with swiftly, this is simply not something pro-life people want to stop, and given what I've said about it so far the reasons should be obvious. If they really are 1/50 pregnancies tbsn I assume that we will quickly find out how many hospitals actually think there's a problem ans get quick clarity from the state AG. I don't even know how many of these stories are real. So no, it seems an extremely individualized problem if it is one at all Show nested quote +On July 04 2022 20:48 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2022 10:48 Introvert wrote:I just don't think the 10 year girl example is a good one for the overall abortion discussion. It's such a vanishingly small number of abortions before these bans went into effect that they aren't great for big policies. They are better discussed as exceptions to more general bans instead of working the other way through. I have sympathy for both positions and while the number of "medically necessary" abortions are very small I could see it being a serious threat to a girl that young. So that's the basis on which I could justify it. But something like 97% of abortions are not health related at all, so it's not the right case through which to make sweeping claims. + Show Spoiler +On July 04 2022 10:06 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2022 09:26 Introvert wrote:On July 04 2022 09:17 ChristianS wrote:On July 04 2022 08:45 Introvert wrote:On July 04 2022 08:24 ChristianS wrote:On July 04 2022 07:55 Introvert wrote:
I'll pop back in here really fast
First, I focused on ectopic pregnancies for two reasons.
1) I had to pick to avoid a sprawling conversation I did not and do not have time for. Bur because it's a relatively common thing, it doesn't seem like dodging to me. Other stuff can be discussed at other times. I in fact briefly talked about things like miscarriages here before.
2) it's getting a lot of attention here and elsewhere, it's not picking a random thing and just zeroing in on that.
But I am in fact right, and at this point everyone has to concede as much. At the time Roe was overturned, and before, no state bans treating ectopic pregnancies and a bunch have that explicitly written into their laws. I don't know how many of those stories are even true. But if they are they are tragedies based on false readings of state law. NOT "ambiguities" in state law but simply false readings of it or ignoring it altogether. If for some reason a hospital is or was confused, that will quickly pass because the law is clear. Current law in Missouri says treating ectopic pregnancies is ok, and there is no law saying otherwise. The Missouri house members who voted on their final bill pointed that as well as the fact that, again, treatment is not an abortion. So any confusion should short lived. There isn't the political will to ban it, as that would be stupid. Every time someone tries or it LOOKS like they are trying it fails.
Tldr, treating ectopic pregnancies is banned nowhere, thanks for the confirmation now don't go around saying that it is, that could be quite bad thanks
Finally, people should remain calm because as I am attempting to point out, much of the anger is based on incorrect or misleading indo. I'm not saying be dispassionate about other's suffering, but that the anger is not grounded in what is actually happening. I want babies to live yes, but I don't want mothers dying because they can't get treatment they need. Thankfully the few legitimate cases of confusion should rapidly decline in frequency as the laws are put into practice. Could you provide a source on the bolded? Because otherwise this whole post says basically nothing. "Doesn't explicitly ban treating ectopic pregnancies" =/= "has provisions for medical emergencies that might or might not protect treating ectopic pregnancies" =/= "explicitly protects treating ectopic pregnancies." Edit: "The treatment isn't abortion" seems like nonsense? The treatment results in the pregnancy not continuing. That's an abortion, no? Not off the top of my head. Last i saw it was actually in a story mentioning the Missouri house legislatures who alao said other state laws protected it. But as I said early, no state pre-Roe laws banned it either, so unless a trigger law explicitly does... I'm not an expert, but it's a different procedure, done on a pregnancy that is never viable. No, a doctor can’t re-implant or move your ectopic pregnancy into your uterus. Ectopic pregnancies can’t grow into fetuses: A pregnancy won’t survive if it’s ectopic, because a fertilized egg can’t grow or survive outside your uterus.
Untreated ectopic pregnancies can cause internal bleeding, infection, and in some cases lead to death. When you have an ectopic pregnancy, it’s extremely important to get treatment from a doctor as soon as possible.
Treating an ectopic pregnancy isn’t the same thing as getting an abortion. Abortion is a medical procedure that when done safely, ends a pregnancy that’s in your uterus. Ectopic pregnancies are unsafely outside of your uterus (usually in the fallopian tubes), and are removed with a medicine called methotrexate or through a laparoscopic surgical procedure. The medical procedures for abortions are not the same as the medical procedures for an ectopic pregnancy.
Ectopic pregnancies are dangerous when left untreated and can’t lead to a baby. If you’re pregnant and have severe pain or bleeding, go to the emergency room right away. If you have any other symptoms of ectopic pregnancy, contact your doctor or nurse as soon as you can. The earlier an ectopic pregnancy is found and treated, the safer you’ll be.
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/pregnancy/ectopic-pregnancyStates have always treated it differently from everything I've read. So... you're not actually claiming that there's explicit legal protections for treating ectopic pregnancies in Missouri law. You're also not claiming there's any settled jurisprudence on whether the text of the Missouri trigger law (which only actually took effect, like, a week ago) could be applied to treating ectopic pregnancies. So you're claiming... what? That a DA probably wouldn't choose to prosecute? That you think if the case is tried, that it's likely to come out in the doctor's favor? You understand that both of those scenarios imply legal risk, right? I don't actually think you're too dense to understand the concept of legal risk, so what is it you're actually saying? And when you've repeatedly asserted it's "not an abortion" you're really just saying "well I wouldn't consider it an abortion because the fetus would have died anyway"? Because some of the treatments clearly do kill the fetus. So all you're actually saying is "ectopic pregnancies are nonviable" which we already knew, so why are you repeating it over and over? I absolutely guarantee "it's only abortion if you kill it in the uterus" is not actually a thing you believe. No, I'm saying I can't source it here on my phone atm. I read that it is protected in Missouri law, I don't have the text of the law. It's not the law they recently passed, if that's the confusion. The link I provided from the biggest abortion provider in the country says they aren't the same, states treat them as not the same, therefore I say, on the basis of authority outside my own, that they are not the same. And vsrious pro-life groups consider them differently. An entopic pregnancy cannot lead to a child being born and is a threat to the woman. Crudely put, that child will be/is dead no matter what. So yes. I can totally draw a distinction between that and an abortion. The status of the fetus as a person/ potentially a person is overridden by those other factors. So you're saying there *is* explicit legal protection for treating ectopic pregnancies in Missouri law that all these hospitals' lawyers missed, you just can't find a source for it? This seems like one of those "big if true" situations. If you ever do find a source I'd love to see it! I have no interest in this semantic distinction, you're welcome to define "abortion" however you like. I doubt you actually put much stock in Planned Parenthood's opinion on this matter or any other, but it sounds like we're in agreement that terminating an ectopic pregnancy is the only moral course, and the law should explicitly and unambiguously exempt doctors and patients from any legal punishment for that treatment. Good! Seems like a real shame that doctors (and their lawyers) in a number of states think they're putting themselves in legal jeopardy doing it, no? Maybe we can extend that same sentiment to people being denied medications like methotrexate because they're potential "abortifacients"? Or to people who had to travel to another state for chemotherapy for the same reason? Seems like some pro-life legislation across the country has put a lot of people in legal jeopardy for no good reason! I'm going out of my way not to bring up other issues that seem pretty flagrant (still haven't heard whether you're okay with the 10-year-old rape victim being forced to carry it to term, for instance) because you seem really eager to escape the discussion. But it sounds like we might be able to find agreement that all these people deserve stronger legal protections, and states that failed to do so should rectify that immediately? To your Missouri question, so far as I know the "confusion" comes from the fact that the 2019 law could be interpreted to ban ectopic treatment but the provision was removed. Therefore, the the recent law they passed doesn't speak to it either way, but other laws in the state specifically allow treatment for entopic pregnancies. So the confusion is from only looking at the 2019 law, basically. That of course assumes that the story is true. Ans I don't know how widespread it is either. At the very worst it will be sorted very quickly. Broadly speaking ok, I do agree that judging the merits of policies based on outliers and edge cases is not the best way to assess them. See voter ID pushes and welfare cutbacks due to fraudulent activities there. The prevalence of those is low enough, and WAY lower than the perception in some quarters that on balance my judgement is that more harm than good is done trying to completely eliminate them. That being said, if I were to directly be asked if a fraudulent vote, or welfare claim is a bad thing, I would be able to instantly answer in the affirmative there. If I had my magic wand I’d do that, I don’t (yet) but I can quite clearly state a position there. If I, on the other hand solely deflected every such question into ‘those are outliers’ without stating my vague moral position, a pretty reasonable conclusion to come to is that I don’t care about those things. It should be very, very easy to say a 10 year old rape victim should be able to get an abortion in that particular circumstance, even if it’s couched in language about keeping it very restrictive overall. I think it consistently follows that if abortion is murder, that doesn’t magically change in such cases. I would also assume that some people who hold the initial position will also follow that line of logic. How many and how influential? I don’t know. I would happily wager that a sizeable chunk the most zealous types who harass women at clinics with ‘abortion is murder’ think that child rape victims should carry to term, but it’s a moral position they refuse to own because it’s not exactly a good look. Abortion repeal is the GOP’s baby, gestating over decades. There were laws already on the books. Either they somehow failed to consider many eventualities, or at least codify them properly, or in some cases that was actually an intended consequence. They can go back and fine tune in the former case, it’s really rather simple. I actually did discuss that question about rape before, back when the draft leaked I thought, at least i thought i did. It is like Drone said, many prolifers, idk about most, still oppose those exceptions. So do I, in principle. But they are such a small percentage of abortions that if allowing those exceptions makes banning the rest more feasible, then I'm ok with it. I just think it wasn't relevant to what we were discussing or being asked. Ah yes, the Republican plan to clarify their abortion laws to reduce ambiguity. I'm sure that will materialize shortly after the Republican plan for what they want to replace to the ACA with after they repeal it.
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On July 05 2022 01:09 ChristianS wrote:
@Drone: I agree with all of that. I was trying to respect Intro’s wishes and not go off into another direction with the discussion. But I mean, there’s no actual reason somebody with a methotrexate prescription for an autoimmune disorder needs to be affected by Dobbs. Pro-life legislators could have written the legislation more carefully and achieved all of their goals without any of this collateral damage, and I would still think the policy is a disaster.
But right now it feels like there’s nothing the pro-choice side can do very soon, so the next question is just how far are the red states gonna take it. We know they’re almost certain to ban any kind of “family planning” abortion, at least from 6 weeks, and likely from conception - that’s not popular, of course, but somehow that’s never mattered less in our democracy. What’s less certain: what will exceptions for life of the mother look like? What about rape and incest? And maybe scariest, what exactly are they going to try to do about abortion happening in other states?
After that the next question is “how can we stop them?” and I’m afraid to say that question looks pretty bleak to me. All of this stuff is deeply unpopular, so in theory they should pay an electoral penalty. Maybe we can vote them out and reverse the policy at the state level? But I don’t think there’s a serious chance of that in most cases. That’s just not how our politics work anymore.
At the national level I can imagine Democrats with a slightly larger Senate majority creating a narrow filibuster exception to pass a federal abortion protection bill. I’ve talked before about RFRA and the likely possibility that SCOTUS would eventually just throw that out, too, but it would be still worth a lot. Trouble is, Democrats are extremely unlikely to keep the house and expand their Senate majority. If they were prepared to really go to the mat for abortion, and campaign hard on enacting federal legal protections for abortion, they might stand a chance - again, it’s not remotely ambiguous what the *popular* policy would be - but I just don’t think Pelosi or Schumer or basically any of them are capable of it.
GH and plasmid think (if I understand them right) we need to stop putting our hopes in election victories to get the policy change we need. I don’t know what their alternate plan is, but I sure hope it works. I suspect the words “direct action” are involved but I have no idea how that concept would apply in this case. I always get a “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” feeling when they talk about it.
I think we're still at the "more people need to accept the reality that they need an alternative plan" stage but I'd echo plasmid's suggestions and add that organizing one's workplace is another excellent place to take action.
Rather than blind hope I'd suggest contributing to/engaging with the work/research yourself though.
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Northern Ireland25458 Posts
On July 05 2022 01:15 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2022 17:34 ChristianS wrote:
I still don’t think you’re understanding how laws work. If states write laws saying terminating pregnancies is murder, and don’t write in explicit exceptions for ectopic pregnancy treatment, what determines whether ectopic pregnancies are legal to treat? Maybe no DA in the state would prosecute. Or if they did, maybe no jury would convict. Does that mean it’s “legal”? Because personally I’d go pretty far out of my way to avoid being tried for murder even if I was quite confident I’d be acquitted. I bet you would, too!
What I “conceded” is that no state that I’m aware of has *explicitly* banned terminating an ectopic pregnancy. In Missouri’s case, that means the question is whether the legal system could prosecute, and if so, whether doctors are willing to take that risk and treat anyway.
I linked a source earlier of a woman who was charged with manslaughter because the DA thought she had caused her own miscarriage with drug use. Did she? Almost certainly not, but she still got 4 years and a felony on her record. Other people are getting civil or criminal penalties for overdosing on fentanyl and transmitting the dose to first responders by touch - even though fentanyl can’t be transmitted by touch.
My point is that “this law could be construed to say what you’re doing is illegal, but that would be an ignorant, short-sighted interpretation “ is still an extremely unsafe place to be. If hospital lawyers were advising doctors to wait until it became a true medical emergency to treat, that’s a cowardly course of action but it might have been good legal advice.
The solution is to enact clear, unambiguous legal protections for this stuff that obviously shouldn’t be illegal, but first the Introverts of the world (ideally the ones in policy-making positions) have to acknowledge the existence of the problem. To wind this down, I'm saying there is no ambiguity. The legal history is clear and in most states that passed new laws in the last decade, it's explicit. If there are states where hospitals really think it isn't clear it will be dealt with swiftly, this is simply not something pro-life people want to stop, and given what I've said about it so far the reasons should be obvious. If they really are 1/50 pregnancies tbsn I assume that we will quickly find out how many hospitals actually think there's a problem ans get quick clarity from the state AG. I don't even know how many of these stories are real. So no, it seems an extremely individualized problem if it is one at all Show nested quote +On July 04 2022 20:48 WombaT wrote:On July 04 2022 10:48 Introvert wrote:I just don't think the 10 year girl example is a good one for the overall abortion discussion. It's such a vanishingly small number of abortions before these bans went into effect that they aren't great for big policies. They are better discussed as exceptions to more general bans instead of working the other way through. I have sympathy for both positions and while the number of "medically necessary" abortions are very small I could see it being a serious threat to a girl that young. So that's the basis on which I could justify it. But something like 97% of abortions are not health related at all, so it's not the right case through which to make sweeping claims. + Show Spoiler +On July 04 2022 10:06 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2022 09:26 Introvert wrote:On July 04 2022 09:17 ChristianS wrote:On July 04 2022 08:45 Introvert wrote:On July 04 2022 08:24 ChristianS wrote:On July 04 2022 07:55 Introvert wrote:
I'll pop back in here really fast
First, I focused on ectopic pregnancies for two reasons.
1) I had to pick to avoid a sprawling conversation I did not and do not have time for. Bur because it's a relatively common thing, it doesn't seem like dodging to me. Other stuff can be discussed at other times. I in fact briefly talked about things like miscarriages here before.
2) it's getting a lot of attention here and elsewhere, it's not picking a random thing and just zeroing in on that.
But I am in fact right, and at this point everyone has to concede as much. At the time Roe was overturned, and before, no state bans treating ectopic pregnancies and a bunch have that explicitly written into their laws. I don't know how many of those stories are even true. But if they are they are tragedies based on false readings of state law. NOT "ambiguities" in state law but simply false readings of it or ignoring it altogether. If for some reason a hospital is or was confused, that will quickly pass because the law is clear. Current law in Missouri says treating ectopic pregnancies is ok, and there is no law saying otherwise. The Missouri house members who voted on their final bill pointed that as well as the fact that, again, treatment is not an abortion. So any confusion should short lived. There isn't the political will to ban it, as that would be stupid. Every time someone tries or it LOOKS like they are trying it fails.
Tldr, treating ectopic pregnancies is banned nowhere, thanks for the confirmation now don't go around saying that it is, that could be quite bad thanks
Finally, people should remain calm because as I am attempting to point out, much of the anger is based on incorrect or misleading indo. I'm not saying be dispassionate about other's suffering, but that the anger is not grounded in what is actually happening. I want babies to live yes, but I don't want mothers dying because they can't get treatment they need. Thankfully the few legitimate cases of confusion should rapidly decline in frequency as the laws are put into practice. Could you provide a source on the bolded? Because otherwise this whole post says basically nothing. "Doesn't explicitly ban treating ectopic pregnancies" =/= "has provisions for medical emergencies that might or might not protect treating ectopic pregnancies" =/= "explicitly protects treating ectopic pregnancies." Edit: "The treatment isn't abortion" seems like nonsense? The treatment results in the pregnancy not continuing. That's an abortion, no? Not off the top of my head. Last i saw it was actually in a story mentioning the Missouri house legislatures who alao said other state laws protected it. But as I said early, no state pre-Roe laws banned it either, so unless a trigger law explicitly does... I'm not an expert, but it's a different procedure, done on a pregnancy that is never viable. No, a doctor can’t re-implant or move your ectopic pregnancy into your uterus. Ectopic pregnancies can’t grow into fetuses: A pregnancy won’t survive if it’s ectopic, because a fertilized egg can’t grow or survive outside your uterus.
Untreated ectopic pregnancies can cause internal bleeding, infection, and in some cases lead to death. When you have an ectopic pregnancy, it’s extremely important to get treatment from a doctor as soon as possible.
Treating an ectopic pregnancy isn’t the same thing as getting an abortion. Abortion is a medical procedure that when done safely, ends a pregnancy that’s in your uterus. Ectopic pregnancies are unsafely outside of your uterus (usually in the fallopian tubes), and are removed with a medicine called methotrexate or through a laparoscopic surgical procedure. The medical procedures for abortions are not the same as the medical procedures for an ectopic pregnancy.
Ectopic pregnancies are dangerous when left untreated and can’t lead to a baby. If you’re pregnant and have severe pain or bleeding, go to the emergency room right away. If you have any other symptoms of ectopic pregnancy, contact your doctor or nurse as soon as you can. The earlier an ectopic pregnancy is found and treated, the safer you’ll be.
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/pregnancy/ectopic-pregnancyStates have always treated it differently from everything I've read. So... you're not actually claiming that there's explicit legal protections for treating ectopic pregnancies in Missouri law. You're also not claiming there's any settled jurisprudence on whether the text of the Missouri trigger law (which only actually took effect, like, a week ago) could be applied to treating ectopic pregnancies. So you're claiming... what? That a DA probably wouldn't choose to prosecute? That you think if the case is tried, that it's likely to come out in the doctor's favor? You understand that both of those scenarios imply legal risk, right? I don't actually think you're too dense to understand the concept of legal risk, so what is it you're actually saying? And when you've repeatedly asserted it's "not an abortion" you're really just saying "well I wouldn't consider it an abortion because the fetus would have died anyway"? Because some of the treatments clearly do kill the fetus. So all you're actually saying is "ectopic pregnancies are nonviable" which we already knew, so why are you repeating it over and over? I absolutely guarantee "it's only abortion if you kill it in the uterus" is not actually a thing you believe. No, I'm saying I can't source it here on my phone atm. I read that it is protected in Missouri law, I don't have the text of the law. It's not the law they recently passed, if that's the confusion. The link I provided from the biggest abortion provider in the country says they aren't the same, states treat them as not the same, therefore I say, on the basis of authority outside my own, that they are not the same. And vsrious pro-life groups consider them differently. An entopic pregnancy cannot lead to a child being born and is a threat to the woman. Crudely put, that child will be/is dead no matter what. So yes. I can totally draw a distinction between that and an abortion. The status of the fetus as a person/ potentially a person is overridden by those other factors. So you're saying there *is* explicit legal protection for treating ectopic pregnancies in Missouri law that all these hospitals' lawyers missed, you just can't find a source for it? This seems like one of those "big if true" situations. If you ever do find a source I'd love to see it! I have no interest in this semantic distinction, you're welcome to define "abortion" however you like. I doubt you actually put much stock in Planned Parenthood's opinion on this matter or any other, but it sounds like we're in agreement that terminating an ectopic pregnancy is the only moral course, and the law should explicitly and unambiguously exempt doctors and patients from any legal punishment for that treatment. Good! Seems like a real shame that doctors (and their lawyers) in a number of states think they're putting themselves in legal jeopardy doing it, no? Maybe we can extend that same sentiment to people being denied medications like methotrexate because they're potential "abortifacients"? Or to people who had to travel to another state for chemotherapy for the same reason? Seems like some pro-life legislation across the country has put a lot of people in legal jeopardy for no good reason! I'm going out of my way not to bring up other issues that seem pretty flagrant (still haven't heard whether you're okay with the 10-year-old rape victim being forced to carry it to term, for instance) because you seem really eager to escape the discussion. But it sounds like we might be able to find agreement that all these people deserve stronger legal protections, and states that failed to do so should rectify that immediately? To your Missouri question, so far as I know the "confusion" comes from the fact that the 2019 law could be interpreted to ban ectopic treatment but the provision was removed. Therefore, the the recent law they passed doesn't speak to it either way, but other laws in the state specifically allow treatment for entopic pregnancies. So the confusion is from only looking at the 2019 law, basically. That of course assumes that the story is true. Ans I don't know how widespread it is either. At the very worst it will be sorted very quickly. Broadly speaking ok, I do agree that judging the merits of policies based on outliers and edge cases is not the best way to assess them. See voter ID pushes and welfare cutbacks due to fraudulent activities there. The prevalence of those is low enough, and WAY lower than the perception in some quarters that on balance my judgement is that more harm than good is done trying to completely eliminate them. That being said, if I were to directly be asked if a fraudulent vote, or welfare claim is a bad thing, I would be able to instantly answer in the affirmative there. If I had my magic wand I’d do that, I don’t (yet) but I can quite clearly state a position there. If I, on the other hand solely deflected every such question into ‘those are outliers’ without stating my vague moral position, a pretty reasonable conclusion to come to is that I don’t care about those things. It should be very, very easy to say a 10 year old rape victim should be able to get an abortion in that particular circumstance, even if it’s couched in language about keeping it very restrictive overall. I think it consistently follows that if abortion is murder, that doesn’t magically change in such cases. I would also assume that some people who hold the initial position will also follow that line of logic. How many and how influential? I don’t know. I would happily wager that a sizeable chunk the most zealous types who harass women at clinics with ‘abortion is murder’ think that child rape victims should carry to term, but it’s a moral position they refuse to own because it’s not exactly a good look. Abortion repeal is the GOP’s baby, gestating over decades. There were laws already on the books. Either they somehow failed to consider many eventualities, or at least codify them properly, or in some cases that was actually an intended consequence. They can go back and fine tune in the former case, it’s really rather simple. I actually did discuss that question about rape before, back when the draft leaked I thought, at least i thought i did. It is like Drone said, many prolifers, idk about most, still oppose those exceptions. So do I, in principle. But they are such a small percentage of abortions that if allowing those exceptions makes banning the rest more feasible, then I'm ok with it. I just think it wasn't relevant to what we were discussing or being asked.
You may have done and I may have missed that particular exchange, or not recalled it or your position on it.
I hope my post didn’t give the impression of personal criticism as opposed to a more generalistic observation, as was the intent.
On the flip side, if banning more general elective abortion is feasible without zoning out exceptions, then it would follow that that hypothetical is preferable yes?
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It's actually insane just how many mass shootings there are in the US and knowing that nothing will change for the better anytime soon
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On July 05 2022 01:51 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2022 01:09 ChristianS wrote:
@Drone: I agree with all of that. I was trying to respect Intro’s wishes and not go off into another direction with the discussion. But I mean, there’s no actual reason somebody with a methotrexate prescription for an autoimmune disorder needs to be affected by Dobbs. Pro-life legislators could have written the legislation more carefully and achieved all of their goals without any of this collateral damage, and I would still think the policy is a disaster.
But right now it feels like there’s nothing the pro-choice side can do very soon, so the next question is just how far are the red states gonna take it. We know they’re almost certain to ban any kind of “family planning” abortion, at least from 6 weeks, and likely from conception - that’s not popular, of course, but somehow that’s never mattered less in our democracy. What’s less certain: what will exceptions for life of the mother look like? What about rape and incest? And maybe scariest, what exactly are they going to try to do about abortion happening in other states?
After that the next question is “how can we stop them?” and I’m afraid to say that question looks pretty bleak to me. All of this stuff is deeply unpopular, so in theory they should pay an electoral penalty. Maybe we can vote them out and reverse the policy at the state level? But I don’t think there’s a serious chance of that in most cases. That’s just not how our politics work anymore.
At the national level I can imagine Democrats with a slightly larger Senate majority creating a narrow filibuster exception to pass a federal abortion protection bill. I’ve talked before about RFRA and the likely possibility that SCOTUS would eventually just throw that out, too, but it would be still worth a lot. Trouble is, Democrats are extremely unlikely to keep the house and expand their Senate majority. If they were prepared to really go to the mat for abortion, and campaign hard on enacting federal legal protections for abortion, they might stand a chance - again, it’s not remotely ambiguous what the *popular* policy would be - but I just don’t think Pelosi or Schumer or basically any of them are capable of it.
GH and plasmid think (if I understand them right) we need to stop putting our hopes in election victories to get the policy change we need. I don’t know what their alternate plan is, but I sure hope it works. I suspect the words “direct action” are involved but I have no idea how that concept would apply in this case. I always get a “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” feeling when they talk about it. I think we're still at the "more people need to accept the reality that they need an alternative plan" stage but I'd echo plasmid's suggestions and add that organizing one's workplace is another excellent place to take action. Rather than blind hope I'd suggest contributing to/engaging with the work/research yourself though.
Yeah, I should probably donate. If either of you have specific orgs you’d suggest donating to, feel free to post or PM them. No clue how to go about organizing my workplace, about this specifically or just in general.
Believe me, it doesn’t make me feel good about myself or the world to blindly hope people like you and plasmid have some other way of fixing things I don’t know about. I’ve tried some to learn more about what people mean by “mutual aid” or “direct action” but I still don’t see a path.
A (only somewhat related) confession: one of the only books I’ve tried to read in the last few years is Pedagogy of the Oppressed. I got a hundred something pages in but I was mostly just deeply confused. I wanna try again at some point but the idea of trying to push through all that and figure out what the hell “dialectic” means in this context while I’m also trying to work and make sure all my bills are paid and everything else just feels like such a heavy lift. Like, I’ve said a lot of times that financial system talk makes my head go fuzzy, and it does. But I’m so much less confused by something like “subprime mortgage” than I am by something like
Problem-posing education, as a humanist and liberating praxis, posits as fundamental that the people subjected to domination must fight for their emancipation. To that end, it enables teachers and students to become Subjects of the educational process by overcoming authoritarianism and an alienating intellectualism; it also enables people to overcome their false perception of reality. The world - no longer something to be described by deceptive words - becomes the object of that transforming action by men and women which results in their humanization.
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On July 05 2022 02:56 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2022 01:51 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 05 2022 01:09 ChristianS wrote:
@Drone: I agree with all of that. I was trying to respect Intro’s wishes and not go off into another direction with the discussion. But I mean, there’s no actual reason somebody with a methotrexate prescription for an autoimmune disorder needs to be affected by Dobbs. Pro-life legislators could have written the legislation more carefully and achieved all of their goals without any of this collateral damage, and I would still think the policy is a disaster.
But right now it feels like there’s nothing the pro-choice side can do very soon, so the next question is just how far are the red states gonna take it. We know they’re almost certain to ban any kind of “family planning” abortion, at least from 6 weeks, and likely from conception - that’s not popular, of course, but somehow that’s never mattered less in our democracy. What’s less certain: what will exceptions for life of the mother look like? What about rape and incest? And maybe scariest, what exactly are they going to try to do about abortion happening in other states?
After that the next question is “how can we stop them?” and I’m afraid to say that question looks pretty bleak to me. All of this stuff is deeply unpopular, so in theory they should pay an electoral penalty. Maybe we can vote them out and reverse the policy at the state level? But I don’t think there’s a serious chance of that in most cases. That’s just not how our politics work anymore.
At the national level I can imagine Democrats with a slightly larger Senate majority creating a narrow filibuster exception to pass a federal abortion protection bill. I’ve talked before about RFRA and the likely possibility that SCOTUS would eventually just throw that out, too, but it would be still worth a lot. Trouble is, Democrats are extremely unlikely to keep the house and expand their Senate majority. If they were prepared to really go to the mat for abortion, and campaign hard on enacting federal legal protections for abortion, they might stand a chance - again, it’s not remotely ambiguous what the *popular* policy would be - but I just don’t think Pelosi or Schumer or basically any of them are capable of it.
GH and plasmid think (if I understand them right) we need to stop putting our hopes in election victories to get the policy change we need. I don’t know what their alternate plan is, but I sure hope it works. I suspect the words “direct action” are involved but I have no idea how that concept would apply in this case. I always get a “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” feeling when they talk about it. I think we're still at the "more people need to accept the reality that they need an alternative plan" stage but I'd echo plasmid's suggestions and add that organizing one's workplace is another excellent place to take action. Rather than blind hope I'd suggest contributing to/engaging with the work/research yourself though. Yeah, I should probably donate. If either of you have specific orgs you’d suggest donating to, feel free to post or PM them. No clue how to go about organizing my workplace, about this specifically or just in general. Believe me, it doesn’t make me feel good about myself or the world to blindly hope people like you and plasmid have some other way of fixing things I don’t know about. I’ve tried some to learn more about what people mean by “mutual aid” or “direct action” but I still don’t see a path. A (only somewhat related) confession: one of the only books I’ve tried to read in the last few years is Pedagogy of the Oppressed. I got a hundred something pages in but I was mostly just deeply confused. I wanna try again at some point but the idea of trying to push through all that and figure out what the hell “dialectic” means in this context while I’m also trying to work and make sure all my bills are paid and everything else just feels like such a heavy lift. Like, I’ve said a lot of times that financial system talk makes my head go fuzzy, and it does. But I’m so much less confused by something like “subprime mortgage” than I am by something like Show nested quote +Problem-posing education, as a humanist and liberating praxis, posits as fundamental that the people subjected to domination must fight for their emancipation. To that end, it enables teachers and students to become Subjects of the educational process by overcoming authoritarianism and an alienating intellectualism; it also enables people to overcome their false perception of reality. The world - no longer something to be described by deceptive words - becomes the object of that transforming action by men and women which results in their humanization.
I still cling to that hope that we can make a better world through uniting and supporting one another while demanding better from our government and society. There are more radical actions that can be taken, of course, but they involve a lot of destruction.
My issue with reading theory and books like that is that a lot of them aren't accessible to the working class. I take what I read and do my best to translate what they say into clear and concise real-world examples and experiences that most people can understand. And it's not calling the working class dumb, of course, because they absolutely can grasp it, it's just recognizing that due to stress, time commitments, and other factors, it's unreasonable to tell someone to read or listen to hundreds of pages of high-level theory, especially when a far more effective method is talking to them in-person or directly online, getting to understand their experiences, and how they can be helped by class consciousness and leftist policies.
As for the quote, here's my best summary of it: If you teach someone about their oppression without using the euphemisms of the oppressor, they become free human beings and can fight against their oppressors.
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On July 05 2022 03:16 plasmidghost wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2022 02:56 ChristianS wrote:On July 05 2022 01:51 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 05 2022 01:09 ChristianS wrote:
@Drone: I agree with all of that. I was trying to respect Intro’s wishes and not go off into another direction with the discussion. But I mean, there’s no actual reason somebody with a methotrexate prescription for an autoimmune disorder needs to be affected by Dobbs. Pro-life legislators could have written the legislation more carefully and achieved all of their goals without any of this collateral damage, and I would still think the policy is a disaster.
But right now it feels like there’s nothing the pro-choice side can do very soon, so the next question is just how far are the red states gonna take it. We know they’re almost certain to ban any kind of “family planning” abortion, at least from 6 weeks, and likely from conception - that’s not popular, of course, but somehow that’s never mattered less in our democracy. What’s less certain: what will exceptions for life of the mother look like? What about rape and incest? And maybe scariest, what exactly are they going to try to do about abortion happening in other states?
After that the next question is “how can we stop them?” and I’m afraid to say that question looks pretty bleak to me. All of this stuff is deeply unpopular, so in theory they should pay an electoral penalty. Maybe we can vote them out and reverse the policy at the state level? But I don’t think there’s a serious chance of that in most cases. That’s just not how our politics work anymore.
At the national level I can imagine Democrats with a slightly larger Senate majority creating a narrow filibuster exception to pass a federal abortion protection bill. I’ve talked before about RFRA and the likely possibility that SCOTUS would eventually just throw that out, too, but it would be still worth a lot. Trouble is, Democrats are extremely unlikely to keep the house and expand their Senate majority. If they were prepared to really go to the mat for abortion, and campaign hard on enacting federal legal protections for abortion, they might stand a chance - again, it’s not remotely ambiguous what the *popular* policy would be - but I just don’t think Pelosi or Schumer or basically any of them are capable of it.
GH and plasmid think (if I understand them right) we need to stop putting our hopes in election victories to get the policy change we need. I don’t know what their alternate plan is, but I sure hope it works. I suspect the words “direct action” are involved but I have no idea how that concept would apply in this case. I always get a “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” feeling when they talk about it. I think we're still at the "more people need to accept the reality that they need an alternative plan" stage but I'd echo plasmid's suggestions and add that organizing one's workplace is another excellent place to take action. Rather than blind hope I'd suggest contributing to/engaging with the work/research yourself though. Yeah, I should probably donate. If either of you have specific orgs you’d suggest donating to, feel free to post or PM them. No clue how to go about organizing my workplace, about this specifically or just in general. Believe me, it doesn’t make me feel good about myself or the world to blindly hope people like you and plasmid have some other way of fixing things I don’t know about. I’ve tried some to learn more about what people mean by “mutual aid” or “direct action” but I still don’t see a path. A (only somewhat related) confession: one of the only books I’ve tried to read in the last few years is Pedagogy of the Oppressed. I got a hundred something pages in but I was mostly just deeply confused. I wanna try again at some point but the idea of trying to push through all that and figure out what the hell “dialectic” means in this context while I’m also trying to work and make sure all my bills are paid and everything else just feels like such a heavy lift. Like, I’ve said a lot of times that financial system talk makes my head go fuzzy, and it does. But I’m so much less confused by something like “subprime mortgage” than I am by something like Problem-posing education, as a humanist and liberating praxis, posits as fundamental that the people subjected to domination must fight for their emancipation. To that end, it enables teachers and students to become Subjects of the educational process by overcoming authoritarianism and an alienating intellectualism; it also enables people to overcome their false perception of reality. The world - no longer something to be described by deceptive words - becomes the object of that transforming action by men and women which results in their humanization. I still cling to that hope that we can make a better world through uniting and supporting one another while demanding better from our government and society. There are more radical actions that can be taken, of course, but they involve a lot of destruction. My issue with reading theory and books like that is that a lot of them aren't accessible to the working class. I take what I read and do my best to translate what they say into clear and concise real-world examples and experiences that most people can understand. And it's not calling the working class dumb, of course, because they absolutely can grasp it, it's just recognizing that due to stress, time commitments, and other factors, it's unreasonable to tell someone to read or listen to hundreds of pages of high-level theory, especially when a far more effective method is talking to them in-person or directly online, getting to understand their experiences, and how they can be helped by class consciousness and leftist policies. As for the quote, here's my best summary of it: If you teach someone about their oppression without using the euphemisms of the oppressor, they become free human beings and can fight against their oppressors.
The working class is dumb. That's how we got to where we are. Do not make excuses for them. And it isn't the entire working class, but a very specific component of that class that has affected the country to this point. They are dumb and do not wish to absolve themselves of that ignorance. Do not be nice. Call it what it is.
Your post is very eloquent and I'm sure you've personally gained a lot of "fans" by your passion and what you've posted and shared on this and various other topics.
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On July 05 2022 02:56 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2022 01:51 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 05 2022 01:09 ChristianS wrote:
@Drone: I agree with all of that. I was trying to respect Intro’s wishes and not go off into another direction with the discussion. But I mean, there’s no actual reason somebody with a methotrexate prescription for an autoimmune disorder needs to be affected by Dobbs. Pro-life legislators could have written the legislation more carefully and achieved all of their goals without any of this collateral damage, and I would still think the policy is a disaster.
But right now it feels like there’s nothing the pro-choice side can do very soon, so the next question is just how far are the red states gonna take it. We know they’re almost certain to ban any kind of “family planning” abortion, at least from 6 weeks, and likely from conception - that’s not popular, of course, but somehow that’s never mattered less in our democracy. What’s less certain: what will exceptions for life of the mother look like? What about rape and incest? And maybe scariest, what exactly are they going to try to do about abortion happening in other states?
After that the next question is “how can we stop them?” and I’m afraid to say that question looks pretty bleak to me. All of this stuff is deeply unpopular, so in theory they should pay an electoral penalty. Maybe we can vote them out and reverse the policy at the state level? But I don’t think there’s a serious chance of that in most cases. That’s just not how our politics work anymore.
At the national level I can imagine Democrats with a slightly larger Senate majority creating a narrow filibuster exception to pass a federal abortion protection bill. I’ve talked before about RFRA and the likely possibility that SCOTUS would eventually just throw that out, too, but it would be still worth a lot. Trouble is, Democrats are extremely unlikely to keep the house and expand their Senate majority. If they were prepared to really go to the mat for abortion, and campaign hard on enacting federal legal protections for abortion, they might stand a chance - again, it’s not remotely ambiguous what the *popular* policy would be - but I just don’t think Pelosi or Schumer or basically any of them are capable of it.
GH and plasmid think (if I understand them right) we need to stop putting our hopes in election victories to get the policy change we need. I don’t know what their alternate plan is, but I sure hope it works. I suspect the words “direct action” are involved but I have no idea how that concept would apply in this case. I always get a “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” feeling when they talk about it. I think we're still at the "more people need to accept the reality that they need an alternative plan" stage but I'd echo plasmid's suggestions and add that organizing one's workplace is another excellent place to take action. Rather than blind hope I'd suggest contributing to/engaging with the work/research yourself though. Yeah, I should probably donate. If either of you have specific orgs you’d suggest donating to, feel free to post or PM them. No clue how to go about organizing my workplace, about this specifically or just in general. Believe me, it doesn’t make me feel good about myself or the world to blindly hope people like you and plasmid have some other way of fixing things I don’t know about. I’ve tried some to learn more about what people mean by “mutual aid” or “direct action” but I still don’t see a path. A (only somewhat related) confession: one of the only books I’ve tried to read in the last few years is Pedagogy of the Oppressed. I got a hundred something pages in but I was mostly just deeply confused. I wanna try again at some point but the idea of trying to push through all that and figure out what the hell “dialectic” means in this context while I’m also trying to work and make sure all my bills are paid and everything else just feels like such a heavy lift. Like, I’ve said a lot of times that financial system talk makes my head go fuzzy, and it does. But I’m so much less confused by something like “subprime mortgage” than I am by something like Show nested quote +Problem-posing education, as a humanist and liberating praxis, posits as fundamental that the people subjected to domination must fight for their emancipation. To that end, it enables teachers and students to become Subjects of the educational process by overcoming authoritarianism and an alienating intellectualism; it also enables people to overcome their false perception of reality. The world - no longer something to be described by deceptive words - becomes the object of that transforming action by men and women which results in their humanization.
There's an endless list ranging from helping specific individuals to radical organizations specializing in movement building. Two I'd recommend to try to cover that range would be the National Network of Abortion Funds and Black Feminist Future You could also look at donating specifically to any of the local orgs (for instance a red state org) that NNAF is distributing donations to and/or consider other bootstrap efforts to provide things like transportation to and from appointments.
As to digesting theory, you shouldn't do it alone if you can avoid it. Probably a more popular refrain than "read theory" among revolutionaries is "join an org" . It doesn't have to be the perfect organization but I strongly believe it should be revolutionary.
For the specific quote I'd agree with plasmid's paraphrase and add /put it this way: I interpret Freire to be saying that education at its functional core must be liberatory (else it's better called something like indoctrination). Problem-posing education enables a process (in contrast to the Banking model which is prohibitive) where teachers and students are subjects rather than an authority and knowledge receptacle respectively.
Rather than be told what the world is and how to exist in it (the Banking Model) Freire calls for people to understand the world as ongoing product development of transforming actions engaged in by humans.
Put simply, that the social world as we know it is one humans made and is reflective of the choices humans (particularly oppressors) made/priorities they've had and for it to change we have to change the choices we make which begins with the very framework we engage to understand the world around us.
Once we do, we can begin to see the world for what it is and how we change it rather than have it painted for us while we search frantically for a place to fit in it.
EDIT: Wanted to include somewhere to start on organizing your workplace EDIT2: Realized people (generally speaking) might need to be warned/reminded that it's probably not a good idea to look at something like this on a work computer.
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I have a lot of thoughts but I think I'm going to try to write a blog about it rather than try to keep it totally relevant to this thread. If it goes like most of my blogs, I'll wind up hating it and deleting it, but stay tuned to the blog section I guess if you're interested.
GH, plasmid, huge thanks for your thoughts.
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Put simply, that the social world as we know it is one humans made and is reflective of the choices humans (particularly oppressors) made/priorities they've had and for it to change we have to change the choices we make which begins with the very framework we engage to understand the world around us.
Once we do, we can begin to see the world for what it is and how we change it rather than have it painted for us while we search frantically for a place to fit in it.
And who gets to define "what the world is"? "The world" is so big, complex and self contradictory that statements like that are completely useless. If we truely see it "as it is", the most rational action could end up being killing as many humans as possible before commiting suicide.
We all have our values, and after the basic needs, a safe, healthy life for our closest and ourselves tends to be main priorities. Then, we want some combination of scocial freedom, social status, wealth, power, stability, self fullfilment, entertainment, extended social relations, making a difference and so on.
Rather than chasing utopia by revolution, which will only be utopia for some, I think it is more healty to be honest about your own values and organize your life according to them.
If the country you live in is not right according to your values, you have 2 main choices: to move, or to accept that the values of your familiar culture and your close relations actually mean more to you than how society is organized.
I completely support joining groups and organizations which try to push for positive change (in their view), but please be realistic about it. Remember that the primary reason China and Russia are able to get away with their authoritarian regimes is that large parts of their populations fear the chaos of another revolution even more than their current oppression.
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On July 05 2022 04:56 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +Put simply, that the social world as we know it is one humans made and is reflective of the choices humans (particularly oppressors) made/priorities they've had and for it to change we have to change the choices we make which begins with the very framework we engage to understand the world around us.
Once we do, we can begin to see the world for what it is and how we change it rather than have it painted for us while we search frantically for a place to fit in it. ... who gets to define "what the world is"? + Show Spoiler +"The world" is so big, complex and self contradictory that statements like that are completely useless. If we truely see it "as it is", the most rational action could end up being killing as many humans as possible before commiting suicide.
We all have our values, and after the basic needs, a safe, healthy life for our closest and ourselves tends to be main priorities. Then, we want some combination of scocial freedom, social status, wealth, power, stability, self fullfilment, entertainment, extended social relations, making a difference and so on.
Rather than chasing utopia by revolution, which will only be utopia for some, I think it is more healty to be honest about your own values and organize your life according to them.
If the country you live in is not right according to your values, you have 2 main choices: to move, or to accept that the values of your familiar culture and your close relations actually mean more to you than how society is organized.
I completely support joining groups and organizations which try to push for positive change (in their view), but please be realistic about it. Remember that the primary reason China and Russia are able to get away with their authoritarian regimes is that large parts of their populations fear the chaos of another revolution even more than their current oppression. I think starting with answering that question for yourself under the current status quo could be illuminating.
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Canada11354 Posts
On July 05 2022 04:53 JimmiC wrote:
Intro does not seem to know, and I can not find any prolife source with my basic googling but how many of the "family planning" to quote Drone style abortions do they think the bans will stop? Are they really just pretending it will stop all of them? Or do they have any idea on the percentage.
You are really stuck on this percentage question, but I wonder what is the next step in your argument if you had numbers?
Suppose it could be demonstrated that the ban would stop 97% of the family planning style abortions- I don't think you would suddenly be in favour of the ban. And if it was only 57% would the pro-life position suddenly shift away from a ban? I think not. (And don't mind my hypothetical numbers- the point is this: are there any percentages at all where either side would shift their position. I say no.)
I rather expect you wouldn't find a specific percentage on a pro-life website as any sort of goal because I doubt it is thought of in those terms. For a pro-lifer, it would be the equivalent of asking what percentage of murders would a law against murder really stop? Who knows exactly. But it's still a necessary law, and the reasoning of how we got to the no murder law was not based upon efficacy percentages; it was based on a different line of reasoning. So to with the abortion ban from the pro-life perspective.
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For anyone who supports the supreme court ruling on abortion, can any of you link me to any studies or data or whatever showing these limitations prevent abortions?
Even though I don't agree with it, I can understand how someone who sees a fetus as an unborn child might want abortions to never happen. But the thing I struggle with is that my echo chamber shows me studies indicating abortion limitations just make abortions less safe and keep the numbers pretty much flat, all while harming medical care in all the ways we are already seeing in certain states.
In your echo chamber, what stats are you guys talking about which supports your views? What do you point to and say "And see, this is the impact this has, this is why it is good"?
I know the way social media and whatnot works, its totally possible there are studies/data that show these bans are good. I'd love to read them.
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Well, we're past the empty thoughts and prayers rhetoric from Republicans on mass shootings. They simply no longer pretend to care
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EPT
