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Comment by Mezzie | Hacker News Reader

Probably a wise decision, and not just because of conflicts between the different sides (I can't imagine there's a large pro-life contingent at Meta), but because of the dumpster fire that intra-political discussions have turned into.

Some people feel like discussing this in anything other than emotional terms is inappropriate, some people feel like we need to discuss the legal theory and history behind what happened, and some people feel like we should focus on the material/economic affects of the ruling. Each group feels that the others are ignoring the important parts, so it turns into a mess. Especially once you add into that that a proper understanding of the issue requires understanding some basic constitutional law, civics, and female anatomy, so a bunch of people are just saying things that are incorrect.

Also wise for their communication/public facing employees, who are going to be wading through a lot of related bullshit and should have SOME respite from it.

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I attended a rally and march on Roe v Wade last night, and it was alarming to hear just how many other issues rally leaders tossed into the ring, to a large cheering crowd. Some of these were things have a legitimate intersection with reproductive rights -- minority access to equal healthcare, or the various kinds of service ghettos that spring up minority neighborhoods, or other issues SCOTUS has indicated it wants to weigh in on -- but several had nothing to do with reproductive rights: ACAB, or reparations, for example.

And then, to make it even worse, they went on to tell the crowd that you HAVE to care about these issues if you care about Roe v Wade. And if you don't, then "get the hell out of our way". So either you agree 100% with the hivemind and their dated BLM script, or fuck you. To say nothing of the fact that the person shouting this stuff seemed to cherish just how many different labels she could attach to herself to appear more credible.

I consider myself a staunch independent and this was downright insulting. The operatives instigating all of this do not want people making rational points with their minds, they want a mental hegemony to act as a bedrock for their political war machine.

Given that and how political discussions seem to be playing out everywhere, I don't think anyone should be supporting these kinds of discussions at work. Should companies willingly allow space for crowdsourced political brainwashing?

The irony is that if it wasn’t for intersectionality, there’s a good chance Democrats could have held their traditional ambivalent stance on immigration, and Trump wouldn’t have gotten elected and wouldn’t have gotten those Supreme Court picks. Now, pro choice Democrats are in the tough spot of being totally dependent on the most socially conservative part of their coalition (Hispanics in the southwest, Black people in the south) to win elections.

Half of Black people in Georgia oppose abortion, but 90% vote Democrat. I wonder what it’s going to do to Democratic turnout in Georgia if donors in New York and California make the 2022 and 2024 elections all about abortion.

>Now, pro choice Democrats are in the tough spot of being totally dependent on the most socially conservative part of their coalition (Hispanics in the southwest

This faction's support for Democrats is rapidly disintegrating, based on the massive shift to Trump seen in the Texas border counties in 2020. Like, 30 points' worth of movement.

Notably, whether Republican Myra Flores holds onto the 85% Hispanic House district she recently won in the special election, it’s notable that the Democrat she defeated was also pro life. Vicente Gonzales, who will run against her in November, is also pro life.

Isn’t her district being redrawn and possibly affecting demographics? I might have misheard.

Redistricting made her district more favorable to Democrats and Democrats are expected to take back the seat next year. But the Democratic candidate, Vicente Gonzales, is also pro life: https://sbaprolife.org/representative/vicente-gonzalez

Pro-choice Democrats have painted themselves into a tough spot. After moving left on race and immigration, they lost significant support in the Midwest and Rust Belt. They assumed that pickups among Hispanics in the southwest and south would offset those losses. But Hispanics are more conservative than whites on abortion. (Polling shows that about the same percentage of both, 40%, oppose abortion: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opini.... But abortion views are strongly correlated with age, and the median Hispanic is 14 years younger than the median white. Which means that at any given age range—such as the age ranges that tend to vote—Hispanics are more conservative. Moreover, because Democrats win only a minority of the white vote, they need to win 70%+ of the Hispanic vote.)

Democrats have reframed figures like David Portnoy and Joe Rogan—folks who appeal to white working class folks in the Midwest and Rust Belt—as “right wing” and “racist, sexist, and homophobic.” But note that both strongly sided with liberals on Roe being overturned: https://www.foxnews.com/media/barstools-dave-portnoy-rips-ro.... This group is less religious than the GOP as a whole, and has long been willing to at least go along with keeping Roe even if they were personally pro life.

Democrats traded a less religious, more individualistic part of their coalition, for a more religious, more family oriented one.

Yes, the days of Democrats taking for granted minority voters and lumping them as a simplistic population of left-minded voters may end soon. However, it might be too late; the Republicans may hold these new converts for a long time, especially given the younger demographic of hispanics. Many of us tend to follow the party that we start with as new voters in our early twenties.

It seems to be the Republicans game to lose, which they have proven to be far better at avoiding than the Democrats. Abortion though is one issue that Republicans have bet the ranch on in the past with disastrous results. It is a land mine for them if they go too far with it.

I guess you haven’t been to many rallies or protests. People always show up with unrelated issues, and there’s not much you can do about it as an organizer. I helped to organize a protest asking Trump to release his taxes, and people showed up with signs to abolish ICE (immigration enforcement). I went to a rally to get out the vote, and the local congresswoman was drowned out by a woman who wanted her son freed from prison. Politicians will push whatever they think is advantageous to themselves (though the better ones will stay on topic).

Free speech is a wonderful thing, but there can be too much of a good thing. Learning when to shut up can be valuable too, one doesn’t offend people like the parent post.

Yep, and then you do an anti-vaccine-mandate rally in Canada, one idiot with a swastika shows up, and then media goes on for weeks how everyone opposing vaccine mandates is a Nazi.

I do feel for you, even being on the opposite side of the issue. The press is too driven to present outrage, so you lose the message 99% of the people were there to deliver.

You are right in that I don't do rallies. But anger at the situation led me to join this one, where I was promptly reminded why I find political types so repulsive.

In general, when somebody is advising you against discerning, untangling and questioning, chances are, you are being manipulated.

If only this message was spread more widely!

... ironically this sugar-free watered-down self-defeating super-dumb twitter-compatible version of solidarity (dare I say intersectionality) is also the result of a loss of nuance and untangling.

it's critical to stand with others, but it's dumb to hold back good things for a minority group all groups can get what they want, and ostracizing and exiling others because they don't care enough about all the other things some cabal of the organizers of some particular movement/protest is the exact opposite of accepting others. and yes, there are issues where the tolerance of intolerance can become a serious problem, but to find those it's surprisingly not enough to apply mob justice on the spot. aaaaand yes, there are those things where even that's okay (let's say someone starts to unfurl a nazi flag)

(and excuse me for my own rudimentary dumbing down.)

This is how it played out in Austin, which may or may not be the protest you’re referring to.

IMO, the biggest issue here is that no one has any patience for anything anymore (outside of what they’re getting paid to be thoughtful about), so nuance has gone out the window.

Such rallies are a lot closer to gypsy dancing where a bunch of drugged participants create a whirlpool of emotions, turn off their minds and unleash their animal side. Speeches there serve as mantras of some sort: they must sound a certain rhythmic way, but their meaning is irrelevant.

“The issues” themselves aren’t even fully agreed upon, especially if they’re not believed to be core by everyone.

Everyone believes that the start of human life is a core issue. It’s the basis for the pro-life movement. It’s also a core component of the pro-choice movement (that it doesn’t start that early, thus not killing babies, etc).

There are other things some people believe are core which others don’t believe even exist:

* many people are happy with this ruling because they want to bring mens’ right to “paper abortion” to the front. The argument is if she can do whatever with her body and not be subject to something undesirable for nine months, than he should have the same right since his hardship can last 18 years. The supporting arguments include absolute control means absolute responsibility (if pregnancy was accidental and she decides to keep it, responsibility is hers) and others, along with the greater discussion of perceived bias in family court. Opposing arguments mostly center around the welfare of the child. * some people are of the opinion that “if you’re not a woman, shut up”. Others are using that phrase to support their opinion on trans recognition. Still others are using that phrase to highlight situations where women have gained influence in what many men might call “mens spaces”

The reality is pregnancy is a two-party result and so it’s impossible to expect one party to quietly step aside, more so when there is skin in the game. This involvement in fact helped win R v W in the first place!

> It’s also a core component of the pro-choice movement (that it doesn’t start that early, thus not killing babies, etc).

That banning abortion leads to the deaths of thousands of young women.

Pretty sure we all agree that a girl's life starts before she can get pregnant.

1. where are you getting "deaths of thousands of young women" from? According to the CDC the mortality rate associated with live births is 23.8 per 100,000. In the US there are only 629,898 abortions per year. Multiply those numbers out, and you only get 150 deaths.

2. even if you accept that there would be "deaths of thousands of young women", I doubt those deaths would sway the opinion of someone who thinks each abortion is murder (ie. 629,898 "deaths" from abortion vs "thousands" of "deaths")

If abortions are illegal it may lead to reckless attempts more dangerous than giving birth. The exact rate may be difficult to quantify as reporting may be unreliable.

I agree it'll be nearly impossible to convince people who already see abortion as murder.

> 1. where are you getting "deaths of thousands of young women" from? According to the CDC the mortality rate associated with live births is 23.8 per 100,000. In the US there are only 629,898 abortions per year. Multiply those numbers out, and you only get 150 deaths.

backalley abortions.

i'm 100% anti-clotheshanger.

it is interesting that a lot of people on this site need to be intellectually spoonfed into understanding that this is the major issue that most pro-choice people focus on.

you can't magically turn all those abortions into unproblematic births without seeing deaths due to backalley abortions. it is like arguing that by banning drugs you can make drug use go away. you just discount the desperation those women are under and consider them criminals and are okay with the stochastic death penalty.

>backalley abortions.

thanks for clarifying, but I still need a source for the "deaths of thousands of young women" claim. The best I could find with a cursory search is:

"In Brazil, where abortion is also illegal, it’s estimated that 250,000 women are hospitalized from complications from abortions, and about 200 women a year die from the complications"

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/10/how-many-...

>it is interesting that a lot of people on this site need to be intellectually spoonfed into understanding that this is the major issue that most pro-choice people focus on.

Or maybe you should clearly state what the basis of your numbers are the first time around, rather than asserting a number and letting your reader figure out what the basis is?

You're sea-lioning, or what the guidelines call cross-examining. No set time period was specified. Even the per-annum numbers already cited add up to thousands over a decade or two. Also, you seem to be demanding precision when you haven't even specified a threshold you would find acceptable. Is it OK for you that "merely" hundreds of women die needlessly? Instead of trying to make others chase your ever-receding goalposts, perhaps you should try making your own persuasive argument.

>You're sea-lioning, or what the guidelines call cross-examining. No set time period was specified. Even the per-annum numbers already cited add up to thousands over a decade or two.

Claiming that no time period was specified makes the statement true, but also makes the statement so weak that it doesn't really mean anything.

>Also, you seem to be demanding precision when you haven't even specified a threshold you would find acceptable. Is it OK for you that "merely" hundreds of women die needlessly? Instead of trying to make others chase your ever-receding goalposts, perhaps you should try making your own persuasive argument.

I already have, in my previous comment.

>2. even if you accept that there would be "deaths of thousands of young women", I doubt those deaths would sway the opinion of someone who thinks each abortion is murder (ie. 629,898 "deaths" from abortion vs "thousands" of "deaths")

> also makes the statement so weak that it doesn't really mean anything.

That might be a good-faith argument if we were allowing eons, but we're actually talking about years to (at most) decades.

> I already have, in my previous comment.

No, not really. You've regurgitated a number, but only as an appeal to emotion. You haven't connected it to the subject of this thread, which is the idea that even a fully formed human has no right to require physical sacrifice of another. Persuasion means connecting things in a way that might sway an interlocutor, not merely bashing them over the head with claims that you find compelling.

>No, not really. You've regurgitated a number, but only as an appeal to emotion.

uhh what? I'm not advocating for one side or another. I'm only pointing out that if you think that aborted fetuses are "deaths", then a few extra thousand deaths pales in comparison to the number of "deaths" from abortions.

>You haven't connected it to the subject of this thread, which is the idea that even a fully formed human has no right to require physical sacrifice of another.

1. That's an nice argument and all, but it certainly wasn't in "the subject of this thread". I traversed through all the parent comments and couldn't find any comment that made an argument to that effect.

2. since we're already bringing this topic up, the obvious response I can think of would be: really? no "physical sacrifice" whatsoever? What about mask/vaccine mandates, which require some token/small amount of sacrifice? Obviously wearing something over your face/getting jabbed isn't equivalent to carrying a baby to term, but the argument (at least as you presented it) seems to take an absolutist position rather than some sort of cost-benefit analysis one.

>Persuasion means connecting things in a way that might sway an interlocutor, not merely bashing them over the head with claims that you find compelling.

Again, you seem to think I'm trying to convince people that abortions are bad. However, if you read my original comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31883521) more carefully, see that I'm only trying to point out that the "deaths of thousands of young women" argument isn't persuasive.

The first is a result of sample and survivor bias, given that pregnancies with complications were aborted. Also, 1 in 50 pregnancies are ectopic.

> the mortality rate associated with live births is 23.8 per 100,000

You can't just take the number for live births and apply it to abortions. The actual number from people who making direct observations instead of committing statistical malpractice seem to be around 0.7 deaths per 100K abortions. The authors say it might be even lower; there's certainly no rational reason to believe it has gotten worse since the last numbers were made available. (BTW I do wonder why they're no longer available, and suspect political pressure was involved much as with tracking gun deaths.)

https://scdhec.gov/risks-abortion

Besides considering the difference between safe vs. unsafe abortions, a real comparison of abortion vs. live-birth death rates would also have to consider pregnancies that end in miscarriage, and the fact that the availability of safe abortion in high-risk cases improves prognoses for live birth. A particularly instructive example is Romania, which saw abortion death rate go from 20/100K to 148/100K when abortion was restricted in 1966, and then back down to 9/100K after the restrictions were removed in 1989.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2709326/

BTW note that the abortion death rate in 1965 Romania was lower than the live-birth death rate in modern US. It's currently a safer option for the mother in a great many cases, but would become much worse if it had to go underground, and some of us think that matters.

Having been raised in the pro-life (anti choice) camp this kind of practical impact needs to be discussed, yet will fall on mostly deaf ears.

Many will consider a girl chosing a dangerous, illegal procedure as a criminal and therefore less worthy of consideration. More so than an innocent child who had no choice in its conception. My guess is they won't seriously consider the argument until they themselves, or their adult daughters, are literally in the situation of needing an illegal abortion themselves. (And possibly only in an extreme circumstance like molestation or rape, as some are taught self shame and hatred every week at church.)

> Everyone believes that the start of human life is a core issue.

Yes, the core issue is here. Though no-one seriously argues that a foetus is not human, nor alive: the issue is "is it a person (yet)?". Is it something, or someone? Answering that question - not an easy one - makes one swing one way or another of the issue.

The core issue is 'Is a human obligated to use their body to keep another human alive'

A thought experiment.

You get too drunk and pass out in a bar.

I take you home a f hook you up to a person with failing kidneys so that you filter their blood.

If you unhook yourself they will die.

Should you go to prison for unhooking yourself?

That really doesn't seem like the core issue to me. Once child is born parents have tons of obligations towards them, and severe neglect can cause a prison sentence.

I'm not American, so forgive me for barging in, but it seems to me you have two core issues:

First there is the debate over when a Fetus should be considered a person and receive the rights that come with it.

Secondly there is a debate over states rights and what topics the federal government should get a say in.

In the US humans have rights on a sliding scale, a child does not have the same rights as an 18 year old

I don't think its unreasonable that a fetus, being a clump of cells that cannot survive and is not independently living, has less rights to life than a minor child

The mother is the fully independently living human in this case with full rights, those should not be overridden by a clump of cells with potential

If we judge everything by it's "potential" then we need to start charging men for masturbating and not saving their ejaculate and charging women for having menstrual cycles

Is a 39 week old fetus a "clump of cells that cannot survive" (any different than a newborn)? I think the real issue is that abortion support isn't as binary as some people make it out to be. I've met very few pro-choice people who support elective abortions at 39 weeks, which means even the pro-choice crowd thinks there needs to be regulations.

At 39 weeks the woman has known she has been pregnant for some time and intends to keep the baby. If an abortion happens at this point, it's an incredibly traumatic experience because something with the pregnancy has gone extremely wrong. You present a useless hypothetical that does nothing to advance the conversation. You're repeating a useless point that does nothing besides distract from the issues of the bodily autonomy of women, its disingenuous

Well, where would you draw the line? You can't just pretend it never happens since we know it does. And even if you want to pretend it would never happen, then there is no reason not to draw the line.

So at what point should abortions be regulated? 39 weeks? 24 weeks? 16 weeks? Something else?

Draw the line at 41 weeks. I don't care about your nonsense hypothetical. Bring me a real scenario. One singular example of an abortion at 39 weeks where the mother didn't want the baby. I guarantee you can't actually find one even though you claim it exists

Hypotheticals are a waste of time, bring an actual example or stop wasting my time

The mother takes priority up until that baby is breathing on its own. Always

>Draw the line at 41 weeks.

And then we wonder why the pro-life crowd insists the pro-choice crowd are baby killers.

And we wonder why the anti choice crowd is seen as mother killers

I don't care about hypotheticals that have no basis in reality just like I don't give a shit about what the founding fathers thought, who were rapist-racist-sexist-slave owners who didn't want blacks, women, or poor people to have any say. Yea the document written by them is flawless lol sure. The constitution is out dated but the clowns in government make too much money off it and keep us peasants fighting about pointless shit like abortion while they loot the country

I love how you just ignored the rest of my statement and can't bring up that example that you just know exists. Get off that clown shit and show me a real example

So where is it? These examples of abortions where the mother didn't want it at 39 weeks

Quit lying

>I love how you just ignored the rest of my statement

You're making an argument for infanticide (abortions at 41 weeks <---your words) and wondering why I didn't follow the rest of your arguments?

> You're making an argument for infanticide

You're asking trick questions. Proof above; "aha! that's infanticide!!" So clever.

Which is exactly why I responded the way that I did. Dude is spouting nonsense saying examples exist. They are making claims and when I ask for citations they shout about infanticide. It's disingenuous bullshit designed to distract

That's also why the poster didn't respond to the person who commented about Beto. They have no real response, position, or evidence. Their only position is fake outrage at something that doesn't exist in reality

https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-860w,f...

Very convenient for you! Just ignore things when you see what you don't like!

Still waiting for that one singular example. Where are your citations for your evidence?

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/pete-buttigieg-shut-down-t...

Dr Kermit Gosnell performed a number of elective abortions that late in term, and we only know about those because he was dumb enough to get caught killing a few after delivery.

Your example is a literal serial killer? Oh come on. He was inducing birth in order to kill babies outside of the uterus

>owned and operated the Women's Medical Society Clinic, a non-compliant abortion clinic

>Gosnell was convicted of the murders of three infants who were born alive after using drugs to induce birth, was convicted of manslaughter in connection with the death of one woman during an abortion procedure, and was convicted of several other medically related crimes.[3][4][5][6][7]

This dude should never have been a doctor in the first place and this is your shining example? Brilliant

>2011, Gosnell, his wife Pearl, and eight employees were charged with a total of 32 felonies and 227 misdemeanors in connection with deaths, illegal medical services, and regulatory violations.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_Gosnell

I can't tell if you're a bad faith actor yourself or you just believe the nonsense put forth by the nationalist extremist party

He didn't go to prison for the 39 week abortions, he went to prison for the 41 week abortions, you know - the ones you were in favor of.

You said it never happens, but it does. Most doctors that offer the late term abortions don't get in trouble because they're not as sloppy as him.

So the question remains, the one you refuse to answer - why would we not restrict ELECTIVE abortions after a certain point in a pregnancy? What is the argument against that? Nobody is arguing against it if they're medically necessary, I'm asking specifically about elective abortions beyond the point of viability. That's it. That's where the breakdown occurs for most people.

>211 counts of violating Pennsylvania's 24-hour informed consent law

Sounds to me like he patients were not aware of what he was doing

And he was doing a hell of a lot more than just abortions

>The DEA, The FBI, and the Office of the Inspector General also sought a 23-count indictment charging Gosnell and seven members of his former staff with drug conspiracy relating to the practice's illegally prescribing highly-addictive painkillers and sedatives outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose.

So again, you pick out one guy who should not have been a physician who did not inform his patient of what he was doing

And this detail is pretty important, these were not abortions but murders after birth

>They arise because of the "born alive rule", a principle of common law which stipulates that by default, for legal purposes, personhood arises – and therefore unlawful killing constituting murder becomes possible – immediately upon the victim's being born alive

Pointing this guy out is like pointing out that old veteran who's like 110 years old and smokes and drinks every day and claiming nobody gets cancer from smoking and drinking

You are aware that murder, killing people who are already born, is already illegal? These examples were not abortions, plain and simple

>You are aware that murder, killing people who are already born, is already illegal? These examples were not abortions, plain and simple

Only the "41 week old abortions" were treated as murder, the 39 week old ones weren't. My question is - what's the difference? In your mind, how do you justify a 39 week old elective abortion?

He induced birth then killed the baby

That's not an abortion

And now you're playing the fools game by engaging with the Gosnell nonsense, giving angry debate about "shocking" things that they have changed the topic too.

Not only is it derailing of a serious issue, it is deliberately visceral, disturbing, which makes it harder to debate logically about. Standard tactic: wind them up so they don't notice the inconsistencies.

Thank you for being a voice of reason. You're right, I shouldn't engage that nonsense but I got sucked in. I don't know what we can do about people spreading such FUD

Sadly that account has a track record of repeating their inflammatory talking points. Even after they are debunked, they just move an and try it on someone else again.

It's called Intact Dilation & Extraction, and is absolutely a type of abortion.

And you still haven't answered - what is your logic for not having a problem with a 36, 37, 38 week etc elective abortion? What is the argument for allowing them?

> Well, where would you draw the line?

See this is the trick, the sleight-of hand - is draws you into accepting a simplistic falsehood: that a specific line has to be, should be or can be drawn.

Medicine is not law, and law is not code. Or at least, when done well they behave differently.

there is no sense in a code `if (fetus_weeks <= 16) return true else return false;` being law and then being medicine. That's 2 category errors right there.

A decision between doctor and patient based on specific circumstances is what's called for.

Pete Buttigieg said it quite well in this case:

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/pete-buttigieg-shut-down-t...

I don't believe it matters if the fetus is a person or not.

Should any random person A be forced to lose their bodily autonomy to keep random person B alive?

I think no. I shouldn't have to give you my kidney. Even if I can have it back in 9 months.

I understand your point and it's a valid one, but you're not actually engaging with (part of) parent's argument.

If I'm a parent of a small child, and I decide to completely stop feeding it, and they die, did I do something morally and/or legally wrong? I think most would answer yes on both fronts. So the question is, is there an inherent difference between these two situation?

How does a 39 week old fetus differ from a newborn? I think the point of contention for most people is on why a mother should be able to end the life of one and not the other.

The majority of Americans do not support elective abortion at 39 weeks, so that means by definition they support some regulations. In other words, there has to be a line drawn somewhere. The question is, where?

> Everyone believes that the start of human life is a core issue.

"Core" does not have a clear meaning here, so let's be more precise: everyone agrees it's an important issue, but not everyone agrees it's a decisive issue. Many pro-choice people believe that no person has a right to demand part of someone else's body for themselves, so even if a fetus is a person the mother still has the right to remove it. Comparisons to the illegality of forced organ donation are often made here.

Note that I'm not taking a position here. I'm just explaining a position many hold. To the extent that you ascribe a different reasoning/motivation to pro-choice folks, I think your "everyone believes" is not a valid axiom. Whether intentionally or not, it comes across more as an appeal to (questionable) popularity, and pretty much make Mezzie's point about how impossible it is to talk about this.

I actually don’t believe the “start of life” is decisive or especially relevant. First and foremost I think the constitution and bill of rights give you a right to security of your person which extends to terminating an unwanted pregnancy. The state forcing you to carry to term is a violation of that right. I believe the right of the mother supersedes other rights here because there is only one way to exercise that right, and because self ownership is so core to our constitutional rights.

If you favor originalism, the the 9th amendment guarantees unenumerated rights which were deep rooted at the founding. Abortion before “quickening” was legal in all 13 states at the signing and had been part of common law for hundreds of years, so the 9th applies. The 14th amendment should apply that to the states, and the argument some originalists make about resetting the clock seems dumb to me.

So here are two very reasonable paths to the right that don’t involve the question about when laws start or some vague notion to the right to privacy. I think you need to have both an activist reading of constitutional law and a disregard for security of ones person to sidestep both arguments.

Totally agree! I feel helpless and afraid of the Supreme court ruling. At the same time, I have seen firsthand how ridiculous such internal discussions have become at Twitter, and they silently take away so much of my work time and put me on the path of depression!

> At the same time, I have seen firsthand how ridiculous such internal discussions have become at Twitter, and they silently take away so much of my work time and put me on the path of depression

To be frank, this is Twitter in a nutshell to an outsider like me: a major personal time-waster that typically ends in anger and depression.

I guess it's not surprising that internal conversations for the platform that owns a significant share of the public discourse can't figure out how to discuss topics like this, but that sure makes me sad. Is it even possible to have effective conversations about these topics online at all? If Twitter can't figure out how to do it, then who can?

> Is it even possible to have effective conversations about these topics online at all?

Yes. Just not at scale, and not in a way that prioritizes ad revenue via "engagement" at all cost.

Prioritizing longer form, in depth content, and discouraging "rapid reaction hot takes" helps a lot. The social media companies could optimize for this, and you see it on HN with the "Sorry, this particular thread is getting short, snippy, and too rapid, you can't reply to it for a while" mechanism.

But short, snippy, and angry is good for engagement. So it remains.

This makes sense. Unfortunately, the cynic in me thinks that even if this is technically feasible (i.e. the software could be designed to facilitate healthier discourse), the reality is that the money would never allow it to happen as you rightly point out. So given that, is it actually possible? I don't think so.

I have a ton of blogs in my rss feeds. Occasionally one will have a response to something a different one published a couple days or weeks previously, and sometimes they'll even go back and forth a few times.

Sometimes some of the ones with guest writers will host a similar kind of exchange all in one place.

> Yes. Just not at scale, and not in a way that prioritizes ad revenue via "engagement" at all cost.

Only if there is some prior trust, if only by virtue of getting along for some time.

If you generally like the other person, and they come up with some incredibly stupid take you're more inclined to listen and ask for clarification than if the other person is unknown to you and says something that seems mildly wrong.

Political discussion is possible if there is a pre-existing and lasting relationship.

I do not think that each get is ignoring the important parts of the other. I think they think that these important things are simply wrong.

A foetus is "alive" since the conception. "Wrong" says the other side, it is alive when (something).

Contraception and sex ed are key. "Wrong" says the other side, you can just be abstinent and learn as you go because this is natural.

Ignoring would be simpler, because you could realize that what you are ignoring actually makes sense. We are in a case where each side has well defined views on the important things of the adversary.

Why should people be forced into abstinence? Why are republicans trying to make contraceptives illegal?

I have no idea (I am French and we thankfully do not have this problem).

My point is that the adversaries do not ignore the important points of the other side. These are usually the important point for them as well, they are just exactly at the other side of the spectrum.

This is why there is no way for them to come to consensus as the differences of opinion are about these points.

It is not like someone, when hearing the arguments of the other side, would say "oh, I did not think about this because i thought it was important"

I was mostly referring to conversation within a certain camp, not between the two sides.

For example, I'm pro-choice and my own side would be ready to flay me alive for agreeing with the legal theory behind the overturning + thinking the economy is likely to be more important politically than abortion. I'm on their side; my opinions matter because they determine which strategies I think would be best to pursue. (In this case, that we need to legislate what we want + that people can't organize to do so unless they have stable housing/food/basic needs so we'll have to help people with that if we want their time and brainpower for social change.)

On the pro-life side, there's a lot of bickering about whether or not the women should be punished (versus the abortion providers) and there is a decent contingent that actually wants their fellows to put their money where their mouths are and financially support pregnant women and their kids.

Talking with enemies is always fraught. This is a dumpster fire because we can't talk to our ALLIES except in thought-terminating cliches.

It's not politics, it's religion trying to force their own beliefs onto an entire country.

Except that's not the kind of country USA is supposed to be like some middle-eastern countries for example.

In the USA you are allowed to believe/practice whatever crazy religion you want.

But your rights stop at another person's autonomy.

But also unjustly in the USA the corporation has way more rights than the individual, every time and that's perpetuated by every "side" of political power.

There is no need to understand anything past the law for why Roe vs Wade was a terrible decision when it was made. The legal theory it was based on has only gotten shakier since then.

Here's Ginsberg explaining why it was on life support 10 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pVnvBCzTyI

In short: we do not have a right to privacy any more. That a majority of rights we took for granted rested on that implied right will come as a shock to a large number of people who supported vaccine passports and mandates and vice versa. You will be forced to show proof of covid vaccination at the court house while having your interracial marriage dissolved.

Welcome to America.

The “majority of implied rights” do not rest on the right to privacy. For example, interracial marriage (*Loving v. Virginia) was decided on Equal Protection grounds, although privacy was a secondary basis.

Even Thomas doesn’t disagree that there are implied rights. His view is that they originate from the “privileges and immunities” clause, not the “due process clause.” But nobody disagrees, for example, that marriage is a right protected by the Constitution (although they disagree on what counts as marriage).

>The “majority of implied rights” do not rest on the right to privacy. For example, interracial marriage (*Loving v. Virginia) was decided on Equal Protection grounds, although privacy was a secondary basis.

That's enough for the court to hear a case on it again. Along with cases on gay marriage, anal sex and contraceptives.

A year ago I made the case that if we can force people to divulge their vaccination status then we can force people to divulge their sexual history. If a new disease showed up we could well ask if they had anal sex and lock them up in quarantine if they had.

With the current outbreak of monkeypox and the current court that isn't a thought experiment any more.

Liberals have spent the last decade hacking away at the right to privacy as hard as they could, the vaccine mandates being only the latest and greatest attack on personal freedoms from the party which supposedly stood for individual rights. This is not rocket science. Anyone could have seen this coming, but we were too busy owning the conservitards to notice that we were destroying the bedrock of the last 50 years of social progress.

Well here we are.

People have been required to disclose vaccine status for decades in many situations.

Your right to privacy is not absolute; the state (and society in general) frequently need to know things about you to function well, including protecting public health and reducing senseless death.

This is a necessary evil for us to have a civilization in the first place and is not "destroying the bedrock of the last 50 years of social progress." Vaccine "mandates" are not unduly invasive, because the vaccine is free and shown beyond all reasonable doubt to be safe.

In any case, Loving v. Virginia was not decided on the basis of privacy at all - it was decided under the Equal Protection clause and the Due Process clause. If Thomas gets his way and decides to revisit the conclusion in this case, it will be because he does not think that marriage is a protected under the Privileges and Immunities clause.

It will have nothing to do with the right to privacy, because that case had nothing to do with it.

It doesn’t matter if the vaccine gives you wings and free beer for life. The government should NOT be able to mandate an injection (tested for not very long) into a person’s sovereign body. (I am vaccinated btw, not that it matters)

Privacy violations are NOT a necessary evil. They are the slipperiest of slopes. Look to china to see where this road ends. The government is not our parents, it’s a naughty power hungry child.

A government HAS to mandate behavior to create a functioning society. The idea of democracy is that everyone should participate in where the boundaries lie.

The tendency now it seems is for people to absolve themselves from maintaining a democratic discourse by taking a selfish absolutist position.

There will always exceptions.

Vaccinations are a public health concern. One of the few areas (in my personal philosophy) where the state can argue a legitimate interest in what would otherwise be a violation of personal privacy and autonomy.

The main problem is that most governments have historically shown themselves to use every possible angle they can come up with when they want to go after someone, no matter the legal stretch. Thus, collecting data that could be vital to a legitimate concern could also be later misused for other nefarious purposes. If governments would be the "bigger person" so to speak, and not stoop to dastardly levels, more people would have faith that the government would not infringe on their inherent rights without a damn good reason.

If the government cannot mandate it, then many states will. And said states will refuse to let you travel to them if you cannot provide proof of vaccination.

The reality is that vaccination has been a requirement to participate in society for decades. You have to be vaccinated to go to college, your children must be vaccinated to go to school. And if you want to travel countries will demand you provide proof of vaccination so that you're not a walking bag of diseases.

> That's enough for the court to hear a case on it again.

No it’s not. The existence of an independent, unchallenged basis invariably kills the possibility of Supreme Court review.

Thomas is on solid legal footing to argue that the “Due Process” clause doesn’t protect anything other than the right to receive legal process before being deprived of a legal right.

Extrapolating from that to interracial marriage, which rests on a different and vastly firmer legal ground, is a dirty smear tactic against a man who is himself in an interracial marriage.

>Extrapolating from that to interracial marriage, which rests on a different and vastly firmer legal ground, is a dirty smear tactic against a man who is himself in an interracial marriage.

You're calling him so morally bankrupt that he would only vote impartially on laws that don't impact him personally, while he would vote with his self interest in all other cases.

You stated upthread: “while having your interracial marriage dissolved.”

That suggests that Thomas would vote to overturn Loving, not that he would avoid it out of his own self interest.

Yes, I'm well aware I am not you.

I could certainly imagine a larger pro-life contingent at Facebook than other tech companies.

Business Insider posted an article in 2019 on Facebook data showing that its "best-performing content is almost entirely from right- and far-right-wing publications and personalities" [1]

It's not entirely unlikely that in the intervening years, left-leaning employees have been more likely to leave, and right-leaning employees more likely to join.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-right-wing-echo-cha...

I'd expect FB to have more of a pro-life contingent than say, Twitter, but still small to my perspective. (I live in a purple district in a purple state, so it's not uncommon for half and half workplaces to exist).

I'd also expect that the majority of FB's right-leaning employees are of a SV libertarianish bent, and most of them are pro-choice or apathetic.

FB strikes me as a company with a very mercenary, self-interested workforce more than a partisan one.

There's way too much emotion in politics these days. I would like to see a return of rational discourse. I've had my fill of both the screaming liberals and the dusty conservatives. Most of the complex issues deal with morality so it's probably all for naught. The tip of the morality pyramid is God for most people. No point using empirical evidence when you don't believe in it to begin with.

> There's way too much emotion in politics these days. I would like to see a return of rational discourse.

Politics affect people's daily lives. Suggesting that people should just ignore the inherent emotional component of these decisions and the impact that they have on our lives is both incredibly unrealistic and quite a privileged position to occupy.

Regardless, the actual policies should not be driven by emotion. The problem is, those in power weaponize the emotions of their constituents, and it makes very bad politics.

> The tip of the morality pyramid is God for most people

I don't believe this is true in western societies anymore. Even in the US, people who describe themselves as "very religious" or belong to a church are the minority.

I looked it up and it's in decline but still three-quarters of America. Half of Americans said their religion is very important in their own life.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/358364/religious-americans.aspx

> people who describe themselves as "very religious" or belong to a church are the minority.

i’m not sure this is at all an accurate depiction of americans and religion. last i looked into it—which admittedly was like two years ago—an absolutely terrifying number of americans believed in angels and god. if i’m remembering correctly, it was a wild shocking number, like more than 70%.

i mean, if we’re limiting it to only self-described “very religious” maybe, but believing in god and angels is suspect enough in a persons rational judgement and that absolutely is not a minority of people.

There is no single depiction of "Americans and religion". The country is too large, physically, for that to be the case. I wouldn't even break it down to state level. I'd personally break it down closer to county level.

The people you speak of cannot learn and grow out of their false paradigms unless they are given the chance to fail.

Silencing them is a recipe for a chain reaction / cascade of failures. It is not a winning strategy.

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