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Comment by equalsione | Hacker News Reader

Over 60% of the US population think abortion should be legal. More than half of US states are (or are very likely) to institute abortion bans.

To the broader point, there has to be _representative_ democracy for decentralized decision making to be fair

- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2021/nov/...

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> Over 60% of the US population think abortion should be legal. More than half of US states are (or are very likely) to institute abortion bans.

Could it be that a majority of the population in those states are against abortion? Wouldn't Why should this be regulated at the federal level?

I'm pro-choice but I can understand that some people believe life begins at conception and therefore abortion is murder. If a majority of people in a state believe that, isn't it democratic to let them make laws accordingly?

50% of the US population don't live in 50% of the US states.

This has both benefits and drawback. The decision of more than half of US states will impact less than half the us states citizens.

But it will impact 100% of the women needlessly killed or imprisoned.

Yes, and 100% of those that voted for those laws got the law they voted for.

Abortion isn’t 0 or 1, legal or not legal.

There’s a million nuances in it, rape, incest, medical reasons, and the time of abortion.

The abortion debate doesn’t exist in Europe because almost all sides managed to agree on a 12 week limit and it’s left alone.

I would guess in 10-20 years the US would arrive at the same conclusion, with small differences between red and blue states.

Stop making this a yes or no issue. And that’s not what the Supreme Court did. They didn’t ban abortion. If 60% want abortion legal they can vote for whoever gives them that.

Tell this to the states passing anti-abortion legislation. They seem to view it as a binary. At a minimum, the burden of proof for exceptions is high with the penalties being life in prison in more than a few states.

Because this is the initial over-reaction to the court ruling. Over time saner heads will come along and the laws will be relaxed as that state views.

> The abortion debate doesn’t exist in Europe

That's simply not true.

In Germany's last election, a major issue was about removing a clause disallowing "advertising" abortions. It remains controversial that people seeking abortions have to get extensive psychological counseling from an extremely limited number of therapists before getting an abortion.

In Poland abortion is banned entirely and they are about to start keeping a pregnancy register.

Ireland and Spain also have ongoing debates about the particulars of their laws, with Ireland having just legalized it all in 2018!

The GOP are going to immediately nuke the filibuster and ban abortion at the federal level if they control the government after the next election. Pence has even said this out loud recently. It will likely make no exceptions for rape or incest either. The majority of the country is against this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/24/abortion-...

> Abortion isn’t 0 or 1, legal or not legal. As others have already pointed out below, and I already mentioned, over half of states are ready to enact total bans. The repeal of Roe doesn't make abortion illegal, but it does make a _ban_ on abortion legal, which is exactly what is happening.

> I would guess in 10-20 years the US would arrive at the same conclusion, with small differences between red and blue states.

This data visualisation [0] highlights the problem with this approach.

This isn't an issue where you can sit back and contemplate it as some abstract exercise of democracy. So many women will die, or be persecuted during that 10-20 year span you mention and it is completely needless. No one should be adopting a "it'll all work out in the end" mindset.

[0] https://twitter.com/monachalabi/status/999562371461992448?la...

Yeah, except you are taking a political or moral stance right there, so it’s not fair to the rest of the population. Many people believe you are saving many lives in those 10-20 years.

No state is representative of the whole US population. Don't think the US is a united whole.

> there has to be _representative_ democracy for decentralized decision making to be fair

So fix the actual problem instead of trying to kludge your way around it.

The actual problem is a poorly educated voting population being manipulated into voting against their interests to support corrupt career politicians that behave in effect like medieval lords.

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