Texts, web searches about abortion have been used to prosecute women
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
I don't understand why this paragraph is buried in the middle of the article. It should be a prominently featured tooltip.
The outrage here is that they violated our basic rights as Women by suddenly overturning a law with no warning or input from citizens.
The further outrage is that they’re actually being revolting enough to chase after us for it.
What a disgusting, disturbing, revolting country. :( ‘freedom’, lol…
This statement is kind of funny when the right you're referring to was invented (right or wrong) by a group of unelected judges, and is now open to be legislated on by the citizens you want input from.
No.
Humans (and that includes women) have agency. That includes bodily autonomy and any "law" that restricts that is unethical, misogynistic and flat wrong.
Don't like abortion? Don't have one. As far as anyone else is concerned it's none of your concern.
If that's what you believe, then you should have no problem being required, under penalty of imprisonment or execution to:
1. Submit blood/dna samples to a state organ donor program;
2. Give up a kidney, a lung, part of your liver, perhaps a testicle to someone who is a good donor match.
What you're advocating is essentially the same thing.
What's that? You don't want to be required to do so?
Why is that?
As an aside, according to the Donor Care Network[0]:
"Kidney donor surgery has a .007% mortality rate, which means that on average, for every 100,000 living donor surgeries, seven donors die."
At the same time, according to the CDC[1]:
"In 2020, 861 women were identified as having died of maternal causes in the United States, compared with 754 in 2019 (3). The maternal mortality rate for 2020 was 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births"
Making it more than three times as dangerous for a woman to carry a child to term than it is to donate a kidney.
Would you support legislation that would require you to provide a kidney, part of your liver, a lung or some other organ to another person? And if you refuse, you will be subject to imprisonment or even the death penalty if the designated recipient died?
If not, then why is it okay to have laws that require essentially the same thing from women with functioning reproductive systems, with the additional burden of such a requirement entailing more than three times the risk of death than donating a kidney?
[0] https://www.donorcarenet.org/education/kidney-donation-risks...
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2020...
Edit: Fixed typos. Added the missing link.
In the case of an abortion the right to autonomy clashes with the right to not be murdered. And that is what has had a significant portion of the population so up in arms that they spent fifty years trying to get a supreme court that would overturn Roe because they correctly think that point is before birth. How much before birth is what needs to go through the sometimes ugly but often cathartic democratic process at the state level.
Right. This (non)person (an embryo/fetus) has the problem that it cannot exist outside the womb for at least six months, therefore a woman can be compelled to literally give up her flesh and body for nine months -- against her will?
So. By your logic, if a person will die without your help, even if you don't know/like/want them around and you don't help them, you're a murderer.
That's what you seem to be claiming.
Does it sound absurd? It should, because it is. And that's what you're advocating.
Also, talking about at what point a fetus can survive outside the womb is a non winning argument as well because it's shockingly early and getting earlier every year due to medical breakthroughs. You and I both won't like where the legal limit on abortion ends up by that metric.
No, you are a murderer if you choose to kill someone and act on your choice. You keep trying to put words in my mouth that I did not say because you have talking points for those words whereas you don't seem to have talking points for what I actually said.
Also I am really not sure if you have any comprehension or experience of the actual pregnancy process because you keep couching it in terms of you actively helping someone when that really isn't the case (you get better results if the mother is helping but it isn't required). As long as you keep doing the basic things that were keeping you alive before pregnancy 9 months later it is highly likely a kid will be born, especially as the pregnancy progresses further along into the later months where most people have the most problem with abortion. The active choice in a pregnancy is to terminate it or not, the rest of it can be surprisingly passive and still work (although if you choose to not terminate it and also choose to be passive you are a terrible person, which is unfortunate but not illegal).
And I disagree. What other people do witht their bodies is none of your (or anyone else's) business.
Anything else is just being a a busybody.
Edit: To clarify, bodily autonomy is an individual right which shouldn't be limited or proscribed by any government, local, state or federal.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/16/what-actually-happens-w...
I dont live in america unfortunately and have no clue what the cultural background causing this is, but i do know its wrong.
Though it's possible the religious and conservatives at the top had more insidious motives.
If the argument is that a fetus is not equal to a human but still life and therefore sacred, then why isn't the anti-abortion crowd clamoring to make putting terminally ill pets to sleep a crime? If euthanizing an actual living dog or cat that can feel pain is morally okay, I don't really understand why an unviable fetus would require more protection under the law. I've also not met anyone who also wants to outlaw hunting because "life is sacred"; instead, I'll often hear arguments about how hunting is ethical despite the fact that it's ending life.
If the arguments that abortion should be illegal because of the "sanctity of life" were being applied consistently to other issues, I'd find it easier to believe. When the only heavy political mobilization from the "life is sacred" interest group is to protect "life" when it's sequestered inside a woman's body, it's pretty hard not to assume that the only substantive difference is in fact the motivation.
We need a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women's rights.
Sounds great - but would that matter?
Roe vs. Wade showed that laws made and ‘democratic’ decisions settled upon in the USA can be reversed with no warning, no voting, nothing but funding from evil people.
I fail to believe these Christian extremists wouldn’t repeat the process with the constitution.
After all, these are people who take ‘wives be submissive to your husbands’ as literal Gospel.[0]
Absolutely disgusting and appalling.
That verse and many, many more - shows to me that Women’s rights or gay rights can never even be important to these people, sadly. In fact, as long as we have rights; they’ll fight against it. They think they have to, or they’ll go to hell!
God told them to take away our rights.
I mean, Christianity is a patriarchy, by design. (‘God the Father’ and all of that…)
Outside of Catholicism, there isn’t any sort of Divine Feminine figure, and the Bible doesn’t speak much upon Women’s rights. (having been raised by a Baptist Minister I do actually know quite a hit about the Bible)
It will be a constant uphill battle against these people, sadly.
[0] Check out this crockpot doozy of bullshit from Ephesians 5:21:
“ Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour.”
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”
And verse 28 says:
“In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”
The ultimate idea of these verses is better expressed in Ephesians 5:31, which says:
“However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”
And then there's First Timothy...
"But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint."
God created us in His own image, and we decided to return the favor.
Roe vs. Wade wasn't a law, or really a democratic decision -- it's decision in the first place was pretty much an example of overturning those democratic decisions with no warning or voting (e.g. the texan laws that were placed by those democratically elected members of texan legislature).
There is a lot in your post that could be responded to, but, if I may, I'll talk about the most important.
There are a LOT of people who don't understand what "The Gospel" is. The Gospel is the bare minimum knowledge to be saved. Here goes:
God made us people to be in a relationship with Him
God is perfect
We are not perfect - and this imperfection prevents us from being with a perfect God
There is nothing we can do to be perfect, or to be with God
God sent Jesus to earth to die for us, so we don't have to die for our imperfections
If we accept Jesus' death for us, we can be in a perfect relationship with God -forever-
That is it. There is no mention of being gay, having abortions, murder, church, voting republican, loving others, believing in evolution, submitting to a husband, respecting a wife. Zilch. Nada.
I say this so that you might know what is the Gospel- and to know it is open to you, but also so that others might know what is the Gospel and what it isn't.
To be clear and relevant: Christians don't need to expel abortion to spread the gospel. And people who have had abortions can still receive the gospel. We can actually come together, while disagreeing about abortion.
We've had to ask you not to do flamewars on HN several times before. Fortunately it doesn't look like you've been making a habit of it recently–that's good!
Before you downvote me because you might disagree, or you might live in the USA and not like that I’m speaking negatively about it, please stop to put yourself in the shoes of the women in the USA, especially those who are victims of sexual assault.
Please be part of the solution, not the problem.
POST: Looking from the outside in - America is, at best - a sad joke - and, at worst - absolutely appalling, horrific, and terrifying.
The response (rather the offensive as hell, disgusting, unbelievable lack of response) to the recent school shooting - followed by the abolition of basic human rights, less than a couple weeks later is a situation that has actually left me at a loss for words or understanding.
America has, finally - officially lost is right to call itself the ‘Land of the Free’.
The point where you’re arresting raped women for getting an abortion, yeah…pretty sure that’s just plain evil. No words.
It’s a terrifying situation, and I don’t see it getting any better anytime soon.
As a queer, transgender woman; I could not feel safer or more grateful to have made the choice to leave the USA and live here in Canada; where ‘freedom’ isn’t just a word shouted by homophobic, transphobic, gun-toting public as a reason to be hateful…but an honest-to-God way of life.
We all know that these awful people will be coming after gay marriage next.
I never thought I’d have to use the term ‘Christian extremists’, but what they’re doing to basic human rights is disturbing.
As a woman who considers herself a Christian - I’m pretty damn sure if God had a phone, he’d be placing a call to Biden to ask if they could take ‘In God we trust’ off the dollar bills.
It’s really sad how the USA can call Muslims terrorists, but ignore the terrorists within their borders. :(
Fortunately I think that will be harder to overturn, because it's on a less-shaky legal basis (as far as I know) compared to Roe v Wade. Also I think that ship has more or less sailed and society has basically come to accept it. Abortion has always been a lot more contentious.
> I never thought I’d have to use the term ‘Christian extremists’, but what they’re doing to basic human rights is disturbing.
This has been decades in the making, the endgame of an intergenerational propaganda campaign. They were extremists in the 80s, in the 00s, and today. What's interesting now is that the "Christian" angle is de-emphasized, and what used to be considered Christian fundamentalism has worked its way into mainstream secular conservativism (not by accident).
It is arguably a longstanding American political tradition to govern according to hypocritical authoritarian religious extremist principles, dating back to literally before the founding of the USA.
I know people are downvoting me because they’re from the USA and they’re likely not ready for the truth.
They can choose to be ignorant. I can pretty much guarantee no woman I know would downvote that comment, it clearly comes from the place of male privilege that got us into this mess.
I chose to open up as a sexually assaulted woman, if they want to say my comment isn’t the plain-clothed truth, too bad for them.
They’ll see it eventually.
I completely agree it’s always been a problem - dating back to the Crusades and Witch-burnings..
I also sadly have to agree that it’s getting worse the more and more these extremist Christian views have become what the Right wing just..is, now.
That's a really ridiculous take on what it means to be a human being participating in political discourse, but there it is. I'm quite appalled at the fact that your original comment was temporarily dead.
Of course, the same standard is somehow not applied when people are angry about mask mandates. Then it's apparently fine to be snarky, dismissive and outraged.
As an American male, I'm pretty appalled by this too. If men could get pregnant, abortion would have been legal as soon as (probably before) such procedures were safe to do. Which turns my stomach. A lot.
As I (and many folks I know) think, terminating a pregnancy is (or rather should be in the US) a personal, private decision to be made only by the pregnant person.
In fact, as I stated previously here[0], if you don't have a functional female reproductive system, you need to shut the fuck up.
And even if you do have one, if it's not you that's pregnant, you also need to shut the fuck up. It's not your business or concern.
I'm mad as hell about this even though it won't affect me personally. But as you describe, it gives the lie to the idea that this is a society based in liberty.