https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/after-birth-abortion/
Anti-abortion advocated have claimed that people support killing children as old as 5, but no one who actually holds this view has been identified. Additionally, some people said they were in favor of “fourth trimester abortions” on a survey, but that question was obviously rather misleading. The respondents probably didn’t that pregnancy ends after 3 trimesters.
> there may be a fetus that’s non-viable
You need to not read or link to fake news.
> we want the government not to be involved in these types of decisions. We want the decision to be made by the mothers and their providers, and, and this is why, Julie, that legislators, most of whom are men, by the way, shouldn’t be telling a woman what she should and shouldn’t be doing with her body
If the government is not involved, there's nobody to check the viability. There's nobody to ensure that viable infants aren't killed just because the mother and her provider decided it's the best thing to do. There's an ideological position that is based on "men can't tell women what to do" - and this position is not conditioned on "only in the case when we're talking about non-viable fetus" - it applies to all cases.
Also note that opinion is not the opinion of the author of the original law. It's another person trying to defend the law - but there's no guarantee that the letter of the law would match every tidbit of this interview, and there are multiple indications - including ones I quoted - that the intent of the law is to remove any limitations, not conditioned on non-viability of the fetus. Again, I am not saying the author of the law was dreaming about killing as many infants as possible - their motivations were probably closer to the ideology I quoted above - but the consequence of unconditional withdrawal of the state from the picture would be that it is not possible to enforce any conditions, whatever rhetoric the supporters used at the time.
In the 1980s, Surgeon General Everett Koop made a major effort to campaign against those who were advocating for abortion ex-utero. (https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1984/march-16/surgeon-g...)
I suppose some did argue that letting infants die from lack of medical care was not technically killing them. Koop called it infanticide. In the 1970s-80s Koop crusaded against attempts to classify newborns as fetus ex-utero that could be legally terminated at will.
In many ways I think its an apt warning about trying to change a society through force or coercion instead of through cooperation and mutual respect.
Justice Roberts made a similar point in his dissent in Obergefell.
I was was already aware that before Roe, abortion was only legal on a handful of states (including New York). However, I recently read in the NYT that New York even came close to repealing its abortion law a year or so before Roe. It only survived because of the governor's veto. The court's actions, especially when so poorly-reasoned, were bound to create a strong backlash, and the ones that could persevere long enough to counter such an undemocratic decision we're going to have the strongest opposite polarization to the court. And then that backlash created it's own polarized backlash. Now the backlashes reinforce each other.
It's unfortunate that this is now being undone by pigeons shitting on the legal chessboard, but on the bright side, we now have an opportunity to even more firmly rebuke regressives.
There's no "extremely obvious" right to privacy in the Constitution. If there were, the concept of "penumbras" would not be necessary to support it. That is not a problem for a proponent of natural rights - to whom it is clear that the Constitution can not and should not enumerate all the rights - but for positivists it indeed presents a problem that needs quite a lot of artful work to resolve. Treating all that work as "extremely obvious" is not only silly but also not conductive to the good faith discussion - if you declare anybody who disagrees with you, including accomplished legal scholars, are idiots ipso facto, then there could not be any real discussion about anything.
> we now have an opportunity to even more firmly rebuke regressives.
If you goal is to hurt the other tribe, don't be surprised when the other tribe hurts you back. You sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind. If you want more pain, you will get more pain. That will continue until people realize there's value in finding reasonable consensus and hurting the outgroup is not a worthy goal in itself.
Could you double-check that? I've never heard this, but I've seen a couple of pro-life groups say that pro-choice groups are advocating for that, as a sort of propaganda to equate not just abortion with murder, but abortion providers with murderers too.
Yes, there is some joking about "post natal abortions" for certain extremist politicians, but it's never serious about permitting after-birth abortions".
FYI, "anti-choice" is a pejorative, as is "pro-abortion" for pro-choice people. Let's steer clear of mudslinging on such a controversial topic, so as to avoid a flamewar. :)
It's less pejorative than the implication that "pro-life" connotes that the opposition is "anti-life". Few pro-lifers seem to put any effort into guaranteeing life for anybody -- often in favor of capital punishment, and practically never advocating policies that preserve life such as health care.
"Anti-choice" is about the most dispassionate, accurate label I can apply. There is a choice that the wish to deny. Any other term is a euphemism.
But the actual legislation does.
If they actually try to pass their platform into law, they will discover the hard way how big a problem ectopic pregnancies are.
Ectopic pregnancies are not a problem for Republicans because they are not the ones dying from those pregnancies. They don't care about the electoral ramifications because they maintain impenetrable strongholds in the states where these laws are being passed. It's not that they are passing the laws and will find out the consequences; they know the consequences (they're not dumb) and feel safe passing the laws regardless.
Care to bet how that will go down when said Supreme Court rules the constitutionality of said law?
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
First, I thought we were talking about legislation allowing abortion at the federal level. That said, if this court is consistent (not guaranteed), then I still don't agree. This was ratified by states with laws allowing abortion. Therefore an originalist interpretation should not accept that person here refers to the unborn.
But I can see THIS court accepting that section 5 gives Congress the power to pass legislation, defining "person" is a proper legislative act, and therefore the Congressional interpretation of a disputed word should be accepted.
So sure. Congress can try ban abortion nationally, and might succeed. But I doubt that they can legalize it nationally and have that decision hold.
(Separately the amendment process is more complicated. The failure of the Equal Rights Amendment demonstrates that Congress alone cannot create an amendment, even if the public generally supports it.)
I see no indication Republican women radically differ from Republican men substantially on this issue, at least in the polls I've seen. And if there were, there are enough prominent Republican women that would be able to speak up on the issue.
So I think your simplistic take of "patriarchal Republicans oppress women again" is probably a couple of generations late.
Women are specifically targeted by these laws, they will face punishment due to these laws, and they will in fact die because of these laws. Their economic prospects will drop. Single women and their children will fall into poverty at faster rates. We know all these things will happen because the opposite happened when Roe was decided. This isn't a mystery to anyone.
> McGeachin has this position not because it doesn't affect her personally ... but because a lot of people in her state ... support this position
I'll remind anyone reading this that the Idaho GOP just voted to exclude support for a life-of-the-mother exception to their party's official platform. I highly doubt the majority of women agree with that, even in Idaho. That is a very extreme position. We'll have to wait on the polling to come out on that because it just happened this weekend.
But sure, let's just say for the sake of argument they do actually hold that position.
What I'm saying is that every woman who supports this position and needs a lifesaving abortion will either leave Idaho to get an abortion, or die in Idaho because they couldn't afford to leave. McGeachin and everyone she loves and cares about will be in the former group, I guarantee you that.
Nope. You need to understand the difference between "law affecting women because the matter in question is women" and "law affecting women because somebody wants to hurt women specifically". The abortion regulation can not be not about women (weird exceptions excluded) - it doesn't mean it is based only on the desire to subjugate and oppress women, this is just a stupid take that reduces everything to a bumper sticker.
> and they will in fact die because of these laws.
Nope, they won't. Idaho GOP position is not the law and I don't think it's likely it will become the law. The actual law is different and does not preclude pregnancy termination if it is necessary for saving woman's life. Women may die because they would make a decision due to these laws - e.g. to seek an illegal and unsafe abortion instead of, e.g., carrying to term and giving the child for adoption - but there would be always conscious choice and action involved. Again, you are confusing regulation that concerns women - because, obviously, any abortion regulation would - and one that is designed to hurt women, which it is not.
> I highly doubt the majority of women agree with that, even in Idaho.
I do not know about the majority, but I am sure some do. In any case, again, the reason why they take this position is not because they hate women, and until you realize that, you won't understand anything about their positions. Maybe you don't want to, but I am here to tell you your position is wrong. Maybe you don't care to know the truth - that's also your choice.
As https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2018/09/14/age-race-and-gender-s... says, demographics of party support are that the Republican base is dominated by older men, while the Democratic base is dominated by younger women. Therefore Republicans really are going to have an institutional bias against issues that affect young women.
This can be seen by Republican opposition to abortion, childcare issues, and vaccinating against HPV (which causes cancer in women).
"Institutional bias" is a meaningless phrase that does not explain anything. Conservative positions and their sources are well known and do not need any magic invisible (or visible only to the left, magically) properties to explain. It is not a huge surprise why conservative Christians don't like abortion - they have been talking for decades why, and one needs no magic "bias" to understand that argument, even if you disagree with it. Introducing this just makes the whole political discussion weird - people tell you "we think so and so because of this and that" and you tell them "no, in fact you don't think this, you are just not completely sane and affected by 'bias', which you can not see but I can, so let me explain what you truly think and why!". That doesn't sound like something that can lead to anything sensical.
It is true that older people tend to be more conservative, statistically - but it is just silly to reduce all the gamut of political opinions and ideologies to that one thing.
This form of argument is always available, and always meaningless. For example Russian rhetoric is that they are fighting Nazis, and not that they are attempting genocide. That doesn't change that they are attempting genocide.
In the case of Republicans, we have a group of mostly older white men. Most of whom agree with a set of cultural values around family, marriage and so on. For example in polls, Republicans are over 1.5 times more likely than Democrats to say that women should stay home and not work. It is no surprise that Republicans are far less likely to support programs to give women access to child care for the purpose of working. Republicans are generally opposed to abortion. Republicans are far less willing to accept that unmarried women should enjoy sexual freedom, cohabit without marriage, and so on.
Republicans will cite a variety of sources for these positions, such as the Bible. But what it adds up to is that Republicans broadly support traditional patriarchal positions about the role of women, while opposing social changes and policies that most women would like, and feel gives them more freedom to live their lives as they will.
It is not horribly unreasonable to describe this as, "patriarchal Republicans oppress women again." No matter how much that does not fit the stories that Republicans tell about themselves.
> In the case of Republicans, we have a group of mostly older white men
Here you are purposely confusing between "majority of them" and "all of them, or at least all worth considering". It's like saying "Americans are mostly white". Demographically, it's true, 73% of Americans are white, but continuing the conversation while ignoring the other 26% would be pretty much not talking about America. Also, 50.5% of Americans are female - the majority. Would it make sense to talk about America as "the country of white women" and ignore all others?
> Republicans are over 1.5 times more likely than Democrats to say that women should stay home and not work
"Should" does a lot of work here. Does it mean "banned by the law from working"? Does it mean "if man marries a woman, he should earn enough to let woman not work if she doesn't want to"? Does it mean "one-earner families are better environment for children than two-earner families"? Does it mean "I would never marry a woman who wants to work"? Does it mean "this is the ideal role-model situation, which we will strive for, though in real life we often fall short of it"? Can mean any of those and hundred other things. What it doesn't mean though is "Republicans hate women, including women, who have internalized self-hate".
> But what it adds up to is that Republicans broadly support traditional patriarchal positions about the role of women, while opposing social changes and policies that most women would like, and feel gives them more freedom to live their lives as they will.
Are you sure most women think working some mind-numbingly mundane job for 8 hours every day is more freedom for them than staying at home with their children (or even without them, just doing whatever they like)? Surely, if the women is a CEO she would like to keep the job likely. Most working women aren't CEOs though. Are you sure some of them wouldn't feel more free if they didn't have to work?
Anyway, this argument is like 100 years late - nobody prohibits any women from working, and no Republicans that I heard of proposed any legislation that would ban women from working. However, if you think that not taking money from other people to pay for some woman's childcare needs is equal to "patriarchal position" - that's nonsense of the first degree. Nobody owes anybody else - men or women - to pay for their childcare needs. It has nothing to do with "patriarchal" - it's just that I do not have to give money to care for your child, because it's my money and not my child. Take your own money - or, if you have a decent job, your employer's money - and care for your child, nobody bans you from that. Trying to guilt people into giving you money to care for your children and calling them "patriarchal" if they refuse is just an abuse of terms. Presenting them as if they don't give up their own money with no benefit for them to benefit some stranger women as them hating women is plain disingenuous.
Wait, membership in Republican party guarantees you not having ectopic pregnancy? How does that work? That goes way beyond my knowledge of biology and human anatomy, I'd like to know more about it.
> they maintain impenetrable strongholds in the states where these laws are being passed
I think it was just mentioned above no laws are being passed that concern ectopic pregnancies. Is that not correct?