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Comment by cocacola1 | Hacker News Reader

So much for "states rights", I suppose. I wonder how long abortion is going to remain an issue?

There's an opinion piece from NYT [1] about this.

That 64% of Americans support some form of abortion but 63% of Republicans do not. And so states that are purple or red-leaning will see a no-tolerance abortion position being a requirement to make it through the Republican primary.

But that long term it will erode the popularity of Republicans across the country.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/opinion/abortion-rights-w...

You're missing the nuance here. A large majority (over 80%) of Americans support some restrictions on abortion too, which is not something you often see Democrat politicians advocating.

It's basically a Democrat primary litmus test that one supports few or no abortion restrictions, which won't help them win general elections.

> which is not something you often see Democrat politicians advocating.

Correct because that is not an election issue yet. A smart move by republicans would be to propose a 15-week limit with exceptions for certain cases, similar to what Graham was proposing.

And herein lies the asymmetry - democrats were defending abortion until Dobbs so they naturally had to moderate their tone. republicans were trying to repeal it and hence their tone was aggressively anti-abortion. Now that the tables are turned, it is far easier to paint republicans as extremist just by citing their recent statements or recent votes (some were totally idiotic, like banning abortion in all cases without any exceptions). It will be a painful few years until republicans restructure their coalition and tone down their messaging.

Abortion isn’t the issue. The issue is people trying to control what other people do with their own bodies.

No it seems like an abortion issue to me. You don't see the same advocates for drug use, prostitution, or assisted suicide

You kind of do, actually.

Then, by definition, it's an issue.

Doesn't the government/strangers have a right to control your body sometimes? Like forcing you to wear a mask or get vaccinated?

Well this is the debate. Where does that right stem from? What are its limits?

Yeah, it used to be the debate. Now it is "ban what I want or else you are bad" and "I can't believe you banned something I care about!" :/

For as long as:

  * people try to get rid of it
  * it's gotten rid of, people wanting to get it back

As long as right-wingers hate what other people do with their own bodies, probably.

For the right wingers it is a moral issue that has a few facets

- a child in the womb is distinct from its mother (according to some, as soon as new DNA starts being produced)

- the only difference between a grown human and one in the womb is time (and their resulting growth and development)

- to stop a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterine wall is tantamount to murder

- to abort said child at any point in time during pregnancy is murder

This places the conservative in an existentially horrifying position; every post conception contraceptive is murder. Those who use them are murderers.

I'd say hate is probably the right word to use.

There is a second thread underlying the vehement opposition to abortion, and that is the disdain for free love. They see it as extra-marital sex, fornication, adultery, and ultimately an affront to their God's commands and design for his humans are supposed to act.

Their opposition is an existential one. To abandon their position would be to condemn millions more to die.

Strangely enough they don’t give a damn about any human not in a womb, like hunger, universal healthcare, helping those in need, school shooter victims, etc.

It’s only murder when its someone else’s body and decision.

> they don’t give a damn about any human not in a womb, like hunger, universal healthcare, helping those in need, school shooter victims, etc.

As an independent who has voted for D positions more often than for R's, I say that's a false characterization. A lot of conservative positions give a damn about say, hunger or healthcare. They just don't give a damn about the policies proposed by the left.

Often times, I agree with them when I peer under the hood. Classic example is climate change and green new deal, which had a bunch of stuff totally unrelated and unneeded for climate change. Same with poverty trap[0] - a lot of conservatives argue that our welfare programs are actually hurting the poor and there are good logical arguments backing them. Another example, look at housing affordability - conservative approach (Texas) beats progressive approach (California) by miles.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Family:_The_Case_For...

Texas has a lot more available housing because Texas is full of people who are looking to get rich off of land investments made by their ancestors.

Very few conservatives give a damn about hunger or healthcare. Their solutions are almost invariably non-governmental entities tied to coercive religious indoctrination. Anyone can go on youtube and pull up hundreds of instances of conservative lawmakers arguing against school breakfast and lunch programs for poor children, as if "personal responsibility" has fuck-all to do with the ability of a CHILD to concentrate in class on an empty stomach. Hell, Milton Friedman believed that public schools should be abolished as an indirect method to resegregate the school system.

> Their opposition is an existential one. To abandon their position would be to condemn millions more to die.

I know this is how they like to frame it but we don’t see them feeling the same existential angst about things like wearing a mask to prevent the spread of a viral disease around people who might be immune compromised and die as a result. Then it becomes “the government has no right over my body”.

It is exhausting how contradictory conservative positions are.

Left wing has contradictory positions as well, in fact most people do, especially when their position is being defined by those that oppose their position.

Could you give some examples?

Caring for poor but not building houses for them (eg. SF). In similar vein, caring for environment but then use environment protection laws to prevent any housing, thus forcing hours of commute (and hence environment destruction) on the society.

Poverty trap and idiotic structuring of welfare programs, such that obtaining a job would result in massive marginal tax hike and thus disincentivizes poors to get a job and climb economic ladder.

Caring for minorities and diversity but ignoring Asians from that analysis (or worse, treating Asians as Whites / White-adjacents).

There is no contradiction here. Both liberals and conservatives recognize that direct action that kills someone is worse than failing to take a precaution that results in a statistically increased risk to others. Speeding is less bad than drunk driving, which is less bad than intentional running someone over with a car. It’s entirely consistent for conservatives to say that the government should be able to ban you from killing a fetus, while also saying that the government shouldn’t be able to make you take a precaution to reduce a contagious disease.

The difference between liberals and conservatives turns on how they view the morality of the direct and deliberate act of killing a fetus. Conservatives think it’s closer to killing a person, while liberals think it’s closer to killing a bug. Neither position is inconsistent.

> post conception contraceptive

Unless someone invented a time machine and didn't tell me, there's no such thing as a post conception contraceptive.

No, in fact, right wingers are pretty consistently unwilling to actually treat women who have abortions as murderers. They don't support the death penalty for them, they consistently agree that it doesn't count if the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest, and (male or female) they consistently participate in it themselves. Say what you want about right wingers: if they actually were all so morally bankrupt that they would commit murder at the rates they commit abortion, we'd have fallen into civil war long ago.

Beyond tiring.

Until a bunch of old dudes die off.

A “bunch of old dudes” were the ones who decided Roe. Abortion views haven’t really changed since then: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2011/07/01/1370797... (“But a new poll out today finds that abortion is not one of the issues on which the children are more liberal than their parents.”).

There was a bump in pro-choice sentiment after Dobbs but we will see if that is durable. The public opinion on abortion has been remarkably stable over decades: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opini...

Ah, well see, by that time you'll have a new batch. :P

You underestimate how many right-wing, pro-life young dudes are out there.

Don’t forget all the pro life young women: https://news.gallup.com/poll/235646/men-women-generally-hold.... About 20% of both men and women have opposed abortion in all circumstances going back to 1979.

Also, on the right, it’s women that drive the anti-abortion movement: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/08/730898408/republican-women-an... (“But what's interesting, Scott, is that Republican women express more opposition to abortion than Republican men - 68% of Republican women call themselves pro-life compared to 59% of their male counterparts. Also, Republican women were the only group in this poll to oppose exceptions for abortion in cases of rape and incest. A majority opposed that, while most Republican men do support those exceptions.”)

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