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Comment by passwordoops | Hacker News Reader

Can't speak for Bentonville, but Little Rock is awesome!

Arkansas currently has a 100% total abortion ban. They do not even allow abortion at any week if you’re raped, if you’re a child who has been raped, or if you’re a victim of incest. No woman in her right mind would ever move there, and this CTO is female.

To expand on this, just to push off the inevitable: it’s not just about abortions, it’s about women’s healthcare overall. It turns out there’s a whole shitload of grey areas, doctors aren’t willing to go to jail, and it puts women’s lives in danger to have this theocratic bullshit in place.

The longest drive from within Arkansas to an out of state abortion clinic is about five hours. There is no place to live without compromises. I'm in a state with free choice and the nearest to me is a three hour drive. My distance to access is greater than 90% of the population of Arkansas. I can understand not wanting to live there due to that policy on principle but not on practicality.

And what if it's an emergency?

Some compromises are not worth making when it could kill you.

Note this law is actually working as designed - they want pro-choice people to leave their state so they can entrench their power there.

Here's the first sentence of the law:

  (a) A person shall not purposely perform or attempt to perform an abortion except to save the life of a pregnant woman in a medical emergency.

https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-5/subtitle-6/cha...

We get it: YOU ARE DISHONEST.

That shit means, in practice, that if you're in bad shape and will obviously need an abortion; the hospital will wait until you are nearly dead before they perform it.

It happens every day, and vile, dishonest, woman-hating pieces of shit like you lie lie lie to defend it.

Here is an example of the deaths that dishonest, woman hating, authoritarians like you promote:

https://www.propublica.org/article/nevaeh-crain-death-texas-...

I know you won’t care, because you’re a worthless monster. But just a reminder that you are, in fact, a horrible person who deserves a horrible life.

> The longest drive from within Arkansas to an out of state abortion clinic is about five hours.

Arkansas isn't so bad because I can drive 300 miles to a different state if I need medical care. Ok.

> There is no place to live without compromises.

Sure but calling an abortion ban a compromise is like calling a nuclear warhead a nonlethal weapon.

Do you fail to see the irony in comparing abortion to a weapon and not meaning the actual killing of the fetus? (Abortions to save the life of the mother are a very small percentage of abortions)

do you really think people are falling for this? especially on this forum?

You can get medical care there. You just can't end the life of a baby, unless the mother's life is in danger.

Words mean things, and the four-week fetus of a raped eleven-year-old is not a “baby”. Medical care to terminate that pregnancy and that fetus is literally medical care — and is illegal in Arkansas.

I haven't done a deep-dive on this subject, but it appears adolescents under 15 are 0.2% of US abortions according to the CDC.[1] So raped children needing medical interventions is some sub-fraction of 0.2%, which is less than 1,200 abortion across the entire country. It seems like such an extreme edge case that it is highly irrational to tar the adults of the entire state of Alabama as "garbage people" over these highly irregular scenarios.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/ss/ss7209a1.htm

And yet the elected leaders of Arkansas purposely rejected a bill that would have allowed these children -- excuse me, these edge cases -- to be allowed abortions if they were raped. They voted the bill down eighteen months ago.

This is who they are. https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/local-regional-news/2023-03-...

It's always fun to see how elected 'leaders' of this ilk (privately) change their tune when their mistress needs an abortion.

Or their daughter. Or when it's them.

There's a reason this twenty-four-year-old article is a classic: https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-...

I don't think it's genuine to make the argument that restricting rights is A-OK if the people who would be negatively affected are a small enough group. I'm assuming you couldn't articulate what the "cutoff" would be even if you wanted to, and if you could I doubt you could defend it.

I mean, why stop at 0.2 percent? Why not hurt even more people? Is 0.2 percent a magic number?

I am much more pro choice than you are if you are anywhere near the Overton Window. Every single state has laws that shock my conscience as much as the Arkansas abortion ban shocks yours. If you don't have to make such compromises I envy you.

> Arkansas isn't so bad because I can drive 300 miles to a different state if I need medical care

Would just add that Republican lawmakers are trying to ban you doing this:

https://www.law.georgetown.edu/gender-journal/in-print/volum...

For example, Idaho became the first state to outlaw “abortion trafficking,” which it defined as “recruiting, harboring or transporting” a pregnant minor to get an abortion or abortion medication without parental permission. Which is obviously a problem if your parent raped you.

You're being downvoted but this is correct. The entire concept of "state's rights" was always a facade when it comes to abortions. The end-goal is restricting choice as much as possible, and in every way you can. Virtually no republican's support people travelling to blue states for abortions due to this. The issue of abortion has been rife with dishonesty for as long as it's existed.

What a ridiculous take. 50+% of women in Alabama think abortion should be illegal in most cases. And Alabama was in the top 10 for percent inbound migration last year, meaning there are tens of thousands of women who made the choice to move to Alabama.

And you're saying all of them must be "not in their right mind".

How many are moving there because their husbands are moving there and don't want divorces?

50%+ of them being in favor of restricting abortion means the rest don't like restricting abortion, but may not have the means to leave.

Probably some, but no where near all.

Maybe - instead of saying that a state of millions of people is filled with only helpless or mentally unwell women - maybe we can just say that different people can have different viewpoints on abortion while still being mentally normal.

Some people are so stuck in their bubbles that they can’t imagine anything else.

That Pew Alabama poll you are likely referring to is absolutely ridiculous:

https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/databa...

There is a world of difference between (a) a 10 year old child being raped and needing an abortion, (b) woman who will die if she gives birth and (c) woman getting an abortion the day before the baby is due simply because she feels like it.

And yet the poll lumps all of those together. Such a complex issue needs far more nuance.

CTO in the article appears to be beyond the age at which pregnancy is possible?

I did not get that impression from seeing a recent photograph from her, and this might be missing the point. Imagine that the law on the matter would be hostile towards a younger aspiring-professional image of her. Is Bentonville only going to be okay for women who've "made it" and lived past their child-bearing years?

This will probably be a huge surprise for you, but some people care about other people.

So? She certainly has one or more daughters, or neices, or is a god parent, or has friends with kids...

That’s like saying men shouldn’t vote on matters relating to abortion. People can vote you their feet.

And don't forget states with those policies are losing OB/GYNs and other medical professionals rapidly[0] so even if you don't care about abortion your medical care or the medical care of the women you love is going to be shit (even by US standards) if you get stuck there.

Women are dying not only because they have pregnancies that should be terminated due to nonviability but also because doctors are afraid of treating them while they're pregnant[1].

Any company with a shred of care for their female employees and the families of their male employess should be leaving those states.

0: https://www.wired.com/story/states-with-abortion-bans-are-lo... 1: https://sph.tulane.edu/study-finds-higher-maternal-mortality...

That isn't really an answer to the statement about moving their life.

If they have been well compensated, they likely have other prospects and don't really care about money, so their friends and other relationships could be a priority.

Can't speak for Bentonville, but Little Rock is awful.

All you did was say you like Little Rock. What is this place becoming, Reddit?

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