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Comment by marcuskane2 | Hacker News Reader

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?

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