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Voting Pro-life

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  • Speaking on Waterford local radio WLR FM, Bishop Cullinan said:“Let’s face it, euthanasia has now been accepted in this sense that we have accepted - the majority of the Irish people - that some life is not worthy of life.”

    As against the previous situation when the potential life of a foetus or unborn baby was seen as more worthy than the actual life of the mother?

    That's actually RC boilerplate.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    Hurrah - sense and kindness have prevailed.

    Hopefully no more harassing of people seeking medical care.
  • TwilightTwilight Shipmate
    The state of Georgia has passed a new law, allowing for women who get abortions after the sixth week to be tried for murder. I find these new laws terrifying but I guess this is the natural conclusion after years of Pro-life groups telling everyone that a fetus is a baby.
    Georgia law.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    Twilight wrote: »
    The state of Georgia has passed a new law, allowing for women who get abortions after the sixth week to be tried for murder. I find these new laws terrifying but I guess this is the natural conclusion after years of Pro-life groups telling everyone that a fetus is a baby.
    Georgia law.

    Further if you go get it done in another state, you could still be tried in Georgia.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    :cry:
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    I heard this on the radio, and I thought I had misheard. Maybe that should be I hoped I had misheard.

    How can someone be tried for doing something that is legal in the state where it is done? Why would Georgia's law override another state's - is that legal?
  • Colin SmithColin Smith Suspended
    Speaking as a man I really resent having to have an opinion on abortion. It should be none of my damn business what a woman chooses to do with her body.

    Even the term pro life is meaningless because the typical pro life ranter has no social, communitarian concern for the life of anyone postnatal, or for the lives of those affected by unwanted pregnancy. Moreover, they are not generally pro life, at least not as far as any non-human species is concerned. A typical pro life argument in support of the new laws in Georgia was advanced by the repellent Ben Shapiro here (31 minutes in) albeit he tried to Shanghai "science" to the cause by claiming that life begins at conception, ignoring the fact that while a fertilised egg and an embryo are alive they are not yet remotely human in the way that anyone would recognise as human rather than something indistinguishable to most observers from the embryonic stage of a mouse.

    What pro lifers really support is the right to treat women as beasts of burden.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Huia wrote: »
    I heard this on the radio, and I thought I had misheard. Maybe that should be I hoped I had misheard.

    How can someone be tried for doing something that is legal in the state where it is done? Why would Georgia's law override another state's - is that legal?

    There are a number of situations where using jurisdictional lines to evade the laws of your state can be forbidden or penalized. I'm not sure this is one of them, though. I've heard that provision referred to as the Fugitive Uterus Law (a historical reference with some resonance in Georgia).
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    I remember when then-candidate Donald Trump said "there has to be some form of punishment" for women who get abortions. The anti-abortion factions within the Republican party pretended to be appalled by this and forced him to backtrack on the comment. I guess they've decided that they no longer need the pretense.
  • And yet there are still women who will vote Republican.

    Quite apart from anything else, if a woman travels out-of-state and suffers a miscarriage who is to say that some busybody won't insist she "caused" it and so should be tried?

    If I were a female of childbearing age in Georgia I would extrapolate from this:

    1. Don't get pregnant.
    2. If you do get pregnant, don't tell anyone, and don't buy an over-the-counter pregnancy test kit in case either you get shopped by someone working for the store or appear on CCTV buying same.
    3. If you must find out if you are pregnant go out-of-state to do it and don't tell anyone the result until you've had any testing done and decided whether or not you wish the pregnancy to go to full term.
    4. If you are planning on a family, invest in loose clothing and wear it at all times for a period before you decide to try to get pregnant: that way no one will question whether or not you may be pregnant for longer, giving you some leeway for testing, etc.

    All-in-all the simplest thing would seem to be for any woman of childbearing age who wishes to have some autonomy to move state.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    What about someone who is ordinarily resident in another state, who has an abortion in that other state, and then, maybe, passes through or over Georgia? Could another state grant asylum?
    What about if she becomes pregnant in another state, and has the abortion in another state, so the foetus has never been in or near Georgia? What about if the same situation were to occur in another country, e.g. Canada? Mexico? The other Georgia?
  • Buy a gun along the way?
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    In a federation, laws can and do differ from state to state. One state can decide that a particular action is an offence, another that it is not. That much is legitimate. What is not legitimate is that one state can legislate in respect of actions occurring in another. Penny S and Croesus allude to some relevant questions which can arise.

    There can be interesting questions arise as to just where an offence is committed. These are not necessarily academic. In the Aust context - to take one where there is a similar federal form - a woman normally resident in Victoria could not be guilty of an offence in that state were she to go to Queensland and have an abortion performed there by a surgical procedure. But what if she goes to Queensland and there buys and consumes a drug which induces the abortion - then returns to Victoria where the foetus is delivered? In which state did the abortion occur? I can see argument that that could be prosecuted in Victoria.
  • anoesisanoesis Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    In a federation, laws can and do differ from state to state. One state can decide that a particular action is an offence, another that it is not. That much is legitimate. What is not legitimate is that one state can legislate in respect of actions occurring in another.

    So, in the US, the various positions of the fifty states, on the question of marriage between first cousins, range from; It is legal to marry your cousin here, through; it is not legal to marry your cousin here, but we will recognise a cousin-marriage contracted elsewhere, through; it is not legal to marry your cousin here and we will consider void any cousin-marriages contracted elsewhere, through; it is not legal to marry your cousin here, and although we DON'T consider void cousin-marriages conducted elsewhere, we WILL prosecute you as a sex offender if we believe you are actually having sex with your spouse. (This last, insanely inconsistent one is Texas, for those interested.) But at least, the offence being prosecuted (sexual intercourse between two legally married individuals) would be occurring in-state. For those states which refuse to recognise cousin-marriages contracted in other states where such things are perfectly legal, is that not a case of one state 'legislating in respect of actions occurring in another'?
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited May 2019
    If that be the case, US law has moved very much from traditional federalism. Something as vital as marital status ought be recognised throughout the Union.

    Of course, marriage here is federal and not state legislation.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    The US made a giant leap away from traditional federalism after the Civil War.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    If that be the case, US law has moved very much from traditional federalism. Something as vital as marital status ought be recognised throughout the Union.

    Of course, marriage here is federal and not state legislation.

    The US constitution has the "full faith and credit" clause which you would think would cover these issues. Perhaps those folk likely to marry their cousins are also unlikely to move states, and hence the laws have not been significantly tested. I must confess that my mind's eye immediately places them in rural West Virginia or Utah, which I'm sure is unfair, not least because both states prohibit the practice.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    I was about to ask that - there is full faith and credit provision in our constitution, which is strongly influenced by that of the US. But the post from anoesis suggests that some marriages, legal in the state where they were contracted, would not be recognised in other states in the case of a prosecution for sexual activity within prohibited degrees of consanguinity. That says that full faith and credit is not always given.
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    I know it's different with different countries, but did Australia recognise as valid the same sex marriages performed in NZ before Australia itself legalised same sex marriage?

    I never heard of any prosecutions here for abortions performed in Australia before NZ's Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Law was passed. (There was an organisation called Sisters Overseas Service that helped NZ women wanting abortions to travel to Australia).
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    I don't know that the question arose publicly. It could have in relation to social security payments, or in access to a hospital bedside - I don't recall any publicity if it did.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    I was about to ask that - there is full faith and credit provision in our constitution, which is strongly influenced by that of the US. But the post from anoesis suggests that some marriages, legal in the state where they were contracted, would not be recognised in other states in the case of a prosecution for sexual activity within prohibited degrees of consanguinity. That says that full faith and credit is not always given.

    I remember an example involving marriage as an illustration of how the Full Faith and Credit clause works. Let's say a pair of teenagers from New Jersey cross the state line to Maryland, where the minimum age to marry is lower (this example is from back before the recent push against child marriage bumped up the minimum age of marriage in a lot of states). New Jersey has to give full faith and credit to Maryland's marriage license and regard the couple as married. Then let's say that the parents of one of the teens petitions the government of New Jersey to issue an annulment on the grounds of age. Does Maryland have to give full faith and credit to that annulment, or is that an example of New Jersey not giving full faith and credit to Maryland's official acts? The usual way to resolve situations like this is to grant jurisdiction to whichever state has the greater claim over the involved parties, usually by wherever the parties reside.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Given that marriage law here is federal not state, the problem has not arisen in my experience. But does the law of each state have some provision relating to residence being established before a marriage can be performed? IOW, a requirement that the parties establish which state has the greater claim to which you refer before the marriage takes place.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    Given that marriage law here is federal not state, the problem has not arisen in my experience. But does the law of each state have some provision relating to residence being established before a marriage can be performed?

    Not usually. Some locales even bill themselves as "marriage vacation" spots for non-residents to come and get hitched. (e.g. Las Vegas, Hawaii) The most that they'll ask is whether the couple is legally able to marry within the jurisdiction in question and they'll usually just take their word for it.

    I recall that when same-sex marriage first became legal in Massachusetts (the first American state to do so) there were attempts to enforce a largely ignored (until then) 1913 law forbidding the marriage of non-residents. It got ugly when it was pointed out that the law was originally enacted to prevent out-of-state interracial couples from flocking to Massachusetts in an era when such unions were not universally recognized.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    edited May 2019
    I shed a tear today for those all the women of Alabama who have been forced back to the 19th century by twenty five white men.

    :cry:
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Thanks Croesus.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Boogie wrote: »
    I shed a tear today for those all the women of Alabama who have been forced back to the 19th century by twenty five white men.

    :cry:

    Republican State Senator Clyde Chambliss made a very telling observation prior to his vote in favor of Alabama's abortion restriction:
    Chambliss, responding to the IVF argument from Smitherman, cites a part of the bill that says it applies to a pregnant woman. "The egg in the lab doesn’t apply. It’s not in a woman. She’s not pregnant."

    In other words, a fertilized egg is only a "person" if it can be used as a pretext to control a woman.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    edited May 2019
    Welcome to the first, sorry second state of the Republic of Gilead. There is hope. This could lead to secession... and a nuclear civil war. No, there is no hope.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    Crœsos wrote: »
    Chambliss, responding to the IVF argument from Smitherman, cites a part of the bill that says it applies to a pregnant woman. "The egg in the lab doesn’t apply. It’s not in a woman. She’s not pregnant."

    In other words, a fertilized egg is only a "person" if it can be used as a pretext to control a woman.

    This is of course a moving of the goalposts. Does life begin at fertilization? That was the Evangelical buzzphrase for decades. But if it becomes inconvenient, they're not above changing it on a whim. It's not. about. babies. Never has been. It's about controlling women.

  • amyboamybo Shipmate
    I'm so incredibly angry, and also afraid to get pregnant again. Have they thought that this will actually decrease the birth rate in middle-class, educated women, who are afraid of being prosecuted for miscarriage or having their life threatened by pre-eclampsia, for example?
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    amybo wrote: »
    Have they thought that this will actually decrease the birth rate in middle-class, educated women, who are afraid of being prosecuted for miscarriage or having their life threatened by pre-eclampsia, for example?

    I doubt it. Thinking about consequence for other people isn't their strong suit.

    I also wonder what this will do to medical care for all women, pregnant or not. Think for a moment about how cautious medical practices are right now about making sure a woman isn't even potentially pregnant before embarking on certain treatments or diagnostics. Now replace the caution borne out of fear of civil liability and malpractice with the fear of criminal law and hard jail time.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    Crœsos wrote: »
    amybo wrote: »
    Have they thought that this will actually decrease the birth rate in middle-class, educated women, who are afraid of being prosecuted for miscarriage or having their life threatened by pre-eclampsia, for example?

    I doubt it. Thinking about consequence for other people isn't their strong suit.

    I also wonder what this will do to medical care for all women, pregnant or not. Think for a moment about how cautious medical practices are right now about making sure a woman isn't even potentially pregnant before embarking on certain treatments or diagnostics. Now replace the caution borne out of fear of civil liability and malpractice with the fear of criminal law and hard jail time.

    I foresee gynecological care getting prohibitively expensive in Georgia.
  • I've heard of families who are choosing sterilisation before they risk any PIV intercourse, because they dare not get caught in this. Families where the woman cannot carry a child to term, and cannot afford to be put in the position of having to have another medical evacuation for another partially miscarried foetus. Families where there has been a complicated history of gynaecology.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    I gather it's doctors rather than women who would actually face prosecution, but that changes very little.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    I gather it's doctors rather than women who would actually face prosecution, but that changes very little.

    Usually but not always. As I noted on another thread the Texas House of Representatives recently debated a bill that could potentially impose the death penalty on a woman who got an abortion.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Crœsos wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    I gather it's doctors rather than women who would actually face prosecution, but that changes very little.

    Usually but not always. As I noted on another thread the Texas House of Representatives recently debated a bill that could potentially impose the death penalty on a woman who got an abortion.

    Yeah, I was talking specifically about this most recent one.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Penalizing the person administering the abortion can become punishing the woman if she self-administers Mifepristone. I'm not sure going after the prescribing physician or the pharmacist is called for in Alabama's new law. Even if it were that would be problematic since Mifepristone has non-aborifacient uses.
  • But the implications for these married couples is that they will not be able to obtain gynaecological support should something go wrong with a pregnancy, as the doctors will not risk certain medical procedures. Therefore, they dare not risk PIV intercourse with its risk of pregnancy until at least one of the couple is sterilised.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    Crœsos wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    I gather it's doctors rather than women who would actually face prosecution, but that changes very little.

    Usually but not always. As I noted on another thread the Texas House of Representatives recently debated a bill that could potentially impose the death penalty on a woman who got an abortion.

    Two deaths for the price of one!
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    Crœsos wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    I gather it's doctors rather than women who would actually face prosecution, but that changes very little.

    Usually but not always. As I noted on another thread the Texas House of Representatives recently debated a bill that could potentially impose the death penalty on a woman who got an abortion.

    Two deaths for the price of one!

    If the back-street coathanger doesn't get you the lethal injection will.

    They could just admit they're a bunch of misogynists, but I bet they somehow convince themselves otherwise.
  • How many of these states are places where they whole heartedly fought for slavery? And have the requisite number of biblical generations passed before the sins of their fathers don't get passed along? Is it the same Christianity that does the hate women thing as does the racism thing and did the slavery thing?
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    How many of these states are places where they whole heartedly fought for slavery? And have the requisite number of biblical generations passed before the sins of their fathers don't get passed along? Is it the same Christianity that does the hate women thing as does the racism thing and did the slavery thing?

    By and large, yes.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    So if there is Democrat presidency from 2021... 2025 what can be done about these states' draconian laws with a conservative majority Supreme Court? If that's the right question?
  • TwilightTwilight Shipmate
    Other than hoping some of the old conservative judges die and can be replaced with liberals, I don't know.

    I don't agree with those of you who think this is (primarily) about controlling women or anything to do with slavery. These may be the some of the same southern states, -- although Ohio's new abortion bill is rough and it was one of the leading abolitionist states-- but I think the reason is simply that conservative Christianity is more prevalent in those southern states.

    I think Catholics and fundamentalist Christians have spent the last thirty years working themselves into a lather over this issue and half convinced themselves that killing a zygote is the same as killing a five year old. That's why there are no exceptions for zygotes fathered by rapists. You wouldn't kill a five year old whose father was a rapist, would you?

    I say "half" convinced because most of these states still wont punish the woman who gets the abortion, just the doctor, and chances are, the doctor is a man -- so where's the "controlling women" in that? To stay inside the "abortion is murder" logic then these laws are like punishing the hit man who was hired to kill a woman's abusive husband, but not punishing her for hiring him. This is more patronizing women than controlling women although I can see the overlap. Men who hate women, like Donald Trump, want to see them punished, but the writers of the Texas bill, for example, are southern gentleman who want to protect little missy from doing something she'll regret later. So he makes it illegal, but only punishes the person in authority, who took advantage of her bad decision, made under stress. Bless her heart.

    I agree with this man. who believes that the Anti-abortion crowd is being illogical and contradicting their own views.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Twilight wrote: »
    Other than hoping some of the old conservative judges die and can be replaced with liberals, I don't know.

    The oldest judge is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and she's a staunch liberal.
  • DooneDoone Shipmate
    Twilight, sadly your link does not work here in the UK or in Europe.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    edited May 2019
    Twilight wrote: »
    I don't agree with those of you who think this is (primarily) about controlling women or anything to do with slavery. These may be the some of the same southern states, -- although Ohio's new abortion bill is rough and it was one of the leading abolitionist states-- but I think the reason is simply that conservative Christianity is more prevalent in those southern states.

    You say that as if those things are unrelated.
    Harlow seems to agree with Mark Noll that most evangelicals could not break free of a biblical hermeneutic that led them to support slavery, at least in the abstract. Kentucky’s evangelicals believed that “a commonsensical, plain reading of the Bible revealed the Christian God’s sanction for slavery.” …

    As Harlow notes, one could ask whether it was exactly a “faulty hermeneutic” that explains the failure of most white evangelicals to actively oppose slavery. Racism clearly “pervaded proslavery [and anti-abolitionism] Christianity.” One needed more than a “Reformed, literal hermeneutic” (Noll’s phrase) to presume that Genesis 9 sanctioned black slavery, for instance. Harlow also seems to think Noll too “sanguine about the possibilities of alternative hermeneutics to solve the Bible-and-slavery dilemma.” Of course, in Kentucky most white evangelicals simply saw no dilemma about slavery or white supremacy. One must at least conclude that the way that most white American evangelicals read the Bible did not lead them to oppose glaring social injustices. Instead, they tended to sanctify those injustices.

    The first sentence there, and the last two, paint the picture backwards and upside-down. The problem was not that white evangelicals “could not break free of a biblical hermeneutic that led them to support slavery,” but that they were committed to support for slavery and therefore devised and adopted a hermeneutic that allowed and encouraged them to continue doing so.

    Their hermeneutic did not lead to support for slavery. Support for slavery led to their hermeneutic.

    Pretending that white evangelicalism in America (or "conservative Christianity", as you call it) has nothing to do with slavery (or Segregation) does a disservice to history.
    Twilight wrote: »
    I say "half" convinced because most of these states still wont punish the woman who gets the abortion, just the doctor, and chances are, the doctor is a man -- so where's the "controlling women" in that? To stay inside the "abortion is murder" logic then these laws are like punishing the hit man who was hired to kill a woman's abusive husband, but not punishing her for hiring him. This is more patronizing women than controlling women although I can see the overlap. Men who hate women, like Donald Trump, want to see them punished, but the writers of the Texas bill, for example, are southern gentleman who want to protect little missy from doing something she'll regret later. So he makes it illegal, but only punishes the person in authority, who took advantage of her bad decision, made under stress. Bless her heart.

    I agree with this man. who believes that the Anti-abortion crowd is being illogical and contradicting their own views.

    I'm not sure I buy the distinction between "controlling" women and saying that decisions about family size and whether or not to continue a risky pregnancy should be in the hands of legislators rather than the women affected. I'd also disagree with the idea that anti-abortion Protestants are being illogical or contradicting their views. (Catholics take a different approach intellectually, though they arrive at much the same location in the end.) White evangelicals are very invested in the idea of male "headship" (occasionally discussed in this forum), one of the corollaries of which is that women are not rational moral actors. They lack the mental wherewithal to make moral choices, requiring a male guardian such as a father or husband to make decisions for them, so holding them accountable for their actions makes as much sense as prosecuting a small child or lunatic for their actions. We may find this analysis profoundly wrong and insulting, but it's not internally inconsistent.

    The other analysis, the one on purely political grounds, stems from the observation that there are more women voters than doctor voters so applying legal penalties to the smaller group leads to the same overall effect with less pushback at the ballot box.
  • Twilight wrote: »
    I don't agree with those of you who think this is (primarily) about controlling women or anything to do with slavery.

    Did you know that fertility clinics routinely abort 12-week fetuses from pregnancies conceived via IVF? Some IVF pregnancies result in triplets or quadruplets because they implant multiple embryos to increase the odds that one of them will "take." At around 12 weeks they perform a "reduction" to decrease the number of fetuses to one or two. I guess it's not abortion when wealthy white people who got pregnant intentionally do it.

    When I see Republicans trying to restrict fertility clinics, and crowds of protesters screaming abuse and waving gory signs at every woman who walks into one, I'll believe it's the babies' lives they care about.
  • TwilightTwilight Shipmate
    Yes I know all about fertility clinics and IVF. That's something many fundamentalist Christians are against, while some others insist on carrying every embryo and don't allow reduction.

    I have also seen Right-to-lifers (most often women) hold up gory signs outside of clinics. I think it's abhorrent. I also think they're doing it because they hope that the pictures will make the women entering the clinic change their minds about the abortion she's getting ready to have-- thus saving the baby.

    What does any of that have to do with slavery or controlling women just for the sake of controlling women. Why would women want to control other women?
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    It's 'righteous' because life and sex are 'sacred', under divine auspices: our Bronze Age God is watching us and will curse our tribe.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    I heard on the radio that one spokesman in one debate (hard to keep track of all the states at the moment) answered a question about IVF embryos in vitro by claiming that the fertilised egg out of the womb was not a pregnancy and so the killing of it did not count as an abortion criminalising the doctor. I only heard it once, and I may have the details wrong, but the person reporting it said that that showed that the pro-life people were not really concerned about the embryo, but only about controlling the women.
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