If Roe v. Wade Goes (What happens next is the end of reproductive rights)

[cali]

<snip>

The result would turn back the clock to the days before Roe v. Wade when abortion was legal only in some states, but not in others. There is every indication that about half the states would make abortion illegal within a year of Roe being struck down, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The Center for Reproductive Rights, which challenges abortion restrictions around the country, puts the number at 30 states. For one thing, abortion bans already on the books in some states would suddenly kick in. And some Republican-controlled state legislatures would outlaw abortion immediately.

Even with Roe and subsequent decisions upholding abortion rights, more than half the states have enacted barriers like mandatory waiting periods, “counseling” sessions lacking a real medical justification; parental consent or notification laws; and onerous clinic “safety” rules intended to drive clinics out of business.

Mr. Romney is a vocal supporter of this continuing drive in the states and in Congress to limit the constitutional right, even without overturning Roe. To a large degree, the anti-abortion forces have succeeded. In 1982, there were about 2,900 providers nationwide; as of 2008, there were less than 1,800. In 97 percent of the counties that are outside of metropolitan areas, there are no abortion providers at all.

We do not need to guess about the brutal consequences of overturning Roe. We know from our own country’s pre-Roe history and from the experience around the world. Women desperate to end a pregnancy would find a way to do so. Well-to-do women living in places where abortion is illegal would travel to other states where it is legal to obtain the procedure. Women lacking the resources would either be forced by the government and politicians to go through with an unwanted or risky pregnancy, attempt to self-abort or turn to an illegal — and potentially unsafe — provider for help. Women’s health, privacy and equality would suffer. Some women would die.

<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/opinion/if-roe-v-wade-goes.html?_r=0

[Live and Learn]

1. It is not even just abortion, these assbites want to make contraception

illegal or hard to get for the masses too. They are the American Taliban.

[freshwest]

2. The GOP has already said women should stay with abusive spouses. Some states have given rapists

Visitation rights.

Some states have eliminated domestic violence laws. Others eliminated rape crisis centers and battered women's shelters.

The fundies push fathers saying when and who their daughters will marry. Next will be forced marriage.

Abstinenance will be the only legal method of birth control and if someone is raped and gets pregnant, it's not really rape. So marry him, or somebody. No mooching.

What could possibly go wrong? And people are saying they'll have to hold their nose to vote for Obama for *what* reason? I guess this won't affect them or they don't mind being ruled by the American Taliban.

Next up, read The Handmaiden's Tale. They've been putting this out for a long time, what makes anyone think this is a joke? We might as well wise up.

[cali]

3. hyperbole is counter productive and the real threats are dire enough

Forced marriage is not in the offing, nor is decriminalizing domestic violence. And what states have put forward NEW laws eliminating domestic violence or giving rapists visitation rights. There are some states that haven't withdrawn or replaced old laws re visitation rights in the case of the father having raped the mother, but I'm unaware of any new laws. Please post links.

[Live and Learn]

4. Who would ever have thought that they would attempt to ban contraceptive

availability? The point is that they are quite capable of doing and saying things that we long ago quit thinking were possible. It is not just women either but outright racism thats ugly head has been reared and is becoming commonplace again.

I don't put anything beyond these guys and I think we would be wise to take even the slightest signals they are giving as signs of what may be to come soon. Akins' statements haven't been as disavowed as they should have been and he is still in the running.

[cali]

21. Who would ever have thought they wouldn't attempt to ban contraceptives?

They may try, but this isn't a winning battle for them- and they know it.

[HockeyMom]

23. If contraception has the remote possibility of preventing implantation

that is abortion and killing a "person". Remember all those Personhood Bills? Fertilized eggs are PEOPLE. They would ban the Pill, and of course Morning After Pill, which call a early abortion" by straving the baby to death. They think regular BC pills are abortions too.

Think I am crazy? Google what they say.

[Egalitarian Thug]

7. This is not hyperbole, I think you must live in a very liberal area. If they do take down Roe,

do you imagine that will be the end of it?

The reply might not be completely accurate, but it is valid.

"We’ve got a generation now who were born with semiequality. They don’t know how it was before, so they think, this isn’t too bad. We’re working. We have our attache’ cases and our three piece suits. I get very disgusted with the younger generation of women. We had a torch to pass, and they are just sitting there. They don’t realize it can be taken away. Things are going to have to get worse before they join in fighting the battle." - Erma Bombeck

[cali]

10. well yes, I live in Vermont but that has nothing to do with my analysis

There are far too many obstacles- legal, social, corporate, political- in the way of banning bc. Limiting access is certainly a likelihood, but banning contraceptives in not going to happen. It's political suicide. Opinion on abortion is divided. Not so regarding bc. 99% of women in this country use it.

[Egalitarian Thug]

15. If you really believe that, you need to get out into the rest of the country more.

You are drastically, even dangerously underestimating the amount of crazy we are dealing with.

[Live and Learn]

16. Very true! nt

[HockeyMom]

24. Maybe not barrier methods of contraception,

but IUD's and the Pill? Yes. Read my previous post.

[Live and Learn]

5. +1 nt

[Swede Atlanta]

11. I'm not sure about some of these assertions....

I am not aware of a state that has granted rapists visitation rights. I recall one recent case where a rapist father has sought visitation rights but have not seen anything definitive on this.

Forced marriage will not happen. But fundie families would be emboldened by a Roe v. Wade overturn by believing that the country is turning back toward God. And for these families that means turning back toward a time when wives and daughters were subservient to husbands and fathers. Husbands exercised significantly more control over the lives of their wives. Daughters had to seek permission from their fathers when it came to potential spouses. This will play out in those fundamental families. But I don't see a return to arranged or forced marriages.

Abstinence will also not be the only form of birth control. There would likely be some states that would outlaw the sale of birth control pills because they will argue this is akin to abortion or "murder". But I think condoms would remain legal where there has been no joining of sperm and egg.

But there will be increasing focus on abstinence in terms of sex education

In general, however, overturn of Roe v. Wade would embolden the Christo-fascists (and I am a Christian). They would see this as a sign the nation was turning back toward God and they would be pushing all manner of changes in society from increased challenges to church-state separation such as prayer in schools, teaching creationism and not evolution, banning the teaching of geology and other such sciences, etc. They would push harder to roll-back rights achieved by the LGBT community, etc.

So, in addition to the very direct affects of a rollback of Roe v. Wade would be a tidal wave of bigoted, hateful legislation and civic action to create a country governed by the Christian version of Sharia law.

[Ilsa]

14. Here's a link:

http://m.newser.com/story/152813/rapists-can-assert-child-custody-in-27-states.html

And 31 states do not bar rapists from seeking custody or visitation, thereby placing the burden on the victim to have him excluded from her child's life.

[lalalu]

28. You are being way too optimistic and

underestimating the hate and determination of the rightwing Christian groups.

[lalalu]

26. The really scary part is that there are people

who want to do exactly what you post.

[freshwest]

29. And they took power in 2010 and now want the presidency.

This has been a long-term plan, the destruction of the secular America I grew up in. They do not respect anything about the rule of law as most of us have come to understand it, where the government enforces equality in all things. And truly, that is their chief objection to it.

Great profit and power derive from inequality and discrimination, but some wear blinders and refuse to see that this is part of a social model which has always been opposing us. When people call this way of running things irrational or illogical, it is from the secular world view where science and respect for differences to advance mankind is the bedrock.

If that is not the basis, then society is built on 'might makes right.' It can be dressed many different ways, but that is what is boils down to in the end. The liberal mindset is that of the Founding Fathers, a philosophy that took into account mankind's virtues and flaws and world history. Equality and resitution is the path to peace, as expressed by Thomas Paine, because so many have been dispossessed.

The Founders bespoke a humanist philosopjy, but more than that, a humane outlook on life. We've lost that, drowned out such reverence by media shredding our conscience and continual warfare deadening the love of nature and life.

When things get to that low of a vibration (?), that sees only the material, the skin, the body, the timber, the oil, the steel, it is not in love with life. A person in love with life and learning does not seek to devour or derail other beings sharing space and time, does not see them for their financial or use value only, but feels the gift, the wonder of life, which is so very short.

These people are dragging us back the caveman era, which was not as benighted as they are. At least in the state of nature, there was still nature left to feed the spirit and lighten the heart. They do not intend to leave us that comfort, unless we cede freedom of thought to their authority.

Putting it all together is depressing, but we are at a turning point. We are accomodating some of these ideas because so many follow them, even though it makes our hearts ache.

[Major Nikon]

6. WWARD: What Would Ayn Rand Do?

Honestly I don't know why more Republicans don't support abortion, especially in this day and age when every good GOPher is supposed to worship at the altar of objectivism. If you don't believe someone has the right to remove a parasite growing in their own body, how can you honestly say you're for individual rights at all? Anyone Republican who says they are for force birthing, should automatically lose their Ayn Rand card.

An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?

Of Living Death, Ayn Rand

Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a “right to life.” A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious; to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable. . . . Observe that by ascribing rights to the unborn, i.e., the nonliving, the anti-abortionists obliterate the rights of the living: the right of young people to set the course of their own lives. The task of raising a child is a tremendous, lifelong responsibility, which no one should undertake unwittingly or unwillingly. Procreation is not a duty: human beings are not stock-farm animals. For conscientious persons, an unwanted pregnancy is a disaster; to oppose its termination is to advocate sacrifice, not for the sake of anyone’s benefit, but for the sake of misery qua misery, for the sake of forbidding happiness and fulfillment to living human beings.

The Ayn Rand Letter, Ayn Rand

If any among you are confused or taken in by the argument that the cells of an embryo are living human cells, remember that so are all the cells of your body, including the cells of your skin, your tonsils, or your ruptured appendix—and that cutting them is murder, according to the notions of that proposed law. Remember also that a potentiality is not the equivalent of an actuality—and that a human being’s life begins at birth.

The question of abortion involves much more than the termination of a pregnancy: it is a question of the entire life of the parents. As I have said before, parenthood is an enormous responsibility; it is an impossible responsibility for young people who are ambitious and struggling, but poor; particularly if they are intelligent and conscientious enough not to abandon their child on a doorstep nor to surrender it to adoption. For such young people, pregnancy is a death sentence: parenthood would force them to give up their future, and condemn them to a life of hopeless drudgery, of slavery to a child’s physical and financial needs. The situation of an unwed mother, abandoned by her lover, is even worse.

I cannot quite imagine the state of mind of a person who would wish to condemn a fellow human being to such a horror. I cannot project the degree of hatred required to make those women run around in crusades against abortion. Hatred is what they certainly project, not love for the embryos, which is a piece of nonsense no one could experience, but hatred, a virulent hatred for an unnamed object. Judging by the degree of those women’s intensity, I would say that it is an issue of self-esteem and that their fear is metaphysical. Their hatred is directed against human beings as such, against the mind, against reason, against ambition, against success, against love, against any value that brings happiness to human life. In compliance with the dishonesty that dominates today’s intellectual field, they call themselves “pro-life.”

By what right does anyone claim the power to dispose of the lives of others and to dictate their personal choices?

...

A proper, philosophically valid definition of man as “a rational animal,” would not permit anyone to ascribe the status of “person” to a few human cells.A proper, philosophically valid definition of man as “a rational animal,” would not permit anyone to ascribe the status of “person” to a few human cells.

The Age of Mediocrity, Ayn Rand

[Live and Learn]

8. Ugh, I sure don't want to be reduced to touting Rand's philosophy

to defend women's rights.

[Major Nikon]

9. It's more about hypocrisy than any of Rand's pseudo-philosophy

If someone like Ryan is going to attack collectivism by relying on the pseudo-philosophy of Ayn Rand, then it should be pointed out to them at every opportunity that forced birthing by the state is just about as anti-objectivism as it gets. It's not about promoting Ayn Rand. It's about revealing the idiocy, if not hypocrisy of someone who wants to apply two philosophies that are mutually exclusive and then try to pass themselves off as an intellectual.

[Live and Learn]

13. Of course, I got that. But they won't.

Most of them don't even know who Rand is. And I don't want them to start reading her books without having any critical thinking skills.

[Major Nikon]

18. Once they find out Rand was a pro-choice atheist, they would want to burn her books instead

[Live and Learn]

19. Do you seriously think they would ever get that far in their studies? nt

[Major Nikon]

20. I never underestimate the stupidity of the average wingnut

I just don't see how pointing out how Ayn Rand was virulently pro-choice is going to make a wingnut want to read her books, even assuming they could get past the first chapter of a book with lots of words with more than 2 syllables. Far more of them are going to go by what idiots like Ryan tell them it means. I'd just as soon they hear the truth about them.

[Live and Learn]

22. I agree that pointing anyone who mentions her to the

actual theories she espoused is not only warranted but necessary. I just want to be careful about creating any new doctrinaires. Then again, maybe getting the word out ahead of time and forcing them to see what she really believed isn't such a bad plan.

[mgardener]

12. And then

And then the witchcraft trials start.
They are using the bible to keep women in line and witches are in the bible.
What better way to keep women in line then to call them a witch?

[Mothdust]

17. Then they would overturn Supreme Court rulings agjainst sodemy laws.

... in order to allow states to re-criminalize homosexuality and every other form of sex other than missionary position, cause the only thing they hate more than rights for independent women are equal rights for gays.

[HockeyMom]

25. Marv Albert trial

Do you remember that? Virginia had sodomy laws which applied to straight couples also. After the Albert case was ruled consensual, Virginia COULD have still prosecuted them for sodomy. Did they? No.

The joke back then was, "Virginia is Lovers", but only if you are married male and female having missionary intercourse to make babies.

Oh, yeah, that was the joke back then. Maybe with the Repukes it won't be a joke anymore.

[lalalu]

27. Yes, i remember that.

It was funny and sad.

[Mothdust]

30. but the u.s. supreme court eventually struck down sodomy laws

After a case I believe from colorado. Texas had a fit having to give up their laws. But g.o.p. have introduced recriminalizing sodomy into their platform. Don't know whether they have officially yet, but some of them are working on it.