The New "Pro-life" Movement Has a Plan to End Abortion

[ShazzieB]

And it doesn’t care if American voters don’t agree with it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/04/pro-life-anti-abortion-roe-mifepristone-pill-ban/673763/

The unpleasant reality facing the anti-abortion movement is that most Americans don’t actually want to ban abortion. This explains why the pro-life summer of triumph, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, led to a season of such demoralizing political outcomes. Voters in Montana, Kansas, and Kentucky in November rejected ballot measures to make abortion illegal; just last month, in Wisconsin, voters elected an abortion-rights supporter to the state supreme court.

Yet the movement’s activists don’t seem to care. Thirteen states automatically banned most abortions with trigger laws designed to go into effect when Roe fell; a Texas judge this month stayed the FDA approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, setting in motion what is sure to be a drawn-out legal battle; and some lawmakers are pursuing restrictions on traveling out of state for the procedure—what they call “abortion trafficking.”

*snip*

Hawkins [president of the anti-abortion group Students for Life] is realistic about the fact that her movement’s progress has a ceiling. Some states, especially the liberal strongholds of Illinois and New York, are never going to go for the kinds of laws that she’s pushing for. This is when, she says, her organization will shift its emphasis to the federal government—pushing for a constitutional amendment that would recognize fetal personhood, or for a ruling from the Supreme Court to affirm that the Fourteenth Amendment already does.

*snip*

Yet American culture seems to be moving in the opposite direction. The Dobbs ruling, though exciting for anti-abortion activists, was so enraging for abortion-rights supporters that, in some places, they responded by enshrining the right to abortion into state law. These and other political losses suggest that the pro-life movement is already overreaching—and generating a backlash. “It’s breathtaking to see people so motivated and so well funded to push an agenda that is so incredibly unpopular,” Jamie Manson, the president of the abortion-rights organization Catholics for Choice, told me. The months since Dobbs have exposed a fundamental tension between the outcome that abortion-rights opponents want and the one democracy supports.

Yeah, who cares what Americans really want? Who cares about democracy? Not these sanctimonious crusaders! Their goal is for abortion to become “both illegal and unthinkable” (direct quote from the article) throughout this country. They are swimming against the tide, but we can't afford to let our guard down for a second.

By the way, that bit about about how they think the Fourteenth Amendment may already recognize fetal persohood is absolute codswallop. The Fourteenth Amendment, which defines the rights and privileges of US. citizenship, begins by stating that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States" are citizens thereof. There's not much I would put past the current SCOTUS "originalists," but its really hard to see how even they could redefine that very clearly worded statement to apply to the so-called "pre-born."

Cross-posted to Pro-Choice

[Layzeebeaver]

1. can these fetal-persons also vote and get drafted into military service?

I really think we need some left-wing trigger laws like this as well.

You're pregnant? you must accompany your little fetal-person to Ukraine and hold the rifle and fight!

[peppertree]

3. +1

Your great points go to that longstanding GOP goal: that unborn things (fetuses, corporations, etc.) are "persons" - but actual people are not.

[lindysalsagal]

12. Will pregnant mothers have to pay taxes on them? Buy insurance for them?

I want to see a bill that requires men to forfeit half their kidneys or livers when their kids need a transplant: Make men lose bodily autonomy, too. And outlaw boner pills. And Vasectomies.

[Layzeebeaver]

17. This is not in context with this thread.

[ShazzieB]

19. The post got hidden, yay!

[inthewind21]

2. They

haven't cared for the 40+ years they have been trying to overturn ROE. Too bad no one noticed then.

[AZ8theist]

6. Yeah, I get your sarcasm...

But for those 40+ years, most of rational, individual rights America said time after time "Oh they'll NEVER overturn Roe"....

Then came along an election where multiple voters couldn't stand one of the most accomplished women in history. And did stupid things like voting for Jill Stein.

It left us with the most corrupt, criminal, IMBECILIC treasonous PIG ever to occupy the WH. Couple that with Moscow Mitch in the senate, and...

HERE. WE. ARE.

I fear it's too late to save America from a fascist dictatorship. The far right WANTS IT.

[usaf-vet]

4. ShazzieB are you British of have you spent time in the UK. Only twice in my life....

...... have I heard the term "codswallop." Once was in this OP, and the second time was in one of my very favorite British base series.

ENDEAVOUR, in the pilot episode, one of the main characters used the term "codswallop."

Thanks for reminding me to look it up. Here is what I found

British, informal. : words or ideas that are foolish or untrue : nonsense. The notion that Scott was waylaid by bad luck is "a lot of codswallop," said Roland Huntford, a British historian.

[ShazzieB]

8. No, I'm not British, except in terms of ancestry.

But I'll take that as a compliment! I love British words and expressions and greatly enjoy learning and using them. I was an English major in college and have been reading books by British authors since long before that (along with lots of American ones). I also did theater in college, including a bit of Shakespeare.

I treasure my British ancestry, and that adds to my enjoyment of learning about the differences in how the English language is used on both sides of the pond.

[usaf-vet]

10. Have you tried reading the Colin Dexter Morse books? I have to adminit my eyesite is filaing..

... and making reading more of a task than it used to be.

Here is a true short story. It was an English teacher in my senior year in high school who changed my academic look on life.

I was, let's just get by and get all this unnecessary stuff done and move on.

We read and discussed Shakespeare, Thorton Wilders Our Town. And many more I went from a C- student to an A student in that class.

I join the military right out of his school and became a medic. I graduated at the top of all my training classes and went on to love that job.

I got out of the military and went to college got several degrees BS in Biology primarily. I ended up working in education, trying to change it. I served 3 terms on the local school and helped build a new elementary school.

At 76 been we have been married for 53 years are retired now and hope to finish three family history books. In the years I have left.

My son now works with kids trying to change their lives.

Thank you Janet McConville. YOU MADE A DIFFERENCE.

[ShazzieB]

13. Not familiar with those books, but I'll look into it.

I know what you means about reading getting harder. Ebooks have been my salvation. I downloaded Amazon's free Kindle app to my Android tablet a few years ago and love it. With ebooks, you can enlarge the text till it's comfortable to read. I don't know what I would have dobe without being able to read this way. Most libraries have ebooks you can check out with your library card, and you don't need to go to the library to do it!

My husband and I are 72 and 73 (I'm the older one). 49th anniversary is next month, and we'll hit 50 in 2024.

[usaf-vet]

14. Colin Dexter wrote all of the Morse mysteries. Here is a link.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-e&q=who+wrote+the+morse+books

[ShazzieB]

15. Oh, Inspector Morse!

My husband used to watch the Inspector Morse mysteries on PBS! He loves all those BBC mystery shows. I sure I watched some Inspector Morse shows with him, but it was a long time ago and I don't remember much about them now. This looks like the kind of stuff I would enjoy reading, though. Thanks!

[CTyankee]

5. I would suggest to anti choice person they take advantage of the bounty law provision...how does

that make one feel, I would wonder out loud. "Turn 'em in, get a $$$ bounty. Have that woman hauled off to jail, maybe forced to give birth in leg irons..."

I'm so mad every day when I am reminded of these laws...

[NullTuples]

7. If the Roberts Court can designate a corporations as special sort of "person", why not a fetus?

[JanLip]

9. Another example

Of the minority trying to force the majority to bend to their will. This whole debacle will come back to bite them in there a** I hope they get what they deserve. Sometimes I just want to scream. 😠😠

Jan

[dembotoz]

11. when this happens we must call iit out loudly as f&&king bullshit

Yes you will spot yourself out and you may loose popularity points but it must be done

[dalton99a]

18. Roe was just an appetizer for what's to come.

[Cha]

20. They supposedly "pro life" UNTIL

the babies are born and they're they're PRO DEATH.