America transitions into Gilead

[Ziggurat]

Principles are sacrificed because it's less work?

What principle do you think is being sacrificed?

And public policy is almost always a compromise between multiple competing principles. Reducing costs is a legitimate principle which competes with basically every other policy goal.

Also, doctors aren't really necessary for abortions, though it's better to have a health-care professional involved.

If a woman performs an abortion on herself, how could you possibly catch her? Is she going to tell on herself? There's no real enforcement mechanism there.

 

[Trebuchet]

To some extent you have a point, but you are missing what the spoken motivation is for some of these religious fanatics.

They want sex to be risky to force abstinence. It's fine with some people that sex leads to STDs because they believe that motivates abstinence. They believe women should suffer the consequences of sinful (aka out of wedlock) sex.

Look up why people support abstinence only education even when the data shows it is ineffective.

And ONLY women. 'Cause boys will be boys, or something.

 

[Minoosh]

What principle do you think is being sacrificed?

That conspiracy to commit a crime is itself a crime.

And public policy is almost always a compromise between multiple competing principles. Reducing costs is a legitimate principle which competes with basically every other policy goal.

Even more reason to include sex education and access to contraceptives in laws restricting abortion.

If a woman performs an abortion on herself, how could you possibly catch her? Is she going to tell on herself? There's no real enforcement mechanism there.

Well, she could end up in the ER with life-threatening injuries, so there's that. Or someone close to her might rat her out. Or later in life evidence could be found of an illegal abortion and under some laws she could be prosecuted. Or they could subpoena laptops for evidence of ordering - or even looking up - abortifacients online. Anti-abortion forces could ransack garbage cans looking for discarded boxes/wrappers/blister packs and keep a running list.

That's 5 possibilities. I'm sure there are more.

 

[mgidm86]

I think I might.

What if the pro-choice side stipulated that yes, abortion ends a human life? Not that it's murder, because murder has a specific legal meaning, but that it might qualify as homicide. Well, we kill people sometimes, innocent people, and we justify it as collateral damage for the greater good.

I would say it's obvious that Alabama doesn't consider abortion to be murder, or even a crime, since pregnant women are not held criminally liable. In fact, there is great precedence to argue that early abortion has not been considered murder, or homicide, in common law, the Bible, U.S. history and Catholic-Protestant history. Destroying zygotes or early-stage embryos is not considered a crime or a sin among many evangelicals, although it is definitively sinful in Catholic doctrine.

Maybe fighting all this stuff point-by-point, as is done in litigation, is necessary to tease out the myriad inconsistencies in abortion laws and arrive at something like consensus. It's too bad that girls/women will be forced to carry rapist's offspring to term or that women may be imprisoned, but oh well.

Maybe a good lawyer can make abortion = self defense. "The damn thing is growing in me, I didn't put it there!"

If men could get pregnant these same guys would vote for free abortions and there'd be clinics on every corner.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

If a woman performs an abortion on herself, how could you possibly catch her? Is she going to tell on herself? There's no real enforcement mechanism there.

How do you catch any accused criminal when no witness willing to testify exists?

 

[Minoosh]

Maybe a good lawyer can make abortion = self defense. "The damn thing is growing in me, I didn't put it there!"

If men could get pregnant these same guys would vote for free abortions and there'd be clinics on every corner.

I don't think that men have no right to an opinion, but I also think most of them don't have the grasp the panic many women face on the very first day of a missed period- "I can't be pregnant, not now!" You just want to suck that blood right out of you. I'm not sure why there couldn't be one-use, sterile catheters that actually accomplish this. Ordinary over-the-counter medications are available for use very early. By the first day of a missed period it's probably too late.

ETA: The panic could be: My parents will kick me out, my husband will kill me, I'll be fired from work, my other children will starve ... people who frame this as a matter of convenience are wrong.

 

[Ziggurat]

How do you catch any accused criminal when no witness willing to testify exists?

You need to know about a crime before you can possibly catch a criminal, something your inclusion of "accused" already assumes. When the crime itself isn't reported, you can't catch the criminal.

 

[Ziggurat]

That conspiracy to commit a crime is itself a crime.

But if it's not illegal for a woman to get an abortion, she cannot be guilty of a conspiracy to plan an abortion. A conspiracy conviction requires that your contemplated actions are illegal.

Well, she could end up in the ER with life-threatening injuries, so there's that.

That would seem to provide sufficient deterrence in and of itself, to the extent that this possibility is relevant.

That's 5 possibilities. I'm sure there are more.

Oh, I'm not saying it's impossible. But they are all unlikely. And deterrence doesn't really work when your odds of getting caught are low.

 

[Babbylonian]

I would say it's obvious that Alabama doesn't consider abortion to be murder, or even a crime, since pregnant women are not held criminally liable.

Wrong. Pregnant women aren't held criminally liable because a) the legislature knows that very few doctors will take the risk if they can be given ridiculous prison sentences and b) pregnant women are more sympathetic figures than doctors who perform abortions.

If they didn't consider abortion a crime, then they wouldn't pass a ******* law that makes it a crime.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You need to know about a crime before you can possibly catch a criminal, something your inclusion of "accused" already assumes. When the crime itself isn't reported, you can't catch the criminal.

That makes assumptions easily refuted. But this sidetrack is meaningless.

 

[Minoosh]

Wrong. Pregnant women aren't held criminally liable because a) the legislature knows that very few doctors will take the risk if they can be given ridiculous prison sentences and b) pregnant women are more sympathetic figures than doctors who perform abortions.

If they didn't consider abortion a crime, then they wouldn't pass a ******* law that makes it a crime.

I meant that getting an abortion is not a crime. It would be like prosecuting the hit man but not the person who hired him.

This batch of emerging laws will be challenged for all sorts of reasons, and that might be one of them.

 

[Babbylonian]

I meant that getting an abortion is not a crime. It would be like prosecuting the hit man but not the person who hired him.

There's an inherent assumption here and in many posts that the currently passed and proposed laws are the endgame. They are not. Once Roe is overturned, they'll push these laws as far as they can. There is no question in my mind that, if these people are successful, we will definitely have pregnant abortion-seekers sitting in jail cells until they give birth.

 

[Minoosh]

But if it's not illegal for a woman to get an abortion, she cannot be guilty of a conspiracy to plan an abortion. A conspiracy conviction requires that your contemplated actions are illegal.

You're saying it's OK because the law makes it OK. And I'm asking, what make the law OK? What would you think about a new law that made it illegal to carry out a "hit," but not illegal to hire a hit man? IMO, if it's illegal to perform an abortion, it should be illegal to solicit an abortion. Georgia is more consistent on that point.

That would seem to provide sufficient deterrence in and of itself, to the extent that this possibility is relevant.

Sometimes people in a panic make poor choices.

Illegal abortion has gotten less risky mainly due to reliable miscarriage-inducing drugs. Of course, new laws in the U.S. target those as well. Also, doctors have gotten better at controlling bleeding and treating sepsis. But in many countries those women will be punished.

When Abortion Is Illegal, Women Rarely Die. But They Still Suffer

Oh, I'm not saying it's impossible. But they are all unlikely.

Moving the goalposts:

If a woman performs an abortion on herself, how could you possibly catch her?

You've discounted the possibilities I raised.

 

[Minoosh]

There's an inherent assumption here and in many posts that the currently passed and proposed laws are the endgame. They are not. Once Roe is overturned, they'll push these laws as far as they can. There is no question in my mind that, if these people are successful, we will definitely have pregnant abortion-seekers sitting in jail cells until they give birth.

I don't see it as a given that Roe will be overturned, but of course it's a possibility.

 

[Babbylonian]

I don't see it as a given that Roe will be overturned, but of course it's a possibility.

I'd like to think that this is the last gasp of conservative nutjobs who see their power has plateaued or is on the decline. However, the number of laws proposed and passed in a short amount of time may indicate that they've determined the Supreme Court is ready to do the deed. It's not like the justices exist in isolation from society. They get to chat with their friends, both decent and scum, just like everybody else. If that kind of informal polling shows the majority willing to **** on Roe, then the situation is dire. It could be years before the damage to the Supreme Court is repaired, years in which women in many states are once again without legal control of their own bodies.

 

[Ziggurat]

You're saying it's OK because the law makes it OK.

I'm saying that it's legal because the law makes it legal.

And I'm asking, what make the law OK?

Sometimes nothing. Sometimes it's OK under one person's beliefs and not OK under another's. This is not in any way peculiar to the law under discussion.

Sometimes people in a panic make poor choices.

And that would be true regardless of the legal status of the act.

Illegal abortion has gotten less risky mainly due to reliable miscarriage-inducing drugs. Of course, new laws in the U.S. target those as well. Also, doctors have gotten better at controlling bleeding and treating sepsis. But in many countries those women will be punished.

We're specifically talking about the US.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

It's evangelical men who are used to be in charge over women, and who feel that their God gave them the role as the leader of the household. They think women who end up pregnant outside of wedlock are sluts that ought to be punished, and that having an abortion while married is an affront to God who told them to procreate.

They are simultaneously worried about being outbred by "inferior races" which would result in whites being in the minority.

It's actually simpler than that. They want to prevent their own babies from being aborted, and they want to punish sluts for having sex with other males. It's all about propagating their own genes, and no reasoning got them into that position - just simple biology.


The Selfish Gene

...the claim is that there isn't much of a struggle because the genes usually win without a fight. However... if the organism becomes intelligent enough to understand its own interests, as distinct from those of its genes, there can be true conflict.

An example of such a conflict might be a person using birth control to prevent fertilization, thereby inhibiting the replication of his or her genes.

 

[Ziggurat]

It's actually simpler than that. They want to prevent their own babies from being aborted, and they want to punish sluts for having sex with other males. It's all about propagating their own genes, and no reasoning got them into that position - just simple biology.


The Selfish Gene

That makes no sense. From a purely biological competition perspective, one should encourage women impregnated by competitors to abort. Making them have babies isn't punishment in an evolutionary sense, it's actually helping them.

In other words, your attempted rationalization is complete and transparent nonsense.

 

[Minoosh]

I'm saying that it's legal because the law makes it legal.

Does that make it just? You ignored my question.

Sometimes nothing. Sometimes it's OK under one person's beliefs and not OK under another's. This is not in any way peculiar to the law under discussion.

The question was prompted by Alabama's abortion law; I asked about Alabama's abortion law, not a rhetorical "sometimes."

And that would be true regardless of the legal status of the act.

You asked how anyone could possibly detect a self-induced abortion. When that question was answered you changed your argument. Now, apparently, "scared people are going to make bad decisions anyway" has become your argument.

I don't know how many ER visits are the result of somebody's bad judgment, but I bet it's oodles. However, I still want ERs to mitigate the damage from bad judgment. Do you?

We're specifically talking about the US.

So we are. Georgia is in the United States.

The safety of illegal abortions has gone up largely because pregnancies can reliably be terminated chemically. But that's about to become illegal in Georgia, Alabama and other states as well. Will it drive more young women to stick coat hangers up themselves? Who knows? Who even cares?

Early abortion has been legal under common law, under American law, under the Old Testament and even under evangelical Christian standards until relatively recently. It's de facto legal in Israel. If "conservatives" want to make it illegal, ask yourself: What is conservative about that course of action?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

The bill is in direct violation of the Constitution if only doctors, not the women, can be charged for illegal abortion.