America transitions into Gilead

[phiwum]

It's a possible irony in my case that I have never been unreservedly pro-choice. I usually don't participate in these kinds of arguments. But this combination of bills galls me.

There's a national effort afoot to float different restrictions in different legislatures to find out what will stick. Evangelicals can really be salt-of-the-earth people but they aren't ... evidence-based. And I think public policy should be evidence-based, because if we're going to restrict individual rights, let's do it in an intelligent way, to make sure Bill X is really the fix for Problem Y. The reason these bills irk me so much is their stupidity. So I attack the most stupid provisions - not the concept of restrictions.

Wanting to outlaw abortion because fetuses are people is at least a consistent position. Trying to do that while holding women harmless is not. From what I've read, Georgia's law is more consistent than Alabama's, but they took pains to make it look like abortion would be available before 6 weeks. But any medical practitioner who performed one would be killing a person under that state's laws. People pretending this isn't true drives me bonkers. "Fetal heartbeat" may sound reasonable (ETA: to some people), but the way the law is written, the personhood definition does not depend on the fetal heartbeat. The definition exempts embryos in Petri dishes. I wonder why.

Inconsistency bother me rather a lot, too. And, like you said, the pro-life position isn't obviously stupid, so it's interesting that you and I have had different reactions to this bill.

I don't care about the fact that the bill doesn't hold women responsible. I don't find it as taking away women's agency as much as you do. It looks like mere political expediency. Some folks are willing to say that abortion is wrong, but they sympathize with women who make this often stressful choice and don't want to punish them, so they make an exception that they wouldn't make in ("other") murders. I'd say that most murders also involve an emotional stress.

This expresses a lack of commitment to the fundamental view the pro-life camp espouses, namely that abortion is murder. But I guess I'm more interested in the issue I think causes more harm, namely the criminalization of the procedure itself. The inconsistency shows the weakness of convictions, but people are weak and wishy-washy and this just isn't the important issue, far as I'm concerned.

 

[phiwum]

Man, China had this **** down! One high-status neighbor probably physically checked to see if you were bleeding regularly.

Only China did it with the opposite intentions ... to prove you weren't pregnant.

I don't think that China did that.

 

[Parsman]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-48369780

The Scottish Courts turned down an appeal by SPUC (Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child) against women being able to take abortion pills at home by themselves. They currently take a pill at a surgery or medical venue and then one at home later. The judges said that if the process started under an RMP (registered medical practitioner) you were still under their care even at home on your own.

 

[Minoosh]

Some folks are willing to say that abortion is wrong, but they sympathize with women who make this often stressful choice and don't want to punish them, so they make an exception that they wouldn't make in ("other") murders. I'd say that most murders also involve an emotional stress.

Yeah, and we tend to charge people anyway. If there's a lot of stress that can be brought up. It's no mystery to me why those provisions are in the law (political expediency), but it would be mysterious to me if a federal court upheld the concept that the instigator of murder has no culpability in the murder.

I forgot to mention: Hypocrisy bothers me even more than stupidity.

But I'm looking at these bills to evaluate what can be torpedoed in court, not what bothers me personally.

But I guess I'm more interested in the issue I think causes more harm, namely the criminalization of the procedure itself.

Sorry, broken record, but Georgia's "personhood" definition has the potential to go much further than that. I don't like abortion bans, but some of these laws make even traveling for an abortion criminal. And personhood could cut off access to the morning-after pill. Even a pro-choice pharmacist might refuse to offer it, because there's a chance you're interfering with a fertilized egg. What is that personhood language doing in there, if not to enable further overreaching?

I've been told not to give any credence to pro-choice or pro-life websites or "online magazines." So apologies that this came from re.wire, a pro-choice website, but I'm trusting that this is factual:

At the federal level, two pieces of legislation—the Sanctity of Human Life Act and the Life at Conception Act—are introduced in Congress year after year; they have failed on each occasion.

A right-to-life lawyer wrote in 2009 National Review article:

First, not one justice on the current Supreme Court supports the proposition that the unborn are protected as “persons” within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. Not one. All have rejected it, explicitly or implicitly.

I recommend you read this one for yourself. He engages in some highly creative logic. He's soft-pedaling the possibility, which is part of a national strategy. And that was 10 years ago.

How many things would you have rated as impossible or highly unlikely 2.5 years ago? Have any of them happened?

 

[Minoosh]

I don't think that China did that.

Why? Do you think the Chinese Communist Party would never be so intrusive?

From NPR's website: How China's one-child policy led to forced abortion, 30 million bachelors

If [a woman] lived in a small village, for example, she would probably be scrutinized by a group, she would probably be grouped together with a set of households and come under what they call a cluster leader, somebody who sort of monitors the progress and fertility rights of a certain set of households. ... So if this woman ... fell pregnant then most likely this cluster leader would know about it very quickly and then she would report to higher up.

China does what it takes and encourages people to rat each other out. A report that you hadn't bled for 2 months could easily lead to a physical exam. I'm not sure they actually checked that a woman was bleeding - they probably didn't have to - but IMO they would have had no qualms about it.

 

[Minoosh]

But I'm looking at these bills to evaluate what can be torpedoed in court, not what bothers me personally.

I do need to amend this. Of course I'm looking at what bothers me personally as well.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

From NPR's website: How China's one-child policy led to forced abortion, 30 million bachelors

"When you create a system where you would shrink the size of a family and people would have to choose, then people would ... choose sons," Fong says.

Yep, China's problem was they didn't go far enough. Every abortion should have been followed by mandatory sterilization of both parents, whether they already had a child or not.

"Now China has 30 million more men than women, 30 million bachelors who cannot find brides. ... They call them guang guan, 'broken branches,' that's the name in Chinese. They are the biological dead ends of their family.

And the problem is? My brother and I are both single - the 'biological dead end' of our family - and it doesn't worry us one bit.

"Right now China has a dependency ratio of about five working adults to support one retiree. That's pretty good, that's a very healthy ratio. In about 20 years that's going to jump to about 1.6 working adults to support one retiree," Fong says. "The one-child policy drastically reshaped the composition of China's people. So now they have a population that's basically too old and too male and, down the line, maybe too few."

All those single men may be an 'unintended consequence' of the one-child policy, but if so it was fortunate because men can't have babies so it further helps to reduce population growth. There's no reason those men can't live just as productive lives as women would have, and by the time their parents are retired technology will have advanced to the point where their children won't (or at least shouldn't) have to work hard to support them.

Given the choice between huge overpopulation and 'maybe' too few workers to support retirees, I think they did the right thing. Even with the one child policy, China has more people than any other country in the World - and now also produces more greenhouse gasses than any other country (twice as much as the next biggest offender, the US). Just imagine what the World would be like now if they didn't do it. While the China's efforts to control population growth were not perfect, it was certainly better than the alternative - a continuation of the regular famines that had plagued them for centuries. Convince people to have smaller families, or accept that millions will starve to death every few years? Tough choice...

We should be thanking China for reducing their population growth without resorting to extreme measures. Giving their people the choice of whether to have a male or female child is a lot less extreme that forcing them to have the first child no matter what. If Chinese parents consistently chose to have males for some misguided reason then that is their fault, not the government's. But (unlike here) at least the government didn't take that choice away from them.

 

[Minoosh]

We should be thanking China for reducing their population growth without resorting to extreme measures.

What would you consider an extreme measure?

Giving their people the choice of whether to have a male or female child is a lot less extreme that forcing them to have the first child no matter what. If Chinese parents consistently chose to have males for some misguided reason then that is their fault, not the government's. But (unlike here) at least the government diIdn't take that choice away from them.

Forced abortion and sterilization did take choices away from people. But I'm not assigning blame so I'm not sure who you're arguing with.

The "some misguided reason" is that for thousands of years sons brought status to a household and honor to woman; girls were kind of a necessary evil. You can't eradicate that mindset in one generation. Traditionally it was seen as a familial duty to bear sons. Girls were going to be married off to some other household because that's just how things worked. And that was a best-case scenario.

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

I would consider mass executions of children and adults to be an extreme measure.

 

[Minoosh]

I would consider mass executions of children and adults to be an extreme measure.

Mao basically did that, too. Thirty million deaths attributed to his "Great Leap Forward."

Not really trying to argue with you on this, but it happened.

Great Leap Forward

It is widely regarded by historians that The Great Leap resulted in tens of millions of deaths.[3] A lower-end estimate is 18 million, while extensive research by Chinese historian Yu Xiguang suggests the death toll from the movement is closer to 56 million.[4] Historian Frank Dikötter asserts that "coercion, terror, and systematic violence were the foundation of the Great Leap Forward" and it "motivated one of the most deadly mass killings of human history".

I'm certainly not defending what some U.S. politicians have been up to, but holding China up as some kind of progressive example is seriously flawed.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Is anyone doing that, though?

 

[Bob001]

Mao basically did that, too. Thirty million deaths attributed to his "Great Leap Forward."

Not really trying to argue with you on this, but it happened.

Great Leap Forward


I'm certainly not defending what some U.S. politicians have been up to, but holding China up as some kind of progressive example is seriously flawed.

Not too many people in the West would hold China up as a progressive ideal. But the "Great Leap Forward" was almost 70 years ago, and much of political and cultural life in China for several decades has been a open rejection of Maoist fanaticism. As long as you don't criticize the government -- a big shortcoming, to be sure -- you can pretty much live as you want (within the limits of your income) in modern China.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Not too many people in the West would hold China up as a progressive ideal. But the "Great Leap Forward" was almost 70 years ago, and much of political and cultural life in China for several decades has been a open rejection of Maoist fanaticism. As long as you don't criticize the government -- a big shortcoming, to be sure -- you can pretty much live as you want (within the limits of your income) in modern China.

not since they've introduced their Social Credit System:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

 

[Minoosh]

Is anyone doing that, though?

Roger Ramjets seemed a little rah-rah when saying China, unlike the U.S., doesn't take the choice away from people. I'm not sure what he meant, but it seemed to be a comparison.

I also wouldn't compare the U.S. and Romania (yet) but here's an interesting analysis from Foreign Policy:

What Actually Happens When a Country Bans Abortion

In 1966, the leader of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, outlawed access to abortion and contraception in a bid to boost the country’s population. In the short term, it worked, and the year after it was enacted the average number of children born to Romanian women jumped from 1.9 to 3.7. But birthrates quickly fell again as women found ways around the ban. Wealthy, urban women were sometimes able to bribe doctors to perform abortions, or they had contraceptive IUDs smuggled in from Germany.

What also happened: 10,000 deaths from unsafe procedures, paranoia, a doubling of the maternal death rate and 170,000 children living in orphanages, some shackled to bed frames and living in filth with a bare minimum of human contact for years and years.

I don't think that would happen in the U.S. I believe we will pull ourselves back from the brink. But the brink is real, IMO.

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

Mao basically did that, too. Thirty million deaths attributed to his "Great Leap Forward."

No, Pol Pot did that in Cambodia.

I also wouldn't compare the U.S. and Romania (yet) but here's an interesting analysis from Foreign Policy:

What Actually Happens When a Country Bans AbortionWhat also happened: 10,000 deaths from unsafe procedures, paranoia, a doubling of the maternal death rate and 170,000 children living in orphanages, some shackled to bed frames and living in filth with a bare minimum of human contact for years and years.

I don't think that would happen in the U.S. I believe we will pull ourselves back from the brink. But the brink is real, IMO.

I need that information in a pretty meme to splash all over Facebook.

 

[theprestige]

Roger Ramjets seemed a little rah-rah when saying China, unlike the U.S., doesn't take the choice away from people. I'm not sure what he meant, but it seemed to be a comparison.

I also wouldn't compare the U.S. and Romania (yet) but here's an interesting analysis from Foreign Policy:

What Actually Happens When a Country Bans AbortionWhat also happened: 10,000 deaths from unsafe procedures, paranoia, a doubling of the maternal death rate and 170,000 children living in orphanages, some shackled to bed frames and living in filth with a bare minimum of human contact for years and years.

I don't think that would happen in the U.S. I believe we will pull ourselves back from the brink. But the brink is real, IMO.

Romania was a hellhole anyway. I think it's naive in the extreme to draw any conclusions from their abortion policy, since you can't control for all the other horrible stuff the Romanian government was also doing.

You could take "totalitarian police state does _________ , death and horror ensues", and fill in the blank with anything. This makes it a profoundly useless (when not flatly dishonest) argument for or against any particular policy. Other than the policy of not establishing a totalitarian police state, obviously.

 

[Minoosh]

No, Pol Pot did that in Cambodia.

And Mao did it in China. Maybe Pol Pot took it from Mao's playbook.

Sorry this is Wiki but it's extensively sourced and not really controversial:

Great Leap Forward

I need that information in a pretty meme to splash all over Facebook.

I think I know what you're saying, but I'm not sure you can make it pretty.

 

[theprestige]

No, Pol Pot did that in Cambodia.







I need that information in a pretty meme to splash all over Facebook.

Why? It's just Godwin's Law, with Ceaucescu standing in for Hitler. Might as well print out a big sign that says "fake news and proud", and staple it to your dick.

 

[Minoosh]

Romania was a hellhole anyway. I think it's naive in the extreme to draw any conclusions from their abortion policy, since you can't control for all the other horrible stuff the Romanian government was also doing.

Of course Romania was also doing other stuff, but I think you can tie certain facts together with a reasonable degree of correlation. For example, the birthrate spiked. Then fell. And a bunch of kids ended up in orphanages. But yeah, I know what you mean. What I did not know is that he initially was seen as a reformer:

Upon his rise to power, he eased press censorship and openly condemned the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in his speech on 21 August 1968, which resulted in a surge in popularity. However, the resulting period of stability was very brief as his government very soon became severely totalitarian and was considered the most repressive in Eastern Europe at the time.

You could take "totalitarian police state does _________ , death and horror ensues", and fill in the blank with anything. This makes it a profoundly useless (when not flatly dishonest) argument for or against any particular policy. Other than the policy of not establishing a totalitarian police state, obviously.

Absolutely. So it's useful, IMO, to study how totalitarian police states are established. It's very old technology. One thing that has changed is the scale. And it's becoming increasingly easy to put people under surveillance - often, we're doing it to ourselves.

 

[Lurch]

Why? It's just Godwin's Law, with Ceaucescu standing in for Hitler. Might as well print out a big sign that says "fake news and proud", and staple it to your dick.

Are you not capable of even a cursory look into history so as to derive some inkling of what lesson might be gleaned therefrom and applied today? Even if the chances of an echoing repetition may not be likely?

To take just one example. We can look to Tricky Dick's antics and see all the more clearly the playbook by which Trump is operating today, and predict the next moves.