States rights was what anti-federalists were all about. The justices can say they have not overthrown Row v Wade, they have vacated the federal role, and wish states to decide. Legal mumbo jumbo is complicated.
If you try to get an understanding of Roe v Wade, it's not easy. It leans on the 14th amendment. The complexity of the situation could lead someone to say 1) You just don't understand the legal hair splitting and it's unfair to say it's overthrowing anything, it's overthrowing federal intervention, putting back to the states. 2) Abortion is murder we know is committed. Someone could also die getting illegal abortions, but the problem isn't people dying from illegal situations, the problem is knowingly allowing murder and they are against that, mostly funding that. You make things against the law and if people die from doing them, then that's on them. The law has to guide us and we can't be held accountable for unintended consequences like the death of Gerri Santoro.
I can't get that photo of the dead Gerri Santoro out of my mind, for me the unintended consequences are part of the equation. The rising crime rate will be part of the equation. The biggest factor in crime going down in the 70's is legal abortion. Unwanted children tend to lead negative lives. It's a distraction, the rich are winning the class war.
The middle class is disappearing. The right decided a big middle class that goes to college and gets low rate college loans isn't good for their part.
If you really want to preserve life you would make America more congenial to families. Like universal health care, funding for schools and daycares, and on and on. Maine no can give religious schools public money. Another highly conservative viewpoint. To a liberal it looks like we've pulled out of Afghanistan and just brought religious fundamentalism here. The preservation of life is a kind of policy that would involve lots of things that the conservatives disagree about. Basically being a pro-birther is imagining it will save money, but it doesn't. An abortion saves money all around, even for public entitlement. So it's confused, and in the end, a kind of religious dogma, exploiting a narrow view.
I don't think that is the aim of conservatives is to preserve life. The Covid policy ideas from the right were to not do anything, let people die. Guns don't support life. The issues are lining up along a fault line. Conservative versus progressive. Federal devolution versus a progressive activism in government.
Conservatives don't want the state allowing something they disagree with, they don't want to pay for an abortion through medicare. It's part of a larger anti-federalist, anti-taxation vision of America.
If you're conservative, it's acceptable to be a kind of minimalist, allow abortions for medical reasons, and not want the federal government deciding these things, wanting the states to decide them.
The fracturing of America, the polarization has worked well for them, they've stacked the supreme court. Texas and Florida can be bastions of conservatism. California and New York can be liberal. And never the twain shall meet. The conservative farmers in the midwest can keep rebalancing political power. The democrats keep doing a bad job in communicating and winning. The bare knuckled republicans are getting what they want. No democratic discussion or coming to a consensus. Just exploiting loopholes and tricks to get what you want. They break norms and get what they want. The normal civility in politics is over, it's a dog fight, no discussion. As the polarizing continues, there's a kind of balkanization of America. Texas is even floating the idea of leaving the USA. It would automatically make the USA progressive.
I used to use the world liberal, but I think it means rights and rights can be to have a gun and deny people abortions, and in England it was conservative. Liberal used to mean the left, and progressive, but that's gone by the wayside. The right and conservative is pro-business, anti-government, traditional ethos. The left and progressives are for good activist government, discussed scientifically and through reason.
Some people are furious for the democrats for allowing this to happen. I'm pretty sure they didn't allow it to happen, the right made it happen. It wasn't the democrats that didn't allow Obama Supreme court choices going through. They stole 2 choices. Trump put in very conservative choices. The left gets caught up on how he wasn't traditional, he was a flaming hypocrite because power doesn't care about reasons, they just do what they want. And part of his power came from the right, so he just appeases them. It's a standard political tactic to just whip up your base, to get them to vote, not to try and convince any middle of the road people.
A lot of conservatives were disgusted by Trump. George Will resigned the Republican party. There are quite a lot of Never Trump Conservatives. Romney and Liz Cheney, who is asking for democrats in her state to vote for her in the primaries, because her "centrist" tendencies are not whipping up the right base.
For a traditional American liberal, a progressive, someone on the left, it's hard to see this erosion of rights. Very painful. I get it that it's a perspective that not everyone has. I've met a lot of people who don't want taxes or government. Who don't see things the way I do. I don't think I contain all the truth. But I do this a democratic debate, with democratic procedures is good for society. The insurrection of January 6th, the cheating to get supreme court justices, and now the erosion through the courts is something I never thought I would see in my lifetime. Since I came of age with Reagan, America has been very conservative. I didn't know that a lot of people got sick of FDR and the left winning up to that point, that was before my time. Things will swing back and forth. I'm looking forward to thing swinging back left and a increase in the level of democracy in our country.
The level of democracy in America was further eroded by corporate and lobbying contributions that essentially buy politicians votes on certain issues. When corporations were seen as individuals to give them a voice in the process, drowning out the voice of the votes.
I think women should be in charge of their reproduction, not controlled by a state that is against abortion. The consequence of making it illegal in a state is going to be that people who can afford to will go to different states, an inconvenience. There will be a raise in illegal abortions and deaths to that. There will be a raise in crime. It's against some religions to not allow women sovereignty over their bodies, but the dominant religion is a conservative Christianity. Where England and Ireland have a clash about birth control, protestants can get birth control, but Catholics can't. That has changed some. Poland has outlawed abortion and they have a kind of Catholic state.
Right now in Missouri a father can rape his daughter and she must carry that child to term. The people that keep saying, let the States decide, are the direct descendants of the people who said the same thing about segregation. Supporting a ban on abortion, while opposing universal health care, childcare, Pre-K, paid family and medical leave, an increase in the minimum wage, affordable housing, action on climate change and a ban on assault weapons does not make you pro-life. It makes you pro-death.
And fuck white supremacy.
This debate is a meta argument. To pull back and see that the fetus can't survive without the mother, the fetus is essentially the mother, that a woman needs to have sovereignty over her body. To not look at things this way and narrowly look a a potential being, and say it's murder to end the potential being is to take a specific look at the situation that focuses on some things, but not others.
There's an interesting Tricycle article about the Buddhist view by Sallie Jiko Tisdale. First female voice I've heard on the matter. I think it's important to hear women's voices on a decision that impacts them. You can see a man's view from Taiwan. Tisdale points out that it's weird that chaste monastics are so gung ho about a potential life, they could engage in sexuality. It seems hypocritical to be so against what creates life, and then so for it suddenly.
I also want to point out my personal experience. I have 3 children. I have never asked a woman to have an abortion, nor been in a relationship with a woman who had an abortion. I am personally against it, but I believe a woman has a right to choose.
I did see a play where actresses discussed their experiences. I got the distinct impression that one woman used abortion as birth control. I'm not really in favor of that, but I think on the one side you get women's lives really endangered when doctors are scared to perform a life saving abortion to a fetus that won't survive, and on the other you get woman who use it as birth control. One seems worse to me than the other. Taking away women's control over their bodies seems worse to me.
And if you're into preserving life then you have to be against guns, nuclear weapons, in favor of universal health care, and all the way down the line. If you're going to be so in favor of life that there aren't exception, you really have to follow the whole line of life preservation or I can't even take you seriously. I think that's a huge reason why I can't take any so called pro-life people seriously. None of them really fully put that through their thinking.
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