[Abortion Thread] (YET ANOTHER POLL!) Taking measure.

[Telconi]

Cool thing about laws, they're subject to change.

Better thing about laws, changing them is quite hard.

We choose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone...

[Kowani]

Better thing about laws, changing them is quite hard.

We choose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone...

Yes, and I’m sure that for most women who do it, choosing to have an abortion is quite hard. Yet they feel that it’s the best choice. Your morality is not the only measuring stick.

[Telconi]

We choose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone...

Yes, and I’m sure that for most women who do it, choosing to have an abortion is quite hard. Yet they feel that it’s the best choice. Your morality is not the only measuring stick.

Nobody's is, yet we have laws yes?

[Kowani]

Yes, and I’m sure that for most women who do it, choosing to have an abortion is quite hard. Yet they feel that it’s the best choice. Your morality is not the only measuring stick.

Nobody's is, yet we have laws yes?

Yes. Laws are based on society’s morals coming together and finding the one that the most people happy.

[Telconi]

Nobody's is, yet we have laws yes?

Yes. Laws are based on society’s morals coming together and finding the one that the most people happy.

Indeed.

[The Free Joy State]

Why is the unborn child more important then her giving up her career and nine months of her life to care for a child she does not want forced on her by a monster?

because nobody's career is worth more than a person's life.

What about the woman's life? Is the life -- the physical existence -- of a conscious (and, in this case, already traumatised) woman or girl worth the unfortunate loss of an insensate foetus?

What about a woman who has been raped -- I already know you don't support abortion for that -- and develops fatal complications? An ectopic pregnancy at twelve weeks, infection of the placenta (miscarriage inevitable, but the foetus still has a heartbeat and the woman could develop a fatal infection before the foetus dies), haemorrhage, preeclampsia before viability (it can start at 20 weeks and may become fullblown eclampsia)?

Would you make someone -- who has already been through, possibly, the worst trauma a woman can endure -- suffer those deadly dangers, to give birth to a child that was forced on her against her will?

[Godular]

Why?

If you believe in protecting all life, born and unborn, without exceptions, including being anti-death penalty and anti-euthanasia, then you wouldn’t promote abortion for said reason. Consistency in one’s beliefs. Plus society needs to do more to help women who have been raped, and not in ways that involve promoting the death of the unborn baby.

Anti Self-Defense?

There come points where even maintaining that degree of consistency still encounters pragmatic issues.

[The Free Joy State]

Why?

If you believe in protecting all life, born and unborn, without exceptions, including being anti-death penalty and anti-euthanasia, then you wouldn’t promote abortion for said reason. Consistency in one’s beliefs. Plus society needs to do more to help women who have been raped, and not in ways that involve promoting the death of the unborn baby.

What help do you think society can offer to a woman who has been through (likely) the worst, most traumatising experience of her life, while -- again -- stripping her of her bodily control by insisting she keeps the product of that experience?

Tea? Sympathy? Soothing words and a little look at the ultrasound pics of a rapist's foetus at a badly misnamed Pregnancy Crisis Centre?

Because I think that help for a woman who's been raped should be whatever the woman needs to recover: all efforts to prosecute, medical care, counselling, abortion so she can do the best possible to recover the fragments of her dignity and bodily-control.

Someone saying they do understand but that the foetus' needs must come first helps literally no-one, besides the person who offers such advice, who can go home feeling proud that they helped someone today.

[San Lumen]

Yes. Laws are based on society’s morals coming together and finding the one that the most people happy.

Indeed.

and those morals of yours include making medical decisions for people including women who have been through the trauma of rape or incest?

[Telconi]

Indeed.

and those morals of yours include making medical decisions for people including women who have been through the trauma of rape or incest?

For like, the fourth time, yes.

[Telconi]

because nobody's career is worth more than a person's life.

What about the woman's life? Is the life -- the physical existence -- of a conscious (and, in this case, already traumatised) woman or girl worth the unfortunate loss of an insensate foetus?

What about a woman who has been raped -- I already know you don't support abortion for that -- and develops fatal complications? An ectopic pregnancy at twelve weeks, infection of the placenta (miscarriage inevitable, but the foetus still has a heartbeat and the woman could develop a fatal infection before the foetus dies), haemorrhage, preeclampsia before viability (it can start at 20 weeks and may become fullblown eclampsia)?

Would you make someone -- who has already been through, possibly, the worst trauma a woman can endure -- suffer those deadly dangers, to give birth to a child that was forced on her against her will?

If termination of the pregnancy was necessary to save people's lives, then that's different. the only concern of the mother's that matches the life of the baby, is her life.

[Telconi]

If you believe in protecting all life, born and unborn, without exceptions, including being anti-death penalty and anti-euthanasia, then you wouldn’t promote abortion for said reason. Consistency in one’s beliefs. Plus society needs to do more to help women who have been raped, and not in ways that involve promoting the death of the unborn baby.

What help do you think society can offer to a woman who has been through (likely) the worst, most traumatising experience of her life, while -- again -- stripping her of her bodily control by insisting she keeps the product of that experience?

Tea? Sympathy? Soothing words and a little look at the ultrasound pics of a rapist's foetus at a badly misnamed Pregnancy Crisis Centre?

Because I think that help for a woman who's been raped should be whatever the woman needs to recover: all efforts to prosecute, medical care, counselling, abortion so she can do the best possible to recover the fragments of her dignity and bodily-control.

Someone saying they do understand but that the foetus' needs must come first helps literally no-one, besides the person who offers such advice, who can go home feeling proud that they helped someone today.

What if the woman needs to take out her anger and pain by ruining some random guy who looks somewhat like her attacker?

[The Free Joy State]

What help do you think society can offer to a woman who has been through (likely) the worst, most traumatising experience of her life, while -- again -- stripping her of her bodily control by insisting she keeps the product of that experience?

Tea? Sympathy? Soothing words and a little look at the ultrasound pics of a rapist's foetus at a badly misnamed Pregnancy Crisis Centre?

Because I think that help for a woman who's been raped should be whatever the woman needs to recover: all efforts to prosecute, medical care, counselling, abortion so she can do the best possible to recover the fragments of her dignity and bodily-control.

Someone saying they do understand but that the foetus' needs must come first helps literally no-one, besides the person who offers such advice, who can go home feeling proud that they helped someone today.

What if the woman needs to take out her anger and pain by ruining some random guy who looks somewhat like her attacker?

That's not an equivalent example. Attacking a born person is not the same as aborting an unborn foetus.

However, if she did attack someone who looked like her attacker, I hope the courts would take her distracted mental state and the trauma she experienced into account when sentencing. Perhaps psychiatric treatment and a suspended sentence (depending on the severity of the attack).

[Telconi]

What if the woman needs to take out her anger and pain by ruining some random guy who looks somewhat like her attacker?

That's not an equivalent example. Attacking a born person is not the same as aborting an unborn foetus.

However, if she did attack someone who looked like her attacker, I hope the courts would take her distracted mental state and the trauma she experienced into account when sentencing. Perhaps psychiatric treatment and a suspended sentence (depending on the severity of the attack).

True, she doesn't have parental obligations to a random dude.

And sure, that's a reasonable concept, and there's no reason a woman couldnt receive a lighter or even suspended sentence for aborting her child if she was in a damaged mental state.

[The Free Joy State]

That's not an equivalent example. Attacking a born person is not the same as aborting an unborn foetus.

However, if she did attack someone who looked like her attacker, I hope the courts would take her distracted mental state and the trauma she experienced into account when sentencing. Perhaps psychiatric treatment and a suspended sentence (depending on the severity of the attack).

True, she doesn't have parental obligations to a random dude.

And sure, that's a reasonable concept, and there's no reason a woman couldnt receive a lighter or even suspended sentence for aborting her child if she was in a damaged mental state.

Having an abortion (except in specific circumstances, without medical oversight) is not a crime. God willing, it never will be again.

Even when it used to be, it was usually the people who performed the abortion that would be charged. Not the woman.

[Telconi]

True, she doesn't have parental obligations to a random dude.

And sure, that's a reasonable concept, and there's no reason a woman couldnt receive a lighter or even suspended sentence for aborting her child if she was in a damaged mental state.

Having an abortion (except in specific circumstances, without medical oversight) is not a crime. God willing, it never will be again.

Even when it used to be, it was usually the people who performed the abortion that would be charged. Not the woman.

Which I find to be silly, I mean she initiates the process, ando it's her child that they're killing.

[The Free Joy State]

Having an abortion (except in specific circumstances, without medical oversight) is not a crime. God willing, it never will be again.

Even when it used to be, it was usually the people who performed the abortion that would be charged. Not the woman.

Which I find to be silly, I mean she initiates the process, ando it's her child that they're killing.

You may find it silly, but that was the way it was.

It was also, often, known and habitual abortionists that they imprisoned (rather than one-time abortionists). And, often only if someone died or became seriously ill and it was hard to ignore.

My granny had an abortion -- her fourth conception -- in the 1950s (before legalisation; backstreet). Now, I know this is only one person, so... YMMV (anecdote is not the single version of data, after all). But, granny always said everyone in the neighbourhood knew who the abortionist was. Did they do anything, contact an authority (even if they were the authority)? No.

I'm inclined to believe it, though. Hell, there were even open ads for abortion services in the Victorian era:

So -- let's go forward to some future dystopia -- abortion is banned. I won't go into Handmaid's Tale territory, we'll stop at abortion is banned.

What would really change? Abortion would become more dangerous and... that's it.

The number wouldn't reduce. There'd be a short-term blip in availability while the abortion doctors located new premises (they may change when the real believers tracked them down), but otherwise? Every police officer, doctor, nurse, lawyer, judge, solicitor, everyone either has had or knows -- in some way (cousin, aunt, friend, acquaintance, mother, sister, niece) -- someone who has had an abortion or will need one.

Will people report their friends?

[Triassica]

Why?

If you believe in protecting all life, born and unborn, without exceptions, including being anti-death penalty and anti-euthanasia, then you wouldn’t promote abortion for said reason. Consistency in one’s beliefs. Plus society needs to do more to help women who have been raped, and not in ways that involve promoting the death of the unborn baby.

We could do that, but we are a capitalistic bootstrap society where your life only matters to the government if you are still in the womb.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

Having an abortion (except in specific circumstances, without medical oversight) is not a crime. God willing, it never will be again.

Even when it used to be, it was usually the people who performed the abortion that would be charged. Not the woman.

Which I find to be silly, I mean she initiates the process, ando it's her child that they're killing.

So, a traumatised rape victim should be imprisoned for illegally having an abortion? Donald Trump called for this BS

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

Better thing about laws, changing them is quite hard.

We choose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone...

The quote "We chose to do (insert action), not because it is easy, but because it is hard" by John F. Kennedy was used to justify the Apollo moon landings, not criminalisation of abortion. Here's the differences between the Apollo programme and repealing Roe v. Wade:

Apollo moon landings:
. Purpose: Land humans on the moon
. Effects: Massive gains in scientific knowledge, giant (metaphorical) middle finger to the Soviet Union, first ever humans to set foot on another celestial body, etc.

Repealing Roe v. Wade:
. Purpose: End federal protections for abortion rights
. Effects: No change to the number of abortions, major setback for women's rights in the US, abortion automatically becomes illegal in many US states, etc.

As you can see, there is a major difference between a space mission and a SCOTUS ruling against abortion rights

[Hakons]

With all the partisanship and polarization on this issue, I have recently found it helpful to not look at it as a bipolar issue, but an issue with many gradual changes, like those of the poll. Also, thanks for updating the final poll choice!

I'm religious and believe there should be no abortion, but in the American political climate that is fairly impossible. Still, it would be subsequently good to restrict abortion as much as possible, and to that extent, as even this poll shows, there is a large base of support. The position of the American government is roughly the second option, and that us vastly out of step with the majority of Americans, and even the majority of NSG.

As people opposed to abortion, I think first we should emphasize just how radical American abortion law is. It is barbaric, inhumane, and more similar to laws in North Korea than laws in Europe. While one portion of society loudly proclaims the supposed right to abortion on demand, the majority of Americans do not agree with this. Using the trimester framework, Americans regularly say with clear majorities that Abortion should be limited to the first trimester. If one based it on circumstances, America would probably land where NSG is at medical reasons.

My point is, there is massive support for restricting abortion, but a radical minority prevents this. We should focus on demonstrating just how radical and unrepresentative American abortion law is to find the popular consensus that limits abortion more than we do now.

[The Free Joy State]

With all the partisanship and polarization on this issue, I have recently found it helpful to not look at it as a bipolar issue, but an issue with many gradual changes, like those of the poll. Also, thanks for updating the final poll choice!

I'm religious and believe there should be no abortion, but in the American political climate that is fairly impossible. Still, it would be subsequently good to restrict abortion as much as possible, and to that extent, as even this poll shows, there is a large base of support. The position of the American government is roughly the second option, and that us vastly out of step with the majority of Americans, and even the majority of NSG.

As people opposed to abortion, I think first we should emphasize just how radical American abortion law is. It is barbaric, inhumane, and more similar to laws in North Korea than laws in Europe. While one portion of society loudly proclaims the supposed right to abortion on demand, the majority of Americans do not agree with this. Using the trimester framework, Americans regularly say with clear majorities that Abortion should be limited to the first trimester. If one based it on circumstances, America would probably land where NSG is at medical reasons.

My point is, there is massive support for restricting abortion, but a radical minority prevents this. We should focus on demonstrating just how radical and unrepresentative American abortion law is to find the popular consensus that limits abortion more than we do now.

1. NSG is international, so this poll indicates American consensus on nothing.
2. This poll demonstrates no consensus, except that most people are broadly in favour of abortion being available in at least some circumstances.
3. American support for abortion is high with 25% saying it should be always legal, 33% saying it should be legal in most cases, 24% saying it should be illegal in most cases, and only 16% saying it should be completely illegal. That shows a pretty heavy majority in favour of abortion always or mostly being legal in the US.

Gallup, being fair, does reveal a fall-off of support for abortion between the first and third trimester. But support is still more than/nearly 50% for several causes:
--> Mother's life in danger:

--First Trimester: 83% support for abortion
--Third Trimester: 75% support

--> Rape/Incest

-- First Trimester: 77% support
-- Third Trimester: 52% support

-->Child would be born with a life-threatening illness

-- First Trimester: 67% support
-- Third Trimester: 48% support

[The New California Republic]

If you believe in protecting all life, born and unborn, without exceptions, including being anti-death penalty and anti-euthanasia, then you wouldn’t promote abortion for said reason. Consistency in one’s beliefs. Plus society needs to do more to help women who have been raped, and not in ways that involve promoting the death of the unborn baby.

We could do that, but we are a capitalistic bootstrap society where your life only matters to the government if you are still in the womb.

Want to make any more nonsensical sweeping statements while you are at it?

[Hakons]

With all the partisanship and polarization on this issue, I have recently found it helpful to not look at it as a bipolar issue, but an issue with many gradual changes, like those of the poll. Also, thanks for updating the final poll choice!

I'm religious and believe there should be no abortion, but in the American political climate that is fairly impossible. Still, it would be subsequently good to restrict abortion as much as possible, and to that extent, as even this poll shows, there is a large base of support. The position of the American government is roughly the second option, and that us vastly out of step with the majority of Americans, and even the majority of NSG.

As people opposed to abortion, I think first we should emphasize just how radical American abortion law is. It is barbaric, inhumane, and more similar to laws in North Korea than laws in Europe. While one portion of society loudly proclaims the supposed right to abortion on demand, the majority of Americans do not agree with this. Using the trimester framework, Americans regularly say with clear majorities that Abortion should be limited to the first trimester. If one based it on circumstances, America would probably land where NSG is at medical reasons.

My point is, there is massive support for restricting abortion, but a radical minority prevents this. We should focus on demonstrating just how radical and unrepresentative American abortion law is to find the popular consensus that limits abortion more than we do now.

1. NSG is international, so this poll indicates American consensus on nothing.
2. This poll demonstrates no consensus, except that most people are broadly in favour of abortion being available in at least some circumstances.
3. American support for abortion is high with 25% saying it should be always legal, 33% saying it should be legal in most cases, 24% saying it should be illegal in most cases, and only 16% saying it should be completely illegal. That shows a pretty heavy majority in favour of abortion always or mostly being legal in the US.

1. NSG is regularly and consistently more liberal than America. I would not be surprised if Americans would be even more restrictive with the same poll. Even if we assume Americans would be less restrictive, all that shows is what we already know, that American law is radical and out of step with the international community when it comes to abortion. Mind you, that is a hypothetical, since every indication has demonstrated that American society is more socially conservative than NSG.

2. Yes, that was one my major points. Completely banning it is not politically viable, but curtailing it is. The consensus is at medical emergencies because that is when we add up to a majority. The majority of poll respondents want to limit abortion to medical emergencies or they want even more restriction. What this shows is that America's abortion on demand is radical and unpopular.

3. That is one poll. The same question from Gallup got very different results. 29% were in favor of always legal, 14% mostly legal, 35% few circumstances, and 18% illegal.

When we ask questions on specifically what the limit should be, we get a broad consensus for more restriction. 76% of Americans want to limit abortion to the first three months, a significant restriction supported by a huge majority. Even 60% of people who identify as pro-choice want that restriction. Pro-choice doesn't mean on demand abortion. The poll in this thread shows that, the rest of the world shows that, and this referenced poll clearly shows that. At some point one must see that they are in the radical minority when one's views are closer to that of North Korea's than other pro-choice Americans.

[Telconi]

Which I find to be silly, I mean she initiates the process, ando it's her child that they're killing.

You may find it silly, but that was the way it was.

It was also, often, known and habitual abortionists that they imprisoned (rather than one-time abortionists). And, often only if someone died or became seriously ill and it was hard to ignore.

My granny had an abortion -- her fourth conception -- in the 1950s (before legalisation; backstreet). Now, I know this is only one person, so... YMMV (anecdote is not the single version of data, after all). But, granny always said everyone in the neighbourhood knew who the abortionist was. Did they do anything, contact an authority (even if they were the authority)? No.

I'm inclined to believe it, though. Hell, there were even open ads for abortion services in the Victorian era:

So -- let's go forward to some future dystopia -- abortion is banned. I won't go into Handmaid's Tale territory, we'll stop at abortion is banned.

What would really change? Abortion would become more dangerous and... that's it.

The number wouldn't reduce. There'd be a short-term blip in availability while the abortion doctors located new premises (they may change when the real believers tracked them down), but otherwise? Every police officer, doctor, nurse, lawyer, judge, solicitor, everyone either has had or knows -- in some way (cousin, aunt, friend, acquaintance, mother, sister, niece) -- someone who has had an abortion or will need one.

Will people report their friends?

Firstly, the idea that there would be no reduction strikes me as absolutely preposterous. If laws were enacted to prevent abortions being carried out, fewer abortions would be carried out. Secondly, accompanying programs would be a necessity to implement the necessary laws. There would need to be a concerted effort to offset and alleviate the reasons people undergo abortions. Lastly there would need to be public education campaigns, telling people that abortion is not just "removing obstruction" or any such nonsense. These would serve to shift the attitude away from it being an acceptable medical procedure.