Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, eliminating constitutional right to abortion

More births are preferable (not in all cases, but for the economy, it is), but like you, I would not want that at the expense of women being treated as birthing factories with no choice. There are other ways to accomplish more births without draconian laws.

 

It requires spiritualization of a non sentient entity to create a moral difference between not having a child exist because somenone couldn't afford it and therefore abstained from sex that would procreate or not having a child through terminating a pregnancy that has a clump of cells that isn't sentient.

 

I'd actually say the opposite. In the US, a declining birthrate can cause some economic stress because a large geriatric population would need to be supported by a relatively smaller working age population. But, that can be addressed with immigration and increasing productivity. The bigger problem related to population is the stress we put on the planet. Carbon pollution and pollution of all kinds are exacerbated by growing populations. And, the competition for resources becomes more fierce with more population. All else equal, I have a preference for fewer births.

Sure, and you may believe as you like as well. But the nation is trying to sort out what our public policy should be -- what we should do -- and we have two sides having these "entirely different conversations." How do we set a policy when one camp believes each embryo is sacred and the other camp doesn't ascribe it any notable value? It's a bit of a zero-sum game.

 

Well, since if one side is right you are legalizing the murder of a million children per year, while if the other side is right women are required to go through the natural 9 months of pregnancy that are the expected possible consequence of unprotected sex, the cost benefit of making policy on the assumption that the other side is wrong weighs heavily in favor of prohibiting abortion.

 

As I said, no spirituality is required.

 

But the argument isn't about the murder of millions of children and the argument isn't simply about women having unprotected sex. Until you honestly and accurately understand the debate, there cannot be an honest discussion about the topic.

 

Sound's like Pascal's Wager. Unlike the gamble on whether or not there is a God, I don't think there is murder or not murder gamble that we will only later discover. We define for ourselves if it's murder.

Insofar as there is ambiguity though, I'd err in the opposite direction. That individual freedom should be the default position except where there is a demonstrated need to curtail that freedom. The State should consider the state interest. Moral or not, do abortions make a well-ordered and prosperous society harder to achieve (I'd say it makes it easier)? Unless and until we see a good argument to ban abortion, it should be allowed.

 

Whether there is a God or not is not a gamble that we will discover (at least not at any point that would be relevant to the position one takes). That is the whole point of Pascal's wager, you are making a decision about an unknowable subject based only on the cost of taking whatever action you are taking, and on the consequence of being wrong. In that way, yes, it is similar to Pascal's wager. What you have instead done is say that there is no right answer, because we get to define whether or not abortion is murder, so as long as we say it is okay, then there are no negative consequences. That just completely sidesteps the question. We get to decide if it is wrong to enslave black people, but you will find precious few that don't think slavery was wrong or that the United States was in the right prior to the passage of the 13th Amendment. We get to decide if murder is wrong, but if there was a state that legalized murder, I don't think you would be on here saying that is fine and that murder must just be okay in Kentucky or wherever. Because your personal view is that abortion is fine, you view the entire discussion differently.

I also think individual freedom should be the default position, I just accept that the rights to life and freedom of the child should not be ignored.

That's exactly what the argument is about. Whether or not women should be allowed to kill their children that they create by having unprotected sex. Everything else is marginal edge cases. I can easily prove this. Would you be okay with outlawing elective abortion and only allowing it in cases where there was a serious risk to the life of the mother or in cases where the conception did not occur during voluntary unprotected sex? If the a significant number of pro-choice people would not agree to such a position, then the argument is in fact about termination of viable pregnancies (killing healthy babies) for convenience.

 

As I’ve said before I believe you have a principle and are making a principled argument. The problem is that not everyone accepts that principle.

As you noted prior to the 13th Amendment there were a lot of Americans who did not agree with the principle that slavery was wrong ultimately it was decided through the 13th Amendment and codified through law.

With abortion we are in a long term debate about what principle will apply and while Roe was overturned it just means that this is political debate and when this issue has gone to the voters abortion has been legalized. So while yes you can make a principled argument given recent votes still lose the political argument.

 

No... since a child isn't being killed. And it isn't simply a case of unprotected sex and "convenience". These are all ways you argue to take away what should be the woman's most fundamental control over health decisions she makes for herself. Especially in cases that the life and health of the woman is in danger. Especially in cases when the woman was raped.

btw, once you struggle with... "in the case of the health of the woman is at risk" and/or "in the case that the fetus is not able to live" and/or "in cases when the woman was raped" (what you uncaringly refer to as "marginal" cases) you admit that its not over the continued development of the fetus but instead the control over decisions that the woman is making.

 

The point of Pascal's Wager (in a christo-centric view because some religions don't care if you recognize God or not) is that you're making a decision about an unknowable subject but there is definitely a fact of the matter -- there either is a Christian God, or there is not. If you refuse to accept that there is but the fact of the matter is He exists, then you sin and are damned. If you err the other way and believe when He does not exist, then sin is an empty concept anyway and nothing bad happens. It's an asymmetric risk.

For this wager on abortion, it can only be like Pascal's Wager if there is a fact of the matter. You can only be wrong if it is objectively true that the fetus was a person. A social contract approach (which is mine) would say the fetus is a person when society agrees it's a person. That falls short of being "objectively true" -- it's more something like contractually true. How can it be objectively true? Well, if there is a God who created the fetus and gave it that meta-property of being a person by His authority. Then, if we little humans deny its personhood, we can be objectively wrong and immoral for having done it. In other words, we still ultimately have to fall back to religion or spirituality to make the claim that the life of the fetus is sacred. That's why the argument that every life is precious, no matter how embryonic, always falls on deaf ears. On whose authority can you say that?

You already anticipated the problem with a 'contractual truth'. If we get to decide for ourselves, then was it wrong to enslave black people at the time that we had a social contract that said it was okay? In the case that a Christian God exists and is revealed in the Word, I think you're on safe ground saying it was wrong all along. If He doesn't exist, those antebellum slavers all died not feeling much remorse and paying no consequence today. But, when we can to a new agreement on the social contract that found slavery to be wrong, I think we agreed it's wrong now and in the future but also retroactively wrong. So, we people alive today can still look down our noses at our forebears who made choices we now condemn. By that same token, some future generation can look at me and call me a monster for daring to defend an abortion. That's fine. It also might be that some future generation will be fine with my choice on abortion but condemn me for working for an energy company or for owning real estate. I don't know what dumbass thing they're going to think and I'm not going to worry about it.

The Kentucky murder problem is different. Could Kentuckians all agree and make a social contract that it's okay to murder people? I don't think so. We can set aside the first problem, which is definitional -- any killing that is legalized is not called murder anymore; murder requires that the killing be illegal. We can set aside the second problem too, that it is implausible that Kentuckians would come to that conclusion given that the conviction that murder is wrong is overwhelmingly widespread across the planet and across time. Maye the more operative reason is related to why it is everyone is against murder -- society in Kentucky would descend to anarchy pretty quick if they decided it was okay to kill each other. There are times and places where murdering became endemic (even without people agreeing it was okay to do) and those places are, without exception, trapped in a vicious cycle of suffering. So there is an obvious state interest and self-interest in forbidding murder. It's not merely immoral, it's also impractical and self-defeating.

Perhaps a closer comparison (though I anticipate you won't agree) might be prostitution. In Nevada it's legal and in all other states it is not. I don't agree that prostitution should be legal (something I'm sure many on the bbs won't agree with me on either). But, Nevada has had regulated brothels longer than I've been alive and the state interest does not seem to be harmed, much less descending into chaos. So, I'm not too keen but they chose it and I'm tolerating them doing it.

 

The Texas woman charged with murder after taking an abortion pill sues hospital and sheriff

After taking misopristol to end her pregnancy, Lizelle Gonzalez was charged with murder and held in jail for two nights before the charges were dismissed by a judge. Gonzales, who lives in Texas, is already suing the prosecutors who wanted to jail her, and now has expanded her lawsuit to target the hospital staff who snitched on her and the sheriffs who arrested her.​

 

Dozens of pregnant women being turned away from ERs despite law | AP News
August 12, 2024

The Biden administration says hospitals must offer abortions when needed to save a woman’s life, despite state bans enacted after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion more than two years ago. Texas is challenging that guidance and, earlier this summer, the Supreme Court declined to resolve the issue.

More than 100 pregnant women in medical distress who sought help from emergency rooms were turned away or negligently treated since 2022, an Associated Press analysis of federal hospital investigations found.

 

Remember what life was like before Trump appointed judges took away a woman's right and negatively impacted the health of these people?

 

Ryan Hamilton:

My heart is broken. As friends & family know, my wife was pregnant with our 2nd child, & about to begin her 2nd trimester. A few days ago she had severe pains, & bleeding, and had to go to the emergency room. There, it was discovered that our baby no longer had a heartbeat. Devastated doesn't come close to what that feels like.

Unfortunately for people like us, because of the current laws in the state of Texas, that was only the beginning of this nightmare. Jess (my wife) had an "incomplete miscarriage", and what needed to happen, what was best for HER, and her health, was to terminate the pregnancy, and get the baby out.

The doctor gave her a medication that would move this process along, and sent her home. Where, apparently we would be handling it ourselves. We were told it might take a couple of attempts before it worked.

I'll let you decide how you feel about that.

After a long, painful night of the equivalent of early labor, the baby was still with her. So, we went back to the Emergency Center to get the 2nd dose. A new doctor was on call. He was an older man. You could hear him in the hallway as he said, "I'm not giving her a pill so she can go home and have an ab*rtion!". Being well aware that our baby no longer had a heartbeat. Then, he came into the room to say, and I quote: "Considering the current stance. I'm not going to prescribe you this pill". Then, just sent us on our way.

The "CURRENT STANCE"?! Did he really just say that?! No one should ever have to hear their wife say: "Get this dead baby out of me!".

Can you even imagine how that must feel? The pain, and the bleeding continued. So, we decided to go to another hospital, about an hour away. There was a female doctor on call there, and we thought we might have better luck.

I should probably mention, the procedure to get the baby out is called a D & C. It's scary, & traumatizing, but sometimes necessary in situations like ours. Especially in emergency circumstances.

So we get to the next hospital. They take Jess in, ask her a bunch of questions, do a new scan... confirm that the baby is still there, with no heartbeat, and then disappear... for hours. Only to come back in and keep asking the same questions over and over. It's becoming clear that they're primary concern is NOT my wife's health. Instead, they seem to be worried about the legalities involved.

So, they decide it is not "enough of an emergency" to perform the D & C. They do, however, prescribe another, stronger, final dose of the medication for us to try again... at home.

So, we go home to try again. Another long day/night of early labor pains. Only to discover my wife UNCONSCIOUS in the bathroom. Having to pick my wife's cold, limp body off of that bathroom floor, not sure if I was about to lose her, is something I will NEVER forget.

She had to be rushed to the hospital. By this point she had lost so much blood, and bodily fluid, her body gave out.

They were able to stabilize her, give her the fluids she needed, and we came back home yesterday afternoon. We were also able to confirm that our baby was no longer with her.

Now, not only do we have to live with the loss of our baby... we have to live with the nightmare of what we just experienced because of political and religious beliefs. MY WIFE'S HEALTH SHOULD HAVE COME FIRST. PERIOD!

God knows what mental and emotional damage this has done. If you consider yourself a staunch "pro-lifer" ... 1) You've never been through what we just went through, and 2) You should take a long, hard look in the mirror and reevaluate your reasons for supporting such a cold, barbaric, ignorant point of view.

It's not that black & white, and it's never going to be.

If you think your "Pray To End Ab*rtion" sign in your yard is "Christian", I suggest you revisit the teachings of Jesus and try again. If you support these laws that make ab*rtion illegal, and result in people being put through what we just were, you should be ashamed of yourself. I've never been so angry, or heartbroken... and the devastation I'm feeling must pale in comparison to what my poor wife is feeling.



https://msmagazine.com/2024/06/17/ryan-hamilton-texas-abortion-miscarriage-women-pregnant-death/

Texas’ Abortion Ban Nearly Killed His Wife. Now He’s Speaking Out.