Thank you.
If this is purely a women’s rights issue, it should only affect about 10% of states, right?
Edit: I’m an idiot. 20%
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Hopefully it’s not a math issue.
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A law shouldn’t be made with such screw-ups in mind. A law should be passed based on how effective it is going to be while looking at the wider health related implications that may be mediated from said law. If we legalized murder in the first degree, you’d probably notice a massive uptick in violent crime as there would be no deterrent to stop undesirables from offing others they simply don’t like. That and first-degree murder is universally considered to be morally abhorrent.
In the case of abortion, legality or lack thereof hardly seems to make a difference regarding how many foetuses are subject to abortion. Whether a society is high or low trust makes a difference, how educated a society is makes a difference, but the legality of abortion doesn’t seem to put a dent in the rate by which people seek out the procedure. Criminalizing abortion however appears to lead to inferior health outcomes while doing nothing to put a dent in the rate by which the procedure occurs.
One could say “Good, people who decide to get abortions are disgusting! I find the procedure morally repugnant thus you reap what you sow!”. However, this leads to undue burden on hospitals and needless death when the baby and the mother dies. I also wonder whether abortifacients will be banned in the context of treating partial miscarriage which isn’t particularly uncommon from a medical standpoint. I can see why someone would think this way and therefore I cannot invalidate that body of thought as plenty around the world vote or advocate for ineffective laws on the pure basis of moral opposition.
We aren’t necessarily talking about an individual law here either; all the overturning of Roe v Wade does is enable individual states to pass laws banning abortion whereas prior abortion was a guaranteed right.
As per your question. If we look at countries that have enacted near total bans on the procedure; we see the rate of abortion is near, equitable or greater than that of legal countries and as a result more people are dying. I can’t wrap my head around a total ban if all that ensues is a higher yearly death toll. I’ve seen the memes about planned parenthood ‘murdering babies’. Though going from what we know appears the same statistic would exist if planned parenthood didn’t exist coupled with more death mediated by unsterile back alley abortions.
There is an interesting and compelling debate that is still ongoing behind the interlinking of morality and law. A popular conception that I ascribe to is that law ought to be a tool to promote or uphold morality and order within a society. There are a few caveats, “what ifs” if you will 
that being if an act or action doesn’t directly impose harm then perceived morality has no right to interfere.
With abortion this is a VERY tricky subject… why? Because you have two dynamically opposed bodies of thought within the United States. The pro-life crowd says abortion is murder! If this is the rationale we ascribe to then abortion induces harm as the taking of a life is involved and therefore, we cannot apply the logic I’ve used above. If abortion = murder you cannot possibly condone such a procedure even if criminalisation leads to more death subjectively. I believe this is your contention.
The pro-choice crowd argues the foetus is a part of the woman and thus is not alive within itself. In this case we can use the argument of morality vs law.
I’m at cross-roads as to where I ought to sit on the spectrum even if I’m okay with abortion being a legal procedure because the issue isn’t clear cut to me. There are circumstances such as rape, incest and medical conditions wherein pregnancy would be unviable and the mother would die and/or both the mother and the foetus might die, this is an absolute no brainer for me.
When a woman is pregnant there are various timeframes wherein the development of a baby comes into play and one must question whether the "this isn’t a life’’ rhetoric can legitimately be validated; if it can be validated at all. At around 6-7 weeks a foetus has a detectable heartbeat, the first signs of electrical activity within the brain also occur at around six weeks. However, “measurable activity” and “consciousness” are two very different paradigms, consciousness can only be measured at around 24 weeks in and detailed brain structures only develop at around week 14.
A foetus is also technically viable outside the womb at 24 weeks; thus, this should be a cut-off point for anyone outside exceptional circumstances such as the foetus being unviable (dead).
Laws compensate for the fluidity present within how a population may perceive morality. Eating pork may be heinously immoral to a Hassidic Jew, but it isn’t illegal. Morality partially mediates the implementation of laws passed. Murder, rape and stealing are universally considered to be immoral acts hence we have laws put in place that are EFFECTIVE and can be reasonably enforced. However, laws against say… smoking marijuana are different in that smoking pot only hurts the individual smoking pot, that and the public is hardly in uniform agreement over whether it is ethical to prosecute someone over it. Countries/states that have legalised pot have shown doing so is relatively harmless to society in the grand scheme and/or doing so on an epidemiological scale may reduce overall societal burden regardless of the perceived morality behind the act
The same could be said about abortion, there is little to no difference regarding the rate by which people seek out abortions within countries that have criminalized or decriminalized the procedure. There is a difference regarding overall outcomes from a health perspective on an epidemiological scale.
There are the people who contend law and morality are independent entities. Within this body of thought a law cannot be dismissed because it is morally repugnant. On the opposing side of the spectrum there are those who firmly stand their ground (@BrickHead ) that morality and law are harmonious to one another. For those who believe the latter, law that regulates societal behaviour must be in consonance with moral principles. From this perspective, any law put in place must enforce rigid standards in that the individual must behave/act in a certain way regardless of whether a behaviour is harmful on an epidemiological scale for the ‘good of the community’. It’s the individualism vs collectivism argument all over again. Individualism is a idiots game if we pivot towards extremes. An effective middle ground exists between individualism and collectivism.
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Speaking as someone who lives North of LA by about an hour, i can say that the pro-abortion crowd is also the pro-vaccine crowd, and the anti-abortion is similarly the anti-vaccine crowd.
This has been consistent IME, but at all know California has lost it’s soul.
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Pro vaccine, like Trump for example, doesn’t mean you want to force people to take it.
“AND have access to copious amounts of arms, and plenty of just as delusional friends to back them up.”
I feel attacked.
That makes the most sense IMO. I am all for the medical/science community developing a vaccine. But give me the choice to take it or not.
Aren’t most of the pro-vaccine people demanding all take the vaccine? I am pro-medical options.
Because there is strong correlation (if there actually is strong correlation) with pro-abortion and pro-vaccine, and pro-life and anti-vaccine, IMO, speaks more loudly that there is a lack of independent thinking.
Zero intellectual consistency. Their hallmark.
At the core of nearly every leftist reject is a self loathing charlatan
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I don’t know about most, but I don’t believe many are saying that people should forcibly be given injections. There are many places of employment where I live that require employees be vaccinated but even they keep a religious exemption. I find it silly that you will say science backs the vaccine yet someone who questions the science, with science, has to get the vaccine in order to keep their job while someone else can say it’s against their religion, an irrational belief, and not be required to get it.
Of course. Most of these issues are political. I’m sure there are plenty of republicans who are pro choice but remain silent for appearances just as there are democrats who are against abortion. I believe many people are spite based “thinkers.”
Must a religious belief be rational to be a religious belief? By whose standard?
Religious belief by definition is irrational. If it could be proven scientifically, then the entire concept of faith would not exist.
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Even the most left wing belief acknowledges that religion is rational in that it is developed by man to explain what he doesn’t understand.
IMO, your comment is the least thought out comment that I have ever heard considering religion.
When I was an atheist the entire foundation of my argument was that man made a rational decision to create religion to explain what he didn’t understand. What else would he do? People like order in their lives. Religion gave them a sense of order.
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GOD cannot be proven scientifically…its all faith
You really think it’s all about killing babies? Septic and ectopic pregnancies that are not aborted are very likely to kill pregnant mom and the baby. So it’s considered pro life for both to die? How does that track? How many of these Supreme Court justices who have a daughter or granddaughter get pregnant and face death with one of these won’t have them get an abortion to save their life? How about if their granddaughter gets raped at 13,
Meanwhile the conservatives who are super thrilled apparently to have all these new babies don’t seem concerned about hundreds of thousands of kids in foster care. Don’t seem to be concerned about making sure all these families have great healthcare. And our now fighting school lunches.
But yeah I’m sure just thinking it’s as simple as one side is pro killing babies makes it easier to sleep at night.
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You don’t understand something and so you make stuff up because you don’t understand it.
What part of that sounds rational?
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It is rational to seek order in your life.
You will find that the atheist has premises that are made because they don’t understand something. Is that rational as you define rational? Of course not.
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Can you explain the more rational alternative?
Bingo.
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So it’s rational to just make up random shit whenever you don’t know something? A lot of things that I don’t know. I guess I’ll just say it’s all magic fairies doing it and let everyone know that’s what it is if they ever ask me.
I’m not saying I don’t understand why people turn to bullshit, but that doesn’t make the bullshit rational.
It absolutely makes sense to lie to people for monetary gain. It’s what a lot of business is based on. It makes sense to lie to a kid and say grandma is in a magical place and you’ll see her again so he isn’t as sad. It’s why people used to say dogs that died went to to live on a farm.
But none of that is rational. It’s just telling lies.
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