"In this telling, women just kind of burned hot for a few weeks, until they came to realize that they cared about gas prices and milk prices more than they cared about reproductive justice. Central to this story was the narrative that Democrats face-planted in every possible way by focusing on abortion as the only election issue. Indeed, this mistake is supposedly so catastrophic that they are poised to be walloped in the midterms for it.... Just as there was no place for Alito to park reproductive freedom in the Constitution, so too, there is nowhere to park it in larger electoral politics. Abortion, pregnancy, and birth control: These issues will directly affect at least half the electorate, yet even now they remain hopelessly niche.... As far back as the time stamp on Alito’s shallow dive into history allows, women were being told that their interests were secondary, were a distraction, and were subsumed under bigger more important interests that are in the care of men.... If you accept the framing that women’s rights will always be lesser, you are pretty much signing up to guarantee that women’s rights will always be lesser in the future."
Writes Dahlia Lithwick in "Don’t Bail on Abortion/Women have been asked to stop prioritizing this problem for centuries" (Slate).
ADDED: What happened to the reports of individual women and girls impregnated by rape or pregnant and facing serious health problems? Was a decision made not to pursue this form of persuasion? It seemed to be presumed, right after Dobbs, that these stories would be powerful, but then they were gone. Why?
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123 comments:
I stick with my theory that the WH got a copy of Alito's draft back in late Feb, and that they were the ones who leaked it to Politico, in order to shift the discussion in April away from the Ukraine War, economic downturn, demand for student loan repayments, and the coming formula shortage. The problem for the admin is that in doing so, they weakened any impact that the Dobbs ruling might have had on the election. The shock had worn off, and the Dems were unable to articulate how exactly they would get around the Dobbs ruling. Combined with the fact that abortion isn't a priority for a majority of voters, the result is that the impact is almost nil.
Lithwick's compulsion to see babies killed on demand for any reason or no reason at all would be pitiable if it were not so grotesque and evil. In ancient Greece it was uncommon for a family to raise more than one female child; if the father so wished, and he usually did, female babies after his first were killed. This propensity to kill female babies more than males has not changed since authority to kill babies was given to women. A female bqby is and always has been more at risk of being killed than male, simply because it is female.
Women's rights, indeed.
Birth control in this country is virtually free.
If you get pregnant against your wishes, then you are likely a certified idiot.
I recently just had my 2nd child. So I'm biased. I admit it. I couldn't think about abortion, any abortion, any time, anywhere, anyhow. I love my little boomlet. I love him. He's totally helpless and his being here is not his fault.
My wife and I aren't that angry about Dobbs after all. No one in the real world is.
"reproductive justice"? What's that?
"These issues will directly affect at least half the electorate, yet even now they remain hopelessly niche...."
Lithwick studiously avoids conceding that the unborn even exist. They are even more "hopelessly niche." I think one reason you can't get that much political traction on abortion is that people — even those who were happy with the right in place — are conflicted about abortion. They want women to have freedom and autonomy but they also see that a life is snuffed. The traction is over dead bodies.
The Democrats are trying very hard to convince their LIV voters that Dobbs banned abortion. The fact that it was sent back to the states is never mentioned.
Analysis off the rails early along:
1. Dobbs returned rights to each state/location and did not restrict abortion at all. Most places kept abortion rights, so this is about left-wing female politics and rights in red states. That's a much smaller group.
2. Women of all races and political orientations have access to legal birth control and typically have the ability to say "NO." So, abortion is a rights matter for the rape/incest/manipulated/extorted fraction of women in red states.
3. The various 2022 failures to ban abortion took the air out of the pro-life crowd. They are numerical losers and now understand it. As such, the right is not pushing hard for national abortion bans (nor likely ever).
In sum, the main thing the left had to fear was fear itself. The abortion topic will now likely fade away.
I think most women understand that pregnancy isn't inevitable. That they can and do control outcomes. Don't you think, at some level, that the whole abortion shtick is an admission that women have no agency? I think most women think that point of view insulting.
At some point they will acknowledge that half (or more) of all aborted babies are female.
Then they will realize that the vast majority of transgenders are female to male, that Dylan dude notwithstanding.
Maybe that will start to equalize the sex ratios at college as the supply of women decreases.
“The traction is over dead bodies.” This. The Lithwicks are trapped in a rhetorical prison of either/or. Either you let me murder my baby as he emerges from my body or I am utterly your slave. Either you crush my autonomy from the moment of conception or you must allow complete license. Both camps do this and thus perpetuate the trench warfare (and those sweet fundraisers).
The “via media” (up to X weeks and then permitted exceptions) might work better but that would require each side to give some ground —and recognize that the moral problem generally and mostly falls to the individual woman. It is she who holds most of the power and responsibility in the creation of new life.
Well for one, contraception is simple, cheap, and effective. And for two, many states already have permissive abortion laws and it's not hard to travel from state to state. And for three, between our child support laws and social programs, a lot of the financial commitment of raising a child is offset.
So there's not much left for abortion-up-to-crowning to do.
Although discouraged as a matter of humanitarian concern, women can still abort their child until viability (essentially a 3/5 compromise), and in cases of rape... rape-rape, and, in some Democrat districts, until the age of convenience, worthiness, or climate correctness. #InStorkWeTrust
This issue does NOT affect half the population - I wish they would stop saying that. It doesn't affect postmenopausal women, nor does it affect those so young they are not fertile yet. Women that have been sterilized are not impacted, nor does it impact any woman that would KEEP the child. What does that leave?
I think a big reason why the issue is not gaining traction is that effectively nothing happened. If you're hard set on killin' that baby, you can still do it. I think a lot of the resistance to the overturning of Roe v Wade was the total and possibly willful misunderstanding of what would follow. I think huge numbers of people thought it would just make all abortion instantly and absolutely illegal everywhere.
When that not only didn't happen, but pretty much nothing happened, yes, the issue was chucked to the side.
I think a big reason why the issue is not gaining traction is that effectively nothing happened. If you're hard set on killin' that baby, you can still do it. I think a lot of the resistance to the overturning of Roe v Wade was the total and possibly willful misunderstanding of what would follow. I think huge numbers of people thought it would just make all abortion instantly and absolutely illegal everywhere.
When that not only didn't happen, but pretty much nothing happened, yes, the issue was chucked to the side.
I think a big reason why the issue is not gaining traction is that effectively nothing happened. If you're hard set on killin' that baby, you can still do it. I think a lot of the resistance to the overturning of Roe v Wade was the total and possibly willful misunderstanding of what would follow. I think huge numbers of people thought it would just make all abortion instantly and absolutely illegal everywhere.
When that not only didn't happen, but pretty much nothing happened, yes, the issue was chucked to the side.
Ladies, and germs, consent, safe sanctuary, and shared, personal responsibility, follow with the first choice.
I think a big reason why the issue is not gaining traction is that effectively nothing happened. If you're hard set on killin' that baby, you can still do it. I think a lot of the resistance to the overturning of Roe v Wade was the total and possibly willful misunderstanding of what would follow. I think huge numbers of people thought it would just make all abortion instantly and absolutely illegal everywhere.
When that not only didn't happen, but pretty much nothing happened, yes, the issue was chucked to the side.
You can see in Locke, and before that Machiavelli, a desire to replace arbitrary decisions by men (cis males?) with arbitrary decisions by women. In one way this is justice, taking turns at least. In another way it is a huge concession: all the old talk about justice was self-interested and hypocritical, so let's be more honest. We want what we want, when we want it.
Witches, warlocks, burdens (i.e. murder), babies (i.e. wicked solution), and demos-cracy (e.g. Holocaust) are aborted in darkness, which is why homicide can never be banned, but is a discouraged rite in civilized nations when chosen for reasons of social, redistributive, clinical (e.g. cannibalism), and fair weather (e.g. climate stasis). causes.
If you get pregnant against your wishes, then you are likely a certified idiot.
They tried to play the systemic rape... rape-rape gambit to force a moral consensus, including #MeToo, #HerToo, #TakeAKnee, #SheProgressed, which boomeranged and aborted its own practitioners, advocates and activists.
That said, there is no mystery in sex and conception, a woman, and man, have four choices, and an equal right to self-defense through reconciliation. The wicked solution is neither a good nor exclusive choice under the Pro-Choice ethical religion to keep women, and girls, affordable, available, and taxable, and the "burden" of evidence aborted, cannibalize, and her carbon pollutants sequestered.
A woman and man offer informed consent and safe sanctuary to their child with their first choice.
"I think most women understand that pregnancy isn't inevitable."
Wise women don't. Families are not inevitable.
What the unborn are is part of the question, and opinion changes depending on time of gestation. Finding the time that gives a stable majority of opinion is the political point.
Not exactly overlooked.
"Abortion, pregnancy, and birth control: These issues will directly affect at least half the electorate..."
What the feminists can't see, is that even the half they are presumably referring to (those who used to be referred to as "women") does not have a monolithic view of the issue. Ironic how the freedom to think for oneself is the first freedom sacrificed by all these post-modern liberation identitarian theologies.
The US population is approximately 50% under and 50% over 40. Women over 40, unless they've already had children, are extremely unlikely to get pregnant. We had 1 when my wife was 41- and two miscarriages after. So that 50% is virtually unaffected by any court decisions on abortion.
A significant portion are under 18- they shouldn't be affected by any court decisions.
So of the rest- for some reason people like Dahlia Lithwick apparently don't know any woman who is against abortion, period, for religious reasons. I;m married to a good Catholic, I know a lot of them. Invisible to the press. And along with the anti-aborion Catholic women there are a lot of anti-abortion bible thumpers and fundamentalists.
The abortion at any time crowd has always been smaller then projected. But loud.
“Here and Now” on NPR recently had a segment on the burdens placed on dating by increased restrictions on abortion. Burdens included conversation about contraception and values (the reporter’s words) “even before the first meet-up.” For one interviewee, it has “raised the bar on men I date,” by which she must mean men she sleeps with. Another burden mentioned was a change in birth control methods. (I place no shame on a person for choosing to have straight sex without really knowing the other person, but it is childish to pretend there are no possible consequences.)
I don’t disagree that these are all costs of a type. What I found astounding was the complete innocence in which these were presented as nothing but negatives costs, as opposed to changes that some people would view as inherently positive. It’s a cost to committing a crime that one might go to jail, after all. Amusingly, one of the changes in incentives meant that a bisexual woman was now more inclined to date women than men. As I tell my kids, an upside to being gay is that you don’t accidentally procreate. An upside to being straight is that you have a chance to procreate with your spouse.
"These issues will directly affect at least half the electorate, yet even now they remain hopelessly niche...."
First, reading Lithwick is like reading Leonard Pitts (one trick ponies, both of them).
Second, this quote is just patently false (or wishful thinking by a democrat). Abortion will directly affect only those women who have an unwanted pregnancy, and some guys who accidentally impregnate women (and a few other friends and family members in their orbit). With the proliferation of free and practically free birth control, that’s very few people. Plus which, it’s not going to affect ANY men unless and until they find themselves in that situation (which means they don’t think of it as a voting issue unless they’re dealing with it currently). That’s nowhere near half the electorate. No matter how loud the democrats scream about it. Especially when other more pressing issues are raging (inflation and the economy anyone?).
It won’t even directly affect half the women in the electorate. Most are quite capable of taking care of themselves and avoiding unwanted pregnancies.
Lithwick sucks.
We use to penalize witches who would abort children, and little dogs, too.
That said, the handmade tale is brayed to keep women, and girls, affordable, available, and taxable, and the "burden" of evidence aborted, cannibalized, sequestered under a veil of privacy... in darkness.
Women, men, and "our Posterity" are from Earth. Feminists are from Venus. Masculinists are from Mars. Social progressives are from Uranus.
This "problem", this "burden", this diverse ensemble of cells, for a woman and man: consent, safe sanctuary, and shared responsibility follow with first choice.
Its not that women are being asked to stop prioritizing abortion. Women are not a single homogenous thinking bloc. Women are individuals living out their lives. Real lives dealing with all things that go with living a life. Things like your current children and their needs, your job, your home, or need for a new home, or your car, or what you're going to do for a job, your spouse or partner, or a zillion other much more immediate needs. This is basic. And this is exactly what those in the elite media do not get, do not relate to, and cannot come close to understanding. They (the left in general and the media specifically) live for a Cause. And their Cause, to them, outweighs even the most urgent things going on in an individual's life. And they resent the individuals choosing to prioritize their own lives for their own sake.
No one is asking of women anything right now. We are all just trying to get through the mess the Democratic Party has wreaked on, not just the US, but the entire world. Abortion? It's not even on the radar for many at this moment in time. Not to say it won't get back there. But for now...uh uh. Oh...and there's this: Not all women are pro abortion.
Yes, progressive prices forced by single/central/monopolistic/minority solutions in a climate of dependent change is a general problem. So, is murder, so is rape, so are Mengele mandates, so is the wicked solution. However, I think that people, deplorable though they may be, a lower caste in the diversity [dogma] spectrum, can manage to consider the forward-looking injury and collateral damage of each separately and together.
If you accept the framing that women’s rights will always be lesser, you are pretty much signing up to guarantee that women’s rights will always be lesser in the future.
Define what a "woman" is for me first.
These issues will directly affect at least half the electorate, yet even now they remain hopelessly niche...."
Abortion affects all of the electorate. Despite constant efforts to deny it, men have an interest in abortion also.
What Temujin said.
I think abortion is still an important issue with women. But now that the issue is returned to the state, it is marginalized. If you live in a blue state and support abortion, good news! If you live in a red state and are pro-life, good news! So, it isn’t so much a “half the population” issue as it is half of the half of the population not getting its way. If the state allows abortion for 15 to 25 weeks, then I suspect the issue is even more marginalized.
In the meantime, inflation is up, wages are down, crime is way up, and formula is hard to find. Hierarchy of needs is a real thing.
The dems have gone all-in for the most extreme abortion position: abortion up until the moment of birth. After 7 months if you abort a baby you will have to kill it because it will survive for a time. During month 9, it is viable outside the womb and you really have to kill it (look up partial birth abortion). Most people are not comfortable with this but that is where an absolutist position on "rights" takes you.
Enigma said..."In sum, the main thing the left had to fear was fear itself. The abortion topic will now likely fade away."
That's a real possibility in Democrat strongholds of CA, NY, etc. Those states will expand abortion and for the Democrat women living there it won't be an issue. Elsewhere abortion will have term limits but that will be a state capitol issue. That will really cut into the grifting money. The likes of Nancy Pelosi, AOC, etc. will just be carpetbaggers interfering outside their constituents.
When that not only didn't happen, but pretty much nothing happened, yes, the issue was chucked to the side.
Essentially a 3/5 compromise that partitions the country in to pro-choice and pro-Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, with the audacity to mitigate progress of the former.
That said, baby on a cold, metal Slate is a work of creative, professional, masterful extremism. Let us bray.
Another misdirection is the claim that ONLY women are concerned about this. Some men want the woman to abort but some do not. The ones who do not currently have no voice in the matter.
"(t)hey came to realize that they cared about gas prices and milk prices more than they cared about reproductive justice."
Well, duh. I could have told our friend Dahlia that months ago. No, years ago.
"In this telling, women just kind of burned hot for a few weeks, until they came to realize that they cared about gas prices and milk prices more than they cared about reproductive justice.
Sad news for Dahlia Lithwick, killing a baby 5 minutes before crowning is massively unjust.
The Democrats are losing on the abortion issue because their "no limits, abortion until crowning" is quite properly seen by > 50% of Americans as "extreme".
In fact, twice as many Americans see that position as "extreme" as see "no abortion except for rape, incest & the life of the mother" as "extreme.
The Democrats aren't just losing because of their focus on abortion.
They're losing because they're out of step with the American people on every single subject, from gas prices to inflation to jobs to crime to immigration to sex and "gender" and to abortion.
Central to this story was the narrative that Democrats face-planted in every possible way by focusing on abortion as the only election issue. Indeed, this mistake is supposedly so catastrophic that they are poised to be walloped in the midterms for it
What is catastrophic is the Democrats' policies, and what they've done to America since Trump left.
But I suppose a Democrat hack like Lithwick can't admit that the Democrats are focusing on abortion because they literally do not have a single other thing they can even try to take to the voters.
Just as there was no place for Alito to park reproductive freedom in the Constitution
That's because it isn't there. Which everyone knows, including Lithwick. Which is why she doesn't try to point to any actual place for it
so too, there is nowhere to park it in larger electoral politics. Abortion, pregnancy, and birth control:
Sure there is.
A significant majority of the population favors banning all abortions after 15 weeks.
They also understand that only women can get pregnant,
The "problem" is that the Democrat policies are entirely out of step with what the people and voters of America actually want
These issues will directly affect at least half the electorate, yet even now they remain hopelessly niche
No, Dahlia, it's just your Democrat Party approach that's "hopelessly niche".
women were being told that their interests were secondary, were a distraction
It's amazing what a blind bigot Lithwick is. As well as a sex and reproduction ignoramus.
News flash: It takes a man and a woman to create a pregnancy. This is not a "woman's" issue, it is an "all fertile adults" issue.
And there's a lot of fertile male "adults" who desperately want to find them feel them, fuck them and the forget them, which is much easier when abortion is safe, available, and common.
But she can't admit she's those men's tool
No one is asking of women anything right now.
Not now or ever. The goal is to empower women and girls to embrace their dignity and agency so that they don't feel compelled to take a knee to patriarchal feminism, and to discourage human rites performed for social, redistributive, clinical, and fair weather causes.
Ann Althouse said...
The traction is over dead bodies.
That is very elegantly put
Maybe if they didn't refer to the killing of a baby as "reproductive justice" they'd have more takers.
Also, they don't focus on the extreme and outlier cases to push for abortion-as-contraception because people smartly see through that nonsense. If offered a compromise of allowing abortion only in those rare instances, it would not be good enough. The abortion lobby and ghoulish politicians like Gavin Newsom want abortion through birth (or even some time thereafter) despite the viability of the baby. They can't focus on the extreme examples because that's not where their passion lies. Getting power is where their passion lies and children are just too inconvenient to that end so they must be destroyed.
Michelle said...
For one interviewee, it has “raised the bar on men I date,” by which she must mean men she sleeps with.
No, what she means is she assumes she will "put out" for any guy who buys her dinner., or maybe even a coffee.
So, rather than become more picky and demanding after she meets, she's decided to be more before she meets.
it's a start
@Gospace "The US population is approximately 50% under and 50% over 40. Women over 40, unless they've already had children, are extremely unlikely to get pregnant."
True, but many women now in their 50s, 60s, and 70s had abortions when they were younger and they still have strong feelings about the experience (mostly positive, unfortunately).
I think the more important aspect is that contraceptives are so easily available now. We're far, far beyond the Griswold days when even married couples had trouble getting birth control.
It’s the economy, stupid.
The lib issues of climate change, abortion, etc are losing ground. The most important thing to voters is to be able to feed their families and afford the gas to get to work. That’s it, that’s all.
It’s a bit like Hank Jr. sang “The preacher man says it’s the end of time and the Mississippi River she’s a going dry. The interest is up and the stock market’s down and you only get mugged if you go downtown.”
Yet again, we see the offensive, arrogant and misogynist portrayal of "women" as if they are a single entity, all of them alike, all of them thinking the way that the Left has determined that they should think.
It's Dahlia Lithwick and the rest of the left that is anti-woman.
It affects far fewer than half of the electorate, since most women don’t live in the small number of states where severe and unworkable limitations are in place, and there are easy workarounds for most, not to mention that women are not 100% opposed to any restrictions on abortion whatsoever.
In Vermont there is a referendum to remove any and all restrictions on abortion, which is not a view supported by the majority of women not on Twitter.
"These issues will directly affect at least half the electorate, yet even now they remain hopelessly niche...."
Abortion affects all of the electorate. Despite constant efforts to deny it, men have an interest in abortion also."
All the electorate? Not really unless you strike that word "directly".
The dems have gone all-in for the most extreme abortion position
If "it's between and woman and her doctor" (or "between a birthing person and their abortionist"), then it is their absolute arbitrary decision at Week 39 as much as it is Week 4.
To admit ANY limit is to destroy their argument entirely. So what if one baby is born at 37 weeks and thrives, and another perfectly healthy baby, with a perfectly healthy mom, is then aborted at 39 weeks? They're both good.
"these stories would be powerful, but then they were gone"
Because there are so few of them? As opposed to the majority of abortions carried out as a form of convenient alternative birth control?
"The traction is over dead bodies."
Correct. And over the mistaken assumption that abortion somehow only affects "half" the electorate, and that being predominantly "affected," that half must necessarily favor abortion.
If you work historically backwards from Roe (and Doe, which was supposed to be the tried case), you will find that some states had already legalized abortion; that women seeking abortion had some access in other states as well, though there were preconditions that made access more or less likely to gain approval from a hospital board, and that the political tide was moving towards legalization and loosening regulations in many (not all) other states.
Looking at Roe as a purely historical political phenomenon, both parties viewed it as a way to not so much liberate women (activists highlighted damaged and abandoned poor mothers) but to protect them from the vices of irresponsible and/or violent men. However, happening when and how it did, Roe doubtlessly also reinforced many of the ugly and demeaning consequences of the so-called sexual revolution for women and also men.
Socio-politically, I would compare Roe to Prohibition, though this sounds counterintuitive. But it's a valid roadmap to considering how its repeal will unfold. And I mean the real Prohibition, not the Ken (we was real good to our indentured servants) Burns version.
The Democrats went with abortion rights because that's pretty much all they had. Something like 50% of voters agree with them on that, while they're way under water on most everything else. Everything.
"Reproductive justice"? What a tool Lithwick is. Try "Sterility Rights", Baby. See where that gets you.
Was a decision made not to pursue this form of persuasion? It seemed to be presumed, right after Dobbs, that these stories would be powerful, but then they were gone. Why?
See what happened in Ohio: as soon as the story came out it was torn apart because it turned out to be a much bigger story about how abortion was being used to cover up the rape of a child by an illegal immigrant. They couldn't go that route, I bet, because they couldn't find enough stories of women who needed an abortion that weren't also stories that bolstered the right's arguments against immigration, crime, etc.
"What does that leave?"
Heh. The usual basket of deplorables.
Lithwick wants everyone to stand at moral attention to her view on abortion. That’s understandable. It’s also understandable that people won’t do that.
Maybe the fact that the Left`s initial gambit was such monumental flop had something to do with it. You know, the 12 year old who was raped (by her mother's illegal alien boyfriend) and had to go to Indiana to get an abortion that she could have gotten in Ohio anyway?
Kind of spent their credibility bucks on that one.
"These issues will directly affect at least half the electorate"
No, not all women want abortion rights. And birth control isn't in jeopardy.
Workout reading the other comments first -
What happened to the reports of individual women and girls impregnated by rape or pregnant and facing serious health problems?
Maybe there weren't enough of them? After all, neither is common, and with things like in-vitro heart surgery now possible, the arguments for "the baby would die anyway" are becoming less compelling too.
"These issues will directly affect at least half the electorate, yet even now they remain hopelessly niche...."
I assume she is referring to women as half of the electorate. Maybe she should believe the polls that show how many women are actually NOT for abortion. She seems to think all women believe as she does. We don't, and I don't expect her to think or believe as I do.
The lack of easy access to abortion presumably affects poor people the most. What I don't know but wonder about it what was the percentage of those people who were taking advantage of that access before. I know that the core of the Democrat party, the white, urban, well-off educated elite, it cares about abortion (supposedly) but how much does it matter to the rest of the base? Such as it is these days. And the core, those people can afford to get abortion access if they really want to do that.
I think it is also possible that the otherwise reliable Democrat voter doesn't really believe the Democrats will actually do anything about abortion even if they do get/retain power since they've failed to do so for the last 50 some years when they had ample opportunity to do so. It doesn't mean those voters will pull the lever for GOP but may mean they aren't all that motivated to get into the voting booth in the first place.
and what WAS the democrat response to Dobbs? They reaffirmed that they refused ANY limits on abortion, up to and DURING labor. Don't believe me? Lets ask some!
hey inga? gadfly? mark? What limits would you support on abortion? Any? Any at ALL?
6 weeks?
12 weeks?
24 weeks?
48 weeks?
2 years?
18 years?
Althouse said:
"I think one reason you can't get that much political traction on abortion is that people — even those who were happy with the right in place — are conflicted about abortion. They want women to have freedom and autonomy but they also see that a life is snuffed. The traction is over dead bodies."
Thank you.
In our cancel-culture, where political propaganda spins the narrative, it's a super-power to be able to see and state the obvious.
What happened to the reports of individual women and girls impregnated by rape or pregnant and facing serious health problems?
The only one that I really noticed was the child who had to go out of state. I can think of at least a couple of reasons, besides rarity, that we didn't hear more of those. First, who decides on the behalf of a minor to share the story with the press? Second, going to the press seemed to be more important than reporting the crime that led to the pregnancy. That the man who was accused of the rape was almost three times her age and an illegal alien did not help their story.
In trying to check my memory of the details on that story, I found a few others that would have been a better argument. They involved medical problems that any woman might fear without the inconvenient idea that abortions can be used by child molesters to cover their crimes.
I’m in NYC and college football games have had a few ads emphasizing these issues. Maybe they’re directing the towards the men?
Our son and his wife recently told us she is pregnant. The joy they and we feel stands in sharp contrast to the unhappiness of the pro-abortion women. I can’t help but wonder what is wrong with those people.
America wants a compromise on abortion. American doesn’t prefer a total ban nor the Roe ruling. It’s something in between. That will be sorted in the state legislatures. When the GOP loses a red state, they’ll know they’ve gone too far. Eventually, a European style compromise will be reached. Most Americans know this. And that includes most women.
They don't talk about rape because rape means a rapist committed a crime, and the last thing the Democrats want to talk about is crime.
If you really don’t want women’s issues to be treated as lesser, you wouldn’t sacrifice female sports on the alter of transgenderism, you’d want to treat Iran, Saudi and the gulf states like Rhodesia and apartheid era South Africa, and you wouldn’t have thought giving a hummer to Bill Clinton for the cause was a good idea.
Several weeks ago I commented that "Kitchen table" issues such as the price of food, gas and heat are always most important to voters. It seems that the most vociferous of the pro-abortion types already live in states where there are few limits on abortion. Placing abortion back in the local sphere where it belongs is already having the beneficial impact of forcing people to deal with where it is in their own priorities. For most it ranks somewhere in the middle of the pack at best. I presume that soon the transgender madness will be dealt with in the same way.
"If you get pregnant against your wishes, then you are likely a certified idiot."
If you haven't noticed, there plenty of idiots, certified and not, in the United States and in the global cohort of human beings. And many who are raped, including within the family, as well as others who use contraceptives that simply fail.
The real problem for the Democrats in taking about abortion was the inability to offer any position other than legal all the way up through the time of birth. That's just not a median-voter position. Some Republican jurisdictions went for a total ban, which is likewise going to prove unpopular, but enough Republicans embraced a compromise time period of legality that they were able to advertise themselves as the more reasonable side, and essentially take abortion off the table. Glenn Youngkin in Virginia did the party a great service by immediately embracing a 15-weeks position.
Another issue is that people of reproductive age aren’t really having that much sex.
It's hard to take someone who uses a term like "reproductive justice" unironically. The thing is that she's not looking at how women really are, but assuming that they're all just like her.
1. There isn't much difference between men and women as far as their opinions on abortion.
2. In left-wing states like MA, NY and CA--there will be no change in abortion law--so, you can get worked up about it, though there is not direct impact on voters who live there.
3. In conservative states like TX and FL--there have been/will be, changes to abortion law, making it less available in late term, but these laws are popular with most men and women who live there.
Nobody has to bail on abortion.
All they have to do is the hard work to elect representatives to legislate their desires. Its not easy, and it is not instant gratification. After all, those advocating for the life of our most most precious, and most vulnerable, took 50 years before their hard work paid off. One election cycle at a time.
But I was assured - on this board, no less - that the right wing was overreaching and was going to pay heavily at the polls.
Is it possible that particular prognosticator was wrong? Again?
Denever said...
True, but many women now in their 50s, 60s, and 70s had abortions when they were younger and they still have strong feelings about the experience (mostly positive, unfortunately).
it seems like (to judge from the crowd pix), that these pre-Roe women are the loud pro abortion people.
here's a pic i found at random
meanwhile, here's a prolife pic i found
Do you know what other big issues directly affect half of the voters?
EVERY SINGLE OTHER BIG ISSUE.
Dahlia apparently can't do math.
Do you know what other big issues directly affect half of the voters?
EVERY SINGLE OTHER BIG ISSUE.
Dahlia apparently can't do math.
Actually all of those other issues directly affect ALL of the voters. (My math is correct; I just muffed the delivery).
Employ policies to make food, heating and driving more expensive and watch how focus shifts. Plus, uber Blue states can embrace Federalism and go as bat shit crazy on this as they want.
If the issue is actually "reproductive justice" (which I will give her the benefit on the doubt about and interpret as "the right to reproduce only if and when you choose"), then contraception made - or should have made - abortion a solution to a niche problem. Why haven't feminists banged the drum louder for universal access to contraception?
I know that it has been a feminist issue, but why hasn't it been THE feminist issue? In what way is abortion - any form of abortion - less physically risky or emotionally charged than any form of contraception? Why, in short, did they put just about all their eggs in the abortion basket?
The only thing I can think of is that that particular feminist wave, the second or third iteration of which we're living through right now, wanted to break down the power of maternal feelings. They wanted women to think of their unborn children as "clumps of tissue" or "fetuses" so that they could choose whether or not to become attached to them. That way they didn't automatically think of themselves in terms of either "mother" or "spinster."
I suppose their intent was to "free" women to follow other paths besides motherhood, as if their lives were a zero-sum game. But their intent (if I'm correct about it) ignored so many things:
* that maternal feelings are largely driven by hormones and genetics and can't really be eliminated through this means, only sublimated;
* that women throughout time have had careers and children simultaneously - there has only been a short period and a fraction of the globe in human history in which women not only were not expected to contribute financially to their household, but were able to forgo making a financial contribution!
* that contraception is safer and less troubling than ending a fetal life;
* that ready access to both abortion and contraception works in men's favor at least as much as in women's.
It's a loser of an argument. But they chose it.
Reality is abortion most important to women not using birth control.
Un anticipated one night stand.
Inebriated celebrations.
You say "These issues will directly affect at least half the electorate".
How exactly do you estimate that? All biological women of child-bearing age plus all biological men who might have relationships with biological women of child-bearing age plus their friends and families, or?
We have had roe for decades. At that point abortion was deemed to be legal but rare. But the democrat party began to push for infanticide during birth. No one can find common ground with that evil.
I told you so.
I would tell you in Japanese, but I can’t find the TikTok.
And many who are raped, including within the family, as well as others who use contraceptives that simply fail.
10/29/22, 3:53 PM
Rape accounts for a very, very small number of abortions. The vast majority are done for convenience. It is onerous to carry a pregnancy to term. Is inconvenience sufficient reason to kill a human? You think it is not human, Robert. Wouldn't a truly compassionate person err on the side of life? Or is your concern for the powerless simply a sham? There is nothing more powerless than an unborn baby.
There's nothing more enraging than when pro abortion people talk about *women* as this monolithic group with identical opinions and interests. So "*women* burned hot for a few weeks..."? All of them?! *All* the women want to kill the babies?!
There's a deep form of narcissism going on here where so many of these abortion activists deign to think that anyone with a uterus must think just like them.
"What happened to the reports of individual women and girls impregnated by rape or pregnant and facing serious health problems? Was a decision made not to pursue this form of persuasion? It seemed to be presumed, right after Dobbs, that these stories would be powerful, but then they were gone. Why?"
Perhaps because it was obvious what most Republicans would do next, make a nod to protecting life and codify exceptions for rape and incest and fetuses that would have major difficulties after birth. I suspect most people, being somewhat politically inert, would not feel a great necessity to change that or to vote for people who said they would--especially if those candidates said they supported abortion with no limits: "It is a woman's right."
Denever said...
True, but many women now in their 50s, 60s, and 70s had abortions when they were younger and they still have strong feelings about the experience (mostly positive, unfortunately).
Or they still feel guilty and are trying to alleviate the guilt by normalizing the procedure.
There are fewer than 1 million abortions per year in the U.S. The total population is around 330 million. If Dobbs cuts the number of abortions in half (big assumption) then no more than 1 in 660 people will be directly affected by it.
People have other things to worry about now.
There may also be a growing realization that politicians are using the issue to manipulate voters.
Why?
See:
(a) The Strategic Significance of the Flying Saucers by Erich von Däniken and Marshall Applewhite, pp. i through 333.
(b) Public Health and the Loch Ness Monster by Anthony Fauci, MD, MPA, p. 17.
(c) The Chupacabra Ate My Grammy by Tito Puentes, any damned page you want.
Republicans have tried for years to make birth control pills an over-the-counter product. That legislation has been fiercely opposed by Democrats and their client/funder, Planned Parenthood.
Every parent still has to feed the kids that are in this world. Especially the ones that are here...now...and that you created.
That goes for Women and Men. That's why there are two genders.
"As far back as the time stamp on Alito’s shallow dive into history allows, women were being told that their interests were secondary. . ."
The irony here is that this is such a perfect demonstration itself of a truly "shallow dive into history." I read the entire Alito opinion and could see that Alito made a significant effort to review the history of abortion law, and he did so from the perspective of the way people in that past history actually thought. Lithwick, on the other hand, makes a sweeping and completely present-bound generalization about "all" women along with some supposed notion of "their interests," as if anyone back then even thought in those terms at all. In fact, many of the early feminists had an abhorrence of abortion, which they viewed as making life easier for predatory males. But Lithwick I imagine does not care since SHE is so confident about telling women what their interests really are.
They tried to navigate the triplus space of affordable/available, rape/criminal prosecution, and dignity/agency with a double-edged scalpel and got... well, scalped. Hopefully, this will be a stable state that realizes the development of women, men, and "our Posterity" living in harmonious reconciliation.
Hey Dems, poor brown and black women need to buy gas and groceries and they want safe streets and decent schools for their kids.
Why are you so racist and classist, not to mention homophobic, what with this laser focus on the concerns of straight professional class tramps?
What happened to the reports of individual women and girls impregnated by rape or pregnant and facing serious health problems?
Can't find credible ones?
Pants! You're back!
(Perhaps you've been back for a while, but I've not seen you.)
Good to see you.
"At least half the electorate". I know abortion is one of those issues that everyone has an opinion on, but, in absolute numbers, how many people are confronted in a vital way with this issue. The number is restricted to pregnant women who can't afford an out of state trip. I think the number is probably in the hundreds and not in the thousands. Even hundreds might be overstating the numbers. ....There's not much traction in aborted babies. Their mangled little bodies are extremely slippery when freshly aborted.
As I said before, I wish that the Supreme Court hadn't overturned Roe vs Wade. That being said, the only people who want abortion to be without limits are pregnant women who didn't want to get pregnant and far left Democrats. Those people do not represent a majority.
Dahlia learns not all women think like her - the horror.
Dahlia learns not all women think like her - the horror.
She is limited by bloc (e.g. racism, sexism, ageism, class) doctrine of diversity [dogma].
who want abortion to be without limits are pregnant women who didn't want to get pregnant
There is no mystery in sex and conception. A woman and man's informed consent, safe sanctuary, and shared responsibility follow with their first choice. No egg baskets. No splooge stooges. A social compact accorded to the People and our Posterity.
Dahlia proves there’s nothing left to say about abortion by boring us to tears with her worn out rape and incest exception BS. The subject repels most decent people. The dishonesty repels the rest of us. It makes the subject untouchable in polite company. Unlike the everready can you believe how much [milk, bacon, gasoline, ground beef or U-pick-it] costs now? That’s a yuge reason kitchen table issues resonate: everyone can relate.
Maybe Lithwick would do better to lobby Congressional Democrats to drop their opposition to OTC oral contraceptives. Seems a better use of her time and energy. With the “morning after” pill Levonorgestrel OTC (sold under the brand name Plan B) the number of unplanned pregnancies should be very low.
It is hard to get people excited about something that does not affect them. It has been placed back in the hands of the States, and most of the population who cares about abortion already live in a state where it is legal, and will remain so.
Roe and Casey were bad law, and I think pretty much everyone realized it, and now that it has been returned to the individual States, I expect we will wind up with a hodgepodge of laws that are a better fit for the state where they are law.
What happened to the reports of individual women and girls impregnated by rape or pregnant and facing serious health problems? Was a decision made not to pursue this form of persuasion? It seemed to be presumed, right after Dobbs, that these stories would be powerful, but then they were gone. Why?
The first story, about a ten year old rape victim forced to travel from Ohio to Indiana for an abortion, blew up in a big way. First, it turned out that her rapist was an illegal alien who was her mother’s boyfriend. The mother had not reported the crime and was only taking her daughter across state lines in hopes of covering it up (great parenting skills there!). Second, under the laws in effect in Columbus the abortion would not have been illegal. However the mother’s failure to report her daughter’s rape certainly was illegal. Third, the Indiana abortionist clearly violated HIPAA laws and probably other laws as well by releasing information about a crime victim without authorization.
I hope the child rapist was incarcerated; I understand that child rapists do not do well in prison. I hope the evil mother lost custody of her daughter and any other children she had. I hope the Indians abortionist was severely punished, with a heavy fine if not jail, and lost her license.
Shorter every Democrat who ever opened their mouth about politics in the last 20 years:
"How dare you have priorities different from mine?!"
Ann Althouse said...
[Quote from the article"These issues will directly affect at least half the electorate, yet even now they remain hopelessly niche...."]
Is the author overstating the case by saying "at least half?" Besides the fact that not all males can reproduce, likewise not all females, even those who can may not have a strong opinion in the matter and can't be said to be directly affected.
So sick of this nonsense. American women are the least oppressed people in the history of the world. Dana and her ilk need to take a look around and realize how good they all have it.
In NYC the ads are ginning up fear that Republicans if elected will “take away a woman’s right to choose [sic].” Of course, this is not in the cards in New York no matter who is elected but uninformed or stupid people don’t know it. Maybe it will be effective. We’ll see next week.
“Lithwick wants everyone to stand at moral attention to her view on abortion. That’s understandable. It’s also understandable that people won’t do that.”
Ask yourself this - are you and your family better off today than you were two years ago, when the Dems took over the Senate and the Presidency? If not, then which party is most at fault?
Here, we all know the answer, except a couple of outliers. We have a crashing economy, out of control inflation and crime, open borders, with criminals flooding in and a fentanyl crisis, complete mismanagement of COVID-19, etc. All since the Dems stole the 2020 elections. So, why should anyone rational vote Democrat in this election? Because, the Republicans are, of course, virulent racists, sexists, homophobes, extremists, etc. And most importantly, Abortion! Abortion! Abortion! Six racist, sexist, and homophobish extremest Republican Supreme Court Justices stole the right to unfettered abortion from women across the country.
That’s all that the Democrats have this election - name calling Extremist Republicans, Abortion!, and industrial level election fraud. The cries of Abortion! Abortion! Abortion! are to keep one key demographic voting Democratic - feminists, and esp those who might be swayed by visions of homeless encampments, soaring prices at the gas pumps, shit on the streets, purse snatching, etc to vote Republican. That is mostly White, urban, or maybe suburban, college educated women, often without families (and many probably because they are beta or lower in desirability for males, in a female rich environment).
The left's problem with Dobbs is that it recognizes limits on the authority of the Supreme Court. Their outrage is not about abortion limits imposed by states. God forbid the people's elected representatives should decide legal issues that control social behavior, and that one state might differ from another on these subjects. People might be able to compare outcomes of different approaches! The left can't impose its will that way!
Fifty years to federally legislate Roe, and the Democrats preferred to use it solely as a voting issue, to stir up the base. Same for Repbulicans. Might have been a bit harder for the Supremes to deny the validity of federal legislation (see Obamacare, the ACA, for an example).
If either party actually managed to produce federal legislation about anything - any single goddamn thing - that materially improved the lives of a majority of the citizenry within a year of it passing, that party might just sweep the next elections. It is an idea so crazy, it just might work. I suggest one party or the other give it a try.
What about the young girls who suffer from rape or incest, you asked?
Well, the Ohio case might be good example. I understand the Doctor did a lot of these (from reports at the time) but the state couldn't find any reports of these instances, which are required to be reported by law. Then more specifically, the case in question involved and illegal alien.
This has been an issue for a while now. The abortion industry touts all the underage rape and incest victims they serve but no records of police reports exist.
That may be why that topic just drifted away.
Here's a simple explanation. Most women like babies. Most women aren't all that excited about the final solution to the baby question.
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