Judiciary Commitee Recommends Alito

[TheresNoMoney]

Just an observation...from the Dem questions on the Judiciary Committee, it appears that the one fundamental principle the Democrats swear to uphold at any cost is abortion on demand. How pitiful.

There's no such thing as "abortion on demand", you insensitive jackass.

Abortion rights have been eroded greatly over the past 20 years and 87% of all U.S. counties have no abortion provider. Hell, there are 2 or 3 states where there is only one abortion provider in the whole state.

[TheresNoMoney]

Not for lack of trying on your side's part, you bloody leftist hack.

Thanks for admitting you lied about "abortion on demand", and that you only use it because it's a cheap talking point.

I would love to put you in a woman's shoes and see if your opinion changes when the government gets the authority the control your reproductive decisions. The facts are a great majority of women don't want the government controlling their uterus.

It's so easy for men to judge this issue when it doesn't directly affect you. It must be nauseating for women to deal with all these authoritarian men who want to take away their rights.

[TheresNoMoney]

That depends entirely on what is meant by "on demand";

"On demand", if you go by the true definition of the word, would mean that a woman would march into an abortion clinic, demand an abortion, and have it done right there on the spot. Obviously, this is far from the actual reality.

it's usually used to mean "as a form of birth control" and "at just about any stage of the pregnancy".

Close to 100% of abortions are performed in the first 5 months of the pregnancy, with a vast majority in the first 3 or 4 months. Late-term abortions are only performed under very special circumstances.

Happily that sort of thing is illegal over here.

What is the law in England?

[TheresNoMoney]

That IS the position of the left - Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, anybody?

There was no exception for life of the mother, which is why many Democrats voted against it. Many also didn't want to vote for an unconstitutional bill. Democrat-bashers always fail to leave out these facts when they discuss the PBA ban.

The fact that Webster and Casey have made abortion on demand harder to achieve does not change the fact that the left wing desires it.

Again, there is no such thing as "abortion on demand" so your insistence to continue to use that term shows your intellectual dishonesty.

*sigh* Shall we argue about bad polling questions again? IIRC more women than men are pro-life.

The majority of women do not want the government controlling their reproductive decisions. Reasonable restrictions are fine, but many states would institute a complete ban if RVW was overturned, which would be tragic.

- I wholeheartedly support contraception, including the morning-after pill, although not RU-486 which isn't contraception but another method of abortion.

This is the way to go. Increase sex education and access to contraception (espeically emergency contraception) and you will see abortions go down. I am also fine with reasonable restrictions (parental notificaition and make abortion illegal in last 3 or 4 months of pregnancy).

- I also support giving mothers health care and assistance during and after the pregnancy. Sorry Scoonie, but the 'you don't care about the baby after it's born' line doesn't work on me.

I never acccused you of that.

As part of that, I would make damn certain that the fathers of these kids pay support for them. If you screw around without using protection and get someone pregnant, you deal with the consequences.

I definitely agree with that.

I also strongly support educational and other programs designed to reduce the unwanted pregnancy rate in general to obviate the need for abortions in the first place.

This is another common sense approach that would be a great step to reducing abortions.

Now, 'doesn't directly affect you' is a crappy argument. Under that logic, why should I care about anyone or anything else if their well-being doesn't directly affect me?

Because in this instance, you're directly controlling another person's body (specifically 51% of the population) and I'm not OK with that. I believe we should be giving people more rights, not taking them away.

Your refusal to see the unborn as deserving of rights seems a bit inconsistent when compared to your positions on other issues.

I obviously want to see abortions reduced as much as possible, but we disagree on the solutions. I think you come up with some great solutions up top, but we disagree on the main point of criminalizing abortion or not. I think criminalizing abortion would be a disaster. If I was a woman, I would not want the government to force me to give birth if I was pregnant.

The better steps would be reasonable restrictions, increase education, increase access to contraception, and work to decrease poverty in the country. You have to look at the root cause of the problem, and not just the outcome.
 

And how about some goddamned personal responsibility on everyone's behalf? Except for certain exceptions (rape and incest being the foremost of these), there's no reason anyone should be having unwanted pregnancies in the first place. This is so damned preventable.

That sounds great on paper but reality is much different. People make mistakes in life, and you shouldn't have the rest of your life ruined if you had unprotected sex once or twice when you were a teenager.

[TheresNoMoney]

"Abortion on demand" is an awful term that is far from the truth. A much more accurate term to what you desribe is probably "abortion without restriction", although by my estimate less than 10% of the population would fall into this category, if not lower than that. I find it quite offensive that people still use the term "abortion on demand", which is nothing more than a right-wing talking point from the RNC used to scare people. I would think that non-Republicans would have the decency to not use the term.

Pro-life people are those who want to ban abortion except in instances of incest or rape. You are not pro-life if you want to keep abortion legal, even in only the first trimester.

Pro-choice is the term I use for everyone else (including those who want some restrictions as well). By these terms, a good majority of the country is pro-choice.

The tragic thing about RVW being overturned is that many states would ban all abortions. Many state legislatures are dominated by far right-wingers right now who would love to ban all abortions. Now I understand what Ernest said about this eventually working itself out, but in the meantime many women would be greatly hurt by it. I just don't think it's worth it. I shudder to think of the disaster it would be in the short-term.