State abortion laws megathread

[lfromnj]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anti-abortion-bills-missouri-louisiana-michigan_n_5cdc3dc2e4b0337da4abf8a8

JBE says he would sign the bill too.

[TDAS04]

I'm afraid I can't bash Alabama, since I could see my state doing the same soon, especially with that nasty Kristi Noem as Governor.

[Thank you for being a friend...]

Some conservatives think the Alabama law went too far, saying that there should be a complete ban except for rape and incest.  However, aren't the babies from rapes and incest also as deserving of life as the other babies?  If a baby is a baby (a viable human life) immediately from the beginning, do the circumstances of its conception matter at all?

You can debate whether life begins at conception, but I find these conservatives' arguments inconsistent.  It sounds more to me like they're realizing that people find rape despicable and incest disgusting and so they're carving out these holes because they wouldn't want "those babies" anyway.

So what they're saying is that there are circumstances when it is reasonable to allow a woman to make a choice that she will not give birth if she does not want to?  Isn't that the pro-choice argument?

[libertpaulian]

Morality is never totally black-and-white.  There are always shades of gray and nuance.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The only legitimate reason for the state to act to prevent abortion is the sincere belief that it is protecting a human life. While I favor allowing abortion in the first trimester, once whenever the limit is set I believe there should be no exceptions for rape or incest as they do not affect whether the fetus is now a human life.

[Person Man]

The only legitimate reason for the state to act to prevent abortion is the sincere belief that it is protecting a human life. While I favor allowing abortion in the first trimester, once whenever the limit is set I believe there should be no exceptions for rape or incest as they do not affect whether the fetus is now a human life.

Though I don't understand incest specificly unless you mean serious birth defects or statutory rape.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anti-abortion-bills-missouri-louisiana-michigan_n_5cdc3dc2e4b0337da4abf8a8

JBE says he would sign the bill too.

Great news!  I hope that more Democrats put humanity over party!

[SingingAnalyst]

As a Catholic who considers himself pro-life, it's a Ptolemaic circle, intended to make the anti-choice position seem more politically palatable and viable.

Kind of like allowing someone to discriminate against gays based on "sincerely held religious beliefs"... oh wait... "as long as one's life or safety is not at stake".

I'm pro-life, and I'll say it: abortion should not be outlawed. If large numbers of women started having sex-selection abortions, or if large numbers of men started forcing women to have abortions under any circumstances, then yes, that would be a problem, which could be dealt with separately. But don't take away a woman's choice.

If life begins at conception (or any time before birth), then let's release pregnant women from prison, as their unborn baby (which is a human life) is being held against her or his will. Let's count unborn babies in the US Census. Let's require child support beginning at conception.

Once we accept that life legally begins before birth, the circumstances under which that life was brought into existence would not seem to matter.

[7,052,770]

The only legitimate reason for the state to act to prevent abortion is the sincere belief that it is protecting a human life. While I favor allowing abortion in the first trimester, once whenever the limit is set I believe there should be no exceptions for rape or incest as they do not affect whether the fetus is now a human life.

I pretty much agree with this. Making exceptions for rape/incest doesn't really square logically with the argument that a fetus is a person, and if a fetus is not a person, it should not be illegal at all.

I think the 3-month mark is too early of a cutoff, but I would support a hypothetical cutoff somewhere (5 months? 6 months? I'll defer to experts on this one) with the only exceptions afterward being fetal abnormalities and life of the mother. So basically status quo is good with me, maybe with some federal law penalizing states for passing bans they know will never be allowed to go into effect.

[Fuzzy Bear]

The only legitimate reason for the state to act to prevent abortion is the sincere belief that it is protecting a human life. While I favor allowing abortion in the first trimester, once whenever the limit is set I believe there should be no exceptions for rape or incest as they do not affect whether the fetus is now a human life.

I pretty much agree with this. Making exceptions for rape/incest doesn't really square logically with the argument that a fetus is a person, and if a fetus is not a person, it should not be illegal at all.

I think the 3-month mark is too early of a cutoff, but I would support a hypothetical cutoff somewhere (5 months? 6 months? I'll defer to experts on this one) with the only exceptions afterward being fetal abnormalities and life of the mother. So basically status quo is good with me, maybe with some federal law penalizing states for passing bans they know will never be allowed to go into effect.

Well, you got it right just a little bit (the highlighted part).

I'll pretend you didn't post the rest of this post and think good thoughts.

[RFayette 🇻🇦]

I disagree with the argument that those who support making abortion illegal but are OK with a rape exception are incoherent.  This is because one could accept the personhood of the fetus and still favor the right to an abortion by accepting the logic of Judith Jarvis Thompson's violinist analogy (but only applying this to when one is "hooked up to the violinist," or pregnant, as a result of circumstances outside one's own control). 

[Senator Incitatus]

I disagree with the argument that those who support making abortion illegal but are OK with a rape exception are incoherent.  This is because one could accept the personhood of the fetus and still favor the right to an abortion by accepting the logic of Judith Jarvis Thompson's violinist analogy (but only applying this to when one is "hooked up to the violinist," or pregnant, as a result of circumstances outside one's own control). 

This is pretty much the nail on the head for the secular anti-abortion position, although I think the problem is making a full exception for pregnancies resulting from rape, rather than making a more lenient policy.

[Beet]

I've noticed that a lot of the talking points filtering through liberal circles focus on the sex composition of the Alabama legislature. What makes this such an obsession? They rarely so much as acknowledge that support for abortion polls virtually identically between men and woman in the US, or that the governor who just signed this into law is named Kay Ivey.

So why is representation in the State House such a compelling subject? You would be much more likely to block the bill by changing almost any other aspect of its composition: race, income, wealth, party, religious adherence, etc. I find it much easier to believe that the anti-abortion people actually oppose abortion than to posit a massive conspiracy to keep women in their place or whatever this line is meant to imply.

Well the obvious answer is that (cis) men can't get pregnant, so will not have their bodily autonomy violated by this law. The same can't be said of all people grouped by race, income, wealth, party, etc.

[TJ in Oregon]

I disagree with the argument that those who support making abortion illegal but are OK with a rape exception are incoherent.  This is because one could accept the personhood of the fetus and still favor the right to an abortion by accepting the logic of Judith Jarvis Thompson's violinist analogy (but only applying this to when one is "hooked up to the violinist," or pregnant, as a result of circumstances outside one's own control). 

The issue there is that we don't allow the direct and intentional killing of people simply because they are reliant on you for reasons outside of your control. If one accepts fetal personalhood and the view that murder should be illegal, then it really simply does follow from that that there ought not to be a rape exception. While the question of how someone got into that position obviously does effect the personal hardship of the matter, it doesn't materially change the reality of the situation.

All that being said, we don't live in a logical political world; people tend to care a lot about hardships. And the overwhelming majority of abortions do not occur to end pregnancies that resulted from rape. Thus, while I think there shouldn't be a rape exemption per se, if that's what it takes to ban the other 99% of abortions, more power to you. But that political reality doesn't make it rationally coherent, at least if fetal personhood is the reason for supporting such a ban in the first place. That being said, there are other reasons why people support abortion bans besides a belief in fetal personhood, and while they tend to be more unusual reasons, some of them may very well be compatible with a rape exception.

[Senator Incitatus]

The issue there is that we don't allow the direct and intentional killing (emphasis mine) of people simply because they are reliant on you for reasons outside of your control. If one accepts fetal personalhood and the view that murder should be illegal, then it really simply does follow from that that there ought not to be a rape exception. While the question of how someone got into that position obviously does effect the personal hardship of the matter, it doesn't materially change the reality of the situation...

The counter-argument (and I think we've discussed this before) is that abortion is not murder per se, but akin to child neglect, at least when discussing first- or sometimes second-trimester cases. By removing the fetus from the womb, you deprive it of the resources necessary for survival but don't necessarily terminate its life functions. (Obviously some processes, especially later in gestation, do terminate those functions immediately.)

Since providing resources (in the form of nutrients) is an obligation to take an action (the act of care) rather than an obligation against an action (i.e. killing), it follows from pretty standard action-inaction theories that this obligation only exists where accepted as the implication of consensual behavior (as is done by consensual, reproductive intercourse). In other words, even if we can rationally oblige mothers not to kill children borne of rape, we can't oblige mothers to care for them.

[TJ in Oregon]

The issue there is that we don't allow the direct and intentional killing (emphasis mine) of people simply because they are reliant on you for reasons outside of your control. If one accepts fetal personalhood and the view that murder should be illegal, then it really simply does follow from that that there ought not to be a rape exception. While the question of how someone got into that position obviously does effect the personal hardship of the matter, it doesn't materially change the reality of the situation...

The counter-argument (and I think we've discussed this before) is that abortion is not murder per se, but akin to child neglect, at least when discussing first- or sometimes second-trimester cases. By removing the fetus from the womb, you deprive it of the resources necessary for survival but don't necessarily terminate its life functions. (Obviously some processes, especially later in gestation, do terminate those functions immediately.)

Since providing resources (in the form of nutrients) is an obligation to take an action (the act of care) rather than an obligation against an action (i.e. killing), it follows from pretty standard action-inaction theories that this obligation only exists where accepted as the implication of consensual behavior (as is done by consensual, reproductive intercourse). In other words, even if we can rationally oblige mothers not to kill children borne of rape, we can't oblige mothers to care for them.

But, you can hardly claim it is an inaction when you forcibly remove it from the womb. It's less like failing to provide food to already born children and more like pulling out a feeding tube from a hospitalized patient. It is even moreso since the mother, if she takes no conscious action, will continue to provide the fetus with nutrients unconsciously.

[Person Man]

The issue there is that we don't allow the direct and intentional killing (emphasis mine) of people simply because they are reliant on you for reasons outside of your control. If one accepts fetal personalhood and the view that murder should be illegal, then it really simply does follow from that that there ought not to be a rape exception. While the question of how someone got into that position obviously does effect the personal hardship of the matter, it doesn't materially change the reality of the situation...

The counter-argument (and I think we've discussed this before) is that abortion is not murder per se, but akin to child neglect, at least when discussing first- or sometimes second-trimester cases. By removing the fetus from the womb, you deprive it of the resources necessary for survival but don't necessarily terminate its life functions. (Obviously some processes, especially later in gestation, do terminate those functions immediately.)

Since providing resources (in the form of nutrients) is an obligation to take an action (the act of care) rather than an obligation against an action (i.e. killing), it follows from pretty standard action-inaction theories that this obligation only exists where accepted as the implication of consensual behavior (as is done by consensual, reproductive intercourse). In other words, even if we can rationally oblige mothers not to kill children borne of rape, we can't oblige mothers to care for them.

But, you can hardly claim it is an inaction when you forcibly remove it from the womb. It's less like failing to provide food to already born children and more like pulling out a feeding tube from a hospitalized patient. It is even moreso since the mother, if she takes no conscious action, will continue to provide the fetus with nutrients unconsciously.

Isn't there still some force in the negligence? Is there a difference if you can't feed the child or simply choose not to?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

The issue there is that we don't allow the direct and intentional killing (emphasis mine) of people simply because they are reliant on you for reasons outside of your control. If one accepts fetal personalhood and the view that murder should be illegal, then it really simply does follow from that that there ought not to be a rape exception. While the question of how someone got into that position obviously does effect the personal hardship of the matter, it doesn't materially change the reality of the situation...

The counter-argument (and I think we've discussed this before) is that abortion is not murder per se, but akin to child neglect, at least when discussing first- or sometimes second-trimester cases. By removing the fetus from the womb, you deprive it of the resources necessary for survival but don't necessarily terminate its life functions. (Obviously some processes, especially later in gestation, do terminate those functions immediately.)

Since providing resources (in the form of nutrients) is an obligation to take an action (the act of care) rather than an obligation against an action (i.e. killing), it follows from pretty standard action-inaction theories that this obligation only exists where accepted as the implication of consensual behavior (as is done by consensual, reproductive intercourse). In other words, even if we can rationally oblige mothers not to kill children borne of rape, we can't oblige mothers to care for them.

But, you can hardly claim it is an inaction when you forcibly remove it from the womb. It's less like failing to provide food to already born children and more like pulling out a feeding tube from a hospitalized patient. It is even moreso since the mother, if she takes no conscious action, will continue to provide the fetus with nutrients unconsciously.

It's more like cutting open a hospitalized patient to remove the feeding tube because it's stuck in there somehow.

[Brittain33]

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

 sorry no right to life for you but here's meme XD

[PragmaticPopulist]

The State Comptroller of Maryland and Secretary of State of Colorado have pledged to boycott Alabama over the abortion law. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-abortion-alabama-boycott/alabama-boycott-builds-as-states-retaliate-against-abortion-law-idUSKCN1SM2V8

“The radical anti-abortion bill signed into law yesterday by the Governor of Alabama is a malicious assault on the rights and protections of women,” Franchot wrote on Facebook. “I can work to ensure that Maryland’s taxpayer dollars are not used to subsidize extremism.”

[7,052,770]

Don't they realize that Alabamans who support this law will LIKE the fact that liberal states are "boycotting" them?

[Person Man]

Don't they realize that Alabamans who support this law will LIKE the fact that liberal states are "boycotting" them?

Like the way Hezbollah and NK like our sanctions.

[Storr]

Don't they realize that Alabamans who support this law will LIKE the fact that liberal states are "boycotting" them?

The message of boycotting is mostly for their voters at home in Colorado and Maryland.

[RFayette 🇻🇦]

The issue there is that we don't allow the direct and intentional killing (emphasis mine) of people simply because they are reliant on you for reasons outside of your control. If one accepts fetal personalhood and the view that murder should be illegal, then it really simply does follow from that that there ought not to be a rape exception. While the question of how someone got into that position obviously does effect the personal hardship of the matter, it doesn't materially change the reality of the situation...

The counter-argument (and I think we've discussed this before) is that abortion is not murder per se, but akin to child neglect, at least when discussing first- or sometimes second-trimester cases. By removing the fetus from the womb, you deprive it of the resources necessary for survival but don't necessarily terminate its life functions. (Obviously some processes, especially later in gestation, do terminate those functions immediately.)

Since providing resources (in the form of nutrients) is an obligation to take an action (the act of care) rather than an obligation against an action (i.e. killing), it follows from pretty standard action-inaction theories that this obligation only exists where accepted as the implication of consensual behavior (as is done by consensual, reproductive intercourse). In other words, even if we can rationally oblige mothers not to kill children borne of rape, we can't oblige mothers to care for them.

But, you can hardly claim it is an inaction when you forcibly remove it from the womb. It's less like failing to provide food to already born children and more like pulling out a feeding tube from a hospitalized patient. It is even moreso since the mother, if she takes no conscious action, will continue to provide the fetus with nutrients unconsciously.

Out of curiosity, in the violinist example then, would you say that the person who disconnects from the violinist should be charged with a crime even if the person attached to the violinist was forcibly so?  Because disconnecting would be an active cessation of care (while staying connected would mean the violinist would automatically continue to live).