State abortion laws megathread

[Senator Incitatus]

This bill is already great; you don't need to give it positive branding like this.

[Senator Incitatus]

I am pleased that the movement to restrict abortion appears to be most active in the courts, the media, and the legislatures, whereas the movement to protect abortion appears to have gotten lost somewhere along the way and spends most of its time on the internet.

[Senator Incitatus]

Ya Hey Abortion Extremists,

If you support laws like Georgia's, please make a push so that legislators make it so that expecting fathers start paying child support from conception, alongside all the other things that come with that.

I also support this proposal, although the burden of pregnancy should be shared by all of society, starting but not limited to the parents themselves. Abortion restrictions are just one cornerstone in the project of restoring a compassionate, family-oriented society.

Prenatal care should absolutely be free and universally available and paid parental leave should be mandatory. Other policies may also address this issue, but these are the preferred starting points.

[Senator Incitatus]

Maybe more of an orientation towards a plant based diet?

I don't see that as a priority (versus general prenatal care and parental benefits) and I'm not aware of conclusive science on plant- vs. protein-based diets and pregnancy, but yes – some sort of structured, healthy diet is certainly preferable to the current lack of nutrition available to pregnant women and children in many poor and rural communities. I think that falls under the category of prenatal care.

[Senator Incitatus]

I really don't understand why a bunch of old white conservative men think they're in any position to interfere with a personal medical procedure between a woman and her doctor...

Because they're men. And I say this as a man, myself.

To quote a wise lady....

Accurately noting that most men are monstrous does not really change the abortion debate in any substantial way.

I really don't understand why a bunch of old white conservative men think they're in any position to interfere with a personal medical procedure between a woman and her doctor...

I agree that Ruben Diaz, Marsha Blackburn, and Amy Coney Barrett should be placed in charge of all U.S. abortion policy.

[Senator Incitatus]

[redacted for readability]

Hope she sees this, bro.

[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.

[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.