Abortion

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Ah so it's being discussed here.

This is fun. (Minor language warning for the article proper. It's censored below.)

It's been a really rough week for Republicans who hate reproductive rights, and Republican Rep. Michelle Steel of California is no exception.

"As someone who struggled to get pregnant, I believe all life is a gift. IVF allowed me, as it has so many others, to start my family," she tweeted Thursday. "I believe there is nothing more pro-life than helping families have children, and I do not support federal restrictions on IVF."

Great! Just one teeny tiny little problem with that, as Inside Elections editor Jacob Rubashkin noted: Steel actually does support federal restrictions. Steel is one of the co-sponsors of the Life at Conception Act, a House bill that "declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual comes into being."

And as Rubashkin points out, there is no carveout in the bill for in vitro fertilization. Oops!

Ever since the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that "unborn children"—including frozen embryos created for IVF—"are children," and multiple hospitals and clinics have announced they are pausing IVF treatment because of it, Republicans like Steel have been scrambling to figure out how to respond.

It's a real problem for the GOP, and it's only going to get worse. On the one hand, they've spent years pushing legislation, like the bill Steel cosponsored, to declare that life begins at conception, every sperm is sacred, and an embryo is the exact same thing—and entitled to the exact same legal rights—as a live human being with a name and a Social Security number.

On the other hand, the ruling out of Alabama is absolutely bat**** insane, and even Republicans know it, which is why they're now trying to pretend this isn't the direct consequence of their actions and rhetoric to convince everyone—or at least conservatives in the judiciary—that, as the Republican-controlled Alabama Supreme Court held, "unborn children are children."

The problem is that IVF is popular because, as Steel notes, it has helped so many people to be able to start their families. And starting families is supposed to be a Republican value.

But darn the luck, it's a slippery slope from "unborn children are children" to "frozen embryos are the exact same thing as children" to double oops, sorry, you can't use IVF to start your families anymore. As Republicans are now learning the hard way.
For posterity, here's a screenshot of the tweet linked to in the article proper, with [poorly worded] community note.

Screenshot-20240223-181813-Samsung-Internet.jpg


Steel is one of 124 co-sponsors of the bill, making a total of 125 supporting it at introduction. That's a majority of Republican representatives. It's a strictly partisan bill.


Why (and how, even) are they such brazen lying rats?

Edit: I was going to post this earlier but I hadn't decided where. He is just so good.

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I'd already posted each of the two things he included in his first post, albeit from different sources.

 
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It's interesting to see the mental gymnastics playing out in real time when the...lets just call them dumbasses....realize that classifying embryos as humans makes it less likely for women to have babies, unlike abortion. Suddenly the actual goal is in conflict with the stated goal.
can't have short-term profits without the obligatory long term destruction
 
It's interesting to see the mental gymnastics playing out in real time when the...lets just call them dumbasses....realize that classifying embryos as humans makes it less likely for women to have babies, unlike abortion. Suddenly the actual goal is in conflict with the stated goal.
Some reconcile this by saying it's not meant for some couples to have children:

The Atlantic
The IVF opponents I interviewed all made clear that they sympathize with couples struggling with infertility. But they also believe that not all couples will be able to have biological children. “Not every way of pursuing children turns out to be a good way,” Sargeant said; people will have to accept that “you don’t have total control over whether you get one.”


And they don't want to stop there:

Earlier this week, Kheriaty texted me with what he seems to take as evidence that his movement is already making progress. He sent a comment he’d gotten from a reader in response to his latest column about the perils of IVF. “This troubling dilemma wasn’t on top of mind when we embarked on our IVF path,” the reader had written. The clinic had explained what would happen to their unused embryos, the woman said, but she hadn’t realized the issue “would loom” so heavily over her afterward.
 
Trump accuses Democrats of executing babies after birth.

In reality, Roe v Wade supported the right to abortion up until the point of foetal viability of pregnancy - around 24 weeks after conception.

 
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I hope this leopards are my face moment represents public support for reproductive choice and that this is reflected in the polls.
Any comments from Kari Lake yet? Last month she said she was in favour of a 15-week ban.
Ah... here she is disavowing the current total ban:

 
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The current abortion decision by the Supreme Court in Arizona was technically legally the right decision.
There is nothing "technically legally" or "morally" right about an abortion law that makes no exception for rape or incest, only if the mother's life is in danger.
Why not offer everyone free school, health care, UBI — that would help him win an election.
Lol, for the same reason this Trump voter is upset; he'd lose a lot of support.
That is the whole idea of the will of the people and the sovereign. And sometimes the people, they don't want the morally correct and clear position. So do you completely betray your deeply held beliefs that are rooted in scripture and rooted in truth? Of course not.
Well, see here's the good the news for Conservatives & their "morally right" positions.

Republicans don't give a **** about any of this. They've already showed their hand regarding abortion laws; "It will now be left up to the states to decide. On 2nd thought, let's federally ban it instead". And they did it again with this very case. They spoke out about it being unjust & immediately voted that it should still stay. Trump will do the same. He will say it's a very bad, no good decision & if he wins Presidency, his administration will immediately go, "Hey, what other laws we can implement that were around before we were a full-on country".
 
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If there was a national abortion ban, I would get a vasectomy in protest. (Never mind the fact I'd like to eventually get one regardless.)
 
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The Supreme Court has ruled to preserve the access to mifepristone:


While a win for pro-choice advocates, it's a bigger win for medications in general. Had the Supreme Court ruled to take the drug off the shelf, we could've seen a ton of other lawsuits trying to remove other drugs as well.
 

There is a buffer zone outside our local clinic (the first in the country). I haven't walked by it in a while to see how well it's enforced.

Tricky.
 
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