2020 US Presidential Election

The fear-mongering over sexual predators pretending to be trans to assault women is interesting logic (and not in a good way). Let's break this down into the logical situations, assuming the transgender person was really a predatorial imposter, as opposed to actually transgender:

• Bathroom is heavily populated = too many witnesses (and maybe even vigilante helpers)
• Bathroom has one girl in it and the person "goes in after them." In this case, without witnesses, they would just go into the girl's bathroom anyways. I guess the argument here could be that if the person was pretending to be trans and the woman was accepting of transgender people, they could walk in at the same time with the woman and make her feel a false sense of security, only to reveal that they were a predator with them alone in the bathroom. Even then, if they were truly alone (no witnesses), he would find a way to assault her anyways.
• Same as situation immediately above, but security is present = bad spot to assault.

So that covers the situations of concern. Then the far more "duh" question is how do you enforce it without violating people's rights? If you did have a good way of enforcing it, how would that method be superior to just independent methods of reducing sexual assault?

As far as which one of you is right about the analysis of the numbers (@FGG, @Born To Slay), I'm not really sure. I don't think it matters, to be honest. I live in PA, and I know that anti-LGBT sentiment is deeply dependent on county. I think the deep south is bad enough to generalize (of course, always the asterisk of not everyone), but seriously, there's a lot of anti-trans sentiment all over the country. People are a lot more accepting of homosexuality than transgender individuals and gender dysphoria.

 

Eh, it’s a lot less than half of half of the country and it’d have to be like the refugee program we have now. We’d probably expect like a certain amount per year so the economy can adjust.

Also the North will have a lot of public housing to help the new comers get started.

What an interesting timeline this would be lol, still love all the Southern progressives.

 

So all the minority and progressive refugees get stuck in public housing up North until they can find jobs for them. Sounds great. Lol.

Especially those from moderate Southern states who would then have to chose between what would be a relatively similar level of prejudice but without their home or job or the threat of a future hard right confederacy.

 

I’m sure she’ll well find jobs pretty quick for them and they’ll still have a higher standard of living then they did in their homeland. Free healthcare, free education, no laws against them, etc.

Like this isn’t a serious proposal or anything but it is worth thinking about as the divide between Democrats and the GOP continues to expand. Under Trump we just saw a new level of partisanship and it looks like that trend is continuing under Biden.

 

A Texas State representative just proposed a law where a woman who has an abortion could get the death penalty:

GOP Texas lawmaker introduces bill to allow death penalty for women who have abortions

I guess this is what that Venn diagram of pro-life and pro-death penalty looks like.

I suspect this won't pass (will it?), but it's crazy that it's even being proposed.

 

It could pass because while that sounds extreme to us, it won’t be framed this way when the bill is voted on. It’ll simply be framed as making abortion homicide, which I suspect many Texan Republicans support.

Also, if you dig into the weeds, the bill in Arkansas lost no Republican support in the State legislature. It passed completely on party lines, meaning that Republicans are getting braver on what they can get away with. Now the Texas bill is more extreme and they have a slimmer majority there than in Arkansas but I think Arkansas is a sign they could get it through.

 

You're right. The Texas Republican voters are only going to get a spin that looks something like this:

"Well just because they *could* get the death penalty, doesn't mean they will. Like all homicide cases, we will look at each situation individually and whether or not she repents, etc. But the important thing is that it gets classified as a homicide because abortion is the death penalty for the baby..."

Are all these pro-life states going to start building women's prisons en masse (and dramatically increase foster funding)? This seems so dystopian when you could just reduce abortions with increased education, child welfare spending, and wide spread cheap availability if contraception and the morning after pill.

 

I'm not going to lie. The bill is so stupid that I initially didn't even know what the talking point was. Aren't parts of Texas becoming blue? I guess it doesn't matter if these are introduced along party lines.

 

I never thought of the latter part. It only furthers my argument that an abortion would be the most expensive thing ban ever implemented, I mean, with 700,000 abortions happening every year, if every one of them was criminalized with the average prisoner cost being $31,000, that’d be another $21 billion spent in just the first year alone. We’d easily get to a point where we’d be spending over $200 billion a year on solely abortion offenders, if it were banned nationally. And the ones on death row would be more expensive...

And the best part is that, if the woman is caught trying to have an abortion the system gets double fucked because not only is she put in prison for attempted homicide but then if they force her to have the baby after all (which is wtf), Texas is then on the hook for the $25k per year it’ll cost to raise the baby and educate it. Meaning that the prevention of that abortion will cost the state of Texas about $56k per year. They aren’t going to be able to keep those taxes low for very long...

Yes parts of Texas are becoming blue but right now the Texas State legislature is still fairly red. The GOP has an 18 to 13 hold on the State’s Senate and an 82 to 67 hold on the State’s House, so they have the votes to spare and could probably get this bill through.

 

This is why I always try to ask pro-lifers what they think the punishment should be because I swear most of them have never ever thought about any of this. They are living in a pre-abortion pill world where they think you can just punish the doctor and then just send the women to church.

But with the new Supreme Court, pro-life States are realizing they have a chance to ban abortion but they have to write laws which reflect the modern reality of medical abortion and this crime needs a punishment written into the law. And of course a fine doesn't sound like you think abortion is murder enough so now you have to go full draconian.

 

Yeah... all of this is so true. And another thing I’ve thought about since you mentioned the abortion pill, is that this would only make the drug dealers more powerful and wealthier. The abortion drug would quickly become one of their most profitable products if banned. This will only make the streets less safe for low income communities where these drug operations tend to take place. An abortion ban is such stupid policy...

My answer to ending abortion would be two-fold:

1. Increase social spending to include universal childcare that’d be free for those under 200% of the FPL (this would mean free for most abortion patients), introduce a child allowance similar to what Joe Biden just did and expand Medicaid in the States it hasn’t been expanded yet.
2. Make birth control pills free for Medicaid patients, as well as other methods of protection like condoms and increase sex education standards in schools.

If all this was done (we could even call it the “abortion reduction act” if it got us some votes from conservatives), the abortion rate would drop by at least 3/4s, much more than a ban ever would’ve, and you haven’t infringed on a single woman’s body autonomy. Most women, not all and just to be clear no reason is invalid, get abortions because they’re either uneducated on sex, poor or both. Educate them and give them money and watch the abortion rate plummet.

But conservatives are in favor of none of this because it’s ultimately not about the life of a baby for them but to control women. If that weren’t the case, they wouldn’t have included rape protections for so long. That never made philosophical sense. Why is it okay to murder a baby in your eyes if the baby wasn’t the fault of the mother? What does fault have to do with the morality of murder? Nothing. It’s about controlling women.

 

So let me qualify this by saying that I'm like 95% pro choice morally, and 99% pro choice logistically (when factoring in punishment). With this said, I have the following questions that challenge my own beliefs and others that are pro choice. These thoughts don't concern logistics at all. @FGG has made me significantly more pro choice with her arguments about the pill as well as the question of what the punishment is.

Democrats are often told that they don't sell the pro choice positions well by highlighting the reduction of abortions when there's greater access to birth control, contraceptives, education, child care, etc. But if abortion really is this nothing-burger of just killing cells, why is it a good thing to see it decrease? It seems to me like they avoid highlighting the reductions sometimes because it's sort of an admission that it's undesirable.

And it's not just to appease the pro-life crowd. It legitimately feels good to reduce abortions. But why? BTW, it feels good to me to see a reduction. But why? I don't think the word "murder" is appropriate, but it's more than just an unfertilized egg or sperm dying. Is this all because of educational framing? In other words, if I watched my sperm die enough times, would I feel similarly to watching an embryo die? I really don't know. For super early stages, they are probably similar feelings, but later stages? I don't know. This question clearly becomes more tricky with time, but there's also a decrease in abortions after the initial phase.

Roe versus Wade draws a line at fetal viability so maybe it doesn't matter (this is also beyond the stage of the pill) and is just fear-mongering that "all abortions are like this." I totally support a mother with a complicated medical situation making a tough decision, either way.

Another question: If someone is about to perform an abortion, why is it a problem to "make" them watch a video about what's happening to make an informed decision? This question sucks because pro-life people always position this idea as like a Draconian, male-dominated form of punishing a woman. I'm not even talking about this from necessarily a woman's only position. For example, a man pushing for the abortion should also be watching these educational videos.

I just don't want to see people making mistakes. I wish there was a reasonable way to make this idea work. Currently, there is not. The best solution I have to this (which is probably what pro choice people support) is tons of education before the pregnancy even occurs. That way the actual procedure isn't this fear-mongered thing. I'm not sure.

 

There should be rewards for sterilization. This would apply to males or females, and all races, socio-economic backgrounds, and intelligence. The payments could be given in the form of cash, debt relief, objects such as a new TV, living room set, etc. If the government can't get involved, perhaps a private charity could be established. I'd donate to such a cause.

 

I actually personally lean pro life morally. I don’t like abortion. I think it’s sad that a potentially awesome person will never get the chance. But I also feel that you can’t make a woman carry a fetus because that’s her body, that fetus has no more right to her body than I do to my neighbor’s house. If he wants to lodge me there, then that’s kind of him but even if kicking me out kills me, that’s his house and he has every right to not welcome me in. So that’s where I am morally in abortion. The woman’s right to her body is exponentially more valid the fetus’,

I understand the concern on the marketing of reductions in abortion but here’s why I think that’s actually good marketing. Pro choice people are not pro abortion. They just want people to have the right to an abortion. So a reduction in abortions shouldn’t bother them so long as it isn’t occurring thru road blocks like the South puts up. Pro life people are against abortion, so they’ll be happy with any reduction in abortion, at least in theory.

A lot of Democratic priorities such as a higher minimum wage, a child allowance and universal healthcare and childcare, would cut abortions rates. I see no problem with marketing them as such. I actually got a pro life voter that I know to vote Biden over Trump with this argumentation. She’s extremely pro life but after I had a long discussion with her about how an abortion ban would fail and then explained how 75% of abortion patients are low income or below the poverty line and that it’s Joe Biden’s policies above that would shrink their rates down to the standard rate, she actually switched sides. I think we can get pro life people in the Democratic Party if we can reframe the abortion debate around the social safety net and not bans and that would be a huge hit to the GOP because a lot of otherwise left leaning people vote red because “the Democrats are killing babies”.

I always say if you’re pro-life, vote Democrat, their polices will cut abortion rates. If you’re pro choice, vote Democrat, they’ll never take your right away. Only if you want the abortion to go up, meaning you’re pro abortion, should you vote Republican as cutting the social safety net will only mean more abortions. I think this messaging could be effective.

As far as the video thing goes though, most women that have an abortion don’t really have a choice. They’re poor and desperate. The stats back this up. I’m not in favor of making the process any harder than it has to be.

 

I don't think it's just framing. A glob of cells doesn't experience life in a meaningful way but a third trimester baby is very much alive. It's a transition without an easy line and i think both sides make it too binary. In fact, one of the reason I push hard against "life begins at conception" is because I would rather remove a clump of cells, then end the life of a more formed baby. I would love to see abortion safe, legal and very rare.

And this is not just a thought exercise for me. I have had to spay pregnant dogs (as the surgeon obviously, not my own dogs...) a handful of times and it fully ruined my entire week at the very minimum. I was just gutted each time.

But if I was doing a routine spay and happened upon a very undeveloped embryo in an early pregnancy, I did not have the same emotional reaction. It feels different because it is different.

I would *totally* support an informative video. The problem lies in the fact that the states that try to do this don't want a factual, procedural video (even one that's honest about the emotional implications) but they often want to show 1st trimester abortion patients videos of very late term abortion etc and that's clearly not meant to educate.

 

Can I ask why you would want to do this?

 

I like the way you frame the issue, as I think it's the correct approach. No bullshit or denial over the fact that abortion, as the fetus develops, can be difficult. So my original comment that it may not be "murder," but it can be uncomfortable, is agreed upon.

I think I better understand why people criticize the Democratic party for not celebrating abortion reductions more and taking command over the issue. From what you're saying, it seems like we should just totally concede that we have a desire to reduce them and that left-leaning policies do reduce them. This seems both morally and strategically correct since if someone really does want to stop or reduce abortions, they should view it from the perspective of higher safety nets. As you say, most women are not psychopaths and know what's happening -- they just feel scared, below the poverty line, and trapped.

I often can't take the far right position on this topic very seriously, as it's almost always just virtue signaling. It seems like the left is the actual party of reducing abortions and better child care.

I still like a fair and educational video that doesn't come from a Draconian worldview. I'm not so delusional that I think we're going to "scare" a bunch of women into not having an abortions, but I do think it could catch some. The way I see the video is kind of like this. We all agree that whether one views abortion as outright murder or "just a bunch of cells," everyone has a personal gut reaction to this stuff. I think it's important, to minimize regret, to have both men and women figure out their personal line. From there, it's choice.

I think you and @Born To Slay take solid positions on this topic so I would largely be repeating what I said to him. Your real experience with animals actually highlights what I've been referring to, which is that fear-mongering aside, everyone has somewhat unique personal line on where it feels okay or not to them.

I must say, of all of the talk in this thread, abortion is probably the issue I've shifted the most left. The main reason is probably the abortion pill. There's something about this topic that changed for me. I've always been so focused on the imagery of killing a developed fetus that I've never really thought through the topic. I still don't totally agree on the first amendment and the opioid stuff, but I am perfectly willing to admit that at this point, there are so many illegal weapons and drugs that my theoretical position is damaged more than I would like.

 

Lol, in my post above, I meant second amendment. Jesus Christ, of course I support the first amendment. I mouth off 24/7 on here.

 

If the goal is to reduce the birth rate, wouldn't it be easier just to fund free universal contraception access?

 

Maybe but I guess that depends on if free sterilization negates the lifetime of birth control.

 

Here’s the problem with the video approach though. Most women seeking abortions can’t say no. How is a woman making $15k (full time Federal minimum wage) a year going to choose to have a child? The video will just make an already inevitable choice even harder. It’s punishing the poor, not only do they have to have an abortion, a societally frowned upon procedure they may not even believe in but now they have to watch a video before it happens? It’s not like that a woman living in a studio apartment making minimum wage who can barely feed herself can change her mind.

So I just don’t see the point. And remember, a whopping 49% of abortion patients make less than poverty line. Which is $12,800 per year for a single person, so most of the people watching this video will be in that position. But I do see your point as well, and I might be more inclined to agree if we actually gave women a choice in America. But we simply don’t.

 

I don't think you really refuted my point though. If they are poor and think it's a total no go and it's just a bunch of cells, then watch the video and do it anyways. The reason why my point isn't well understood (and if you look at the original comment, I indicated as such) is because as it currently stands, the purpose of the videos is to shame women. That's not my intention. Yeah, there would be some tough talk, but a total scope would be painted. The statistics on regret (which are actually quite good, IIRC), the stages of the fetus so that they can get an idea of what they think of it. The male should also be shown an educational video. My belief in this doesn't make sense as is though.

Your point about poverty is a very good one, but plenty of poor women decide to keep the kids as well. It's definitely not this emotionless "I'm poor, won't even think about it" situation. And I'm not even talking about the fear-mongering of murder or whatever. Some women just really want to raise kids. I still support choice, but my main point is that the potential of educational videos is not out of line.

 

I’m going to have to think about this honestly because you make good points about the regret stats and if the video really is just a biological account of an abortion and some info on how often women regret it, then it can’t be that bad.

 

BTW, politically speaking, my support of these educational videos is no where close to being appropriate. As long as we have the death penalty for abortion crowd, it comes off condescending or even oppressive to "make" people watch educational videos on it.

This all exists in Zugzug's Eutopia, which is not actually reality.

Here's an example of a Bill pushed by a Utah Republican in the House, requiring women to watch a video. Unsurprisingly, the reaction to this is poor.

Women’s rights advocates slammed the bill, with Karrie Galloway, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, asserting that more restrictions instead of resources will not help reduce abortions.

“What would help women would be assistance with family planning medical services, the cost of contraception and better sexuality education, not Rep. Christiansen showing photographs that he chooses,” Galloway told Deseret News.
​

This is what I'm talking about. It's seen as oppressive under the current climate (and probably is under Christiansen). Also, Galloway gives a shoutout to all of the points were are discussing about contraception and better sex ed.

Actually, I would be in favor of scrapping the video for far better sex ed.

 

The world is very overpopulated. There is no reason not to utilize all available methods of reducing this problem. With sterilization, there are no accidental pregnancies. I'm in favor of giving people choices, and some would take this option. Giving cash or other valuables for getting voluntarily sterilized, is a strong motivator for some.

 

@Zugzug -- I have to respectfully disagree on this point. I myself would be infuriated if I was forced to watch a government sponsored propaganda video before I was allowed to have a medical procedure. I say propaganda because it seems pretty clear there's an intention; to get the woman to change her mind about getting an abortion. In reality, it's none of their (the government's) business. Pretty straightforward and simple to me.

 

I hear you. I was really hesitant to bring this up because we're many years away from what I'm envisioning. What I have in mind is an educational, non-propaganda video that's not necessarily intended on changing the woman's mind, but making sure they are aware of everything. If the statistics on regret are positive (less frequent), then share it.

Right now, these videos are of the flavor that you describe, and I don't support them.

 

I mean, if the government was going to give me $1,000, I’d immediately get sterilized, so you may be on to something here.

 

@Born To Slay could have a vasectomy, and @Lane could be neutered, so we would have one eunuch on this forum. They could report back and let us know how it worked out.

 

Only if @Luman gives me $1,000, that’s an important part of it lol.