Nobody wants to be an absolutist about it, but such coercion can certainly be overdone.
Forcing medical professionals or institutions to perform procedures that violate conscience is overdoing it.
And in that regard abortion is not the only issue.
Another Catholic Hospital Sued for Refusing Transgender Hysterectomy
How much worse would things get in this regard if we had outright socialized medicine like the NHS of the Brits?
A lot worse.
Even handing over the entire health insurance market to a single federal government run insurer would significantly diminish this liberty.
And would subject provision of medical services to rationing on the basis of invidious comparisons of the worth of individual lives, and subject R&D to state-sponsored judgments of value, morality, and justice.
I am a Democrat and a progressive, but not an anti-capitalist and not at all a PC authoritarian.
Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts
Monday, July 20, 2020
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Why the Great Fat Orange Klansman is mad as heck and itching to appoint another supreme
Supreme Court, in 5-4 ruling, strikes down restrictive Louisiana abortion law
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Louisiana's tough restriction on abortions violates the Constitution, a surprising victory for abortion rights advocates from an increasingly conservative court.
The 5-4 decision, in which Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the court's four more liberal justices, struck down a law passed by the Louisiana Legislature in 2014 that required any doctor offering abortion services to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles.
. . . .
The challengers said the requirement was identical to a Texas law the Supreme Court struck down in 2016.
With the vote of then-Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court ruled that Texas imposed an obstacle on women seeking access to abortion services without providing any medical benefits.
Kennedy was succeeded by the more conservative Brett Kavanaugh, appointed by President Donald Trump, who was among the four dissenters Monday.
Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote the Texas decision, also wrote Monday's ruling.
. . . .
Roberts said he thought the court was wrong to strike down the Texas law, but he voted with the majority because that was the binding precedent.
"The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons. Therefore Louisiana's law cannot stand under our precedents."
Will he respect precedent enough to uphold Roe?
Others surely would not.
Democrats liked Roberts' call but noted Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were not on their side.
Sara Gideon attacks Susan Collins on abortion rights after Supreme Court ruling
Gideon touted her endorsements from groups supporting abortion rights like NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood Action and publicly questioned whether Collins still believed that Kavanaugh viewed Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision in which the court ruled that the Constitution protects a pregnant woman's right to choose to have an abortion, as "settled law."
Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the four liberal justices because of Supreme Court precedent, emphasizing that the Louisiana law was identical to a credentialing requirement in a Texas statute invalidated by the court's 2016 ruling in the case of Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt.
Kavanaugh dissented with the other conservative justices, writing that the Supreme Court "should remand the case for a new trial and additional fact finding under the appropriate legal standards."
Thomas tears into abortion precedent, says Roe v. Wade should fall in dissent on Louisiana case
Thomas called Roe v. Wade 'farcical,' the court's reasoning for calling abortion a right 'amorphous' and its abortion jurisprudence 'grievously wrong'
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Louisiana's tough restriction on abortions violates the Constitution, a surprising victory for abortion rights advocates from an increasingly conservative court.
The 5-4 decision, in which Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the court's four more liberal justices, struck down a law passed by the Louisiana Legislature in 2014 that required any doctor offering abortion services to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles.
. . . .
The challengers said the requirement was identical to a Texas law the Supreme Court struck down in 2016.
With the vote of then-Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court ruled that Texas imposed an obstacle on women seeking access to abortion services without providing any medical benefits.
Kennedy was succeeded by the more conservative Brett Kavanaugh, appointed by President Donald Trump, who was among the four dissenters Monday.
Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote the Texas decision, also wrote Monday's ruling.
. . . .
Roberts said he thought the court was wrong to strike down the Texas law, but he voted with the majority because that was the binding precedent.
"The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons. Therefore Louisiana's law cannot stand under our precedents."
Will he respect precedent enough to uphold Roe?
Others surely would not.
Democrats liked Roberts' call but noted Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were not on their side.
Sara Gideon attacks Susan Collins on abortion rights after Supreme Court ruling
Gideon touted her endorsements from groups supporting abortion rights like NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood Action and publicly questioned whether Collins still believed that Kavanaugh viewed Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision in which the court ruled that the Constitution protects a pregnant woman's right to choose to have an abortion, as "settled law."
Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the four liberal justices because of Supreme Court precedent, emphasizing that the Louisiana law was identical to a credentialing requirement in a Texas statute invalidated by the court's 2016 ruling in the case of Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt.
Kavanaugh dissented with the other conservative justices, writing that the Supreme Court "should remand the case for a new trial and additional fact finding under the appropriate legal standards."
Thomas called Roe v. Wade 'farcical,' the court's reasoning for calling abortion a right 'amorphous' and its abortion jurisprudence 'grievously wrong'
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas filed a blistering opinion dissenting from a Monday decision to strike down a Louisiana law that required abortion doctors to obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, calling the court's record on abortion "grievously wrong."
The pitched dissent made clear that Thomas is ready to tear down the court's protections for abortion completely in his most explicit comments yet that precedents all the way back to Roe v. Wade should fall.
Vice President Mike Pence tweeted, “After today’s disappointing decision by SCOTUS, one thing is clear: We need more Conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court.”
So of course he wants to appoint more of them to put unelected conservatives in possession of the law.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Overkill, so to speak
Abortion before Roe was forbidden but not thought of or treated as murder.
This is overdoing it.
I favor banning abortion from conception if that is the only available alternative to allowing it ad lib up to the onset of labor.
But not like this.
This is clear proof there really are pro-life extremists and crazies.
Missouri lawmaker wants police officers to stop women from getting abortions
Mike Moon, a Republican Missouri state representative, introduced a bill he calls the Right to Due Process Act, which redefines a fertilized egg as a person with all the constitutional rights of any other citizen.
The suggested law then requires police and the courts to “affirmatively enforce” the Missouri constitution’s due process clause which guarantees legal rights to people, effectively turning any attempt to terminate a pregnancy into murder.
Moon also filed a bill to “abolish” abortion in Missouri, and specifically cites “murder by abortion”.
The law makes no exemptions for rape, incest or apparently for women who have pregnancies which are not viable and potentially fatal, since the proposals strike references to abortion exemptions for maternal health.
This is overdoing it.
I favor banning abortion from conception if that is the only available alternative to allowing it ad lib up to the onset of labor.
But not like this.
This is clear proof there really are pro-life extremists and crazies.
Missouri lawmaker wants police officers to stop women from getting abortions
Mike Moon, a Republican Missouri state representative, introduced a bill he calls the Right to Due Process Act, which redefines a fertilized egg as a person with all the constitutional rights of any other citizen.
The suggested law then requires police and the courts to “affirmatively enforce” the Missouri constitution’s due process clause which guarantees legal rights to people, effectively turning any attempt to terminate a pregnancy into murder.
Moon also filed a bill to “abolish” abortion in Missouri, and specifically cites “murder by abortion”.
The law makes no exemptions for rape, incest or apparently for women who have pregnancies which are not viable and potentially fatal, since the proposals strike references to abortion exemptions for maternal health.
Friday, November 29, 2019
Too much for me, anyway
I think the fetus is entitled to protection when it resembles a small human being.
An unborn child, in fact.
But I am willing to accept legislation based on the idea it is entitled from conception since that's better than the baby killer position it is never so entitled.
This, however, is a bridge too far.
Ohio bill orders doctors to ‘reimplant ectopic pregnancy’ or face 'abortion murder' charges
Ohio introduces one of the most extreme bills to date for a procedure that does not exist in medical science
That it isn't done doesn't mean it can't be done.
An unborn child, in fact.
But I am willing to accept legislation based on the idea it is entitled from conception since that's better than the baby killer position it is never so entitled.
This, however, is a bridge too far.
Ohio bill orders doctors to ‘reimplant ectopic pregnancy’ or face 'abortion murder' charges
Ohio introduces one of the most extreme bills to date for a procedure that does not exist in medical science
That it isn't done doesn't mean it can't be done.
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
Is it OK for the black majority to make laws governing the choices of the white minority in South Africa?
I ask because of this guilt-tripper doing her level best to stoke outrage that white people will make abortion laws impacting the choices of nonwhites.
Oh, dear me.
White conservative women have played key role in abortion policy changes this year
The main storyline on reproductive rights for months now has been this: Men, many of them conservative, have moved to curtail access to legal abortion and even ban it, imposing their will upon women.
That would be the main guilt-tripping misandrist propaganda line that we are so disgusted by and so used to.
The truth, however, is more complicated.
White women have joined men, mostly but not exclusively in the Deep South, in using their conservative majorities in multiple state legislatures to make sweeping changes to abortion policies this year.
Those laws that survive legal challenges will most deeply affect women too poor to travel or move to a state with better access to abortion services.
That’s a group that is disproportionately black and Latino — and, in the case of black women, a group that tends to support access to legal abortion.
This gap between those making the decisions and those affected by them, experts say, is a dynamic with deep roots in American history.
And it happens the other way 'round in every American city or county where a black and overwhelmingly Democratic majority makes the rules for whites, often much more Republican, and other minorities.
Oh how awful!
Wait, is it racist to deplore black majority rule over a white minority? White nationalist? White supremacist, even?
Oh, golly.
The role of white women — long key players in dictating and constraining the reproductive choices of others — is too often discounted and overlooked, experts say.
In 2019, new abortion restrictions were passed in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana after white women co-sponsored them, many voted for them and in one state, signed the changes into law.
(In those four state legislatures, 48 women — almost all of them white — voted for the restrictions.)
When Democrats get like this they just make me want to puke all over them.
And regret that the Republicans want to kill me, so I can never vote for them, no matter how revolting the Democrats get.
Oh, dear me.
White conservative women have played key role in abortion policy changes this year
The main storyline on reproductive rights for months now has been this: Men, many of them conservative, have moved to curtail access to legal abortion and even ban it, imposing their will upon women.
That would be the main guilt-tripping misandrist propaganda line that we are so disgusted by and so used to.
The truth, however, is more complicated.
White women have joined men, mostly but not exclusively in the Deep South, in using their conservative majorities in multiple state legislatures to make sweeping changes to abortion policies this year.
Those laws that survive legal challenges will most deeply affect women too poor to travel or move to a state with better access to abortion services.
That’s a group that is disproportionately black and Latino — and, in the case of black women, a group that tends to support access to legal abortion.
This gap between those making the decisions and those affected by them, experts say, is a dynamic with deep roots in American history.
And it happens the other way 'round in every American city or county where a black and overwhelmingly Democratic majority makes the rules for whites, often much more Republican, and other minorities.
Oh how awful!
Wait, is it racist to deplore black majority rule over a white minority? White nationalist? White supremacist, even?
Oh, golly.
The role of white women — long key players in dictating and constraining the reproductive choices of others — is too often discounted and overlooked, experts say.
In 2019, new abortion restrictions were passed in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana after white women co-sponsored them, many voted for them and in one state, signed the changes into law.
(In those four state legislatures, 48 women — almost all of them white — voted for the restrictions.)
When Democrats get like this they just make me want to puke all over them.
And regret that the Republicans want to kill me, so I can never vote for them, no matter how revolting the Democrats get.
Saturday, August 3, 2019
Channeling me?
Are Artificial Wombs the Answer?
The technology would allow fetuses to develop outside the female womb so women would no longer have be pregnant.
Yes, it's the idea I have floated more than once.
But it does miss the fact that some women are willing even to say out loud that they would rather kill the unborn child than let it live and give it up to someone else.
The technology would allow fetuses to develop outside the female womb so women would no longer have be pregnant.
Yes, it's the idea I have floated more than once.
But it does miss the fact that some women are willing even to say out loud that they would rather kill the unborn child than let it live and give it up to someone else.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
How to speed the death of the EU
Europe’s patchwork of abortion laws is absurd. Rights must be made universal
That will thrill the voters in Poland.
Brexit effect forces women to go to Netherlands for abortions
Of course, the objection isn't that rules need to be all the same, but that rules need to be all equally permissive of abortions throughout Europe.
Or some women interested in killing their unborn babies might find it inconvenient, confusing, and annoying, poor things.
A stronger push for control of the laws regarding sex throughout Europe by the post-Christian, PC, feminist, liberal morality, and especially laws regarding abortion, will help drive the breakup of the EU almost as much as liberal, post-national and post-nationalist convictions regarding the morality of immigration and the rights of prospective and actual migrants have done.
That is unfortunate in many ways, for Europe and for Europeans.
But the truth is that liberals, like anybody else, are only willing to tolerate kinds of diversity that they just don't really care about.
Those they hate they want to outlaw, persecute, and abolish.
Leaving the EU is an obvious way for more conservative European countries to escape domination by the nearly universal post-Christian moral orthodoxy.
The more liberal countries, on the other hand, would be free to legalize infanticide at will, suicide and assisted suicide, and euthanasia, probably rather more often than I would.
And I am confident they would.
That will thrill the voters in Poland.
Brexit effect forces women to go to Netherlands for abortions
Of course, the objection isn't that rules need to be all the same, but that rules need to be all equally permissive of abortions throughout Europe.
Or some women interested in killing their unborn babies might find it inconvenient, confusing, and annoying, poor things.
A stronger push for control of the laws regarding sex throughout Europe by the post-Christian, PC, feminist, liberal morality, and especially laws regarding abortion, will help drive the breakup of the EU almost as much as liberal, post-national and post-nationalist convictions regarding the morality of immigration and the rights of prospective and actual migrants have done.
That is unfortunate in many ways, for Europe and for Europeans.
But the truth is that liberals, like anybody else, are only willing to tolerate kinds of diversity that they just don't really care about.
Those they hate they want to outlaw, persecute, and abolish.
Leaving the EU is an obvious way for more conservative European countries to escape domination by the nearly universal post-Christian moral orthodoxy.
The more liberal countries, on the other hand, would be free to legalize infanticide at will, suicide and assisted suicide, and euthanasia, probably rather more often than I would.
And I am confident they would.
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Freedom of speech dying in Canada?
PC suppression of freedom of speech seems much further along in Canada than here.
Anyway, judging by the arrogance not only of her words but of her tone.
Activists condemn Canadian cinema chain for screening anti-abortion film
Abortion rights defenders in Canada have accused the country’s largest cinema chain of hiding behind freedom of expression laws in order to screen a controversial US anti-choice film which has been described as “anti-abortion propaganda”.
The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) said Cineplex Entertainment has “made a decision based on money, not freedom of speech” by choosing to screen Unplanned.
ARCC executive director Joyce Arthur said: “The movie theatres who are agreeing to show this film under the guise of free speech are publicly legitimizing anti-choice views."
Oh, my. How dare they?
She told the Guardian: “Why does much of civil society seem to think it’s still OK to allow public challenges of women’s rights in the name of free speech? That would never be tolerated if it, for example, were a white supremacist movie.”
I doubt that anyone will be making any new, theater-quality white supremacist films in the foreseeable future (grid willing).
How would she feel about an arts theater showing Birth of a Nation, I wonder.
Her comments came after the chief executive of Cineplex Entertainment defended his decision to screen Unplanned, a movie based on a memoir by Abby Johnson, a former director of a Texas Planned Parenthood clinic who has become a prominent anti-abortion activist.
. . . .
In an open letter released Monday, Cineplex Entertainment chief Ellis Jacob said he made his decision to screen the film across Canada after receiving letters and calls on “both sides of the conversation”.
Jacob wrote: “Canada is a country that believes in and rallies behind freedom of expression, but that isn’t always an easy thing to do and it certainly doesn’t always make you popular.”
He said the decision was complicated and was not taken lightly, and that Canadians have the choice not to see the film.
. . . .
Abortion has been legal in Canada since 1988, after Dr Henry Morgentaler successfully petitioned the country’s top court to rule that its abortion law was unconstitutional.
However, anti-abortion sentiment is growing in Canada. Last year, Maclean’s magazine writer Anne Kingston profiled the resurgence of the anti-abortion movement in Canada, noting that many of the country’s anti-abortion political groups have close ties to their US counterparts.
With ‘Unplanned,’ Abortion Opponents Turn Toward Hollywood
The movie comes as conservatives are feeling emboldened to roll back abortion rights, including potentially overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, after the confirmation last October of Justice Brett Kavanaugh solidified their majority on the Supreme Court.
Another anti-abortion film, “Roe v. Wade,” starring the conservative actor Jon Voight, was promoted at the annual March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., in January, but has yet to announce a distribution partner or release date.
. . . .
“Unplanned” is based on the memoir of the same name by Abby Johnson, a former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, Tex., who became a celebrity of the anti-abortion movement after what she said was a crisis of conscience.
The film dramatizes her conversion narrative and includes three unflinching portrayals of abortions, the first and most explicit of which occurs in the first 10 minutes.
. . . .
The abortion scenes earned the movie its R rating, for “some disturbing/bloody images,” which meant that its trailers couldn’t run in front of non-R-rated films, or even on some Christian radio stations, such as K-Love and Air1.
But the filmmakers said they weren’t willing to compromise on the graphic portrayals, which are central to the film’s appeal to viewers as a self-proclaimed exposé that promises hard truths.
In that first scene, teased in the trailer and on posters as “the moment that changed everything,” Abby, played by Bratcher, witnesses an ultrasound-guided termination of a pregnancy at 13 weeks.
The ultrasound, as depicted onscreen, shows a fetus with a discernible head, torso and limbs frantically squirming away from a doctor’s probe — an action that Abby later describes as “twisting and fighting for its life” — before being liquefied by suction.
Anyway, judging by the arrogance not only of her words but of her tone.
Activists condemn Canadian cinema chain for screening anti-abortion film
Abortion rights defenders in Canada have accused the country’s largest cinema chain of hiding behind freedom of expression laws in order to screen a controversial US anti-choice film which has been described as “anti-abortion propaganda”.
The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) said Cineplex Entertainment has “made a decision based on money, not freedom of speech” by choosing to screen Unplanned.
ARCC executive director Joyce Arthur said: “The movie theatres who are agreeing to show this film under the guise of free speech are publicly legitimizing anti-choice views."
Oh, my. How dare they?
She told the Guardian: “Why does much of civil society seem to think it’s still OK to allow public challenges of women’s rights in the name of free speech? That would never be tolerated if it, for example, were a white supremacist movie.”
I doubt that anyone will be making any new, theater-quality white supremacist films in the foreseeable future (grid willing).
How would she feel about an arts theater showing Birth of a Nation, I wonder.
Her comments came after the chief executive of Cineplex Entertainment defended his decision to screen Unplanned, a movie based on a memoir by Abby Johnson, a former director of a Texas Planned Parenthood clinic who has become a prominent anti-abortion activist.
. . . .
In an open letter released Monday, Cineplex Entertainment chief Ellis Jacob said he made his decision to screen the film across Canada after receiving letters and calls on “both sides of the conversation”.
Jacob wrote: “Canada is a country that believes in and rallies behind freedom of expression, but that isn’t always an easy thing to do and it certainly doesn’t always make you popular.”
He said the decision was complicated and was not taken lightly, and that Canadians have the choice not to see the film.
. . . .
Abortion has been legal in Canada since 1988, after Dr Henry Morgentaler successfully petitioned the country’s top court to rule that its abortion law was unconstitutional.
However, anti-abortion sentiment is growing in Canada. Last year, Maclean’s magazine writer Anne Kingston profiled the resurgence of the anti-abortion movement in Canada, noting that many of the country’s anti-abortion political groups have close ties to their US counterparts.
With ‘Unplanned,’ Abortion Opponents Turn Toward Hollywood
The movie comes as conservatives are feeling emboldened to roll back abortion rights, including potentially overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, after the confirmation last October of Justice Brett Kavanaugh solidified their majority on the Supreme Court.
Another anti-abortion film, “Roe v. Wade,” starring the conservative actor Jon Voight, was promoted at the annual March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., in January, but has yet to announce a distribution partner or release date.
. . . .
“Unplanned” is based on the memoir of the same name by Abby Johnson, a former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, Tex., who became a celebrity of the anti-abortion movement after what she said was a crisis of conscience.
The film dramatizes her conversion narrative and includes three unflinching portrayals of abortions, the first and most explicit of which occurs in the first 10 minutes.
. . . .
The abortion scenes earned the movie its R rating, for “some disturbing/bloody images,” which meant that its trailers couldn’t run in front of non-R-rated films, or even on some Christian radio stations, such as K-Love and Air1.
But the filmmakers said they weren’t willing to compromise on the graphic portrayals, which are central to the film’s appeal to viewers as a self-proclaimed exposé that promises hard truths.
In that first scene, teased in the trailer and on posters as “the moment that changed everything,” Abby, played by Bratcher, witnesses an ultrasound-guided termination of a pregnancy at 13 weeks.
The ultrasound, as depicted onscreen, shows a fetus with a discernible head, torso and limbs frantically squirming away from a doctor’s probe — an action that Abby later describes as “twisting and fighting for its life” — before being liquefied by suction.
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
You know, you may say you're a girl, but we both know you're not.
Actually, I sympathize with these bathroom bans.
Unenforceable (would door guards be posted to - ahem - frisk people at the entrances?) but good symbolism.
I am not in the least interested in licensing persecution of these folks, but such bans are not persecution.
GOP House nominee compares his anti-LGBTQ bigotry to saving Jews from the Holocaust
Likewise, I oppose and deplore as absurd mockery gay marriage.
But these are not half so serious to me as my opposition to abortion.
And yet none of these individually, nor all of them collectively, are deal breakers for me.
On social as well as class issues, voters are faced with two opposing teams increasingly committed to extremes.
One party favors abortion on demand for the whole term of the pregnancy and is apt to favor infanticide on demand as soon as they dare, while the other favors a nearly total prohibition of abortion and would never in human imagination favor infanticide.
I am closer to the Republicans; forced to choose I will choose their position.
One party favors gay marriage, adoption by same-sex couples, women in combat, and even greater absurdities in deference to sexual outlawry, post-modernist feminism, and gender revolutionism while the other would turn back the clock on the law regarding all things sexual to 1950.
I am about equidistant from both, though I find the Dem position far less cruel though much more absurd.
Forced to choose I will choose the Dems position.
With the GOP and increasingly against the Dems I favor capital punishment and long sentences.
To my knowledge there is not any actual, formal issue position of the contemporary GOP regarding race that I do not agree with.
I would prefer that whites remain a politically dominant demographic majority in the US, since I have no wish that I, my family members, or my near descendants suffer the greater or lesser indignities of minority status.
Sometimes I sympathize with the libertarian view that private economic agents ought not to be subject to government-enforced nondiscrimination.
And I generally sympathize with the legal toleration of racially, religiously, or otherwise exclusive private clubs, such as men-only or whites-only country clubs.
I am pro-capitalism (and anti-socialism and anti-Communism) without being personally a capitalist, and favor the careful sort of free-trade/fair-trade, globalizing deals favored by O and Hillary and center-left Democrats as well as Republicans.
And I would much prefer the American security forces use torture, if necessary (and useful), to prevent a serious radiological, let alone a genuine nuclear, attack on the US, or maybe on anyone, though I would also prefer that the police eschew it and not return to the third degree as a tool for choking out false confessions in preference to actually trying to find out and punish the truly guilty.
Forced to choose, I prefer a system in which education is overwhelmingly in private hands, and some of it religiously affiliated in one way or another, rather than that education be overwhelmingly - much less entirely - in the hands of state agencies committed to an official view of anything or an official secularism.
Why do I vote for Democrats, every single time?
Because they have built and today defend over a century of progressive achievements in aid of the common people nearly all of which have benefitted, do benefit, or will benefit myself and my wife and my immediate - however stupidly ungrateful - family.
While Republicans have opposed those achievements every step of the way and to this day would tear them all down if they could, putting myself, my wife, and my immediate family in a perilous fix.
Why am I a registered Democrat?
So I can vote in my state's closed primaries.
Unenforceable (would door guards be posted to - ahem - frisk people at the entrances?) but good symbolism.
I am not in the least interested in licensing persecution of these folks, but such bans are not persecution.
GOP House nominee compares his anti-LGBTQ bigotry to saving Jews from the Holocaust
Likewise, I oppose and deplore as absurd mockery gay marriage.
But these are not half so serious to me as my opposition to abortion.
And yet none of these individually, nor all of them collectively, are deal breakers for me.
On social as well as class issues, voters are faced with two opposing teams increasingly committed to extremes.
One party favors abortion on demand for the whole term of the pregnancy and is apt to favor infanticide on demand as soon as they dare, while the other favors a nearly total prohibition of abortion and would never in human imagination favor infanticide.
I am closer to the Republicans; forced to choose I will choose their position.
One party favors gay marriage, adoption by same-sex couples, women in combat, and even greater absurdities in deference to sexual outlawry, post-modernist feminism, and gender revolutionism while the other would turn back the clock on the law regarding all things sexual to 1950.
I am about equidistant from both, though I find the Dem position far less cruel though much more absurd.
Forced to choose I will choose the Dems position.
With the GOP and increasingly against the Dems I favor capital punishment and long sentences.
To my knowledge there is not any actual, formal issue position of the contemporary GOP regarding race that I do not agree with.
I would prefer that whites remain a politically dominant demographic majority in the US, since I have no wish that I, my family members, or my near descendants suffer the greater or lesser indignities of minority status.
Sometimes I sympathize with the libertarian view that private economic agents ought not to be subject to government-enforced nondiscrimination.
And I generally sympathize with the legal toleration of racially, religiously, or otherwise exclusive private clubs, such as men-only or whites-only country clubs.
I am pro-capitalism (and anti-socialism and anti-Communism) without being personally a capitalist, and favor the careful sort of free-trade/fair-trade, globalizing deals favored by O and Hillary and center-left Democrats as well as Republicans.
And I would much prefer the American security forces use torture, if necessary (and useful), to prevent a serious radiological, let alone a genuine nuclear, attack on the US, or maybe on anyone, though I would also prefer that the police eschew it and not return to the third degree as a tool for choking out false confessions in preference to actually trying to find out and punish the truly guilty.
Forced to choose, I prefer a system in which education is overwhelmingly in private hands, and some of it religiously affiliated in one way or another, rather than that education be overwhelmingly - much less entirely - in the hands of state agencies committed to an official view of anything or an official secularism.
Why do I vote for Democrats, every single time?
Because they have built and today defend over a century of progressive achievements in aid of the common people nearly all of which have benefitted, do benefit, or will benefit myself and my wife and my immediate - however stupidly ungrateful - family.
While Republicans have opposed those achievements every step of the way and to this day would tear them all down if they could, putting myself, my wife, and my immediate family in a perilous fix.
Why am I a registered Democrat?
So I can vote in my state's closed primaries.
Saturday, July 6, 2019
Too white, too old, too male, and especially too centrist for TV and Internet Democrats, generally
That's pretty much what opinionators in Dem media have been saying about Joe Biden since forever.
And then Kamala Harris attacked him for not being, in the past, the kind of Democrat she and the further left candidates are on race and on abortion, today.
Under severe pressure and with no credible sincerity at all he has abandoned his long-time opposition to abortion (he never actually called for Roe to be overturned).
He has not, to my knowledge, apologized for or retrospectively abandoned his past opposition to school busing to achieve racial balance, nor indicated his view of its role today.
So for days and days the media, especially the Democrat media, have harped on all this.
But his leadership in the polls does not seem to have been affected.
And then Kamala Harris attacked him for not being, in the past, the kind of Democrat she and the further left candidates are on race and on abortion, today.
Under severe pressure and with no credible sincerity at all he has abandoned his long-time opposition to abortion (he never actually called for Roe to be overturned).
He has not, to my knowledge, apologized for or retrospectively abandoned his past opposition to school busing to achieve racial balance, nor indicated his view of its role today.
So for days and days the media, especially the Democrat media, have harped on all this.
But his leadership in the polls does not seem to have been affected.
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Like the chain dragged by Marley, eh?
Biden is no spring chicken.
This is the CFG polling data.
Biden opposed abortion, "forced bussing", and reparations.
So did I, and many of that generation of Democrats, back in the day.
Many of us still oppose some or all of these things, today and retrospectively.
Me included.
And I voted twice for Barack Hussein Obama, and would again.
And I voted for Hillary the Likable Enough.
I am what I am and the Democrats are what they are: the lesser evil and the better package, in net, for me, for my wife, and for those in my extended family who are mostly too stupid to vote for them.
And I still say B is too much all three of old, white, and male.
Can't we at least have somebody who's not all three?
And perhaps someone less inclined to constantly remind everyone how old and frail he is with constant, nostalgic walks down his long, long Memory Lane?
Sunday, June 16, 2019
The abortion war in Illinois
As GOP-controlled states pass draconian bills that stomp on a woman's right to an abortion, Illinois' Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law a bill that makes abortion a "fundamental right" in the Land of Lincoln.
The law, titled the Reproductive Health Act, immediately went into effect when Pritzker signed it on Wednesday.
And it states that a "fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights under the law of this State."
Friday, June 14, 2019
Biden and abortion. And litmus.
Nothing in this Guardian story indicates opposition to Roe per se, though.
A 2006 video of Joe Biden unearthed by CNN on Thursday shows the then senator saying he does not see abortion as “a choice and a right”.
“I do not view abortion as a choice and a right,” the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate said in a videotaped interview with Texas Monthly.
“I think it’s always a tragedy. I think it should be rare and safe,” he added.
“I think we should be focusing on how to limit the number of abortions.”
Biden backlash: will the frontrunner's early stumbles be his downfall?
The clip is the latest evidence of Biden’s inconsistent record on the issue.
Last week, the former vice-president, a 2020 frontrunner, flip-flopped on his position on the Hyde amendment, a measure that prohibits the use of federal funding for abortions.
One day after saying he supported the Hyde amendment, following backlash from Democrats, he dropped a position he had held for decades.
“If I believe healthcare is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone’s zip code,” he told an audience at the Democratic National Committee’s African American Leadership Council Summit in Atlanta on 6 June.
In 1977 Biden voted against a compromise that would have allowed federal funds to be used for abortions in cases of rape or incest or concerns for the life of the mother.
The compromise passed in that case, but in 1981 Biden voted again to remove them.
Also in 1981, Biden voted to let states overturn Roe v Wade, citing his background as a Roman Catholic at the time and calling the decision “the single most difficult vote I’ve cast as a US senator”.
In 2015, he described his views to the Catholic magazine America: “I’m prepared to accept that at the moment of conception there’s human life and being, but I’m not prepared to say that to other God-fearing, non-God-fearing people that have a different view.”
But this is from the Washington Examiner.
At the time, I thought so, too.
Still, even his worst enemies have found no quotes indicating a wish to see Roe overturned.
Monday, June 10, 2019
Saying it's so doesn't make it so
Some court, state or federal, may yet point that out.
Missouri Lawmakers’ ‘Cowardly’ Attempts to Silence Voters on Abortion Rights
On the other hand, the entire point of pro-choice support of Roe is to keep voters utterly disenfranchised with respect to the question of abortion.
So this whining is the most stunning and egregious hypocrisy imaginable.
Passed on the last day of the legislative session, HB 126 bans abortion at eight weeks’ gestation; revises the state’s parental notification laws; and puts in place a “trigger” that would automatically outlaw abortion statewide should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade.
It also contains an emergency clause lawmakers claim insulates the bill from the possibility of challenge by voter referendum—making explicit the connection between banning abortion and disenfranchising voters.
Under Missouri law, unless a law contains an emergency clause or is an appropriation act, it takes effect 90 days after the session adjourns.
But sometimes legislators pass unpopular laws, and so the Missouri Constitution allows laws to be put on the ballot and subject to a vote of the people.
Citizens have the right to approve or reject any law passed by the General Assembly—except certain appropriation bills and emergency measures, defined as being “necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety.”
Well, wouldn’t you know it, but when drafting HB 126, Missouri lawmakers tacked on an emergency clause designed specifically to thwart a possible citizen referendum.
That emergency clause is attached to the provision that requires both parents to be notified in most cases when a minor is seeking an abortion and states:
Missouri Lawmakers’ ‘Cowardly’ Attempts to Silence Voters on Abortion Rights
On the other hand, the entire point of pro-choice support of Roe is to keep voters utterly disenfranchised with respect to the question of abortion.
So this whining is the most stunning and egregious hypocrisy imaginable.
Passed on the last day of the legislative session, HB 126 bans abortion at eight weeks’ gestation; revises the state’s parental notification laws; and puts in place a “trigger” that would automatically outlaw abortion statewide should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade.
It also contains an emergency clause lawmakers claim insulates the bill from the possibility of challenge by voter referendum—making explicit the connection between banning abortion and disenfranchising voters.
Under Missouri law, unless a law contains an emergency clause or is an appropriation act, it takes effect 90 days after the session adjourns.
But sometimes legislators pass unpopular laws, and so the Missouri Constitution allows laws to be put on the ballot and subject to a vote of the people.
Citizens have the right to approve or reject any law passed by the General Assembly—except certain appropriation bills and emergency measures, defined as being “necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety.”
Well, wouldn’t you know it, but when drafting HB 126, Missouri lawmakers tacked on an emergency clause designed specifically to thwart a possible citizen referendum.
That emergency clause is attached to the provision that requires both parents to be notified in most cases when a minor is seeking an abortion and states:
Because of the need to protect the health and safety of women and their children, both unborn and born, the repeal and reenactment of section 188.028 of this act is deemed necessary for the immediate preservation of the public health, welfare, peace and safety, and is hereby declared to be an emergency act within the meaning of the constitution, and the repeal and reenactment of section 188.028 of this act shall be in full force and effect upon its passage and approval.
Saturday, June 8, 2019
Democrats' ideology police have been hammering Joe Biden
Joe Biden Had A Very Bad Week
They already don't like him because he's an OLD, WHITE, MAN.
And they already don't like him because he's not exactly consumed with enthusiasm for the AOC/Bernie agenda, and not at all the guy to renounce capitalism in favor of socialism, even under pressure.
But he did bend on the Green New Deal and he cravenly and without a shred of credibility folded completely on the Hyde Amendment, gaining nothing but a respite in hostile criticism FROM DEMOCRATS.
Faux Democrats and outright non- and anti-Democrats of the further left have joined arms with the most radical of baby-killing feminists and anointed themselves the ideology police of the Democratic Party, and have largely gotten away with it.
They already don't like him because he's an OLD, WHITE, MAN.
And they already don't like him because he's not exactly consumed with enthusiasm for the AOC/Bernie agenda, and not at all the guy to renounce capitalism in favor of socialism, even under pressure.
But he did bend on the Green New Deal and he cravenly and without a shred of credibility folded completely on the Hyde Amendment, gaining nothing but a respite in hostile criticism FROM DEMOCRATS.
Faux Democrats and outright non- and anti-Democrats of the further left have joined arms with the most radical of baby-killing feminists and anointed themselves the ideology police of the Democratic Party, and have largely gotten away with it.
Thursday, June 6, 2019
What would actually have been the effect of this bill?
If it is merely redundant, as the criticisms of the Democratic governor seem to suggest, why bother to veto it and annoy its supporters at least some of whom, among North Carolinians in general, can be presumed to be fellow Democrats?
Why do these people congratulating the governor seem to think he and they have done something useful?
The claims of the governor and his Democratic supporters seem disingenuous when not absurd.
In a rare defeat for anti-abortion activists in the South, North Carolina Republicans failed on Wednesday to overturn a veto of a bill that would have made it a crime to not treat “any infant born alive after an abortion.”
Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, rejected the Senate bill days after it passed both Republican-held chambers in April, noting then that the measure was an “unnecessary interference between doctors and their patients” and would have criminalized a “practice that simply does not exist.”
Doctors are already held to a 2002 federal law that protects fetuses that survive abortions.
In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Cooper reiterated his position that the bill, the so-called Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act, was redundant.
“It’s important to protect the lives of all children, and laws already exist to protect newborn babies,” Mr. Cooper said.
“Instead of passing unnecessary legislation for political purposes, we need to move on from divisive social issues and focus on the needs of North Carolina families: education, health care and good-paying jobs.”
. . . .
Those who supported Senate Bill 359 said the measure was an important check on potential infanticide.
The legislation stated that “if an abortion results in the live birth of an infant, the infant is a legal person” and entitled to protection under North Carolina law.
Penalties for not providing care after a failed abortion would have included a fine of up to $250,000 and potential prosecution under the state murder statutes.
The office of House Speaker Tim Moore said in a statement issued Wednesday that the failed override effort was the “final vote” on the matter.
Mr. Moore added that Democrats had “successfully prevented a duty of care for all living, breathing North Carolinians born alive in the state.”
Democrats, in return, accused Mr. Moore of unsavory hardball tactics, accusing him of scheduling the vote at a time when one Democratic lawmaker was recovering from a mastectomy.
North Carolina’s bill was similar to a federal measure that Senate Democrats blocked earlier this year.
Medical professionals at the time said that the federal bill would have led to further complications, including some in which the lives of both the mother and fetus were at stake.
The Hyde Amendment
In my view, this and such other bits as the Stupak-Pitts Amendment forbid both too much and too little; they prohibit expenditure of federal funds for any abortions except if the mother's life is in danger (too much) or the pregnancy arises from rape or incest (too little), as well to support insurance plans that ignore this same rule (too much, again).
But forced to choose up or down I would play along, since the absence of these restrictions would doubtless enable far more objectionable abortions than allowable ones (those that would be allowed, were it up to me, as of course it is not and will never be) while, of course, disenabling none.
And, anyway, the allowable ones are, generally, merely that, and rarely particularly desirable (yes, of course, according to me).
So it does not disturb me that Joe Biden supported such things, when first proposed, and may still do so.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren Slams Joe Biden's Support Of Hyde Amendment
But forced to choose up or down I would play along, since the absence of these restrictions would doubtless enable far more objectionable abortions than allowable ones (those that would be allowed, were it up to me, as of course it is not and will never be) while, of course, disenabling none.
And, anyway, the allowable ones are, generally, merely that, and rarely particularly desirable (yes, of course, according to me).
So it does not disturb me that Joe Biden supported such things, when first proposed, and may still do so.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren Slams Joe Biden's Support Of Hyde Amendment
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
Feminazi bullshit from that cockpit of bullshit, the UN
US abortion policy is 'extremist hate' and 'torture', says UN commissioner
The US policy on abortion is a form of extremist hate that amounts to the torture of women, the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights told the Guardian.
The attack on women’s rights was a “crisis”, organised and well-resourced by very extremist groups.
“We have not called it out in the same way we have other forms of extremist hate, but this is gender-based violence against women, no question,” Kate Gilmore said.
“It’s clear it’s torture – it’s a deprivation of a right to health,” she warned, pointing out that the committee of experts assigned to monitor the implementation of the nine core UN human rights instruments have each “independently declared the absolute prohibition of abortion … is against human rights”.
Gilmore, appointed deputy high commissioner in 2015, said the banning of abortion in some US states and the attempts by the Trump administration to remove language from key international documents was “deeply distressing”.
“This is a crisis. It’s a crisis directed at women,” she said, warning that we had not yet felt the full extent of it.
Gilmore, who last week spoke at a Guardian event discussing the pushback on reproductive rights, said opposition groups – the most high profile of which are conservative, Christian organisations – were well organised and well resourced, and were ignoring evidence in their pursuit of ideological goals.
“It’s an assault on truth, science and universal values and norms,” she said.
The US policy on abortion is a form of extremist hate that amounts to the torture of women, the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights told the Guardian.
The attack on women’s rights was a “crisis”, organised and well-resourced by very extremist groups.
“We have not called it out in the same way we have other forms of extremist hate, but this is gender-based violence against women, no question,” Kate Gilmore said.
“It’s clear it’s torture – it’s a deprivation of a right to health,” she warned, pointing out that the committee of experts assigned to monitor the implementation of the nine core UN human rights instruments have each “independently declared the absolute prohibition of abortion … is against human rights”.
Gilmore, appointed deputy high commissioner in 2015, said the banning of abortion in some US states and the attempts by the Trump administration to remove language from key international documents was “deeply distressing”.
“This is a crisis. It’s a crisis directed at women,” she said, warning that we had not yet felt the full extent of it.
Gilmore, who last week spoke at a Guardian event discussing the pushback on reproductive rights, said opposition groups – the most high profile of which are conservative, Christian organisations – were well organised and well resourced, and were ignoring evidence in their pursuit of ideological goals.
“It’s an assault on truth, science and universal values and norms,” she said.
Sunday, May 26, 2019
The pope denounces fetal euthanasia
Pope Francis Says Abortion, Even of a Sick Fetus, Is Like Hiring a ‘Hitman’
Pope Francis said Saturday that abortion was always unacceptable, regardless of whether a fetus is fatally ill or has pathological disorders.
He also urged doctors to help women bring to term even pregnancies likely to end in the death of a child at birth or soon after.
I think he is wrong on this.
Pope Francis said Saturday that abortion was always unacceptable, regardless of whether a fetus is fatally ill or has pathological disorders.
He also urged doctors to help women bring to term even pregnancies likely to end in the death of a child at birth or soon after.
I think he is wrong on this.
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
An unrestricted right to abort vs blanket prohibitions
Like everything else in our politics, the conflict over abortion is increasingly a clash of the most extreme positions.
Vermont Moves to Protect Abortion Rights
[I]n Vermont, Democrats have approved a measure meant to protect abortion rights, and supporters have pleaded with the state’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, to sign it.
. . . .
In Vermont, the bill would prohibit the government from interfering in any way with the right to have an abortion.
It would not change the status quo in Vermont, where there currently are no legal limits on when or under what circumstances a woman can decide to end a pregnancy.
. . . .
Beyond Vermont, Democratic officials in other states are also fighting back against the wave of bills restricting abortion.
The newly elected Democratic governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, has promised to veto legislation passed by the Republican-controlled State Senate that would ban the most common second-trimester abortion procedure.
In Wisconsin, Gov. Tony Evers, another Democrat elected in 2018, said on Tuesday that he would veto four pieces of anti-abortion legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Assembly if the measures reach his desk.
. . . .
Still, the [Vermont] law itself could simply be changed by a future legislature.
Because of that, abortion rights advocates in Vermont are simultaneously pursuing another, more lasting strategy: amending the State Constitution to protect abortion rights.
In recent weeks, lawmakers approved an amendment that would declare “personal reproductive autonomy” to be a fundamental right.
Supporters say an amendment would provide greater protection than the bill, but the process to pass it would take several years, at least.
The Legislature would have to pass the proposed amendment a second time in a future legislative session, and it would also have to go before the voters.
“Because of the landscape that we’re dealing with in this country, when it comes to reproductive rights we needed to have a short- and a long-term plan in place to help and support Vermonters,” said Jill Krowinski, the House majority leader.
. . . .
Vermont would be the first state to amend its constitution to specifically protect abortion rights, according to Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute, a policy organization that supports abortion rights.
Some other states’ constitutions have been interpreted as protecting abortion rights but none explicitly address abortions.
. . . .
Critics of the measure described it as extreme.
Bishop Christopher J. Coyne, the Roman Catholic leader of the Diocese of Burlington, described the law as going “far beyond Roe vs. Wade,” warning that it meant “that a baby in the womb can be terminated right up to the moment of natural birth.”
Mary Hahn Beerworth, the executive director of Vermont Right to Life Committee, said the bill also was unnecessary, since the state already placed no restrictions on abortion.
“This is going to be one of those things where you’re going to look back and say, ‘What were they thinking of, really?’” Ms. Beerworth said.
She added that her organization would now turn its attention to opposing the constitutional amendment.
Vermont Moves to Protect Abortion Rights
[I]n Vermont, Democrats have approved a measure meant to protect abortion rights, and supporters have pleaded with the state’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, to sign it.
. . . .
In Vermont, the bill would prohibit the government from interfering in any way with the right to have an abortion.
It would not change the status quo in Vermont, where there currently are no legal limits on when or under what circumstances a woman can decide to end a pregnancy.
. . . .
Beyond Vermont, Democratic officials in other states are also fighting back against the wave of bills restricting abortion.
The newly elected Democratic governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, has promised to veto legislation passed by the Republican-controlled State Senate that would ban the most common second-trimester abortion procedure.
In Wisconsin, Gov. Tony Evers, another Democrat elected in 2018, said on Tuesday that he would veto four pieces of anti-abortion legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Assembly if the measures reach his desk.
. . . .
Still, the [Vermont] law itself could simply be changed by a future legislature.
Because of that, abortion rights advocates in Vermont are simultaneously pursuing another, more lasting strategy: amending the State Constitution to protect abortion rights.
In recent weeks, lawmakers approved an amendment that would declare “personal reproductive autonomy” to be a fundamental right.
Supporters say an amendment would provide greater protection than the bill, but the process to pass it would take several years, at least.
The Legislature would have to pass the proposed amendment a second time in a future legislative session, and it would also have to go before the voters.
“Because of the landscape that we’re dealing with in this country, when it comes to reproductive rights we needed to have a short- and a long-term plan in place to help and support Vermonters,” said Jill Krowinski, the House majority leader.
. . . .
Vermont would be the first state to amend its constitution to specifically protect abortion rights, according to Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute, a policy organization that supports abortion rights.
Some other states’ constitutions have been interpreted as protecting abortion rights but none explicitly address abortions.
. . . .
Critics of the measure described it as extreme.
Bishop Christopher J. Coyne, the Roman Catholic leader of the Diocese of Burlington, described the law as going “far beyond Roe vs. Wade,” warning that it meant “that a baby in the womb can be terminated right up to the moment of natural birth.”
Mary Hahn Beerworth, the executive director of Vermont Right to Life Committee, said the bill also was unnecessary, since the state already placed no restrictions on abortion.
“This is going to be one of those things where you’re going to look back and say, ‘What were they thinking of, really?’” Ms. Beerworth said.
She added that her organization would now turn its attention to opposing the constitutional amendment.
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