General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLaurence Tribe makes a great point on abortion issue...
I don't know if these "anti-choice" RWers are too brainwashed to consider this, but it might be worth repeating this point when possibleLink to tweet
*************
Laurence Tribe
Verified account @tribelaw
Jul 1
Too few people realize that Roe v. Wade is a 2-sided coin. It protects a womans liberty to choose *whether or not* to bear a child. Relegating that choice to the state isnt a PRO-LIFE move but an ANTI-LIBERTY move. If a state can say stay pregnant! it can also say abort!
Anon-C
(3,430 posts)BigmanPigman
(51,432 posts)It certainly wouldn't be the first time a govt did this to its female citizens. The same is true for forced sterilization. Hitler did it to men and women who he considered imperfect (like those with learning disabilities).
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,789 posts)... since 1) Angry women denied choice are more likely to vote Democratic, and
2) If we assume Republicon women get fewer abortions than Democratic women, if you tilt the birthrate more toward Democratic women than it currently is, presumably those births are raise Democratically.
BigmanPigman
(51,432 posts)....only 27 percent of Americans are Republican, and the vast majority of Americans disapprove of Trump. The GOP itself is now little more than Trump, Fox News, a handful of billionaire funders, and evangelicals who oppose a womans right to choose, gay marriage, and the Constitutions separation of church and state.
We have the numbers but have to get moving and call, protest, volunteer and VOTE! RESISTANCE WORKS!
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,789 posts)calimary
(80,699 posts)I'm going to be interested to see how young women, who've lived ALL THEIR LIVES with the protections of Roe v Wade, will do, and how they respond, when they wake up one morning and realize that the protections they took for granted are suddenly GONE.
I brought this up during a conversation with my daughter and a couple of her friends while they were still in high school. Were talking politics. I told them that my generation fought and struggled and marched and petitioned and rabble-roused to win this right - that now benefits THEM as it did my generation before we started becoming acquainted with menopause. I told them they needed to stay vigilant and NOT take it for granted because there were forces aligned to do everything possible to take that right away from them. I doubt they'll remember that conversation or warning now. But they sure as shit will as soon as Roe v Wade is overturned.
One thing I do find intriguing, though. Now that trump has been so ham-handed in his treatment of our two closest international neighbors and friends, Canada and Mexico, how soon do you suppose it'll be before each of those countries sets up safe 'n' legal clinics inside their borders for American women who need help? He's done NOTHING to act like a friend or neighbor. He's insulted them, called them names, and taken steps that hit them directly in the trade department. Do you think they'd feel like being cooperative? I doubt it. If I were either of their leaders, Trudeau or the new guy in Mexico, that'd be the first thing I'd think of - to poke trump in the eye and show him how I felt about being shat upon the way he has. Some "fine" way he treats a friend, 'eh?
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,789 posts)Make any Senator who votes for Trump's nominee wear the Forced Birther badge.
Make sure the voters know it.
If McCONnell pushes it through before the election, it will be on the record. Mobilize with it.
If it is delayed after, make it an on-the-record matter of debate; that candidates must declare a clear position.
Another angle prompted by your post: rich RepubliCons will simply cross the border. They don't care about the morality. Rich Republicons use it as a wedge issue to ensure that they get their tax cuts and deregulation and climate change denial.
If poor voters can be reminded of this, that only they will pay the full burden of Forced Birth, then it may motivate more.
My post about 67% was to support Bigmanpigman's point about only 27% Republicons, since the flip side of 27% is 73% or close to the 67% figure I quoted from a recent poll on the right to choose.
Cary
(11,746 posts)wryter2000
(46,016 posts)Remember Three generations of imbeciles is enough ?
avebury
(10,946 posts)abortions while denying white women the same right. It would be about finding a way to slow down the decent of (or halt) the white race to minority status.
mwooldri
(10,291 posts)but bottom line is definitely implying control over people with functioning ovaries and a functioning uterus.
Eurgh. Not cool.
KitSileya
(4,035 posts)The Scandinavian countries have a history of forced sterilization of undesireables (among the Sami indigenous peoples and Roma and Romanes peoples, as well as those deemed "mentally deficient".) In the US, there are still women alive today who were forceably sterilized, often without their knowledge, even, because they were deemed not fit to procreate by the state.
In Trump's America, how long before minority people with uteruses are forced to abort? As it is, being a pregnant person of color is infinitely more dangerous than average in the US.
Girard442
(6,059 posts)Can't have any Handmaids sneaking RU-486, can we?
If you're wondering why all the OB/GYNs are thinking about moving to Europe, that would be why.
InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,110 posts)NutmegYankee
(16,178 posts)And ensure that the law always specifies that a mother's rights/interests come last. The patriarchy demands it.
SunSeeker
(51,377 posts)They scream for liberty when government wants to regulate business, but don't give a shit when government wants to control a woman's uterus.
appalachiablue
(41,054 posts)stuffmatters
(2,574 posts)Forcing a woman to have a child against her will is sexual abuse, torture and slavery pure and simple.
Btw scratch a Forced Birther & you find that deep down they are not only against abortion but against birth control. They do not think women should have any reproductive rights or full ownership of her own body..This has always been Repugs most blatant manifestation of their Plantation Politics in abject defiance of the Constitution.
WTF can't Democrats megaphone the obvious? Repugs' go to, scientifically fradulent lie has always been that abortion is murder: Democrats go to truth needs to be Anti Choice is slavery .
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,789 posts)stuffmatters
(2,574 posts)Once married a woman is the property of her husband in their plantation master minds
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,789 posts)MarcA
(2,195 posts)This is what we are up against - Authoritarian followers who have been
brainwashed by centuries of slave mentality.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)I think what the govt says is that it's either her choice (with limitations), or nature's choice. I don't think the argument is, or ever has been, that the govt gets the choice. It just prevents the person from choosing.
That's how I see it.
hlthe2b
(101,730 posts)the "non-religious" or non-fundamentalist Xians, not to mention political opponents continues to increase, you believe this means they would never try to control us further? Oh, yeah, they already ARE at least if you are female or a POC or anything other than a white Xian male.
Laurence Tribe is not a hysteric nor a tin-foil hatter. He has a point and I think it is naive' for us not to use this argument. It would not be the first time the government interceded to decide who can and can not reproduce. It would hardly be a major step to include who MUST reproduce--oh, yeah, they are already trying to do this by taking away access.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)hlthe2b
(101,730 posts)Not to mention he's discussing what 'could' happen if the states are given free reign to decide.
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)and the power to tell you that you MAY NOT have an abortion, it has the power to tell you that you MUST.
WinstonSmith4740
(3,048 posts)Ever since the anti-choice movement reared its ugly head. I think this is exactly how most people feel about it...the government has no place in the decision. And it's the exact right argument. Plus, if you let the government control a woman's body, you let the government control a man's.
Cary
(11,746 posts)"Balls to the wall, full speed ahead."
This is what they do.
FakeNoose
(32,356 posts)FBaggins
(26,697 posts)Can Prof Tribe give us an example of something else that some states prohibit and some require? Was it the case before Roe that some states required women to have abortions yet had to stop because of the decision?
hlthe2b
(101,730 posts)See Random Access' post above #24
FBaggins
(26,697 posts)And it's nuts.
I'm not arguing for overturning Roe... I'm just saying that doing do would in no way mean that the government would have the ability to require abortions.
hlthe2b
(101,730 posts)good heavens...
And, no, it is not nuts as legal argument.. Tribe is among the most respected constitutional scholars so forgive me if I don't take your opinion as informed.
FBaggins
(26,697 posts)There is no law that says that once something is within the government's scope to make illegal... it is therefore also within the government's scope to make it mandatory. Nor is there a legal principal saying that.
That's why I asked for a single example. Legal arguments come with citations of precedents. This isn't a legal argument... it's a rhetorical one.
And a bad one at that.
Others here have likewise tried to explain to you what Tribe is saying and why it matters so perhaps one of them will be able to explain to your satisfaction. I don't want to come across as condescending, so I willl just leave it there.
Yupster
(14,308 posts)It sounds like nonsense to me too.
If a government makes burglary illegal, it doesn't follow that it is also likely to make burglary mandatory.
It just sounds like nonsense to me, and shows that even Constitutional scholars sometimes make nonsensical arguments.
Freddie
(9,232 posts)And there is NOTHING more private than whether, when, with whom and how many children a woman will bear. That this is solely the woman's decision should be enshrined in the Constitution. In my dreams.
I think the reference is to the one-child policy in China which did force women to have abortions. If we give the government the power to force childbearing we also give it the power to forbid childbearing.
guss
(239 posts)If Roe Vs Wade gets overturned in this climate ( thank the poster about both sides)
The State gets to override the Rites of women's and lowers the level of Women's stature
in the U.S. as Cattle providing Calf's.
If the state decides who should have Forced births.
then they Could decide who Should have Forced Abortions.
Like China.
Horrible times we live in.
If that could happen in America.
What have we become if that could even be a possibility