News Us politics - read first post before comment

[Sideways]

For my money, we have a minority of people with extreme conservative views forcing their opinions down everyone's throats.

Yep, ok, but in parts of the US they’re being pretty successful. Alabama being the latest in a string of states to outlaw abortion, for example. In Alabama, a 14 year old girl can now be married, raped (sorry, part of my brain just won’t let me refer to an adult having sex with a 14 year old child as ‘consensual sex’!), and forced to go through with the pregnancy...

That’s pretty...extreme! And it’s now law...(scratching head at how that happens in a first world country...).

@Justmehere - fair call. We’re in the middle of an election here, and it’s become very murky as to what’s “left” and what’s “right”. Economic and social policies seem to no longer be sitting together in the traditional left/right dichotomy, so that traditionally “left” economic policies are being bundled with traditionally “right” social policies. Which makes the whole left/right thing almost completely redundant in some respects.

 

[scout86]

Alabama being the latest in a string of states

That's one of the things I never thought I'd see in my lifetime. On average, they ARE pretty conservative. I think most of that is based on a version of Christianity that I, personally, don't buy. (And, last I heard, neither do a slight majority of other citizens.) I'm wondering if a counter argument might not be something along the lines of the fundamentalists shouldn't be allowed to impose their version or reality on the rest of us. There's something wrong when a rape victim, or a doctor performing an abortion for her, stand to pay a higher price than the rapist. (Because there's no exclusion for actual non-consensual rape either.)

 

[Justmehere]

The preamble of the constitution starts off:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Preamble - FindLaw

Further documents show that the whole point of the constitution was to limit the federal government but the states were supposed to be laboratories of democracies.

In the US right now, there is a huge pull away from that and a move towards federal solutions for everything. Abortion became legal as a way to limit the federal government invading privacy. That was the crux of Roe v Wade.

As for Alabama, the entire population of Alabama is about 1.4 percent of the entire population of the nation.

They are going to get sued and it’s going to go to the Supreme Court and who knows what will happen.

Alabama is trying to end abortion while other states are making pot legal, pushing for intersex passports, getting close to single payer healthcare, etc.

When it comes to abortion, other southern states were calling for infanticide recently, for it to be allowed to end the life after birth. So. No. Neither side is currently winning. They are reacting to each other a lot and failing to adopt hundreds of thousands of kids in foster care while they are at it. Seeing it at someone else’s problem.

Left and right, it’s all about I want someone else to do xyz and I want the federal government to enforce it. It’s strong arm statism.

 

[Sideways]

Alabama is trying to end abortion while other states are making pot legal, pushing for intersex passports, getting close to single payer healthcare, etc.

I think it would balance out more easily in my mind if the argument was more like:
Some states have legalised abortion
But
Other states are legislating for free universal healthcare and education and/or making housing a recognised right...

My understanding is that the abortion thing is, ultimately, aimed at getting the matter heard in the Supreme Court to maybe water down the Roe v Wade decision.

Either way, legislating this stuff seems like a really backward step. If it was a case of “Yeah, but Alabama is typically crazy in a lot of respects”, then that would be reassuring. Problem is, Alabama is only the latest State. Similar laws have been passed in multiple States.

I’m not trying to swing this thread into a debate about abortion, more just that it’s one of those areas of law that seems to be a bit of a litmus test for where the community is at...

Appreciate getting input from you folks on the ground:)

 

[Justmehere]

Some states have legalised abortion
But
Other states are legislating for free universal healthcare and education and/or making housing a recognised right...

Those would all be left leaning...

But I do get your point.

Abortion is a complex topic. Right now, it’s blowing up. I have passionately pro-life and passionately pro-choice friends and know activists on either side. That issue just rips my heart apart. I’m like “so the foster care kids and single moms at the nonprofit down the street need a mentor, are all you pro women and pro life people in? “ And I get crickets. Silence.

People like to be arm chair activists but not do things about an issue as much.

It’s a culture of outrage, virtue signaling, two party antagonism, etc. I mean we have a reality TV star in the White House issuing tariffs (taxes) on the people and a 29 year old calling for all buildings to be torn down and rebuilt and all car and plane travel to end in a few years... while we are 22 million in debt and getting addicted and committing suicide at ever increasing rates.

Politics here is a dumpster truck on fire. It’s not majority left, not majority right, not significantly anyhow... but swerving around... while most people are still pleasant to their neighbors and just want their kids and families to be ok.

 

[somerandomguy]

They are going to get sued and it’s going to go to the Supreme Court and who knows what will happen.

It's very predictable what will happen.

My understanding is that the abortion thing is, ultimately, aimed at getting the matter heard in the Supreme Court to maybe water down the Roe v Wade decision.

Correct - but not just to water it down, to throw it out entirely. Trump was able, with the help of the Republican-controlled Senate who refused to vote on Obama's nominee, to get two Justices into the Supreme Court for the express reason of striking down Roe v. Wade - among other things, but mostly Roe because Trump's base is firmly, permanently anti-abortion.

They will succeed and all of the states that are run by Republicans - 32 to 38 of them, if I recall correctly - will instantly ban abortion, with probably 25 of those banning abortions in all contexts including rape, if the Supreme Court lets them. Georgia's law forbids women from seeking abortions in other states, a novel and especially cruel concept that their lawmakers are very pleased about, and look for other states to copy that, too, if the Supreme Court lets them.

Roe will be overturned, no matter what the result of the 2020 election is. As a white person, it's probably racist for me to talk about the Underground Railroad in any context but the original one, but whatever - we will need to set up an Underground Railroad to New York and California from almost all other states for secret abortions.

 

[mumstheword]

Looking forward to seeing the "Trump colluded with Russia" conspiracy play out and the real "colluders" exposed. Keep a look out from when corrupt ex-fbi boss man Comey goes down. It's happening. The Steele dossier was a fake and the FBI knew it and heads are going to roll. Yes the "Swamp" is starting to drain.
Comey covered for Hillary when she "bleach bit" and wiped all those emails. What was she.covering up? Why go to all that bother if.it was a "nothingburger"? Questions I'm looking forward to getting answers for.:-)

 

[Justmehere]

It's very predictable what will happen.

Roe will be overturned

If you want to get a good sense of US politics at the moment, you may want to expand what news media sources you are reading because many of them on the left and right have issued analyses that it’s unlikely Roe v Wade will be overturned.

The LA Times: Supreme Court is not eager to overturn Roe vs. Wade — at least not soon

Roberts’ history, along with the court’s handling of abortion cases in recent years, suggests he will not move to overturn the right to abortion soon, or all at once, and is particularly unlikely to do so in the next year or two with a presidential election pending.

Susan Collins, a Republican solidly on the right, has been quite vocal about how unlikely it is that it will be overturned. Sen. Susan Collins Says 'Extreme' Alabama Abortion Law Will Likely Be Overturned

Other articles:
Dershowitz: Why the Alabama abortion bill will fail to overthrow Roe v. Wade | Opinion

Alabama’s Extremist Abortion Bill Ruins John Roberts’ Roe Plan

 

[somerandomguy]

@Justmehere - I certainly hope those sources are correct.

 

[The Albatross]

I don't suppose advocating for abortion "rights" to birth had a durned thing to do with it... or Nancy Pelosi and Democrats Block Bill to Stop Infanticide For 44th Time, Refuse Care for Babies Born Alive | LifeNews.com ???

It's called blow/push back. I expect it will settle somewhere in the "middle" eventually but sad to see where Bill's position "Keep abortion safe, legal & rare" led.

 

[scout86]

I think that bill is a solution in search of a problem. The idea that "the Democrats support infanticide" is ridiculous. At best it's a gross exaggeration and a spin that's based on politics, not facts.

The only cases where a fetus is going to "survive" an abortion are going to be very late term situations. Those are extremely rare and, more often than not they happen because the fetus has medical issues that mean they are not going to live. It seems like that bill, if it were passed, would mean that those rare babies that survive such a birth would then get hooked up to all the available machines and kept alive as long as the machines can manage. If you can call that being alive. (And different people obviously feel differently about what extremes should be used to keep a body functioning and at what point someone, anyone, should be allowed to die.) I don't think that's a place for the government to get involved. Especially not if the government isn't going to pick up the tab. I imagine there are rare exceptions where a mother carries a pregnancy nearly to term then decides to "kill" the baby out of shear meanness. But I've never heard of one, myself. The stories I've heard have all been of mothers who wanted the child, but, when confronted with problems that weren't compatible with life, they decided that the most merciful choice was a late term abortion and the decision is generally agonizing.

It is beyond my comprehension how "conservatives", who claim they want to limit government can be so hell bent on the government telling other people how to make such choices.

 

[The Albatross]

Libertarians, primarily, actually are those who want to limit government - conservatives want a smaller government (a reach and fiscal issue) but I digress. The whole bombastic "abortion" issue and it's resurgence is a Democratic "orchestrated" issue to marshal up their base. They have almost no other unifying platform to run on except "We want to get rid of Trump" UNLESS they manufacture an issue, inject it into the public square and sit back and watch the freak out ahead of the 2020 election stoking up fears in their base that Roe v. Wade is in jeopardy. Plain and simple. There is no trend to reverse the supreme court decision.... the only trends we've/I've seen are those where younger voters are trending more conservative but even that is up for debate as it's only as good as the sources and polling.

Personally it's a hoot to be sitting back for this election cycle and having a ring side seat to the DNC circus/carnival of the absurd.
I expect that the recent Alabama, Missouri and other states "laws" will be challenged and go through the courts. Thus it is a state issue which will stand or fall in the judiciary.