Texas abortion law

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Allo V Psycho
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Texas abortion law

Post by Allo V Psycho » Fri Sep 03, 2021 4:05 pm

Have I missed a thread on this? It seems highly significant (aka cruel and tragic). One of my particular problems is the media referring to it as "as early as six weeks into pregnancy"

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/03/us/t ... index.html
The state law that bans abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy took effect Wednesday, leaving providers and patients afraid of their future.
'Pregnancy' or 'Gestation' is counted from the flow phase of the last menstrual cycle, not from when you become pregnant. Ovulation and fertilisation generally occur around mid-cycle, and the heart (though nothing you would recognise as anything like even a fetal heart) begins to beat about 15 or 16 days later. So a woman may well not have missed her first period (not even accounting for menstrual cycle variability) before a termination becomes illegal. It would be better described as 'banning abortion from two weeks after conception'.

This is not even to mention the vicious notion that it will be enforced by vigilante bounty hunters, and will apply to anyone 'aiding' the process. And the Supreme Court, in its Dred Scott like moment, failed to strike it down in a midnight shadow docket decision. Or that there is no exception even for fatal abnormalities such as anencephaly, which will lead to death immediately after birth. And of course rape and incest are not grounds for termination either.

I don't know if I am more angry or horrified.

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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Fishnut » Fri Sep 03, 2021 4:34 pm

The latest episode of Opening Arguments takes on this decision. It's sobering listening and I can't see a quick or easy resolution to this. The vigilante aspect is, maybe weirdly, the most horrifying to me. Thatprivate citizens can sue anyone associated with accessing an abortion and get $10k (or more) as restitution takes this from being immoral law to dystopian hellscape.
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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by IvanV » Fri Sep 03, 2021 7:03 pm

Fishnut wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 4:34 pm
Thatprivate citizens can sue anyone associated with accessing an abortion and get $10k (or more) as restitution takes this from being immoral law to dystopian hellscape.
I think it was back in the 1950s that Tom Lehrer was writing songs like I wanna go back to Dixie, with its lines like "..The land of the boll weevil, where the laws are medi-eevil...".

The existence of "bail enforcement agents", alias bounty-hunters, in the US is some kind of a mediaeval hangover that was unfortunately confirmed by the Supreme Court in 1872 and failed to be overturned since. But to pass a new law where anyone can claim damages off you for an act that caused you no damage? If that doesn't conflict with numerous articles of the constitution, it sodding well ought to.

What really shocks about this law is its sheer vindictiveness, in the manner of its enforcement.

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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by bmforre » Fri Sep 03, 2021 7:42 pm

Fishnut wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 4:34 pm
That private citizens can sue anyone associated with accessing an abortion and get $10k (or more) as restitution pursuivant prize takes this from being immoral law to dystopian hellscape.
While East German surveillance used citizens to spy on each other this was seen by Moral USians as demonstrating Communist Evil. When female-controlling Texans pursue the unwilling pregnant by similar means this is applauded as showing Pro-Life Exemplary Morals.

And this is supported by Scotus judges appointed by that Pathfinder in sexual ethical practice: Donald Trump.
Enabled by Mitch McConnell.

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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by bolo » Fri Sep 03, 2021 8:26 pm

This is indeed a despicable law.

It's important to note that the Supreme Court didn't find that the law is constitutional. They declined to block its implementation while the legal cases against it are litigated. So it remains possible that they will strike it down once those cases reach them.

Of course, it's also possible that they won't, and even they do, plenty of damage will have been done in the mean time.

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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Al Capone Junior » Fri Sep 03, 2021 11:06 pm

Allo V Psycho wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 4:05 pm
Have I missed a thread on this? It seems highly significant (aka cruel and tragic). One of my particular problems is the media referring to it as "as early as six weeks into pregnancy"

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/03/us/t ... index.html


I don't know if I am more angry or horrified.
Well I live in texas and I'm both. But that's an every day thing, not something new.

The radical religious powers in tx have managed to f.ck up even the possibility of having a productive, factual conversation about almost every possible topic by obfuscating the basic facts thru constant repetition of the narratives they fabricate to replace the truth. Those factual details about fetal biology are a couple of megaparsecs away from anything that almost anyone in this state have ever even heard of. By design. This stuff is not taught in schools, and most universities won't teach it unless you're taking developmental biology.

Rather what everyone"knows" about the subject of draconian anti-women laws, constitutional law, human rights, religious freedom etc is what's dutifully repeated over and over and over by fox news, right wing politicians, conservative talk radio, and religious leaders.. These narratives become "facts" in the minds of texans, and so-called "conservatives" all over the state and country.

It's f.cking aggravating as all hell, bc you simply can't have a real, factual conversation with someone who has drank so much of that kool-aid for so long.

But what is worse is not the sheer hipocracy of it all, but the generalized attitude that it's perfectly acceptable and normal to just be a major f.cking douche to everybody, whilst simultaneously crying "oppression!" anytime someone calls you on your b.llsh.t, or tries to inject a little fairness and/or reason into a situation.

Im just bitching, btw. I don't think there will be a solution that does not eventually involve bloodshed.

However, they have made THAT little eventuality right around the corner with their new gun laws. When basically anyone, ANYONE, can run around with loaded handguns and assault rifles all the time, everywhere... Ain't gonna end well. Seems rather obvious that this will result in thousands and thousands of gunshot victims being killed. Because a gun gives you the opportunity to make a very important, irreversible decision in a real hurry. Often these opportunities do not end well.

But these same ppl will say they care most of all about human life. With a straight face. And actually believe their own b.llsh.t.

Just frustrated here. Trying to save up the cash to buy a single bullet. :shock:

Mod edited to fix a quote

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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Fishnut » Fri Sep 03, 2021 11:10 pm

I need to have a rant.

I keep seeing on social media people comparing this to the Taliban, or to The Handmaid's Tale. And I understand why but it's making me increasingly angry. This isn't the Taliban. This isn't a dystopian fiction. This is the result of decades of concerted effort by right-wing politicians to mobilise socially conservative voters. As McKeegen (1993) writes,
Paradoxically, as Americans became increasingly pro-choice, 2 anti-abortion Presidents were elected to serve for 12 years and pro-life forces captured the domestic agenda by overhauling the traditionally libertarian Republican party. This occurred because Republican analysts saw that the Democratic New Deal coalition was cracking, the traditionally conservative south and west began to control more seats in the House of Representatives, and Americans were becoming more affluent and, thus, more interested in taxes and inflation. Efforts were made to bring social conservatives, especially pro-lifers, into the Republican party with scare tactics used in the wording of direct mailings.
It's also important to remember that this isn't as simple as evil men removing rights from innocent women. The one way that The Handmaid's Tale provides a useful comparison is in the importance of complicit women in creating and sustaining Gilead. White women voted overwhelmingly for Trump over Biden (62% to 38%) and voted overwhelmingly for Texas governor Greg Abbott over his opponent (65% to 34%). Why women keep doing this has been the subject of a huge number of articles and while it's obviously a complex subject with no single indisputable answer, there seems to be a consistent thread whereby white women value the privileges they maintain by being white more than the lack of privileges they endure as women.

The comparisons with the Taliban particularly frustrate me because they aren't being made to show that this is a long-running home-grown effort to remove women's rights, but to make it seem that this is a scary external threat. The Taliban didn't take over the Texas legislature - they didn't need to! The people who live and work in Texas did this all by themselves.

I understand the need to make comparisons as a way of understanding the otherwise incomprehensible, but the ones currently being employed do not help in understanding but are instead distracting from the real explanations. The circumstances that led to the abortion ban are pretty clear, as are the consequences, and those consequences will not affect the vast majority of people who voted for the people who created this legislation. White women are, on average, more affluent that black women. The latest figures I can find suggest that black and Hispanic households in Texas have a median income at least a third lower than that of white households in the state. White women will be far more likely to be able to afford to go out of state to access an abortion that their black and Hispanic neighbours. They will be able to pay their way out of this while their already-poorer neighbours (and I use neighbour figuratively as I'm aware of how racially segregated the South is) will be forced into further poverty from either having to try and procure an out-of-state abortion, an illegal abortion, or see an unaffordable pregnancy through to term and then raise a child they can't afford or maybe give them up for adoption.

And the worst thing is that for those black and Hispanic women, this new law doesn't really make much functional difference - abortion services were already pretty much impossible to access. In 2017, 96% of Texas counties had no clinics providing abortion services. That was higher than the national average which is still an astoundingly high 89% of US counties which had no clinics providing abortions. According to the same source, as of January 2021,
- Most patients must receive state-directed counseling that includes information designed to discourage them from having an abortion, and then wait 24 hours before the procedure is provided. Counseling must be provided in person for women within 100 miles of the provider and must take place before the waiting period begins, thereby necessitating two trips to the facility.

- Private insurance policies cover abortion only in cases of life endangerment or if the woman's health is severely compromised.

- Health plans offered in the state’s health exchange under the Affordable Care Act can only cover abortion in cases of life endangerment or severely compromised physical health.

- A patient must undergo an ultrasound at least 24 hours before obtaining an abortion; the provider must show and describe the image to the patient.

- The state requires abortion clinics to meet unnecessary and burdensome standards related to their physical plant, equipment and staffing.
That last point is why there had been a 25% decline in clinics providing abortions in the state between 2014 and 2017.

In other words, this bill is merely the logical conclusion of a series of increasingly restrictive laws that have been designed to make it harder and harder for women, particularly women of limited means (predominantly black and Hispanic women), to access abortion facilities. People talk about the slippery slope all the time, often in cases where it's hyperbolic or requires a series of highly implausible circumstances to arise. This has been a legitimate slippery slope, one that anyone paying attention couldn't fail to recognise and we've finally reached the end. I'm glad that people are noticing but until they recognise that this isn't some aberration but is the logical conclusion of the Right's decades-long association with the evangelical Christian lobby, and does something to fight back, this logical conclusion will be reached in many other States.
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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Aoui » Sat Sep 04, 2021 9:12 am

I am a Texas resident abroad. Having grown up right across the border from TX (a good 30 minute drive) where the same mentality exists on a grander scale, because it doesn't even have Austin to provide some sort of balance....and then living in Texas for awhile...I see this a bit differently. I've dealt with the anti-choice people my entire life. The color of skin has less to do to most of them than..well.family. In other words...I've had a fair few lily white friends where were pew-jumpers that got knocked up before they were married. They had been brought up to abhor abortion and then their Daddy would inevitably pull them aside and tell them to get an abortion. I guess they were willing to take a weekend off of jumping in front of cars at abortion clinics and yelling and people who went near abortion clinics to spare their own daughter. But they'd be back to it then next weekend. These girls tended to be very angry and refused to get an abortion. I remember thinking this was their first wake up call. Anyone one else's kid was fair game but their own. It's just hypocrisy. We don't need to go much farther than that. We don't need to assume it's really only about race. Hey..if they can throw in race...no problem for a lot of them....the more twisted the merrier...but I know people who have had an abortion and then turned against it because of the trauma they went through afterwards. Mind you the trauma was because their church (or friends who went to church) would "forgive" them while making sure they never forgot that what they did was evil and horrible and....traumatized them on a daily or weekly basis afterwards. They don't quite get the irony in that, so dig their heels in further. Their daughters then often see what their mother has suffered and....often get equally dogmatic. Luckily a few are stubborn and think outside the box, but this is what we are dealing with here. So...yes...women are the worst offenders here. And again, while many of these people are happy to throw any bit of melanin away with the bathwater, this is not the main reason for a lot of people (merely a perk for many of them). Now...as far as voting out these thugs....we have a problem. For one, I'm not even allowed to vote in anything but federal elections. I'm sorta stuck, because I don't pay state taxes and I've been gone too long. But even if I could, they do their damnedest to make it impossible. Yes, I'm worried they will make it next to impossible for me to vote now.. ) Can my more enlightened family even make it to vote? Black or white, young people just can't afford time off these days. Laws..shmaws. If they have to take the time off, they can't afford it. Esp. since the lines are so long that you might miss the entire day at work. Who can afford that?? The system is so gerrymandered...and getting ready to be worse.....that voting is both more necessary than ever and....verging on useless. I also know many people who are otherwise completely liberal...who might vote to shoot themselves in teh face over the abortion issue. Is it insane? Yes. Do I understand why people believe the way they do? Umm....somewhat but not completely... And I'm noticing that people from outside such backasswards areas truly don't see this the same way as those of us inside of it do. As far as the Taliban thing and somehow saying that that means it comes from outside...I don't get that at all. I'm downright confuzzled by that. To me the Xtian Taliban is just saying that it's home grown Xtian version of the same type of thing. It's not coming from outside. It never was. But it's the same thing...men taking over often with the help of women...(to their own detriment).

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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Aoui » Sat Sep 04, 2021 9:30 am

Fishnut wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 11:10 pm

- Private insurance policies cover abortion only in cases of life endangerment or if the woman's health is severely compromised.

- Health plans offered in the state’s health exchange under the Affordable Care Act can only cover abortion in cases of life endangerment or severely compromised physical health.

- A patient must undergo an ultrasound at least 24 hours before obtaining an abortion; the provider must show and describe the image to the patient.

- The state requires abortion clinics to meet unnecessary and burdensome standards related to their physical plant, equipment and staffing.
That last point is why there had been a 25% decline in clinics providing abortions in the state between 2014 and 2017.

Here is one for you that made me super angry. I know someone who had to have an abortion in Texas a few years ago. Her anti-choice inlaws convinced her to have an abortion and her pro-choice father told her to think about what SHE wanted. She decided she wanted the baby. Unfortunately there was no chance of the fetus being able to survive outside the womb and was actually making her sick. She needed to be actively dying before they could perform an abortion. So they had to keep treating her which kept her from actively dying and keeping her in a state of being extremely..extremely ill. Her dad finally paid for her to be taken in an ambulance to New Mexico where they could actually perform an abortion and save her life. It was horrible for everyone. For her, for her father for the doctors who were unable to help her. There are more details that make this story infinitely worse psychologically, but at some point it just feels gross to tell those details that don't belong to me. Let's just say...this was HORRIBLE. And hearing the anguish from the person who told me this....was pretty hard. She was lucky. Her father could at least get her help in time, but it's not like the story ever ends there, is it?

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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Woodchopper » Sat Sep 04, 2021 9:58 am

Fishnut wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 11:10 pm
It's also important to remember that this isn't as simple as evil men removing rights from innocent women. The one way that The Handmaid's Tale provides a useful comparison is in the importance of complicit women in creating and sustaining Gilead.
I agree, and specifically concerning Texas a recent poll on "Making abortion legal after six weeks of pregnancy" the results were:

Strongly support: Men 36%, Woman 36%
Somewhat support: Men 18%, Woman 12%

So if we combine the two then men are six points ahead, but they're equal among the most committed supporters. On opposition, women are four points ahead than men. So in terms of support for the six week law, women are slightly less supportive and slightly more opposed. But there isn't a big gender difference.

There are similar results here, here in terms of strong support for manning all abortions (though there is more opposition).

This older poll by Pew even shows that slightly more woman than men in Texas support abortion being illegal in all or most cases (though the difference is within the margin of error).

So it looks like a reliable finding as far as surveys go (ie replicated in several polls).

I'll get to why I'm posting this below.
Fishnut wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 11:10 pm
White women voted overwhelmingly for Trump over Biden (62% to 38%) and voted overwhelmingly for Texas governor Greg Abbott over his opponent (65% to 34%). Why women keep doing this has been the subject of a huge number of articles and while it's obviously a complex subject with no single indisputable answer, there seems to be a consistent thread whereby white women value the privileges they maintain by being white more than the lack of privileges they endure as women.
I agree in general.
Fishnut wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 11:10 pm
The comparisons with the Taliban particularly frustrate me because they aren't being made to show that this is a long-running home-grown effort to remove women's rights, but to make it seem that this is a scary external threat. The Taliban didn't take over the Texas legislature - they didn't need to! The people who live and work in Texas did this all by themselves.

I understand the need to make comparisons as a way of understanding the otherwise incomprehensible, but the ones currently being employed do not help in understanding but are instead distracting from the real explanations. The circumstances that led to the abortion ban are pretty clear, as are the consequences, and those consequences will not affect the vast majority of people who voted for the people who created this legislation. White women are, on average, more affluent that black women. The latest figures I can find suggest that black and Hispanic households in Texas have a median income at least a third lower than that of white households in the state. White women will be far more likely to be able to afford to go out of state to access an abortion that their black and Hispanic neighbours. They will be able to pay their way out of this while their already-poorer neighbours (and I use neighbour figuratively as I'm aware of how racially segregated the South is) will be forced into further poverty from either having to try and procure an out-of-state abortion, an illegal abortion, or see an unaffordable pregnancy through to term and then raise a child they can't afford or maybe give them up for adoption.

And the worst thing is that for those black and Hispanic women, this new law doesn't really make much functional difference - abortion services were already pretty much impossible to access. In 2017, 96% of Texas counties had no clinics providing abortion services. That was higher than the national average which is still an astoundingly high 89% of US counties which had no clinics providing abortions. According to the same source, as of January 2021,
- Most patients must receive state-directed counseling that includes information designed to discourage them from having an abortion, and then wait 24 hours before the procedure is provided. Counseling must be provided in person for women within 100 miles of the provider and must take place before the waiting period begins, thereby necessitating two trips to the facility.

- Private insurance policies cover abortion only in cases of life endangerment or if the woman's health is severely compromised.

- Health plans offered in the state’s health exchange under the Affordable Care Act can only cover abortion in cases of life endangerment or severely compromised physical health.

- A patient must undergo an ultrasound at least 24 hours before obtaining an abortion; the provider must show and describe the image to the patient.

- The state requires abortion clinics to meet unnecessary and burdensome standards related to their physical plant, equipment and staffing.
That last point is why there had been a 25% decline in clinics providing abortions in the state between 2014 and 2017.
I agree that the effects of the law will be felt less by white women than by black or hispanic women.

However, in terms of the "real explanations" I think its a bit more complicated than just a means by which whites oppress blacks and hispanic woman.

In terms of support for "Making abortion legal after six weeks of pregnancy":

Strong support:
White 36%
Black 25%
Hispanic 35%

So the difference between white and hispanic is within the margin of error, and there is significant support among the black population.

Somewhat support:
White 16%
Black 14%
Hispanic 13%

Combine the two and we get 52% of the white population, 48% of the hispanic population and 39% of the black population.

In terms of banning all abortions there are also significant minorities of black and hispanic people in support (see also here).

The earlier Pew survey actually has the latino population as having the highest ration of support for abortion being Illegal in all/most cases compared to legal in all/most cases

Similar to gender, the picture seems somewhat complex.

I am though very uncomfortable with any assumption that large parts of the black or hispanic population knowingly support their own oppression or don't understand the consequences of the six week law.

Fishnut wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 11:10 pm
In other words, this bill is merely the logical conclusion of a series of increasingly restrictive laws that have been designed to make it harder and harder for women, particularly women of limited means (predominantly black and Hispanic women), to access abortion facilities. People talk about the slippery slope all the time, often in cases where it's hyperbolic or requires a series of highly implausible circumstances to arise. This has been a legitimate slippery slope, one that anyone paying attention couldn't fail to recognise and we've finally reached the end. I'm glad that people are noticing but until they recognise that this isn't some aberration but is the logical conclusion of the Right's decades-long association with the evangelical Christian lobby, and does something to fight back, this logical conclusion will be reached in many other States.
You conclude with the Christian lobby and IMHO that's where the fundamental explanation for the law lies. The picture for gender and race is complex. But its clear concerning religion. People who believe that religion is extremely important are far more likely to support the six week ban (70%) and far less likely to oppose it (20%), whereas 79% of people for whom religion isn't important oppose (and 13% support). Similar can be found here and here in terms of support for a ban on all abortions. Click on the links and you'll see similar regarding belief that the bible is the actual word of god to be taken literally.

The earlier Pew survey has similar results.

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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Chris Preston » Sat Sep 04, 2021 10:36 am

Fishnut wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 11:10 pm
there seems to be a consistent thread whereby white women value the privileges they maintain by being white more than the lack of privileges they endure as women.
While women of colour will feel the impacts of this law more than white women, it would be a mistake to see race as a driving force here.

Evangelical religion is the primary driver. Evangelism is an immensely strong force in society the south of the US. My discussions over the years with southern evangelicals over abortion is that they see abortion law as being vital for the protection of human life and is needed to keep the 'heretics'* from killing babies.

Yes, evangelical women have been an important group in driving harsher abortion laws. My take is that they never conceive that their daughters will ever require an abortion, because ... To them it is non-chuch goers, particularly those east and west coast liberals, that are killing babies.

White evangelicals, starting in the Reagan Presidency have made common ground with the Republican Party. Black evangelicals have sided with Democrats, but many are also anti-abortion.

* I use heretics here, which is a term they would not use, but describes white evangelicals feelings about non-evangelicals, even other Christians - particularly Roman Catholics - adequately. Of course, they are all complete hypocrites, but fail to see that. White evangelicals in particular have been strong supporters of Donald Trump, despite he being a twice divorced womaniser, virtual atheist and serial liar.
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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Boustrophedon » Sat Sep 04, 2021 10:49 am

I'm so upset that I cannot respond in a rational way.
I cannot understand how with all the guns, the inequality and theocracy how they can call themselves civiized.
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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Chris Preston » Sat Sep 04, 2021 11:19 am

The joke that the right to life in the US ends at birth is in the big picture true enough. The US Governments kill more of their own citizens than all but 5 other countries in the world. Add to that, the US is also 6th in the world for civilian killings by police.

Try having a conversation with a Southern white evangelical about this. The response will be the black and white argument that all those killed by the state or the police deserved to die, but no baby deserves to die.
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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Woodchopper » Sat Sep 04, 2021 12:35 pm

Chris Preston wrote:
Sat Sep 04, 2021 10:36 am
Fishnut wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 11:10 pm
there seems to be a consistent thread whereby white women value the privileges they maintain by being white more than the lack of privileges they endure as women.
While women of colour will feel the impacts of this law more than white women, it would be a mistake to see race as a driving force here.

Evangelical religion is the primary driver. Evangelism is an immensely strong force in society the south of the US. My discussions over the years with southern evangelicals over abortion is that they see abortion law as being vital for the protection of human life and is needed to keep the 'heretics'* from killing babies.

Yes, evangelical women have been an important group in driving harsher abortion laws. My take is that they never conceive that their daughters will ever require an abortion, because ... To them it is non-chuch goers, particularly those east and west coast liberals, that are killing babies.

White evangelicals, starting in the Reagan Presidency have made common ground with the Republican Party. Black evangelicals have sided with Democrats, but many are also anti-abortion.

* I use heretics here, which is a term they would not use, but describes white evangelicals feelings about non-evangelicals, even other Christians - particularly Roman Catholics - adequately. Of course, they are all complete hypocrites, but fail to see that. White evangelicals in particular have been strong supporters of Donald Trump, despite he being a twice divorced womaniser, virtual atheist and serial liar.
White evangelicals are the most important, but the Catholic church is also anti-abortion. The growing numbers of Hispanic people in Texas tend to be Catholics and many of them have added to support for restricting or outlawing access to abortion. As far as I remember at the last presidential election there was a swing to Trump among hispanic voters in Texas, and this was partly explained by them supporting the anti-abortion candidate.

The Pew survey (link above) also shows notable support for anti-abortion measures among members of the historically black churches, with 50% being in favour of abortion being illegal in all or most cases (close to the 55% of Catholics).

The groups which support lawful abortion in all or most cases are the mainstream protestants (eg Episcopalians or Lutherans) or the religiously unaffiliated. The former have been declining for a long time in the South, while the latter are increasing.

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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Woodchopper » Sat Sep 04, 2021 12:35 pm

Chris Preston wrote:
Sat Sep 04, 2021 11:19 am
The joke that the right to life in the US ends at birth is in the big picture true enough. The US Governments kill more of their own citizens than all but 5 other countries in the world. Add to that, the US is also 6th in the world for civilian killings by police.

Try having a conversation with a Southern white evangelical about this. The response will be the black and white argument that all those killed by the state or the police deserved to die, but no baby deserves to die.
Yes. 'Pro life' doesn't sum it up.

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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Allo V Psycho » Sat Sep 04, 2021 12:41 pm

Chris Preston wrote:
Sat Sep 04, 2021 11:19 am
The joke that the right to life in the US ends at birth is in the big picture true enough. The US Governments kill more of their own citizens than all but 5 other countries in the world. Add to that, the US is also 6th in the world for civilian killings by police.

Try having a conversation with a Southern white evangelical about this. The response will be the black and white argument that all those killed by the state or the police deserved to die, but no baby deserves to die.
OK, if they think no baby deserves to die, why does the US rank 56th equal in the world for infant mortality?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... lity_ratio

And why is this maternal mortality so strongly concentrated in Black women?

https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/ ... aphic.html

If U.S. Black women were a nation, their maternal mortality would rank about 85th in the world.

Incidentally, I might well agree that 'no baby deserves to die'. But I would not apply the term 'baby' to pre-embryos, embryos and early stages fetuses. To call the fertilised egg or early conceptus 'a baby' is them asserting semantically that they have already established their position as the only morally correct one.

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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat Sep 04, 2021 2:24 pm

Just to add to the discussion of race and religion, abortion is also illegal in most of Mexico (including the states bordering Texas), where almost everybody is Hispanic and Catholic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Mexico

Oppressing women seems to be one of the areas where the malign influence of religion is most clear.

The new law is sick and inhumane, but thoroughly unsurprising. Most of the deep red states seem to be a total f.cking lost cause at this point.
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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by dyqik » Sat Sep 04, 2021 4:37 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sat Sep 04, 2021 2:24 pm
Just to add to the discussion of race and religion, abortion is also illegal in most of Mexico (including the states bordering Texas), where almost everybody is Hispanic and Catholic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Mexico

Oppressing women seems to be one of the areas where the malign influence of religion is most clear.

The new law is sick and inhumane, but thoroughly unsurprising. Most of the deep red states seem to be a total f.cking lost cause at this point.
I've seen traveling to Mexico given as one of the reasonable options for getting an abortion after 6 weeks from Texas. The states across the border apparently have large enough exceptions to make it a viable option.

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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by WFJ » Sat Sep 04, 2021 6:22 pm

I have seen suggestions that some blue states should enact similar laws that allow civil suits against gun manufacturers and dealers on the basis of aiding and abetting gun crime, in order to force the Supreme Court to rule against these types of laws. In some ways I think this sounds like a good idea, but these type of games show what a joke of a political and judicial system the US has.

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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat Sep 04, 2021 8:36 pm

dyqik wrote:
Sat Sep 04, 2021 4:37 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sat Sep 04, 2021 2:24 pm
Just to add to the discussion of race and religion, abortion is also illegal in most of Mexico (including the states bordering Texas), where almost everybody is Hispanic and Catholic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Mexico

Oppressing women seems to be one of the areas where the malign influence of religion is most clear.

The new law is sick and inhumane, but thoroughly unsurprising. Most of the deep red states seem to be a total f.cking lost cause at this point.
I've seen traveling to Mexico given as one of the reasonable options for getting an abortion after 6 weeks from Texas. The states across the border apparently have large enough exceptions to make it a viable option.
Maternal health, fetal deformities and rape are the only exceptions (see link):
All states' penal codes permit abortions in cases of rape, and all but Guanajuato, Guerrero, and Querétaro's permit it to save the mother's life. Fourteen out of thirty-one expand these cases to include severe fetal deformities, and the state of Yucatán includes economic factors when the mother has previously given birth to three or more children.[19] Nevertheless, according to Jo Tuckman of The Guardian, in practice, almost no state provides access to abortions in the cases listed. They also prosecute neither the doctors who offer safe illegal abortions nor the cheaper life-threatening backstreet practitioners.[20]


Mexicans from northern states generally have to travel to Mexico City or do it illegally.
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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Grumble » Sat Sep 04, 2021 9:56 pm

The shocking thing here is the loss of rights. A lot of Europe isn’t much better to start with.
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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Gfamily » Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:18 am

Maybe the protection of Satanists' religious rights will block the bill.

https://fortune.com/2021/09/03/why-sata ... tion-bill/
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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by dyqik » Sun Sep 05, 2021 12:40 pm

Gfamily wrote:
Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:18 am
Maybe the protection of Satanists' religious rights will block the bill.

https://fortune.com/2021/09/03/why-sata ... tion-bill/
It won't. They've already failed with that tactic in other states. In any case, the majority on the Supreme Court are Christian theocratic extremists.

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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Tessa K » Sun Sep 05, 2021 12:53 pm

My first thought about this was that women who can afford it will go out of state and the rest will either go backstreet or be forced to have kids they don't want no matter the cost physically, mentally or financially.

This is a worrying interview with an anti-choice man describing women as 'host bodies' like we're something that aliens or demons invade.

https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1 ... 3258210304

Aoui - can you please use paragraphs? You're making interesting points but it's hard to read through a big block of text. Thanks.

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Re: Texas abortion law

Post by Woodchopper » Sun Sep 05, 2021 1:16 pm

dyqik wrote:
Sun Sep 05, 2021 12:40 pm
Gfamily wrote:
Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:18 am
Maybe the protection of Satanists' religious rights will block the bill.

https://fortune.com/2021/09/03/why-sata ... tion-bill/
It won't. They've already failed with that tactic in other states. In any case, the majority on the Supreme Court are Christian theocratic extremists.
I agree. No way will this Supreme Court side with the satanists.

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