Thoughts on abortion, religion, and morality

[Shkop]

Would you support child support payments from conception? Fathers pay for 50% of prenatal visits, delivery etc?

Dumb liberal argument. Libs are crying that if Alabama views the fetus as a life, it should have all the other rights, such as child support, due process, and citizenship.

And the answer is don't be an idiot. Learn how to differentiate between things, which is the hallmark of intelligence. A baby is alive in the womb. Someone who kills that baby is a murderer. But not all human beings deserve the exact same rights, just as a child, who is a full fledged human being, does not receive Medicare and can not vote. Privileges start a different times.

[shaulyaakov]

Dumb liberal argument. Libs are crying that if Alabama views the fetus as a life, it should have all the other rights, such as child support, due process, and citizenship.

And the answer is don't be an idiot. Learn how to differentiate between things, which is the hallmark of intelligence. A baby is alive in the womb. Someone who kills that baby is a murderer. But not all human beings deserve the exact same rights, just as a child, who is a full fledged human being, does not receive Medicare and can not vote. Privileges start a different times.

Why should the woman bear the full cost for this life? Child support payments help the mother, not the baby.

[Boruch999]

I think in states where the vast majority of legislators think abortion is a travesty, need to step up funding for social services, stop abstinence only education and make birth control readily available. In states where the legislators think abortion is a travesty, they seem to do the opposite. They are effectively punishing vulnerable women in both directions.

What they can also do is criminalize causing an unwanted pregnancy. So men would be liable. I think it would make men more responsible since they cause the unwanted pregnancies to begin with. I don't think any man would vote for that though.

I also think that restricting abortions like the southern states are trying is being done in a vacuum.

I may be out of touch but I have a hard time believing that a significant percentage of unwanted pregnancies are because they didn't know about or couldn't get bc.  I prefer not to elaborate.

 
I don't know what to make of your suggestion to criminalize the men.  1) Who says he doesn't want the pregnancy?  Under current law, he doesn't have a say.  2) Why is he more responsible than her, barring instances of rape?
3) How could such a law be enforceable? He'll claim he wanted it at the time but now changed his mind.  Are you going to criminalize changing of mind?

Also, from a morality point of view, abortion is ok, but pregnancy is criminal?  Absurd.


I don't know what you mean by your last line but it's clear and it's been the stated goal of these laws to provoke a SCOTUS challenge to Roe.

[Boruch999]

Dumb liberal argument. Libs are crying that if Alabama views the fetus as a life, it should have all the other rights, such as child support, due process, and citizenship.

And the answer is don't be an idiot. Learn how to differentiate between things, which is the hallmark of intelligence. A baby is alive in the womb. Someone who kills that baby is a murderer. But not all human beings deserve the exact same rights, just as a child, who is a full fledged human being, does not receive Medicare and can not vote. Privileges start a different times.

What does any of this have to do with holding the man jointly responsible for the pregnancy he caused together with the woman?

[aygart]

I think in states where the vast majority of legislators think abortion is a travesty, need to step up funding for social services, stop abstinence only education and make birth control readily available. In states where the legislators think abortion is a travesty, they seem to do the opposite. They are effectively punishing vulnerable women in both directions.

What they can also do is criminalize causing an unwanted pregnancy. So men would be liable. I think it would make men more responsible since they cause the unwanted pregnancies to begin with. I don't think any man would vote for that though.

I also think that restricting abortions like the southern states are trying is being done in a vacuum.

So lets make condoms easily available and criminalize rape. Why didn't anyone think of that until now?

[ckmk47]

Would you support child support payments from conception? Fathers pay for 50% of prenatal visits, delivery etc?

The government already helps out poor women in this situation.  Medicaid, WIC, food stamps...

[shaulyaakov]

The government already helps out poor women in this situation.  Medicaid, WIC, food stamps...

How much does Alabama do? They voted against medicaid expansion, want to get rid of the ACA etc.

[Shkop]

Why should the woman bear the full cost for this life? Child support payments help the mother, not the baby.

If there is a good argument why the man should bear part of the cost, then so be it. So, after outlawing murder the next step should be to consider if husbands paying child support should start earlier.

[shaulyaakov]

If there is a good argument why the man should bear part of the cost, then so be it. So, after outlawing murder the next step should be to consider if husbands paying child support should start earlier.

It's not a next step as abortion doesn't take place in a vaccum.

It would be like outlawing smoking because cigarettes kill, without figuring out how to treat people who are addicted to nicotine. Or like the GND banning air travel without funding a replacement.

So while a clear cut moral argument exists to ban abortion in most cases, there are people who's lives will be very much affected by this and who need to be considered at the forefront of this.

[Shkop]

It's not a next step as abortion doesn't take place in a vaccum.

It would be like outlawing smoking because cigarettes kill, without figuring out how to treat people who are addicted to nicotine. Or like the GND banning air travel without funding a replacement.

So while a clear cut moral argument exists to ban abortion in most cases, there are people who's lives will be very much affected by this and who need to be considered at the forefront of this.

Wrong. the very first immediate action necessary is to stop the killings. That is far and away our most urgent concern.

After that we can figure out how to help women who need financial help form their spouses.

[Boruch999]

Wrong. the very first immediate action necessary is to stop the killings. That is far and away our most urgent concern.

After that we can figure out how to help women who need financial help form their spouses.

+1

[mmgfarb]

the best method is legislation.

The best method to stop alcohol-related deaths (of which there are around 88k per year according to the CDC) is also legislation. Prohibition didn't work out that well here did it?

[mmgfarb]

After that we can figure out how to help women who need financial help form their spouses.

That's all very nice except that, as @Boruch999 so eloquently put it, we don't live in a vacuum. Laws have consequences and you have to be prepared for them when you enact one. We all see what happened with Obamacare.

[shaulyaakov]

The best method to stop alcohol-related deaths (of which there are around 88k per year according to the CDC) is also legislation. Prohibition didn't work out that well here did it?

+1
It's like nobody here understands how society works. Our war on drugs is also going swimmingly.

Yes, abortion is bad when the reason is bad. You can try fix it by making it illegal, which will probably stop some abortions, but will create an unsafe black market in the process. I'm not sure it is helpful for someone to get an abortion with a hanger in someone's basement.

You could also try to influence social policy to provide better funding for women with unwanted pregnancies, cheaper contraception coverage, better post-birth maternity coverage and care, better foster systems etc. That will stop some abortions, but since there are no disincentives for abortion, will only go so far.

You can also try to do both - make abortions illegal in most cases, leave reasonable exceptions in place when you know a woman is going to do it underground anyway, but also try to solve for the fundemental social issues that cause women to seek abortions in the first place.

[mmgfarb]

+1
It's like nobody here understands how society works. Out war on drugs is also going swimmingly.

Yes, abortion is bad when the reason is bad. You can try fix it by making it illegal, which will probably stop some abortions, but will create an unsafe black market in the process. I'm not sure it is helpful for someone to get an abortion with a hanger in someone's basement.

You could also try to influence social policy to provide better funding for women with unwanted pregnancies, cheaper contraception coverage, better post-birth maternity coverage and care, better foster systems etc. That will stop some abortions, but since there are no disincentives for abortion, will only go so far.

You can also try to do both - make abortions illegal in most cases, leave reasonable exceptions in place when you know a woman is going to do it underground anyway, but also try to solve for the fundemental social issues that cause women to seek abortions in the first place.

I think part of the problem is a fundamental misunderstanding of the point of government. Government isn't just there to stop people from doing things, it's there to improve and help our society in any way that it can without overstepping it's boundaries. We can argue what those boundaries are but making BC more easily available and improving sex-ed classes isn't going into anywhere that the government isn't already involved in anyway.