I mean, the problem has always been the Democrats couldn't act on their ambitions, not any sort of ridiculous "both sides are the same" nonsense.
Not according to research done by the NYT, states with democrat majorities in state legislatures, governors and local courts are worst in the nation on issues they blame republican obstruction on.
It's not that they can't act on their ambitions, it's just a line they feed you for fundraising and votes
That video is talking about things like income equality and housing access. Please by all means do a comparison on the actual thread topic and see what the results are. Because you don't find Dems trying to pass "lol guess you die now" laws.
I mean, the problem has always been the Democrats couldn't act on their ambitions, not any sort of ridiculous "both sides are the same" nonsense.
nah
i am saying that both sides are the same about this, historically
the activists that originally got RvW passed, and the morning after pill legalized for OTC use are saying that both sides are the same about this, historically
go look at the margin the hyde amendment passed by
The context you're missing is like many other issues, the parties have been changing on this for a long time. You cannot talk about positions from the 70s and expect them to be relevant to 2000, let alone now.
+5
Options
Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
Ironically the biggest barrier to changing terminology is probably that life and choice are monosyllabic
Probably more that these are entrenched terms that have had generally broadly accepted and used definitions people have internalized as part of their identities over the past 50 years.
Trying to change those accepted terms is a very uphill battle and usually seems like an awkward trying to make fetch happen out of touch effort.
I would say you are wrong about this and we in fact regularly adjust and recontextualize terminology all the time
More to the point, it doesn’t matter if it’s “difficult,” it’s part of the work that has to be done to combat the right’s propaganda.
Is the use of the word "pro-choice" even a part of the problem, let alone the most relevant part of it at the moment?
if you're going to bother doing communication about this, it's worth doing right, and i am relaying best practices and materials from people who have been involved in this for a lot longer than i've been alive
of course it's not the most important part
nothing is, there's no silver bullets and there never have been, just long slow change made up of thousands of individual actions that shape our culture
language has always been a big part of that
It seems like the best practices in communication here would be most directly about whether your language is growing or shrinking your coalition. Does this kind of messaging make your position more popular? Does fighting about?
yes, we have even lost recent elections where we weren't clear about this
this is all covered real well in the book i keep recommending
Since we can't read said book in the next few minutes, maybe you could actually walk the rest of the thread through an outline of the arguments of said book.
the book is free and I've already thrown out multiple data points in this thread that you just breezed on by, it is impossible to explain 50 years (centuries really) of history more concisely
i'm not sure if that was exactly the section where the specific campaign was referenced, but that's the section about language and the history of the democratic party's neoliberal retreating action on this
y'all go through more words regularly on this board, this thread is already almost as long as the book (by page count, many more words)
this is what the activists from back then (who succeeded) are saying, this is what the activists today (that are connecting people with abortions) are saying, i really don't care about pew research's hyper-granular polling when this is all in living memory for many people
I mean, the problem has always been the Democrats couldn't act on their ambitions, not any sort of ridiculous "both sides are the same" nonsense.
Not according to research done by the NYT, states with democrat majorities in state legislatures, governors and local courts are worst in the nation on issues they blame republican obstruction on.
It's not that they can't act on their ambitions, it's just a line they feed you for fundraising and votes
That video is talking about things like income equality and housing access. Please by all means do a comparison on the actual thread topic and see what the results are. Because you don't find Dems trying to pass "lol guess you die now" laws.
I mean, the problem has always been the Democrats couldn't act on their ambitions, not any sort of ridiculous "both sides are the same" nonsense.
nah
i am saying that both sides are the same about this, historically
the activists that originally got RvW passed, and the morning after pill legalized for OTC use are saying that both sides are the same about this, historically
go look at the margin the hyde amendment passed by
The context you're missing is like many other issues, the parties have been changing on this for a long time. You cannot talk about positions from the 70s and expect them to be relevant to 2000, let alone now.
the fight over the OTC pill, which the author of Without Apology helped spearhead, was in the aughts, actually
and like i said in my initial post about what there is to do, and what i'm currently working on in my own state, a lot of these conservative democrats were placed in power after 2008, by obama's people
Has this forum ever gotten a book club off the ground
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
The ACA has "helped overall," in that having it is better than not having it.
But that does not invalidate the statement that the average American's quality of life has decreased, overall, so please stop acting like it does.
Yeah I'm just gonna slap a big ol' [citation needed] on this assertion of yours.
Insulin costs, off the top of my head.
On top of the myriad ways our healthcare system still bankrupts a shitton of people in ways that are unheard of in the rest of the industrialized world
No one is saying “the ACA did absolutely nothing,” but it’s not absurd to note it didn’t go anywhere approaching far enough, and it by no means addressed the core issue that makes US healthcare so unworkable a project: gate keeping access to care by the ability to individually afford care
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Has this forum ever gotten a book club off the ground
Look if you just read the book, and no I'm not going to tell you what it said, you would know im completely right. This groundbreaking and completely accurate book supports what I'm saying here so obviously I don't even need to make my own argument. Q.e.d.
Sorry to paraphrase but can people actually say what they think and mean instead of telling me to go read a book? There are lots of books that say lots of things. I'm sure your book is a good one probably. But if you can't do more than say go read it or quote a passage here and there with a 'see, I am completely right' it's kinda a :shrug: for any actual debate or discussion.
I'm not trying to discuss a book you read a while back or a twitter rando quote or some blogger named shawn. I'm here to debate and discuss other forumers.
I'm one of those folks that's here that ACTUALLY saved, and throws any book suggestion onto my backlog cause growing up in the 90's yah learn that knowledge is power and personal growth is pretty rad.
Just saying this in contrast to other folks who say they aren't interested in learning more about subjects and just wanna debate other forumers.
I'm one of those folks that's here that ACTUALLY saved, and throws any book suggestion onto my backlog cause growing up in the 90's yah learn that knowledge is power and personal growth is pretty rad.
Just saying this in contrast to other folks who say they aren't interested in learning more about subjects and just wanna debate other forumers.
I mean it's cool to recommend a book!
Just dont refuse to engage and say "go read the book, it's really good". Its like telling someone to go watch a 90 minute YouTube video because it answers all their questions.
If you can't defend your position or make a point without referring to a book you are recommended but nobody else has even read, or turn that book you read into meaningful discussion it's really not more than a book people can add to the long list of books they don't have X hours to sit and read.
Ironically the biggest barrier to changing terminology is probably that life and choice are monosyllabic
Probably more that these are entrenched terms that have had generally broadly accepted and used definitions people have internalized as part of their identities over the past 50 years.
Trying to change those accepted terms is a very uphill battle and usually seems like an awkward trying to make fetch happen out of touch effort.
I would say you are wrong about this and we in fact regularly adjust and recontextualize terminology all the time
More to the point, it doesn’t matter if it’s “difficult,” it’s part of the work that has to be done to combat the right’s propaganda.
Is the use of the word "pro-choice" even a part of the problem, let alone the most relevant part of it at the moment?
if you're going to bother doing communication about this, it's worth doing right, and i am relaying best practices and materials from people who have been involved in this for a lot longer than i've been alive
of course it's not the most important part
nothing is, there's no silver bullets and there never have been, just long slow change made up of thousands of individual actions that shape our culture
language has always been a big part of that
It seems like the best practices in communication here would be most directly about whether your language is growing or shrinking your coalition. Does this kind of messaging make your position more popular? Does fighting about?
yes, we have even lost recent elections where we weren't clear about this
this is all covered real well in the book i keep recommending
Since we can't read said book in the next few minutes, maybe you could actually walk the rest of the thread through an outline of the arguments of said book.
the book is free and I've already thrown out multiple data points in this thread that you just breezed on by, it is impossible to explain 50 years (centuries really) of history more concisely
i'm not sure if that was exactly the section where the specific campaign was referenced, but that's the section about language and the history of the democratic party's neoliberal retreating action on this
y'all go through more words regularly on this board, this thread is already almost as long as the book (by page count, many more words)
this is what the activists from back then (who succeeded) are saying, this is what the activists today (that are connecting people with abortions) are saying, i really don't care about pew research's hyper-granular polling when this is all in living memory for many people
I'm really not seeing much supporting the idea that the pro-choice label is an issue. It's only mentioned specifically once. Mostly when the author is raging against "choice" they are talking in economic terms and not about the pro-choice label. Nor does their arguments about destigmatization of the word abortion seem all that relevant to the label.
I can't say the arguments there were so difficult or necessary that it required the annoyance of downloading an epub and getting it running on a laptop either.
I'm also not sure why you feel the need to dismiss attempts to understand the complex nature of people's thoughts on the issue of abortion.
I'm one of those folks that's here that ACTUALLY saved, and throws any book suggestion onto my backlog cause growing up in the 90's yah learn that knowledge is power and personal growth is pretty rad.
Just saying this in contrast to other folks who say they aren't interested in learning more about subjects and just wanna debate other forumers.
I have found that "go read this" usually results in me going "oh my god this is the worst thing I've read in months" so I have stopped doing so. It is often a huge waste of time.
More to the point, I don’t think there’s likely a single consensus opinion about what’s most persuasive even in spaces that are largely ideologically similar, let alone the wild incoherency of mainstream American perspectives.
There have been D&D threads years ago with participation contingent upon reading a massive reference list in the first post, but I haven't seen one in recent memory. I think that's because back then we were on average a bunch of early college students with a bad habit of drinking coffee in the evenings after class, but I'm probably overgeneralizing.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I'm one of those folks that's here that ACTUALLY saved, and throws any book suggestion onto my backlog cause growing up in the 90's yah learn that knowledge is power and personal growth is pretty rad.
Just saying this in contrast to other folks who say they aren't interested in learning more about subjects and just wanna debate other forumers.
I have found that "go read this" usually results in me going "oh my god this is the worst thing I've read in months" so I have stopped doing so. It is often a huge waste of time.
I've found a lot of books that have been recommended in topical threads are good and interesting reads, with a good amount of slogs or pure garbage mixed in. I'll cut anyone who recommends I ever read Marx or Rand again.
But my backlog is appreciably long and I make the effort but even then sometimes it's hard to read a thread to current before I post. Sometimes it'll be days or weeks before I feel I'm caught up and up to speed enough to contribute to a topical thread.
A recommended book is always noted and I do a quick Goggle cliffsnotes on it, but I simply don't have the time or energy to read every long form story, blog post, or book that everyone recommends before participating in discussion. To say nothing of videos or someone saying a given rando blogger or twitter posters who isn't even posting here should be read up on.
If you can't even say what you think and why X source supports that, why are you bringing that source in? Sure sometimes someone says something so eloquently that their quote is worthwhile, but if you can't express why in your own words it's just low effort aggregation.
+5
Options
Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
Ironically the biggest barrier to changing terminology is probably that life and choice are monosyllabic
Probably more that these are entrenched terms that have had generally broadly accepted and used definitions people have internalized as part of their identities over the past 50 years.
Trying to change those accepted terms is a very uphill battle and usually seems like an awkward trying to make fetch happen out of touch effort.
I would say you are wrong about this and we in fact regularly adjust and recontextualize terminology all the time
More to the point, it doesn’t matter if it’s “difficult,” it’s part of the work that has to be done to combat the right’s propaganda.
Is the use of the word "pro-choice" even a part of the problem, let alone the most relevant part of it at the moment?
if you're going to bother doing communication about this, it's worth doing right, and i am relaying best practices and materials from people who have been involved in this for a lot longer than i've been alive
of course it's not the most important part
nothing is, there's no silver bullets and there never have been, just long slow change made up of thousands of individual actions that shape our culture
language has always been a big part of that
It seems like the best practices in communication here would be most directly about whether your language is growing or shrinking your coalition. Does this kind of messaging make your position more popular? Does fighting about?
yes, we have even lost recent elections where we weren't clear about this
this is all covered real well in the book i keep recommending
Since we can't read said book in the next few minutes, maybe you could actually walk the rest of the thread through an outline of the arguments of said book.
the book is free and I've already thrown out multiple data points in this thread that you just breezed on by, it is impossible to explain 50 years (centuries really) of history more concisely
i'm not sure if that was exactly the section where the specific campaign was referenced, but that's the section about language and the history of the democratic party's neoliberal retreating action on this
y'all go through more words regularly on this board, this thread is already almost as long as the book (by page count, many more words)
this is what the activists from back then (who succeeded) are saying, this is what the activists today (that are connecting people with abortions) are saying, i really don't care about pew research's hyper-granular polling when this is all in living memory for many people
I'm really not seeing much supporting the idea that the pro-choice label is an issue. It's only mentioned specifically once. Mostly when the author is raging against "choice" they are talking in economic terms and not about the pro-choice label. Nor does their arguments about destigmatization of the word abortion seem all that relevant to the label.
I can't say the arguments there were so difficult or necessary that it required the annoyance of downloading an epub and getting it running on a laptop either.
I'm also not sure why you feel the need to dismiss attempts to understand the complex nature of people's thoughts on the issue of abortion.
because you are parroting the conservative talking points that have lead us to this moment in time, where RvW is gone
i have explained why the language is important, @Lanz has elaborated on that, i gave an outline about all the work i am currently involved in, and pointed out that radical feminist activists running abortion funds in the south, historically very dangerous work, have said the same thing in trainings i have been in, because this work is new to me too, and i have been doing a lot of catching up since the decision leaked
it was literally the first thing the representative from the tampa bay abortion fund said
y'all pushed back against this and said "nuh-uh" so i pointed you in the direction of a multiple concise and easily digestible summaries of the history of these arguments and this struggle
i am not your personal research assistant, and it isn't even possible to cite a lot of people actively involved in this work right now, because they are not safe being publicly known
it's the language of the enemy, it's there to make people feel icky and personally conflicted about a routine medical procedure
I kinda feel like I often get more out of reading criticisms of reading material, and then the counterarguments to those criticisms, than I do the material itself.
Has this forum ever gotten a book club off the ground
Look if you just read the book, and no I'm not going to tell you what it said, you would know im completely right. This groundbreaking and completely accurate book supports what I'm saying here so obviously I don't even need to make my own argument. Q.e.d.
Sorry to paraphrase but can people actually say what they think and mean instead of telling me to go read a book? There are lots of books that say lots of things. I'm sure your book is a good one probably. But if you can't do more than say go read it or quote a passage here and there with a 'see, I am completely right' it's kinda a :shrug: for any actual debate or discussion.
I'm not trying to discuss a book you read a while back or a twitter rando quote or some blogger named shawn. I'm here to debate and discuss other forumers.
As Funsworth cites, from again a book that is completely free in ebook format straight from the publisher, right now:
Abortion since Hyde, without real access unless you can pay, is the sort of choice we’ve been experiencing in many areas of our lives, thanks to the Democratic Party’s turn toward neoliberalism. We have to buy services, like health care, childcare, and college, that in other countries are provided to everyone free.
Childcare is available on the private market—with private market prices—but it costs more than college tuition. College is available, but if you can’t pay up front, you have to go into debt, marking your next decades as a modern indenture. You have a choice to take family and medical leave (finally passed under Bill Clinton, a leader of the neoliberal Democratic tendency), but it’s unpaid, so you can only take leave if you can forgo a paycheck.56 Under the Affordable Care Act, health insurance is available but limited to those who can afford to pay the premiums, copays, coinsurance, deductibles, and out-of-pocket maximums. Choose your plan wisely!
You have choice in all these things. In some cases, like health care, there’s an obsession with “choosing the plan that’s right for you.” In reality, the plan that’s right is the one that covers everything, since you can’t actually predict what kind of health care you’ll need. But to get that plan, you’d have to emigrate to Canada, Cuba, Finland, or 120 other countries that provide health care independent of your ability to pay.
The “Choice” to Have Children
Framing abortion and birth control as a personal choice feeds right into this framework. Choice makes it seem that parents are indulging a personal whim by having children rather than making a valuable contribution to the ongoing existence of society.
You have a choice to have a child, but unless you have enough money and time you may be seen as irresponsible for doing so. If your living situation is regarded as unhealthful by the authorities, rather than requiring the landlord to provide decent housing, the state may take your children from you. People of color get extra scrutiny and are punished more severely when they’ve made the “wrong choice.”57
“Responsibility’’—as in the welfare-shredding Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act passed under the Clinton administration—is only applied to those who don’t have money. Those with the most have little responsibility to contribute through taxes to the society that has been so generous to them. The richest avoid taxes entirely.
Instead, states go after “deadbeat dads” (or moms)—mostly low-paid workers who are making so little that there is nothing to take.58 They can be thrown in jail in many states and lose their occupational and drivers’ licenses. And, in true neoliberal style, the money taken from the noncustodial spouse is often not provided to the person taking care of the children; it’s seized to fund the welfare that the family is already receiving because of their low wages, lack of childcare, or unemployment.59 Market freedom requires imposing the most draconian and miserable constraints upon actual human beings.
This is not how other countries approach child rearing, and, as a result, child (and parent) poverty in the United States is quadruple that of other rich countries. Many provide a monthly child allowance; all provide paid leave and “guarantee health care; most have subsidized or free childcare.
Our attenuated right to abortion has become the only answer from the Democratic political establishment to the crises families face when they have kids: If you can’t afford children, just don’t have them. You had a “choice,” after all. This bankrupt doctrine is reaching a breaking point. Many potential parents have decided it’s just too hard to have kids, or they have stopped at one, plunging the US birth rate below replacement levels and motivating the power structure to further crack down on reproductive rights.
This is why reproductive justice argues that abortion and birth control can’t be understood separately from housing, jobs, wages, health care, policing, racial and sexual hierarchies, immigration, and environmental health.
In other words, by formulating abortion as an issue of “choice,” instead of being an enabling, liberating force of personal bodily autonomy, the existing systems we live in warp it, commodify it. It is your “choice” to get an abortion like it is your “choice” as to whether you want to have dinner at Applebee’s or Taco Bell.
But the reality is that, abortion isn’t a choice. You’re talking about having to carry a fetus to term over a period of nine months, incurring any number of medical impacts onto you, some temporary, some for life, and some that may be mortal threat to your life because pregnancy in humans has countless different ways it can go sideways hard. And that’s not taking into account the social impacts on your life for those 9 months!
Abortion isn’t a choice any more than if my appendix bursts that getting an emergency appendectomy is a choice. Sure, I can “choose” not to get one, and then I will probably suffer sepsis and die.
Abortion is a necessary and legitimate medical procedure. No one ever talks about how they want appendectomies to be “safe, legal and rare;” you don’t carry a stigma culturally for having had your appendix removed. And we should treat Abortion as just as legitimately as any other medical procedure instead of making these carve outs that inevitably still feed into our notions of what should constitute what is worthy of cultural shame.
And that is why it is better to retire the “pro-choice” rhetoric and instead focus on being pro-abortion.
One of the bigger issues I have with "pro-choice" is that it concedes that the christian fascists have a reasonable position but they shouldn't be able to impose their views on others.
When in reality their views don't have any strong ideological grounding. It's not my "choice" to get an abortion, it's my fucking right because we have bodily autonomy.
Lanz, I find that quote persuasive and I agree with your statements but I don’t think they have a lot to do with each other.
The excerpt seems to framing the problem with presenting abortion as a choice as one of deception - it’s not a choice for most people because it costs money and time (more money), but by calling it a choice we get to extract wealth and dole out guilt to folks with minimal resources. And, even then, it’s a ‘choice’ that the state may revoke if it decides that more offspring are needed. That’s all a solid criticism of what America sells as freedom and ties in elegantly into a lot of other bullshit we pretend means we have worthwhile rights when most of us really don’t.
But that’s not about the necessity of basic medical care, which I agree abortion should be. And I think a lot of back and forth could have been avoided by simply making the case that pro-choice is the wrong language to use because it’s a lie sold by a coercive state to make people feel like they have more control over their lives than they do.
Again, an angle I find reasonably persuasive, but that’s also separate from what is effective in persuading the great mass of people that is America. Because the illusion of choice sells here. Meaning, frankly, I’m not sold on the idea that we can educate ourselves out of this if we just give people the right framework, because that’s not what our species seems to be. Intellectually convincing arguments aren’t inherently the clear path to victory in my eyes because the vast majority of people in my experience don’t approach life that way, and that includes people such as myself that like to think we do.
One of the bigger issues I have with "pro-choice" is that it concedes that the christian fascists have a reasonable position but they shouldn't be able to impose their views on others.
When in reality their views don't have any strong ideological grounding. It's not my "choice" to get an abortion, it's my fucking right because we have bodily autonomy.
It's your right to choose what you want to do with your body. That's the whole point of the position and always has been.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Lanz, I find that quote persuasive and I agree with your statements but I don’t think they have a lot to do with each other.
The excerpt seems to framing the problem with presenting abortion as a choice as one of deception - it’s not a choice for most people because it costs money and time (more money), but by calling it a choice we get to extract wealth and dole out guilt to folks with minimal resources. And, even then, it’s a ‘choice’ that the state may revoke if it decides that more offspring are needed. That’s all a solid criticism of what America sells as freedom and ties in elegantly into a lot of other bullshit we pretend means we have worthwhile rights when most of us really don’t.
But that’s not about the necessity of basic medical care, which I agree abortion should be. And I think a lot of back and forth could have been avoided by simply making the case that pro-choice is the wrong language to use because it’s a lie sold by a coercive state to make people feel like they have more control over their lives than they do.
Again, an angle I find reasonably persuasive, but that’s also separate from what is effective in persuading the great mass of people that is America. Because the illusion of choice sells here. Meaning, frankly, I’m not sold on the idea that we can educate ourselves out of this if we just give people the right framework, because that’s not what our species seems to be. Intellectually convincing arguments aren’t inherently the clear path to victory in my eyes because the vast majority of people in my experience don’t approach life that way, and that includes people such as myself that like to think we do.
To be clear, you don’t then see the deception as one that also encompasses how our society typically depicts and understands pregnancy with the medical burdens of that reality?
Like yes, the two sections cited primarily are talking about the financial cost aspects, but I feel the medical aspects go hand in hand with that as well. By and large Americans are culturally conditioned to think of pregnancy as a great, wonderful thing and not a burdensome experience that the human body is just barely equipped to handle given how we evolved (seriously, even if we’ve managed all this time to populate seven billion of us concurrently on the planet, pregnancy and childbirth is horrid in regards to the stresses it places on the body, even compared to other mammalian life).
Those wouldn’t go away if we removed the financial burden aspects, and from them alone abortion would still need to be considered a normal and legitimate medical procedure.
But, as with the financial aspects, America culturally is conditioned to never consider that aspect of the equation, and the choice framing, at best, inadvertently clouds that reality.
+5
Options
MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
edited July 2022
Yeah that excerpt is both largely bullshit and has approximately nothing to do with abortion, but, you know, Jacobin writers gotta get their kicks in where they can
As someone who previously stated in this thread that they liked to use the term "anti-choice," I welcome the education about the objections to that phrase from the perspective of people who have long been involved in the fight for abortion access.
Comparing abortion to emergency appendectomy is weird. Emergency abortion is like emergency appendectomy. Non-emergent abortion is more like elective appendectomy, and that is not a great analogy for several reasons. I can heavily urge you from a medical perspective to have an appendectomy and even question your ability to think clearly if you decline it. That stuff doesn't happen with abortion; it's more the inverse.
I also ... kind of don't understand that excerpt? Seems like in the US, the poor don't really currently have a choice regarding having children because of socioeconomic factors. Abortion is inseparable from these factors, and without improving all of them, choice cannot exist. This makes the freedom of choice a very ambitious goal, greater in scope than abortion: do you have the freedom to choose your future?
So basically democrats are aiming too high, and we shouldn't expect to ever have true choice?
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
One of the bigger issues I have with "pro-choice" is that it concedes that the christian fascists have a reasonable position but they shouldn't be able to impose their views on others.
When in reality their views don't have any strong ideological grounding. It's not my "choice" to get an abortion, it's my fucking right because we have bodily autonomy.
It's your right to choose what you want to do with your body. That's the whole point of the position and always has been.
Is it my choice to get an appendectomy when my appendix bursts, or to get bypass surgery when my heart goes to shit?
No one talks about any other medical procedure like this. By continuing to use the choice framing, we continue to cede ground to the idea that there is something different about abortion that should render it more controversial
Like we all understand the well meaning intention of the framing. But at this point it is inadequate to our needs regarding communicating the value and importance of abortion as a medical procedure.
These aren’t choices. These are needs.
+10
Options
Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
One of the bigger issues I have with "pro-choice" is that it concedes that the christian fascists have a reasonable position but they shouldn't be able to impose their views on others.
When in reality their views don't have any strong ideological grounding. It's not my "choice" to get an abortion, it's my fucking right because we have bodily autonomy.
this is one the things i actually learned from without apology
i already knew that the jewish religious conception of life starts at first breath
what i didn't know was that english law used to be similar, with life starting at "quickening" which is not conception, but after the fetus starts moving
the whole thing is a retcon that only appeared in the last couple centuries, and only gained traction when republicans needed a wedge issue that wasn't blatantly racist post-southern strategy
other than that, legislation before RvW around reproductive justice was mostly centered around migrant panics
Lanz, I find that quote persuasive and I agree with your statements but I don’t think they have a lot to do with each other.
The excerpt seems to framing the problem with presenting abortion as a choice as one of deception - it’s not a choice for most people because it costs money and time (more money), but by calling it a choice we get to extract wealth and dole out guilt to folks with minimal resources. And, even then, it’s a ‘choice’ that the state may revoke if it decides that more offspring are needed. That’s all a solid criticism of what America sells as freedom and ties in elegantly into a lot of other bullshit we pretend means we have worthwhile rights when most of us really don’t.
But that’s not about the necessity of basic medical care, which I agree abortion should be. And I think a lot of back and forth could have been avoided by simply making the case that pro-choice is the wrong language to use because it’s a lie sold by a coercive state to make people feel like they have more control over their lives than they do.
Again, an angle I find reasonably persuasive, but that’s also separate from what is effective in persuading the great mass of people that is America. Because the illusion of choice sells here. Meaning, frankly, I’m not sold on the idea that we can educate ourselves out of this if we just give people the right framework, because that’s not what our species seems to be. Intellectually convincing arguments aren’t inherently the clear path to victory in my eyes because the vast majority of people in my experience don’t approach life that way, and that includes people such as myself that like to think we do.
women and other people that need abortions are already there, and have been since the beginning
again, one of the major events that preceded the passage of RvW was illegal speakouts where women discovered the stigma around abortion was actually what made them feel bad, and that most of them felt profound relief after their abortions
and we're talking illegal, shady abortions of varying quality that sometimes had severe medical consequences
this issue polls better than felon voting or increasing the minimum wage in florida, which are both ballot initiatives we passed successfully previously
you got half the population that are at least a little anxious about this, you don't really gotta sell it, you just gotta find and activate people to ramp up the pressure
Lanz, I find that quote persuasive and I agree with your statements but I don’t think they have a lot to do with each other.
The excerpt seems to framing the problem with presenting abortion as a choice as one of deception - it’s not a choice for most people because it costs money and time (more money), but by calling it a choice we get to extract wealth and dole out guilt to folks with minimal resources. And, even then, it’s a ‘choice’ that the state may revoke if it decides that more offspring are needed. That’s all a solid criticism of what America sells as freedom and ties in elegantly into a lot of other bullshit we pretend means we have worthwhile rights when most of us really don’t.
But that’s not about the necessity of basic medical care, which I agree abortion should be. And I think a lot of back and forth could have been avoided by simply making the case that pro-choice is the wrong language to use because it’s a lie sold by a coercive state to make people feel like they have more control over their lives than they do.
Again, an angle I find reasonably persuasive, but that’s also separate from what is effective in persuading the great mass of people that is America. Because the illusion of choice sells here. Meaning, frankly, I’m not sold on the idea that we can educate ourselves out of this if we just give people the right framework, because that’s not what our species seems to be. Intellectually convincing arguments aren’t inherently the clear path to victory in my eyes because the vast majority of people in my experience don’t approach life that way, and that includes people such as myself that like to think we do.
To be clear, you don’t then see the deception as one that also encompasses how our society typically depicts and understands pregnancy with the medical burdens of that reality?
Like yes, the two sections cited primarily are talking about the financial cost aspects, but I feel the medical aspects go hand in hand with that as well. By and large Americans are culturally conditioned to think of pregnancy as a great, wonderful thing and not a burdensome experience that the human body is just barely equipped to handle given how we evolved (seriously, even if we’ve managed all this time to populate seven billion of us concurrently on the planet, pregnancy and childbirth is horrid in regards to the stresses it places on the body, even compared to other mammalian life).
Those wouldn’t go away if we removed the financial burden aspects, and from them alone abortion would still need to be considered a normal and legitimate medical procedure.
But, as with the financial aspects, America culturally is conditioned to never consider that aspect of the equation, and the choice framing, at best, inadvertently clouds that reality.
I think that’s an interesting angle too, but not one I’m necessarily seeing in the text you pulled (but I’d like to read the full thing to know if that gets wrapped in - it’s possible I just don’t see the threads that are there). I’m inclined to separate the issues based largely on the fact I think misogynistic inertia and an intense distrust of change drives people’s views in this area more than anything else.
But I am very much in agreement that we societally deny the reality of what pregnancy is like and the risks it entails.
One of the bigger issues I have with "pro-choice" is that it concedes that the christian fascists have a reasonable position but they shouldn't be able to impose their views on others.
When in reality their views don't have any strong ideological grounding. It's not my "choice" to get an abortion, it's my fucking right because we have bodily autonomy.
It's your right to choose what you want to do with your body. That's the whole point of the position and always has been.
Is it my choice to get an appendectomy when my appendix bursts, or to get bypass surgery when my heart goes to shit?
No one talks about any other medical procedure like this. By continuing to use the choice framing, we continue to cede ground to the idea that there is something different about abortion that should render it more controversial
Like we all understand the well meaning intention of the framing. But at this point it is inadequate to our needs regarding communicating the value and importance of abortion as a medical procedure.
These aren’t choices. These are needs.
This framing seems incredibly dangerous to me because it can easily be manipulated into sounding like it only wants to protect abortion when the mother's health depends on it.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
+2
Options
SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
edited July 2022
the optics of "pro-abortion" are horrible, every person upset at Roe's repeal, except for the 0 5% who are 1000% percent plugged into Deep Blue Twitter and lit, are going to look at that and just go "wtf?" and everyone happy about Roe's repeal wouls be recording highlights for their campaign ads if anyone noteworthy started using it since it's GOP propaganda offered unironically
this is really dumb blue-on-blue
ed: "anti-choice" in lieu of "pro-life" I think offers a lot more utility, if we're going this route
SummaryJudgment on
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
+10
Options
Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
the optics of "pro-abortion" are horrible, every person upset at Roe's repeal, except for the 0 5% who are 1000% percent plugged into Deep Blue Twitter and lit, are going to look at that and just go "wtf?" and everyone happy about Roe's repeal wouls be recording highlights for their campaign ads if anyone noteworthy started using it since it's GOP propaganda offered unironically
this is really dumb blue-on-blue
ed: "anti-choice" I think offers a lot more utility, if we're going this route
A poll on whether people would prefer to call themselves pro-choice or pro-abortion would be interesting
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
+1
Options
SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
the optics of "pro-abortion" are horrible, every person upset at Roe's repeal, except for the 0 5% who are 1000% percent plugged into Deep Blue Twitter and lit, are going to look at that and just go "wtf?" and everyone happy about Roe's repeal wouls be recording highlights for their campaign ads if anyone noteworthy started using it since it's GOP propaganda offered unironically
this is really dumb blue-on-blue
ed: "anti-choice" I think offers a lot more utility, if we're going this route
the optics of "pro-abortion" are horrible, every person upset at Roe's repeal, except for the 0 5% who are 1000% percent plugged into Deep Blue Twitter and lit, are going to look at that and just go "wtf?" and everyone happy about Roe's repeal wouls be recording highlights for their campaign ads if anyone noteworthy started using it since it's GOP propaganda offered unironically
this is really dumb blue-on-blue
ed: "anti-choice" I think offers a lot more utility, if we're going this route
Under the current framing, yes you see that result. If you change the question wording you could easily get dramatically different results. My bet is you would, especially among the religious but historically Democratic demographics (white Catholics and black churchgoers), but I don't know if anyone's ever phrased it that way in a poll.
Unrelated: the way those crosstabs are presented is asinine.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
One of the bigger issues I have with "pro-choice" is that it concedes that the christian fascists have a reasonable position but they shouldn't be able to impose their views on others.
When in reality their views don't have any strong ideological grounding. It's not my "choice" to get an abortion, it's my fucking right because we have bodily autonomy.
It's your right to choose what you want to do with your body. That's the whole point of the position and always has been.
Is it my choice to get an appendectomy when my appendix bursts, or to get bypass surgery when my heart goes to shit?
No one talks about any other medical procedure like this. By continuing to use the choice framing, we continue to cede ground to the idea that there is something different about abortion that should render it more controversial
Like we all understand the well meaning intention of the framing. But at this point it is inadequate to our needs regarding communicating the value and importance of abortion as a medical procedure.
These aren’t choices. These are needs.
This framing seems incredibly dangerous to me because it can easily be manipulated into sounding like it only wants to protect abortion when the mother's health depends on it.
That’s why I mentioned the fact that even when it’s not a threat, there are still medical impacts on the life of the pregnant individual, not to mention the non-medical impacts to their life that arise from having to be burdened with carrying a fetus to term over nine months.
+5
Options
Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
the optics of "pro-abortion" are horrible, every person upset at Roe's repeal, except for the 0 5% who are 1000% percent plugged into Deep Blue Twitter and lit, are going to look at that and just go "wtf?" and everyone happy about Roe's repeal wouls be recording highlights for their campaign ads if anyone noteworthy started using it since it's GOP propaganda offered unironically
this is really dumb blue-on-blue
ed: "anti-choice" I think offers a lot more utility, if we're going this route
Under the current framing, yes you see that result. If you change the question wording you could easily get dramatically different results. My bet is you would, especially among the religious but historically Democratic demographics (white Catholics and black churchgoers), but I don't know if anyone's ever phrased it that way in a poll.
Unrelated: the way those crosstabs are presented is asinine.
yeah i fucking hate pew, but it's more conservative than the more recent polling data i have and i know people here respect it as a source
One of the bigger issues I have with "pro-choice" is that it concedes that the christian fascists have a reasonable position but they shouldn't be able to impose their views on others.
When in reality their views don't have any strong ideological grounding. It's not my "choice" to get an abortion, it's my fucking right because we have bodily autonomy.
It's your right to choose what you want to do with your body. That's the whole point of the position and always has been.
Is it my choice to get an appendectomy when my appendix bursts, or to get bypass surgery when my heart goes to shit?
No one talks about any other medical procedure like this. By continuing to use the choice framing, we continue to cede ground to the idea that there is something different about abortion that should render it more controversial
Like we all understand the well meaning intention of the framing. But at this point it is inadequate to our needs regarding communicating the value and importance of abortion as a medical procedure.
These aren’t choices. These are needs.
Lots of medical procedures are talked about in terms of choice, though. Whether you are talking about cosmetic surgeries, to undergo chemo and radiation, or to have a risky surgery when you are at an advanced age and already in poor health.
One of the bigger issues I have with "pro-choice" is that it concedes that the christian fascists have a reasonable position but they shouldn't be able to impose their views on others.
When in reality their views don't have any strong ideological grounding. It's not my "choice" to get an abortion, it's my fucking right because we have bodily autonomy.
It's your right to choose what you want to do with your body. That's the whole point of the position and always has been.
Is it my choice to get an appendectomy when my appendix bursts, or to get bypass surgery when my heart goes to shit?
No one talks about any other medical procedure like this. By continuing to use the choice framing, we continue to cede ground to the idea that there is something different about abortion that should render it more controversial
Like we all understand the well meaning intention of the framing. But at this point it is inadequate to our needs regarding communicating the value and importance of abortion as a medical procedure.
These aren’t choices. These are needs.
This framing seems incredibly dangerous to me because it can easily be manipulated into sounding like it only wants to protect abortion when the mother's health depends on it.
That’s why I mentioned the fact that even when it’s not a threat, there are still medical impacts on the life of the pregnant individual, not to mention the non-medical impacts to their life that arise from having to be burdened with carrying a fetus to term over nine months.
Obviously, but you know swing voters.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
One of the bigger issues I have with "pro-choice" is that it concedes that the christian fascists have a reasonable position but they shouldn't be able to impose their views on others.
When in reality their views don't have any strong ideological grounding. It's not my "choice" to get an abortion, it's my fucking right because we have bodily autonomy.
It's your right to choose what you want to do with your body. That's the whole point of the position and always has been.
Is it my choice to get an appendectomy when my appendix bursts, or to get bypass surgery when my heart goes to shit?
No one talks about any other medical procedure like this. By continuing to use the choice framing, we continue to cede ground to the idea that there is something different about abortion that should render it more controversial
Like we all understand the well meaning intention of the framing. But at this point it is inadequate to our needs regarding communicating the value and importance of abortion as a medical procedure.
These aren’t choices. These are needs.
Lots of medical procedures are talked about in terms of choice, though. Whether you are talking about cosmetic surgeries, to undergo chemo and radiation, or to have a risky surgery when you are at an advanced age and already in poor health.
I guess the disconnect is that choice is sacred in medicine. It's the responsibility of medical caregivers to help their patients make choices. To inform them of their choices and to make the choices they want easier, as much as possible given limitations. If people make choices you don't agree with, you respect them and work around them. This is because one of the primary pillars of ethics in medicine is autonomy, and choice is a representative of autonomy. My body, my choice and all that. It's not frivolous, and even if you made the "wrong" choice for whatever your objectives are, it's not the place of the caregiver to dole punishment.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
+5
Options
Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
One of the bigger issues I have with "pro-choice" is that it concedes that the christian fascists have a reasonable position but they shouldn't be able to impose their views on others.
When in reality their views don't have any strong ideological grounding. It's not my "choice" to get an abortion, it's my fucking right because we have bodily autonomy.
It's your right to choose what you want to do with your body. That's the whole point of the position and always has been.
Is it my choice to get an appendectomy when my appendix bursts, or to get bypass surgery when my heart goes to shit?
No one talks about any other medical procedure like this. By continuing to use the choice framing, we continue to cede ground to the idea that there is something different about abortion that should render it more controversial
Like we all understand the well meaning intention of the framing. But at this point it is inadequate to our needs regarding communicating the value and importance of abortion as a medical procedure.
These aren’t choices. These are needs.
Lots of medical procedures are talked about in terms of choice, though. Whether you are talking about cosmetic surgeries, to undergo chemo and radiation, or to have a risky surgery when you are at an advanced age and already in poor health.
I guess the disconnect is that choice is sacred in medicine. It's the responsibility of medical caregivers to help their patients make choices. To inform them of their choices and to make the choices they want easier, as much as possible given limitations. If people make choices you don't agree with, you respect them and work around them. This is because one of the primary pillars of ethics in medicine is autonomy, and choice is a representative of autonomy. My body, my choice and all that. It's not frivolous, and even if you made the "wrong" choice for whatever your objectives are, it's not the place of the caregiver to dole punishment.
this is not how abortion, and reproductive healthcare have ever worked, in this or any other country i'm aware of, and is an incredibly male perspective, imo
male doctors wouldn't even listen to midwives about washing their hands before surgery
i mean, holy shit, this was another thing i learned about in without apology, there are still people walking around crippled by this shit, years after c-sections were common everywhere else
One of the bigger issues I have with "pro-choice" is that it concedes that the christian fascists have a reasonable position but they shouldn't be able to impose their views on others.
When in reality their views don't have any strong ideological grounding. It's not my "choice" to get an abortion, it's my fucking right because we have bodily autonomy.
It's your right to choose what you want to do with your body. That's the whole point of the position and always has been.
Is it my choice to get an appendectomy when my appendix bursts, or to get bypass surgery when my heart goes to shit?
No one talks about any other medical procedure like this. By continuing to use the choice framing, we continue to cede ground to the idea that there is something different about abortion that should render it more controversial
Like we all understand the well meaning intention of the framing. But at this point it is inadequate to our needs regarding communicating the value and importance of abortion as a medical procedure.
These aren’t choices. These are needs.
Lots of medical procedures are talked about in terms of choice, though. Whether you are talking about cosmetic surgeries, to undergo chemo and radiation, or to have a risky surgery when you are at an advanced age and already in poor health.
I guess the disconnect is that choice is sacred in medicine. It's the responsibility of medical caregivers to help their patients make choices. To inform them of their choices and to make the choices they want easier, as much as possible given limitations. If people make choices you don't agree with, you respect them and work around them. This is because one of the primary pillars of ethics in medicine is autonomy, and choice is a representative of autonomy. My body, my choice and all that. It's not frivolous, and even if you made the "wrong" choice for whatever your objectives are, it's not the place of the caregiver to dole punishment.
this is not how abortion, and reproductive healthcare have ever worked, in this or any other country i'm aware of, and is an incredibly male perspective, imo
male doctors wouldn't even listen to midwives about washing their hands before surgery
i mean, holy shit, this was another thing i learned about in without apology, there are still people walking around crippled by this shit, years after c-sections were common everywhere else
I hope you'll someday encounter an OB with their head on straight
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Posts
That video is talking about things like income equality and housing access. Please by all means do a comparison on the actual thread topic and see what the results are. Because you don't find Dems trying to pass "lol guess you die now" laws.
You mean this Hyde Amendment?
https://time.com/6085444/hyde-amendment-spending-bills-congress/
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1172/vote_117_2_00065.htm
The context you're missing is like many other issues, the parties have been changing on this for a long time. You cannot talk about positions from the 70s and expect them to be relevant to 2000, let alone now.
p124, Without Apology
the book is free and I've already thrown out multiple data points in this thread that you just breezed on by, it is impossible to explain 50 years (centuries really) of history more concisely
i'm not sure if that was exactly the section where the specific campaign was referenced, but that's the section about language and the history of the democratic party's neoliberal retreating action on this
y'all go through more words regularly on this board, this thread is already almost as long as the book (by page count, many more words)
this is what the activists from back then (who succeeded) are saying, this is what the activists today (that are connecting people with abortions) are saying, i really don't care about pew research's hyper-granular polling when this is all in living memory for many people
the fight over the OTC pill, which the author of Without Apology helped spearhead, was in the aughts, actually
and like i said in my initial post about what there is to do, and what i'm currently working on in my own state, a lot of these conservative democrats were placed in power after 2008, by obama's people
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Insulin costs, off the top of my head.
On top of the myriad ways our healthcare system still bankrupts a shitton of people in ways that are unheard of in the rest of the industrialized world
No one is saying “the ACA did absolutely nothing,” but it’s not absurd to note it didn’t go anywhere approaching far enough, and it by no means addressed the core issue that makes US healthcare so unworkable a project: gate keeping access to care by the ability to individually afford care
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Look if you just read the book, and no I'm not going to tell you what it said, you would know im completely right. This groundbreaking and completely accurate book supports what I'm saying here so obviously I don't even need to make my own argument. Q.e.d.
Sorry to paraphrase but can people actually say what they think and mean instead of telling me to go read a book? There are lots of books that say lots of things. I'm sure your book is a good one probably. But if you can't do more than say go read it or quote a passage here and there with a 'see, I am completely right' it's kinda a :shrug: for any actual debate or discussion.
I'm not trying to discuss a book you read a while back or a twitter rando quote or some blogger named shawn. I'm here to debate and discuss other forumers.
Just saying this in contrast to other folks who say they aren't interested in learning more about subjects and just wanna debate other forumers.
I mean it's cool to recommend a book!
Just dont refuse to engage and say "go read the book, it's really good". Its like telling someone to go watch a 90 minute YouTube video because it answers all their questions.
If you can't defend your position or make a point without referring to a book you are recommended but nobody else has even read, or turn that book you read into meaningful discussion it's really not more than a book people can add to the long list of books they don't have X hours to sit and read.
I'm really not seeing much supporting the idea that the pro-choice label is an issue. It's only mentioned specifically once. Mostly when the author is raging against "choice" they are talking in economic terms and not about the pro-choice label. Nor does their arguments about destigmatization of the word abortion seem all that relevant to the label.
I can't say the arguments there were so difficult or necessary that it required the annoyance of downloading an epub and getting it running on a laptop either.
I'm also not sure why you feel the need to dismiss attempts to understand the complex nature of people's thoughts on the issue of abortion.
I have found that "go read this" usually results in me going "oh my god this is the worst thing I've read in months" so I have stopped doing so. It is often a huge waste of time.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I've found a lot of books that have been recommended in topical threads are good and interesting reads, with a good amount of slogs or pure garbage mixed in. I'll cut anyone who recommends I ever read Marx or Rand again.
But my backlog is appreciably long and I make the effort but even then sometimes it's hard to read a thread to current before I post. Sometimes it'll be days or weeks before I feel I'm caught up and up to speed enough to contribute to a topical thread.
A recommended book is always noted and I do a quick Goggle cliffsnotes on it, but I simply don't have the time or energy to read every long form story, blog post, or book that everyone recommends before participating in discussion. To say nothing of videos or someone saying a given rando blogger or twitter posters who isn't even posting here should be read up on.
If you can't even say what you think and why X source supports that, why are you bringing that source in? Sure sometimes someone says something so eloquently that their quote is worthwhile, but if you can't express why in your own words it's just low effort aggregation.
because you are parroting the conservative talking points that have lead us to this moment in time, where RvW is gone
i have explained why the language is important, @Lanz has elaborated on that, i gave an outline about all the work i am currently involved in, and pointed out that radical feminist activists running abortion funds in the south, historically very dangerous work, have said the same thing in trainings i have been in, because this work is new to me too, and i have been doing a lot of catching up since the decision leaked
it was literally the first thing the representative from the tampa bay abortion fund said
y'all pushed back against this and said "nuh-uh" so i pointed you in the direction of a multiple concise and easily digestible summaries of the history of these arguments and this struggle
i am not your personal research assistant, and it isn't even possible to cite a lot of people actively involved in this work right now, because they are not safe being publicly known
it's the language of the enemy, it's there to make people feel icky and personally conflicted about a routine medical procedure
that should be enough
As Funsworth cites, from again a book that is completely free in ebook format straight from the publisher, right now:
In other words, by formulating abortion as an issue of “choice,” instead of being an enabling, liberating force of personal bodily autonomy, the existing systems we live in warp it, commodify it. It is your “choice” to get an abortion like it is your “choice” as to whether you want to have dinner at Applebee’s or Taco Bell.
But the reality is that, abortion isn’t a choice. You’re talking about having to carry a fetus to term over a period of nine months, incurring any number of medical impacts onto you, some temporary, some for life, and some that may be mortal threat to your life because pregnancy in humans has countless different ways it can go sideways hard. And that’s not taking into account the social impacts on your life for those 9 months!
Abortion isn’t a choice any more than if my appendix bursts that getting an emergency appendectomy is a choice. Sure, I can “choose” not to get one, and then I will probably suffer sepsis and die.
Abortion is a necessary and legitimate medical procedure. No one ever talks about how they want appendectomies to be “safe, legal and rare;” you don’t carry a stigma culturally for having had your appendix removed. And we should treat Abortion as just as legitimately as any other medical procedure instead of making these carve outs that inevitably still feed into our notions of what should constitute what is worthy of cultural shame.
And that is why it is better to retire the “pro-choice” rhetoric and instead focus on being pro-abortion.
When in reality their views don't have any strong ideological grounding. It's not my "choice" to get an abortion, it's my fucking right because we have bodily autonomy.
The excerpt seems to framing the problem with presenting abortion as a choice as one of deception - it’s not a choice for most people because it costs money and time (more money), but by calling it a choice we get to extract wealth and dole out guilt to folks with minimal resources. And, even then, it’s a ‘choice’ that the state may revoke if it decides that more offspring are needed. That’s all a solid criticism of what America sells as freedom and ties in elegantly into a lot of other bullshit we pretend means we have worthwhile rights when most of us really don’t.
But that’s not about the necessity of basic medical care, which I agree abortion should be. And I think a lot of back and forth could have been avoided by simply making the case that pro-choice is the wrong language to use because it’s a lie sold by a coercive state to make people feel like they have more control over their lives than they do.
Again, an angle I find reasonably persuasive, but that’s also separate from what is effective in persuading the great mass of people that is America. Because the illusion of choice sells here. Meaning, frankly, I’m not sold on the idea that we can educate ourselves out of this if we just give people the right framework, because that’s not what our species seems to be. Intellectually convincing arguments aren’t inherently the clear path to victory in my eyes because the vast majority of people in my experience don’t approach life that way, and that includes people such as myself that like to think we do.
It's your right to choose what you want to do with your body. That's the whole point of the position and always has been.
To be clear, you don’t then see the deception as one that also encompasses how our society typically depicts and understands pregnancy with the medical burdens of that reality?
Like yes, the two sections cited primarily are talking about the financial cost aspects, but I feel the medical aspects go hand in hand with that as well. By and large Americans are culturally conditioned to think of pregnancy as a great, wonderful thing and not a burdensome experience that the human body is just barely equipped to handle given how we evolved (seriously, even if we’ve managed all this time to populate seven billion of us concurrently on the planet, pregnancy and childbirth is horrid in regards to the stresses it places on the body, even compared to other mammalian life).
Those wouldn’t go away if we removed the financial burden aspects, and from them alone abortion would still need to be considered a normal and legitimate medical procedure.
But, as with the financial aspects, America culturally is conditioned to never consider that aspect of the equation, and the choice framing, at best, inadvertently clouds that reality.
I also ... kind of don't understand that excerpt? Seems like in the US, the poor don't really currently have a choice regarding having children because of socioeconomic factors. Abortion is inseparable from these factors, and without improving all of them, choice cannot exist. This makes the freedom of choice a very ambitious goal, greater in scope than abortion: do you have the freedom to choose your future?
So basically democrats are aiming too high, and we shouldn't expect to ever have true choice?
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Is it my choice to get an appendectomy when my appendix bursts, or to get bypass surgery when my heart goes to shit?
No one talks about any other medical procedure like this. By continuing to use the choice framing, we continue to cede ground to the idea that there is something different about abortion that should render it more controversial
Like we all understand the well meaning intention of the framing. But at this point it is inadequate to our needs regarding communicating the value and importance of abortion as a medical procedure.
These aren’t choices. These are needs.
this is one the things i actually learned from without apology
i already knew that the jewish religious conception of life starts at first breath
what i didn't know was that english law used to be similar, with life starting at "quickening" which is not conception, but after the fetus starts moving
the whole thing is a retcon that only appeared in the last couple centuries, and only gained traction when republicans needed a wedge issue that wasn't blatantly racist post-southern strategy
other than that, legislation before RvW around reproductive justice was mostly centered around migrant panics
women and other people that need abortions are already there, and have been since the beginning
again, one of the major events that preceded the passage of RvW was illegal speakouts where women discovered the stigma around abortion was actually what made them feel bad, and that most of them felt profound relief after their abortions
and we're talking illegal, shady abortions of varying quality that sometimes had severe medical consequences
this issue polls better than felon voting or increasing the minimum wage in florida, which are both ballot initiatives we passed successfully previously
you got half the population that are at least a little anxious about this, you don't really gotta sell it, you just gotta find and activate people to ramp up the pressure
I think that’s an interesting angle too, but not one I’m necessarily seeing in the text you pulled (but I’d like to read the full thing to know if that gets wrapped in - it’s possible I just don’t see the threads that are there). I’m inclined to separate the issues based largely on the fact I think misogynistic inertia and an intense distrust of change drives people’s views in this area more than anything else.
But I am very much in agreement that we societally deny the reality of what pregnancy is like and the risks it entails.
This framing seems incredibly dangerous to me because it can easily be manipulated into sounding like it only wants to protect abortion when the mother's health depends on it.
this is really dumb blue-on-blue
ed: "anti-choice" in lieu of "pro-life" I think offers a lot more utility, if we're going this route
nope
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/state/florida/views-about-abortion/
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
*raises hand* hi, I'm one of that 56%, except I think that trying to New Coke this is dumb and dilutes our messaging
Under the current framing, yes you see that result. If you change the question wording you could easily get dramatically different results. My bet is you would, especially among the religious but historically Democratic demographics (white Catholics and black churchgoers), but I don't know if anyone's ever phrased it that way in a poll.
Unrelated: the way those crosstabs are presented is asinine.
That’s why I mentioned the fact that even when it’s not a threat, there are still medical impacts on the life of the pregnant individual, not to mention the non-medical impacts to their life that arise from having to be burdened with carrying a fetus to term over nine months.
yeah i fucking hate pew, but it's more conservative than the more recent polling data i have and i know people here respect it as a source
Lots of medical procedures are talked about in terms of choice, though. Whether you are talking about cosmetic surgeries, to undergo chemo and radiation, or to have a risky surgery when you are at an advanced age and already in poor health.
Obviously, but you know swing voters.
I guess the disconnect is that choice is sacred in medicine. It's the responsibility of medical caregivers to help their patients make choices. To inform them of their choices and to make the choices they want easier, as much as possible given limitations. If people make choices you don't agree with, you respect them and work around them. This is because one of the primary pillars of ethics in medicine is autonomy, and choice is a representative of autonomy. My body, my choice and all that. It's not frivolous, and even if you made the "wrong" choice for whatever your objectives are, it's not the place of the caregiver to dole punishment.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
this is not how abortion, and reproductive healthcare have ever worked, in this or any other country i'm aware of, and is an incredibly male perspective, imo
male doctors wouldn't even listen to midwives about washing their hands before surgery
i mean, holy shit, this was another thing i learned about in without apology, there are still people walking around crippled by this shit, years after c-sections were common everywhere else
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/12/symphysiotomy-irelands-brutal-alternative-to-caesareans
I hope you'll someday encounter an OB with their head on straight
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.