Right to Life

Os Adoradores de Deus wrote:

I don’t understand. How would the democrats for example just suddenly be pro-life when it’s so deeply ingrained in our party lines, if you will, that democrats vote one way and republicans vote another?

That's the thing. I don't think abortion is a deeply ingrained partisan issue.

If you look at recent Gallup polls, about one-fourth of Democrats identify as "pro-life," and about one-fourth of Republicans identify as "pro-choice." If you go back to 1998, Democrats were split 52% "pro-choice" and 42% "pro-life," and Republicans were split 54% "pro-life" and 40% "pro-choice."

With abortion going back to the states, the national parties might have a political incentive to back off the abortion issue. To be more competitive, Democrats in Pennsylvania or Ohio, for example, might want to stop being the "pro-choice party" and start being the "blue-collar party" again. Republicans in New England, on the other hand, might want to stop being the "pro-life party" and start being the "anti-tax party" again.

In the not too distant past -- recent enough for the curmudgeons who lead the major parties to remember -- the Democrats were competitive in states such as Missouri, and the Republicans were competitive in states such as Oregon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election_in_Missouri
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election_in_Oregon

If they want those states to be competitive again, they might well offload the abortion issue onto the state parties. That's what they did before Roe, and they could start doing it again (or they might not for the reasons we've been discussing).

Roborian wrote:

My fear would be that it ends up being like gun control, but I disagree with the way that you see that issue. Republicans never making anything happen at the national level is certainly true, recency bias at play, we are not long at all removed from Democrats instituting a nationwide 'assault weapons' ban, that fortunately sunsetted, and nationwide NICS checks, unfortunately still in place, and we are less than a decade removed from a floor vote to put in expanded versions of both (one failing only via filibuster). The GOP could not even get a vote on a partial silencer de-regulation with control of both chambers.

The "assault weapons" ban became law only because seven Republican senators voted for it.

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1032/vote_103_2_00295.htm

I don't foresee a scenario, at least not in the near future, where seven Republican senators vote for abortion on demand.

Roborian wrote:

On abortion, we just saw Democrats go for a near-maximalist bill 'Women's Health Protection Act', which would 'overturn' Roe itself to require more abortion, up to nine months with a broad exemption, repealing state laws up to and including banning sex-selective abortions, and they both got all but one of their members on board, and managed to have the branding game utterly falsely claim that it just codified Roe. I doubt Republicans could put together anything so coordinated or unanimous, but I fully expect Democrats to attempt to push such a bill repeatedly, though (hopefully) they will have no more success with such votes than they have with pushing gun votes recently.

I know that the standard procedure is for supporters of either side to think that the reason they lose is that their side does not wield power, and the other side does, but I think there is pretty good evidence to build the assumption that Democrats in Congress would likely be much more aggressive than Republicans in a post-Roe world, though if the filibuster survives, which I tend to think it will, probably not particularly successful from that aggression.

I think the filibuster is important. Right now, the only real national abortion policies we have are: (1) the Medicaid program funds abortions in cases of maternal life, rape, and incest, and (2) federal law criminalizes partial-birth abortions. Outside those two policies, I don't envision much change on national abortion laws. Although, I do expect that some (or most) Democrats will try to smuggle in taxpayer-funded abortions as a spending item under the budget reconciliation process.

Roborian wrote:

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To be fair, some of those Republicans voting yes were from states like Rhode Island, Delaware, and Vermont (and Maine) I would call this more a matter of the kind of sorting and abolition of the middle that has taken place since then than anything else (Collins, the only GOPer in New England, is pushing an actual codification of Roe, the "Reproductive Choice Act", though she has not yet gone all the way into the Democrat nine-month abortion bill).

I agree fully as it comes to Congress, any change on abortion would have to be on the fringes or with budgetary tricks, but I think, especially in a scenario where the filibuster survives, that you may well see more action in the executive branch (just as it is now the centerpiece of gun control rather than Congress). It really depends on whether you have a Republican who is willing to go to the mat, but I would expect, at the bare minimum, fights over approval of abortion pills, and it may well get into wars of regulations and funding conditions depending on who is in office, particularly with a deadlocked Congress and a Chevron-slanted Court.

Though really, in that scenario, I think we would start to see even more of the individual judges issuing nationwide injunctions to gum up the works that we see more and more frequently, which is a mess in and of itself, that really does not have a long-term solution without Congress reclaiming some of its power that it bestowed upon the executive branch, or a far stricter Court standard towards executive rulemaking.

Of course, if the Democrats are foolish enough to destroy the filibuster, then all of that is irrelevant, and we get into what would likely be the most heated and chaotic swings between elections that we have yet seen as a country, if with 50+1 the country can go from nationwide abortion requirements to nationwide abortion bans. I do really think that the Democrat leadership is shortsighted enough to make that dumb of a move, but I do not think that they will get the opportunity unless 2018 really flips backwards.

Nuking the filibuster really leaves one of two scenarios, both bad, either the GOP not gumming up the spine to make abortion legislation after it is put into place post-nuking, or a dramatic escalation of political tensions and division of the type that seems far too likely to start leading to actual violence and political seccessionism and/or nullification.

Abortion by mail is already a federal crime. It's just a matter of time before state AGs sue the FDA to withdraw its recent abortion pill order.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1461

And FedEx and UPS won't carry abortion pills, unless they want to be sued into oblivion.

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A more difficult issue will be the off-label use of emergency contraceptives (EC) as abortifacients. No doubt, some women will try to take 20 EC pills to induce abortion, and some pharmaceutical companies will tacitly encourage that off-label use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulipristal_acetate#Pregnancy

It's entirely foreseeable that at least one state will pass a law that limits the dispensing of ECs and prohibits straw purchases. Planned Parenthood and company will say: "See, we told you that they would be coming after your contraception next!" The state will respond: "Our limit of 4 or 5 ECs per customer per month is totally reasonable. Who needs more than that?"

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Regarding the nuclear option, it's probably also just a matter of time before some self-appointed, bipartisan group of congressmen proposes a constitutional amendment that would permanently hand abortion over to the states.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Life_Amendment#Scott_Amendment

Think Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, Bob Casey, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and Mitt Romney.

New Dolgaria wrote:

This is a bit off-topic, but am I right in assuming you would support such a measure? If so, can I ask why? I can't think of a legitimate reason for gun owners to have suppressors on their guns in order to defend themselves.

Sure thing: hearing loss. Even if we limit it solely to self-defense, touching off any round inside of a house, especially a rifle round, and double-especially in a shorter barrel, which is what you are more likely to have for a weapon for home defense, is not just loud, but capable of causing immediate permanent hearing loss levels of loud. Even a suppressed firearm is still way above stuff like OSHA maximum volume without hearing protection, but is merely painful rather than potentially causing permanent loss of function.

Though to be honest, self-defense would not be the main reason I would look/argue for for legal suppressors, I think it is sufficient on its own, but the main benefit of it would be for casual target shooting, and not just for the shooter. Outdoor shooting ranges are a hassle for nearby residents for the same reason as airports, noise, and widely available silencers would be a great help for that. Even something as simple as deregulating silencers just for little .22 caliber guns would do a lot of good for the plenty of older folks who have major, and often expensive, hearing loss because they spent their childhood shooting at tin cans or squirrel hunting. They are a nice benefit for everything from hunters limiting how badly a shot scares game a mile off, to being able to talk to your friends at the shooting range without trying to yell over gunshots and through heavy ear protection. The often-quoted line is that mufflers are required on cars, so why should they be illegal on guns? (They are, in fact, the exact same technology, invented by the same man, Hiram Percy Maxim, car mufflers are actually called 'silencers' in the UK).

Many European countries with much, much stricter gun laws than the U.S. make getting silencers far easier, and there is no real evidence of any spikes in crime with them over there any more than there are here. Suppressors, even homemade ones, which are pretty simple to make if you do not care about the law, are virtually never used in crimes-they're frankly inconvenient for them. Most gun crimes are committed with handguns, and a long, clunky suppressor is only really useful for home defense or target shooting, it makes carrying around a concealed gun actively harder. The only real use I hear some people bring up is for something like a professional sniper, which is really just silly levels of policymaking via movie, there literally has not been one since Kennedy. (And if you had a legitimate hitman, they would easily be capable of home-making one).

Sorry if that got a little longer than it should have been, but silencers/suppressors are an issue that I think there is actual legitimate easy ground for agreement on even for people who are very anti-gun, they're virtually useless for crime, do nothing to make a gun any deadlier, and are an active benefit in ways unrelated to being pro-gun, things like preventing hearing loss and benefiting people who live near shooting ranges. Even if they had nothing to do with self-defense, they would be a benefit if legal, even to people who do not own a gun at all. I think opposition to them mostly just comes from people, through no real fault of their own, believe movies that make suppressed guns sound like pop rocks, rather than louder than jackhammers, as they actually are. Disagreeing about something like how many rounds should be allowed in a magazine is certainly a gun rights/gun control argument, but I do not think silencers have to be.

I think mothers have a right to life.

Fruity Fruitcakes wrote:

I think mothers have a right to life.

You're right. They do, and sometimes you hear anti-abortion speakers minimizing the effects that even a healthy pregnancy has on the mother. That nonsense only legitimizes the claims that detractors make about the pro-life movement.

The fortunate thing is that we don't usually have to choose between the mother's life and the child's life. Abortions are rarely done out of concern for maternal health or life. And if a pregnancy does put the mother in danger, and the child is still healthy and growing, every effort should be made to save both lives and treat them as equally valuable. Neither should be saved at the expense of the other.