The Effect of "Abortion Rights" on the Political Landscape

[loudgroove]

No, trivializing the fact that the 9 months of pregnancy costs the birth mother in terms of steadily diminishing capacity and capability in her professional and personal life as well as her overall health. To pretend that that is not a consideration in choosing not to carry to term and give up for adoption is disingenuous

I'm certainly not defending the decision, but neither am I pretending that everyone can afford to be progressively more limited in their personal and professional lives for most of a year and then at the end take weeks off in most likely unpaid maternity leave

I know I can be a little too opinionated at times. I can also understand and respect the fact that a lot of people might not share my views but...

I have known many couples that had an impossible time conceiving. This includes a sister, a nephew, and another nephew's wife. and many friends that couldn't. My nephew and his wife paid a lot of money with a shot therapy trying to get her fertile enough to conceive. And also able to go full term with a child. And keep in mind that was with about a 40% chance that it would work. Then all the couples trying to adopt! The hoops and money spent they all went thru to try it. With only one these couples that got a child!! Then there was what my high school girlfriend did all because she didn't want to be known as one of the girls that got pregnant in high school!!! In all essence this is vanity. And I to this day still hate her for what she did! So as you can see this subject hits very close to home with me.

Sometimes you get delt a crappy hand. That's life. But it's what you do with that hand that defines what kind of person you are. Me personally I don't believe abortion should be used unless it is medically necessary. That life never asked to be here. And to extinguish it because it is inconvenient should be viewed as immorally wrong and called murder. There is always a better way. It's just society have become too lazy to look for it. But hey this is only my opinion, and everyone is intitled to their own to take to their graves with them.

 

[KLB]

Then all the couples trying to adopt! The hoops and money spent they all went thru to try it. With only one these couples that got a child!!

Do you think they all failed to adopt a child because there are a lack of children that need to be adopted?

 

[loudgroove]

Do you think they all failed to adopt a child because there are a lack of children that need to be adopted?

TBH, I don't know. I don't ask people certain personal questions unless they start that conversation. I just know they all complained about the requirements of updating their houses and processes they were having to go thru. One of my friends was at one time talking about adopting an Indian baby because the laws and requirements in India were less cumbersome.

 

[oze]

TBH, I don't know. I don't ask people certain personal questions unless they start that conversation. I just know they all complained about the requirements of updating their houses and processes they were having to go thru. One of my friends was at one time talking about adopting an Indian baby because the laws and requirements in India were less cumbersome.

The process was, umm, unpleasant, as was the cost.

 

[loudgroove]

The process was, umm, unpleasant, as was the cost.

Am I telling your story?

 

[oze]

Am I telling your story?

Not exactly, but the feeling is there.

 

[KLB]

Am I telling your story?

Damn dude. He isn't allowed to relate?

 

[KLB]

Not exactly, but the feeling is there.

My brother and his wife tried to adopt. I guess he overshared about his youth. Something about a house with two parents making a good living wasn't good enough.

They really need to redo the whole adoption process, especially if they want to have more children that need to be adopted.

Of course it seems to be easier to get people to adopt babies.

 

[BugI02]

Sometimes you get delt a crappy hand. That's life. But it's what you do with that hand that defines what kind of person you are. Me personally I don't believe abortion should be used unless it is medically necessary. That life never asked to be here. And to extinguish it because it is inconvenient should be viewed as immorally wrong and called murder. There is always a better way. It's just society have become too lazy to look for it. But hey this is only my opinion, and everyone is intitled to their own to take to their graves with them.

I quite agree with this, where we diverge is you seem to feel that because someone else wants a baby that will influence a complete stranger to undergo what amounts to a nine-month progressively disabling illness on only that motivation. To believe that is likely if there is another option is naive. It takes an extraordinary individual to have that much compassion

I would much rather that those who wish to engage in sexual relations acted on their concern about how difficult a pregnancy would be for them BEFORE it happened, but I am not naive enough to believe people will stop having sex. The only hope I see is a Christian re-awakening with people once again following The Book. I fear it might take the Tribulation to bring that about this time, and I pray that there is some other path out of the trap we find ourselves in. I think many, many people are in for a rude awakening when they stand in judgement

 

[loudgroove]

I quite agree with this, where we diverge is you seem to feel that because someone else wants a baby that will influence a complete stranger to undergo what amounts to a nine-month progressively disabling illness on only that motivation. To believe that is likely if there is another option is naive. It takes an extraordinary individual to have that much compassion

I only mentioned adoption as it's an alternative to what I call murder in this case. I am under no illusion that a lot of people's morals aren't selfish these days. I see it all the time.

 

[ljk]

They really need to redo the whole adoption process, especially if they want to have more children that need to be adopted.

Of course it seems to be easier to get people to adopt babies.

If the "They" you meant was the government, no they don't want to streamline the adoption process, The more kids stuck in the foster care system, the more funding "They" got, the better their job security is.

The system is designed and operated around the bureaucrat's benefit, not the kids, there is no incentive for the government people. More kids getting adopted out, means less money for the bureaucrats.

Always follow the money.

Plus, private adoption is lucrative business, they've got plenty of lobbying power both at federal and local levels.

 

[Twangbanger]

No, trivializing the fact that the 9 months of pregnancy costs the birth mother in terms of steadily diminishing capacity and capability in her professional and personal life as well as her overall health. To pretend that that is not a consideration in choosing not to carry to term and give up for adoption is disingenuous

I'm certainly not defending the decision, but neither am I pretending that everyone can afford to be progressively more limited in their personal and professional lives for most of a year and then at the end take weeks off in most likely unpaid maternity leave

Yes...

I know I can be a little too opinionated at times. I can also understand and respect the fact that a lot of people might not share my views but...

I have known many couples that had an impossible time conceiving. This includes a sister, a nephew, and another nephew's wife. and many friends that couldn't. My nephew and his wife paid a lot of money with a shot therapy trying to get her fertile enough to conceive. And also able to go full term with a child. And keep in mind that was with about a 40% chance that it would work. Then all the couples trying to adopt! The hoops and money spent they all went thru to try it. With only one these couples that got a child!! Then there was what my high school girlfriend did all because she didn't want to be known as one of the girls that got pregnant in high school!!! In all essence this is vanity. And I to this day still hate her for what she did! So as you can see this subject hits very close to home with me.

Sometimes you get delt a crappy hand. That's life. But it's what you do with that hand that defines what kind of person you are. Me personally I don't believe abortion should be used unless it is medically necessary. That life never asked to be here. And to extinguish it because it is inconvenient should be viewed as immorally wrong and called murder. There is always a better way. It's just society have become too lazy to look for it. But hey this is only my opinion, and everyone is intitled to their own to take to their graves with them.

Some good viewpoints here. This is getting away from the political landscape topic, but I think one of the main reasons there aren't kids to adopt is staring us right in the face, but we miss it: the mothers simply keep the kid and raise it. Often in sub-optimal circumstances. Decades ago, the shame of being an "unwed mother" along with financial considerations drove a lot of young women to give up their children for adoption.

Today, when a young girl gets knocked up, her mother, sisters, and friends throw her a celebration baby shower...then the Federal Government (aka taxpayer) pays her SNAP/WIC/AFDC if she keeps the kid. We, the taxpayers, are essentially paying to keep that baby in the hands of the woman who birthed it. That's probably why you don't have adoptable babies. I don't think that was the case, at least to the same extent, back in the days when you had government orphanages full of adoptable kids.

The babies aren't all getting aborted, but the mothers who put in the work to bring the child to term, sure as he** ain't putting him/her up for adoption. It is a heck of a job to be pregnant and bear the child, and women aren't going to do it for nothing (ie, "give it away"). Not when keeping the baby gets them sympathy and a federal check.

It's not workable, but if you really wanted to encourage availability of babies for adoptions, the government would "tote up" the combined expenditure of AFDC/WIC/SNAP and whatever other welfare assistance is out there, and make it policy that that money would still be paid to the woman if she brought the baby to term, then placed it up for adoption. Of course, the moral hazard of this is it basically gets the Federal government in the business of paying women to be "wombs-for-hire." But I have no doubt it would work, if that was your goal.

 

[AndreusMaximus]

Do you think they all failed to adopt a child because there are a lack of children that need to be adopted?

My wife and I were looking to adopt at one point, and we were told that for every child that comes up for adoption in the U.S., there are 20-30 couples trying to adopt the child. Googling just now I couldn't find a reliable-looking source, but most numbers I see thrown around are even higher than that.

Many people get confused because they constantly hear phrases like "half a million children in foster care" and they think that means there's way more children out there needing adoption than there are couples to take them. But the foster care system is not about adoption. So many people will talk about foster parents as if they are "adopting" the children they foster, but for 99% of them, this isn't the case. I see this incorrect terminology used in so many articles and discussions, both online and in-person, that sometimes I have to wonder if there isn't an effort to purposefully mislead the public.

To help clear it up for anyone who doesn't understand: Foster children are temporary wards of the state who are looking for a temporary home. The foster parents are not adopting the foster child; they are simply providing a temporary place for the child to live. The state may order the child to go back to his/her parents, or other family, at any point in time. The foster parents are extremely micromanaged in how they care for the child: They must send the child to public school, they may not attempt to impart any sort of religious education to the child, there are rules regulating how they must store firearms and ammunition in their house, and a million other things. Also, they must keep their house constantly open to a surprise inspection at any point by a government worker to make sure they are following all the rules.

Now, to be clear, there are foster children who come up for adoption, typically when the state decides that they are never going back to their biological family. But you can't just adopt one of those children, you have to first go through the whole process of becoming a foster parent, open up your home to temporary foster children, and then wait and hope that a child will eventually come up in your area who you can adopt, or that maybe one of the children you are temporarily fostering will become eligible for adoption.

Even with all these hurdles, most adoption-eligible foster care children still end up being adopted; the majority who have difficultly finding homes are either old enough that by the time the adoption process would be completed, they'd have almost reached adulthood anyways, or else they have some kind of special needs that make it difficult for the average couple to take care of them. These children, sadly, typically get stuck in the foster care system (numbers I've seen are as high as over 100,000 right now) for long periods of time. You'll see number like an average of 3 years for adoption-eligible children to get adopted out of the foster care system, but the average doesn't mean much, since typically the wait is much shorter for healthy, younger children, and much longer for special needs children or teenagers.

So do we have a shortage of children to adopt in this country? Of newborn children who aren't in the foster care system, yes, there are way more couples wanting to adopt than there are children coming up for adoption. Most families I've personally known who adopted managed to do so by getting in contact directly with a pregnant woman who was considering adoption, and having her agree to let them adopt the baby when she gave birth.

If the "They" you meant was the government, no they don't want to streamline the adoption process, The more kids stuck in the foster care system, the more funding "They" got, the better their job security is.

The system is designed and operated around the bureaucrat's benefit, not the kids, there is no incentive for the government people. More kids getting adopted out, means less money for the bureaucrats.

Always follow the money.

Plus, private adoption is lucrative business, they've got plenty of lobbying power both at federal and local levels.

To be fair, it's not only the government making the process purposefully difficult. Half the equation is the difficulty in jumping through the hoops required to become a foster parent, but the other half is people not being interested in adopting children past a certain age, or children with special needs.

Strangely, it seems like newborns with special needs still find many couples willing to adopt, but once they hit toddler-aged or so, people become more hesitant. I don't know why that is, or if it's even really the case or just a false impression I have.

But yes, our country does have a shortage of couples willing to adopt and care for special-needs children, I'll grant that.

 

[Ingomike]

The Ohio Loss Shows Pro-Lifers Must Fight In The Trenches

Pro-lifers must work diligently to shift public opinion against abortion, but they neglect the current political reality at their peril.

thefederalist.com

 

[AndreusMaximus]

The Ohio Loss Shows Pro-Lifers Must Fight In The Trenches

Pro-lifers must work diligently to shift public opinion against abortion, but they neglect the current political reality at their peril.

thefederalist.com

Good article.

I think it touches on something I've not really seen pointed out or articulated elsewhere, which is that attempting to not talk about abortion issues at all isn't a solution for Republicans, because then the other side just gets to control the narrative. Some have suggested that Republican candidates at the Federal level should just answer every abortion question with "That's for the states' to decide now, next question please" and essentially try to avoid the abortion question entirely, since it's a losing issue. But that's not really going to work, because the other side is trying their hardest to convince people that if Republicans are elected, they're going to outlaw abortion in every case, down to the pregnant raped 10-year-old. And if Republicans won't talk about the issue, then that narrative will win.

I like this article's strategy much better. Instead of avoiding the issue, or focusing on arbitrary numbers of weeks, let's talk about the extremes to which democrats want to push us. Let's talk about why we shouldn't have late-term abortions that involve ripping the limbs off of a baby capable of feeling pain, for purely elective reasons. Let's point out the specifics of the laws that Republicans actually are passing. It's notable that not a single state has banned abortion entirely, despite all the left-wing hysteria. If people actually hear the facts about what's going on with regards to abortion, it could very well become a winning issue for Republicans, instead of the other way around.

I hope our friend @LeftyGunner shows back up eventually, because among all the unanswered questions he left, the two I'm most curious about are: was he aware of the statistics showing that the majority of late-term abortions are elective, and if not, does that change his feeling towards them? And second, in his own words he said that late-term abortions should only happen in cases of medical necessity, so, isn't he essentially agreeing with Indiana's current law, at least as it regards late-term abortions?

 

[Shadow01]

I am trying to figure out if we as Christians are focused on one issue to the detriment of a host of issues that are also very important to our faith. The left is coming after our freedoms to speak, worship, and teach others to believe in Christ etc. What I am wrestling with; is the single focus on abortion causing us to lose the very tools and ability to battle abortion?

Much like many can’t bring themselves to vote for mean tweets, many can’t consider voting for someone that is afraid to be pro life first and for most. People are tired of being told they need to be “middle of the road” if they want to win. Compromise is a slow walk left. It always has been and it will always continue to be. The left never compromises. Why does the GOP feel they have too?

 

[SheepDog4Life]

Just my opinion on the "political landscape" of the abortion issue - the title of this thread.

Any ban on abortions prior to viability is counter the majority voter opinion in most places in this country. Why?

IMO, most people believe women have autonomy over their own bodies and prior to viability, the woman's body is physically "life support" for the blastocyst/fetus/baby and she has a right to "withdraw" that "life support". They understand that means that a human blastocyst/fetus/baby will die as a result.

They are pro-abortion, which by definition is the purposeful termination of pregnancy.

IMO, this is why complete ban, 6-week ban, 12-week ban and even 15-week bans are politically losing positions. Bigly in most places, not as much in some others.

It's why, even in red states like Ohio (and Kansas), the voters will approve a right to abortion versus a complete or near complete ban.

Somewhere around viability, this completely flips... part of it is because somewhere in the 2nd trimester, the "fetus" is unmistakably a human baby... not a clump of cells, not something that looks like a seahorse or an alien being... it's unmistakably a baby.

Another part is because an early birth would be a preemie with a chance a life separate from the mother's body as "life support".

A final part is that it is no longer simply an "abortion", the procedures change from "terminating" the pregnancy to first killing the fetus/baby before (or while) extracting it in pieces from the mother.

Anyhow, that is my take on the political landscape of abortion in the US:

1. Any bans during the first trimester are a political loser in most places... this is a "win the battle, lose the war" scenario because Dems will win and reverse this, like in Ohio, permanently.

2. Second trimester bans are a wash, somewhere between 15-20 weeks, the tide turns. During this period, the baby's sex can be determined, their skeleton is turning to bone, they are moving their arms and legs, they can hear, they can poop, etc. And, it "looks" exactly like a human baby.

3. Third term bans are a political "winner" most places because most people view the "fetus" as a baby. It can live without the mother. Period, full stop. Also, the procedures are different... it is no longer an "abortion" as simply terminating the pregnancy, expelling the fetus/baby, would result in a live birth, of a baby. To avoid this, the procedures require either killing it first, or chopping it up alive in the womb, or partially delivering it to harvest live organs... all ghastly chamber-of-horrors procedures.

Regardless of my beliefs, or yours, this is how I see the political realities of abortion in the US today.

 

[AndreusMaximus]

Just my opinion on the "political landscape" of the abortion issue - the title of this thread.

Any ban on abortions prior to viability is counter the majority voter opinion in most places in this country. Why?

IMO, most people believe women have autonomy over their own bodies and prior to viability, the woman's body is physically "life support" for the blastocyst/fetus/baby and she has a right to "withdraw" that "life support". They understand that means that a human blastocyst/fetus/baby will die as a result.

They are pro-abortion, which by definition is the purposeful termination of pregnancy.

IMO, this is why complete ban, 6-week ban, 12-week ban and even 15-week bans are politically losing positions. Bigly in most places, not as much in some others.

It's why, even in red states like Ohio (and Kansas), the voters will approve a right to abortion versus a complete or near complete ban.

Somewhere around viability, this completely flips... part of it is because somewhere in the 2nd trimester, the "fetus" is unmistakably a human baby... not a clump of cells, not something that looks like a seahorse or an alien being... it's unmistakably a baby.

Another part is because an early birth would be a preemie with a chance a life separate from the mother's body as "life support".

A final part is that it is no longer simply an "abortion", the procedures change from "terminating" the pregnancy to first killing the fetus/baby before (or while) extracting it in pieces from the mother.

Anyhow, that is my take on the political landscape of abortion in the US:

1. Any bans during the first trimester are a political loser in most places... this is a "win the battle, lose the war" scenario because Dems will win and reverse this, like in Ohio, permanently.

2. Second trimester bans are a wash, somewhere between 15-20 weeks, the tide turns. During this period, the baby's sex can be determined, their skeleton is turning to bone, they are moving their arms and legs, they can hear, they can poop, etc. And, it "looks" exactly like a human baby.

3. Third term bans are a political "winner" most places because most people view the "fetus" as a baby. It can live without the mother. Period, full stop. Also, the procedures are different... it is no longer an "abortion" as simply terminating the pregnancy, expelling the fetus/baby, would result in a live birth, of a baby. To avoid this, the procedures require either killing it first, or chopping it up alive in the womb, or partially delivering it to harvest live organs... all ghastly chamber-of-horrors procedures.

Regardless of my beliefs, or yours, this is how I see the political realities of abortion in the US today.

Sounds like a pretty accurate description to me.

 

[Ingomike]

One belief I have observed on INGO repeatedly is that many of my conservative allies do not acknowledge that we are more conservative than most other people. While I like throwing the RINO word around I am way more conservative than most republicans I know. The republican party has a wide range of positions but has not mastered that lock step thing the dems have.

 

[BigMoose]

It's not a lost cause, it should just not be a priority until we have a very different political atmosphere.

Yes the concept would be like Punting.

In football you still always want to score, but you have to balance it by not giving the other guys easy chances to go.

So the GOP in going for it on Fourth Down when the tide is clearly against the GOP on Abortion, is giving the left stupidly easy chances to score (Win Elections, etc)

I can't put it any more simply then that.

GOP needs to punt on Abortion and work on other issues until the time is right.