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> You mention Roe, and that is the most clear example of the GOP's strategy to undermine democracy by legislating via Republican-appointed judges instead of ele

> You mention Roe, and that is the most clear example of the GOP's strategy to undermine democracy by legislating via Republican-appointed judges instead of elected law makers. To be fair, all Dobbs did was allow elected official to make the choice, and it was Roe that had Judges decide what the law was unilaterally for the whole country.

bayesian_horse 4y ago
It's not democracy for elected officials to take certain rights away from a minority. What those rights are has to be discussed on a constitutional level. It's pretty easy to see for the basic right to vote. Harder to see for voting restrictions and bodily autonomy issues like abortion. "Reproductive choice" is very high up there in terms of bodily autonomy and lack of harm - for women. Men often can't see it that way because they think it doesn't affect them. In any case, it is indecent, even undemocratic and unfree, to allow politicians in those "redneck" states to take away this bodily autonomy. And they do this against the wishes of the majority of their voters even, which makes this even more bizarre.
- adamrezich 4y ago
  women are not a minority
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    They might as well be in terms of political power. In a democracy a group or interest should have power according to their number. That's not how it works in practice though.
    - adamrezich 4y ago
      did you just exit a time portal from the 1920s or something? women have incredible amounts of power in contemporary US politics.
      - bayesian_horse 4y ago
        Then please take a look at how many women are in congress. How many senators. Especially on the republican side. Then tell me again how this looks like women have an equal chance to get there. What you perceive as "women have incredible amounts of power" is actually "feminists" (as in people who care about equal rights) raising a stink about that inequality. Or your perception how the status-quo is just as it should be and any attempts to change that are "going too far".
        adamrezich 4y ago
        what you perceive as "women having unequal chance to get [into Congress]" is actually just comparing the ratio of men to women in Congress, noting that it's not 1:1, and claiming that this somehow is indicative of institutionalized discrimination, and assuming that there are no other factors at play. my red state has a female governor. women vote more than men in many demographics. women are doing just fine when it comes to having political power.
        bayesian_horse 4y ago
        I don't have time to explain to you all the ways that equal rights haven't been achieved yet (and abortion is actually part of that) or all how that can be seen. Looking at the cold hard ratios across the board should tell everyone with an open minded that there still is a long way to go... If were just random factors or preferences you'd expect some legislatures to be MAJORITY female.
        adamrezich 4y ago
        > I don't have time to explain to you all the ways that equal rights haven't been achieved yet (and abortion is actually part of that) women don't have political equality with men, until all women decide to vote for something that you have ascertained to be in their best interests for them? …what??
        4y ago
    - rayiner 4y ago
      Women are the majority of voters in nearly every election in the country. The number of women in Congress isn't a good measure of women's political power, because many women prefer to have a man in the publicly visible role. My mom is a Democrat and thinks the President should be a man. That doesn't mean women "lack political power according to their number"--you just disagree with how they're exercising that political power.
      - bayesian_horse 4y ago
        You don't have any proof that women prefer men in power. You just assume that. And you probably lack any education about the gazillion things that even shape the choices those female electors have in that regard. Even if those women consistently think men are better in power: How come? Isn't that part of inequality just as well.
seanw444 4y ago
I find it very amusing that the "A Threat to our Democracy™" card gets pulled out, even when the context is repealing unilateral decisions and bringing the choice to a more local level. People should just be honest and start saying "A threat to ideas I like." At least then I wouldn't have to eyeroll so hard.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  All you are doing is saying that you do not believe abortion is essential medicine. If abortion is essential medicine, it SHOULD NOT be a decision made by little fiefdoms, it should be a right.
  - cmh89 4y ago
    It's not even about medicine. OP is saying that states (or even smaller) should get to decide if women get ownership over their bodies. Just change it to literally any other medical procedure and we can see it for what it really is. 'Kentucky bans women from having kidney stones removed'. Of course, its all in bad faith on the conservative side. The minute the federal government has the opportunity to ban abortion nationwide, these "states rights" and "local control" folks will either shut right up or they will come out and spin some nonsense about how its okay for the federal government to exert control over the states in this case.
  - skissane 4y ago
    In most countries, there is no constitutional right to abortion. Here in Australia, abortion is legal nationwide - but there is not and has never been any constitutional right to it; it went from illegal to legal, mostly due to state-by-state legislative reform, in a few cases assisted by non-constitutional state court decisions, such as the 1971 NSW District Court case which decided that the crime of abortion did not include an abortion performed by a medical practitioner with a good faith belief that it was clinically indicated-that decision was non-constitutional, it was purely an exercise in statutory interpretation, and the state Parliament could have easily overturned it by amending the legislation if they had disagreed with it. And, I think Australia is more representative of the average country with legal abortion than the US under Roe v Wade ever was. There’s an argument that by prematurely removing a controversial social issue from the democratic process, rather than letting that process run its natural course, Roe turned abortion into a much bigger “political hot potato” in the US than it is in most other countries. I think some version of that argument is probably right-in a timeline in which Roe had gone the other way, probably more US states would have legal abortion today than they do in this one. Roe motivated opponents of legal abortion to fight back in a way that a bunch of state-by-state legislative defeats probably never would have.

bayesian_horse 4y ago

It's not democracy for elected officials to take certain rights away from a minority. What those rights are has to be discussed on a constitutional level. It's pretty easy to see for the basic right to vote. Harder to see for voting restrictions and bodily autonomy issues like abortion. "Reproductive choice" is very high up there in terms of bodily autonomy and lack of harm - for women. Men often can't see it that way because they think it doesn't affect them. In any case, it is indecent, even undemocratic and unfree, to allow politicians in those "redneck" states to take away this bodily autonomy. And they do this against the wishes of the majority of their voters even, which makes this even more bizarre.

adamrezich 4y ago
women are not a minority
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  They might as well be in terms of political power. In a democracy a group or interest should have power according to their number. That's not how it works in practice though.
  - adamrezich 4y ago
    did you just exit a time portal from the 1920s or something? women have incredible amounts of power in contemporary US politics.
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
      Then please take a look at how many women are in congress. How many senators. Especially on the republican side. Then tell me again how this looks like women have an equal chance to get there. What you perceive as "women have incredible amounts of power" is actually "feminists" (as in people who care about equal rights) raising a stink about that inequality. Or your perception how the status-quo is just as it should be and any attempts to change that are "going too far".
      - adamrezich 4y ago
        what you perceive as "women having unequal chance to get [into Congress]" is actually just comparing the ratio of men to women in Congress, noting that it's not 1:1, and claiming that this somehow is indicative of institutionalized discrimination, and assuming that there are no other factors at play. my red state has a female governor. women vote more than men in many demographics. women are doing just fine when it comes to having political power.
        bayesian_horse 4y ago
        I don't have time to explain to you all the ways that equal rights haven't been achieved yet (and abortion is actually part of that) or all how that can be seen. Looking at the cold hard ratios across the board should tell everyone with an open minded that there still is a long way to go... If were just random factors or preferences you'd expect some legislatures to be MAJORITY female.
        adamrezich 4y ago
        > I don't have time to explain to you all the ways that equal rights haven't been achieved yet (and abortion is actually part of that) women don't have political equality with men, until all women decide to vote for something that you have ascertained to be in their best interests for them? …what??
        4y ago
  - rayiner 4y ago
    Women are the majority of voters in nearly every election in the country. The number of women in Congress isn't a good measure of women's political power, because many women prefer to have a man in the publicly visible role. My mom is a Democrat and thinks the President should be a man. That doesn't mean women "lack political power according to their number"--you just disagree with how they're exercising that political power.
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
      You don't have any proof that women prefer men in power. You just assume that. And you probably lack any education about the gazillion things that even shape the choices those female electors have in that regard. Even if those women consistently think men are better in power: How come? Isn't that part of inequality just as well.

seanw444 4y ago

I find it very amusing that the "A Threat to our Democracy™" card gets pulled out, even when the context is repealing unilateral decisions and bringing the choice to a more local level. People should just be honest and start saying "A threat to ideas I like." At least then I wouldn't have to eyeroll so hard.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mrguyorama 4y ago
All you are doing is saying that you do not believe abortion is essential medicine. If abortion is essential medicine, it SHOULD NOT be a decision made by little fiefdoms, it should be a right.
- cmh89 4y ago
  It's not even about medicine. OP is saying that states (or even smaller) should get to decide if women get ownership over their bodies. Just change it to literally any other medical procedure and we can see it for what it really is. 'Kentucky bans women from having kidney stones removed'. Of course, its all in bad faith on the conservative side. The minute the federal government has the opportunity to ban abortion nationwide, these "states rights" and "local control" folks will either shut right up or they will come out and spin some nonsense about how its okay for the federal government to exert control over the states in this case.
- skissane 4y ago
  In most countries, there is no constitutional right to abortion. Here in Australia, abortion is legal nationwide - but there is not and has never been any constitutional right to it; it went from illegal to legal, mostly due to state-by-state legislative reform, in a few cases assisted by non-constitutional state court decisions, such as the 1971 NSW District Court case which decided that the crime of abortion did not include an abortion performed by a medical practitioner with a good faith belief that it was clinically indicated-that decision was non-constitutional, it was purely an exercise in statutory interpretation, and the state Parliament could have easily overturned it by amending the legislation if they had disagreed with it. And, I think Australia is more representative of the average country with legal abortion than the US under Roe v Wade ever was. There’s an argument that by prematurely removing a controversial social issue from the democratic process, rather than letting that process run its natural course, Roe turned abortion into a much bigger “political hot potato” in the US than it is in most other countries. I think some version of that argument is probably right-in a timeline in which Roe had gone the other way, probably more US states would have legal abortion today than they do in this one. Roe motivated opponents of legal abortion to fight back in a way that a bunch of state-by-state legislative defeats probably never would have.