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To put it simply - restricting a woman's right to birth control or abortion is restricting a woman's freedom. They can couch it in religious terms but that is t

To put it simply - restricting a woman's right to birth control or abortion is restricting a woman's freedom. They can couch it in religious terms but that is the simplest way to demonstrate it. https://www.npr.org/2025/08/07/nx-s1-5494710/trump-birth-control-contraception https://www.npr.org/2025/08/07/nx-s1-5494710/trump-birth-con... In states with the GOP controls both houses of legislature and governor, the restrictions against abortion in cases of incest or rape or the obscene combination of the two show exactly where the United States is headed federally.

fruitworks 10mo ago
[flagged]
- gchamonlive 10mo ago
  That's no middle ground, that's the bare minimum.
  - fruitworks 10mo ago
    Bare minimum for what? Bare minimum to establish a political common ground or whatever?
    - gchamonlive 10mo ago
      Bare minimum for basic decency. You can't force someone to live with the result of rape forever on the grounds that a bunch of cells got the same rights as a fully grown human being.
- stevenwoo 10mo ago
  We already let rich people do eugenics in America. See Elon Musk with almost all male babies - this is astronomically against the odds if we assume 50/50 by chance. Also abortion for eugenics is inefficient and difficult for some women with physical and mental effects - only in the extenuating circumstances like China during one child period would it be viable. This is a side issue from the main point. Ethics in IVF and usage of abortion/Plan B (where it’s so early that it’s not practical for your eugenics idea) - a discussion we should have and have already skipped for IVF in the USA (where it’s more practical from theoretical standpoint for your eugenics point) but it's a distraction from the primary objective of conservative groups - to force women to have less power and choice in their lives. That is the question we see being answered once conservatives gain power to make legislation of their choice in states or via the Supreme Court in the USA.
  - rootusrootus 10mo ago
    > if we assume 50/50 by chance IIRC that is not a safe assumption. 50/50 is a population-wide statistic, but it's pretty common for individuals to have a substantially skewed probability for one gender of offspring or the other.
    - stevenwoo 10mo ago
      Your only point is to defend Elon Musk and never addressed the key point instead which is IVF can be used in the USA for eugenics as the other poster suggested abortions hypothetically would be in their horror scenario. Not every clinic but it's available and is not explicitly outlawed - it's only ethically and professionally dubious for certain scenarios. It's also much more practical that trying to use abortions for the same usage in terms of the mother's health.
      - rootusrootus 10mo ago
        > Your only point is to defend Elon Musk Huh? I'm just an interested party because my family has nearly all girls for an entire generation, so I have paid attention to research that shows how this happens. You seem to think it disagrees with a conspiracy theory. I don't care about that, I was just adding a bit of accuracy to the discussion. Carry on.
    - dekhn 10mo ago
      Are you saying that children's sex is heritable? I don't think there is any strong evidence for that (just weak evidence of tiny effects). Or are you just saying that for any 50/50 distribution, there will be some outliers that seem surprising, but are explained by simple statistics?
      - rootusrootus 10mo ago
        There are genetic and biological predispositions at the individual level that make some couples more likely to have one or the other gender children. So it is not at all surprising and there are many examples of parents having all boys or all girls, it does not mean they are selectively aborting to achieve a goal.
mothballed 10mo ago
The restrictions against abortion in case of something like rape, I think the thought is that the fetus's perceived right to life or perceived right to not be assaulted (chemically or physically) can't be deprived just because of a crime against the mother that was no fault of the fetus. I actually find abortion with no exception for rape to be far more ideologically pure position than abortion with exceptions for rape. The one that makes the least sense is restriction on abortion even in the case the fetus cannot survive. That one is far less defensible than not having a rape abortion exception as it can't be explained from the viewpoint of the rights of the mother nor from one of the rights of the fetus.
- cogman10 10mo ago
  > That one is far less defensible than not having a rape abortion exception It's defensible when you realize that forced pregnancy is viewed by many religious people as a punishment. "If you didn't want a baby, don't have sex" is very commonly heard in private conversations with religious people. Because pregnancy is a holy punishment, the consequences, even death, are seen as moral. This is also why the rape exception is more common than the medical exception. A mother dying because of an ectopic pregnancy or because she was too young to have a baby is god's will.
  - mothballed 10mo ago
    I've heard it as well, but after debating with a lot of people with anti-abortion views I think you've done yourself a huge disservice if you view that as the dominating argument against abortion. I initially held your viewpoint but after engaging a lot of people I realized they often had pretty similar views on life and liberty as mine, they just were looking at it from the viewpoint of the fetus rather than the mother. From that perspective it just doesn't make sense at all to make an exception for rape.
    - cogman10 10mo ago
      There's a big difference in what people debate publicly and what they think/feel privately. People will almost never take the "it's a punishment" position in a debate because that's not a popular position to hold and it's pretty weak morally at the end of the day. That's why the "life of the fetus" approach is most frequently taken even though it leads to absurd positions. For example, pro-life people will very often be put into a difficult position when the notion of IVF comes up. That's what betrays their true views, IMO. I've simply had a lot of private conversations with people on religion (I was mormon for a long time and served a mormon mission). That's where my opinion on the actual underlying anti-abortion attitude comes from. It's lots of private conversations in safe spaces. The fetus life, frankly, is almost never brought up as a reason. And, as I pointed out, it pretty well explains why anti-abortion laws have weird boundaries if they were purely about the life of the fetus.

fruitworks 10mo ago

[flagged]

gchamonlive 10mo ago
That's no middle ground, that's the bare minimum.
- fruitworks 10mo ago
  Bare minimum for what? Bare minimum to establish a political common ground or whatever?
  - gchamonlive 10mo ago
    Bare minimum for basic decency. You can't force someone to live with the result of rape forever on the grounds that a bunch of cells got the same rights as a fully grown human being.
stevenwoo 10mo ago
We already let rich people do eugenics in America. See Elon Musk with almost all male babies - this is astronomically against the odds if we assume 50/50 by chance. Also abortion for eugenics is inefficient and difficult for some women with physical and mental effects - only in the extenuating circumstances like China during one child period would it be viable. This is a side issue from the main point. Ethics in IVF and usage of abortion/Plan B (where it’s so early that it’s not practical for your eugenics idea) - a discussion we should have and have already skipped for IVF in the USA (where it’s more practical from theoretical standpoint for your eugenics point) but it's a distraction from the primary objective of conservative groups - to force women to have less power and choice in their lives. That is the question we see being answered once conservatives gain power to make legislation of their choice in states or via the Supreme Court in the USA.
- rootusrootus 10mo ago
  > if we assume 50/50 by chance IIRC that is not a safe assumption. 50/50 is a population-wide statistic, but it's pretty common for individuals to have a substantially skewed probability for one gender of offspring or the other.
  - stevenwoo 10mo ago
    Your only point is to defend Elon Musk and never addressed the key point instead which is IVF can be used in the USA for eugenics as the other poster suggested abortions hypothetically would be in their horror scenario. Not every clinic but it's available and is not explicitly outlawed - it's only ethically and professionally dubious for certain scenarios. It's also much more practical that trying to use abortions for the same usage in terms of the mother's health.
    - rootusrootus 10mo ago
      > Your only point is to defend Elon Musk Huh? I'm just an interested party because my family has nearly all girls for an entire generation, so I have paid attention to research that shows how this happens. You seem to think it disagrees with a conspiracy theory. I don't care about that, I was just adding a bit of accuracy to the discussion. Carry on.
  - dekhn 10mo ago
    Are you saying that children's sex is heritable? I don't think there is any strong evidence for that (just weak evidence of tiny effects). Or are you just saying that for any 50/50 distribution, there will be some outliers that seem surprising, but are explained by simple statistics?
    - rootusrootus 10mo ago
      There are genetic and biological predispositions at the individual level that make some couples more likely to have one or the other gender children. So it is not at all surprising and there are many examples of parents having all boys or all girls, it does not mean they are selectively aborting to achieve a goal.

mothballed 10mo ago

The restrictions against abortion in case of something like rape, I think the thought is that the fetus's perceived right to life or perceived right to not be assaulted (chemically or physically) can't be deprived just because of a crime against the mother that was no fault of the fetus. I actually find abortion with no exception for rape to be far more ideologically pure position than abortion with exceptions for rape. The one that makes the least sense is restriction on abortion even in the case the fetus cannot survive. That one is far less defensible than not having a rape abortion exception as it can't be explained from the viewpoint of the rights of the mother nor from one of the rights of the fetus.

cogman10 10mo ago
> That one is far less defensible than not having a rape abortion exception It's defensible when you realize that forced pregnancy is viewed by many religious people as a punishment. "If you didn't want a baby, don't have sex" is very commonly heard in private conversations with religious people. Because pregnancy is a holy punishment, the consequences, even death, are seen as moral. This is also why the rape exception is more common than the medical exception. A mother dying because of an ectopic pregnancy or because she was too young to have a baby is god's will.
- mothballed 10mo ago
  I've heard it as well, but after debating with a lot of people with anti-abortion views I think you've done yourself a huge disservice if you view that as the dominating argument against abortion. I initially held your viewpoint but after engaging a lot of people I realized they often had pretty similar views on life and liberty as mine, they just were looking at it from the viewpoint of the fetus rather than the mother. From that perspective it just doesn't make sense at all to make an exception for rape.
  - cogman10 10mo ago
    There's a big difference in what people debate publicly and what they think/feel privately. People will almost never take the "it's a punishment" position in a debate because that's not a popular position to hold and it's pretty weak morally at the end of the day. That's why the "life of the fetus" approach is most frequently taken even though it leads to absurd positions. For example, pro-life people will very often be put into a difficult position when the notion of IVF comes up. That's what betrays their true views, IMO. I've simply had a lot of private conversations with people on religion (I was mormon for a long time and served a mormon mission). That's where my opinion on the actual underlying anti-abortion attitude comes from. It's lots of private conversations in safe spaces. The fetus life, frankly, is almost never brought up as a reason. And, as I pointed out, it pretty well explains why anti-abortion laws have weird boundaries if they were purely about the life of the fetus.