Republicans hope they can slide under the radar and appease both their socially liberal corporate base and their socially conservative religious base. Probably won't work in the long run.

The new Left is viciously fanatical. The Supreme Court has already effectively laid down transgenderism in their ruling that Americans (ostensibly) have a "right" to "define their identity":

"The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach," the Court declared, "a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity."
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obergefell_v._Hodges

Of course, these Justices are not oblivious to the Principle of Identity: Everything is what it is. They just vetoed it (or so they think).

I mean a six year old could see the stupidity in their ruling. The only restriction here is "within a lawful realm" but obviously that "lawful realm" is not the people's lawmaking power, because the people expressly declared again and again that same-sex unions were intrinsically unlawful. I mean they couldn't even get California to accept SSM.

But should I define myself as the Supreme Court, the liberal Justices will necessarily declare that this is not 'lawful'. Of course! What is 'lawful' is whatsoever happens to please them and tickle their fancy: that is the new "liberal."

Last edited by Timocrates (3/29/2016 12:38 pm)

A lot of pro-lifers argue that women shouldn't be punished for abortions. They suppose that women might be coerced or variously lied to. For instance, sometimes women become pro-life after having an abortion and seeing the remains of the fetus; I think it's possible for a woman to come to have the justified though false belief that a fetus isn't a human person, given the opacity of the forces communicating this. (Get on the phone with Planned Parenthood representative, who starts assuring you, who are very nervous and scared, that fetuses are just clumps of cells and the people who say otherwise are religious nutjobs who also try to get creationism taught in biology class.)

In a different culture, it might be practically impossible for such a belief to be justified, and that would have an impact on the culpability of women getting abortions. So I don't think punishing the mother is absurd, though I think it's inappropriate in our culture. I suppose that even now it is possible for someone to believe that fetuses are human persons and go ahead with an abortion; I also suppose that there are women who have unjustified beliefs that fetuses are nonpersons. But it's not possible to craft law around those cases.

(I think there are parallels here to debates a few months ago over attacks on abortion clinics--though it's slightly different. Mainstream pro-lifers uniformly condemn such attacks. Liberals responded that, if you think abortion is murder, then you can have no moral objection to attacks on abortion clinics.)

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

I must confess, I don't understand the furor over Trump's abortion comments. What is wrong with punishing women, as well as doctors, who get illegal abortions.

I don't understand. You understand the furor over Trump's abortion comments? By whom? It displeased both left and right-wingers in the U.S. They were furious for diametrically opposed reasons.

Moreover, Trump is known for his deliberately selective answering to parts of questions. Strictly speaking, he did (technically) say that a woman should be punished for having an abortion if it were illegal (d'uh); however, he can (and of course did) play the I'm-only-human card, and claim that necessarily if anything is against the law, then "there must be punishment." (Also d'uh).

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

It doesn't have to be done, and you probably wouldn't give them the same sort of sentence for murdering someone outside the womb.

Uh, no, if you wanted to end abortion tomorrow you threaten serious punishment. I'm not a Trumpite nor am I trying to sound misogynistic, but frankly to the credit of women they take corporal punishment much more seriously than men normally do. Death sentences don't even stop men from doing what is wrong. Women have much better sense.

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

But I don't see why, if the fetus is a person and having an abortion is killing an innocent person, and the act is illegal, the option of punishment for the mother is absurd.

It's not. And this is what Trump is playing to.

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

Obviously, you expect pro-choicers and a media who is largely pro-choice and sees these issues through a pro-choice lens to attack Trump, but he has also been attacked by pro-lifers.

Rightly. He says that PP "does great things." The only rationale for that for Trump is that they literally make a killing, killing.

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

Is this latter just PR, because it is not helpful to talk about punishing women at this point?

The only real fear is that women (and men who participated/colluded knowingly) will belatedly be punished for their abortions; however, Conservatives aren't like modern Progressives and can't even conceive of violating the law in that way (I mean, punishing people for doing what was once technically legal). Conservatives are simply too law-abiding in thought and nature to even conceive of this; however, let's see the mercy and clemency of leftists once transgenderism is forced down Americans throats on those who once opposed it (as is happening today to people who once opposed homosexual activity).

In reality, curing society of the plague of abortion is really quite easy: teach young people about it (rather than teaching them filatio at 9). I don't mean being graphic about it, I mean the fact that it is only when we become middle to late teens that we become psychologically divorced from the womb: women are even less susceptible to this than men. We don't tell kids that we tolerate abortions because that would horrify and terrify them. They don't (rightly and literally naturally) see a difference (between it and them). That's one.

The second thing to do is to eliminate abortificients and prosecute anyone who produces such poisons or causes an abortion with instruments and charge them with murder.

Abortion would be gone in 10-20 years guaranteed. The reason is quite simply because it is the natural law. No one would be shocked that someone vacuumed into gunk a tiny baby in the womb was charged with murder. No one would be shocked that someone who provided poison that killed someone would be charged with murder.

Last edited by Timocrates (3/31/2016 11:24 pm)