Here is the text of what I'm asking the Lakeland City Commission on Monday to do about clarifying the brutalizingly unclear requirements of Jennifer Canady's 6-week forced birth law.
As someone who, as you are aware, opposes abortion, I find this effort to be reasonable and necessary. I know you aren’t in it for my kudos, but I still want to tell you I appreciate what you’re doing here.
I appreciate this very much, Scott. I do have a question that I think it would be good for you to answer for yourself as a person I think is actually very serious about trying to live as a citizen, according to your beliefs. Can you say "as someone who supports government forced birth, I ..."? With much respect, I don't think "as somoene who opposes abortion" has any meaning in this discussion because of its complete generality. I think I can say, "I oppose government forced birth except when the brutality done to the fetus outweighs the brutality done to the mother." I talked a bit about what that means in practice for me in an earlier article. I suspect, without knowing, that the only difference between you and me is how we interpret the balance of brutality. And I'm not even sure how big that difference would be. I would encourage you to work through government forced birth, not "abortion," as the specific issue at work here. You might find that clarifying too.
I think it is the height of arrogance for men to be deciding this issue of forced, unpaid labor. It is unconstitutional to force someone to provide work or a service without pay. Forced birth laws could be considered to be really close to chattel slavery.
See, I have the view that there is something owed from parents to their children that justifies a lot in requiring all sorts of care and “forced birth” is no more chattel slavery than child support is.
Child support never killed a man. Child birth has killed millions and millions and maimed millions and millions and millions more. I commend you starting to use forced birth, though, Scott. It helps us take the discussion out of the realm of platitude into reality. You can dropped the quotes, though. Government forced birth is literally the issue. It's not a talking point.
If a person commutes to work over the lifetime of a child, they have a far greater risk of dying in a car accident than the mother had in giving birth to the child, but as a society we would say that the risk of the commute is justified in supporting the welfare of that child. I think a society would be justified in saying that the good of the life of the child can outweigh the risk of childbirth.
Absolutely the forced-birth advocates have not given that any thought at all. They have not thought about the actual physical painn& suffering that such a child may suffer, they’ve not thought about the cost of care, nor the mental anguish of the mother or both parents.
They also have not bothered to factor in the increase in crime & homelessness that will occur about 14-15 yrs from now due to massive numbers of unwanted & often unloved children forced to be born.
I am totally convinced that they do not care about any of that.
Abortion should be carefully and thoroughly decided by a doctor consoling with a mother. Not by an insignificant and wrongly motivated politician. Such as we have in Florida.
Abortion is health care that government has no business being involved in. All decisions should be made by patients in consultation with doctors. No one else should have any impact on these decisions. Medical treatment is not public business. If you oppose abortion, great, don't have one. You have no right to impact the medical care of anyone else.
What the “pro-life” folks primarily object to is what could be termed “casual” abortion and sex without consequences. They vaguely recall the free love era or imagine college girls (mostly white) at drunken parties generating unintended pregnancies. They have a mental image of these women wanting to quickly dispose of the inconvenient fetus and get on with life with minimal disruption.
The irony of the 24 or 15 or even 6 week bans is that those abortions are the least affected. They promote the “Don’t stop to think about it, just get rid of it quick” mentality, leading to more rather than less.
They choose instead to inflict the brutality (an excellent word choice Billy) on women whose desired pregnancies have gone bad. Also those women in a genuine moral dilemma over an unintended pregnancy are brutally denied any opportunity for reflection on whether to continue. Again, all incentives are aligned to quickly terminate.
That idea they have in their heads is that women are just being irresponsible & are using abortion as birth control. It is a false narrative, pure propaganda, put out by the large anti abortion orgs who have been lying to the public for at least 4-5 decades. Most, not all, agonize over the decision, they do take it seriously.
It is a proven fact that good science-based sex ed provided in schools dramatically reduces teen pregnancies, but the same people who are so extremely anti abortion are also anti sex ed.
If free or very low cost contraception was made easily available, even just free condoms, that would decrease unintended pregnancy. The forced-birthers are also against that.
It makes no sense for a person to use abortion as birth control. Even just getting the kit with the 2 separate meds to induce an abortion online via telehealth costs at least $125-150 in addition to enduring the cramping from contractions.
If the pregnancy is past about 12 weeks, then the abortion pill isn’t an option & a suction evacuation is necessary & the cost shoots up to
$500-700 minimum.
Why would anyone choose that if they had easily available contraceptives?
As someone who, as you are aware, opposes abortion, I find this effort to be reasonable and necessary. I know you aren’t in it for my kudos, but I still want to tell you I appreciate what you’re doing here.
I appreciate this very much, Scott. I do have a question that I think it would be good for you to answer for yourself as a person I think is actually very serious about trying to live as a citizen, according to your beliefs. Can you say "as someone who supports government forced birth, I ..."? With much respect, I don't think "as somoene who opposes abortion" has any meaning in this discussion because of its complete generality. I think I can say, "I oppose government forced birth except when the brutality done to the fetus outweighs the brutality done to the mother." I talked a bit about what that means in practice for me in an earlier article. I suspect, without knowing, that the only difference between you and me is how we interpret the balance of brutality. And I'm not even sure how big that difference would be. I would encourage you to work through government forced birth, not "abortion," as the specific issue at work here. You might find that clarifying too.
I have lots of thoughts. I’m sure it would interesting to get together and chat about where we are each coming from sometime.
I can say that my views are heavily influenced by this book: What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics. Here is an excellent interview with the author if it’s of any interest to you. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o-carter-snead-what-it-means-to-be-human-the-case-for/id498978442?i=1000501816818
I think it is the height of arrogance for men to be deciding this issue of forced, unpaid labor. It is unconstitutional to force someone to provide work or a service without pay. Forced birth laws could be considered to be really close to chattel slavery.
See, I have the view that there is something owed from parents to their children that justifies a lot in requiring all sorts of care and “forced birth” is no more chattel slavery than child support is.
Child support never killed a man. Child birth has killed millions and millions and maimed millions and millions and millions more. I commend you starting to use forced birth, though, Scott. It helps us take the discussion out of the realm of platitude into reality. You can dropped the quotes, though. Government forced birth is literally the issue. It's not a talking point.
If a person commutes to work over the lifetime of a child, they have a far greater risk of dying in a car accident than the mother had in giving birth to the child, but as a society we would say that the risk of the commute is justified in supporting the welfare of that child. I think a society would be justified in saying that the good of the life of the child can outweigh the risk of childbirth.
Is our country prepared to care for sick sufferering deformed children that need 24 hour nursing care round the clock till end of life???
Absolutely the forced-birth advocates have not given that any thought at all. They have not thought about the actual physical painn& suffering that such a child may suffer, they’ve not thought about the cost of care, nor the mental anguish of the mother or both parents.
They also have not bothered to factor in the increase in crime & homelessness that will occur about 14-15 yrs from now due to massive numbers of unwanted & often unloved children forced to be born.
I am totally convinced that they do not care about any of that.
I know other women who were forced to give birth.
Peace, Prosperity & Quality of LIFE?!!!
Abortion should be carefully and thoroughly decided by a doctor consoling with a mother. Not by an insignificant and wrongly motivated politician. Such as we have in Florida.
Abortion is health care that government has no business being involved in. All decisions should be made by patients in consultation with doctors. No one else should have any impact on these decisions. Medical treatment is not public business. If you oppose abortion, great, don't have one. You have no right to impact the medical care of anyone else.
Absolutely. They’ve constructed their own mental narrative and live in it. It allows them to ignore reality.
What the “pro-life” folks primarily object to is what could be termed “casual” abortion and sex without consequences. They vaguely recall the free love era or imagine college girls (mostly white) at drunken parties generating unintended pregnancies. They have a mental image of these women wanting to quickly dispose of the inconvenient fetus and get on with life with minimal disruption.
The irony of the 24 or 15 or even 6 week bans is that those abortions are the least affected. They promote the “Don’t stop to think about it, just get rid of it quick” mentality, leading to more rather than less.
They choose instead to inflict the brutality (an excellent word choice Billy) on women whose desired pregnancies have gone bad. Also those women in a genuine moral dilemma over an unintended pregnancy are brutally denied any opportunity for reflection on whether to continue. Again, all incentives are aligned to quickly terminate.
That idea they have in their heads is that women are just being irresponsible & are using abortion as birth control. It is a false narrative, pure propaganda, put out by the large anti abortion orgs who have been lying to the public for at least 4-5 decades. Most, not all, agonize over the decision, they do take it seriously.
It is a proven fact that good science-based sex ed provided in schools dramatically reduces teen pregnancies, but the same people who are so extremely anti abortion are also anti sex ed.
If free or very low cost contraception was made easily available, even just free condoms, that would decrease unintended pregnancy. The forced-birthers are also against that.
It makes no sense for a person to use abortion as birth control. Even just getting the kit with the 2 separate meds to induce an abortion online via telehealth costs at least $125-150 in addition to enduring the cramping from contractions.
If the pregnancy is past about 12 weeks, then the abortion pill isn’t an option & a suction evacuation is necessary & the cost shoots up to
$500-700 minimum.
Why would anyone choose that if they had easily available contraceptives?