Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)

[The_Doc_Man]

It's also a matter of personal opinion. Many people don't think late term abortion is proper who aren't religious.
In fact, I'd put the "many people simply don't think late term abortion is the proper way to handle the situation" applies to most people, generally - it's just that a plurality of them don't think it should necessarily be illegal, either. The average joe, I think, is smart enough to realize that handling your sex life with abortion isn't really the way to go as there are a lot of other options.

Those "other options" are slowly being eroded by "holier than thou" folks. Today our local news rag reported that a California doctor who sent "morning-after" birth-control pills through the mail is now being charged with a drug-related felony in Louisiana (basically, it's illegal to supply birth control pills under most circumstances), and the state IS seeking extradition.

I'm not in favor of abortion. When we got married, my wife and I said "whatever happens, happens" - but we have no kids between us. Her kids from her previous marriage are fine by me. HOWEVER, I am also not in favor of anyone interfering in what SHOULD be a very private decision between a woman and her doctor.

Abortion has been around since the pre-Christian era, including the Hippocratic Oath that discusses "pessaries" - a device to cause an abortion. That oath originates before 400 BCE. The Ebers Papyrus (an Egyptian medical papyrus) mentions abortion as far back as 1550 BCE. Chinese writings from about 2000 BCE talk about inducing an abortion with mercury.

Regardless of what you may think of it, women have sought abortions for not merely a few decades or even a couple of centuries. We are going back over 4 millennia - and that's RECORDED history. Like alcohol and various psycho-active substances, we cannot get rid of something that is so clearly desired by some folks. When you make it illegal, you get the back-alley butcher shops all over again. It's GOING to happen. But it seems we have a choice to learn from or ignore history. And you know what happens when you ignore history...

 

[RogerCooper]

Those "other options" are slowly being eroded by "holier than thou" folks. Today our local news rag reported that a California doctor who sent "morning-after" birth-control pills through the mail is now being charged with a drug-related felony in Louisiana (basically, it's illegal to supply birth control pills under most circumstances), and the state IS seeking extradition.

I'm not in favor of abortion. When we got married, my wife and I said "whatever happens, happens" - but we have no kids between us. Her kids from her previous marriage are fine by me. HOWEVER, I am also not in favor of anyone interfering in what SHOULD be a very private decision between a woman and her doctor.

Abortion has been around since the pre-Christian era, including the Hippocratic Oath that discusses "pessaries" - a device to cause an abortion. That oath originates before 400 BCE. The Ebers Papyrus (an Egyptian medical papyrus) mentions abortion as far back as 1550 BCE. Chinese writings from about 2000 BCE talk about inducing an abortion with mercury.

Regardless of what you may think of it, women have sought abortions for not merely a few decades or even a couple of centuries. We are going back over 4 millennia - and that's RECORDED history. Like alcohol and various psycho-active substances, we cannot get rid of something that is so clearly desired by some folks. When you make it illegal, you get the back-alley butcher shops all over again. It's GOING to happen. But it seems we have a choice to learn from or ignore history. And you know what happens when you ignore history...

Don't forget about medically necessary abortions, which includes most late term abortions. As the father of a daughter of child-bearing age, this is a major concern.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Lawmakers are constantly pushing the limits on issues like drugs, immigration, and yes abortion. Most of us don’t pay much attention until society reaches those limits and boundaries have clearly been crossed. Look around your cities has relaxing these laws improved your quality of life, or made it worse?

 

[RogerCooper]

Lawmakers are constantly pushing the limits on issues like drugs, immigration, and yes abortion. Most of us don’t pay much attention until society reaches those limits and boundaries have clearly been crossed. Look around your cities has relaxing these laws improved your quality of life, or made it worse?

The relaxation of the immigration laws during the Reagan administration greatly improved the quality of life in New York City, as fresh waves of immigrants revived deteriorated neighborhoods. I remember the boarded-up buildings where now there is life and commerce.

 

[AccessBlaster]

The relaxation of the immigration laws during the Reagan administration greatly improved the quality of life in New York City, as fresh waves of immigrants revived deteriorated neighborhoods. I remember the boarded-up buildings where now there is life and commerce.

I'm not opposed to relaxing immigration rates, it's the bum-rushing of the border for political reasons that I object to.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Congress needs to either or get off the pot. In Trump's 1st term, there was an immigration hoopla and DJT tried to crack down, but then paused and BEGGED Congress to do something with the immigration laws. When they let things go 30 days with no action whatsoever, he tried to crack down hard. This time he has learned that Congress will not act on something important like clarification of immigration laws, so if you can't find someone to do something, do it yourself.

 

[Isaac]

Those "other options" are slowly being eroded by "holier than thou" folks. Today our local news rag reported that a California doctor who sent "morning-after" birth-control pills through the mail is now being charged with a drug-related felony in Louisiana (basically, it's illegal to supply birth control pills under most circumstances), and the state IS seeking extradition.

I'm not in favor of abortion. When we got married, my wife and I said "whatever happens, happens" - but we have no kids between us. Her kids from her previous marriage are fine by me. HOWEVER, I am also not in favor of anyone interfering in what SHOULD be a very private decision between a woman and her doctor.

Abortion has been around since the pre-Christian era, including the Hippocratic Oath that discusses "pessaries" - a device to cause an abortion. That oath originates before 400 BCE. The Ebers Papyrus (an Egyptian medical papyrus) mentions abortion as far back as 1550 BCE. Chinese writings from about 2000 BCE talk about inducing an abortion with mercury.

Regardless of what you may think of it, women have sought abortions for not merely a few decades or even a couple of centuries. We are going back over 4 millennia - and that's RECORDED history. Like alcohol and various psycho-active substances, we cannot get rid of something that is so clearly desired by some folks. When you make it illegal, you get the back-alley butcher shops all over again. It's GOING to happen. But it seems we have a choice to learn from or ignore history. And you know what happens when you ignore history...

I'm strongly in favor of all the options to avoid getting pregnant - each and every form of birth control should be available to every woman and man, for sure. No objection here.

 

[Isaac]

Don't forget about medically necessary abortions, which includes most late term abortions. As the father of a daughter of child-bearing age, this is a major concern.

Any time the choice HAS to be made between saving only one life or the other life, that decision should definitely be the mother's alone, if that is truly the case. I agree.

 

[Isaac]

Congress needs to either or get off the pot. In Trump's 1st term, there was an immigration hoopla and DJT tried to crack down, but then paused and BEGGED Congress to do something with the immigration laws. When they let things go 30 days with no action whatsoever, he tried to crack down hard. This time he has learned that Congress will not act on something important like clarification of immigration laws, so if you can't find someone to do something, do it yourself.

Congress can't move, it's so dysfunctional. Everybody on their own personal soapbox or sometimes the opposite--everybody getting on a bandwagon just because it's all about doing favors and banding together is a requirement - congress is totally dysfunctional. However there are a few people who give me hope. Every time I hear anything spoken by Rand Paul it sounds like a rational, intelligent, serving-the-public human being. If we just had a few more like him, that would be great. But most people are treating it as a career, and their 1st order-of-business is "how can I stay in this position of power as long as possible?"......and everything else flows from that as a first priority.

Our government SUCKS right now. Anybody like @ColinEssex who likes to make fun of Americans is welcome to do so now at my invitation because we deserve it at the moment. Our government is a fighting mess of dysfunctional people. The left wing wants the government to do everything for every person that can be imagined, discriminates openly against non-minority people, spends money on dumb stuff. The right wing is stupidly beholden to Trump who has directed his henchmen to employ terribly cruel deportation and detainment policies and spins everything they say to make people think they are mostly taking criminals off the streets and just generally says false things over and over, and is using Lawfare as retribution even more than the Democrats ever did.

There are practically no people left in Congress who can behave independently; everything comes from Trump because if you don't he'll revoke your citizenship, arrest you for a mistake on a mortgage application and indict the ham sandwich in your lunchbox. Rand Paul and a few other voices of reason and autonomy are glimmers of hope but there are too few of them to matter. Trump's presidency has made virtually nothing better and his war with fed Powell is an appalling, awful, frightening erosion of the system. Presidential administrations spend all their years reversing whatever the last guy did and then the next guy comes along and does the same thing - lather, rinse , repeat.

The supreme court is a glimmer of hope too, but they can only handle so many cases a year. Trump behaves like an authoritarian ruler. To the extent where he will try to impeach or shut down courts and judges who don't rule favorably. He flaunts the law and international norms that are important - like killing people hanging on to a shipwreck, clearly no longer a threat nor soldiers, and this is important because we NEED to maintain some semblance of the moral high ground when it comes to these things.

Our country is a mess. He got elected on a little bit of social culture war stuff and a LOT of kitchen table stuff - and the kitchen table stuff remains unchanged, homes are still too few, too expensive, and credit is too expensive, so nobody under 40 can buy one. He didn't stop the Russia war and new ones have started. He appoints people he's not allowed to appoint and then appoints them again even when a judge says he can't. Everyone who disagrees with him is a "radical left lunatic" even though they're right half the time.

He employs neanderthal-type idiots in masks with guns who just got the job and a $20,000 signing bonus to become CBP and shoots women in cars who were obviously trying to turn away from the agent and when confronted with video evidence, just continues to deny reality despite it being incredibly obvious that the agent had no right to shoot her. Concluded the issue publicly before any investigation was done.

Our country is a mess! 2028 can't come fast enough. And I bet Republicans will really miss that big slice of hispanic voters they're losing now.

 

[Isaac]

Regardless of what you may think of it, women have sought abortions for not merely a few decades or even a couple of centuries. We are going back over 4 millennia - and that's RECORDED history. Like alcohol and various psycho-active substances, we cannot get rid of something that is so clearly desired by some folks. When you make it illegal, you get the back-alley butcher shops all over again. It's GOING to happen. But it seems we have a choice to learn from or ignore history. And you know what happens when you ignore history...

I have never been under the illusion that it's a new phenomenon, I'm aware that it's something covering all time, of course. Obviously some women will not want their children, but society has generally had rules of what you can or cannot do to a child regardless of whether you're the mother or a 3rd party.

Abortion is one of those issues that I'm the least "firm" on , in terms of my position on the matter. Like some things I'm very firm on - i.e. the issue that government should be limited and people mostly personally responsible for their fortunes, or other conservative doctrines.

But abortion, I'm a little waffly on. I've started to wonder if it would be better to just let it be legal in all cases. The bad part is that people always push the envelope. I.E. if you make it legal, there will be those people who kill the thing just as it is being born, and edge cases such as that, so having it legal without restrictions could get a little weird and end up including real bad stuff.

The argument of "people will do it anyway so you should just allow it" has never been a persuasive one to me, because if you go by that logic nothing should be illegal, because a few people will always "do it anyway". Why make child porn illegal? I mean the people who are attracted to children seem very determined and they never 'go away', right? But some things just oughtn't be done and should be illegal to make it as rare as possible. Obviously making something illegal will result in less of it. The question is just 'how much'. I doubt most average women will do it with a coat hanger, but your point that some might is taken. I think most normal women's reaction to that would be to be more careful about having unprotected sex. over the long run anyway.

Another shocker to those of you who know me might be that I am waffling on gun control these days too. I remain committed to the idea that we should NEVER pass a law that results in only the bad guys (still) having guns. However, I sometimes wonder if our lives wouldn't be a whole heck of a lot better if we could confiscate all guns and then truly ban them, with a few exceptions to allow for slow-firing hunting weapons. I secretly envy the countries out there where guns are mostly illegal and only a very few bad guys still have them, and shooting crimes are rare. I secretly envy countries that don't experience a mass shooting every 3 months.

I remain convinced that in THIS country, under the CURRENT conditions, you NEED a gun for personal protection.

But if I could push a button and make all guns disappear from the populace and it was dependable - I would push that button. I'm sick of rando pscho's opening up fire in a grocery store and always having to worry about such a thing.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

if you make it legal, there will be those people who kill the thing just as it is being born, and edge cases such as that, so having it legal without restrictions could get a little weird and end up including real bad stuff.

Don't forget that after birth, a child's life STILL depends on the parents... particularly in cases where they are like the Christian Scientists that insist that their child NOT be treated with Man's medicine but with God's faith. But if I recall correctly, faith healing doesn't have the greatest track record.

The argument of "people will do it anyway so you should just allow it" has never been a persuasive one to me, because if you go by that logic nothing should be illegal, because a few people will always "do it anyway".

No, "not just allow it." If someone is going to indulge in something that seems immoral then make it legal but charge them for the privilege. Like the tax stamp on bottles of booze... and use the taxes to pay for inspections to assure that the vendor isn't selling something laced with fentanyl - or arsenic. But the trick is to kill the black market. Once we repealed prohibition, the rum-runners and moonshiners didn't vanish but they shrank to a very small group that was easier to track. If you make it legal but tax it and quality-control it, the profit motive disappears.

As to gun control and countries that don't have so many gun crimes, there are still the mass knifings, the public bombings, and people who drive vehicles into crowds. There WAS a lesson in the USA "Wild West" era - politeness and observance of the law were quite common when everyday people could carry guns openly. Not because the desperados wouldn't attack sometimes, but because their victims could shoot back and could expect help from their neighbors.