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Abortion has always been one of those issues that inflames passions on all sides so when the Supreme Court recently reversed Roe v. Wade and booted the issue back to the states, it unleashed something with the potential to become a hot potato political issue. As with nearly everything in America, extremists on all side seem to own the issue.
Pro-choice folks believe in the legal right to terminate a pregnancy all the way to the day of full term delivery and some have even expressed the the right to kill an infant after it has been born.
Pro-life folks believe that life begins at the precise moment of conception and that all abortion, including abortion resulting from rape/incest, is murder.
I've been following the abortion issue for decades. Generally, views on abortion have been fairly consistent for decades and Americans generally support the right to an early abortion while opposing late term abortions.
85 percent of American voters think abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances
While Pew found that sizable majorities of Americans said abortion should be legal if a woman’s health is at stake (73 percent) or if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest (69 percent), just over half (54 percent) said it should be legal if the baby was likely to be born with severe disabilities or health issues.
The stage of pregnancy especially affects people’s views of abortion. Pew found that in the first six weeks of pregnancy, 51 percent of people said abortion should be generally legal, compared with 26 percent who said it should be illegal. By 24 weeks into a pregnancy, just 29 percent said it should be generally legal while 42 percent said it should be generally illegal.
The further along in a pregnancy, the less likely people are to support abortion... Some 90 percent of those who say they are “pro-choice” believe forcing someone into an unwanted pregnancy infringes on their bodily autonomy; the same percentage of people who identify as “pro-life” believe abortion is the same as murdering a child.
Most abortion in America are early abortions.
Abortion By The Numbers 93% OF ABORTIONS OCCUR IN THE FIRST TRIMESTER
The vast majority of abortions occur in the first trimester, according to the CDC. Nearly 80% of abortions happen at or before 9 weeks gestation and 93% occur at or before 13 weeks. The average pregnancy lasts around 40 weeks and medication abortion is an option up to 10 weeks. Texas, Oklahoma and Idaho have all recently passed bans on abortions after six weeks.
Folks solidly in the "life begins at conception" camp have seized on a legal process known as 'Personhood Amendments'. It was decided that Mississippi was the strongest pro life state in America and in 2011, they got it on the ballot, here. Eleven years ago America's first personhood amendment went down 55-45 in what was perceived as the most pro life state in America. Since then, the personhood amendment movement really didn't have anywhere to go as voters were strongly committed to keeping abortion legal.
The Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade did not outlaw abortion. It merely ruled that kicking the issue back to the states was constitutional and that the 1973 ruling that codified abortion into a constitutional right was wrongly decided. Well, many were unhappy. The pro choice folks went ballistic and even threatened SCOTUS jurists. The pro life folks wanted SCOTUS to flatout outlaw all abortion under all circumstance or to effectively declare that human life begins at the precise moment of conception and must be protected because to harm 'the unborn' is murder.
Technically, a freshly fertilized egg is a zygote that become a blastocyst that becomes an embryo that becomes a fetus. It's been argued that while a zygote, blastocyst and embryo are forms of life that have the potential to become human life, they are not yet human. However, at some point the unborn life becomes an unborn human being. Exactly when that happens is up for debate but several options are considered including the fetal heartbeat and the ability of the fetus to feel pain. Treating a fetus like its a tumor that must be destroyed is wrong as well as gruesome but pushing for the equivalent of personhood amendments for a fertilized egg comes with its own set of problems.
There are a ton of legal problems with personhood amendments. You could be driving your car and accidentally rear end a vehicle with a pregnant women. If she miscarries, you are guilty of some form of murder, possibly vehicular homicide, because by law you killed a person. Ditto if you are pushing your grocery store cart down an aisle and accidentally cause a pregnant woman to fall and miscarry. In fact, a woman may not even know she is pregnant but anyone whose actions result in a miscarriage is guilty of a crime(s) that typically has a prison sentence. Personhood amendments were NEVER popular and for a lot of very valid reasons.
On August 2, 2022, Kansas voters voted to keep abortion legal in the first post R v W reversal referendum. Futhermore, an astounding 60 of voters voted NO on an admentment to remove abortion protection rights from the state Constitution. Headlines like Drudge Reports 'Red State Shock' exploded but anybody who has seriously followed and tracked abortion issue views was not shocked.
I'd love to see voters decide the issue at the ballot box in every state because it's highly unlikely that abortion would be 100% outlawed in every state IF put to a vote. States that have legislatively outlawed abortion are at risk of power shifting from Republican to Democrats. While some states had in place 'trigger' laws to ban or severely restrict abortion in the event R v W was overturned, there could be political blowback. Pro choice folks view the victorious pro life folks as folks who just want to force every pregnant woman to give birth, even at the point of a gun. Furthermore anti abortion laws could land doctors and women (and LOL birthing people becaus women no longer exist) in prison for murder.
Some states may take a position on abortion that is in line with the views of the majority of the American people.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin pushes 15-week abortion ban after Supreme Court decision
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin reiterated Sunday that he is in favor of a state ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, continuing to call on legislators to enact new restrictions on the procedure after the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
"The Supreme Court's decision, I agree with — that this is a decision for states to make by elected officials, by the citizens of Virginia," Youngkin said on "Face the Nation." "And that's why, right out of the box, I called for a 15-week pain threshold bill to be formed and crafted by a bipartisan group of legislators."
No matter how the abortion issue shakes out and I believe it's highly likely that abortion rights will be substantially upheld at the ballot box, Republican legislative control is at risk at the state and federal level. Are Republicans willing to sacrifice hard won political power over an issue that is just a loser issue for them? With social media swimming with photos of infants with the caption SAVED BY THE SUPREME COURT, I can categorically state that every women who wants an abortion will get an abortion. The SCOTUS ruling will not save any babies.
In the interest of clarification, I'd like to state that I personally endorse the right of a women to have an early abortion because I stand with most Americans. I lived in TX for 10 years and I've talked with Republican women who are terrified of the pro lifers who will run you out of the Republican Party if you are suspected of being remotely pro choice. Most women tend to support the right to an early abortion. While they personally would choose NOT to have an abortion, their view is simply this: I haven't lived her life or walked in her shoes so it's not up to me to sit in judgement of another woman or force her to give birth.
Indeed.
Furthermore, I'm not happy about abortion and view it as a bad option that angers me. With birth control so prevalent these days, NOT getting pregnant is fairly easy. Having unprotected sex and using abortion as a method of birth control is just repugnant, irresponsible and morally offensive. Maybe something good will come out of the revival of the abortion issue: women will now learn to assume responsibility for the consequences of their choice to have unprotected sex.
Finally, I believe that protecting human life starts with building a culture of life. As a ferocious antiwar activist, I find it shocking that the loudest voices to outlaw all abortion under any circumstances also seem to be the loudist voices to wage endless wars that kill women, pregnant women, children and babies all over the world. The hypocrisy is deafening nd to the point of being an oxymoron. You can't support life and murderous wars.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents on the very unpleasant abortion issue. Yeah, I will be accused of being a baby killer despite the fact that I haven't killed any babies. The radical pro choicers will continue to scream for the absolute right of every women to murder an unborn full term fetus. Weirdly, the same folks who oppose capital punishment on the basis that it's cruel and unhumane have no problem butchering a full term infant in utero, as if the unborn don't feel pain.
The radicals on the left and right need to be ignored as the majority of the American people seem to embrace a rational if imperfect solution to unwanted pregnancies. It's imperfect because humans are far from perfect. That's not about the change.
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