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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Correct. It's also meant to guilt women into not having an abortion, rather than providing resources to make an abortion less desirable than delivering the child.
Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen FryWell, it certainly is not helping mothers, let me put it that way.
What these lawsare trying to do is flat out convince women not to have an abortion by using emotional manipulation, and do not seem to notice the reasons why women have abortion. 25% of women have abortions because they feel that they are unprepared or not ready to raise a child in terms of responsibility, IE would not be a fit mother or the current way of life is not built to accommodate a child. 23% of women say they cannot afford another child. 19% have already had all the children they want, or have other familial responsibilities to take care of. 8% do so out of relationship problems or to avoid being a single mother. 4% do so because a child would interfere with education or career plans. Less than 1% do so because their partner or parents want them to, and less than 6.5% do so for reasons marked as Other. 4% do so out of concern for their own health, 3% do so out of concern for the viability of the child, and less than .5% do so due to rape or incest. http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/facts/reasonsabortions.html
EDIT: And that's an anti-abortion site. There are other statistics to be found.
None of those, with the possible exception of women who are aborting due to having enough children already, would be convinced by being forced to watch an ultrasound of their child before the abortion. These reasons don't go away because of this or other state mandated forms of emotional manipulation, such as quoting how much money a clinic makes due to abortions (part of the Texan bill).
edited 5th Jul '13 3:31:12 PM by Enkufka
Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry
Just because women don't get abortions for emotional reasons doesn't mean they won't choose not to get abortions for emotional reasons. The parenting instinct can be very strong, especially for pregnant women.
Financial reasons can often trump emotional reasons.
Let me put it to you this way: You have a laundry list of reasons not to have a child. Now you've been shown a picture of your fetus. What has changed in your situation? You still have all those reasons to not have a child, now you've been saddled with the idea that you're killing something human shaped.
I'm going to take a wild stab and say that most women are quite aware that a fetus is going to grow into a human baby and don't really need to be shown a picture of the fetus to learn this fact.
I'm not going to go "the women who decided to change their minds and have the child instead of aborting are stupid" because that in and of itself is stupid. But I cannot condone anti abortion methods which rely on guilting or scaring women into having children rather than providing them the resources to provide for their kid while pursuing their own life. Because doing so takes away from women their ability to say "This person is using my body and I do not give them permission to do so."
edited 5th Jul '13 3:49:12 PM by Enkufka
Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen FryDid the abortion bill in Texas end up getting passed after all?
The sources that I've found
from tumblr
leave me confused and with the impression that it's being discussed and most likely will pass? As opposed to actually have passed?
So much for the filibuster.
That first link was from 3 days ago, and the second two days ago.
http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/07/05/4984328/controversial-texas-abortion-bill.html
This is from less than an hour ago. It looks like hearings will be held on monday.
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This.
All this law does is try its best to heap more guilt and persecution on women already making a hard decisions out of some insane idea that women are stupid and either
1; didnt know unborn babies were genetically human
2: try to ruin their lives further by dumping more guilt on them then they likely already feel.
It isnt about the baby. Its about controlling women by assuming abortions are only done on women who dont care at all and therefore hgoing out of your way to punish them.
edited 5th Jul '13 4:01:08 PM by midgetsnowman
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My point was that people were saying these new abortion laws would do nothing to actually affect abortion rates. I was just pointing out that we can't really say the law would have no effect; there's bound to be someone out there who could be persuaded by that mandatory spiel.
As for whether that justifies those abortion laws . . . well, if you start with the premise that abortion is evil, then anything that has a non-zero chance of preventing abortions, while only doing harm to people who perform and/or receive abortions, must be a good thing. Naturally, if you start with a different premise, it's going to look differently.
Even if the point was to reduce the amount of fetuses (and in even some cases, fertilized zygotes) being killed, then these laws are way friggin off the mark. While it's true that a amount of women will choose not to abort after seeing an ultrasound vs not seeing an ultrasound, that does not change what I said before, that these laws do nothing to make it easier for women to have children and thus only discourage abortions through emotional manipulation.
Pre-natal care, birth procedures, treatment for pregnancy related problems/illnesses, reducing stigma against working mothers, encouraging teen mothers/college aged mothers to go to college and providing ways to take care of their kids while they do so, and more issues, and these laws deal with none of them.
Hell, there's even been a push back against progress made on those fronts. In 2011, a highschool in Michigan specifically made to teach high-school aged mothers in such a way that they can finish their highschool education and go on to college was going to be shut down because the Michigan Emergency Manager mandated... well, take a look for yourself.
The thought was not "this school does good things to help teen mothers and mothers in general," the thought was "this school costs too much, let's get rid of it."
And the results from the Catherine Ferguson Academy should not simply be dismissed out of hand, given the fact that it had such success getting teen mothers to graduate school when so many around the nation are not. Teen mothers are not being given provisions to help them in life, else we'd see one for almost every area with high teen pregnancy rates.
edited 5th Jul '13 10:55:57 PM by Enkufka
Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen FryI'm not saying they can't be for both, I'm saying that trying to stop abortions using ultrasounds is ineffectual, insulting to women, and seems to be the focus of the pro-life movement, or at the very least the republican legislators bringing these laws up, rather than helping pregnant women.
A better way would be to increase access to oral contraceptives (for men and women) but that gets shouted down as keeping zygotes from implanting (which is not true anyway, the pill keeps unfertilized eggs from descending), going against amendments which define life as beginning at conception. However this also ignores the fact that zygotes fail to implant anyway for various reasons.
Anyway, Some reading material
before we get shouted down for discussing abortion.
Not true. The good thing would be one that has a non-zero chance of preventing abortions and doesn't do harm to anyone.
For instance, not financially strangling everyone who doesn't make seven figures or more.
Not if they believe in Paying Evil Unto Evil.
I find that right-wingers' responses to a lot of policy issues — from taxation to abortion to gun control — is very emotion-based, as in whether something feels right or wrong. They justify this using principle, and then often tack on a quote of Thomas Jefferson saying that one should never sacrifice principle.
Rather than, y'know, actually thinking through the real-life effects of such a policy. Including all the possible unintended negative consequences (ironically while enjoying highlighting the unintended negative consequences of so-called "liberal" policies).
edited 6th Jul '13 2:16:22 AM by GlennMagusHarvey

^^
There is almost no pastime more 'Murrican.