For a long time I’ve been dismissive of people calling for illegal or violent actions in the pursuit of left-wing causes, mostly because they deserve to be dismissed. The violence that attended some BlackLivesMatter protests in 2020 was directionless and had no positive effect, for example. Dreams of fighting the state are absurd on their face, as the technological advantage of the American government and security forces is so great that there’s no hope for victory. (This isn’t 1950s Cuba, comrades.) Going all the way back to my teenage years, definitely in my years in the Iraq war protest movement, during and after Occupy, in the heat of the 2020 uprisings - again and again I’ve been confronted by fellow travelers who wanted to “really do something” and I’ve been forced to point out that we would be doing nothing at all if we did.
This is not an animating issue for me so I admit I may be underselling it, but I'm doubtful this will end up being the sea change it is represented to be. I mean, the Mississippi law made the basis of the challenge still allows abortion and is actually more liberal than most of western Europe. I suspect the vast majority of states will settle where most people seem to come down if polling is correct--legal in the first trimester or so.
I guess that I will be the first to say it, then: this is a terrible idea for a number of reasons.
If I were the pro-choice left, I would abandon the "abortion is awesome, and anything short of allowing third trimester abortions is misogyny" tack. There are a whole lot of people who would support European style abortion laws (typically twelve weeks, maximum) as a compromise, but would sooner ban abortion outright than allow abortion on demand at any point in time.
I was reading that one huge difference between 1973 and now is the existence of abolition drugs that can be easily and safely administered at home. They are also very easy to ship. With that being the case, the actual decline in abortions might be very minimal. All this fighting might end up being all for naught.
While I do not agree with every point, I do agree that, if you are dissatisfied with a political outcome, it is not inappropriate to undertake a grassroots movement to:
1. Work within the framework of the law to take exceptional action to achieve desired outcomes; and
2. Put in the elbow grease to offer (hopefully!) cogent and reasonable arguments to win hearts and minds and, ultimately, change the Overton window and win politically.
I likewise agree that violence to advance a political cause is a means of last resort and carries with it a terrible toll that many currently exhorting others to it simply cannot comprehend. If those in both sides of the aisles work harder, maintained open minds, and offered more compelling argumentation, we would not even come close to entertaining those horrific consequences.
Thank you as always, Mr. deBoer, for offering a thought provoking exposition in this knotty subject, and for your complete candor. All too rare and I appreciate it!
This is the end of the beginning, and we are not going back to a "pre-Roe" status quo. Most abortions in the United States are now "performed" with pills, which makes this particular act of cruelty absurd on its face.
We are now entering a legal environment akin to the 1850s, where states in which the exercise of bodily autonomy is illegal will enact laws in a spiraling escalation of reach, severity, and cruelty in an attempt to stop abortions, and states that are still functioning democracies will enact an ascending staircase of laws to stop other states from interfering in their attempts to allow people to receive abortions. You think this is bad? Wait until the Supreme Court decides that Texas has the right to send the Rangers into Massachusetts to extradite people for sending mifepristone through the mail to someone in Texas.
This decision will also hasten the United States' decline as a world power. In 1973, the vast majority of countries outlawed abortion. This is no longer the case. When the prosecutions start, the world is going to see.
Donate to abortion funds. Get some Plan B and some mifepristone (they have a 4 year shelf life, IIRC.)
This seems to me like a pretty low key measure. I have to wonder if something like pot tourism is already kind of a working precedent. Transporting weed back into a state where it's banned is one thing but has anybody ever been prosecuted for traveling to CA to get high?
Welcome to Papistan. The damage that Catholics have done to the progress of humanity is incalculable, and history has shown it takes a lot of time and effort to undo.
After seeing the headline, I'm relieved that you aren't calling for us somehow rise up against the Supreme Court like I keep seeing on Twitter -- "we don't have to obey them", "we can shut the court down", "let's go to their houses" etc. Just a bunch of nonsense from people who don't leave the couch.
Helping women travel to blue states is something I can get behind, though. I never should have doubted you.
People seem to be moving toward a norm of ignoring or flouting laws they do not like, rather than making lawmakers change them. And now, increasingly, even those in power are simply picking and choosing what they want to enforce, while ignoring what is politically inconvenient to change. Proceeding down this path will not end well if the goal is truly to have rule by law, but maybe that is the point. By conditioning the public to selectively ignore laws rather than changing them, it can eventually be trained to tolerate rule by decree.
One big reason so many of our institutions are dysfunctional is because it suits various influential and well-heeled special interests to have them that way. Another is that by failing to fix the issue, the public can be kept divided and distracted, hence more easily manipulated.
The examples we have in history of government trying to enforce unpopular laws generally show that people cheerfully ignore them and go about their business, and somebody always figures out how to make money supplying the illegal good or service to a grateful nation.
I predict that within 6 months there will be cruise ships leaving from ports along the gulf coast that offer a package deal--a weekend cruise and a medication abortion--in international waters in the gulf of Mexico.
Why do Marxists support abortion? I hope you'll forgive my probable illiteracy on this topic, but it doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Like, the number one reason given by women seeking abortions in poverty. I can't imagine a Marxist being satisfied with a society where women are compelled by poverty and a lack of social services to abort healthy pregnancies. I could understand an argument that said, of course that's monstrous, but until we build a just and equitable society women must have the right to choose. But that's explicitly not Freddie's argument. How does a Marxist get to pro choice absolutism? That viewpoint seems to depend on a high commitment to radical autonomy, which ... is a liberal value, I thought? Not a Marxist one?
This is not an animating issue for me so I admit I may be underselling it, but I'm doubtful this will end up being the sea change it is represented to be. I mean, the Mississippi law made the basis of the challenge still allows abortion and is actually more liberal than most of western Europe. I suspect the vast majority of states will settle where most people seem to come down if polling is correct--legal in the first trimester or so.
I guess that I will be the first to say it, then: this is a terrible idea for a number of reasons.
If I were the pro-choice left, I would abandon the "abortion is awesome, and anything short of allowing third trimester abortions is misogyny" tack. There are a whole lot of people who would support European style abortion laws (typically twelve weeks, maximum) as a compromise, but would sooner ban abortion outright than allow abortion on demand at any point in time.
Try starting there first.
I was reading that one huge difference between 1973 and now is the existence of abolition drugs that can be easily and safely administered at home. They are also very easy to ship. With that being the case, the actual decline in abortions might be very minimal. All this fighting might end up being all for naught.
While I do not agree with every point, I do agree that, if you are dissatisfied with a political outcome, it is not inappropriate to undertake a grassroots movement to:
1. Work within the framework of the law to take exceptional action to achieve desired outcomes; and
2. Put in the elbow grease to offer (hopefully!) cogent and reasonable arguments to win hearts and minds and, ultimately, change the Overton window and win politically.
I likewise agree that violence to advance a political cause is a means of last resort and carries with it a terrible toll that many currently exhorting others to it simply cannot comprehend. If those in both sides of the aisles work harder, maintained open minds, and offered more compelling argumentation, we would not even come close to entertaining those horrific consequences.
Thank you as always, Mr. deBoer, for offering a thought provoking exposition in this knotty subject, and for your complete candor. All too rare and I appreciate it!
Is abortion a service, as Freddie says, or murder as the opponents say?
This is the end of the beginning, and we are not going back to a "pre-Roe" status quo. Most abortions in the United States are now "performed" with pills, which makes this particular act of cruelty absurd on its face.
We are now entering a legal environment akin to the 1850s, where states in which the exercise of bodily autonomy is illegal will enact laws in a spiraling escalation of reach, severity, and cruelty in an attempt to stop abortions, and states that are still functioning democracies will enact an ascending staircase of laws to stop other states from interfering in their attempts to allow people to receive abortions. You think this is bad? Wait until the Supreme Court decides that Texas has the right to send the Rangers into Massachusetts to extradite people for sending mifepristone through the mail to someone in Texas.
This decision will also hasten the United States' decline as a world power. In 1973, the vast majority of countries outlawed abortion. This is no longer the case. When the prosecutions start, the world is going to see.
Donate to abortion funds. Get some Plan B and some mifepristone (they have a 4 year shelf life, IIRC.)
There is no forced pregnancy short of rape. Unwanted pregnancy is a miscalculation or a change of mind.
This seems to me like a pretty low key measure. I have to wonder if something like pot tourism is already kind of a working precedent. Transporting weed back into a state where it's banned is one thing but has anybody ever been prosecuted for traveling to CA to get high?
Welcome to Papistan. The damage that Catholics have done to the progress of humanity is incalculable, and history has shown it takes a lot of time and effort to undo.
After seeing the headline, I'm relieved that you aren't calling for us somehow rise up against the Supreme Court like I keep seeing on Twitter -- "we don't have to obey them", "we can shut the court down", "let's go to their houses" etc. Just a bunch of nonsense from people who don't leave the couch.
Helping women travel to blue states is something I can get behind, though. I never should have doubted you.
The real challenge with this kind of action/support is making it known/accessible/easy to use for the most vulnerable.
People seem to be moving toward a norm of ignoring or flouting laws they do not like, rather than making lawmakers change them. And now, increasingly, even those in power are simply picking and choosing what they want to enforce, while ignoring what is politically inconvenient to change. Proceeding down this path will not end well if the goal is truly to have rule by law, but maybe that is the point. By conditioning the public to selectively ignore laws rather than changing them, it can eventually be trained to tolerate rule by decree.
One big reason so many of our institutions are dysfunctional is because it suits various influential and well-heeled special interests to have them that way. Another is that by failing to fix the issue, the public can be kept divided and distracted, hence more easily manipulated.
The examples we have in history of government trying to enforce unpopular laws generally show that people cheerfully ignore them and go about their business, and somebody always figures out how to make money supplying the illegal good or service to a grateful nation.
I predict that within 6 months there will be cruise ships leaving from ports along the gulf coast that offer a package deal--a weekend cruise and a medication abortion--in international waters in the gulf of Mexico.
Why do Marxists support abortion? I hope you'll forgive my probable illiteracy on this topic, but it doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Like, the number one reason given by women seeking abortions in poverty. I can't imagine a Marxist being satisfied with a society where women are compelled by poverty and a lack of social services to abort healthy pregnancies. I could understand an argument that said, of course that's monstrous, but until we build a just and equitable society women must have the right to choose. But that's explicitly not Freddie's argument. How does a Marxist get to pro choice absolutism? That viewpoint seems to depend on a high commitment to radical autonomy, which ... is a liberal value, I thought? Not a Marxist one?