What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[Eddie Teach]

People haven't been preparing because the issue didn't matter to them. It still shouldn't.

Ah, that makes more sense. You're not commenting on whether it makes sense to start acting right now if you're concerned about the potential for access to contraception being removed. You're saying that if access to contraception is removed in some places, that's okay because it shouldn't matter to folks.

No, I was responding to Otto's post referencing abortion. God forbid some woman someplace else has to ride a bus in order to kill her kid.

[Eddie Teach]

On contraception, I think Dorsey is correct that there is no rational reason to believe it would be banned. While the Capitol putsch does make one question life's rationality, it's still not a possibility worth fretting about. Especially for Canadians.

[garbon]

People haven't been preparing because the issue didn't matter to them. It still shouldn't.

Ah, that makes more sense. You're not commenting on whether it makes sense to start acting right now if you're concerned about the potential for access to contraception being removed. You're saying that if access to contraception is removed in some places, that's okay because it shouldn't matter to folks.

No, I was responding to Otto's post referencing abortion. God forbid some woman someplace else has to ride a bus in order to kill her kid.

And here is the face of the problem.

[Zoupa]

People haven't been preparing because the issue didn't matter to them. It still shouldn't.

Ah, that makes more sense. You're not commenting on whether it makes sense to start acting right now if you're concerned about the potential for access to contraception being removed. You're saying that if access to contraception is removed in some places, that's okay because it shouldn't matter to folks.

No, I was responding to Otto's post referencing abortion. God forbid some woman someplace else has to ride a bus in order to kill her kid.

And there we have it, the mask falls.

It's good in a way. Now I can stop interacting with you and your "takes", your whataboutism, your both sides. Thanks for clearly stating: "I am a piece of shit."

[crazy canuck]

AR, you neglected to quote the sentence that appears immediately before the sentence you did quote:

"The Family Planning Program promotes the well being of families, responsible behavior, and healthy mothers and babies."

It was likely an accident of cutting and pasting.

You also neglected to quote the bit that comes immediately after the sentence you quoted:

"There are 81 clinics throughout Alabama offering family planning services."

Also likely an error in your cutting and pasting skills.

If you read the whole of the description on the website (It doesn't take long, its just a few short paragraphs) I am sure you will agree that Otto was not being delusional but accurately describing both what is now in place and what is likely to come.

There wasn't an error in my cutting and pasting skills. I don't see the relevance of those topics to the issue at hand.

I see, well your failure to consider the full context explains your misguided views.

[Eddie Teach]

Dude, that's fucking rich. Also, go fuck yourself with a baguette.

Also, what mask? I've been saying this for 20 years.

[The Minsky Moment]

No, I was responding to Otto's post referencing abortion. God forbid some woman someplace else has to ride a bus in order to kill her kid.

That may be your own view, but I don't see how you get from that to the conclusion that it doesn't matter to other people.  It clearly does matter to many people, even (it appears) in Kansas.

One could easily phrase the point the other way around.  Roe shouldn't have mattered to the antis because why should anyone care if some stranger they never met makes their own choice not to carry their pregnancy to term?  And yet many people did and do care.

[alfred russel]

For one, I am not saying they will ban them. I am saying existing laws, many of which highly restricted with a specific view to restricting casual use of contraceptive pills to married women already with children, could go back into effect. It would then require State legislation to repeal those currently dormant laws. That's literally just an actual fact of how our constitutional system of laws works. If a State has a Law A, that is in effect, and it is then made dormant by a Supreme Court ruling, if that Supreme Court ruling is overturned, that Law A goes back into effect--sans some state judicial ruling otherwise and/or some State legislative action. That's not speculative, that's just how our laws actually work.

Totally understand that. And in the case the supreme court ruling is overturned I'd be willing to wager every penny I have that every state save Utah would have it legalized within the year.

What I am saying, is that in conservative religious States, and there is a significant desire among many religious people to limit use of contraceptives, it is not at all guaranteed that such laws will simply be repealed.

You conflate two statements.

-conservative religious states, and
-the desire among many religious people.

The official catholic position is against birth control, and mormons are against birth control. A small minority of catholics agree with that, and i'd assume that is more common among the mormons. But except for Utah the conservative religious states don't have many of those groups.

The Alabama Department of Public Health thing you're talking about literally has almost nothing to do with Alabama. That is language and clinics / programs specifically related to Title X, which is a Federal program that provides for family planning services and the State is essentially implementing the requirements to receive those Federal funds. There is no conflict between Title X and Alabama law, but if Alabama (just as an example--this really applies to any conservative State), has a law that restricts birth control pill prescriptions to say, married women with children, those restrictions would still apply. It could be the case the State might lose its Title X funding if it did not repeal those restrictions, but that is an open question and would very much depend on who President--Trump already significantly curtailed Title X funding was when he was in office and a future Republican would likely do the same.

The existence of a Title X program in a State is not really a reflection of anything other than a willingness to comply with the requirements of a Federal grant, it doesn't at all speak to how they would intersect with morality based contraception restrictions. In fact where they have conflicted, States have generally been moving towards morality based restrictions after the Hobby Lobby decision.

It is a state institution, an Alabama department, that is promoting contraceptives! If they thought that it was immoral they could decline the funds...it isn't like states have been shy about turning down obamacare dollars in the past to own the libs. Seems like a great opportunity if being anti contraceptive is such a winning play.

[alfred russel]

That's a pretty brain dead opinion, to be frank. Saving the panic for when it does is how abortion rights people ended up in a 40 year deficit of organizing and planning. It was assumed Roe was sacrosanct. Most people supported the core holdings of Roe. It hadn't been touched in most people's lifetimes. No reason to panic.

I used to drive past a clinic that provided abortion services every day to work. About once a week there were protestors out front with all sorts of signs. It has been a 50 year project to get abortion banned, and one of the most contentious political issues. Before Trump when the republican party bothered putting out platforms, I think it was included in every one since 1976. You should remember: that is what the party you supported back in the day was fighting for—I guess you should welcome their current success? Every republican president has been against abortion in the time period.

I've missed anything like this for contraception. Has anyone seen anti contraception protestors in front of a pharmacy? Is there any kind of organization for this? Someone can correct me but I think I recall a stat that 99% of women who have been sexually active have used a form of contraception...being anti contraception is the fringiest of the most fringe positions. It just isn't happening.

[OttoVonBismarck]

You conflate two statements.

-conservative religious states, and
-the desire among many religious people.

The official catholic position is against birth control, and mormons are against birth control. A small minority of catholics agree with that, and i'd assume that is more common among the mormons. But except for Utah the conservative religious states don't have many of those groups.

And this is where you are incorrect--there is absolutely a significant movement in Protestant evangelicalism against widespread and general use of birth control. They do not hold quite the same malum prohibitum approach to it that Catholics do, but there many people--including liturgical leaders in the SBC's seminary which you believe (erroneously) is the font of all evangelicalism in America, who have been preaching against contraceptives for years.

It is a state institution, an Alabama department, that is promoting contraceptives! If they thought that it was immoral they could decline the funds...it isn't like states have been shy about turning down obamacare dollars in the past to own the libs. Seems like a great opportunity if being anti contraceptive is such a winning play.

Under Griswold accepting or not accepting Title X funds doesn't affect whether birth control pills are available, they were going to be present regardless. Additionally, many States that setup their Title X clinics did so decades ago and I'm sure that is the case for Alabama. The Republican party has genuinely moved further against contraceptives in the last 15 years than in the years before that. Title X was a law championed and signed by Nixon, things in politics aren't static. Lots of programs are running in Southern states that frankly would probably not be passed today, but institutional inertia keeps them going. The GOP is actually more broadly against "government being given money to solve any problems at all" now than they once were, I think a lot of Title X clinics would never be setup by the modern GOP State legislatures for that reason more even than any sexual morality claims, they would just take the line that it isn't government's job to pay for your contraception.

Republican States also have public K-12 schools that are government funded, at one point in time it was an uncontroversial recognition that such basic things were part of governing. I don't know that the GOP of 2022 would even vote to establish State run schools if they did not already exist. There's a difference between "things the GOP lets continue to exist because of inertia" and "whether or not the GOP would repeal a law that made it so single women can't get the pill."

[OttoVonBismarck]

That's a pretty brain dead opinion, to be frank. Saving the panic for when it does is how abortion rights people ended up in a 40 year deficit of organizing and planning. It was assumed Roe was sacrosanct. Most people supported the core holdings of Roe. It hadn't been touched in most people's lifetimes. No reason to panic.

I used to drive past a clinic that provided abortion services every day to work. About once a week there were protestors out front with all sorts of signs. It has been a 50 year project to get abortion banned, and one of the most contentious political issues. Before Trump when the republican party bothered putting out platforms, I think it was included in every one since 1976. You should remember: that is what the party you supported back in the day was fighting for—I guess you should welcome their current success? Every republican president has been against abortion in the time period.

I mean I consider myself pro-life, but that's for moral religious reasons, as much as I genuinely think abortion of a viable fetus is both sinful and immoral, I can't easily reason myself to a good justification for making it illegal when the fetus is at a stage where it can't survive outside the womb. I also think Roe was not well decided legally, and I think Roe being decided did a lot of political harm to the country. My theory is that without Roe, probably 40-45 states would have legalized abortion right now, that would not be at any real risk because it would have been arrived at over a period of decades via referendums, legislation etc. I think a few hold out States like Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina etc would likely still not have it, but even they would probably have more sane exceptions than they are looking to end up with now, because the "no exceptions" movement is fairly new and is going to generate massive negative PR for the GOP over the coming years.

The point I was making with that post was that abortion rights people absolutely dropped the ball in preparing for, and organizing for, a world where abortion rights weren't secured by a Supreme Court ruling. Roe was broadly treated as untouchable by the Democrats, and they assumed it always would be. There seemed to be little awakening at all to the fact this might not be true until RBG died, even though they frankly should have been worried a long time before that. This pushes back against ET's braindead idea "well you shouldn't worry about it until it happens" nonsense.

I've missed anything like this for contraception. Has anyone seen anti contraception protestors in front of a pharmacy? Is there any kind of organization for this? Someone can correct me but I think I recall a stat that 99% of women who have been sexually active have used a form of contraception...being anti contraception is the fringiest of the most fringe positions. It just isn't happening.

You keep going back to totally unrelated discussion threads. No one is saying there is going to be a movement to pass legislation banning contraception. Are you confused? Do you have trouble reading? Are you smelling burnt toast? Maybe you're having a stroke.

[alfred russel]

You keep going back to totally unrelated discussion threads. No one is saying there is going to be a movement to pass legislation banning contraception. Are you confused? Do you have trouble reading? Are you smelling burnt toast? Maybe you're having a stroke.

No one is going to care when they go to get contraceptives at the pharmacy and they are told that the government no longer allows their sale that there was a court case that put back into place a state law that was passed in 1875 or whatever. A state ban isn't going to be tolerated. Someone is going to propose the bill to fix it in the legislature, there is no way it could be quietly killed in committee, and it will pass with 90%+ of legislators voting for it, if not unanimously. You are talking about an epic change in lives of anyone anyone who has sex, or cares about someone that has sex, or wants to have sex.

[OttoVonBismarck]

You keep going back to totally unrelated discussion threads. No one is saying there is going to be a movement to pass legislation banning contraception. Are you confused? Do you have trouble reading? Are you smelling burnt toast? Maybe you're having a stroke.

No one is going to care when they go to get contraceptives at the pharmacy and they are told that the government no longer allows their sale that there was a court case that put back into place a state law that was passed in 1875 or whatever. A state ban isn't going to be tolerated. Someone is going to propose the bill to fix it in the legislature, there is no way it could be quietly killed in committee, and it will pass with 90%+ of legislators voting for it, if not unanimously. You are talking about an epic change in lives of anyone anyone who has sex, or cares about someone that has sex, or wants to have sex.

I feel like you're just not living in reality.

1. There are places in America right now, because of our "religious rights" movement, where pharmacists can refuse to fill birth control prescriptions. This, in fact, happens regularly. Nothing has been done about it and that has been the situation for years in some of these locations. Generally sure, people can go to another pharmacy, but unsurprisingly the places where this is a problem are typically in rural communities and it does create a big hassle for people.

2. Lots of people don't actually use contraception of any kind. The CDC has data on women aged 15-49 (link), only around 24% are using some form of contraception. Another 18% are sterilized and another 6% their male partner is. That leaves ~52% of women age 15-49 aren't using any form of female contraception (maybe their partner uses condoms, we don't know.)

3. The idea that just because something affects a lot of people and will be really unpopular means that thing cannot happen is...willfully ignorant of reality. A law that says abortion is illegal with no exceptions for anything short of the woman's "imminent death" poll at something like 20% support. That means 80% of people oppose it. Upwards of 25% of all women have an abortion, and a large chunk of women and families go through pregnancy. The idea that such a law doesn't affect a lot of people is silly, and the idea it can't be possible because it is unpopular is also silly.

For many years people who were "unconcerned" with abortion rights said that if you have health problems and need an abortion, it won't be a problem even after Roe is overturned. That's ended up not being true. The health exceptions in many States have been worded so they are incredibly vague, and the legislature puts all the risk of action on the physician, so the physician (not a lawyer) has to interpret a vaguely worded statute and then risk criminal prosecution and loss of his/her medical license. Some States you have a GOP that has literally let laws go into effect saying the only exception is if the woman's life is in imminent danger, which means even routine matters like ectopic pregnancies can't be handled proactively and have to wait until they become a crisis.

All of this polls as being deeply, deeply unpopular, and we were told none of it would happen because it'd be crazy. It did happen, and it is crazy. Appeals to "it won't be popular" don't matter when the people making decisions aren't subject to popular approval for their actions, it's as simple as that.

I think it's incredibly likely if Griswold is overturned, some crazy/stupid laws either enter effect, or you run into weird situations that fuck people's lives up. I think as we're seeing with the current state of abortion law, many States will resist fixing it.

[alfred russel]

And this is where you are incorrect--there is absolutely a significant movement in Protestant evangelicalism against widespread and general use of birth control. They do not hold quite the same malum prohibitum approach to it that Catholics do, but there many people--including liturgical leaders in the SBC's seminary which you believe (erroneously) is the font of all evangelicalism in America, who have been preaching against contraceptives for years.

Why do you think I believe the southern baptist convention is the front of all evangelicalism in America?

I'm using that as the example because:

-it is larger in Alabama (which i'm using as the example because it is arguably our most retrograde state) than any other denomination,
-catholics are insignficant,
-mainline protestants i'd obviously get shot down for using,
-black churches though numerous are not obviously not pushing for no birth control as a general rule.

It is great that you can find people in seminaries that may be saying stuff against contraception but that isn't even close to mainstream among baptists. That is certainly not the position of the SBC nor the reality on the ground of SBC congregations.

[alfred russel]

I feel like you're just not living in reality.

1. There are places in America right now, because of our "religious rights" movement, where pharmacists can refuse to fill birth control prescriptions. This, in fact, happens regularly. Nothing has been done about it and that has been the situation for years in some of these locations. Generally sure, people can go to another pharmacy, but unsurprisingly the places where this is a problem are typically in rural communities and it does create a big hassle for people.

That is entirely different than a ban on contraception.