SCOTUS Overturns Roe v Wade

[Grizzly]

My big question is, WHY NOW? It looks and feels (if I'm allowed to take a group feel, group senseus ) as if the whole country as is divided as it has ever been in my lifetime, and out of nowhere, someone slaps this hefty card on the table as if to take the game. Or push it over the edge. Why now?

[JackRiddler]

Ah yes, the big question that keeps coming up here, even though it's not any kind of question whatsoever. The one that keeps getting answered, but the answer is ignored or dismissed without addresssing any part of it, so that the question can be repeated.

There is no mystery. It's not even something subtle. It's obvious. Why now? Because, finally, they can.

The forces who organized to do this for 50 years,
- who were active and public about it the entire time and always said they were doing this and would never relent and would never shut up and would never stop protesting and harrassing people at the entrances to clinics, or setting up hundreds of fake clinics to trap women for indoctrination sessions around the country,
- who gained strength and won a long string of victories on the state level,
- whose lower echelons became Christianist foot soldiers reliably providing a big chunk of votes for Republicans in every election on every level,
- who since the 1970s have been in an open alliance with a variety of right-wing causes and economic interests at the neoliberal capitalist extreme whose numbers are themselves Christianists or happy to throw in together,
- whose funders opened a whole bunch of the best-known think tanks, as well as indoctrination centers in law schools and university departments around the country to groom operatives
- who thus got the appointments of hundreds of hard-core graduates of their networks as judges,
- and who finally got a majority on the Supreme Court ready to enact the full overturn of Roe v. Wade, which they then did, quite promptly for the timescale of court decisions, so to speak at the next available opportunity.

This SC represents a lot more than that, and is openly in the process of demolishing whatever remains of settled regulatory and most rights law since the 1930s.

One must be intentionally obtuse, especially now that one can apply hindsight, to affect not to see this, to claim that the timing is any kind of surprise, or to wish to ignore all of the above while continuing to insinuate that the SC decision must be primarily the product of an unseen plot, of one's usual obsessions about vague actors causing "divisiveness" without, of course, being able to show anything evidentiary comparable to the mountain I've outlined above.

Actually, it's quite insulting to the well-organized, well-funded, highly public anti-abortion extremist community. They worked hard and long to accomplish this assault on the rights of women, and against bodily autonomy in general. And if you're looking for the architects of "divisiveness," maybe you should go back 50 years to the time this most successful wedge issue of all time was first put into circulation, and picked up by the big money who saw that the Christianists could be useful.

Now, in response to the above, the ones who want to stick with the "mystery narrative" can engage in the usual sophistry of ignoring all of it and repeating the bullshit at a next opportunity, thus "always starting at zero" as I like to put it.

Another trick is to trivialize (or, in some cases, support) the anti-abortion movement's demand that all women of child-bearing age should be potentially subject to the incomparable rights violation of being used as forced breeders. Just pretend it's another case of "culture war," something cooked up yesterday by the invisible Powers That Be as part of their plan to divide some notional "us" over issues that don't matter and were invented as wedges by earlier manipulators.

Question. When was the first law relating to abortion enacted in the U.S.? Anyone know?

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[Belligerent Savant]

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I don't believe I noticed anyone in this thread denying there was an anti-abortion movement active for some time. But this movement is not mutually exclusive with other factors/agendas, such as the fore-referenced (and increasingly multi-pronged) efforts to divide citizenry on various ideological issues, and that such efforts seem to have reached an inflection point, particularly over the last ~2yrs, which is also tied to much of the framing/ostracism of others Re: covid policies and related enforcement, as much as you seem to avoid making that connection. And that's all we're trying to convey here: an attempt to acknowledge there's connections across topics/issues -- not to take over the conversation of the Roe v Wade topic, as you mischaracterized in an earlier comment. They are both, minimally, bodily autonomy issues. As I mentioned in a prior post, they are both part of the ongoing and incrementally expanding agenda to strip essential human rights and right to privacy/bodily autonomy.

I may have missed it, but have you -- or any others here, other than Luther B. -- addressed the below comments directly? Specifically the bolded bits below?

First, comments by 2 women:

Madame Kempe
@MadameKempe
·
Jun 24
I’m going to give an alternative view here, from the pro-choice perspective — that Roe was in fact an instance of judicial overreach, and that these issues should have been decided democratically through the legislature, not through the courts ruling from on high.

Yvon Wang 王弋文
@yyvonwang Replying to @MadameKempe

I agree entirely (as did RBG years ago, iirc). And Dems deserve only critique for not summoning their energies to actually enshrine these protections--instead using Roe as a kind of hostage for our votes.

2:27 PM · Jun 24, 2022·Twitter Web App

...

https://fergie.substack.com/p/roe-rever ... s-as-usual

Roe Reversal is Business as Usual
Petit Bourgeois individualism, the unending narrowness of the American "Left," and the Death Cult called the "United States"

25th JUNE, 2022- Yesterday, a reactionary US Supreme Court, empowered by the refusal of the last 3 Democratic administrations to codify Roe V. Wade, and the old racist relic Ruth Bader Ginsberg clinging to her gavel until the Grim Reaper snatched it from her, predictably repealed the 1973 Roe V. Wade ruling, eliminating federal protection for legal abortion in the United States. When the dust settles, as many as 22 states could use this to effectively ban abortion.

In response, the loose coalition of liberal civil society in the US, a smattering of the largely white, college-educated petite bourgeoisie, Democratic elites in the Beltway and along the coasts, progressives, pink hats, mainstream media, and the aesthetic-first, anarchistic “Left” have unleashed a predictably performative flood of outrage which has taken on historic proportions.

Much of this is understandable, even correct, and much of it is so mired up its own rear end of decontextualized American idealism that Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh wouldn’t know how to squirm their way through.

Women’s rights have been attacked again, no doubt, but watching liberals go into full meltdown once again over domestic social developments, while our entire lives as US citizens have been dominated by murder, genocide, imperialism, land theft, wage theft, mass surveillance, imprisonment, and the evisceration of the planet is fairly unimpressive, frankly. This is being heralded as the “rise of fascism,” but this is America: we created fascism. This is the theatrical gamesmanship of an extant, bipartisan fascist beast, manufacturing yet again the illusion of struggle within bourgeois boundaries.

CHOICE IS IMPORTANT; EXISTENCE IS MORE IMPORTANT

It’s unconscionable that in our collective political consciousness, the notion that “these women in X country/neighborhood are struggling to survive, and need access to abortion” supersedes the notion that “these women in X country/neighborhood shouldn’t be struggling to survive.”

but if only we could generate this much outrage for the total lack of public healthcare, childcare, preventative medicine, maternity leave, housing, or wealth redistribution that might make having a child, or not, a more deliberate decision for basically anyone.

Notwithstanding that abortion/birth control *in its liberal form* in the US (I am in no way taking away from more principled, materialist efforts over the centuries) began as a eugenicist project by white feminists to control black populations, abortion, objectively is a traumatic and sometimes dangerous procedure. Socialism is never idealism, it is the tool with which we address the material contradictions in our society, and so necessary abortion is available without question in a socialist society, because there is a human need for it, in many cases. What socialist states don’t usually do, as much of our culture has done, is fetishize abortion above all other causes, and idolize it, because Socialism creates the material conditions wherein abortion becomes far less of a necessity, because resources and education lead to less unwanted pregnancy, and because economic security and public infrastructure make child-bearing and family planning viable for the masses.

In the United States, abortion, like the other morsels of bread sanctimoniously doled out to the people by the ruling class, became a holy grail because it’s all you get. You may be stripped of the ability to choose where you live, where you work, how you exist, and what kind of family you want, but at least you can abort an unwanted pregnancy which might exacerbate the untenable conditions you’re trying to live through. The scattered rights and freedoms we vaguely enjoy in the US are always concessions granted to our populace to ensure that the imperial order is not toppled, and nothing more. As much as the liberal elite wants to blame “religion” in a vacuum, none of these rights and concessions will ever mean a thing, and none of them will ever truly be legislated responsibly, not abortion, not housing, not food, as long as the capitalist class remains in power.

Of course, none of this is unsettling to the power brokers of the Democratic Party, who never intended to settle the issue of Roe, because it has been their most valuable political currency for decades. In an election cycle when democrats control the White House and congress, and the economy is in the gutter, headed by a president unable to form complete sentences, the opportunity to sing “God Bless America” on the capital steps and convert it into fundraising checks is a can’t-miss for the DNC. All of this will mean nothing for the advancement of international working women’s liberation, but it may clear a few more shipments of heavy weaponry to Ukrainian fascists.
...

What to do? Pessimism is understandably strong amongst the infinitesimal ranks of a principled American Left, and so if the opportunity presents itself, the instinct to leave this burning ship and build the power to bring it down elsewhere on earth, makes sense. But even then, something must rise from the ashes.

For those with the patience, it’s more time than ever to build popular, organized power in the United States. Whether this will happen within CPUSA, PSL, the left-wing of DSA, complete with their countless contradictions and shortcomings, or whether it will come with the simple empowerment of class consciousness and broadening of community self-defense (which includes measure for safe access to abortion) outside of the influence of the Democratic Party entirely, and the creation of an entity which has yet to be, remains to be seen.

But make no mistake, our allies in this fight are not in liberal arts institutions, they’re not on “Decolonization” panels, they’re not staffing NGOs, and most of all, they started shedding tears of outrage at America’s crimes long before their right to have an abortion in a state they’ve never been to was ever threatened.

[JackRiddler]

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Question. When was the first law relating to abortion enacted in the U.S.? Anyone know?


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In effect, a number of you have been denying the existence and the power of the anti-abortion movement, not to mention the Christianists, the fascists, the far-right, and their coalition with cowboy capital and libertarian extremists since Goldwater days.

The evidence is that you keep asking the (at this point really stupid) question of how did this SC decision happen, why did it happen now, and who is "really" responsible, thus ignoring/denying their importance and power and stated intent and actions over more than 50 years time.

"Yes, I do see that fellow with a smoking gun standing over that just-shot man, whom he's been threatening to kill, and I do see him cackling. And, okay, I hear him yelling, YES, I SHOT ROEVWADE! NOW I'LL SHOOT THE GODDAMN ADMINISTRATIVE STATE! So I am not denying the existence of that man. But it would be a hasty conclusion to say that this man is the shooter. He has due process rights, after all. I'm just asking questions. Who can say that this shooter is not this other suspect whom I'm personally obsessed with, who isn't present? Why is he not present? Don't you find that suspicious? So I'm going to affect being very serious and thoughtful, double down on that thesis, and insinuate that everyone who doesn't acknowledge the unknown unknowns as their first premise is contributing to some vague thing I like to call divisiveness."

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I don't believe I noticed anyone in this thread denying there was an anti-abortion movement active for some time. But this movement is not mutually exclusive with other factors/agendas,

Of course not, it's an essential part of the right-wing and (bizarrely) libertarian coalition, as I pointed to in the post you were replying to already, and that's where the money comes from. Since the Christianists are essential votes in getting the Republicans in position who will appoint the judges who act as total corporate whores. (More so than the odd Democratic appointment who occasionally fail to do so.)

such as the fore-referenced (and increasingly multi-pronged) efforts to divide citizenry on various ideological issues,

In this case meaning the ones who've been at it openly since the 1960s, however, the culture-warrior right and their funders in the original neoliberal/right-wing coalition, not the invisible masterminds you prefer.

and that such efforts seem to have reached an inflection point, particularly over the last ~2yrs, which is also tied to much of the framing/ostracism of others Re: covid policies and related enforcement, as much as you seem to avoid making that connection.

I do not make the connection as you make it, because your version is speculative or imaginary until you present an iota of evidence other than the usual "spidey-sense" thinking template that on this board is treated as a synonym for ipso facto.

To be clear: The speculation on the part of you and a few others is that anyone bears primary responsibility for the "timing" of overturning Roe v. Wade OTHER THAN the forces who have been fighting, literally and in public, to do it for 50 years, and who more recently saw their six agents appointed to do this do it immediately when they had the chance. Can you argue it converges with the rest of your construct? Sure, it converges. But the act and its timing are not "caused by" anyone other than the right-wing coalition of the anti-abortion movement helping to organize a voting bloc, allied with the well-known funders over the last decades of the system of "Law and Economics" centers and right-wing think-tanks and networks who produced at least 5 out of the six motherfucking judges who ruled in the majority.

That being said abortion rights and anti-mandate (certainly for Covid) are allied issues, not antagonistic. I certainly do connect these two issues as matters of rights, and of violations to bodily autonomy. A false binary suggests otherwise. It's time for you to stop engaging in the myth that on R.I. you're arguing with people who think this, since obviously we don't.

But I don't have the shamelessness to turn this thread into yet another Covid thread, or to trivialize the designation of women as a forced-breeder class (see, I can do the italics too) as something irrelevant by comparison, or to repeatedly serve up the exact same acres of copy-paste sophistry basically making excuses and justifications for the anti-abortion movement. (Which, by the way, if you believe, you may as well say so rather than let Madame Kempe do it for you.)

And that's all we're trying to convey here: an attempt to acknowledge there's connections across topics/issues

Golly gee, so nice of you.

No, I'm not going to get roped into talking about Madame Kempe or the "judicial overreach" argument, and I certainly will not devote the time to deal with your reposting of said acre of sophistry. You're marginally worth deconstructing, your copy pasta is not. (I do like how you italicize "two women" as if this legitimates the nonsense. So? Is Juan Guiado a "Venezuelan voice" now? Will we be hearing next session that Clarence Thomas is a black man, so his argument for nixing voting rights needs to be respected?)

As opposed to the request that all must deal with the works of Madame Kempe et al. (indirectly I have repeatedly up thread, one trick is just not to read me and keep misrepresenting me), I asked a very short question, with a simple answer that might suggest something about "judicial overreach", and overreach generally.

It would take a sharp guy like you about a minute to find the answer. It's not much of a demand, by comparison. How come you're not doing that?

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Question. When was the first law relating to abortion enacted in the U.S.? Anyone know?

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[Belligerent Savant]

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Just now getting around to reading your reply. I admit chuckling out loud in a few instances -- I admire a good roasting as much as anyone, and roasting is certainly one of your myriad talents, at least with respect to written word. I'm flattered to have been an inspiration (that's actually not sarcasm, and this time, no italics either).

I believe the answer to your red-font question is: 1967, but i'm no abortion scholar; I remain an apprentice on the topic, relying mostly on my own and/or anecdotal experience.

There's actually not much I can say I strongly disagree with in much of your reply, though I don't believe you addressed my prior point Re: the political party ostensibly presenting itself as the champion for abortion rights arguably facilitating the recent overturn. This is part of the reason I suspect underlying motives beyond front-facing presentations.

There's more than 'spidey-sense' displayed here in RI, I believe. Minimally, there's ample circumstantial evidence, presented across topics and threads over the last ~couple years in particular, by many of our forum members. I never claimed to have it all right. Indeed, I believe I've indicated numerous times that i'm subject to just as much fallibility as anyone else (more so, in fact, compared to a few).

The next 6 - 18 months will go a long way towards clarifying things for many of us (there's that intuition buzzing again, speaking to me).

We can revisit these themes on or around Q3 2023 and see where we are.


(Managed an entire post with no italics, but god damn it was tempting to pull the trigger at least once)

[JackRiddler]

I believe the answer to your red-font question is: 1967, but i'm no abortion scholar; I remain an apprentice on the topic, relying mostly on my own and/or anecdotal experience.

Nope. The first state law relating to abortion (banning it after "quickening") came in 1821. 1821. Midwives were doing it forever before that and continued to do it into the 20th. English common law continued to cover it (and allow it) until then. Ben Franklin's presses published recipes for abortifacients, and these were advertised throughout the 19th century.

With that bit of knowledge there are several ideas in play currently still that, in short, are exposed as bullshit. First, if we're going to be dumb constitutional literalists or originalists, abortion as a common practice done among women was absolutely a right existing long before ratification of the 1787 constitution, and thus covered under the 1791 Bill of Rights protection of existing rights not specified. Second, the idea that this is something new, that modern technologies created the issue, is absolute crap. The technology did serve to make a procedure that had been practiced for millennia much safer, but not more accessible than it had always been. (Kind of the opposite -- it required doctors.) Third, the situation 1821 forward, until there was general prohibition by the 20th, was from the beginning a religiously-motivated movement against the existing, longsanding norms of culture and society. Again, abortion was not the innovation, banning it and making it broadly a matter for state legislation and courts was. Fourth, if you aren't aware of this in rough outline, why not? Bet you can give a rough timeline for other protections of rights. Why is this one so shrouded in fundamental general ignorance?

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[Belligerent Savant]

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Abortion will still be legal in most states. How legislation will play out in the outlier states remains TBD, though in most instances it won't be fully banned outright. To be clear, I'm not forming an opinion here on taking it to the States. As with most things of late, I feel the timing of the decision is motivated by a number of factors; the gamesmanship and other tactics have clearly been elevated to absurd degrees since ~2020, and all political players of influence are partaking.

My core issue with this topic is that I simply don't believe it to be pure happenstance that it's popped up again, now.

As I already indicated, bodily autonomy is absolutely a KEY issue right now, and needless to say it's not only relegated to the abortion topic.

There IS ABSOUTELY hypocrisy in play here, demonstrably, as I have observed and witnessed numerous instances of individuals in the "my body my choice" camp be totally ok with ostracizing/discriminating against/othering/infringing upon the rights of those that opted not to undertake a certain medical procedure. THIS is my core interest, because there are conceptual similarities here, and all those that are feeling so bold and righteous in their proclamations on the abortion issue, but are SILENT on the other bodily autonomy issue, are outright hypocrites, and in some cases (particularly among the public servants that have offered such lip service), FRAUDS.

I will not simply sweep this observation under the rug. These are absolutely related/complimentary topics. BOTH are AFFRONTS to bodily autonomy and fundamental rights. ALL THOSE blaring about abortion rights SHOULD HAVE ALSO DONE THE SAME when MANDATES were shoved down our throats. Instead, mandates have been -- and continue to be -- passively, actively or even passionately accepted by (demanded by, in a number of instances) many 'liberals' and the 'Left'.

WHY didn't they speak up about the topic of mandates, but are happy to be visible and vocal on the topic of abortion? Well, for one thing, Mandate-related talking points are TABOO among a certain demographic/political class, whereas abortion is a 'badge of honor' topic among the same groups. You are largely rewarded among your peers for speaking up about abortion rights but run the risk of being shunned (and in many cases are actually shunned outright) for raising the other topic involving bodily autonomy.

Even here in this thread we saw examples of this.

It's extremely frustrating and disappointing to see the cowardice, or inability to be objective, still on display out there.


(Note: I have not looked at any other threads here, but felt compelled to check out JR's reply to this one -- I often refuse to click on other threads after I offer a reply as my time is increasingly limited and would prefer to opt out of the temptation to chime in and likely initiate another 'to and fro'. I may or may not address other threads whenever I get around to clicking on them)

[Grizzly]

My core issue with this topic is that I simply don't believe it to be pure happenstance that it's popped up again, now.

Bingo!

[DrEvil]

Of course it's not happenstance. It's a direct result of Trump getting elected on (in part) the promise of stacking the courts with conservative judges to overturn Roe v. Wade. It happened now because they finally had the votes to do it. As has been repeated ad nauseam, they've literally been telling you that this was the plan for forty years. This would have happened, covid or no covid, because it's got nothing to do with it.

Anyway, why aren't people railing against the right, who have been screaming bloody murder over mandates for two years, all the while arguing for banning abortions and finally getting their will? Funny how it's only the left being bad guys here. Almost as if there was some kind of bias involved.

[Harvey]

Of course it's not happenstance. It's a direct result of Trump getting elected on (in part) the promise of stacking the courts with conservative judges to overturn Roe v. Wade. It happened now because they finally had the votes to do it. As has been repeated ad nauseam, they've literally been telling you that this was the plan for forty years. This would have happened, covid or no covid, because it's got nothing to do with it.

Anyway, why aren't people railing against the right, who have been screaming bloody murder over mandates for two years, all the while arguing for banning abortions and finally getting their will? Funny how it's only the left being bad guys here. Almost as if there was some kind of bias involved.

All conflation and twaddle, a microverse view of the argument.

[DrEvil]

How? Sincere question btw, since I obviously don't know the answer, or I wouldn't have written the previous post.

[JackRiddler]

My core issue with this topic is that I simply don't believe it to be pure happenstance that it's popped up again, now.

Obviously it is not, and no one thinks otherwise. The reasons for it -- the culmination of a 50-year political movement and a concurrent campaign to take over the judiciary -- are also completely obvious. It's your decision to constantly mystify this, to ignore the obvious answer, and to just repeat this over, and over, and over.

There IS ABSOUTELY hypocrisy in play here, demonstrably, as I have observed and witnessed numerous instances of individuals in the "my body my choice" camp be totally ok with ostracizing/discriminating against/othering/infringing upon the rights of those that opted not to undertake a certain medical procedure.

This too you are now repeating for the nth time, as if it is an observation that anyone here so far has disagreed with you about. I would say it is even worse hypocrisy in the other direction, and see you using this excuse ("well there are people losing their jobs out there because of unjust vaccine mandates and some poeple like that and some of them are for abortion rights") to diminish the issue of bodily slavery in the form of forced breeding required by state law, to sweep it aside either as a) partly justified because abortion bad (as you did above), b) irrelevant because vaccine mandates and other injustices, or c) and most annoyingly, the product of a mystery THEM who want to "divide us." Fuck man, there is no mystery: the right-wing campaign fought for this for 50 years and from the beginning they were instrumentalized as a means of "dividing us." It worked.

THIS is my core interest, because there are conceptual similarities here, and all those that are feeling so bold and righteous in their proclamations on the abortion issue, but are SILENT on the other bodily autonomy issue, are outright hypocrites,

Point to anyone here arguing this way or shut up, already.

I will not simply sweep this observation under the rug.

No kidding. You will repeat another three dozen times as if you haven't said it a dozen already. To whom are you speaking on this thread?

WHY didn't they speak up about the topic of mandates, but are happy to be visible and vocal on the topic of abortion?

Go argue with those who fit this profile. They do, indeed exist. Go find them.

Even here in this thread we saw examples of this.

Show, or stop.

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[liminalOyster]

Last week a very young and poorly educated woman reached out to my organization, calling from Texas and asking if the Plan B we have "works" at 13 weeks. Needless to say it does not. She had no money and clearly limited education about reproduction and was totally fucking distraught and in tears.

And the young teen girls on my block are like ticking time bombs waiting to have their lives ruined by unwanted pregnancy. Some of it almost surely by nonconsensual sex.

See, our state has fully banned abortion and our fascist legislature (who totally agree with posters here about masks, mandates, etc) will be very likely to go after Plan B if not even condoms and birth control too, soon enough.

As I see it, loud cries about "bodily autonomy" which don't pertain to abortion should best be taken seriously in inverse proportion to the amount of bodily autonomy one already enjoys.

I'm an over-educated, well-to-do enough white guy here, btw, who passionately opposes any/all vax mandates in all forms, but is well aware that view is of pretty much no consequence whatsoever in comparison to how rapidly shit is hitting the fan disproportionately for women who are poor and/or of color in Red states, atm.

[Belligerent Savant]

I'm an over-educated, well-to-do enough white guy here, btw, who passionately opposes any/all vax mandates in all forms, but is well aware that view is of pretty much no consequence whatsoever in comparison to how rapidly shit is hitting the fan disproportionately for women who are poor and/or of color in Red states, atm.

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Right.

And all the women/working class people that have absolutely been devastated by covid mandates? How many female -- and male -- nurses and health care workers, or otherwise working class people of all races, gender, creeds have lost their livelihoods, and a fair amount their good health as well, due to vaccine mandates?

I remain perplexed at this continued attempt to draw lines where they shouldn't be drawn.

the mandates NOT ONLY have negatively impacted the poor and working class in RED states, but ALSO -- particularly -- in BLUE states.

IN other words, mandates have caused far more net harms to far more people than the (very unfortunate) current circumstances surrounding the Roe v Wade overturn (the timing of which is very suspect).

That doesn't mean that one should receive more attention than the other, per se, but it does mean that one causes more net harms across more persons (including 2nd/3rd order harms) than the other.

[Belligerent Savant]

My core issue with this topic is that I simply don't believe it to be pure happenstance that it's popped up again, now.

Obviously it is not, and no one thinks otherwise. The reasons for it -- the culmination of a 50-year political movement and a concurrent campaign to take over the judiciary -- are also completely obvious. It's your decision to constantly mystify this, to ignore the obvious answer, and to just repeat this over, and over, and over.

There IS ABSOUTELY hypocrisy in play here, demonstrably, as I have observed and witnessed numerous instances of individuals in the "my body my choice" camp be totally ok with ostracizing/discriminating against/othering/infringing upon the rights of those that opted not to undertake a certain medical procedure.

This too you are now repeating for the nth time, as if it is an observation that anyone here so far has disagreed with you about. I would say it is even worse hypocrisy in the other direction, and see you using this excuse ("well there are people losing their jobs out there because of unjust vaccine mandates and some poeple like that and some of them are for abortion rights") to diminish the issue of bodily slavery in the form of forced breeding required by state law, to sweep it aside either as a) partly justified because abortion bad (as you did above), b) irrelevant because vaccine mandates and other injustices, or c) and most annoyingly, the product of a mystery THEM who want to "divide us." Fuck man, there is no mystery: the right-wing campaign fought for this for 50 years and from the beginning they were instrumentalized as a means of "dividing us." It worked.

THIS is my core interest, because there are conceptual similarities here, and all those that are feeling so bold and righteous in their proclamations on the abortion issue, but are SILENT on the other bodily autonomy issue, are outright hypocrites,

Point to anyone here arguing this way or shut up, already.

I will not simply sweep this observation under the rug.

No kidding. You will repeat another three dozen times as if you haven't said it a dozen already. To whom are you speaking on this thread?

WHY didn't they speak up about the topic of mandates, but are happy to be visible and vocal on the topic of abortion?

Go argue with those who fit this profile. They do, indeed exist. Go find them.

Even here in this thread we saw examples of this.

Show, or stop.

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Are you kidding? I know MANY people that have been outright hypocrites as I've outlined above. It's out there on the internet too. Check any social media feed -- across platforms -- and you'll see clear examples of this (Yes, I fully appreciate how much social media is a honeypot of bot accounts, fake personages and even more fake anecdotes for a variety of ends. My commentary factors this into my offhand calculations). Of course there remain plenty of historically "liberal" media -- NY Times, NPR, Atlantic, etc. -- that continue to push mandate policies or otherwise attempt to make excuses for them, with fucking masks potentially making a return as a mandate later this year (along with vaccine mandates that remain in place in far too many instances, mostly in "blue" regions/urban areas at this point). Many continue to passively/blindly subscribe to the narratives as pushed down from these sources.

(By way of just 1 example, on a recent call to check in on my vaccination status -- yes, this has been a thing, once a month leading up to my Sept deadline -- one of the 'leaders' of my practice felt the need to reference a NY Times piece on the efficacy of being vaccinated. Entranced, cult-like recitation. Unquestioning. And of course he's highly educated, natch. I must add here that at least one of my fellow colleagues, also currently exempted and slated to be terminated barring change to circumstance, is a young 20-something female with a MEDICAL EXEMPTION. Regardless, she is subject to termination if she doesn't comply. I only came to find out she is also 'one of the exempted' by happenstance -- they go to some lengths to prevent us from learning how many of us may be subject to the same fate; god forbid we organize. She has relayed to me a number of anecdotal accounts her doctor conveyed to her Re: female-related issues after inoculation: miscarriages, infertility, excessive menstrual bleeding, etc.)

I live and work in the greater NYC area (I know you are from the area as well), so please don't attempt to put out this notion that everyone that's currently blaring about abortion rights was/is also consistently opposed to Mandates. I have friends, family and peers across class and political spectrums, and can say without equivocation that there has been inconsistent if not outright hypocritical commentary on these 2 topics, as uttered by many of those that claim to be for bodily autonomy and human rights.

Yes: there are those that have been against mandates but are also fully against abortion on religious grounds, but my focus here -- since I don't believe anyone in RI holds the position I just outlined -- is on those that clamor for bodily autonomy but don't apply such sentiment consistently.

But: there is nuance with the topic of abortion. How many are OK with 3rd trimester abortions, for example (by CHOICE, outside of scenarios where the mother's life may be in danger, etc.)? While this is certainly an outlier position, there are those out there voicing this: "A woman should be able to choose to terminate a pregnancy at ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON".

It's been purposely set up as a deep wedge issue, when instead I believe most Americans are amenable to a reasonable approach whereby abortions would be legal across the board up to an agreeable period after conception, but after a certain point of development in the womb, abortion should only be considered for specific circumstances (e.g., potential risk to the woman's life, etc).

Here in RI it's not quite as clear-cut because few overtly proclaimed they were pro-mandate/pro-lockdown (though offhand I know of a few that believed lockdowns were NET good...until it later became clear they weren't. I don't recall how many -- if any -- in RI specifically indicated they were ok with mandates, but there seemed to be quite a few during the 2021 timeframe that believed it may have been necessary for a time, even if they didn't explicitly commit such thoughts to typed text. How many have since retracted or acknowledged the wrongs of these policies, unprompted?)

My prior comments upthread are meant to include sentiment outside the boundaries of this sandbox we call RI, if not previously clear.

Also, apparently I need to state this explicitly: Mandate harms go well beyond losing a fucking job, FFS.

On Edit: any employer that outwardly touts 'diversity, inclusion and belonging' but still has fucking mandates is another example of sheer hypocrisy and blatant empty platitudes. Any company that publicly announced paying for their employees to travel to another state for an abortion but did not ALSO, at any point, call out mandates as clear affronts to ethics and bodily autonomy are blatant hypocrites.
In many cases, the employers claiming to pay employees to travel to an 'abortion-friendly' state are STILL enforcing vaccine mandate policy.

These aren't 'outlier' examples. Mandates remain in place across many organizations that outwardly tout slogans (virtue signals/platitudes) that mask regressive mandate policies. There remain WAY TOO MANY organizations (colleges/universities may be one of the more egregious culprits) that continue to push these policies. Way too many 'liberals' and 'leftists' continue to turn a blind eye to this. It's part of the reason these mandates remain.

JRiddler:
...bodily slavery in the form of forced breeding required by state law

Where would that be applicable? Where is it applicable right now, and where is it pending?