I don’t even think many of the church leaders in the states are true believers, they are just grifters using and abusing faith for greed and power.

OT but I’d wager that’s sadly the case in a lot of religions across all faiths and countries. Back to the thread, I fear some other posters are correct and this is just the start. Democracy my arse.

funkmasterp
Full Member

I fear some other posters are correct and this is just the start.

Clarence Thomas has literally told us that this is the case. I mean, it’d be pretty obvious anyway but when they tell you what they’re going to do, listen.

I don’t even think many of the church leaders in the states are true believers, they are just grifters using and abusing faith for greed and power.

I think that equally applies to political parties, our expectations of people in faith based positions is just a little higher

Clarence Thomas has literally told us that this is the case. I mean, it’d be pretty obvious anyway but when they tell you what they’re going to do, listen.

Missed that 😕 fortunately it’s not happening over here yet. I’d like to think that it couldn’t but that’s probably me being very naive. I suppose the only slight saving grace for sane US citizens is that he is 74 so hopefully not long left!

fortunately it’s not happening over here yet.

It is though, and has been for a while, just with different trigger issues. Even this week the government are reducing “our” rights under the ECHR by riling up racist support for deportations.

I meant the subject of the OP but take your point

I suppose the only slight saving grace for sane US citizens is that he is 74 so hopefully not long left!

This shouldn’t be a lifetime appointment. Non-elected – fine, means they’re theoretically non-partisan. But there should be a term limit of, say 10 years, and no reappointments.

Roe vs Wade was probably bad law since a) Norma McCorvey lied about being raped so the whole case was based on fiction, and b) the right to abortion was protected through the right to privacy, which was very tenuous as an argument.

Anyway, the SCOTUS has not banned abortion, they have only removed federal protections and let the matter return to the states themselves. Abortion is now a matter for local democracy not of fiat from on high.

@funkmaterp

Democracy my arse.

On the contrary, if Americans now want abortion they get to vote on it.

Not really, it will depend on who controls the state. Can’t see many republican states allowing it. The point is it shouldn’t be an either/or scenario. The only person who should get a say in the matter of abortion is the woman having to make the decision in the first place.

a) Norma McCorvey lied about being raped so the whole case was based on fiction,

This is bollocks. Whether she lied or not is irrelevant; the judgement did not take that into account at all when making its judgment. It was based entirely on the premise of ‘it’s none of your business’ which is exactly the right that’s being attacked at the moment; the right to privacy. It’s not a good time to have a ‘non traditional’ lifestyle in the US right now.
Full fact check

On the contrary, if Americans now want abortion they get to vote on it.

Yeah, unelected partisan officials taking repealing the constitutional rights of an already subjugated group is TOTALLY democratic. <rollseyes>

Dont think it wont be coming here……

Tory MP Danny Kruger says he doesn’t agree that “women have an absolute right to bodily autonomy". pic.twitter.com/rLBQ6mhyAk

— Mirror Politics (@MirrorPolitics) June 28, 2022

See, this is why I could never be an MP.

I’d have punched that smug **** spark out.

Not surprised to see our resident cake scoffer talking about “State’s rights”.

We’ve all heard that one before haven’t we?

Abortion is now a matter for local democracy not of fiat from on high.

No it isn’t, this decision allows states to override local democracy. It empowers state legislators to overturn decisions made at the local level.

On the contrary, if Americans now want abortion they get to vote on it.

Whereas before, if someone wanted one, they could have one. If they didn’t want one, they didn’t have to have one.

On the contrary, if Americans now want abortion they get to vote on it.

Well that’s sorted then.

This is not driven by party politics. Its driven by religious fundamentalists. They want to make their superstitions apply to all of us.

I’d argue the opposite is true. It’s republican fundamentalists using religion as a tool for control.

Having said that, ,this map demonstrates what a powerful tool religion is in the USA, compared to here*. People lap it up.

*Well, the EU.

And correlate that religion map to the insta-ban states.

And, er, Gilead…

61 Conservative MPs voted against extending abortion access in Northern Ireland last week, including Jacob Rees-Mogg and several other ministers. pic.twitter.com/YtjieGTqMv

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) June 28, 2022

@Kelvin

No it isn’t, this decision allows states to override local democracy. It empowers state legislators to overturn decisions made at the local level.

Whereas before the federal courts could overturn all local decisions re abortion.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to argue.

The US is a federal republic made up of a union of states.

Whereas before, if someone wanted one, they could have one. If they didn’t want one, they didn’t have to have one.

Not many countries treat abortion like buying a tin of beans. Even in the UK we have laws that restrict abortion.

It’s republican fundamentalists using religion as a tool for control.

Is it possible to be a republican fundamentalist?

I thought that was something applied to religion?

I’d say the two are becoming increasingly difficult to separate in the US central state / republican politics.

America #1, fundamentalist Christian poorer Republican states
America #2, secular coastal generally more affluent Democrat states

Is it possible to be a republican fundamentalist?

Well, I dunno. Perhaps? Maybe I meant Republican Extremist. Someone that takes Republican traits and keeps pressing ENHANCE.

The point was supposed to be that Roe vs Wade isn’t about religion at all. It’s about political oppression in the name of religion – I.e. it’s all just politics. The culture war is the librul coastal elites vs ‘Christian values’.

Here, we have benefit scroungers vs toffs and lately remoaners vs racists for our culture war.

Not many countries treat abortion like buying a tin of beans. Even in the UK we have laws that restrict abortion.

Do you think what has happened in the states is a good thing, or are you just wanting a debate for funsies?

Even in the UK we have laws that restrict abortion.

Well, yes. I’m fully of the opinion that the six-year old feral horror down the road should be aborted, nasty little ****er that she is. Fortunately for her, abortion in the 24th trimester is legislated against.

Sarcasm aside there has to be safeguarding of course. But as I think someone else here said, outlawing abortion simply restricts safe abortion. The US of all places should understand all too well how effective prohibition is.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to argue.

That this decision empowers the state legislature in what has been a long hard complicated battle between local governments and state governments. I think your confusion is that you are using “local” where what you really mean is “state”… which does sort of suggest you don’t really know what you’re talking about as regards levels of government in the USA, or the parts they have played in the battle to deny/allow young women to make difficult choices without fear of the law.

 It’s republican fundamentalists using religion as a tool for control.

enlisting single issue voters  to vote for them has been a Republican tactic for decades now, Gun control, Religion govt, abortion, equality…It’s been pretty successful. (see Trump and the evangelical right)

Sarcasm aside there has to be safeguarding of course. But as I think someone else here said, outlawing abortion simply restricts safe abortion. The US of all places should understand all too well how effective prohibition is.

IMHO it’s one of those wicked problems; there is probably no right answer. OTOH when abortion was made a protected right in the US, and this seems to be the same in many western countries, abortions were supposed to be for pathos-ridden ‘special cases’: the 16-year-old, the rape victim, the incest victim, the very poor women, etc. Now you can go into a family planning clinic and be advised to get an abortion right off the bat because not everything is perfect in your life, or it’s simply inconvenient to be pregnant, for example.

The ‘pro-choice’ argument total erases that a fetus, a baby, a something is collateral in that choice to terminate.

Kelvin – that’s just sophism. Roe vs Wade empowered nobody but the federal government to decree that abortion could not be prohibited. Now the decision rests with the state. That there are more local legislatures than the state does not mean that the matter has not now been localised, i.e., at the state level from the federal level. Clearly, and obviously, the state is not absolutely the smallest (and thus most local) form of government, but it is more local that the federal government.

Now you can go into a family planning clinic and be advised to get an abortion right off the bat because not everything is perfect in your life

What??

That is an appallingly value laden statement.

that’s just sophism

No, it isn’t. It is understanding that the battle between local government (which is what it is called in the USA, a general term used across the states, because there are localised names and structures that vary between states and regions) and state legislature is absolutely key in this. States can now overturn decisions made by local government, where as before local government could use federal law to fight for their own decisions to be upheld.

@kelvin

where as before local government could use federal law to fight for their own decisions to be upheld.

Technically, although in reality the decision to allow abortion was a federal one.

If, as you say, local government was able to make the decisions on abortion then why didn’t some ban it?

The ability to only make one decision isn’t a decision.

They made decisions on access and restrictions. Local government in the USA tends to be more independent (often literally, as in not party affiliated) reflecting what their voters call for, rather than what those with a stranglehold on the Republican Party want, which is the case at the state level in many cases. Most people in America want abortion to be legal and as safe as possible but with safe guards and some restrictions in place.

@Kelvin do you have a source saying that local government had sovereignty over abortion restrictions vis a vis the state after the first trimester?

The ‘pro-choice’ argument total erases that a fetus, a baby, a something is collateral in that choice to terminate.

So outlaw contraception next? I mean effective contraception erases that foetus too.

Hell, go a step further and outlaw male self-pleasure.

Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great.

Some local governments acting to restrict access before this decision, just for you Mr Cake… (sovereignty doesn’t come into it, nothing in the USA is ever that simple)…

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/supreme-court-considers-abortion-cases-local-governments-impose-bans-n1281999

@chewk

I find ‘karma’ to be problematic in regards to reincarnation.
Some would argue that your spirit guides may present you with a number of alternative life’s to select from, prior to reincarnation.

That means that the lives you de-select will be available to other souls.
A lot of the pitfalls/ opportunities in these lives may be completely irrelevant to both you and your peers.
So how does karma come into play?

“Oh dude, bad karma, falling off your skateboard”.

But that would have happened to any of the umpteen candidates for that life, regardless of their actions in previous incarnations.

Others would argue that once we select a life, we spend some time, tailoring and tweaking that life to our delectation.

Some things we can’t change, and others we can.

It may be that what we can change before we incarnate are our proclivities to all manner of things, via all the junk dna inside humans.

So, we may like or dislike certain kinds of music, forms of transport, etc.
This applies to our peers too, mutually steering each other in certain directions.

As for souls, incarnating into possibly aborted foetuses?
I don’t think so.
They will be aware that the foetus will be aborted, and thus not select it.
There’s nothing really there, unless the soul interacts with it over the whole nine months.
And that’s quite an involved process of activating all kinds of brain functions.

And we have lift off…

They say that for an incarnate soul, the process of childbirth is more traumatic than that of death.

I think the problem for the lawmakers in America is that it’s not karma they have to deal with.

Skank is distributed fairly evenly across all socioeconomic and ethnic groups.

What’s not so evenly distributed is freedom of opportunity.

Taking the decision making powers out of those without basic economic means is a two-way street.
All that those at the bottom economic rungs have to offer is their inner skank.
It gets soaked up.
Whether in this life or the next, they’ll find themselves drawn to increasingly cruddier life outcomes through manipulation of the junk dna to engender certain valences.

I wouldn’t interact with those at the lower sociological rungs, unless to boost their choices.

To me, having kids is the same as kidnapping a bunch of souls who may have been chilling and kicking back in the spirit realm.
No matter how you dress it up, it’s a form of abduction.

It’s all about how tolerable (quality of life), you make it🤪

@kelvin

You’re aware that’s local government further restricting abortion in contrast to the gist of your argument above which framed local government as uniformly liberal and now at the mercy of tyrannous Republic state legislatures?

Anyway, I’m a bit unclear about whether local government restricts abortion within limits determined by the state, or they are sovereign on the matter now. It’s still a moot point IMHO anyway because both are closer to the people than the federal government.