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Keep voting Democrats like most did Tue night and DEI will continue. But Abortion rights!!!!

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I find the frustrating disregard for what's happening to Israel, and the mindless protesting in support of terrorism (Hamas) around the world, to be very, very similar to the insistence by so many that abortions are A-okay and good.

Just as it is frustrating to hear people deny that Oct 7th ever happened or that the Hamas attack was a good thing, it is just as frustrating to hear people deny that a baby is being ruthlessly and painfully killed in the womb during an abortion. The frustration with the denial of suffering for both Israel and the unborn is real.

If there is a God, maybe there is a point He is trying to make here.

Did anyone see the baby who was born in England at 26 weeks inside the completely intact amniotic sack? The baby and mom are doing fine so far... Proof (as if we needed it) that it is indeed a baby inside the womb.

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Get off it, abortion rights are not the be all and end all of everything. Compared to the Holocaust or the rape of Nanking or the nightmare in the middle east it is just not in the top 5 priorities in the world. American women demand the right to kill their own children but that does make their demands the worlds number one issue.

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Republicans gave them no choice but to vote Democrat. It is not about Abortion rights. It is about confidence that Republicans will not drag women back to the dark ages. Simple. Both sides have extremism. We are left with a choice of least harmful. When Republican's realize they just need to govern the will of the people they will start winning again. I foolishly have faith.

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Please list the Trump policies that push women back to the dark ages.

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Exactly. This is the logical progression of progressivism. Toward Socialism and Communism.

Progressives use grievance politics as a mechanism to put collectivism in place. When we have collectivism everything will be fair! (Sarc)The leaders of these movements put themselves in power and destroy the country in the process. DEI is just grievance politics under a new name.

Anyone voting for this (I.e. voting for almost any but the most centrist Democrat) is actively selling out the country.

I only hope that those that sell us out suffer more than the rest of us when we become Venezuela.

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Yyeeaaahh, If your first reaction to this DEI piece is to trash Democrats, then you are not here to oppose DEI, but to engage in the same old partisan BS.

If you could take that shit elsewhere, that would be great.

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LOL. without dems DIE does not exist.

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Without credibility, everyone you might want to convince of anything dismisses everything you say as partisan BS.

But you go right ahead and enjoy that partisanship hun. Eat it all up.

"I'm not here to debate, I'm here to shout into an echo chamber of people I already agree with!"

Then this is not the place for you hunny bunches! TFP is for people to debate the issues, not the parties. Move along now. Shoo!

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Is that supposed to be a response to me?

No credible source attributes DIE to anyone except the dems, And even if there is a shred of positivity in the philosophy (there really isn't unless you snip enough to remove context) the dems have done to it what they do with everything they have ever had, ruin it.

The dem party exists solely to get power by getting suckers to believe their BS, then they screw over everyone and everything positive from that point forward. There is no modern example to the contrary.

edit: You shoo or talk to the hand or go run along or stick your finger back up your nose and keep pretending those thoughts in your head are worthwhile, clown.

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Everything you say is partisan. Every word. No one takes your arguments seriously. And you've alienated any Democrat that might agree with you about DEI.

Your approach is really, really stupid. But enjoy that partisanship, clearly it's the most important thing to you!

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But abortion. Exactly. The Republicans, if they want to win, need to look at what the constituents want, whom they wish to serve. That should determine their political stance, which does NOT need to be their personal stance. One can disagree with abortion personally while still accepting the will of the people they represent, which is to keep abortion legal. Sad, but true.

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Yes this is my view.

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".....the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad). It replaced lots of things. Color blindness with race obsession. Ideas with identity. Debate with denunciation. Persuasion with public shaming. The rule of law with the fury of the mob"

To sum up, the high IQ vs the low IQ.

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Exactly right.

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Is it so hard for you to comprehend that a single voter might be vehemently opposed to the tenets of Democrat-endorsed DEI, but also vehemently opposed to the Republican-endorsed project of curtailing abortion rights? If so, you're out of touch.

Those two convictions are burning in the hearts of most voters, and they're hungry for a rational leader capable of endorsing both convictions, too. Short of that, who can blame them for voting for what they perceive as the most proximate threat?

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You're assuming JJ, that all Democrats defend DEI or for that matter, campus censorship and cancel culture which is adjacent to it. The world is not that black and white. Don't make that mistake, as so many commenters here do..

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This endless rant about voters voting for right to abortion is getting tiresome. How about the GOP stop making it their hill to die on and make it possible for pro-choice voters to stomach voting for them? It goes the other way too.

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Abortion rights are a good reason to vote Democratic, because abortion rights are important to more than half the population. It's not the only issue, but it's up there in importance as a symbol of freedom and keeping government out of our bedrooms.

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Abortion rights is no longer a Federal issue, so voting for federal dems is moot to that.

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It IS a federal issue, not just state. U.S. Republicans are threatening a federal abortion ban. Democrats are needed to block that.

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And the democrats have convinced the electorate that abortion is more important than the economy and an open border.

I don’t like it because I believe that my two issues affect more people.

But here we are.

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It’s smart politics. GOP stepped on their weenies with their draconian, liberty-hating abortion restrictions, and Dems are driving a truck through it to the win column. Economy and border are broadly more important, sure, but hot button issues win elections.

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This will settle in another year when each state has spoken...and we'll still have sanctuary cities, unaffordable housing and staples.

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High prices for housing, staples, and gasoline, to name three, come largely from two things: a supply chain *still* screwed up by Covid, the global shutdown, and logistics system still not operating efficiently worldwide; and supply-and-demand. It happened on Biden's watch because Biden inherited almost all the the fallout from Covid. If Trump wins next year, he will inherit the economic problems, and prices will remain high until demand and supply chain issues work themselves out. Presidents politically get the blame and the credit for what happens on their watch, but our economy is so massive no president can do much to alter it.

The border mess is a collective failure of Congresses and both parties beginning with Ronald Reagan. None of them did anything to fix legal immigration, and I blame them all for that. We cannot have open borders and be a sovereign nation, they are mutually exclusive.

Also on the border, most of the illegals do not swim the Rio Grande or walk across the "open border," an open border that doesn't exist in reality--we are arresting and deporting more illegals now than we did under previous administrations. So the big beautiful Trump wall would not have solved the problems while costing trillions to erect.

Most illegals and contraband like fentanyl come in through the international trucking system, because millions of semis cross our southern border every year and most of them get only a cursory examination, if any. That was the case under Trump, it remains the case under Biden. If we quit allowing Mexico to ship products into our country, much illegal people and goods would stop. So would billions of dollars of agricultural and other imports this country demands. Gotta choose, one or the other. Or hire enough Border Patrol to hand-search every truck, and that's ... unlikely.

Did Biden pump too many billions of dollars into the economy during Covid? Probably. But what was the alternative, let people starve? People were out of work for two years. Landlords were out of rent money for two years. Businesses had no traffic for two years. The federal subsidies kept people and businesses afloat, and I am willing to suffer the inflationary aftereffects for a while to allow them to have lived through the shutdowns that made the real unemployment rate a zillion percent.

The shutdown ITSELF is a separate issue, because shutting down our entire system is what caused the chain of events that led to the mass unemployment and need for the bailout. Sure, we can blame Biden in retrospect for doing it, but only in retrospect--that first year of Covid, nobody knew what the hell was the right approach. Since most of the world did the same thing, I'd argue that if Trump had won the election, he'd have shut us down, too, given what we knew at the time.

The second year of shutdown was ridiculous, and for that I blame Biden fully. At the time I called for opening the country back up after the first year was over, and if we had, it might have mitigated some of the aftershock. But, governing is imperfect.

Now that we have solved the problems of the world via social media, I bid you a warm good night.

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I am insulted by the claim that my primary interest in life is the right to dismember my baby in utero. WTAF?

As if adult women haven’t known how to prevent pregnancy for a very long time.

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Why are you telling me this? I didn’t suggest you dismember anything.

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Shane, that is what abortion is. I know you are pro abortion until the 9th month. We've had this discussion. That doesn't mean that abortion isn't a horrific way of discarding something (a fetus/baby).

The states have control of abortion law now and it varies from state to state as it always would have had SCOTUS not stuck their nose where it didn't belong Even RBG said so.

We have millions of illegals and I don't doubt another catastrophic event is in the making. We can't afford groceries and young people can't afford mortgage rates which means fewer owning homes. These are huge issues that the Dems are solely responsible for.

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Thanks for the politeness of your reply, md. Since I respect your writing ability, even if I don't agree with your conclusions, I will give you a serious reply.

I'm not "pro-abortion." I'd prefer every woman choose to keep every fetus until it becomes a child, and love and care for that child for the betterment of our society. But the key word is "choose," and to that end I champion every woman's right to make that decision for herself. I do not want politicians to bully her into that choice early because it lets a DeSantis or a Noem or an Abbott win another term as governor.

I prefer no laws governing abortions, because women are more than capable of figuring it out for themselves. Without laws, they would choose early abortions, because they overwhelmingly do now. But politicians are hell-bent to legislate abortion whether or not they should, and so they pass laws when they don't need.

I'm not unreasonable. I'd be willing to make abortions freely available until the end of the second trimester--24 weeks--and then none unless for medical emergencies to fetus or woman, or for ghastly fetal deformities. But too many politicians insist on no abortions, six weeks, or twelve weeks, and that's way too restrictive on women's rights for my taste.

So if it's going to be six weeks or no laws, I favor no laws and women making their own choices. I trust them to do that. I don't consider fetuses "preborn children," so it's easy for me to champion this. You consider fetuses children, so it's easy for you to champion your view. We simply will not agree on that part of the equation.

I believe SCOTUS ruled correctly in that states, not the feds, have the right to regulate. But too many states took that opportunity to jam abortion bans down their residents' throats, and it infuriates me that half our population is treated with such disdain. The Texas bounty hunter abortion ban? Ohio changing referendum rules once, twice, thrice midstream? Talk about cynical, disgusting political theater. Voters don't like it, and now Republican abortion-banners are losing their jobs over it. Good. They went too far.

Illegals and the rest of it is another post.

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Your reply is so thoughtful and practical. I posted my practical view as a female physician and mother of three. I hope you read it and send me your critique.

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Disa, thanks so much for this. I appreciate it. Abortion is not just morality, not just religion, not just politics, not black-and-white. Allowing women to make that choice for themselves, while simultaneously making it easier to say "yes" to carrying to term rather than aborting, is the ideal for a free society. Bounty-hunter abortion bans are the LAST thing a free society should do.

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I appreciate your civil arguments, but I decline to be included in "half the population" that supposedly is being treated with disdain. There are many women opposed to abortion.

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"There are many women opposed to abortion."

Yes, there are. But you should be able to make that decision for yourself, not have it shoved down your throat by government dictate.

Women should never have been subjected to such political theater as the Texas bounty hunter scheme. You deal with life's complexities every day and are perfectly capable of deciding the abortion issue for yourselves instead of having a man--face it, most of the politicians deciding these things for you are men--tell you what's best. I find it insulting for women, their doctors, and their friends to be chased down by bounty hunters because Abbott wants another term as governor.

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My comment was in direct response to the comment that abortion bans show disdain to half the population. I'm assuming "half the population" refers to women. I don't feel that abortion restrictions show disdain to me as a woman.

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Oops, missed this! I do believe they show disdain in that they assume women don't know how to make this decision without Big Daddy's help. Women do.

That said, there are degrees. A policy that simply says, "Abortion restrictions begin at 24 weeks because the consensus is that mother's right is dominant until then, and child's right dominates after that," is a lot less insulting then, "Cause you won't keep your legs together, bimbo, have the baby or we'll let bounty hunters ruin your life."

The former is better because it acknowledges the rights of both parties, not only the fetus's.

The latter is Ken Paxton's Texas.

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To your last sentence, the discussion is important now if you see that inflation and illegal immigration affects every single person while abortion most definitely (thankfully) does not. Even though you don't consider yourself 'pro abortion' you've made it a very important / top tier voting issue, or so it seems, and there really is no differentiation between "it's your choice" and "for abortion". There is a lot of word displacement and replacement going on in our culture now.

The state in which I live has abortion law going back to the 1800s so laws were on the books in many states long before SCOTUS was involved in the '70s and in '22. Undoing abortion law altogether was impossible. What's happened with abortion (just like what's happening with trans now) is the billions of dollars that are made from it and pushed into it. And it could care less about it's consequences. Just look up Goznell. As a man (and I mean no offense), you'll just never know that feeling of having a baby grow in your body and the gift of that opportunity. And again, no offense, but I don't think you can understand the damage to the emotional and physical health of a woman who has an abortion and all too often it's not just one abortion. I worked with a woman who had three abortions (paid for by our boss) and then birthed a child. All of the pregnancies were with different men. The child she had was born with Down's Syndrome...likely genetic on the father's side but who really knows. She may not be the typical woman, but for reals, women are using abortion as contraception. Aren't we a more sophisticated society than that? Are we back to sacrificing our children at the altar? I know you don't support that that kind of abortion, but it's all part of the equation.

Lastly, babies can survive at 24 weeks. They feel pain at 20 weeks. You and I will always disagree on this issue. As Bari says, "Jews, who understand that being made in the image of God bestows inviolate sanctity on every human life...." How would God only make a human in his image after they are born because the mother chose life for him or her?

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"To your last sentence, the discussion is important now if you see that inflation and illegal immigration affects every single person while abortion most definitely (thankfully) does not."

This? Absolutely. A culture-deep conversation about Inflation, the larger economy, and immigration are critical to have now, and for everyday citizens to insist on piercing the "nah, nah, everything's fine" bullshittery that passes for assurances from our legislators. All is not well, so we must either force change through the system or receive documented, believable evidence as to why "fine" is correct. We cannot continue to ignore these issues and continue as a society. To be a sovereign nation is to not have illegal immigration, period. And if we're one more crisis away from Great Depression III, we need to know that in time to stave it off.

What does hearten me, though, in all seriousness, is this conversation and others I've had on this forum. Normal Americans can still have deep conversations about difficult and mult-viewpoint issues without turning into Twitter-like shout machines. Your take on abortion manages to make me take pause on my own views, and while I might not change my mind, I'm open to more possibilities to do so than I would ever be from other forums.

No offense taken. Women are the only half of humanity who can experience the intensely personal side of the babymaking equation; men can't. My arguments can only be about legality and freedom because men cannot get pregnant.

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Thanks so much Shane for a cogent, respectful dialogue.

And continued prayers for all of my Jewish friends and those I will never know. God will not abandon His chosen people.

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Thank you in return for this lovely comment, md, I really do appreciate it, and you. As I watch the murder cults wreak their hell on Earth in Israel, I continue to be impressed by the respect and support we Jewish people receive from our non-Jewish friends around the world. You are a mensch, one of the highest compliments of Yiddish I can pay.

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Oh my gosh....I'm honored! Thanks Shane! Made my day/month/year.

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That’s why the Republican Party needs to change- fast. Just recognize that it’s important to women and be reasonable! It’s 2023, and people still think women should be pushed into back alleys to do what they’ve been doing forever: ending unwanted pregnancies!? It’s downright archaic. And self destructive for the Republican Party, which needs to win so our country can go back to being meritocratic and democratic.

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Keep talking about no exceptions abortion laws and DEI will continue, along with some 2nd and 3rd trimester slaughter.

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Agree. And how does this sentence in the essay square with abortion?

"Jews, who understand that being made in the image of God bestows inviolate sanctity on every human life, must not stand by as that principle, so central to the promise of this country and its hard-won freedoms, is erased. "

If you are capable of convincing yourself that your unborn baby is not a life worthy of living, you can convince yourself that any life is unworthy of living.

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This was exactly what I wrote before reading your comment.

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Religions differ on abortion, and among major religions present in the US that came from the Old World, only the Catholic religion forbids abortion. In particular, the Jewish religion does not forbid abortion.

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Do you think you have to go to church to know a baby when you see one?

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Charles CW Cooke (National Review) is a pro-life either atheist or agnostic. And he's certainly not alone.

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Well said

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The DEI will continue as long as the Republicans will not overcome their anti-abortion obsession, which also enables the most murderous, very late term abortion obsession of the left.

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I agree. Republicans are idiots. Most pro life people like myself believe in abortion with restrictions but no late term abortions. Nikki Haley has a very good option with abortion, the Republicans need to embrace this, unify under it or they will continue to lose.

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I agree.

The Dems have a winner in abortion.

The Repubs need to give up something, or they will never be able to govern.

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The VA gov stumped on 15 weeks for this midterm and got nowhere. The official Democrat Party platform is abortion with no restrictions. Hard to call that anything but baby killing.

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It's because people don't trust the GOP with the issue at all. Look at what happened in Florida with DeSantis, he signed a 15 week limit with exceptions, and then immediately after his re-election, quietly signed the 6 week limit with much narrower exceptions. Sorry, but Republicans have very little trust and credibility on this issue, particularly when the majority in the Party leadership as well as its base are still talking about outright bans as the goal, and perhaps it's clarifying to read a lot of the comments on this board where people feel pretty comfortable about letting loose on their "opinions" about "loose women" and the obligations some feel they have to the "state" to produce babies in order to keep things clarified about the goals and intent behind these bans.

Consider this to be like the gun control issue on the Right: gun owners and the Right don't trust Democrats with the issue, that targeted bans won't lead to outright bans and attempted repeals at the 2A. And since many Democrats and liberals are pretty open to 2A repeal and/or severe narrow interpretations that would forbid most non-hunting rifle ownership in the nation, it's not without basis. And yet, when polled, many support the ostensibly reasonable regulations that have been proposed, but not when they are championed by only Democrats. Similarly, the "15 week limit and then escalating restrictions for medical necessities" has majority polling support as well, but not when it's proposed by Republicans, and particularly not when it's proposed by Republicans who are on record as desiring of more totalizing bans (as Youngkin has been previously - and stated he would eagerly sign if he had a Republican majority in VA to pass them).

For either issue to get credibility with either base of supporters, it can't be driven solely by partisan interests, and the maximalizing rhetoric that everyone can still hear in the background of the "reasoned solutions" discredits the "reasonable solutions" as just being the slippery slope to the maximalist goal. Really - for any sort of sliding scale of restrictions to pass, they will likely have to be championed by Democrats to pass the smell test for most of the people voting against Republican attempts to limit/restrict and authored in a way that removes, as much as possible, any controlling agency from political authorities or the state and placed as much as possible within the medical practicing community to "self police" the practice - which, as you might know, was the state of things under Roe : /

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Republicans in Virginia advocated legal abortions for 15 weeks. They lost. A moderate postion does not seem to be a winner.

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That's in one state, it may work in others. It's better than a flat out ban

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What do you think about an individual who would compromise his/her basic principles in order to win an election?

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Politics is and has always been about compromise. Somebody who believes so much in his ideas that he refuses to compromise with a large number of people who think differently is a fanatic, who hurts the interests of his own side by letting the more extreme opponents win elections, craft laws and transform the society in the most evil ways. That’s not virtue, it’s selfishness and stupidity.

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Compromising about solar panels is one thing, compromising your basic moral principles is another. I think you're calling the wrong crowd fanatics -- please name me ONE Democrat representative or senator who will compromise on any aspect of abortion?

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The Dems don't need to compromise - they are trading on fear and it works.

I agree with you on principle, but at this point, it's an impossible position in most places. My governor, Glenn Youngkin, tried to be moderate and rational, and we did not win back the state senate and lost the house to boot. All on abortion ads nonstop. And the Democrats that won in VA are not moderate classic liberals. They are way left progressives.

So if the GOP can't compromise in some way, they will keep losing, and never get ANYWHERE with ANYTHING!? They've been losing since Dobbs and there doesn't look like any end in sight. The Dems use it as their rallying cry and they get out their base every time.

Sadly I don't think a morally principled group that never wins anything helps the country in any way.

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So you're not saying Rs need to compromise, they need to 100% capitulate? Ds won't accept anything less.

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Not necessarily. But your thinking about being principled and sticking to your guns, is the way I've always felt, and it's not getting us anywhere. Unfortunately, that conviction doesn't win elections in a broad majority of places.

I do think GOP candidates should go to the media during elections and explain the situation. They never do that. they need to come right and say "The Dem candidate is scaring you into thinking ________ and that's not true. Here's what is true....."

I respect a person who is seriously pro-life and would only approve of it due to rape, incest and health of mother. But they can't get elected in most cases.

The sad truth is that a majority of this country wants abortion to be safe and legal with reasonable restrictions (12 - 15 weeks), and a smaller majority wants abortion to be available on demand, with no restrictions whatsoever, which is what just happened in Ohio, a red state.

The change has to come in people's hearts, and until that happens, the GOP must go another route. They're getting nowhere fast, because this issue is their demise right now. 😔

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The option to Dems is MAGA?? That is nuts. Just as MAGA has captured the Republican Party, the Progressives have yelled reasonable Dems off the stage. How about a wide based call to end the crazy Right and Left

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Can you name some specific things that MAGA republicans support that is crazy?

Marjorie Taylor Greene comes to mind but that’s not really party platform. It seems to me that Trump was actually a decent president if you get past him being a jackass.

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Good Q. So, excluding Trump for the discussion still leaves a lot of odd & dangerous ideas & platforms among the MAGA. #1 has to be the widespread idea and plan to move away from democracy as it has become too clumsy, autocracy is a better way. Multilevel official denial of COVID as a problem or many of its rational fixes- that cost the US ~200,000 excess lives lost. Widespread denial of global warming with actual blockage of measures to deal with it. GCC is real. Efforts to cut federal deficits by cutting funds to the iRS which will decrease legit income. MAGA has their own version of speaker & book bans, just different stuff than the Libs. I'm sure other folks can think of something too.

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He goes with the wind and he's not rational. He's an opportunist first taking one side then the other. He wants to be popular, everything's all about him. Consequently he doesn't take wise council. He has an enemies-list just like Nixon did. Anyone who disagrees with him is on it He talks about killing people who disagree with him. I voted for him twice as an alternative. But listen to him. And believe he means what he says. Don't pass off his words.

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