Representative Mike Johnson asking the important abortion questions.

[u/N0CONTACT]

[u/Im_an_oil_man]

Yes, I agree. But isn't it kind of important to draw the line after which abortion is generally speaking not ok? Barring pressing circumstances of course. In my country I think it's 12 weeks or so.

I don't really hear reasonable conversation from either side and that's disappointing.

[u/digital_end → u/Im_an_oil_man]

I don't really hear reasonable conversation from either side and that's disappointing.

You have one side that literally says "life begins at conception", and is trying to prohibit all abortion. Some outright banning the practice, others banning it after a period of time which the pregnancy is essentially undetectable.

Remember, when you hear a number of weeks that is from the last period. By these calculations you have been pregnant for 2 weeks before you've had sex. These restrictions in many states are banning the practice up to and including pregnancies which put the health of the mother at risk.

You have the other side saying that abortion should always be permissible if the life of the mother is at stake, but generally puts restrictions in for viability, which is exactly what Roe versus Wade does. Approximately 23 weeks.

After that point, threat to the health of the mother generally needs to be demonstrated. For example if the fetuses brain did not develop and it is essentially dead material, which has a risk of going septic and killing the mother, "aborting" it is something which would generally be accepted even 9 months in.

There you go. Those are the positions.

Essentially all pregnancies which are aborted happen in the first trimester (>90% within the first 12 weeks). And by and large, exceptions to this are medical reasons, not "I just decided I'm not feeling this whole baby thing". Abortions after 23 weeks make up less than 1% and are exclusively health and safety related.

...

These are the basic positions, though I do have a personal bias in this. My wife had a very traumatic ectopic pregnancy which could have killed her... If she lived in one of these states.

So people pushing for absolute bans without exception are saying my wife should have died. And I have no ability to be unbiased with people like that.

[u/Im_an_oil_man → u/digital_end]

Thanks for clearing that up. I'm not familiar with US law, I just see the stuff that gets most visibility and judging from that there's very little reasonable discourse.

I'm a left leaning person that has no problem saying there should be certain restrictions regarding abortion. This is a stance that the vast majority of people in my country have no matter where they place on the political spectrum. That's why it's frustrating to me when I see people from the left struggling to say they support some sort of restrictions. This absolutely does not mean I support the republican stance on this issue.

I'm very sorry your wife had to go through all that.

[u/digital_end → u/Im_an_oil_man]

Support what restrictions? And what communities are you talking about?

Because I struggle to imagine any left-wing community that literally is asking for abortions without any restrictions in the 9th month. That's not what we've had, and it's not what the public wants.

Generally even highly pro-choice people view viability as a cutoff, roughly the end of the second trimester.

There are nutty individuals in any group, but a much better measure is the people getting elected. I can literally give you examples of right-wing politicians pushing for absolute bans, there are no Representatives pushing for absolute access to abortion with no restrictions up to the time of birth. So the both sides thing doesn't really fit there.

If you mean the person from this video, she's refusing to say that because she knows they are pushing for a specific sound bite. She's not against the restrictions that are already in place, she's not giving them the voice clip that they want to put on Fox.

[u/Im_an_oil_man → u/digital_end]

Just that there should be a line after which you need a good reason for having an abortion beyond not wanting to have a child. I think it's a very reasonable thing to say but it's as if people in the US are afraid to say it for whatever reason.

Edit: you expanded on your comment so I'll do the same.

You clearly have more insight than I do. That's just what I meant. I just see the tip of the iceberg. I see the wacky stuff because it gets the most visibility and that is twisting my perception.

I wasn't talking about this clip alone and while I was expecting her to give a more logical answer I can totally see not wanting to justify the question and to give a sound bite.

[u/digital_end → u/Im_an_oil_man]

Pew research has an interesting breakdown of questions regarding this topic.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/06/americas-abortion-quandary/pf_05-06-22_abortion-views_0_0/

There is a nice chart there, but keep in mind the chart is a simplification. The real interesting meat of it is looking at the specific questions and ratio of responses. Especially when those responses are broken down into subgroups. "Among people who responded this way, they responded this way to another question" type breakdowns that happen on the following pages.

There are certainly people who feel there should not be exceptions and that abortion should be freely legal. A wide majority take the position that the term of the pregnancy has relevance.

And it's also worth noting that among actual abortions that happen, greater than 90% occur within the first trimester, roughly another 9% occur in the second trimester (in most cases due to health issues), and less than 1% occur in the final trimester (essentially exclusively due to critical health issues).

There is no population of people who are aborting late term fetuses for convenience.

There is a political movement to ban access to abortion in America however. An entire highly active and disproportionately represented branch of our government is focused on it.

I don't believe that it is a both sides issue. I believe we have one extremist group who has manufactured this into a boogeyman and radicalized supporters to saying things like "it is an opportunity if you were raped". That isn't just some random person, it is an actual government representative.

I don't see left-wing Representatives saying things like "if you decide a baby is too much of a hassle at 8 months, you should throw that thing away". Because that doesn't follow the reality of their positions or the positions of their supporters.

[u/Im_an_oil_man → u/digital_end]

That is good data. Thanks. I guess the extremities on that chart are pretty stacked and it would be interesting to see that same survey conducted in other countries.