Has been my opinion living in Texas. With the private prison system being a major campaign donor for the right. The vast majority of abortions would be low income minorities, continuing the trend of poverty, sub par housing, under funded education system the cycle continues. But the private prison system views this as making sure they continue to get product. Having bi racial grandchildren these things have opened my eyes.
I am thankful to have you with your eyes open.. It is much appreciated.. We need all the people we can.. Especially with 3 States they just had a hearing about last week where the rapist family can sue if the victim has an abortion..
Welcome to the eyes wide open club. Hate to say tho once your eyes are opened there is no going back. It's like Pandoras box and the matrix you can't close but also can't help but see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
They are not pro-life. If they really wanted to minimize the number of abortions, they would support good sex education and low-cost contraception, which are proven to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. And they'd support adequate financial support and medical care of the pregnant woman, so there will be a healthy baby in case contraception fails. None of that. So they are not really pro-life. Having healthy, happy babies is not a priority to them. Controlling women is.
These folks don't care about women and girls. It's clear they want women bare foot and pregnant so they can run the country as they see fit. They don't care about poor men either.
Special, ain't it? good grief. Most if not all of those so-called pro-lifers are pro death penalty, too. Doesn't get more hypocritical than those 'things' (I prefer not including them in my species).
When I got pregnant, I was already living below the poverty line as well as being a college student. Although I was not on public assistance, I didn’t have any family around to help with anything either. Student loans were my lifeline. If I had this child, I would need to drop out, condemning myself to low paying jobs. How could I afford to bring up a child when it took all I had to survive as it is? What kind of life would s/he have? I decided to get an abortion bc I could not afford to give this child a decent life. Having an abortion was a traumatic experience and I’m still dealing with it. I still believe that I made the right decision, but I often think about it and wonder what might have been. I’m especially reminded of this on its anniversary. Fast forward 12 years, I now have 3 university degrees, a career, a husband, and a beautiful son, who is living his best life. I would not have been able to do this if I gave birth that many years ago. It reaffirms that having the abortion was the right thing to do. Although it gave me my life back, it’s not a point of pride, it’s a point of hurt and heartache that I must live with. I think this is the case with most women. We get abortions bc we have to. I hope my example gives insight into what it’s really like to live with this.
You would probably have suffered much less trauma if there weren't so many people who constantly tell women that abortion is "bad". It still wouldn't be something that women do for fun, but just imagine how much better the world would be if abortions were as accepted as, say, having knee surgery. Not something you do for fun, but not stigmatized either.
Annie it was the right choice because YOU made it, nobody did it for you. You know your life and body better than anyone on this whole planet. Thank ou for sharing your story 💛
Note also that with the "no abortion after 6 weeks" law in Texas, the rich whites (male and female) legislators didn't make allowance for cases of rape and incest.
Something else to keep in mind- forced birthers aren't content to just go after abortions, they're starting to go after rights to birth control. PLEASE VOTE- forced birthers will never give up, and neither can we
What right does anyone, certainly any man (other than a father's input) have to tell a woman what to do? It doesn't affect you, you have absolutely 'no skin in the game'! Your life isn't affected but a woman's life sure is! MAYBE when you adopt a crack addicted baby, help reduce foster care or adopt a teenager who will live in 20 DIFFERENT foster homes before she's 18 years old, you can chime in. Otherwise this none of your business, you lose nothing. You're just pro birth that's all. You sure don't give a crap about these kids once they're born & that's a fact
@@beatleness I think that the point was made that these policies are meant to maintain inequality, feed the private penitentiary and the bloated police force. They're not worried about individual choice.
What right does anyone, certainly any man (other than a father's input) have to tell a woman what to do? It doesn't affect you, you have absolutely 'no skin in the game'! Your life isn't affected but a woman's life sure is! MAYBE when you adopt a crack addicted baby, help reduce foster care or adopt a teenager who will live in 20 DIFFERENT foster homes before she's 18 years old, you can chime in. Otherwise this none of your business, you lose nothing. You're just pro birth that's all. You sure don't give a crap about these kids once they're born & that's a fact
@@freyathewanderer6359 that plus a bunch of desperate people willing to work at their shitty low paying jobs with no benefits. You can bet the big corporations are behind these laws just as well.
This sounds just like the formation of US into a 3rd world country. Cardboard over wire/rope tent homes on dirt roads with the poor children in diapers will be more common in good old US of A!
My biggest issue Regarding this debate . Is all the time effort and MONEY spent in all ways . To restrict women's health Choices . If the same time effort and MONEY. Was spent on women's health care and improving women's choices and opportunities. The already falling abortion rates would fall even faster .
@@bobs182 Why dont we just start offing the elderly in Nursing homes too? They arent sentient, dont really know what's going, just a bag of bones in a bed, that waste resources right? Laws against Rape doesnt stop rape either, so I dont really get that logic. 60 Million, thats 10 Holocausts. No memorial. Nothing. No voice. Wouldnt you want somebody to stand up for you?
@Robert Reich , you pretty much clarified what I've been saying for years about Pro-Lifers not being pro-life and how banning abortion could prove more of a health risk than anything. Thank you so much for doing this.
Banning abortion will merely drive it underground, to "back alley" clinics or women attempting to self-abort. Unwanted babies will be abandoned in garbage cans or on doorsteps, or simply strangled or drowned.
What right does anyone, certainly any man (other than a father's input) have to tell a woman what to do? It doesn't affect you, you have absolutely 'no skin in the game'! Your life isn't affected but a woman's life sure is! MAYBE when you adopt a crack addicted baby, help reduce foster care or adopt a teenager who will live in 20 DIFFERENT foster homes before she's 18 years old, you can chime in. Otherwise this none of your business, you lose nothing. You're just pro birth that's all. You sure don't give a crap about these kids once they're born & that's a fact
@@beatleness Are you talking to me? I'm just asking because I'm Pro-Choice. I believe a woman should have a choice over her own body. Depending on the situation a man should be included (i.e. Parental planning). In my eyes, women have the babies and risk their lives bringing babies into this world. I don't feel I have the right to tell any woman that if she gets pregnant that she should have a baby or not, it's not right. Also to force a woman to have a baby is wrong. I really don't want to go into possibilities of why though I want to say this, there should be the option of abortions because it aligns with prenatal health.
Interesting that these "ivy league college" graduates in Congress are really Scared Narcisstic Weirdo's whose Fear is of all Women that are Powerful!!! They truly are stupid & adolescent the way they behave.
@@SuperRitai this country needs more education at college levels available to everyone. Ivy League colleges provide more scholarship money for poorer applicants who meet the academic criteria, so an education in one of those colleges can actually be MORE affordable than anywhere else. However, some of the graduates in Congress only demonstrate that they may have known enough to perform academically in college but they are Complete Disasters when we need them to function in the Real World with humanity and common sense!!! A considerable part of college education is geared toward developing the capacity to take in information and creatively apply it to circumstances in life for good outcome. Now a student in my 50s, I am enjoying taking part in college classes and believe it's a benefit everybody deserves access to. College is GREAT!!!!
You’ve got the wrong party for that. It’s not about control at all. If people exercised control there would be no argument. Everyone is in favor of choice but some choices we don’t accept; choose to drink and drive, to steal, murder. Intelligent people understand killing is wrong. You cannot hide that fact under a vail of choice or control. The choice is to kill a child who doesn’t get a choice.
Society can't function properly if people don't make enough to live, don't receive social assistance, don't have access to proper sex education or contraceptives, don't have the ability to choose when to reproduce or not, don't have access to medical care without ruining themselves financially and don't receive family leave (whether maternity or paternity). That's a world in which only wealthy people can live (which even the wealthy don't truly want, whether they realize it or not, because their wealth is sustained by the labour of the non-wealthy). Yet it's the world the right, the center, the corporate puppets and the legislation-destroying Senate exist to uphold. Something has to give.
This is where you are wrong: "Society" (in it's current form) utterly DEPENDS on the existence of starving and marginalized people. The best way to fight that system IS NOT to try to convince the powerful to stop marginalizing and exploring the weak. The best way is to find ways to help make people less exploitable.
@@GrantSR Society in its current form depends on the non-wealthy classes being starving and marginalized, but still able to physically function and work.
You will NEVER hear a Republican talk about a baby after it's born. What kind of life will it have? What is pro-life about crippling the mother's health and having the child live with nothing?
@Solstice of Snow what about the fact that pregnancy is actually dangerous and can cause death, are you going to force women who are suffering medical complications to carry? If I had it could have killed me, I was advised to terminate so that I wouldn’t have a stroke and possibly die. Of course that was after getting pregnant from rape. You expect a woman to carry a rape pregnancy? My father would have kicked me out of the house and blamed me, told me it was my fault. Second pregnancy my husband forced me after I said no, then he told me to terminate the pregnancy. I had to anyway for medical reasons again. You have no concept what some women go through. The vast majority of women getting an abortion are married and already have children. They are not making this decision alone. They already have a family. Young unmarried women between the ages of 18-25 make up 15% of the women seeking an abortion. You are so uninformed.
@Solstice of Snow So you want women to to fucking die, just so a baby you don't give the slightest shit about has to go through a life of pain and sorrow because you get of knowing people suffer for not adhering to your morals like some self righteous sicko.
Never say never. I'm a republican and I care deeply for children. I want our government to stop stealing our money and start actually helping people in need. The foster care system is a currupt horrible institution. It doesn't have to be. Republicans aren't evil, and neither are democrats. Our government is evil.
They aren’t talking about how they will take care of the children, women and men that are affected by this. There is no backing for funding for universal healthcare, economic support , environmental or education opportunities. Legally With Law Support, Socially or Mentally.
They did not want to take care of the poor children and they will not do anything to take care of the poor children now. What a bunch of bottom feeders.
We need to start with the most basic human rights which is a right to live. If we as a society can’t agree on that we won’t be able to shift focus to other issues plaguing America.
I totally agree with this point but there's even a worse one. Women will not stop having abortions if they can't access them legally, so it would drastically increase the possibility of women dying from unwanted pregnancies. Also, as a plus, looking at the statistics of my country before and after abortion was introduced, the law reduced the amount of abortions pro-capita as well, through a system of counseling and safety nets for the women.
While this is true, remember that abortion and reproductive health are NOT issues that are exclusive to women. Trans men and nonbinary people with uteruses are at disproportionately greater risk, ESPECIALLY for "backyard/DIY abortions" that often result in death. We cannot have gender equality if you leave trans people out of the conversations we belong in.
@@amiaswolfgang It's obvious that my point is valid for any individual having a uterus. I get your point but don't see transphobia everywhere only because I'm writing women instead of whatever term is used to address everyone having a uterus.
Very true. Here in the UK the mantra of the pro-choice lobby is "No return to the back streets!" Banning abortion does not prevent abortion. It prevents *safe, clinical* abortion.
Absolutely! The Christian Right needs to knock it off when it comes to pushing their beliefs into law. Laws for the most part need to be secular in nature.
This is the main point. It's all about giving them power to say when and with whom women can express sexuality. All they have, is to tell women to keep their legs together until their father gives them to another man to be a baby factory. That's all they care about: limiting sexual expression except for when they and the law approves.
That sounds like what the Roman Catholic Church did here in Ireland during the 1940's - 1990's. State laws superseded the laws of the church after that period of time.
Rich people need poor people to have those babies so those babies can grow up to serve the rich and to pay taxes and give their life in a rich guy war to make rich guy richer
Given the almost 100% correlation between the anti-abortion movement and the religious right, I can't help think that abortion should be considered a 1st amendment issue. This is a group of people who are attempting to legislate their religious beliefs.
Religion is the excuse they give, but I’m sure it’s way beyond that. What is the REAL reason? Their religion says feed the poor. That is not going to happen. So B S on religious reasons.
If Republicans cared about All Americans, not just the wealthy, they would see that by helping raise people/families out of poverty levels and into a comfortable existence it would lower the rate/need for abortions. Not just that, but they'd be helping living breathing Americans. If you are ProLife then help my life, I'm disabled! Help her life, she's a single mother because...none of your business. Help her, she's a veteran. Help him, he has schizophrenia and he's homeless . We're the We in We the People... Just because I don't own anything of value does Not mean I am without value!
I pay 30k a year out of my paycheck to taxes. I had my children, didn't kill them when they were in my womb, and now they are adults, and they pay taxes with me. One serves in the Navy. If my government wasn't stealing our money and currupt, it would go much further. Don't assume pro lifers don't contribute. We contribute to society by allowing our kids to live and teaching them to allow theirs to live also. Without a working class of young adults, all the elderly, disabled, orphans who receive government assistance wouldn't anymore. We all need the next generation to be born.
The birth control pill causes abortion , most people dont know that, The birth control pill kills the embryo when the sperm fertilizes the egg, All these women who are anti abortion but they take the BC pill
We view abortion (aka the intentional killing of a prenatal human being) as a human rights issue. Mind your Own Business is as strong an argument to dissuade pro-lifers as it is for slave owners to use against abolitionists. You don't think killing prenatal humans is a human rights issue. I get that. We do. So what you say to them is definitely not going to change their mind because it assumes the wrong premise.
@@Strawberria and when pro-choice wins elections, the so-called pro-lifers try to use guilt-tripping tactics to people wanting to have an abortion or even stopping people from going inside abortion clinics
@@alejandrogangotena9033 You mean pro-birth. Being a real pro-lifer would mean having a moral stance that lasts more than the 9 months that is their only focus. And if their concern doesn't extent to the quality of life issues that such laws create. Then their values are totally screwed up.
@@thomasridley8675again, not justbirth, if you kill the baby after she is born thats still wrong. Killing poor people that are already born is obviously also wrong. The thing is that those laws are putting someones quality of life above someones actual life.
@@rennnnn914 I didnt say he said that, I am diferenciating quality of life from life. We all want a better quality of life, but we shouldnt be cool with killing those that dont have our standards of living or killing in order to try and better our lot.
Pro-lifers tend to be pro-birth, NOT pro-life. If someone is truly pro-life, you must also be concerned about income inequality, social justice, health care for all, and climate change, to name but a few subjects. As most pro-lifers are also against these things, they are most definitely NOT pro-life. We also know that much of this obsession with womens' bodies, and what they do with them, comes from a place of misanthropy and hypocrisy. Too many men still hate women, and hate the fact that women have their own agency. These men will do whatever they can to control and subjugate women, keeping them dependent and desperate so they have to put up with the terrible treatment they are wont to dish out. The hypocrisy that men who are so keen on regulating women's bodies and lives, are often the same men that consider a piece of fabric over the face tyranny, is rich indeed. I forget which comedian said that if men could get pregnant, abortion clinics would be like sports bars - with games, chicken wings, beer, and high fives because they are knocked up (it means they are getting some), but they were 1000% on target.
There are pro-life people who view it as a struggle for human dignity and not just to give women a hard time. Most of the pro-life people I know are women.
@@finarentz3814 you missed the point of the post. If they were really pro-LIFE they would also support women's health, free healthcare for the mother and baby, maternity and paternal leave, child support, child education, free tuition. But they don't. Children only matter before they're born.
@@finarentz3814 I think those women that view it as human dignity need to do some research on the foster care system that most of these unwanted babies go into. Most live horribly dysfunctional and unloved lives. Throw in lots of abuse, neglect, some suicide, poverty and the fact that when 'most' of them 'age out' in the foster system they repeat the cycle. 85% of them have babies and so it goes on and on and on.....
The question always is, "what's in it for the lawmakers" by keeping people impoverished? It's not just reactive (populist) stupidity. There's something in the status quo that keeps them rich and powerful. For them it's not about eliminating poverty. It's about keeping it alive & well. Anti-abortion is just one way.
What right does anyone, certainly any man (other than a father's input) have to tell a woman what to do? It doesn't affect you, you have absolutely 'no skin in the game'! Your life isn't affected but a woman's life sure is! MAYBE when you adopt a crack addicted baby, help reduce foster care or adopt a teenager who will live in 20 DIFFERENT foster homes before she's 18 years old, you can chime in. Otherwise this none of your business, you lose nothing. You're just pro birth that's all. You sure don't give a crap about these kids once they're born & that's a fact
There's a third critical aspect here: Proper sex education. Access to birth control isn't helpful if you don't know about it or don't know how to (properly) use it, never mind all of the other issues around sex and sexuality such as consent, identity, pornography (I don't mean "how to Google", I mean the consequences of pornography - good and bad, the potential consequences of photographing or filming yourself or others - particularly important these days when almost every kid over the age of 6 has a camera and internet connection, etc). Unfortunately, basically everything I've listed are at the top of the charts for Republican trigger words, so I don't see a lot of positive movement happening in the near future - especially in red states where the trend since 2016 has been to flee backwards as fast as possible.
The standard argument people in favor of these laws use frequently is "If you had kept your knees together and your clothes on, you would not be in this difficult situation. You have to suffer the consequences of your sinful actions."
@Solstice of Snow if that is valid then rapists should be required to have a vasectomy. Men who force their wives to have sex and get them pregnant should be forced to have a vasectomy. If it’s a Kay to control a woman’s body then it’s time to control male bodies because women don’t get pregnant alone.
@Solstice of Snow No it isn't, news flash, people are GOING to fuck, I'm sorry the thought of people fucking makes you squamish my precious sheltered snowflake. You cannot control people, your NOT a GOD, nor has a GOD ever stepped in to stop people from FUCKING, so I don't why you can still delude yourself into thinking you can stop people from having sex at all. And even then what business of it is yours?
What I don't get in this country of yours the United States of America is that there's this whole thing my body my choice when it comes to vaccines when it comes to abortions the state has to say no you cannot get an abortion. But when time to take a life from a person who committed crime though they can take the life then so three contradictions right there tells you much about the file nature of American society and the people who run it especially
It's the puritan and evangelical mentality. Criminals are inherently bad people and have to be punished, but people need to stand on their own as individualistic entities. Good luck trying to have a proper welfare state with such a mentality.
What right does anyone, certainly any man (other than a father's input) have to tell a woman what to do? It doesn't affect you, you have absolutely 'no skin in the game'! Your life isn't affected but a woman's life sure is! MAYBE when you adopt a crack addicted baby, help reduce foster care or adopt a teenager who will live in 20 DIFFERENT foster homes before she's 18 years old, you can chime in. Otherwise this none of your business, you lose nothing. You're just pro birth that's all. You sure don't give a crap about these kids once they're born & that's a fact
You touched on a very important point that I think needs more emphasis and shows abortion bands are not pro life. Allowing abortions can save the lives of mother's, especially mother's in cases where both the child and the mothers lives are at risk. Isn't it pro life to save the mother in that case, at least save one? And considering moral questions only, what about cases with rape, should the mother be forced to carry that child, especially if it endangers her life? If you can of course try to still save both but also what if the mother was a child herself? What about atrophic pregnancies, would doctor's not be able to intervene for these if abortions were banned? Issues are not one extreme or the other ... and the morally right choice is not always one answer... Why don't people realize that?
They do realize all these situations but their religious beliefs inform them that every fetus is more important than the mother who carries it because it is a “new soul” coming from God. That newby is more important than the one already here. Furthermore, they feel it is “all in God’s hands” so they don”t actually really care about the fallout of unintended pregnancy. It is the greatest irony that a majority of abortions are performed on married women and most of those are Christian. But as soon as these grotesque laws are in effect we all know that this will stop .. .. NOT EVER IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND. These laws are promulgated and used by the Republican Party to divide American voters. The politicians themselves don’t give a damn except that it can help them win elections and winning is the real prize. Abortion laws are simply a means to an end for them.
People should mind their own business. This is a personal choice for a woman that can involve the father. Who are these people that think they can make choices for others.
Remember: not just women. Trans men and nonbinary people can have uteruses and can carry a pregnancy too and are at disproportionate risk for many of the negative outcomes of abortion bans compared to cis women, especially in regards to poverty and death from "backyard/DIY" abortions. We can't have true gender equality without trans voices.
I know it clouds the point you were making, but these bans also affect women's ability to get appropriate care for miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, or other reproductive issues. It's particularly vile that more states are taking the Texas SB 8 route to enforce these bans through civil litigation.
I have worked with and was an abused, unwanted child. My mother didn't look at me until I was 12 days old. I was physically, sexually and emotionally abused. Pro-choice all the way!!!
@Solstice of Snow Whatever method is chosen, young people should learn about how pregnancy happens and how to protect against it when it's unwanted. They should learn about STIs and how to protect themselves. Are you not in favor of that? It doesn't get much support from Republicans.
@Solstice of Snow You don't seem to give a straight answer. Do you think that young people will be taught in school that paedophilia is acceptable if they are given sex education. The answer is either "yes" or "no". Saying something is "allowed in" is vague. Please be specific.
I don’t understand why “pro-lifers” think they have the right to decide whether or not a girl/woman should be a mother. It’s not for them to decide. It’s our bodies, and we are the boss of it. I absolutely despise people like that.
What they really are are malignant narcissist control freaks who don't know where their boundaries are and needs to be forcibly taught them again. I suspect we're going to spend the next 20 or 30 years re-educating these people on what the f0ck is not theirs to control. There may have to be some harsh lessons. Some of them have extreme difficulty taking no for an answer.
Pro-lifers are speaking up for the unborn child that has a right to be born. Life begins at conception. Of course there are circumstances that warrant one....for instance when a mothers life is at risk. Abortion as a form of "birth control" is wrong.
Republicans are total hypocrites; they don't really believe that. This was an attempt to get people to back down on good public health measures for the public good by using rhetoric Democrats have been saying.
Dubner and Levitt in their book 'Freakonomics', had a take on the drop in crime rates following Roe v. Wade. In a nut shell...15-20 yrs. following the legalization of abortion, crime started to drop for reasons that weren't easily explained.
Dr. Reich: Your short video did not mention the Donohue-Levitt hypothesis first introduced to me in Freakonomics in which access to abortion reduced crime in those states which allowed access.
Nice video, Robert Reich, but I think there are major arguments you did not mention in this video. I am in no way saying the information you presented is incorrect. I just feel like you only presented part of a much larger problem associated with abortion bans. Adoption is the one major talking point I'm disappointed that you left out. It is often touted as an alternative to abortions, a point which many experts say is invalid due to the stress of adoption, the corruptness of some foster homes, the inability of many foster children to be independent, the fact that foster children could wait years before adoption, if they're adopted at all, and many other horrors in the system. While it is important to acknowledge what harm abortion bans do to people who want abortions but can't get them, it is just as important to explain why abortion bans don't help the child, either.
@@andybaldman Adoption is a royal pain in the @s$. You have to hack through a jungle of red tape, fill out form after form after form - and if you're non-binary, fuhgeddaboutit. Before preaching "adoption not abortion," seek to reform the adoption process! OK, it is important to screen people seeking to adopt to make sure they won't abuse or exploit the children; however, some changes are needed to make it easier.
I'm an old white man so I don't have any skin in the game on this issue, but it still pains me to see this erosion of women's reproductive rights, and particularly all the women who will have their dreams and aspirations dashed because of an unplanned pregnancy or have their health compromised by seeking a back alley abortion (it will happen). NO men should be making decisions on this issue for women. PERIOD. I agree, federal legislation is urgently needed to stop this assault by the states. This is just another nonsense culture war issue the GQP likes to use to divide the country.
In a world overpopulated and full of unwanted children it makes no sense and is actually counterproductive to restrict abortion. Condemning women and children to a life of poverty is not compassionate. It's cruel.
Thank goodness I’ve never had to face the decision to abort or give up my babies. But many of my female friends did have to make that choice. So now what are the choices?
I made that choice many years ago…every day I knew I did the right thing…zero trauma…would have been irresponsible to give birth and have it end up in the system…or later find me horrified that I 'dumped it'…
It isn't just about abortion, or about birth, or even about sex. It's about POWER. Males - mostly, but not entirely, white males - don't like the idea that a woman might want to control her own body. Next time you're in conversation about this, suggest that males be REQUIRED BY LAW to use birth control, Or that, through DNA matching if necessary, males be REQUIRED BY LAW to contribute 1/3 of their after-tax income to child support. The reactions from "pro-life" males will be interesting to watch…
I happen to be a 66 year old white man who BELIEVES that a woman's right to choose is a right that only she has. Not a room full of clowns that resemble ME !
White republican men voted and fought to free slaves even though they were never a slave. They understood. Men also voted to give women rights that very few woman in the world had. Female judges sentence men to prison and vice versa bc they can understand. All human beings are capable of empathy. You can feel deeply to protect a dog, but you never been one. Please don't act like men can't empathize with an unborn child as well as a woman like me can. No one wants to force an unwanted pregnancy on a woman, we simply feel that unborn children have a right to not be killed.
@Chet_Brinkley Youre narrow minded if you think a man can't fight for the rights of unborn children. 900k unborn children are killed a year. They need every human, man and woman they can get to fight for their right to not be murdered. I believe in bodily autonomy. And if the fetus wasn't a human being who is alive with their own body, I would say kill the fetus, it's ur body don't be forced to be pregnant. But there's another human beings body involved also. There are two human beings on that abortion table, both with a body. What's worse, 9 months of an unwanted pregnancy and both humans can live. Or one human is killed, and no pregnancy. What is more humane?
if the "choice" is killing an innocent human being, I'm proud to be anti-choice and anti-abortion. Are you proud to be for the killing of vulnerable human beings - i.e. pro-abortion?
Sexual education and easy access to contraceptives help reduce conception, therefore help reduce need for abortion. But contraceptives fail, planned pregnancies go awry, there are cases of rape, there are cases when the mother is in danger. There are many cases when the mother knows she can't provide for the child. So the need for abortion will always be there. If they were really pro-LIFE they would also support women's health, free healthcare for the mother and baby, maternity and paternal leave, child support, child education, free tuition. But they don't. Children only matter before they're born.
As with so many other issues in this country, we are trying to 'solve' it from the wrong end. Providing meaningful relevant sex education to teenagers, facilitating an environment where they can ask questions without being judged, providing information on and access to birth control, etc., would bring the abortion numbers down dramatically. But...conservatives don't want to do that because it puts the stamp of approval on sinful behavior. If only they would understand that kids are going to have sex anyway so why not prepare them for it and keep them safe?
I have to laugh (to keep myself from throwing up) when the politicians who break pretty much all of the "seven deadly sins" on a daily basis have the audacity to treat the poor like criminals
I think it's time for a new "Underground Railway" for women in fundamentalist States seeking abortion, don't you think? I'd willingly contribute my "widow's mite" to such a good cause.
Romania tried to ban abortion in 1966. It was an attempt to increase the population by Ceausescu and the Romanian Communist Party. While it did result in a baby boom, it also resulted in Romanian orphanages being overloaded with unwanted children and poorer women being permanently maimed and dying because of botched back-alley abortions. It also led to Romania having the highest childhood and infant mortality rate anywhere in Europe or the Eastern Bloc, with it being up to ten times higher than in neighboring countries. Want to see the future religious/ideological extremists have in store for America? Just look to the past.
Look to Texas for a higher black maternal and newborn death rate than many countries in the Middle East who aren't beacons of human rights or health care for all. It's pathetic.
Crime rates in the U.S. have fallen by about half since the early 1990s. A new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that legalized abortion following the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 accounts for 45% of the decline in crime rates over the past three decades.
In the 2001 paper, they found that legalized abortion appeared to account for up to half of the drop in rates of violent crime and property crime to that point.
It's probably attributable to lessening of extreme poverty because women could complete their education and make decisions about reproductive health and then bring children into the world
I had an abortion. I don't regret the choice I made, I think it's one of the best choices I have mad for myself. What people need to understand is that not everyone wants to be pregnant. I absolutely did not want to be pregnant, I hated everything about it. If abortion was illegal, I would have found a way. We have freedom in the US. The government banning or controlling personal health care decisions is authoritarianism.
@@prettylyricsmarie You do know birth control fails, right? And I never want biological children and under no circumstance do I want to be pregnant. It's really not that hard to understand
@@user-zy4wv7yx1z Yes I have heard 2 forms of birth control can fail. It has happened to me also. I understand the choice you made, given your birth control failed.
@@user-zy4wv7yx1z It isn't hard to understand. You just said you had a abortion, but didn't explain the scenario. I think when a person takes the time to write such a comment, the person should say, I used birth control multiple ones, it failed me, and I didn't want to be pregnant, specially if with public comments less judgment. I am not judging. It's your body and your choice. I am just saying, when reading comments it explains it better. I read comments a woman had a abortion because she was deathly sick, due to pregnancy related complications, and she had other children to life for, and she had to terminate the pregnancy. It just gives better clarity when reading such comments.
It's not about abortion, it's about the right to choose, you can be against abortion but you can not tell someone else what they can or can't do within the law if they alone have the right to choose.
Exactly why it is Human Trafficking. Coming from a person that knows many adopted children and foster children that are now adults. Abuse rampant in those 'homes'. The children never recover. The cycle of abuse and poverty continue for most.
So are you saying it's OK for a parent to "humanely" kill an unwanted newborn so they won't possibly end up in foster care? You do realize you are telling people that overcame any obstacles the encountered by growing up in foster care that they are better off dead, don't you?
Even if I were willing to concede the argument that a fetus is a person from the point of conception (which I don't agree with) there are still many arguments, even beyond what our good friend presenter, that support allowing abortion. I could list them, but instead I'll just say that I have two kids, and seeing what my wife had to go through is enough for me to say that no woman should be made to go through that against her will. And an important point: when abortions were illegal, people didn't stop getting abortions; they just stopped getting safe abortions. And many women died along with the unborn child. So rather than trying to ban abortion, why not work to support our women, their rights and their health to eliminate some of the reasons people seek abortions in the first place?
I’ve had three cousins who got pregnant out of wedlock. They didn’t have abortions, didn’t marry the boys, and didn’t give them for adoption. They became unwed mothers, whom some people believe are the source of all evil in American society. They got financial assistance from the government, which some would say made them a burden to society. Fatherless children are dangerous to society. Newt Gingrich believed fatherless children needed to be in orphanages, not with their mothers.
So, all the empathy arguments have been made a thousand times. How about we use ones that only require self interest? "If we ban birth control and abortion, women won't hook up with you." Spread the word, be loud about it. It might just do some good.
I think that you're missing the whole point of Republican efforts to restrict a woman's access to medical care, Robert. It's intended to be a punishment. That's the feature.
They forget that, when they regard pregnancy and childbirth as punishment for "sin," most of the punishment lands on the child - poverty, hunger, neglect, abuse, etc.
Having been a born-again Christian in my teens, I can confirm this is all about punishing women for having sex they don't approve of, mainly pre- and extra-marital. They fervently believe that if you take away the risk of God's punishment by allowing birth control and abortion, then women will have sex with anyone, at any time, just for pleasure - they just can't help themselves. There is literally no greater fear for these people, especially the men. That is also why they have no concern for the mother or child once born, as that also would mitigate God's punishment. The same attitude holds for those having same-gender sex, getting HIV or other "homo" diseases.
Beautifully stated. I'll tell you something else you may not know. How we, that found ourselves pregnant before Roe, were not able to purchase pregnancy tests. We often had to go to the Catholic Church just for a test. You want to know, so you know if you are not pregnant. In order to get a test, one had to sign a paper stating that she would become a resident in an unwed mother's facility which would ensure the baby would be adopted by a nice white Christian family. Or you could lie. All that just to get a test. All the time the nuns would talk down to you making you feel like a sinner or at best, stupid. Nobody wants to go through that for a pregnancy test. What it boils down to is that until we women learn to do our own abortions, which can be done safely if the technique is learned properly, we will suffer at the hands of white men in suits & you can bet the numbers of women in Congress will fall from what it has become since Roe became settle law in 1973.
I am from that period from before R vs W. The poor went to coat hanger guys and the wealthy went to clandestine doctors in other states who would preform the procedure. It happened all around me all the time.
Below is the definition of slavery as it is today. (Debt bondage/bonded labour. The world’s most widespread form of slavery. People trapped in poverty borrow money and are forced to work to pay off the debt, losing control over both their employment conditions and the debt.) You are nothing but slave breeders to the financial elite. The financial elite have used tax exempt religious pundits to convince the uneducated that abortion is a religious matter. It isn't. No religious texts prohibit abortion. It's a financial matter to those who require your work at wages that won't sustain you. You are slaves. And, potentially worsening your bondage by having children you can't afford is a bonus feature, not a mistake.
I do have genuine questions on abortion, not to judge nor attack anyone, but as an attempt to educate myself. I'm aware that to have an abortion must be a very difficult decision and that the decision maker, might unintentionally not be viewing abortion, from all angles (with all its implications). These questions are the result of me discerning on the topic and having these data gaps as a result. I am solely attempting to educate myself, understand better all perspectives and reach a common ground-one. 1) In order to reach a truly objective point of view (on any topic), isn't it not only valid, but necessary, to analyze such in terms of all the parties involved? In the case of abortion, is it valid to ask not only questions on how the parents are affected by it, but also how the conceived being is affected as well? 2) Religion aside, is there any SCIENTIFIC evidence, that human life does NOT begin at conception? Is there any other phenomena during pregnancy, that is MORE prominent than conception (to the point in which such event could be considered the actual beginning of human life, instead of conception)? 3) If anticipating a challenging life for the child justifies the abortion, does that mean that poverty and adverse life conditions, are reasons for people's lives to be ended? If I assume that your life will be difficult, does that give me the right to decide whether you get to live or not? Does that give me the right to decide over your life? Is ending your life because I am assuming that it will be difficult, fair to you? Wouldn't I be eliminating all possibility for you to build YOUR life and overcome adversity, by cutting it and taking it away from you right from the beginning? Isn't that a much bigger abuse over another human being (ending its life), than any other type of abuse he/she could go through in life? 4) Why should standing up against an alleged abuse towards someone (i.e. the human being whose life is being ended through an abortion), mean that those standing up are obliged to financially support the alleged victim of abuse? If my neighbor abuses his child and I report such abuse to authorities (as an attempt to stop it), does that mean that I am obliged to adopt my neighbor's child and financially take care of him? How is opposing abortion linked, to having to become financially responsible for those whose lives are ended through abortion? Does that mean that, if I witness someone being abused in anyway, my moral responsibility does not end at denouncing the abuse to authorities, but I am also morally obliged to embrace full financial responsibility, for that abused someone? 5) If I claim that those against abortion are wanting to decide over my body, isn't exactly that what I'm doing, if I get an abortion? By ending the human life growing inside of me, ain't I deciding over another human body as well (the one growing in my womb)? Am I not doing the same thing, that I claim those against abortion are doing to me (choosing over someone else's body)? Am I not doing an actual worse thing than "choosing over someone else's body" by getting an abortion, since through the abortion I'm actually choosing over someone else's LIFE? If so, isn't a double standard to claim that others want to decide over my body (by not supporting abortion), when that's exactly what I'm doing to the human being growing inside of me (deciding over another human life)? Complementing above, many pro-abortion people have used the "right to bodily autonomy", as their main argument. My logic makes me ask: Is "bodily autonomy" a more important right, than the right to life itself? Whichever damage or inconvenience your body suffers due to pregnancy, will last 9 months (or a little longer with post-labor recovery), but you will most likely recover most of that bodily autonomy, after giving birth. On the other hand, ending your life (which is what's done to the baby), is irreversible, there is no going back and the damage to the human killed, is perpetual. Also, isn't LIFE indispensably needed in the very first place, before any other type of right? If you have a combo of "life with rights"...and you take the "rights" element, life itself can still exist. This does not happen the other way around. If you take the "life" element out of the "life with rights" combo, rights can not continue existing without a life. Therefore, life on its own, DOES come above any other right. This is why, the violation made to the newly alive being, is more aggravating (ending its LIFE) than the violation of "bodily autonomy" made to the mother, by the NATURAL phenomena of pregnancy. Whichever inconvenience suffered by the mother due to pregnancy ("bodily autonomy"), does not reach the same level of aggravation, as that of the violation committed against the newly alive being (ending its LIFE), in order to justify such life being exterminated. Or does it? How? Again, I am verbalizing my discerning process and resulting doubts on abortion, solely to try to educate myself, understand better all perspectives and reach a common ground-one
Conservative Republikans on covid vaccine "my body, my choice" Conservative republikans on abortion "your body, my choice" I guess your rights are what ever is convenient for republicans at the time.
Judge not and ye shall not be judged. A true statement that's always overlooked by proponents of the book I quoted from. Too bad they don't actually read it.
I heard of a couple in Texas (white) who were early into a pregnancy when they were told there was a high chance of the woman dying. Can’t remember the medical details. The thing is, they were staunch republicans and firm anti abortion and happy to be pregnant. Until her life was endangered. They couldn’t get the abortion in Texas so would have to travel to California but couldn’t afford it. So they canvassed their equally staunch republican and firm anti abortion friends and relatives for financial assistance. Which was given. Which made them all guilty of having broken the law against giving any kind of assistance to procuring an abortion. How wicked is it to be “pro life” only where it is the possible (not definite ) life of a foetus and not the life of the pregnant woman or child that is being “protected”. How wicked is it to be “pro life” but against the life of a raped child who is forced to carry a pregnancy she is too physically immature to maintain and which - on top of the trauma of the rape - must endure the birth and aftermath. Such anti abortionists call themselves christians but they are no more Christian because they attend church than they are a car because they stand in their garage.
I feel it's already too late. Our country and our democracy have quickly spiraled out of control. No end in sight especially with voting rights gutted.💔
None of this changes the fact that an abortion is ending a human life. You dont have to have sex but once you do and conceiv you are responsible for another human. Its no longer just your body!
Many pro-lifers are against capital punishment... but really you're against executing a convicted mass murderer but are a-ok with human beings that have done nothing wrong being killed at abortuaries by the thousands every day in the US?
The freedom to choose when where and how is yours to choose at any time. Choose wisely. If you are pregnant and you don't want to be then you didn't choose wisely. You should have kept your damn legs together. If you don't want a baby choose wisely and don't have sex.
Not really. Back 5hen after 5he woman had the child the man would either leave in the woods for the animals or he would take it by the feet and bash it's head against the wall. The Romans dropped the baby down the sewer pipes. Of course, we knew of herbal remedies back then too. Ahh, the good old days. Right, forced birthers?
@@discord37 It was Bill Clinton that said rights to abortion should he kept "safe, legal, and rare," ie, if free and low-cost birth control is prevalent, the need for abortions will be infrequent.
@@plaidpanda That was a very long time ago. I even used to feel that way when I was young around that same time but now I no it should not be that way. There should be no stigma attached to abortion.
@@discord37 There shouldn't be any stigma, and as far as I'm concerned, there's not. However, it is still an invasive medical procedure, and as an RN and a mother I do understand this. Ideally, any invasive surgical procedure that can easily be avoided should be rare.
I have spoken to many who claim to be pro life. I ask them one simple question. "So then you support programs to help the Mother and new born if needed?" In every case their reply was a quick and definite, "NO!" Their face twists and they shift from side to side when I then said to them, "Then you are not pro life, you are pro birth." At which time they looked at me with disgust, or simply rushed away with their heads spinning trying to wrap their minds around the truth bomb I had just dropped in their laps.
How about autonomy ? If I could have been forced to be an incubator then everyone can be forced to give up a kidney, because then you do not have rights to your own body
If the only reason you didn't get an abortion is because you couldn't, you're not going to raise the baby with the love it needs. There's no moral argument to opposing abortion.
No government should wield such power. This is not limited governance, I can’t see how genuine conservatives could ever support such shameless and hypocritical authoritarian policies. Law and legislation should never be dictated by religion, but by constitution. Despite whatever denials and delusions SCOTUS are addicted to. The constitution is and will always be geared toward a limited government which means pro-choice. Not authoritarian government that makes the choice for all. If it were meant to be otherwise about a dozen amendments within the bill of rights wouldn’t exist at all. Federal and state overreach have long been the core cause to the majority of Americas problems. The constitution along with every right and liberty within that constitution have been heavily eroded by both poisoned political parties clogged up within American government.
Robert, you remember back room abortions as I do. Sometimes the baby wasn't the only one that died. Sterility, Infection. I'm religiously conflicted, but what's worse? I think this discussion should be taken up with women instead of a bunch of men deciding the issue.
The reason you are conflicted is two fold. One you will likely never be pregnant yourself and two you aren't sure you can count on women to make the correct decision for their own lives - if either of those things were not true, there would be nothing to think about. Women overwhelmingly want the right to choose for themselves, if men shouldn't be deciding the issue, what is there left to discuss?
@@laurat7232 thank you for thinking for me, but I don't need you and you're wrong! I'm conflicted because in my faith abortion is murder, however, the chance of loosing two people instead of one is more repulsive. And because it's a womans body and she should be at least consulted about her own health and body instead of just men. ... And you're a woman, and you dare to make such assumptions about me and no nothing of me. Thank you and your opinion will be forgotten.
@@laurat7232 yes, those women in the womb should be able to choose to live. Really sad Roe v Wade overturned the 14th amendment acknowledging peoples right to life with due process of the law.
@@theodoreroberts3407 I understand your religious conflict about abortion.but it is not your right in a democratic society to tell your neighbor how to handle their sexuality, their medical care or their life choices. This is what freedom to live as one chooses is all about. Aren’t you relieved that you don’t have to choose for your neighbor, or your neighbor’s daughter or sister? Next step to be taken by the religious right is to prohibit birth control pills or abortifacients by mail. Again: not their right to tell other people how to screw their wives or when or how many kids to have or not have! We leave that to the Chinese.
@@patientestant They aren't women, they are cells that in thirteen + years might be able to be called women. Thanks for mansplaing your obvious point that is still irrelevant.
Ever consider that banning abortion isn't one of the things causing poverty and inequality? Guess we can forget about abusive boyfriends, fatherless homes, perverts on the streets, bad social environments, education access, our obese welfare system, electing rich male and female politicians of all colors and both parties who don't care about anyone, and the overuse of euphemisms (like "forced pregnancy"). I can tell you where there were zero pro-lifers: Confederacy, KKK, Waffen SS, Imperial Japan, and Ottoman Empire. They must've been very supportive of women and different races.
@@aidanaldrich7795 I have, especially if the woman wanted to have the child. If the woman wanted to have an abortion, then nobody bats an eye (except Jesus freaks and religimorons)
@@flatearthisahoax4030 It doesn't seem to me though like whether a woman wants a child or not should have any bearing on whether or not the fetus is to be treated as a person. There's at least a glaring logical inconsistency in the pro-choice argument that the fetus is not a person yet while simultaneously having laws against feticide. So long as feticide laws exist, it only makes sense to me to see abortion as a form of clinical feticide.
No they don't... by the time a woman realizes she is pregnant she has already reproduced. Now, since she's caring a new human being she helped put in a position of dependence, she and her partner need to BE RESPONSIBLE and care for that new human being. Not whine and make up excuses and euphemisms to kill that new human being.
@@mathildeyoung1823 Hmm, last time I checked the Netherlands has everything America doesn't have. The Netherlands has a great economy, a stable government, low corruption rate, affordable healthcare, high-quality educational system (so overall the quality of life in the Netherlands is great) and yet they have about 28,000 abortions per year. I choose facts over feelings, unlike you
Abortion wasn't a big deal until one KKK leader started lamenting not enough white babies are being born. But demographic changes suggest the wealthier a family becomes the fewer children it will have. This is true across racial lines.
Has been my opinion living in Texas. With the private prison system being a major campaign donor for the right. The vast majority of abortions would be low income minorities, continuing the trend of poverty, sub par housing, under funded education system the cycle continues. But the private prison system views this as making sure they continue to get product. Having bi racial grandchildren these things have opened my eyes.
I am thankful to have you with your eyes open.. It is much appreciated.. We need all the people we can.. Especially with 3 States they just had a hearing about last week where the rapist family can sue if the victim has an abortion..
Funny how people don't care about an issue until affects them directly. Regardless of how you came about changing your mind, I am glad that you did. 💯
Just further proof they want a 2 class system. Filthy rich, or dirt poor, just like every 3rd world country.
I've been saying this for years.
Welcome to the eyes wide open club. Hate to say tho once your eyes are opened there is no going back. It's like Pandoras box and the matrix you can't close but also can't help but see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
the same pro-life people had the gall to vote against paternity leave
And also vote to decrease financial help for those who are struggling, including the same children they were pro-life about when it was a fetus
They are not pro-life.
If they really wanted to minimize the number of abortions, they would support good sex education and low-cost contraception, which are proven to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. And they'd support adequate financial support and medical care of the pregnant woman, so there will be a healthy baby in case contraception fails.
None of that. So they are not really pro-life. Having healthy, happy babies is not a priority to them. Controlling women is.
How many of them have adopted poor unwanted children.
These folks don't care about women and girls. It's clear they want women bare foot and pregnant so they can run the country as they see fit. They don't care about poor men either.
Special, ain't it? good grief. Most if not all of those so-called pro-lifers are pro death penalty, too. Doesn't get more hypocritical than those 'things' (I prefer not including them in my species).
When I got pregnant, I was already living below the poverty line as well as being a college student. Although I was not on public assistance, I didn’t have any family around to help with anything either. Student loans were my lifeline. If I had this child, I would need to drop out, condemning myself to low paying jobs. How could I afford to bring up a child when it took all I had to survive as it is? What kind of life would s/he have? I decided to get an abortion bc I could not afford to give this child a decent life.
Having an abortion was a traumatic experience and I’m still dealing with it. I still believe that I made the right decision, but I often think about it and wonder what might have been. I’m especially reminded of this on its anniversary.
Fast forward 12 years, I now have 3 university degrees, a career, a husband, and a beautiful son, who is living his best life. I would not have been able to do this if I gave birth that many years ago. It reaffirms that having the abortion was the right thing to do.
Although it gave me my life back, it’s not a point of pride, it’s a point of hurt and heartache that I must live with. I think this is the case with most women. We get abortions bc we have to. I hope my example gives insight into what it’s really like to live with this.
Thank you for sharing your story....and this is why the STATE shouldn't add to what is already a private & painful (for most) decision. ♀️
Take care, Annie Jayy. I think 'all is well'.
You would probably have suffered much less trauma if there weren't so many people who constantly tell women that abortion is "bad".
It still wouldn't be something that women do for fun, but just imagine how much better the world would be if abortions were as accepted as, say, having knee surgery. Not something you do for fun, but not stigmatized either.
Annie it was the right choice because YOU made it, nobody did it for you. You know your life and body better than anyone on this whole planet. Thank ou for sharing your story 💛
You didn't consider adoption?
Note also that with the "no abortion after 6 weeks" law in Texas, the rich whites (male and female) legislators didn't make allowance for cases of rape and incest.
That's intentional on their part.
Thier position on "murder" forces this.
Indeed. When Gov. Abbott was questioned about this, his reply was something to the effect those things don't happen in Texas.
Who cares!? They’re taking away the right to abortion in general! Republicans are almost pro rape at this point too 🤡
because the baby is also innocent in rape and if you have deformities...you are still human.
Something else to keep in mind- forced birthers aren't content to just go after abortions, they're starting to go after rights to birth control. PLEASE VOTE- forced birthers will never give up, and neither can we
They really need to be forced to read up on what happened in Romania when abortion and contreception was banned.
What right does anyone, certainly any man (other than a father's input) have to tell a woman what to do? It doesn't affect you, you have absolutely 'no skin in the game'! Your life isn't affected but a woman's life sure is!
MAYBE when you adopt a crack addicted baby, help reduce foster care or adopt a teenager who will live in 20 DIFFERENT foster homes before she's 18 years old, you can chime in. Otherwise this none of your business, you lose nothing. You're just pro birth that's all. You sure don't give a crap about these kids once they're born & that's a fact
"Pregnant people" oh dear, what a simp
@@beatleness I think that the point was made that these policies are meant to maintain inequality, feed the private penitentiary and the bloated police force. They're not worried about individual choice.
They do this for the exact same reason: Maximum Marginalization
They don’t care about the children or mothers. They want to keep the poverty cycle going cause like you said it affects the poor more.
They need to appease the Rethuglicanazis and make sure the for-profit prison system has plenty of "cannon fodder."
What right does anyone, certainly any man (other than a father's input) have to tell a woman what to do? It doesn't affect you, you have absolutely 'no skin in the game'! Your life isn't affected but a woman's life sure is!
MAYBE when you adopt a crack addicted baby, help reduce foster care or adopt a teenager who will live in 20 DIFFERENT foster homes before she's 18 years old, you can chime in. Otherwise this none of your business, you lose nothing. You're just pro birth that's all. You sure don't give a crap about these kids once they're born & that's a fact
@@freyathewanderer6359 that plus a bunch of desperate people willing to work at their shitty low paying jobs with no benefits. You can bet the big corporations are behind these laws just as well.
This sounds just like the formation of US into a 3rd world country. Cardboard over wire/rope tent homes on dirt roads with the poor children in diapers will be more common in good old US of A!
More free labor, more revenue. Business is business.
My biggest issue
Regarding this debate .
Is all the time effort and MONEY spent in all ways .
To restrict women's health
Choices .
If the same time effort and MONEY.
Was spent on women's health care and improving women's choices and opportunities.
The already falling abortion rates would fall even faster .
They want to defund Planned Parenthood who help women prevent pregnancy. Only 3% of the revenue comes from abortions.
So killing babies especially black babie's woman choose to have 99.999% of the time is according to Mr. Reich for women's health?
Mine is the fact that 60 Million lives, who had 0 voice ended. Priorities huh?
@@timorean320 The fact is that making abortion illegal doesn't prevent most abortions.
@@bobs182 Why dont we just start offing the elderly in Nursing homes too? They arent sentient, dont really know what's going, just a bag of bones in a bed, that waste resources right? Laws against Rape doesnt stop rape either, so I dont really get that logic. 60 Million, thats 10 Holocausts. No memorial. Nothing. No voice. Wouldnt you want somebody to stand up for you?
@Robert Reich , you pretty much clarified what I've been saying for years about Pro-Lifers not being pro-life and how banning abortion could prove more of a health risk than anything. Thank you so much for doing this.
Birth control and abstinence eliminate the need for abortion.!
@@weapons_ofmassdistraction_9550 Not in all cases
Banning abortion will merely drive it underground, to "back alley" clinics or women attempting to self-abort. Unwanted babies will be abandoned in garbage cans or on doorsteps, or simply strangled or drowned.
What right does anyone, certainly any man (other than a father's input) have to tell a woman what to do? It doesn't affect you, you have absolutely 'no skin in the game'! Your life isn't affected but a woman's life sure is!
MAYBE when you adopt a crack addicted baby, help reduce foster care or adopt a teenager who will live in 20 DIFFERENT foster homes before she's 18 years old, you can chime in. Otherwise this none of your business, you lose nothing. You're just pro birth that's all. You sure don't give a crap about these kids once they're born & that's a fact
@@beatleness Are you talking to me? I'm just asking because I'm Pro-Choice. I believe a woman should have a choice over her own body. Depending on the situation a man should be included (i.e. Parental planning). In my eyes, women have the babies and risk their lives bringing babies into this world. I don't feel I have the right to tell any woman that if she gets pregnant that she should have a baby or not, it's not right. Also to force a woman to have a baby is wrong. I really don't want to go into possibilities of why though I want to say this, there should be the option of abortions because it aligns with prenatal health.
This is all so true. Control of women and people in general is an Authoritarian policy.
Interesting that these "ivy league college" graduates in Congress are really Scared Narcisstic Weirdo's whose Fear is of all Women that are Powerful!!! They truly are stupid & adolescent the way they behave.
@@SuperRitai this country needs more education at college levels available to everyone. Ivy League colleges provide more scholarship money for poorer applicants who meet the academic criteria, so an education in one of those colleges can actually be MORE affordable than anywhere else. However, some of the graduates in Congress only demonstrate that they may have known enough to perform academically in college but they are Complete Disasters when we need them to function in the Real World with humanity and common sense!!! A considerable part of college education is geared toward developing the capacity to take in information and creatively apply it to circumstances in life for good outcome. Now a student in my 50s, I am enjoying taking part in college classes and believe it's a benefit everybody deserves access to. College is GREAT!!!!
You’ve got the wrong party for that. It’s not about control at all. If people exercised control there would be no argument. Everyone is in favor of choice but some choices we don’t accept; choose to drink and drive, to steal, murder. Intelligent people understand killing is wrong. You cannot hide that fact under a vail of choice or control. The choice is to kill a child who doesn’t get a choice.
Welcome to faschism 101.
Society can't function properly if people don't make enough to live, don't receive social assistance, don't have access to proper sex education or contraceptives, don't have the ability to choose when to reproduce or not, don't have access to medical care without ruining themselves financially and don't receive family leave (whether maternity or paternity). That's a world in which only wealthy people can live (which even the wealthy don't truly want, whether they realize it or not, because their wealth is sustained by the labour of the non-wealthy). Yet it's the world the right, the center, the corporate puppets and the legislation-destroying Senate exist to uphold. Something has to give.
This is where you are wrong: "Society" (in it's current form) utterly DEPENDS on the existence of starving and marginalized people. The best way to fight that system IS NOT to try to convince the powerful to stop marginalizing and exploring the weak. The best way is to find ways to help make people less exploitable.
@@GrantSR Society in its current form depends on the non-wealthy classes being starving and marginalized, but still able to physically function and work.
Aux armes, Citoyens!
You don't know what you are talking about.
Lol
You will NEVER hear a Republican talk about a baby after it's born. What kind of life will it have? What is pro-life about crippling the mother's health and having the child live with nothing?
And the first to shame a "single mother"
@Solstice of Snow what about the fact that pregnancy is actually dangerous and can cause death, are you going to force women who are suffering medical complications to carry? If I had it could have killed me, I was advised to terminate so that I wouldn’t have a stroke and possibly die. Of course that was after getting pregnant from rape. You expect a woman to carry a rape pregnancy? My father would have kicked me out of the house and blamed me, told me it was my fault. Second pregnancy my husband forced me after I said no, then he told me to terminate the pregnancy. I had to anyway for medical reasons again. You have no concept what some women go through. The vast majority of women getting an abortion are married and already have children. They are not making this decision alone. They already have a family. Young unmarried women between the ages of 18-25 make up 15% of the women seeking an abortion. You are so uninformed.
@Solstice of Snow
So you want women to to fucking die, just so a baby you don't give the slightest shit about has to go through a life of pain and sorrow because you get of knowing people suffer for not adhering to your morals like some self righteous sicko.
Never say never. I'm a republican and I care deeply for children. I want our government to stop stealing our money and start actually helping people in need. The foster care system is a currupt horrible institution. It doesn't have to be.
Republicans aren't evil, and neither are democrats. Our government is evil.
Rich people make laws to control the behavior of poor people. Rich people rarely live by the laws they make for poor people.
They aren’t talking about how they will take care of the children, women and men that are affected by this. There is no backing for funding for universal healthcare, economic support , environmental or education opportunities.
Legally With Law Support, Socially or Mentally.
Yes they are talking about it.
Lol
Yeah let's tax the churches and everyone who wears that fucking red hat
They did not want to take care of the poor children and they will not do anything to take care of the poor children now. What a bunch of bottom feeders.
We need to start with the most basic human rights which is a right to live. If we as a society can’t agree on that we won’t be able to shift focus to other issues plaguing America.
I totally agree with this point but there's even a worse one. Women will not stop having abortions if they can't access them legally, so it would drastically increase the possibility of women dying from unwanted pregnancies.
Also, as a plus, looking at the statistics of my country before and after abortion was introduced, the law reduced the amount of abortions pro-capita as well, through a system of counseling and safety nets for the women.
While this is true, remember that abortion and reproductive health are NOT issues that are exclusive to women. Trans men and nonbinary people with uteruses are at disproportionately greater risk, ESPECIALLY for "backyard/DIY abortions" that often result in death.
We cannot have gender equality if you leave trans people out of the conversations we belong in.
As is part of my point, It's their body's and their freedom they should decide. As far as trans people, jump where you fit.
@@amiaswolfgang It's obvious that my point is valid for any individual having a uterus. I get your point but don't see transphobia everywhere only because I'm writing women instead of whatever term is used to address everyone having a uterus.
Very true. Here in the UK the mantra of the pro-choice lobby is "No return to the back streets!" Banning abortion does not prevent abortion. It prevents *safe, clinical* abortion.
@@annalieff-saxby568 Thank you, Anna and Antonio, for understanding what I said and what it means.
I think that equating motherhood as punishment for having sex is quite twisted.
Absolutely! The Christian Right needs to knock it off when it comes to pushing their beliefs into law. Laws for the most part need to be secular in nature.
@@jacoblynam923 true that 👍🤙✌️
This is the main point.
It's all about giving them power to say when and with whom women can express sexuality.
All they have, is to tell women to keep their legs together until their father gives them to another man to be a baby factory.
That's all they care about: limiting sexual expression except for when they and the law approves.
That sounds like what the Roman Catholic Church did here in Ireland during the 1940's - 1990's.
State laws superseded the laws of the church after that period of time.
Truth...😊
Rich people need poor people to have those babies so those babies can grow up to serve the rich and to pay taxes and give their life in a rich guy war to make rich guy richer
Those babies will be the grunts of the rich bastards.
What I've been saying for years
Given the almost 100% correlation between the anti-abortion movement and the religious right, I can't help think that abortion should be considered a 1st amendment issue. This is a group of people who are attempting to legislate their religious beliefs.
That's exactly what it's about but unfortunately the Supreme Court doesn't see it that way 😡
Too many people on non-religious grounds.
Religion is the excuse they give, but I’m sure it’s way beyond that. What is the REAL reason?
Their religion says feed the poor. That is not going to happen. So B S on religious
reasons.
That ship sailed when they added “Under God” to the pledge of allegiance in 1954 and “In God we trust” in 1955.
@@maryjomayfield537 I'd argue they (the "conservative" majority) in fact _do_ see it that way -- they just aren't admitting it.
If Republicans cared about All Americans, not just the wealthy, they would see that by helping raise people/families out of poverty levels and into a comfortable existence it would lower the rate/need for abortions. Not just that, but they'd be helping living breathing Americans. If you are ProLife then help my life, I'm disabled! Help her life, she's a single mother because...none of your business. Help her, she's a veteran. Help him, he has schizophrenia and he's homeless . We're the We in We the People...
Just because I don't own anything of value does Not mean I am without value!
I pay 30k a year out of my paycheck to taxes. I had my children, didn't kill them when they were in my womb, and now they are adults, and they pay taxes with me. One serves in the Navy.
If my government wasn't stealing our money and currupt, it would go much further.
Don't assume pro lifers don't contribute. We contribute to society by allowing our kids to live and teaching them to allow theirs to live also.
Without a working class of young adults, all the elderly, disabled, orphans who receive government assistance wouldn't anymore.
We all need the next generation to be born.
When ever i talk to a pro-lifer I tell them if you don't like abortions don't get one, but mind your own business when it comes to others...
They don't listen because they are allergic to logic and reason.
The birth control pill causes abortion , most people dont know that, The birth control pill kills the embryo when the sperm fertilizes the egg, All these women who are anti abortion but they take the BC pill
We view abortion (aka the intentional killing of a prenatal human being) as a human rights issue. Mind your Own Business is as strong an argument to dissuade pro-lifers as it is for slave owners to use against abolitionists.
You don't think killing prenatal humans is a human rights issue. I get that. We do. So what you say to them is definitely not going to change their mind because it assumes the wrong premise.
@@Strawberria and when pro-choice wins elections, the so-called pro-lifers try to use guilt-tripping tactics to people wanting to have an abortion or even stopping people from going inside abortion clinics
When their concern stops at the first breath they have no moral leg to stand on.
I don’t know of any pro lifer that is cool with killing the baby after birth.
@@alejandrogangotena9033 That isn't what he said. The point is that these people don't care what happens to the child after it's born.
@@alejandrogangotena9033
You mean pro-birth. Being a real pro-lifer would mean having a moral stance that lasts more than the 9 months that is their only focus. And if their concern doesn't extent to the quality of life issues that such laws create. Then their values are totally screwed up.
@@thomasridley8675again, not justbirth, if you kill the baby after she is born thats still wrong. Killing poor people that are already born is obviously also wrong.
The thing is that those laws are putting someones quality of life above someones actual life.
@@rennnnn914 I didnt say he said that, I am diferenciating quality of life from life.
We all want a better quality of life, but we shouldnt be cool with killing those that dont have our standards of living or killing in order to try and better our lot.
Pro-lifers tend to be pro-birth, NOT pro-life. If someone is truly pro-life, you must also be concerned about income inequality, social justice, health care for all, and climate change, to name but a few subjects. As most pro-lifers are also against these things, they are most definitely NOT pro-life. We also know that much of this obsession with womens' bodies, and what they do with them, comes from a place of misanthropy and hypocrisy. Too many men still hate women, and hate the fact that women have their own agency. These men will do whatever they can to control and subjugate women, keeping them dependent and desperate so they have to put up with the terrible treatment they are wont to dish out. The hypocrisy that men who are so keen on regulating women's bodies and lives, are often the same men that consider a piece of fabric over the face tyranny, is rich indeed. I forget which comedian said that if men could get pregnant, abortion clinics would be like sports bars - with games, chicken wings, beer, and high fives because they are knocked up (it means they are getting some), but they were 1000% on target.
Exactly
There are pro-life people who view it as a struggle for human dignity and not just to give women a hard time. Most of the pro-life people I know are women.
@@finarentz3814 so it's okay to hurt people as long as you think you're not?
@@finarentz3814 you missed the point of the post. If they were really pro-LIFE they would also support women's health, free healthcare for the mother and baby, maternity and paternal leave, child support, child education, free tuition.
But they don't. Children only matter before they're born.
@@finarentz3814 I think those women that view it as human dignity need to do some research on the foster care system that most of these unwanted babies go into. Most live horribly dysfunctional and unloved lives. Throw in lots of abuse, neglect, some suicide, poverty and the fact that when 'most' of them 'age out' in the foster system they repeat the cycle. 85% of them have babies and so it goes on and on and on.....
The question always is, "what's in it for the lawmakers" by keeping people impoverished? It's not just reactive (populist) stupidity. There's something in the status quo that keeps them rich and powerful. For them it's not about eliminating poverty. It's about keeping it alive & well. Anti-abortion is just one way.
What's and it for the lawmakers? The religious right - that's who and they'll vote for the lawmakers and keep them in power. It's about power.
"Fetus has a right to live. The child can die of starvation if it can't afford food." - Typical Pro-life guy
As soon as you're born you're shit out of luck... until you become old enough to enlist.
What right does anyone, certainly any man (other than a father's input) have to tell a woman what to do? It doesn't affect you, you have absolutely 'no skin in the game'! Your life isn't affected but a woman's life sure is!
MAYBE when you adopt a crack addicted baby, help reduce foster care or adopt a teenager who will live in 20 DIFFERENT foster homes before she's 18 years old, you can chime in. Otherwise this none of your business, you lose nothing. You're just pro birth that's all. You sure don't give a crap about these kids once they're born & that's a fact
Don't forget the victimblaming if the woman was raped!
Sames people will then shame the mother.
They don't do that. @@cheshirerose2001
Thank you, Professor Reich.
The moral way to prevent abortions would be to give people free access to birth control, and make raising a child easier and more affordable.
There's a third critical aspect here: Proper sex education. Access to birth control isn't helpful if you don't know about it or don't know how to (properly) use it, never mind all of the other issues around sex and sexuality such as consent, identity, pornography (I don't mean "how to Google", I mean the consequences of pornography - good and bad, the potential consequences of photographing or filming yourself or others - particularly important these days when almost every kid over the age of 6 has a camera and internet connection, etc).
Unfortunately, basically everything I've listed are at the top of the charts for Republican trigger words, so I don't see a lot of positive movement happening in the near future - especially in red states where the trend since 2016 has been to flee backwards as fast as possible.
yes!
These pro birthers don't adopt these kids. They don't give a shit about kids once they're born
The Republican Viewpoint is yeah but that cost money so this is easier to criminalize abortion
The standard argument people in favor of these laws use frequently is "If you had kept your knees together and your clothes on, you would not be in this difficult situation. You have to suffer the consequences of your sinful actions."
Bingo!
@Solstice of Snow if that is valid then rapists should be required to have a vasectomy. Men who force their wives to have sex and get them pregnant should be forced to have a vasectomy. If it’s a Kay to control a woman’s body then it’s time to control male bodies because women don’t get pregnant alone.
Yeah.... and most of them are men, who we know damn well did not enter the marriage state as virgins! Hypocrites!
@Solstice of Snow
No it isn't, news flash, people are GOING to fuck, I'm sorry the thought of people fucking makes you squamish my precious sheltered snowflake. You cannot control people, your NOT a GOD, nor has a GOD ever stepped in to stop people from FUCKING, so I don't why you can still delude yourself into thinking you can stop people from having sex at all. And even then what business of it is yours?
yes correct
What I don't get in this country of yours the United States of America is that there's this whole thing my body my choice when it comes to vaccines when it comes to abortions the state has to say no you cannot get an abortion. But when time to take a life from a person who committed crime though they can take the life then so three contradictions right there tells you much about the file nature of American society and the people who run it especially
It's the puritan and evangelical mentality. Criminals are inherently bad people and have to be punished, but people need to stand on their own as individualistic entities. Good luck trying to have a proper welfare state with such a mentality.
What right does anyone, certainly any man (other than a father's input) have to tell a woman what to do? It doesn't affect you, you have absolutely 'no skin in the game'! Your life isn't affected but a woman's life sure is!
MAYBE when you adopt a crack addicted baby, help reduce foster care or adopt a teenager who will live in 20 DIFFERENT foster homes before she's 18 years old, you can chime in. Otherwise this none of your business, you lose nothing. You're just pro birth that's all. You sure don't give a crap about these kids once they're born & that's a fact
You touched on a very important point that I think needs more emphasis and shows abortion bands are not pro life. Allowing abortions can save the lives of mother's, especially mother's in cases where both the child and the mothers lives are at risk. Isn't it pro life to save the mother in that case, at least save one? And considering moral questions only, what about cases with rape, should the mother be forced to carry that child, especially if it endangers her life? If you can of course try to still save both but also what if the mother was a child herself? What about atrophic pregnancies, would doctor's not be able to intervene for these if abortions were banned? Issues are not one extreme or the other ... and the morally right choice is not always one answer... Why don't people realize that?
They do realize all these situations but their religious beliefs inform them that every fetus is more important than the mother who carries it because it is a “new soul” coming from God. That newby is more important than the one already here. Furthermore, they feel it is “all in God’s hands” so they don”t actually really care about the fallout of unintended pregnancy.
It is the greatest irony that a majority of abortions are performed on married women and most of those are Christian. But as soon as these grotesque laws are in effect we all know that this will stop .. .. NOT EVER IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND.
These laws are promulgated and used by the Republican Party to divide American voters. The politicians themselves don’t give a damn except that it can help them win elections and winning is the real prize. Abortion laws are simply a means to an end for them.
Unfortunately, the "greatest deliberative body" won't allow itself to deliberate anything.
People should mind their own business. This is a personal choice for a woman that can involve the father.
Who are these people that think they can make choices for others.
The woman many times wants to kill her daughter. That’s not a personal choice.
Remember: not just women. Trans men and nonbinary people can have uteruses and can carry a pregnancy too and are at disproportionate risk for many of the negative outcomes of abortion bans compared to cis women, especially in regards to poverty and death from "backyard/DIY" abortions.
We can't have true gender equality without trans voices.
@@alejandrogangotena9033 The vast majority of abortions occur before you can see the fetuses genitals on the ultra sound
I know it clouds the point you were making, but these bans also affect women's ability to get appropriate care for miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, or other reproductive issues.
It's particularly vile that more states are taking the Texas SB 8 route to enforce these bans through civil litigation.
Human reproduction it brutal and a burden for women. Forced birther creeps believe women are supposed to go through it no matter what.
I have worked with and was an abused, unwanted child. My mother didn't look at me until I was 12 days old. I was physically, sexually and emotionally abused. Pro-choice all the way!!!
I'd rather people who WANT to be parents to have children than people who don't, would lead to WAY less messed up childhoods.
If the religious Right wanted to reduce abortions they should get behind comprehensive sex education and availability of contraception.
@Solstice of Snow Whatever method is chosen, young people should learn about how pregnancy happens and how to protect against it when it's unwanted. They should learn about STIs and how to protect themselves. Are you not in favor of that? It doesn't get much support from Republicans.
@Solstice of Snow And that's what you think would be taught in schools?
@Solstice of Snow You don't seem to give a straight answer. Do you think that young people will be taught in school that paedophilia is acceptable if they are given sex education. The answer is either "yes" or "no". Saying something is "allowed in" is vague. Please be specific.
I don’t understand why “pro-lifers” think they have the right to decide whether or not a girl/woman should be a mother. It’s not for them to decide. It’s our bodies, and we are the boss of it. I absolutely despise people like that.
When defining parasitism, biologists have to add "except of the same species" to keep an embryo from fitting the definition of a parasite.
That's the thing, they don't see women as full persons with rights and dignity, just walking objects at worst or at 'best' second class citizens.
What they really are are malignant narcissist control freaks who don't know where their boundaries are and needs to be forcibly taught them again. I suspect we're going to spend the next 20 or 30 years re-educating these people on what the f0ck is not theirs to control. There may have to be some harsh lessons. Some of them have extreme difficulty taking no for an answer.
@@navilluscire2567Half of the unborn children killed are female. We want to save more womens lives than you.
Pro-lifers are speaking up for the unborn child that has a right to be born. Life begins at conception. Of course there are circumstances that warrant one....for instance when a mothers life is at risk. Abortion as a form of "birth control" is wrong.
Didn't these same people just recently fuss and holar about vaccines saying "my body my choice"...
Republicans are total hypocrites; they don't really believe that. This was an attempt to get people to back down on good public health measures for the public good by using rhetoric Democrats have been saying.
It's not your body only in case of contagious diseases, use your brain.
@@antoniousai1989 lol
Dubner and Levitt in their book 'Freakonomics', had a take on the drop in crime rates following Roe v. Wade. In a nut shell...15-20 yrs. following the legalization of abortion, crime started to drop for reasons that weren't easily explained.
Dr. Reich: Your short video did not mention the Donohue-Levitt hypothesis first introduced to me in Freakonomics in which access to abortion reduced crime in those states which allowed access.
Nice video, Robert Reich, but I think there are major arguments you did not mention in this video. I am in no way saying the information you presented is incorrect. I just feel like you only presented part of a much larger problem associated with abortion bans.
Adoption is the one major talking point I'm disappointed that you left out. It is often touted as an alternative to abortions, a point which many experts say is invalid due to the stress of adoption, the corruptness of some foster homes, the inability of many foster children to be independent, the fact that foster children could wait years before adoption, if they're adopted at all, and many other horrors in the system.
While it is important to acknowledge what harm abortion bans do to people who want abortions but can't get them, it is just as important to explain why abortion bans don't help the child, either.
Nobody wants to adopt.
@@andybaldman ah. So now orphans aren’t worthy of life. #gotit
@@jennyredbeans How many orphans do you currently care for?
@@andybaldman Adoption is a royal pain in the @s$. You have to hack through a jungle of red tape, fill out form after form after form - and if you're non-binary, fuhgeddaboutit. Before preaching "adoption not abortion," seek to reform the adoption process! OK, it is important to screen people seeking to adopt to make sure they won't abuse or exploit the children; however, some changes are needed to make it easier.
@@freyathewanderer6359 I agree. Thanks for your comment.
I'm an old white man so I don't have any skin in the game on this issue, but it still pains me to see this erosion of women's reproductive rights, and particularly all the women who will have their dreams and aspirations dashed because of an unplanned pregnancy or have their health compromised by seeking a back alley abortion (it will happen). NO men should be making decisions on this issue for women. PERIOD. I agree, federal legislation is urgently needed to stop this assault by the states. This is just another nonsense culture war issue the GQP likes to use to divide the country.
You say you have no skin in the game but clearly this bothers you. Still, good to see you actually seem to care.
In a world overpopulated and full of unwanted children it makes no sense and is actually counterproductive to restrict abortion. Condemning women and children to a life of poverty is not compassionate. It's cruel.
The US Constitution says "All persons BORN in the US are citizens. Amendment 14; not pre-born
Thank goodness I’ve never had to face the decision to abort or give up my babies. But many of my female friends did have to make that choice. So now what are the choices?
I made that choice many years ago…every day I knew I did the right thing…zero trauma…would have been irresponsible to give birth and have it end up in the system…or later find me horrified that I 'dumped it'…
It isn't just about abortion, or about birth, or even about sex. It's about POWER. Males - mostly, but not entirely, white males - don't like the idea that a woman might want to control her own body. Next time you're in conversation about this, suggest that males be REQUIRED BY LAW to use birth control, Or that, through DNA matching if necessary, males be REQUIRED BY LAW to contribute 1/3 of their after-tax income to child support. The reactions from "pro-life" males will be interesting to watch…
@Solstice of Snow
It is, you dullard.
sexist men: What!? why should WE be controlled like that, we are human beings!
Men and women for equality: **facepalms**
@Solstice of Snow
No.
@Solstice of Snow
No.
@Solstice of Snow
No.
I happen to be a 66 year old white man who BELIEVES that a woman's right to choose is a right that only she has. Not a room full of clowns that resemble ME !
White republican men voted and fought to free slaves even though they were never a slave. They understood. Men also voted to give women rights that very few woman in the world had. Female judges sentence men to prison and vice versa bc they can understand.
All human beings are capable of empathy. You can feel deeply to protect a dog, but you never been one.
Please don't act like men can't empathize with an unborn child as well as a woman like me can.
No one wants to force an unwanted pregnancy on a woman, we simply feel that unborn children have a right to not be killed.
@@Rachel.222
I'm not an actor .
@Chet_Brinkley Youre narrow minded if you think a man can't fight for the rights of unborn children. 900k unborn children are killed a year. They need every human, man and woman they can get to fight for their right to not be murdered.
I believe in bodily autonomy. And if the fetus wasn't a human being who is alive with their own body, I would say kill the fetus, it's ur body don't be forced to be pregnant. But there's another human beings body involved also.
There are two human beings on that abortion table, both with a body. What's worse, 9 months of an unwanted pregnancy and both humans can live. Or one human is killed, and no pregnancy. What is more humane?
💯% this. I keep saying the being against abortion is not pro-life, it's anti-choice. It's really pro-choice vs anti-choice!
if the "choice" is killing an innocent human being, I'm proud to be anti-choice and anti-abortion. Are you proud to be for the killing of vulnerable human beings - i.e. pro-abortion?
You hit the nail on the head🎯
It's NOT Pro-Life, it's Pro-Birth.
Their view of women is like the Rolling Stones' song "Under My Thumb"
Anti-abortion
I couldn’t agree more
And that's not even considering the problems of being an unwanted child!!!....
Sexual education and easy access to contraceptives help reduce conception, therefore help reduce need for abortion.
But contraceptives fail, planned pregnancies go awry, there are cases of rape, there are cases when the mother is in danger.
There are many cases when the mother knows she can't provide for the child.
So the need for abortion will always be there.
If they were really pro-LIFE they would also support women's health, free healthcare for the mother and baby, maternity and paternal leave, child support, child education, free tuition.
But they don't. Children only matter before they're born.
As with so many other issues in this country, we are trying to 'solve' it from the wrong end. Providing meaningful relevant sex education to teenagers, facilitating an environment where they can ask questions without being judged, providing information on and access to birth control, etc., would bring the abortion numbers down dramatically. But...conservatives don't want to do that because it puts the stamp of approval on sinful behavior. If only they would understand that kids are going to have sex anyway so why not prepare them for it and keep them safe?
I have to laugh (to keep myself from throwing up) when the politicians who break pretty much all of the "seven deadly sins" on a daily basis have the audacity to treat the poor like criminals
I think it's time for a new "Underground Railway" for women in fundamentalist States seeking abortion, don't you think? I'd willingly contribute my "widow's mite" to such a good cause.
Romania tried to ban abortion in 1966. It was an attempt to increase the population by Ceausescu and the Romanian Communist Party.
While it did result in a baby boom, it also resulted in Romanian orphanages being overloaded with unwanted children and poorer women being permanently maimed and dying because of botched back-alley abortions. It also led to Romania having the highest childhood and infant mortality rate anywhere in Europe or the Eastern Bloc, with it being up to ten times higher than in neighboring countries.
Want to see the future religious/ideological extremists have in store for America? Just look to the past.
Why does nobody ask republicans how they plan to protect black women so they don't start dying at alarming rates again
They don't care about life they just want to control women
Look to Texas for a higher black maternal and newborn death rate than many countries in the Middle East who aren't beacons of human rights or health care for all. It's pathetic.
Crime rates in the U.S. have fallen by about half since the early 1990s. A new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that legalized abortion following the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 accounts for 45% of the decline in crime rates over the past three decades.
In the 2001 paper, they found that legalized abortion appeared to account for up to half of the drop in rates of violent crime and property crime to that point.
It's probably attributable to lessening of extreme poverty because women could complete their education and make decisions about reproductive health and then bring children into the world
I had an abortion. I don't regret the choice I made, I think it's one of the best choices I have mad for myself.
What people need to understand is that not everyone wants to be pregnant. I absolutely did not want to be pregnant, I hated everything about it. If abortion was illegal, I would have found a way.
We have freedom in the US. The government banning or controlling personal health care decisions is authoritarianism.
What about birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies, like yours?
@@prettylyricsmarie You do know birth control fails, right?
And I never want biological children and under no circumstance do I want to be pregnant. It's really not that hard to understand
@@user-zy4wv7yx1z Yes I have heard 2 forms of birth control can fail. It has happened to me also. I understand the choice you made, given your birth control failed.
@@user-zy4wv7yx1z It isn't hard to understand. You just said you had a abortion, but didn't explain the scenario. I think when a person takes the time to write such a comment, the person should say, I used birth control multiple ones, it failed me, and I didn't want to be pregnant, specially if with public comments less judgment. I am not judging. It's your body and your choice. I am just saying, when reading comments it explains it better. I read comments a woman had a abortion because she was deathly sick, due to pregnancy related complications, and she had other children to life for, and she had to terminate the pregnancy. It just gives better clarity when reading such comments.
@@prettylyricsmarie I don't owe the RUclips comment section any explanation. Pregnancy was repulsive and I wanted no part of it.
It's not about abortion, it's about the right to choose, you can be against abortion but you can not tell someone else what they can or can't do within the law if they alone have the right to choose.
Exactly why it is Human Trafficking. Coming from a person that knows many adopted children and foster children that are now adults. Abuse rampant in those 'homes'. The children never recover. The cycle of abuse and poverty continue for most.
So are you saying it's OK for a parent to "humanely" kill an unwanted newborn so they won't possibly end up in foster care?
You do realize you are telling people that overcame any obstacles the encountered by growing up in foster care that they are better off dead, don't you?
Even if I were willing to concede the argument that a fetus is a person from the point of conception (which I don't agree with) there are still many arguments, even beyond what our good friend presenter, that support allowing abortion.
I could list them, but instead I'll just say that I have two kids, and seeing what my wife had to go through is enough for me to say that no woman should be made to go through that against her will.
And an important point: when abortions were illegal, people didn't stop getting abortions; they just stopped getting safe abortions. And many women died along with the unborn child.
So rather than trying to ban abortion, why not work to support our women, their rights and their health to eliminate some of the reasons people seek abortions in the first place?
Right on Robert Reich! Speaking truth against tyranny. Never Ever GOP Again!
Without watching and reading title. It's the christian fundamentalists
I’ve had three cousins who got pregnant out of wedlock. They didn’t have abortions, didn’t marry the boys, and didn’t give them for adoption. They became unwed mothers, whom some people believe are the source of all evil in American society.
They got financial assistance from the government, which some would say made them a burden to society. Fatherless children are dangerous to society. Newt Gingrich believed fatherless children needed to be in orphanages, not with their mothers.
So, all the empathy arguments have been made a thousand times. How about we use ones that only require self interest?
"If we ban birth control and abortion, women won't hook up with you."
Spread the word, be loud about it. It might just do some good.
Why have abortion rights never been voted on by the populous?
One-issue voters have been electing Republicans for this purpose.
14th amendment…
Because the populous votes no. Mississippi tried to pass a Personhood amendment years ago and it was defeated by the voters.
I think that you're missing the whole point of Republican efforts to restrict a woman's access to medical care, Robert. It's intended to be a punishment. That's the feature.
They forget that, when they regard pregnancy and childbirth as punishment for "sin," most of the punishment lands on the child - poverty, hunger, neglect, abuse, etc.
Exactly! They aren't "abortion rights" so much as they are "the right to access healthcare".
Having been a born-again Christian in my teens, I can confirm this is all about punishing women for having sex they don't approve of, mainly pre- and extra-marital. They fervently believe that if you take away the risk of God's punishment by allowing birth control and abortion, then women will have sex with anyone, at any time, just for pleasure - they just can't help themselves. There is literally no greater fear for these people, especially the men. That is also why they have no concern for the mother or child once born, as that also would mitigate God's punishment. The same attitude holds for those having same-gender sex, getting HIV or other "homo" diseases.
Beautifully stated. I'll tell you something else you may not know. How we, that found ourselves pregnant before Roe, were not able to purchase pregnancy tests. We often had to go to the Catholic Church just for a test. You want to know, so you know if you are not pregnant. In order to get a test, one had to sign a paper stating that she would become a resident in an unwed
mother's facility which would ensure the baby would be adopted by a nice white Christian family. Or you could lie. All that just to get a test. All the time the nuns would talk down to you making you feel like a sinner or at best, stupid. Nobody wants to go through that for a pregnancy test. What it boils down to is that until we women learn to do our own abortions, which can be done
safely if the technique is learned properly, we will suffer at the hands of white men in suits & you can bet the numbers of women in Congress will fall from what it has become since Roe became settle law in 1973.
I am from that period from before R vs W. The poor went to coat hanger guys and the wealthy went to clandestine doctors in other states who would preform the procedure. It happened all around me all the time.
Please Robert Reich keep up the good work.
They enjoy having an underclass to abuse and profit from.
Below is the definition of slavery as it is today.
(Debt bondage/bonded labour. The world’s most widespread form of slavery. People trapped in poverty borrow money and are forced to work to pay off the debt, losing control over both their employment conditions and the debt.)
You are nothing but slave breeders to the financial elite. The financial elite have used tax exempt religious pundits to convince the uneducated that abortion is a religious matter. It isn't. No religious texts prohibit abortion. It's a financial matter to those who require your work at wages that won't sustain you. You are slaves. And, potentially worsening your bondage by having children you can't afford is a bonus feature, not a mistake.
Thank you so much Robert!! Blessings ❤️💕😘
I do have genuine questions on abortion, not to judge nor attack anyone, but as an attempt to educate myself. I'm aware that to have an abortion must be a very difficult decision and that the decision maker, might unintentionally not be viewing abortion, from all angles (with all its implications). These questions are the result of me discerning on the topic and having these data gaps as a result.
I am solely attempting to educate myself, understand better all perspectives and reach a common ground-one.
1) In order to reach a truly objective point of view (on any topic), isn't it not only valid, but necessary, to analyze such in terms of all the parties involved? In the case of abortion, is it valid to ask not only questions on how the parents are affected by it, but also how the conceived being is affected as well?
2) Religion aside, is there any SCIENTIFIC evidence, that human life does NOT begin at conception?
Is there any other phenomena during pregnancy, that is MORE prominent than conception (to the point in which such event could be considered the actual beginning of human life, instead of conception)?
3) If anticipating a challenging life for the child justifies the abortion, does that mean that poverty and adverse life conditions, are reasons for people's lives to be ended? If I assume that your life will be difficult, does that give me the right to decide whether you get to live or not? Does that give me the right to decide over your life? Is ending your life because I am assuming that it will be difficult, fair to you? Wouldn't I be eliminating all possibility for you to build YOUR life and overcome adversity, by cutting it and taking it away from you right from the beginning? Isn't that a much bigger abuse over another human being (ending its life), than any other type of abuse he/she could go through in life?
4) Why should standing up against an alleged abuse towards someone (i.e. the human being whose life is being ended through an abortion), mean that those standing up are obliged to financially support the alleged victim of abuse? If my neighbor abuses his child and I report such abuse to authorities (as an attempt to stop it), does that mean that I am obliged to adopt my neighbor's child and financially take care of him? How is opposing abortion linked, to having to become financially responsible for those whose lives are ended through abortion? Does that mean that, if I witness someone being abused in anyway, my moral responsibility does not end at denouncing the abuse to authorities, but I am also morally obliged to embrace full financial responsibility, for that abused someone?
5) If I claim that those against abortion are wanting to decide over my body, isn't exactly that what I'm doing, if I get an abortion? By ending the human life growing inside of me, ain't I deciding over another human body as well (the one growing in my womb)? Am I not doing the same thing, that I claim those against abortion are doing to me (choosing over someone else's body)? Am I not doing an actual worse thing than "choosing over someone else's body" by getting an abortion, since through the abortion I'm actually choosing over someone else's LIFE? If so, isn't a double standard to claim that others want to decide over my body (by not supporting abortion), when that's exactly what I'm doing to the human being growing inside of me (deciding over another human life)?
Complementing above, many pro-abortion people have used the "right to bodily autonomy", as their main argument. My logic makes me ask: Is "bodily autonomy" a more important right, than the right to life itself? Whichever damage or inconvenience your body suffers due to pregnancy, will last 9 months (or a little longer with post-labor recovery), but you will most likely recover most of that bodily autonomy, after giving birth. On the other hand, ending your life (which is what's done to the baby), is irreversible, there is no going back and the damage to the human killed, is perpetual. Also, isn't LIFE indispensably needed in the very first place, before any other type of right? If you have a combo of "life with rights"...and you take the "rights" element, life itself can still exist. This does not happen the other way around. If you take the "life" element out of the "life with rights" combo, rights can not continue existing without a life. Therefore, life on its own, DOES come above any other right. This is why, the violation made to the newly alive being, is more aggravating (ending its LIFE) than the violation of "bodily autonomy" made to the mother, by the NATURAL phenomena of pregnancy. Whichever inconvenience suffered by the mother due to pregnancy ("bodily autonomy"), does not reach the same level of aggravation, as that of the violation committed against the newly alive being (ending its LIFE), in order to justify such life being exterminated. Or does it? How?
Again, I am verbalizing my discerning process and resulting doubts on abortion, solely to try to educate myself, understand better all perspectives and reach a common ground-one
Pro-life equates to Pro-Proletariat: voter base; job and cannon fodder for the Reserve Army of Labour
Conservative Republikans on covid vaccine "my body, my choice" Conservative republikans on abortion "your body, my choice" I guess your rights are what ever is convenient for republicans at the time.
Judge not and ye shall not be judged. A true statement that's always overlooked by proponents of the book I quoted from. Too bad they don't actually read it.
Whatever happened to the old conservative chestnut about "keep the government out of the bedroom?"
I heard of a couple in Texas (white) who were early into a pregnancy when they were told there was a high chance of the woman dying. Can’t remember the medical details.
The thing is, they were staunch republicans and firm anti abortion and happy to be pregnant. Until her life was endangered.
They couldn’t get the abortion in Texas so would have to travel to California but couldn’t afford it. So they canvassed their equally staunch republican and firm anti abortion friends and relatives for financial assistance. Which was given. Which made them all guilty of having broken the law against giving any kind of assistance to procuring an abortion.
How wicked is it to be “pro life” only where it is the possible (not definite ) life of a foetus and not the life of the pregnant woman or child that is being “protected”. How wicked is it to be “pro life” but against the life of a raped child who is forced to carry a pregnancy she is too physically immature to maintain and which - on top of the trauma of the rape - must endure the birth and aftermath.
Such anti abortionists call themselves christians but they are no more Christian because they attend church than they are a car because they stand in their garage.
There’s nothing pro-life about assault weapons, but here we are.
I feel it's already too late. Our country and our democracy have quickly spiraled out of control. No end in sight especially with voting rights gutted.💔
They are pro-birth, NOT pro-life
What about abortions for people with a health issue if they give birth. Or, perhaps a health issue for the baby.
Private matters should remain private in general
None of this changes the fact that an abortion is ending a human life. You dont have to have sex but once you do and conceiv you are responsible for another human. Its no longer just your body!
Most abortions take place when the fetus hasn't developed any feelings including pain. You can't call it a life when it is just a clump of cells
Fetus not a person under the Constitution,
Thus lawful abortions continue in every state.
So true. Thank you. Women have to keep the right for their own lives and health
It is strange that the pro-life stance doesn't include ending capital punishment.
Many pro-lifers are against capital punishment... but really you're against executing a convicted mass murderer but are a-ok with human beings that have done nothing wrong being killed at abortuaries by the thousands every day in the US?
낙태의 자유와 복지가 함께 공존 해야 함 복지 없는 자유는 또 다른 불평등을 불러 옴
The freedom to choose when where and how is yours to choose at any time. Choose wisely. If you are pregnant and you don't want to be then you didn't choose wisely. You should have kept your damn legs together. If you don't want a baby choose wisely and don't have sex.
Return to the dark ages...
Not really. Back 5hen after 5he woman had the child the man would either leave in the woods for the animals or he would take it by the feet and bash it's head against the wall. The Romans dropped the baby down the sewer pipes. Of course, we knew of herbal remedies back then too. Ahh, the good old days. Right, forced birthers?
WHY SHOULD THE GOVT INTERFERE WITH OUR PREGNANCIES???????????? WE DON'T NEED JUDGEMENT WE NEED UNDERSTANDING
I'm in Colorado... this texas law makes our legal, safe, and rare abortions more common!
The word abortion in rare should not be used together. It is healthcare and should be available is needed not rare.
Peter, do you mean by more common that Texans are coming to your state to have them? I'm a little confused by what you mean.
@@discord37 It was Bill Clinton that said rights to abortion should he kept "safe, legal, and rare," ie, if free and low-cost birth control is prevalent, the need for abortions will be infrequent.
@@plaidpanda That was a very long time ago. I even used to feel that way when I was young around that same time but now I no it should not be that way.
There should be no stigma attached to abortion.
@@discord37 There shouldn't be any stigma, and as far as I'm concerned, there's not. However, it is still an invasive medical procedure, and as an RN and a mother I do understand this. Ideally, any invasive surgical procedure that can easily be avoided should be rare.
I have spoken to many who claim to be pro life. I ask them one simple question. "So then you support programs to help the Mother and new born if needed?" In every case their reply was a quick and definite, "NO!" Their face twists and they shift from side to side when I then said to them, "Then you are not pro life, you are pro birth." At which time they looked at me with disgust, or simply rushed away with their heads spinning trying to wrap their minds around the truth bomb I had just dropped in their laps.
"Pro poverty, pro inequality"? That sounds >exactly< like the Republican party.
How about autonomy ? If I could have been forced to be an incubator then everyone can be forced to give up a kidney, because then you do not have rights to your own body
If the only reason you didn't get an abortion is because you couldn't, you're not going to raise the baby with the love it needs. There's no moral argument to opposing abortion.
No government should wield such power. This is not limited governance, I can’t see how genuine conservatives could ever support such shameless and hypocritical authoritarian policies.
Law and legislation should never be dictated by religion, but by constitution. Despite whatever denials and delusions SCOTUS are addicted to. The constitution is and will always be geared toward a limited government which means pro-choice. Not authoritarian government that makes the choice for all. If it were meant to be otherwise about a dozen amendments within the bill of rights wouldn’t exist at all.
Federal and state overreach have long been the core cause to the majority of Americas problems. The constitution along with every right and liberty within that constitution have been heavily eroded by both poisoned political parties clogged up within American government.
Robert, you remember back room abortions as I do. Sometimes the baby wasn't the only one that died. Sterility, Infection.
I'm religiously conflicted, but what's worse?
I think this discussion should be taken up with women instead of a bunch of men deciding the issue.
The reason you are conflicted is two fold. One you will likely never be pregnant yourself and two you aren't sure you can count on women to make the correct decision for their own lives - if either of those things were not true, there would be nothing to think about. Women overwhelmingly want the right to choose for themselves, if men shouldn't be deciding the issue, what is there left to discuss?
@@laurat7232 thank you for thinking for me, but I don't need you and you're wrong!
I'm conflicted because in my faith abortion is murder, however, the chance of loosing two people instead of one is more repulsive.
And because it's a womans body and she should be at least consulted about her own health and body instead of just men.
... And you're a woman, and you dare to make such assumptions about me and no nothing of me. Thank you and your opinion will be forgotten.
@@laurat7232 yes, those women in the womb should be able to choose to live. Really sad Roe v Wade overturned the 14th amendment acknowledging peoples right to life with due process of the law.
@@theodoreroberts3407 I understand your religious conflict about abortion.but it is not your right in a democratic society to tell your neighbor how to handle their sexuality, their medical care or their life choices. This is what freedom to live as one chooses is all about. Aren’t you relieved that you don’t have to choose for your neighbor, or your neighbor’s daughter or sister? Next step to be taken by the religious right is to prohibit birth control pills or abortifacients by mail. Again: not their right to tell other people how to screw their wives or when or how many kids to have or not have! We leave that to the Chinese.
@@patientestant They aren't women, they are cells that in thirteen + years might be able to be called women. Thanks for mansplaing your obvious point that is still irrelevant.
Ever consider that banning abortion isn't one of the things causing poverty and inequality?
Guess we can forget about abusive boyfriends, fatherless homes, perverts on the streets, bad social environments, education access, our obese welfare system, electing rich male and female politicians of all colors and both parties who don't care about anyone, and the overuse of euphemisms (like "forced pregnancy").
I can tell you where there were zero pro-lifers: Confederacy, KKK, Waffen SS, Imperial Japan, and Ottoman Empire. They must've been very supportive of women and different races.
Why ban murder? Rich people can just hire hitmen?
abortion ain't murder :P
@@flatearthisahoax4030You haven't seen the trials with double murder verdicts for mother and unborn child victims? You ignorant
@@aidanaldrich7795 I have, especially if the woman wanted to have the child. If the woman wanted to have an abortion, then nobody bats an eye (except Jesus freaks and religimorons)
@@flatearthisahoax4030 It doesn't seem to me though like whether a woman wants a child or not should have any bearing on whether or not the fetus is to be treated as a person. There's at least a glaring logical inconsistency in the pro-choice argument that the fetus is not a person yet while simultaneously having laws against feticide. So long as feticide laws exist, it only makes sense to me to see abortion as a form of clinical feticide.
@@darkengine5931 why don't you tell that to women who had an abortion because of SA.
It's a matter of control.
Yes, unfortunately abortion is about the ultimate control over a vulnerable human being. That is why it needs to be illegal.
It's so upsetting to realize that pets, and livestock have more reproductive rights than women.
No they don't... by the time a woman realizes she is pregnant she has already reproduced. Now, since she's caring a new human being she helped put in a position of dependence, she and her partner need to BE RESPONSIBLE and care for that new human being. Not whine and make up excuses and euphemisms to kill that new human being.
@@mathildeyoung1823
Hmm, last time I checked the Netherlands has everything America doesn't have. The Netherlands has a great economy, a stable government, low corruption rate, affordable healthcare, high-quality educational system (so overall the quality of life in the Netherlands is great) and yet they have about 28,000 abortions per year.
I choose facts over feelings, unlike you
@@flatearthisahoax4030 that's 28,000 human beings that were killed...
@@mathildeyoung1823
I again, you are choosing feelings over facts. At least in the Netherlands, laws there aren't based on religion
@@mathildeyoung1823
You only read the abortion rate per year, not the overall quality of life in pro-choice Netherlands
But traveling to another state for a abortion is a crime too
.small government ?
It's about controlling poor women TLDR
What do you call females who can't control their reproduction? Livestock.
Abortion wasn't a big deal until one KKK leader started lamenting not enough white babies are being born. But demographic changes suggest the wealthier a family becomes the fewer children it will have. This is true across racial lines.