Comment by qalmakka | Hacker News Reader

Comment by qalmakka | Hacker News Reader

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Come on. Nobody that supported this ruling except the deluded give a damn about life or whatever they were preaching. The Republicans only care about getting the votes they need to maintain their stranglehold over red states, cut taxes and environmental protections for the benefit of their patrons. The fundamental Christians only care about seeing the rights of women being repelled, there are zero concerns about the life of children, otherwise they would be pushing for free childcare, support for mothers, parental leave, ....

It's all a matter of punishing women for their own desire to be emancipated, it's a punishment for those women who have sinned by thinking they could act like a man and have sex whenever they wanted. If they truly cared about the unborn, they would

1. care about the already born, first, and 2. push for the widespread availability of contraception.

Given that contraception is bad for them, too, it's clear this is not an ethical question, but a moral one: sex outside of marriage, or for pleasure really, should not be allowed, and it must always carry consequences, no matter if it vastly more impacts women than it does men. You know, a man can always run from their responsibilities, while a woman cannot run away from her womb.

> The Republicans only care about getting the votes they need to maintain their stranglehold over red states, cut taxes and environmental protections for the benefit of their patrons.

As has been pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, we don't vote for Supreme Court justices. There's no leverage to impose electoral or party pressure on a justice who has already been appointed, unless it is by impeachment. Your assessment of their motivations doesn't hold up.

Are you naive or what? Republicans have lists of candidates for justices that they have deemed so anti roe-vs-wade that they deemed safe to propose for justices. Someone like Thomas is not going to change his mind once he is appointed...

Why not, if he's now free to act as he pleases? The assertion is that he doesn't believe he's acting rightly, but does so under electoral pressure. If I'm naive, please explain: what's to stop him doing as he thinks is right, now that he's appointed?

Your naïveté lies in the fact that you don’t realize that Supreme Court justices are elected by proxy of voting for the president that nominated them and the senators that confirm them.

It stands to reason that on average, if you elect conservative presidents and senators, you will get conservative justices, and vice-versa.

You seem to assert that there are wolves hiding in sheeps’ clothing, waiting until they are confirmed to show their true colors to save the country. I counter that reality is more boring than that, and that these people can be taken at face value by virtue of what they’ve said and done for decades.

Furthermore, I think yours is an apologist/denialist stance people use so they can get someone in the courts they truly approve of, while hiding behind the “hope” that they won’t be as bad as everyone else knows they will.

The only part of what you wrote that addresses my point is this:

> You seem to assert that there are wolves hiding in sheeps’ clothing, waiting until they are confirmed to show their true colors to save the country

Against this characterization I would oppose John Roberts, who was appointed by a Republican president, but has been reluctant to create any non-trivial precedent on topics that figure in the Republican platform. There's a lot of anger among Republican voters over that, but what can they do? They can't vote him out, he is not beholden to the Republican party, and he's done nothing impeachable.

I understand how this can be difficult to perceive from outside, especially if you happen to be in a bubble that perceives Republicans as uniformly deplorable. But I assure you that Roberts is viewed that way. (I view them from another direction entirely.)

As far as my stance being apologist or denialist, you have no idea what I think or want.

you: “we don't vote for Supreme Court justices… There's no…electoral…pressure on a justice[‘s] motivations…”

zzleeper: “Are you naive…? Republicans have lists of candidates for justices…they have deemed…anti roe-vs-wade”

you: “If I'm naive, please explain”

This is where you lost the point, and where I explained your naïveté, an explanation you ignored in your response to me.

Your last two paragraphs consist of speculative ad hominem (judging by your profile, we have similar life circumstances, and I have many conservatives in my “bubble” ie family members) followed by a hypocritical self defense. We don’t know anything about each other outside of what we’ve said here. I’m simply calling it like I see it:

you: “Why [wouldn’t Thomas change his mind once he is appointed], if he's now free to act as he pleases?…what's to stop him doing as he thinks is right…?”

The obvious answer is that he was appointed precisely because it was expected he would act the way he has, because what he believes is right is fully aligned with who appointed him, as are the three most recent appointees. You want to point out exceptions like Roberts, but those merely prove the rule from my original explanation.

Pointed out by you. Maybe you should stop writing it; surely once is enough.

Sorry, I learn by repetition

> Nobody that supported this ruling except the deluded give a damn about life or whatever they were preaching.

This is just straw manning the other side's position to the extreme.

> If they truly cared about the unborn, they would

Neither of those are logical implications of being against late-stage abortion, and you don't get to tell others what they should care about.

If evidence on their position was completely missing or neutral then I would agree with you. Sadly, this is far from a straw man because there is evidence that they do not care.

These are the same people who actively work against giving children school lunches, who protect racist gerrymandering, who want to defund planned parenthood, and so on.

If, in the same breath, we were talking about significantly revolutionizing support for children/families in poverty, then this would be a different discussion. Sadly, look at the polls, this is majority boomers who no longer have functioning ovaries & men whose egos demand control over women.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/393104/pro-choice-identificatio...

The parent isn't wrong. Republicans don't do shit to support "the born" who are ill or live in crushing poverty, they don't give a shit about people, they give a shit about power and this is a lever they've been yanking on to get it for years.

On one hand, you are correct in that the right is more reluctant to use governmental power to improve society. That's in part because they put more emphasis on personal responsibility, and in part because they are skeptical of the government's competence.

On the hand, I think the right has done more than they usually get credit for. Median real wages rose significantly under Trump. [1] Nixon created the EPA. [2] At an individual level, conservatives donate significantly more to charities, and give blood more often. [3]

[1]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

[2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_...

[3]: https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/conservatives-are-more-...

Christians do give a lot to charity, but a lot of those are christian charities that give aid on the condition that you eat a heaping mouthful of bullshit. It's really just a feel good way for them to try and proselytize.

> give aid on the condition that you eat a heaping mouthful of bullshit

I don't have any stats on that, but it's contrary to my personal experience. When I was a student, there was this Pentecostal group which used to give free food to everyone every Thursday. It was quite unconditional, not even means tested.

It seems like if they want to emphasize personal responsibility, they could stop trying to influence laws that prevent people from getting abortions or using contraception.

> stop trying to influence laws that prevent people from getting abortions

I'm not sure if I follow. That seems to me like having more empathy with irresponsible people, possibly at the cost of innocent fetuses.

While I won't try to argue with you because abortion is the thing we won't see eye to eye on, what bout the 'or' on contraception, or do you think that responsible people only think that sex is for making babies?

On another thought, you think the best thing to do is give people you judge as irresponsible a child? Also, doesn’t original sin mean the fetus not innocent? Is innocence really the important measure? Because lots of things are innocent we don’t care about.

> what bout the 'or' on contraception

I don't have any particular problems with contraception. Some right-wingers do, they should speak for themselves. (I'm also not against early-stage abortions)

> On another thought, you think the best thing to do is give people you judge as irresponsible a child?

It's not ideal, it's just better than normalizing taking innocent lives. Also, if someone really thinks they can't be a good parent, putting up the baby for adoption is always an option.

> Also, doesn’t original sin mean the fetus not innocent?(which of course doesn't really apply since it's not a person)

I'm not religious, so I don't really think about the issue in terms of sins in the religious sense.

Saying "innocent fetus" is like calling a horse with a top hat a gentleman.

Yeah, because we all know if you wait a little bit, the horse will develop into a fully-fledged human beings.

That is kind of a weird argument and I assume you don't understand the antiabortion position. People who are opposed to abortion think it is murder. If somebody supports personal responsibility that doesn't mean they think we shouldn't have murder laws.

You may disagree with the idea it is murder, but if it is in fact murder than it is completely consistent to support laws against it.

>People who are opposed to abortion think it is murder.

And people who are opposed to physics believe Earth is flat. Both views are the same in terms of rationality.

Biologically life begins at conception [1] [2]. A human fetus has been conceived. Therefore a human fetus is a human life. Unjustly and deliberately killing a human is murder.

You may disagree with some of the premises but they follow one another and have decent reasons to believe them. That is hardly irrational.

Something to keep in mind. If you want to actually convince somebody in the future, saying their views are as irrational as believing the Earth is flat isn't the best way.

[1] https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.ht...

[2] https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes.htm...

How do you even define "life" biologically? Two "living" things combine to form a fetus, and just a few months down the line none of the physical matter of those living things still comprises the growing fetus. The thing that is being terminated isn't a human, it's the potential of a human, which is also the thing that is flushed down the toilet when a used condom is disposed of.

Forced birthers are crazy, full stop. A fertilized egg is not a human any more than a sperm is a human.

If you don't understand the difference between sperm cells and a fertilized egg then you are just being obtuse.

Yesterday you've decided that hydatidiform mole is a human.

And here you're making the same mistake again: you're assuming that if someone disagrees with your ideas about biology it means they don't understand it. In reality the reverse is true - pro-life myths might make sense to a high schooler, but not to someone who actually understands the topic.

I already provided links showing biologists agree that life starts at conception. It is not my fault you disagree with biologists.

Yet you missed the obvious fact that science doesn't even have a good definition for life, in fact it's a hard problem in the philosophy of science. You could say that the replicating mass of cells will in the future become a human being and that is not true of a sperm (unless it later goes on to fertilize an egg), but a sperm is just as "alive" as a fertilized egg.

If you have some sperm cells laying around they won't grow into a human. If you have a fertilized egg it will (assuming the process completes normally).

Again, this doesn't matter to the discussion. Even if they were fully grown humans this wouldn't "override" pregnant person's right to decide about their own body.

(Also, you're conflating 'being homo sapiens' with 'being a person'; you've already tried this method of derailing the discussion two days before.)

> Even if they were fully grown humans this wouldn't "override" pregnant person's right to decide about their own body.

Of course it would. Should you be able to murder your kids in your house because "your house, your choice"?

>Of course it would.

Does it mean a parent can be forced to donate an organ for transplant for their child?

>Should you be able to murder your kids in your house

Completely different situation; we are talking about bodily autonomy, not “housing autonomy”.

>Does it mean a parent can be forced to donate an organ for transplant for their child?

I am not who you were responding to, but since we were talking previously I will remind you what I said before. You are not obligated to provide what people need above the basic necessities. Organ donations go beyond that.

This argument is based on a logical fallacy equating "human" with "person". It's yet another example of an attempt to derail the discussion.

>You may disagree with some of the premises but they follow one another

You can say the exact same thing about antivaxers.

>If you want to actually convince somebody in the future, saying their views are as irrational as believing the Earth is flat isn't the best way.

Honestly, I don't think I can convince a flat-earther or pro-lifer. This kind of brainwashing appears to be unfixable. What can be done is limiting the spread.

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