Pregnant woman says her fetus should count as a passenger in HOV lanes | Hacker News Reader

Pregnant woman says her fetus should count as a passenger in HOV lanes

dallasnews.com

14 pointsgroffee11 comments

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It's hard to argue against that logic... the Arch Druids can't have it both ways.

[Edit] Yeah... ok they can... those bozos shouldn't be in charge of the bus.

don’t be silly; of course they can.

if you don’t believe a word you say, you just mutate state as needed to suits your needs.

if this seems unjust: good, do your part to do something about it.

> if you don’t believe a word you say, you just mutate state when it suits you.

I am pro choice, but am entirely convinced that many many pro lifers are entirely sincere. If you think they are just holding that position out of convenience, I can see why you would interpret it as malicious. But that misinterpretation causes unnecessary hate and conflict.

abortion rates are basically flat across the span of professed religious belief in the US. There is a consistent trend of hypocritical “well yours is murder but my abortion doesn’t count”.

The people foaming at the mouth are sincere in the intensity of their intent, but the professed specifics are a proxy for a more fundamental (hah) mix of fear and pride and rage that until recently wasn’t something that was generally spoken aloud in public, or acknowledged even private.

in the specific case of american protestant evangelicals, that fundament has much more to do with their complete moral failure on the matter of civil rights, and a desperate scramble to pick anything sufficiently horrific to be against in order to be able to view themselves as good and ideally superior. In the late 1970s, and post-roe, it occurred to people that the good old blood libel of “killing babies!!” is about the most horrible thing you can do, so it’s easy to be against it. Conveniently, a lot of these people where also already in the goldwater camp, stewing about their political ostracism, and reagan needed votes. So a faustian bargain was struck, and here we are, reaping the whirlwind.

Pro life is a misnomer, they are pro forced birthers. Any conversation about forcing women to bring an (un)viable fetus to term without considerations and preparations for the consequences of that including: cost of medical care, missed work, ability too provide and care for child, implications of child on parents mental health, etc is morally bankrupt and exposes the reality that this about forcing women to adhere to pie in the sky belief systems and not about concern for the child.

> convinced that many many pro lifers are entirely sincere.

If someone truly believes that an abortion is murder, then logically the penalty for an abortion should be the same (all else being equal) as murdering another human. If someone thinks that that penalty is too harsh (e.g. long prison sentence or death sentence), do they truly believe that abortion is murder?

when i say "My body my choice" applies to vaccines, abortions, drugs, tanning beds; many seem to disagree. "want it both ways" cuts both ways.

It's very easy to argue against that logic. The entire point of having a separate HOV lane that moves faster than the other lanes to to incentivize people to share cars who otherwise would not do so. Since it is impossible for a mother and fetus to choose travel in separate cars, considering the fetus as a separate person when defining HOV lanes does not serve this purpose.

I see nothing remotely hypocritical about drafting traffic laws in this way, while simultaneously considering a fetus to have human rights and treating them as a "person" in other medical and legal contexts. Frankly, I think this would be gob-smackingly obvious to everyone involved, if it weren't tied up in a hot culture-war topic.

(Sadly, I feel the need to emphasize that, while I'm personally pro-choice, I'm making no argument here in favor of or against being pro-life or pro-choice. Just that this particular line of argument is really dumb and pointless.)

> It's very easy to argue against that logic.

As I read them, you’re introducing exceptions that Texas “managed lanes” laws don’t have.

Texas law is that “a vehicle occupied by two or more people…may use HOV lanes”. A fetus is not yet a person, but if Texas law says that fetuses are constitutional persons, then how would fetuses not have those rights in this case?

(IANAL, also just arguing based on logic.)

That might be true, as a matter of legal interpretation. If so, that's a solid argument for updating the traffic law with more precise language, but not much else.

HOV lanes should be for car pooling. Therefore to qualify a vehicle should have multiple people who are eligible to drive themselves, i.e. adults. So in this context there should be no debate.

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