That's a very important distinction to make, though I grant you that pretending this distinction doesn't exist has been the MO of politics and media for a while now.
My point is I can decide to marry a man or a woman now and before I could only decide to marry women. Currently I despise the idea of marriage so I'm not doing either, but there's many things I have the freedom to do that I choose not to. I still like to have that freedom. It seems you were making some deeper point than me or you have a different idea of what makes "a group" (since you called abortion a group right even though it applies to every woman).
That framing of course is absurd because women in the USSR also had more chance of their brothers being disappeared, etc.
To rephrase the comment above slightly, the gain of rights for a particular group isn’t a replacement for a loss of universal rights. The loss of universal rights is always more serious because it leads to the darkest paths that a society can take.
Many western countries have not experienced repression in two or more generations and cultural memory is starting to fade.
I see gay marriage as a gain of rights for all, not for a particular group. I'm not gay, but I now have the right to marry a man for tax purposes, employer-provided benefits, or citizenship/immigration.
I don't think that's absurd? Both can be true at the same time, a government can stop discriminating you for one thing, while starting to repress you for another. Whether that's a net negative for any individual depends on circumstance and detail.
It's obvious if you reduce it to the absurd: e.g. if a government decides the abolish slavery (terrible discrimination for a specific group) while also disallowing chewing gum for everyone. Similarly you can construct examples for the inverse (a minor reduction of discrimination vs a great loss of freedom for everyone).
History is pretty clear in its opinion on the (lack of) merits of Stalinism, but I don't think you can construct a general principle in the phrasing you chose.
At least we can discuss about it. But ability to make diolague shrinks due to overconsumption of naratives full of fear. That bothers me quite a bit.
We pretend to solving problems by creating ridiculous ammount of regulations and laws instead of removing those non functional.
I think you might refer to how political discourse in western democracies increasingly seems not appeal to reason and common ground, but to "feelings" including fear, but also disgust, love of tribe and similar.
It seems to be that way but I'm not sure it wasn't always. Maybe people who want rational discourse about policy should seek forums that does just that, and not look to be informed by campaign slogans and the mudwrestling that goes on in social media. And maybe that's how it always was.
I'm not sure.
What is difference than before is scale. So many people never consumed virtual information before. It makes perfect ground for one, centralised control over masses.