• BabyTurtles [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    6 days ago

    Completely inevitable. The GOP needs a constant source of outrage to galvanize its base. Abortion just isn’t the same now that it’ll outright illegal in many states.

    If they’re smart, they’ll stick to the culture war and not actually write any policy, or they’ll have to find a new even more extreme position to fight on.

  • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    6 days ago

    As much as the evangelicals get the lion’s share of attention, there’s a significant bloc of traditional and conservative Catholics in the cultural conservatism movement, and Catholicism has a long-standing gripe with any “interference” with “God’s plan” when it comes to reproduction. Back in the 50’s and 60’s, evangelicals had qualms about touching abortion politics precisely because they saw it as a Catholic thing. But nowadays the divide isn’t there like it used to, and conservative Catholics have become more Protestant-like in their relationship to their religion, so it’s an easier sell to evangelicals; I suspect restrictions on prescription and OTC contraceptives will be next.

  • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    6 days ago

    The doctors who push these therapies, which include surgery, argue that women and other doctors overuse IVF. “IVF is a really expensive last resort and there’s so much before that,” Lankford explained—a bizarre and condescending point that assumes that someone who has turned to the expensive and difficult process of IVF didn’t first test her hormone levels or check for fibroids.

    Whereas Lankford’s bill encourages women with infertility to check for fibroids, the Southern Baptist Convention suggests they check in with a higher power. “Couples who experience the searing pain of infertility can turn to God, look to Scripture for numerous examples of infertility, and know that their lament is heard by the Lord, who offers compassion and grace to those deeply afflicted by such realities,” the denomination’s anti-IVF resolution reads.

    My intuition is that it’s an anti-feminist move. It’d be like an anti-contraceptive position where getting to plan your parenthood gives women more sovereignty over their career, choice of partner, and choice of role in a family. If you can freeze an embryo for IVF later in life, then you’re cheating because they want you to marry young and not have a career. The venn diagram of people praying for artificial wombs so that women are no longer needed and those grateful for anti-IVF bills is an enveloped circle with a few outlying freaks who really really care for those embryos that don’t get used during IVF. Because the only argument found in this article is ridiculous-on-its-face post hoc.

    • thetaT [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      6 days ago

      being anti-abortion used to also be pretty unpopular. but when conservative leadership needs something new to demonize, the conservative public are quick to turn…

        • HexBroke [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          5 days ago

          It’s unpopular now, but historically party stances were somewhat reversed, e.g.

          In 1972, a Gallop poll showed that Americans were united in their opinion about abortion: 68% of Republicans and 59% of Democrats agreed that “the decision to have an abortion should be made solely by a woman and her physician.”