Mid Term Elections- Lessons Learned

[dannyboy1]

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That's because your viewpoint (the viability limit) doesn't make any logical sense. A fetus at all stages cannot support itself. A 1 hour old baby can't viably sustain itself either. It requires the mother or somebody to feed it. True viability of a human doesn't occur until the age of, what, maybe 5 years at the absolute earliest? So if it's not about feeding one's self, then it's presumably breathing on your own. Your idea that all human life is precious with the exception that it has to be able to breathe on its own makes no sense. Were the humans with polio in iron lungs not precious lives?

Clearly this a more complicated subject and you can't just set a limit, based on logic, at "viability" or "born at full term" IMO.

Whatever. Let’s take this back to politics. Roe v Wade was in fact the greatest gift to the Republican Party. It allowed them to pander to the right wing Christian base by passing symbolic abortion legislation at the state level, knowing full well that it would be struck down. As abortion rights were enshrined by the courts this would not galvanize the general electorate to care too much because it was unthinkable that roe would be overturned. Guess what, the Republican appointed Supreme Court got everyone to care again. This is an unmitigated disaster for right wingers like me who just want low taxes and cheap gas, and could care less what goes on in the uteruses (uterii?) of their fellow citizens. The issue has gone back to the voters and they have spoken loudly and clearly. The Christian Right is just gonna have to hold their nose and tolerate abortion, and convince the voters of that or they will continue to lose…

 

[deleted1116990]

Whatever.

Thank you for proving my point about people changing the subject when pressed on the messy particulars surrounding abortion limits.

Roe v Wade was in fact the greatest gift to the Republican Party. It allowed them to pander to the right wing Christian base

FWIW I'm on your side about single issue abortion voters, or really single issue voters in general. It allows people attached to other crazy policy positions to advance when they otherwise shouldn't have and pushes out moderates who don't go all the way on firm pro-life or pro-choice stances.

 

[Aether2000]

Trump was the most *****ic president ever elected in the US. He was elected based on the idea that he was a wildcard without any political experience at all, that would bring fresh ideas to the White House. That indeed he did. Such ideas were 100% based on his ego-centric narcissism, his inarticulate communication, governance by tweet, puerile pre-pubescent nature and actions, and routine destruction of American institutions that ultimately marked Trump as completely unfit for office. And all of this was before he engaged in an attempted coup. Hopefully he will simply stroke out and die long before 2024. Biden is too old. It is time for younger blood in politics. DeSantis is a well-liked fascist here in the increasingly red and redneck land of Florida, but whether he can sell his brand of autocracy to the rest of the country is yet to be determined. Surely there are some rational middle-way candidates left to run for high office, but we have neither seen them nor heard from them as of this date.

 

[deleted643396]

Have you ever seen a couple hours old baby murdered? I haven't either. Murder is rare. But it does happen. You read stories about babies left in dumpsters, whatever. Similarly, elective full term abortions do happen. They are certainly very rare, but they do happen, even if you or I haven't seen them. Again, murder is rare, but does that mean we shouldn't have laws about it? What this is, and this is what politicians do, is use strawman arguments like this to avoid having to state the obvious that virtually everybody knows in their gut: full-term elective abortions are wrong, they are wrong because they are murder, and if they are murder, the question is why is that murder not criminalized when we criminalize the murder of a 15 minute old baby or, to the other extreme, if you walked into a hospital and shot a terminal 95 unconscious year old patient on life support in the head, you would also be charged with murder. Are there different types of murder depending on the viability and stage of the life? That's not how our criminal system treats murder. People get squishy because the 8 lb. fully formed baby is still in the mother, and they don't want to make a statement that strips the mother of any autonomy to make that decision before it exits the birth canal. At the same time, they won't look you in the eye and say, "yep, there's nothing wrong with killing the fetus at that stage, totally ok" so they just change the subject.

No one is murdering full term infants. Stop being an idiot. That’s not what abortion is about and you either know it and are being obtuse or you are an idiot.

 

[Straight2eight]

No one is murdering full term infants. Stop being an idiot. That’s not what abortion is about and you either know it and are being obtuse or you are an idiot.

Well, not no one unfortunately…

Kermit Gosnell - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Edit: technically not full-term, but clearly viable

 

[deleted643396]

Well, not no one unfortunately…

Kermit Gosnell - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

What is the point here? He was convicted of murder, and rightfully so. What are you trying to prove? You understand that’s not what the abortion issue is about, right? Please tell me you understand and are not purposely being obtuse.

 

[deleted1116990]

No one is murdering full term infants. Stop being an idiot. That’s not what abortion is about and you either know it and are being obtuse or you are an idiot.

Stop being an idiot? Really? People can disagree and have respectful intellectual debate.

But in this case, I actually agree with you because you have presented a strawman. I literally wrote: "They are certainly very rare" Ie, that is not what the abortion debate is about. The abortion debate is about elective early abortions that occurred from an accidental pregnancy. That's almost all of them (ironically the pro-choice side is known to frame the debate around rape and incest, which also account for a tiny minority). We are on the same page. The handful of people I know of, either first or second hand, who had an abortion, every single one of them was when they were young (ie, dumb and reckless) and relying on the pullout method. Every one.

The question I was responding to was specifically about criminalizing certain abortions. My point, again, was that the killing of a 1 hour old baby is criminalized under murder, so why do some not want to criminalize the killing of the same baby 1 hour earlier just before it left the birth canal. Because there are definitely those that do not want that law to apply there. So no, I absolutely was not saying that this is common or that this is what the abortion debate is about. You put those words in my mouth. But third trimester (made up term btw, there is no scientific basis for breaking pregnancy up into discrete thirds) abortions of fully formed babies DO happen (whether it's due to drug use, mental illness, difficulty fleeing other countries, abuse situations, whatever there's lots of reasons). The number is non-zero. To say it is exactly zero is a flat out lie.

Washington DC is one of the few "states" (Vermont, Oregon, I believe are the others) with no legal gestational age on abortion.
A quick google search turns up: Abortion after 26 weeks - Dupont Clinic | Gynecology & Reproductive Health | Washington DC
This is difficult to even read. But there it is. Right in front of your eyes.

In contrast, lets look at the Netherlands, one of the most progressive countries in Western Europe:

Termination of life newborn infants and late-term abortion

Children are occasionally born with such serious disorders that late-term abortion or termination of life is regarded as the best option.

www.government.nl

The Dutch Termination of Pregnancy Act allows abortions to be carried out up to the 24th week of pregnancy. This is the point at which the foetus becomes viable outside the mother’s womb. Late-term abortions – after the 24th week – are excluded from the Termination of Pregnancy Act and fall under the criminal law.

I have no problem saying that any doctor who performs an abortion on a healthy 30+ week old fetus should both lose license and face criminal penalties. Because if you're a doctor, you know what a 30 week old fetus us. It's not a "clump of cells." I truly do not understand why some cannot make the mental jump to say that this should be criminalized even to the point at which the Dutch have above. Ignorance of the human development process is one thing. But physicians know better. Yes, these terminations are extremely rare. But again so is murdering infants. Does that mean we shouldn't have laws against murdering infants?

 

[Straight2eight]

What is the point here? He was convicted of murder, and rightfully so. What are you trying to prove? You understand that’s not what the abortion issue is about, right? Please tell me you understand and are not purposely being obtuse.

I believe the argument was made that late term abortion is an imaginary problem. That’s all.

 

[vector2]

I believe the argument was made that late term abortion is an imaginary problem. That’s all.

I guess the answer is "yes" to whether you guys are being purposefully obtuse.

Or did you actually think that Gravel was literally saying no one in the history of ever had murdered a newborn like the guy in the news story, or had performed an elective late term abortion?

Because anyone with half a brain could infer that his point is these edge cases, while they do literally exist, are so insanely rare that they don't deserve substantial consideration in the greater debate about abortion

 

[doctalaughs]

I’m generally pro-choice but would have no issues with some sort of cutoff like the dutch laws above (24-26 weeks). As long as there are exceptions for major malformations incompatible with life (2 docs could sign something as an exception in these cases).

I don’t see why pro-choice activists would protest this sort of national, uniform law if late-term healthy fetus abortions are “so rare they almost don’t exist.” Seems like a good compromise that hopefully both sides could agree to?

 

[deleted1116990]

I guess the answer is "yes" to whether you guys are being purposefully obtuse.

Or did you actually think that Gravel was literally saying no one in the history of ever had murdered a newborn like the guy in the news story, or had performed an elective late term abortion?

Because anyone with half a brain could infer that his point is these edge cases, while they do literally exist, are so insanely rare that they don't deserve substantial consideration in the greater debate about abortion

Did you even read what I wrote above? Because everything I wrote is in complete agreement with you that these are "edge cases."

He said "No one is murdering infants" He literally said that so, yes. It is important to correct misinformation. As evidenced in my link above, there are places where you can electively terminate pregnancies in the US with no clear upper limit.

The debate is, however, about what the limit should be. You all are deflecting with strawmen and saying that you can't even talk about these rare abortions. Deflecting because for some perverse reason the mainline party position of the democratic party has become that abortion should be allowed on demand up at any time, so you won't just say that obvious that most people regardless of political leanings inherently recognize that yeah, abortion at 37 weeks or whatever obviously advanced age limit you want to use is messed up and should be criminalized. Most western European countries, again very progressive, have this limit set at 15 weeks. Some 24 like the Dutch above. America, despite all the Handsmaids tale costume protests, is one of the most liberal countries in the world as only a couple have any place within their borders that allow full term abortions (in good company with places like China and North Korea).

So the question is why are you opposed to criminalizing full-term abortions? This is never answered and instead you get deflections like "well they are rare so it's not even worth talking about, stop distracting."

 

[Drwine]

Whatever. Let’s take this back to politics. Roe v Wade was in fact the greatest gift to the Republican Party. It allowed them to pander to the right wing Christian base by passing symbolic abortion legislation at the state level, knowing full well that it would be struck down. As abortion rights were enshrined by the courts this would not galvanize the general electorate to care too much because it was unthinkable that roe would be overturned. Guess what, the Republican appointed Supreme Court got everyone to care again. This is an unmitigated disaster for right wingers like me who just want low taxes and cheap gas, and could care less what goes on in the uteruses (uterii?) of their fellow citizens. The issue has gone back to the voters and they have spoken loudly and clearly. The Christian Right is just gonna have to hold their nose and tolerate abortion, and convince the voters of that or they will continue to lose…

When the Supreme Court ruling came out, one of my colleagues said "It isn't about abortion, it is about money and power." The shoe is on the other foot and now the Democratic politicians now have the fundraising gift and a green light to pander to their base. If they really cared about the issue they could have easily passed legislation under the first terms of Clinton or Obama.

In this election cycle I made no political contributions.

 

[deleted1116990]

Seems like a good compromise that hopefully both sides could agree to?

Apparently not. It's as frustrating as the pro-life side that wants to ban Plan B and accepts nothing else in terms of roadblocks to putting this all behind us.

 

[vector2]

."

He said "No one is murdering infants" He literally said that so, yes. It is important to correct misinformation.

As I said, you're either being purposefully obtuse or have half a brain if you think his line was meant to be taken extremely literally and not as "late term abortions or someone murdering a newborn outside of the womb are so rare that they are not relevant to 99.9% of the debate currently taking place. "

And no one is scared to discuss abortions after the first trimester. In fact, even planned parenthood has a fact-based document about the issue that talks about the statistics instead of engaging in needless fear mongering

So the question is why are you opposed to criminalizing full-term abortions? This is never answered and instead you get deflections like "well they are rare so it's not even worth talking about, stop distracting."

I already stated earlier why I think abortion laws shouldn't have an arbitrary, legislator-decided week limit. Scroll up.

 

[deleted1116990]

As I said, you're either being purposefully obtuse or have half a brain if you think his line was meant to be taken extremely literally

I already stated earlier why I think abortion laws shouldn't have an arbitrary, legislator-decided week limit. Scroll up.

I don't know man, that's what he wrote. So it's been corrected that it's not zero and there are places you can go in this country to terminate your late term fetus and they will support you. With regards to scrolling up to find your answer where there should be no age limit, I did and I can't find it, unless you are counting your statement that they are very rare and therefore not worth talking about as your answer. I get it, you just don't want to answer it.

Direct question, hypothetical: A woman comes in pregnant at 37 weeks with a healthy pregnancy. She says her husband cheated on her and she doesn't want to bring his child into this world and requests the doctor terminate. He does. Do you think this should be criminalized? Why not? Seriously, I would love to hear an actual rationale why to help me understand this. You can find videos of abortions at this stage on the internet if you are so inclined. They are objectively horrific. And "No, because that would never happen so it's pointless to make a law against it" is not a valid response. I presented a plausible scenario. And if you really want to go with that response, can you explain why we shouldn't bother criminalizing acts that rarely occur? How is that not a miscarriage of justice to the handful such crimes do happen to? Sorry, we had matters that affect more people to get to first in the state government. Next order of business, we have a $60 million powerball ticket to pay out...

Yes, murder occurs in this country. There are people out there that want to and do murder their one year olds. It's very rare but it happens. Do you actually believe in a world where people murder their children, there aren't some rare occasions when people want to terminate full term pregnancies? It's not zero and you know it's not. If your argument is that it is very rare, it's presumably not that it's not ethically wrong. So why leave a loophole in the law? What's the downside?

 

[doctalaughs]

I don't know man, that's what he wrote. So it's been corrected that it's not zero and there are places you can go in this country to terminate your late term fetus and they will support you. With regards to scrolling up to find your answer where there should be no age limit, I did and I can't find it, unless you are counting your statement that they are very rare and therefore not worth talking about as your answer. I get it, you just don't want to answer it.

Direct question, hypothetical: A woman comes in pregnant at 37 weeks with a healthy pregnancy. She says her husband cheated on her and she doesn't want to bring his child into this world and requests the doctor terminate. He does. Do you think this should be criminalized? Why not? Seriously, I would love to hear an actual rationale why to help me understand this. You can find videos of abortions at this stage on the internet if you are so inclined. They are objectively horrific. And "No, because that would never happen so it's pointless to make a law against it" is not a valid response. I presented a plausible scenario. And if you really want to go with that response, can you explain why we shouldn't bother criminalizing acts that rarely occur? How is that not a miscarriage of justice to the handful such crimes do happen to? Sorry, we had matters that affect more people to get to first in the state government. Next order of business, we have a $60 million powerball ticket to pay out...

Yes, murder occurs in this country. There are people out there that want to and do murder their one year olds. It's very rare but it happens. Do you actually believe in a world where people murder their children, there aren't some rare occasions when people want to terminate full term pregnancies? It's not zero and you know it's not. If your argument is that it is very rare, it's presumably not that it's not ethically wrong. So why leave a loophole in the law? What's the downside?

Forget it no one is going to be convinced of anything.

But I think vector would disagree with the Dutch law above and so would blade.

Therefore it’s probably a good law.

Too bad our country isn’t into compromise.

 

[deleted643396]

I believe the argument was made that late term abortion is an imaginary problem. That’s all.

Ok. So you are confirming that you are either an idiot or purposefully being obtuse? I won’t go further because I find these arguments frustrating. I assume you have an IQ high enough where you can figure out on your own the problem with your argument and specific example given. But then again, you know what they say about assumptions….

 

[deleted643396]

Did you even read what I wrote above? Because everything I wrote is in complete agreement with you that these are "edge cases."

He said "No one is murdering infants" He literally said that so, yes. It is important to correct misinformation. As evidenced in my link above, there are places where you can electively terminate pregnancies in the US with no clear upper limit.

The debate is, however, about what the limit should be. You all are deflecting with strawmen and saying that you can't even talk about these rare abortions. Deflecting because for some perverse reason the mainline party position of the democratic party has become that abortion should be allowed on demand up at any time, so you won't just say that obvious that most people regardless of political leanings inherently recognize that yeah, abortion at 37 weeks or whatever obviously advanced age limit you want to use is messed up and should be criminalized. Most western European countries, again very progressive, have this limit set at 15 weeks. Some 24 like the Dutch above. America, despite all the Handsmaids tale costume protests, is one of the most liberal countries in the world as only a couple have any place within their borders that allow full term abortions (in good company with places like China and North Korea).

So the question is why are you opposed to criminalizing full-term abortions? This is never answered and instead you get deflections like "well they are rare so it's not even worth talking about, stop distracting."

You understand that’s not what the abortion issue is about, right? Bringing up examples of a guy murdering infants is a way to bring emotion into a subject where emotion doesn’t belong. The guy was convicted of murder. We already have laws in place for killing infants. Everyone agrees that is illegal and is reflected by the punishment the guy got. Again, what point are you trying to make? It is completely not reflective of the extremist anti-abortion laws that are being passed in a number of states and why people are rightfully upset at the oppression those laws bring.

 

[vector2]

I don't know man, that's what he wrote. So it's been corrected that it's not zero and there are places you can go in this country to terminate your late term fetus and they will support you. With regards to scrolling up to find your answer where there should be no age limit, I did and I can't find it, unless you are counting your statement that they are very rare and therefore not worth talking about as your answer. I get it, you just don't want to answer it.

Direct question, hypothetical: A woman comes in pregnant at 37 weeks with a healthy pregnancy. She says her husband cheated on her and she doesn't want to bring his child into this world and requests the doctor terminate. He does. Do you think this should be criminalized? Why not? Seriously, I would love to hear an actual rationale why to help me understand this. You can find videos of abortions at this stage on the internet if you are so inclined. They are objectively horrific. And "No, because that would never happen so it's pointless to make a law against it" is not a valid response. I presented a plausible scenario. And if you really want to go with that response, can you explain why we shouldn't bother criminalizing acts that rarely occur? How is that not a miscarriage of justice to the handful such crimes do happen to? Sorry, we had matters that affect more people to get to first in the state government. Next order of business, we have a $60 million powerball ticket to pay out...

Yes, murder occurs in this country. There are people out there that want to and do murder their one year olds. It's very rare but it happens. Do you actually believe in a world where people murder their children, there aren't some rare occasions when people want to terminate full term pregnancies? It's not zero and you know it's not. If your argument is that it is very rare, it's presumably not that it's not ethically wrong. So why leave a loophole in the law? What's the downside?

It was actually you I was replying to and not another poster when I answered specifically why I don't think legislators should be in charge of imposing hard week limits, so good to know that you're barely reading any reply you get before blazing on to the next strawman you're intent on knocking down.

But anyway, if you really think an Gravel, an American physician, was literally saying that no third trimester abortion or murder of a newborn has ever taken place, you are a bad-faith interlocutor and really don't have any business saying who's capable of compromising and who isn't.

And your fearmongering obsession with "what do we do about the 37wk'er who wants to abort because it's a Tuesday????" is further proof that your eye is off the ball here on this issue. What you're doing relies on the fact that humans are bad at risk-adjustment when it comes to improbable events, so framing abortion laws around that scenario is as absurd as mandating that children must be homeschooled because child abduction sometimes happens.

 

[deleted643396]

I don't know man, that's what he wrote. So it's been corrected that it's not zero and there are places you can go in this country to terminate your late term fetus and they will support you. With regards to scrolling up to find your answer where there should be no age limit, I did and I can't find it, unless you are counting your statement that they are very rare and therefore not worth talking about as your answer. I get it, you just don't want to answer it.

Direct question, hypothetical: A woman comes in pregnant at 37 weeks with a healthy pregnancy. She says her husband cheated on her and she doesn't want to bring his child into this world and requests the doctor terminate. He does. Do you think this should be criminalized? Why not? Seriously, I would love to hear an actual rationale why to help me understand this. You can find videos of abortions at this stage on the internet if you are so inclined. They are objectively horrific. And "No, because that would never happen so it's pointless to make a law against it" is not a valid response. I presented a plausible scenario. And if you really want to go with that response, can you explain why we shouldn't bother criminalizing acts that rarely occur? How is that not a miscarriage of justice to the handful such crimes do happen to? Sorry, we had matters that affect more people to get to first in the state government. Next order of business, we have a $60 million powerball ticket to pay out...

Yes, murder occurs in this country. There are people out there that want to and do murder their one year olds. It's very rare but it happens. Do you actually believe in a world where people murder their children, there aren't some rare occasions when people want to terminate full term pregnancies? It's not zero and you know it's not. If your argument is that it is very rare, it's presumably not that it's not ethically wrong. So why leave a loophole in the law? What's the downside?

So the solution to your “plausible” scenario (which, if plausible, is extremely rare) is to simply make abortions illegal in all circumstances? That’s like dropping a nuclear bomb to kill a spider.

 

[deleted643396]

I’m generally pro-choice but would have no issues with some sort of cutoff like the dutch laws above (24-26 weeks). As long as there are exceptions for major malformations incompatible with life (2 docs could sign something as an exception in these cases).

I don’t see why pro-choice activists would protest this sort of national, uniform law if late-term healthy fetus abortions are “so rare they almost don’t exist.” Seems like a good compromise that hopefully both sides could agree to?

I would have no problem with a law like that, so long as the ability to protect the life of the mother or compassionate abortions in the event of major birth defects was maintained.

 

[deleted1116990]

It was actually you I was replying to and not another poster when I answered specifically why I don't think legislators should be in charge of imposing hard week limits, so good to know that you're barely reading any reply you get before blazing on to the next strawman you're intent on knocking down.

But anyway, if you really think an Gravel, an American physician, was literally saying that no third trimester abortion or murder of a newborn has ever taken place, you are a bad-faith interlocutor and really don't have any business saying who's capable of compromising and who isn't.

And your fearmongering obsession with "what do we do about the 37wk'er who wants to abort because it's a Tuesday????" is further proof that your eye is off the ball here on this issue. What you're doing relies on the fact that humans are bad at risk-adjustment when it comes to improbable events, so framing abortion laws around that scenario is as absurd as mandating that children must be homeschooled because child abduction sometimes happens.

Yes, I did read that. Your argument was, as I already demonstrated, that it was extremely rare, and therefore there is no need to prohibit elective termination at the late stages of pregnancy, and you again provided no explanation for why you believe this option should be left open.

I have no problem with exceptions that protect the life of the mother or allow for fetal malformations incompatible with life. Because the reality is, that are extremely few, if any, situations where you have a full term baby that cannot be delivered alive in some fashion without killing the mother. The health-of-the-mother situations almost always apply to having to evacuate a pregnancy before the point of viability because the mother would die if she had to wait to the point it became viable. And with regards to fetal malformations, again this is also very rare that a non-viable pregnancy advances that far. But it does happen, and it raises ethical issues of how to best deal with this: Whether the life should be delivered and allowed to expire on its own while doing everything possible in a compassionate manner for it, or to destroy it in the womb then evacuate the contents. These are tough questions, and I support an exception in the very rare circumstances like that for the mother and the doctor to decide what is best in each individual circumstance.

Even gravel, above, notes that he would support the Dutch law with these exceptions.
So why can't you explain why late elective termination of fully formed healthy fetuses should not be allowed? It's clear the answer is cognitive dissonance.

And in regards to bad-faith, you are once again pigeon-holing me into your binary. I don't agree with you (no age restrictions on elective abortion), so therefore I must be a bible-thumping MAGA nutjob who wants to ban plan B. Moderate opinions can't exist for you. With regards to you and Gravel's comment that my solution is to make abortions illegal in all circumstances, no I never said that. I am specifically talking about where the age limit should be, a point you refuse to acknowledge. In fact, if you want to talk about not going back and paying attention, here ya go:

Yet, how many politicians will get up there and say, "you know, it overall feels wrong to me at any point, but I can reasonably see where someone could disagree up until about 9-10 weeks or so based on my understanding of human development," which is basically my opinion.

If you can't see the inhumanity of elective late stage abortion and can't even get on board with something like a 30+ week ban with exceptions in the very rare situations above, then you're dug into so deep into the partisan dogma that you're beyond help and further debate is pointless, as noted above.

You are free to believe what you want. But someone needs to tell you that the position you hold, no age restriction on elective abortion at all, IS a fringe position. Only a handful of countries in the world have this, only 6 US states have it, and while many mainstream democrats will adopt this out of fear of upsetting their base, it's even a minority position on the left (only 31% of democrats support abortion in any circumstance with no restrictions).

 

[BLADEMDA]

How Lindsey Graham’s 15-week abortion ban compares to other countries’ laws

Some Republicans are perplexed by the timing of the South Carolina senator’s abortion bill. But its substance is not as extreme as some abortion-rights supporters think

www.deseret.com

 

[ucladoc2b]

How Lindsey Graham’s 15-week abortion ban compares to other countries’ laws

Some Republicans are perplexed by the timing of the South Carolina senator’s abortion bill. But its substance is not as extreme as some abortion-rights supporters think

www.deseret.com

I see this often quoted by the anti choice crowd. It’s not accurate.

Abortion law - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[chessknt]

I see this often quoted by the anti choice crowd. It’s not accurate.

Abortion law - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Even if it was accurate it is hypocritical. We could say the same thing of single payor healthcare and paid maternal leave probably and the right doesn't want to mimic Europe in that case but when it suits them suddenly they can be used as an example.

 

[deleted1116990]

I see this often quoted by the anti choice crowd. It’s not accurate.

Abortion law - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

How is it not accurate? I count only 14 countries on that chart that appear to allow them after 17 weeks. The claim was 7 allow them after 20 weeks. Seems pretty reasonable 7 could have a limit between 17-20 weeks, no? Your picture definitely supports what I posted anyway. With regards to no gestational limit, I see the 6 US states I mentioned and nowhere else, except for China with "unclear gestational limit" as I mentioned previously I'm not sure they are the group you should strive to be in (I thought North Korea was too but appears it's south Korea, my bad).

The claim that Europe has more restrictive limits, with the exception of the Netherlands as I referenced previously (and whose policy some still can't even get behind), is immediately apparent as the whole continent is the same color with limits under 17 weeks. Finland and UK are surprising as I would guess most wouldn't expect it to be that restricted there.

Yes, there are a handful of bible belt states that are more restrictive than Europe inline with basically all of South America, the Middle East, and Africa (still a very large percentage of the world), but for the rest of the US and Canada, they are less restrictive than Europe, with the least restrictive places in the world being within Americas borders.

Philippines. Wow. But I guess not surprising since they execute drug dealers.

Even if it was accurate it is hypocritical. We could say the same thing of single payor healthcare and paid maternal leave probably and the right doesn't want to mimic Europe in that case but when it suits them suddenly they can be used as an example.

Stating facts is just stating facts. You can prove that 2+2=4 and also have an opinion that the earth is flat. The latter doesn't make the former less true or valid.

 

[vector2]

Yes, I did read that. Your argument was, as I already demonstrated, that it was extremely rare, and therefore there is no need to prohibit elective termination at the late stages of pregnancy, and you again provided no explanation for why you believe this option should be left open.

This is just more bad-faith trolling, right? It's either that or your reading comprehension needs significant work. Let's take a look at what I wrote, because my argument sure as sht didn't stop with "cause it's rare." It actually continued with:

The late-term abortions which do happen are usually some kind of edge case involving either fetal defects or some kind of harm to the mother. And these edge cases don't fit neatly into little restriction clauses in laws which pertain to survivability/health of the mother or baby. Ultimately, the woman and her doctor who have tough moral and health decisions to make don't need to be hamstringed by legislators (barely capable of mastering the 6th grade sex ex curriculum) who think they should decide the nuances of neonatal/obstetric issues​

Now I want you to read that again very slowly and carefully. My objection was not solely based around totally, totally elective third abortions being rare. It's also based around week limits imposed by legislators which make terminating pregnancy impossible when there are non-clearcut (but still serious) health issues in the fetus or mother. It's not possible to put all the myriad scenarios into hard and fast legislative gestational age cutoffs, which is why the decision is best left to the woman and her physician.

If you can't see the inhumanity of elective late stage abortion and can't even get on board with something like a 30+ week ban with exceptions in the very rare situations above, then you're dug into so deep into the partisan dogma that you're beyond help and further debate is pointless, as noted above.

Lol, I can't see the inhumanity? I swear to god you're either illiterate or just the most dishonest person to have a conversation with on this forum. Shall we go back to the tape again to see what I wrote?

The thing is, philosophically I think that viability should be the cut off for when abortion is permitted...​

As much as you want to play strawman king and distort the facts, my position was pretty clear. I (and most other liberals) were fine with Roe/Casey. I think the age of viability is an acceptable compromise cutoff for elective abortion. But given how stupid the average legislator is, I also don't mind there not being a legislative cutoff because 1. Elective post-first trimester abortion is extraordinarily rare, and *most importantly* 2. The language of legislation cannot capture the full scope of difficult neonatal/maternal health scenarios which might necessitate late-term termination, and thus that decision is best left up to the woman and physician.

 

[deleted1116990]

I swear to god you're either illiterate or just the most dishonest person to have a conversation with on this forum.

The thing is, philosophically I think that viability should be the cut off for when abortion is permitted...​

As much as you want to play strawman king and distort the facts, my position was pretty clear. I (and most other liberals) were fine with Roe/Casey. I think the age of viability is an acceptable compromise cutoff for elective abortion. But given how stupid the average legislator is, I also don't mind there not being a legislative cutoff because 1. Elective post-first trimester abortion is extraordinarily rare, and *most importantly* 2. The language of legislation cannot capture the full scope of difficult neonatal/maternal health scenarios which might necessitate late-term termination, and thus that decision is best left up to the woman and physician.

Ignoring even more of your personal insults, I admittedly did miss the point where you expressed some sympathy for not permitting elective abortion after viability. Mea cupla. Glad that you are not completely soulless and hopefully recognize this as a crime. I'm still confused why you wouldn't support a law that allows for the extraordinarily unusual exception where a viable fetus can't be delivered alive without killing the mother or the fetus is found to be unviable post 24 weeks. By not doing that and allowing clinics to operate like the one that I linked that advertise elective abortion with no age limit, you will invariably allow a non-zero number of abortions to occur that you philosophically disagree with.

 

[ucladoc2b]

How is it not accurate? I count only 14 countries on that chart that appear to allow them after 17 weeks. The claim was 7 allow them after 20 weeks. Seems pretty reasonable 7 could have a limit between 17-20 weeks, no? Your picture definitely supports what I posted anyway. With regards to no gestational limit, I see the 6 US states I mentioned and nowhere else, except for China with "unclear gestational limit" as I mentioned previously I'm not sure they are the group you should strive to be in (I thought North Korea was too but appears it's south Korea, my bad).

The claim that Europe has more restrictive limits, with the exception of the Netherlands as I referenced previously (and whose policy some still can't even get behind), is immediately apparent as the whole continent is the same color with limits under 17 weeks. Finland and UK are surprising as I would guess most wouldn't expect it to be that restricted there.

Yes, there are a handful of bible belt states that are more restrictive than Europe inline with basically all of South America, the Middle East, and Africa (still a very large percentage of the world), but for the rest of the US and Canada, they are less restrictive than Europe, with the least restrictive places in the world being within Americas borders.

Philippines. Wow. But I guess not surprising since they execute drug dealers.


Stating facts is just stating facts. You can prove that 2+2=4 and also have an opinion that the earth is flat. The latter doesn't make the former less true or valid.

Devils in the details about what qualifies under certain exemptions.

 

[deleted87051]

Ignoring even more of your personal insults, I admittedly did miss the point where you expressed some sympathy for not permitting elective abortion after viability. Mea cupla. Glad that you are not completely soulless and hopefully recognize this as a crime. I'm still confused why you wouldn't support a law that allows for the extraordinarily unusual exception where a viable fetus can't be delivered alive without killing the mother or the fetus is found to be unviable post 24 weeks. By not doing that and allowing clinics to operate like the one that I linked that advertise elective abortion with no age limit, you will invariably allow a non-zero number of abortions to occur that you philosophically disagree with.

“Viability” itself is a nebulous term. Some fetuses are viable to term, but don’t have much viability after that. Some babies are expected to live only a couple of days or a couple of weeks after birth. Some have made the argument that it should be left up the the mother whether or not to carry these babies to term. These babies make up a significant portion of “late term” abortions.

 

[ucladoc2b]

“Viability” itself is a nebulous term. Some fetuses are viable to term, but don’t have much viability after that. Some babies are expected to live only a couple of days or a couple of weeks after birth. Some have made the argument that it should be left up the the mother whether or not to carry these babies to term. These babies make up a significant portion of “late term” abortions.

I know plenty of adults of questionable viability.

 

[vector2]

Ignoring even more of your personal insults, I admittedly did miss the point where you expressed some sympathy for not permitting elective abortion after viability. Mea cupla. Glad that you are not completely soulless and hopefully recognize this as a crime.

So due to your poor reading comprehension and/or your inattentiveness (because you're always in a rush to get another word in), you went right head and implied I'm soulless and inhumane......and yet you have the temerity to say you're the one who should feel insulted. Lol, where the f do you get off dude

I'm still confused why you wouldn't support a law that allows for the extraordinarily unusual exception where a viable fetus can't be delivered alive without killing the mother or the fetus is found to be unviable post 24 weeks.

Again with that reading comprehension. I'll quote myself one more time, I guess:

​

The late-term abortions which do happen are usually some kind of edge case involving either fetal defects or some kind of harm to the mother. And these edge cases don't fit neatly into little restriction clauses in laws which pertain to survivability/health of the mother or baby. Ultimately, the woman and her doctor who have tough moral and health decisions to make don't need to be hamstringed by legislators (barely capable of mastering the 6th grade sex ex curriculum) who think they should decide the nuances of neonatal/obstetric issues​

Are you able to understand what the bolded means? More simply put, it means that putting the word "viable" into a law or even naming one or two bad conditions is not specific enough to cover the myriad fetal birth defects or maternal health issues which could necessitate a termination.

By not doing that and allowing clinics to operate like the one that I linked that advertise elective abortion with no age limit, you will invariably allow a non-zero number of abortions to occur that you philosophically disagree with.

And in the criminal justice system, a "non-zero" number of murderers go free (something I philosophically disagree with) because the benefits of a unanimous jury not having any reasonable doubts (and thus not convicting innocent people) outweigh the downside of some getting away with it.

But it's absolutely wild you use phrases like "allow a non-zero number" while throwing out accusations that I'm the one approaching the issue in a "binary" fashion. You and some others are really, really trying to kill irony in this thread while simultaneously achieving max projection. It's apparent you don't understand that life is complex, controversial, and messy. The same goes for abortion. The same goes for the policy the governs abortion. There's no simple answers, and each of us has to weigh the morality of women, in conjunction with their physicians, having full bodily autonomy to make the best health decisions for themselves and their babies ...against the morality of needing to protect the life of fetuses which could survive outside the womb. You are never going to get a solution where the things you are unhappy with happen "zero" times.

 

[tombreaz]

We aren't politicians on this board. We are practicing anesthesiologists looking to express our views. We are all imperfect and vote for the wrong person from time to time. But, we try to pick the best one among the choices we are given.

Donald Trump has become too toxic for at least 1/3 of GOP voters. But, he has a loyal base of 35% or so. Hence, if there are multiple candidates seeking the GOP nomination, he will likely be the victor. But, he will lose BADLY in the General Election to anyone except maybe Bernie (only a small loss to Bernie).

Donald Trump is simply unelectable to more than 50% of this nation so he has ZERO chance of becoming President in 2024.

As Trump announces 2024 White House run, GOP megadonors back DeSantis, Youngkin, other Republicans

Some of the nation's wealthiest GOP donors have been eyeing Republican governors as more rational — and more importantly, electable — candidates than Trump.

www.cnbc.com

But wasn't this the case in 2015 and 2016? Who really thought Trump had a chance of winning the primary? People thought his "toxicity" would keep him out back then and it didn't-so why will it this time?

 

[vector2]

I see this often quoted by the anti choice crowd. It’s not accurate.

Abortion law - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Yeah, it's total bullsht when you look into the details

​

Republican Governor Tate Reeves of Mississippi made this assertion in 2021 ahead of oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson. “Mississippi will still have a law on the books in which 39 countries, 39 out of 42 in Europe, have more restrictive abortion laws than what I believe to be one of the most conservative states in the United States,” Reeves said on Meet the Press. This position was echoed by the right-wing majority in Dobbs, which presented the U.S. as an outlier for its permissive abortion laws. Since the ruling, conservative outlets and media figures have insisted that European leaders “who criticized the United States for the decision have laws that are … comparable to the Mississippi law,” or that “many European states have stricter abortion laws than the U.S,” and that the law at issue was “not extreme compared to many European abortion laws.”​

​

The first big problem with this argument is that it is false. Although many European countries have gestational limits that on paper resemble those in the Mississippi statute, and some have mandatory counseling and waiting periods, the exceptions that come into effect after that initial limit mean that women in Europe can still get abortions later than the limit if they wish to. That means the difference between European gestational limits and the Roe and Casey framework was less than it appeared to be. Moreover, the bureaucratic obstacles to getting an abortion in the first trimester in many states pre-Dobbs were far greater than in most of Europe as a result of anti-abortion legislation designed to circumvent Roe.​

​

The second big problem is that many of the post-Roe laws going into effect are outright bans with very few exceptions and with earlier time limits—much stricter than either the law in Dobbs or the European laws at issue. This misrepresentation relies on a superficial discrepancy—that the Roe framework appears more permissive than most European laws as long as one focuses just on gestational limits and ignores the many exceptions in those laws and the state of health-care access on the continent.​

​

“We see earlier gestational limits in Europe,” Katherine Mayall, the director of strategic initiative at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told me, but “in practice, if somebody hits a gestational limit of 12 weeks, they’re still able to access abortion care, because the broad grounds after that limit option include things like mental health or the woman’s economic circumstances.” The three Democratic-appointed justices in Dobbs said as much in their dissent, noting that despite the majority’s framing of the U.S. as an outlier, many European countries “have liberal exceptions to those time limits, including to prevent harm to a woman’s physical or mental health.” For all the chatter about how strict European laws are, if Democratic legislators offered to pass a federal law making U.S. abortion laws resemble those of France or the United Kingdom, there might not be a single Republican in Congress who would agree.​

​

The Myth That America’s Abortion Laws Are More Permissive Than Europe’s

By making a false comparison, GOP apparatchiks hope to cushion the political fallout of Roe’s demise.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[deleted1116990]

So due to your poor reading comprehension and/or your inattentiveness (because you're always in a rush to get another word in), you went right head and implied I'm soulless and inhumane......and yet you have the temerity to say you're the one who should feel insulted. Lol, where the f do you get off dude

Again with that reading comprehension. I'll quote myself one more time, I guess:

​

The late-term abortions which do happen are usually some kind of edge case involving either fetal defects or some kind of harm to the mother. And these edge cases don't fit neatly into little restriction clauses in laws which pertain to survivability/health of the mother or baby. Ultimately, the woman and her doctor who have tough moral and health decisions to make don't need to be hamstringed by legislators (barely capable of mastering the 6th grade sex ex curriculum) who think they should decide the nuances of neonatal/obstetric issues​

Are you able to understand what the bolded means? More simply put, it means that putting the word "viable" into a law or even naming one or two bad conditions is not specific enough to cover the myriad fetal birth defects or maternal health issues which could necessitate a termination.



And in the criminal justice system, a "non-zero" number of murderers go free (something I philosophically disagree with) because the benefits of a unanimous jury not having any reasonable doubts (and thus not convicting innocent people) outweigh the downside of some getting away with it.

But it's absolutely wild you use phrases like "allow a non-zero number" while throwing out accusations that I'm the one approaching the issue in a "binary" fashion. You and some others are really, really trying to kill irony in this thread while simultaneously achieving max projection. It's apparent you don't understand that life is complex, controversial, and messy. The same goes for abortion. The same goes for the policy the governs abortion. There's no simple answers, and each of us has to weigh the morality of women, in conjunction with their physicians, having full bodily autonomy to make the best health decisions for themselves and their babies ...against the morality of needing to protect the life of fetuses which could survive outside the womb. You are never going to get a solution where the things you are unhappy with happen "zero" times.

So much for an olive branch. Based on what you have written I take it back. I simply do not believe you that you philosophically disagree with elective abortion after 24 weeks. I think you're fine with it (that's ok, you're in a "non-zero" group with others). That is the simplest explanation for your mental gymnastics and constant redirecting to avoid the question of why it's ok to accept a non-zero number of legal terminations of healthy 24+ week fetuses, so Occam's razor and whatnot.

No, I get it. Your concern is that mothers in their 30-whatever-th week of pregnancy who end up in a situation where the fetus will be stillborn or have another situation that requires termination other than just not wanting to have the baby anymore will not be allowed to because of some kind of nebulous red tape that prevents them from qualifying for an exception. And to allow that you are willing to accept the consequence that there will be some, again "non-zero" even though that term seems to trigger you (you might want to think about why), of healthy babies that are electively aborted. Yes, that is soulless and inhumane. That's my opinion. Deal with it. If having that opinion makes me the bad guy in your eyes, I don't care.

Yeah, I think we're done here. You are simply playing the old trick of accusing others of doing exactly what you are doing yourself (throwing out strawmen, projecting, etc). I disagree with you nearly completely on abortion. We can leave it at that. I am going to convince you of nothing, logic be damned.

Pascal's wager can be applied to abortion when there is uncertainty about what exactly you are dealing with.
The question, and the whole debate, is whether it's a life or not, which leaves you with 4 scenarios:
It is a life and you bear it: Nothing is killed
It is not a life and you bear it: Nothing is killed (because it never existed as a human like a molar pregnancy I suppose)
It is not a life and you abort it: Nothing is killed
It is a life and you abort it: A human is killed

I'm pretty certain about when life begins, but as I admitted I can see where a reasonable person could disagree up to a point.

Therefore, given the uncertainty of whether it is a life or not (and assuming that we can agree on the basic premise that killing a human life is unacceptable), you should err on the side of bearing it as it impossible to result in the killing of a human life that way. You want to err on other side. Past 24 weeks, I'm preeeettttty confident this wager doesn't apply. It's a human life. We're no longer talking about which side of this wager to err on and instead talking about whether people should have the legal option to terminate this life. The argument is thus murder inside the womb or euthanasia inside the womb. You are willing to accept some murders so that no euthanasia could be inappropriately prevented. You will of course skip past this and say, well what about the health of the mother, what if one mother inappropriately died because of red tape getting an exemption? I reject the premise that any state in America will ever disallow (emergent or non-emergent) life-saving measures for the mother if it could compromise the fetus (such as the Philippines apparently). And I've got no doubt you don't just want to apply life-saving exceptions only. The typical subjective mental health, financial health, social well-being exceptions will apply too. We will never see eye-to-eye on that.

Regret wasting my time on this back-and-forth, or really any back-and-forth with you as you are stuck in your ultra far-left vs. everyone else binary fantasy world.

Cheers
-Your friendly online moderate

 

[MirrorTodd]

What happens to Pascal's wager when the mother dies in childbirth for a baby she was forced to carry to term and the child is raised in a foster system being used and abused and raped etc etc?

 

[chessknt]

What happens to Pascal's wager when the mother dies in childbirth for a baby she was forced to carry to term and the child is raised in a foster system being used and abused and raped etc etc?

As long as the child votes republican (or doesn't vote) and works in Elon's union free factory 80 hours a week to barely make ends meet then it is working as intended.

 

[vector2]

So much for an olive branch. Based on what you have written I take it back. I simply do not believe you that you philosophically disagree with elective abortion after 24 weeks. I think you're fine with it (that's ok, you're in a "non-zero" group with others). That is the simplest explanation for your mental gymnastics and constant redirecting to avoid the question of why it's ok to accept a non-zero number of legal terminations of healthy 24+ week fetuses, so Occam's razor and whatnot.

As I said, you're dishonest and arguing in bad faith. I said my position clearly, and outlined clearly that I believe in a general viability cutoff for elective abortion but am not strongly for a specific legislative week limit *because those limits are too nebulous given that serious neonatal/maternal issues are myriad.* If you do not believe me that's your problem.

Yeah, I think we're done here. You are simply playing the old trick of accusing others of doing exactly what you are doing yourself (throwing out strawmen, projecting, etc). I disagree with you nearly completely on abortion. We can leave it at that. I am going to convince you of nothing, logic be damned.

"Nuh uh, you" kinda went out of vogue in 5th grade but I'm glad you're keeping the faith. Your projection is obvious by how black and white you see the issue while accusing others of being "binary."

Again, you're in fact so binary that you're incapable of understanding the analogy to a capital crime. Laws aren't perfect and sometimes murderers go free so that innocent people aren't wrongly convicted. The same calculus applies to "weigh[ing] the morality of women, in conjunction with their physicians, having full bodily autonomy to make the best health decisions for themselves and their babies ...against the morality of needing to protect the life of fetuses which could survive outside the womb."

I know you're only capable of one line of thought, i.e. "abortion after 24 weeks is always murder!!!!!" ...But maybe try just try to understand there are other points of view?

Regret wasting my time on this back and forth

Likewise

-Your friendly online moderate

 

[deleted641888]

That is the simplest explanation for your mental gymnastics and constant redirecting to avoid the question of why it's ok to accept a non-zero number of legal terminations of healthy 24+ week fetuses, so Occam's razor and whatnot.

Idk. A non-zero number of people die from guns, cars, stairs, pencils, bupivacaine, etc. Not sure what we’re arguing here. Yes, let’s ban bad things as long as I think they are bad.

Yes, that is soulless and inhumane. That's my opinion. Deal with it. If having that opinion makes me the bad guy in your eyes, I don't care.

Your opinion doesn’t make you a bad guy. Your arguments in bad faith that support taking away the rights of fellow human beings makes you soulless and inhumane.

The argument is thus murder inside the womb or euthanasia inside the womb. You are willing to accept some murders so that no euthanasia could be inappropriately prevented. You will of course skip past this and say, well what about the health of the mother, what if one mother inappropriately died because of red tape getting an exemption? I reject the premise that any state in America will ever disallow (emergent or non-emergent) life-saving measures for the mother if it could compromise the fetus (such as the Philippines apparently). And I've got no doubt you don't just want to apply life-saving exceptions only. The typical subjective mental health, financial health, social well-being exceptions will apply too. We will never see eye-to-eye on that.

Luckily for you, you can reject any premise you want, but it doesn’t make it any less true. You can also reject the “typical” mental, financial, social health and well-being exceptions too (i.e., nuances), but that doesn’t make those issues any less important.

Your long diatribes lack any substance despite attempts at injecting vaguely familiar philosophical concepts to justify your clearly biased position that “abortion is wrong because it is murder.” That’s really all you had to say to make up for the past three pages of nonsense.

Abortion is overall okay to me because I recognize that it is a heavily nuanced issue that has innumerable, often invisible facets which cannot be boiled down in a way that supports its ban.

 

[doctalaughs]

For both healthcare an abortion we should make every legislator anonymously pick a single country around the world that has the “best” system in their opinion.

Country with the most votes wins and we adopt that system completely.

Pretty sure the system we’d get would be better than we have now- for both abortion law and healthcare. We really can’t do much worse.

 

[RadOncDoc21]

For both healthcare an abortion we should make every legislator anonymously pick a single country around the world that has the “best” system in their opinion.

Country with the most votes wins and we adopt that system completely.

Pretty sure the system we’d get would be better than we have now- for both abortion law and healthcare. We really can’t do much worse.

This would require compromise and rationale minds. In today’s political climate, those are extremely rare attributes.

 

[BLADEMDA]

For both healthcare an abortion we should make every legislator anonymously pick a single country around the world that has the “best” system in their opinion.

Country with the most votes wins and we adopt that system completely.

Pretty sure the system we’d get would be better than we have now- for both abortion law and healthcare. We really can’t do much worse.

Absolutely true. We certainly spend enough money on governmental healthcare programs like Obamacare, Medicaid and Medicare to reach over 50% of the population in the USA already.

 

[RadOncDoc21]

Absolutely true. We certainly spend enough money on governmental healthcare programs like Obamacare, Medicaid and Medicare to reach over 50% of the population in the USA already.

What about the conglomerate commercial insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies along with for-profit hospital systems? We cant just single out the govt programs.

These companies continue to grow while limiting their care and increasing the cost every year, mainly to pay the administrators millions a year:

UnitedHealth Group earned $17.3B in 2021, according to earnings report

The company's full-year revenue grew more than $30 billion, or 11.8%, to $287.6 billion year-over-year.

www.healthcarefinancenews.com

Seven health insurance CEOs raked in a record $283 million last year

Health insurance CEOs are registering record levels of pay. Experts say their incentives are “messed up.”

www.statnews.com

Total CEO compensation in the last 10 years​

Sum of all compensation by company since 2012

Cigna

$365,959,592
UnitedHealth Group

$349,470,281
Centene

$322,619,510
CVS-Aetna

$265,741,187
Humana

$187,880,631
Anthem-WellPoint

$166,515,815
Molina Healthcare

$112,148,401

 

[doctalaughs]

What about the conglomerate commercial insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies along with for-profit hospital systems? We cant just single out the govt programs.

These companies continue to grow while limiting their care and increasing the cost every year, mainly to pay the administrators millions a year:

UnitedHealth Group earned $17.3B in 2021, according to earnings report

The company's full-year revenue grew more than $30 billion, or 11.8%, to $287.6 billion year-over-year.

www.healthcarefinancenews.com

Seven health insurance CEOs raked in a record $283 million last year

Health insurance CEOs are registering record levels of pay. Experts say their incentives are “messed up.”

www.statnews.com

Total CEO compensation in the last 10 years​

Sum of all compensation by company since 2012

Cigna

$365,959,592
UnitedHealth Group

$349,470,281
Centene

$322,619,510
CVS-Aetna

$265,741,187
Humana

$187,880,631
Anthem-WellPoint

$166,515,815
Molina Healthcare

$112,148,401

It’s insane how much we pay to people that provide zero care to patients - and for drugs that have extremely small or no benefit.

If we eliminated the whole insurance industry tomorrow and said we were only using generic drugs or those that are proven 50% better than the next best generic — that alone would probably slash the healthcare expenditures in this country by 40%. And after a period of chaos it wouldn’t actually affect patient care at all.

 

[vector2]

.

If we eliminated the whole insurance industry tomorrow

That's soshulismmm. And next comes the death panels. Etc.

 

[RadOncDoc21]

That's soshulismmm. And next comes the death panels. Etc.

Exactly! It’s why Blade didn’t even mention them in his solution to the cost problem.

 

[deleted1147063]

All we have to do to fix a lot of problems in this country is outlaw corporate lobbying and political activity (as in most countries, and this one until 40+ years ago). Then, suddenly, politicians would start caring more about "the people".

 

[Southpaw]

It’s insane how much we pay to people that provide zero care to patients - and for drugs that have extremely small or no benefit.

If we eliminated the whole insurance industry tomorrow and said we were only using generic drugs or those that are proven 50% better than the next best generic — that alone would probably slash the healthcare expenditures in this country by 40%. And after a period of chaos it wouldn’t actually affect patient care at all.

No it’s totally normal for high deductible health insurance with crappy in network coverage and no out of network coverage to financially bleed hundreds of millions of Americans so a company can pull in $17 billion and a CEO can make hundreds of millions. Totally normal. This is America.

#itsobviousimasosshuuulist

 

[deleted1147063]

US moves to shield Saudi crown prince in journalist killing

The Biden administration says Saudi Arabia's crown prince should be shielded from lawsuits over his role in the killing of a U.S.-based journalist.

apnews.com

Oh, wait! Trump was the bad guy. How does one spell hypocrite?

 

[deleted1116990]

All we have to do to fix a lot of problems in this country is outlaw corporate lobbying and political activity (as in most countries, and this one until 40+ years ago). Then, suddenly, politicians would start caring more about "the people".

Speaking of everybody outlawing things with potential for corruption except us, every country in the world except for the U.S. and New Zealand bans pharmaceutical companies from TV advertising, and they are highly regulated in New Zealand.

In the US, they now spend over 6 billion per year for TV ads making them one of the top sectors, if not the top sector that advertises on TV.

It's wild. Even more wild, how everybody totally forgot this and treated pharma companies as benevolent god-like organizations a couple years ago operating in an environment free from legal repercussions of screwups. The same companies that sold dangerous drugs that killed tens of thousands for profit. Those guys. Team Pfizer! Yeah! (FWIW I was team J&J until they decided after I got my injection that yeah, whoopsie, about that...). But don't you dare question Pfizer. That's settled. They are 100% good for funneling the tax base to and mandating their product. No worries there. J&J? Meh. Merck? Well that's different...

Pharmaceutical Ads Give Me Hives

How ads help to create a nation of querulous hypochondriacs.

newsletters.theatlantic.com