wife's grandpa lied and enlisted in the Korean war era. dude was in a line at 16 years old, 1 guy go right, you're headed to Korea. next go left, you're headed to Europe to rebuild.

dude got to go to Europe, ended up getting the assignment to drive officers to bars for their day off, and was 1 person away from prob dying in Korea. his whole boot camp more or less died, he never could get ahold of any of them again.

Are you sure about that? To the best of my knowledge, it's the other way round: teenage pregnancy has been on a long-term downward trend, and the only time it went UP was after WW2:



edit: and just for the record, this is NOT due to ever-increasing abortion rates:


This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 1 2021 04:38pm

aight well. Debating abortion using topics such as "is the fetus alive" and "bodily autonomy" has proven to be ineffective for decades. If anything, those considerations have led the country to a more divisive state rather than one where progress could potentially be made. I don't think that anyone has benefited or will benefit from continued discussion around those and other topics that have been traditionally linked to the abortion debate.

It does seem, however, much more likely that resolving differences has a better chance to happen if we were to shift the effort spent on those unproductive things and instead focus on the types of things that you are talking about her. There's a better chance that they we would be able to find common ground on how to address the socioeconomic conditions that lead to the demand for abortions. That would be a potential path toward improving the situation. Reducing the demand for abortions is something that both sides should be able to agree is a good thing. If someone can't agree that that is a good thing, that would be a way of peeling off a layer and potentially exposing another hidden agenda behind their viewpoint. Either way, we made some real progress in the discussion.

Every time someone says "abortion is murder" or "my body my choice" I just roll my eyes because I can see how those reductionist views are sealing us off from any potential progress as a society.

Fun fact: during the 60s, white evangelical Christians were pro-abortion for a short period of time because they saw it as a tool to keep the negro population in check via voluntary self-decimation.

I'm probably mis remembering some statistic. Maybe I'm mixing it up with divorce rate

Another viewpoint that I have heard thrown around (and I'm not saying this is how I feel or accusing others of feeling this way) is that there are people who want to increase the demand for abortions and the number of abortions because the aborted tissue is useful as a medical research tool. And that providing it can be profitable, so they want to incentivize people to produce more.

I'm not saying that this is happening. But if we can't get people to agree that reducing the demand for abortions would be a good thing, then that might be a means of uncovering other underlying motivations going on behind the scenes.

This is what I mean about the stark contrast between 'productive discussion' vs. the current climate of focusing on 'bodily autonomy' and 'is the fetus alive' which only cause each side to dig their heels in deeper.

This post was edited by Kayeto on Feb 1 2021 06:55pm

Fetal tissue has been sold by PP. The video evidence was incontrovertible. PP's defense is that this is not their actual policy, it's localized, typically, fetal tissue is donated.

Either way, I do not think that the idea of medical research needing abortions is really an opinion. Whether or not there are quotas over it... I'd argue that PP gains wealth by providing abortions, therefore PP wants more abortions in spite of medical research, rather than because of it.

There's a distinction between "it has been sold" vs. "there are people who want to increase demand for abortions to increase amount they can sell". The first statement is provable with evidence (but not critical to the discussion). The second statement is not easily provable, so I don't want to get the discussion lost in the weeds there.



Not sure exactly what you mean by this. I have heard people say to me in person (don't accuse me of having this viewpoint) that PP actively manipulates people into having an abortion so they can profit of selling the tissue. This opinion factors into the way the abortion debate is happening in this country.

This post was edited by Kayeto on Feb 2 2021 12:32am

I believe you missed my point. Planned Parenthood exists to provide abortions. They need more abortions to continue to exist. They expand and gain wealth via abortion.

Stem cell research is not needed for PP to push abortion. Is it possible that they want more so they can sell fetal tissue? Sure! Is that a primary concern? No.

Like, pro choice, pro life, neither opinion is going to be impacted by dead things. Once the baby is dead, I literally give no shits what's done with it. Frankly, given the human ability to transmit disease to other humans, I tend to think the remains should be incinerated. That being said, I do not for one moment believe that there's any motivation for "MOAR ABORTIONS" due to medical research. I'm not indicating that you hold this opinion. But those who do that you talk to? Tell them to shut the fuck up. They're being stupid.

You think that it's false to claim that there are people with that viewpoint. Others disagree, and profess to believe that there are such people. Therefore, a productive discussion would be to take a route that will lead to the resolution of this disagreement. I highlight this disagreement with the knowledge that it is merely but one minor layer. Resolving it wouldn't solve the big issue, but it would help us declutter the conversation to hone in on the larger issues.

In contrast, just focusing on the big issues (life, bodily autonomy) will ensure that we continue down the path of "negative progress" that we've been on for years.