“We don't believe those rights should be subjected to majority vote.”

“We don’t believe those rights should be subjected to majority vote.”

Conservatives are testing new tactics to keep abortion off the ballot following a series of high-profile defeats.

In Arizona, Florida, Nevada and other states, several anti-abortion groups are buying TV and digital ads, knocking on doors and holding events to persuade people against signing petitions to put the issue before voters in November.

Republicans are also appealing to state courts to keep referendums off the ballot, while GOP lawmakers in states including Missouri and Oklahoma are pushing to raise the threshold for an amendment to pass or to make it to the ballot in the first place.

The emerging strategy aims to prevent abortion rights groups from notching their third, and largest, set of ballot measure victories since Roe v. Wade was overturned. And while conservatives celebrated the fall of Roe for returning the question of abortion rights to the people, these efforts are seen as an implicit admission that anti-abortion groups don’t believe they can win at the ballot box — even in red states — and that the best way to keep restrictions on the procedure is to keep voters from weighing in directly.

  • @calypsopub
    3•1 year ago

    As one who used to share their beliefs, let me explain. Putting aside the folks who cynically use the issue for political purposes, the grassroots pro-lifers simply believe the fetus is a human being (what else would it be?) and thus it has human rights. The mother also has rights. So what do you do if two people’s rights collide? You look at the harm inflicted. For the one, it means expense, inconvenience, discomfort, and sometimes life-threatening danger. For the other, it means death.

    Pro-lifers do not all draw the line at the timing or circumstances they believe acceptable to allow abortion. But all believe there need to be limits. All believe it’s a human rights issue, that an abortion kills an innocent human being.

    To them, this issue is our generation’s Holocaust. That is why they can’t just sit by and let it happen without a fight.

    • @AnalogyAddict
      6•1 year ago

      They miss one important aspect. No matter the relative harm inflicted, no human being has a right to demand the use of another human being’s body.

      You can’t even force marrow or blood donation, let alone kidney or liver. Even after someone is dead, no one has a right to their body without consent. Yet, women are being forced to donate their bodies to someone else?

      There is no legal right to that.

      • @calypsopub
        1•1 year ago

        I agree with you. Yours is the best argument to counter the pro-life folks. If my brother needs a kidney to survive and I am the only matching donor, I still have the right to refuse and nobody is allowed strap me down and take my kidney by force, even though my refusal is a death sentence for my brother.

        The only difference I see is kind of a “trolley problem.” In the case of abortion, you’re not simply refusing to help and letting nature take its course. Instead you’re actively killing a human being in order to free the mother from having to sustain it for a short time.

        Any way you look at it, though, the best thing to do is to prevent unwanted pregnancy in the first place. But when you look at most pro-lifer’s beliefs, you find that they are opposed to birth control, sex education, as well as social services to aid needy children and mothers with prenatal care, food, housing, health care, jobs, childcare, etc. At that point, their hypocrisy is blindingly apparent. It’s not really about saving life, it’s about punishing women for the sin of enjoying sex.

        And in order to punish the “sinners,” they are willing to sacrifice the lives and health of women who find themselves in the horrible position of needing to terminate a planned or wanted pregnancy for legitimate medical reasons.