Jezebel 
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New York, 2:17 PM
Wed Dec 2
70 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/30/09
For good reasons. If we let people decide what taxes they felt like paying we'd probably have no public schools or transportation, roads that worked, or a postal system. And I shudder to think what would happen to the arts. But we might all have roof mounted oozies, a wall up between Mexico, and some kind of required bible teaching.
Sorry, I am just really not feeling charitable about this today.
We get it. Some people think abortion is murder. We also don't care. Because they have every right to think that and then NOT HAVE AN ABORTION.
But trying to make sure no other woman can make that decision for herself is just wrong. And you can't hide that with "I don't want my taxes going to anything I don't like." Sometimes things you don't like are necessary. I don't like war, but having no military is just plain stupid.
I just do not get how we got to a place where this seems reasonable to anyone. By that logic, I should be able to inflict my moral beliefs on other people so long as I can cobble together some kind of majority. So if we get to a point where we decide people shouldn't have more than one kid by law (like in China) then we can force them to abort or give them up for adoption. Because that sounds totally reasonable and awesome. Right? Right?
This just ends up nowhere good. If you want the reproductive freedom to have kids, you need to support the reproductive freedom not to. They. Are. Not. Separate.
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11/30/09
EXACTLY.
When did people forget that one of the things the government is supposed to do is protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority? False populism, FTW?
11/30/09
So, your not wanting to have your dollars go to pay for a $500 abortion has now turned into you paying $1500-$2000 in medicaid hospital bills for management of an 'incomplete miscarriage' or 'rule out ectopic'. You have saved yourself exactly NO tax dollars. Congratulations.
How do I know this exact sequence? Because we already do this exact thing between 3-5 times a week for women who already do this, because they don't know abortion is legal, they don't know medicaid will pay here, they have a friend who did it that way. If they take away the medicaid option, I'll just be running my ass down to the ER to see these ladies about 200 times more often, and all you abortion-hating taxpayers will still be footing the bill.
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They don't use logic - it's about religion and ultimately about keeping (other) women in "their place."
11/30/09
Erm, should that read Wednesday, DECEMBER 2?
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11/30/09
Not all abortions are because women are stupid sluts who forgot to use their birth control, anti-choicers. Learn to see the grey areas and acknowledge the unintended consequences that this sort of ban would have.
11/30/09
Am I missing something? That right there is the entire crux of the debate. Hardly irrelevant or unrelated.
I hate that we may sully our historic health care reform with exceptions that disproportionately affect one portion of the population - poor women. And to do so with a provision that helps to perpetuate the cycle of poverty is counterproductive, at best.
This just makes me so ragey.
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11/30/09
OK, so now we're uppity for not wanting to give up our full access to healthcare? What. the. fuck.
"Memo to authors: you could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that women's health care is important, that this has a hugely disparate impact on women, that it will result in more women carrying unplanned pregnancies to term, etc . . . and that still wouldn't make a majority of the country want to pay for other peoples' abortions out of their tax dollars."
Because you see us as nothing more than breeding cows, and will continue to. Regardless of how thorough, compelling and rational the argument is that you should stop that. Got it. Who said the Handmaid's Tale was fiction, again?
"The women who genuinely can't afford $500 bucks for an abortion are the women closest to the poverty line."
And DUH, the GOP doesn't care about poor people!
"But the number of people who are going to lose access that they currently have, and therefore be forced to carry a pregnancy to term, is not likely to be all that large. We're mostly talking about a modest number of women who will have to hand over several hundred dollars that they would really rather spend elsewhere."
Or money that they don't have and have no access to, being that they're "closest to the poverty line," will be dependent on government medical care, the kind you are trying to make it impossible to get an abortion under. And since they're poorer than poor, they can certainly afford another mouth to feed, right? No, wait...
These people raise ignorance to the level of an art form. I want to Hulk Smash them to stop the stupid, the disingenuous and the dead wrong that flows out of their mouths like so much water.
11/30/09
ARGGGHHH. That's a sweeping assumption, and an empirical question that you cant assume away. I don't know how many people are in question but i will bet it is way more than she thinks.
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11/30/09
If you don't know the basic difference between Medicare and Medicaid, then you shouldn't be writing anything about health policy.
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11/30/09
Blithely? Did glibly sound too awkward?
'We're mostly talking about a modest number of women who will have to hand over several hundred dollars that they would really rather spend elsewhere' ...like at the mall! Amiright, ladies? What's another $500?
The choice story was interesting. How many people only have children because they had an accident? How many people with an unwanted pregnancy (or a partner with one) won't consider abortion but would consider a miscarriage a blessing? People are superstitious and would rather be passive than make active decisions. If you concede that women can decide not to bring a human being into the world, then you've got to admit that those who do decide to reproduce are probably some of the most powerful beings on Earth. In many ways, they hold the fate of the world (and mens's genes, legacies, names) in their hands. That's pretty freaky for second-class citizens.
11/30/09
While this is a race issue, this is also a PEOPLE issue. If I can't afford $500 for an abortion, I certainly can't afford my $3,000 deductible for hospital bills, or the cost of raising a child. I just don't get it. Do people think there's a magic money tree that showers down on people who have children they decided not to abort because they didn't really have a choice?
11/30/09
News flash - Jesus may have died for your sins but he's not an ATM. No amount of praying is going to get you enough money to send all the children you can't afford to the doctor.
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I don't care if you think abortion is murder. You go right ahead and think that and then don't have one. I, and every other woman, however, gets to decide that for herself since what we do with our uteri is not up for public debate.
The whole thing makes me sick. Precisely because I -do- value life and I hate seeing that perverted into trying to force women to breed.
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