AIUI the MPC is tasked with keeping inflation at 2%. They think it will hit 10%. Therefore, a rise of .25% is blatantly inadequate. So. They are wilfully not doing their only job.
Arguably the decision should still rest with the Chancellor because it’s inherently political. You could keep the MPC as an advisory board.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Viability - which is the basis of the UK system (albeit 1990 medicine) is entirely intellectually consistent
If you're claiming that a foetus is viable so it can't be aborted then that is one thing, so long as you're then accompanying that with offering the woman the opportunity to have that foetus delivered so it can survive as it has gestated to date rather than insisting she continues to carry it.
If at 21 weeks a woman wants an abortion, and is denied it because the foetus is "viable", then she should be entitled to have a delivery of that foetus that can be born as a child and so she is no longer carrying it.
However 21 week foetuses may be theoretically viable, but in reality it could be a very different matter. So would you be comfortable having delivery instead of abortion offered to the woman?
I think individuals in society bear responsibility to each other, so no.
At 20 weeks (which is about the edge of viability) there is a high right of mental and physical disabilities, but this very rapidly declines week on week. A woman insisting of delivery at that point is harming the child severely. However there is a point (as @Selebian noted) when early delivery dies become a reasonable option - I don’t know exactly when that is.
But the idea of balancing the rights of a mother and a child by asking her - for example - to support the child for an additional 8 weeks, say, doesn’t seem unreasonable. (This is for cases were there is not a risk of undue mental or physical harm to the woman where the calculus may be different)
AIUI the MPC is tasked with keeping inflation at 2%. They think it will hit 10%. Therefore, a rise of .25% is blatantly inadequate. So. They are wilfully not doing their only job.
They were not doing their job when idiot Bailey gave Johnson and Sunak as much rope as they wanted and more to pay millions to do nothing for months on end.
He could have said so much and no more. After point X you are on your own selling gilts on the open markets. He didn't,
Despite his bleating, he is partly the author of his own downfall.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Destroying an unborn child is a crime against the child, as well as a crime against the mother. That's been the position in this country for centuries, and is entirely reasonable.
I disagree with that law and do not find it to be reasonable.
Just because something is the law, does not make it reasonable. We are all perfectly entitled, morally and intellectually, to reach opinions contrary to the law or else there would never be any changes to the law.
Put it another way, if I performed a forcible abortion on a woman, 30 weeks into her pregnancy, I can assure you that woman would call me a murderer. Her objection to my action would not be based purely upon my having violated her bodily autonomy,
Women who lose children before birth grieve for them. They view them as lives in being.
Absolutely if you assault a woman like that it'd be utterly disgusting.
No woman is going to lightheartedly ask for an abortion 40 weeks into a pregnancy without very good reason anyway, so I think its an utterly silly and moot point to debate which is rather disrespectful to women to suggest that they might just abort because they're having a bad day or otherwise rather than taking it seriously.
tlg86 - my view is fairly simple: it is the woman's body, that should be respected, it should be her choice.
Compelling a woman to have an abortion against her will is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Compelling a woman to carry a foetus to term that she doesn't want to carry is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Respect women, let them decide, that is my view.
So what is your view on the rights of the child?
A child has rights from the moment it is born and draws its first breath.
A foetus does not.
That is not a fact. That is an opinion. Supporting argument please.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Viability - which is the basis of the UK system (albeit 1990 medicine) is entirely intellectually consistent
If you're claiming that a foetus is viable so it can't be aborted then that is one thing, so long as you're then accompanying that with offering the woman the opportunity to have that foetus delivered so it can survive as it has gestated to date rather than insisting she continues to carry it.
If at 21 weeks a woman wants an abortion, and is denied it because the foetus is "viable", then she should be entitled to have a delivery of that foetus that can be born as a child and so she is no longer carrying it.
However 21 week foetuses may be theoretically viable, but in reality it could be a very different matter. So would you be comfortable having delivery instead of abortion offered to the woman?
I think individuals in society bear responsibility to each other, so no.
At 20 weeks (which is about the edge of viability) there is a high right of mental and physical disabilities, but this very rapidly declines week on week. A woman insisting of delivery at that point is harming the child severely. However there is a point (as @Selebian noted) when early delivery dies become a reasonable option - I don’t know exactly when that is.
But the idea of balancing the rights of a mother and a child by asking her - for example - to support the child for an additional 8 weeks, say, doesn’t seem unreasonable. (This is for cases were there is not a risk of undue mental or physical harm to the woman where the calculus may be different)
So you don't think the foetus is independently viable then, you just want to deny the woman the right to control her own body.
Nobody should be compelled to carry a foetus against their will. If abortion is denied, then delivery should be the alternative option. If you genuinely believe in "viability" then there's nothing wrong with that.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Destroying an unborn child is a crime against the child, as well as a crime against the mother. That's been the position in this country for centuries, and is entirely reasonable.
I disagree with that law and do not find it to be reasonable.
Just because something is the law, does not make it reasonable. We are all perfectly entitled, morally and intellectually, to reach opinions contrary to the law or else there would never be any changes to the law.
Put it another way, if I performed a forcible abortion on a woman, 30 weeks into her pregnancy, I can assure you that woman would call me a murderer. Her objection to my action would not be based purely upon my having violated her bodily autonomy,
Women who lose children before birth grieve for them. They view them as lives in being.
Absolutely if you assault a woman like that it'd be utterly disgusting.
No woman is going to lightheartedly ask for an abortion 40 weeks into a pregnancy without very good reason anyway, so I think its an utterly silly and moot point to debate which is rather disrespectful to women to suggest that they might just abort because they're having a bad day or otherwise rather than taking it seriously.
tlg86 - my view is fairly simple: it is the woman's body, that should be respected, it should be her choice.
Compelling a woman to have an abortion against her will is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Compelling a woman to carry a foetus to term that she doesn't want to carry is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Respect women, let them decide, that is my view.
So what is your view on the rights of the child?
A child has rights from the moment it is born and draws its first breath.
A foetus does not.
That is not a fact. That is an opinion. Supporting argument please.
Your question was So what is your view on the rights of the child?
That is my view. I've given my supporting argument. Yes my view is an opinion, everyone's is.
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
If he had partially disrupted the electoral college vote count, he could have remained in power. There were multiple attempts to do exactly that, not the least of which was sending a violent mob to break in and attack the people certifying.
And I don't think it would have worked as the police remain, and the national guard and the army.
The presidency is decided by the electoral college vote. If the wrong guy is certified, arguably that's final.
I wouldn't be confident either way about whether it would work or not. In any case, if it comes down to the police, national guard, or army having to act then it's extremely troubling. What if the person doing the coup has got loyalists in key positions?
I think maybe I get hung up on the idea of the storming of the house being the coup. It certainly was nothing like. I can see how the way the US works allows more problems, with the electoral college etc. I would be genuinely surprised though, given all the forewarning, that the democrats would be supine and just allow this to happen.
AIUI the MPC is tasked with keeping inflation at 2%. They think it will hit 10%. Therefore, a rise of .25% is blatantly inadequate. So. They are wilfully not doing their only job.
That's wrong. They're tasked with keeping inflation at 2% (plus or minus 1%) over the medium term.
They forecast that it will go up sharply, but then come back down sharply, so therefore will be back within target within their forecast period.
That is their job. They're not supposed to overreact to every movement.
That's Leon's job
I'd argue its his hobby, but otherwise totally agree.
AIUI the MPC is tasked with keeping inflation at 2%. They think it will hit 10%. Therefore, a rise of .25% is blatantly inadequate. So. They are wilfully not doing their only job.
That's wrong. They're tasked with keeping inflation at 2% (plus or minus 1%) over the medium term.
They forecast that it will go up sharply, but then come back down sharply, so therefore will be back within target within their forecast period.
That is their job. They're not supposed to overreact to every movement.
It's pretty ballsy to think that this will be a short term thing though.
AIUI the MPC is tasked with keeping inflation at 2%. They think it will hit 10%. Therefore, a rise of .25% is blatantly inadequate. So. They are wilfully not doing their only job.
That's wrong. They're tasked with keeping inflation at 2% (plus or minus 1%) over the medium term.
They forecast that it will go up sharply, but then come back down sharply, so therefore will be back within target within their forecast period.
That is their job. They're not supposed to overreact to every movement.
How do they know it will come down sharply? That's just bloody guessing that this war doesn't continue or widen. They said it would peak at 4% very recently. Wage growth is 6%. 1% is historically on the floor. Inflation isn't. They are behind the curve badly.
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
From wikipedia:
In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high..
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
Trump and his supporters tried numerous different attempts to overturn the election. Now lots of those that prevented it have been or are being replaced in their posts in the States that matter. If Trump stands again and loses in a similar way I would expect a coup attempt. The only thing stopping it's success I believe is that this time he is not the incumbent. If he wins genuinely I believe it will be impossible after that to remove him 4 years later.
How does he get round term limits? And he'll be over 80.
You really think that is an issue that will try and stop him. He was happy to overturn an election he lost.
Yes, I do. In 2020 there was a plausible way for him to contest the election. Nobody has come up with a plausible way he gets round term limits.
Because we are not there. Once s coup had taken place anything is possible. In terms of time limits I give you Putin. He had term limits also.
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
Stagnation has always been defined as referencing high unemployment. We have full employment.
From Wiki: In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high. It presents a dilemma for economic policy, since actions intended to lower inflation may exacerbate unemployment.
The term, a portmanteau of stagnation and inflation, is generally attributed to Iain Macleod, a British Conservative Party politician who became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1970. Macleod used the word in a 1965 speech to Parliament during a period of simultaneously high inflation and unemployment in the United Kingdom.[1][2][3][4] Warning the House of Commons of the gravity of the situation, he said:
"We now have the worst of both worlds—not just inflation on the one side or stagnation on the other, but both of them together. We have a sort of 'stagflation' situation. And history, in modern terms, is indeed being made."[3][5]
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
Trump and his supporters tried numerous different attempts to overturn the election. Now lots of those that prevented it have been or are being replaced in their posts in the States that matter. If Trump stands again and loses in a similar way I would expect a coup attempt. The only thing stopping it's success I believe is that this time he is not the incumbent. If he wins genuinely I believe it will be impossible after that to remove him 4 years later.
How does he get round term limits? And he'll be over 80.
You really think that is an issue that will try and stop him. He was happy to overturn an election he lost.
Yes, I do. In 2020 there was a plausible way for him to contest the election. Nobody has come up with a plausible way he gets round term limits.
Because we are not there. Once s coup had taken place anything is possible. In terms of time limits I give you Putin. He had term limits also.
Wouldn't that require a constitutional amendment, as was done in Russia?
Christopher Hope📝 @christopherhope · 1h The film maker [of the Starmer video] added: “It was pretty outrageous because at the time we were not allowed to have our friends over and everything was shut down, feeling very isolated.
"It was a kick in the teeth that they were having a bit of a jolly inside. So I thought I would film it."
The @Telegraph has established that the person who made the video recording of Sir Keir has not been questioned by detectives or asked to hand over the original recording.
The individual who made the film said: "I have not had any contact [from the police] yet.”
Its been "investigated" claims Rochdale who spent months banging on about Boris being photographed with beer in hand.
The *stills* from the video have been in the media since the event itself. I'm not a copper, but if someone says "I wish to complain about the party that Starmer had" and image of said party are in the newspapers, and the images don't show an offence being committed, then what do you want them to do?
We're going to keep going round the same loop forever. Another day, another AMAZING REVELATION of some non-detail we supposedly didn't know about which makes sod all difference to the legal case.
Come on Tories. Demand to know if the £200 for the curry was properly declared on the election return. You can still prove Boris innocent if you try hard enough.
In what way was fifteen to thirty (accounts vary) people being in the same office at all necessary for a by-election campaign in a different constituency?
I really do not want to labour this but the police are accused of not viewing the available video, Starmer admits 30 were in attendance, the £200 is about the cost of curries for 30, and it appears an on line quiz was involved
I have received a lot of criticism for posting about this story from those wanting it to be not so, but it appears this is story that has a momentum of its own across the media involving journalists sensing a story, including journalists (Kay Burley and others) who are not HMG friendly
Sir Peter Fahy, former chief constable of Greater Manchester has said today that Durham Police should reconsider a probe into the allegations
When you say the police are accused of not viewing the available video, do you mean they are accused of not viewing the last 10 seconds of the video that were not posted to social media?
This is the quote from the student present who filmed his video
It is unclear which version the police have viewed. The version published on social media lasts for 34 seconds, while the original version is 10 seconds longer at 44 seconds.
The individual who made the film in Durham at 10.04pm on April 30 last year told The Telegraph that they had not been asked to provide a copy to police, nor been interviewed by officers. The film-maker said: "I have not had any contact [from the police] yet."
Asked why they had made the film, they said: "I thought it was pretty outrageous, because at the time we were not allowed to have our friends over and everything was shut down, feeling very isolated.
"It was a kick in the teeth that they were having a bit of a jolly inside. So I thought I would film it."
Are you outraged that Johnson has not received a questionnaire for the Lee Cain "work event" that he attended whilst others attending have? No, I thought not.
Boris has received a FPN and I have repeatedly called for him to go
Starmer has questions to answer and to be honest has only himself to blame by not closing the story down long ago whereas now he looks evasive
Simple question for you to answer Big G - do you think they worked through the meeting and continued to work afterwards? If they did, they are completely in the clear on the law at the time.
Wether they did or didn’t work afterwards is completely unprovable is why police won’t touch it.
That’s the key difference between restrictions at time different compared to the Partying on the Downing Street estate.
You said “ Starmer has questions to answer”. Well he doesn’t, he never had in any of this campaign mud slinging. That’s why people are laughing at you when you say he has.
The questions Starmer has to answer are being posed by investigative journalists who doubt various aspects of this gathering and Durham Police have yet to respond to Richard Holden's letter
Today Sir Peter Fahy, former head of Greater Manchester Police has said they should look again at the case in the light of 'new information', (his words not mine)
I doubt much meaningful work happened after a late curry and beer after day travelling about in constituency, but we can never know for sure, it’s unprovable. He was asked, did you work this inline with guidelines and he said yes. What other questions are there Big G?
So you appreciate why the police won’t touch it?
The police didn't touch the Downing Street gatherings initially, either - they eventually caved in to severe political and media pressure.
Yeah, but the fundamental difference is the rules were different at the time, so any sort of party when Tories partied was an open and shut case as law breaking for police to investigate. Perhaps should have stuck to “no FPN after this amount of time” rule, I wouldn’t have minded if they had, they for sure agonised over this at senior levels, but the police was forced into it by one simple thing, being aware of it at the time so would have got blame for not acting at the time (as they would have done a student or private party). To answer your question, honestly that’s why MET eventually changed position.
When the rules are now different so you can share a meal if it’s a working supper with work afterwards, not only is it not open and shut it’s actually a complete waste of police time to go there. What exactly are they supposed to investigate, the level of actual work going on during and afterwards? 😆This is what has been so laugh out loud lame everyday the mail pushed it joined by Tory ministers.
The mistake you and others making here, as you just done, is is too quick to reference and relate to Partygate, that was under a completely different set of rules.
I dont think the rules in June 2020 and April 2021 were much different. In fact the Birthday event for which he received a FPN took place just 3 days before BJ annouced huge reductions on the restrictions
Under the rules at that time Starmer was entitled to a working supper.
Let’s play it like this Nerys, you are the detective called into the gaffers office and this afternoon to investigate and clear it up once and for all.
Where exactly are you going to start 🤷♀️
You start by pulling out the archive file. It was put to Starmer, “you and your team are entitled to a working meal under these rules, did to stick to the rules and make it a working meal?” The answer was yes.
Now what are you going to do 😁
You see now it’s not about specifics, the whole smear crashes and dies on specifics, just good old fashioned political mud slinging, like get him to deny he had sex with the pig?
You've got him there. He was only allowed to eat the curried pig, not have sexy time with it like Cameron.
No. (Other than curried pig not exactly kosher) The point being how does the politician shut it down? Everywhere he goes a microphone is put in front of him and he is asked “did you pork the pig?” Everyone on the bus stops, round the water coolers, on the FaceTime chat saying “did he pork the pig?” How does the politician shut it down? Big G’s complaint against Starmer this morning (and IshmaelZ complaint all week) why don’t Starmer shut it down? There must be something to it, something you are trying to hide if you can’t shut it down. There’s no smoke without some pork porking friction. Unless you can prove, specifically, with detail you did not pork any pig, you can’t shut it down. That’s why things like this such a great political smear 😁
Bottom line?
If the Tories hadn’t gone so negative, instead talked positively about efficient Tory councils like Wandsworth has always been, compared to ideological madness and insane waste of so many Labour councils, would the Tory’s have lost fewer councillors?
AIUI the MPC is tasked with keeping inflation at 2%. They think it will hit 10%. Therefore, a rise of .25% is blatantly inadequate. So. They are wilfully not doing their only job.
That's wrong. They're tasked with keeping inflation at 2% (plus or minus 1%) over the medium term.
They forecast that it will go up sharply, but then come back down sharply, so therefore will be back within target within their forecast period.
That is their job. They're not supposed to overreact to every movement.
How do they know it will come down sharply? That's just bloody guessing that this war doesn't continue or widen. They said it would peak at 4% very recently. Wage growth is 6%. 1% is historically on the floor. Inflation isn't. They are behind the curve badly.
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
Trump and his supporters tried numerous different attempts to overturn the election. Now lots of those that prevented it have been or are being replaced in their posts in the States that matter. If Trump stands again and loses in a similar way I would expect a coup attempt. The only thing stopping it's success I believe is that this time he is not the incumbent. If he wins genuinely I believe it will be impossible after that to remove him 4 years later.
How does he get round term limits? And he'll be over 80.
You really think that is an issue that will try and stop him. He was happy to overturn an election he lost.
Yes, I do. In 2020 there was a plausible way for him to contest the election. Nobody has come up with a plausible way he gets round term limits.
Because we are not there. Once s coup had taken place anything is possible. In terms of time limits I give you Putin. He had term limits also.
But surely the house has aegis too? Dictatorships tend to control all political power, and use repressive police tactics. I just don't see it.
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
Stagnation has always been defined as referencing high unemployment. We have full employment.
From Wiki: In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high. It presents a dilemma for economic policy, since actions intended to lower inflation may exacerbate unemployment.
The term, a portmanteau of stagnation and inflation, is generally attributed to Iain Macleod, a British Conservative Party politician who became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1970. Macleod used the word in a 1965 speech to Parliament during a period of simultaneously high inflation and unemployment in the United Kingdom.[1][2][3][4] Warning the House of Commons of the gravity of the situation, he said:
"We now have the worst of both worlds—not just inflation on the one side or stagnation on the other, but both of them together. We have a sort of 'stagflation' situation. And history, in modern terms, is indeed being made."[3][5]
Stagflation is lack of growth at same time of high inflation. You are struggling at GCSE economics.
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
You don't have to be a leftie to realise that anyone this side of the Atlantic who is not a Trump hater is almost certainly a swivel-eyed nutter.
And yet the Trump haters so often look like swivel-eyed nutters.
I would like to think that people don't think I am swivel eyed, but I hate him because he is a crook, a liar and has destroyed the GOP causing huge damage to the strongest country on the planet and has taken a democracy to the verge of a dictatorship.
That is demonstrably utterly untruthful and childish rubbish.
In recent Ohio primary the voters had a full slate of republicans of all shades to vote for ina free and fair election, including a well-fundedrepublican never-trumper.
The Trump backed candidates won in every case. Republican primary voter numbers were double those of the Democrat primary.
IF anybody has 'destroyed' the Republican party, its their own voters.
Well there is no need to be rude and it isn't demonstrably rubbish or untruthful. Some positions are appointed and dictatorships don't start without gaining support in the first place with propaganda. Yes it is the GOPs voters but the GOP have been changed (I even said he has destroyed the GOP). That change has been driven by the likes of Trump and QAnon.
The idea that Trump and Qanon hog the airways or are able to brainwash voters is also a fiction. The mainstream media in America is overwhelmingly democrat or Romneyite. Yes there is Fox but plenty of neo-cons get air time on there.
Trump rampers are routinely shadow banned by twitter and the like. Often these people are relegated to the likes of Locals or Rumble or whatever, sideshow outlets.
Trumpist politics is appealing to lots of Americans, and until his opponents realise that and try to find out why, they won't defeat him
Nightmare predictions for the tories from the BoE.
The stagflation from hell.
10% inflation in Q4
Zero economic growth in 2023 (or possible recession).
Stagflation was a historical concept from A-Level politics about what went wrong in the distant dark 70s. Had no idea it was doing a comeback gig.
We don’t have stagflation… yet
At the moment we have inflation caused by an external commodity price shock and anemic growth driven by supply chain collapses (not due to Brexit - I was talking g today to someone who found it was easier to get plastic bottles for their Iowa plant from NZ than from the US… and even then he is ordering 15m ahead vs 3 months)
It only becomes stagflation if we internalise it through wage increases that are not matched by productivity
If wages increase in a way not matched by productivity, sustained over time, then that's internalising inflation.
Stagflation is more than just inflation. Its also marked by high unemployment as seen in the seventies to early eighties.
When we have full employment and companies seeking to hire we may have inflation, but the word for that is simply inflation not stagflation.
Increasing wages relative to productivity erodes competitiveness of firms and ends up with reducing investment and employment
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
If he had partially disrupted the electoral college vote count, he could have remained in power. There were multiple attempts to do exactly that, not the least of which was sending a violent mob to break in and attack the people certifying.
And I don't think it would have worked as the police remain, and the national guard and the army.
The presidency is decided by the electoral college vote. If the wrong guy is certified, arguably that's final.
I wouldn't be confident either way about whether it would work or not. In any case, if it comes down to the police, national guard, or army having to act then it's extremely troubling. What if the person doing the coup has got loyalists in key positions?
I think maybe I get hung up on the idea of the storming of the house being the coup. It certainly was nothing like. I can see how the way the US works allows more problems, with the electoral college etc. I would be genuinely surprised though, given all the forewarning, that the democrats would be supine and just allow this to happen.
The point is that it's out of the hands of the politicians if the scenario I painted came to pass. You could in theory impeach the president immediately, but that's not in the gift of any one party since no party constitutes a supermajority, And in any case, even that doesn't restore the actual winner, it just removes the president. And the obvious practical issue is that if you're happy enough to stop the electoral college count through violence, then are you really above intimidating or murdering senators?
You are spot on about the insurrection at the Capitol not being the only aspect that deserves focus. The attempted coup was multifaceted and was carried out both in public and private. It failed because of a very small number of people who stood firm.
AIUI the MPC is tasked with keeping inflation at 2%. They think it will hit 10%. Therefore, a rise of .25% is blatantly inadequate. So. They are wilfully not doing their only job.
Arguably the decision should still rest with the Chancellor because it’s inherently political. You could keep the MPC as an advisory board.
For me, it's the target which is the problem. Bringing it in was a political decision. It is laughably out of date. However. It remains the target they are tasked with. Even if it ought not to be.
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
Trump and his supporters tried numerous different attempts to overturn the election. Now lots of those that prevented it have been or are being replaced in their posts in the States that matter. If Trump stands again and loses in a similar way I would expect a coup attempt. The only thing stopping it's success I believe is that this time he is not the incumbent. If he wins genuinely I believe it will be impossible after that to remove him 4 years later.
How does he get round term limits? And he'll be over 80.
You really think that is an issue that will try and stop him. He was happy to overturn an election he lost.
Yes, I do. In 2020 there was a plausible way for him to contest the election. Nobody has come up with a plausible way he gets round term limits.
Because we are not there. Once s coup had taken place anything is possible. In terms of time limits I give you Putin. He had term limits also.
Wouldn't that require a constitutional amendment, as was done in Russia?
Once you are in dictatorship territory anything is possible. Trump has already hinted at it himself. Remember that calendar video. In reality I would expect a bit of nepotism with Jnr (as Trump is too old) with rigged elections and then a reason found to abandon the time limit rule or circumvent it in some way.
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
Trump and his supporters tried numerous different attempts to overturn the election. Now lots of those that prevented it have been or are being replaced in their posts in the States that matter. If Trump stands again and loses in a similar way I would expect a coup attempt. The only thing stopping it's success I believe is that this time he is not the incumbent. If he wins genuinely I believe it will be impossible after that to remove him 4 years later.
How does he get round term limits? And he'll be over 80.
You really think that is an issue that will try and stop him. He was happy to overturn an election he lost.
Yes, I do. In 2020 there was a plausible way for him to contest the election. Nobody has come up with a plausible way he gets round term limits.
Because we are not there. Once s coup had taken place anything is possible. In terms of time limits I give you Putin. He had term limits also.
He did, but he also had plausible ways to get round them.
Trump doesn't - they're in the Constitution and he's nowhere near being able to enact an Amendment.
I'd recommend reading Turtledove's American Empire series. Set in a world where the Confederacy won the Civil War, it charts the rise of a Hitler analogue after the CSA had been on the losing side in WWI. It's alarmingly plausible for how it could have happened, but the necessary conditions for Trump to do the same are not remotely close to being met.
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
Stagnation has always been defined as referencing high unemployment. We have full employment.
From Wiki: In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high. It presents a dilemma for economic policy, since actions intended to lower inflation may exacerbate unemployment.
The term, a portmanteau of stagnation and inflation, is generally attributed to Iain Macleod, a British Conservative Party politician who became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1970. Macleod used the word in a 1965 speech to Parliament during a period of simultaneously high inflation and unemployment in the United Kingdom.[1][2][3][4] Warning the House of Commons of the gravity of the situation, he said:
"We now have the worst of both worlds—not just inflation on the one side or stagnation on the other, but both of them together. We have a sort of 'stagflation' situation. And history, in modern terms, is indeed being made."[3][5]
Stagflation is lack of growth at same time of high inflation. You are struggling at GCSE economics.
Not in my textbooks it isn't. Any definition I have ever seen includes unemployment in a definition.
Please quote me any textbook that references stagflation without referencing unemployment, otherwise I say you are bullshitting. 🙄
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
Stagnation has always been defined as referencing high unemployment. We have full employment.
From Wiki: In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high. It presents a dilemma for economic policy, since actions intended to lower inflation may exacerbate unemployment.
The term, a portmanteau of stagnation and inflation, is generally attributed to Iain Macleod, a British Conservative Party politician who became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1970. Macleod used the word in a 1965 speech to Parliament during a period of simultaneously high inflation and unemployment in the United Kingdom.[1][2][3][4] Warning the House of Commons of the gravity of the situation, he said:
"We now have the worst of both worlds—not just inflation on the one side or stagnation on the other, but both of them together. We have a sort of 'stagflation' situation. And history, in modern terms, is indeed being made."[3][5]
Point taken, but if the economy goes into recession in 2023.....
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
You don't have to be a leftie to realise that anyone this side of the Atlantic who is not a Trump hater is almost certainly a swivel-eyed nutter.
And yet the Trump haters so often look like swivel-eyed nutters.
I would like to think that people don't think I am swivel eyed, but I hate him because he is a crook, a liar and has destroyed the GOP causing huge damage to the strongest country on the planet and has taken a democracy to the verge of a dictatorship.
That is demonstrably utterly untruthful and childish rubbish.
In recent Ohio primary the voters had a full slate of republicans of all shades to vote for ina free and fair election, including a well-fundedrepublican never-trumper.
The Trump backed candidates won in every case. Republican primary voter numbers were double those of the Democrat primary.
IF anybody has 'destroyed' the Republican party, its their own voters.
Well there is no need to be rude and it isn't demonstrably rubbish or untruthful. Some positions are appointed and dictatorships don't start without gaining support in the first place with propaganda. Yes it is the GOPs voters but the GOP have been changed (I even said he has destroyed the GOP). That change has been driven by the likes of Trump and QAnon.
The idea that Trump and Qanon hog the airways or are able to brainwash voters is also a fiction. The mainstream media in America is overwhelmingly democrat or Romneyite. Yes there is Fox but plenty of neo-cons get air time on there.
Trump rampers are routinely shadow banned by twitter and the like. Often these people are relegated to the likes of Locals or Rumble or whatever, sideshow outlets.
Trumpist politics is appealing to lots of Americans, and until his opponents realise that and try to find out why, they won't defeat him
But they did defeat him. He got his arse handed to him in 2020.
Meanwhile, this "shadow ban" stuff is horseshit. There are millions of pro-Trump tweeps who happily post away night and day. Go look for yourself, accounts are free to set up.
AIUI the MPC is tasked with keeping inflation at 2%. They think it will hit 10%. Therefore, a rise of .25% is blatantly inadequate. So. They are wilfully not doing their only job.
That's wrong. They're tasked with keeping inflation at 2% (plus or minus 1%) over the medium term.
They forecast that it will go up sharply, but then come back down sharply, so therefore will be back within target within their forecast period.
That is their job. They're not supposed to overreact to every movement.
How do they know it will come down sharply? That's just bloody guessing that this war doesn't continue or widen. They said it would peak at 4% very recently. Wage growth is 6%. 1% is historically on the floor. Inflation isn't. They are behind the curve badly.
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
Stagnation has always been defined as referencing high unemployment. We have full employment.
From Wiki: In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high. It presents a dilemma for economic policy, since actions intended to lower inflation may exacerbate unemployment.
The term, a portmanteau of stagnation and inflation, is generally attributed to Iain Macleod, a British Conservative Party politician who became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1970. Macleod used the word in a 1965 speech to Parliament during a period of simultaneously high inflation and unemployment in the United Kingdom.[1][2][3][4] Warning the House of Commons of the gravity of the situation, he said:
"We now have the worst of both worlds—not just inflation on the one side or stagnation on the other, but both of them together. We have a sort of 'stagflation' situation. And history, in modern terms, is indeed being made."[3][5]
Point taken, but if the economy goes into recession in 2023.....
Its absolutely 100% a dangerous situation that could tip into stagflation, but we're not there yet.
Interest rates should be ~5%, given where inflation is right now, imo.
BoE failing in their most basic duty.
From a society point of view, I completely agree. From my 'variable rate mortgage' point of view, I completely disagree(!)
But yes. Interest rates are far too low. I suspect (hope) the BoE are just trying to soften the blow by raising rates at 0.25% per month until they get to where they want to be (which is probably 5%).
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
You don't have to be a leftie to realise that anyone this side of the Atlantic who is not a Trump hater is almost certainly a swivel-eyed nutter.
And yet the Trump haters so often look like swivel-eyed nutters.
I would like to think that people don't think I am swivel eyed, but I hate him because he is a crook, a liar and has destroyed the GOP causing huge damage to the strongest country on the planet and has taken a democracy to the verge of a dictatorship.
That is demonstrably utterly untruthful and childish rubbish.
In recent Ohio primary the voters had a full slate of republicans of all shades to vote for ina free and fair election, including a well-fundedrepublican never-trumper.
The Trump backed candidates won in every case. Republican primary voter numbers were double those of the Democrat primary.
IF anybody has 'destroyed' the Republican party, its their own voters.
Well there is no need to be rude and it isn't demonstrably rubbish or untruthful. Some positions are appointed and dictatorships don't start without gaining support in the first place with propaganda. Yes it is the GOPs voters but the GOP have been changed (I even said he has destroyed the GOP). That change has been driven by the likes of Trump and QAnon.
The idea that Trump and Qanon hog the airways or are able to brainwash voters is also a fiction. The mainstream media in America is overwhelmingly democrat or Romneyite. Yes there is Fox but plenty of neo-cons get air time on there.
Trump rampers are routinely shadow banned by twitter and the like. Often these people are relegated to the likes of Locals or Rumble or whatever, sideshow outlets.
Trumpist politics is appealing to lots of Americans, and until his opponents realise that and try to find out why, they won't defeat him
I have a lot of sympathy with this view. However, I also think that a large part of Trump's appeal is that the establishment/MSM hate him and that it is this that is attractive to those who are generally disaffected with their current lot, either for economic reasons or because they feel demographics and societal norms are moving in directions that they don't like.
I do wonder whether Trump's support would be so robust if he was not so publicly hated by the good and educated.
PS And lest it is not clear, I have come to hate what he does and represents with a vengeance.
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
From wikipedia:
In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high..
So only two of the three conditions are met.
Wikipedia my ****! We have full employment as a result of a significant proportion of the workforce exiting the country or retired very early during Covid. How full employment is measured is also an issue, the dynamics of employment are considerably different to the employee culture of the 1970s. The gig economy, black economy and part time employment affect the figures.
@BartholomewRoberts has sparred with me on my faulty recollection of A level economics by his suggesting (in his previous life) that my fear of inflation was unfounded as inflation wouldn't be a problem, then it wouldn't be a problem because we have good (non-wage-price spiral) inflation, and interest rates wouldn't follow suit.
You stick with your Wikipedia definition of stagflation, I'll stick with mine.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Viability - which is the basis of the UK system (albeit 1990 medicine) is entirely intellectually consistent
Yes, and I for one find current UK laws quite reasonable.
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
From wikipedia:
In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high..
So only two of the three conditions are met.
Wikipedia my ****! We have full employment as a result of a significant proportion of the workforce exiting the country or retired very early during Covid. How full employment is measured is also an issue, the dynamics of employment are considerably different to the employee culture of the 1970s. The gig economy, black economy and part time employment affect the figures.
@BartholomewRoberts has sparred with me on my faulty recollection of A level economics by his suggesting (in his previous life) that my fear of inflation was unfounded as inflation wouldn't be a problem, then it wouldn't be a problem because we have good (non-wage-price spiral) inflation, and interest rates wouldn't follow suit.
You stick with your Wikipedia definition of stagflation, I'll stick with mine.
You are completely misrepresenting what I said. It doesn't seem you are able to understand the nuances involved, because you keep misrepresenting it.
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
Stagnation has always been defined as referencing high unemployment. We have full employment.
From Wiki: In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high. It presents a dilemma for economic policy, since actions intended to lower inflation may exacerbate unemployment.
The term, a portmanteau of stagnation and inflation, is generally attributed to Iain Macleod, a British Conservative Party politician who became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1970. Macleod used the word in a 1965 speech to Parliament during a period of simultaneously high inflation and unemployment in the United Kingdom.[1][2][3][4] Warning the House of Commons of the gravity of the situation, he said:
"We now have the worst of both worlds—not just inflation on the one side or stagnation on the other, but both of them together. We have a sort of 'stagflation' situation. And history, in modern terms, is indeed being made."[3][5]
Point taken, but if the economy goes into recession in 2023.....
Its absolutely 100% a dangerous situation that could tip into stagflation, but we're not there yet.
Just eyeballing ONS data, wonder if this will mirror what happened the autumn of 1990 and the couple of years following that?
(Jump in unemployment, drop in inflation, no growth).
Edit: other similarities include a big energy shock. And restrictive monetary policy....
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Viability - which is the basis of the UK system (albeit 1990 medicine) is entirely intellectually consistent
If you're claiming that a foetus is viable so it can't be aborted then that is one thing, so long as you're then accompanying that with offering the woman the opportunity to have that foetus delivered so it can survive as it has gestated to date rather than insisting she continues to carry it.
If at 21 weeks a woman wants an abortion, and is denied it because the foetus is "viable", then she should be entitled to have a delivery of that foetus that can be born as a child and so she is no longer carrying it.
However 21 week foetuses may be theoretically viable, but in reality it could be a very different matter. So would you be comfortable having delivery instead of abortion offered to the woman?
I think individuals in society bear responsibility to each other, so no.
At 20 weeks (which is about the edge of viability) there is a high right of mental and physical disabilities, but this very rapidly declines week on week. A woman insisting of delivery at that point is harming the child severely. However there is a point (as @Selebian noted) when early delivery dies become a reasonable option - I don’t know exactly when that is.
But the idea of balancing the rights of a mother and a child by asking her - for example - to support the child for an additional 8 weeks, say, doesn’t seem unreasonable. (This is for cases were there is not a risk of undue mental or physical harm to the woman where the calculus may be different)
So you don't think the foetus is independently viable then, you just want to deny the woman the right to control her own body.
Nobody should be compelled to carry a foetus against their will. If abortion is denied, then delivery should be the alternative option. If you genuinely believe in "viability" then there's nothing wrong with that.
The foetus is viable at that age but there is a risk of harm to the child. A premie born at 20 weeks but that doesn’t develop full mental faculty is “viable”. (FWIW it’s one of the main arguments that the HFEA uses for not reducing the current limit below 24 weeks, even though it was original set based on viability limits in 1990)
An analogy: why do we restrict your right to drive at 80 miles per hour outside a school at the end of the school day? It because the potential harm to others is greater than the benefit to you.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Viability - which is the basis of the UK system (albeit 1990 medicine) is entirely intellectually consistent
Yes, and I for one find current UK laws quite resonable.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Viability - which is the basis of the UK system (albeit 1990 medicine) is entirely intellectually consistent
If you're claiming that a foetus is viable so it can't be aborted then that is one thing, so long as you're then accompanying that with offering the woman the opportunity to have that foetus delivered so it can survive as it has gestated to date rather than insisting she continues to carry it.
If at 21 weeks a woman wants an abortion, and is denied it because the foetus is "viable", then she should be entitled to have a delivery of that foetus that can be born as a child and so she is no longer carrying it.
However 21 week foetuses may be theoretically viable, but in reality it could be a very different matter. So would you be comfortable having delivery instead of abortion offered to the woman?
I think individuals in society bear responsibility to each other, so no.
At 20 weeks (which is about the edge of viability) there is a high right of mental and physical disabilities, but this very rapidly declines week on week. A woman insisting of delivery at that point is harming the child severely. However there is a point (as @Selebian noted) when early delivery dies become a reasonable option - I don’t know exactly when that is.
But the idea of balancing the rights of a mother and a child by asking her - for example - to support the child for an additional 8 weeks, say, doesn’t seem unreasonable. (This is for cases were there is not a risk of undue mental or physical harm to the woman where the calculus may be different)
So you don't think the foetus is independently viable then, you just want to deny the woman the right to control her own body.
Nobody should be compelled to carry a foetus against their will. If abortion is denied, then delivery should be the alternative option. If you genuinely believe in "viability" then there's nothing wrong with that.
The foetus is viable at that age but there is a risk of harm to the child. A premie born at 20 weeks but that doesn’t develop full mental faculty is “viable”. (FWIW it’s one of the main arguments that the HFEA uses for not reducing the current limit below 24 weeks, even though it was original set based on viability limits in 1990)
An analogy: why do we restrict your right to drive at 80 miles per hour outside a school at the end of the school day? It because the potential harm to others is greater than the benefit to you.
There's no harm to the foetus done by delivering it, it just isn't fully gestated and ready for birth yet which is why if you want the child you should carry it to term and if you don't then an abortion would be a better alternative.
If I don't want to speed past a school, then I have the option of not going past the school, I have choices. If a woman doesn't want to carry the child, you want to invasively deny her choice.
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
You don't have to be a leftie to realise that anyone this side of the Atlantic who is not a Trump hater is almost certainly a swivel-eyed nutter.
And yet the Trump haters so often look like swivel-eyed nutters.
I would like to think that people don't think I am swivel eyed, but I hate him because he is a crook, a liar and has destroyed the GOP causing huge damage to the strongest country on the planet and has taken a democracy to the verge of a dictatorship.
That is demonstrably utterly untruthful and childish rubbish.
In recent Ohio primary the voters had a full slate of republicans of all shades to vote for ina free and fair election, including a well-fundedrepublican never-trumper.
The Trump backed candidates won in every case. Republican primary voter numbers were double those of the Democrat primary.
IF anybody has 'destroyed' the Republican party, its their own voters.
Well there is no need to be rude and it isn't demonstrably rubbish or untruthful. Some positions are appointed and dictatorships don't start without gaining support in the first place with propaganda. Yes it is the GOPs voters but the GOP have been changed (I even said he has destroyed the GOP). That change has been driven by the likes of Trump and QAnon.
The idea that Trump and Qanon hog the airways or are able to brainwash voters is also a fiction. The mainstream media in America is overwhelmingly democrat or Romneyite. Yes there is Fox but plenty of neo-cons get air time on there.
Trump rampers are routinely shadow banned by twitter and the like. Often these people are relegated to the likes of Locals or Rumble or whatever, sideshow outlets.
Trumpist politics is appealing to lots of Americans, and until his opponents realise that and try to find out why, they won't defeat him
I have a lot of sympathy with this view. However, I also think that a large part of Trump's appeal is that the establishment/MSM hate him and that it is this that is attractive to those who are generally disaffected with their current lot, either for economic reasons or because they feel demographics and societal norms are moving in directions that they don't like.
I do wonder whether Trump's support would be so robust if he was not so publicly hated by the good and educated.
PS And lest it is not clear, I have come to hate what he does and represents with a vengeance.
I wonder if the polarisation would have been quite as bad if he'd defeated a generic Democrat in 2016 instead of Hillary Clinton.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Destroying an unborn child is a crime against the child, as well as a crime against the mother. That's been the position in this country for centuries, and is entirely reasonable.
I disagree with that law and do not find it to be reasonable.
Just because something is the law, does not make it reasonable. We are all perfectly entitled, morally and intellectually, to reach opinions contrary to the law or else there would never be any changes to the law.
Put it another way, if I performed a forcible abortion on a woman, 30 weeks into her pregnancy, I can assure you that woman would call me a murderer. Her objection to my action would not be based purely upon my having violated her bodily autonomy,
Women who lose children before birth grieve for them. They view them as lives in being.
Absolutely if you assault a woman like that it'd be utterly disgusting.
No woman is going to lightheartedly ask for an abortion 40 weeks into a pregnancy without very good reason anyway, so I think its an utterly silly and moot point to debate which is rather disrespectful to women to suggest that they might just abort because they're having a bad day or otherwise rather than taking it seriously.
tlg86 - my view is fairly simple: it is the woman's body, that should be respected, it should be her choice.
Compelling a woman to have an abortion against her will is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Compelling a woman to carry a foetus to term that she doesn't want to carry is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Respect women, let them decide, that is my view.
So what is your view on the rights of the child?
A child has rights from the moment it is born and draws its first breath.
A foetus does not.
That is not a fact. That is an opinion. Supporting argument please.
Your question was So what is your view on the rights of the child?
That is my view. I've given my supporting argument. Yes my view is an opinion, everyone's is.
If you want to convince others you need support your assumptions.
You are saying abortion up to the point of birth is ok because an unborn baby has no rights. That is a logical argument.
When asked to support the fundamental assumption (“an unborn baby has no rights”) you get huffy and say its an opinion.
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
You don't have to be a leftie to realise that anyone this side of the Atlantic who is not a Trump hater is almost certainly a swivel-eyed nutter.
And yet the Trump haters so often look like swivel-eyed nutters.
I would like to think that people don't think I am swivel eyed, but I hate him because he is a crook, a liar and has destroyed the GOP causing huge damage to the strongest country on the planet and has taken a democracy to the verge of a dictatorship.
That is demonstrably utterly untruthful and childish rubbish.
In recent Ohio primary the voters had a full slate of republicans of all shades to vote for ina free and fair election, including a well-fundedrepublican never-trumper.
The Trump backed candidates won in every case. Republican primary voter numbers were double those of the Democrat primary.
IF anybody has 'destroyed' the Republican party, its their own voters.
Well there is no need to be rude and it isn't demonstrably rubbish or untruthful. Some positions are appointed and dictatorships don't start without gaining support in the first place with propaganda. Yes it is the GOPs voters but the GOP have been changed (I even said he has destroyed the GOP). That change has been driven by the likes of Trump and QAnon.
The idea that Trump and Qanon hog the airways or are able to brainwash voters is also a fiction. The mainstream media in America is overwhelmingly democrat or Romneyite. Yes there is Fox but plenty of neo-cons get air time on there.
Trump rampers are routinely shadow banned by twitter and the like. Often these people are relegated to the likes of Locals or Rumble or whatever, sideshow outlets.
Trumpist politics is appealing to lots of Americans, and until his opponents realise that and try to find out why, they won't defeat him
I have a lot of sympathy with this view. However, I also think that a large part of Trump's appeal is that the establishment/MSM hate him and that it is this that is attractive to those who are generally disaffected with their current lot, either for economic reasons or because they feel demographics and societal norms are moving in directions that they don't like.
I do wonder whether Trump's support would be so robust if he was not so publicly hated by the good and educated.
PS And lest it is not clear, I have come to hate what he does and represents with a vengeance.
Indeed so - and this is one place where a parallel with Brexit can safely be drawn.
The thinking goes "things are shit. The people who made things shit hate X. Therefore X is worth a try".
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Viability - which is the basis of the UK system (albeit 1990 medicine) is entirely intellectually consistent
Yes, and I for one find current UK laws quite resonable.
I agree. Maybe 2 weeks less now.
You mean 22 weeks. Yes absolutely.
This is consistent with my view that when the foetus is not viable (ie up to about 22 weeks) then the choice for abortion should be entirely with the mother. Beyond then then the right to life now rests with the foetus and abortion should not be allowed unless it is clearly apparent that continuing with the pregnancy would present a risk of death or significant permanent physical harm to the mother.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Destroying an unborn child is a crime against the child, as well as a crime against the mother. That's been the position in this country for centuries, and is entirely reasonable.
I disagree with that law and do not find it to be reasonable.
Just because something is the law, does not make it reasonable. We are all perfectly entitled, morally and intellectually, to reach opinions contrary to the law or else there would never be any changes to the law.
Put it another way, if I performed a forcible abortion on a woman, 30 weeks into her pregnancy, I can assure you that woman would call me a murderer. Her objection to my action would not be based purely upon my having violated her bodily autonomy,
Women who lose children before birth grieve for them. They view them as lives in being.
Absolutely if you assault a woman like that it'd be utterly disgusting.
No woman is going to lightheartedly ask for an abortion 40 weeks into a pregnancy without very good reason anyway, so I think its an utterly silly and moot point to debate which is rather disrespectful to women to suggest that they might just abort because they're having a bad day or otherwise rather than taking it seriously.
tlg86 - my view is fairly simple: it is the woman's body, that should be respected, it should be her choice.
Compelling a woman to have an abortion against her will is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Compelling a woman to carry a foetus to term that she doesn't want to carry is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Respect women, let them decide, that is my view.
So what is your view on the rights of the child?
A child has rights from the moment it is born and draws its first breath.
A foetus does not.
That is not a fact. That is an opinion. Supporting argument please.
Your question was So what is your view on the rights of the child?
That is my view. I've given my supporting argument. Yes my view is an opinion, everyone's is.
If you want to convince others you need support your assumptions.
You are saying abortion up to the point of birth is ok because an unborn baby has no rights. That is a logical argument.
When asked to support the fundamental assumption (“an unborn baby has no rights”) you get huffy and say its an opinion.
Not very convincing
Not huffy. You asked me for my view, I gave you my view. You then said its only my view.
Yes it is only my view, I never said otherwise.
There is no objective truth here. You can't dig in the ground and find a vein of inalienable rights that says that life begins at ...
My view is my view, for the reasons given. If you disagree, you're entitled to your own views.
The difference is I don't want to deny anyone a choice over their own body, I don't want to force my views on others.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Viability - which is the basis of the UK system (albeit 1990 medicine) is entirely intellectually consistent
Yes, and I for one find current UK laws quite resonable.
I agree. Maybe 2 weeks less now.
Morbidity and mortality is very high in the under 24 weeks. It really is the limit of viability.
In practice very few abortions are at that late stage, and then usually because of major abnormalities.
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
From wikipedia:
In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high..
So only two of the three conditions are met.
Wikipedia my ****! We have full employment as a result of a significant proportion of the workforce exiting the country or retired very early during Covid. How full employment is measured is also an issue, the dynamics of employment are considerably different to the employee culture of the 1970s. The gig economy, black economy and part time employment affect the figures.
@BartholomewRoberts has sparred with me on my faulty recollection of A level economics by his suggesting (in his previous life) that my fear of inflation was unfounded as inflation wouldn't be a problem, then it wouldn't be a problem because we have good (non-wage-price spiral) inflation, and interest rates wouldn't follow suit.
You stick with your Wikipedia definition of stagflation, I'll stick with mine.
You are completely misrepresenting what I said. It doesn't seem you are able to understand the nuances involved, because you keep misrepresenting it.
Can you deny that you did not believe Government policy during Covid would not lead to inflation, or at least wage-price spiral inflation, and when I stated I feared interest rate rises would follow you assured me they would not?
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
It’s a question of what defines stagnation
I can buy the argument that a temporary period of low or negative growth is not sufficient: it’s an extended period of low growth (negative growth would be a depression). High unemployment could be a symptom of that but not sure it is the only one (although it was the case in the 1970s so it is observed history where n=1)
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
Stagnation has always been defined as referencing high unemployment. We have full employment.
From Wiki: In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high. It presents a dilemma for economic policy, since actions intended to lower inflation may exacerbate unemployment.
The term, a portmanteau of stagnation and inflation, is generally attributed to Iain Macleod, a British Conservative Party politician who became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1970. Macleod used the word in a 1965 speech to Parliament during a period of simultaneously high inflation and unemployment in the United Kingdom.[1][2][3][4] Warning the House of Commons of the gravity of the situation, he said:
"We now have the worst of both worlds—not just inflation on the one side or stagnation on the other, but both of them together. We have a sort of 'stagflation' situation. And history, in modern terms, is indeed being made."[3][5]
Stagflation is lack of growth at same time of high inflation. You are struggling at GCSE economics.
Not in my textbooks it isn't. Any definition I have ever seen includes unemployment in a definition.
Please quote me any textbook that references stagflation without referencing unemployment, otherwise I say you are bullshitting. 🙄
No. I’m quite happy to accept everyday is a school day. 🙂
Stagflation must has three ingredients, sluggish or no growth, high unemployment, inflationary pressures on prices.
Let’s think of it as the necessary ingredients to call the eventual cake “stagflation.” But, as in every bake off, what quantities of each make it distinctly Stagflation? Or put another way, if you got a lot of no growth, a lot of inflation, what is the quantity of unemployment that is the issue? (Plus a lot of people have been allowed to retire out the workforce).
What we have is a huge problem in the UK right now with vacancies which can’t be filled. We are missing about 600K migrants who used to do this pre Brexit, chefs from Rumania for example.
When you say Stagflation must have unemployment issue, how would you quantify that? What does it actually bring to the equation?
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
Trump and his supporters tried numerous different attempts to overturn the election. Now lots of those that prevented it have been or are being replaced in their posts in the States that matter. If Trump stands again and loses in a similar way I would expect a coup attempt. The only thing stopping it's success I believe is that this time he is not the incumbent. If he wins genuinely I believe it will be impossible after that to remove him 4 years later.
How does he get round term limits? And he'll be over 80.
You really think that is an issue that will try and stop him. He was happy to overturn an election he lost.
Yes, I do. In 2020 there was a plausible way for him to contest the election. Nobody has come up with a plausible way he gets round term limits.
Because we are not there. Once s coup had taken place anything is possible. In terms of time limits I give you Putin. He had term limits also.
But wasn’t he PM (in name only) for one term, so he has done 2 - 1 - 2?
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
If he had partially disrupted the electoral college vote count, he could have remained in power. There were multiple attempts to do exactly that, not the least of which was sending a violent mob to break in and attack the people certifying.
And I don't think it would have worked as the police remain, and the national guard and the army.
The presidency is decided by the electoral college vote. If the wrong guy is certified, arguably that's final.
I wouldn't be confident either way about whether it would work or not. In any case, if it comes down to the police, national guard, or army having to act then it's extremely troubling. What if the person doing the coup has got loyalists in key positions?
I think maybe I get hung up on the idea of the storming of the house being the coup. It certainly was nothing like. I can see how the way the US works allows more problems, with the electoral college etc. I would be genuinely surprised though, given all the forewarning, that the democrats would be supine and just allow this to happen.
The point is that it's out of the hands of the politicians if the scenario I painted came to pass. You could in theory impeach the president immediately, but that's not in the gift of any one party since no party constitutes a supermajority, And in any case, even that doesn't restore the actual winner, it just removes the president. And the obvious practical issue is that if you're happy enough to stop the electoral college count through violence, then are you really above intimidating or murdering senators?
You are spot on about the insurrection at the Capitol not being the only aspect that deserves focus. The attempted coup was multifaceted and was carried out both in public and private. It failed because of a very small number of people who stood firm.
Yep, some heroic bureaucrats saved the day, some of them Republican. Great people.
News about HMQ not good. She won't attend any garden parties.
"It is understood the reason is the traditional format of the garden parties, in terms of the length of time they last and the time she would usually spend standing and walking to greet the lines of invited guests."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but changing that format to sitting down and having the line move past would have been the obvious solution if that really was the reason.
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
It’s a question of what defines stagnation
I can buy the argument that a temporary period of low or negative growth is not sufficient: it’s an extended period of low growth (negative growth would be a depression). High unemployment could be a symptom of that but not sure it is the only one (although it was the case in the 1970s so it is observed history where n=1)
I think you have hit the nail on the head. Unemployment "could" (and more than likely will) be a symptom of stagflation, it is not necessarily causal.
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
You don't have to be a leftie to realise that anyone this side of the Atlantic who is not a Trump hater is almost certainly a swivel-eyed nutter.
And yet the Trump haters so often look like swivel-eyed nutters.
I would like to think that people don't think I am swivel eyed, but I hate him because he is a crook, a liar and has destroyed the GOP causing huge damage to the strongest country on the planet and has taken a democracy to the verge of a dictatorship.
That is demonstrably utterly untruthful and childish rubbish.
In recent Ohio primary the voters had a full slate of republicans of all shades to vote for ina free and fair election, including a well-fundedrepublican never-trumper.
The Trump backed candidates won in every case. Republican primary voter numbers were double those of the Democrat primary.
IF anybody has 'destroyed' the Republican party, its their own voters.
Well there is no need to be rude and it isn't demonstrably rubbish or untruthful. Some positions are appointed and dictatorships don't start without gaining support in the first place with propaganda. Yes it is the GOPs voters but the GOP have been changed (I even said he has destroyed the GOP). That change has been driven by the likes of Trump and QAnon.
The idea that Trump and Qanon hog the airways or are able to brainwash voters is also a fiction. The mainstream media in America is overwhelmingly democrat or Romneyite. Yes there is Fox but plenty of neo-cons get air time on there.
Trump rampers are routinely shadow banned by twitter and the like. Often these people are relegated to the likes of Locals or Rumble or whatever, sideshow outlets.
Trumpist politics is appealing to lots of Americans, and until his opponents realise that and try to find out why, they won't defeat him
I have a lot of sympathy with this view. However, I also think that a large part of Trump's appeal is that the establishment/MSM hate him and that it is this that is attractive to those who are generally disaffected with their current lot, either for economic reasons or because they feel demographics and societal norms are moving in directions that they don't like.
I do wonder whether Trump's support would be so robust if he was not so publicly hated by the good and educated.
PS And lest it is not clear, I have come to hate what he does and represents with a vengeance.
Indeed so - and this is one place where a parallel with Brexit can safely be drawn.
The thinking goes "things are shit. The people who made things shit hate X. Therefore X is worth a try".
Although in the case of Brexit many of the people who made things shit for the people who voted for it were actually in favour of Brexit - ie the Thatcherite right. Not dissimilar to Trump, who picked up plenty of votes from the business class. Unless you actually think that the New York Times editorial board and people at North London dinner parties are responsible for deindustrialisation, casualisation of work, defunding local government the hobbling of trade unions and rising inequality.
News about HMQ not good. She won't attend any garden parties.
"It is understood the reason is the traditional format of the garden parties, in terms of the length of time they last and the time she would usually spend standing and walking to greet the lines of invited guests."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but changing that format to sitting down and having the line move past would have been the obvious solution if that really was the reason.
We have our own Garden Walker whom I think would be an admirable stand-in. Get a diamond tiara in his size and let the fun commence.
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
From wikipedia:
In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high..
So only two of the three conditions are met.
Wikipedia my ****! We have full employment as a result of a significant proportion of the workforce exiting the country or retired very early during Covid. How full employment is measured is also an issue, the dynamics of employment are considerably different to the employee culture of the 1970s. The gig economy, black economy and part time employment affect the figures.
@BartholomewRoberts has sparred with me on my faulty recollection of A level economics by his suggesting (in his previous life) that my fear of inflation was unfounded as inflation wouldn't be a problem, then it wouldn't be a problem because we have good (non-wage-price spiral) inflation, and interest rates wouldn't follow suit.
You stick with your Wikipedia definition of stagflation, I'll stick with mine.
You are completely misrepresenting what I said. It doesn't seem you are able to understand the nuances involved, because you keep misrepresenting it.
Can you deny that you did not believe Government policy during Covid would not lead to inflation, or at least wage-price spiral inflation, and when I stated I feared interest rate rises would follow you assured me they would not?
Or has Putin changed that dynamic?
Yes I deny that.
You said that monetary expansion must cause inflation. I said that's not necessarily correct, because there's been vast monetary expansion in Japan which has remained trapped in an inflationary spiral.
You referenced your old textbooks which concentrated on inflation. I said that since then more has been learnt, especially (but not just) via Japan and others struggling with deflation and Europe increasingly struggling with deflation over the past decade too.
Yes monetary expansion is an inflationary pressure, that is very true and I said that. But my point was, which you seem to struggle to understand, is that there are deflationary pressures too.
If the inflationary pressures and deflationary pressures are in balance, then inflation remains under control. If they get out of balance, then we can get into a serious problem - either inflation or deflation.
One little spoken about issue that is happening now is that a primary cause of the deflationary pressures (high household indebtedness) actually reduced during lockdown. Due to the support given and the lack of disposable expenditure options, many households increased savings (inflationary) but many others significantly reduced their indebtedness and that has reduced deflationary pressures.
Inflationary pressures are exceeding deflationary ones now and that might remain true for longer than the Bank is forecasting. But it is not inevitable that inflationary pressures cause inflation to happen, because if the deflationary pressures exceed them then we can get deflation instead as Japan has struggled with for three decades now - or as Europe has seen for a couple of decades.
tlg86 - my view is fairly simple: it is the woman's body, that should be respected, it should be her choice.
Compelling a woman to have an abortion against her will is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Compelling a woman to carry a foetus to term that she doesn't want to carry is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Respect women, let them decide, that is my view.
Sorry for the slow reply, but what does that mean in practice? Are you suggesting abortion should be legal as long as the child is in the mother? If so, how does that actually work?
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
From wikipedia:
In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high..
So only two of the three conditions are met.
Wikipedia my ****! We have full employment as a result of a significant proportion of the workforce exiting the country or retired very early during Covid. How full employment is measured is also an issue, the dynamics of employment are considerably different to the employee culture of the 1970s. The gig economy, black economy and part time employment affect the figures.
@BartholomewRoberts has sparred with me on my faulty recollection of A level economics by his suggesting (in his previous life) that my fear of inflation was unfounded as inflation wouldn't be a problem, then it wouldn't be a problem because we have good (non-wage-price spiral) inflation, and interest rates wouldn't follow suit.
You stick with your Wikipedia definition of stagflation, I'll stick with mine.
You are completely misrepresenting what I said. It doesn't seem you are able to understand the nuances involved, because you keep misrepresenting it.
Can you deny that you did not believe Government policy during Covid would not lead to inflation, or at least wage-price spiral inflation, and when I stated I feared interest rate rises would follow you assured me they would not?
Or has Putin changed that dynamic?
Yes I deny that.
You said that monetary expansion must cause inflation. I said that's not necessarily correct, because there's been vast monetary expansion in Japan which has remained trapped in an inflationary spiral.
You referenced your old textbooks which concentrated on inflation. I said that since then more has been learnt, especially (but not just) via Japan and others struggling with deflation and Europe increasingly struggling with deflation over the past decade too.
Yes monetary expansion is an inflationary pressure, that is very true and I said that. But my point was, which you seem to struggle to understand, is that there are deflationary pressures too.
If the inflationary pressures and deflationary pressures are in balance, then inflation remains under control. If they get out of balance, then we can get into a serious problem - either inflation or deflation.
One little spoken about issue that is happening now is that a primary cause of the deflationary pressures (high household indebtedness) actually reduced during lockdown. Due to the support given and the lack of disposable expenditure options, many households increased savings (inflationary) but many others significantly reduced their indebtedness and that has reduced deflationary pressures.
Inflationary pressures are exceeding deflationary ones now and that might remain true for longer than the Bank is forecasting. But it is not inevitable that inflationary pressures cause inflation to happen, because if the deflationary pressures exceed them then we can get deflation instead as Japan has struggled with for three decades now - or as Europe has seen for a couple of decades.
I think the savings ratio during the pandemic is the most interesting factor in all this. There is still a lot of stored up cash - its hardly been touched yet by most middle class households.
News about HMQ not good. She won't attend any garden parties.
"It is understood the reason is the traditional format of the garden parties, in terms of the length of time they last and the time she would usually spend standing and walking to greet the lines of invited guests."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but changing that format to sitting down and having the line move past would have been the obvious solution if that really was the reason.
Boris could go on behalf of the Queen. I believe he's rather fond of garden parties.
Betting info re: Tiverton and Honiton. The independent East Devon Alliance is thinking about putting up an Indy in the by-election. These are anti-Tory independents and have a substantial bloc on the the council. The LibDems will be aghast at the possibility.
The WHO have released figures from their excess deaths work. Lower total than some others have got to. In Europe, WHO implies UK reported COVID deaths very close to excess, that Germany underreported by as much as ~40%, while France significantly overreported. Striking.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Viability - which is the basis of the UK system (albeit 1990 medicine) is entirely intellectually consistent
Yes, and I for one find current UK laws quite reasonable.
And I would want HFEA to do a scientific and medical assessment of whether 24 weeks should be lowered based on health criteria. But as a technical not an ethical or political analysis. I would be be surprised to see a move to 22 weeks.
But the current rules aren’t unreasonable and if HFEA said no change then that’s the conclusion for another 20 years or so.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Viability - which is the basis of the UK system (albeit 1990 medicine) is entirely intellectually consistent
If you're claiming that a foetus is viable so it can't be aborted then that is one thing, so long as you're then accompanying that with offering the woman the opportunity to have that foetus delivered so it can survive as it has gestated to date rather than insisting she continues to carry it.
If at 21 weeks a woman wants an abortion, and is denied it because the foetus is "viable", then she should be entitled to have a delivery of that foetus that can be born as a child and so she is no longer carrying it.
However 21 week foetuses may be theoretically viable, but in reality it could be a very different matter. So would you be comfortable having delivery instead of abortion offered to the woman?
I think individuals in society bear responsibility to each other, so no.
At 20 weeks (which is about the edge of viability) there is a high right of mental and physical disabilities, but this very rapidly declines week on week. A woman insisting of delivery at that point is harming the child severely. However there is a point (as @Selebian noted) when early delivery dies become a reasonable option - I don’t know exactly when that is.
But the idea of balancing the rights of a mother and a child by asking her - for example - to support the child for an additional 8 weeks, say, doesn’t seem unreasonable. (This is for cases were there is not a risk of undue mental or physical harm to the woman where the calculus may be different)
So you don't think the foetus is independently viable then, you just want to deny the woman the right to control her own body.
Nobody should be compelled to carry a foetus against their will. If abortion is denied, then delivery should be the alternative option. If you genuinely believe in "viability" then there's nothing wrong with that.
The foetus is viable at that age but there is a risk of harm to the child. A premie born at 20 weeks but that doesn’t develop full mental faculty is “viable”. (FWIW it’s one of the main arguments that the HFEA uses for not reducing the current limit below 24 weeks, even though it was original set based on viability limits in 1990)
An analogy: why do we restrict your right to drive at 80 miles per hour outside a school at the end of the school day? It because the potential harm to others is greater than the benefit to you.
There's no harm to the foetus done by delivering it, it just isn't fully gestated and ready for birth yet which is why if you want the child you should carry it to term and if you don't then an abortion would be a better alternative.
If I don't want to speed past a school, then I have the option of not going past the school, I have choices. If a woman doesn't want to carry the child, you want to invasively deny her choice.
All of which is based on your contention that an unborn child has no rights.
Unless you can provide an ethical or philosophical underpinning for that there is little point in debating with you as you are just restating your opinion
News about HMQ not good. She won't attend any garden parties.
"It is understood the reason is the traditional format of the garden parties, in terms of the length of time they last and the time she would usually spend standing and walking to greet the lines of invited guests."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but changing that format to sitting down and having the line move past would have been the obvious solution if that really was the reason.
She is 96! even sitting down to greet loads of people is not easy anywhere near that age
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
Trump and his supporters tried numerous different attempts to overturn the election. Now lots of those that prevented it have been or are being replaced in their posts in the States that matter. If Trump stands again and loses in a similar way I would expect a coup attempt. The only thing stopping it's success I believe is that this time he is not the incumbent. If he wins genuinely I believe it will be impossible after that to remove him 4 years later.
How does he get round term limits? And he'll be over 80.
You really think that is an issue that will try and stop him. He was happy to overturn an election he lost.
Yes, I do. In 2020 there was a plausible way for him to contest the election. Nobody has come up with a plausible way he gets round term limits.
Because we are not there. Once s coup had taken place anything is possible. In terms of time limits I give you Putin. He had term limits also.
But wasn’t he PM (in name only) for one term, so he has done 2 - 1 - 2?
Technically sticking to the letter of the law
Exactly (practically nobody can remember who the president was). And exactly my point. Once you reach the levels of becoming undemocratic you find ways around it. America is not Russia, but the idea that Trump and his mob (and I don't mean the voters at large) will find ways to undermine the democratic processes as they have been seen to attempt already.
The WHO have released figures from their excess deaths work. Lower total than some others have got to. In Europe, WHO implies UK reported COVID deaths very close to excess, that Germany underreported by as much as ~40%, while France significantly overreported. Striking.
Betting info re: Tiverton and Honiton. The independent East Devon Alliance is thinking about putting up an Indy in the by-election. These are anti-Tory independents and have a substantial bloc on the the council. The LibDems will be aghast at the possibility.
They've pushed the Tories close in East Devon the last 3 times.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Viability - which is the basis of the UK system (albeit 1990 medicine) is entirely intellectually consistent
Yes, and I for one find current UK laws quite resonable.
I agree. Maybe 2 weeks less now.
You mean 22 weeks. Yes absolutely.
This is consistent with my view that when the foetus is not viable (ie up to about 22 weeks) then the choice for abortion should be entirely with the mother. Beyond then then the right to life now rests with the foetus and abortion should not be allowed unless it is clearly apparent that continuing with the pregnancy would present a risk of death or significant permanent physical harm to the mother.
I agree with 22 weeks.
There is a second question though - what rights does the father have?
Two scenarios:
A woman can abort again the wishes of the father - seems reasonable as she is much more involved during gestation
A man can abort against the wishes of the mother… philosophically it seems harder to argue that he has no rights to determine the outcome.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Viability - which is the basis of the UK system (albeit 1990 medicine) is entirely intellectually consistent
If you're claiming that a foetus is viable so it can't be aborted then that is one thing, so long as you're then accompanying that with offering the woman the opportunity to have that foetus delivered so it can survive as it has gestated to date rather than insisting she continues to carry it.
If at 21 weeks a woman wants an abortion, and is denied it because the foetus is "viable", then she should be entitled to have a delivery of that foetus that can be born as a child and so she is no longer carrying it.
However 21 week foetuses may be theoretically viable, but in reality it could be a very different matter. So would you be comfortable having delivery instead of abortion offered to the woman?
I think individuals in society bear responsibility to each other, so no.
At 20 weeks (which is about the edge of viability) there is a high right of mental and physical disabilities, but this very rapidly declines week on week. A woman insisting of delivery at that point is harming the child severely. However there is a point (as @Selebian noted) when early delivery dies become a reasonable option - I don’t know exactly when that is.
But the idea of balancing the rights of a mother and a child by asking her - for example - to support the child for an additional 8 weeks, say, doesn’t seem unreasonable. (This is for cases were there is not a risk of undue mental or physical harm to the woman where the calculus may be different)
So you don't think the foetus is independently viable then, you just want to deny the woman the right to control her own body.
Nobody should be compelled to carry a foetus against their will. If abortion is denied, then delivery should be the alternative option. If you genuinely believe in "viability" then there's nothing wrong with that.
The foetus is viable at that age but there is a risk of harm to the child. A premie born at 20 weeks but that doesn’t develop full mental faculty is “viable”. (FWIW it’s one of the main arguments that the HFEA uses for not reducing the current limit below 24 weeks, even though it was original set based on viability limits in 1990)
An analogy: why do we restrict your right to drive at 80 miles per hour outside a school at the end of the school day? It because the potential harm to others is greater than the benefit to you.
There's no harm to the foetus done by delivering it, it just isn't fully gestated and ready for birth yet which is why if you want the child you should carry it to term and if you don't then an abortion would be a better alternative.
If I don't want to speed past a school, then I have the option of not going past the school, I have choices. If a woman doesn't want to carry the child, you want to invasively deny her choice.
All of which is based on your contention that an unborn child has no rights.
Unless you can provide an ethical or philosophical underpinning for that there is little point in debating with you as you are just restating your opinion
Ethics is just opinions.
There's no such thing as objective underpinning. What exactly do you expect me to offer you?
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Destroying an unborn child is a crime against the child, as well as a crime against the mother. That's been the position in this country for centuries, and is entirely reasonable.
I disagree with that law and do not find it to be reasonable.
Just because something is the law, does not make it reasonable. We are all perfectly entitled, morally and intellectually, to reach opinions contrary to the law or else there would never be any changes to the law.
Put it another way, if I performed a forcible abortion on a woman, 30 weeks into her pregnancy, I can assure you that woman would call me a murderer. Her objection to my action would not be based purely upon my having violated her bodily autonomy,
Women who lose children before birth grieve for them. They view them as lives in being.
Absolutely if you assault a woman like that it'd be utterly disgusting.
No woman is going to lightheartedly ask for an abortion 40 weeks into a pregnancy without very good reason anyway, so I think its an utterly silly and moot point to debate which is rather disrespectful to women to suggest that they might just abort because they're having a bad day or otherwise rather than taking it seriously.
tlg86 - my view is fairly simple: it is the woman's body, that should be respected, it should be her choice.
Compelling a woman to have an abortion against her will is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Compelling a woman to carry a foetus to term that she doesn't want to carry is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Respect women, let them decide, that is my view.
So what is your view on the rights of the child?
A child has rights from the moment it is born and draws its first breath.
A foetus does not.
That is not a fact. That is an opinion. Supporting argument please.
Your question was So what is your view on the rights of the child?
That is my view. I've given my supporting argument. Yes my view is an opinion, everyone's is.
If you want to convince others you need support your assumptions.
You are saying abortion up to the point of birth is ok because an unborn baby has no rights. That is a logical argument.
When asked to support the fundamental assumption (“an unborn baby has no rights”) you get huffy and say its an opinion.
Not very convincing
Not huffy. You asked me for my view, I gave you my view. You then said its only my view.
Yes it is only my view, I never said otherwise.
There is no objective truth here. You can't dig in the ground and find a vein of inalienable rights that says that life begins at ...
My view is my view, for the reasons given. If you disagree, you're entitled to your own views.
The difference is I don't want to deny anyone a choice over their own body, I don't want to force my views on others.
I’m asking you for the ethical and philosophical underpinnings for your view.
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
From wikipedia:
In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high..
So only two of the three conditions are met.
Wikipedia my ****! We have full employment as a result of a significant proportion of the workforce exiting the country or retired very early during Covid. How full employment is measured is also an issue, the dynamics of employment are considerably different to the employee culture of the 1970s. The gig economy, black economy and part time employment affect the figures.
@BartholomewRoberts has sparred with me on my faulty recollection of A level economics by his suggesting (in his previous life) that my fear of inflation was unfounded as inflation wouldn't be a problem, then it wouldn't be a problem because we have good (non-wage-price spiral) inflation, and interest rates wouldn't follow suit.
You stick with your Wikipedia definition of stagflation, I'll stick with mine.
You are completely misrepresenting what I said. It doesn't seem you are able to understand the nuances involved, because you keep misrepresenting it.
Can you deny that you did not believe Government policy during Covid would not lead to inflation, or at least wage-price spiral inflation, and when I stated I feared interest rate rises would follow you assured me they would not?
Or has Putin changed that dynamic?
Yes I deny that.
You said that monetary expansion must cause inflation. I said that's not necessarily correct, because there's been vast monetary expansion in Japan which has remained trapped in an inflationary spiral.
You referenced your old textbooks which concentrated on inflation. I said that since then more has been learnt, especially (but not just) via Japan and others struggling with deflation and Europe increasingly struggling with deflation over the past decade too.
Yes monetary expansion is an inflationary pressure, that is very true and I said that. But my point was, which you seem to struggle to understand, is that there are deflationary pressures too.
If the inflationary pressures and deflationary pressures are in balance, then inflation remains under control. If they get out of balance, then we can get into a serious problem - either inflation or deflation.
One little spoken about issue that is happening now is that a primary cause of the deflationary pressures (high household indebtedness) actually reduced during lockdown. Due to the support given and the lack of disposable expenditure options, many households increased savings (inflationary) but many others significantly reduced their indebtedness and that has reduced deflationary pressures.
Inflationary pressures are exceeding deflationary ones now and that might remain true for longer than the Bank is forecasting. But it is not inevitable that inflationary pressures cause inflation to happen, because if the deflationary pressures exceed them then we can get deflation instead as Japan has struggled with for three decades now - or as Europe has seen for a couple of decades.
I did indeed state that an increase in M3 was a substantially significant inflationary force, but I don't see your notion of indebtedness having being deflationary in the UK over the last 20 years, because households simply increased the debt with further cheap borrowing based on the back of property inflation- run out of liquidity so extend the mortgage. The rule has been, so long as the minimum premiums can be serviced, indebtedness is not a problem and thus on your terms not a deflationary pressure. My fear is increased interest rates make it more difficult to service minimum debt repayments. Certainly foreclosures on borrowed houses and cars are deflationary, as supply outstrips demand when stuff is repossessed and disposed of, but under those circumstances my fears are realised and we are up S*** Street. Your other defence was wage-price inflation was not on the horizon...it is now!
The WHO have released figures from their excess deaths work. Lower total than some others have got to. In Europe, WHO implies UK reported COVID deaths very close to excess, that Germany underreported by as much as ~40%, while France significantly overreported. Striking.
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
It’s a question of what defines stagnation
I can buy the argument that a temporary period of low or negative growth is not sufficient: it’s an extended period of low growth (negative growth would be a depression). High unemployment could be a symptom of that but not sure it is the only one (although it was the case in the 1970s so it is observed history where n=1)
I think you have hit the nail on the head. Unemployment "could" (and more than likely will) be a symptom of stagflation, it is not necessarily causal.
I thought you promised never to agree with me again…
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Destroying an unborn child is a crime against the child, as well as a crime against the mother. That's been the position in this country for centuries, and is entirely reasonable.
I disagree with that law and do not find it to be reasonable.
Just because something is the law, does not make it reasonable. We are all perfectly entitled, morally and intellectually, to reach opinions contrary to the law or else there would never be any changes to the law.
Put it another way, if I performed a forcible abortion on a woman, 30 weeks into her pregnancy, I can assure you that woman would call me a murderer. Her objection to my action would not be based purely upon my having violated her bodily autonomy,
Women who lose children before birth grieve for them. They view them as lives in being.
Absolutely if you assault a woman like that it'd be utterly disgusting.
No woman is going to lightheartedly ask for an abortion 40 weeks into a pregnancy without very good reason anyway, so I think its an utterly silly and moot point to debate which is rather disrespectful to women to suggest that they might just abort because they're having a bad day or otherwise rather than taking it seriously.
tlg86 - my view is fairly simple: it is the woman's body, that should be respected, it should be her choice.
Compelling a woman to have an abortion against her will is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Compelling a woman to carry a foetus to term that she doesn't want to carry is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Respect women, let them decide, that is my view.
So what is your view on the rights of the child?
A child has rights from the moment it is born and draws its first breath.
A foetus does not.
That is not a fact. That is an opinion. Supporting argument please.
Your question was So what is your view on the rights of the child?
That is my view. I've given my supporting argument. Yes my view is an opinion, everyone's is.
If you want to convince others you need support your assumptions.
You are saying abortion up to the point of birth is ok because an unborn baby has no rights. That is a logical argument.
When asked to support the fundamental assumption (“an unborn baby has no rights”) you get huffy and say its an opinion.
Not very convincing
Not huffy. You asked me for my view, I gave you my view. You then said its only my view.
Yes it is only my view, I never said otherwise.
There is no objective truth here. You can't dig in the ground and find a vein of inalienable rights that says that life begins at ...
My view is my view, for the reasons given. If you disagree, you're entitled to your own views.
The difference is I don't want to deny anyone a choice over their own body, I don't want to force my views on others.
I’m asking you for the ethical and philosophical underpinnings for your view.
My ethical and philosophical underpinning is my opinion that the woman is an independent person who should control her own body and the foetus is not.
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
It’s a question of what defines stagnation
I can buy the argument that a temporary period of low or negative growth is not sufficient: it’s an extended period of low growth (negative growth would be a depression). High unemployment could be a symptom of that but not sure it is the only one (although it was the case in the 1970s so it is observed history where n=1)
I think you have hit the nail on the head. Unemployment "could" (and more than likely will) be a symptom of stagflation, it is not necessarily causal.
Yes, That seems to be the definition I found here.
But most places actually support St Bart’s definition.
This is the problem I would have in a classroom, it’s clearly so woolly, so when a teacher, like Mr Bart , says no this is the text book definition to use in the exam, the truth is actually its woolly sir. Some only regard it in relation to continued sluggish growth, don’t even mention inflation, it could also considered unemployment is more a symptom of stagflation not a creator of it.
Surely to learn, we haven’t just got to learn a definition, but why that definition, and those who disagree and why they do?
Betting info re: Tiverton and Honiton. The independent East Devon Alliance is thinking about putting up an Indy in the by-election. These are anti-Tory independents and have a substantial bloc on the the council. The LibDems will be aghast at the possibility.
They've pushed the Tories close in East Devon the last 3 times.
Well not exactly. That was one person, Claire Wright, easily the finest campaigner I've ever met. If he policies had been a bit closer to the electorate she might have won. It was still a pretty big majority though.
But in any case she is not standing and isn't well known in Tiv and Hon.
Andrew Bailey will be remembered as the governor who impoverished a nation to please his Tory masters in the treasury. Rates should have gone up to 1.25% today with forwards guidance that they will rise to at least 2% by the end of the summer. We're now in an inflationary spiral and with sterling in freefall against the dollar I don't see how things get better.
I find it deeply troubling how several on here are so blasé about Trump and what he nearly achieved and are not fearful of the possibility of that happening again in the future and even being successful and with comments like the constitution or congress wont allow it. It is not as if this sort of stuff hasn't happened elsewhere.
News about HMQ not good. She won't attend any garden parties.
"It is understood the reason is the traditional format of the garden parties, in terms of the length of time they last and the time she would usually spend standing and walking to greet the lines of invited guests."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but changing that format to sitting down and having the line move past would have been the obvious solution if that really was the reason.
She is 96! even sitting down to greet loads of people is not easy anywhere near that age
How do they know it will come down sharply? That's just bloody guessing that this war doesn't continue or widen. They said it would peak at 4% very recently. Wage growth is 6%. 1% is historically on the floor. Inflation isn't. They are behind the curve badly.
I'll just say, if the war does widen I don't think we'll need to worry about inflation statistics. How's your portable dosimeter? Still in working order?
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
It’s a question of what defines stagnation
I can buy the argument that a temporary period of low or negative growth is not sufficient: it’s an extended period of low growth (negative growth would be a depression). High unemployment could be a symptom of that but not sure it is the only one (although it was the case in the 1970s so it is observed history where n=1)
I think you have hit the nail on the head. Unemployment "could" (and more than likely will) be a symptom of stagflation, it is not necessarily causal.
I thought you promised never to agree with me again…
The WHO have released figures from their excess deaths work. Lower total than some others have got to. In Europe, WHO implies UK reported COVID deaths very close to excess, that Germany underreported by as much as ~40%, while France significantly overreported. Striking.
Betting info re: Tiverton and Honiton. The independent East Devon Alliance is thinking about putting up an Indy in the by-election. These are anti-Tory independents and have a substantial bloc on the the council. The LibDems will be aghast at the possibility.
They've pushed the Tories close in East Devon the last 3 times.
Well not exactly. That was one person, Claire Wright, easily the finest campaigner I've ever met. If he policies has been a bit closer to the electorate she might have won. It was still a pretty big majority though.
But in any case she is not standing and isn't well known in Tiv and Hon.
She said recently on Twitter that people should vote LibDem in the by-election.
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
Trump and his supporters tried numerous different attempts to overturn the election. Now lots of those that prevented it have been or are being replaced in their posts in the States that matter. If Trump stands again and loses in a similar way I would expect a coup attempt. The only thing stopping it's success I believe is that this time he is not the incumbent. If he wins genuinely I believe it will be impossible after that to remove him 4 years later.
How does he get round term limits? And he'll be over 80.
You really think that is an issue that will try and stop him. He was happy to overturn an election he lost.
Yes, I do. In 2020 there was a plausible way for him to contest the election. Nobody has come up with a plausible way he gets round term limits.
Because we are not there. Once s coup had taken place anything is possible. In terms of time limits I give you Putin. He had term limits also.
But wasn’t he PM (in name only) for one term, so he has done 2 - 1 - 2?
Technically sticking to the letter of the law
Exactly (practically nobody can remember who the president was). And exactly my point. Once you reach the levels of becoming undemocratic you find ways around it. America is not Russia, but the idea that Trump and his mob (and I don't mean the voters at large) will find ways to undermine the democratic processes as they have been seen to attempt already.
Dmitry Medvedev.
At the time I was puzzled as he was only in Putin’s middle circle, but I guess he was loyal but not powerful enough to be a threat so it makes sense from Putin’s perspective
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
It’s a question of what defines stagnation
I can buy the argument that a temporary period of low or negative growth is not sufficient: it’s an extended period of low growth (negative growth would be a depression). High unemployment could be a symptom of that but not sure it is the only one (although it was the case in the 1970s so it is observed history where n=1)
I think you have hit the nail on the head. Unemployment "could" (and more than likely will) be a symptom of stagflation, it is not necessarily causal.
Yes, That seems to be the definition I found here.
But most places actually support St Bart’s definition.
This is the problem I would have in a classroom, it’s clearly so woolly, so when a teacher, like Mr Bart , says no this is the text book definition to use in the exam, the truth is actually its woolly sir. Some only regard it in relation to continued sluggish growth, don’t even mention inflation, it could also considered unemployment is more a symptom of stagflation not a creator of it.
Surely to learn, we haven’t just got to learn a definition, but why that definition, and those who disagree and why they do?
I think St Bart and RobD's preferred definition conflates cause and effect.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Viability - which is the basis of the UK system (albeit 1990 medicine) is entirely intellectually consistent
Yes, and I for one find current UK laws quite reasonable.
Me too. They're based on balancing the rights of women and unborn children. You can argue about things like term limits and allowable exceptions but this approach - a woman's right to choose but with controls - is surely the best one.
Btw I respect the view - which some people have - that all abortion is flat out wrong because it destroys a human life. I don't share the sentiment but there's nothing wrong with it. The problem comes when people holding that view seek to impose it by law on those who don't.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Viability - which is the basis of the UK system (albeit 1990 medicine) is entirely intellectually consistent
If you're claiming that a foetus is viable so it can't be aborted then that is one thing, so long as you're then accompanying that with offering the woman the opportunity to have that foetus delivered so it can survive as it has gestated to date rather than insisting she continues to carry it.
If at 21 weeks a woman wants an abortion, and is denied it because the foetus is "viable", then she should be entitled to have a delivery of that foetus that can be born as a child and so she is no longer carrying it.
However 21 week foetuses may be theoretically viable, but in reality it could be a very different matter. So would you be comfortable having delivery instead of abortion offered to the woman?
I think individuals in society bear responsibility to each other, so no.
At 20 weeks (which is about the edge of viability) there is a high right of mental and physical disabilities, but this very rapidly declines week on week. A woman insisting of delivery at that point is harming the child severely. However there is a point (as @Selebian noted) when early delivery dies become a reasonable option - I don’t know exactly when that is.
But the idea of balancing the rights of a mother and a child by asking her - for example - to support the child for an additional 8 weeks, say, doesn’t seem unreasonable. (This is for cases were there is not a risk of undue mental or physical harm to the woman where the calculus may be different)
So you don't think the foetus is independently viable then, you just want to deny the woman the right to control her own body.
Nobody should be compelled to carry a foetus against their will. If abortion is denied, then delivery should be the alternative option. If you genuinely believe in "viability" then there's nothing wrong with that.
The foetus is viable at that age but there is a risk of harm to the child. A premie born at 20 weeks but that doesn’t develop full mental faculty is “viable”. (FWIW it’s one of the main arguments that the HFEA uses for not reducing the current limit below 24 weeks, even though it was original set based on viability limits in 1990)
An analogy: why do we restrict your right to drive at 80 miles per hour outside a school at the end of the school day? It because the potential harm to others is greater than the benefit to you.
There's no harm to the foetus done by delivering it, it just isn't fully gestated and ready for birth yet which is why if you want the child you should carry it to term and if you don't then an abortion would be a better alternative.
If I don't want to speed past a school, then I have the option of not going past the school, I have choices. If a woman doesn't want to carry the child, you want to invasively deny her choice.
All of which is based on your contention that an unborn child has no rights.
Unless you can provide an ethical or philosophical underpinning for that there is little point in debating with you as you are just restating your opinion
Ethics is just opinions.
There's no such thing as objective underpinning. What exactly do you expect me to offer you?
Ethics is argued. Not just a statement. Logical reasoning from principles
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
You don't have to be a leftie to realise that anyone this side of the Atlantic who is not a Trump hater is almost certainly a swivel-eyed nutter.
And yet the Trump haters so often look like swivel-eyed nutters.
I would like to think that people don't think I am swivel eyed, but I hate him because he is a crook, a liar and has destroyed the GOP causing huge damage to the strongest country on the planet and has taken a democracy to the verge of a dictatorship.
That is demonstrably utterly untruthful and childish rubbish.
In recent Ohio primary the voters had a full slate of republicans of all shades to vote for ina free and fair election, including a well-fundedrepublican never-trumper.
The Trump backed candidates won in every case. Republican primary voter numbers were double those of the Democrat primary.
IF anybody has 'destroyed' the Republican party, its their own voters.
Well there is no need to be rude and it isn't demonstrably rubbish or untruthful. Some positions are appointed and dictatorships don't start without gaining support in the first place with propaganda. Yes it is the GOPs voters but the GOP have been changed (I even said he has destroyed the GOP). That change has been driven by the likes of Trump and QAnon.
The idea that Trump and Qanon hog the airways or are able to brainwash voters is also a fiction. The mainstream media in America is overwhelmingly democrat or Romneyite. Yes there is Fox but plenty of neo-cons get air time on there.
Trump rampers are routinely shadow banned by twitter and the like. Often these people are relegated to the likes of Locals or Rumble or whatever, sideshow outlets.
Trumpist politics is appealing to lots of Americans, and until his opponents realise that and try to find out why, they won't defeat him
I have a lot of sympathy with this view. However, I also think that a large part of Trump's appeal is that the establishment/MSM hate him and that it is this that is attractive to those who are generally disaffected with their current lot, either for economic reasons or because they feel demographics and societal norms are moving in directions that they don't like.
I do wonder whether Trump's support would be so robust if he was not so publicly hated by the good and educated.
PS And lest it is not clear, I have come to hate what he does and represents with a vengeance.
Indeed so - and this is one place where a parallel with Brexit can safely be drawn.
The thinking goes "things are shit. The people who made things shit hate X. Therefore X is worth a try".
Although in the case of Brexit many of the people who made things shit for the people who voted for it were actually in favour of Brexit - ie the Thatcherite right. Not dissimilar to Trump, who picked up plenty of votes from the business class. Unless you actually think that the New York Times editorial board and people at North London dinner parties are responsible for deindustrialisation, casualisation of work, defunding local government the hobbling of trade unions and rising inequality.
Ohio 2022 Primary Results NOT previously reported on PB
MEIGS COUNTY - Unincorp. Salisbury Twp Additional Cemeteries Levy – .5 mills/5 years — For the tax levy: 118; Against the tax levy: 141
Is it like the times claim, the Ohio candidate only surged to victory with Trumps endorsement?
True.
Vance was back of the pack before the endoresment; likely that Mandel, who got support from many 45 fans, would have gotten even more, had the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo not anointed the V-man.
Hope Tim Ryan tears him a new one.
Thanks for the answer.
Is hope all you got left. It’s just a economic downturn away from all the Trump loonies winning?
Moon, you may have noticed that something even bigger than the Ohio Primary happened in America this week?
News of impending overturning of Roe v Wade by US Supreme Court has tossed a MAJOR wild card into the deck for the 2022 midterms. May help Democrats to redress the enthusiasm gap, is certainly galvanizing plenty right now.
When abortion is broadly legal, you don't have harrowing stories about rape victims committing suicide rather than carry their baby to term. You don't have scandals about people prevented from crossing state lines by restrictive laws. You don't have stories about the deaths of people carrying out home abortions based on YouTube videos.
Legal abortion - at least up until about 18 weeks or so - is supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Now, do anti-abortionists (by and large) care about it more?
Probably.
But that's because most Americans haven't had to deal with abortion being illegal. Like with Brexit, it is those who wish to change the status quo who are the most motivated.
I think this is a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion lobby, that will end in abortion being legally endorsed at the ballot box in more than 40 states in the next decade.
One issue may be this: there are some references or suggestions in the Alito judgment to the foetus having legal personality. Depending on how these are put and interpreted, it is possible that any state pro-abortion law might be struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that the foetus - as a person - has a right to life.
I am no US lawyer and we don't have the final judgment but that might well be a risk.
In the ordinary world of ordinary words and actions we regard the unborn as obviously having rights and humanity as a whole as having duties towards them. To kick a woman in the stomach is abhorrent. To do so when they are pregnant we regard as even worse. We ordinarily think of that element of being 'even worse' as related to how we should treat the unborn as well as the woman.
To my mind it is inevitable that there will be abortions. But the issue has to balance competing rights. Neither extreme seems very good at this.
One side seeks to balance the rights. The right to abortion but with controls. The other side seeks to obliterate the rights of the woman. To ban abortion completely. The equivalence you see is imaginary. There's none.
Unfortunately, there are many on the far left in the US arguing for what amounts to infanticide.
Let’s hope a sensible middle way is the result of this argument. The actual case before the Supremes, is regarding a state law that sets a 15-week limit which is in the same ballpark as abortion laws in much of Europe.
Is your first sentence true or is it a few nutters whose views get exploited by the anti abortionists. I saw the video that @leon posted last night and I was shocked, but equally the person trying to defend the situation was reduced to a gibbering idiot. It is difficult to imagine any sane person has these views in reality.
I’ll try and find the link, but there was someone on one of the American news networks the other day, arguing for 40-week abortions and infanticide of the disabled. The quote was something like, well the fetus will be removed from the womb, and made comfortable, and then the doctor and the mother will have a conversation…
I think it’s mostly activists at this point, but it’s an illustration of the opposite problem.
If Roberts can find a way to approve the 15-week limit, whilst not overturning Roe completely, that might actually be what calms everyone down.
Is that not just a corollary of "abortion on demand up until birth" view, which for those who take the view is a matter of more of dogma than reason? Just like the 'no abortion whatsoever' at the Pro-Life end of the spectrum - also based on dogma?
I'm inclined towards a view more like the one expressed by @Sandpit - somewhere in the middle with some exceptions.
I view the claim for "middle" as heavily restricted to be rather disingenuous.
Philosophically I think it should be for the individual to decide what she does or does not want to do with her own body, her body, her choice. I'd put that in the middle of two extremes.
Extreme: Abortion forced upon her, even if she doesn't want it. Middle: Abortions allowed, but only if she wants it. Extreme: Abortions forbidden, even if she wants it.
Both extremes happen in some places and both are equally abhorrent. Let the person choose for themselves, don't force a choice upon them.
In the context of the debate in a Western country, it's a false middle, though, as approximately nobody is arguing for forced abortions against the mother's will.
Just because nobody locally is arguing for the extreme case, doesn't make it not exist or move the middle elsewhere. If people started arguing for forced abortions for a group they don't like would that move the middle in your eyes to free choice?
Choice is the middle. Compulsion is the extreme, compulsion in either direction.
The age at which a foetus becomes a human life is the real middle. Otherwise you could abort up to birth if the mother agreed
Of course you should, if that's what the mother wants, her body, her choice. But it'd be extremely rare I expect for anyone to actually want to so late in a pregnancy who didn't early and I'd assume only for very good reasons.
The moment of birth is when a new person arrives in the world who has their own body, not before.
You have to recognise, surely, that is an extreme position?
In the UK, maybe yes.
Worldwide or philosophically - not really. Or if it is then its on the extreme of freedom which as a liberal/libertarian I am quite content with being at that extreme.
Its in the middle between some states in the USA wanting to forbid the choice, and some in China wanting to forbid the choice (by forcing it upon women whom the state doesn't want to have any more).
There was controversy when I lived in Australia about a pregnant woman who was deported from Australia to China being forced to have an abortion as soon as she landed in China, here's a news article about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/deported-woman-forced-to-abort-baby-1.181930 - that happens quite frequently, we just knew about that case because it involved someone who was deported, normally we don't get told about these things.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view but I think the idea that there is an absolute line of 'one minute before birth, not a person and one minute after birth a person' is difficult to sustain. I think anyone looking for moral certainty in this debate is deluding themselves, really. The reality is that it is morally murky and complicated, and unfortunately lots of people, especially on the American religious right, seem unable to operate in a world that lacks moral certitude. As others have noted, I think the general presumption should be first trimester it is up to the mother completely, middle trimester it starts to become more questionable, and last trimester the presumption should be against, but in extreme cases eg of a threat to the mother's life or a serious threat to her wellbeing, her rights should absolutely take precedence. I think the law needs to be based on science and sensitivity to the mother's needs. The kind of laws being passed in the US right now are completely disgusting and represent just part of a troubling agenda to turn the country into a theocracy, but this is almost a separate issue to the abortion question, which isn't black and white.
I don't see any difficulty in sustaining it. Life begins with childbirth and childbirth is a wonderous, scary, incredible moment there is absolutely no harm in putting that as the moment that life starts.
If my children or anyone else were to ask me how long have I been alive (which they typically wildly exaggerate) I would say since my date of birth - not reverse engineer in my head to try to figure out the moment my parents got frisky with each other, or three months after they did.
Its murky because its messy, but childbirth is messy but also significant.
So do you believe that if someone kills an unborn child - say by stabbing the mother - then it should not be a crime in itself? That only the assault on the mother counts? That is the logical consequence of your position. Do you think that a drugs company that makes a drug that damages an unborn child should not be held to be guilty of any crime? Again that is the logical consequence of your position.
I would suggest you position is intellectually and practically unsustainable. I also think the overwhelming majority of people would find it morally unacceptable.
I think the assault on the mother is the crime yes and killing her foetus absolutely can and should be an aggravating factor in sentencing for that assault, which is a crime that has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes a drugs company that damages foetuses should be held to account too. There is no reason why they shouldn't be - drug companies that harm flora or fauna can be held to account so why not foetuses?
Intellectually if you accept the foetus is a child, then abortion should be banned. If you don't, then it shouldn't be. I don't, that is intellectually consistent. Saying a "compromise" of 22 weeks "except for circumstances" where its suddenly allowed again is far more intellectually murky to me. If its a child there which is alive, why do the circumstances matter?
What we have now is trying to please people by reaching a muddy compromise that most people are happy-ish with, so long as you don't think too deeply about it, not being intellectually consistent.
Destroying an unborn child is a crime against the child, as well as a crime against the mother. That's been the position in this country for centuries, and is entirely reasonable.
I disagree with that law and do not find it to be reasonable.
Just because something is the law, does not make it reasonable. We are all perfectly entitled, morally and intellectually, to reach opinions contrary to the law or else there would never be any changes to the law.
Put it another way, if I performed a forcible abortion on a woman, 30 weeks into her pregnancy, I can assure you that woman would call me a murderer. Her objection to my action would not be based purely upon my having violated her bodily autonomy,
Women who lose children before birth grieve for them. They view them as lives in being.
Absolutely if you assault a woman like that it'd be utterly disgusting.
No woman is going to lightheartedly ask for an abortion 40 weeks into a pregnancy without very good reason anyway, so I think its an utterly silly and moot point to debate which is rather disrespectful to women to suggest that they might just abort because they're having a bad day or otherwise rather than taking it seriously.
tlg86 - my view is fairly simple: it is the woman's body, that should be respected, it should be her choice.
Compelling a woman to have an abortion against her will is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Compelling a woman to carry a foetus to term that she doesn't want to carry is absolutely abhorrent and wrong. Respect women, let them decide, that is my view.
So what is your view on the rights of the child?
A child has rights from the moment it is born and draws its first breath.
A foetus does not.
That is not a fact. That is an opinion. Supporting argument please.
Your question was So what is your view on the rights of the child?
That is my view. I've given my supporting argument. Yes my view is an opinion, everyone's is.
If you want to convince others you need support your assumptions.
You are saying abortion up to the point of birth is ok because an unborn baby has no rights. That is a logical argument.
When asked to support the fundamental assumption (“an unborn baby has no rights”) you get huffy and say its an opinion.
Not very convincing
Not huffy. You asked me for my view, I gave you my view. You then said its only my view.
Yes it is only my view, I never said otherwise.
There is no objective truth here. You can't dig in the ground and find a vein of inalienable rights that says that life begins at ...
My view is my view, for the reasons given. If you disagree, you're entitled to your own views.
The difference is I don't want to deny anyone a choice over their own body, I don't want to force my views on others.
I’m asking you for the ethical and philosophical underpinnings for your view.
My ethical and philosophical underpinning is my opinion that the woman is an independent person who should control her own body and the foetus is not.
I'm not that convinced. The GOP support for Trump's attempted coup should have been a massive driver for high Democrat turnout and for Independents and centrist Republicans to vote Democrat, and yet that was normalised or eclipsed by concerns over inflation or other issues.
For whatever reason - media, campaign finance, incompetence, voter suppression, etc - the Republicans simply seem to be better at electoral politics.
There are six months to election day. Leaking the draft judgment helps to normalize it and reduce its impact by the time we get to polling day, particularly if it's revised modestly.
I wouldn't change my assessment of the relative likelihood of Republican gains as a result of this.
The US political media cannot cope with Trumpism.
They show live an armed coup attempt and then the next week (and every week after) they have on their Sunday shows politicians who encouraged the coup and don't even challenge them about it. The American media is dedicated to "the horse race" presentation of politics and simply cannot bring themselves to say one side is anti-democracy. So when the GOP do aomething outrageously terrible it is framed as "Problem for Democrats" rather than "GOP eat live beating heart on TV"
There is a stunning level of (brace yourself) Normalcy Bias going on. "The coup failed, thus there can never be a coup" seems to be the thinking.
The coup will not fail next time because they now know what to do to make it work. And they have spent the last couple of years stuffing every elected office and official post they can with Trumpers who will support overturning whatever result is not convenient.
If Trump is POTUS in 2025 he will be there for rest of his life.
It is a clear and present danger but you get no sense that anyone seems that bothered other than NY Times leader writers.
Massive hyperbole. USA is a democracy at heart. Do you really believe that there was a chance of a coup in January 2021? How would the army and police react? By what mode would Trump stay in power? By banning further elections?
At the time it seemed more farce than threat, but subsequent events have indicated it was actually quite a close run thing.
Yes, I do regard democracy in the US as fragile and weak.
I think these people would have murdered politicians had they got their hands on them, that day.
I struggle to believe it. The overall impression I got from the footage was shock that they got as far as they did - it didn't feel at all pre-meditated.
And the Trump haters' hyperbole has done nothing to convince me.
Trump and his supporters tried numerous different attempts to overturn the election. Now lots of those that prevented it have been or are being replaced in their posts in the States that matter. If Trump stands again and loses in a similar way I would expect a coup attempt. The only thing stopping it's success I believe is that this time he is not the incumbent. If he wins genuinely I believe it will be impossible after that to remove him 4 years later.
How does he get round term limits? And he'll be over 80.
You really think that is an issue that will try and stop him. He was happy to overturn an election he lost.
Yes, I do. In 2020 there was a plausible way for him to contest the election. Nobody has come up with a plausible way he gets round term limits.
Because we are not there. Once s coup had taken place anything is possible. In terms of time limits I give you Putin. He had term limits also.
But wasn’t he PM (in name only) for one term, so he has done 2 - 1 - 2?
Technically sticking to the letter of the law
Exactly (practically nobody can remember who the president was). And exactly my point. Once you reach the levels of becoming undemocratic you find ways around it. America is not Russia, but the idea that Trump and his mob (and I don't mean the voters at large) will find ways to undermine the democratic processes as they have been seen to attempt already.
Dmitry Medvedev.
At the time I was puzzled as he was only in Putin’s middle circle, but I guess he was loyal but not powerful enough to be a threat so it makes sense from Putin’s perspective
Total Putin puppet.
At one point, as President, IIRC, he went slightly off script. Might even have been accidental. He got squashed back into his box in about a millisecond, by Putin and the rest.
You rewrite the rules, stagnation plus inflation is stagflation, where is there any reference to full employment?
From wikipedia:
In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high..
So only two of the three conditions are met.
Wikipedia my ****! We have full employment as a result of a significant proportion of the workforce exiting the country or retired very early during Covid. How full employment is measured is also an issue, the dynamics of employment are considerably different to the employee culture of the 1970s. The gig economy, black economy and part time employment affect the figures.
@BartholomewRoberts has sparred with me on my faulty recollection of A level economics by his suggesting (in his previous life) that my fear of inflation was unfounded as inflation wouldn't be a problem, then it wouldn't be a problem because we have good (non-wage-price spiral) inflation, and interest rates wouldn't follow suit.
You stick with your Wikipedia definition of stagflation, I'll stick with mine.
You are completely misrepresenting what I said. It doesn't seem you are able to understand the nuances involved, because you keep misrepresenting it.
Can you deny that you did not believe Government policy during Covid would not lead to inflation, or at least wage-price spiral inflation, and when I stated I feared interest rate rises would follow you assured me they would not?
Or has Putin changed that dynamic?
Yes I deny that.
You said that monetary expansion must cause inflation. I said that's not necessarily correct, because there's been vast monetary expansion in Japan which has remained trapped in an inflationary spiral.
You referenced your old textbooks which concentrated on inflation. I said that since then more has been learnt, especially (but not just) via Japan and others struggling with deflation and Europe increasingly struggling with deflation over the past decade too.
Yes monetary expansion is an inflationary pressure, that is very true and I said that. But my point was, which you seem to struggle to understand, is that there are deflationary pressures too.
If the inflationary pressures and deflationary pressures are in balance, then inflation remains under control. If they get out of balance, then we can get into a serious problem - either inflation or deflation.
One little spoken about issue that is happening now is that a primary cause of the deflationary pressures (high household indebtedness) actually reduced during lockdown. Due to the support given and the lack of disposable expenditure options, many households increased savings (inflationary) but many others significantly reduced their indebtedness and that has reduced deflationary pressures.
Inflationary pressures are exceeding deflationary ones now and that might remain true for longer than the Bank is forecasting. But it is not inevitable that inflationary pressures cause inflation to happen, because if the deflationary pressures exceed them then we can get deflation instead as Japan has struggled with for three decades now - or as Europe has seen for a couple of decades.
I did indeed state that an increase in M3 was a substantially significant inflationary force, but I don't see your notion of indebtedness having being deflationary in the UK over the last 20 years, because households simply increased the debt with further cheap borrowing based on the back of property inflation- run out of liquidity so extend the mortgage. The rule has been, so long as the minimum premiums can be serviced, indebtedness is not a problem and thus on your terms not a deflationary pressure. My fear is increased interest rates make it more difficult to service minimum debt repayments. Certainly foreclosures on borrowed houses and cars are deflationary, as supply outstrips demand when stuff is repossessed, but under those circumstances my fears are realised and we are up S*** Street. Your other defence was wage-price inflation was not on the horizon...it is now!
If you don't believe debt is deflationary, then you're categorically wrong and there's plenty of economic literature to show that it is. To simplify it, if you are using your wages to pay for debt repayments then you aren't using it to chase for goods, so that is deflationary.
The irony is lockdown saw a substantial reduction in household debt. That will reduce the deflationary pressure on the economy and increase inflation as a result.
I didn't say wage prices inflation was not on the horizon for memory, indeed I've been saying for quite a while it could be. However wages only make a factor of prices, not all of it.
PS the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve etc have all deprecated and do not use M3 for their decision making precisely because of the flaws we now know about it that weren't as clear forty years ago.
The WHO have released figures from their excess deaths work. Lower total than some others have got to. In Europe, WHO implies UK reported COVID deaths very close to excess, that Germany underreported by as much as ~40%, while France significantly overreported. Striking.
Comments
At 20 weeks (which is about the edge of viability) there is a high right of mental and physical disabilities, but this very rapidly declines week on week. A woman insisting of delivery at that point is harming the child severely. However there is a point (as @Selebian noted) when early delivery dies become a reasonable option - I don’t know exactly when that is.
But the idea of balancing the rights of a mother and a child by asking her - for example - to support the child for an additional 8 weeks, say, doesn’t seem unreasonable. (This is for cases were there is not a risk of undue mental or physical harm to the woman where the calculus may be different)
He could have said so much and no more. After point X you are on your own selling gilts on the open markets. He didn't,
Despite his bleating, he is partly the author of his own downfall.
Nobody should be compelled to carry a foetus against their will. If abortion is denied, then delivery should be the alternative option. If you genuinely believe in "viability" then there's nothing wrong with that.
That is my view. I've given my supporting argument. Yes my view is an opinion, everyone's is.
(Dusts off Mankiw textbook...)
That's just bloody guessing that this war doesn't continue or widen.
They said it would peak at 4% very recently. Wage growth is 6%. 1% is historically on the floor. Inflation isn't.
They are behind the curve badly.
Stag-nation. An economy not growing
In-flation. Prices rising.
What does employment have to do with it?
In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high..
So only two of the three conditions are met.
From Wiki: In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high. It presents a dilemma for economic policy, since actions intended to lower inflation may exacerbate unemployment.
The term, a portmanteau of stagnation and inflation, is generally attributed to Iain Macleod, a British Conservative Party politician who became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1970. Macleod used the word in a 1965 speech to Parliament during a period of simultaneously high inflation and unemployment in the United Kingdom.[1][2][3][4] Warning the House of Commons of the gravity of the situation, he said:
"We now have the worst of both worlds—not just inflation on the one side or stagnation on the other, but both of them together. We have a sort of 'stagflation' situation. And history, in modern terms, is indeed being made."[3][5]
Everyone on the bus stops, round the water coolers, on the FaceTime chat saying “did he pork the pig?”
How does the politician shut it down? Big G’s complaint against Starmer this morning (and IshmaelZ complaint all week) why don’t Starmer shut it down? There must be something to it, something you are trying to hide if you can’t shut it down. There’s no smoke without some pork porking friction.
Unless you can prove, specifically, with detail you did not pork any pig, you can’t shut it down.
That’s why things like this such a great political smear 😁
Bottom line?
If the Tories hadn’t gone so negative, instead talked positively about efficient Tory councils like Wandsworth has always been, compared to ideological madness and insane waste of so many Labour councils, would the Tory’s have lost fewer councillors?
Its their job to forecast and to act accordingly.
Trump rampers are routinely shadow banned by twitter and the like. Often these people are relegated to the likes of Locals or Rumble or whatever, sideshow outlets.
Trumpist politics is appealing to lots of Americans, and until his opponents realise that and try to find out why, they won't defeat him
You could in theory impeach the president immediately, but that's not in the gift of any one party since no party constitutes a supermajority, And in any case, even that doesn't restore the actual winner, it just removes the president. And the obvious practical issue is that if you're happy enough to stop the electoral college count through violence, then are you really above intimidating or murdering senators?
You are spot on about the insurrection at the Capitol not being the only aspect that deserves focus. The attempted coup was multifaceted and was carried out both in public and private. It failed because of a very small number of people who stood firm.
However. It remains the target they are tasked with. Even if it ought not to be.
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Trump doesn't - they're in the Constitution and he's nowhere near being able to enact an Amendment.
I'd recommend reading Turtledove's American Empire series. Set in a world where the Confederacy won the Civil War, it charts the rise of a Hitler analogue after the CSA had been on the losing side in WWI. It's alarmingly plausible for how it could have happened, but the necessary conditions for Trump to do the same are not remotely close to being met.
Please quote me any textbook that references stagflation without referencing unemployment, otherwise I say you are bullshitting. 🙄
Meanwhile, this "shadow ban" stuff is horseshit. There are millions of pro-Trump tweeps who happily post away night and day. Go look for yourself, accounts are free to set up.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/05/cybereason_china_operation_cuckoobees/
From my 'variable rate mortgage' point of view, I completely disagree(!)
But yes. Interest rates are far too low. I suspect (hope) the BoE are just trying to soften the blow by raising rates at 0.25% per month until they get to where they want to be (which is probably 5%).
https://twitter.com/cbs_spacenews/status/1521887273406640138
"Did the primary buffer panel just fall off my goram ship for no apparent reason?!"
I do wonder whether Trump's support would be so robust if he was not so publicly hated by the good and educated.
PS And lest it is not clear, I have come to hate what he does and represents with a vengeance.
@BartholomewRoberts has sparred with me on my faulty recollection of A level economics by his suggesting (in his previous life) that my fear of inflation was unfounded as inflation wouldn't be a problem, then it wouldn't be a problem because we have good (non-wage-price spiral) inflation, and interest rates wouldn't follow suit.
You stick with your Wikipedia definition of stagflation, I'll stick with mine.
(Jump in unemployment, drop in inflation, no growth).
Edit: other similarities include a big energy shock. And restrictive monetary policy....
An analogy: why do we restrict your right to drive at 80 miles per hour outside a school at the end of the school day? It because the potential harm to others is greater than the benefit to you.
If I don't want to speed past a school, then I have the option of not going past the school, I have choices. If a woman doesn't want to carry the child, you want to invasively deny her choice.
You are saying abortion up to the point of birth is ok because an unborn baby has no rights. That is a logical argument.
When asked to support the fundamental assumption (“an unborn baby has no rights”) you get huffy and say its an opinion.
Not very convincing
The thinking goes "things are shit. The people who made things shit hate X. Therefore X is worth a try".
This is consistent with my view that when the foetus is not viable (ie up to about 22 weeks) then the choice for abortion should be entirely with the mother. Beyond then then the right to life now rests with the foetus and abortion should not be allowed unless it is clearly apparent that continuing with the pregnancy would present a risk of death or significant permanent physical harm to the mother.
Yes it is only my view, I never said otherwise.
There is no objective truth here. You can't dig in the ground and find a vein of inalienable rights that says that life begins at ...
My view is my view, for the reasons given. If you disagree, you're entitled to your own views.
The difference is I don't want to deny anyone a choice over their own body, I don't want to force my views on others.
In practice very few abortions are at that late stage, and then usually because of major abnormalities.
Or has Putin changed that dynamic?
I can buy the argument that a temporary period of low or negative growth is not sufficient: it’s an extended period of low growth (negative growth would be a depression). High unemployment could be a symptom of that but not sure it is the only one (although it was the case in the 1970s so it is observed history where n=1)
Stagflation must has three ingredients, sluggish or no growth, high unemployment, inflationary pressures on prices.
Let’s think of it as the necessary ingredients to call the eventual cake “stagflation.” But, as in every bake off, what quantities of each make it distinctly Stagflation? Or put another way, if you got a lot of no growth, a lot of inflation, what is the quantity of unemployment that is the issue? (Plus a lot of people have been allowed to retire out the workforce).
What we have is a huge problem in the UK right now with vacancies which can’t be filled. We are missing about 600K migrants who used to do this pre Brexit, chefs from Rumania for example.
When you say Stagflation must have unemployment issue, how would you quantify that? What does it actually bring to the equation?
Technically sticking to the letter of the law
"It is understood the reason is the traditional format of the garden parties, in terms of the length of time they last and the time she would usually spend standing and walking to greet the lines of invited guests."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but changing that format to sitting down and having the line move past would have been the obvious solution if that really was the reason.
You said that monetary expansion must cause inflation. I said that's not necessarily correct, because there's been vast monetary expansion in Japan which has remained trapped in an inflationary spiral.
You referenced your old textbooks which concentrated on inflation. I said that since then more has been learnt, especially (but not just) via Japan and others struggling with deflation and Europe increasingly struggling with deflation over the past decade too.
Yes monetary expansion is an inflationary pressure, that is very true and I said that. But my point was, which you seem to struggle to understand, is that there are deflationary pressures too.
If the inflationary pressures and deflationary pressures are in balance, then inflation remains under control. If they get out of balance, then we can get into a serious problem - either inflation or deflation.
One little spoken about issue that is happening now is that a primary cause of the deflationary pressures (high household indebtedness) actually reduced during lockdown. Due to the support given and the lack of disposable expenditure options, many households increased savings (inflationary) but many others significantly reduced their indebtedness and that has reduced deflationary pressures.
Inflationary pressures are exceeding deflationary ones now and that might remain true for longer than the Bank is forecasting. But it is not inevitable that inflationary pressures cause inflation to happen, because if the deflationary pressures exceed them then we can get deflation instead as Japan has struggled with for three decades now - or as Europe has seen for a couple of decades.
In Europe, WHO implies UK reported COVID deaths very close to excess, that Germany underreported by as much as ~40%, while France significantly overreported.
Striking.
https://twitter.com/paulmainwood/status/1522194001746710531
But the current rules aren’t unreasonable and if HFEA said no change then that’s the conclusion for another 20 years or so.
Unless you can provide an ethical or philosophical underpinning for that there is little point in debating with you as you are just restating your opinion
There is a second question though - what rights does the father have?
Two scenarios:
A woman can abort again the wishes of the father - seems reasonable as she is much more involved during gestation
A man can abort against the wishes of the mother… philosophically it seems harder to argue that he has no rights to determine the outcome.
There's no such thing as objective underpinning. What exactly do you expect me to offer you?
That wasn't in the script. Curious how they calculated that.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stagnation.asp
But most places actually support St Bart’s definition.
This is the problem I would have in a classroom, it’s clearly so woolly, so when a teacher, like Mr Bart , says no this is the text book definition to use in the exam, the truth is actually its woolly sir. Some only regard it in relation to continued sluggish growth, don’t even mention inflation, it could also considered unemployment is more a symptom of stagflation not a creator of it.
Surely to learn, we haven’t just got to learn a definition, but why that definition, and those who disagree and why they do?
But in any case she is not standing and isn't well known in Tiv and Hon.
Instead of that bollocks?
How's your portable dosimeter? Still in working order?
Will everyone who yelled that the government had done very badly apologise?
At the time I was puzzled as he was only in Putin’s middle circle, but I guess he was loyal but not powerful enough to be a threat so it makes sense from Putin’s perspective
Btw I respect the view - which some people have - that all abortion is flat out wrong because it destroys a human life. I don't share the sentiment but there's nothing wrong with it. The problem comes when people holding that view seek to impose it by law on those who don't.
At one point, as President, IIRC, he went slightly off script. Might even have been accidental. He got squashed back into his box in about a millisecond, by Putin and the rest.
The irony is lockdown saw a substantial reduction in household debt. That will reduce the deflationary pressure on the economy and increase inflation as a result.
I didn't say wage prices inflation was not on the horizon for memory, indeed I've been saying for quite a while it could be. However wages only make a factor of prices, not all of it.
PS the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve etc have all deprecated and do not use M3 for their decision making precisely because of the flaws we now know about it that weren't as clear forty years ago.
Boris Johnson might be best to call a snap General Election for next month.