Rvw

[vertical_doug]

https://www.propublica.org/article/l...ment-education

I think the reversal will be swift.

[echappist]

I tie some of this into the prosperity bible and conservative evangelicals (including some catholics). I hear more and more people are doing very well talked about being 'blessed'. I think this turns traditional Christian teachings upside down. Classic bible- it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. New Prosperity Bible- I am rich because God blessed me. It is a bit of changing the narrative to justify the means to an ends. . . scares the heck out of me.)

So maybe Amy, Neil and Brett lied under oath, but they are blessed so God must have wanted them to. The ends justifies the means....

To be fair, Prosperity Gospel isn't new, but the world view it encourages has been co-opted in the political sphere.

Take for instance, the tale of the biblical David, an anointed (as in, divinely approved) king who committed a series of acts of transgressions and was divinely punished in his lifetime for those wrongs. Especially pertinent to the tale are the fact that David was given a stern (divine) verbal reprimand and still had to go through the punishments, and that part about transgression and punishment serves as an integral part of the whole tale.

Already in much of protestant belief, the part about paying for one's transgression in the material world gets downplayed (in the form of confess and one shall be forgiven). The political version of the Prosperity Gospel adds to that by de-emphasizing the part about the transgressions and spins it into, while he committed numerous transgressions, he achieved x, y, and z. That type of world view becomes a way to allow one to overlook serious flaws and acts of transgression, and this particular understanding of the biblical David served as a way to (successfully) convince conservative evangelicals reconcile the conflict between their personal beliefs and the support for deeply flawed politicians who are willing to serve as champions of the former.

It also happens to be why President Carter, a man who actively try to abide by the Book, gets short thrift in evangelical circles. This phenomenon isn't new, unfortunately...

Here, I'm reminded of this quote by Richard Niebuhr when commenting on the movement of Social Gospel, an early 20th century religious framework characterized as liberal theology.

"A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross."

Seems it could be just as easily applied to Prosperity Gospel (and its various manifestations).

[bcm119]

It's nothing more than the old patriarchy wanting women to be barefoot & pregnant. They are still fighting the feminist movement because it threatens them. I really don't think it's much more complicated than that. The religious aspect is just a convenient political lever.

[TRuth]

It's difficult for me to understand the anti-abortion point of view let alone how to get these many individuals to come around to a more reasonable position.

If you don't want an abortion, don't have an abortion.

These are the same folks who believe 'my body my choice' when it comes to vaccinations.

[Doug Fattic]

It's difficult for me to understand the anti-abortion point of view let alone how to get these many individuals to come around to a more reasonable position.

If you don't want an abortion, don't have an abortion.

These are the same folks who believe 'my body my choice' when it comes to vaccinations.

This position is not based on logic or reason but rather on theology. Their belief is that a soul from heaven combines with the fertilized egg that together form a living being at conception. Therefore a newly fertilized egg has the same value and rights as a living person. In their view this is part of how God made the world. Since He is the ultimate authority, no amount of logic will change their minds. They are doing whatever it takes to implement God's will on earth. This Roman Catholic belief has been adopted by some Protestant churches.

One should understand that as soon as a person believes that at any stage of development a baby in the womb has the same value and rights as any human, then there will be laws coming that will enforce this view. They will include a ban on abortion pills (because there is no difference how early the abortion process takes place). And women who try to have an abortion might be charged with murder as well as anyone trying to assist in that murder (including those driving them to a state where abortion is legal). You can count on these laws coming but not necessarily that they will be enacted. That takes enough popular support. Banning contraception pills would come from the same philosophy but couldn't be done without enough popular support.

My own view (as a practicing go-to-church-every-week Protestant) is that a ban on abortion is basically a religious based law and therefore violates the separation of church and state. We should be free to choose our views on the beginnings of life and whether we think God (if He exists) has anything to do with it or not. There are a lot of inconsistencies that can be pointed out in some modern churches. Starting with their favorite political leader acts the opposite of any of Jesus's examples or teachings.

[echappist]

This position is not based on logic or reason but rather on theology. Their belief is that a soul from heaven combines with the fertilized egg that together form a living being at conception. Therefore a newly fertilized egg has the same value and rights as a living person. In their view this is part of how God made the world. Since He is the ultimate authority, no amount of logic will change their minds. They are doing whatever it takes to implement God's will on earth. This Roman Catholic belief has been adopted by some Protestant churches.

One should understand that as soon as a person believes that at any stage of development a baby in the womb has the same value and rights as any human, then there will be laws coming that will enforce this view. They will include a ban on abortion pills (because there is no difference how early the abortion process takes place). And women who try to have an abortion might be charged with murder as well as anyone trying to assist in that murder (including those driving them to a state where abortion is legal). You can count on these laws coming but not necessarily that they will be enacted. That takes enough popular support. Banning contraception pills would come from the same philosophy but couldn't be done without enough popular support.

My own view (as a practicing go-to-church-every-week Protestant) is that a ban on abortion is basically a religious based law and therefore violates the separation of church and state. We should be free to choose our views on the beginnings of life and whether we think God (if He exists) has anything to do with it or not. There are a lot of inconsistencies that can be pointed out in some modern churches. Starting with their favorite political leader acts the opposite of any of Jesus's examples or teachings.

Only minor quibble with your cogent post is the line highlighted.

I think it's indeed possible that some will be enacted (e.g. Alabama and Mississippi, where there won't be gubernatorial opposition to such a bill), but that it will be so selectively enforced as to make such laws spitefully punitive. And here, we should remember that certain laws have already been zealously applied as to target women who had a natural miscarriage.

If someone is a member of the House Pro-Choice Caucus (yes, that is a thing), one set of rules for said someone when he asks his extramarital paramour to terminate her pregnancy due to him.

Otherwise, pretty much a case of throw the books at the woman (and those assisting her).

The particular view may be religion-based, but how that view is implemented legally will be straight-up cynical, calculated, and without mercy.

And here's the kicker (though don't expect proponents of draconian measures to see the hypocrisy): they excuse their own misdeeds and those of people whom they support under the guise of mercy, but it'll be full-on Old Testament style fire and brimstone for those deemed unworthy of mercy (e.g. anyone who disagrees with that theocratic worldview).

[jimcav]

I did not see a reply to the question on the soundness of the legal reasoning in RVW, but since it was reaffirmed in 1992, I have to think there is enough there that it should be given considerable respect under precedence etc.
the leak of the draft opinion was very upsetting to me. I've had many family members affected by violent men, and a few (too many) affected by racist and homophobic types.

When my wife's grandmother was in her 90's, my mom and I spent time with her. Sharp as a tack in her 90's. Afterwards I remarked on all the amazing changes she had seen--in her lifetime: 2 world wars, the right to vote for women, prohibition, great depression, space exploration, etc.

I asked my mom (born in '39) what was the greatest invention in her lifetime (she had grown up with an outhouse and had joked with me everyone was constipated because it was so awful you held your crap until you really had to go), and I was a little surprised when, without even a split-second she replied, "the pill".
She said prior to birth control pills that she, her sister, every women she knew was at the mercy of men as far as getting pregnant. The pill gave her freedom to pursue education and career which would not otherwise have been possible. The ability to say no, have that respected, or get any justice if it wasn't, well it was pretty nonexistent not that many decades ago...

If religious/partisan ideas can be harnessed to overturn a right that has been in place for nearly 50 years, it certainly gives me pause to think what other rights and liberties that arise from the same concepts of privacy and personal autonomy can be revoked: contraception, who and how you love, etc.

[gregl]

If religious/partisan ideas can be harnessed to overturn a right that has been in place for nearly 50 years, it certainly gives me pause to think what other rights and liberties that arise from the same concepts of privacy and personal autonomy can be revoked: contraception, who and how you love, etc.

That is exactly the end goal of this cultural dark age. RvW is just the first win in this war for the religious/racist/sexist people leading the charge. They want to turn back the calendar on many rights. Make no mistake: if RvW is taken down by the Supreme Court as indicated by the leaked opinion, "morning after pills" are next on the list. Rights to contraception and same sex marriage will be in gunsights shortly thereafter. I shudder to think how repressive this will get.

Greg

[gregl]

"morning after pills" are next on the list.

I hate it when I'm right... https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/06/us/te...ill/index.html

Greg

[vertical_doug]

I hate it when I'm right... https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/06/us/te...ill/index.html

Greg

And Mississippi Gov wants to ban contraceptives once RvW falls.

It's just the beginning

[vertical_doug]

Blake Masters who is a candidate for Arizona Senate backed by Peter Thiel and Trump wants to ban contraceptives too... He even wants to overturn 1965 Griswold v Conn which is a basic right to privacy.

It seems the Prequel to Handmaiden's Tale is writing itself before our eyes. .

[echappist]

Blake Masters who is a candidate for Arizona Senate backed by Peter Thiel and Trump wants to ban contraceptives too... He even wants to overturn 1965 Griswold v Conn which is a basic right to privacy.

It seems the Prequel to Handmaiden's Tale is writing itself before our eyes. .

Thiel is probably not the marrying type; so Obergerfell is likely irrelevant to him.

But what would happen if the overturning of Griswold has deeper implications on the current holding that government has no power to forbid consensual homosexual acts between adults? I will concede that he would be unlikely to ever suffer from any type of directed prosecution, but the irony here... Then again, most of the really wealthy have no idea what irony and cognitive dissonance means, for their wealth allows them to adopt an all-round laissez-faire attitude and pretend to be a libertarian. Push comes to shove, the aforementioned cohort all care more about their wealth than anything else.

[Mark Walberg]

This position is not based on logic or reason but rather on theology. Their belief is that a soul from heaven combines with the fertilized egg that together form a living being at conception. ...... There are a lot of inconsistencies that can be pointed out in some modern churches.......

Agree. Another of the big inconsistencies - Many christians in favor of banning abortion, at the same time believe that the death penalty is a good idea.

[j44ke]

I think the speed of information has a corollary about the speed of forgetting increasing at an equal rate. Reminds me of something written by Walter Benjamin:

“A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”

[72gmc]

Blake Masters who is a candidate for Arizona Senate backed by Peter Thiel and Trump wants to ban contraceptives too... He even wants to overturn 1965 Griswold v Conn which is a basic right to privacy.

It seems the Prequel to Handmaiden's Tale is writing itself before our eyes. .

Broken people with billionaires' wallets ...

[echappist]

It's still somewhat baffling that Maine decided to vote for Collins (420k votes to 350k votes for her Democrat Party opponent) when Maine as a whole went nearly the other way for the presidential vote (435k for Biden vs 361k).

And now she pulls an "I'm scared" stunt and called the police, all because someone wrote the message of “Susie, please, Mainers want WHPA —–> vote yes, clean up your mess.” on the sidewalk outside of her house.

I know it's rhetorical to ask, but is she really that feckless?

[robin3mj]

It's still somewhat baffling that Maine decided to vote for Collins (420k votes to 350k votes for her Democrat Party opponent) when Maine as a whole went nearly the other way for the presidential vote (435k for Biden vs 361k).

And now she pulls an "I'm scared" stunt and called the police, all because someone wrote the message of “Susie, please, Mainers want WHPA —–> vote yes, clean up your mess.” on the sidewalk outside of her house.

I know it's rhetorical to ask, but is she really that feckless?

She has built her career on this. Act juuust independent enough to stay elected/relevant in an otherwise liberal leaning state. Never taking decisive positions one way or another, waiting until the decisive votes have been made clear, and then (surprisingly often) finding herself shocked that there is gambling going on in this establishment.

[jimcav]

shocked that there is gambling going on in this establishment.

a disservice to Louis Renault to draw any comparison to S. Collins, but I love any call back to Casablanca

[echappist]

She has built her career on this. Act juuust independent enough to stay elected/relevant in an otherwise liberal leaning state. Never taking decisive positions one way or another, waiting until the decisive votes have been made clear, and then (surprisingly often) finding herself shocked that there is gambling going on in this establishment.

I mean, those paying attention has long figured out her shtick. I’m a bit more surprised by the naïveté of her constituents.

[thollandpe]

It's still somewhat baffling that Maine decided to vote for Collins...

She benefited from being seen as Olympia Snowe's sidekick, but she is certainly no Olympia Snowe.

Olympia Snowe: Why I'm leaving the Senate

"I do not believe that, in the near term, the Senate can correct itself from within."

Sen. Snowe (R-Maine) said that 10 years ago. As Jonathan Capeheart wrote about her retirement, "If the Congress continues to lose moderates and centrists who feel duty-bound to do what's right for the country, then the United States will cease to be governable."

We are 10 years further down that road, pedal to the metal.