Wishful thinking is not the same thing as morality.

Check out this conversation that Jordan Klepper had with John Kasich. Join me on the other side:

Kasich is one of the un-crazy Republicans, if we’re going to use January 6 terminology. Nevertheless, he still doesn’t get it and his reasoning is going to be the reason why we are going to make millions of women into human sacrifices. Here’s what I heard:

1.) Abortion is a divisive issue. Now it’s up to the states. This is the “Standard issue Republican talking point of 2022”. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s one of those Frank Luntz focus group talking points that’s infuriatingly difficult to move past as Klepper finds. It stops any further argument. Klepper could have asked him about gerrymandered states where voting on state legislative seats is a pointless exercise. Would Kasich approve of referendums on the ballot so that everyone gets a crack at making the law in the state? What do you say, John Kasich? Can Ohio have a referendum on abortion rights? We’re all waiting for an answer. If it’s left up to the states, shouldn’t ALL the citizens of a state have a vote?

2.) Kasich is of the same mind as many other anti-choice people. There is only one choice. Motherhood. That’s it. He’s concerned that there are no exceptions for rape and incest, true, but his greater concern is that there was nothing in place for mothers. No crisis centers, no extra support, etc. I’m not disagreeing that economics have something to do with *some* abortions. But for the majority of women I have known who had abortions, and there were many, it was simply a matter of not wanting to be mothers and there’s just no way to get around that. Some women will kill themselves to not become mothers. Wishful thinking will not change this.

3.) Kasich just comes right out and says that now, other people’s opinions on this will be respected. I have heard this my entire life. You are never old enough or independent enough or mature enough to disagree with the opinions of a person with deeply held religiously derived moral beliefs. You may also hold moral beliefs as well. But to a religious person, they can be dismissed without consideration because theirs’ come from a more authoritative source and they’re saved and you’re not and you are not allowed (in their minds) to challenge them. No. Not on abortion or gay sex or evolution or any other thing they think is based on the Bible.

It’s astonishing to me how many Twitter commenters resort to saying the no abortions idea is based on biblical morality and the only way to not risk needing one is to not have sex. When it gets right down to it, the Bible has a lot more to say about FORNICATION than abortion. You can get stoned for fornicating but not for self-managing a medication abortion. The Bible is quite clear on sex and has plenty of examples of men sleeping with other men’s wives and seducing sisters and throwing daughters out to the town to rape and do with them what they will and incest of daughters with their fathers and concubines being chopped up by their husbands after they were thrown out to the town to be raped and nothing ever happens to those men in the Bible. These are transgressions that no ethical person in the 21st century would condone but in this Bronze Age text, it’s perfectly normal. It’s also perfectly normal to condemn women to death for illicit sex by throwing her to the dogs or stoning her. There are some passages about punishments for causing a pregnant woman to miscarry but those were the days when women and their offspring were considered valuable property of the owners m, potential workers, legal heirs and barter for transactions later.

That’s respectable. 🙄

In all the comments about abortion I see from the other side, the intensity of focus is on the fetus. There is almost never any mention of the human sacrifices that must be made in the service of the fetus.

Conclusion: We’ve been gathering data and observations on the anti-choice movement for 48 years now. We know definitively that the ability to get a safe abortion saved many human lives. But those who rely on religion for morality will not be satisfied until there are no abortions in the United States. They are also fanatically fixated on motherhood and what they perceive to be promiscuity. They are also either intolerant or unaware of the morality of abortion of other religious faiths other than fundamentalist Christianity or Catholicism. Muslim and Jewish morality on abortion is not considered nor are other faiths or no faiths.

The Dobbs decision cites morality as the reason why abortion is different from gay marriage or interracial marriage. But the morality applied has the strictest criteria and the proponents of that strict morality are the only authorities that are recognized and respected.

Excuse me for saying this but it looks like the justices have set up a state religion. The morality they are relying on can be traced back to the Old Testament proscriptions on extramarital sex and a handful of writings by medieval scholars.

The problem is the disrespect these moralists have for any other opinion.

I will offer mine anyway.

Nature already gave us the right to abortion. Animals, such as bears and mongooses, are capable of abortion under certain circumstances. Environmental pressures make it difficult to obtain resources for themselves and their offspring. Natural selection Favors organisms that are capable of passing their genetic material to the next generation. But you can’t get your offspring to the next generation if there are insufficient resources to sustain life. Better to conserve the energy of the adult and abort any fetuses that are unlikely to survive. Wait until next year. Seems sensible. As far as I know, animals don’t freak out about premarital sex.

Humans are also animals and face environmental stresses. Humans spontaneously abort. Maybe more of them spontaneously aborted back when our circumstances were more precarious hundreds of thousands of years ago. With better diets, vaccines, clean water, etc, spontaneous abortions are probably less likely. I’ll bet there are peer reviewed papers on this subject.

But our definition of environmental stress and resources have changed. It follows that our definition of reproductive success has also changed. Our definition of successful offspring has changed. Abortion isn’t proscribed by nature but like many things related to human gynecological medicine, human females can’t always do it for themselves. They need a little help.

Back in Roman times, women consumed herbs and plants they knew to be abortifacients. One of these was a plant called Sylphium. It was so popular it was over-farmed and is now considered extinct. There are many others still around like Queen Anne’s lace aka wild carrot. Medication abortions are our new Sylphium.

That coupled with the age of viability cutoff is my morality. Do what you need to do during the first trimester is my preference or up to viability. After that, doctors can help women facing health issues or fetal abnormalities.

My ethics and morality are based on actual evidence. Nature should override Bronze Age gods and mansplaining logic of medieval saints.

The moralists seem to think that if they force women to bear children, there will be no more promiscuity and the traditional role of motherhood will prevail. This goes against all experience. Everything we know from history proves that women will still engage in sex and they won’t necessarily want to be mothers. The ripping apart of little baby bodies that so abhors the tut-tutting moralists will now be performed by unregulated people who want to make immense profits by it. And thousands of tragedies will occur. For 49 years, we were able to stop these tragedies but now they will occur regularly and not one person who doesn’t want to be pregnant will be persuaded to not pursue an abortion by whatever means necessary.

Under Roe, no one who holds their morality above their own well being was forced to get an abortion. Now, anyone who values their own well being is required to become a human sacrifice and to reproduce when they aren’t ready or willing. But only one of these groups of people has respectable morality. The mistake we have made in the last 49 years that happier cultures have figured out is giving excessive respect and authority to the religious who rely on antiquated ideas of morality that do not value women. Not only do they rely on supernatural beings that can’t be proven to exist while ignoring nature, they also wish fervently that they get the unearned respect of people who don’t share their faith. I will refrain from commenting on what kind of personality issues those people have but their issues shouldn’t become the basis for everyone else’s major life decisions. No one should be forced into motherhood because some church lady feels oogy about premarital sex.

Wishful thinking should not be the basis of legal rulings and it is no more worthy of respect than personal ethics. I think it violates the first amendment on establishment of a state religion. That shouldn’t need to be said but, there, I’ve said it.