As the abortion controversy flares up again, what is the money angle?
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Jeruba (
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May 3rd, 2022
I don’t believe for a minute that it is truly all and only about moral conviction, a matter of beliefs about right and wrong. I want to know who stands to profit and who loses money (or influence that can be cashed in) if Roe v. Wade goes down.
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Anyone who wants to prevent a shift in the status quo of wealth being transferred from the bottom 90% to the top 0.1%. As inflation rises during a period of record profits and lots of stock buybacks, while wages struggle to keep pace, the natural tendency would be for labor to organize/unionize and to vote in politicians with populist economic policies such as progressive taxation.
Wedge social issues like abortion are a mechanism to distract from economic “kitchen table issues” that would otherwise unify the electorate against the billionaire class. The DNC and the RNC both are beholden to these donors and have no interest in meaningful change (despite populist rhetoric to the contrary). These social issues allow them to fundraise on social outrage while keeping the politicians in place who will maintain the economic status quo.
The politicians profit, because they raise money on the wedge issues as said above. Politicians like that the topic of abortion will likely never be completely solved in the United States of America.
Companies that make baby formula, diapers, baby food, hospital systems, they all do better pretty quickly if more births start happening.
Worth mentioning: The group of pro-lifers who “don’t want to pay for other people’s children” think they are saving their own money by not helping to fund abortions, but instead they will be handing over more money to care for pregnant women and the children as they grow up. I’m not even talking about poor women and children, but that especially will cost money. Even middle class people with private health insurance raise premiums for all if there are a lot of births and children, and taxes go up if more public schools needed. These people don’t even actually fund abortions, but they think they do.
@gorillapaws is right. A population that is hungry and exhausted is compliant. This issue is about women at the base of it, but the core is about controlling the lower strata of the socio-economic ladder. Laborers work for less, they are too desperate and tired too fight, corporate profits rise, rich get richer, etc.
A 2016 study by the CDC showed Black women abort at almost four times the rate of white women. “Back abortion rate (abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years) exceeded all other races:
Black abortion rate: 25.1
Hispanic abortion rate: 11.7
White abortion rate: 6.6”
I would have expected a society/community that prides itself on its “whiteness” and “Taking America back” would be making abortions even easier.
Maybe their businesses need more low level workers in low paying jobs.
@LuckyGuy Your answer reminds me of how the pro-life side has been pushing the idea that pro-choice/liberal/socialist/Nazi/Godless Democrats (not my words) are trying to use eugenics to reduce the Black population through abortion. I figure that’s to try to woo Black people to join the Republican Party. I couldn’t help thinking they also complain about Black people and people in poverty living on the dole, so how does that compute for them. It’s just another example of contradictions.
Although, I think the Republican leaders’ main goal is to unite and motivate their own base; to make sure the Evangelics go out and vote. Some of them really think the Democrats are the Neo-Nazis. It’s crazy.
@LuckyGuy Your last sentence says it all. It is not about eliminating those considered to be “lesser” by the WS Patriarchy, but about maintaining power over and controlling them.
It’s not a money angle. It’s a self-righteous religious angle to possibly get a better deal when they get to heaven.
@KNOWITALL Let’s stick to today. Do you think Planned Parenthood is purposefully aborting Black children to keep that population down? Or, that they are providing services that the woman wants?
There would be fewer abortions if they weren’t getting pregnant in the first place. If they were controlling their fertility better the Republicans wouldn’t be able to even use it as a talking point. Part of that is poverty and not good access to birth control, and part of it is education, or cultural pressures. Same among other races and ethnicities, I’m only talking about Black people because of the political talking point.
I don’t think there is much of a money angle. Votes and support….sure. As a distraction? Doubt it. For a good percentage of the population this is a top issue they want to see taken care of. It’s so divisive that when the chance comes to do something one way or the other action is going to be taken. We all know this, we know what the evangelicals and other pro-lifers want. This is something they’ll deny but we all know that they want a full on abortion ban. This is just like the left wing on guns. “We don’t want to take away your guns or 2nd amendment rights.” Um, yes you do and given the chance you will. If Roe Vs Wade is overturned this means that the supreme court is no longer politically neutral and that’s not good for anybody.
It’s a money issue only because women who have unwanted pregnancies end up financially disadvantaged:
– interrupted education/training = lower income jobs
– time off to care for a child = fewer years of experience = lower wages
– more mouths to feed = higher economic burden
– many men won’t want to marry a woman who already has a child = difficult to have a dual income household.
@Blackwater_Park Maybe we should meet in the middle and ban guns and abortion both.
I’m left wing. I don’t want to see a gun ban. I just want stricter gun laws.
@Dutchess_III I’m a Libertarian, so I think the less government interference the better on all counts.
The money angle as far as I’m concerned has less to do with whose financial balance sheet will rise or fall. Clearly, for those places mandating its abolishment, it is the women seeking the procedure who are inflicted with additional expense and hassle. The thing that is never discussed is the fact that is only the desperately disadvantaged women—those who for whatever reason cannot get a ride to some nearby state—as a practical matter, abortion will not be eliminated. It’s simply less convenient. It’s once again important to understand just how crucial it is to appreciate that if you are poor, how you are treated hangs on where you live. And it has always fascinated me that in America, it’s always in the places distinguished for concentrations of the poor where those impoverished are ALWAYS treated worse. And there are states in this country where persecution of the poor has been for generations honed to an art.
@HP It’s not an ordeal here, just a quick drive to St Louis and across the river. We do that for concerts and ball games fairly often.
@KNOWITALL: That’s great for people who live near a state line, but for people who don’t, who maybe have to travel hours to get to the next state, it may be the difference between being able to afford the trip and not being able to afford the trip. For those who live deep in the heart of Texas or Idaho or somewhere “deep,” it wouldn’t be do-able without a lot of gas, hours of driving, maybe a hotel room for the night, and maybe time off from work (maybe unpaid time off).
See, that’s the thing which should bother us all. This furor over rescinding Roe is big in those places where as with black folks along with them, women must ” know their place”. If it was men who get pregnant, abortions would be routinely available in any pool hall or barbershop nationwide.
@jca2 So again, the further South you are in our country…... you can finish the sentence. I was watching the News hour, when some official from Connecticut was inviting women from Mississippi to have the procedure in his state. Were it any other issue, I would have laughed.
@KNOWITALL Meeting in the middle for me is keeping both guns and abortion legal. I see them both as unpleasant but necessary things. Yes guns kill innocent people sometimes, yes babies are sometimes murdered out of convenience. It’s ugly but both abortion and guns are still needed for dealing with other unpleasantries of our society. People twist and contort these issues to levels that are terrifying to me. They place all kinds of blame or try to find some larger conspiracy but it’s really just our inability to face the necessity of something that may be ugly or seem wrong from an emotional, ignorant, naive or tainted perspective.
@Blackwater_Park Agreed. But I swear I’d give up my guns if I never had to listen to another argument on either subject.
Because, you know, taking away a person’s right to bodily autonomy is just the same as taking away a miscellaneous possession.
@canidmajor These are similar issues in the sense of how we deal with them, never said they were the same. I mean you can do the regular twists that have all been said and don’t work for people who see things differently. Taking away a person’s right to defend themselves… Robbing women of their bodily autonomy, murdering babies, the patriarchy uses this to subjugate women, it’s racist yada, yada yada….
No, it’s just ugly and some people simply can’t see past that and you will never convince them otherwise.
Planned Parenthood stands to loose.
@KNOWITALL “I’m a Libertarian, so I think the less government interference the better on all counts.”
So you’re pro-choice? I’m confused. Anti-choice is authoritarian, the opposite of libertarian.
@gorillapaws “Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration,” the 2018 Libertarian Party platform states.
This position dates back to the earliest years of the Libertarian Party, especially the 1974 platform, which called for “the repeal of all laws restricting voluntary birth control or the right of the woman to make a personal moral choice regarding the termination of pregnancy.”
Libertarians also oppose the use of taxpayer funds or other government resources for abortion. Like other matters of individual conscience, abortion should be kept out of the public sphere.
“The Libertarian Party calls for an end to government persecution and prosecution of the women who choose abortions and of the medical personnel who assist them,” said Libertarian National Committee Chair Nicholas Sarwark. “We also call for an end to subsidies, an end to prescription requirements for contraception, and an end to restrictive demographic adoption policies. Those who truly want to reduce abortions should consider that a culture of freedom, persuasion, and real individual choice can accomplish far more than a culture of prohibition and punishment ever has.”
– lp.org
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