Here's a look at how many abortions are likely to be halted after Roe v. Wade is overturned and conservative red states have passed laws outlawing abortion (red bars):
I've counted any state with a 50% majority opposed to "all or most" abortions as a state likely to pass a law banning all or most abortions. As you might guess, most of these states have already passed laws making it difficult to get abortions, so they don't account for that many to begin with. They make up about 22% of the 800,000 abortions performed each year, with half of that in Texas and Georgia alone.
Obviously there are other states, like North Carolina and Florida, that might ban abortion as well, even though majorities don't support it. And there are some in the opposite category. Nevertheless, if we want to provide abortion services to everyone who's cut off from them by the Supreme Court, this gives us a rough baseline number: about 3,000 per week. Add in another couple thousand who have already been partly cut off, and then figure an average out-of-state abortion costs about $1,500, and we're talking something like $7-8 million per week.
If progressive organizations—and progressive billionaires—are serious about this, it's not really very much money at all.
$7M a week times 52 is over $350M a year. This is actually a fair bit of money, especially since it will be required annually.
Back when abortion was illegal in Ireland, there were abortion tours that included transportation to England, food, lodging, an abortion and a trip to Stratford-on-Avon to see one of Shakespeare's plays. (My source on this is David Lodge.) I can almost see New York posting "I Love New York" tours that are very similar but include a Broadway musical instead of a more serious play.
yeah, the idea that there are a bunch of progressive billionaires who'll drop $350 million a year in perpetuity to provide abortions is so absurd i half think kevin's trolling.
Jeff Bezos makes $1,860,000,000 a year. He can single handedly fund the entire program forever and still make money every year. Not that he needs it.
Well, needless to say I can't read and my math is questionable. But his net worth is 151.8 billion. Take 10%, 15.18 billion. Divide by 350,000,000. That's 43 years worth of funding by Bezos alone. I figure he can manage on 136 billion, assuming his network never goes up another cent.
A better way to think of it, perhaps, is that in the investment world it's a rule of thumb that you can spend about 4% of a sum annually forever as long as the sum is invested wisely. (So, $1 billion invested gives you about $40 million to spend each year worry free.) Thus, if you need $350 million each year to spend, you need to have about $8.75 billion in capital invested to feel (relatively) secure that you can spend $350 million each year. This is, of course, how colleges think about their endowments and foundations about their capital.
i'm not saying bezos or others can't afford it. i'm saying they won't do it. there are a vast myriad of great, world changing things bezos, musk etc could spend their money on. they just aren't.
1) the idea that $1,500 per woman in need of abortion would solve this problem seems very wrong. the legal issues, logistics, employment implications and all the other myriad problems of millions of women being forced to travel out of state for an abortion would be far more costly. And that's presuming you can actually circumvent all the barriers conservatives would put in place to prevent this.
2) you really think the extremist rightwing assholes who overturn roe are going to stop there? because they 100% will not.
Exactly. Plus putting together a network to do this, not to mention targeted attacks on that network by fanatics, is an immense undertaking that will also have to be funded.
Problem is the instability they will cause won't be worth it. Right wingl?? Nope. Abortion rights is right wing as well.
He's a childless retiree, allowances must be made
Huh? Why do you think Kevin is childless?
i actually thought he was as well, but i have no idea why. i guess just because he's never, in my memory, mentioned children but he does on occasion talk about various family members.
Kevin's "About" section states:
"I’m married, no kids, two cats. "
So he is not, in fact, childless. Per his own description.
Apparently the Texas law makes those who assisted in transporting others for abortion liable to be sued:
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/18/texas-abortion-law/
If that interpretation is somehow rejected by courts - up to the Supreme Court - red states could try to come up with other laws that would be accepted by the Supreme Court.
Ant the Supreme Court refused to reject that approach.
Connecticut passed a law that allows women who get an abortion there to countersue anyone who sues them.
It could be interesting.
And California passed a law nullifying any request to enforce such a lawsuit against someone for having/supporting an abortion.
Another bonanza for lawyers.
20 years to life for any woman who travels out of state to get an abortion of self administers an abortion is guaranteed to be quickly passed. There is already a lady in indiana serving 20 years for self administering the abortion pill.
This would be legally the furthest reach for Republicans. It would remove the requirement that the crime take on the state’s soil. It would criminalize conduct that’s legal in another sovereign state (both a US state and a foreign state).
I think the courts will uphold this but it would be the most radical (and radicalizing) decision since Dred Scot v. Sanford. And it would leave blue states with the choice of banding together to abolish the electoral college, the senate, and expand the courts (and especially to enlarge the Supreme Court). Arguably since the Democratic Party seems inalterably opposed to those things it would also logically result in the Democrats being replaced as a major party by a new party, much as the Whigs were replaced by the Republicans and for much the same reasons.
There also should be the state by state breakdowns. In Michigan the AG has already said she won't prosecute anyone under the 1931 law that prohibits abortion, and the Governor is leading a charge to repeal it. That leaves individual county prosecutors to make their own decisions, and there are already enlightened areas of the state where prosecutors will follow the AG's example.
But there's always the GOP gerrymandered legislature, and those jackholes will try anything, but if the polls are against it, they'll probably be sidetracked by leadership until after the elections--any elections that might attract angry voters.
Making it easy for women to get abortions in a state like Florida might be the right thing to do but it will be a disaster politically.
In the intermediate, if not the short, term, we are far better off having massive protests at the closed clinics and get pro-choice legislators elected.
Pro-life people WERE far more likely to vote because they cared about SCOTUS. This makes it so pro-choice people will finally get off the asses and vote.
I think that would only be true if the Democrats explicitly ran on overturning Dobbs. And, more importantly, offered a clear road map and a commitment to how it would be done. But the response of the Democratic leadership has been ambiguous at best.
Amid all the fundraising appeals, the harsh reality is that the president and the leadership have already indicated that they won't try to change the filibuster or pressure any senator into agreeing to change the filibuster; the leadership has strongly reiterated their support for an anti-abortion incumbent Democrat; and a member of the leadership has downplayed the importance of abortion as a political issue.
So, pretty clearly, turning out and voting for the Democrats isn't going to improve the situation any. There's neither a commitment nor a plan by the leadership. The protection of women's reproductive rights is not an objective of the Democratic Party. The overturning of Roe is simply a fundraising opportunity, not a meaningful political challenge.
One of the huge problems historically for the Democratic party was that the coalition included pro-life liberal Catholics like Martin Sheen. Senators Casey from PA and Kaine from VA are devout Catholics who have rejected federal funding for abortions in the past. Kaine I think is coming around to seeing the danger as he was a civil rights lawyer before going into politics. Casey is a holdover from the old school Catholics "ethnic" vote like Joe Biden is. Also Manchin, he is also Catholic. In the house there's only one pro-life Democrat left and they are being primaried.
So the key for 2022 is not simply saving the majorities but also having enough pro-choice defenders to be the brick wall against the packed Supreme Court.
I think you're absolutely right. But it's also true that electing pro-choice Democrats isn't a priority of the Democratic leadership. As I mentioned earlier, the leadership is strongly backing Henry Cuellar (the anti-abortion representative) in his primary fight. It's clear that the only way the Democrats will move in the direction of protecting abortion rights is if incumbents have a crisis of conscience or the grass-roots elects better Democrats, even against the headwind of the combined efforts of the Republicans and the leaders of our own party.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn actually went to Texas to campaign with Cuellar and I think this headline tells you all you need to know about the Democratic leadership's position on abortion rights:
"Campaigning for Henry Cuellar, a Democratic U.S. House leader says party shouldn’t shun abortion opponents"
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/04/jim-clyburn-henry-cuellar-democrats-abortion-election/
So to sum what Mitch says: Vote Green on Election Day! Assuming there's a candidate you can vote for.
Not really. It’s a two party system and, for the 2022 and 2024 election cycles, there’s no choice by to continue voting for Democrats. My expectation is that the choices being made by my party’s leadership are going to result in our losing control of congress and the White House in the near future.
If, as I believe, we will be wandering in the political wilderness starting in 2025, the question for the center left is how to call Les and whether we should call us around the existing Democratic Party or strike out and found a new party. But not with the intention that it should be a third-party but rather with the intention that it should replace the existing Democratic party.
In many ways, the situation confronting us as Democrats (which I assume is the case for the overwhelming majority of the commentators here) is similar to the one which confronted the base of the Whig Party in the 1830’s. It’s entirely possible that during our time in the wilderness, it will be more practical to dissolve the Democratic Party and supplant it in much the same way as happened with the rise of the Republican Party. This is something which the center left needs to debate and be prepared to act upon if the Democrats are wiped out.
If you’d been here for a while, you’d know that I’ve had an abiding hatred for the Green Party for decades.
The Green party is the party of useful idiots in the service of the GOP and Putin.
Massive protests have take place at the churches which organize the protests at clinics to do any good. Confrontation against the people who support state control over women's bodies should have been organized before this impending overturn of Roe and now militancy is required if women want to reclaim their liberty.
Here in Virginia our wingnut AG has warned folks that the churches are in "danger" due to protests and the state GOP has warned that they will use deadly force if protests occur. Just lovely!
Very few pro choice people will vote this issue. They simply don't see themselves as likely to ever need an abortion in the future.
I think this is overlooking two key points:
First, the push now is for a national law banning abortion. This is likely to be the first order of business when the Republicans take over in 2022. Even if they don’t have a veto-proof majority after the midterms, they likely will have both the Congress and the White House after the 2024 election. So there isn’t really a good way around this and no way to avoid a fight or shrug off the overturning of Roe v. Wade as no big deal.
Second, many of the discussions about renewing anti-abortion laws in red states also include the concept of criminalizing performing or having an abortion as such, rather than relying on the traditional criminal law theory
(example: Under traditional theory it’s now or shortly will be illegal to perform or have an abortion in Louisiana. But it’s legal to travel to another state where the procedure is legal. That’s what Kevin is talking about. The new approach anticipates this by criminalizing abortions per se so that it doesn’t matter where the abortion is performed or whether it’s legal in that place—if you’ve ever had an abortion or you have ever performed one anywhere, you’ve committed a felony in Louisiana.)
The would essentially criminalize abortion everywhere by extending the reach of red state laws throughout the nation. If you work at an abortion clinic in California and travel to Louisiana or any red states with similar laws, you are subject to arrest. If you take the path of least resistance suggested by Kevin and have an out-of-state abortion but return to your (red) home state, you are liable to be prosecuted.
A further extension of this was discussed years ago which was to indict women who had abortions or doctors who performed abortions where it was legal and then demand their extradition to a red state even if neither the woman nor the doctor had set foot in that state. The legal framework for doing this exists. Some blue states are preparing for this by changing laws regarding both enforcement of judgments and extradition but it’s not clear to me how those laws will fare in federal court.
The closest analogy would be the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which, arguably, extended slavery to the free states or, at a minimum, gave slave states power to override the choices of free states. I think that’s how it’s going to play out, which means that Kevin’s way behind the curve.
National laws ain't ever happening. Not only will nullification increase, but they would lose regionalism and turn militant increasing anti abortionist being killed.. You need a finger snap. Lazy takes are not needed. The basis of overturning Roe is regionalism. Without it, there is no reason to overturn it.
I know you tend to err on the side of pessimism Mitch but the dynamics have changed now that sh*t got real. If we see a huge woman's movement in the next few months, the trends could do a 180 -- provided the Democrats have the courage of their convictions and try to run a nationalized campaign on protecting Woman's rights as the brick wall to all sorts of other rights.
I think that would be very difficult. The assumption of the Democratic leadership and the consultants seems to be that this will be another example of "self-mobilization" by voters and that there's no necessity of actually running on protecting women's rights. I don't think that my conclusion is pessimistic, either. As I mentioned, the clear message from the leadership (including Biden) was that the filibuster is inviolate, the leadership has no intention of allowing abortion to be a priority that trumps business as usual, and the party's leaders have actually indicated that abortion rights are a lower priority than voting rights (which they've been totally disinterested in protection, too).
Fundamentally, I think the Democratic leadership and consultants see this as a fundraising opportunity and that there's no real need to actually follow through on abortion.
And there's historical precedent: Yesterday, I got a fundraising email from the party (I have given them money in past years) crowing about how a judge has held Trump in contempt and that I should give the party money so as to hold Trump accountable. That might have made some sense in 2016 or 2017 but after voters "self-mobilized" to hand them power in 2018 when the Democrats ran on a platform of holding Trump accountable and then went out of their way not to do so, this seems insulting to my intelligence.
I really would not put my faith in the Democrats to deliver on much of anything.
" the clear message from the leadership (including Biden) was that the filibuster is inviolate,"
Funny, Mitch McConnell just said the same thing too.
And therefore, what? Aside from the fact that the events of the past decade make it insane to believe anything McConnell says, the fact that both parties support the filibuster above all things, including reproductive rights, doesn’t advance the cause of protecting those rights at all. For me, as for most Democrats, the objective is the actual result of protecting peoples rights, something which the Democratic leadership is evidently not committed to fighting for.
As observed elsewhere, while part of the point of these laws is to restrict access to abortion via enforcement, the REAL point is to instill FEAR so women don't even TRY, and nobody is willing to help them if they do.
It's not about money; it's about control.
Meh, weak minded control. Real men don't think that way.
I don't see hardly any "real men" in the Republican party, do you?
Please don't feed the racist, anti-semitic, semi-literate troll.
Single issue abortion voters need to break a deal with the DNC they will support national Democratic party members, bring in a larger share of the electorate than the party will lose. Support party objectives and Candidates will support no national abortion law or reversal in future supreme court's(which under reform wouldn't be allowed to hear).
Power is wielded by coalition. If not the states will disband and probably die themselves.
Um, is this, like, a koan or something? Like, it's so disconnected and nonsensical that my conscious mind becomes paralyzed trying to interpret it and then enlightenment suddenly breaks through?
If so, I suppose there's potentially a sort of public service here somewhere, although that's not why I come to this site ...
everything he writes sounds like the rantings of a drunk, semi-literate 15 year old. it blows my mind that he continues to comment on every single post kevin makes when the only response he ever gets is ridicule.
You sound like the stupid drunk. Reality is reality.
haha. love it when a troll's response merely acts to prove my point.
I know YOURS does but what does MINE?!
ha
Don’t feed the fucking troll. He should’ve been aborted but he exists to troll us. Don’t ever respond to anything he writes.
+10. I've been compiling a list of posters I consider to be trolls that I would not be adverse to sharing. Not everyone will agree with the entries of course, but I've recently added some explanatory notes (something I should have done earlier, admittedly.)[1] But I think we can all agree that the likes of 'Spadesofgrey' aka 'Shooter' aka 'Shooter2422', are valid candidates for that sobriquet.
[1] Citing -- with approval -- such august personages as Charles Murray, et. al., or mischaracterizing the Confederate Slaver rebellion as the 'war of Yankee agression' and similar hijinks are considered reason enough to be put on the list. Habitual drivebys are noted and duly entered as well. If anybody has what they consider a valid criterion or criteria, I'm all ears.
As others have pointed out, $5-7m a week is up to $350m a year. That’s a lot. For some perspective, Planned Parenthood’s entire annual national budget is $1.3b. But since -“” of their budget doesn’t go towards just abortions, and the part that does go towards abortions will still need to be paid out to providers (just shifted entirely to PP locations in blue states), Kevin is talking about PP needing to increase their budget by over 25% to now include flying and hoteling women all across the country.
And all this assumes red states don’t start forcing pregnant women to stay home for fear that they’ll have an abortion elsewhere and/or suing out of state providers for servicing their state’s residents.
Kevin: What the Fuck? Stop trying to spin this as reasonable. Just stop. You’re not convincing anybody.
"forcing pregnant women to stay home for fear that they’ll have an abortion elsewhere"
"pro-life" states should test every woman resident younger than 60, both leaving and re-entering the state, for pregnancy. Let those states cover the costs. Setting up border stations and testing facilities at airports, border crossings and harbors should make it an interesting attack on privacy.
"Kevin: What the Fuck? Stop trying to spin this as reasonable. Just stop. You’re not convincing anybody."
Yup. We're living through the flashback scenes of Handmaid's Tale, and Kevin keeps saying "hey, it's all cool. you don't need to go to canada.".
A bunch of companies are talking about funding travel for abortion for employees who live in states that restrict abortion, so the amount will be less than Kevin estimates.
Making birth control widespread and easy to get (no, it isn’t right now for all women) would cut that cost considerably.
It already is widespread.
Nah. Test programs run a few years ago in high abortion areas show a huge impact among the poor and young of having better access to birth control. Just a few thousand more permanent programs like that and then we got something that will actually work.
Birth control is more than women. Your wrong as wrong can be.
Please don't feed the racist, anti-semitic, semi-literate troll. It only leaves its droppings to get attention.
Another +10. Ironically, since Kevin is unable to police the comment section even to the extent of banning known and toxic trolls, the initiative falls to the citizen-commentors.
Overturning Griswold (which legalized birth control) may be the next step for the Supreme Court. They could do this faster than birth control services could get organized.
Besides all the other ways in which this is silly, why not just pay a justice (or a handful of senators if you think that's not reasonable) $350 million one-time instead?
Controlling women’s sexuality is still important in backwards areas of this planet. It’s advocated by insecure men with medieval values and it’s supported by suppressed women . In some areas of this planet are they practicing forced marriages and “honor” killings to achieve this.
A modern version is banning abortion and depriving women of contraceptives. This is practiced by influential old men with medieval values in the Catholic Church
Interesting to note is that banning abortion and contraceptives are two of the most important issues for your Republicans
What does that tell us about USA ,or at least about some areas of USA.
Child marriage is for that reason also commonly used in USA , mostly in backward conservative areas but it is still legal in 44 states
Girls as young as 13 are handed over to pedophiles to be raped and raped again with the approval of your courts
“Barefoot and pregnant confined to the kitchen “ are apparently still part of the American dream according to the minority that are able to control your politics due to your nonfunctional outdated Constitution
Just some facts from an old grumpy Swedish man
The way they want to control it is pathetic. It's anti-nature.
And emasculates men.
Well, that's just depressing and all true. As long as we have minority rule we are screwed.
It is now the Supreme Court Of The Grand Ol` Perverts .
Now is the time for all Grand Ol' Perverts to come to the aid of their party 😉
Kevin,
this is non-sense. This is one aspect of it, and a rather minor aspect.
The issue is: you live in one of these anti-abortion states, and you have a regular pregnancy. Then something goes wrong. Miscarriage. Or you need an emergency procedure.
The "let's fly out those who want an abortion" is fine, for those who can afford to take time off from work, who don't have other kids to look after, and who don't need an emergency treatment.
Now, what do you do if you have an emergency at 20 weeks that impacts the pregnancy. Boom, you're guilty of something - on top of losing your pregnancy.
And then who will take care of the pregnancy of someone who has high risk of miscarriage. Someone with a history of miscarriages, or someone who has some other condition. Are they willing to look after you, considering something may happen to the pregnancy? Can you fly them out of state for the length of the pregnancy?
This post is a minimization of the problem that doesn't become to address the consequences of a post-Roe world.
+1
If anyone doubts this scenario they need to google the name Savita Halappanavar.
Groups will get organized to help more pregnant women cross state lines to obtain abortions, you can count on it. That's why the most relevant historical example I can think of is the Fugitive Slave Act.
Ignores the fact that traveling out of state to get an abortion or using prescription drugs to get an abortion will be classified as murder subject to a 20 year to life sentence for women who do this.
If progressives were really serious about this they would have voted for Hillary Clinton even though she only wanted a $12.50 minimum wage.
You are correct, sir. Especially since they were told -- many times -- of the consequenes of not doing so. But no, they were into full-on extorcionist mode at the time.
They shouldn't have to, but presumably a fraction greater than epsilon of those women will either cross state lines or obtain pills by mail.
I am old....
I come from the boomer generation.
We spent our adolescent years trying to have sex with our girl friends. If you didn't have a condom in your wallet all the male friends we had would make fun of you.
As morals relaxed more and more people were having pre-marital sex much to the dismay of Christian pastors, priests and ministers. They would RAIL against the loose morals of the current generation. Women began to feel empowered and exert their influence on politics here in the United States. Blacks got the right to vote - A FULL VOTE, yet, the ERA failed to become law because of republicans.
HMmmmmmm........
Now that many others are getting recognized, gays, trans gendered people and so on republicans are now fuming basically saying that abortion is murder when in fact what they are REALLY implying is that they believe (wrongly) that our loose sexual morals have lead to many people having pre-marital sex that results in pregnancies and subsequent abortions in the vague hope that somehow removing abortion would make people STOP having pre-marital sex and therefore have more strict morals? While Jerry Falwell and his wife are into free wheeling sex acts with students at (gulp) LIBERTY University? While JUDGE Roy Moore has sex with under aged girls? Bristol Palin has a child out of wedlock?
Abortion is NOT birth control not even as a last resort given the breadth of birth control options we have now but the GOP doesn't want to stop at abortion they want to eliminated birth control as well.
Its no wonder that Trump has remained silent on this.
The GOP is clearly trying to legislate morality in this country by making girls AFRAID to have sex because of not being able to get and abortion AND not being able for either sex to get birth control.
As stated in the opening I'm OLD and let me add I'm also a Christian and the proud father of 3 grown women and grand father to both a grand daughter and grand son,
I don't "get" the GOP's fascination with abortion - nor do I get the Christian fascination with it. If we cannot instill Christian morals into our children thats a fault of society not the government. There seems to be no room for concern for the unmarried people that have sex.
what a strange strange world we live in