Do you consider yourself pro-life or pro-choice?

[Figueira]

I've always been conflicted on abortion. On the one hand, I support it because it's killing babies. On the other, I oppose it because it's giving women a choice.

/s

paging Dule for your obvious plagiarism of his October 2019 Atlasian Presidential run

Did Dule beat me to the punch on this one? Guess I can't say I'm surprised, the man knows his way around an edgy joke or two

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=337263.0

I am conflicted on abortion. On the one hand, I support it because it kills babies; on the other hand, it gives women a choice.

This is a pretty common joke. I don't think Dule invented it.

[Figueira]

I don't get why "safe, legal, and rare" is considered a moderate position. Do most pro-choicers think that abortion should be common or unsafe?

[Figueira]

I don't get why "safe, legal, and rare" is considered a moderate position. Do most pro-choicers think that abortion should be common or unsafe?

It depends on how one defines "rare"... Is it rare in the sense that there are trimester restrictions, etc. or rare as in "support other public policies that reduce the demand for abortion, like sex education, contraceptives, etc."?

That would kind of cut against the "legal" part of it, wouldn't it?

[Figueira]

Reading more into it, it seems like Democrats have moved away from the phrase "safe, legal, and rare" because they don't want abortion to be something that people apologize for or feel bad about. It's purely a messaging thing, not a policy difference. So I don't get the people who are saying, "I'm a moderate, I believe abortion should be safe, legal, and rare."

[Figueira]

I don't get why "safe, legal, and rare" is considered a moderate position. Do most pro-choicers think that abortion should be common or unsafe?

Rare is a relative term, and one that public figures who describe themselves with that phrase usually prefer to leave ambiguous. That allows them to appeal to the people who believe that 15-25% of pregnancies ending in abortion (i.e. typical rates for US states) is "rare" enough and those who would prefer to see those numbers brought much lower.

State-level abortion rates vary by an order of magnitude, but the numbers rarely seem to enter the conversation except for anti-legalization people quoting raw numbers for shock value or pro-legalization people pointing out that the national rate is at an all-time low. It would take some courage for someone wishing to stake out a moderate position to say that they oppose restrictions on access like those in South Dakota while also saying that states like New York and Maryland where doctors abort closer to one out of three pregnancies have a problem that demands a policy response.

Speaking personally, I am strongly opposed to any criminal penalties for mothers or health care providers (so long as the latter are not coercing women into aborting their pregnancies). But I'm not convinced by the pro-choice consensus that this is only a matter of providing better sex education and welfare support, because that's not what the variation indicates.

It's also unfortunate the increasingly massive racial disparity in the percentage of pregnancies aborted has become a point of trolling, because reducing that disparity is the single greatest remaining opportunity for preventing abortions that take place in the United States.

What's your solution then, if not "providing better sex education and welfare support"?