It's been a really rough week for Republicans who hate reproductive rights, and Republican Rep. Michelle Steel of California is no exception. "As someone who struggled to get pregnant, I believe all life is a gift. IVF allowed me, as it has so many...
Wait, why are they banning IVF? I thought their primary goal was to get as many women to give birth and all that jazz… wouldn’t IVF be something forced-birth supporters want?
You see, your first mistake was expecting a logically-consistent platform from conservatives.
I know that conservatives tend to go backwards with their ideology construction; instead of starting from axioms to construct their position, they just reach their position from their preconceived notions of what is desirable and good without actual logic behind it… But this is bizarre since their religion (the primary source of their ideology) says to reproduce and have many children as a goal, so wouldn’t a party of Christian values be pro-IVF?
Maybe I’m expecting too much of them, and there are more Jesse Lobotomy Peterson than I thought…
Their religion also says, essentially, to be a socialist, like Jesus was. It’s literally all about forgiveness and making sure the least among us have everything they need. The facts about their religion are only relevant if they support what they were going to do anyway.
I see your confusion. You expected them to actually read the Bible instead of just using it as an excuse to hurt their opposition.
Well, they like genocide which is presented as a good thing in the bible if I remember correctly (I’m not Christian, so I might be misremembering), they like treating women and children as property like in the bible… I just assumed they read it often for inspiration. But you’re right, they cherry pick the stuff that helps push their agenda.
It’s sort of an unintended side effect in my interpretation. Their goal was to get every possible fetus legally defined as a child (so that any and all abortions can be considered child murder and outlawed) but got IVF caught in the crossfire, because they handle fertilized eggs, which are then considered viable fetuses under this definition by the christofascists.
Sounds like you might be right… It’s kinda hard to tell sometimes.
idk dude, I’d personally be more surprised if that was their platform because while it would still be a horrific violation of human rights, it would be too consistent with itself. I’d probably accuse them of using ChatGPT to write it or something.
You’re probably right, I just remembered Jesse Lobotomy Peterson, and I realise there are enough people on his level, otherwise he wouldn’t have a platform.
The ironic part is that he’s probably actually intelligent and just a malefactor. You need to be at least more intelligent than the people you’re grifting to successfully grift them.
Wait, so that’s an act? How can someone say the things he is saying with a straight face? That’s just Oscar level acting if that’s the case. I just assumed he had 3 brain cells…
I mean perhaps I’m just too cynical, but I expect a lot of these pundits don’t get high off their own supply if you catch my drift. In Peterson’s case, his Wikipedia page has a couple things that smell like grift to me:
All of that to me reads as a cunning individual that’s using gullible and ignorant people to line his own pockets.
Damn, that’s crazy, and it looks like you’re right. He must have the acting talent to make it big in Hollywood, and would have probably made a lot more too… But instead chose to make the world a worse place.
I still can’t fathom being aware and saying the things he is saying with a straight face.
Their real goal is control.
They don’t give a shit about children, or birth. They think that women who have sex for fun deserve punishment, and that childbirth is just punishment for “immoral” sexual behavior.
Also that children who were raped should be forced to carry to term and that it’s a gift from god.
they only want unwanted children, daaa!
Makes sense… and they only want them before they are born; once they are born, they don’t care about them either…
I’m a little out of the loop, but I’d guess they’re trying to build precedent such that if an IVF embryo has ‘fetal rights’ or whatever they term it, then the same will apply to pregnancy at the earliest stages. And they can say: No abortions 1 day after pregnancy or something like that.
The attack on reproductive rights is unconscionable
Makes sense. It just seems like an unwise move, because they would be losing support from any voters with fertility issues who are trying for kids who might otherwise be anti abortion and generally conservative.
they’ve probably ran polls and figured out it would be worth it
Nah, the GOP isn’t that smart anymore. They were before Trump ate their brains.
Not that they made decisions with the best interests of the people in mind before that, but they used to be much more strategic about their evil. They’re now shooting from the hip.
Because their idea of abortion is so fucking inanely stupid they think this counts. I mean, not for rich people or Republicans. That’s why the DA Steve Marshall said he wouldn’t prosecute IVF families. Which has no legal weight behind it at all so he can feel free to prosecute anyone who can’t defend themselves, which is 99%.
Idiocracy was a documentary after all…
Control. It’s about nothing more than control.
This particular person is doing the general Republican thing where they say they support something but their actions make the thing impossible to do. Like treating IVF in a way that makes hospitals cancel IVF services because of the threat of legal action when it doesn’t go perfectly.
They think the embryos used for IVF are the equivalent to children birthed from the womb and therefore it’s child abuse. Mind you, these are the same morons who are pushing to remove any recreation from sex. Their goal is for sex to be only for procreation. They’re actively trying to push us into their weird world of having sex through a hole in a bedsheet only for the purpose of bearing children. They want to outlaw all forms of contraceptives. Hell, Maggy Taylor Greene wants to push legislation so that women stop tempting Christian men. We’re regressing as a country
Conservatives must be so self-conscious about their poor skills in the bedroom that they create this “sex is for procreation, not for pleasure” type message…
P.S. MTG must be so insecure about her partner cheating on her or something…
Oh I know this one… 1984!
Alabama supreme court recently ruled that any IVF embryos are actual human beings. That means if you use IVF and dispose of embryos you are a murderer. Since it’s almost impossible to do IVF with no ‘lost’ embryos they just want to ban it for everyone.
Also, some religious folks were already against it because it involves men ejcaculating into cups, and that’s against the Bible.
Many think that artificial insemination is “subverting God’s will”. If they were meant to have kids, they could do it naturally. It’s the same line of thinking that they didn’t need a vaccine and could just pray their way to COVID immunity.
God likes to watch, he needs some PIV action, IVF action is just not the same thrill.
They overreached in their anti abortion crusade by getting embryos declared persons in Alabama
It’s an ’unnatural’ conception made possible by use of embryos which these GOP lunatics would prefer be recognized as actual children, just in embryo form. Ergo, all embryos must be ‘protected’ which translates no more science with embryos.
Many of them have simply lost the plot.
It’s ultimately about control, but that’s how they’ve gotten so many people to go along with it.