 I was raised in a household where abortion was the biggest possible sin. I was progressive over all, even when I was still pretty religious, but abortion was a wedge issue. What started changing my mind was the realization of who was actually getting late term and partial birth abortions. Seeing beyond the idea of abortion, to the people who actually needed them, was fundamental to my understanding of it. I think Pete handled this perfectly:  42 comments
@RickiTarr He is a great communicator. I see him being the given candidate in 2032 if there are still elections then @Kierkegaanks He really is! I've see several interviews, and he has that great teacher quality of being able to explain things in such a concise unruffled way.  @RickiTarr  @RickiTarr ...yet more proof that a white gay guy would be an amazing president. And, yes, it is phrased as intended. And, yes, the 'white gay guy' shouldn't be part of the sentence because it is stupid and not needed...and that's why it's there...because that is what most people see... @RickiTarr And he is so right! I canโt believe I have to have this argument with people - no one goes to the third trimester and then just suddenly decides they donโt want a baby anyway. These are tragedies, and would only be made worse if the mother dies or risks long-term health damages @RickiTarr The Typical Patient ... @RickiTarr The crazy thing I just remembered is, my mum had an abortion for non medical reasons before she got pregnant with me. I never shamed her, because I knew the reasons but still didn't make the connection.  @RickiTarr heโs superb. Unflappable, concise and reasonable. Iโve never heard him interviewed when he wasnโt persuasive on an issue. @RickiTarr aside from the fundamental *rightness* of this, I love how he points out that it's an issue where the anti-choice side pull up emotive edge cases for advantage, and then *does exactly that* right back to them. Flawless. 10/10 @RickiTarr Skip to about nine minutes in, and you'll get a first-hand account of how painful and horrible the situation is for a woman, and the absolute shame that such a procedure has to be done in secrecy to protect the doctor.  @RickiTarr @qurlyjoe Right, and it's too bad, but maybe one day, if the country can survive the next 4 years @qurlyjoe @RickiTarr He is the most humane man I've ever seen in government and he's smarter than 99% of them in government. We could use more of them but he's one of a kind. Perhaps he'll make another cabinet post if Kamala wins. let's hope so. He is a feminist too.  @qurlyjoe Or to put it another way, ruthless, pathological narcissism is a prerequisite for becoming a major political leader. ๐ People who actually care, think, and emphathise aren't willing to betray or destroy enough people to claw their way to the top of the party hierarchy, and in the rare instances that they end up there anyway and then come into power, decent people don't last long (e.g. PM Joe Clark in Canada or President Jimmy Carter in the U.S.). @fsinn @RickiTarr This is the first time I've read about it from the side of a woman who did, indeed, find some comfort from the clothing. @RickiTarr   @octothorpe @RickiTarr PB seems to be a media-messaging natural. He stepped right into the bear trap without touching the trigger. @RickiTarr Buttigieg is one of the best communicators I've ever heard, he always nails the point perfectly. The bottom line here is that it is nobody's business WHY a person might decide to have an abortion at any point during their pregnancy. There should be no more blame or shame in the decision than there is for a person having any sort of medical procedure. Do we ask heart patients WHY they're getting a shunt or a pace maker? Or WHY someone is getting an appendectomy? Not. Our. Business. @RickiTarr I might add that, in many instances, abortion is a case of life or death for the pregnant person. @RickiTarr EXACTLY. It's not their business, it is nobody else's business other than the pregnant person and her doctor, that's it.  @isotope239 @RickiTarr The rare exceptions are almost always due to extenuating circumstances (eg: a raped child or mentally challenged person not realizing they are pregnant until someone informs them.) @RickiTarr I grew up very similarly I think, and this was the same thing that changed my mind. I'd grown up believing the anti-abortion propaganda I was fed (I remember watching a video where a person claiming to be a doctor went into gruesome detail about killing babies as they were born and everything). Once I began reading all these stories of heartbreak from women who wanted their babies & seeing the statistics, it changed my mind. Plus learning the history of abortion-as-a-political-tool. @skaeth It was slow for me, but you start to see all the ways Conservatives refuse to support life in any other way and you realize how hypocritical it all is. @RickiTarr Wouldn't it be great to have free healthcare, free school lunches, to fund schools, to help get families out of poverty, to make sure every child has a clean, safe place to sleep and doesn't have to worry about their next meal? That's not even touching that forcing women to give birth is not only dangerous but demands an invasive donation procedure that we'd never ask normally. Even if you were the only person who could save another, you're not forced to donate even a pint of blood.  I grew up when women went to back room "doctors" that used a coat hanger in their vagina to scramble out that pregnancy leaving the vast majority of those women to eventually die. @RickiTarr I donโt know why democrats shy away from debunking these awful lies. The other one is the 9 month abortion story, which latched on to a legal change that allowed parents to choose palliative care when their baby canโt survive instead of doing every painful, traumatic medical intervention possible. What an awful situation for republicans to exploit and twist to their own political benefit. Itโs so craven and should be called out. @RickiTarr I feel like it came up in the debates and I know there is limited time but I think they just dismiss it. I donโt think people are told where this lie originates. And if you can believe that lie, you canโt possibly allow democrats anywhere near power. @Jackiemauro @RickiTarr Yeah, the palliative care thing is one of the elements that makes it so glaringly obvious that there is malevolence behind this, not reverence for life. How utterly rotted must one's soul be to want a dying newborn to endure unimaginable pain and misery just so "god" can decide the exact moment of its death. @textualdeviance @RickiTarr exactly. The cruelty is just beyond words. To take this situation and twist it to make it seem like itโs just abominable mothers and doctors murdering babies, and then in furtherance of that lie, you snatch away whatever little moments of peace this shattered family could haveโฆI just canโt fathom the mindset. And I really think people need to know. @RickiTarr Anti-abortion people never stop to consider a woman's motive, her reason for getting an abortion. Sure, there's always talk of "the mother's health", but it's perfunctory and glossed over. They always assume that women who get abortions have selfish, evil motives. They take it for granted that the abortion is being casually employed as a kind of after-the-fact contraception, for convenience sake, when that is probably very rarely the case. @5teverin0 Definitely, there's always the assumption that the woman is both "lazy and a slut", which is fucked up all on it's own. @5teverin0 @RickiTarr I've read where people think it's a "Hey, man, I'm pregnant, let's stop by planned parenthood and get rid of this inconvenience.." Which is complete and utter bullshit. No woman except a fucking psychopath would ever think or believe that kind of BS. It's not a ride to 7/11 for a coke and fries. It's a medical procedure that has the possibility of killing you if it's not done properly. (and it has before..)  @RickiTarr I wasn't sure what to think about abortion but I know women don't do it for fun, like it must not be an easy decision... |
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I love it when Pete puts them in their place.