Thread by @LizMair

I know you all will go ballistic over this, but I'm going to tweet a thread laying out what I think about the Alabama abortion bill now just so you all know where I stand and why.

First and foremost, I oppose the bill. My personal position is that abortion should be legal in the first three months even though I absolutely oppose abortion and would never consider having one unless my life were in jeopardy.

The ONLY reason I support abortion being legal in the first three months is because of my experience having 3 friends get pregnant under the age of 14 when I was in Middle School, none of them victims of rape (incl statutory rape) or incest-- tho that wouldn't matter under AL law

It's possible that in all of those cases, abortion would have been allowed to save the lives of the mothers-- I think it's unlikely that any of the 3 would have been able to carry a baby to term and deliver without risking death.

However, I don't think it's good policy to put 11 year olds (yes, one was 11) in a situation where they've got to weigh whether they're legally covered or not if they decide they can't chance it and try to carry to term. I think bans on abortion during the 1st trimester...

...risk procuring that kind of situation. Do cases like this represent a small minority of those seeking abortions every year? Yes, undoubtedly. However, it's a small minority I personally cannot ignore because of my personal experiences.

With all this being said, a few points. 1) I do think the government has a compelling interest in protecting life and I think that is fairly defined as when detectable life signs are present.

2) Yes, I know that makes my position internally inconsistent because a heartbeat is detectable before the end of month 3. The problem is, 11 and 13 year olds don't often have consistent periods to even know if they missed one.

They also don't make decisions that will have major, lifelong consequences as quickly as, say, a 25 or 30 or 40 year old might. That means it's hard for me to think a 6-week ban makes sense. Maybe an 8-week ban is acceptable. Maybe.

3) It seems to me that if you think abortion is homicide once you're past the first trimester-- or before-- you should NOT accept an exception in cases of rape or incest. Either it's a life, in which case it is deserving of protection, or it's not a life.

4) Likewise, if you think abortion is homicide, you shouldn't accept homicide because the person set to die has, e.g., Down Syndrome. Again, it's either a life, in which case it is deserving of protection-- including access to its mother's womb and placenta, etc., until delivery

....or it's not a life. But I personally think arguments that if a fetus has its own DNA, a heartbeat and brain activity, that does not constitute a life. If we were talking about someone in a very dire car accident, we'd be looking at those signs of life.

5) Having now had the experience of being pregnant, I find it even less plausible when people claim that, e.g., a fetus at 5 months gestation is not "alive." Yes, this is subjective not scientific evidence, but I knew my kid's personality from before that point in pregnancy.

I could feel it. I knew what I was getting. This may sound crazy to some people (I'm sure it does), but it's absolutely the truth. And it's the same experience that millions, maybe billions of women have had.

Which makes it hard for some of us who are pro-choice to accept the idea that abortion is something society should sanction past the very earliest stages. It is inconsistent with our own personal experiences.

But many of us are deeply conflicted on this. I personally don't think it's justifiable for a 35 year-old woman to abort because it would be financially tough to carry to term, or because she's at risk of heightened depression, or because the baby has Down Syndrome.

But I don't know how you write a law that protects the baby's life in that kind of situation and also ensures that the 11 year old who manifestly is going to suffer major life consequences at a very early age has the option of an abortion if it's done early.

And I worry about the 11 year old in the latter situation AND about the baby in the former. The only position I can personally arrive at is allow abortion in the first trimester, after that not at all except if the mother's life is in jeopardy. And its imperfect. I know it.

Anyway, that's what I think about this for those of you who have been asking why I haven't stated my views on the Alabama law. Last point: Adoption and fostering needs to be dramatically simplified in this country. Birth control should be free and available OTC.

If those things were done, we wouldn't be dealing with the number of abortions or unplanned pregnancies that we are, full stop. And then we'd have a lot less to argue about and a lot less capacity for fucking up our policy here.

The problem is, these are relatively easy solutions but parties won't come together to deliver them because government has broadly ceased to do easy and obvious things these days, if it ever did. Popular and obvious things are routinely backburnered for the controversial.

The consequences in this realm will inevitably be dire for women, girls and babies. But especially for our society and culture as a whole. Basically, we're morally bankrupt, and it's not just the "allow abortion in the third trimester" laws or the Alabama law that prove it.

Final couple of thoughts: My suspicion is that if the Alabama law provokes a Supreme Court reassessment of Roe, it will NOT result in abortion being kicked back to the states.

I suspect it will, at most, result in a rollback of Roe so that abortion is only allowed in the first trimester, maybe in the first 16 weeks. I'm unconvinced that Roberts or Kavanaugh vote to overturn Roe as such, tho they might vote to limit it.

Also, I think Alabama passing this law after the debacle of Roy Moore's Senate run and the fact that he seemed (last I checked) to be polling at the front of the pack to take on Doug Jones in 2020 will make the state vastly more unappealing to business...

...which tends to see full-throated social conservatism reflected in policy as a major deterrent to hiring and keeping the talent they want. Maybe that says something about your average American employee's morals. Maybe not. But I think Alabama will suffer reputational damage.

I also suspect the Alabama GOP *might* be setting Jones up for an easier 2020 campaign than he had expected. There are a lot of people who are pro-life but will feel this law goes too far and won't like the ensuing discussion from defenders of the bill.

These people may well feel that the Alabama GOP has once again gone too far, as it did with nominating Moore, and decide that yeah, Jones is better. That plus the way this is inherently going to gin up every Democratic voter in Alabama probably makes Jones' life easier.

We'll see how this all works out, but I think this is risky-- and probably riskier than VA Dems pushing the infanticide bill, not least because of the prior Moore debacle. Tho frankly, I think for VA legislators who backed it, that bill was a big fucking liability, too.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts. My guess is approximately 1.5% of you agree with them. Which is fine. This is why we live in a democratic republic.

OK, final thing: For those saying "yeah, but if a 12 year-old has sex with a 12 year-old, that's statutory rape," in WA, no, it's not it seems. And that is certainly what we understood to be the case when this situation occurred in the 1990's. criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/wash…

Maybe you could write in an exemption saying if the mother was under 18 at the time of conception, she can abort in the first trimester, but that also seems like it *could* wind up giving pedophiles more of a pass. So that wouldn't be ideal, either.