The recent vote in Ohio is just one of a string of cases where voters show they mostly support abortion access to some extent (1). Polls show the same. (2) So why do Republicans (specifically Republican politicians, not necessarily Republican voters) keep trying to do something unpopular?
My (perhaps cynical) view of Republican politicians is that they’re the “do anything to win” party. They would take any stance and pull any trick if it would give them a better chance of winning. So why are they so stuck on a losing issue?
It is a wedge issue that has locked a portion of the population who are single issue voters into being Republicans despite literally all their other beliefs. That is basically what all the non-financial planks of the Republican platform have in common.
I don’t know anybody that votes republican because of their abortion stance that doesn’t also agree with the rest of the party’s policies.
My mom was one. Didn’t realize until I was older, and long after she died. But yeah, she only voted Republican because she was anti abortion. She had an abortion and suffered from unintended side effects and didn’t want other women to experience the same. I get where she was coming from, but she definitely had the wrong idea with banning abortion.
Oddly enough, it was a comment on Reddit that opened my eyes to everything. Something along the lines of “Dems don’t want women to have abortions. But we’d like the choice if need be.”
Wow I’ve never heard of someone wanting to ban a medical procedure all together because they experienced an adverse effect of it. Thanks for the view into a psyche that I didn’t know about.
Yeah, she was unable to have kids going forward and ended up needing a complete hysterectomy at 40. This was also the 90s and I’m positive the procedures are more advanced now. But there can be side effects that are often not talked about among pro choice people. I mean they are rare, but it can happen. I know a lot of women who ended up severely depressed after (my mom ran a support group). But that doesn’t mean abortion should be banned, but that mental health support for women who have had abortions is desperately needed and necessary, especially if the baby is wanted.
Yeah I mean I think most people know that there are negative consequences that can happen, just like with any medical procedure. I’m just surprised by the fact that people might get a medical procedure then want to prevent all future people from getting it because they had a bad experience. Shows what I know about people.
I agree. Like I said, I understand where she was coming from, wanting to prevent other women from suffering the same way she did. But there are other ways to go about that and I don’t think she understood that. She’s also black and let’s face it, there is negative history regarding abortions and black women. I mean to this day, you have doctors who believe in old racist bullshit like black people have a higher pain tolerance; medical treatment is often different if you’re white vs black as well.
You’ll see the same with some detransitioners.
Scientists can tell with like 80% accuracy what the political identity of an American is… just from a brain scan.
If the prefrontal cortex is larger and more active, that person is likely to be empathetic and use higher reasoning to control their emotion. Those people overwhelmingly vote Dem.
If the amygdala is larger and more active, then that person is more likely to feel fear or anger and act based on those emotions without thinking.
Then there’s the 20% where they’re just kind of average and it’s a coin toss.
That is why a woman can view her individual experience decades ago with an abortion and use that to rationalize not letting any woman get one now.
She’s not empathetic enough to understand other women may be in a worse spot than she’d have been if she kept.
She isn’t using the critical thinking to understand decades of medical advancement means it’s a lot safer now.
But she is still in fear of her bad outcome.
And she’s still angry she had complications.
If it doesn’t make sense to you, it’s because you’re brain isn’t working the same as the other side. The tragedy is only one side is usually able to understand it. The other side just keeps ranting about crazy shit because they’re constantly terrified or pissed off about a hypothetical.
Do you have a source for this?
Pretty sure is just one of those studies did on an n = 20 us college students by another group of students that has been never replicated.
I guess you can find victims of pseudo science that after suffering from them become activists against it. Abortion is rutinary health care and ilegal abortions kill women. Better have a complication while in a health care that in the back alley of an ilegal abortion clinic.
they may be smart enough to avoid telling you they are voting republican.
I don’t know anybody that WILL ADMIT THEY vote republican because of their abortion stance that doesn’t also agree with the rest of the party’s policies.
FTFY
Unfortunately I do, much of my extended family is what I call consistent Catholic. They oppose the death sentence, are in favour of funding good education and social programs, and yet, somehow every election they vote R because the pope tells them too. The only silver linings are that I think most of them abstained rather than vote for Trump and that they all live in a hard Red state anyway so they probably won’t have much impact. Still drives me crazy though.
The Pope? Pope Francis is more “leftist” than some American leftist! Why do they feel that he would tell them to vote Republican? I don’t know how American Catholics perceive the church, I just hear a lot about evangelicals in the US
Catholics is pretty much the only major Christian denomination that leans left/Democrat in the US. I can’t think of a recent pope that advocated or implicitly encouraged a vote for Republicans.
US Catholic leadership is frequently right-wing and in conflict with Rome. Especially with the recent Pope telling them to quit the hateful rhetoric.
It is fairly common among Catholics. I’ve known some fairly progressive Catholics who are Republicans because abortion. Now, that isn’t to say that a good number haven’t bought into the divisive rhetoric and gone full maga, but that’s not where they started.
If Lemmy had awards this succinct answer would get a pile of them.