To put it simply - restricting a woman's right to birth control or abortion is restricting a woman's freedom. They can couch it in religious terms but that is the simplest way to demonstrate it.
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/07/nx-s1-5494710/trump-birth-con...
In states with the GOP controls both houses of legislature and governor, the restrictions against abortion in cases of incest or rape or the obscene combination of the two show exactly where the United States is headed federally.
Bare minimum for basic decency. You can't force someone to live with the result of rape forever on the grounds that a bunch of cells got the same rights as a fully grown human being.
We already let rich people do eugenics in America. See Elon Musk with almost all male babies - this is astronomically against the odds if we assume 50/50 by chance.
Also abortion for eugenics is inefficient and difficult for some women with physical and mental effects - only in the extenuating circumstances like China during one child period would it be viable. This is a side issue from the main point. Ethics in IVF and usage of abortion/Plan B (where it’s so early that it’s not practical for your eugenics idea) - a discussion we should have and have already skipped for IVF in the USA (where it’s more practical from theoretical standpoint for your eugenics point) but it's a distraction from the primary objective of conservative groups - to force women to have less power and choice in their lives. That is the question we see being answered once conservatives gain power to make legislation of their choice in states or via the Supreme Court in the USA.
IIRC that is not a safe assumption. 50/50 is a population-wide statistic, but it's pretty common for individuals to have a substantially skewed probability for one gender of offspring or the other.
Your only point is to defend Elon Musk and never addressed the key point instead which is IVF can be used in the USA for eugenics as the other poster suggested abortions hypothetically would be in their horror scenario. Not every clinic but it's available and is not explicitly outlawed - it's only ethically and professionally dubious for certain scenarios. It's also much more practical that trying to use abortions for the same usage in terms of the mother's health.
I'm just an interested party because my family has nearly all girls for an entire generation, so I have paid attention to research that shows how this happens.
You seem to think it disagrees with a conspiracy theory. I don't care about that, I was just adding a bit of accuracy to the discussion. Carry on.
Are you saying that children's sex is heritable? I don't think there is any strong evidence for that (just weak evidence of tiny effects). Or are you just saying that for any 50/50 distribution, there will be some outliers that seem surprising, but are explained by simple statistics?
There are genetic and biological predispositions at the individual level that make some couples more likely to have one or the other gender children. So it is not at all surprising and there are many examples of parents having all boys or all girls, it does not mean they are selectively aborting to achieve a goal.
The restrictions against abortion in case of something like rape, I think the thought is that the fetus's perceived right to life or perceived right to not be assaulted (chemically or physically) can't be deprived just because of a crime against the mother that was no fault of the fetus.
I actually find abortion with no exception for rape to be far more ideologically pure position than abortion with exceptions for rape.
The one that makes the least sense is restriction on abortion even in the case the fetus cannot survive. That one is far less defensible than not having a rape abortion exception as it can't be explained from the viewpoint of the rights of the mother nor from one of the rights of the fetus.
> That one is far less defensible than not having a rape abortion exception
It's defensible when you realize that forced pregnancy is viewed by many religious people as a punishment. "If you didn't want a baby, don't have sex" is very commonly heard in private conversations with religious people.
Because pregnancy is a holy punishment, the consequences, even death, are seen as moral.
This is also why the rape exception is more common than the medical exception. A mother dying because of an ectopic pregnancy or because she was too young to have a baby is god's will.
I've heard it as well, but after debating with a lot of people with anti-abortion views I think you've done yourself a huge disservice if you view that as the dominating argument against abortion.
I initially held your viewpoint but after engaging a lot of people I realized they often had pretty similar views on life and liberty as mine, they just were looking at it from the viewpoint of the fetus rather than the mother. From that perspective it just doesn't make sense at all to make an exception for rape.
There's a big difference in what people debate publicly and what they think/feel privately.
People will almost never take the "it's a punishment" position in a debate because that's not a popular position to hold and it's pretty weak morally at the end of the day. That's why the "life of the fetus" approach is most frequently taken even though it leads to absurd positions. For example, pro-life people will very often be put into a difficult position when the notion of IVF comes up.
That's what betrays their true views, IMO.
I've simply had a lot of private conversations with people on religion (I was mormon for a long time and served a mormon mission). That's where my opinion on the actual underlying anti-abortion attitude comes from. It's lots of private conversations in safe spaces. The fetus life, frankly, is almost never brought up as a reason.
And, as I pointed out, it pretty well explains why anti-abortion laws have weird boundaries if they were purely about the life of the fetus.
This duality occurs identically when people discuss legal required child support. "If you didn't want a child, don't have sex" is very commonly initial argument, but then it get changed into "well being of the child" approach, as it leads to the same conclusion. It not a punishment, its a childs's right to support by their biological parents.
Most nations still have social support and government responsibility as last resort, which equally can do the job of supporting children without willing parents, but then people return to the punishment/moral angle that if men don't want to pay for children then they should not have sex.
Look to how quickly people reaches for the morality position and we see how little friction anti-abortion policies has to overcome.
Both can be motivating factors even for the same person. But which dominates the motivation, I'd argue, can be seen by the end policies.
What I expect to see for those that view it as primarily punishment is little outside of child support for kids. Penalizing the "dead beat dad" as it were. I expect those governments to not provide child support, tax breaks for parents, or any sort of welfare/support/minimum standard of living for parents. That is to say, the answer to "how hard would it be to be a single parent" in those government would be "very hard".
For governments that are solely looking out for the welfare of the kid, I expect to see a large amount of support for kids, especially for poor families. I expect some help with childcare, housing, etc to make sure the kids are well cared for.
It definitive seems like a connection between a lack of social support and an emotion reaction to penalizing people for getting pregnant. On the extreme end we have a culture where the man should take responsibility for getting the woman pregnant and where abortion is seen as a way for both to escape responsibility. Support comes from the family rather than society, which also means members of the family is responsible towards the family.
The closer people holds to those values, the easier society accept laws like anti-abortion. Religion do play a supporting role in this by holding onto the values, but is itself not always in the center.
I’m not arguing the circumstantial evidence isn’t compelling. And as a talking point, it’s a good one. But as an argument made in good faith, I think one needs direct attribution to be able to say what something “plans.”
We need something. I asked if there was a hot mic because those two have a tendency to get recorded saying stupid things. It coud also be an e-mail, a memo, a recollection by a friend or former colleague, et cetera.
In the absence of evidence, it's much simpler to conclude that at least Musk is just sexist versus trying "to make women afraid to participate in public life."
I cannot roll my eyes hard enough at your comments. You expect every bad actor to make a public statement about their vile plans? Sure our president does it, but he's especially stupid.
> You expect every bad actor to make a public statement about their vile plans?
Neither Musk nor Miller have exhibited a tremendous amount of discipline in this department.
I don’t expect them to say this. But I do expect someone arguing in good faith to distinguish between plans and effects, particularly when we’re turning what looks like garden-variety sexism into a political theory.
I don't think it's that unusual on the scale of one person. it just happens sometimes, for example with Henry VIII. It could just be thr nature of the coin toss.
Henry VIII had only three legitimate kids surviving infancy, one of which was a boy. He was 1/3 for boys in this count. Add in the one for sure illegitimate child and he's 2/4 born male. Of those infants who were stillborn or died very early into their infancy, several were boys but it seems the counts for those children were uncertain. Also, there were probably several illegitimate male and female children had by him.
Most of his kids were conceived through IVF, and sex selection through IVF is not difficult. He also has disowned his one trans daughter because she refuses to be his son.
> don't think it's that unusual on the scale of one person
It would be remarkably unlikely. It's fair to say Musk is probably sex selecting for sons. It doesn't follow that he has plans "to make women afraid to participate in public life."
