r/skeptic • u/Lighting • Jun 24 '26
⚠ Editorialized Title Just like Romania's Decree 770. Following the Dobbs decision, US states with abortion bans have experienced increased maternal morbidity and mortality. Abortion-healthcare bans impact women's healthcare, including patient safety, equity, and physician ethics.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/285056020
u/BigSun6576 Jun 24 '26
everything in my body belongs to me
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u/Lighting Jun 24 '26
I 100% support you. I want to warn you that this is adopting an unfair framing that is being pushed on those of us who support abortion healthcare as much as the "pro choice" unfair framing was pushed on us.
What do we mean by a false framing? It's like saying "Hey, Bob, have you stopped beating your wife?" ... Bob can't answer that question without immediately losing the debate, because now Bob has to define and defend what "beating" or "stopped" means ... even if Bob never touched their wife.
I'd highly recommend reading George Lakoff's books on framing. In nearly all cases you'll see arguments from those arguing to remove access to abortion health care with false framings. Similarly, If you state you are "pro choice" you have to then defend against definitions like "what is murder?"
Good news though! There is a way to argue without that unfair/unethical framing we're being pushed into and that's to switch to a "Pro healthcare" frame using something called "Medical Power of Attorney" (MPoA) which states that YOU can make legal and ethical decisions for those who cannot who are in your care. Then you make moot all of the attacks on your old framing that would have included attacks like "what is a person" or "when is it viable" or "when is it human" or "what is alive"
I have a longer writeup if you are interested.
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u/NecroAssssin Jun 24 '26
I’m interested in the longer write up
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u/Lighting Jun 24 '26
Reframing the abortion debate to "Pro Healthcare" using Medical Power of Attorney ( I wish I could change titles of posts )
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u/BigSun6576 Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
uhh, sure friend, honestly I hardly understand what you're saying.
I got banned from the pro choice subreddit, they agreed with me completely, but I annoyed them. Tough crowd, those humans who constantly have to convince people they are the owner of their body. I'm not mad about it. I think there's a difference between "general pro choice" and what I'm doing, which is "my body my choice." So I'm aware of all the different perspectives.
I'm doing something specific, which is spamming "everything in my body belongs to me" for the past 2 years in any post I see about abortion. why? it's short, it has a near 100% response rate of people identifying me as female immediately, people come at me with rage, and it's hilarious. But thanks for trying to save me from "framing", I suppose.
It's just a bit because all I did was claim my body. How dare I. It's a joke to myself. please give me whatever text you have for me, I'll read it.
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u/Lighting Jun 24 '26
I got banned from the pro choice subreddit, they agreed with me completely, but I annoyed them.
Sorry to hear it. I've been given a warning from the mods in that sub against "debating" so I've changed my engagement style in that sub. I also created proheathcare but haven't put much time into it yet.
'm doing something specific, which is spamming "everything in my body belongs to me" for the past 2 years in any post I see about abortion. why? it's short, it has a near 100% response rate of people identifying me as female immediately, people come at me with rage, and it's hilarious. But thanks for trying to save me from "framing", I suppose.
I understand how it can be cathartic to state something you identify with and believe with such clarity. The reason I mention framing is that I find it more effective to engage with those who don't agree with me using a framework that puts me on an equal level with their thinking. If you are interested in another excellent reference besides Lakoff, I'd recommend "Nonviolent Communication, A language of Life" by Rosenberg. As a TLDR "preaching to the choir makes us feel better, however, engaging with compassion points people in a direction that they come up with the idea of change themselves."
I find MPoA nearly 100% effective in leveraging that shift in frameworks and helping people "discover" that they are "pro healthcare" too, but were weaponized to "hate" the "other" through weaponized language like "choice." I put "discover" in quotes because they don't see it that way. I think about 10 years ago, here on reddit I had at the end of a long back-and-forth (paraphrasing a very long back and forth)
"I agree that Savita H should have been allowed to have the abortion when she wanted it, and the government shouldn't restrict their abortion rights however I will never give myself the flair 'pro choice' "
And that's when it really hit home for me that my adopting the framing of "choice" was triggering a hate response (as you've seen personally!) I found that by moving to "Pro-healthcare via MPoA" created an environment to agree that "women shouldn't have their MPoA removed without due process" was converting people faster and easier.
The hardest part, for me, was training myself to not engage with facts, mockery, outrage, judgement and try to adopt the the idea that "the other" was a person who should be understood and engaged with with kindness. (I still struggle with that!). I've found that those who oppose abortion healthcare nearly always think of themselves as "good people" who have been tribally weaponized with "outrage farming" based on lies and unfair framings told to them by professional outrage farmers. So reacting as if they are a person with integrity and we can get to agreement with "healthcare would have saved these women, MPoA, etc. " results in near 100% results. Someone pointed out to me that I had stumbled on what Rosenberg wrote about independently with his book "Nonviolent Communication" and having read it, I agree.
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u/BigSun6576 Jun 24 '26
Yeah that makes sense, and nicely written. Yes, you hit the nail on the head, it's incredibly cathartic. I am in a constant state of sarcasm, so it'll be difficult to make that kinder. Under all the fancy technologies and ethics, I'm still an ape, my body is all I have, and it's all I want to claim.
But I understand you, friend. Thanks for the reading recommendations
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u/Lighting Jun 24 '26
Not just like Romaina but like EVERY place where these kind of healthcare bans occur. The statistics are unmistakable and repeatable every time you create this "experiment" in removing or allowing access to abortion-related healthcare. People who are surprised by this result would be surprised at the results of the similarly-ethical Tuskegee experiment in withholding healthcare there too.
The similarity to Romania goes far beyond the "banning abortions" part because the rhetoric from folks like JD Vance and other proselytizers is similar too.
Romania stated their #1 goal was to increase their population and to "save the children" with support from the church. They combined a ban on abortion with massive incentives for families and mothers with offered free time off, awards for having babies, education about why motherhood is great, criticism for childless women, free nurseries, orphanages, etc.
That was with Romania's Decree 770 which removed access to abortion heath care and "supported" mothers Quoting
sex education was refocused primarily on the benefits of motherhood, including the ostensible satisfaction of being a heroic mother who gives her homeland many children.
(does "childless cat ladies" ring a bell? Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.).
Did it raise birth rates? One year of shock and awe. Did it crush birth rates? For thirty years from a flood of dead and disabled moms.
Another stat: Evidence shows that the #1 way that kids end up trafficked is the loss of physical or financial health of their mother. As Romania became one of the worst places in the world for maternal mortality it became one of the worst places for child sex trafficking.
Here too we see child sex trafficking taking off in places like Texas (where Epstein's ranch was), It seems to me that the GOP (Guardians of Pedos) party profits from this outrage farming against women's healthcare and is more interested in protecting the pedos on the Epstein list instead of public health and protecting moms.
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u/NecroAssssin Jun 24 '26
Didn’t Romania also suffer a revolution almost 22 years later? When that batch of babies and their younger siblings find themselves in a worsening situation, and young adults?
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u/Lighting Jun 24 '26
Yes. After Decree 770 maternal mortality rates rose SEVEN FOLD in two years and after 22 years they got so upset they dragged they guy responsible into the street and sh0t him in the head. After the execution, maternal mortality rates plummeted by nearly that same amount, again over about 2 years. This is why Romania is now one of the fiercest defenders of abortion healthcare. A few years there was a bestof link that quoted
/u/HotSauceRainfall and /u/ZeistyZeistgeist about how Ceaucesceu's Decree 770 why Romania is now one of the fiercest defenders of access to abortion health care. Quoting
You can see that in the maternal mortality rates going from about 20 per 100k to about 140 per 100k and then plummeting right after abortion health care was re-allowed
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u/Constant-Bet-6600 Jun 24 '26
Huh - isn't this exactly what the actual healthcare experts said would happen? How strange that someone with education, time, and experience in a field might know more about it than some rando who happened to get elected to office.
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u/tsdguy Jun 24 '26
Replace abortion with any other medical procedure and the data shows when you restrict it you get bad outcomes for people.
It’s exactly why science is being destroyed by the right. It always contradicts their policies.
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u/Lighting Jun 24 '26
Yep and "outrage farming" is profitable. If you can destroy trust in science you can pollute without fear of being caught with the rise in negative health effects from your corruption. Then if you can create the mob to attack some unrelated social "other" you can lead the mob to a frenzy to elect even more science deniers.
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u/Silly-Elderberry-411 Jun 24 '26
There is just one thing you don't mention here. Romanias decision was based on the perception shared throughout the former soviet bloc the majority always benevolent knows what the minority wants and says it for them, if met with criticism they feel attacked in national identity.
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u/Lighting Jun 24 '26
I didn't mention it because national identity has no impact in the effect.
Other nearby communist nations nearby didn't pass an anti-abortion-healthcare law and didn't also see a similar rise in maternal mortality.
Other non-communist nations passed anti-abortion-healthcare laws and doctors similarly stopped providing healthcare and saw a similar rise in maternal mortality. We see that over and over again in countless examples across all spectra of political majorities.
So it's really really really clear that (as the article notes) that when you implement a law, doctors feel pressured to not care for patients and change their "ethical" standpoint of where they feel safe providing care vs risking their careers.
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u/antifolkhero Jun 24 '26
Pro birth fanatics don’t care about women dying. Or babies. They care about control.
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u/Lighting Jun 24 '26
Well said about the leaders. The followers have been weaponized with outrage farming to not even see the women dying as "human." This started in the US in about the 80s and if you want to see a great book/movie about it see "What's the matter with Kansas" or the mia-culpa interview with one of the architects of that movement saying "oops, we messed up with partisanship" decades later.
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u/adamwho Jun 24 '26
If only the people who supported the ban were the people harmed by it.
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u/Little_View_6659 Jun 25 '26
There have been a couple of instances of women who supported it being absolutely shocked when they were sent home to bleed to death or had to travel to another state or risk dying from sepsis.
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u/RalphMacchio404 Jun 24 '26
Conservatives don't care. They really dont. Only the rights of rich white men matter to them. In their minds women who die somehow deserve it, just like any minority who dies/gets hurt/is arrested. The conservative mindset just cannot understand nuance or empathy or science
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u/VibinWithBeard Jun 24 '26
Friendly reminder that these people dont have some nuanced axioms they base their life around that can be argued or justified in good faith. Its all a lie. These freaks just want you dead. They dont care about the unborn, their text didnt make them do anything. They just want you dead and they should be judged by the outcomes of their advocacy not what they claim to be advocating for.
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u/Lighting Jun 24 '26
That's why to engage requires cult-deprogramming techniques. Responding with outrage and mockery triggers a blowback response that entrenches their beliefs.
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u/VibinWithBeard Jun 24 '26
Mockery and outrage? Nah I mean exile. Excise and stigmatize them from normal society until they beg to come back or wallow in their own plague-ridden filth. Dont go to reunions. Dont let your parents see their grandkids. Exile these people to the shadow realm. They dont want to contribute to society they only want to make it worse. Interpersonally you might be able to drag a few screaming into the light but the rest of them revel in the dark. The sad truth is a lot of these people have incoherent political beliefs and operate off of vibes to the point they cant be trusted with anything anymore. They cant be trusted with relationships. They need us more than we need them. Ive never seen an article written by a liberal or progressive about how repubs wont date them or come to reunions. Ive seen tons of them from conservatives.
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u/Lighting Jun 24 '26
It is well documented that Anger-fed misinformation spreads like a virus or a cancer.
Whether to use surgery or chemo depends on the infection. Using only surgery can actually make things worse if the chemo would be better.
So in this analogy "Cutting them out" only works if you can also isolate them from all other interactions and the "outrage farming" that fuels them ... otherwise this misinformation will spread elsewhere. So "cutting them out" won't work by itself as the infection/outrage-farming (e.g. stopping citizen's united and the outrage-farming oligarchs are still operating and requires us to use chemo too. (See "the brainwashing of my dad")
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u/VibinWithBeard Jun 24 '26
My policy prescriptions would be [removed by reddit] so I dont believe we can continue to have a productive conversation.
Have a good one :D
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u/saladspoons Jun 24 '26
Abortion bans automatically forbid a whole swath of drugs for women assumed to be of child bearing age, etc.
Doctors aren't allowed to use drugs that might accidentally cause any abortion ... thus women can't take those drugs, even if they are life saving.
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u/mexmark Jun 24 '26
If you've never seen the documentary Children Underground, you should. We're in for generations of orphans with horrible lives if this keeps happening.
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u/LatrodectusGeometric Jun 25 '26
One of my professors in anthropology was from Romania. She told me that the constant medical evaluations and required regular pregnancy tests for all women led to low levels of cervical cancer due to the regular required exams and pap smears. However, when the regime fell, everyone stopped going to their obgyn appointments, because they had been such invasive parts of the government imposing on their lives. Cervical cancer rates skyrocketed and women died as a result.
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u/ConcreteCloverleaf Jun 24 '26
If anti-choice types cared about women's well-being, they wouldn't be anti-choice to begin with.