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- cross-posted to:
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Faced with relentless Republican attacks on reproductive freedom including efforts to give embryos and fetuses legal rights from the moment of conception, Democratic lawmakers in two states have recently introduced legislation that would ban men from ejaculating for purposes other than making babies, with some exceptions.
this is literally outreach to those communities by applying the same absurd standards that are being applied to the current victims to the oppressors.
This is a valid and effective proposal to counter the reproductive rights recently stolen from women.
Nah, this is performative nonsense to grab some headlines and say, “See, we’re doing stuff,” that doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of actually passing and changing peoples’ lives. Meanwhile, the Republicans are running roughshod all over the Democrats on things that actually have pretty immediate, overwhelmingly negative impacts on peoples’ lives, like the shitshow that is DOGE, and the Democrats are just angrily wagging their collective finger and going, “Why, Mr. President, if you don’t knock that off, I’m going to really get cross with you. I daresay, I may even use uncouth language in reference to your person, despite the esteemed office you occupy!” They aren’t even making token efforts at trying to derail any of his cabinet picks and get some GOP defectors to help block them.
They’ve tried nothing and thrown up their hands, so now it’s time to draw out the tried and true playbook of looking as incompetent and out of touch at a key moment in history as they can possibly manage to do, short of outright switching party membership and taking up the GOP mantle themselves.
restricting people’s bodily autonomy and healthcare so that they are dying in the streets of the US is not “performative nonsense”.
there was US legislation passed by extremists that restricts civil liberties and takes away the rights of women in the United States, and women are dying and becoming extremely ill as a result.
If women’s rights are restricted in that country, then so should be the men’s.
That’s not what I said, and you know it. Republicans implemented a concrete policy, with dire real world consequences. These proposed bills are dead before they’ve even finished drafting them, and accomplish nothing beyond creating a moment of tone-deaf political theater so that people who already agree with them can pat themselves on the back.
This does nothing to undo the harms of Republican anti-abortion laws, it doesn’t prevent any of those women from dying, it’s performative bullshit preaching to the choir. This isn’t going to make Republicans suddenly go, “Gee, I never thought of it like that,” it’s just to get brownie points in liberal circles.
They could have, I don’t know, removed the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court to prevent Republicans from doing exactly what they said they wanted to do the last time around, but that’s a step too far for the Democrats. I mean, it could have put the matter to rest definitively enough until they had a legislative majority that would let them codify abortion rights, but heavens forbid they kill off one of their great fundraising cash cows and lose the ability to campaign on “If you don’t vote Democrat, the Republicans are going to undo Roe v. Wade!” This is another blunder like Hillary’s pied piper strategy that came back to bite them when Republicans did the thing Democrats thought couldn’t seriously happen.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, and even if they did, you and I both know these bills have a 0% chance of actually passing and changing anything.
Since you’re so sure this isn’t purely performative, but a valid and effective counter, would you care to quantify that efficacy for me? How many of these bills need to be proposed and die before they even hit the floor to win over enough Republicans? How many until women who lost their reproductive rights actually see them restored? Until women stop dying from being denied basic healthcare? I’m not expecting an exact number, but surely, you could give me a ballpark estimate and a timeline for these efforts to start producing results, as confident as you are in this strategy.
“That’s not what I said”
That’s literally what you said, that restricting bodily autonomy through legislation was a performance piece.
If the religious extremists are going to restrict women’s civil rights and bodily autonomy, the rational lawmakers should also be restricting men’s civil rights and bodily autonomy.
this is a very practical solution.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right”
that isn’t what’s happening.
they are fighting fire with fire.
they are backburning to stop the wildfire destroying civil rights because of religious extremists and oligarchs that have been elected or appointed.
“Since you’re so sure this isn’t purely performative”
it isn’t. this legislation prohibiting female bodily autonomy already happened.
raped children are being forced to keep their rape babies.
women are dying in the parking. lots of hospitals.
they are being bounty hunted for seeking medical care.
That’s not performative. those are real life effects of these people. you want to allow to steal civil rights, including basic human dignity.
shame on you.
You might want to work on your reading comprehension, as that is not at all what I said. Let me spell it out loud and clear for you. Republicans already did a terrible thing removing women’s right to autonomy over their own bodies. Several Democratic Senators proposed bills that would impose restrictions broadly within the same category that would impact men, rather than women, if they were to pass, but have literally none of the dire consequences women face from the Republican actions. These proposed bills have literally zero chance of passing into law, and thus will not have any effect. Now, then.
Let’s pull up the old Cambridge dictionary for that pesky word I’ve bolded.
Now, since these aren’t going to pass into law, and thus have no binding effect on reality, how exactly is this a practical solution.
Uh, I don’t know how to break it to you, but those are all the consequences of the Republican policy that have already taken effect, and these laws don’t propose to undo any of them. Once more, they don’t even level the field of oppression, since they aren’t going to pass, and the people writing them know this.
A practical solution would have been addressing the filibuster and expanding the Supreme Court to prevent the conservative-packed court from doing exactly what they did. Or actually codifying the protections obtained from the Roe v. Wade decision in law at any point in the 50+ years since the ruling was initially made. Either one of those would have actually prevented this situation.
You have yet to articulate in any way how proposing laws that these legislators know will not be passed will do literally anything aside from generate some media coverage. Unless you can do so, there’s no point in engaging with you any further. I don’t know if you’re just a troll, or if you really believe this will actually provoke any real change, as you refuse to explain why you believe this to be a practical solution that will bear fruit, either by correcting the wrongs done to women in this country or by making men face vaguely similar (but not really, kind of hard to equate dying painfully and unnecessarily from being denied healthcare with a $10,000 fine) consequences, in spite of all evidence indicating otherwise.