Seems to me the people of Kansas, in determining their own path with respect to abortion law is precisely what the Constitution demands, as POTUS affirms. I have my doubts about abortion. Never have found a way to minimize taking the life of an innocent. I’ve seen too many ultrasound images. As an engineer for many years, my own definition of when life begins, is analogous to running software code, executing the script of life in an unbroken sequence from conception to natural death.
It’s complicated. Truly a tragedy for all involved. I understand abortion is sometimes necessary, and can’t sit in judgement of anyone who makes the their own decision either. However, Roe was a decision that distorted the Constitution, and needed correction. POTUS was correct of course—even Justice Ginsberg thought the decision was too far-reaching and too sweeping. Bittersweet. Kansas made their own choice, just as intended.
"let the people decide" - wonder if this issue will ever be "put to the people" again by the Right lol.. versus having state legislatures operating way outside of median public opinion, as they have been doing in other Republican led states.
I think it’s interesting that there is this belief that if you are a Republican you must be pro-life with no exceptions, anti-LGBT, anti-same sex marriage, etc. If indeed over 80% off the country is in favor of laws that make abortion legal yet limited, how could Republicans not be in that mix? As with so many other ‘categories’ of human beings we try to lump together, generally those groups don’t think and March in unison. I’m pretty sure not all Democrats are in favor of abortion with no limitations.
I was hoping for an article investigating how conservative Kansas voted to keep abortion rights, which is a real mystery to me. All I got was that apparently every person she came into contact with was pro-choice, complete with the nonsensical argument about it being about controlling other womens’ bodies instead of the fundamental pro-life argument: “It’s a human life and you have no right to murder it” which was completely ignored. The article is very obviously written from a pro-choice angle, which is fine. What is always irksome about writing like this is their utter inability to understand and respect that pro-life argument.
The Kansas No State Constitutional Right to Abortion and Legislative Power to Regulate Abortion Amendment was on the ballot in Kansas as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment on August 2, 2022. The ballot measure was defeated.
A "yes" vote supported amending the Kansas Constitution to:
state that nothing in the state constitution creates a right to abortion or requires government funding for abortion and
state that the legislature has the authority to pass laws regarding abortion.
A "no" vote opposed amending the Kansas Constitution, thereby maintaining the legal precedent established in Hodes & Nauser v. Schmidt (2019) that the Kansas Bill of Rights provides a right to abortion.
Here’s an experiment the author can try and then write about.
Drive your car out to the rural part of Kansas with a Biden bumper sticker and pull over and open the hood and observe who stops and helps.
Then, get a 4x4 and stick a MAGA sticker on the back and gun rack in the window and drive into a Blue City, maybe Seattle or SFO or DC. Open the hood and observe and report on who stops to help you out.
Next question. Do you even need to run this experiment to know the outcome?
Sure gives the lie to the synthetically whipped up hysteria by the Democrat Party. Roe was not overturned, it was unconstitutional. It went back to the states, where it should have been all along. Somehow, most "activists" who can't read or think, and only respond to graffiti or placards, couldn't or wouldn't understand that.Don't think, march. Whatever drives voters, Dems are are for. They promoted, sustained and nurtured Jim Crow for generations to keep the "Solid South." I was a friend of Gloria Steinem and was very fond of her. I was, at the time, pro-abortion, but I could not understand why it was placed as a centerpiece of the Feminist Movement. Women are the givers of life, and you're saying they have the right to be the takers of life. Strategically, it seems wrong. Even then, it made me queasy. It smelled of self-hatred. I was an ardent feminist, but I guess I misunderstood late feminism. And women.
For people who have seen a video of an abortion (even a 1st trimester), this blind defense and celebration of abortion comes across as pathological and evil.
Why are we not presented with the physical reality of abortion when discussing it? Why is it always so hidden? Why has no one seen it? If it is something we celebrate and value, we should understand the consequences.
The Kansas vote just shows the huge disconnect between American conservatives and the American people, including much of their conservative voting base. American conservatives are routinely tricking themselves into positions of power, ignoring and circumventing the will of the people, by gerrymandering, with manipulations of how to determine who's eligible to vote by putting less polling stations in "unfriendly" electoral territory hoping that "unfriendly" voters won't have the stamina to wait hours longer than their "friendly" counterparts or by packing the Supreme Court with their people using every dirty trick in the book. But there's a serious backside to that. Republicans feel they don't have to care about what voters really want and so they simply have stopped listening to voters and only care about their donors and some allmighty cultists who command over a sizeable minority of votes and believe they are entitled to force their millennium old backward rules upon the vast majority of their fellow citizens. Now that finally appears to be backfiring big time.
There are vast majorities of American citizens who are pro choice, pro equal rights for gay people, including gay marriage, pro gun control, whereas conservatives managed to successfully manipulate the system, so that the upper echelons can deprive the American people of all those things. This has to change. The American people should start to fight back and take back their country and democracy! I truly hope that process has just started and will finally prevail.
By the way, no one should be above the law, including former presidents. Trump needs to get charged convicted and locked up for treason. Just another thing that has to happen for the American people to take back their country from the self entitled few.
“In Kansas, pro-lifers vastly outnumber those in the pro-choice camp. (As of August, there were roughly 858,000 Republicans versus 504,000 Democrats, according to the Kansas Secretary of State.) Which makes the August 2 vote all the more confusing.”
Perhaps it’s confusing to Ms. Rommelman because she is guilty of stereotyping Republicans. The party and its registered members are not an intellectual monolith. I am a lifelong Republican. I am also an atheist. I am a lawyer and self-employed. I am heterosexual, married and a mother. I support gay marriage. I support limited government intrusion in my life. To me, WOKE is the worst four-letter word. I oppose COVID vaccine mandates (my body, my choice right?). I support a woman’s right to abortion, but with reasonable limitations. Many of my Republican friends share my views. So, am I surprised that a heavily Republican state voted to uphold a woman’s right to abortion? No! And the only reason the author is surprised is because she’s drinking the liberal Kool-Aid and fundamentally believes the most conservative Republicans are representative of all Republicans. The election results in Kansas should be a huge eye-opener to Ms. Rommelman. Maybe…just maybe…she has it wrong. Maybe Republicans are more varied and nuanced than she understood. But alas, she is looking for ways to harmonize her stereotypes with a reality that doesn’t match up.
A "yes" vote would have meant total uncertainty. Would abortion be banned in cases of rape or incest? Would it be banned to save the life of the mother? Who knows. Maybe it would be--maybe it wouldn't. Seeing a 10 year old rape victim having to go to another state probably shocked a lot of people.
The problem is, once again, everyone views things as black or white / all or nothing. The reality, I think, is that most people have a more nuanced view of abortion. First trimester, or at least early in the first trimester, probably garners majority support. Second trimester and later, most would probably be against except for life of the mother.
Peggy Noonan of the WSJ wrote an excellent piece on this. Much more constructive.
Seems to me the people of Kansas, in determining their own path with respect to abortion law is precisely what the Constitution demands, as POTUS affirms. I have my doubts about abortion. Never have found a way to minimize taking the life of an innocent. I’ve seen too many ultrasound images. As an engineer for many years, my own definition of when life begins, is analogous to running software code, executing the script of life in an unbroken sequence from conception to natural death.
It’s complicated. Truly a tragedy for all involved. I understand abortion is sometimes necessary, and can’t sit in judgement of anyone who makes the their own decision either. However, Roe was a decision that distorted the Constitution, and needed correction. POTUS was correct of course—even Justice Ginsberg thought the decision was too far-reaching and too sweeping. Bittersweet. Kansas made their own choice, just as intended.
"let the people decide" - wonder if this issue will ever be "put to the people" again by the Right lol.. versus having state legislatures operating way outside of median public opinion, as they have been doing in other Republican led states.
A lot of sorry arsed jerkwads commenting on this. I'm glad they are solidly in the very minor minority this Kansas plebicite demonstrates.
I think it’s interesting that there is this belief that if you are a Republican you must be pro-life with no exceptions, anti-LGBT, anti-same sex marriage, etc. If indeed over 80% off the country is in favor of laws that make abortion legal yet limited, how could Republicans not be in that mix? As with so many other ‘categories’ of human beings we try to lump together, generally those groups don’t think and March in unison. I’m pretty sure not all Democrats are in favor of abortion with no limitations.
I was hoping for an article investigating how conservative Kansas voted to keep abortion rights, which is a real mystery to me. All I got was that apparently every person she came into contact with was pro-choice, complete with the nonsensical argument about it being about controlling other womens’ bodies instead of the fundamental pro-life argument: “It’s a human life and you have no right to murder it” which was completely ignored. The article is very obviously written from a pro-choice angle, which is fine. What is always irksome about writing like this is their utter inability to understand and respect that pro-life argument.
The Kansas No State Constitutional Right to Abortion and Legislative Power to Regulate Abortion Amendment was on the ballot in Kansas as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment on August 2, 2022. The ballot measure was defeated.
A "yes" vote supported amending the Kansas Constitution to:
state that nothing in the state constitution creates a right to abortion or requires government funding for abortion and
state that the legislature has the authority to pass laws regarding abortion.
A "no" vote opposed amending the Kansas Constitution, thereby maintaining the legal precedent established in Hodes & Nauser v. Schmidt (2019) that the Kansas Bill of Rights provides a right to abortion.
Here’s an experiment the author can try and then write about.
Drive your car out to the rural part of Kansas with a Biden bumper sticker and pull over and open the hood and observe who stops and helps.
Then, get a 4x4 and stick a MAGA sticker on the back and gun rack in the window and drive into a Blue City, maybe Seattle or SFO or DC. Open the hood and observe and report on who stops to help you out.
Next question. Do you even need to run this experiment to know the outcome?
I agree
And for fans of helicopter journalism, here’s one on Wyoming from the WaPo today.. I came I saw I understood the people of a state..https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/10/07/wyoming-voters-liz-cheney/?itid=mr_lifestyle_3
Sure gives the lie to the synthetically whipped up hysteria by the Democrat Party. Roe was not overturned, it was unconstitutional. It went back to the states, where it should have been all along. Somehow, most "activists" who can't read or think, and only respond to graffiti or placards, couldn't or wouldn't understand that.Don't think, march. Whatever drives voters, Dems are are for. They promoted, sustained and nurtured Jim Crow for generations to keep the "Solid South." I was a friend of Gloria Steinem and was very fond of her. I was, at the time, pro-abortion, but I could not understand why it was placed as a centerpiece of the Feminist Movement. Women are the givers of life, and you're saying they have the right to be the takers of life. Strategically, it seems wrong. Even then, it made me queasy. It smelled of self-hatred. I was an ardent feminist, but I guess I misunderstood late feminism. And women.
For people who have seen a video of an abortion (even a 1st trimester), this blind defense and celebration of abortion comes across as pathological and evil.
Why are we not presented with the physical reality of abortion when discussing it? Why is it always so hidden? Why has no one seen it? If it is something we celebrate and value, we should understand the consequences.
I mean Christians, all of them.
God creating evil is no problem. My problem is with the contradictions. Why would an all powerful, all knowing being write such a confusing book.
The Kansas vote just shows the huge disconnect between American conservatives and the American people, including much of their conservative voting base. American conservatives are routinely tricking themselves into positions of power, ignoring and circumventing the will of the people, by gerrymandering, with manipulations of how to determine who's eligible to vote by putting less polling stations in "unfriendly" electoral territory hoping that "unfriendly" voters won't have the stamina to wait hours longer than their "friendly" counterparts or by packing the Supreme Court with their people using every dirty trick in the book. But there's a serious backside to that. Republicans feel they don't have to care about what voters really want and so they simply have stopped listening to voters and only care about their donors and some allmighty cultists who command over a sizeable minority of votes and believe they are entitled to force their millennium old backward rules upon the vast majority of their fellow citizens. Now that finally appears to be backfiring big time.
There are vast majorities of American citizens who are pro choice, pro equal rights for gay people, including gay marriage, pro gun control, whereas conservatives managed to successfully manipulate the system, so that the upper echelons can deprive the American people of all those things. This has to change. The American people should start to fight back and take back their country and democracy! I truly hope that process has just started and will finally prevail.
By the way, no one should be above the law, including former presidents. Trump needs to get charged convicted and locked up for treason. Just another thing that has to happen for the American people to take back their country from the self entitled few.
“In Kansas, pro-lifers vastly outnumber those in the pro-choice camp. (As of August, there were roughly 858,000 Republicans versus 504,000 Democrats, according to the Kansas Secretary of State.) Which makes the August 2 vote all the more confusing.”
Perhaps it’s confusing to Ms. Rommelman because she is guilty of stereotyping Republicans. The party and its registered members are not an intellectual monolith. I am a lifelong Republican. I am also an atheist. I am a lawyer and self-employed. I am heterosexual, married and a mother. I support gay marriage. I support limited government intrusion in my life. To me, WOKE is the worst four-letter word. I oppose COVID vaccine mandates (my body, my choice right?). I support a woman’s right to abortion, but with reasonable limitations. Many of my Republican friends share my views. So, am I surprised that a heavily Republican state voted to uphold a woman’s right to abortion? No! And the only reason the author is surprised is because she’s drinking the liberal Kool-Aid and fundamentally believes the most conservative Republicans are representative of all Republicans. The election results in Kansas should be a huge eye-opener to Ms. Rommelman. Maybe…just maybe…she has it wrong. Maybe Republicans are more varied and nuanced than she understood. But alas, she is looking for ways to harmonize her stereotypes with a reality that doesn’t match up.
Thanks for pointing that out.. that irked me as well. As in “we know what members of a party think, without actually asking them, you know?”
A "yes" vote would have meant total uncertainty. Would abortion be banned in cases of rape or incest? Would it be banned to save the life of the mother? Who knows. Maybe it would be--maybe it wouldn't. Seeing a 10 year old rape victim having to go to another state probably shocked a lot of people.
The problem is, once again, everyone views things as black or white / all or nothing. The reality, I think, is that most people have a more nuanced view of abortion. First trimester, or at least early in the first trimester, probably garners majority support. Second trimester and later, most would probably be against except for life of the mother.