US abortion bans are going to hit us worse than we think
One thing about the bans on abortion that no one is talking about but is going to affect absolutely everyone is the current labor shortage we're experiencing in this country. From logistics to food service to retail and beyond, women are part of the workforce in the United States. Once women start being forced to carry to term and give birth in numbers not seen in half a century, those women will be removed from the labor pool. That means less people in every work field in a time when we're already seeing a shortage of workers. That's only going to get worse. Add to that the reduction in salaries and rise in expenses for basic necessities (baby food, diapers, baby clothes) and that's money taken out of most sectors of the economy.
We are headed for a massive labor shortage and a massive hit to an economy already weakened by a major pandemic. With this one ruling, the economic backbone of the American infrastructure may be dramatically weakened, and the number of jobs being filled are going to plummet.
This is all on their heads, and it isn't going to be pretty.
Thanks. I wasn't going to say anything because I try to assume the best possible faith of others and figured autonomy stuff was already going on out in the initial thread, which I haven't really engaged with. But when I saw this it did make me sad: I half-wrote something but gave up and clicked away.
Many people have just been told that the right to decide what happens to their own body will no longer be recognized by their government. It is like being unpersoned. They are expected to sacrifice their own hopes, dreams, and even to risk their life for the unthinking and unfeeling fetal tissue their body has made from them, inside of them.
Essentially they have been told that their value is not inherent to them, but rather that they are more valuable as incubators than as human beings in their own right.
So when this thread asks instead what child-bearing people are providing for others in terms of their work, and speculating how the general population of the USA may suffer as a result of this, it's just... again primarily thinking them in terms of what their bodies provide for other people. I don't think it's malicious, of course not, but that does not mean it did not... I don't want to say it hurt, but being honest with myself, it did kind of hurt. The decision is still too fresh for this.
I don't care what kind of labour people want out of me. I don't care about the economy. I don't care about demographics or crime rates twenty years down the line. My body is me and thus my body is for me: to experience life in, to dream in, to love with. Any other justification for recognizing my right to control it is at best superfluous - my dignity and personhood need to be enough, or else I am not equal.
(I am a cis woman who has the capacity to become pregnant, although unlikey; I live in a country with legal and safe abortion care.)
What would you suggest be included in the conversation while still discussing the points at hand?
Should comments have a lead in about how the individual making the comment supports all women having the right to bodily autonomy, that the SCOTUS enforced christofascism is horrific, and that women are being pushed further back into second class citizen status by a group that won't be happy until they're practically property again?
Women are not mere data points, and I don't think anyone here believes they are, but I'd like to be educated on methods to both discuss the other effects of this ruling while also not alienating half the population or making them feel like they are seen as mere data points.
I agree with this 100%.
We should never tell people "you're wrong to feel this way." All feelings were valid, and those feelings are especially wrong right now. If asked, I'll take this down, I never meant for it to go this way, it was a thought about how even amongst the horrible reasons this was done, other horrible things are going to happen as a consequence, and this is/could be one of them.
I am deeply sorry for making anyone feel disenfranchised or dehumanized. My absolute rage over people being disenfranchised and dehumanized is where this even came from.
It was more an "offer to all" than anything else, because it is such a serious issue. But, you say it's okay, I'm not going to argue!
Even in a forum full of liberals, progressives, feminists, and allies, people who have no direct experience with a complex and contentious subject revolving around gender, discrimination, etc. being the primary ones talking about it can have negative effects. I wrote a rather long comment about this very subject which I think might shed some light on why that's the case. I won't quote the whole thing, but here's the most relevant portion.
And sure, straight cis men can still talk about the issue of abortion in productive ways... but it is worth considering the ostracizing effect discussions like that can have. And the fact that this criticism keeps getting brought up, and more and more women and minorities are permanently leaving this site because stuff like this keeps happening should greatly concern everyone still here, IMO.
p.s. For the record, I didn't follow my own advice on this topic and actually made a top level comment here earlier, but after realizing it was a mistake to participate in this thanks to @vivarium's comment, I deleted it. So I apologize to all the women still on Tildes who were made uncomfortable by this topic and for my having contributed to it.
I think you're taking my message to the absolute extreme, and maybe that's my fault for not being clear enough. On certain topics, like questions asked specifically of women (like the topic that I wrote my comment in) or LGBT+ people, I do still genuinely believe there should be almost no straight cis male responses at the top level, unless maybe its them asking another question. But for everything else, I'm not saying that anyone should necessarily be prevented from participating (so long as they're being respectful), even when it's about sensitive topics like abortion. However, if the subject is primarily about women, or an issue that primarily affects them, the cis males here (myself included) should at least try to be aware of the effect that topics and walls of comments from cis males can have on that topic, and the community as a whole. And in cases like that, unless we feel something really needs to be said, perhaps working to encourage participation of those who are directly affected by, and have experience with the subject, and elevate their voices, is the better move to make overall. And that's all I'm trying to say; Just be mindful of what sort of message certain discussions by the cis male majority here can have on others who are in the minority.
And as for recruiting more women here. Unfortunately, that's not an easy thing to do... especially when those we do invite keep feeling pushed away and end up leaving. Which is, once again, why I honestly think we really need a ~women group, so it can act as a signal that they're both welcome here, and that they can also have a somewhat "safe space" to discuss things with each other. Similar to how ~lgbt does the same for those of us in the LGBT+ community (which is likely why we have such comparatively high LGBT representation).
p.s. For the record, it really does sadden me to know that you don't feel welcome to comment at length as much anymore either, since I have always enjoyed reading your perspective, and chatting with you. And I genuinely wish I knew a way to make everyone feel totally welcome here at all times, always able to voice their opinions whenever they feel the desire to (so long as they're respectful), and know that their comments are appreciated. But unfortunately it truly does feels like a bit of a zero-sum game while the community is still so small, and in order to elevate and encourage more women and minority voices to participate here, others in the cis male majority do sometimes simply need to hold back sharing their opinions in certain circumstances. :(
I've pretty much made peace with the idea that Tildes isn't going to get any bigger. I think in the framework of the "Dan fixes coin ops" guy on Mastodon we are probably in "decline" phase of virtual community, it's difficult to see how to change it, and our choices are either Cosy Mode or Heartbreak.
What if we gave up on hoping that new people will come? The people you know here are pretty much it. Hopefully we can get along! (If new people do show up, that's great, but no expectations.)
So I think the way to get a more diverse set of voices - the voices of people who are mostly not here - is to look for what they've written elsewhere on the Internet and link to them? Maybe that's the best we can do. (And I believe you've tried that before, for a while?)
The upside is that this place is small enough that if you take an interest in a subject, you can pretty much keep it going just by posting links about it, which is a lot easier than writing stuff yourself.
And I think that lowers the stakes a bit, if some conversations don't go the way we hoped? If it matters, it's because it matters to people who are actually here. Vivarium spoke up because it mattered to them, and that's important in itself, without imagining what others might think - the imaginary audience that we can't be sure corresponds to real people.
To be absolutely 100% crystal clear, that was only said in very specific reference to topics where questions are being asked directly to women or LGBT people... not in reference to topics about them or that subject matter in general. I probably should have been clearer when quoting myself here since the context is important. I said all that in a topic where a question was being asked directly to women here on Tildes, and the majority of the comments (at the time I wrote that) were "as a cis man, here's my opinion" type replies. So again, I am NOT saying straight cis men should completely STFU in every single topic about women, women's issues, or LGBT issues, but they definitely should when they're not the ones being asked the question, especially when the people actually being asked haven't even had an opportunity to reply yet.
Even outside those direct question type topics, we should still try to be cognizant of how our comments will be perceived, and the effect they will have, when coming solely from a cis male perspective though, which was the point I was trying to get across. And so I absolutely agree with you that everyone taking feedback more graciously, and working to understand others perspectives is the ideal outcome to all this.
I think it might help to have a more concrete example of the outcome you're looking for from this kind of acknowledgement.
Take this topic as a starting point. Let's pretend that these questions were asked, your feelings heard without pushback. You've made it clear that you're not asking the discussion not to happen at all. How would you want OP, within the constraints of his identity (still a man) and what he has control over (e.g. can't guarantee what identity people will respond), to discuss this or things like this either as a topic or a comment on a topic going forward?
I dunno, I see plenty of decent discussion on this abortion decision composed of the same cis white dudes that make up most of the site, and that was mostly fine. The issue brought up in this thread is just a very "I am not personally harmed by this" and somewhat insensitive take to bring forward right now, and if you want to get at why that is and why it popped up on this site, our demographics have something to do with that.
Beside the point, but I also think a big part of that effect is that a post doesn't have to be popular to be shown to everyone active on the site...it just takes one person posting something for it to get all our eyes, not any number of votes, activity, or anything. Just a symptom of being small.
Nitpick, but it's "cis" (Latin, meaning "same side of"), not CIS, unless you're discussing Star Wars or the civil war.
I guess the world of short acronyms is pretty overfull these days.
Why is the assumption that that topic is the first thought? The emotional, the life stories, the moral, the personal rights and body autonomy, the threshold of life, and more are flooding most major social media platforms. The same ones that have come up for years every time abortion, and similar core issues, are in the spotlight. Are they the most important aspects of the issue? Absolutely. Are there other ways to look at the situation, perhaps even ones that haven't been widely thought about yet, maybe even ones that are more "logical" that could be used to move the needle with those in power doing decision risk calculations, or those that disagree in the middle (who can eventually help influence those in power)? Also, absolutely. I don't think every topic on one of these other aspects needs to start with a disclaimer about how they acknowledge A, B, C
I agree it's very upsetting, and honestly this is not even close to important in the terms of taking away rights. The most important reason to protect abortion rights is absolutely because it's an erosion of bodily autonomy and self-determination, both bedrocks of personal freedom (I've been saying that if you don't own yourself you can't be said to own anything, and if you don't have the freedom to determine your own life path you can't be said to have any freedom.) My intent was never to say that the ban on abortion is bad because of its ties to our labor pool... just that this is one consequence I thought of that I hadn't seen discussed, and (more largely) if there's this, how many more consequences that have nothing to do with why they're doing this horrible thing are lying in wait like pitfalls.
It's not trying to belittle the main consequence (the stripping away of vital and foundational rights), it's more of a "yes anding" to that. It's bad for the reasons we all think, and it's also bad for other reasons beyond that.
An edit to add what I've been trying to say in all of that but haven't spelled outright: I am deeply sorry
ifthat what I said has made anyone feel as if I'm reducing them to an economic statistic. That wasn't my intent, I promise you.This is a conundrum I remember being talked about before in Tildes. I think people can be talked about as numbers in useful ways, like waves of hospitalizations or population aging and what should be done about them. At the same time, it can rub those with first-hand experience in the matter the wrong way, even when there's no intention to do so.
To me, talking in numbers or in the abstract seems fine as long as no over-generalization is made about subjective feelings. Talking in the abstract doesn't necessarily mean they lack the capacity to listen and empathize.
If Gaywallet were here, they would’ve said something similar. I disagreed with them on a lot, but can see the sort of “detached” discussion here, and understand the issues with it.
Thank you for sharing this. I always have a preference for elevating other voices, asking for opinions, offering domain-specific advice, or assistance when I can't speak personally about an issue.
You're assuming that women won't get abortions by travelling or illegal means. I don't know what will happen, but here's an article I found interesting:
Banning abortions will not stop abortions (Your Local Epidemiologist).
I'm not sure how applicable the comparative context is to America, at least in the short term. There's a caveat here in that many countries that don't allow abortions also aren't quite as invasive and oppressive about enforcing those bans as the anti-abortion crowd in the USA is. It's a major culture war flashpoint here in a way it isn't anywhere else. Yes it's punishable on paper, but in practice they're not having bounties being put on the heads of providers and systems modeled on fugitive slave laws in place to hunt people seeking abortions down.
And even if the finding does hold, on net it may not actually put that much of a dent in the number of abortions, but it will likely increase the number of botched abortions that result in death or infertility for the mother and lead to some wives and girlfriends being killed by their significant others because they're unable or unwilling to shoulder the risk of terminating a pregnancy.
There's currently legislature in Texas being moved forward that will charge women who travel out-of-state for an abortion. Also, the people who are hit hardest by this, that is, those who live in poverty, often can't afford to travel through multiple states to get to one where they can get a safe abortion.
And while it's true that women will get illegal abortions, that's going to lead to deaths, which is also a decrease in the labor force.
That's got to be unconstitutional, right? There's no way a state can punish you for what you do outside of that state.
Right?
Well, we will see. Our current Supreme Court will be very understanding, I am sure.
California charges income tax for money made in other states if you are a resident.
The difference there is that they arent saying that they are punishing you for doing something that's legal in the state you did it in.
It'd be like Florida arresting someone at the airport on the way back from Colorado because you smoked weed out there.
I'm expecting increase in maternal mortality, increase in septic abortion, increase in foster care, increase in child hunger, and slight increase in child trafficking.
I think long term, you end up with a larger pool of people who either need gainful or ungainful employment, short term I understand what you are saying, but the effect might be negligible, depending on how easy it is to get pills mailed. Actually, now that I think about it, we are definitely going to see an increase in bullshit legal cases.
I will be highly surprised if abortions bans were to have a significant impact on the labor shortage. There were roughly 3.6M births in US in 2020 and roughly 0.9M abortions as the high estimate (according to my very shallow googling). It is not sure the number of actual abortions will decrease despite it being illegal. Worldwide the abortion rate is estimated to apx. 25%, with higher numbers in places where it is illegal. So, for arguments sake let's say 50% happened in states where abortions become illegal. And let's further say there's asay 50% drop in actual abortions. That leaves ~250K additional births. While that's a sizeable bump in birth rates there isn't a direct translation to 250K mother's leaving the labour pool. USA has no guaranteed maternity leave and a large pool of new mothers return to work quite quickly out of necessity as is... (I'll refrain from a longer rant on this subject)
All that said, possible induced labour shortage is probably one of the poorest arguments for abortion rights. Reproductive rights similar to a bunch of other rights shouldn't be judged from an economic perspective. Bodily autonomy should be protected because it is the morally right thing, not because it is good for the bottom line.
If someone was serious about reducing abortions,then just make fathers wholly financially responsible for their offspring. Finance it eg by taxing all fathers and have it payed out to mother's until the kid becomes an adult. I believe that would likely have a much bigger impact on reducing abortions rates.
It's absolutely not the prime reason to protect bodily autonomy (the prime reason to protect bodily autonomy is that it's the most important right we have... the right to own our own selves and self-determination.) This is merely one (of, I'm sure, many) unintended consequences that I thought of.
Yeah, on that I hope everyone is in agreement.
I don't think there is a strong case for this having a significant impact on the labour pool. There are just so many complicating factors. Eg, recessions tend to force people to accept jobs they otherwise wouldn't, the labour shortage is (as far as I understand) unevenly distributed (both geographically and by kinds of labour) etc etc. Drawing any causal link would be very hard.
See, I’ve heard that this was mostly bunk, and the crime rates of the late 20th century are best correlated with the use and discontinuation of leaded gasoline.