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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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From the 2025 Mandate For Leadership Page 455 and 456:

Data Collection. The CDC’s abortion surveillance and maternity mortality reporting systems are woefully inadequate. CDC abortion data are reported by states on a voluntary basis, and California, Maryland, and New Hampshire do not submit abortion data at all. Accurate and reliable statistical data about abortion, abortion survivors, and abortion-related maternal deaths are essential to timely, reliable public health and policy analysis.

Because liberal states have now become sanctuaries for abortion tourism, HHS should use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method. It should also ensure that statistics are separated by category: spontaneous miscarriage; treatments that incidentally result in the death of a child (such as chemotherapy); stillbirths; and induced abortion. In addition, CDC should require monitoring and reporting for complications due to abortion and every instance of children being born alive after an abortion. Moreover, abortion should be clearly defined as only those procedures that intentionally end an unborn child’s life. Miscarriage management or standard ectopic pregnancy treatments should never be conflated with abortion.

Comparisons between live births and abortion should be tracked across various demographic indicators to assess whether certain populations are targeted by abortion providers and whether better prenatal physical, mental, and social care improves infant outcomes and decreases abortion rates, especially among those who are most vulnerable.

The Ensuring Accurate and Complete Abortion Data Reporting Act of 20239 would amend title XIX of the Social Security Act and Public Health Service Act to improve the CDC’s abortion reporting mechanisms by requiring states, as a condition of federal Medicaid payments for family planning services, to report streamlined variables in a timely manner.

The CDC should immediately end its collection of data on gender identity, which legitimizes the unscientific notion that men can become women (and vice versa) and encourages the phenomenon of ever-multiplying subjective identities.

Sure there isn't a literal "every state should have report every pregnant woman to the feds" merely "every state should have to report how every pregnancy ended to the feds." If you think the latter wouldn't be used to prosecute alleged violations of a federal abortion prohibition you're a fool.

What federal abortion ban? There won’t be one under Trump, although it’s not totally implausible he could try to standardize pregnancy related health reporting procedures.

That is the whopper- Trump doesn’t want to ban abortion on the federal level, the democrats are arguing that he wants to create this totalitarian system for enforcing a policy he doesn’t want.

Project 2025 already believes they don't need a further ban. The Comstock Act already arguably bans mailing drugs used for abortion. It even calls it out indirectly on Page 459:

Stop promoting or approving mail-order abortions in violation of long-standing federal laws that prohibit the mailing and interstate carriage of abortion drugs.

Trump wouldn't need to sign any further laws to effectively end abortion nation wide, in their view.

Back in the very recent past when the Comstock Act was enforced and the president did not fail his oath to uphold the laws of the country so blatantly, abortion happened all over the place. It does not prevent abortions from happening in states where abortion is legal. It would prevent organizations from using the mail to ship abortion drugs directly to the home of someone in a state where it is illegal.

The most recent Comstock Act conviction was a child-porn conviction in 2021. The Comstock Act remains in force today, unless repealed by Congress.

Project 2025 is only calling for a very narrow enforcement of the Comstock act, despite there being a stronger interpretation that would make medication abortions more difficult (though surgical abortions cannot be stopped through Comstock. Comstock does not restrict shipping gloves and forceps/). Project 2025 is only asking that the federal government enforce the federal law that would prevent mail-order abortion so that the states that have banned abortion can enforce their laws.

Lack of high-quality data on an important women's health procedure is another indication of how the patriarchy doesn't take women's issues seriously.

I'm not a mod but can we avoid in general solo ironic statements like this (and this )regardless of their humor factor, in such discussions? In the spirit of writing what you mean.

(I wrote the linked comment)

That's fair. The Democrats' repeated insistence on referring to "Trump's Project 2025" is so transparently ridiculous, It makes me want to post the Jesse Pinkman, "he can't keep getting away with it," GIF. It somehow causes me great despair that the Democrats found this phrase which sounds ominous, and for that reason alone will keep on saying it, despite the fact that anyone who stops to think about what they know about Trump would find it wildly implausible. It just seems so cynical to me.

That's what I was trying to express, but I agree that it's better to not fill the forum with sarcastic comments

I kind of unironically agree with what he said. Don't know if Controls was ironic or not, but I have seen pro-life women who often argue this way.

Maybe he wasn't being ironic. Typically "the patriarchy" isn't used around these parts unironically, but I may be misunderstanding.

Somewhat following hooser, I believe I can defend that term as it applies to the comment I was responding to.