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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   1628 thread views

Transnational Thursday for March 20, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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This is pretty much telling the stupid neo-nazi tinfoil hats that yes, they were right, the establishment is entirely willing to conspire against the people,

"The people" are only the 20% that voted for AfD?

It sounds to me like the CDU gave away nothing and got everything they wanted. Support for abortion in germany is in excess of 70% and as for the green stuff thats far away and the constitution can obviously just be changed (like this time) if it becomes a problem.

They willingly and fully betrayed their own voters.

Support for abortion in germany is in excess of 70%

If Wikipedia is to be believed, abortion in Germany is banned except for when it's necessary for saving mother's life and also the ban is not enforced for the first 12 weeks. I think that's something that not only 70% of US population, but the majority of Republicans would be ok to sign up with. It's interestingly how Germany with it's Euro-leftist tendencies and seemingly wide support for abortions, has the laws that if implemented in the US, would be universally called "far-right abortion ban".

That's because Europe hasn't had a US style batshit insane anti-abortion movement outside small rare niches. Meaningful opposition to abortion has been almost purely from catholic conservatives where the dynamics have been different and that faction has fairly decisively lost the battle. The result is that abortion is viewed as a practical health issue where the de facto status is what matters instead of what the official wording is. So you have things like Germany's "prohibited in theory but in practise entirely legal" where the nominal prohibition is kept due to a technicality and as a way to allow conservatives to signal "morally appropriate behavior".

That's because Europe hasn't had a US style batshit insane anti-abortion movement outside small rare niches.

Ever heard of folks called "catholics"? I am pretty sure they have some positions on abortion. I am not sure "batshit insane" can be considered as argument and not a spit-spraying, but I think it's reasonable to believe at least some of them hold views that abortion needs to be restricted. Moreover, if those people didn't exist, how exactly would Germany end up with laws like "Abortion is banned forever, but we decide to ignore it for the first 12 weeks" instead of "Abortion is allowed as a sacred right and nobody is to restrict it by any stupid terms or conditions" - as it is the official position of the US left and the official interpretation of RvW until recently? I mean if nobody is so batshit insane as to ban abortions, how does it happen abortion is banned? Was there an alien invasion or something? If everybody agrees banning it is batshit insane, why not just come out and say so and enshrine it like California etc. do?

where the nominal prohibition is kept due to a technicality

Kept from what? You just said Europe didn't have anybody wanting to ban abortion, so how do you "keep" something that nobody ever wanted? How did it got there in the first place? Why didn't they remove that "technicality" long ago - what's so hard about it?

as a way to allow conservatives to signal "morally appropriate behavior".

Are those the same conservatives you just called "batshit insane" and claimed they don't exist in Europe? If they don't exist, why they must be made allowances?

I'm sorry, I find your explanation to be a weak sauce.

It’s different, though. Being anti-abortion in Europe is like being royalty in the UK. In practice the royal family has very little remaining power in the UK, and what it does have is basically a historical relic that persists because lots of people have vaguely positive associations with royalty and royal rule is perceived as harmless.

The King recognises that actually attempting to exert royal authority in the UK on anything other than a rare, informal basis where most of the public agrees with him (as when he requested Saudi investors to reconsider some particularly ugly building designs in mid London) will swiftly lead to overthrow of the monarchy. They accept having given up 95% of their power to preserve the remaining 5%.

As with royalty, so with abortion.

It would be an appropriate comparison if the King, say, had a vote (and regularly used it) in the parliament equalling 2/3 of the sum of the votes of other members, or equivalent amount of power, and everybody would just go "well, we know it's only a relic based on a technicality but that's how it is and we're not changing it". Effectively, abortion in Germany beyond initial 12 weeks is banned, and something that many in the US consider absolutely barbaric, batshit insane, unconstitutional, bible-thumping far-right lunacy - is accepted as the norm. I find it very hard to reconcile with "perceived as harmless" - if anti-abortion movement is so harmless and is merely a decorative relic, why not do the same as the left in the US has been doing for years and roll out free abortions for all to the birth and beyond? The left hasn't ever been shy in implementing their agenda - even with the strong opposition, they often manage to go very far. If the situation is so that there's no opposition to speak of at all, except some decorative relics - why didn't they do that? The most plausible explanation would be that your assessment of the opposition to it being merely a decorative relic is wrong and if the left tried to push the consensus from the current settled point they would encounter a significant pushback, and a lot of people actually think that this compromise point is better than what the left can offer them. For the left to be using this fact as an argument along the lines of "Europe actually loves abortions and long they implemented what we're asking for and they're all fine with it" in this context sounds very misleading.

You're leaving out the part where abortion is only legal the first 12 weeks, which progressives in the US think is a far-right abortion ban but which here in germany is considered perfectly fine by most.

No, I’m explaining why people in Germany and Europe overall consider that state as ”Abortion is legal.”. There is no meaningful group trying to ban abortion and thus no opposite group pushing for equally ridiculous policy in the other direction. Then it becomes a boring matter for medical professionals and ethics theoreticists to debate over 12 vs 16 weeks. You can’t run up furor over those sorts of numbers, particularly when people are just going to look at neighbouring countries with very similar rules.

There is no meaningful group trying to ban abortion and thus no opposite group pushing for equally ridiculous policy in the other direction.

The whole conversation started with how there is a push towards ridiculous permissiveness. As you note there is no corresponding push to criminalize it, so this entire Myth of the Reasonable European seems to be on very shaky ground.

This is because anything other than fully taxpayer funded abortion up to birth is a ‘far right abortion ban’.

I'm not even sure in "up to birth" part: https://www.nationalreview.com/2008/08/why-obama-really-voted-infanticide-andrew-c-mccarthy/ I'm not sure where's the real line - when the fetus is old enough to vote? Drink? Collect Social Security? Who knows.

Are they going to get the immigration crackdown?

The 20% who voted for the AfD, the 28.5% who voted for the CDU given its campaign promises, and the 4% who voted FDP...

I'm not saying that these are the people and others are not. I'm also not saying that the CDU traded poorly on Realpolitik. I'm saying that the CDU is extremely brazen in how it goes back on its promises, and that this gives credence to the far-right's usual accusations that no matter which establishment party you vote for, you're getting the same policies either way.

Presumably, the CDU also conspired against all of its own voters who believed the CDU’s rhetoric. A democracy simply cannot work if parties gain votes by promising to do A and then do -A when in power.

The lack of faith and interest in democracy corresponds directly to this tendency.

”You see, there's an implicit pact offered to every Minister by his senior officials. If the Minister will help us to implement the opposite policies to the one that he is pledged to, we will help him to pretend that he is in fact what he was going to do in his Manifesto.”

Yes, Minister

The CDU explicitly campaigned on being responsible stewards who abhor the proposition of new debt by the Ampel. "The green stuff" is, according to german lawyers, directly hamstringing current efforts to build up important infrastructure, such as energy, especially since it's overly vague and german courts tend to err on the green side when given the leeway.

Also, abortion is already legal, easily accessible and the implementation is a broadly popular compromise - what the SPD wants is late-term abortion & allowing doctors to actively advertise/promote abortion services, which is the equivalent of spitting into conservatives' faces.

Pretty much everything the CDU is doing right now is exactly the opposite of what they have been campaigning on right up to the vote. It's ridiculous.

And this is all happening in the country held up by liberals everywhere in Central and Eastern Europe as the shining light and saviour of the rules-based liberal democratic international order.

Support for abortion in germany is in excess of 70%

Are you talking about support for uncoditinally legal abortion?

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