You have somewhat convinced me that protests maybe have a positive impact. From what I've seen in the modern era it looks like protests either have no effect or in some cases have a negative effect. So many protests involve stopping traffic or doing other super annoying things that make activists look unreasonable and annoying, even when I support their causes. Your argument there makes sense though...unfortunately.
In addition to the big DC choice march 30 years ago, there was a similarly large one during the GWB years… 03, I think? I remember it vividly because at the time, I was very involved in organizing antiwar protests. The choice one, I was not involved in organizing, I went with friends just as supporters. But I remember being struck by the attendees. Not just the size- it was hundreds of thousands- but it felt very ‘normie’ compared to the antiwar protests at the time. The antiwar ones were quite large as well, but especially early in the war tended to a subcultural or explicitly left wing flavor. The choice march on the other hand, clearly enormous organizing had gone into mobilizing extremely large numbers of entirely culturally mainstream suburban people, especially women and girls, who were not regular rally-attendees, to go to this one monster march. I was impressed. I’ve always wondered what institutionally happened at Planned Parenthood and the rest of the network, that they seem to have lost some of that ability despite us approaching & now arriving at the Roe endgame.
Overall this is a great SB piece, but what is the evidence for the following claim:
> ...the fact is that the people in the driver’s seat on abortion policy see making abortions illegal as the first step in a larger campaign to get everyone to stop having sex.
One asymmetric advantage the pro-choice--err...decision--side has is survivorship bias. People are free to tell their positive abortion stories but the human life destroyed by abortion decisions do not have the ability to combat that narrative in any positive (for their cause's) way, at least not that i've seen.
My brief take on why abortion bans, whatever their form, will never last: “Meanwhile, here in reality . . . . .” It’s simple pragmatism: in reality, women will continue to make decisions about reproduction up to and including abortion regardless of its legal status, just as they have always done. Attempts to criminalize behavior, especially when based on highly debatable moral claims—in this case that all legal rights begin at conception—are bound to fail because most people will refuse to comply.
“Refuse to comply”—this is the strategy that Matt missed. That may or may not involve breaking the law and it won’t involve just the women seeking abortions but also everyone who aids and abets them. In other words, potentially millions of us. Overwhelming non-compliance will be the “movement” that shows abortion bans to be totally unworkable over the long term and will end them.
I don't understand why Matt thinks the anti-abortion folks would like us to all stop having sex if these same folks keep whining about the drop in birthrates. I do agree that much more attention on the local laws and ballot initiatives makes more sense than grousing about Roe.
I do not agree that marches accomplishes if they are in blue statemes.
"I don't understand why Matt thinks the anti-abortion folks would like us to all stop having sex if these same folks keep whining about the drop in birthrates."
I'm pro-choice and and "anti-natalist" in Matt's phrasing (I would say, "pro voluntary net reduction in population), but I'm not really seeing a contradiction there -- they want people to stop having sex outside of (heterosexual) marriage and start having more procreative sex inside marriage.
I think some of this is wrong and/or incomplete. The fact that social media posting is given as an example of what an individual can do, but the most basic action of contacting your elected representatives isn't mentioned at all is really disappointing.
"Most people are more open to being persuaded by peers and family members than by politicians and pundits, so your part-time amateur political communications work has real power."
This is a bold claim that seems to have little evidence and involves some dubious assumptions:
- That individuals posting on social media actually want to persuade others, even family.
- That individuals have a good idea of what would be an effective argument.
- That those argument will ultimately be effective.
Just in my own experience, I've been commenting, arguing and debating online since the mid-1980's before there was an internet. Back then, we used dial-up to connect to private BBS's or the early commercial services.
In the years since, the number of times I've actually changed someone's mind (or at least got them to admit it) is maybe 1-2 dozen instances and these were debates about objective policy not debates that are primarily moral and values-based, of which abortion is arguably the most morally divisive issue we have. I think the idea that social media posts about abortion will be any kind of net positive in terms of political change is, at best, fanciful.
The old adage that action speaks louder than words applies here. Posting on social media provides the illusion of doing something without having to put in any actual work. But if there's research showing otherwise, I'd be happy to see it.
And honestly, I think it's a huge omission that you neglected to mention many of the kinds of activities that have long been core activities for individuals supporting a collective goals in the political sphere:
- Contacting your representatives. This is especially important now at the state and local level since that is where the abortion fight will be.
- Joining and participating in organizations that support the ends you want. Sure, money helps and is important, but too often it's like social media - a lazy way to be politically engaged that doesn't require much effort, but it sure makes you feel better.
- Protesting is important but it's only one part of a strategy and it doesn't magically produce effects without a lot of other coordinated activity.
Just look at what the pro-life movement did as a comparison. They hold an unpopular view with the public and despite that, they have won. This was the product of several decades of concerted effort on their part, using a coherent strategy that was designed to actually bring about the changes they sought. That is what successful movements always do - it's what MLK's did, it's what the Temperance movement did, and many others. As yourself how critical was social media posting or protesting to that success?
By contrast, what passes for political change movements on the left are pathetic in comparison and this includes the defense of abortion generally and Roe specifically. Saying mean things on social media and constantly complaining about the Senate, the filibuster and the SCOTUS while wishcasting for quick but impossible fixes (packing the court, Senate "reform," creating new Democratic states, etc.) isn't a strategy. The Democratic strategy to defend Roe against the known flaws with that decision rested entirely on stare decisis and now we find out there really was not plan B.
That the pro-choice movement seems to be caught flat-footed and that it and the Democratic party generally does not seem to have any ability to play a long game is both frustrating and baffling. If you want to bring political changes, you've got to do the work and that work must have some coherent relation to an actual strategy that can actually achieve the desired goal.
I think Democrats would also do themselves a favor by proposing a national law to GOP Senate Republicans: we will ban all elective abortions in the country after 12 weeks. This will override Democratic state laws protecting abortion to the extent of Roe v Wade. BUT this will also force GOP states to allow early first trimester abortions. There will be a blanket exemption of this rule for cases of rape, and when the life of the mother is at stake.
If the GOP says no: that's something you can run on, if the GOP says yes: you've just codified the law in a bipartisan fashion. It's likely something a future President Trump doesn't overturn either.
> There’s a lot of annoyance in some quarters of the internet at Democrats trying to leverage alarm over the ruling to raise money or urge people to vote.
What's the back story on this? Not sure what Matt is referring to.
Yes to personal messaging. I would place the messages in a broader framework of assisting women in difficult circumstances, not asserting a "right." I do think that the decision in the last instance should be made by the woman (as a matter of right) but that should just be the emergency switch. Public policy should focus on preventing the emergency switch having to be pulled -- affordable peri-natal health care, Child Tax Credit, easy adoption.
My great fear for our side is lapsing into cynicism and apathy. You would think the jolt of Dobbs (plus Gruen and the 1/6 Committee) would fire up that intensity, and I hope it does and keeps it sustained, but I fear that too many on our side are too alienated from the real work of politics. I may be wrong -- and the protests of 2017, leading to the results of the 2018 midterms, are evidence against that. I'm just afraid that the fanaticism combined with the deep cynicism of our opponents wears down our belief in change.
I think a lot about W. B. Yeats' "The Second Coming" these days, especially the last two lines of the first stanza (https://poets.org/poem/second-coming).
Lastly, anger is good and necessary to sustain the fight. Just be careful about who you target that anger toward. Some venting about our own failures is to be expected, but at the end of the day, Joe Biden is not the enemy. Save your anger for our true enemies.
One thing I hope for is that our side will lean more heavily into general-purpose progressive organizing. Labor unions, etc. I've become more pro-union in recent years, not even because of labor issues per se, but because the very existence of unions allows them to lend support to pro-labor candidates -- the sort of culturally moderate, economically left-ish Democrats who might gain enough votes in key states to keep the Republicans out of national power.
Unions can also organize at any time, not just during elections -- this gives them more momentum and (in some ways) more flexibility than election campaigns. And, of course, they can take direct action on issues involving the relationship of their members to their employer.
Except of course unions are bad for the economy and were one of the primary reasons for moving manufacturing to China. Musk and other industrialists hate them for a good reason.
I hate and despise most of the American unions I've dealt with as an engineer. Particularly the UAW.
But I've loved the German unions.
I think unions are important to stabilize the lower and middle classes. I just wish we could basically copy their union system. They don't seem anti-work and opposed to increased productivity.
It will be hard for people to be passionate about abortion in states where it will remain legal, aka 95% of the readers of this blog. Things might be different in Alabama or Missouri.
I'm in Alabama, and I'm moderately pro-life, but I feel like I'm going to have to spend effort to push back against my state going too extreme on the topic.
I don't know, I live in NYC and people seem pretty passionate about this decision. In my office some women were crying in the bathroom on the day it was announced.
Those are the victims of propaganda claiming that NYC women should somehow be worried about what's going on in Alabama. But after a few months it will be clear that abortion in NYC is not under threat so this moral panic will go away.
The number of women without access to legal abortion went up by... 5% worldwide with Roe vs. Wade getting repealed? Its definitely a bad development, but arguably not bad enough to cry about.
You should think about whether there are some alternate and more charitable explanations for this and whether there is a better way of framing and phrasing this.
As is the overall statement sounds callous, ignorant, and incorrect (even if people adapt to the new situation and update their estimates of possible effects).
As for “studies show protests work,” I guess you have to acknowledge that there is some level of legitimacy for those studies, and that the outcomes show meaningful voter persuasion.
But there seems to be a gap between those modest acknowledgements and dropping a general conclusion that protests are effective in general.
I think that people need to know that some people do not share the notion that life begins at conception. Talking about Peter Singer's ideas might be a mistake, but for instance in the Jewish tradition life doesn't begin at conception and if you are in that tradition you should talk about it. Christianity is the default in a lot of communities, people need to here about other ideas.
This is an important point. And I don't even think we need to go to other religions/worldviews. Women expel embryos (and miscarry more developed pregnancies) all the time. If you do IVF, you always lose a few embryos in the process. If each of these is a living human child, then our bodies are cemeteries and we are the bereaved mothers of dozens or hundreds of children.
The thing is, almost nobody actually feels that way in practice. It's a religious belief that has no relationship to reality. Even miscarriage, which pretty heartbreaking for most women, is not the same as losing a child. You're mourning the potential of a child, not an actual child. At a certain point in the pregnancy, that changes, but there's no universal magical moment that everyone could agree on.
To be technical, "life begins at conception" isn't part of any traditional Christian doctrine either. That's basically a mid-19th Century development as I understand it.
You have somewhat convinced me that protests maybe have a positive impact. From what I've seen in the modern era it looks like protests either have no effect or in some cases have a negative effect. So many protests involve stopping traffic or doing other super annoying things that make activists look unreasonable and annoying, even when I support their causes. Your argument there makes sense though...unfortunately.
In addition to the big DC choice march 30 years ago, there was a similarly large one during the GWB years… 03, I think? I remember it vividly because at the time, I was very involved in organizing antiwar protests. The choice one, I was not involved in organizing, I went with friends just as supporters. But I remember being struck by the attendees. Not just the size- it was hundreds of thousands- but it felt very ‘normie’ compared to the antiwar protests at the time. The antiwar ones were quite large as well, but especially early in the war tended to a subcultural or explicitly left wing flavor. The choice march on the other hand, clearly enormous organizing had gone into mobilizing extremely large numbers of entirely culturally mainstream suburban people, especially women and girls, who were not regular rally-attendees, to go to this one monster march. I was impressed. I’ve always wondered what institutionally happened at Planned Parenthood and the rest of the network, that they seem to have lost some of that ability despite us approaching & now arriving at the Roe endgame.
Overall this is a great SB piece, but what is the evidence for the following claim:
> ...the fact is that the people in the driver’s seat on abortion policy see making abortions illegal as the first step in a larger campaign to get everyone to stop having sex.
Re: abortion and Hollywood. You might be interested in https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/79719/has-there-been-a-movie-or-a-tv-show-where-an-abortion-was-portrayed-without-nega. TL;DR: it seems like only a single movie in TV history portrayed abortion as a normal thing people do. No wonder its still such a big deal for many.
One asymmetric advantage the pro-choice--err...decision--side has is survivorship bias. People are free to tell their positive abortion stories but the human life destroyed by abortion decisions do not have the ability to combat that narrative in any positive (for their cause's) way, at least not that i've seen.
My brief take on why abortion bans, whatever their form, will never last: “Meanwhile, here in reality . . . . .” It’s simple pragmatism: in reality, women will continue to make decisions about reproduction up to and including abortion regardless of its legal status, just as they have always done. Attempts to criminalize behavior, especially when based on highly debatable moral claims—in this case that all legal rights begin at conception—are bound to fail because most people will refuse to comply.
“Refuse to comply”—this is the strategy that Matt missed. That may or may not involve breaking the law and it won’t involve just the women seeking abortions but also everyone who aids and abets them. In other words, potentially millions of us. Overwhelming non-compliance will be the “movement” that shows abortion bans to be totally unworkable over the long term and will end them.
I don't understand why Matt thinks the anti-abortion folks would like us to all stop having sex if these same folks keep whining about the drop in birthrates. I do agree that much more attention on the local laws and ballot initiatives makes more sense than grousing about Roe.
I do not agree that marches accomplishes if they are in blue statemes.
"I don't understand why Matt thinks the anti-abortion folks would like us to all stop having sex if these same folks keep whining about the drop in birthrates."
I'm pro-choice and and "anti-natalist" in Matt's phrasing (I would say, "pro voluntary net reduction in population), but I'm not really seeing a contradiction there -- they want people to stop having sex outside of (heterosexual) marriage and start having more procreative sex inside marriage.
I think some of this is wrong and/or incomplete. The fact that social media posting is given as an example of what an individual can do, but the most basic action of contacting your elected representatives isn't mentioned at all is really disappointing.
"Most people are more open to being persuaded by peers and family members than by politicians and pundits, so your part-time amateur political communications work has real power."
This is a bold claim that seems to have little evidence and involves some dubious assumptions:
- That individuals posting on social media actually want to persuade others, even family.
- That individuals have a good idea of what would be an effective argument.
- That those argument will ultimately be effective.
Just in my own experience, I've been commenting, arguing and debating online since the mid-1980's before there was an internet. Back then, we used dial-up to connect to private BBS's or the early commercial services.
In the years since, the number of times I've actually changed someone's mind (or at least got them to admit it) is maybe 1-2 dozen instances and these were debates about objective policy not debates that are primarily moral and values-based, of which abortion is arguably the most morally divisive issue we have. I think the idea that social media posts about abortion will be any kind of net positive in terms of political change is, at best, fanciful.
The old adage that action speaks louder than words applies here. Posting on social media provides the illusion of doing something without having to put in any actual work. But if there's research showing otherwise, I'd be happy to see it.
And honestly, I think it's a huge omission that you neglected to mention many of the kinds of activities that have long been core activities for individuals supporting a collective goals in the political sphere:
- Contacting your representatives. This is especially important now at the state and local level since that is where the abortion fight will be.
- Joining and participating in organizations that support the ends you want. Sure, money helps and is important, but too often it's like social media - a lazy way to be politically engaged that doesn't require much effort, but it sure makes you feel better.
- Protesting is important but it's only one part of a strategy and it doesn't magically produce effects without a lot of other coordinated activity.
Just look at what the pro-life movement did as a comparison. They hold an unpopular view with the public and despite that, they have won. This was the product of several decades of concerted effort on their part, using a coherent strategy that was designed to actually bring about the changes they sought. That is what successful movements always do - it's what MLK's did, it's what the Temperance movement did, and many others. As yourself how critical was social media posting or protesting to that success?
By contrast, what passes for political change movements on the left are pathetic in comparison and this includes the defense of abortion generally and Roe specifically. Saying mean things on social media and constantly complaining about the Senate, the filibuster and the SCOTUS while wishcasting for quick but impossible fixes (packing the court, Senate "reform," creating new Democratic states, etc.) isn't a strategy. The Democratic strategy to defend Roe against the known flaws with that decision rested entirely on stare decisis and now we find out there really was not plan B.
That the pro-choice movement seems to be caught flat-footed and that it and the Democratic party generally does not seem to have any ability to play a long game is both frustrating and baffling. If you want to bring political changes, you've got to do the work and that work must have some coherent relation to an actual strategy that can actually achieve the desired goal.
I think Democrats would also do themselves a favor by proposing a national law to GOP Senate Republicans: we will ban all elective abortions in the country after 12 weeks. This will override Democratic state laws protecting abortion to the extent of Roe v Wade. BUT this will also force GOP states to allow early first trimester abortions. There will be a blanket exemption of this rule for cases of rape, and when the life of the mother is at stake.
If the GOP says no: that's something you can run on, if the GOP says yes: you've just codified the law in a bipartisan fashion. It's likely something a future President Trump doesn't overturn either.
My 2 cents.
The vast majorities of Democrats would never agree to this.
Maybe if they tried to protect all abortions before 12 weeks and ban it after 30 weeks or what have you.
Let the states decided where they lie in between there?
I propose the following bumper sticker for the ultimate win:
Vaccine mandates? Bad!
Abortion mandates? Bad!
Medical decisions are between me and my doctor!
> There’s a lot of annoyance in some quarters of the internet at Democrats trying to leverage alarm over the ruling to raise money or urge people to vote.
What's the back story on this? Not sure what Matt is referring to.
There's a lot of <negative emotional word> in some quarters of the internet at <group of people> trying to <action verb>
There are no wrong answers here :)
Yes to personal messaging. I would place the messages in a broader framework of assisting women in difficult circumstances, not asserting a "right." I do think that the decision in the last instance should be made by the woman (as a matter of right) but that should just be the emergency switch. Public policy should focus on preventing the emergency switch having to be pulled -- affordable peri-natal health care, Child Tax Credit, easy adoption.
WHO DEY!
My great fear for our side is lapsing into cynicism and apathy. You would think the jolt of Dobbs (plus Gruen and the 1/6 Committee) would fire up that intensity, and I hope it does and keeps it sustained, but I fear that too many on our side are too alienated from the real work of politics. I may be wrong -- and the protests of 2017, leading to the results of the 2018 midterms, are evidence against that. I'm just afraid that the fanaticism combined with the deep cynicism of our opponents wears down our belief in change.
I think a lot about W. B. Yeats' "The Second Coming" these days, especially the last two lines of the first stanza (https://poets.org/poem/second-coming).
Lastly, anger is good and necessary to sustain the fight. Just be careful about who you target that anger toward. Some venting about our own failures is to be expected, but at the end of the day, Joe Biden is not the enemy. Save your anger for our true enemies.
I can't not-like a reference to The Second Coming!
One thing I hope for is that our side will lean more heavily into general-purpose progressive organizing. Labor unions, etc. I've become more pro-union in recent years, not even because of labor issues per se, but because the very existence of unions allows them to lend support to pro-labor candidates -- the sort of culturally moderate, economically left-ish Democrats who might gain enough votes in key states to keep the Republicans out of national power.
Unions can also organize at any time, not just during elections -- this gives them more momentum and (in some ways) more flexibility than election campaigns. And, of course, they can take direct action on issues involving the relationship of their members to their employer.
Except of course unions are bad for the economy and were one of the primary reasons for moving manufacturing to China. Musk and other industrialists hate them for a good reason.
I hate and despise most of the American unions I've dealt with as an engineer. Particularly the UAW.
But I've loved the German unions.
I think unions are important to stabilize the lower and middle classes. I just wish we could basically copy their union system. They don't seem anti-work and opposed to increased productivity.
It will be hard for people to be passionate about abortion in states where it will remain legal, aka 95% of the readers of this blog. Things might be different in Alabama or Missouri.
There were more Biden voters in TX than in any state other than CA and, I believe, NY.
I'm in Alabama, and I'm moderately pro-life, but I feel like I'm going to have to spend effort to push back against my state going too extreme on the topic.
It's...very annoying.
I don't know, I live in NYC and people seem pretty passionate about this decision. In my office some women were crying in the bathroom on the day it was announced.
Those are the victims of propaganda claiming that NYC women should somehow be worried about what's going on in Alabama. But after a few months it will be clear that abortion in NYC is not under threat so this moral panic will go away.
Some of us are capable of thinking about more than just ourselves and our own immediate interests.
The number of women without access to legal abortion went up by... 5% worldwide with Roe vs. Wade getting repealed? Its definitely a bad development, but arguably not bad enough to cry about.
Do you have some sort of reference material that specifies what is and isn't "bad enough to cry about" ? Could you share it with everyone ?
You should think about whether there are some alternate and more charitable explanations for this and whether there is a better way of framing and phrasing this.
As is the overall statement sounds callous, ignorant, and incorrect (even if people adapt to the new situation and update their estimates of possible effects).
What is the alternate explanation?
See above for one. But if you don’t see what’s wrong with your original post I’m not really going to be able to help you.
State ballot initiatives!
As for “studies show protests work,” I guess you have to acknowledge that there is some level of legitimacy for those studies, and that the outcomes show meaningful voter persuasion.
But there seems to be a gap between those modest acknowledgements and dropping a general conclusion that protests are effective in general.
I think that people need to know that some people do not share the notion that life begins at conception. Talking about Peter Singer's ideas might be a mistake, but for instance in the Jewish tradition life doesn't begin at conception and if you are in that tradition you should talk about it. Christianity is the default in a lot of communities, people need to here about other ideas.
This is an important point. And I don't even think we need to go to other religions/worldviews. Women expel embryos (and miscarry more developed pregnancies) all the time. If you do IVF, you always lose a few embryos in the process. If each of these is a living human child, then our bodies are cemeteries and we are the bereaved mothers of dozens or hundreds of children.
The thing is, almost nobody actually feels that way in practice. It's a religious belief that has no relationship to reality. Even miscarriage, which pretty heartbreaking for most women, is not the same as losing a child. You're mourning the potential of a child, not an actual child. At a certain point in the pregnancy, that changes, but there's no universal magical moment that everyone could agree on.
To be technical, "life begins at conception" isn't part of any traditional Christian doctrine either. That's basically a mid-19th Century development as I understand it.