What’s the rhetorical opposite of “pro-life”?

My Sunday movie was Outlaw King on Netflix. It is the story of Robert Bruce, King of the Scots, and how he defeated the English. I watched it because a year ago I read the book The Bruce Trilogy by Nigel Tranter. The book is over a thousand pages and I wrote about it here. The movie whittled it down to two hours, though IMDB said the original cut of the film was four hours and after its first public showing it was cut from 2½ hours to two. Commenters said it should have been a miniseries. This was a violent film as appropriate for the story. But at times the violence is a too much. It is one thing to read of the violence, another to watch it. Even so, I wondered how they filmed the climactic battle sequence, to get shots of individual characters fighting while having other things going on in the background. These were battles fought on horseback. The movie includes the statement that no animals were harmed. But in the battle sequences, especially the big one at the end, the horses are speared, slashed, skewered, and struck down as much as the humans. So how did they film that? Stunt horses to go with the stunt doubles for humans? I noticed CGI people in the credits. Was all the mayhem with the horses computer generated? The movie is quite picturesque – beautiful landscapes, beautiful castles – when not depicting violence. IMDB said filming had been done in 27 places across Scotland. I have two small complaints about Chris Pine as Robert. First, for a Scottish tale he was the only American in the cast. Second, at the start of the film Pine’s beard has too much gray for someone in his 20s. IMDB noted the movie makes the duration seem like a few months when these events happened over three years. And by the end of that a bit of gray would have been appropriate. A whole bunch of browser tabs of things to mention on the news about abortion rights. Hunter of Daily Kos discussed a list of 13 companies that donated over $15 million to Republican election committees during and after the nasty guy era. The list was created by Popular Information. Hunter titled the post to say these companies funded the end of Roe v. Wade, but that’s not quite their motivation. Wrote Hunter:

It's doubtful that any of the companies are shelling out million-dollar donations to the Republican Governors Association and other Republican groups because they care, even in the slightest bit, about what happens to abortion laws in this country. The dynamic at play is the exact same one that causes these corporate giants to continue shelling out campaign cash to the seditionists responsible for an attempted American coup. They want tax breaks, they want loopholes, they want laws written that protect their captured markets from new competition, they want federal services and consumer protection laws neutered and reworked so that consumers have to pay a higher percentage of their incomes to them, specifically. If it means donating to traitors or to politicians that look to undermine every civil right Americans think they have, these companies are all for doing it. They'll put out a press release claiming to be sad about it—and keep lobbying to make sure that no matter how many rights go away or how threatened our elections might become, the new fascists still give their company special treatment.

Hunter then discussed some of those companies in detail. The list is Amazon, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Comcast, Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo (do not go near these crooks), Walmart, GM, Citi, Google, CVS, and Walgreen. Laura Clawson of Kos reported the Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee tweeted, “Still trying to find the word ‘abortion’ in the Constitution.” Twitter users reminded them of other words not in the constitution, including:

Woman or women God, Jesus, Christ, Christian, or Bible Marriage Family or child Filibuster Nine. Or for that matter any specified number of Supreme Court justices. Corporations or corporate personhood Student loans Police

One notable response to that phrase was from Vote Vets:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons” Further proof Republicans don’t see women as people.

Hunter discussed that Republican prosecutors have a tool to find those who have abortions: our phones. Sen. Ron Wyden warned to Gizmodo:

The simple act of searching for ‘pregnancy test’ could cause a woman to be stalked, harassed and attacked. With Texas style bounty laws, and laws being proposed in Missouri to limit people’s ability to travel to obtain abortion care, there could even be a profit motive for this outsourced persecution.

Hard to tell what powers aggressive Republican prosecutors might be given to subpoena records. And also:

Bounty hunters looking for women to target may not have those same subpoena powers—though heaven knows what the future will bring in a theocratic state that finds its best legal wisdom from colonial-era witch hunters—but they will have the power of extremely amoral data tracking companies on their side.

One example is a company that tracks women from Planned Parenthood offices to their home. And for a fee sell that data. Michigan has a law banning abortion that was enacted in 1931. It becomes enforceable when the Supremes hand down their decision. There has been a lot of clamoring for that law to be repealed, but the Republican leadership that controls the legislature have said they like the law. Aysha Qamar of Kos reported that the prosecutors in Wayne County (where Detroit is) and several others have vowed they will not enforce the ban while several others, such as the prosecutor in highly Republican Macomb County, have vowed they will enforce it. One may not have to go all the way to Chicago for an abortion, but figuring out where it is safe to get one in Michigan and where it isn’t could be a big challenge. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post discussed the antiabortion movement was able to define the terms of the debate and the media fell for it (or approved of it).

An award-winning journalist and author, Eyal Press knows a thing or two about how words can be deployed, or weaponized. When journalists agreed to accept terms such as “pro-life” to describe those who oppose abortion, they implicitly agreed to help stigmatize those who support it. After all, what’s the rhetorical opposite of “pro-life”?

Dworkin also quoted a tweet from Ronald Brownstein:

Worth noting: #SCOTUS is poised to overturn #RoevWade on the narrowest possible majority vote w/only GOP Justices voting yes. Red states are banning & restricting #abortion on party-line majority votes. But Congress can't respond b/c that requires bipartisan Senate supermajority.

Joan McCarter of Kos reported that polls show a clear majority of voters support abortion rights and show Supreme Court reform is favored by strong majorities. McCarter wrote about the untouchable nature of the court. They’re appointed, not elected. The term is life. They could be impeached but that is highly unlikely. They are immune to public opinion. McCarter added:

When an extremist majority takes over and starts acting with impunity, the public increasingly distrusts them. When the court acts without even bothering to go about the regular business of hearing and arguing controversial cases before handing down their edicts, they become even more suspect in the public eye. When they start imperiously handing down highly controversial decisions that are far out of the mainstream of public opinion, they could be putting their own pleasant and long-standing careers in jeopardy. That’s going to depend in large part on whether Democrats mean all the things they’ve said about the Supreme Court and the extreme majority’s intent to gut abortion rights.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that just a couple days after Republicans tried to complain about the leak instead of the draft ruling, they’re talking about whether they should enact a national ban on abortion when they are in power. McCarter reported the Republican Senate campaign is instructing its members to talk about a kinder, gentler abortion ban. They are to say they do not want to see doctors and women thrown in jail. Republicans in the Louisiana legislature didn’t get that memo. They want to call abortion a homicide and lock up both doctor and woman. And it’s not just a Louisiana thing. Aldous Pennyfarthing of Kos wrote:

Of course, Republicans have gotten a lot of attention lately by flogging made-up dangers to children. In their world of make-believe, kids are routinely traumatized after learning of the existence of slavery and LGBTQ people. It’s nonsense, of course, but since when has nonsense ever stopped a Republican? But here’s a real danger to kids: Many, many Republicans want a world where a 12-year-old child raped by their uncle would be forced to give birth to the abuser’s baby. Numerous Republicans have endorsed this outcome, and it’s what they’ve dedicated much of the past 50 years to achieving. It’s a horrifying thought, and every Republican candidate in the country needs to be asked about it, tout de suite. Of course—surprise, surprise!—they really don’t want to answer this question.

Adam Weinstein tweeted:

"It's not like they're going to *actually* ban Muslims" "It's not like they're *actually* going to revolt violently" "It's not like they'll *actually* ban books" "It's not like they're *actually* going to overturn Roe" So far, "alarmists" have been more right than quietists. Keep that in mind as you hear "They won't *actually* criminalize contraception/miscarriages/interracial marriage/LGBTQ rights/privacy rights."

Then Weinstein quoted Michael Hobbs:

Remember: Democrats are dangerous radicals because of what some random Oberlin sophomore yelled at a rally. Republicans, on the other hand, pose no danger because they're unlikely to do the things Republican politicians repeatedly and consistently say they want to do.

Joe Ura linked to an article in WaPo in which Clarence Thomas says he’s worried that respect for institutions is eroding. The judiciary is threatened if people are unwilling to “live with outcomes we don’t agree with.” Ura tweeted:

Justice Thomas's remarks are upside down. People abide disfavored decisions when they are made by legitimate institutions. Unrest over (actual and impending) Supreme Court decisions is a symptom of a faltering institution---not the cause of its weakness. ... To preserve its legitimacy, the justices have to show the American people that its decisions are worthy of respect and deference by the way it conducts its business. Abruptly reversing a visible, popular, half-century old precedent on abortion rights as the transparent consequence of partisan personnel changes on the Court---achieved, in part, through blatant disregard for established norms of governance---is, instead, poison for legitimacy. It shows off the Court in its least flattering aspects: unprincipled and undemocratic, disrespectful of both precedent and the people.

Hunter discussed another leak from the Supreme Court. WaPo reported Chief Justice Roberts wanted to carve away at Roe by approving Mississippi’s 15 week ban. But Roberts didn’t want to overturn it. Five other justices told him, nope, we’re going for the full repeal. Hunter wrote:

What's more interesting is that now the court is leaking again, and this time it's quite obviously an intentional leak by conservatives to either prop up Roberts' fast-eroding dignity or to further brag of the conservative wing's willingness to erase Roe outright.

Is this Roberts trying to polish his legacy by distancing himself from the extremists? (Remember that Roberts led the charge to gut voting rights and campaign finance.) Or is the extreme conservatives bragging they can do whatever they want? Clawson reported on a third leak (though perhaps there are more). One part of the leak says there has been no movement of positions in the court and they are waiting for dissents to appear. Another part is there seems to be a grudge against Roberts that goes back ten years. Then Roberts upheld the Affordable Care Act in a 5-4 decision – and switched his vote days before the decision was announced. Wrote Clawson:

If a decision about how dramatically to overturn 50 years of abortion rights in 2022 is being affected by a decision about the constitutionality of a health care law in 2012, the Supreme Court—and specifically its right-wing justices—is doing a really good job discrediting itself as an institution and making the case for reform.

Eleveld reported that a Yahoo News/YouGov poll, conducted immediately after the first leak shows confidence in the Supremes has dropped by quite a bit. 50% of registered voters say they have little or no confidence in the Supremes. Just after Ruth Bader Ginsberg died those that said they had little or no confidence in the Court were only 30%. That’s a huge change in 18 months. Jen Sorensen of Kos Comics wrote about Pandora’s Court. Below scenes of Moscow Mitch refusing to confirm Obama’s pick for the court; three justices rammed through by a president who attempted a coup; and the five justices identified as a radical theocrat, a corporate robot, and accused of sexual misconduct and more; a speaker drones on we still must respect the court. So at what point do they lose legitimacy? Over the weekend there was a peaceful protest at Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s house. Someone lamented the noise might annoy the neighbors, then heard “We are his neighbors. We organized the protest.” At a protest outside Alito’s house the neighbors gave journalists wine and cheese. Peaceful protests. Clawson reported that Congress was mighty swift in passing the Supreme Court Police Parity Act, that gave police protection to the family members of justices. It looks like the bill began to circulate before the weekend protests. Clawson noted that prominent politicians routinely face protests at home. Since the extreme members of the Supremes are acting as politicians, and since their actions have life-or-death consequences for millions, protests should be expected. And protection is appropriate. Clawson added:

But the tone of outrage, the idea that the justices must be protected from any whiff of public accountability for what they impose on the people of this country, is a stale and offensive strategy.

In a news roundup Hunter added:

Family planning clinics, however, continue to receive no such security.

Laura Sue of Kos reported on a thread by Janneke Parrish, who lives in Texas. She went to the doctor because of pain in her lower back. She found she had been pregnant and had miscarried. And then she was the focus of an investigation. The doctor had to determine if the miscarriage was really an abortion. Which means that Texas law banning abortion appears to criminalize miscarriage. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed with all these state bans on abortions how will the laws be enforced? These state laws don’t spell that out. He wrote:

How do you go about catching and punishing someone who violates these laws? What tools of law enforcement will be necessary? How do you collect the evidence necessary for a prosecutor to charge someone with “aiding and abetting” an illegal abortion, for example? Can you dangle a lesser sentence if they agree to confess or cooperate against the suspect? And once the unrepentant offender has been apprehended, what sort of forensic examination methods or interrogation techniques should be utilized to prove their “crime?” Under what conditions?

Dartagnan quoted Jennifer Rubin of WaPo:

Would a search warrant be issued for her phone and computer to see what doctors and health-care providers she sought out? Would housekeepers, relatives and friends be interrogated as to her menstrual cycle? ... Does everyone from the office assistant to the doctor get grilled about the woman’s gynecological history? Maybe security cameras at offices will be reviewed to see when and if she went in and out of a health-care provider. Are we to subpoena insurance records, travel records, bank records?

If there are exceptions to the band for rape and saving the life of the mother what’s the permissible evidence? What happens to the two-thirds of rape cases that aren’t reported? If the law, like the one in Texas, relies on bounty hunters, there will be plenty of snitches, beginning with estranged boyfriends. Dartagnan wrote:

The reason that none of these states were able to provide any definitive responses to these questions (despite some having such “trigger laws” on their books for over a decade) is obvious. Even if they were treated like political catnip for a rabid GOP base at the time, no one expected that they’d actually be tasked with the very ugly work of actually enforcing them. And don’t even bother asking the Republican legislators who passed these abominations. They don’t have a clue, and, “next question, please.”

Eleveld reported the results of a CBS News/YouGov poll. It found...

that fully 50% of Roe supporters reported being "surprised" the landmark ruling might be overturned. That represents a total shock to a political system in which a sizable portion of the electorate considered the landmark 1973 decision guaranteeing the right to an abortion to be settled law.

And shocks to the political system can make a big difference in the next election. Scott Shapiro, a professor at Yale Law School, tweeted:

Our current predicament is unsustainable: you can't have a minority of the country telling the majority how to act and have that same minority deny the majority the ability to change the results through elections. This behavior will precipitate/exacerbate a Legitimation Crisis.

Which makes one wonder what direction the country will take when that crisis hits. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary:

Nothing says looking toward the future like adhering to the earliest days of common law. That’s why I believe that life begins at “white land-holding male.” … So congratulations, ladies—decisions about what you can do with your body are now being made by four old dudes and a woman who thinks The Handmaid’s Tale is a rom-com. —Stephen Colbert Actually, women still do have the right to choose. We can choose who to blame for this motherf*cking s*** show of a travesty. For example, I choose to blame Donald Trump and Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell. Thanks to them every red state uterus is about to be public domain again like a Yankee Doodle Dandy of reproductive organs. —Desi Lydic on The Daily Show

Einenkel posted a delightful (and rather purple) nine minute rant of George Carlin discussing the anti-abortion logic. As he rants he makes some pretty good points. This video is many years old and is unfortunately now relevant again. It is in this rant that Carlin says, “If you're pre-born you're fine. If you’re preschool you're f***ed!” He also skewered the Catholic condemnation of homosexuals by saying, “Well who has less abortions than homosexuals? Leave these fucking people alone for Christ's sakes. Here is an entire class of people guaranteed never to have an abortion and the Catholics and Christians are just tossing them aside—you'd think they'd make natural allies.”