DD tweet implicitly supporting the recent Roe v Wade overturn.
I think that DD has a position like: he wants everything (including the existence of rights) to be wide open to the democratic process, because somethignsomething Popper somethignsomething error correction. (The reason for the "somethignsomething"s is that I haven’t seen DD make this argument explicitly, I’m just inferring his position from this and some other things. If anyone would like to fill me in on his real view, please do.)
DD is wrong and his position contradicts Objectivism. It is unequivocally a bad thing when anyone is forced to “persuade” others to respect her rights.
Regarding persuasion, note that Trump didn’t run on a pro-life platform and persuade the electorate of that. He emphasized other issues like wall building and swamp draining.
This video made me think about how anti-science the abortion bans are. Also, makes me think about how there are some dangerous Christianity-associated ideas that are still affecting American society.
I checked out polls on abortion belief. I found some Pew polls from 2014. I think views might have changed since then but I’m not sure I trust polling that took place since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. The difference between Texas and California that wanted abortion illegal in all/most cases are 50% vs 38%. I also looked at Pennsylvania, which does still allow abortion, and had 44% that want abortion illegal in all/most cases. Those numbers make me think that it might not take such a huge shift in public opinion to overturn the abortion bans. Harrowing person stories like the ones in these videos could ripple out and change public opinion enough, in perhaps just a few years.
Yeah, I think a lot of policies and government actions don’t have much popular support. I don’t have a good model for understanding how public opinion affects government actions. Does public opinion have any affect on any policies? Which policies can public opinion affect? Are there historical examples of public opinion turning the tide on a political issue? Does it makes sense that public opinion could be a factor but not a deciding factor? How do political issues like the abortion bans get decided? Is policy set mostly by elites negotiating outside the public eye? What is the minimum number of people that need to be persuaded to change Texas policy on abortion bans?
I don’t think I have answers to the above quesions.
When I used to follow a bunch of politics I remember a lot of conservative types I followed talking about how Roe vs. Wade was bad law. I never agreed and just thought it was because they were anti-abortion. Recently I started listening to the audiobook of Philosophy: Who Needs It - Wikipedia and apparently Miss Rand agrees (with it not being great law).
From chapter 15, Censorship: Local and Express, of Philosophy Who Needs It:
Since inconsistent premises lead to inconsistent actions, it is not impossible that the present Supreme Court may make some liberating decisions. For instance, the Court made a great contribution to justice and to the protection of individual rights when it legalized abortion. I am not in agreement with all of the reasoning given in that decision, but I am in enthusiastic agreement with the result—i.e., with the recognition of a woman’s right to her own body. But the Court’s decision in regard to obscenity takes an opposite stand: it denies a man’s (or a woman’s) right to the exercise of his own mind—by establishing the legal and intellectual base of censorship.
Well to be more precise. Its not well reasoned law. I guess that was always a crack in how abortion was implemented in this country (though idk the history of abortion in america). I wonder why she said that? Maybe I’ll go check out the conservatives arguments.
To clarify: I am pre-abortion and I am not saying that its a good thing for it to get overturned just because the legal reasoning was bad.
