I found your other point about how pro-life strategists in your state pointing to the Texan law as a good way to hinder abortions interesting. The idea I suppose is that abortions will be hard to get because the woman would be put off by going alone with no help. I wonder how that lines up with reality - if women rely on friends or family. I doubt family members would be scared of prosecution.
The other thing that will take a long time to play out is how restricting abortion will affect pregnancy care. On some Catholic internet fora (I am not one), the idea is not to carve out an exception for the motherās life because doctors cannot be relied on. Perhaps some doctors would be willing to perform an abortion based on motherās mental state and say that that was a matter of life and death. Many states, many different medical standards!
While statewide elections in purple states can be affected this way by statewide shifts, many states are have one or more of the following features:
Strongly leaning to one party overall, with many legislative districts being landslides for that party.
Aggressive gerrymandering to make many legislative districts landslides for the party in control when the districts were drawn, or for the incumbent party of the districts.
Most voters living in regions dominated by their own party, resulting in landslide districts even if there is not aggressive gerrymandering.
In all of the above situations, the real elections in many legislative districts are in the primaries, where the noisiest single issue voters and activists tend to have more influence. Also, a point of view that is held by the majority of one party, even if it is a clear minority overall, can win in that partyās primaries and therefore win overall in states where that party is the majority party.
This is not taking a long time to play out - itās happening right now and absolutely why a significant number of people have huge issues beyond the abortion discussion. Women are being denied or delayed treatment NOW for complications of wanted pregnancies. The very idea anyone would suggest an ectopic pregnancy can only be treated once the fallopian tube ruptures shows just the staggering ignorance on womenās reproductive health that the debate on abortion is revealing. The harm of these laws are way, way beyond abortion.
On the third other hand, students spend the vast majority of their college years living and oftentimes working in the college communities. They pay taxes, are subject he laws and regulations of the community and state, and their lives are on-the-line when, for example, politicians deny them access to quality healthcare and/or target those who help provide it. They drive the economy in these communities, weave the cultural fabric, support a high paying stable workforce, and enhance (and sometimes define) the identity of the of the college, community, state, and region. While some of them may choose to take jobs outside the state upon completion of their studies, many other will continue to live and work in the state, further providing the state with highly education well payed workforce.
In short, they are citizen-stakeholders, and denying them the right to vote in the communities in which they live would not only disenfranchises the individual voters, it would create a permanent political underclass where a large and permanent percentage of the communities in question would never have their voices heard. Current attempts to curtail their right to vote are part and parcel with the ongoing attempts to discourage, suppress, and deny the vote to those who are more likely to have opinions with whom some politicians disagree.
So I didnāt express myself well. It will take a long time to play out not in terms of medical consequences but in terms of the reaction (if there is one) of staunchly pro-life voters or neutral-on-the-issue voters who vote for politicians that enact these laws and for judges who uphold them (or not). Irelandās absolute ban on abortions stood for a very long time (with untold numbers of maternal deaths and harm) before Savita died and change came with that.
What I gleaned from the Catholic fora (this is way off topic) is the right of Catholic pro-life medical professionals to withhold or to treat threatened pregnancies differently because of their religious beliefs. As far as ectopic pregnancies go, the theory is that it would be wrong to administer a drug that would halt fetal growth and kill the embryo, but it would be fine to remove the Fallopian tube (that also kills the embryo). So if both treatments save the life of the mother, what treatment would be meted out in a state with an absolute abortion ban? And what if the doctor on staff then had their religious/pro-life views that allowed them to only treat with removal of the Fallopian tube?
Yes. So a lot of stuff I read about how there are women who really want to conceive with a history of miscarriages and how afraid they are of trying again because what if their future miscarriage care gets botched and they end up infertile.
Homeowners stay in one place 13 years on average, while renters stay in one place 3 years on average. Would you disallow renters from registering to vote or voting based on the likelihood that they will be there for no longer than many college students?
I would like a study/data on the peopleās views and then their reproductive history. Did they/family members have difficult pregnancies? Getting pregnant? Miscarriages? Stillbirths? Abortions?
Live through a complicated fertility or pregnancy situation and betcha a lot of views would change.
Personally not aware of any current attempts to curtail the rights of OOS college students to vote, but if they exist, perhaps that is another reason to choose to attend college in a different state?
The poster has stated on other threads that he is an Asian American from Texas, so I believe that is the ādemographicā he is trying to use as an example. I still think he is dangerously close to trafficking in tropes and stereotypes regarding both Asians and ākids choosing a LAC in the Northeast.ā