Rex Kerr
2 min readAug 8, 2022

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That isn't the idea.

The idea is that you need compromise to build support and to get legislation passed.

There is plenty of evidence for that. Here are some of the more important examples: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/history-of-bipartisanship/

Joe Manchin voted against the WHPA. It would have forced West Virginia's abortion laws to be more permissive than under Roe. He literally says in interviews, "I would vote for a Roe vs. Wade codification". Now, would Manchin (plus maybe Murkowski and Collins, Republicans who are on-record as supporting reproductive rights, but voted against WHPA) been enough? By the numbers, no. But it gets you closer.

Furthermore, actually, niceness sometimes does work. The gay marriage rights movement has just about 100% been a case of being nicer and being listened to. The loud in-your-face stuff might have felt good for people, say, marching in Haight-Ashbury. But the opponents were going on about how gays were going to corrupt the youth and all, while the gay marriage rights people made a simple moral argument that won people over: "we're just people who love each other like anyone else; our love springs from our hearts unbidden like it does for everyone else, and we want to follow our hearts and our attractions and live our lives that way that others do".

The cases of improvement from the most horrible forms of oppression have not been about being nice, but also not about being unnecessarily belligerent and demonizing their opponents. Instead, they've almost universally stressed our shared humanity. MLK Jr. repeatedly took pains to stress the moral argument against discrimination and how the just world was a world where all peoples are free. Nice? No--he had plenty of criticisms. But belligerent? No. Firm, and appealing to people's better nature.

And anyway, the legislative path to abortion rights has relatively little to do with dominance hierarchies; differences of opinion do not particularly align with power in this case.

(Aside--you don't need to tell me about what pregnancy is like. Although I am not able to become pregnant, I have had more than adequate contact with pregnant people to have a much better idea of what it is like than you could convey to me in comments here. You can assume that I know and simply reference something if you want to make a point about morning sickness or risk of preeclampsia or decreased bladder volume and pressure on the bladder or perineal tearing whatever else.)

I do agree that it is appropriate to focus more on the tangible suffering caused by loss of abortion rights. It's a good way to generate appropriate sympathy and understanding. However, I think much of the rest of your outlook on the situation is a misreading of both history and politics (but your outlook is consistent with your approach, so your approach makes more sense in view of that).

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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