I think an expectation that there should be exceptions reflects an unconscious Puritanical belief that childbearing is a divine punishment for something that a woman has done (I recall as a child reading one of the later Little House books in which, I think, Laura said that those who dance must pay the piper.) Making an exception for victims of some kinds of abuse (rape, incest) acknowledges that they did not choose to do what they would otherwise deserve to be punished for; making an exception for situations in which childbearing is more dangerous than usual acknowledges that the punishment is (with some probability p) larger than normal: women deserve to have a lousy time as payback for what they did, but they do not deserve the death penalty. And yet the hard cold facts of the matter are that children are, without exception, an undeserved gift from God. They are not owed to us either in a positive or negative sense.
""In the wake of Dobbs, bishops have argued that the Church’s long term goal must be to make abortion unthinkable, not merely illegal. But the law is often recognized as a powerful teacher. ""
It's politics and political extremism that complicates the issue. I wish we could go back to the old days of anti abortion activism ie prior to the late 80's. In the town I grew up in, the President of the Right to Life group was my mothers friend. She had 11 children herself. The family had moved around the remote aboriginal communities, her husband teaching the men the building trade and she working with the nuns to teach the women cooking, sewing, health and hygiene. When they settled in our town she became involved with the refugees from Vietnam fleeing dangerous circumstances in dodgy boats many of which never made it to freedom. She was a typical example of what would be called by some "a bleeding heart lefty". When her kids had grown she become the spokesperson for the anti abortion movement. I was a paid up member of the Right to Life from when I first started work in 1980, until things began to change in the late '80's. We were getting terrible reports of anti abortion violence from the US and it just didn't sit well.
The physical material violence is less prevalent today but the extremism in the name of religion but is really political in nature, is still there. The result of it is that normal people with genuine prolife motives are conflicted and distracted from activism. The pro abortion lobby is poked by the political overtones to be more enraged and defiant to anything we say.
If the laws reflect more of a political agenda than a true prolife agenda, will they be the powerful teacher that it has been in the past? I don't know. It's complicated.
I think an expectation that there should be exceptions reflects an unconscious Puritanical belief that childbearing is a divine punishment for something that a woman has done (I recall as a child reading one of the later Little House books in which, I think, Laura said that those who dance must pay the piper.) Making an exception for victims of some kinds of abuse (rape, incest) acknowledges that they did not choose to do what they would otherwise deserve to be punished for; making an exception for situations in which childbearing is more dangerous than usual acknowledges that the punishment is (with some probability p) larger than normal: women deserve to have a lousy time as payback for what they did, but they do not deserve the death penalty. And yet the hard cold facts of the matter are that children are, without exception, an undeserved gift from God. They are not owed to us either in a positive or negative sense.
""In the wake of Dobbs, bishops have argued that the Church’s long term goal must be to make abortion unthinkable, not merely illegal. But the law is often recognized as a powerful teacher. ""
It's politics and political extremism that complicates the issue. I wish we could go back to the old days of anti abortion activism ie prior to the late 80's. In the town I grew up in, the President of the Right to Life group was my mothers friend. She had 11 children herself. The family had moved around the remote aboriginal communities, her husband teaching the men the building trade and she working with the nuns to teach the women cooking, sewing, health and hygiene. When they settled in our town she became involved with the refugees from Vietnam fleeing dangerous circumstances in dodgy boats many of which never made it to freedom. She was a typical example of what would be called by some "a bleeding heart lefty". When her kids had grown she become the spokesperson for the anti abortion movement. I was a paid up member of the Right to Life from when I first started work in 1980, until things began to change in the late '80's. We were getting terrible reports of anti abortion violence from the US and it just didn't sit well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#United_States
The physical material violence is less prevalent today but the extremism in the name of religion but is really political in nature, is still there. The result of it is that normal people with genuine prolife motives are conflicted and distracted from activism. The pro abortion lobby is poked by the political overtones to be more enraged and defiant to anything we say.
If the laws reflect more of a political agenda than a true prolife agenda, will they be the powerful teacher that it has been in the past? I don't know. It's complicated.
It sounds to me like Ohio got it right.