WA Delegate: The 🇺🇦Rewilding🇺🇦 of Ruinenlust (elected )
Last WA Update:
Embassies: Philosophy 115, Eladen, Hippy Haven, Yggdrasil, International Democratic Union, Antarctica, Winterfell, Antarctic Oasis, Texas, Canada, Union of Free Nations, Singapore, The Region That Has No Big Banks, Democratic Socialist Assembly, the Rejected Realms, The Bar on the corner of every region, and 18 others.the South Pacific, Oatland, Haiku, Portugal, 10000 Islands, Spiritus, Conch Kingdom, The North Pacific, The Leftist Assembly, Europe, Sonindia, Wintreath, Refugia, The Union of Democratic States, New West Indies, Libertarian Socialist Confederation, Philosophers, and A Liberal Haven.
Tags: Casual, Commended, Democratic, Eco-Friendly, Egalitarian, Enormous, Featured, Founderless, Issues Player, Map, Multi-Species, Offsite Chat, and 4 others.Pacifist, Regional Government, Social, and World Assembly.
Regional Power: Extremely High
Forest contains 369 nations, the 53rd most in the world.
Today's World Census Report
The Most Rebellious Youth in Forest
World Census observers counted the number of times their car stereo was stolen from outside fast food stores to determine which nations have relatively high levels of youth-related crime.
As a region, Forest is ranked 1,133rd in the world for Most Rebellious Youth.
![]() | Nation | WA Category | Motto | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1. | ![]() | Left-wing Utopia | “Can't we all just get along? Eladen Rep” | |
2. | Inoffensive Centrist Democracy | “stroaln hvelc Vreendscapr & hvoarhedrang hvelc Freadicr” | ||
3. | ![]() | Civil Rights Lovefest | “Not only doəs God play dicə, thə dicə arə loadəd.” | |
4. | ![]() | Democratic Socialists | “Semper Virens” | |
5. | ![]() | Civil Rights Lovefest | “The Party at the End of the World” | |
6. | ![]() | Anarchy | “AI See You” | |
7. | ![]() | Civil Rights Lovefest | “Amo, amas, amat Amamus, amatis, amant” | |
8. | ![]() | Inoffensive Centrist Democracy | “Bask in the chaos and seek proof of your existence.” | |
9. | ![]() | Left-wing Utopia | “Ad maius bonum” | |
10. | ![]() | New York Times Democracy | “It's cool to be gay!” |
1234. . .3637»
Regional Poll • Shall Forest adopt the "Amendment" Amendment for the Constitution?
Summary • WA • Influence • Population • Voters
Voting opened 2 days 5 hours ago and will close . Open to WA member residents. You cannot vote as you are not logged in.
Regional Happenings
- :
The Dominion of House Gardenia arrived from The Pacific.
- :
The Principality of Kastelay arrived from Refugia.
- :
The Republic of Forest Finns arrived from Equilism.
- :
The Most Serene Republic of Yoakekuni arrived from The East Pacific.
- :
The Kingdom of Lugnan arrived from Osiris.
- :
The Healthcare Providers of Palos Heights arrived from Lazarus.
- :
The Principality of Jambalaya arrived from First Epitome United.
- :
The Most Serene Republic of Pinkacre arrived from The North Pacific.
- :
The Bureaudirectic Union of Jutsa created a new regional poll: "Shall Forest adopt the "Amendment" Amendment for the Constitution?".
- :
The Royal State of Daarwyrth suppressed a post on the Regional Message Board.
Forest Regional Message Board

Bodily Autonomy is the principle human right. Saying you can infringe upon it puts into question all other rights. Babies have bodily autonomy but cannot apply it as it requires active will. You can't assume a baby wants to survive. And even if it could talk it couldn't understand the question. Its also extremely unlikely though admittedly debatable that fetus' can even feel pain. Mothers however can feel pain and can even die without access to life saving abortion procedures and medicine.
Putting life above bodily autonomy and staying consistent logically would require you to completely alter your current world view as well. Are we to ban everything deemed scientifically unhealthy for us? Will we be mandated our 10 minutes of sun, or become a felon if we don't apply sunscreen? I'm not saying you're suggesting those ridiculous things but we have to follow life as the ultimate maxim to its logical conclusion.
You might say well bodily autonomy applies while conscious and life applies while unconscious. I would argue that is arbitrary and also not true. Once a child is born its completely owned by the parent. Children aren't allowed to do anything without parental consent. The only thing they can't do is kill them (violence and neglect is acceptable to a certain degree).
It doesn't matter when it vests because bodily autonomy can by definition only exist with will. You can't grant permission or deny access to your body while unable to communicate or contemplate it.
You don't get to decide what bodily autonomy is. Its a specific concept. Any perversion of the concept is simply something else. You can only agree or disagree on whether its a human right and whether its a primary right or you believe it should be ceded in X circumstances.
This is a misunderstanding of the example. The example exists to show what could happen without bodily autonomy as a primary right. You may think the premise is flawed because it doesn’t mirror the current result of the repeal of roe V. wade but when you’re discussing logical arguments at this level we haven’t even gotten there yet. A person wants to do something with their Body and the state is physically preventing them from doing so. That is an unequivocally a violation of bodily autonomy.
Thus the first thing you need to decide is whether you A) Believe in Bodily Autonomy as a primary right or B) Believe that it can be ceded for X reasons. Maybe there is someone insane out there who believes no one has bodily autonomy at all. Let us hope no one here is like that though.
If you believe in Bodily Autonomy as a primary right from which all other rights are derived, then you can’t possibly support the end to any abortions. You seem to believe it can be ceded, which then opens the question of when it applies and when it doesn’t, and why it should apply differently logically. It would be difficult to untangle your belief that only fetus’ can subvert their mother’s bodily autonomy.
I’ll show you. Let us go back to the kidney example. Let’s say now that John is the son of a mother. And John needs her kidney. Is it right to force her to give her kidney to john? John is still her child after all. I am sure you will come back with many disagreements.
Life before bodily autonomy – This has been gone over. Simply if life is more important than bodily autonomy, I could force you to do horrible things we all know are absurd that you definitely don’t want to do to save lives.
Flawed Premise – You mentioned below that you believe forcing someone to give a kidney is not the same as preventing someone from getting an abortion. It isn’t the same, but both require bodily autonomy. So what we are doing is logically reducing your position to its base parts. It doesn’t matter that they aren’t the same situation as someone else can use your logic to force John’s mother to give him a kidney.
John isn’t a fetus’ – What is special about a fetus that makes it necessary to cede bodily autonomy? Is it because its defenseless and unconscious? What happens if John becomes critical and now is unconscious and defenseless. Does he gain access to his mother’s body now?
You get into quite a predicament here because the baby also hasn’t granted you permission to birth it or touch it or do anything with it.
No need to apologize--I get it. Likewise, I don't expect agreement (the opposite, actually), and I'm actually glad you took time to engage--so for that I thank you. But I am going to address some of these points regardless (cuz why not?):
(1) Actually the overwhelming majority of sexual acts are performed for the purpose of procreation (and always have been), they just aren't performed by humans.
(2) Just because sex happens to be pleasurable doesn't mean that the purpose of sex is pleasure. The purpose of sex always has been procreation. Sex happens to be pleasurable because we were meant to procreate.
(3) Regarding the kidney example - no reasonable person goes to a party with the expectation their kidney is going to be removed (that's kind of like believing toilet seat pregnancies are a thing). Similarly, no one boards a cruise ship with the expectation of going to Mars. However, people do board a cruise ship knowing that they will be completely surrounded by water (the purpose of a cruise), even if they don't want a drop of water hit them the entire trip. (Maybe they just want to enjoy the sun and sightseeing, idk). So even if you board a cruise, knowing that it's possible to avoid touching water the whole trip, you boarded that cruise knowing you'd be surrounded by water. Just because you don't want to touch water, doesn't mean it's reasonable to expect to remain dry the entire trip.
(4) Not as many people "cheer on" men having "high body counts" as you'd believe and society (and biology) provide deterrents, whether child-support, STDs, or otherwise.
(5) I'm not really sure how your train example is applicable here. If you're implying that that only the mother or child (but not both) are capable of surviving child birth (because we know that isn't true, for the overwhelming majority of all modern births) then that's just not a very good argument. If you want to address the circumstances in which a mother's life is endangered by her pregnancy, then that's a different discussion (in which we're far more likely to agree), but I'm not exactly sure how that applies here.
(6) Regarding DNA ownership - Not sure which case you're referencing here, but that's an overly broad interpretation on SCOTUS rulings regarding DNA/genetic material ownership. Generally, the law recognizes human ownership of DNA not freely or willfully discarded/relinquished (going back to my fork at the restaurant example). One does not have to knowingly discard DNA in order to do so freely. There's a difference there, and SCOTUS has recognized such.
(7) Labeling a fetus (or anything other than actual, literal parasites) as a "parasite" is an extremely dangerous game to play (it's was a particularly favored tactic of 20th-century dictators)--especially since you're referring to the literal future of the human race. Is anyone who relies on anyone else for their well-being/livelihood a parasite? That appears to be the standard.
And do we really, actually all know deep down that a fetus isn't a human? That absolutely isn't the case, and it's precisely why we're writing late-night essays on the RMB. So no, not going to concede that at all.
I'll address this later, perhaps in a telegram. I don't want to make a muck of the RMB, but I would like to delve into your argument a bit more--it's just late. Hope you don't mind if I push off my response.
Best,
-YZ
The thing is that the abortion question isn't a cosy after dinner debate between intelligent and educated people, with clever examples, trolley problems and premises P1, P2, and P3. It's about children being born into circumstances where nobody has the capacity to care for them so they grow up with few chances to do anything except repeat the same sh1tty cycle. It's about the end of dreams, careers and relationships. It's about psychological trauma, shame and bitter regret for the road not taken.
I think most people could agree that abortions are bad in the sense that it would be better if fewer of them happened. As has been said, this is best achieved through there being fewer unwanted pregnancies. The idea that the state can deal with undesirable consequences by simplistically banning them is beyond infuriating. How can you get better outcomes through the return of backstreet and DIY abortions, or by ensuring children are born unwanted into circumstances social services may later need to remove them from? By widening already yawning inequality by restricting abortion to those with the means to travel? I will never understand America, the land where owning an assault rifle requires less regulation than owning a uterus.
Banning stuff isn't taking a position in this philosophical debate, it's snuffing out the discussion. This is the process whereby, if armchair philosophicy is your thing, you decide what you'd do if it was you. Maybe later when the chips are down you even stick to it. A ban means that what you think doesn't matter.
My partner and I always felt we'd never go for an abortion and we declined the tests for fetal abnormalities on the grounds that we were going ahead either way. It wasn't a premise P1, P2, P3 kind of thing but it was a stance we felt had a certain dignity, a dignity it would have been stripped of by government compulsion. How crass it would be to presume to impose that choice on everyone.
My mother worked in a London gynaecological hospital before abortion was legalised in Britain. She always felt that after dealing with the aftermath of coathangers and bleach she had little appetite for philosophy.
So I've stayed out of the Abortion debate on here but I've seen a few points I'd like to address:
Disclaimers first! I consider myself pro-life with exceptions (rape and life of the mother). Those are my personal views. That said, if I were a politician I would probably campaign on the platform of not allowing abortion after the point of viability (somewhere around the 21st week). With all due respect, if you support killing a fetus near the end of a pregnancy, you are down right disgusting - in my view that's no difference than tossing a new born in a dumpster.
So that brings me to the point Ruinenlust brought up in regards to the "exceptions"... I think a surprisingly large number of poeple are pro-life with exceptions, at least in my community anyway. The extremes on the issue drown those in the middle out. For me, it's not so much about the woman being worth less than the fetus or vice versa. It's more about the fact that a women doesn't choose to be raped thus the pregnancy is forced. Outside of rape, a woman is not forced to have sex. As
York Zionia points out, that's a choice that comes with potential consequence of pregnancy. Actions have consequences... but but but what about the 1% that get pregnant while on birth control????? Well as
York Zionia illustrated with cruise ship example, odds are it wont happen but it can happen and everyone knows that.
When the life of the mother is in danger it should be her choice... I can't imagine the pain in having to make the choice...
At the end of the day, I am a realist and agree with the following points:
Making abortion illegal won't stop them... thus the reason if I were a politician I would only call for a ban after the point of viability.
I generally stay out of the abortion debate as I feel morally conflicted from both ends being that I fall in the middle on this issue. Morally I think abortion is wrong. I also think it is immoral to take the anti-abortion stance yet do nothing to help those kids. I see it as a lose - lose situation until society itself makes major changes.
Lastly, I would like to comment on what sparked all the debate. The US Supreme Court did not make abortion illegal. Rather they left the issue up to the states. Personally I wish this would be the case with more issues especially on the economic side of things. Smaller federal government is better. The people at the local and state level know better what they need and prefer than casting a blanket over the entire country.
I'll quick throw my bit in here, in part because I can personally relate to FV's stance on this, given it was my first and long-held standpoint until I learned more about this (and still mostly agree with), but also because some of the other points raised have definitely given me more to think about.
This part has always been confusing to me. I certain as heck agree - for the most part, and would've agreed 100% a couple years ago with how little knowledge I have on the matter. That said, I've also been told by folks in the WA (sad source to get this from, I know), and particularly Sanctaria I believe, that really late-state abortions are not so much a guaranteed death as an early-induced birth. I still agree that's probably not right under most circumstances, but assuming the baby is not particularly likely to have major complications, and particularly if the mother's health is genuinely at stake, I could see it being a viable possibility; but realistically, it's one of those instances of "Gosh, I really don't know enough about this" and I myself haven't done enough research to even know what to think personally. Still, it seems a dad more nuanced then "baby killing ree!", though feel free to correct me otherwise. ;p
I'm glad they technically stepped away from some states' rights, although personally I wish they would've done that with other things instead. I can appreciate protecting civil rights over state rights, and I also believe the "fed" is often surprisingly lenient when it comes to enforcing things otherwise legalized (see: marijuana). But states are an important part of our checks and balances, and the amount of blatant ignorance of our 10th amendment in many circumstances is a little worrisome if I may be frank.
I'm still a little worried about states outright banning abortions (as Texas already practically did not long before the court overruling anyway), though. One could argue that if it was that important, an individual would find a way to either visit or outright move to another state to have an abortion there. It's definitely difficult - especially if you're dirt-poor, where this is maybe the biggest problem. Just missing a paycheck, much more finding a viable time and affordable way to another state, is imaginably quite difficult (as I see Uan's touched on). And yeah, it absolutely would have a negative effect on our already rampant inequality.
Last word of note: I'd argue that states already had significant freedom to regulate abortions to a certain degree, such as within periods of time or under certain circumstances (health, rape, etc.). I frankly don't quite get where allowing states to outright ban it remotely comes in handy.
Bigger point here... yeah. Not to mention we're at around the world population limit and are swiftly running out of resources and are likely heading toward a period of significant die-off as-is anyway, but that as an aside, the suffering due to a lack of resources and people willing to actually care for them (arguably related) is enough of a reason. Although, I personally wouldn't use that as a reason for an abortion past a certain period; after all, those neglected are largely still with us for a reason. (I'm ready for a contentious debate about that.)
*Sigh...* Yeah, that's a really depressing issue - and one where I can sadly understand why it's done. One could theoretically argue that doing it legally would encourage more abortions, but I'd argue that it largely means getting them done faster (thus less tragically) and more safely. I'd still hope that, given the relative ease of going from one state to another in the US, it wouldn't be as big of an issue as it may've been in the UK, buuuut... yeah, that might just be the largest reason why I'm a bit nervous about it being banned anywhere.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Final note: While the Roe vs. Wade overruling allowed states to ban abortions, wasn't there also some... deeper implications? I've heard a little bit about it potentially having major implications about right to privacy in general, although I'm not too enlightened on the matter. Don't suppose anyone else could shed a little light on that for me?
Neither is a man, and male choices have consequences too. Are many conservative states that now restrict abortion likely to enact measures that leave fathers responsible for those consequences? If not, it's going to continue to be seen as a fundamentally sexist position.
I absolutely get that, but let's not delude ourselves that these judges on the Supreme Court are motivated by bringing power closer to the people and are coincidentally starting that project with Roe vs Wade. Sure, in economic terms localism is good. Rights are supposed to be universal, and that's why they're properly the subject of federal government and international law.
Verdant Haven, Rhodevus, and Faurexus
a bunch of things are based on roe, or use the same precedents as roe, such as gay marriage and legal contraception. and technically interracial marriage. It took alabama 4 days following roe's overturning to use the court's own words to work to get transgender healthcare banned.
Justice Thomas already said that they should look into the court ruling which legalized gay marriage.
Also, abortion is about healthcare, which is a federal issue, not state one.
Gun control is still up for debate whether it is state or federal issue. If it's a conservative state, it's a state right. but if you are in a liberal state, then it is federal. We know this, cuz the supreme court struck down a state law which was in place to reduce handgun ownership.
Ok, I don't talk much here but I guess I will weigh in right here. It's worth mentioning that my family is very conservative, and though I've moved on from a number of those positions (particularly the right-wing economic program), there are a few I remain sympathetic to. This is one I haven't really ever budged on. To some degree, I'm just curious with some of the distinctions in the more nuanced views here. I also don't always log onto this nation, so it's entirely possible by the time I get around to responding to any objections (and surely there will be many) I won't be able to, so I've tried to anticipate a few obvious ones. Regardless, you're obviously welcome to disagree even if I don't get around to responding.
Some of this may sound pretty strong, and I don't mean to disparage your character or imply you support most of the things here I associate the argument with. I have some serious misgivings with it, though.
Touched on this, but this is a red herring to me. When the question is about murder (as anti-abortion advocates will say that it is), you have to show either that it is not murder or where choice enters into it. No one supports choice to murder adults, no one supports the choice to steal and torture and rape, and I assume no one here supports the choice of corporate boards to pollute with impunity and ruin the environment to the detriment of all (especially the poor).
To close, I don't mean to attack anyone personally, or offend anyone, but obviously I have as strong disagreements with most of you as most of you will have with me. It is an issue I feel pretty strongly about, and so you'll forgive me I hope for pressing for it rather strenuously.
Mmhm, I'd note that "health" is a traditional police power, which is a state issue. You can make arguments about the necessary and proper clause or whether we should really let this stop us (I basically think the Constitution's enumeration of powers at this point is pretty obsolete regardless, and I dislike the Supreme Court, which has made besides Dobbs a number of terrible decisions recently), but I would note anyway that abortion is not healthcare in this case, because the question of whether to allow it or not is about a moral argument, not an argument about the practicality of it on the level of healthcare. And morals, again... are a police power, and thus the jurisdiction of the states (again, in theory that I don't care about too much, but let's not misstate).
Sorry about double posting, but there were more responses after my last :P
Edit: One more point, I also don't think "men don't have to deal with the consequences" is a valid argument, either. The fact that some group gets away with something doesn't make it acceptable for another group. That said, I actually agree with Uan aa Boa's post to the degree that absolutely I think a fully consistent pro-life position necessitates strong protections for pregnant women and new mothers and as far as possible ought to hold men responsible for the situations they put women in.
Some rather disturbing views posted above about people having sex. Such views usually come form virgin teens or frigid middle aged/elderly women. Trust me, sex is great. Everyone should do it all the time.
IMO, the woman's right to her own body is paramount and nobody can justifiably force her to use for a purpose she does not wish to use it for.
Advertisement