Yet he continues to say his poll numbers are through the roof, and any polls or commentators that say otherwise are lying! His cult at his rallies cheer when he says that, so it must be true! :-/

Exactly! The number of abortions doesn’t go down by much when it’s banned. However, the number of women dying or being permanently injured goes from virtually 0% to a significant number.

This is grist to my mill, Heather.
If one really wants to reduce the number of abortions, serious sex education and ready availability of contraceptives (including the ‘pill’ or injections for young girls, without obligatory notification to parents or guardians) are the only proven way.
Criminalising abortion has been shown not to work, and should be considered counter-productive. That implies that ‘pro-lifers’ are actually promoting abortions (and back alley ones at that).
We all know what the real motivations are.

I find most kids these days to be pretty amazing. Much better and more aware than we were at that age. The number of baddies is much smaller ime.

I don’t like the Dr Strangelogic cartoon pic either, but I nearly always love the message.

That’s what annoys me the most about the anti-choice campaigners, a majority of whom come from the Bible Belt. The Bible Belt also has the highest abortion rate. The main reasons for that I believe are their failure to give their kids, or allow their kids to have, proper sex education. “Just say no,” is what they think is an appropriate message, and the onus often rests on the girl. She’s certainly the one who’s the victim of assumptions and is made to suffer shame if she gets pregnant. The other is not making contraception easily available. As I’ve said before, the abortion rate in NZ has plummeted since they started selling condoms in supermarkets where anyone can get hold of them.

Anti-choice for others, that is. The well-known phenomenon, about which any abortionist can tell you, that those opposing abortions are first in line when their daughter is inconveniently pregnant or when they have impregnated the house-help. Because THEIR case is different (of course).

Let me take your two guesses where your Canadian illegal guns come from: Greenland? Buthan?????

I agree. It’s good to be proud of your country, and there is plenty about the US to be proud of, but the American exceptionalism thing is like a religion. Criticizing the country is seen as a sort of blasphemy by many.

Countries like NZ, Iceland, Norway, Sweden etc that led many of the international indices don’t have this idea that we’re the best. We’re proud of our countries (I certainly am!), but we’re also constantly looking for ways we can improve things. I think it’s why politics is more peaceful in our countries – most politicians are genuinely in the job to make the country better and different parties recognize that about their colleagues. It’s just that they have different ideas about how that should happen. A lot of legislation is supported by both major parties, and the select committee process works well in improving legislation.

That whole thing seems to have gone by the wayside with a lot of more recent US politicians. The Tea Party ones, for example, were determined to be wreckers. They went to Washington determined not to vote for anything that they didn’t agree with 100%, and they didn’t. They didn’t understand what the job of a politician actually is, and nor, it seemed, did those who voted for them. It’s like all those who voted for Trump because he’d turn the place upside down. But the reason it wasn’t working was because of people like that – those who were determined to wreck rather than cooperate for the good of the country. Politicians like the Tea Party ones only represented the pov of those that elected them, and not all their constituents.