Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for June 11, 2022

And get the Supreme Court expanded to 13 seats, with term limits.

That’s the key. Well, and “wisely”.

As I said earlier, early abortions before a brain has begun to be developed are perfectly fine, but after a brain is present we are talking about a separate sentient innocent being, and I cannot in good conscience support systematic rationalised murder of either babies or animals. Exceptions when the mother’s life is threatened or a rape has occurred are obviously regrettably acceptable though.

However, generally speaking, poor people need to be supplied government-funded contraceptives and financial support to help them raise children, there needs to be good teenage preventive sex education and less media glorification of casual hookup culture, and better and more widespread foster care systems also need to be created. Any other sensible suggestions that avoid extremely radical solutions are obviously also welcome.

Best advice Flo. If you don’t vote others will make the decisions for you

I’m a man and I don’t approve of abortions but I will not deny a woman the right to chose for herself. If you want to forbid a woman to chose are you prepared to to put your money where your mouth is and support the woman and child. If not then your just a hollow mouthpiece.

Then anti-abortion party wants to bring people to the US who want women to dress like that. That makes voting confusing.

AMEN

You do have the right to not vote, but if you exercise that right, then you give up the right to complain about the results.

I hope that works. The GOP is doing it’s best to make sure your vote doesn’t count unless it’s for them. Protect Democracy.

It’s what I plan to do this November and every election after it.

We went through this whole thing, losing a child at late term. With all the stress and pain, I know this: I am glad the government had absolutely nothing to say in the matter. When things are terribly wrong in childbirth, the toughest and most painful decisions must be made. The mother must take the lead. Hopefully she is closely supported by her doctor and her partner, but sometimes even that help is not near enough. Distant third parties pumped up on their ideology do not belong anywhere near this. The government’s interest begins with certification of a live birth. That is the point at which the child becomes eligible to be a citizen, which is the start of the government’s interest.

Great message. If you want change, you need to make your vote count.

My problem is those that use abortion as a form of birth control at the tax payer’s expense, I understand in case of rape or incest, FYI my only child is adopted!

I suspect the court will leave the matter to the states, if women honestly care about this and do not have a very short memory then they can show it by voting at mid term.

Utter selfishness on the part of the mother and father who pursue sexual activity without any accountability for the new life they helped create.

Yes. I vote. And abortion is one of the many reasons I vote for a candidate. Also gun control. And taxes. And spending. And wanting to pack the SCOTUS. And the economy.

I wonder if there is a correlation between birth control and gun control in politics.

Why do we have a Congress if the Supreme Court makes all the rules?

VOTE BLUE

Wiley need a history lesson on the Constitution and “rights”. No woman has a “right” to an abortion. If she did, it would be enumerated in the Constitution…which it isn’t. Roe v. Wade was a case regarding privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment. It was never about abortion and it did not legalize abortion. Even RBG said it was a bad ruling. The overturning of Roe v. Wade will return the issue back to the state where it belongs and where it belonged in the first place. And no, overturning the ruling will not ban abortion.

I look forward to next week’s series of strips regarding liberty of contract.

I mean, if you’re going to get upset about the Supreme Court inventing a right and then taking it away decades later…

All it takes is 41 Senators who could potentially represent less than 30% of the population to stop any action.

Wyoming has two senators. California has two senators. In the Senate, both states have equal representation. Given the populations of the state, a Wyoming voter has 67 times the power of a California voter in the Senate. So much for the one man, one vote theory.

What Woman’s right? The “right” to kill her baby?

Nope. Not a right, a crime.

Since the “old men” in the Supreme Court want to go backwards how about we take away their viagra? No more viagra then less sex therefore less unwanted pregnancies. Sound stupid? So do the backward looking jerks. I can see outlawing abortions when the fetus is viable but, up to that point, it is only a collection of cells in the general shape of a human.

Vote BLUE.

The most ‘hilarious’ part is that abortion became legal in the US because of the damages it did. Hospitals had dedicated services to deal with women sick of dying of botched a backstreet abortion, or used the famous bicycle spoke. What that new law would do would be to go back to that time again because abortion has always existed.

What it will also do is make it dangerous to a woman who does not want an abortion but has an accident and loses her foetus to be accused of murder as they already do in some countries in South America. And what happen if the idiots in some states decide to pass laws forbidding women to do dangerous things while pregnant, like drinking a glass of alcohol? Prison for them too?

And from a European point of view, the emphasis of forcing women to have a baby, add that without medical help during the pregnancy (too expensive) or later cheap creches and free medical check-up is just inhuman treatment, and the proof that they see women only as walking breeding wombs with no rights.

Handmaiden’s Tale – the perfect communist/socialist (see China/Cuba/etc) society the PROGRESSIVES are trying to get us to!

If you want something done about women’s rights, gun violence, the economy, marital freedom, the broken filibuster and keeping religious ideology out of government then send Biden a congress that will actually DO something beyond endless, feckless, obstruction. If you can find a Republican willing to actually try to work to a common solution, vote for them. If not at least stop supporting the current corrupt cabal.

Stop voting for dictator loving republiguns who want to take YOUR vote away.

Love you Wiley!

Vote early, often, and by mail! It’s the only way Left!

hmmm…“the Endangered Species Act of 1973 provides a program for the conservation of threatened and endangered plants and animals and the habitats in which they are found” www.epa.gov. The Pro-Abortion crowd defends the “right” to kill human beings and demands that others pay for the procedure, but will unleash the full heavy hand of government against anyone who even comes close to impacting the snail darter…talk about Hand Maidens worshiping at the altar of Big Gov…

Nag, serve, vote. Whatever it takes.

Are we trying to replace Doonesbury here? Put this crap commentary on the op-ed page then, because its not funny nor thought provoking!

I read comics to ESCAPE politics for a while. Now it’s infiltrating here. SHHEEZ!

Stop replying directly to the theocratic trolls. They’re just another form of wanker like the Rumpophilic Turd Reich trolls. Imagine it as not helping ’em to wank if that makes it any clearer in your mind.

Prior to 1960, abortion and unwed-motherhood were not considered a public issue. It was private, handled by families. It only became a public issue if a girl or woman was known to be pregnant. Then girl would be expelled from school and a working woman would be fired from her job or never allowed to be certified (e.g., teaching, or any job that had a ‘morals’ qualification). Abortion was private and viewed as the best alternative by some families.

In 1960, the CDC approved the birth control pill and that made the idea of family planning and premarital sex a more public issue (at least for Catholics). It gave [some] women a way of protecting themselves. But the “A” word was still private. Abortions were illegal and so no statistics were kept, either about whether they increased or decreased after ‘the pill’, how many were performed, or how many girls and women died or were permanently damaged during the process.

Abortion only became a public issue when it became legal (under specific circumstances) and people who were against women’s rights in general decided to make it the BIG issue. A woman’s right to chose mean many more things.

There are no consistent, verified statistics on abortion over the years. Naturally, there are none prior to Roe vs Wade, when it was illegal. But even now there aren’t any consistent stats collected due to the wild anti-abortion actions and some Congressional acts and failures to act — safety factors, harassment, the right to privacy, and denial of funding make it difficult. Both the CD and the Guttmacher Institute collect abortion stats in the US. But they use different methods. The CDC relies on voluntary reporting; Guttmacher contacts individual abortion providers — again, voluntary responses. So, we can track general trends, but they are very short-term; and in the long run, it isn’t about the stats, it is about privacy and personal autonomy.

What judicial fiat giveth, judicial fiat can taketh away.

Thank you Wiley. At the age of 70 I’m appalled that I have to go through this again.

Since it always takes two, on the 7th days, male babies should hear a ’snip, snip" . . . .

It is clear the pro-choice movement is based on misandry.

Men are taught from almost birth that if you have sex, you are responsible. Woman lied about birth control? Tough. No excuses. Courts have held that if a 12 year old boy is raped, he is legally required to drop out of school and provide child support to his rapist for 21 years.

However, women want a separate standard for themselves: You mean I have to be responsible for my actions? How unfair! (Providing child support for two decades is just as much an infringement on bodily autonomy as is a perfectly natural pregnancy.)

Real simple women, if you don’t want to be pregnant, don’t have sex. Even cave women knew that one.

If you want to talk about fairness, once the gender gap in the incarceration rate and life expectancy are eliminated, then we will talk.

Until you stop trying to control men’s bodies, you don’t have a right to complain.

In a perfect world, abortion would not exist. Two well adjusted financially stable parents plan for every pregnancy and they all live happily ever after. In the world we currently live in, rare (society has provided the generous safety nets to prevent unplanned pregnancy or any financial issues ) and safely provided if the decision to abort is ultimately decided by the woman, is the current hope of mine. Requiring a women to carry an unwanted pregnancy is reproductive slavery. Legislation that restricts anyone’s control of their own body is way beyond government’s purview.

What constitutes life and when it begins is a moral and/or philosophical question that continues to be debated. With no definite answer, no stone throwing from me on what an individual decides for themselves.

Leaving all other considerations aside, voting is really easy. Just do it.

If a baby is viable outside of the mother, fine, until then it is just so much protein and chemicals. More to the point, it is NO ONE"S business except the woman’s. If Republicans want to abolish abortion, fine, they as a group have to agree to adopt every unwanted baby before birth and pay for the birth.

is Wiley talking about women’s rights such as Title IX and women’s sports? Or not having to worry about losing their job if they don’t get vaccinated?

Other people’s reproductive organs aren’t any of your business, weirdo. Try thinking about your own reproductive organs once in a while instead. Nobody else ever show an interest?

“Thank you for your service.” The current automatic PC slogan.

It makes as much sense as intoning your “Thoughts and prayers,” which is a useless way to feign empathy.

I’m a disabled, drafted, Vietnam Combat Veteran, and I would have then and still would settle for a sincere “Welcome Home.”

It is not about abortion. It is about a right to privacy.

The question, and the problem, is not legal. It is moral, theological, and philosophical.

This is a free country and we will never all agree on abortion. Can we all agree that any adult has the right to go to the doctor and receive counsel and care without the interference of government?

OK, what’s with her head? I’ve seen this all week and no explanation.

Really? It wasn’t bad enough to over-feed that troll yesterday, people have to do it again today?

By the way, she should really specify how Bob should vote. He seems like the type that might not be able to choose wisely on his own.

It is the one right that neither the supreme court nor the senate can take away from us. It is the ONLY right women actually have in the constitution. We had all better use it with a vengeance come Nov. VOTE and vote out every republican on the ballot. I also fought that battle and 50 years ago women finally were recognized as human beings. For your daughters, for your granddaughters, for your nieces, and for yourself, VOTE BLUE

Are you saying the soul/spirit is in the brain??

“Vote.” So she’s a good Resistance liberal. Voting’s important, but it’s not enough without the willingness to disrupt society through rent, debt, logistic &c strikes and shut down cities. When you’re dealing with fascists, throwing ballots is pretty impotent by itself.

Whew, good thing you didn’t “exercise your right” on sonny boy, there, or you wouldn’t have him around to be your little puppet, eh?

About 35% of the Pro-Life movement are women, the men aren’t doing by themselves. If they were doing by themselves, it couldn’t be as successful as it appears to be.

Non sequitur belongs on the editorial page.

Since the strip is (often) set in Maine, and since Maine’s senior Senator Susan Collins is allegedly “pro-choice” but voted to approve Supreme Court appointees who apparently testified that Roe v. Wade “was settled law” but obviously didn’t intend to uphold it, this seems particularly relevant. Collins is next up for election in 2026.

“Going back to fight again and give us another 50 years of horror, more like it.”- Short form: Personal autonomy for health care decisions – excellent. That needs to remain untouched. Elective abortion, however, generally isn’t healthcare. It’s a medical procedure used to kill a human being in utero with no regard to that human being’s right to life or due process. There are few, if any justifications for elective abortion as “healthcare” that can’t be handled in some other way that address the mother’s needs without killing the child. For those medical situations that can’t be handled any other way (if they do exist – some doctors disagree that any exist), medical ethicists (including conservative religious) already have the framework for limited exceptions – it’s called the principle of double-effect. Yes, society needs to step up with health care, parental leave, adoption support, etc… but that is parallel – it is NOT a prerequisite to hide behind to avoid acknowledging the Right To Life. -- As to the actual case at hand? The Texas law is just bad law (in my completely amateur opinion), enabling persecution and harassment, and begging to be rejected. I don’t know if the Mississippi (or wherever) law that they’re actually looking at is any better. (if it is, I suspect it’s not by much).

Waitaminnit! Joe and Bob are brothers?! When did this happen? (O’ course, I’ve only been reading this strip for about 12 years…)

Is it me or does Bob look a bit like Dick Nixon?

Other than cases of rape, when a decision is made to do what creates life you accept the possible outcome. You make that choice, you are responsible for it. It is called contraception or keep your legs closed.