I also believe that once the SC tells 125 million women that they are not full and equal citizens of the United States and throws their futures to the wolves of small revaunchist men in gerrymandered state legislatures to decide the bounds of their bodily autonomy that it will not be pretty. The idea that it will be some kind of reset to “neutrality” is laughable. I’ve been looking at the Dispatch boards for the last week, and it’s clear that David French’s idea of a great pro-life movement that steps up to ease the burdens of the people they will have forced into remaining pregnant and birthing children isn’t happening. These people aren’t ponying up a penny. It’s all great when it’s just someone else’s life that you’re ruining.
If the nation can be polarized over taking precautions to avoid getting COVID (masks and vaccines) then let's discount entirely the idea that abandoning Roe v Wade will lower the temperature in the room.
I admit, of all the GOP thinkers who have gone against Trumpism, I think French may be the best, or at least the most honest. He's not like Goldberg who repudiates none of his thinking or does no self reflection. But while French is a good person, he's horribly blind and naive to many things. He's incapable of understanding other people because he can't understand people who have a different hierarchy of needs.
He is also, unfortunately, extremely unaware of the world as it currently is. For example, many red states have laws on the books that are extremely harsh that are set to go off if Roe falls. These were deliberately made as virtue signalling; Roe was safe, so clearly they could just pass anything and say they couldn't possibly do anything more because of Roe. Except if Roe falls, these performative laws go into effect. Which means in many states, some of the harshest penalties since before Roe suddenly go into effect.
More than that, we have to think about the fact that many 'purple' states are going to look a lot less like Blue states and more like red states. States like North Carolina and Georgia with their gerrymanders are going to pass laws that match places like Alabama.
Which means the medical divide between red and blue America is going to get worse than it already is. But more than that, it's going to set off a race for national politics. Here me out. We've already found that the craziest people, like MTG, are saying that yes, quite literally, abortion is murder and if you have one you should do 25 to life. Those people are going to be in congress. Now, imagine in 2022, there's a red wave. They take the house and senate. They pass many bills that are veto'd by Biden. Then, in 2024, there's a GOP president. And guess what? Abortion is now illegal in the entire country.
Let's be clear here. Roe v. Wade was terrible law. And it was also terrible for the abortion movement. It allowed lots and lots of people to be 'pro choice' which in reality is just 'anti-anti-abortion.' It allowed them to be vague and gesture to Roe and basically say 'I don't want to touch it' without taking a position. Now, you need to be 'pro-abortion' by which I mean you need to be pro-the ability to have one. It's always been true that conservatives have had the maximalist position on this, because liberals usually take the easy route and say a person is a person when they're 'viable' which is not a real standard. 'Viability' changes depending on what science allows us to do, and it's a very real possibility that viability could mean as soon as fertilization at some point.
Ultimately, the biggest problem is that this is a battle over what constitutes a person, and when. Pro-life people like to focus on the life part, but being alive confers you no rights. We are asking at what point are you a person under the law with rights. A corporation is a person and is not alive, it has rights. A corpse is a human but is not a person, because it cannot execute it's own rights. Same with someone in a coma. At what point then, does a fetus have the right of personhood under the law? In the ancient world, it was when you were born. Most liberals would probably say around the second trimester. Conservatives at this point seem to think conception, but this raises lots of legal questions about things like 'if you have a miscarriage is that murder?'
Ultimately, what it will come down to is whether or not liberals are willing to fight the culture war. It has always come down to this. the GOP has committed itself to fighting this on everything. Roe is merely the first step. They also want to overturn Obergefell. And they want to restrict birth control too. The question is, are liberals willing to get down in the mud and fight for the things they consider human rights? Or are human rights just what they pay lip service to?
Here's a strange (absurd) thought on the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment extends citizenship, and its privileges, to those born in the US. It does not mention the unborn. If the pro-life argument against viability (or any calendar limits on abortion) asserts that life begins at conception, then should not the right of citizenship be extended to those who were conceived in the US, but not necessarily delivered in the US? It is plenty easy to arrange and document conception visits.
I would ask David French if he thinks the Post-Heller environment, in which the decisions about how to regulate gun ownership and use has been increasingly taken away from local governments, has cooled the American polarization on the gun debate. And the Court is poised to strike down more State and local gun control laws. I presume he thinks that's fine because the 2nd amendment is an enumerated right while abortion is not, but he shouldn't pretend that he values leaving decisions about individual rights to local governments when he clearly does not.
It was INFURIATING as a woman to listen to (mostly) men debating whether I, and millions of other women, have a right to my own body. No man would ever be forced to donate a fingernail to save another's life, not even their own child. But we'll force pregnant women to give birth? It's abhorrent. And Barrett? That's one cold, entitled woman. How dare she so blithely dismiss the physical changes and risks of pregnancy. It was a sad, sad day for American women.
The laser-like focus on abortion itself is such a crock. The fact that so many outside influences, restrictions, opinions, “sincerely held beliefs” and “moral factors” end up landing on a woman to suffer any consequences is always tucked out of sight. The most ardent self-proclaimed “pro-life” people don’t talk about the fact that in many cases they themselves are the ones throwing obstacles to ever needing an abortion: access to affordable and available contraceptives as well as affordable policies to help raise a child in today’s world. Where are these people in preventing the NEED for an abortion instead of abortion itself? Why do their beliefs take precedence? To be honest, where are the men, with their oh-so-serious opinions, stepping up to take birth control measures or vasectomies? Where is their “skin in the game”?
Listening to the justices talk about a Constitutional Right as a debatable concepts was pretty chilling. I listened to Coney Barrett’s comments, and I was appalled. Her voice couched with “concern”, she then says the mother can just get rid of it somewhere after birth, giving no thought as to what stresses and possible physical and mental health impacts those additional months could impose. I think that her world doesn’t intersect with that of many other women in this country. There’s a truth she refuses to acknowledge - that the women in her world will still have access to and have the benefitof safe and affordable abortions, but the majority of others will not, if her “righteous views” win the day.
I would like to respectively point out that "late term" abortion is a rarity and used when the fetus is found to be non-viable. I've had a couple friends who terminated their pregnancies after 16 weeks following amniocentesis (which cannot be done earlier) results that showed that their fetuses suffered from anencephaly (missing brain). To throw that in casually as being a sign of overreach in the abortion debate is misleading. Both these women wanted those children and both, thankfully, went on to carry healthy pregnancies to term. Both have beautiful daughters now....."late term" abortion is not done a procedure that's done casually. It's used in case like my friends or used when a condition develops putting the mother's life at grave risk....these babies are wanted. It's a medical procedure best left to those involved. Stop throwing into the mix as a debate point, please.
Sorry, Charlie, David French is right, at least partly. Abortion is such a contentious issue today exactly because the SCT in 1973 took the issue away from states and didn't let the democratic process play out. That allowed politicians and activists to take the most extreme positions one can take on the abortion issue. Charlie argues, while supporting people who agree, that turning the contentious issue back to the democratic process would result in more extreme, radical positions by both sides. I would argue though that's simply not possible. Both parties have maxed out how extreme they can be. They take those extreme positions precisely because Roe has protected them from making actual policy decisions that matter. I would point to the ridiculous Texas law as an example. That policy was almost immediately put on hold by a court. Don't think for a second those Texas legislators didn't know that was going to happen.
We do, however, need to be more precise about what we mean when we talk about overturning Roe. You have two basic constitutional principles established via Roe (and its progeny): 1) a constitutional right to abortion 2) that constitutional right extends through viability. If the Court keeps keep #1 and modifies #2 regarding the line, is that overturning Roe? It's a partial overturning. Or a modification. Call it what you want. I still think this scenario is a likely outcome.
French thinks that Roe will be completely overturned and the entire issue kicked back to the states. In that scenario, the politics of the abortion issue get more complex and contentious. I think it would help the Ds short term, but it would be a wash long term. But if Ds think they're going to win the midterms on the abortion issue, yeah, well good luck with that one.
But let's return to the scenario I think is more likely... that the Court reaffirms abortion as a constitutional right and draws a new, earlier line, such as at 15 weeks. About 95% of abortions happen during the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Court's ruling would prohibit the pro life side, presumably Republicans, probably forever from ever doing anything to stop 95% of abortions. (How is that not a win for the pro-choice side?) And the pro choicers, presumably Democrats, would be stuck fighting battles to get states to allow those unpopular second term abortion. (Remember the constitutional line drawn would be a floor not a ceiling.) Some states would extend the 15 week line to allow these abortions, but in a lot of states Democrats would walk away from the issue, choosing to leave the line at 15 weeks. 95% of the loaf ain't bad after all.
In my scenario, in contrast to French's, the issue does become diffused. We could all return then to arguing about more important things like Big Bird.
No it won't. But now the GOP has inflicted harm and loss of liberties to other citizens based purely on religious dogma, which is where we started decades ago. That's the reason for stare decisis and legal precedence which the GOP doesn't give a damned about.
I’m so tired of people declaring that “only women” should have a say about abortion. It makes it really easy to bash anyone who disagrees that abortion should be legal any time for any reason.
The 14th Amendment wasn’t passed by “only former slaves” or “only black people.” It was ratified by white men who (supposedly) weren’t affected by it.
Roe is a terrible decision, deeply flawed in its legal reasoning, the crown prince of the “making shit up” school of law by men desperate to find a penumbra of the Constitution to cover it. It’s responsible for the modern pro-life movement with all its cruelty, misogyny, and viciousness. And that movement is full of women who recognize that a baby doesn’t start at birth or when a woman decides she’s ready to have children.
There are a lot of bad faith arguments being made in this comment section, including the idea that constitutional rights are nearly limitless and states shouldn’t be able to restrict them. That’s simply not true. If you look at a fundamental right like marriage, every state has its own standard and it doesn’t mean marriage isn’t recognized as a fundamental right.
I’m PTO-life, but that doesn’t mean I want to ban all abortions. I like the “safe, legal, and rare” standard, personally. And being pro-life, for me, doesn’t stop at birth. We should spend more time and effort helping the poor, the sick, and invalid. Concentrate on better schools and making our country more stable and welcoming so that, perhaps, fewer women will think abortion is their only option.
Why is the current court case framed as "no abortions" vs "abortion anytime, anywhere; with tax payer funding?" It's really no abortions vs the status quo - which is most definitely not anytime, anywhere.
And to think that a significant number of states won't ban abortion outright is naïve; many states have already (attempted) to do just that.
Charlie is right on the main point: This is going to result in all out culture war.
Old enough to remember life before Roe, can those who oppose abortion ever admit that abortion was perhaps as common place before as now. For the well to do, early abortions were disguised as a simple OB'Gyn procedure. For others there were home remedies passed along among women privately. For example, early formulations of lysol could induce abortion. So could formulations using soaps placed into the vagina.
My wife has told me stories of 2 abortions long ago, in one, the woman almost died.
Abortion may annoy religious folks but it did no harm to society. Safe abortion, supported by available birth control and good OB/Gyn care is the best bet.
Abortion strikes me as an issue where men are free to have an opinion, but they don't get a say; it's not my place to say what women can and cannot do regarding their reproductive rights. Those of both sexes who liken abortion to murder surely would disagree, but I cannot sympathize with the view that aborting a fetus is equivalent to murder. As the pregnancy progresses, things do get murkier.
I agree that public opinion on abortion broadly is not in line with the extremes of either side. Abortion is not something to be proud of, as some on the far left would have it, and it's not something that should be banned without exception, as the evangelical right would have it. It's a very nuanced and morally fraught discussion, but again, while I may have opinions, as a man, I am in no position to make policy on abortion. Let the ladies on the SCOTUS hash this one out; the men ought to recuse.
I read David French, I think he is mostly well thought out in his opinions but there is no doubt that his Evangelical faith heavily informs his thinking on a level that doesn't square with the makeup of this nation any longer. A little history will tell you that until Jerry Falwell and the moral majority this issue wasn't even on the Evangelical radar. Once it proved helpful in a power grab by people who (rightfully or not) believe their "beliefs" should take precedence over secular law it suddenly became "the issue". Please.....these same people think it is fine to own AR 15's without restriction and also believe in capital punishment. Sanctity of Life my ass......
I will never accept that a "society" has a right to weigh in on my bodily autonomy. I will never accept that any female carrying a rapists child to term is somehow the right thing to do.
The most fascinating part of this to me is how Republicans always claim to believe in an individual's right to make their own decisions......a large portion of them see pregnant women as little more than incubators without the right to determine what is best for their future.
I also believe that once the SC tells 125 million women that they are not full and equal citizens of the United States and throws their futures to the wolves of small revaunchist men in gerrymandered state legislatures to decide the bounds of their bodily autonomy that it will not be pretty. The idea that it will be some kind of reset to “neutrality” is laughable. I’ve been looking at the Dispatch boards for the last week, and it’s clear that David French’s idea of a great pro-life movement that steps up to ease the burdens of the people they will have forced into remaining pregnant and birthing children isn’t happening. These people aren’t ponying up a penny. It’s all great when it’s just someone else’s life that you’re ruining.
If the nation can be polarized over taking precautions to avoid getting COVID (masks and vaccines) then let's discount entirely the idea that abandoning Roe v Wade will lower the temperature in the room.
I admit, of all the GOP thinkers who have gone against Trumpism, I think French may be the best, or at least the most honest. He's not like Goldberg who repudiates none of his thinking or does no self reflection. But while French is a good person, he's horribly blind and naive to many things. He's incapable of understanding other people because he can't understand people who have a different hierarchy of needs.
He is also, unfortunately, extremely unaware of the world as it currently is. For example, many red states have laws on the books that are extremely harsh that are set to go off if Roe falls. These were deliberately made as virtue signalling; Roe was safe, so clearly they could just pass anything and say they couldn't possibly do anything more because of Roe. Except if Roe falls, these performative laws go into effect. Which means in many states, some of the harshest penalties since before Roe suddenly go into effect.
More than that, we have to think about the fact that many 'purple' states are going to look a lot less like Blue states and more like red states. States like North Carolina and Georgia with their gerrymanders are going to pass laws that match places like Alabama.
Which means the medical divide between red and blue America is going to get worse than it already is. But more than that, it's going to set off a race for national politics. Here me out. We've already found that the craziest people, like MTG, are saying that yes, quite literally, abortion is murder and if you have one you should do 25 to life. Those people are going to be in congress. Now, imagine in 2022, there's a red wave. They take the house and senate. They pass many bills that are veto'd by Biden. Then, in 2024, there's a GOP president. And guess what? Abortion is now illegal in the entire country.
Let's be clear here. Roe v. Wade was terrible law. And it was also terrible for the abortion movement. It allowed lots and lots of people to be 'pro choice' which in reality is just 'anti-anti-abortion.' It allowed them to be vague and gesture to Roe and basically say 'I don't want to touch it' without taking a position. Now, you need to be 'pro-abortion' by which I mean you need to be pro-the ability to have one. It's always been true that conservatives have had the maximalist position on this, because liberals usually take the easy route and say a person is a person when they're 'viable' which is not a real standard. 'Viability' changes depending on what science allows us to do, and it's a very real possibility that viability could mean as soon as fertilization at some point.
Ultimately, the biggest problem is that this is a battle over what constitutes a person, and when. Pro-life people like to focus on the life part, but being alive confers you no rights. We are asking at what point are you a person under the law with rights. A corporation is a person and is not alive, it has rights. A corpse is a human but is not a person, because it cannot execute it's own rights. Same with someone in a coma. At what point then, does a fetus have the right of personhood under the law? In the ancient world, it was when you were born. Most liberals would probably say around the second trimester. Conservatives at this point seem to think conception, but this raises lots of legal questions about things like 'if you have a miscarriage is that murder?'
Ultimately, what it will come down to is whether or not liberals are willing to fight the culture war. It has always come down to this. the GOP has committed itself to fighting this on everything. Roe is merely the first step. They also want to overturn Obergefell. And they want to restrict birth control too. The question is, are liberals willing to get down in the mud and fight for the things they consider human rights? Or are human rights just what they pay lip service to?
Here's a strange (absurd) thought on the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment extends citizenship, and its privileges, to those born in the US. It does not mention the unborn. If the pro-life argument against viability (or any calendar limits on abortion) asserts that life begins at conception, then should not the right of citizenship be extended to those who were conceived in the US, but not necessarily delivered in the US? It is plenty easy to arrange and document conception visits.
I would ask David French if he thinks the Post-Heller environment, in which the decisions about how to regulate gun ownership and use has been increasingly taken away from local governments, has cooled the American polarization on the gun debate. And the Court is poised to strike down more State and local gun control laws. I presume he thinks that's fine because the 2nd amendment is an enumerated right while abortion is not, but he shouldn't pretend that he values leaving decisions about individual rights to local governments when he clearly does not.
It was INFURIATING as a woman to listen to (mostly) men debating whether I, and millions of other women, have a right to my own body. No man would ever be forced to donate a fingernail to save another's life, not even their own child. But we'll force pregnant women to give birth? It's abhorrent. And Barrett? That's one cold, entitled woman. How dare she so blithely dismiss the physical changes and risks of pregnancy. It was a sad, sad day for American women.
The laser-like focus on abortion itself is such a crock. The fact that so many outside influences, restrictions, opinions, “sincerely held beliefs” and “moral factors” end up landing on a woman to suffer any consequences is always tucked out of sight. The most ardent self-proclaimed “pro-life” people don’t talk about the fact that in many cases they themselves are the ones throwing obstacles to ever needing an abortion: access to affordable and available contraceptives as well as affordable policies to help raise a child in today’s world. Where are these people in preventing the NEED for an abortion instead of abortion itself? Why do their beliefs take precedence? To be honest, where are the men, with their oh-so-serious opinions, stepping up to take birth control measures or vasectomies? Where is their “skin in the game”?
Listening to the justices talk about a Constitutional Right as a debatable concepts was pretty chilling. I listened to Coney Barrett’s comments, and I was appalled. Her voice couched with “concern”, she then says the mother can just get rid of it somewhere after birth, giving no thought as to what stresses and possible physical and mental health impacts those additional months could impose. I think that her world doesn’t intersect with that of many other women in this country. There’s a truth she refuses to acknowledge - that the women in her world will still have access to and have the benefitof safe and affordable abortions, but the majority of others will not, if her “righteous views” win the day.
"In blue states, legislators will codify Roe’s protections, but some will push for sweeping expansions, including late-term abortions."
Do you have any data that supports this, or are you just assuming that the left is an ideological mirror image of the right?
I would like to respectively point out that "late term" abortion is a rarity and used when the fetus is found to be non-viable. I've had a couple friends who terminated their pregnancies after 16 weeks following amniocentesis (which cannot be done earlier) results that showed that their fetuses suffered from anencephaly (missing brain). To throw that in casually as being a sign of overreach in the abortion debate is misleading. Both these women wanted those children and both, thankfully, went on to carry healthy pregnancies to term. Both have beautiful daughters now....."late term" abortion is not done a procedure that's done casually. It's used in case like my friends or used when a condition develops putting the mother's life at grave risk....these babies are wanted. It's a medical procedure best left to those involved. Stop throwing into the mix as a debate point, please.
Sorry, Charlie, David French is right, at least partly. Abortion is such a contentious issue today exactly because the SCT in 1973 took the issue away from states and didn't let the democratic process play out. That allowed politicians and activists to take the most extreme positions one can take on the abortion issue. Charlie argues, while supporting people who agree, that turning the contentious issue back to the democratic process would result in more extreme, radical positions by both sides. I would argue though that's simply not possible. Both parties have maxed out how extreme they can be. They take those extreme positions precisely because Roe has protected them from making actual policy decisions that matter. I would point to the ridiculous Texas law as an example. That policy was almost immediately put on hold by a court. Don't think for a second those Texas legislators didn't know that was going to happen.
We do, however, need to be more precise about what we mean when we talk about overturning Roe. You have two basic constitutional principles established via Roe (and its progeny): 1) a constitutional right to abortion 2) that constitutional right extends through viability. If the Court keeps keep #1 and modifies #2 regarding the line, is that overturning Roe? It's a partial overturning. Or a modification. Call it what you want. I still think this scenario is a likely outcome.
French thinks that Roe will be completely overturned and the entire issue kicked back to the states. In that scenario, the politics of the abortion issue get more complex and contentious. I think it would help the Ds short term, but it would be a wash long term. But if Ds think they're going to win the midterms on the abortion issue, yeah, well good luck with that one.
But let's return to the scenario I think is more likely... that the Court reaffirms abortion as a constitutional right and draws a new, earlier line, such as at 15 weeks. About 95% of abortions happen during the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Court's ruling would prohibit the pro life side, presumably Republicans, probably forever from ever doing anything to stop 95% of abortions. (How is that not a win for the pro-choice side?) And the pro choicers, presumably Democrats, would be stuck fighting battles to get states to allow those unpopular second term abortion. (Remember the constitutional line drawn would be a floor not a ceiling.) Some states would extend the 15 week line to allow these abortions, but in a lot of states Democrats would walk away from the issue, choosing to leave the line at 15 weeks. 95% of the loaf ain't bad after all.
In my scenario, in contrast to French's, the issue does become diffused. We could all return then to arguing about more important things like Big Bird.
No it won't. But now the GOP has inflicted harm and loss of liberties to other citizens based purely on religious dogma, which is where we started decades ago. That's the reason for stare decisis and legal precedence which the GOP doesn't give a damned about.
I’m so tired of people declaring that “only women” should have a say about abortion. It makes it really easy to bash anyone who disagrees that abortion should be legal any time for any reason.
The 14th Amendment wasn’t passed by “only former slaves” or “only black people.” It was ratified by white men who (supposedly) weren’t affected by it.
Roe is a terrible decision, deeply flawed in its legal reasoning, the crown prince of the “making shit up” school of law by men desperate to find a penumbra of the Constitution to cover it. It’s responsible for the modern pro-life movement with all its cruelty, misogyny, and viciousness. And that movement is full of women who recognize that a baby doesn’t start at birth or when a woman decides she’s ready to have children.
There are a lot of bad faith arguments being made in this comment section, including the idea that constitutional rights are nearly limitless and states shouldn’t be able to restrict them. That’s simply not true. If you look at a fundamental right like marriage, every state has its own standard and it doesn’t mean marriage isn’t recognized as a fundamental right.
I’m PTO-life, but that doesn’t mean I want to ban all abortions. I like the “safe, legal, and rare” standard, personally. And being pro-life, for me, doesn’t stop at birth. We should spend more time and effort helping the poor, the sick, and invalid. Concentrate on better schools and making our country more stable and welcoming so that, perhaps, fewer women will think abortion is their only option.
Why is the current court case framed as "no abortions" vs "abortion anytime, anywhere; with tax payer funding?" It's really no abortions vs the status quo - which is most definitely not anytime, anywhere.
And to think that a significant number of states won't ban abortion outright is naïve; many states have already (attempted) to do just that.
Charlie is right on the main point: This is going to result in all out culture war.
Old enough to remember life before Roe, can those who oppose abortion ever admit that abortion was perhaps as common place before as now. For the well to do, early abortions were disguised as a simple OB'Gyn procedure. For others there were home remedies passed along among women privately. For example, early formulations of lysol could induce abortion. So could formulations using soaps placed into the vagina.
My wife has told me stories of 2 abortions long ago, in one, the woman almost died.
Abortion may annoy religious folks but it did no harm to society. Safe abortion, supported by available birth control and good OB/Gyn care is the best bet.
Abortion strikes me as an issue where men are free to have an opinion, but they don't get a say; it's not my place to say what women can and cannot do regarding their reproductive rights. Those of both sexes who liken abortion to murder surely would disagree, but I cannot sympathize with the view that aborting a fetus is equivalent to murder. As the pregnancy progresses, things do get murkier.
I agree that public opinion on abortion broadly is not in line with the extremes of either side. Abortion is not something to be proud of, as some on the far left would have it, and it's not something that should be banned without exception, as the evangelical right would have it. It's a very nuanced and morally fraught discussion, but again, while I may have opinions, as a man, I am in no position to make policy on abortion. Let the ladies on the SCOTUS hash this one out; the men ought to recuse.
I read David French, I think he is mostly well thought out in his opinions but there is no doubt that his Evangelical faith heavily informs his thinking on a level that doesn't square with the makeup of this nation any longer. A little history will tell you that until Jerry Falwell and the moral majority this issue wasn't even on the Evangelical radar. Once it proved helpful in a power grab by people who (rightfully or not) believe their "beliefs" should take precedence over secular law it suddenly became "the issue". Please.....these same people think it is fine to own AR 15's without restriction and also believe in capital punishment. Sanctity of Life my ass......
I will never accept that a "society" has a right to weigh in on my bodily autonomy. I will never accept that any female carrying a rapists child to term is somehow the right thing to do.
The most fascinating part of this to me is how Republicans always claim to believe in an individual's right to make their own decisions......a large portion of them see pregnant women as little more than incubators without the right to determine what is best for their future.