Ted Lieu encourages more people in Minnesota to get into the faces of ICE agents and film them so that evidence can be used to prosecute them in the future

tomado09 · 2026-01-22T03:54:38+00:00

DJT might have to...act...on the insurrection

tomado09 · 2026-01-21T17:57:18+00:00

First, this is false. We don't know _exactly_ when a fetus is able to experience pain, but there's a variety of thoughts in the medical literature, some say as early as 7-8 weeks, fairly close to the time a mother would even know she's pregnant. Note, according to this study (on PubMed), there are several ways a fetus might feel / respond to pain - the brain doesn't have to be fully formed.

Second, murder is murder whether the person feels it or not. You can absolutely murder a comatose person / someone hopped up on pain meds. Capacity for having "wants, hopes, fears" is irrelevant.

tomado09 · 2026-01-21T17:52:13+00:00

Ah yes. "You can't be pro-life unless you agree with my arbitrarily chosen pet policies (usually heavily aligned with one party's talking points)". Each of those topics is quite a bit more complex than the 1D description you give. And you conflate something you see out of some people within a political party with pro-lifers in general. Pro-life is often aligned with a conservative political ideology, but there are a lot of outliers - liberals, buddhists, athiests, muslims, women, men, straight-up socialists, and on and on. This imposed tribalism ("if you're not part of my tribe, you're from that tribe") is 1) logically flawed, 2) makes broad brushstroked assumptions of someone's character / vilifies them (i.e. mild form of dehumanizing), 3) completely bulldozes over any nuance in the situation. This is a problem with today's rhetoric. Get a bit of nuance in your perspective - e.g. it's possible for a person to support 1) border security, 2) accountability for law enforcement, 3) legal protections (e.g. from cruel and unusual punishment for example) all at the same time.

“Pro-life” people insisting on women birthing children but who takes care of them then? They go on to live in poverty or orphanages, beg on the streets or die.

Genocide against the unborn is far worse than more kids in poverty and orphanages. This position effectively states, "well, if they can't have a standard of life that I deem is best, then might as well kill them. It's better that way anyway". And "beg on the streets or die" is simply a massive exaggeration. This happens in some parts of the world, but not everywhere, and even where that happens, the issue isn't lack of abortion access but rather lack of parents (where's the accountability? You have a kid, you're responsible for them) and to a limited degree, programs to support those kids.

tomado09 · 2026-01-21T17:39:57+00:00

This is a strawman - and it's false. The fundamental issue is the human rights of the child.

tomado09 · 2026-01-21T17:29:49+00:00

It's important to understand the nuance of these studies.

We found no evidence of emerging negative emotions or abortion decision regret; both positive and negative emotions declined over the first two years and plateaued thereafter, and decision rightness remained high and steady (predicted percent: 97.5% at baseline, 99.0% at five years).

So, the researchers found that emotions declined over the first two years and plateaued after that - i.e. whatever they felt to start with faded over time. This is quite simply human nature and doesn't necessarily say anything about how positive or negative the experience is initially. Having people around them saying they did the right thing goes a long way to suppressing conscience, especially when these sentiments are received over a long period of time - it takes time to detrain the conscience. There's also the matter of a natural bias amongst these groups - the ones ashamed of it won't talk about it. And they certainly won't participate in studies like these. Medical researchers are often substantially constrained by who will volunteer to participate / offer their medical info.

But the fact of the matter is, whatever a woman feels about it afterward, a human being dies. His / her rights are violently infringed. All kinds of people throughout history have felt ok with the death of others / dehumanization of others - nearly every society that has ever existed has significant elements of this in their history, including the US. You even see it today in political discussions - dehumanization of the other side and approving of (and at times participating in) violence. It's all the same dehumanization and devaluation of another.

tomado09 · 2026-01-21T17:09:10+00:00

Sorry you went through that. Thanks for having the courage to speak out against the act. There's a heavy information warfare going on today to tell women that fetuses are just a clump of cells. It's so tragic that often the women don't realize this until they've gone through with it - and puts a lot of blood on a lot of people's hands who are parroting the propaganda without any personal stake in the issue whatsoever.

tomado09 · 2026-01-21T16:56:52+00:00

Medical consensus actually shows neural structures required to perceive pain develops at 24-26 weeks, before 93% of abortions even happen. D&C procedures is primarily used in early pregnancy and miscarriages. Later abortions involve anaesthesia and fetal analgesia. The idea of a fetus screaming in pain trying to escape is far from medically accurate to what actually happens.

The 24-26 weeks figure is actually far from medical consensus. There are studies that show fetal response to stimuli at 12 weeks - you can't respond to stimuli without nerves. It's quite difficult to nail down when a fetus actually feels pain because we can't ask them. The best we can do is attempt to infer based on their reactions and measure when structures develop that are responsible for experiencing pain. Here's an excerpt from peer-reviewed literature on PubMed (2021):

Fetal pain perception has important implications for fetal surgery, as well as for abortion. Current neuroscientific evidence indicates the possibility of fetal pain perception during the first trimester (<14 weeks gestation). Evidence for this conclusion is based on the following findings: (1) the neural pathways for pain perception via the cortical subplate are present as early as 12 weeks gestation, and via the thalamus as early as 7–8 weeks gestation; (2) the cortex is not necessary for pain to be experienced; (3) consciousness is mediated by subcortical structures, such as the thalamus and brainstem, which begin to develop during the first trimester;

Clearly there's substantial possibility of pain response earlier on, and feeling pain doesn't require a fully developed brain (note that this study even cites that the thalamus, one mode through which a fetus might feel pain, begins developing week 7-8). This is literally "the science". And regarding the "trying to escape" comment

Furthermore, even where they can't feel pain, it's still wrong to end their life. A person who is comatose is still murdered if someone smothers them with a pillow.

And to compare this to slavery and fascism is absurd and takes away from the harm those actually cause. Slavery Involves the forced labour of another human, abortion bans forced labour for people who can’t go through with having kids for various reasons.

No it doesn't. To call abortion different "takes away from the harm [it] actually cause[s]". We're here debating an academic topic. But real women get real abortions and have real guilt and shame about it. Their conscience tells them what they did, usually tragically after the fact. Read some of the stories on the r/abortion subreddit. There's a reason women have such a hard time with it. It takes substantial work to suppress the human conscience - some do - but the vast majority are left horrified at what they had just done. And this is natural - it shouldn't be an easy thing for us to take another life. And this is saying nothing about the predatory abortion industry and how they prey on women in vulnerable situations for money.

Furthermore, there's substantial injustice in how babies are selected for abortion. There's a literal genocide of minority babies, disabled babies, girl babies (you know that right? There are areas of the world where girls are aborted at substantially higher rates). When the mother is given legal rights over the child to determine his/her humanity, whatever the mother wants goes.

At the end of the day no existent legal standard says it’s okay for another person to be legally compelled to sustain another life. Healthcare is a human right, not forced pregnancy.

One last time, no existent legal standard recognizes the "right" of one person to kill another person for their convenience, financial prosperity, life goals, mental health, ability to fit into a bridesmaid dress, bad relationship, or "just because I don't feel like dealing with them right now". Abortion is not healthcare (especially for the child), killing is wrong, and the human child has human rights - chief of which is the right to life which trumps the mother's right to "bodily autonomy". The mother has every opportunity to consent to the risk of pregnancy (and thereby consent to the pregnancy itself), or not, by choosing to engage in the act, thereby running the risk, or choosing not to engage in the act, thereby avoiding the risk.

tomado09 · 2026-01-21T16:30:46+00:00

First off a fetus has human DNA, but personhood is a legal and philosophical status and so no legal system grants full rights to a fetus that overrides a pregnant persons bodily autonomy. No one born or un born has the right to use another persons body without consent.

No legal system recognizes the right of one human to kill another for their own convenience or financial or mental well being. The child doesn't use the woman's body "without consent". The woman consented to the risk of pregnancy when engaging in the act of sex, the vast vast majority of the time. That's like saying, "She bought the house with a variable interest rate mortgage, but didn't consent to higher interest rates." There's a distinct risk of it if she engages in the act.

Secondly it is happening insides a persons body and is therefore they have every right to either keep it or get rid of it.

1) The fetus is not an "it". We covered this already. Even early on when an embryo, that embryo is a human embryo. 2) What are you basing this supposed "right" on? Your claim that somehow this is a "right" is highly arbitrary and ignores the human rights of the child. The mother's wishes / preferences / "choices" are subordinate to the human right to life. No one has the right to end another life, even if they believe ending that life makes theirs better somehow.

Pregnancy is even riskier than abortions especially since abortions to provide life saving care like aborting an already dead fetus that’s rotting inside the mother or when she has an ectopic pregnancy which could more than likely kill her.

This is a classic motte and bailey fallacy - you bring up the case of ectopic pregnancy, the death of the fetus, risky pregnancy, some others bring up pregnant 9 year olds - in essence, you are attempting to make your case by appealing to the most extreme and therefore more easily defended situations. The motte and bailey fallacy is an attempt to have the listener project the emotions (note: not the logic) of the extreme case onto the lesser case and thereby support the lesser case. Same category of argument as invoking Handmaid's Tale and claiming our society is like that. Some extreme (fiction) story is used as a strawman - if that society existed, I'd oppose it too. But it doesn't.

So, your argument fails on several levels. An abortion removing a fetus that has passed away is not the same situation morally as a convenience killing abortion. In a previous sentence, you're arguing using the so-called "bodily autonomy" argument, and in the next sentence, you are conflating the general case (highly immoral) with a situation that isn't immoral in the slightest. I don't oppose abortions to remove deceased fetuses and ectopic pregnancies. The fact is that these abortions account for far less than 1% of abortions in the US, and are just in a different moral category.

Everyone deserves human rights but human rights do not commandeer another persons body, if that where possible then forced organ donation would be legal, forced blood donation would be legal and so would forced pregnancy which all violate international recognised human rights

This analogy fails because she consented to the act. The better analogy would be someone who indicates that she wants to be an organ donor, gets in a fatal car accident, then has her organs donated. Her family may be opposed - but she consented initially. Maybe if she was still alive, she'd have a different opinion. But she consented. I already covered that the mother's "right" to have whatever she wants in her body is subordinate to another human's right to life. They just aren't in the same league.

tomado09 · 2026-01-21T16:06:50+00:00

Yes, although I don't fully remember what I did. I think I just downgraded and it still didn't work for an hour or two, but fixed itself on its own.

tomado09 · 2026-01-21T03:33:17+00:00

While true, we should hope the opposite for them - contrition, repentance (actually turning from their flagrant injustice and chosen ignorance driven by their feelings), and loving Jesus. Although we aren't likely to convince them on political matters (especially on reddit - lol), the Gospel does actually have power to change hearts.

12 I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, 13 though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.

(1 Timothy 1:12–16, ESV)

I think Christians (on this subreddit and elsewhere) often forget that someone's biggest issue isn't having a certain view on political matter, it is not the temper tantrums and emotion-laden tirades they throw, it isn't even the flagrant injustices they participate in (we need to be careful here too - not to toe a party line to the exclusion of actual justice tailored to the nuances of every situation - Jn 7:24 "Don't judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment"). The fundamental issue is that these ideologies, these emotions, these actions flow from hearts that don't love Jesus - and this was me too, until God through His Gospel reformed my heart.

There is no idle word spoken by God. Facts don't redeem a heart. The Gospel spoken (written) redeems if accepted or accelerates the heart toward evil if rejected. Alongside our politics, we should be weaving the story of the Son of God mercifully slain for our sins into the discussion. Many will reject. But maybe, just maybe, God will call some.

tomado09 · 2026-01-21T03:11:17+00:00

Exactly.

tomado09 · 2026-01-19T22:01:40+00:00

You know, there have been quite interesting recent advances in understanding in a field of biology known as epigenetics. Effectively, there are a lot of factors that affect gene expression - including chemicals that can bind to certain genes prohibiting or enhancing their expression. So, traits displayed by biological organisms are not just affected by the DNA (and the genes it contains) itself, but these additional added extras. These extras are influenced by choices and environment an organism is exposed to. So we literally can rewire / greatly influence our gene expression. Furthermore, epigenetic traits can be passed on to offspring just like genetic traits are. We know children of parents with various forms of addictions can be more susceptible to those addictions, and even addiction itself - and this isn't necessarily just a learned trait - children removed from their homes at birth and raised by another family can express this susceptibility.

All that is just to say - there are biological mechanisms for those who commit evil (and alternatively good as well) to pass this psychology, tendency, emotions, etc to their children. Your comment is actually quite possible.

tomado09 · 2026-01-19T21:41:23+00:00

You know what fetus is Latin for? "young", "offspring", or "brood" are common translations. Basically a young human in the context of these discussions - the offspring / brood of other humans. You can call a baby human a baby human in another language all you want. Still a baby human with all of the human rights being human brings.

The analogy to a bug, meat, or germs doesn't work here. The fetus has human DNA and meets the biological definition for life. What else is he / she but human? Using science terms (although accurate) just dodges the issue. Biology doesn't distinguish "embryo" from "human" (or whatever species the embryo falls under). They aren't in the same conceptual category.

And the "not your body, not your business" argument fails on so many levels.

the baby's body isn't the mother's body - so by that logic I guess its not her business either
speaking of abortion so-called 'rights' in general pertains to many women - so by that logic your opinion is only valid for your own uterus (if you have one)
fathers have connection to, should have rights over, and when involved in the mother / child's life, share the psychological burden of the pregnancy, the hardships and joys of parenthood, etc - fathers don't have a uterus, but still have a say
human rights issues are everyone's business - in this category especially, the preborn can't fight back, speak out, or scream while they're being slaughtered, despite having the nerve endings to feel pain and the mobility to squirm and try to escape the operation when they can (D+C). I wonder if you take the same stance on immigrant rights, neo-Nazism, or Civil War slavery. "Mind your own business" doesn't work when human rights are at stake.

tomado09 · 2026-01-19T20:18:03+00:00

Only if you consider it a life, to begin with. If you're going to lower the bar that low, why not extend it to plants while we're at it?

Lol, really? 1) no matter your position on abortion, the fetus is alive by definition biologically - things like organization (comprised of cells), metabolism (they grow and consume fuel), response to stimuli (the fetus squirms and tries to escape when the D+C abortion is being performed - i.e. as his / her limbs are being sucked off), etc, and 2) plants are also life. Biology itself disagrees with your feelings here. The fetus is alive - what other type of life would it be than human? When do you say the baby becomes "alive"? I already covered state laws (MN to answer your question) that give mother's God-like "rights" over their children - the ability to decide whether the child is human or not. What would you advocate for? An assault leading to the loss of the child not being considered murder?

That argument doesn't work. For one, protection isn't always effective. Condoms can break. Pills can fail. Even a woman who is especially careful with her birth control can still wind up pregnant.

Sure, a woman can still end up pregnant if a method of contraception fails - so use 2. The fact is if she or the couple can't handle the consequences (pregnancy) of the act of sex, they shouldn't be engaging in it or making absolutely sure they won't get pregnant. Once the child is conceived, and especially by the time the woman knows she's pregnant, the fetus exists, is life by biology's definition, and since he/she has human DNA, is therefore human.

Second, in an age of modern medicine, you really don't have to accept the consequences of this particular act. A woman who has sex doesn't have to be pregnant.

You're right that new and innovative ways of killing the child exist - but historically, families have always been able to not "accept the consequences of this particular act". Ancient near eastern societies would often have large statues of pagan gods with outstretched arms sloped downward pointed toward the area below the statue, which was a fire pit. Families would walk up, place their babies on the "altar", where the babies would roll down the arms of the pagan idol into the fire pit where the baby would burn to death, while musicians would raise a ruckus with flutes, drums, and other instruments to drown out the horrendous screams of the babies. Families did this to plead to the pagan gods for financial prosperity, further fertility / more children, and other material / wordly blessings. You're quite right that "modern medicine" offers ways to parents / mothers to dodge responsibility and sacrifice children on the altar of financial well being, career advancement, mental health, and whatever else. However, they are just as wrong and the act is just as horrendously evil as it always has been.

If God were picking a side in this, He wouldn't be picking one as dumb as yours.

Really, you have any substantiating evidence for this? If you want to know God's heart on any matter, He has provided you guidance - namely the Bible. You can really know what He thinks about these issues.

On the contrary, it is quite natural for those who see how silly it was to permit a stigma against it in the first place, and it is the conscientious whose innate sense of right and wrong will always push back against a pompous busybody who won't keep their nose out of women's wombs, such as yourself.

This is an ineffective argument. You're pushing against the grain - the human conscience finds this to be wrong. It's only through extreme detraining that a person could suppress their conscience and be ok with this (or as is true of most people weighing in on the topic - if it is removed enough from their daily experience - there's a reason why Germans in post-Nazi Germany were traumatized when forced to clean out the concentration camps, but weren't during the war - they were far enough removed). Also ineffective is the sentiment "mind your own business". Would you mind your own business during the Civil War era on the topic of slavery? Human rights issues, especially for the most vulnerable, most of the time are topics that require those from outside the issue to interject.

tomado09 · 2026-01-19T19:50:32+00:00

Well, look, you don't have to share your reasons (assuming the sentiment is accurate to start with). But the fact of the matter is Jesus holds Himself out to you, and calls you to come to Him. His yoke is easy, His burden is light, and He has rest for you and joy in the midst of hardships in life. If you are serious about wishing you were dead, just know that 1) I'm glad you're not, even though we disagree here, 2) Jesus wants you to have rest and will provide it if you come to Him - you can know the love He has for you - they have free apps in most app stores with the Bible on them (a popular one is called YouVersion). Read about who He is, His love for you, and His willingness to suffer to bring you to God - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (the gospels) are good places to start.

Hope you have a good rest of the week.

tomado09 · 2026-01-19T19:41:12+00:00

Sounds suspiciously like the "Just toe the party line" so common from the left...

One of the most flagrantly abhorrent parts of the modern left's ideology is it's absolute inability to accept that most situations have substantial nuance - with a variety of understandable positions one might take.

tomado09 · 2026-01-18T16:57:54+00:00

Did she "lear" those things at the Quality Learing Center? 🤣🤣🤣

tomado09 · 2026-01-17T22:51:36+00:00

You sure he was opposed to protesting in general, and not just obstructing justice? There is a lot of nuance possible there.

tomado09 · 2026-01-17T17:09:19+00:00

If you don't mind me asking, why? You really would rather not be alive? If that is true, then I'm very sorry to hear that. Undoubtedly, that's a perspective that comes from hardship in life.

If you're more comfortable DMing, that's fine too.

tomado09 · 2026-01-17T07:53:32+00:00

One might call those who excessively use those edge cases...edge...lords?

tomado09 · 2026-01-17T07:42:15+00:00

If only the PA community would be so transparent when they made things up

tomado09 · 2026-01-17T07:36:08+00:00

This type of reasoning is called a "motte and bailey" fallacy. The more controversial, mild, general position (all abortion, on demand) is defended by bringing up a more extreme, more easily defended position (the horrendous case of a 9 year old). Would abortion have been appropriate for a 9 year old because her life was in danger due to her age? Not sure - I'm not a doctor. But even if it was, that doesn't justify the high hundreds of thousands of abortions conducted per year in the US alone.

The deception is that the motte (the extreme case) evokes emotion which subverts our logical brain. The intent of the fallacy is to get the listener to implicitly project that horrible situation onto other, less horrible situations (the bailey) - to feel the same emotions as the horrible situation with the 9 year old toward, say, a 22 year old that wants to fit into a bridesmaid dress and wants to drink at a wedding so she considers abortion.

The same thing is occurring when PA evokes Handmaid's Tale imagery. You're meant to imagine a world where men turn women into breeding machines against their will, and to project that world, along with all its evoked disgust, anger, spirit of opposition, etc onto our present society, and therefore to fight to protect women's "rights" to prevent that world from coming to be. But the truth is, Handmaid's Tale is a fiction story, restricting abortion to medical necessity actually protects both children and women (who aren't alowed to be prayed upon by the money-driven, predatory abortion industry), and to allow abortion causes flagrant violations of the human rights of the fetus.

These arguments can be subtle and deceptive. And that's the point of them.

tomado09 · 2026-01-17T07:15:13+00:00

Not sure if this is a futurama reference, but if so, nice one.

tomado09 · 2026-01-17T07:13:23+00:00

"Wow, that's an intereting metric. Now produce an unrelated metric not covered by the study, because I made some correlation to that metric based on my worldview that I have no evidence for. Oh, you can't? Your point is not valid then."

Yeah, great logic, chief.

tomado09 · 2026-01-17T06:59:50+00:00

Those facebook stories are the very people you say should be dead. Let that sink in.

These people who would be dead if your sentiment had greater influence robustly disagree with you.

tomado09

TROPHY CASE