Whenever I need to translate Danish passages of more than a sentence or two for this blog, I let Google translate do the heavy lifting and then I just tidy up whatever it got wrong (or awkward). The most frequent mistranslation I encounter is “The Bite” for Biden: en bid is “a bite,” biden is “the bite.” That always makes me smile but I’ve got a new favorite: “Calm Down Wade.” That’s Google’s translation of “Roe mod Wade“—sometimes:
Just thought I’d share that.
The (current) Worst Thing Ever fever dream is still in play, so let’s check in with Pravda on Amager:
The prospect of abolishing unrestricted abortion makes celebrity women and politicians react: “We will not shut up”
Morten Bjerregaard, DR.dk, May 5
Are you stunned and astonished to learn that celebrity women and politicians are not going to shut up?
Was anyone out there expecting—not hoping, expecting—that those jackalopes would ever shut their festering gobs? About anything? Ever?
Eventually historians are going to look back upon this era using terms like “hysteria fatigue,” “hyperbole immunity,” or “freakout exhaustion.” Not any of those inelegant terms, but words or phrases to that effect. Because the constant fever-pitch of the American left is exhausting. I don’t know how much more of it they think Americans can take.
Every leftist policy preference is couched in the same unrelentingly apocalyptic language: we must do as they say or civilization will collapse, democracy will perish, children will die, blacks will be enslaved, women will become chattel, the poor will be used as fertilizer. Anyone opposing the left is a white supremacist, a terrorist, a racist, a misogynist, and suffering from any number of phobias.
Is there a single political issue from that past five or ten years of which that isn’t true? Can you think of a single recent issue that Joe Biden, Nancy Schumer, Chuck Pelosi, and the entire GLOB haven’t reduced to a manichean contest of good versus evil?
They don’t even pretend to be consistent: first they insist that anyone avoiding the Chinese New Year celebrations in New York and San Francisco because of some stupid virus is a xenophobe. Next thing you know, you’re a xenophobe for calling the virus by the name of its geographic origin. First they call you a “transphobe” for thinking only women can get pregnant, then tell you men can’t adjudicate abortion issues because it’s a woman’s issue. First they tell you we must crush Russia with sanctions to deter them from invading Ukraine, then they tell you sanctions have never been used as deterrents. First they tell you not to mask yourself, then they turn on a time to dehumanize anyone not wearing a mask. First they tell you “my body my choice,” then they say you have no right not to inject yourself with their new vaccine (because otherwise the vaccinated people are at risk of catching the virus from the unvaccinated people)—then they whip right back to “my body my choice.” They insist on lockdowns for the sake of public health, then declare that massive public gatherings are good for public health (but only the right kind of public gatherings). They tell us inflation isn’t a thing, then they say it’s a minor thing, then they say it’s transitory, then they blame it all on something that only began after inflation had been increasing for months. They defund the police then insist the police be funded. They insist you ride a bike or buy an electric car to save the climate—while they fly around on private jets to hand each other awards for their own sanctity.
They change positions more often than a couple of lusty teenagers in the back of a parked car but they never change their tone or pitch: we must do what they say or the consequences will be devastating, catastrophic, ruinous.
They clearly think it’s an effective tactic or they wouldn’t keep doing it. But is it? I sure hope not, because if it is effective then the right will have no choice but to match their insanity and we’re going to find ourselves in a world of constant hysteria. Our public discourse will have the grace and decorum of a middle-school cafeteria food fight.
So let’s merely observe that DR begins with one of the most superfluous headlines of all time, and perhaps bow our heads in a moment of silent meditation or prayer that there may yet come a day when women celebrities and politicians do in fact shut up.
The article itself begins straightforwardly enough:
If you follow just a little bit of what is happening in the United States, then in the days ahead you’ll definitely hear the words “Roe versus Wade” again and again.
For the US Supreme Court has taken initial steps to allow states to introduce laws restricting the right to abortion. That’s evident from a leaked document that the American outlet Politico published on Monday.
By Monday night American time, protesters had gathered in the capital Washington, DC, in front of the US Supreme Court. And the loud protests have since seeped out onto social media, where the debate is raging.
The right to abortion has otherwise been a constitutional right in the United States since 1973, when the Supreme Court case “Roe versus Wade” established women’s right to an abortion within the first three months of a pregnancy.
Now watch how elegantly they ease into their presentation of the two sides of the debate:
Some protesters, the so-called pro-choice supporters, loudly protested against the prospect of losing the right to unrestricted abortion, and they turned up with signs worded “my body, my choice.”
But the other side of the debate—the so-called pro-life supporters—had also turned up, shouting the words: “abortion is violence.”
Isn’t that nice? They even use the “so-called” modifier for both sides. So fair, so even-handed.
Do note, however, that the position of the pro-choice side is spelled out, and we’re told they “loudly protested” and were carrying signs with words on them.
The actual position of the pro-life side is not explained: we’re only told they were shouting that abortion is violence.
I wonder where the DR stylebook draws the line between “loudly protesting” and “shouting.” Probably close to the line dividing “lively protest” from “insurrection.”
We then move into a section entitled “Famous women: take to the street and protest.”
In this section the article cites an unhinged tweet by the doddering old schoomarm Elizabeth Warren, an unhinged tweet by the bitter old lush Hillary Clinton, and a tweet from the musician Phoebe Bridgers calling for donations to abortion charities. In all three cases they embed screenshots of the tweets and then provide full Danish translations in the article text. Mixed in with all that is a quote from Whoopi Goldberg: she fired off another rant on The View, and that’s significant because reasons.
It also links to social media posts by Amy Schumer, Susan Sarandon, og Rosanna Arquette without quoting any of them, merely noting that they and others like them had come out publicly against the court’s possible decision.
Then we get the next section, “The Republicans support limits on abortion.” We get just one tweet, from South Dakota governor Kristi Noem.
We’re then informed that Republican senators from Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, and Mississippi have come out in favor of ending unrestricted abortions.
The senators are not named, nor are their positions quoted: DR merely embeds links to their social media posts into the names of their respective states.
So the pro-choice side gets three tweets, an extract from a televised celebrity rant, and three named celebrity links. The pro-life side gets just one tweet and three anonymous links.
Pravda on Amager.
The next section is entitled “Abolishing unrestricted abortions will hit vulnerable women especially hard.”
It begins by describing the leaked document’s authorship and purpose, and notes that it’s a draft and that justices have been known to change their mind right up to a few days before a decision is announced. Then they bring in their ringer.
“If the right to unrestricted abortion is waived in the USA, it will be of great importance to the individual woman in the USA,” says Sine Plambech, who is a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, where she researches women, inequality, and migration.
Good they got an expert to clarify that changes in abortion law will affect women… but isn’t that a little transphobic? What about all the pregnant men?
“First and foremost, it will mean that the woman no longer has sovereignty over her own body. It will be up to the authorities of the individual state to decide whether the woman will be able to terminate a pregnancy.”
Remember all the pro-choice women raging against vaccine and mask mandates because they were violations of personal sovereignty? Me neither. Strange we missed that.
But listen to Plambech: it will be to the authorities of the individual state. Why yes. Yes, it will.
The Supreme Court didn’t just outlaw abortion: it opened the door for states to make up their own damn minds.
Fun facts:
- It’s up to the authorities of the individual state to decide when a young man or woman is allowed to drink alcohol or drive a car.
- It’s up to the authorities of the individual state to decide whether people can smoke or consume marijuana.
- It’s up to the authorities of the individual state, if you can believe it, to decide whether or not people can choose to end their own lives.
It’s up to the authorities of the individual state to decide a whole hell of a lot of things, because that’s how America works: the powers not specifically delegated to the federal government by the Constitution itself belong to the states and the people.
States are free to make their own laws—and yes, they certainly make some doozies (it remains illegal in California for women to drive in their nighties).
Alito’s draft majority opinion is absolutely neutral on abortion itself: it simply undoes Roe v. Wade (and Casey) on the grounds that their pretext—the notion that the 14th amendment guarantees a right to abortion—is bad law. And so, as I noted yesterday, the decision leaves it to the states and the people to find their own way.
A little like getting up from sofa and telling your kids, “I don’t care what you watch. There’s the remote. Sort it out for yourselves, but leave me out of it.”
In Denmark, the authorities of the national government have banned women from having abortions after just 12 weeks of gestation. To most of the Americans shrieking and shaking and rending their garments and rolling around in sackcloth and ashes right now, that’s Handmaid’s Tale territory. Think of it: we’re on our second female prime minister and Danish women still can’t get an abortion in week 30!
“Next, it will particularly affect poor women, teenage mothers, and migrant women,” she tells P1 Morning.
Poor birthing people, she means. Teenage and migrant bleeders. Where on earth did DR dig up this transphobic TERF, the Danish chapter of the JK Rowling fan club?
According to Sine Plambech, it’s not considered likely that there will be fewer abortions, even if it should become illegal in more states. Vulnerable women will therefore have to travel elsewhere to have an abortion.
That’s true. Prohibition didn’t reduce the consumption of alcohol; Chicago’s gun-control laws haven’t done much about Chicago gun crime. That’s a good reason to support the legality of abortion—but it’s not a good reason to make abortion “unrestricted.”
But here, all experience according to the researcher shows that the vulnerable women often cannot afford to travel far.
“This means that their abortion will be more dangerous for them in terms of health, because they’ll have to be performed illegally. It’s been seen all over the world that if there is no access to abortion, then the women try to get the abortions anyway,” says Sine Plambech.
Again: these are fair and reasonable arguments in support of keeping abortion legal. I myself would prefer to see American states adopt something like the Danish model, limiting abortions to the first trimester and prohibiting them afterwards with a small handful of exceptions. That’s always struck me as a fair compromise.
But there are also fair and reasonable arguments in support of laying down some serious restrictions on abortion.
The next section is therefore, of course, the one in which DR gets the pro-life side from a conservative expert to lay out those arguments.
Ha ha—just kidding. There is no next section. Obviously. The article ends with that last bit I just quoted.
You think DR is going to have a section along the lines of “Abortion has historically hit vulnerable babies especially hard?”
You think they’re even going to explain to their readers that by leftist American standards, Denmark is an anti-abortion country? That not a single leading Democratic politician or candidate in recent years has been willing to acknowledge any limit at all on a birthing person’s right to terminate a pregnancy right up until the moment of birth?
Forget it Jake: it’s DR.