From Scott Aaronson's blog today: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6518
"Most obviously for me, the continued viability of Texas as a place for science, for research, for technology companies, is now in severe doubt. Already this year, our 50-member CS department at UT Austin has had faculty members leave, and faculty candidates turn us down, with abortion being the stated reason, and I expect that to accelerate."
I think if people turn down jobs in states because of restrictive abortion laws, it's because they have so much choice in desirable employers that they can select on issues that almost everyone else would live with, whether they personally approve or not.
And lastly, if anything is going to undermine Austin universities in terms of science research and education, it's the rampant devaluation of academic standards, excessive bureaucratization, grade inflation, and churning out of degrees in exchange for tuition money. Abortion will have little if anything to do with it.
a) I assume you're talking about the past, and not the future.
b) The issue is less that our laws are restrictive, and more that they're written in a capricious, illogical, incomplete, and ignorant way. What do you think is going to happen to people with emergency reproductive conditions (e.g. late stage ectopic pregnancies) when doctors have a prison sentence hanging over their heads if they accidentally terminate a viable pregnancy?
If I was a woman trying to get pregnant, I'd be getting the fuck out of these redstate shitholes because I don't want to die.
EDIT: You seem to have written a reply to this comment and then deleted it. I composed a counter-reply in my head on my walk home from the bar, before seeing that your reply had vanished. That counter-reply was: "Your flippant disregard for human life is as astonishing as it is disgusting."
This decision is going to kill real people with hopes and dreams and loved ones and people who depend on them. If you support it, or publish apologia for it, you are some combination of a moron and/or a monster.
According to Wikipedia: "Most countries in the European Union allow abortion on demand during the first trimester, with Sweden and the Netherlands having more extended time limits." That's the same as what was once guaranteed in the US under Roe.
I work in D politics and don't think TX will be Dem anytime within the next few cycles. But the trend is there; especially if young people move in.
GA is closer IMHO.
FL is slipping away and illustrates this compounding effect that the GOP has engineered.
Florida's GOP SCO-FL (?) just allowed a really gerrymandered CD map put out by DeSantis, a break with norms.
The map is clearly undemocratic IMHO. 20 of 28 are now pretty safe R. That's very lopsided for the perennial swing state. Even trending +3% R, it should be a toss up.
State and local level is the same story, often worse.
More than people moving away, stopping immigration of young people has a big affect. That's big reason my state of Colorado has turned from purple to fairly solid blue.
Attacking women, queer people, non-religious people, POC, makes the state unwelcoming and even dangerous.
Being a bully gives them more power, which allows them to create more levers and enshrine more advantages to this power.
They have set themselves up to rule a divided states of America where they maintain extreme authoritarian power against the absolute majority.
You're also right in that global warming doesn't give a damn.
Sadly again their blocking of even sensible actions is just another example of what should be a minority party by #s literally killing people who have little power over this situation.
