Mike Pence said choosing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a departure from what he framed as the Trump-Pence administration's general opposition to abortion access.

Summary

Mike Pence opposed Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of HHS, citing Kennedy’s support for abortion access as a sharp departure from the Trump-Pence administration’s pro-life stance.

Pence urged Senate Republicans to reject Kennedy’s nomination, claiming Kennedy supports “abortion on demand” and restoring Roe v. Wade.

Both pro-life and abortion rights groups criticized Kennedy’s appointment, with pro-life leaders expressing concerns about his past positions and abortion rights advocates calling him unfit.

  • zarp86
    3·
    6 hours ago

    I feel like it’s like trying to calculate if the nukes in WW2 saved more lives than they cost.

    I know you are just using this as an analogy, but if you are curious:

    According to most estimates, the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan killed between 140,000 and 210,000 people, with the majority of deaths occurring on the day of the bombings, August 6th and 9th, 1945 respectively

    And:

    During World War II, 1,506,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured, many in anticipation of the estimated casualties resulting from the planned Allied invasion of Japan. By the end of the war, even accounting for medals lost, stolen, or wasted, nearly 500,000 remained. The total combined American military casualties of the seventy years following the end of World War II—including the Korean and Vietnam Wars—did not exceed that number.

    I think the horrors of nuclear weapons were at least responsible for ending the war quicker and saving lives that would have been lost during a ground invasion if Japan never surrendered.

    • Anti-Face Weapon@lemmy.world
      2·
      4 hours ago

      I think it’s pretty well documented that an invasion of mainland Japan would have resulted in a greater loss of life on both sides. Furthermore most likely the Soviets would have invaded as well, meaning Japan would be split down the middle to this day.

    • BlitzoTheOisSilent@lemmy.world
      2·
      5 hours ago

      I believe we are still issuing Purple Hearts from that 500,000 surplus to our troops.

      It’s also interesting to note that we’re basically lucky the Japanese surrendered after the second bomb. We didn’t have any more ready to go.

      Personally, I’m of the mind that we did save both American and Japanese lives by dropping the bombs versus invading the Japanese mainland. People forget how fiercely loyal the WWII-era Japanese soldier was to their cause. They had to play messages from the emperor to get the military to surrender, otherwise they just believed it was propaganda, and the Japanese propaganda of the day told them the American soldiers were coming to rape and kill every last one of them.

      One of the proposed weapons for an assault on the main Japanese islands was a bat-incendiary bomb. The bomb would be filled with bats that were strapped with time-delay incendiary bombs. The bomb would land and break apart, and the bats would scatter and hide amongst the houses in attics and what not. Eventually the bombs would detonate, and whatever Japanese town/city would be engulfed in flames city-wide.