I’m only catching snippets of the Alito hearings, so my perceptions are spotty at best. However, my sense of what’s really happening, at least with regard to why most Americans personally care (the abortion issue), is we’re witnessing one of the grandest farces in American history, with characters continuously posing as someone else, personal histories being rewritten on the fly, and virtually every line carrying double or triple meanings.
I had an exchange with a well-known conservative blogger a while back during a discussion about why so many pro-choice Americans are anxious about Alito being confirmed. In the course of that exchange, he argued that because Americans knew how Bush feels about abortion when they elected him, there’s no crying "foul" now that he’s putting Roberts and Alito on the bench (suggesting the majority was OK with Roe being overturned). I responded that the idea that there was any significant degree of truth in advertising about this during the campaign is strongly disputed by the fact that the GOP was forced to talk in code about it throughtout and even felt compelled to offer the nation a parade of moderate (i.e., pro-choice) Republicans during their national convention. He didn’t respond to that.
Even Alito’s promised "open mind" on the issue is a punchline. At the very least, it’s nebulous enough to do nothing to quell the fears of pro-choice Americans. But then it’s not designed to. It’s designed merely to avoid any clearcut objections that Senators could use to fillibuster the voting.
This may be how sausages are made, but there’s a reality to abortion…whether you’re "pro-life" or "pro-choice"…a series of terrible, serious choices that surround the issue that deserve a more honest debate than we’re seeing play itself out in these hearings.
In his masterpiece of contemporary farce, "What the Butler Saw," British playwright Joe Orton wrote: "The sane appear as strange to the mad as the mad to the sane." I note this, because I’m sure what Alito is saying appears as calming to those excited about him being on the bench as it does alarming to those who consider him a horrible choice. Both sides consider themselves the sane ones and the other side "strange" (or immoral or oppressive or clueless, etc.), but, again the issue is too important to change the law so furtively.
I suspect Alito is going to be confirmed. In my gut, I also suspect we’ll be very, very sorry he was. Nothing born out of so much deception can possibly be healthy for the nation. I’ll hope I’m wrong.
There are a number of problems with the idea that Bush’s election implies electoral endorsement of his nominees:
(1) The electorate also voted for the Senate, so nominees stopped in the senate also represent the will of the voters.
(2) People vote for a candidate running on a set of issues. If they consider agreement with the candidates’ position on some subset of those issues more important than disagreement on the remainder then they vote for the candidate despite opposing certain individual policies.
(3) The US electoral system is not representative of the people as a whole, due to the electoral college and gerrymandering. This is not directly relevant to the electoral endorsement issue, but it is relevant to the question of whether Bush’s election represents the will of the people.
Bush, at most, represents the will of 51% of the voters and that’s a long way from being the will of the people.
Alito’s dishonesty bothers me more than his potential thread to Roe vs. Wade.
What bothers me most about Alito is his lack of open-faced conviction. Perhaps he’s true to his word/vision in private, but he’s apparently willing to say anything to get confirmed.
I think the best thing that Alito opponents can hope for is that he perjures himself during the hearings … and that the Dems take back Congress this fall so they could impeach him.
If they would even if evidence of perjury were incontrovertible.
Which I doubt.
I’m most worried about his views on executive power. That promises to be a very big issue in the next three years, and quite possibly after that.
I responded that the idea that there was any significant degree of truth in advertising about this during the campaign is strongly disputed by the fact that the GOP was forced to talk in code about it
is there any part of the social Republican agenda that isn’t discussed in code ?
cleek: tax cuts.
i found his inability to remember why he joined CAP to be not believable.
edward: welcome back. stay a while if you can.
Yeah Alito is pretty much a shoo-in at this point and it sucks. Edward_ however wins some kind of prize for making me think inappropriate thoughts, by dropping the line “this may be how sausages are made” inside a post on abortion politics.
cleek: tax cuts
yeah, i thought about that, but then i concluded that it was outside the “social” realm.
Edward_ however wins some kind of prize for making me think inappropriate thoughts
I get that a lot. 😉
“is there any part of the social Republican agenda that isn’t discussed in code ?”
It’s not like we on the left openly discuss our plans to make guns, hunting, and meat-eating illegal…
Beautiful, Edward. I agree completely.
It’s not like we on the left openly discuss our plans to make guns, hunting, and meat-eating illegal…
And it wouldn’t be pretty if they ever saw our master plan to eliminate Christmas …no siree, Bob…gotta keep a tight lid on that one.
But it seems Senator Cornyn has caught on to our plot to get “judges who will find traditional marriage, limited to one man and one woman, unconstitutional”.
Yes, I realize it’s possible to interpret Cornyn’s statement so that it does apply to some people, but I maintain that the interpretation by the target audience is likely to be (and intended to be) that these judges will ban marriage between man and woman.
Princeton alumna, class of 78, here. I might have believed Alito if he’d said from the start “I joined CAP because I was mad about having to do my ROTC training off-campus”. That might or might not be true, but it would have been possible.
To say that he “doesn’t remember” about something connected to Princeton, though? No. He might have forgotten a lot from 30 years ago — apartments, classes, girlfriends, movies, books, car accidents — but not Princeton. Princeton alums are probably the most involved, committed, and obsessed in the US if not the world: we might hate our Alma Mater, but we don’t forget things about her any more than you’d forget things about your biological mother.
Princeton alumna, class of 78, here. I might have believed Alito if he’d said from the start “I joined CAP because I was mad about having to do my ROTC training off-campus”. That might or might not be true, but it would have been possible.
To say that he “doesn’t remember” about something connected to Princeton, though? No. He might have forgotten a lot from 30 years ago — apartments, classes, girlfriends, movies, books, car accidents — but not Princeton. Princeton alums are probably the most involved, committed, and obsessed in the US if not the world: we might hate our Alma Mater, but we don’t forget things about her any more than you’d forget things about your biological mother.
arrgh, sorry about the double posting. *smites slow internets*
back in HS and college, i joined a club or two that i never bothered going to a single meeting of. i never listed them on a job application, though.
Doctor Science is one of us…. one of usss…..
Alito and the Injustice of the Law
I was in the car a lot today: had to drive Aidan to and from the dentist; then had to go to an out of town meeting. Where I live there are few options for radio listening. Beyond NPR,
cleek: tax cuts.
Oh, those were discussed in code. At no point did Bush say, openly, “I want to pass a tax cut that’s going to mean the richest families in the US – that includes me and mine – just keep getting richer, while the rest of you are worse off.”
People who will not benefit by Bush’s tax cuts have been induced to believe they do benefit because the tax cuts are talked about in code.
Anarch, you’ve got mail.
Whee! I do! In fact, I did: a collection of census forms from our very own US Census Bureau that I didn’t get a chance to fill out before I zoomed home for XMas. But apparently they really really wanted to know about my efficiency and TA-ship.
So much so that they called me three times in the past three weeks (the last being today) to get that demographic info from me. I had to miss the beginning of a meeting today because of it, actually.
Now that’s what I call… bleeeeargh!
The GOP believe the majority of Americans favor the GOP, yes?
The GOP believes that most Americans oppose legal abortion, right?
The GOP believes that most Americans are in favor of giving Bush as much authority as he wants, doesn’t it?
So why is the GOP even talking in code at all? Why not just say what’s really meant?
It can’t possibly be because the GOP worries that the country is actually not behind them on these issues, could it?
Citing myself even more boringly than usual, since I’m mostly just requoting what I said on ObWings, I had this note on Alito and abortion here.
Sorry for the repetition. I’m not up for making better conversation just now, I’m afraid. Apologies.
A recent post on Mark Kleiman’s blog, about why judges matter. It seems that Scalia will get his wish, to execute an innocent man:
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2006/01/finality_of_verdict_v_actual_innocence.php
I’ve given up on these people – I really hope that they get to serve Bush for all eternity. And it won’t be in Heaven.
Some random OT good news.
This is the aftermath of a badly written decision that forced a change in the law without waiting for consensus from the public as a whole. While I agree with the outcome, it’s hard to feel too sympathetic for those complaining that the structure of Roe may soon come tumbling down. Badly planned and built structures always fall down sooner or later. It would be wise to come up with a better rationale for protecting abortion rights than the cobbled-together mess that is Roe and its progeny, and to do so while there still might be a majority to vote for it.
Scott says Alito will usher in a reversal of Roe that will actually be a good thing for progressives, because it will force us to come up with a better rationale for legal abortion (better then what? better than privacy rights, presumably.
Lovely. Let’s see some of that same “Bad Medicine is Good For You” reasoning anent Executive Powers. Perhaps something like “Alito will usher in an institutionalization of the strongman, single party system that will actually be a good thing for progressives, because it will force us to come up with a better rationale for checks and balances than… than… well, than whichever rationale we were operating under.
Casey, you might want to have your browser checked–I don’t know what comment you’re responding to, but it isn’t mine. Unless of course, you can identify where I suggested:
–Alito’s vote will spell the end of Roe (do the math based on the departures and new arrivals since Casey–we’re back to the pro/against numbers from that time, even assuming that both Roberts and Alito vote to strike Roe);
–Who mentioned progressives? Not all pro-choicers are progressives–I’m certainly not.
All I’m saying is that it should have been obvious for many years that the Roe rationale for abortion was shaky as could be and would fall as soon as the votes were there for it (which makes sense, since basing abortion rights on “privacy” was always an asinine exercise based on legal reasoning that reads like something a 1L pulled out of his colon–and which required a number of other legal and constitutional assumptions that have provided firepower for the pro-life movement ever since), and that it might be a good idea to come up with a rationale for protecting abortion rights with stronger support in the actual text of the Constitution while there are still enough votes present to seize upon it. Or “progressives” can keep up their strategy of denouncing every Supreme Court candidate who won’t swear fealty to penumbras and emanations as the spawn of Karl Rove, and watch federally protected abortion rights go down the drain when this proves ineffective as a means of convincing sane people to oppose said candidates. Unless, of course–to turn around a common accusation made against conservatives on this issue–progressives are secretly hoping that Roe is overturned, so that presumably enough women–and young men with an aversion to paying child support– will switch to the Democratic column to make up for the fact that a majority of the nation doesn’t trust them with the military in time of national crisis. Of course, since you haven’t actually said that, I won’t assume that you believe it.
On the surface your argument is somewhat convincing, Scott, but I wonder how messy it’s going to get before it gets done correctly.
I mean, there is no rationale that will appease the hard-core pro-life set. None. By unravelling it, SCOTUS is really just encouraging them.
That may not be a compelling enough reason not to get something better on the books, something that might make the issue less of a red vs. blue one, but my G*d it stands to get messy.
I guess the question is whether a possibly flawed law is as problematic as the potential damage unravelling it might cause?
I agree with you as far as the strong pro-lifers go, Edward (to be honest, I’ve been expecting for years to be rebuked by Tacitus at some point for the very strong–if unorthodox–pro-choice views that I’ve posted on his site)–but IMO the strategy of the leaders of the pro-choice side is alienating the moderates enough that they’re not terribly receptive to their “the sky is falling” arguments. In my case, I have the reaction “please get off of my side” a lot when I hear NOW, NARAL, or Planned Parenthood leaders talk about abortion. In any event, they’re not succeeding, and if the goal is actually preserving the federal constitutional right to abortion, a change in strategy is in order–quickly.
the strategy of the leaders of the pro-choice side is alienating the moderates enough that they’re not terribly receptive to their “the sky is falling” arguments.
I’ve heard variations on that enought times to believe that even if it began as an excuse for supporting pro-life candidates (for other reasons), it’s now passed into the realm of “truth” for enough moderates that indeed the pro-choice groups need to rethink their stratgies.
This issue is easier for me when I listen to my partner. He grew up in the USSR and the idea that people have religious objections to a medical procedure is so irrational to him it doesn’t warrant consideration. “They’re idiots” is essentially his response…next question.
On the other hand, I understand why my family members who are pro-life allow themselves to be worked up into a frenzy about it (it’s an issue that is easy to manipulate opinions over), but when I juxtapose the two, I come much closer to agreeing with my partner by far. You have to implement so many alternative systems to accomodate the reality of banning abortion without demolishing the very reason it’s supposedly important to do so: morality.
Leaving it up to the conscience of the individual is most definitely the best way to go.
Unless, of course–to turn around a common accusation made against conservatives on this issue–progressives are secretly hoping that Roe is overturned, so that presumably enough women–and young men with an aversion to paying child support– will switch to the Democratic column to make up for the fact that a majority of the nation doesn’t trust them with the military in time of national crisis.
Considering the accomplishments of the Bush administration, the Democrats win on both counts. You’ve got an incompetent commander in chief, and a religionist social agenda.
It’s almost a shame that the true conservatives didn’t have the balls to stand up and fight when their agenda was being trashed by the opportunists in the Republican party.
Oh well. Try again in a generation or two.
CaseyL: Scott says Alito will usher in a reversal of Roe that will actually be a good thing for progressives, because it will force us to come up with a better rationale for legal abortion (better then what? better than privacy rights, presumably.
The best rationale for safe, legal abortion, freely* available to any woman who needs one, is that without safe legal abortion, women of childbearing age will die in unsafe abortions, and many women who do not die will become sterile. But, to those opposed to safe legal abortion, women’s lives and women’s fertility are unimportant.
The “rationale” behind Roe as I understand it is that the right to privacy extends to a woman’s consultations with her doctor, and to the privacy of her own body. While those who oppose this rationale may think it absurd that a woman should believe her body is her own – and I know that many en and some women do believe that women shouldn’t think they have a right to privacy of their bodies, let alone to private consultations with a doctor: that’s why they oppose Roe – as a woman, I have a visceral objection to anyone who tells me “Your body is not your own”. I mean, genuinely, a gut-level reaction.
I know that anti-choicers talk a lot of tosh about how what they really want to do is protect fetuses: but it is tosh. The real goal of those who oppose Roe is to take away a woman’s right to control her own body: it is a rapist’s credo, a wish to invade and to control a woman’s body against her will.
*By which I mean, let there be a medical clinic or a hospital that provides safe legal abortion available within half an hour’s travel time.
Jes, I’m as pro-choice as anyone. I think, though, that you are unfairly generalizing. There are people who genuinely believe that abortion is the taking of human life, and that the taking of human life is wrong, especially when not ‘necessary.’ If one believes that a fetus of six months development is the moral (and should be the legal) equivalent of a six month old child, one can oppose the taking of that life without being accused of trying to enslave women.
I’m not saying that all of the anti-choice crowd falls into this category, or even most. But you can’t deny that such people exist.
I’m not sure what the british system is. I think the Roe framework broadly reflects the way most Americans actually think about the balance of right between the woman and the fetus: the first third, she’s got an absolute right, the second third it has to be under close medical supervision (which might mean that necessity plays a greater role than inconvenience), and the last third, the fetus has the nearly absolute right (subject only to real necessity). Practicality not actually being in the Constitution, the Casey framework is more binary: pre-viability, the woman has the upper hand, post-viability, the fetus does (except in cases of necessity).
The enslavement argument has more force, it seems to me, when we start talking about restrictions on minors. But Anglo-American law has a number of anomalies with regard to minors — inability to give legal consent to sexual contact, for example — that even here you can make a moral argument not based on the desire to either enslave and, what I think is yet more common, impose punishment for immoral behavior.
The so-called pro-life movement has backed itself into a corner by taking the exremist position that life begins at conception. Charley is right–if Roe is overturned the matter will go to Congress and legislatures where sloganeering and posturing won’t hide the details of an actual law. The so-called pro-life position which logically must include the banning of stemcell research,morning after pills, and birth prevention for rape victims, will not become the law of the land anywhere outsided of Mississppi and the extremists will be in the marginalized position.
The so-called pro-life people have dumbed down morally into nothing more than the sactification of fertilized human eggs. They have been assisted in this by the pro-choice movement who have framed abortion as a llegal matter rather than a moral one.
I really hate the term “pro-life” and think annyone wh uses it should be challenged. To be genuinnely pro-life a person would have to be a defender of endangered species, and advocate of pollution control laws, and activist against global warming, a proponent of the use of government resources to assist citizens with the problems they face and an apponent of optional wars against countries that did not directly or indirectly attack us. Nobody who is willing to write off tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians for a stupid slogan about fighting terrorism has any business claiming to be pro-life no matter what they think of abortion. One of the advantages of debating abortion law in legislatures is that it provides an opportunity to stand up to the people who claim to be genuinnely conncerned about human life and see exactly how far that concern extends.
I really hate the term “pro-life” and think annyone wh uses it should be challenged.
Awesome rant, Lily!
Too much coffee on an ampty stomach.
CharleyCarp: There are people who genuinely believe that abortion is the taking of human life and that the taking of human life is wrong, especially when not ‘necessary.’
Possibly. But unless their respect for human life only extends to fetuses, such people would also vehemently oppose the death penalty and wars of aggression. Further, they would be actively in favor of free contraception freely available to all, and safe legal abortion, since their respect for life would mean they would not want any woman to die getting an unsafe illegal abortion.
But you can’t deny that such people exist
Of course not. But, they’re mostly hardcore radical lefties. None of them fit into the so-called “pro-life” movement as presently constituted, which is aggressively against safe legal abortions, and hence is actually campaigning for women to die in unsafe illegal abortions. Few of them are consistent enough to campaign for free and freely-accessible contraception, and while some are undoubtedly also anti-death penalty and anti-aggressive wars – Pope John Paul II, for example – most appear to extend their “respect for life” solely and exclusively to fetal life.
If Casey is overturned — and I expect it will be — and the issue returns to the states, I fully expect to see a great many total or near-total bans. The anti-choice forces care more than the pro-choicers, all the more so because they’re (for the most part) not bothering about things like the death penalty, war, inadequate health coverage, and the like.
That is, I predict gloom followed by doom. Pro-choice Republicans in red states will mostly keep their heads down, secure in the knowledge that if a family member needs to terminate a pregnancy, a flight to California, Chicago, or NYC isn’t cost-prohobitive. Or Toronto or Vancouver if it comes to that (and it might, because I expect to see real attempts for a national ban in the wake of a reversal of Casey). Pro-choice Republicans will see that they are in the same place as fiscal-sanity Republicans, realist-foreign-policy Republicans, small-government Republicans, rule-of-law Republicans and let’s-try-to-do-right-by-African-American Republicans: they get to choose power or principle, and will choose power. But all the while denying that they are doing so.
CharleyCarp: Pro-choice Republicans in red states will mostly keep their heads down, secure in the knowledge that if a family member needs to terminate a pregnancy, a flight to California, Chicago, or NYC isn’t cost-prohobitive.
Which will lead to anti-choice Republicans, full of glee at having got their way, attempting – and quite possibly succeeding – in passing laws to prevent women leaving the state or the country to obtain an abortion. After all, if according to anti-choice Republicans women have no right of privacy, why should we assume that they will leave the right to free transit between states alone?
The Republic of Ireland has managed to live with fierce anti-women laws prohibiting abortion for decades, simply because any woman who needs an abortion can take a relatively-cheap flight or ferry ride to the UK and get a safe, legal abortion at a private clinic in London or Liverpool. When this got publicly acknowledged a few years ago with the attempt to prevent a 14-year-old girl (pregnant as a result of rape by her father and uncle) from leaving the country to get an abortion, the result was a European law passed to explicitly state that any EU citizen, even underage, cannot be prevented from travelling from one EU country to another one.
Can anyone imagine a federal law explicitly permitting travel between states in response to such a situation in the US?
We had a case about restrictions on interstate travel several decades ago. It wasn’t about abortion, but preventing ‘Grapes of Wrath’ style migration.
Don’t get me wrong, the poor and Southern are going to be the losers in this. Big time. But they voted for it (or didn’t turn out to vote against it, or cared more to establish the point that Jesus hates fags).
CharleyCarp: But they voted for it
Primarily because the Roe debate has, ever since its inception, always been argued in code. Those opposed to Roe never say outright that they want women to die or to suffer through illegal abortions, that they think death or sterilization is an appropriate risk for a woman to run who believes that her body is her own to control. It’s always coded as a “pro-life” debate – as if (as Lily points out) being pro-life had anything to do with arguing for unsafe illegal abortions.
felixrayman, in case you’re around – you’re a counterexample to Jes‘s claim above, aren’t you?
“Unsafe illegal abortions” — something that the woman chose, after having sexual relations, which she also chose to do (barring the situation of rape).
The death of the fetus in abortion — never chosen by the fetus.
Why should one prioritize saving the lives of guilty and morally responsible adults over the lives of innocent babies?
I know the response from the likes of Jesursgilac: People are going to have the same number of abortions anyway, hence making abortion illegal will result in the same number of fetal deaths, plus extra deaths among the mothers. Balderdash. Making abortion illegal would decrease the abortion rate by a considerable measure. How could it not do so? At the very least, it would make a lot of men much more willing to wear a condom, thus preventing some pregnancies from arising in the first place. See Steven Levitt’s research on this.
“Unsafe illegal abortions” — something that the woman chose, after having sexual relations, which she also chose to do (barring the situation of rape).
The death of the fetus in an every single abortion — never chosen by the fetus, who is as innocent as a human being can be.
Why should one prioritize saving the lives of morally responsible adults who could easily avoid their situation, over the lives of innocent babies?
I know the response from the likes of Jesursgilac: People are going to have the same number of abortions anyway, hence making abortion illegal will result in the same number of fetal deaths, plus extra deaths among the mothers. Balderdash. Making abortion illegal would decrease the abortion rate by a considerable measure. How could it not do so? At the very least, it would make a lot of men much more willing to wear a condom, thus preventing some pregnancies from arising in the first place. See Steven Levitt’s research on this.
“Unsafe illegal abortions” — something that the woman chose, after having sexual relations, which she also chose to do (barring the situation of rape).
The death of the fetus in an every single abortion — never chosen by the fetus, who is as innocent as a human being can be.
Why should one prioritize saving the lives of morally responsible adults who could easily avoid their situation, over the lives of innocent babies?
I know the response from the likes of Jesursgilac: People are going to have the same number of abortions anyway, hence making abortion illegal will result in the same number of fetal deaths, plus extra deaths among the mothers. Balderdash. Making abortion illegal would decrease the abortion rate by a considerable measure. How could it not do so? At the very least, it would make a lot of men much more willing to wear a condom, thus preventing some pregnancies from arising in the first place. See Steven Levitt’s research on this.
Sorry for the triple post: it was the damn website’s fault.
most appear to extend their “respect for life” solely and exclusively to fetal life.
This is a lie, and a stupid one at that. Pro-lifers are perfectly consistent in saying that all innocent people — born and unborn — should be protected from being killed at will by other more powerful human beings. Name one pro-lifer who, when faced when an adult murder victim, responds by saying, “Sorry, I don’t care about adult victims, I only care when fetuses are killed.”
This sounds like just another version of the stupid cliche: “Gee, how can you claim to be against abortion when you don’t support massive government welfare programs!”
The reason it’s stupid is this: No one needs to support massive welfare programs in order to be against killing. If I’m against the notion that a wife can kill her husband for being unemployed, it is quite irrelevant to say, “But you don’t support unemployment programs!” Well, so what? I can be against the act of killing without automatically being required to support every governmental program that would supposedly reduce the “need” for the killing.
And again, the charge of hypocrisy would be more meaningful if you found a pro-lifer who said: “I support health and welfare programs, but only for fetuses. As soon as the fetus is born, no more health and welfare programs.” That would be inconsistent, but no one that I’ve ever heard of holds such a view.
The hypocrisy lies in the claim to be “pro-life.” If the claim was simply to be opposed to abortion there would be no hypocrisy.
Everybody thinks it is ok to kill other people. The discussion is about circumstances. By equating opposition to abortion to being “pro-life” this fact is obscured and the discussion becomes polarized around a false premise.
Niels: Why should one prioritize saving the lives of guilty and morally responsible adults over the lives of innocent babies?
Why should one try to claim that a fetus is a baby?
Answer; because by equating a fetus with a baby, you can argue that a fetus deserves the same legal rights as a baby, and thus ignore the fact that a fetus can only have legal rights by removing them from a woman: from each pregnant woman, and frequently from all women.
A fetus is not a baby. Arguments that rest on the notion that a fetus is a baby are false arguments, and do not even deserve to be debunked.
Why should a fetus be awarded legal rights that it can only possess by removing them from a pregnant woman?
Why should a pregnant woman lose legal rights?
Sorry for the triple post: it was the damn website’s fault.
A bad workman blames his tools. (The solution to the frequent false-error messages posted is to save your post before you click Post, and only re-Post if you have waited at least ten minutes after the error message to see if your comment has not shown up.)
Name one pro-lifer who, when faced when an adult murder victim, responds by saying, “Sorry, I don’t care about adult victims, I only care when fetuses are killed.”
Assuming your real name is Niels Jackson, I name Niels Jackson, as a representative pro-lifer who does not care about adult victims: you said so yourself: “Unsafe illegal abortions” — something that the woman chose, after having sexual relations, which she also chose to do. As you said: you don’t care if an adult victim dies as a result of an unsafe illegal abortion. Your sole concern is for the fetus. You prove my point.
Lily — same back at you. The term “pro-choice” implies a general disposition to favor private choices. But liberals are very willing to interfere with private choices, from the size of toilets to the gas mileage on the cars people drive to the people you have to hire (if you own a business), and a thousand other examples. The term “pro-choice” is therefore based on a false premise.
What pro-choicers really favor is legal abortion, not “choice” in general. Therefore, they ought to be called “pro-legal-abortion.” If you go for that, then I’ll agree to be called “anti-abortion.” Then we’ll be even. Otherwise, quit whining.
Niels, you were ok except for the “quit whining” part. I’m happy with pro-legal-abortion.
lily: Niels, you were ok except for the “quit whining” part. I’m happy with pro-legal-abortion.
I’m not.
I’m not “pro-abortion”. I wish profoundly that no woman ever became pregnant who didn’t want to be, and that no woman ever had to make the decision that she couldn’t afford to be pregnant or to have the baby, and that no emergencies ever happened where an abortion became medically essential for the life and/or sanity of the pregnant woman. I think that some abortions are inevitable, no matter what, but that it is absolutely possible for society as a whole to minimize the number of abortions – if that’s what’s important. (And, in the US, plainly that’s not what’s important: you won’t find most so-called “pro-lifers” arguing that all pregnant women and all children ought to receive free healthcare, or that employers ought to have to offer parents family-friendly working conditions, or paid maternity leave for the first six months of an infant’s life, or that a pregnant teenager who keeps the baby ought to get financial support from the state to see she gets through high school and – if she wants – can go to college.
What I am is pro-choice. I think that a pregnant woman is the only person in the world with the right to decide whether to continue or terminate that pregnancy, with the advice of her doctor to help. People who oppose safe legal abortion don’t just believe that women deserve to suffer and die for wanting control over our own bodies: they believe that other people ought to get to make decisions for pregnant women.
Pro-choice is the right term. I’m not pro-abortion any more than Niels is pro-life.
I’m not pro-abortion. I’m pro-LEGAL-abortion, ie pro keeping abortion legal.
Assuming your real name is Jesurgislac (if not, why choose such an unwieldy moniker?):
Jesurgislac: Your entire post is begging the question.
What’s more, I was responding to the stupidity of your claim that a truly pro-life person would actually SUPPORT “safe legal abortion, since their respect for life would mean they would not want any woman to die getting an unsafe illegal abortion.”
That’s just pure baloney. It would be as if I said, “If you were truly pro-choice, you’d be in favor of letting the fetus grow up and have the ‘choice’ whether or not to be hacked to death.” That’s not even an argument.
Anyway, I and other pro-lifers have “respect for life.” Yes. But that doesn’t answer the question here. With abortion being legal, we have (say) 1.2 million abortions per year, plus 20 deaths of women who had abortions. If abortion were illegal, let’s say that we had 900,000 abortions per year, plus 40 deaths of women who had relatively less safe abortions. (40 is similar to the number of women who died from abortion prior to Roe.)
So you’ve got 20 extra deaths of adult women, balanced out by 300,000 fewer fetal deaths. Even if the adult female’s life is worth that of 100 fetuses, that isn’t even a close question.
There is absolutely nothing to your critique, then. Your critique assumes (without proving, of course) that all adult lives are of infinite value and that all fetal lives are (effectively) of zero value. I don’t accept that valuation, and I’ve never heard any reason why I should. Bottom line: I care about the lives of adult females. But any deaths that they would supposedly experience from illegal abortion would be outweighed thousands of times over by the fetal lives saved. You have no right to say that my position fails to be “pro-life.”
It would be as if I said, “If you were truly pro-choice, you’d be in favor of letting the fetus grow up and have the ‘choice’ whether or not to be hacked to death.” That’s not even an argument.
Just to amplify on my own remarks:
To say “any pro-life person should want safe and legal abortion” is as inane as saying “any pro-choice person should want to give the fetus the choice,” or “any pro-environment person should want to let corporate polluters have free rein (because the free market will take care of the environment).”
It’s an “argument” that really amounts to playing a semantic game, whereby you both completely beg the question, and simultaneously pretend that the other person would be more consistent with their preferred label by adopting the OPPOSITE position.
No thanks. I’m able to judge for myself what “pro-life” means. Come up with an argument next time.
A bad workman blames his tools.
When I clicked “post,” it just went to a blank page, as if nothing had happened. No need to be so catty about it.
I suggest that both of you (Niels and Jesurgislac) tone down the exchange-of-barbs a bit. I’m less impressed by the zingers than you can possibly imagine.
Which claim, rilkefan.
Slartibifat — no one’s forcing you to read anything. There are lots of other pages on the Internet if you’re not happy with the comments here.
frm, seem to recall you have an consistent absolutist “human life is human life and nothing justifies purposely ending it” viewpoint that cuts across standard right/left politics, don’t however recall if that’s zygote-on. See Jes‘s comment here.
Niels Jackson, you should know that Slartibartfast is one of the posters at this blog, not just a commenter. Also note that this blog takes civility seriously, or tries to – see the posting rules.
I oppose the death penalty in all cases. I opposed taking Schiavo off life support. I’m in favor of free contraception for all. I’m certainly not a pacifist, but I find it hard to think of a past war I would have supported.
On abortion?
No position. It’s a hard question, I’m listening.
Niels: I care about the lives of adult females. But any deaths that they would supposedly experience from illegal abortion would be outweighed thousands of times over by the fetal lives saved.
You’re kind of missing the point. When a woman dies in an illegal abortion, the fetus she’s carrying dies too. Making abortion illegal doesn’t save fetuses: it merely ensures that women have illegal abortions, which are highly likely to be more unsafe than legal abortions. Campaigning for abortion to be made illegal is not pro-life: it’s the reverse.
When I clicked “post,” it just went to a blank page, as if nothing had happened. No need to be so catty about it.
You’re right. I apologize.
You’re kind of missing the point. When a woman dies in an illegal abortion, the fetus she’s carrying dies too.
You’re kind of missing Niels’ point, too. Unless the number of women who would seek, and die from, illegal abortions, plus the number of their aborted fetuses, is higher than the number of women who would simply forgo an abortion altogether rather than seek an illegal one, illegalizing abortion would, in fact, lead to a decrease in overall death.
I don’t happen to agree with the argument, but you seem to be eliding it.
Phil: Unless the number of women who would seek, and die from, illegal abortions, plus the number of their aborted fetuses, is higher than the number of women who would simply forgo an abortion altogether rather than seek an illegal one, illegalizing abortion would, in fact, lead to a decrease in overall death.
The fact is: women who are pregnant and don’t want to be get an abortion. The choice of legislators is whether these woman shall be allowed to choose a safe legal abortion, or shall be forced to find an illegal abortionist – and have an abortion that is likely to be less safe. The pregnancies are terminated, either way, so the fetal death rate remains the same: the number of women dying and the number of women made sterile goes up. Along with women sexually molested by doctors who know that a woman who’s seeking an illegal abortion can’t afford to report them for sexual harassment, and women robbed or murdered: make abortion a crime, and criminals will take advantage of it to commit other crimes.
None of this matters to those who want abortion to be illegal. Women’s lives are unimportant to them. They are not pro-life by any definition of the term.
Sorry about that — don’t mean to insult the site owner — I just have a hard time with long, impenetrable, and meaningless pen names like Slartibartifast or Jesursiglac or whatever. From now on, I’m using first initials.
J: The pregnancies are terminated, either way, so the fetal death rate remains the same: the number of women dying and the number of women made sterile goes up.
Your evidence for this is: Zero. There is absolutely no reason to think that the number of abortions would be the same “either way.”
If abortion were illegal in a few states, the number of abortions would go down. I don’t see how there could be any serious question about this. Some women would still get abortions, sure, but at least some women would choose not to do something illegal. And some men — faced with the pressure of the law — would decide not to force their girlfriends or daughters into abortion.
But more than that: The number of unwanted pregnancies would go down. People would be more careful, knowing that abortion would not be as available. Esp. men. Some men who currently feel that everything is the woman’s responsibility would start to be more careful about wearing a condom, etc. That’s why Steven Levitt found (in Freakonomics) that conceptions rose about 30 percent after Roe, even though the birth rate dropped.
Why would conceptions have risen but the birth rate have gone down? Because people weren’t being as careful. QED.
Women’s lives are unimportant to them.
Again, baloney. What I’ve said is that 20 or 30 women’s lives doesn’t outweigh 300,000 fetal lives, just to make a guess at the relative proportions here.
Niels: I just have a hard time with long, impenetrable, and meaningless pen names like Slartibartifast or Jesursiglac or whatever.
Many people call me Jes. Feel free to do so, if it’s simpler for you. Many people call Slartibartfast “Slarti”, and he’s never shown any signs of objecting.
There is absolutely no reason to think that the number of abortions would be the same “either way.”
That is to say there is absolutely no reason to think that the number of abortions would fall.
If abortion were illegal in a few states, the number of abortions would go down.
Well, two things: the total number of abortions in those states would go down, because women who could afford it would go to a state where abortion is legal. And, for the women who couldn’t afford it, the number of illegal abortions would go up. Because illegal abortions would not be registered – no one would be counting them – no doubt fantasists would want to believe that they weren’t happening, except when women died of them, which would be impossible to cover up.
I don’t see how there could be any serious question about this.
Because your assertion is not backed by any data, and is contrary to the known data. In the Republic of Ireland, abortion is illegal: women go to the nearest state where it is legal, or they get illegal abortions. These are serious questions: why don’t you see them?
And some men — faced with the pressure of the law — would decide not to force their girlfriends or daughters into abortion.
And the murder rate of pregnant women would also go up. Murder is already the second most common cause of injury-related death for pregnant women in the US – usually by their boyfriends or their husbands.
If it concerns you that some women are coerced into having an abortion because their husbands or their fathers or their boyfriends want them terminate, what are you doing (I expect the answer is “nothing”, mind you) to ensure that it doesn’t happen? What shelters for pregnant teenage runaways are you supporting? What charities and policies do you support to ensure that a pregnant teenager who doesn’t want an abortion can still finish high school and go on to college, though her parents want her to abort and won’t support her otherwise? What government policies, state resources, or charities do you support to ensure that a woman who’s separated from her husband or her boyfriend because he wants her to have an abortion will have somewhere to go, and be able to keep her job?
The number of unwanted pregnancies would go down. People would be more careful, knowing that abortion would not be as available.
Ah, more fantasy. Or you have data? No?
Why would conceptions have risen but the birth rate have gone down?
Because the 30% of conceptions that appeared to be a rise, represented the number of illegal abortions that no one was looking at before Roe.
What I’ve said is that 20 or 30 women’s lives doesn’t outweigh 300,000 fetal lives, just to make a guess at the relative proportions here.
It’s not a question of “outweighing” them. Your fantasy is of 300 000 unwanted babies being born to women who didn’t want to be pregnant: the reality is 300 000 abortions, plus the bloody reality that some of those women will die, and rather more will be made sterile. (Why I remain more concerned about women’s lives than potential lives)
If you cared about life – the lives of women, the lives of children – rather than trying to make abortion illegal, and kill women along with their fetuses in illegal abortions, you would be working for policies that would ensure fewer abortions. Better access to contraception. Economic policies to help working parents and especially single mothers. Good free healthcare. But anyone who is campaigning to make abortions illegal, is campaigning for illegal abortions.
The fact is: women who are pregnant and don’t want to be get an abortion. The choice of legislators is whether these woman shall be allowed to choose a safe legal abortion, or shall be forced to find an illegal abortionist – and have an abortion that is likely to be less safe. The pregnancies are terminated, either way, so the fetal death rate remains the same: the number of women dying and the number of women made sterile goes up.
It is patent nonsense to make this argument which assumes that making something illegal does not in any way disincentivize it. Claptrap.
Again, I don’t happen to support Niels’ argument, and I’m a strong supporter of legal abortion and widespread sex education and readily available contraception and ensuring that women have access to abortions sufficiently early in their pregnancies, but you’re basing your argument on the assumption that the current abortion rate would equal the post-illegalization abortion rate, an assumption that rests not only on facts not in evidence, but runs contrary to everything we know about social behavior, policy and common sense.
Phil: It is patent nonsense to make this argument which assumes that making something illegal does not in any way disincentivize it.
Riiiight. That would be why the Twenty-first Amendment is a figment of my imagination – after all, the Eighteenth Amendment had the effect of making most people in the US completely teetotal. And the need of most people for “intoxicating liquors” is decidedly less than the need of a woman who’s pregnant and doesn’t want to be for an abortion.
but you’re basing your argument on the assumption that the current abortion rate would equal the post-illegalization abortion rate, an assumption that rests not only on facts not in evidence, but runs contrary to everything we know about social behavior, policy and common sense.
You’re basing your argument on the assumption that passing a law removes a woman’s need to terminate an unwanted pregnancy – an assumption that runs comtrary to facts in evidence, and is contrary to everything we know about social behavior and common sense.
To use your terminology, Phil, it’s claptrap.
J:
That is to say there is absolutely no reason to think that the number of abortions would fall.
Bull. As I already explained, the number of conceptions rose around 30% after Roe even while the birth rate dropped. There is no possible explanation for this other than that hundreds of thousands of people became LESS CAREFUL. If you’re trying to pretend that making abortion illegal would not have the same effect today (i.e., making people more careful about their sexual activity), you have the burden of proof. Put up, or shut up.
And maybe you could answer this, since you think that the legality of abortion has ZERO effect on the abortion rate: Did the number of abortions rise between, say, 1965 and 1980? Particularly, did it rise after 1973? Gee, why ever could that have been?
And the murder rate of pregnant women would also go up. Murder is already the second most common cause of injury-related death for pregnant women in the US – usually by their boyfriends or their husbands.
There’s no way you can know this. My speculation is that the murder rate would, if anything, go down. Right now, the thinking in these Neanderthal mens’ minds is something like this: “Damn woman, why doesn’t she just get an abortion! It’s legal, the government says so. The only reason she’s not getting an abortion is just to spite me. I’ll show her who’s boss,” etc., etc., etc. But if abortion were illegal, maybe some men would realize that they couldn’t as easily blame their wives/girlfriends for failing to get an abortion.
Of course, that’s just sheer speculation. As is your post. The difference is that I’m not pretending to have certainty about THAT particular effect.
And the murder rate of pregnant women would also go up. Murder is already the second most common cause of injury-related death for pregnant women in the US – usually by their boyfriends or their husbands.
There’s no way you can know this. My speculation is that the murder rate would, if anything, go down. Right now, the thinking in these Neanderthal mens’ minds is something like this: “Damn woman, why doesn’t she just get an abortion! It’s legal, the government says so. The only reason she’s not getting an abortion is just to spite me. I’ll show her who’s boss,” etc., etc., etc. But if abortion were illegal, maybe some men would realize that they couldn’t as easily blame their wives/girlfriends for failing to get an abortion.
Of course, that’s just sheer speculation. As is your post. The difference is that I’m not pretending to have certainty about THAT particular effect.
If it concerns you that some women are coerced into having an abortion because their husbands or their fathers or their boyfriends want them terminate, what are you doing (I expect the answer is “nothing”, mind you) to ensure that it doesn’t happen? What shelters for pregnant teenage runaways are you supporting? What charities and policies do you support to ensure that a pregnant teenager who doesn’t want an abortion can still finish high school and go on to college, though her parents want her to abort and won’t support her otherwise? What government policies, state resources, or charities do you support to ensure that a woman who’s separated from her husband or her boyfriend because he wants her to have an abortion will have somewhere to go, and be able to keep her job?
You seem to have missed the point: Whether or not I support any of those services is irrelevant and none of your business.
I may or may not happen to support huge government-sponsored unemployment programs. But whatever my position on that issue, I still have a right — both intellectually and morally — to oppose the notion that someone can kill her spouse for being unemployed. It is sheer silliness to claim that I’m somehow being a hypocrite if I oppose that act of killing, without also supporting someone else’s wish list of government programs that would supposedly reduce the “need” for such killings.
Also: I oppose infanticide. Does that mean I’m a hypocrite if I don’t also support any number of welfare programs aimed at infants?
Also: I oppose killing 7 year olds. Does that mean I’m a hypocrite if I don’t sponsor an increase in a school lunch program?
Also: I oppose euthanizing the elderly. Does that mean I’m a hypocrite if I want a smaller cost-of-living increase in Social Security? (After all, if the elderly aren’t given as much money, they might be more of a burden on their families, who might then want to euthanize them. But hey, it’s MY obligation, rather than the families’ obligation, to help out the elderly parents, so that the families won’t feel as much pressure to kill off their parents.)
Niels: As I already explained, the number of conceptions rose around 30% after Roe even while the birth rate dropped.
You “explained” without providing a cite, but I’ll assume for the sake of argument that you got the figures right. How was the number of conceptions recorded? The obvious explanation – simple and straightforward, without requiring any massive change in behavior such as you postulate – is that the thirty percent apparent “rise” actually represents the invisible and unrecorded conceptions that, before Roe, were illegally aborted.
And maybe you could answer this, since you think that the legality of abortion has ZERO effect on the abortion rate: Did the number of abortions rise between, say, 1965 and 1980? Particularly, did it rise after 1973?
Because, after 1973, all abortions were recorded. Before 1973, illegal abortions were, for the most part, not recorded.
You seem to have missed the point: Whether or not I support any of those services is irrelevant and none of your business.
It’s perfectly relevant. You’re claiming to be “pro-life”. But all we’ve heard out of you is that you want abortions to be illegal – which is anti-life. If you’re claiming to be pro-life, what are you actually doing that’s pro-life? If all you’re doing is trying to make abortions illegal, you have not the shadow of a claim to be pro-life.
As to the rise in conceptions: I cited the Freakonomics book, which is not online. You can probably find it at your local library. Very educational and worth reading.
Because, after 1973, all abortions were recorded. Before 1973, illegal abortions were, for the most part, not recorded.
FYI: There are scholarly studies, as well as the CDC, that have made a serious effort to estimate the number of abortions before and after Roe, and virtually all find that the number of abortions went up. You can look them up for yourself.
You bear the burden of proof here, by the way, since you’re the one making the absurd claim that a massive change in abortion laws has zero effect on: 1) people’s sexual behavior or willingness to use contraception, and 2) people’s willingness to procure abortions. You haven’t explained how your position squares with the facts of pre- and post-Roe history, nor have you explained why no one in America would ever change their behavior by the presence or lack of abortion laws.
But all we’ve heard out of you is that you want abortions to be illegal – which is anti-life.
Says who? Says you, according to your idiosyncratic definitions of words, and your bullshit speculation that the number of abortions is completely indepedent of the legal regime.
I could copy this whole piece since it adresses most of the issues mentioned here:
Also about the maternal mortality:
Niels: Says you, according to your idiosyncratic definitions of words
It’s hardly idiosyncratic to require that pro-life shall mean pro life, and not pro-death – as anyone who supports illegal abortions is.
and your bullshit speculation that the number of abortions is completely indepedent of the legal regime.
Oh, I never claimed that, Niels. As DutchMarbel has just kindly pointed out, in countries where abortions are illegal, illegal abortions happen at much higher rates and more women die. Making abortion illegal apparently does affect the number of abortions carried out: it just doesn’t affect it in the way your fantasies would prefer.
nor have you explained why no one in America would ever change their behavior by the presence or lack of abortion laws.
Because no evidence suggests that women who are pregnant and don’t want to be would change their behavior as a result of making abortion illegal. And no evidence suggests that men who murder pregnant girlfriends or wives, or who routinely have sex without condoms, would change their behavior if abortion were made illegal.
What all the evidence suggests is that a woman who’s pregnant and doesn’t want to be will seek an abortion. You want her to risk death or sterility, and have no interest in public policies to make it less likely that she’d want an abortion: I want there to be fewer abortions, and want public policies that will tend to that end, but I also want all abortions to be safe and legal. That’s because I am pro-life according to the literal meaning of the words, and you are only “pro-life” according to the idiosyncratic definition that the campaigners for illegal abortion have given the words in the past few decades.
So if Brazil makes most abortions illegal and Scandinavia doesn’t, and if Brazil’s abortion rate is nonetheless higher, that’s supposed to mean that abortion bans have no effect? Baloney. Ever heard of “controlling” for other factors? (It’s something that social scientists do when they want to know what is REALLY causing one nation to be different from another.) I shouldn’t need to spell out all the ways that Scandinavia is different from Brazil.
What’s more relevant is this: Would Scandinavia’s abortion rate be even lower if they restricted abortion? Probably. Would Brazil’s abortion rate be even higher if it allowed free abortion everywhere? Again, probably so.
J: Because no evidence suggests that women who are pregnant and don’t want to be would change their behavior as a result of making abortion illegal.
Again, you’re blowing smoke. No evidence? How about common sense, which says that there are always at least some people for whom abortion is a very reluctant decision, who never would have done it unless their parents [or boyfriend] insisted, and who would be pushed over the edge into keeping the baby (or adoption) if the law backed them up. YOU are the one who has her head stuck so far into the sand that you can only imagine one sort of person: The woman who is 100% determined and guaranteed to get an abortion, no matter what obstacles lie in her way, no matter what the law says, no matter what anyone says. Yes, such women exist. But they don’t make up 100% of the abortion pool. And that’s why you’re full of it.
And no evidence suggests that men . . . who routinely have sex without condoms, would change their behavior if abortion were made illegal.
Again, you’re just blowing smoke. No evidence? I guess I can repeat it until I’m blue in the face, and you’ll still be plugging up your ears and covering your eyes and yelling at the top of your lungs. Anything to avoid acknowledging the fact that conceptions rose after Roe — which is proof that more people failed to take precautions than before. And anything to avoid acknowledging the fact that America’s men are not 100% the type who will refuse to wear a condom no matter what. Yes, some are like that. But there are also some for the absence of easy abortion would weigh heavily on their minds. There are some relationships where if the woman said, “Hey, suit up, because you know I ain’t getting no abortion now that it’s illegal,” the man would end up wearing a condom.
That doesn’t have to be everyone. But enough people would behave that way to make the abortion rate come down.
That’s because I am pro-life according to the literal meaning of the words
You mean, the “Orwellian” meaning of the words. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be defending the practice of pulling the limbs off of live human fetuses.
In other words, J, you seem to be completely unaware of the concept of the “marginal” effects of a policy. An Economics 101 course should help with this. In basic terms, if you raise the price of something, there are fewer people willing to pay that price. If you raise the price of gum from 50 cents to 55 cents, it may not make a difference for 95% of people. But for that 5%, that extra 5 cents will be just the thing that causes them to buy gum less often. And so overall sales will go slightly down. And at the extreme, if you raise the price to 5 dollars a pack, there will be some relatively wealthy people who really love gum who will buy just as much, but only a fool would expect gum sales to stay the same.
Now we get a little more complicated: Elasticity of demand. If demand is perfectly elastic, then it varies in exact proportion to price. At the opposite extreme, if demand is perfectly INelastic, then demand stays the same no matter what the price is.
So what you’ve been saying is that the demand for abortion is perfectly inelastic. It doesn’t matter if abortion is legal or illegal, if it costs $400 or $3000, if it is available in all states or available only in a few — not a single person in America is going to think more cautiously about birth control, and not a single woman is going to decide not to have an abortion after all.
That just doesn’t make any sense. What you’re saying doesn’t fit with human experience, with logic, or with the evidence about how abortion rates (and conception rates) rose after Roe.
It does, however, fit very well with the rigid ideological beliefs of someone who thinks Amptoons isn’t sufficiently “feminist.”
Niels: Anything to avoid acknowledging the fact that conceptions rose after Roe
I acknowledged it – for the sake of argument, since you’ve yet to provide a cite – and provided an explanation: number of conceptions remained steady, but the 30% apparent “rise” represented the number of illegal abortions that had hitherto gone unreported. You have not attempted to dispute this explanation: you’ve just ignored it and claimed that I’m ignoring your supposed claim.
What you’re saying doesn’t fit with human experience, with logic, or with the evidence about how abortion rates (and conception rates) rose after Roe.
Given that you’re ignoring the evidence for unrecorded numbers of illegal abortions prior to Roe, I think it’s you that is ignoring human experience, logic, and evidence in favor of your own rigid ideological beliefs.
So what you’ve been saying is that the demand for abortion is perfectly inelastic. It doesn’t matter if abortion is legal or illegal, if it costs $400 or $3000, if it is available in all states or available only in a few — not a single person in America is going to think more cautiously about birth control, and not a single woman is going to decide not to have an abortion after all.
“Decide” not to have an abortion? Aren’t you arguing that women shouldn’t have the power to decide anything about abortion?
Otherwise, you wouldn’t be defending the practice of pulling the limbs off of live human fetuses.
As you defend the practices of making women bleed to death alone, of sterilisation, of sexual harassment, of women dying from repeated unsafe pregnancies, of women seeking abortion, of mass numbers of unwanted babies born and abandoned to institutional life… All because you regard a blastocyte as being a human life, and think women should suffer and die rather than allow legal safe termination of a cluster of cells without even a spinal column.
I acknowledged it – for the sake of argument, since you’ve yet to provide a cite
I did provide a cite: Freakonomics. It’s a BOOK. Like most books, its text is not online. It’s not my fault if you refuse to recognize books as a source of information.
Your alternative “explanation” is just hot air. You have absolutely no evidence that the rise in conceptions somehow represents a huge number of pregnancies that were entirely concealed prior to 1973. As I’ve said, there are several studies that have been done on the abortion rate after Roe, and all find that the abortion rate went up. Gee, what a surprise: Make something legal (and hence cheaper and more widely available), and it happens more often!
Here’s another indicator that people stopped being less careful after abortion was legalized: The rate of sexually transmitted diseases went UP by a considerable margin.
Let me predict your reaction to this: 1) Ignore it; 2) Claim (on the basis of nothing) that sexually transmitted diseases were just not reported or treated before abortion was legalized; 3) Pretend that all of this has no implications for anything (rather than acknowledging that making abortion illegal would make some people more careful, which would in turn prevent many pregnancies from ever occurring).
“Decide” not to have an abortion? Aren’t you arguing that women shouldn’t have the power to decide anything about abortion?
Clever — faced with the fact that your claim is completely unbelievable (i.e., that the number of abortions is always going to be exactly the same, no matter how difficult or expensive), you change the subject.
As you defend the practices of making women bleed to death alone, of sterilisation, of sexual harassment, of women dying from repeated unsafe pregnancies, of women seeking abortion, of mass numbers of unwanted babies born and abandoned to institutional life…
If that happens to a handful of women, I’m truly sorry. That said, 1) it’s through their own choice (whereas the fetus has no choice); and 2) The number of such incidents would be vastly outweighed by the decrease in abortion (i.e., if abortion returned to the levels of the 1960s.
All because you regard a blastocyte as being a human life, and think women should suffer and die rather than allow legal safe termination of a cluster of cells without even a spinal column.
This is silly: No one has an abortion at the blastocyst stage — no one even knows that they are pregnant at that point.
I’m not the owner; think of me as the janitor. And although my handle is hardly original, it was inspired by Jesurgislac’s. I’ve got family, and this sort of thing tends to foil the casual stalker. My purpose was not to suppress the exchange, though, so much as point out that the posting rules are there for a reason, however much Gary Farber may complain that they’re too vague.
There are plenty of places one can go to on the web for an exchange of insults; this isn’t one of them. At least, that’s the intent.
Slarti: And although my handle is hardly original, it was inspired by Jesurgislac’s.
It was? Cool! 🙂 I’ve always liked your handle.
That should have been: “Here’s another indicator that people were less careful after abortion was legalized:”
At first it was making fun (the good-natured sort), but later I realized that I liked the rhythms of both names, so I remain Slarti.
Niels: Let me predict your reaction to this
All three wrong. I followed the link and looked up the academics who wrote the paper you cited. Thomas Stratmann is based at the James Buchanan Center for Political Economy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia: Jonathan Klick was the Dorothy Donnelley Moller Research Fellow in the Mercatus Regulatory Studies Program, also at George Mason University. Both Klick and Stratmann are right-wing economists, not medical scientists. When they write an academic paper on the rise of STDs following Roe, their motivations for doing so are pretty clear, and it casts doubt on whatever correlations they managed to discover.
I did provide a cite: Freakonomics. It’s a BOOK. Like most books, its text is not online.
Really? That’s odd. I could have sworn… Nah, must have been a mistake.
You’re citing a book. The disadvantage of a book is that you have to physically type in the references you want to make from it. However, with that book there in front of you, you can do so with only a little additional labor. Where did Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner get their facts about a 30% rise in conceptions? Which authorities were they citing?
I followed the link and looked up the academics who wrote the paper you cited. Thomas Stratmann is based at the James Buchanan Center for Political Economy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia: Jonathan Klick was the Dorothy Donnelley Moller Research Fellow in the Mercatus Regulatory Studies Program, also at George Mason University. Both Klick and Stratmann are right-wing economists, not medical scientists. When they write an academic paper on the rise of STDs following Roe, their motivations for doing so are pretty clear, and it casts doubt on whatever correlations they managed to discover.
Oh, right! I forgot that you’d be likely to bring up the old standby: The ad hominem fallacy. If you can’t prove someone wrong, and you don’t even want to try, just make hand-waving insinuations about their personal identity or motivations. So much easier than trying to refute data from the CDC, etc. Makes life a lot easier when you never have to acknowledge information that might show your ideological position to be wrong.
On Freakonomics: So you’ve figured out that the book has a website — good job. Now show me where the book’s text is on the website, and we’ll be in business.
Also, FYI, economists (or econometricians) often write data-driven papers on medicine or any topic under the sun. You don’t have to be a medical expert to analyze CDC data (and in fact, most doctors wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to do a regression analysis).
Slarti: And although my handle is hardly original, it was inspired by Jesurgislac’s.
It was? Cool! 🙂 I’ve always liked your handle.
awwwwww…
Niels: So much easier than trying to refute data from the CDC, etc.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Niels, you’ve yet to produce any data – from the CDC or anywhere else.
this pdf file gives more statistical figures and background info. Short summary: family planning systems, availability of contraception and education have more impact on abortion figures than legalisations has.
The idea that men who in this day and age have sex without a condom will suddenly stop doing that when abortion will become illegal is interesting, but not supported by any factual evidence.
J:
Do I have to spell out the obvious? Two economists write a paper analyzing CDC data. I link to that paper. Your sole response: Boo, they’re economists, they teach at the wrong schools, and they’re probably biased. Hence my response: It’s infinitely easier to sneer at people’s identity than to deal with their arguments or data (such as the CDC data that the economists analyzed).
D: Have you even read any of the comments up to this point? If so, why do you think that abortion legalization had a substantial effect on the rate of sexually transmitted diseases? Some form of magic in the air? Or the fact that men became less vigilant about wearing condoms?
By the way, D, thanks for a link that proves my point. As stated on page 29 of that report:
“In most of these countries, the abortion rate rose immediately following legalization. This occurred partly because of the shift from unreported illegal abortions to reported legal abortions. But there was probably also a real increase in abortion rates in response to the demand for services, which can be more readily and more safely met following legalization.”
The report then cites the United States as a specific example.
So, yes, reporting probably improved. I never said otherwise. But improved reporting doesn’t account for 100% of the rise in abortions after Roe, which is what J has been (absurdly) claiming. Instead, legalization leads to more abortions in and of itself.
It’s pretty amazing to come across someone who is so blinkered that they refuse to acknowledge such an obvious fact as that the law affects people’s behavior.
Also, D, see my post above on the concept of the “margin.” You’d find it educational. Short version: No one is claiming that 100% of men would wear condoms at all times if abortion were illegal. But for some men, the illegalization of abortion would be just the thing that would make them think twice. Or it would make the woman more insistent that he wear a condom.
Seriously, have you people never met any other real people outside of the Internet? What experience makes you think that 100% of people engage in sexual behavior in a way that is completely unaffected by any possible incentive?
Two economists write a paper analyzing CDC data.
Two economists claim to have discovered a correlation between one set of data and another set of data. The economists have no background in medical science, and curiously enough, the correlation they have discovered backs up what I suspect (given their academic background) to be their previous political conviction – that legal abortion is bad.
When an academic publishes a paper claiming that a data correlation proves a political point that he already believed in, it’s perfectly valid to point out that this is a intrinsic reason to suspect his results. (Correlations in data, you see, look impressive – but don’t necessarily prove a thing.)
You obviously don’t know your right-wingers. GMU and Mercatus are full of libertarians, many or most of whom support legalized abortion. I don’t know anything about Klick and Stratmann’s personal beliefs, but who cares anyway? This is nothing but the “ad hominem” fallacy. There’s no reason to rely on such a fallacious argument if you have anything valid to say.
Correlations in data, you see, look impressive – but don’t necessarily prove a thing
Nice to see that you are aware of this principle. Just FYI, though: A truly bogus correlation is the one that you and D made above, i.e., when you compared abortion rates in Brazil vs. Scandinavia, without any attempt to control for the many other factors that differentiate those places. The Klick/Stratmann study did control for other factors.
Niels: Nice to see that you are aware of this principle.
Ah, there’s nothing I love better than being condescended to by someone who’s been citing nothing but meaningless correlations all thread to prove his points, and being rude to boot.
I don’t know anything about Klick and Stratmann’s personal beliefs, but who cares anyway?
Because their personal beliefs are very likely to have affected their wish to see a correlation where there’s nothing but a post hoc, propter hoc fallacy. That’s why I looked up their academic background. They seem extremely likely to have set out to prove their point by any means necessary: it’s what “pro-lifers” – the fake, ideological ones, who really hate the idea of women getting to make decisions – do.
I think this entire discussion is off-point. I made the statement way upthread that those who claim to be pro-life need to be challenged because everybody thinks it’s ok to kill people and people who make a big issue out of fertilized eggs are not inherently more pro-life than anyone else.
I’ll stand by that and no one has refuted it.
I’ll make another stand: I believe that those individuals who are outraged at the killinng of a being that hhas no brain, no emotions, and no capacity for thinking and feeling but regard Iraqi civilians who can think and feel as dispensible are operating on a lower value system than mine and are less pro-life than me.
The discussion that we as a society need to have is not whether or not abortion should be legal. It’s when is it ok to kill people. Here is a list of reasons for killinng people. Which ones do you agree with? Why?
The person is ann unwanted fertilized egg.
The person for whatever reason hs no brain function beyond brain stem activity
The person is dying anyway and wants to expidate the process
The person is dying painfully and there is no hope of improvement
The person is innocent but convicted of a capital offense. Unfotunately in order to have the death penalty the ocassional innocent has to die by mistake, so too bad, kill him.
The person is guilty of a capital crime.
The person directly attacked someone else with the intent to kill.
The person was stealing or damaging property.
A civilian killed in a war against a country thhat attacked us.
A civilian killed in a war with a country that did not attack us.
The civilian is killed in a war fought on false premises.
The civilian is killed in a war that didnn’t need to be fought.
The civilian is killed in a military action to achieve a geopolitical goal.
A soldier dies in a war against a country thhat attacked us.
A soldier dies in a war against a country thhat did not attack us..
The soldier dies in a war fought on false premises.
And so on.
I accept, as most so-called pro-lifers do, the premise that sometimes one has to kill another person. I am far far more reluctant to justify the killing of a person who can think and feel than one who can’t. I also am far far more inclined to support killing in real self-dfense than in aggression. I don’t thinnk the death of innocents is acceptable to have a death penalty and I don’t think it is of to kill in defense of property.
Antiabortionists who support the death penalty and the war in Iraq cannnot legitmately claim to be more prolife that annyone else. They simply put a higher value on a person who cannot think or feel than on those who can. If they want to oppose abortion, fine. The claim to being “pro-life” is false.
Comment from the Swiss corner: correlation is correlation, independent of the analyst’s viewpoint. However, on the flipside, the conclusions one draws from correlation can well be full of potholes, even if said correlation is both valid and strong. If the economists in question have found a correlation and their paper has passed peer review, then I’d go with the correlation being factual. Their conclusions, on the other hand, are fair game for questioning. If A and B are highly correlated, the conclusion that B caused A doesn’t stand without quite a bit of further work.
They seem extremely likely to have set out to prove their point by any means necessary:
Sheer speculation. Like I said, if you had anything valid or substantive to add here, why not bring it up?
You obviously have lots of time and mental energy: Why not come up with some inventive reason why STD rates would have risen after abortion was legalized in several different rates (even prior to Roe, e.g., New York)? And while you’re at it, explain why abortion legalization would have had zero effect on the way that people think about sex and birth control. (Try not to assume that 100% of people are complete morons whose behavior is 100% unaffected by the law. Come up with something more creative.)
after abortion was legalized in several different STATES
lily: I think this entire discussion is off-point. I made the statement way upthread that those who claim to be pro-life need to be challenged because everybody thinks it’s ok to kill people and people who make a big issue out of fertilized eggs are not inherently more pro-life than anyone else.
I’ll stand by that and no one has refuted it.
Good points, Lily.
Niels, I think you and I have clobbered each other enough: without either of us conceding victory or defeat, care to return to the direction of discussion Lily proposes?
LOL Niels, I thought we were discussing the best way to prevent abortions and unnessecary death. And suddenly we discuss STD’s. Well, I found your Klick/Stratmann study (“We find that gonorrhea and syphilis incidences are significantly and positively correlated with abortion legalization”). But STD’s are correlated to Christianity, didn’t you know?.
About the report I linked to: the sentence immediately following your quote was:”The experiences of a few countries are illustrative. In Tunisia and the United States, abortion levels increased for some years following legalization in the early 1970s, then began to come down in the late 1980s or early 1990s.”
There are many facts, comparisons and correlations in the report. But the general conclusion is still that availability of contraception and educating the public has more impact on abortion figures than legalisations has.
In the Netherlands the abortion figures went up after educational programs lost most of the government subsidies. It is now 8.5 per 1000 woman (it was 6 per 1000). By comparison: the US figure is 22 per 1000. Abortions in the Netherlands are easily available for everybody, and are free.
About your connection with STD’s: AFAIK getting abortions is more difficult in the south of the US, because there are less places where you can get them. The south however has more STD’s :
OMG, you’re not citing the Gregory Paul “study,” are you? That has got to be the most incompetent “study” ever released. The guy merely eyeballed stats on a chart, while explicitly refusing to control for any other factors. And he has no expertise in that area at all; he’s only known as a freelance paleontologist, whatever that means. There are all kinds of devastating rebuttals to his “study.” Use Google.
Lily, let’s take your list:
The person is ann unwanted fertilized egg. I’d prefer no killing here, but it doesn’t seem like the hugest crime in the world. I assume you’re talking about RU-486, since you mention “fertilized egg.”
We need to add something to the list, though, to deal with the subject of . . . you know . . . abortion
Here’s my addition:
The person is a 12-week-old fetus with a heartbeat, brain waves, fully functioning nervous circulatory and nervous systems, fingers and toes, etc., and the proposed means of death is to rip off the person’s limbs and other body parts, piece by piece.
Not OK. Sorry.
The person for whatever reason hs no brain function beyond brain stem activity
Not sure about this one.
The person is dying anyway and wants to expidate the process
I don’t believe in suicide, but if people want to kill themselves, they are obviously free to do so. I certainly wouldn’t allow anyone else to “assist,” however — that sort of “assistance” could very easily degenerate into pressure from family members who want a bigger inheritance, insurance companies who put pressure on the doctors, etc.
The person is dying painfully and there is no hope of improvement
Same.
The person is innocent but convicted of a capital offense. Unfotunately in order to have the death penalty the ocassional innocent has to die by mistake, so too bad, kill him.
Not OK.
The person is guilty of a capital crime.
If they really are guilty, I’m not going to shed any tears, even though I’m not a death penalty proponent; I can think of a million higher priorities.
The person directly attacked someone else with the intent to kill.
Are we talking about killing that person by execution? Or self-defense? I don’t know if I’d support the death penalty for attempted murder, but I’d damn sure be willing to kill someone who came after me or my family.
The person was stealing or damaging property.
No. If you’re the property owner, a warning shot should suffice. Or maybe aim for the leg. No killing.
As for the rest of your examples, you’re being slippery: Are you talking about deliberate killings or incidental killings? No one supports the notion of killing civilians ON PURPOSE in any kind of war. But at the same time, all wars inevitably end up killing some civilians by accident. Are those accidental killings wrong? In some sense, yes, but given that I’m not a pacifist, I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean.
Niels: No one supports the notion of killing civilians ON PURPOSE in any kind of war.
Only if you employ a very slippery definition of “on purpose”, Niels. Otherwise, simply not true. When an airstrike is launched at a building – or a city – where civilians live, then of course, those who order the airstrike are killing civilians on purpose.
Of course, you could argue that since their intent is something other than killing civilians, the civilians they kill aren’t killed on purpose. By that argument, a woman who terminates her pregnancy isn’t killing a fetus: her intent is to terminate her pregnancy. Is this really a logical step you want to take?
Of course, you could argue that since their intent is something other than killing civilians, the civilians they kill aren’t killed on purpose. By that argument, a woman who terminates her pregnancy isn’t killing a fetus: her intent is to terminate her pregnancy.
Those two situations aren’t analogous at all.
1. “I intend to kill enemy soldiers. I know that civilians may die in the operation, and I’ll do everything within my power to limit their deaths, but my real intent is to kill the soldiers.”
2. “I intend to ‘terminate my pregnancy,’ by the sole means of killing the fetus. I will not do everything in my power to preserve the fetus’s life. Quite the contrary — I’m specifically paying the doctor to end the fetus’s life, not to do anything else.”
What’s really more analogous would be the nuclear bombings of Japan in WWII. Those were operations that consisted solely of killing civilians, just as abortion consists solely of killing a fetus. An evasive and euphemistic general might have said, “Yes, I did specifically order the killing of civilians, but I did not intend to kill civilians; my real underlying intent was to inspire fear in the heart of Japan’s leaders and to cause them to withdraw from the Pacific.” No matter: If you drop a bomb on civilians with the intent that they die, it doesn’t matter that you claim your underlying motivation was some deeper cause.
Same for abortion: If you order an operation that rips the fetus’s limbs off, you have intentionally killed the fetus, no matter if you want to pretend that your underlying motivation was something else.
J is confusing “intent” (as in, what does someone intend to do) with “motivation” (as in, for what psychological reason did that person commit the intentional action).
Niels: I’m glad you think controlling for other factors and expertise in the field are important. But why do you believe the Klick/Stratmann study than?
As Slartibartfest explained: even if there is correlation you have to prove that it is causal too. The second link (from the CDC) seems to confirm that there are area’s in the US were abortion rates are lower, abortions are less easy to get, and yet STD’s are higher than the rest of the country.
Abortions are related to unwanted pregnancies, much much more that to legalisation. If you want to do something about abortions, you have to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
IOW: If I want to keep dry in the rain, I deliberately pick up an umbrella. My motivation was to keep dry. Still, I intentionally picked up the umbrella. It would be facetious to claim that my use of the umbrella was somehow unintentional because of my underlying motivation to keep dry.
Same for abortion. The woman who wants an abortion may be doing so solely for the reason that she doesn’t want to experience pregnancy (I doubt this: I think most women who have abortions are more worried about having another child around for the next 18+ years). But to “terminate the pregnancy,” she deliberately orders an operation that kills the fetus. Therefore, she intended the death of the fetus.
Most wartime situations are not so simple. A general wants to order the bombing of a particular building where a terrorist group is meeting. Realizing that too many civilians are inside, he sends in ground troops. Nonetheless, several civilians get killed. This situation is obviously different from the first two. While the civilians happened to have been killed in an action that the general intentionally ordered, it seems a mistake to say that the general intended to cause their deaths. Why a mistake? For one thing, it is not as if he said, “I want to kill these civilians; that is the sole means by which I will accomplish my objective here.” To the contrary, he was trying to avoid the deaths of the civilians.
It would be as if the woman seeking a “pregnancy termination decided to wait until viability, have the fetus removed, and then have the doctors try to preserve the fetus’s life, in spite of which the fetus died. THAT would be the only case where you could say, “This woman intended only to discontinue the pregnancy, not to kill the fetus.”
Niels: 1. “I intend to kill enemy soldiers. I know that civilians may die in the operation, and I’ll do everything within my power to limit their deaths, but my real intent is to kill the soldiers.”
More accurately, especially with airstrikes:
1. “I intend to win this war with as few casualties on my side as possible. I know that this means civilians will be killed, many of them, but I’ve no intention of limiting their deaths: my real intent is to win with as few casualties as possible, and killing enemy civilians to win the war is acceptable to me.”
2. “Damn. I don’t want/can’t afford/will be seriously ill/will die if I carry a fetus to term: got to terminate this pregnancy.”
.If you drop a bomb on civilians with the intent that they die, it doesn’t matter that you claim your underlying motivation was some deeper cause.
Quite. So why claim that no one supports the notion of killing civilians ON PURPOSE in any kind of war? In Japan, in Vietnam, in Iraq: yes, the US military do support the notion of killing civilians on purpose.
As Lily said.
Well, as I said, I doubt that very many women seek abortions SOLELY because they desire to avoid 9 months of pregnancy, as opposed to the desire to avoid having another child around the house.
What if you came to each abortion-seeking mother and said, “Thanks to the advances of medical sciences, we can painlessly remove the fetus from your body at any stage, incubate it, and then give you your baby back in a few months.” How many women would say, “Sure, I’m happy to have a new baby, I just wanted to avoid the pregnancy part?” Not many, I’d bet. What most of them want (or what most of them seek at the behest of parents or boyfriends) is for the fetus to be dead and gone.
Niels: Well, as I said, I doubt that very many women seek abortions SOLELY because they desire to avoid 9 months of pregnancy, as opposed to the desire to avoid having another child around the house.
Have you ever tried to talk with women who had an abortion and are content and happy that they did? Or rather, have you ever tried to listen to them? Have you ever considered the health risks of pregnancy in itself? Somehow I doubt it.
Obviously, the responsibility of a child being brought into the world is a significant one. In the US, according to Planned Parenthood statistics, the majority of abortions are chosen in part because of economic necessity. Of course real pro-lifers, as opposed to ideological “pro-lifers”, would want to amend the economic reasons for needing to have an abortion: but that’s not something of interest to you.
The argument that all unwanted fetuses ought to be born so that wannabe parents can adopt them works if you’re Ceausescu and don’t care about the thousands of children left to die in orphanages.) If we could pretend that if all the unwanted fetuses in the US were painlessly removed, placed in growth tanks, and birthed by machine at 9 months, and then handed to the responsible, caring “pro-lifers” to take care of… well, one result would be that there would be so many fewer declared “pro-lifers”. But even if we assumed compulsory parenthood for all those who advocate it, it would be a horribly cruel thing to do: a person who advocates that women who don’t want to be pregnant should be legally compelled to bear children is unlikely to be an ideal parent – especially not given the number of children they’d end up being compelled to care for. Ceausescu’s orphanages all over again.
Of course real pro-lifers, as opposed to ideological “pro-lifers”, would want to amend the economic reasons for needing to have an abortion: but that’s not something of interest to you.
Says you, who knows nothing about me. You’d be surprised what I support, but I maintain that it’s none of your business, because my opposition to killing unborn life doesn’t depend on my support for welfare or other programs. (Indeed, the real hypocrisy is all on your side: Ooze with crocodile tears for all of the hardships suffered by poor people, but turn a blind eye to the unborn baby whose skull is being crushed.)
Also, it is very ignorant to claim that “economic reasons” are the only reasons that women have abortions. A lot of abortions are obtained by rich and upper-class girls, 1) who simply don’t want to have children yet; 2) whose parents insist on an abortion to save face among their own friends; etc., etc.
Neils, Thank you for responding to my list.
One of the values of discussing things in the “when is it ok to kill” framework instead of the “pro-life-pro-chioce” dichotomy is it turns out that there is more common ground than not. For example you and I seem to agree that the morning after pill isn’t murder ( some anti-abortin folks would disagree). I didn’t phrase my death penalty sentence very well. I meant to get at the fact that it is impossible to have a death penalty without killing the innocent by mistake. Given that fact I am opposed to the death penalty. Otherwise I would probably favor it. There should be separate sentences for killing civilians in war accidently and killing them deliberately. The firebombig of Dresden and the bombing of Hiroshima, for ecxample, were the deliberate killings of civilians as was the Rape of Nanking and the Seige of Leningrad. I suppose there should be a further distiction between killing people with conventional weapons and kiling them through starvation, rape, or burial alive. It isn’t possible to list everything!
I genral in can think of three continuums (continimi?), one from capable of consciousness to not capable of consciousness, one from defensive action to aggressive action, and one from at the request of the person to against the will of the person. Maybe you can think of another continuum. In general I think that it is immoral to kill on the aggressive, against the person’s will, capable of consciousness ends but more likely to be moral to kill on the defensive, not capable of consciousness, wants to die end.
I can see that there are gray areas and middle grounds on all of thses continuums which is why I object so strongly to the term “pro-life” I don’t think that term is justified based soley on a person’s stance on abortion. I think that to call one’sself “pro-life” one would have to be extremely, maybe completely, opposed to killing all across all of the continuums.
Niels: because my opposition to killing unborn life doesn’t depend on my support for welfare or other programs.
To quote Jim Henley: “Don’t talk to me about the suffering you’d bravely inflict on someone else. Tell me the cost you yourself would pay. Those are the “tough choices.””
Of course, he was talking about something else, but following this discussion, it did strike me that it was a perfect rejoinder to the usual run of right-wing male “pro-lifer”, too. (There was a subplot in Sheri S. Tepper’s novel The Fresco of male “pro-lifers” being taken at their word and used as hosts for alien offspring: it was almost too neat to be really satisfying.)
Well, women are more likely to be pro-life than men. Not quite as easy to caricature their views.
Women are more likely to be pro-life than men. Of course, it’s not quite as easy to caricature their views, although I’m sure you’d manage to do it (since your modus operandi is to attack the individual rather than address the merits of any particular argument).
Don’t talk to me about the suffering you’d bravely inflict on someone else.
Oh cry me a river. Don’t want to “suffer”? Easy: Don’t choose to 1) have sex, or 2) fail to use birth control. If you make the wrong choices and a baby comes along, don’t come crying to me over the fact that you can’t kill the baby to get out of your self-created mess.
Niels: Women are more likely to be pro-life than men.
Agreed. But pro-life, not your brand of ideological “pro-life” women-should-suffer-and-die only-fetal-lives-matter “pro-life”.
Easy: Don’t choose to 1) have sex, or 2) fail to use birth control.
“Don’t talk to me about the suffering you’d bravely inflict on someone else. Tell me the cost you yourself would pay. Those are the “tough choices.””
When I give my support to laws against embezzling, is it appropriate to respond, “Don’t tell me about the suffering you’d bravely inflict on all of these poor souls. Tell me what you would personally do to help out would-be embezzlers”?
flashback:
Pot, I’d like to introduce you to my good friend, Kettle.
It seems rather…petty to bring up a (wholly unrelated) dispute from another blog.
(more from Mr. Jackson on the contentious subject of abortion here.)
Niels: When I give my support to laws against embezzling, is it appropriate to respond, “Don’t tell me about the suffering you’d bravely inflict on all of these poor souls. Tell me what you would personally do to help out would-be embezzlers”?
I think it’s rather telling that you perceive pregnant women as embezzlers. One might wonder what you think they have embezzled, and Freud would probably have an answer… 🙂
“Niels: Women are more likely to be pro-life than men.
Agreed. But pro-life, not your brand of ideological “pro-life” women-should-suffer-and-die only-fetal-lives-matter “pro-life”.
.”
No, women are statistically more likely to be “pro-life” in the sense of “anti-abortion”. And I strongly suspect you knew that is what he was saying.
Sebastian: No, women are statistically more likely to be “pro-life” in the sense of “anti-abortion”. And I strongly suspect you knew that is what he was saying.
Now do you mean really anti-abortion – wanting fewer abortions to take place, and those to be safe and legal? Sure. But you see, I think he meant the ideological mindset that wants abortions to be illegal, unsafe, and dangerous: which is not “anti-abortion” – it’s pro-death. Women are much more likely to be anti-abortion: men are much more likely to want abortion to be illegal. It’s very easy, as Jim Henley pointed out, to be brave and resolute about the price you want other people to pay.
That got a chuckle even from me.
I think it’s rather telling that you perceive pregnant women as embezzlers
Do you understand the concept of an “analogy”? It’s where you compare two things that are alike in one respect (here, because both embezzling and abortion are activities that are wrong) but not alike in other respects (here, anything else).
Again, interesting that you refuse to say anything to the merits of an argument. The argument is this: All kinds of activities are wrong. Many wrong activities are, in fact, illegal. You seem to be conceding that abortion is wrong (at least for the sake of argument), but you claim that I’m somehow inconsistent for wanting it to be illegal without also swearing allegiance to a myriad of governmental programs that would supposedly reduce the “need” for abortion.
So, for what other activity that is wrong would you say, “You have no right to make it illegal unless you are personally willing to help out all the wrongdoers”? Drug dealers? Embezzlers? Wife abusers? (“How dare you make wife abuse illegal unless you’re willing to support additional government unemployment programs to ease the stress that working-class men feel?”)
I think it’s rather telling that you perceive pregnant women as embezzlers
Do you understand the concept of an “analogy”? It’s where you compare two things that are alike in one respect (here, because both embezzling and abortion are activities that are wrong) but not alike in other respects (here, anything else).
Again, interesting that you refuse to say anything to the merits of an argument. The argument is this: All kinds of activities are wrong. Many wrong activities are, in fact, illegal. You seem to be conceding that abortion is wrong (at least for the sake of argument), but you claim that I’m somehow inconsistent for wanting it to be illegal without also swearing allegiance to a myriad of governmental programs that would supposedly reduce the “need” for abortion.
So, for what other activity that is wrong would you say, “You have no right to make it illegal unless you are personally willing to help out all the wrongdoers”? Drug dealers? Embezzlers? Wife abusers? (“How dare you make wife abuse illegal unless you’re willing to support additional government unemployment programs to ease the stress that working-class men feel?”)
I think it’s rather telling that you perceive pregnant women as embezzlers
Do you understand the concept of an “analogy”? It’s where you compare two things that are alike in one respect (here, because both embezzling and abortion are activities that are wrong) but not alike in other respects (here, anything else).
Again, interesting that you refuse to say anything to the merits of an argument. The argument is this: All kinds of activities are wrong. Many wrong activities are, in fact, illegal. You seem to be conceding that abortion is wrong (at least for the sake of argument), but you claim that I’m somehow inconsistent for wanting it to be illegal without also swearing allegiance to a myriad of governmental programs that would supposedly reduce the “need” for abortion.
So, for what other activity that is wrong would you say, “You have no right to make it illegal unless you are personally willing to help out all the wrongdoers”? Drug dealers? Embezzlers? Wife abusers? (“How dare you make wife abuse illegal unless you’re willing to support additional government unemployment programs to ease the stress that working-class men feel?”)
A poll from the Center for the Advancement of Women:
So what was that you were saying about imposing burdens on other people? Not quite as easy to bring up that spurious allegation here.
Frank Newport, the editor and chief of the Gallup Poll, says the study’s (by the the Center for the Advancement of Women) findings on abortions are fairly consistent with their polls, which have remained virtually the same over the last quarter century. In the most recent Gallup survey released in May, 25 percent of Americans said abortion should be legal in all circumstances, while 19 percent thought it should be illegal in all circumstances. “That leaves the big hunk of Americans in this gray zone of ambivalence that favor some restrictions,” Newport says in an interview with Women’s eNews.
Anti-choice and pro-choice groups will often combine the numbers on each end of the spectrum with the number of people in the middle to tip the balance in their favor.
“The pro-life people like to say most people want restrictions or to eliminate abortion, while the pro-choice people like to say most people favor abortion with some conditions,” Newport says. “The bottom line is most Americans operate in a zone of ambivalence . . . but the majority do not want to completely do away with abortion.”
link
Yeah, it is a bit hard to bring up spurious allegations here, which is why we regulars like it so much here.
Thanks for the word of support, LJ.
Niels, I think you misunderstand, I don’t particularly support what you’ve written, and the key phrase is “most Americans operate in a zone of ambivalence”. You’ve lashed out at Slarti and you seem intent on having a knock down drag out, which is your prerogative, but the quote was to suggest that _everyone_ is spinning things to a certain extent because most Americans are in the middle and understand it is a difficult decision that is fraught with ramifications. Taking a step back might be a good thing, especially since the erstwhile topic of the post is only obliquely related to abortion. I thought by not addressing anyone in particular, it might be more effective.
Niels: Do you understand the concept of an “analogy”?
Do you understand the concept of a “joke”?
Niels: Do you understand the concept of an “analogy”?
Do you understand the concept of a “joke”?
OK, here’s a joke:
* * *
Some men beat their wives. In the privacy of their own homes, mind you, which is but one reason that the government should not intrude into that sacrosanct realm. More importantly, however, we have to understand the broad social forces that drive men to beat their wives. Many wife-beaters are blue collar workers, and a substantial number are unemployed. Many are alcoholics or drug abusers, or have various psychiatric illnesses that make it hard for them to control violent urges. Many of them were abused themselves as children, and have a hard time overcoming that baggage.
In short, we should pity these men. Far from making what they do illegal, we should think of ways to ease their stress, help them to cope with violent urges, provide psychiatric and other help where needed, provide unemployment insurance, and provide good childcare (to lessen the stress of children in the home).
If someone doesn’t support all of these programs, I refuse to listen to them say that wife-beating is wrong. Easy for them to say, when they’re imposing the burden on someone else.
* * *
Now: To repeat, that was a joke. But it is 100% identical to the position that J has staked out on abortion. That is, it 1) ignores the wrongness of the action in question; 2) puts all of the focus on trying to help the wrongdoer; and 3) shuts people out of the debate if they decline to agree that more governmental programs are the answer.
So, how about it? Is J’s position good for any issues except abortion?
Niels, some men rape their daughters.
You’re arguing that a girl of 14 shouldn’t be allowed to terminate a pregnancy engendered by her father’s rape, because it’s so much more important to you to consider the welfare of the fetus than it is to consider a raped girl’s mental and physical health: a raped girl aged 14 is, in your eyes, the equivalent of an adult man beating his wife.
Your comparison of a woman’s right to control her own body with a wife-beater’s claim to have the right to “control” his wife, or his claim to have the right to do whatever he likes to his family in his home, is doubtless also Freudianly interesting… if more than a little sickening.
The analogy works for me, though, if you look at the best method of preventing men from beating their wives. In part it’s social attitudes – it’s no longer legal or acceptable for a man to beat his wife. But the social attitudes come from the following feminist changes:
-economic independence: a man who beats his wife can’t assume she won’t leave him because she has no means of supporting herself and her children unless she stays with him.
-shelters for battered women in most cities, which means a woman has somewhere to go if she leaves a violent man.
-changes to divorce law: It is much easier for a woman to get divorced from a man than it used to be, and easier for her to get restraining orders, and to get the police to take violence by men against wives seriously.
Now, if a man claims to be actively against wife-beating, it would be fair to ask him: does he also support economic independence for women, family-friendly working conditions enabling a single woman with children to get and keep a job, women-only shelters that men aren’t allowed to set foot in, and no-fault divorce so that a woman doesn’t have to provide evidence her husband was beating her before she can get shut of him. Now if a man claimed to be opposed to wife-beating, but turned out to be also opposed to all of the above, it would be fair to say that he isn’t in fact opposed to men being able to beat their wives; he isn’t prepared to support any of the societal changes that lead to less of it.
Similiarly, a man who claims to be opposed to abortion, but in fact only supports making abortion illegal, can’t be taken seriously as someone who’s anti-abortion: what he actually wants are illegal abortions, not fewer abortions.
Now, if a man claims to be actively against wife-beating, it would be fair to ask him: does he also support economic independence for women, family-friendly working conditions enabling a single woman with children to get and keep a job, women-only shelters that men aren’t allowed to set foot in, and no-fault divorce so that a woman doesn’t have to provide evidence her husband was beating her before she can get shut of him. Now if a man claimed to be opposed to wife-beating, but turned out to be also opposed to all of the above, it would be fair to say that he isn’t in fact opposed to men being able to beat their wives; he isn’t prepared to support any of the societal changes that lead to less of it.
And therefore wife-beating should be legal? That’s your logic on abortion, but do you not see how it’s a non sequitur?
You’re arguing that a girl of 14 shouldn’t be allowed to terminate a pregnancy engendered by her father’s rape,
I’m arguing that? Wow. I had no idea. I actually never said anything about the .001% of abortions that result from such situations. But thanks for putting words in my mouth. (FYI, I’m actually more concerned about the garden variety abortion that makes up 99% of the cases — a woman who simply doesn’t want an additional child, or who is responding to the wishes of a man who doesn’t want an additional child.)
Your comparison of a woman’s right to control her own body with a wife-beater’s claim to have the right to “control” his wife, or his claim to have the right to do whatever he likes to his family in his home, is doubtless also Freudianly interesting… if more than a little sickening.
What do you think of the practice of D&X — puncturing a baby’s skull and suctioning out the brains? Or D&E — taking metal tongs and ripping off the baby’s arms, legs, and other body parts? Some people do that for a living. And you defend them. So enough with the “sickening” language.
And therefore wife-beating should be legal?
Niels, you are the one who equates a woman terminating an unwanted pregnancy to a man beating up his wife or his girlfriend: I don’t, so don’t pretend I do.
I’m arguing that? Wow. I had no idea.
You are arguing that a woman terminating an unwanted pregnancy is committing murder. If that’s truly, really, what you believe, then plainly not even rape would justify abortion. Your argument is that when a woman who is raped goes into a clinic and has the pregnancy terminated, she is committing an identical crime to the one she commits when she goes into the rapist’s office and shoots him dead.
So enough with the “sickening” language.
If you find the detailed descriptions of surgery “sickening”, Niels, my best advice to you is to avoid reading them. All surgical procedures are “sickening” to those unaccustomed to them: but for you to justify the 9-month torment of a teenage girl raped by her father because you cannot bear to think of how the termination of her pregnancy will be carried out: that’s your squeamishness overriding her desperate need.
Niels, you are the one who equates a woman terminating an unwanted pregnancy to a man beating up his wife or his girlfriend: I don’t, so don’t pretend I do.
Jeez, talk about not getting the point. The point is, why would you argue that men who fail to support the right programs aren’t really opposed to wife-beating? Just to make a rhetorical point? Or to argue that wife-beating should be legal? Obviously the former. It’s not the case that wife-beating should be legal if wife-beating opponents fail to support the right programs.
Same for abortion. You’re full of self-righteous denunciations of me and any other person who supposedly fails to support the right government programs but who wants abortion to be illegal anyway. What’s your point there? Just to say, “Boo, I don’t like you”? Or to argue that abortion should not be made illegal until and unless such programs are in place (and probably not even then)?
If you find the detailed descriptions of surgery “sickening”, Niels, my best advice to you is to avoid reading them.
You can’t tell the difference between genuine surgery (intended to remove a tumor or remove an artery blockage or replace a hip socket) and an operation whose sole purpose is to kill? It’s all “surgery”?
You are arguing that a woman terminating an unwanted pregnancy is committing murder. If that’s truly, really, what you believe, then plainly not even rape would justify abortion.
Wrong. Allowing abortion in cases of rape or serious health risk to the mother is, IMHO, directly analogous to the self-defense exception that allows you to kill an adult without penalty.
As to the first point: Do you concede that wife-beating should be illegal, regardless of what “programs” that people support or don’t support? If so, why don’t you realize that the same logic applies to abortion? I may in fact support all the government programs that you claim to support, but I don’t even want to go there, because it is insulting and morally irrelevant to claim that I am somehow barred from opposing abortion (or any other form of killing) until I prove that I’m a good person in your eyes by signing up to support various programs.
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Jesurgislac: In the Netherlands the law says that the baby should be considered a person from the time it could in all likelihood survive outside the womb. In theory that is 24 weeks, in practise no abortions are performed after 22 weeks.
The point is, why would you argue that men who fail to support the right programs aren’t really opposed to wife-beating?
As I explained: if they don’t want to change any of the social structures that mean men can beat their wives with impunity, plainly they’re not opposed to wife-beating.
Similiarly, if you don’t want to work towards a society where economic hardship leads to women terminating a pregnancy because she can’t afford to have another child:
then how can you expect anyone to believe you’re really opposed to abortion? If all you want is to make abortion illegal, then all you want is more illegal abortions.
Allowing abortion in cases of rape or serious health risk to the mother is, IMHO, directly analogous to the self-defense exception that allows you to kill an adult without penalty.
We do not permit a woman who has been raped to kill her rapist days after the event (indeed, women who killed a rapist hours after the event have been charged and convicted of murder). Yet you’re now arguing that a raped woman ought to be allowed to terminate pregnancy from rape – a serious inconsistency from your previous assertions that abortion is murder.
Further, upthread, you declared: “Unsafe illegal abortions” — something that the woman chose, after having sexual relations, which she also chose to do (barring the situation of rape).
This suggest to me that far from perceiving abortion as murder, you perceive pregnancy as a just punishment: a woman who chose to have sex deserves to be punished, whereas a raped woman didn’t choose to have sex and therefore can be allowed an abortion.
If you sincerely thought that abortion was murder, you would oppose it even in the case of rape. You don’t; so, clearly, you don’t. End of story.
You can’t tell the difference between genuine surgery (intended to remove a tumor or remove an artery blockage or replace a hip socket) and an operation whose sole purpose is to kill? It’s all “surgery”?
Terminating a pregnancy is an operation whose sole purpose is to save a woman from an unwanted pregnancy. It’s your interpretation that you’re arguing – your squeamishness that you’re elevating to a moral force – and, as I’ve just demonstrated, your claims to object to abortion on the grounds that it’s all killing fall over when you admit that you’d let it happen in case of rape.
(What that amounts to, of course, if your proposed system was implemented, is that any woman who wanted to terminate an unwanted pregnancy would simply tell the doctor she was raped but prefers not to go the police: effectively, abortion on demand, the only cost the woman being forced to lie to get it. Which would be wrong, but at least it would be abortion on demand…)
Marbel: Jesurgislac: In the Netherlands the law says that the baby should be considered a person from the time it could in all likelihood survive outside the womb. In theory that is 24 weeks, in practise no abortions are performed after 22 weeks.
In the UK, the timelimit on abortions is 28 weeks. In practice, this works out to 24 weeks, unless of course a termination is needed for the survival of the mother. I gather that most states in the US have similiar rules, either self-imposed by the medical profession or superimposed by the state: CDC data on terminations makes clear that, as in most countries where abortion is legal, the vast majority of abortions are carried out in the first trimester, and almost none in the third.
This suggest to me that far from perceiving abortion as murder, you perceive pregnancy as a just punishment: a woman who chose to have sex deserves to be punished, whereas a raped woman didn’t choose to have sex and therefore can be allowed an abortion.
If you sincerely thought that abortion was murder, you would oppose it even in the case of rape. You don’t; so, clearly, you don’t. End of story.
Did I ever say that abortion is “murder”? No. You’re putting words in my mouth again. Can you respond to anything other than strawman arguments? I don’t think abortion is murder (if it occurs early enough), but it’s still bad enough that I don’t want it to happen. (Think of all the things that you believe are less awful than murder — say, cheating on taxes, or corporal punishment in schools, or whatever — but that you still want to be prohibited. Now try to imagine that I feel the same way about abortion. That is, if you intend to respond to anything that I actually say, rather than figments of your own imagination.)
Terminating a pregnancy is an operation whose sole purpose is to save a woman from an unwanted pregnancy.
What a euphemistic way of thinking. Gee, let’s ask ourselves: How is it proposed to “save a woman from an unwanted pregnancy”? By removing the baby after viability and nurturing it to a healthy life? No. By killing it.
Very interesting that even the most devout feminists can’t admit that the whole point of abortion is to kill a life. What are you so afraid of?
You’re like someone who says, “Dropping a nuclear bomb is an operation whose sole purpose is to avoid a longer war,” as if saying that the purpose is to avoid war means you get to ignore the deaths deliberately caused in the bombing.
In the UK, the timelimit on abortions is 28 weeks. In practice, this works out to 24 weeks, unless of course a termination is needed for the survival of the mother.
Not that far apart then :). Though thermination because of the health of the mother is either an emergency ceasarian or induced labour – baby is supposed to survive.
Yes, in the US 88% of the abortions are in the first trimester. If you look at the data Liberal Japonicus posted, I think the majority of people would be fine with a system where abortion was freely available in more or less the first trimester, needed serious grounds in the second trimester and would not happen in the third trimester (emergency birth is not the same as an abortion imho, since the baby supposedly survives). Maybe with a restriction about how the live of the mother takes precedence of the live of the baby unless otherwise specified by the mother.
The group that thinks abortion is murder from the moment of conception is rather small, even Niels has a certain time limit if I read his posts correctly.
I actually think that a law is better than a judicial decision for important things like that. But the US system is so different from how we work that the legal discussion is beyond me 🙂
There are a few difficulties though. First the distrust in the US. I find that I (and most Dutch people, don’t know about the Brits) have much more trust in the good intentions and responsibilities of our government and even of the opposition in politics. In abortion discussions in the States I generally find that people don’t dare to compromise because they are afraid people will start abusing the options, will find a loophole to get their way anyway.
The next problem is that in the US abortions – even legal ones – are less available that in our countries. Which means that women that need an abortion can’t always get one – or can’t always get one in the first trimester. If you want to limit the abortions to more or less that timeframe you have to make abortions more easily available which requires measurements and policies that might be seen as promoting abortion.
Last but not least: the best way to prevent abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancies. 50% of the US pregnancies is unwanted, a figure that really really stuns me. If you want less unwanted pregnancies you need better education, which is often seen as promoting extramarital underage sex, and you need a better availability of anti-conception. In the restrictive religious climate most of the US seems to have that is a hard goal to achieve.
“In the restrictive religious climate most of the US seems to have that is a hard goal to achieve.”
By restrictive religious climate do you mean the kind where all people have freedom of religion like in the U.S. or do mean the kind of restrictions like the Dutch have where Moslems murder those who disagree with them?
If I was going to talk about a “restrictive” religious climate I think the Dutch would be a better example than the U.S.
Well Tim, you are more than welcome to come over and visit and judge for yourself 🙂
Any comments about the actual subject of this thread too?
Congratulations, dutchmarbel, on your restraint. Apparently they teach civility over there.
“Apparently they teach civility over there.”
Along with passive aggressiveness. Funny, I thought calling the US a restrictive religious environment was uncivil. Especially coming from someone who lives in a country where you are murdered or have death threats if you disagree with a particular religious view.
If we read what Dutchmarbel actually wrote we see that the restrictive religous environment isn’t really all that restrictive.
Doesn’t sound like the restrictive religious society has gone wacko just yet. Perhaps Dutch just doesn’t understand that most parents think they should be in charge of raising their children. Even the Supreme court agreed with that just yesterday. That may be different from the Dutch model, but what’s that got to do with religion?
“availability of anti-conception”
Well this is just plain wrong. Condoms are free all over the place in the U.S. not to mention abstinence the most effective and cost-efficient form of birth control.
Tim, from your comments I get the impression that you think the restrictions are a good thing. Yet me calling them restrictions is perceived as an insult?
The Dutch system is different indeed. What is it that you do not like about it, and why do you not like it?
Are condoms free all over the place in the US? And are they actually promoted and is the proper way to use them safely explained? Is it socially unacceptable to have sex without a condom?
Abstinence only is indeed theoretically the safest method (in my highschool days we always joked that the safest anti-conception pill was an asperin, as long as you held it between your knees). In practise however abstinence only programs are damaging for a lot of youngsters. You make sex special (and thus desirable) *and* you do not prepare the kids for having safe sex if they cannot resist the temptation.
If you really want to avoid abortions you have to start with having less unwanted pregnancies (50%… I am still amazed) and in order to do that you have to be realistic and look at what works. Your current administration has done her utmost to STOP proper education even if it means removing information about working policies.
And that is domestic. Abortions and unwanted pregnancies are a major issue in the third world countries and Bush has refused to pay America’s contribution to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for the fourth successive year – even though the expenditure was approved by congress. The Netherlands actually decided to pay your contribution for you…
Niels: I don’t think abortion is murder (if it occurs early enough), but it’s still bad enough that I don’t want it to happen.
Yet you’re not prepared to do anything to make fewer abortions happen: all you want is to make sure that all the abortions that happen are illegal.
Now try to imagine that I feel the same way about abortion.
I can’t. If you felt that abortion was wrong and shouldn’t happen, you wouldn’t want to force women to have illegal abortions: you would want to change society so that fewer unwanted pregnancies occurred. So long as you’re arguing for illegal abortions and claiming that pregnancy is a suitable punishment for women who chose to have sex, I can’t imagine that you feel as strongly about abortion as you evidently do about sexually active women who don’t want to have children, because nothing you’re saying suggests that you do.
Dutch,
“If you really want to avoid abortions you have to start with having less unwanted pregnancies”
I would say if YOU really want to avoid abortions you would start with having closer families. And I confess I am not taking the time to look up the statistics, but I would bet alot of money that kids that come from stable homes are less likely to get an abortion.
See you are not striking at the core of the problem. Weak family units. That is why I disagree with your position. Not because of religion.
You said we lived in a “restrictive religious climate” and I’m pretty sure you didn’t mean it as a compliment. Did you?
First its not even an accurate statement. I’ve been to the red light district and I’ve been to Las Vegas. Take a little trip out of Vegas and you can have all the prositution you can handle. Our TV is just as graphic sexually as yours and our radio is probably more so. I think I recall a nude protest in San Francisco a couple of months ago. I was at a protest in Amsterdam and I did not get to see any naked breasts.
To me your society is more restrictive from a religous perspective because people get murdered for having opinions. We hunt those type of people down in our country even if it takes years and then send them to jail for life and maybe even execute them.
Some restrictions are good and have nothing to do with religion. You could have made all of your points without trying to bring in religion. Religion has very little to do with it for the majority of Americans. I think it is human nature to find it gross to harm a pregnant women. In the 3rd trimester most people can identify with the child independant of their religious belief. We even have laws that treat the baby as an individual before birth. That’s not a religious law is a law based on human nature. I think it is good that we restrict people from murder, from speeding, from rape. Restrictions are neither evil nor religious in and of themselves.
The number of abortions in a country doesn’t necessarily define a country as healthy and free of religion.
You like your system and that’s great. I am fairly happy with ours. Your own post verifies that most Americans are okay with our limited abortion. Why must you try to force your value system on others?
“The Netherlands actually decided to pay your contribution for you…”
While we were busy paying for you to have a real military.
“Apparently they teach civility over there.”
Along with passive aggressiveness.
Dutch, how dare you don’t use pure aggressiveness but resort to this ersatz passive aggressiveness. If you really want to win the argument, you gotta go after the guy, not the argument. No wonder you Dutch have to have the US pull your butts out of the fire everytime. ;^)
I think the religious environment in the US is less restrictive than the Bush administration would like it to be and less restrictive than many relgious conservatives would like it to be. As TimT noted, by far most Americans favor access to very early abortion, especially VERY early abortion such as the morning after pill. However the extremist views have been prevailing in terms of national policy under this administration as Dutchmarbel’s post demonstrates. I can add another example: the national protocols for the medical treatment of rape victims no longer include giving the victim a birth preventative.
Abstinence only education is not effective in preventing young people from conceiving babies. Abstinence, in my opinion, should be part of the curriculum but the main thrust of the curriculum should be responisbility and decisionmaking and contraceptive information needs to be included.
I also feel embarrased at the jeering tone directed toward Dutchmarbel.. She’s a longtime poster and has been very patient and polite to you, Tim, and I think you should use the same tone to her.
Lily,
I don’t understand why you and others think TimT is rude to point out that the Netherlands has more religious restrictions than the U.S.
Where would you rather make a movie that might cast Islam in a negative way, the Netherlands or the U.S.?
Where would you rather be a politician that criticized Islam?
It doesn’t sound like Dutch was paying the U.S. a compliment in her analysis.
I don’t see why Dutch is being civil by implying that the U.S. is a religiously intolerant society when hers seems to be far more dangerous.
TimT: To me your society is more restrictive from a religous perspective because people get murdered for having opinions. We hunt those type of people down in our country even if it takes years and then send them to jail for life and maybe even execute them.
According to Wikipedia, Theo Van Gogh’s murderer was caught and was sentenced to life without parole. And are you seriously implying that nobody gets death threats, or even murdered, for their religious views in the U.S.?
It doesn’t sound like Dutch was paying the U.S. a compliment in her analysis.
I didn’t think that the point of an analysis was to pay compliments. If the fact that an analysis brings out bad points is automatically defined as being ‘uncivil’, well, you may want to check out some other blogs…
Yet you’re not prepared to do anything to make fewer abortions happen: all you want is to make sure that all the abortions that happen are illegal.
As it happens, you’re flat wrong. I’m willing to do plenty. Now that you know this, don’t say otherwise — you’ll be lying. But I’m not willing to submit to an inquisition, or to bow and scrape before someone who imperiously says that I have no right to be against a form of killing until and unless I prove that I’m politically correct. Any more than you would like it if someone said, “Oh, you oppose wife-beating, do you? Well, prove to me that you’re really interested in the problem by showing that you support unemployment programs, etc.” You might well think, “Well, I do support those programs, but it’s none of anyone’s damn business to ask, as if wife-beating becomes legitimate when the right government programs aren’t in place.”
Now try to imagine that I feel the same way about abortion.
I can’t.
Thanks for being honest. There’s your problem, though: You can’t even imagine how pro-lifers think. In fact, you can’t really say that you disagree with pro-lifers — you don’t even know what you’re disagreeing with. You’re disagreeing with straw men. As is seen in the following passage:
If you felt that abortion was wrong and shouldn’t happen, you wouldn’t want to force women to have illegal abortions:
This is silly. “If you felt that stealing was wrong, you wouldn’t want to force people to do it illegally.” That doesn’t even compute. I’m not forcing anyone to steal illegally — that’s the choice that they make. And of course, if stealing is illegal, there will be less of it going on, because at least some people will be deterred, or will make the right choice.
you would want to change society so that fewer unwanted pregnancies occurred.
False dilemma. Let’s do both. Plus, you’re operating on two false assumptions: 1) That all “unwanted” pregnancies are created equal (some are wanted by the female but unwanted by the male, who — thanks to legal abortion — is far better able to pressure the female into making that choice. Moreover, some people who go through with “unwanted” pregnancies find their lives immeasurably enriched by the children who result.) 2) That the number of “unwanted” pregnancies would stay the same. This is false — we’ve been through this all above, so you should know by now that making abortion illegal makes at least some people more careful in their sexual behavior (esp. men).
So long as you’re arguing for illegal abortions and claiming that pregnancy is a suitable punishment for women who chose to have sex,
Caricature alert! I don’t argue that pregnancy is a “suitable punishment.” I happen to love children, and I don’t think they’re a punishment at all. They’re a reward. But when people try to kill them at the early stages of life, I think there’s something wrong, and that people ought to be adult enough to take responsibility for their actions. (Side note: Nice game you’ve got going here. If I say that abortion should never be allowed, you immediately leap to the inflammatory hypothetical of the 14-year-old raped by her father. But if I say that I’d make a tiny exception in this situation, you immediately accuse me of 1) inconsistency, 2) not really caring about the fetus at all, 3) wanting only to punish women, etc.)
I can’t imagine that you feel as strongly about abortion as you evidently do about sexually active women who don’t want to have children, because nothing you’re saying suggests that you do.
Nothing that I’m saying? More evidence that you blow right past anything that I say that doesn’t fit your predetermined caricature. Have you missed the posts where I absolutely decry the practice of ripping fetuses apart, limb from limb? Or suctioning out their brains? Obviously so: When you read such passages, the only thing that you can say is, “It’s surgery,” as if any other “surgical” operation is designed for the sole purpose of killing.
I said: Nice game you’ve got going here. If I say that abortion should never be allowed, you immediately leap to the inflammatory hypothetical of the 14-year-old raped by her father. But if I say that I’d make a tiny exception in this situation, you immediately accuse me of 1) inconsistency, 2) not really caring about the fetus at all, 3) wanting only to punish women, etc.
It strikes me that pro-war people would find the same sort of argument style very useful. Imagine an anti-war person who says, “It’s wrong to kill civilians in war.” Then the pro-war people say, “But what if the Allies are about to liberate 6 million Jews from concentration camps right before they’re put to death, and the only way to conduct the operation involves a civilian death somewhere along the line?” [That is, the pro-war people come up with the most one-sided hypothetical that they can imagine.]
Then, the anti-war person is trapped (just as you’re trying to trap me). If she says, “No, it’s still wrong to do something that kills a civilian,” the pro-war people respond, “How heartless! You’d allow 6 million Jews to die for your rigid ideological beliefs.”
But if the anti-war person says, “OK, I’d allow an exception in that situation,” the pro-war people say, “Aha, what a hypocrite! You don’t really care about the lives of civilians one bit!”
Of course, if the anti-war person is smart, she’d say, “You’re not arguing honestly or in good faith here. You’re just trying to find excuses for killing civilians without any limitations whatsoever.”
Niels: As it happens, you’re flat wrong. I’m willing to do plenty.
*shrug* Yet you were unwilling to say so earlier, and you claim this is because my questions were an “inquisition”. Further, you were making wild claims that “A lot of abortions are obtained by rich and upper-class girls, 1) who simply don’t want to have children yet” which doesn’t sound in the least like someone who’s aware of the economic need to terminate a pregnancy, but rather like someone who resents the idea that a woman might want to have sex and not have a baby.
Nice game you’ve got going here. If I say that abortion should never be allowed, you immediately leap to the inflammatory hypothetical of the 14-year-old raped by her father.
Not in the least hypothetical.
-In 2003-2004, there were an average annual 204,370 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. (cite
-About 44% of rape victims are under age 18. (cite
So, that’s something like 89 thousand teenage girls who are at risk of being pregnant via rape, whom you dismiss as “inflammatory hypotheticals”. Nice.
But if I say that I’d make a tiny exception in this situation, you immediately accuse me of 1) inconsistency, 2) not really caring about the fetus at all, 3) wanting only to punish women, etc.
If you’re going for the moral high ground in a flaming chariot, claiming that abortion is murder, howling your squeamishness about abortion as if it were a moral law, then you have to be prepared to be called on your inconsistencies. If you really think that it’s wrong to abort a fetus, then you cannot make exceptions in the case of rape. If your real rationale is that you think it’s wrong for women to make decisions about their own bodies – as your initial claim that once a woman had chosen to have sex, that meant she was not allowed to choose not to have a baby – then of course you’ll make an exception for rape victims: they didn’t choose to have sex, so you can permit them to escape pregnancy.
Me, I’m absolutely consistent. I think women have a right to decide what to do with our own bodies: when to have sex, if to get pregnant, and if they have to stay pregnant. I think that attempting to force a woman to bear a child she does not want is a monstrous piece of mental and physical cruelty.
You, on the contrary, declare that your morality requires you to campaign for illegal abortions, that women who choose to have sex ought not to be allowed to choose not to be pregnant, and that rich girls in particular ought not to be able to decide they don’t want to be pregnant now. But that a raped woman who didn’t choose to have sex may be allowed to have an abortion. And you decorate all this with squeamishness about the details of abortion, and a claimed objection to killing fetuses – falsified by your readiness to allow it in case of rape. All of which makes consistent sense if your objection is to women making decisions about our own bodies.
So, either you just haven’t thought things through, and your real motivation is a kneejerk horror at the details of abortion, from which you’re flailing and trying to find some rationale why operations that make you squeamish shouldn’t happen, or you have thought things through, you’re quite consistent, and what you consistently want is for women not to be allowed to decide for ourselves.
I think (which is what makes me a different kind of pro-lifer from Sebastian) that once the child is born, the child deserves protection – but a fetus is effectively part of a woman’s body, and it is the pregnant woman who gets to make decisions.
I think (which is what makes me a different kind of pro-lifer from Sebastian)
Jes,
I know you and Seb exchanged posts upstream, but I don’t think it is good or fair to pull him in on this.
liberal japonicus: I know you and Seb exchanged posts upstream, but I don’t think it is good or fair to pull him in on this.
What, because Sebastian is trying very hard not to get involved in two arguments at once? If so, yes, and Sebastian, you should ignore that comment.
claiming that abortion is murder,
For the second time, I didn’t say it was “murder.” Capisce?
For the record, I think it’s not quite as bad as killing a fully functioning adult with a lifetime of experiences and memories and a fully functioning cortex. But it’s pretty nearly as bad as killing a newborn infant (esp. for late-term abortions, which you seem to support by saying that infants deserve protection only after birth).
Think of it this way: Abortion is at least as cruel as skinning a live cat and torturing it to death just because you don’t want it on your property. That’s not “murder,” as cats aren’t the equivalent of humans. But it’s still a bad thing to do, even if you claim to be protecting your own property (or, to mirror your euphemism, “I’m not killing the cat, I’m just ridding my property of unwanted presences.”)
what you consistently want is for women not to be allowed to decide for ourselves.
You couldn’t be more precisely wrong. If I allow a rape exception, that is only because of the principle that women SHOULD be allowed to decide for themselves. If they decide to participate in sexual activity and/or not to use the appropriate protection, they have made the decision, and once another life comes along, they can’t kill it. If a woman is raped, however, she never made a decision to be put in that position.
Further, you were making wild claims that “A lot of abortions are obtained by rich and upper-class girls, 1) who simply don’t want to have children yet
Wild claims? You think rich people don’t get abortions? Why on earth would you think that? Because it’s too troubling to admit that many people have abortions not out of economic “necessity,” but because of 1) parents’ demands; 2) boyfriends’ demands; 3) the desire not to interrupt one’s high-powered career; etc. In other words, there are lots of abortions that are not even conceivably borne out of hardship, and that are not going to go away just because you get your pipe dream of government programs.
But it’s pretty nearly as bad as killing a newborn infant (esp. for late-term abortions, which you seem to support by saying that infants deserve protection only after birth).
As Dutchmarbel pointed out, a late-term abortion can also be as an early Caeserian: if the fetus is healthy but the mother is dying, after 24 weeks surgeons may operate to save the mother and to attempt to save an extreme prenatal.
The operation you are so squeamish about, sometimes called a “partial birth abortion” is typically carried out when the fetus is dead or is so maimed that, if birthed, the infant would survive for hours in extreme pain. You seem to feel your squeamishness is enough to justify forcing a woman whose fetus is dead to carry it to term, risking her health: or forcing a woman who knows the fetus she carries will die at birth to risk her mental health by living for months with that knowledge, instead of days.
Abortion is at least as cruel as skinning a live cat and torturing it to death just because you don’t want it on your property.
You’re refusing to distinguish between first trimester abortions, second trimester, and late trimester.
A first trimester abortion is exactly as cruel as putting salt on slugs in the garden, or setting beer traps in the sure knowledge that the slugs will fall into them and drown. (Are you a gardener?)
A second trimester abortion is exactly as cruel as killing a chicken. (Are you vegetarian?)
A third trimester abortion is exactly as cruel as allowing animals to be experimented on in laboratories. (Are you a member of PETA?)
Trying to claim that aborting a fetus that hasn’t got arms, legs, head, or spinal cord yet is like “skinning a cat” suggests that either you’re not familiar with first-trimester fetal development, or you’ve never seen a live cat.
If I allow a rape exception, that is only because of the principle that women SHOULD be allowed to decide for themselves. If they decide to participate in sexual activity and/or not to use the appropriate protection, they have made the decision, and once another life comes along, they can’t kill it.
Precisely my point: you believe women shouldn’t be allowed to make our own decisions. You’re arguing that no woman has a right to choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy – at a guess, because no man has that right. Your analogy of pregnant women as embezzlers suggests you feel a terrible jealousy of women for having a right to choose no man possesses. Are you in analysis?
Are you in analysis?
Dial it back a little, folks. Neither of you is the shrink equivalent of Bill Frist.
“Neither of you is the shrink equivalent of Bill Frist.”
But which is the ObWings equivalent to Charles Krauthammer?
A third trimester abortion is exactly as cruel as allowing animals to be experimented on in laboratories. (Are you a member of PETA?)
For those who wonder in future years why the federally guaranteed right to abortion ended up being overruled by the courts in the early twenty-first century, let it be noted that this is a relatively concise (aside from the PETA crack) description of the position of prominent pro-choice organizations in the US, replicated here by design or happenstance. Never mind that Roe explicitly noted that the state had a legitimate interest in protecting third-term fetuses, or that the only difference between a premature baby and a late term fetus (assuming no fatal birth defects) is geography. This is definitely another case of–from my POV as pro-choice–of “get off of my side, please.”
A third trimester abortion is exactly as cruel as allowing animals to be experimented on in laboratories. (Are you a member of PETA?)
For those who wonder in future years why the federally guaranteed right to abortion ended up being overruled by the courts in the early twenty-first century, let it be noted that this is a relatively concise (aside from the PETA crack) description of the position of prominent pro-choice organizations in the US, replicated here by design or happenstance. Never mind that Roe explicitly noted that the state had a legitimate interest in protecting third-term fetuses, or that the only difference between a premature baby and a late term fetus (assuming no fatal birth defects) is geography. This is definitely another case of–from my POV as pro-choice–of “get off of my side, please.”
Along with that, the hypocrisy argument is…well, I don’t find it compelling. You might (or might not) expose Niels as a hypocrite, and that would do exactly zero to the merit of his arguments. Or do you hold that the merits of an argument are invested entirely in Niels? If we subtract Jesurgislac from the world (NOT advocating this or suggesting this, to be clear) do all of her arguments suddenly lose validity?
No. That way lies fallacy. Outside of that, you two have done a great job (my opinion) verbalizing your opinions, and given me much to think about. And given the emotionality of the debate, you’ve also both done much to keep those reined in. Thanks for that.
Slart.
Thanks, S. People would do well to remember why the “ad hominem” argument is a fallacy.
As for J’s latest: Trying to claim that aborting a fetus that hasn’t got arms, legs, head, or spinal cord yet is like “skinning a cat” suggests that either you’re not familiar with first-trimester fetal development, or you’ve never seen a live cat.
The first trimester includes 8 weeks, doesn’t it? When the fetus looks like this.
Dan: But which is the ObWings equivalent to Charles Krauthammer?
Heh. Okay, Slarti: that last question was over the top. Consider it unasked.
The first trimester includes 8 weeks, doesn’t it?
The first trimester also includes the blastocyst stage.
You are claiming that aborting a fetus at any time in the development is exactly as cruel as skinning a cat alive. That means you are claiming that aborting a fetus that hasn’t got arms, legs, head, or spinal cord yet is like “skinning a cat”. As I said,that suggests that either you’re not familiar with first-trimester fetal development, or you’ve never seen a live cat.
The picture you’ve just linked to is of a fetus the size of a kidney bean. You’re trying to claim that aborting a kidney bean is like skinning a cat? Are you unfamiliar with kidney beans, or with cats?
Surely you’re not serious — you’re comparing a fetus with arms, legs, a brain, etc., to a “kidney bean”? Why? Because the worth of a human being is proportional to size?
Niels: Surely you’re not serious — you’re comparing a fetus with arms, legs, a brain, etc., to a “kidney bean”? Why?
Because a fetus at 8 weeks old is the size of a kidney bean. Standard comparator. You’re posting a link to an idealized image without any scale: let’s keep in mind that should the woman have a miscarriage at this stage, she could easily mistake it for a period with a heavy flow – and many woman undoubtedly did in the days before cheap at-home pregnancy tests. (It’s been estimated that as many as 50% of conceptions end in spontaneous abortion: certainly 15-20% of pregnancies that continue long enough for the fetus to be detected end in spontaneous abortion.) In the bad old days when abortion was illegal – the days you want to return to – any young woman who had a miscarriage who went to a hospital for help would be harassed and bullied by the medical staff just in case she’d had an illegal abortion. I assume that harassment of women who miscarried a fetus they wanted is yet another price you’re ever so willing for other people to pay, just so long as women don’t get to make decisions for ourselves and your squeamishness is appeased.
Niels, the kind of bright line that you’re trying to draw is precisely the kind of argument that drove me from being a moderate supporter of fairly restrictive abortion rights to being a near-absolutist pro-choicer.
Just saying.
Niels, the kind of bright line that you’re trying to draw is precisely the kind of argument that drove me from being a moderate supporter of fairly restrictive abortion rights to being a near-absolutist pro-choicer.
Just saying.
The picture you’ve just linked to is of a fetus the size of a kidney bean. You’re trying to claim that aborting a kidney bean is like skinning a cat? Are you unfamiliar with kidney beans, or with cats?
“Houston–we have self-parody!”
I have no idea what Jack is talking about.
J: The really interesting (and sad) thing for me is that when I or other prolifers look at a picture of the 8-week-old fetus, we don’t see a “punishment” or an attacker or a euphemism. We think, “Wow, isn’t life amazing? And to think that we all started out life this way. What a precious little thing that should be protected.”
Whereas other people look at the 8-week-old fetus, and their only thought is, “How can I rationalize killing it?”
For what it’s worth: whatever fetusses in the first trimester might look like, and whatever size they are, they are not sentient. Early on (at, say, 8 weeks), they don’t have nerve cells, and so couldn’t possibly feel pain. Until (people now think) at least 22-ish weeks, their nervous systems have not organized themselves to the point where any kind of sentience is a possibility.
So I think that comparisons to skinning live cats are all wrong.
If you want an analogy that makes clear that nascent human life is valuable, but doesn’t get into issues of cruelty (which aren’t appropriate in the absence of sentience), it would probably be better to say: imagine that a work of art is lodged in your body. There is no way of getting it out for the next nine months without destroying it. During those nine months, it will become progressively more uncomfortable, causing all sorts of bodily changes, and carrying a small but non nonexistent risk of serious illness or death. Suppose we all agree that it’s wrong to destroy any work of art just for fun — the way I would if, say, I saw a work of art on display and thought it would be cool to take a sledgehammer to it. Does it follow that I can’t remove the work of art in my analogy from my body, even at the cost of destroying it? Even if I never agreed either to its being there, or even to any act that carried a risk of its being there?
The really interesting (and sad) thing for me is that when I or other prolifers look at a picture of the 8-week-old fetus, we don’t see a “punishment” or an attacker or a euphemism.
So why do you try to make pregnancy into a punishment, then? Why aren’t you an enthusiastic advocate of every child a wanted child? What is it about you that makes you want to force women into illegal abortions or a horror of nine months unwanted pregnancy?
Every pro-choice woman I know who became pregnant said that knowing her pregnancy was a choice made her feel even more richly what a wonderful thing it was: and know more certainly that any woman who becomes pregnant and doesn’t want to be ought not to be denied an abortion.
Yet you feel that a fetus ought to be made into a punishment, that a woman ought to be forced to feel invaded and colonized, required to know that she has no choice, she isn’t allowed to decide for herself about this vitally important issue. To me, your rhetoric is as criminal towards the miracle of life as (even though I’m not Catholic) I would feel about a priest who took sacramental bread and thrust it forcibly down the throats of his parishioners, making some of them choke and die, and making all of them associate receiving Communion with something horrifying and unpleasant that is forced on them whether they will it or not.
My feeling is that a pregnant woman who is happy to be pregnant is a beautiful realisation of a human being doing something wonderful that uses all of her body and that she is happy to be doing – like a trained athlete running for pleasure.
For you to wish to force pregnancy on a woman who does not want to be pregnant and then to argue that you are justified in doing this because you see the “miracle of life” in a photograph of the fetus, while you disregard as irrelevant the physical and mental misery of the woman carrying the fetus, seems so absurd I can’t even think of an analogy to it.
So, at what stage (if any) does it become murder, in your book at least, to abort a fetus, Jesurgislac? Just trying to calibrate, here. Also, is there an abrupt transition for you between not-murder and murder, or is there a continuum, or is there a series of jumps between fine but guilt-inducing to not-fine and guilt-inducing to…whatever.
I actually don’t have an argument, here, just trying to see how you’re thinking of this.
Me, I’d consider drawing the line at assisted viability, but I’m so unconvinced of that as a legal stricture that I’d have the government emplace on others that I’m reluctant to even bring it up.
For you to wish to force pregnancy on a woman who does not want to be pregnant and then to argue that you are justified in doing this because you see the “miracle of life” in a photograph of the fetus, while you disregard as irrelevant the physical and mental misery of the woman carrying the fetus, seems so absurd I can’t even think of an analogy to it.
That’s because you aren’t thinking at all. You keep saying that I’m “forcing pregnancy” on women. Nonsense. I’m not forcing them to become pregnant — they and their boyfriends/husbands are the ones who are responsible. Why do you keep insisting that all people are completely without moral agency . . . except for me?
Why aren’t you an enthusiastic advocate of every child a wanted child?
I am! Every child a wanted child — a great idea. But how do we get there? By killing off the unwanted ones? Hmmm, seems awfully Spartan to me. How about this: If you really, really don’t want a child, don’t have sex at all. Biology 101 here: Sex often leads to babies. If you can’t handle that fact, you’re like a person who jumps off a cliff and then complains about the law of gravity. Or alternatively, use birth control and a condom. In combination, that’s probably 99% effective.
Then if, by chance, a baby does come along, try to change your attitude towards your own child. People’s attitudes aren’t fixed in stone, you know. They can change. If you decide to, you can welcome the child that you have created, and then it will indeed be a “wanted” child.
Man, I would kill for a good pot of red beans and rice…
Sorry, off to bed now…
Niels: am! Every child a wanted child — a great idea. But how do we get there? By killing off the unwanted ones?
By giving women the choice to terminate unwanted pregnancies, of course – not by killing unwanted children. Though as it happens, the unwanted children whom you want to be born, but whom you are unwilling to support once they arrive, are much more likely to die young or by violence.
How about this: If you really, really don’t want a child, don’t have sex at all.
Ah: we’re back to your notion that once a woman has sex, she shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions. Again, Niels, you’re full of ideas about a price you’re willing for other people to pay. Cheap talk: and you like the idea of the priest getting to force Communion bread down his parishioner’s throats, don’t you?
liberalj Man, I would kill for a good pot of red beans and rice…
I’m for a big bowl of good chilli.
Slarti: So, at what stage (if any) does it become murder, in your book at least, to abort a fetus, Jesurgislac?
Never. Trying to pinpoint a difference in the week-by-week development of a fetus seems to me to be absurd, especially when there’s one clear change that can be pinpointed: that of birth. Trying to claim that it’s murder for a woman to abort a fetus at any point is ridiculous.
Slarti: I’ll bite. I think that abortion is always horrible, for starters. It just is. It’s always tragic, though in different ways in different cases. If anyone thinks that it’s not — that it would (for instance) be perfectly OK to try on purpose to get pregnant just to have abortions, as a sort of hobby or something, or to aspire to have abortions in all 50 states, then I can’t imagine what they’re thinking. (It doesn’t follow from this that I’d force them not to have an abortion. In fact, given my beliefs about early abortions, I’d be inclined to think: dear God, please don’t let any kid have to be raised by someone who thinks like that!)
I think that it’s clearly OK until the child becomes sentient. Until that point, there are no feelings, no pain or pleasure, no thoughts, no plans, no consciousness, no mental anything — none of the things that leap to mind when I ask myself: what makes killing, say, me so wrong? And sentience is supposed not to be present until at least halfway through pregnancy.
This, to me, is a genuine bright line. And note that taking mental stuff — including feelings as well as thoughts — does not imply anything about thinking that people who are smarter have more rights, etc. I take this to be the threshold at which rights and interests enter the picture, not something whose level is directly correlated with more rights. (Compare: you need to have a certain level of maturity, we think, to vote. It doesn’t follow that especially mature people get more than one vote. We take age as a proxy for maturity level, and treat reaching a given age as a threshold: before it, no vote; after it, one vote; never three votes or a hundred.)
After sentience kicks in, I tend to view this as a gradual process: the closer to birth, the more leery I am of abortion, and the more of a justification I think one needs. I would be fine, for instance, with banning third-trimester abortions except when the mother’s life was at risk.
I think, by the way, that viability is a hard criterion to defend, not just because it depends on the state of technology rather than anything that seems morally significant, but also because we are getting better and better at saving the lives of premature babies, but the babies we save often go on to lead awful lives. The rates of all sorts of illnesses — serious and incurable — are way, way higher, as are the rates of quite serious brain damage. Offhand, I would think that it would be a lot easier for us to go on lowering the age at which we could save kids’ lives than to make those lives remotely bearable.
By giving women the choice to terminate unwanted pregnancies, of course – not by killing unwanted children.
Great — so you’re against all abortion, then. I’m all for terminating pregnancies, right about the 9-month mark. As long as the children aren’t killed in an abortion, that’s wonderful. Glad to see that we agree on that.
Hilzoy — you might get through better than me. Try telling J why it’s a bit more than just “surgery” to abort a 40-week-old fetus (as she apparently puts the line at “birth”).
Niels: Great — so you’re against all abortion, then.
Don’t be silly, Niels: no one would ever equate a fetus with a child, except someone who knew nothing about either children or fetuses. Presumably, that’s you, since you’re cooing and gooing over a fetus the size of a kidney bean.
A final point, I guess; your comments throughout this thread have shown real contempt for women – all women – but to me, the worst contempt is shown when you reverence an 8-week old fetus, while regarding as a mere container, whose feelings can be disregarded as unimportant, a pregnant woman.
Niels: Try telling J why it’s a bit more than just “surgery” to abort a 40-week-old fetus
Try finding me an example – just one – of anyone aborting a 40-week-old fetus, Niels.
hilzoy:
Thanks; all of that makes a great deal of sense. I frequently forget that viability is not a line so much as a record that keeps getting broken and in a couple of decades might be quite different from what it is at present. The sentience thing is also somewhat deeper than people tend to treat it, as it’s more a potentiality for sentience than actual sentience.
Jesurgislac, I’m a little disappointed that you’ve in effect declined to make any differentiation between abortions as a function of time in gestation. The alternative being that you don’t see any difference at all, but I doubt that’s true. If I’ve misunderstood, I imagine you’ll be quick to correct me.
Slarti: yeah, viability is like a record. And the prognosis for kids born at, say, 24 weeks is just awful.
Real examples aren’t the point. The point is, you’re defending abortion up to the moment of birth. Merely “surgery,” you say. Can you defend your position, rather than backing down on the grounds that it never happens anyway?
your comments throughout this thread have shown real contempt for women – all women –
What baloney. As if saying, “Don’t kill your unborn baby” is a sign of disrespect, rather than a sign that I view them as adult moral agents who aren’t just prisoners of economic forces, but who can do the right thing.
when you reverence an 8-week old fetus, while regarding as a mere container, whose feelings can be disregarded as unimportant, a pregnant woman.
Can you write anything without resorting to such caricatured rhetoric? Saying “don’t kill the 8-week-old fetus” isn’t the same thing as “reverence.” That should be pretty obvious. And I don’t regard pregnant women as “mere containers.” I regard them as mothers. Which is what they are, biologically speaking.
If you really want to hear some contempt, ask me what I think of men who 1) refuse to wear condoms, 2) impregnate women, and 3) demand that the woman get an abortion because they’re too damn lazy and irresponsible to be a father. I suspect you won’t ask me that, though, because it would require admitting that abortion is really for the man’s benefit in quite a substantial number of cases.
Hilzoy — what do you think about Don Marquis’s argument for “Why Abortion is Immoral“? As I recall, he points out that what really makes murder wrong is that it deprives somebody of a future. This is a reason that applies to fetuses just as much as to anyone else. Current sentience (which you cite) can’t be the marker, because then it would be OK to kill someone who had been put in a coma. (If you know the person is never coming out of a coma, it might arguably be the case that letting them die is permissible. But if you knew for a fact that the person would come out of a coma in 9 months? You’d be depriving that person of a future.)
That’s not necessarily an argument that abortion should be illegal. Just that it’s morally wrong (which is more than a lot of people will admit).
Niels: I think it doesn’t work. For one thing, I don’t, as it happens, think that that’s what’s wrong with murder. For another, I think it’s very hard to explain why his argument, were it valid, wouldn’t also apply to sperm and eggs. (The response ‘but they don’t have a future unless you do all sorts of things to them’ would plainly apply to embryos as well, so that doesn’t work.)
What do you think of Judith Thompson’s violinist example?
(For everyone else: Thompson says: everyone thinks that the main question in the abortion debate is whether the fetus is a person, etc. I’m not so sure. So let’s suppose for the sake of argument that a fetus is a person. Does it follow that you can’t abort it? Not obviously. Analogy:
Suppose you wake up one day to find yourself hooked up to a famous violinist. He has a rare disease, and needs to be hooked up to your kidneys for nine months. (Suppose you have a rare blood type, or something that means that only you can do this.) Knowing this, the Society of Music Lovers has kidnapped you, drugged you, and hooked you up to him. If you unhook yourself, he will die. Are you obliged to stay hooked up to him for the full nine months? Thompson says: no. It would be nice of you if you did, but it is not wrong of you to say: wait, I didn’t ask for this, I’m sorry about the violinist’s disease and all, but I am not going to stay here hooked up to him for nine months just because you hooked me up to him against my will.
An analogy only to rape cases, of course. She has other arguments, but let’s leave them aside.)
Oh, and about sentience: in my original comment, I said that before sentience appears, none of the various mental capacities that figure in my view about what makes it wrong to kill someone have come into existence. sentience is the first, but it’s not the only one. In the case of a comatose person, autonomy will generally have kicked in, and killing someone is depriving her of her autonomy, whether she’s comatose or not. (So long as there’s a chance of her coming out.)
Marquis deals with the sperm/egg objection quite handily, IMHO:
Niels: But I wasn’t arguing about contraception; I was arguing that killing either sperm or eggs deprives them of a future that they could have if only they combined in some way. I don’t see any reason not to say that a sperm and an egg could enjoy a future together, and thus that contraception harms two beings by depriving each of them of a future they would share. Nor do I see why my original argument is affected by this somewhat extraneous argument of Marquis’.
I appreciate the argument for the immorality of abortion made by neils. I have always thought that some of the anti-abortion folks were perfectly sincere and had no other agenda beyond their belief that abortion was the ending of a life and therefore immoral. (I object to the self-aggrandizement of calling ones’s self pro-life exclusvely based on attitude toward abortion but that’s another argument). BUT everyone thinks it is ok to kill other people. Why is the killing of a fetus (pre-sentient) immoral and the killing of an Iraqi child as collateral damage not immoral? I’m not trying to put Niels on the spot here. I don’t know what he thinks about Iraq. My point is that everyone decides under some circumstances that the benefits of killing someone else outweighs the immorality of murder and they create exceptions to the “Thou shalt not kill” rule. Given that reality, why the overwhelming interest in protecting a being that cannot think or feel? Why not be more concerned about the suffering of those who can think and feel such as civilians in war? (again, maybe Neils is just as concerned about this.)
Society makes a number of fairly arbitrary distinctions between those that it is ok to kill and those that it isn’t. The distinction i am comfortable with is between not-capable-of-sentience and sentient.To me the moral issue involved in the morning after pill or a very early abortion is nowhere as serious as the moral issue of accepting the death of the occasional innocent in order to have a death penalty or accepting the deaths of civilians in order to achieve through aggression a political goal. I guess I am conceptualizing pre-sentient beings as being pre-human rather like eggs and sperm. Therefore the debate over the morality of very early abortions seems to me to be of less importance than the debate over the Iraq war or the death penalty.
Hilzoy — because a sperm and egg, individually, do not have any identifiable future? I thought that was the point. If you have conception — sperm and egg together — you can point to an intact entity that has a future. But if you have a sperm by itself, does it make sense to say, “Here’s an entity that already has a future lying ahead of it”? No — sperms never have any future whatsoever until and unless they are joined with an egg. Same goes for the egg by itself. Throughout the entire history of the universe, there has never been a solitary sperm, or a solitary egg, that had a future in and of itself. But a sperm and egg joined together — well, that’s how all of us mammals began our lives. That’s where our futures began.
Slarti: Jesurgislac, I’m a little disappointed that you’ve in effect declined to make any differentiation between abortions as a function of time in gestation.
Slartibartfast, I’m more than a little disappointed that you ask me one question – “At what point in gestation do I consider abortion to be murder?” and then claim that because I don’t consider abortion to be murder at any point, that I’m not making any differentiation between abortions as a function of time in gestation.
If you wanted to know what I think about early, mid, and late abortions, you should have asked me that question, shouldn’t you?
Oh, and Niels? Just for you.
Again, the tack that this discussion has taken is proof positive of the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Roe privacy based doctrine for justifying federal constitutional protection of abortion. As The Brethren noted, Justice Potter Stewart signed onto Roe (in spite of having dissented in Griswold) only after language that made clear that a fetus was not to be considered a “person” was added to the opinion. The reason he insisted on this was obvious–“privacy”–which was a shaky ground for creating a right to contraception as far as any real constitutional language was concerned–is laughably inadequate as grounds for justifying abortion *unless* you declare fetuses to be nonpeople. Jesurgislac’s comments above *aren’t* extreme by the standards of pro-choice activists–it’s part of their basic approach to declare that a fetus is no more a person than is a hangnail. Since the public as a whole doesn’t buy this, it remains an obvious vulnerable point to attack abortion rights jurisprudence with. An argument that should have been made around clear constitutional language and a reasonable balancing test has been marked by unreasonable absolutes based on incompetent constitutional arguments and a knowledge that the structure being defended is very, very vulnerable to attack: an obvious flipside to the “constitutional rights are what five Justices say they are” approach that the Left has defended for decades now is that once five conservative justices who are willing to play by those rules are on the Court, liberals will have a problem. Chickens are coming home to roost, after a long time in coming.
M. Scott: actually, it’s not part of our basic approach to say that “a fetus is no more a person than is a hangnail.” (Iirc, the aactual quote comes from a conservative talking about how she used to think before seeing the light, back in the early 70s.) There are lots and lots of pro-choice people (e.g., me) who don’t take that view at all.
Niels: “Hilzoy — because a sperm and egg, individually, do not have any identifiable future? I thought that was the point. If you have conception — sperm and egg together — you can point to an intact entity that has a future. But if you have a sperm by itself, does it make sense to say, “Here’s an entity that already has a future lying ahead of it”? No — sperms never have any future whatsoever until and unless they are joined with an egg.”
— Ok, now we get to such questions as: what do you think is involved in “having an identifiable future”, or being an “intact entity”? It would be one thing to say something like: an entity with a given set of DNA must have a future as an entity with that same set of DNA. A bit morally arbitrary, but OK. However, that wasn’t part of your original argument, nor was the identifiability of the future. (And how “identifiable”, exactly, is the future of a human infant? There’s an awful lot we don’t know about that future. Almost everything, in fact.)
A sperm, or an egg, will continue to live if, and only if, it joins with (respectively) an egg or a sperm. If it continues to live, it will have a future. If not, it will die. (That it has the same future as the egg/sperm with which it joins is I think irrelevant.) If we either kill it or prevent it from joining with an egg/sperm, we deprive it of its future. If depriving a living human being — and eggs and sperm are human (not feline, not canine, but human) beings (not fictions or imaginary objects or nonexistent things, but actual beings), and alive — is wrong, why isn’t this?
To my mind, what this shows is that “depriving something that’s living and human of its future” is not wrong, at least not without a lot more clarification. But then, I wasn’t relying on Marquis to start with.
Scott,
You made this specific point a while back (in a different thread) and I thought it was quite good in regards to abortion and Roe, but I wonder when you say:
an obvious flipside to the “constitutional rights are what five Justices say they are” approach that the Left has defended for decades now is that once five conservative justices who are willing to play by those rules are on the Court, liberals will have a problem.
by what mechanism(s) did those norms for any number of things in the US move/evolve/change. I don’t want to put words into your mouth, but the impression I get is that you feel that the Court has been (at least under the liberal ascendancy) the main mover of these norms. I agree that Roe is not a very good decision, but not because of the outcome, but because of the reasoning. However, would you claim that the ‘Left’ has somehow used the Supremes as a vehicle to create social change? Or do you have something else in mind when you expand your claim?
For the record: the picture Niels linked to was an embryo: AFAIK it is a fetus only after week 8.
The first time I saw my much wanted and much loved 7 yo son he was a tiny little blob of 8 cells. There were two embryo’s actually but one of them had a feeding cell and I knew that if one of the made it it would be the one who was smart enough to take a lunch bag 🙂
At that time I loved him for the potential of becoming a baby. When only one embryo implanted I did not feel I had lost a baby, but more like I lost a change at a twin baby. The remaining embryo’s I gladly donated to research because the period they were allowed to work on them they would never be more than a clump of cells.
During the pregnancy the feeling slowly changed and the blob with potential slowly changed into the unknown baby that would be our child, but that was a process.
I had a friend who had triplets (from 2 embryo’s) and when they were born their added weight was slightly more than half the weight of my 11 pound baby. The smallest one was a 730 grams tiny boy that would not fit into your handpalm. Yet all three are healthy 5 yo children now. With glasses, and one has a short attention span, but otherwise they are fine. I have friends who spent hours or even days with their premature babies (born at 22, 23 weeks gestation) before they died. Those were babies, were their beloved children, not blobs of cells.
For me at the start of pregnancy there is nothing more than a blob with potential that with a lot of good care and effort and luck can grow into a baby. During pregnancy the blob slowly becomes a human child and as such a person of its own, entitled to the protection of a society. But at the start it is the mother who will face the enormous impact that the endproduct (a child) will have on her life and she is the one who is entitled to decide about her own body and her own life.
In a perfect world there would not be a need for abortion because every pregnancy would be a wonderfull event that people chose for and are commited too. Unwanted pregnancies are a sad thing.
In real life people have sex because at least one party (and hopefully both) wanted to engage in an activity that ought to be pleasant. Babies are not a goal but a side effect (and as someone who has been through the treadmill of fertility problems I can assure you that it is much more fun if it is not aimed mainly at procreation 🙂 ).
No matter how you feel about abortion and till which moment you think it is allowed; everybody agrees that it would be best if it was not necessary at all because there would be no unwanted pregnancies. No matter how you feel about abstinence only (I think it is bad, I wouldn’t want my kids to go for it, but that is a different thread) in practise 88% of the youngsters who aim for it fail. So in practise preaching only abstinence only doesn’t prevent unwanted pregnancies.
In practise making abortion illegal will not prevent many many many women from trying to abort an unwanted pregnancy. Assumptions about how men having sex will suddenly use condoms are not supported by any evidence. And even if they were: you would still make condoms available and teach people how to use them. Preaching abstinence only is not going to achieve that.
If you wanted to know what I think about early, mid, and late abortions, you should have asked me that question, shouldn’t you?
And, on the other hand, if I didn’t want to ask you that, I’d ask you something else. Like, for example, what I asked you.
If you think I’ve assumed something unwarranted in the question, have at it with brickbats.
by what mechanism(s) did those norms for any number of things in the US move/evolve/change.
In some cases the popular will was the prime mover–I’d certainly say that was the case for the civil rights movement, in spite of the major Supreme Court cases regarding school desegregation (which, IMO, merely undid a wilful misreading of the clear intent of the post-Civil War constitutional amendments). Griswold was and remains appalling constitutional writing, but it more or less reflected the popular view at the time, and as such was mostly unpopular with those who prefer Supreme Court opinions that don’t resemble something one would produce under the influence of peyote. Roe bootstrapped a badly reasoned constitutional doctrine into an area where it really didn’t belong, doing so by inserting another new doctrine that immediately reminded some of the most despised rhetoric in the history of the Court–arguing that “they aren’t really people” has a rather dark history in US jurisprudence. In short, Roe was a naked assertion of Bill Brennan’s Rule of Five–and the “evolving standards” method by which liberal majorities have been dispensing with the nasty little requirement of constitutional amendments is another. The problem with constitutional law forged in this manner–often without popular majorities to support them–is that when a new majority takes over they have little reason to pay those rulings any respect–they are castles made of sand and air which may be swept away at need.
Also, as a historical note–remember that in the early part of the 20th century, it was the conservative wing of the Supreme Court who was inclined to create doctrines out of whole cloth to subvert “progressive” legislation. The Roosevelt Court more or less brought an end to this and helped create a consensus that the federal courts shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing. The Warren Court broke that agreement in the 1960’s, and there has been enough of a liberal presence on the Court–in spite of Republican appointees–to keep the conservatives from playing catchup ever since. This may be about to change, and–though I’m sure to find some of the decisions that result not to my liking–I’m hard pressed to see why such changes are somehow not fair play under the system created in the last forty years.
Thanks for responding, M Scott. Obviously, there are some points that I don’t agree precisely (my arc on this is much like Jackmormons), but it’s good to know that you allow for the point that popular will has moved on some issues as it holds out some hope that there is some middle ground on some of these issues (but sadly, abortion is probably not one of them)
What if you came to each abortion-seeking mother and said, “Thanks to the advances of medical sciences, we can painlessly remove the fetus from your body at any stage, incubate it, and then give you your baby back in a few months.” How many women would say, “Sure, I’m happy to have a new baby, I just wanted to avoid the pregnancy part?” Not many, I’d bet. What most of them want (or what most of them seek at the behest of parents or boyfriends) is for the fetus to be dead and gone.
What I find very interesting here is that the question is only put to women. Why can’t men be asked if they are willing to bring up the baby?
You’d admit that it takes more than a woman to create a child. And if the woman is not needed to nurture the child for the 9 months of pregnancy, why should she have more responsibility for the child’s care than the man? Try as I might, the only reason I can think of for excluding men from this science fiction scenario is that you automatically assume that women are the only ones who are supposed to bear the responsibility for bringing up a child. If there is anything else behind it, please do let me know.
Slarti: Like, for example, what I asked you.
My point is that you asked one question, got an answer, and then took as an answer to a different question, which you had chosen not to ask me.
If you think I’ve assumed something unwarranted in the question, have at it with brickbats.
You’re assuming (unwarranted) that because at no stage do I think abortion is murder, that I make no distinction at all between early, mid, and late abortions. You appear to be assuming that the only distinction that can be made is murder/not-murder.
You’re assuming (unwarranted) that because at no stage do I think abortion is murder, that I make no distinction at all between early, mid, and late abortions.
I invite you to reread what I originally asked you:
I’m guessing you missed that. Probably my fault, given my earlier tendencies to caricature the opinions of others as typical of some large political group and then build a bonfire under them. Also understandable, because I may be in the lower half of the distribution as far as communication skills go. But I strive to change, so I’d like to underscore that my question was actually about how you view abortion in terms of gradation of wrongness (or rightness, if that’s more applicable). I’m not at all seeking to use those opinions to play gotcha with your policy preferences. I’m so completely divided on this issue that I’m just looking at what people think about it, for the time being. Divided, in the sense that at some stage whose exact location in gestation time is unclear to me, abortion is utterly, completely wrong. Divided also because I can’t see a clear path from that feeling to legislation that works, or to simply leaving things be.
If you don’t want to share, fine. I understand that one’s private thoughts are private. It would still be disappointing, but not in a way that reflects badly on you.
so I’d like to underscore that my question was actually about how you view abortion in terms of gradation of wrongness (or rightness, if that’s more applicable).
Okay. Well, leaving aside the issue of murder, then:
During the first trimester, abortion is a simple, same-day procedure. In any developed country – that is, where resources are available, and no child should be growing up ignorant – there seems no valid reason why any woman who discovers she’s pregnant and doesn’t want to be shouldn’t have abortion within the first trimester, just when she wants it.
During the second trimester, the procedure is a little more complicated, but there may well be good reasons why a woman didn’t have the abortion during the first trimester: inability to get to a clinic in time, in the US where many states have limited access: fear/shame (especially in a young woman) or simple inexperience – a teenage girl whose periods have just started will have been told that during her first few months of menstruation, she’ll have extremely irregular periods. So, while it’s a more serious operation, the fetus is still not viable and not sentient, and there is no good reason to pass legislation denying women abortions in the second trimester: it’s certainly a judgement call, but it’s a judgement call that only the woman herself, advised by her physician, is qualified to make.
In the third trimester, as Marbel already pointed out upthread, especially as the fetus develops towards the threshold of viability, it slides more into a medical judgement call. I’d have no problem saying that, in the third trimester, a woman can only get an abortion if she and her doctor agree that she should – and if it’s a matter of her health only, and the fetus is late-term enough to be viable and healthy, then if both she and her doctor concur, do an early delivery and hope.
Rights can only be granted to a fetus by removing those rights from a pregnant woman. I see no good reason to remove any rights from a pregnant woman, and good reason not to dehumanize a woman and make of her only a non-sentient container or a brood animal at any point in her pregnancy. Therefore, I am opposed to any legislation on abortion beyond that requiring medical advice.
From zero to nine months, the woman pregnant is the one most intimately concerned, and she is effectively (and morally) the one who gets to make the decisions – though, as I said, I think it would be only reasonable to make advice from her doctor strongly advised in the second trimester and mandatory in the third trimester.
I seem to have missed the passage that R quotes: the one about how most women just want the fetus dead and gone. But I think that’s all wrong. If someone said that thanks to the advances of medical sciences, my (hypothetical) seven week old embryo could be brought to term outside my body, and moreover, unlike the situation for very premature infants at present, it would not have a lousy prognosis, I might or might not (at present) respond: oh great, I’d love to raise him or her. (I love kids; I’m not the least sure that my present circumstances, including my being told by doctors not to lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk, would make it a good idea. It would need serious thought, as deciding to have a kid always does.)
Let’s suppose I did not want to raise a child, however. And in line with R’s very good point, suppose the hypothetical father didn’t want to either. Does it follow that either of us wants it dead? No. We could ask that our child be put up for adoption. And that would be the obvious thing to do.
Not wanting to raise a kid at present does not equal wanting the kid dead. There are other options.
Jes — my one disagreement with you is that I think it matters (when one is talking about third trimester abortions) what alternatives a woman has, and how accessible they are. Part of the reason I would be willing to ban third trimester abortions not required for the sake of the woman’s health is precisely that women would still have six months in which to have an abortion if they so chose. I’d feel very differently if (say) pregnancy didn’t manifest itself until the seventh month, or abortions were not feasible until that time.
I think one does get to ask: have we afforded women a reasonable chance to decide to terminate a pregnancy? And if define ‘reasonable’ well — so that it doesn’t require e.g. perfect organizational skills, no confusion whatsoever, etc., but actually is a reasonable chance for actual people in an actually confusing and emotionally fraught state — then I can be comfortable with denying e.g. rights to late-term abortions, when I wouldn’t be if they were womens’ only option for terminating pregnancy.
(This is also yet another reason why access to abortion providers matters a lot to me. It goes hand in hand with the view I just described; and frankly, I can’t imagine why anyone doesn’t wish that all abortions happened as early as possible.)
Hilzoy — I was the one who originally asked:
What if you came to each abortion-seeking mother and said, “Thanks to the advances of medical sciences, we can painlessly remove the fetus from your body at any stage, incubate it, and then give you your baby back in a few months.” How many women would say, “Sure, I’m happy to have a new baby, I just wanted to avoid the pregnancy part?” Not many, I’d bet. What most of them want (or what most of them seek at the behest of parents or boyfriends) is for the fetus to be dead and gone.
R asks why this question isn’t put to men. Well, it should be pretty clear from what I’ve said that I think an awful lot of abortions are really done for the “benefit” of men, who want to avoid the responsibility of child-rearing without curtailing their ability to sleep around.
Hilzoy’s response is that maybe some people would hypothetically be glad to have a 7-week fetus removed, and then incubated and returned; or else given up for adoption. In other words, there are some people who really do have nothing in mind other than avoiding the burden of pregnancy.
Fine, but I seriously doubt that this describes the vast majority of people. Why do people get abortions? Is it really because they’re just trying to avoid a few months of pregnancy? Or is it because they don’t want another child to support? Particularly in the case of men (who, to repeat, support abortion to a greater extent than do women). Men have ZERO interest in avoiding the burden of pregnancy, because that doesn’t affect them in the first place. And yet many of them strongly desire that their girlfriend/wife/daughter get an abortion. Why? Because they want the fetus dead and gone, obviously.
As for adoption — well, nothing is stopping people from giving up babies for adoption right now. But if you read anything at all about abortion/adoption, you can’t help seeing numerous stories where the woman said something like, “I can’t imagine giving up a child for adoption, and knowing for the rest of my life that I had a child out there somewhere. I’d rather just get an abortion.” Again, clearly this is not someone who is simply attempting to avoid “pregnancy.” It’s someone who wants NOT to have a live child.
Hilzoy: Part of the reason I would be willing to ban third trimester abortions not required for the sake of the woman’s health is precisely that women would still have six months in which to have an abortion if they so chose. I’d feel very differently if (say) pregnancy didn’t manifest itself until the seventh month, or abortions were not feasible until that time.
This seems to me not that much different from my suggestion that, in the third trimester, a woman can only have an abortion if she and her doctor agree she should.
One of my problems with the “pro-life” crowd is that they really appear to believe that the only reason a woman wouldn’t have an abortion when she’s 7 months pregnant is if there was legislation forbidding it.
Niels: the point of my saying that one can put the child up for adoption was precisely to distinguish between (a) people who want to avoid the burdens not just of pregnancy, but also of childrearing, and (b) people who want the child dead. I think a lot of people, including a lot of men, do not want to raise a(nother) child, but do not particularly want that child dead. I also think that one of the reasons to favor having abortion as an option is that the decision to have and raise a child is, and ought to be, extremely serious.
Hilzoy’s response is that maybe some people would hypothetically…
followed by
In other words, there are some people
Whoa there pardner, round these parts, that is a mighty mighty leap. Hilzoy also stipulates that not only would it be possible, the prognosis must be ‘not lousy’ (I myself couldn’t imagine it unless it were as good or better than a child brought to term in the womb), so there can not be any people who feel this way because the technology to undergird their choices does not exist.
I have little first hand experience in this, but I would imagine that people get an abortion because they feel they made a mistake, and the idea of putting the child up for the abortion probably psychologically makes it seem as if the mistake is going to live on long after (I note here that I am not calling a baby a mistake, just trying to get inside the mind of someone who, instead of bringing the baby to term and giving her up for adoption, decides to get an abortion) In fact, I was involved with someone who much earlier had gotten pregnant and gave the child up for adoption. She was rather self-destructive and one of the things she had problems with was that she had given up this baby. Now, some might suggest that any discomfort on her part was overridden by the fact that a human life was saved and at certain points in my life, I would have probably agreed with that. But it seems to me that much of the ‘pro-life’ push is not simply reaffirming the sanctity of life, but actively trying to stigmatize sex not within a marriage. Regardless how I personally feel about sex (I’d give it a 90, it has a good beat, but you can’t really dance to it), I don’t think it is possible or advisable to try and stigmatize sex in this way because you are simply going to be overwhelmed. For this reason, I am ‘pro-choice’ rather than ‘pro-life’. As for my personal opinions about abortion, I don’t think it can be determined unless you know _all_ of the factors and I don’t think that you can make a blanket decision, which also leads me to a pro-choice position.
Niels: In other words, there are some people who really do have nothing in mind other than avoiding the burden of pregnancy.
FYI – this is something Hilzoy’s talked about on other recent threads that I daresay you haven’t read: Hilzoy needs to take regular medication that is strongly associated with birth defects. She couldn’t just skip taking it for 9 months, and she couldn’t change to another medication. Therefore, were it possible to remove a fetus at an early stage and incubate it outside Hilzoy, this would be necessary for the health of the future baby. Regular readers who had been following other threads would have understood this, but it’s understandable that you didn’t.
Particularly in the case of men (who, to repeat, support abortion to a greater extent than do women).
Actually, it would appear that many women become pro-choice, at least for themselves, when they find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy. Often, they conceal their decision to abort from their “pro-life” friends and acquaintances. So, while you may think you know that there are more “pro-life” women than men, you actually have no idea whether a woman who is claiming that she wants abortions to be made illegal wasn’t, last year or last month, in a clinic opting for her legal right to choose.
Men have ZERO interest in avoiding the burden of pregnancy, because that doesn’t affect them in the first place. And yet many of them strongly desire that their girlfriend/wife/daughter get an abortion.
Not relevant – certainly not in the US, where by law any woman seeking to terminate her pregnancy must receive counselling. Any doctor told by a pregnant woman that she wanted a baby but her husband/boyfriend was “making” her have an abortion, would refuse to perform the procedure – a decision I would absolutely support. Your idea that women shouldn’t be allowed to choose for themselves is, to me, the same kind of attitude: whether it’s a man who wants to force women to stay pregnant against their will, or a man who wants to force a woman to have an abortion against her will, both are trying to deny a woman her right to choose for herself.
the idea of putting the child up for the abortion
a slip of the fingers, hopefully not Freudian.
up for _adoption_.
Thanks, Jesurgislac.
Just to be clear: when do we talk about abortion, how do we define the term exactly? Because the official definition is only valid when the fetus is not viable yet. But I assume that the definition most people here use would be any kind of procedure that removes the fetus from the womb and aims at it not surviving the procedure? Otherwise third term abortion only makes sence if you speak about a fetus that can not survive on it’s own and you have a different discussion.
I would have a problem with free availability of third term abortion if there was nothing really wrong with the fetus. Since there still are people who kill their newly born baby I have to assume that (though rare) there are women who would choose that. As I said before, during the pregnancy the fetus slowly becomes a child for me and near the end of the pregnancy that child deserves the protection of the community. If you do not want the child and you are that far advanced in pregnancy, you have to give it up for adoption IMHO.
First trimester is not a problem for me at all, since the embro/fetus is not near enough to being a person, being a child. The right of the mother to decide about her body and her life is way more important at that stage. Again, IMHO.
Second trimester: in the Netherlands abortion is very available and is free, the methods to prevent pregnancies are very available too, so if the pregnancy has advanced to this stage I feel there should be a medical reason. The women who is too late because she has not noticed that she was pregnant till that stage (it is rare, but it happends) has bad luck, but you have to draw a line somewhere.
You can have discussions about wether the first trimester should be 10 weeks, or 12 weeks, or 16 weeks. Coming from a consensus society I’d be inclined to go for what most people feel comfortable with.
Problem in the US is that preventing unwanted pregnancies does not happen effectively at all (lot’s of improvement possible here, and the best kind of abortion is the one that never has to happen). And women who have an unwanted pregnancy have a much harder time getting an abortion, so it might be really hard to obtain one in the first trimester. In those circumstances I’d be inclined to lean more towards the rights of the women (knowing what pregnancies can do to your body/life and what impact children have on your life) to choose for an abortion.
The most extreme viewpoints are on one side that the fetus isn’t a baby untill it managed to get out of the womb alive, and on the other side that it is a human baby from the moment the sperm penetrates the egg (or before even, isn’t that the reason some religions forbid masturbation for guys?). But as far as I can tell the majority feels that the transfer from cells to person takes place somewhere between those viewpoints and since there is not objective measurable point where the transfer is completed you have to go with what most people are comfortable with.
The argument that you can always give a child up for adoption does not work for me because the embryo might be a blob of cells in my opinion, but the endproduct is always MY child. I have no problem getting rid of the blob but once it is a child it is my responsibility.
One of my problems with the “pro-life” crowd is that they really appear to believe that the only reason a woman wouldn’t have an abortion when she’s 7 months pregnant is if there was legislation forbidding it.
Do laws against murder (or other crimes, for that matter) represent a mindset that the only reason that people won’t kill each other is that there is a law against it–or does it reflect a judgment by society that murder is wrong and that it should therefore be prohibited and punishment provided for those who choose to commit it anyway? Some people are almost certainly deterred from committing murder by laws against it, but the vast majority of people aren’t inclined to commit murder to begin with–that doesn’t make laws against murder useless, much less oppressive.
J: In your retelling of Hilzoy’s personal history, was there supposed to be a point?
Actually, it would appear that many women become pro-choice, at least for themselves, when they find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy. Often, they conceal their decision to abort from their “pro-life” friends and acquaintances. So, while you may think you know that there are more “pro-life” women than men, you actually have no idea whether a woman who is claiming that she wants abortions to be made illegal wasn’t, last year or last month, in a clinic opting for her legal right to choose.
Ooh, the hypocrisy charge again. Some women (and men) claim to be pro-life, but opt for abortion in their personal lives as the easy way out.
But which preference is more genuine, more rational, less driven by momentary selfishness?
I said: Men have ZERO interest in avoiding the burden of pregnancy, because that doesn’t affect them in the first place. And yet many of them strongly desire that their girlfriend/wife/daughter get an abortion.
J responded: Not relevant – certainly not in the US, where by law any woman seeking to terminate her pregnancy must receive counselling.
Huh? That is completely irrelevant to anything that I said. The point is that you keep trying to claim that there is some distinction between “terminating a pregnancy” (in a manner that is designed to kill the fetus) and “killing the fetus.” You apparently believe that people just want to have the pregnancy over and done with, that they don’t really want the fetus dead.
My point is that while this is laughably untrue in most cases, it is particularly ridiculous in reference to men. When men support abortion, they aren’t thinking, “Gee, if only I could avoid the burdens of pregnancy.” They’re thinking, “I don’t want to have a live baby.”
Niels: In your retelling of Hilzoy’s personal history, was there supposed to be a point?
Yes, but if you didn’t get the point when I explained it, you probably won’t get it if I try to explain it again. Let it go.
momentary selfishness?
Given that all your rhetoric is about what you’re willing and eager for other people to sacrifice, I think your accusing anyone of “selfishness” is ironic.
When men support abortion, they aren’t thinking, “Gee, if only I could avoid the burdens of pregnancy.” They’re thinking, “I don’t want to have a live baby.”
You’re missing the point. As men can’t have abortions, whether a man “supports abortion” or otherwise is irrelevant. He isn’t pregnant: he doesn’t get to choose. It is ridiculous to bring it up, unless you’ve got an example of a pregnant man you’d like to share.
What matters is not whether a man “supports abortion”, but whether a man is pro-choice. Whether he thinks he has the right to force pregnancy on a woman who doesn’t want to be pregnant, or thinks he had the right to force an abortion on a woman who does want to be pregnant, his problem is that he hasn’t accepted that it’s her right to choose, not his.
Incidentally, in a recent trawl through RedState I found a post about a recent case of a Catholic schoolteacher fired from her job. Which side of the line do you come down on – she ought to have been fired, or she ought to have kept her job?
OK, let’s go through this more slowly. A woman and a man have slept together. She does, in fact, become pregnant. Under the law, as you indignantly point out, it’s her choice whether or not to abort the fetus. But that’s not how real-life situations work, most of the time. Instead, she asks the man how he feels about having a baby. Or she asks her parents and friends what she should do.
When the man answers her question, and when the parents or friends give her advice, none of them are thinking, “Well, a baby would be fine, but I’m worried about the few months of pregnancy. I’ll advise her to have an abortion, solely for the reason that I want to spare her the trouble of pregnancy.” [Note: There would be an exception for women who are physically incapable of handling pregnancy, or who, as you point out, are on drugs that would severely damage the baby.]
Anyway, in almost all such situations, the man might say, “I’m not sure we can handle an extra kid,” or “I’m not ready to be a father.” Or the parents or friends will say, “But you’re just starting out your career, don’t you want to wait a few years before you have a child?” You should be able to get the point: They’re not thinking about the pregnancy per se; they’re thinking about how to NOT have a baby.
So it is plainly false to say that the reason for abortion is to “terminate a pregnancy” rather than “killing the fetus,” as if people’s motivation for supporting abortion is simply to avoid a pregnancy. Plainly, lots and lots of people don’t particularly care about avoiding the pregnancy; that’s not the foremost thing on their minds.
If the abortionist came out and said, “Guess what! We were able to save the baby’s life! You can take her home in a few weeks,” most people would be utterly dismayed and want their money back. They weren’t just hoping that the pregnancy would end; they wanted to leave without a live baby. You can’t seriously disagree with me here.
And why do you even want to disagree with me? Why do you insist that there is some magical distinction between “killing the fetus” and “terminating the pregnancy”? You have said that killing a fetus is the equivalent of squashing a kidney bean or putting salt on slugs. If that’s the equivalent, then why on earth would you be embarrassed to admit that yes, women who get abortions do so with the primary or exclusive purpose of killing the fetus? Instead, when I point out that abortion, unlike any other “surgery,” is deliberately intended to cause death, you slide into euphemisms: “Terminating a pregnancy is an operation whose sole purpose is to save a woman from an unwanted pregnancy.” (Which isn’t just euphemistic, but completely tautological as well.)
I don’t know of anyone who’s embarrassed to say, “I kill garden slugs,” or who insists that “I don’t intend to kill slugs, my only purpose is to raise a healthy garden.” Why are you embarrassed?
Niels: But that’s not how real-life situations work, most of the time. Instead, she asks the man how he feels about having a baby. Or she asks her parents and friends what she should do.
Ah. So your belief is that a woman isn’t capable of making decisions once she’s pregnant? Interesting, but, I can assure you, quite wrong. A woman who wants to have a baby wants to be pregnant: she may be discouraged if her boyfriend or her husband is unenthusiastic, or her parents are unsupportive, but hardly to the point of terminating a wanted pregnancy.
If the abortionist came out and said, “Guess what! We were able to save the baby’s life! You can take her home in a few weeks,” most people would be utterly dismayed and want their money back.
Guh…? If I were (say) 10 weeks pregnant, and went to have an abortion, and the doctor told me after the abortion “Guess what! We were able to save the baby’s life! You can take her home in a few weeks!” I would be extremely panicky, because plainly this doctor is completely insane. I would be trying to catch the nurse’s eye, worrying that perhaps the nurse is insane too, that they really think a fetus about an inch and a half long and weighing about a third of an ounce is a baby whose life they are trying to save. “Utterly dismayed” wouldn’t be the phrase I would use: it would be scary beyond imagining to discover that the doctor in charge of the operation was a raving lunatic.
(Of course, if – in the scenario you envisage – I were waiting outside for the abortion to be over, I wouldn’t be dismayed at all: I’d just assume that the doctor had misidentified me as their patient’s partner, and was talking to me about a completely different situation.)
Niels, why are you so ridiculously sentimental and squeamish?
There, that’s a nice loaded question, like “why are you embarrassed”?
I say “terminating a pregnancy” because it places the emphasis where I believe it belongs. The point of an abortion is to end an unwanted pregnancy. There’s no shame or cause for embarrassment in that, except for the anti-choice demonstrator who wants to creep into a clinic by the back door to avoid her comrades and friends out front who are trying to stop her from getting the abortion she needs.
You say “killing the fetus” or “killing the child” for the same reason you googoo over a zygote the size of a kidney bean, or a fetus the size of a peapod, incapable of thought or pain: because you want to put the fetus first, and dehumanize a pregnant woman into a mere container for the fetus – a container incapable of independent thought, legally forbidden from making decisions, whose feelings about being a container are irrelevant to you. You use emotionally resonant language about zgotes and fetuses because you think that helps your argument: you seem to want to present yourself as a sensitive, squeamish sort of man who can’t bear to think of cute little fetuses being hurt – though you cannot help also revealing yourself as a callous, unfeeling man who can easily bear to think of women suffering through nine months of unwanted pregnancy, and who is full of enthusiasm for sacrifices he expects others to make.
But yes: terminating a pregnancy does involve killing the blastocyst or the zygote or the fetus, at whatever stage of development it is. Only someone who felt women weren’t fully human would see this as an unacceptable act.
The point of an abortion is to end an unwanted pregnancy.
That’s bogus. The point of an abortion is to end the fetus’s life. Perhaps you could respond to my question? What if the abortionist came out and said, “We saved the baby’s life! You can take her home!” Would that be received as good news or as bad news by someone who was seeking an abortion? If as bad news, how come? The pregnancy had been “terminated,” after all. Why wouldn’t the presence of a live baby be all the better?
incapable of independent thought, legally forbidden from making decisions,
Please. We’re all capable of making certain decisions. And we’re all forbidden to make many decisions about our own lives and property. There are plenty of occasions where the law prevents you from harming someone else, even if you would like the freedom to make that “decision.”
Niels: That’s bogus.
Only because you regard a woman as an unimportant container for a fetus. As the woman’s experience is unimportant to you, then obviously, you’re going to think it’s “bogus” that she wants to terminate her pregnancy. Nevertheless, it’s true.
Perhaps you could respond to my question?
I did. Perhaps you could respond to my answer, rather than ignoring my answer and asking your question again?
Oops, wrong link. Sorry. Niels, I answered your question here.
Sorry, I didn’t see that (non) answer to my question. Smart-aleckiness aside, how about answering it for real? Imagine that they really did come up with a way to let 10-week-old fetuses survive. Or imagine that you’ve waited until 23 weeks to have a late-term abortion, and the science has advanced just enough to let a baby survive at that point. What if the abortionist said, “Here’s some great news! I didn’t have to kill the fetus after all. I just removed it, and in a short time here, you’ll have a perfectly normal newborn baby girl.”
Seriously: Would the average woman be glad to learn of this prospect? Or would she (or her boyfriend or parents) think that the abortionist had somehow cheated them, i.e., by failing to rid their lives of a baby?
You damn well know the answer. You just won’t admit it, because you’re too tied to the fantasy that all abortions are somehow intended to “end the pregnancy,” as if killing the fetus is just an accidental byproduct that no one even contemplates.
Only because you regard a woman as an unimportant container for a fetus. As the woman’s experience is unimportant to you, then obviously, you’re going to think it’s “bogus” that she wants to terminate her pregnancy. Nevertheless, it’s true.
Stop being obtuse. I’m not saying that it’s “bogus” that women want to “terminate [a] pregnancy.” I’m just saying that for the vast majority of women, “terminating the pregnancy” is the least of their concerns. What they (or the men in their lives) really want is to ensure that the fetus is dead, so that they don’t have to take care of another child for the next 18+ years.
Again, why bother with euphemisms unless you know, deep down, that it’s not really fine and peachy to kill a fetus?
Niels: Smart-aleckiness aside, how about answering it for real?
I did. That is really how I would react – assuming this was an abortion at 10 weeks, but you never specified when, so I picked a standard time. Neither did you specify “Supposing we lived in one of Lois McMaster Bujold’s novels where a fetus can be removed and placed in an incubator tank.”
Or imagine that you’ve waited until 23 weeks to have a late-term abortion, and the science has advanced just enough to let a baby survive at that point. What if the abortionist said, “Here’s some great news! I didn’t have to kill the fetus after all. I just removed it, and in a short time here, you’ll have a perfectly normal newborn baby girl.”
Okay, let’s suppose that. The primary reason for having an abortion at 23 weeks is that the fetus isn’t viable. Furthermore, 23 weeks is so premature that, supposing the abortion were taking place because the women had been advised that continuing her pregnancy would kill her, no doctor would promise “a perfectly normal newborn baby girl” – they might hope that a 23-week preemie would survive, but odds are, he or she wouldn’t. Odds are, since the mreason a woman would be having an abortion at 23 weeks would be because she had been told she couldn’t have a healthy newborn baby, the doctor’s announcement that she would, after all, would be greeted with relief, joy, and gratitude: or, depending on the reason for the abortion – if tests had confirmed that the fetus was already dead – with fear that the doctor was insane.
Seriously: Would the average woman be glad to learn of this prospect? Or would she (or her boyfriend or parents) think that the abortionist had somehow cheated them, i.e., by failing to rid their lives of a baby?
Seriously, is this honestly your concept of women who have abortions at 23 weeks? Terminating a pregnancy at 23 weeks isn’t done because the woman just decided she didn’t want to be pregnant any more: it’s done when doctors advise that major, serious complications mean that a termination will have to be performed in order for the woman to survive – or sometimes because the fetus is already dead or will die shortly after birth. Your idea that a woman has a termination at 23 weeks to “rid her life of a baby” is beyond absurd – it’s disgusting. I’m through arguing with you.
You’re not arguing in good faith, J. You’re deliberately avoiding the question.
To recap: You claimed that abortion is just like any other surgery. I pointed out that no other surgery is designed for the sole purpose of killing. Then you claimed that abortion is not about killing, it is solely about “terminating a pregnancy.”
To which I say: That is a dishonest euphemism. (And if you really believe that killing a fetus is on the level of killing a slug, it is an unnecessary euphemism. No one feels the need to come up with euphemisms for killing slugs.)
Nonetheless, you persist. Abortion, you still claim, is desired only because the woman wants to “terminate the pregnancy.”
Thus my hypotheticals. What would happen if abortion LITERALLY consisted of “terminating the pregnancy” — with the fetus still alive and well? Would women (and men) be pleased with that situation? Wouldn’t that undermine the whole reason that 99% of them seek abortion in the first place? (I.e., because they can’t/won’t care for another child?)
Yet you keep avoiding the question. You say that fetuses can’t survive at 10 weeks anyway. Well, no shit. Or you say that women who abort at 23 weeks do so for major health reasons. All of that is astoundingly irrelevant. The issue is not whether babies can survive at 10 weeks or why women seek late term abortions. The issue that I’m trying to get at — and which you are 100% avoiding — is whether most women who seek abortion are REALLY just trying to end the pregnancy experience (as you claim) or are really hoping to be rid of the baby.
* * *
So here’s another hypothetical. Imagine that time travel exists. A pregnant woman comes in seeking an abortion, and the abortion clinic uses a time machine to transport her six months into the future. For all practical purposes, she has just avoided all of the burdens of pregnancy. Now, if the baby is removed, she can have a baby without having to experience pregnancy.
Would the abortion-seeking woman like that scenario? (Please focus on that question, not on irrelevant objections to time travel.) I think not, at least not in the vast majority of cases.
The point is NOT that time travel is possible. The point is to uncover the REASONS that people seek abortion. Again, you claim that they’re just seeking to cut short a pregnancy. This is completely unrealistic. People don’t just want pregnancy to be over; they want to go home WITHOUT a live baby kicking and squealing in the back seat. THAT is why abortion exists. Until you are willing to acknowledge this most basic fact, you’re not arguing in good faith.
The issue that I’m trying to get at — and which you are 100% avoiding — is whether most women who seek abortion are REALLY just trying to end the pregnancy experience (as you claim) or are really hoping to be rid of the baby.
They usually try to avoid the baby to come into existens, which is why they will abort before it is a baby – usually as early as possible. Do you believe that all the women who had an abortion would kill the baby right after birth?
DM — well, this is an issue of semantics. Would they kill right after birth? No, but that’s not the relevant question. THe question is, if the baby somehow survived, would they be happy, or would they feel that they had been cheated somehow? (Actually, some people would feel happy once they saw their baby for themselves; some would feel a mix of feelings; and some people would be absolutely dismayed, because they would regret having missed a chance to kill it.)
THe question is, if the baby somehow survived, would they be happy, or would they feel that they had been cheated somehow?
That may be your question, my question is how both law and society can avoid most misery.
THe question is, if the baby somehow survived, would they be happy, or would they feel that they had been cheated somehow?
That may be your question, my question is how both law and society can avoid most misery. I agree with jesurgislac that terminology like “they would regret having missed a chance to kill it” shows that you have no idea what you are talking about and is in fact pretty disgusting.
Given that we are in a situation where:
1) The law may well change due to shifts in societal consensus and/or the makeup of appellate courts, and;
2) Changes in medical science have pushed the point of viability back somewhat, and may continue to do so,
it is reasonable to ask this question: If the law on abortion was changed to require that fetuses past the age of viability be extracted intact in an attempt to preserve their lives (unless the extraction procedure could be shown to be substantially more dangerous to the life or physical health of the mother than an abortion would be), would this somehow be an unjust change in the law?
M.Scott; If the law on abortion was changed to require that fetuses past the age of viability be extracted intact in an attempt to preserve their lives (unless the extraction procedure could be shown to be substantially more dangerous to the life or physical health of the mother than an abortion would be), would this somehow be an unjust change in the law?
What do you mean, a change in the law? That is already, as far as I’m aware, the law (or at least, it’s routine medical practice) in both the UK and the US: a woman whose pregnancy needs to be terminated for her own health, but who has a healthy fetus that is far enough along to be a surviving premature baby, will have the infant delivered.
But this is a more typical late-term termination scenario. I read Gretchen Voss’s account of her late-term abortion nearly two years ago: I’ve never forgotten it. Niels’ claim that women like Voss “are really hoping to be rid of the baby” was obscene.
M. Scott Eiland: in the Netherlands you are not allowed to abort past 24 (in practise 22) weeks because after that period you will just induce labour. I am quite happy with that.
But people have pointed out to me that I cannot compare that with the situation in the US because it is much harder to get an abortion in the US if you are not rich and live in the wrong region. Many States have no abortion providers at all.
That changes the equation IMHO, and there should be more room for the rights of the pregnant women and unfortunately less for the developing baby.
Also: at that period in the pregnancy every abortion over here (and I think almost every abortion in the US too) is because of a medical reason. Something is seriously wrong with the fetus. So it is not as if a healthy child will be born: it will automatically be an handicapped child. In the American system that has quite serious consequences for parents and children, apart from the emotional burdens and the additional resources it takes.
I think you have to take these things into account.
Marbel: But people have pointed out to me that I cannot compare that with the situation in the US because it is much harder to get an abortion in the US if you are not rich and live in the wrong region. Many States have no abortion providers at all.
Even with that as a factor, the US-wide statistics for 2001 show that: 59% were performed at <8 weeks' gestation and 88% at <13 weeks. (Also: "From 1992 ... through 2001, steady increases have occurred in the percentage of abortions performed at <6 weeks' gestation.") 4.3% were performed at 16--20 weeks and 1.4% at >21 weeks.
So, even though it has been getting very difficult for low-income women living in states where there are very few abortion providers, still, the statistics suggest strongly that the only women who are having an abortion where the fetus is past the age of viability are those who have literally no alternative.
“the statistics suggest strongly that the only women who are having an abortion where the fetus is past the age of viability are those who have literally no alternative.”
While I believe that most later abortions are for medical reasons (though I wouldn’t venture to say “only” instead of “vast majority”), I see no reason to conclude that from the stats you cite. You have to know about the shapes of the underlying distributions to do so. There could perfectly possibly be a long tail of women making late decisions for non-medical reasons.
There could perfectly possibly be a long tail of women making late decisions for non-medical reasons.
If we count all terminations after 12 weeks as “late term abortions” – as some counters do – then this is true: there probably are.
But the 1.4% of terminations carried out after >21 weeks? Honestly, when you consider the statistics for fetal abnormalities/fetal death, it seems unlikely that there’s any room in that 1.4% to account for women who are having a termination even though their fetus is perfectly healthy – even allowing for the fact that doctors are generally required, either by their medical associations or by state law, to carry out third-trimester abortions only when the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is dead or will die on delivery.
So when you say it’s possible, it’s possible in the sense that nothing about it is physically impossible. Like it’s possible to build a spaceship that would take a human being to Mars and back: it could be done, but you cannot reason from “it could be done” to “it is being done”.
I read Gretchen Voss’s account of her late-term abortion nearly two years ago: I’ve never forgotten it.
Yesterday evening I was at a party where a 20 friend I’ve known for 20 years was with her 3 months old. Her fourth son and the only one living. The first one was born and died after a month; he suffered from a rare genetic disorder. They found out that they were both carriers of it so they had their next pregnancy checked for the disorder. This can only be done after the 18th week. Unfortunately the next boy suffered from it too so they had to abort at 21 weeks. Hard, but preferable above carrying the child to term and seeing another baby suffer severely for a month before it dies. Their third pregnancy was emotionally very hard, but fortunately the baby did not suffer from the disease. They slowly dared to hope for a healthy child – but at 25 weeks she went into labour. The boy didn’t survive. They took two years to try to come to terms with it, and decided to try one more time.
After a very emotional and difficult pregnancy (testing, stitches to the cervix, bedrest) their lovely and wonderfull son was born.
Rilkefan: I really don’t understand at all how you can think it “perfectly possible” that there is a “long tail of women making late decisions for non-medical reasons”. Don’t you realize how hard a late aborion is? Can’t you imagine? Do you really think there are lot’s of women who can do this without severe cause????
dutchmarbel, I responded above to a question of statistics, which was the basis of Jes‘s claim. That is, what she said should be true per se about widgets. The reasons you note are good ones, and ones which I agree suggest few post-ultrasound abortions – as I pointed out in my comment.
Jes: “Honestly, when you consider the statistics for fetal abnormalities/fetal death”
Sure, but you have to list those rates, estimating misreporting and taking any other systematic effects out of the data. You might come up with something like 0.1%+/- 0.05% of abortions being “elective” in the period you note, or 0.05% +/- 0.05%. You have to run the numbers, though – and that probably requires a sophisticated model of all the various events as a function of time to do to the above level.
Rilke: You have to run the numbers, though – and that probably requires a sophisticated model of all the various events as a function of time to do to the above level.
True. Which is why I didn’t do it. But the fact that there are significant numbers of fetal abnormalities, or instances of fetal deaths – added to the human factor of the feelings of a woman who is 21+ weeks pregnant – added to the fact that it is forbidden for doctors to carry out a termination of a 21+ pregnancy without a medical reason – all of which, I assume, you were quite well aware of: means that you can look at that 1.4% figure and say that your claim that it could consist of women having abortions who just happened to wait till 21+ weeks was possible in the same sense as it is possible to make a manned flight to Mars.
I agree with jesurgislac that terminology like “they would regret having missed a chance to kill it” shows that you have no idea what you are talking about and is in fact pretty disgusting.
Yes, the fact that some people would feel that way is pretty disgusting.
Oh, wait, you were talking about me? Come again? How exactly is it disgusting to point out the glaringly obvious fact that most people have abortions precisely because they don’t want to have a child? I.e., that if someone waved a magic wand and gave them a full-term baby without having had to experience pregnancy, they’d be disappointed? (Again, this is in response to J’s freakin’ absurd claim that the only point of abortion is to “terminate a pregnancy,” as if the fetus’s death is just an accidental byproduct that no one ever intends).
dutchmarbel, I responded above to a question of statistics, which was the basis of Jes’s claim. That is, what she said should be true per se about widgets
It might be a language thing than, but for me “statistically probable” would’ve been clearer then “perfectly possible”.
However I automatically translate into Dutch and that distinction might be bigger in Dutch then in English. I *was* rather suprised by your remark, glad it didn’t signify that you thought it plausible.
Jes – no, you have to run the numbers to make a positive statement. I have really no way of knowing based on info in this thread whether 10% of late-term abortions are elective, or 1%, or 0.1%, or 0.001%. In any case, why are we discussing the issue, when there are surely researchers who have studied the data and done the modelling and published peer-reviewed articles?
dutchmarbel, I didn’t mean “statistically possible” – I can come up with mechanisms which would lead to women having late elective abortions, from difficulty in getting access and gathering funds to partners bailing or job loss mid-term to second thoughts upon seeing their body changing. If there’s a language issue, I doubt it’s from your excellent command of English – it might be due to my physics-tinged statistics vocab (though I suppose I might have [redundantly] said “perfectly possible a priori”). And I’m sure plenty of things are true that I don’t find plausible. The point of my first comment was just that having a feeling about the way things work is different from measuring the various effects, cross-checking to be sure you didn’t miss anything due to carelessness or bias or bad luck, and reaching the statistically-justified conclusion.
Rilke: I can come up with mechanisms which would lead to women having late elective abortions, from difficulty in getting access and gathering funds to partners bailing or job loss mid-term to second thoughts upon seeing their body changing.
Difficulty in getting access? Rilke, at 21> weeks, it would be difficult to get access to a clinic willing to do an elective abortion of a healthy fetus/healthy mother no matter where this hypothetical woman lived. “Difficulty gathering funds” – if by 21> weeks the woman still can’t afford it, she really can’t afford it now.
to partners bailing or job loss mid-term to second thoughts upon seeing their body changing
None of these would be accepted as adequate reasons by a clinic to terminate a pregnancy at 21> weeks. (Nor, psychologically, do I think that they would seem like adequate reasons to go through the physical agony of a late-term abortion.)
If these are the only mechanisms you’ve come up with, they just don’t work.
have acknowledged that what you said was possible – but you are trying to argue from “it’s possible” to “therefore it happens”, and this is a false argument, as I showed with the example of “it’s possible to have a manned mission to Mars”.
“None of these would be accepted as adequate reasons”
So the woman says it’s earlier, or lies about the reason, or gets legitimately or otherwise emotionally upset, or you’re wrong, or … There are a multiplicity of possibilities, and it’s a complex world.
“but you are trying to argue from “it’s possible” to “therefore it happens””
No, I’m saying it’s possible, therefore it may happen, which you agree with apparently. You’re trying to argue from “I doubt this, therefore it happens at the zero percent level with zero uncertainty, or it happens at some level I can ignore without knowing what that level is”. Why not just dig up the research? If it doesn’t exist, then there’s probably not enough data to draw conclusions; if it does exist, that’s where the conversation should start from. If you can tell me from the data above what the late elective rate is and what the uncertainty on that number is, go ahead.
A. Torres and J.D. Forrest, Why Do Women Have Abortions?:
The Washington Post reported in 1996:
September 15, 1996 Bergen Record article which started the debate over partial birth abortion:
You do realize that the reason NJ and NY have above national abortion rates at any trimester stage is because fewer doctors in “the heartland” are willing to put up with the harrassment, death-threats, and blockades, right? That’s just to address your highlighting of a statistical point above; I don’t really mean to get into any substantive conversation with you.
Niels Jackson, that’s a weirdly structured article: A says this, but X, Y, Z say this. A says this, but U, V, W say this. At some point they need to have A react to the counterclaims. I got the strong impression that they had a preset viewpoint and went out looking for quotes to support it.
Also note that you’ve linked to a, uhh, nominally partisan report above.
JM: The point wasn’t that NJ has a higher than average rate. It was that one single newspaper found one clinic performing 3000 partial birth abortions a year in NJ, even though abortion advocates had claimed that it is only performed 500 times nationwide — TOTAL.
It would be as if a men’s rights advocate said, “There are only 500 cases of rape nationwide every year.” And your local newspaper said, “But we’ve found 3000 cases just in New Jersey.” Would your response be, “Ah, well, New Jersey is above the national average”?
JM: The point wasn’t that NJ has a higher than average rate. It was that one single newspaper found one clinic performing 3000 partial birth abortions a year in NJ, even though abortion advocates had claimed that it is only performed 500 times nationwide — TOTAL.
It would be as if a men’s rights advocate said, “There are only 500 cases of rape nationwide every year.” And your local newspaper said, “But we’ve found 3000 cases just in New Jersey.” Would your response be, “Ah, well, New Jersey is above the national average”?
And rilke: Actually, it’s a very long article; I just quoted a portion of it. There was a response that attempted to make an excuse for the pathetically inaccurate statistics that the abortion advocates had been peddling:
Could be, although that theory wouldn’t just apply to partial-birth abortionists, but to all abortionists. A more truthful response would probably have been: “What do you expect? An accurate count? That wouldn’t help our political position. We were just putting politics over accuracy, as abortionists have always done.
Rilke: Why not just dig up the research?
Mainly because I don’t really care enough about convincing you I’m right to do the work, I suppose. I cannot imagine a woman who has gone through 21> weeks healthy happy pregnancy deciding to get an abortion just for the hell of it: nor can I imagine a woman who is desperate to get an abortion waiting for 21> weeks. You can imagine this, apparently, but you haven’t managed to come up with any mechanism sufficient to convince me that what you have imagined is a realistic possibility.
Jes, another nice feature of having the research on hand would be to ward off Niels and his presumption of bad faith from pro-choice advocates.
Rilkefan — let me repeat myself:
A. Torres and J.D. Forrest, Why Do Women Have Abortions?:
Jes can’t imagine that any such people exist. Judge for yourself whether her lack of imagination is realistic.
Rilke: Jes, another nice feature of having the research on hand would be to ward off Niels and his presumption of bad faith from pro-choice advocates.
While it’s been fun for a while batting Niels about, I recognize honestly that someone like Niels, who believes that women terminate pregnancies at 24> weeks because they want to get rid of the baby, is not going to be convinced or batted away by any rational means.
You, on the other hand, certainly deserve a better answer, but I confess I have at last run out of steam.
Niels, note the 16 weeks vs 21 weeks distinction. As far as I understand, 16 weeks would be somewhat early for an amnio, the results of which would likely take two weeks, then … And perhaps the month+ would affect the procedure needed, and people’s reaction to the decision.
Jes, fair enough.
Niels, note the 16 weeks vs 21 weeks distinction. As far as I understand, 16 weeks would be somewhat early for an amnio, the results of which would likely take two weeks, then … And perhaps the month+ would affect the procedure needed, and people’s reaction to the decision.
Jes, fair enough.
Typepad strikes. Oh well. t lst t ddnt dsmvwl m cmmnt.
Rilkefan: we did an evaluation of our past years, to see if we ought to change our law and why, but all research is in Dutch 🙂
I’ve had three Dutch friends recently, but they’ve all gone back to Europe. Now at least I don’t feel bad for not picking up the language.
Cool, an abortion thread. Can I play?
First, to disagree with my usual allies. The notion that an abortion at 8+ months is just another surgery is, in my view, unsustainable. Assuming that the fetus is viable, to engage in a procedure which kills the fetus when a marginally more risky procedure (C-section) would deliver a healthy newborn is wrong. Whether or not the procedure exposes the doctor and the mother to murder charges, the procedure should be tightly regulated by the state and the woman should bear a high burden of proof that all alternatives expose her to unacceptable health risks.
Now to the other side:
1. I believe that relatively few pro-lifers hold consistent views about the nature of the fetus. Once a fetus is “alive”, it cannot be killed, even it was conceived by rape or incest. Under common law, we have never allowed for the killing of an innocent third party, even under duress.
2. However, the abortion debate is filled with largely emotional arguments, so I recognize that I’m not going to persuade a lot of people about the wrongness of their pro-life views by demonstrating some logical inconsistencies.
3. As usual in the abortion debate, the two sides have rarely engaged each other directly on this thread. The pro-choice advocates have failed to respect the moral case made by the pro-life advocates. The pro-life advocates have failed to respond to both the consequential and moral arguments made by pro-choice supporters.
Here’s my parting shot for a while (work calls). Pro-life advocates make much of the loss of the identified life. Fair enough. But most American women have only the total number of children that they want. By forcing a woman to bring to term an unwanted child, the pro-life movement is preventing the birth, later in the woman’s life, of a wanted child.
Having read the recent discussion at Slate and elsewhere about the difference between identified lives and statistical lives (arising in the context of the removal of a respirator), I appreciate that there is a strong perception that these lives are not equally weighted. But that shouldn’t necessarily be the case, especially for a strong pro-life advocate. The failure to give birth to a wanted child, due to the existence of an unwanted one, should be seen as an equal loss of life.
“First, to disagree with my usual allies.”
Not disagreeing with me – you may need to pick a less extreme example to do so. I suspect that many pro-choice supporters like me accept that the question of rights changes at viability, though the mother’s health comes first.
“the pro-life movement is preventing the birth, later in the woman’s life, of a wanted child.”
This is one of the most important points in the debate to me. I wouldn’t go so far as to reach your “equal life” conclusion though – wouldn’t that make any murder of a fertile person who intends to reproduce a multiple homicide?
I suspect that many pro-choice supporters like me accept that the question of rights changes at viability
Ah…but is that viability with or without the application of medical technology? And what does the mean to a health care system where standards are uneven? And what happens when the day comes that an embryo is viable outside the womb from the instant after conception to birth?
Every sperm is sacred.
“And what happens when the day comes that an embryo is viable outside the womb from the instant after conception to birth?”
We’ll have to discuss the matter on the way to that point. I would likely feel that, assuming the health of the mother isn’t compromised by a fetal transplant, couples willing to pay for the procedure would have a right to adopt the fetus before a woman could abort it.
I assume that at that point the computers will have taken control and the question will be moot.
I find the viability-at-conception hypotheticals unpersuasive, because so much of the argument is based on unknowables.
Can we be sure that the incubators work and that there will be an adoptive parent present when it’s time for the baby to go home? How will society have changed once such technological tools are available?
And based on my conversations with women seeking access to family planning clinics during Op Rescue hits (not all of whom were there to get abortions), women get abortions for a range of reasons, but mostly coming down to: I can’t deal with this now. I can’t be pregnant / can’t have a kid just now. It wouldn’t be fair to me and it wouldn’t be fair to the kid.
I never met a single person, male or female, who took the issue lightly. (Of course, with Op. Rescue around, emotions ran pretty high.) Very young or not so young, everyone understood that they were terminating a potential life, but doing so in the hope that they could have a better life, and offer a better life to their wanted children.
Parting shot for now to the pro-life community: what do you believe will be the consequences of achieving your goals? How will life change in California and Mississippi?
I find the viability-at-conception hypotheticals unpersuasive, because so much of the argument is based on unknowables.
Viability-at-conception is a hypothetical, but the question of the application of technology is here with us today. Incubators, for example, allow a fetus to survive outside the womb at a date far earlier than without. Technology advances…the date of viability will also advance.
If you are seeking to criminalize abortion, you are going to have to take that into account when you pen the law.
Another question that will have to be answered is what you will do with the lawbreakers. Is there going to be an investigation for every instance of miscarriage, just to make sure they were on the level? (Problematic, given that 1 out of 4 pregnancies results in miscarriage).
While it’s been fun for a while batting Niels about, I recognize honestly that someone like Niels, who believes that women terminate pregnancies at 24> weeks because they want to get rid of the baby, is not going to be convinced or batted away by any rational means.
Jes knows damn well that my point was never to argue about particular women who have abortions at 24 weeks. My point was that by far, the majority of people have abortions NOT just to “end the pregnancy,” because if the pregnancy ended but they went home with a live baby, they would most certainly not be happy at the outcome. The only reason I brought up “23 weeks” was because an earlier hypothetical (10 weeks) somehow caused Jes to run off on an irrelevant tangent.
Anyway, I’m glad it’s been fun “batting” me around. Perhaps, however, Jes might want to keep in mind that she doesn’t exactly help the pro-choice cause, as several of her compatriots have hinted. Here in this thread, she has argued:
1. Abortion up to the moment of birth should be allowed.
2. Abortion is just “surgery.”
3. No one intends the death of the fetus in an abortion; all they intend to do is “terminate the pregnancy.” They’d all be just as happy if the fetus somehow survived.
4. Rich people don’t have abortions.
5. A fetus is akin to a garden slug.
6. Implicitly: Women who claim to be pro-life aren’t really pro-life.
7. The best way to be pro-life is to allow abortion.
8. If abortion were made illegal, this would have zero effect on the abortion rate. (Never mind that there is no evidence for this startling view.)
9. If abortion were made illegal, there isn’t one man in America who would start to think twice about wearing a condom. (Never mind the academic studies showing that abortion laws do affect people’s sexual behavior. If the study was written by an economist, or someone who got his degree at the wrong place, I don’t have to pay any attention to it.)
10. Implicitly, as a result of 8 and 9: The law has no effect on people’s behavior. All people are utter morons.
I forgot 11: “I, Jes, believe 10 impossible things before breakfast.”
Final summary.
Response there, but I won’t follow the discussion – I’m sure the hating-on crowd would host one if need be.