“I’m glad you’ve decided not to kill it”
| July 15th, 2005In the comments to Pro-choice and pregnant, Robert said
Oh, and congratulations on the baby. I’m glad you’ve decided not to kill it.
Ignoring for the moment the question of whether that was intended as deliberate provocation, I wanted to address the question of whether it’s even accurate. I’m not sure it is.
“Decided not to…” implies that the possibility has been given some consideration, however fleeting; I might say, for example, “I thought about buying the Kaiser Chiefs album but decided not to.” If the option hasn’t been consciously considered and rejected, it doesn’t really make sense to imply a decision has been made. I wouldn’t say that I’ve decided not to move to Milton Keynes, become a chartered accountant or take up underwater basketweaving, and nor would I say that I’ve decided not to terminate this pregnancy.
Before I became pregnant, I spent a long time considering the possibility of having a baby. I passionately wanted a family, and although I don’t believe there’s anything special about biological, as opposed to adoptive, parenthood, I decided the simplest way to have a baby of my own was to give birth to one. So to say that I “decided not to adopt” is completely reasonable: I considered the possibility and rejected it.
The decision to become pregnant was less positive: the timing never seemed to be quite right and I wasn’t sure I had the right to inflict myself on a child. I hesitated, and circumstances came together to help me decide. I had the opportunity to have unprotected sex at the appropriate time of the month. I took it, and three nervous weeks later a blood test confirmed my pregnancy.
Abortion never entered my mind as a possibility. Pregnancy was something I’ve longed for, hoped for and occasionally put myself at risk in search of for most of my adult life. Now that I finally have what I always wanted, why should I consider throwing it away? If the pregnancy had been especially difficult or scans had revealed a problem with the fetus, I might have had to examine the option, but so far everything has gone smoothly and I’ve had no reason to consider abortion.
So why does Robert think I “decided not to kill” my baby? Does he believe that every woman, pro-life or pro-choice, who sees a pregnancy through to the end has decided not to have an abortion? If it’s unreasonable to say that a woman at the farthest extreme of “fetuses are people too” pro-life philosophy has decided not to kill her baby, what makes it more reasonable to say it about someone who made a deliberate choice to become pregnant but respects the choice of other women to avoid pregnancy?
There’s another distinction to be made here, as important as the one between a wanted and an unwanted fetus: the distinction between wanting to do something yourself and supporting the right of others to do it. I am pro-SSM, but I wouldn’t even consider marrying a woman. I believe in free speech, even speech that I personally consider repugnant. And I am pro-choice, despite the fact that my choice was made long ago.
Why do I support a right I have zero desire to exercise for myself? All sorts of reasons. People I care about may well make a different choice, and I want it to be open to them if they need it. I don’t want to live in the kind of world where women can be forced to sustain a pregnancy against their will to satisfy someone else’s idea of morality. I want the world to know that I’m having this baby because I deeply and passionately want it, not because I couldn’t get rid of it.
Being pro-choice doesn’t mean you think abortion is wonderful. It doesn’t mean that when the doctor’s receptionist confirms a very much wanted pregnancy you immediately think “of course, I could always have an abortion”. It simply means you believe the decision whether to become pregnant or the decision whether to continue with a pregnancy is the woman’s to make as she sees fit.
July 15th, 2005 at 5:12 am
That’s a pretty creepy comment, but I think it reflects the attitude of a lot of pro-lifers fairly accurately. I suspect that they really do believe that pro-choice women are so callous that, every time we may find ourselves pregnant, we will naturally ask ourselves “I wonder if I should kill this one? Too difficult to decide really, maybe I should flip a coin.”.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Like I said, the underlying assumptions are deeply disturbing. I’m anti death-penalty, but that doesn’t mean that I assume that everyone who is pro death-penalty has some deep-seated desire to kill people just for the fun of it.
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July 15th, 2005 at 5:53 am
Personally, I always wonder how much the anti-choicers are projecting. I’d bet a nickel or two that Robert has encouraged his partner to get an abortion at some point in the past…
This comment was written by Scooter.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 6:42 am
Thank you — this post helped me to understand something that really threw me overboard a few years back. I’m pro-choice, like Nick, because I believe that women should have this choice. My mother, however, is a pro-life activist.
This comment was written by bvt.In the city where she lives, there was a big campaign to build a billboard or giant poster or something with pictures of “babies who were ’saved.’” She thought it was a fine idea to take the baby pictures I had sent her of my two children, and add them to the poster.
It makes me almost crazy to even think about this, but to me, she was implying that my children needed “saving” — and from who? Apparently, me.
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July 15th, 2005 at 6:55 am
Nick wrote:
Well, no, it’s not. In the other thread of Nick’s, a couple of people drew a parallel between forced organ/marrow donation and forced pregnancy. These procedures, too, can have major benefits but also create moral conflicts within individuals. I’d say that while there’s nothing particularly wonderful about the act of abortion, it’s also not “horrible,” to use Kos’ words from a month ago. I may not be willing to strut around like the Goddess of Everything if I get an abortion, but I’m not going to spend the next thirty years hanging my head in self-loathing over the “horrible” thing I’ve done, either.
When guys say this kind of shit, you wonder if it ever occurs to them that the woman across the breakfast table from him (his wife, mom, sister, daughter) may well have had an abortion in secret, that she can only have the life with him that she has because she had one, and that some part of her is withering inside because the person closest in the world to her would think she was a “killer” or “horrible” if he knew. :(
It’s a damn good thing to be a woman and live in a culture where you can choose when you want to breed and when you don’t. Even if the answer to “When do you want to breed” is “Never, Thanks.”
Britgirl wrote:
Yep. I feel the same way about folks who go into the military, which makes me a total sop by the standards of some other anti-war Lefties, but so be it. The power of life and death over another is a difficult issue, but I sure as fuck wouldn’t waste my time going to Military Families Against the War or a similar site to call vets “killers.” Blecch.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 7:00 am
“Why do I support a right I have zero desire to exercise for myself?”
But is your pro-choice stance really just out of solidarity with other women? You mention in the same post that you might consider abortion if there was a problem with the pregnancy or the fetus. I’m not sure there are any women who desire to someday have an abortion, but when faced with an unwanted pregnancy it feels *necessary* for some reason. I hear the old “I’m pro-choice but could never have an abortion” line a lot. It always sounds to me like a way of distinguishing oneself from those other women. Unfortunately, you never know what tough situations will be sent your way.
This comment was written by Sara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 7:16 am
For the life of me I can’t imagine a man having to write a second blog entry surrounding a personal choice that he has made with his body. If a woman has never felt like public property before, there is nothing like her pregnancy to bring it to light.
I am happy that you are pregnant; I am pissed that some man thought that his opinion was more important than your pregnancy.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 7:17 am
It’s a fair question. I would consider abortion if circumstances seemed to warrent it, but unless the pregnancy presented a serious threat to my life, I think I would conclude that I couldn’t end it and live with myself afterwards.
I suppose I am distinguishing myself from women who feel more able to choose abortion, but not out of any wish to criticise their choice. I just want to emphasise that women are a diverse lot and there’s room for all sorts of personal choices under the “pro-choice” umbrella.
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 7:46 am
very well said!
This comment was written by acm.thanks for writing.
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July 15th, 2005 at 7:48 am
How rude. And of course the underlying implication is that women are naturally murderous. Actually, I would characterize it more as resentment that it’s our choice whether to allow what a man’s done to us or not–pregnancy is still very much seen as a man’s work through a woman’s body. In the rush to characterize any woman who dare reject this role, our very nature has to be constructed as murderous, because we don’t get pregnant every time we have sex. And often even fertilization occurs but not pregnancy, meaning that women are unconsciously destroying men’s work, aka “murdering babies”.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 8:00 am
Sara said
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.“I hear the old “I’m pro-choice but could never have an abortion” line a lot. It always sounds to me like a way of distinguishing oneself from those other women. Unfortunately, you never know what tough situations will be sent your way. ”
This argument has been vexing me too recently, so I’m going to go a step further.
If I discovered I was pregnant right now, I would have an abortion. I would not need to sit and give it a lot of thought, I would not agonise over it, I very much doubt that I would feel guilty for doing it. This is not because I have some kind of deep-seated murderous tendencies, it is because I do not want children. I have always known that I do not want children. I’m married., and my husband doesn’t want children either.
Because I know I don’t want kids I am very careful about contraception, and I have never been pregnant as far as I know (I am aware that women frequently miscarry and don’t even realise it). I intend to continue being careful. But, if all my precautions should fail and I should find myself pregnant, I am going to have an abortion. People who do not want kids should not have kids. I like kids, and I’m a great aunty, but I just don’t want any of my own. I think there are lots of women out there who feel like me, and who have been intimidated into silence, sometimes even by people on the pro-choice side. The insistence that all women agonise over abortion and suffer terrible guilt afterwards is bullshit. Some do, some don’t, everyone is different. I’m not going to apologise for how I feel, and if anyone doesn’t like it they can kiss my ass. It’s my body and it’s my choice, not their. End of story.
By the way, Nick, this rant is in no way aimed at you. It’s aimed at the growing pressure from idiots like Kos who want us all to adopt the anti-choice framing on this issue and are too stupid to see the implications of doing so.
I feel much better now. If there are any lifers on here who feel like giving me a lecture - bite me. It’s my body and it’s none of your goddamned business.
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July 15th, 2005 at 8:22 am
Well written Nick. I also applaud BritGirl’s direct and to the point speech above.
This comment was written by ScottM.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 8:26 am
I think every woman has to come up with her own decisions about both having and not having children. If a woman supports a decision that she wouldn’t make for herself, I don’t think we should be castigating her. Unless she starts making moral judgments about women who have abortions, then I’m willing to take that statement to mean “I don’t think it is right to apply my decisions to other woman” and be glad for the support.
I made the decision many years ago not to have children. So you could say that I made the decision not to have an abortion and thus my support of choice for others is suspect. On the basis of my decision, you could also doubt my support for pre-natal care, children care, and IVF. I, of course, would disagree; I wouldn’t have kids, I wouldn’t’ have an abortion, and I do strongly support all aspects of women’s reproductive rights.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 8:47 am
The irony of Robert’s sarcasm and indeed of the pro-life movement itself is that abortion has made joyous pregnancy more possible, and adoption an option for women with unplanned pregnancies. I remember reading a book by a Brazilian writer (Jorge Amado? Can’r remember) years ago about how the poor women of the favela would never go to the “angelmaker” for their first, happy pregnancy, but would go for subsequent ones in an effort to make their lives and their children’s lives less wretched. And that’s what no abortion and especially no birth control does- it makes women and children’s lives wretched. It devalues pregnancy and children because they become unwelcome burdens in too many households.
I have often wondered what would happen to the “loving option” - adoption, if abortion were made illegal, or if indeed BC were restricted as many seem to want as well. Would American women drop off their babies at orphanages to be neglected as happened in Romania? Even if the US could cope with the glut of unwanted kids, what would happen to all of the foreign children who find loving familes in the US now? I think we can imagine what would happen- orphanages and a sad existence.
In the book “Freakonomics” the authors posit that abortion has lowered the crime rate. I would like pro-lifers, so-called pro-lifers, to think about that and to remember that life can be cheapened in more way than one.
This comment was written by Elena.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 8:50 am
Like Sara and BritGirl, I’ve heard this a lot - heck I’ve said it, not to distinguish myself from women who had abortions, but because I honestly couldn’t imagine myself being in that position. I found myself in that position at 19, beat myself up to make sure I wasn’t terminating for “selfish” reasons (though a pregnancy was not in my best interests at that time) and came to the realization that my legitimate concerns about my own health and embryonic/fetal anomaly due to exposure to known teratogens were considered selfish reasons by those who oppose abortion (even those who support exceptions for rape & incest). I honestly think that the majority of women who said they support the right to make a decision they wouldn’t make themselves aren’t trying to stand a moral high ground, they’re (in general) adding the caveat to illustrate that just because a certain decision may not be right for them, that doesn’t mean it’s not the right decision for someone in different circumstances.
I think the snide comments from those who oppose privacy in life andmedical decisions just lend credence to dadahead’s excellent suggestion for re-framing the debate at Liberal Avenger.
This comment was written by ol cranky.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 10:12 am
“I want the world to know that I’m having this baby because I deeply and passionately want it, not because I couldn’t get rid of it.”
I love this line. It’s pretty much my general reaction when flag-burning amendments, and other laws designed to restrict choice rather than protect people, are suggested.
Regarding the “I’m pro-choice but could never have an abortion” discussion, I realize that many women who say this are trying to simply make a point that supporting freedom means supporting freedom for everyone, not just people like you, but I think the way that’s it’s usually phrased/used makes it come across as seperating onesself from those women who would have abortions. (I’m saying this as someone who has been guilty of doing the latter at times when I was younger).
My mother was actually the first person I heard utter this, and she did so in a conversation in which she was trying to explain to me that not everyone who finds themselves knocked up was simply being irresponsible. She had pointed out that only one of her four children was from a planned pregnancy and my parents were using some form of birth control all of the other times she got pregnant. (Her purpose was not to seperate the responsible unwanted preganancies from the irresponsible pregancies, but to poke holes in my assumptions).
At the time I translated what she said (I can’t remember exactly how she phrased it that day) as meaning that she would never have an abortion. Looking back I’m fairly certain that isn’t what she meant, even if that’s what she said.
I was born with a congenital heart defect that required constant medicine and frequent visits to the hospital from about 6 weeks until I had open heart surgery at 2. My mother was preganant with my younger brother when I went in for surgery (one of the unplanned pregnancies). I have no idea what she actually would have decided had circumstances been different and, say, my dad lost his job and health insurance about that time and my parents didn’t have family to turn to for help, but I can’t imagine her choice would have nearly as easy or clearcut.
I can’t speak with absolute certainty for my mother, but I think what she was really trying to say was that she is pro-choice even though, given her own feelings and situation, she could never choose to have an abortion herself.
This comment was written by Jenny K.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 10:31 am
Why does the abortion argument boil down to “pro-choice” vs “pro-life”? Is there not a middle ground? Choice is a wonderful option, and a woman should have that right, but as with all rights it carries resposibility. Choice begins before conception. Should I engage in sex? Should I use contraception? It seems simple that if one does not wish to become pregnant, or impregnate, one should use effective contraception. Granted it’s not a 100% guarentee, but it’s far more effective than using nothing. I would suspect that the overwhelming majority of “unplanned” pregnancies are from failure to use effective birth control. There’s also surgical options, for both sexes, to eliminate one’s child bearing ability.
Not all pro lifers are extremists. Many recognize that abortion is not always an easy decision for a woman. I sense that its not abortion itself per say that disturbs lifers, but rather the number, over a million a year if I’m not mistaken. Instead of arguing life vs choice, why not recognize the legality of abortion but work to reduce the number, and acknowledge that with rights come responsibility. Abortion should not be presented in political debates as something to celebrate, nor should women who choice such be condemed as murders.
This comment was written by Hellcat.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 10:42 am
Ahh, but Jenny K, that’s the point–situations change, usually in unexpected ways. So to say “she could never choose” an action in the future given her situation in the present doesn’t make sense, because none of us ever really know what our situation will be in the future. (For the record, I was very very guilty of saying this many times when I was younger, so I’m not trying to castigate anyone. I just think it’s an interesting point to bring up and examine, given how often you hear the “I’m pro-choice but…” thing.)
This comment was written by AB.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 11:16 am
Whoops, just re-read your post and realized you might have meant exactly what I just said. (Duh. Must read better now.) If that’s the case, sorry for the redundancy.
This comment was written by AB.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 11:20 am
“If a woman supports a decision that she wouldn’t make for herself, I don’t think we should be castigating her. ”
I’m sorry if I came across as castigating. I don’t presume to know her reason (or anyone else’s) for using the “I would never have an abortion” line. I think other commenters are right - people say it for lots of reasons, and not all of them are meant to be holier-than-thou.
But what puzzles me about it is that it makes it sound like there are two types of women - those who have abortions, and those who do not. And that I can somehow know what type of woman I am. While our decisions about our reproductive lives are political, politics don’t usually drive those decisions, and they don’t define who we are.
When I was a pre-abortion counselor I met many a “pro-life” woman who wanted an abortion because “the circumstances warrant.” Each one had always believed she would never ever make that choice, but then she did. And the pain from that cognitive dissonance was nearly palpable, because her very identity was at stake.
All I’m trying to say is that playing the “I would never” game is a dangerous way to define yourself. You never know until you’re there.
This comment was written by Sara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 11:35 am
AB, I’m a bit confused, because that was kinda my point: that if she got pregnant right at that time (or had gotten pregnant other times in the known past) then she could reasonably say that, but she couldn’t say (and wasn’t really trying to say) the same for a future that was very different from her current situation or that she would have made the same choices in the past had her past been different.
I guess to me saying “I’m pro-choice but could never have an abortion” is too absolute, but saying “I would never have an abortion in my situation, but I’m pro-choice” suggests both support of people who would choose differently and acknowledgement that circumstances play a part in the decision.
If you disagree that’s fine, I’ve never been spectacular at conveying ideas concisely - as anyone whose read my plethora of long posts knows :) - but I’m curious if you disagree because I didn’t word it well, or because you think that there isn’t a way of conveying this particular idea using so few words.
This comment was written by Jenny K.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 11:44 am
hah! AB, that’s ok - see note regarding my not always steller ability to convery ideas :)
This comment was written by Jenny K.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 11:46 am
There are many women who assume with blithe assurance that they would *never* have an abortion, until they become pregnant. Such was the case of my best friend in high school. I was so sure she would be psychologically damaged by throwing away her principles that I did try to persuade her to rethink. She was sure, and you know what, she survived and prospered, is happily married and so on.
It is certainly possible to regret having had an abortion, or needing one, it is after all an unanticipated and unwanted event that requires planning and money, and can also be quite painful. Not that childbirth doesn’t involve all of the above to one degree or another, at least if the child is unplanned. There is this assumption among pro-life types that once the child is born there will be some sort of epiphany that erases the “unwanted” gloss from forcing a new addition into the family. Sometimes this is true (most likely, if you are already set up with a family), but it is usually an arrogant assumption that is contradicted by a lot of evidence.
In short, you can have bad or mixed feelings about abortion and still not think that what you did was a wrong for which you must atone. But there are lots of women out there who are just suffused with the “cheap grace” that comes with exercising your rights but not assuming fundamental responsibility for the fact that it was, after all, a choice.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 11:47 am
I assume she = me, and I can assure you I didn’t feel at all castigated. I didn’t say that I would never have an abortion, just that (right now implied but not stated) I haven’t even considered having one. And that, unless the circumstances were extreme, abortion would probably cause me more pain and regret than whatever I hoped to avoid by it.
I don’t see a sharp divide between women-who-have-abortions and women-who-don’t, more of a spectrum from someone who can have an abortion and feel nothing but relief to someone who cannot contemplate, at least in the abstract, going through it. I place myself at one end of that spectrum based on what I know of my personality and my reactions to other situations.
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 11:50 am
These people amaze me with their coldness at times. As if such a decision is ever taken lightly. Okay, yes perhaps to some, but to the majority? No!
This comment was written by Angie.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 12:25 pm
“Castigating” was probably too strong a word and I apologize for using it. Perhaps I reacted somewhat strongly because the “you never know” was what I heard over and over again when I decided not to have children. Yes, I’m sure that there are women who blithely say “I would never” about abortions without really having thought about it but I feel that I have to be willing to trust their judgments in the same way that I wanted people to trust my decision.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 1:25 pm
There are plenty of people, like pretty much everyone in this thread, that say they wouldn’t have an abortion but are pro-choice. Because they know that if they were pregnant, they’d very much want a baby.
But there are people who say that, like the Kos example, who want to strike a balance between passing judgement on women who get abortions and people who don’t want it to be made illegal. Because of that attitude, though, women like me who would abort immediately and without regret are silenced and the anti-choice movement gets to define women who choose to abort, or would if they got pregnant, as selfish sluts.
Well, I’m not. I’d be a wretched mother, so it’s kind of me not to inflict myself on a child.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 1:35 pm
Amanda wrote (emphasis mine) :
Maybe we could start a support group ? :/
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 1:37 pm
Well, I’d say a Discoteque, but that would definitely get condemned, probably far more than the “I had an abortion” T-shirts.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
I’m in, if we can have a Feminist Jazz Snobs Night once a month.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 5:57 pm
Hmmm, while I know I’m not at all far from the norm, I think it’s worth pointing out that I’m pro-choice, mother of one, and pregnant for another and HAVE had an abortion. It’s not like people are either baby-havers or baby-killers. Choice means just that, and is based on the situation. In my current situation, abortion hasn’t even been a consideration - like Nick, I’m extremely happy about the baby I’m nurturing into being, and it wasn’t a situation that warranted me needing to consider ‘exercising’ my right to choose.
The fact is, though, that most women who have had abortions or will have abortions also will bear children. Of the - lessee - eight women I am either related to or know well whom have had abortions, only two of them have not also had children. Each woman has a different story as to what provoked her choice, and a different level of comfort with the choice itself.
Contrary to the portrayal offered by many anti-choice folks, being pro-choice is about women having the right to exercise choice over their own body, not about ‘killing’ babies.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 6:56 pm
being pro-choice is about women having the right to exercise choice over their own body, not about ‘killing’ babies.
OK. What are they choosing?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 6:57 pm
“If a woman supports a decision that she wouldn’t make for herself, I don’t think we should be castigating her. “
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.I had no intention of castigating anyone either. My point was that I see many pro-choice people using this language as a sop to the lifers, an attempt to “meet them half way” and I think it’s politically unwise. There’s really no way we can meet lifers halfway without accepting their framing of the issue, and accepting in principle that other people have the right to tell women what they can do with their bodies. We can’t compromise by advocating for better contraception, because they want to restrict access to that too. Attempting to engage with the lifer position is a losing strategy, and it’s going to end up hurting women. Look at the Dems suggesting that we should “compromise” on 3rd trimester abortions. Most 3rd trimester abortions are performed because of severe fetal abormalities and/or danger to the mother’s health. How the hell can we compromise on that?
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July 15th, 2005 at 7:30 pm
Robert, they’re choosing to put off childbearing until later. That’s the case with, I would guess, the overwhelming majority of women who have abortions. They end up having the one, two or three kids they always would have, under different circumstances. And some, like my friend from high school, end up choosing the child-free life that she always wanted.
By requiring “regret” and making snarky statements like “I’m glad you decided not to kill it” pro-lifers are trying to shift the conversation in an effort to elicit the tacit agreement of even those who support abortion rights that abortion equals infanticide. I am not going to play your game.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 8:03 pm
Some of us don’t want children. And we don’t need any sanctimonious meddlers trying to bully us into liking the idea of having our own children. That’s our choice, and I for one don’t intend to let meddlers or their apologists (ie- Kos) shame me into pretending otherwise. I’ve known since my own age was in the single digits that motherhood was not for me. I knew this as surely as I knew I was left-handed and had some artistic skill. These things are central elements of my personality. They will not be altered to please the dictatorial instincts of others. That’s final.
IOW, what BritGirl said. Those who are determined to label me some kind of potential “killer” would do well to support expanded access to healthcare and to stop spinning elaborate justifciations for shithead pharmacists who think their own “consciences” should get to intrude into my fucking womb when I ask for birth control or EC. I’ve been fortunate to reach the ripe old age of 39 without more than one or two false pregnancy scares. But I shouldn’t have to rely on luck alone to arrange my life the way I want it. I’m a full-fledged citizen, and I won’t be treated as chattel by patriarchal assholes.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 8:05 pm
Robert, they’re choosing to put off childbearing until later.
Ignoring the fact that you’re directly contradicting the women who have explicitly stated that they do not intend to ever bear a child:
What means are they using to exercise that choice?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 8:12 pm
Lay off the trolling, Robert. Barbara is speaking for the women she is most familiar with, as is Kim. The fact that women like myself, Amanda, and BritGirl probably make up a tiny fraction of pro-choice women doesn’t make us any less deserving of choice. You have heard me, and others, explain what we have done to avoid the necessity of abortion. You have also heard any number of times why even with the best will in the world, all our efforts could still fail and we could still find ourselves pregnant. (Rape culture thread, anyone ? Do you think most rapists stop to put on condoms, or check to see if their target is on the pill ?)
You’re not that dumb, Robert. You’ve gotten your answers a dozen fucking times. If you don’t like the answers, that’s not our fault. We don’t exist to please you. So if you’ve got nothing original to contribute, why don’t you just drop it ?
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 8:31 pm
Actually, Alsis, I haven’t gotten answers. I’ve gotten some abuse and a whole lot of tap dancing, all of which seems designed to avoid for as long as possible a simple acknowledgement of the simple fact that an abortion kills a life. No, no, it’s about “choice” and “privacy”. Choice to do what, and privacy behind which to do what - where apparently an acknowledgement - a bare acknowledgement - of what “what” covers would break the sisterhood, or something.
Although it’s none of my business, you’ve discussed your reproductive life and intentions enough to lower the privacy barrier. If you are bound and determined to not have any children, why don’t you get your tubes tied?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 8:41 pm
Robert, plenty of pro-choicers have concurred with you, despite your bleating about “tap-dancing,” that an embryo or fetus is “alive.” What we don’t appreciate is your constant assertion that its status is equal to that of the life of the woman carrying it.
I don’t know why you think you get to decide how lowered the “privacy barrier” is any more than you think you’ll get sympathy for kvetching about how you’re being “abused” –when you could have avoided this latest round by simply not being such an asshole to Nick in the first place. If I liked and trusted you, I’d be happy to discuss my medical status in your presence. But, frankly, I neither like nor trust you, so I consider it none of your fucking business. Maybe you’d like to amuse yourself by waltzing over to some MRA sites and asking the men there why they all don’t get vasectomies. Maybe you could give Planned Parenthood a buzz and offer to anonymously fund a few sterilizations out of your own pocket.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 9:01 pm
Growing up, I always had the view that I couldn’t think of a scenario outside of rape/incest/health when I’d agree with abortion BUT that this was entirely not my decision to make and my opinion didn’t matter.
Until, of course, a very close friend had a pregnancy scare with an abusive boyfriend. Then, I openly urgerd her to consider abortion and learned to never assume an absolute on this issue.
Still, I and most progressives would take the approach of “Safe, legal, and rare” on abortion. Part of that is promoting birth control use to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. Indeed, this should be a major part, but it is stymied by right-wingers who find the notion of birth control to be immoral who are still fussing of the judicial activism of the Griswold decision (which I think had something to do with being able to by birth control while on a family vacation). Safe is also undermined by efforts to intimidate providers in many parts of this country where a safe and legal abortion is extremely difficult to procure. I want as many people as possible to never have to make the choice to have an abortion, but I still want them to have that choice. Its theirs to make, ultimately. Not mine. The myth of the pro-abortion is left is one of the most disgusting creations of the radical right and its highly disappointing to see Robert engage in such petty misrepresentation and insult of those he disagrees with.
This comment was written by BStu.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 9:02 pm
What we don’t appreciate is your constant assertion that its status is equal to that of the life of the woman carrying it.
Since I’ve never asserted that, and don’t believe it, you can increase your level of appreciation however you see fit.
When you regularly refer to your pregnancy scares and your sexual life and your intention not to bear kids, that’s to me a lowering of the privacy barrier; kind of like when a vet brings up how he lost his arm in the war, you can generally feel comfortable asking him if its hard to cut his meat with just one hand. Apparently I was wrong. Never mind.
What is most disturbing about the extremist position that you, and a few other pro-choicers, stake out is the absolute insistence on freedom from any interference, outside judgment, or social control. Very few groups or individuals ask for that level of autonomy from the larger whole (not even the hardcore libertarians do) and those that do are usually pretty worrisome; Randian nutjobs and the like. In general, people need some social control over their actions; very few of us are capable of handling absolute autonomy in a way that is compatible with a healthy social environment. People who believe they need or deserve absolute autonomy are pretty scary, and usually for pretty good reasons.
Your allies in the pro-choice movement might want to consider how much support from moderate people who have objections to some, but not all, abortions is lost by having abortion-rights absolutists in the ranks. The moderate pro-choice position is reasonably defensible; most Americans either hold it or understand and sympathize with it; you can count me in the latter group. The absolute position, on the other hand, is just nuts. You demonstrate yourself that you know its nuts by the strenuous lengths you will go to in order to avoid a simple, technical description of what abortion is. If an absolute right to that practice is so great, why can’t you bring yourself to just say what it is?
That said, it’s obvious that there’s nothing to be gained in terms of information or understanding from my continued participation in this discussion, and I imagine it might be hurting the feelings of some people whose feelings don’t deserve to be hurt; I’ll bow out other than to answer direct questions.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 9:10 pm
I’ve actually thought long and hard about the “safe, legal and rare” strategy for ensuring women’s reproductive choice, and initially I thought it might be useful. But then, the niggle in the back of my mind that always suggested a problem with it came fully into focus; namely, how it comes down to shaming women about having an abortion, and more than that, having sex.
Some may argue it’s about minimising the amount of potentially dangerous medical procedures. But I think that’s honestly bullshit, as a wellperformed abortion is actually far more safe for a woman than a pregnancy itself.
If the anti-choice people honestly were simply interested in reducing the numbers of abortions, then they would have responded to the reaching out from pro-choice organisations with efforts to increase sex education and subsidise and provide access to birth-control, as both these things have been shown to decrease abortions, whereas making abortion illegal hasn’t. But no one has seen anything other than a trickle of movement in that direction from the anti-choicers. This seriously suggests to me there is something else going on here, and it has very little to do with descreasing abortions rates.
Moreover, there are a lot of women out there, as have been evidenced here, that weren’t conflicted or traumatised about accessing abortion services. Strategies such as the above would alienate them. Abortion doesn’t have to be a traumatising event AND for some it is. It’s not a ‘but’ argument, it’s an ‘and’ argument; just as there are a diversity of women, there are a diversity of approaches to accessing abortion, so allowing for this is the best strategy, not taking merely one perspective. We shouldn’t be telling women how they should orientate themselves to abortion; that’s for them to decide; that’s the point. It’s not our role. It’s our role to provide services and support should that be what a woman articulates she needs.
Of course, I say this as a woman that can’t get pregnant (something I have known since I first started college) and as a lesbian. Pregnancy has never ever been something I have had to consider, worry about, or whatever. Sometimes I get wistful, but then I’ve also always been whigged out by the idea of passing something the size of a football … ouch.
Oh, and as to Robert’s comment, I said this on the previous thread, and I’ll say it again here; it was, and still is, a dickhead comment.
This comment was written by Sarah in Chicago.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 9:16 pm
Robert:
What abortion is:
Abortion is an ending of a pregnancy by removal of a E/F. That’s what abortion is. Anything else is trying to reframe the debate to make women look like killers.
And I highly doubt that a women who gets an abortion makes that decision entirely in a vaccuum…at the very least she has to consult with a doctor. But she probably consults her close family, friends, maybe a religious leader, and of course, she has to consult with her own morals.
I don’t think it’s overzealous of any women to demand that she choose what, when, and where her body gets used for. That’s the definition of autonomy. That doesn’t mean she gets to dictate what anybody else wants to use thier body for, or that she doesn’t get a network of friends…but the final decision must rest with the women making the decision.
This comment was written by Antigone.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 9:28 pm
Since you directly addressed me:
Abortion is an ending of a pregnancy by removal of a E/F. That’s what abortion is.
An “E/F”. You can’t even type it.
“Removal”. You have to euphemise it.
You’re making my point for me, Antigone.
Anything else is trying to reframe the debate to make women look like killers.
Or using simple and direct language instead of euphemisms and acronyms.
It was alive. Now its dead. In the middle, you did something that you knew would move it from alive, to dead. That by me is killing.
By you, it’s “removal”. Of an acronym.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 9:38 pm
I wasn’t aware that I mentioned pregnancy scares prior to this particular thread. I wasn’t aware that I’d been discussing my sex life in graphic detail, either. Projection is a bear, Robert. Watch out for it.
Your comparison to a hypothetical war vet is funny (strange, not ha-ha) on a number of levels. For one thing, I don’t regard my lack of desire for children as a disabling situation. It just is, and always has been, a part of my life. Very strange analogy on your part there.
It’s also rather funny (strange, not ha-ha) that you yourself have repeatedly failed to respond, for instance, to the folks who have wondered aloud whether you would support forced surrender of your organs or bone marrow to save somebody else’s life. I’d say if anyone in these never-ending exchanges could be said to be “tap-dancing,” Robert, it would be you.
What kind of “social control” do you want, exactly ? For someone who repeatedly reserves the right to define each and every term/subject in a debate, Robert, you are quite vague about this. Furthermore, I don’t understand why you assume that women who are sexually active and yet work to avoid unwanted pregnancy are not excercising sufficient “control.” What exactly beyond do they need “society” to do ? We are adults, and you seemingly trust our male partners to conduct themselves responsibly without your quasi-benevolent assistance. So why can’t we adult women have the same consideration ?
If you have been reading this thread and the related threads, I think you will find that my allies understand the dangers of purges pushed upon them by people like you. I think that my allies understand that the danger of letting someone like you define “absolutism” means that they, too, run the risk of being vilified as “absolutists” at some point– even if they themselves don’t feel like they are.
And again, I reiterate that being an abortion-rights “absolutist” is not in any way a true counterpoint of being a fetus-rights “absolutist.” I don’t believe that I have the right to tell another woman to abort or use birth control. Funny that while you feign concern for “non-absolutists” like Kim, you fail to notice that they don’t have any problems with seeing my POV. Sounds to me like you are unhappy that you can’t pit mothers and non-mothers against one another. Sad for you. Not so much for us.
So you get to decide which woman is worthy of getting an abortion and which one is not ? You really can’t grasp why that’s so noxious and nasty, do you ? You would never want me to intervene in your own family life and tell you how many children you could have, and when, and how– yet you cannot extend me the same courtesy. Shame on you, Robert. If that’s “moderation,” I’ll pass.
My desire to not intervene in the lives of other women or to project my own desires upon them–and to expect the same consideration from them– is “nuts” ? Really. That would be funny if it wasn’t so sadly indicative of the upside-down view that so many men have of women’s rights. Well, you know the old saying about how madness is a reasonable reaction to a society that is insane, don’t you, Robert ?
Your description, such as it is, is hardly “technical.” You have gotten as much acknowledgement from me as you are ever going to get as to the nature of how much of a full-fledged “life” an embryo or fetus is, Robert. It’s not my problem if you want to poo-pooh my opinion because I won’t sign onto your interpretation that a woman who aborts –for reasons you don’t like, of course, as you are oh-so “moderate”– no matter how many times you stamp your foot and demand that I look at the world the same way you do.
If you had cared about people’s feelings, you would never have made that snide, hateful remark to Nick in the first place, Robert.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 9:56 pm
Oh, Antigone, you bad, wicked woman. Using an abbreviation. Don’t you know that every time you abbreviate, God kills a kitten ? Or something. Into the lake of fire with you !! :p
Sarah, great to see you again !
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 10:07 pm
Robert: On the off chance that you are actually interested in some of the whys and why nots of tubal ligation-
(Firstly, it’s a sterilization procedure, so only applicable to those that don’t want to ever be pregnant again. But you knew that.)
Firstly is that it’s an elective procedure, which affects insurance coverage and also whether or not a doctor will be willing to perform it. Many simply deny it to women under 30, or women who haven’t had kids, etc.
Secondly, it is surgery, with all the risks and complications associated with surgery. When weighing costs and risks of a ligation vs. condoms and the pill/patch, ‘regular’ birth control obviously is going to win out a lot.
Of course, you aren’t interested in the actual whys and wherefores of the matter, you simply want to get into a flamewar about how women who don’t want children and don’t get their tubes tied are shooting bullets into a crowd, metaphorically speaking.
This comment was written by Kerlyssa.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 10:51 pm
Robert,
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.You had said that you were going to bow out of this debate. That was a good idea, and you would have been well advised to stick to it.
But I’ll bite, just to remove your ability to indulge in this particular bit of rhetoric (”you can’t even type it” - how patronising).
Abortion involves the killing of a fetus. Note that I used the word fetus, not the word baby. Most of us have differing opinions as to when a fetus becomes a baby, and the most common opinion seems to be “when the fetus would be viable outside the body”. This immediately excludes all of the first trimester, and about half of the second trimester. Most abortions happen in the first trimester. The efforts of the pro-life movement to restrict abortion have, in a case of great irony, succeeded in making it so hard for many women to get access to early abortion that there are more and more abortions happening in the second trimester. This is not what the pro-choice movement wants, and it’s not what either women or their doctors want. Second trimester abortions are more risky, more painful. The main reason that more of them are happening is because people like you have made it very difficult for women to get abortions in the first trimester. This is a bad thing for everyone, and most of the blame for it rests on the shoulders of the pro-life movement. Congratulations lifers on making the “problem” that you claim to be fighting worse.
Also, you keep coming back to the idea that pro-choice women just aren’t doing enough to avoid pregnancy. This is disingenous bullshit. Plenty of women right here have gone out of their way to point out how careful they are to use birth control. Birth control is fallible. As to your suggection that pro-choice women should have tubal ligations, I invite you to take your suggestion and shove it up your ass. You have no right whatsoever to tell someone else that they must submit to surgery in order to meet your personal moral code. And even if they did, it’s still not completely fullproof. There have been cases of women who have become pregnant after tubal ligation. It also would not be covered by most people’s health insurance, so if you really think this is such a great idea you might try suggesting that some pro-life groups offer to help pay for it. I’m guessing you won’t get very far with that strategy. It is interesting that you didn’t suggest vascectomy for the partners of these women though. Interesting, and very telling.
I’ll even give you another analogy, a bonus if you will. I have two first degree relatives who had breast cancer. This puts me in a high risk group. I am of course doing all the smart things that one does to decrease one’s risk of cancer. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink to excess, I eat healthy foods, I exercise, I maintain a healthy weight. In spite of all this there is still a chance I may get breast cancer. Would you suggest that I get a double mastectomy now, just in case? Am I acting irresponsibly if I do not do so?
Also, what about the possibility that a woman who does not think she wants kids now might change her mind later? Do you assume that you have the right to tell her that she must deny herself the ability to keep her options open by having a tubal ligation now?
Which again brings us back to the central issue. None of this is any of your business. These are not your decisions to make. Given that you are fairly intelligent, none of this should be difficult for you to understand.
And one more note RE late-term abortions. Most of these are done because of major developmental problems in the baby and/or health risks to the mother. Do you really think that you have the right to dictate to a woman that she should risk her own life to bring a child to term? Do you actually think that the life of the baby is always more valuable than the life of the mother? Or that a woman should be forced to committ the rest of her life to caring for a severely disabled child? That’s a pretty big committment, and I remind you that if these children are put up for adoption their chances of actually being adopted are very low. They would probably spend the rest of their lives in an institution, and that’s a pretty horrible fate. Bearing all that in mind, do you really think that you have more right to make these decisions than the woman actually carrying the child?
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July 15th, 2005 at 11:04 pm
BritGirl, check your email. There’s a pro-choice rally in SF tomorrow. (Sorry for the late notice).
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
July 15th, 2005 at 11:39 pm
Brian, thanks but I can’t go! Ironically enough given the topic here and our friend Robert’s assumptions, it’s my niece’s first birthday party tomorrow and her mother would never forgive me if I missed it. So, evil baby-killing feminist me will be spending all day shopping for baby clothes and cooing over an infant.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Thanks for keeping me in mind though. Next time…
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July 16th, 2005 at 2:54 am
Robert:
Abortion is ending a pregnancy by killing and removing the embryo or fetus. See? I have no problem stating it, and I’m about as extreme a pro-choicer as you’ll ever encounter.
Meanwhile, try to find a pro-lifer who doesn’t become enormously uncomfortable when pro-life policies are accurately described as state-enforced childbirth for pregnant women. For that matter, try to find a pro-lifer who is willing to say what penalties a woman who has an abortion should recieve - five years in prison? Twenty years? Lifetime? Death penalty?
It may be, as you say, that some pro-choicers aren’t entirely comfortable talking directly about what abortion is. But the vast, vast majority of pro-lifers are just as uncomfortable when asked to talk about the reality of criminalizing abortion.
(If they are comfortable, it’s generally because they favor virtually no punishment for the woman at all - a position that’s completely incoherant when combined with the view that abortion is murder.)
No one is saying that people shouldn’t be free to make unkind judgments about women who get abortions. Rather, people are saying that they’ll make unkind judgements upon the unkind judgers in turn.
Frankly, I don’t see much unique about the position that “I should be able to do _____ without being interfered with, as long as what I’m doing doesn’t harm another person.” I should be able to draw whatever cartoons I want, for instance, without social controls telling me what I can draw or can’t.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 4:16 am
Robert said:
Your allies in the pro-choice movement might want to consider how much support from moderate people who have objections to some, but not all, abortions is lost by having abortion-rights absolutists in the ranks.
To be honest, it is the “moderate people” out there who scare me the most. It’s that “some, but not all” thing that makes me nervous. On the one hand they pat us on the head: they tell us not to worry, they support abortion, they support a woman’s right to choose. But then they turn around and start making exceptions, putting conditions on when, where, and how a woman can choose to abort. They assure us it is still our right to choose, but they want to decide, set limits on what, when, and if we get to choose. Because they know better than we do. Because they are more informed than we are. Because they are more moral than we are.
Robert describes himself as a moderate. He thinks that the pro-choice folks should be grateful for the moderate “some, but not all” view on abortion. He thinks that we are not reasonable because we don’t want to make concessions, because we don’t want to accept limits and restrictions on what we can do with our own bodies. But the problem with making concessions, with letting other folks set limits is that they don’t ever seem to want to stop. If we agree to one limit or restriction, they think we should agree to the next. If we give up one thing, it is easier to give up the next thing.
So we are placed in a position where we can’t make concessions, where we can’t agree to limits. Either we are in control of our own bodies or we are not. And if we can’t even control what happens to our bodies, to the one thing that is ours, then we are less than a person. We are chattel, we are breeders, we are body parts, not people.
This comment was written by mousehounde.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 4:17 am
Robert, what do you think constitutes an absolutist position on abortion?
As to the desire to be free of “any interference, outside judgment, or social control,” what kind of social control, exactly, are you proposing? A morality squad that will judge the suitability of a particular decision (”she used five types of birth control, she gets to have an abortion; she didn’t use any, so she doesn’t deserve a break”)? That kind of social control? And my life would be bliss itself if I could command the right to be free of outside judgment, but I don’t think I’m going to waste a lot of time pursuing that as a goal.
You accuse us of trading in euphemisms, but the average pro-lifer can’t or won’t put together a coherent explanation of why, for instance, he or she would be in favor of abortion in the case of rape or incest but not failure of birth control, or as Amp says, what kind of penalty would apply to a woman who arranges an illegal abortion, or for that matter, her partner, because these things are rarely done alone. Scratch 1 mm below the surface of an average pro-lifer and you find that a fetus is a baby with an asterisk. So here’s a thought: “Life begins at conception” is a euphemism greater than anything the average pro-choice person has ever concocted. It avoids all kinds of pesky questions about logic, compassion, autonomy and a host of other values that I, for one, find important to living in a free society.
I favor unrestricted abortion up to about 16 weeks, with a more complicated and nuanced view on availabiltiy after that point. Somehow that makes me an absolutist, while those who take the view that a zygote is equivalent to a “human being*” are “moderate” in their views? And apparently this is because I’m not willing to require regret and mourning for those who avail themselves of the right to abortion?
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 5:08 am
Robert: What is most disturbing about the extremist position that you, and a few other pro-choicers, stake out is the absolute insistence on freedom from any interference, outside judgment, or social control.
So Robert finds it disturbing that women think they ought to be able to trust their own moral judgments when making decisions about their own pregnancies but he has no problems with other people trusting their own moral judgments about denying women emergency contraception or even birth control. And Robert thinks it is better to preserve the “innocence” of kids that to provide them information that might help them prevent unwanted pregnancies later in life.
And while Robert insists he supports abortion when it meets the requirements, as yet unrevealed, of his “moral calculus”, he insists that we all use his morally-loaded phrasing (”killing a baby”) to describe abortions — I guess this is his way of letting us know that even if he will concede in some instances that abortions might be acceptable, any woman who gets an abortion is automatically morally corrupt.
And Robert wonders why we are so resistant to having “moderates” like him as allies.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 7:43 am
I hate the way pro-lifers believe that feminists are baby killing monsters who have abortions for fun, although I know that is all part of their rhetorical strategy. It’s beyond insulting when abortion is a very difficult decision for most women. Mind you, I do think as feminists we need to have another look at the abortion/pro-choice issue. I’m involved in a feminist group in Wales and recently someone joined wanting to run an abortion campaign. I was surprised to find that very few people really wanted to be involved. Although they identified themselves as “pro-choice” feminists a lot were uncomfortable with the idea of having an abortion or actively campaigning on the issue. I don’t know whether this is because pro-life rhetoric has made deeper inroad than I’d previously imagined, or if there is a general shift occurring in young women’s attitudes to abortion.
This comment was written by Winter Woods.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 8:08 am
It does not take emotional or verbal gymnastics to be pro-life. If there was no growing life (dead things don’t grow) then there would be nothing to kill. You know you are killing something and you must do semantical sommersalts in order to not think that something is a human being. What is it then? A duck? A dog? You know you are killing something. You know that something is your child. You just so desperately want to maintain your lifestyles that you’ll make human sacrifices to see that happen. It’s the baby’s body and not yours to dismember. If you want to burn yourself in saline or have your limbs torn off then be my guest. Doing that to your child- be she born or not-yet-born is child abuse. I don’t care if she lives in your house or in your womb.
As a woman, I’m disgusted that you would paint yourselves as so much more important than your children that you have a so-called right to end her whole life at your whim. I have an advanced degree and a wonderful career. Having a baby at this point would hinder my doctoral plans and my career advancement, but I don’t think that my situations justify stealing my child’s whole life from her. My job is to CARE for and nurture the life I helped create. Abortion is truly a selfish act. Abortion paints women as completely self- interested and oppressive towards those that depend on her for care and protection. Women are not killers by nature. It takes significant delusion to think that abortion is not killing a child. It takes propaganda pieces written to CONVINCE self and others that you believe as you do. I don’t need a peptalk, and my children are safe with me.
This comment was written by Jacqueline.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 8:45 am
Oh gee, those selfish, selfish women. How dare they want autonomy! How dare they not be repentant of having teh sex!
It’s a fetus, or more likely, an embroyo, that I’m killing. I end up killing more living things when I scrape my knee. Hell, I kill more complex creatures for lunch. A ZEF is there at my disgression, and thus I can do whatever I want to my body. If I want to make my uterus a hostile envirnment, guess what? It’s my uterus. Unless I want it, it’s a kin to someone holding me hostage.
MY LIFE is important. I don’t give a damn if you think that’s me being selfish or not, it’s the truth and I refuse to let people wrap this up in “It’s child abuse” nonesense. For it to be child abuse, it has to ACTUALLY BE A CHILD. Until the moment it can survive outside of me, it is not more or even equally worthy life as mine. If you say I MUST give childbirth, you are putting a potential life above my not disputed life. You know what I say to that? Fuck you.
Go to the orginal post, and read the tread there. I said it when Nick first said about her pregnancy, and I’ll say it again right here:
Sex is to rape and a wanted pregnancy is to an unwanted pregnancy.
This comment was written by Antigone.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 8:48 am
Sorry, didn’t mean to put it up yet:
In fact, it’s selfish of the state and others to DEMAND that I give birth, selfish in the sense the word was supposed to be taking. They are taking something that doesn’t belong to me (my body) and dictating what I’m supposed to do with it. Whereas I’m taking something that DOES belong to me, and something that I do have jurisdiction over (my body again) and deciding how to use it. That’s not selfish, that’s doing with my own property what I want.
This comment was written by Antigone.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 8:58 am
They’re choosing to remove another organism from their body that is essentially parasitic. Sadly for the fetus-worshippers, there’s not really a way to remove this organism without also killing it, but I would say there’s no desire on the part of the woman to specifically kill the fetus: it’s just a side effect of the removal process.
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 9:07 am
As a human being, I’m shocked that you can come out with such inflammatory nonsense. It’s not disgusting to suggest that a fully-grown woman is more important than a bunch of cells that could turn into a person with the co-operation of the woman. If the pregnant woman was killed, the fetus would die too, whereas the converse is not true: doesn’t this suggest that we might be onto something at least?
Well, that’s just wonderful for you. I have a degree too, and planned before I discovered I was pregnant to train as a teacher. It seems like I’m going to have to put that on hold for the time being, but I don’t use this as justification for dictating to other women what their choices should be.
You remind me of nothing so much as the hearty people who tell depressives that they too have suffered much in their lives and you don’t see them moping, so the depressives should just get on with it and quit whining. Not all people are the same, and ability to cope with either pregnancy or abortion is amazingly variable between women.
You see where I’m coming from? You can’t look at some other woman and magically know whether she’s capable of supporting pregnancy, so you don’t have the right to make her choice for her. Only she can do that.
That’s a job you gave yourself, not one that is yours by divine fiat. If you enjoy that job, as I do, that’s wonderful. But other women don’t, and I don’t see how you have the right to say they ought to.
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 9:13 am
Jacqueline:
Then do it. If you are pregnant, have the baby. Who here has said that you can’t, or shouldn’t.
No. It’s you who aparently had to drop your so-important-I-had-to-brag-about-it-to-the-unwashed doctoral work and come here to paint us as baaaaaaaaad baaaaaaaad people. Get this through your arrogant head, Jacqueline. I don’t give a damn whether you think I’m selfish. I don’t give a damn if you can’t tell the difference between an embryo and a child. My body is not yours. Nothing grown in it or coming out of it is yours. Frankly, I find you an arrogant, self-righteous shitheel for prattling on as if my life and my body were any of your fucking business. Leave it, and me, alone. I’ll be sure to do the same for you.
Do you plan to call for us selfsih, eeeeeeeevil aborters to be jailed for “child abuse” ? Good luck with that. It may very well be that your fellow pro-lifers are a lot queasier about that than you.
You know, reading this sort of stuff from Robert and Jacqueline makes me think that perhaps the terms “moderate” and “extremist” have outlived their usefulness, and should be tossed out. :/
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 9:47 am
You had said that you were going to bow out of this debate. That was a good idea, and you would have been well advised to stick to it.
So difficult since women’s uteruses are, after all, public property. You are denying him the right to tell you what to do with something he, as a member of the public, as partial ownership over.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 9:50 am
MY LIFE is important.
Better double check to make sure you don’t have a vagina before you go spouting off like that.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 9:52 am
Wow, you have an advanced degree … I’m so impressed … let me see, I have … oh, I don’t know … 4 of them, and … what do you know … I’m working on my 5th … I must be insanely qualified then to tell every other woman on th planet what they can or can’t do with their bodies and what kind of people they are depending on their choices.
In case you missed it, that was sarcasm, to demonstrate the patently arrogant nature of your post, Jacqueline.
This kinda of troll behaviour from anti-choice people just shows how incredibly right a position that allows women to control their own reproduction is. We don’t tell women what they can or can’t do with their bodies, and moreover, we don’t tell them what kind of person (and particularly, what kind of a moral person) they are for making a particular choice.
It’s about supporting women and respecting and defaulting their choices as valid, regardless of their education level or career privileges.
Simply having a different conception of what abortion is or isn’t is not ‘verbal gymnastics’ and again, it’s the height of arrogance to suggest that there is only one way of looking at things and that was it yours. I’m not going to tell you how to look at abortion, if you want to think of it as child abuse, then go ahead, but at least have the basic humanity and civility to not have the mid-boggling audacity to demand others come around to your way of looking at things.
And people ask what problems we have with the anti-choice mob …
This comment was written by Sarah in Chicago.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 10:21 am
The moderate pro-choicers are getting angry. The “extremist pro-choice group” not only is denying everyone the right to control the contents of a woman’s womb who is having an abortion because of a situation that wasn’t her “fault”, they are also denying the moderates the right to control the wombs of dumb and evil women (sluts). The audacity of those extremists! How dare they suggest that we should just trust and respect pregnant women to make the best choice for themselves? I mean…. (to paraphrase a certain senator, or was it a congressman) If you can’t control a slut’s pregnancy, whose pregnancy can you control?
Duh. Your own.
Jacqueline’s post reminds me why I usually stay out of abortion discussions, I think it’s impossible for the two groups (pro-choice and pro-life) to achieve any sort of mutual understanding. It’s always “but killing babies is wrong!” against “It isn’t killing babies”. And the fact that many pro-lifers need to bring the irresponsibility/selfishness arguments (it’s your fault you are pregnant, now deal with it = don’t have an abortion) means that plenty of pro-lifers don’t really believe abortion is murder, but can co-exist with the radicals who do and embrace the same rhetoric.
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 10:40 am
There are actualities. There are absolutes. There is a RIGHT and there is a WRONG. Whether you beleive that or not is totally irrelevant. If you didn’t beleive that the world really is round would not change the fact that it is. Taking care of your children (read that as: not paying to have the child killed) IS a responsibility. The child actual exists. If it didn’t there would be nothing to endearingly call ‘your baby’ and nothing to have killed with forceps.
This comment was written by Jacqueline.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 10:50 am
So everyone here is reinforcing that they think they are more important than their children- because of stage of development or whatever excuse makes you feel better about it. I maintain that I had just as much worth before I had boobies than I do now. It would have been just as much murder to kill me before I grew my breasts or even my hair (I was bald at birth). Because I am more developed does not make me more of a person or suddenly give my life meaning. I was all that I am now at conception- I just grew.
So basically- grown women have value, pre-born women do not. That’s essentially what is being said. Reminds me of when whites had value and blacks did not or when men had value and women did not. I am a person- no more valuable than another person of any level of ability. Is ability is the question for personhood, I have worked with many disabled people. Why not kill them? My child may not yet be able to breathe anything other than amniotic fluid whilst I breathe air but we have the same value. Anything less is oppression. If you use development or ability to impue rights, then you better be careful. I’d hate to be you after a car accident or disabling injury.
Abortion is selfish and evil. I’m not touting responsibility but life vs. death. You can be irresponsible as long as you don’t hurt anyone else. You can drink too much, miss your deadlines, whatever. You can harm your body all you want. Slaughtering your unborn babies is a different matter.
This comment was written by Jacqueline.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 10:51 am
And trolls are a pain in the ass.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 10:53 am
Jacqueline, let me ask you a hypothetical question.
There’s a burning building. In one room is a petri dish containing a dozen human zygotes, every one of which can be implanted and eventually born if they’re rescued from this burning building,
In another part of the building is a two-year-old girl.
For the purposes of this hypothetical, there’s only time to save one - either the petri dish (and the dozen zygotes), or the little girl. Which do you save?
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 10:58 am
Well, yes. A grown woman is more important than a fetus or zygote, no question. If a pregnancy is likely to put a woman’s life in danger, virtually everyone agrees that the woman should be able to abort in that circumstance; the reason for that belief is the consensus that the woman is more imporant than the zygote or fetus.
Some “stages of development,” like growing boobies, are (as you point out) morally unimportant. However, speaking for myself, I don’t think that having the ability to think and experience and have preferences - the presence or absence of a mind - is morally unimportant.
Furthermore, the difference between being inside someone else’s body and being separate also seems morally important.
You seem to be arguing that because some stages of development are morally unimportant, all stages of development must be morally unimportant. I don’t think that’s a justifiable view. Just because a law might make it illegal for me to cut down a 200-year-old oak, it doesn’t follow that the law should forbid me from destroying an acorn.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 11:03 am
Ah, of course, the “I’m right and you’re wrong” defense.
I guess we should just give up in the face of logic like that, as she is obviously so incredibly advanced beyond us that it’s just futile to argue otherwise and oh so apparent that all our previous thoughts are so obviously wrong now. I do so wish someone had used this defense before because then I wouldn’t have wasted so long thinking the “wrong” things I have been.
Oiy. Trolls.
Did you just miss the large number of posts above under yours that show we just don’t see it the way you do? You simply repeating the same things over and over and over again without a logical base does not a coherent arguement make. Consistent, undoubtably, but coherent, not even at a stretch.
Yes, you see a fetus/zygote as a child. How wonderful for you. We don’t.
This comment was written by Sarah in Chicago.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 11:14 am
Jacqueline:
I agreed that there are absolutes, but unlike you I acknowledge that they are unknowable to human beings and that our moral imperative is to try and figure them out. You haven’t figured them out, and you should remember that when you are feeling especially righteous. I haven’t figured them out either and anyone who says they have is wrong.
Here’s an example of how abortion isn’t absolutely wrong that even anti-choicers have to accept: it has made life better for women and the children they do have. It has made it possible for pregnant teens to handpick stable familes for the babies they decide to give up for adoption. It has made it possible for more women to be educated. It has made it possible for children in foreign orhanages to find loving parents in the US. It has saved women’s lives.
If you are studying to get a degree, you are probably in contact every day with women who used their corporal veto and ended a pregnancy because they weren’t ready. Women who would never lift a finger against someone, much less their children, found it acceptable to end a pregnancy, to snuff out the embryo. Adult, moral women make this choice all the time- women who will almost all be mothers one day. Stable, better off mothers.
This comment was written by Elena.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 12:27 pm
Frankly, defining being pro-choice as “extreme” is just another way the otherside of this debate is trying to design a playing field to benefit them. An extreme position would be enforced abortions. Its not like this isn’t a position that some have actually made. There have long been extremists who believe that abortion should be actively promoted for a variety of patronizing or blatantly racists opinions. This is, however, an exceptionally marginal opinion. As opposed to the extreme on the otherside, which calls for a complete ban on abotion, even in cases where the mother would otherwise die. That side, however, actually has political clout. So they’ve been allowed to move the goal posts in their direction. If they are extreme, so then must be the majority on the otherside of the issue. So they’ve slapped us with the extreme label and derided as pro-abortion. We’re stand-ins for the real extremists who justifiable have little to no influence. Middle-grounders, instead of acknoweldging that one side is corrupting the debate to call us extremists have merely tried to use the new rules to their advantage. As the middle-ground always does.
This comment was written by BStu.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 12:40 pm
What you’re touting is the potential torture of neonates because you, personally, find abortion reprehensible and you feel perfectly justified in making blanket moral judgements (ostensibly because you think you are much more intelligent and moral than anyone with a dissenting view). You are not omniscient, you’d best take care to remember that.
This comment was written by ol cranky.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 2:15 pm
Amanda, lol. Lemme check…damn it looks like I have one. Guess that means that I’m NOT important. How silly of me, it must be hormones making me selfish.
This comment was written by Antigone.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 3:11 pm
So Jacqueline has an advanced degree but would give up her career and apparently everything else she has worked for IF she became pregnant. You know what Jacqueline, what planet do you live on? I have an advanced degree, along with, I am guessing, many of the posters on this board. And I HAVE already given up chunks of my highly paid career in order to care for my children, as many, many if not the outright majority of women do. What does any of that have to do with some other woman living some other life than mine or yours?
And you know what, I along with many others here have heard this plaint before, the “I would never, ever have an abortion,” only for the speaker to hit the rewind and record again button when faced with her own unplanned pregnancy — or perhaps when faced with a pregnancy that threatens her health, and so on.
I’ve been pregnant a whole bunch of times, and I still think that it takes an act of intellectual will, not to say denial (I won’t be so crude as to say an act of delusion), to equate a fetus with a child. They aren’t the same. Most declared pro-lifers act and talk in such a way that makes it clear that even they don’t believe that a fetus has the same moral worth as the woman in whose body it is growing. Why don’t you take your fight up with them? After all, they are at least supposed to agree with you.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 3:30 pm
Jacqueline,
By being a doctoral program at all, you are on an extreme in the spectrum of women’s educational and economic opportunities. Would you be where you are today without birth control measures? If not (and I think it’s likely), thank the pro-choice movement which made it legal for women to obtain birth control at all.
You say you would never have an abortion, but that is based on your experiences which led to your current moral values and your current circumstances, which arguably are pretty nice (though I know grad school is hard work). What if, hypothetically, you got pregnant in high school, rather than in a doctoral program? Currently if you dropped school to have a child, you could get a cushy office job with opportunity for advancement. What if stopping school meant the only jobs you could obtain after you had that child were working in food service or cleaning with no opportunity for advancement until you obtained your GED, if you had the energy after a long day of work and if you had someone to mind your child while you took the necessary classes?
Many women have had children either at a young age or under otherwise difficult circumstances and soldiered on to make successful lives for themselves, but each woman knows her own circumstances and abilities best. Who are you to tell a woman that she must follow the plan you prescribe? I trust women to determine for themselves whether allowing the embryo to grow into a child or having an abortion is the right decision.
This comment was written by Denise.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 5:35 pm
I have never used birth control in my life. I thank the modern feminist movement for NOTHING but making women look like irresponsible weaklings that need to oppress their own children to the point of death- oh, yeah, and telling people that women need government quotas in order to get a job. I have not needed birth control pills or surgery to succeed in life.
I thank my feminist fore-mothers that promoted EQUALITY and not oppression. They were staunchly pro-life and knew abortion to be the ultimate exploitation of women.
Options exist other than abortion. I have a non-profit organization that provides such options, and I personally donate to many others with my time and expertise to provide more resources for women in unplanned pregnancies. What does the prochoice movement do for women in trouble besides take hundreds of their dollars to kill their baby. Every service my organization provides is absolutely free.
By the way, I did drop out of high school.
This comment was written by Jacqueline.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 5:45 pm
I have been called a troll and a pain in the ass. I thought discourse was invited. If I’m so wrong then surely you could demonstrate that, instead you just want to reinforce eachother’s views because it makes you feel better about supporting the indefensible. I recognize that I use inflammatory language, but it’s true. Show me how abortion is not selfish and not oppressive. Show me a survivor of abortion that says, “Damn, I wish the doctor wasn’t the bottom of his med school class. Maybe he could have finished me off!”
Abortion is killing a unique life. You all know that- you just have a vested interest in deluding yourself otherwise. Since I know that you know exactly what you support, nothing I say will matter.
I’ll excuse myself from this discussion.
This comment was written by Jacqueline.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 6:55 pm
This is not original with me but I have used it many times when discussing abortion:
This comment was written by Anna.“If you mean to suggest that mainstream adherents of choice are pro-abortion nothing could be further from the truth. We acknowledge that for some people all abortions are morally wrong and for all people some abortions are morally worng. What we vehemently oppose is legislating the prohibitionists’ morality, which is that for all people all abortions are always wrong.” ( Richard E. Poole)
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July 16th, 2005 at 7:11 pm
I am 60 years old. At the age of 17, I became pregnant while still a senior in high school. My boyfriend was a freshman in college. At that time, abortion was not legal, but, frantically, my bf went to his fraternity brothers to find someone who would “fix” the problem. We were both frightened to death to tell our parents. We ended up with a rushed marriage and a 7 month baby girl. (Along with 8 other girls in my senior class.) My daughter is now 42 with an 8 year old daughter of her own. I sincerely can’t imagine my life without my daughter….she is my friend, my hero, my life. What if I had aborted her? What if she had aborted my granddaughter, who is the brightest, kindest, most loving little girl in the whole world?
This comment was written by Annie.Do I support abortion rights? Absolutely. Whether or not my daughter or granddaughter decides to have an abortion for whatever reason, they must not be denied the CHOICE. As I grow even older, I realize it is the ability to CHOOSE many things…such as marriage, jobs, friends, children…. that makes us equal to males. I never want my daughter and granddaughter to not be able to choose anything they really want, I love them too much for that.
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July 16th, 2005 at 7:40 pm
…but…but…you never answered Ampersand’s question about the burning building and the two year old human being and the petri dish!
I confess, I am shocked. You must have missed it.
This comment was written by flea.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 7:47 pm
Jacqueline,
I believe in abortion on demand in the most extreme sense for one simple reason: I believe that women themselves know better than anyone else the circumstances of their own lives, and I believe that they should have the right and ability to make decisions based on those circumstances. Because I take the absolutist position, I believe that women have the right to do things with their bodies that may make me personally uncomfortable. They may decide to have multiple abortions; they may decide not to notify their parents if they are under 18, they may decide to bear and keep children that they cannot adequately support: whether or not I agree with those decisions, I believe that they should be trusted to make them.
I believe this because I believe that the decision to have an abortion is not something that women do lightly, and that even if it is taken lightly in some cases, it is still none of my business. Like most of the commenters here, I also believe that the value of a potential life has less importance in the calculus of these decisions than the value of extant lives: the woman, her partner, any children she may already have, the woman, the woman, the woman.
Women have abortions for reasons that may not make sense to me, or that may make me sad, or angry, or confused. That doesn’t make them wrong reasons, and it doesn’t make my feelings an important part of the discussion. Because I wish to retain the right to make all kinds of medical decisions about my body, I believe that other people should have those rights as well. It’s hard for me to see the position that abortions should be criminalized in any way that doesn’t involve a belief that women can’t be trusted to steward their own bodies, and I find that belief abhorrent.
What makes you distrust women so much? When women have abortions, do you believe that they should simply feel ashamed, or do you believe that there should be a legal or criminal punishment involved? What would be a just punishment, in your eyes?
This comment was written by Erin.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 8:53 pm
Its good that options exist other than abortion. Those options absolutely need to be made available to all people so as to preserve the fundamental nature of choice. Again, Jacqueline has transformed being pro-choice into pro-abortion. Not in the least. This is not to say that abortion as a choice should be scorned and condemned, of course. This would undermine the freedom of choice. But that doesn’t mean all other options shouldn’t be made available. While I’m happy you provide such options, I feel quite certain that you do as a means to condemn different options. Perhaps this is why you have such a hostile and ill-informed perspective of those who support the freedom of choice. You don’t seek to provide options. You seek to provide one option, with the understand that the opposite option is completely unacceptible. You seem to have projected the reverse belief on those who disagree with you. This simply isn’t so. I want to see a world where all choices are made available to women who have a concern about the future of a pregnancy. Without prejudice. I hope pre-emptive action such as birth control and sex education can pre-empt the need for such issues to be addressed, but when they do come up, all choices must be presented neutrally. Intimidation of providers who do precisely this does no good. It defies the freedom of choice just as much as criminalizing certain choices. Contrary to your nearly slanderous suggestion that clinics that offer one choice among many are somehow only concerned with money, there are many clinics dedicated to presenting all options and all alternatives and doing so to all who need it, not only those who can afford the medical care being offered. Your apparent hostility towards birth control is especially disquieting, but I presume it comes out of a belief that no one ought to be having sex out of wedlock, and therefore any responsible steps taken during such a venture are meaningless because you see the act itself as unredeemably irresponsible. It seems the issue then might actually be that you wish to impose your sexual politics on everyone.
Which all leads up to the issue you raise in your weak defense of accusations of trolling. Discourse is indeed invited. What discourse, however, can be expected to result when you view us all as oppressors and murderers for our opinion? That is not discourse. It is not debate. It is an attack of an exceptionally offensive and vicious nature. If this is your stated view of us, you hardly have much to complain about if you merely termed a “pain in the ass” in response. Considering you accuse us all of condoning mass murder, you have little ground to defend in suggesting yourself the victim of intemperate behavior. You say yourself that our opinion is indefensible. Should we be the least bit surprised then that you find our attempts at engaging you in discourse, in spite of your destructive remarks, to be unworthy of response? Calling us murderers and terming our opinions to be indefensible is not the act of someone interested in discourse, so please save us this little charade. You are interested in condemnation and vitriol, nothing more. At least be honest about your motives instead of play-acting the part of the victim of personal attacks.
This comment was written by BStu.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 9:08 pm
That is not the message of the feminist movement. Feminists simply have pointed out that the culture we live in oppresses women socially, economically, educationally, etc. and has fought to improve our conditions. The fact that you take for granted all the improvements and then cut femisists down wholesale because you don’t agree with one of the issues illustrates your ignorance of not just femisnism, but of history as well.
Pre-feminist movement, I guarantee that you would not be a doctoral student. I suggest you rethink that thank you card.
Study your history. Talk to women in their 40s and beyond. It wasn’t that long ago that women were not hired for jobs other than teachers or secretaries. I have a good friend who was looking for her first job out of college. She was told to her face by the interviewer that she was wasting his time because he would never hire a woman accountant. That was in the seventies. She couldn’t do a thing because there was no such thing as EEO. Did he hire a man instead of her because the man was more qualified? Even HE doesn’t know because he didn’t even interview her!! Your pretty lambskin isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on if no one will hire you because of what’s not between your legs. Thank the feminists that it’s now illegal to pass over a qualified candidate on the basis of sex. Mind you, discrimmination still exists [I just quit a job at a company that employs ~40 managers, all men], but we’ve come a long way.
You say you’re in a doctoral program. How many women are in your program? How many women were in your program 30 years ago?
Do you play sports? If not, were there more than one or two girl’s sports teams at your HS and college? Thank the feminists.
I won’t do more than mention the self-evident improvements wrought by the feminists’ contribution to redefining rape and battered women.
Yes, those feminists, they’re just a bunch of baby-killers.
Thank the diety[ies] of your choice that you exist in a time and place that you have the opportunities that you do. It’s fair to assume that if you’re in a doctoral program that you’re of at least average intelligence and that you don’t live in poverty. You can’t say what you would or would not do , or how your moral compass would read in situations that you are unfamiliar with or do not understand.
But were you pregnant at the time? Your choices as a HS dropout are vastly different depending on your motherhood and financial status. Financial status aside, a HS dropout/mother combo is a huge barrier to higher education and economic opportunity. Truly, I’m proud of you for turning your life around and for bettering yourself through education. But the original comment about the HS dropout was in reference to a pregnant/parent HS dropout. So unless you’re a mother, and have been since the time that you dropped out, I don’t see how you being a drop out is relevant to this discussion.
This comment was written by Margot.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 9:10 pm
“So difficult since women’s uteruses are, after all, public property. You are denying him the right to tell you what to do with something he, as a member of the public, as partial ownership over. ”
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.See, this is the problem with having picked a partner who doesn’t see me as chattel. He fails to remind me of the fact that my body is under public ownership, and thus I tend to forget sometimes. Clearly I should have married someone like Robert or, god forbid, a male version of Jacqueline, who would remind me of my nothing-but-a-walking-incubator status on a regular basis.
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July 16th, 2005 at 9:13 pm
And I agree with BStu. The Right is once again attempting to use semantic tricks to move the goalposts in such a way as to give themselves maximum advantage. And we’re not going to let them do that. That’s why they’re throwing a tantrum.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 10:09 pm
Jacqueline:
At some point in the future you may want to start a family. By that time abortion may be illegal in your state. If by some misfortune you should happen to have a miscarriage, I hope you’re comfortable with explaining it to the police. Because that’s the world you’re arguing for.
A friend of mine carried an acephilaic child to term. It had enough of a brainstem to breathe and keep its heart beating. But it wasn’t a human and never would be, even though it sure as hell looked like a baby. Lived for three days. Should someone who knows their child is doomed really trudge through all the steps of the dance? (That’s a rhetorical question; your statements so far make me pretty comfortable with guessing how you’d answer.)
I’m sorry there isn’t a nice clear answer like, “Human life begins at conception,” and then you can just stop thinking. The real world has a lot of real situations in it, and they are rarely as clear as you seem to want them to be.
This comment was written by alex.Report this comment to the moderators
July 16th, 2005 at 11:12 pm
Answers to non-rhetorical questions posed to me (if I missed you and you really wanted an answer to a question, or if I mistook your non-rhetorical for a rhetorical, lemme know):
Alsis:
What kind of “social control” do you want, exactly ?…you seemingly trust our male partners to conduct themselves responsibly without your quasi-benevolent assistance. So why can’t we adult women have the same consideration ?
The social control I would like to see on abortion would be exercised primarily through extralegal means. The law should handle things like waiting periods and notification for parents, but should not bar abortion outright, especially as such laws would be unenforceable. Society - the culture, the church, and our interactions with other people - should establish incentives and disincentives for the reproductive behavior of both men and women. You keep fixating on how I’m not going after men; perhaps that’s because there aren’t very many men here going on about how they should have the right to kill or abandon their offspring.
Basically, a woman who aborts to save her life or for major health reasons should be empathized with and supported. A woman who plans to abort because she isn’t ready for motherhood should be referred to social welfare groups for adoption placement. A woman who aborts because she doesn’t want to have to start shopping at CostCo should be ostracized.
A man who declines to meet his parental obligations should be (essentially) legally enslaved and his resources put at the disposal of the child, via the mother or other caregiver.
BritGirlSF:
do you really think that you have more right to make these decisions than the woman actually carrying the child?
That depends on the woman actually carrying the child. Our society steps in and makes decisions for people all the time. Generally, I accept the libertarian position that the default locus for such decisionmaking ought to be the person most intimately involved.
I also accept the proposition that there are people who are not responsible agents. Those people require assistance and external structure, sometimes through the state, sometimes through civil society, sometimes through family.
One group that would certainly seem to require some external control would be people who insist that an abortion only has one life involved. If someone insists that other human lives are so unimportant that no external agency has a voice in their fate, that person is a prime candidate for some curtailment of their autonomy, in my view. Not a legal curtailment; as noted above, that just doesn’t work. But certainly their social position and their community standing ought to suffer.
The bottom line is that the rights of the next generation trump the rights of the current generation. Our children are more important than we are.
Amp:
I don’t see much unique about the position that “I should be able to do _____ without being interfered with, as long as what I’m doing doesn’t harm another person.”
I agree with that statement 100 percent, Amp. It’s the concluding clause where we run into difficulty. I’m not sure how being dependent on a woman’s uterus for life support makes a fetus not a person.
Barbara:
Robert, what do you think constitutes an absolutist position on abortion?
The belief that any woman can have any abortion at any time for any reason. Your position (unrestricted up to 16 weeks, then the barriers start piling up) is far from being absolutist.
Amp again:
there’s only time to save one - either the petri dish (and the dozen zygotes), or the little girl. Which do you save?
The little girl. Her right to life outweighs the potential right to life.
A woman has become pregnant due to a birth control failure. If she bears the child, it will cause a drop in her socioeconomic status from upper-upper middle class to just upper middle class. She will have to start shopping at CostCo. She has delayed the decision of whether to abort or not until the 23rd week.
Which right do you believe is paramount? The 23-week old fetus’s right to exist, or the woman’s right not to move from the 99th to the 97th economic percentile?
Thanks, btw, to those pro-choice commenters willing to acknowledge what they are advocating for the unrestricted right to do. I appreciate your intellectual honesty.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 12:19 am
I don’t believe a fetus is a person. A thing that doesn’t have an independent existence, is unable to consciously interact with the world, and doesn’t even realize that it is alive, cannot be a person.
But even if a fetus was a person, I’d still support completely unrestricted abortion rights. Because without the right to control her own body, a women is a slave — as women have been for thousands of years.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 12:19 am
Me:
The little girl. Her right to life outweighs the potential right to life.
Let me expand on this answer Amp’s query a little bit. Maybe it will make clearer the reasons for my position.
The zygotes are living human creatures. However, they are endowed with a great deal more potential than viability. They have no home; they will not, left unmolested, develop any further. They are a dead end until by some conscious act of will, a woman gives them a home. In fact, their life expectancy is very short, barring very unnatural conditions.
A fetus in a uterus, on the other hand, is a living human creature. Although it still has much potential - since there are many more developmental stages to go through, including the acquisition of a cerebral cortex - it is actual in a way that the petri-dish dwellers are not. It has a home. Left unmolested, it will turn into an independent human.
It is possible that the fetus occupying a uterus is an uninvited guest. Rape, incest, these are terrible violations of a woman’s right to control her sexuality, and one of the consequences is sometimes the formation of a life that was not willed. Those cases are fortunately the exception rather than the rule. Their disposition ought to be subject to a different analysis than the ordinary run of life.
In the majority of cases in our society, the woman either explicitly wills the creation of the new life within her, or is aware that the creation of such a life is a predictable and regular outcome of a specific sexual act. The use of birth control for that act is certainly an indicator that the participant in the act doesn’t desire that potential outcome and is seeking to reduce its chance. However, everyone understands (or ought to) that birth control is not a perfect barrier to conception.
And that being the case, willing, fertile participants in heterosexual vaginal intercourse are placing themselves in moral hock to the potential new lives that could be created through their act. Our acts have consequences. Those consequences which are known and predictable, we are responsible for. I can drive to Denver tomorrow with safety in mind and using all due diligence, or I can drive to Denver recklessly and negligently, or I can stay home. In the first two choices, if I end up killing somebody on the road, that person is dead and I bear responsibility. The legal and moral consequences may change depending on my actual behavior - but the death is still on my conscience, and I have to live with it. That may be hard or easy, depending on the circumstances, but it will be done regardless.
If I am just completely unable to accept the potential responsibility, the potential liability, for those consequences, then I would be well-advised to take the third option and stay home. Translated back into the realm of sex and reproduction, that option becomes “refrain from heterosexual vaginal intercourse”. There are other ways to find sexual gratification.
And the answer to “but why should I have to?” is the same answer that we give to people who don’t like having to take driver education, or pay their child support : “Because other people’s lives depend on it, and we’re responsible for our actions.”
It is absolutely true that human liberty autonomy - as an abstract value - is more important than a particular life - as an abstract value. But in each woman’s decision, her choice of how to live with the consqeuences of her life choices, there are no abstracts. It isn’t a question of “autonomy” versus some abstract life; she’s got the autonomy, or she wouldn’t be making the decision. It’s a concrete question of the actual squirming little life inside of her, versus the actual risk of of job loss, health, lifestyle, consumer spending, life-threatening condition, or what have you. It’s a real choice.
Perhaps its dreadfully judgmentally fundie of me. I don’t know; it seems reasonable. I know that if I chose my own convenience over the life of something that I myself created, I would have to look very hard in the mirror. Choosing my own life over another life would probably be more understandable. How often is that the choice, though?
I’m sorry that this is hard for some women to hear. Why would it be hard to hear, why would it stir grief, if there wasn’t something in a woman’s heart that told her it was true?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 12:35 am
Brian:
I don’t believe a fetus is a person. A thing that doesn’t have an independent existence, is unable to consciously interact with the world, and doesn’t even realize that it is alive, cannot be a person.
Fetuses have an independent existence. They exist. They have distinct DNA, separate morphology. They are tied to their mother by a tube; that does not serve as a barrier to their own identity.
Fetuses react to the uterine environment, which is the world that they perceive. (Just as the space around you is what you perceive; the existence of cool stuff on Jupiter’s moons of which you are unaware does not mean that you do not interact with the world.)
Consciousness…consciousness is a tricky one for your side of this argument to use. Define consciousness for me in a way that doesn’t end up with you tripping all over the place trying to cover up the inconsistencies and counterfactuals. Philosophers have been trying for 6000 years and haven’t done much of a job.
Doesn’t realize its alive seems similarly tricky, but it would seem reasonable that you bear the burden of proof on that one. I mean, it’s alive, it has a brain, even if it isn’t much of one. The same is true of mice, and I’m pretty sure mice know they’re alive.
So I guess I’m not real impressed with your demolition of fetal personhood. I’d go at it from another direction:
A fetus is unquestionably alive. It unquestionably has its own human genetic material. It unquestionably has its own unique DNA code (or maybe mostly shared with an identical twin.) It is unquestionably one point on the temporal spectrum from twinkle in mothers’ eye to adult human to corpse. Alive, human, unique, conceptually and temporally tied to the human lifespan - it looks an awful lot like a person from here, chief.
About the only counterargument I can see is that it’s dependent on another for its life support; so are a lot of people in the hospital. They’re people. Also, it’s significantly less capable than the average human being. Again, so are lot of other folks who are unquestionably people. Those characteristics don’t seem to do much to dehumanize the little critters. Heck, my almost-three year old girl (apple of my eye) is dependent upon me and her mother for life support, and she can’t do much other than charm the hell out of everyone. She’s certainly a person.
At what point tracking back along her lifespan does she shift from personhood to un-personhood?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 1:12 am
A fetus does not exist independently. Sever the umbilical cord before the fetus is viable, and the fetus dies.
It can’t interact with its environment. It may react, but it can’t actually do anything to alter the world around it. The ability to alter the world through one’s actions is the beginning of consciousness — and it can’t happen until after birth. My understanding is that it takes some time for a child to realize it’s a separate being from it’s mother. That process can only start with birth.
If she doesn’t have the ability to make the decision, she no longer has autonomy.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 1:26 am
A fetus does not exist independently. Sever the umbilical cord before the fetus is viable, and the fetus dies.
Independence from life support is not the sine qua non of independent existence. Is my (hypothetical) grandfather not an independent creature because he gets fed from a tube?
It can’t interact with its environment.
Based on what? Its inability to make fire?
It perceives its environment. It moves around. It touches itself, and its mother.
My hypothetical grandfather on life support can’t do much more than that.
Do you really want to make your defense of fetal unpersonhood dependent upon the fetus’ inability to do some things, when there are a lot of other people who can’t do those things either?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 1:43 am
OMG Robert you make so many false assumptions that I hardly know where to begin.
This comment was written by B.Firstly a pregnancy doesn’t only put a physiological strain on the carrier but also a psychological one. Post-natal depression is extremely common among women who wanted their child nad was happy with their pregnancies. Still, the hormone changes in their bodies make them incapacitated and sometimes suicidal. How much worse won’t this be for women forced to endure an unwanted pregnancy and following birth? Leaving people psychologically scarred for life no doubt.
Secondly, how can you tell when a woman has been raped? I don’t know a single woman who has gone to the police but I do know a lot of women who have been raped - and not by strangers in the park or people at fratparties either. Should they have to carry this parasitical being he has forced upon theem in their bodies for nine months and then possibly have to care for an unwanted child for the rest of their lives?
Thirdly, it seems very optimistic to assume that a ill-timed pregnancy only drops the family’s economic status to middle-class. The woman is far more likely to end up on welfare or in lower working class - hardly making it and forced to leave the kid with (at best!) charitable relatives for most of the day.
Who are you to place these demands on other people? You never answered my question about enforced donation either Robert. If it seems fair that we put forth these demands on behalf of a potential life why not demand organ and bonemarrow donations of people on behalf of actually existing life?
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July 17th, 2005 at 1:48 am
“I’m sorry that this is hard for some women to hear. Why would it be hard to hear, why would it stir grief, if there wasn’t something in a woman’s heart that told her it was true? ”
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Robert, what you are saying is not hard to hear in the way you think it is. It’s clear that you are convinced that on some level we all agree with you. It’s also completely incorrect. Other than Jacqueline, I can’t think of a single woman here who agrees with you and is reacting to your statements in the way you assume that we are all reacting. Nothing you are saying is stirring any grief in me. All it’s stirring is the wish that you would go away and keep your opinions to youself.
And honestly, I respect your right to have an opinion. What I neither respect nor accept is your insistence that you know what a group of women you are in no way personally acquainted with feel in their heart of hearts. You’re projecting. Most (although not all) of the women here have refrained from making projections about what you feel in your heart of hearts. If you wish anyone here to be willing to listen to your arguments you would be well served to do the same. Your powers of omniscience are not as strong as you think. It would be wise to remember that only God can see into the hearts of men, and women. You seem to have forgotten that.
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July 17th, 2005 at 1:57 am
Brian said “If she doesn’t have the ability to make the decision, she no longer has autonomy. ‘
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Precisely. And, although Robert keeps saying that he believes that women have autonomy, I would find that claim more credible if he didn’t keep claiming to be able to read our minds and be able to guess at what’s in our hearts. It is almost impossible to know what is in someone else’s heart unless you know them very well, and sometimes not even then. To claim or assume otherwise is implicitely to doubt their autonomy. It is a refusal to acknowledge that not everyone is just like you.
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July 17th, 2005 at 2:44 am
Robert writes:
I’d say that not having the necessary conditions for cognition (see below) is the main thing that makes a zygote or fetus not a person.
I’m a bit bewildered by your argument here. You seem to be saying that because something is difficult to define, we can conclude it is morally irrelevant. I can’t imagine why you think that (if that is what you think), nor how such a position would be justified.
The fact that cognition is difficult to define precisely, does not prove that it’s irrelevant to personhood. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine anything more central to personhood. Look at science fiction - Star Trek and other shows have given us the cliche of the glowing blog of intelligent energy. And it’s a cliche that people understand intuitively, without difficulty. These aliens lack heartbeats, breathing, faces, etc - but because they can cognate, we have no problem accepting that they are people.
In contrast, when a person entirely lacks a brain, or lacks the ability to cognate due to brain death or a severely damaged cortex, they are not generally considered living people. (Even in the case of Terri Schiavo, few pro-lifers argued that she had a right to life even if her higher brain functions were entirely dead; instead, they argued that Terri had been misdiagnosed and actually had the ability to think).
Why do you suppose there is no Star Trek cliche of a type of alien that has no ability to think or cognate, but is nonetheless a person? I’d say the cliche doesn’t exist because, outside of the context of abortion debates in which pro-lifers have a motivation to pretend otherwise, we all instinctively recognize that cognitive ability is essential to what is and isn’t a person.
In any case, abortions before the 25th week - which is to say, well over 99.9% of abortions - are not a “hard case” when discussing cognition. In humans, a necessary but not sufficient condition of cognition is a functioning cerebral cortex integrated with the brain. If something lacks that necessary condition, it’s safe to conclude that it cannot cognate and is not a person.
It’s a gradual process, so there is no single specific point.
The woman’s. A 23 week old fetus has either a barely functioning cortex or a nonfunctioning cortex, and so in my view lacks one of the necessary conditions of personhood. I don’t think a non-person’s rights can be paramount over a person’s rights.
But I realize the intent of your question was not to discuss the exact timing of cortex development. Let’s say that you had asked me, instead, about a 30 week fetus. I still doubt it’s a person, but the issue in this case doesn’t seem nearly as clear to me as it does pre-cortex.
In that case, I’d say that my preference is that the woman go through with the pregnancy. However, I also prefer that she be legally free to make that choice for herself, even if the particular choice she makes is one I don’t agree with.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 4:43 am
Amp : “the glowing blog of intelligent energy”
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Did you mean “blob” or was that a description of Alas? Sorry, that one was too good to let slip by…
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July 17th, 2005 at 5:43 am
Erin, you summed up exactly how I feel, especially this bit:
Even if, as I suspect, the pro-lifers are beyond convincing by any argument, this point needs to be made over and over, so people who haven’t thought about abortion much beyond being vaguely squicked by it aren’t so vulnerable to pro-life rhetoric.
As for the rest, I wonder what a “survivor of abortion” is. I have this image of a woman who was left horribly scarred by a backstreet abortion in the days when it was criminalised but has managed to put her life together somehow. But I doubt that’s what was meant.
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 6:10 am
Robert’s explanations are really helpful in understanding his actual positions. First, we get those selfish, thoughtless women who didn’t want the additional financial burdens that would drop their income from the 99th to the 97th rather than an example of the woman who has no health insurance, would lose her job and her savings because of time off, causing her and her other children to become homeless. Because, of course, the second example wouldn’t allow for the high moral indignation.
You keep fixating on how I’m not going after men; perhaps that’s because there aren’t very many men here going on about how they should have the right to kill or abandon their offspring.
What a pitiful bit of obfuscation to avoid saying that only women can get pregnant, only women have to worry about state-enforced breeding, and only women would have to follow Robert’s ultimate cure for unwanted pregnancies — get thee to a nunnery (see below).
Those consequences which are known and predictable, we are responsible for. I can drive to Denver tomorrow with safety in mind and using all due diligence, or I can drive to Denver recklessly and negligently, or I can stay home.
… If I am just completely unable to accept the potential responsibility, the potential liability, for those consequences, then I would be well-advised to take the third option and stay home. Translated back into the realm of sex and reproduction, that option becomes “refrain from heterosexual vaginal intercourse”.
If a person drives to Denver safely and with all due diligence and still has a fatal accident, her insurance company will pay the costs, the police will investigate, and she will decide how this will affect her life.
I think I must be using a different translator because my translation doesn’t drum up a lot of new business for either flea or the Catholics. Mine is that if a woman has an unwanted pregnant and decides to abort, she will have to have the means to pay, will need to consult with a doctor, and decide how the abortion will affect her life.
And though Robert doesn’t bother to continue his analogy, it’s easy to reach his unstated conclusion that those who do have sex without “due diligence”, get pregnant, and have an abortion are criminals who should be punished by the state, just as the negligent driver would be.
Thanks, btw, to those pro-choice commenters willing to acknowledge what they are advocating for the unrestricted right to do. I appreciate your intellectual honesty.
I wish we could say the same.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 6:14 am
Damn, missed an ending italicized after “heterosexual intercouse.”
I miss preview.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 6:18 am
Shorter Jacqueline: Since I, despite being very very intelligent, am happy to consider myself a breeding machine first and foremost, the rest of you women should quit being so selfish and follow my stellar example.
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 6:35 am
Here’s the properly italicized portion of #101
Those consequences which are known and predictable, we are responsible for. I can drive to Denver tomorrow with safety in mind and using all due diligence, or I can drive to Denver recklessly and negligently, or I can stay home.
… If I am just completely unable to accept the potential responsibility, the potential liability, for those consequences, then I would be well-advised to take the third option and stay home. Translated back into the realm of sex and reproduction, that option becomes “refrain from heterosexual vaginal intercourse”.
If a person drives to Denver safely and with all due diligence and still has a fatal accident, her insurance company will pay the costs, the police will investigate, and she will decide how this will affect her life.
I think I must be using a different translator because my translation doesn’t drum up a lot of new business for either flea or the Catholics. Mine is that if a woman has an unwanted pregnant and decides to abort, she will have to have the means to pay, will need to consult with a doctor, and decide how the abortion will affect her life.
And though Robert doesn’t bother to continue his analogy, I assume that we are further to understand from that those who do have sex without “due diligence”, get pregnant, and have an abortion are criminals who should be punished by the state, just as the negligent driver would be.
Thanks, btw, to those pro-choice commenters willing to acknowledge what they are advocating for the unrestricted right to do. I appreciate your intellectual honesty.
I wish we could say the same.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 7:20 am
Why abortion boils down to a privacy issue-
This comment was written by Bob.Even Robert and the anti-abortion folks here agree that abortion is acceptable in cases of rape, incest, or where the mother’s life is at risk. I know this isn’t everyone’s position-it was pitiful sitting through Catholic school classes hearing that having your rapist’s baby is liberating, or that its god’s will when a mother dies in childbirth, or whatever they chose to spew.
The point is-If you are going to restrict abortion, do you want every woman to have to go before a judge, and prove rape, incest, or medical need? What if the judge decides you can’t prove you were raped, or a victim of incest? What if the crazy 10-commandments judge in Alabama decides you aren’t going to die if you put your faith in god to be healed? Do your medical records get entered into public testamony? Can anti-abortion DAs persue charges against you (already happening with late-term abortions). The ‘we want limits on abortion-on-demand’ arguements are often used, but think about what it means. Any limit that takes decision making away from women is an end to choice.
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July 17th, 2005 at 8:32 am
No, no, Andi. We need to be “ostracized.” Not men, because they have nothing to do with pregnancy, just us. Even that worthless father who, if he’d only sold himself on the corporate block younger and better, could easily support us and our twelve children so well that we’d NEVER have to shop at Costco. Because, aside from medical reasons, that’s why most women abort, doncha’ know.
I feel bad for Robert and the other wannabe’-Old-Testament patriarchs when they have to figure out how to “ostracize” the horrid aborting Costco-hating harlot AND monitor her every move at the same time. Since they clearly can’t tell the difference between a sane woman of reproductive age and a five-year-old waving around a loaded gun, surely they will want to keep close tabs on her. You know, so she doesn’t run around burning down houses and poisoning livestock and all.
I feel worse for their female relatives, though.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 8:56 am
Robert wrote:
This was so beautiful that I just thought it deserved to be quoted again. Robert, having already informed me that my desire for bodily autonomy, –even if it means that an embryo, zygote, or fetus, gets aborted before it can come to term and be born– is “nuts,” now boldly expands his net to take in a remarkable number of women on this thread. This would include some women who have children or who clearly intend to. We will all, in the perfect future world, be subjected to righteous judgment and punishment in the Court of Robert. [snicker] I hope we will be allowed our own quasi-leper colony by the COR, rather than having to serve our sentences alone. I could use some cool folks/fellow harlots to come over and watch MST3K and drink beer with me. Just please don’t be allergic to cats.
I do greatly appreciate Robert’s use of the word “people,” however. Obviously he is starting to reconsider his earlier, cowardly opinion that the neon scarlet abortion “A” should only be slapped on the chests of harlots. We must now consider the progenitors of the aborted as equal candidates for societal condemnation. Clearly, my sisters have broken through to Robert in a big way. Your diligence and patience has paid off big-time, my friends. I’m proud of you.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 9:42 am
I’ve never had kids, but I somehow have this impression that even in the extremely unlikely scenario where having a child only bumps you two points down on the economic ladder, that child, whether it’s a first or later child, will impact your entire emotional, psychological, logistical life. It’s not like life goes on the same as before but because of a a %2 cut you downgrade from lattes to americanos… Anybody who doesn’t realize that being responsible for the well being of another person impacts your whole entire life has no business making decisions for other people about childbearing. Or about elder care for that matter…
This comment was written by Tara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 10:09 am
This issue is particularly poignant for me right now, since I appear to be entering menopause at the tender age of 41. All my life, I desperately wanted children — but I also desperately wanted to be financially and emotionally able to take care of them. So I used birth control pretty faithfully (although that’s no guarantee, as a few of my friends can attest), and never did get pregnant. Although if I had, I probably would not have had an abortion. But that would have been my choice. And menopausal or not, I will continue to march, protest, and donate in the name of preserving that choice for all women.
Incidentally, the “pro-life” position would be considerably stronger if each of its advocates would adopt ten children, at least five of whom have special needs.
This comment was written by rachel.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 10:19 am
Whoooaa! Hold up here! Do you care to explain this statement, Robert? The “A woman has become pregnant due to a birth control failure. If she bears the child, it will cause a drop in her socioeconomic status from upper-upper middle class to just upper middle class. She will have to start shopping at CostCo. She has delayed the decision of whether to abort or not until the 23rd week.”
I sure as hell hope you aren’t trying to conjure up the Amy Richards story (most famous for the “CostCo” commentary), because if so, you have (at least!) a few facts wrong.
I have noticed that in the conservative section of the blogosphere, that “CostCo” comment has not only been taken out of context, but has developed a life of it’s own. Amy Richards gave birth to one child, after aborting the other two fetuses far, far earlier, than “23 weeks”. I hope Robert, that you are just ignorant of the facts, rather than deliberately misconstruing them. Very, very few abortion take place at 23 weeks—and all of them that take place at that late a stage are for medical reasons.
And by the way, it bears repeating that women should not have to justify making a personal medical decision like this to strangers. You, Robert, may feel that carrying and giving birth to triplets is a walk in the park (and for you, it certainly is, since all you have to do is watch); others have different considerations. For one thing, most women do not have the financial wherewithal to quit their jobs and go on bed rest. (You are aware that if you quit a job, that you are not eligible for unemployment insurance, aren’t you? You are aware that most women are not eligible for FMLA benefits, aren’t you? Or that most who qualify can’t afford that much unpaid time off, right?)
If there’s one thing I find ironic (but not surprising) about the pro-birth (as opposed to “pro-life”, because their actions speak to the fact that they don’t give a damn about life outside of a uterus) faction is that their singular hatred of women who have had abortions is matched only by their singular hatred of single women who’ve not had abortions.
And Robert? What’s this crap about how “the culture” or “the church” should control women’s sexuality? If I choose not to belong to a particular religious organization, or even any religious organization, why should that organization have any input? Do you not like the Bill of Rights? And one of “the culture’s” traditional solutions for raped women was…..marry the rapist! or for abused women….pray that your abuser has a change of heart! ‘Nother words, do you not realize that feminist women are part of culture, too? The majority of people in contemporary United States culture believe in keeping Roe v. Wade intact. That’s our culture.
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July 17th, 2005 at 10:22 am
B:
Secondly, how can you tell when a woman has been raped?
I think we’d pretty much have to take her at her word.
Who are you to place these demands on other people?
Who do I need to be, B?
You never answered my question about enforced donation either Robert.
Sorry, I forgot about this line of argument. I don’t owe your father in law any special moral debt (beyond the mutual duties of good citizenship). I took no action that put me into hock to him. I can envision circumstances where I would owe someone such a debt and would be morally obliged to donate to them, but “some random stranger needs a kidney” is not such a circumstance.
Amp:
I’d say that not having the necessary conditions for cognition (see below) is the main thing that makes a zygote or fetus not a person.
But they are on track to acquire that. If I bar Sydney from ever exercising the franchise because she is currently incompetent to do so, then I am committing a grave injustice - I am imposing a permanent disability for a temporary incapacitation.
Similarly, that fetus will soon have a cortex, if someone doesn’t kill her first.
The fact that cognition is difficult to define precisely, does not prove that it’s irrelevant to personhood.
Of course. But it does mean that the assertion of non-cognition is pretty much hand-waving. You can’t say “I’ve proved there is no cognition!” when you can’t define cognition. I’m not relying on cognition to establish personhood, but Brian is relying on non-cognition to establish unpersonhood. So he carries the burden of proof - and he can’t prove it.
The cerebral cortex is crucial to mental functioning but it is not the only piece of the brain that is important. The Terri Schiavo angle is immaterial; that’s a person who had a cortex but who has lost it, with no potential for recovery. In the case of a fetus, the cortex is still developing.
In humans, a necessary but not sufficient condition of cognition is a functioning cerebral cortex integrated with the brain. If something lacks that necessary condition, it’s safe to conclude that it cannot cognate and is not a person.
If I kidnap you and put you under surgery and implant an electrode in your brain that temporarily shuts down your cerebral cortex, while leaving you otherwise alive, I agree that you are no longer cogitating.
Are you a non-person?
Obviously not, because the condition is temporary; as soon as I flip the switch, your cortex comes back. The condition is also temporary for a fetus - but even more temporary, because all that is necessary for the fetus’ cortex to start working is the passage of a very brief interval of time.
Nick:
As for the rest, I wonder what a “survivor of abortion” is.
Nick, a survivor of abortion can be a woman who has had an abortion and survived. More commonly, it’s a child or adult whose abortion was botched or left incomplete and who survived. It’s not all that common, but it does happen.
AndiF:
First, we get those selfish, thoughtless women who didn’t want the additional financial burdens that would drop their income from the 99th to the 97th rather than an example of the woman who has no health insurance, would lose her job and her savings because of time off, causing her and her other children to become homeless. Because, of course, the second example wouldn’t allow for the high moral indignation.
Andi, I deliberately included a range of possible reasons - from inconvenience to death. Are you willfully ignoring this in order to make a bogus rhetorical point, or did you just miss it?
I assume that we are further to understand …
Rather than assuming, you might try reading. I don’t believe abortion should be criminalized, and I say so.
Alsis:
I feel bad for Robert and the other wannabe’-Old-Testament patriarchs…I feel worse for their female relatives, though.
Alsis, I come by my opinions on abortion through my mother - a woman of sometimes exceptional moral insight. When I was younger, I thought as you did. It is her logic and her reasoning (among other factors) that guided me to the conclusions that I have reached.
In your zeal to disapprove of everything I stand for, you can’t even recognize the possibility that there are women who feel this way, and that those women might be the ones convincing the men in the famly, not the other way around. I guess it’s true that sexism really is insidious, when even feminists will disappear women and marginalize their power.
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July 17th, 2005 at 10:49 am
What a coincidence ! So do I ! Gosh, two reaches across the Great Divide IN ONE DAY !! Who woulda’ thunk it ?
That’s nice. And this is relevant to my own womb and body and my own POV– how, again ? Oh, right. It means that you fantasize daily about shuffling me off to some leper colony for icky nutty harlots. I’m always forgetting that.
As usual, Robert, you prove to be a veritable Triathelete of reversals. I have stated more times than anyone can count that you and the women in your family can, with my blessings and tax dollars, make any choices you all mutually agree upon– and I will not interfere. Yet, you can turn around and acuse me of marginalizing them and their power. Such nonsense.
However, just as you are permitted on this blog to equate women who abort their unborn with murders of adults and children, I am permitted to my own opinions. One of them remains that a man with such a dim view of women that he can dream aloud of being allowed to ostracize them for aborting, one who asserts continually the right of any random human with a penis to exert dominion over any random human with a vulva– well, I remain convinced that man is never going to be sure that he knows the real truth of what the women he is close to think. His model is one of dominion-over, not one of equality, however he himself and the women whose primary model is man-pleasing and perpetual self-denial, not autonomy, might spin it all out loud for benefit of an outsider audience.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 10:50 am
Screwed up quote tag there. Sorry, Amp. Can you fix that, please ? :o (And if you don’t mind, please change that second “aloud” to “allowed.” Gack. Want more coffee.)
[Fixed --Amp]
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 10:58 am
rachel wrote:
rachel, please accept my sincere thanks for your post, even if you don’t know me from Eve. Also, I’m sorry that you won’t be able to have the child you wanted. I hope that you can find some other option that will allow you to acheive what you want.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 10:59 am
Actually, these two things are not at all the same. The aborted fetus not only doesn’t have a cortex, it never will have one. In your example, there is no injustice against Sydney until she’s old enough so she would normally have the franchise. In contrast, the aborted fetus never gets old enough to be a person, so no injustice is done to it.
To make your analogy meaningful, we’d have to compare an aborted fetus (which will never grow any older) to a baby that would never grow any older. Let’s switch the example from Sydney to Julia, a similar baby. The difference is that Julia has a rare disorder which means that she will never, physically or mentally, change after the age of 1. So at one year old she’s has the physical size and mental state of a one-year-old; and 30 years later, Julia still has the physical size and mental ability of a one-year-old.
Is it an injustice to deny Julia the franchise? No, because the laws preventing infants from voting aren’t completely arbitrary; they’re based on a consensus that certain traits are necessary to have a right to vote, and infants lack those traits. That we can’t precisely define those traits doesn’t make them non-essential for voting, or prevent us from recognizing that infants lack those traits.
Robert, you’re still making the same unsupportable claim, which is that if something is difficult to define then it’s not relevant to a moral argument; you’ve just inserted this new phrase, “hand-waving,” which doesn’t add anything substantive to your claim at all.
Your basic point remains: You’re claiming that if something’s difficult to define, it must be irrelevant to the argument. And you still haven’t provided a single coherent argument in support of this (in my opinion) ludicrous point.
Of course I can. If “X is a necessary but not sufficient condition for Y,” then lack of X proves no Y, regardless of if Y can be completely defined. And the burden of proof then shifts to you, to prove that Y can exist in humans without X.
You’re misunderstanding what I wrote - I said “a necessary but not sufficient condition of cognition is a functioning cerebral cortex integrated with the brain.” I meant to be getting at the question of if the cortex exists or not. In your example, my cortex still exists and is functioning - it’s just in the “off” position. (My TV is turned off right now, but it’s still a functioning TV - I’m not going to call a repairman and complain “it’s not functioning” because it’s turned off.)
This is of a class with a bunch of pro-life examples intended to deny that ability to cognate matters at all - “what about someone in a temporary coma? What about someone who has fallen asleep? What about someone who is retarded - are you saying we should kill mentally disabled people?” Etc, etc, etc.. All of them have the same thing in common, which is arguing that there’s no difference between an existing cortex and one that doesn’t exist. It’s a position which runs counter to reality.
Once we put the “there is no difference between a nonexistent cortex and one that exists” nonsense aside, the only thing you have left is claiming that there’s no morally important difference between potential and actual. But that’s ridiculous. Because Sydney will someday have the right to vote doesn’t make it unjust to deny her the vote now. Because we have laws against cutting down 200-year-old oaks doesn’t make it a crime to destroy an acorn now. And because a fetus has potential to someday become a person doesn’t make it a person now.
A nonexistent brain is not the same as one that exists. A potential future state is not the same as a currently existing state. As long as your view relies on denying these two obvious and true statements, your view won’t hold any water.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 11:04 am
The condition is also temporary for a fetus - but even more temporary, because all that is necessary for the fetus’ cortex to start working is the passage of a very brief interval of time.
The point is, the fetus hasn’t become conscious yet. It’s not yet a person. If it’s aborted, it will never be a person. Aborting a fetus is not killing a person.
And again, even if a fetus was a person, I’d still support unrestricted abortion, because if women aren’t allowed complete control of their own bodies, then they have no freedom at all. And establishing that principle, by the way, would establish the principle that no one should have any freedom.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 11:28 am
Robert,
You gave only one circumstance (threat of death or severe health problems) where abortion was justified. There was no continuum discussed. And you were the one that characterized it as a financial consideration: The 23-week old fetus’s right to exist, or the woman’s right not to move from the 99th to the 97th economic percentile?
So I think I understood you perfectly well and that the points I made (most of which you have ignored) are quite valid.
Alsis,
So have you picked out which convent you are going to sign up for?
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 11:38 am
alsis39 wrote:
Alsis, that was sweet. Thank you. I must say, I’m feeling pretty wistful these days. But yes, I have other options. I hope to adopt within the next few years. (Actually, that was always part of the plan, but it was in addition to, rather than instead of.)
Until then, I can pacify myself with my Sunday School students, my two godchildren, and the children of friends. I have two good friends who are pregnant right now — I’m so excited.
And of course, let’s not forget my cats. What would a middle-aged Jewish woman be without her cats?
Anyway, wish I did know you from Eve, because your posts are funny, logical, and well-written. In fact, I clicked on your name to see if it took me to a web page, but the link doesn’t work.
Thank you again.
This comment was written by rachel.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 11:40 am
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence may not be to everyone’s taste, but some like them.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 11:47 am
Oh my goodness, how rude of me! Nick Kiddle, congratulations!! Your baby is lucky.
This comment was written by rachel.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 12:12 pm
Too bad some people can’t agree with the “Just because I choose not to ____ doesn’t mean that others shouldn’t be allowed to” arguement. I mean, I choose not to smoke pot, but all my friends do. I support this because I would much rather have them too stoned to drive much less get off the floor than have them drunk and behind a wheel. But to each his own I guess… and I am well aware of all the holes in my arguement… I just wanted to draw an analagous situation. Sue me.
This comment was written by Tim Nayar.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 12:12 pm
And of course, let’s not forget my cats. What would a middle-aged Jewish woman be without her cats?
1. A target for every yenta with a kittens.
2. A person with no excuses to leave the her mother’s bring-your-daughter-to-the-Hadassah-dinner early.
3. A middle-aged Jewish woman with dogs.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 12:41 pm
Andi F writes:
Wrong. I have hot flashes now, remember?
This comment was written by rachel.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 2:14 pm
Alsis wrote: “You’re not that dumb, Robert. You’ve gotten your answers a dozen fucking times. If you don’t like the answers, that’s not our fault. We don’t exist to please you. So if you’ve got nothing original to contribute, why don’t you just drop it ?”
Because rattling women’s cages is oh, so fun?
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 2:33 pm
LaLubu:
Very, very few abortion take place at 23 weeks…and all of them that take place at that late a stage are for medical reasons.
You’re right about the portion (significantly less than one percent, per AGI, wrong about medical reasons being the only ones; most late abortions are done because there was a delay in obtaining the abortion (sometimes the fault of the woman, sometimes not), not because of an abnormality being detected at that stage.
What’s this crap about how “the culture” or “the church” should control women’s sexuality?
The culture, and the church, control men’s sexuality, although not well enough. Do you not argue that the culture should enforce behavioral standards on men, require them to act in certain ways if they want to be accepted in society? I certainly do argue that.
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Sexuality is something that is, properly and justifiably, partially under the control of society and partially under our own individual control.
Alsis:
That’s nice. And this is relevant to my own womb and body and my own POV”“ how, again ?
You were the one who brought up the question of the women in my life, Alsis. If you don’t want to discuss that, then don’t bring it up; attacking me for irrelevance in discussing the topics that you raised is irrational.
It means that you fantasize daily about shuffling me off to some leper colony for icky nutty harlots.
It’s remarkable that in thread after thread, I use the most respectful possible language I can (with mistakes, of course, since I’m a fallible mortal like anyone else), and you regularly recast that as me calling you a slut, a whore, a harlot, every other traditional insult and catcall.
With such persistence of your mischaracterization, I am forced to the conclusion that it is you who think these things; perhaps you have internalized some harshly accusatory voice, a voice that overrides whatever reasoned and moderate tone is actually being taken. I genuinely hope that at some point you are able to muster the self-esteem and the self-love to be able to move past that voice and the horrible things it must be saying to you about your life and your actions.
As usual, Robert, you prove to be a veritable Triathelete of reversals.
You refer to it as a reversal whenever someone rebuts some obvious error you have made. Sorry; your intellectual taxonomy has proven to be very weak, and you calling something a reversal doesn’t make it one.
Yet, you can turn around and acuse me of marginalizing them and their power. Such nonsense.
How is it nonsense? You constantly assume that the women in my family must be under my patriarchal thumb, and dramatically bemoan their tragic fate to be so oppressed. When provided with data that indicates that the women in my family are strong and independent, you blather about how they must be oriented towards “man-pleasing” and self-denial. This is marginalization; this is a dismissal of their power.
I’m sorry that you can’t conceive of women who disagree with you being powerful and influential, but there it is. My mother started, and my wife finished, the process of convincing me that the case for pro-life values is simply more coherent, more consistent, more correct. They didn’t do that to please me or to deny their own selves. Deal with it, and stop running down their power.
However, just as you are permitted on this blog to equate women who abort their unborn with murders of adults and childrem
Never did that; this is classic Alsis dishonesty or noncomprehension; it’s very hard to tell which.
one who asserts continually the right of any random human with a penis to exert dominion over any random human with a vulva
Never did that; this is classic Alsis dishonesty or noncomprehension; it’s very hard to tell which.
Amp:
Actually, these two things are not at all the same. The aborted fetus not only doesn’t have a cortex, it never will have one. In your example, there is no injustice against Sydney until she’s old enough so she would normally have the franchise.
But it never will have one because of your action, not because of some other neutral cause. To use your acorn example: we have a protected species of oak tree, which you’re not allowed to cut down. And indeed, crushing an acorn might not be a crime under the oak-tree-protection law. But going into a forest and finding seedlings and ripping them up certainly is. Yeah, they’re not oak trees yet - but the thing that stopped them from becoming oak trees was your action.
You’re claiming that if something’s difficult to define, it must be irrelevant to the argument. And you still haven’t provided a single coherent argument in support of this (in my opinion) ludicrous point.
No, I’m claiming that if something is difficult to define, it is difficult to use as an argument. And if you want to use the difficult concept as a plank, then the burden is on you to make the case, not the people you’re arguing with to disprove it.
I’m obviously not going to convince you of fetal personhood, so I won’t waste more of your bandwidth trying.
Brian:
And again, even if a fetus was a person, I’d still support unrestricted abortion, because if women aren’t allowed complete control of their own bodies, then they have no freedom at all.
This is simply absurd. You don’t have complete control of your own body; do you have any freedom at all?
Freedom is a continuum, not a binary state. There are certainly some inflection points on that continuum, dividing lines that may well relate to a qualitatively different level of freedom (serf vs. slave, for example). You could make a case that total reproductive control is such an inflection point; you can’t make a case that there is no freedom at all on one side of that inflection point. Women don’t have that level of freedom now; does that mean that they don’t have any at all?
AndiF:
You gave only one circumstance (threat of death or severe health problems) where abortion was justified. There was no continuum discussed.
It was pretty easy to miss, Andi. I said “It’s a concrete question of the actual squirming little life inside of her, versus the actual risk of of job loss, health, lifestyle, consumer spending, life-threatening condition, or what have you.” in comment 91. By my count there’s one humongous circumstance (life-threatening condition), two very serious (job loss, health) and two relatively trivial (consumer spending, lifestyle). That by me is a continuum. YMMV.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 3:06 pm
I’m sorry that this is hard for some women to hear. Why would it be hard to hear, why would it stir grief, if there wasn’t something in a woman’s heart that told her it was true?
God, if that’s not trolling, I don’t know what is. I can’t get over the arrognace of somebody who thinks he can read not just one woman’s mind—but all of ours.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 3:15 pm
Ginmar, “some” and “all” do not mean the same thing.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 3:24 pm
Don’t dodge, please, or drag out once again your tired insults about “irrationality,” as if there is anything rational to me about your viewpoints. Tell me, with no waffling, why I have to live my life as the woman in your family live. I am not the women in your family, Robert. I am my own person, and entitled to live according to my own moral code. Not theirs, or yours. None of you have a moral code that I am required to accept as universal truth. I know this is astounding to you, but it’s true.
It’s remarkable that in thread after thread, I use the most respectful possible language I can (with mistakes, of course, since I’m a fallible mortal like anyone else), and you regularly recast that as me calling you a slut, a whore, a harlot, every other traditional insult and catcall.
Are you denying calling my viewpoint, “nuts”? Better go back and re-read your own comments then. Besides, it’s obvious to me what you think of women who choose to have sexual relations without having children. You’ve made it abundantly clear in your fantasies about societal “ostracism” for women who abort. All I’m doing is scratching away a bit of your civilized veneer, and seeing your viewpoint for what it really is.
With such persistence of your mischaracterization, I am forced to the conclusion that it is you who think these things; perhaps you have internalized some harshly accusatory voice, a voice that overrides whatever reasoned and moderate tone is actually being taken.
All feminists understand what internalized sexism is, Robert. That’s because we’ve lived in a sexist society our whole lives, and sexist delivery in “reasoned” or “moderate” tones is still sexist delivery. That is, your desire to see me ostracized for aborting is insulting. Is that clear ? It doesn’t matter how many honeyed, faux-sympathetic phrases you deliver. It’s insulting, patriarchal, and sexist. Case closed.
I genuinely hope that at some point you are able to muster the self-esteem and the self-love to be able to move past that voice and the horrible things it must be saying to you about your life and your actions.
Please read the last three sentences in my last paragraph again.
What error ? And why not ? You want my power to determine my own destiny taken away for the sake of a glob of cells. That, by my definition, would rob me of all meaningful power as an adult woman in a supposed democracy. I, OTOH, think your wife and any other woman should have a child every time she conceives one if that is what she wants to do. So tell me again, Robert, which woman is taking away which woman’s power here ?
Please. I have far less evidence of their “strength” and “independence” on this blog than you do of zygotes, embryos, and fetuses being less than fully-developed human lives. That hasn’t stopped you from poo-poohing that evidence even though it comes from a person with a penis. Furthermore, why should I believe in the strength and independence of females who make their lives with a man who claims that he would ostracize them if they had an abortion for some reason that he didn’t like ? If strength and independence is conditional on the whims of a partriach, it’s not strength and idependence. If someone tells you “stay or go,” but you are not truly free to go, they have not been given a real choice between staying and going, but a false choice.
So we’re back to Square One then. Why do I have to model myself on the women in your life, when I’m not like them and I don’t want to be ?
Oh, pardon me. You said “kill it,” not “murder it.” “Kill” in the active voice being sooooo much different than “murder.” [snort] If you want to clear up such misunderstandings in the future, maybe you should write, “Glad you decided not to manslaughter it.” Ho hum.
You can deny all you like that pushing women into bearing children against their will is not an expression of male dominion over females, but it is. I think most of the women here know which of us has more troubles with the truth, Robert.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 3:30 pm
Robert,
Pretending to be polite while being insulting doesn’t make you polite and it doesn’t mean that any of us have to accept your pretense. Your real attitude is quite clear in statements like your comment to Nick that started this thread and in insults cloaked as fake concern like “I genuinely hope that at some point you are able to muster the self-esteem and the self-love to be able to move past that voice and the horrible things it must be saying to you about your life and your actions.” You may not like what alsis says but she is forthright and straight-forward and doesn’t hide behind word games and condescending tones.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 3:30 pm
CrysT wrote:
Man-hater. :p
Rachel wrote:
That’s cool. Someone very close to me is an adopted child. The process supposedly takes superhuman stamina (and a whole lot of $$$), so I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you, and the cats.
P.S.– I should have a real website up by September.
Andi, (and Brian) I prefer the leper colony to the nunnery, because I hate dresscodes. If pressed, however, I’d lean toward an MST3K-themed nunnery with Pearl Forrester as Mother Superior.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 3:40 pm
alsis,
Sorry, no leper colony because you can still have sex.
If Pearl is the Mother Superior, would Professor Bobo be the Father Confessor?
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 3:55 pm
Robert wrote:
You then proceeded to “waste more” of the bandwidth. More than 225 words, in fact. And again, a fetus does not have “personhood”. If it did, it would be a “person”.
You clearly feel strongly about this subject, as evidenced by your incredibly long posts.
It’s equally clear that you’re not going to convince anyone here with your arguments. It strikes me, then, that you might put your writing skills to better use elsewhere. If, for instance, you believe that abortion is acceptable in cases of rape, incest, harm to the mother, or non-viability due to a birth defect, then why not spend time expounding on the value of abortions on blogs which are against abortion for any reason? At least then, the national debate wouldn’t be as sharply black and white as it seems to be these days.
Better yet, adopt a child, or four or five. This would show your commitment to life beyond birth. The vast majority of children in foster care are there because they weren’t truly wanted in the first place, and their parents were ill-equipped to take on the responsibility of raising a child.
Even better yet — adopt a child (or several) with serious medical needs or developmental disabilities. These children are more at risk for physical, sexual, and emotional abuse — often leading to death — than most children. They’re also more likely to be abandoned and neglected. Show that you care about children after they leave the womb.
I love children. I always have. And you probably read my earlier post, in which I talked about teaching Sunday School, and spending time with my godchildren and friends’ kids.
I also serve on the board of a local charity that serves adults with developmental disabilities. Many of our participants (this is the new PC word; used to be “clients”. Before that, it was “residents”.) enjoy warm, loving relationships with their families. Many were abandoned at hospitals or institutions at birth. Every one of them was once someone’s child. And every one of them deserves a full life, with connections to their family and their community.
When every child who has been beaten, or sexually abused, or born with the wrong kind of birth defect, or born into a family with too many children, or a family with not enough money, or simply a family that doesn’t want children — or to a young couple ignorant of birth control (thanks to our abstinence-only programs), is living a life full of love and is encouraged to reach their full potential, then perhaps, the people here will be more willing to engage in a discussion regarding the potential of a fetus.
Until then, nothing doing.
This comment was written by rachel.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 4:20 pm
You constantly assume that the women in my family must be under my patriarchal thumb
Robert, you’ve described yourself, and correct me if I am not getting the exact language here, as an “unrepentant sexist.” So why act surprised when others assume you mean what you say? Unless by ’sexist’ you mean ‘convinced of the innate superiority of women and their right to rule by virtue of being female,’ it is natural to assume that an unrepentant sexist also believes that his being male entitles him to authority over the females in his household.
Why would it be hard to hear, why would it stir grief, if there wasn’t something in a woman’s heart that told her it was true?
Oh, I can never remember the Latin names of fallacies anymore. Maybe somebody can remember what it is when you tell somebody “if you felt insulted or attacked by my intentionally provocative comment, it must be that I’m right.”
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 4:28 pm
alsis39 wrote:
Ah ha! Proof that alsis39 is a stinkin’ liar! She’s got a false website, not a real one!
Actually, it generally requires no $$$ if you’re willing to adopt an older child, especially one of another race, and even more so if the child has physical, emotional, or developmental disabilities. Which, since the majority of these kids are coming out of foster care, you can pretty much count on. But who can guarantee that a child from one’s own body — particularly when one is in their 40s — might not have some of the same problems? Besides, many of these kids are old enough that any serious problems they might have have been diagnosed by now. You wouldn’t believe how many 14-year-olds there are dying for a permanent family. I did a search earlier today on, I forget the site, adopt.org, or adopt.com, one of those, and there are so many beautiful children out there who need a family.
Kids are always a crapshoot. I’m willing to throw the dice.
This comment was written by rachel.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 4:34 pm
Oh yeah, Alsis39 — what I originally intended to say was that I know a number of people who’ve either been adopted, or who have adopted. Makes for a fantastic family, in my opinion. Like adding seasoning to a stew. Only makes it tastier.
And of course, both the cats were adopted. You wouldn’t believe the application I had to fill out to get my Siamese! Thank god I don’t have a criminal record.
This comment was written by rachel.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 4:52 pm
Robert:
Hmm. I admit that I don’t have a clear-cut answer to the burning question: Just when does a fertilized egg become a person. I also do make some moral judgements, and I don’t personally consider the lesser reasons you have listed very good reasons for abortion. The major difference between you and me is that you seem willing to (possibly) err on the side the fetus’ or embryos life, and I want to (possibly again) err on the side of a woman’s autonomy. Personally I find the morality of abortion decreasing as the fetus does indeed become closer to a “person” at least. I draw the line at birth (though I am not sure whether I am ultimately right in making that call), not out of whim, but because it is the time when the woman’s bodily autonomy and the fetuses rights are no longer in conflict, but hypothetically it would pain me to see a 8 month old fetus aborted for reasons I don’t find convincing in my POV, but like Brian, I would side with the woman, for the same reasons he does.
Your ideal societal model bothers me, to say the least. It’s surprising you descibe yourself as moderate just because you don’t choose either “Abortion is always a woman’s choice” or “Abortion is murder”. Just because your view is more complex it still seems awfully authoritarian to me (Abortion: 1) For serious health reasons -> support 2) For contraceptive failure -> adoption 3) For reasons you don’t like -> outcast status). In a society such as that, I fear certain hypocrisy and dishonesty about reasons would be rewarded, and personality types that don’t feel comfortable at all telling the actual reasons (if they are painful) would be ostracized unfairly, and personality types that make big sob stories (that aren’t true) would be unfairly rewarded. Therefore I think the position “my abortion is none of your business” is justified, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It is awfully hard to make judgements about other persons that are completely accurate, and just as you would take a woman’s word that she is raped you should take her word that she feels her abortion is the better choice (or if she chooses carrying to term that is okay too.)
On a more off-topiccy and personal note, the reason I’m passionate about the aforementioned society is the fact that many of my best friends have descibed that their initial impression (that they have later admitted was a mistaken impression) of me was “polite on the outside, but a very misanthropic, gloomy, arrogant person” (and that is in a society that isn’t exactly cheerful and open) and the fact that I have few friends but I tend to keep the ones I do have proves otherwise. (My behaviour has plusses and minuses, the big plus it usually alienates superficial and judgemental people, the minus is it tends to alienate people I wouldn’t like to alienate). I for one would be very, very uncomfortable about explaining personal, difficult issues (such as the abortion, but I am a man so that one is hypothetical) to people who are itching to make a moral judgement about me (and I would probably act in very cold “mind your own fucking business” -manner, no matter the consequences), and there are women who have such personalities too.
(oh, BritGirl, from the thread drift some time ago, I checked Alexandra Kollontai you mentioned, I wasn’t familiar with her, but now I am. I liked some of her writings a lot, especially the ones critical of the “bourgeoise theories of prostitution” which incidentally are the same theories that MRA:s are so proud of, but I haven’t [yet] found how she illustrates the Russian/Finnish thing, but maybe I will later. But let’s not have thread drift).
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 6:44 pm
Robert: slick sidestep there on whether or not you were trying to refer to Amy Richards with your ridiculous “Costco” scenario.
Anyway. what alsis said. Why should I or any other woman have to conduct our lives like the women in your family? I don’t care if they choose to love the patriarchy and follow its strictures; I don’t. I don’t care if you believe every fertilized egg is endowed with a soul; I don’t. Don’t try to get cagey about what you meant by “sexual control”. The conservative vision of sexual control is that no woman should have sex unless she is married. Personally, I think it’s stupid to marry someone that one hasn’t been to bed with first. My moral code allows you your version of sexual control; your moral code does not allow me my version of sexual control. “Jacqueline’s” moral code doesn’t even allow for birth control or employment of women with children, for crying out loud!
It has been mentioned before on this thread by several people that there is a right to privacy issue. There is also a religious freedom issue here; namely, the right not to not have to abide by the religous beliefs of others. The profession that a fertilized egg is fully human and endowed with a soul has no basis in science; it’s a religious belief. Why should those of us who don’t take this stance have to abide by the religious beliefs and practices of others? Why should this religious minority have the final say on my body?!
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 8:26 pm
Robert: slick sidestep there on whether or not you were trying to refer to Amy Richards with your ridiculous “Costco” scenario.
I was evoking her case, not directly referencing it. As you noted, Richards’ actions took place at a different point in the pregnancy. But since we’re talking about a “gob of cells”, that shouldn’t make any difference, right? Eight weeks or eight months, it should be grateful for however many days its mother decides to put up with its parasitic ways.
I assume that by “ridiculous” you mean “well-established”, since its quite clear that economic dislocation is one of the many reasons that women give for choosing abortion.
Don’t try to get cagey about what you meant by “sexual control”.
And by “cagey” I assume you mean pointing out the incontrovertible fact that you personally demand that society and the culture exercise sexual control over men. A control that somehow becomes inexcusable if it’s applied to women. Whatever.
Why should this religious minority have the final say on my body?!
It shouldn’t - unless what it has to say is also justifiable as a matter of law and secular ethic. Which is quite easy to do; it’s an arguable case, of course, but arguable cases get settled in the political and legal arenas. Nobody is going to enforce the Amish code on you.
But they might end up making it harder to abort babies for trivial reasons.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 8:59 pm
Hey, Robert? Bite me. You keep saying the most incredibly offensive shit there is, then you backpaddle and shift desperately. It’s disgusting. Whine, whine, whine—you’re still saying YOU can read women’s minds, which is bullshit.
Bite me pretty much sums it up, after the incredibly offensive sanctimony of your comments here. You wanna know what a woman’s thinking? ASK HER FOR A FUCKING CHANGE. You don’t, though—you just assume you know all.
You want to know what women think about abortion? ASK THEM FOR FUCK’S SAKE.
Alsis, I got five fucks says he won’t do it. Waddaya say?
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 9:11 pm
Thanks, ginmar. No Alas thread would be complete without your inimitable contribution.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 9:41 pm
Ach. Once again… Who gets to decide which reasons are trivial? What exactly must be the litmus test for allowing women to have an abortion?
I’m sorry, but I don’t find your point of view very coherent on this. Since you already listed “serious health issues” as a possible reason, then I suppose serious mental health reasons are included (and… which would logically mean that a woman who would suffer mentally from an unwanted pregnancy to the point of becoming psychotic. [which is life-threatening in behavioral chances] etc. should have a supported abortion, and thus if a woman can convince that this would indeed be the case then abortion should be allowed, thus an eloquent/well-acting, [or sincere, of course]or a woman who can get a medical statement that tells her condition is life-threatening by actual diagnosis, or a false, bribed one. Thus the society you are advocating for has greater levels of inequality and dishonesty ). And maybe you missed my point, but it is basically that for having some social control group, or Court of Robert (courtesy of Alsis!) decide things for all women (and you even added that there are women who are so irresponsible/dumb/morally impaired that the decision should be without a preliminary hearing, so to speak.) we would have to assume that the control group is more capable and more fitting judge to decide for a woman’s pregnancy. While no invidual is perfect, no court is perfect either, and I strongly assume the invidual woman is far fitting judge to decide for her pregnancy.
“Being allowed to have an abortion” shouldn’t be a matter of how eloquently the woman makes her case, and allowing abortion shouldn’t be a matter of whether society happens to like a certain woman or not. Moderates like you want to support abortion for “virtuous” women, and control the “non-virtuous” ones. Plain and simple.
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 9:47 pm
“far fitting judge” should read “far more fitting judge.”
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 11:08 pm
I was evoking her case, not directly referencing it.
Oh, Robert, c’mon. You were indeed referring to the Amy Richards case, “directly” or “indirectly.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
July 17th, 2005 at 11:56 pm
I think there’s a difference between a hypothetical example that alludes to - but doesn’t claim to be - a real case, and inaccurately or dishonestly describing a real case. What Robert did seemed to me to be the former.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 12:11 am
Robert:
Thanks to my recent move to a new server, I now have more bandwidth than I know what to do with. So, if you have a coherent argument responding to my arguments - and as far as I can tell, you don’t - don’t let concerns over my bandwidth prevent you from posting it.
How is that distinction viable, in your philosophy?
After all, crushing the acorn is an active act (or it is in this example), not something that just happened naturally. According to you, the fact that the acorn could potentially become an ancient oak (and thus protected) means that it’s immoral for us to take any active step that prevents it from becoming an ancient oak.
Actually, ripping up some seedlings is often part of good forest management practice; some seedlings might be in places where they’d be depriving other trees of water, for example. It’s not just letting every seedling grow, it’s deciding when and where it’s healthiest to let seedlings be. Which is similar to the way that being able to choose when and if to reproduce - including using abortion to control reproduction, when necessary - can be a rational and positive part of how people make families.
The concept I’m “using as a plank” is that the existence of a functional cortex is a necessary but not sufficient quality for personhood. I don’t think that’s a difficult concept at all, frankly, and I think I’ve more than ably defended it from your “what if Amp’s cortex had an on/off switch” counterexample.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 1:40 am
I am an ardent pro-choice supporter, but I am somewhat concerned with the functional cortex argument being presented here. The brain develops quite a bit more rapidly than what is being supposed here I think. The cortex begins to appear very early on (as early as 8 weeks the cortical plate is present) and continues developement well past birth. Connections are formed with other brain structures throughout development (fetal and postnatal) and one of the most important connections (cortical-thalamic conncetivity) occurs somewhere around the 7th month. Interestingly, you are born with far more cortical neurons than you will end up with through a process known as “pruning”. It is thought that only neurons that form meaningful connections will live on but that there is a large excess to allow for some plasticity in the program of the system (although there are many thoughts on this front).
So what I am trying to say is, although this seems to be a perfectly logical argument, our current understanding of cortical development would make it very difficult to support scientifically. In fact, I would argue that using a cortex-personhood argument for when personhood is achieved far beyond birth, likely into the first few years (at least through the first year).
I am intrigued by the interesting arguments being put forward here and feel strongly that there needs to be more dialogue between “faith based” arguments against abortion and current understanding of medical science concerning when life begins. While it is a compelling argument, from my standpoint, that a woman should always have autonomy over decisions concerning her reproduction, I can understand the opposing viewpoint that societal consensus should also be important in determining what our laws are. There are certainly extremists on both sides that likely have little to do with a consensus viewpoint. But, perhaps for the other ~80% of us, if more effort was put into providing a better understanding of what human fetal development really is and when viability is achieved more people could be reassured that the vast majority of abortions are not “killings” but terminations of unwanted pregnancies.
This comment was written by Ted.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 3:19 am
Ted: Societies already weighs in on abortion. We have laws concerning it; they don’t come from a vacuum, but from legislation and judicial process. Several posters have responded to Robert’s idea of social pressuring of _individual pregnancies_.
Robert:
All this talk of being accepted by society… of communities shunning the bad women, of communities making choices for said women, seems to imply a homogenity of ’society’ and ‘community’ across the nation. Is this some odd variation on state’s rights? Would a prochoice community then foot the bill for abortions by the financially strapped, and a fundamentalist one block the abortion and put the woman under house arrest so she doesn’t try again?
Would it be acceptable if this were the case? That would seem to imply that a woman’s rights, and a fetus’ value, were only existant insofar as she (and it) were in the right community. Which is a concept you seemed to find quite morally bankrupt earlier.
If not, then who is going to decide what the national culture is going to be? Will there be educators going from town to town, neighbourhood to neighborhood, to teach what the shunning offenses are? What will the punishment for resisters be?
There’s a reason that there are several codified steps between the rule of law and the community’s opinion on individual events.
This comment was written by Kerlyssa.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 4:22 am
Hey, Robert? At least I’m honest. All the backing and shifting you do does nothing but give the impression that every time the light begins to dawn—the light that you so earnestly believe you provide for so me women—you skep desperately away from it.
Maybe the reason that’s so hard to deal with is because it resonates so deeply inside.
I’m sorry, but nothing is creepier than a pro-lifer who persists in wanting to humanize a fetus over women.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 4:28 am
Robert, you must have me confused with someone else; I’m a firm believer that if two consenting adults have sex in the privacy of their own environs its no one else’s business. I’m not the one clamoring for control of the sexual choices of others. I’m just pointing out the clear double-standard in our society that says that unmarried women who have sex are reprehensible sluts, while unmarried men who have sex are…well, just men. Oh, and also, that if you are female and really like sex, you’re a slut (or potential slut), but otherwise you’re frigid…..and again, that’s all in the eyes of the male beholder.
Meanwhile, name or show me one woman who had an abortion because her financial status would go from upper-upper middle class to upper-middle class. Just one. Your cagey “but women do have abortions for financial considerations” has nothing to do with the scenario you proposed.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 4:36 am
Ted, I’m not a doctor - but I’ve read a fair amount on this subject. Richard Carrier summed it up like this:
Are you saying that’s inaccurate?
And from Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan:
Again, do you think this description is inaccurate?
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 4:58 am
Robert, the basis given for prohibiting abortion is that it is infanticide, a form of murder. A systemic effort by society to prevent some abortions and support others gives the lie to this entire premise — we would never condone the intentional killing of a live born infant because its mother had been raped. So while Jacqueline (or you) along with many pro-lifers insist that we agree with this premise in our hearts or in secret or as an act of delusion, it’s arguments like yours that show, pretty evidently, that even most pro-lifers don’t actually agree with this premise any more than I do. What they really object to is what they perceive to be the lack of gravitas that informs decision making on the subject. Hence they resort to the good girl/bad girl dichotomy, which is frankly incoherent given that the only rationale at all they have for controlling a woman’s reproductive choices is the theory that they affect a second person. Why should we give greater deference to their judgment about the fate of that second being than we do to the woman?
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 7:03 am
Ask a pro-lifer if a woman who has had an abortion should go to prision for life, and most will probably say no. Even that witch Dr. Laura tells women who have had abortions to forgive themsleves and go forth on the righteous path. Ask a parent if they would rather lose an early or even late pregnancy or their post-birth child, and they ALL choose the child, or else they are lying to make a point. Ask a woman with children if she’d carry to term a severly retarded fetus who will add untold costs and burden not only to her but her kids for their whole lives, and you will get a complicated answer.
All I want is for pro-lifers to acknowledge that far from being absolutely bad, abortion has done a lot of good in this world. Indeed, I think that and BC are two huge factors in our culture’s stability.
Jacqueline can volunteer all she wants at “pregnancy support services” , but she should admit that adoption is only possible for most unwanted babies these days thanks to abortion keeping up the seller’s market, so to speak. And she should know this: planned parenthood OFFERS BIRTH CONTROL AND PRE-NATAL CARE.
This comment was written by Elena.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 9:08 am
Hellcat wrote, “Why does the abortion argument boil down to ‘pro-choice’ vs ‘pro-life’? Is there not a middle ground? ”
It seems that you’re buying into the anti-choice framing of the argument, as though “pro-choice” and “pro-life” were mutually exclusive polar-opposite extremes. Let me spell out it out for you: carrying a fetus to term and giving birth is also a choice. “Pro-choice” as a position has always assumed that women will do just that. Anti-choice ideologues like to talk as though being pro-choice means mandatory, recreational abortion — as if pro-choicers felt that *no* pregnancy should be carried to term, and that no other form of birth control was necessary. Clearly, you’re trying to portray things in those terms, with your talk about
” It seems simple that if one does not wish to become pregnant, or impregnate, one should use effective contraception. Granted it’s not a 100% guarentee, but it’s far more effective than using nothing.” The word “duh” comes to mind. As if pro-choicers didn’t favor the use of contraception, or proper education in its use. It is not pro-choicers who oppose sex education and the distribution of condoms, or hadn’t you noticed?
” I would suspect that the overwhelming majority of ‘unplanned’ pregnancies are from failure to use effective birth control.” Such as abstinence, whose high failure rate is well-documented by now. You’re probably right, though, because numerous European countries have a lower abortion rate despite a higher rate of intercourse, because contraception is more readily available and used there. In the US there is considerable pressure not only against abortion but against contraception… and that pressure does not come from the movement for reproductive choice.
“Pro-choice” doesn’t mean aborting every pregnancy. And I’ve noticed that some women who call themselves “pro-life” will say that while they would never have an abortion themselves, they believe that the decision (which means choice) should be up to each woman and her doctor. That’s the “pro-choice” decision in a nutshell.
This comment was written by Fletcher.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 10:04 am
You forgot to mention all the children of color out there who are waiting for adoptoin while anti-choice people go on and on about adoption but neglect to mention it’s only white babies they want.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 10:09 am
At first, I thought the this abortion issue was a very easy to debate. The debate question is “Does a fetus have an inalienable right to be in the body of its host even if the host disagree with it?”. Bottomline: The fetus’s rights never can truimph over the host’s right(whether the decision is made by the man or woman). Lately, however, the pro-lifers only reaction is to call the people who disagree with them names like “baby-killer” or “murderers”. This type of rhethoric lessen the decorum of any argument or debate that one is having.
I feel in a capitalistic society(which is a social system based on individual rights, not just an economical sense a free-market), if a person have a right to do something, they should also be able to waive that right. And not force to exericise it. In America, since a women have the absolute right to pro-create, then she should also have the absolute right to NOT to pro-create. Whether its getting her tubes tied, buying birth control pills, or even abortion, that should be her right.
This comment was written by Riffraff.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 11:45 am
Riffraff, mostly I agree with your comment but
As barring the Schwarzeneffer comedy, I didn’t know that a man can act as an actual host to a fetus, and thus the fetuses rights and the man’s rights don’t come in to conflict as fetus vs. host way. Care to explain?
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 11:47 am
Schwarzeneffer -> Schwarzenegger actually. (Insanely difficult name for me, I’m not sure it’s right even now)
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 11:50 am
Well, not this parent. Having had three sucessful pregnancies/birth–soon to be four, one early term miscarriage, and one later pregnancy loss; the option of losing a pregnancy in the early stages is much more favorable (if such things could ever really be “favorable” but you get my point). While m/c is incredibly hard to suffer, burying a child is even moreso. At least, IMHO.
Perhaps this would seem odd to some but being a parent has made me even more staunch in my pro-choice stance. It is not just the fact that I have a daughter, fo whom I feel even more need to protect the right to private medical choice. It is also the fact that if I became pregnant and it would create a situation where my own life was threatened or some other catastrophic problem for our family would arrise from taking the pregnancy to term, I would opt for abortion. My established children (not to mention my spouse) need me and it would be insanely selfish on my part to take the family into ruins over a pregnancy.
If pro-lifers want less abortions to occur, they should be handing out contraceptives and supporting COMPREHENSIVE sex education.
I have my personal set of requirements/reasons to where I would deem abortion an option for myself. They are for me alone though–and that is how it should be. It is no one’s place to tell another how she (or he) should use her (or his) body, particularly when it comes to the most intimate of issues such as reproduction.
This comment was written by hereandnow.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 11:59 am
mandatory, recreational abortion
I like it! Sums up what I swear certain pro-lifers must believe - that we all wake up and think “Hmm, I’m bored. Guess I’ll go out and get pregnant and have an abortion just to keep myself amused.”
How anyone could read my posts and believe this describes the pro-choice position baffles me. Unless of course they didn’t think my words were worth reading. I have a uterus, after all, so my thoughts and feelings automatically have less validity…
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 1:40 pm
Yes, Alexandra Kollantai rocks.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
There is a natural conflict of interest between a woman and a fetus at times. Nature gives women veto power over their pregnancies. It’s a simple fact of life.
This comment was written by Elena.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 2:11 pm
Man… you folks are so violently abrasive about this.
I personally am a Pro-Choice, married man and my wife and I are not planning to have a baby any time soon. I’m very liberal in most of my views.
But I’m really ashamed of the way Robert has been treated. Yes, the original thing he said was sort of… well, goading. But he didn’t raise the issue of abortion- it was an issue raised by the topic of the original post. It was about being pregnant and pro-choice. If this had been a post about being pregnant, and else-where on the blog were discussions of being pro-choice, that’s one thing. This was the topic of the post.
It seems like a lot of the people attacking him are either a) not reading his posts, or b) reacting to his arguments on a personal level rather than an intellectual one.
Seriously… sure, fault him for saying a pretty questionable comment, sure. Everybody did that ages ago.
How can you fault him for thinking it’s bad to kill something that’s alive?
He never said a fetus was equal to a full grown person.
He never said abortion should be illegal.
He never said it was murder (or manslaughter, both of which are legal terms, which he is not talking about).
Damn, all he is doing is saying that he thinks it’s wrong to have an abortion out of convenience, because he thinks the fetus should have some right to life as a person or potential person.
I mean, come on- how can ANY of us, on EITHER side, say FOR SURE when life, self-awareness, consciousness, or whatever you want to call it, begins? As of right now, we can’t, and so we form opinions as best we can. You have one idea. I have another. He has another. NONE OF US know who is right, and probably never will.
If (in hypothetical magical fantasyland) we developed the capability to read minds, and all of a sudden discovered that a baby’s mind can be read as having complete thoughts of self one week after conception, wouldn’t we change our views a little? Well, since it’s unlikely to happen, let’s just let the damned man have his own views, especially when he is able to present them so eloquently to a bunch of hostile people who aren’t willing to listen.
Thanks to Crooks & Liars for pointing out this issue.
This comment was written by Jordan D. White.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 2:36 pm
Yes, the original thing he said was sort of… well, goading.
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.That’s the whole problem, as far as I’m concerned. He has his own views on the relative claims of fetus and mother, and I for one am quite prepared to debate those views. But the remark in question was shockingly rude, and the fact that he hasn’t seen the need to retract it or apologise kind of sours the discussion.
Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 2:43 pm
Nobody’s stopping Robert from stating his views. We just emphatically disagree with them.
I’m sorry I got off on the tangent about whether a fetus is a person. Not that I have any doubt on the matter, but it’s not the real question. The real question is whether women have the right to determine what happens to their own bodies.
Pro-choice activists need to stop retreating all the time, being nice and polite and deferring to the tender feelings of people who are out to destroy the hard-won possibility of human freedom. The major pro-choice organizations have compromised and compromised to the point where they’re scarcely defending abortion rights at all anymore.
The principle which the women’s liberation movement fought for was, “Free abortion on demand.” That should be our principle now — or perhaps, “Free abortion on demand, without apology.” This is a matter of principle — you can compromise on strategy and tactics, but you can’t compromise on principles.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 2:55 pm
It seems like the question of whether a fetus is a person is pretty relevant, though. I mean, I don’t personally believe it is one, but like I said- that is based on my opinion, and we don’t have proof either way.
I mean… free abortion on demand seems too extreme. There have to be SOME limits on abortion, right? I mean, y0u can’t have one when you’re in labor, right?
All I’m saying is that it seems like we should at least acknowledge the possibility that abortions are killing an individual life form. We can’t know for sure, no. But then just say that we feel the woman’s rights are more important than any rights or a potential individual.
I’m just saying that it seems like it is an understandable point of view. I don’t believe in God or in souls, but most people I know do. IF someone believes a soul enters a fetus at the moment of conception, then to them, that fetus is a full fledged person, and entitled to the same rights (by God) as anyone else. Robert wasn’t even going that far- he was saying, though, that the fetus has SOME value, and should only be cast aside for reasons deemed socially acceptable.
Really, the best argument against Robert would be that if society as a whole is NOT ostracising women for having abortions, then it is not a value that the whole society shares. If the majority of people begin to feel that way, they WILL ostracise women who have abortions.
I mean, I think the Government should become more Socialist, but it’s not going to happen unless a whole lot of people agree with me.
This comment was written by Jordan D. White.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
Interesting. You forego the ethical dilemma of what constitutes personal rights violations. First, ethically speaking, you presume the property an embryo, fetus, baby, constitutes in relation to the host woman. Second, morally speaking, the father has equal say as to the future of a being (baby or not, a living organism) that constitutes literally 50% of his genetics. That’s not to say anyone but the woman has a say on what happens to her body (given the pregnancy period). The woman, of course, must maintain her own personal rights. Thus, if a woman does not wish to have a pregnancy using her body, one would hope a compensatory technological shunt would be developed such that, if the father desired to maintain the development for potential of life, they could transplant the being into a human or non-human facility by which pregnancy could be carried out.
The ethical question remains as to what is the preferencial, or ideal, outcome, should both biological parents conflict in their views as to the baby?
Remember, the woman has rights to her body and a say in the future of the baby. The man has a say in the future of the baby equally.
Or do they?
Not necessarily at all.
One has to answer the question of when individual rights are ascribed. If one argues that such universal protections are not in place until cogitation and self awareness is fully realized, you would be arrogant and ignorant enough to presume the answeres to a dominating question in cognitive science. Realistically, a couple of cells together may not be a human, but no other couple of cells other than those involved in impregnation have the *ability* and *potential* to develop into a human being naturally, and unnaturally. The premption of continuation, once that genesis has occured, is no different than the preemption of continuation years down the road, so to speak. The very catch-phrase of “yes, but it’s a human life now” a year down the road from pregnancy is rendered irrelevant. One does not find it all the more ethically acceptable when a preemptive murder by rival warring nation takes place against a child living in another nation. The objectified nature of “soldiering” is in question here, as opposed to mere “life.” One should not feel ethically secure in finding it acceptable for one army to kill another nation’s children before they become soldiers. I’m not going to explicitly state my opinion here, merely raising some thoughts as a Philosopher.
This comment was written by mark.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 3:24 pm
Jordan, Robert has a history of making “goading” (as you put it) comments on this blog. He knows what he’s doing; this is not his first ride on the rodeo. Nor is it mine, which is why I’m not giving him any break on that. Come on! Can you imagine a circumstance in which you would tell a pregnant woman, obviously happy about her pregnancy, “congratulations, I’m glad you’ve decided not to kill it?”
I’m also not giving him a break on the reworking of the Amy Richards case, evoked in order to paint the typical abortion seeker as a rich woman who doesn’t want to be knocked down a financial peg. That is not the typical abortion seeker, and he knows it. The typical abortion seeker is a young, single, poor woman whose birth control failed. That’s hardly having an abortion out of “convenience”. “Convenience” is finding a parking space near your destination,ykwim? An unwanted pregnancy is not “convenient”, regardless of the decision made. It’s just a familiar trope of the pro-birth set to paint a picture of abortion-happy pro-choicers who think of abortion as similar to a coffee break—-and it’s tiring.
You’re damn straight this is a matter of life and death—for women too! It’s just that as women, we don’t count. We are supposed to take a back seat to everyone and everything, including in our health care choices. Jordan, if you detect a little vitriol here, perhaps you should consider that for some of us, abortion is not an abstraction. We are closer to the subject, and we are the people who would be losing our right to bodily integrity. Losing, or the possibility of losing one’s basic human rights is a subject pretty much guaranteed to set folks on edge.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 3:24 pm
I don’t care if the fetus could talk and sing little dittys inside the womb. Jordan says that if we consider the fetus is a full fledged person it should be entitled to the same rights as anyone else. The thing is that noone in our society today can lay claims to someone elses body for their survival. That is why people die for lack of donors. This is also why people die for lack of money to get the proper healthcare.
If you want to look at the bigger picture a mere pittance of your money can save scores of lives in the third world (and to be religious about it - remember that Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get to heaven). As a poor student who barely manage to pay the rent I’ve still managed to put an orphan girl through school.
If the question really were about the sanctity of life we would all be legally obliged to give of our bodies to our fellow men through organ donations and the like. It is not. It is about controlling womens bodies and what we do with them.
This comment was written by B.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 3:28 pm
No one’s keeping Robert from having his views or debating, so stop with the strawman. He bloody well knows there are a lot of vocal pro-choice women who frequent this blog, and he’s been pretty upfront about his propensity to stir up shit. My sympathy quotient for Robert is at, oh, zero.
I’ve heard the “Gosh, you shouldn’t kill your baby out of convenience” oh, about a million times. The sentiment comes complete with the assumption that I must want to fit into a smaller dress for a wedding, that I must be incredibly selfish, and that I’m a baby killer.
And I’m tired of respecting this. I’m tired of showing people respect who pronounce judgement on the soundness and morality of my choices, choices that are none of their concern. I’m tired of hearing about how, well golly, it’s permissable if I’m raped, the victim of incest, or my life is in danger, as if those platitudes are supposed to soothe me. Those platitudes don’t address the reality of what pregnant women go through who need abortions, who cannot get them because they have to sit and think about it for 24 hours and have to travel several hours to the nearest clinic anyway. Because we do this spur of the moment and could easily change our minds if we just thought about it like rational people.
No, I’m sick of it.
I’m bloody tired of having to plea my case to people who never be pregnant. Never. I’m tired of having people discuss when it’s permissible for me to end a pregnancy, because pregnancy is a in the park. It’s not, I want no part of it, and I’m tired of dealing with folks who would institute enforced breeding.
And frankly Jordan, there are already limitations on abortion, and when you get can get them, as outlined by Roe. It is more difficult as the pregnancy progresses. So no, you can’t get an abortion when you’re in labor, or in your eighth month, or anything like that. Though I must say, it’s a real victory rhetoric wise for the enforced breeding crowd when even professed pro-choicers think such limitations are not already in place and women can just walk into her doctors office at month nine and get an abortion.
I mean seriously, how insulting and degrading is that? We are just so flightly and childish that we’ll do just that. We’ll just decide in week 38 that we don’t want to be pregnant anymore and presto! We’ll get it taken care of. That’s not the real world.
This comment was written by Sheelzebub.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 3:33 pm
But the remark in question was shockingly rude, and the fact that he hasn’t seen the need to retract it or apologise kind of sours the discussion.
Nick, the remark in question is not rude. Instead, you believe - and stated your belief - that it was insincere. Since it was sincere, and since I’ve said that, what would be the justification for an apology or a retraction? “I apologize that you don’t believe me?”
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 3:42 pm
Jordan D. White:
Forgive me for being a bit presumptous just now, but methinks you protest (project?) too much. Why do you feel your anger toward “the bunch of hostile people” is justified, and the anger of some commentors toward Robert’s comments isn’t? (If you actually want people to start making less emotional and more civil and intellectual comments you could start by making your comment sound less emotional yourself, it is essentially ” I am angry because you people are so angry”, see the problem there?) And who exactly belong to this bunch? I have tried to be as polite as I can to Robert, [if I didn't come across that way that wasn't my intention] and so have the vast majority of commentors here, IMHO.
I see a pretty clear link to Robert’s insistance that we discuss the “convenience” reasons like moving from the 99th to 97th economic percentile, while making it clear that he thinks the only valid reason is serious health issues, to the fact that some commentors indeed have given him responses not of the “thanks for the good and eloquent points” -style. And some ouright angry responses too.
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
What my comrades have been up to.
Jordan said:
I mean, I think the Government should become more Socialist, but it’s not going to happen unless a whole lot of people agree with me.
You’re not going to win anyone to socialism by arguing that capitalism is wonderful and only extremists say otherwise.
Likewise, you’re not going to convince anyone that they should support women’s rights by arguing that a fetus is a person and that therefore women shouldn’t be allowed to have abortions.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 4:01 pm
Amp,
To respond to your post 150: I don’t think either of those statements are inaccurate. I do think they are both a bit over-reaching and based on an incomplete data set. We are learning many new things about cortical development at this particular time and I believe it is fundamentally altering the way we think about consciousness or personhood. My problem with the argument as it pertains to abortion is that it could easily be argued (from a cortical development standpoint) that a fetus meets certain personhood requirements or a 4 year old does not meet personhood requirements depending on your viewpoint of the data. Personally I prefer the viability argument for when a fetus should be considered alive, but have serious qualms about using any argument to support the right of a woman to control her body other than the argument that she should have that right. Hope that makes sense.
This comment was written by Ted.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 5:15 pm
Robert said:
Robert, it was rude. Saying things intentionally that one knows will be shocking or offensive or that will make people upset is rude. You are too smart to not know that such a comment would upset folks in this forum. So it was intentional. You knew it would bother people and you said it anyway, that makes the comment, and yourself, rude. You meant to upset people.
Had you not meant to upset people, had your rudeness been an inadvertent oversight on your part I think you would have apologized as soon as it was brought to your attention. But you didn’t. Do you walk up to pregnant women in the street and thank them for “deciding not to kill it”? I don’t think you do. It would be rude. And you know that. So I can’t think why, in this context, you would think it wasn’t.
I like to see your posts here. I don’t agree with most of what you say, but they always make me think. The things you say I don’t understand, I google. But I didn’t need to google this one. It was rude. And I think you know it was.
The justification, if the comment was sincere and you truly intended no offence, is that polite people apologize if/when they cause other people upset unintentionally.
This comment was written by mousehounde.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 5:34 pm
Curses. Mousehounde is right.
I apologize for any offense caused by the comment.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 5:57 pm
Robert, Here’s an example of what your theory of cultural pressure will do to the abortion rate. Anti-choice women are more than happy to avail themselves of their legal right to abortion in order to avoid the harsh judgement of their fellow fundamentalists. The cultural pressure you think would lower the abortion rate in actuality increases it.
As a single mother, I’m well acquainted with the stigma attached to women who choose to have a baby instead of an abortion. Fortunately, I don’t run in fundie social circles, nor have I forgotten how to flip busybodies the bird. But it is a factor driving some women to the abortion clinic. Food for thought.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 6:38 pm
The cultural pressure you think would lower the abortion rate in actuality increases it.
Except that the data don’t support that. AGI data shows pretty clearly that Protestant and Catholic women abort at rates lower than their population percentage (54 percent of the population for Protestants, 43 percent of the abortions); women claiming no religious affiliation abort at rates much higher than their population percentage (22 percent of the abortions, 16 percent of the population). (No figures given for us mackerel snappers.)
This would seem to indicate that peer pressure and one’s personal culture do have an effect on the decision to abort or not, and that effect is the common-sense one we would expect to see, not a counterintuitive reverse-psychology effect.
Do you have any contrary data? Anecdotes compiled by a pro-choice activist don’t count as data; I could find an equal number of equally immaterial anecdotes from folks on my side of the fence.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 6:41 pm
“I mean… free abortion on demand seems too extreme. There have to be SOME limits on abortion, right? I mean, y0u can’t have one when you’re in labor, right? ”
Why is it that people keep bringing up arguments like this, or “what about abortion at 8 months” when we’re discussing abortion in general? Abortions in the third trimester are a tiny minority of abortions overall, and are mostly done because of severe fetal abnormality or risks to the life of the mother. I think that allowing the issue to be framed in this way is just buying into the worldview of the lifers, and I’m not sure why anyone pro-choice uses the same framing.
Lest some people have forgotten, let me remind them that later-term abortion is a surgical procedure which carries health risks for the mother and is usually very painful. That’s one of the reasons it’s only done if the risks to the mother of continuing with the pregnancy are even greater, or if there’s something really wrong with the fetus. Anyone bringing these procedures up in a general discussion of abortion is employing a strawman. These procedures are very rare, and there’s nothing trivial about the reasons why they are performed. Why is anyone on the pro-choice side allowing this obvious strawman to be used to distract from the real debate? Why buy into the bizarre lifer idea that women muddle along through 7 or 8 months of a pregnancy and then just change their minds on a whim and choose to undergo risky and painful surgery? This scenario is a myth made up by pro-life leaders. In reality this just doesn’t happen. Why not just dismiss it as the manufactured bullshit it so obviously is?
(Quick aside to Tuomas and Brain - my point about Kollontai and the Russian/Finnish divide was that some Russians dismiss her ideas purely on the basis that she was partly Finnish, rather than on the basis of what her ideas actually were. Personally, I think she had some good ideas and some bad ones, but the ideas are good or bad in and of themselves, rather than because of her ancestry.)
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 7:04 pm
The word “abrasive” should be reserved for referring to those little steel wool cleaning pads. Ugh. And “strident” and “shrill” should be reserved for talking about sounds birds of prey make. I’m so sick of hearing them used in reference to women, and it’s worst of all when they’re used in reference to women by some guy trying to pass himself off as a good pro-choice “ally.”
This comment was written by Lilith.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 7:04 pm
That would be an aside to BRIAN, not brain. Not that he’s not very clever, but his name is not in fact brain.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 7:22 pm
I apologize for any offense caused by the comment.
I am in awe.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 7:27 pm
BritGirlSF said:
Because if they can get us to agree to any limits, however reasonable they sound, it is that much easier to get us to agree to further limits. And one thing leads to another. Then, suddenly, there are so many limits that abortion is no longer a true option. It may still be legal, but it will not be available to the women who need it.
This comment was written by mousehounde.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 7:43 pm
I have skimmed some of the posts over two or three days. Saw various issues discussed that were interesting and important but I didn’t have the time to post (or clarity of thought).
This comment was written by Richard.I probably don’t now. One central emotional theme I felt was a weariness regarding the arguments certain religious folks and certain controlling males might make. I ‘think’ I am a complete egalitarian. I am completely against the imposition of values based upon interpretations of when life begins which are dogmatically based, in turn, upon some religious perspective. A woman must control her own body. HER religious beliefs, should she have some or her reasoned ethical beliefs will determine her actions. If some idiot authoritarian tried control or dictate what I do with my own body..
I also believe that any woman can be just as ’shrill’ etc. as she wishes and that it is irrelevant - in any case - what I believe given the anti-authoritarian sentiment expressed above. And sometimes it takes assertiveness and … aggression and Loud determination to make the point. The right for women to vote wasn’t achieved merely by being assertive. Also, please don’t label me with the familiar epithets because I am a male. Even if deserved.
Anyway, keep fighting. Know that some males support the battle.
I guess I am rambling. Sorry.
rdw
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July 18th, 2005 at 7:44 pm
And setting limits also reaffirms the principle that women aren’t allowed complete control of their own bodies.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 7:48 pm
Here is the URL for the best comparison I could find on abortion and religious affiliation:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3422602.pdf
There may be better ones, but I thought this gave the data points that were being discussed. Also, I would have to say that any effort to track religious affiliation should take into account (but usually doesn’t) the fact that the proportion of women who are having abortions tend to be younger and less likely to be married than the overall cohort of women to whom they are being compared. I think that this might make it difficult in particular to assess the rate of abortion among evangelical protestants.
There are other issues that are apparent in the statistics, such as, the availability of abortion in rural or Southern states, which might mean that evangelical protestant women have less access to abortion, and not simply that they are subject to peer pressure not to have one.
FWIW, the rate of abortion for Catholic women tracks their representation in the general population.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 18th, 2005 at 11:39 pm
Getting this a bit late, but I must say I object to Robert’s moral calculus as it were.
Up dozens of post ago, Robert made the driving recklessly vs. driving safely analogy to vaginal sex. He then said the “consequences of one’s actions” line of reasoning.
What I don’t understand is why people don’t get that sex does not = baby. Vaginally heterosexual sex has the possibility for pregnancy. Pregnancy has the posibility for baby. It’s a very important step between the two.
I use birth control, but if it should fail, I’m fairly certain that I’d get an abortion (and not in my home state I might add…if anyone ever wants to get annoyed, check out the loops one has to go through in ND to get one). That is dealing with the possible consequence of sex: pregnancy. It is not a shirking of a responsibility thing. If I terminate the pregnacy, I am dealing with the consequences; it’s not like abortion’s an easy thing.
Also, here’s how I feel about a guy’s right to a “paper abortion” and their “sexuality being controlled” :P.
In utero, it is a 2-1 thing. The ZEF is half my genetics, and half the guy’s. but, it’s using my body, so it lives at my disgression. Out of Utero, it is 50/50 and we have an equal responsibility. Limits of biology and technology, I’m afraid.
The comparison to someone on life support is ludicris. Here’s why: that person on life support? S/he is not being housed in someone’s body. S/he’s being monitored by many different people, and not for 24/7. S/he’s not living due to someone else living, but rather due to technology.
IF someone perfects the artificial womb concept, I would be more than willing to transfer so that they are the behest of technology, and then give up the devoleped fetus for adoption. Or possibly not, as I don’t save my eggs right now, so my respect for “potentiality” is limited.
This comment was written by Antigone.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 2:56 am
Actually I’ve been thinking about this one. For most women, the abortion is in fact a termination of a pregnancy - that’s how they view it. For Robert, he views it as a killing. I suppose that must mean that he’d view a woman falling and losing the baby inadvertantly killing the baby. I suspect, however, that he’d never say, “I’m so sorry your fall caused you to kill your baby”, knowing the incindiary nature of the word kill. Am I wrong, Robert? Would you say that to a woman?
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 4:20 am
Barbara, thank you.
Robert, it doesn’t necessarily follow that avowed Protestant and Catholic women are having abortions at lower rates because of religious beliefs (if indeed, they are; it depends on whose statistics you want to believe); there are also ethnic views and practices that play a part.
In any case, those professed pro-life women who have abortions are doing so out of a sense of shame, and are desperate not to be “found out”, lest they lose social position. I wonder what their decision would be if they came to the conclusion that there is no moral difference between single motherhood and married motherhood?
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 4:29 am
To me the real problem with the hypothetical questions about limits and restrictions is that they misunderstand choice. Being pro-choice means that you believe that all decisions about reproduction are the private concern of the pregnant woman. I have no say in her decisions and my opinions on how many children she should have, when she should have them, what contraceptives she should use, whether she uses a midwife or a doctor, whether she should have VBAC or C-section, or whether she should or should not have an abortion are irrelevant.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 7:54 am
Wouldn’t you know, the Alan Guttmacher Institute came out with some additional data today regarding the incidence of abortion. To summarize from WaPo:
“”¢ The incidence of abortion spans the economic spectrum, but low-income women are overrepresented among those having the procedure. Sixty percent of women who had abortions in 2000 had incomes of less than twice the poverty level –below $28,000 per year for a family of three, for example. This is in part because “low-income women have lower access to family planning services” such as contraception and counseling provided by health departments, independent clinics or Planned Parenthood . . .
“”¢ Almost 90 percent of abortions are performed in the first trimester — during the first 12 weeks after the first day of the woman’s last menstrual period — with most performed before nine weeks. Because of newer surgical and medical techniques, the proportion of abortions performed at six weeks or earlier has almost doubled in the past decade.
“Less than 1 percent of abortions are done after 24 weeks.”
The vast majority of women getting an abortion would probably be surprised beyond their wildest dreams to find themselves in the 97th income percentile. And it wouldn’t be because they had experienced a drop in income.
Other factors continue apace — those having abortions are most likely to be in their 20s, more likely to be in a racial or ethnic minority (maybe THIS is why evangelicals are underrepresented), and more likely to be cohabiting outside of marriage.
And FWIW, if somebody came up to me in my grossly pregnant state and congratulated me for “deciding not to kill it” I think it would take me some time to process exactly what the person was saying. Because, as the article also says, contrary to popular belief, mothers also have abortions — In spite of Jacqueline’s assertion that it takes an act of delusion to “pretend” that a pregnancy is different from a child, I don’t think that most women intituitively accept this pronouncement. Indeed, to insist otherwise is to graft an intellectual projection onto the process of pregnancy, to insist that that which is is equal and no different from that which it might become. This is actually a pretty bizarre way of evaluating reality.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 7:57 am
Thank you all for your replies. You make some good and interesting points.
I do know that there are limits on abortion already. My point was that I thought we all could agree that some limits are a good thing.
However, I do recognize that by allowing some limitation, the slippery slope towards complete limitation can occur. Hence the trickiness of the whole issue.
I really only mentioned the limitation bit in response to “Free abortion on demand, without apology” which just seemed a bit too extreme for me. I suppose when it all comes down, I feel much more along the lines of “Free abortion, on demand, within a set of specific and fair guidelines maintained by the government.”
I think in some ways, I am still very much an idealist, since I like to think the Government can be used fairly to the benefit of the society. I don’t think it’s happening NOW all the time, but I think it can, and I would like to see it done.
I want to say again, that I don’t believe that fetus is a person. I personally think abortion should remain legal, I’m just trying to see this from all sides. It just seems that the belief that a fetus IS a person is a REASONABLE belief, or at least equally reasonable as the belief that it is not, since both beliefs rely heavily on opinion of when life begins. Now, what a person DOES with that belief is up to them. If they act like a jerk, or they try to make LAWS that dictate which belief is right… they should be called on it and stopped, absolutely. But they should be called on their behavior, not on their belief. Their belief is equally valid.
B brought up an interesting analogy that I had not really thought out before. The idea was that even if a fetus is a full blown person, with equal rights, no person has the right to demand to rely on your body to live. If someone needs your organs, you can deny them, and that person will die. You have no legal obligation to them, and you don’t bear the legal responsibility for their death.
Ok, before I continue, let me say again that I don’t believe a fetus is a person. But, IF we take for granted that it is, in order to complete this analogy… I would say that no, you don’t need to say yes if a doctor comes to you and asks for your organ to save a life. But I think saying yes is a better thing to do. No law will come down on you for saying no, but the people who love the person who dies, and that person him or herself, would probably think bad things about you. They would judge you as selfish (if you had no medical reason you could not do it and such), which is exactly what Robert is doing- calling abortion (for non-medical or extreme circumstances) selfish, and judging the people who get them.
I mean, the idea of asking Robert if he would/does give out his organs seems calculated to ’shame’ him by making him admit that he would not, but that seems to prove his point, so I don’t really think this line of reasoning is the best one to challenge his ideas. He’s already admitted that he is flawed. He could just say “I admit that I am selfish- now it’s your turn.”
Now, on a slightly different track, I think I might argue this… Why doesn’t each and every abortion protestor show up at the clinic with a legal contract and a notary, with the ability to make the offer to each pregnant woman to pay all of her doctor bills and adopt the child immediately upon birth? What if a pregnant woman brought that contract, and offered that deal to any of the protestors? Do you think any of them would accept?
My guess (and it is only a guess) is that the main rebuttal against this line of arguement would be something along the lines of “The pregnant women were the ones who bear the responsibility for the pregnancy, therefore they should live up to it. It is not the protestor’s responsibility.” OK, but I would say that by taking that stance, you make the issue one purely of responsibility and not one about life at all. It would mean that you’re not protesting in order to save a life, you’re doing it to rub a dog’s nose in it’s mess. At that point, the protest loses it’s moral grounding and becomes people just trying to force their views on someone else.
Anyway, thanks for the interesting discussion. I am glad I found it, and that I am made to feel welcome to exchange ideas.
This comment was written by Jordan D. White.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 8:04 am
Barbara-
That was some really excellent info.
To be honest with you, I am actually shocked at myself for not bringing up or talking about the economic issues related to abortion. The way our class structure is set up right now is reprehensible.
And excellent point about the economic and racial profile of the majority of abortions being a factor in the religious profile. The correlation between certain religions having less abortions may have absolutely nothing to do with their moral teachings.
This comment was written by Jordan D. White.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 8:39 am
I really only mentioned the limitation bit in response to “Free abortion on demand, without apology” which just seemed a bit too extreme for me.
In what way? Too in-your-face? Too far from the notion of hesitant compromise? It’s fine to consider all sides of an issue, but that doesn’t mean all sides have equal validity.
A person who has the ‘reasonable belief’ that a fetus is a person is not ‘reasonable’ if they set up arbitrary limits on that personhood that do not apply to born persons.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 9:08 am
Jordan D., the problem many of us have with starting the discussion on abortion by agreeing that we need to negotiate “acceptable” limitations is that it doesn’t appear (at least to me) that there is any particular need for additional limitations based on what is happening now. Thus, the plea for limitations is a plea to change the status quo that appears to me to be pretty darn reasonable.
By the percentage of time and effort and ink committed to the topic of abortion, you would think that 90% of abortions are performed after 24 weeks of pregnancy. As the above data state, however, the situation is exactly the reverse: 90% of abortions occur in the first trimester, and less than one percent of abortions take place after potential viability — and I don’t have data, but I would bet that many of these relate to catastrophic defects of the fetus.
Less than 10 percent of abortions take place between week 13 (or so) and week 24, prior to viability, but at a point where the procedure is more involved medically. Guessing that most of these relate to fetal defect or demise, or maternal health issues.
Perhaps there are some women who could have had an abortion early but didn’t and then changed their minds and had one in the second trimester. But it doesn’t look to me like there are many. The financial ramifications alone would make a first trimester abortion the most likely choice for most women. So many women having abortions in the second trimester are likely among those who either didn’t realize they were pregnant, or who had so much difficulty finding a provider, that a later abortion became the only choice.
Do men (and maybe women) realize that by the earliest point at which you can confirm a pregnancy you are already considered to be 4 weeks pregnant? I think given the tight time frames it’s pretty amazing that most women manage to have an abortion prior to the 9th week of their pregnancy, and 90% by the week 13.
Why should we spend so much time trying to find common ground with people who are determined to mislead the public at large and to frame the “problem” in such objectively unreasonable terms?
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 9:10 am
Jordan:
Like mythago said…
And I’d like to add one thing:
So you think free abortion on demand is too radical (apparently you want people who hold that belief re-evaluate their beliefs… So all of us can agree that some limitations are good. Why?), yet you see the “life begins at conception, therefore abortion is always wrong” equally valid and REASONABLE as your position (big letters and all… You don’t seem willing at all asking them to re-evaluate their beliefs, in fact, you appear to demand that other people shouldn’t do that either. Why?)
This is a bit unfair… and indeed biased towards the pro-life POV. Do you really assume that people here have came to their (”radical” pro-choice) beliefs out of half-assed, selfish reasons? (It is an accusation that women having an abortion hear a lot, trust them a bit, will you?)
(Disclaimer: I feel you, Robert, and anyone, anywhere, should be allowed to hold any beliefs they want about the issue, however, I don’t feel compelled to consider all beliefs equally reasonable, so I don’t.)
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 9:15 am
alsis39: Some of us don’t want children. And we don’t need any sanctimonious meddlers trying to bully us into liking the idea of having our own children. That’s our choice.
That’s great, and I am sure you and many of the other women in this post similarly believe that men also should have a choice as to whether or not to be a parent or subject to parental responsibilities like forced child support? So if I don’t want a child, I think we can all agree that I shouldn’t be bullied to help pay for one, right? After all, everything else is secondary to a personal choice. Maybe we can create a greater general parental CHOICE movement in which neither sex forced to have any parental responsibilities.
( didnt read the whole thread if someone else mentioned this)
This comment was written by Larry.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 9:45 am
Hijack at post 196!
Thanks so much, Larry.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 10:03 am
Yep, Jake, hijaking indeed. Talk about missing the point. But let’s just ignore the fact that this is about forcing women to undergo pregnancy, something that affects us physically and exposes us to certain risks. Silly me–I forgot that we are a secondary consideration at best. Most women get abortions because they don’t want to be *pregnant*, let alone have a child.
Sheesh.
This comment was written by Sheelzebub.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 10:15 am
Kim:
I suspect, however, that he’d never say, “I’m so sorry your fall caused you to kill your baby”, knowing the incindiary nature of the word kill. Am I wrong, Robert? Would you say that to a woman?
I would say “I’m sorry the baby died” or “I’m sorry the fall killed the baby”. Intentionality matters.
Amp, I’ll be glad to debate fetal personhood with you, but it’s pretty crazy right now and this is a debate I’d have to do research for. Let me cede that you make a very strong facial case, and beg a raincheck.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 10:16 am
“Hijack at post 196! Thanks so much, Larry. ”
No Hijack, I am just testing the waters for a larger Pro-choice movement that encompases both mens and womens rights in parental choice. I am just trying to bring us all together.
This comment was written by Larry.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 10:33 am
Brian wrote:
[applause]
AndiF, I’m thinking your idea could work, but we have to figure out where to employ Brain-guy.
[applause for Sheelzebub, LaLubu, Barbara, and probably some others I've forgotten.]
Both Robert’s and Larry’s continual aversion to the question, brought forth by both myself and LaLubu, of why we allow for their own morality to govern their own families and yet we are seemingly not allowed the same consideration from them in regards to our families is, as usual, duly noted. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that when you’re so arrogant, controlling, and busy securing your place at the top of the patriarchal heap, it simply never dawns on you that what seems best for you might, just might, not be best for everyone. Such a heavy burden. I weep for them. All of us wild women constantly having sex in public with everything in sight and nobody can make us go sit in the town square’s stocks for so much as ten minutes. Must really rankle ‘em. :/
ginmar: :D
Finally, all I can say to rachel is congrats on your future plans, and I’m sure your Siamese has an even bigger ego than most because of the thoroughness of the backround check.
Now I’m off to go shake my fist at comcast. It’s their fault I couldn’t catch up yesterday. >:
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 10:45 am
Larry, I don’t want to be “brought together” with you. I find your tactics and particular obesessions on these threads creepy, to say the least. At any rate, the issue of child support has been exhaustively discussed on this board. Feel free to find those threads and discuss it there, or write your own post.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 10:46 am
And the hijacking continues at post 200. Except now he’s testing the waters before hijacking aparently. Its kind of like “don’t mind the gentlemen with guns and black ski masks. I assure you this isn’t a hijacking.”
This comment was written by BStu.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 11:21 am
Robert:
Fair enough.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 11:39 am
Larry, if you want to discuss “choice for men,” my suggestion is that you considering responding to one of these posts, rather than trying to discuss it on this thread.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 12:05 pm
I may have missed it, but it doesn’t look like anybody has brought up what I found most illogical about one of Robert’s arguments:
This set of quotes implies that the nourishment and bodily support that a woman provides to a fetus is not causing some change in that fetus. You have removed the woman (the adult human being) from the equation, much as many pro-lifers do. Robert, providing daily nourishment and protection is not an uninvolved event. A woman’s body is actively interfering with (aka “molesting”) the situation, causing that fetus to grow and change and become what it will become. There is nothing “unmolested” about a fetus in a uterus. It is constantly being interfered with by its nature of being cared for by the owner of the uterus.
This comment was written by Virginia.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 12:36 pm
Robert: thank you for your apology.
mark: are you really suggesting that the man who inseminated me and has been running from the consequences ever since should have equal say with me in the future of my baby? He may have contributed half the DNA, but I’ve contributed virtually 100% of the chemicals that make up the baby. You might like to rethink what’s important here.
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 12:44 pm
Men already have rights in parental choice. What they don’t have is the right to impose their choices (one way or the other) on a woman’s body.
Be patient, Larry. I’m planning an essay on just this issue, and when you comment on that one, no-one can cry hijack.
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 12:50 pm
Bean:
I do think that someone who is willing to say women (or “certain women”) should be forced to undergo pregnancy, with all of it’s potential risks (to health, psychological well-being, financial status), and are willing to say that to do otherwise is “killing” someone should be ideologically consistent and do the same when it comes to organ/marrow donation.
The difference is choice. (Name a random woman) didn’t incur a moral debt to your relative who needs bone marrow; he has no legitimate claim on her. (Name a random pregnant woman) who consented to heterosexual vaginal intercourse, on the other hand, chose to engage in a specific behavior that has a predictable outcome.
Women who are the victims of rape or coerced incest, of course, most specifically did not choose to engage in that behavior. That’s why most pro-lifers are willing to make an exception for those circumstances.
This applies 100 percent to men, as well. If a man has heterosexual vaginal intercourse with a woman, then he is choosing a behavior that he knows can lead to fatherhood.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2005 at 1:44 pm
The statistic from the AGI report that really caught my attention is that six out of ten women who have abortion are already mothers. What this suggests to me is that the decisionmaking about the majority of abortions is being made by women who are very much aware of how pregnancy and childbirth will impact their bodies and lives. Only 19% of abortions are performed on women between the ages of 15 and 19 (fewer than 1% for women under the age of 15). I would be interested in knowing how many of those women were 18 or 19, and thus not subject to parental notification/consent laws.
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July 20th, 2005 at 7:07 am
Is the woman’s word that she was raped enough, or would pro-lifers require an actual rape accusation or even conviction? (Again, my point that allowing abortion only during specific cases would pressure some women to lie about the actual reasons stands.)
I guess the moderate pro-life argument against abortion is really just that women who have chosen to “be bad” and have sex deserve the possible punishment, so to speak (no cop outs allowed, you chose to have sex, now carry to the term!). That is why I don’t find the usual moderate arguments on either side very logical. The how much rights should a fetus have when compared to the woman is much better way to approach this (Fetus = person is at least logically coherent, as are the various fetus becomes a person at week x -approaches). Of course I favor the pro-choice position that women’s sexual autonomy is more important (it makes most sense to me).
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
July 20th, 2005 at 8:24 am
The difference is choice.
We’ve been here before, and you still can’t let go of it.
We do not make ‘choice’ relevant to the rights of a born child. If I am raped, end up in a coma, and wake up five years later to discover I am the mother of a four-year-old as a result of the rape, I do not have any legal right to kill the four-year-old.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
July 20th, 2005 at 9:33 am
>>Is the woman’s word that she was raped enough, or would pro-lifers require an actual rape accusation or even conviction? (Again, my point that allowing abortion only during specific cases would pressure some women to lie about the actual reasons stands.)>>
Doesn’t seem terribly counterintuitive, does it?
And wouldn’t there be some due-process issues in allowing the exception based on a woman’s word alone? If a woman is raped, there’s generally a rapist somewhere in the picture. I don’t think the courts could have such a huge double standard between choice for her and conviction for him, especially if the law otherwise considers abortion to be murder.
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July 20th, 2005 at 9:56 am
Piny:
This comment was written by Tuomas.I assume that too (trying to goad the pro-lifers to show their true colors, or expose hypocrisy ;) ). Which would of course mean that some women who were raped would be forced to carry their rapists’ child to term. Brrr.
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July 20th, 2005 at 2:04 pm
Tuomas:
I guess the moderate pro-life argument against abortion is really just that women who have chosen to “be bad” and have sex deserve the possible punishment, so to speak
Well, it’s you “so to speaking”. You can characterize women who have sex as “bad” and the natural consequence of their choices as “punishment” if you wish - but it’s you doing that. The language (and logic) I’m using are quite divorced from moral judgment in that sense.
Bean:
Robert, so you’re admitting that the “pro-life” stance has nothing to do with “saving lives,” it has to do purely with “responsibility” and punishment for sex.
I am admitting that the pro-life stance is nuanced and that it tries to take into account the rights of all the parties to the situation. If you want to turn that into an absolute, hey, go nuts. It’s your brain.
Similarly, if you believe that pregnancy is “punishment” for having a specific kind of sex, that’s your prerogative. I don’t feel that way. There is a distinct difference between a natural and predictable consequence, and a punishment.
Why do you put “responsibility” in scare quotes? Do you disagree with the proposition that adult humans incur a responsibility when they eagerly engage in the one activity that is known to lead to pregnancy?
Mythago:
We do not make ‘choice’ relevant to the rights of a born child.
That’s true, we don’t. That the moral calculus changes as the circumstances change - a rape victim versus an eager participant, a four-year old versus an embryo - ought to be unsurprising. Perhaps I’m missing your point.
Piny:
And wouldn’t there be some due-process issues in allowing the exception based on a woman’s word alone? If a woman is raped, there’s generally a rapist somewhere in the picture.
Indeed. Such issues are among the reasons why I don’t think making abortion illegal per se would be productive.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 21st, 2005 at 5:58 am
Robert, we don’t punish women for being sluts. The only possible reason for a third party (as in you) to have any say at all in whether someone has an abortion is whether or not a second being’s life is at stake. If it’s okay for “someone” to authorize the killing of that second life you have failed to address why that someone should be someone other than the person most affected by the decision. That is to substitute your ethical guidelines for hers. And more important, you have failed to address why any of us should take the initial premise seriously at all, as I have said at least three times, because we don’t condone intentional killing of already born persons, and your way of framing the issue strongly suggests that you admit the issue is at least ambiguous, that is, that the fetus is less than a person.
This is the logical conundrum of the pro-life movement: Unless you adopt a bright line that no one can cross (whether having been raped, subject to coerced incest, or whatever, save changed circumstances such as a developing health risk to the mother), wherever that line is, you are left in the position of making judgments not about the value of the fetus but the conduct of the woman, something that completely contradicts the whole premise upon which you base your right to intervene. If you say, “you can’t have an abortion at 14 weeks because your birth control failed but you could if you had been raped,” you are not protecting innocent life, you are punishing presumed guilty actors. The fetus of a woman who has been raped is every bit as innocent as the fetus of a woman whose birth control failed.
So in addition to all the other issues raised by Tuomas as to why this is such a bad idea, it doesn’t even bear a rational relationship to the interest you are purporting to protect.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 21st, 2005 at 9:22 am
Barbara:
Robert, we don’t punish women for being sluts.
Sigh. How come it’s the feminists and pro-feminists around here who are always calling women hateful names based on their sexuality?
If it’s okay for “someone” to authorize the killing of that second life you have failed to address why that someone should be someone other than the person most affected by the decision.
Actually, I specifically did address it. You might not like my suggested reasoning, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
That is to substitute your ethical guidelines for hers.
Actually, to substitute the ethical guidelines of the society for hers. As we do in many other arenas, for many other people. I believe it was Alsis who demanded that her moral code should be the sole determinant of her behavior. That only works in Ayn Rand novels.
because we don’t condone intentional killing of already born persons, and your way of framing the issue strongly suggests that you admit the issue is at least ambiguous, that is, that the fetus is less than a person.
But we do condone the intentional killing of born persons. The death penalty. War. The authorization of the use of deadly force against prisoners to prevent escapes. Self-defense. A few other scenarios.
These are all a balancing of the rights of multiple persons, as is abortion. There isn’t going to be a “bright line” test, because these are difficult and nuanced questions where absolute positions are not morally tenable.
This is the logical conundrum of the pro-life movement: Unless you adopt a bright line that no one can cross (whether having been raped, subject to coerced incest, or whatever, save changed circumstances such as a developing health risk to the mother), wherever that line is, you are left in the position of making judgments not about the value of the fetus but the conduct of the woman
The conduct of the woman (and the man) is morally relevant.
something that completely contradicts the whole premise upon which you base your right to intervene. If you say, “you can’t have an abortion at 14 weeks because your birth control failed but you could if you had been raped,” you are not protecting innocent life, you are punishing presumed guilty actors. The fetus of a woman who has been raped is every bit as innocent as the fetus of a woman whose birth control failed.
That’s true. But the moral relationship between the mother and the fetus is different in the two scenarios. As noted, these are difficult questions, not simple ones.
I might be misreading you, but it seems as though you’re desiring there be no middle ground, no attempt to balance and reconcile many competing desires and interests and rights. Instead, it has to be a bright-line binary - abortion is murder always and everywhere and women who conceive under any circumstances must bear their child, versus abortion is a trivial act with no moral consequences and should have the same invisibility to the law and the culture as the question of whether or not to chew gum.
I’m sorry, but I can’t oblige that manichean view. It is complicated and there are subtleties and nuances; characterizing those complexities as “punishing the sluts” is no more helpful than screaming about murdered babies.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 21st, 2005 at 10:16 am
>>These are all a balancing of the rights of multiple persons, as is abortion. There isn’t going to be a “bright line” test, because these are difficult and nuanced questions where absolute positions are not morally tenable.>>
Actually, these all involve the balancing of the _lives_ of multiple persons. Exceptional permission for abortion in the case of rape–if we accept the pro-life definitions involved–is the only case where someone’s right not to carry to term a pregnancy for which she was not responsible supercedes another person’s right to live.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
July 21st, 2005 at 12:53 pm
Robert, to me, your argument sounds like this: Because I can’t really define the interest at stake (i.e., the worth of the fetus) I am going to let my guidepost be the moral worth of the mother (her conduct). A fetus has a value worth protecting or it doesn’t (apart from who gets to decide), but arguing that it deserves protection and then proceeding not to protect it at all based on what its mother did or failed to do makes no sense to me. It eviscerates your rationale for having the RIGHT to interene in the first place.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 21st, 2005 at 2:39 pm
Sigh. How come it’s the feminists and pro-feminists around here who are always calling women hateful names based on their sexuality?
I mention it, because I have been called hateful names for being an unmarried mother. I think it’s relevant. I also resent the glossing over of this issue (harsh judgement against unmarried women who have sex); abortion doesn’t happen in a vacuum. If you don’t think some women are choosing abortion because they don’t want to be Exhibit A in ’sluttiness’, you are deluding yourself. Go back and read that link on “pro-life” women who have abortions.
But the moral relationship between the mother and the fetus is different in the two scenarios.
In other words, it really is about punishing women for having sex. Because the pregnancy will “prove” who the sluts are. Why else would people who claim to be anti-abortion fight so vigorously against birth control and sex education, both of which are tried-and-true methods of reducing the abortion rate? I wonder if anyone will do a study on Illinois and its abortion rate, now that health insurance plans in this state are required to cover contraception? My guess is that the abortion rate will go down, as more women who would otherwise use only condoms because of the expense factor are now free to choose more reliable methods like the Pill, or a diaphragm, or the IUD for the same (or less) money.
Anyway, there already is a clear middle ground in the practice of abortion in the United States. First trimester, few restrictions. Second trimester, more restrictions. Third trimester, for health/lifesaving reasons only. Quit trying to paint the picture otherwise. We already have the middle ground; it’s called being pro-choice.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
July 21st, 2005 at 3:01 pm
Because I can’t really define the interest at stake (i.e., the worth of the fetus) I am going to let my guidepost be the moral worth of the mother (her conduct).
Except that I can define the interest at stake quite exactly.
A fetus has a value worth protecting or it doesn’t (apart from who gets to decide), but arguing that it deserves protection and then proceeding not to protect it at all based on what its mother did or failed to do makes no sense to me.
The value of the fetus is a constant.
Under one set of circumstances, the value of the mother’s right to autonomy outweighs the value of the fetus.
Under a different set of circumstances, the value of the mother’s right to autonomy does not outweigh the value of the fetus.
The mother’s right to autonomy, like other peoples’ right to autonomy, is partially predicated on her behavior and the set of reasonable expectations surrounding that behavior. People who are the victims of a mugging bear a different responsibility for their physically damaged state than do people who get into a boxing ring for fun. The natural consequences of a choice, versus the imposed consequences of a crime, bring different moral factors into play.
Seems pretty clear-cut to me; at any rate, I can’t explain it any more clearly than that.
It eviscerates your rationale for having the RIGHT to interene in the first place.
Noncomprehension is not an argument. Nor have I argued for a right to intervene. It might help in making sense of my arguments to address what I am saying rather than things that I haven’t said.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 21st, 2005 at 4:37 pm
Robert, if the value of the fetus is constant then the only thing being judged is the mother’s conduct. You are not protecting the fetus. You are punishing conduct. To put it in legal speak, your proposal to curtail a woman’s autonomy over her person bears no rational (much less a compelling) relationship to the purported basis of that curtailment, i.e., that there is a second being worthy of protection, because similarly situated beings equally worthy of protection are treated differently in a fundamental way based on extrinsic circumstances that are independent of their value and beyond their control. In other words “something else besides the desire to protect innocent life is motivating you” and that something else is not something that normally leads to the curtailment of basic civil liberties — to wit, differentiating the rights of women depending on whether they had sex for pleasure.
Let me put another hypothetical to you:
Person A gets into a boxing ring and is injured during the match.
Person B jumps into a boxing ring out of an excess of excitement and is intentionally decked by one of the fighters out of an excess of pissiness.
Person C gets mugged walking on their way home from the bus stop after work.
Person D gets mugged while trolling for drugs in a bad part of town after disputing the price of his desired purchase.
Person E gets mugged after mugging Person D.
Believe it or not Robert, in the eys of the law Person B, C, D and E are entitled in theory to the same legal protection related to the assault on their person whether they deserve it or not. Person A might deserve protection, for instance, if his opponent “goes too far.” Thus, even Person A’s intent (willingness to risk injury) is not determinative of whether or not he is the victim of a crime, even in a boxing match, even though it is probably highly foreseeable that certain opponents use excessive or outside of the rules force (think hockey games where good players are intentionally assaulted — criminal prosecution has in fact occurred).
The original intent of person A is ultimately not what determines whether his injuries are actionable — it is the intent of the opponent (e.g., using ordinary versus clearly excessive or out of bounds force) and this would be true even if the TYPE of injury inflicted is no worse than the type of injury that person A might normally expect to sustain and which, ostensibly, he was willing to risk.
The intent of the mother and others in the antecedent event (sexual contact) is irrelevant to their subsequent actions (terminating the pregnancy), because the subsequent action is a separate action with a separate consequence. The consequence (death of the fetus) of the second intentional act doesn’t become okay or not okay because the antecedent act that set the pregnancy in motion was itself blameworthy or not, or consented to or whatever standard it is you are applying.
You are going down a path that is foreign to Anglo-American jurisprudence. The existence of bright lines is, indeed, extremely important when criminal prosecution is a potential consequence of crossing the line.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 21st, 2005 at 8:14 pm
Barbara:
You are not protecting the fetus. You are punishing conduct.
I am protecting the fetus to the extent that protection does not infringe upon the woman’s right to autonomy. I am arguing that people who voluntarily engage in heterosexual vaginal intercourse are voluntarily reducing their own autonomy by engaging in behavior that is known to lead to the creation of new human life - a voluntary reduction in autonomy that is not engaged in by the victim of rape or coercive incest.
You may attempt to frame the obvious natural consequences of vaginal sex as “punishment” as long as you like, but that frame will continue to be inappropriate.
To put it in legal speak, your proposal to curtail a woman’s autonomy over her person bears no rational (much less a compelling) relationship to the purported basis of that curtailment, i.e., that there is a second being worthy of protection, because similarly situated beings equally worthy of protection are treated differently in a fundamental way based on extrinsic circumstances that are independent of their value and beyond their control.
Nope. There are no similarly situated beings. The product of a rape and the product of a voluntary coupling are not similarly situated. Since the assumption is false, the logic falls apart.
In other words “something else besides the desire to protect innocent life is motivating you”…
That is true. IN ADDITION TO the desire to protect innocent life, there is a desire to protect the autonomy of women who have not consented to sexual intercourse. These desires are balanced.
Believe it or not Robert, in the eys of the law Person B, C, D and E are entitled in theory to the same legal protection related to the assault on their person whether they deserve it or not.
Hooray for legal theory. Let me know when you find a cop, DA or judge who gives a shit that a mugger got beat up on.
The intent of the mother and others in the antecedent event (sexual contact) is irrelevant to their subsequent actions (terminating the pregnancy), because the subsequent action is a separate action with a separate consequence.
I invite my cousin, with whom I have a great relationship, to drop by my house tonight, telling him “just come on in”. My neighbor calls his cousin, with whom he has a long and hostile relationship, and instructs him to stay the hell away from his house tonight, and threatens to harm him if he sees him on his property. Later, our respective cousins arrive and just walk through the front door. I and my neighbor are both startled by the intrusion; we both shoot our cousins dead. These killings are separate actions from our original invitations/disinvitations, and they have separate consequences.
For your principle to hold up, the law will have to treat me and my neighbor identically. However, as both common sense and the legal record show, that will not happen. The law will treat me significantly more harshly than it will treat my neighbor. We were both intruded upon, but our past pattern of behavior and our specific actions combined to create differential expectations of our immediate behavior. I was way out of line in shooting my cousin; my neighbor, considerably less so. Hell, in Texas they might not even arrest the neighbor.
The existence of bright lines is, indeed, extremely important when criminal prosecution is a potential consequence of crossing the line.
Yeah, it would be. And if I was advocating a change in the law - in fact, if I wasn’t pretty much specifically and explicitly disavowing the belief that abortion ought to be made illegal in most of my comments, this would be a reasonable point.
So I’m left to wonder: do you not understand that I am not advocating the criminalization of abortion? Or do you understand that, but are simply using the legal frame as a rhetorical tool, despite its obvious inappropriateness?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 21st, 2005 at 9:03 pm
Interesting Hypothetica, Barbara. I like it.
(An aside before I go into this- Tuomas, I understand your criticism. I do want us to have discussions that change each other’s opinions and make each other reconsider our views. I am enjoying doing that here with you and everyone. I merely meant that that particular belief [when 'life' begins] is one we have no real proof for either way, and is essentially ‘faith’ based, therefore we’re not going to be able to change his mind that way. I would prefer to appeal to other methods.)
Yes, I would agree that, in many ways, the allowance of abortion in the case of rape or incest does seem somewhat inconsistant with the belief that abortion is killing. That ‘child’ is just as entitled to life as those whose parents had sex willingly.
OK, let me think this through. Again, these are not my beliefs, but I am trying to explore their implications.
So… we are willing to ‘kill’ a baby of a woman who was raped. I would guess the reason behind this is that going through the pregnancy would be traumatic, a constant reminder of the horrible event. To alleviate the suffering of one person, another will die.
Pro-Life people will ofter put the burden in this sort of odd judgement call on us pro-choicers. For example, they push us to make us say when a fetus can and can’t be killed, whien it’s old enough that we would consider it murder, etc. Well, here is one they can answer for us- exactly how much suffering is worth a human life to you?
Barbara is 100% right. The real truth is that Pro-Life people are not Pro-Life at all- they’re Pro-Morality. Pro-their-personal-Morality. It has nothing to do with the ‘life’, and everything to do with punishing the selfish people who can’t take responsibility for their actions.
Robert, when Barabara says it eviscerates your right to intervene, you said she had not addressed what you had actually said. Yes, I see your point, you had never said abortion should be outlawed or stopped legally, you just wanted to ( I suppose the word would be) shun women who do it without a certain set of justifying reasons.
I think what she means is that you lose the moral high-ground when you arguement shifts from ‘trying to protect an innocent human life’ to ‘trying to punish the irresponsible’.
If a fetus’ worth is really constant, why abort ANY that do not jeopardize the mother’s life? Federal funding to pay for the medical and psychological care of pregnant rape victims, with optional extra help with adoption, could save that life you are willing to end. But the rape victim does not deserve ‘punishment’ so she is not forced to have the baby. Which, essentially, equates having a baby with punishment.
What if a raped woman has twin fetuses inside her? Would that outweight her suffering? Triplets?
Seriously, it seems it’s more about rubbing a dog’s nose in it’s mess than it is about saving any lives. If we want to save more lives, let’s stop abstinence only education and teach children about brith control, do things to work on preventing pregnancy. If all the money spent on anti-abortion was put to helping prevent pregnancy, or even (dare I say it?) trying to make life better for the children who are actually born… well, it would be a better country, that much is sure.
This comment was written by Jordan D. White.Report this comment to the moderators
July 22nd, 2005 at 2:47 am
Well, Robert, of course I’m generalizing and extrapolating from your comments, but lay off the straw men “you can characterize them as…”, you’re smart enough to know what I was referring to was not my view point. You haven’t answered my criticisms at all, all you do is grasp at rhetoric tricks like that one. Telling.
Let me ask you: Why would you not allow women who choose to have sex to not be able to choose an abortion if they wish to, (let’s not even go to federally funded ones, suppose she pays for it herself) if you are so free of moral judgement towards having sex?
Jordan: Thanks for understanding, and thanks for your contributions. (I like your points, and I made a similar point lot earlier, I think it’s nearly impossible for people who genuinely think fetus is a person to understand the pro-choice position, and vice versa, but the moderates, and indeed most pro-lifers, seem to be more or less “Pro-morality” as in legislating their moral choices over others, than actually pro (fetal) -life)
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
July 22nd, 2005 at 2:54 am
Damn, the italics didn’t close…
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
July 22nd, 2005 at 4:12 am
Robert, I’m with Barbara; you may say that the fetus is the constant, but by placing the woman as a variable, you are, in fact, punishing her for having sex. By saying that women should not have abortion as an option because they voluntarily had sex, is like saying that pedestrians who walk in (or homeowners who live in) rough neighborhoods should not have police protection as an option because we live in these neighborhoods voluntarily; if we want enforcement of the law we should only go to or live in “safe” areas.
But traditionally, that isn’t the view society takes of folks who been mugged or had their houses broken into. No, the only folks traditionally judged like that are women who have sex. Original sin and all that, don’t'cha know.
When you say that all abortions aren’t the same, what you’re really saying is “I want an ‘out’ for “my” women, in case they need one! I just want those sluts to be punished.” No, you didn’t come out and use the word “slut”. But I’m saying that anyone who has qualms about unmarried women who have sex doesn’t have to come all the way out and say the word; their action toward us “sluts” will belie their true feelings.
You may say that you don’t view pregnancy as a punishment. Fine. Many folks in the United States do, and there are any number of stock colloquial phrases that illustrate that point. You say you want society to pressure women into not having abortions. Well, society didn’t pressure me into shit; I had my daughter because I wanted to. But I’m still the “slut” for being an unmarried mother. I don’t run in conservative circles, but I do live in a conservative area of the country. My daughter is five years old, and is now getting old enough to notice this. Her lessons on sexism are just beginning.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
July 22nd, 2005 at 5:31 am
Robert, saying that in fact equal treatment doesn’t result for the muggees in the above hypothetical is a complete dodge so I won’t even comment on it. The point is to illustrate how intent and morality generally operate in determining illegality of conduct. You wouldn’t have gotten very far in my criminal law class in which we had to discuss hypotheticals like attempted murder by use of voodoo dolls.
And I get that you are not trying to make abortion totally illegal, but you appear not to appreciate that the standards that you would superimpose on whether or not abortion should be illegal flow not from what it is that gives society a legitimate right to intervene in a party’s private conduct (harm to third parties) but on whether or not the woman abused her autonomy by consenting to sex — which is something that we do not prohibit or normally punish (punish being used in the broadest sense of the term — which is to say, make one’s legal status or rights contingent on whether one engaged in the conduct or not).
In a previous post you rejected my contention that you couldn’t say what a fetus was worth until you knew what it’s mother had done or failed to do to bring it about, and now you are pretty much agreeing that the value of the fetus does depend on the mother’s antecedent action. Well, it has to be one or the other. To say that the fetus that is a product of rape is dissimilarly situated is a joke. It is not. It is not a moral agent of any kind and its biological functioning, development and processes are indistinguishable from the fetus that is a product of any other kind of sexual relations. It has no responsibility for the bad conduct of its father and there are far less drastic actions that could be taken to protect the mother’s mental status, etc.
The differentiating factors have nothing to do with the fetus and everything to do with the woman’s antecedent conduct. Ergo this is in fact what you are judging and you are making abortion illegal in circumstances that depend on the mother’s antecedent actions and not the act of abortion itself. So the same act when intentionally done by one person is legal but it is illegal when done by another and the driving force in determining its legality is not the intent of the act itself (abortion, which is quite intentional in either circumstance) but the intent or morality of antecedent actions (what one did or failed to do at the time the pregnancy was set in motion), even thouugh those actions are not in and of themselves punishable (again, used in the broadest sense).
Your goal of saving fetuses is just a pretext because fetal death is irrelevant to the analysis. And I’m telling you that this is so not how we judge the legality of any other action under our entire criminal justice system. It is actions not intentions that give rise to illegal conduct.
If you are setting this up as an extralegal system I must have missed something, because insofar as I can tell you are talking in terms of legality. If you aren’t then it is of no concern to me — people will agree with you or not, and so far as I can tell, in the real world (that one that is so important to you when it comes to protecting muggees) people don’t agree with you, at least not if one judges by what they choose to do in their private lives. If society had a consensus then we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 22nd, 2005 at 7:55 am
I’d like to add that there is simply no reason for a woman who is pregnant as the result of rape to believe in the inherent fairness of someone who is already looking at her pregnancy as their own moral proving ground. Why on earth would I want a total stranger to have the right to determine whether I was “raped enough” to permit what the rapist has already denied me: The right to autonomy and control over my own body. Why on earth should I have to place my trust in this person to judge me fairly ? By assuming the right to play judge and jury with me at all, this person has already overstepped their rights and already dispensed with common decency. I have no reason to believe that their sense of common decency would suddenly kick in when it was time for them to give me some kind of “right to kill” because of a rape which THEY get to decide the truth of.
Rape is tough enough to prove under the current justice system as it is. Men of all political stripes seem to have way more concern for the man’s rights than the woman’s. This attitude is all over this blog. Now I have to place my reproductive rights in their hands, too ? Forget it.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 22nd, 2005 at 10:48 am
Yep. What you said, alsis.
It’s beyond arrogant to expect the right to judge and decide for me if my situation makes me worthy of getting a medical procedure done.
This comment was written by Sheelzebub.Report this comment to the moderators
July 22nd, 2005 at 10:50 am
Barbara, that may just be the best evisceration of the moralist pro-life position I’ve ever read. Take a bow!
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Report this comment to the moderators
July 22nd, 2005 at 11:23 am
Barbara and Robert certainly keep things interesting. Thanks to both (and to our gracious host, as always).
Since Robert does not seek to criminalize abortion, maybe tort law provides the better model for discussion than criminal law. Under tort law, we generally have no duty to help a stranger, no matter how badly the stranger needs the help. But we do have a duty not to harm, and a duty to help those with whom we have certain special relationships. Seems straightforward, but applying these principles drives libertarians (and, honestly, everyone) a little crazy.
No Duty to Help vs. Duty Not to Harm: Where does “no duty to help” end and “duty not to harm” begin? The boundary consists of vague social norms about autonomy and the distinction between active and passive conduct. The pro-choice side argues that abortion is permissible because a woman has no duty to engage in pregnancy for the benefit of a fetus. The pro-live side argues that pregnancy is merely a passive state, and that abortion represents active harmful interference with that state. (An entire separate discussion
discussion is dedicated to the proposition that pregnancy does not merely consist of refraining from impinging upon a fetus’s autonomy; it involves active sacrifice of the woman’s autonomy to an extent that … well, that defies analogy.)
No Duty to Help vs. Special Relationship: Which relationships as sufficiently “special” to overrule the “no duty to help” standard? Again, it’s all about mushy social norms that, honestly, can be hard to rationalize. But a relationship may arise where someone engages in voluntary action, even if the boundaries of that duty might not have been apparent to the person engaging in the action. Thus, you may not have a duty to rescue a drowning man; but once you start to swim out to him, you may thereby create a relationship that will subject you to liability if you quit.
Here I sense Robert is arguing that the relationship between the woman and the fetus differs in the two instances. In the case of rape, the woman has not volunteered to enter into any relationship to the fetus. In the case of consensual sex, Robert argues, the woman (and the man, presumably) constructively consent to a relationship of aid to any resulting fetus and child.
Thus, in this discussion I sense Robert is not focused on the woman’s wrongful act of recreational sex. Rather, he is focusing on the breach of duty to aid. The duty to bear a fetus does not depend upon the “value” of the fetus any more than the duty to rescue a drowning man depends upon the value of the man. And a woman’s autonomy is not degraded when she gets pregnant any more than a swimmer’s autonomy is degraded when he starts to rescue a drowning victim. Rather, they are both called upon to fulfill a duty that they constructively accepted. (What does “constructively” mean? That’s just a lawyer’s way to avoid saying “a duty that mushy social norms may impose on you whether you like it or not.”)
So far, so good. But see the next post for a footnote.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
July 22nd, 2005 at 11:25 am
Admittedly, the swimming analogy breaks down under analysis. The duty to continue the rescue of a drowning man is triggered by concern for opportunity costs: if you refrain from beginning to swim out to the drowning man, someone else may leap to the rescue. The drowning man has an existing interest to be protected, and your wrongful conduct in starting something you won’t finish harms that man’s interest. In legal shorthand: 3d Party relied on Defendant’s deceptive conduct to the detriment of Plaintiff/Victim’s interests.
Applying this analogy to a fetus requires supernatural reasoning: Who is the Plaintiff/Victim here?
Not the fetus. Whereas a drowning man has an interest in you not engaging in a false rescue, a fetus has no interest in the woman not engaging in false pro-creation; the fetus would not be born in either event. No detrimental reliance here.
Maybe the man’s sperm or DNA is the Plaintiff/Victim. If only Woman X had refrained from having sex, the man might have declared, “If you won’t put out, I’ll find someone who will!” and then had sex Woman Y who might be willing to bring a (different) fetus (involving the man’s sperm) to term. But instead, the man (3d party) relied the willingness to have sex (deceptive conduct) of Woman X (Defendant) to the detriment of the sperm/DNA’s interest in self-perpetuation (Plaintiff/Victim’s interest).
Maybe the fetus’s soul is the Plaintiff/Victim. Maybe souls exist prior to fetuses, and are dolled out to fetuses in order of conception or something. Thus the soul has an existing interest in being allocated to a fetus that will be born, and they rely to their detriment when people create fetuses that they don’t bring to term because they lose the opportunity to be assigned to some different fetus. That is, the soul allocator (3d party) relied on the pregnancy (deceptive conduct) caused by the man and woman (Defendants) to the detriment of the soul’s interest in being born (Plaintiff/Victim’s interest).
In short, I think the swimming tort analogy doesn’t work. But there are other social duties - most obviously, the duty of a parent to care for a child. I didn’t use it as an analogy because that duty seems infinitely mushy. For example, I am not aware that a parent has a duty to donate a kidney to his kid, even if the kid would die otherwise, but I’m also not aware of a court that has ruled on the question. With so much ambiguity about the extent of the relationship, it’s not very useful for an analogy.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
July 22nd, 2005 at 8:03 pm
nobody.really… that was wonderful. Very thoughtful.
This comment was written by Jordan D. White.Report this comment to the moderators
July 22nd, 2005 at 10:32 pm
IN ADDITION TO the desire to protect innocent life, there is a desire to protect the autonomy of women who have not consented to sexual intercourse. These desires are balanced.
In no other way do we allow somebody to intentionally and deliberately take a human life because they wish to “protect their autonomy.”
If a fetus is innocent life, then the woman’s autonomy is irrelevant. Period. I realize you do not like that argument, because then you have to admit that rape victims shouldn’t be allowed to kill their babies, and it makes you look like a great big meanie.
By the way, both you and your fictional neighbor are guilty of the same crime.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
July 22nd, 2005 at 11:36 pm
In no other way do we allow somebody to intentionally and deliberately take a human life because they wish to “protect their autonomy.”
Nonsense. A person about to be victimized by rape is certainly empowered, under most circumstances, to end the life of (probably) her attacker. (Under some odd circumstance where she could easily and safely escape, most people would generally expect her to do that instead…but not all of us. I’d have no problem with her pulling the trigger.) Rape is certainly a violation of autonomy, and protecting that autonomy is valid self-defense.
Nations fight wars to defend their autonomy.
A slave who kills his master is striking out to re-assert his autonomy.
Autonomy is one of the things that we most often kill to defend, it seems to me. Certainly it is one of the most defensible reasons for killing.
If a fetus is innocent life, then the woman’s autonomy is irrelevant.
I am capable of weighing two conflicting values. A fetus can be innocent life, and a woman’s autonomy can be important, at the same time. That this makes the moral decision difficult does not have causal power to make one of the moral considerations involved irrelevant. YMMV.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2005 at 9:11 am
Oh, if you really believed in the concept of YMMV outside abstract discussions, Robert, I think a lot of bandwidth could have been saved over the last several months. :/
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2005 at 12:22 pm
Nonsense. A person about to be victimized by rape is certainly empowered, under most circumstances, to end the life of (probably) her attacker.
This is called “self-defense,” not “protecting her autonomy.” The law does not recognize a waste-the-bastard justification, however you or I might feel about it. Nor does it ground the right of a rape victim to defend herself on her “autonomy.” Rape is rightfully considered great bodily harm, and that’s a situation where deadly force is justified.
Your ignorance of the law aside, if the issue in abortion is the taking of an innocent life, then the woman’s autonomy is irrelevant, just as you admit that you believe “But I forgot to use birth control!” would be an irrelevant argument.
A pro-lifer would feel sorrow for rape victims forced to carry to term, but would acknowledge that, terrible as such a thing might be, it cannot justify the murder of a baby. A faux-lifer says “well, abortion is OK in cases of rape or incest” because their opposition to abortion hinges not on the value of a human life, but on the mother’s sexual behavior.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2005 at 1:03 pm
if the issue in abortion is the taking of an innocent life, then the woman’s autonomy is irrelevant
Nope. Balanced rights. If your moral compass won’t permit two conflicting values, then you have my sympathy.
But mine does permit it, and so I reject your reductionist characterization as incorrect.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2005 at 2:28 pm
Nope. Balanced rights.
Ah, then you are a supporter of Roe v. Wade, which is grounded in balancing the state’s interest in preserving fetal life and the woman’s right to autonomy?
Please explain, again, how the mother’s ‘autonomy’ trumps an innocent baby’s right to life as long as that baby hasn’t been born yet.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2005 at 2:48 pm
So, Robert doesn’t believe abortion should be criminalized.
Robert believes that women getting abortions for certain reasons should be shunned by ’society’, though he has left what exactly that is vague. Her family? Neighborhood? Country?
Now, how much shunning are we talking about? Robert is currently under no obligation to, say, speak to his wife, daughter, sister, etc, ever again if they have an abortion he disapproves of.
On the other hand, how far can he go before it falls under discrimination or abuse laws?
This conversation keeps dancing between personal morality and action. Whenever one seems to be reaching a point, it dances back the other way.
This comment was written by Kerlyssa.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2005 at 3:02 pm
Ah, then you are a supporter of Roe v. Wade, which is grounded in balancing the state’s interest in preserving fetal life and the woman’s right to autonomy?
I would be amenable to a law in my state that attempted that balance in a democratic fashion.
Please explain, again, how the mother’s ‘autonomy’ trumps an innocent baby’s right to life as long as that baby hasn’t been born yet.
It doesn’t.
You can speak in terms of trumps and absolutes and moral equations where only one factor has value and all the rest are irrelevant all day long, mythago. Your view of this (if this is your view, and not just a rhetorical ploy whose point escapes me) is flawed, and I don’t endorse it. I’m not going to accept your incorrect framing.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2005 at 3:26 pm
I would be amenable to a law in my state that attempted that balance in a democratic fashion.
This isn’t a Congressional hearing, Robert. You can just say you think that the courts shouldn’t touch abortion but you think that the legislation in your state should mimic Roe.
Your view of this (if this is your view, and not just a rhetorical ploy whose point escapes me) is flawed
You keep saying that, yet you back it up with nothing other than platitudes (”I am capable of weighing two conflicting values”) and snippiness (”If your moral compass won’t permit two conflicting values, then you have my sympathy”). Oh, and a blatant misunderstanding of the law regarding killing in self-defense.
It’s not a rhetorical game, Robert: it’s simple logic. If a fetus is an innocent human life, then we give that fetus the same rights and protections that we extend to all human life, and we don’t permit anyone to kill a fetus unless we would give that same permission for killing a born human being.
To say that abortion is acceptable in cases of nonconsensual sex only is to treat an unborn life differently than a born life, and to allow justifications for taking unborn life that we do not extend to born life. Your claim that the law permits killing to “protect autonomy” is nonsense.
As soon as you start looking into the circumstances of conception, you have stopped treating the fetus as a human being–with all the protection the law grants a human being–and started basing the worth of its life on the mother’s sexual behavior.
As far as “weighing rights” goes, if a fetus is a human life, then we weigh rights the same way we do with babies. A woman should absolutely have the right to abort if she is in danger of grave bodily harm or death from the pregnancy and the abortion is necessary to save her life. That is self-defense. Unless you are willing to say that mothers should be allowed to kill their five-year-olds if the kid affects their “autonomy,” of course.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2005 at 3:59 pm
As soon as you start looking into the circumstances of conception, you have stopped treating the fetus as a human being”“with all the protection the law grants a human being”“and started basing the worth of its life on the mother’s sexual behavior.
Since we’re making an exception for rape or nonconsensual incest, it seems like we’re basing it on the FATHER’S sexual behavior, not the mother’s.
But of course, that equally valid framing doesn’t permit abortion hardliners to sputter about punishing women.
It’s not a rhetorical game, Robert: it’s simple logic. If a fetus is an innocent human life, then we give that fetus the same rights and protections that we extend to all human life, and we don’t permit anyone to kill a fetus unless we would give that same permission for killing a born human being.
We permit the killing of innocent human life, when that killing is necessary or subordinate to some greater good. Your argument depends on their being some absolute prohibition on such killing - but there is no such prohibition.
Instead, we have a very strong cultural value against killing innocents - but an explicit recognition that occasionally it is directly necessary, or is tragically-but-acceptably part of seeking some greater good. Innocent people died digging the Panama Canal, and the people sending them there knew that it would happen. In fact, innocent people die on ANY construction project more involved than a one-lane road - engineers can generally project how many deaths and maimings there will be.
In the case of society permitting abortion in the case of rape, we basically say “there is a good which we wish to protect - the life of this innocent creature. Unfortunately in this case, your right to autonomy has been compromised, by the actions of an external agent. Because of this, our society will accept your decision to end the life of this innocent creature - a decision we would normally condemn - because we value your autonomy and your right to decide whether or not to open your body to new life.”
Sometimes - depending on the circumstances - one right is weighed more heavily. After birth, we don’t permit rape victims to kill their children - because after birth, there are other options available and it is not necessary to infringe on the mother’s rights to protect the right of the child.
“Simple logic” is inadequate for moral reasoning.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 23rd, 2005 at 6:22 pm
Other examples of innocents whose deaths we permit:
Cops kill bystanders, by mistake or by accident. (Like that Brazilian man gunned down in London - who may or may not have been innocent.) The loss of life is tragic and regretted - but is better than the alternative, of creating an environment where the police never use deadly force and the “bad guys” take full advantage of that fact.
In wartime, soldiers kill innocents - sometimes by the thousands. Sometimes this is a case of a misguided bomb. Other times it is a case where a decision is made to attack a target despite the presence of innocents in the area. The loss of life is tragic and regretted - but better than the alternative of losing the war and having MORE innocents destroyed.
Firefighters sometimes have to make awful decisions - do we hose down THIS row of houses, or THAT one? Do we charge into the Trade Center and try to rescue people, or do we stay out and protect our own? Either way, innocent people run the risk of dying.
Protection of innocent life is a strong cultural value; it could stand to be made stronger. Part of that strengthening ought, in my view, to be a renewed commitment to nurturing young life and children. But regardless of that, this cultural value does not rise to the level of an absolute trump card - “that would kill innocent life, and is thus forbidden”. It is an unfortunate necessity of life that innocent lives are sometimes risked, and sometimes lost, in the service of values which temporarily or situationally are more important than the protection of life.
That said, it IS refreshing to see you advocating so strongly that innocent life should be protected.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2005 at 5:29 am
Robert, as you well know, we are not advocating the protection of innocent life at all costs, for much the same reason that you stated: it’s not a trump card that overwrites all other values and priorities. These other losses of innocent life (some of which I wouldn’t really characterize as such) are tolerated generally by reason that they are considered to sometimes be necessary for the protection of others — thus, taking out a gunman on a roof that ends up killing an innocent bystander (by either the gunman or the police) would usually be characterized as an unfortunate but unavoidable effect of actions taken in the greater interest of public safety. All of your other examples are similar. The fact that they are abused (as in, for instance, not enough advance planning being done to avoid civilian losses during wartime or too hasty of a judgment to engage in war in the first instance) does not vitiate the underlying principle in toto.
I do not understand the greater social good that is being advanced by letting some women but not others have an abortion. I don’t know how or why you came to the conclusion that pregnancy is more threatening emotionally or physically to a woman who has been raped than it is to any other woman who finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy. By harping on the “voluntariness” of the act (the one thing you can know for certain about a pregnancy that isn’t technically the result of rape) you are clearly buying into the notion of pregnancy as punishment, for all of your denials, because you would make rights contingent on antecedent willingness to engage in sex. It also helps you to avoid pesky questions like, well, what if it wasn’t rape but it was done to avoid getting into a nasty fight with a sometimes abusive partner? It’s your own personal bright line.
To try to summarize: If the pretext for intervening is the protection of innocent life then giving permission to abort to some bearers of innocent life but not others is nonsensical, especially if one subscribes to the view that pregnancy is naught but a nuisance and an inconvenience (which is how many permit themselves not to bother worrying about harm to the mother from continuing a pregnancy).
If pregnancy is more than an inconvenience and a nuisance, then to forbid abortion to those who have been careless simply on the grounds that they have been careless (whatever else their situation) is akin to refusing to assist those whose peril is the result of negligence (like refusing to try to rescue someone in a car accident because you know that they were drinking while driving). Why should the police or fire or rescue squad risk their own lives to save such a miscreant?
And this is to overlook that there are many, many people who really don’t agree that the unborn has sufficient worth at each stage of its being to overcome the normal right one has to do with one’s body what one pleases, or that such a metaphysical question is one that we normally leave to the judgment of those most affected by how one might answer it. There is a societal consensus Robert, and it is that at around the time of viability (and really a few weeks or even a month beforehand), what is inside a uterus is sufficiently close to a newborn that we do limit the choices one has in its disposition. But the focus is on the fetus — and women who have been raped are just as much subject to that consensus as any others as, in my judgment, they should be.
There are many on this board who don’t agree with that consensus, just as there are many who don’t agree with societal consensus on any number of important life and death issues (capital punishment, for instance).
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2005 at 8:18 am
Robert-
The examples you give don’t seem analogous to allowing a rape victim to get an abortion. When a police officer kills a bystander, that is an accident. When non-combatants are killed in war, they are not (supposed to be) targeted directly. When an abortion is performed on a woman who was raped, the intention is to kill the fetus, and that intention is directly carried out.
The events you list are unfortunate accidents that society has to cope with. In this argument, they would seem slightly more analogous with making the raped woman HAVE the baby. She would be the ‘victim’ in the ‘greater good’ of protecting all life.
Because, again, how does one quantify how much suffering is worth taking a life? There are alot of lines to be crossed and redrawn before I would say that argument is logical.
What if a raped woman has twin fetuses? Does her suffering outweight two lives? How about if they were triplets?
What is a raped woman is held by her rapist for eight months before she can escape? Can she still abort?
You are saying raped women can ‘protect their autonomy’ by aborting a fetus, but non-raped women must surrender their autonomy to society and keep their baby. The argument being that the consensual sex-having women entered into the pregnancy willingly.
Let’s shift the analogy you used… a woman wants to have sex. THAT is her intention, not pregnancy, and not abortion. The sex is the goal. Just as, in war, the goal is… what ever the goal may be. To topple a dictatorship. To free a people. To take over a country. Whatever. Now, she can plan out her ‘attack’ so she reduces the risk of pregnancy, by using brith control. But sometimes, accidents happen, and innocent lives are lost.
Or, to use an older analogy of yours - a woman is driving and is taking all precautions with ehr driving, but by some freak accident she kills a pedestrian. Now… is that woman going to go to jail? That person is 100% dead, and all so this woman could drive to the store for some ice cream. But before she is convicted of vehicular manslaughter, you’d have to prove some sort of negligence on her part. If she really took precautions and drove safely, she would not be blamed. Would she be shunned by society for having killed a man for ice cream? No, I sort of doubt it.
Do you understand how your view seems inconsistant? You are saying that a fetus has a fixed value, a value worth protecting, but not in all cases. We don’t see how you could feel that way, and REALLY care about the fetus. If a woman is raped, why not federally fund her pregnancy and therapy, and help with adoption? With abortion, the baby, an innocent, is killed!
Basically, when it comes down, it’s because I don’t think of a fetus as being a person. So, I don’t feel the need to protect it. But when I think of real innocent people, I would not kill them to protect someone from trauma. If a raped woman was held for nine months, and had the baby, I would not allow her to kill the baby, regardless of the ammount of suffering she would incur from it’s continued living (and I don’t think you would either, of course). I mean, I am very VERY against the killing of innocents. I just don’t see a fetus that way.
This comment was written by Jordan D. White.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2005 at 8:28 am
Oh, one more thought.
If a criminal has a hostage, it would be in the greater good for the police to allow the hostage to die in order to catch the criminal. Right? So if they come out of the bank or whatnot, carrying the person in front of them, the police should just open fire. The one innocent person will die, but the greater good is served - that criminal is not allowed to run free.
This, to me, is equal to the argument for abortion for rape victims. I would not support the police opening fire on a hostage, because I have put a value on innocent human life.
This comment was written by Jordan D. White.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2005 at 9:27 am
Since we’re making an exception for rape or nonconsensual incest, it seems like we’re basing it on the FATHER’S sexual behavior, not the mother’s.
Your own comment on the subject was “I am arguing that people who voluntarily engage in heterosexual vaginal intercourse are voluntarily reducing their own autonomy by engaging in behavior that is known to lead to the creation of new human life - a voluntary reduction in autonomy that is not engaged in by the victim of rape or coercive incest.”
But if you’re looking at the father’s behavior, then what you’re really saying is that whether a woman may abortion depends entirely on the behavior of the man; she has no say nor influence in the matter. Gee, that’s an improvement.
We permit the killing of innocent human life, when that killing is necessary or subordinate to some greater good. Your argument depends on their being some absolute prohibition on such killing - but there is no such prohibition.
No, Robert, that is not my argument at all. My argument is very simple: if a fetus is an innocent human life, then it is deserving of the same value as a born human life, and we may not kill a fetus unless we could kill a born human for the same reasons.
“The mother’s autonomy,” or “the baby was the result of rape” are not reasons we permit the death of a born person. Necessity, coercion, self-defense; these are justifications for homicide. We don’t permit a mother to kill her child after birth not because there are alternatives, but because “loss of autonomy” is not a justification for killing. If it were, then a woman who could not get anyone to adopt her child would have a justification for murder.
Yes, there are many situations where we permit the loss of life. There are very few where we excuse an affirmative act whose entire purpose is to end a human life that would continue without that affirmative act. “Loss of bodily autonomy” is not generally one of them.
That said, it IS refreshing to see you advocating so strongly that innocent life should be protected.
I always did. I just don’t have much patience for the notion that the relative value of the innocent life depends on how it got into the womb.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
August 21st, 2005 at 8:37 am
(My TV is turned off right now, but it’s still a functioning TV - I’m not going to call a repairman and complain “it’s not functioning” because it’s turned off.)
Amp, that’s nice of you, but I did satellite tv tech support for 2 years and people do that ALL THE TIME.
This comment was written by Flamethorn.Report this comment to the moderators
August 21st, 2005 at 12:26 pm
In response to Robert’s continued plaint that women want to control men’s sexuality but won’t let him control theirs–
It all comes down to the other people. The only parts of male “sexuality” that I want controlled are rape and abuse, scare quotes because it freaks me out to consider violent perversion in the same category as loving and/or pleasureable, consensual sex. The reason for this desire comes from that fact that when a man (or a woman, though this is much less common and should be acknowledged as such) exercises his “sexuality” by raping someone, he has violated their bodily autonomy.
I suppose that this could be summed up with the old “your rights end where mine begin.” I have no interest in telling men what to do with their bodies. I don’t want to outlaw certain sexual positions or fantasies. Masturbate as you like, have sex with whoever you want, as long as that’s what they want too. But rape is wrong. Not because I said so, but because it forcibly denudes another of their rights.
I do not believe that a first trimester fetus is a person. As does Amp, I believe that personhood occurs gradually, and so am more willing to obstruct third trimeser abortions than first. But as far as I’m concerned, a first trimester fetus is not a person. Thus, abortion does not infringe on their rights, because they don’t have them.
Outlawing abotion, then, controls women’s sexaulity, which infringes on their rights. Expecting men to not rape women does not infringe on theirs. As far as I know, the only people who do want to control male sexuality are the homophobes and bigots.
Also. Birth control, if used properly, is 96% effective. We do many things in our daily lives that are far more risky. Therefore, to force a woman who has properly used birth control but still become pregnant to give birth is morally repugnant.
This comment was written by Lo.Report this comment to the moderators
April 10th, 2007 at 1:11 am
[...] I am not Kos, he of the “abortion is horrible, but I guess it should be legal” chant. I’m not one of those moderates who thinks that abortion should be somehow restricted depending upon the choices of the woman in question. I’m not one of those people who thinks that reassuring women that gosh, yes, abortion when the woman’s life is in danger/raped/a victim of incest is okay, so you girls don’t have to worry because you’re not sluts who deserve punishment. I’m not one of those people who decry abortion as a necessary evil. I’m not one of those self-righteous misogynists who would pass judgement on pro-choicers, pregnant women, or women who chose to abort. I don’t hate abortion. [...]
This comment was written by Pinko Feminist Hellcat: Abortion is wonderful.Report this comment to the moderators