“Amp is essentially asking us to buy a pig in a poke - to select for policies on the basis of a statistic that doesn’t in and of itself adequately measure what we consider important - the natal culture of our society.”–Robert

Oh, and here I thought what pro-lifers considered important was the lives of innocent babies!

Oh, wait, no, I didn’t think that. I knew that your precious “natal culture” was far more important than any human lives you claim are being destroyed.

Let’s all thank Robert and the others for coming right out and admitting what their real goal is: to pressure women into having babies whether they want to or not, in order to preserve America from the threat of minorities.

Oh, sure, you’ve still got some smokescreens up. You may admit that you don’t actually care about the deaths of babies, rather than how many people are actually getting pregnant, but you wouldn’t want to give away everything right? So instead of just coming out and admitting to being both a sexist and a racist, you make ludicrous, apocalyptic scenarios in which a decrease in pregnancy rates somehow signals that people will eventually stop procreating altogether, and the human race will die out due to no one wanting babies anymore. And before this happens, every last vestige of American culture will somehow magically disappear, because there are no such things as museums in this dystopian future.

I’m sorry, I know we were told to be polite and respectful–but give me a fucking break. This argument is absolutely ridiculous, it doesn’t make sense, and its a very thin cover for absolute misogyny and racism.

Oh, and this:

“Some men flirt with danger - I go right up and give it a full bore kiss with tongue.”–Robert

You go, you big strong man, you.

Ugh.

But I’m not going to ask that question, because the way that so many people think that cheap shots are a substitute for debate is part of the problem, in my view. I’d rather not be part of the problem. I hope someday you come to the same conclusion.

By the way, I like the way you completely ignored every substantive point made in the original post.

I’ve been on the other side. For many years I was a classic liberal, always voted Democratic, etc. The abortion issue casued me to stop voting Democratic, and has left me in a political wildnerness since I am not a Republican. I will never vote Democratic so long as it continues its love affair with abortion. Liberals claim to have big hearts. Why can’t they find room in their hearts for the tiny unborn child?

The questions were:
Do you forsee a time when pro-choicers will give up our most heartfelt goals, and stop finding ways to make abortion available?

No. Only perhaps a time when the situation had improved so much regarding access to contraception and support for pregnant women and mothers that fewer people would see abortion rights as an issue of dire importance.

Will there ever be an abortion ban in the United States that vastly lowers our abortion rate?

No. Legal means alone are not the answer. And as long as women are as unsupported as they are now, no abortion ban would last very long anyway. If abortion were legally banned in the current climate, all that would happen is that the pro-choice side would get more fired up than ever, the segment of the public that currently supports them in thought only would get active, and the bans would be overturned sooner or later. A big political tug-of-war, not a lot of babies being saved.

I believe (you will probably disagree) that some of the 55% of Americans who believe that abortion should be legal in some or all cases do so out of a feeling that abortion is “a necessary evil.” The more we can do to support women’s reproductive freedom on other fronts, the less they will see abortion as necessary.

And since saving baby lives (or what you folks consider to be baby lives) should be more important than opposing birth control and welfare, shouldn’t you be willing to consider supporting policies that are empirically associated with low abortion rates in the real world?

This would be more a question for people who don’t like birth control and welfare. I’m in favor of both of those.

When you stated, though, that pro-choice policies lower abortion rates, did you mean “pro-choice” in terms of giving women freedom to prevent pregnancy or to still have a life (job, education, respect, etc.) if they become pregnant? Or do you feel that the specific policy of making abortion readily available leads to lower abortion rates? Are there any countries that have all of the pro-woman policies that you and I both would love to see, but have banned abortion?

I couldn’t agree with you more on the getting back to the subject and out of the extremes, which seem to be as you say about control and not freedom. I have to admit that choice was much easier when I wasn’t a theist. I have great difficulty navigating the road of freewill and obedience to Christ. The other thing was having two kids (that are 20 and 18) just rocked the way I saw this new life. One thing I do know is according to my faith, judgment is not ours, I am perplexed why more of the Fundamentalist folks do not get it? I do not understand why taking up a position across the valley and tossing stones is part of the body of Christ? How do we restrict BC, demonize real sex and relational education, and cut off social welfare and healthcare and think somehow abortion is going to go away? I can see why many lose patience and strike out in anger; (it is all I can do to control mine some times.) However when we do give in to argument, we hand control to the other person. The way to get through is by sticking to the truth as you know it, and explaining that we are trying to get to the same outcome, we aren’t going to agree 100% but who does? Thank you for your encouragement. Blessings.

I also wish that the abortion debate (and in broader terms, reproductive freedom - access to BC, good sex education, and the ability for those of us who are childfree to live unmolested lives, to name the issues important to me) was made obsolete by better understanding of and caring for each other. Heck, that’s one reason why I love Amp’s post so much - I think that focusing on the common goal of reducing unwanted pregnancies is encouraging such an outcome. Unfortunately, those of us working for the same goal have been so polarized by the extremist dogma of “pro-choice vs. pro-life” that it seems impossible at this point to provide a unified example of caring and compassion to those people/groups who care nothing about the issue and everything about control and perpetuating hatred.

If nothing else, though, this thread proves that, while all of us have different views on various issues, no matter how we identify politically (pro-choice, pro-life, anti-abortion, etc) we all want children to be born into an environment that is loving and able to provide for them. Perhaps if the debates tried to focus more on that, rather than divisive arguments, we’d see more being done to this end. Thus far, we’ve let the extremists decide the frame and all it’s gotten us is more and more vitrol being spewed forth - perhaps it’s time to take back the topic and put the focus where it belongs: on ensuring as many pregnancies as possible are wanted, and providing the means for all babies that are born to be raised in loving, caring households able to give them a good standard of living.

I hear what you are saying. I do not believe that the lack of an empirical equals non existence of a place to start. We have yet to understand the mechanics of gravity however we all know it is there and can define many of its affects in graphic detail.

Some of my personal philosophies, do no harm, respect life, love all people, are the basis from where I try and define the areas that are not black and white. I do understand that at conception the entire person is there less time and nourishment. From that point on nothing need be added to create a person then what is needed to sustain one. My belief in Judeo/Christian theology brings me to understand that a soul is present, and the creation is no less than the image of God. (IMO) As we cannot together prove nor disprove the definition of life, death, and personhood, I lean toward caution and care for the unborn. (As well as many other marginalized folks.)

I do not wish to make abortion a crime. Nor do I seek to undermine a person’s choice over the free will and destiny of their body and soul. I do ask that people acknowledge that they may be mistaken, including myself, and deal in this realm with compassion and care. It is my belief that our actions should always be predicated by how they affect others. That love should (as much as our own self will and ego will allow) be the determining factor in what we do. This is why I cannot support war, violence, death penalty, and many aspects of capitalism and other political systems designed to exploit the poor and natural resources horded to benefit a small minority. (I am getting to where personal property makes less sense as well.)

It is depressing to see people fighting over the issue of abortion, when embracing one another and caring for all the lives at stake, teaching and nurturing as we make our way in love would be far more promising and lower stress, anger, fear, control, angst, and all the other things that divide loving people and turn us into our worst definitions of ourselves. This could do much to get to a place where the battle lines would dissolve and the people on the extremes would be left standing their personal agendas dangling for all to see.

When we start with love and compassion the vallue of life goes up. As the vallue increases, with any luck, people will cherrish it more and be less prone to treat it cheaply. Blessings.

Which brings me to a minor point about the whole “parasite” thing. I agree with you that it’s 100% offensive to term someone else’s pregnancy a “parasite” (unless it’s in the way Nick described - a cute term). That being said, if I were to become pregnant, I woudn’t hesitate to use the word on myself. Pregnancy would not be a state of joy for me - it would be one of my worst fears realized. When a pregnancy is wanted, it can seem miraculous that another organism is sharing your body so it can safely develop into a full-fledged baby. When a pregnancy is not wanted, heck when the very state of pregnancy is not wanted, that same process can be seen as a parasitic one: an unwanted organism leeching away my body’s resources with the very real possibility of eventually killing me. I’m with Nick on this one; I believe in respecting the pregnant woman’s feelings toward the organism inside her and not using terms that she would feel are offensive, whether it be “parasite” or “baby”.

Rock: The problem with your argument, and one of the reasons I believe Amp consciously chose to not delve into the “personhood debate”, is that, scientifically, we have not been able to determine an empircal measure for when an organism becomes a “person”. Without science, all we have left is personal opinions. If you need proof to see how diverse those are, just take a gander at the discussion Steve and Dianne are having right now. Heck, look at my “baby” versus “parasite” paragraph above - one woman’s beautiful baby is another woman’s nightmare lifesucker. Give me a proven method for determining when “personhood” begins and I’ll stand behind you on finding a way to ensure that group’s rights. Until then, I rule in favour of the group (women) that are undisputably people.

The scientific definition of a living human being, such as it is, states that life ends at brain death. Since you disavowed this definition earlier in the post, I’m not sure it is valid for you to use it now. Nonetheless, since, much to my relief, you agree that clones are people, when did there personhood begin, since they did not originate from a fertilized egg? Suppose someone was cloned from an intestinal cell. Was that cell really a separate person all along, even when it was exactly like every other intestinal cell? If not, how and when did it obtain its personhood?

“Of course not. They [somatic cells] are not human organisms, and have no potential of their own to develop into one.”

Neither do gametes, fertilized or otherwise. A fertilized egg needs a uterus to develop properly.

“When, exactly, in the fertilization process do the gametes become people? ”

This question went totally unanswered. Perhaps you weren’t aware that fertilization was not a single event but rather a multistep process?

“‘Are the unfertilized egg and sperm already to be considered people?’

“Of course not. IBID”

A sperm, maybe. But an unfertilized egg needs only one tiny detail more than a fertilized egg to develop into a person. That thing is, of course, a sperm and they are easy to comeby in large numbers.

Overall, I think you’re proposing an “I know it when I see it” definition of humanity. Sorry, but I’m not convinced yet.

An interesting argument but it doesn’t answer the question: how did the fertilized egg, which you say is one person, become twins, who are two people? Or didn’t it? Are twins really only one person because they share the same genetic code and derived from a single egg?

“If this [the transformation of a fertilized egg into a cancer] truly happens, then the fertilized egg at the point it goes from human organism, to cancer, ceases to be, well…human. As to what happens, at the point this occurs, the human organism of course ‘died’ as it were.”

It happens, unfortunately. Look up gestational trophoblastic disease if you doubt me. But the fertilized egg does not die when it turns into GTD, indeed part of the problem is that the cells “forget” how to die when need be and so grow out of control. How can the organism be said to have “died” when not a single cell in that organism has died?

“Brain waves are detected at about 8 weeks. You willing to outlaw abortion after that point?”

This statement is actually rather controversial. It is also a distraction unless you are saying that you have no problem with abortion before eight weeks. A one day old blastulocyst clearly does not have any brain waves.

“Beyond that, even defining death is difficult. It used to be when the heartbeat stopped. Since this seems to be somewhat arbitrary, and has changed over time, I don’t think it’s wise to determine abortion policy based on this.”

Brain death has been the technical definition of death for quite some time now. The previous definition was changed for several reasons, the one of most practical importance being that it is sometimes possible to restore breathing and circulation (ie restart a heart after it has stopped beating and the lungs after they have stopped breathing) and it was rather silly to talk about people who were walking, talking, and paying taxes as “dead”. The more important philosophical reason is the realization that the brain, not the heart, is the seat of intelligence and awareness. Since intelligence and awareness, particularly self-awareness, are the characteristics that make humans different, at least in degree, possibly in kind, from other animals, it seems to me that these characteristics should be taken into account in defining humanity.

I have read countless times on this blog regarding men and sex it is not a right and it is not a demand and it is not essential to survival outside of the species requirement to produce above the death rate. Sex has risks inherent with it, just like many other activities, one has to assume the risks when undertaking to get involved, especially when it places other interested parties at stake. (Obviously forced sex does not fall into this.) Pregnancy is only one potentially undesirable aspect. Fatal diseases, debilitating diseases, and emotional damage can be associated as well. All this should be respected when entering into the sexual arena. Education on these and other areas involving sex must be better to reduce harmful effects of sex, one of which is an undesired pregnancy. Birth control must be made easily available as well. Women’s rights must be taken into account.

Roe is not the best guarantor of reproductive rights, well defined legislation is. I would like to ask do we think that relegating the unborn to non person status, reducing the value of life and human rights, increases the chance of reducing abortion or raises it? Does marginalizing a group help to raise the consciousness of other marginalized folks or does it hinder them? The tide that raises the rights of one should not have to come at the expense of another. The extremism that the discussion needs to be an all or nothing affair places both camps at a disadvantage, it is not capture the flag; we are talking about groups that need protection and recognition. Amp wanted to remove the person hood factor from the discussion, however it is so much a root of what is foundational to many peoples position that eliminating the question becomes predetermined like, “do you still beat your wife?”

If the discussion is ever to be approached and settled where rights are guaranteed and the need for abortion is to go down then it appears that acknowledging that women do have rights for their self-governess needs to happen while the equally valid and no less important recognition that the unborn are potentially beings and do have a place in the discussion as well. The energy spent seeking everything but a path of reason is energy wasted that could be used to free many from ignorance and suffering. Blessings.

At the same time, I know a lot of other women don’t see their fetuses in anything like those terms, and who am I to tell them to? I wouldn’t have called your fetus a parasite if I’d known you when you were carrying, because I don’t go round trying to offend people, but by the same token I wouldn’t tell someone who didn’t want to be pregnant that this was a real baby.

What camp you identify in, unless you’re an absolutist, can be quite tricky, but by saying that abortion shouldn’t be criminalised and that the woman’s rights trump the fetus’s you’re expressing the pro-choice position. Pro-abortion is another thing again, and a lot of people who consider themselves pro-choice don’t consider themselves pro-abortion.

I will never refer to a fetus as a lump of cells or a parasite, because I remember how offensive I found those terms to be when I was pregnant.

Interesting how we’re all different. One of my names for my baby is “the cute li’l parasite” - it is technically parasitic after all, but I still love it.

There’s a lot of overlap between your position and mine, although I place myself in the pro-choice camp. Abortion squicks me out profoundly, but I recognise that as an emotional response to the idea of abortion I formed as a child (possibly a topic for a post of its own) and no reason to dictate the choices other women should make. As for how human the fetus is: the CLP (at 29 weeks) strikes me as pretty human, but a 6-week fetus a lot less so. The mother, on the other hand, is definitely human, so her rights win out.