Alas..

This sucks.

David at The Debate Link has responded to my post on Chomsky and Holocaust Denial. Although David is a nice guy and one of my favorite bloggers, I think his response misses the target, both factually and persuasively.

Since my response is a bit long, I will split it into two parts. But before I get started, it’s important that I describe what I mean when I write “anti-Semitism.” As I use the term, anti-Semitism refers to:

1. Animus against Jews and Judaism.

2. Belief in degrading stereotypes about Jews and Judaism.

3. Support for rules, laws or principles that discriminate against Jews (i.e., “country-club anti-Semitism”).

There’s a overlapping-yet-distinct concept, which I’ll call “gentile-centrism.” Gentile-centrism refers to worldviews and institutions which assume that everyone is a gentile, thus marginalizing or making invisible non-gentiles, including Jews. So, for example, if a school gives everyone Christmas and Easter off but schedules final exams on the first two days of Passover, that’s gentile-centrism.

Definitions done, let’s respond to David.

Part 1. Chomsky, Chomsky, Chomsky.

David admits that Chomsky is no Holocaust revisionist, but writes:

That’s a shocking quote - indeed, years from now someone might point out I “defended” this quote to prove I’m an anti-Semite. (Wouldn’t be the first time; I’ve been compared to a Nazi for some of my cartoons which criticize Israel). Nonetheless:

1) David implies that this quote came after Chomsky said “we lose our humanity if we are even willing to enter the arena of debate with those who seek to deny or underplay Nazi crimes.” Actually, the “I see no anti-Semitic implications….” quote came about a decade before the quote about the Holocaust.

2) Chomsky’s point (as he has explained it) was, as a matter of strict logic, Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism are distinct. So, for example, “if a person ignorant of modern history were told of the Holocaust and refused to believe that humans are capable of such monstrous acts, we would not conclude that he is an anti-Semite.” That seems like rather cold logic to me - but Chomsky, a professor at M.I.T., is known for cold logic.

3) David’s quote comes from private correspondence to a Chomsky critic, published without Chomsky’s permission. This is usually considered an unfair practice, for good reason. When writing in private, most people don’t write as carefully or defensively as they do when writing for publication, because of time constraints and because of the good-faith assumption that the quote will never have to be understood apart from full context.

This is typical of how criticism of Chomsky works. Every word Chomsky says or writes - and Chomsky is ridiculously prolific - is fine-combed for evidence of anti-Semitism and (when they can’t find that) for evidence of having failed to criticize anti-Semitism. When a quote that makes Chomsky look bad is found - even from a dubious source, like an out-of-context snippet from decades-old private correspondence - it is republished thousands of times. If one conference speaker out of hundreds of conferences Chomsky has spoken at is an anti-Semite, that is taken as proof of Chomsky’s guilt. Every word that indicates the opposite - no matter how much more fair or clear - is dismissed, as David himself dismisses what Chomsky has actually said about Holocaust denial.

This is actually quite similar to how Al Gore was smeared as a pathological liar and race-baiter, or how Catherine MacKinnon has been smeared as a man-hater. No one who says and writes billions of words in public can possibly match a standard that says “if you ever say something that can be twisted when quoted out of context, that proves you’re a bigot.”

David, however, advocates an even harsher standard for Chomsky, writing “To be fair, the evidence seems mixed–but really, is this an issue where there should even be mixed signals?” So if a fine-tooth comb search of a lifetime of work comes up with two or three instances of “mixed signals” (such as defending the free-speech rights of an anti-Semite) , according to David, that’s proof that Chomsky allies himself with Holocaust deniers.

To answer David, yes, we should require more than “mixed signals” before we slander someone with this most serious of accusations. Ticking-bomb scenarios aside, there is no reasonable standard that says “the more serious the accusation, the less important it is to find clear evidence.” We do not, for instance, require less evidence to find someone guilty of murder than of jaywalking, on the grounds that murder is so important an issue that even mixed evidence should be enough.

Why has Chomsky been the subject of so much venom? I suspect it’s partly because Chomsky is a Jew who criticizes Israel. David, explaining why he objects to blacks calling other blacks “race traitor,” once wrote:

Similarly, the attempt to paint Chomsky as an ally of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial is an attempt by pro-Israel Jews to make Jewish critics of Israel into non-Jews. As David went on, in that earlier post:

So for blacks to call other blacks “race traitors,” based on political disagreements, is an unfair and terrible thing. But when Jews say (or at least, strongly imply) that other Jews support Holocaust-denial and anti-Semitism, based on a political disagreement about Israel, that’s okay?

David denies he’s trying to expel Chomsky and other Jewish critics of Israel from the Jewish community - but when the exact same techniques are used in the black community, he labels that “stripping them of their blackness.” Yet there is no logical distinction between the two acts.

Part 2. Anti-Semitism in the U.S. Today.

In the post David is replying to, I wrote (emphasis added):

Here is David’s response (emphasis added):

David has made an interesting rhetorical move here. I mentioned Pappe to show that supporting a boycott is not by definition “anti-Semitic or supporting Holocaust denial.” David says I must be wrong, because Pappe is not (in David’s opinion) “pro-Israel” and “pro-Jew.” See how David changed the target? David’s slip - whether David intended it or not - implies that to not be anti-Semitic, one must be pro-Israel; and that not being pro-Israel is the equivalent of being anti-Jew and a Holocaust denier.

My point stands untouched by David’s response. Pappe does not display animus against Jews; nor has Pappe, a Israeli Jewish historian, ever denied the Holocaust. David didn’t even attempt to show any anti-Jewish animus or denial of the Holocaust on Pappe’s part. Indeed, David cannot show any, because none exists.

Faced with an inability to support his argument with logic or evidence, David sidestepped the issue: Pappe is not “pro-Jew” and “pro-Israel,” because Pappe favors a binational solution for Israel and Palestine.

(What is a “binational solution,” you ask? From Wikipedia: “Proponents of a binational solution to the conflict advocate a common state in historic Palestine shared between Jewish and Arab populations. All of the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be annexed to Israel, with their Palestinian Arab inhabitants given citizenship and an equal status to the Jewish and Arab citizens of present-day Israel. The new state would have a secular character rather than being dominated by Judaism or Islam.”)

A lot of people - including Chomsky, incidentally - have argued that a two-state solution (meaning two separate states, Israel and Palestine) is better than a binational solution, and that the dream of a binational state simply won’t work. Regardless, it doesn’t logically follow that believing Jews and Arabs can share a state in peace and harmony - which is what Professor Pappe advocates - means being “anti-Jew.”

Nor does suggesting that Israel should stop being “a Jewish state” make a speaker anti-Jewish. (I don’t think that any state should have an official religion, nor give special legal rights to any group based solely on race, ethnicity, religion, or cultural background [*]; does that make me anti-Islamic and anti-Christian, as well as anti-Jew?)

David’s argument conflates disagreement about Israel with anti-Semitism; he is, to coin a phrase, “defining anti-Semitism down in order to make it a political tool.” If David and others succeed in this task, the effect will be to make it impossible to take “anti-Semitism” seriously; once anti-Semitism just means criticism of the Israeli government, rather than animus against Jews, then what on Earth is wrong with being anti-Semitic?

David continues:

David’s formulation makes sense only if one assumes that society has been static for the last 60 years. But society is not static; David ignores how the growing revulsion and disgust at the Holocaust, in the decades following the Holocaust, led to a widespread rejection of anti-Semitism among many Americans. The fact that the Holocaust happened 60 years ago does not, in and of itself, prove anything one way or the other about US society today.

Is there pervasive and structural anti-Semitism in our society, like there is with racism? Only in the broadest sense: that is, racism exists, and anti-Semitism too exists. But it doesn’t mean that the two are at all the same. The reason progressives of my generation are, by and large, less concerned with U.S anti-Semitism than with racism is because U.S. anti-Semitism is a comparitively minor problem.

Which isn’t to say that anti-Semitism doesn’t exist, or doesn’t matter. I see implicit anti-Semitism (or at least, gentile-centrism) in a lot of anti-New York rhetoric; in the absence of Jewish characters on big and small screen, and in the prejudice against Jewish characters who look and sound like my relatives (which is to say, who are identifiably Jewish); in the way that Jews, although considered suitable for many powerful positions, are - it goes without saying - not viable candidates for President; in the flat-nose blond-hair pale-complexion standard of beauty that still has too much currency in our society; in the mindless belief that Hanukkah is “the Jewish Christmas”; in a dominant religion that says all Jews will burn in Hell, and that’s justice; and so on.

But let’s face it, the harms anti-Semitism has done to my generation of American Jews are generally small. I’ve run into a few anti-Semites (defined as expressing animus towards Jews, or endorsing anti-Semitic myths) in my life, mostly online. I’ve pined for the lack of recognizable Jews on TV and in movies. I have facial features (hook nose, full lips) which, even if I were “acceptably” thin, would prevent me from being considered very handsome. That’s about it.

Let’s contrast that with earlier generations. My father told me that as a kid he was beaten by gangs who were angry to have a Jew in their school. My grandfather was expelled from college for being a communist at a time when “communism” and “Jewish” were considered synonymous. And my grandparent’s generation faced the Holocaust - let’s not forget that even in the US, there were plenty of mainstream, ordinary Americans who thought Hitler had a point about “the Jewish problem.”

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that U.S. anti-Semitism is vastly reduced from what it was.

David wrote that “anti-Semitism is the central issue in the Israel/Palestine debate”[**] - that is, the central reason Western academics criticize Israel is anti-Semitism. David is assuming what is at issue. Putting the particular example of Chomsky aside, at the core of our disagreement is the question of whether or not anti-Semitism is the prime reason lefty academics criticise Israel; David doesn’t prove anything merely by stating his conclusion.

Unfortunately, David doesn’t say much to support his idea that anti-Semitism is central to Western academic criticism of Israel. The only real argument I could make out in his post was a reference to the old “only an anti-Semite would focus criticism on Israel” chestnut, which I think I adequately responded to in this post from 2002.

It’s also worth noting that if you define anti-Semitism to mean animus against Jews and belief in anti-Jewish stereotypes, the least anti-Semitic place in America is a college campus. I wonder how David reconciles that fact with his belief that anti-Semitism runs wild among Western academics who criticize Israel?

* * *

[*] Does that mean I oppose affirmative action? No. Affirmative action is not motivated by racism per se, but by the desire to remove the effects of historic and ongoing racism; just as a surgeon cutting open a stabbing victim is distinct from the criminal who stabbed the victim, affirmative action is distinct from racism.

[**] In a later post, David allowed that Palestinians “on the ground” might consider some other issue - presumably, the human rights of Palestinians - central. David neglects to explain why it’s inconceivable that academics in the U.S. might consider the human rights of Palestinians central, as well.

Does being fat feel at all like being transsexual?

Traditionally, untreated transsexuality has been described as feeling as if your body is wrong; that your true self doesn’t match your body. (I say “traditionally” because it’s unclear how often that’s been a genuine description of some transsexuals’ experience, and how often that’s been what doctors have pressured transsexuals to say). That’s what being fat feels like, to me. I’m supposed to be thin, aren’t I? Not thin-thin, you know, just - normal-thin. But I don’t feel normal. I feel constantly abnormal.

I feel like someone who, somehow, wound up in the wrong body.

Of course, there’s a huge difference between what I feel and what pre-transition transsexuals feel. Transsexuals feel “wrong” in their bodies despite enourmous social pressure to accept the sex and gender they were born and assigned. I, on the other hand, feel wrong in my fat body because there’s been enourmous, nonstop social pressure teaching me to hate myself and my body for most of my life.

Transsexuals are pressured - brainwashed, even - to want the sex they were born into. (All of us face that pressure, actually - it’s just that most of us give in with so little resistance that we don’t even notice). The fact that in the face of so much pressure some transsexuals still want to transition is an indication, in my opinion, to me, that their need to transition is genuine. In contrast, I’ve been pressured - brainwashed, even - to want to change. And despite all I know, all I’ve learned, and my genuine passion for fat acceptance, I still sometimes see my reflection in a store window and think - geez, I’m so fat! Can that really be me?

But that’s the brainwash talking. Research has shown that most transsexuals who transition experience relief and feel the quality of their life has improved. That’s because their need for change was genuine, not brainwashing. If I were thin, I would face less social prejudice, and some things - like sitting in an airplane - would become more convenient. Many people I don’t care about would treat me better. But I wouldn’t be happier.

(Of course you’d be happier! My brainwashing replies. Thin is happiness, you fool!)

There’s another comparison between transsexuals and fat people - both groups are told that there’s a surgical cure. Increasingly, transsexuals are rejecting this message; more and more transsexuals are transitioning without surgery, or with plastic surgery but without genital reconstruction. I think that’s a good trend; there’s nothing wrong with transsexuals getting reconstructive surgery, but there’s also no reason that should be the one-size-fits-all solution for gender identity disorder.

But as transsexual surgery is on the decline, weight loss surgery is on the ascent. And although people think of it as a less major operation, in many ways having one’s stomach banded is a more radical - and more dangerious - surgery, with a higher deathrate.

I’m not trying to say that being fat is worse than being transsexual; on the contrary, it seems to me that anti-transsexual and transgender bigotry is far worse than anti-fat bigotry. Nor do I have a conclusion at this time, which is a shame, since conclusions at the end of blog posts lend a nice feeling of closure.

What could be yummier than chocolate pudding?

“Come down here with your camera,” Kim told me. “We only looked away for a minute.”
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The Koufax Nominations are out - well, partly. More categories are coming, but there are two categories in particular which are a gold mine of undiscovered left-bloggy goodness.

120 (give or take) Best New Blogs of 2005
Skimming the list, I see at least two blogs I now find indispensable - The Happy Feminist and I Blame The Patriarchy.

Blogs Most Deserving of Wider Recognition 2005
Some of the nominees in this category are already faves of mine: Pinko Feminist Hellcat, The Happy Feminist (deja vu!), I Blame The Patriarchy (double deja vu!), Echidne of the Snakes, Lawyers Guns and Money, and Blackprof.com. (There are probably others that I missed, of course.)

One blog that wasn’t nominated in this category, but should have been, was the constantly excellent Official Shrub.com Blog (I feel bad for not having nominated it).

The great thing about these categories, however, isn’t the great blogs you know - it’s the chance to discover great blogs you’ve never heard of.

Maziltov to all the nominees. And if you have a few spare bucks and want to give thanks for the astonishing amount of work that goes into running the awards, I’m sure Wampum would appreciate something in the tip jar.

Maybe it’s too early to be handing out the Koufax, but I’ll be surprised (pleasantly, to be sure!) if I read any post I think is better in the next 11 months. Here’s a small sample:

There’s more - much, much more. Sit down with a cup of coffee and read the whole thing.

Have you noticed that it’s extremely common for people on the internet to type “loose” when they mean “lose”? It always bugs me.

Anyhow, here are the links that have built up on my desktop in the last few days. Please feel free to use this thread to discuss anything you want, however. And if you’d like to include a link to something - including something of your own - feel free.

The Happy Feminist, Feministe, and The Debate Link have been discussing (seemingly) clear-cut rape cases in which the victim herself doesn’t agree she was raped. Here’s one of the examples from The Happy Feminist’s time as a prosecutor:

In another of Happy Feminist’s examples, a woman is forced to have sex by her boyfriend, but doesn’t believe it’s rape because she’s had consensual sex with him on other occasions.

Why do some women not believe it’s rape unless she resisted - or not believe it’s rape when their husbands or boyfriends force them to have sex? There are lots of possible reasons, but let’s not forget the simple fact that women are part of our society. There are a lot of myths about rape which have currency in our society - all of society, not men exclusively. Neither being a woman nor being a rape victim will automatically prevent belief in those rape myths. As Happy writes:

Does saying that women can be raped, without labeling the event as “rape,” contradict the feminist belief that women must be believed, in all circumstances? Well, insofar as such a belief exists, it contradicts it. But I doubt that belief exists among many feminists today. I doubt any feminists believe that women are incapable of being mistaken about what the law says rape is, for example.

The idea of privileging women’s view is called “standpoint theory.” But as Elisabeth Anderson points out, standpoint theory has virtually always been contested within feminism:

It’s also important to understand that when feminists have spoken of “believing women” regarding rape, that’s said in the context of how society has habitually refused to believe women. On another thread, Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff wrote something that is extremely applicable to this question (although Cheryl was writing in a different context).

The point is, when feminists say women who have been raped must be believed, that’s in a specific context of counteracting the traditional belief that women habitually falsely accuse men of rape (in the words of Sir Matthew Hale, rape “is an accusation easy to be made, hard to be proved, but harder to be defended by the party accused, though innocent”). But nothing in that context applies to women who - due to loyalty to the rapist, or acceptance of rape myths, or ignorance of the law, or any other reason - don’t recognize their own rapes as rapes. It’s ridiculous to believe, as some anti-feminists have suggested, that “believing women” means feminists are obligated to give men who have in fact committed rape a pass whenever the victim isn’t sure it’s rape.

* * *

David at The Debate Link points to State v Rusk, a case discussed in one of his law school classes. From the victim’s testimony in that case:

In David’s class, all of the male students agreed this was unambiguously rape.

First of all, I think we need to be careful about assuming a pattern exists based on a single anecdote. As David acknowledges, this may have more to do with the environment of law school than with how men in general view rape.

Secondly, I think David’s argument about what “most recent feminist scholarship” says is a misunderstanding on David’s part. For example, feminist researcher Mary Koss has published a study which found that many women who are raped, do not identify what happened to them as rape (or at least, not as “definitely” rape). Koss’ findings were popularized in the book I Never Called It Rape; the title of the book is a reference to women who do not identify their own rape experiences as rape.

Among feminist researchers who study rape, Koss’s research is widely accepted. It is primarily anti-feminists, such as Christina Hoff Sommers and Katie Roiphe, who have argued that Koss’ findings in this regard contradict feminist beliefs. The anti-feminist arguments radically oversimplify what feminist standpoint theory says, and also ignore the ways that standpoint theory itself is contested within feminism.

David - who certainly isn’t an anti-feminist - acknowledges that standpoint theory has been heavily contested within feminism (although I think he’s mistaken when he says criticism of standpoint theory is mainly a third-wave thing). But David still sees harms in the privileging of women’s views over men’s within feminism. I do think there’s a serious discussion to be had there (David could certainly find some support for his view in the writings of bell hooks); many feminists believe that a feminist transformation of society will have to include a feminist transformation of how men think and act, and it’s hard to see how that can happen if men’s views are unwelcome in feminism.

But although that may be a legitimate discussion, it’s also a different discussion. The strongest case for including male views within feminism comes not from looking at how women have absorbed rape myths, but from issues relating to how the “cult of masculinity” harms and warps men (which leads in turn to some men harming women). I don’t think that framing the discussion of men’s place in feminism within a discussion of rape, as David has, is likely to be productive, or to reassure women who are skeptical of what, if anything, men can offer feminism.

* * *

There is one piece of news from the research on rape which I think is worth pointing out. In Mary Koss’ study of college women’s experiences, about three-fourths of the women who had been raped, did not identify their experience as “definitely” rape. That study took place in the mid-eighties, about two decades ago. A more recent study of college women’s experiences, conducted by the Federal government, found that about half of the women who had been raped, identified their experience as rape. If these results are comparable, that suggests that rape myths - such as “it’s not rape if I didn’t resist enough” or “it’s not rape if it’s my boyfriend” - may be less likely to be believed by women today, compared to 20 years ago. Let’s hope that trend continues.

[Edited to add the quote from Cheryl.]

A new study has used brainscans (specifically, fMRIs) to demonstrate that partisan Democrats and Republicans don’t use the areas of their brains associated with reasoning when faced with criticism of their candidate.

Is anyone surprised?

I think there could be interesting follow-up studies done. In particular, fMRIs could be used to see if there are any educational backgrounds which make it more likely that students will using their dorsolateral prefrontal cortexes when they think about politics. For instance, does legal training help? Philosophical training? Debate?

Does listening to overtly partisan news sources (AirAmerica or Rush, say) make it more or less likely that subjects will use reasoning? How about mainstream news? Etc.

Incidently, the lead author of this study also writes novelty Christmas songs. Just goes to show, even someone who studies thinking for a living can slip up…

Hat tip: Cathy Young.

UPDATE: It’s worth noting, I think, that this study was only of male partisans. A follow-up study including women would need to be done to know if these results are applicable to female partisans. I suspect they are, however; I think partisanship makes everyone stupid.

In the Boston Globe, “conservative/libertarian feminist” Cathy Young criticizes the empirical support for a recent PBS special about child abuse:

I haven’t seen the PBS special, nor all the evidence Cathy reviews, so I can’t comment on Cathy’s larger points. But I can safely say that Cathy displays a double-standard in the quoted paragraph. It’s true that Dividing the Child found that “far fewer fathers than mothers get the custodial arrangements they want,” but by putting it that way, Cathy fails to distinguish between custody disputes which reached an out-of-court settlement - what you might call “custody by mutual agreement” - and custody disputes in which the Court made the decision. (Also, scroll down to the update - Cathy’s description of the Massachusetts Study is dubious as well).

Here’s a quote from Dividing the Child (it’s a bit long - but if you don’t want to read the whole thing, make sure you at least read the first and final paragraphs):

So when the Massachusetts Supreme Court study fails to distinguish between “custody by mutual agreement” and “custody disputes,” (or did it? see the update below) Cathy says that’s bad and wrong. But when Cathy herself cites a study to prove overwhelming male disadvantage, but lumps in “custody by mutual agreement” with cases decided by Judges - even though the Judges’ decisions were 50/50 between mothers and fathers - is that any better?

[UPDATE (posted 5:30pm Tuesday): It appears I may have misunderstood the Maccoby and Mnookin quote I posted - how embarrassing! When they say “fathers who conceded custody at lower levels of the conflict pyramid,” they are referring to fathers who choose not to appeal after losing custody in a lower court. Counting all cases, mothers win twice as often as fathers; counting only those cases in which neither party settled for the lower court decision, fathers had about a 50/50 chance of winning.. Unfortunately, I can’t find my darned copy of the book, so I can’t settle this for sure today.

So Cathy’s citation of the Maccoby and Mnookin study may not be as bad as I thought. Nonetheless, the caveat that fathers who don’t give up early in the process get what they want 50% of the time is still a rather important thing for Cathy to have left out. And the following paragraph that I wrote is still good:]

Maccoby and Mnookin explicitly say that their study doesn’t prove or disprove bias against fathers (or against mothers); if Cathy is going to quote their work to suggest Court bias against fathers, she should at least let her readers know that the researchers had a more nuanced view of their results.

Cathy also wrote:

Cathy claims it’s not fair to call her an “anti-feminist,” and I don’t. But I find it odd that a self-identified feminist has so much contempt for feminism that if any feminist activists (many of whom have spent years or decades involved with abuse issues) sign a letter, that is in Cathy’s analysis ipso facto reason to dismiss the entire letter. Maybe next time Cathy should take a moment to examine her own idealogical biases.

(Curtsy: Family Scholars Blog.)

UPDATE: Cathy’s description of the Massachusetts Study’s methods appears to be misleading. Here’s what the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s Gender Bias Study reported (source).

And then, from page 831 (this quote is the “long version” of the above summary quote):

The Massachusetts Study clearly distinguished between cases where there was “agreement of the parties” and cases in which “fathers… actively seek custody.” Cathy’s claim that “this study does not distinguish custody disputes from cases in which the father got custody by mutual agreement” is exactly the opposite of the truth.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I haven’t watched the documentary or researched every reference in Cathy’s column; I’ve basically just looked at one paragraph. However, in that single paragraph, there are important errors and omissions. My guess is that she trusted second-hand sources that she shouldn’t have, but whatever; the real point is, given the errors we know Cathy has made, none of this column’s claims should be trusted without independent verification.

UPDATE 2: Liznotes has some more comments.

What I’ve been reading lately. As always, you are invited to post whatever you want here, including links to your own posts.

One of Sydney’s favorite things in the world is to sit in a spinning desk chair and, well, spin. She’ll climb into a chair and look hopefully up at any adult in the room, and say, “wee?”

Then once you’ve actually got her spinning, she’ll say “wheeeee! wheeeeeee!” with a huge grin on her face.
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I’ve been debating abortion a little on the comments of Post Tenebras Lux (from which I swiped the title of this post). I’m reposting some of my comments here. somewhat edited.

Xon wrote (in part):

How successful has the war on drugs been at lowering demand for pot? How successful was prohibition at lowering demand for alcohol?

Let’s introduce another concept from (very) basic economics into the discussion: elasticity of demand. I’d argue that for pregnant women who don’t want to be mothers, the demand for abortion is extremely inelastic. If I’m correct, then raising the price of abortions - for instance, by making abortions illegal - will have a relatively small impact on demand.

The problem with before-and-after Roe v Wade abortion rate comparisons is that too many people mix up the rate of legal and reported abortions - which obviously went up post-Roe - with the rate of abortions. But in fact, there were about a million abortions a year in the US in the few years before Roe - about the same as there were in the few years just after Roe.

What we need, to lower abortion, is a substitute for abortion. Attacking the supply side won’t do much to lower abortion rates, but attacking the demand side can work. For instance, policies which push birth control on teenagers (including the importance of always using two types at once) so hard the teens get bruised. Countries like Belgium have used this sort of policy to have the lowest abortion rates in the world. I don’t understand why pro-lifers have so little interest in imitating that.

Lux comment-writer Matt Weber responded:

Nothing. But you’re not understanding the concept of elasticity of demand. If something has an inelastic demand, that doesn’t mean that making it more expensive won’t have any effect on demand, just that the effect won’t be especially large.

Look, let’s say we ban drinking alcohol. That will lower demand for alcohol - but there will still be a huge demand remaining, and the black market will be substantial. That’s because demand for alcohol is pretty inelastic; you can raise the cost a lot, and people will still want it. People want alcohol very badly.

Compare that to banning RCA brand alarm clocks. Such a ban would probably be totally successful, because the demand for RCA alarms is very flexible; people will switch to Sony or Panisonic alarms and never notice the difference. Pretty much no one wants an RCA alarm badly.

Which would you guess the demand for abortion is more like - the demand for alcohol, or the demand for RCA alarms? I’d say the former. Women who want abortions often desparately want one; they’ll take on substantial trouble, risk and expense to get one.

Will you lower demand on the margins by banning abortion? Of course. But it won’t make a very big difference, because the demand for abortion is pretty inelastic.

The countries in the world with the lowest abortion rates are countries where abortion is legal - without exception. No country has ever succeeded in getting to a really low abortion rate by banning abortion.

Do you believe in the marketplace or not? If you do, then you have to admit that when the demand is high enough, the market mostly finds a way around barriers - and that includes legal barriers.

The only way to have a really low abortion rate is to lower demand, rather than banning supply. That means pushing birth control on teens as if it were oxygen, and also providing painfully generous welfare support for single mothers.

Will that have negative side effects? Maybe. But if pro-lifers are serious about lowering the abortion rate, they should be willing to consider the trade-offs. What good is an “idealogically correct” approach to lowering abortion rates, if it doesn’t actually work very well compared to other methods?

One method is to do a representative sample survey and ask women if they’ve had an abortion. This will lead to an underestimate of the true number of abortions, since people are strongly motivated to lie about having committed illegal acts (and even where it’s legal, many women prefer not to admit having had an abortion), but it’ll at least give you a baseline to work from.

Xon responded:

Dammit, why must it always come down to evidence! :-P

Although measuring something as hidden as illegal abortions is always difficult, the best pre-Roe scholarly assessment came to a figure of about a million abortions a year (”…prior to the adoption of more moderate abortion laws in 1967, there were 1 million abortions annually nationwide, of which 8000 were legal.” From Christopher Tietze, “Abortion on request: its consequences for population trends and public health,” Seminars in Psychiatry 1970;2:375-381, quoted in JAMA December 9, 1992).

Another option is to look at what happens to birth rates; a sudden, large increase in abortions should lead to a corresponding sudden decline in the birth rate. So if Roe caused a big jump in abortions in its first few years, we’d see it as a decline in the birthrate. So what actually happened after Roe was passed?

      Year  Births   Birthrate

      1973  3,136,965   14.9
      1974  3,159,958   14.9
      1975  3,144,198   14.8
      1976  3,167,788   14.8
      1977  3,326,632   15.4
      1978  3,333,279   15.3
      1979  3,494,398   15.9
      1980  3,612,258   15.9

Similarly, what happened when Poland banned abortions in the 1990s? If pro-life policies reduce abortion significantly, there would have been a spike in Poland’s birthrate. But Poland’s birth rate remained steady. (See Reproductive Health Matters (Volume 10, Issue 19 , May 2002): “The restrictive abortion law in Poland has not increased the number of births.”)

There are three questions this brings up, in my view.

First of all, has the pro-life movement actually been proposing that we treat abortion as if it were murder?

I’d say not. The most recent federal partial-birth abortion ban, for example, said that mothers absolutely cannot be punished for their part in abortion; doctors could be punished by a fine.

Is there anyone in the world willing to endorse this policy for a murdered five year old child? A mother hires a hit man to kill her five-year-old child; if that happens, should we have a law saying that no matter what the mother cannot be punished, and the most that happens to the hit man is a fine?

The argument that pro-lifers can’t consider what is practical, because of their unshakable moral commitment to treating abortion as murder, falls apart when we look at the laws pro-lifers propose.

Second question: Is the “let’s do it both ways” plan viable, or are abortion reduction strategies a binary, one-or-the-other choice?

I’d say it’s one or the other. The U.S. has a two party system; no matter how nuanced our personal positions, the real choice we make is between column D and column R. One party supports policies that have actually led to low abortion rates in the real world, but opposes a ban. The other party opposes policies that have actually led to low abortion rates, but supports a ban. And that’s our choice.

And it’s a choice that matters in the real world. If the US had an abortion rate as low as Belgium’s, that would mean something between 700,000 and 800,000 fewer abortions a year, according to my seat-of-the-pants calculations.

Which brings me to my third question. In a system that forces us to choose between one or the other, which is better: 700,000 murders potentially prevented, or 700,000 murders not prevented plus an official statement calling abortion murder?

I don’t know what Xon’s position is. But the pro-life movement as a whole clearly favors the latter policy. And I find that incomprehensible. Putting abstract principle above 700,000 lives doesn’t seem like a supportable position, to me, and certainly undermines the pro-life claim to be motivated only by caring about what happens to babies.

From Gay City News:

This pleases me immensely, not just because it’s a victory, but because judge based her decision on a theory of sex discrimination.

Of course, this is a lower court, so it doesn’t mean that much; the decision has been stayed pending appeals. The big question is, will anti-marriage-equality forces manage to push through a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage before the Maryland Supreme Court ever hears the case? Amending the Maryland Constitution is not especially hard (at least, not compared to Massachusetts) - 60% of both houses of the state legislature must approve of the amendment, and once that happens a majority of the voters has to vote for it - so, unfortunately, marriage equality opponents have a pretty good shot. The Maryland House of Reps will be holding hearings January 31st to discuss this court ruling; no doubt someone will propose a Constitutional amendment at that time.

One sliver of hope: the Maryland state legislature is dominated by Democrats (House: 98-43, Senate: 33-14), so maybe there’s a small chance of defeating the anti-SSM amendment, or at least slow-tracking it.

Judge Murdock’s decision can be read here (pdf file).

UPDATE: Here’s a Washington Post article on the reaction among Maryland’s politicians. Shorter version of story: Democrats are fightened and hoping that the Maryland Supreme Court will overturn this decision (what wonderful allies Democrats are!); the Republicans are delighted and hoping that a ballot measure constitutional amendment will bring their voters to the polls. It’s not clear what the Maryland Supreme Court will decide on this issue.

I’ve got to pay more attention…. well, better late than never. Click on the image for details.

You know the drill, folks - here’s some of what I’ve been reading lately, in no particular order. Please feel free to comment on these links, or to post your own links (including your own stuff, if you want!), or to just discuss whatever the heck you want to discuss.