Posted with the kind permission of Kevin Moore. Click on the cartoon to see it bigger, and to see Kevin’s commentary and links.

In addition to Kevin’s comments, I’d point out this post by Ezra, pointing out that (by the weird definition of “subsidize” conservatives are suddenly using), Stupak “did not block the federal government from subsidizing abortion. All it did was block it from subsidizing abortion for poorer women.”

And read as well this piece, pointing out that by the Bishop’s definition of federal funding, the enormous support the Federal government pays to Catholic hospitals and charities must be a subsidization of religion, and is presumably unconstitutional.

At least one Republican, Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., says he’ll vote present on the amendment, and has four or five other members of the GOP who will join him. That may not be enough to scuttle the amendment, but it would make it close — Stupak has claimed between 220 and 225 votes in favor. If he was counting the whole GOP caucus, that would actually put him between 215 and 220 — and it takes 218 to pass.

Frankly, I don’t know why the GOP is going to vote for the amendment, at least if their goal is to stop health care reform; about their only chance of stopping the House from passing the bill is to get the Stupak amendment to fail. If it passes, the leadership has the votes to move it forward; if not, they probably still do, but it may peel off enough pro-life Democrats to make a difference.

Evidently, the GOP leadership has decided that reproductive rights is an issue that is important enough for principle to trump strategy. It would be nice if the Democratic leadership felt the same way.

Today should be a good day. It should be a day when Democrats and decent people celebrate the passage of health care reform out of the House of Representatives. But unfortunately, the usual suspects have decided that health care can’t be reformed if said reform leads to women having control of their uteri. So Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., will be pushing — and likely passing — an amendment that would actually manage to reduce the already tenuous access Americans currently have to abortion.

The amendment likely has the votes, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi has evidently decided not to stand in the way of a vote, in order to avoid any further delay in getting the bill voted off the floor. And I can understand that, and even support it as strategy; the bill passing the House today is not the final bill. It will have to be reconciled with the Senate’s bill (if one ever passes) in a conference committee, and the bill that comes out of conference could favor the language of either, both, or neither, depending. Pelosi will appoint the House conferees; presumably Bart Stupak will not be one of them.

So yeah, some bad language is okay at this stage of the game because it’s still a work in progress. But I tend to agree with Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., about the endgame here:

The Illinois Democrat said she’ll vote for passage today regardless of whether Stupak’s amendment is included, but would oppose a final bill if the amendment makes it through conference committe.

“If that language were in the final final bill, I certainly couldn’t support it,” Schakowsky said.

That, I think, is the important thing for Democrats to understand, because if that language is in the final bill, I can’t support it, either.

The Stupak Amendment is a bitter pill to swallow, but as of today, it’s a purely symbolic one. Yes, it sucks that a majority of members in the House believe that a person’s right to choose can be chucked aside at will. But the vote today won’t ultimately chuck that right aside. It’s the vote on the final bill that comes out of conference that matters.

If the Stupak language survives the conference committee, it is incumbent on those of us who support reproductive rights to pull our support, and actively campaign for defeat of the bill. For today, I’ll grit my teeth and make note of which Democrats to lean on when the vote for final passage comes. But that’s for today. Tomorrow starts the fight to make sure that the bill that ultimately is passed is a bill that supporters of reproductive rights can support.

First of all, please check this list of Representatives at RH Reality check. If one of them is your representative, please give them a call right now. They’ll be voting at any time now, so don’t wait.

The news:

House Democratic leaders agreed Friday night to settle an impasse over abortion by letting the entire House vote on a proposed solution, a risky decision that could determine the fate of their trillion-dollar overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

Under the agreement, anti-abortion Democrats will be permitted to offer an amendment on the House floor to the health-care overhaul bill. The amendment would prohibit a new government-run insurance plan created by the health-care bill from offering to cover abortion services, congressional sources said. It would also block people who received federal subsidies for the purchase of health insurance from buying policies that offered coverage for abortions.

The deal clears the way for the dozens of Democratic lawmakers who oppose abortion to lend their support to the health care package, the most dramatic expansion of health coverage in more than 40 years. It also satisfies the demands of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which had threatened to oppose the House bill.

If the amendment from Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) passes, said Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the bishops conference, “we become enthusiastic advocates for moving forward with health care reform.”

The amendment is expected to pass with the combined support of more than 40 anti-abortion Democrats and virtually every House Republican. That likelihood meant that leaders of the much larger group of Democrats who support abortion rights were not happy to learn of the deal.

“There will be no abortion, not just with public funds, but with private funds under the public option, and that’s not acceptable,” said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.).

House leaders met with that bloc of Democrats late Friday to try to quell their frustration., but the agreement makes clear that they believe abortion-rights Democrats will find it difficult to vote against the health-care bill even with such a restriction attached to it.

According to Politico, “Female Democrats on the Rules Committee, including Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, left the room during consideration of the Stupak amendment and didn’t cast a vote.”

Keep in mind, even before this amendment, the House bill restricted abortion coverage. But it didn’t do enough to punish poor women, so that wasn’t good enough for either the Blue Dogs, the Republicans, or the Catholic Church.

Ezra writes:

If this amendment passes, it will mean that virtually all women with insurance through the exchange who find themselves in the unwanted and unexpected position of needing to terminate a pregnancy will not have coverage for the procedure. Abortion coverage will not be outlawed in this country. It will simply be tiered, reserved for those rich enough to afford insurance themselves or lucky enough to receive from their employers.

From USA Today (via Jack and Jill Politics):

Nearly 90% of private health insurance policies now offer abortion coverage, and almost half of women with private insurance have it. But women covered under the new system would have to find supplemental insurance or pay out of pocket for an unanticipated procedure that can cost from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on complexity. For anyone unable to afford it, this would amount to a de facto ban.

From Democrasheild:

If the Stupak amendment passes, uninsured women who get health care through the public option will have to pay out-of-pocket to get an abortion. And even if a woman uses her own money to buy an insurance plan from a private company through the exchange, she won’t be able to get a plan that covers abortion. [...]

The “exchanges” discussed there are health insurance exchanges, which are marketplaces where people will be able to purchase insurance. Since insurance companies will have to compete against one another and the public option. the exchanges will provide better insurance plans at lower costs. They’re designed to help those who don’t have insurance or who have inadequate insurance but can’t afford better.

Because many small employers are expected to switch to using the exchanges, this means that women who currently have abortion coverage through their small employer, will have their coverage replaced with insurance that doesn’t cover abortion.

Ezra also points out, even if (as now seems likely) this amendment is part of the bill the House passes, that doesn’t guarantee it’ll be in the final legislation: “Even if it muscles into the House bill, it will also have to pass in the Senate, and then survive conference, before it becomes law.” That seems like a pretty thin reed of hope to me, but better than no hope at all.

I’ve been trying to find out if the Stupak Amendment contains exceptions for abortions necessary to prevent immediate threats to the life or health of the woman. I haven’t been able to find out, so far.

As you’ve probably heard, the folks who brought you Conservapedia are currently hard at work on the Conservative Bible, because that Jesus guy was a crazy dope-smoking hippie who had all these goofy ideas about healing the sick and helping the poor and turning the other cheek and crap like that. Now, I haven’t read it yet, but I’m really looking forward to this scene:

Yes, that’s “One Nation Under God,” a new painting by artist Jon McNaughton, and it’s one of those great moments in conservative kitsch, like Rifle Jesus, that just warms the cockles of your heart.

Now, the servers on the guy’s site are currently melted, what with the HuffPo and Wonkette links, but I’m hoping he gets them back up soon, because for the full effect, you really have to see the mouseover information explaining the symbolism of the picture (because, as all artists know, the best way to make your symbolism apparent to the viewer is to tell them exactly what your symbolism is supposed to mean).

Yes, there’s the “liberal woman reporter!” And the “Mother!” With her “handicapped child!” (Said child does not appear to be in any way disabled, which mayhaps is why McNaughton felt the need to identify him thus. Then again, we’re all probably glad he didn’t try to depict a disabled child “sensitively.”) There’s the Supreme Court Justice weeping over Roe v. Wade, and the Evolution-Teachin’ Professor, and Mister Hollywood, all hanging out by Satan Himself. Okay, after the Polanski stuff, I guess I’ll give McNaughton Mister Hollywood, but still, that’s a mite over-the-top. And my favorite of the onlookers, the “Typical Immigrant,” who is depicted as possibly Asian-American, and who is shocked that Jesus is actually the founder of our country! I guess that’s because he read those silly citizen’s guides with their noting the founding fathers favored church-state separation.

And of course, in the pantheon with Jesus are swell folks like Aryan Youth! (That’s my term for the kid, not his.) And Black Soldier Whose Name is King So I Don’t Have to Paint Martin Luther King, Jr.! And way, waaaaaay off in the distance, it’s Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman and Sequoyah! And also Susan B. Anthony! So there!

But of course, front and center in the picture is Jesus, seen here writing the Constitution which includes provisions for freedom of religion. Silly Jesus! Always with the jokes, that guy! Still, I’m glad someone is finally giving us a look at the real story of the American Revolution, which is not the story of a bunch of rich white guys finding ways to make America somewhat more classically liberal than it was under British rule, but the story of Jesus. Oh, and also, Glenn Beck’s favorite book. That too.

UPDATE: This is some weapons-grade snark right here.

Well, not quite, but it was an awesome comeback, imo. From Talking Points Memo:

Just before the Senate Finance Committee wrapped up for the long weekend, members debated one of Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-AZ) amendments, which would strike language defining which benefits employers are required to cover.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) argued that insurers must be required to cover basic maternity care. (In several states there are no such requirements.)

“I don’t need maternity care,” Kyl said. “So requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.”

Stabenow interrupted: “I think your mom probably did.”

The amendment was defeated, nine to 14.

Senator Kyl, by the way, is firmly anti-abortion, with a 100% perfect voting record according to the NRLC and a 0% voting record according to NARAL. So he thinks the government should force unwilling pregnant women to give birth, but objects to requiring insurance companies to pay for maternity care. Because that might make Kyl’s annual insurance premiums a few dollars higher.

The word “asshat” is so inadequate.

Writing to Mark Steyn, Mark Adomanis points out that the “infant mortality rate is significantly higher in the US than it is in the UK. In fact, if you want to be precise, it’s 34% higher.”

Steyn replies:

As to infant mortality rates in general, as with “life expectancy at birth”, that’s a very interesting topic that I will be writing about at length in the weeks ahead. But, even without taking into account the significant variations in the definition of “live birth”, one thing you notice is that, by comparison with the United States, the countries with the lowest “infant mortality rate” have some of the lowest fertility rates on the planet. That’s to say, it’s not just that they have fewer infant deaths, they have fewer infants, period. They have so few, indeed, that over the medium-term (in Italy, Germany and elsewhere) it will render their government health systems unsustainable. But, as a general proposition, I would say that, when fertility rates get as low as they are in Germany, Italy, Spain and elsewhere, to the point that you now have upside-down family trees of four grandparents, two children, one grandchild, it’s hardly surprising that “infant mortality” is lower.

I’m a little confused as to what Steyn is saying. It’s possible that Steyn is arguing that a lower infant population, in and of itself, explains a lower infant mortality rate. As PG points out, if that’s Steyn’s thought, then Steyn misunderstands basic statistics.

Another possibility is that Steyn is saying that if there are more parents and grandparents per infant, that infant will get more attention and thus be less likely to die. That would make more sense, but I can’t find any evidence to support this proposition. (For instance, all else held equal, are only children significantly more likely to survive infancy than second children?)

That said, even if Steyn is mistaken about the cause of the link, he’s right that low infant mortality rates and low fertility rates are strongly correlated. As this World Bank paper points out, the trends mutually feed into each other: “Lower infant mortality can lead to lower fertility by reducing the need for replacement births. Conversely, birth spacing improves the chances of child survival.”¹ (And, of course, both lower infant mortality and lower fertility are made more likely by wealth.)

However, Steyn is wrong to imply that the U.S. can’t lower our appalling infant mortality rate without dropping our fertility rate. Contrary to what Steyn seems to believe, there are many countries with low infant mortality rates where the fertility rate is similar to the U.S.’s. For instance, the UN rates the US and Iceland as having virtually identical fertility rates (the US is ranked 127, Iceland is ranked 128). But Iceland has the lowest infant mortality rate in the world.

There are countries which probably won’t be able to significantly lower infant mortality without lowering fertility rates — Niger, for example, which has about 7 births per woman, a number that’s way too high for health either of women or of children. But the US, with a fertility rate barely above 2 births per woman, is not in that situation. Because our high infant mortality rate isn’t being caused by a high fertility rate, we can lower infant mortality without lowering fertility.

Finally, no one should discuss US infant mortality without pointing out the elephant in the room, which is race.

(Graphic from PRB.)

In effect, whites, Asians and Latinas in the US are living in a reasonably good wealthy nation, when it comes to infant mortality — not as good as Sweden or the Netherlands, but the equivalent of New Zealand, say. But for Blacks and American Indians, it’s like living in an exceptionally poor nation — Tongo, say, or the Palestinian Territories.

Research indicates that the difference isn’t genetic; it’s discrimination. From Science Daily:

They compared birth weights of three groups of women: African American, whites and Africans who had moved to Illinois. Most African-American women are of 70 to 75 percent African descent.

“If there were such a thing as a (pre-term birth) gene, you would expect the African women to have the lowest birth weights,” David said. “But the African and white women were virtually identical,” with significantly higher birth weights than the African-American women, he said.
The researchers did a similar analysis of births to black Caribbean women immigrants to the United States and found they gave birth to infants hundreds of grams heavier than the babies of U.S.-born black women.

For black women, “something about growing up in America seems to be bad for your baby’s birth weight,” David said. [...]

David and Collins spoke with black women who had babies with normal weights at birth, comparing them with black women whose babies’ birth weight was very low — under three pounds.

They asked the mothers if they had ever been treated unfairly because of their race when looking for a job, in an educational setting or in other situations.

Those who felt discriminated against had a twofold increase in low birth weights. And for those who experienced discrimination in three “domains,” the increase was nearly threefold.

As depressing as this is, this also shows us that the US’s high infant mortality rate is — or should be — a solvable problem.

1. For a more detailed discussion, see this paper (pdf link). (back)

One of the interesting things on the teevee tonight has been the shock and surprise from some on the left that Minnesota’s own Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty doesn’t really seem to be a moderate after all.

For those of you normal people who don’t track the comings and goings of Minnesota’s 39th governor, Tim Pawlenty visited the Value Voters Summit this past weekend, where he got to speak to the hardest of the hard-line wingers, the people who actually nodded when the chief of staff for Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., explained that heterosexual pornography causes teens to become homosexual because it “turns your sexual drive inwards,” a ludicrous statement which, if true, would mean that Tucker Max is the most homosexual human being in the history of history.

Gov. Pawlenty went to the summit, and those who’ve only gotten to know him through sound bites and a few interviews on MSNBC probably expected he’d give a bland, lukewarm speech, heavy on economics, light on red meat.

Those of us from Minnesota knew better. We remembered his acceptance speech from the 2006 GOP state convention, where he declared, “I can tell you what your worst nightmare is. It’s one of the big-spendin’, tax-raisin’, abortion-promotin’, gay marriage-embracin’, more welfare-without-accountability lovin’, school reform-resistin’, illegal immigration-supportin’ Democrats for governor who think Hillary Clinton should be president of the United States.” We are well aware that Pawlenty fits nicely into the anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-education Republican Party of 2010. And we knew that Pawlenty would be only to happy to tell his fellow true believers exactly what they wanted to hear.

He did not disappoint. After his usual cringe-worthy joke (something about Brett Favre not being a “clunker”), Pawlenty told everyone exactly what he believed.

On Separation of Church and State:

Now, as you know, you’re gathered here because you share a belief in those values. Those values are under attack. These are not just conservative values. Our values our American values. (Applause.) They are not rooted in pop psychology, they’re not rooted in feelings, they’re not rooted in emotion. They are rooted in the wisdom and experience of our founding fathers and the faith and the wisdom that they brought forward in the defining moments of this nation. And so we need to remind each other – (audio break).

(Applause.)

Our Judeo-Christian values are important, they are traditional, and they are the basis for so much of our country. Now, we have some folks who are skeptics about that. I’m reminded of the story – the true story of Tony Blair, the former prime minister, who came to our prayer breakfast here in Washington, D.C., about a year or so ago. He recalled a story that as a young schoolboy his father had suffered a terrible stroke. It was life-threatening and quite severe. And he remembers being in school and having a teacher pull alongside him and bend down on his knee and whisper to him, “Tony, I’m going to pray for your dad.” And Tony reminded the teacher and remembered the teacher and said, “But teacher, my dad doesn’t believe in God.” And the teacher said, “That’s okay, Tony. God believes in your dad. God believes in your Dad.”

On Abortion rights:

In Minnesota we’ve done a number of things – I won’t go through them all – but one that I’m most particularly proud of and it’s been very impactful is I’ve proposed and signed into law the so-called women’s right to know bill, which provides women important information who are considering abortion, and it also provides a waiting period for them to consider their decision. That combined with many other measures and efforts of good-hearted people all across Minnesota has significantly decreased the number of abortions performed in my state, and it’s a very effective piece of legislation.

(The Women’s Right to Know Act, of course, forced women to read anti-choice propaganda before having an abortion. Part of the information given out by the Minnesota Department of Health initially included the debunked breast cancer-abortion link.)

On GLBT Rights and Marriage Equality:

A really important example of this is defending and protecting traditional marriage. All domestic relationships are not the same, and traditional marriage needs to remain elevated in our society and in our culture. Marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman, and I sponsored that legislation when I was in the Minnesota Legislature, and we should make sure that the people are heard on this, that the Constitution is heard on this, not courts who are making up the law in the backroom.

Now, this is not some radical notion or some extreme notion. My goodness, when it’s been put to the vote of the people even in left-of center places like Oregon and – California voted twice for traditional marriage. If they can support traditional marriage in California we should do it all over this country.

(According to the Washington Independent, at this point Pawlenty ad-libbed, “This is not politically incorrect! This is not politically offensive! This is what our founding fathers believed.”)

On Health Care:

President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress not long ago regarding this topic, and he said he’s going to start calling people out on this debate by name. I guess I was the first one up this morning. The DNC put up a video or some sort of thing attacking me on this debate for various things I’ve said in recent weeks and months, and I accept the challenge. And I’ll just respond by calling out the president back tonight. And I would say – (applause) – and what I’d like to say to him is, DNC and he calls me out, I’ll call you out, call you back, and here’s my message: Stop spending the country into bankruptcy. Stop taxing us into oblivion. And the next time you address a group of young people maybe you should apologize for the crushing debt you’re putting on their shoulders.

(Applause.)

And one additional challenge. If, as he and the Democratic Congress, or some of the Democratic Congress say, “Oh, no, we’re not for public funding for abortions,” then don’t duck, don’t bob, don’t weave, put the language of the Hyde amendment in the health care bill.

Tim Pawlenty is not a moderate. He has never been a moderate. He is a stalwart conservative, quite at ease among the furthest part of the party’s right wing. Democrats and independents need to realize this going into 2012. After all, Minnesota has paid a high price for the reckless budgetary games of Pawlenty. It would be a pity if the rest of America failed to learn from our lesson.

Hillary Clinton rocks.

This seems like a good enough reason to repeat something I said in 2004:

The vast majority of unsafe abortion deaths take place in countries where pro-life forces have successfully restricted or outlawed abortion. Africa - which has by far the highest rate of unsafe abortion deaths - also has overwhelmingly pro-life laws. This is unsurprising; where abortion is illegal, women will seek abortions from people without medical training, and fear (or local laws) may keep them from seeking medical help if the unsafe abortion goes wrong.

The best cure for unsafe abortion is safe abortion - and that means legal abortion. What kind of a difference can legal abortion make? Here’s what happened in Romania when abortion was outlawed, in 1966 - and when it was legalized again, in 1989.

There’s a very clear relationship between legalized abortion and deaths from unsafe abortion.

There’s also no evidence that outlawing abortion reduces the number of abortions. From a WHO article on unsafe abortion:

Contrary to common belief, legalization of abortion does not necessarily increase abortion rates. The Netherlands, for example, has a non-restrictive abortion law, widely accessible contraceptives and free abortion services, and the lowest abortion rate in the world: 5.5 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age per year. Barbados, Canada, Tunisia and Turkey have all changed abortion laws to allow for greater access to legal abortion without increasing abortion rates.

There is no serious doubt that pro-life laws lead to increased death and injuries due to unsafe abortions. Furthermore, as the Netherlands show, it’s possible to have the world’s lowest rate of abortion by concentrating on reducing demand, rather than by threatening doctors and mothers with jail time. So if pro-lifers genuinely want to prevent abortion, why aren’t they demanding Netherlands-style programs?

There’s no reason the US couldn’t have an abortion rate as low as the Netherlands; it would just require the pro-lifers to quit trying to take away women’s freedom, and instead put their enormous energy and funds into reducing how likely women are to want abortion. In economic terms, the difference between a pro-lifer and a feminist who opposes abortion is that pro-lifers focus on reducing the supply of abortion by reducing freedom; feminists who oppose abortion would rather reduce the demand for abortion, by expanding women’s options. The feminist method is at least as effective for reducing abortion - and is far less deadly to women’s lives.

From a pro-life news site:

Rep. John Adams, a Republican from Sidney, wants to change that and the legislation he introduced today, House Bill 252, would require the biological father’s consent before an abortion can be done.

The bill would apply to any abortion and would require written consent before it can be done.

Adams told the Daily Reporter newspaper that abortion centers would “need to get consent from the biological father” before the abortion can proceed and he called the measure a “father’s right bill” to protect the interest of fathers who are given no say in the abortion process.

He also said the bill provides for criminal penalties for women seeking abortions who do not obtain consent properly.

“Providing a false biological father would be a first-degree misdemeanor the first time, which means not more than six months and jail, and a maximum $1,000 fine,” Adams said. “And on the second occasion, providing false information would be considered a fifth-degree felony.”

Adams told the newspaper that, in cases when the mother does not know the identity of the father, the abortion would be prohibited.

“There needs to be responsibility for actions,” Adams said. “As someone who is pro-life, this is also an attempt and a hope to keep the two people who have created that child together, and I suppose if you just go back to the simple beginning, there is merit to chastity, and to young men and women waiting until marriage.”

Adams said the bill offers exceptions in cases of rape or incest or when the life of the mother is threatened by the pregnancy.

Even under our current Supreme Court, this law would definitely be unconstitutional, and I doubt it’ll even pass the legislature. But it’s still worth considering, as an example of both how pro-lifers think and of what “father’s rights,” taken to extremes, can mean.

Thanks to Bean for the tip.

At the start of the month, Megan McArdle — who is, I think, pro-choice — wrote:

But in this case, I think the analogy to slavery is important, for two reasons. First of all, it was the last time we had an extended, society-wide debate about personhood. [...]

Listening to the debates about abortion, it seems to me that really broad swathes of the pro-choice movement seem to genuinely not understand that this is a debate about personhood, which is why you get moronic statements like “If you think abortions are wrong, don’t have one!” If you think a fetus is a person, it is not useful to be told that you, personally, are not required to commit murder, as long as you leave the neighbors alone while they do it.

Conversely, if Africans are not people, then slavery is not wrong.

Although Megan is (I think) pro-choice, I’ve certainly heard this argument made by pro-lifers any number of times. But “lack of personhood” was not, in fact, a major pro-slavery argument. I’d recommend listening to (or reading the transcript of) this lecture by Yale historian David Blight, in which he outlines the pre-civil-war pro-slavery arguments.

The entire lecture is worth your time, but here — heavily edited for space — is Blight’s outline of the important pro-slavery arguments.

Now, there are many ways to look at pro-slavery. Deep, deep in the pro-slavery argument–I’m going to give you categories here to hang your hats on–deep in the pro-slavery argument is a biblical argument. Almost all pro-slavery writers at one point or another will dip into the Old Testament, or dip into the New Testament–they especially would dip to the Old–to show how slavery is an ancient and venerable institution. [...] You can therefore assume it was divinely sanctioned. [...]

A second kind of set of arguments, I’ve already referred to, are the historical ones. Here it is not just the venerability of slavery, how old it is, but it’s the idea that it has been crucial to the development of all great civilizations. That slavery may have its bad aspects but it has been the engine of good, it has been the engine of empires, the engine of wealth, the engine of greatness. How would you have had Cicero? How would you have had the great Roman philosophers and thinkers? [...]

Pro-slavery ideology is also part of–at the same time it’s resistant to–the greatest product arguably of the Enlightenment, and that is the idea of natural rights; natural law, natural rights, rights by birth, rights from God, being born with certain capacities. Now pro-slavery writers were inspired by this to some extent, but many of them will simply convert it. They will convert it–they’ll take portions of John Locke that they like, and not the others–and they’ll say the real rule of the world is not natural equality, but it is natural inequality. Humans are not all born the same, with the same capacities, abilities.

Now, then there’s a whole array of economic arguments, and the cynic, the economic determinist, simply goes to the economic conclusions of pro-slavery and nowhere else. [...] “You will say that man cannot hold property in man. The answer is that he can, and actually does, hold property in his fellow, all over the world, in a variety of forms, and has always done so.” [...]

Some would get worried and they would discuss slavery as a necessary evil–this system entailed upon them. [...] “But the question is, in my present circumstances, with evil on my hands, entailed from my father, would the general interest of the slaves and community at large, with reference to the slaves, be promoted best by emancipation? Could I do more for the ultimate good of the slave population by holding or emancipating what I own?” [...] he develops a highly intricate theory of how he’s going to use slavery to save black people. He’s going to ameliorate their conditions, he’s going to make their slavery on his plantations so effective, so good, such a even joyous form of labor, that he will be doing God’s work by improving slavery.[...]

There are many pro-slavery writers who developed, like James Henry Hammond, what I would call the cynical or amoral form of pro-slavery argument; and this is a potent form of argument when you think about it. [...] “The only problem with slavery in America,” said James Henry Hammond, is that too damn many northerners didn’t understand it is the way of the world as it is, and they ought to stop talking about the world as it ought to be.” [...] “Is it not palpably nearer the truth to say that no man was ever born free and that no two men were ever born equal? Man is born in a state of the most helpless dependence on other people.”

And then there’s the whole vast category of racial defense and justification of slavery. [...] Probably the most prominent pro-slavery writer to make the racial case–and they all did–but probably the most prominent was George Fitzhugh. [...] “The Negro,” he said, “is but a grownup child and must be governed as a child. The master occupies toward him the place of parent or guardian. Like a wild horse he must be caught, tamed and domesticated.” [...]

And lastly, there was a kind of utopian pro-slavery. [...] In Hughes’s vision and Hughes’s worldview slavery was not only a positive good–it was the possibility of man finding a perfected society, with the perfect landowners fulfilling their obligations, supported by a government that taxed the hell out of them to do it, and perfect workers, would make the South into the agricultural utopian civilization of history.

It’s politically useful for pro-lifers to pretend that abortion and slavery were similar debates, and that the major argument for slavery was the claim that Africans were not people. But that’s simply not true.

(Note that in the lecture I’m quoting, Blight’s intent wasn’t making a case about abortion in either direction — Blight isn’t shading his arguments towards a pro-choice or pro-life outcome, he’s simply explaining the history of pro-slavery arguments. Can pro-lifers cite similarly non-biased sources to support their argument?)

See also: Ta-Nehisi.

* * *

P.S. I can’t resist pointing out that the first few arguments Blight lists — the institution goes back forever, it’s in the Bible, and it’s the foundation of civilization — are also the major arguments used in the present day to argue for banning same-sex couples from marriage.

So Steven Waldman of Beliefnet and Lord William Saletan went on Bloggingheads to discuss abortion, and how we can make the dirty tramps who have them stop. It’s a natural topic of conversation for two people with zero ovaries, fallopian tubes, uteruses, and vaginas between them; since they’ll never have to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term, Waldman and Saletan are free to discuss things logically and scientifically, free from concerns like, say, how this would actually affect a human being.

Remarkably, in a discussion including Saletan, Waldman managed to make the dumbest and most offensive argument: what if we paid those wanton slatterns to keep the precious baby growing inside of them?

Now I wonder, I know this is dangerous territory here, but I’m just kind of thinking out loud…I wonder if we should start thinking about financial incentives or help for women who decide to carry the baby to term.”

[...]

So maybe we ought to be saying to them, if it’s officially important for us as a society to reduce the number of abortions…maybe we should pay her a thousand dollars, uh, I don’t know what the right number is, because you don’t want to create a financial incentive for, uh, making babies.

Genius! The woman gets ten honeybees, the patriarchal society gets its precious, precious baby, and everything is swell. It’s logically air-tight, except for the part of the stuff where he said all about…uh…things.

Before we take this apart on philosophical grounds, let’s first go over the basic argument: we’re going to give women money to continue with a pregnancy she would have aborted. Okay. Well, since we live in a country with de jure legal abortions, every pregnancy can be terminated. So we just agreed to pay every woman who gives birth $1000 cash money. In 2005, there were 4,138,349 live births in America. Presumably, this proposal would increase those numbers, and the numbers are just naturally going up anyway, so let’s say this gets us to a robust 5 million kids a year. At $1000 a kid, that’s a measly $5 billion a year in child bonuses! Pocket change. I mean, sure, it’s just $2 billion less than we give the EPA, but compared to the $660 billion we spent on defense, that’s nothing!

Then again, coming up with $5 billion a year will require higher taxes eventually, and if you hate abortion, you probably hate taxes even more. So somehow, we’re going to have to narrow this down a bit. Why not eliminate married women from the payout? I mean, every child born to a married couple is a loving gift from God, and therefore no married woman has ever had an abortion, so there we go! Now, some naysayers will say nay, that would encourage women and men to postpone marriage until after they had kids so that they can qualify for the child bonus, but that’s just crazy talk.

Maybe we could ask women if they were going to have an abortion, and if they say, “no,” we could simply not pay them. Brilliant! Nobody would lie for $1000. It’s foolproof!

Okay, now that we’ve reduced the cost to $4 billion or so, we run into our next problem: the .000002% of the recipients of the bonus who actually were swayed from aborting are now going into labor, and they just realized that the copay for giving birth is, like, much more than $1000. And that’s the ones who have insurance. They tell all their slutty friends who are cursed with God’s judgment, and now their friends all want to get abortions again! It’s crazy, I know, but given the expense of labor and delivery and having to pay for an actual child (assuming these children aren’t all given up for adoption, which they wouldn’t be), $1000 is absolutely nothing. (This shouldn’t be surprising; the going rate for surrogates is roughly $20,000 — which is probably lower than it should be, considering the health risks of pregnancy. Of course, that would have our plan costing around $100 billion a year, or about the size of the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security, Energy, Agriculture, and Justice combined.) 

And not for nothing, but $1000 certainly not much of an incentive for women who are, one remembers, already paying easily that much to have abortions – which tends to suggest that the financial implications of childbirth are not the most pressing on women looking to abort anyhow. 

So to recap the plan: we’re going to increase the out-of-wedlock birthrate, encourage women to lie, and pay too little to actually affect the abortion rate whatsoever. It’s a remarkable plan, I don’t know why anti-choicers haven’t thought of this before.

Now, obviously, this plan simply wouldn’t work, but frankly, that’s not the worst part of it. The worst part, of course, is that it’s essentially treating the woman as a rent-a-uterus, a thing that must be placated just long enough to extract the thing of value, the baby, from her. It’s dehumanizing, and it’s demeaning, and it ignores all the problems with actually being pregnant that most women, bless them, soldier through in order to have a child. It’s arduous, dangerous work, which is why people of decent character generally think that we should do what we can to make the work voluntary — to allow women to decide for themselves whether to take on the burden of carrying a pregnancy to term — and to allow them to opt out should they decide, even after they start, that they do not want to continue.

Of course, thinking that requires one to recognize that the work women do in carrying on our species’ existence is tremendously valuable and difficult, and something that they, as humans, should be lauded for. But when your view of pregnancy values the potential human within far more than the actual human without, it’s hard to recognize that. And easy to think that the husk which contains the precious child can be bought off with 15 cents per hour for nine months of ’round the clock work. The husk isn’t that important, you see. It’s just a woman.

Under rules of engagement developed in the Bush Administration, we can waterboard Scott Roeder:

The man charged with murdering a high-profile abortion doctor claimed from his jail cell Sunday that similar violence was planned around the nation for as long as the procedure remained legal, a threat that comes days after a federal investigation launched into his possible accomplices.

A Justice Department spokesman said the threat was being taken seriously and additional protection had been ordered for abortion clinics last week. But a leader of the anti-abortion movement derided the accused shooter as “a fruit and a lunatic.”

So I’m sure the right will join me in calling for torture “enhanced interrogation techniques” to be used against Roeder, just to see what he’s up to.

What? No takers?

Funny, isn’t it? When the terrorist isn’t brown, the bloodlust just isn’t as fun for you guys.

(Click on the cartoon to see a larger version.)

Thanks to Mandolin for suggesting the inset panel at the end.

This cartoon talks about the perils of even trying to tell stories about the work that people do, at great risk to themselves, to help women achieve reproductive justice. Via silk_noir.

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And this one — which is much more uplifting, and which I have now watched three times — is a video of a number of GLBTQQI (and allies?) teenagers lipsynching to Lily Allen’s “Fuck You Very Much” as a response to prop h8 being upheld. I particularly enjoy the use of phallic popsicles to create imagery that can be used as a weapon against bigots. Via ktsparrow.

UPDATE: Watching this second video a fourth and fifth times, it really grinds home to me how much the people in this video are the kind of people I consider “my people.” It’s beyond me how anyone can look at such joyful profusion, so much color and joy in the way they dress and act and exist, and see something threatening or disgusting.

Yet I know they do. When I was a teenager, my presentation — though abnormal for teenagers — was never enough to unsettle adults. In fact, I probably dressed in a more adult-friendly way than most teens. Long skirts, pseudo-professional clothes, often bizarrely formal for a high school student. But my friends didn’t.

There was one girl I spent a lot of time with. A pixie-like joy of a person, Dawna, who wore her blonde hair almost totally shaved, and strung chains on her jeans. People who saw her knew there was something unusual about her. They didn’t take joy in her oddness, in her willingness to sing in the middle of the street, in her humor, in her desire to leave strange and beautiful things in public places for strangers to find and puzzle over. They shouted “dyke!” at her from car windows; they deployed store guards to follow her around; they sneered and snarled.

When I was 17 and Dawna was 15, she went out with me and started acting very strange. “Is she on meth or something?” a friend of mine asked. I said, “I’m sure she isn’t” — but I was wrong. She was on meth. She called me that night, crying. She’d been taking a lot of drugs for a long time — to try to deal with the pain of her isolation, the pain of how people pricked and pained her, and othered her, and told her she was nothing.

I told her I’d help. I arranged for her to be transferred to my high school and set her up with the teachers who’d been best for me. Nothing worked; the teachers who were more than happy to deal with my casual attitude toward authority had no tools in their kits to handle a girl who was too depressed to go to class. I’d thought they would recognize in her, as they had in me, independence and intelligence. I suppose they did. But even if they wanted to, there was nothing they could do.

I always worried Dawna would die. I thought she would overdose or commit suicide. When I read a few years ago that she was dead, and the obituary hinted at a cause of death that couldn’t be announced to potentially scandalized ears, I knew I was right.

She was twenty-two.

Dawna lived twenty-two years in the toxic hatred of our homophobic, gender policing, joy-killing world. And then it murdered her.

When people stand with bigots to say that gay marriage is an evil to society — when they agree gay people should be excluded on the basis of their sexuality — when they doubt gay people’s goodness or morality — they contribute to the deaths of people like Dawna. Yes, I do mean you, individual Alas commenter who may be a good person in other ways. You participate in a culture that kills people like my friend, and “fuck you very much” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

I hope that someday people will realize what they’re doing when they vote and act hatred. In the meantime, I can only be glad that there are still colorful, inspiring, joyous, unique people in the world, and try to give those people my love and support.

George Tiller was shot and killed today. Shot while he ushered a service at the church he attends.

It’s fitting, because for decades, he had done the Lord’s work.http://www.amptoons.com/blog/

George Tiller was the medical director at Women’s Health Care Services Clinic in Wichita, Kansas. The clinic provided reproductive health care, including abortion services into the third trimester. It was this that made Tiller a marked man; the fact that he had the temerity to provide legal medical services for women drove the anti-abortion movement crazy. He was shot in 1993, but stubbornly refused to give in to terrorism. He simply went on, providing medical care for women in difficult situations, walking boldly through the throng of detractors and haters, people who would rather women died on the table from complications of pregnancy than receive care from a medical professional.

Today, a killer ended Tiller’s life, and sent a signal to all providers of abortion services that they are not safe either. It is classic terrorism, the use of violence to achieve a political aim. The despicable Randall Terry of Operation Rescue chose to take the occasion of Tiller’s death to note that the doctor was a “mass-murderer,” adding, “I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller’s killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; [sic] murder.”

Tiller was not a mass-murderer, no matter what the Randall Terrys of the world may claim. He was a doctor, one who helped women through a difficult procedure. He sacrificed his life today because he was unwilling to step aside, to let women’s rights die at the threat of violence. May all of us who believe in a woman’s right to choose honor Dr. Tiller with the same steadfast resolve; terrorism works only when we surrender to fear. And the terrorist who committed this act (and the anti-choice cheerleaders who encouraged and endore it) must not be allowed victory.

If I ever have the “pleasure” of having a pro-life individual in my house for lunch who won’t stop using the word “child” to refer to fetuses, I fully plan to serve everyone else apples, and give them an apple seed, and tell them that since they can’t tell the difference, I figured they wouldn’t mind.

Grumble. Internets. Someone wrong on. And so on.

The anti-choice activists have completely dispensed with reality, and have gone on to just making stuff up:

The Obama administration’s actions to respond to the outbreak of swine flu, including its declaration of a public health emergency, smacks of an attempt to cover up this week’s Senate vote on the confirmation of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) as secretary of Health and Human Services, a prominent anti-abortion-rights activist told the Washington Independent.

“Some people think that declaring a state of emergency about the flu was a political thing to push the Sebelius nomination through,” Concerned Women for America President Wendy Wright told the website’s Dave Weigel.

Okay, it’s tempting to think that’s just a bit of isolated wingnuttery from the CWA, but apparently it isn’t:

Look likes like the swine-flu-response-equals-cover-up-for-Sebelius meme is working quickly through the right wing. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins weighed in via an e-mail sent to supporters Monday. “[L]iberals are already scheming how they can use the health scare to win the confirmation of pro-abortion extremist Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kans.) as Secretary of Health and Human Services,” he writes

Just who are these liberals who confide the truth about their secret conspiracies to prominent national conservative leaders? Perkins leaves us hanging on that one.

That is surprising — when you’re that deep into tinfoil hat territory, it’s usually easiest just to start making more stuff up. I would blame George Soros, myself — he’s usually to blame.

At any rate, what the anti-choicers expect you to believe is that the United States only is concerned about a flu outbreak and possible epidemic in a country that sits on our southern border because it allows them to get Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, D-Kan., into the leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services approximately one week earlier than they otherwise could.

That’s a pretty lame conspiracy. Unless….

…Unless maybe, what they’re saying is that Barack HUSSEIN Obama secretly engineered the flu virus and started spreading it in Mexico, so that he could get Sebelius through to get mandatory, free, universal abortion going even sooner! Yes, it’s all so clear now. Wheels within wheels, man, wheels within wheels.

I just read this on Pandagon and had a sense of “Oh! Oh! Ohmigod! Oh!” — not so much because of it’s analysis of the breastfeeding issue speficially, but because I’d never thought of this aspect of how the middle class works before. For me, it was very enlightening, and just in case it works like that for anyone else, I thought I’d pass it on.

But it’s also because breast feeding advocacy has been structured around what Barbara Ehrenreich called the “fear of falling”—since middle class people don’t inherit wealth, but they do inherit opportunities, recreating the middle class every generation requires hard work and competition with each other. So parents are deeply invested in getting an edge for their children, and every little thing starts to loom large as the very trick that will put your kids a leg up over everyone else. That’s the carrot—and the stick is the fear that if you skip any of these crucial steps, your child will fail to recreate your middle class life. Breast-feeding also gives people the feeling of control over the situation, and it’s obvious that anything that can be packaged to give middle class parents the feeling that they know best and that they and only they have the power to set their children on the right path will be eaten with a spoon. (That’s why anti-vaccination sentiment—or even the unscientific “spacing the schedule” soft version—is so popular, despite being routinely disproven by science.)

In particular, this part — “since middle class people don’t inherit wealth, but they do inherit opportunities, recreating the middle class every generation requires hard work and competition with each other.” — was an enormous OH! moment for me.

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Edited to add: Oh, and inasmuch as it matters what my take is on the breastfeeding issue (which is to say, probably not much), I’d like to second Chingona on what she said at Pandagon:

if we go too far in casting this as a purely individual decision, incentives to provide accommodations wither away and women actually end up with no real “choice” in the matter. That’s the situation many poor women and even middle-class women find themselves in right now, and I don’t think there’s anything feminist about enabling that status quo.

I actually think this should be the focus of the majority of feminist blogosphere conversations on breastfeeding. There may be some benefits to formula feeding for mothers who think that it may enhance egalitarianism in *their* (emphasis their) relationships, or for mothers who don’t want to breastfeed — not to mention those who can’t! But there are also definite, proven benefits to breastfeeding, and women of all classes, in all situations, should have access to them. There may be bad feelings going on for both sides of the Mommy War in this mess, but it seems like the structural issues are real screw yous to those choosing to breastfeed — who are challenged on their right to do it in public, and whose livelihoods are structured in such a way so as to make real choice impossible.

I suspect this is actually why breastfeeding advocates sometimes go too far with their rhetoric. They want to impress upon the public *just how necessary* breastfeeding is so that the public will be willing to try to help them ameliorate the structural issues that make breastfeeding difficult. I know personally that I’m appalled by how many of my otherwise-liberal acquaintances recoil at the notion of women breastfeeding toddlers. Those people need to understand that such breastfeeding has been a norm in certain times and places, and that it has benefits. They represent only one segment of an ignorant public that needs education.

So, since the breastfeeding advocates are arguing with such high stakes — stakes that affect real mothers and real children — I think it becomes easy to slip into rhetoric that contributes to the concept of total motherhood perfection. And I do sometimes feel alienated by that rhetoric, as a woman who doesn’t even have children, but who’s thinking about potentially not breastfeeding if I do.

But Chingona’s right in the core of what she says. All that’s basically an interesting, but superfluous, derailment from the real feminist heart of this issue, which should be making sure that as many women as possible have structural access to breastfeeding.

OK, that turned out longer than my original post. Sorry about that.