Evidently, some anti-abortion groups are working to curb sales of birth control pills. Lisa Boyd, of Planned Parenthood, summarizes the situation in Wisconsin:
“They’ve done so much with outlawing and restricting access to abortion that they’ve set their sights on birth control because there’s nothing else really they can do to further restrict abortion here in Wisconsin,” Ms Boyce says.
“Which is counter-intuitive because if you’re against abortion in the least you’d think you would see the value in enhancing access birth control, the very means women look to preventing pregnancy and the need for abortion.”
For more, read this BBC news report.
And those of us who think that they are out to restrict women’s rights are just paranoid, eh?
This explains, in a sinister way, the FDA’s recent push to change OCPs labels.
Stock up now… beat the rush.
Golly. What a shock.
I’m betting these folks don’t bat an eye at dispensing Viagra. Men can fuck around, but women had better breed.
I totally support the right of pharmacists to refuse to dispense the Pill because in some cases, some fetuses might die. Think of the children! They’re not the ones who choose to have sex, and they don’t have any control over the situation!
I also totally support the right of car salespersons to refuse to sell vehicles to anyone who might have a passenger under 18 years old (born or “preborn”). Again, think of the children! Some of them might give up their lives in auto accidents just because of the adult’s selfish desire to travel. And those poor kids can’t just refuse to get into the car/potential deathtrap!
I hope this stuff about abortion and the Pill succeeds quickly so that we keepers-of-the-kids can move on to addressing other big killers of innocent babies in this country.
To others committed to the cause: I’m looking to start a massive action. November 2 is national Protect-A-Life Day. Please grab 5 of your pro-life friends and convene upon the nearest Chevrolet (or Ford, if Chevy is not available) dealership at 7 AM on the dot, and blockade all entrances and exits by laying down across all paved means of egress. If we can just make sure that no one can take their potential killing machines on a pleasure-cruise until 11 pm (or until we’re arrested, or until the polls close) becuase of our massive turnout of prolifers, we will have done a truly good thing.
Come out and support us!
So instead of birth control pills, women will get abstinence education tracts from the pharmacy?
I second what Amanda said. This isn’t about “protecting the unborn.” (gag) It’s an attack against women.
This has been in the works for at least 5 years. I think this issue needs to be highlighted as often as possible, and in as inflammatory terms as possible, eg. “These people are calling you and the other 40 million oral contraceptive users murderers.” They will have to pry those OCPs from the cold, dead hands of 40 million irate women who would make the NRA folks look like crybabies. Nothing could make the anti-abortion crowd look more out of touch and lunatic than this “OCPs are murder” campaign. This is a HUGE miscalculation for them, as the portrayal of all surgical abortions as done on term infants, by coining the term “partial birth abortion”, was a PR coup.
Oh, and don’t call these bills “conscience clause” bills.
Call them “denial of medical service” bills.
This has been in the works since way earlier than 5 years … these folks had to start focusing on abortion after Roe v. Wade, but I distinctly remember having long, long arguments into the night with my fellow activists back in the dark ages of the 1970s and forward that should they ever get Roe overturned, all their forces would then come to bear on birth control next. Amanda, Trish — you’re so right on. This is absolutely about squelching women. So much of my life in the 70s and 80s was about convincing folks that taking scraps from the table of the “powers that be” was a bad idea, because scraps don’t feed you well enough to live and when those scraps run out, you’re in big trouble.
This is a group of reactionaries who think now that they’ve got an administration that agrees with them, they can turn on more of their hidden agenda — I’ve always laughed at the idea of the “gay agenda.” That’s not what scares me. It’s the right-wing agenda that scares me, and this is just another piece of it coming to light of more people.
Are they going to restrict access to vitamin C as well? And information on pressure points? Those are both ways to force your period to start (Vit. C is an emmagogue in sufficient quantities) and that MIGHT KILL A FETUS!
Shhhh, don’t give them any ideas!
Wait, they won’t care, because men use vitamin C and pressure points.
If the pill gets banned with a medical exception, expect 40 million women to fall ill with acne or irregular periods, two things the pill is used to help outside of its contraceptive use. Reminds me of high school, when half the Catholic girls suddenly came down with *unbearable* menstrual cramps to get special permission to go on the pill.
That’s a good question. In the news article I cited in the related blog I wrote today, you’ll read:
In Mississippi, a bill became law in July that admirers and critics consider the nation’s most sweeping “conscience clause.” It allows all types of health care workers and facilities to refuse performing virtually any service they object to on moral or religious grounds.
I can’t help but thinking: No Viagra for single men? (But I didn’t quote that bit in my blog. The whole article is worht reading at the guardian
Amanda, remember that even the anti-pill people who KNOW about its other uses would still not want it to be prescribed for them. We’re supposed to pray about PMS, after all.
Amanda, remember that even the anti-pill people who KNOW about its other uses would still not want it to be prescribed for them. We’re supposed to pray about PMS, after all.
And ovarian cancer, too; if you’ve got a family history of it (or cancer of the uterus), better get out those prayerbooks now.
Luckily, if you’re impotent, God wants you to take Viagra.
That has got to be the most creative definition of “abortion” I have ever seen. Whatever. It’s like sperm is so precious to these people they just can’t stand to see an ejaculation go to waste.
The pills are prescribed to prevent ovulation, and pharmacists are refusing to dispense the pills on the grounds that ovulation might occur anyway. Yah. Like starting a war to prevent a war?
Are they refusing to dispense anti-depressants on the grounds that the drugs might fail and the patient may commit suicide anyway?
And, yes, I’ve heard this rhetoric for years also. My high school sex ed (1980s) included presentations from both PP and right-to-life. The RTL folks insisted that birth control pills were tantamont to monthly abortion.
On that note, what about the body naturally ridding itself of fertilized eggs and whatnot? Are we murderers for that?
well Of Course. In fact, menstration=murder, that’s a whole potential person that we are killing by not conceiving that month.
And it’s not just birth control either. There was a similar incident last spring where a pharmacist in Texas actually refused to give a rape victim her perscription of Plan B (or something similar, I don’t quite remember) on the grounds that he didn’t believe in abortions.
He was also fired.
I hate to break it to pharmacists but if you are in a medical profession that is built on the foundations of patient’s rights and patient confidentiality, then you legally have no say in what drugs or treatments people can use. If a pharmacist or a doctor has a problem with this, then perhaps she should look into a new career.
This is a group of reactionaries who think now that they’ve got an administration that agrees with them, they can turn on more of their hidden agenda — I’ve always laughed at the idea of the “gay agenda.” That’s not what scares me. It’s the right-wing agenda that scares me, and this is just another piece of it coming to light of more people.
They’ve also got a spate of opportunistic and cowardly enablers on the so-called other side of the Congressional/Senate, aisle;A spate of opportunistic and cowardly enablers who know that pro-choice women are just one of many supposed “special interest” groups that will at this point vote for a three-legged vole or a rusty weed-whacker if it runs as a Democrat against Bush… because they’re just that defeated and desperate.
Let’s not forget that.
http://www.counterpunch.org/baker05222004.html
“On Wednesday, [back in May ’04] John Kerry told the Associated Press that he was open to the idea of appointing anti-abortion judges “as long as it doesn’t lead to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade”…
…Despite the fact that we won Roe V. Wade under the anti-choice Nixon administration and we did not have abortion providers in over 85% of all counties under Clinton, many see a Democratic Party presidency vital to securing abortion rights. Kerry’s statements kill the myth we are guaranteed pro-abortion judges if he becomes president, it also kills the other argument that ABBers have been promoting: you know, the one that claims that we can build a movement after we get a Democrat in office and that Democrat will do all of the right stuff. John Kerry said that he would be open to appointing anti-abortion judges to the Supreme Court only 24 days after what many have said was the largest demonstration in American history. Movements work, but the two party system does not.”
I have tactfully edited out the word “N*d*er” from Baker’s comments, out of deference to Amp. ;)
There is a movement afoot to encourage neocons to enter medical and law school, which partially answers the “Why are they in this profession then?” question.
Those in the “Every Sperm is Sacred” school of thought need to seriously consider banning gym socks.
All Kerry’s statement means is that he’s *open* to not using the abortion issue as a litmus test. It’s a vague answer, and whether or not the issue should be a litmus test is a legitimate question (my answer is YES, but it’s still a valid debate).
Kerry’s got a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood and even voted against the “Partial Birth Abortion” ban. I hardly think this one comment invalidates that record.
Hmmm… according to Project Vote Smart, Kerry didn’t vote at all when the bill came up 3-12-03, but he did vote against it on 10-21-03. Perhaps somebody with big purse strings leaned on him. Perhaps I should be grateful, but I’m not.
As for Planned Parenthood, well… I feel the same way about them as I do about AFSCME, my Union. At the local level, it’s easy to point to the good works they do. At the national level, it can be painful to see how they’re wedded to the Democrats like drool to a tie, often to the detriment of their official stated goals.
I’m frankly fed up with abortion, and threats to Roe, being used as a means to control women. It doesn’t really matter to me at this point which Party is doing it. They both are, and quite knowingly and cynically, I’d say. It makes me sick.
A little more from Brandy Baker regarding the folly of feminism being a de facto subsidiary of the Democratic Party:
http://www.counterpunch.org/baker04242004.html
…in the summer of 1989 when NOW delegates who were disgusted with the Democrats proposed an exploratory committee to discuss the possibility of launching a third party that would not only speak to specific women’s issues, but would address militarism, racism, and poverty. After the media, which usually ignored NOW, castigated them for daring to toy with such an idea, feminist leaders publicly distanced themselves from the proposal. (7) NOW briefly considered the idea of forming a third party again in 1992. (8)
What happened to those days when we had standards: when we dreamed? Now, as Bush seeks to corrode the one square foot of ground that we stand tiptoed on, we have a tougher fight because there wasn’t a battle for more when we had two square feet: just a battle in Congress by professional lobbyists to keep what little we had, and if it was chipped away by Democrats we were supposed to look away and pretend that it did not happen. The mainstream feminist leadership became apologists for the rich, white men (the Democrats) who enabled the Republicans to launch these latest assaults on our rights. If the definition of feminism is the end to sexism, then frankly, this mode of thinking is anti-feminist. If I divorced a man because he was taking my money and denying me my basic rights, I cannot see any of these women telling me to marry one of his brothers, yet after eight years of Clinton, that is what the mainstream feminist movement wanted us to do, and they want us to do it now in 2004…
Look, the accusation that feminists are a subsidiary of the Democratic party is one that was floated by wingnuts, especially during the Clinton fiasco, to take away what access feminism has to national politics. The idea is to shame us for practical compromises we make, and therefore scare us away from creating those kind of relationships. And therefore HAVING NO POWER AT ALL.
It’s the same damn thing with steven’s (right?) argument that women should boycott voting for male candidates until we get female candidates. The only result of that would be that neither party would have any need to appeal to women, since they don’t vote.
We got the vote in the first place by cozying up to powerful men. We got female candidates by cozying up to powerful men and then guilt-tripping them (as we should). And as we have the ear of the Democrats and the contempt of the Republicans, we need to throw our support to those who are willing to help us. That’s how politics works.
Just as this whole Vietnam/memo/National Guard crap is tedious but relevant because it is standing in for more complex discussions about character and the war we’re in now, reproductive rights are shorthand for the treatment we can expect across the board from a party. And it’s a better symbol than most–respect for reproductive rights is a good indicator of whether or not a politician believes that women should be subject to different laws than men.
They should make buttons that say something about Kerry’s 100% rating from Planned Parenthood and hand *those* out at these rallies to get the women’s vote. That’s still a very powerful draw, particularly for younger, single women who probably have recent visits to PP to draw on.
*end of rant*
I didn’t mean to lash out so harshly, alsis. But the vast majority of people who tell me that women shouldn’t vote for Democrats are Republicans–they know I’m not gonna for their guys, they are trying to discourage me.
It frustrates me, too. But it’s hard enough getting a liberal-ish *man* elected to office with our hostile media. A woman for President would be eviserated. We have to work at this and not expect things to change overnight.
I’m not a wingnut, Thanks. And I don’t think that Baker is, either. She says that mainstream feminist organizations like NOW are subsidiaries of the Party, held in place by fear of public ridicule and fear of exile from the halls of power. She did not say that every last feminist on the street is.
I think that she’s correct and the last decade or so bears her out. I think she makes some very valid points, and understands very well the difference between compromise and unilateral surrender, which I don’t think every Democrat and/or feminist DOES understand very well. I think her comments about the failure of feminists and Democrats to play offense as well as defense if very acurate. I think she’s very right that feminism’s coziness with Democratic leadership weakens grassroots feminism (along with grassroots enviromentalism, labor rights, and so on) because the goals of grassroots movements rarely have a damn thing to do with the priorities of the people and corporations that provide the party the bulk of its funding and its candidates.
It sure as fuck wasn’t just “cozying up to powerful men” that got women the vote. It was hunger strikes and demos and infuriating the shit out of powerful men that got women the vote. Not to mention an independent party whose sole goal was to do just that, outside the influence of either Democrats or Republicans.
I would, FWIW, never argue that radical actions alone will bring societal change, but neither will only moderate actions.
One of the hallmarks of the Right Wing in relation to the GOP is that there is always a certain quid pro quo between the two sides: Some –ahem !– wingnut like Ralph Reed is out there floating one fucked-up extreme idea after another, scaring the shit out of moderate and liberal Democrats and confusing the general public, which gets most of its news spoon-fed to it by a Right-wing media anyway. Then the kinder, gentler face of someone like Shrub steps in to repackage the wingnuttery into something more palatable and “bipartisan.” The Democrats look fearfully over their shoulders and then cave. The Right Wing asks for everything with the absolute assurance that it will always get something under these circumstances.
The Leftists and liberals wed to the Democratic Party, OTOH, have long struck me personally as toothless and defeatist. The current election is no exception. Kerry hasn’t promised much of anything to feminists or the anti-war movement –for example– because he doesn’t have to. They were resigned from the beginning to voting for any Democrat the party machinery ground out, and so here we are. :(
If you read Baker’s columns, BTW, you’ll note that she doesn’t just talk about pleasing the unhappy-but-stuck-in-fearful-silence crowd of women that the Democrats already have in their pockets. She talks about using grassroots movements to mobilize millions of women who don’t bother to vote. I have never cared for the excuse of many Leftists and Liberals that the activist portion of the Democratic Party can’t do what the Ralph Reeds do because we don’t have a receptive audience. I think that’s ridiculous. Nobody dumps a ready-made base of citizens in an activist’s lap;She/We have to go out and find it.
And frankly, I’m cynical enough to doubt that people of Kerry’s class –or Heinz-Kerry’s or Bill or Hilary Clinton’s– really give two shits and a fuck from a personal standpoint whether or not Roe stays on the books. They and their children are wealthy, and the wealthy always have the option of flouting inconvenient laws when it suits them to. Their interest in Roe is borne of opportunism, condescension and the politics of fear. In that sense, they are indeed a lot like their counterparts on the Right.
“I’m frankly fed up with abortion, and threats to Roe, being used as a means to control women. It doesn’t really matter to me at this point which Party is doing it. They both are, and quite knowingly and cynically, I’d say.”
Sssshhhhh!! You’re supposed to go endlessly in circles, debating the details, not get to the point!
(BTW, that wasn’t in reference to any other people writing here, but to the politicians, etc. who keep throwing up abortion as a scare tactic.)
This is probably flamebait, but oh, well. . .
I’ll probably vote for Kerry because I think Bush fucked up this country just that badly. And I’d feel far more comfortable with him in office when it comes to abortion rights, sure.
But let’s face it–if the Dems continue to take people of color, women, and the poor for granted, you will see more and more voters going to third party candidates in future elections. There’s only so much of the “vote for me because I’m not the other guy” argument that I can take without rolling my eyes.
I think Ralph Nader is acting like a bitter, spoiled brat this election. But that doesn’t mean I’m also not pissed off at the attitude of many Dems from the last election who thought that liberals and progressives were obligated to vote for them. Candidates don’t have a right to our votes; they have to earn them. And they earn them by showing they will represent our interests. I was in agreement with a lot of progressives (and NOW, actually) when Clinton was in office–I was not enamoured of his policies (for example, welfare reform) which were nothing more than Republican policies in a tie-dyed shirt.
Thing is, if we want real progressives in office, and if we want people in office who will respect all aspects of reproductive rights, we have to start from the ground up. We can’t just wait for a princely President on a dashing steed to come rescue us. Besides, quite a lot of damage done to women’s rights–especially reproductive rights–has been done at the local/state level. Candidates always change their stance when they run for a major office (like, say, the Presidency) after they’ve done–or helped do–an alarming amount of damage. If we want any real power at all, we have to keep our eyes on who’s in office locally, as well as nationally. And we have to find and support candidates who speak to us locally, as well as nationally.
Thing is, if we want real progressives in office, and if we want people in office who will respect all aspects of reproductive rights, we have to start from the ground up. We can’t just wait for a princely President on a dashing steed to come rescue us.
Oy, Sheelzebub, were we disagreeing about this ? That wasn’t my intent. [slaps forehead]
Back to the original article — there was this quote: “They’ve done so much with outlawing and restricting access to abortion that they’ve set their sights on birth control because there’s nothing else really they can do to further restrict abortion here in Wisconsin.”
Technically true, but highly misleading. Thanks to pro-choice folks enforcing their values through the judiciary, there isn’t much that anyone CAN do with “outlawing and restricting access to abortion” in the first place. So while it may be true to say that there is “nothing else really they can do to further restrict abortion,” that isn’t because pro-lifers have done all that much, but because pro-choicers have been so successful at blocking the democratic process.
Sure, Joe. The Omnipotent Judiciary rules all. That’s why legal abortion is inaccessable in about 85% of the country.
Get lost.
Joe M:
Thanks to pro-choice folks enforcing their values through the judiciary, there isn’t much that anyone CAN do with “outlawing and restricting access to abortion” in the first place.
Anyone who seeks to outlaw or restrict abortion is perfectly free to use the political process to try and amend the Constitution, or to elect Presidents and Senators who will appoint and confirm judges whose views on abortion law are closer to their own. Since you’ve been trying to do just that for thirty years, and your efforts have been a miserable, abject failure, it’s pretty obvious that you don’t have even remotely enough popular support for your position to significantly change the law.
So while it may be true to say that there is “nothing else really they can do to further restrict abortion,” that isn’t because pro-lifers have done all that much, but because pro-choicers have been so successful at blocking the democratic process.
Utter nonsense. Pro-choicers cannot “block the democratic process.” You have been trying to use the democratic process to elect anti-abortion politicians, and you have failed, because you don’t have the support of the electorate.
Don P. — “you don’t have even remotely enough popular support for your position to significantly change the law.”
Well, why are pro-choicers so utterly intent on keeping Roe at all costs, then? If there isn’t “even remotely enough popular support” to change the law, then NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN if we got rid of Roe. Abortion would still be legal. Is their fixation on Roe just sheer paranoia and demagoguery?
Of course, we all know that the reason that they are afraid of overturning Roe is precisely because they know the electorate is much more pro-life than they are. There were 30 states and Congress that voted against partial-birth abortion, for one example.
You have been trying to use the democratic process to elect anti-abortion politicians, and you have failed, because you don’t have the support of the electorate.
Wrong again. Pro-lifers did help elect Ronald Reagan. And if Democrats hadn’t blocked Robert Bork, the Supreme Court would have overturned Roe by now. Again, pro-choicers knew that their success depended on blockading nominees so as to keep control over the judiciary at all costs. The last thing they wanted was to have a judiciary that allowed the “electorate” to express a democratic point of view here. Gee, I wonder why, if the electorate is so resoundingly on their side?
Oh, heck, Joe. Every time someone like you opens your mouth, I’m further convinced that there isn’t any such thing as paranoia when it comes to the Pro-Life movement. Your movement makes a ton of commotion and causes a ton of grief all over the country, wayyyy the hell out of proportion to its actual numbers.
I often think that it was short-sighted of the Pro-Choice movement to get so much of its hopes tied up in Roe, and by extension, the Supreme Court. But that’s 20-20 hindsight. When people feel besieged, they make the best decisions they can think of at the time, I suppose. (Which is the main reason I don’t really want to get into a shouting match with Kerry loyalists, a lot of whom are on this blog and whom I admire a lot in these discussions.)
However, the Pro-Life and the Pro-Choice movements are not equally powerful when set loose in the country with no restraint from the law. Here –for the millionth time– is why:
Even the most radical Pro-Choicer doesn’t go around forcing women who want babies to not have babies. Radical Pro-Choicers don’t bomb adoption centers or churches. They don’t assasinate Pro-Life doctors.
ON THE OTHER HAND:
The Pro-Life movement bases its whole raison-d’etre on its divine right to FORCE women who don’t want babies to have babies. Its attitude of divine right is EXACTLY what allows its extreme wing to wreak the kind of havoc it does, while its so-called centrist portion tut-tuts and feigns lack of understanding of why the fringe feel they can get away with wreaking said havoc.
That’s the difference between the two sides, Joe.
Oh, and don’t drag out the canard about China again. Pro-Choice women on this blog and many others have repeatedly condemned forced abortions. Pro-Choice women like myself have also condemned the cutthroat economic forces in this country that compells women who want to keep their babies to seek an abortion anyway. So don’t insult us by dragging that one out of your not-so-magicical bag of tricks again. Fascism is fascism, and fascists throughout history have been just as inclined to force women to give birth as they have been to force women into abortion. Control is control, though the means of control can vary with time, place, and culture.
Don’t know what you mean by the “canard about China again.” To my recollection, I’ve never mentioned China. Perhaps you have me confused with someone else.
Even the most radical Pro-Choicer doesn’t go around forcing women who want babies to not have babies. Radical Pro-Choicers don’t bomb adoption centers or churches. They don’t assasinate Pro-Life doctors.
Well, ok, but they DO defend or participate in the killing of millions of unborn babies. Now pro-choicers are always saying that they personally believe abortion is wrong, or that it should be “rare,” or that “no one is ‘pro-abortion,'” or that it is a necessary evil, or such things. But if abortion is even 1/1000th as wrong as killing an adult, then considering the total number of abortions over the past 30 years, the wrong done by pro-choicers is at least a thousand times worse than that done by crazy pro-lifers.
Well, excuse me, Joe. Just because you persist in elevating fetuses to the status of gods doesn’t mean that I have to. And since I refuse to do so, the rest of your alleged arguement is simply a steaming pile of excrement.
1. If Joe M. hasn’t adopted several children, AND drives a car worth more than $1,000.00, and either owns a house or rents a flat with more than 1 bedroom, he should consider himself part of the problem. We will excuse him if he is on 100% disability or some such.
2. All social movements need both people who work within the electoral system and more radical grassroots activists who work primarily in provision of services and education. The 1950s-1960s civil rights movement benefitted both from the Fanny Lou Hamers (she was a member of the Freedom Party rump delegation to the 1964 Dem convention) and the Joanne Robinsons (she was a behind-the-scenes organiser and carpool scheduler for the Montgomery bus boycott touched off by Rosa Parks) and the cultural workers such as the many singers (Bernice Johnson Reagon is probably the best known now, due to her post civil rights era work founding the a capella group Sweet Honey in the Rock).
If you actually read the words I wrote, I said that 40 million abortions adds up to an enormous amount of wrongdoing if abortion is “even 1/1000th as wrong as killing an adult.” To say that this is “elevating fetuses to the status of gods” is completely silly. If you wanted to be accurate, you could say, “Fetuses have a value of ZERO, and Joe is trying to elevate them to the status of 1/1000th of an adult.”
Do the math. Forget the question whether abortion should be illegal. Think about how the math works out if abortion is even a teensy-weensy bit wrong (as pro-choicers always insist when they say that abortion should be “rare,” or that “no one is in favor of abortion itself,” etc.) The only way that 40 million abortions doesn’t add up a horrible national tragedy is if you take the strict, fundamentalist line that there is NOTHING (zero) wrong with abortion whatsoever.
Take that position, if you like, but realize that the vast majority of people — even pro-choicers — disagree.
Joe M:
Well, why are pro-choicers so utterly intent on keeping Roe at all costs, then?
Because abortion is a constitutional right, and because some states may enact additional restrictions on abortion if Roe were overturned.
If there isn’t “even remotely enough popular support” to change the law, then NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN if we got rid of Roe.
No, if Roe were overturned, small changes to the law might happen at the national level, and larger changes would likely happen in some conservative states, primarily in the South.
Of course, we all know that the reason that they are afraid of overturning Roe is precisely because they know the electorate is much more pro-life than they are.
The electorate does not favor much stronger restrictions on abortion than those permitted under Roe. That is why your movement has been such a miserable failure at overturning Roe and enacting such restrictions, despite over three decades of trying. You just don’t have the support you need.
There were 30 states and Congress that voted against partial-birth abortion, for one example.
The Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, even if it were constitutional, would be unlikely to prevent even a single abortion. It is hard to see how you can seriously consider a law that would fail to prevent even a single one of the 1,000,000+ abortions that occur in America every year as a significant restriction on abortion. The fact that you attach so much importance to a law whose effect would be almost entirely symbolic is an indication of just how weak and modest the aspirations of the anti-abortion movement have become after 30 years of crushing defeat.
Wrong again. Pro-lifers did help elect Ronald Reagan.
It is not wrong. Ronald Reagan’s support for the anti-abortion movement, if he even really supported it at all, was weak and ineffectual. Reagan even nominated Sanda Day O’Connor, the sitting justice who is today most responsible for the reaffirmation and entrenchment of the right to abortion in constitutional law.
Grow up, Joe. I don’t have to play this game by your rules and I don’t have to judge your movement strictly by one post made by one person. When I look at how you personally and how other Pro-life men speak to women, how you speak about fetuses as the central “players” in the debate as if women were mere furniture, and –above all– how vindictive and cruel so many of the most radically pro-life states are to living, breathing babies, children, women and teens, I know that you are indeed making gods out of fetuses, at the expense of “post-born humans.”
In fact, I regret earlier having even conceded enough of this debate’s terms to you to have called any pro-Choicer a “radical.” I don’t actually think there IS any such creature. Even if I were to play along with your twisted little “what if” scenario, the fact is that I would under NO circumstances call on the law to force any woman, anywhere, to abort. Thus I could never, under any circumstances, be your “radical” counterpart. Period.
Joe M:
Well, ok, but they DO defend or participate in the killing of millions of unborn babies.
No, they defend or participate in the termination of pregnancies. There’s no such thing as an “unborn baby.”
Now pro-choicers are always saying that they personally believe abortion is wrong, or that it should be “rare,” or that “no one is ‘pro-abortion,'” or that it is a necessary evil, or such things. But if abortion is even 1/1000th as wrong as killing an adult, then considering the total number of abortions over the past 30 years, the wrong done by pro-choicers is at least a thousand times worse than that done by crazy pro-lifers.
The idea that morality is subject to that kind of crude arithmetical evaluation and comparison is stupid. You presumably also believe that many acts you consider immoral should nevertheless be legal, like lying, or committing adultery. Since such immoral acts happen billions of times a year, then by your own demented argument you have also done far more wrong by being “pro-choice” on them than have those who are pro-choice on abortion, even if the wrongness of each act of lying, adultery, etc., is only a minuscule fraction of that of abortion.
The sheer stupidity of the “arguments” you formulate in defense of your position never ceases to amaze me.
Joe M:
If you actually read the words I wrote, I said that 40 million abortions adds up to an enormous amount of wrongdoing if abortion is “even 1/1000th as wrong as killing an adult.”
Billiant. So give us your moral calculus for other kinds of supposed wrongdoing. How many acts of lying equals one act of abortion, morally speaking? 100? 1,000? 10,0000? A million? How many acts of fornication? How many acts of adultery? Gay sex? If you’re “pro-choice” on these other forms of supposed immorality, why aren’t you also “doing wrong” on a massive scale, a scale that dwarfs the supposed wrong of being pro-choice on abortion?
In fact, I regret earlier having even conceded enough of this debate’s terms to you to have called any pro-Choicer a “radical.” I don’t actually think there IS any such creature. Even if I were to play along with your twisted little “what if” scenario, the fact is that I would under NO circumstances call on the law to force any woman, anywhere, to abort. Thus I could never, under any circumstances, be your “radical” counterpart. Period.
You don’t get it — from the pro-life point of view (held by hundreds of millions of people), all pro-choicers are “radical,” because they support the killing of unborn babies.
Don P.: “because some states may enact additional restrictions on abortion if Roe were overturned.”
Yes, like I said, the electorate is more pro-life than pro-choice extremists would prefer. That is exactly why they have to keep Roe at all costs.
No, they defend or participate in the termination of pregnancies. There’s no such thing as an “unborn baby.”
Ah, playing semantic games again. What do you hope to accomplish? Even if everyone adopts the Latinate form of “baby,” people will just say that killing “fetuses” is a moral wrong.
Obviously it’s not true that there is “no such thing.” If we all sprang into existence fully grown, there would be no such thing as pregnancy, and people wouldn’t be clamoring for abortion. If unborn babies didn’t exist, it wouldn’t be possible (much less necessary) to get kill them, now would it?
Let it go, Don P. He’s never gonna’ haul his head out of the Kool-Aid vat, no matter how hard you try. :p
You don’t get it — from the pro-life point of view (held by hundreds of millions of people), all pro-choicers are “radical,” because they support the killing of unborn babies.
Well, that’s tough shit, Joe. I don’t. Yell as loud as you want, I’ll do what I please with my own body and you can do what you please with yours. That’s just the way it is.
Don P — you obviously didn’t read my post mentioning Robert Bork. Let me put it this way: If (1) O’Connor hadn’t completely changed her mind on abortion (when Reagan nominated her, she was pro-life, and even opposed Roe in one early case), and (2) either the Democrats hadn’t successfully blocked Bork, or Anthony Kennedy hadn’t changed his mind on abortion as well, and (3) if Souter had told the truth to the Republican powers-that-be about his beliefs, guess what would have happened? Roe would have been overturned 12 years ago (1992) by a 7 to 2 margin.
7 to 2. That’s what would have happened if the Democrats hadn’t blocked Bork, and if Republican nominees had been consistent to their original views (or in Souter’s case, truthful as to his beliefs).
That’s not a problem with the “electorate.” The real problem is that judges changed their minds so as to frustrate the electorate.
So fool yourself all you like about the electorate agreeing with you. Sooner or later, we are going to get Republican nominees who do what the electorate actually wants.
Yeah, Joe M., High Priest of the Fetuses, and Undisputed Oracle of the Electorate, proclaims that what everyone wants in America is more dead and injured women. Say hallelulah. Say amen.
So, Joe. How do you justify human’s imposing their “rights” on species that have become extinct? Are you saying that one human life is more valuable than an entire species?
Un.fucking.believable.
When you give up your car, give up all of your petroleum based products, stop using pesticides, and toilet bowl cleaner, when you grow your own food on what little land you might have, when you walk to work, or bike, when you re-establish habitat for species either endangered or not, then, *maybe* *maybe* then, you will have the “right” to your opinion.
Until then, it’s just not supportable.
Oh, and let’s not forget that Oracle Joe’s Electorate wants to see lots more women in the slammer, too !! Think of the boon to our flagging economy !! Yippee !!
Joe M:
from the pro-life point of view (held by hundreds of millions of people), all pro-choicers are “radical,” because they support the killing of unborn babies.
Which just shows how utterly disconnected from reality you, and others who hold “the pro-life point of view” are. A broad legal right to abortion now exists in virtually every industrialized democracy in the world. It is utterly ludicrous to claim that this position is “radical.”
Yes, like I said, the electorate is more pro-life than pro-choice extremists would prefer.
No, that’s not what you said. You said that the electorate is much more pro-life than “pro-choicers” are. The fact that some states would enact additional restrictions on abortion if Roe were overturned does not support your claim. The reason your movement has been such a spectacular failure is that only a minority of Americans support it.
Ah, playing semantic games again.
No, you’re the one who’s playing games. There’s no such thing as an “unborn baby.” A baby comes into existence at birth.
Even if everyone adopts the Latinate form of “baby,” people will just say that killing “fetuses” is a moral wrong.
But you don’t say that, precisely because you seek to create the false impression that a fetus is the same thing as a baby.
Obviously it’s not true that there is “no such thing.”
No, obviously, it is true.
If we all sprang into existence fully grown, there would be no such thing as pregnancy, and people wouldn’t be clamoring for abortion.
We don’t “spring into existence fully grown.” A person begins to exist at birth. Our law and culture have always treated birth as the beginning of a person’s life.
If unborn babies didn’t exist, it wouldn’t be possible (much less necessary) to get kill them, now would it?
It isn’t possible to kill “unborn babies” because there’s no such thing as an “unborn baby.” There are babies, which by definition are born, and there are fetuses, which by definition are not.
Joe M:
Don P — you obviously didn’t read my post mentioning Robert Bork.
Of course I read it. That’s the post I was responding to. Bork is irrelevant. Reagan knew that Bork’s confirmation was virtually certain to fail. He only nominated Bork to throw some red meat to his conservative religious base. People like you. And you bought it hook, line and sinker.
Let me put it this way: If (1) O’Connor hadn’t completely changed her mind on abortion (when Reagan nominated her, she was pro-life, and even opposed Roe in one early case),
There is absolutely no indication that O’Connor did not believe that abortion was a constitutional right at the time of her nomination and confirmation. She was and is a centrist, and that’s why Reagan chose to nominate her and the Senate agreed to confirm her.
and (2) either the Democrats hadn’t successfully blocked Bork,
They didn’t “block” Bork, they voted not to confirm him, in accordance with the power and duty delegated to them by the Constitution. A number of Republican Senators also voted against Bork.
or Anthony Kennedy hadn’t changed his mind on abortion as well, and (3) if Souter had told the truth to the Republican powers-that-be about his beliefs, guess what would have happened? Roe would have been overturned 12 years ago (1992) by a 7 to 2 margin.
There is no indication that Kennedy “changed his mind” or that Souter lied. Not that it would be relevant even if Kennedy had done that. You are making things up because you just refuse to accept the fact that popular opinion, legislative opinion and judicial opinion all strongly oppose significant additional restrictions on abortion, let alone any kind of general criminal ban, which is the fanatical, extreme, unprecedented position you and your fellow anti-abortion fanatics advocate.
So fool yourself all you like about the electorate agreeing with you. Sooner or later, we are going to get Republican nominees who do what the electorate actually wants.
The electorate doesn’t want significant additional restrictions on abortion. That’s why your movement has been such an abject failure for over 30 years.
“Abject failure” — you use this term quite often. I do not think it means what you think it means. If our movement was really a failure, you (and your type) wouldn’t be so hysterical about the mere possibility of that abortion might someday be put to a democratic vote.
Anyway:
Evidence that Reagan nominated Bork with the knowledge that the nomination would fail: Zero.
Evidence that O’Connor was a pro-choicer: Zero.
On my side, however:
Evidence that O’Connor was actually pro-life: Several early votes, including her 1983 dissent in a case involving a 24-hour waiting period, where she said that Roe was “on a collision course with itself.”
Evidence that Kennedy too changed his mind: The fact that he actually switched his vote in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992. He started out as the 5th vote to overturn Roe, and then switched to being the 5th vote to uphold it. This isn’t even in question; no use trying to pretend that “there is no indication” that Kennedy changed his mind.
Which movement is the “abject failure”: The one that has the majority of women and more young people than ever on its side? Or the one whose successes are mostly due to the fact that 2 or 3 lawyers who happened to be on the Supreme Court changed their minds after being nominated, thereby allowing the movement to maintain its anti-democratic stranglehold on the issue?
Go ahead, though: Keep telling yourself that everyone agrees with you.
Joe M:
“Abject failure” — you use this term quite often. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I think it means exactly what I think it means.
If our movement was really a failure, you (and your type) wouldn’t be so hysterical about the mere possibility of that abortion might someday be put to a democratic vote.
We’re not “hysterical” about it. We strongly believe that abortion is a constitutional right. By your ridiculous argument, no one should care about any constitutional right unless the right were in serious jeopardy of being denied through majoritarian politics.
Evidence that Reagan nominated Bork with the knowledge that the nomination would fail: Zero.
Utter nonsense. Bork probably had the biggest paper trail of extreme conservative political and judicial views of any Supreme Court nominee in history. He was widely known to be one of most conservative jurists in America. The idea that Reagan didn’t know this, or didn’t know that it would make confirmation by a Democratic-controlled Senate virtually impossible, is laughable. Of course Reagan knew it.
Evidence that O’Connor was a pro-choicer: Zero.
I don’t need to provide evidence that she was a “pro-choicer” when she was nominated and confirmed. We know that she is a “pro-choicer” now. You are the one claiming that she adopted this position only after she was confirmed, so you assume the burden of proving that claim. Where is your proof?
Evidence that O’Connor was actually pro-life: Several early votes, including her 1983 dissent in a case involving a 24-hour waiting period, where she said that Roe was “on a collision course with itself.”
You are hopelessly confused. That opinion is not evidence that O’Connor has changed her mind on whether abortion is a constitutional right. She believed then, and still believes now, that the trimester-based framework of Roe is flawed and that the proper standard for evaluating the constitutionality of abortion restrictions is the “undue burden” standard.
Joe M:
Which movement is the “abject failure”:
Yours, obviously. Abortion has been available on demand in America (formally during the first two trimesters, and effectively during the final trimester) for over 30 years. It is hard to think of a surviving political movement in America that has a worse record of failure than yours. And you have failed not only in this country, but at the global level as well. The undeniable global trend of the past several decades has been to reduce retrictions on abortion, not increase them. Your movement is dying. It has lost virtually every significant political and legal battle it has engaged in. You just refuse to acknowledge it.
The one that has the majority of women and more young people than ever on its side?
Your movement doesn’t have a majority of women or more young people than ever on its side.
It is ridiculous to claim that Reagan nominated Bork with the intent or even the suspicion that the nomination might fail. (And what do you hope to gain? Really? What’s at stake by pretending that Bork was intended to fail?)
Anyway, the Senate had voted 98-0 to confirm Scalia just two years before, and Bork had voted with Scalia something like 99% of the time while they were on the appeals court together. He didn’t have a “paper trail” anything like you say — his main work was in antitrust law. (His many conservative books were all written AFTER his rejection by the Senate.) No one could have predicted that the Democrats would go all-out to block him.
Again, the fact that he was rejected was not a reflection of democracy, but of the pro-abortion side’s FEAR of democracy.
Don P., you are a liar. I know that you know about the polls, because I recall discussing them with you before. But let’s review:
1. Women: The liberal Center for the Advancement of Women found that 51% of American women are against abortion in all circumstances or with exceptions only for rape/incest/life of the woman.
2. Young people: More pro-life than ever, according to polls from UCLA, the New York Times, CBS, Zogby, Gallup, and more. Honest pro-choicers will admit that they are very worried about this trend. Read articles about this trend here, here, here, here, here, or here.
As I’ve said before, a movement based entirely around killing one’s offspring isn’t exactly designed for cross-generational success.
Joe M:
It is ridiculous to claim that Reagan nominated Bork with the intent or even the suspicion that the nomination might fail. (And what do you hope to gain? Really? What’s at stake by pretending that Bork was intended to fail?)
You are hopelessly naive. Politicians routinely engage in political acts that they know to have little or no chance of substantive success, and that they don’t even want to succeed, in order to curry favor with some segment or other of the electorate. In this instance, Reagan nominated Bork to shore up his bona fides with his religious conservative base.
Anyway, the Senate had voted 98-0 to confirm Scalia just two years before, and Bork had voted with Scalia something like 99% of the time while they were on the appeals court together.
Scalia’s conservatism wasn’t as clear or as extreme as Bork’s, and Scalia’s appointment did not change the balance of opinion on the court in the way that Bork’s would have. If Bork had been nominated in Scalia’s place, and Scalia in Bork’s, then Bork might be on the court today instead of Scalia.
He didn’t have a “paper trail” anything like you say — his main work was in antitrust law.
Yes he did. That’s why Ted Kennedy and other Democrats were able to pummel Bork so hard and so successfully during the confirmation hearings.
Again, the fact that he was rejected was not a reflection of democracy, but of the pro-abortion side’s FEAR of democracy.
No, the fact that Bork was rejected is a reflection of his extreme conservatism, not only on abortion but on all sorts of other issues too.
Scalia’s conservatism wasn’t as clear or as extreme as Bork’s.
Not true. If you think Bork had a paper trail that was significantly more “conservative” than Scalia’s, prove it. Name the articles or books in question.
Joe M:
Don P., you are a liar.
No, Joe M, you are a liar. And a fanatic and a moron as well.
1. Women: The liberal Center for the Advancement of Women found that 51% of American women are against abortion in all circumstances or with exceptions only for rape/incest/life of the woman.
This nonsense again. Abortion polling is notoriously sensitive to the wording of the question, to current events at the time the poll is taken, to the criteria used to select the poll sample, and to other aspects of methodology. For this reason, you cannot draw reliable conclusions about the state of public opinion from any one poll result. You have to look at the totality of the data. The overwhelming consensus from hundreds of polls conducted over the past 30 years is that public opinion on abortion has remained virtually constant over that period. There are short-term fluctuations. There are inconsistencies between individual polls. There are peaks and dips associated with high-profile abortion cases or issues. But the overall pattern is that a large majority of Americans support a broad right to abortion.
But of course you cannot accept this, so you cherry-pick the polls that, you think, can be interpreted as supporting your point of view, and ignore the mountain of data that shows otherwise.
Here is a good overview of abortion polling data illustrating the points I make above.
Problems:
1. You present absolutely no reason why the Center for the Advancement of Women would have designed a question that elicited pro-life responses. Nor is there any reason to think that. They simply asked women in what circumstances they would allow abortion. 51% said either never, or only in cases of rape/incest/life of the mother.
2. Your own citation has nothing to do with how the younger generation feels about abortion. Again, see my articles and the many polls discussed therein. (And again, honest pro-choicers find it very troubling that the younger generation is turning against them.)
3. Isn’t it convenient how you always argue? You’re so full of bombastic pronouncements that the electorate overwhelmingly agrees with you, that the other side is an “abject failure” because no one agrees with it, that pro-lifers haven’t made any progress in 30 years, etc., etc. But as soon as someone cites half a dozen polls proving you wrong, you immediately start blathering about how you can’t trust polls anyway, blah, blah, blah.
Joe M:
If you think Bork had a paper trail that was significantly more “conservative” than Scalia’s, prove it. Name the articles or books in question.
You just have no clue, do you? Bork had been a federal judge, a Yale law professor, and the Solicitor General of the United States prior to his nomination to the high court. He was also well known for his outspokenness and blunt style. He had a paper trail of hundreds of published opinions, legal briefs, law review articles and other documents attesting to his extreme conservatism. That is why he was so easy to defeat.
I know what Bork had been and what he had done (you forgot that he had also been a partner at a major law firm). Indeed, his virtually unparalleled resume is precisely what made the Reagan administration think that he would be easy to confirm.
But anyway, the inference from your post is obvious: You don’t have a clue what Bork had actually written (either in legal scholarship or in judicial opinions), let alone how that compares to anything that Scalia had written. You have absolutely no evidence that he was more “conservative” than Scalia.
Joe M:
1. You present absolutely no reason why the Center for the Advancement of Women would have designed a question that elicited pro-life responses. Nor is there any reason to think that. They simply asked women in what circumstances they would allow abortion. 51% said either never, or only in cases of rape/incest/life of the mother.
As I already told you, you cannot draw reliable conclusions about the state of public opinion from a single poll, regardless of its findings. In the case of that particular poll, there are all sorts of indications that its findings are not representative of the opinions of American women. 56% of respondents identified themselves as married, and 45% as born-again or evangelical Christians, indicating that the poll sample overrepresented those conservative-leaning categories. In addition, lack of internal consistency in the polls findings also casts doubt on the reliability of its results. For example, combining the findings on support for various types of abortion restriction with the 41% of respondents who stated that abortion rights should be a top priority for the women’s movement indicates that at least 19% of respondents oppose abortion but think abortion rights should be a priority of the women’s movement.
You seize on this one poll, and engage in similar cherry-picking of other polls, because you are so desperate to find any support for your views at all. You ignore the mass of polling data that contradicts your view.
2. Your own citation has nothing to do with how the younger generation feels about abortion. Again, see my articles and the many polls discussed therein. (And again, honest pro-choicers find it very troubling that the younger generation is turning against them.)
Your claims about attitudes to abortion amoung younger Americans suffers from the same defects as your claims about the attitudes of women. You are cooking the books. You are cherry-picking your data. You are grasping at straws that support what you want to believe is true and ignoring everything else.
3. Isn’t it convenient how you always argue? You’re so full of bombastic pronouncements that the electorate overwhelmingly agrees with you, that the other side is an “abject failure” because no one agrees with it,
Polling data and voting records show overwhelmingly that a large majority of Americans support a broad right to abortion. And the abject failure of your movement lies in its complete lack success in passing even modest additional restrictions on abortion. The Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act is a clear example. You have spent the better part of a decade, and tens of millions of dollars, trying to pass a law that is clearly unconstitutional and that would be unlikely to prevent even a single abortion even if it were valid. This is a measure of just how crushing your defeat has been. Any kind of significant, substantive rollback of abortion rights isn’t even on your radar screen, because you haven’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of passing such a law. So you fiddle around with meaningless symbolic measures like the PBA ban.
But as soon as someone cites half a dozen polls proving you wrong,
What “half a dozen polls proving I’m wrong?” Where are they? Produce them. Again, the overwhelming finding from an analysis of hundreds of polls, and from actual voter behavior, is that a majority of Americans support a broad right to abortion, and have done so for at least the past 30 years.
Joe M:
You don’t have a clue what Bork had actually written (either in legal scholarship or in judicial opinions), let alone how that compares to anything that Scalia had written. You have absolutely no evidence that he was more “conservative” than Scalia.
It’s as if you can’t even read. I just told you what Bork had written–hundreds of legal briefs, law review articles and opinions from the bench spelling out his extreme conservative judicial and social beliefs. Scalia’s paper trail wasn’t remotely as large or clear as Bork’s. And as I said, it wasn’t just a matter of their published work, it was also the fact that Bork’s confirmation would have dramatically tilted the balance of the court towards the conservatives.
You are cooking the books. You are cherry-picking your data.
Unlike you, I actually HAVE data regarding the attitudes of the younger generation towards abortion. You have ZERO. If you had anything to the contrary, you’d have mentioned it by now.
What “half a dozen polls proving I’m wrong?” Where are they? Produce them.
I refer you to the many links in my previous post on this subject. They all demonstrate that the younger generation isn’t as pro-choice as older folks, much to the worry of pro-choicers who don’t have their heads stuck in the sand.
[Yawn.] Not to interrupt your pissing match, Fellas’, but please allow me to state that I don’t give two shits and a fuck whether it’s several billion Americans who favor legalized abortions or several dozen. It should still be legal. Period.
It’s as if you can’t even read. I just told you what Bork had written–hundreds of legal briefs, law review articles and opinions from the bench spelling out his extreme conservative judicial and social beliefs. Scalia’s paper trail wasn’t remotely as large or clear as Bork’s.
You’re one to talk about not being able to read. I asked you for specifics once. I’ll ask again: NAME the SPECIFIC articles/books/opinions that would have given ANYONE a clue that Bork was more conservative than Scalia. Good luck finding any specific judicial opinions, given that Scalia and Bork agreed with EACH OTHER the vast majority of the time, so those opinions couldn’t POSSIBLY show that Bork was different from Scalia. As for books, again, every single one of Bork’s conservative books came in the 1990s and 2000s, NOT before his nomination. As for articles — well, we’re still waiting for you to produce even a single citation of anything that either Scalia or Bork wrote, let alone how their articles compare to each other.
Geez. Why do you spend so much effort on furiously denying the obvious fact that Reagan sincerely nominated Bork? There is absolutely no evidence that Reagan intended Bork to fail as a nominee, and I’ve never heard of anyone on Earth who thought that. Is it pride on your part? Once you’ve uttered a total B.S. statement, you somehow feel compelled to defend it to the death? What’s the point?
An example of how easy it is to make polls say what you want them to say if you cherry-pick the data:
ABC News/Washington Post, May 2004: 54% of Americans think abortion should be legal in all cases or most cases. This is an increase from 49% in August 2001.
Fox News/Opinion Dynamics, April 2004: 44% of Americans describe themselves as pro-choice. This is an increase from 42% in 1999.
NBC News/Wall Street Journal, January 2003: 59% of Americans think the choice to abort should be between a woman and her doctor. This is an increase from 56% in 1996.
CNN/USA Today/Gallup, October 2003: 26% believe that abortion should be legal under all circumstances. Up from 23% in May 2003.
Time/CNN, January 2003: 39% believe that abortion should always be legal. Up from 35% in January 2001.
Fox News/Opinion Dynamics, January 2002: Only 26% want to overturn Roe v. Wade. Down from 30% in 1998
Gallup, January 2002: 19% want abortion laws to become less strict. Up from 17% in January 2001.
CNN/USA Today/Gallup, August 2001: 52% describe themselves as pro-choice. Up from 47% in 2000. 39% describe themselves as pro-life. Down from 45% in 2000.
Joe M:
I refer you to the many links in my previous post on this subject. They all demonstrate that the younger generation isn’t as pro-choice as older folks, much to the worry of pro-choicers who don’t have their heads stuck in the sand.
You’re hilarious. It took me about 5 minutes to find the following with Google:
“However, young [18-29] Americans’ views on abortion are similar to the national average.” –Gallup, November 2003
“But a substantial majority [of 18-29 year-olds] , 60 percent, say they agree with the Roe v. Wade decision while only 38 percent disagree.” –Newsweek/MSNBC, January 2004
Even organizations in your own movement find strong support for abortion rights amoung young Americans:
“Age played a significant role in determining the attitudes of those polled on the issues of sodomy and abortion, where young adults (18 to 29) were much more likely than those 65 years or older to consider them morally acceptable options.” –Lifesite.net, June 2004.
I ‘m not sure I get into this, since I know very little about the polls, nominations etc. But, in the end wasn’t it Bork’s “inkblot” theory about the 9th amendment that caused people to decide his views were extreme? (That is, he basicaly said the 9th amendment means nothing whatsoever, which people took some exception to?)
inkblot theory
Scalia never wrote anything quite as explicit. (Although, he seems to have an interesting theory about the9th amendement — but I don’t think he had revealed it before the nomination.)
Lucia:
It wasn’t just inkblot. Bork basically rejected almost the entire body of 20th century constitutional law as fundamentally flawed. Scalia has never come close to Bork’s “original intent” fundamentalism. Amoung other things, Bork bitterly opposed both the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. He further claimed that the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. He claimed that a poll tax that effectively disenfranchises the poor is constiutional. He claimed that racially restrictive deed covenants are constitutional. He claimed that the First Amendment protects only explicitly political speech (so that states may constitutionally ban, for example, religious speech, or artistic speech, or scientific speech). He claimed that there is no constitutional right to privacy, and that every single decision upholding that right in various contexts (the right to teach your children a foreign language, the right to buy and use contraceptives, etc.) is invalid. No other contemporary nominee has come close to Bork’s conservative judicial extremism. That is why his nomination was defeated by the largest margin ever for a Supreme Court nominee, 58-42.
I never thought I’d look back on the days of Bork’s rejection as some kind of “good old days” for the Democrats. :(
I never thought I’d look back on the days of Bork’s rejection as some kind of “good old days” for the Democrats. :(
Me either, alsis, but the Reagan years were a cakewalk compared to these current administration asshats. :-b
“However, young [18-29] Americans’ views on abortion are similar to the national average.” –Gallup, November 2003
Could be, but what has pro-choicers worried is that they expect college-age people to be more liberal than older people, whereas college-age people today are more pro-life than that cohort was 10 or 15 years ago.
“But a substantial majority [of 18-29 year-olds] , 60 percent, say they agree with the Roe v. Wade decision while only 38 percent disagree.” –Newsweek/MSNBC, January 2004
Remember what you said about paying attention to what questions are asked? Start doing that. Asking people whether they support Roe is meaningless when a lot of people seem to think that Roe doesn’t even allow abortion after the first trimester.
“Age played a significant role in determining the attitudes of those polled on the issues of sodomy and abortion, where young adults (18 to 29) were much more likely than those 65 years or older to consider them morally acceptable options.” –Lifesite.net, June 2004.
That’s an article about a Gallup poll from earlier this year. Here’s a more detailed article about the latest Gallup poll (and more) that explains why prochoicers are worried (it’s because younger people today are more pro-life than younger people of earlier generations):
There’s more.
Concerning Bork’s view on Griswold, to which Don P. alluded: Republican essayist Renata Adler takes credit for having helped to stop Bork by pointing out in a New Yorker article the Bork opinion arguing that if a community could ban water pollution, it could ban contraceptives. According to Adler’s piece, Bork had written, “The two rights [to assurance that your water is clean and that your neighbors are not using contraceptives] are the same.”
Joe M:
Could be, but what has pro-choicers worried is that they expect college-age people to be more liberal than older people,
College-age people are generally more liberal than older people.
… whereas college-age people today are more pro-life than that cohort was 10 or 15 years ago.
There’s no credible evidence to support that assertion. As I said, you are cherry-picking the data that supports what you want to believe is true and ignoring everything else. Poll results that appear to show an increase in pro-life sentiment amoung younger Americans are likely to be a reflection of the kind of biases I described earlier. An obvious bias for younger Americans is the fact that public discussion of abortion law over the past decade, the period during which today’s college-age poll respondents became adults, has been dominated by the issue of “partial birth” abortion, so younger Americans have come to associate that procedure with abortion in general to a much greater degree than older Americans. That association is likely to color their responses to abortion polling questions. If the image that comes to mind when a poll respondent is asked about abortion is that of a doctor sticking a pair of scissors into a fetus’s head, it’s hardly surprising that he would exhibit a greater degree of pro-life sentiment than a respondent who has a different (and more accurate) picture of the kind of medical procedure involved in a typical abortion.
Remember what you said about paying attention to what questions are asked? Start doing that. Asking people whether they support Roe is meaningless when a lot of people seem to think that Roe doesn’t even allow abortion after the first trimester.
You’re the one who needs to pay more attention to the questions because you’re the one who is making the false assumption that reliable conclusions about the state of public opinion on abortion can be drawn from the results of one or two polls. Yes, a lot of people don’t know the first thing about Roe v Wade. A lot of people don’t know the first thing about abortion, period. They don’t know that only a minuscule fraction of abortions are “partial birth” abortions. They don’t know that almost 90% of abortions are performed in the first trimester of pregnancy. They don’t know the nature of the medical or life circumstances that attend most late-term abortions. They don’t know anything about the physical or mental characteristics of a fetus at various stages of pregnancy. That, again, is why polling data needs to be treated skeptically, and why reliable conclusions about the state of public opinion can only be drawn from an analysis of a significant body of polling data that allows confounding factors to be minimized.
The fundamental problem with your appeals to polls is that you assume that poll results that appear to favor your position (such as results that appear to show greater levels of pro-life belief amoung younger people) reflect the carefully considered views of informed subjects, untainted by propaganda or methodological bias, and that poll results that conflict with your position (such as results that show persistent high levels of support for Roe) reflect ignorance or conditioning by the media or whatever.
Joe M:
Your quote from the Gallup representative supports what I just said. Gallup found a “slight” drop in support for abortion that coincided with the national debate over “partial birth” abortion, a period during which the discussion of abortion in the media has been dominated by images and descriptions of late-term abortions and abortions that involve a gruesome procedure. This suggests that that slight drop is likely to reflect a reaction against that particular procedure rather than a change in attitudes to abortion more generally.
And this is why, of course, your movement goes out of its way to present a false image of abortion, to exaggerate the number of late-term abortions, to try and create the false impression that “partial birth” abortions are common. You can’t win on the facts, you know you can’t win on the facts, so you try to gain ground through deception and manipulation. But even that hasn’t gotten you anywhere. The “partial birth” issue is spent, and I don’t see what you’re going to replace it with.
There’s no credible evidence to support that assertion.
Saying something isn’t the same as demonstrating it. As of yet, you haven’t said one word about any of the polls I cited and linked from UCLA, Gallup, NY Times, CBS, etc., that all supported what I’m saying about the younger generation.
Your modus operandi: Claim that the public really supports you. When polls show otherwise, ignore those polls at all costs, or claim that polls can’t be trusted.
The Republicans are in the middle of trying to pass a law to deny women emergency medical services. They’ve got it through Congress and now it goes to the Senate.
Joe M:
As of yet, you haven’t said one word about any of the polls I cited and linked from UCLA, Gallup, NY Times, CBS, etc., that all supported what I’m saying about the younger generation.
Those polls do not support your claims about the younger generation. I described some of the problems with your “interpretation” of polling data, including polls focusing on the attitudes of younger Americans towards abortion, at some length in my last two posts. I suggest you read them. Carefully.
Joe M:
Your modus operandi: Claim that the public really supports you. When polls show otherwise, ignore those polls at all costs, or claim that polls can’t be trusted.
The public does share my view of abortion. The public utterly rejects your view of abortion. The link I provided earlier summarizes the results of 24 separate abortion polls from reputable polling organizations. They are a sample drawn from hundreds of similar polls that have been conducted in the three decades since Roe v. Wade. Some of these polls have been tracking public opinion on abortion every year since the 1970s. The overwhelmingly clear pattern demonstrated by this polling data is that a majority of Americans support a broad legal right to abortion, and have done so for at least twenty to thirty years. This conclusion is also overwhelmingly supported by the results of state ballot propositions and referenda on abortion, and by the abject failure of the anti-abortion movement to achieve any of its political goals.
You’ve been defeated in America. You’ve been defeated in Canada. You’ve been defeated in Europe. You’ve been defeated in Australia and Japan and Russia. You’ve been defeated virtually everywhere. The only countries that still impose draconian legal restrictions on abortion are certain dictatorships, theocracies and a handful of industrial democracies in which the Catholic Church still exercises considerable influence, such as Ireland and Poland. And even those countries are under increasing pressure to relax their abortion laws. The overwhelmingly clear global trend is towards greater access to legal abortion.
It’s over, Joe. You’ve lost. You’re on the wrong side of history. You’re on the wrong side of justice. You’re on the wrong side of morality. You’re the last gasp of a repressive religious sexual and reproductive doctrine. You’re destined for the garbage heap of history, just like the the supporters of slavery and segregation and gender discrimination before you.
The public utterly rejects your view of abortion.
Why do you have to lie? “Utterly rejects”? The many polls you cite show that 40 to 50 percent of the public is on my side. Is that “utterly” rejecting? I don’t think so. What drives this psychotic need to claim that everyone agrees with you?
And once again, you don’t have any specific response to the numerous polls showing that younger people are more pro-life than ever. Just sheer denial and obfuscation.
It’s no surprise that younger people are more pro-life than younger people twenty years ago, given that your movement is dedicated to killing its own offspring. Eventually you’ll die, as will everyone around here who brags about never wanting children. The people who leave behind 5 or 6 kids? They’re all pro-lifers.
alsis, I didn’t mean to imply that you were a wingnut. But I still have a cramp from watching a handful of feminists with influence take the bait during the Clinton fiasco and consider whether or not it was right to support an adulterer, especially one who slept with someone with so much less power than he had. It was standard at that time for conservatives to run around baiting feminists with the whole thing–luckily, it didn’t stick because the bait was based on the idea that feminists a)hate sex and b)use the movement as payback to get at men, both of which are wrong.
Okay, “cozying up” was the wrong, wrong, wrong term to use. “Making allies” is correct. And yes, there has been plenty of reluctance from potential allies, reluctance that can be countered by offering cooperation and making demands. And I do tend to think that 3rd parties are a tool that can be used to make demands, but one that should only be used if it’s advantageous to women as a whole. Splitting the vote and giving Republicans all sorts of power is not going to help, but actually hurt women. We’re playing defense now, so we have to hold together alliances until the real enemy, which is those who are actively trying to get rid of rights, is defeated.
So, yeah, I know that prominent wealthy Democrats aren’t going to suffer personally if abortion is criminalized. So? We need to judge them on what they *do* about women’s rights, what their votes are. I’m just not going to let our precarious hold on gains in reproductive rights, among others, slip away while we fight for more leverage.
The people who leave behind 5 or 6 kids? They’re all pro-lifers.
So 5-6 kids is the cutoff? Those of us who have 3-4, or even (horrors!) only 2, we’re what–sort of pro-lifey?
We’re playing defense now, so we have to hold together alliances until the real enemy, which is those who are actively trying to get rid of rights, is defeated.
Well, that’s my whole trouble, Amanda. I’ve been watching Democrats “play defense” for the past twenty years, and little else. It seems like every election is supposed to be the last one where we have to play mop-up squad before getting back to the REAL business of setting our own agenda and demanding from our own party all the things we really want and have long been entitled to. I have become convinced that we’ll simply go around like this in circles forever until we can make some move toward overhauling the system from the ground up.
It’s true enough that things are going to get shittier and shittier for more and more women, from a wider and wider class spectrum, as the Repugs keep pushing harder and harder and the Democrats simply cower more and more. But things were getting worse anyway. Baker was right, the main difference is that when they get worse under Democrats, the big groups like NOW want us to all put on a smilie face and pretend things are great. It is only when they get worse under Republicans that we are authorized to go into attack mode.
We need to judge them on what they *do* about women’s rights, what their votes are.
Well, that’s my problem, Amanda. I AM judging them on what they DO and how they vote. There has long been a strong 5th Column of Conservative Democrats who routinely cross the aisle to vote with Republicans on abortion and social issues involving women. Everyone can get worked up about Zell Miller, but he’s only an especially noisy example of this. These people are constantly undermining us, and the Democrats in charge are seemingly too busy harranguing the scant handful of N*d*r voters to care very much.
My observation of how Democrats behave when they’re in power, of eight years of Clinton and especially how certain feminist leaders have allowed themselves to be employed as attack dogs against Leftist insurrections and departures from wihtin the Democratic –ahem !– “Big Tent” tells me that there really are a great many manipulators amongst the “good guys” using abortion quite cynically as a means of holding the women’s movement hostage.
It’s like going to a physician with a leg wound and having said physician sew you up with dirty thread. Yeah, you can walk, sort of, but the person who was supposed to heal you has rigged it so you can never be free of them. You will have to keep returning for more and more help in the future. You will never be independent and you will always be limping instead of running, when you had every right to the latter.
If you ask me, that is how the average Democrat in power treats abortion. Women have demonstrated repeatedly that we will put off every other aspiration we have ever had and throw over the side every other social issue of value just for the chance to preseve one Supreme Court ruling. And it’s a ruling that, thanks to the folks who were supposed to defend us being outmaneuvered/bullied by Right Wing pitbulls and being seduced and corrupted by Big Money, is of considerably less use than it once was.
I understand the fear of rank-and-file women, but I just won’t participate in this farce anymore. I won’t be held hostage by fear. We need a 3rd, 4th, a 5th party in this country. We need IRV. We need the electoral college overhauled, perhaps. We need campaign finance reform. We need a damn women’s party. We need to stop being guilt-tripped by the thought that this is “divisive.” The Democratic leadership idea of what constitutes “unity” is little better than a sort of happy-face serfdom at this point, with feminists, union members, POCs and so many others functioning as the serfs. It makes me sick.
[Drift:]The first President to slap a restriction on Roe was a Democrat: Jimmy Carter.[/Drift]
Joe M:
Why do you have to lie?
I’m not lying. You are.
“Utterly rejects”?
Yes, utterly rejects.
The many polls you cite show that 40 to 50 percent of the public is on my side.
No they don’t. “Your side” is not only rejected by a large majority of Americans today, but has always been rejected. Even back when abortion was a crime, it was never treated as the killing of a child. Your position is so extreme, so radical, it is unprecedented in American law and culture.
I don’t think so. What drives this psychotic need to claim that everyone agrees with you?
I have never claimed that “everyone” agrees with me. What drives this psychotic need of yours to continually lie about what I have said?
And once again, you don’t have any specific response to the numerous polls showing that younger people are more pro-life than ever.
As I already told you, I provided you with a very detailed and specific response in my posts of 7:23pm and 7:42pm yesterday.
And by the way, the Gallup polling data that you yourself cited yesterday, showing that the highest rate of pro-choice identification occurs amoung 18-29 year-old women, flatly contradicts your previous claim that younger Americans are more pro-life than older ones.
It’s no surprise that younger people are more pro-life than younger people twenty years ago, given that your movement is dedicated to killing its own offspring. Eventually you’ll die, as will everyone around here who brags about never wanting children. The people who leave behind 5 or 6 kids? They’re all pro-lifers.
This may come as a shock to you Joe, but you’re also going to die eventually, as will “everyone who brags about” wanting 5 or 6 kids.
As for birth rates, abortion has been legal throughout the U.S. for over 30 years and in the largest states for longer than that. If pro-lifers were having more children than pro-choicers, and children tended to inherit the views of their parents on abortion, then we would see a steady increase in opposition to abortion over time. No such trend is evident.
The absurdity of your argument is even more apparent if one considers other issues, such as contraception or gay rights. If religious and social conservatives tend to have more children than Americans in general, and children tend to inherit the views of their parents, why have we not seen a steady decline in support for gay rights, abortion rights, contraception, pre-marital sex, divorce and other “liberal” social views? On virtually every social issue, the conservative position is in decline and the liberal view is on the rise.
You’re an anachronism, Joe, a dinosaur. And you don’t even realize it.
Oh, I know there’s a lot more to it than mere reproductive success (which obviously favors pro-lifers). That’s just one factor.
You must be confused if you think that your link to a Gallup poll is remotely relevant here. What I said was that young people TODAY are more pro-life than young people YESTERDAY. That’s what all the polls show, and that’s exactly what most sentient pro-choicers are worried about. (I linked to this article once before: “Last fall UCLA found that 55 percent of freshmen at more than 400 schools said abortion should be legal, down from 64 percent a decade earlier.” Try reading the other links as well.)
So it is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to point to a poll allegedly showing that young people are more pro-choice than elderly people. That has always been true. People grow more pro-life as they grow up, have children for themselves, realize that life is about helping other people, etc., etc. This is exactly why sentient pro-choicers are worried: If the youngsters of today are just barely on their side, that implies that the country is only going to get more and more pro-life as they grow older.
Joe M:
Oh, I know there’s a lot more to it than mere reproductive success (which obviously favors pro-lifers).
There’s nothing to it at all. Conservative social views are in decline. Liberal social views are on the rise. The argument that anti-abortionists and other social conservatives tend to have more children than social moderates and liberals, and that children tend to inherit the social views of their parents, is contradicted by 30 years of data showing a decline in conservative social views and a rise in liberal ones.
You must be confused if you think that your link to a Gallup poll is remotely relevant here. What I said was that young people TODAY are more pro-life than young people YESTERDAY.
No, that was what you claimed later. You earlier claimed that younger Americans are more pro-life than older Americans. You said “the younger generation isn’t as pro-choice as older folks.” The Gallup poll you yourself cited flatly contradicts that claim. It shows that the younger (18-29) generation is significantly more pro-choice than “older folks.” Your own references contradict your claims.
So it is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to point to a poll allegedly showing that young people are more pro-choice than elderly people.
Huh? You’re the one who cited that poll, not me. And as I said, the poll flatly contradicts your assertion that “the younger generation isn’t as pro-choice as older folks.”
That has always been true. People grow more pro-life as they grow up, have children for themselves, realize that life is about helping other people, etc., etc.
Well, make up your mind. Are you claiming that “the younger generation isn’t as pro-choice as older folks,” or aren’t you?
And whatever trend exists with respect to an individual’s views on abortion as he ages, the cohort effect you describe doesn’t exist. If it did, we would have observed a steady increase in pro-life sentiment over the past 30 years or more, as older cohorts were gradually replaced by younger ones. There is no such increase. The only data you can cite is a slight recent increase in pro-life sentiment found by Gallup that is likely to be an artifact of the recent national debate over “partial birth” abortion, and that is not reflected in other polling data anyway. You are so desperate to find any affirmation of your position after 30 years of crushing defeat that there is no straw too thin you will not grasp at it.
Actually, a lot of people become pro-choice as they grow older, realize the world isn’t perfect, get an idea that raising children is more complicated than it seemed when you were a teenager, etc.
How many kids do you have, Joe? Some of us pro-choicers breed–you’d better catch up.
“the younger generation isn’t as pro-choice as older folks.”
Know what? You’re right. I misspoke. What the polls show is not that younger people are more prolife than older people, but that they are more prolife than today’s older people were when they themselves were younger.
Still, any way you slice that, it isn’t good news for the pro-choice movement, as most non-comatose pro-choicers are aware.
And anyway, the absolute most that you can say — even if you cherry-pick data — is that the American people today are about evenly divided on abortion, just as they were thirty years ago. In other words, the best you can hope for is to prove that opinions haven’t really changed. There’s no way you could hope to prove a strong trend in the pro-choice direction — i.e., that 70% of Americans used to be pro-life in 1970 but now 70% are pro-choice. Just ain’t true.
Compare this to other civil rights issues. 30 years after segregation, you certainly didn’t find that half of all Americans were willing to tell opinion pollsters that they wanted segregation, not even a little bit. On that kind of issue, there has been an overwhelming trend in one direction.
Not so with abortion. People are still opposed to it in large numbers.
It’s no surprise that the polls are about evenly divided. You can make strong moral arguments for and against. And the pro-choice side has a built-in advantage, in that it appeals to people’s selfish desires and to their instinct to disfavor government involvement. The pro-life side is nothing but sheer altruism, which isn’t as naturally appealing to many people. (The only reason that anyone ever becomes pro-life is that, in their own mind, they are concerned about the killing of innocent babies. Agree with it or not, the fact is that the only pro-life motivation is pure altruism. That’s a harder sell.)
Joe M:
Know what? You’re right. I misspoke.
No, you didn’t “misspeak.” You made an empirical claim that is flatly contradicted by your own polling data citation.
What the polls show is not that younger people are more prolife than older people, but that they are more prolife than today’s older people were when they themselves were younger.
No, they don’t show that. As I just explained, Gallup has found a slight and recent increase in pro-life sentiment. Other polls have found no such change. Gallup itself has found no such change over a longer period of time, and suggests that its finding may be a reflection of the recent national debate over “partial birth” abortion. As I keep telling you, abortion polls are sensitive to wording, to sample selection and to current events. When the news is full of talk “partial birth” abortion, pro-life sentiment may increase. When the news is full of talk of anti-abortion terrorism, as it was in the late 80s and early 90s, pro-choice sentiment may increase, and some polls suggest that it did. Public opinion fluctuates on a short-term basis in response to many influences, but the long-term trend is steady, majority support for a broad legal right to abortion, as shown in the sample of 24 polls I linked to earlier.
And anyway, the absolute most that you can say — even if you cherry-pick data — is that the American people today are about evenly divided on abortion, just as they were thirty years ago.
Nonsense. They aren’t anything close to “evenly divided” on abortion. Those favoring a broad legal right to abortion, a right that encompasses the vast majority of abortions that are currently legal in the United States, outnumber those who oppose such a right by around two-to-one, and have done so for at least 20 or 30 years.
In other words, the best you can hope for is to prove that opinions haven’t really changed.
I don’t need to “hope for” anything. The data overwhelmingly shows that public opinion on abortion hasn’t really changed over the past two or three decades. A large majority of Americans supported a broad right to abortion then, and a large majority of Americans support a broad right to abortion now. The pro-life movement has been working ceaslessly for 30 years to try and convert Americans to its point of view, and its efforts have been a complete waste of time. It’s over. You’ve lost. The only real question is how long it will take you to realize that.
Compare this to other civil rights issues. 30 years after segregation, you certainly didn’t find that half of all Americans were willing to tell opinion pollsters that they wanted segregation, not even a little bit. On that kind of issue, there has been an overwhelming trend in one direction.
A comparison with civil rights issues provides an even clearer illustration that your movement has failed utterly. Equal rights for religious minorities, equal rights for racial minorities, equal rights for women, equal rights for gays. All of these movements resulted in dramatic changes in public opinion. All of them involved clear, unmistakable legal victories in legislatures and courts. No such victories have occurred for the anti-abortion movement. You have lost virtually every significant legal battle you have fought. You have failed to win over hearts and minds for your cause despite three decades of efforts. And you have lost not only in this country, but virtually everywhere in the developed world.
And the pro-choice side has a built-in advantage, in that it appeals to people’s selfish desires
No, its advantage is that it’s right. It appeals to people’s sense of justice and liberty. Those are the fundamental values at the heart of all civil rights movements. The reason your movement has failed is because it is an attempt to trample on women’s liberty.
The pro-life side is nothing but sheer altruism,
There’s nothing altruistic about it. It is an attempt force women to use their body gestate a fetus. It’s not about altruism; it’s about control.
the American people today are about evenly divided on abortion
Wrong. The American people are not divided between “abortion should always be allowed under all circumstances” and “abortion should never be allowed.” There is a huge range of opinions. Some people feel abortion is wrong except in cases of rape or incest (is that pro-life?). Others think it should be legal but shouldn’t be used as a method of birth control (is that pro-choice?).
The only reason that anyone ever becomes pro-life is that, in their own mind, they are concerned about the killing of innocent babies.
I can’t believe even you believe this.
No need to address Don P.’s refusal to mention even a single poll to which I had linked. His head-burying-in-the-sand speaks for itself.
Equal rights for religious minorities, equal rights for racial minorities, equal rights for women, equal rights for gays.
Guess what: None of those other issues result in the death of another entity (whatever the hell you want to call an unborn baby, there’s no question that after an abortion happens, it’s dead.) This is a blindingly obvious difference from all those other issues, and one that explains why people are still divided in their opinions. Whereas no one today says “Women should get less pay” or “blacks should be enslaved” or anything like that.
All of them involved clear, unmistakable legal victories in legislatures and courts. No such victories have occurred for the anti-abortion movement.
1) Progress in civil rights took time. There was 100 years between the Civil War and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And people wanted civil rights long before the Civil War — for as long as slavery had existed. Right now, there’s only been 30 years since the Supreme Court shoved its view of abortion on the American people. Give it time.
2) “No such victories”? That’s not what the pro-choice people said when 30 states and Congress passed partial-birth abortion laws. That’s not what pro-choice people say when dozens of states pass parental consent or health regulations.
Plus, the only reason we haven’t reversed Roe yet is because of the sheer happenstance that 2 Supreme Court Justices changed their minds, and the Democrats managed to successfully block Bork. Are you really so sure that such chancy circumstances will keep happening?
There’s nothing altruistic about it. It is an attempt force women to use their body gestate a fetus. It’s not about altruism; it’s about control.
100% wrong. You’re doing nothing more than projecting your own hypothetical feelings. In the minds of actual pro-lifers, abortion is wrong because it kills innocent life. I have no doubt that you can pull up a dozen different pre-written arguments on why you think that view doesn’t make sense. So what? The point is what’s happening from the pro-lifers’ perspective. From their perspective, being pro-life is simply about protecting innocent life. That’s all. You won’t find an actual human being anywhere in America whose motivation for being pro-life is “control.”
Joe says “In the minds of actual pro-lifers, abortion is wrong because it kills innocent life.”
If “innocent life” is the gold standard here, then why aren’t your multitudes of pro-lifers rising up en masse against the war in Iraq and the number of civilian casualties? Against the genocide in the Sudan? Against the number of children in the U.S. who are homeless and/or living below the poverty line? Against the cutbacks in funding for family planning clinics that provide pre-natal care in third world countries and help reduce rates of infant mortality and death of women in childbirth? There’s plenty of “innocent life” that they don’t seem to be too concerned about.
In the minds of actual pro-lifers, abortion is wrong because it kills innocent life
If this were so, the vast majority of pro-lifers would be opposed to abortion for any reason whatsoever. Yet most think abortion is OK in some cases, such as rape or incest, when the life is just as innocent.
Mythago — So what? Most pro-lifers may not be perfectly consistent, but there is no question that what’s going on in their own minds is, “Abortion is awful, it kills innocent life. Maybe I’ll allow a couple of exceptions where it seems just too harsh to demand that the pregnancy continue, but in other circumstances, there isn’t any good reason that is strong enough to outweigh the human life that’s there.”
Now fanatics like Don P. — who see nothing wrong with abortion and can’t imagine that anyone else does — are going to insist, “HA! I’ve found an inconsistency! If anyone really was pro-life, they would be an absolutist — demanding the death penalty for all abortions with no exceptions. They would never consider the circumstances or motives of anyone involved. But since I, in my genius, have discovered that pro-lifers are not such absolutists, I declare that they are all lying about their motivations.”
Baloney. Sure, not many pro-lifers are agitating for the death penalty for abortion. That doesn’t mean that they are lying when they want to protect unborn human life to some extent — maybe not with the same penalties as for murdering an adult, but with at least some legal prohibition.
As I said before, you won’t find an actual human being anywhere in America whose motivation for being pro-life is “control.” I mean, what do you think is going on in pro-lifers’ heads? A guy is just sitting around one day, and even though he doesn’t believe there is anything wrong with abortion, he thinks to himself, “What I need is someone to control. How can I control other people? I know — by pretending that I think abortion is wrong! What a great plan. The Supreme Court won’t let me exercise any control, of course, so I’m going to be perpetually frustrated in my little scheme. But boy, wouldn’t it be great just to control other people somehow.”
Nonsense. No one on earth thinks that way. No one is seeking “control” over other people by pretending to believe that abortion is wrong. It’s the other way around: They sincerely think abortion is wrong, and THAT is what motivates them to seek control (in the form of anti-abortion laws).
Get real. Meet some pro-lifers. Get to know them. You’ll find that 100% of them are perfectly sincere. So what if you don’t agree with them? That’s not the point.
Back to my original post that launched this sub-debate. When pro-lifers try to recruit to their cause, what’s the subtext? “Come to our side and you’ll get to satisfy your desires to control other people”? Absurd. The only thing they ever talk about is altruistic in motivation: “Come to our side, and help us stop a phenomenon that harms other human lives.”
What does the pro-choice side have to offer? Just as with the pro-life side, it can make arguments that if you join their side, you’ll be doing the right thing, promoting justice for other people, etc., etc. But they also have the benefit of appealing to people’s natural instinct to see the world in selfish terms, rather than in terms of their own potential responsibilities to other human lives.
Mythago — So what?
So, your argument that they are motived solely by the idea of protecting innocent life looks weak. Sounds more as though ‘oh, I just care about the babies’ is a smokescreen for other views, which any of us who have “gotten to know” a few pro-lifers have been exposed to.
You seem to have forgotten that I, in my younger days, was pro-life. So I know what they’re like, thankyouverymuch, and the horror of the innocents is not quite the central belief you think it is.
As for control, you betcha that part of the “benefit” and “subtext” of the pro-life movement is control. Prevent abortion, punish the immoral who behave bad sexually, keep more babies up for adoption for people like us. Surely you know that Operation Rescue was started by Randall Terry’s then-wife, who had fertility problems and was angry about all the babies who aren’t getting adopted.
After all, if pro-life = Nuthin’ But Babies, why on earthy wouldn’t any of those groups support contraception?