I’ve posted in the past about the curious fact that, if pro-lifers main goal is reducing abortion, they’d be better off supporting pro-choice politicians. Internationally, the countries with the lowest abortion rates are invariably countries that have legal abortion, strong welfare states and widely available (and encouraged) use of birth control. (In contrast, not a single country that has banned abortion has a low abortion rate; they simply have high rates of illegal abortion.)
Now the evidence shows that what’s true internationally is true domestically – in the USA, the policies pursued by pro-life politicians are associated with higher abortion rates. From Souljourners:
I look at the fruits of political policies more than words. I analyzed the data on abortion during the George W. Bush presidency. There is no single source for this information – federal reports go only to 2000, and many states do not report – but I found enough data to identify trends. My findings are counterintuitive and disturbing.
Abortion was decreasing. When President Bush took office, the nation’s abortion rates were at a 24-year low, after a 17.4% decline during the 1990s. This was an average decrease of 1.7% per year, mostly during the latter part of the decade. (This data comes from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life using the Guttmacher Institute’s studies).
Enter George W. Bush in 2001. One would expect the abortion rate to continue its consistent course downward, if not plunge. Instead, the opposite happened.
I found three states that have posted multi-year statistics through 2003, and abortion rates have risen in all three: Kentucky’s increased by 3.2% from 2000 to 2003. Michigan’s increased by 11.3% from 2000 to 2003. Pennsylvania’s increased by 1.9% from 1999 to 2002. I found 13 additional states that reported statistics for 2001 and 2002. Eight states saw an increase in abortion rates (14.6% average increase), and five saw a decrease (4.3% average decrease).
Under President Bush, the decade-long trend of declining abortion rates appears to have reversed. Given the trends of the 1990s, 52,000 more abortions occurred in the United States in 2002 than would have been expected before this change of direction.
How could this be? I see three contributing factors:
First, two thirds of women who abort say they cannot afford a child (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Web site). In the past three years, unemployment rates increased half again. Not since Hoover had there been a net loss of jobs during a presidency until the current administration. Average real incomes decreased, and for seven years the minimum wage has not been raised to match inflation. With less income, many prospective mothers fear another mouth to feed.
Second, half of all women who abort say they do not have a reliable mate (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life). Men who are jobless usually do not marry. Only three of the 16 states had more marriages in 2002 than in 2001, and in those states abortion rates decreased. In the 16 states overall, there were 16,392 fewer marriages than the year before, and 7,869 more abortions. As male unemployment increases, marriages fall and abortion rises.
Third, women worry about health care for themselves and their children. Since 5.2 million more people have no health insurance now than before this presidency – with women of childbearing age overrepresented in those 5.2 million – abortion increases.
I’d add a fourth reason; the Bush administration has used the “bully pulpit” to argue against birth control, and has encouraged abstinence-only education. Abstinence is indeed the most effective birth control (although “abstinence,” from a pregnancy-prevention point of view, can also include having lots of oral sex and homosexual sex); but it doesn’t follow that abstinence-only education is the most effective pregnancy-prevention education.
Mark Roche – a Dean at at the University of Notre Dame – is another pro-lifer who has realized that if the goal is reducing abortion, rather than punishing women, abortion bans simply don’t work. In a New York Times op-ed, he writes (emphasis added by me):
There are many reasons for this shift. Yet surely the traditional Democratic concern with the social safety net makes it easier for pregnant women to make responsible decisions and for young life to flourish; among the most economically disadvantaged, abortion rates have always been and remain the highest. The world’s lowest abortion rates are in Belgium and the Netherlands, where abortion is legal but where the welfare state is strong. Latin America, where almost all abortions are illegal, has one of the highest rates in the world.
None of this is to argue that abortion should be acceptable. History will judge our society’s support of abortion in much the same way we view earlier generations’ support of torture and slavery – it will be universally condemned. The moral condemnation of abortion, however, need not lead to the conclusion that criminal prosecution is the best way to limit the number of abortions. Those who view abortion as the most significant issue in this campaign may well want to supplement their abstract desire for moral rectitude with a more realistic focus on how best to ensure that fewer abortions take place.
Links via “Grassroots Mom” at DailyKos.
UPDATE: Hey, it turns out Body and Soul wrote almost the exact same post – but she wrote hers two days earlier. Great minds think alike (and somewhat less great minds think alike except they do it two days later!).
The only thing that surprises me here is that any pro-lifer would do the statistics. Most “pro-lifers” IMO are really “anti-women, anti-choice” — they would rather have a high abortion rate than let women have control over our own sexuality.
I used to be a pro-life Christian and though I’ve shifted over to the pro-choice side, I know some pro-life friends still. Some, in my judgment, fall into that stereotype of reactionaries who want to control women, but some don’t. It’s too easy to just assume the worst about people who believe differently.
Hey! I was about to post a link to that very article only I see you’re way ahead of me. :)
I’m very glad to see an article not about pro-choice people being evil baby-killers and I’m glad to see that for this guy, the penny has dropped. The most pro-life position a person can take is to give people *real* choices.
It’s just common sense really: children are costly in terms of time, commitment and money and where those things aren’t there, more pregnancies will make the transition from being wanted/ambivalent to being unwanted with attendant consequences. It doesn’t matter how much you talk about how it shouldn’t be so, the facts remain: poor social networks that don’t make it easy to support children lead to an increase in abortions as well as children being abandoned or shipped off to distant relatives (both of which can be infanticide by another name). It was great to see him acknowledge how important access to extra support was to being able to raise his handicapped son (too many people take their support networks for granted and can’t be bothered to imagine how the situation would change if they didn’t have them). I’ll also add poor fertility control as another cause of misery. Which is another thing George Bush is busy working to undermine.
Ultimately, it’s not about whether you’re comfortable with the notion of abortions or not. A society in which few women find it necessary to have an abortion is a good one for all and it’s doable if we actually *care* about the lives and welfare of others rather than talk about what should and shouldn’t be or make people’s lives needlessly miserable.
If more pro-life people got that, perhaps we’d get somewhere.
Dei.
anonymous, the stereotype arises because the anti-legalized-abortion types don’t acknowledge that illegal abortions, abandonments, and neonatal infanticide occur at a surprisingly high rate when abortion is banned. Not to mention deaths of women from septic abortions. See recent Romanian history, well documented in Am. J. Epidemiology a few years ago, I believe. Also, some anti-legalized-abortion types with quantitative skills are aware of epidemiologic research re: breast cancer, and just plain lie about a purported link between breast cancer and abortion. It is justified by an Old Testament verse about the virtue of lying to spies in wartime.
Ampersand, thanks for your post over at Body & Soul (I followed you back over here to check out your blog). The link you provided was more than helpful. I bookmarked it in my ‘fundamentalism’ folder for future use.
With a background in medical research, I’m not generally so lazy as to rely on another for a research tip, but sometimes out of nowhere someone comes along and links me to an article that I would never happen onto by myself.
I’ve bookmaked your blog for future reference.
Here’s a nice table from the CDC:
No. of abortions 1970-1999
And for 2000: here (PDF, page 6)
So in short, you’re saying that the war on abortion is just like the war on drugs … come to think of it, it may be like the war on terror too …
JW
… like the war on drugs, whereby the very act of suppression creates its own demand, well-bouyed by hypocrisy and disproportionate punishment for the poor? Hmm… you may have a good point there!
Dei, taking notes on this idiocy — there’s a growing pro-life movement over here in the UK that could do with a little…education.
To be fair, NancyP, part of that stereotype has a lot to do with the huge numbers of pro-lifers who are pretty much sexphobic woman-haters. But certainly not all.
It doesn’t look like Ema’s table 3 supports the point most people here seem to be making: the states where the fewest pregnancies end in abortion are Colorado, Idaho, South Dakota and Utah — all, I believe, conservative and not particularly wealthy states. It is true that the truly huge rates are in the poor cities, NYC and DC, but the high rates after that are mostly wealthy north-eastern states.
This is a very good point. Kerry and his ilk should say “When we say we want abortion to be safe, legal, and rare, we aren’t just tossing in “rare” to make the “legal” part more palatable to those who think abortion’s wrong. We actually do have concrete policies that make them rarer than under, say, Bush or Reagan.”
“surely the traditional Democratic concern with the social safety net”
Huh? I thought that Clinton’s big deal was the 1996 welfare reform bill that (according to a lot of commenters) was supposedly going to destroy the social safety net, cause more abortions, etc., etc. What the heck happened there? What’s the evidence that Clinton increased the “social safety net” at all, let alone by such a drastic amount that abortions would go down by 36%?!?
To answer my own questions, something else must have been going on the 1990s.
Anyway, ever hear of the principle that correlation isn’t causation? Or the principle that post hoc is a fallacy? It’s just illogical to say, “Abortion is lower in a few places where they allow it,” and try to deduce that allowing abortion makes the rate go down. On its face, that conclusion is absurd. Is abortion the only thing in the world that more people engage in when it’s against the law?
Jack, nothing in my post said that outlawing abortion, in and of itself, causes abortion rates to go up. I think abortion is something that – like drugs – has a very inflexible demand, so that outlawing it doesn’t change the demand very much.
It’s true that correlation isn’t causation – but that doesn’t mean that lack of correlation is meaningless. Are you really claiming that it’s just a big coincidence that none of the nations that have outlawed abortion are among the states with the lowest abortion rates?
During the Clinton times, there were two economic factors discouraging abortion, imo; first of all, an extremely strong (in a bubble sort of way) economy; second of all, the vast increase in the EITC, a form of welfare that is targeted at low-income folks with children. I think those two things together made up for welfare “reform.”
“Are you really claiming that it’s just a big coincidence that none of the nations that have outlawed abortion are among the states with the lowest abortion rates?”
Yeah, I guess so. No matter how inflexible the demand for abortion is, there’s just no way that outlawing it is going to make the rate go UP! That’s absurd. It’s like saying — hypothetically — “The Netherlands has fewer drug users than the United States. So if we legalized drugs, we’d have fewer drugs users too.” Or: “If the Netherlands banned drugs, they’d have more drug users.” Either way, it’s ridiculous. Outlawing something just doesn’t have that effect. At best, outlawing something might have no effect. But there’s no way it would make the rate go up.
Look, here’s an example:
1. Belgium has fewer abortions than Brazil, even though abortions are legal in Belgium and illegal in Brazil. (Totally hypothetical, by the way.)
2. Therefore, Brazil should legalize abortion.
Which doesn’t remotely follow. The mere fact that Belgium has fewer abortions doesn’t mean that Brazil would have fewer abortions if it legalized abortion. Not whatsoever. The more likely conclusion is this:
2. The differences between the two countries simply must be due to something OTHER THAN THE LAW, because there’s no way that legalizing abortion made the rate go down. Just doesn’t happen. So if Brazil legalized abortion, the rate might go up even higher, while if Belgium criminalized abortion the rate might go down even further.
“No matter how inflexible the demand for abortion is, there’s just no way that outlawing it is going to make the rate go UP!”
Please stop attacking that straw man; no one is saying that. What I am saying is, there’s no evidence that outlawing abortion makes the abortion rate go down by any measurable degree. I’m not claiming that it makes the demand go up.
I’m not saying (to use your hypothetical), “therefore Brazil should legalize abortion.” (I would argue that Brazil should legalize abortion based on completely different grounds). What I’m saying is that Brazil will not achieve a low abortion rate by banning abortion; so if the goal is a low abortion rate, then banning abortion is an ineffective policy.
“So if Brazil legalized abortion, the rate might go up even higher, while if Belgium criminalized abortion the rate might go down even further.”
Well, maybe, but this ignores the real-world evidence. I think a more reasonable conclusion is that the abortion rate is determined mostly by factors other than the legal status of abortion, so that banning or not banning abortion will not make much measurable difference in the abortion rate.
If we want to complex it up a bit, we could say that “Belgium is only likely to ban abortion if right-wing evangelical Christians become a ruling power in Belgium. If that happens, then Belgium will probably experience a drastic cut in its welfare state, less empowerment of women, widespread disapproval of birth control, and a relative lack of availability of birth control to young people. These factors will probably lead to a rise in the abortion rate. So although banning abortion does not cause a higher abortion rate, banning abortion is likely to be correlated with a higher abortion rate.”
In other words, I’m not saying that banning abortion causes higher abortion rates. I’m saying that banning abortion is caused by a ruling government which pursues right-wing policies; and pursuing right-wing policies causes higher abortion rates.
And, more importantly, I’m saying that if we look at the world and say “we want a low aboriton rate. What has been proven to work?,” then “banning abortion” does not logically belong on our list of answers. Whatever effects banning abortion has, there is no evidence whatsoever to support the statement “banning abortion will lead to a low abortion rate.”
OK, gotcha.
But still, cross-country comparisons just don’t prove that banning abortion “doesn’t work.” It could be that if Belgium continued all of its other policies — ceteris paribus, as they say — and then banned abortion, abortion would go down even further.
Since cross-country comparisons are probably invalid, what you really need it an “event study,” if I recall the terminology. Rich Western country with great social policies doesn’t ban abortion. Then, in Year X, it bans abortion for the first time. IF the abortion rate doesn’t go down, then THAT would indeed be evidence that banning abortion “doesn’t work.”
Many social scientists beleive that Poland’s abortion rate didn’t go down when Poland banned abortion. However, it’s a little difficult to say because illegal abortion, like all illegal activities, is by nature difficult to measure accurately. (The US is an even messier case, because we legalized abortion in several stages – first in a few states, then a few more, then nationwide with Roe – so illegal and legal abortions were going on concurrently in the USA).
What we can say is that the Polish birth rate did not go up when abortion was outlawed. Neither did the American birth rate drop the year after the Roe decision. So, if birth rates are negatively correlated with abortion rates (which, from a common-sense POV, they should be – but then again, maybe not), then banning abortion doesn’t seem to have much effect.
I think you’re looking for perfect evidence that’s unlikely to exist given the real-world limitations of data gathering, and the impossibility of having a control group. There will never be good enough evidence for absolute certainty; all we can do is make the best deductions we can from what imperfect evidence exists.
So you’re correct; I can’t say for certain that banning abortion does not lower abortion rates. However, I can say that there is no evidence at all showing that abortion bans DO lower abortion rates.
Given what evidence we do have, the case for lowing abortion rates by abortion bans seems pretty weak; and the case for doing it by imitating Belgium’s social policies and birth control approach seems pretty strong.
Now, how do we know that the birth rate would go up (or is it down? you seem to say opposite things as to Poland vs. America) when abortion is outlawed? You seem to be assuming that the pregnancy rate remains constant. If the pregnancy rate remains constant, and there are fewer abortions, there will obviously be more births.
But what if the pregnancy rate went down as well? What if some people thought, “Gee, since there is no availability of abortion to back me up here, I had better make damn sure to use the pill and a condom every time”?? If banning abortion made people think twice about using contraceptives, then the pregnancy rate might go down. Thus, we just don’t know what might happen with the birth rate. Right?
Jack:
Yes, I did say opposite things about the birth rates in Poland and the USA. That’s because in Poland, abortion was banned, and in the USA, abortion was legalized. Thus, IF abortion’s legality affects the birthrate, then we’d expect those two to go in opposite directions.
And yes, for all the reasons you point out, the birthrate is not an absolutely reliable measure. That’s why I said ” but then again, maybe not” in the post you’re responding to.
I don’t think that it makes sense to forstall making any judgements until the day that we have perfect evidence, however; because that day will never come.
Amp,
Just to let you know Dr. Stassen uses faulty statistics in a faulty way to come to his statistical conclusions. The piece you posted doesn’t show it but a large % of his increase comes from Colorado’s abortion increase -67%- according to the state data. Unfortunately, Dr. Stassen never mentions or doesn’t know that abortions in Colorado didn’t really increase by 67% – anyone with scant knowledge of abortion statistics knows in our era they just don’t go up that much in a year. Abortionists in Colorado weren’t reporting large # of abortions that they performed in the late 90’s. Go here to see what Colorado RTL and their department of community health have to say.
Also taking statistics from a handful of states (not randomly selected) and attempting to act like those statistics are representative of the larger United States is something that most college students who’ve taken a class on Statistics wouldn’t do.
No one knows for sure how many abortions are performed in the US per year. You can take stats from the health departments but that’s based on abortionists reporting the data. To imply that Bush’s policies have raised the # of abortions is wholly improper when no one can be anywhere near sure how many abortions where performed in 2003, 2003, or 2004.
Also, Stassen uses incredibly simplistic premises – basically acting like Bush is total control of the economy and that totally discounting the possible effect that prolife laws had on the abortion rate in the 90’s. And that jobless men is why women don’t marry and have abortions. Have marriages gone down in this country in the last 4 years? He doesn’t say. What about home-ownership? He doesn’t say. To him it seems that the economy is the only thing that factors into a woman’s decision regarding abortion when numerous women who have abortions are in school so they might not have jobs and wouldn’t really be effected if the economy was poor.
Plus, even if his faulty use of faulty statistics and his bad premises were true, his logic is still faulty.
For example, if John Kerry was in favor of the legalization of torturing toddlers yet his economic policies led to less toddler torture would that make it logical for an advocate for tortured toddlers to vote for him?
David: You may be correct about the rest of your comments; I’ll look into it.
But regarding this question: For example, if John Kerry was in favor of the legalization of torturing toddlers yet his economic policies led to less toddler torture would that make it logical for an advocate for tortured toddlers to vote for him?
Yes, it would, if their goal was to pragmatically spare toddlers from being tortured. I think that real-world results matter more than using the law to make symbolic statements; and if anti-toddler-torture laws aren’t actually very effective in reducing toddler-torture, then support for those laws are more about symbolism and posturing than they are about genuinely giving a shit what happens to toddlers.
I’m reminded of the furor over RU-486. It seemed to me that much of the howling had to do with not being able to tell when a woman was ending her pregnancy, because she didn’t have to go to a clinic and face protesters trying to shame her.
I’m really heartened by this letter-writer, whose goal is to reduce or eliminate abortions rather than heap shame and holy hell on women who dare to have sex and think that they control their own bodies.
Amp,
Another article by Stassen that breaks down his statistics is available here
at the Louisville Courier-Journal.
The thing that gets me about the article the most is that it seems that Stassen decided a long time ago to vote for Kerry probably for other issues like the War in Iraq or the economy but is trying to rationalize his vote for a pro-choice candidate with his prolife views.
So would you vote for a candidate whose other policies would lower the number of rapes if he was in favor making rape legal? What if that candidate was in favor of tax-funded rapes? Or tax-funded toddler torture?
Isn’t there a possibility that making something legal would increase the occurrence of that something happening in the long run?
Do you think some things should be illegal solely because they are morally wrong?
The polarization surrounding these issues and the passion errupting by the parties involved can never be resolved by government. People mistakenly think that morality can be legislated (such as “the blue laws” which can be found in every State …and state). The conflict of free agency vs. issues perceived by even a majority of a population as being morally reprehensible … such as abortion or homosexuality … can only be approached using love and prayerful dialogue. Might never makes right, regardless of who is in power. Neither does it ring true to use violence, especially by those who claim the higher ground. Likewise, there is the issue of priestcraft, whereby “spiritual leaders” use their positions for personal gain or to achieve personal agendas. We should remember, however, that there WILL be an eventual accounting for us all.
David wrote: So would you vote for a candidate whose other policies would lower the number of rapes if he was in favor making rape legal? What if that candidate was in favor of tax-funded rapes? Or tax-funded toddler torture?
Assuming for the sake of your question that I have only two choices – one a candidate whose policies would significantly reduce rape while legalizing and tax-funding rape, versus another whose policies would increase rape while leaving it illegal – then of course I’d vote for the first candidate. Without a doubt.
The bottom line, for me, is that I’m far more interested in seeing rape get reduced than I am in seeing rapists get punished. As soon as your bottom line becomes something other than reducing the number of people who have to suffer through rape, then (in my opinion) you’ve switched from substantive opposition to rape to symbolic opposition to rape. I think the substantive is more important than the symbolic.
Isn’t there a possibility that making something legal would increase the occurrence of that something happening in the long run?
As a matter of abstract theory, of course that’s possible. However, plenty of countries have had bans on abortion for many years, and not a single one of them is among the countries with the lowest abortion rates.
Do you think some things should be illegal solely because they are morally wrong?
Hmmmn… I can’t think of anything offhand. (Well, perhaps in matters of international law – but not in matters of domestic law).
When you start banning things just because they’re immoral, rather than because you’re preventing or reducing concrete harms, you inevitably wind up with laws that force people in minority religions and athiests to conform to the religious beliefs of the majority. Laws banning same-sex marriage are an example of banning harmless behavior because it is (in most people’s eyes) “immoral.”
You know, only an absolute shithead with zero respect for women or feminism would keep making parallels between rapists and women who have had abortions. Every time david opens his yap, he becomes even more of a perfect advertisement for how little the pro-life movement actually cares about women, and how little it could ever have to do with feminism. That particular parallel’s a new low even for you, david. Bravo !!
Just wanted to point that out. You may all proceed with the philosophical treatises now.
Alsis38,
Do you actually read the previous posts in a discussion before posting? It seems not.
The discussion is whether prolifers (who believe that the destruction of innocent human life via abortion is a great moral wrong) should vote for a candidate who suuports abortion. The decision wasn’t whether abortion is like rape.
I used an example of rape because I think most of us would agree that rape is a great moral wrong.
I think that it is hard for both prolifers and pro-choicers to see the issue from the other’s perspective so pro-choicers often don’t understand how prolifers view abortion and likewise. Using something (rape) in this case that both prolifers and pro-choicers find repugnant allows me to see if Amp is actually treating the prolife view honestly when he discusses what prolifers should do.
It seems that every time you post – it shows how much anger you have over this issue and how much anger you have with people who think abortion should be illegal. Why is that?
I can see your POV just fine, david. But I don’t agree with it. Understand does not = Agree. You can muddle the issue with as many ham-fisted non-sequitors about rapists and strangled suckling babes as you like. All it does is make you look like an ever-bigger jerk.
Oh, sorry. You posted your charming rape parallel in another thread on the same issues. My mistake. But then again, your blatherings do all start to blur together after awhile. I think I can be forgiven for getting a tad confused.
My anger is perfectly justified and is motivated by your utter lack of concern for women’s feelings and women’s lives. It is motivated by your elevation of fetuses to the status of little gods that get to control the lives of the women who carry them. Actually, it’s more like fetuses become a conduit through which you get to control women. My anger is motivated by the fact that while my POV leaves you completely free to live as you wish in regards to rearing (or not rearing) a family, you won’t return that respect. You think you have a right to force me into your way of living even when I argue vociferously that you POV IS NOT MINE and WILL NEVER BE MINE.
I’d rather be angry at you than be like you. So if that’s the worst insult you can hurl at me, david, you’re pretty much SOL. I am angry, and that’s your doing, so deal with it.
Alsis38,
You again completely miss the point of the argument that I was commenting on. To argue what makes sense for prolifers you need to argue from a prolife perspective not a prochoice perspective. Just as if a prolifer wanted to argue that something makes sense for a prochoicer then they would have to argue from a prochoice perspective not a prolife perspective.
You say “My anger is perfectly justified and is motivated by your utter lack of concern for women’s feelings and women’s lives. It is motivated by your elevation of fetuses to the status of little gods that get to control the lives of the women who carry them. Actually, it’s more like fetuses become a conduit through which you get to control women. My anger is motivated by the fact that while my POV leaves you completely free to live as you wish in regards to rearing (or not rearing) a family, you won’t return that respect. You think you have a right to force me into your way of living even when I argue vociferously that you POV IS NOT MINE and WILL NEVER BE MINE.”
Me: This is a rant. You are angry at me for arguing my point of view. So much for tolerance and diversity. Who needs other viewpoints when you can just list off a bunch of ridiculous assertions like “elevation of fetuses to the status of little gods” and “you get to control women” to attack someone who holds a different view.
Actually your POV doesn’t let me do that. Your POV wants me to conform to your POV. Your POV thinks that if I recognize the unborn as human beings and want them to have legal protection then I want to control women.
It’s like telling someone who was against slavery- “Don’t like slavery, don’t own a slave.” It again shows no respect or tolerance for another’s view.
Here’s an interesting scenario for you to think about. What if I really am a woman and just using “David” as a false name to show pro-choicers how ridiculous their ad hominem arguments are? Do I still want to control women?
I wasn’t trying to insult you by asking if you were angry at me. I was trying to figure out why. And you still haven’t really given me an answer because I’ve never said that fetuses are little gods (I’ve merely shown that they are human beings) and I’ve never said I want to control women.
Is there another reason for your anger?
You again completely miss the point of the argument that I was commenting on.
I didn’t miss it all. I just don’t care about your point. It’s irrelevant to me because it prizes a fetus over a woman. If I don’t like the rules of your game, why should I even pretend to play it ?
To argue what makes sense for prolifers you need to argue from a prolife perspective not a prochoice perspective. Just as if a prolifer wanted to argue that something makes sense for a prochoicer then they would have to argue from a prochoice perspective not a prolife perspective.
Oh, stuff it. I don’t “need to” do anything from your perspective if I don’t want you. One more time: Your right to translate your “perspective” into action ends where my body begins. You don’t like my POV ? Too bad.
Me: This is a rant.
Wow. You noticed. I’m flattered.
You are angry at me for arguing my point of view. So much for tolerance and diversity.
Like your pro-life brethren, you really need to look up the meaning of “tolerance and diversity.” Tolerance means that you have a right to your opinion. It doesn’t mean you have a right to have that opinion received silently and uncritically if it infuriates someone else. “Diversity” is a bitter pill to swallow when the longing for it comes from someone who wants to stamp out the expressions of “diversity” in others.
I realize that you will never see this, but your side wants to control my life. My side does not want to control yours. Small wonder there’s some serious issues there. But go ahead and continue to make a martyr of yourself. You’re clearly enjoying it.
Who needs other viewpoints when you can just list off a bunch of ridiculous assertions like “elevation of fetuses to the status of little gods” and “you get to control women” to attack someone who holds a different view.
I think your inconsiderate attitude toward the pro-choice women on this board speaks for itself in how you prize fetuses more than women. Others have pointed out the obvious desire for control of women couched feebly by the average pro-life literature as love for babies and children. I don’t feel the need to rehash it again at this point.
Actually your POV doesn’t let me do that. Your POV wants me to conform to your POV. Your POV thinks that if I recognize the unborn as human beings and want them to have legal protection then I want to control women.
Actually, it’s of less consequence if you want to. Your views, if enacted into law, will control women, and you don’t care about that. Again, tolerance does not demand that I beam beatifically at you as if that were a-ok with me. It’s not.
It’s like telling someone who was against slavery- “Don’t like slavery, don’t own a slave.” It again shows no respect or tolerance for another’s view.
You’re on the wrong side with that metaphor, since I’m the one that would find myself “enslaved” by your views enacted into law. Your mate, sister, mother, daughter, etc. who wants as many babies as her body can produce is not in the slightest “enslaved” by my POV.
Here’s an interesting scenario for you to think about. What if I really am a woman and just using “David” as a false name to show pro-choicers how ridiculous their ad hominem arguments are? Do I still want to control women?
The world is swarming with women who think they should get to control women. Your tack here is thus pointless. I haven’t pulled any more punches with the pro-life women on this board than I have with you.
I wasn’t trying to insult you by asking if you were angry at me. I was trying to figure out why. And you still haven’t really given me an answer because I’ve never said that fetuses are little gods (I’ve merely shown that they are human beings) and I’ve never said I want to control women.
I’ve told you repeatedly why I’m angry. You just don’t want to hear it. Babies –or the idea of one as embodied by a fetus– are so glorious to you that you simply refuse to comprehend that every woman who finds herself in possession of one might not want to give birth. Your willful lack of comprehension is simply not my problem, david.
Is there another reason for your anger?
Passive-aggressive much ?
Gosh, I can’t imagine why it would make women mad to have a man, who can never ever get pregnant himself or even fathom what it’s like to have that possibility in his life, self-righteously tell us that he still knows better than we on what we should do with our capabilities that he does not have.
Gosh Amanda, I guess that means that the 9 men who decided to grant women’s rights to abortion shouldn’t have had much of a say, too…right? abortion is not solely a women’s issue. pregnancy is not solely a women’s issue. these are issues that require attention by everyone in society, as they are heavily divided issues (in the minds of both men and women). in today’s society, i don’t really get the feeling that men are trying to suppress women’s rights by taking away abortion…if anything, wouldn’t the stereotypical man rather a woman had an abortion so he didn’t have to pay child support? i once felt strongly about the issue on one side, but i have recently realized how neither side has grasped the difficulty of the issue or proposed real solutions…
David’s routine contempt for the idea that women even have feelings is what I was targeting. Plenty of men understand that women have rights and feelings, and plenty of men know that they may not know more than women what it is like to be able to get pregnant. Of course, those men generally are pro-choice, meaning that they trust that the people who are pregnant perhaps know better than they, strangers, what the pregnant people want.
Alsis,
You say, “I didn’t miss it all. I just don’t care about your point. It’s irrelevant to me because it prizes a fetus over a woman. If I don’t like the rules of your game, why should I even pretend to play it ?”
The problem is you don’t care. You’re too wrapped up in insulting me to actually read what I say and respond to that. You attack me about using rape as an example, I explain, you dodge.
Prizes a fetus over a woman? I don’t prize a fetus’ right to life over a woman’s right to life. I believe that fetuses should have the right to life. You don’t but instead of arguing why you don’t logically, you merely make up a bunch of strawmen and insult me.
You say, “Actually, it’s of less consequence if you want to. Your views, if enacted into law, will control women, and you don’t care about that. Again, tolerance does not demand that I beam beatifically at you as if that were a-ok with me. It’s not. ”
Your views, currently enacted into law control the lives of the unborn and you don’t care about that. Tolerance does ask that you treat my views with respect, something you don’t do, listen to me and respond accordingly. You instead raise strawmen, insult, and don’t honestly address what I say.
You say, “You’re on the wrong side with that metaphor, since I’m the one that would find myself “enslaved” by your views enacted into law. Your mate, sister, mother, daughter, etc. who wants as many babies as her body can produce is not in the slightest “enslaved” by my POV.”
You fail to recognize that your POV if incorrect (and it is) controls the lives of unborn human beings. Every law controls somebody in some way. This is reality. You’ve yet to argue why it should be legal for women to decide if their unborn child should live or die.
You’re “enslaved” if you can’t have an abortion? Are men who want to rape “enslaved” since rape is illegal? It again assumes that abortion does kill an innocent human being.
You have no evidence (or at least you’ve yet to show it) which proves the unborn aren’t human beings. I’ve yet to see any reasoning from you that I can remember as to why it should be legal to intetnionally kill innocent human beings.
You are therefore forced to attack me personally by making up strawmen.
You say “Babies –or the idea of one as embodied by a fetus– are so glorious to you that you simply refuse to comprehend that every woman who finds herself in possession of one might not want to give birth. Your willful lack of comprehension is simply not my problem, david.”
I understand completely that not every woman who is pregnant wants to give birth. Guess what? Not every woman with a born child wants to deal with that child. Does that give them the right to kill that child?
What would you say to that? Probably something like “Well the unborn are human beings/persons like the born.”
Then that’s the real question, isn’t it? Whether or not the unborn are human beings like the born? The question isn’t whether laws against abortion control women’s lives but rather are the unborn human beings.
You refuse to recognize that the unborn are human beings. That seems to be the underlying problem with every post you make. You assume that the unborn aren’t human beings instead of actually proving it because if the unborn aren’t human beings, then you’re right and I’ll change my position. If the unborn aren’t human beings, then abortion should be completely legal for all 9 months, tax dollars should pay for the abortions of poor women, etc.
All you have to do is prove the unborn aren’t human beings and you win.
Amanda,
You say “David’s routine contempt for the idea that women even have feelings is what I was targeting. Plenty of men understand that women have rights and feelings, and plenty of men know that they may not know more than women what it is like to be able to get pregnant. Of course, those men generally are pro-choice, meaning that they trust that the people who are pregnant perhaps know better than they, strangers, what the pregnant people want.”
My contempt for the idea that women have feelings? Is this an argument or a personal attack? Have I ever said that women don’t have feelings?
You dodge my points, construct strawmen, and attack me personally. You’re arguing with your imagination, not me. It seems that it is much easier for you to make up things about and argue against those than actual argue against what I say or attempt to prove that the unborn aren’t human beings.
I have a newborn here, her mother feels that it should be okay to kill this newborn. Should I object and try to stop her or trust that she knows better than I do?
What would you say to that? Probably something like “Well the unborn aren’t human beings/persons like the born.”
Then that’s the real question, isn’t it? Whether or not the unborn are human beings like the born? The question isn’t “whether I trust women” but rather “are the unborn human beings?”
National Right to Life debunks Stassen’s statistics here
And also provides some evidence that Stassen may not actually be “prolife.”
I think, david, that you need to prove that a fetus is a person. You can’t ask for your opponents to prove a negative. Please prove that there are no advanced alien civilizations in the galaxy. Impossible, isn’t it? But that doesn’t mean that there are advanced alien civilizations in the galaxy. Does that make sense?
It seems to me that several folks have conclusively stated what their definition of a person is and why an embryo, zygote or fetus (or brain-dead adult) does not meet the definition – which is as close to proving that a fetus is not a person as is possible. You just ignore that and go off on other aspects. This would be a lot more interesting if you actually addressed what your opponents have had to say on the matter.
My “unborns” such as they are, don’t belong to you, david. It is not your place to decide what happens to them. I know you can’t grasp that, but it’s true.
I’m not interested in “winning” against you, david. Who can possibly see any glory in “defeating” someone so crass, clueless and blatantly manipulative as you: The constant, deliberate confusion of “fetus” with “child,” for instance, is standard bait-and-switch from pro-lifers. As is the constant assertion that until I can prove you are wrong, I have to live my life as if you were right. No thanks.
I’m interested in being left alone, particularly by people who repeatedly are so rude and unsympathetic to women that they repeatedly compare women who have had abortions to rapists. Do you really think you’re going to persuade anyone who already isn’t already in your camp with this sort of blatant cruelty and nonsense ?
Know what else ? I’m not interested in “winning” against any woman who believes to the depth of her soul that a fetus is a full-fledged human. I’m not interested in proving otherwise to her, even if I felt this could be objectively proven. As I’ve said before, for me it’s quite simple: She wants –for whatever reason– to carry that fetus to term and birth a baby. She can and she should. Case closed.
A few hundred posts ago, your bull-headed jabberings were at least sort of amusing, david. Now the novelty has worn off and even the truly offensive stuff like this is getting dull. I think I’ll just leave you to Nomen’s and Amanda’s tender mercies in the future.
You refuse to recognize that the unborn are human beings. That seems to be the underlying problem with every post you make. You assume that the unborn aren’t human beings instead of actually proving it because if the unborn aren’t human beings, then you’re right and I’ll change my position. If the unborn aren’t human beings, then abortion should be completely legal for all 9 months, tax dollars should pay for the abortions of poor women, etc.
Jake is right. You’re taking the position that an embryo is a human being without a) defining what “human being” is, or b) offering any proof of personhood. Yet you demand proof of non-personhood.
As for the newborn-killing, come on. Nobody argues that. Here’s the thing: everyone agrees that a newborn is a person. Not everyone agrees that an embryo or fetus is a person, particularly when that embryo or fetus is unable to live on its own outside the womb.
The arguments in favor of pre-viability personhood are largely moralistic or religious, but they’re based on faith, which has no place in the law. The arguments against it are based on the woman’s autonomy and the fetus’ inability to live independent of the mother. Who, let’s not forget, is already a fully-formed person whose life or health or well-being may be affected by the embryo or fetus.
Which side of the issue you fall on seems to be determined by whose interests, the fetus’ or the mother’s, you find paramount.
The question isn’t “whether I trust women” but rather “are the unborn human beings?”
Not really, since we allow the killing of born, yep-they’re-human-beings people under many circumstances.
The questions are a) what rights does a fetus have? and b) how should those rights be balanced against the mother’s right to bodily autonomy? (Assuming for the sake of argument that you believe women have such a right, whether or not you believe it extends to abortion.)
David wrote: And also provides some evidence that Stassen may not actually be “prolife.”
That’s gotta be a ad hom argument, by your mistaken standards of what is or isn’t ad hom.
I’m planning to wait a few weeks to see if Dr. Stassen publishes a satisfactory defense of his initial arguments. If he doesn’t, I’ll post an update on my blog saying that I don’t consider his statistical point supportable.
When I say “I’m planning to… post an update on my blog,” I mean, of course, if I remember to. As people who know me in real life know, my memory is very fallable.
But if I haven’t done so by the end of November, feel free to remind me.
You repeatedly assume that fetuses have all these feelings that they can’t have when they don’t have brains, but you then turn around and suggest that women just farm out children they carry and birth to others. Sorry if that doesn’t seem to me like you think more of the feelings of fetuses than women.
Sorry but there is no evidence to support that ridiculous article out of the Houston Chronicle stating that abortion is up in the Bush administration.
While the Guttmacher Institute is THE source to go to for relevant abortion statistics, they have none that go past the year 2000. Strangely enough, the two writers of the article never say what their sources are for their 2000-2003 findings except to say they were “state” sources from Kentucky, Michigan, etc…none of which exist anywhere. You don’t believe me, go and look them up yourself. You won’t find them.
I know you moronic liberals love to believe anything anti-Bush you get your hands on but for God’s sake come at us with some FACTS and not fantasies.
I do have one stat for you though that is true. The percentage of U.S. citizens that still believe that homosexuality is an abomination and is immoral has not fluctuated one bit during Bush terms. The same number hate it as during Clinton’s term…about 92% of the population.
Amp,
I wasn’t trying to prove Stassen wrong when I stated there is evidence that he may not be prolife. I argued about his faulty statistics and premiese wrong that is why his argument is wrong. I’m merely showing that may be one of the reasons why his statistical analysis came to the conclusion it did.
I think it is also important to know if someone is actually prolife if they are attempting to speak from the prolife perspective.
Alsis,
I’m crass and rude? You’ve called me an “absolute shithead” and a “jerk.” Have I called you any names?
You seem to admit that the question isn’t whether I’m a jerk who wants to control women but are the unborn human beings or children.
I explained the reasoning behind the rape/abortion comparison numerous times. You have refused to understand or respond to my examples – you even said that you didn’t care.
Why didn’t you show me your evidence that the unborn aren’t human beings? That’s the real question.
Maybe I am a crass jerk or maybe I’m a really nice guy who you’ve unfairly judged and insulted – but regardless of what I am (be it a nice guy or a jerk) my argument (that the unborn are human beings and it should be illegal to intentionally kill innocent human beings) could be valid either way.
It seems easier for you to insult me than actually take on my arguments and prove me wrong.
A. Rea,
Actually abortion statistics do exist for those years. I’m not exactly sure where the others are (they are usually somewhere on the state’s department of health web page) but for Michigan the statistics are here
Amanda,
You say:You repeatedly assume that fetuses have all these feelings that they can’t have when they don’t have brains, but you then turn around and suggest that women just farm out children they carry and birth to others. Sorry if that doesn’t seem to me like you think more of the feelings of fetuses than women.
Me: When did I say fetuses have feelings?
Fetuses do have brains. Click here for some information about the development of the unborn’s brain.
Farm out? Women who choose to give their child up for adoption are not farming out their children. It is a serious and often times difficult decision.
David:
That’s absolutely identical to my argument, which according to you was an ad hom. “I wasn’t trying to prove [FFL] wrong when I stated there is evidence that” their feminism ought not be taken seriously.
You wrote: “I think it is also important to know if someone is actually prolife if they are attempting to speak from the prolife perspective.”
And I think it’s important to know if someone is actually serious about feminism when they claim to speak from a feminist perspective. (OR, to make it closer to what I actually argued, when Hugo implicitly claims that they’re serious feminists).
The only real difference here, David, is that you refuse to hold yourself to the same standards you hold me to.
Not that I think your argument about Stassen IS an ad hom, mind you. Clearly it’s not; he made a claim (that he is pro-life), and you’re entitled to examine that claim and make counter-arguments to it. Just because the claim is about Dr. Stassen – and so your counter-claims, by necessity, address Dr. Stassen himself – doesn’t make it an ad hom.
But that’s by my standards (and by the standards of anyone who has even an elementary understanding of forensics). By your (ridiculous and mistaken) standards, your argument was an ad hom, and you shouldn’t have made it.
Jake,
You say, “I think, david, that you need to prove that a fetus is a person. You can’t ask for your opponents to prove a negative. Please prove that there are no advanced alien civilizations in the galaxy. Impossible, isn’t it? But that doesn’t mean that there are advanced alien civilizations in the galaxy. Does that make sense?”
Well, Jake what is a person? Or better yet, what is the difference between a “person” and a human being? If you have to think about this question for a minute (you might not) realize that you think the unborn aren’t persons yet you don’t actually know the difference off the top of your head.
It is actually quite easy to prove that something isn’t a human being (a negative). For example, I could easily prove that a piece of paper isn’t a human being as could anyone by showing that 1.) It is not alive 2.) It does not have human DNA 3.) It is not an organism etc., etc. You are correct though that some negatives are basically impossible to disprove. Whether something is a human being or not is not one of them.
You: It seems to me that several folks have conclusively stated what their definition of a person is and why an embryo, zygote or fetus (or brain-dead adult) does not meet the definition – which is as close to proving that a fetus is not a person as is possible. You just ignore that and go off on other aspects. This would be a lot more interesting if you actually addressed what your opponents have had to say on the matter.
Me: What definition of “personhood” are we talking about? Which one? There are so many. When have any of the people I’ve discussed this issue with shown 1.) That their definition of personhood is non-arbitrary 2.) That I should accept their definition of “personhood” over the definition of someone who says that “Black human beings aren’t persons because only human beings with light skin are persons.” 3.) that their definition of “personhood” excludes the unborn yet includes all other human beings that they consider “persons” like newborns and the comatose.
It seems to me that “personhood” is merely an arbitrary way to discriminate against different members of the human species.
Ummm, on the other thread Nomen has repeatedly given you a non-arbitrary (that is logically supported) definition of a person. And you continue to ignore it. Nobody has denied that a fetus is a member of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. But they have claimed that there is a difference between a “human being” and a “person”.
If you don’t want to discuss that, fine. Just stop making nonsense arguments about personhood by degenerating to statements about “human beings”. Some interesting things could be discussed about personhood, morality & ethics if you would actually address your opponents arguments. Otherwise you’re just being a broken record.
David, that obviously biased page you linked to didn’t claim that the cortex was at all functional; it just claimed that it begins to differentiate.
The question isn’t “when can we first see what part of the brain will eventually become a cerebral cortex,” but “at what point is the cerebral cortex meaningfully functional?”
There are many sources for cerebral development which don’t take a pro-life OR a pro-choice position. Like this one, from a textbook, which says that the cortex develops in the seventh month. Or this one: “By 6 months, the fetus is fully formed and capable of surviving outside womb. But, its cerebral cortex is still not functional.”
David: “It seems to me that “personhood” is merely an arbitrary way to discriminate against different members of the human species.”
Discrimination is only bad when it is based on a false premise. For instance, discrimination against Jews because Jews cannot see the road is bad because, among other things, it’s untrue; being Jewish does not mean being blind.
On the other hand, if you were hiring bus drivers, discriminating against blind people because they cannot see the road would be fine. In fact, if you’re not wiling to discriminate, then the bus system is in trouble.
Discrimination between people and non-people based on the capacity to have feelings and thoughts is not a false premise; there is a real and important difference between how we should treat a brain-dead accident victim and an accident victim with a functional cerebral cortex but also a broken arm. The former patient, in terms of personhood, has died; the latter has not. Hospitals, doctors and family members can, do and SHOULD discriminate based on personhood.
David, you’re up to your (horrifically old, and getting older) tricks again. The life/personhood debate has been explained to death in the other abortion thread, but unless you get an answer that you like, you claim that people dodge the question. You won’t win a debate by being passive agressive.
And don’t you for one minute give me the shrug and wide-eyed “Golly, why are you so aaaaannnngrrryyyy?” question. Not after you got rather angry yourself in the past thread when you spread lies and distortions about reproductive health clinics (such as this gem: What do abortion clinics offer – oh, yeah – “Give us $400 dollars – then we’ll forcibly dilate your cervix and insert a vacuum into your uterus”).
When you talk about adoption like it’s just giving away a pair of shoes, you are not establishing yourself as thoughtful, credible, or empathetic towards women. When you act as though women don’t have any feelings at all–unless, of course, we are traumatized by abortion, don’t ask why we think you don’t give a rat’s ass about women. Especially since, if we are traumatized by putting our children up for adoption, we don’t seem to be worthy of your notice. If we dealt with horrific physical/health injury due to a pregnancy, you don’t seem to care. And when you go on and on about how abortion does not provide a “real” choice for women but refuse to give any insights about what “real” choice constitutes, you aren’t establishing yourself as credible or thoughtful. Especially when you aren’t all that concerned with access to contraception, when you refuse to answer what kind of support you’d give to women and children in need, and other issues we brought up. After you demanded to know what we’ve done to help unwed mothers, your defensiveness was laughable to say the least.
If you expect to be taken seriously, hold yourself to the standards you hold others to. I have yet to see you do that. You chose to spew invective at anyone who’s pro-choice and demand we answer questions that you yourself are reluctant to answer. (Before you demand I tell you what you said specifically, check out the other thread.)
And now, you have the gall to compare women who’ve had abortions with rapists; you equate abortion with rape, and you want to know why you are meeting with such anger? If you were ever raped, or knew anyone who was (or if you had half the compassion for women you insist you do), you wouldn’t even go there. Don’t expect women on this board–some of whom are rape survivors–to be at all civil to you when you pull that.
what is the difference between a “person” and a human being?
In a legal context, corporations are persons but are not human beings. The definition includes a certain amount of ability to take action, something a fetus cannot.
I know you moronic liberals love to believe anything anti-Bush you get your hands on but for God’s sake come at us with some FACTS and not fantasies.
I do have one stat for you though that is true. The percentage of U.S. citizens that still believe that homosexuality is an abomination and is immoral has not fluctuated one bit during Bush terms. The same number hate it as during Clinton’s term…about 92% of the population.
Good Lord. Maybe you should take a page out of your own playbook and use FACTS not fantasy, kiddo.
Those are not the stats coming out of various public opinion polls. Public acceptance of gays was up to 80% in 2003. Things are far from perfect, but your claim that 92% of the population thinks homosexuality is an abomination is hardly true.
And you call us moronic.
And now, you have the gall to compare women who’ve had abortions with rapists; you equate abortion with rape, and you want to know why you are meeting with such anger? If you were ever raped, or knew anyone who was (or if you had half the compassion for women you insist you do), you wouldn’t even go there. Don’t expect women on this board–some of whom are rape survivors–to be at all civil to you when you pull that…
Oh, but Sheelzebub, he EXPLAINED why women who’ve had abortions are like rapists. Don’t you understaaaaaaand ?! It’s all about saving INNOCENT LIFE !! No woman, pregnant or otherwise, can be said to have lived an INNOCENT LIFE. Unless she’s the original Mary, I guess. Ergo, it doesn’t matter what our feelings are. Tsk.
If you can and don´t vote, then you shouldn´t complain after these elections. Therefore you should get all your friends and family and whoever out and get to the polls on Tuesday. Make a difference.
Hmm somebody please take that advertisement out of here…
This thread was quite interesting while Amp and David were arguing from the perspective of actually reducing abortions. Once ideology got into it – and that is Alys’s fault – it was over. Everybody should understand that if we start to argue about what counts as a human life and who controls a woman’s body, than there is absolutely no way to find a common ground.
As David said, if you want to convince a pro-lifer, you need to use language a pro-lifer can understand. Here is my take – there are two lives involved. Nobody can say which one is more important than the other. It is a very difficult moral dillema.
Pro-lifers must realize that elevating the fetus’s rights above the mothers is just as wrong or worse than saying the mother has all control.
Let’s assume David has a wife and she gets pregnant. The doctor tells her that if she has this baby, she will have a high chance of being paralyzed for the rest of her life. (This actually happened to my mother.) What do you do? Do you really want a law there that tells you and your wife to have this baby, risk being in a wheel-chair and have you care for both mother and baby for the rest of your life? Don’t you want to make this decision yourself, based on your own beliefs and your doctor’s assessment of the risks? Maybe you are deeply religious and you take the risk. Maybe you are deeply religious but you and your wife decide that the risk is too high and you’d rather have a healthy mother who can raise your other children that you already have. Do you really want a law that stands in the way of making such a decision?
Now this isn’t the most likely scenario for an abortion, but where do you draw the line? If a teenager gets pregnant, because she was stupid to have sex with the guy who walked away after they did it, she should carry the burden of that baby for one stupid mistake for the rest of her life, while the guy can simply walk away?
I do respect the ideals of the pro-life agenda. However I do not believe that banning abortion is the way to address any of the issues involved. As Amp said, it would merely be an empty declaration of views that does not address the root of the problem.
The fact is that abortions happen, even in the most religious countries. In fact, the more right-wing a country is, the more shame is put on a woman who gets pregnant out of wedlock, thus the more reason is there to get an abortion to conceal an unwanted pregnancy. Amp is right about right-wing policies encouraging abortions.
If someone is pro-life, they really should take a hard look at what actually lowers abortions. I think preaching abstinence is one of those, but don’t forget teaching about birth control. Educating young poeple is key. Educating mothers who don’t want a child to carry out the pregnancy and put the baby up for adoption is another way. There are many people who cannot have their own and want to adopt. Those babies can find a home.
There is definitely room for a culture of life. But the culture of life respects all life, and embraces all people. And it must include the women’s right to her own life and her own body. People must come together and see those as two aspects of the same issue.
Once ideology got into it – and that is Alys’s fault – it was over.
Ewwww… ideology !! Oh, I’m so embarassed. Crack a window, someone !! I and I alone have polluted the blog !!!!
P.S.– I love when people contort my online name to “Alys” or better yet “Alysis.” or “Alysys.” It makes me sound like a tall, willowy, ivory-skinned beauty with billowing auburn hair and sea-green eyes, clad in lace and tripping girlishly across the sun-dappled meadow in a poem by Yeates. Y’know, instead of a short, chunky couch potato brunette with thick glasses, bad feet, scuffed workboots and hippie hair with split ends from not being trimmed in 18 months.
“You have no evidence (or at least you’ve yet to show it) which proves the unborn aren’t human beings.”
From above. Not sure who posted it. I’d like to try something out, before having to read the whole other post on abortions. Evidence, as above, and proving, as above, are not concepts that apply to the personhood debate. There is no reason to cite scientific studies or embryology because there is no point at which ‘science’ says OK, now this is a person. A zygote, embryo and fetus are each distinctive developmental stages, and there’s a hell of a lot more going on than whether the cortex is, quote unquote, functional, whatever that means.
Personhood is essentially a belief statement, and as such should not be argued with evidence. Belief statements are in the province of religion. So, the real question is more, how can we make laws that speak on religious topics in a fair and equitable way?
I don’t have an answer, but I think it’d be helpful to re-frame the debate, and leave the idea of when ‘personhood’ begins to individual beliefs.
I find it disturbing that Christians can find it acceptable to support abortion just because it will decrease the number of LEGAL abortions. i would make the case that this view holds no ethical weight in that our laws should be a reflection of our moral values as a society. This is evident by our laws prohibiting paligamy, prostitution, illegal drugs, and even what we watch on tv. These laws define what is right and wrong according to the values we teach in our churches, schools, and homes. We teach that life is precious and that it should be nurtured and preserved. If that is true then who is going to stand up for the rights of the unborn child? This is not an arguement about taking away a woman’s rights as much as it is about protecting the rights of new life.
-Zach Rawlings
Is paligamy that thing where you fold a sheet of bright-colored paper so it looks like a penguin or a subcompact or something ? I must’ve missed it being criminalized. [shakes fist] Curse you, Shrub !! I’ll get you for this !! What’s next, a ban on word-search puzzles ?!?! Grrrr…
Throughout the entire comments section, I have not once seen mention of how damaging and degrading abortion is to women. Does anyone out there realize the emotional, psychological and physical pain it causes?
The following article details many of the aftereffects and complications which arise from having an abortion:
http://www.afterabortion.org/complic.html
Our society ought to pay attention. This is serious and should not be ignored.
I would also like to respond to those on this blog who are saying that pro-lifers care nothing about women. All of the pro-life groups that I know about (and work with) treat women as their utmost priority (as well as the unborn children, of course). Crisis pregnancy centers, which provide practical help (financial assistance, couseling, etc.) for women in poverty and difficult social cirmcumstances, are run and/or funded almost exclusively by pro-life groups. This kind of help gives women far more dignity and care than abortion ever could.
I have not once seen mention of how damaging and degrading abortion is to women.
Well, that’s because it simply isn’t true. Abortion may be damaging and degrading to some women, but it is not damaging and degrading to women in and of itself. You’d know that if you were to speak to women who have had abortions who disagree with you.
“Crisis pregnancy centers, which provide practical help (financial assistance, couseling, etc.) for women in poverty and difficult social cirmcumstances, are run and/or funded almost exclusively by pro-life groups.”
Do any of these holy sanctuaries provide birth control ? Like I don’t already know the answer to that one… Ho hum…
Amp, I know you want us to be civil, but it’s pretty hard to maintain composure when someone wanders in to inform me that being compelled to breed when I emphatically don’t want to is going to somehow bestow “dignity” upon me. Blecch.
Alsis: I’m not talking about before pregnancy. When conception takes place and a women is pregnant, birth control is irrelevant, and the task at hand is to take care of the woman’s situation as it is, in the most loving way possible. Note they are called Crisis “Pregnancy” Centers. Birth control can be had at many places; that is not what these centers are about. For women who want to bear their child but are in difficult circumstances, they need to be supported. It is not true that all – or even most – women who seek abortions simply don’t ever want to bear children. The vast majority of women want to be mothers. That is a fact.
Pregnancy and motherhood are not diseases, they are the most natural and wonderful things in the world. Obviously nothing I say can convince you of this. You speak of it as “being compelled to breed” – wow, I do feel sorry for you.
Jake: Many would disagree with you.
Did you read the link? Or am I to assume you just flat out don’t believe it.
There are others who will back it up:
http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org/about/index.html#who
You can evade me all you like, Janelle. My opinion remains that even women who have happily birthed one child, or two, or ten, might at some point wish to birth no more children while at the same time not pursuing a life of celibacy. Thus an agency that purports to care for women and yet does not edjucate them about birth control is, at best, offering them only a half-baked form of support.
Like it or not, abortion *is* birth control. The word you’re seeking is contraception. :)
No one I know who’s gotten an abortion is all that torn up about it. Sorry.
My mom had an abortion. She’s not torn up about it- only the things she had to go through to have the abortion. I know I’m not torn up about my abortion, but then I’m an unnatural, unwonderful woman who never wants children.
Janelle, why do most of your ilk oppose guaranteed minimum incomes, aka welfare, for parents of minor children? And why do many left-leaners support welfare? The reason why lefties tend not to support crisis pregnancy centers is that they prefer a more comprehensive solution: comprehensive sex education, better birth control access, better education so that kids aspire to become doctors and nurses rather than settle for getting pregnant for lack of anything better to do, welfare and transition programs that include training/education for jobs that will lift women out of poverty, and so on. Compared to these, a few donated formulas (donated by manufacturer to get moms to dry up and become dependent on formula), diapers, used baby clothes and cribs, etc don’t amount to much. Something is better than nothing, true, but I would have to say that a European style welfare state would be far more likely (and statistics bear this out) to reduce abortion due to poverty.
http://www.imnotsorry.net
The site name says it all – stories of women who don’t regret having had abortions. Women are not all the same – some regret, some don’t regret. Who are we to demand that all women think alike? And didn’t Surgeon Genl Koop put paid to all the “abortion causes women to go nuts” myths? No statistical evidence, he stated – that is, women with and without abortion history have the SAME rate of mental illness.
Surgeon General Koop did not say that.
http://www.afterabortion.org/koop.html
and
http://www.catholicexchange.com/vm/index.asp?art_id=25580
Alsis, I will address your concern about contraception tonight or tomorrow. I have quite a bit I’d like to say.
Nancy – My ilk? I’m sorry, but I can’t be put into a political category.
“Who are we to demand that all women think alike?” I said no such thing. Is our society right in ignoring women who have been hurt by their abortions merely because others say they have not?
P.S. Peace to all of you.
It’s a nice little racket they’ve got going there–women regret abortions! And if you don’t regret it, you’re not a proper woman!
What I’m trying to say is that abortion hurts women in numerous ways, objectively and concretely, and this has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not a women regrets it. You can be entirely fine or even happy with having an abortion and still suffer the effects of it.
Can you *not* suffer effects? You know, have an abortion, not have any sort of regret or physical complications, etc? Or is it one of those “you suffer complications even if you never know it” kind of deals?
Well, certainly it’s possible to *think* one has not suffered any negative effects, however the very nature of abortion itself (violence) is not morally neutral and I don’t see how there could not be effects that manifest in a variety of ways.
Even if there are no physical complications, women can be seriously affected psychologically, even perhaps without awareness of the cause –
“Since many post-abortive women use repression as a coping mechanism, there may be a long period of denial before a woman seeks psychiatric care. These repressed feelings may cause psychosomatic illnesses and psychiatric or behavioral in other areas of her life. As a result, some counselors report that unacknowledged post-abortion distress is the causative factor in many of their female patients, even though their patients have come to them seeking therapy for seemingly unrelated problems.”
More on that…
http://www.4abortion.net/ingles/psychological.htm
Nancy, here’s something more on Surgeon General Koop:
Former Surgeon General Koop, reacting to the misreporting of his 1989 review of post-abortion literature, said in an interview with the Rutherford Institute in spring of 1989: “Instead of saying I could not find sufficient evidence to issue a scientifically statistically accurate report about whether or not abortion caused women predictable harm,’ I was wrongly reported as saying I could find no evidence,’ of post-abortion trauma.” But, he continued, “I know there are detrimental effects [of abortion]. I have counseled women with this problem over the last 15 years. There is no doubt about it.”
Oops, not sure how that got posted twice.
I just stumbled onto this site. Great discussion.
Let’s agree with Janelle that there can be negative emotional effects to an abortion. The entire episode of unwanted pregnancy, dealings with the partner, decision period, and abortion can be emotionally draining for many women (and some men). This shouldn’t be ignored.
Let’s also compare the alternatives:
A. The emotional effects of finishing the pregnancy and raising the child.
B. The emotional effects of finishing the pregnancy and giving the child up for adoption.
C. The emotional effects of abstinence.
D. The emotional effects of using contraceptives.
E. Are there any other alternatives?
I don’t have studies to point to, but off-hand I’d guess birth control is the easiest. But none of us are qualified to rate these, they are very personal decisions. Much like deciding when a fetus has a soul. The idea that a law can be written to decide for us seems wrong to me.
I liked it better when we were discussing how to reduce abortions.
*snicker* I know what the effects are–you aren’t a full woman until you are a birthing woman. You gotta wrestle some of these people to the ground in debates before you get the straight answer, though. Have at it. I’d rather not be a woman if it means I have to be constantly popping out the pups.
Hi Amanda,
You say that you have gotten the impression (from pro-life people, I’m assuming) that “you aren’t a full woman until you are a birthing woman”. This is actually not true. People may say this or think this, but it is not quite correct. I do, of course, think that it is an extremely noble thing to be a mother in the physical sense.
However, not *all* women are called to be biological mothers – but, all women, because they are women, are by nature maternal and should be encouraged to use their gifts to nuture and care for those close to them. That may or may not happen to include children of their own.
Some women want to have many children, some do not. That’s fine. The argument against abortion has nothing to do with people thinking women should be “constantly popping out the pups” (which is ridiculous). How large a family gets is up to individual couples. What opposition to abortion has to do with starts with the fact that women alone are capable of bearing children, but by no mean ends there.
If a woman becomes pregnant (which does happen on occasion), whether by choice or by accident, it is their responsibility not just as women but as human beings and citizens of a just society to meet the situation head on and deal with it in the right way (as all citizens are obliged to do). If she happens to get pregnant and does not want the child under any circumstances, the right action is to give the child up for adoption rather than deprive it of their constitutional right to life. Not wanting to *raise* a child of one’s own gives no woman the right to abort it. How many people do you know that have been adopted? Would you be right in telling any of them their mother should have been entirely free to abort them had she not wanted to have a child? What do you think they would say to that?
Let me add, however, that if the problems posed by an unplanned pregnancy are due more to circumstances, it is equally the duty of the man in the picture to make sure he protects and cares for the well-being of both the woman and their child, and his responsibility for taking action in a morally upstanding way is just as great if not greater.
On top of that, our society (not just the federal or state government, but also local communities in particular) remains obligated to properly address the problems encountered by women with unplanned pregnancies, as a great many of them occur every year. Unfortunately, abortion actually allows companies and governmental commitees to entirely skip out on their very real obligations to provide women with child care and better welfare programs and job training and all the rest. Why, if they can propose abortion as the best solution and be done with it, would they need to make these better and more readily available?
Let me finish with a quote from one of the early American feminists, Mattie Brinkerhoff (a contemporary of Susan B. Anthony). She wrote this in the journal ‘The Revolution’ in September of 1869:
“When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude that there is someting wrong in society – so when a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is an evidence that either by education or circumstances she has been greatly wronged.”
What if you don’t want a baby and don’t want to commit your body to the changes that pregnancy brings, many of which are painful and some of which are permanent?
Alsis – I haven’t forgotten about you, I’m still planning to address your birth control concerns. I’ll get to it soon.
Yes, painful and sometimes permanent changes can happen with a pregnancy, this is true. However, lots and lots of sound medical studies (I’ll look some up for you) conclude that abortion is generally not healthy for women (higher incidents of breast cancer, for example) and the hormones released during pregnancy protects against lots of things. I’m not being very specific, I’ll have to get back to you on this.
By the way, what kind of changes are you talking about, specifically?
Surely the answer to that question depends on if the adopted person you’re asking is pro-choice or pro-life.
Perhaps. But, regardless of their stance, if the adopted person were to agree that their biological mother can and should have had every right to abort them, and had that actually been the case, there is a definite chance they would not be alive right now. And most people, to my knowledge, are grateful to be alive.
Of course they are, but most of us understand that we are not *meant* to be, I think. I realize that if my parents had decided to get a little more rest the night I was conceived, I wouldn’t be alive but that doesn’t make me pro-have-sex-all-the-time.
…abortion is generally not healthy for women (higher incidents of breast cancer, for example)…
Ummm, no. The higher incidents of breast cancer claim is considered not to be true by the medical world. Making that claim severely lessens your credibility in my eyes, as does your statement that…
…certainly it’s possible to *think* one has not suffered any negative effects…
with which you dismiss the experiences of those who disagree with you.
Just so you know the impression that you’re making.
How many people do you know that have been adopted? Would you be right in telling any of them their mother should have been entirely free to abort them had she not wanted to have a child? What do you think they would say to that?
Well, I was adopted, so any of you who know me know at least one person who has been adopted. And here is what I have to say:
I was born before Roe v. Wade. It is possible that my birth mother had no real choice but to give birth to me. The thought of that makes me very sad. I have never met my birth mother and know nothing of her life (it was a “closed adoption”), but I wish for her what I would wish for any woman: never to be forced to give birth to a child against her will.
But as Amp said, I can no more claim to speak for all people who were adopted as infants than anyone can claim to speak for all women who have had abortions, or for all women faced with the choice of whether to bring a child to term or not. Or, for that matter, for all women.
Perhaps. But, regardless of their stance, if the adopted person were to agree that their biological mother can and should have had every right to abort them, and had that actually been the case, there is a definite chance they would not be alive right now.
And if my parents had chosen to refrain from sex, or if they’d used contraception, then I would not be alive right now either.
But that doesn’t make me think that abstinence and contraception should be illegal!
A multitude of research resources on this topic can be found here:
http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/ABC_Research.htm
and an interesting article on the subject:
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art14005.asp
and this is from a 2001 article:
* * *
VERY long quote from a pro-life article, without any commentary from Janelle, deleted by Amp. If you want to read the original article, you can follow this link.
Janelle, you are very welcome to stay here and post as long as you remain civil. But I want this to be a forum for discussion – not for quoting huge chunks of articles written by third parties, without any new material added by the poster. Quoting a paragraph or two to suppliment your point is fine; but quoting half an article without adding any thoughts of your own is not.
Elkins:
So what you’re saying is that you would gladly have let your mom kill you if she wanted to? Oh my.
Refraining from sex and using contraception are not the direct taking of an innocent human life. Abortion is. There can be no comparison.
Janelle, despite the fact that those breast cancer studies pass the ideaology test, they have not yet passed peer review.
Now you’re changing the terms of your argument. Earlier you said that “most people, to my knowledge, are grateful to be alive.” So are you now saying that people should be grateful for SOME circumstances that led to them being alive (i.e., not being aborted), but not for OTHER circumstances that just as surely led to them being alive (i.e., their parents meeting up at the right time, the condom failing, whatever)?
That doesn’t make sense.
I don’t think that it’s a problem for people to recognize that being alive is wonderful, and to also recognize that it would be better if history’s circumstances had been better – even if that would mean never having been born. For instance, probably I never would have been born if European Jews hadn’t been mistreated in Europe (forcing my parents’ ancestors to move to the USA); but that doesn’t mean I’m grateful that anti-Semitism has been a powerful force in world history.
If I had never been born, then probably someone else would have been born instead, and that person would enjoy being alive insted of me. That’s the way it works, and I don’t see any philosophically sound reason to think that my lack of birth would have been a disaster for the universe.
In the real world, it works the other way around; countries that outlaw abortion tend to have very meager social welfare programs, whereas countries that have abortion that is available on demand and paid for by the government have very strong social welfare systems.
Oddly enough, the states that provide abortion on demand and generous social supports, also tend to have fewer abortions. I think this is because they teach their kids and teens to use birth control effectively, and because a really generous social safety net means that women can decide to have children without giving up their hopes of attending college or of not living in poverty.
Is there any evidence at all that banning abortion has ever led to a low abortion rate?
The terms of my argument are that once conception occurs, there is a human life present.
I am not in the least bit saying that “people should be grateful for SOME circumstances that led to them being alive, but not for OTHER circumstances that just as surely led to them being alive”.
I am saying that if an abortion leads to someone not being alive, this is always morally wrong – because they were alive and now they are not. Circumstances occurring *before* conception that leads someone not to be alive have nothing to do with this. Before conception, there is no human life, no life to prevent from continuing. After conception, this *is* the case. Life is a wonderful mystery, and all of our lives should be nurtured and protected. Period.
And as for gratitude, it inevitably leads to a profound awe and respect for one’s own and indeed all life.
…”and I don’t see any philosophically sound reason to think that my lack of birth would have been a disaster for the universe” – oh, how untrue! You are incredibly precious to God and the universe would be sadly lacking without your presence. This is how God views every human soul!
Amp: Sorry about the long post, I’m new to blogs and don’t really know the rules. If I’m being un-civil in any way, please let me know.
We’re all familiar with the weak dodge “human life present”. You think it’s a person or you don’t. Human life doesn’t have rights or sperm have rights, as do blood cells.