I really like to assume the best of everyone, even people I disagree with.
And I try hard to take what opponents say, at their word.
But sometimes it’s hard..
A lot of people who favor forced childbirth for pregnant women say that they believe that an abortion, even early in pregnancy, is identical to child murder. Have an abortion, shoot a four-year-old in the head; morally, it’s the same. Or, anyhow, that’s what they claim to believe.
In contrast, pro-choicers tend to think that the abortion criminalization movement is motivated by a desire – perhaps an unconscious desire – to punish women for having sex.
I used to reject that latter view as a pointless ad hominem attack. Nowadays, I’m not so sure. Although I’ve met some rank-and-file “pro-lifers” whose policy preferences were consistent with a belief that a fetus is morally indistinguishable from a child, those folks usually have policy preferences which are totally out of step with the abortion criminalization movement as a whole.
In contrast, the leaders of the abortion criminalization movement have consistently put their political weight behind policies which make little or no sense if they genuinely think that abortion is identical to child murder. And those same leaders routinely endorse policies that make a lot of sense if their goal is to penalize women who have sex – to, as I’ve heard many of them put it, make sure women “face the consequences” of having sex. And they’ve done so with the apparent backing and blessing of the vast majority of the rank and file. Let’s review:
Almost none of their policies make sense if they really see no difference between the death of a fetus and the death of a four-year-old. However, nearly all their policies make sense if they’re seeking to make sure that women who have sex “face the consequences.” are punished. After years of seeing this pattern repeated again and again, it’s difficult to take them at their word.
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Great post!
Pingback: Word Munger » Abortion, sex, and murder
Excellent chart and analysis. Did you put the chart together yourself or did it come from another source?
Brilliant.
The one thing you forgot in the analysis is where we pro-lifers claim to be consistent ;-)
All kidding aside, the equating of abortion with murder hinges on the fundimental belief that the embryo/fetus is a person. Period. The fact that our policy proposals are often contradictory (and I agree they are) and that they can be twisted to “look” more like policies against female sexual rights doesn’t mean that is the intent.
The exception to the above may be the contraception/sex ed stance. But that issue is not fundimentally about abortion or murder.
Well, gengwall, it doesn’t really have anything to do with consistency, does it? It seems to be it’s more about what you choose to go after. And it really doesn’t take any twisting to point out that anti-choicers are pretty consistent about going after the things that punish women. Why do you think that is?
Well, gengwall, it doesn’t really have anything to do with consistency, does it? It seems to be it’s more about what you choose to go after.
Well, this is true enough.
And it really doesn’t take any twisting to point out that anti-choicers are pretty consistent about going after the things that punish women.
I am simply pointing out the difference between intent and effect. The fundimental intent is to stop murders from happening. The effect may also be that women have their sexual freedom repressed (well, and men too for that matter). Actually, the majority effect is the sexual freedom repression since outlawing abortion and any of the other things Amp mentioned really won’t stop the murders. But, as has been pointed out here and in other Amp posts, the outlawing abortion position is rife with inconsistency and illogic.
Why do you think that is?
Well, I will give you my frank opinion. The majority of the pro-life movement, meaning basically conservative evangelical Christians, is completely out of step with reality. What they want to do, really, is create a theocracy that imposes on society their Christian morality (whatever that is – try getting a consistent answer about that from, say, Jesse Jackson, the Pope, and Pat Robertson) I agree, it is a completely messed up policy stance. But it is fueled by a deep, emotional belief in the personhood of the unborn. And that belief has biological, legal, and political support. There can be no denying that the outlaw abortion movement in America has significant momentum.
I really think that with victory in sight, the movement has become even more short sighted. Now, any law no matter how rediculously contradictory to the “abortion is murder” mantra, is enthusiastically endorsed. You should see some of these bills. The Mississippi bill has gotten almost as much attention as the SD law. It includes exceptions for rape and incest and holds the mother harmless. But even more silly, the penalty for committing this “murder” is a misdemeanor! Now, does that sound like murder to you?
Amp—Mind if I print this out and tape it to the door of my dorm room?
Gengwall—
They do more than “look” like policies against female sexual rights. They are, in practice, policies against female sexual rights. I don’t give a damn what their intent was if they can’t manage their effects.
And the protection of the mother from legal consequences (unless the fact that it’s in her body makes it justifiable homicide), and the rape/incest exception (if it’s murder, it’s murder all the time), and the D&X ban (pointless, from a preventing-murder perspective), and the welfare thing (which leads to more women seeking abortions because they can’t afford another kid or to take unpaid maternity leave), and the attacks on the HPV vaccine (which has nothing to do with abortion), and the opposition of the UNPF (which prevents unwanted pregnancies, thus preventing abortions, and increases maternal health, which results in fewer miscarriages, fewer childbirth complications for both the newborn and the mother, and fewer maternal deaths which means more mothers are alive and healthy to care for their children). All of these are pointless and/or counterproductive if your goal is “saving babies,” but all of them have vastly negative effects on women. They do not seem like reasonable actions of people trying to save babies; rather, they seem like the actions of people for whom punishing women is more important than saving babies.
Put another way, the actions of the “pro-life” movement speak so loudly that I cannot hear what they are saying.
Sex-ed and contraception are fundamentally about preventing abortion (or murder, if that’s how you see it). No one can get an abortion if their birth control prevents them from becoming pregnant in the first place.
gengwall, what explanation is there for the inconsistency, then?
I can think of one–the inability to treat women as full moral agents. This is the excuse you primarily hear given for punishing doctors, but not women who seek abortions. Women don’t know what they’re really doing, the evil abortion industry brainwashed them, and so on. In this view, women are really stupid and childlike, and have no moral agency for killing their children. It’d be as if we decided that if Susan Smith had paid someone to drive her children into that like, the driver was a murderer but she shouldn’t be blamed.
mythago – yes, that is one possible explanation. But I can tell you sincerely that from my experience in the midst of this camp, that that is not how we think. (Well, there are some bone heads that still have a cave man mentality but they are a very small minority). Remember, there are pretty much as many women in the fundie anti-abortion camp as there are men. These are not repressed women by any means and they certainly aren’t stupid, brainwashed, or childlike in their understanding of the issues.
I have posted an answer to ADS that will probably address your questions as well but it is waiting moderation.
Ampersand, I would have never thought of myself as one of your opponents, but I do believe abortion is murder (but not akin to child murder), and I also believe abortion laws are there to punish women. I LOVE this chart! I recently posted on this very issue, see “On Abortion Law and Rape” on my site (which is still virginal, so please do look!). I haven’t figured out how to link to specific posts, so you’ll have to scroll down a little.
I’m not sure I follow the very first line. Where is there an anti-abortion law being passed that protects mothers from all legal consequences. Legal consequences of what? Abortion? Giving birth? So confused…
Other than that, good summary.
In my experience, the people most anxious to punish women for having sex are other women.
gengwall, it’s just impossible for the institutional pro-life movement to divorce itself from the other institutions that breathe life into it — through in-kind, financial, and yes, moral support. This includes the Roman Catholic church, in particular, and any number of smaller church or church related organizations. They oppose contraception and assisted reproductive technology. They are firmly in the camp of denying women equal participation within their own institutions, and don’t really care about how women fare professionally, yet are immensely concerned that women play a particular role in family life, usually in subservience to their husbands. They glorify child rearing as a primary occupation of women. (I have three children but I can see that motherhood isn’t for everyone.) Don’t tell me that these women are smart, etc. That only makes it worse. The fact that these incredibly independent and smart women (have you read even a summary of Phyllis Schlafly’s bio?) are so determined to prevent other women from achieving self-determination and autonomy over their own lives is just revolting.
Connecting the dots here couldn’t be easier. It’s why I no longer give $ to my RC church — I do give in-kind assistance to my parish’s social justice outreach programs, like affordable housing and living wage.
Perhaps it’s worth noting that the author of Exodus apparently did not regard the loss of a fetus as equivalent to the death of a person.
In brief, the penalty for intentional homicide is death (Exodus 21:12, 14) and the penalty for unintentional homicide is banishment (Exodus 21:13). But the penalty for causing a miscarriage is a merely a fine (Exodus 21:22).
I learned this from Rabbi (and author) Harold S. Kushner.
barbara – your familiarity with the Catholic church to an extent taints your perspective. Catholics make only one segment of the pro-life movement. There are many differing views within the movement on the topics you highlight.
Most non-catholic Christians have no problem with contraception per se. The number dwindles a little regarding assisted reproduction technologies but there certainly are many, many Christians who use and support those technologies. Admitedly, The number dwindles quite a bit when it comes to emergency contraception. But an opposition to EC does not mean an opposition to contraception in total.
Within church institutions, you couldn’t be more wrong. Many, many denominations ordain female ministers, slightly more allow female decons and elders, and virtually all have female ministry heads.
Your contention about the professional world is also not correct. Certainly, you don’t mean to blame work place inequity on Christians alone? I can cite you examples of whole communities where there is overt discrimination against women in the work place and also point out how liberal and non-religious these communities are. Within the church, I will admit that there is a large block of “barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen” believers but they are not the majority by any means. Virtually all of the families in my 1,000 member very conservative evangelical church are dual income families. In many, the wife earns more and is in a higher rank professionally than the husband. Moreover, I have never, ever, heard any argument in any evangelical Christian circle that women should not receive equal pay for equal work, or that there should be any kind of glass ceiling in the workplace for women. As I have stated before, we simply do not think this way.
They glorify child rearing as a primary occupation of women. (I have three children but I can see that motherhood isn’t for everyone.)
Motherhood might not be for everyone but you started out talking about child rearing. Non-catholic Christians have no problem with people who don’t have or want children. But once the children exist, we do consider child rearing to be a very serious and noble “occupation”. We certainly think that it is better for children if it can be one parent’s “primary” occupation. And we certainly think women are better suited to it than men. I don’t see anything degrading to women in that philosophy.
The vast majority of Christians hold women in high esteem, greatly respect them, desire to honor them, and believe they are equal to men in every respect except one. That is leadership of the family. Now, I could spend several thousands of words helping you understand what this leadership entails, but that would probably be a waste of space. Suffice it to say that it is nothing like what you think or have been told it is.
nobody – you are correct. At best, the bible has contradictory references to the unborn. In addition, the jews did not consider the unborn persons under the law at any prenatal stage. You did not become a person under the law until you were born.
This illustrates again the problem with bringing religion into the discussion. Religions bodies are far from in agreement on personhood of the unborn.
Great table. Gengwall misses a point however–perhaps because it wasn’t explicit in this post: the fundamental belief that an embryo/fetus is a person is irrelevant to this discussion.
ALL societies have rules about when it is permissible to kill another person, and only when those rules are broken is it called murder. Anti-choice people may SAY that abortion is murder, but clearly they don’t believe that to be the case.
When I wrote in my blog a post called “20 Questions: Baby Killing Edition,” asking people who kept saying “abortion is MURDER” if they really believed that statement — and all of its outgrowths — I got a lot of hemming and hawing, a lot of inconsistency, and one poster who said trials were too good for women who had abortions, and they should be tossed into wood chippers outside the clinics. Not kidding.
When I asked, since it’s ok to take a woman’s uterus hostage for 9 months to support another life and enforce that with the full power of the law, is it ok to force living people to donate blood, bone marrow, or kidneys, I got a lot of “it’s not the same” and “but you’re RESPONSIBLE for one life.” It’s not about life, it’s about sexual responsibility — but a particular kind of sexual responsibility where we still take care of men who aren’t sexually responsible (for instance, no one would ever propose stopping syphillis treatment, but HPV vaccines? Who needs ’em, right?).
Even looking at their actual arguments and what they view as “perfect” legislation in a perfect world, it’s clear they don’t believe embryos and fetuses are full humans with full rights. If they did, they would want 1/3 of American women to be behind bars for premeditated murder.
That’s an excellent, useful post.
I would add one: the issue of dealing with every miscarriage as a homicide investigation. Because how else would the state determine, given the professed belief that abortion is murder, whether a miscarriage was “god’s will” or “murder”?
Wouldn’t the policy of punishing women for having abortions be more consistent with the idea of “punishing women for having sex” than the policy of not punishing women for having abortions? If the main goal is to punish women for having sex then throwing them in jail for having abortions seems like a greater punishment for having sex than not throwing them in jail.
Is there any evidence/studies which show that other late term abortion procedures have a higher risk of injuring the mother than intact D and X?
Which prolife organizations are opposed to an HPV vaccine? The only thing I’ve seen is a couple of individuals tentatively opposing making the vaccine mandatory.
What about the other prolife policies such as informed consent laws, parental consent laws, bans on tax-funded abortions, etc. – do they fit this same model as well?
mg_65 – good point, although certain behaviors by pregnant women are already scrutinized in some state laws. It is such negligence that would be the determining factor in whether it was accidental (“God’s will”) or manslaughter (it would never be murder). I think, actually, that pro-lifers would be in favor of penalties for negligence induced miscarriages.
This would be no different than investigations into newborn and any other child death. Even if it is not murder, an investiation is done to determine if there was negligence which caused the child’s death. If so, many states have manslaughter provisions (and penalties) which deal with these tragic but avoidable deaths.
The vast majority of Christians hold women in high esteem, greatly respect them, desire to honor them, and believe they are equal to men in every respect except one. That is leadership of the family. Now, I could spend several thousands of words helping you understand what this leadership entails, but that would probably be a waste of space. Suffice it to say that it is nothing like what you think or have been told it is.
geez, the amount of time i could spend expounding upon all that goes into that little word ‘but.’ if women are not held as equal in all aspects of life, then women are not equal, period. i don’t care how many pedestals religious dogma offers women in other aspects of life. if they are not equal in leadership of the family, they are not equal *at all*.
emily1 – Your comment shows you do not understand what this leadership I refer to is. So, I will expound a little.
First, it does not mean that the man (or woman) makes all the decisions in the family. The Christian model presumes decisions are made jointly.
It also does not mean the man (or woman) makes the majority of the money, does the majority of the work to maintain home, or handles the household finances. The Christian model presumes that the distribution of these things will be unique in each household and will reflect the areas that the couple are gifted in. Moreover, nothing in the Christian model prevents women from having careers.
It does not mean the woman (or the man) does all the child rearing. The Christian model presumes that this be a mutual and equal effort.
The Christian model of leadership involves two basic principles: responsibility and servanthood. The man is expected to take responsibility for the spiritual direction of the family (something that Christian men today are horrible at). He is also expected to accept responsibility for the consequences of any family actions. Along with this, the man is expected to devote his life to service of the family. The family is to be his number one priority (after God, of course. This is an area where men in general have a dismal record). Moreover, he is to lay down his life for the well being of the family. That may be literal or figurative. In other words, the reason why many Christians say the man should be the “bread winner” is that it is the man who should be making the majority of the sacrifices to ensure the family has their basic needs met.
Jesus is our model for this servant leader. Needless to say, most Christian men, (myself chief among them), fall far short of this example. But that is what is meant when we talk about the man being the leader of the house. The important thing to note is that the correct approach has nothing to do with dominating, abusing, or supressing our wives. Quite the opposite is true. We should be laying down our life in such a way that our wives are free to be whatever they want to be.
Now, (whew, big breath), is that what is practiced in todays society? Of course not. But that is what is preached in today’s churches. We have just abdicated and shirked these roles for so long that we don’t have any idea how to be real men anymore.
I agree with Emily1.
The “leadership” of the family is not a small thing. The whole legal principle of coverture was based on the idea of male-head-of-household. Married women’s property laws, the ability to vote, full citizenship rights for women, marital rape, — all of these legal concepts are related to the legal principle of coverture, in which the male head-of-household politically “represents” his dependents to the state. The married woman was considered “legally” dead to the state and “represented” by her husband.
The writings of anti-suffragists is informative on this ideological connection.
In _Casey_ , Sandra O’Connor knocked down the Pennsylvania law that required a woman to notify her husband prior to an abortion. In the opinion, O’Connor (Kennedy and Souter) noted that this law was a throwback to the legal principle of coverture: “Section 3209’s husband notification provision constitutes an undue burden and is therefore invalid…Section 3209 embodies a view of marriage consonant with the common law status of married women but repugnant to this Court’s present understanding of marriage and of the nature of the rights secured by the Constitution.” (In contrast, Alito wrote an opinipon supporting this law.)
gengwall, looks like I hit a nerve.
First, I did not say that Christians are responsible for workplace discrimination. I am sentient enough to see that many non-Christians hold women’s equality in even lower esteem. However, most conservative Christian groups emphasize women’s role within the family and as you admit, that role is not equal; they do not make it a cause to promote the equality or advancement of women in the work place. Many actively encourage women not to participate in the workforce. Many advocate early marriage and so on.
Second, I am aware that many of those who call themselves pro-life may not be active adherents of the groups whereof I speak. I have no idea what the breakdown is, do you? But these are the groups that provide the lion’s share of funding, space, and perhaps most important, the lobbying clout that sustains the legislative efforts against abortion, not to mention that they actively exhort members to join and participate in pro-life groups. For instance, they fund groups with names like “Priests for Life” that disseminates all kinds of inaccurate information by any media at its disposal about health related risks of contraception and abortion. They have a television network called EWTN. Etc.
Third, it’s true that most protestants have no principled opposition to birth control. It’s also true that most protestant denominations do not actively pursue the criminalization of abortion. There is a striking parallel between those denominations that oppose contraception or accessibility of contraception (take your pick — the latter is clearly a rising phenomenon) and that pursue the criminalization of abortion.
I don’t need an education on Christian doctrine or dogma. I am quite literate on the subject, I am also quite literate on early influences on the Church that turned it into an arm of the Roman government and patriarchal authority generally. I am not a specialist, but I am an avid reader and had lots of classes on the subject back in the day.
Or to steal a quote from G.K. Chesterton – “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It’s been found difficult and left untried.”
Though in general I think those who choose to express themselves as Christians would do better to try harder to live up to their own ideals, and worry a little less about whether the rest of the world is living up to the ideals that they themselves can not meet.
gengwall:
emily1 – Your comment shows you do not understand what this leadership I refer to is. So, I will expound a little.
Emily1’s comment does not descibe her belief or understanding what leadership is at all. She pointed out an inportant flaw in your claims on men and women equal in all aspects by the Christian model. I grant you that the Christian model is not necessarily anti-woman, but instead it seems to have seperate but equal roles for men and women.
Catchy phrase, that.
A couple more possibilities I haven’t noticed here yet:
In-vitro fertilization is an acceptable procedure.
abortion==murder : NO, this procedure often results in embryos that are ultimately killed.
sex only when I approve : YES, this is commonly used by married couples to be fruitful and multiply.
Miscarriage (spontaneous abortion) is an enormous public health problem.
abortion==murder : YES , medicine must intervene to save these living souls, just as it does for older people;
sex only when I approve : NO, this happens most often to married women trying to have a baby.
barbara – I appreciate your response. It could be that nerve of mine was over exposed and easily hit. I only would argue still against this:
There is a striking parallel between those denominations that oppose contraception or accessibility of contraception (take your pick … the latter is clearly a rising phenomenon) and that pursue the criminalization of abortion.
I have spent going on 30 years in congregations of denominations that have actively pursued the criminalization of abortion and never in those twenty years have any ever even hinted of an opposition to contraception or the accessibility thereof (with the one exception of contraception distribution in highschools.) We certainly may simply have different experiences and circles of influence, but I have never seen the parallel you alude to in mine.
I thought that was Mark Twain. But I was wrong.
Another good one:
“Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.”
I suppose that separate but equal -thing was somewhat harsh, but the earlier point about using emily1’s comment, and criticism of the patronizing tone stands.
Tapetum – Amen
Tuomas – I don’t know that I exactly agree with your paraphrase, but I don’t think we need to quibble over it. My whole diatribe was kind of OT anyway. I just wanted to illustrate that the perception (especially the liberal feminist perception) of Christian male leadership and what the bible actually calls for are very different.
Gengwall:
Okay. The pedant in me jumped at the phrase I quoted. I’m enjoying the discussion, and you do bring a fresh perspective. My understanding of the Christian pro-life movement, and of feminism, are both somewhat limited, so I’m learning a lot here.
emily1 – I appologize if I misread you and for any insult in my response. Thanks, Tuomas, for the “iron sharpening iron” (another great biblical practice).
I just wanted to illustrate that the perception (especially the liberal feminist perception) of Christian male leadership and what the bible actually calls for are very different.
But it sounds as if you see married women as inferior moral actors to their husbands. Why is the husband more responsible for the moral choices of his wife then the wife herself? Her soul and her moral capacity should be equal to that of her husband.
For example, if my grandmother came to live with my husband and I, we would both have a moral responsibility to care for her. I would be just as responsibility for her well-being as my husband. As an adult, I believe it would be immoral for me to abdicate my moral responsibility.
I think Amp kind of has a point, and kind of doesn’t.
I think there is a strain of anti-abortion thought which is indeed misogynistic and which does indeed seek to punish women for the crime of being sexual entities. That strain is not dominant (squishy moderates like Gengwall are a lot more representative of the pro-lifers I’ve met than the nutjobs are) but it certainly exists.
On the flip side, most of these categories don’t really prove anything. From the top:
A) Abortion bans which don’t criminalize the mother – this is a political choice. There are a lot of people who think that abortion is wrong without it being murder. Pro-lifers who are trying to pass laws are not trying to articulate their philosophical belief in legal form – they’re trying to get a law passed to modify behavior. Locking up the mother would be politically damaging to the chances of getting the law passed.
In fact, this one would seem to point against the “punish women” rubric. If pro-lifers wanted to punish women, they’d want to lock them up. Instead, they focus on the behavior and on the less sympathetic of the players involved – the clinician.
B) Opposing contraception – as Gengwall has noted, relatively few people in the pro-life movement are anti-contraception. Even those of us who are supposed to be, generally aren’t. There are sound reasons for not wanting contraception passed out to kids that don’t have to be viewed through the abortion rubric.
C) Rape and incest – see A. Just politics.
D) Partial birth – Your argument doesn’t hold up, because the people wanting to ban these procedures don’t think that doctors will find alternatives. You might be correct about the actual impact of the law, but your opinion of the impact isn’t the opinion of the pro-lifers involved.
E) Welfare – see B. This is a different issue. Sure, there may be connections – but pro-lifers don’t accept your framing of the question, and don’t see it the way you see it.
F) HPV vaccine. As with contraception, there is very little opposition to the vaccine itself. There is opposition to giving it to kids. You may disagree with the pro-life logic, but we are not opposed to the HPV vaccine’s existence or use.
G) Bombing clinics. Even if you view an action as equivalent to murder, that does not automatically justify resorting to violence to stop it.
H) UNFPA. We all hate the UN. We believe in defunding everything it does and moving the function to some other entity if it must be done. So we’d be opposed to UNFPA regardless; UNFPA’s disputed support of abortion is just a handy hook to hang it from.
Bottom line, I agree in part with your conclusion, but your reasoning to get there is rubbish. ;P
Amplifying something I just said –
One of the reasons that we don’t view the welfare and contraception issues the way you do is that by and large, pro-lifers are conservative. (Of course there are plenty of exceptions – hi LAMom! – but this is the strong trend.)
And again speaking generally, conservatives believe that we are responsible for the moral formation of young people, but that what adults do is their own problem. So – even if there are empirical effects that would seem to urge a different approach – we are unwilling to hand out condoms and vaccines to kids because that amounts to us endorsing their sexual activity. Whereas, what the welfare moms get up to is their own problem.
I kind of get the impression that liberals work the other way. Kids have total agency and can’t be corralled – and since they’re going to have sex whether we like it or not, let’s make sure they have condoms and vaccines. But the poor welfare people, they’re helpless without us teaching them how to cook (see other thread) and we have to take care of them and make sure they have what they need.
Difference in perceiving the world, results in a difference of how we reason about moral issues.
Wow! Lots of stuff that was out in moderation limbo for a while. Best we just move on – agreed? My head would explode trying to catch up and probably half of the stuff is now either answered or moot.
Good job getting things back on task Robert.
Murder is a legal definition. What may be considered murder in one case would not be considered murder under slightly different circumstances so I don’t call women that choose abortion or abortion providers murderers. I believe that they are killing and believe that “kill” is a more accurate word to use than murder.
People are anti-abortion for a variety of reasons and I have a few reasons myself. There are people that are anti-abortion on biblical grounds. There are people that are anti-abortion for secular reasons like myself and many other people fall somewhere in between the exclusively secular and the exclusively biblical.
Unfortunately, those that are anti-abortion for biblical reasons tend to garner most of the attention and are most effective at getting their points of view heard and their ideas about public policy promoted. Also, many of the most prominent anti-abortion organizations are Catholic or have some other religious affiliation which makes it seem as if the pro-lifers are all religious or are anti-contraception.
In my opinion, you can’t be anti-abortion and not be strongly pro-contraception. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. A Catholic may not be able to promote contraception due to personal beliefs but please don’t think that we are all Catholics ( and that all Catholics do not promote contraceptive use for non-Catholics).
I have another addition for the chart:
Countries with the lowest abortion rates (Belgium/ Netherlands) also have easy availability of contraception and abortion.
Countries with high abortion rates have legal restrictions on abortion.
Thus, is criminalization of birth control and abortion about lowing the rate of abortions or controlling women’s sexuality and reproduction?
If it’s about lowing the abortion rate, why in the world don’t those groups support the empirical evidence of what has happened in other countries around the world?
The debate of legalities is so stupid. Even totalitarian Romania couldn’t stop illegal abortion (or even lower the abortion rate after the first year.) Why in the world do these groups think they can use the law to lower the abortion rate?
Are they even concerned about the abortion rate? If so, why doesn’t the evidence about world abortion rates and the law interest them?
Are they even concerned about the abortion rate? If so, why doesn’t the evidence about world abortion rates and the law interest them?
Pro-lifers are interested in the abortion rate, but the evidence isn’t as unambiguous as you outline/assume. Abortion is a tricky thing to measure.
Some pro-lifers think that they can use the law to lower the abortion rate because they presume that there is a population of women who, if abortion is legal will consider abortion, but if abortion is illegal will not consider it. (Not necessarily because of the law per se, but because they don’t want to have to deal with the underworld to get it done.)
That presumption is almost certainly accurate; . The question is whether other effects would swamp whatever change there was from the change in incentives.
SW – very true. pro-lifers make this mistake constantly. I have actually started threads in forums where I have had to constantly moderate and remind people that the use of the term “murder” in the present abortion context is inappropriate to the discussion.
What abortion opponents really are attemting to argue is that prenatal personhood makes abortion a homocide. Now, how that homocide gets classed in law and whether or not it is justified, and therefore not criminal, under certain circumstances would need to be sorted out after it is established that it is indeed homocide. The most accurate statement an anti-choicer could make is that they want to get the homocide of abortion classified as murder in these x number of situations.
As I stated above, the miscarriage side of things would then fall under man slaughter rules. Specifically, was the homocide purely accidental (likely not a crime) or due to negligence (most likely a crime in most states). The important distinction would be that abortions and miscarriages were two different causes of death and would be treated as such in the law.
Robert, by framing many of Amp’s examples as “political choices” is that, basically, you have basically affirmed Amp’s point: No one would say that it is an acceptable political choice to decriminalize the murder of infants and children. No one.
I understand that many people oppose abortion on moral grounds. However, the rhetoric of the foundational position that, in essence, a two celled zygote is equivalent to a 2 month old baby, is not matched by a corresponding passion to treat that 2 celled zygote as if it were a 2 month old baby. That leads many of us, me included, to the conclusion that a lot of pro-life reasoning is in fact little more than rhetoric. I can go around saying all day that I believe that the theory of gravity is a lot of hooey, but if I won’t even consider jumping out of a window one might conclude that I don’t really believe what I am saying — or at least that there is sufficient doubt about the issue that I have no business requiring other people to jump out of windows.
Robert, sorry for garbling the first sentence: By framing many of Amp’s examples as “political choices” you have basically affirmed Amp’s point.
Wally, yes, I wrote the chart myself.
Orim wrote:
Sorry that was unclear. Most of the abortion bans passed nowadays punish the doctor for performing an abortion, but exempt the mother from being charged with any crime.
Kyra wrote:
That’s how I’m hoping folks use it!
Robert wrote:
That’s assuming “dominant” is defined as “representative of the pro-lifers Robert has met.” However, I don’t use that definition. I define “dominant” as “having the ability to set policy at high levels.” By that definition, the “nutjobs” clearly are dominant.
As for your point-by-point rebuttal, I don’t doubt that special pleading can be made for all of these examples, and for any possible future examples. But the overall pattern remains striking.
In any case, I find a lot of your excuses to be dubious.
If “political compromise” is an acceptable excuse, for example, then what happens to the often-heard argument from pro-lifers that they can’t accept any compromise on what they consider murder?
Saying “they don’t oppose the vaccine, they just oppose it being used in the way that would be most effective and save the most lives” isn’t a very impressive defense. It still demonstrates an appalling indifference to the lives of women.
Your argument about intact D&X abortion is just plain wrong. I’ve read dozens and dozens of articles by pro-lifers about this issue, as well as summaries of their arguments in the various court cases. I’ve NEVER seen any argue that intact D&X abortion will not be replaced by other procedures.
Admittedly, maybe there are rank and file pro-criminalization folks who are ignorant enough to not know that other procedures exist. But this chart isn’t about the rank and file; it’s about the leadership, policy-writing class.
Finally, saying “we hate the UN, so that justifies a policy which leads to tens of thousands of children being needlessly murdered every year” just proves my point: Pro-criminalization people don’t actually take the lives of fetuses seriously at all. If they actually believed that the death of a fetus was a horrible thing, saving that many fetal lives would outweigh sticking it to the UN.
By framing many of Amp’s examples as “political choices” you have basically affirmed Amp’s point.
Not sure how.
Saying that something is a “political choice” doesn’t mean that you don’t believe what you believe. In fact, it can mean that you believe it so strongly that you’re willing to compromise to get the core value passed into the law.
Now it is true that the use of the word “murder” is often rhetorical. There’s a distinction to be made that I think Amp is eliding (not intentionally, I am sure). And that is the fact that the use of the word “murder” is more often for effect than it is an actual literal assertion about moral equivalency. Killing another human being is not always murder. Murder very much incorporates a sense of motive – and few pro-lifers believe that a woman getting an abortion thinks of her fetus as a full human being, and deliberately intends to deprive that human being of its right to life, which is what they’d have to think to really think that the aborting mother was committing murder. They’re much more likely to think an aborting mother is making a terrible mistake, or has been led astray, or is acting out of dire necessity rather than malice.
To analogize it to a popular lefty thought pattern, a lot of people think that capitalism is theft. I could make up a nice little chart showing how left-wing economic thinkers don’t live out this rhetoric, and instead just Hate Freedom. But the lefties would (rightly) argue that they don’t advocate that the solution to the problem is to lock up the capitalists for burglary; they want a systemic change that redefines our economic relationships. Similarly, pro-lifers want a cultural change that redefines our reproductive relationships.
If they actually believed that the death of a fetus was a horrible thing, saving that many fetal lives would outweigh sticking it to the UN.
If they accepted your characterization of the outcome, yes. They don’t.
Robert, you are mistaken. Proving the crime of murder does not incorporate a sense of motive. Proving murder requires proof of intent — but intent as a criminal law concept is very different from motive. The existence of motive may be evidence that someone in fact committed a crime where the issue is in doubt but it is in every way immaterial to whether the crime of murder was committed.
If a woman truly does not think of her baby as a full human being but that’s what the law says, it shouldn’t matter. Intent means that you intended to do that which you did. If I intended to have an abortion (as opposed to accidentally becoming exposed to a bacteria that led to the loss of a pregnancy) then my sincere belief that society is wrong about its definition of personhood is just not relevant unless I am mentally ill, in which case, my defense is totally different. Just as the fact that I am in dire straits, have been led astray (!!!) etc. would rarely excuse a homicide (unless, again, it rose to the point of mental illness).
Any way you stage this debate it comes back to the same thing: it is less than self-evident to many people that a fetus is equivalent to a human being, including those who advocate that position.
Excuse me, you are correct. I should have said “intent”, not “motive”.
That said, yes, your legal reasoning is correct. But very few of the people we are talking about are thinking in terms of legal reasoning.
As I stated above, the miscarriage side of things would then fall under man slaughter rules. Specifically, was the homocide purely accidental (likely not a crime) or due to negligence (most likely a crime in most states). The important distinction would be that abortions and miscarriages were two different causes of death and would be treated as such in the law.
I’m I reading this correctly? Do you think a miscarriage is manslaughter? Maybe I’m not understanding the argument here, because that seems like a very odd statement to make.
On the availability of birth control: I believe it was Denmark that made contraception free for minors in the 1990s. This cut the unintentional pregnancy rate, which, in turn, cut the abortion rate.
But this policy would obviously not fly with a large proprotion of the US population because of our sexual politics. If the pro-life groups had to choose between a higher abortion rate (legal or illegal) or the distribution of free contraception to teenagers, my guess is that the majority of the groups would choose a higher abortion rate.
There must be a reason that pro-life groups ignore the raw data about contraception and pregnancy from places like Denmark. I have seen a lot of disbelief that women would resort to illegal means to abort.
Personally, I don’t understand this reasoning. A woman can try a do-it-yourself abortion all by herself in her own bathroom. She doesn’t even need to leave the house. (Obviously, this is not safe and should NOT be tried. But how many teenager girls will know that it is life threatening? The cervix is the liver or an internal organ. It is very close to the outside of a girl’s body. I really don’t understand why people don’t think that girls won’t try to disrupt a pregnancy on their own.)
Robert,
It’s too late to get into the rest of your first post, but what possible reason is there to not want to give an HPV vaccine to kids? I’ll anticipate that the answer is something like “because then kids will take that as permission to have sex,” but I don’t know many four year olds who ask whether the shot they just got at the pediatrician’s office was for polio or HPV, and I know even fewer who’d know which was which. Besides which, isn’t being able to prevent kids who are sexually molested from dying of cancer worthwhile?
Ooops – I should have written: The cervix is NOT the liver or an internal organ.
My point was – the cervix is easy to reach. Girls put in tampons and touch their cervix on a monthly basis. Teenagers are stupid. Teenagers think they are invincible and they tend not to think of the possible health dangers of their actions. A pregnancy can be disrupted by inserting something into the cervix. Thus, this all equals a health problem if girls can’t get access to safe abortions.
HPV vaccine. As with contraception, there is very little opposition to the vaccine itself. There is opposition to giving it to kids. You may disagree with the pro-life logic, but we are not opposed to the HPV vaccine’s existence or use.
So, are those opposed to the HPV vaccine opposed to treating syphilis – in kids? Or are they opposed to tetanus shots for kids? After all, if they are innoculated won’t they just go out & play with sharp rusty objects knowing that they are now at much less risk? Even though we’ve told them time and again not to do so?
I dunno. That position seems awfully callous and uncaring about human – more specifically, woman – death. Do you (or those who oppose giving the HPV vaccine to kids) really think that kids even know that HPV exists? How is withholding the vaccine reducing the incidence of kids having sex?
It doesn’t seem like a coherent position to me. On the one hand, you claim to care so much about kids (moral wellbeing) that you’ll do whatever you can to stop them having sex. OTOH, you care so little about kids (physical wellbeing) that you’d rather have them die than give them a vaccine to prevent them dying from a (sexually transmitted) disease of which they are probably not aware.
To go down that strange, strange road… What if your daughter (or my daughter or anybody’s daughter) gets raped & contracts HPV & dies? Will you still be okay with your decision to withhold the vaccine (or the availability of the vaccine) from kids (specifically girls)?
I frankly find opposition to the HPV vaccine bewildering – unless you believe that medicine is morally bad. “The wages of sex is death,” is such a Barbara Bush circa 1992 thing to say, after all.
ADS, the principal line of argument by Christian conservative groups has been that parents should be the people who decide whether their children receive the HPV vaccine. The reasons for letting parents, rather than the state, decide whether children ought to receive vaccines have been hashed out many times before.
geoduck – what I’m saying is that if prenatal personhood was established and the killing of the unborn classed as a homocide, then miscarriage due to negligence could be classed as manslaughter. A similar situation might be leaving your child in the car while you run into the store and they die from heat or cold exposure. (remember that the context is that the unborn are just as much people as your 3 month old) The death certainly was not intentional, it certainly was tragic, but in many (maybe all) states you would be guilty of manslaughter. Now take it to the unborn. You engage in some activity that you know can be harmful to the unborn child. Say, you go to the state fair and ride every gut wrenching, bar across the stomach ride seventeen times. As a result, you have a miscarriage. Again, you didn’t intend that your unborn child died, and it certainly is tragic, but since the unborn are no different than your two month old, the same laws may apply.
Now, proving that miscarriage was due to negligence may be very difficult in some situations (and very easy in others). But so is proving any variety of parental negligence which results in death. The point is, the same manslaughter laws could be applied.
Jake, there is practically nobody who holds the beliefs/behaviors that you’re describing.
ADS, the principal line of argument by Christian conservative groups has been that parents should be the people who decide whether their children receive the HPV vaccine.
Ah. I see. Clearly I wrote before understanding. So things like MMR, smallpox (when it was done), etc. vaccinations should be left up to the parents to decide whether their kids get them or not. So much for public health.
I’m guessing that if that were the case that smallpox would still be around (yes, I know it still exists in some few locales) and that we’d have a lot more deaths from MMR, etc. today.
Robert,
Clearly there are people who hold those beliefs/behaviours else there would be no debate about giving HPV vaccines to kids.
Unless you’re talking about the syphilis/tetanus paragraph. In which case you’re right & have uncovered my nefarious plan while ignoring that the intent of the paragraph was to point out how absurd those positions are & how they are analagous to the desire to keep the vaccine from kids.
If, however, you are referring to my 3rd paragraph I think you’re very, very wrong. That is the basis for the position that you describe. And, finally, Barbara Bush said in an interview in 1992, “We have to teach our children that sex is death.”
I think I have found the simple answer to Amp’s questions.
Do they really believe that abortion is murder? Yes, they do.
Are their policies consistent with the belief that abortion is exactly the same as child murder?Seldom – that doesn’t change their belief.
Are their policies consistent with wanting women who have sex to suffer consequencesCoincidentally, yes – that still doesn’t change their belief.
Is it clearer now???
The point is, the same manslaughter laws could be applied.
Man, women are already so guilt-ridden durring pregnancy. This just seems cruel. What if someone trips and falls on ice? Or doesn’t take enough folic acid? What if someone can’t afford to get pre-natal care? I don’t like the direction of this logic.
Robert,
Of course parents have the right to make medical decisions about vaccines and other health issues. but I don’t understand the why any groups would be against the HPV vaccine, either, unless they are scared of the health effects of vaccines in general.
geoducks – I don’t necessarily like the direction of the logic either. I simply point out what logic might be employed.
Specifically
What if someone trips and falls on ice? It is not manslaughter if you slip and fall on the ice with your two month old. It would not be negligence. (I am not so sure about if you went skating with your two month old in your arms. That is pretty dicey)
…Or doesn’t take enough folic acid? Might be negligence if you have been instructed by your doctor to take a certain amount for fetal health. If you weren’t directed to take folic acid (or anything other kind of suppliment), you have not been negligent.
What if someone can’t afford to get pre-natal care? Woof. Now that’s an interesting one. Let’s see. If you can’t afford post-natal care and your child dies from what would have been a diagnosed condition, have you been negligent? I don’t know about that one.
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Robert, a little while back you wrote:
…conservatives believe that we are responsible for the moral formation of young people, but that what adults do is their own problem
liberals work the other way. Kids have total agency and can’t be corralled – and since they’re going to have sex whether we like it or not, let’s make sure they have condoms and vaccines.
Generally, kids are going to have sex whether you like it or not. There’s no debate about this one (how can you?). The difference between the two examples you wrote about is conservatives want to impose their own very evangelical moral framework on kids. Liberals tend to base their decisions on empirical evidence, like the abortion statistics from the more liberal countries out there. I see two groups: people basing decisions on the reality of this world, and people basing decisions on a fantasy world they wish they had been born in (1950s america, 1499 England, 35 bc, you name it). One group learns from the past, past mistakes (and of course, science), and one group sticks by a set of morals that seem very faith-based to me.
Jake, vaccinations are optional in this country. I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but MMR and polio and smallpox and all the rest of it, optional.
There are NO groups (that I know of, anyway) that are opposed to the HPV vaccine. There are many people (me among them) who believe that parents must be the arbiters of medical care for their children, vaccines included.
So the debate that you’re imagining is not the debate that actually has occurred.
gwarek – Actually, kids are not bound to have sex. They are not barn yard cats after all. Kids choose to have sex. That choice for most kids (I would say all) is both unhealthy and unwise. A very evangelical framework can influence that choice. It can and does convince many kids that waiting to have sex is the more responsible, healthy, and wise choice.
Kids having sex and kids choosing to postpone sex till later in life (we would hope until marriage) are both real world decisions. I agree that we should teach and influence kids to be as safe as possible if their choice is to engage in sexual activity. But there is equal merit in encouraging them to wait. That is why most if not all liberals I have read recommend a balanced approach to sex education which includes real encouragement to postpone sex as well as real biological and medical information if you ultimately choose not to head the abstinence advice.
The liberal countries you alude to are truly effective at getting the contraception message out there. We don’t deny that success. But since we think that it is irresponsible and ill advised for teens to be engaging in sexual activity in the first place, we aren’t impressed with any results that don’t include a corresponding drop in teen sex to begin with. And certainly, we would not promote any strategy that was “contraception only” any more than you would promote one that was “abstinence only”. I think we both should be able to agree that the balanced approach is the best.
BTW – Robert, I’m a “squishy” moderate? I certainly would have prefered something like “refreshingly open minded moderate” or “courageously anti-nut-job moderate”. Sheez ;-)
“Courageously squishy moderate.”
Well, since you put it that way…*puffs up and hitches up pants like Barney Fife*
Very clear and precise chart, Ampersand.
Robert’s points don’t hold any water because even if you can come up with some other excuse (besides woman-hating) for the inconsistencies in the “pro-life” position, they are still inconsistencies and they all involve treating abortion like it’s not murder. So even if Robert comes up with some contorted argument for why these people don’t hate women, it still doesn’t change the fact that their arguments and their policies are utterly incoherent and completely fucked up.
Besides, it’s pretty telling that for every one of these inconsistencies that Amp cites, woman-hating is a good explanation for it (even if it doesn’t cover all the people who are prone to the inconsistency).
Are their policies consistent with the belief that abortion is exactly the same as child murder?Seldom – that doesn’t change their belief.
Are their policies consistent with wanting women who have sex to suffer consequencesCoincidentally, yes – that still doesn’t change their belief.
Is it clearer now???
Yes, it’s clearer, gengwall. You’re saying that we should just take the pro-lifers’ word for it that they believe abortion is murder, even though the policies they support aren’t at all consistent with that belief. In other words, we should just take their rhetoric at face value without examining their actions to see if the two match up.
Sorry, but I don’t believe that they believe abortion is murder. You know why? Because they don’t act like they believe this.
But since we think that it is irresponsible and ill advised for teens to be engaging in sexual activity in the first place, we aren’t impressed with any results that don’t include a corresponding drop in teen sex to begin with.
Teen sexual activity is “irresponsible” because of the possible consequences, which can be nearly gotten rid of through birth control. So if there’s widely available contraception then the consequences are greatly reduced, which makes teen sexual activity no longer irresponsible.
Unless you’re going to argue that there’s something inherently irresponsible about sex, even if we find a way to control the consequences. In which case you’re kind of proving Ampersand’s point.
Robert, you say:
But very few of the people we are talking about are thinking in terms of legal reasoning.
My point is that the people we’re talking about have to start thinking in terms of legal reasoning, because laws are now being passed to make all abortion illegal.
It is, today, a legal matter.
So, people have to start answering these questions, such as mine about miscarriage (see Rumania).
Lanoire – I believe abortion is a homocide (which is equivalent to the “abortion is murder” mantra without the legal terminology error). I do not hate women in any way. Of course, I should put in a caveat. I don’t think banning abortion is the right way to go about actually stopping it from happening. But all of my friends who do want to ban abortion share my lack of hatred for women.
Sometimes, things are exactly like people say they are. Sometimes, people act in ways that are contrary to what they actually believe. Sometimes, people have really dumb ways of solving problems and sometimes, those solutions won’t do diddly to actually solve the problem people think they will solve. And finally, sometimes people read other people’s actions all wrong, perceiving intent, motivation, and even effect where they don’t exist.
gengwall,
A very evangelical framework can influence that choice. It can and does convince many kids that waiting to have sex is the more responsible, healthy, and wise choice.
I don’t believe that waiting to have sex is a more responsible, healthy, or wise choice, although it can be for some people. Even if this is true in some cases and in some households, I don’t see how this justifies passing laws that impose very Christian morals on the whole population. I don’t think a balanced approach is best in this case, although maybe it is in others.
mg_65 – didn’t I answer your question about miscarriages? See post 21. Or are you saying I’m not someone (this coupled with Roberts “squishy moderate label cause genwall to feel extreamly paranoid)
Otherwise, I totally agree. The fundimental probelm with the conservative Christian pro-life position is that it ignores how law works in our country. (The same is true about their position on SSM, gay adoption, sex ed, evolution vs. intelligent design, and on and on…)
Something else that makes me think women are being punished for having sex:
When I was a teenager, and a virgin, I was given birth control pills because I had polycystic ovaries, which 1 in 4 women have. The pill is the best medical treatment for it. Without treatment, I had a decent risk of developing ovarian cancer, which can’t be detected until it’s too late to save your life. Was this covered by my parents’ insurance? Absolutely not: the pill is classified as something that does not correct a disorder, and therefore it not to be covered by insurance. (This is the argument, by the way, for why Viagra is covered – it does correct a disorder.)
So even when the pill was a life saving preventative measure for me and 25% of the female population of America, it could not be covered just on the offchance that I might get some contraceptive use out of it as well. There was absolutely no exception.
If we were serious about preserving life, would we as a society tolerate 25% of women having to pay for a medicine to treat a condition just because that medicine also has a contraceptive effect?
The message I got was that it was better I die than a private insurance company be tainted by any action that might make it look like they sanctioned my having a sex life.
I don’t believe that waiting to have sex is a more responsible, healthy, or wise choice, although it can be for some people.
Many even on your side would disagree. But you raise your kids your way and I’ll raise mine my way. OK.
Even if this is true in some cases and in some households, I don’t see how this justifies passing laws that impose very Christian morals on the whole population.
Oh, I totally agree. Did I imply differently? I did not intend to. I think this evangelical framework is something that should totally stay in the home. I sure don’t want some teacher trying to give moral instruction to my kid. Yikes! Or do you believe that abstinence education is completely a moral teaching? It isn’t. Abstinence education has significant biological, sociological, and psychological components that have nothing to do with the religious reasons for postponing sex.
I don’t think a balanced approach is best in this case, although maybe it is in others.
But we are talking about policy here. We can’t gear sex ed to the individual. Is a balanced approach a good policy (knowing that I don’t mean to include religious argument for abstinence) in your opinion?
Exactly.
Yes. They’re willing for other people to pay just about any price so that they can get what they want without having to concede anything themselves.
“What, women will be inconvenienced by lack of sex ed and contraception, and women will be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, and women will be forced to have more children than they can afford, and women will suffer serious health consequences, and women will die? Whatever. Just so long as my teenage daughter doesn’t get to thinking she can have sex without lots of consequences!”
Teen sexual activity is “irresponsible” because of the possible consequences, which can be nearly gotten rid of through birth control.
Not so much.
Forgive the digression, but what the hell, people are talking about all kinds of shit already. And I brought the thread back on-topic once, so surely I’m now entitled to head it into the deep weeds.
Teen sexual activity is irresponsible because the mental, spiritual and emotional energies that are involved in sexuality are generally (not universally, but generally) beyond the ability of teenage hearts, minds, and souls to competently handle. The results of incompetently handled sexual energies can be shattered lives. Sex that you aren’t ready for – and it’s a fairly rare teen who actually is ready for it – can really fuck you up.
The physical consequences – pregnancy, disease, messy sheets – are relatively unimportant, compared to this factor. Perfect birth control and impermeable disease barriers will not do much to reduce this truth.
You don’t have to believe in this factor, but we do believe in it, and it does inform our view of sex.
I’m going to add to the off topicness of this thread and ask for some more explanation of why postponing sex is inherently better for teenagers. I agree that many people have sex before they are mature enough to deal with the potential consequences, but I’m a little dumbfounded by the belief that teenage sexuality shatters lives, especially if we’re not factoring in sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy. Is there some kind of evidence that people who have sex as teenagers are more fucked up than people who wait until they’re older?
The misogyny of anti-abortion arguments is so subtle sometimes, it seems easy to dismiss as a phantom. However, there is a link between the “strong father” family model gengwall talks about above and the roots of this mistrust of female moral choices. If the man is responsible for the spiritual direction of the household, then it follows (if not by intent then by interpretation) that the woman must subordinate her choices to his direction. This implies that women are incapable or somehow hindered from making a moral decision, that her moral decision-making is flawed. And it is this assumption that makes up the basis of many of the positions listed in the chart above.
The core question is the status of the fetus as a full blown human, a status that our legal reasoning makes ambiguous. This ambiguity makes the question of abortion a moral issue. Anti-abortionists do not trust women to make this choice. So women have to tell their husband, their parents, they have to go through interviews with psychologists and doctors and pastors. All because if it can’t be made illegal, we still have to prevent these morally impaired women from making the wrong choice.
Look at the laws that make it illegal for the doctor to perform an abortion but not for the woman to seek the abortion. There is an implication in that that the woman is not capable of understanding the consequences or somehow less responsible than the doctor. The notion of woman as an overgrown child, inherintly immoral is an old, old idea.
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True, and up to the person in question to decide whether they themselves have sex or wait. (And I’d add the advice that if they’re not sure, wait until they are.)
*mad, hysterical laughter*
Hence, young people should be taught how to handle said sexual energies properly, and to understand and deal with the emotions relating to it, and to develop basic self-confidence and self-worth. And as well, to own their own decisions, to feel like whatever choice they made is theirs and chosen freely, not a response to pressure one way or the other and not a rebellion against pressure one way or the other.
There are life-shattering consequences to being threatened, intimidated, repressed, and constrained as well. I’d imagine the harm from “incompetently handled sexual energies” has more to do with kids for whom sexual activity is a rebellion against pressure to be chaste or a submission to peer pressure, without self-awareness and emotional understanding or in spite of feeling it wasn’t the right choice for them. That is, the choice ought to be made intelligently and for the right reasons, and the worst emotional consequences happen when it’s not.
G wrote:
“The fundimental intent is to stop murders from happening.”
If that’s the fundamental intent, why don’t you care about the “murders” of embryos that are perpetrated in massive numbers at fertility clinics?
Teen sexual activity is irresponsible because the mental, spiritual and emotional energies that are involved in sexuality are generally (not universally, but generally) beyond the ability of teenage hearts, minds, and souls to competently handle. The results of incompetently handled sexual energies can be shattered lives. Sex that you aren’t ready for – and it’s a fairly rare teen who actually is ready for it – can really fuck you up.
for all but the tiniest portion (like the last 50 years) of human existence, people who survived until reproductive age became parents at around fifteen or sixteen years of age.