In the comments to Pro-choice and pregnant, Robert said
Oh, and congratulations on the baby. I’m glad you’ve decided not to kill it.
Ignoring for the moment the question of whether that was intended as deliberate provocation, I wanted to address the question of whether it’s even accurate. I’m not sure it is.
“Decided not to…” implies that the possibility has been given some consideration, however fleeting; I might say, for example, “I thought about buying the Kaiser Chiefs album but decided not to.” If the option hasn’t been consciously considered and rejected, it doesn’t really make sense to imply a decision has been made. I wouldn’t say that I’ve decided not to move to Milton Keynes, become a chartered accountant or take up underwater basketweaving, and nor would I say that I’ve decided not to terminate this pregnancy.
Before I became pregnant, I spent a long time considering the possibility of having a baby. I passionately wanted a family, and although I don’t believe there’s anything special about biological, as opposed to adoptive, parenthood, I decided the simplest way to have a baby of my own was to give birth to one. So to say that I “decided not to adopt” is completely reasonable: I considered the possibility and rejected it.
The decision to become pregnant was less positive: the timing never seemed to be quite right and I wasn’t sure I had the right to inflict myself on a child. I hesitated, and circumstances came together to help me decide. I had the opportunity to have unprotected sex at the appropriate time of the month. I took it, and three nervous weeks later a blood test confirmed my pregnancy.
Abortion never entered my mind as a possibility. Pregnancy was something I’ve longed for, hoped for and occasionally put myself at risk in search of for most of my adult life. Now that I finally have what I always wanted, why should I consider throwing it away? If the pregnancy had been especially difficult or scans had revealed a problem with the fetus, I might have had to examine the option, but so far everything has gone smoothly and I’ve had no reason to consider abortion.
So why does Robert think I “decided not to kill” my baby? Does he believe that every woman, pro-life or pro-choice, who sees a pregnancy through to the end has decided not to have an abortion? If it’s unreasonable to say that a woman at the farthest extreme of “fetuses are people too” pro-life philosophy has decided not to kill her baby, what makes it more reasonable to say it about someone who made a deliberate choice to become pregnant but respects the choice of other women to avoid pregnancy?
There’s another distinction to be made here, as important as the one between a wanted and an unwanted fetus: the distinction between wanting to do something yourself and supporting the right of others to do it. I am pro-SSM, but I wouldn’t even consider marrying a woman. I believe in free speech, even speech that I personally consider repugnant. And I am pro-choice, despite the fact that my choice was made long ago.
Why do I support a right I have zero desire to exercise for myself? All sorts of reasons. People I care about may well make a different choice, and I want it to be open to them if they need it. I don’t want to live in the kind of world where women can be forced to sustain a pregnancy against their will to satisfy someone else’s idea of morality. I want the world to know that I’m having this baby because I deeply and passionately want it, not because I couldn’t get rid of it.
Being pro-choice doesn’t mean you think abortion is wonderful. It doesn’t mean that when the doctor’s receptionist confirms a very much wanted pregnancy you immediately think “of course, I could always have an abortion”. It simply means you believe the decision whether to become pregnant or the decision whether to continue with a pregnancy is the woman’s to make as she sees fit.
Damn, missed an ending italicized after “heterosexual intercouse.”
I miss preview.
Shorter Jacqueline: Since I, despite being very very intelligent, am happy to consider myself a breeding machine first and foremost, the rest of you women should quit being so selfish and follow my stellar example.
Here’s the properly italicized portion of #101
Those consequences which are known and predictable, we are responsible for. I can drive to Denver tomorrow with safety in mind and using all due diligence, or I can drive to Denver recklessly and negligently, or I can stay home.
… If I am just completely unable to accept the potential responsibility, the potential liability, for those consequences, then I would be well-advised to take the third option and stay home. Translated back into the realm of sex and reproduction, that option becomes “refrain from heterosexual vaginal intercourse”.
If a person drives to Denver safely and with all due diligence and still has a fatal accident, her insurance company will pay the costs, the police will investigate, and she will decide how this will affect her life.
I think I must be using a different translator because my translation doesn’t drum up a lot of new business for either flea or the Catholics. Mine is that if a woman has an unwanted pregnant and decides to abort, she will have to have the means to pay, will need to consult with a doctor, and decide how the abortion will affect her life.
And though Robert doesn’t bother to continue his analogy, I assume that we are further to understand from that those who do have sex without “due diligence”, get pregnant, and have an abortion are criminals who should be punished by the state, just as the negligent driver would be.
Thanks, btw, to those pro-choice commenters willing to acknowledge what they are advocating for the unrestricted right to do. I appreciate your intellectual honesty.
I wish we could say the same.
Why abortion boils down to a privacy issue-
Even Robert and the anti-abortion folks here agree that abortion is acceptable in cases of rape, incest, or where the mother’s life is at risk. I know this isn’t everyone’s position-it was pitiful sitting through Catholic school classes hearing that having your rapist’s baby is liberating, or that its god’s will when a mother dies in childbirth, or whatever they chose to spew.
The point is-If you are going to restrict abortion, do you want every woman to have to go before a judge, and prove rape, incest, or medical need? What if the judge decides you can’t prove you were raped, or a victim of incest? What if the crazy 10-commandments judge in Alabama decides you aren’t going to die if you put your faith in god to be healed? Do your medical records get entered into public testamony? Can anti-abortion DAs persue charges against you (already happening with late-term abortions). The ‘we want limits on abortion-on-demand’ arguements are often used, but think about what it means. Any limit that takes decision making away from women is an end to choice.
No, no, Andi. We need to be “ostracized.” Not men, because they have nothing to do with pregnancy, just us. Even that worthless father who, if he’d only sold himself on the corporate block younger and better, could easily support us and our twelve children so well that we’d NEVER have to shop at Costco. Because, aside from medical reasons, that’s why most women abort, doncha’ know.
I feel bad for Robert and the other wannabe’-Old-Testament patriarchs when they have to figure out how to “ostracize” the horrid aborting Costco-hating harlot AND monitor her every move at the same time. Since they clearly can’t tell the difference between a sane woman of reproductive age and a five-year-old waving around a loaded gun, surely they will want to keep close tabs on her. You know, so she doesn’t run around burning down houses and poisoning livestock and all.
I feel worse for their female relatives, though.
Robert wrote:
This was so beautiful that I just thought it deserved to be quoted again. Robert, having already informed me that my desire for bodily autonomy, –even if it means that an embryo, zygote, or fetus, gets aborted before it can come to term and be born– is “nuts,” now boldly expands his net to take in a remarkable number of women on this thread. This would include some women who have children or who clearly intend to. We will all, in the perfect future world, be subjected to righteous judgment and punishment in the Court of Robert. [snicker] I hope we will be allowed our own quasi-leper colony by the COR, rather than having to serve our sentences alone. I could use some cool folks/fellow harlots to come over and watch MST3K and drink beer with me. Just please don’t be allergic to cats.
I do greatly appreciate Robert’s use of the word “people,” however. Obviously he is starting to reconsider his earlier, cowardly opinion that the neon scarlet abortion “A” should only be slapped on the chests of harlots. We must now consider the progenitors of the aborted as equal candidates for societal condemnation. Clearly, my sisters have broken through to Robert in a big way. Your diligence and patience has paid off big-time, my friends. I’m proud of you.
I’ve never had kids, but I somehow have this impression that even in the extremely unlikely scenario where having a child only bumps you two points down on the economic ladder, that child, whether it’s a first or later child, will impact your entire emotional, psychological, logistical life. It’s not like life goes on the same as before but because of a a %2 cut you downgrade from lattes to americanos… Anybody who doesn’t realize that being responsible for the well being of another person impacts your whole entire life has no business making decisions for other people about childbearing. Or about elder care for that matter…
This issue is particularly poignant for me right now, since I appear to be entering menopause at the tender age of 41. All my life, I desperately wanted children — but I also desperately wanted to be financially and emotionally able to take care of them. So I used birth control pretty faithfully (although that’s no guarantee, as a few of my friends can attest), and never did get pregnant. Although if I had, I probably would not have had an abortion. But that would have been my choice. And menopausal or not, I will continue to march, protest, and donate in the name of preserving that choice for all women.
Incidentally, the “pro-life” position would be considerably stronger if each of its advocates would adopt ten children, at least five of whom have special needs.
Whoooaa! Hold up here! Do you care to explain this statement, Robert? The “A woman has become pregnant due to a birth control failure. If she bears the child, it will cause a drop in her socioeconomic status from upper-upper middle class to just upper middle class. She will have to start shopping at CostCo. She has delayed the decision of whether to abort or not until the 23rd week.”
I sure as hell hope you aren’t trying to conjure up the Amy Richards story (most famous for the “CostCo” commentary), because if so, you have (at least!) a few facts wrong.
I have noticed that in the conservative section of the blogosphere, that “CostCo” comment has not only been taken out of context, but has developed a life of it’s own. Amy Richards gave birth to one child, after aborting the other two fetuses far, far earlier, than “23 weeks”. I hope Robert, that you are just ignorant of the facts, rather than deliberately misconstruing them. Very, very few abortion take place at 23 weeks—and all of them that take place at that late a stage are for medical reasons.
And by the way, it bears repeating that women should not have to justify making a personal medical decision like this to strangers. You, Robert, may feel that carrying and giving birth to triplets is a walk in the park (and for you, it certainly is, since all you have to do is watch); others have different considerations. For one thing, most women do not have the financial wherewithal to quit their jobs and go on bed rest. (You are aware that if you quit a job, that you are not eligible for unemployment insurance, aren’t you? You are aware that most women are not eligible for FMLA benefits, aren’t you? Or that most who qualify can’t afford that much unpaid time off, right?)
If there’s one thing I find ironic (but not surprising) about the pro-birth (as opposed to “pro-life”, because their actions speak to the fact that they don’t give a damn about life outside of a uterus) faction is that their singular hatred of women who have had abortions is matched only by their singular hatred of single women who’ve not had abortions.
And Robert? What’s this crap about how “the culture” or “the church” should control women’s sexuality? If I choose not to belong to a particular religious organization, or even any religious organization, why should that organization have any input? Do you not like the Bill of Rights? And one of “the culture’s” traditional solutions for raped women was…..marry the rapist! or for abused women….pray that your abuser has a change of heart! ‘Nother words, do you not realize that feminist women are part of culture, too? The majority of people in contemporary United States culture believe in keeping Roe v. Wade intact. That’s our culture.
B:
Secondly, how can you tell when a woman has been raped?
I think we’d pretty much have to take her at her word.
Who are you to place these demands on other people?
Who do I need to be, B?
You never answered my question about enforced donation either Robert.
Sorry, I forgot about this line of argument. I don’t owe your father in law any special moral debt (beyond the mutual duties of good citizenship). I took no action that put me into hock to him. I can envision circumstances where I would owe someone such a debt and would be morally obliged to donate to them, but “some random stranger needs a kidney” is not such a circumstance.
Amp:
I’d say that not having the necessary conditions for cognition (see below) is the main thing that makes a zygote or fetus not a person.
But they are on track to acquire that. If I bar Sydney from ever exercising the franchise because she is currently incompetent to do so, then I am committing a grave injustice – I am imposing a permanent disability for a temporary incapacitation.
Similarly, that fetus will soon have a cortex, if someone doesn’t kill her first.
The fact that cognition is difficult to define precisely, does not prove that it’s irrelevant to personhood.
Of course. But it does mean that the assertion of non-cognition is pretty much hand-waving. You can’t say “I’ve proved there is no cognition!” when you can’t define cognition. I’m not relying on cognition to establish personhood, but Brian is relying on non-cognition to establish unpersonhood. So he carries the burden of proof – and he can’t prove it.
The cerebral cortex is crucial to mental functioning but it is not the only piece of the brain that is important. The Terri Schiavo angle is immaterial; that’s a person who had a cortex but who has lost it, with no potential for recovery. In the case of a fetus, the cortex is still developing.
In humans, a necessary but not sufficient condition of cognition is a functioning cerebral cortex integrated with the brain. If something lacks that necessary condition, it’s safe to conclude that it cannot cognate and is not a person.
If I kidnap you and put you under surgery and implant an electrode in your brain that temporarily shuts down your cerebral cortex, while leaving you otherwise alive, I agree that you are no longer cogitating.
Are you a non-person?
Obviously not, because the condition is temporary; as soon as I flip the switch, your cortex comes back. The condition is also temporary for a fetus – but even more temporary, because all that is necessary for the fetus’ cortex to start working is the passage of a very brief interval of time.
Nick:
As for the rest, I wonder what a “survivor of abortion” is.
Nick, a survivor of abortion can be a woman who has had an abortion and survived. More commonly, it’s a child or adult whose abortion was botched or left incomplete and who survived. It’s not all that common, but it does happen.
AndiF:
First, we get those selfish, thoughtless women who didn’t want the additional financial burdens that would drop their income from the 99th to the 97th rather than an example of the woman who has no health insurance, would lose her job and her savings because of time off, causing her and her other children to become homeless. Because, of course, the second example wouldn’t allow for the high moral indignation.
Andi, I deliberately included a range of possible reasons – from inconvenience to death. Are you willfully ignoring this in order to make a bogus rhetorical point, or did you just miss it?
I assume that we are further to understand …
Rather than assuming, you might try reading. I don’t believe abortion should be criminalized, and I say so.
Alsis:
I feel bad for Robert and the other wannabe’-Old-Testament patriarchs…I feel worse for their female relatives, though.
Alsis, I come by my opinions on abortion through my mother – a woman of sometimes exceptional moral insight. When I was younger, I thought as you did. It is her logic and her reasoning (among other factors) that guided me to the conclusions that I have reached.
In your zeal to disapprove of everything I stand for, you can’t even recognize the possibility that there are women who feel this way, and that those women might be the ones convincing the men in the famly, not the other way around. I guess it’s true that sexism really is insidious, when even feminists will disappear women and marginalize their power.
What a coincidence ! So do I ! Gosh, two reaches across the Great Divide IN ONE DAY !! Who woulda’ thunk it ?
That’s nice. And this is relevant to my own womb and body and my own POV– how, again ? Oh, right. It means that you fantasize daily about shuffling me off to some leper colony for icky nutty harlots. I’m always forgetting that.
As usual, Robert, you prove to be a veritable Triathelete of reversals. I have stated more times than anyone can count that you and the women in your family can, with my blessings and tax dollars, make any choices you all mutually agree upon– and I will not interfere. Yet, you can turn around and acuse me of marginalizing them and their power. Such nonsense.
However, just as you are permitted on this blog to equate women who abort their unborn with murders of adults and children, I am permitted to my own opinions. One of them remains that a man with such a dim view of women that he can dream aloud of being allowed to ostracize them for aborting, one who asserts continually the right of any random human with a penis to exert dominion over any random human with a vulva– well, I remain convinced that man is never going to be sure that he knows the real truth of what the women he is close to think. His model is one of dominion-over, not one of equality, however he himself and the women whose primary model is man-pleasing and perpetual self-denial, not autonomy, might spin it all out loud for benefit of an outsider audience.
Screwed up quote tag there. Sorry, Amp. Can you fix that, please ? :o (And if you don’t mind, please change that second “aloud” to “allowed.” Gack. Want more coffee.)
[Fixed –Amp]
rachel wrote:
rachel, please accept my sincere thanks for your post, even if you don’t know me from Eve. Also, I’m sorry that you won’t be able to have the child you wanted. I hope that you can find some other option that will allow you to acheive what you want.
Actually, these two things are not at all the same. The aborted fetus not only doesn’t have a cortex, it never will have one. In your example, there is no injustice against Sydney until she’s old enough so she would normally have the franchise. In contrast, the aborted fetus never gets old enough to be a person, so no injustice is done to it.
To make your analogy meaningful, we’d have to compare an aborted fetus (which will never grow any older) to a baby that would never grow any older. Let’s switch the example from Sydney to Julia, a similar baby. The difference is that Julia has a rare disorder which means that she will never, physically or mentally, change after the age of 1. So at one year old she’s has the physical size and mental state of a one-year-old; and 30 years later, Julia still has the physical size and mental ability of a one-year-old.
Is it an injustice to deny Julia the franchise? No, because the laws preventing infants from voting aren’t completely arbitrary; they’re based on a consensus that certain traits are necessary to have a right to vote, and infants lack those traits. That we can’t precisely define those traits doesn’t make them non-essential for voting, or prevent us from recognizing that infants lack those traits.
Robert, you’re still making the same unsupportable claim, which is that if something is difficult to define then it’s not relevant to a moral argument; you’ve just inserted this new phrase, “hand-waving,” which doesn’t add anything substantive to your claim at all.
Your basic point remains: You’re claiming that if something’s difficult to define, it must be irrelevant to the argument. And you still haven’t provided a single coherent argument in support of this (in my opinion) ludicrous point.
Of course I can. If “X is a necessary but not sufficient condition for Y,” then lack of X proves no Y, regardless of if Y can be completely defined. And the burden of proof then shifts to you, to prove that Y can exist in humans without X.
You’re misunderstanding what I wrote – I said “a necessary but not sufficient condition of cognition is a functioning cerebral cortex integrated with the brain.” I meant to be getting at the question of if the cortex exists or not. In your example, my cortex still exists and is functioning – it’s just in the “off” position. (My TV is turned off right now, but it’s still a functioning TV – I’m not going to call a repairman and complain “it’s not functioning” because it’s turned off.)
This is of a class with a bunch of pro-life examples intended to deny that ability to cognate matters at all – “what about someone in a temporary coma? What about someone who has fallen asleep? What about someone who is retarded – are you saying we should kill mentally disabled people?” Etc, etc, etc.. All of them have the same thing in common, which is arguing that there’s no difference between an existing cortex and one that doesn’t exist. It’s a position which runs counter to reality.
Once we put the “there is no difference between a nonexistent cortex and one that exists” nonsense aside, the only thing you have left is claiming that there’s no morally important difference between potential and actual. But that’s ridiculous. Because Sydney will someday have the right to vote doesn’t make it unjust to deny her the vote now. Because we have laws against cutting down 200-year-old oaks doesn’t make it a crime to destroy an acorn now. And because a fetus has potential to someday become a person doesn’t make it a person now.
A nonexistent brain is not the same as one that exists. A potential future state is not the same as a currently existing state. As long as your view relies on denying these two obvious and true statements, your view won’t hold any water.
The condition is also temporary for a fetus – but even more temporary, because all that is necessary for the fetus’ cortex to start working is the passage of a very brief interval of time.
The point is, the fetus hasn’t become conscious yet. It’s not yet a person. If it’s aborted, it will never be a person. Aborting a fetus is not killing a person.
And again, even if a fetus was a person, I’d still support unrestricted abortion, because if women aren’t allowed complete control of their own bodies, then they have no freedom at all. And establishing that principle, by the way, would establish the principle that no one should have any freedom.
Robert,
You gave only one circumstance (threat of death or severe health problems) where abortion was justified. There was no continuum discussed. And you were the one that characterized it as a financial consideration: The 23-week old fetus’s right to exist, or the woman’s right not to move from the 99th to the 97th economic percentile?
So I think I understood you perfectly well and that the points I made (most of which you have ignored) are quite valid.
Alsis,
So have you picked out which convent you are going to sign up for?
alsis39 wrote:
Alsis, that was sweet. Thank you. I must say, I’m feeling pretty wistful these days. But yes, I have other options. I hope to adopt within the next few years. (Actually, that was always part of the plan, but it was in addition to, rather than instead of.)
Until then, I can pacify myself with my Sunday School students, my two godchildren, and the children of friends. I have two good friends who are pregnant right now — I’m so excited.
And of course, let’s not forget my cats. What would a middle-aged Jewish woman be without her cats?
Anyway, wish I did know you from Eve, because your posts are funny, logical, and well-written. In fact, I clicked on your name to see if it took me to a web page, but the link doesn’t work.
Thank you again.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence may not be to everyone’s taste, but some like them.
Oh my goodness, how rude of me! Nick Kiddle, congratulations!! Your baby is lucky.
Too bad some people can’t agree with the “Just because I choose not to ____ doesn’t mean that others shouldn’t be allowed to” arguement. I mean, I choose not to smoke pot, but all my friends do. I support this because I would much rather have them too stoned to drive much less get off the floor than have them drunk and behind a wheel. But to each his own I guess… and I am well aware of all the holes in my arguement… I just wanted to draw an analagous situation. Sue me.
And of course, let’s not forget my cats. What would a middle-aged Jewish woman be without her cats?
1. A target for every yenta with a kittens.
2. A person with no excuses to leave the her mother’s bring-your-daughter-to-the-Hadassah-dinner early.
3. A middle-aged Jewish woman with dogs.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Andi F writes:
Wrong. I have hot flashes now, remember?
Alsis wrote: “You’re not that dumb, Robert. You’ve gotten your answers a dozen fucking times. If you don’t like the answers, that’s not our fault. We don’t exist to please you. So if you’ve got nothing original to contribute, why don’t you just drop it ?”
Because rattling women’s cages is oh, so fun?
LaLubu:
Very, very few abortion take place at 23 weeks…and all of them that take place at that late a stage are for medical reasons.
You’re right about the portion (significantly less than one percent, per AGI, wrong about medical reasons being the only ones; most late abortions are done because there was a delay in obtaining the abortion (sometimes the fault of the woman, sometimes not), not because of an abnormality being detected at that stage.
What’s this crap about how “the culture” or “the church” should control women’s sexuality?
The culture, and the church, control men’s sexuality, although not well enough. Do you not argue that the culture should enforce behavioral standards on men, require them to act in certain ways if they want to be accepted in society? I certainly do argue that.
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Sexuality is something that is, properly and justifiably, partially under the control of society and partially under our own individual control.
Alsis:
That’s nice. And this is relevant to my own womb and body and my own POV”“ how, again ?
You were the one who brought up the question of the women in my life, Alsis. If you don’t want to discuss that, then don’t bring it up; attacking me for irrelevance in discussing the topics that you raised is irrational.
It means that you fantasize daily about shuffling me off to some leper colony for icky nutty harlots.
It’s remarkable that in thread after thread, I use the most respectful possible language I can (with mistakes, of course, since I’m a fallible mortal like anyone else), and you regularly recast that as me calling you a slut, a whore, a harlot, every other traditional insult and catcall.
With such persistence of your mischaracterization, I am forced to the conclusion that it is you who think these things; perhaps you have internalized some harshly accusatory voice, a voice that overrides whatever reasoned and moderate tone is actually being taken. I genuinely hope that at some point you are able to muster the self-esteem and the self-love to be able to move past that voice and the horrible things it must be saying to you about your life and your actions.
As usual, Robert, you prove to be a veritable Triathelete of reversals.
You refer to it as a reversal whenever someone rebuts some obvious error you have made. Sorry; your intellectual taxonomy has proven to be very weak, and you calling something a reversal doesn’t make it one.
Yet, you can turn around and acuse me of marginalizing them and their power. Such nonsense.
How is it nonsense? You constantly assume that the women in my family must be under my patriarchal thumb, and dramatically bemoan their tragic fate to be so oppressed. When provided with data that indicates that the women in my family are strong and independent, you blather about how they must be oriented towards “man-pleasing” and self-denial. This is marginalization; this is a dismissal of their power.
I’m sorry that you can’t conceive of women who disagree with you being powerful and influential, but there it is. My mother started, and my wife finished, the process of convincing me that the case for pro-life values is simply more coherent, more consistent, more correct. They didn’t do that to please me or to deny their own selves. Deal with it, and stop running down their power.
However, just as you are permitted on this blog to equate women who abort their unborn with murders of adults and childrem
Never did that; this is classic Alsis dishonesty or noncomprehension; it’s very hard to tell which.
one who asserts continually the right of any random human with a penis to exert dominion over any random human with a vulva
Never did that; this is classic Alsis dishonesty or noncomprehension; it’s very hard to tell which.
Amp:
Actually, these two things are not at all the same. The aborted fetus not only doesn’t have a cortex, it never will have one. In your example, there is no injustice against Sydney until she’s old enough so she would normally have the franchise.
But it never will have one because of your action, not because of some other neutral cause. To use your acorn example: we have a protected species of oak tree, which you’re not allowed to cut down. And indeed, crushing an acorn might not be a crime under the oak-tree-protection law. But going into a forest and finding seedlings and ripping them up certainly is. Yeah, they’re not oak trees yet – but the thing that stopped them from becoming oak trees was your action.
You’re claiming that if something’s difficult to define, it must be irrelevant to the argument. And you still haven’t provided a single coherent argument in support of this (in my opinion) ludicrous point.
No, I’m claiming that if something is difficult to define, it is difficult to use as an argument. And if you want to use the difficult concept as a plank, then the burden is on you to make the case, not the people you’re arguing with to disprove it.
I’m obviously not going to convince you of fetal personhood, so I won’t waste more of your bandwidth trying.
Brian:
And again, even if a fetus was a person, I’d still support unrestricted abortion, because if women aren’t allowed complete control of their own bodies, then they have no freedom at all.
This is simply absurd. You don’t have complete control of your own body; do you have any freedom at all?
Freedom is a continuum, not a binary state. There are certainly some inflection points on that continuum, dividing lines that may well relate to a qualitatively different level of freedom (serf vs. slave, for example). You could make a case that total reproductive control is such an inflection point; you can’t make a case that there is no freedom at all on one side of that inflection point. Women don’t have that level of freedom now; does that mean that they don’t have any at all?
AndiF:
You gave only one circumstance (threat of death or severe health problems) where abortion was justified. There was no continuum discussed.
It was pretty easy to miss, Andi. I said “It’s a concrete question of the actual squirming little life inside of her, versus the actual risk of of job loss, health, lifestyle, consumer spending, life-threatening condition, or what have you.” in comment 91. By my count there’s one humongous circumstance (life-threatening condition), two very serious (job loss, health) and two relatively trivial (consumer spending, lifestyle). That by me is a continuum. YMMV.
I’m sorry that this is hard for some women to hear. Why would it be hard to hear, why would it stir grief, if there wasn’t something in a woman’s heart that told her it was true?
God, if that’s not trolling, I don’t know what is. I can’t get over the arrognace of somebody who thinks he can read not just one woman’s mind—but all of ours.
Ginmar, “some” and “all” do not mean the same thing.
Don’t dodge, please, or drag out once again your tired insults about “irrationality,” as if there is anything rational to me about your viewpoints. Tell me, with no waffling, why I have to live my life as the woman in your family live. I am not the women in your family, Robert. I am my own person, and entitled to live according to my own moral code. Not theirs, or yours. None of you have a moral code that I am required to accept as universal truth. I know this is astounding to you, but it’s true.
It’s remarkable that in thread after thread, I use the most respectful possible language I can (with mistakes, of course, since I’m a fallible mortal like anyone else), and you regularly recast that as me calling you a slut, a whore, a harlot, every other traditional insult and catcall.
Are you denying calling my viewpoint, “nuts”? Better go back and re-read your own comments then. Besides, it’s obvious to me what you think of women who choose to have sexual relations without having children. You’ve made it abundantly clear in your fantasies about societal “ostracism” for women who abort. All I’m doing is scratching away a bit of your civilized veneer, and seeing your viewpoint for what it really is.
With such persistence of your mischaracterization, I am forced to the conclusion that it is you who think these things; perhaps you have internalized some harshly accusatory voice, a voice that overrides whatever reasoned and moderate tone is actually being taken.
All feminists understand what internalized sexism is, Robert. That’s because we’ve lived in a sexist society our whole lives, and sexist delivery in “reasoned” or “moderate” tones is still sexist delivery. That is, your desire to see me ostracized for aborting is insulting. Is that clear ? It doesn’t matter how many honeyed, faux-sympathetic phrases you deliver. It’s insulting, patriarchal, and sexist. Case closed.
I genuinely hope that at some point you are able to muster the self-esteem and the self-love to be able to move past that voice and the horrible things it must be saying to you about your life and your actions.
Please read the last three sentences in my last paragraph again.
What error ? And why not ? You want my power to determine my own destiny taken away for the sake of a glob of cells. That, by my definition, would rob me of all meaningful power as an adult woman in a supposed democracy. I, OTOH, think your wife and any other woman should have a child every time she conceives one if that is what she wants to do. So tell me again, Robert, which woman is taking away which woman’s power here ?
Please. I have far less evidence of their “strength” and “independence” on this blog than you do of zygotes, embryos, and fetuses being less than fully-developed human lives. That hasn’t stopped you from poo-poohing that evidence even though it comes from a person with a penis. Furthermore, why should I believe in the strength and independence of females who make their lives with a man who claims that he would ostracize them if they had an abortion for some reason that he didn’t like ? If strength and independence is conditional on the whims of a partriach, it’s not strength and idependence. If someone tells you “stay or go,” but you are not truly free to go, they have not been given a real choice between staying and going, but a false choice.
So we’re back to Square One then. Why do I have to model myself on the women in your life, when I’m not like them and I don’t want to be ?
Oh, pardon me. You said “kill it,” not “murder it.” “Kill” in the active voice being sooooo much different than “murder.” [snort] If you want to clear up such misunderstandings in the future, maybe you should write, “Glad you decided not to manslaughter it.” Ho hum.
You can deny all you like that pushing women into bearing children against their will is not an expression of male dominion over females, but it is. I think most of the women here know which of us has more troubles with the truth, Robert.
Robert,
Pretending to be polite while being insulting doesn’t make you polite and it doesn’t mean that any of us have to accept your pretense. Your real attitude is quite clear in statements like your comment to Nick that started this thread and in insults cloaked as fake concern like “I genuinely hope that at some point you are able to muster the self-esteem and the self-love to be able to move past that voice and the horrible things it must be saying to you about your life and your actions.” You may not like what alsis says but she is forthright and straight-forward and doesn’t hide behind word games and condescending tones.
CrysT wrote:
Man-hater. :p
Rachel wrote:
That’s cool. Someone very close to me is an adopted child. The process supposedly takes superhuman stamina (and a whole lot of $$$), so I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you, and the cats.
P.S.– I should have a real website up by September.
Andi, (and Brian) I prefer the leper colony to the nunnery, because I hate dresscodes. If pressed, however, I’d lean toward an MST3K-themed nunnery with Pearl Forrester as Mother Superior.
alsis,
Sorry, no leper colony because you can still have sex.
If Pearl is the Mother Superior, would Professor Bobo be the Father Confessor?
Robert wrote:
You then proceeded to “waste more” of the bandwidth. More than 225 words, in fact. And again, a fetus does not have “personhood”. If it did, it would be a “person”.
You clearly feel strongly about this subject, as evidenced by your incredibly long posts.
It’s equally clear that you’re not going to convince anyone here with your arguments. It strikes me, then, that you might put your writing skills to better use elsewhere. If, for instance, you believe that abortion is acceptable in cases of rape, incest, harm to the mother, or non-viability due to a birth defect, then why not spend time expounding on the value of abortions on blogs which are against abortion for any reason? At least then, the national debate wouldn’t be as sharply black and white as it seems to be these days.
Better yet, adopt a child, or four or five. This would show your commitment to life beyond birth. The vast majority of children in foster care are there because they weren’t truly wanted in the first place, and their parents were ill-equipped to take on the responsibility of raising a child.
Even better yet — adopt a child (or several) with serious medical needs or developmental disabilities. These children are more at risk for physical, sexual, and emotional abuse — often leading to death — than most children. They’re also more likely to be abandoned and neglected. Show that you care about children after they leave the womb.
I love children. I always have. And you probably read my earlier post, in which I talked about teaching Sunday School, and spending time with my godchildren and friends’ kids.
I also serve on the board of a local charity that serves adults with developmental disabilities. Many of our participants (this is the new PC word; used to be “clients”. Before that, it was “residents”.) enjoy warm, loving relationships with their families. Many were abandoned at hospitals or institutions at birth. Every one of them was once someone’s child. And every one of them deserves a full life, with connections to their family and their community.
When every child who has been beaten, or sexually abused, or born with the wrong kind of birth defect, or born into a family with too many children, or a family with not enough money, or simply a family that doesn’t want children — or to a young couple ignorant of birth control (thanks to our abstinence-only programs), is living a life full of love and is encouraged to reach their full potential, then perhaps, the people here will be more willing to engage in a discussion regarding the potential of a fetus.
Until then, nothing doing.
You constantly assume that the women in my family must be under my patriarchal thumb
Robert, you’ve described yourself, and correct me if I am not getting the exact language here, as an “unrepentant sexist.” So why act surprised when others assume you mean what you say? Unless by ‘sexist’ you mean ‘convinced of the innate superiority of women and their right to rule by virtue of being female,’ it is natural to assume that an unrepentant sexist also believes that his being male entitles him to authority over the females in his household.
Why would it be hard to hear, why would it stir grief, if there wasn’t something in a woman’s heart that told her it was true?
Oh, I can never remember the Latin names of fallacies anymore. Maybe somebody can remember what it is when you tell somebody “if you felt insulted or attacked by my intentionally provocative comment, it must be that I’m right.”
alsis39 wrote:
Ah ha! Proof that alsis39 is a stinkin’ liar! She’s got a false website, not a real one!
Actually, it generally requires no $$$ if you’re willing to adopt an older child, especially one of another race, and even more so if the child has physical, emotional, or developmental disabilities. Which, since the majority of these kids are coming out of foster care, you can pretty much count on. But who can guarantee that a child from one’s own body — particularly when one is in their 40s — might not have some of the same problems? Besides, many of these kids are old enough that any serious problems they might have have been diagnosed by now. You wouldn’t believe how many 14-year-olds there are dying for a permanent family. I did a search earlier today on, I forget the site, adopt.org, or adopt.com, one of those, and there are so many beautiful children out there who need a family.
Kids are always a crapshoot. I’m willing to throw the dice.
Oh yeah, Alsis39 — what I originally intended to say was that I know a number of people who’ve either been adopted, or who have adopted. Makes for a fantastic family, in my opinion. Like adding seasoning to a stew. Only makes it tastier.
And of course, both the cats were adopted. You wouldn’t believe the application I had to fill out to get my Siamese! Thank god I don’t have a criminal record.
Robert:
Hmm. I admit that I don’t have a clear-cut answer to the burning question: Just when does a fertilized egg become a person. I also do make some moral judgements, and I don’t personally consider the lesser reasons you have listed very good reasons for abortion. The major difference between you and me is that you seem willing to (possibly) err on the side the fetus’ or embryos life, and I want to (possibly again) err on the side of a woman’s autonomy. Personally I find the morality of abortion decreasing as the fetus does indeed become closer to a “person” at least. I draw the line at birth (though I am not sure whether I am ultimately right in making that call), not out of whim, but because it is the time when the woman’s bodily autonomy and the fetuses rights are no longer in conflict, but hypothetically it would pain me to see a 8 month old fetus aborted for reasons I don’t find convincing in my POV, but like Brian, I would side with the woman, for the same reasons he does.
Your ideal societal model bothers me, to say the least. It’s surprising you descibe yourself as moderate just because you don’t choose either “Abortion is always a woman’s choice” or “Abortion is murder”. Just because your view is more complex it still seems awfully authoritarian to me (Abortion: 1) For serious health reasons -> support 2) For contraceptive failure -> adoption 3) For reasons you don’t like -> outcast status). In a society such as that, I fear certain hypocrisy and dishonesty about reasons would be rewarded, and personality types that don’t feel comfortable at all telling the actual reasons (if they are painful) would be ostracized unfairly, and personality types that make big sob stories (that aren’t true) would be unfairly rewarded. Therefore I think the position “my abortion is none of your business” is justified, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It is awfully hard to make judgements about other persons that are completely accurate, and just as you would take a woman’s word that she is raped you should take her word that she feels her abortion is the better choice (or if she chooses carrying to term that is okay too.)
On a more off-topiccy and personal note, the reason I’m passionate about the aforementioned society is the fact that many of my best friends have descibed that their initial impression (that they have later admitted was a mistaken impression) of me was “polite on the outside, but a very misanthropic, gloomy, arrogant person” (and that is in a society that isn’t exactly cheerful and open) and the fact that I have few friends but I tend to keep the ones I do have proves otherwise. (My behaviour has plusses and minuses, the big plus it usually alienates superficial and judgemental people, the minus is it tends to alienate people I wouldn’t like to alienate). I for one would be very, very uncomfortable about explaining personal, difficult issues (such as the abortion, but I am a man so that one is hypothetical) to people who are itching to make a moral judgement about me (and I would probably act in very cold “mind your own fucking business” -manner, no matter the consequences), and there are women who have such personalities too.
(oh, BritGirl, from the thread drift some time ago, I checked Alexandra Kollontai you mentioned, I wasn’t familiar with her, but now I am. I liked some of her writings a lot, especially the ones critical of the “bourgeoise theories of prostitution” which incidentally are the same theories that MRA:s are so proud of, but I haven’t [yet] found how she illustrates the Russian/Finnish thing, but maybe I will later. But let’s not have thread drift).
Robert: slick sidestep there on whether or not you were trying to refer to Amy Richards with your ridiculous “Costco” scenario.
Anyway. what alsis said. Why should I or any other woman have to conduct our lives like the women in your family? I don’t care if they choose to love the patriarchy and follow its strictures; I don’t. I don’t care if you believe every fertilized egg is endowed with a soul; I don’t. Don’t try to get cagey about what you meant by “sexual control”. The conservative vision of sexual control is that no woman should have sex unless she is married. Personally, I think it’s stupid to marry someone that one hasn’t been to bed with first. My moral code allows you your version of sexual control; your moral code does not allow me my version of sexual control. “Jacqueline’s” moral code doesn’t even allow for birth control or employment of women with children, for crying out loud!
It has been mentioned before on this thread by several people that there is a right to privacy issue. There is also a religious freedom issue here; namely, the right not to not have to abide by the religous beliefs of others. The profession that a fertilized egg is fully human and endowed with a soul has no basis in science; it’s a religious belief. Why should those of us who don’t take this stance have to abide by the religious beliefs and practices of others? Why should this religious minority have the final say on my body?!
Robert: slick sidestep there on whether or not you were trying to refer to Amy Richards with your ridiculous “Costco” scenario.
I was evoking her case, not directly referencing it. As you noted, Richards’ actions took place at a different point in the pregnancy. But since we’re talking about a “gob of cells”, that shouldn’t make any difference, right? Eight weeks or eight months, it should be grateful for however many days its mother decides to put up with its parasitic ways.
I assume that by “ridiculous” you mean “well-established”, since its quite clear that economic dislocation is one of the many reasons that women give for choosing abortion.
Don’t try to get cagey about what you meant by “sexual control”.
And by “cagey” I assume you mean pointing out the incontrovertible fact that you personally demand that society and the culture exercise sexual control over men. A control that somehow becomes inexcusable if it’s applied to women. Whatever.
Why should this religious minority have the final say on my body?!
It shouldn’t – unless what it has to say is also justifiable as a matter of law and secular ethic. Which is quite easy to do; it’s an arguable case, of course, but arguable cases get settled in the political and legal arenas. Nobody is going to enforce the Amish code on you.
But they might end up making it harder to abort babies for trivial reasons.
Hey, Robert? Bite me. You keep saying the most incredibly offensive shit there is, then you backpaddle and shift desperately. It’s disgusting. Whine, whine, whine—you’re still saying YOU can read women’s minds, which is bullshit.
Bite me pretty much sums it up, after the incredibly offensive sanctimony of your comments here. You wanna know what a woman’s thinking? ASK HER FOR A FUCKING CHANGE. You don’t, though—you just assume you know all.
You want to know what women think about abortion? ASK THEM FOR FUCK’S SAKE.
Alsis, I got five fucks says he won’t do it. Waddaya say?
Thanks, ginmar. No Alas thread would be complete without your inimitable contribution.
Ach. Once again… Who gets to decide which reasons are trivial? What exactly must be the litmus test for allowing women to have an abortion?
I’m sorry, but I don’t find your point of view very coherent on this. Since you already listed “serious health issues” as a possible reason, then I suppose serious mental health reasons are included (and… which would logically mean that a woman who would suffer mentally from an unwanted pregnancy to the point of becoming psychotic. [which is life-threatening in behavioral chances] etc. should have a supported abortion, and thus if a woman can convince that this would indeed be the case then abortion should be allowed, thus an eloquent/well-acting, [or sincere, of course]or a woman who can get a medical statement that tells her condition is life-threatening by actual diagnosis, or a false, bribed one. Thus the society you are advocating for has greater levels of inequality and dishonesty ). And maybe you missed my point, but it is basically that for having some social control group, or Court of Robert (courtesy of Alsis!) decide things for all women (and you even added that there are women who are so irresponsible/dumb/morally impaired that the decision should be without a preliminary hearing, so to speak.) we would have to assume that the control group is more capable and more fitting judge to decide for a woman’s pregnancy. While no invidual is perfect, no court is perfect either, and I strongly assume the invidual woman is far fitting judge to decide for her pregnancy.
“Being allowed to have an abortion” shouldn’t be a matter of how eloquently the woman makes her case, and allowing abortion shouldn’t be a matter of whether society happens to like a certain woman or not. Moderates like you want to support abortion for “virtuous” women, and control the “non-virtuous” ones. Plain and simple.
“far fitting judge” should read “far more fitting judge.”
I was evoking her case, not directly referencing it.
Oh, Robert, c’mon. You were indeed referring to the Amy Richards case, “directly” or “indirectly.
I think there’s a difference between a hypothetical example that alludes to – but doesn’t claim to be – a real case, and inaccurately or dishonestly describing a real case. What Robert did seemed to me to be the former.
Robert:
Thanks to my recent move to a new server, I now have more bandwidth than I know what to do with. So, if you have a coherent argument responding to my arguments – and as far as I can tell, you don’t – don’t let concerns over my bandwidth prevent you from posting it.
How is that distinction viable, in your philosophy?
After all, crushing the acorn is an active act (or it is in this example), not something that just happened naturally. According to you, the fact that the acorn could potentially become an ancient oak (and thus protected) means that it’s immoral for us to take any active step that prevents it from becoming an ancient oak.
Actually, ripping up some seedlings is often part of good forest management practice; some seedlings might be in places where they’d be depriving other trees of water, for example. It’s not just letting every seedling grow, it’s deciding when and where it’s healthiest to let seedlings be. Which is similar to the way that being able to choose when and if to reproduce – including using abortion to control reproduction, when necessary – can be a rational and positive part of how people make families.
The concept I’m “using as a plank” is that the existence of a functional cortex is a necessary but not sufficient quality for personhood. I don’t think that’s a difficult concept at all, frankly, and I think I’ve more than ably defended it from your “what if Amp’s cortex had an on/off switch” counterexample.
I am an ardent pro-choice supporter, but I am somewhat concerned with the functional cortex argument being presented here. The brain develops quite a bit more rapidly than what is being supposed here I think. The cortex begins to appear very early on (as early as 8 weeks the cortical plate is present) and continues developement well past birth. Connections are formed with other brain structures throughout development (fetal and postnatal) and one of the most important connections (cortical-thalamic conncetivity) occurs somewhere around the 7th month. Interestingly, you are born with far more cortical neurons than you will end up with through a process known as “pruning”. It is thought that only neurons that form meaningful connections will live on but that there is a large excess to allow for some plasticity in the program of the system (although there are many thoughts on this front).
So what I am trying to say is, although this seems to be a perfectly logical argument, our current understanding of cortical development would make it very difficult to support scientifically. In fact, I would argue that using a cortex-personhood argument for when personhood is achieved far beyond birth, likely into the first few years (at least through the first year).
I am intrigued by the interesting arguments being put forward here and feel strongly that there needs to be more dialogue between “faith based” arguments against abortion and current understanding of medical science concerning when life begins. While it is a compelling argument, from my standpoint, that a woman should always have autonomy over decisions concerning her reproduction, I can understand the opposing viewpoint that societal consensus should also be important in determining what our laws are. There are certainly extremists on both sides that likely have little to do with a consensus viewpoint. But, perhaps for the other ~80% of us, if more effort was put into providing a better understanding of what human fetal development really is and when viability is achieved more people could be reassured that the vast majority of abortions are not “killings” but terminations of unwanted pregnancies.
Ted: Societies already weighs in on abortion. We have laws concerning it; they don’t come from a vacuum, but from legislation and judicial process. Several posters have responded to Robert’s idea of social pressuring of _individual pregnancies_.
Robert:
All this talk of being accepted by society… of communities shunning the bad women, of communities making choices for said women, seems to imply a homogenity of ‘society’ and ‘community’ across the nation. Is this some odd variation on state’s rights? Would a prochoice community then foot the bill for abortions by the financially strapped, and a fundamentalist one block the abortion and put the woman under house arrest so she doesn’t try again?
Would it be acceptable if this were the case? That would seem to imply that a woman’s rights, and a fetus’ value, were only existant insofar as she (and it) were in the right community. Which is a concept you seemed to find quite morally bankrupt earlier.
If not, then who is going to decide what the national culture is going to be? Will there be educators going from town to town, neighbourhood to neighborhood, to teach what the shunning offenses are? What will the punishment for resisters be?
There’s a reason that there are several codified steps between the rule of law and the community’s opinion on individual events.
Hey, Robert? At least I’m honest. All the backing and shifting you do does nothing but give the impression that every time the light begins to dawn—the light that you so earnestly believe you provide for so me women—you skep desperately away from it.
Maybe the reason that’s so hard to deal with is because it resonates so deeply inside.
I’m sorry, but nothing is creepier than a pro-lifer who persists in wanting to humanize a fetus over women.
Robert, you must have me confused with someone else; I’m a firm believer that if two consenting adults have sex in the privacy of their own environs its no one else’s business. I’m not the one clamoring for control of the sexual choices of others. I’m just pointing out the clear double-standard in our society that says that unmarried women who have sex are reprehensible sluts, while unmarried men who have sex are…well, just men. Oh, and also, that if you are female and really like sex, you’re a slut (or potential slut), but otherwise you’re frigid…..and again, that’s all in the eyes of the male beholder.
Meanwhile, name or show me one woman who had an abortion because her financial status would go from upper-upper middle class to upper-middle class. Just one. Your cagey “but women do have abortions for financial considerations” has nothing to do with the scenario you proposed.
Ted, I’m not a doctor – but I’ve read a fair amount on this subject. Richard Carrier summed it up like this:
Are you saying that’s inaccurate?
And from Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan:
Again, do you think this description is inaccurate?
Robert, the basis given for prohibiting abortion is that it is infanticide, a form of murder. A systemic effort by society to prevent some abortions and support others gives the lie to this entire premise — we would never condone the intentional killing of a live born infant because its mother had been raped. So while Jacqueline (or you) along with many pro-lifers insist that we agree with this premise in our hearts or in secret or as an act of delusion, it’s arguments like yours that show, pretty evidently, that even most pro-lifers don’t actually agree with this premise any more than I do. What they really object to is what they perceive to be the lack of gravitas that informs decision making on the subject. Hence they resort to the good girl/bad girl dichotomy, which is frankly incoherent given that the only rationale at all they have for controlling a woman’s reproductive choices is the theory that they affect a second person. Why should we give greater deference to their judgment about the fate of that second being than we do to the woman?
Ask a pro-lifer if a woman who has had an abortion should go to prision for life, and most will probably say no. Even that witch Dr. Laura tells women who have had abortions to forgive themsleves and go forth on the righteous path. Ask a parent if they would rather lose an early or even late pregnancy or their post-birth child, and they ALL choose the child, or else they are lying to make a point. Ask a woman with children if she’d carry to term a severly retarded fetus who will add untold costs and burden not only to her but her kids for their whole lives, and you will get a complicated answer.
All I want is for pro-lifers to acknowledge that far from being absolutely bad, abortion has done a lot of good in this world. Indeed, I think that and BC are two huge factors in our culture’s stability.
Jacqueline can volunteer all she wants at “pregnancy support services” , but she should admit that adoption is only possible for most unwanted babies these days thanks to abortion keeping up the seller’s market, so to speak. And she should know this: planned parenthood OFFERS BIRTH CONTROL AND PRE-NATAL CARE.
Hellcat wrote, “Why does the abortion argument boil down to ‘pro-choice’ vs ‘pro-life’? Is there not a middle ground? ”
It seems that you’re buying into the anti-choice framing of the argument, as though “pro-choice” and “pro-life” were mutually exclusive polar-opposite extremes. Let me spell out it out for you: carrying a fetus to term and giving birth is also a choice. “Pro-choice” as a position has always assumed that women will do just that. Anti-choice ideologues like to talk as though being pro-choice means mandatory, recreational abortion — as if pro-choicers felt that *no* pregnancy should be carried to term, and that no other form of birth control was necessary. Clearly, you’re trying to portray things in those terms, with your talk about
” It seems simple that if one does not wish to become pregnant, or impregnate, one should use effective contraception. Granted it’s not a 100% guarentee, but it’s far more effective than using nothing.” The word “duh” comes to mind. As if pro-choicers didn’t favor the use of contraception, or proper education in its use. It is not pro-choicers who oppose sex education and the distribution of condoms, or hadn’t you noticed?
” I would suspect that the overwhelming majority of ‘unplanned’ pregnancies are from failure to use effective birth control.” Such as abstinence, whose high failure rate is well-documented by now. You’re probably right, though, because numerous European countries have a lower abortion rate despite a higher rate of intercourse, because contraception is more readily available and used there. In the US there is considerable pressure not only against abortion but against contraception… and that pressure does not come from the movement for reproductive choice.
“Pro-choice” doesn’t mean aborting every pregnancy. And I’ve noticed that some women who call themselves “pro-life” will say that while they would never have an abortion themselves, they believe that the decision (which means choice) should be up to each woman and her doctor. That’s the “pro-choice” decision in a nutshell.
You forgot to mention all the children of color out there who are waiting for adoptoin while anti-choice people go on and on about adoption but neglect to mention it’s only white babies they want.
At first, I thought the this abortion issue was a very easy to debate. The debate question is “Does a fetus have an inalienable right to be in the body of its host even if the host disagree with it?”. Bottomline: The fetus’s rights never can truimph over the host’s right(whether the decision is made by the man or woman). Lately, however, the pro-lifers only reaction is to call the people who disagree with them names like “baby-killer” or “murderers”. This type of rhethoric lessen the decorum of any argument or debate that one is having.
I feel in a capitalistic society(which is a social system based on individual rights, not just an economical sense a free-market), if a person have a right to do something, they should also be able to waive that right. And not force to exericise it. In America, since a women have the absolute right to pro-create, then she should also have the absolute right to NOT to pro-create. Whether its getting her tubes tied, buying birth control pills, or even abortion, that should be her right.
Riffraff, mostly I agree with your comment but
As barring the Schwarzeneffer comedy, I didn’t know that a man can act as an actual host to a fetus, and thus the fetuses rights and the man’s rights don’t come in to conflict as fetus vs. host way. Care to explain?
Schwarzeneffer -> Schwarzenegger actually. (Insanely difficult name for me, I’m not sure it’s right even now)
Well, not this parent. Having had three sucessful pregnancies/birth–soon to be four, one early term miscarriage, and one later pregnancy loss; the option of losing a pregnancy in the early stages is much more favorable (if such things could ever really be “favorable” but you get my point). While m/c is incredibly hard to suffer, burying a child is even moreso. At least, IMHO.
Perhaps this would seem odd to some but being a parent has made me even more staunch in my pro-choice stance. It is not just the fact that I have a daughter, fo whom I feel even more need to protect the right to private medical choice. It is also the fact that if I became pregnant and it would create a situation where my own life was threatened or some other catastrophic problem for our family would arrise from taking the pregnancy to term, I would opt for abortion. My established children (not to mention my spouse) need me and it would be insanely selfish on my part to take the family into ruins over a pregnancy.
If pro-lifers want less abortions to occur, they should be handing out contraceptives and supporting COMPREHENSIVE sex education.
I have my personal set of requirements/reasons to where I would deem abortion an option for myself. They are for me alone though–and that is how it should be. It is no one’s place to tell another how she (or he) should use her (or his) body, particularly when it comes to the most intimate of issues such as reproduction.
mandatory, recreational abortion
I like it! Sums up what I swear certain pro-lifers must believe – that we all wake up and think “Hmm, I’m bored. Guess I’ll go out and get pregnant and have an abortion just to keep myself amused.”
How anyone could read my posts and believe this describes the pro-choice position baffles me. Unless of course they didn’t think my words were worth reading. I have a uterus, after all, so my thoughts and feelings automatically have less validity…
Yes, Alexandra Kollantai rocks.
There is a natural conflict of interest between a woman and a fetus at times. Nature gives women veto power over their pregnancies. It’s a simple fact of life.
Man… you folks are so violently abrasive about this.
I personally am a Pro-Choice, married man and my wife and I are not planning to have a baby any time soon. I’m very liberal in most of my views.
But I’m really ashamed of the way Robert has been treated. Yes, the original thing he said was sort of… well, goading. But he didn’t raise the issue of abortion- it was an issue raised by the topic of the original post. It was about being pregnant and pro-choice. If this had been a post about being pregnant, and else-where on the blog were discussions of being pro-choice, that’s one thing. This was the topic of the post.
It seems like a lot of the people attacking him are either a) not reading his posts, or b) reacting to his arguments on a personal level rather than an intellectual one.
Seriously… sure, fault him for saying a pretty questionable comment, sure. Everybody did that ages ago.
How can you fault him for thinking it’s bad to kill something that’s alive?
He never said a fetus was equal to a full grown person.
He never said abortion should be illegal.
He never said it was murder (or manslaughter, both of which are legal terms, which he is not talking about).
Damn, all he is doing is saying that he thinks it’s wrong to have an abortion out of convenience, because he thinks the fetus should have some right to life as a person or potential person.
I mean, come on- how can ANY of us, on EITHER side, say FOR SURE when life, self-awareness, consciousness, or whatever you want to call it, begins? As of right now, we can’t, and so we form opinions as best we can. You have one idea. I have another. He has another. NONE OF US know who is right, and probably never will.
If (in hypothetical magical fantasyland) we developed the capability to read minds, and all of a sudden discovered that a baby’s mind can be read as having complete thoughts of self one week after conception, wouldn’t we change our views a little? Well, since it’s unlikely to happen, let’s just let the damned man have his own views, especially when he is able to present them so eloquently to a bunch of hostile people who aren’t willing to listen.
Thanks to Crooks & Liars for pointing out this issue.
Yes, the original thing he said was sort of… well, goading.
That’s the whole problem, as far as I’m concerned. He has his own views on the relative claims of fetus and mother, and I for one am quite prepared to debate those views. But the remark in question was shockingly rude, and the fact that he hasn’t seen the need to retract it or apologise kind of sours the discussion.
Nobody’s stopping Robert from stating his views. We just emphatically disagree with them.
I’m sorry I got off on the tangent about whether a fetus is a person. Not that I have any doubt on the matter, but it’s not the real question. The real question is whether women have the right to determine what happens to their own bodies.
Pro-choice activists need to stop retreating all the time, being nice and polite and deferring to the tender feelings of people who are out to destroy the hard-won possibility of human freedom. The major pro-choice organizations have compromised and compromised to the point where they’re scarcely defending abortion rights at all anymore.
The principle which the women’s liberation movement fought for was, “Free abortion on demand.” That should be our principle now — or perhaps, “Free abortion on demand, without apology.” This is a matter of principle — you can compromise on strategy and tactics, but you can’t compromise on principles.
It seems like the question of whether a fetus is a person is pretty relevant, though. I mean, I don’t personally believe it is one, but like I said- that is based on my opinion, and we don’t have proof either way.
I mean… free abortion on demand seems too extreme. There have to be SOME limits on abortion, right? I mean, y0u can’t have one when you’re in labor, right?
All I’m saying is that it seems like we should at least acknowledge the possibility that abortions are killing an individual life form. We can’t know for sure, no. But then just say that we feel the woman’s rights are more important than any rights or a potential individual.
I’m just saying that it seems like it is an understandable point of view. I don’t believe in God or in souls, but most people I know do. IF someone believes a soul enters a fetus at the moment of conception, then to them, that fetus is a full fledged person, and entitled to the same rights (by God) as anyone else. Robert wasn’t even going that far- he was saying, though, that the fetus has SOME value, and should only be cast aside for reasons deemed socially acceptable.
Really, the best argument against Robert would be that if society as a whole is NOT ostracising women for having abortions, then it is not a value that the whole society shares. If the majority of people begin to feel that way, they WILL ostracise women who have abortions.
I mean, I think the Government should become more Socialist, but it’s not going to happen unless a whole lot of people agree with me.
Interesting. You forego the ethical dilemma of what constitutes personal rights violations. First, ethically speaking, you presume the property an embryo, fetus, baby, constitutes in relation to the host woman. Second, morally speaking, the father has equal say as to the future of a being (baby or not, a living organism) that constitutes literally 50% of his genetics. That’s not to say anyone but the woman has a say on what happens to her body (given the pregnancy period). The woman, of course, must maintain her own personal rights. Thus, if a woman does not wish to have a pregnancy using her body, one would hope a compensatory technological shunt would be developed such that, if the father desired to maintain the development for potential of life, they could transplant the being into a human or non-human facility by which pregnancy could be carried out.
The ethical question remains as to what is the preferencial, or ideal, outcome, should both biological parents conflict in their views as to the baby?
Remember, the woman has rights to her body and a say in the future of the baby. The man has a say in the future of the baby equally.
Or do they?
Not necessarily at all.
One has to answer the question of when individual rights are ascribed. If one argues that such universal protections are not in place until cogitation and self awareness is fully realized, you would be arrogant and ignorant enough to presume the answeres to a dominating question in cognitive science. Realistically, a couple of cells together may not be a human, but no other couple of cells other than those involved in impregnation have the *ability* and *potential* to develop into a human being naturally, and unnaturally. The premption of continuation, once that genesis has occured, is no different than the preemption of continuation years down the road, so to speak. The very catch-phrase of “yes, but it’s a human life now” a year down the road from pregnancy is rendered irrelevant. One does not find it all the more ethically acceptable when a preemptive murder by rival warring nation takes place against a child living in another nation. The objectified nature of “soldiering” is in question here, as opposed to mere “life.” One should not feel ethically secure in finding it acceptable for one army to kill another nation’s children before they become soldiers. I’m not going to explicitly state my opinion here, merely raising some thoughts as a Philosopher.
Jordan, Robert has a history of making “goading” (as you put it) comments on this blog. He knows what he’s doing; this is not his first ride on the rodeo. Nor is it mine, which is why I’m not giving him any break on that. Come on! Can you imagine a circumstance in which you would tell a pregnant woman, obviously happy about her pregnancy, “congratulations, I’m glad you’ve decided not to kill it?”
I’m also not giving him a break on the reworking of the Amy Richards case, evoked in order to paint the typical abortion seeker as a rich woman who doesn’t want to be knocked down a financial peg. That is not the typical abortion seeker, and he knows it. The typical abortion seeker is a young, single, poor woman whose birth control failed. That’s hardly having an abortion out of “convenience”. “Convenience” is finding a parking space near your destination,ykwim? An unwanted pregnancy is not “convenient”, regardless of the decision made. It’s just a familiar trope of the pro-birth set to paint a picture of abortion-happy pro-choicers who think of abortion as similar to a coffee break—-and it’s tiring.
You’re damn straight this is a matter of life and death—for women too! It’s just that as women, we don’t count. We are supposed to take a back seat to everyone and everything, including in our health care choices. Jordan, if you detect a little vitriol here, perhaps you should consider that for some of us, abortion is not an abstraction. We are closer to the subject, and we are the people who would be losing our right to bodily integrity. Losing, or the possibility of losing one’s basic human rights is a subject pretty much guaranteed to set folks on edge.
I don’t care if the fetus could talk and sing little dittys inside the womb. Jordan says that if we consider the fetus is a full fledged person it should be entitled to the same rights as anyone else. The thing is that noone in our society today can lay claims to someone elses body for their survival. That is why people die for lack of donors. This is also why people die for lack of money to get the proper healthcare.
If you want to look at the bigger picture a mere pittance of your money can save scores of lives in the third world (and to be religious about it – remember that Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get to heaven). As a poor student who barely manage to pay the rent I’ve still managed to put an orphan girl through school.
If the question really were about the sanctity of life we would all be legally obliged to give of our bodies to our fellow men through organ donations and the like. It is not. It is about controlling womens bodies and what we do with them.
No one’s keeping Robert from having his views or debating, so stop with the strawman. He bloody well knows there are a lot of vocal pro-choice women who frequent this blog, and he’s been pretty upfront about his propensity to stir up shit. My sympathy quotient for Robert is at, oh, zero.
I’ve heard the “Gosh, you shouldn’t kill your baby out of convenience” oh, about a million times. The sentiment comes complete with the assumption that I must want to fit into a smaller dress for a wedding, that I must be incredibly selfish, and that I’m a baby killer.
And I’m tired of respecting this. I’m tired of showing people respect who pronounce judgement on the soundness and morality of my choices, choices that are none of their concern. I’m tired of hearing about how, well golly, it’s permissable if I’m raped, the victim of incest, or my life is in danger, as if those platitudes are supposed to soothe me. Those platitudes don’t address the reality of what pregnant women go through who need abortions, who cannot get them because they have to sit and think about it for 24 hours and have to travel several hours to the nearest clinic anyway. Because we do this spur of the moment and could easily change our minds if we just thought about it like rational people.
No, I’m sick of it.
I’m bloody tired of having to plea my case to people who never be pregnant. Never. I’m tired of having people discuss when it’s permissible for me to end a pregnancy, because pregnancy is a in the park. It’s not, I want no part of it, and I’m tired of dealing with folks who would institute enforced breeding.
And frankly Jordan, there are already limitations on abortion, and when you get can get them, as outlined by Roe. It is more difficult as the pregnancy progresses. So no, you can’t get an abortion when you’re in labor, or in your eighth month, or anything like that. Though I must say, it’s a real victory rhetoric wise for the enforced breeding crowd when even professed pro-choicers think such limitations are not already in place and women can just walk into her doctors office at month nine and get an abortion.
I mean seriously, how insulting and degrading is that? We are just so flightly and childish that we’ll do just that. We’ll just decide in week 38 that we don’t want to be pregnant anymore and presto! We’ll get it taken care of. That’s not the real world.
But the remark in question was shockingly rude, and the fact that he hasn’t seen the need to retract it or apologise kind of sours the discussion.
Nick, the remark in question is not rude. Instead, you believe – and stated your belief – that it was insincere. Since it was sincere, and since I’ve said that, what would be the justification for an apology or a retraction? “I apologize that you don’t believe me?”
Jordan D. White:
Forgive me for being a bit presumptous just now, but methinks you protest (project?) too much. Why do you feel your anger toward “the bunch of hostile people” is justified, and the anger of some commentors toward Robert’s comments isn’t? (If you actually want people to start making less emotional and more civil and intellectual comments you could start by making your comment sound less emotional yourself, it is essentially ” I am angry because you people are so angry”, see the problem there?) And who exactly belong to this bunch? I have tried to be as polite as I can to Robert, [if I didn’t come across that way that wasn’t my intention] and so have the vast majority of commentors here, IMHO.
I see a pretty clear link to Robert’s insistance that we discuss the “convenience” reasons like moving from the 99th to 97th economic percentile, while making it clear that he thinks the only valid reason is serious health issues, to the fact that some commentors indeed have given him responses not of the “thanks for the good and eloquent points” -style. And some ouright angry responses too.
What my comrades have been up to.
Jordan said:
I mean, I think the Government should become more Socialist, but it’s not going to happen unless a whole lot of people agree with me.
You’re not going to win anyone to socialism by arguing that capitalism is wonderful and only extremists say otherwise.
Likewise, you’re not going to convince anyone that they should support women’s rights by arguing that a fetus is a person and that therefore women shouldn’t be allowed to have abortions.
Amp,
To respond to your post 150: I don’t think either of those statements are inaccurate. I do think they are both a bit over-reaching and based on an incomplete data set. We are learning many new things about cortical development at this particular time and I believe it is fundamentally altering the way we think about consciousness or personhood. My problem with the argument as it pertains to abortion is that it could easily be argued (from a cortical development standpoint) that a fetus meets certain personhood requirements or a 4 year old does not meet personhood requirements depending on your viewpoint of the data. Personally I prefer the viability argument for when a fetus should be considered alive, but have serious qualms about using any argument to support the right of a woman to control her body other than the argument that she should have that right. Hope that makes sense.
Robert said:
Robert, it was rude. Saying things intentionally that one knows will be shocking or offensive or that will make people upset is rude. You are too smart to not know that such a comment would upset folks in this forum. So it was intentional. You knew it would bother people and you said it anyway, that makes the comment, and yourself, rude. You meant to upset people.
Had you not meant to upset people, had your rudeness been an inadvertent oversight on your part I think you would have apologized as soon as it was brought to your attention. But you didn’t. Do you walk up to pregnant women in the street and thank them for “deciding not to kill it”? I don’t think you do. It would be rude. And you know that. So I can’t think why, in this context, you would think it wasn’t.
I like to see your posts here. I don’t agree with most of what you say, but they always make me think. The things you say I don’t understand, I google. But I didn’t need to google this one. It was rude. And I think you know it was.
The justification, if the comment was sincere and you truly intended no offence, is that polite people apologize if/when they cause other people upset unintentionally.
Curses. Mousehounde is right.
I apologize for any offense caused by the comment.
Robert, Here’s an example of what your theory of cultural pressure will do to the abortion rate. Anti-choice women are more than happy to avail themselves of their legal right to abortion in order to avoid the harsh judgement of their fellow fundamentalists. The cultural pressure you think would lower the abortion rate in actuality increases it.
As a single mother, I’m well acquainted with the stigma attached to women who choose to have a baby instead of an abortion. Fortunately, I don’t run in fundie social circles, nor have I forgotten how to flip busybodies the bird. But it is a factor driving some women to the abortion clinic. Food for thought.
The cultural pressure you think would lower the abortion rate in actuality increases it.
Except that the data don’t support that. AGI data shows pretty clearly that Protestant and Catholic women abort at rates lower than their population percentage (54 percent of the population for Protestants, 43 percent of the abortions); women claiming no religious affiliation abort at rates much higher than their population percentage (22 percent of the abortions, 16 percent of the population). (No figures given for us mackerel snappers.)
This would seem to indicate that peer pressure and one’s personal culture do have an effect on the decision to abort or not, and that effect is the common-sense one we would expect to see, not a counterintuitive reverse-psychology effect.
Do you have any contrary data? Anecdotes compiled by a pro-choice activist don’t count as data; I could find an equal number of equally immaterial anecdotes from folks on my side of the fence.
“I mean… free abortion on demand seems too extreme. There have to be SOME limits on abortion, right? I mean, y0u can’t have one when you’re in labor, right? ”
Why is it that people keep bringing up arguments like this, or “what about abortion at 8 months” when we’re discussing abortion in general? Abortions in the third trimester are a tiny minority of abortions overall, and are mostly done because of severe fetal abnormality or risks to the life of the mother. I think that allowing the issue to be framed in this way is just buying into the worldview of the lifers, and I’m not sure why anyone pro-choice uses the same framing.
Lest some people have forgotten, let me remind them that later-term abortion is a surgical procedure which carries health risks for the mother and is usually very painful. That’s one of the reasons it’s only done if the risks to the mother of continuing with the pregnancy are even greater, or if there’s something really wrong with the fetus. Anyone bringing these procedures up in a general discussion of abortion is employing a strawman. These procedures are very rare, and there’s nothing trivial about the reasons why they are performed. Why is anyone on the pro-choice side allowing this obvious strawman to be used to distract from the real debate? Why buy into the bizarre lifer idea that women muddle along through 7 or 8 months of a pregnancy and then just change their minds on a whim and choose to undergo risky and painful surgery? This scenario is a myth made up by pro-life leaders. In reality this just doesn’t happen. Why not just dismiss it as the manufactured bullshit it so obviously is?
(Quick aside to Tuomas and Brain – my point about Kollontai and the Russian/Finnish divide was that some Russians dismiss her ideas purely on the basis that she was partly Finnish, rather than on the basis of what her ideas actually were. Personally, I think she had some good ideas and some bad ones, but the ideas are good or bad in and of themselves, rather than because of her ancestry.)
The word “abrasive” should be reserved for referring to those little steel wool cleaning pads. Ugh. And “strident” and “shrill” should be reserved for talking about sounds birds of prey make. I’m so sick of hearing them used in reference to women, and it’s worst of all when they’re used in reference to women by some guy trying to pass himself off as a good pro-choice “ally.”
That would be an aside to BRIAN, not brain. Not that he’s not very clever, but his name is not in fact brain.
I apologize for any offense caused by the comment.
I am in awe.
BritGirlSF said:
Because if they can get us to agree to any limits, however reasonable they sound, it is that much easier to get us to agree to further limits. And one thing leads to another. Then, suddenly, there are so many limits that abortion is no longer a true option. It may still be legal, but it will not be available to the women who need it.
I have skimmed some of the posts over two or three days. Saw various issues discussed that were interesting and important but I didn’t have the time to post (or clarity of thought).
I probably don’t now. One central emotional theme I felt was a weariness regarding the arguments certain religious folks and certain controlling males might make. I ‘think’ I am a complete egalitarian. I am completely against the imposition of values based upon interpretations of when life begins which are dogmatically based, in turn, upon some religious perspective. A woman must control her own body. HER religious beliefs, should she have some or her reasoned ethical beliefs will determine her actions. If some idiot authoritarian tried control or dictate what I do with my own body..
I also believe that any woman can be just as ‘shrill’ etc. as she wishes and that it is irrelevant – in any case – what I believe given the anti-authoritarian sentiment expressed above. And sometimes it takes assertiveness and … aggression and Loud determination to make the point. The right for women to vote wasn’t achieved merely by being assertive. Also, please don’t label me with the familiar epithets because I am a male. Even if deserved.
Anyway, keep fighting. Know that some males support the battle.
I guess I am rambling. Sorry.
rdw
And setting limits also reaffirms the principle that women aren’t allowed complete control of their own bodies.
Here is the URL for the best comparison I could find on abortion and religious affiliation:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3422602.pdf
There may be better ones, but I thought this gave the data points that were being discussed. Also, I would have to say that any effort to track religious affiliation should take into account (but usually doesn’t) the fact that the proportion of women who are having abortions tend to be younger and less likely to be married than the overall cohort of women to whom they are being compared. I think that this might make it difficult in particular to assess the rate of abortion among evangelical protestants.
There are other issues that are apparent in the statistics, such as, the availability of abortion in rural or Southern states, which might mean that evangelical protestant women have less access to abortion, and not simply that they are subject to peer pressure not to have one.
FWIW, the rate of abortion for Catholic women tracks their representation in the general population.
Getting this a bit late, but I must say I object to Robert’s moral calculus as it were.
Up dozens of post ago, Robert made the driving recklessly vs. driving safely analogy to vaginal sex. He then said the “consequences of one’s actions” line of reasoning.
What I don’t understand is why people don’t get that sex does not = baby. Vaginally heterosexual sex has the possibility for pregnancy. Pregnancy has the posibility for baby. It’s a very important step between the two.
I use birth control, but if it should fail, I’m fairly certain that I’d get an abortion (and not in my home state I might add…if anyone ever wants to get annoyed, check out the loops one has to go through in ND to get one). That is dealing with the possible consequence of sex: pregnancy. It is not a shirking of a responsibility thing. If I terminate the pregnacy, I am dealing with the consequences; it’s not like abortion’s an easy thing.
Also, here’s how I feel about a guy’s right to a “paper abortion” and their “sexuality being controlled” :P.
In utero, it is a 2-1 thing. The ZEF is half my genetics, and half the guy’s. but, it’s using my body, so it lives at my disgression. Out of Utero, it is 50/50 and we have an equal responsibility. Limits of biology and technology, I’m afraid.
The comparison to someone on life support is ludicris. Here’s why: that person on life support? S/he is not being housed in someone’s body. S/he’s being monitored by many different people, and not for 24/7. S/he’s not living due to someone else living, but rather due to technology.
IF someone perfects the artificial womb concept, I would be more than willing to transfer so that they are the behest of technology, and then give up the devoleped fetus for adoption. Or possibly not, as I don’t save my eggs right now, so my respect for “potentiality” is limited.
Actually I’ve been thinking about this one. For most women, the abortion is in fact a termination of a pregnancy – that’s how they view it. For Robert, he views it as a killing. I suppose that must mean that he’d view a woman falling and losing the baby inadvertantly killing the baby. I suspect, however, that he’d never say, “I’m so sorry your fall caused you to kill your baby”, knowing the incindiary nature of the word kill. Am I wrong, Robert? Would you say that to a woman?
Barbara, thank you.
Robert, it doesn’t necessarily follow that avowed Protestant and Catholic women are having abortions at lower rates because of religious beliefs (if indeed, they are; it depends on whose statistics you want to believe); there are also ethnic views and practices that play a part.
In any case, those professed pro-life women who have abortions are doing so out of a sense of shame, and are desperate not to be “found out”, lest they lose social position. I wonder what their decision would be if they came to the conclusion that there is no moral difference between single motherhood and married motherhood?
To me the real problem with the hypothetical questions about limits and restrictions is that they misunderstand choice. Being pro-choice means that you believe that all decisions about reproduction are the private concern of the pregnant woman. I have no say in her decisions and my opinions on how many children she should have, when she should have them, what contraceptives she should use, whether she uses a midwife or a doctor, whether she should have VBAC or C-section, or whether she should or should not have an abortion are irrelevant.
Wouldn’t you know, the Alan Guttmacher Institute came out with some additional data today regarding the incidence of abortion. To summarize from WaPo:
“”¢ The incidence of abortion spans the economic spectrum, but low-income women are overrepresented among those having the procedure. Sixty percent of women who had abortions in 2000 had incomes of less than twice the poverty level –below $28,000 per year for a family of three, for example. This is in part because “low-income women have lower access to family planning services” such as contraception and counseling provided by health departments, independent clinics or Planned Parenthood . . .
“”¢ Almost 90 percent of abortions are performed in the first trimester — during the first 12 weeks after the first day of the woman’s last menstrual period — with most performed before nine weeks. Because of newer surgical and medical techniques, the proportion of abortions performed at six weeks or earlier has almost doubled in the past decade.
“Less than 1 percent of abortions are done after 24 weeks.”
The vast majority of women getting an abortion would probably be surprised beyond their wildest dreams to find themselves in the 97th income percentile. And it wouldn’t be because they had experienced a drop in income.
Other factors continue apace — those having abortions are most likely to be in their 20s, more likely to be in a racial or ethnic minority (maybe THIS is why evangelicals are underrepresented), and more likely to be cohabiting outside of marriage.
And FWIW, if somebody came up to me in my grossly pregnant state and congratulated me for “deciding not to kill it” I think it would take me some time to process exactly what the person was saying. Because, as the article also says, contrary to popular belief, mothers also have abortions — In spite of Jacqueline’s assertion that it takes an act of delusion to “pretend” that a pregnancy is different from a child, I don’t think that most women intituitively accept this pronouncement. Indeed, to insist otherwise is to graft an intellectual projection onto the process of pregnancy, to insist that that which is is equal and no different from that which it might become. This is actually a pretty bizarre way of evaluating reality.
Thank you all for your replies. You make some good and interesting points.
I do know that there are limits on abortion already. My point was that I thought we all could agree that some limits are a good thing.
However, I do recognize that by allowing some limitation, the slippery slope towards complete limitation can occur. Hence the trickiness of the whole issue.
I really only mentioned the limitation bit in response to “Free abortion on demand, without apology” which just seemed a bit too extreme for me. I suppose when it all comes down, I feel much more along the lines of “Free abortion, on demand, within a set of specific and fair guidelines maintained by the government.”
I think in some ways, I am still very much an idealist, since I like to think the Government can be used fairly to the benefit of the society. I don’t think it’s happening NOW all the time, but I think it can, and I would like to see it done.
I want to say again, that I don’t believe that fetus is a person. I personally think abortion should remain legal, I’m just trying to see this from all sides. It just seems that the belief that a fetus IS a person is a REASONABLE belief, or at least equally reasonable as the belief that it is not, since both beliefs rely heavily on opinion of when life begins. Now, what a person DOES with that belief is up to them. If they act like a jerk, or they try to make LAWS that dictate which belief is right… they should be called on it and stopped, absolutely. But they should be called on their behavior, not on their belief. Their belief is equally valid.
B brought up an interesting analogy that I had not really thought out before. The idea was that even if a fetus is a full blown person, with equal rights, no person has the right to demand to rely on your body to live. If someone needs your organs, you can deny them, and that person will die. You have no legal obligation to them, and you don’t bear the legal responsibility for their death.
Ok, before I continue, let me say again that I don’t believe a fetus is a person. But, IF we take for granted that it is, in order to complete this analogy… I would say that no, you don’t need to say yes if a doctor comes to you and asks for your organ to save a life. But I think saying yes is a better thing to do. No law will come down on you for saying no, but the people who love the person who dies, and that person him or herself, would probably think bad things about you. They would judge you as selfish (if you had no medical reason you could not do it and such), which is exactly what Robert is doing- calling abortion (for non-medical or extreme circumstances) selfish, and judging the people who get them.
I mean, the idea of asking Robert if he would/does give out his organs seems calculated to ‘shame’ him by making him admit that he would not, but that seems to prove his point, so I don’t really think this line of reasoning is the best one to challenge his ideas. He’s already admitted that he is flawed. He could just say “I admit that I am selfish- now it’s your turn.”
Now, on a slightly different track, I think I might argue this… Why doesn’t each and every abortion protestor show up at the clinic with a legal contract and a notary, with the ability to make the offer to each pregnant woman to pay all of her doctor bills and adopt the child immediately upon birth? What if a pregnant woman brought that contract, and offered that deal to any of the protestors? Do you think any of them would accept?
My guess (and it is only a guess) is that the main rebuttal against this line of arguement would be something along the lines of “The pregnant women were the ones who bear the responsibility for the pregnancy, therefore they should live up to it. It is not the protestor’s responsibility.” OK, but I would say that by taking that stance, you make the issue one purely of responsibility and not one about life at all. It would mean that you’re not protesting in order to save a life, you’re doing it to rub a dog’s nose in it’s mess. At that point, the protest loses it’s moral grounding and becomes people just trying to force their views on someone else.
Anyway, thanks for the interesting discussion. I am glad I found it, and that I am made to feel welcome to exchange ideas.
Barbara-
That was some really excellent info.
To be honest with you, I am actually shocked at myself for not bringing up or talking about the economic issues related to abortion. The way our class structure is set up right now is reprehensible.
And excellent point about the economic and racial profile of the majority of abortions being a factor in the religious profile. The correlation between certain religions having less abortions may have absolutely nothing to do with their moral teachings.
I really only mentioned the limitation bit in response to “Free abortion on demand, without apology” which just seemed a bit too extreme for me.
In what way? Too in-your-face? Too far from the notion of hesitant compromise? It’s fine to consider all sides of an issue, but that doesn’t mean all sides have equal validity.
A person who has the ‘reasonable belief’ that a fetus is a person is not ‘reasonable’ if they set up arbitrary limits on that personhood that do not apply to born persons.
Jordan D., the problem many of us have with starting the discussion on abortion by agreeing that we need to negotiate “acceptable” limitations is that it doesn’t appear (at least to me) that there is any particular need for additional limitations based on what is happening now. Thus, the plea for limitations is a plea to change the status quo that appears to me to be pretty darn reasonable.
By the percentage of time and effort and ink committed to the topic of abortion, you would think that 90% of abortions are performed after 24 weeks of pregnancy. As the above data state, however, the situation is exactly the reverse: 90% of abortions occur in the first trimester, and less than one percent of abortions take place after potential viability — and I don’t have data, but I would bet that many of these relate to catastrophic defects of the fetus.
Less than 10 percent of abortions take place between week 13 (or so) and week 24, prior to viability, but at a point where the procedure is more involved medically. Guessing that most of these relate to fetal defect or demise, or maternal health issues.
Perhaps there are some women who could have had an abortion early but didn’t and then changed their minds and had one in the second trimester. But it doesn’t look to me like there are many. The financial ramifications alone would make a first trimester abortion the most likely choice for most women. So many women having abortions in the second trimester are likely among those who either didn’t realize they were pregnant, or who had so much difficulty finding a provider, that a later abortion became the only choice.
Do men (and maybe women) realize that by the earliest point at which you can confirm a pregnancy you are already considered to be 4 weeks pregnant? I think given the tight time frames it’s pretty amazing that most women manage to have an abortion prior to the 9th week of their pregnancy, and 90% by the week 13.
Why should we spend so much time trying to find common ground with people who are determined to mislead the public at large and to frame the “problem” in such objectively unreasonable terms?
Jordan:
Like mythago said…
And I’d like to add one thing:
So you think free abortion on demand is too radical (apparently you want people who hold that belief re-evaluate their beliefs… So all of us can agree that some limitations are good. Why?), yet you see the “life begins at conception, therefore abortion is always wrong” equally valid and REASONABLE as your position (big letters and all… You don’t seem willing at all asking them to re-evaluate their beliefs, in fact, you appear to demand that other people shouldn’t do that either. Why?)
This is a bit unfair… and indeed biased towards the pro-life POV. Do you really assume that people here have came to their (“radical” pro-choice) beliefs out of half-assed, selfish reasons? (It is an accusation that women having an abortion hear a lot, trust them a bit, will you?)
(Disclaimer: I feel you, Robert, and anyone, anywhere, should be allowed to hold any beliefs they want about the issue, however, I don’t feel compelled to consider all beliefs equally reasonable, so I don’t.)
alsis39: Some of us don’t want children. And we don’t need any sanctimonious meddlers trying to bully us into liking the idea of having our own children. That’s our choice.
That’s great, and I am sure you and many of the other women in this post similarly believe that men also should have a choice as to whether or not to be a parent or subject to parental responsibilities like forced child support? So if I don’t want a child, I think we can all agree that I shouldn’t be bullied to help pay for one, right? After all, everything else is secondary to a personal choice. Maybe we can create a greater general parental CHOICE movement in which neither sex forced to have any parental responsibilities.
( didnt read the whole thread if someone else mentioned this)
Hijack at post 196!
Thanks so much, Larry.
Yep, Jake, hijaking indeed. Talk about missing the point. But let’s just ignore the fact that this is about forcing women to undergo pregnancy, something that affects us physically and exposes us to certain risks. Silly me–I forgot that we are a secondary consideration at best. Most women get abortions because they don’t want to be *pregnant*, let alone have a child.
Sheesh.
Kim:
I suspect, however, that he’d never say, “I’m so sorry your fall caused you to kill your baby”, knowing the incindiary nature of the word kill. Am I wrong, Robert? Would you say that to a woman?
I would say “I’m sorry the baby died” or “I’m sorry the fall killed the baby”. Intentionality matters.
Amp, I’ll be glad to debate fetal personhood with you, but it’s pretty crazy right now and this is a debate I’d have to do research for. Let me cede that you make a very strong facial case, and beg a raincheck.
“Hijack at post 196! Thanks so much, Larry. ”
No Hijack, I am just testing the waters for a larger Pro-choice movement that encompases both mens and womens rights in parental choice. I am just trying to bring us all together.
Brian wrote:
[applause]
AndiF, I’m thinking your idea could work, but we have to figure out where to employ Brain-guy.
[applause for Sheelzebub, LaLubu, Barbara, and probably some others I’ve forgotten.]
Both Robert’s and Larry’s continual aversion to the question, brought forth by both myself and LaLubu, of why we allow for their own morality to govern their own families and yet we are seemingly not allowed the same consideration from them in regards to our families is, as usual, duly noted. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that when you’re so arrogant, controlling, and busy securing your place at the top of the patriarchal heap, it simply never dawns on you that what seems best for you might, just might, not be best for everyone. Such a heavy burden. I weep for them. All of us wild women constantly having sex in public with everything in sight and nobody can make us go sit in the town square’s stocks for so much as ten minutes. Must really rankle ’em. :/
ginmar: :D
Finally, all I can say to rachel is congrats on your future plans, and I’m sure your Siamese has an even bigger ego than most because of the thoroughness of the backround check.
Now I’m off to go shake my fist at comcast. It’s their fault I couldn’t catch up yesterday. >: