Via Tapped, this PEW center poll has an interesting abortion question; rather than asking about banning or not banning, or about Roe, they asked if people opposed or favored “making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion.” This form of the question doesn’t seem biased in any obvious way, and it directly reflects the new face of abortion rights wars – in which conservatives try to chip away at abortion availability bit by bit.
The result was that Republicans – and only Republicans – favored making it more difficult to get an abortion. Swing voters and all groups of Democrats do not favor making abortion more difficult. Overall, 55% of those surveyed opposed such efforts, while 36% favored them. So the theory that Democrats could find many new votes by being less pro-choice seems dubious. Here’s the graphic; the top three groups are different groups of Republicans, the bottom three different groups of Democrats, and the middle two represent different groups of swing voters.
There are other notable resolts. As Tapped pointed out, an overwhelming majority of Americans wants the Ten Commandments in courtrooms (22%/74%), and a majority would like to see creationism as well as evolution taught in the classroom (33%/57%).
On the other hand, liberal economic ideas are pretty mainstream. Huge majorities of the public would like to see an increase in the minimum wage (12% opposed, 86% in favor) and raising taxes to pay for health insurance for all (30% opposed, 65% in favor).
And in general, “liberals” are less left on economic issues than “disadvantaged democrats” are. On the other hand, “liberals” are – surprise surprise – the only group that favors same-sex marriage.
I really never understood the “making it more difficult” way of thinking. In a way the people who say abortion is murder and always wrong are more logical than those who say it should be legal, but made as difficult as possible for the woman concerned.
As if we needed more proof that a large proportion of anti-choicers are all about punishing women, not about saving “babies”.
This issue arose briefly here in the UK when the Tory leader Michael Howard made some comment about abortion being too easy, and the news media tried really hard to whip things up into a debate and controversy. But really, it never became much of an issue, and certainly not a political/election issue.
Aaack! 57 percent want to teach creationism in the classroom. Just depressing.
Well, Dave, at least it’s creationism AS WELL AS evolution. Sigh.
The reason that making it more difficult is an acceptable strategy is precisely because this has shit to do with “murder’ and everything about humiliating a woman for having sex. The more hoops, the more punishment.
Right on, Amanda. Plus, if it’s legal but difficult to obtain, then their daughters can access it. Hypocrites.
Personally I got stuck on the whole teaching creationism as well as evolution thing.
ARE PEOPLE REALLY THAT INCREDIBLY STUPID?!
I’ve always been like, sure, you want to teach creationism (oh, excuse me, intelligent design ) don’t do it in science class, because it’s obviously NOT science, or even remotely scientific. Do it in it’s own class and call it religous studies, or the like. But, because there’s an awful lot of students that are of different religions, alongside all the Christian ideas, you’re going to have to teach about Islam’s perspectives on creation, about Judaism’s, about Hindu, about Native American, about Pagan, etc, etc.
You know, my little atheist self would actually support a class with that kind of a global diversity as a wonderful learning opportunity. But do you think the fundamentalist would? Not a bloody chance.
But, to the main point of the above post. I honestly think this kind of a result isn’t that surprising. We know people support a woman’s right to choose, and we know those that are about making it ‘difficult’ really aren’t interested in a woman’s health or social status. We just need to make sure the Dem’s hear this, because while as a party they are FAR from being close to perfect, they are they cards we have been dealt.
Is this actually a distinct group of people, or is it just an issue of question wording? Assumedly, if the question had been “should abortion be generally illegal”, the lion’s share of the “more difficult” people would say “yes.”
The only people I could think of who might fit into the “more difficult” but “still legal” camp would be, say, Bill and Hillary Clinton (“safe, legal, and rare.”) I don’t think these are the people you are thinking of in your “punishing women” category.
I don’t think Bill and Hillary had in mind making abortion more difficult when they said rare. I think they were shooting for better access to contraceptives and improvements in sexual education in public schools (just teaching it at all would be an improvement in most states). With regards to partial birth abortion that might be the case, but that is a different issue in the minds of many.
Pretty much what Amanda, La Lubu, and Sarah in Chicago said. And yes Sarah, people in this country are that stupid. La Lubu–I’m sure that Republican politicians will always make sure their daughters can easily and quietly obtain a safe/legal abortion (without travelling through a sea of belligerent anti-choice protestors in front of the clinic) while the rest of us have to “jump through leaps and bounds” in order to have one. All so there isn’t a scandal ruining their political careers. Hypocrites. “Okay for my daughter to have one for reasons x, y, z–but always wrong for you no matter what.”
I think Ted makes a good point. Making abortion more rare is very different than making it harder to get. It’s estimated that if Emergency Contraception were available over the counter, then almos 1/2 of the 1.5 million abortions in this country could be prevented. It’s also estimated that there are 6 million unwanted pregnancies. Women who won’t have abortions, but are comfortable taking the birth control pill, would be able to prevent a pregnanacy (EC is a super-strength form of the birth control pill, not an abortifacent). All of these make abortion more rare, but not harder to get. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
And I work for a textbook publisher. One of our high-school literature books has a very lengthy chapter on creation myths. The creation stories presented in the Bible, Koran, and Torah are all present, as are the creation stories of several cultures from Australia, the United States, Africa, the Egyptians, the Romans, just to name a few. It’s interesting to read the creation story from an eastern US Native American tribe and contrast that with the creation story of a West-coast tribe and see how similar it is an Australian group and how elements of all that is reflected in the Bible. It’s one of my favorite units in the book.
The question of what they mean by “Rare” is interesting. I think that tactically it is probably a smart move (since the public is ambivalent on abortion), but it also iplies that abortion is bad. When Hillary or Kerry or anyone else seeking political gain talks about making abortion rare, they are playing on the stigma surrounding abortion — the same stigma that contributes to the secrecy, shame, and even fanatical violence around the issue. They aren’t saying ‘unplanned pregnancies should be rare’ – they are talking about abortion specifically.
I’m all for finding middle ground, but I think it’s key that we change the terms of the debate. Prevention of unintended pregnancy is a great goal that I think all pro-choicers (and reasonable americans) support. Legislation like the Putting Prevention First Act is a way to shift the debate in that direction.
Today’s E.J. Dionne column is on the same ‘centrist’ approach to abortion.
I think that they were/are just pandering and being hypocritical classist assholes. But of course, I’m bitter. :/
Alsis38, You’re probably right actually, very funny!
Sara,
I don’t think it implies that abortion is bad. It is an alternative when others are not available or did not work. If we make the education and contraceptive options more accessible then I think abortion will become more rare, but we need some people with an iota of reason in leadership/decision making positions to move that along. I cannot see that happening anytime soon, regardless of which of the 2 parties are in power.
Having said that I don’t think abortion is ever a pleasant option. It is a choice that women deserve to be able to make and it should be fast, safe, discreet (i.e. no one needs to know but the Doc, nurses and patient) and hassle free. I don’t think anyone is ever happy to make that choice though. Perhaps relieved, but of course I will never know. It is “good” that it is legal and it ought not to be stigmatized or made difficult but I don’t see how making it rare through education and medical assistance (drugs) implies that it is bad. I’m not sure this makes sense but I hopefully you’ll ge the point.
Sara, abortion is bad. It is a drastic measure, the destruction of a life.
IMHO the whole abortion debate comes down to: is that life human, and when is it morally acceptable to destroy it? On one end of the spectrum you have the right-wing wack jobs who say absolutely and never, not even if both mother and baby will surely die if the pregnancy goes to term. On the other end you have equally out-there ultrafeminists who say irrelevant and always, as long as it hasn’t technically or completely left the mother. Either position has the benefit of clarity but the (much greater) drawback of cruelty to mother and/or baby.
The rest (most) of us are somewhere in the middle, ambivalent and unclear. My own position is that, while abortion is bad, sometimes all the other options are worse, and I am (to say the least) unqualified to say when that is for someone else. I still have trouble with prochoice hard-liners, though, who sometimes make abortion sound like a trivial medical procedure and nothing more. So I am prochoice but queasy.
That queasiness gives me a certain sympathy with people who want to make getting an abortion more difficult: I would like everyone considering an abortion to stop and think really, really hard about whether this is truly her best option. I would like her to ask, “Will I regret this later? Could I give the baby up for adoption, even though it might cause me inconvenience and embarrassment? Could I raise this child, even though I didn’t plan it this way?” Theoretically, at least, this is the purpose of strictures like waiting periods and parental-notification requirements. They don’t have to be about “punishing women for having sex.”
I also know that in the real world self-doubt can’t be legislated, and that for a lot of people “more difficult” is a way station on the road to “impossible,” which is the real goal. That’s why I have a lot more sympathy for the cause of making abortion more rare by making sex ed and contraception more accessible. You would think that “liberals” and “conservatives” could get together on this; they can’t because each side playing to its own second balcony.
Are people who want to limit access to contraception (emergency or not) about punishing women for having sex? You bet.
I think Hillary Clinton et al. are, among other things, trying to point out the basic fallacy in the notion that having sex isn’t as bad if you didn’t plan it. For tons of kids out there this idea is the logical conclusion of abstinence-only sex ed. The whole point of sex ed should be to convey the message that it’s probably better to wait to have sex, but if you do have it for pity’s sake use birth control or you’ll have a much harder decision on your hands. Planning to have sex is morally preferable to having either an abortion or a child you’re unprepared to raise.
The flip side of that coin is that if you have the right to control your own body, that entails the responsibility to do everything you can to prevent unwanted pregnancy.
Since I know some will find this post objectionable, I’d like to say that I do recognize that most women who have abortions indeed agonize over the decision, and I respect that.
On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Hillary Clinton gave a speech in which she said, “We can all recognize that abortion in many ways represents a sad, even tragic, choice to many, many women.”?
I think Hillary Clinton’s trying to put herself at the lead of the efforts to have the Democrats abandon support for abortion rights. She’s no ally.
If the poll had asked “do you favor 24-hour-waiting periods” or “do you favor parental consent for adolescent abortions” or “do you favor a law requiring abortion clinics to provide clients with information about the potential risks of abortion”, I think it would have found majorities in favor of those positions.
These kinds of incremental changes are what many people who are avidly interested in abortion politics lump together under the umbrella of making abortions more difficult to obtain.
But your man-on-the-street is someone who would say “I don’t favor making abortions more difficult to obtain” and also turn around and say “I think it would be a good idea to have a 24-hour-waiting period”.
I apologize for having blocked out the memory, but did Clinton actually say anything like that in her speech ? Has she made any of that her modus operandi while in the Senate ?
I don’t mean to make it look like I’m just picking on Clinton. I find the entire DLC –of which she is a member of long-standing– a bunch of Social Darwinist, Corporate-owned snakes who should not be trusted any further than they can be thrown. They are out and out advocates of predatory market values (thinly veiled on occasion by old-school feel-good “progressive rhetoric) that are anathema to whatever stated goals they have of humanely reducing abortion.
If there is any truth at all to the poll mentioned above, it only makes her look wrong-headed and out-of-touch– in addition to her other flaws. Of course, this would be true of Reid and a number of other upper-echelon Democrats, as well.
“…Yet while the right has led the war on abortion rights, Democrats are going along for the ride.
Fifty-four House Democrats voted in favor of the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act — giving the Republicans a comfortable margin of victory. Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean last month told USA Today that the party should encourage more “pro-life Democrats”? to run for office… “–Nicole Colson at *Dissident Voice*
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/May05/Colson0507.htm
Like it or not, Clinton’s position is likely where the Democrats need to end up if they have any hope of winning another presidential election or winning back Congress. Abortion is the albatross around the party’s neck.
But that’s not at all what the poll implies, Res. Even if you think for a second that there’s anything remotely ethical about leading one of your most loyal constituencies around by the nose –terrifying them constantly with fears of an all-powerful Religious Right– only to sell them out at the drop of a hat in order to lure that self-same Right;In order to shore up your own power and privilege. And let’s not mince words: From a class status, its irrelevant to any woman of Clinton’s class status whether abortion is an illegal act or not. The rich flout the law when they wish. They always have, and they always will.
Lu, I respect your queasiness about abortion. I think you are squarely in the majority on the subject – most americans don’t like abortion, but want it to be legal because the alternatives to legal abortion – forced childbearing or blackmarket abortions – are bad, too.
I’m not saying that abortion is a wonderful thing. I’m saying that it is one option in a situation where ALL the options are difficult. So why is abortion singled out to be made rare? Don’t we want the other outcomes – unwanted children being born, and women giving up their children – to be made rare too? If so, why does everyone focus on making abortion rare?
I think it is because of a public moral consensus that is separate from the question of legality for most people (except, ironically, the die-hard pro-lifers, who are the most consistent on the issue).
The consensus is that – an irresponsible woman gets pregnant. She has three options: keeping a baby, giving him up for adoption, and having an abortion. Abortion is the WORST option. Women who chose that are selfish, insufficiently maternal, and challenge all of our assumptions about how women are supposed to be.
Maybe you’re pro-choice and think she should be allowed to choose. But many pro-choicers still feel the need to make the moral call – to pass judgement on her choice. That’s why there is so much “I am pro-choice but I would never have an abortion.” It’s a way people distance themselves from those “bad” women.
That’s why “abortion is a tragedy” is such a catchphrase. Sure, for many women it is tragic. It is certainly hard. So is giving up a child for adoption. Or raising a child without resources. But the focus is on abortion, because that rhetoric is rooted in a judgment about the woman who would make such a choice.
If people want to vote Republican, they will vote Republican. Okay? Democrats can add all the toffee chips and caramel swirls they want, but they can’t fool people who really want to eat ice cream into eating whipped tofu instead. Different parties, different political philosophies, different constituencies. This is as it should be; you don’t beat the enemy by doing exactly what they’d do if they got into power. The point is not to get votes. The point is to accomplish things with those votes.
You’re absolutely right that abortion is one of the biggest, clearest, most crucial differences between the two parties. If the Democrats give it up, women will have even less reason to vote Democratic than they do now. Swing voters who vote Republican because of abortion–as opposed to the multitude of other disparities that at least used to exist between the two parties–are a tiny group. The number of progressive voters who don’t vote is huge.
alisa, I don’t disagree. But I would point out that it is rich women who are more likely to be pro-choice. There is significant ambivilance in the African American and Latino communities to abortion. For all the class discussion, the reality is that there isn’t a lot of data showing poor women want to have abortions and just can’t afford them. Abortion is much more prevalant–and desired–by middle class women and Whites.
What the Democrats realize, however, is that women who support abortion have nowhere else to go. They will continue supporting Democrats, even if they are more ambivilant on choice issues because Republicans are clearly not an option. Where are women going to go, the Greens?
There is significant ambivilance about abortion in this country and the Democrats may have hurt themselves in allying themselves so strongly with abortion issues and identifying as a pro-choice party. It has left no room for compromise.
Being pro-choice is not the same as being unwilling to get an abortion, unfortunately. But why would it be surprising that an expensive medical procedure is something that women with money and/or health insurance can avail themselves of more often?
They’ll stop voting. They’ll go nowhere. This isn’t a hypothetical; it’s what progressive voters frequently do now, when asked to choose between EEEEEEVILLLL, Evil, and Ain’t Gonna Happen.
Democrats–like Hillary–bear some of the responsibility for ambivalence on abortion. If the continuous response to, “Abortion is bad!” isn’t, “No, it’s necessary,” but, “Yes, yes it is bad, just not quite as bad as you keep saying,” which side of that ambivalence is going to expand?
What Alsis said.
And one of the things about taking a principled stand on an issue is that you do it whether its popular or not. The Democrats don’t support women’s rights as a matter of principle, any more than they support gay rights or union rights or the rights of minorities. The only things they support as matters of principle are capitalism and imperialism — the same as the Republicans.
What’s surprising is that the Democrats have decided to abandon even paying lip service to abortion rights, even though abortion rights are very popular. Something other than elections is driving that concern.
Oh, and semi-OT — Alsis, you may enjoy reading this: Women and Socialism, by Sharon Smith. Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask Ampersand to look at it.
That’s just simply untrue. From the Alan Guttmacher Institute: Black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are 2 1/2 times as likely.
The idea of “they stop voting” sounds fine in the abstract, but is absurd in reality. Without a viable third-party (and there are none), the decision to stop voting is counterproductive and dangerous.
Sara, you are right. I misstated it.
That doesn’t change the fact that African Americans and Latinos are more likely to say they are pro-life and opposed to abortion.
The Green Party is a viable third party. Green Party candidates are making headway in local elections. (It’s a mistake to pay attention only to the national elections.)
There are very narrow limits on what electoral politics can achieve, though. Elections are, at best, only a minor part of real democratic political action.
Although it would help if people would stop with this “I have to vote Democrat, even though they’re actually completely opposed to everything I believe in,” nonsense. If you don’t believe in the candidate’s positions, don’t vote for the candidate. Why is this so hard to understand?
Res Ipsa: If you want to argue for this general line of reasoning, you really have to do a better job of accounting for the data Ampersand has presented. For example, your statement: “rich women who are more likely to be pro-choice” seems hard to square with the data, especially the data on “disadvantaged democrats” who are more than three times as likely to oppose making abortion more difficult as to support it.
I know the idea that abandoning support for reproductive rights is a way to acquire a majority of the voting public. Assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, the data shows otherwise. Roe vs. Wade has consistently been supported by a majority of the American public. This is just another data point.
Also, even if what you say is true about rich women, that would not necessarily bode well for your preferred strategy. Even if moving away from abortion rights picked the democrats up some votes, let’s not forget that rich people have some self-interest reasons to vote GOP. Maybe some of those rich women, itching for another round of regressive tax cuts, would like to vote GOP but don’t do it due to their strong pro-choice position. Take away that distinction between the parties and they might just join up with the rest of the rich on the dark side. Speculation about the votes the Democrats might have to gain by abandoning reproductive rights often take place without considering the rather important flipside. Any time a major party switches positions on a major issue, they’ll certainly gain some votes because of it and lose others. To analyse one side of that equasion without looking at the other is the height of strategic folly.
Furthermore, your point about African-Americans doesn’t support your general thesis. Even if African-Americans are more pro-life than the general public (and more socially conservative in general) they still vote, consistently and overwhelmingly, for Democrats. It’s just not a salient issue in the voting behavior of the vast majority of African-Americans.
Sara, abortion is singled out to be made rare because it’s the one case where, in every instance and by definition, a life is ended. That’s why I’m queasy about it, and that’s why I think it should be rare and a last resort.
That’s also why I think that sex ed should be taught, and it should teach that choosing to have sex involves the responsibility of trying not to get pregnant (assuming you don’t want to be). Am I saying that a woman who gets pregnant as a result of unplanned, unprotected sex is “bad” or “an irresponsible woman”? No, I’m saying that in this case she made a bad decision and was unlucky. Should she be “punished” for that by having to carry the child to term? Only she can make that decision.
If everyone who didn’t want to get pregnant and had sex anyway used birth control every time, the hard decision that this hypothetical woman now faces would get a lot more rare, and so would all of the less-than-good outcomes of unwanted pregnancy. And that would be a very good thing.
It drives me to distraction that many of the same people who so adamantly oppose abortion also seem to oppose making contraception widely available and morally acceptable. And I wish that the “safe, legal and rare” crowd would make the equation reliable contraception=98 percent fewer abortions much more explicit.
Confession: I don’t know if Hillary Clinton has explicitly expressed the views on sex ed that I imputed to her; I’m probably indulging in a little wishful thinking there. I do have a problem with pillorying her (or anyone else) for suggesting that liberals or Americans in general should work to make abortion more rare.
I was typing a somewhat sarcastic response to Brian’s last post, and they I stopped and asked myself a couple of questions:
Are arguments about third party politics on Alas ever productive or satisfying?
Is this thread about third parties?
I encourage those of us who think the answer to either of those questions is “no” to not do what I almost did and contribute to a potential derailment of this thread.
Sorry.
Yes, for everyone. But arguably, so is supporting either one of two parties that are both virtually identical and utterly counter to your beliefs. And sensible or not, it is happening.
When espoused as if this goal were separate from one’s other beliefs, it is not only potentially destructive, but highly suspicious. But hey, I’ll pillory Reid to if you want me to prove what an egalitarian I am. Yeah, it’s realy great that he’s okay with legalized gambling and prostitution but not abortion. Whoopee. Break me off some more of that.
Heard of it, Brian, but haven’t had a chance to check it out yet. And, yeah, I do think there is something nasty behind the attitude of public officials like Clinton. Someone has to breed the cannon fodder and Wal-Mart employees for their brave new world, after all.
djw, we need a women’s party. And nothing can be viable if no one will fight to build it. That includes you.
Brian, I didn’t mean to admonish you. I’ve gone down that road before as well, and I have no doubt I will again (my fingers really want to type all kinds of pointed questions about Alsis’ notion of a “women’s party.” Time and place, time and place….).
I just want to focus on holding Res Ipsa’s feet to the fire about the dubious ‘abandon reproductive rights as political strategy’ thing…
Well I think since the Democrats seem to write women’s reproductive rights off as expendable when election politics gets tough (and Republicans just keep rollin’ reproductive-rights back), women who value their reproductive rights should form their own party. Can’t trust someone who will only fight for your rights when it’s convenient for them.
Alsis, I’m not sure I follow you, but I think you are saying that being prochoice and wanting abortion to be rare are incompatible. I respectfully disagree. Abortion is a necessary evil. It is not the less necessary for being evil, nor the less evil for being necessary.
I don’t think the Democratic Party should abandon abortion rights. I do think they should acknowledge that abortion is not a black-and-white issue for most people. Prolife absolutists will never vote Democratic anyway; prochoice hard-liners may not vote, but I wonder how many there really are. For the rest (I still think the vast majority) of us, the issue is inherently gray, both necessary and evil. I think the Democrats should trust voters more: most politicians think voters require clarity and can’t stand nuance.
You may not like my position, but please do not mistake ambivalence and discomfort for secretly thinking that women who have abortions are bad or irresponsible. I can’t speak for Mrs. Clinton or anyone else, but I’ve thought long and hard about this, and I really am prochoice.
(Favors prostitution and gambling but opposes abortion? Now there’s cognitive dissonance for you.)
Lu, it’s not that I don’t like your position, exactly, I just don’t know what it is. If your position is that Democrats should spend more time wringing their hands about how troubling, disturbing, and unfortunate abortion is, I hardly see the point. As others in this thread have tried to point out, any such hand-wringing is filled with anti-feminist and anti-woman undertones, of the shaming variety.Furthermore, it makes continued support of abortion rights seem morally cowardly. It’s not a good idea for politicians to engage in rhetoric that makes them appear in this light. Moreover, I see no reason to believe the target audience will buy it. How many people believed John Kerry was saying what he really meant when he spoke against gay marriage? I sure didn’t, and I certainly don’t blame right-wingers for not buying it either.
Or rather are you articulating actual policies to make abortion rarer? If this is it, than articulate your policies. It seems to me they could fall into two groups. Group A–things that make abortion harder to access. Group B–things that make unwanted pregnancies rarer.
Like the majority of Americans (see poll data above) I strongly oppose anything from group A. Group B is a mixed bag, but there’s a lot of stuff to like there–increased access to contraception and better sex education, better social support for families in poverty, ending the culture of rape, etc. These would all make abortion rarer, as a secondary benefit. They’re also good and worthy in and of themselves.
So which is it, Lu? What kind of rhetoric/changes are you arguing for?
Well, practically no one believed Kerry’s position on pretty much anything, because he had such a hard time articulating one, assuming that he had one. Let’s see if I can do better.
While some things in group A are theoretically harmless and reasonable (a waiting period for example), in practice they’re burdensome and pointless. I would support all of the items you cite from group B. Better substance-abuse prevention would be another good one.
I would contend that making abortion rarer is good and worthy in and of itself; it would save a lot of women a lot of hardship.
I did sound, didn’t I, like I wanted the Democrats to wring their hands. I don’t; I want them to get off their butts and do something, and those group-B items would be a good start. But I also want them to say that they support these programs because one of their benefits is making abortion more rare. That’s where the gray comes in: I don’t think it’s inconsistent to suppport abortion rights all the way down the line and to support programs because they will reduce the incidence of abortion. That’s where I think Democrats can trust voters with nuance.
Lu, I don’t think we’re really disagreeing. I don’t think Clinton should run around saying, “Hooray for abortion !” I don’t know anyone who says that. My trouble is that given the frequent and ever-widening gaps between her reputation as champion of women’s rights, and the way she has behaved while in office, my hackles rise when I hear her say it. I have an inkling that she and others like her are simply pandering, and angling to comdemn the disadvantaged to more disadvantage while they do so. Whether or not most feminists know it, the Democratic Leadership Council espouses politics that are not now, nor have they ever, been friendly to anyone but the wealthy. Perhaps from an aesthetic standpoint, they have a problem with pro-lifers, but from other standpoints– no, I don’t think that they do. They are just too dishonest to admit this. They love social control, and they love controlling us. :( Abortion to them is just one more avenue of control.
djw, I don’t know if you’ve ever read any of the links I’ve posted. You shouldn’t really have that many pointed questions about what I’d like to see a Womans’ Party do– if you have read them. At any rate, I don’t expect much support here for it, nor anywhere in liberal-land (though Pseudo’s reaction is the most positive that I’ve heard from anyone not in my immediate sphere of online pals since I don’t know when). But it’s what I believe, and I’m sticking with it. I despise users, and that’s what the Democratic leadership is made up of. They are not friends of women, and they come more and more out of the closet in this regard with each election cycle. That’s what I tried to point out with that last link.
I found the poll interesting, but it creates a false impression, if it ends serving to pretend that what the rank and file in the Democratic Party want is more hand-holding between Liberal leaders and Bible-thumpers;Hand-holding on the backs of women, at that. If true, it also points toward the folly of thinking that a few more sops to anti-choicers will bring hordes of the politically disengaged suddenly and magically into the Democratic fold.
Bah.
I think the hand-wringing about abortion is a good thing and productive for us all to do, liberals and conservatives, men and women. Abortion is a truly awful thing that lessns us as a society and a culture. All of that said, I support keeping abortion legal and don’t want to see restrictions because I do understand the civil rights issue. But just because I understand the civil rights perspective doesn’t mean that abortion is a societal good or something that shouldn’t contain some shame or criticism. I support lots of people’s civil rights–including free speech–even when I abhor their speech or actions.
Do you mean shame and criticism on the part of society (we should all be ashamed and critical of the number of abortions that occur) or that the person who has an abortion should be made to feel shame and endure criticism? If its the latter, why would you argue that it should be legal and then condone the ostracization (sp?) of the individual? Perhaps you mean that the woman that has the abortion should feel some shame and be self critical of herself while her privacy is still maintained? Just trying to understand the viewpoint.
I would say societal shame.
I’m not sure ostracism is too strong, but it is interesting how we criticize people for wearing fur, or shopping at Wal-Mart or voting Republican, but aren’t willing to criticize people who reached the point that they had to kill their unborn fetus.
[snort] Whose the “we” that’s never criticized. ? A huge portion (if not most) of pro-life rhetoric seems meant to obscure the notion that live women must carry babies to term at all;The pregnant woman is almost an inanimate object. I don’t know that this has led de facto to some kind of magical, guilt-free paradise in which women are meant to feel unashamed about aborting. Anyone check out bean’s thread on her blog where she gripies –quite rightly– that after all these years you still can’t have a damn U.S. TV show where a female character aborts without her having to be vengefully done away with in the next $%@* damn episode ? If the supposed “liberal” media quite coldly and deliberately wants to inspire (or cater to) that much desire to shame, well… imagine the Left Behind crowd’s POV !
The notion of “shaming” over abortion might be more palatable to me if A) We could shame the man who fathered the fetus along with the woman who, in perfect Eve fashion, is expected to shoulder the blame for it all and B) We could stop “shaming” all women, all the time, over issues relating to motherhood or lack thereof. Anyone remember the damn “Drive-By Mothering” thread ? [groan]
Women have had enough shame over our reproductive function, whether we use it, how often, with whom, and when over the last few millenia. Enough already. If people like Hilary actually intend their rhetoric to be thinly-veiled codewords for “You women should be ashamed,” even as they themselves claim the right to keep their own complete reproductive history strictly a private matter, it’s another strike against them as far as I’m concerned.
Thank you for reminding us that it all goes back to the “blame the daughters of Eve complex,” that many people seem to have especially conservatives, who DO view women to be inanimate objects once they do become pregnant. Her rights become null and void at that point.
resipsa–I see you’ve abandoned any pretense of defending the strategic electoral advantage of politicians publicly shaming the many millions of women who’ve had abortions, and simply told us what you’d like to see happen personally. It’s always good to keep those two things straight.
(This ‘magical guilt-free paradise’ you speak of is inhabited by a sizeable faction of those women, by the way, who’ve had abortions and don’t buy into the whole social guilt trip thing–I think the notion that abortion is this huge, awful thing for most women who have them is a bunch of media hype more than reality.)
Here’s the point: I’m glad you don’t want to return to the gross injustice of easy grey market abortions for urban, middle-upper class white women and dangerous, criminal abortions for all the rest. But if you insist on pushing a discourse about abortion that paints millions of women as morally deficient for not cheerfully serving as incubators for 40 weeks, don’t expect feminists to smile and nod.
I absolutely agree that the stigma is wrong – horrific, cruel and deplorably disassociative with women’s reproductive rights. The one thing that I feel has been overlooked with regards to this line of thought, however, is that we should definitely try to decrease abortions, because we are talking about women having to have either a medical process that is potentially harmful, if not fatal, when it could be far less needed by the dispensation of adequate education and supply of birth-control.
I’m pro-choice – I’ve stated straight up on this blog that I’ve had an abortion. Healthwise, it’s not a walk in the park. It’s not the same as a period. That said, it shouldn’t be a negative thing to prevent the need for them, or acknowledge that we can see them as ‘not so great’, while at the same time advocate complete support and availability for those times when they become necessary.
On the other hand, I tend to find PoV’s such as Resipsa’s shamefully apologetic, callous and judgemental. Maybe he (I recall him stating in a prior thread that he was a gay man) is okay with ostracization of nearly 43% of the women within the United States, but their are some of us women with enough pride in ourselves that we can be comfortable telling such individuals to take a hike to that wonderful land where such women are ostracized, because I for one am happy to see you go.
Clarification on last post:
When I say ‘not so great’, I’m not saying that as a moral judgement, but instead as a lack of keeness for invasive health procedures unless necessary. Our culture failing to embrace contraception and sexual education out of moral conflict is something I find despicable.
We all agree (I hope) that a woman is more than an incubator. Can we also agree that an embryo or fetus is more than a clump of cells?
(That’s a serious question, and I’m not trying to be flip or sarcastic or to belittle anyone. It just seems to me that, for the sake of moral clarity, both prolifers and prochoicers want to ignore one side of the equation.)
The only problem I have with Creationism being taught in schools is who’s version of the Creation is the most valid?
I’ll agree if you think it’ll help keep the flame level down. I just don’t see why it should be a question that takes place in total isolation from other questions, factors, and issues. Am I really expected to hold up public officials as paragons of virtue if they answer “Yes” to your question and evade or answer wrongly a host of others ?
I mean, are Hilary, et al even slightly disturbed about the “tragic choice” of working-class kids being lured and tricked into the ever-more-disasterous war in Iraq ? How about her charming spouse’s unrepetant attitude towards his spearheading of NAFTA ? Does she really think that did not lead to many, many “tragic choices” on the part of mothers, or women who wanted to be mothers ?
To call selectively for a more humane perspective in one arena while espousing violent and predatory views in most others is nothing but crass opportunism. It’s the search for an easy scapegoat that can be employed to whip up the short-sighted without alienating one’s corporate (or Bible-thumping) bagmen. That is supposed to be most liberals’ issue with the Right Wing blather about “A Culture of Life”– the inherent hypocrisy and cruelty of singling out one element of that culture and imagining that if we could just CONTROL it, by controlling individual women, everything else would somehow magically fall into place. Sunshine, lollypops and jesus would make everything all right. It’s a toxic and insulting fantasy no matter whose peddling it. It’s an attempt to use sentimental feelings about babies and motherhood, no matter how sincere one’s feelings, as some kind of mystical stand-in for all the arenas in which our politics fall down and fail the individual in her/his hour of need.
I ain’t buying it. I don’t give a damn if the elected pitchman/pitchwoman is wearing a blue pinney or a red pinney. It’s a con job perpetrated by greedy and chronically short-sighted people who would never, thanks to their own privilege, have to live with the personal consequences they want to set up for others.
Oh, absolutely, Kim. I know that it is a very hard thing and I’m not saying abortion is great or easy. I’m saying it is one option where all of the options are very difficult, and we need to focus on reducing the number of woman who FACE that choice rather than the number who make that choice. I think most of us here agree on that. (I’ve been harping away because I’ve seen the nasty impact of the abortion stigma and it upsets me when pro-choicers perpetuate it.)
Yes, scientifically we know that it is a potential life. But the decision of what rights and value to grant to the developing fetus MUST belong to the woman whose body is supporting it. I can not tell a woman about the inherent worth of her pregnancy. It comes down to whether you trust women to know what they are doing when they decide to have an abortion. Woman aren’t stupid, they know what is happening to their bodies.
I really do understand that it’s a tough issue for many many people. But they become suspect in my eyes when they project their own highly intimate moral positions onto other people.
I cannot agree with that statement. Not on any moral ground but on a scientific basis. Maybe concerning a fetus at a certain point of development I would agree, but an embryo, no. An embryo is pretty much a rapidly growing clump of cells, it takes on a longitudinal shape at some point but is really not recognizable in terms of structure or organs unitl fetal stages begin after week 8.
As for a fetus, what is it that makes it more than a clump of cells with some shape and organs coming together? That it has life? It will only have life up to a certain point if it remains in the womb.
As for the question of when does life begin, i have no idea and frankly don’t understand how that question can be answered as the term life is implied to have something to do with being human.
I guess where we depart is the belief that there shouldn’t be some social accountability and personal responsibility. Abortion is often a very personally responsible thing to do, but there are levels of personal irresponsibilty that have led to the point that the abortion had to occur. One of the greatest failings of liberals and progressives is our unwillingness to expect some personal responsibility. Again, we hold people personally responsible for wearing fur but refuse to say people (both the woman and the man) are personally irresponsible for having an unwanted pregnancy that has to be aborted.
What the vast majority of America hears when we refuse to require some level of personal responsibility is that liberals and progressives lack a moral and ethical grounding. We may hold Wal-Mart accountable, but we aren’t willing to hold our best friend accountable when they make multiple bad decisions in their lives. This goes beyond abortion to issue like HIV/AIDS. At the risk of “not offending,” we have utterly failed at providing a coherent message of HIV prevention because we don’t want to talk about the behavior that has consequences.
but there are levels of personal irresponsibilty that have led to the point that the abortion had to occur
Is merely having sex “personal irresponsibility”?
I’d think that having to get the inside of one’s uterus vaccumed ought to be “accountability” and punishment enough for whatever imagined sins led to the abortion, especially if you have to shell out money for the privilege.
I guess where we depart is the belief that there shouldn’t be some social accountability and personal responsibility. Abortion is often a very personally responsible thing to do, but there are levels of personal irresponsibilty that have led to the point that the abortion had to occur.
Again, I don’t know what this all means. Personal responsibility, as I understand it, means taking care of the legal and moral obligations that are consequences of your past actions. Since we agree that abortion should be perfectly legal, you’re must not be talking about something else. Guilt as an act of contrition? A public apology for callously creating a potential life and then ending it because you can’t be bothered? If not, what, precise words and/or actions does personal responsibility require of a woman who is seeking an abortion?
Again, if you’re looking for a sizeable minority of adult women in our society to stand up and admit their moral deficiency for exercising a perfectly legal option, OK, but I really hope you can see why feminists would pretty much categorically reject this.
One of the greatest failings of liberals and progressives is our unwillingness to expect some personal responsibility. Again, we hold people personally responsible for wearing fur but refuse to say people (both the woman and the man) are personally irresponsible for having an unwanted pregnancy that has to be aborted.
Change the subject much? For the record, while I wouldn’t do it myself, I don’t care if you or anyone else wears fur. I’m not the only one, either. The rhetorical strategy you’ve adopted here, which seems to be “sketch a caricature of the left straight out of GOP talking points and explain what’s wrong with it” is rather hard to argue with. So I’ll just challenge you on the evidence–what is the evidence that progressives aren’t personally responsible? Greater crime rates? Divorce rates? Do they default on loans more often? What? If you have any actual evidence for your claims, let’s see it.
I take personal responsibility damn seriously, as do most of my (progressive) friends. We want to hold politicians accountable for, y’know, breaking laws, starting disastrous wars, etc. We want Churches to actually abide by the rules of tax exempt status. And yes, we want people to live up to the personal obligations and contracts that they’ve made (if all the progressives you know don’t care about any of that, you need to get out more). I take umbrage to this because you’ve translated what seems to be a pet concern of yours (given your eagerness to bring HIV into the equation, it seems to be “When bad things happen and sex is involved, there should be lots of shaming and guilt,” into a jeremiad about the left’s abandonment of personal responsibility. This is straight out of the religious right’s playbook.
…A twenty-four-hour sackcloth and ashes period? I’m kind of wondering about this, too. I mean, divorce indicates that someone, somewhere, made some arguably irresponsible decisions, but we don’t insist that divorcing people apologize. Most people prefer that they not stick with an unworkable plan any longer. There are all kinds of bad choices, and all kind of sensible, responsible actions people take to correct the mistake and mitigate the damage.
Women with unplanned/unwanted pregnancies who decide to keep the baby have been equally irresponsible. Should we shame them, too? Maybe insist on a little proof of contrition before we let them take on the awesome responsibility of parenting?
“Abstinence is the best possible way to protect yourself and your partners, and the only choice that carries no risk of transmission. However, if you are sexually active, you must use all available protection to prevent STDs and pregnancy. You must know how all of that protection works, so that you can use it effectively. You must also learn how each STD is transmitted and prevented, and what its symptoms look like. In addition, you are responsible for regular testing and checkups, so that you can provide your partners with accurate information, and so that you can receive treatment as quickly and effectively as possible. If you do contract any STD, you must inform all partners–past, current, and future. There is no excuse for dishonesty, and no excuse for negligence.”
What’s incoherent about that, exactly? I always thought of incoherence as looking a little more like this:
“If you have sex, you will be like chewed gum. No man will ever want you. Men–especially teenagers–are like animals, and they’ll climb onto anything with a pulse. If you get pregnant, you are a dirty, dirty slut. But if you learn how to prevent pregnancy, you’ll be just as contaminated. Talking about STDs is evil. There is no real way to prevent them, because condoms are more porous than havarti, and sperm can swim more tenaciously than salmon heading home to spawn. But if you are sexually active and you do catch a disease or get pregnant, you’ve obviously been totally irresponsible. Nothing but ignorance and shame will keep you safe.”
Maybe if we heard more messages from liberals and progressives that unplanned pregnancies that result in adoptions and abortions are not good for society and that we should be encouraging people to make better decisions about their personal behaviors.
Yes, I’ve talked about sex, but I think it also extends beyond that to issue like drugs and violence. We are quick to hand a drug addict a clean needle, but we aren’t willing to say “Drugs are illegal and people shouldn’t be doing illegal drugs in the first place.” Instead, we will hear a litany of excuses about it being a disease, and it stigmatizes the poor, blah blah blah blah blah. All of that excuse making is fine, but maybe if we heard messages from liberal and progressives about taking personal responsibility.
Almost everyone of these is about holding “evil” conservatives or churches responsible. When will progressives hold other progressives responsible for their behaviors?
If only this was the message being given.
If I told my best friend to either have a baby or not have a baby she carried so my own personal views of what constitutes just “punishment” for “bad decisions” could be satisfied, she’d probably tell me to go piss up a rope. With good reason, I might add.
And, yeah, why shouldn’t I “hold Wal-Mart accountable” for treating women like shit, for hypocritically selling firearms but not birth control, and for a whole host of other reasons. Can you really tell me with a straight face that these phenomena have no influence on our “personal” views and decisions ? On our politicians and their priorities, which in turn influence our daily lives yet more ?
Or is it that “personal responsibility” is not important for CEO’s or Senators, but only for anonymous, random women dependent upon said CEO’s and Senators for consumer goods, their livelihood and so on ?
Again, I’d really like to know if you want men to be “shamed,” as well, res ? An awful lot of would-be moral guardians in many shades of political garb seem to operate under the delusion that women knock themselves up, and that their “bad decisions” alone are to blame for all these “tragic choices,” etc etc. Meanwhile, we have a ton of rape threads, sexual harassment threads, et al, here and on other feminist boards that stand as loud testimony to the fact that women are frequently NOT the sole, nor even primary, decision makers when it comes to conceiving, or keeping, a baby. That there are multiple factors involved in the decision to breed or not to breed. Please don’t dodge my question. I’d genuinely like to know the answer.
It’s the message I’ve heard from every single safer-sex educator I’ve ever encountered. I heard it in middle school, high school, and in college. I’ve seen it in print resources and online. I’ve heard it from every single doctor who has ever treated me. Just this morning, I walked past three PSAs: “Wear a condom!” and “We Want You Back: Medical help is out there! Learn about treatment and prevention! [url, address, phone number],* and “KNOW HIV/AIDS,” a campaign to get people to test regularly and often. For the past three or four months, there was a campaign designed to educate people on the risks of sex while tweaking: increased risk of transmission, lower statistical likelihood of using protection. Before that, there was a campaign exhorting people to take responsibility and speak openly and honestly about HIV-status with their partners.
It was what my parents told me. It’s what all of my friends believe–all definitely sexually active, precisely the people conservatives point to when they complain about hedonism and lack of personal responsibility. And it’s what I practice. Do you live in an area where abstinence-only education is the rule? Because that’s not a progressive or liberal approach.
*I’m paraphrasing; it gave more detailed information on community resources.
Right on, alsis38!
Res Ipsa, where do you live that single women who’ve had either an abortion or a child aren’t vilified as the downfall of civilization? Seriously.
And what purpose does this serve? How does calling me a whore for being a single mother benefit society? ‘Cuz it sure as fuck doesn’t benefit me, or my child. And if you’re going to ask me for a mea culpa for having sex, I’m ‘fraid you’re going to be waiting until your bones are petrified.
I know, I know. There’s a benefit in making some people feel good at the expense of others. I think of that as a negative trait of humanity. I don’t see where it has any benefit. Explain this to me.
Almost everyone of these is about holding “evil”? conservatives or churches responsible.
res ispa, you’re hard to talk to. For one reason, you use this eponymous, mysterious “we” to describe all the things you think progressives say and do. It’s a remarkably annoying argumentative strategy.
But furthermore, this accusation is just wrong. Churches were on my mind because of something I read on a blog this morning about the Church that was so engaged in partisan activism that they kicked out all members who voted for Kerry, but they still want to retain their tax-exempt status. That, to me, is a perfect example of refusing to take responsibility for your actions. Want to be a partisan outfit? Fine, here are the rules that govern them. Don’t try and skirt them. That’s all I was saying.
Your statement is just plain wrong. I hold the Democratic/liberal politicians who supported the war much more accountable, morally, than team Bush because I think they should have known better. (I can actually hear Alsis rolling her eyes, btw…:)) Furthermore, your clever rhetorical strategy of putting a word I never used or implied in scare quotes is remarkably dishonest. I never implied I thought those who failed to live up to their duty and responsibility were evil. It’s not a word I use lightly, if at all. Why would you accuse me of using that concept? Projection, maybe, since you’re the one who wants millions of women to publicly confess their moral deficiencies when the have an abortion (or something….you still haven’t told us precisely what words or actions your conception of personal responsibility entails for women who get abortions….)?
When will progressives hold other progressives responsible for their behaviors?
I do. All the time. Why do you assume I, and other progressives, don’t? Your characterizations to the contrary notwithstanding, you haven’t provided any serious reason to think progressives generally don’t, as a personal matter or politically.
Actually, this is why liberals and progressives think that young people should have access to comprehensive sex-ed, and why women should have access to birth-control. All of that is designed to prevent unwanted pregnancies, which everyone agrees are a bad thing. This is such a fragile strawman I can’t believe you’re even taking the trouble to soak it in gasoline.
And I know by “we” in the second paragraph you really mean, “you,” but again: those aren’t my views you’re torching. I believe that drug use should be decriminalized because it is an addiction. Talking about personal responsibility is ludicrous in this context. Drug addicts don’t make rational decisions. They don’t care what the consequences of drug use are, because they’re addicts. Making drug use a capital crime wouldn’t serve as an effective deterrent. Locking them up certainly hasn’t. This is exactly why we need needle-exchange programs: the likelihood of contracting HIV is not a deterrent. Decriminalization is not the same as making something legal; see Amp’s threads on prostitution for the distinctions.
You know, I’m not sure it’s really the case that everyone agrees that unwanted pregnancies — unwanted by the mother — are a bad thing. I suspect that part of what’s going on is that some people actually want women to be compelled to bear children, to lose their autonomy and freedom of action before they gain it, and to accept whatever job they can find and to be afraid to complain.
I would just add that handing out clean needles etc is a form of personal responsibility. Anyone who understands the addiction process knows that responsibility has completely flown out the window for those people. By making sure these people have access to clean needles etc., those who hand them out are taking personal responsibility on the behalf of a society that does not support adequate medical means (treatment/detox/methadone on and on) to overcome addiction. Without the responsible actions of those groups of people there would be dire consequences for the general population in terms of sweeping epidemics of HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis and a score of other diseases that are transmitted in this manner. Its not only needle sharers that are affected either, its unsuspecting (and clean) wives and husbands and committed girlfreinds and boyfreinds. If you don’t believe these people exist in large numbers already just head to your local clinics and see what is going on.
And amen to real sex-education. Not only will kids learn how to avoid pregnancy and disease (I actually agree that abstinence should be included as option number one) but they will learn the physiological process behind the single most important thing that we do from a biological perspective. I’ve never understood how anyone can justify taking sex-ed out of schools. If kids cannot (or should not) understand the reason they exist in the first place, what is the purpose of education at all? When I used to teach sex-ed as part of a university program as a residential assistant in a dorm (many years ago) I spent a substantial amount of time explaining why showering after sex was not an effective form of STD protection. Astounding!
Wow, dramatize much.
I would like to see progressives and liberals–which I include myself–spend more time talking about the consequences of personal decisions and finding ways to talk about the need for greater responsibility. This isn’t involving vilification or confessions. It’s about saying, “You know what, abortion needs to be legal, but we should be doing everything in our power to prevent it and we should be doing everything in our power to get people to be more responsible and make better decisions.”
That’s the thing (for me at least) Res, when reading your posts. It’s as if you attempt to take ownership of each issue you participate in, simply to be able to shame those you say you are similar to.
You speak about morality, as if there is only one acceptible morality, and it smacks to me square of apologist behavior. You stated in the one post where you debated Sarah in Chicago, that you were gay, so shouldn’t that give you the right, and she nailed it that time, stating that you could be gay and still be wrong and still be a bigot.
That said, if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask a personal question to kind of give me more of an idea of where you’re coming from: Since the one very obvious ‘moral’ issue (according to some in society, I’m being general here on purpose) is that you are gay, are you also a practicing homosexual, and do you feel there is anything morally shameful about that?
I’m not dramatizing, I’m simply highlighting the fact that you’ve adopted a tiresome and somewhat offensive way of talking about “progressives” in a vague, general way that is a) unconnected to any facts about how progressives actually live their lives, and b) straight out of right-wing rhetorical strategy.
I guess I don’t see *why* we need to villify a medical procedure that has a) been a huge part of society for hundreds of years, and b) access to which is central to women’s freedom. I understand completely if some people are personally opposed to abortion morally. They probably shouldn’t have abortions, which is fine with me. In fact, if they have a child they aren’t really equipped to care for, I’ll do them the service of not lecturing them about how they *should* have had an abortion. I happen to think that courtesy should run both ways, as a matter of respect.
But here’s my compromise: I’ll cheerfully work with you to make abortion rarer, by increasing access to quality sex ed, contraception, plan B, making rape rarer, etc, but I won’t publicly agonize over other people’s private choices. Those sorts of things will have a greater impact on abortion rates than all this moralizing you seem to think we need to be doing.
As if they arent advocating for sex education etc. And better decisions, do you mean then (IMO, what is done is done, you cannot change the past) or now, like not abort? I swear, this fence-sitting is ridiculous… Nobody thinks abortion is super-happy positive thing, yet there are people who loudly yell that abortion is so awful and women/doctors who do them are murderers. Are american Democrats, the so-called liberals supposed to move in rhetoric more towards them? Bend over to whoever yells loudly enough? How about standing up and refusing to compromise with obvious misogynists for a change?
This personal responsibility thing is just a big hoax… It is commonly used as a way saying: “Well, sucks being you but just deal with it! And you shouldnt have…” As if women having abortion arent dealing with it (or making tough enough a decision even without moralizing), or personally lamenting not using contraceptives/abstinence when making a decision to abort. Hand-wringing is hardly constructive…
…..”we should be doing everything in our power to get people to be more responsible and make better decisions.”
Responsible in what way? Which better decisions?
Because the usual definition of those concepts, where I live, is “those slutty women shouldn’t be having sex anyway until they are married!!” The people who believe this feel that the fitting punishment for premarital sex is pregnancy and motherhood (or, having to give your child up to another person, never to be seen again). Abortion bypasses this punishment. It’s not about whether the fetus is a human being, it’s strictly about punishing women. If it was about fetuses as humans, single mothers who choose not to abort wouldn’t be the favorite whipping girls of conservatives. I think the motherhood-as-punishment scenario smacks of a resounding contempt for women and mothers, but hey, that’s probably a whole ‘nother topic. It’s probably a whole ‘nother topic that, by choosing to have sex, women are abdicating the role of being the gatekeepers of (straight) male sexuality—that we have refused to police the activities of men, and therefore deserve to be punished for that too—that we aren’t just s’posed to be responsible for ourselves, but men also. Maybe that’s why there isn’t any finger-wagging about men who have premarital sex.
Anyway, res ispa, is that your view? And if not, do you care to explain what your view is?
I am not a practicing homosexual. I am fully-qualified, quite skilled homosexual who know longer needs to practice. But thanks for asking.
I find nothing morally shameful about being gay. I believe that being promiscuous and sexually irresponsible has moral consequences, but I wouldn’t pass a law to control that.
Haha, cute.
Neither do I. The point I was getting at, however, was that their are people out there who do site moral issues against homosexuality. They would like you to feel ashamed, and perhaps contrite for not living up to their standards of morality. They would like you ostracized for the choices you make, that I’m sure feel is not only your right, but none of their business. I’m quite sure that you’ve thought it all through and answered to any higher moral authority that you may answer to within your own conscious, and don’t need the morality of others that you may not share, and are not obligated legally to share to decide whether you will feel shame, resolve or pride in your choices. All that said, why on earth would you feel the need to pass such judgements on others?
but we aren’t willing to say “Drugs are illegal and people shouldn’t be doing illegal drugs in the first place.”?
Who’s this ‘we”?
And the point of clean needles isn’t that addicts are poor victims. It’s that they fuck people who aren’t addicts and pass on HIV and hepatitis, and those victims can be protected if the junkies use clean needles.
I guess res ipsa is saying that women who get pregnant when they don’t want to are presumed to have been irresponsible, and progressives should, what, scold them?
res ipsa, why are you assuming that the women who have abortions are promiscuous? Or sexually irresponsible?
Is it just me, or did res never answer my question ?
Ho hum. Shaming women is easy. Shaming men is hard. A man might yell at you or worse if you try to stick your nose in his busness, right ? Men’s sexuality is their own. Women’s sexuality is public property.
Why do I even bother ?
Oh, I forgot men’s sexuality and “right” to be promiscuous were “sacred”, and we should never dare question, nor put any responsibility on them for all the unintended/unwanted pregnancies that happen. When in doubt about an unintended/unwanted pregnancy—blame the woman. Because it is easy to do and our culture justifies it.
I believe men should be held responsible and accountable for their role in producing an unwanted pregancny. But, ultimately, it is not the man who has the abortion and any suggestion that men should have a say in whether a woman should have an abortion would get me castigated.
Women’s burden of being the producers of children is that their decisions have much greater consequences than those of men. Nothing is going to change that.
Men’s burden of being the bearers of the seed is that their decisions have much greater consequences than those of women. Nothing is going to change that. Ultimately, since it is not the man who has the abortion, his stewardship of the seed is of utmost importance, since nature dictates that any further interference with his seed after the sexual act would be difficult and / or immoral.
Just thought I’d turn it around.
Res, not to be bullheaded, but you were the one talking about “shaming” wayyyy at the top of this thread. I didn’t ask you whether you thought a man could be compelled to physically or finacially care for his unplanned offspring, ordered to let a woman abort over his own objections, et al. Those particular aspects of the issue have been hashed over lots both here and on other feminist blogs.
I asked you if you would be willing to “shame” a man whose romantic and/or sex partner’s fetus was being –for various and sundry reasons– aborted. Well, would you ? Spin it however you want, but from a biological standpoint, I can’t knock myself up. Somewhere in the equation, there had to be some sperm and a man and his corresponding “bad decision.”
Well ?
Ted said
“I don’t think Bill and Hillary had in mind making abortion more difficult when they said rare. I think they were shooting for better access to contraceptives and improvements in sexual education in public schools”
Actually, I think they were shooting for a way to advocate keeping abortion legal while giving the appearance of dissaproving of it, thus attempting to pacify anti-choice people and the religious right. It seems to be part of the “let’s reach out the the religious right” policy that some Dems insist on advocating.
RE Lu’s point about cognitive dissonance
I think that one really useful thing that Democrates could do is point out, loudly and frequently, that Republican policies limiting access to contraceptives (the crusade against Planned Parenthood, pharmacists refusing to dispense birth control pills, the abstinence only crowd’s absurd statements about failure rates for condoms) actually INCREASE the number of abortions. It’s clear that a significant proportion of the country does feel queasy about abortion (I don’t, but I am aware that I am not the majority on this issue). The connection between policies that limit access to contraception and an increased number of abortions needs to be made. I’ve never seen a mainstream Democrate point out the hypocrisy involved in the Republican position, the sheer lack of logic involved. Why not? I think that that would be a lot more useful than vague “abortion should be legal but rare” pronouncements.
This would also apply to the issue of late-term abortions. Surely it wouldn’t be that hard to point out that the more difficult it is for women to access abortion in terms of the need to travel to find an abortion provider, the need to save money to pay for it etc., the more likely it is that abortions will be performed later in a pregnancy.
For anyone who really wants to make abortion rare and not simply to impose their sexual mores on other people, Planned Parenthood should be their biggest ally. Changing the rules to require Medicare and HMOs to cover birth control pills would also reduce the number of abortions. Why can’t the Dems add that to the debate?
Sorry for the multiple posts but I can’t resist this one
ResIpsa
“I would like to see progressives and liberals”“which I include myself”“spend more time talking about the consequences of personal decisions and finding ways to talk about the need for greater responsibility”
Why this need to interfere in and pass judgement upon other people’s personal decisions? I will acknowledge that your position does at least seem to be consistent in that you made much the same objection and request for public condemnation in reference to needle exchange programs. But again, what’s the point? Women have been being shamed for having abortions for years and it hasn’t made abortion any less common. Shaming drug addicts isn’t going to make them stop them taking drugs, but an effective needle axchange program might lessen the transmission of AIDS and hepatitis, which might save some lives. Why is this a bad thing? Similarly, providing better sex ed and better access to contraception would do a lot more to prevent abortion than any ammount of shaming has been able to accomplish.
Shaming rarely produces any reduction in the behaviour being stigmatized, all it does is potentially drive the behaviour underground, which often leads to more risk for everyone involved. The only thing that I can see the kind of shaming and public hand wringing you advocate achieving is to make you and people who share your views feel better. Personally, I think that taking steps which might actually reduce the “problem” is more important than allowing people to indulge their desire to critique other people’s morals. Why not go with the strategy that actually works and leave the moral questions up to the individual’s conscience?
“Why can’t the Dems add that to the debate?”
Because they’re pandering, spineless, overprivileged, self-centered, soulless weasels.
I’m especially punchy today because Hillary’s junk-mail machine tried to tap me for funds twice in the last ten days. Hell, I’m gonna’ be out of work come Friday. Maybe I should ask her for a job. Nah, screw that. If I have to sell my soul completely, Starbucks is just as morally reprehensible, but at least I won’t have to move to Salem or DC to collect a paycheck. :p
What alsis said. Kerry’s machine keeps hitting me up – twice this week already. You’d think e-mailing them with a request to stop spamming me would get somewhere, but Noooo. What really ticks me off is that I didn’t even contribute to his campaign – I have no idea what I did to get on the mailing list, and now I can’t seem to get off.
If you were ever a registered Dem, Lee, that’s probably enough.
I’ve started writing mean messages on the forms and sending them back in the pre-paid envelopes. If I had a working printer, I’d start stuffing some of my favorite “Why Both Parties Stink On Ice” articles in there, too. :p