With Justice O’Connor’s retirement, we have lost something on the highest court in the land. On CNN, I heard one of the anchors refer to her as a “classical moderate”, who ‘drove the other justices crazy because she didn’t have a consistent philosophy’ when it came to handing down rulings. This weekend so far, I have received numerous “alert emails” from pro-women’s-reproductive-rights organizations such as NARAL: Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood, all of which foreshadowed the arduous battle that lies ahead for those of us who value women as autonomous human beings, deserving of civil rights and liberties–that should not be trumped and declared null and void the moment they become pregnant or suspected of being pregnant. Because you know, women’s humanity and civil rights/liberties become too incovenient for the ideologies of conservative politicians and religious zealots to permit, once they become pregnant or should they ever in their lives. Being a pre-menopausal female in this country–in this political and ideological atmosphere–is slowing but surely becoming a liability and even a threat to a woman’s (and even girls’) own civil rights and liberties. It is truely unfortunate that we live in a society that enjoys playing misogynist politics with women’s bodies, sexuality, and lives. No surprise at all that the perpetrators behind this are mostly men (with their female enablers by their side of course, don’t forget them).
Now, here is Justice O’Connor’s opinion from the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, via Pandagon and MediaGirl:
Though abortion is conduct, it does not follow that the State is entitled to proscribe it in all instances. That is because the liberty of the woman is at stake in a sense unique to the human condition, and so, unique to the law. The mother who carries a child to full term is subject to anxieties, to physical constraints, to pain that only she must bear. That these sacrifices have from the beginning of the human race been endured by woman with a pride that ennobles her in the eyes of others and gives to the infant a bond of love cannot alone be grounds for the State to insist she make the sacrifice. Her suffering is too intimate and personal for the State to insist, without more, upon its own vision of the woman’s role, however dominant that vision has been in the course of our history and our culture. The destiny of the woman must be shaped to a large extent on her own conception of her spiritual imperatives and her place in society.
RE: ‘men mostly being the perpetrators behind misogynist anti-choice politics,’ here’s some brilliant commentary from Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon (with a link to Culture Kitchen)…
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again–the repeated insistence that human life begins at conception is not grounded in any theology or science other than the one that insists that men are the center of existence and women are merely handmaidens made for men’s use. To insist that something is a baby when the sperm meets the age is a nice way of saying that a man’s effort is the one that counts, and even more tellingly, it’s a way to discredit the hard work and emotional rollercoaster that pregnancy really is. Abortion rights–the right of a woman to say I am not going to make a baby–mean our society understands fully that it is women who make babies, our bodies that nourish and build new humans, not men’s. And that’s the angle, I think, that O’Connor was working from in this paragraph.
The dehumanization of women and the redefinition of us as nothing but vessels for men’s efforts has been linked, suffice it to say, to some of the most unpleasant times in human history. I doubt very seriously that those agitating for control of women’s wombs will be satisfied with just that.
They never are. Women are just transparent vessels with uteruses and ovaries to them. They hold women to the same esteem as prized livestock or a very efficient assembly line. Oh, but they’re sure to romanticize their misogyny and devaluation of women’s humanity with all sorts of rhetoric, from melodramatic religious dogma to the ‘Cult of Natalism’s’ ideals for women’s reproductive destinies (and bodies). Besides why give two shits about women or recognizing and treating them as human beings entitled to the same civil rights and liberties that men enjoy, when you can easily gloss over them, and objectify them as mere incubators–birthing chattel, as a most convenient means of reminding them of their “proper place”? And reminding them (women) of what little or no humanity society, patriarchal religions, and the government believe they possess.
This is an awesome piece. Especially SDO’C ‘s Planned Parenthood v. Casey opinion—She is Justice personified on that one!
Amanda’s commentary is not that far behind.
One thing, though. Regarding “slowing but surely becoming a liability and even a threat to a woman’s (and even girls’) own civil rights and liberties,” I think “(and especially girls’)” would be more accurate than “(and even girls’)” because girls have extra obstacles placed in front of them—biased and useless sex-ed, parental consent or notification laws, limited mobility and finances, and the Right trying to pass limits on who can help them obtain abortions and on their ability to obtain birth control confidentially. Naturally, whoever Dubya appoints to the Supreme Court will make this all worse.
Hmmm, maybe we’re taking the wrong tactic, perhaps we should turn our efforts to convincing the conservatives that all fetus’s are Iraqi prior to being born.
Okay bad joke. =P
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all fetuses are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among them are the rights to life, to liberty and to the pursuit of happiness.
FETUS POWER!
*whoop*
To say the belief that a fetus is equivalent to a person is grounded in Torah is about as fallacious as saying the belief that the world is flat is grounded in the Torah. Clearly Exodus 21:22 makes a distinction between unborn fetus and living person:
JPS 1985
More generally with regards to the O’Connor situation, take this as comfort.
TheJew,
I have read other interpretations of Exodus 21:22. Some anti-abortionists have claimed that the passage refers to premature birth rather than miscarriage. In their eyes the passage is saying that if, as a result of injury, the mother gives birth prematurely, then a fine must be paid if the baby is born alive but if it is born dead then the penalty will be ‘life for life.’
On the other hand, I have read others who say that the passage refers to induced abortion. It should be translated as: “When people try to harm a woman so that she has a miscarriage”? instead of “When men fight and harm a woman so that she miscarries”?. Then the woman’s husband may demand compensation if he did not agree to the abortion. If the procedure results in the woman’s death the penalty is ‘life for life.’ This interpretation means that we do not have to think that there is a special law for such an unlikely incident as a pregnant woman being accidentally hurt by two fighting men.
I do not know a word of Hebrew. Can you tell me if the original can be translated in either of these two ways. How have Jewish scholars over the centuries understood it?
By the way, I have always thought that the Bible did describe the earth as being flat. Is that not true?
The Bible does not describe the earth as being flat, thank you very much.
As for the passage in Exodus which provides for a fine rather than the death penalty if a fetus is killed in a fight between two men: The fetus is likely killed by accident. Often, in such a situation, a man could honestly say that he did not know that the woman was pregnant, or sometimes even that he did not intend to cause her a miscarriage. Just because Torah doesn’t call for the execution of such a man does not mean that it considers a fetus worth a cow. To my knowledge, the Levitical Code did not provide for any imprisonment, which is something that today’s religio-political rulers ought to learn, but quickly.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again”“the repeated insistence that human life begins at conception is not grounded in any theology or science other than the one that insists that men are the center of existence and women are merely handmaidens made for men’s use.
Not grounded in science? Says who? Look at any biology or obstetrics textbook: Conception is obviously the point at which the genetic material for a new human life comes together; it’s the point at which that new human life starts the process of cell multiplication, etc. It’s silly to say that this elementary fact of biology somehow “insists that men are the center of existence.”
Just to note about the Exodus passage, why on Earth would anyone genuinely believe that that passage was talking about premature birth? If it was young enough to be miscarried and not a stillborn, and since only 60% of preemies are able to live with medical technology today, then what makes anyone think that that fetus was able to survive?
As long as you convienently overlook the fact that many, if not most, fertilized eggs are flushed. Or that identical twins exist. Or that without a woman’s body providing the raw materials, there is no baby. Or that doctors don’t consider a woman pregnant until implantation. My point of course is not that conception isn’t important–it’s that in our male-centric worldview, it becomes All Important.
Science says: conception at implantation. If you take a pregnancy test and the ovum is fertilized but not yet implanted, the test will come back negative. Hormone levels don’t change until implantation, which means that the woman’s own body doesn’t recognize pregnancy until implantation.
Of course, if that makes you feel less necessary, you may continue to believe what you like about conception. But I would advise that, as Amanda mentioned, the number of fertilized eggs that are flushed from the bodies of women is far greater than the number of fetuses that are aborted per year, so perhaps your energies are better served encouraging research that would yield higher levels of implantation. Of course, if you choose not to, you have a third of all fertilized eggs…oh, excuse me, “babies’ lives” that no one in the “culture of life” seems to give much of a damn about, pardon my blunt observation.
Erin, this “what about all the poor unimplanted embryos” plaint is a fairly tired theme from pro-choicers. The obvious riposte is that intentionality matters.
If you go to a ward filled with terminal cancer patients – people who are inevitably going to die in the next few days or weeks – is it OK to start killing them against their wishes for kicks and grins? No – even though they were going to die anyway, they are still living people with rights. Your intention in your actions is morally relevant regardless of the condition of the people your actions impact.
Similarly, the fact that nature is profligate with fertilized embryos does not release us from moral consideration of those embryos when it comes to our own actions.
I’m not the one defining “life” as “when the sperm hits the egg”. Our knowledge of what does and doesn’t impact fetal development is constantly growing: if there is a chance that something can be done in those first hours and days post-fertilization in order to prevent the loss of a fertilized ovum, then doesn’t that bear the same moral weight as an implanted ovum in the first weeks of cell division, once medical or surgical abortion is an option on the table? Or is the moral weight, as I’m growing to suspect, bear more heavily on the side of punishing or coercing women who do not wish to carry a fetus to term into continuing an unwanted pregnancy than on the side of potentially assisting those who desperately wish to conceive but are not able to? You may consider it a tired theme, but I assure you that there are thousands of couples in this country who would love to see the resources of the anti-abortion machine redirected in a concrete, non-rhetorical, non-posturing way to help those who want to have children and who consider themselves a part of both the culture of life and the culture of choice. It amazes me that the anti-choice dogma doesn’t include space for women who cannot use their wombs in the way God intended, and I’m only partially tongue-in-cheek here.
Niels –
Science has also shown that the egg alone contains all the cellular components needed for the new life – the nucleus, golgi bodies, mitochondria, etc. The sperm only contributes an extra set of chromosomes.
There is literature that suggests that the health of the egg alone can determine whether the product(s) of conception survives or perishes. Older eggs, deformed eggs, and injured eggs have more of a chance to be “duds”, meaning any product of conception will not implant or will abort. All of the eggs a woman has within her lifetime were produced by the time she is born. Using this logic, should we say that scientific research warrants preventing any woman from any action within her lifetime that may damage her eggs? This policy certainly would be congruent with any government that valued life. It would also be a very slippery slope.
Science does not make the black and white distinction when life begins. This is political maneuvering. Instead, science documents and describes processes. People who read these studies make conclusions on what the research shows. The danger of your argument is that you base your moral arguments upon a small part of what science has shown. Science has no morals.
You have every right to conclude that the moment of conception is when life begins. For you. For me, it is when scientific technology can allow a fetus to survive outside the womb. Does this mean that I will have an abortion? Not necessarily. But I want that right to choose for myself. The beauty of today’s country is that both you and I can make the choices for ourselves.
For those who assert their belief of valuing all life and look upon pro-choice people with consternation, there are some lack of themes that I would like to point out in the form of a to-do list.
Foster and adopt children who need homes. Work to end the death penalty. Work to end suffering of humanity in the forms of abuse, starvation, and disease. Work to end human conditions such as poverty and divorce that help cause women to choose abortions in the first place. And finally, become vegans. After all, animal life is still life that God created, isn’t it?
Until you do those things above, do not call yourselves crusaders for life. You can call yourselves embryo crusaders. Life is not just at the beginning but throughout the entire lifespan of one’s existence. Before you pass judgment on our lack of morality, resolve the discrepancies within your own moral spheres.
Before you pass judgment on our lack of morality, resolve the discrepancies within your own moral spheres.
The discrepancies you note are discrepancies between your perception of my beliefs, and your perception of what you believe those beliefs should entail in order to be consistent.
Neither of those perceptions has much, if any validity, when applied internally to my own life. It doesn’t bother me overmuch that your misunderstanding of what I believe clashes with your misunderstanding of how I execute that belief. ;)
I actually saw an anti-abortion rally once. The women outnumbered the men by about 2:1
Gadfly – and that means what, exactly? I work in Topeka, where most women are part of this so-called “culture of life” that seems to think that the purpose of a woman is to have children whenever some guy successfully manages to implant his sperm in her ovum. I grew up in the south, where abuse rates of women is astronomical DESPITE social pressure among men to never strike a woman, precisely because these women are taught their whole lives that their raison d’etre is to get married and have babies– and so they say “but I love him” while sporting a pair of black eyes. These same mindsets are what allow women to stand at a rally and tell other women that they should not have control over their own reproductive system simply because it is inhabited by a parasite that likely will one day be a person if left alone to continue sucking at her bloodstream.
And while we keep thinking like tribal warriors, cranking out babies as the world population passes ANOTHER billion, we’ll maybe even have time to be surprised when our “women are baby factories” arguments turn up in the long run to be astronomically destructive to our culture and way of life. But hey, I’m only a man, so what do I know? Oh yes, I know that no woman should ever be forced to incubate my sperm under penalty of law. Ever. Because I would never incubate anyone’s DNA, and I consider women to be my equals with the same rights I’d never accept if they were taken away from myself.
Neither of those perceptions has much, if any validity, when applied internally to my own life. It doesn’t bother me overmuch that your misunderstanding of what I believe clashes with your misunderstanding of how I execute that belief. ;)
Yup, my take on your morality and how it plays out IRL has no more validity than yours on mine. Doesn’t seem to stop anybody from passing judgment, though.
UnapologeticAtheist said:
I am with UnapologeticAtheist on this one. Roe has since sided with the pro-life caucus. I guess it was okay for her to choose what to do with her body, but now she can tell other women what they can and can’t do with their own bodies. How convenient.
With all the judgment placed on China for its “one child ” law, it has seen quality of life increase within its borders after instituting the policy. New policies are decreasing the numbers of abortions as well. Also regard the third world and its propensity to increase its population. The strain of the high numbers of people is causing environmental destruction, reducing the number of people the land can support. Sure, those babies are alive, but they live short, disease-ridden lives.
It is a common notion among environmental scientists that women’s rights, population numbers, and economic wealth are linked. However, the precise causational factors are not quite clear. Women who have more rights can become educated and have a say in how many children they carry. Fewer children mean less strain on the parents’ income, and they can rise out of poverty faster. Decreased numbers of impoverished citizens allow governments to build economic wealth and spend time fighting crime and environmental destruction. If only the Third World saw women’s rights as an ecomomic issue…
Thank you, AndiF. My point was that pro-lifers often bring morality into the discussion of abortion unnecessarily. They talk of moral superiority and sheer disdain for those with pro-choice views. When they do that, they open the door for others to question their moral integrity.
My point was that pro-lifers often bring morality into the discussion of abortion unnecessarily. They talk of moral superiority and sheer disdain for those with pro-choice views. When they do that, they open the door for others to question their moral integrity
Especially when they try to prove our moral inadequacy by claiming an equivalency between human beings and something that can get flushed down the toilet without anyone ever knowing it existed.
My high school and college biology instructors, every one pro-choice, taught that pregnancy began at conception. This changed in about 1998, when the American Medical Association changed its position on the definition of the beginning of pregnancy, in political support of abortion before implantation. As most of you know, the pills sold as emergency contraception are a high-dose formulation of common contraceptives.
The medical textbooks of thirty-five years ago used a literal translation of the Oath of Hippocrates, which required that a physician swear not to perform abortion, and not to perform sterilization unless necessary to save a woman’s physical health or life. The American Medical Association approved a revised oath to reflect the legal status of sterilization and abortion. Hippocrates didn’t write the update.
Science once taught that the earth was the center of the universe and the planets spun around it. One reason was that the political powers of the day wished to regard themselves as ruling the center of the universe. Science changed its mind. The scientific world is as susceptible to half-truths as any other field of endeavor. Truth, though, will out.
Rather than go through our own independent Biblical exegesis of what the Torah says about abortion, wouldn’t it be worthwhile to ask what the Jews actually think it says.
The link gives a view of predominant (Orthodox) Jewish views on abortion. As might be expected, the rabbis will tell you that often you are not permitted to get an abortion, but allow more leeway than fundamentalist pro-lifers — with differences of opinion mainly regarding “physical/ mental health of the mother” and “birth defect” issues.
More importantly, I think, none of the sources state that they support a law to be passed that mandate one view of the appropriate level of permitted abortion of another. The Jewish views differ on when a person — as a good Jew — can have an abortion.
I don’t think anyone would have a problem with a Rabbi saying, “Getting an abortion is your situation violates Jewish law,” as long as they are not advocating that abortion be banned under secular law in that situation.
You don’t ask the rabbi unless you happen to care what he thinks.
BTW,
Wasn’t it generally believed that the group opinion by O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter in Planned Parenthood v. Casey was actually written by Justice Kennedy — not O’Connor?
While of course she signed off on it, the heavily libertarian bent of the opinion reeks of Kennedy.