Le’ts face it: It’s not possible for Democrats in the Senate – not even if they’re 100% united, which they aren’t – to block a right-wing, anti-Roe Bush nomination to the Supreme Court.
My email and blog-reading lately has been stuffed full of calls to action – Call your senator! Donate! It’s time to get mobilized! From the LA Times:
Meanwhile, the liberal People for the American Way will “definitely be spending millions of dollars” if necessary to fight an objectionable nominee, vice president Elliot Mincberg said. The National Abortion Rights Action League transformed its website Friday so that visitors could donate time and money to a Supreme Court vacancy campaign.
I have to wonder – why? When it comes to who replaces O’Connor, we’ve already lost. The Republicans have a strong voting majority, and if necessary, they’ll use the “nuclear option” to prevent the Democrats from staging a successful filibuster. And if every single liberal in the country writes their senators, you know what? The Republicans will still have all the votes they need.
The Democrats have lost election after election after election, and when you lose that often you don’t get to choose Supreme Court justices. Nor do the Republicans have a politically realistic option of backing down; their base, so forgiving in so many ways, would never forgive a replacement for O’Connor whose opposition to Roe is less than total. Ed Kilgore has an accurate take on the situation:
This appointment represents the giant balloon payment at the end of the mortgage the GOP signed with the Cultural Right at least 25 years ago. Social conservatives have agreed over and over again to missed payments, refinancings, and in their view, generous terms, but the balance is finally due, and if Bush doesn’t pay up, they’ll foreclose their entire alliance with the Republican Party.
Sure, they care about other issues, from gay marriage to taxes to Iraq, but abortion is the issue that makes most Cultural Right activists get up in the morning and stuff envelopes and staff phone banks for the GOP. And for decades now, Republicans have told them they can’t do anything much about it until they can change the Supreme Court. With a pro-choice Justice stepping down, the subject can no longer be avoided. And thanks to the Souter precedent (and indeed, the O’Connor and Kennedy precedents), there’s no way Bush can finesse an appointment that’s anything less than a guaranteed vote to overturn Roe.
Some people may respond that I don’t appreciate how essential this might be. Look, I agree – it’s unbelievably essential. But just because it’s essential we win doesn’t mean we have the ability to win.
Let’s not fool ourselves – O’Connor’s replacement will be a loyal conservative, anti-Roe and predictably right-wing in all of her or his opinions. There is no way we can prevent this outcome. Knowing this, it’s hard for me to be enthusiastic about letter-writing or fund-raising based on trying to influence who replaces O’Connor. Wouldn’t it be better to reserve our energy for campaigns that aren’t completely, utterly hopeless?
P.S. Don’t take this as my saying that Roe is lost. Even with O’Connor’s vote replaced by a pro-life vote, there remains a 5-4 majority in favor of Roe (or, strictly speaking, in favor of Casey). People thought Roe was dead during Reagan, too – and that was about 20 years ago.
Links via Balloon Juice, which has an interesting list of quotes from conservatives, and Pressthink.
Alsis39: “Perhaps the hope of the average pro-lifer is that if you can stall a woman long enough, she will change her mind and decide she wants the baby after all.”
Where I grew up, we had a very rabid pro-life judge who deliberately delayed a decision allowing a minor to get an abortion without parental consent for that very reason. The girl had been raped repeatedly by her stepfather at the instigation of her own mother, who wanted another baby but couldn’t have one herself. The girl was, I think, 12 or 13 at the time. The mother even said in court that she refused to sign the abortion papers because she wanted to adopt her grandchild. The girl carried the baby to term, but I can’t remember right now what happened to the baby or to the girl. I remember wondering at the time why the “rape or incest” exemption didn’t apply here.
Let’s not forget that the majority of anti-choice religions are also anti-contraception, anti-sex ed, and anti feminist.
They’re not interested in reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies except through abstinance. They know (or are selectivley ignorant) that there are ways to reduce unwanted pregnancies fromt he start, and they choose to not only ignore, but lie about the usefulness of those methods.
Robert,
Your point goes back to controlling peoples lives, and more specifically, women’s lives.
The trouble with the sort of question posed by Susan was covered nicely by mousehounde and radfem, methinks. I don’t think that the majority of women who have reached their 5th month with no hitch to the pregnancy and no sign of mental illness or trauma related to the conception are going to suddenly decide to abort out of mere boredom or frustration with the whole business. I tend to have a better opinion of the average woman than that.
Well, I have a better opinion of the average woman than that too.
But…what about 2 year olds? The “average woman” will not murder her own 2 year old. But if some woman does, she’ll rapidly find herself in trouble with the law, because the law has taken it upon itself to defend 2 year olds, independent of their parents.
It was not always so. In ancient Rome, the father had the power of life and death over everyone in the household. If he chose to murder his 2 year old, no one yipped.
It is likely that this was very rare. Of course. But if….
The question is not whether any normal woman would abort a healthy full-term fetus. That’s an easy one. No. Just as no normal woman would kill her 2 year old. But…what about the abnormal women? Do we want to say, OK, go for it? Two days before delivery?
You guys duck and weave. No one will engage the question.
“Controlling peoples’ lives,” Kim. Hey yes, lady. This uffing 2 year old, he controls my life like big time. I have to stay home all the time, take care of him, and he shows no gratitude at all. He poops all over me, he ruins my life. So…?
Susan, you smell strongly of troll, much as you did when you whined about how nobody would take you seriously in the rape thread. My advice is to read Amp’s links, which are far from “ducking and weaving.” Or reread moushounde and radfem’s posts. If those don’t work, my advice is a long shower with a good anti-troll soap.
A fetus doesn’t exist independently of its mother. It’s still a part of its mother’s body. A two-year-old child does exist independently of its mother. A child needs to be cared for by an adult — but it doesn’t neccesarily have to be its biological mother.
If a woman changes her mind about having a child, and wants to abort a late-term fetus, I believe she should have the right to do so.
Susan’s not a troll, imo – and I think, in a thread started by me, my opinion on the matter should count for something.
Susan, I don’t think I dodged your question. There are possible flaws – like a hypothetical crazy but otherwise healthy woman aborting a healthy full term fetus two days before birth, presumably with the aid of an also insane doctor – in allowing later-term abortion to be legal.
There are also possible flaws – such as women with legitimate, dire needs for later-term abortions being denied the medical treatment they need – in outlawing late-term abortion.
I think that the risk of the latter outweighs the risk of the former. In what way is my saying that dodging your question, please?
Susan, if you don’t see the difference between a 2 year old and a fetus, then I don’t know what we have to discuss with regards to this topic.
Susan said:
Susan, I don’t think I or anyone else has *ducked* any question. Radfem specifically answered your question. I specifically answered your question: “Can we agree that partial-birth abortion is not exactly OK when we’re talking about a genetically normal full-term fetus? And I explained my reasons. Radfem explained. In my reply I asked “do you have any cites where a woman aborted a “genetically normal full-term” baby for the simple reason that she changed her mind and didn’t want it?” And you reply with some nonsense about mothers killing 2 year olds and ancient Rome. None of that has anything to do with the topic or even the question you asked. It seems like you are one doing the ducking and weaving.
Abortion is a private thing. It is a woman’s choice. It is not my place or any other persons place to put restrictions on that choice. And before you come up with another outrageous example of “what if?”, let me make my position clear: any restrictions on a woman’s right to choose makes her less. It means her life has less value than a potential life. It means that women can be placed in a position where others get to decide for them. It makes women second class. It makes a woman into a *thing* because of her biology. It makes her less than a *person*. And it makes “me” feel small and helpless. And I don’t like feeling that way.
Okay, she’s not a troll, Amp. She’s just annoying, because she pretends that you and others here are dodging her question. At the risk of dragging out what’s rapidly become a cliche’ in blog-land, she doesn’t approve of the way other folks here are reframing the question. Trouble is, reframing does not equal an automatic dodge, though it can.
My feeling is that a woman who would abort a healthy fetus shortly before birth would
A) have one hell of a time finding a doctor who’d perform the surgery with no reason other than “just because” and
B) would be in a mental state that would make it pointless to dither over who thinks she did the equivalent of killing a toddler and who did not think so. Even if I believed she were a murderer, I’d still probably say that she was not guilty by reason of insanity. Which is already too much ground given to pro-lifers. They won’t be satisfied with that, anyway, I’ll wager.
You know what else ? This extremely rare woman should, if anything, be a case for keeping all abortion legal. How much harder would she be to track down if we went back to the proverbial back alley ?
Obviously, I’m not an expert on law, especially compared to some folks here. Truly, though, I can’t fathom what society would accomplish by branding this extremely rare woman a murderer. It makes no sense, and I’m damn weary of the amount of energy spent on it in proportion to the amount of actual cases it represents. The real agenda of pro-lifers, after all, is not to discuss this rare “just because” abortion, but to create law that treats every fertile female as a “just because” abortion waiting to happen. I don’t see why anyone must dignify such stupidity in the name of bridge-building. Why should I want to build a bridge across to anyone who can’t even look at me without seeing “potential ‘just because’ I felt like killin’ it” branded across my forehead ? Blecch.
Hey, I’m “annoying” because I might disagree with you-all.
So, what kind of a site is this? Is it for persons only who agree with the Ruling Orthodoxy? Or are you willing to enter a discussion with someone who might not agree with you?
Is a normal fetus two days from normal delivery just an “inconvenience” to the woman carrying her, and so she can have it aborted? And if so, why isn’t she, the fetus, now a baby, equally an inconvenience four days later? Is it within the mom’s privacy rights to kill her two days before delivery, and not so two days after? If so, why?
And according to you all, this never happens? But women who murder 2 year olds, while rare, are not exactly unheard of. It just won’t do to say, “Well, evil never happens so we don’t have to worry about it.”
I don’t have any easy answers. But saying that evil never happens isn’t an answer, it’s denial.
And saying that someone who brings up inconvenient facts is a troll is denial as well.
“rare” = “never happens” ?
Uh-huh.
And there you go again with this “prevailing orthodoxy” nonsense. Not to mention brushing off several people’s thoughtful replies to you –including the blog-host’s– as “denial.” As if calling a rhetorical game what it is: Rigged, is the definition of “denial.” Why not just claim that anyone who won’t play 3-card monte with the sharps outside the train station is “in denial” about the moneymaking potential of 3-card monte, for pity’s sake ?
While you may not be a troll, you certainly do have troll-like tendencies.
Give me a freaking break, Susan. I explain my personal reasoning and also offer pertinent information about myself that explains how I got from step a. to step b. I’ve made it clear that I have a 20 month old child (almost 2) and instead of directly addressing my own issues, you turn it around into a pithy little sparring opportunity, talking about ‘valley girl’ accented mothers, ‘like’ murdering their two year olds for poopy diapers. You think that doesn’t deserve offense, or that it somehow constitutes an opening to great dialogue. Like I said, give me a break.
Susan:
It’s rude to refer to everyone who disagrees with you as “you all,” as if we are a collective mind rather than individuals. “You all” didn’t call you annoying; Alsis did.
Now, of course, you’re not the only person here who has been rude; Alsis was rude to you, for example. But I’ve responded to you twice now, both times politely, and both times you completely ignored my post. By your actions – your choice to acknowlege only rude responses to you, while ignoring polite responses – you’re inadvertantly encouraging people to be rude to you. (People may think, “Why should I be polite to Susan, when she only replies to rude posts?”) And this isn’t the first thread in which you’ve displayed this pattern, although you may not be aware of it.
With all due respect, is there anything I can say which will encourage you to acknowlege and respond to relatively polite disagreement, and ignore rude responses, rather than the other way around?
You might as well ask, Why is someone driving at 59.9mph not speeding, but someone driving at 60mph is speeding? Isn’t the former driver just as dangerous as the latter driver? A pedestrian hit by a car going 59.9 mph will be just as dead as one hit by a car going 60, after all.
Many laws have thresholds which are somewhat arbitrary. Why can’t someone who is 20 years, 11 months, and 26 days old legally buy beer, but wait a week and she can buy all she wants? Does the extra week make her that much more mature a person?
However, the only alternatives to having thresholds is no law at all (anyone can buy beer at any age!) or a complete ban (no one can buy alcohol, ever). Given the three available choices – a threshold, a ban, or no law at all – thresholds make the most sense, in many circumstances.
Regarding abortion, I’ve already explained – twice – why I think a late-term abortion ban could do more harm than good. You’ve completely ignored me both times, although I was not rude.
Finally, with all due respect, I think you’re the one seeking “easy answers.” Talking about abortion mainly in terms of medically unnecessary full-term abortions is making the case against abortion very, very easy; it’s also a dodge, because that’s not at all what the reality of abortion in the USA is like.
Mothers that murder 2 year olds don’t generally need to get a doctor to help them in their endeavor. Provide us a legitimate example of this or drop it and concede the point. Either that or claim victimhood of people that get offended by this nonsense you’re offering up as ‘discussion’.
I think it’s worthwhile to point exactly what’s NOT at stake with O’Connor’s: What’s not at stake is the ability of the legislature to ban late-term abortions except in cases of a threat to the health of the mother.
Such a ban is not at stake, because it would currently be constitutional. And such a ban, for better or worse, would be overwhelmingly supported by Democrats (and has been multiple times in the past). Replacing O’Connor has absolutely no impact on that sort of late-term abortion ban, because O’Connor would have found such a ban constitutional.
So what is at stake? What’s at stake is Congress’ ability to ban abortion procedures without exceptions for when the mother’s health is in danger. That’s the kind of ban the Republicans have proposed over and over; and that is what O’Connor has argued is unconstitutional.
Susan, there is not one state in which Democrats would block a ban on full-term abortions when the mother’s health is not endangered. The primary barrier to such bans is the Republican party’s strategic decision to oppose them, so that they could keep the late-term abortion issue on the table.
Amp, you guys, I haven’t performed a search of the laws of all 50 states. Or of any state.
I posed a hypothetical case only. If it’s an outrageous hypothetical, all anyone has to do is say, “Hey, this is never allowed anywhere,” and that’s the end of it.
I’m not being a troll, I’m trying to push the envelope. If you say that aborton is OK anytime anywhere for any reason, whether the mother’s health is at stake or not, I’m proposing a possibiltity within your perimeters. If you think my example is OK, say so. If not, say why not, and we’ll go from there. If you say this “never happens,” I’m ready to say that any number of outrageous things happen, including but not limited to infanticide. You don’t think so? Read your local newspapers.
If we want to advocate for women’s freedom, we have to encounter questions like this one. If we’re unwilling or inable to do that, we’re out of the debate.
“I posed a hypothetical case only. If it’s an outrageous hypothetical, all anyone has to do is say, “Hey, this is never allowed anywhere,”? and that’s the end of it. ”
Are you ever going to repond to the request which has been put to you a number of times – i.e., cite a case where this has ever happened.
You’re the one who proposed the hypothetical – it’s *your* reponsibility to justify that proposal by at least some reference to reality. The alternative is that anyone can pluck any silly notion out of the air, & piss all over people who have better things to do with their time than prove that imaginary fairies don’t exist at the bottom of the garden.
Sheena,
I don’t have an actual case. There are actual cases of the murder of newborn infants,but that doesn’t count.
What if. What if some woman wanted to do this. It’s just not enough to say, “Hey, no one would ever do this.” Who says? You say? Do you read the newspapers?
Just tell me that no one would be allowed to do this without criminal sanctions (as no one could murder a newborn baby without criminal sanction) and I’ll be content. I shouldn’t have to prove that some people murder newborn babies to get that assurance.
Why should your needing that assurance at the expense of offending others with ludicrous analogies be necessary at all? We need to reassure your fears at out of bounds analogies that you can’t even show have occurred, ignoring the fact that it would take a doctor to perform this bizarre scenario to begin with?
We’re not your monkey’s, Susan, don’t ask us to dance.
…My feeling is that a woman who would abort a healthy fetus shortly before birth would
A) have one hell of a time finding a doctor who’d perform the surgery with no reason other than “just because” and
B) would be in a mental state that would make it pointless to dither over who thinks she did the equivalent of killing a toddler and who did not think so. Even if I believed she were a murderer, I’d still probably say that she was not guilty by reason of insanity. Which is already too much ground given to pro-lifers. They won’t be satisfied with that, anyway, I’ll wager.
You know what else ? This extremely rare woman should, if anything, be a case for keeping all abortion legal. How much harder would she be to track down if we went back to the proverbial back alley ?…
Susan, this is what I wrote in answer to your question. I remain in the dark as to why it’s not a good enough answer for you. Do I need to call the woman in question a murdering slut or something, in order for you to feel that I’m giving enough warm fuzzies to the pro-lifers ? Do I need to call for her death before a public firing squad ? Should I call for the dead baby to be allowed to testify before the jury at her trial ?
What exactly is it that you want from us, apart from attention, which you’ve gotten in spades ? If you came here to change people’s minds, it should be obvious by now that you’re not going to. Maybe it’s your shit attitude, or maybe it’s just that your question is idiotic. More likely it’s both.
Oh, and by the way, a great many of the posters to this site are not “guys.” We are women. It’s odious and –dare I say– “rude” to continue referring to us as “guys.” What’s wrong with “folks” or “people” ?
You keep claiming that we are not engaging your burning question to your satisfaction, and that until we do, we simply won’t get through to “the other side,” which I strongly suspect you are part of, though you would deny it.
But if a question is based on a false premise –that is, any woman can get an abortion at “the last minute” on a whim– why is it cheating to point out the false premise ?
If a question is clearly meant to divert the real thrust of discussion, why is nobody allowed to point that out without your whining that they are “in denial” ? I can only draw the conclusion that because we will not conform to your “personal orthodoxy,” and agree with your distorted image regarding an extremely rare procedure that is not casually performed at any sane, healthy woman’s whim, you will simply continue to pretend that we have not answered you.
Except that we have. We have not come up with the answer you want, however, so this leaves you free to indulge your contempt for us. How nice for you.
Oh, and on the subject of “rudeness,” Amp, please take note of the fact that I was able to be quite polite to Rock. I don’t think that he/she will be working the intake desk at Planned Parenthood soon, but I get the feeling that he/she is genuinely listening to what other people say.
I am polite with people who are polite with me. Susan’s attitude here has been damn fucking rude from the get-go. She demands (though she pretends to ask) a specific answer to her question, and is ignoring people’s points and sneering about “orthodoxy” because she isn’t getting them. If that isn’t “rude,” in a passive-agressive way, I don’t know what is.
P.S.– Susan wrote:
No.
You are only out of the debate if you accept that your idealogical opponents get to set all the debate’s terms and parameters, with no input from you. If you believe that a query is based on a distortion, or inappropriate, or besides the point, you say so. How your opponent responds to that will tell you in short order just how serious they are about true “debate” in which everyone involved is an equal participant.
“…
We’re not your monkey’s, Susan, don’t ask us to dance. ”
Many in this thread have been dancing all along. It almost reminiscent of a who’s on first routine.
It IS an evasion technique to insist that proof of a hypothetical has happened. When a politician says “I don’t want to answer that hypothetical” they are evading and you all damn well know it. The point of hypothetical are to explore both the possible, and impossible, the likely and the unlikely. We use hypotheticals because we lack omniscient.
If I ask: “Well now, what if a Martian used mind control to make her want to kill her 3 day old kid. Should she be held responsible?”
The answer isn’t: “Hurrumph… Show me an example of said Martian….”
But rather, “Its a dumb question, but no she shouldn’t be held responsible.”
In other words just answer the damned question, please.
Okay, I’ll answer the question because I really, really want Larry and Susan to be happy.
Question: The question is not whether any normal woman would abort a healthy full-term fetus. That’s an easy one. No. Just as no normal woman would kill her 2 year old. But what about the abnormal women? Do we want to say, OK, go for it? Two days before delivery?
Answer: Abortion is a personal matter than can be decided only by the affected woman in consultation with her doctor.
And to save the people the time of formulating some new useful questions for us to answer:
Question: Suppose a woman was pregnant and we discovered that the baby was the reincarnation of Gandhi. Do we want to say, OK, go for it?
Answer: Abortion is a personal matter than can be decided only by the affected woman in consultation with her doctor.
Question: What if there were only two people left on earth and the woman was pregnant but she wanted to have an abortion even though there was nothing wrong with the baby but just because she had realized she didn’t like the guy. Do we want to say, OK, go for it?
Answer: Abortion is a personal matter than can be decided only by the affected woman in consultation with her doctor. (Note: I have decided to enlarge the concept to include the existence of doctor robots with artificial intelligence.)
Question: How about if there were artificial wombs, it was easy to transplant a fetus, the fetus is healthy, there was full governmental support for children and an abundance of wonderful parents-to-be but the woman still wanted to abort the baby. Do we want to say, OK, go for it?
Answer: Abortion is a … no, no, I think we have a winner. I think I would have to agree to restrictions on arbortion if all those conditions were met.
No, no, Andi. I’m sorry. You didn’t answer whether or not late-trimester abortions are “okay.” That is, you didn’t call for the woman’s public flogging or death by firing squad. I’m afraid you don’t win the right to have an opinion. You also don’t win the right to get props from clueless, ill-mannered twerpfaces who aparently weren’t in the room when reading comprehension was handed ’round. But please, accept this case of generic instant mac ‘n cheez as our consolation prize, and Thanks Again for playing. :p
“No, no, Andi. I’m sorry. You didn’t answer whether or not late-trimester abortions are “okay.” ”
Although not answering directly I think we can clearly infer from his (? her maybe?) answer that he is for absolutely no restrictions on abortion since he believes that:
“Abortion is a personal matter than can be decided only by the affected woman in consultation with her doctor”
So if I were to propose a really far fetched hypothetical: Suppose during labor the baby was in the birth canal and the woman decided to get it aborted minutes before it was actually birthed, should that be allowed?
His answer would clearly fall under the “yes” column provided that the decision was “decided only by the affected woman in consultation with her doctor.”
Larry, what part of my answer didn’t you understand ? Do you understand why people might find the question stupid and pointless, especially given your own lack of ability to take any it all anymore seriously than some crap about Martians ?
And you know, it’s easy to blither endlessly about hypotheticals as some kind of substitute for real discussion. That is, it’s easy when it’s not your own body that someone wants to declare public property in the name of some religion you don’t even believe in. It’s also easy because it allows you to ignore the reality of why women get late-term abortions IRL, and just how much further the various “partial birth” laws go than just some sensationalistic fiction about killing babies as they’re born.
I’ll try this one more time: I do not believe that this mythical woman who aborts her baby ten minutes before birth “just because” could possibly be in her right mind. I don’t believe that there’s a doctor practicing medicine who’d be psycho enough to do it for her, either. Ergo: No, it’s not “okay,” she’s not “okay,” I’m not “okay,” you’re not “okay,” yadda yadda yadda.
Now, tell me, Larry. Did you read the link Amp posted above (#84) ? Did you read any of the threads here that talk about the reality of abortion, late-term and otherwise ? Or like Susan, do you just want to do your impression of Lucy holding the football some more and pretend that this makes you the “winner” of this singularly bogus “debate” ?
You’re wrong on both counts. I am a female and my answer means exactly what I said. Nothing more and nothing less.
Of course, my last answer was to Larry, not alsis.
But I have a question for Larry.
Why is life of a fetus is more important than a woman’s?
“And you know, it’s easy to blither endlessly about hypotheticals as some kind of substitute for real discussion. ”
Actually its easier, as many politicians regularly demonstrate (they usually take the path of least resitance), to dodge a tough hypothetical question rather than take a stand with your own opinion. Some people don’t clearly think through all the ramifications of what they espouse. Or maybe they have some doubts and are inconsistent on tough issues. Facing a hypothetical can expose those things. Its much easier to obfuscate, dance around, or to simply not answer the question honestly.
“Why is life of a fetus is more important than a woman’s? ”
It’s not.
So, Larry, you support 3rd trimester abortions if the woman’s health is threatened?
Ohh before I leave, a clarification from my answer above… I don’t think it’s necessarily a horrible thing to have doubts, or inconsistencies on tough issues like abortion. Just don’t kid yourself.
Larry wrote:
My, doesn’t that sound thrillingly sinister ?! Unfortunately for you, it does fuck-all to prove that being pro-choice leads to babies being deliberately, legally slaughtered a couple of weeks/days/minutes before birth by conniving moms and docs.
Well, Larry, you got your answer from me, and others. Like Susan, you don’t like the answer, so you get to play “gotcha !” Happy to have helped make your day.
Oddly enough, I continue to find reality much more compelling than fantasies, at least when I’m discussing political issues, which have a funny way of impacting my own reality. If you don’t, feel free to continue to go in search of those garden fairies that Sheena mentioned earlier in the thread.
No, I suppose it’s not. As long as you don’t run around making adult women pay the price for your own “doubts” and “inconsistencies,” which sound in this case like sophisticated codewords for “I can meddle in a total stranger’s life if she doesn’t agree with me and my handy-dandy interpretation of the Bible.”
Well, wasn’t thatI feel thoroughly put in my proper place now.
I hate football. :/
Bah, messed up tag. The penultimate line should’ve read:
“Well, wasn’t THAT a stinging, if vague, rebuke. *I* feel thoroughly put in my proper place now.”
Sorry, Amp. :o
Alsis,
I’m shocked — you mean you weren’t completely undone by his sanctimonious drivel?
No, Andi. I’m sorry. It must be the sorry-ass local beer (singular) that I’ve been drinking. :o
I could always give you that port I’m never going to drink or you could try the Samuel Smith’s (OTOH I was only disparaging the local dark beers).
BTW, someday you’re going have to offer a foreign language course in smileys because I’m not fluent enough to translate all the different ones you use.
How did my post #107 dodge the question?
Geeze, Brian, how bluntly does it need to be stated to you? Comment #107 dodged the question because you didn’t admit that there is no difference between abortion and infanticide. Any other answer is clearly a dodge.
*alsis39 “My, doesn’t that sound thrillingly sinister ?!”
Sinister? I don’t think that word means what you think it means. Unfortunate perhaps, sinister no.
*alsis39 “Well, Larry, you got your answer from me, and others. Like Susan, you don’t like the answer, so you get to play “gotcha !” Happy to have helped make your day.”
You mistake me for someone else. I don’t really care what your answer is, or was. It was just kind of amusing reading this thread as several people decided to evade and dance around the questions asking for a specific case rather than simply answering the question. So I decided to pipe up and you answered the call.
*alsis39 “Oddly enough, I continue to find reality much more compelling than fantasies, at least when I’m discussing political issues, which have a funny way of impacting my own reality.”
Well, when the Dems are interviewing Bush’s supreme court nominee lets all hope they take the same dim view of the hypothetical as you and some of the others in this thread. hehe
*alsis39 “No, I suppose it’s not. As long as you don’t run around making adult women pay the price for your own “doubts” and “inconsistencies,” which sound in this case like sophisticated codewords for “I can meddle in a total stranger’s life if she doesn’t agree with me and my handy-dandy interpretation of the Bible.””
I misplaced my Captain Kook decoder ring so I can’t properly convert the “codewords”. However, I wasn’t referring to me as having doubts and inconsistencies but rather people that don’t want their doubts and inconsistent positions revealed in the answers to hypothetical questions. As for meddling in total stranger’s lives, maybe you have never heard of these things called “laws” that impose limits on personal behavior. With certain exceptions, you can’t kill someone else even in the privacy of your own bedroom. You can’t steal my stuff. In most states you can’t be a prostitute, or be a cocaine dealer. You can’t torture your dog. Indeed, lots and lots of meddling going on! Oh the humanity!
*alsis39 “Well, wasn’t thatI feel thoroughly put in my proper place now.”
Its odd that you would take offense to something that was fairly innocuous given the context. Maybe you have some inferiority complex and more than a little touchy?
* “So, Larry, you support 3rd trimester abortions if the woman’s health is threatened? ”
As you asked…. No.
“Health” is too vague. Life? Yes. Serious permanent physical injury? Yes.
“Health” could mean anything.
Larry wrote:
So, you’re saying that all of these things are comparable to a woman having an abortion ?
Nice. [rolleyes]
As for the rest, well, what can I say. Hardly seems worth just repeating the same exchange over and over, especially when your sarcasm detector seems badly out of whack. One person’s “amusement” is another person’s trollery, I guess. If you ever decide you’d like to outgrow your dependence on using “amusing” hypotheticals to play “gotcha'” with your opponents, the threads here and elsewhere that discuss abortion IRL will be still be waiting, I’m sure.
the threads here and elsewhere that discuss abortion IRL will be still be waiting,
OK. Let’s discuss abortion in real life.
You have established your position that in real life – that is, under the circumstances under which abortions actually happen – there are absolutely no permissible legal restrictions on a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.
This makes abortion an absolute right – there is no restraining role for the state, no restraining role for society, no restraining role for other family members. A woman – and only the woman – decides whether she bears or not, the end, period. Right?
Very well. It is axiomatic in any sustainable calculus of rights that all rights are equally freighted with responsibility, and all responsibilities carry with them equally weighty rights. You have a right to carry a gun, and are responsible for the outcomes of using that gun, and so on.
What absolute responsibility for women, and only for women, is concomitant with the absolute right to abortion?
So Larry, it’s all right with you if a woman suffers a debilitating mental or physical damage just so long as she recovers eventually?
Robert,
Only a woman carries and bears the child. No one shares that with her. No one CAN share that with her. That’s why a woman should have the ultimate responsibility. Just like I don’t believe we can make the decision for a woman on whether she should have an abortion, I also don’t think we should have the right to force a woman to have an abortion save her own life. Do you?
*”So Larry, it’s all right with you if a woman suffers a debilitating mental or physical damage just so long as she recovers eventually?”
Yes, as I understand the terms.
If I am not mistaken, EVERY woman that gives birth (or has a c-section) has some kind of physical damage. Physical damage (stretching, cutting, bruising, etc) is part of the process, but it usually heals right up.
Debilitating mental damage? I have no idea what that really means. Does depression or any normal emotional problems (which again, if I am not mistaken, occur in most pregnanies) qualify?
[snort] Golly, Robert. Weight your questions much ? You’ve presumably read most, if not all, the abortion threads on this blog, and you are still able to carry on as if –until each and every woman trots out her modus operandi and motives for your perusal– there is an inherent “irresponsibility” involved in the very act of considering abortion a legitimate medical procedure.
Is this just a (not-so) clever attempt to rephrase Susan’s earlier idiocy ? That is, to pin the pro-choicers to a particular circumstance in which we would tell some other woman, “No, I say you can’t abort and here’s why my opinion overrides yours.”
You can clarify, if you like, but I honestly don’t get you, Robert– any more than I usually do. Are you requesting that I and other pro-choicers create some sort of “responsibility” litmus test ?
Do we grill the woman who wants to abort about whether she took birth control ? Quit smoking ?
Tried to find a partner who wouldn’t beat on her and who wouldn’t mind helping raise somebody else’s kid ?
Tried even harder to find away to support a fourth kid on top of the three she was already raising ?
Stood in front of her church weeping to the entire congregation, “Oh, yes !! I’ve been a dirty, dirty slut, but I really don’t want a baby !! Praise Jesus !”
Searched her soul sufficiently enough to know, REALLY know, that she simply didn’t want a baby and she didn’t want to spend nine months growing it for somebody else, either.
Your parallel to gun ownership is downright weird, considering that it’s much easier in this country to get an undocumented gun without disclosing your personal background than it is to get an abortion without it. I’ve been to Planned Parenthood for simple stuff like a Pap smear. Even that requires considerable paperwork. Do you think that if I went there for an abortion, it’d be like going to the drive-through at Burger King ? Please.
Your question, once again, makes the assumption that A) Women are not sufficiently responsible to be trusted with our own bodies and B) Any mistakes a woman makes which might lead to abortion cannot be truly accounted for without some kind of public reckoning, in which legions of total strangers get to pass judgment on her. IOW, it sounds like you are calling for a “punishment” that is way the hell out of proportion to the original “crime.”
I actually don’t like guns all that much, Robert. I don’t want one, but I know responsible gun owners and figure that if they want one hunting rifle or forty, it’s their own affair. I can’t decree whether or not they are moral enough to deserve this right. That’s between them and the law, so while I support gun control in spirit, I’ve decided that it’s largely unworkable. Something in the American psyche, that I’m not personally privy to but have observed a number of times, really, really likes guns. If you own guns, the consideration of life-and-death decisions comes with the territory, no ? Gun owners want to be considered responsible, don’t they ?
Too bad you can’t meet me half way, and give me some credit for having brains and a conscience, rather than trying to usurp my rights for yourself. Because, of course, you, Susan and Larry know soooooooo much better what it is I should do if I’m pregnant.
Give me a break, Robert.
So basically, you don’t have an absolute responsibility in mind to go along with your absolute right. You want, in short, a privilege.
That’s cool; lots of groups want privilege, and many times its quite justified. Perhaps it is in this case as well.
Robert,
So basically, you don’t have an absolute responsibility in mind to go along with your absolute right
You might as well as said that “so basically you believe that there are martians in Portland” for all that remark has anything to do with what alsis said. Seems fair for me to play the same game: so bascially you think that women are moral degenerates who can’t be trusted with their own bodies and have to submit to the greater wisdom of the Roberts of this world.
Could someone please step in here and translate Robert for me ? What does “absolute responsibility” mean ? Do I have to submit papers to the League of Virtuous Conservatives after my abortion is done, just in case they think that I’m a dirty baby-killing whore who merits life in prison or death by firing squad ?
Someone ? Anyone ? Well, Andi’s close enough for jazz. It’s not like Robert’s games of manipulation are anything new to the feminists on this board.
Andi, Alsis, please recall that I prefer that people discuss ideas on threads I start, not the alleged secret agendas of other posters.
That said, Robert, you’re not making a lot of sense to me. Since when do extra rights mean extra responsibilites? I have a right not to be arbitrarily gunned down in the street; as far as I can tell, that right doesn’t come with any particular responsibilities. My friend Sydney, 19 months old, appears to have no responsibilities whatsoever, but I’d be pretty appalled at anyone who suggests that this shows she has no rights.
Are you possibly misremembering your Spiderman? It’s great power, not great rights.
Okay, Amp. I’ll bite. What do YOU think Robert is doing with his query here, if not deliberately clouding the definitions of “rights” and “privileges.”
BTW, here’s a site you might want to add to the blogroll, or at least check out– if you haven’t yet:
http://www.keepyourlawsoffmybody.org/
(Thanks to Brian for reminding me of its existence.)
Amp, in most ethical theories I’m familiar with, rights and responsibilities are generally connected. There are exceptions. There are rights that do not carry responsibility, and we call that privilege. (Sydney, and other children, have a privilege – they are exempt from the ordinary responsibilities of a citizen, because of their age. That privilege dies a slow and lingering death as they grow up.) There are responsibilities that don’t carry any rights, and we call that a disability or a disadvantage. But mostly, in a decent society, these things balance.
There’s a further distinction between an absolute right and a constrained right. I have a constrained right to carry a gun – if the state decides I’m too crazy or too violent, they can take that right away from me. I have a constrained right to free speech – I can say whatever I want, but people can sue me if I tell damaging lies about them. I have an absolute right to possession of my body’s organs – they can’t decide to take them just because there’s a kidney shortage. They have to have my permission.
If I assert that I have some right, then I should be able to identify the responsibilities that come along with that right, or I should be willing to acknowledge that I hold a privilege. The right to control my organs- my bodily autonomy – is a privilege – there’s no responsibility that goes along with it.
Alsis is asserting an absolute right to abortion – to have the ability to perform this act, without being subject to review by the state, by society, by family, or by other entities that ordinarily serve to constrain our rights and set boundaries for our actions. Fair enough. I want to know whether she believes that there are responsibilities that are concomitant with that right – or, whether she is asserting a privilege. (You could certainly view this as a specific case of the general privilege of bodily autonomy – one that goes farther since there’s another body involved.)
Robert wrote:
Amp, I just don’t share your –to my mind– generous perception of how Robert operates. This smells to me of one more attempt to rope one woman into passing judgment on other women. However, if he wants me to talk about my own personal responsibilities, sure no prob. I try to exercise care in choosing sex partners, I practice birth control, I guard my health (physical and financial) to the best of my abilities.
None of these things is any guarantee that I’m going to get through the remainder of my childbearing years without needing an abortion.
However, I don’t think it’s up to anyone else to decide whether or not I’ve been “responsible” enough to exercise my right. I don’t trust in other people enough to think they can have more than a cursory clue of what’s going on in my head. I don’t trust that their motives will automatically line up with mine.
The reverse, as ever, is also true. If Robert’s wife wants another kid, it’s none of my damn business how “responsible” a parent she has been. MY perception of HER responsibility is just not the central issue here. If childbearing (and childrearing) is not, at least officially, a privilege in the eyes of the pro-life movement, why must abortion be a privilege in my eyes or in the eyes of other pro-choicers ? The right to reproductive freedom is the right to reproductive freedom. Period.
Well said, Alsis.
Thank you, Ampersand!! At last, someone who is both pro-choice and willing to admit the Religious Right has yet to cause the sky to fall down. This is so rare, I doubt I could buy a map to it on randmcnally.com!!
Now, any chance we can get certain shrill people to stop this gibberish that leftists and progressives are somehow ghettoizing women’s issues?
Just curious. Thanks again, Amp.
Larry said:
Have you or anyone you’ve known closely ever suffered from an episode of major clinical depression, pregnancy related or otherwise? Have you ever tried or known someone who has tried or committed suicide? I question your experiences because this seems like an awfully flip response to the question of mental illness. Do you believe that there is such a thing as “serious permanent” mental injury?
Either that or some people on this thread genuinely want us to believe that they feel they are correct in the automatic assumption that the choice of abortion is one of criminal negligence, menace or instability on the part of the woman.
It has absolutely zero regard for the notion that a woman’s choice is based on solid ration, regardless of the emotional turmoil that may have occurred in making the choice.
The whole concept delegitimizes female autonomy, stability and ration, which helps with the argument that we are incapable of making choices without employing frivolity, selfishness, stupidity and a dash of crazy to add a zip to the blend.
“Health” is too vague. Life? Yes. Serious permanent physical injury? Yes.
“Health” could mean anything.
and:
If I am not mistaken, EVERY woman that gives birth (or has a c-section) has some kind of physical damage. Physical damage (stretching, cutting, bruising, etc) is part of the process, but it usually heals right up.
Sounds pretty flip, to me. Then again, I guess it’s easy to be flip about the health of others, particularly when you know that it’s a question you’ll never have to consider.
Larry, have you heard of HELLP? It can be fatal. And the only cure is ending the pregnancy, either through abortion or delivery. I also hope you’re aware that women cannot have unlimited c-sections, particularly when the original c-section was “classic” (vertical cut). The vertical incision especially increases a woman’s risk of uterine rupture during subsequent pregnancies, which can be fatal.
Everyone has different assessments and different ways of dealing with RISK. When you are talking about taking away a woman’s access to abortion, what you are really talking about is taking away her right to assess and handle her own level of risk in healthcare. Let me give you an example from the real world. Let’s say a pregnant woman discovers she has cancer, and that treatment for her cancer could have teratogenic effects on her fetus.
Some women may postpone cancer treatment until after delivery. Some women may take the risk of cancer treatment, and decide later on in the pregnancy whether or not to have an abortion based on whether and how extensive any teratogenic effects are (second trimester abortion). And other women prefer having an abortion immediately, then getting the cancer treatment.
Now, there are plenty of hardliners out there that don’t believe that a woman should have the choice of abortion, even in an instance like this, because the pregnancy itself is not a threat to her life. They believe that by getting pregnant, an woman has implicitly signed on for any and all circumstances that might arise, even if she used birth control. They believe that a woman has already gambled away any “choice” she would make. In for a penny, in for a pound. And most of the people who feel that way do so out of deeply held religious beliefs. They want others who do not share these religious beliefs to still abide by those religious beliefs.
It’s easy to be flip about this when it’s not your question. But Larry, what if it was? What if there was a vocal, politically powerful minority of people in this country who wanted to abolish all cancer treatment, even for the non-pregnant?* After all, it must be God’s will if you have cancer, right? And prayers are answered, right? So….if God wanted you to be cured, He would cure you, right? Whaddya need chemotherapy for, anyway!
But what if you didn’t believe that? What if you weren’t comfortable with that level of risk? What if there was safe, effective medical care that would cure that cancer, and leave you to live out the rest of your life? Wouldn’t you want to make that decision for yourself?
*Because it is, after all, a vocal, politically powerful minority of people who want to abolish abortion in the U.S.