Open Thread and Link Farm, Don’t Look At The Sky Mortals Edition

  1. Is Wearing Hijab a Feminist Statement? – Heinous Dealings
    Interesting debate.
  2. How the GOP Lost Jackie Robinson
  3. The Virtues of Virtue Signaling
    Talking the talk can lead to walking the walk. And actually, can itself be a form of walking the walk.
  4. Boundary Setting vs Tone Policing – Brute Reason
  5. California lawmakers agree to a $15 minimum wage
  6. How The Human Rights Campaign Is Helping the GOP to Retain the Senate
    I have sympathy for HRC’s long-term goal of getting more elected Republicans who support LGBT rights, but I think they’re mistaken to thing that such long-term trends are significantly influenced by endorsements. The GOP will get less anti-gay once their base finds being anti-gay unacceptable.
  7. Trump’s Jumbled, Deal-Obsessed Foreign Policy | The American Conservative
  8. Whipping Girl: Alice Dreger’s disingenuous campaign against transgender activism
    This is a post from last year, but Dreger’s book has been in the news a bit lately, so the link is therefore magically transformed into a timely link. Right?
  9. Things crashing into other things: or, my superhero movie problem | MZS | Roger Ebert
    Actually, there are a bunch of links from last year on this link farm. At least for my tastes, Stolz is right that relatively human-scale fight scenes (Captain America in an elevator, Black Widow tied to a chair, Quicksilver running around a room) are a lot more fun to watch than the bigger scenes that dominate most superhero movies (helicarriers crashing, etc); and also, that most of the big fight scenes feel generic.
  10. Florida is the latest state to defund Planned Parenthood even though it’s probably illegal – Vox
  11. CNN Mistakes Sex Toy Flag For ISIS Flag At London Gay Pride
    Story from last year that I just now came across and if there were milk it would be all over my keyboard.
  12. Without Scalia, America’s political landscape is being transformed | Scott Lemieux
    “The ruling has the effect of thwarting a major judicial attack on public sector unions, and also shows how the unexpected death of Antonin Scalia is already beginning to transform the American legal and political landscape.”
  13. Left Skepticism
    “Left skepticism says: we have no idea what we’re doing, so absent very strong reasons we should just do whatever results in less immediate suffering, a factor we can know with much greater regularity.”
  14. American elections ranked worst among Western democracies. Here’s why.
  15. How Bernie Sanders made the Democratic Party safe for liberals
  16. What Emily Yoffe Left Out of Her Polemic on The Hunting Ground 
  17. The US now uses less water than it did in 1970 – Vox
  18. Emory Students Traumatized by Trump Graffiti? : snopes.com
    “A controversy at Emory University over graffiti promoting Donald Trump led to some predictably inaccurate media reports.”
  19. Emory student: It’s not about chalk. It’s about the message Trump sends to people of color. – The Washington Post
  20. Campus Anti-Semitism Prompts New York Lawmakers To Slash Funds
    Whatever we think of what the students said, the lawmakers are going against free speech here.
  21. A Tribute to Nurse Kellye | Fat Heffalump
    The frankly awesome background character on M*A*S*H who appeared in almost every episode. I haven’t watched M*A*S*H since I was a kid, but I remember really having a crush on Kellye, and being so pleased in one episode when Hawkeye had a particularly difficult surgery to perform and told Margaret that he’d need Kellye to assist him.
  22. Where’s My Petabyte Disk Drive? | bit-player
  23. ACLU, Lambda Legal to Sue North Carolina Over Law Banning LGBT Rights Ordinances
  24. No path for Sanders… but it’s a long one
    “For national opinion to come into line with what Sanders needs, there would have to be a change from Clinton +9.5% to Sanders +12%. That’s a 22-point swing. To put that into perspective, that is about how much the Clinton-Sanders margin has moved over the last seven months, since the start of August. Going forward, opinion would have to start moving about three times faster.” (Thanks to Ben.)
  25. Is Retaking the House a Democratic Pipe Dream? | New Republic
    Democrats are blowing their admittedly slim chance of retaking the House.
  26. Four progressive female candidates worth donating to.
    All four are running for the Senate.

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56 Responses to Open Thread and Link Farm, Don’t Look At The Sky Mortals Edition

  1. 1
    MJJ says:

    Anyone have any thoughts on the two Ghostbusters trailers (U.S. and international)?

    I was disappointed in both of them, and after thinking about it, it all seems to come back to one reason (a lot of people mention 5 or 6 things, but I think one issue overrides them all).

    The main problem with the trailers is that we get very little characterization, and what we get is mostly bad.

    Think about it. Kristen Wiig’s character is mousy and a little clumsy. Apparently Kate McKinnon’s character seems to have difficulty responding appropriately (reminds me of Parker from Leverage). Leslie Jones’ character is a LOUD! BLACK! WOMAN! I’m not offended by stereotypes, but could it at least be an interesting stereotype? Melissa McCarthy – the trailers tell me absolutely nothing about her character’s personality. Chris Hemsworth’s appearance in the first trailer was pointless, because it isn’t even clear if he is meant to be a character or an extra. In the second, I get the impression that he is sort of a make bimbo.

    Really, that’s it. We don’t see nearly enough of who these people are, and I think that’s a problem, for three reasons.

    (1) The trailer seems to focus to much on the plot of the movie – unnecessary, because we already know what the plot is going to be in broad strokes, and the particulars aren’t that interesting outside of the context of the entire movie. The plot will be a bunch of paranormal investigators decide to become ghost pest control, and in the process stumble across some large apocalyptic supernatural event that they have to stop. I know this because honestly, what else could it be? If it’s not that, it’s not Ghostbusters – at least as an introduction movie. What’s more interesting at this point is who the characters are – that’s what will make the plot details matter.

    (2) Ghostbusters was a very character-driven movie, so we want to see how these new characters interact – otherwise, the movie isn’t going to capture wht made Ghostbusters good to begin with.

    (3) The fact that it was specifically decided to make the Ghostbusters female means that there was a deliberate decision to experiment with the characters in the movie, which automatically makes the characters a, if not the, major focus. How will they be the same and how will they be different from the originals? That’s what people want to know.

    If I were making the trailer, I would have had title cards before each character, then shown 3 or 4 quick snippets of who they are, then had one short scene of them together in their uniforms, getting ready to bust some ghosts.

  2. 2
    David Schraub says:

    “Campus Anti-Semitism Prompts New York Lawmakers To Slash Funds
    Whatever we think of what the students said, the lawmakers are going against free speech here.”

    That’s a little pat. I oppose the funding cuts for a whole host of reasons, one of which is that it seems clear that some of the motivation really is about objecting to protected (albeit potentially offensive or hateful) speech. But some of the motivation is clearly about anti-Semitic conduct.

    FIRE’s write-up is quite good, and as they note the list of complaints of happenings at CUNY range “from heated rhetoric during demonstrations, where official punishment would have alarming First Amendment ramifications, to conduct not remotely protected by the First Amendment, such as graffiti swastikas and true threats of violence.”

    CUNY does seem to be doing a serious job investigating these unprotected anti-Semitic acts (as well as looking into counterspeech-based responses to “pure” anti-Semitic speech which cannot be censorsed but is not entitled to go unchallenged either). I’d be skeptical of funding cuts in any case as a response to campus anti-Semitism (at least absent far more egregious facts than this), but that response makes the cuts even more silly to my eyes. But it is too simplistic to say that this about free speech tout court.

  3. 3
    Ampersand says:

    David: Okay, not tout court; the legislature is here going against free speech and other things. But part of what they did was threaten to slash funding unless CUNY does something about “negative rhetoric” they disapprove of. That aspect seems to me to be clearly against free speech.

  4. 4
    Ampersand says:

    MJJ: You may be right. The trailers didn’t seem funny to me, and I’m hoping that’s because the trailers were badly edited, not because the movie isn’t funny.

    So if the movie does turn out to be funny, then you’ll have been proven right about what was wrong with the trailer.

    Unfortunately, it also might be the case that the movie just won’t be funny. :-(

  5. 5
    David Schraub says:

    Indeed, and that’s one good reason to oppose the legislature’s actions. But it’s misleading to act as if it’s simply about speech. In situations when an outgroup is targeted by both hostile speech and hostile acts, it is not unheard of for its allies to overreach and seek to sanction both. Which is not say that such overreach is justified, but it’s also not to say that the motive is simply intolerance of having one’s feelings hurt. Your blurb, after all, would have a very different tenor if it read “Whatever we think of what the students said and did, the lawmakers are going against both free speech and violent threats, harassment, and vandalism.” It blurs the narrative.

  6. 6
    Ampersand says:

    With all respect, rebutting the claim that “the motive is simply intolerance of having one’s feelings hurt” seems unfair; I neither said nor implied that.

    It seems to me that if the Sheriff of Exampletown catches Polly Pickpocket and beats hell out of her, a bystander can reasonably say “wow, that’s flagrant brutality.” For someone to object to the bystander’s statement on the grounds that it would have been more accurate to say “that’s flagrant brutality and additionally he’s enforcing an important law against petty thievery” seems unnecessary.

    And, anyway, let’s say that the legislature is mainly concerned with (say) the vandalism and the violent threats. Unless there’s really solid evidence that the CUNY administration is refusing to investigate these things – and from what you say, there isn’t – I still say it’s unreasonable for the legislature to try and strong-arm CUNY into doing something they’re already doing.

    Let’s return to our sheriff. If the sheriff is twisting the arm of the saloon owner, and yelling “I demand that you 1) wear blue clothes, 2) open the saloon at 4pm, and 3) refuse to serve Polly who is now running to replace me as sheriff,” and the saloon owner is already wearing blue and opening the saloon at 4pm. Let’s assume, for this example, that we know that the sheriff genuinely loves blue and drinking at 4pm. Nonetheless, it’s reasonable to suspect that the main issue here is 3), and 1) and 2) aren’t really the reason we’re seeing someone’s arm get twisted.

    (Not saying that cutting funding is exactly the same as a beating, or as twisting an arm, obviously.)

  7. 7
    pillsy says:

    But part of what they did was threaten to slash funding unless CUNY does something about “negative rhetoric” they disapprove of. That aspect seems to me to be clearly against free speech.

    Also, I’d argue that legislators have a responsibility to be extremely clear about what they are and are not trying to do, especially when essential freedoms are on the line. The New York State Senate is pretty much doing the opposite here, and even if they aren’t deliberately trying to chill protected speech, they are failing in their duty to uphold the Constitution, and Amp’s description of that is wholly appropriate.

  8. 8
    David Schraub says:

    “(Not saying that cutting funding is exactly the same as a beating, or as twisting an arm, obviously.)” No it’s not, obviously (nor is a pattern of anti-Semitic conduct akin to a stray pickpocket either, I’d add). The force of the example depends on the hydraulic relationship between the sins and the (over)reaction.

    We could give a perhaps more germane example: Suppose the Students of Campus University experience a series of racist events — some bigoted speech, some threats and harassment. And so they organize a protest where they contend CU hasn’t been responding aggressively enough to these (though CU contends that its response has been considered and proportionate), and among their demands are a request that various forms of hate speech be banned (boo!).

    If the Standard National Weekly Review covered this entire story as “college students don’t understand free speech”, we’d say they weren’t covering the whole story.

  9. 9
    pillsy says:

    If the Standard National Weekly Review covered this entire story as “college students don’t understand free speech”, we’d say they weren’t covering the whole story.

    I hold the New York State Senate to a higher standard than a bunch of college students to begin with, and especially when they’re exercising their powers (or threatening to exercise them) in order to chill protected speech.

  10. 10
    LTL FTC says:

    I hold the New York State Senate to a higher standard

    Good luck with that. On any issue.

  11. 11
    pillsy says:

    @LTL FTC:

    You have a point there.

  12. 12
    David Schraub says:

    Lewis Morris: [as John Hancock is about to swat a fly] Mr. Secretary, New York abstains, courteously.
    [Hancock raises his fly swatter at Morris, then draws back]
    John Hancock: Mr. Morris,
    [pause, then shouts]
    John Hancock: WHAT IN HELL GOES ON IN NEW YORK?
    Lewis Morris: I’m sorry Mr. President, but the simple fact is that our legislature has never sent us explicit instructions on anything!
    John Hancock: NEVER?
    [slams fly swatter onto his desk]
    John Hancock: That’s impossible!
    Lewis Morris: Mr. President, have you ever been present at a meeting of the New York legislature?
    [Hancock shakes his head “No”]
    Lewis Morris: They speak very fast and very loud, and nobody listens to anybody else, with the result that nothing ever gets done.
    [turns to the Congress as he returns to his seat]
    Lewis Morris: I beg the Congress’s pardon.
    John Hancock: [grimly] My sympathies, Mr. Morris.

    From 1776.

  13. 13
    Elusis says:

    Oops Trump got caught telling the truth about anti-abortion’s real goal, as Amp has frequently discussed here: Punishing women for having sex.

  14. 14
    Ampersand says:

    The main thing that struck me about that, Elusis, is how quickly Trump flip-flopped, when his entire campaign narrative is that he just says what he means without regard for what people want to hear.

  15. 15
    MJJ says:

    The main thing that struck me about that, Elusis, is how quickly Trump flip-flopped, when his entire campaign narrative is that he just says what he means without regard for what people want to hear.

    Then you misunderstand his campaign. Trump often flip-flops when he says something that won’t sit well with his base (e.g. on the issue of letting in Syrian refugees, on the issue of whether we want more immigrant work visas). He doubles down when he says something that his voters agree with but the media and the establishment conservatives hate.

    He doubled down on the “Mexico is sending rapists and murderers” because while the elites were all swooning, a lot of regular Americans feel that we are constantly being told that illegal immigrants are all the best and the brightest, and someone saying otherwise was a breath of fresh air. At least some polls suggests his statements about a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration is fairly popular; most people saw his swipe at McCain as being an insult specifically toward him, not toward POWs in general (and let’s face it, a lot of Republicans dislike McCain because his always seems to be looking for approval from the liberals – and the one issue on which he is considered an extreme right-wing ideologue – belligerent foreign policy – is becoming much less popular in Republican circles).

    In other words, it’s not “I don’t care what people want to hear,” but “I don’t care what the ivory tower folks want to hear.”

    And that is the key to his success – by doubling down, he reveals that the American people don’t think what the media wants to tell you they think. At the very least, a large percentage think things that the media wants you to think are relegated to a small fringe.

    Moreover, honestly, it’s not like he made his position on abortion a major part of his campaign and then flip-flopped. He pretty obviously hadn’t thought things through and answered off the top of his head. I think most people realize that his position on the abortion issue is to pay enough lip service to the pro-life movement to indicate he isn’t hostile to them, but then to focus on immigration and trade issues.

  16. 16
    Ampersand says:

    Trump often flip-flops when he says something that won’t sit well with his base (e.g. on the issue of letting in Syrian refugees, on the issue of whether we want more immigrant work visas). He doubles down when he says something that his voters agree with but the media and the establishment conservatives hate.

    Good point. Also, “paying enough lip service to the pro-life movement to indicate that he isn’t hostile to them” is a good description of what happened.

  17. 17
    Ampersand says:

    If the Standard National Weekly Review covered this entire story as “college students don’t understand free speech”, we’d say they weren’t covering the whole story.

    Sure, but a one-sentence editorial comment on a link farm is, I think, enormously different from a story in a news magazine.

    David, do you have an expectation that my once-sentence comments on these link farms are going to be comprehensive coverage of the entire story? I assume not. If I had written an entire post on the situation and never mentioned that there’s anything at issue here other than free speech, then I think your objection would be fair.

  18. 19
    Ampersand says:

    Everyone wants their pet issue to be the do or die where anyone who doesn’t advocate for it just as strongly as they do needs to abandon everything else AND actively alienate everyone else who might help on any other issue.

    Not what the comment were replying to was saying, and certainly not what the original post was saying.

    Liz, it is important to note that the NARAL position (the biggest pro-choice advocates in the US) is that a woman should have a wholly elective choice to abort even completely healthy children all the way up to moments before birth…

    Is this NARAL’s position? I’m not kidding; it’s a serious question. Do you have a link?

  19. 20
    Liz says:

    @Sebastian H

    Liz, it is important to note that the NARAL position (the biggest pro-choice advocates in the US) is that a woman should have a wholly elective choice to abort even completely healthy children all the way up to moments before birth (and last we talked quite a few on this blog supported that position). Vocal sections of the pro-life advocacy want to ban abortions from the very moment of conception. The extremes completely dominate the debate, while anyone who wants they typical abortion policy of Europe (early abortions easy to obtain, late abortions strictly outlawed except in very limited circumstances verified by multiple doctors not giving the abortion) gets shouted down.

    Neither position seems tenable, since it’s clearly not a person near the start, and clearly is at the end. At nine months, if the definition if “human” is “which side of the uterus I’m on”, something is terribly wrong. Why not say “five minutes after the baby is out” so the parents can have a good look at the baby before they decide to kill it or not? If that seems horrible to suggest, remember: it’s only five minutes longer than the other position.

    If this issue is dominated by the extreme positions, it seems like this isn’t symptomatic of the issue but of the way public discourse has been shaped. Outrage culture, intractability and a disregard for science has brought us to this crossroad.

    Fortunately, I have no such problem here, so I too am reluctant to wade into the mess down there. The fact the majority of the developed world has figured this out should provide dozens of similar models Americans can slowly limp across the finish line with.

  20. 21
    Ben Lehman says:

    If that’s NARAL’s platform I sure as hell can’t find a trace of it on their website: they seem to focus on fighting specific unjust laws and disinformation campaigns than on a singular vision of the future (which makes sense, given the target rich environment). I can find some enthusiasm for the Democratic Party’s platform statement which is pretty simple

    “Protecting A Woman’s Right to Choose. The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right. Abortion is an intensely personal decision between a woman, her family, her doctor, and her clergy; there is no place for politicians or government to get in the way. We also recognize that health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions. We strongly and unequivocally support a woman’s decision to have a child by providing affordable health care and ensuring the availability of and access to programs that help women during pregnancy and after the birth of a child, including caring adoption programs.”

  21. 22
    Sebastian H says:

    “Abortion is an intensely personal decision between a woman, her family, her doctor, and her clergy; there is no place for politicians or government to get in the way.

    Yes, that is exactly their position, that the government should have no say whatsoever on abortion choices all the way through till birth.

  22. 23
    Harlequin says:

    (This is a bit far afield from the original post; wasn’t sure if it should go here or in the open thread, so please feel free to move it!)

    Sebastian:

    Liz, it is important to note that the NARAL position (the biggest pro-choice advocates in the US) is that a woman should have a wholly elective choice to abort even completely healthy children all the way up to moments before birth (and last we talked quite a few on this blog supported that position). Vocal sections of the pro-life advocacy want to ban abortions from the very moment of conception. The extremes completely dominate the debate, while anyone who wants they typical abortion policy of Europe (early abortions easy to obtain, late abortions strictly outlawed except in very limited circumstances verified by multiple doctors not giving the abortion) gets shouted down.

    There is no federal law on when abortions may or may not be performed. 43 states (PDF link) limit abortions after some time in the pregnancy (usually 20-24 weeks, or third trimester, or viability) and except cases that impact the health and life (or sometimes the physical health and life, or sometimes just the life) of the pregnant person. As far as I know, efforts from the pro-choice side, when they happen, are only to challenge the ones that contradict previous Supreme Court rulings (getting rid of the 20-week laws, which are much earlier than previous rulings and rely on junk science, or allowing mental health exceptions). On the other hand, the anti-choice side is engaged in a widespread and often successful campaign to restrict abortion.

    As an aside to Liz, here’s the reality of abortion in the US in areas controlled by conservatives: if a currently-blocked Texas law (see Whole Women’s Health v Hellerstedt) is allowed to go into effect, there will be only around 10 clinics providing abortions, either surgical or medical, in the state of Texas, which contains 5.4 million women of reproductive age. As little as 4 years ago there were over 40 such clinics; there are currently slightly less than 20 (I’m not sure what the most recent numbers are). Among women whose closest clinic closed, the average distance traveled to access abortion services increased fourfold, leaving some women traveling more than 250 miles.

    It may be true that both sides of the debate are engaged in extreme rhetoric the middle doesn’t like. But only one side is actually trying to put those views into practice, so the “both sides are just as bad” rhetoric is extremely misleading.

    I would also point out that it’s different parts of European-style laws that are objectionable to the different sides, and they’re objectionable to different degrees. I think most pro-choice activists would be willing to accept a lower time limit on elective abortion if it meant getting rid of TRAP laws, adding abortion to insurance coverage, and an end to the harassment and threats against abortion providers, their clients, and the medical schools that train them (not to mention the actual violence). It might not be exactly what was wanted, but it would be so much better than what we have now I think you could get buy-in from the pro-choice side. But I have a hard time imagining that the hard-line anti-choicers would agree to such a compromise.

    Pro-choice women who are otherwise on the conservative or libertarian side of things are uniquely placed to try to present the case for legal abortion to an audience that would be hostile to people like me. As Amp says, people are allowed to focus on the things they want to focus on; I can still wish they’d use the platform they have, though.

  23. 24
    Sebastian H says:

    ” But only one side is actually trying to put those views into practice, so the “both sides are just as bad” rhetoric is extremely misleading. ”

    That isn’t true at all. Absolutely any time any legislature tries to monitor health exceptions to late term abortion bans, NARAL will fight it no matter what the contents. In California in the 90s, where it certainly was not going to be used to oppress doctors legitimately performing medically necessary abortions, they fought and won, making any attempt to monitor it impossible even to the point of refusing to give statistics on late term abortions to the CDC (a practice which continues to this day).

    Abortion advocates used to argue that monitoring was unnecessary because of course women would never seek a medically unnecessary late term abortion. The Gosnell case, where they found evidence of hundreds of viable fetuses aborted in just one medical office showed that argument wasn’t correct, but medical reporting is still resisted by NARAL any time the issue is raised. They have lost from time to time (the New York statutory scheme has some accountability) but NARAL’s preferred system is California, zero accountability from doctors.

    The libertarian argument about the lack of need for government regulation isn’t accepted on the left in the US in any other area of law.

  24. 25
    Harlequin says:

    Do you have more info on that California case or something specific to look for? I’m trying to find it but getting stymied by later NARAL actions in California, and I feel like I should understand what you’re talking about before I respond.

  25. 26
    pillsy says:

    @Sebastian H:

    The extremes completely dominate the debate, while anyone who wants they typical abortion policy of Europe (early abortions easy to obtain, late abortions strictly outlawed except in very limited circumstances verified by multiple doctors not giving the abortion) gets shouted down.

    Look, even the Democrats, working with zero Republican support, had to make triply sure that no ACA money got anywhere near funding an abortion. This is in stark contrast to France, which has pretty strict limits on abortion (first trimester only IIRC), but those abortions are fully publicly funded.

    Strangely enough, I don’t think I’ve ever seen American advocates of “moderate”, “middle of the road” abortion policies ever suggest that the government should pick up the tab for them. Maybe I’ve missed something, though.

  26. 27
    Sebastian H says:

    Google has frustrating gaps on just-before-internet news. The current iteration of the exemption is quoted below but any searches I’ve used only find that the legislature re-codified it in 2011, none of the debates from early appear to be accessible:

    CAl. heAlth & SAfety Code § 102950
    (a) Each fetal death in which the fetus has advanced to or beyond the 20th week of uterogestation shall be registered with the local registrar
    of births and deaths of the district in which the fetal death was officially pronounced within eight calendar days following the event and prior to any disposition of the fetus.
    (b) Subdivision (a) shall not apply to the termination of a pregnancy performed in compliance with Article 2.5 (commencing with Section 123460) of Chapter 2 of Part 2 of Division 106.1

    This means that unlike all other causes of death, including fetal death, there is no reporting whatsoever to any California agency. If you inspect Article 2.5, you will find that there are no reporting requirements whatsoever. This is exactly what NARAL lobbied for, and exactly what they lobby for in other states. It is precisely analogous to the NRA insistence that any tracking whatsoever is an infringement on gun rights. In the gun rights arena it would be exactly analogous to there being a law that a felony background check be made, but no reporting requirements to prove that a check was made. They say that making a law requiring background checks is enough, gun sellers will comply. (That was exactly the NRA’s position on the reporting and accountability requirements until last year, though many chapters still hold to it). In the abortion case, California has laws on the books saying that post-viability abortions shouldn’t take place unless the health of the mother is endangered. NARAL’s lobbying has arranged for there to be no accountability on that issue–and their lobbying against reporting requirements in places as abortion friendly as California (with similar lobbying though they partially failed in abortion friendly New York) is just as convincing as the NRA.

    The Gosnell case proved that there were hundreds of women seeking post-viability abortions for healthy fetuses from a single provider in Pennsylvania so it the question of medically unnecessary post-viability abortions is not a hypothetical one.

  27. 28
    Ampersand says:

    (I guess I should fight thread drift, but I don’t have the energy right now, so I’ll just go with the drift. :-p )

    Sebastian, I think your argument has been all over the place.

    First, you claimed that NARAL favors abortion two minutes before birth. That’s nonsense that pro-lifers like to use a lot – but there is no real-world problem of patients electing to get abortions for no reason nine months into a pregnancy.

    Then you cited a Democratic party platform with language broadly endorsing abortion rights as proof that NARAL favors of elective abortions minutes before birth. But it’s unfair to treat a general statement on a political platform as if it were about minutes-before-birth abortions; it’s also unfair to take something that wasn’t written to NARAL as if NARAL had written it.

    Harlequin, responding to this, pointed out that there are no examples of pro-choicers trying to get the extreme policies under discussion – which was legalizing elective abortions minutes before birth – into place. In response, you said of course pro-choicers are, just look at California’s records law! But suddenly we’re now talking about 20-week or more fetuses, not elective abortions performed minutes before natural birth. (Is there any evidence that there has ever been a minutes-before-natural-birth abortion in California?) It’s like you’ve completely changed the subject.

    Of course, there’s an excellent reason that pro-choicers don’t want records becoming public records: It’s because some pro-lifers will violate both doctors’ and patients’ privacy.

    Now Texas Is Subpoenaing the Records of Abortion Patients Who Donated Fetal Tissue

    How Anti-Abortion Activists Uncover Details About Women’s Personal Medical Procedures | ThinkProgress

    Pro-Lifers Harass Women After Abortions – The Daily Beast (About pro-life clinics trying to trick post-abortion patients into coming in.)

    Abortion foes find new ways to get details about patients, doctors – The Washington Post

    But not wanting to facilitate pro-life harassment of patients doesn’t mean that pro-choicers favor elective abortion minutes before birth. Nor is not wanting to facilitate harassment of patients an extreme position – unlike banning abortion at any stage whatsoever, which is the default position of the entire pro-life movement. (With some exceptions for danger to the life of the patient, etc.)

    You connected the record-keeping issue to the monstrous acts of Kermit Gosnell:

    The Gosnell case, where they found evidence of hundreds of viable fetuses aborted in just one medical office showed that argument wasn’t correct, but medical reporting is still resisted by NARAL any time the issue is raised. They have lost from time to time (the New York statutory scheme has some accountability) but NARAL’s preferred system is California, zero accountability from doctors.

    But you didn’t mention (and maybe didn’t realize) that Pennsylvania, where Gosnell committed his crimes, has some of the nation’s strictest abortion reporting requirements (see page fifty, or 56 as the pdf program counts it, here). Gosnell obviously wasn’t deterred or detected by those requirements.

    Does Gosnell somehow represent NARAL’s view? No; NARAL (like every other major pro-choice organization) condemned Gosnell’s acts. Bringing up Gosnell as an example of what NARAL or pro-choicers in general favor is unfair and untrue.

    The truth is, the pro-life movement – which has been very successful at passing anti-choice legislation in Pennsylvania – makes Gosnell more likely. The less accessible early, legal abortions are, the more likely patients are to seek late-term abortions, not to mention dangerous illegal abortions such as Gosnell provided. The way to eliminate unsafe and illegal abortion is to make safe, legal abortion readily available. (And the way to reduce safe, legal abortion is though government-funded long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) , but that’s another topic.)

    * * *

    BTW, there are lots of issues in which lefties have or still do take a libertarian position: ending sodomy laws, legalizing pot, police abuse, police militarization, liberalizing copyright law, immigration, legalizing/decriminalizing prostitution, etc.

  28. 29
    desipis says:

    NARAL Pro-Choice America does not oppose restrictions on abortion after a certain point in the pregnancy as long as there is an exception to protect the woman’s health.

  29. 30
    Sebastian H says:

    Amp, listen to what you’re saying.

    “there is no real-world problem of patients electing to get abortions for no reason nine months into a pregnancy.”

    Why did I bring up Gosnell? I’ll quote myself. “The Gosnell case proved that there were hundreds of women seeking post-viability abortions for healthy fetuses from a single provider in Pennsylvania so the question of medically unnecessary post-viability abortions is not a hypothetical one.

    Gosnell aborted hundreds of fully healthy and viable fetuses. The evidence showed that women didn’t just find him, many of them sought him out. He didn’t just roam around looking for pregnant women to kidnap off the street and abort their babies.

    “Gosnell obviously wasn’t deterred or detected by those requirements.”

    Ah, but other doctors were deterred by those requirements. Those doctors refused to perform late term abortions on viable fetuses without medical necessity. Some of them then suggested that the women who wanted abortions on viable fetuses without medical necessity might talk to Gosnell.

    We’ve had a discussion about that around here many times, and whenever that issue is raised it is strongly argued that this is exactly why we shouldn’t try to enforce medical necessity exemptions, and just leave it between a woman and her doctor. That is exactly NARALs position “The decision whether to have an abortion should be made by a woman, with her doctor and her loved ones. Politicians should play no part in this decision.”

    But suddenly we’re now talking about 20-week or more fetuses, not elective abortions performed minutes before natural birth. (Is there any evidence that there has ever been a minutes-before-natural-birth abortion in California?) It’s like you’ve completely changed the subject.

    Of course, there’s an excellent reason that pro-choicers don’t want records becoming public records: It’s because some pro-lifers will violate both doctors’ and patients’ privacy.

    It’s like you’re not even listening to what you’re writing to me.

    You can’t bang on the table about my lack of evidence AND support NARAL’s attempts to bury any evidence about the issue. No one can give statistics on late term abortions in California because collecting such statistics has very purposely been made impossible. That reporting exemption didn’t get in there by accident, it was lobbied for by NARAL and they got what they wanted so that statistics couldn’t be monitored on late term abortions and so that the medical exemption couldn’t be enforced. It is the same reason why the NRA doesn’t like tracking gun sales “it might be used against us later.” That is a bullshit reason to disallow monitoring of important restrictions.

    Desipis: The NRA has quotes claiming to care about gun violence, but in practical reality resists even the most tepid attempts at tracking where guns go. They are a political advocacy organization and should be judged on what they actually push for, not their propaganda. NARAL has similar quotes and should be judged at the same standard that you use for the NRA. Even in California, they oppose reporting requirements. Even in California, they oppose any attempt at ANY oversight on the issue of the health exception. If NARAL can’t allow it even in California, they aren’t really ok with it.

  30. 31
    pillsy says:

    @Sebastian H:

    The libertarian argument about the lack of need for government regulation isn’t accepted on the left in the US in any other area of law.

    If the right is constantly trying to use bad-faith safety and consumer protection arguments as a way to completely eliminate access to a constitutional right in any other area of law, I can’t think of one. Besides, it’s not like pro-choice activists think that anybody should be able to hang out a shingle advertising that they perform abortions.

  31. 32
    Ampersand says:

    Iceland’s prime minister has been forced to resign. Best subheadline: “The people of Iceland reacted by throwing yogurt at Parliament.”

    ETA:

    …opposition parties are calling for Iceland’s president to dissolve parliament, which would mean new elections.

    Currently, the highest-polling party in Iceland is the Pirate Party, with 37.8 percent. It’s part of an international protest group that emphasizes transparency and copyright reform. Its somewhat opaque agenda embraces left and libertarian ideas such as:

    • Reducing the role of Iceland’s parliament and replacing it with a direct democracy, where all citizens can vote on legislation
    • Decriminalizing or maybe even legalizing drugs (it’s hard to tell from their platform)
    • A universal basic income

    True to its direct democracy principles, the party has no actual leader. While there are other Pirate Party branches elsewhere in Europe, only Iceland’s is so popular.

  32. 33
    Harlequin says:

    Thanks for that quote, desipis!

    Sebastian:

    That reporting exemption didn’t get in there by accident, it was lobbied for by NARAL and they got what they wanted so that statistics couldn’t be monitored on late term abortions and so that the medical exemption couldn’t be enforced.

    Or, as Amp said, because there’s a history of anti-choice activists trying to get information on patients who received abortions and resistance to those actions by pro-choice activists (I haven’t checked NARAL in particular). The worst you can say for sure about that exemption is that NARAL is willing to accept some post-viability abortions if it means ensuring patient privacy. I mean, it might mean that they have a secret agenda to allow as many post-viability abortions as are requested and their opposition to reporting requirements is a false front to hide the fact that they expect doctors to disobey the law and even want them to. But it requires an enormous assumption of bad faith to say that their position on reporting requirements means they favor abortion up to the minute of birth.

    I mean, let’s look at your NRA example. I’m sure that many of the people who oppose keeping track of gun background checks actually think that there is a danger to their rights or their freedom from the government knowing that information. Now, I think they are incorrect, but I don’t at all think most people who are opposed to those records secretly want lots of guns sold to people who shouldn’t have them. They merely find the occasional gun sale to somebody who legally shouldn’t have a gun to be an acceptable tradeoff for something they perceive as preserving their rights. Again–I think they’re dangerously incorrect. But I don’t think it’s a giant conspiracy to hide their real intentions that every convicted felon, for example, should be able to buy a gun, although some of their number may believe that as well.

    Your position that opposing reporting requirements means NARAL supports abortions up to the minute of birth would have the analogy “The NRA actually wants to arm convicted felons and domestic abusers and is trying to smuggle this in through a back door.” You’re imputing motives where a more reasonable conceptualization would say they just don’t care enough about it to counteract other principles they hold more strongly. You can still criticize them for that without accusing them of policy positions you have no evidence for, and some evidence against.

    All right. Basically, I’ve got a litany of extreme rhetoric and violent action by anti-choice activists in comment #23 (I checked and it’s four arsons and one fatal shooting with multiple victims in the past year); you’ve cited a single, 2-decade-old case with multiple considerations other than the legality of late-term elective abortions. Which was why I found your original characterization of the abortion debate so weird: it’s not polarization broadly speaking that’s the problem with making sensible abortion law, it’s that one side is so dedicated to (in some cases literally) burning everything down to get what they want. If NARAL said, “All right, we’ll support an elective abortion limit of 20 weeks, tracking of abortions past that date and requirements for a second independent medical opinion, if you support legal easily-available first-trimester abortions covered by Medicaid and get your supporters to stop harassing abortion providers,” I somehow don’t think the response from the pro-choice pro-life lobby would be, “That sounds like a great deal!” or even “Good starting place, let’s negotiate!” even if I thought they could follow through on the end to the harassment.

    ***

    I was curious about the opinions of the public on this; here’s the Gallup results. “Some restrictions” is the majority opinion in the US at the moment. However, without more details, that’s hard to interpret: I’d probably say “no restrictions” even though I support a ban (with health exceptions) on post-viability abortions, because I just don’t usually think about those when I think about abortions. They’re a really small edge case.

    I was surprised the number of pro-life people was so much greater than the number of abortion-should-be-always-illegal people; all the people I know who call themselves pro-life are also in the latter camp.

    ***

    As a side note, I was struck the other day by how disjoint pro-choice and pro-life groups can be. I have to walk past my city’s Planned Parenthood once a week for a regular errand, and there have been protesters there almost every week since the tapes came out last summer–I’d never seen them before then, by the way. Anyway, last week one of them had a sign that said something like “You didn’t dream of working at an abortion clinic when you were a child!” And I thought, actually, I do know a few people who grew up in pro-choice households and wanted to work in women’s health when they were children and then grew up to do just that; the sign seemed to be trying to play on an internal, unexpressed belief that I think many workers at abortion clinics actually don’t have. It was also an interesting echo of the way some pro-life activists seem to think that most women who have abortions haven’t freely chosen them. I mean–I’m not being sarcastic or condescending there; I thought it was an interesting example of how you can get used to the thought processes of people around you and then forget other people don’t think that way, a trap I think is applicable to many groups of all political persuasions.

    On the subject of abortion as a free choice, by the way, did you see this article at Rewire (formerly RH Reality Check) about a group in Tennessee that’s getting teenagers to sign documents saying they don’t want an abortion and if they show up at a clinic they’re being coerced? Without getting too much into the details of the particular case–the teenager sounds like she was genuinely conflicted, and from the reporting her mother may have been either pushy or just honest about the difficulties of single motherhood, it’s hard to tell–the group of adults trying to push the teenager away from abortion are shady as hell.

  33. 34
    Harlequin says:

    Oh, that’s interesting, Amp!

    I’ll note that direct democracy for Iceland is more possible than it would be many places, as it has about the same population as Corpus Christi, TX. (I like to call that bit of research “the time I was surprised to learn Corpus Christ, TX is slightly more populous than St. Louis.”)

  34. 35
    Ampersand says:

    I sort of hope the Pirate Party does come out of this on top. Not because I’m sure they’d be good at it – I’m not confident that semi-anarchists will have good administrative skills – but because it would be really interesting for them to get a chance to try.

  35. 36
    Ampersand says:

    I somehow don’t think the response from the pro-choice lobby would be, “That sounds like a great deal!”

    Did you mean to write “pro-life lobby” here?

  36. 37
    Harlequin says:

    Oops, yes, thank you. Too many similar terms!

  37. 39
    Pete Patriot says:

    NARAL Pro-Choice America does not oppose restrictions on abortion after a certain point in the pregnancy as long as there is an exception to protect the woman’s health. However, this bill lacked such an exception. It does not leave the decision of viability to a doctor.

    But this is is then immediately contradicted by the next paragraph.

    Our Solution

    The decision whether to have an abortion should be made by a woman, with her doctor and her loved ones. Politicians should play no part in this decision.

    But don’t take my word, here’s Betty Friedan recounting how she made and won the argument for a policy of no restrictions on abortion at all when she helped found NARAL and wrote its charter.

    https://books.google.com/books?id=Bb1kkyv9e5wC&pg=PA214

    Now NARAL don’t flaunt this for obvious reasons. But I’m surprised people are surprised. The abortion arguments you usually come out (violinists, reproductive freedom, bodily autonomy) with are arguments for abortion in all cases. NARAL is just taking those arguments to their logical conclusion and making a principled campaign for them.

  38. 40
    Sebastian H says:

    “All right. Basically, I’ve got a litany of extreme rhetoric and violent action by anti-choice activists in comment #23 (I checked and it’s four arsons and one fatal shooting with multiple victims in the past year); you’ve cited a single, 2-decade-old case with multiple considerations other than the legality of late-term elective abortions.”

    Except you are ignoring the viable babies killed if we don’t enforce the medical necessity laws, and at least in California we don’t even try to. The old response to that was that women never seek such abortions, but the Gosnell case proves that a single practitioner in Pennsylvania could find hundreds of women seeking to abort fully viable fetuses without medical necessity over the course of less than three years. So that response has been proven incorrect–the need for government oversight to the medical exemption is strong.

    “You’re imputing motives where a more reasonable conceptualization would say they just don’t care enough about it to counteract other principles they hold more strongly. You can still criticize them for that without accusing them of policy positions you have no evidence for, and some evidence against.”

    You’re strongly suggesting that we have to buy propaganda despite their actions. That just isn’t the case. There is literally no evidence from their actions that they are ok with any abortion restriction at any time including when the abortions involve fully viable fetuses. Even in the propaganda press release their official position is that the government shouldn’t get involved at all.

    If your position is that California isn’t pro-choice enough to allow monitoring of the medical exemption, your position is that the medical exemption can’t be subject to oversight.

    That is the position they take, and continue to take. On essentially any other issue it would be obvious that a press release saying “We do not oppose the government limiting X, but the choice whether or not to do X should be entirely private and the government should not be involved in any way regarding the choice to do X” is not actually a validation of the idea that they support the government’s right to limit X. It is in fact a very strong indication that they do not support the government’s right to limit X.

    If I said “I do not oppose reasonable limits on boxing, but the choice about whether or not to engage in boxing and how it ought to be conducted should be entirely between the two combatants, no politician should be involved in any way.” it would not be good evidence that I actually do not oppose reasonable limits on boxing.

  39. 41
    pillsy says:

    If your position is that California isn’t pro-choice enough to allow monitoring of the medical exemption, your position is that the medical exemption can’t be subject to oversight.

    This seems like an entirely legitimate response to the conduct of the pro-life movement. Believe it or not, when the activists who are mainstream enough to get elected to statewide office are interested in going on fishing expeditions through patients’ medical files, it inspires less than zero trust. Likewise TRAP laws, gratuitous and invasive ultrasounds, spousal consent laws[1], “informed consent” laws that mandate doctors lie to patients, et cetera, ad nauseam.

    Given the stunning bad faith of the pro-life movement when it comes to regulation, is it any wonder that pro-choice activists don’t want to budge an inch? If they rolled with it in California because it’s “pro-choice enough”, how long would it be before the argument turns up in other states that, “Hey, they were OK with this in California, so obviously there’s nothing wrong with it?”

    What has the pro-life movement ever done in the 40-odd years that it’s been a meaningful force in American politics to indicate that we should trust it any further than we should throw it?

    [1] Struck down in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, to be sure, but they had to be struck down for a reason.

  40. 42
    Sebastian H says:

    So your argument is that we shouldn’t have any oversight whatsoever regarding aborting viable fetuses in California because some other scary pro-life state would try to get such laws in their state and then abuse them–and implicitly that a California precedent would be a crucial factor in turning the tide for such a scary pro-life state.

    Hmmmm, I’m pretty sure if I had argued against that at any time earlier I would have been accused of strawmanning and told to stick to arguments that somebody might actually make.

    “What has the pro-life movement ever done in the 40-odd years that it’s been a meaningful force in American politics to indicate that we should trust it any further than we should throw it?”

    And again, this is precisely why we can’t get to a reasonable outcome–we are letting NARAL on one side and the most extreme pro-lifers on the other dictate the discussion. You don’t have to trust the 10% of people who want to ban abortion or the 10% of people who want unlimited abortion. You can engage the 75% of people who want to ban late term abortions except when there are serious medical problems and who don’t mind actually enforcing laws where viable people get killed.

  41. 43
    pillsy says:

    So your argument is that we shouldn’t have any oversight whatsoever regarding aborting viable fetuses in California because some other scary pro-life state would try to get such laws in their state and then abuse them–and implicitly that a California precedent would be a crucial factor in turning the tide for such a scary pro-life state.

    My argument is that you haven’t proven that the law solves a real problem and in the absence of a demonstrated problem, even minor costs don’t justify it.

    And again, this is precisely why we can’t get to a reasonable outcome–we are letting NARAL on one s10% ide and the most extreme pro-lifers on the other dictate the discussion.

    I notice you completely failed to answer the question. For all your claims of percentages, it actually is the modus operandi of the pro-life movement to use facially reasonable-sounding regulations as the thin end of the wedge to close clinics and harass abortion providers and their clients. For all your claims that it’s a small minority that wants to do that, they’re the ones actually setting the agendas in state houses.

    We keep hearing about all the shit we’re supposed to give up, all the doors we’re supposed to let them walk through to prevent these chimeric late abortions of yours. What are they supposed to give up in order to protect women who are exercising their rights to have abortions prior to viability?

  42. 44
    Harlequin says:

    Just responding to a couple of points here–I may have more tomorrow as time allows, as this is already quite long:

    Sebastian:
    Except you are ignoring the viable babies killed if we don’t enforce the medical necessity laws, and at least in California we don’t even try to.

    Reporting requirements are not synonymous with enforcement. I was trying to come up with situations where a law mandating reports of deaths due to post-viability abortions would catch doctors violating the health exemption clause, and here’s what I can come up with:

    1. Doctors who are willing to perform enough post-viability elective abortions that it would show up statistically, but aren’t willing to disobey laws relating to paperwork.
    2. Doctors who are willing to perform enough post-viability elective abortions that it would show up statistically, but are too stupid to realize that filing paperwork about it will reveal his or her bad actions.

    I mean, you keep bringing up Kermit Gosnell, so let’s talk Kermit Gosnell. He was in flagrant violation of many laws, not just late-term abortion laws, and had been the subject of repeated complaints to authorities and the legal system, at least one from an employee and another from a fellow doctor and a third (per the grand jury) who was a county medical examiner and was specifically reporting a post-viability abortion. None of these claims were sufficiently investigated. At the time his clinic was raided in 2010, it had not been visited by a health inspector in 17 years. If anything, the Gosnell case is evidence that people who do this sort of thing will get reported to the authorities and stopped without the need for reporting requirements–if they’re promptly and properly investigated, that is.

    Oh, and by the way, he was subject to Pennsylvania’s reporting laws, which mandate reports of ALL abortions, not just late-term ones. If they didn’t catch them, what reporting law would?

    I did a little research on reporting laws. Since you haven’t found any specific reporting on the legislative fight in California, I can’t say for certain what’s happening, but California is unusual in that it mandates no reporting of abortion procedures; only 5 of 50 states don’t mandate reports of all abortion procedures, and 3 of those 5 have voluntary systems. California didn’t have any. So this law singled out post-viability abortions (actually post-20 week abortions, per your excerpt above, which is different) as ones that had to be reported–or, probably more likely, it didn’t except abortions when a reporting requirement for late miscarriage was added, and NARAL requested that exception. I wasn’t particularly politically active in the 90s: did NARAL fight the reporting laws in the 45 states where it’s mandated? If not, how do you reconcile that with your belief NARAL opposes reporting laws for late-term abortions because it could lead to discovery of illegal late-term abortions and NARAL secretly wants them to be legal?

    (That document is 20 years old, I agree, but it’s the most recent version the CDC links; I assume there’s not a lot of movement in such laws. Also, it’s relevant to the time period you say NARAL was contesting these laws.)

    There is literally no evidence from their actions that they are ok with any abortion restriction at any time including when the abortions involve fully viable fetuses.

    I mean, it’s not like NARAL has a problem objecting to portions of laws they don’t like, or issuing statements in support of people they think have been wronged by the legal system with respect to reproductive health (that link’s just an example, there are obviously others). Do you have any citations for them objecting to laws banning post-viability elective abortions as a whole, not just specific parts? Do you have any citations for them objecting to prosecution for the performance of post-viability elective abortions? (Those are honest questions: if you do, I will take them into consideration.)

    Okay. I went looking through some databases I have access to. Checking all instances of NARAL in the LA Times from 1990-1999, SF Chronicle 1990-1999, and Sacramento Bee 1995-1999, I find no reference to this incident. I also don’t get anything when I search of “fetal and death and abortion” or “fetal and death and termination” (this was a boolean search interface) which should have turned up anything with that law. (Or, I get stuff, but it’s not the incident you’re describing.) Are you sure you have the details and the time period right? How were you informed about the events? I dislike arguing from a position of ignorance about the events in question.

  43. 45
    Charles S says:

    Comparing the gestational age table about half way down the CDC abortion surveillance report with Guttmacher’s abortion laws table with the abortion reporting requirements table, it really looks like viability restrictions don’t have much effect on the percentage of abortions which are late term abortions. For example, Oregon, which has no restriction on post-viability abortion, has 1.9% of abortions after 21 weeks. Colorado, also no restrictions has 0.9% of abortions after 21 weeks. Alaska (D&X ban, but no restriction on post-viability abortion) has 0% after 21 weeks. Vermont, 0.6%. New Jersey, 3.3%, New Mexico, 5.5% (the highest in the country). But restrictive states include Georgia 3.3%, Nevada 3.1%, New York City 2.5% (New York’s state wide reporting does not meet CDC standards for gestational age). Certainly, there are also a lot of restrictive states with low post-viability abortion rates, but I wonder how many of them have no abortion providers who are willing to risk being murdered in order to perform late term abortions.

    Obviously, it is hard to know what is going on in the states without reporting requirements, but if restricting post-viability abortions doesn’t have much effect, its hard to see why reporting requirements would matter.

    So if you want to prevent post-viability abortions, either support terrorism (the path the pro-life movement has gone), or support easy access to early abortions and easy (free) access to implanted birth control.

  44. 46
    Harlequin says:

    Having sat on this, I think I’ve been riding Sebastian a bit hard about part of a comment I found especially egregious, to the point of rather taking over the conversation; I’m not sure I’m convincing anyone who isn’t already convinced, so I’ll probably bow out at this point unless somebody requests a specific answer to something. (edited to remove an unnecessary and rather insulting aside, my apologies)

  45. 47
    pillsy says:

    @Harlequin:

    I probably am too. Tthe California surveillance stuff isn’t ridiculous on its face, but, especially given the lack of information about the contours of the debate when this went on twenty years ago, I think it’s a little strange to focus on it quite so heavily.

    I still believe that the defining feature of the controversy around abortion in the US is the extent to which the pro-life movement–as defined by the people who hold elected and appointed political and the activists who work most closely with them–is its extreme bad faith in the way it proposes, passes and interprets legislation. I also think his division of the population into two tiny fringes and a broad, consensus-seeking middle is incorrect.

  46. 48
    Fibi says:

    They aren’t really tiny fringes as together the fringes represent about half of all Americans polled. But there really is a large number of people who are in the middle, at least according to Gallup. Some people in the middle self identify as pro-life, others as pro-choice.

  47. 49
    Sebastian H says:

    ” I wasn’t particularly politically active in the 90s: did NARAL fight the reporting laws in the 45 states where it’s mandated?”

    I was young in the 90s, but my mother was active in the more moderate side of pro-life politics (against late term abortions, uncomfortable with early term ones but not enough to ban them) so I was relatively aware of the debates at the time. My understanding at the time was that NARAL was fought the reporting laws everywhere, but that people in most states thought NARAL was being ridiculous while in California the legislature bought it. Now everything after the comma is clearly very colored by my experience at the time, but I’m pretty sure that the before the comma is just an accurate description of NARAL’s stance. Google doesn’t make these things easy to find, but even from a partisan point of view (and remember that the conservative news media essentially did not exist at the time so the chance of bubble reporting was much lower) I don’t see why I would have formed a mistaken impression about the stances of the various parties on the issue (no matter how mistaken you may think I am about the substantive end points I desire). If no one was fighting to keep the reporting from happening, it wouldn’t have been a big contentious deal in pro-life circles at the time and there wouldn’t have been a reporting exemption put into the law if the only politically active side on the issue were the pro-life side.

    I’m not sure why you think the fact that it was 20 years ago is particularly worrisome to any part of the argument. NARAL fights any reporting requirements that come up anywhere in the nation now, and claims that it is because it doesn’t trust pro-life attorney generals etc. My argument is that it fought and won on exactly the same issue in California where the ‘trust’ argument is transparently silly which strongly suggests that NARAL is completely against monitoring the health exemptions.

    “I still believe that the defining feature of the controversy around abortion in the US is the extent to which the pro-life movement–as defined by the people who hold elected and appointed political and the activists who work most closely with them–is its extreme bad faith in the way it proposes, passes and interprets legislation.”

    Yes, the defining feature of the controversy around abortion in the US is the extent to which the extremes act in bad faith in the way they propose, pass and interpret legislation. The California example suggests that it acts in bad faith regarding the way it proposes, passes and interprets legislation, but you don’t see that because it is always easier to be charitable to those generally more on your side. I get that. I’ve done it. I’m not saying the whole pro-choice movement acts on bad faith. The same is true of pro-lifers. There are absolutely some people who would use common sense monitoring and reporting laws to inappropriately attack people. But in any other debate, we understand that the existence of such people doesn’t mean you give up on regulating things that involve life and death matters. It means you have to do things like not make the records publically accessible. It means you do things like have professional boards review decisions. It means that you have to draw the law carefully, not just give up.

  48. 50
    pillsy says:

    Yes, the defining feature of the controversy around abortion in the US is the extent to which the extremes act in bad faith in the way they propose, pass and interpret legislation. The California example suggests that it acts in bad faith regarding the way it proposes, passes and interprets legislation, but you don’t see that because it is always easier to be charitable to those generally more on your side.

    Twenty years ago, without really any sort of contemporary record of the debate at the time to refer to. I’m not saying your recollection is wrong, but I am saying that I don’t remember the controversy myself (despite being typically pretty aware of politics around abortion back then), and we’re really only getting one side of the story.

    And, not to put too fine a point on it, you have one example from a period of 20 years. We’ve come up a lot more, including ones that are actually ongoing.

    There are absolutely some people who would use common sense monitoring and reporting laws to inappropriately attack people.

    Not only would, actually do and have. Kansas is a real place.

    And, frankly, pro-lifers represent every single regulation–including TRAP laws and tranvaginal ultrasounds–as “common sense”. You’re expecting pro-choice activists to take the argument that this time they’re actually telling the truth at face value.

    It means you have to do things like not make the records publically accessible.

    Until the AG goes on a fishing expedition through them after getting a court order.

    It means you do things like have professional boards review decisions.

    Until the governor stacks the professional board with right-wing hacks who are infinitely credulous about complaints made by anti-abortion terrorists who want to strip the licenses of the doctors they haven’t been able to murder yet.

    Again, Kansas is a real place.

    You aren’t going to get much traction with, “Trust me,” when about half your coalition–a half that is seriously overrepresented in positions with actual power–is manifestly untrustworthy and openly contemptuous of the right to privacy and sexual autonomy. I don’t just mean in the way you are contending NARAL disregards the lives of viable fetuses, I mean in terms of the stuff they actually come out and say.

  49. 51
    Sebastian H says:

    “I also think his division of the population into two tiny fringes and a broad, consensus-seeking middle is incorrect.”

    I wanted to respond to this separately because I think that I can respond to this mostly by drawing attention to facts which you can draw your own conclusions from. I’ll label them with letters just to refer to them later.

    I draw all of the data from this Gallup source which tracks a bunch of questions 10, 20 and sometimes even as far as 40 years back.

    A. For at least the last 20 years, about half of people have identified as pro-choice and about half as pro-life. I don’t really find that statistic very helpful except to point out how self selected our worlds are–I would strongly bet half of the people you know aren’t known as pro-life to you.

    B. For 40 years they did a survey on whether or not people believed abortion should be legal in all circumstances, some circumstances, or no circumstances. Answers on that have been pretty steady for 40 years +/- about 5% with about 25% saying all, about 55% saying some, about 15% saying none. It bounces around year to year but that is about right. So a bunch of pro-life and pro-choice people are both answering “some”.

    C. For about 20 years they have been asking if abortion should be legal in any/most/only a few/no circumstances. Those have bounced around at about 28/13/38/20. Would you have guessed that almost 60% of people are in the only in a few/no circumstances?

    I think the next set illustrates what I mean about the debate being dominated by the extremes.

    The question is “Do you think abortion should be generally legal or generally illegal during each of the following stages of pregnancy”.

    D. First 3 months. 65%+ legal right around 30% illegal. So strongly for first trimester choice.

    E. Second 3 months. 25% legal, 65% illegal. Strongly against second trimester choice.

    F. Third 3 months. Around 12% legal, about 80% illegal. Overwhelmingly against third trimester choice.

    Miscellaneous related issues.

    G. 24 waiting periods about 70% are for them.

    H. Parental Consent about 70% are for such laws.

    I. Laws requiring patients be informed about alternatives to an abortion, 85%+ are for such laws.

    My intention is not to say that you have to agree with the majority. Hell I’m fairly described as pro-life and I don’t like parental consent laws without a huge judicial override possibility. My point is that what is your idea of mainstream on abortion might not actually be all that mainstream. If you think that generally wanting to ban second term abortions is extremist, you are saying that 2/3 of the population counts as pro-life extremist. NARAL comes down firmly on the pro-choice side on every single question, even those that only poll about 12% in favor. Since you can get 10% in favor of the proposition that the earth is flat, it is completely fair to suggest that NARAL represents an extremist position on abortion issues. The fact that some much larger than 10% of your friends probably agree with NARAL just proves that we self select our friends, not that the position is a generally held position.

    The fact that a large portion of the pro-life political advocates would be on the 20% side of C and the 30% side of D makes it completely fair to suggest that they also represent an extremist position on abortion issues. [Though note their extremist position is almost twice as popular as the extremist pro-choice position].

    And that is why abortion politics is such a mess. We treat the extremists on both sides as if they spoke for the about 50% of people who vaguely identify themselves as “pro-life” or “pro-choice”. But a majority of the people who see themselves as pro-life don’t agree with their public advocates (and in very important ways) and a majority of people who see themselves as pro-choice don’t agree with their public advocates.

  50. 52
    pillsy says:

    My point is that what is your idea of mainstream on abortion might not actually be all that mainstream.

    Not particularly. I think the mainstream on abortion is fairly described as muddled, unprincipled, ill-informed and heavily influenced by unexamined sexist assumptions. Let’s look at the poll results from your link.

    Consider that, the last time it was polled (admittedly 2005), there was a strong majority (64-34) in favor of spousal notification, which is about as transparently sexist as it gets.

    Or, for example, the substantial number of people who don’t want Roe v. Wade overturned, but also want to ban abortion during the second trimester, which Roe precludes. Or the fact that roughly a third of the people polled must want abortion to generally be legal in the first trimester of pregnancy and illegal if a woman believes she can’t raise a child.

    We treat the extremists on both sides as if they spoke for the about 50% of people who vaguely identify themselves as “pro-life” or “pro-choice”.

    I don’t do that. I don’t actually care whether pro-life extremists actually speak for people who vaguely identify themselves as “pro-life”. I simply care that it’s the extremists who wind up elected to be governors and legislators and who are appointed to state and federal courts.

    You’ve appealed to (some) European countries that restrict abortion considerably earlier in pregnancy than the US, while strongly guaranteeing access before the restrictions kick in, but one of the cornerstones of that is that those abortions are heavily subsidized by their health care systems. However, looking at the Gallup poll, even giving money to a clinic that performs abortions to support its other services is obviously anathema to a large number of even the supposedly moderate pro-lifers.

    Maybe there’s no room for compromise because there actually isn’t a politically accessible compromise that guarantees abortion access?

  51. 53
    Charles S says:

    Take a look at the CDC Surveillance reports from 1980 onward. The number of states in which the state health agency reported the numbers has remained stable at around 45. California doesn’t seem to have ever participated (the numbers listed for California are an estimate as far back as 1990, the first year the reports available have detailed tables). So, while it possible that there was a movement to get California public health to participate, there clearly wasn’t a national fight over this issue in either direction. I was a reasonably politically active adult in the 90’s who occasionally volunteered for NARAL. I don’t remember any fights over CDC reporting programs (which obviously doesn’t mean much).

    In addition to state reporting to the CDC, the Guttmacher Institute also surveys doctors for information on abortions performed. Based on their data, the percentage of abortions performed after 21 weeks has held steady for the last 40 years, which again suggests that viability restrictions, even in states that have added quite strict restrictions, have not had an appreciable effect. That came from a really good article on abortion reporting.

  52. 54
    Sebastian H says:

    I wasn’t talking about CDC reporting, and none of the laws I cited spoke to that. Though I suppose forbidding internal state reporting has an obvious corollary in making CDC reporting impossible. (The fight over CDC reporting was also a thing in California and they won on it). Avoiding reporting to the federal government on public health seems so transparently bad that I’m not surprised NARAL couldn’t convince everyone else to do it. But it remains a politically motivated hole equal to about 1/7th of our tracking on the issue.

  53. 55
    Harlequin says:

    Would you have guessed that almost 60% of people are in the only in a few/no circumstances?

    Yes. Most people really don’t think about abortion all that much, which means they think about the cases they hear; and a lot of the rhetoric you hear if you don’t live in a liberal enclave is how troubling it is how many people use abortion “as birth control” (i.e. instead of contraception; as pillsy points out, this is loaded with sexist assumptions about Those Sluts, and a bunch of racist ones as well). So they can think of cases they’d be sympathetic to, and ones they wouldn’t, and they think the former ones are rare and the latter ones are common. It’s been my experience that if you listen to what people call understandable vs troubling abortions, and then you look at the demographics of who actually has abortions, they don’t have that percentage split right; but that’s all anecdote from the people I’ve talked to.

  54. 56
    Ampersand says:

    So they can think of cases they’d be sympathetic to, and ones they wouldn’t, and they think the former ones are rare and the latter ones are common.

    Hmmn. It would be interesting to see a poll which asked people about various factors (how far along the pregnancy is, why the patient wants an abortion, etc) and if they think abortion should be legal in each circumstance, and then compare those results to what the actual percentage of abortions that take place are. I suspect the most common real-life abortions – something in the first trimester, and done because the patient feels unready or unable to care for a child (or another child) – are also the ones that a majority of Americans thinks should be legal.