I really like to assume the best of everyone, even people I disagree with.
And I try hard to take what opponents say, at their word.
But sometimes it’s hard..
A lot of people who favor forced childbirth for pregnant women say that they believe that an abortion, even early in pregnancy, is identical to child murder. Have an abortion, shoot a four-year-old in the head; morally, it’s the same. Or, anyhow, that’s what they claim to believe.
In contrast, pro-choicers tend to think that the abortion criminalization movement is motivated by a desire – perhaps an unconscious desire – to punish women for having sex.
I used to reject that latter view as a pointless ad hominem attack. Nowadays, I’m not so sure. Although I’ve met some rank-and-file “pro-lifers” whose policy preferences were consistent with a belief that a fetus is morally indistinguishable from a child, those folks usually have policy preferences which are totally out of step with the abortion criminalization movement as a whole.
In contrast, the leaders of the abortion criminalization movement have consistently put their political weight behind policies which make little or no sense if they genuinely think that abortion is identical to child murder. And those same leaders routinely endorse policies that make a lot of sense if their goal is to penalize women who have sex – to, as I’ve heard many of them put it, make sure women “face the consequences” of having sex. And they’ve done so with the apparent backing and blessing of the vast majority of the rank and file. Let’s review:
Almost none of their policies make sense if they really see no difference between the death of a fetus and the death of a four-year-old. However, nearly all their policies make sense if they’re seeking to make sure that women who have sex “face the consequences.” are punished. After years of seeing this pattern repeated again and again, it’s difficult to take them at their word.
Or did you just mean I should have both the image and the text, one after the other, visible in this post?
Yeah, that.
My *sole* responsibility is to the child? I take it that you support universal health care for pregnant women, and full funding for all the expenses of pregnancy.
So, given that all abortion is murder, I take it that you support funding for poor parents, government funded birth control, comprehensive sex education, and all the stuff that’s actually been shown to stop abortion.
If you don’t, then I don’t care how much you claim you think abortion is murder. You don’t.
(Separately, from your statements, it’s quite clear that you don’t believe women are really people, at least not once they have fertilized sex cells in their bodies. Really chilling.)
Vinny please do try to stick to the topic of the post, which is not “do you think abortion is bad?”
As Ampersand said in post #391:
He’s right. Let’s not have that argument here.
—Myca
Ampersand:
I have little objection (in principle; in practice I may object to some specific policy proposals) to reducing demand for abortions. It seems like an excellent half-measure; however reducing demand is not a substitute for criminalization.
Creating jobs will reduce the “demand” for robbery, and murders committed during a robbery. In general, creating jobs is a good goal. But it is not a substitute for strongly enforced laws against robbery and murder.
Not trying to ban abortion would be cooperating with murder. The ultimate goal is no abortions.
Put it this way; if I could persuade the nazis not to kill gypsies, I would. I would not, however, give up the fight against the nazis just because of a treaty in which they promise to kill fewer people. The ultimate goal is to stop all murders.
Regarding the economics of reducing supply vs demand, that is strongly dependent on the relative costs. The blog post you cite makes a strong assumption, namely inelasticity of demand for “not being a mother.” There is, however, an (imperfect) substitute good in the mix: giving birth and letting another family adopt the child.
If the cost of abortions is raised higher than the difference in value between the substitute goods, then more women will choose the substitute good.
As for other countries, I’m very leery of such comparisons, since there are a massive number of variables which are uncontrollable (different base cultures, very different subpopulations, etc).
But I’m open to seeing good statistics which are based on changes within a population over time, controlling for other variables.
mmm having been a young girl who had to make the choice .. let me tell you it is not a choice i took lightly many hours were spent crying and agonizing over a child that could never be…. i think there should be a right to life given the right circumstances.. i see so many children in this day and gae that perhaps were never really wanted to start . we have such a high rate of neglect and abuse on our children surely we can see clear the right thing to do at the right time…..
Isn’t the overwhelming abortion rates all just a symptom of the irresponsibility in our country? Women can either get their abortion and deal with the guilt and other effects by terminating life or they can have the child and try to raise it the best they can. But there are consequences nonetheless.
But did they not know that sex is how babies become?
Sex is for married couples that are willing to upbring a child. But our society so pressures kids to jump into some relationship. The media is corrupt with it. Generation is now raising another generation devoid of morals. How quickly we’ve changed our ideals– and try to get away with it.
There is, however, an (imperfect) substitute good in the mix: giving birth and letting another family adopt the child.>
A fine solution–if you don’t mind destroying the birth mother’s life. Every study of the effects of adoption on the birth mother has demonstrated that women who give up babies for adoption experience long lasting and severe depression. Most never recover from it. (Not even counting, for the moment, the physical risk and trauma of pregnancy and birth.) Nor does adoption work out for all adoptees or their adoptive families.
If a woman knows the risks of giving birth and putting the baby up for adoption and wants to do it anyway in the hopes that the baby will be adopted by a nice couple like, say, Dan Savage and his partner, fine, great, I wouldn’t discourage her. But pretending that adoption is risk free and a perfect solution is deceptive at a minimum.
I believe that a person is a person, no matter how small, even if it’s just a newly fertilized egg,
Up to 80% of fertilized eggs will spontaneously abort. How much money and time are you spending trying to find ways to prevent these deaths? If 80% of newborns died in their first few days of life, I’d consider that a major public health problem. More important than the deaths of a relatively few adults due to heart disease or cancer and far more important than a few cases of infanticide, appalling as infanticide is. Yet pro-lifers, despite their claim that they believe that a fertilized egg is a person are never interested in stopping miscarriages.
Other fertilized eggs split and become two embryos, later two fetuses and two people. Are identical twins only one person? Should we take all rights from one of them since it is “only” a clone? If so, which one?
Some disaster occurs with other fertilized eggs and they become cancerous growths instead of embryos. Are some cancers then people with rights equal to those of their host?
Other times, two embryos fuse and become a single embryo then fetus then baby. Are chimeric people two people? Should they have the right to two votes, etc? On the other hand, they “ate” their twins in utero so maybe all chimeras should be prosecuted for murder?
I’ll take your claim that your opposition to abortion is strictly based on a belief in the humanity of single cells seriously when you can give logical and consistent answers to the above questions. Until then, I’m pretty much going to assume that you’re trying to decieve either yourself or us.
Ugh. Is it time to close the thread? They’re not even responding to the points in the post anymore.
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I don’t.
The fetus should not be killed either way. Unfortunately, there were only enough votes to ban the one procedure and not the other. That procedure was able to be banned because the child was being partially born before being killed.
Right. Now its time to target the next means of gruesomely killing a child.
Nick,
Did you pay ANY attention to the fact that the PBA ban outlaws a procedure primarily used to save women’s health when a wanted fetus turns out to have defects incompatible with life?
the PBA ban outlaws a procedure primarily used to save women’s health when a wanted fetus turns out to have defects incompatible with life
Yeah, that’s what your side of the argument says. I’ve heard the opposite side say something different. Maybe you’re telling the truth; maybe they are. Maybe you’re both lying/exaggerating. I don’t work in an abortion clinic or a hospital and if I’ve met anyone who’s had a PBA, they haven’t mentioned it to me, so I have no first-hand data.
To be honest, neither side has much credibility. I believe that both of you would lie through your teeth for a transient political advantage, or to advance your agenda by a millimeter.
So why should I believe you instead of them?
Nick, like Mandolin, I find it striking that you have no response at all to the real-life story of a woman who your policy preferences would hurt.
In the Universal Health Care thread you claimed to oppose “paternalism” in medical care. Yet here you are, substituting your judgment for the judgment of the women who are actually being effected. This is the most personal decision that a woman can make; it’s between her, her loved ones, her doctor, and her God.
Except that you think she should get no say at all; it’s all about what Nick thinks. If Nick thinks that she shouldn’t have an intact fetus to mourn, then what she thinks doesn’t matter. If Nick thinks she shouldn’t be able to maximize her chances of having successful future pregnancies, then what she thinks doesn’t matter.
You could not possibly be more paternalistic, more patriarchal, or more opposed to freedom than when you advocate using the police to force medical decisions on women, rather than letting them decide for themselves. And yet you claim to be against paternalism in medicine. Your views are completely hypocritical; as long as you favor state-enforced childbirth for pregnant women, you have no credibilty when you claim to be against paternalism in government.
Actually, Mandolin, I have to agree with Robert (gasp!) a little, although he could have put it more diplomatically. The PBA ban is not at all restricted to late-term abortions; the general idea of PBA bans have been sold to the public based on opposition to late-term abortions, but if you read the text of the legislation, there is no such limitation. (So you see, Robert: No need to take my word for it.)
The federal PBA ban would apply to a lot of abortions, most of which — as far as I can tell, from what I’ve read — are only “necessary” if you think freedom and liberty for women are necessary, but not medically necessary to prevent imminent injury or death to the woman, nor to prevent the birth of a non-viable fetus.
However, although it’s not true that most “partial birth” abortions are medically required, I believe it is true that pre-ban, the majority of late-term, medically required abortions were done using dilation and extraction, or D&X, because this is what is safest for the woman.[*] So for those women who do medically require a later-term abortion, the PBA ban (which bans D&X) makes them less safe.
[*] There are pro-enforced-childbirth doctors who have said otherwise in trials, but when asked on the stand they’ve admitted that they don’t actually peform abortions, nor do they have peer-reviewed empirical studies supporting their view, so at best their claims are based on theory. The testimony of doctors who have extensive real-world experience performing abortions, and one peer-reviewed empirical study, say that D&X is the safer procedure in many circumstances.
Amp,
I appreciate the clarification.
Robert,
Again, I have to object to you posing yourself as a neutral observer. You’re anti-choice. Don’t talk about “my side” versus “the other side” as if you hadn’t already taken sides.
As I said in my post, it is an imperfect substitute. I.e., the internal cost (cost to the mother only) is higher than the cost (to the mother only) of killing the baby.
My main point was that the economic arguments mentioned in another blogpost are incorrect, since the presence of an (imperfect) substitute good implies elasticity of demand. More precisely, this implies that raising the cost of abortion (by criminalizing it) will, if the penalties are higher than the cost difference between abortion and adoption, prevent abortions.
In any case, your logic is flawed. By this logic, criminalizing robbery is a bad idea, since some potential robbers, deterred by criminal penalties, will wind up working at a depressing or dangerous job instead of committing robberies.
Again, I have to object to you posing yourself as a neutral observer.
And I should care about your objection why?
I am not “posing” as a neutral observer. I am me. I believe what I believe. Your opinion – anyone’s opinion – of where I stand is of use to that person, perhaps, in structuring their mental world; it is of no interest or utility to me unless it provides me with some insight or data.
You’re anti-choice. Don’t talk about “my side” versus “the other side” as if you hadn’t already taken sides.
I will talk as I like, madam. You are not my employer, my client, my God, my political leader, or the owner of this thread; your authority to tell me what to say or not to say is zero. So bugger off.
For anyone who is interested, you can call me “pro life” if you insist, in the sense that I believe abortion to be morally wrong under nearly all circumstances; more understandable in some scenarios than in others, perhaps, but wrong nonetheless.
However, I do not believe it practical to use the power of the state to stop abortions from happening. Women who wish to abort will abort, regardless of the state’s opinion; it is very very difficult to effectively regulate what someone does within their own body. The key to eliminating abortion is cultural, not legal. So I do not support abortion bans or the like, although I’m comfortable with laws to make abortions less convenient or that hem in the abortion right by rigorously enforcing other types of rights.
Call that what you like; I call it being opposed to abortion, and view the labels “pro-life” and “pro-choice” as both being attempts to evade the core issue with euphemism, and “anti-” whatever as being transparent spin. YMMV.
I am not “posing” as a neutral observer.
Robert, you’re bright enough to use rhetorical technique. When you say ‘your side’ and ‘the other side’ you are distancing yourself; there is no ‘my side’, there is your side (with all its bias, because of course it’s yours), and some other side, which we may portray as objective because I have no personal stake in it.
You know this. I know this. Don’t get pissy when you drop in a clever linguistic-rhetorical flourish and somebody calls you on it. That’s like a magician throwing a tantrum because somebody in the audience saw the rabbit poke its head out of his pocket.
When you say ‘your side’ and ‘the other side’ you are distancing yourself; there is no ‘my side’…
Well, yes. I am distancing myself, because I don’t fully agree with either side.
How is that presenting myself as neutral? It presents myself as not being basically part of one group or the other; as I make clear, I am not part of one group or the other.
That doesn’t make me neutral or superior; it makes me outside the particular dichotomization. Well, I’m outside that dichotomization; blame the frame for its inadequacies if you must blame something.
Funny, that’s pretty much how I feel concerning my medical decisions involving my uterus. I’ll do as I like and you as you so succinctly put it, can bugger off. For that matter, so can my employer, my clients, the president, the owner of this blog and even god him/herself.
It’s my own uterus, I decide what goes in it, what comes out and how long anything is allowed to remain in it.
You may very well object to that.
And I should care..why?
“I will talk as I like, madam. You are not my employer, my client, my God, my political leader, or the owner of this thread; your authority to tell me what to say or not to say is zero. So bugger off.”
No, but I am a moderator here, and you are treating me rudely without provocation.
I am allowed to call out your rhetorical flourishes, and to make my own arguments. And indeed, I am going to call you out on this particular rhetorical flourish as well — your attempt to suggest that it is improper for me to criticize you, and that such criticism is tantamount to an attempt to silence you. There are no rules here that forbid me from describing or objecting to your behavior.
There are, however, rules that suggest you should probably refrain from telling other commenters to “bugger off.”
I am allowed to call out your rhetorical flourishes, and to make my own arguments.
“Don’t talk about X” isn’t an argument. It’s an instruction.
I am going to call you out on this particular rhetorical flourish as well — your attempt to suggest that it is improper for me to criticize you, and that such criticism is tantamount to an attempt to silence you.
I am not suggesting that it is improper for you to criticize me. I am suggesting that it is improper for you to instruct me. Saying “don’t say X” is not tantamount to an attempt at silencing; it is a direct attempt at silencing. With your criticism I have no quarrel; with your assertion of an authority you do not possess, I do.
Perhaps that assertion of authority was not your intention; however, it was the text of your statement.
To believe that a fetus is a human being…no, more specifically, to believe that a fully individuated human comes into being at the moment of conception is to engage in an act of faith; so, therefore, is the belief that abortion at this stage of pregnancy is murder. To believe that a fetus, at whatever stage of development, is a fully individuated human being, with all the rights possessed by people who are already born, is also, essentially, an act of faith, since there is no single moment in time–except for the moment of birth–when it is unambiguously clear, when it is impossible to deny, that the fetus has become a child who exists in the world as an entity separate from its mother. To believe that abortion is murder at this stage of pregnancy is murder, in other words, is also an act of faith. (Put more simply, you can believe that abortion is murder; you cannot prove that it is.)
There are communities of faith that do not share this belief, Judaism and Buddhism among them. (Jews, for example, do not believe that a fetus becomes a person until it begins to emerge from its mother. And, as a brief aside, neither of these communities denies that a fetus is a living thing deserving of respect.) To compare abortion to robbery, as someconservative has done, to start from the persumption that abortion is, on its face, undeniably and unambiguously, objectively and universally, criminal, in other words, is implicitly to deny the validity of the Jewish and Buddhist points of view; it is, in other words, to privilege one faith over another, something that–as I understand it–we in the United States believe pretty absolutely that a government should not do.
Robert, are you telling me I’m giving you credit for being a lot cleverer than you really are?
Yes.
You’re incorrect that I have no authority here; Myca and I were made moderators here before I started posting, and thus the original intention was that a certain amount of control could be enacted over other people’s threads.
If you had told anyone else to bugger off in the manner you said it to me, and in the context of this situation, I would certainly have taken stronger action. I might have closed down the avenue of conversation; I might have banned you from the thread for 24 hours. Because you said it to me, I have given you wiggle room.
And that’s the end of this conversation here. If anyone has more to say about it, apart from the other moderators, take it to an open thread.
You can consider it hypocritical if you like, I don’t. The state has to support the rights of both of the lives involved. That of the mother and that of the fetus. The state has a right and a duty to protect both lives.
I chose not to respond to the strawbaby argument. Most of these procedures are being done on viable feti (sp?).
and here you are arguing the reverse of the position. Does not that also make you hypocritical?
If a UHC gets put in place, it will be run by people. The fight will be then over who controls the UHC, because the position will hold this exact power over everybody. If the people that get in control of the system decide that no abortions will be paid for, then you have agreed with my position by putting in the UHC.
She had her choice before she spread her legs; before the contraception failed; and before the 22 weeks passed.
If she wants to have an intact, dead baby to mourn, she can do that.
Just because there are procedures that cruelly tear the baby limb from limb to abort it, there is a very common other procedure where she can have an intact baby to bury. Perhaps she should take that allegedly ‘high risk’ procedure and give the kid a chance at a decent burial.
Are you a fucking 12 year old?
Did you actually just fucking type out “before she spread her legs”?
Any credibility you might have had died with that telling description. Sick little shit.
I’m going to attempt a clarification on the D and X procedure (“partial birth abortion”) and when and on what level of viability of fetus it is used. I invite everyone to correct any mistakes I may make, but here is my understanding of the situtation:
The majority of D and X procedures are performed in the second trimester. The majority, although a small majority, of these are “elective”, that is, done because the woman who is pregnant does not want to have a baby right now. I agree that these are suboptimal, because I’d much rather see 99+% of elective abortions occuring in the first trimester, preferably the first 8 weeks. But to bring that about, one would have to offer easy access to early abortion to all women, including those who live in rural South Dakota and I don’t see that happening any time soon. Given that second trimester abortions are going to happen, D and X is probably a better procedure for inducing abortion, in many cases, than the alternatives. Less risky, higher chances of maintaining later fertility. Which also seem like things that a pro-lifer could get behind, even if he or she doesn’t approve of abortion in general.
A significant minority of D and X procedures are performed in the third trimester. Third trimester abortions are rare and almost always, if not always, performed because of problems with the fetus incompatible with life outside the uterus or life threatening maternal illness. Indeed, in Kansas, home of the famous or infamous Tiller clinic, third trimester abortion for reasons other than the above are illegal. I’ve never heard of a third trimester abortion being performed for strictly elective reasons, but I couldn’t say for a certain fact that none had ever been done.
So, basically, everyone is right. The majority of D and X prodecures are done for elective reasons, but the vast majority, possibly all, D and X procedures done in the third trimester are for avoidance of maternal death or fetal abnormalities incompatible with life.
Thanks for the overview, Dianne. That all seems believable; if you’re a huge liar, at least you’re a huge liar who’s gone to the trouble of putting together a story that respects the intelligence of the mark. ;)
Pheeno,
I’m cracking down on personal attacks, just FYI. Everyone’s getting a freebie from me today apparently, so I’ll leave that up. (Other readers: please don’t rush to use your free one.)
Everybody,
While the Ides of July have passed over us and made everyone tetchier than normal, please try to constrain yourselves to insults that you can support through argument. Whether or not a commenter is composed of shit is beside the point; I’ve met some quite friendly fecal-based entities. The fact that the particular misogynist turn of phrase employed by the commenter reveals the exact panty-sniffing tendency criticized by the post is much more salient.
I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not.
Amp said in his original post:
Nick said on July 15th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Res ipsa loquitur.
She had her choice before she spread her legs; before the contraception failed; and before the 22 weeks passed.
From this we can safely infer that Nick is not really against killing babies; he is fine with killing babies as long as the mother did not voluntarily have sex, if she gets an abortion while the baby can still fit through a vacuum tube, or if the process of committing the murder leaves the corpse intact.
In other words, he’s either stark raving mad, or he doesn’t care much about the baby so much as punishing the whore who wants the abortion. Public shocked, story at 11.
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“Aside: That is being done. One of those organizations is the “March of Dimes”.”
Great. Brilliant. And how what percentage of pro-lifers can claim an integral membership? My challenge is incumbent on every single pro-lifer as an individual. Do pro-life parents expend as much time and energy (not to mention expenses) on a funeral for a miscarried three month fetus as for a three month old baby who dies of SDI? If a pregnant mother has to work, but miscarries through a minor work accident, what is the employer’s liability vis a vis the manslaughter of the child?
Face it, we all know deep down that whatever these fetii are, they’re not the same as human beings in the flesh.
“Sometimes the foetus is a human being. Currently the line is drawn when the foetus can survive outside of the womb – about 22 to 24 weeks. The line will move to earlier times as medical technology develops.”
All that medical technology amounts to is a surrogate womb. Personally, I put the line at the development of the brain and nervous system, such as the presence of a frontal lobe.
“Why should a foetus not be given the opportunity to have a great life like the rest of us.”
I think you’re blind to how close statements like this come to Begging the Question (and I mean that as in the logical fallacy, not the colloquial mishandling of the phrase). It doesn’t make that sense that a non-thinking, non-sentient being can be given or denied opportunities, anymore than I’m denying an opportunity to this jerky beside my keyboard by not eating it, not letting its amino acids form part of a sperm that would merge with the egg and become part of the foetus and thus, human life. No, the analogy isn’t perfect, but I at least hope to impart to you why your question is just so very inappropriate to ask of those who don’t share your prior convictions about foetal personhood.
Why should a foetus not be given the opportunity to have a great life like the rest of us
Why should the sperm that was reabsorbed by your body or the egg that was sloughed with your uterine lining last month (pick the appropriate alternative) not be given the opportunity to have a great life like the rest of us? Yet you killed it by obstinately not having unprotected sex with a fertile person of the appropriate gender. Now step away from the computer and get to work.
No Bonnie, those statements do not equate to a desire to punish a woman for having had sex. The issue is where does your right to swing your fist end? The answer is the tip of the other persons nose. Once a pregnancy occurs, there are two lives who’s relative rights have to be weighed.
No Mythango, it doesn’t make me a misogynist any more than your statements make you a misandrist.
No Diane, sperm and unfertilized eggs live out their normal life cycle. There is not a murder there.
Sylphead wrote:
Indeed, it is a brilliant organization. The advances in technology and knowledge from their activities have saved many a preemie. My daughter’s life is one of those saved.
Unfortunately such statistics are not kept, but many people from all walks of life are involved. Some more than others, because it is such an important issue.
Why would you limit this to ‘pro-life’ parents. All parents are deeply saddened by the loss of their children.
Women who lose a child, give a child up for adoption, or abort a child need treatment for the depression and sadness that results.
If a person hits the mother in the stomach causing her to miscarry, the penalty is a murder charge for that person. That was a good question.
Pregnant women are excluded from certain jobs. If a company is proven to help cause that miscarriage due to overwork or exposure to chemicals then yes they would also face charges. That is an excellent point.
Yes, all that new medical technology is a wonderful thing. The new 4d ultrasounds are absolutely awesome. It is amazing how early most of the human features develop on a fetus.
A agree that a brain is well developed in the womb.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/health/HealthRepublish_1444852.htm
Give it a few more years and we will be shocked to find out how early a fetus feels pain at.
Give that fetus a week, two weeks, a month or two, then check back with me and tell me if we are the same or not.
In a nurturing environment, they quickly become us.
Women who lose a child, give a child up for adoption, or abort a child need treatment for the depression and sadness that results.
Actually, women who have an induced abortion generally experience mood improvement. Women who give a child up for adoption, by constrast experience long lasting pathological grief reactions that fail to resolve.
Give that fetus a week, two weeks, a month or two, then check back with me and tell me if we are the same or not.
The same could be said of your sperm. Give it the right environment (ie exposure to an oocyte*) and 9 or so months and…look, it’s a baby. I imagine that you are quite happy that the sperm that created your daughter didn’t simply live out its “normal life cycle” and die. Doesn’t that “prove” that sperm are human and you should never, ever allow one to go to waste?
Then again, the same could be said for your intestinal cells. Give them the right environment (a little more complex since the “right environment” is first a petri dish to induce G0 phase, then insertion into an enucleated egg and only then implantation and gestation, but really, is “but it’s too much work” any excuse for allowing a person to die?) and a year or so (prep time) and see whether it isn’t a baby.
Or an amoeba. Given the right environment, the right selective pressures, and a few hundred million years, it could well evolve into something more intelligent and sensitive than humans.
We simply can’t take care of every entity that might some day have consciousness. We already have enough trouble caring for the beings that we know have consicousness and pain perception. Want to save a self-aware being? Stop the war in Iraq. Adopt an HIV infected 10 year old. Protest the slaughter of dolphins. But illegalizing abortion is unlikely to end the suffering of any sentient beings and will lead to extreme suffering for many clearly sentient, human beings, the women who are pregnant.
*Actually, one sperm alone can’t do it. It takes several to penetrate the oocyte’s outer membranes. But assume that the sacrficial sperm are there as well.
Sorry about the multiple posts, it’s an effect of posting from a different time zone from most readers, but…Just to point out, the case in question where the 22 week fetus was aborted via a D and X was not an elective abortion. It was performed because of a severe malformation of the fetus that was discovered late in the pregnancy. If one could find a way to make these abortions unnecessary by curing or even ameliorating these types of malformation, it would make everyone happy, most particularly the pregnant women who would then be very happy to NOT have an abortion using any technique. So about that March of Dimes contribution…
Dianne,
It’s fine to respond in multiple posts. Nick is throwing down every ignorant pro-life stance, so.
Nick,
You are not required to give up your bodily integrity to other entities ever. If your child needs blood, you don’t have to give it. If your child needs a kidney, you don’t have to give it. I don’t have to give my body over to a clump of cells.
As to the rest of your arguments, you can find a vast number of places on the internet where the pro-reproductive rights position is hashed out. None of your arguments are new; they are all refuted. If other people are interested in repeating themselves to you, then I wish them the best, but I will be confining my responses to those arguments which are actually related to the initial post.
You are not required to give up your bodily integrity to other entities ever
It’s a good point. I don’t buy the zygote-is-a-person argument, but suppose I’m wrong. Suppose, for the sake of the argument, there is a supernatural soul that enters the zygote at conception. (The questions of how twins form and of when exactly in the process of conception the soul-ification takes place are left as exercises for the alert reader.) Then…so what?
Consider an analogous situation. Suppose, one day, you were asked to volunteer as a potential stem cell donor*. To do this you would simply need to give a few drops of blood for analysis and be ready to undergo a procedure that would allow hematopoietic stem cells to be extracted from your peripheral blood if it were ever needed. You agree. Remember, this is voluntary. No one forced you to hold out your arm and let the needle be put in your vein. Maybe you got a cookie in compensation.
Several years later you get a call. Someone needs your stem cells. A stranger, not a relative, but one for whom you are the only possible donor. (This is not uncommon.) You agree and undergo gCSF priming, which allows the stem cells to go into the peripheral blood instead of staying in the bone marrow as they usually would (hence, the ability to collect them from the peripheral blood instead of having donors get 50 bone marrow biopsies to obtain enough stem cells…neat trick, huh?) All is well. You have no side effects and the stem cell collection starts without problem (this basically involves putting two needles into your arms and running the blood through a machine that collects the stem cells and sends everything else back into your body…much like platelet donation). But then, about half-way into the procedure, before the minimum number of cells needed has been collected, you suddenly panic and say, “Stop! I can’t do this.” What happens?
The answer is, the procedure stops. The blood bank staff might ask, “Are you sure?” and might try to cajole you into letting them collect at least a little more, but if you continued to insist, they stop. Even though the planned recipient will die without the stem cells. Even though you agreed to the procedure. Even though you accepted the cookie in “payment”. Even though you’ve already gone through the “dangerous” part**. It ends, because it’s your body and no one else has the right to demand its use. So if a clearly living, breathing, thinking person doesn’t have the right to demand 15 more minutes of your time and very, very mild discomfort to save him or her, why should a questionable person have the right to demand 9 months and a greater than 1 in 10,000 risk to your life?
*We’re talking about peripheral blood hematopoietic stem cell donation, here, not pluripotent stem cell donation. This is the procedure that used to be called “bone marrow donation”, but then people figured out how to get the same cells from the peripheral blood, which is safer, less painful, and actually produces better cells than the older procedure.
**Taking gCSF isn’t really dangerous. It occasionally causes a low grade fever and bone pain as the marrow expands. But I’ve never heard of anyone dying from donating peripheral blood stem cells or even bone marrow. Unlike pregnancy and delivery which kill hundreds of women in the US each year.
No Mythango, it doesn’t make me a misogynist any more than your statements make you a misandrist.
“I know you are but what am I?” stopped being a witty comeback line in third grade, Nick.
You’ve made it perfectly clear that your primary concern is slut-shaming. If you want to cop to being a misogynist too, that’s cool with me. All you’re really doing is reinforcing your original point–that abortion, in your view, is really wrong not because of baby-killing but because the women who get abortions are whores.
And since at least a quarter of women who get abortions are married, I’m fascinated that you sneer at a woman who makes love with her husband by suggesting that what she did was to “spread her legs”. Bad, bad girl!
“Why would you limit this to ‘pro-life’ parents. All parents are deeply saddened by the loss of their children.”
Are you seriously claiming that in your experience, there’s no difference between the behaviour of every woman who’s ever had a miscarriage, and that of a mother who lost a baby (say, to sickness or kidnapping)? If there is, what does that tell you?
“A agree that a brain is well developed in the womb.”
After seven months, yes, the parts of the brain fully separate into a brain we could recognizably call human.
“If a person hits the mother in the stomach causing her to miscarry, the penalty is a murder charge for that person. That was a good question.
Pregnant women are excluded from certain jobs. If a company is proven to help cause that miscarriage due to overwork or exposure to chemicals then yes they would also face charges. That is an excellent point.”
Yeah, yeah, the pro-life movement will get to this as well. As soon as they expend all their time and resources going after things that aren’t tangentially related to *murder*, such as birth control pills.
Wow, talking about this makes me want to go hand down condoms out by the Sunday school again.
Pregnant women are excluded from certain jobs. If a company is proven to help cause that miscarriage due to overwork or exposure to chemicals then yes they would also face charges.
Please cite a single criminal case where this is happened.
I think Nick means that the company in that case would face a lawsuit–although we know Nick thinks lawsuits are evil.
“I think Nick means that the company in that case would face a lawsuit–although we know Nick thinks lawsuits are evil.”
Yeah, most likely.
Nick, go back and refresh on the difference between civil and criminal trials, and why the former are not remotely relevant here.
Mythango, your comments are inappropriate. Please desist with the name calling and defamation.
I have made no such claim.
“Defamation”? I do not think that word means what you think it means. Or was that supposed to be some kind of scary, implied threat? If I don’t STFU you’ll sic a lawyer on me?
If you intended a neutral, factual meaning for “before she spread her legs”, please do enlighten us. Ditto for your snipping that the important issue is whether the corpse she’s mourning is intact. Otherwise, all I see is that you’re getting angry anyone dares to note your rather inconsistent outrage.
Defamation
Per the link (which I hope is accurate because I use that site for a lot of writing research), defamation is the issuance of a false statement about another person, which causes that person to suffer harm.
The false statement seems pretty obvious; Mythago has grossly mischaracterized Nick’s stated position. (She might be reading his mind accurately, but he hasn’t said what she’s claimed him as saying, and what she’s claimed him as saying is pretty shitty.)
The harm part is difficult to prove. Is Nick trying to get a job at a women’s center, and Mythago’s just torpedoed it? I doubt it, but it’s possible. I suppose there could be emotional harm.
It may not be defamation, but it is tiresome to see points of view childishly caricatured to the point of absurdity by people who ought to know better.
The guy who runs expertlaw.com is an old buddy, so you darn well better like his site.
I am puzzled as to how you think I have grossly, childishly, or otherwise mischaracterized Nick. I guess suggesting that a woman seeking an abortion chose to “spread her legs” is mature, thoughtful discourse about the value of an unborn child’s life, and anything said in opposition to that is unfair and best dealt with by a Robert-style stern finger-wagging.
EDIT: Oh, I see — I unfairly suggested that Nick thinks lawsuits are evil. If I have misstated your position on lawsuits (and, given the ‘defamation’ comment, I apparently have), I unreservedly apologize.
Robert, the defamation definition is a reasonably accurate for that particular tort.
Here’s the rub for a plaintiff – in order to prevail, a s/he has to prove each of the elements. (Damages in defamation cases are difficult to prove.)
Further, the defendant may prevail if s/he successfully rebuts with one / some of the defenses listed. In one of the defenses, from the site: “A defendant may also attempt to illustrate that the plaintiff had a poor reputation in the community, in order to diminish any claim for damages resulting from the defamatory statements.”
Here, the community is the commenters on this blog along with its authors.
No, Nick’s legs-spread comment was not mature, thoughtful discourse. But neither was it a statement that “abortion…is really wrong…because the women who get abortions are whores.”
I am not attempting to address the question of whether your statement was fair, or whether it needs one of my patented finger-wags. I was merely addressing the question of whether it was defamatory. It meets one part of that test; the other part, I can’t tell.
Oh, and please pass along my appreciation to your friend. His site made me a couple thousand dollars last week.
Bonnie – oh, I agree, he’d never have a cause for action. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t defamation; it means he couldn’t get it proved well enough to bother a court with it.
I wasn’t positing anything about whether or not he has a cause of action. I was merely discussing the tort of defamation.
Just want to be clear on that.
[Edited for clarity.]
Robert, you might have read the statement of the law, but your interpretation that one persons’s mischaracterization of another’s position might constitute the tort of defamation is incorrect. Defamation relates to untruthful statements about FACTS ONLY.
So in this case, Nick makes his/her “leg spreading” comment and mythago states that Nick is engaged in slut shaming. This is mythago’s interpretation of Nick’s statement. Neither the original statement nor the follow-up are premised on factual information about Nick.
Now, if I put out a statement that a well-known pro-lifer was just guilt tripping to cover up for the fact that she actually had an abortion herself . . . that would most likely be actionable. See the difference? (If mythago had said, “Nick said that women should be executed if they have an abortion,” that would be conveying a fact (what Nick actually said), so that might be actionable too.)
People shouldn’t be afraid of speaking in strong terms just because someone else might not like how they characterized their arguments, even if the characterization is inaccurate so long as it is clearly expressing an opinion. That’s not what defamation is about.
The short version is that it is an opinion. “Robert is a pompous, finger-wagging asshole” is not defamatory.
No, Nick’s legs-spread comment was not mature, thoughtful discourse. But neither was it a statement that “abortion…is really wrong…because the women who get abortions are whores.”
You’re right–I should have said ‘tramps’ or ‘sluts’, as nowhere did Nick imply that the sexually-misbehaving, worthless baby-killers were actually taking money for their disgusting choice to participate in sex.
Not to get too sidetracked by Nick’s obnoxious comment (that’s an opinion too, FWIW, in case you planned to sue me),
but language aside, isn’t it OK to point out that “no sex” = “no pregnancy?”
I mean hell, if my wife and I were in a situation where we absolutely, positively, 100%, unavoidably, would be screwed if we had another kid….. then I guess PIV sex would have to stop.
Obviously the choice would remain ours. After all, only we can do the balancing act for our own risk/benefit analysis.
If we lived in some “all unauthorized pregnancies shall result in death for the mother” state then we’d skip it entirely. If we lived in some “abortions are totally and horribly illegal” state then we’d balance the downsides of having another accidental kid against the downsides of an illegal abortion against the downsides of refraining from PIV sex.
Obviously that would suck for us, but it would also be possible.
I think it’s time to put the hammer down.
Debating abortion is not the topic of this thread, although I know you want it to be, Nick.
Nick, 1) you’re not a mod and 2) that’s not defamation.
There have been a lot of inappropriate comments here, and yours seem to boil down to “My position is totally consistent, because women who have abortions are horrible babykillerz,” without actually addressing the inconsistencies Amp (and many, many others) have brought up in your position.
Although I think that at this point there’s an element of closing the barn door after the cow’s gone, I really don’t care. I think the point of the original post is interesting, and I don’t want to see it missed or deliberately obfuscated.
Thus, Nick: Stick to the topic or stop posting. This is your only warning.
—Myca
On topic then:
I wonder if there’s a way to distinguish between a desire to punish women for wanting to have sex, versus punishing people for wanting have sex. (I am not sure I’m correct, but aren’t a lot of these folks generally against non-procreative sex overall?)
The only link I can think of at the moment, that might work, is child support. Child support laws primarily “punish men” financially*, while anti-abortion laws “punish women” physically. Unequal punishment may be proof of motive.
(I am thinking as I’m typing so forgive me if this is a bit straggly)
If a person supports strong child support laws and strong antiabortion laws, then it’s not clear that the anti-abortion stuff is misogynistic in nature. That doesn’t mean that they’re acting to preserve life (they may just want to punish all nonprocreative sex.) But it does suggest that they’re interested in making both sexes liable for the “mistake” of the “wrong” sexual encounters. Ridiculous though that may seem.
However, if they support strong antiabortion laws but weak child support laws, this suggests that they are primarily interested in punishing women who have sex, as opposed to pe0ple who have sex.
Does this make sense? It’s similar to the consistency arguments applied to the prolife claim.
If you’re really prolife and not anti-woman, then you’d exhibit other traits that were prolife but which didn’t screw over women.
And if you were really not targeting sex by women but were “merely” targeting non-procreative sex, then you would exhibit other traits which supported that.
So, Nick: What’s your position on child support?
*yes: Not ALL child support payors are men. But most of them are.
Interesting points, Sailorman.
I don’t think that the argument holds true in all cases, and also that it’s mostly one way (since there are plenty of reasons for supporting child support other than punishing non-procreative sex), but this can serve as sort of a useful shorthand.
—Myca
Obviously there are other reasons for being in favor of strong child support laws. But those, too, are subject to consistency analysis.
I’m also imagining a stance on individual-liability laws. People who support higher taxes to provide lots of government child support are sort of in a different category.
Oh, absolutely agreed.
I don’t know if I think child support is punishment.
Does it have to be either or? can you think both that the fetus is a separate life AND that people (especially women) need to be punished for premarital sex? I know some of the pro-life movement wants to incentivize personal behavior by making the consequences worse. (e.g. the HPV vaccine). But can they think both at the same time?
(edited to be more on topic. )
oooooo, I’m going to regret the mention of child support, aren’t I. Myca, sorry if it side tracks; Mandolin, I won’t respond here. Perhaps a new “can child support technically be classified as punishment?” thread would head it off early?
Joe, I think you’ve hit on something important there. I believe the answer to your first question is “Yes;” however, I would go so far as to strike the word “premarital.”
In essence, if the anti-choice movement is in fact about completely outlawing abortion, then all women, married or not, who have PIV sex could face an unwanted pregnancy.
Your second paragraph [which you just removed in your editing – doh] is right on point, and focuses tidily on the essence of the discussion. There are two distinct arguments concerning unwanted pregnancy and abortion, and ne’er the twain shall meet.
Pro-choice people frame the argument in terms of a woman’s right to choose. Period. Her body, her choices.
Anti-choice people frame the argument in terms of when does a human life begin. For them, the earlier that point, the greater their moral arguments against abortion. The woman who is pregnant thus becomes in effect a non-entity in the equation of any unwanted pregnancy.
One discussion revolves around women’s agency. The other discussion revolves around taking of human life. Those two discussions cannot meet and have any sort of outcome, rational or otherwise.
So in answer to the blog post’s question, yes, the anti-choicers really believe that abortion is murder. And further, given the arguments I have read here and elsewhere, they believe that a woman should face consequences for having sex (i.e., she shoulda thoughta that “before she spread her legs”). Finally, given responses in the “Men’s Rights Myth: Typical Child Support Payments Are Insanely High” thread, it seems to me that (1) certain anti-choicers actually do believe that child support is punishment* meted out to men, which leads me to conclude (2) that, although the anti-choicers believe women should suffer consequences for engaging in sex in that they must bear a child, they do not believe that men should suffer consequences of paying child support for a child they helped create.
—–
* I do not at all support the notion that child support is punishment. Child support is the law’s way of enforcing a policy of making sure that parents, not society at large, financially support children. That is an appropriate remedy.
[Edited.]
but language aside
“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln….”
BTW, refraining from PIV sex is not 100% proof against pregnancy.
Bonnie, I pulled part of my comment because it was about abortion rights in general and not the topic of the post.
Also, while I’m sure there’s some overlap. I don’t think MRA’s and Pro-Lifers are the same group. But I’m not that well informed about MRA’s so I could be wrong.
Sailorman, I’m mostly in agreement, though I wouldn’t characterize child support payments, if and when judges overstep their bounds, as punishment for *sex* so much as *divorce* – though opposition to both probably stem from the same place. And Bonnie, I don’t think anyone is arguing that child support itself is bad – I have seen evidence, if only anecdotal, of a minority of child support decisions where the intent was clearly punitive, for no other reason than the divorce itself. People who get divorced are assumed to be less moral.
I also think that feminist language normalizes the anti-sex brigade as being pro-sex for men, but who exactly believes this? Conservative Christians are pretty much anti-sex across the board, and they have the command, the warroom, and all the badged positions in the anti-sex brigade. The 20-something clueless Republican frat boy is the guy on all fours scrubbing the mess hall for Randall Terry.
joe, if you (this is the general ‘you’) believe the fetus to be a separate *human* life, your positions should match accordingly. For instance, you can oppose premarital sex all you like, but if you’re willing to accept more murders of human beings so that premarital sex can be in some piecemeal way discouraged, I’d question as to whether you actually believe the former to be human beings – as is the case with dissemination of condoms and birth control, for instance.
Also, for the most part, our customs reflect the belief that fetii are not yet full human beings. If you truly believed otherwise, you should work to change all the consequences of this ingrained prejudice, not just as it pertains to abortion. Most notably, the way we look as spontaneous miscarriage will have to change, as I’ve gone over already in this thread.
I mean hell, if my wife and I were in a situation where we absolutely, positively, 100%, unavoidably, would be screwed if we had another kid….. then I guess PIV sex would have to stop.
In that situtation, it might be better to go for the tubal ligation or even the hysterectomy. Deciding to stop PIV sex doesn’t protect your wife from pregnancy due to rape and doesn’t stop the two of you from deciding that it couldn’t hurt “just this once”. Or from having sperm end up in vagina through any number of unlikely but quite possible accidents. And it assumes that your relationship could stand the strain of not having PIV when you both want it. All things considered, wouldn’t it be better for you, her, and your marriage to accept that the remote possibility that she might need an abortion some day under exceptional circumstances exists and live with the risk?
Ya know, if someone thinks I’m going to go through 9 months of pregnancy and then go through labor because THEY think it’s murder/wrong/selfish, they need an ego check. They also need to explain why they’re so special I should give a shit what they think. Unless you’re the one I’m having sex with, your opinion on it matters less than if a strangers dog walked up to me and offered its opinion.
And I’m sorry, but selfish? Pffft. So what?
You think it’s muder? So? I think looking at my tits without verbal permission is sexual assault. So there you go.
You think its wrong? Sucks for you then huh.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not inclined to listen to anti abortion arguements from people who have yet to establish why I should give a damn about their opinion in the first place.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not inclined to listen to anti abortion arguements from people who have yet to establish why I should give a damn about their opinion in the first place.
That’s why we have laws (and argue about what they should be); to determine whose opinions get backed up by men with guns, and whose opinions don’t.
Sounds like a pretty straightforward, if roughly worded, libertarian argument.
Frankly, Im sick of the whole ” well I think abortion is murder” and “I think abortion is wrong”, because personally, I didnt ask you did I? I dont care. Its that simple. I do not care about the opinions of anyone I do not ask. If I did care, I’d have asked. If it was important or relevant to me in any way, again, I’d have asked. Anti abortion people must think highly of themselves, because they feel entitled to walk their nosey asses up to me on my way into the clinic (to get BC not that it matters) and express their opinions. Who gives a shit what you think?
And yes, I had to deal with nosey ass people today who are under the delusion that I give a shit about them, their opinions or their beliefs.
Frankly, Im sick of the whole ” well I think abortion is murder” and “I think abortion is wrong”, because personally, I didnt ask you did I? I dont care. Its that simple. I do not care about the opinions of anyone I do not ask.
Right. That’s what the men with guns are FOR–to make you care.
Unless they’re shoving those guns up their own asses, I still dont care. And Id only care about THAT because of the entertainment value.
Guns don’t make you care, Sam. They just make you do what the men with guns tell you.
While they’re watching at any rate.
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I am pro-life. I don’t want to punish women for sex. I want to punish men for sex. As long as women are a riskless source of amusement for men and babies don’t exist in men’s minds, men will think as many did in the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s that women are stupid and insane or immature for not being available enough, often enough, wildly enough, intensley enough, to satisfy the overwrought desires of men who are distorted by a lifetime of addiction to overstimulation. This results in almost sex slavery, a level of pressure to be ALWAYS sexual, NEVER maternal, NEVER just out of season at the time, NEVER morally concerned, NEVER spiritually concerned, that destroys women inside. i grew up around men like that and I want them to grow up now. I want them to acknowledge their children, born and preborn. I want them to vaccinate their own bodies against viruses it’s mostly their idea to spread in the first place. I want them to be under severe social pressure from the first date to pony up for their kids or keep that zipper where it belongs.
First off, I think you’re a troll. I think your beliefs are not what you claim. I think you’re being disengenuous.
The reason I think this is that the view of feminism you claim is man-hating — which itself is odd, but this particular view is man-hating in an extremely simplistic, battle of the sexes, WOMENZ MUST WANT TO TAKE OVER way. It also treats the sole battleground of the battle of the sexes as women’s bodies, considering forced pregnancy to be an acceptable pawn to sacrifice in the greater good of some bizarre chess move that in this distorted vision (which is not real) would advance womankind above menkind.
I think you are a pro-life troll trying to concoct reasoning you think will be persuasive to feminists, while completely misunderstanding the concepts of reproductive rights and feminism.
“I don’t want to punish women for sex. I want to punish men for sex.”
This being an either/or, I presume.
“This results in almost sex slavery, a level of pressure to be ALWAYS sexual, NEVER maternal, NEVER just out of season at the time, NEVER morally concerned, NEVER spiritually concerned, that destroys women inside.”
Ehh. Men have been pressuring women for more sex since our mammoth hunting days. Women have been and continue to be as maternal, morally concerned, and spiritually concerned as ever – even those who do the grown up once in a while.
Just to clarify, I have had an abortion, and I am not OK with it. I grieved and mourned when I realized I wasn’t a mother anymore and that I couldn’t undo it.
As to whether childcare or sex activity is worse for 13-year-old girls, I can tell you that I for one enjoyed and I think benefitted from some contact with little kids as a young girl. In history, most girls cared for children younger than they were for many years before they became sexually “active” and usually volunteered for the job at least sometimes. A girl’s nurturing instinct is a long way ahead of her sexual development almost always, from what I’ve observed. Of course being a mother is not like being a big sister, but a very young mother usually has her own parents’ help and care for the first several years. However, the men who are having sex with kids really should be punished and made to face the truth of their crime. Punishing the babies makes less sense than any other option.
I was much more liberal several years ago. Life has changed me. I knew so many girls who had sex just to get pregnant or just to please men or just to fit in or just because they had been told so often that it was inevitable and they wanted to get it over with. I watched the emotional havoc of abortion and abandonment on teenage girls. Seriously, how many of us actually did it because we wanted to in those early years? And I have seen the effect of early motherhood range from about as bad as being sexually exploited in the first place to no obvious difference to a sort of eventual healing as the love of a child meets the development of the mother. And growing up without a father is really painful. I know.
“I knew so many girls who had sex just to get pregnant or just to please men or just to fit in or just because they had been told so often that it was inevitable and they wanted to get it over with.”
With this, I’m in perfect agreement, serena. I’ve got nothing against teenage individuals having sexual relations. But I’ve got a real beef with “teen sex”. I think you’ll find that most liberal-minded people such as myself will agree with conservatives on this. Hell, from my experience, even most teens will be on board.
The problem is, most attempts to attack this problem always end up doing a lot of collateral damage to the private, autonomous lives of adults – and not always by coincidence. To target kids specifically, we’ll have to drastically change the way our schools are run, and that includes getting rid of a lot of the cute little John Hughes mythologies we have about it.
I advocate a much harder tack on bullying – if girls fear getting socially ostracized, would-be social ostracizers simply have to have someone else to fear more. It is noteworthy that American schools are much more rigidly hierarchical in their social pecking order than schools in Europe. Not surprisingly, America has a greater problem with teen sex and school shootings.
Most of the “pro-life” can best be called pro-_misery._ Seeking to block access to abortion while simultaneously opposing contraception and sex education (and, at the lunatic fringe, the anti-intellect “You only need one Book!” crowd) is consistent with a desire to increase the amount of misery in the world. In other words, it’s just plain EVIL.
Did anyone see this video with anti-abortion protesters being questioned about punishment?
Then Anna Quindlen wrote a column about it and then National Review posted some chain symposium statements to try to debunk it.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjkwNWQ4ZDQ2NTljNDg4MjUyYWIxZWQ0NDVjMTkxYjg=
The equivocation gets boring after a while.
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The Welfare one seems like a stretch (most people don’t make the connection,) but I’m inclined to agree with the rest. Thats not to say that no one opposes abortion on the murder ground and is genuine; there are definitely people who believe that. Its just that a suspiciously high amount seem to be of the philosophy “well she deserves it; if she doesn’t want a baby just don’t do anything that will make one you slut”
“Nah, it’s not about punishing girls for getting pregnant. I’m just sayin’ if she didn’t want to get pregnant, she shouldn’t have sex; it’s that simple. She consented to the sex, so she consented to the consequences, right?”
Do we think that assumption of risk equal consent? For example, Sarah Palin agreed to have amniocentesis before giving birth to her fifth child, even though it involved assuming a risk of triggering a miscarriage. If the miscarriage had occurred, would we say that she had consented to it? Similarly, a guy who is mugged while walking through a crime-infested neighborhood to work will probably not be accused of “consenting” to the mugging.
Law professor Sherry F. Colb argues that people’s willingness to make judgments about consent is heavily bound up with our judgments about the merits of the underlying risky activity. Thus, a person who goes bankrupt after trying to build a restaurant is regarded differently than a person who goes bankrupt at the casino – even though the odds of success may well have been the same.
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I simply have noticed the tenor of people’s comments in relation to their references on the other side.
If you decide to post and desire to refer to those opposed to abortion as Anti-Choice instead of Pro-life, the name they call themselves, you may want to rethink your post.
Everyone has the right to their opinion without name calling. I am not stating my position on the issue of abortion, but I find it interesting that Anti-Choice appears many times but Pro-death or Pro-“murder” has not appeared anywhere.
If we want people of differing opinions to respect us, we must first show mutual dignity and find common ground from which to build on.
Eric: Interesting comment. Why do you object to being called anti-choice? You are against taking the choice of how to deal with a pregnancy away from women, aren’t you? If you really believe your motives to be pure and the right to that choice wrong, why do you object to being described as “anti-choice”? Well, ok, it is far too broad a characterization. How do you feel about being called anti-reproductive freedom? Or anti-reproductive choice?
Here’s what I want to ask:
I just arrived on this debate. Has Eric read the chart?
Perhaps I can believe that some pro-lifers are genuine….but looking at the chart, I have to say, even if they internally believe what they say, they have a bad habit of externally acting out just the thing that alas accuses them of: that at the end of the day, the pro-life agenda is about punishing women for sex (even if they don’t carry that belief in their heads)
er…pro-lifers?…want to rebut this?