Via Mahablog and Lawyers Guns And Money, I read this interesting Washington Post article about a split in the “pro-life” movement over the “Partial Birth Abortion” ban.
What’s interesting is that some of the pro-lifers are admitting to the truth about the Partial Birth Abortion ban (PBA ban) — truths that leaders of the pro-life movement have been blatantly lying about for years. In this story, pro-lifers admit:
- That a PBA ban will not prevent a single abortion.
- That the alternative procedures are more dangerous for women.
- That some alternative procedures doctors will use now are if anything more brutal from a fetus-centric point of view.
- That PBA bans have nothing to do with reducing abortion and everything to do with fundraising and Republicans winning elections.
It’s refreshing to read pro-life leaders finally (albeit temporarily) telling the truth.
The most appalling quote comes from the vice president of Focus on the Family, Tom Minnery, arguing in favor of the PBA ban. It’s nothing we didn’t already suspect, but it’s amazing that Minnery was careless enough to say it in pubilc:
“The old procedure, which is still legal, involves using forceps to pull the baby apart in utero, which means there is greater legal liability and danger of internal bleeding from a perforated uterus. So we firmly believe there will be fewer later-term abortions as a result of this ruling.”
For years pro-lifers have been pushing the same lie: they’ve claimed1 that a procedure that involves inserting forceps into a woman’s uterus as many as a dozen times over (a standard D&E) has no greater chance of causing injury than a procedure which requires only a single insertion (a D&X, which is more-or-less the procedure that’s been banned by the Partial Birth Abortion ban).2
Now Focus on the Family’s man in charge of policy not only admits that was a lie, but suggests that increased risk to women is a benefit: the “greater danger of internal bleeding from a perforated uterus” is good, because it might discourage some “later-term”3 abortions.
As Scott at Lawyers, Guns and Money writes:
As you can see, most anti-choicers (despite the bad faith Congressional findings that 2+2=171) don’t really think that these bans on a safer procedure protect women’s physical health. They simply believe that women can’t be trusted to make judgments about their own lives, and if this causes some women to be seriously injured that’s a feature, not a bug. It’s almost impossible to overstate how disgusting this legislation is, and how deeply entwined outright misogyny is with the American “pro-life” movement.
Although Minnery is correct to say that the ban he and his movement favor puts women in danger, I doubt there will be any less abortion as a result. Chuck Donovan of the pro-life Family Research Council is probably right when he says “there may not be even one fewer abortion in the country as a result” of the PBA ban — but note that he’s only admitting that now that the PBA ban has been made law. For years, contrary to what Donovan now admits, pro-life leaders have been claiming — ridiculously — that the partial-birth abortion ban would save little baby lives (all the better to pry open the wallets of the pro-life rank and file). And the vast majority of pro-lifers in this country, who are either totally amoral about lying or complete dupes of their leadership, have been content to let them get away with it.
Now some in the pro-life movement — although no one as major league as Focus On The Family or the Family Research Council — are complaining about the constant lying about this issue by pro-lifer leaders. From “An Open Letter To James Dobson”:
Dr. Dobson, you mislead Christians claiming this ruling will “protect children.” The court granted no authority to save the life of even a single child…. Your correspondence department… told us that with this PBA ruling, “The U.S. Supreme Court made it illegal for women to have an abortion in the last trimester.” Online at KGOV.com, we also document other pro-life media outlets misrepresenting this vicious ruling. Following your example, many national ministries have spent years using the PBA ban to motivate financial donations, all the while misrepresenting the legal effect of the ban. Today millions of Christians, including your own staff, have been deceived. …The court explicitly stated the PBA ban “does not on its face impose a substantial obstacle” to “late-term” abortion (p. 26). And since this ban cannot prevent a single abortion, of course, it imposes no obstacle, and neither does it “protect children” (your words) or ban “abortion in the last trimester” (words offered by some of your staff).
More pro-life dissidents, quoted in the Washington Post article:
Rev. Bob Enyart, a Christian talk radio host and pastor of the Denver Bible Church, said the real issue is fundraising. “Over the past seven years, the partial-birth abortion ban as a fundraising technique has brought in over a quarter of a billion dollars” for major antiabortion groups, “but the ban has no authority to prevent a single abortion, and pro-life donors were never told that,” he said. “That’s why we call it the pro-life industry.”
In Rohrbough’s view, partisan politics is also involved. “What happened in the abortion world is that groups like National Right to Life, they’re really a wing of the Republican Party, and they’re not geared to push for personhood for an unborn child — they’re geared to getting Republicans elected,” he said. “So we’re seeing these ridiculous laws like the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban put forward, and then we’re deceived about what they really do.”
But despite this deep split within the pro-life movement, rest assured that there are some things that they all have in common. For instance, the way that virtually all of these pro-life spokespeople are men. For another, the way that none of them ever express the slightest concern for women’s health or well-being. So you see, they agree on the fundamentals.
More blogging on this story: Our Bodies Our Selves, Feministing, Balkinization,A Foolish Consistency, Dizzy Dayz, Political Animal, and Ryoga. And the aforementioned Mahablog and Lawyers, Guns and Money. And (edited to add) The Debate Link, The Thinkery, Fattmixx, Bligbi, RH Reality Check, Pseudo-Adrienne, The Carpetbagger Report, Obsidian Wings, and Pandagon.
- See, for example, the text of the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban, which explicitly claims “partial birth” abortions are never safer. [↩]
- This article, via Mahablog, describes other ways doctors are experimenting with possibly less safe procedures in order to avoid breaking the new law. [↩]
- In fact, as Mahablog points out, most uses of the now-banned D&X procedure take place pre-viability, and would be more accurately described as “mid-term” than “late-term” abortions. [↩]
“monogamous folks] are better at adjusting to [unwanted pregnancies], are more of a mindset to adjust to them, and more likely to have access to resources than singles in short-term non-exclusive relationships will.”
But there will certainly be monogamous folks (like myself) who DO NOT have access to appropriate resources to handle another pregnancy – which means safe, legal abortion is necessary to the survival of my family should birth control measures fail. So, if even the people in the “morally good” category might still need access to abortion, abortion access is still needed.
If you want to discuss the liklihood of reducing the # of abortions that occur, then as others have suggested, comprehensive sex education and available contraceptives are the best way to do that.
If all you want is for people who have unplanned pregnancies to suffer the consequences then you are dooming a lot of families to a terrible fate.
“Vehicle-related deaths and damage don’t just occur as a result of their own actions, but from circumstances beyond their control as well. “
Rape.
Now, don’t you feel like an asshole?
No. I don’t understand the connection between what I said and what you said. I support making contraception, safe sex education and safe abortion available for many reasons, including rape. I argue that this becomes easier to afford as the incidence of long-term, monogamous relationships rises, and becomes harder to afford as the incidence of long-term, monogamous relationships diminishes, for many reasons. I’m not sure how this argument translates into ‘let’s take the air bags out of cars’.
Difficult to reconcile this with your statement as quoted above. If you don’t intend to give your moral views the force law, why would anyone feel the need to move from the polities where your “cultural change” has taken place? Or are you saying that legal codification would wait upon unanimous consent? That is a fabulation no more credible today than at the time of Plymouth Plantation. If, in fact, you do not intend to outlaw what you consider to be “murder”, it makes rather a hash of your complaints about forced complicity.
Christian, in attacking the parallel between auto safety and sex safety, you said that vehicular accidents didn’t just occur as a result of the participants’ own actions — which is meaningless unless you say it to imply that negative safety outcomes from sex do occur just as a result of the participants’ own safety. But that’s patently and obviously untrue. Rape is the counterexample. Therefore, your failed distinction further underlines, rather than detracts from, the parallel. Also, failing to acknowledge the existence of rape in a discussion of why women need contraception and abortion rights is disrespectful to all women, and particularly callous towards rape survivors: hence “don’t you feel like an asshole.”
Moving on to the larger point, you’re not actually opposed to comprehensive sex ed, contraception, or abortion … so, what, you just want to point out that reducing one’s sexual partners to none or one is an additional way to reduce the risks of disease and unwanted pregnancy?
Here, let me take care of that for you:
HEY EVERYONE! REDUCING YOUR SEXUAL PARTNERS TO NONE OR ONE IS AN ADDITIONAL WAY TO REDUCE THE RISKS OF DISEASE AND UNWANTED PREGNANCY! THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!
Happy?
Kate: If all you want is for people who have unplanned pregnancies to suffer the consequences then you are dooming a lot of families to a terrible fate.
That’s not what I want at all, but our safety net is not unlimited and certain behaviors reduce the demands on it. Safe sex and contraception are two of them, I agree, but monogamy and long-term relationships do also, and I believe, affect society positively on many other levels as well. In conjunction, these forces are more effective at promoting health and social stability than either.
Happy?
Not really. If we agree that this behavior reduces the risk of disease and unwanted pregnancy I’ll let the discussion stand there. Make of it what you will, I won’t ask you to call it ‘moral’ or ‘a good idea’.
I’d like to know how it is that Christian and Robert have so glibly concluded that unwanted pregnancies are better dealt with in monogamous marital relationships. I’d like proof. I’d like to know what proportion of divorces are precipitated by the extra financial burden placed on families due to unplanned children. Divorce is a way of coping. Not the way you want, but it’s probably no accident (pun intended) that the divorce rate is highest in those places where people marry and reproduce young. You guys sure have a rose colored image of marriage and its ability to survive unplanned for and unwanted events.
Which takes me to my next point: As Thomas keeps trying to say (I think) by and large, we are not a society that finds tragic outcomes to be acceptable much less desirable, even if they were foreseeable and avoidable. We try to overcome human frailty, and in general, rescue a bad situation from becoming worse. One could even argue that we go too far in this direction: one could plausibly maintain that it is pointless to treat much less research and try to cure lung cancer when 80% or more of it is totally avoidable, so why not plow those dollars into prevention or other illnesses that are not preventable?
Because that’s not who we are. And that’s why this “you broke it you bought it” line of argument with pregnancy and abortion is so grating to most of us. It’s asking us to be someone we aren’t because it offends your moral code for us to be who we are.
“That’s not what I want at all, but our safety net is not unlimited and certain behaviors reduce the demands on it. Safe sex and contraception are two of them, I agree, but monogamy and long-term relationships do also, and I believe, affect society positively on many other levels as well. In conjunction, these forces are more effective at promoting health and social stability than either.”
It’s really nice to know that because my husband and I are married, we have stability and resources . Great.
Oh, wait. we don’t. And being married has neither helped nor hindered the circumstances in the least (except having another person to suffer with/bitch at).
The point I am trying to make and that you keep dancing around is that monogamous long term relationships, while I think they are good, hence being in one, do NOT fix very real problems that might make people not want to have more children. I mean, I’m glad I married my husband, I love him and all, and I hope one day this will all be but a distant memory, but what a second child would do to my family right now is disasterous. No one who knew my individual circumstances would hesitate to admit that. Thus, unless we decide to just abstain from sex, despite taking necessary precautions, there is a chance (however small) that I could get pregnant. If that were to happen, I am VERY glad that a safe, legal abortion is available to me. I’d prefer not to need one of course, but if I got pregnant I would need it – for the good of my family. You seem to be insinuating that marriage (or a similar longterm monogamous relationship) is what provides stability and resources necessary for families. While that is true to an extent, it’s not everything. And thus, access to safe legal abortions is a good thing for us married gals as well as single women and well, just about any other woman who decides that’s what is best.
“I’d like to know how it is that Christian and Robert have so glibly concluded that unwanted pregnancies are better dealt with in monogamous marital relationships. I’d like proof. I’d like to know what proportion of divorces are precipitated by the extra financial burden placed on families due to unplanned children. Divorce is a way of coping. Not the way you want, but it’s probably no accident (pun intended) that the divorce rate is highest in those places where people marry and reproduce young. You guys sure have a rose colored image of marriage and its ability to survive unplanned for and unwanted events.”
Thank you Barbara. I have been trying to say this – you did it much better.
It’s really nice to know that because my husband and I are married, we have stability and resources . Great.
More that you would each have alone.
Oh, wait. we don’t. And being married has neither helped nor hindered the circumstances in the least (except having another person to suffer with/bitch at)
If the only benefit to your marriage is that you have company in misery it’s still helped you both.
I’d like to know how it is that Christian and Robert have so glibly concluded that unwanted pregnancies are better dealt with in monogamous marital relationships. I’d like proof.
You want me to prove that two can handle a burden better than one?
Christian, you seem to be assuming that any relationship is happy, supportive, or at the least, net positive. As we all know, that’s not how life works, esp. w/r/t unexpected pregnancies.
So either your definition of “monogamous relationships” is ACTUALLY one that means “monogamous, supportive, sharing, relationships” or something else is missing.
Perhaps this is it: “If the only benefit to your marriage is that you have company in misery it’s still helped you both.”
Huh?
If the marriage makes you miserable, how is it helping?
I suspect that happiness is irrelevant since the institution is supposedly ordained by God. Sacremental logic.
Christian, did you miss the part where I announced in all caps that:
REDUCING YOUR SEXUAL PARTNERS TO NONE OR ONE IS AN ADDITIONAL WAY TO REDUCE THE RISKS OF DISEASE AND UNWANTED PREGNANCY
?
Because I think that this is the same as saying that it “reduces the risk of disease and unwanted pregnancy.” Using the same words, even, but without the infinitive.
I didn’t even qualify it with ceteris paribus, because for once I decided not to be pedantic. So instead, I find that my interlocutor can read and simply chooses not to.
So either your definition of “monogamous relationships” is ACTUALLY one that means “monogamous, supportive, sharing, relationships” or something else is missing.
I don’t assume every relationship is happy. But long term and monogamous usually implies supportive and sharing. Longevity and sexual fidelity is seldom lavished on unsupportive, selfish relationships.
If the marriage makes you miserable, how is it helping?
She didn’t claim the marriage made her miserable, she claimed the marriage neither helped nor harmed their situation except that they both had someone to commiserate with about their misery. As little as that is, it’s better than nothing. If she meant ‘the marriage makes them miserable’ I agree, it’s probably not helping, but I never suggested marriage or monogamy guaranteed a good outcome, any more than having an airbag will guarantee your survival in a car crash. It’s still usually a good idea to have one. And safe sex ed, and condoms, etc.
Christian, did you miss the part where I announced in all caps that:
REDUCING YOUR SEXUAL PARTNERS TO NONE OR ONE IS AN ADDITIONAL WAY TO REDUCE THE RISKS OF DISEASE AND UNWANTED PREGNANCY
?
I noticed. I accepted that we agree that it has that effect and decided that was sufficient.
If you don’t intend to give your moral views the force law, why would anyone feel the need to move from the polities where your “cultural change” has taken place?
How many abortion clinics do you expect to find in a place where 95% of the population won’t have an abortion?
This, of course, is a non-answer. Would such clinics be legal or not in your “moral” utopia? Likewise we both know that your “moral” prejudices aren’t limited to abortion. Would divorce be legal or illegal? Sex outside of marriage? Adultery? Homosexuality? Would you restrict access to your little utopia to those who share its values? How would you handle the dissent that demographic change would inevitably engender? The history of such “moral” experiments is not encouraging on this score.
You assert that you don’t advocate giving your “moral” values the force of law. At the same time, you claim that accomodation or compromise with the differing moral values of others implicates you in their immorality. Further, you explicitly invoked the legal/political means of Federalism as a way of establishing your “moral” utopia. If you refuse to demonstrate how you reconcile these conflicting positions, it can be assumed that you can’t reconcile them. At such a point it becomes not only valid but necessary to question whether or not you actually mean what you say.
The only way to avoid that unpleasant necessity is for you to answer the questions raised, rather than engaging in rhetorical dodges.
17% of abortions in the US are married women.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/06/2/gr060210.html – Link to the Guttmacher institute.
From the article: “Pregnancy in Marriage
Of the three million pregnancies to married women each year, three in 10 are unintended…
…and four in 10 unintended pregnancies to married women each year end in abortion.
——————————————————————————–
Source: Henshaw SK, Unintended pregnancy in the United States, Family Planning Perspectives, 1998, 30(1):24-29 & 46.
——————————————————————————–
More than six in 10 married women experiencing an unintended pregnancy carry their pregnancies to term. Two-thirds of women experiencing these 580,000 unintended births had hoped to wait longer before having their first child or next child; one-third had not intended to have a child at all, either because they had already achieved their desired family size or they wanted to remain childless.
However, a large proportion of married women choose not to continue their pregnancy. In fact, almost four in 10 of the unintended pregnancies that occur to married women end in abortion (see chart, below), resulting in 345,000 abortions to married women each year. All in all, 17% of abortions in the United States occur to married women.”
If almost 1/5 of abortions occur to married women, I suspect that the institution of marriage is not quite as much of a deterrant to abortion as Christian and Robert are speculating. Indeed, 37% of married women with unintended pregnancies choose to abort.
Additionally, abortion rates overall “Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion.” So of ALL unintended pregnancies (whether to married women or unmarried women), 4/10 end in abortion. That looks surprisingly similar to the # of abortions that married women with unintended pregnancies have. Hmmmmm.
Also interesting: “On average, women give four reasons for choosing abortion. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.” Three out of 4 of those reasons have nothing whatsoever to do with being a single parent. The first three reasons can happen to married woman with as much regularity as unmarried women.
My point here is that although single women are more likely to have abortions than married women (from the same link, 2/3 of abortions occur to never married women), married women choose abortion for unintended pregnancies as often as women overall. If 17% of abortions occur to married women, I submit that marriage is not safe haven for unintended pregnancies that Christian and Robert believe.
And for the record, no my marriage isn’t miserable, the financial status is. And while yes, misery loves company, the support we get from one another is not enough to make me want to have another child right now should an unintended pregnancy occur. In fact, nothing short of winning the lottery would make me carry to term an unintended pregnancy right now – married or unmarried.
Another link to fact sheet at Guttmacher Institute: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
ETA: I LOVE the edit function!
Excellent and informative post Kate. However , I doubt it will have much effect on arguments that are idealistic rather than fact based.
Kate, while I agree entirely with your argument, I have to take issue with your math.
Additionally, abortion rates overall “Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion.” So of ALL unintended pregnancies (whether to married women or unmarried women), 4/10 end in abortion.
Round that “nearly half” up to half just to simplify. Forty percent (4/10) of 50 percent is 20 percent, or 2/10.
How many abortion clinics do you expect to find in a place where 95% of the population won’t have an abortion?
How large is the population? If we’re talking about a population the size of, say, the New York metro area (20 million) then that means that around 1 million people will have an abortion, so I’d certainly expect at least several clinics to handle the load. Exactly how many depends on if that 5% who will have an abortion have one in a lifetime or one a year…and if the other 95% really don’t have abortions or just don’t want to publically admit that they do (as a number of pro-life women seem to.)
Lu, I’m not sure I understand you. This statement: “Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion” is from the article on the guttmacher website. It’s saying that half of all pregnancies are unplanned. The other half of pregnancies are unlikely to end in abortion, since they were planned it is logical women would carry to term, so they are basically irrelevant to discussions of abortion of unplanned pregnancies.
Of those unplanned pregnancies (which is indeed only 1/2 of all pregnancies) approximately 40% end in abortion (4 in 10). That is the number of abortions that occur to ALL unplanned pregnancies (so it includes married women with single women). While I agree that the comparison between abortions that occur to married women with unplanned pregnancies (37%) would be more compelling if the other piece was termination of unplanned pregnancies of single women, I couldn’t find that data. I’ll look again, maybe it’s there. Anyway, it’s still tell that overall, women with unplanned pregnancies choose to abort approximately 40% of the time. Married women with unplanned pregnancies choose to abort 37% of the time. Those are remarkably similar numbers that suggest perhaps that being married isn’t quite as strong of a deterrant to abortion as others are arguing.
Aw, geez. For some reason I read that as “40% of half of unplanned pregnancies.”
[Emily Litella]Oh. Never mind.[/Litella]
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On the subject of whether pro-choice policies are coercive of pro-lifers:
I don’t find the case that merely permitting abortion is coercive of pro-lifers to be very persuasive. However, there are policies (and norms) pro-choicers tend to favor (or would favor if they thought it was politically feasible to impose them) that really are coercive of pro-lifers. Among them:
* using tax dollars to pay for abortions;
* forcing medical professionals who provide care to pregnant women to provide/refer women to service providers who provide/provide advice regarding abortion services;
* requiring private health insurance companies to cover abortions; and
* socially stigmatizing people who express opposition to abortion rights or counsel women not to have abortions because they think it’s immoral. That’s just social pressure, not government action, but we feminists should be well aware that social norms can be every bit as coercive as government action.
Of course not every pro-choicer favors every one of these policies, or even any of them, but I think it’s safe to say that the organized pro-choice movement would be happy to pursue any and all of them if they thought it was feasible. And all of them, to a greater or lesser degree, involve imposing our worldview on pro-lifers, though not to the same extent that a total abortion ban would impose their worldview on us.
So basically I think this popular idea that they want to impose their worldview on us, but we don’t want to impose ours on them, is a mistake. Gay rights is the same way: merely banning sodomyrepealing sodomy laws and permitting state recognition of same-sex marriage doesn’t involve an imposition of our worldview on others, imho. But requiring private parties not to discriminate against gays or to treat same-sex marriages as equivalent to mixed-sex marriages really is coercive. Likewise with stigmatizing people who are actively anti-gay.