I’m currently in Florida, visiting my parents and feeling oh so sorry for my housemates stuck back in the cold weather of Oregon. My apologies for my poor posting record lately.
Anyhow… be sure to check out The New Republic’s online debate between William Saletan, Kate Michelman & Gloria Feldt. Truthfully, it’s not much of a debate… much as I admire Michelman and Feldt, both of them seem too caught up in the talking points of pro-choice politics to really engage the questions that Saletan (who is pro-choice, but who questions some choices the pro-choice movement has made) brings up.
Here’s Saletan’s analysis of the current pro-life strategies. The person he’s addressing is Kate Michaelman, who served for many years as the head of NARAL:
The first category is abortion bans, starting with the one the Senate just passed: the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. I’ll refer to it as the PBA ban, since I agree the name is misleading. You’ve issued a fact sheet full of quotes from pro-life activists (I know you hate that term, but I think they’re as sincere as you are) implying that this is going to be the battleground of the future. Now that they’ve banned one abortion procedure, the argument goes, they’re going to ban more and more procedures, earlier and earlier in pregnancy.
It’s obvious why you’d prefer this fight: You know how to win it. The last time pro-lifers made a serious bid to ban abortions, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, you marshaled a decisive constituency against them. Bans are easy to beat because they’re overt attacks on choice. All you have to do is point out to voters that this or that politician wants the government to take away your family’s right to choose, and libertarian swing voters–the people I call pro-choice conservatives–turn against that politician.
But that’s also why I suspect the congressional leadership won’t give you that fight. The most recent quote on your fact sheet is from 1998. Pro-life strategists have been much quieter lately about banning a lot of abortions, because they don’t want to awaken your constituency. They want to tiptoe around it, by pushing other kinds of bills.
Some of those bills are in the second category, which I call pro-choice conservative legislation. These are bills designed to play to the same folks you’ve mobilized against abortion bans: voters who believe the government should stay out of the family. These voters are susceptible to your libertarian argument against abortion bans. But they’re also susceptible to the other side’s libertarian argument against public funding of abortions. And since they’re more pro-family than liberal, they’re attracted to arguments for parental consent (and spousal consent, though the courts have spared you that fight). Pro-lifers have a bill ready to exploit this constituency: the Child Custody Protection Act, which would punish adults who transport minors across state lines to evade state laws requiring parental consent or notification for abortion. How are you going to defeat that bill?
The other bill likely to come down the congressional chute next is the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which basically says that anyone who injures or kills a woman, and in the course of that crime injures or kills her fetus, can be punished for the latter offense as severely as for the former. This bill represents a third category, which I call pro-choice-pro-life bills. These bills are designed to lay a legal groundwork for fetal rights in contexts where the interest of the fetus coincides with the interest of the woman. The administration followed the same strategy last year when it made “unborn children” eligible for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Since these are situations in which the woman wants the baby, it’s hard for most pro-choice people to see why they should object.
You’ve described these measures as a stealth strategy to undermine abortion rights. I agree with you that the legal concept they embrace–fetal personhood–directly threatens the right to abortion, and that this is the principal objective of the strategists who promote them. But I also think your side’s refusal to grant the fetus any legal significance in its own right–a refusal manifested in the language of the alternative bills your side has offered in each instance–is a mistake. It may not be a political mistake, but it’s a moral mistake. You don’t have to take such a hard line to protect the right to abortion. Roe v. Wade acknowledged the state’s “important and legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of human life.” So should your bills.
Why does it matter whether the fetus has legal significance in its own right, and not just as an appendage of the woman? In part because of the fourth legislative category: bills that move the debate about the value of unborn life out of the woman’s body. The PBA ban is a fraudulent step in this direction: It pretends to stop doctors from killing a fetus that’s already exiting the woman’s body, when in fact the fetus is inside and is artificially extracted only for the purpose of abortion. But the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which became law last year, really does address the killing of a fully born baby. The pending bills to ban human cloning, coupled with the administration’s restrictions on stem cell research, seek to block the creation and destruction, for research purposes, of embryos that have never been in a womb. Why did NARAL initially oppose the Born Alive Infants Protection Act? Why did it oppose the restrictions on stem cell research? If no woman’s autonomy is involved in these disputes, why are you?
Interesting stuff, well worth reading if you follow abortion politics. Thanks to Diotima for the link..
One thing I find striking about this debate is the lack of recognition of pro-choicers’ efforts to shore up protections for pregnant women. “The Motherhood Protection Act” isn’t even seriously considered because it does not equate a fetus with a person. If these pro-lifers were truly concerned about assaults against pregnant women, and the subsequent miscarriages, then you’d think they’d welcome this proposed legislation, since it’s something both parties should be able to reasonably stand behind. Indeed, in some cases, the Motherhood Protection Act calls for stronger penalites. The lack of personhood for a fetus, however, seems to turn off the pro-lifers.
More on the issue are in the links below. You can find more information on the Motherhood Protection Act in the second and third links.
http://www.aauw.org/takeaction/policyissues/unborn_victims.cfm
http://www.rcrc.org/get_involved/legislative_action/uvva.htm
http://www.caral.org/alert_uvva.html
Also, I am under the impression that the fetus gets more recognition as a person as the pregnancy progesses. And I just don’t buy the fact that a fetus is a person at any stage of pregnancy, which is what the UVA asserts. A two-month old fetus is very different from an eight month old one.
Just an off the wall comment, since you are discussing pro-choice strategies.
What if pro-choicers started pushing for the option of abortion up to the age of 9 months (a critical stage in infant development) or 2 years (another critical stage in infant development) or EVEN 18 years (damn teenagers!).
My point being: could we turn the argument to such an extreme that the religious right would allow for abortion rights just to avoid the extremists?
I mean, people say that one reason the civil rights’ peace movement was so affective was because giving concessions to them would placate the militants. Of course, that’s a false analogy to abortion rights. But still. Food for thought.
I believe that Saletan is wrong about the wisdom of granting legal status to fetuses. I think it would be a terrible move, and it would hasten the end of legal abortions. If the fetus has legal rights of its own, then it would seem to follow that the legality of an abortion would require weighing the rights of the fetus against the rights of the woman.
It also seems to me that giving fetuses legal rights independent of the mother would make in-vitro fertilization treatments impossible, since they always (as far as I know) involve producing embryos that are eventually discarded.
Here’s a personal aside:
Personally, I’m not so hot about in-vitro fertilization or other heroic measures to make babies. My wife and I considered such measures, but decided that they were ridiculous when there are so many children without parents waiting to be adopted. (We eventually adopted four.) I actually feel pretty much the same way about people having 4, 5, 6 or more natural-born children—why not stop at 2 or 3, and if you still have room in your home and hearts, then adopt. But I
I had not heard of the “Born Alive Infants Protection Act”, but isn’t killing a born infant already a crime? Isn’t it called “murder”?
NARAL & co. are stuck in a rut and really don’t speak to normal people (just to other liberals). Most liberal interest groups have a similar problem
Rich,
Do you not see conservative interest groups as having that problem as well? Can you name a few conservative interest groups that do speak to “normal people”?
Some of the most normal people I know are liberals. But that’s cute what you tried to do there…
Assaults against pregnant women are a direct result of legalized abortion. Most women who die while pregnant are murdered, most often because they refused to abort and the father/intimate partner feels the needs to abort the child himself. Look at the stats. This was not an issue prior to Roe v. Wade.
Furthermore, you can’t tell me that when some thug hits me in my stomach and kills my baby- that I haven’t lost my child. When I go home to an empty pink nursery because someone murdered my baby girl, you can’t truly validate my loss if you don’t recognize that my child was a person. She was.
If pro-lifers really cared about violence against women, they would support the Lofgren subsitution? Are you claiming that they are inconsistent in recognizing that a pregnant woman losing her baby in an act of violence actually lost her baby? Have you other heard your pro-choice euphemisms touted when this sort of tragedy happens? Do you hear women say, “My fetus just kicked me” or “I lost my fetus.”? No, they say baby. They recognize ‘baby.’ It’s an intense bond one has with her baby, if she doesn’t chose to refuse that bond, compartmentalize and nonacknowledge her child so that she can abort.
Pro-lifers are not subjugating and likewise negating the pain that women feel when they’ve lost a child- you are. Because if it is a child, then you won’t feel as comfortable ripping her into pieces with a currette or burning her alive with saline or sticking scissors in the back of her little head. You should recognize that it is your position that is inconsistent, and not the pro-lifers seeking to enhance penalties and validate a woman’s grief. Sharon Rocha doesn’t just mourn for her daughter Laci Peterson, but her her grandson Conner as well. By supporting this bill you’re negating her grief-simply because you want to safeguard you supposed right in the future to murder your children on demand.
Is it a baby or not? If yes, then we should stop murdering them in nasty ways and punish those that do. If not, then why impose penalties for its loss? It doesn’t matter! You are the ones that are inconsistent in your position. Pro-lifers stand firm because we are correct. The Motherhood Protection Act? Please. By your own standards, there is nothing to protect.
By your own standards, there is nothing to protect.
Sure there is. I think a wanted pregnancy is very valuable and worth protecting, because it is wanted by the mother. I don’t think that you have to assume the fetus has an independent right to life to consider a wanted pregnancy valuable, and the loss of that baby a tragedy.
The difference, I think, is that you consider the value of preborn life to be objective; it has value in its own right. In contrast, I think preborn life’s value is subjective; it has the value that it’s mother (and, secondarily, it’s other family) lend it.
For example, the way pregnant women use the term “baby” is subjective, not objective. Of course a woman who wants to go through with pregnancy will say “my baby is kicking”; but a woman who wants an abortion (which typically happens WAY before the kicking stage, by the way) might prefer to use the term “fetus” or “embryo.” I’m happy to acknowlege and respect both women’s perspectives; I doubt you can say the same.
I think real respect includes respecting the fact that some women make decisions that you might not agree with; not trying to ban them from making those decisions.
Jacqueline is just wrong about violence against pregnant women. I have worked off and on over the last 20 years with volunteer shelters and hotlines. It is clearly the case that many men start battering their wives EITHER when they become pregnant OR after they give birth for the first time. This has nothing to do with abortion and everything to do with the mindset of the battering man, who is frequently jealous of anyone with a separate claim on his wife or girlfriend, including babies unborn and otherwise. Wife begins paying attention to baby and husband makes her pay. But it’s also “wife goes to work for the first time and husband makes her pay.” Or “wife starts caring for her sick mother and husband makes her pay.” Babies just happen to be pervasive and universally demanding.
The only clear “correlation” between spousal abuse and Roe v. Wade is that, hurrah hurrah, during the 70s and beyond, through the efforts of feminists, the reporting of abuse is now 10 times more reliable than it used to be because police departments cannot refuse to deal with the matter. To say that the abuse itself “increased” over that time period because of accessibility to abortion demonstrates seriously retrograde reasoning — Sort of like saying that priestly abuse is 10x worse than it used to be because people now are willing to talk about it. If you find that to be an unfair analogy and have ACTUAL DATA on both subjects I will certainly listen up.