What do you do when your opponent picks a radically anti-choice vice presidential candidate? Well, if you’re a normal human being with an ounce of political sense, you remember that most Americans are pro-choice, and you react accordingly.
Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to a normal human being with at least an ounce of political sense. His name is Barack Obama.
Barack Obama has launched a broadside against John McCain’s opposition to abortion rights and moved one of the most divisive issues in modern American politics to the airwaves on a large scale for the first time in this presidential campaign.
Obama’s new radio ad, airing widely in at least seven swing states, tells voters McCain “will make abortion illegal.” It’s airing as McCain courts female voters with the addition of the staunchly anti-abortion governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, to his ticket.
Wait — you mean to say that women might be more concerned about retaining control of their own uteri than whether or not Sarah Palin also has a uterus? Do tell!
Democrats had, until now, sought to appeal to women primarily on economic issues such as health care and workplace discrimination; abortion rights were hardly mentioned at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last week. But women’s rights groups have been urging Obama to attack McCain on the issue, pointing to polling showing that some women who support McCain think he supports abortion rights. In fact, the Arizona senator has long supported a ban on abortions, with exceptions for victims of rape and incest, and for pregnancies that threaten the life of the mother. Palin has an even firmer anti-abortion stance: She would require rape and incest victims to carry their pregnancies to term.
“Let me tell you: If Roe vs. Wade is overturned, the lives and health of women will be put at risk. That’s why this election is so important,” says the nurse-practitioner who narrates Obama’s ad. “John McCain’s out of touch with women today. McCain wants to take away our right to choose. That’s what women need to understand. That’s how high the stakes are.”
An announcer then claims that “as president, John McCain will make abortion illegal,” before playing an exchange on “Meet the Press” in which McCain told moderator Tim Russert that he favors “a constitutional amendment to ban all abortions.”
Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes. Standing up for abortion rights — really standing up for them, not just hinting at that stance — is an electoral winner, especially given that many of McCain’s female supporters do indeed think he’s a pro-choicer. His selection of Palin should put that to rest, but ads focusing on it should do so even more.
It’s pretty simple: there is a big Will Saletan bloc of people who think abortion is “icky,” and that we should decry it as such — but who still want the option to get one for themselves or a loved one if need be. Indeed, even the McCain-Palin ticket, which features the most radical anti-choice candidate to stand for election in the post-Roe era, took pains to note that the candidate in question’s pregnant family member chose to continue her pregnancy.
People want that choice, and not even McCain and Palin can deny it. They want that choice for their daughters, their lovers, themselves. They may not always feel unconflicted about abortion — and being pro-choice doesn’t mean they have to — but when the chips are down, they want abortion to remain legal.
Palin does not want it to be legal, full stop. McCain — I honestly don’t think he cares one way or another, which is almost worse — he’s more than willing to trade women’s liberty in to make nice with the powers that be in the GOP. At least Palin’s nuttiness is principled.
Barack Obama is pro-choice, and while he’s not perfect on the issue, he is the most pro-choice candidate to helm a national ticket in the post-Roe era — yes, more than Bill Clinton. Being pro-choice puts him in the company of most of his fellow Americans, and saying so — well, it’s about time he said so, in no uncertain terms. More, please.
(Via.)
I think that’s the danger in talking too much about abortion; while a majority may be pro-choice; I can’t help but think the pro-life minority has a greater number of rabid supporters. It’s harder to get worked up and give an eloquent speech when, like me, your stance is: “I really think that the procedure of abortion is a horrible thing for all involved, and I sincerely hope that none of the women that I know and respect will ever be in a position where they feel that it’s a necessary choice; however, it is not my place or the place of the state to make that choice for them.”
I guess what I’m saying is that, it seems to me, there is more nuance in the range of pro-choice opinions than there is in the range of pro-life opinions, and nuance doesn’t always make for good politics.
John McCain will make abortion illegal? Damn. He has that power? Let’s see. He’ll have to:
1) Have at least 2 Justices (I figure) resign or die.
2) Get a couple of nominees who will vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade through a Democratic Senate
3) Get an appropriate test case up to the court.
4) Get a complete reversal of Roe vs. Wade
5) And then go through the entire process in the States, since that’s where abortion laws are actually made and enforced, not at the Federal level.
Hint to the non-American posters and lurkers here; ain’t happenin’. #1 is entirely possible, but remember that 41 votes in the Senate is enough to block a nominee and the Democrats have a majority that will likely increase in this election. Should some miracle happen and we get all the way to 5, there are plenty of states that will never stop abortions – although there are others that will, I grant. But we’ll never get there.
So – this makes great rhetoric, but it’s a little short on what they call facts.
The ad is political blustering. That’s what ads are. He may not actually be able to do it, but according to his own words, he WANTS to, and that’s enough for me. It’s not like the republicans have ever used scare tactics to win an election or anything. No sir.
This is one of those “single issue” votes. There are a lot of people who vote based on pro/anti choice alone and highlighting the fact that Obama is pro-choice and McCain/Palin is NOT is well within their political rights.
I’m happy to see the Dems actually making an effort with this election. I’m nervous, but hopeful. If they throw this election away, I fear it will be the death of the Democratic party.
1) Have at least 2 Justices (I figure) resign or die.
2) Get a couple of nominees who will vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade through a Democratic Senate
3) Get an appropriate test case up to the court.
4) Get a complete reversal of Roe vs. Wade
5) And then go through the entire process in the States, since that’s where abortion laws are actually made and enforced, not at the Federal level.
1. Not unlikely.
2. See also: Scalia, Roberts.
3. South Dakota is ready and willing to do that.
4. See also: Scalia, Roberts.
5. For a significant populations of American women, abortion will be illegal, or defacto unavailable due to TRAP laws or post-Roe bans.
polling report:
1) “With respect to the abortion issue, would you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life?”
by all appearances the poll is not gauging whether the population believes that the fetus deserves protection but whether the individual labels/allows self to be labeled as either one of these artificial tags.
2) “Do you think abortion should be legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases, or illegal in all cases?”
if roe is overturned the result would be that the abortion debate would revert to the state level. the states would then debate whether one and a half million annual abortions are a healthy result of public policy and law.
” you remember that most Americans are pro-choice, and you react accordingly. ”
you assume too much. you assume that americans understand what it is to be prochoice.
What Sly C said.
In addition, I’d point out that:
1) One new Justice would be required, not two. Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, and Alito are all pretty solidly anti-choice. Kennedy is on the fence, but is willing to go along with some pro-life rulings. The other four are reasonably pro-choice.
Stevens is 88, Ginsburg is 75, Kennedy 71, Breyer 69, and Souter 68. I’d be willing to bet that at least one of them retires or passes away during the next presidential term.
If McCain, as president, gets to replace the two oldest judges, that would leave the Court with only two pro-choice justices.
4) To make abortion illegal, it’s not necessary to “get a complete reversal of Roe”; it’s only necessary to get enough votes to completely hollow out all of Roe’s practical effects, while leaving Roe intact. This is already the direction the Roberts court has been moving in.
5) It’s amazing to me that, even after passing an anti-choice law at the Federal level and getting the Supreme Court to rule that it’s constitutional, conservatives are still claiming there’s no danger of federal anti-choice laws.
It’s evident both that the federal Congress has the power to pass anti-choice legislation, and that the Supreme Court isn’t going to prevent Congress from doing so.
It’s true that the federal Congress is unlikely to ban abortion entirely in the near future, because pro-choicers have a majority. But what McCain does with the Supreme Court can easily last ten or twenty years. It’s possible that at some point in the next two decades, the majority of Congress will be anti-choice.
polling :
“Which of these positions best represents your views about abortion? A woman should be able to get an abortion if she wants one, no matter what the reason, up until the time the fetus is viable, that is, can live on its own. Abortion should only be legal in certain circumstances, such as when a woman’s health is endangered or when the pregnancy results from rape or incest. Abortion should be illegal in all circumstances, even if the mother’s life is in danger.”
for example which of these is the prochoice position you are referencing.
in my opinion there is significant difference between a person who is comfortable with abortion prior to viability and a person who would condone intact dilation and evacuation.
“the states would then debate whether one and a half million annual abortions are a healthy result of public policy and law. ”
No, the states would debate whether one and a half million safe abortions are better than one and a half million illegal back alley abortions. Preventing them in the first place requires comprehensive sex education and access to contraception, as well as safe and accessible subsidized day care, mandated maternity leave, and workplace protections for working mothers. Banning abortion does not prevent abortions, and making them legal doesn’t cause them: it just saves women’s lives.
And, roger, you DO know that intact dilation and evacuation doesn’t imply that the fetus is viable, don’t you? Intact D&E is performed in the second trimester, pre-viability.
You know that, and I know that, but I have no faith that the legislatures in the various states know that.
intact dilation and evacuation requires that the brain tissue of the fetus be evacuated by suction tube for the purpose of collapsing the cranium so that it will pass through the birth canal. is it important to you whether the fetus is viable/alive/capable of feeling pain at the moment that this procedure is completed.
” Intact D&E is performed in the second trimester, pre-viability. ”
at which point is the fetus viable in your opinion. would you allow for medical intervention to increase the range of viability.
is it important to you whether the fetus is viable/alive/capable of feeling pain at the moment that this procedure is completed.
Yes. Whether or not the fetus is viable and/or capable of pain definitely carries weight in my feelings about any particular abortion of which I have knowledge. However, none of that trumps the woman’s freedom of choice on what to do with her body.
” However, none of that trumps the woman’s freedom of choice on what to do with her body. ”
tell me about that. what are the origins of this doctrine. i know what the law says and i know that roe rests, wisely or not, soundly or not, on the legal principle of privacy. what is is specifically about the womans body which would preclude protecting the security of the fetus.
Roger, the specific thing about the woman’s body is that it is the woman’s body.
If your sister needs a kidney transplant in order to live, and you were the only possible matching donor, the law would not oblige you to give it to her. No law ever would. Yet people talk about making laws that would force women to provide their bodies to another, even if they feel really uncomfortable about that; Palin even thinks that women should not be allowed to abort in cases of rape. If the ‘security of the foetus’ matters more to you than the life of a living woman following a rape, then you can go right ahead and vote McCain-Palin.
And, FWIW, being pro-choice means that you’re allowed to think someone who doesn’t give a kidney is wrong — or someone who has an abortion is wrong. My ex-wife was strongly pro-choice, and absolutely believed that if she became pregnant, she would carry to term, because she believed abortion was wrong. No conflict — she believed that it was not her job to decide what was wrong for another woman, only for herself.
Pro-choice means pro-choice. Not pro-abortion. I know, the right doesn’t like to draw a distinction, but a distinction there is.
I think that argument only resonates with a segment of pro-choicers, and holds very little water for anti-choicers. It’s hard to come up with something to compare abortion to, even in a hypothetical example, without being offensive. But I can’t think of another category of behavior that ought to be illegal where a reasonable person would say, “But…people are going to do it anyway, so it might as well be legal.”
So, no one would say, “People are going to steal cars anyway, therefore we might as well make it legal.” I don’t think the demand for rape is elastic, but no one in their right mind would say, “People are going to commit rape anyway, therefore it ought to be legal.”
I realize those comparisons are ridiculously offensive, but the illustration only works if you choose a hypothetical example that your listener actually believes is wrong and should be illegal.
My point is not that abortion is something the state has a right to ban. But if you believe that it is, I don’t think you’re going to put much stock in the argument that “it will happen anyway,” especially if you’re the kind of person who really does base at least part of your moral code on whether something is legal.
My religion (Judaism) views a fetus as a potential life up to the point when it is half out of the mother’s womb, alive. Potential life is more than nothing, but less than a full life. Therefore, my religion states that my life and health take precedence over the fetus’s life until the point that it is delivered, alive. Therefore, I would not have an abortion unless my life or health were in danger (or if the fetus were going to be born with a painful and fatal disease, like Tay Sachs), but if my life or health WERE in danger, I would absolutely have an abortion, whether the fetus is viable or not.
Those, however, are my moral and religious views. My moral and religious views also do not permit the abortion of a fetus with Down Syndrome, or with some other genetic defect that will not cause pain or death if the fetus is born, but I would not impose those religious and moral views on someone else, because to do so would be to impose my religion on someone else. There is no impartial, scientific determination of when life starts, except for when a baby is born alive from its mother. Everyone can agree that life exists at that point in time. Everyone can also agree that a woman is alive and a human being capable of having rights and making decisions. To try to fix a point prior to birth at which a fetus is a human being able to demand that its rights take precendence of the right of the woman to be autonomous and control her body will violate someone’s religious beliefs. That is why the law should not try to pick a point prior to birth where the fetus’s rights override the rights of the woman.
Now, can we and should we have an open discussion in this country about the morals of abortion of a viable fetus, or a disabled fetus, or a fetus based on gender or hair color or intelligence? Yes. But those discussions should not be mistaken for a referendum on our laws: women are capable of holding themselves to their own personal or religious ethical standards without needing them imposed by law.
Phil, I was responding to a specific point, the point that we should discuss (in reference to abortion being legal) whether one and a half million abortions is a good thing. I’m simply pointing out that the abortions did not suddenly start happening when abortion became legal: legality does not cause abortions. The worst maternity leave policy in the entire world with the exception of (I think) Swaziland causes abortions. Abstinence-only sex education causes abortions. Not having any way of keeping both your baby and your job causes abortions. It would be very easy to deal with the root causes, but too often it simply becomes about making it illegal for a woman who is going to have an abortion anyway to have a safe and secure abortion.
what are the origins of this doctrine.
Really? I think that you need to educate yourself a bit before you return to this thread.
” If the ’security of the foetus’ matters more to you than the life of a living woman following a rape, then you can go right ahead and vote McCain-Palin. ”
i think a perfectly reasonable position is to allow the procedure in the instances of conception following rape and incest and when the health of the mother is in mortal danger.
” I know, the right doesn’t like to draw a distinction, but a distinction there is. ”
yeah those knuckledragging homophobes in the backwater states. they dont know anything.
a while ago i read about a case which was called ashley treatment. i most likely read about it here. the child was severely disabled and unable to care for herself. the parents of the child arranged for various treatments including a hysterectomy to prevent future pregnancy, removal of the breast buds to prevent future abuse, and various estrogen treatments to prevent the child from growing too large to handle easily. these were invasive treatments which came about at the request of the parents. ashley could not consent. there was considerable discussion on various boards to indicate that many persons were uncomfortable with the treatments imposed upon an absolutely vulnerable and dependent child. all manner of ethical considerations were argued and the parents of the child eventually made these unilateral decisions in order that the child be handled and treated in the future with dignity and ease. i cannot say that the parents were incorrect in their assessment of the need for these treatments.
this case has direct and immediate application to abortion.
either there are or there are not two participants. if we concede that there are indeed two participants then the argument goes as follows: the one participant is entirely and utterly vulnerable to the desires and actions of the nonvulnerable participant. why is it then that the human life inside the uterus of the woman not afforded the same protections that ahsley received. when you proffer the argument that the womans body feeds and protects and houses the fetus i would then argue that ashley was fed and housed and protected by her parents and that ashley is as vulnerable as is the fetus. what we have left then appears to be a question of location. one vulnerable human life is located inside the uterus and the other human life is outside of the uterus.
” Roger, the specific thing about the woman’s body is that it is the woman’s body. ”
this is a location argument.
” If your sister needs a kidney transplant in order to live, and you were the only possible matching donor, the law would not oblige you to give it to her. ”
this is a legal argument.
now if you are prepared to simply say that it is legal to extinguish human life because it resides in a location where the woman is not the vulnerable party then we should disclose this when we ask people if they are prochoice. if the circumstance were correctly framed in terms of one vulnerable human life being extinguished at the expense and for the convenience of the nonvulnerable party, in the vast majority of the cases, i wonder how many would be convinced that they agree to be labeled prochoice.
i think a perfectly reasonable position is to allow the procedure in the instances of conception following rape and incest and when the health of the mother is in mortal danger.
Why? Okay, when the mother’s life is in danger I can see the argument that the actual person should be allowed to survive. But for rape and/or incest? The mother’s life is not in danger. You’re just letting her kill the unborn because the circumstances surrounding conception seem taboo to you. But the poor, innocent unborn thingy is causing no physical harm to its incubator.
That just seems in no way consistent with a “pro-life” argument.
Also, you can find a shift key just to the left of the “Z” key and another one just to the right of the “/” key on your keyboard. Oh, and questions end with a question mark (“?”).
Rape could be a reasonable exception because the woman did not “volunteer”, so to speak, to care for the being growing inside her. Volunteering to donate a kidney and then withdrawing your consent when it is too late to find another donor is in a different moral category than being kidnapped and forced to donate a kidney and then escaping when it is too late to find another donor.
For consentual adult incest, though, I agree there is no logical way to support that as an exception in a consistent pro-life position.
Rape could be a reasonable exception because the woman did not “volunteer”…
Then, as pro-lifers, we also need to offer an exception for failure of birth control since use of BC shows that the woman did not “volunteer.” Okay, so rape, life (not health) of the mother and failure of birth control. What else fits in with this consistent pro-life view on abortion?
If you base your prolife position on godstuff, there doesn’t need to be any logic in it, because godstuff is itself illogical. Morality doesn’t actually need to be all that logical either, though it usually is.
Therein lies the problem of trying to convince a prolifer by pointing out the glaring errors in logic or consistency.
[shrug] of course, we have inconsistencies on our side too, but if they’re not bothered by their inconsistencies I am sure as heck not going to be bothered by mine.
The fact that my body belongs to me is a location argument? Ashley is a human being whose care could be transferred at any time. A fetus growing inside me cannot be anywhere but inside me, and that “me” is not just a location – it is my body. You have control over what grows inside your body: if you have a tumor in your liver you can decide to have it removed. Your neighbor doesn’t get to decide to have your tumor removed, or not to have your tumor removed. Unless that’s also only a location argument.
Still tryng to put on the imaginary hat of an imaginary logically-consistent pro-lifer, I could dismiss the failed birth control exception because people should take responsibility for the forseeable risks of their actions. If you are driving and you hit my house because your steering failed, you (or your insurance) should pay for the repairs. The rape victim did not voluntarily take any risks.
However, I suspect Sailorman is entirely right here. I made a point recently on another thread here about the crazies on the right being psychotic. If a person believes the universe is less than 10,000 years old, it is unlikely that she and I have enough common ground for reasonable debate.
since you are attempting to define a prolife position i would begin by saying that i have little use for arbitrary terms: prolife, prochoice, liberal, progressive, conservative, red states, blue states, purple states ect……… i have used these here for sake of discussion.
a viewpoint in which life is valued and held sacred would include a view that that vulnerable human life: unborn human life, disabled folks, death row inmates, repressed individuals who are crushed by poverty, victims of racism be shielded from aggression against them by those in power and those who are not vulnerable. in the instances in which there is an unequal balance of power and the vulnerable party suffers, this would be the instances which define my viewpoint.
for a woman to enter an abortion clinic and decide that the unborn is now inconvenient to her and that she wants rid of it for no other reason seems to me to be a violation of the individual being of the vulnerable party.
whether we justify this extermination of life by means of law or morals or doctrine or religious belief is another argument.
that we shorthand the entire philosophy into the one word prochoice is unfortunate
Roger, if you can show me ONE politician on the face of the earth who practices the belief that human life is sacred, I will give you an internet cookie. Until then, I’ve no time for that baloney. Whether human life is or is not sacred, its sanctity is not and never has been respected in politics; if it was, Bush would never have gone to Iraq and Congress would never have cheerfully supported him in that. If human life is sacred, SCHIP would have passed. If human life were sacred, we’d be devoting as much of our GDP as possible to fighting disease and malnutrition in the developing world.
Politics is far more practical and pragmatic than that. Politicians generally have no problem justifying the extinguishing of life through their actions and inactions. I don’t have a problem with that, but I do have a problem with people who splutter ‘but but HUMAN LIFE IS SACRED’ when they talk about abortion and completely abandon the concept in every other situation they come up against.
And my body is not a location, or a legal question; it is my body.
FWIW, based on the available evidence, I think it very unlikely that the fetus is capable of feeling pain even in the 9th month of pregnancy. Remember, a fetus is not just a baby sitting in a uterus, it is physiologically different in a number of ways, including having access to vastly less stimuli than a newborn and having a much lower concentration of oxygen in its blood. Hypoxia causes unconsciousness in newborns and adults, why shouldn’t it also in fetuses, even if their brains are structurally capable of comprehending sensation? Certainly, if an embryo (<=8 weeks post-conception, the time when the majority of abortions are performed) has any sensation, then our understanding of what causes consciousness, sensation, and so forth is completely wrong: an embryo literally does not have the brain structures that we believe are associated with awareness.
That having been said, I would be willing to support a law that restricted abortion in the third trimester if and ONLY if:
1. First trimester abortion were readily available to ALL women, regardless of their age, marital status, race, geographic location, etc. and were cheap or free so that no woman who desired a first trimester abortion would be unable to obtain one because of socio-economic issues.
2. Birth control were cheaply and readily available and real, honest sex ed were taught in schools so that most people would know how to avoid unwanted pregnancies.
3. The law had provisions for abortion at any gestational age if there were risk to the mother’s life or health, signs of fetal anomolies inconsistent with life outside of the uterus, or if the woman was prevented from getting an abortion earlier through no fault of her own (ie if she were kidnapped by anti-choicers, just got to the US from a country that prohibits abortion, just found a safe space away from a boyfriend or husband who threatened her with harm if she had an abortion, etc.)
4. No undue burdens were put on women seeking early abortions (i.e. laws requiring waiting periods or requiring that misleading information be given to women seeking abortion under the guise of “counseling”. Though I do think that real counseling that discussed options in an honest manner, including making sure that women know what support is available to them should they decide to have the baby and raise it, would be of benefit to all women with unplanned pregnancies, no matter what their plans on what to do about it.)
Why, you may ask, do I care about third trimester fetuses if I’m convinced that they’re not conscious? Well, truth be told, I don’t. I care about the sincere, if IMHO misguided, people who really worry about babies being aborted because the mother changed her mind when she had to start pushing during labor. It doesn’t happen, but a law such as I proposed might set their minds at ease and wouldn’t impose an undue burden on women seeking abortion.
viewpoint in which life is valued and held sacred would include a view that that vulnerable human life: unborn human life
If you really believed human life is sacred from conception onward then abortion would be the least of your worries. You’d be much more worried about the vastly greater problem of failed implantation and early miscarriage (spontaneous abortion). Far more one-celled “children” die from failed implantation and early spontaneous abortions than die in induced abortions. Yet I’ve never seen any pro-life group devote even a token amount of time or money to trying to prevent these events.
Suppose you lived in a really nasty society in which maybe 10% of children were murdered within the first few months of their life. That’d be bad, right? But what if, at the same time, as many as 80% of children died within their first two weeks of life due to “natural causes”. Would you really ignore those 80% of deaths? Or say that you’d only be interested in them if no acts of infanticide occurred? That’s not very pro-life! Yet virtually all pro-lifers are willing to write off early miscarriage as just “nature” or “god’s will” or “inevitable”. Contrast this to the response society had to a real instance of apparently “inevitable” infant death–SIDS. There are societies to fund research into the causes of SIDS, public campaigns to reduce the incidence of SIDS, etc. Where are the campaigns to prevent failure of implantation? Nowhere. Because no one, not the most sincere pro-lifer, really believes that one celled organisms are people! The inevitable conclusion about their real motives is…inevitable. It’s not about life or humanity, it’s about control. Control of women’s bodies, of their decisions, of their futures.
Phil:
That’s not an accurate summary of the argument. You’re making the common mistake of conflating behavior which is “bad”, and behavior which “ought to be illegal”.
The argument is that there exist behaviors which I might consider “bad”, but which (for various reasons) shouldn’t be illegal. (Usually this is because the societal effects of the punishment are worse than the societal effects of the behavior that is prevented.)
There are plenty of such behaviors. I think that drinking to excess is “bad”, but I don’t think we should make it illegal. Similarly, smoking, cheating on your spouse, not getting enough exercise, making nasty comments, having unsafe sex, and shooting heroin are all “bad” behavior — but I don’t think we should put people who do them in jail.
roger-
So you consider life sacred. What is your opinion on harvesting ape organs to save human lives? Or pig organs? Or eating pigs to sustain human life? Or as a tasty mid-afternoon snack? Or eating birds? Or fish? Or setting mousetraps because they carry disease into the house? Or because they scare your toddler? Or using bugspray to kill fleas that bite you and make you itch?
That’s not human life, but it is life. Is there anything specifically “sacred” about the human genome? Especially if you claim not to be using religion or philosophy to justify your killing?
The fact is, you cannot avoid the religious or philosophic arguments, because to call life sacred, you have to define life. And from non-living organic chemicals to robotic viruses, to living bactria, to multicellular trilobites, to redwoods and humans, life is a process with no clear boundries If we are going to hold life sacred, we have to draw lines regardless, and we have to use our philosophic principles to do so. Conservatives love to debate partial birth abortion because to claim that killing a baby five minutes after birth is murder but to kill it five minutes before birth is just fine and dandy is, on its face, horrific. Liberals love to debate the morning after pill because the claim that helping a woman’s body flush out a one-celled fertilized egg is murder is, on its face, absurd. Unfortunately, just as there is no clear point between virus and human where life is self-evidently sacred without reference to religion or philosophy, there is also no such clear line between conception and birth. You are justified in using your religion or arguing your philosophy to tell me where you believe the line should be drawn. But it is intellectually dishonest to claim that I am just using my religion or philosophy to rationalize killing because I happen to draw the line in a different place than you.
Decnavda: Still tryng to put on the imaginary hat of an imaginary logically-consistent pro-lifer
A human foetus has a value anywhere from worthless to priceless, can have different but equally-valid values assigned by different people at the same time, and can change from one value to another within one person over time and according to their mood. Good luck finding a consistent definition for either side.
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Bjartmarr,
If a behavior “ought not be illegal,” then it “ought not be illegal”–end of story. It doesn’t matter whether that behavior would increase or decrease or stay the same if we made it illegal. So, sure, if we both agree that abortion should _not_ be illegal, then there’s no grounds for debate.
But I was pointing out a logical inconsistency: if you’re trying to convince me that abortion ought not be illegal because people will do it anyway, then, for comparison’s sake, I need an example of something that ought to be illegal, except for the fact that people will do it anyway.
ADS pointed out that I was taking their statement out of context. However, people do make the argument: “Abortion should be legal, because even if it were illegal, people would still get abortions.” I was just pointing out that this argument is a red herring. No one would realistically say “XXXXX should be legal, because even if it were illegal, people would still do it,” unless they already believe that “XXXXX” ought to be legal. Thus, that argument was–and always is–a red herring.
I’m not saying that abortion shouldn’t be legal, just that, logically, it should be legal for other reasons than that particular one. But, as has been pointed out, generally speaking, legalization does not cause abortions; that point is still well taken.
Phil, I don’t think your abortion/rape/car theft analogy works, for this reason: Punishing rapists is the right thing to do, whether or not it prevents rape. Even if outlawing rape doesn’t change the total number of rapes at all, we should still punish rapists, because it’s just that they be punished.
In contrast, most pro-lifers say they aren’t out to punish women (and indeed, most pro-life laws don’t (criminally) punish women who get abortions); they claim that their goal is saving fetal lives.
In that context — unlike the examples of rape and grand theft auto — it’s legitimate to ask whether banning abortion is an effective way of reducing the total number of abortions, compared to other policies.
I’m not. I thought I made that clear.
The above argument may be a red herring, but more importantly, it’s a straw man. It’s a straw man because nobody here is making said argument: you are proposing it, attributing it to another, and then knocking it down.
I would also add that what scares the sense out of me on the extremes of this- is that the segement that wants to ban abortion also consistently wants to ban sex education and access to contraception- Not just for minors, but also for adults.
The prolife segment uses the abortion argument as a starting point and a cover for what is really at stake- A woman’s control over her own life, her own body and her own mind.
It will not stop with just banning abortion- Honestly, if those who really believe in prolife positions were only in it for ending abortions- they would support more comprehensive sex ed so that women and men both understand their roles and responsibilities in preventing the conception of a child.
They would support social programs that support parents which would make the choice of keeping a child more viable.
They would support consistent access to birth control for men and women.
However, it is not about those things. It is about trying to control me, as a women, and my choices, my thoughts and my morality.
” Conservatives love to debate partial birth abortion because to claim that killing a baby five minutes after birth is murder but to kill it five minutes before birth is just fine and dandy is, on its face, horrific. Liberals love to debate the morning after pill because the claim that helping a woman’s body flush out a one-celled fertilized egg is murder is, on its face, absurd. Unfortunately, just as there is no clear point between virus and human where life is self-evidently sacred without reference to religion or philosophy, there is also no such clear line between conception and birth. ”
i dont know where “life” begins. i dont know how to define “life”.
if a person approaches this question from a religious construct, “life” would begin when the spirit enters the body. no common ground.
if a person approaches this from a secular construct, “life” might be defined as when the organism is viable. problems here as well since viability continues to be pushed back into the earlier stages of pregnancy by means of improved life sustaining technology thus life is not self evident but rather accessed by technology.
if a person is visual they might be tempted to say: well it looks human thus must be a sentient human being. ok, but is the organism suddenly sentient now that we have better ultrasound technology and can see the organism more clearly.
i dont think that there is a standard which enables us to draw the line of where “life” begins thus thus be able to determine at what point in time the organism would be deemed sacred or venerable or sentient and therefore worthy of attention/protection/reverence.
with reference to sacred life, i was impressed by james aggee’s work “let us now praise famous men” in which he chronicled the lives of other vulnerable and sacred persons: alabama cotton tenants during the summer of 1936.
i would say that since we have no reliable measure for the point at which the organism is worthy of protection, i would rely on that which is observable.
in the saline abortion procedure the amniotic fluid is contaminated after the cervix is dilated for the purpose of expelling the fetus and causing its demise. i would argue that since the only purpose here is to expel the fetus and thus end life, the life that was ended was indeed life.
in the intact dilation and evacuation the cranium is punctured and the contents of the cranium are suctioned out thus causing the cranium to collapse and the body to pass through the vaginal canal. again the sole purpose here it to cause the demise of the fetus. i would say that if the fetus is sufficiently developed for there to be brain tissue to evacuate, then there would be sufficient development for there to be life otherwise there would be no purpose for the procedure.
the boston globe describes a procedure in which potassium chloride is injected into the heart of the fetus with the result that the fetus dies. again if the fetus is sufficiently developed for there to be a heart into which lethal injection is suitable, i would say that life has been exterminated. it is the boston globe dated august 10, 2007. i dont know how to make a link.
lacking a way to define when “life” begins, i would say that when a medical professional has to take intrusive action to cause the demise of the fetus, we would then have evidence that there was life terminated. this is the only external evidence of the existence of what we call life that i can demonstrate in a conclusive manner.
i would say that if the fetus is sufficiently developed for there to be brain tissue to evacuate, then there would be sufficient development for there to be life otherwise there would be no purpose for the procedure.
The fact that the cranium is too large to be delivered easily, i.e. by induction of early labor, does not imply that the contents of the cranium are brain. Quite the contrary, in fact. D and X or similar procedures are often needed because the fetus has an abnormally enlarged skull that is filled with fluid that replaces the brain. Sorry to be graphic, but sometimes it’s necessary.
Bjartmarr,
I didn’t mean to imply that you personally were trying to convince me that abortion ought to be illegal. I was speaking hypothetically. I was viewing this as a discussion, not as a debate. Speaking in the second person seemed to make sense at the time, but I’m sorry if I was unclear.
Roger, whether or not the foetus has the physiological characteristics of a living thing is irrelevant; humans kill living things all the time. We also remove living tissue from the bodies of human beings all the time. Teratomas can contain complex tissues, including brain tissue, and they can have fetal form; that doesn’t mean we should leave them in the bodies of their human hosts due to some supposed ‘right to life’, does it?
You’re making category errors between ‘life’ and ‘personhood’, and I fear that the reason you’re doing that is because it will never happen to your body. Genitals are living cells. Gametes are living cells. A newly conceived embryo is thus also a living cell (not new life, note, no abiogenesis here, just a continuation of two living gametes). None of these things are people. Women are.
Phil – one thing you may not know is that abortion laws have literally no effect on the abortion rate. The only thing bans do is dictate what sort of abortions occur; the safe, legal kind that benefits women or the dangerous, illegal kind that kills women.
dianne: You’d be much more worried about the vastly greater problem of failed implantation and early miscarriage (spontaneous abortion). Far more one-celled “children” die from failed implantation and early spontaneous abortions than die in induced abortions.
decnavda: Liberals love to debate the morning after pill because the claim that helping a woman’s body flush out a one-celled fertilized egg is murder is, on its face, absurd.
thene: whether or not the foetus has the physiological characteristics of a living thing is irrelevant; humans kill living things all the time. We also remove living tissue from the bodies of human beings all the time.
yes there will be failed implantations, live tissue removal, sloughing of fertilized eggs, massive disposal of fertilized eggs as a result of invetro fertilization, lung tumors removed, fetal demise. if we use the vulnerable participant model we would see that a one celled fertilized egg may be a vulnerable participant given time whereas a tumor removed from the lung of a woman would not be a vulnerable participant at any point in the future. so there is life and living tissue and there are organisms which, given time will develop into vulnerable participants in the abortion dynamic. yes thene you are correct that human kill living things all the time. this killing is justified by law or custom or doctrine.
my position is that abortion is violence by poisoning or suction or dissection or by means of the evacuation of the cranium against the vulnerable participant, which procedures are sanctioned by law and custom. the vulnerable participant is utterly at the mercy of the host and may or may not be viewed as “people” as you have stated. given the difficulty of determining whether the organism is “people” we would want to review what the medical professional is required to do in order prevent the pregnancy from coming to term and this effort gives clues as to whether this organism requires more intervention for its demise than does the lung tumor.
the advantage of stating the case in this way is that instead of shouting “abortion is murder therefore wrong”, i can state that there is violence committed against the vulnerable participant and there is more common ground amongst listeners to agitate against violence. the vulnerable and nonvulnerable dynamic is better understood and accepted. intact dilation and evacuation abortion procedure, while the example is wildly overused in the debate, would be the clear example of this violence.
if we use the vulnerable participant model we would see that a one celled fertilized egg may be a vulnerable participant given time whereas a tumor removed from the lung of a woman would not be a vulnerable participant at any point in the future.
It depends what you mean by “vulnerable participant.” A tumor is certainly capable of living independently of its host, given the right conditions. Consider the Hela cell line, still alive more than 50 years after its host died. And that’s only one of many.
Perhaps you might say that tumor cells never develop intelligence…and the evolutionary chances do look slim. But other animals might more easily. Should one avoid killing cockroaches or mosquitos because their descendants may evolve intelligence, making them “vulnerable participants at some point in the future”?
Certainly, unfertilized gametes are “potential vulnerable participants”–fertilization is one of the easier steps in the process of making a baby. Much easier than gestation, much more likely to be successful. So the difference between an unfertilized gamete and a fertilized gamete is far smaller than the difference between a fertilized gamete and a baby. Is masturbation really murder then? Not to mention contraception? And let’s not even talk about abstinence–evil incarnate!
And you’re still ignoring my question, which is why aren’t you interested in helping all the “vulnerable participants” who are dying of miscarriage and failed implantation? They are just as much at risk and far more in number than any embryo post implantation. It’s like you were living in the time of the Black Plague and ignoring it because the occasional murder occurred. The “Oh, but it’s natural death” defense is complete BS. We have huge institutions, private and public, dedicated to defeating numerous causes of “natural death.” And we’re successful–far more successful than we’ve ever been at preventing murder. So you’re ignoring the easy problem (miscarriage) in order to concentrate on the harder problem. Hmm…you don’t care if “babies” die if they die of natural causes, but you do mind if women aren’t properly punished for having sex…why do I just have the feeling that your reasons for being “pro-life” as less than altruistic?
given the difficulty of determining whether the organism is “people” we would want to review what the medical professional is required to do in order prevent the pregnancy from coming to term and this effort gives clues as to whether this organism requires more intervention for its demise than does the lung tumor.
Hahaha! Are you serious? There may be a case to be made for the anti-abortion position, but the level of intervention required to insure the demise of the embryo versus the demise of the lung tumor is not it!
Let’s compare: For the average abortion, a single dose of a relatively low risk medication may be all that is required to ensure the end of the pregnancy. If surgical abortion is preferred, an outpatient procedure is scheduled and performed under local anesthesia. Usually, a single dose of low level pain medication such as ibuprofen is required for post surgical pain. The patient can usually return home within a few hours and to work within a few days. Anecdotally, most people I’ve heard talk about it describe it as unpleasant but no worse than a colonoscopy or other minor medical procedure. Yes, some abortions are more complicated and more “violent” but that’s a typical abortion in the first trimester as almost 90% of abortions are.
Now, a typical lung cancer…Well, first off, you can’t kill the typical lung cancer: most lung cancers are discovered too late for curative intervention. But suppose you got one of the rare cases that are potentially curable with surgery: A major operation is required. The patient is in the hospital at least a week, assuming nothing goes wrong, which it does all too frequently. To get to the lungs, the ribs or sternum must be broken (nearly everyone’s least favorite part of the procedure). Major pain medication, such as IV narcotics are required to control the pain after surgery and the patient is unlikely to return to work for months, if ever. Some oncologists give chemotherapy before or after surgery, depending on stage and other factors. If so, multiple (3-4 months) of extremely toxic drugs are given. Patients may experience nausea, vomiting, infections, changes in their sense of smell, skin problems, hair loss, excess bleeding, fatigue and other symptoms for months after the treatment*.
And what, you might ask, about the embryo or the cancer? Well, neither has any neural activity worth talking much about so neither is self aware or experiences pain on removal from its environment. The embryo would have a better chance of developing neurons, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that a cancer might grow some neurons too. You just can’t ever tell with cancers. So neither is a participant in any meaningful way and both have “potential”. Pretty even, really. Arguably, removing the cancer is less moral–if it did develop self awareness that’d be much more exciting than just another H sapiens and would you want to be responsible for preventing a new intelligent species from coming into being? (Well, maybe, if it lived parasitically off of humans, but that’s a side issue.)
*I’m making it sound pretty nasty in order to make the point, but to avoid scaring people I should point out that many of the “classic” problems of chemotherapy can be treated now. Some people with particularly aggressive tumors actually feel better after chemotherapy. But if I had to have either an abortion or chemotherapy at some point in my life but could pick which one I’d go for the abortion.