“Abortion is so ugly that nobody who supports it can look moral,” says Slate columnist William Saletan. “To earn real credibility, [pro-choicers would] have to admit it's bad. They often walk up to that line, but they always blink.” While this may hold true for most abortion rights supporters, it certainly does not apply to them all. Indeed, one notable exception to this claim is Saletan himself. Although he is “pro-choice” – he thinks “the government is incompetent to regulate abortion” – he also recognizes that the practice is morally troublesome and that “every abortion is tragic.”
Saletan’s pseudo-libertarian position may appear to be a novel compromise. But the view is more common than either pro-choicers or pro-lifers would care to admit. In a recent column on NARAL Pro-Choice America’s decision to reframe the issue around “responsibility”, Saletan analyzes the poll that the organization used to make the decision:
NARAL certainly has its back to the wall. According to the poll, only 22 percent of Americans say abortions should be "generally available." Another 26 percent say "regulation of abortion is necessary, although it should remain legal in many circumstances." That's a pro-choice total of just 48 percent, even when you phrase the second option to emphasize regulation. Thirty-nine percent say "abortion should be legal only in the most extreme cases," such as rape and incest, and 11 percent say all abortions should be illegal. That's 50 percent support for two hardcore pro-life positions. I've seen polls that offered rape/incest as the middle of three options, but I've never seen a poll that offered a fourth, moderate option ("regulation is necessary") and still showed 50 percent saying that didn't go far enough. These are grim numbers for the pro-choice folks.
Recognizing that the “abortion-on-demand” position has become politically untenable, abortion rights moderates are becoming increasingly more vocal about finding a middle path. For example, this past January Hillary Clinton argued,
There is no reason why government cannot do more to educate and inform and provide assistance so that the choice guaranteed under our constitution either does not ever have to be exercised or only in very rare circumstances." [emphasis added]
A significan shift in abortion politics has occurred when a leading contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination is willing to admit that the ideal number of abortions is zero.
This moderation is a welcome change and those of us in the pro-life camp should encourage pro-choice advocates who wish to do more to reduce the number of abortions in America. But we also must always remember our primary goal is not to make abortion illegal but to make it unthinkable. In order to do this we should expect these moderate pro-choicers to explain what trade-off they consider reasonable: how many abortions should we tolerate?
The answer to that question will help reshape the debate. In the past, hardcore abortion-rights supporters have tended to dominant the discussion of the issues. But while they may be vocal, they are a statistical minority. While the blogosphere harbors an inordinate number of people who argue that a fetus in the first three months of development has no moral status, there are few citizens who share this unethical view. Unlike these denizens of the internet, most Americans who support some form of abortion do so for purely pragmatic reasons. They accept the fact that there is something inherently immoral about abortion yet believe that under certain circumstances it should still be allowed. What is left unaddressed is how we quantify the number of abortions that should be acceptable.
How would we approach such a task? Economic analysis may provides one means to answer the question. “Economists have a curious habit of affixing numbers to complicated transactions,” says economist Steven Levitt in his recent bestseller Freakanomics. Levitt applies this “curious habit” to the question, “what is the relative value between a fetus and a newborn?”:
For a person who is either resolutely pro-life or resolutely pro-choice, this is a simple calculation. The first, believing that life begins at conception, would likely consider the value of a newborn versus the value of a fetus to be 1:1. The second person, believing that a woman’s right to an abortion trumps any other factor, would likely argue that no number of fetuses can equal even one newborn.
But let’s consider a third person…This third person does not believe that a fetus is the 1:1 equivalent of a newborn, yet neither does he believe that a fetus has no relative value. Let’s say that he is forced, for the sake of argument, to affix a relative value, and he decides that 1 newborn is worth 100 fetuses.
There are roughly 1.5 million abortions in the United States every year. For a person who believes that 1 newborn is worth 100 fetuses, those 1.5 million abortions would translate -- dividing 1.5 million by 100 –- into the equivalent of a loss of 15,000 human lives. Fifteen thousand live: that happens to be about the same number of people who died in homicides in the United States every year.
Is the relative value of abortion worth the equivalent cost in lives lost to homicides? If not, then what equivalent number would be acceptable? What is the relative value of a fetus? That is a question that pro-choice moderates need to answer. They often walk up to the line, admitting that abortion is “tragic” and should be “rare.” But when pressed to quantify “rare” by putting an actual number to the abstract value, will they blink?
1
Is the relative value of abortion worth the equivalent cost in lives lost to homicides? If not, then what equivalent number would be acceptable? What is the relative value of a fetus? That is a question that pro-choice moderates need to answer.
Hypothetical questions are useful thought experiments. But the very nature of a hypothetical question is such that it has no real answer.
None of us would ever find ourselves, except in wartime perhaps, in a situation where we would have to weigh one group of lives against another.
Without the spur of having to act on what we believe to be the correct answer, our answers will be far removed from reality.
For in reality, we intuit a correct answer under the pressure of circumstance and consequence, and then search our soul afterwards for the rationales that best explain our answer.
So unless we actually have to choose between millions of aborted fetuses and thousands of other lives, our decisions will not have a lot of meaning.
A politician would dodge your question, an intellectual pro-choice moderate would say "rare" means as low a rate as we can get without government criminalization.
posted on 06.20.2005 3:20 AM2
It will be interesting, Joe, to see what verbal calisthenics will result in the comments section today, not to mention the requisite put-downs of your premise, itself.
Good job. Keep 'em spewing and sputtering.
posted on 06.20.2005 9:10 AM3
I assume that the legal question here is this: If we are to reframe abortion law (whether judicially or legislatively), under what conditions will abortion be permitted? Subsidiary to this, but important nonetheless, is the question: What will be the penalty for an illegal abortion?
When the issue of legality is under discussion, it isn't so much about the numbers, at least not the absolute number of abortions.
posted on 06.20.2005 10:14 AM4
A significan shift in abortion politics has occurred when a leading contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination is willing to admit that the ideal number of abortions is zero.
Yea ok, someone must have been asleep nearly 13 years ago when the term 'safe, legal and rare' was coined.
This moderation is a welcome change and those of us in the pro-life camp should encourage pro-choice advocates who wish to do more to reduce the number of abortions in America. But we also must always remember our primary goal is not to make abortion illegal but to make it unthinkable. In order to do this we should expect these moderate pro-choicers to explain what trade-off they consider reasonable: how many abortions should we tolerate?
You will tolerate millions of abortions. How do I know? Because you already do. While praising moderation on behalf of pro-choicers is a good step towards finding mutual ground a good step for pro-lifers should be what price will they pay to prevent one abortion. Will you, for example, accept promotion of birth control among unmarried teenagers and young 20 yr olders who are most likely to resort to abortion? Would you be willing to accept increased taxes to pay for a 'live birth bounty' to reward women who bring children to term rather than have abortions?
A while ago I asked an interesting question. What if pro-lifers had accepted legal abortion but then sought to find ways to convince people to 'choose life'. This is not much different than accepting religious freedom but trying one's best to convince everyone to accept Christ. After all, with abortion only a life is at stake but with religious freedom one's immortal soul is at stake. Isn't it?
I've long suspected that many pro-lifers only seem to care about being pro-life in name only. They consider it a defeat when Eastern European countries liberalized abortion laws even if the actual rate of abortions dropped in those countries. I wouldn't be surprised to see 3/4 or more of the pro-life movement go home the second it is announced that Roe.v.Wade has been overturned and 3/4 of those remaining would go home once state battles for harder abortion laws were won. 3/4 would stick around to hawk bogus studies and spin showing the policy they advocated not only saved lives but made everything else in the world better as well. Maybe that tiny fraction of what is left would actually care to see if abortions were decreased, if life actually was promoted.
If pro-lifers would accept legal abortion or at least accept pro-choice as a viable position then maybe they would actually focus on decreasing abortions. Honestly, tell me what made today's pro-life movement happier, the drop in abortions during the Clinton administration or finally getting Bush's Priscilla Owens appointed to the Federal Bench? Yet there are people alive today because of that drop years ago (even if they don't know it) but no one has been saved by Owens getting a wooden gravel.
posted on 06.20.2005 11:08 AM5
Boonton:Honestly, tell me what made today's pro-life movement happier, the drop in abortions during the Clinton administration...
I was very happy that it dropped. However, it had more to do with changing attitudes about abortion than any gov't policy.
You will tolerate millions of abortions. How do I know? Because you already do.
Will you, for example, accept promotion of birth control among unmarried teenagers and young 20 yr olders...
To sum up your arugment here, either we accept your plan to reduce abortions or we are supporting abortion. It's a nice debating trick whose purpose is to ignore the question at hand.
What if pro-lifers had accepted legal abortion but then sought to find ways to convince people to 'choose life'.
Or to put in a different light, what is abolitionists had accepted legal slavery but then sought ways to convince people to 'choose freedom?'
You are dodging Joe's question. If most of the pro-abortion side wants abortion to be rare because at best it is morally questionable, then what is considered 'rare?' What number of abortions makes it rare?
posted on 06.20.2005 11:42 AM6
I'm one of the lowest percentile who would do away with abortion period. Having said that, knowing that that will never happen in this country, in the case of rape and incest is something I can live with. (By Planned Parethoods own numbers this accounts for between 1% and 2% of all abortions.
All life is sacred. In the case of rape, I understand it's a heavy burden, but the baby has done no wrong, why should it be killed? A truly horrific choice.
I've always felt the number of supporters of "choice" was inflated by the powers that make money off of this industry. Almost 4000 dead babies a day is an industry, and a sickening one at that.
But, it will not go away, as even as Hillary and her ilk claim to moderate on the issue, it's all about '08. Pro-choice is pro-death, as opposed to pro-life. A lot of these folks on both sides would say anything to get elected again, but once in, the issue gets little more than lip-service. (Mr. Bush!)
7
The problem I have with most pro-life factions is that they do not recognize or accept that it is a trade-off of "rights". An fetus is a baby. It also is the woman's body. I see few attempts by Pro-lifers to admit that forcing a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term is a violation of her person. It might even be necessary, but it still is a violation of that womans rights and what she gives up should be recognized. Instead however she is often demonized instead. Even if she was raped.
If instead of finger-pointing and condemning, Pro-Lifers were more compassionate, then they might actually have enough credibility to persuade more women not to have an abortion. And that should really be the goal, shouldn't it?
posted on 06.20.2005 12:22 PM8
Patrick--The same (accepting the trade-off of rights) could be said of most pro-choice factions. I've seen very few that will acknowledge the humanity of the unborn child, preferring to refer to it as a "clump of cells" or "product of conception".
posted on 06.20.2005 12:54 PM9
But this "right" to not be "forced" to carry a baby was non-existent until it was made up out of whole cloth some thirty or forty years ago. I may claim I have a right not to have to breathe oxygen because it is offensive to me in some way... My claim will not make one whit of difference to biological reality. What a woman may want - sex with no responsibilities or consequences - does not create a right.Where did we all get this idea that we have a right to get whatever we happen to want? Life isn't Burger King- you're not supposed to always "Have it your way".
For thousands of years people understood that a sexual relationship meant children were possible - even likely- and that's just the way it was. No one yammered about "rights". But now we're supposedly enlightened and can rut like animals and use medical science to manufacture a right where a baby has to die for the convenience of the mother.
posted on 06.20.2005 12:56 PM10
I was very happy that it dropped. However, it had more to do with changing attitudes about abortion than any gov't policy.
The fact is you don't know why it dropped. Probably the fact that so many abortions had taken place before had something to do with it. I don't think Steven Levitt examined the topic in his essay but just as the children of those in situations where abortion is seriously contemplated are likely to grow up to commit crimes they are also likely to grow up to get themselves into bad situations. In more crude terms, many girls who would grow up to 'get knocked up' at a bad time and many boys who would grow up to knock up girls were aborted themselves 20 years ago leaving fewer unwanted pregnancies today.
On the more pleasent side, a better economy and unusually positive growth for those in the lower income brackets probably altered people's decisions. Pregnancies which were a financial diaster before were now managable so there was less pressure to have abortion.
Another irony, on the social side lower moral standards probably had a positive influence on abortion rates. While conservatives lamented destigmitizing illegitimacy the social acceptance of 'bastard' children born out of wedlock almost certainly cut down on some abortions. Since having a kid while unmarried was no longer considered shameful there was no longer a need to 'cover it up' by having an abortion.
But you've dodged the question. Would the pro-life movement have been happier in a 'Clinton world' were there is a lower abortion rate or a world of legal victories where the abortion rate remains unchanged but the text on assorted pieces of paper is changed?
To sum up your arugment here, either we accept your plan to reduce abortions or we are supporting abortion. It's a nice debating trick whose purpose is to ignore the question at hand.
I'm not asking you to accept my plan because I don't really have one. If there's any lesson you should take from Levitt's work its that society is immensly complicated and trying to accomplish one large scale goal is almost never possible unless you're willing to accept other 'problems' getting worse.
Or to put in a different light, what is abolitionists had accepted legal slavery but then sought ways to convince people to 'choose freedom?'You are dodging Joe's question. If most of the pro-abortion side wants abortion to be rare because at best it is morally questionable, then what is considered 'rare?' What number of abortions makes it rare?
Rare is one of those words that is both subjective and relative. If the abortion rate dropped by 75% it would certainly be objectively getting more rare but whether or not you consider 25% of the current abortion rate rare is somewhat subjective. There are trade offs to everything. We would certainly like violent crime to be rare...even zero...but the only real way to accomplish such a goal would be to live in an authoritarian state that rivals Orwell's 1984. If a person is willing to settle for less he should not be attacked as insensitive to the victims of violent crime.
I've always felt the number of supporters of "choice" was inflated by the powers that make money off of this industry. Almost 4000 dead babies a day is an industry, and a sickening one at that.
We've been down this road before. The abortion industry is relatively small and deeply fragemented. Yes if you added up all the money that flows thru it you probably will get a number near or in excess of $1B but so what. If you added up all the money from going thru those street hot dog stands you're likely to get an equally large number. However it would be silly to talk about 'Big Hot Dog Stands' or 'Big Abortion' in the way we talk about 'Big Oil' or the 'Big Three' automakers.
posted on 06.20.2005 1:00 PM11
The fact is you don't know why it dropped.
You tell me I don't know why the rate went down and then spend three paragraphs giving explanations of why it dropped.
In more crude terms, many girls who would grow up to 'get knocked up' at a bad time and many boys who would grow up to knock up girls were aborted themselves 20 years ago leaving fewer unwanted pregnancies today.
Ah, the Sanger, mow down the human weeds theory.
But you've dodged the question.
No, it's a false choice. You keep assuming that the number of abortions will remain the same regardless of legal status (based on Eastern European experience). Yet, you admit that this is a highly complex social issue with a lot of variables. Your question is based on this underlying assumption (abortion levels stay the same regardless of legality) which I do not believe is necessarily true.
I'm not asking you to accept my plan because I don't really have one.
Yet, in your first post you spent a good chunk of a paragraph saying that if the pro-life side really wanted to reduce abortions they would support items like x, y, and z.
Rare is one of those words that is both subjective and relative.
Which is why Joe asked for the pro-abortion side to quantify what they mean. Just saying that they want it to be rare is useless rhetoric without the details. Much like the statement of "We need to tax the rich more." Until you define what rich means it's a worthless statement. So, what do you consider rare?
12
You tell me I don't know why the rate went down and then spend three paragraphs giving explanations of why it dropped.
I gave you three probable explanations, there are no doubt others. My original point, though, might have been missed. At least some of the reasons for the drop probably were indirectly linked to government policy. All of the drop, though, can be attributed to the collective choices of all individuals which means the private as well as public actions of the pro-choice/pro-life groups. Perhaps the drop would have been greater if more effort was made on finding common ground rather than trying to fight the endless cold war between the two camps.
Ah, the Sanger, mow down the human weeds theory.
'Mow down' implies intention. As if someone said 'if we increase abortion here this bad thing over here will decrease'. Instead I'm just pointing out the obvious, the increase in abortions in the 70's almost certainly has had some impact on the adult population today.
The pro-life movement does the same thing except they will play the human flower theory. Read pro-life literature enough and you'll run accross an argument like "Social Security is in trouble today because there are fewer workers per retired person...yet if Roe.v.Wade hadn't happened there would be 20 million more people today who would be in their 20's or just reaching it! Therefore abortion is killing social security too!"
It hardly follows from this statement that the ACLU has had a hidden agenda along with Milton Friedman to abolish SSI and argued for Roe back in '73 to implement it! While such foresight seems to work in the new Star Wars movies as a rule it doesn't work in real life.
More to the point this is not the 'human weeds theory'. If you consider abortion to be wrong then it is unclear whether anything has been accomplished if you simply move the date of the abortion around (in other words, a prevented abortion in 1972 results in an additional abortion in 1999). It's not even clear the two balance each other out so evenly. In other words, that 1972 prevented abortion might end up 'costing' two or three abortions in the late 90's and early 2000's. It has to be considered that a legal only victory by the pro-lifers without a major social change may end up creating an abortion diaster down the line.
No, it's a false choice. You keep assuming that the number of abortions will remain the same regardless of legal status (based on Eastern European experience). Yet, you admit that this is a highly complex social issue with a lot of variables. Your question is based on this underlying assumption (abortion levels stay the same regardless of legality) which I do not believe is necessarily true.
What I'm getting at is that many pro-lifers have become slavishly devoted to only one metric to measure victory....legalisms. This is an understandably human reaction since there are so many variables that effect the number of abortions performed per year and the most direct way to address the issue is going to each person contemplating one and convincing her not to is also the most expensive and most labor intensive. It would be so much easier to choose some other variable as a proxy and legal victories is a seductive choice. It means you don't have to get your hands dirty. Instead of dealing with 'real people' in dirty situations you can deal with well dressed lawyers, lobbyists and politicans at swanky fund raisers in the 'nice' part of town.
This also has a second seductive appeal. Moral righteousness can be quite addictive. You get to hang out with people who are just like you and feel good for being better than those 'other people'. Just like the sterotypical limosuine liberal whose only contact with poor people is the maid at the hotel he is staying at, the pro-lifer who chooses to focus on legalisms can hang out with others who will look nice, smell nice and pat him on the back for being on the right side of the issue. Should an uncomfortable 'real life' case ever be brought up they can be dimissed with some talk about responsibility....if that doesn't suffice a small check to a charity might be called for to return the focus back to the party...errr activism.
Which is why Joe asked for the pro-abortion side to quantify what they mean. Just saying that they want it to be rare is useless rhetoric without the details. Much like the statement of "We need to tax the rich more." Until you define what rich means it's a worthless statement. So, what do you consider rare?
Isn't it fair to ask the same of the pro-life side? How much would they pay for each abortion eliminated?
13
Blest says: "For thousands of years people understood that a sexual relationship meant children were possible - even likely- and that's just the way it was. No one yammered about "rights". But now we're supposedly enlightened and can rut like animals and use medical science to manufacture a right where a baby has to die for the convenience of the mother."
You seem to presuppose that, in the past, husbands and wives, men and women, had equal power in the creation of new life. This was not so, and still is not so in many places. Rather the woman was viewed as a possession of the man, and her sexuality was the means whereby (i)he sated his desire, and (ii) he insured the continuation of his line.
The feminism of the 20th century was a reaction to this. It rejected the notion that a woman is property and that her sexuality is there for the man to use as he will. In this, it no doubt was in the right. A woman does have a right over her body, a right that existed even when few if any had ever entertained the idea that this might be so. This right was not created. Rather it always existed but was not recognized. Part of the reason that I'm not so cynical about the reality of moral progess as I might otherwise be is that this right, and some others too, have begun to be recognized.
The philosophical question here, it seems to me, is just how strong is this right a woman has over her body. Is it so strong that the state can never interfere with it? Or is it such that it can be trumped by the state's interest in the protection of unborn life. I for one think that answer is not obvious in all cases. The unborn do matter, but so does a woman's right to decide how her organs of reproduction will, and will not, perform. It is, as Patrick said, a trade-off. We have here two prima facie rights, two prima facie goods, and no matter what we do one will have to be abrogated.
posted on 06.20.2005 2:55 PM14
I dunno, this poll seems to be out of sync with the majority of such polls. If you go to Polling Report, you'll see that most polls show somewhere between 55% and 60% of those polled favoring abortion being legal "most or all of the time." (See, for example, The 04/2005 ABC News Washington Post poll.)
As for pro-choice advocates, I think most of them recognize and acknowledge that abortion is not a good thing; the vast majority would say that not needing an abortion is better than having one.
More than anything, pro-lifers and pro-choicers seem to disagree not on whether abortion is unfortunate, but on what to do about it. The pro-choice crowd would approach the problem with education, awareness, and advocacy. The pro-life folks would generally approach it with criminalization and disparaging human sexuality.
This is where I have a problem with many "pro-life" folks: they seem more interested in criminalizing abortion than they do in ending it.
They accept the fact that there is something inherently immoral about abortion yet believe that under certain circumstances it should still be allowed.I'm not so sure I'm willing to go that far. Immoral, no; undesirable, yes. Whether or not an abortion is immoral is dependent upon circumstances.
What is left unaddressed is how we quantify the number of abortions that should be acceptable.This isn't a terribly productive way of approaching it; would you hold off going to war without first assigning a number to declare how many casualties is too many? If you believe in just war, and you're going to war for the right reasons, then you go to war when you believe you're right irrespective of how many casualties you expect.
The same is true for abortion. Assigning a number is a waste of time. What we need to decide, instead, is the circumstances in which abortion is acceptable versus unacceptable; at that point we can start trying to reduce the likelihood of the "acceptable" circumstances.
But when pressed to quantify “rare” by putting an actual number to the abstract value, will they blink?I wouldn't hesitate to say that the ideal number would be zero. But like car accidents, we know that we're never actually going to hit zero.
But show me any program that promotes abstinence while also educating about effective methods of pregnancy prevention, and I'll sign on in support of it. Get the FDA to stop dragging its feet on OTC emergency contraception, and that will help, too. But as long as they will only accept "stop having sex" as a solution to the problem of unintended pregnancy, I can't really take the anti-abortion movement very seriously.
posted on 06.20.2005 3:10 PM15
blestwithsons:
But this "right" to not be "forced" to carry a baby was non-existent until it was made up out of whole cloth some thirty or forty years ago.And the "right" of women to become "franchised" and vote was non-existent and made up out of whole cloth some 80 years ago. What's your point?
Chris Lutz:
You keep assuming that the number of abortions will remain the same regardless of legal status (based on Eastern European experience).I'm not aware of anywhere in the world where a change in the legality of abortion made a significant impact on the abortion rate.
All:
In addition to my above rant, I should point out that the statistics point to the abortion rate being disproportionately high among the poorest people in our population. That is, poverty and abortion are extremely strongly correlated. So even if those in the pro-life camp are uncomfortable supporting birth control, comprehensive sex education, etc., they could still work to drastically reduce the abortion rate by attacking the problem of poverty, which they often virtually ignore.
posted on 06.20.2005 3:23 PM16
What I'm getting at is that many pro-lifers have become slavishly devoted to only one metric to measure victory....legalisms.
And the same could be said of the pro-abortion side which goes into hysterics at any sensible legislation limiting abortion.
The rest of your statements here seem more aimed at attacking the motives of the people involved than actual discussion of the issue. Anything you said could be said of any political movement. Saying it just gives you a chance to feel good for being better than those 'other people'.
the increase in abortions in the 70's almost certainly has had some impact on the adult population today.
That's a defensible statement. However, I'm doubtful that, considering all of the variables, you can draw any reasonable conclusions of what those effects are in societal terms.
It has to be considered that a legal only victory by the pro-lifers without a major social change may end up creating an abortion diaster down the line.
You are taking a stance that laws are made outside of society. Instead, laws usually reflect societal beliefs. As such, I doubt we would have an abortion disaster.
Isn't it fair to ask the same of the pro-life side? How much would they pay for each abortion eliminated?
Since that is not the original question of the post, I will say not unless you are willing to answer the original question. I consider rare to be life of the mother, rape, and incest.
posted on 06.20.2005 3:38 PM17
There can be no trade off and no compromise if one is to be logically consistent.
Either A) An unborn child is a independent human life and deserves the right to life
Or
B) The unborn child is simply a conglomeration of cells until such time it is defined as life outside of the womb
That is why I believe there is no 'inbetween' situation that is rational and logical even when it comes to rape or incest. It is a human independent life or it is not. Period.
The sole exception being the life of the mother versus the life of the child, which then makes it a life for a life equation with the mother/family deciding.
Secondly, I am a pragmatist as well. I believe that if sex education can be demonstrated to lower the abortion rate, then in the case of fornication versus abortion, I choose fornication.
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Chris Lutz:
And the same could be said of the pro-abortion side which goes into hysterics at any sensible legislation limiting abortion.You know, here I'm inclined to agree with you a bit. There's certainly an overreliance on the slippery slope argument, although in a way I can sympathize with the pro-choice movement's refusal to give any ground. After all, piecemeal banning of abortion is just a means to an end for the pro-life movement, often publicly stated as such.
Personally, I would have no real problem with a late-term abortion bans that contains the appropriate exemptions. My only real argument against such a ban is that it wouldn't accomplish much, since the vast majority of abortions aren't late-term anyway, but nonetheless, I'd have no ethical quandary with such a law.
You are taking a stance that laws are made outside of society. Instead, laws usually reflect societal beliefs.Well, on most issues yes, but on this one, no. In a country where voter apathy is so pervasive, a vocal minority can make quite an impact. I know plenty of pro-choice conservatives who voted for Bush figuring he would never really significantly change abortion laws; it's because they believe this that the administration can continue to pander to the far-right portion of the pro-life movement. But the moment something really changes, those moderate will finally wake up, and I expect there would be quite a bit of backlash. The GOP would likely lose a great deal of support among the "security mom" demographic, for example.
Anyway, tangent aside, I think that for the most part, our current abortion laws do a pretty good job of reflecting society's beliefs.
I consider rare to be life of the mother, rape, and incest.That's circumstance, not frequency. Which would be better (in your mind), a half-million abortions for those reasons, or a quarter-million "convenience" abortions? posted on 06.20.2005 3:51 PM
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The pro-life folks would generally approach it with criminalization and disparaging human sexuality.
No, we approach human sexuality as a gift and responsibility. Instead the pro-choice groups promote human sexuality as anything goes, and devoid of consequences.
This isn't a terribly productive way of approaching it;
How would you define abortions as being rare? Also, if you can define what makes abortions rare, then you can up with a ball-park figure of how many abortions a year you are looking at.
posted on 06.20.2005 3:52 PM20
Dell:
That is why I believe there is no 'inbetween' situation that is rational and logical even when it comes to rape or incest. It is a human independent life or it is not. Period.I agree. I blogged a long time ago, when the courts struck down the "partial birth" abortion ban, that social conservatives would never accept a constitutional ban making the appropriate health and safety exceptions, because to do so would mean conceding that abortion is sometimes prudent and necessary. Once you make that concession, the entire dynamic of the debate shifts. posted on 06.20.2005 3:53 PM
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TG - That is why I ask individuals why would they be for 'Incest & Rape' abortions, versus abortions of 'I just wanted to get laid'? If the premise is that a fetus is a child and a child has the fundamental right to life, are we saying that the child's right to life is trumped by the criminal act of the male and the emotional trauma experienced by the woman?
I don't get it...if it is a child, the child had no responsibility for the sexual assualt, yet must bear the burden of punishment?
posted on 06.20.2005 3:58 PM22
"TGirsh"
This is where I have a problem with many "pro-life" folks: they seem more interested in criminalizing abortion than they do in ending it.
You misunderstand - prolife folks see criminalizing abortion as a MEANS to ending it.In general a conservative believes that laws teach morality. That when something is illegal that is a statement that it is immoral and unacceptable. And that making something legal makes it acceptable/moral to do it. Do you see why they are so upset that abortion has become legal? To them when you make something legal you are removing the cultural stigma that prevents people from doing something that is regarded as wrong.
I am not asking you to agree with this just to understand it and not accuse prolifers of a lack of compassion.
23
Chris Lutz:
Instead the pro-choice groups promote human sexuality as anything goes, and devoid of consequences.Nice try, but I'm not buying it. If that were true, we wouldn't be so adamant about promoting birth control and emergency contraception, now would we? Just go about on a screw-fest, and if the worst should happen, get an abortion.
Now of course, you could prove me wrong by providing links to to prominent organizations actually promoting irresponsible sex. But that's a far different thing from recognizing that people will sometimes have irresponsible sex, and acting accordingly.
What I'm complaining about is that the pro-life view of sex essentially boils down to never have sex unless you want or are willing to have (more) children.
How would you define abortions as being rare?Haven't I already answered this? Zero is the ideal number of abortions, so that the closer we get to zero, the better. But if you want me to assign a number to it, I'll describe it this way: I'd consider abortion "rare" if fewer than 5% of all pregnancies ended in abortion. According to AGI, the current rate is 24% -- certainly not rare. The CDC has different numbers, saying that about 21% (in 1999) ended in abortion, although they claim in the "technical notes" that their lower reporting figures are largely because of missing data from California, Alaska, etc.
But again, our differences do not concern whether that number is too high, but rather how to bring it down.
posted on 06.20.2005 4:11 PM24
You bring it down by making it illegal and having consequences for that behavior.
Or, you create social paradigms that cause 'social consequences' for having an abortion.
If the ideal is zero, but the differences are on the issue of legality and so-called 'womens rights' then how do the two groups work together in areas that they don't conflict on?
I think pro-choice can take a harder look at abstinence programs, and pro-life can take a harder look at sex education programs.
Both can take a look at the societal influences that lead to sex in relationships that have a much higher risk of producing pregnancy.
25
Here is one thing I rarely see discussed.
Maybe I am hopelessly optimistic about the moral courage of people but Given the choice of 9 months of discomfort vs knowing they are killing their own baby what will most women choose given the level of emotional and physical support they need to carry the baby to term?
Only when the facts are clear, are women really given freedom to choose. What about making counseling available for women in this situation that can help them really see the options. That's what Christian pregnancy centers do. They have no legal status for forcing the woman to carry the baby but they want the woman to know exactly what's going on. Do Planned Parenthood's pregnancy centers present the truth this way? From what I have read and heard they often avoid the issue of the status of the fetus. How many women choose an abortion who really believe that what they are aborting is their potential child? I do know many women come to the realization that this was a child after an abortion and suffer from the guilt. Couldn't this be avoided if the truth was clear before hand?
Is there any recognition of this aspect on the liberal end or do they fall back to helping the women deal with guilt feelings by telling them it was nothing but a ball of cells?
Could abortions have dropped because with ultrasound women are realizing this is a baby not a ball of cells so their choices are different?
posted on 06.20.2005 4:18 PM
26
C. Grace:
You misunderstand - prolife folks see criminalizing abortion as a MEANS to ending it.They may see it that way, but this doesn't make it so. Look at statistics the world over, and you'll find that legality has almost no bearing whatsoever on abortion rates. Neither, for that matter, does the "faith" of the populace. Brazil, one of the more religiously devout countries in the world, has criminalized abortion, yet it has an estimated abortion rate that's more than double that of England and Wales, which are largely agnostic on religion and where abortion is legal:
Yet, while it may seem paradoxical, a country's abortion rate is not closely correlated with whether abortion is legal there. For example, abortion levels are quite high in Latin American countries, where abortion is highly restricted. (In fact, 20 million of the 46 million abortions performed annually worldwide occur in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws.) At the same time, abortion rates are quite low throughout Western Europe, where the procedure is legal and widely available. Also, Eastern and Western Europe have the world's highest and lowest abortion rates, respectively, yet abortion is generally legal throughout the Continent.You go on to say:
In general a conservative believes that laws teach morality. That when something is illegal that is a statement that it is immoral and unacceptable. And that making something legal makes it acceptable/moral to do itThat seems pie-in-the-skyish to me. I don't think people view laws in that way. Plenty of immoral things are legal, and probably a few moral (or at least morally neutral) things are illegal.
I am not asking you to agree with this just to understand it and not accuse prolifers of a lack of compassion.I'm not sure I've ever accused pro-lifers of a "lack of compassion," but now that you bring it up, I still have a foul taste in my mouth from the one time, now over 15 years ago, I escorted a female friend to an abortion clinic. The protesters blocking the clinic were among the meanest people I've ever encountered in any circumstance. I'm not saying they're necessarily typical of the larger pro-life movement, but these people wouldn't recognize compassion if you tatooed it on a 2x4 and hit them across the head with it.
Anyway, I don't suggest that pro-life people stop trying to criminalize abortion. If you think it ought to be illegal, by all means try to convince others to agree with you and change the laws. Where I take issue is with people who try to combat abortion solely in a legislative manner, without doing the other things (reducing poverty, comprehensive sex ed, promoting birth control among those who eschew abstinence, etc.) that are proven to prevent abortions.
And I take issue with those who have a pie-in-the-sky view that we can fight the problem by dramatically reducing how much people have sex. People are going to keep having sex, often sex you disapprove of, no matter what you do about it. They can accept this and act accordingly, or they can refuse to accept it and take the "moral high ground," playing their proverbial fiddle while Rome burns.
Dell:
I think pro-choice can take a harder look at abstinence programs, and pro-life can take a harder look at sex education programs. ... Both can take a look at the societal influences that lead to sex in relationships that have a much higher risk of producing pregnancy.Mostly I agree, but to be fair, I'm not aware of any prominent pro-choice group that opposes the promotion of abstinence. They only oppose teaching abstinence to the exclusion of other types of sex education. Once you peel away the spin, comprehensive sex education is proven effective at delaying sexual activity, reducing teen pregnancies, and reducing abortions among teens, at minimum.
Of course, some of the other things that would help a great deal are things that would make religious conservatives highly uncomfortable. Suffice it to say, Jocelyn Elders was probably right.
posted on 06.20.2005 4:34 PM27
And the same could be said of the pro-abortion side which goes into hysterics at any sensible legislation limiting abortion.
True but it's important to remember here that post-1973 the pro-choicers have had the high ground. It is the pro-lifers who had the low ground. You're right in that pro-choicers could improve upon their tactics here and there but if you're team is losing picking out ways that your opponants could have been winning by even more isn't all that useful!
The rest of your statements here seem more aimed at attacking the motives of the people involved than actual discussion of the issue. Anything you said could be said of any political movement. Saying it just gives you a chance to feel good for being better than those 'other people'.
Then you're not really reading what I'm writing very carefully. I'm pointing out that when confronting complicated problems there is often a temptation to focus on what is easy to measure while forgetting the true goal. In the field of education it is easy to measure budgets rather than outcomes and when outcomes are measured it is easier to measure test scores rather than more subtle indicators of how valuable education is. However just because something is hard to measure doesn't mean it is less important than what is easy to measure!
I think I've been quite fair by pointing out how this applies to other activists too, liberals specifically.
You are taking a stance that laws are made outside of society. Instead, laws usually reflect societal beliefs. As such, I doubt we would have an abortion disaster.
Laws may reflect societal beliefs but that doesn't mean much of anything. Often laws are enacted that society quite frankly does not believe in. A host of economics literature has been published showing how this happens. Your thinking represents the problem I find in much of the pro-life movement....you seem to think the moment a law is passed outlawing abortion the battle has been won. This is as foolish as an anti-poverty advocate thinking the moment Lyndon Johnson's 'Great Society' passed poverty was finally defeated! Wait a second, don't laws reflect society? Why would the Great Society have passed if society didn't believe in ending poverty! What do you mean there's still poverty!!??
In general a conservative believes that laws teach morality. That when something is illegal that is a statement that it is immoral and unacceptable. And that making something legal makes it acceptable/moral to do it.
Conservatives should listen to libertarians a bit more. Laws should be to enforce desirable behavior. They are not 'teaching tools', they are fundamentally at their basic level about people with guns forcing you to act in a certain manner. In fact this is not what conservatives believe. Conservatives believe that laws should be supplemented by numerous social institutions (families, churches, clubs, associations etc). Morality is not taught by government but by the social institutions that have stood the test of time.
posted on 06.20.2005 4:36 PM28
But this "right" to not be "forced" to carry a baby was non-existent until it was made up out of whole cloth some thirty or forty years ago. I may claim I have a right not to have to breathe oxygen because it is offensive to me in some way...
It's not the "right to not carry a baby" that is being violated. It is their humanity that you bring into question. Are women cows? To be bred and used? Of course not. But why not? Whats the difference between forcing a woman to undergo a pregnancy against her will and forcing a cow to do the same thing? One entity is a human being, the other is not. It's that fundamental distinction that is violated. But that same principle is violated again when the pro-choice side chooses to call a baby a fetus and talk of it as if its a tumor.
Infanticide was once much more commonly practiced in many cultures. And it still is today in India, Pakistan, China and other places, especially of girl babies. The outlawing of abortion does not necessarily mean that every child brought to term will be given a chance at life.
If you are going to outlaw abortion completely, then you also need to recognize that there are other consequences. Infanticide may become more common. There certainly will also be more mouths to feed. Are you willing to feed them?
If however, you approach the question of abortion from the angle of respecting that a woman is giving up some rights in exchange for bringing an unwanted pregnancy to term, then I think it likely that more women would be willing to do exactly that. Because then you are still honoring and respecting her and her rights.
And you need to have support mechanisms in place for supporting her decision, such as... Welfare. Yup, Welfare.
What if, for example, there was a law on the books that said that any child born of rape would receive full state funding from birth to adulthood at 18? Would it reduce the number of abortions? Yes. Would it be expensive? Yes. Is it worth it? I think so, but I may be in the minority.
posted on 06.20.2005 4:39 PM29
C. Grace:
How many women choose an abortion who really believe that what they are aborting is their potential child?You might be surprised. 60% of abortions are obtained by women who already have one or more children. But I think you hit the key wording there. Everyone understands that what they are aborting is their potential child. But to some, a potential child is far from the same thing as an actual child.
I do know many women come to the realization that this was a child after an abortion and suffer from the guilt. Couldn't this be avoided if the truth was clear before hand?A certain amount of guilt is normal, before, during and after an abortion. What might be interesting to see is a fair survey, say ten years later, of women who have had abortions to see whether they would do it again in similar circumstances. Since 47% of abortions are among women who've had abortions before, I suspect we know our answer.
Is there any recognition of this aspect on the liberal end or do they fall back to helping the women deal with guilt feelings by telling them it was nothing but a ball of cells?I certainly think so. I frankly think you may have bought into some propaganda. I'm not aware of any abortion counseling that says "hey, it's just a ball of cells anyway." In any case, with all the demagoguery that goes on you might not know it, but there are moderates out there.
Could abortions have dropped because with ultrasound women are realizing this is a baby not a ball of cells so their choices are different?I suppose this is possible, but I doubt it's statistically significant. That's just a gut feeling, however. I have no statistics to back that up. posted on 06.20.2005 4:45 PM
30
What if, for example, there was a law on the books that said that any child born of rape would receive full state funding from birth to adulthood at 18? Would it reduce the number of abortions? Yes. Would it be expensive? Yes. Is it worth it? I think so, but I may be in the minority.
I would think it would result in many people claiming rape that didn't really happen. Would the law then be changed to require a conviction before funding? Then would false accusations increase or would victims groups protest that legitimate victims were being labeled 'welfare cheats'? Would relationships that went sour result in a false rape accusation rather than going for child support?
One possible idea would be a simple bounty for every life birth...say a $1000. This would increase the births to mothers with serious problems and some might game the system (for a drug addict such a prize would be tempting). It probably would decrease abortions to some degree (it would work too in an environment were abortion was illegal). The costs though would include:
1. The payments to mothers who choose life over abortion.
2. The payments to mothers who were going to have their kids anyway.
3. The payments to mothers who wouldn't have gotten pregnant but the existence of the bounty 'tipped the scales' away from being careful.
4. The social costs of additional children born to those in bad situations.
On the other hand if this decreased abortion by 10% can pro-lifers dispute the cost?
It's not the "right to not carry a baby" that is being violated. It is their humanity that you bring into question. Are women cows? To be bred and used? Of course not. But why not? Whats the difference between forcing a woman to undergo a pregnancy against her will and forcing a cow to do the same thing? One entity is a human being, the other is not. It's that fundamental distinction that is violated. But that same principle is violated again when the pro-choice side chooses to call a baby a fetus and talk of it as if its a tumor.
The other issue with the pro-life's focus on the legal side only is who is being placed with the burden of carrying these children? Those least able to handle it. The above proposal (just tossed out there for discussion) at least takes some of that burden away & places it on the hands of those who can bear it easily. By accepting a 'middle ground' at least this burden can be laid out clearly and a case for serious help for the unborn made. However by focusing on the legal side only these facts can be coldly overlooked by simply shrugging and noting that legally the woman is responsible no matter what.
posted on 06.20.2005 5:04 PM31
"The other issue with the pro-life's focus on the legal side only"
Why do I keep hearing that prolifers are focusing on the legal side only? This is way off base and is an unfair generalization.
What about the pregnancy centers operating on charitable donations that many pro-lifers give their money to in order to care for women who choose life? What about those who are promoting abstinance in the schools - you amy not agree with how they are doing it but they are involved. What about parents who care enough about their pregnant daughter to adopt her child. etc. Let's watch our sweeeping generalizations here.
TGIRSH - I guess I am hopelessly optimistic. I wasn't aware of this statistic. so much for rose colored glasses.
posted on 06.20.2005 6:37 PM32
C Grace:
The problem with these centers is that true or not, many people believe they exist not to help women who choose life, but to convince women to choose life; i.e., once they decide not to abort, the job is done.
posted on 06.20.2005 10:18 PM33
Fair enough, not all pro-lifers focus exclusively on legal victories. There are many who do work 'in the trenches' actually helping pregnant women, helping mothers with newborns etc.
But I stand by what I said. I think the pro-life movement as a whole is more pleased getting Owens on the court than it was when the abortion rate dropped under Clinton. I also think the pro-life movement took on a nasty edge to it years ago when it decided to make legal victories its focuse....those who don't support their legal agenda are seen as the enemy unnecessarily. This has polarized the entire issue into two camps on both extremes.
It's interesting that European countries also have legal abortion but typically have more restriction on its use than the US does. Sadly legal fights tend to degrade into absolutes but the US has long been enamoured of legal victories.
posted on 06.21.2005 8:10 AM34
TGirsch writes:
I frankly think you may have bought into some propaganda. I'm not aware of any abortion counseling that says "hey, it's just a ball of cells anyway."
Hm. I blogged this morning about an abortion clinic website that says this about what's in the uterus in the first seven weeks of a pregnancy.
posted on 06.21.2005 8:54 AM35
It's odd but while people often get themselves into lots of trouble behaving irrationally their decisions are almost always rational. Abortions happen because those that choose them see the benefits as greater than the cost. Fewer abortions will happen if either the costs are increased or the benefits decreased.
To use the example I cited above, being able to avoid the shame of being an unwed mother would be a benefit of abortion. Since this stigma has been loosened over the last 10-20 years this benefit to abortion has been decreased. If being an unwed mother is no longer shameful then there's no need to hide it by getting an abortion.
In this manner it is useful to analyze abortion like you would any other product that is sold in the market. Demand is based on a huge number of variables. Ignorance is not usually one of them. Consumers are often quite smart about what they purchase. I have meet really stupid pot heads who could barely tie their shoes yet they know how to buy pot like as well as an expert wine speculator buys and sells wine. Uneducated women with large families and low job skills know the supermarket and its sales cycles like the back of their hands. Even teenagers are expert consumers...as you'll learn around Christmas time. It is unlikely consumers of abortion services, even those in bad situations, are suffering from massive ignorance.
The image of the woman 'abused' by the cold 'abortion industry' may play well at fund raisers but is unlikely to be reality. If you approached this issue as a marketing problem...say getting women to switch from Coke to Pepsi...designing a campaign around the premise that they are stupid and have been fooled by Coke executives is unlikely to pay off very well.
On the flip side of demand is supply. Here advocates of making abortion illegal are not on good ground. Pharmaceuticals are complicated & difficult to manufacture. It is quite easy for the gov't to force Merck to pull Viox from the market without worrying about a signficant black market. Complicated medical procedures are also easily regulated. Imagine, for example, that the gov't outlawed organ transplants. Since these operations require hospitals & highly experienced surgeons who must rely on the state to preserve their licenses enforcing such a ban would be doable.
Abortion, however, does not require unique pharmaceuticals (the drugs used are pretty much standard issue that have a wide range of in-office applications). Nor does it require particularly complicated equipment or offices. It doesn't even require great skill. The 'back ally' abortions of the past were often done safely by medical professionals that were moonlighting or unlicensed people who nevertheless were skilled enough to handle about 90% of cases. Performing 'back ally' abortions is more difficult than performing back ally belly button piercing but not by as much as pro-lifers would hope.
Restricting supply will not be easy. Especially since we have left the pre-1973 world of paper & typewriters far behind. Those seeking to resist illegal abortion will have the power of the Internet behind them as well as a market of informed medical consumers (the doctor today is no longer viewed as an infallible god). Enforcement is tricky because there is no equipment that can be called 'abortion paraphania'. If you're running a meth lab, for example, it is pretty hard to make your equipment look like anything other than a meth lab. The abortionist's equipment, however is basically the equipment of an obgyn.
So making abortion illegal will likely have a modest effect on supply & a smaller effect on demand (at least a few people will be deterred by the law). Those of you who know economics well will remember elastic and inelastic curves. I suspect the demand curve for abortion is relatively inelastic while the supply is elastic. Decreasing supply coupled with a decrease in demand results in higher prices but only a small decrease in quantity. In other words, a post-Roe US would likely have slighly less abortions but those performing them would be richer.
From an anti-abortion POV, though, policies that reduce demand for abortions have the effect of reducing abortions while also cutting the revenue from those who supply them (which I imagine anti-abortionists would like). The problem is, of course, that there is no obvious set of policies that will decrease demand without costs. Social conservatives object to unwed motherhood yet its social acceptance almost certainly has resulted in fewer abortions.
posted on 06.21.2005 1:41 PM36
Emily:
I stand corrected. However, by show of hands, who here had ever even heard of "Early Options" prior to today?
I suppose such counseling may be typical, but not from anything I've seen.
And of course, much of what they say is true. Most pregnancies do end by wholly natural causes in those early stages, often without the woman even realizing she was ever pregnant.
The question, I suppose, is how you view such statistics. You could view it as saying "go ahead and have an abortion because it's not really a baby yet anyway," or you can view it as saying "if you are going to have an abortion, then very early in pregnancy is the time to do it."
posted on 06.21.2005 1:47 PM37
tgirsch
"Emily: I stand corrected."
tgirsch = class act
posted on 06.21.2005 3:50 PM38
I think that both sides (for all the struggle) need to realize that abortions for rape and incest are 500 per year in the United States. If you add health of mother AND health of child you get to around 80,000 out of over 1,300,000.
We recognize self-defense and justifiable homicide in law for adults (even insanity defenses). Abortions will never be zero.
The question is: Is the embryo/fetus something which it is seriously wrong to kill? That is really a simple yes or no question. All the reasons we might allow "something it is seriously wrong to kill" to be killed anyway come up later.
However, nowhere (except abortion), do we make the choice of killing "something that it is seriously wrong to kill" the exclusive choice of one person - even if they are at risk (they will have to explain self-defense to someone).
I would be willing to NEVER talk about making abortion illegal (and work to make it unthinkable) if I never heard about "a women's right to choose" or "control her own body".
posted on 06.21.2005 4:20 PM39
Good point JCH but in America there's a tendancy to veer directly to the legal arguments first. So it's either an absolute right of a woman to control her body or an absolute right of a fetus to live in a woman's body damm everything else!
What is different is that pregancy is the only condition where one person's life depends entirely upon another individual person. I suppose you could find some other offbeat examples, say the super-rare blood type who can only accept transfusions from one other person who happens to be a Jahova's Witness.
Pro-lifers have a valid point when they note that the right to abortion in Roe.v.Wade is nearly unlimited (at least for the first three months). It is, at least, entrusted to someone who is the most intimately involved in the particulars. If you read Levitt's essay you'll note that his hypothesis is that many woman know their babies will be born into bad situations and use abortion to prevent that from happening. There is some evidence that nature follows a similar process, ejecting a fertilized egg if it doesn't 'feel right'.
Pro-choicers are correct to note, though, that pro-lifers would have the law intervene in women's intimate lives & remove nearly all authority and decision making power they have. When we say we should honor our mothers because they gave us life do we realize that literally means they could have denied us life????
Anyway I see legalistic pro-lifism (there's a neologism for you!) basically butting into a bad situation and then running away from all other responsibility. Talk about the burden of pregnancy on women for just a little bit with most pro-lifers and you're guaranteed to hear some variation of "if she doesn't like being pregnant she shouldn't have had sex or at least used birth control". In other words the society takes the problem and tosses its burden on those least able to bear it. Another reason why I'm skeptical about changing the law on abortion.
posted on 06.21.2005 4:38 PM40
"What is the relative value of a fetus?"
The prochoicers can never answer this question, not just because it's hypothetical.
The U.S. Supreme Court once answered a similar question, saying that a single black person was valued at only three-fifths of a human being (presumably a white person was five-fifths).
If prochoicers tried to answer the above question, they would appear (and be) as foolish as that Supreme Court was and eventually was shown to have been.
posted on 06.22.2005 12:35 PM41
1. The Supreme Court never said this, the authors of the Constitution did.
2. The 3/5 clause was not a statement of relative value (assulting 5 blacks was not legally equilivant to assulting 3 whites) but of representation the states would have in Congress. Specifically, only 3/5 of a state's slave population would count in figuring out how many representatives the state would get in the House.
3. As David Horowitz and others have pointed out, critics of the 3/5 clause almost always get the story backwards. The 3/5 clause was enacted to please those who opposed slavery, not supporters of it. Those against slavery argued that it was unfair to give a state that had a huge slave population more representatives when slave states did not let slaves vote. The slave states wanted black slaves to be counted as equal to whites for purposes of representation.
4. Without the 3/5 clause the slave states would have had more representation in the House than non-slave states. That would mean it would have been harder to elect Presidents who were lukewarm on supporting slavery (even Lincoln was quite moderate on the issue before the Civil War broke out) and Congress would pass more pro-slavery laws such as the Fugative Slave Act, the gag rule etc.
posted on 06.22.2005 12:45 PM42
Boonton,
What is different is that pregancy is the only condition where one person's life depends entirely upon another individual personActually, at the point where someone kills someone else this is exactly true.
When I find you standing uninvited in the middle of my living room at 2am (with me having my 357 Magnum in my hand) - your life depends entirely on my choice. In fact, if I have found you have slept with my wife; and go to your home at 2am with my .357 - your life still entirely depends on my choice.
posted on 06.22.2005 2:17 PM43
Boonton,
What is different is that pregancy is the only condition where one person's life depends entirely upon another individual personActually, at the point where someone kills someone else this is exactly true.
When I find you standing uninvited in the middle of my living room at 2am (with me having my 357 Magnum in my hand) - your life depends entirely on my choice. In fact, if I have found you have slept with my wife; and go to your home at 2am with my .357 - your life still entirely depends on my choice.
posted on 06.22.2005 2:17 PM44
You're stretching things a bit far. In that example whether or not my life ends depends upon your action (or lack of action). However my life doesn't depend upon you to continue. If you do nothing my life will go on as it did before you pointed the gun at me. If we parted company and moved to opposite sides of the globe my life will not depend on you. The same cannot be said in the case of pregnancy barring a sci-fiction type breakthrough of artificial wombs.
posted on 06.22.2005 3:07 PM45
Boonton:
Your explanation of the 3/5 rule in the Constitution is....absolutely correct.
posted on 06.22.2005 5:00 PM46
Joe Carter writes: ...our primary goal is not to make abortion illegal but to make it unthinkable.
So does this mean you won't challenge my claim that pro-lifers will eventually get around to conducting brainwashing on a massive scale if they are not neutralized first? Cool beans! Next time I get some whack-job calling me a lunatic for making that claim, I'll send him (and yes, it's nearly always a him) to you.
posted on 06.22.2005 7:54 PM47
Boonton,
No Boonton, I find you in my living room at 2am; your life depends on me to continue.
Our lives may be in the hands of many people after our birth. The skills of doctors; drunk drivers; etc. People make decisions everyday that are life and death for other people; and not in the control of those other people. This is really no different.
You may not wish it placed on that level because it narrows the gap between you; and something else it is seriously wrong to kill - but there is no real difference. Other than ease, perhaps. Blowing you away in my living room face-to-face should be harder (but isn't necessarily) than killing you remotely without seeing you (say on the other end of a 55mm gun); but in either case the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments of your future of value are done.
So too in abortion. There may be justification in abortion - just as in my living room, or the other end of that artillery piece; but the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments of another future of value are done.
posted on 06.22.2005 7:57 PM48
.So does this mean you won't challenge my claim that pro-lifers will eventually get around to conducting brainwashing on a massive scaleI think the thread of the article is that hearts and minds are being won to the right view of this; not than brains must be washed. What a silly comment! posted on 06.22.2005 8:00 PM
49
Joe Carter also writes: What is the relative value of a fetus? That is a question that pro-choice moderates need to answer.
If they have any brains, their answer will be disarmingly straightforward. "Q: What is the relative value of a fetus? A: Ask its expectant mother."
If you want to cut off the option of giving that answer, then you'll have to rephrase the question. Unfortunately, for you, that won't help your case much. "Q: What is the relative value of 1.5 million fetuses per year? A: Ask their 1.5 million expectant mothers."
Do you see the problem yet?
posted on 06.22.2005 8:02 PM50
JCHFleetGuy writes: I think the thread of the article is that hearts and minds are being won to the right view of this; not than brains must be washed.
If that were the case, then unthinkable is the wrong word choice. If every heart and mind is won to the anti-choice view, then you haven't made abortion unthinkable. You will have merely made it unthought. Not the same thing.
Make up your mind what you want to say, please.
posted on 06.22.2005 8:06 PM51
Unthinkable is the wrong word (I've used this line and I will have to stop now)
Would you say killing is unthinkable? Probably not. As a society, we would like to have killing be unthought - but we will never achieve that.
So abortion may always be thought. Maybe he should have said "our primary goal is not to make abortion illegal but to make it unchosen" - just like killing.
It was equally over-the-top to accuse Joe of advocating brainwashing (even if his wording was flawed).
Q: What is the relative value of a fetus? A: Ask its expectant motherYou are not implying that the fetus only has (or should only have) value to the mother are you? posted on 06.22.2005 8:19 PM
52
JCHFleetguy:
You're either missing Boonton's point, or you're dodging it. Assuming you count an embryo/young fetus the same as a born human, it's the only common situation where one life is wholly and inseparably dependent upon one specific other individual for a lengthy period of time. If you are a risk to me, or even an inconvenience to me, I can remove myself from your proximity and essentially divorce myself from all contact with you. But a pregnant woman has no such options (except abortion, which you would mostly take away).
It is this inseparability that in large part causes me to support abortion without restrictions during the first trimester. If there were a viable way to transfer the responsibility to someone else who wants it (and a sufficient supply of such "someone elses" out there), then that would certainly undermine my support for early-term abortion.
I'd love it if we lived in a world where nobody ever got pregnant except when they really wanted to. But we don't live in that world, and we have to deal with it.
You are not implying that the fetus only has (or should only have) value to the mother are you?Well, I'd also include the father, but that's about it. Assuming, of course, that he's even still around, which I'm willing to bet in a fairly large percentage of those 1.3 million incidents, he's not.
You want me to support massively restricting access to abortion? Here's what you need to do:
1. Ensure that no woman ever has to worry about the healthcare costs associated with bringing a child to term.
2. Ensure that every child brought to term will have a loving, stable home waiting for it once born.
3. Make contraception (including EC and sterilization) freely available to anyone who wants it.
4. Ensure that every child, once born, will receive quality health care.
5. Ban fertility clinics -- there will be enough surplus babies without them.
That'd be a pretty good start. Until you start seriously advocating for those things, you're basically calling for an end to a practice without considering the implications.
posted on 06.23.2005 12:12 AM53
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posted on 06.23.2005 1:07 AM54
Boonton, so I stand corrected on one count: The Constitution said it first, but the Supreme Court DID "say it", by affirming the 3/5 clause, so let's see if you in your self-righteousness can admit that you were wrong on YOUR first point.
As to the rest of your supporting argument, it matters not that that clause was supported by those supporting slavery. The fundamental point is that blacks were still counted as less than a whole human being.
By your sterile argument, you appear to be laser- focused on anything but that basic fact of discrimination. Is it possible that you support such a thing? You can point out how I "got it backward" till the cows come home, which I guess makes you feel superior, but that isn't the point. It's amazing how you can divert the discussion away from the fundamental wrong that the 3/5 clause always was, at least to the black person.
Perhaps that's how you can devalue the unborn any-color person. By diverting the discussion away from that fundamental scientific fact.
Feel superior to me all you want, Boonton. Be my guest. I was once as arrogant as you seem. I once aborted what turned out to be my only daughter. She'd have been 26 this year. It was the worst mistake of my life, a grief and regret I'll never outlive. For me, I can no longer defend what I did, nor condone it for anyone, especially knowing how it damage me, both emotionally and physically. Be prochoice all you want. It isn't being pro-woman, contrary to what you've bought from the media and the liberal leftists.
I'm one of the lucky ones. I found help so that I could begin to forgive myself. There are so many women out there afraid to seek such help, not even knowing that it's available and that hundreds of thousands of women have found it and benefitted from it (and men too), but many more times that number won't, because people who believe as you do make it impossible for them to overcome the shame and seek such help. Your type of rhetoric keeps them silent. Perhaps it is even your wife, sister, mother, daughter, or grandmother. You'll never know, because of what you say and believe. I feel sorry for whoever that woman is in your life. Or maybe it's two or three women. Maybe it's you. Two out of every 5 women you know have had at least one abortion, Boonton. That's the stat from PP's Allan Guttmacher Institute itself. Not from some prolife site. Pick 10 women you know. 4 of them have had an abortion. Do you even know which 4? Do you? I doubt it.
posted on 06.23.2005 7:11 AM55
No Boonton, I find you in my living room at 2am; your life depends on me to continue.
OK, but if we both go 100 miles away from each other in opposite direction both of our lives continue on. That wouldn't be the case if I happened to be in your wife's womb at 2am!
Boonton, so I stand corrected on one count: The Constitution said it first, but the Supreme Court DID "say it", by affirming the 3/5 clause, so let's see if you in your self-righteousness can admit that you were wrong on YOUR first point.
Did they? I'm not aware of any case where the 3/5 clause was challenged. It's only application was in determining how many electors and representatives each state had. If it never came up in a case it is quite likely that the Supreme Court never said anything about it. After the Civil War the 3/5 clause was moot since slavery was outlawed (you'll note that the 3/5 clause was made moot, it was never actually repealed).
By your sterile argument, you appear to be laser- focused on anything but that basic fact of discrimination. Is it possible that you support such a thing? You can point out how I "got it backward" till the cows come home, which I guess makes you feel superior, but that isn't the point. It's amazing how you can divert the discussion away from the fundamental wrong that the 3/5 clause always was, at least to the black person.
Odd isn't it that you know this clause was wrong "at least to the black person" yet without this clause slavery would have never been defeated. I'm sorry that you find it arrogant or sterile of me that I actually demand historical accuracy when someone decides to spout historical facts.
Interesting isn't it that you still don't get it right. The clause never said that blacks were 3/5 of a person. In fact, free blacks counted equally with whites per the clause in both the north and south. The clause was only used for representation and as I pointed out those who supported had a powerful argument. The south did not give slaves the vote so why should the south be given extra representatives in the Congress for their population? The 3/5 number was a comprimise, if the anti-slavery forces had won a full victory the ratio would have been 0/5 and you would be pretending that meant that blacks didn't count as human at all.
I never attacked you for your feelings about abortion nor for your personal experiences with it. I try to be as fair as possible when people speak from their real life experiences rather than abstract ideas. Yet you are the one that approached this issue with arrogance. If you can't stand the heat don't play with matches.
posted on 06.23.2005 8:45 AM56
You're not aware of the Dred Scott case, in which he only wanted the right to vote?
I can stand heat just fine, Boonton, just not hot air. Go play with matches by yourself. Enough with you.
posted on 06.23.2005 12:26 PM57
Wrong again, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford
Dred Scott was taken to Illinois and Minnesota (non-slavery areas) and then back to Missouri. When his master died he sued for freedom on the grounds that his stay in a non-slave state voided his status as a slave. Ironically, the lower court in the slave state of Missouri sided with him but the state Supreme court did not.
The famous Dred Scott decision did not hold that blacks were 3/5 human. Rather it held that blacks could never become citizens of the US & the phrase 'all men' in the Declaration of Independence did not apply to them because they were inferior. This was bad enough but the element of the decision that really lite the match was the declaration that the Missour Compromise was unconstitutional because it deprived slave owners of their property.
In other words, it basically said free states could not really be free since slave owners had a right to take their property into free states as much as slave states. The decision was a victory for slave states on paper but it made the Civil War inevitable since there was no longer any way the north could accomodate the south without accepting slavery.
AS far as I can tell without reading the actual decision the 3/5 clause was either not even raised once or was not a major element in the case if it was. Nor was the right to vote a major issue in the case.
posted on 06.23.2005 2:18 PM58
JCHFleetGuy writes: It was equally over-the-top to accuse Joe of advocating brainwashing (even if his wording was flawed).
I thought I was being polite in my assumption the Mr. Carter is an intelligent person who knows how to use the "preview" button before he posts. If he thinks he chose the wrong word, then let him say so. It is not clear to me that he believes he chose the wrong word.
JCHFleetGuy continues: [ quoting me: "Q: What is the relative value of a fetus? A: Ask its expectant mother." ] You are not implying that the fetus only has (or should only have) value to the mother are you?
No. I am implying that, in considering whether to terminate a pregnancy, the values held by an expectant mother for her fetus should trump all other value calculations for it. What is your response to that?
posted on 06.23.2005 2:41 PM59
JCHFleetguy:
1. I'm on the fence on that. Do you make it like welfare, where only those who need it get it? Or do you make it like social security, where everyone qualifies regardless of need? I could see arguments for doing it either way.
2. The number of people waiting to adopt is substantially less than the number of children available for adoption. Many (certainly not all) of the people currently in line are there because they're picky, i.e., they won't take a toddler, want a specific race or gender, etc. The point is that even if you were a lot less selective about the quality of target homes, the demand for adoption would never come anywhere close to the supply.
3. Depends how you define "abortion." If you classify preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus as "abortion," then yes, EC is abortion, but then so is oral contraception. To my knowledge, EC does not cause an implanted embryo to abort. FWIW, it is the implantation of the embryo into the uterine wall that starts the hormonal chain reaction that allows us to detect pregnancy. Basically, if you oppose EC, then you probably oppose the pill as well, for similar reasons. And I can't agree with that.
4. Not even remotely close.
5. We don't have a surplus of adoptable babies because most of them aren't babies any more. The window on that is quite small. And no, I don't think we'll ever get to the point that people won't care that it's not their genes. It's why they pay tens of thousands for fertility treatments even today.
I think embryos and fetuses have a future like mineThat's rather like equivocating $10,000 invested in 1980 at an average rate of return of 10% (you) with $10,000 invested today with an anticipated rate of return of 10% and not to be withdrawn until 2030 (embryo). Both amount to $108K, right? But in the former case, all the "ifs" have largely been resolved, whereas in the latter case, any number of things can go wrong and change everything. $10K != $108K. Embryo != Person. posted on 06.24.2005 4:33 PM
60
Depends how you define "abortion." If you classify preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus as "abortion," then yes, EC is abortion, but then so is oral contraceptionActually, at the moment my definition is fertilization, not implantation - but my view could be altered.
Oral contraception stops ovulation not implanation, or fertilization - so I have no problems with it on any grounds.
My comment on adoption was for newborns - which is all this argument actually entails (although I would love to get people off the dime on toddlers, etc.); and for which there is a waiting list.
I live in a good state for medical umbrella for neo-natal and early childhood care: I do not disagree with #4. (Of course, I do not consider 89.3% HAVING health care is "not even close"). If we are going to provide universal health care for ANYBODY it would be neo-natal and early childhood.
We all have ifs in life brother. A plane may be on its way to land on my house right now. That baby in the womb may find the cure for AIDS - I sure won't. We can only generalize this concept because "none of us know the hour of our death" or our future.
posted on 06.24.2005 4:59 PM61
JCHFleetGuy writes: That is not a question anyone has an answer for - including the mother.
So then, why bother asking the question if you've already arrived dialectically at the point where the subject is off limits to inquiry?
In fact, you're agreeing with the point I brought up earlier— namely, that the question Joe Carter is proposing should be asked of moderate pro-choicers is likely to be a non-starter. Here you are telling us the question is entirely rhetorical! You're not interested in what pro-choicers produce for an answer. As far as you're concerned the "relative value of a fetus" is incalculable. Not a number. Indeterminable. To ask is to fail.
Well, that's just great. Lemme know when you want to start having a real discussion about this.
posted on 06.24.2005 9:44 PM62
JCHFleetguy:
Oral contraception stops ovulation not implanation, or fertilization - so I have no problems with it on any grounds.Not strictly true. It's a two-tier method. It prevents ovulation in most cases, but also prevents the uterine wall from developing so that if an egg somehow is produced and does become fertilized, it won't implant. EC basically is a larger dose of birth control pill hormones that buttresses the latter function. It is this latter function that causes some pharmacists to have an ethical objection to giving out birth control pills.
Anyway, if you define pregnancy as conception rather than implantation, then something like 75% or 80% of all pregnancies end in abortion without any artificial interference. That would absolutely dwarf your 1.3 million figure you bandy about. Almost 22 million such abortions in America every year, if my math is correct, making the 1.3 million a drop in the bucket. The more sensible answer, of course, is that pregnancy doesn't truly begin until implantation and the chain of events that this sets off.
I know that your comment was specifically referring to newborns, but even conceding such a waiting list and removing most restrictions, do you think you'd get anywhere close to 1.3 million per year on the list? Heck, do you think you could even manage to sustain a quarter of that every year?
Also, if only 17% of pregnancies ended in abortion (instead of the current 24%), would you call that "close" to no abortions? The point is 17% of children not having adequate health care is a lot, and it's not anything like what I'd call "close" to all of them having it.
Scrolling up a bit:
Would the child you are going to abort been the first to discover a cure for AIDS; or some equally significant thing? Or been an ax murderer? Who knows what experiences, activities, projects and enjoyments you are ending; or what effect that will have on the human race?You could play that game all day, I suppose, but where do you draw the line? I didn't have sex with my wife tonight, and if I had, she might have gotten pregnant, and the baby from that pregnancy might have gone on to solve the problem of global terrorism. Does that make my decision not to have sex an irresponsible one?
The flaw in this logic, of course, is that it assumes that the potential child that may have gone on to cure cancer is the only such child who could conceivably do so, which is ridiculous.
If Beethoven had been aborted we wouldn't have the ninth or its derivatives, but we would still have music.
posted on 06.25.2005 1:29 AM63
Tgrisch,
Actually, I said the "first" one to do - I intended to imply delay and not obliteration.
I am talking about actually ending the life of something - not failing to start it. That was a bit of an infinite regress. The point I made is valid - none of us, even the mother, are capable of putting any relative value on a life with future of value.
and s9 - that is the real discussion. I asked if you thought the mother had the only say - you answered and asked me my opinion. You got it.
posted on 06.25.2005 2:17 AM64
Tgrisch
Anyway, if you define pregnancy as conception rather than implantation, then something like 75% or 80% of all pregnancies end in abortion without any artificial interferenceThat number floats up and down - but I am not talking about death by natural causes.
I know that your comment was specifically referring to newborns, but even conceding such a waiting list and removing most restrictions, do you think you'd get anywhere close to 1.3 million per year on the list? Heck, do you think you could even manage to sustain a quarter of that every year?I do not expect a 100% end in abortions. If made illegal, I would hope it would still be under state control (where it belongs) and not all states will handle it equally. If made unchosen, and not illegal at all anyway, people will still choose it.
Also, I do not expect that if all 1,300,000 went to term - that some HUGE percentage of these wouldn't find a way to keep (and not give up) that child they just gave birth to.
Finally, you and I have talked about ways to reduce the numbers by education, not law. I do not expect as many people to act irresponsibly. I expect more women to "control their own body" and to "choose" not to get pregnant unless they are ready to have a baby.
posted on 06.25.2005 1:52 PM65
JCHFleetGuy responds: That is the real discussion. I asked if you thought the mother had the only say - you answered and asked me my opinion. You got it.
Actually, no I didn't get your opinion. I got an exegesis from you about why you think you can't (or shouldn't) form an opinion. I explained why I thought this was unsatisfactory, and you confirmed that you're completely okay with that— the answer may be unsatisfactory to me, but it's your complete and final answer. Well, good for you.
As I said, let me know when you want to think about the problem with the seriousness it deserves.
posted on 06.25.2005 6:37 PM66
s9
I think it is prima facia seriously wrong to kill a fetus from fertilization on (I could be bumped to implantation - maybe). I think to talk about relative value of a fetus is the same as talking about your relative value in relation to your future life - no one knows which of you will ultimately have the greatest impact on the future. Nobody should have the unrestricted right to end that life.
That being said: I have presented that I would be willing to forgo on my part calling for making abortion illegal - if folks in favor of keeping it legal stopped talking about a women's "right to choose" or "control her own body" as the basis of abortion being ok.
I think that position has been clear in this thread - certainly in other abortion threads. I would guarantee that Tgrisch, for one, knows my position - and knows I am ready for a serious conversation.
posted on 06.26.2005 1:31 AM67
That number floats up and down - but I am not talking about death by natural causes.
Natural here is in the eye of the beholder. At one time there was a huge chance of a woman losing her life in childbirth. Yet we invested a lot of resources so now such things happen much more rarely. We have driven the infant mortality rate down quite dramatically as well (and when we are talking about aid to developing countries, infant mortality is one of the metrics we use to measure need/success).
But is death so natural if we invest the resources to minimize it for one group but do nothing for another group? If fertilized eggs are human beings shouldn't we be investing the resources to increase their chances of implantation and birth? Even if this requires us to accept a dramatic increase in birth defects?
posted on 06.27.2005 9:22 AM