Obama, Abortion, and 95/10

Did you see him at the CNN-sponsored Faith Forum a couple weeks ago? He was tiptoeing all over the place, citing the "moral dimension to abortion, which I think that all too often those of us who are pro-choice have not talked about or tried to tap down."

Here's the transcript:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0804/13/se.01.html

Posted by Dave | April 22, 2008 11:35 AM

Ease of adoption, easy availability of contraception, and better prenatal and neonatal assistance would seem to me to go further than responsible information in reducing the abortion rate.

But unfortunately, the pro-life movement has been represented in the public debate as folks chanting "abortion is murder" and urging various policies that often indicate a greater concern with punishing women for having sex that with insisting that a fertilized embryo is the moral equal of a ten-year-old. (That chart is a little tendentious, but it makes some valid points).

It would be great if the pro-life movement focused on this sort of thing-- as many of them already have, I believe including Feminists for Life-- openly stating their preferences and trying to prevent unwanted pregnancies and assist those who find themselves in that position.

I agree with you that the "95 percent" sounds a little optimistic. You may be right about Obama's political capital to take this kind of action; but the reason that neither he nor Clinton will support this proposal is that it's 100% propaganda bombardment, and 0% amelioration of conditions.

Kmiec is, apparently, more interested in the rule of law than in abortion. Unsurprising; most Americans think that abortion should be legal, with restrictions.

It's very easy, intellectually, to attach yourself to one principle and argue that it's the most important thing in the whole world, but most people don't feel that way.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | April 22, 2008 11:47 AM

The canard is that we can painlessly reduce abortion while maintaining a sexual ethic that doesn’t seriously extend beyond "consent" & "adult".

Statements like the following are a telling window into the mind of the left.

"urging various policies that often indicate a greater concern with punishing women for having sex"

Pregnancy is not a punishment. (as any Mother will tell you)It is paternalistic towards women to suggest that they are unaware of the natural consequences of sexual activity (pregnancy) and that the arrival of an unintended pregnancy signals some wholly unexpected event. To then further suggest that the legal prohibition of abortion is some retroactive “punishment” foisted against female sexual activity is a-historical and anti-intellectual.

Societies have sexual ethics that promote restraint, monogamy, and intact married childbearing. It is to the credit & not the detriment of the pro-life worldview that we approach the human person as capable of self control. To extend that to the entire culture promoting a serious ethic of human sexuality is ennobling of men, women & society.

This is very much the norm across history & culture. Both men & women are expected to exercise control and foresight. Once conception has occurred outside these norms, sacrifice on the part of men & women doesn’t represent “punishment” but rather a healthy regard for human life & the miracle of birth combined with an adult realization of accountability for ones actions.

To replace such a ethic with a sophomoric & unaccountable rebellion against elemental biology is tantamount to saying digestion is the punishment for eating. (sans the extreme human rights violation of abortion)

Women, men & society are much more morally serious and clear headed than the left presumes. While there are multiple ways of making abortion less prevalent outside legal prohibition – the most time tested and effective method is to promote a culture of self control and marriage mindedness that a multitude of social benefits including greatly reduced abortion.

Posted by Fitz | April 22, 2008 12:34 PM

I have a sneaking suspicion that "objective information" translates to "propaganda" and "necessary economic support" translates to a small sum of money that's unlikely to survive a round of budget cuts.

Nonetheless, credit where credit is due. I appreciate any and all efforts by pro-lifers to focus on mitigating the costs of childbirth and adoption instead of harrassing women at clinics and lobbying for an outright ban.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | April 22, 2008 12:36 PM

First, Kmiec is a conservative who is so upset about McCain's transgressions of orthodoxy that he is implausibly embracing Obama. There must be something about the air in California.

Second, In 2002, as an Illinois legislator, Obama voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act, which would have protected babies that survived late-term abortions. That same year a similar federal law, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, was signed by President Bush. Only 15 members of the U.S. House opposed it, and it passed the Senate unanimously on a voice vote. Obama was actually to the left of NARAL on this issue.

Posted by Peter Leavitt | April 22, 2008 1:06 PM

I believe he actually voted "Present" on that bill, not that that's much better. (Indeed, it's more cowardly.)

Posted by James Kabala | April 22, 2008 1:17 PM

I'm curious about the 95% figure - why 95%? I have this idea rolling around in my head that 95% represents the abortions that are done for reasons other than rape, incest, and serious medical issues - is that right? If so, why think that this combination of policies would be that successful? Europe, after all, has much more generous welfare states than we do *and* more restrictive abortion laws, and yet they still have lots of abortions. (Fewer than we do, but still lots).

It seems more likely to me that this sort of program might modestly reduce the abortion rate, but at the cost of locking in abortion's constitutional status for the long term. So we might say that the Kmiec deal is this: in return for some social welfare entitlements (and fairly minor restrictions) that will prevent some number of abortions (far short of the 95%), pro-lifers will largely give up on the goal of preventing what they consider to be a grossly immoral act. If the 95/10 plan were plausibly the first step in abortion's end, then it might be quite worthwhile. (Many of the policies offered seem worthwhile on their own). But why think that?

Posted by Michael Simpson | April 22, 2008 1:30 PM

And of course, it's ALWAYS a good thing for "pro-life" politicians to suggest that abortion is a bad thing and do nothing about it. If it weren't, we'd see folks like Ross going after Bush for his wishy-washy stance on abortion (both of his judicial nominees claimed Roe was settled law and he's literally 'phoned in' the march for life each year). For all the kvetching about the abortion stances of various Democratic politicians at least the pro-choice Democrats can say they're actually doing something. "Pro-life" Republicans AND Democrats haven't accomplished much of anything (except for denying women the safest procedure for ending a dangerous pregnancy in the third trimester).

But Ross' petulant nonsense also makes clear another nasty point of contention. I'm pro-choice, but I am not in favor of abortion. I think it's morally questionable and certainly not something I would suggest for any woman who spoke to me about a problem pregnancy (unless of course her life was in danger). That being said, women don't generally come to me seeking advice about problem pregnancies.

I don't generally seek to decide for others what the best course for them to take in any situation would be. When people come to me for advice, I'm happy to help out but I'm not likely to come right out and tell someone what to do. The one constant throughout my life has been realizing that I often make poor choices and almost always miss important details when examining situations. Most of the time, that's not a big deal. When I screw up, it's usually in ways that affect me and only me.

The problem for me in deciding for others arises directly from that. Because I can't possibly know all that there is to know about another person's situation, I'm unqualified to make an expert judgment. Because of my deep awareness of my flaws, I realize that I'm not necessarily even qualified to make the proper judgment in situations that don't call for an expert. Finally, because I am unlikely to directly experience the consequences of another person's actions, I'm very reluctant to make a decision for them.

To me, that makes the case that the best stance for me to take on abortion is to provide strongly anti-abortion advice to anyone who seeks it and to seek not to interject my judgment on any other person. As such, there is no other position I can call my own than our current "pro-choice" movement; however, to suggest that somehow it would be out of character for a pro-choice person to acknowledge the moral component of abortion is simply childish.

Finally, I'm aware that I am not representative of the overall pro-choice movement as a whole. I'd be willing to go out on a limb and say I'm probably a 1-percenter in that group. In the early 90s I marched in the March for Life, so there is certainly more nuance to my stance on abortion than most. It's easier to be nuanced about abortion when you've got a Y chromosome. Much of the hard feelings around this issue could be avoided if both sides would accept that the other side has the capacity for nuance. If both sides of the issue would work to find some common ground rather than demonize each other, I believe we could come to far greater (and more useful) understandings than our current back and forth (which basically hasn't changed a thing since Roe).

Just a final note -- phrases like "first step in abortion's end" deny reality. It might be possible to create criminal sanctions for performing or receiving an abortion, but it will never be possible to "end" abortion. The procedure will still happen regardless of legal sanction. It would do pro-life activists well to realize that and acknowledge it. Creating criminal sanctions for abortion will cause numerous public-health concerns that are inadequately addressed by the "end abortion now" zeal that seems to be the standard in much of the pro-life world.

Posted by James Hare | April 22, 2008 2:24 PM

"it's always nice to have pro-choice politicians on the record suggesting that abortion is a bad thing and we ought to have less of it"

you anti-choicers are always making it seem like us pro choicers prefer abortion as a method of birth control when that clearly isn't the case.

nobody thinks abortions are good and everybody, EVERYBODY wants less of them. thats not really the issue, though, is it?

the issue is whether or not the best way to achieve that end is to make abortions criminal and punish rape victims and incest victims.

Posted by freaktown | April 22, 2008 2:35 PM

Condoms, anyone? The aim should not be to reduce the number of abortions, but to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Remedy? Condoms. Hand 'em out for free at schools.

Posted by Jacob | April 22, 2008 2:43 PM

Here's an instance of a pro-choice blogger being angry about Obama's support of parental notification laws.

Posted by Justin | April 22, 2008 2:55 PM

The canard is that we can painlessly reduce abortion while maintaining a sexual ethic that doesn’t seriously extend beyond "consent" & "adult".

The thing is, that's a canard that pro-lifers are going to live with. The ship has sailed in terms of sexual morality. You aren't going to convince the vast majority of the American public, whether they be poor folks in trailer parks or rich kids in colleges, that having a fulfilling sex life is something to be denied to everyone who isn't a married heterosexual (as well as to the many married heterosexuals who won't find out until their wedding nights under such a scenario that their spouses are cold fish in bed).

So, you have two choices. You can try to reduce the abortion rate under the parameters we have, or you can try to ban it and risk a huge backlash. Your call, pro-lifers.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 22, 2008 3:06 PM

"This is very much the norm across history & culture. Both men & women are expected to exercise control and foresight. Once conception has occurred outside these norms, sacrifice on the part of men & women doesn’t represent “punishment” but rather a healthy regard for human life & the miracle of birth combined with an adult realization of accountability for ones actions.“

How touching.

Pitty this "adult realization of accountability for ones actions" is a fantasy for a sizable portion of the population.

Posted by tg | April 22, 2008 3:38 PM

Dilan,

Fitz doesn't speak for me, or for the numerous people in Blue states, many of them young and fairly liberal in general, who are against abortion _on the merits_ not as part of a broadly reactionary attack on the Sexual Revolution.

Moreover, there are plenty of societies which have a generally moderate to liberal sexual morality, today, combined with substantially more restrictions on abortion than the United States. Have you forgotten that abortion is illegal in Ireland, and that they've had at least two woman presidents so far? No one ever accused the South American countries of being straitlaced in matters of sexual morality. Indeed, some of the more conservative modern nations in matters of sexual morality - Japan, India, China- have abortion legal and widely practiced. I don't see the connection that you appear to see.

It's possible to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies to a minimum through education, contraception, and, yes, a bit more responsibility and restraint when it comes to strictly _casual_ sex. A young couple in their early twenties who are in love with each other should be well equipped to plan their sexual life around the calendar and to use the Pill assiduously and by both of these methods to reduce their chances of needing an abortion to a minimum. Right now they don't particularly have any reason to be careful since they have the abortion licence as a 'safety net'.

What about those cases where birth control fails? Of course it's a sad thing and those women should be supported financially and socially in whatever ways we can, as a society. (I would think that the father ought to at least make a sincere offer of marriage as well, of course.) But that doesn't mean that we are justified in employing _absolutely every_ means to accomplish that worthwhile end.

Creating a collective agriculture and getting rid of exploitation was a worthy goal. But that didn't justify Stalin's starvation of the Ukrainian rich peasants. I'm sure you would agree with me on that. Similiarly, no more is it justified to deprive unborn infants of life in order to pursue worthy societal goals, whether those goals be liberal or Malthusian.

Posted by Hector | April 22, 2008 3:38 PM

It's possible to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies to a minimum through education, contraception, and, yes, a bit more responsibility and restraint when it comes to strictly _casual_ sex. A young couple in their early twenties who are in love with each other should be well equipped to plan their sexual life around the calendar and to use the Pill assiduously and by both of these methods to reduce their chances of needing an abortion to a minimum. Right now they don't particularly have any reason to be careful since they have the abortion licence as a 'safety net'

Do pro-lifers really believe that this is how pro-choice young sexually active women think? Seriously?

There are certainly some women who get several abortions. I've known a few. But the only sexually active women I've ever known who didn't at least attempt to carefully use contraception to plan their reproductive activities were conservative women who were afraid that using contraception would make them look like a "slut". (And a fair amount of these women actually end up at the abortion clinic.)

If you want an honest, non-ideological opinion as to what really drives the abortion rate, a lot of it is alcohol use. A lot of casual and not so casual sex is had after drinking, and drunk people don't use contraception very well.

But this group of people who are really diffident about contraception because "they can always have an abortion" is nonexistent, at least in my experience. Just one more phony stereotype that pro-lifers hold about sexually active unmarried people.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 22, 2008 4:42 PM

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0804/13/se.01.html

Dave is good to note this. There was also moderate abortion language in "The Audacity of Hope", as well discussion of some of those controversial votes (at a somewhat vague and abstract level). Kmiec is not really being all that retroactive here.

I think whoever wins the Dem nom is likely to move to move somewhere in the direction Kmiec is hoping--both Obama and Clinton have positioned themselves to triangulate here.

This is similar in inverse to the argument that McCain's election would do more for amnesty legislation even though Clinton and Obama are at least as far to the left on that--a Republican calling for a path to citizenship will move the ball further than a Dem, and a Dem calling for 95/10 would accomplish more than a GOPer.

While as a liberal I'd like to see abortions reduced without coercion, from the perspective of conservatives, if in fact 95/10 legislation passes but the abortion rate remains high, that would give you vastly improved standing to call for further criminalization of abortion. ("We're giving them all these taxpayer subsidies and they still kill their babies?! Bring on the Life Amendment!") (For this reason, Dems may accept most of the actual proposals, but they won't embrace any specific rate reduction).

So this seems like it should be win-win for you guys--either it works and everyone is happy, or it fails and you guys are in a better political position than ever.

Posted by Consumatopia | April 22, 2008 4:46 PM

Education as opposed to regulation. Sounds good to me.

The Netherlands can serve as a good example. They have probably the most liberal abortion laws and most liberal education system in the world. Yet their teen pregnancy and abortion rates are a fraction of that in the United States. I'll bet they don't teach "abstinence only".

Posted by D Max | April 22, 2008 6:45 PM

Dilan,

Of course most young people in the United States do use contraception. But they might use it more assiduously and more carefully if they knew that they didn't have abortion as a backup. I know people who have told me that (the one person I'm thinking of was a super-liberal pro-choice young woman and a very smart one too). One can usually be _more_ careful about birth control. Using the pill instead of condoms, for example, or using another form of birth control together with absitinence during the fertile period.

I do know one person who used to not use birth control for religious reasons, but her backup was the morning after pill, not abortion.

The fact that people make choices differently depending on how irrevocable the choice is, shouldn't be that controversial. There are some people who would never get married if the divorce laws were more stringent, for example.

You still haven't answered my question- how is abortion, in principle, different from the Stalin's engineered famine in the Ukraine, which was also intended to facilitate a higher good. The history of the last 100 years teaches us that high ideals, if they are not to come to naught, must be tempered with pity and mercy. This is the lesson that you still seem to ignore.

Posted by Hector | April 22, 2008 7:05 PM

Re: The canard is that we can painlessly reduce abortion while maintaining a sexual ethic that doesn’t seriously extend beyond "consent" & "adult".

Why not? There are a number of countries in the world that have more restrictive laws on abortion than the US, but a similar sexual ethic. Ireland, for example. I don't see abortion as being about sex, although there are extremists on both sides of the issue who view it that way. Abortion is about human life, period. To the extent that the pro-Life movement fails to focus on that and comes across like latter-day Mrs Grundys they defeat their own cause.

Re: To replace such a ethic with a sophomoric & unaccountable rebellion against elemental biology is tantamount to saying digestion is the punishment for eating.

The analogy fails because pregnancy is a fairly uncommon consequence of sexual intercourse. 90%+ sex acts do not lead to conception. Now, I am not a fan of wantonness and promiscuity, in fact I'd like to see the old Christian ascesis of celibacy returned to a place of honor rather than being regarded as a psychosis (while acknowledging that few of us are capable of it), but nature and nature's God did not design humans such that sex was all about prcreation. Sex has other purposes with us, and it is not wicked to serve them.

Posted by JonF | April 22, 2008 8:53 PM

I agree with JonF.

Posted by Hector | April 22, 2008 9:19 PM

Men being more "nuanced" about abortion?

Yeah, because they know they're never going to get stuck with dealing with the problem.

Get yourselves snipped, guys, and then maybe I'll think you're starting to help deal with pregnancy scares, not cause them.

Posted by grumpy realist | April 22, 2008 9:22 PM

Of course most young people in the United States do use contraception. But they might use it more assiduously and more carefully if they knew that they didn't have abortion as a backup.

Maybe so, maybe not, but that's a great example of why pro-choicers think that pro-lifers don't have pure motives. You are using a born baby as a punishment to incentivize behavior.

You still haven't answered my question- how is abortion, in principle, different from the Stalin's engineered famine in the Ukraine, which was also intended to facilitate a higher good.

Because Stalin killed actual people with a will to live, and was not serving the paramount and most important top-tier value of gender equality and the rights of women in doing it.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 22, 2008 11:24 PM

Maybe we are looking in all the wrong places. Sex is being exploited and glorified all through the media. At least in the old days, it was muted mostly and never opnely encouraged. Should we censor media, or maybe just charge a sin tax on raunchy stuff. Or eliminate the income tax and place a TV and movie tax on consumers and producers.

Posted by jakealope | April 23, 2008 2:08 AM

Re: Because Stalin killed actual people with a will to live, and was not serving the paramount and most important top-tier value of gender equality and the rights of women in doing it.

How does abortion serve the rights of women? I've always been at a loss to understand that one. I think you have "convenience" confused with "rights". Also rights, even top-tier ones, have a hierarchy: life, liberty, property, in that order. The right to property could not elbow aside the right to liberty when slavery was under discussion. Neither should the right to property (or for that matter the "pursuit of happiness") trump the right to life.

Posted by JonF | April 23, 2008 6:30 AM

I am pro-choice, but I would very much like to see the number of abortions decline. I would also like to see more teenagers using adoption as an alternative. However, I never hear much from the pro-lifers about condoms or support for the young women who aren't ready to be mommies. People still don't want to talk to their young men and women about sex; they don't want to talk about the hard choices we face as we mature. Why can't we impress upon our young men that condoms are essential to having sex? Why aren't these pro-lifers funding organizations that can help guide and support these young women toward adoption? I just read a letter in Readers Digest last night from a woman who had discovered her 16 year old daughter was having sex...she hadn't really faced the sex subject head on, but was hoping her "ace in the hole" was their religion. Wake up people...these are teenagers, with raging hormones, inundated with graphic sexual images every day. Yes, they will have sex and yes it will probably be much sooner than you want them to. Talk to them, prepare them for the emotional and physical realities of taking that step. This is part of your job as a parent...take it seriously. We can't simply legislate it away.

Posted by Debbie | April 23, 2008 7:09 AM

"and was not serving the paramount and most important top-tier value of gender equality and the rights of women in doing it." Dilan

TR: The phrasing here is strange. I'm guessing you don't mean it'd be more acceptable if his killing served the goal of women's rights?

For example the Cultural Revolution in China banished many of the old patriarchical beliefs. It was still sexist, many women were raped by soldiers or peasants, but the violence was often more about ancestry or politics than gender. The people who obeyed the sexist "Four Olds" faced many of the worst punishments. Although they've reversed on the anti-traditionalism some the current family planning policies of the People's Republic is still praised by International Planned Parenthood. The praise is often nothing short of glowing. (Check their site) Still I'm guessing you wouldn't go that far.

Posted by Thomas R | April 23, 2008 8:31 AM

Dilan,

Women's rights and gender "equality" are the 'most paramount and top tier values'? Come on, you've got to be kidding.

Stalin was perhaps a bad example, as Thomas R. points out Mao might be a better one. Mao probably committed his crimes out of some form of genuine idealism, while Stalin _himself_ was little more than a cynical and power-hungry gangster. Still I have no doubt that most of the Bolshevik officials and militants who participated in the Ukrainian famine did genuinely believe that they were doing what was necessary for a higher good. Creating a society where greed, exploitation, capitalist property, and private interest had all been banished and replaced with love, sharing and mutual concern.

That is a worthy goal, and it's a much higher and greater value than 'gender equality'. Gender equality is important, certainly, but even more important would be achieving a society where love and sharing replaced private greed as the basis of property relations. Yet even for the sake of that higher good, it's not permissible to do just _anything_. I would be willing to tolerate a fair amount of repression and authoritarianism in order to do away with capitalism, but I would draw a line somewhere, and that line would be well to this side of deliberately starving richer peasants to death (the same goes for Mao's atrocities as well). Now, if it's not permissible to do _anything_ to achieve the higher good of eliminating greed from society, much less is it permissible to achieve the lower good (still a good, of course) of gender equality.

I would add of course that I don't perceive _your_ vision of gender equality as that much of a good in the first place. There can be equality in a good sense as well as in an evil one. Your vision appears to be one in which women are as free as men to be greedy, selfish, and pitiless. No thank you.

Posted by Hector | April 23, 2008 9:20 AM

Debbie,

I'm very much in favor of contraception in general. However let's be honest, condoms are a bad means of family planning. Their failure rate, in practice, is 15%. That's only about 40% lower than the failure rate _in practice_ of natural family planning, withdrawal, etc. Moreover some people would view condoms as essentially more 'unnatural' than the Pill, since the Pill relies on mimicking the natural hormonal changes in the human body.

People should rely on the Pill for contraception, not on condoms. If they don't like chemical-hormonal methods then natural family planning can be a good alternative for some people. Condoms accomplish nothing that could not be accomplished better by a combination of chemical birth control and a bit more sexual responsibility.

Posted by Hector | April 23, 2008 9:26 AM

How does abortion serve the rights of women? I've always been at a loss to understand that one. I think you have "convenience" confused with "rights". Also rights, even top-tier ones, have a hierarchy: life, liberty, property, in that order.

And there we have the real difference between pro-choicers and pro-lifers. You guys THINK it's just about life, but no, pro-choicers think that gender equality and the rights of women is a top-tier value, as important as anything. Pro-lifers think that gender equality and the rights of women is a matter of "convenience" that is easily outweighed.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 23, 2008 12:51 PM

For example the Cultural Revolution in China banished many of the old patriarchical beliefs. It was still sexist, many women were raped by soldiers or peasants, but the violence was often more about ancestry or politics than gender.

Dictators engaging in political repression in the NAME of gender equality is not a value worth elevating. However, actual equality of the genders and women's rights is the most important value in our society, because without it, 51 percent of the population lives in oppression and enslavement, as they did for thousands of years.

Abortion is not really about life. It is about how you feel about feminiam. You guys don't like it, you guys don't believe in the paramount importance of gender equality, and therefore you don't mind screwing over women by banning abortion.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 23, 2008 12:55 PM

Hector (writes)
“Fitz doesn't speak for me, or for the numerous people in Blue states, many of them young and fairly liberal in general, who are against abortion _on the merits_ not as part of a broadly reactionary attack on the Sexual Revolution.”

Please refrain from contrasting my (assumed) position with your own in a vain & nieve attempt to get the strident Dilan to find your position “reasonable”.

There is nothing “reactionary” about traditional sexual ethics. Contrary to the opinions of the left or any faux Mrs. Grundy analogies people & cultures can & do control there libido’s.

It is fair to say that the current sexual revolutionarily regime offers NOTHING outside adults & consent by way of a sexual ethic.

It is also the considered opinion of many that approaching sex in are culture as perceived liberation and promoting it a healthy recreation is a direct connection to sky high abortion rates.

As long as we promote the idea that sexual relations have no greater cause or context than personal pleasure the natural product of that act (children) MUST be viewed as disposable in a practical sense.

I am not saying we need to abruptly return to some fictional puritanical regime. On the contrary a broad based ethic of less perniciousness, less partners, more marriage mindedness and a culture of courtship & monogamy is historically widespread and desirable outside the true reactionaries (the current sexual revolutionaries)

As Dilan Writes

“The thing is, that's a canard that pro-lifers are going to live with. The ship has sailed in terms of sexual morality. You aren't going to convince the vast majority of the American public, whether they be poor folks in trailer parks or rich kids in colleges, that having a fulfilling sex life is something to be denied to everyone who isn't a married heterosexual”

The strained fatalism, the faux populism & the vain assumption that we are experiencing “fulfilling sex life” is countered by the cold facts. Measured by abortion, successful marriages, venereal disease and attested “fulfillment” our post revolution America is failing adults, marriage and its children.

The point that is missed is that by any historical or cultural measure THIS society at this stage is the outlier. We are failing our most fundamental mission of insuring intact families and preparation for lifelong monogamy. Regardless of vapid slogans about repressive sexuality & the current joys of a morally minimalist sexual ethic – societies have always put a much stronger emphasis on restraint than anything the left can offer under its stalwart ideology.

Responsible actions from divorce to abortion are predicated on the kind of moral seriousness that comes from the collective will to cherish not only children, but monogamy & restraint.

Posted by Fitz | April 23, 2008 5:11 PM

gender equality and the rights of women is a top-tier value, as important as anything

I think Dilan's just being sloppy here. Look, Dilan doesn't really think that human life (in the sense we grant there's a "right" to such) is at stake in abortion, or at least not in the majority of abortions (and he's not at all sure it is in the others). Fine. And he thinks we don't consider "his" version of "women's equality" (which isn't anything that fits under classical justice theory models of equality, but let's ignore that also) important enough, etc. etc., fine.

But, uh, if we move beyond abortion, on the face of it the phrasing "as important as anything" would seem to imply that, all other things being equal, an openly homicidal policy (killing X% of men with trait Y, for example), if it could be shown to substantially improve the rights of women somehow, might be good. I don't think he means this -- I'll be that not killing innocent grown human beings comes higher in Dilan's hierarchy of values than women's equality. Now, he might very well think that our world is (by chance, not necessity) such that no such conflict of goals can exist, so he doesn't have to make that hierarchical commitment, but that's a rather different point.

This isn't particularly to the abortion debate -- I guess I just want to know if Dilan actually thinks that "women's equality" (in his version of it, or some other version) is JUST as important as not killing innocent grown humans -- that an intentionally homicidal policy that somehow furthered gender equality (I can actually think of some baroque and unlikely ones) would possibly be good, not inherently ruled out as an atrocity by our hierarchy of goods. Because if he does think that, then Dilan's POV is so dang weird that I don't know why I should listen to much of anything he says. I doubt he's that weird, so I'd like to see a clarification.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 23, 2008 5:45 PM

Marquis:

Does enough homicide outweigh gender equality? Sure. But that's not because gender equality is unimportant; it's because even top-tier values can be outweighed in specific situations.

But is our modern sense of gender equality as important as individual lives? Absolutely. Indeed, if, for instance, extremist Muslims (or conservative Catholics, for that matter) attacked a nation that respected women's rights and tried to impose a theocratic state with traditional gender roles, would it be worth some sacrifice of human life to stop that from happening? Of course.

Without gender equality, 51 percent of society is enslaved. It is definitely a top-tier value; and the only reason why it isn't a "classical" top-tier value is because those values arose out of patriarchal societies.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 23, 2008 7:42 PM

But is our modern sense of gender equality as important as individual lives? Absolutely. Indeed, if, for instance, extremist Muslims (or conservative Catholics, for that matter) attacked a nation that respected women's rights and tried to impose a theocratic state with traditional gender roles, would it be worth some sacrifice of human life to stop that from happening? Of course.

Er, but you don't need gender equality being absolutely as important as not killing innocent people to stop an attack by people on a nation, Dilan. Maybe you do, but nobody else does. So that's not really answering the question at all -- I mean, you're assuming self-defense of the nation in question, and (presumably) the usual reluctance to slaughter non-combatants or the like. Perhaps you mean that if non-gender-equal people attack a nation-state it can accept more Dresden-style wholesale slaughter of the enemy's civilians than if the nation attacking meets certain gender equity status? You get to firebomb one more city for every level of patriarchy in the invader? Eh, I think I'll leave that aside.

Does enough homicide outweigh gender equality? Er, how much homicide, Dilan? If it's just a LITTLE homicide, it's not hard to kill a few innocent folks in the name of gender equity? I mean, let's say Andrew Dice Clay (a jerk of the first order, no one will disagree) and Pope Benedict have done something to hinder gender equality -- or pick some other influential figures you think harm gender equality. A little _homicide_ (not otherwise justifiable killing, but homicide (your words) flat out) is ok? Assassination? Interesting. I consider charity and mercy top tier values. I wonder how many uncharitable folks I can shoot before I have to start worrying about it!

Come on, man, just back down here. I don't think you actually mean it.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 23, 2008 7:56 PM

"Without gender equality, 51 percent of society is enslaved. It is definitely a top-tier value; and the only reason why it isn't a "classical" top-tier value is because those values arose out of patriarchal societies."

Under the extreme Hegelian master/slave dialectic Dilan operates under -holding traditional gender roles & being pro-life makes a woman a "slave". That many women who don’t lead such roles would love the ability for a traditional breadwinner/homemaker situation makes is simply not answered.

That they respect the gestating children in their wombs as their children and worthy of life makes them victims of false consciousness instilled (seemingly) by the very same "patriarchy".

Under Dilans “gender equality” women have never been so likely to be in poverty, be born into poverty, have them & their children remain in poverty and have no meaningful economic & emotional support of their children’s Fathers. They are at increased risk from everything from venereal disease, to depression, to shorter life expectancy.

This anything for the feminist utopia approach has had forty years to instill its vision & has yet to be accountable. Abortion was supposed to eliminate illegitimacy & instead it sky-rocketed. That and other promises of the feminist propaganda departments at your local university are wholeheartedly embraced by Dilan.

Meanwhile over 50% of potential “slaves” are pro-life women. I have never personally met a potential "slave" who talked in Dilans terms about male/female relations. I never hear the term “gender equality” talked about as a “top tier” value, nor do I ever catch references to the “patriarchy”.

To most I’m afraid such language has the noxious smell of extremism & leftism. To few- it is ambrosia.

Posted by Fitz | April 23, 2008 8:45 PM

Fitz,

I'm not trying to make nice with Dilan, I honestly don't share much if any of your views on gender roles and the sexual revolution. I tactically agree with you on the abortion issue, that's all. However I don't have time now to respond to your obviously well thought out (but wrong) argument-- perhaps you can debate with JonF about that.

Re: Dilan's argument,

I'm not sure if Dilan is just failing to comprehend the argument or if he actually believes what he's saying. Anyway, I'll take a shot at restating my argument-- it's a simple syllogism.

1) Virtue is more important than freedom since freedom has a certain qualified value largely because it allows us to pursue virtue -- virtue is the primary good and freedom the secondary.
2) We should refrain from killing innocent people in the name of virtue, this is why we are horrified at the Cultural Revolution.
3) therefore, a fortiori, we should also refrain from killing innocent people in the name of freedom.

Obviously there's room for debate about the definition of an innocent person. I don't consider John Brown to be a murderer because someone who holds other men in bondage is kind of not an innocent person, by definition. Many people would agree that there are some people against whom the state can legitimately use lethal force- Nazis for example- and others like newborn infants who we all agree should be protected. The salient question then becomes whether an unborn fetus is more analogous to a baby or to a Nazi. Just by posing the question it virtually answers itself. When you can show me in what way a fetus is like a Nazi, then I'll be open to consider the morality of abortion.

Posted by Hector | April 23, 2008 10:19 PM

It isn't all that complicated. A person's a person no matter how small (with complements to Horton). It is never justified to kill an innocent human being. Unborn children are human beings. If one is so ignorant of biology and medical evidence to deny that reality, then I can only refer to William's Obstetrics or Arey's Developmental Anatomy, and then we can talk. To justify the killing of innocent human beings for some perceived noble purpose is to travel the same path as Mao and other despots.
Believing that abortion is a a "good" for women is to disregard the special and unique bond between a mother and her child. It is the height of arrogance to presume that killing the child is somehow good for the woman. Most women would rather not have to have an abortion. It is a significant factor that men will not take responsibility for their actions and thus put the woman in the crisis.
I also have it on good authority - my wife is a bio-medical engineer who studied this - that the ingredients in the pill are not good for women. She equates taking the pill with polluting the environment. She also castigates the man who would think so little of the woman he loves as to have her take these harmful chemicals and put them in her body. She believes that many of the fertility problems many women face thes days are related to the indiscriminate use of the birth control pill.

Posted by John Jakubczyk | April 24, 2008 2:36 AM

Re: You guys don't like it, you guys don't believe in the paramount importance of gender equality

Dilan, for starters you need to explain what abortion has to do with gender equality, It's true that men can't get pregnant, but your quarrel is with nature not politics on that one. And I doubt you will find anyone suggesting that it's OK for a man to kill a child of his for whom he does not want to pay child support. (That's not entirely a snark: once upon a time a father did have the right to order a newborn he didn't want abandonned).

Re: It is also the considered opinion of many that approaching sex in are culture as perceived liberation and promoting it a healthy recreation is a direct connection to sky high abortion rates.

I don't promote sex as "healthy recreation". I do promote it as a healthy and beneficial practice within any amorous relationship. Also, you have not addressed the argument that abortion laws would seem to have rather little relationship to cultural attitudes about sex when we survey the rest of the world. There are fairly libertine societies with strict abortion laws, and prudish societies with liberal abortion laws.

Re: John Brown to be a murderer because someone who holds other men in bondage is kind of not an innocent person, by definition.

I'm fairly sure that at least some (if not most) of Brown's victims were not slave owners. And how many actual slaves did he personally free? Far fewer than Harriet Tubman. That's the problem with terrorism: for those who embrace private acts of violence the whole world starts to look deserving of condemnation, while the end that supposedly justifies the mean starts looking less and less important.

Posted by JonF | April 24, 2008 8:34 AM

1) Virtue is more important than freedom since freedom has a certain qualified value largely because it allows us to pursue virtue -- virtue is the primary good and freedom the secondary.

I think Dilan will consider this one a non-starter, Hector.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 24, 2008 11:37 AM

Hector:Of course most young people in the United States do use contraception. But they might use it more assiduously and more carefully if they knew that they didn't have abortion as a backup.

Dilan: Maybe so, maybe not, but that's a great example of why pro-choicers think that pro-lifers don't have pure motives. You are using a born baby as a punishment to incentivize behavior.

I think this is a great example of pro-choicers assuming pro-lifers don't have pure motives, and then making their observations fit their assumptions.

Saying that couples would be more careful about using contraception if abortion were not available is not "using a born baby as a punishment to incentivize behavior". You have the motivations backwards. Hector doesn't want to end abortion in order to get people to be more careful about contraception. He wants to end abortion because it is the unjust killing of a human being. He notes that it will probably lead to more careful use of contraception (and if I remember correctly, this observation is borne out by looking at the conception rate before and after Roe v. Wade, but I don't have that stats at hand), but that's a beneficial side effect, not the point of the exercise.

I think there are several people here who might be interested in Pro Every Life, Pro Woman, Pro Reproductive Justice for All: A Manifesto.

Posted by Jen R | April 24, 2008 1:40 PM

Under the extreme Hegelian master/slave dialectic Dilan operates under -holding traditional gender roles & being pro-life makes a woman a "slave".

No, Fitz, although that's a common mistake that antifeminist males make.

Rather, it is BEING FORCED INTO traditional gender
roles that enslaves women.

And as for Marquis, he is as usual looking for bright moral lines where there are none. It would be mighty convenient to live in a world of moral absolutes. Unfortunately, that isn't the world we live in, and positing a deity to supply them doesn't resolve that problem.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 24, 2008 1:54 PM

And as for Marquis, he is as usual looking for bright moral lines where there are none. It would be mighty convenient to live in a world of moral absolutes. Unfortunately, that isn't the world we live in, and positing a deity to supply them doesn't resolve that problem.

Dilan, can I read this as your very shifty roundabout way of saying "yeah, I'm ok with assassination and a little homicide for gender equality, but I'd like to not say that out loud, ok?" I mean, there are people who are not moral absolutists in the formal sense who are willing to oppose the intentional killing of innocents. I think you're explicitly avoiding making such a commitment, which frankly frightens me. I shouldn't be surprised -- a certain openness to a little murder here and there seems to be an inherent trait of the left-libertarian who isn't a religious pacifist. I suppose it's not illogical, or very disturbing if you're not a theist or humane (and many people are neither).

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 24, 2008 6:29 PM

I mean, there are people who are not moral absolutists in the formal sense who are willing to oppose the intentional killing of innocents.

So they don't eat meat then, right?

Seriously, the word "innocent" adds nothing to this discussion (except the antifeminist woman-hating misogynistic desire to contrast with a "guilty" woman). The personhood issue turns on whether a zygote, which is a less complex organism then an amoeba, has a right to its life. Lots of organisms that we eat and hunt are "innocent"; they aren't, however, persons, despite having more advanced perceptions and a will to live lacking in human embryos and zygotes.

But as I said, the key point is that there's no way to prohibit abortion without screwing over women. And if I have to kill thousands of amoebas and tadpoles, and perhaps a few late term fetuses which are closer to actual persons (but which constitute a very small percentage of all abortions) to ensure gender equality, that's a very small cost to pay. Certainly far smaller than the number of sentient animals with wills to lvie that our meat industry kills to feed us when we could all go vegetarian instead.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 24, 2008 6:48 PM

Seriously, the word "innocent" adds nothing to this discussion (except the antifeminist woman-hating misogynistic desire to contrast with a "guilty" woman).

OK! Maybe this is a problem of what we're looking at. I'm NOT TALKING ABOUT ABORTION. I KNOW YOU DON'T THINK THAT'S KILLING AN INNOCENT. I am talking grown-up, definitely-a-person types. I'm no talking animals or fetuses. I was reading you as saying that a certain amount of murder of grown-up, nobody disputes-they-are-people folks would be ok if it sufficiently aided gender equality (which a modestly utilitarian framework plus "gender equality is an absolute top-tier value" would seem to imply). That's it! I'm NOT TALKING ABOUT ABORTION. I know you don't think zygotes are people. I said that! I just want to know if you also are ok with my reduction-ad-absurdum. I assume not. I thought for a while you were saying you WERE ok with it, but now I'm back to thinking you think I'm talking about abortion. I'M NOT. I PROMISE. No "ah, then you must oppose abortion!" judo is in the works, either. I just want your answer on assassinating people who have committed no crime but who somehow are detrimental to women's equality, if their harm to it is sufficient. That's all!

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 24, 2008 6:59 PM

Seriously, the word "innocent" adds nothing to this discussion (except the antifeminist woman-hating misogynistic desire to contrast with a "guilty" woman).

OK! Maybe this is a problem of what we're looking at. I'm NOT TALKING ABOUT ABORTION. I KNOW YOU DON'T THINK THAT'S KILLING AN INNOCENT. I am talking grown-up, definitely-a-person types. I'm no talking animals or fetuses. I was reading you as saying that a certain amount of murder of grown-up, nobody disputes-they-are-people folks would be ok if it sufficiently aided gender equality (which a modestly utilitarian framework plus "gender equality is an absolute top-tier value" would seem to imply). That's it! I'm NOT TALKING ABOUT ABORTION. I know you don't think zygotes are people. I said that! I just want to know if you also are ok with my reduction-ad-absurdum. I assume not. I thought for a while you were saying you WERE ok with it, but now I'm back to thinking you think I'm talking about abortion. I'M NOT. I PROMISE. No "ah, then you must oppose abortion!" judo is in the works, either. I just want your answer on assassinating people who have committed no crime but who somehow are detrimental to women's equality, if their harm to it is sufficient. That's all!

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 24, 2008 7:10 PM

I just want your answer on assassinating people who have committed no crime but who somehow are detrimental to women's equality, if their harm to it is sufficient.

In the absence of facts, that's a silly hypothetical.

To answer it seriously, however, if, for instance, it was possible to stamp out female genital mutilation in a particular area through the use of force, but that such an action might result in the loss of innocent life, it still could be justified. (The reason I am hedging is because you have to hedge on all questions of force; Saddam was awful, for instance, but that doesn't mean the Iraq War was justified.)

Similarly, while it is an imperfect analogy, the American civil war, fought over slavery (i.e., extreme racial inequality) or, more precisely, the desire of states to leave the union to maintain slavery, seems perfectly justified to me despite the fact that many hundreds of thousands of innocents died.

Gender equality, like racial equality, is really important. People who oppose abortion tend to think it is less important-- that doesn't mean that there aren't some pro-lifers who are feminists who support gender equality in every area other than abortion rights. There are. But the real dispute is that there are a heck of a lot of people who really never bought into feminism, and therefore can't see how important it is that women be able to control their reproductive lives including by getting an abortion if one is needed, so they can fully participate in society. That's the real dispute. It's not about lives. It's about the importance of equality.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 24, 2008 7:18 PM

That's the real dispute. It's not about lives. It's about the importance of equality.

Well, that's what YOU say. Obviously it's not what I say. And you can clearly see that if you really think there are lives of great value involved, it's a pretty horrid thing to say.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 24, 2008 7:27 PM

Dilan

"No, Fitz, although that's a common mistake that antifeminist males make."

Imputing "antifeminist males" onto my statement is a common tactic (not mistake) of the extreme left. I personally find it amusing that this mechanism is most effective precisely because it resonates with the chivalrous notion of virtuous men protectors of women.

“Rather, it is BEING FORCED INTO traditional gender roles that enslaves women.

This common dodge evades the point. Post feminism - are women being “forced” into the workforce. Under the understanding of “force” you employ I would argue yes.

It’s a question of priorities and what kind of culture is best suited for human thriving & fulfillment.

(P.S. – You ignored multiple direct explanations & arguments in the process)

“But the real dispute is that there are a heck of a lot of people who really never bought into feminism, and therefore can't see how important it is that women be able to control their reproductive lives including by getting an abortion if one is needed, so they can fully participate in society. That's the real dispute. It's not about lives”

In this guise – Yes. If women to be “fully equal” requires aborting their children then huge swaths of the population is against feminism. That bitter pill never took & wont take. To assume that the ability to abort your child is a requisite for “full participation in society” is a profound attack on female sexuality and femininity. For women to be respected as fully human we need except them as more than disabled “men” addled by the ability to produce life. On the contrary a woman’s fertility is a proud & dignified gift – it is all our responsibilities to create the kind of culture that takes fertility seriously, makes cultural, social and economic allowance for its exercise and allows women the opportunity to integrate childbearing into a responsible and fulfilling life.

Hector
“I'm not trying to make nice with Dilan, I honestly don't share much if any of your views on gender roles and the sexual revolution. I tactically agree with you on the abortion issue, that's all. However I don't have time now to respond to your obviously well thought out (but wrong) argument”

Well – I don’t know that I have even forwarded an argument. What I have done is present certain axioms & priorities that best correspond with history, empirical evidence, and our shared culture. I think you underestimate my commitment to the unborn. Please don’t except Dilan’s characterization of (mine or others) pro-life arguments as a post hoc attempt to reinstate a (perceived) “patriarchy”. The truth is life & human sexuality is insurmountably linked. It cedes far too much of the pro-abortion side to accept their characterization of mine & others views on equality between the sexes.

Posted by Fitz | April 24, 2008 8:09 PM

This common dodge evades the point. Post feminism - are women being “forced” into the workforce. Under the understanding of “force” you employ I would argue yes.

I don't know, Fitz. Are men "forced" into the workforce? I mean, somebody has to work, right?

It is very true that many women can't afford to be stay at home mothers. But that was always true. What is different is that instead of getting stuck in a marriage with an abusive man and no way out, such women now have the workforce available to them.

Look, the way these debates go is that pro-lifers say "how can you kill all these innocent little babies". Pro-choicers respond "they aren't babies, and, in any event, if you ban abortion, it will be really bad for women and will roll back the gains of feminism". Pro-lifers then say "feminism was really bad and women were better off before".

Pro-lifers want to say that the relevant difference is the conception of life. But it really isn't. The distinction that does all the work is the rejection of feminism. That's why pro-lifers are pro-life.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 24, 2008 8:18 PM

Your being narrow & didactic as always. You have taken out your straw man and tried to knock him over.

Multiple aspect of society have “gotten better” for women- men & children since the feminist revolution, others have gotten much, much worse.

All the talk of “roll(ing) back the gains of feminism". & “ Pro-lifers then say "feminism was really bad and women were better off before". is just another just-so-story of the left combined with silly scare tactics and an a-historical broad brush.

I’m certain it is your worldview, but it is also an obviously convenient one. Claiming exclusive concern for all “women” and imputing the motives of your adversaries is bad form & bad thought.

All this is conscious or unconsciously necessary to avoid having an argument on the merits. The facts of science & human life or the consistent western prohibitions against abortion are not a secret to annoy Dilan.

You would do better (at least) to try to prove your axioms rather than just continually assert them. It seems to always be the place were your arguments & the conversation gets derailed when abortion is the topic.

Posted by Fitz | April 24, 2008 8:50 PM

Fitz:

You and others in this thread claim in general terms that you think that women's rights is a good idea. But then when it is pointed out how criminalizing abortion will harm women, you folks come back with how it is better for them, how they are really forced into the workplace, how modern society is bad for women, how women who want abortions really don't know what is good for them, etc.

Thus, when the rubber actually meets the road, the pro-lifer's praise of women's rights is hollow.

I will say it again-- the modern conception of women's rights, which rejects the dumb and oppressive views of centuries of sexist, patriarchal philosophers-- is perhaps the singular achievement of 20th Century Western tought, because it broke the chains that bound 51 percent of the population. That modern conception of women's rights includes the right to be able to earn money and advance one's life and have all the pleasurable sex that a woman wishes to have without being forced to bear children if she doesn't want to.

Abortion thus has to be legal, because otherwise many women will be screwed over because they will be forced to stop their careers and education, stay in abusive marriages, or kill themselves because the state is not permitting them to terminate their pregnancies.

Very few pro-lifers believe "yes, that is all true, but abortion should nonetheless be banned because human personhood begins at conception". Most pro-lifers don't buy into the premise; they don't support women's rights in the sense that matter; they think that at least with respect to these issues of sex and gender, the older ways were better. They reject the central accomplishment of 20th Century society and what we have discovered (belatedly) to be the most important of all values.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 24, 2008 9:19 PM

Re: The personhood issue turns on whether a zygote, which is a less complex organism then an amoeba, has a right to its life.

Abortions are performed on creatures much more developed than a zygote. I think we should be talking about fetuses here, because abortion is not ever going to happen untiul a woman has a diagnosis of pregnancy and by that time, she is carrying a fetus with a functioning brain, heart etc, and at least as much sentience as any of us have while we are sleeping.

Re: But as I said, the key point is that there's no way to prohibit abortion without screwing over women.

You keep asserting this, but you have not explained why.

Re: That modern conception of women's rights includes the right to be able to earn money and advance one's life and have all the pleasurable sex that a woman wishes to have without being forced to bear children if she doesn't want to.

Answer to all that: an ERA added to the Constitution, and another amendment as well, making the Griswold decision (and related ones) constitutional law too.

Re: Abortion thus has to be legal, because otherwise many women will be screwed over because they will be forced to stop their careers and education, stay in abusive marriages, or kill themselves because the state is not permitting them to terminate their pregnancies.

Oh bullshit! While I do agree that more benefits need to be extended to pregnant women (universal healthcare, paid leave etc.) I don't see why anyone would have to end a career or stay in a relationship due to pregnancy. Have you ever heard of adoption? Even if a woman bears a child there is nothing forcing her to keep the child. Men in fact have less choice about the whole matter, since they are compelled to pay child support if the woman does choose to keep the child, and the courts these days make Ming the Merciless look like Glenda the Good Witch of the North when it comes to men and child support issues. And what would you do if the burden were at the other end of life? What about a woman who has to take an (unpaid) leave of absence to care for an ailing parent or spouse or child? Should she just be able to call in Dr Kevorkian instead so as to keep her career on track?

Posted by JonF | April 24, 2008 10:23 PM

Answer to all that: an ERA added to the Constitution, and another amendment as well, making the Griswold decision (and related ones) constitutional law too.

They already are, JonF, just as Marbury v. Madison and Hans v. Louisiana and Flood v. Kuhn and all sorts of other precedents that weren't necessarily correct as a matter of original intention or textual meaning are nonetheless constitutional law.

The Supreme Court is the final arbiter of what the Constitution means. The fact that pro-lifers don't accept Roe and Griswold doesn't mean they aren't binding.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 25, 2008 11:38 AM

They reject the central accomplishment of 20th Century society and what we have discovered (belatedly) to be the most important of all values.

Well, (A) it's certainly not the "most important of all values" (my goodness -- raping children? a mere trivial point compared to some slight to women's rights!) and (B) "have all the pleasurable sex that a woman wishes to have without being forced to bear children if she doesn't want to" -- isn't a right for men, or women, or anyone. It's nonsense on stilts, and pernicious nonsense at that. I have no more right to endless pleasureable sex without children than I have to endless fun at Disneyland with someone else paying. Maybe I get it, but it sure ain't no right, in any sane schema of "rights" (which are dubious when reified this much, anyway).

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 25, 2008 1:03 PM

I have no more right to endless pleasureable sex without children than I have to endless fun at Disneyland with someone else paying.

This is using babies as a means to regulate sexual behavior, Marquis. You are saying children are the equivalent of the money you pay to get into Disneyland. Therefore, it is completely inconsistent with your claims that this issue is about life.

If this issue were really about life, then arguments that children are the "cost" of sex that women should "pay" would never be made. But this is really about regulating female sexuality, and that's the difference between pro-choicers and pro-lifers. I have proven my point.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 25, 2008 1:16 PM

“That modern conception of women's rights includes the right to be able to earn money and advance one's life and have all the pleasurable sex that a woman wishes to have without being forced to bear children if she doesn't want to.”

The obsessive focus on a non-existent “right” to careerism and promiscuousness degrades women and reduces their humanity to the narrow ideological agenda of leftist gender radicals.

Pre-industrialization women’s domestic labors were indispensable to family survival. It took the labor movement and the Churches monumental energy in fighting rapacious capitalism to insure a just wage so women’s husbands could get a just wage & the women themselves could raise their children rather than be subject to the exploitation of the labor market.

When the rubber meets the road your emphasis on sexual freedom divorced from any greater sense of sacrifice or accountability (to the point were pregnancy itself becomes forced labor) – is deeply paternalistic towards women – depriving them of agency, self control & foresight over their lives.

“Most pro-lifers don't buy into the premise; they don't support women's rights in the sense that matter; they think that at least with respect to these issues of sex and gender”

Of coarse we don’t – to do any less would be to surrender women’s very humanity to a perverse & crude reductionism of women as biologically inferior men (and the most banal & undignified men at that)

We support multiple efforts to make woman’s natural expectations of family & children possible. We support a system the encourages men to take responsibility, exalt monogamy, lower divorce & ameliorate the economic disparities that are required when women leave the paid labor force for long periods of time to be wives & mothers.

To dismiss these deeply rooted historical & philosophical axioms as part of some overwrought “patriarchy” is to reveal your self as part of the sycophantic Marxism that is contemporary feminism.

“If this issue were really about life, then arguments that children are the "cost" of sex that women should "pay" would never be made. But this is really about regulating female sexuality”

No Dilan, if you can leave the “its all economics” or “all dynamics are power dynamics” for a moment you could understand M of C’s point. Because human life has extrinsic worth we (men as well as women) need to “regulating their sexuality”. To say that western civilization has EVER said anything less is to be willfully obtuse. It is the human dignity of men women & society that recognizes the intrinsic worth of life and (as well a chastity and monogamy) hold expectations of all levels of society to ennoble citizens to exercise sobriety and restraint over callousness and self interest.

“just as Marbury v. Madison and Hans v. Louisiana and Flood v. Kuhn and all sorts of other precedents that weren't necessarily correct as a matter of original intention or textual meaning are nonetheless constitutional law.”

#1. Dicta is not law, counselor. (?)
#2. Just as Dredd Scott, Lochner, & Buck v. Bell were nonetheless constitutional law.

Posted by Fitz | April 25, 2008 1:44 PM

Re: The fact that pro-lifers don't accept Roe and Griswold doesn't mean they aren't binding.

Those decisions could be overturned at any time. Actual ERA and privacy amendments would be preferrable.

Posted by JonF | April 25, 2008 2:20 PM

I have proven my point.

Oh, please Dilan. You're a reasonable guy on some things, like the religion thread, but you're a bit of a twit on abortion threads, with your obsession with proving "bad" motives and denial there's any real concern about human life (my guess: bad conscience).

I used an analogy, because as a "right" endless pleasureable sex is lunatic -- like endless good food as a "right." It's not a right. It's not even a likely-hood for most people. You are a fool on this matter, and I guess when you grow up someday you'll realize that, though I don't mean your opinion on women's equality or abortion will change -- I just mean you'll stop asserting "rights" that are not remotely rights. They might be nice things, but they aren't rights.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 25, 2008 3:55 PM

I used an analogy, because as a "right" endless pleasureable sex is lunatic -- like endless good food as a "right."

Marquis, what you miss is that it is an analogy that stands or falls on the equation of babies with the cost of an admission ticket at an amusement park. In other words, in some sense, you are saying "just as you have to pay the cost for Disneyland, you have to pay the cost for sex".

Babies are not the "cost" of sex. They aren't. And most pro-lifers believe they are. Which is why the ideology has nothing to do with being pro-life; it's about using life as a means to an end (policing female sexuality), which is much worse than pro-choicers advocating the killing of blastocysts and zygotes and the like.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 25, 2008 4:45 PM

Nobody has a right to be happy, Dilan. We have a right not to be the victim of _moral_ evil- i.e. not to be exploited by other people. But pregnancy is a 'natural' evil (when it's an evil at all, which I don't think it usually is) and we don't have nor deserve legal protection against those. Moreover, no one has the right to unlimited sex. If a Muslim country demanded that all men and women abstain from sex during Ramadan- or a Christian country during Lent- I would think it was an uncommonly silly law, but I wouldn't challenge their right to make such a law.

Dilan reminds me of nothing so much as that guy in 'Monty Python and the Life of Brian' who claims that he's being oppressed because he can't have babies and demands the legal right to have babies.

Posted by Hector | April 25, 2008 4:58 PM

Hector, you are insulting the right by narrowing it. The right is the right of women to fully participate in our society and attain all of its benefits, including pursuing a career, getting out of a bad marriage, receiving equal pay, having an equal chance to get an education, and yes, being able to have as much sex as they wish, without having to bear a child, because men already have that right.

That's the right. And the reason you guys are pro-life is because you want a baby to be the "cost" of sex for a woman, just like the admission charge is the "cost" of going to Disneyland. Marquis admitted it.

That is what is known as not believing in women's rights. The pro-life movement reflects the fact that about a third of the population never bought into the feminist revolution. Life is just the means to the end.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 25, 2008 7:05 PM

A Strident leftist to the end.

I must agree with M of C & Hector - This endless line of attack is the most extreme feminism available, one rarely even see's it wielded in popular debate.

He will die with his boots on - no question.

And in the process turn the breadth and depth of western civilization (& indeed human civilization) into didactic Hegelian dialectic.

Posted by Fitz | April 25, 2008 7:29 PM

I suspect that Dilan would happily assert a woman's right to have a penis, if he didn't know we'd make fun of him.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 25, 2008 7:58 PM

Marquis admitted it.

And for heaven's sake, quit beating on a random metaphor for how absurd and "I deserve a pony from the government, it's my RIGHT" your vision of endless orgasms as a "right" looked to me. The same response would apply to a claimed "right" for women to have endless pleasurable meals -- it's such a silly notion of right that it sounds like an assertive five year old whining that everyone should get to spend every day all day in Disneyland.

Look, you don't have a right to that, any more than I have a right to get all my papers published in the conference of my choice. Or to any tenure-track position in the country. Geez. LISTEN, rather than absurdly babbling on about a throwaway metaphor as if I'd secretly admitted my presidency of SWERSH (Smash Women's Every Right -- Sisters under the Heel!) or something. Grow up, Dilan. How old are you, anyway? Mid-twenties? No, you have a law degree, must be late twenties.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 25, 2008 8:07 PM

Re: If a Muslim country demanded that all men and women abstain from sex during Ramadan- or a Christian country during Lent- I would think it was an uncommonly silly law, but I wouldn't challenge their right to make such a law.

I would. There's an old principle in Anglo-Saxon juriprudence that "be it ever so humble, a laborer's cot is sacrosanct and the King of England in all his majesty may not pass within unless invited." That is basically the right to privacy in a nutshell. Your home is indeed your castle, and the state has no business making laws about what goes on there save at very compelling need-- banning you from keeping slaves, or beating your children, for example, but not for matters that harm none and do not go beyond your front door. The notion that abortion is one of those things is ludicrous since it does harm a living thing. But a law against sex in Ramadan or Lent would not pass muster.

Re: The right is the right of women to fully participate in our society and attain all of its benefits, including pursuing a career, getting out of a bad marriage, receiving equal pay, having an equal chance to get an education, and yes, being able to have as much sex as they wish, without having to bear a child, because men already have that right.

Um, no. Men do not have that right. If a man fathers a child he has no right to simply walk off and ignore that child. He is chained to that child financially until the child is 18, and that chain is more absolute than even the old bonds of slavery, which could be surmounted in at least some circumstances. Men are as much enslaved to their children as women are. Abortion in fact actually grants rights to women that men do not have.

Re: And the reason you guys are pro-life is because you want a baby to be the "cost" of sex for a woman

Oh bullshit, Dilan! Probably some folks feel that way, but I doubt Hector does, and I know I don't. Indeed, you're the one who seems to think babies are dreadful curses that women should just get rid of.

Posted by JonF | April 25, 2008 9:58 PM

I suspect that Dilan would happily assert a woman's right to have a penis, if he didn't know we'd make fun of him.

What's funny is you think this is funny. One of the central points of second-wave feminism (which, by the way, is not the same thing as leftism, Fitz) is that having a vagina isn't an all-encompassing thing that deprives someone of all sorts of opportunities with her life.

This is the classic example of different worldview. Feminism is an emperical worldview based on observation and an established history of centries of oppression. Religious conservativism is a hallucinogenic worldview based on the immature and selfish desire for an afterlife and the mindless and idiotic obedience to the directives of ignorant people who didn't know any better. And many serious adherents of your worldview have real trouble understanding how someone could possibly believe that the genders are equal.

I would say, Marquis, that you might at least try to understand it better. I am sure you don't appreciate it when critics get your religion all wrong; maybe you should take some time and study some feminist theory and you might realize that it isn't about women wanting penises; it's about women not being denied their life choices because they have vaginas.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 25, 2008 11:51 PM

And for heaven's sake, quit beating on a random metaphor for how absurd and "I deserve a pony from the government, it's my RIGHT" your vision of endless orgasms as a "right" looked to me.

Marquis, it is clear you don't think sex is very important. Fine, that's your right.

You miss the analysis, though. It isn't very important whether I pay $30 or $60 for a parking ticket. But it would be very important (and illegal) if women were charged $60 and men $30.

Even if you think sex isn't important, women have the right to have as much as they want without having a kid because men have that right.

That's called gender equality, and your side doesn't believe in it.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 25, 2008 11:58 PM

Re: Even if you think sex isn't important, women have the right to have as much as they want without having a kid because men have that right.

???
How do men have a right to sex without consequences? Dilan, you have yet to address my argument (repeated twice above) that men in fact have less rights here than women do. A man has no choice as to whether or not a woman bears a child of his to term, and no choice afterward as to whether to support the child or not. They do have some secondary choice in the matter of adoption, but that's about it. Women have a good deal more freedom in making decisions about children than men do. And even under a restrictive abortion regime that would not change.
As for a right to sex, I do believe that the government has no business making laws about sex except in marginal cases where there is compelling need (rape, pedophilia, public lewdness etc.). However I don't think that there is a "right to sex" in the same sense there may be a right to healthcare where the government must exert itself to make sure that anyone who wants some gets some. And perhaps with the Marquis I think far too much is made of sex, and not just on the libertine side, but by the neo-prudes as well. Sex is a fairly small part of life and we shouldn't obsess about half as much as we do.

Posted by JonF | April 26, 2008 10:39 AM

"Even if you think sex isn't important, women have the right to have as much as they want without having a kid because men have that right."

"Empirical"? - The fact is men have no such "right". Men cannot have as much sex as they want and not have a child, in fact they often do have children- as many children as women.

I know far too much about this juvenile worldview then I care to. One of the more interesting observations is that it was fostered by the women of Bohemian leftist men. Multiple men of the left typify this misogyny towards women. It is their “right” to consequences free sex that is being asserted. These women of the left saw their men hoping from bed to bed (naturally they were bohemians) and felt this ability was inherently unfair. While immoral men can largely escape the consequences of their actions – their female ideological compatriots could not. Hence the need to assert promiscuousness with the abortion back-up a “right”.

Traditionalists on the other hand support a complex tapestry of morals, norms, etiquette and ethics that press for responsibility, self restraint, duty and mature masculinity.

Quite simply, for the leftist man to assert a “right” to his unrestrained libido requires women to become sexual objects that MUST claim a privilege to abortion if they are to navigate this new sexual dystopia.

Any cursory comparison of how women are portrayed and treated under these divergent worldviews shows this clearly to be the case.

Posted by Fitz | April 26, 2008 12:36 PM

Even if you think sex isn't important, women have the right to have as much as they want without having a kid because men have that right.

But, Dilan -- men can have all the sex they want and not (themselves) bear a kid without having any abortions. The problem with your "rights" schema is that it isn't empirical -- it rejects nature and biology, and will seek any means (even killing) to overcome the facts of nature. It's an axiomatic system, not an empirical device. And yes, I know some feminist theory, I was an English major in a former life for goodness' sake. It's a small core of common sense wrapped in academic language and a wrong-headed notion of reified rights, surrounded by a bunch of absolute nonsense.

I'm not saying sex isn't important. Look, lots of things are important and good that we don't have _a right_ to in the sense you mean. I think going to Mass is very important; the state (or even the church) is not obliged therefore to ensure that there is a priest in convenient distance where I live.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 26, 2008 1:48 PM

Quite simply, for the leftist man to assert a “right” to his unrestrained libido requires women to become sexual objects that MUST claim a privilege to abortion if they are to navigate this new sexual dystopia.

You've hit the nail on the head -- this why some of the most vociferous pro-choicers out there are 20-something males, and why males are actually a bit more likely to be pro-choice than are women. They love hooking up but the last thing they want is a baby, and so they cook up all of this faux-sincere concern about how much women need to have abortions to be equal to men.

They're thinking with their dicks.

Posted by John doe | April 27, 2008 2:19 PM

Re: It's a small core of common sense wrapped in academic language and a wrong-headed notion of reified rights, surrounded by a bunch of absolute nonsense.

Marquis i thought you were a computer science guy?

I would say rather that the basic problem with what Dilan calls 'second wave feminism' is the same problem that exists with liberalism, capitalism, Marxism, Falangism, and other ideologies of the last few hundred years. They each isolate some genuine truths from the body of innate moral intuitions that informs our conscience. They then use 'reason' to elevate those few isolated principles to the status of a god and try to base a whole moral system on them. It is true that men and women are ontologically equal and should enjoy equal respect and dignity. But it isn't the _only_ truth. And when we act like it's the only truth, when we raise it to the status of the single 'top tier' 'paramount' value and demand that everything else be sacrificed in the name of women's rights and gender equality, then we wind up with Nonsense and with abominations like abortion.

Second wave feminism is in touch with a genuine truth when it says that men and women are equal, and that patriarchal societies have too often not realized this. In a similar vein liberal capitalism had some true ideas about freedom, and Marxism had some true ideas about labor and collective endeavor, and at least some varieties of Catholic "fascist" thought had some valuable insights about the value of deference and obedience. But all these systems of thought, feminism included, make the error of believing that these are the ONLY truths and that everything else should be sacrificed to them. In truth, they make the even more basic error of thinking that you can arrive at a self consistent moral system through pure reason, when you really can't.

Dilan, I still want an answer to my question- if purely consequentialist reasoning can justify abortion then why can't it justify the starvation of the kulaks? The kulaks (like most of us in some degree) were assuredly less _innocent_ than an unborn baby, and the hypothetical good in whose name they was sacrificed would have been a greater good than the good that is sought by abortion. Now of course if you don't think that aborted fetuses are human beings this argument doesn't apply, but it seems to me you're making your argument _even if_ the fetus is in fact a human being so I want to know why.

Posted by Hector | April 27, 2008 2:52 PM

"Empirical"? - The fact is men have no such "right". Men cannot have as much sex as they want and not have a child, in fact they often do have children- as many children as women.

In reality, if the man runs off, nothing much can be done and when it is done it takes a huge amount of effort.

The woman, however, can't run off. Hence, abortion is necessary for gender equality, which you guys don't believe in.

None of your abstract unimportant idiotic collateral philosophical debate society babbling about when life begins changes the fact that very few committed feminists oppose abortion, because our side knows how bad it is for women if you prohibit it.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 27, 2008 6:49 PM

The problem with your "rights" schema is that it isn't empirical -- it rejects nature and biology, and will seek any means (even killing) to overcome the facts of nature

Marquis, "nature" does not equate to "the beliefs of conservative Catholics". Indeed, your church has ascribed to "nature", over the years, tons of beliefs that not only had nothing to do with nature, but were totally wrong.

A claim by a committed religious believer that something is mandated by "nature" is a claim backed by no evidence, only a hallucination that those of us smart enough not to accept the claims of organized religion are not bound by. So for the last time, STOP TRYING TO GET YOUR SILLY RELIGIOUS VIEWS OF NATURE ENACTED INTO LAW WHERE THEY BIND AGNOSTICS WHO DON'T BUY IT. If you don't like abortion, don't have one.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 27, 2008 6:53 PM

very few committed feminists oppose abortion, because our side knows how bad it is for women if you prohibit it.

And this is somehow an argument FOR abortion? "Committed feminists" tend to be fools and knaves, or academic nitwits (or young men seeking admiration for the progressiveness).

Plenty of people who support full political, economic, and civil rights for women (including myself) have no use for abortion.

Look, Dilan, if you don't like murder, don't kill anyone. If you don't like racial discrimination, you can hire blacks -- I don't want to, ok? Look, Dilan, if you want to pay the minimum wage, pay it. I'll do as I like.

Eh, enough. This isn't about actually discussing, on this topic, it's about insulting people's motives and pretending the issue isn't the issue. There's no reason to continue arguing where neither good faith nor charity is present, though Dilan is capable of both on other issues.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 28, 2008 12:01 PM

In other words, Dilan, my point is that I'm not using "nature" in some special natural law sense here. I'm pointing out that your claim is that a right to abortion must exist because _men can have sex without becoming pregnant_. Now, your fact is true. But this is as absurd as stating that there must be a "right" for men to be transformed by miracles of science as yet uninvented into women -- because, after all, women can have babies and men can't. Which is unfair! Thus, a RIGHT exists. This is a nonsensical notion of right, and if there were such a procedure, but it required the murder of (let's say) a Down's syndrome woman in each case (to provide the appropriate parts), we would be damnable monsters if we made it permissible. That's how this looks to abortion foes, and however much you lie and insult to say it isn't so, that remains.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 28, 2008 1:43 PM

Marquis,

Indeed. One would think that a _real_ feminist would value in women their unique essential nature and potentialities, which include the capability to bring life into the world. Not try to insist that women should be squeezed into the same mold as men are. It seems like Dilan thinks a woman is only truly free if she is free to be as selfish and cruel as the worst men have traditionally been. I'm reminded of what Tolstoy said: "the women's movement wants women to become more like men, but what would be much better is for men to become more like women."

If I wanted to impugn Dilan's motives I could dig up that Chesterton quotation that I used in the other thread about 'self conscious diabolism'...it often seems to me like some people are for abortion not for any particular reason but simply because Christianity is against it, and clearly whatever the stupid Christers say must be wrong. Adolescent transgressiveness for its own sake, in other words. Of course I don't think that impugning motives is a productive way to debate, so I don't.

Posted by Hector | April 28, 2008 2:41 PM

But this is as absurd as stating that there must be a "right" for men to be transformed by miracles of science as yet uninvented into women -- because, after all, women can have babies and men can't.

Marquis, babies are not destiny. The fault in your reasoning is assuming that because nature provided women with a womb, it is therefore "natural" for women to be forced to carry a pregnancy to term. But while the first proposition can be said to be mandated by nature (obviously, women have vaginas and uteruses and men don't), nature has nothing to do with the second statement (unless you are sliding from the narrow definition of nature you offered to "nature" meaning the moral beliefs of the conservative faction of Catholicism).

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 28, 2008 7:27 PM

Dilan, all I'm saying is that there's no _right_ here, not that outlawing abortion is natural. Nothing requires that different things be granted by law the power to become the same. It is unequal that some folks inherit more money than I do, but I don't therefore have the right to mint money or steal some of theirs. You might argue that I should, but I think you will be on tendentious ground (just as you are with abortion).

Your whole concept of rights seems... ad hoc -- like you just decide the reality you want, then invent an arbitrary set of rights to cover it. Maybe legal training inclines some that way -- heritage of common law?

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 28, 2008 7:55 PM

Marquis,

Well, to be fair, you don't have the right to steal their money. But I think that you would have the right to ask the government to confiscate it or tax it away. Not in our society as it presently exists of course, but in a more just one they wouldn't be inheriting that much more anyway.

Posted by Hector | April 28, 2008 8:38 PM

Dilan, all I'm saying is that there's no _right_ here, not that outlawing abortion is natural. Nothing requires that different things be granted by law the power to become the same. It is unequal that some folks inherit more money than I do, but I don't therefore have the right to mint money or steal some of theirs.

But that's a terrible analogy. Minting money devalues other people's currency. Stealing someone else's money enriches one person unjustly at the expense of another.

In contrast, a woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy hurts you not at all. Nor does it hurt any other member of the community. Plus, if that abortion allows her to go back to work or school or stay off of welfare, it actually benefits you. Feminism, after all, isn't just good for women, it's good for society.

But the main point here is that you want to assume all sorts of "natural", or preexisting a priori moral codes, bar abortion as a matter of course. Not only do they not do that, but those moral codes themselves are illegitimate, because any moral code that doesn't fully recognize the substantial interests of women in fully participating in society and fully controlling their reproductive options and sexuality screws over 51 percent of the population.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 28, 2008 11:22 PM

"In contrast, a woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy hurts you not at all." DE

TR: Her decision to give birth in the woods and have the midwife smash the baby's head on a rock would also "not hurt me at all" by this logic. If she decides to eat her mother's corpse that would also not effect me at all.

And besides it actually does hurt many people's lives pretty directly. Abortion makes certain genetic conditions even rarer. That can make funding of equipment or devices for them even harder. I can easily see how abortion directly harms my life, but you've generally just chosen to scoff at the idea or not understand it.

Posted by Thomas R | April 29, 2008 8:15 AM

Thomas -- I think Dilan can understand the idea, he just doesn't care. I mean, what's your life to the paramount, first tier, absolute and inviolable equality of women in every aspect, even if it entails a little murder now and then? Who do you think you are?

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 29, 2008 10:33 AM

Thomas -- I think Dilan can understand the idea, he just doesn't care. I mean, what's your life to the paramount, first tier, absolute and inviolable equality of women in every aspect, even if it entails a little murder now and then?

No, Marquis, there's no murder here. You can't use the same term to describe, say, 9/11, and the actions of a woman and her doctor in terminating her pregnancy so as to ensure that she can stay in school, keep her career, not be forced into a bad marriage, or not be driven to suicide.

Let me make a broader point about this. There's over the top rhetoric on both sides of this debate, but on your side, the "murder" stuff really is bad. For one thing, it feeds into the extremists who bomb clinics and the like; in the wake of "murder", lots of things seem justified. But it also fundamentally shows a lack of concern and compassion for the circumstances that women face and the moral complexity of the issue of when life begins.

The fact is, when you call this "murder", what you are implying is that women and doctors are doing the same thing as serial killers do. But that's silly. The circumstances are different, the justifications are different, and what is being killed is very different.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 29, 2008 1:23 PM

You can't use the same term to describe, say, 9/11, and the actions of a woman and her doctor in terminating her pregnancy so as to ensure that she can stay in school, keep her career, not be forced into a bad marriage, or not be driven to suicide.

Sho' I can. Watch me.

I think it's murder when an elderly woman smothers her sick, pain-ridden, senile, deranged, and slightly dangerous to himself and to her husband out of love. It doesn't mean I'd throw her in Attica or that I hate her guts, but it's murder.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 29, 2008 2:58 PM

Sho' I can. Watch me. I think it's murder when an elderly woman smothers her sick, pain-ridden, senile, deranged, and slightly dangerous to himself and to her husband out of love. It doesn't mean I'd throw her in Attica or that I hate her guts, but it's murder.

Statements like that cheapen the term "murder".

And worse, they lead directly to violence against clinic workers. For that reason alone, you should cut it out.

Posted by Dilan Esper | April 29, 2008 7:43 PM

Re: And worse, they lead directly to violence against clinic workers. For that reason alone, you should cut it out.

Dilan reminds of me of those yahoos who say that we should edit the Gospel according to St. John to take out all the references to 'The Jews' because it might lead to pogroms. Or something. Thankfully, most churches today are still too sensible to pay such yahoos any mind. The word of the Lord is what it is, God didn't give us the Bible so that Dilan could revel in his political correctness. It is necessary to speak the truth about what happened on Good Friday, whether or not it makes the Anti-Defamation League squirm in discomfort.

It's generally unadvisable to refer to abortion as 'murder' for quite a different reason. Since there's as yet no _societal_ consensus about when life begins, I will be charitable enough to assume that most women who seek abortions and doctors who perform them are acting out of ignorance, not malice- they honestly don't know the nature or moral weight of what they are doing. That doesn't alter the objective nature of the act but it subjectively makes them much less culpable. Since legal murder requires the element of malice it wouldn't be fair to call them _murderers_, it's really more akin to manslaughter.

However someone who thinks that millions of dead fetuses is a legitimate price to pay for those almighty, 'top tier' values of women being equally able as men to make a lot of money and have a lot of casual sex, or some other such nonsense, and who _knowingly_ use the vacuum tube knowing full well what he was doing.... in that case 'murderer' would be fully appropriate. Or try 'moral monster'.

Posted by Hector | April 29, 2008 8:51 PM

"her pregnancy so as to ensure that she can stay in school, keep her career," DE

TR: So my life can be deemed worthless because women need more money?

And it does devalue my life, very much so. If I've read the literature right reliable tests to determine if a baby has a condition like mine can't be done until the second trimester. Once they're done it's easier to abort people like me than anyone. Even up to viability it can be done and Pro-Choice organizations are almost unanimous that it must be that way.

And not just my life either. Even now polls show people want boys more than girls. It's still rare, but how do you feel about sex-selective abortion? I mean career women would possibly have to spend more on daughters than sons considering the cost of clothes and different healthcare needs.

"Since legal murder requires the element of malice it wouldn't be fair to call them _murderers_, it's really more akin to manslaughter." Hector.

TR: Exactly.

Posted by Thomas R | April 30, 2008 4:20 AM

And worse, they lead directly to violence against clinic workers. For that reason alone, you should cut it out.

And your rhetoric leads to more abortions, so you should cut it out. Abortion happens a heck of a lot more often than violence against clinic workers (which, as a crime wave, is somewhere down there with beatings of Mormons for being Mormon, I'd guess).

I don't particularly care, here, about the legal definition of murder -- race chattel slavery was once perfectly legal yet still evil. The distinction that many women and doctors don't _think_ it is murder as they do it is true -- but enough do that it's murder fairly often. It's also true that when speaking informally about other killings involving someone who judged what they were doing not to be murder (various cases where insanity is involved), we still use the term murder though, as far as intention goes, it's manslaughter.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | April 30, 2008 12:32 PM

Obama, Abortion, and 95/10

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