There are people who believe that women have the right to choose what to do with their own bodies (whether that choice means birthing 18 children, having an abortion, giving a baby up for adoption, spending a fortune on fertility drugs when thousands of living babies go unwanted, or becoming pregnant at 66), and there are people who do not believe women have that right.
And between those two groups, there is no room for “common ground“—any more than there is room for “common ground” between those who support marriage equality and those who believe gay people are condemned to hell. We don’t sit down and dialogue with gay-bashers racists or any other kind of bigot—we pass laws that prohibit their bigotry from infringing on the rights of others. This is a basic tenet of rights-based democracy. Why, when it comes to women’s right to choose, is this so hard to understand?
Between Erica and reality, there is indeed no common ground.
The “rights based democracy” in which Erica lives does not recognize the rights she seems to think it does. In the first tirmester, it privleges a woman’s right to control her body above the rights of the fetus. In the third trimester, it privleges the right of the fetus not be to destroyed above her rights. And in the second trimester, it recognizes a constitutional gray area. That is what Roe v. Wade said; it did not say, as Erica appears to have deluded herself into believing, that the woman’s right to self-determination always trumps the fetus’ right to survival.
And setting aside abortions-are-cool crazies like Erica on one side and rifle-toting anti-abortion militants on the other, that constitutional framework enjoys broad consensus in the general public. Most laws aiming to restrict abortion have been about that second trimester, and the supreme court has been pretty clear over the last 30 years that there are few constituional rights issues involved; it’s basically a political/legislative issue about what laws people want to live under.
Lets touch on the simple realities of the situation-
Abortion was around long before Roe v Wade, and it would still occur long after… There is absolutely no way to stop it. The only difference then, is the option of using safe means rather than ethically challenged doctors with sub standard equipment, or a coat hanger. (Which was pretty standard in the 50’s)
Untold women’s lives have been lost in these back alley procedures, so I ask you: What is more important- a woman’s life, or the cells she carries inside her? Can you still call yourselves proLIFE if you’d happily condemn a woman to death for being unable or unwilling (for whatever reason) to carry a child to term?
Common ground for both groups could be in providing the means to avoid unwanted pregnancy.
The Catholic Church’s position on birth control leaves them out of that group.
Most of the opposition to choice is a desire to punish woman for being sexual. Look at “mommy’s” comments above. Since they believe a fetus is a human being their argument boils down to “if your father is a rapist then we can kill you.” Yikes.
Most so-called “pro-life” zealots have no problem with prisoner execution, carpet bombing cities, torturing captives, hunting, factory farming, nuclear weapons, toxic pollution etc. Why should I even entertain their stupid pre-scientific myths about conception. Typically, it seem that these are people that don’t want chubby white girls fucking without first being placed in the stable of a older taller white guy.
This issue will never go away because right wing politicians want to milk it for every last dollar in donations. You’d think that during the last 12 years of Republican rule there might have been one single real debate in congress about overturning Roe v Wade, but there wasn’t.
lrb, impressive arguments throughout the post.
@54 well put.
@53 I think you’ve totally misinterpreted mommy’s comments. she was saying that in the cases of rape, incest, or danger to the life of the mother, abortions should be okay.
@52
But if you start with the premise, as the other side does, that the fetus is human, then its rights must be protected under the law.
54, weak argument. You can be pro-life and still find that executing a murderer is justifiable. A murderer’s life (or deer, enemy soldier, etc) is less valuable than a baby’s life. It’s not that big of an intellectual leap.
Simply reverse it to illustrate the simple-minded argument: You are against hunting, executing murderers; but support the killing of “innocent life.” So, you value the life of a deer or a murder over that of an innocent child! Not very persuasive.
@58, it’s not in the same vein as 52’s argument, but read lrb @17 and 33. regardless of abortion’s existence (odd argument – murder’s always existed too), the status of the fetus doesn’t make too much of a difference.
@50 – I think I agree with you, but within your framework, wherein the government can’t force an expectant mother to bring the child to term, it also must punish her for getting an abortion, arguments about the relative morality of positive action and inaction aside.
This suggests to me that the life-from-conception view – besides invalidating the pro-life argument which is based on it, as you pointed out initially – isn’t worth considering beyond using it to note that it doesn’t actually support pro-life positions. It’s just incorrect from the outset and we need to look at this from a different light.
I think what the religious nuts don’t seem to get is that they live in a pluralistic society. Some of us simply do not agree with them that a large bearded man in the sky inserts a tiny soul in a zygote the instant it is conceived. Some of us do not agree with them that the state has the right to effectively invade a persons body with its laws. They have to live in the same society with us. They have to learn to deal with this.
If we don’t start considering the implications of overpopulation (accelerated by prolifers if they had their way) I think everyone will be sadly surprised when “mother earth” aborts the entire human race. ha!
So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions, let’s reduce unintended pregnancies. Let’s make adoption more available. Let’s provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term.
I don’t know about you ECB, but that sounds like “common ground” to me.
Society has such a strong interest in birth control, as well as women needing to control their bodies, I welcome Obama’s attempt to shift the whole debate onto the subject of reducing abortions a/k/a reducing unwanted pregnancy, where hopefully we can get a majority to publicly fund birth control.
If to do that, we have to talk with, sit down with, shake hands with antiabortion folks and groups, let’s do it.
As to the black and white approach, um, we worked with Stalin, right?
I think this post may just be an attempt for ECB to muscle her way into Dan’s reign on “Most Commented On”.
I wish there was a better forum to discuss this and other issues. Slog comments just doesn’t work for me. I have looked across the internets for such a place but one does not exist that is good enough.
Uh oh.
Obama is naming Bill Clinton special envoy to Haiti. The feared Clinton takeover is imminent….
I want an abortion AND a miniature American flag.
Yeah, that’s kind of bullshit. Did you hear the rest of the statement? The point is: People who are pro-choice aren’t pro-abortion. I’d rather see birth control and sex ed than an abortion, but I’m pro-choice.
@59 – birth control is the common ground. However, few people in the anti-abortion camp are also in the ‘widely available and free birth control along with comprehensive education’ camp.
I’m pretty sure we all know why.
FWIW. It’s not just extremes. There are limits on abortion (i.e. you can’t abort at 8 months without major cause), and there should be. Everyone should want fewer abortions, and I would prefer that happen through comprehensive sex education.
However, to frame abortion only as a “woman’s right to choose” issue always seemed a little disingenuous to me. Yes, it should be available for some circumstances, but pregnancy is a risk of sex. Take the pill, blah blah blah. The players know the risks going in (or should if sex ed gets improved). Obviously the woman is the one who ends up with the baby, but shouldn’t the argument in that case be to require more from the father, not to say, “Well men don’t HAVE to do anything, so the women shouldn’t either.” That argument always seemed a little backwards to me.
“shouldn’t the argument in that case be to require more from the father,”
It could be, if men had to undergo a risk-filled biological process that permanently changed their body to produce a baby .
@60, Executions kill people, and abortions don’t. Nobody is for killing children. And, it’s dangerous to try to assign comparative “value” to human life.
But, ECB, it IS a tough issue, and that shouldn’t be too difficult for you to understand. Religion clouds the opinions of even smart people.
I am pro-choice and pro-adoption. But I’m scratching my head over the inclusion of adoption as an example of women controlling their own bodies. Surely, when a woman gives a baby up for adoption, she is not controlling what happens to her own body at all, but what happens to another human being. Right?
David Wright said it well @51. A woman does not always have the right to choose what to do with her body in the case of abortion — 1st trimester the woman’s rights take precedence, 3rd trimester the fetuses, and 2nd it’s gray. Nor should she always have that right — unless, I guess, you are in favor of 3rd trimester abortions for non-medical reasons.
It’s actually a really interesting scientific and philosophical debate to talk about when does a fetus gain the full rights of personhood — just calling someone who thinks differently on that topic a bigot is sort of bullshit. Is it possible to be pro-life for bigoted, misogynistic reasons? Of course. But, it’s also possible to have a rational pro-life stance (and therein lies the difference between racism and the pro-life movement — it’s really not possible to have a rational racist stance).
Anyways, I thought Obama’s speech was excellent — really great stuff on not demonizing the other side of the debate and trying to figure out how to work towards the goal of reducing the number of abortions while respecting the equality of women. Since Erica seems to think that all pro-lifers are bigots, I think, she, as much as all of the pro-life protesters on campus, was the intended audience.
Erica, the reason we do is because we live in a pluralistic society that will have to live with the ambiguity of neither side being fully proven as right or wrong. If you do not strive for common ground, even though you know it’s not likely, and just walk away from the table convinced of your rightness, you become, as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it (def 2) a bigot: “A person considered to adhere unreasonably or obstinately to a particular religious belief, practice, etc.” Then, you don’t get to take the fun moral high ground of being better than your opponent :).
Being gay does not–in and of itself–do any harm to society. Having multiple premature births does. Octocunt is going to cost you and I a whole lot of money (8 kids 1 700 dollar shot per month during the flu season times at least 10 years, off the top of my head).
Well, true, births are pretty darned expensive. Plus, once they’re born, for the first few years it demands a lot of resources taking care of them – you can’t even get day care for them under one year old without shelling out a lot of cash.
Pro-life fights dirty, and science isn’t on their side.
What if having an abortion means THE BABY NEVER EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE!
And it would blow your mind.
Having a baby isn’t like flipping on a fucking light switch. And if someone did the research, they can find so much detail and gray area of what a life is and isn’t …
I would have to accuse the pro-lifers of having NO respect for life, or at least don’t give it as much of an appreciation as it deserves.
In the meantime, we have people among the living who are wasting life. Beit on slog or growing up and/or raising children under depolorable conditions on an overpopulated planet.
I just think it’s so narrow minded. Are pro-lifers
a) obnoxiously defensive about their poor life choice and secretly want everyone else to be miserable and conflicted on the inside?
b) Truely overwhelmed with joy and can’t for the life of them understand why no one has the capasity to feel the same exact joy that they feel by excreting another being onto this planet?
c) Secretly wanting more souls to convert?
I used to grow catholic, pro-life. I used to think that the unborn suffered. I also believed in Santa Claus and one time I thought I saw the tooth fairy. Somewhere in my adolescents, where I saw people TRUELY suffering (me included apparently) from being brought up in a forced family and others forcing families … I guess I started to believe that choice is truely the way to go.
47
If the life of the mother is put at risk by the pregnancy she should have the option to end the pregnancy. It is tragic but both mom and child may be lost if the pregnancy continues. The fetus is not less valuable than the mother and many mothers will choose to carry the pregnancy to term and take the chance.
@63: Too many pregnancies in the US ain’t really the issue with global population. if you want to bite that one off, you are going to have to look a little further afield…
Another funny peculiarity. The abortion rates in China are astronomical. Not just because their sexual education is abysmal, or the fact that they want boys more than girls, but because it is more SHAMEFUL to have a child out of wedlock than an abortion (funny how it works the other way around in the states).
I guess it reminds me of something I heard in one of these forums. Evolution has less interest in the survival of the young, they are easily replaceable. Evolution has more interest in viable breeding pairs.
My best friends mother, came from a dutch catholic family. At one point durring their childhood, they decided they hit a rough patch and sent 5 of the the 8 children to an orphanage, they didn’t see them for years ….
I guess I mention this because abortion supposedly used to be a catholic issue (as well as birth control), the protestants were more or less indifferent about it until the sexual revolution which timed itself very well with Roe V Wade.
Erica – I hope you read these comments and are able to think about things rationally.
When you say there is no common ground you are alienating a lot of people who would like to build bridges on the common ground you are dismissing.
I think abortion is wrong
I don’t know when human rights should begin
I think abortion should be used as little as humanly (or fetusly) possible
I am an athiest so therefore i cannot be a religious zealot.
I think abortion should be legal
If you believe life begins at birth then here are a few hypotheticals:
A woman is 9 months pregnant. Another woman punches her in the stomach. The unborn dies. What was the punchers crime? Simple assault? Manslaughter? Murder?
A woman has an infant. A man breaks into her house and kidnaps her but knowingly leaves the infant behind. Infant dies. Mother is returned. Is the only crime kidnapping?
Woman is in labor and a psychotic from three floors above rushes in and pokes his finger through the head’s soft spot while it is still several inches inside the birth canal. The thing hadn’t been born, so is that just a collection of cells and the psychotic is not guilty of any crime?
“We don’t sit down and dialogue with gay-bashers racists or any other kind of bigot.”
We don’t, but we could:
http://www.bestcyrano.org/terkelEllisInt…
“it’s also possible to have a rational pro-life stance”
Is it? I would love to read it.
The problem is that “Pro-Life” folks really aren’t pro-life. After all they don’t care about the child once it pops out of the vagina (“Can’t feed ’em, Don’t Breed ’em. Why the hell should I give money to welfare whores?”), they are perfectly happy supporting war and torture and the death penalty. Clearly they aren’t pro-life.
What these people really are “anti-woman”. They want to force women into giving birth to punish them for having wicked, dirty sex (with whomever they want without the permission of a father, husband, male politician, or male religious leader). That’s why they are against real comprehensive sex-ed and condoms and birth control pills. Contraceptives and condoms protect women from the consequences of sex (unwanted pregnancies and STDs).
“So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions, let’s reduce unintended pregnancies. Let’s make adoption more available. Let’s provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term.”
Thanks for all the rich comments.
I have to say, I see a lot of contridictions within my pro-life friends who support the war, the use of torture and the death penalty. I’m guessing my pacifism, anti-death penalty, and pro-choice stance confuses them as well. I sincerely hope that the number of abortions can be reduced in this country, but I believe we have to provide comprehensive sex education, affordable birth control, maternal and prenatal health care, and secured maternity leave in order to reduce the numbers.
@ 60 “A murderer’s life (or deer, enemy soldier, etc) is less valuable than a baby’s life.”
Says who? Besides, every heinous murderer was once a cute cuddle bouncing ball o’ joy!
87
why do you hope the number of abortions can be reduced?
I just wanted to say that commenter Irb (@17, 33, 45, etc.) in this post has made a few of the most logical and sound arguments I have EVER read about abortion.
Thank you Irb!
@90, I agree, lrb is well-reasoned, insightful, but still, pregnancy is a risk of sex. Women and men are different, it sucks that women have to carry preganancy, but there it is.
Contraception, morning-after, all fine. Abortion in case of rape, incest, medical necessity, of course. But otherwise? You have sex, you take precautions, you still get pregnant? Tough cookies. You smoke and you get cancer? tough cookies. You go sky-diving and the chute fails to open? tough cookies. You knew the risks, you did it anyway, deal with the consequences. Do what you can to make it unlikely, but you are taking a risk. If you get pregnant, have the kid. When is it human life? dunno. But I’d rather not see it killed.
And yes, I am anti-death penalty, pro-gay marriage, generally liberal, blah blah blah
@91 … I would be more than happy to let the person suffer the action of their consequences …
but the person who truely suffers is the kid! Who had nothing to do with their parents indescretions!
Yes, I love my life (finally!). But damn … I’m more than well aware that the deck was stacked against me growing up in a forced family.
@91, You go skydiving, and the chute fails to open, and you break a leg. Ouch. You go to the doctor and get it fixed.
You go to the doctor and get it fixed.
well, MR. Language Person, guess that means that us ladies will just have to abstain from male-female intercourse altogether to be 100% safe. tough cookies for you. (apologies if assumptions of heteronormativity are unfounded).
Wow, even Mudede has never written such an overwrought, underthought post. Your attitude is exactly the sort that prevents any kind of rational discourse on abortion in this country. In a way, though, I’m glad to hear you say it. I sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that only the strict anti-abortionists are prone to knee-jerk, one-dimensional my-way-or-the-highway thinking. But obviously both sides can be stupid about it in their own ways. That’s really depressing.
there is a whole generation of young people, including myself, that never witnessed life before legal abortions. we missed out on the joys of the back-alley abortion; death, botched jobs and shame. all kinds of people reconsider their position as soon as it effects their own lives and suddenly want to CHOOSE for themselves.
similar to gay marriage- if you don’t believe in it, don’t get one.
Abortions are awesome! Kill anyone who won’t get an abortion!
@91: Oh yeah. Try selling that to straight men: Women worldwide have decided not to abstain from sex until they are fully financially and emotionally committed to having children, as sex comes with the risk of pregnancy — even if that risk is almost completely eliminated with the use of both birth control and condoms, because we’re still responsible for that 2-3% chance of something (not us!) fucking up.
If you, as our partners, want to have sex with us, you also need to be fully committed to having children, because that is the risk when you have sex with us.
That reminds me. Has anyone compiled numbers on whether the male partners involved in many unwanted pregnancies want children at the time? I’d be interested in hearing how much of the decision to abort or not abort was shared by the partner without whom the pregnancy would actually not be possible.
Honestly, if we had the funding to do it, I’d love to see everyone’s ova and sperm frozen, and tubes snipped, for until they decide to have children.
99
100 WOOT!!!
@91 Are you a virgin? Or just fully prepared to take on the emotional and financial responsibilities of having sex?
Christ these assholes really do just want to punish us whoreish woman for daring to enjoy our bodies. I mean, fuck, you get to participate. If a woman is taking all precautions and shit happens, then shit happens and you go to the doctor and take care of it. That IS taking responsibility dumbass.
And why do YOU get to outline the circumstances in which abortion is okay? Why are those circumstances any different from a woman both on the pill and using condoms and yet still there is an accident? Or what about that 15 year old girl whose parents and schools failed her in the teachings about sex and believed that she couldn’t get pregnant the first time?
Do you know how many grandparents are raising grandchildren these days?
The instances in which birth control fails are RARE, but they do happen. Accidental pregnancies are caused far more often by a lack of sex education. Increase the education, make birth control readily available, and there will be less abortions in this world as well as less teen pregnancies and less grandparents raising grandchildren.
Don’t act so high and mighty just because you don’t have to carry the weight of pregnancy.