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Please stay on topic. Please don't be asses.
I so strongly agree with you. Because when you start to talk about the issue in detail, it is not so simple as they want to make it. And it turns out that the very men who pretend to want to outlaw abortion are the same men that want to have shameridden, hidden sex on the side and pretend they didn't. They are the same men who want to acknowledge some of the children they have fathered and deny the other ones. They are the same men who want to sneakily view kiddy porn and put on their moralistic face to the public. They are the men who want to harass and use young women and then dump them. They are the men who fuck their daughters and their step-daughters and impregnate them.
And the women who support this are living in dreamy-dreamy land. It is easy for women brought up in repressive circumstances to give up on their own sexuality and sex. But these same women believe the Lifetime movie version of "good" men who are asexual white knights. Let's ban abortion and the total yuckiness of real sexuality will go away so I don't have to think about it anymore.
The fact is, when women control their fertility, female and child poverty go down. And by keeping out of poverty, they control an important part of their own destinies and those of their children.
Turns out most of them haven't ever thought about it before.
That really saddens me. I'm not sure I want to be reminded any more of how simpleminded most people seem to be. How the hell could you not even think about it?
Digby,
Great article. Especially the focus on the cognitive dissonance of pro-lifers.
I wanted to bring your attention the general desperation of this current administration. My true account involves the use of a my former neighbor, a Pakistani-American, by the FBI to bait potential terrorists to Atlanta, Georgia and my subseqent illegal hospitalization and detainment by the FBI because of my knowledge of this go to:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006.../03/
1806390.php
Deborah
Great post, digby.
The refusal to deal with the woman as a "murderer" reflects the anti-choice movement's larger refusal to consider women seriously as moral actors in general. They cannot be trusted to make moral choices. Thus even when they choose to have an abortion, they are nothing but victims. The logic of anti-choice ideology really does treat women as if they belong to a legally (and morally) irresponsible class, like minors and the mentally incapacitated.
For whatever reason in recent weeks I have seen more and more vigorous defenses of reproductive rights that explicitly (and correctly) criticize the anti-choice movement for its utter misogyny. This is a good sign.
I see your point. However, I believe abortion opponents I know would have no problem holding the mother criminally liable. Murder? Not quite. But the South Dakota penalty for doctors does not quite reach to that level either.
I'm interested to see how long this will take to play through our court system. There seem to be number of states ready to pass similar laws.
My question - since the South Dakota law does not have the rape/incest exceptions, could the entire law be overturned and a potential "defendent" cleared?
As I noted in the comments in your previous post, you can believe (as I do) in the immorality of abortion without equating it with murder. I think that a fetus has some moral standing -- enough that it should never be aborted (unless the mother's life were at stake). But if it were aborted, I don't think the abortion should be defined as murder. Hence a fetus has some moral standing, just not enough to equate it with a human being.
I don't think that there is anything illogical with the above paragraph. Whether most pro-lifers think in these terms is another story....
This is and has always been a knee-jerk, one-note issue. The anti-abortion argument is predicated on the assumption that people will react instinctively and emotionally to images and phrases, then make that instinctive emotional reaction their position on the issue with little or no further thought about it. It's the same assumption that drives most advertising... it's the same assumption that drives the Republican political machine. Little of the substance of any of this stuff stands up to critique, let alone to reality, but somehow, it continues to sell. We have become a culture of sizzle... the steak left a long time ago, and I feel like we're just realizing that there's nothing left but grease and gristle.
let's be sure to also ask them who they think should support all the new, poor unwed mothers and children, if these new mothers are unable to support themselves. have they given any thought to where this money is going to come from?
the question to ask is them is should a women who murders her fetus be givent the death penalty.
I see your point. However, I believe abortion opponents I know would have no problem holding the mother criminally liable. Murder? Not quite. But the South Dakota penalty for doctors does not quite reach to that level either.
I agree with this. Why do you think most anti-abortion activists would have such a big problem with imprisoning women who have abortions?
i have to admit that i'm surprised that most pro-lifers don't support punishing the mother...
Considering the fact that even the anti-abortion picketers in that video don't know what to say, I think it's fair to assume that it would be rejected by more than 90 percent of the population.
Yeah, and if the extremists run with the argument that these women are murderers you'd have to start building prison space on some kind of massive scale to contain all the killers and their accomplices. It would be ridiculous! You'd need something on the scale of a series of concentration camps.
...ah
Actually, if fetuses are human and have the same rights as the women in whom they live, abortion would have to be legal. After all, I cannot be legally obligated to put myself or my health at risk to save another human being.
To make abortion legal would require either overturning this legal principle, considering a fetus to be legally more valuable than any other human being, or considering women to be less so.
Wonder which one they'll pick?
Hmmmmmmm, seems to me that this is by design?
Why? Well because kepping the woman out of the deal makes it impossible for them to fight on the right to privacy grounds.
I think they are looking to test it on the doctors side only and keep it out of the privacy realm...
What a superlatively ridiculous argument to be having on a perilously overpopulated planet.
that's why i've been saying all along - bring it on. let the right wing draw their line in the sand vis a vis the supreme court.
let's shine the light and see what cockroaches scurry about. like an addict, america needs to hit rock bottom before climbing back out.
Bill wrote:
As I noted in the comments in your previous post, you can believe (as I do) in the immorality of abortion without equating it with murder. I think that a fetus has some moral standing -- enough that it should never be aborted (unless the mother's life were at stake). But if it were aborted, I don't think the abortion should be defined as murder. Hence a fetus has some moral standing, just not enough to equate it with a human being.
I don't think that there is anything illogical with the above paragraph. Whether most pro-lifers think in these terms is another story....
There may be nothing illogical in your statement, but it sure isn't very informative. You have basically dodged the same question that was aired in the linked video.
Fine, abortion isn't murder. The whole point of digby's post was that ALMOST NO ONE THINKS IT IS. To summarize: the anti-abortion crowd describes abortion in terms like "premeditated taking of an innocent and defenseless human life" and then blanches at legally defining it as murder with the corresponding penalties.
Bill, please answer this question: if women should be held legally liable for having an illegal abortion (as you seem to think), but the crime isn't murder (as you also seem to think), then what is the crime and what should be the punishment? "I dunno, but it isn't murder" is not helpful.
I can't thank you enough for bringing up an important subject. It's one that I've asked about for years to people I've met or people that I know who want the abortion law changed. I feel they're sincere but I've never had one who didn't slow down considerably after I asked about imprisoning women who had or tried to have abortions.
A law without teeth is meaningless. If abortion is really seen as murder, then we have to take it seriously and discuss the consequences.
As Mikes says:
"Actually, if fetuses are human and have the same rights as the women in whom they live, abortion would have to be legal. After all, I cannot be legally obligated to put myself or my health at risk to save another human being."
If abortion can be criminalized to protect the life of the fetus, then we need to make blood, marrow, and organ donation mandatory since these procedures would save the lives of people already here. That might make the pro-lifers think about bodily autonomy for a minute.
Absolutely, Kathy. That's been my argument for years. As an anti-choice man to give up a kidney sometime.
Will there be criminal investigations around miscarrige? Life style induced vs. naturally occurring.
As I noted in the comments in our previous post, you can believe (as I do) in the immorality of abortion without equating it with murder. I think that a fetus has some moral standing -- enough that it should never be aborted (unless the mother's life were at stake). But if it were aborted, I don't think the abortion should be defined as murder. Hence a fetus has some moral standing, just not enough to equate it with a human being.
I don't think that there is anything illogical with the above paragraph. Whether most pro-lifers think in these terms is another story....
Bill | 03.07.06 - 5:21 pm | #
I don't think that's illogical either, Bill, but then that also isn't the rhetoric that the anti-choice movement has been putting forward. They've been directly saying ABORTION = MURDER. That's been their stance since day 1. You're right, of course. When confronted, the movement will go all slippery and adopt your logic and pretend they haven't been saying what they've been saying for 30+ years.
I think the "women aren't really autonomous adults" argument is behind some of the "why would you bust doctors but not aborters?" bafflement, but I think another aspect of it is that it is a fundamentally American ability to blame the provider of the morally ambiguous service or item, and to absolve the person/group who wants it. Don't like abortion? Go after doctors who provide them. Don't like drugs? Go after countries who provide them.
God fucking forbid that we deal with our own desires and admit any autonomous role in our choices. Maybe us "pro-choice" folks are willing to let other people have abortions, but at least we're not ignoring our own moral role and power in this debate.
Bill, your premise is squishy.
"Hence a fetus has some moral standing, just not enough to equate it with a human being..."
How much moral standing? Who decides what this moral standing is? You? Me?
Certainly it could be an interesting philosophical discussion, but that's not what we're doing here. We're talking about actual laws that affect actual human beings, who have what I assume you give full moral standing.
The abortion question is not one of the potentiality of the fetus. It is purely a question of the status of women. Your rights, and a fetus's rights, end at my nose.
The people who really haven't thought this thing through are the country-club corporate Republicans who have been acquiescing to the fetus fans in the name of getting tax cuts at the same time.
They figure that even if _Roe_ falls, they and theirs will still be easily able to obtain an end to unwanted pregnancies, just as the elite classes were able to before 1973. A quick "semester abroad" in a friendly jurisdiction and no one will be the wiser.
Or not. Imagine this telephone conversation, coming soon:
"Ah, yes, Mr. Gated Community Executive III? How are you this evening? Yes, I'm Agent Smith of Homeland Security. We've detained your daughter at JFK exit screening, pursuant to the provisions of the Fetal Life Protection Surveillance Act of 2007. A random medical check showed that she is pregnant. Now, I'm sure that your daughter is an upstanding young woman who had no illicit intentions while travelling outside of the country. I'm afraid that the law nevertheless requires that we confiscate her passport until such time as a doctor certifies delivery of her unborn child. Will you be able to come pick her up at our offices? Ah, good. Thank you, sir."
I've come to believe that people who think that they know what they want deserve to get exactly that -- and get it good and hard. Can't wait for the looks of horror on the faces of Mr. and Mrs. Gated Community Executive III.
--
Bill,
There's a difference between saying that something is immoral and saying that it should be illegal. You can judge for yourself whether you ought or ought not do something. In this very post, Digby quite explicitly refuses to gainsay your judgement and your right to act on it. The issue is whether you have the power to enforce your judgement on others (either through the state or outside of the state system). The "abortion is murder" rhetoric is essential for actino along those lines. If abortion is not murder, what right do you have to impose your moral judgement on others?
Frankly, you're bobbing and weaving just like all the rest of them.
I can tell you how the crime and punishment system did work in our country pre-Roe.
Women who were rushed to a doctor (or a hospital) were denied care until they told the doctor who performed the abortion. The doctors gathered this information for the police, under the threat of loosing their liscenses. If the woman survived the abortion, she could be arrested and also required by the court to testify.
The police raided private clinics, restrained patients and forced gynecological exams on them in order to gather evidence.
The most charming texts are the coroner's reports. You can read all about the information gathered as women died from illegal abortions. They are all available for your reading pleasure at a historical society (or a court house) near you.
Or, you can read Leslie J. Reagan's book, _When Abortion Was A Crime_.
Bill,
If you think abortion is immoral, but not "murder", keeping it legal seems to be a better solution than outlawing it.
That is, unless you don't think human lives will be at stake when abortions are outlawed. Which, I think we'd all agree, they would be.
I thought Bill made it pretty clear that he was pro-choice when he referred to pro-lifers as "them".
Bill,
Let's say that the kitten was inside your body. (somehow, by sci fi technology the kitten got into your stomach.) That kitten would die if you took it out of your body.
1)Should you still be punished for removing the kitten from your body before the kitten is viable?
No, perhaps Murder would be to strong. Perhaps we can get Man slaughter? How about a whole complete host of things?
Assault?
Oh and what about fetus that would kill the mother? Attempted murder?
Could we try and convict a fetus in the womb before it kills her? And then give it the death penalty?
How about fetues that get strangled, by their umblicial cords? Suicide?
What a great point to bring up digby.
Hi SF Anon,
In answer to your question, I don't believe a woman should be punished for obtaining an abortion that is deemed illegal by the state.
I guess you could ask the point of making something illegal if there are no consequences when someone partakes in it. I don't have a good answer for that one except to say that I want abortion to be illegal b/c I want to make it as rare as possible -- punishment (in my mind) should have nothing to do with the issue.
" let's be sure to also ask them who they think should support all the new, poor unwed mothers and children,"
DADDY
The merits of the argument are such that I don't worry too much about having to win this issue in the legislatures.
We'll win in most states -- or at least in the states with most of the people. In the states we lose, we'll need civil society to step up and help women in places like South Dakota get to clinics in places like Minnesota. And along the way, we'll change the balance of power in the state and federal capitols.
I'll take that deal over the status quo anyday. (Yes, I am a man, and yes, I live in a blue state, and yes, that surely has something to do with my view of things.)
I would bet my lifes savings that you won't get 90% of the population. You can't get 90% to agree on anything.
Progressives have to stop trying to convince everyone, or even a super majority. I'm happy with 60%. That's a pretty sizable mandate.
But anyway...
I suppose a lot of these people might never have thought about this issue. I am quite certain, however, that making doctors criminally responsible, as opposed to women, was a very deliberate strategy undertaken by the leaders of the anti-abortion movement. I'm sure they realized that imprisoning women would create too much backlash against their views. It's the same reason they include rape and incest exemptions.
Marquer makes a good point... I'm sure that the reaction among the power people in the GOP to the South Dakota law was, "Oh sh*t." Roe v. Wade is supremely useful to them as a fundraising and get-out-the-vote tool... if it's seriously threatened, they're screwed and they know it (because of the 65-70% support for choice). The fundies in SD didn't get the memo, evidently. There was a quote in Newsweek by a national Repub figure (can't remember who) who essentially said, "we talked to the SD legislators about how this 'isn't the best time' for this law, and they wouldn't listen to us."
The dissonance between the goals of the Christian fundamentalists and the goals of the big business overlords is going to be their downfall.
I want abortion to be illegal b/c I want to make it as rare as possible --
Bill,
That didn't work before, when abortion WAS illegal. And the same baffling logic hasn't worked with drug use (or prescription drug abuse), it didn't work during Prohibition and it doesn't work with illegal downloading.
You want to make abortion rare? Educate kids about sex.
Hi Ploeg,
"If abortion is not murder, what right do you have to impose your moral judgement on others?"
This sentence frankly doesn't make a lot of sense. Substitute the word "abortion" in the above-sentence with the word "rape" or "slavery" or "assault" or whatever, and I think you will see what I mean.
I'm glad to see this strategy getting traction.
I think it's also fair to say that the pro-choice movement has been reluctant to make this argument, too, hence the rarity of the issue even coming up. I've urged this argument for many years, and until now all I've encountered are blank faces. My sense is that many pro-choice people are terrified to tread, even hypothetically, on the subject of incarcerating the mother, as if to raise the subject is to somehow tacitly accept it.
Just the other day Amanda at Pandagon went on at length about not buying into the antichoice movement's "frame" because that would just let them win the argument. I felt that was completely counterproductive and foolish. If their "frame" is that abortion is murder(and it is), force them to defend that principle in all its ramifications. The alternative is two sides just shouting at one another ("Murder!" "My body, my choice!"). Forcing them to defend their cheaply held rhetorical position would undermine it better than shouting about personal autonomy and coat hangers.
Bill -- The problem is, making abortion illegal doesn't make it go away. I hope like hell you're handing out condoms and Planned Parenthood flyers everywhere you go, since contraception actually is a way of making abortion go away. That "If we just illegalise it, it'll go away" argument has worked really well for the 18th Amendment/Volstead Act crowd and the War on Drugs crowd, hasn't it?
So, which is more important to you -- making abortion go away, or saving women's lives? That's basically what it comes down to.
This is how we win on abortion. Forget morality (there's no right or wrong there, just opinion) and "my body, my choice" (as much as I agree with and embrace that sentiment). Just talk about the simple reality of implementing certain policies.
The issue about jailing women is interesting. If they argue that these women shouldn't go to jail they're forced to argue that pregnant women can't be held responsible for breaking the law. If they argue these women should go to jail they pretty much lose all public support. Everyone just knows, in her gut, that that's not right. Some won't give a shit, that's true, but I guarantee you the majority of Americans will not stand for seeing (middle class) women thrown in jail for having abortions.
Other questions to ask:
* Will every miscarriage be investigated?
* Who decides what constitutes a threat to the woman's life? What if there's only, say, a 20% chance that she'll die? Technically speaking just being pregnant threatens my life - is that enough to get me an abortion?
* In cases of exceptions for health, how threatened does her health have to be? What if the threat is of some "minor" disability? Who decides what minor is? How are we going to make sure rich women aren't just paying doctors to say whatever they have to say?
* Someone else - either on here or in another blog - already mentioned the problem with rape exceptions. Will we require just a report or also a conviction? In a criminal trial or in a civil suit?
You get the idea. We win by making it clear that their "solution" is no solution at all and will actually cause more problems. Once we point that out, we offer our solution. We say that abortion isn't the problem, it's a symptom of unplanned/unwanted pregnancies, and we address THAT problem with education, birth control, the usual. Eliminate their proposal as unmanageable and then bring in your own. (And yes, some of them will oppose birth control as well, but that's a whole different fight. At least we've taken an abortion ban off the table.)
This reminds me a lot of the war on drugs, actually, in that drug abuse is a symptom as well. You don't solve problems by banning their symptoms.
Though perhaps the one good thing about an abortion ban is that RU-486 will finally become more widely available.
Apologies for the long post.
How do you feel about "Connor's law"?
Actually, if fetuses are human and have the same rights as the women in whom they live, abortion would have to be legal. After all, I cannot be legally obligated to put myself or my health at risk to save another human being.
This gets to the heart of the issue, even if the "pro-life" crowd won't admit it: when does a woman consent to letting her unborn embryo/fetus use her body for room and board?
There are a few extremists who actually believe the "abortion is murder" rhetoric (Sen. Coburn, R-OK, for instance), but most "pro-lifers" implicitly believe a woman consents to pregnancy whenever she has voluntary sex, and that consent, once given, is irrevocable. This is why they usually support exceptions for rape and incest, and why they seek less severe punishments than for murder. But it's not a very logical position, especially when talking about minors who've been denied comprehensive sex ed. How can such a girl possibly give fully informed legal consent to bear a child?
The pro-choice community generally believes consent is revocable up to some reasonable point in the pregnancy (usually fetal viability, a la Roe), and they realize that, especially in a world of "abstinence only" sex ed, women and girls may not fully understand the risks of sex. There are a ton of (ahem) misconceptions about sex and pregnancy, and frankly, the right wing is trying their level best to be as unhelpful as humanly possible when it comes to dispelling those misconceptions.
Let's take it one step further. If abortion is murder, then isn't any woman who has a miscarriage committing manslaughter?
"Why do you think most anti-abortion activists would have such a big problem with imprisoning women who have abortions?"
Where did I read recently that Margaret Atwood can go to her grave knowing that she was right about some men?
Digby, your post chills me.
Anonymous,
There's almost no chance of RU-486 being anything but a proxy fight if abortion is outlawed. It'll just shift the argument to even more absurd lengths and behavioral control.
Our national leadership believes in the sanctity of blastocysts and stem cells, you think that RU-486 becomes a widely accepted abortion alternative?
And Bill, answer the question, why not arm kids with honest sex education? That has proven to reduce the abortion rate more effectively than outlawing abortion.
I want abortion to be illegal b/c I want to make it as rare as possible
Tha does not seem to be the case in several South American countries, while abortion rates are lowest in countries with universal health care, better social benefits for parents & children, comprehensive sex ed, and cheap, widely available birth control, and yes, legal abortion. Given that observation, you may want to rethink the means to your desired goal.
Chris Matthews did this once when he had O'Donoghue, the rabid Catholic, on his show. He just kept asking him what he thought would be an appropriate penalty for the woman who has the abortion. How much jail time? O'Donoghue just stammered about how it was immoral, against God's law etc but didn't really have an answer. It is probably the best counter tactic we have.
most "pro-lifers" implicitly believe a woman consents to pregnancy whenever she has voluntary sex, and that consent, once given, is irrevocable.
True, but this is where I put on my Evil Feminist costume with Ballbreaker Utility Belt and call them full of shit. There are several risks I willingly accept with sexual activity, but inevitable parenthood ain't one of them, and anyone who wants to go back to when it was is SOL as far as I'm concerned.
Hi Interrobang,
Abortion will never completely go away if it's made illegal. But I believe that it will be made more rare.
You bring up prohibition as an example. The truth is, alcohol consumption declined during the 20s. It's just that the unintended consequences of bottlegging made things (in general) a lot worse off.
That could be true with abortion as well. Based on history, you have a good point.
But making abortion illegal will (I believe) make it less common. We won't really know until the SD law is in effect for a while.
Sorry for the re-post, but another question would be:
If life begins at conception, can I take out a life insurance over, say a couple ten thousand bucks, just in case my wife has a miscarriage / stillbirth?
FYI: "Miscarriage is the loss of a pregnancy in the first 20 weeks. About 15 to 20 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, and more than 80 percent of these losses happen before 12 weeks. This doesn't include situations in which you lose a fertilized egg before you get a positive pregnancy test. Studies have found that 30 to 50 percent of fertilized eggs are lost before a woman finds out she's pregnant, because they happen so early that she goes on to get her period about on time. If you lose a baby after 20 weeks of pregnancy, it's called a stillbirth."
http://www.babycenter.com/refcap...ations/
252.html
Somehow I have the feeling the Insurance Co's wouldn't fall for this...
And don't forget: Everytime you masturbate, God kills a kitten 
Maybe I just have a nasty suspicious mind, but I have my suspicions about the reason why those women were stumped by the suggestion of criminal penalties for having an abortion. I only know a few people who've worked in abortion clinics, but those few people all have said that in the clinic records are the names of well-known anti-abortion protestors, or their wives and daughters. Yeppers, the same people who are literally screaming in the faces of women who need to get an abortion have either had abortions themselves after they became public anti-abortion protestors, or paid for abortions for their own womenfolk. See, it's not about *what* is right or wrong; it's about *who* is right or wrong. They want to have all the privileges for themselves, and to punish anybody who commits the crime of thinking they deserve to have what only the elite can have.
If abortion is murder, then a miscarriage is manslaughter. Now we can put 6 out of 10 women behind bars after they negligently lose their first pregnancies! My mother, your sister, and our best friends... they aren't "murderers" per se, but their bodies didn't sustain the life of a sacred Fetus, so they should be punished.
Also, every ejaculation that does not result in impregnation, every menstrual cycle that passes as a missed opportunity, or every use of contraceptives, should be reguarded as "Conspiracy to Commit Negligent Homocide". These things present a "clear and present danger" to the creation and safe rearing of the Fetus.
If you follow the anti-choicers logic ad absurdum, that's where you end up.
The other issue that really needs to be raised is IVF. Discarding excess embryos would be murder. Leaving them frozen until they die is depraved indifference murder or at least criminally negligent homicide. This is probably a bigger issue with the upper middle and lower upper classes, because no one else can afford extensive anti-fertility treatments, but few want to see this technology go.
I have always believed that the only rights that a fetus has are those conferred upon it by its' host/mother. As long as it's inside of a fully realized citizen's body, that citizen can do with it as she wants.
That seems so reasonable to me, as what America is about and stands for, that I don't understand what these anti-choicers think that the U.S. is about. What freedom is about. I don't get how they think they can make logical progressions in arguments if they don't understand that most fundamental idea about freedom in America.
Actually it's pretty clear. Nobody believes that life begins at conception. Well. People might believe it, somewhat. But they never really thought about it.
If we did, we'd probably have laws regarding miscarriage.
let us also remember that, historically, criminalizing, marginalizing, and/or eliminating access to abortion has demonstrably been murder. it has resulted in the bloody and horrible deaths of countless women. and if they really want to return to a culture in which such deaths are considered "deserved" - a culture barely above the level of public stonings for adultery - then by the Good Lord Jesus let them stand up proudly on the courthouse steps and say so without hiding behind a badly spelled protest sign. I want to hear and see these people say "Yes, I believe that if a frightened young women dies horribly from seeking to abort her fetus, then she deserved it". I want the primetime news TV cameras rolling when they say it.
If life begins at conception, can I take out a life insurance over, say a couple ten thousand bucks, just in case my wife has a miscarriage / stillbirth?
FYI: "Miscarriage is the loss of a pregnancy in the first 20 weeks. About 15 to 20 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, and more than 80 percent of these losses happen before 12 weeks. This doesn't include situations in which you lose a fertilized egg before you get a positive pregnancy test. Studies have found that 30 to 50 percent of fertilized eggs are lost before a woman finds out she's pregnant, because they happen so early that she goes on to get her period about on time. If you lose a baby after 20 weeks of pregnancy, it's called a stillbirth."
Somehow I have the feeling the Insurance Co's wouldn't fall for this...
jay | 03.07.06 - 6:40 pm | #
As you note, most pregnancies do not produce a live offspring.
We don't issue death certificates when a woman miscarries, nor do we hold a funeral.
Perhaps it's time to demand that the government do so. Perhaps we should hold these absurd notions that undifferentiated cells have all of the rights, privileges and responsibilities of citizenship in the U.S., and force these anti-choicers to have to pay for "appropriate" disposal of the bodies. After paying several thousand dollars on funerals and bureaucratic red-tape, they might get a little sense.
Bill,
Assault, slavery, and rape are indisputably attacks against other human beings or their liberty. Certainly these actions are seen as morally repugnant by most people, but they are illegal because they are crimes against other human beings, and they therefore are correctly seen as offenses against the public order.
So back to the question again: if you are not taking the life of another human being, if abortion is not murder, then what offense against the public order does abortion present? If we made everything illegal that people considered immoral, the United States would be a vastly different place.
You bring up prohibition as an example. The truth is, alcohol consumption declined during the 20s. It's just that the unintended consequences of bottlegging made things (in general) a lot worse off.
Bill, that's pretty much what everyone is saying here about what happens when abortions are outlawed.
But the 'unintended consequences' are fully expected by those of us who know enough history to realize deaths, forced miscarriages, suicides, self-poisoning and illegal, unsafe abortions will undoubtably go up. To believe otherwise is magical thinking.
Sure, the 'number' of abortion might go down, but abortion-related fatalities will skyrocket.
This isn't a matter where 'wait and see' is good enough. It's an inevitability.
If we made everything illegal that people considered immoral, the United States would be a vastly different place.
ploeg | 03.07.06 - 7:00 pm
it's interesting to note that those annoying commercials before the main feature telling us not to download copies of motion pictures are appealing to the same motivation.
i think the real hidden agenda is that it's stealing, not murder. after all, if women are chattel to men, then by corrolary so are their offspring, and so abortion really is a property violation.
Also to consider is that women of means will always be able to get an abortion. They will always be able to leave the U.S. and go to another country where abortion is safe and legal (France is but one example) and get an abortion.
Does this mean then that before women may travel beyond U.S. borders, they must submit to a pregnancy test? If pregnant when they leave the states, must they submit to another test to determine their status? If they are no longer pregnant, shall a coroner's inquest be held?
Those pro-choicers among us who appear to debate the subject in the media should refuse to stick with the program's script and start bringing up these considerations.
We really need to stop letting the MSM set the agenda, and overwhelm them with what real common sense is.
Ploeg,
It's difficult to argue with you b/c it's not going to lead anywhere productive. Suppose I came to you and said "Arson should be legal". And you say "No it shouldn't." And I say "Don't foist your morality on me!" That's kind of where we stand. I could go into multiple paragraphs explaining why I believe a fetus has enough moral standing to warrant outlawing abortions, but it seems kind of pointless. My original post was not to argue the immorality of abortion; it was only to argue that you can logically believe in outlawing abortions without also believing that you should charge mothers who abort their fetuses with murder.
Of course not everything immoral should be illegal. Lying to your spouse is immoral, but should never be illegal. But I think that abortion is "immoral enough" that it should be illegalized.
Sure, the 'number' of abortion might go down, but abortion-related fatalities will skyrocket.
This isn't a matter where 'wait and see' is good enough. It's an inevitability.
Jay B | Homepage | 03.07.06 - 7:04 pm | #
It's not only fatalities that need consideration if abortion is outlawed, but the other unintended consequences that range from the economy overall to women's presence, participation and equality throughout our culture.
If women are forced to bear children that they don't want, there is this very odd presumption by the religious right that the women will give the babies up for adoption. The magical thinking takes over that these will be healthy, white, blond and blue-eyed and much wanted by childless couples with great big houses and extra income to lavish on this orphan. Very few of these babies will be given up for adoption. As much as the religious righters long for the 1950s, they're in for a rude shock because women aren't likely to give up their kids, no matter how ambivalent they are about raising them. That's going to lead to more social problems, for all of us. Unwanted children being raised by single parents who aren't financially settled, with interrupted educations.
This is a nightmare.
"The law will eventually be able to make no logical moral distinction. Is everybody ready for that?"
It may be shocking and hard to fathom, but the answer to your question for wingers is absolutely yes. They will have no problem prosecuting women for abortions. Remember: its not about life, its about power. Whatever the outcome for a winger, its purely about execising power.
Look at the everything republicans have done for the past 25 years. Not a thing had anything to do with advancing the human condition. It was always all about greed, self-interest, exercising power. That is it.
The 65% non-winger population will be concerned, but 40% (more than half the non-wingers) will decide it doesn't affect them and go about their business tut-tutting, but doing nothing. Only 25% of the population will care enough to try to do anything about it - not enough to make a difference.
.
"Hence a fetus has some moral standing, just not enough to equate it with a human being."
holy, jeebus, jeehossyphat and merry, God hisself is commenting on hullabaloo. who wooda evah thunkit. and his name is Bill.
Digby you shore doo draw sum crowd.
Yee, haa.
.
Some years ago my sister had a miscarriage about 3 months into her pregnancy. While it was certainly a sad occasion, no one on this green earth would at all equate it to losing a 2 or 3 year old or even a 6-month old child.
Now why do you suppose that is?
And why don't more people ask the anti-abortion activists this same question? I would absolutely love to hear their answers. I'm sure they'd be quite illuminating.
Cognitive dissonance is one possible diagnosis. Another is simply being dumb as a box of rocks.
What about charging doctors with criminal neglect for every egg that wasn't succesfully turned into on they can invertro?
Or Better yet. Charge them on mulitple acts of criminal charges, including malpractice for every bioplas that gets regected by the unterus?
You know that doctors routinely place mulitple in invetro to garuantee a sucsefull fetus, right?
Then we can have multiple counts of murder on the doctor and the woman.
If a woman goes to a doctor for an abortion, and he says OK, isn't that a conspiracy to commit a felony right there? For both of them? Hardly seems logical to hold the doc accountable, and not the woman. I mean, in a "murder for hire" case, the guy that pays $5000 to be rid of his wife is just as guilty as the mobster who does the deed.
Make up yer minds, folks, it's either murder or it aint...
Digby, you just had a long post around the sick and demented real-world example of winger par-excellence Senator Napoli from South Dakota. Taking him as typical of the anti-choice/forced birth crowd, what would ever lead you to believe that given the opportunity, religious crackpots would hesitate for a second to declare women who have an abortion murders?
.
Oh, Bill, arson? Please. Arson is a crime because it is usually committed as the first step of a fraud, i.e., to collect insurance money. Other than reckless endangerment of firefighters (also a crime in most jurisdictions) or neighbor's property nobody cares if you burn your house or business. Just don't try to profit by it by filing a fire insurance claim if you torched it. Jeeesh. Can we get better trolls, please?
Otherwise...
Thanks for the discussion. I also have asked the "prosecute the woman" question and received nothing but the "you don't understand" and the "these women are victims" defense. Perhaps we should be grateful that their position is a mile wide and an inch deep.
Thanks for the opportunity to participate.
LM Wanderer
Sorry to butt in again but does anyone know of a mirror for the video? It appears the site has been /.ed. Thanks.
LM Wanderer
There are several risks I willingly accept with sexual activity, but inevitable parenthood ain't one of them, and anyone who wants to go back to when it was is SOL as far as I'm concerned.
Well you see, that's the thing.
Stop thinking about fetuses. Or Foeti.
That is NOT what this is about.
It's about women who dare to spread their legs being punished for doing so, and abortion forstalls the punishment.
This is about women DARING to be as free and easy about sex as men can be. To fuck without the consequence of conception and carrying the result to that conception to child birth.
The fact that the anti-choice movement is also, overwhelmingly, vehemently against all contraception and against sex education that is actually sex education and not lecures to "save it for marriage" tells us all we need to know about the TRUE motivation for all this controversy.
This is about fucking. Period.
I just wish there were only some way of tracking exactly how many miscarriages vs. abortions have occured over the hundreds of thousands of years that humans have inhabited this planet...I'd put my money on "GOD" killing millions more fetuses than all the abortionists put together.
So, wingnuts: how come killing fetuses is so incredibly evil when humans do it... but becomes completely unremarkable and unobjectionable when "GOD" does it?
digby, I think you broke that other site. It's not responding any more.
Is it murder?
Yeah, the site's overwhelmed. I grabbed the vid from my browser cache and uploaded it to YouTube...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kgWngv4aFeQ
Bill, I think that there is already a distinction made between abortion and murder and other things in the real world as it is now.
No one treats an abortion like it was removing a wart or something. (well, I'm sure someone has done so, but that would be exceptional). Women are counsoled, by their friends, by family, by doctors, by professionals. It's a tough decision, but when it's obvious that neither the mother nor the future child would benefit from an unwanted pregnancy, it is a blessing to have the option.
But it's not something that most people take lightly, and there can be lasting emotional effects. It isn't a decision that can be made by anyone except the woman involved.
FWIW, knowing a few "pro-life" folks, the argument is that the woman who is in a situation where she is getting an abortion is under enough duress that she is not really culpable for the murder -- manslaughter perhaps, but not murder. Certainly not first degree murder.
OTOH, it is true that even those anti-abortion types who have an answer to the "why not throw the woman in jail for life?" question by and large have not fully considered the consequences of considering the fetus to be human as implied by considering abortion to be murder -- e.g., the miscarriage consideration which has already been brought up.
In general, when people are lead through the consequences of their beliefs in legal terms, they tend to end up at the liberal position. It is no coincidence that the Pragmatists with a capital P were all liberals.
It's not the women who will be prosecuted, but the doctors and nurses performing the abortions.
The fundies won't have any problem at all sending them to prison.
In the years before Roe, my family doctor was sent to prison for performing an abortion. Nice, middle-class neighborhood family doctor, made house calls, treated me and my sisters for chicken pox, in the middle of NYC. It would have been nice knowing that he did abortions, because when my teenage cousin got pregnant, she wouldn't have had to spend her college nest-egg on a trip to Puerto Rico for a legal abortion.
Sending the doctor to prison is the plan. You can't beat the deterrent value of that. It also a great way to devalue physicians, make them the scapegoat for so many ills.
The refusal to deal with the woman as a "murderer" reflects the anti-choice movement's larger refusal to consider women seriously as moral actors in general. - BenA
It also reflects that movement's refusal to consider that sometimes there are no "good decisions". Even if one stipulates that abortion is in general somehow wrong, sometimes it may be the only right choice. Any so-called moral system that can tell you some things are "wrong" and somethings are "right" but which cannot, when faced with the complexities of real life, tell you which a priori "wrong" choice is the right choice to make, is hardly a moral system at all.
Legislating some people's peculiar morality is bad enough as one person's morality is another's immorality (what if my morality was legislated and women who's pregnancies threatened their lives had to get abortions lest they end their lives which God gave to them? how would the pro-life folks feel?) -- legislating a moral system that cannot even handle the complexities of real life without throwing up it's hands in the air and saying "well, it's exactly in these situations that we see mankind is condemned to sin irredeamably in the eyes of God" -- which, but for a sacrifice on the part of God over which the individual who ought to seek redemption has no actual agency, condemns people to eternal damnation merely for being unlucky enough to face life's complexities -- is even worse as it condemns people to earthly punishment for just being unlucky enough to have to face life's complexities. How can one have a meaningful sense of citizenship, a sense necessary for the maintanance of a democratic republic, if the mere act of living renders one a law breaker according to the laws of that republic?
It's fine for people to have such a bizarre moral system in their religions -- they are free to do that in a secular society ... but it's another thing when they try to base legislation on such a system.
can we now start referring to the anti-abortion crowd as "deeply unserious?" i hope so, because i really love calling people "unserious."
aks ... I agree.
The Yiddish word for much of what passes for conservativism nowadays, from the mindless embrace of the so-called free-market to this frum-olympics mishugass is naarishkeit: it doesn't translate well, but it has the meaning you seek.
The other talking point should be that liberals are people who think through to the consequences of beliefs -- that is clearly in evidence here, but it is true in general. Liberals deal with real-life consequences ... reactionaries live in a land of make believe and want to bring us back to an earlier simpler time "that only existed in the minds of us Republicans" as Ned Flanders puts the political position of him and his ilk so aptly.
The problem is that people think with their kishkes not their heart and certainly not their mind. So how do we liberals overcome the "liberal supported thing X is 'icky'" problem ID'd by Atrios and others and get people excited about big-P Pragmatism ... which frankly, is a kinda hard sell in today's 'deeply unserious', "pundit"-dominated political scene?
Bill,
You are wrong in your assumption that criminalizing abortion will lower the rates of abortion. Compare, for example, the low rates of legal abortion in the Netherlands to the rates of illegal abortion in Brazil.
Or look at the evidence in pre-Roe America:
There were 5,000 women/ year in the Chicago Cook County septic ward from the late 1930s through the 1950s. These were not deaths, simply women who had to be hospitalized due to illegal abortions.
On RU486
There's almost no chance of RU-486 being anything but a proxy fight if abortion is outlawed. It'll just shift the argument to even more absurd lengths and behavioral control.
Are people confusing Plan B (the morning after pill) with RU486?
RU486 will be outlawed by any state that outlaws 1st trimester abortions.
Making abortion illegal does not lower the abortion rate!
The rate in the Netherlands is 6/1000. The rate in Brazil is much, much higher then that. I can't remember what it is. But you can find it on the web.
When the United States begins to outlaw abortion - we will probably see the rate stay the same.
Women will get illegal abortions. It's not hard to figure out how to abort a embryo or a fetus. It's not safe, but it's not hard. All you have to do is stick a catheter in your cervix.
I wonder how much of the deer in the headlights expressions had to do with the fact that the question forced them to stop thinking about abortion as kulturkampf and address it on a human level. As fucked up as it is perhaps there is some hope for at least some fundies to get their heads outta their asses and start questioning the right wing party line. Then again, maybe not.
Maybe someone already pointed this out upthread, but Jane Hamsher a few days ago suggested this interesting query for those who say that fertilized eggs are people just like everyone else: You're in a fertility clinic that catches fire. You only have time to save either (a) a two-year-old child or (b) a petri dish with five fertilized eggs in it. Which do you save?
A good (actually very nasty) example is Romania in the 1980s. Abortion illegal to the point of policemen doing sweeps through hospitals making sure there were no abortions being performed. Illegal to the point that every woman of childbearing years had to have a monthly gynecological exam to see if she was pregnant, and if so, track the progress. Miscarriages were investigated.
And even with all of this - there were STILL illegal abortions performed.
Too many of these folks seem to feel that if abortions are made illegal, they just won't happen anymore. And probably that angels will come down from the heavens and thank them on behalf of the little babies.
It's an evil cult of innocence-worshippers.
DAS, the conservatives aren't nuts, they just don't care if their political pose causes an infinite amount of pain and suffering. They've got the suckers hooked at election time and that's all this means.
Does anyone seriously believe that George W. Bush who is personally responsible for the deaths of scores of thousands of people gives a pretzel stick about a zygote? Does anyone believe that John Ashcroft did? That Samuel Alito does? Samuel Alito doesn't care if foetuses are braindamaged by polloution why would anyone think he cares if they are brought to term.
These people are cynical to an unbelievable degree. Abortion is just another wedge issue for them. If they thought that they could win by Jew baiting, by going after vegetarians, by rounding up all Andorrans living in the United States that's what they would do.
If anyone doesn't think that a theocratic dictatorship wouldn't keep upping the levels of oppression they haven't read much history. That's what religous nutters do to gain power and status.
Ever wonder why conservatives are so hepped up for the death penalty? Surely you don't think it's about "justice". In what other way have conservatives ever shown an interest in justice? Unless it was to destroy it. Without the threat of death, dictatorships can't happen.
I am man from South Dakota. I am a Republican. I can sleep with any woman at any time. I am stud. You are woman. You cannot sleep with any man at any time. You are whore. Spread legs be punished. Men special. Men know whats best for womans womb. Trust us. Birth control bad. Fetus more special than woman. Protect fetus from slut. Man owns sperm. Man owns egg. Man must make morality. Woman must make baby. Wife must submit to man. Headache no excuse. Make me sandwich. Now.
Sorry. I wasn't clear when I said RU-486 would become more available. It was actually a joke...sort of.
When I was in high school, I could not get alcohol. I always got asked to show ID, could never find anyone to buy it for us...it was actually pretty hard. So instead we just smoked a lot of pot and did a lot of acid. Pot and acid (and, I was constantly told, a whole variety of other drugs) were incredibly easy to get.
An abortion ban doesn't just outlaw a procedure, it oulaws the drug RU-486, which, if other drugs are any example, will instantly become available to everyone everywhere. RU-486 wasn't around the last time abortion was illegal, and it'll be interesting to see how that angle plays out.
Great post and link. This is exactly what we need to do on so many issues. Have conversations that are REALITY BASED. Lets talk through the Religious Right's agenda to their logical ends. This is brilliant.
Another observation about this video is that the final lady interviewed had to ask "who are you with?". The only reason she asked that was that the questioner was asking in-depth follow-up questions to her answers. She could not seem to fathom that a "real" reporter would ask her questions that made her think. If the interviewer had said "CNN", she would have keeled over dead. Such is the sorry state of our media.
Will someone in the mainstream media please take note of this video?
Will someone in the mainstream media please do their homework?
Thank you, Digbby for plugging this amazing piece of reportage.
On the issue of life beginning at conception - US citizenship is granted on the basis of where one is BORN, not conceived. Embryos could all take the test and repeat the pledge, I suppose, but it might be difficult since they don't have brains, mouths, or hands.
This is why something like the Right to Life Act is so ridiculous (other than this whole "pre-born" concept -is that like "pre-cooked?"). Are we all of a sudden going to start creating rights for non-US citizens? Are we going to redefine citizenship so that it's based on where you're conceived?
Just like deciding to have an abortion, deciding to have a divorce is (for most) a painful, difficult decision that may cause lasting scars to the people involved. Sometimes, though, it might be the right thing to do. And (thank God) we haven't regressed enough yet that divorce has been outlawed.
And last time I checked, a law that carried no punishment was unenforceable. The only way you can keep doctors from doing it is by punishing them; hence the prosecution of doctors in the South Dakota bill. But you aren't going to stop women from doing it unless you punish them, too.
On the other hand...perhaps the fundies feel that likely permanent uterine damage and a fair chance of sepsis, hemorrhage and potential death by amateur abortion is a more fitting punishment than jail time?
I like how the last lady on the video pretty much reverted to "name, rank and serial number" when confronted with hard questions.
Will every miscarriage be investiged by the prosecutor? How about tax exemptions starting at conception?
Akadad, that was hysterical!
Got to ask, though, if fetus more special than woman, what if fetus is female? I assume male fetus is most special of all...
One reason for apparent cognitive dissonance (via Avedon)
John Dempsey, there were some places where they kept track of miscarriages in case they were caused by an abortion attempt. Don't think for a second that if a DA thinks that it would be to his political advantage that one, somewhere wouldn't do this again.
Once you start controlling peoples' private lives where does it stop?
What makes it even stranger is that women who can afford it will be able to go out of state and murder their fetus with no ramifications.
If Doctors that perform abortions are held accountable for performing a service requested and could go to jail, they may opt out of helping Women in there time of need. So it makes sense that "they" would make it undesireable for the docs.
A lot of women who are avid Anti-abortions activists, joined the cause because they could not live with the choice they once made to abort. Of course, remembering that, they won't want to see (themselves) jailed for what seemed like the only alternative at the time.
The Daddy will support them? Get real! Oh, yeah, the Father that raped his virgin daughters might support his granddaughter/daugher, because he's got one more unwilling sex partner to rape.
To the Christians, LET GOD JUDGE, live the word...Judge not lest ye be judged. Allow other women the freedom to choose, if not you are on the same level of the rapist that, like you took away her freedom to choose.
Thanks 14all
Yes. Man fetus more special. Woman fetus special needs.
Time for Man on Dog action, Santorum style!
Let's not forget mother's, father's, husbands and boyfriends who conspire with daughters, wives and girlfriends to have an abortion. Murderers all.
IIRC, Bush the Elder was asked this question in the 1988 presidential debates and responded that he hadn't really thought about it, but he'd guess that the woman was a victim, not a criminal. Apparently, the right-wing's talking points on this question haven't advanced much in almost 20 years.
Two thoughts.
1) Chris Matthews in a positive light? 2 years is a long time.
2) The pro-lifers actually, in a bizarre way seemed quite well meaning. They were worried about the mothers too once they paused to think about it. They don't represent the arch "burn the bitch" mentality we saw in the winger post from the other day saying, "don't fuck."
But, shit yeah. They call it murder, but they don't want it punished like a murder. They don't want it punished at all.
I don't think anyone has mentioned this but aren't most abortions paid for by the male who impegnated the woman? If so, why aren't they prosecuted also?
It always amazes me how abortion is talked about with no mention of the responsibility of the man.
Another idea. Follow the money.
How much would it cost society if all the abortions had been forced live births instead? That amount alone could change some minds.
And finally. The Right is always framing the issues, ie. Clear skies, Pro Abortion v Pro Life. So how about a new term Pro Choice v Pro Forced Birth. Or Pro Life v Pro Life of the Mother.
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There are so many bespoke issues if abortion = murder.
* Is a doctor who performs the abortion charged with murder or the pregnant woman?
* Can both Doctor & patient be charged with conspiracy to murder?
* If a unwanted pregnancy goes full term, and the child dies in childbirth, is it manslaughter? - Is the Dr or the mother responsible?
* If a unwanted pregnancy goes full term, and the child is given up for adoption and subsequently dies, is the mother or the state responsible?
* Are reparations to the mother applicable if the child dies as a result of not being given the right to an abortion?
* Will the mother be given reparations if the child is deformed or handicapped, requiring additional services?
* Will the mother be entitled to payments or support by the father in the case of rape or incest?
* If the case is rape, and the perpetrator is jailed, how does the mother receive payments when the rapists income earning ability is removed by the state? Will the state take over the responsibilites?
* At what level are any figures of acceptable reparations/payments to a mother established?
* Are using newer technologies to choose the sex of the child sexist, and subject to discrimination laws?
* If a suicide results as of post-natal depression from an unwanted pregnancy, is the state responsible?
* To avoid possible suicide from post-natal depression, must all new mothers-of-unwanted-preganacies require medical oversight for several months or... anit-depressants?
* Can the unwanted child sue the state in a civil action for mental anguish caused by their birth?
* Can siblings sue the state by an unwanted pregancy resulting in poverty and mental anguish?
* Is a miscarriage manslaughter? Are their conditions where it could be such as smoking during pregnancy?
* Can the mother sue the state for mental anguish if an unwanted pregnancy results in a miscarriage, causing depression?
It really can extrapolated to the nth degree into the idea that sex outside marriage, without the intention of procreation, would be a criminal act for everyone involved.
Well, thats all I can think of in 5 minutes. I'm sure there a more angles.
=my2c
BC
Amazing video! Astounding! What kind of people are these, working for year on this "issue" and not asking themselves the simplest and most obvious of questions?
It boggles the mind. Everyone in our poor mixed up country should see this video.
This is going to be long and ranty, so I apologize in advance. This is personal to me, and I’m flippin’ infuriated by what I saw in that video.
As someone who's actually had an abortion, I can honestly say that it's the hardest decision that I’ve ever had to make, and it wasn’t made lightly. It’s not a lark, and you don’t throw a party afterward. You tend to give the matter a lot of thought when you're knocked up with no way to support a child and a family who will disown you when they find out you're pregnant. A lot more thought than any of those women waving their butchered baby pictures have given. And a lot more than the angry mob who was screaming at me on the way to my abortion, since they cared a hell of a lot more about the three month-old blob of cells in my womb than they did about me, apparently.
You hear a lot from the anti-choice camp about the irresponsibility of women who get themselves knocked up. It's their fault for getting pregnant, and their fault for getting abortions... and as we saw in this video, they can easily blame women... while at the same time not thinking about them very much. Amazing.
Add to that the fact that women feel much more pressure to keep from becoming pregnant - that the burden of birth control typically falls on us - and the government has no problem getting involved in our personal reproductive health as opposed to that of men. On top of the fact that we actually have to bear the children we do decide to have. I think it’s safe to say that women are getting the shit end of the stick in all this.
So here's an option that should have the pro-personal responsibility conservatives wetting themselves, it's so brilliant.
Let's make it a federal law for any male, regardless of age, who impregnates an unmarried female under the age of 18 to be required to register as the legal paternal guardian of that girl's child. That male, or his parents if he is a minor, will be required by law to help financially support the child until that child is 18. The father of the child will have this on his legal record, much like a sex offender, and there can even be Web sites listing men (or boys) in town who have knocked up underage girls. What a great resource for parents of teenage girls who are dating.
I can't think of a better way to terrify young men to keep their peckers to themselves, or to be responsible about sex, than to threaten them with something like this. Pair this with REAL, honest, down-to-earth, practical sex-education for girls (which also includes lessons in self-esteem and relationship building), and I think we would see teen pregnancy rates plummet in this country. Abortion rates would drop... and I think we can ALL be happy about that!
(-AND- as a super-happy-fun bonus - all those women standing out on the street with their signs get a free unwanted baby! Yay! All those precious little babies they saved... enjoyed from the comforts of their own lower-middle class homes.)
But... I can hear the dissenters now. It would take away the male's "privacy". It's not "practical". It's not "fair".
What's not fair is putting the burden of birth and birth control on women (and girls), and having a safe alternative to an unwanted pregnancy taken away from them by the MEN who run both the government and these anti-choice organizations, and the women who are so icked-out by their own sexuality that they’ve cashed in their womanhood and "don't think about it too much, really" when it comes to the fate of other women dealing with the choice to have an abortion.
The anti-choice camp needs to have some DAMN good contingency plans in place if they plan on outlawing abortion. Because "not thinking about it too much" and "leaving it in god's hands" isn't going to cut it. They want to have things their way... they'd better be prepared to deal with the mess that's going to result, then.
If they outlaw abortion, 16 yr. old boys who want sex will simply freeze their sperm & get their tubes tied. That will take care of the problem w/out screwing up sexual relations, which is one of the main objectives of the Fundies.
P.S. Why haven't males ever demanded fail-proof birth control. It's so much simpler to make for guys 'cuz their hormonal system is much simpler. but guys refuse at every step of the way to take responsibility, but get hysterical if they can't have endless sex. Can't have it both ways, boys.
If you don't want to get yr. tubes tied @onset of adolescence, get some damn 100% effective birth control. And, yes, it will have side effects. Deal w/them like women do - try courage for a change!!
geoduck2, abortion is more restricted in the Netherlands than in the US - a long waiting period, dissuasive counselling, etc. In other European countries like France and Germany it is even more restricted.
The answer to Bill is of course to look at the liberal program for helping women and men control their fertility through contraception, sex ed, greater economic opportunity, universal affordable health care, support for child care, ... These measures will reduce the unintended pregnancy rate and make it feasible for more women with unplanned pregancies to carry them to term.
Also note, Bill, that Roe did not decrease births per woman - just increased the age at which births occur. More young unprepared woman having babies is not something you're likely to favor.
Sister comments you listen.
Can the law really criminalize an act which, if doctors performed it in another state, would be legal? Isn't that restraint of trade, or interference with the right to travel, or some combination of both. If the AMA would insist that its doctors pull out of South Dakota until they are safe to practice medicine as they see fit we'd see an end to this, but of course they won't. Still, I'd like to see individual doctors sue the state for restraint of trade and practicing medicine without a liscence.
aimai
And let's not forget all those unborn sperm cells, either!
Every sperm is sacred,
Every sperm is great,
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.
Let the heathen spill theirs,
On the dusty ground,
God shall make them pay for
Each sperm that can't be found.
Every sperm is wanted,
Every sperm is good,
Every sperm is needed,
In your neighborhood.
Hindu, Taoist, Morman,
Spill theirs just anywhere,
But God loves those who treat their
Semen with more care.
Every sperm is useful,
Every sperm is fine,
God needs everybody's,
Mine, and mine, and mine.
Let the pagans spill theirs,
O'er mountain, hill and plain.
God shall strike them down for
Each sperm that's spilt in vain.
One of the ways Tim Kaine beat his republican opponent for governor here in Virginia was to float this very idea out into the zeitgeist - "Jerry Kilgore wants to put women in jail."
Really put the anti-abortion Kilgore on the defensive...thekeez
I haven't read thru the comments, so forgive me if this has already been discussed but I haven't seen it brought up before. Many women get abortions because their fetuses are known to have severe deformaties. If all of those babies are to be born, who takes care of them and who will pay for the cost to take care of them?
And let's not forget all those unborn sperm cells, either! - GWB, aka Worst. President. Ever.
Actually this sort of thing (access by married couples to birth control, masturbation, etc.) is a perfect wedge issue for the religious right. Most socially conservative Catholics I know simply don't want the state to be seen as sanctioning birth control as it offends their moral values (funny, many don't seem to get that some of us are similarly offended by public displays of religiosity that promote vain invocations of God's name and other such sinful behavior), but don't wanna make it illegal. Meanwhile, some fundie Protestants believe "every sperm is sacred" to the extent they want the law to protect them.
OTOH -- remember the immediately following scene in "The Meaning of Life"? The Protestant couple? Even many fundamentalist Protestants are like that couple and, while anti-choice and hating "fornication", they would get hopping mad if they even really feared that some crypto "Papist" would take away their right to use a condom. IIRC, James "Dr. Taliban" Dobson even says masturbation is a-ok and a good way to avoid fornication.
Bring back Dr. J. Elders and start talking about the need for better birth control. It'll make the real whackos hopping mad which will make the "I'll have a condom for I am a Protestant" wing and even the Catholics (outside of those who simply want to get into bed politically with the whacko fundies ... and judging by Santorum, physically with dogs) uncomfortable about what the real whackos will want to do next.
The DLC types are wrong. The Republicans are not electorally successful because they speak to mainstream values. They are successful because they use "values" as wedge issues ... and the thing which the Joe Lieberman types will never get about a wedge issue is that the way they work is not by making everyone happy with your compromise position but by making some people absolutely pissed at you -- which makes other people happy with you and yet more people happy you "have the courage to take a strong position". It would be one thing if all voters had the mindset of good democratic republican citizens, but they don't -- they are looking for "leadership" (TM) (not to be confused with actual leadership -- at which Dems are pretty good) and Dems. need to learn how to provide it even if it goes against our very marrow if we want to go anywhere electorally.
I think Digby has put his finger on what appears to be a knock-down argument for appealing to the majority. I suggest we shamelessly exploit it.
The issue about jailing women is interesting. If they argue that these women shouldn't go to jail they're forced to argue that pregnant women can't be held responsible for breaking the law. If they argue these women should go to jail they pretty much lose all public support. Everyone just knows, in her gut, that that's not right. Some won't give a shit, that's true, but I guarantee you the majority of Americans will not stand for seeing (middle class) women thrown in jail for having abortions.
I think that by framing the contradiction "if abortion is murder, women who have abortions should go to jail," you are over-estimating the tender mercies of Americans.
A substantial portion of the population (probably congruent with the set of right-wing Republicans) believes that if you break the law, any law, you become a nonperson who lacks rights but deserves maximum punishment.
They condone torture in prisons. (Not Abu Ghraib. Ours.) Shackling pregnant female convicts to the bed while they deliver children (w/o anesthetic).
The woman was convicted for shoplifting. Granted, she is black and this happened in Arkansas. The wingers will be totally cool about imprisoning lower-class and minority women for having abortions. Long sentences are already handed down for possession of drugs; expect to see ten-year sentences for abortions.
These wingers should be repatriated to the age of Jeffries, the Hanging Judge. In those days, transportation was a mercy.
Sorry - italics on block quote from upthread "The issue. . . having abortions" didn't work.
Re: the righties framing debates. They've been successfully framing all these debates for years because they have think-tanks whose sole purpose is to study language and create catch-phrases like "family values." We naive liberals think that if we just speak the truth, it will be self-evident and convincing, but we need to be more savvy than that. We need our own freakin' think tanks and our own catch-phrases, because once you've captured someone's imagination, you're 90% on the way to capturing their minds and hearts.
Also, I think we should redub the abortion issue the "Individually-Determined Birth vs. State-Mandated Birth" debate.
Bill's argument is brilliantly minimal and hard to answer logically. Abortion isn't murder, he says, but, "I think that abortion is "immoral enough" that it should be illegalized."
What makes something "immoral enough" to be a crime? I wouldn't know how to discuss this with a moralist.
Bill thus argues for a "blue law," which is a crime with no punishment, or a crime with a minor or arbitrarily applied punishment. Are such laws constitutional?
Probably our best strategy is to talk loudly about the punishment which pro-lifers put in small print. We need to say, "Abortion laws are bad because women and doctors should not be punished for this."
Don't forget about the children born after "failed abortions". We used to live next door to a nurse who had an adopted toddler. This little girl had miniature deformed arms. She was from Central America and was born after her mother failed to abort her by taking some horrible drug concoction. This was a young, poor woman who was obviously desperate. This little girl was adopted by a loving family with access to great medical care. What to do about those that aren't so lucky? Will the anti-choicers help them? I doubt it.
With all due respect to the posters above who think there ought to be better methods of male birth control--nothing wrong with that, but as a woman, unless you're in a really stable monogamous relationship, is that what you want to depend on?
I think female birth control is the better idea for most of us, for the same reason that parachutists pack their own chutes.
Sorry I don't have a link to the Hardball transcript, but Matthews blindsided Rep. Kucinich and reduced him to stammers in a similar discussion last year.
Kucinich had said pro-lifers would try to incarcerate women who have abortions. Matthews shouted this down as untrue. Kucinich seemed confused land failed to reply that pro-lifers would incarcerate doctors, which would be just as bad. Matthews ended the interview with the impression that pro-lifers wouldn't punish anybody at all, which we now know to be false, as demonsted by South Dakota.
Please use the term Anti-choice for these folks, not Pro-life. The reasons are obvious
Tweety is a clown,what UNITED STATES SENATOR HAS HE QUESTION IN THE SAME MANNER?,NAME ONE REPUBULICAN.
Beware the unintended consequences of this. There are a lot of people who will push themselves into the "tri them for murder" camp just following the basic logic out. Especially among men, who after all won't ever be tried for having an abortion. I can think of several states where a large enough portion of the population could be pushed that way, especially if their churches give a few "the importance of stonings" sermons.
I'm not saying that its wrong to push them to consider the full rammifications of forced birth laws, but be ready for some people to totally go with the "kill the mother" option.
Good Lord, y'all, it's so simple:
*The doctor who performs the abortion is, of course, guilty of murder for hire - death.
*The woman who gets the abortion, and anyone who assists her in getting the abortion, is guilty of conspiracy to commit murder for hire - 5 to 20 years and $100,000.
*Any woman who miscarries a fetus at any stage of development is guilty of manslaughter - 10 years.
*Whenever a woman died as a result of her pregnancy, the fetus would be guilty of manslaughter - confinement in juvenile detention until the age of 10, and then all records would be sealed.
Y'all act like we don't already have a legal system set up for this stuff.
Not anti-choice, forced birth.
And always rememeber that in their hearts, the real issue is that babies are god's punishment on wicked women, and that abortions subvet god's will.
I'll tell you again: America wants abortion to be safe, available and illegal. Whoops, I forgot the one thing which makes it all possible: invisible.
I don't see why we can't manage this.
...nowhere in the Constitution is the word abortion expressly denied legality...
...all powers not granted expressly to the federal government, are resevered, "to the states, or citizens" as per Ninth Amendment.
The argument for the right to 'life' is blocked by 'pursuit of happiness', the fact that this choice is excercised when one has limited options otherwise forgoes the interconnected plurality of guarantees for citizens that is the Consitution's purpose to state and uphold.
Thus the mitigated factors include liberty of action to the person excercising the right of choice.
Just to live was not in and of itself proof government upheld its duty to citizens, a full measure of liberty and qualitative aspects had to be part of founding philosophy.
Since then it has widened in scope.
Senator Fristula would hate for sex education and contraceptive to be made more available. Heaven forbid hospitals decrese deman in the areas of STD and birth complications. Nobody wants to see a reduction in breast cancer, as birth control pills have evidenced a positive side effect in their uses, for ladies.
I'm tellin you all. When it comes to punishment, in their dream world, anti-abortion laws would be used against people they find politically or socially inconvienent.
I'm tellin you all. When it comes to punishment, in their dream world, anti-abortion laws would be used against people they find politically or socially inconvienent. - Karmakin
Or ethnically inconvenient.
Talk to actual Afghanis from various ethnic groups about how oppressive the Taliban actually were. You'll find the answer you get varies greatly as a function of tribal/ethnic affiliation. The Taliban were not just picking on women randomly -- there was method to their madness.
OTOH (and drifting off topic), there also was a law to it. Many supported the Taliban because they brought law to lawless regions of the country. Unless we can restore the rule of law in Afghanistan, the Taliban will be (and are coming) back: you cannot prevent something from happening again if you do not understand what caused it in the first place (cf. Santayana).
Hi Scroop Moth,
"Bill's argument is brilliantly minimal and hard to answer logically. Abortion isn't murder, he says, but, "I think that abortion is "immoral enough" that it should be illegalized."
What makes something "immoral enough" to be a crime? I wouldn't know how to discuss this with a moralist."
Actually, you would know how to discuss this. Take any issue that you believe to be "immoral enough" to be criminalized. How would you debate someone who disagrees with you? You would marshall facts, evidence, statistics, what-have-you in making your case. It's not any different that any other political/moral debate. The point of my original post was not to make this argument; rather, I just wanted to show that you can support a ban on abortion without calling it murder. In this way, abortion would be no different than a zillion other things that are against the law but not defined as murder.
"Bill thus argues for a "blue law," which is a crime with no punishment, or a crime with a minor or arbitrarily applied punishment. Are such laws constitutional?"
I am definitely no lawyer, but this kind of thing happens all the time. That's what a "slap on the wrist" is all about. If you really want me to propose a punishment, how about eight hours of community service at an organization of the mother's choosing? Not an arbitrary punishment, but one that is hardly punitive.
Still, I'd like to see individual doctors sue the state for restraint of trade and practicing medicine without a liscence. - aimai
I actually wonder the same thing -- this sorta thing may very well happen. But do you think the people pushing this ban really care?
Of course, where is GW Bush on this? After all, anti-abortion reactionaries are constantly interfering with the ability of OB-Gyns to practice their love with women ...
Plenty of us have thought about it.
The woman who seeks an abortion, the boyfriend who drives her to the clinic, and the abortionist who kills the child, should all get the death penalty.
Sounds like the Handmaid's Tale precedent, eh?
Harrumph, why extend your fiscal protections just to women under 18?
Any man who fathers a baby should be financially responsible for the support of that child until it is 18, no matter how old he and the mother are.
Forcing a woman to have a baby subjects her to important losses. First, there the use of her own body's resources for the pregnancy year, plus the following year (or longer, if she nurses) -- not to mention the physical risks inherent in childbirth. During this time, her ability to provide for herself is very limited, and she deserves full financial support.
Second, twenty years of motherhood truncates a woman's career opportunities. There are more than enough studies now to prove that a woman who has kids loses hundreds of thousands of dollars in lifetime earnings, along with fewer opportunities to advance and lower retirement savings. If we're going to pass laws that force her into lifelong economic disadvantage, then we need to make sure that she's fully compensated for these losses.
As I've said elsewhere, society used to make damn sure that if a woman turned up pregnant, some man somewhere was on the hook to cover these bills. With DNA testing, fingering the responsible party is now a no-brainer.
If I'm going to be forced to pay for sex with my body and my future, the guy who did this to me had better be forced to pay with his wallet -- whether I choose to marry him or not.
After all, he made his choice when he unzipped his jeans, didn't he?
OH FUCK ME.
FUCK US ALL.
I've been trying to see this video almost since Digby first posted about it yesterday.
AtCenterNetworks was overwhelmed with the traffic, and finally took the video down late yesterday.
They've also told Greg at TalentShow to take the video down.
But here's the fucked part: You can go to AtCenter now and see it again...
BUT ONLY IF YOU PAY THEM $4 FOR THE VIEWING.
This is outrageous. Who do we spank for this crappy idea?
fair use, they made it part of the conversation, first amendment from there...
they're anti choice and anti free speech
the true colors show
I did a few back of the envelope estimates to reach the conclusion that the abortion = murder crowd would end up putting over 20 million people in prison, in the U.S. alone. Ten times our current prison population. The prison construction industry would be booming. . .
MEC (and probably others above) bring up a good point: a surprisingly large number of the abortion-is-murder crowd are themselves eligible for prosecution if it actually were murder.
Yup, screech about how horrible abortion is one day, have an abortion the next, back to screeching about it being murder the day after that.
See the article here:
http://www.prochoiceactionnetwor...nti-
tales.shtml
Rep. Slaughter talking of Carbon Monoxide treated meats, of selling contaminated fish.
The dangers of these foods to expectant mothers and children are not being taken up by the neocon cause, or the cost of asthma treatments and its coinciding pollutant exposures.
Can we charge them with endangerment and murder if we do this to trained doctors and nurses?
If a parent gives their kid money that unknowingly goes to an abortion they can be cited as accesories to homicide or involuntary fetus-slaughter?
In a world of gray there is only black and white. You're either with us or with the abortiofascists.
There is no TORT waiver for abortion or infant mortality occurrences.
There is no bankruptcy waiver for debts incurred as a result of childbirth or complications.
There is no reimbursement for pickling a fetus or dressing it up and taking it home for a closure photo op.
WWSD?
What would Santorum do?
A few months back I sent an e-mail to Concerned Women for America pretending to be a fundie anti-choicer expressing my frustration at the lack of publicly acknowledged legal ramifications for "women who murder their unborn babies". I begged them to assure me that they agreed that "women who murder their unborn babies" should be subject to prison terms just like any other monster who murders her child. Never heard a word in response.
Just another point- can we please stop referring to pregnant women as "mothers"? We are using the language of the anti-choice movement, seemingly without even realizing it. I once had a miscarriage- haven't had any kids or been pregnant since- and I don't consider myself a mother. In fact, I didn't consider myself a mother when I was pregant- I just considered myself pregnant. I didn't feel like a mother, I didn't have any drastic changes in my day to day routine as a result of the pregnancy (which I assume is certainly not the case if one actually becomes a mother) and I didn't go into a period of deep and tortured mourning when I had the miscarriage, which I'm sure I would if, God forbid, I ever had a child that I'd been a mother to die. Women who are pregnant aren't "mothers", they're just pregnant women.
If I were anti-choice, I would favor punishing the doctor only. The reason focusing on the doctor is the easiest way to stop safe abortions, and avoids the political difficulties of punnishing the woman. The woman wants the get an abortion much more than the doctor wants to perform it.
I think the idea for most people who are anti-choice is to punish the woman by preventing her from getting a safe abortion.
Mrs Robinson,
Try the link from Netromancer upthread.
How about wrongful death lawsuits on behalf of the estate of the unborn?
It seems to me there are two options here for anti-choicers:
1) Imprison the slutty selfish whore responsibility-dodging seductresses who get abortions.
2) Don't imprison the baby incubators who, since they are women, have no moral agency.
Of course, the right has some cognitive dissonance when trying to decide if we chicks are mindless zombies who are being told by feminism, which came from the minds of evil witch-women, natch, who knows how they wrested the power of independent thought if not through deviltry, or if we are selfish bitches thinking only of pleasure in the moment who should keep our knees closed if we can't handle becoming moms.
Who are we? Women who are impelled to a decision by outside influences or women who made a choice not to be a parent after indulging ourselves in teh sex?
Either way, it would seem, the righties would get what they want: women being punished for making their own decisions about their sexuality or legally denigrated as an incapacitated class. I bet there are some creepy wife-beaters smacking their lips over how to divide the punishments to maximize an abortion seeker's incapacitatedness and stick her ass in prison.
Jerks.
Netromancer: Thanks for hosting the video. Truly amazing.
Prisons in South America are full of women who had abortions.
Crocodility, thanks. And Netromancer, you too.
The current stats say that about one in three American women will have an abortion at some time in her life.
A little number crunching...that means that they're going to need jail facilities for 50 million of us very soon now. Guess I better pack my bags.
It also means that there is not a single American who doesn't know at least a handful of women who have made, or will make, this choice.
you can logically believe in outlawing abortions without also believing that you should charge mothers who abort their fetuses with murder
Okay, Bill. So what would you charge them with? Would it be a misdemeanor or felony? Would it appear on her record? What about those men who agreed that the abortion was the right thing to do for everyone? Would they also be charged? What kind of bail or fine would be set? Since it would be a criminal proceeding, would the state have to build special facilities for women who were gestating or recovering from a botched illegal abortion? Could you turn someone in for planning to have an abortion even if it didn't happen? And if not, how could a concerned person make sure it didn't happen if they overheard the planning?
Obviously, middle and upper class women would simply go somewhere else. What charges should be brought against someone who had it done in another state and then returned home? Should SD be allowed to file for extradition if someone moves to another state in order to obtain an abortion?
For those who don't have the option to go elsewhere and are therefore forced to have a child they do not want, cannot afford or are unprepared to raise for whatever reason, who will be responsible for those children? If the mother of the child is also a child, are her parents responsible for both or is the mother automatically emancipated because she is old enough to procreate? Will the courts emancipate any child who bears a child? What if the parents of the mother don't want the baby to live with them? Can they be forced to take care of a child that isn't theirs? Who arranges for alternative care for the child-mother and baby?
Think about the mother who is no longer able to work because she must stay home and care for a baby she can't now afford to feed. Say this mother is married but her husband is disabled. The family that might have gotten by on one salary, albeit thinly, now must rely on welfare and medicaid. The medical care required to care for this family, which previously might have had insurance through the mother's work, is now being paid for by the state. Is this being addressed in the budget of the state? If not, why not? If she is going to be forced by the state to give birth to a child she does not want and cannot afford, then the state needs to step up and take responsiblity for the care, feeding and education of that child. Every child, really, since any woman could now say that she would have gotten an abortion if it was available. No way to prove otherwise.
Oh, the legal ramifications of this in both criminal and civil courts are just amazing. Are we entirely certain that this law wasn't designed by lawyers to boost business in SD?
Bill, you write:
"You bring up prohibition as an example. The truth is, alcohol consumption declined during the 20s. It's just that the unintended consequences of bottlegging made things (in general) a lot worse off."
Are you aware of the "unintended consequences" of illegal abortion -- and do they bother you at all?
Or are you part of the camp that views these consequences as INTENDED (i.e. the fitting punishment that sluts deserve?)
Hi Bonnie,
I am aware of the unintended consequences of illegal abortions -- and they bother me a lot. So, yeah, if it makes you feel any better, I support policies such as broader sex education to minimize the number of illegal abortions that occur in the first place. But that doesn't mean that I don't support abortion prohibition as well. Policies such as sex ed and abortion prohibition aren't either/or. To minimize drunk-driving fatalities, our society both educates and prohibits. We can do the same for abortion.
Bill,
Morals are partially defined by the social norms of a particular group/culture at a given point in time. They *do* change.
Codifying morals into law would entail understanding the whole issue, not simply the immediate moral repugnance to a select group of people.
Now, you've also gone and reduced the value of a pregnancy by *not* equating abortion to murder. So now, we suggest that an unborn child is life as of conception, but not a life that is equivalent to the born and subject to different rules.
To me, this is a compromise of morals. Is it not better to look at the situation in a wholistic manner and understand it than simply abitrary rules?
=my2c
you can logically believe in outlawing abortions without also believing that you should charge mothers who abort their fetuses with murder
The only logic I can find in this statement is the same logic found in the statement "You can logically believe in outlawing hopskotch without believing that you should charge hopskotch players with vandalism." Well, yes, you can logically believe a great number of things. You can use logic to argue that hopskotch should be illegal, flat-out; that doesn't mean that your logic is valid or that anyone else should believe it or codify it.
How would you debate someone who disagrees with you? You would marshall facts, evidence, statistics, what-have-you in making your case. It's not any different that any other political/moral debate. The point of my original post was not to make this argument; rather, I just wanted to show that you can support a ban on abortion without calling it murder.
See above. Yes, you showed that you can support a ban on abortion without calling it murder. As of today, I support a ban on hopskotch without calling it vandalism. Does such a ban make any sense? Can I justify it at all? Does the fact that I support it have any significance whatsoever outside of myself? God, I hope not.
Hi Reba,
Your questions are good, and deserve thoughtful answers.
I would prefer that the mother *never* be charged with a crime if receiving an illegal abortion. The doctor (or whoever is performing the abortion) should be charged, but not the mother herself, nor any family/friends who supported the mother in her decision. Is this a tenable position? I think so -- you can simply write in the books that it is illegal to perform an abortion, but not mention anything about receiving one.
If the above requires too many logical backbends (and maybe it does), then the mother's "punishment" should simply be an acknowledgement that a crime has taken place, and a very simple, non-arbitrary redress such as minimal community service. Nothing goes on the record -- the idea is to make the process as painless as possible. Sort of like getting a parking ticket -- annoying but not too upsetting.
As far as your other questions go, prohibiting abortion would obviously play a part in all of the scenarios that you mention. But the thing is -- all of these scenarios are occuring in our society already, and we have a framework set-up to deal with them (social services, foster parents, adoption agencies, food stamps, etc.). The framework can and should be improved upon. But it's not like we are starting from scratch -- there are already thousands of unwanted and/or poor children born in this country every year. Prohibiting abortion would increase these numbers. But I don't think we should throw up our hands and say the problem is insoluble. As I stated in my last post, abortion prohibition and expanded sex education are not an either/or proposition, and neither is abortion prohibition and expanding the safety net for poor/unwanted children. We can, and should, do both.
The doctor (or whoever is performing the abortion) should be charged, but not the mother herself, nor any family/friends who supported the mother in her decision. Is this a tenable position? I think so --
not when the mother performs the abortion herself. It's also not logically or morally tenable if you truly believe that abortion is murder.
if you don't actually believe that abortion is murder, but you just want to ban it because you think it's "wrong" and the SCOTUS says you can--well, then I suppose it is tenable.
Bill,
You say that, ideally, performing an abortion would be illegal, while receiving one would not be. Questions:
1. What's the logic behind that? Why would it be a crime to abort a pregnancy, but not be a crime to have someone abort one for you?
2. Where does this leave women who, lacking adequate facilities, perform abortions on themselves? Would they be charged as abortionists or as abortion receivers?
3. Laws are not wholly arbitrary. Even antiquated local laws forbidding citizens from tying their alligators to lampposts have some basis in precedent and/or history, or else they never would have been proposed. Most laws have some basis in basic legal concepts like "you can't take things that belong to others" or "you can't kill people." If a fetus isn't a murderable human being, what is the basic legal concept behind a ban on abortion?
4. If it were illegal to commit an abortion, even if the law did not address a woman's role in it, couldn't she later be charged as an accessory? Or charged with conspiracy to commit an abortion? After all, without her, her fetus, and her request that the abortion be performed, the crime couldn't have happened.
Feel free to answer my questions in the order of your chosing.
Hi ACG,
Suppose I gave you these 4 propositions:
1) A dog possesses moral worth.
2) Although a dog possesses moral worth, it does not possess the moral worth of a human being.
3) Based on #1, it is immoral, and should be illegal, to "kill" a dog.
4) Based on #2, if a dog is "killed", it should not be characterized as murder.
Now replace "dog" with "fetus" and you have my beliefs. You may argue that any one of my individual propositions is incorrect. But I don't think you can argue that the propositions, taken together, are illogcal.
Fair enough. You've answered one of my questions and given 10% logic to your point. Please keep going.
I wonder if the pro-lifers and the Christian Right in general are ever going to wake up and realize that they have been used as pawns by the GOP in a big political game? The Republican leadership does not actually give a rat's ass about the hot social issues like abortion or gun control or school vouchers; but they were crafty enough to assemble a voting bloc that included those consituencies to help them advance the real agenda, which is the preservation of the economic elite.
ACG,
Well, as far as your other questions go, I will readily admit that charging the doctor with a crime, and not the mother, may be illogical. I can only think of an example where you, as a patient, knowingly get operated on by an unlicensed doctor. When the cops rush in, they will charge the doctor with a crime, but not the patient. This example, however, is kind of weak.
So, to be logically consistent, maybe I have to go with the "parking ticket" approach -- acknowledging that a crime has taken place, but ensuring that the punishment is not at all punitive.
By taking that approach, you're saying that the exact same actions are a crime punished by X penalty for one person (a doctor) but Y penalty for another (a pregnant woman). But the reason our system of laws works (to the extent that it does work) is that they apply equally to all people. How do you justify putting a doctor in jail and giving a slap on the wrist to a non-doctor?
ACG -
Well, I never said that we should jail the doctor. But you're right in that I do believe the punishment should be harsher for the doctor than the mother.
The main reason is that performing an abortion and receiving an abortion are not the exact same action. They have the same *result*, but so does (say) first degree murder, second degree murder and manslaughter. This is where exigent/extenuating circumstances come into play -- you can broadly define a woman recieving an illegal abortion as being (generally) under greater duress than the doctor performing the abortion, and thus advocate differing punishments for both, even if the result of their actions are the same.
Basically what you're advocating is similar to the difference in sentencing between (and I'm not saying we're talking about murder, here, just that the crimes fit in terms of proportionality) murder for hire and conspiracy to commit murder for hire, in which one person commits the crime for money and the other is only guilty of asking for the crime to be committed and for paying for it.
In those cases, the penalty is 121 months to death for committing murder-for-hire and 61 to 121 months for conspiracy. However, you seem to be advocating jail time for abortion-for-hire and a mere slap on the wrist for conspiracy to commit abortion. Duress or no, no one is forcing the woman to get an abortion - she is requesting one and paying for one - why does she go practically unpunished for it? This is all seeming fairly arbitrary, like the law would be codified based on nothing more than "Bill thinks" and "Bill doesn't think." What is the legal foundation for the law that you're proposing?
1) A dog possesses moral worth.
2) Although a dog possesses moral worth, it does not possess the moral worth of a human being.
3) Based on #1, it is immoral, and should be illegal, to "kill" a dog.
Hey, Bill, over the years, our family have had to have several beloved but mortally ill dogs put down by veterinarians.
Your chain of logic would seem to infer that such an act of mercy and, yes, kindness, is wrong "should be illegal", and the better moral choice would have been to wait and watch the dog die a painful, lingering death....?
It's so much simpler to make for guys 'cuz their hormonal system is much simpler.
Actually, that's not true-- it's much easier to stop one ovum that's released in a more or less predictable fashion by tweaking the hormonal cycle than it is to eliminate billions upon billions of sperm in a constant cycle of production.
WPE:
Of course not. I've had to put down two of my own dogs once they got to a certain age. How about I change prop #3 to say:
3) Based on #1, it is immoral, and should be illegal, to "kill" an otherwise healthy dog.
And please don't ask about the mercy killing of healthy stray dogs. The propositions were more of an exercise to prove a point. Like I said, you can challenge the individual propositions all you like. My point is that they are logical together, as a whole.
Still haven't answered my questions. Please, please prove to me that your proposed law is based on logic and not arbitrary morality. I've got all of this hope, and I'm never optimistic, but I am right now, and if you don't come through, this fleeting moment of optimism will mean nothing. I might never have another one.
ACG:
Alright, I'll bite. Hopefully I can prolong your optimism for more than just a fleeting moment.
Again, I wouldn't advocate jail for an abortion provider. Probably more like a suspension of his/her medical license. I guess you could argue that this punishment is disporportionate compared to the woman's punishment (a slap on the wrist). After all, a doctor's license is their livelihood. Again, I would argue that a woman's duress is enough that you can make an argument for this disproportionality. But if you don't buy that (and clearly you don't), here's another argument: Suspending a doctor's license doesn't have to be based just on that single crime, but on the fact that the doctor has the potential to perform many more abortions in the future.
There is definitely precendence for this. A restraining order is based not just on a definable crime in the past (and sometimes not even that), but on the potential to commit a crime in the future. We register sex offenders for the same reason.
A single woman can commit the "crime" of receiving an abortion a dozen or so times during her life. A single doctor can commit the "crime" of performing an abortion hundreds of times annually. Hence the disproportionality in punishments.
Awesome. The fleeting moment remains. It could even be argued that it's been prolonged.
Now we'll go back to the dog argument. You say that it inarguably immoral to kill an otherwise healthy dog, and that it should be illegal. I'll stipulate to the questionable morality of animal shelters that kill, because that's a whole 'nother thread.
Animal cruelty is illegal. You're saying that fetal cruelty should be illegal. However, if a dog is destroying your house, threatening your children, etc., it is not illegal to remove said dog. I don't even know of any laws prohibiting you from setting your dog loose in the countryside (although I'm open to correction on that point). So if a fetus is, in this ideal legal situation you're outlining, of the same legal status as a dog, why should a woman/her doctor be punished for removing the fetus that is causing her such trouble and let it loose in the countryside? Why does that fetus have the right to that particular uterus?
Animal cruelty is illegal. You're saying that fetal cruelty should be illegal. However, if a dog is destroying your house, threatening your children, etc., it is not illegal to remove said dog.
Quite true... I have a dog that I may, at some point in the next few years, have to put down while still healthy. And he has more moral weight than a fetus, simply because he is of and interacts with the world, and has a distinct personality that others may respond to; he is present in a way that a fetus simply isn't. However, I can't legally torment him or starve him or-- in my city at least-- leave him tied to a tree all the time. But I can certainly have a vet euthanize him, with no legal repercussions whatsoever, because I have full responsibility for him and it is assumed that I can make that decision. And it doesn't even involve my body.
If a dog presents a danger to the life of another human being (i.e. it bites), then the dog should be put down. (Human being moral worth > dog moral worth). Similarly, if a fetus presents a danger to the life of a mother, then it should be aborted (HB moral worth > fetus moral worth).
But if the dog is destroying your house, peeing on the carpet, etc., but presents no danger to another human being, then you have two options -- you can give it to another home, or you can give it to a shelter. But you can't kill it!!! In your terms, "letting loose" a dog doesn't destroy it's existence. But "letting loose" a fetus does.
If a mother had the option of "letting loose" her fetus without destroying it's existence, then I would surely support that. Currently, that's not an option.
But why does the fetus have a right to existence in that uterus? If it can't live on its own outside, why does the pregnant woman have any onus to keep it inside? A dog could easily die outside, exposed to the elements, but no one argues that it has a right to live inside, or to live inside any one particular house.
Argh, that last one was me. But I'm betting you guessed that.
The fetus has right to existence in that particular uterus b/c it can't exist in any other environment besides that uterus. There are no other practical options.
Whereas a dog *can* exist in any number of environments -- inside various houses, inside a shelter, or outside with an enclosed shelter. (Actually, the option you mention -- "outside" -- isn't a legal (or moral) option. You can't just let your dog go in the woods).
If for some weird reason a dog could only exist in a particular environment or house, then the owner of the house would have a responsibility to provide shelter for the animal.
I can't think of an example where the above could happen. But the reverse someday could -- fetuses could be removed from the uterus and developed in an artificial womb. Kind of creepy, and very unnatural, but if you believe that the fetus has moral worth, then you shouldn't dismiss this option a priori.
I really love my betta. His name is Nate. I talk to him sometimes; he's a good listener. Not too cuddly, being a fish, but he's certainly a beloved pet. However, if, for any reason, I decided to deprive Nate of his aquatic environment, it's my right. He does not have the right to my fishbowl. It's mine. I put him there, and if I decide I don't want him there, I can take him out.
Moreover, if someone else had put him in my bowl without my permission, then I'd sure as hell be dumping him out if I wanted to.
it is immoral, and should be illegal, to "kill" an otherwise healthy dog.
Well, no, I can't even grant you this point, Bill, there are just so many exceptions... like, if the dog is going to become one of those semi-wild pack animal "gringos" I've seen roaming around Mexico, totally uncared for and possibly dangerous... or like some of the pit bulls in my city that have demonstrated that they will attack people or smaller dogs without provocation.
But anyway, getting back to your "healthy" qualifier--- is it only immoral to abort "healthy" fetuses?
I guess I just don't buy the argument that the woman is under such 'duress' that she should be given a slap on the wrist. So you're saying women are such delicate flowers that they can't be trusted to make decisions under difficult circumstances?
Are you sure you're prepared to accept whatever the logical extension of that argument might be?
Also, this woman - according to your moral relativists - made the decision to get pregnant when she decided to have sex. So how is she now 'allowed' to claim duress when she decides she doesn't want to live with the consequences?
It's kind of amazing, really. Y'all manage to infantilize women in the name of 'protecting' them, meanwhile removing their rights wholesale. One has to admire the technique.
WPE:
I think it's immoral to abort any fetus -- healthy or unhealthy, except in very rare cases (for example, if the fetus has no brain stem). For a really good perspective on this issue (by someone who lives with these issues every day), check out this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp...5101701311.html
Also, this woman - according to your moral relativists - made the decision to get pregnant when she decided to have sex.
Yeah, this one always burns me up, because I can safely say that I have never once decided to get pregnant when having sex. I never made that promise, and no one can hold me to a promise I didn't make. Furthermore, I also have never promised to stay pregnant should I accidentally, or even deliberately, become so. I may or may not make such a promise to a partner, but I will never, ever make that promise to society, either explicitly or implicitly, and society has no right to make any demands on me or to infer any intent in my having consensual intercourse, because it is none of their business. It ain't in the bargain, and as I've said probably a hundred times, I owe no one a baby.
Hi Eleanor,
"Infantilize" is just not the right word to use in this discussion. If a woman is getting a medical procedure that could possibly hurt or kill her, in an unsafe, unsanitary environment, hiding from the law, etc. -- this doesn't qualify as extreme duress? Again, exigent circumstances definitely apply here, which means that a slap on the wrist should suffice as "punishment" for the crime.
Bill, first let me say that I appreciate a person of your beliefs having reasonable conversation about this issue instead of taking refuge in religion or ad hominem arguments.
But I've gotta say, you were the one who made the connection between dogs and fetuses... and I don't understand how killing unhealthy dogs is moral, but killing unhealthy fetuses is immoral.
Now the big question: my wife had a miscarriage... does that make God immoral?
Nobody can actually prove ithis one way or the other--- but I'm guessing that miscarriages are far more commong than abortions.
And yet I've never heard anybody making a big deal about an "unborn baby" dying in the case of a miscarriage.... it's just regarded as unfortunate but unremarkable.
Which is pretty much the way I regard abortion.
WPE:
I've got to go to bed. But, in answer to your question: I don't believe in God, so it's difficult for me to comment on his/her morality. I liken a miscarriage to a disease like cancer -- tragic and unfortunate, but also part of life. Morals have nothing to do with it - because, unlike abortion, free will isn't involved.
Good night!
i have a question: what if I am a South Dakotan woman, and I am also a doctor, can I prescribe for myself abortion drug and not get punished?
If a woman is getting a medical procedure that could possibly hurt or kill her, in an unsafe, unsanitary environment, hiding from the law, etc. -- this doesn't qualify as extreme duress?
As defined by whom? You? The medical board in your state? Who appoints those people? Are they accountable to voters or to the public?
I find it pretty interesting that you think you - or your proxies - have the right to define any woman's emotional state - and that your opinion overrides pretty much the entirety of the woman's life experience, her judgment, her personal circumstances, etc.
But, you know, it doesn't surprise me. I had a conversation with a conservative friend the other day who was honestly interested in how outsiders view the Republican philosophy generally. I mentioned to him that many people I know would refer to its unvarnished hypocrisy - the taking of government off your back and putting it under your bed.
Clearly, the entire philosophy is just a bunch of rationalizations designed to allow folks to not pay taxes and to control the thoughts and actions of others, but you'll find very few conservatives who'll admit that outright. I do wonder how long it'll be before they bring back Jim Crow. Extended to Hispanics and Middle Easterners this time, of course.
And, what swamp thing said a while ago - "I wonder if the pro-lifers and the Christian Right in general are ever going to wake up and realize that they have been used as pawns by the GOP in a big political game? The Republican leadership does not actually give a rat's ass about the hot social issues like abortion or gun control or school vouchers; but they were crafty enough to assemble a voting bloc that included those consituencies to help them advance the real agenda, which is the preservation of the economic elite."
Couldn't have said it better myself. I don't think the GOP will ever consent to allow abortion to become flatly illegal or unavailable, because rich white men will reserve the right to keep the procedure available for their wives and daughters. No legislation has anything to do morals for Dick Cheney's BushCo - and it's sad that so many allow themselves to be manipulated by the lies and distortions put forward to allow their rules of order to advance.
If I didn't find the religious conservative movement so contemptible, I'd feel a little bit sorry for 'em for allowing themselves to be so taken advantage of. As it stands, I think they deserve every bit of exploitation and marginalization that comes along. It's just too bad the rest of the country has to suffer as well.
Miscarrage is not a walk in the park for some people either. My wife and I lost our twins to miscarrage just shy of them being viable, and they were >very< wanted children (rounds of fertility treatment, in vitro, etc). It was >horribleof course< it hadn't. I still supported people's rights to make decisions about their own bodies, and I'm a man, and it's not up to me what women do with their bodies. Since I'd always been pretty firmly against miscarrage, it didn't change much there.
If anything, the experience we had made me more determined to keep abortion and reproductive rights in general private issues because of the static we were running into trying to find an ovum donor. There are people in Canada trying to outlaw ovum donation (but not sperm donation, oddly enough). All through it, we were constantly on tenter hooks as to weather or not we were going to be able to go through with the procedure because a group of busy bodies were trying to stop us from having a child. Their argument? It was "immoral" to pay a woman for her ovum (again, they're not going after sperm donors). Women who are willing to go through the pain of ovum donation >deserve< to be compensated. It's PAINFUL, and the give hope to couples like us.
To sum up: Miscarrage, like abortion, is situational and has many emotional variables. However, both are PRIVATE and legal buttinskis should jump off a cliff. Fertility as well (and believe me, the nuts aren't going to stop with abortion, or birth control. They want to have complete control of your gentals.) The irony of people calling themselves "pro-life" when they want nothing more than to suck every ounce of joy, hope and happiness out the lives of everyone else astounds me.
And Bill, friend, "Doctors" are people too. Mothers, fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers, sons, daughters, etc, etc. Putting "Doctors" in jail for performing medical operations isn't an abstraction, it's affecting real people. When you talk about not putting mothers in jail, would that mean that Doctors aren't mothers wouldn't go to jail? Would you make a doctor choose between saving a patient's life and keeping their medical license? How would you justify taking away a poor community's only OBGYN? Their only surgeon?
It's pretty nice to talk about putting doctors in jail, if doctors were, I dunno, aliens from another planet, or robots or something.
(With miscarriage) unlike abortion, free will isn't involved.
Bill, I'm glad to hear that I'm talking to a fellow atheist. So can we have a rational discussion about "free will" and what that really means?
We both know that that Bible thumpers have invested these two words with a lot of religious baggage, i.e. people are basically sinful, and all the rest of it.
But as a rational adult, I think sometimes "free will" can include doing something that's really against your will. Sometimes you have to make the best choice you can under tough circumstances. Circumstances which are often grey, as opposed to black-and-white.
Like having a sick dog, one that you love very much, euthanized.
Or deciding whether to "pull the plug" on a bloeved relative who has a terrible incurable disease.
Or, if you are a medical professional, helping a teenage crack addict have an abortion because you realize that if the baby were to be born, even assuming that it might possibly be healthy (unlikely) it would suffer a hellish existence.
All these situations unfortunately offfer less-than-ideal choices, and words like "free will" don't really describe the situation--- rather, they mess it up with a totallly bogus meaning.
We both know that that Bible thumpers have invested these two words with a lot of religious baggage, i.e. people are basically sinful, and all the rest of it.
But as a rational adult, I think sometimes "free will" can include doing something that's really against your will. Sometimes you have to make the best choice you can under tough circumstances. Circumstances which are often grey, as opposed to black-and-white.
- Worst. President. Ever.
Not all of us (quasi-)religious, non-atheist folk believe that people are basically sinful. Some of us believe that people are inherently neither good nor evil (although too many people are just schmucks).
Indeed, some of us (see my previous comment) feel that any moral system that can only deal with black-and-white situations is so insufficient that it can hardly be called a moral system. And that any religion which confronts the complexities of our shades-of-grey world by simply saying that sin is inevitable in such situations and depricating the role of individuals as agents in their own salvation is hardly constitutes a practice of faith in a moral God.
My religion might not agree with your thoughts about how to handle all the examples you present, but it is not my place to force my peculiar morality on you (or on an abortion foe, for that matter -- there are certain circumstances where my religion obligates women to have abortions: e.g., we consider life to be a gift of God so that it is sinful to allow your life to end simply so that a fetus, even as it has itself potential to be a full human, can live). I think many of us can agree that a large part of being a moral person is having the freedom to demonstrate your morality by showing what choices you make under inevitable tough circumstances. Why some people who claim to be guardians of morality would take away the individual's freedom to be moral is beyond me -- but then again, such people, as I have argued, rarely are coming from an actual moral way of thinking in the first place.
Nicely said, DAS.
If all theists were as reasonable and thoughtful as you, I'd have no issues with religion!
Are human beings created by storks that drop off the young human beings in hospital maternity wards?
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we have a framework set-up to deal with them (social services, foster parents, adoption agencies, food stamps, etc.)
This statement makes me assume that you don't know a lot of people who have to rely on these entities. Please correct me if I am wrong.
What makes you think people are lined up to take in crack babies or babies with AIDS? What makes you think that people are reaching out to adopt children whose ethnicity differs from their own? Have you looked at the statistics for adoption in this country? Are you familiar with how expensive it is to adopt children and the length of time that takes?
As for foster parents, there is a shortage of those all over the country. There's going to be a greater shortage in places where they enact bans on gay foster parents. Oddly, those are the same places that want to outlaw abortion. Go figure. Further, the foster parenting system is rife with problems. I know quite a few people who were raised in foster homes and every one of them has horror stories. What is moral about forcing a child into that kind of existence?
What makes you think that social services is responsive? Ask anyone in that business and they'll tell you that personnel cuts came at the same time that poverty levels were jumping drastically. That the increase in unemployed and uninsured people coincided with a cut in medical benefits. The folks who go into that work are generally dedicated, but they get tired fast and jaded faster. I can't blame them. I lasted all of three weeks and family services. The files made me cry every day and gave me nightmares. I still have those nightmares.
What makes you think that welfare will support a parent and child for more than a couple of years? Or that if they went to work they could find or afford decent child care? Hell, I had a decent job and a husband and twice I stopped working because I couldn't find a place I was willing to leave my children all day. Once the parent does start working, the benefits will be cut or cease all together. He/she will be expected to provide medical insurance. Most poor people can't afford insurance, even through work, so they don't have it. If the baby gets sick, you hope it gets better. Or you go to the emergency room and then they hound you for the rest of your life over the bill you can't pay. That destroys your credit rating, as well, so you have very little chance of getting certain types of jobs or of owning a home.
For the record, poverty is no fun and once you find yourself in it, it's extremely difficult to claw your way out. You decide if you're going to pay the electric bill, the heating bill, the rent or buy food. You often go without telephone service which means that if something happens to the baby, you can't call anyone. You hope like hell that you can scrape together enough change to put gas in the car or, if you have it available, for public transportation. Don't buy that whole "bootstrap American dream" stuff. Some people don't have the boots.
And when you ask for help from the systems you list, they treat you like the scum of the earth. They don't want to, but that's how the system is laid out. You are examined like a bug. They are trying to figure out what's wrong with you that you can't get by. No one looks at what's wrong with the world around you. It's all your fault for being poor. If you are married and still poor, you have almost no chance of getting welfare. Couples sometimes split up so that the caretaker parent can get what they need to keep the child alive. And the mother usually ends up with the child because the system is slightly more sympathetic to mothers. At the same time, no one wants to pay for the poor to get by and those who do turn to the system are used as cannon fodder by politicians who want to show how lazy "those people" are and how "hard working Americans" shouldn't have to pay for "welfare queens."
Where's the morality in forcing someone into that situation? Someone who might have gone to college? Someone who might have stayed married? Someone who might have gotten a decent job, saved up some money, built stability and then CHOSEN to have children? Wanted children. Loved children. Children they could care for on their own.
Sometimes, the choice you make early in your life, awful as it may be, ensures that you are capable of being a decent parent later in life. Sometimes you make that difficult choice so you're able to provide for the children you already have. Sometimes, you realize that you would be a terrible, terrible, terrible parent and make the life of any offspring miserable. And it's better that you don't do that. Sometimes you don't really want to pass on the genetic defect that everyone in your family has. Sometimes, not having a baby really is the moral thing to do.
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