Well said, Dawg. I remember that during the same-sex-marriage debate, it seemed to me that much of the opposition among the general public was based not so much on hatred of homosexuality as on the earnest disbelief that you could have a 'real' family without a man and a woman to play their respective gender roles. The old "who leads" joke, but with utter sincerity.
This is not to say that homophobia did not also play a major role, but to some extent that is also based on strong traditional notions of gender.
Thanks for the "Deaf lesbians" link. The article should come in handy when we come to dealing with human cloning and designer children in my Moral Problems course (now that we've gone through various abortion arguments and are about to look at euthanasia & Robert Latimer).
Thanks for this post, Dr. Dawg. I appreciate the depth and breadth and thank you for your work in the movement.
That said, I want to challenge you on your assertion that there is a "debate" on the matter of women's reproductive liberty. To me, a debate constitutes two arguments. I do not see an argument to be had in the fetus fetishists propaganda.
The word "debate" comes from the French "débattre," "to beat down." Debates can (and too often do) take place without any real argumentative content. Anyone who's talked to a right-to-lifer" knows what I mean: for the most part they simply retail moral assertions. There's debate going on, all right, but I didn't say it was especially productive.
Great post - I think it's important to analysis language. Myself, I've started to use the word reproductive freedom, for a couple reasons.
One, I think it's important to underline that we're talking about a fundamental freedom, and right to bodily integrity. The word "choice" often has the association with consumer choices or other non-fundamental choices, inviting a scrutiny of women's motivations for choosing either abortion or pregnancy, such as Elizabeth May's idea that only "non-frivolous" choices are worthy of support.
Secondly, I feel the phrase "reproductive freedom" situates the struggle for abortion access within a larger struggle for bodily integrity and access to medical services related to reproductive function. So this would include, most definately, Chinese women resisting the one-child policy, as well as infertile women struggling to access fertility services. Basically, I feel this phrase speaks to the idea that control of fertility (to either restrict it or encourage it) is a health issue and a human rights issue.
Great twist Dr. Dawg...similar to what I wrote this morning, with a different twist.
Nicely done.
Dawg, I think the phrase you're struggling for in your opening paragraphs is 'abortion-rights', as in "abortion-rights advocates argue..." Editorially, there are generally two ways to go on group labels: adopt the groups own style ('pro-choice', 'pro-life') or try for neutral description ('abortion-rights', 'anti-abortion'). Labels like 'anti-choice' and 'pro-death' are useful, because they let you know that the writer is an idiot.
'Pro-abortion' was never really a smear against the abortion-rights camp. It's ambiguous of course, but readers were expected to provide the context. These sorts of quibbles over language are, I'm afraid, a time-wasting preoccupation for many on the left - or maybe just people in the writing/editing game (raises hand) who want to believe, against all evidence, that they wield power.
Your middle paragraphs (basically, all the ones that contain the word 'gender') epitomise - eloquently, mind you - the style of thinking that drove me out of the mainstream of the left. It's so much your opinion on the legal status of abortion; it's the way that, in this kind of analysis/rhetoric, specific, concrete questions of right and wrong are "situated" (a word that gives me the creeps) in the context of grandiose ideological struggles. Ugh! Brrr!
Finally: "the opposition to contraception, which is less regularly explicit now, but is always lurking in the background."
Dude, the people are LifeSite are Roman Catholics. The great thing about non-dissenting Roman Catholics is that, if you want know what they think, you can just look it up. They'll also tell you why. For them, rejection of abortion is a fairly direct implication of "Thou shalt not kill", while rejection of birth control is an implication of "Thou shalt not commit adultery". The first prohibition is (in their view) also grounded in natural law. It is therefore binding on both Catholics and non-Catholics, and is therefore a legitimate policy for a secular. The second rests on a specifically Catholic understanding of marriage and sexuality and therefore is not. Different issues, different judgements, different reasons. Say what you like about the Roman Catholic Church, they generally argue well, even if you might dispute some of their premises.
For the record, I've always favoured a European-style regime on abortion: easy to get early in the pregnancy, harder to get the closer the baby comes to term. Democratically, that would be the correct thing to do: given two entrenched, irreconcilable political camps, a pluralistic society splits the difference. I used to be comfortable with the morality of that position as well, but I now believe that elective abortion is an unqualified wrong. My political analysis remains the same. My position was once considered moderately progressive; now I'm some sort of theocratic fanatic. But I'm not the one who's changed
IP:
Just a couple of quick points. First, I don't know what an "abortion right" is, exactly. I'm not obfuscating--I'm interested in human rights, their ontology and so on, and I've read around the subject a little. The phrase does seem to be rather too specific.
I believe that the "right-to-life" movement is grounded in Catholic ideology, even if there are "pro-lifers" who are not Catholic. Perhaps I should have made my implication more explicit.
How is birth control within marriage related in any way to adultery? In any case, I suggest that Catholics don't hold two positions for two different reasons, but for one--the Church promotes a pronatalist view of the role of women. But that is, admittedly, a long discussion. In current "right-to-life" propaganda, the opposition to birth control (perhaps "contraception" is a better word) is muted, doubtless for tactical reasons.
Finally, the problem with admitting abortion into law is that, no matter how such a law is administered, women's bodies are still established as a suitable object for state regulation. There can be no equality between the sexes or within the polity in such circumstances.
If you're talking about the history of the pro-life movement in the States post-Roe-Wade, then you're right: it was largely ignited by Catholic activists. If you're talking about right and wrong, then this political history is not so relevant. Most pro-lifers are Christians, but then there's Nat Hentoff, a self-described "Jewish atheist" who writes on civil-liberty issues for the Village Voice. His view is basically congruent with the Christian/Roman Catholic view, but he articulates it in secular-humanistic language, which of course is very easy to do, at least with the older style of secular humanism. Prior to the sexual revolution, opposition to abortion was the consensus view among Catholics, Protestants, Jews... basically everyone, including many famous progressives. Note further that the pre-Christian Hippocratic Oath rejected abortion, though that passage has been edited out in recent years.
I'm not Roman Catholic, and I find the Roman Catholic view on birth control rather convoluted. I'm just saying that if you look in their Catechism, you'll find the anti-contraception language under "Thou shalt not commit adultery". If you need more explanation than the Catechism provides, there are plenty of sources. I think I understand their reasoning - and it's not a contemptible view IMO - but don't rely on me.
You're projecting a kind of natalist/'patriarchical' project as the common, underlying motivation for their rejection of both abortion and birth control. That's the Marxism talking, I'm afraid. The Church is natalist and 'patriarchical' (in the feminist sense), but IMO that's not what's going on with their view on abortion. There, they mean what they say: respect for life. The current version of the Catechism was largely the work of Cardinal Ratzinger, and, say what you like about him, he doesn't bullshit.
Of course it's unpleasant for the state to get involved in something as personal as abortion. Intervening in family life generally (e.g., child-welfare cases) is often a grim business. Doesn't mean it can't or ought not to done.
Is it a case of unequal treatment of women? For pro-lifers, obviously, abortion laws are a specific implementation of a universal moral principle. Universal moral principles are equally binding on everyone, but they implicate different individuals in different ways. Sometimes for biological reasons. The guy who gets a girl pregnant in a one-stand stand may end up paying child support, and there's no real female equivalent to this situation, because there can't be. But the law that makes him support his child isn't sexist. (There are those who argue that, since women are allowed abortion, men should be able to blow off child support - "Hey, where's my choice?" - but that's a swinish view, whatever logic it may have behind.)
I suspect you are onto something Dawg when you speak of keeping the law away from reproductive choice altogether.
Let me give you a different example: in Canada at the moment, by law, you cannot compensate an egg donor for anything other than out of pocket expenses. You cannot sex select embryos unless you can prove you have a gender determined genetic illness.
Which, of course, leads to payment by other means and sex selection by abortion. The later is facilitated by the rise of private ultra sound techs promising a pic of your soon to be baby.
In both cases one might argue that we are seeking to regulate reproductive technology however, in reality, we are limiting the reproductive choice of women (and men). Of course for the cost of a couple of days in the US - now rather more affordable - Canadian couples can entirely bypass the Canadian law and hundreds, if not thousands, are.
And, just like backstreet abortions, these procedures and practices can go horribly wrong.
While I am profoundly pro-natalist I cannot imagine the state ever being allowed to regulate abortion or continuing to be allowed to regulate reproductive technology.
I agree with Jay that there's next to no chance of the abortion regime changing in the next decade. Any move to a more normal abortion law would depend long-term cultural changes, particularly among the elite. And it's all too likely that other bio-ethical issues, including those that Dawg mentions, will eventually overshadow abortion. The abortion played a role in facilitating them, however, by accelerating the denorming of traditionally Judeo-Christian moral values among secularists.
Despite the "depth and breadth" of your post, you manage to avoid ever mentioning what abortion is. It most certainly is not a choice, a right, or an issue of privacy: it is an action intended to achieve a specific end. Long-windedness and euphemism and nuance only serve to obscure this fact.
I submit that discussing "moral assertions" is pointless, indeed impossible, if both sides in the conversation are not talking about the same thing. And if one side insists on avoiding the true nature of the topic, they never will be.
No trolling, no snippy comments, just a question from a pro-lifer. I've never heard a pro-choicer answer it, and I thought you might like a shot:
Over 2/3 of all pregnancies in Europe now end in abortion. This was never foreseen by even the staunchest supporters of abortion. Please comment on the implications of this.
I have my own thoughts, especially when the demographics of those 2/3 are factored in, but will hold my tongue. I am rather interested in your take on what we call the "law of unintended consequences."
Like many such "averages," the stat you quote hides more than it reveals. For example, countries with very liberal abortion laws like the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, have very low rates of abortion--7 per thousand pregnancies, or less than one per cent. Romania and Russia, on the other hand, have staggeringly high rates--75% in Romania, as I recall.
It seems to me that one explanation for the over-all rate that you indicate (and a citation would be helpful, with a break-out even more helpful) is the availability of other forms of birth control, as well as sex ed. But clearly it has little to do with restrictive legislation.
I knew your response would be interesting. The Scandinavian stats are news to be for example, so I'm going to think a bit. No, I can't source my data, but I accept yours. My understanding is that the abortion rate among healthy, young, white, Christian women is very high, and among non-white, non-Christian (OK, let's just say it - Muslim) women it's staggeringly low.
The implications are obvious to anyone who can do linear math.
Basically, the Battle of Lepanto is undone and I fear Christian Europe is lost. No fault here is attached to the Muslims - any society that is so self-absorbed that it cannot even be bothered to suffer the inconvenience of childbirth and rearing does not deserve to survive.
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