Comments on: Abortion Post Alpha

By: Harrison

Harrison — Sat, 04 Dec 2004 02:46:00 +0000

Oh, lord, it’s nothing more than the old vulgar musty argument: class is the real issue, gender issues and sexual orientation issues are just distractions.
But, fuck it, we’re seeing it more and more. Just last week there was something in the Prospect about how the Dems have gone down for supporting gays, and, you know, they should really *think* about that.
What a bunch of would-be auto-fellaters.

By: wolfangel

wolfangel — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:35:00 +0000

I wrote a nice long response, which disappeared. Sigh.
I will just repeat one part, because I think maybe since Yami isn’t here we could finish the discussion elsewhere.
I strongly disagree with first trimester limits (even given appropriate exceptions): I want it extended to 20-24 weeks (probably the beginning of this).
Why? Well, let’s say your period is irregular. You might not know for 2 months. First trimester: almost over. You have a month to get together enough money to pay for the abortion (not an insignificant concern); you have to possibly travel; you need to find a doctor; you need to find time off to get the abortion. Clinics are scarce, and abortions aren’t cheap.
On the other hand, I believe 24 weeks is pretty well viability. A few survive before, but not many, and people figure it’s not going to lower. That gives the other end (with appropriate exceptions).

By: LiL

LiL — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:30:00 +0000

You’re right, Wolfangel, charged language is part of the problem, and I often can’t help using charged language because it’s too personal a point that I want to make. And yet we need to get past this - for the reasons you say. And yes, late-term abortions are a red herring. In Hungary, abortion is legal until the end of the first trimester and never beyond except when medically necessary. I’ve always thought that was a reasonable compromise.
But I seriously think abortion isn’t even quite the real issue here. I still think that a lot of this has to do with women’s bodily integrity, and whether or not the range of bodily phenomena that comes with being a woman should be considered minor inconveniences that deviate from a male-defined norm of what a body does or whether we can move past that point and establish that a woman’s bodily phenomena are themselves a norm. In the current setup, they’re not. They’re things that women have to manage & pay for themselves in order not to upset the male-body-defined norms, to never appear as though they’re having their periods, for instance.

By: wolfangel

wolfangel — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 11:19:00 +0000

Although I don’t think a fetus is a person, it’s a potential, and as it gets closer and closer to birth (at which point, whether you think babies are persons or not, the “right to life” vs “right to bodily integrity” question becomes moot), it’s harder and harder to say “well, we’ve only got some blood invested in it”. That’s all we have for infants and blah blah infanticide.
Since the number of late abortions is very low, I think this is just a very effective red herring. There just aren’t whole loads of women at 38 weeks saying “you know, I’ve changed my mind!” and there aren’t many doctors who would say yes, anyhow. (I suspect but cannot prove that these abortions are all or almost all due to fetal or maternal health complications.)
But the thing is, we need to find less charged language. Because “unwanted parasite” is going to close people’s minds to your argument, just like notmike’s use of “preborn infants” made me predisposed to disagree with his.
Will my argument not work in the realm of forms? It won’t. But I think that some people are more interested in better rhetoric, which the republicans surely have. “Safe, legal and rare” is a good one; it can be built on.

By: LiL

LiL — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 04:35:00 +0000

I think the organ donation analogy is a really good one. Thanks for writing it down.
I’m with Wolfangel:

But we can say “look, we don’t think abortion should be illegal, but we do think it should be rare, and here’s our concrete plans to do that, while still preserving people’s bodily integrity”. I think that would be more effective than going further right, or trying to come to any sort of agreement about personhood, or of the morality of abortion. There will be some for whom it’s not enough, but those will be there anyhow.”

My problem is, why is it all on women? All responsibility for pregnancy, I mean - but then not all when it comes to abortion. And the fetus is in a parasitical relationship with the mother, living being or not, and frankly, I don’t see why an unwanted parasite has privileges over the mother, someone into whom society has invested lots of time, money, care - whereas the fetus only has the mother’s blood and body invested in it. (And I’ve written before that for my part, I want children very badly. But if I had one when I didn’t, that child would have had a lot of misery to contend with. And that’s just not fair either.)

By: yami

yami — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 01:54:00 +0000

Yeah, I was kinda using your devil’s advocacy as a surrogate for the people I really want to argue with, Wolfangel. Sorry about that. Anyway, “safe, legal and rare” only works outside the Platonic Realm of Forms. The Medium Lobster was dead-on here:

For [W’s] administration has not only embraced ideas, it exists, in a sense, only as an idea. It has so rapidly and so readily embraced the boldest of ideas that it has transcended the need for real actions, real plans, real accomplishments, and reality itself.

Fifty-one percent of the nation endorsed this approach. I don’t do reality-based debate on this issue nearly as well as the folks at Alas, A Blog anyway, so for this post I brought us all to the Platonic Realm of Forms, where ideas float free from the significance of their impact on reality. It’s not so much about improving the electoral prospects of liberals as it is about making me less terrified by the thought of people trying to take away my right to control my body - and this goal is as well-served by an increase in my own understanding of the “opposition” as it is by persuading them to agree with me. In any case, I’m off for Turkey Week. If Monday doldrums bring more discussion to this post, I won’t be able to respond, so be gentle! Arguments about reality are better off elsewhere; let’s keep this to an “ought” rather than an “is”. Any requests for evidence will be disemvoweled when I return

By: wolfangel

wolfangel — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:52:00 +0000

I have no moral arguments about abortion. I also am not actually in favour of forcing parents to donate organs.
But we can say “look, we don’t think abortion should be illegal, but we do think it should be rare, and here’s our concrete plans to do that, while still preserving people’s bodily integrity”. I think that would be more effective than going further right, or trying to come to any sort of agreement about personhood, or of the morality of abortion. There will be some for whom it’s not enough, but those will be there anyhow.

By: yami

yami — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:25:00 +0000

It’s lucky for all of us that KPCC’s pledge drive ended last week, or you’d get another long post comparing organ donation and abortion and public radio pledge drives…
I agree that a primary argument should be that banning abortion is ineffective. However, when you rely solely on this kind of argument you end up with people who ask if we can’t just institute a better support network and ban abortion. At which point the answer becomes “no, because we consider bodily life support a sacred gift rather than a legal obligation, and if we wish to change that we must do so even-handedly, not just for pregnant women” - and that’s really the stage of the argument I was aiming for when I wrote this post.
As far as worrying about why a person or maybe-person’s life depends on me…
If a condom breaks, is that because of me or because things just break? If we make parents donate organs, can they get out of it if their kid was unplanned? Do I incur greater obligation to a fetal maybe-person if the condom broke, or if I put the diaphragm in incorrectly, or if I thought I was using protection but my partner took the condom off halfway through and I didn’t notice, or if I was wearing such a short skirt and walking down such a dark alley that I must’ve been asking for it?
That road leads back to punishing women for being sexual; it might work as a moral argument, but as a legal one it has some pretty unpalatable implications.

By: wolfangel

wolfangel — Sun, 21 Nov 2004 22:51:00 +0000

I agree: if they came to me because I was the only marrow donor registered I wouldn’t easily be able to say “well, there’s probably someone else out there”. On the other hand, it’s not so hard to say that as a reason *not* to register for it; this decision is even easier for blood.
The difference between giving things to an anonymous recipient and to a child is that the child (and fetus) is in the position of depending on you *because of you*. I did not give someone kidney failure, and it is not because of me that some random person can use my marrow.
True, some people will never accept fetal unpersonhood, and some will never accept fetal personhood. I think the way around this argument is to agree on the basics — we all want fewer abortions — and then say how outlawing abortion will not help that (it won’t: people will DIY abortions), and how other things (sane sex ed, easier access to BC, better parental leave) WILL help lower the number of abortions. Because personhood or lack is an argument that the pro-choice side is never going to win.

By: yami

yami — Sun, 21 Nov 2004 21:14:00 +0000

Wolfangel: there are instances where only one marrow donor is identified, and if I were that donor I don’t think I’d be comforted by the fact that someone else could theoretically take up the slack; meanwhile, if you’re just a zygote you can be frozen in liquid nitrogen and implanted in someone else’s uterus, and then there’s the wonderful world of inventing hypothetical new medical treatments for moral clarity’s sake…
In any case, there’s a significant chunk of the population who will never, ever accept fetal un-personhood. The only way the tenor of the public discourse will improve is if we find ways of acknowledging and then routing around this basic disagreement.
Clancy: Indeed! Thanks for the link.