Let's put the shoe on the other foot - let's say that the USSC ruled instead that abortion is illegal everywhere, all the time, and that no state or local or federal law could overrule it. You would need to pass a constitutional amendment to override this, but let's say you couldn't quite get the 3/4 majority of states necessary to pass the amendment - not an unlikely scenario. OK, really think about this. Would you then feel that the pro-choice movement now has access to the political system, they just can't get the votes? Even if you passed laws making abortion legal in Massachusetts, New York and California with 70% majorities, that we immediately struck down in the courts? How would you feel then? Seriously, thing about it.
If the Supreme Court had found that fetuses were full persons, and therefore subject to the full protection of homicide laws, etc, and the balance on the court were such that no conservative justice would retire unless guaranteed replacement by an equally vehemently pro-life justice, would pro-choicers think that they had legitimate access to the political process because they could, in theory, persuade 38 state legislatures and a congressional supermajority to pass an amendment?
We're content to leave many areas of law that remote. But human rights and personhood cannot thus be walled off with good results.
And that will be my last post on the subject for a while, I hope.
I have noticed that abortion debates often end up with the two sides talking past each other. One side is shouting that women should control their own bodies (something that most people would agree on) and the other side is shouting that you shouldn't kill babies (another thing that most people would agree on). The problem is that the two sides don't agree on what a baby is (or fetal person as opposed to fetal non-person). Given that the onset of personhood can't be proven or even objectively defined, there is no way to show evidence that proves when it happens. And even if you could, you still have an argument of one person's needs conflicting with another's. And on both sides, the basic argument is a moral one so compromise is difficult and emotions are strong.
I agree with this, but it's not unique--the law has many gradatiosn of meaning it applies to the act of killing people, depending on the circumstances. There's involuntary and voluntary manslaughter, there's self defense: there are varying "degrees" of murder in court cases. There is killing people in war--clearly a murder but also not a murder. As a society we are completely comfortable with applying various meanings to the act of killing people. What is a "justifiable homicide?" We have established a body of law on the subject. The "when is the fetus a person" problem is similar: it depends on the circumstances.
The difference is that we leave the decision to the woman who carries the child, not to the courts. The heat the issue generates is invariably increased by the fact that women's rights as independent actors are at the heart of the matter. That and the idea of the defenseless being victimized. But still, we have a body of reasoned jurisprudence on different ways to make sense of the act of killing other people. Abortion does not present us with an unambiguous moral absolute, any more than the death of innocent, defenseless persons in bombing raids does.
The real problem for pro-life forces is that the majority does not agree with them--blaming it on the SCOTUS is convenient and appealing, it makes it seem like a small conspiracy is thwarting the majorities opinion. That's what empowers guys like Roeder. But in fact it's not at all clear that the anti-abortion position has a popular majority or even close: it depends on how the polls are phrased. This is a bitter pill to swallow but there it is. When and if public opinion trends against abortion, abortion will end.
It's like Glen Beck claiming he's been "disenfranchised" by Obama. No, you just lost the election, it happens. When and if public opinion turns against abortion, it will end. What anti-abortions refuse to recognize is that most people dislike abortion but support preserving it as right.
The "bitter pill" summary is too simplistic. If you sort back through the periodic Gallup polls on the issue, the responses very consistently split either 20-60-20 or 25-50-25, where the minority tails support the extreme positions (no restrictions, full restrictions) and the broad middle takes positions for varying degrees of restrictions on who and how often.
Therein lies the real problem on achieving a consensus: 75-80% of the population supports abortion in some form, but 75-80% also opposes the current state of abortion law. Since the current state was handed down from SCOTUS On High rather than solved through normal process, there's little room for normal variation, and legitimate talking points that might help ease some of the tensions (e.g. parental consent for minors) get targeted for destruction by one of the minority tails, using the supreme court precedents to wield outsized power.
And that is why the issue is both bitter and deadlocked.
You're right. And, fundamentally, a democratically chosen abortion rights law (even one identical to Roe v. Wade) would have a lot more legitimacy than one decided by SCOTUS. That's the real crux of the issue and why even some pro-choice liberals (Abner Mikva, for example) think Roe v. Wade was a really bad decision.
One of the biggest reasons so many laws outlawing abortion get struck down almost immediately is that they're taking the opposite, extreme position; no abortions and no exceptions (even when the mother's life is at stake). When they get struck down, anti abortion opponents run around screaming about how they're being screwed by the courts. It's crap.
Slightly OT, but it seems to me that there is a lot of, "I disagree with this guy's murder, but I understand why people do it." It's eeirily (sp?) reminiscent of the kind of crap I remember hearing rightwingers throw around shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing. Disgusting...
Great series of posts! But, of course, this position would negate our Bill of Rights. As problematic as the poorly decided Roe case is, I wouldn't want to trade the current reality for one in which we had no guaranteed rights of speech, religion, assembly, etc.
Winner of today's Non-Sequitur of the Day award!
This is a clear statement of the problem. But it is exacerbated by Ceasar's dictum: "Men willingly believe what they wish." Put another way, where you stand depends upon where you sit.
There's a reason that the majority of Catholic Latinas are pro-choice.
There's a reason that black evangelical Christians are pro-choice.
There's a reason that stay-at-home parents are pro-life.
There's a reason that sole breadwinner men are pro-life.
And it doesn't have to do with legal personhood and abstract reasoning. It has to do with economics. When my pregnancy threatens my career path, on the margin, my pregnancy (e.g. my unborn child) will lose.
Since our laws are politically formed but cloaked in the language of abstract rights, there is an illusion of universalism to them, when in fact they are particular, or prescriptive.
The only answer that will satisfy the political calculus is Federalism. But that will satisfy neither the pro-choice or pro-life proponents of abstract rights.
But such a solution is impossible, because such a middling course would neither raise funds nor inflame passions. It would be attacked on all sides and suffer death from a thousand cuts. No matter that it would be constitutionally sound.
Do you have numbers from a reliable source to back this claim up or are you talking from your prejudice against working mothers?
Because my money is on the greatest number of abortions being performed on bible-crunchers who don't bother to learn birth-control methods, not career women.
"If the Supreme Court had found that fetuses were full persons..." You're assuming that fetuses are not full persons. A fatal flaw in this argument is that pro-choice activists can't prove a fetus is not a human life. To use an example from Peter Kreeft, if a hunter is in the woods and hears a movement behind some trees, is he right to fire his gun, not knowing if he's shooting at an animal or a human?
It's equally erroneous, dangerous, and (potentially) genocidal for abortion doctors to practice without proving the non-life of a fetus.
Prufrock:
You can't prove a negative.
You're assuming "it" is a negative.
Okay, you can't prove non-life. A virus has no life by most traditional measures. Viability is a joke of a standard. Brain-waves? Why not "irritability?" On that basis, the fertilized ovum is alive. But the political consensus is against such a conclusion because of Caesar's dictum.
Admittedly, we're devolving from biology to politics. But that's because all the "bright lines" favor the pro-life forces, and they're in the minority. It is up to them to do the hard work of building a political consensus. Philosophical arguments won't do this. It will take a parallel "Long March Through the Institutions" that allows pro-life forces to capture the cultural debate.
Where is the pro-life "To Kill a Mockingbird?" Where is the pro-life "The Color Purple?" Where is the pro-life "Silent Spring?"
Only with a combination of cultural focus, excellent artistry, and political acumen will the pro-life forces gain ground. Washington isn't where the battles are fought. Washington is where the score is kept.
"If the Supreme Court had found that fetuses were full persons..."
She assumes that even had the Supreme Court had ruled the other way in Roe v. Wade that some people would disagree, some of the vehemently.
You miss the point of the argument. Is it ethical to kill a creature that you're not 100% is not a human being?
If people weren't certain, we wouldn't have nearly so much strife on this issue. Individuals, or at least the individuals who are abortion activists for either side, are quite certain of what the ethical dilemmas are and which side is in the right, and neither group of activists has any doubt over what the ethical path to take is. The problem isn't uncertainty, it's disagreement.
HC Carey,
OK, let's stipulate that Glen Beck is a clown. Moving on.
If the majority does agree with the pro-choice movement (I think they do), then what's the problem? Let's put it up for a vote. Sure, the result will most likely be the same, but the process is important. As I said in another thread, they vote on this in Europe, and they have a patchwork of different laws and rules, but it works for them. Because it was determined by the democratic process, and people feel it's a valid decision even when they don't agree with it.
Anon Y. Mous,
If the "Right to Choose" had been added to the Bill of Rights through the process laid out in the Constitution, then you would have a point. It wasn't, and that's the crux of the argument.
If Megan had limited herself to merely that issue, yours would be a valid response. However, she went from the specificity of abortion, to make a more general point:
"Human rights" is another way of describing what our Bill of Rights is. We have taken many areas of the law and walled them off so that they cannot be changed short of a constitutional amendment (or a lawless SCOTUS doing the same thing through "interpretation"). Those things include Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom to Assemble, etc.
When you notice that the Bush Administration established that non-citizens aren't necessarily granted Constitutional Protections, and the U.S. only grants citizenship upon birth, you could almost argue that Republicans weakened fetal protections in the last decade.
I don't think that this is an analogous position to what we have now.
With the current law, states can, and do, have the ability to put any number of restrictions on when and under what circumstances abortions are allowed as well as placing any number of hurdles (parental consent, mandatory counseling, etc), in the way of those seeking abortions.
What would be the equivalent case in this scenario? If abortion were deemed murder, in what way could pro-choice states moderate the law? Murder is murder and that is that. In this scenario, those who favored choice would be disenfranchised in a way that that pro-lifers are not disenfranchised in the current schema since there would be absolutely no way to moderate the law short of getting it overturned outright or ignoring it altogether.
Likewise, anti-abortion protesters have had quite a lot of success using their ability to protest to shut down clinics and limit the number of doctors who perform abortions to the point where, in many areas of the country, it's effectively impossible to get an abortion.
Again, what is the equivalent case in the alternative scenario? If abortion were deemed murder, no amount of protesting the law would cause legal clinics to spontaneously open.
Andrew:
With O'Conner's "undue burden" doctrine reasonable restraints (IMHO) were discarded. Similarly, law-enforcement has largely shut down the "rescuers." And with the "health-of-the-mother" proviso in *all* laws, the abortion franchise is, for all practical purposes, unrestricted.
But the pro-choice partisans have a serious problem: the procedure is (arguably) taking human life. Whether it is popular or efficacious or painless to the mother, it will be considered the taking of human life by a significant portion of the populace.
If the face of universal rights, Federalism fails. So we will be engaged in an endless kulturekampf.
Your alternative is the coat hook, and loss of both mother's and baby's lives; as happened before Roe.
So, fine, put the shoe on the other foot. In that case, I wouldn't support pro-choicers killing the opposition, nor would I support the political arm of the movement raising the rhetoric to such a level as to encourage violence even in the wake of repeated violent acts.
Anyway, the two sides are simply talking past each other here. Yes, the fact that there is a national policy on abortion, and the fact that that policy has been large decreed to be constitutional rather than statuatory does increase the possibility of violence. That's pretty obvious. At the same time, the fact that some people react violently does not make the policy wrong.
The analogy game really goes nowhere and is guaranteed to generate more heat than light. Both John Brown and Osama Bin-Laden felt like they had no reasonable political alternatives. It's easy to find examples of this on all sides of the political and moral spectrum.
I would say same-sex marriage is even closer.
We've already seen the reaction when California voters used the constitutional process to amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
Imagine if the por-SSM movement had been working to have states recognize same sex marriage, only to have them overturned by the Supreme Court, and the party in power had made it clear it would not allow a new justice who would not also rule to overturn those laws.
Again, this does not justify violence, but if in this situation, some SSM-advocates reacted violently against some prominent members of the anti-SSM coalition, it would not be surprising.
Roe V Wade is bad law, and if you get a few drinks in even the most liberal of lawyers, most will agree to that to some extent, instead arguing that it comes to a good result, a result that 'should' be explicit in the Constitution.
It 'works', it mostly mirrors the majority opinion on the matter (although a slim majority), and it has indeed largely shut off true debate on the subject (as opposed to sloganeering). That hasn't been a boon, if anything I would argue it has put a lid on a pot that has been slowly boiling over for 30+ years.
Something just occurred to me though- doesn't the right to privacy, as currently interpreted, invalidate a lot of our drug laws when they involve prescriptions from a doctor (as in California)? I wonder how medical marijuana squares with Roe (probably a good question for Volokh).
Issues like abortion, same-sex "marriage," euthanasia, etc.should be left at the state - or even county - level. This is one of the key problems with Federalism, or any other form of government that involves more than a few million people - it is way too large to reflect any kind of nuance.
And issues such as the ones we are discussing are LOADED with nuance and interpretations.
One of the great strengths of the original United States was the ability of states to adopt very different laws and regulations. As great as everyone believes Lincoln was, and in most ways he was, the Federalism that the Civil War imposed upon us is anything but good.
These issues should be moved out of the hands of the Federal Government and returned squarely to the states.
Well, if abortion is murder, and it should be left up to the states, than it follows that murder, and just about any other crime one can think off should be left up to the states.
Personally, I'm comfortable with the idea of no federal crimes short of maybe treason, and other defense related issues. Are you?
I'm pretty sure murder is left up to the States. The Federal murder statues apply to murders on Federal property. This is why Kansas has a death penalty which is essentially unused, while Texas uses its death penalty much more.
Holy smokes, I think that's right. And if murder, the most heinous possible crime, can be left to the states, I don't see how one can justify making other crimes a federal matter.
There is such a thing as a federal crime, don't you think? Treason comes to mind. I certainly wouldn't want to be in a situation where each state could try me for being a traitor to them (imagine Michigan and Ohio during football season...).
Espionage, crimes against humanity, etc.
But I take your point for abortion and agree. It and most other similar issues should be 100% left to the states.
Wiredog,
Not only are you correct, but take it to the next level: who defines the various "types" of murder such as Murder in the Third Degree, Manslaughter, Vehicular Homicide, etc.? It's different state by state.
The states are already very adept at differentiating along ethical lines based on the will of their own people, and defining their laws and punishments accordingly.
Moving this to the Federal Level would severely reduce the ability of laws to reflect the will of the governed.
I don't think pro-choicers would resort to killing the political opposition in the scenario Megan describes. Instead, they would violate the law and perform illegal abortions. Perhaps in secret, perhaps openly as a form of protest.
I'm one of those people who are pro-life in principle but who revognize that we probably can't get away from legal, first-trimester abortions. At least not until technology changes or society gets a lot richer and more forgiving of women's varied career paths. Anyone who wants to outlaw abortion has to address the enforcement mechanisms they would like to see applied if someone performs an illegal abortion. Or has one.
However, I do think the population is becoming more pro-life as we get better birth control, more career options for women with children, more social tolerance of single motherhood, and more information about fetal development. I would add more career options for women period, so that fewer women are dependent on unwanted sex with men for their livelihoods.
(Odd how no one ever mentions the way pregnancy starts in these things. There's always the assumption that women want to be having all kinds of haphazard sex, without any consideration for the stability of the relationship or whether it's a suitable time for all that. Few women of my acquaintence are like that. Sometimes I wonder if the extreme pro-choice position is more for the benefit of men seeking sex than for women.)
But birth control, too, is immoral, and often murder, according to many people in the pro-life movement. Banning abortion, to them, is just a first step.
"Birth control [is] often murder according to many people" - you're lying, or sadly misinformed.
When I googled "birth control is abortion", this was the first hit:
http://www.prolife.com/BIRTHCNT.html
It is a "prolife" website discussing the many way that the pill, IUDs, Depo-Provera and Norplant are considered abortion.
Well, Bill Clinton's support always seemed very self-serving.
Commenter: let's say that the USSC ruled instead that abortion is illegal everywhere, all the time, and that no state or local or federal law could overrule it.
MM: If the Supreme Court had found that fetuses were full persons, and therefore subject to the full protection of homicide laws, etc
But these are not necessarily the same thing, and in fact can be very different.
And in fact, while anti-abortion activists firmly believe that "life begins at conception," that position has (to my knowledge at least) never been validated by the USSC.
State legislatures have repeatedly tried to enshrine personhood for fetuses, and failed in most (all?) cases. (Even here in Georgia, they were unsuccessful.)
Let me repeat that: even in state legislatures dominated by Conservatives, "the fetus is a person" has been a hard sell, and a failure.
That's not being denied reasonable access to political recourse. That's making your case, and failing.
The full personhood argument is troubling. If a fetus is a full person - can the mother be sued for actions taken that affect it (say mom has a drink - is that reckless endangerment?) Can it own property? Can it be claimed as a dependent for taxation purposes? Need it be counted for legislative representation? If killed in an negligent accident - is it manslaughter?
Full personhood of an fetus brings a host of important legal questions. Some of these may seem to have obvious answers, others don't (to me at least).
I like to point out that in this situation, a pregnant woman can not drive a car, but is legally obligated to sit in the back (in a car seat).
You're missing the point of the hypothetical.
Of course the USSC hasn't ever rules that "life begins at conception". It has, however, made rulings nearly that extreme, in the other direction; and because of the political dynamics of the situation, there is essentially no possibility of moderating, much less overturning, that decision. Megan is merely asking people on the pro-choice side to consider whether people on the pro-life side have meaningful access to the political process by getting pro-choice people to imagine themselves in a similar situation. That you, and many other pro-choicers, can't seem to understand the other side, doesn't speak well for the soundness of your arguments.
Megan is merely asking people on the pro-choice side to consider whether people on the pro-life side have meaningful access to the political process
I understand that perfectly well. The answer is an unequivocal "Yes, they do." The measure of having "meaningful access to the political process" is not whether your position is adopted, or whether you "feel" like you have meaningful access.
During the 2002 period that Republicans controlled the House, Senate, and White House, Congress could have passed legislation addressing abortion restrictions - it chose not to do so.
And I'll repeat - in Georgia and South Carolina, both dominated by conservative Republicans, "fetal personhood" legislation was introduced multiple times (2-3 times each) and failed to pass every time it's been voted on. How can you possibly say you don't have "meaningful access" if your legislation is voted on, unless the only definition of "meaningful access" that you will accept is "I get my way?"
John C. Re: "During the 2002 period that Republicans controlled the House, Senate, and White House, Congress could have passed legislation addressing abortion restrictions - it chose not to do so."
If it had done so it would have been struck down by the courts. Also "pro-life" and "Republican" are not synonymous despite the significant overlap. Your argument would be better if the Right to Life party had controlled the House, Senate, and White House (rather than never having controlled even one seat in any of those bodies), but even if that had happened, you would be conflating a party with the either a political position, or all the supporters of that position.
To go back to the slavery argument, however, in 1861 we essentially solved that by a democratic process, namely secession. That is, those parts of the country where a majority felt slavery was moral went one way and those areas that felt slavery was immoral went another way (There were no Nate Silver’s analyzing data in 1860 so I assume this is true, and of course that the slaves in the South didn’t have a say is an issue, but be that as it may). Since the arguments were irreconcilable, secession was the only real alternative and the minority did not then accept the majority decision. So in 1861, one could make the argument that to start the War of Northern Aggression, to achieve its goals (yes, there were other goals than slavery), Lincoln was Scott Roeder on steroids. In other words to achieve by violence what Democracy could not.
I’m not really arguing that Lincoln was wrong to wage the Civil War, but rather to point out that there can be issues where the minority views the majority as fundamentally wrong and the democratic process is unable to reconcile these issues.
I don't think this is an historically sustainable argument. Lincoln made clear that he would not touch slavery where it existed--he merely wanted to restrict its extension into new territories. At best, it's a push: after all, secession didn't give the South access to those territories at all.
Scott A,
In addition, secession was not really a democratic process, but rather an attempt to subvert the inevitable workings of the democratic process on the national level. The slaveholding South knew that a majority of the American population supported Lincoln's call to restrict the extension of slavery to new territories, which would ensure that no more slaveholding states would emerge. Thus, since the slaveholding South feared Lincoln's prophecy that the Free Soil approach would lead to a natural death of slavery as an institution, and knew that the democratic majority in the United States was on Lincoln's side, most of the slave states broke away from the US and formed a new country, rather than to bow to the modest wishes of the democratic majority.
If we grant that a State had the right to secede (a point of much debate) I think you can say that it was the validly elected legislatures of South Carolina et al (again, with the slaves not having a vote) that executed the decision, so I think you can say it was a democratic process. I also agree that absent secession, you would have ultimately seen more pressure to end slavery, and the numbers (eg new states were not slave) were against them, so they knew the long odds would only get worse with passage of time so the South had little choice but to go all-in.
Slavery is not identical to abortion but the similarity to me is you have deeply held and irreconcilable goals intact, which is something that is hard to enforce by a 51/49 majority vote. I respect Hilzoy’s views a lot, but I think that unlike, say, setting the marginal tax rate at 34 or 35%, this isn’t an issue that you can expect to go away with a 51/49 (or whatever) vote.
If I remember correctly, didn't the pro-slavery South pick the new state of Kansas as the place where they would push, against popular opinion within the state, for slavery to set their precedent?
Here we are in Kansas again.
The problem here is that we have not had the democratic process. We had judicial fiat. The King's judges ruled.
I'm afraid that's just not true.
There has been a tremendous amount of legislation and litigation since Roe V. Wade, both at the state and Federal level.
In addition, the following statement appears in the 2000, 2004, and 2008 Republican Platform: "the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children." And yet, though the Republican Party controlled Congress and the White House, they did nothing to advance said legislation.
Finally, in Georgia (and several other states), legislation containing the following language has been repeatedly rejected (2007, 2008, 2009) by Republican legislatures: "A fetus is a person for all purposes under the laws of this state from the moment of conception."
Roe V. Wade remains intact simply because the American people support its nuanced approach to termination. Only 0.2% of abortions occur after viability, and despite the rhetoric, they occur for medical reasons.
I agree; it was a process to bring support from pro-life voters, a marketing ploy at best.
I will attempt to duck into this room quickly, make a point, and leave. Please: no shooting the piano player.
Can we all agree that there are at least two mechanisms in the polity to address this issue? One, a state/legislature of some form writes a law promoting or prohibiting abortion, which is then challenged, and which is strong/interesting/unresolved enough to get to SCOTUS, where the current justices review it in light of past precedent (including Roe v. Wade) and their interpretation of the Constitution and (re)decide the matter. Forgive my ignorance of specifics, but I believe this path to potential change has been tried repeatedly over the years, and has led to the upholding (with modifications) of Roe v. Wade. This is political enfranchisement through the judicial branch.
Second, there is the more direct (and arguably more "legitimate" way, even in the eyes of most SCOTUS justices) of enacting a federal law and/or Constitutional amendment to settle the matter once and for all. While difficult, I believe even the most "activist" SCOTUS justices would have trouble reversing such a clear expression of public and legislative will.
But of course, both of these methods have been tried, with no success. Does it occur to anyone that this is exactly the point at issue?
We are deadlocked into the current SCOTUS-derived "solution" of Roe v. Wade because as an enfranchised democracy, we cannot agree on the right answer or solution to the problem of abortion. We, as a people, cannot agree. We are deadlocked. We are stuck, and our legitimate ways to resolve the issue do not work because neither "side" has enough political power to force its solution onto the minority. Without breaking our democracy, we cannot get ourselves out of this stalemate. A democracy such as ours is incapable of resolving such a problem, until such time that enough of us agree to change it. We are obviously not there yet.
So, two conclusions: One, the law is currently what it is. It distinguishes between the killing of a fetus and the killing of a legal person, allowing the former and not the latter. Whether you like it or not, the killer of an abortion doctor is a murderer in the eyes of the law of the land, and the doctor is not. Taking the doctor's life was an act of vigilantism. Democracy cannot tolerate vigilantes, and will try to stamp them out.
Two, we are never going to get ourselves out of this quagmire until we convince enough of us that one way is correct. And we will never get to that position until parties from both sides of the divide can try to persuade each other without screaming, yelling, or shooting at each other. Neither side has made its case to their opponents. Until they do, we will remain deadlocked as a society in this issue.
And, if we value our democracy, we must learn to live with that condition until we do.
In the Bible fetuses are protected and death can result when a woman aborts for a physical attack.
And it many states that is also true, because it takes an assault to cause a miscarriage of that sort.
The crime would be assault with special circumstances which would enhance the penalty.
The latest murder of a doctor was premised on him acting alone to do late term abortions. Those are not the facts.
Two doctors had to sign off on a statement that the mother's health was in danger and of course she had to agree to it.
The rhetoric flying around is not applicable to the facts of the case.
Add the schizophrenic noise misplaced alongside a notion of saving lives while we are killing more people in the world than any other nation, in the name of freedom no less, is absurd, and it drives strong men nuts.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/06/surge-reaches-homeland.html
Here's the foundational problem, such a decision is just fantasy under the jurisprudence of the Court either pre- or post-Roe. There isn't one current sitting justice of the Court that thinks that such a ruling would be sustainable under the history or text of the Constitution. Scalia has repeatedly offered that the converse of Roe is a framework of laws.
The problem I can't believe Megan hasn't addressed in this context, is the ridiculousness of this specific debate going on in the wake of the Tiller murder - the procedure he was targeted for performing in the past has been held by the Supreme Court as one which can be regulated by the States.
So, I guess the murderer felt excluded from the electoral process in Kansas (and thus his conduct should be placed in some weird context)??
- the procedure he was targeted for performing in the past has been held by the Supreme Court as one which can be regulated by the States.
However, when states do regulate it, as often as not, the regulation is struck down by a state or federal court basing its decision on Roe or Casey, in addition to the well-publicised howling about restricting of women's right to choose which attends every such attempt to even slightly limit abortion.
Read my post - Supreme Court has definitively held otherwise. This argument is a complete canard and in this context is especially so.
If abortion (i.e. hating abortion and wanting to eliminate it) were the most important thing in the world to me, to the point where I would countenance killing people to advance my goal, then shouldn't I be prepared to (a) support incremental steps to reduce abortion, even if it means working conjuncturally with people who don't hate abortion per se, and (b) be willing to offer my support on just about any other issue, even against my own beliefs, in order to "truck, barter and trade" my way to a majority or supermajority for banning abortion?
So you'd think. But instead, we find (almost entirely without exception) that anti-abortion zealots are totally unwilling to support measures that would meaningfully reduce the incidence of this thing they hate so much, and they're totally unwilling to give up their advocacy for other things--related and unrelated--that prevent any possibility of coalition-building and transactional politics, which clearly they need in order to realize their goal.
This is why so many of us are dubious about the bedrock sincerity of many anti-abortion zealots. If it were really all about abortion, they'd act differently.
Rich, good comment. I had just commented that the true "ban all abortion" population is 10-15%. I wager this small population overlaps almost completely with the "ban all contraception" population (and probably with the "gays aren't human" crowd). This makes it literally impossible to make any compromise on any sort of sexual issue. The partly "pro-life" group and the media has to pretend this is not the case for a number of reasons.
I am one counter-example to that assertion, so I'd say your wager is in peril.
That is why it is a wager...I would still take that wager despite one person's protestations.
How many of those expressing disgust at Tiller's murder would be willing to adopt more restrictive laws on abortion in order to reduce the indicences of this murder?
You mean give in to terrorism?
Obviously your objection to Tiller's murder is insincere, since you are unwilling to support measures that would meaningfully reduce what you claim to hate so much.
Um, some things are legal and some things are illegal.
Begging the question -- Tiller's murderer believed abortion should be illegal, and probably wouldn't have murdered him if it were. If you were as committed to preventing murders like this as you claim to be, you would support such measures.
The problem is that the two sides don't agree on what a baby is (or fetal person as opposed to fetal non-person).
That isn't the problem, and framing it in that light allows these distortions to occur in the first place.
This is a matter of competing rights. Take a woman who is reluctantly pregnant. The law can assume one of two positions: either she can terminate or she can't.
If she can abort, then her rights dominate those of the fetus. If she can't, then she is a vessel for a fetus who is the dominant party in the competition for rights, and may impose its will upon the woman.
There is no in-between here. Either you give priority to the woman or to the fetus. You can't favor both simultaneously. In a society based upon individual right, it is clear who should prevail in that contest; the fetus should come in second place.
A viability-based argument is ultimately one that favors the fetus, because we are allowing its developmental cycle and the abilities of medical science to dictate which choices that the pregnant woman can make. Anyone who cares about individual liberty should reject viability entirely as a standard and defer to individual judgment, otherwise women will be storage facilities for fetal rights, whose transport capabilities will be determined by laboratories and studies in the Lancet.
There is no in-between here. Either you give priority to the woman or to the fetus. You can't favor both simultaneously.
This is absurd. Our whole legal system revolves around delimiting rights among parties.
Hypothetical question:
What if it were possible for the woman to undergo a procedure to remove the fetus AND keep the pre-mature baby alive outside of the woman? Should the woman have the right to kill that baby?
Well, maybe technology needs to catch up with this. Having an artificial womb might solve some problems, but who'd pay for the care? Who'd adopt and who chooses the adoptive parents?
But there are cases of people who survived partial-birth abortion, and those stories are just as heart-breaking as anything Andrew's posting.
You are missing something important, RW- the rights we are talking about are not identical. For example, in supporting abortion we are trading the fetus's right to life for something usually different/less than a right to life for the mother. One can, of course, argue that those different rights are not less important than a right to life, but then one must actually make that argument.
Exactly. One if forced to argue that it is not only the rights that matter, but also whom they are bestowed upon. That the "lesser" rights of a fully developed human being are more valuable than the "greater" rights of a underdeveloped one. Its pretty shaky ground, and it is in many ways like the slavery arguments mentioned earlier.
And yet, as a society, we already engage in these arguments, with regards to minors, on a fairly regular basis.
Basically, in order to support late term abortion, one has to reject the "all men are created equal" argument, and say that yes, the mother is more equal than the fetus.
The Bush Administration established that non-citizens aren't necessarily granted Constitutional Protections, and the U.S. only grants citizenship upon birth.
"all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States."
Are you saying that you "strictly" read the Constitution as granting the non-birthed full citizens rights?
Pretty ridiculous.
(1) Valuing individual liberty does not require that a person reject any limits on other people's actions. Do you really think it is inconsistent for someone to say they "value individual liberty" while at the same time supporting laws that prevent murder, rape, robbery, burglary, etc.?
(2) There are almost always "inbetweens" when you are talking about weighing competing interests and certainly there are in this case, especially as generally as you have stated the issue.
Someone who is raped and becomes pregnant is someone who you could say was forced to be a "vessel for a fetus." Someone who becomes pregnant as a result of consentual, unprotected sex is certainly not "forced" to become a "vessel for a fetus" by any restriction on abortion. Someone who becomes pregnant as a result of ineffective birth control is not really "forced" to be a vessel of a fetus, but is probably seen by most people as being in a different position from the person taking no precautions.
There's no reason the law can't logically consider the circumstances around the pregnancies and come to different conclusions when weighing the interests of the unborn baby/fetus against the interests of the pregnant woman (although there would obviously be some practical issues with distinguishing between people who used birth control and those who did not).
This is crazy.
How about a law that says if a man sires an unwanted child on a woman, he must be castrated?
You put that up with the a ban on abortion, and then we can have a real discussion.
Short of that, it simply isn't society's business. It's hers.
When you start removing people who think their should be exemptions against a total abortion ban, you eventually get down to a "ban abortion completely rump" of 10-15% of the population. This indicates that protestations to the contrary, only 10-15% of the population believe a fetus is an individual with whole human rights (I would go further and predict that 0% of this population advocates that pregnant women ride in the back seat of vehicles in order to comply with laws against children riding in the front seats!).
Basically the outlaw all abortions fringe is smaller than the pro-John Boehner population. If it wasn't, we would have seen Republican majorities seriously push an abortion ban sometime within the last 10 years.
The abortion debate should start and end with the recognition that the true anti-abortion segment of the population is a minority of a minority, and they shouldn't hold the rest of us hostage.
The abortion debate should start and end with the recognition that the true anti-abortion segment of the population is a minority of a minority, and they shouldn't hold the rest of us hostage.
Yes, because "the true anti-abortion segment of the population" "hold[ing] the rest of us hostage" is an accurate summary of the state of abortion politics right now.
The abort at 9 months minus a day group shouldn't prevent us from recognizing value in pre-birth human life.
I agree. Can you name someone in this group of people who you think does not recognize "value" in pre-birth human life? Just one single advocate or one woman who waited to have a $5000 late-term abortion out of spite and Pro-chioce fervor? You can't do it.
Read those stories over at Sullivan's place. The women who had the "9 months minus a day" abortions were extremely excited to have a baby, and were all completely crushed when the got word late in their pregnancy that their babies brain was outside its skull or their twins were conjoined and were fated to short miserable lives.
I want the ability to vote on whether or not convenience abortions should be allowed. Would you deny me that vote by upholding Roe, or would you overturn Roe and give power to the people and let our representatives choose instead of judges?
Right, but as Megan pointed out in an earlier post, the self-selection of those sending Sullivan their stories means we hear only from them. Women who were too drug-addled, disorganized, or who suddenly changed their minds, aren't likely to send him their tales.
And that's my biggest problem with Tiller's services. At some 300 late-term abortions a year (that's one a day), he wasn't screening them very hard,and his 2nd opinion was a rubber stamp. Women have late term abortions for all sorts of reasons, and they're not all admirable.
I take it from your response Nelson, that you couldn't find a single person to use as an example of the "9 months minus a day group" that don't value "pre-birth" human life? Out of the millions of words that have been written, by millions of writers, I would think you could find such a person, unless you invented this straw-man, as you will, because it is easier to argue with than real humans.
I recognize you're trying to change the subject flounder. If no one has convenience abortions, then we lose nothing by overturning Roe v. Wade and we gain a lot in terms of political legitimacy.
This indicates that protestations to the contrary, only 10-15% of the population believe a fetus is an individual with whole human rights
Only 10% - 15% of the population believe that a fetus is an individual with whole human rights for the entire term of the pregnancy.
However, that number is about the same number who agree that the fetus is not an individual with any human rights before viability.
What I was struck by reading Andrew Sullivan's blog yesterday was how problems with fetal development in women (who from the testimonials they wrote apparently wanted a baby) were only evident in 2nd and 3rd trimester. So when you start saying you are for abortion exceptions for serious and deadly health issues, mother or fetus, you are also saying by necessity that you are for an exception for 3rd trimester abortions.
Read the story on Sullivan's page about the woman who carried a fetus for the last two months of her pregnancy that she knew was going to live only a short and painful life, and think of all the stanger's comments about the magic and beauty of motherhood she endured on random trips to the grocery store, knowing it was all a cruel joke. That is what a medical exemption would be.
Maybe somebody has some thoughts on this problem I see in the 'personhood' debate.
A) If you define a 'person' by what they are (e.g. a standard of sentience as indicated by brain waves of sufficient intensity and complexity), then you don't get a human 'person' considerably into the pregnancy. One can easily argue that a cow has more sentience than almost any fetus and yet we are very comfortable with ending their lives for the utility of meat.
B) If instead, you define a 'person' by it's potential abilities, then the clump of cells in the hours after conception makes it completely a 'person' and abortion truly would be 'murder'.
It seems that if we use A) , then we can't really keep killing animals, and if we use B), then we can't allow any abortions. So are we left with a combination of A and B where there is some kind of weighting between them to arrive at our personhood calculation.
If we do weight A and B together, then doesn't this result in a position I hold myself -- which is that abortion is allowed early but not late.
Of course, any policy must consider the cost for the mother (C) which is weighted against the benefit of the fetus (A+B).
And please don't tell me that our beliefs are not some kind of calculation in the end, because everything you have ever felt,seen, heard or believed is the result of neural computations -- if you have any doubt of this fact, then you need to learn how your own brain works.
Although I largely agree with you, and have independently concluded that we have to examine both current state and potential, B nonetheless does allow for some abortions. Arguably, it would allow for euthanization of a one year old child who has devoloped tay sachs for instance.
You could go probabilistic, weighting B by the probability of actually achieving personhood.
Megan, this political access theory of terrorism is troubling, especially when applied to extremist religious movements with deep historical roots. We can argue in the abstract about what the extent of political access is, or the reasons Congress has been an ineffective institution at addressing issues with deep emotional associations, but this is sort of beside the point.
In your posts on this issue, you have not presented an argument for your claim that political access is relevant to this issue. This whole line of discussion seems premised on your inability to reject invalid moral reasoning. The fact that you can see yourself doing evil things, were you an evil person, is inane. Those who believe that frogs are people are not going to have political recourse either.
Some statistics of abortion-related political violence, across various countries where abortion rights are more or less malleable by the political process, might be more interesting.
I have to agree that the political access theory is bunk. I can see that, given disenfranchisement, an individual or group might resort to violence. However, the reverse is not necessarily true: that is, just because an individual or group has resorted to violence does not necessarily demonstrate disenfranchisement. Megan's committed a simple logical fallacy. There are always winners and losers in political struggles, and the idea that democracy is a system where losers accept the outcome is incredibly naive. Losers do several things: they look for alternate jurisdiction, they argue about process, and they even resort to violence.
The history of muslim terrorism and of much separatist violence bears out Megan's theory of political access.
What makes abortion somewhat different is that belief that abortion should be more restricted than the Supreme Court allows it to be restricted is not an extremist position, it's a majority position; even the belief that abortion should be outlawed except in cases of rape, incest, or physical danger to the mother's life is not an extremist position, but one held by a substantial minority.
Actually, I'm pretty sure a SC ruling like that would completely alter the politics of abortion in the US, generate an overwhelming pro-choice majority, and lead to the passage of a constitutional amendment in pretty short order. Making it illegal, in this day and age, for wealthy and politically connected women to obtain abortions would be political hara-kiri.
Had such a ruling come down in 1958 (say shortly after Griswold, as a limitation on the right to privacy deliniated in Griswold), do you think such a course of events would have followed?
With the '60s just around the corner? Absolutely. The constitutional amendment would have been in place by 1965.
Our whole legal system revolves around delimiting rights among parties.
Thanks for the straw man, but nobody was disputing that courts and law deal with rights and limitations on rights.
However, you miss the point (probably because you'd prefer not to admit it.) There are only two positions here: Either you allow the self-appointed guardians of the fetus to decide, whether at some or all points of the cycle, or else you allow a woman to decide without state interference of any kind.
It is literally impossible to defer to one without subordinating the other. This is a win-lose contest; both sides cannot win.
I favor the woman. You favor the fetus, and view the woman as a vessel for the fetus and the whims of its guardians. You cannot support the rights of a woman and impose your fetal priorities upon her at the same time. A choice must be made, and you've chosen poorly.
Just so long as American religionists continue their efforts to dismantle the secularism of constitutional government, this will continue to be an issue, even though it shouldn't be. Personally, I wish to offer no quarter to such people.
You may believe whatever you want, but as citizen of a democracy, we need render people in your camp as powerless, so that your opinions remain limited to the letters to the editor section of the newspaper. I understood the root causes, but that doesn't mean that I have to like them.
RW - your statement is equivalent to saying "I favor the murderer, you favor the murdered". If you offer me that dichotomy, I choose to favor the murdered.
You clearly don't value human life. A person who values human life would find a way to give the woman as much freedom as possible without taking away the life of the baby inside of her.
I favor the woman. You favor the fetus, and view the woman as a vessel for the fetus and the whims of its guardians. You cannot support the rights of a woman and impose your fetal priorities upon her at the same time. A choice must be made, and you've chosen poorly.
No doubt when you say that, you have visions of your enemies aging a thousand years in about 45 seconds of screen time and then blowing away in a wind of unseen origin.
At any rate, I think you'll find that many of the people you are flippantly dismissing really do favor individual liberty, in that you can choose to voluntarily sleep with anyone you want. However, once that procedure leads to its biological ends -- ends that have a rich history in human existence and are pretty well understood, I would add -- a new person is created, and that person begins acquiring rights of its own, defensible under law.
You take the position that since the fetus is dependent upon the mother's body for survival, it is the woman's prerogrative to terminate the pregnancy at her own convenience. Unfortunately, you haven't found a way to frame that claim in a way that logically excludes infanticide up until sometime early into the second year. Since that idea still revulses most people who aren't Peter Singer, your ideas are getting exactly the response they deserve based on the information you have shared so far.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that this whole debate started over your arguing for some sort of pacification strategy to deal with anti-abortion terrorists (rather than calling in the national guard):
You're probably right about the political process feeling closed off to a pro-choicer in your scenario. However, that does not justify violence. Hilzoy's point was that in a democracy, one has take one's lumps (up to a point). You get to vote, assemble, convince your countrymen as you see fit, and in return, you don't murder anyone when you don't get your way.the rights we are talking about are not identical. For example, in supporting abortion we are trading the fetus's right to life for something usually different/less than a right to life for the mother
This does nothing to modify my comment.
A woman wants an abortion. There are two choices:
-The state can impose rules that deny it in some way, whether conditionally or absolutely. Fetus trumps woman when the state decides that it does.
-The state defers to the woman. Woman trumps fetus.
That's it. No other choices are available.
If you favor the former, then you are willing to use the force of law in at least some instances to ensure the continuation of a pregnancy, despite the unwillingness of the woman. You would believe that it is acceptable to use state power to punish those who opt to terminate, despite the state's opposition.
If you favor the latter, then you believe that the state should avoid participating in the decision making process, regardless of the outcome.
If you are a libertarian, then this should be a no-brainer; you should choose from behind door number two. Any other decision gives priority to the fetus.
You've made a choice, whether or not you want to admit it. Either you think that the state can dictate this, or you don't.
Is it really so terrible to admit that the right of the eight month gestation baby to live trumps the right of the woman to have to carry him to term for an additional month???
I am not saying that you are wrong, however, you were completely ignoring the ranking of rights, as a few of the other commenters mentioned. Here, at least, you acknowledge that the ranking of rights is irrelevant in your philosophy. So, I ask you straight out-do you favor unlimited rights to abortion for the reasons you outlined?
If you offer me that dichotomy, I choose to favor the murdered.
You can favor whatever you like. But let's cut the pretense and have you admit that you favor state power over the individual woman.
You can't pretend to prefer them both equally without being disingenuous. So just be honest and admit it; you'd defer to a pre-natal female and her self-appointed caretakers before you'd ever defer to a grown one.
In fact, I rather favor state power over you, when it prevents you from exercising your individual liberty at the harmful expense of another member of society.
Megan, you're dumb. Sorry, but if you really persist in this line of reasoning, that is the only reasonable conclusion. It's not about personhood. One can argue and conclude that gorillas or chimpanzees are persons, but that does not in itself guarantee that they will be protected by the laws of the various states or the laws of the United States.
Do yourself a favor and read the opinion in Roe. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO.html
The court specifically rejected your line of thinking. The fact that you have been seduced by it indicates that you've been reading a little too much from the pro-life crowd. Your thought that we are at near civil war levels of division over this issue is also just silly. That's just not an accurate description of the state of affairs of the country.
When you get around to reading Roe, you'll note, I think that the case is about two things: 1) allowing women to control their own health care, and importantly, 2) allowing individuals in this country to control their own decisions regarding their family. I can't think of a more basic human right than the decisions made about families. Roe stands for the proposition that people ought to have space free from government in which to run their lives. If you can't even understand the consequences of the decision or overturning it, you shouldn't be expressing opinions about it.
Megan, you have really grabbed the nettle of the problem and your 'commenter' expresses it well. The politics and the policy and the protest behavior may have been awful but the discussion has been, at times, good on this subject. A commenter on an Althouse post pointed out that 'life began 4 million years ago' which leads to the realization that we share that life with the first precell and the first trilobite, the elm tree, ... until death to us part as it were. Brennan, the author of Roe v. Wade, was a Catholic but also, of course, a student of the Constitution and our founding documents. The ideas of Spinoza seem to be that a person has a right to his conscience, an individuality, a way of being called as it were. His ideas animate our Constitution and might be put as a 'right to privacy.' The 'consent of the governed' also flows from that right of one's own identity however and it is being violated by 'Roe v. Wade' inasmuch as the majority of the populous is polled as 'pro-life.' You can say, 'Well that doesn't mean...,' but we don't really have a process for determining that do we?
Megan, it is FACTUALLY INACCURATE to say, as you did in a previous post, that the 19th century saw the expansion of the definition of "personhood" to include fetuses. It is true that the 19th century saw some additional laws that criminalized intentionally destroying fetuses, but in no case were the laws written to call fetuses persons and in no case was the crime ever considered murder. That's just not how the laws worked.
"Hilzoy's point was that in a democracy, one has take one's lumps (up to a point)."
This doesn't deal with the issue of the aggrieved here. And Gore v. Bush isn't a good comparison. Obviously, when the Supreme Court decides, someone is going to lose. And someone is going to feel he should have won. That isn't what we're talking about. The issue here is when they make things up. Nothing to do with the checks and balances of the third branch of government that Hilzoy et all keep mentioning.
Plenty of liberal legal scholars understand as well as the rest of us - no one ever heard of the right to abortion in the Constitution until the Supreme Court made it up. They wanted something, they felt it was morally right, so they found a place to park it.
New Supreme Court decision: The Constitution says that all laws from the year 2009 onward are made by the Supreme Court, not Congress, and enforced by the Supreme Court, not the executive. But the Constitution obviously says not like that? Well, we the Supreme Court decide what it says, and that's all.
You can try to get an Amendment that overrides us, of course - but we will then interpret it as we will. (See recent unsuccessful lawsuit in California.)
You wouldn't feel disenfranchised? 'Cause that's what really happened.
Maybe they got away with it. But this kind of thing is bad for democracy. Too many times, and eventually the governed no longer feel they live in one.
I normally have a lot of time and respect for Hilzoy but I agree with you on this one that she isn't making the right comparison of Gore v Bush isn't Roe v Wade.
As Andrew Sullivan has often noted, gay marriage equality could come alot faster in the courts, but it is more legitimate when enacted by public will though elected officials and/or votes. Progress, of course, is slow, and often there are backwards steps. But with right and time on your side you will have much greater legitimacy when you achieve your goal.
Had Roe-Wade ended up making this a state's right issue I believe that we would have had a messy process like with gay marriage, though the end result would likely have ended up with a series of laws that - give or take - would have ended up very similar to Roe-Wade principals anyway. I think you'd still have a group that wouldn't like the outcome, but they wouldn't have felt the same degree of disenfranchisement that the pro-life movement has felt.
Since alot of the comments on this series of post have to do with whether or not anti-abortion/pro-choice is a "fringe" movement or a set of opinions that are not held by the significant portion of Americans, and no one seems to want to post any evidence to support whether it is or it isn't, heres the latest gallop poll
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
That poll says that at the moment 76% of Americans are pro-choice. Ignoring the fact that they polled based on their belief that the number of Dems/Repubs is 50/50, which we know isn't the case, How does this change the fact that at the most, only 24% of the population wants to charge women with murder if they have an abortion?
It also says that about 76% of Americans do not favor unrestricted convenience abortion, but due to the law having been established on those grounds by court fiat rather than legislative process, none of that 76% has a say in the matter. Is it surprising that the friction remains?
Hanna Rosin, on Bloggingheads with Ann Althouse, cites a poll saying that the majority of people identify themselves as 'pro-life.' She herself is decidedly 'pro-choice.'
A person who values human life would find a way to give the woman as much freedom as possible without taking away the life of the baby inside of her.
That's what I love about this sort of discussion -- you have people making absolutely absurd statements like yours without any trace of irony.
You have stated an impossibility. You must choose.
There simply is no half-pregnancy, half-abortion option. Either it's state will over the woman, or else it's the woman's decision that can be made independently of the state.
You are trying to avoid accountability for your decision by pretending that you can cut the baby in half. That's absolutely impossible, and you have to be kidding yourself to think that it is.
So go ahead and pick your poison: either it's the state, or it's the woman. Be a man, and stand behind your decision.
RW,
As I consider myself to be generally libertarian in my political beliefs, I have to agree with your analysis. However, I wonder if you also take this to its logical conclusion. The case you make is based on personal self-ownership. Therefore, it can be said that a pregnant woman owns her body and whatever is in it. Further, this means that the fetus is the property of the woman. Based on this, the sire of the fetus has no rights whatsoever regarding the fetus' ultimate disposition (i.e., abortion or birth).
This being the case, where do you stand on the government using its power to force a man to be responsible for someone else's property (i.e., the child)? In other words, since the father has no say in whether or not his child is born, the government should have no right to force him to pay child support, etc.
I don't know about RW, but I've always thought a legal device sometimes referred to as a "paper abortion" is a decent idea. Men would have the right, for some period following notification of their (pending or actual) parenthood, to decline. No support obligations, no rights with respect to the child. If the key right is the ability to determine whether or not one wants to be a parent (not sure anyone was making that argument), it seems to me that all potential parents should have it.
Of course, that would never fly - once there's an actual child, then the interests of the state in not supporting the child seems to trump just about all else. But that does seem to result in a basic unfairness.
Is it really so terrible to admit that the right of the eight month gestation baby to live trumps the right of the woman to have to carry him to term for an additional month?
Apparently, it is. You have several posters here who want to believe that you can have it both ways.
You can't. Pick the state, or pick the woman. The choice that you make determines whether you believe that women are capable of self-management, or whether they are mere transport vessels for the fetuses to whom you show your preference.
I tend to agree with your sentiment, but play by your own rules and own up to your decision- a pro-lifer would say, "It's the life of a child, or the will of the woman, now choose."
You're right, this is a tough moral call that is simply impossible to dismiss with platitudes. Two critical interests are in tension, but one of them isn't the will of the state. So live up to your own admonition.
Nonsense. It is a balancing test where, at some point in time, the right to the child to life outweighs the right of the woman not to give birth.
To think otherwise is zealotry.
Nelson made a comment above calling for some middle ground; a sort of "slut court" that decides whether a woman can have an abortion of "convenience" (e.g. a single black woman) or whether it is really necessary (e.g. the teen WASP heiress who gets knocked up by the Mexican poolboy).
you were completely ignoring the ranking of rights, as a few of the other commenters mentioned
I'm not ignoring a ranking, I'm **demanding** a ranking (or more to the point, that I'm noting that a ranking is an inevitable and mandatory driver for the entire process.)
You must rank. You have to choose. Both parties cannot be equal in this situation.
This is not a civil case, in which you can compromise by dividing assets down the middle. Pregnancy and abortion are inherently either-or/ all-or-nothing choices. Either you have one or you don't.
You have Nelson here pretending that they can be equal. They can't. If the fetus wins, the unwillingly pregnant woman loses.
Unwillingly pregnant? Only in the case of rape. As a libertarian, don't you think that since only women can get pregnant, that women should be entirely responsible for whether or not they get pregnant?
No. I think if we're seriously considering forcing women who become pregnant into bearing the child, the impregnating father should be castrated in lieu of her abortion.
That's reasonable.
If men faced more consequences for their actions, this conversation would take on a whole new meaning.
How is that reasonable?
As the law stands presently, no one can force a woman to bear a child if she doesn't want to. Not even the father. The law doesn't even require that he be notified if the woman decides to have an abortion.
Since this is the case, the father has no rights at all. Why should he have any responsibility for the result of a choice he has no say in to begin with?
Now, you can argue that he could've chosen not to have sex, but why shouldn't he? He can't get pregnant. Since women are the only ones who can get pregnant, shouldn't they be solely responsible for whether they do or not?
So, where do you stand? Do you support unlimited access to abortion?
I guess I don't get an answer? Or should I infer it from the subsequent comment. If the answer is yes, then we at least have that in common.
Lose? Win? This is the matter of human life we're talking about, not a football game.
Here's a ranking for you:
Life of mother > life of child > convenience of mother
Your euphemism of "convenience of" really means, the right of the mother to control her body, and decide whether someone else can use it: that someone's right to life outweighs someone else's right to control their own body. If one person's body needs to be taken over and made to serve someone else to secure their life, then that must happen.
I'm taking as granted here your premise that a stem cell, or embryo, or fetus ("child") is a "person" who has "rights" that are equal to other persons. This is wrong, but I'll just start there for the sake of argument. This would mean that if the only way you could live was by using my body to keep yours alive that I have no right to say no to this. Your right to life outweighs my right to my control my body.
This is exactly backwards. It would by my right to say no, even if that means you die. Now, maybe people would frown on me and say I should have been more compassionate to your needs, but that's a different thing. It was not your right to demand, and _certainly_ was not the right of some other finger-wagging third party that has no direct stake in the matter (be it a "pro-life" activist or the state) to force on me, even if it means you die.
If follows directly that as long as the "child" can only live by using a woman's body to do it, ultimately she has the right to say no to this.
It is a balancing test where, at some point in time, the right to the child to life outweighs the right of the woman not to give birth.
What you inaccurately call a "balancing test" is simply a way on your part to avoid any willingness to admit that you prioritize state power, at least some of the time. I just find the reluctance to be entertaining at least, and disingenuous at worst.
As a libertarian...
To clarify, I am not a libertarian (although I tend to be in league with libertarians with respect to issues like this.) Part of what I am addressing here is that a lot of self-described libertarians don't actually believe in basic tenets of libertarianism, and have chosen the label because they wish to appear to be political independents, when they would probably be more accurately described as conservatives, or in the US, conservative Republicans.
Unwillingly pregnant? Only in the case of rape.
One can be unwillingly pregnant without being raped. We can all perform actions whose outcomes we currently dislike.
For example, a woman could desire to be pregnant, but then later change her mind. At the point that she changes her mind, she is unwilling, by definition.
don't you think that since only women can get pregnant, that women should be entirely responsible for whether or not they get pregnant?
If this refers back to your earlier question, then yes, I would agree that women should bear 100% of the benefits and responsibilities of a consensual pregnancy. (I would personally prefer paternal responsibility, but legally, I would prefer that people negotiate this amongst themselves, outside of the court system.)
Adults recognize that society has to deal with balancing tests. Perhaps you aren't an adult yet...that's OK, I was a doctrinaire Libertarian in high school and grew out of it.
RW - Re: "What you inaccurately call a "balancing test" is simply a way on your part to avoid any willingness to admit that you prioritize state power, at least some of the time."
Everyone except anarchists prioritizes state power over some actual or possible decisions made by individuals.
Everything in this debate must hinge around the definition of a fetus compared to a baby, and how you come down morally revolves entirely around this question.
And the problem is, this question has no real answer. Whatever we choose will be entirely arbitrary.
One side may conclude that until a full term 'fetus' leaves the mother's body, it is not a person. But what if the umbilical cord is still attached? What if one foot is still in? At what magic moment is there a quickening?
On the other end, is a 2 hour old cluster of cells highly likely to never attach to the uterus equivalent to a 6 year old child?
Either scenario seems mad (to most of us anyway), yet try to split the difference and you are just arbitrarily drawing lines. This question is HARD. Certainly the most vexing moral puzzle of our day. We simple won't find an answer that is unequivocally 'right', at least short of subscribing to some given religious belief, which for the rest of us is just another form of arbitrary.
In that sense I agree with RW, tap dancing around this equation is a time waster. If you don't define a fetus everything else is bunk, if you do all the other problems become fairly obvious, but its HARD to make that definition, and simply impossible to reach a consensus on it. So the argument goes on.
"And the problem is, this question has no real answer. Whatever we choose will be entirely arbitrary."
That's just not correct. If it were entirely arbitrary, then there would be no general agreement on where to draw a line. And yet there is some agreement -- the majority of people do make a distinction between a 7 month old fetus and a cluster of cells 1 hour post-conception.
And we make these judgments with some real factors, for example.
How 'aware' is the fetus?
How 'viable' is the fetus?
How healthy is the fetus?
You're right that the question is hard, but defining a person vs a fetus is certainly not 'arbitrary', it's just fuzzy -- these are two very different things.
I think a consensus has already been reached -- the majority of people think abortion is a necessary evil that should be performed early in pregnancy. We'll never get universal agreement, but we can get consensus (and have already)and that is the 'best' answer given our general world-view.
Violence in pursuit of a cause is not acceptable in a civilized society except in self-defense. It's illegal and immoral to be a vigilante regardless of whether the victim deserved it or not.
One of the main bases for legal and political systems is to avoid such acts of violence as the Tiller murder.
It would have been and still is immoral and illegal to kill a slaveowner even though slavery is immoral itself. You perform acts of protest or non-violence.
Do you support unlimited access to abortion?
In a word, yes.
Further, this means that the fetus is the property of the woman.
I think that you've taken that too far (although I believe that you could defend that position reasonably. Personally, I wouldn't, though.)
The issue is a matter of ranking. It's not incompatible with the theory of rights that if a woman chooses to be pregnant that she need to conduct herself in such a way that she doesn't do harm to the fetus, so as to prevent harm to the person-to-be. We won't force her to be pregnant, but if he chooses to be pregnant, she much act accordingly.
It's not a matter of property vs. human, but of which party has the most rights. Having fewer rights doesn't necessarily require having no rights at all.
Woman, in labor, in the hospital, head is crowning calls for an abortion. You support that right?
What about- out of the birth canal, still attached via the cord?
Just curious.
There are two negative rights in conflict- the child's right to live, and the mother's right to control her body. As RW has pointed out, you must choose one over the other, there is no escape- even if technology allows the removal of the child prior to birth, you still must violate the woman's choice in any instance she refuses. A simple, libertarian position is that the mother's rights are superior to those of the child because in this case, the negative right of the child is, in reality, a positive right- it requires the violation of the woman's negative rights.
Now, a consistent position would be that negative rights are superior to all positive rights for the same reasons. This is where you separate libertarians from everyone else.
Again, nonsense. The rights can be balanced--that what most law is about, balancing conflicting rights claims. Why is abortion such a special issue that balancing tests aren't appropriate?
Now blueeyeaustin argues that rights can be balanced. But I think there are more than two rights in question. If the father has the legal responsibility to care and provide for the child, the doesn't he have the right to have a say in the matter as well? And if you are having a child with known issues that will exceed you ability to pay for and support doesn't society have a right to decide as well?
When I start thinking down that path, I can only come to the conclusion that the abortion issue ends when society gets to the point where a license is needed to get pregnant.
The Late Term abortion issue is emotional which it is why the anti-abortion folks have seized on it. And the stories of women who have to abort due to life and health are equally emotional for the pro-choice crowd.
Do women posses an unalienable right to unintentionally conceive a child without regards to the consequences? If there was an effective,reversible male contraceptive would this even be an issue?
The rights can be balanced
No, they cannot. Courts aren't generally in the business of demanding citizens to avoid medical procedures that they want to have.
Either you accept the doctrine of a woman having supremacy in the choice, or else you grant that decision to the state, which is presumably acting as a guardian for the fetus in opposition to someone who doesn't wish to carry it. There is no half-pregnancy, demi-abortion alternative.
What's hilarious is that you find your own position to be so utterly embarrassing that you dare not describe it for what it is. You can't just spit it out and admit that you don't think that women should have the authority to decide whether a pregnancy should come to term. Instead, you obfuscate with your insistence on referring to what is an imbalanced situation as being "balanced" just because you personally like it that way.
Are you defending a position, or trying to market it? Fox News likes to refer to itself as "balanced", too, despite the irony and inaccuracy of the claim.
Abortion is not simply a medical procedure. For post-viable babies, it is also the killing of a child.
I believe that when the child is viable outside the womb and when the woman will not be gravelly injured or killed by its birth (and no BS mental reasons here) that the rights of the child to live are a greater claim than the right of the woman not to bear the child. It is, in fact, a classic balancing test.
The alternative is to believe that a woman has the right to an abortion up until the time that the umbilical cord is cut.
"Either you accept the doctrine of a woman having supremacy in the choice, or else you grant that decision to the state, which is presumably acting as a guardian for the fetus in opposition to someone who doesn't wish to carry it."
Do you extend this to the care of the baby after birth where the woman's "guardianship" is basic parenting? Should we not prosecute mothers who neglect their babies until they die because we shouldn't "force" them to be humane parents?
Mothers have a legal duty to care for their born children -- is pushing that legal duty back a few months before birth really such a stretch? Again it comes to back to the definition of when the cared for entity (i.e. baby or fetus) has rights.
By the way, isn't it true that parents have been overruled to their 'supremacy' of making choices for their children when it comes to certain medical procedures (e.g christian scientists) -- do you think that is a mistake also?
"Courts aren't generally in the business of demanding citizens to avoid medical procedures that they want to have. " -- rephrasing this whole debate as a 'medical procedure' is incredibly simplistic, just as blindly asserting that the woman has to either have the choice or not, with no restrictions on that choice.
You're being disingenuous, a troll, or an idiot. I'm guessing troll, but can't tell.
"Courts aren't generally in the business of demanding citizens to avoid medical procedures that they want to have."
They are generally tasked with interpreting and applying laws, some of which are designed to protect people's lives and property, some of which are even designed to protect animals' rights. If the medical procedure terminates a life that is protected by law, applying that law is not really inconsistent with the courts' job. What exactly was your point here?
"Either you accept the doctrine of a woman having supremacy in the choice, or else you grant that decision to the state"
Or maybe neither party has to have "supremacy" in the choice? Maybe there are circumstances in which the rights of the fetus have "priority" (your word) over the rights of the woman and in other cases the rights of the woman have priority over the rights of the fetus? You really don't think there are any options other than the two you stated?
"You can't just spit it out and admit that you don't think that women should have the authority to decide whether a pregnancy should come to term"
Lots of people clearly think that there are situations when a women should not have the right to terminate a pregnancy. Do you really feel clever because these people don't like to make statements that unclearly, if not inaccurately, represent their position?
RW,
This is a fun game, RW. Can anyone play?
A man wants to put a live kitten in the oven, turn it to "broil," and watch what happens. There are two choices:
-The state can impose rules that deny [the man's right to have his fun/do his scientific experiment on the effect of high temperatures on felines/whatever]. Feline trumps man when the state decides that it does.
-The state defers to the man. Man trumps feline.
That's it. No other choices are available, are they?
Sorry for the nasty analogy, but is there any other way to get rid of this particularly odious argument?
I hesitate to say this - don't want to be called an elitist and all - but it strikes me that some of the people here did not have, shall we say, a well-rounded education. No one has heard of the Tethered Violinist:
Seems pretty open and shut to me, even if you grant personhood to the fetus. And again, since even those who claim that this is so don't behave that way, I don't see why anyone else should either.
That's an interesting thought experiment, and seems more or less on all fours with situations where the pregnant woman was raped, but I'm not sure how much value it adds to the rest of the debate.
A lot of people think it's morally different to take an action that will result in the death of another person when you chose to participate in the actions that gave the person life. That doesn't seem entirely unreasonable. It's one reason why it's acceptable to force a man to provide child support for 18 years or more for a child he doesn't want. I understand that pregnancy can be risky, but if you asked me whether I wanted to undergo nine months of discomfort and pain with a .013% risk of death or give up half my working life for the next 18 years, I'm pretty sure I'd go with the extreme 9 mo. imposition rather than then 18 year imposition.
I'm sorry, but the captured violinist analogy breaks down at the word 'kidnapped' for many abortion cases, since many women effectively volunteered to act as a temporary kidney donor. They may change their mind later, but putting in a voluntary donor does in fact change how many people would feel about the situation. There are other flaws, but that struck me as the most relevant.
SOV,
I have heard of the "Tethered Violinist." Being a professional violinist myself, how could I not? But can we count the ways that Judith Jarvis Thomson (yeah, my own surname, no-"p"-ness and all) stacked the deck?
The person standing in for the fetus here is famous; that's almost the first thing we learn. He has a lot of powerful friends, as we can deduce from the fact that they've kidnapped you and are apparently confident that they can hold you for nine months without anyone finding you, the violinist, or indeed anything else about the whole operation.
He is old enough to have had a celebrated career. He is, not at all incidentally, male.
In other words, he's designed to represent maleness, wealth, maturity, power, and elitism all in one tidy package.
Had JJT used a severely injured Guatemalan girl, three years old and unaware of anything save that some people saw her hurt, managed somehow to get her to the US, and then kidnapped the only person who could save her life when other possibilities fell through -- do you think the reaction to the hypothetical would be the same? Would even the hypothetical captive/victim be so willing to pull the plug? Would you, or anyone else?
For post-viable babies, it is also the killing of a child.
Right, so you want to drag this back to viability.
That's the entire point of this line of argument -- viability is irrelevant. The only issue of relevance is the mother's decision, period. Viability is your litmus test, but as noted, you have no compunction about forcing your position onto the unwilling individual.
A good rebuttal would attempt to prove that the state has a compelling interested in forcing a woman to carry a fetus to term. You've argued the punch line without proving this, as if the reader should accept your premise because you said so.
We all know that the fetus is alive, so don't bother with that. The litmus test is whether the life of the fetus is so compelling that it must be preserved, even if the carrier prefers to reject it.
Thus far, you've just stated that abortion is bad because, well, because it's bad. That really tells me nothing, other than the fact that you dislike abortion, and like to use emotive terms to promote your pitch. (We've had enough "baby, baby, baby" lines here to write a pop song.)
You're being disingenuous, a troll, or an idiot.
Spoken like a second-rate thinker who lacks a cogent argument. Sorry, but your preface is a red flag that you're someone who will be well worth ignoring.
Do you extend this to the care of the baby after birth where the woman's "guardianship" is basic parenting?
You've prepared enough apples and oranges with that one to make fruit salad for the company picnic. I like fruit salad, but that combination doesn't make for compelling argument.
Have a gander at the Constitution. A person born in the United States is acknowledged to enjoy constitutional protections at birth. On that day, you become a citizen. Before that day, not quite.
The act of being born puts things on an entirely different plane, and at that point, the medical sovereignty argument no longer applies. Once born, there is a bona fide conflict between the rights on one individual and another.
A man wants to put a live kitten in the oven, turn it to "broil," and watch what happens.
Was the kitten implanted inside of his torso? Was it lodged into his esophagus? Perhaps wedged into the hollow of his leg? Is a government agent forcing him to keep the kitten stuck inside of his body?
Because unless it was, you can stop with your obviously deeply flawed metaphor. The whole implantation thing is the essence of the problem, and you've chosen to address it by skipping it entirely.
Viability is simply my standard. It is also a key factor in the law of this county. But more than that, viability is the point where the is no reason--aside from physical location--that the link between the woman and the child can be severed without killing the child.
That's why it is important and that is why it is the point where the rights of the woman to kill that child should be sharply curtailed.
Sorry, viability is NOT simply my standard.
RW,
I "skipped it entirely" because you did. You reduced everything to "woman trumps fetus" or "fetus trumps woman." Hence the analogy.
I'm a woman, but I've never been pregnant and likely never will. Nonetheless, I don't understand the sort of person who would give more protection from pain and death to a puppy or kitten than to, say, a Down Syndrome child whose genetic abnormality was discovered late in pregnancy. If anyone did to a newborn cat or dog what is done in a third-trimester abortion to a fetus that, judging by Down Syndrome premature newborns I've seen, is more aware than either even a couple months prior to delivery, there'd be hell to pay. But that's OK; it's an "implantation," and therefore if getting rid of the "implantation" positively involved burning the fetus alive, there'd be no massive problem with that either.
Oh, golly. Sorry for the double post!
Oh boy- mind games. Ok, my turn- you're born a conjoined twin. You share organs with your brother, but only one of you can survive if you decide to separate. You get to court first- is your choice enviable?
Ah! Ok RW, here is where that thought led me:
Viability MUST matter, and here is why- you can argue that a non-viable fetus is simply a parasite (if you wish). But a viable fetus isn't, necessarily, he or she can live fully functionally outside the mother's body.
In that sense- the child in the womb is as much a hostage as the mother. The child can't speak on his own behalf, any more than a 12 month old could, but others can speak for him or her in the same way.
Doesn't the baby in the womb have the right to chose to escape the mother rather than die?
I "skipped it entirely" because you did.
I'm pretty sure that all of us understood that a fetus is attached to the woman, quite unlike the live kitten in your example. (I presume that we all know that the kitten wasn't attached to the interior of a male human.) I obviously didn't skip it; it was integral to the point.
But more than that, viability is the point where the is no reason--aside from physical location--that the link between the woman and the child can be severed without killing the child.
OK, so viability is important because the fetus is viable.
Forgive me, but we already established that a viable fetus is viable. The issue isn't whether a viable fetus is viable, because we all know that a viable fetus is viable, given its viability. Rather, the question is whether the state should subordinate the claimed interests of the woman with the alleged interests of the fetus, irrespective of its viability.
Obviously, you think that we should elevate the fetus above the woman, for whatever reason. I want to know why I should agree with you, particularly given that I've established that my premise is based upon this viability issue being wholly irrelevant, given the rights issues at hand for the woman and what I find to be a more compelling interest in keeping the state from becoming overly intrusive. Viability does not change the essence of an argument that does not consider viability to be material, either way.*
*I do hope that I've exceeded the viability quota for the thread, viably.
Ok, my turn- you're born a conjoined twin.
If my twin is a kitten, I'd baste him and put him in the oven. That's what liberals are known for, that is when they aren't attached to invalid violinists on life support.
the child in the womb is as much a hostage as the mother.
The fetus can't be as much of a hostage. Either it's more of a hostage and needs protection, or it is less of one and is subject to the decision of the woman. They cannot be equal, the situation does not permit equality.
RW,
I am wondering just how deep your belief actually is, or is it simply situational? There are a number of asserted positive rights that impinge on the negative rights of someone else in ways completely equivalent to those of a pregnant woman and her child.
We can even use SOV's cited hypothetical. If, instead, you simply confiscated part of the man's income to pay for the dialysis, you are violating his bodily integrity just as surely as making a woman carry a child to term.
"The fetus can't be as much of a hostage. Either it's more of a hostage and needs protection, or it is less of one and is subject to the decision of the woman."
Why? What if the choice was the life of an infant or the life of its mother? One needs protection more than the other, does that invalidate the rights of the other?
"They cannot be equal, the situation does not permit equality."
Why? Because you say so? You honestly can't conceive of a situation where rights could be equally balanced?
My point is that you can make an argument that as much as a woman has a child trapped inside her, the child is trapper inside the woman. Neither necessarily 'asked' to be in that position, and the viable fetus is no more an intruder than the mother is a kidnapper.
Take you argument to its zaniest conclusion- if you stuffed a newborn back into its mother, are you arguing the decision for the child to live or die again rests solely with his mother? What if it was a stranger? Remember, we're talking about a viable life, not a sure-to-die fetus. This is just a question of whether you remove the child alive or dead.
"They cannot be equal, the situation does not permit equality."
Why? Because you say so?
It has nothing to do with me at all. It's the logical construct of the situation.
If the fetus wins, the mother is forced to carry it, even though she doesn't want to. Her sovereignty is compromised.
If the woman wins, the fetus dies. Assuming all things being equal, that probably sucks for the fetus.
There is no win-win here when the woman is unwilling. She can't deal with half of the fetus, there is no semi-abortion, etc. It's a two-alternative universe: Either she wins at the expense of the fetus, or else she loses to the triumph of the fetus. There is no in between in this situation. There's no compromise alternative or third way available, given the nature of the decision.
Now, Blue Eyes above me would call this is a "balance." Some balance -- the woman is getting 0% of what she wants. You might think that such an outcome is desirable, but by no means can anyone reasonably call something like that "balanced."
Take you argument to its zaniest conclusion- if you stuffed a newborn back into its mother, are you arguing the decision for the child to live or die again rests solely with his mother?
That is zany, I'll give you that. Above, I referred to the Constitution, that views birth as a benchmark to receiving rights. If a born person was unborn, so to speak, that would create contradictions that aren't addressed here. Then again, it's so outlandish that I can't see the application to the very real world issues raised when dealing with a woman's sovereignty, locked in combat with an intrusive state.
Now, Blue Eyes above me would call this is a "balance." Some balance -- the woman is getting 0% of what she wants. You might think that such an outcome is desirable, but by no means can anyone reasonably call something like that "balanced."
Your view of "balance" is too short-sighted.
If the woman gets to abort the fetus in the first 4 months , but not in the last 5 months, then there is a "balance". She gets 100% of what she wants for the first 4 months then 0% for the last 5 months.
Of course you're right that when the mother chooses to abort, the fetus has lost big time, just as the mother who waits too long and is then forced to carry the fetus will lose big time. Seems like the best answer (albeit always a crappy outcome for one of the parties) to a very difficult problem.
I am wondering just how deep your belief actually is, or is it simply situational?
I'm not sure what you mean by "deep" in this context, but I'm absolutist about the primacy of the rights of the born over the rights of the fetus attached to the born. The alternative is to indulge a slope that's far too slippery to be entrusted to the state, particularly given the temptation by many to turn the wall of separation into rubble. (And you thought that I had an unfettered love of government...)
Your description of negative rights above was quite good, and rather on point. The rights of the fetus cannot be asserted without impacting the rights of its parent, there's just no avoiding that ranking. A choice has to be made, and many here seem unwilling to concede that a decision cannot be made here that favors both unless the woman cooperates.
I'm forced to conclude that you are simply unable to understand a rational and logical argument.
Deep means are you actually consistent. I never thought for a second that you had an "unfettered love of government", but what positive rights would you find acceptable to rank over an individual's negative rights? You take an "absolutist" position in abortion, but how absolutist are you in reality? Does the positive right to healthcare, for example, rank above someone's right not to pay for a stranger's care?
You take an "absolutist" position in abortion, but how absolutist are you in reality? Does the positive right to healthcare, for example, rank above someone's right not to pay for a stranger's care?
Few situations are as black-and-white as the choice of abortion. Most of life's options involve some shades of grey and can involve compromise.
Abortion allows for no such compromise, unless you believe that having a window of opportunity to choose that is shut based upon a calendar dictated by government degree is some sort of grey area. When forced to choose given such stark limitations in an area concerning individual civil liberties, I'm inclined to favor the individual unless there's an overwhelmingly good reason not to.
I'm forced to conclude that you are simply unable to understand a rational and logical argument.
Being that you have consistently failed to make such an argument, I guess that we'll never really know, now will we?
I and many others on this thread have made, at length, a logical argument. Your continued assertion of your curious belief that a subject that clearly contains fine gradations is somehow a binary choice is no adequate response.
I and many others on this thread have made, at length, a logical argument.
Some others have, yes, but you have failed miserably.
For your argument to have validity, you need to begin by proving that viability is a reasonable standard for anyone other than you. You haven't done that.
Repeating your belief that viability matters only proves that it matters to you. You have provided no reason why viability is a legitimate basis for putting the rights of a fetus above those of a person who has been born and is therefore protected by the constitution and is otherwise considered to have a higher level of status than a fetus.
Your argument is circular, so no, it isn't very good, at least not in its present form. You need to support it by showing why your standard of viability should be relevant to anyone but yourself. You keep assuming this critical item into evidence, even though you are obliged to prove it.
On the other hand, I have presented that there is clearly a conflict of rights between the woman and the fetus whenever the state decides to legislate abortion. About that there can be no debate.
The debate is whether the rights of the fetus can dominate the woman during at least some point of its pre-natal cycle, and if so, when and why. The woman and fetus cannot be equal, and what you insist on calling a "balance" is really a polite of saying that the woman should prevail at certain times and should lose during others. At that point, everything will be a murdered baby in your book, and women will just be a living substitute for a petri dish.
Viability is quite a slippery slope, particularly with scientific advances. Shortly, under that standard, we should be able to ban abortion entirely, because we will at some point sooner than later be able to breed humans in labs, and not even bother with the womb.
Birth is a much cleaner standard. Of course, to avoid moral outrage, you're just going to have trust women, and understand that the vast majority of them will not use abortion in ways that you find offensive, even if not mandated by law.
I'm impressed! You're probably also younger and prettier than me, sigh. There are some things I'm really, really good at, but don't particularly care to be, and things I'd like to be good at, but will never, ever be. Playing decent music is one of them, I suspect.
That may, or may not be the case, that someone would be more or less willing to pull the plug. But even so, that remains their choice, whatever the decision. Look, I come from a blended mix of Irish Catholic/Southern Baptist tradition; if it was me, I'd probably opt to carry to term. But if it's not, it's none of my 'damn business.
If you want a point of attack, I might could give you something to gnaw on: suppose a woman decides to carry a baby to term to get AFDC and child support. During the nine months, she smokes, drinks, and has unprotected sex to feeds her crack and blue velvet habits. Does the State then have legitimate interest in regulating the behaviour of the mother?
Actually, you haven't. Or if you have, I haven't seen it either.[1] The point is that the choice is a binary one; pick a counting number. If it's not odd, it's even. If it's not even, it's odd. There simply aren't any other possibilities.
Haven't you heard the aphorism "There's no such thing as a little bit pregnant"?
[1]I think that you are actually mixing two different arguments to the detriment of both.
You can assert it is a binary choice, but that assertion is false.
Proposed Standards for Abortion A
1) Pre-viability, woman's choice.
2) Post-viability, not woman's choice (for simplicity's sake).
Women have choice for x amount of time, and don't for y amount of time. Their choice during time x is not constrained by their lack of choice during time y.
You may not agree with these proposed standards but they are logical and they are not binary. See, you could also do this:
Proposed Standards for Abortion B
1) Pre-viability, woman's choice.
2) Post-viability, until full term not woman's choice without Dr. OK.
3) Post-viability, full-term, no woman's choice.
Women have choice for x amount of time, have a limted choice for y amount of time, and have no choice for z amount of time. Their choice during time x is not constrained by their constraint of choice during time y nor is it constrained by their lack of choice in time z.
Well, I think the consensus among biologists and related professionals is that humans being bred entirely in the lab is going to be a long time coming.
But that's a minor nit. Here's a whopping big problem with the viability standard: who pays? If it's the woman, that amounts to a defacto ban on anything other than a full-term pregnancy. Further, who is going to be responsible for the child after birth? Financially responsible. Even assuming the requisite technology exists, it won't be cheap. Well, how about the pro-lifers? I'm sorry to say, but their record on this has been anything but sterling. Given the numbers and organization of the 'pro-life' crowd, you'd think that there would be no children waiting to be adopted, that any minority or special needs child would be snapped up in a matter of days.
Sad to say, that is not what the record shows. Someone, several someones, have wondered about how 'deeply held' RW's beliefs are. That cuts both ways, though they have been curiously reluctant to say that yes, they'd have any woman who had an abortion up for murder one and then on to ten years in the slammer. Add to that the question of their willingness to shoulder the financial and other obligations such babies would entail. Their willingness to fund and maintain facilities for these incubators/artificial wombs. Personally, I don't see it, in fact, see a whopping dollop of hypocrisy.
Of course, we could always require that the State operate these 'viability centers' and that the State be the wards of these unwanted babies. But then we'd have to raise taxes ;-)
Financial responsibility is not a justification because the child can be placed in the care of the State.
SOV,
But, see, that's what so irritates me about the Judith Jarvis Thomson article. She puts five or six thumbs (she's an unusually handy lady, obviously) on the scale at once, making her fetus-equivalent a famous male adult with a lot of rich and ruthless friends, who are not merely making the female victim deal with the standard discomfort and weight gain and pain of pregnancy, but are locking her up for nine months with no contact with the outside world.
This is just not what pregnancy is, even if you're pregnant and are desperate not to be. Even the "nine months" is a lie, because (as several people have pointed out in this and other threads) you can't have any evidence that you're pregnant until you miss a period.
So if the case is so obvious -- if anyone would agree even in my counter-case of the Guatemalan three-year-old girl that, ultimately, it's the one whose body is being used to support another who has the right to pull the plug, or not pull it -- why does JJT make the one who would die as remote (by class, profession, sex, coterie of rich and ruthless friends, &c.) from the average woman wanting an abortion as possible? If your case is self-evidently in the right, why stack the deck massively in your own favor, when there are other examples that (you say, at least) present the same case, and don't involve special pleading?
She puts five or six thumbs (she's an unusually handy lady, obviously) on the scale at once, making her fetus-equivalent a famous male adult with a lot of rich and ruthless friends...
It's obviously a metaphor for the ability of institutions to limit access to abortion through their legal and financial power. I wouldn't take it too literally.
Most women who seek abortions are not in a financial position to engage in combat with, or to do an end-run around, the state. If they can't get a legal abortion within reasonable proximity to where they live, they will either have to give birth or else go into a back alley.
Given the numbers and organization of the 'pro-life' crowd, you'd think that there would be no children waiting to be adopted, that any minority or special needs child would be snapped up in a matter of days.
To be fair, if they are correct in their position, then their mission should be to protect the civil rights of the fetus, and they are not required to care for each and every one of them once born. Protecting one's civil rights does not assume an obligation to feed and clothe them once you've defended them.
The thing is, though, is that they don't genuinely approach it as a civil rights issue. Tear away the facade, and it's just another exercise in bringing religion into what should be secular law. They have no worry about the ranking of rights because women are viewed as being just a means to an end, namely to serve as a delivery mechanism for the children of men. Refer to it as the Anne Boleyn Doctrine, if you will.
You may not agree with these proposed standards but they are logical and they are not binary.
The issue isn't one of agreeing or disagreeing with you, but that you haven't even bothered proving your most basic premise, namely that viability is relevant.
That's a logical error large enough to drive a truck through. If you want to argue based upon viability, you first have to establish that it matters. Apparently, you can't.
There are two things wrong with this, I believe, one minor and one major. The minor point is that, as I have come across this scenario at least, the point of making the dependent a famous violinist is to make them worthy of being saved. That is, it's not to pull out all the stops against the Patriarchy. The first time I heard this one was in a philosophy class, and the dependent was not a famous violinist, but a famous cancer researcher on the verge of finding a cure. Another time it was a famous scientist, Stephen Hawking. So while this might have been the context you saw this in, it certainly wasn't mine.
The major point is that the desirability of the dependent's continued existence does not matter; what matters is in whose hands the decision to maintain the connection or terminate it lies. Every time I've heard this one, there's a pretty much unanimous opinion that the power to make this decision lies with the 'donor'. And this is true whether the recipient is an unregenerate child molestor or Mother Theresa.
If you heard this in the context of a moral philosophy class, and they came to a different determination, I'd be curious as to the reasoning.
Sigh. flip a coin. It can either come up heads or tails. That's it. That's a binary choice. It doesn't matter how the coin fell the last time it was flipped, or the time before that.
I can't put it any more simply than that.
The other problem you have is that you have made absolutely no connection between viability and whose rights trump others, but that's a minor issue, given that we apparently don't even speak the same language.
That's true, and perhaps I could have worded what I meant better. My thought is that if these pro-life types were willing to assume the financial obligation of maintaining these premature but viable fetuses in an artificial womb, I might be more sympathetic towards their views. Given their record on adoption, however, I think that they would as much as possible try to fob off the costs onto someone else, the mother say or the State. Making the mother responsible for the costs is the same as making abortion illegal; if the State were the target, I'm guessing that few of these worthies would be happy about raising their personal taxes to cover the increased costs.
I'm convinced they don't genuinely regard the fetus as a human being; they sure don't act like it. The word that best describes them is 'mischievous'. Or perhaps 'meddlesome'.
RW,
I see, it's metaphor! Only thus can we expose the horrible reality of not-enough-abortion. The fetus-stand-in has to be famous and possessed of an elite skill that only wealthy Westerners or their toadies could possibly care about; he has to be male; he has to have a lot of powerful thugs who will do anything for their boss.
Only the last has anything really to do with reality. Actual fetuses aren't famous or skilled (in elite Western arts or anything else), and only half are even male.
The only thing in the JJT piece that has any direct connection with reality is the idea that women might be forced to stay pregnant when they didn't want to be; and even there there's chicanery. No one who is pregnant for nine months knows she is pregnant for the whole nine months; and no one who is pregnant actually spends the entire time shackled to a cot. Pregnant women do an amazing amount of stuff. I can't imagine you'll credit this, but occasionally they're even paid for it. As though it were work, or something.
ScentOfViolets,
I'm afraid that I didn't read JJT in the context of a class in moral philosophy; I did the bad old nasty individualist business of reading about it, Googling around for a copy, and reading that. I suppose you could call it homeschooling for adults, and no doubt it's every bit as disreputable.
You think the "famous violinist" business is all about the person being worthy of saving? So the other examples are of a famous cancer researcher, or Stephen Hawking?
This is the problem. You and JJT and God knows how many others think that making the life to be saved especially "important" in whatever way you understand "important" means that you're being specially fair to the other side. You're saying, "Even if pulling this plug meant that the world would be denied a cure for cancer/a new theory of black holes/a seriously fantastic Bach Sonatas & Partitas, it's this woman's right to pull the plug."
Whereas the other side is saying and thinking, "It doesn't matter whether this person is going to be a great violinist or a great cancer researcher or a great physicist. It matters that this is a helpless human being, and it's my duty to help the helpless, not hurt them."
The fetus-stand-in has to be famous and possessed of an elite skill that only wealthy Westerners or their toadies could possibly care about; he has to be male; he has to have a lot of powerful thugs who will do anything for their boss.
It's the metaphor's equivalent of the anti-choice movement's frequent abuse of the language. In this thread alone, the word "baby" was used eight time to describe what is actually a fetus.
The point of the metaphor was to enrich it with the sort of emotional content and hyperbole that is found in the abortion debate. A medical procedure is transformed into "murder", women are cast as "murderers," and their zygotes and fetuses morph into "babies", "children" and, in one case on another thread here, "woman." (Yes, fetuses have apparently become women. Hard to believe, I know.)
No one disputes that a fetus is alive. The issue at hand is whether that life deserves the sort of legal protection that would allow it to effectively have more rights to live than its parent has to terminate, during some or all of its life cycle.
The arguments to ban it have been poor and circular. If you want to argue morality, then you need to prove that your morality is superior and that your version of it belongs in the law. If you want to argue viability, then you need to demonstrate why viability is a relevant test. If you want to argue equivalency, then you have to show how favoring a fetus over a woman could possibly be equal when the woman is necessarily losing the battle whenever her choice is denied.
Whatever that is, pick your poison and run with it. Don't just presume that the argument is good because you like it.
Your 'other side' is making a mistake; it's not about 'oughts', or 'shoulds' or 'duties'. It's about rights. Maybe Stephen Hawking 'should' be saved; maybe the person who cuts him loose should expect to have to put up with public scorn, perhaps with near-universal ostracism. Maybe his name is eventually a shorthand for a certain nasty type of behaviour, the way, say, Benedict Arnold is.
But that has nothing to do with rights. And that is what this is about, yes? Let me be clear again about this: if it was me tethered to Stephen Hawking, I'd gladly put up with it for nine months or a year or whatever. But I simply can't impose my own personal choices on someone else in a similar situation.
What is it with the problem of imposing personal choices? We impose aggregated personal choices on society every damn day! You have to drive on the right, not the left. You have to pay taxes to the government. You cannot have sex with a six year old. You have to give blood to test alcohol limits if presented with a warrant.
What is so God damm special about abortion????
SOV,
To continue:
Just out of curiosity, what happens when it's neither a serial child molester nor Mother Teresa (no "h" I think -- the Empress Maria Theresa had one, and so did a lot of others, but not this one)? What if it's, say, a week-old kitten? How many of your philosophy classmates would countenance someone ripping a small kitten limb from limb before their eyes if that were the price of getting out of the room where their kidneys were supplementing those of the Invaluable Male of the moment? Not so many? Why ever not?
The problem with the JJT article and every argument that has followed in its path is that people who object to abortion just don't think about it like that. It's not about what great human achievements will be lost if this or that person dies. It's about what happens to all of us, any of us, if we treat the most helpless among us as less than human.
Just for the record -- it ought not to need to be said, but here we are -- when I was in high school, I had classmates who objected to abortion, and I couldn't understand why. My parents were agnostic and pro-choice, and I couldn't see why anyone would think this an issue.
It became an issue for me when I heard a couple of UC/Berkeley students in line ahead of me at one of the Cal eateries complaining to one another about having to listen (!) to a narrative by a woman who was born in the course of a botched abortion, in the course of their [I think] sociology class.
These two girls were positively offended that they had to hear this other woman speak. That sort of thing, they said, really oughn't
to happen at a progressive University.
It baffles me that you are so willfully blind as to not see how viability is critical, so I'll spell it out
Non-viable. Separation from mother leads to death. Mother must continue to carry child for it to survive. Killing child necessary for pregnancy to end.
Viable. Separation from mother can occur without death of child. Killing the child unnecessary for pregnancy to end.
Therefore the killing of a viable fetus for the purpose of an abortion is immoral because it causes more harm than is neccesary to the fetus (death) than is required for the woman to have her desired choice (end of pregnancy).
It baffles me that you are so willfully blind as to not see how viability is critical
Well, thanks for providing the definition, but I can turn to Webster's for that.
That still doesn't support your argument. (Well, at least you're consistent; proof apparently isn't one of your strong suits.)
I realize that you are all worked about viability, that's quite evident. But your enthusiasm doesn't do squat to demonstrate why it matters in the conflict of rights, or why your morality is superior to anyone else's.
Sadly, I could probably make your argument for you better than you could. If I keep leaving it to you, I may have to switch sides, because the disappointment I get whenever I see your handle is starting to hurt.
RW, if the abortion of viable fetuses doesn't give you something of a turn, I can't imagine what's wrong with you. Does it help if we put the late-term abortion clinic right next to the preemie ward, or does it have to be literally in the same room for it to register?
You cannot understand the simple logic above? Really?
RW,
There are IIRC 173 comments here, so you're probably right. But I really think the pro-choice movement has got to get its own house in order on this particular point.
How often have you heard "life of the mother"? Or "life or health of the mother"? Mother of what? Where there is a mother there is a child; but in general the people who use these phrases don't believe that there is currently a child, only a fetus. "Mother" is there for emotive value only. Someone who really thought of a fetus as a "bit of tissue" parasitical on the woman bearing it wouldn't call her a "mother" any more than s/he'd call the other genetic donor to the "bit of tissue" a "father."
You cannot understand the simple logic above?
Your absolute refusal to take responsibility for your own poor argumentation skills is quite astounding.
You've repeatedly deployed a few basic debating errors, including argumentum ad nauseum (the belief that repeating your argument somehow proves it) and circular errors (proving your argument by referring to the alleged authority of premises that you have failed to support), as well as the usual ad hominem BS.
I'm not impressed. Repeating yourself just because you have nothing new to add only shows that you don't have a rebuttal or a cogent defense for your position. Maybe you need to give some serious thought as to whether you actually believe in your own position, because I would expect a more vigilant defense of it than what you've provided.
Honestly, at this rate, I'm going to have to switch hats and start arguing viability here for you, because you don't seem capable of doing it yourself. That side deserves a good ambassador, and you just ain't it.
if the abortion of viable fetuses doesn't give you something of a turn, I can't imagine what's wrong with you.
That's an error that could be described as argumentum ad misericordiam, the appeal to pity. This list of poor argument is getting longer and longer...
The problem with the JJT article and every argument that has followed in its path is that people who object to abortion just don't think about it like that. It's not about what great human achievements will be lost if this or that person dies. It's about what happens to all of us, any of us, if we treat the most helpless among us as less than human.
The other problem with it is that the analogy it makes ignores an EXTREMELY salient aspect of pregnancy, contra the tethered violinist scenario - that is to say, exclusive of cases of rape, a woman can quite easily choose to prevent pregnancy by declining to have unprotected sex. I'm all for liberation from repressive Puritanism, but to reduce sex to a no-strings-attached leisure activity on the level of seeing a movie or riding on a rollercoaster, as some on the left seem intent on attempting to do, is patently absurd. Having sex is an act with clearly understood biological, psychological, and moral consequences, one of which is the possibility of pregnancy and the sudden subordination of one's individual freedoms which results, and if someone doesn't understand that, they ought not to be having it IMO. To engage in risky behavior and then complain that one got more than one bargained for and seek to escape the consequences is not a morally mature decision, and I find arguments attempting to define or defend a "right" to do so highly dubious.
I'm not impressed. Repeating yourself just because you have nothing new to add only shows that you don't have a rebuttal or a cogent defense for your position.
Either that, or it proves that you're too stubborn, oblivious, or thick-headed to understand what is being said to you. Irrespective of the quality of blueeyesaustin's argument, it is a logical one insofar as it can be laid out as a series of connected propositions followed by a conclusion resulting therefrom. Nothing you've said meets even that minimum standard for definining a quality argument; repeating a series of rhetorical terms proves you paid attention in debate club but doesn't rebut his/her point.
Irrespective of the quality of blueeyesaustin's argument, it is a logical one insofar as it can be laid out as a series of connected propositions followed by a conclusion resulting therefrom.
Er, you miss the point, and obviously don't understand the construct of a logical fallacy when you see it.
Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the concept of a circular argument. This thread provides a wonderful example of one, so accept this as a learning opportunity.
Blue Eyes argues that viability should be the determining factor. When pushed as to why exactly that is, his answer: Viability should be the determining factor, uh...well, because viability should be the determining factor.
He hasn't provided an answer to the query, he has merely repeated his statement. His "logic" does not work unless you already concur with the position that he needs to prove in the first place.
His argument also ignores the evolving definition of viability. Viability is not a static figure; as science evolves, that period will inevitably occur earlier during the pregnancy. It's quite conceivable that we will eventually not even require a womb at all to carry a fetus to term.
Perhaps these will help:
http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/itl/graphics/adhom/circular.html
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/begging-the-question.html
Perhaps this would help as understand what I think is the poorly expressed reason that viability is important. If viability is the point at which the child could live outside of the womb, then that is the point at which it is a separate being from it's mother. At that point, it's plausible to suggest an early surgical delivery instead of an abortion. Before then, since it's not really a separate entity, it's really hard to argue that it's accrued any rights to speak of. Viability also allows you to support aborting fetuses which will never be viable at any point.
Regarding the separate arguments that allowing any state intervention is incompatible with libertarian principles, please note that libertarians are not anarchists, and generally support limited government intervention to protect people's right not to be killed. Libertarianish people like Megan McCardle would probably further support government intervention to create a right to live up to a point, but treating abortion of viable fetuses as murder with a medical self defense affirmative defense option seems to me to be compatible even with strict libertarianism.
"Viability should be the determining factor, uh...well, because viability should be the determining factor."
That is not at all what I have written. My point, which you seem to be completely unable to understand, is that viability changes the fundamental relationship of the nature between the mother and the fetus. Pre-viability, the only way the pregnancy can end is through the death of the fetus. Post-viability, the pregnancy can end merely by removing the fetus.
That is not a circular argument.
RW,
If you were to attack every "appeal to pity" posted here, you would have a healthy, though singularly ill-paying, day job.
And this is a problem why? The classic case for abortion rights is that pregnancy itself is a burden. It's been the case for decades that no woman who has borne a child is legally responsible for raising the child or providing for it. If women can escape the obvious suckiness of pregnancy, where is the problem?
If that's the case, then why shouldn't women who have had abortions be jailed ten years or more for murder one? Somehow, I don't think the people who keep insisting abortion=murder are being up front about this one.
And this is a problem why?
You can't be serious. You can't debate a concept if we can't even agree on how to define the terminology. One man's viability may be another man's lack thereof. There's no twain, and it doesn't meet.
If viability is the point at which the child could live outside of the womb, then that is the point at which it is a separate being from it's mother
For one, we need to define viability, as noted above. In practice, we need to know what this actually means. Does being strapped to millions of dollars worth of medical equipment constitute viability? Is resting comfortably inside of a Petri dish an example of viability?
For another, this still sidesteps the issue of conflicting rights and for creating a doctrine that allows a fair application of those rights. For the fetus to live under these circumstances, it must either reside in its host or else be forcibly removed from the host in a manner to which the host objects. Whatever rights that the fetus may have necessarily conflict with those of the woman.
In this sense, the anti-choice movement is actually on better footing. To their advantage, they are able to use defined terms that are less ambiguous, and have a clear-cut philosophical approach in laying out their arguments. Of course, the burden is on them to prove that fetal rights trump those of us who have been born, and they do poorly with that. But at least they are clear about what their definitions are.
Regarding the separate arguments that allowing any state intervention is incompatible with libertarian principles, please note that libertarians are not anarchists
I'd put the brakes on the hyperbole right there. The stock libertarian argument articulated by the party leadership is that they want the government to just stay out of abortion.
There is nothing anarchistic about that. The dividing line for receiving rights is at birth, and that's when the state can begin to enter to moderate conflicts between individuals, as it might if terminating parental custody is necessary to protect the child, who at that point does have rights and is deserving of individual protection.
I agree with the libertarians here. There are some places that government does not belong, and this is one of them. The logic of viability is too loose and sloppy to make for good law. I used to support the viability argument myself, until I finally realized that it was more emotional than logical, and quite difficult to support without taking the sort of convenient short cuts that we have seen on this thread.
RW,
Can we distinguish? "Viability" isn't a terribly difficult thing to understand. It means that a fetus delivered at such-and-such a term of gestation has a good chance of surviving into what would be normal infancy. It means that there are born infants conceived at roughly the same time who are being treated as patients; who have all the rights of American citizens; whose deliberate destruction would rightly be prosecuted as murder.
There's a sense in which "One man's [!] viability may be another man's lack thereof," in that the earlier a premature baby is born, the greater the chance that it will be mentally or physically damaged. But you, frankly, seem more aggravated that the line before which premature infants always die continues to be pushed back.
So let's "define the terminology," yes? A fetus is "viable" if an infant born alive at equivalent gestation has survived. Or, if you prefer, if 10%, or 50%, of infants born alive at equivalent gestation have survived. (The latter definitions do involve the weird idea that there are "nonviable" infants alive among us, indeed showing up at high school reunions and the like; but you wanted a bright line; you draw it.)
The one thing we cannot do is peg viability to a certain point in gestation, because medical advances are going to move that line. You wanna say that a six-month fetus doesn't have a right to live, sure; but you can't say it's not "viable" when there are infants of the same gestational age alive and getting medical care.
It means that a fetus delivered at such-and-such a term of gestation has a good chance of surviving into what would be normal infancy.
This isn't quite so nice and neat if we can't agree on what "good" is, or on what heroic measures should or should not be taken in advancing that which is "good."
Conceptually, the idea behind viability is simple enough. In practice, reaching an accord on what it actually is, given circumstances like this, is far more difficult.
And again, completing that exercise still doesn't establish why it matters. You folks keep trying to weasel out of that, as if viability is a fait accompli that we should accept, just because.
In all honesty, if the following were true, I would think a murder conviction for some abortions would be ethical.
1. Sentence mins and max reduced to a percentage based on length of remaining term. Preferably 100% on the expected date of delivery, 0% at the 2/3 mark or somewhere in there. This is largely an attempt to recognize that by carrying the child this long the mother has already agreed to carry the child to term, and changing her mind is sort of a de facto contract violation.
2. Fetus has no serious defects.
3. Birth would cause no unusual difficulties for the mother. I'd be a hell of a lot more lenient with hemophiliacs for instance. Basically, medical self defense as the child is a threat to the mother. I'd set the bar low for this affirmative defense. If the doctor says so, you'd have to prove he was lying.
4. Early delivery is an option without significantly greater dangers than an abortion. If you are already doing a partial birth abortion for instance, I don't see how actually delivering the child would be a greater hardship, but I would accept any proof that I'm wrong about this. Sort of covered by 3.
5. Free coverage is available for an early delivery.
6. My big caveat... every government agent involved in investigating is honest and competent.
I think executing some murderers (actual murderers, not just convicted ones) is ethical, but I do not trust my government with that responsibility. Similarly, I would rather restrict it's ability to determine which abortions were and weren't legitimate. Since any sort of medical decision is inherently subject to different interpretations, I would find it difficult to support most specific abortion restrictions, while simultaneously thinking that some abortions really shouldn't be allowed. The cure would be worse than the disease. If you detect my opinion shifting while I wrote this, you may be right.
RW, you seemed to be claiming earlier that any attempt to interfere with abortion, since it promotes state intervention, was inherently non-libertarian. To the contrary, it is inherently non-anarchist, but is compatible with libertarianism, since libertarians do allow for state intervention in some cases. Furthermore, the statement "The dividing line for receiving rights is at birth..." is an assertion, and may be one of your personal principles, but it is not any more inherently libertarian than choosing conception as the dividing line, and the fact that some party leaders have done so doesn't change that.
RW,
Well, that's a debate that goes well past abortion politics. Evidently it's scandalous that some horrendous fraction of all medical care goes to people in their last X months of life. Obviously we could improve that stat enormously by not giving medical care to people who look likely to die soon. In the same way, we could move the "viability" line back towards 8 months' gestation if we just didn't bother trying to save more premature infants. I mean, we're talking "heroic measures" here, and heroism is so last millennium.
Well, not exactly "just because"; for one thing, the Supreme Court decided to put a line there. And for another, it does strike some folks as a little odd to find people -- American citizens -- receiving medical care in one part of a hospital when developmentally identical people -- call them potential American citizens -- are being methodically dismembered alive in another wing of the building as part of a "medical procedure."
you seemed to be claiming earlier that any attempt to interfere with abortion, since it promotes state intervention, was inherently non-libertarian.
I'm not "claiming" anything. It's in the Libertarian Party platform, posted on their website! "Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration."
Harry Browne, former presidential candidate for the party, said this:
The terms "pro-choice" and "pro-life" should be eliminated from any Libertarian's vocabulary. They give the wrong impression of what Libertarians believe...
...To one side we say: we will not let the government impose its way upon you.
To the other side we say: if you want to reduce abortions, there are much better ways than by depending on the government — because it will only disappoint you. Every day you spend trying to get the government to do something to reduce abortions is a day wasted, a day that could have been spent doing something effective about abortion — such as working for less-restrictive adoption laws, encouraging private educational efforts to show young women the alternatives to abortion, repealing the income tax so that parents can afford to spend time teaching their children the values that will minimize teenage pregnancies. Given the results of the government's War on Poverty and the War on Drugs, we can assume that a War on Abortion will lead within five years to men having abortions.
The more that this goes on, the more I see that a lot of self-described libertarians are really just Republicans in disguise, who want to reserve the right to complain whenever the GOP holds a majority. It's nice for the faux-libertarians to claim that they dislike government invading their privacy, until one of their pet causes is under threat.
RW -
RE: - "I'm not "claiming" anything. It's in the Libertarian Party platform, posted on their website! "
"The Libertarian Party", is not synonymous with "libertarian". What is or is not libertarian, is not defined by the libertarian party any more than what is or is not conservative is defined by the Republican party.
Um, you do realize that is the logical error of an appeal to authority, right?
And you do realize that you've yet to create an argument--that you are simply repeating your debatable assertions, correct?
My point, which you seem to be completely unable to understand, is that viability changes the fundamental relationship of the nature between the mother and the fetus.
This is verging on tragicomedy. You don't realize that you've just made a circular argument.
Right. Viability matters because viability matters. See, you need to actually explain and defend why it matters. You had better hurry, or else I'm going to play alter ego and start doing it for you.
Um, you do realize that is the logical error of an appeal to authority, right?
Er, no, you apparently don't comprehend this, either.
By stating the position of the Libertarian party, I am neither attacking nor defending it, nor am I using their position as some sort of validation of my views.
However, I am correcting those who erroneously believe that a position similar to mine isn't similar to the Libertarian platform, when it clearly is. Harry Browne and I are in agreement on this one, even if some of our motivations aren't quite the same.
If you think that Harry Browne is out of line, knock yourself out. I never claimed that he was an expert about anything aside from the details of his political party's platform. There was no "appeal to authority" error here, you simply misunderstood it (yet again.)
You can choose to agree or disagree with them, but don't misrepresent what their platform is. A Libertarian position is one that opposes state interference in the abortion process. They would avoid the touchy-feely lexicon of the "pro choice" movement, but of the two poles in the abortion debate, choice is the one to which they gravitate more closely.
RW,
I want to return to this one for a moment:
("Good" here meant good chance of survival; I was trying for a rough definition of viability.)
It seems as though, for you, the question of "viability" is inseparable from the chance a premature infant at equivalent gestation has of surviving, and what it would cost. And that in turn bears on what we ought to do for such premature infants when they are in fact spontaneously born early, rather than being still in utero.
To be blunt and rude about it: Do you consider a premature birth a de facto miscarriage unless and until some private party agrees to pay for the infant's care? Or is a small, desperately ill, living, breathing human being a thing that any hospital is duty-bound to try to keep alive at least in the short term, expense be damned?
Just because the platform of the Libertarian party says one thing, that doesn't automatically make a different contradictory thing incompatible with libertarianism, the belief system. Libertarianism isn't any more monolithic than any other set of philosophies sharing a common trait, allowing two mutually exclusive beliefs about some particular issue to nonetheless both be compatible with it. The official party platform is just a single subset of those beliefs. It is in no way anti-individualist to treat a developed fetus as an individual that also has rights. A fundamental weakness in an individualist system of rights is how you define individuals.
Furthermore, I was disagreeing with your premise rather than your conclusion.
Your response was a non-sequiter even if you didn't realize it. My point was that you attempted make the broad claim that any acceptance of state power in any situation is incompatible with libertarianism, and that this isn't true. If your premise was correct, then yes abortion would be inherently incompatible, but your premise was wrong. You attempted to draw on a false general statement, I called you on it, then you responded with a quote about a conclusion and utterly fails to rescue your argument. Even though the libertarian party says the government should stay out of this particular issue, they don't claim that supporting abortion control is inherently non libertarian. If you think they did, then re-read and reparse that quote again carefully.
I fairly certain you are smart enough to grasp this, so I'm starting to think you've been arguing in bad faith.
Just because the platform of the Libertarian party says one thing, that doesn't automatically make a different contradictory thing incompatible with libertarianism, the belief system.
I can think of no better representative of libertarian thought than the Libertarian party.
Furthermore, the party platform is consistent with the ethic: don't rely upon government, use logic rather than threat of force to change public opinion, keep the government out of privacy and medicine.
There are alleged libertarian arguments against abortion rights, but when you examine the details, they deviate pretty far from some of the basic tenets of the underlying belief system, as they involve far too much government involvement to be consistent with it.
As is the case with many labels these days, the libertarian brand has become almost hip among certain circles, with some peopel who don't really believe in it eager to call self-identify as such, even though they reject a lot of its precepts when it is convenient to do so.
It seems as though, for you, the question of "viability" is inseparable from the chance a premature infant at equivalent gestation has of surviving, and what it would cost.
No, I never did any such thing. What I did do was point out that nobody has agreed upon what it means, so you are quite presumptuous to utter your pronouncements when we haven't defined what we're talking about.
The first step it to develop a definition that has the sort of universality that it needs to have for your argument to have any validity. Apparently, we're nowhere close to getting there; we can't even sort out what requirements matter, and which ones don't.
That failure to achieve this should provide a strong hint that your argument has a long ways to go before you'll be ready to use it effectively. It is not nearly as straight forward as you claimed it to be, and once there, you're still going to have demonstrate why anyone should care.
Lets assume for the sake of argument, that your thought that there is no better representative of libertarian though than the LP is correct. It doesn't matter. It still doesn't mean that anything not in, or even the opposite of, some LP party platform plank, is actually anti-libertarian.
There are alleged libertarian arguments against abortion rights, but when you examine the details, they deviate pretty far from some of the basic tenets of the underlying belief system, as they involve far too much government involvement to be consistent with it.
If you assume the fetus has the moral status of an unimportant blob of cells, or perhaps a primitive animal. Not if you see it as a member of our species and assume it should be considered to have the general rights of humans.
Laws against, or at least enforcement of laws against, assault and battery, armed robbery, rape, murder, etc. also require a lot of government involvement.
Libertarian isn't necessarily minarchist, and even minarchist/watchman state principles don't require the government not enforce rules against killing humans.