(a) We have a system for resolving political disputes in this country. We elect people, and those people make laws. When those laws are within the limits set by the Constitution, they are binding. When not, a court can strike them down. When we want to, we can change the Constitution, though it is (rightly) rather difficult.(b) One inconvenient thing about democracies is that it is very, very unlikely that your own side will prevail all the time. You get a voice, but so does everyone else, and barring stupendous coincidences, this means that things won't always turn out the way you think they should.(c) It would be naive to think that you will lose only on unimportant questions. Governments make hugely consequential decisions all the time. Sometimes, these decisions lead to the killing of innocent people, in ways that you think are deeply wrong.(d) If anyone who believes the government had adopted a policy that would lead to the killing of innocent people is justified in killing people to stop this, then we might as well just decide not to have a government at all. During the Bush administration, half the country would have been justified in trying to assassinate the President and members of his administration. Any corporate executive who works for a company that does not adequately protect its workforce from poisoning or injury would have to watch her back. Etc., etc., etc.
(e) If you are committed to our form of government, you must leave some room between (1) the claim that some policy it adopts is wrong, even very wrong, and (2) the claim that you can kill people to prevent this wrong thing from happening.
Sure. As an empirical matter, I believe that national health care is going to kill a lot more people every year than the Iraq War when fully realized. Am I justified in shooting someone? No, both because the moral intuition attached to affirmative acts like abortion is different from the moral intuition attached to a sin of omission, like changing the health care system in such a way that its production of new life-saving drugs and techniques falls dramatically.
But more importantly, because it's the outcome of a legitimate political process in which I am a willing participant.
My argument is that abortion, like slavery, is becoming in this country an issue upon which people have no reasonable political recourse. I'll go further, and say that the process by which 7 judges enforced their consciences on the American public was itself borderline illegitimate; it was first, not in their proper job description, and second, a bad way to run a government.
Yes, in theory pro-lifers could pass an amendment. And in theory, the Palestinians have access to the political process too, as right wing blogs often point out--all they need to do is elect a coherent government that Israel is willing to negotiate with. Most Obsidian Wings posters and commenters don't have much trouble discerning that a sufficiently remote possibility of political access is not political access, and that the individual Israeli actions which might be justified in a democratic government acting on an enfranchised population, are problematic when Israel does them to the Palestinians. After all, we bulldoze peoples' homes, too--we just call it eminent domain.
Questions of fundamental human rights that have been closed off from the normal political process are very likely to produce violence. I can simultaneously, as I do, want Tiller's murderer given a long jail substance, and worry that we've left his fellow lone gunmen no other outlets for their legitimate moral beliefs.
Is it naive to think that the political process would tame this rage? I don't think so. The political process would always offer some marginal victory worth fighting for, whereas now, any marginal victory is more likely than not to be struck down by a court. But also, federalism would mean that most people would live in systems they found largely agreeable, assortative relocation being what it now is in America. And peoples' outrage is very much shaped by their local environment--notice that pro-lifers don't travel to Sweden to protest, or kill abortion doctors.
But, of course, that means tolerating more restrictions on abortion than we now have, some of them stupid restrictions, as government laws will be sometimes. If you are as convinced as the pro-life fringe of your moral position, then this is intolerable--far better to talk about sending armored brigades to escort abortion doctors to their work.
1. Your analogy to the Palestinians to back up your claim about abortion opponents not having any political recourse is spurious. Abortion opponents inability to get any amendments passed does not come from the fact that they, from the outset, aren't enfranchised and cannot get enfranchised on equal terms--the situation of the Palestinians as you outline it--but that they are enfranchised, but not enough people agree with them. They are holding a position that an ever growing (or at least fairly steady) majority of Americans don't agree with.
This does not make them an oppressed minority fighting for their rights--but merely a political faction trying to get an unpopular law passed. Resorting to murder to accomplish this goal is nothing like fighting for your ability to actually vote and have a say. They have had their say--but no one agrees with them.
They can have their heart-felt opinions--but they don't get to force you to agree with them based on fear or terror--that's called abuse, and they are abusing the system.
2. The Personhood issue was handled well by Hilzoy and Publius, I believe, with regard to any connection to point #1.
3. A better analogy for a group that has deep felt arguments about personhood, are enfranchised, but aren't likely to see their views accepted by the majority would be PETA or racist groups wanting to see the reimposition of Jim Crow laws. The PETA example raised over at obsidian wings is probably more similar in some ways--in that the general philosophical attempt to extend "personhood" in the form of greater rights to other animals is close to anti-abortion groups attempts to extend these rights to fetuses at an early stage of development (whereas racist groups want to restrict personhood rights to others). But in both cases, there would be no justification for either PETA or Racist groups to murder opponents committing sins aganist their beliefs (say--the president of Oscar Mayer or David Bowie and Iman(sp?)=interracial marriage) just because they stood little chance of getting their views passed in this country.
This is the justification you keep trying to defend. Intense passion doesn't not equal argument. Give it up.
This.
And furthermore, what would you suggest we do to appease* the anti-abortion terrorists?
*(not trying to make a Hitler reference, one could also say pacify, acknowledge, whatever. Seriously, what?)
I'm afraid I think you're just changing the terms to compare them to groups you're more comfortable vilifying, not that you've made a compelling argument for why they're more like the Klan than John Brown.
As for the personhood issue, Hilzoy and Publius say that they understand it, but they act like they don't understand it, as do you. If you accept the personhood of the fetus, over a million people are being legally murdered a year. This is not the same as wanting to put blacks back in their place.
Finally, you, like other Obsidian Wings commenters, seem not to have grasped the fact that *I am pro-choice*. But I'm trying to seriously grapple with the possibility of fetal personhood, rather than simply assuming it away. If you assume fetal personhood out of the argument, then obviously these people are simply crazy. But that's true of anything: if you assume that Palestinians, or Africans, are not persons, than slavery and colonialism and everything Israel does are not morally worrying. However, we've spent the last hundred years revising our society's previous repulsive beliefs on that score.
We get you're pro-choice.
tricstmr also understands that you are grappling with the personhood issue. That's not the main point. The main point is that terrorist violence is not the way to resolve that issue in a democracy, even if hundreds of thousands of abortions happen every year, and that comparing the anti-abortion movement to the Palestinians is absurd.
Pro-lifers have the vote, freedom of speech and assembly, and freedom of movement throughout the country. Palestinians have none of those. Saying that the Roe vs. Wade "judicial activism" is similar to their situation is ridiculous.
Roe may have been a Supreme Court decision, but it still consistently gets majority support in polls, and it changed little from the perspective of the anti-abortion terrorist (as abortion was legal in many states prior to the decision). I don't believe that for a second that overturning Roe would satisfy people like Tiller's murderer--radical terrorists everywhere will be satisfied by nothing less than 100% fulfillment of their agenda.
Wow. Why do we even have to discuss that "terrorism" is bad and not a solution? We all know this and agree. Just like torture is bad. Megan, I am sure, agrees.
She is, as far as I can tell, merely speculating about what type of social action can balance and will reduce overall confrontations for the better, for all, while not finding absolutes. If you are pro-choice yourself - there is not that match not to agree with in principle?
Of course there is a risk that making abortion less easy, for example, will lead to "no abortion at all" one day. But I doubt this is what Megan is suggesting. My hope as a pro-choicer is that making abortion more difficult but still legal - can lead to better prevention rather than treatment. We need more prevention and less treatment when it comes to a lot of things these days and there the pro-life and pro-choice crowds agree.
Moving in that direction together would calm some confrontation and please most on both sides?
PS: What bugs me about this - every time I state that hopefully people will start preventing more - I think of those "people" who prevent Africa from using condoms. The same pro-life people...
Megan,
I get that you are pro-choice. That doesn't mean that I cannot think that your arguments are ill-conceived.
As for villifying groups--I actually am not all that sympathetic to a number of elements of the palestinian cause--I think Ehud Barak handed them what they needed and they screwed it up--and I have sympathy for certain goals of PETA--even if they do go too far for me on various occasions.
Still, I find that your analogy fails because the "personhood" argument is not something that you can just "assume true" and see how that works out--any more than an argument between two people about whether the earth is 6000 years old should be debated on terms of "well, you're just not taking the argument that the earth is 6000 years old seriously." Such an argument is based on assertions--and to just give different assertions equal weight doesn't hold water. Yes, the personhood question is more complex than 6000 year old earth--because it involves a number of social factors like religious belief and ethical decisions and foundations--but that doesn't mean one has to be a complete relativist and say that it is an equal assertion with an equal footing for argument.
Those are the lines that I'm arguing on. The analogy to the palestinians fails on many different levels--fetuses and palestinians are not functionally the same--and their question of their personhood cannot and should not just be argued as if these functional differences do not exist.
tricstmr - Comparing the personhood argument to the 6000 year old earth argument implies that you are essentially assuming it isn't true, and not just false, but nonsense that doesn't even need to be really considered.. Well if you start with the default assumptions that the other sides arguments are such utter nonsense, and that they should not get equal weight in the political process with your ideas and arguments, well then gee you come to the conclusion that we don't need to pay attention to the other side, but that tautology doesn't actually take us anywhere, and those that disagree with it could reasonable call it "garbage in, garbage out".
My problem with your argument is that you are (or seem to be) working off the assumption that the personhood of the fetus is the ONLY point of argument. There is also (and as a man I hesitate to state this to a pro-choice woman) the question of how much control the woman has over what takes place in and with regard to her own body. If the only question is whether or not the fetus is a person then the argument is over because the very possibility that it might be should be enough to convince everyone that abortion should be illegal. But if you are also arguing over what control the woman has over the whole process, then you've got a real debate. To ignore the question of a woman's rights along with the rights of the fetus is to give up everything to the pro-life side. How you frame an argument determines what side you come down on, and to only discuss the question of fetal personhood is to argue only from the point of view of the pro-lifers, and therefore to lose.
SKycat - Re: "There is also (and as a man I hesitate to state this to a pro-choice woman) the question of how much control the woman has over what takes place in and with regard to her own body"
Of course there is. If it wasn't for that issue, than there wouldn't be much of a pro-choice argument. We could just stop the controversy by making abortion illegal. The mere recognition of the possibility of consideration of the fetus as a full human would be enough to do so.
But the central question is whether the fetus is deserving of human rights (is a person, or is a human being, or whatever standard or requirement you impose for deserving and getting the same natural and/or legal rights as other humans). If you assume the fetus has no such natural rights and should have no legal rights, then you don't need much of an argument about the woman's right to control her body, since there isn't any reason to outlaw abortion in the first place.
OTOH if you assume that the fetus does have natural rights and deserves legal protection, well then you have two bodies over which the woman is trying to exercise control. Assuming your dealing with the most common case in abortion, where the mother was not raped, and her life is not in any extreme danger than you have on of those bodies/lives who's life is at risk, and another who has much less at risk.
Nice, clarifying posts Megan. Worth the effort! I am pro-choice - just like you are. I too can understand why one can make an argument for making abortions less easy and keeping babies easier.
In the animal context - I believe that the vegan-slavery analogy works better than the vegan-abortion one. The only similarity to pro-lifer is that both desire a "complete end" but both would welcome steps in that direction.
Again - the problem here is that the animals we are discussing are not 8 weeks old and have no brain connections. They have the intelligence of a 3 year old human. And as we speak - they cannot turn around and have to sleep in their own excrements all their lives. But you know all this.
Wow. Just wow. Your further clarifications are not serving you well.
The ad hominems about Hilzoy, Publius, et al. "not getting it", however mildly phrased, are lame. They appear to understand, and empathize with, the moral outrage of anti-abortionists just as well as you do. They are definitively NOT "assuming fetal personhood out of the argument", as you claim, nor do they believe that belief in the personhood of a fetus is "crazy". This is pure mental projection on your part.
The "crazy" pejorative is in response to the belief that assassinations are a morally defensible response to what one views as an unjust, outrageous law. Radical anti-abortionists believe that if one cannot change the law 'de jure', it is permissible and worthy to use intimidation, violence, and murder to create a climate of fear to change the law 'de facto' (also known as "terrorism").
Unlike you, Hilzoy does not ad hoc postulate that the moral outrage of abortion prohibitionists is intrinsically more worthy than, say, the outrage of PETA members at the death of billions of intelligent mammals each year in slaughterhouses. You appear to do so without any structured logical reasoning.
The tenor of your writings on this subject appears to revolve around the novel idea of "grappling with the legalized slaughter of helpless people." Surprise! -- you are not the first pro-choice person to do this. Your responses are based on either a certain thickheaded misunderstanding of your critics, or else on designing poor straw man arguments that bypass the thrust of their commentary. In either case I find myself disappointed.
So, by your logic, if we have any pro-slavery holdouts, they are also justified to commit violence seeing as they have no real chance at overturning a result they don't like. Oh yeah and most of the decisions that ended slavery/Jim Crow were also decided by the court. Guess they're somewhat illegitimate too...
Regardless of one's personal opinions on abortion are, one thing is blindingly obvious: Your butt got schooled in this argument. Just admit you've lost and come right out and say it what you really mean: Democracy only works when you get the results you want.
You've sooooooo lost this argument.
"Your butt got schooled in this argument.Just admit you've lost... You've sooooooo lost this argument."
Note to liberal commenters: repeating the same thing over and over again, no matter how vehemently, does not make it true.
most of the decisions that ended slavery/Jim Crow were also decided by the court.
You're exactly right! The Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th and 14th amendments, the various Civil Rights Acts and the Voting Rights Acts have all been decided by the court.
PS - I personally would like to see late term abortions banned (with exceptions made for the mother's life and severe birth defects certain to leave the child with a short, painful life), but your argument is just ridiculous, it's just sad.
Do us all a favor and never write about this issue again. You're embarrassing us.
Just to be clear here, after 24 weeks, abortions have to be "medically necessary" already. That means the fetus is dead or non-viable, that the mother's health is at risk, or the pregnancy is the result of rape. Google it.
Now, some folks complain about what "mother's health", "non-viable", etc. mean, and I'm not going to get in to that here. But 3rd trimester abortion is *already extremely restricted* as a matter of policy.
As a matter of reality, after this assassination, it is extremely restricted, given that there are apparently exactly two doctors left in the country who perform them. Good luck getting one if you're poor.
granta - Your not being clear, your confusing the issue with mostly false points.
1 - "The pregnancy is the result of a rape", doesn't equal in reality or under the law "an abortion is medically necessary".
2 - After 24 weeks states are allowed to regulate, and to an extent prohibit abortions if the mother's health isn't at risk, but that doesn't mean they have to or that they all do.
3 - "The health of the mother" has been defined by the courts so broadly that its an almost total restriction on the state stopping abortions. "Health" includes a broadly defined "mental health" which becomes something like, "the mother can have an abortion if she really wants to, and is really stressed about it, or is willing to lie about how stressed she is."
As an empirical matter, I believe that national health care is going to kill a lot more people every year than the Iraq War when fully realized.
What? Really? What? I mean maybe if you take a particularly dim view of national health care and have a strong belief in American exceptional ism and American medical innovation as uncompensated gift to the world then maybe but doubtful, and then maybe if you don't count the Iraqis as people it would be much easier. And then if you count a man dying at 77 instead of 78 as the same as young man killed in the prime of life (which is admittedly the normal way to do it even if it doesn't make much sense) Still it seems to me that this position is pretty off the wall. As a simple matter of style I think it probably would have been helpful to use a less controversial belief so as not to distract from your actual point.
Specific outcome:
An increase in the annual U.S.
death (and injury) totals equal to
that produced by the Iraq war;
Same age, income, etc,
except for ~= M/F
Two postulated causes:
1) National Health Care
2) Government Motors automobiles
An aside, not as unrelated as it sounds:
During Gulf War I, the Russians sent
observers, because they did not believe
the U.S. could fight a war, and lose
less men than the Russians would during
an equivalent _war-game_.
Foody, Foody, Foody,
Don't you realize that you're playing Calvinball as a visitor?
The "empirical" is a fake, the "believe" is real. Sure, you can run all day pointing out superior longevity, general health, infant mortality & avoidable death statistics in every rich country that has single payer vs the US - it won't matter. Nor that all this is achieved at much lower cost per capita.
There is no chance on this world that Megan will EVER absorb facts that contradict her belief system. None, Zip, fuggedaboutit.
PS--I'm with Awesom0. I'm pro-choice for the most part, but I think abortion is almost always the lesser of two evils, and late term abortions are pretty damn evil--so only in cases like Awesom0 mentions--where the competing evil is greater--should they be available.
I'm not sure where I read it, but I believe it was on Obsidian Wings. They had excerpts from a story about Operation Rescue, and the guy who headed the effort against the doctor who was shot. I believe he moved to Kansas for the specific reason of protesting this guy. These people are fanatical, and I don't doubt they would move to the places in the US where it's legal for the sole purpose of protesting there.
I'm unclear how the Palestinian Arabs are denied access to the political process. They seem to be holding elections and getting the government a majority approve. That the government is unwilling to even recognize the right of Israel to exist isn't the fault of Israel or the international community.
(b) One inconvenient thing about democracies is that it is very, very unlikely that your own side will prevail all the time. You get a voice, but so does everyone else, and barring stupendous coincidences, this means that things won't always turn out the way you think they should.
*
This is hilariously obtuse -- a total non sequitur. The political problem with abortion is quite simply that it has not been resolved, in any way, shape, or form, by a democratic process. The pro-life side doesn't get a voice. The issue was instead resolved by a Court which was so divorced from the social reality of the society they were judging that they -- according to many reports -- didn't realise that huge numbers of people would be shocked, disgusted, and horrified by their decision.
I dispute this. The backlash to Roe v. Wade (1973) did not occur until years later. Paul M. Weyrich, one of the founders of the Religious Right, among others stated that there was little discussion of the abortion issue among conservative Christians until around the time of the rise of the Moral Majority in 1979. (Which, btw, was created in response to federal attempts to revoke the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones Univesity, over its discriminatory policies.)
In fact the 1971 Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution that stated, "we call upon Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother."
So this claim about huge numbers of people being "horrified" is true only in that it occurred once there was an organized Conservative Movement to constantly harp on the issue for political purposes. (Abetted by the advancing technology that gave a greater sense of the humanity of a developing fetus.)
Many pro-choice advocates wish Roe could be "stricken from the record", to make way for a Constitutional amendment that would allow the silent majority to institute a baseline of abortion rights and allow for state/local decisions in the grayer areas.
People who want to criminalize abortion except where it may save the life of a mother are, have been, and always will be a minority in this country.
I am with you on this. Sure terrorism and political violence is always wrong, legally and morally. However, the practical reality is that if you take a emotionally loaded issue outside the democratic process by resolving it by court decision, the people who feel passionate about that issue are going to feel trapped and hopeless, and feeling trapped and hopeless is a breeding ground for extremism. We can condemn extremists and radicals all day long, but as long as we create conditions perfect for growing extremism we are going to get extremism.
Abortion opponents inability to get any amendments passed does not come from the fact that they, from the outset, aren't enfranchised and cannot get enfranchised on equal terms--the situation of the Palestinians as you outline it--but that they are enfranchised, but not enough people agree with them.
All of our laws should come from the Supreme Court. If we don't agree with them, we can show our enfranchisment by passing a Constitutional amendment with a 2/3 majority in both houses and ratification by 3/4 of the states.
And if the supreme court doesn't like our amendment, they can always reinterpret it in ways we never foresaw to keep us from doing too much harm.
This way all citizens can fully share in the experience of enfranchisment according to your definition, not just pro-life groups.
tricstmr:
I think you misunderstand Megan's argument. Sure, the pro-life people could pass a constitutional amendment. But most blooded political operatives will tell you that it's effectively impossible - which is Megan's exact point. Pro-lifers have passed laws with clear majorities at the state and local level which were casually swatted down by the judiciary. The fact that I agree with the result doesn't change the fact that the process violates our deep seated social expectation of how a fair political process should be run.
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.
Another example, consider the ERA. Which didn't pass. Did women's groups hang it up and go home? No, they fought the good fight at the local, state and federal level - by passing laws, lobbying, and basically using the democratic process. This is how it should be. And it's an avenue that pro-life groups have been consistently denied.
Rhinoman,
I undertand the flipside, and it does make me think. But the argument has two differences.
1. The situation would have to be that 60% of the country was opposed to abortion--which makes the situation very different than "IF ONLY THE USSC WOULD GO AWAY, WE WOULD WIN!" which is what you are describing. That context is very different.
2. I might be pissed, but I wouldn't go out and shoot supreme court justices for it. I would fight it through legal means.
Are you advocating that I would be justified in shooting people in the reverse case?
One thing that amazed me when I first learned it, is that the power of judicial review was not granted to the SCOTUS by the constitution. They just sort of gave it to themselves at the first available opportunity, which seemed like a pretty big breach of the whole checks and balances system.
Megan, even if I accepted your terrible analogies (and really, Hitler? Palestine? No. For whatever reason, you really are just being inflammatory), your 'no recourse to the political process' argument is a silly one. Let's begin by agreeing that by your logic, any number of fringe positions that people hold with deep moral certitude may be said to 'not have recourse to the political process'. That's the point of 'fringe'. They do not share the opinions or the moral convictions of the majority.
However, you protest, anti-choice nutjobs are a more prevalent fringe sector than other weird ideologies, and they hold their moral beliefs more firmly. Okay. Let's be extraordinarily generous to the anti-choice movement. Let's suppose that FULLY 1/2 the population is an anti-choice nutjob (obviously this is unreasonable, as if this were the case, they wouldn't have recourse to the 'no recourse to politics' argument). The other half, let's say, are pro-choice nutjobs. In this case, in the absence of actual legislation or referenda, we should err ANYWAY on the side of the pro-choice group. Why? Because in a democracy, you generally try to err on the side of the greatest freedom for your citizens. Your actual, voting citizens, not your potential citizens in some later time if all goes well and biology or the inevitable abortion black market does not intervene. And in this case, allowing choice is erring on the side of greater freedom and less interference for all concerned. Women get to make the difficult choices about their own health, religious nuts get to choose not to have abortions and to try and convince their friends and neighbors not to have abortions. They can even picket clinics if they choose. And if they become murderous terrorists, we call them that instead of making goofy arguments about recourses to democracy when they have a recourse to democracy.
Objectively, anti-choice nutjobs have successfully convinced legislatures to require women to have a sonogram, require teens to seek parental approval, require women to wait for a period of time before actually undergoing the procedure, and require doctors not to perform the procedure after a certain period of a pregnancy. Talk to me about 'no recourse to democracy' when anti-choice nutjobs haven't democratically accomplished things that help them achieve their goals. Then maybe I'll listen. I'll still think the argument is silly, but at least then the reality-based universe won't be arguing against you.
Because in a democracy, you generally try to err on the side of the greatest freedom for your citizens. Your actual, voting citizens, not your potential citizens in some later time if all goes well
So we should have erred in favor of allowing white citizens the freedom to enslave, rape and lynch black "potential citizens if all goes well"?
I'm pro-life, and there's no way I can see justifying anti-abortion violence.
With that said, my belief is one that I normally associate with conservatives -- that there is no need to address the "root causes" of terror because terror should always everywhere be understood as an illegitimate weapon. (With the possible exception of when committed consistent with the rules of war by the US Military or other liberal powers).
I don't think the Palestinians are a crazy analogy. Presumably, you have some Palestinians who deeply want to engage in terror, some who sincerely believe terror is wrong but have at best a limited ability to stop it, and some who don't care. You don't want to foreclose the possibility of peace with the last two groups, OR to reward the first group, and it's not 100% clear that you can reconcile both goals.
Abortion protesters are politically disenfranchised, practically speaking -- I get that point.
But they're not impotent. Their goal doesn't have to be making abortion illegal -- it should be reducing abortions. And while, sure, one way to do that is to stage protests and threaten abortion doctors, other ways would include promoting safe-sex education; helping create a faster but still safe adoption process; building a reputation as people to come to for a thoughtful, empathetic discussion of the choice to abort or not to; and providing financial and medical aid to people for whom abortion was the most viable choice.
I'm sure there are abortion-protest groups who do some of this, but they're not the face of the movement. And the people who are the face of the movement are doing very little to win the hearts-and-minds aspect of the argument. To say they've been forced by a lack of political power to consider terrorism as an option ignores the fact that there's a lot of things they could have done to get closer to their goal that they haven't.
If there were any good evidence that promoting contraception availability and sex eduction in the United States would substantially reduce abortion, then you would be right. But the effects seem to be extremely marginal. Consider this: a majority of abortions are obtained by women who have two or more. Yet, as I understand it, the women's centers that provide abortions pair them with one-on-one education about how not to have this happen again. They also give condoms away, and provide the Pill at a sliding scale. Giving condoms away in school doesn't even reduce teen pregnancy that much. The problems in America are neither awareness of birth control's existence, nor the monetary cost of the birth control.
Fair enough, and ignore my comment of 10:08. (I still think the abortion-protest crowd mostly sucks pretty hard on the hearts-and-minds side of things, and that this is Very Bad for Their Cause.) Thanks for giving me something to think about.
That is to say: There are plenty of marginal victories worth fighting for that you can fight for outside of the political process. How hard are abortion protesters fighting for them?
Many people and groups are fighting for them; you just don't ever hear them interviewed or featured in the MSM. (Feminists for Life is one group; Ross Douthat has done some writing on how passionate pro-lifers can try to compromise in order to see a reduction in abortions rather than fight for a ban.) But when the media wants quotes and profiles, they focus on the most extreme edge of the pro-life movement. They give the most inflammatory quotes, provide the most drama, and the MSM profits. Meanwhile, the people who aren't at either exteme on this issue don't get much voice in the shouting match.
And great job, Megan, in honestly trying to wrestle with a challenging moral issue and policy issue.
other ways would include promoting safe-sex education; helping create a faster but still safe adoption process; building a reputation as people to come to for a thoughtful, empathetic discussion of the choice to abort or not to
Couples who adopt unrelated children are similar to moderate pro-lifers, and I expect there's a large overlap: Christian and socially conservative. Anyone involved in an adoption wants a faster (but stil safe) process, though I suspect not many have actively campaigned for it, partly because it's *hard* - there are reasons (and a horror story) for pretty much every stumbling block, and the main opponent is inertia.
Pro-life groups have tried to set up counseling and support centers for pregnant women who feel that abortion is their only realistic choice, but the pro-choice movement wages a relentless campaign against them, trying to close them down, or failing that, prevent them from getting funding that would go to any similar effort not invovled in abortion.
Anna S.
No, they don't have recourse to democracy. The legality of abortion has been determined by the USSC, not by the voters. Don't you get that?
I agree with the decision, vehemently. As I've posted before, I think there should be a government supported clinic, offering free birth control and abortions, on every fifth street corner.
What you need to realize is that process can be as important as result. The ends do not always justify the means. You can impose the "right answer" by judicial fiat, but you will feel the blowback. Which is what we've been experiencing for the last 30+ years.
Democracy is important. People need to feel that the political system is valid. When they start losing faith, the system begins to fray. Look around the world, it's not hard to find nations with no faith in their political systems. It's not a pretty picture. You probably didn't like Bush v. Gore, imagine that feeling for the last three decades.
You also need to realize that just because you passionately believe that your opponents are wrong, that doesn't mean that they are, or that they don't have a valid complaint.
The real test of being open-minded is: can you convincingly make the case that you disagree with? I had a teacher in high school who would start these kind of debates, and then assign us to write a paper defending the position we disagreed with (we were strictly graded on how well we did it). It was a very educational experience, and really made me think. Could you do this? Could you take the viewpoint of a pro-lifer, and rationally and convincingly defend it? If not, why not? (They're Just Wrong isn't a valid response). That's what Megan is trying to do. I've done it. Try it. You'll still be pro-choice, but you'll probably be a lot less shrill.
To take a different angle on Megan's point, there is a profound sense of injustice and disenfranchisement felt by upwards of 60 million people in this country (who see in their country approximately 1 million legally sanctioned and industrialized murders per year). But, the fact that there have been 9 confirmed anti-abortion murders since RvW* (most of which were committed by psychopaths) suggests to me that it is wrong to extrapolate the Tiller murderer's vigilantism beyond the case at hand. Even if it means holding back on pillorying O'Reilly.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#Incidents_in_the_United_States
JMann,
No, they're not impotent. Nobody's really impotent, it's an issue of where you channel your energies.
The whole reason we have a political system is to defuse these issues in a way that we can solve them peacefully. But the people who have to buy into it are the losers. We, as Americans, are all very well conditioned that if you lose a majority vote, them's the breaks, you pick up and fight for the next vote. We accept that. Look at elections around the globe, this isn't universal. The amount of political turmoil in the country is very, very low given the passionate debates that we have. Because we believe in the democratic system. We don't always like it, but we believe in it.
The beauty of this is, for people with a passionate belief, they can work towards winning an election - raise money, knock on doors, run meetings, recruit candidates, run campaigns, lobby representatives, and the like. This is where activists should channel their energies.
But, if you systematically an arbitrarily deny a this avenue to a powerful and passionate constituency, they will find other ways. Which is the problem.
(And, yes, they are hypocrites. Along with every other activist group in the country. Pointing this out is accurate, but irrelevant and unhelpful)
Rhinoman,
I'm not sure I disagree, but surely there are some areas where we do deny enfranchisement of a majority but less than a supermajority.
If it turned out that a group of extreme Catholics was willing to kill people who made P*ss Christs or D*ng Madonnas, I wouldn't argue that we should remove the first amendment, just so that they could know they could limit speech with a smaller majority and maybe settle down.
I disagree with the assertion that abortion opponents are uniquely disenfranchised. The court is part of the process, and it sometimes makes decisions which some people regard as outrageous, illegitimate, etc. Bush v. Gore and Brown v. Board of Education both fall into this category, as does Roe v. Wade. You may (or may not) be right in asserting that the court got it wrong, but if you accept the system then you have to accept the court's rulings also, until you can pass a law to change them.
Another point on disenfranchisement - there just aren't that many people who feel strongly against abortion. If as many people were as anxious to stop abortion as are anxious to collect their social security payments, abortion would be long gone. This is a classic example of a strongly held minority opinion. An opponent can try to convince more people, or can decide that they can no longer accept a government that allows abortion and engage in civil disobedience (violent or nonviolent), but "unfair" doesn't apply.
peterg,
"part of the process" arguments miss the point. The whole issue here is that you cannot pass a law to counteract a USSC decision. You can do a constitutional amendment, but it's effectively impossible.
Read Megan's latest post - if the supreme court ruled the other way on Roe.
Really think about it. How would you feel?
And, I agree, there aren't that many people who feel strongly against abortion. So what's the problem? Let's put it up for a vote. Seriously, if it were democratically decided, I think it would be legal almost everywhere. They do this in Europe, and there's a patchwork of laws in different areas. Works for them.
"My argument is that abortion, like slavery, is becoming in this country an issue upon which people have no reasonable political recourse . . . Questions of fundamental human rights that have been closed off from the normal political process"
Ms. McArdle, I believe this is the crux of most readers' disagreement. I don't see any evidence that there is "no political recourse" or that abortion "has been closed off from the normal political process."
Far from it. Roe V. Wade has been amended in the Supreme Court, state legislators have enacted restrictions. The US Congress has had 35 years, including the 2002-2006 period of total Republican control, to pass abortion legislation (which it chose not to do).
What I do see evidence of, is that the most ardent anti-abortion believers won't accept this outcome, and every few years one of them resorts to violence.
They may believe they have no reasonable political recourse. They may believe they have been closed off from the political process. But the truth is, they lost. Even when allied with the Republican party, they failed to achieve their goal.
On the practical question of whether or not pro-lifers have adequate access to the political system to change the law, it might be helpful to remember that there is a political party in this country that has had overturning Roe v. Wade as part of its platform for 30 years. Just because political leaders failed in (or failed to live up to) their stated purpose doesn't mean one is disenfranchised or lacks a clear voice in the process. It might mean that a person needs to find better candidates for office. It also probably means that Roe v. Wade isn't as incongruent with the majority of people's beliefs as some would like to think.
Of course, we should not forget all the successes pro-lifers have had through the legislative process and judicial process in constricting access to abortions. Thirty-six states have banned late term abortions, several states have informed consent laws, most states have some form of age limitation, and there are conscience clauses for medical workers. We should also not forget how close we came in early 1990s to overturning Roe v. Wade. If Souter does't shock the world in Planned Parenthood v. Casey and turnout to be judicially conservative (deference to precedent) rather than a movement conservative, which most people figured he would be, than the shoe would be on the foot here and pro-choicers would be trying to change precedent. Failure to change law or judicial precedent does not mean that one side doesn't have access, it means that the political process worked. Its the people who can't or won't understand that that Megan rightly points out could pose a problem for society.
The big "if" is in (e), isn't it?
"(e) If you are committed to our form of government..."
I'm not sure that people are anymore, largely because point (a) is grossly over-simplified.
The fact of the matter is that our government has grown so large that it's hard to say just who makes the laws, and what those laws are. Nobody can seem to keep up anymore. What is this "form of government?"
The most basic proof of this is taxation. How hard does the government (at all levels) try and hide all of the taxes it's collecting? Gasoline, cigarette, alcohol, etc. taxes are buried in the price. Taxes on your telecommunications are nearly impossible to decipher. Many taxes are referred to as "fees."
Etc.
Why? Because in many cases taxes are levied by people we didn't vote for - which flies in the face of point (a). They are, instead, levied by people APPOINTED by people we voted for. Or appointed by appointees of people we voted for.
And what about other rules and regulations that "our elected representatives" enact? Do we all really agree that they are doing this for our own benefit? Do we even agree that they know what they are doing?
Can I own a handgun or can't I? Well... that depends on where I live, and who I am, and what my neighbors say, or what my non-neighbors living 300 miles away in the state capital say, or what people in the nation's capital say. If you believe some Supreme Court justices, it even depends upon Austrian and Japanese legal precedents.
I don't recall voting in Japan or Austria.
Is that too complex or polarizing? Let's make it really simple: fishing.
In my state, when can I fish? Where can I fish? What fish can I keep? Can I use bait? Is some bait excluded, like canned corn? Can I use a net?
And we're talking about FISHING. Who votes for these rules? Did my congressman - or even my State Representative - vote about how many perch I'm allowed to eat?
Still too polarizing? Let's go with building a shed in my backyard.
Assuming that it's my own property, why do I have to ask permission to build a shed? And why do I have to pay to have it inspected when nothing is going to live in it? Other than me, whose business is it if the roof leaks and my lawnmower gets wet? Or if the floor is just dirt and not a nice deck built out of pressure treated lumber?
Abortion is the tip of a very large iceberg called "disenfranchisement," and Megan is right in pointing out that it goes both ways.
We have allowed our governments to become way, WAY too large, and our rights have eroded to far beyond where they should have.
"My argument is that abortion, like slavery, is becoming in this country an issue upon which people have no reasonable political recourse. I'll go further, and say that the process by which 7 judges enforced their consciences on the American public was itself borderline illegitimate; it was first, not in their proper job description, and second, a bad way to run a government."
"No reasonable political recourse" is strong language. It implies a breakdown in the social contract, and a justification for unreasonable behavior because one side of an ongoing political debate feels that it lacks "reasonable political recourse." It implies, and rather more than implies, that violence is explicable and perhaps even justifiable because those who cannot persuade their neighbors have no other choice.
It is a ghastly argument to make in this context.
I would point out that unilaterally declaring that one's own side lacks reasonable political recourse" and withdrawing from the political process in favor of violence essentially permits anyone who likes to resort to terrorism, simply by saying that they can't get a fair shake. Welcome to the Weather Underground, Ms. McArdle. You're using the same shabby logic they did. Or, at least, you talk like a shallow 1970s liberal defending the Weather Underground.
If John Brown had no reasonable political recourse, how was Abraham Lincoln elected? Your analogy is wrong even in its facts. John Brown was a terrorist too, and he did not free the slaves. Politics did. (The Confederacy seceded because they, too, believed they had no reasonable political recourse, as if the bloc of Southern senators would have no voice at all. They were also wrong.)
As for "borderline illegitimate" ... was it or wasn't it? If you're going to make the case that an illegitimate Supreme Court decision has rendered the political process moot, make that case. If it hasn't, don't say that it almost has. If the question is whether or not the pro-life movement has political recourse, there is no "almost." They have either been included in the process (however difficult the result they desire might be to achieve) or they do not. And as for the "bad way to run a government," the question of whether one agrees with the finding is Roe v. Wade or not is distinct from the question of whether it was lawful.
(One might believe that Gore v. Bush was a borderline illegitimate decision, bad as law and outside the Court's job description, and nonetheless recognize Bush's legal authority as President from 2001-2005. One might call him illegitimate, but no leftists opted out of the political process or denied the authority of the executive branch, let alone took any violent action.)
I'm not sure that I'd say that politics freed the slaves. Violence did.
Remember, the Emancipation Proclamation didn't free a *single* Northern Slave. Ask the slaves who lived in Delaware or Maryland whether the Proclamation had any impact on their lives.
The Proclamation was, in fact, a combination of weapon and propaganda.
Just ask the "free" blacks who Sherman left to suffer as he carved his way through Georgia. They weren't free for long, that's for sure, regardless of what Mr. Lincoln said.
It was the 13th Amendment that freed slaves, nationally.
But not John Brown's violence.
Yes, you're right about the Proclamation, which was a weapon of war. But the Union did not start a war to free the slaves. The Republican presidential candidate won, the Confederacy seceded, and then Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter.
To discuss the Civil War as a justification for political violence misses that point, that the abolitionists did not start a war in order to free the slaves. It was the slave-holding movement that opted out of the political process when they had a setback. The abolitionists were not the ones who abandoned politics and turned to violence in 1861.
To imagine that more progress would have been made if the abolitionists took up arms earlier is to miss all of that crucial detail.
But on your final point: was the 13th Amendment not politics?
Was it? Or was it thuggery?
Remember, the US Congress wasn't "reconstructed" when the 13th Amendment was proposed by a joint congress. Thus the Amendment itself was born from only the Union, and not the Confederacy. The congressmen for the confederate states were essentially appointees of the North.
And while it's true that the various state assemblies *did* ratify this amendment, who were these "representatives?" Are these the same politicians who were voted in, antebellum? Hardly. These various state assemblies and senates all met with armed Union Troops of Occupation standing just outside their doors - or perhaps in their very chambers.
Slavery was decided at gunpoint, and not at the ballot box. The 13th Amendment tries to put lipstick on it, but facts are facts: slaves weren't emancipated in the USA via any fair definition of politics (unless you believe Bismark's definition of War).
I'm not sure that it matters much as to who decided that political pathways had failed. The fact is that one side felt that they had no recourse short of bloodshed on a scale that this country has never seen before, and hopefully will never see again.
A reason there is no reasonable political discourse is because the pro-life movement does not acknowledge the moral position that is pro-choice; ie. the age old enslavement of women in the bringing of children to life and taking the responsibility for raising them. While a great majority of the pro-choice populace understands quite well the moral ambiguity of abortion, the pro-life movement appears absent to any understanding of the moral imperitive for choice. This stance goes back to the first Puritans landing in America and stealing an Indian cache of food without even considering the humanity of those from whom they were stealing, all the while claiming for themselves the agency of creating a new Eden.
A second reason is because the conservative movement in the US has relied on abortion being when all else fails the single most significant wedge issue for decades, and now that there is a President in office is unlikely to nominate judges to the Supreme Court who will overturn Roe v. Wade, the conservative movement in its desperation has fallen to the will of its worst demons. If a culture of life were the real issue, and on Biblical grounds, then the death penalty and war (I have not noticed that there has been an exception to the thou shalt not kill commandment or a blessed be the war mongers element in the Sermon on the Mount) would be issues as fastly held to. Global climate change, which may potentially have far more blood on its hands than all the abortion in the world, and overpopulation, which arguably led to the genocide in Rwanda would have the same moral force. But such is not the case.
Abortion is the most widely demagogued issue in America, and that is why we cannot have a discussion about it. This is problematic for the nation, morally problematic for conservatives, who continue to believe that extremism in defense of (what they define as) liberty is no vice.
CitizenE - Re: A reason there is no reasonable political discourse is because the pro-life movement does not acknowledge the moral position that is pro-choice; ie. the age old enslavement of women in the bringing of children to life and taking the responsibility for raising them.
I think you mean to say "the moral position that is pro-life, calling the pro-life position enslavement of women etc.
I'll proceed with that assumption, since if you don't mean that I your comment doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
Again I would say its really an issue of whether the fetus has natural rights and properly has legal rights. If it does. If as a human being (even if a very undeveloped one) it should legally be considered a person, then there is no issue of enslaving women (except perhaps for rape victims and that's debatable as well), because forbidding you from killing someone else isn't enslaving you. And if that someone else is dependent on you and using you, its still not enslavement if you put them in that situation (which would be the case if the pregnancy resulted from consensual sex).
A second reason is because the conservative movement in the US has relied on abortion being when all else fails the single most significant wedge issue for decades
No more so then the liberals have made it a wedge issue.
It is about a woman's control over her body. This has always been the bottom line for me. And no, I don't believe the government should have any say in the issue.
Megan, I just don't find your argument credible that pro-lifers have no political recourse. Just six months ago, we had a Republican administration that appointed two highly conservative Supreme Court justices during its tenure. There are now 4 justices on the Court that would probably be delighted to overturn Roe vs Wade. Getting close! If McCain had won in November and Souter made the decision to retire anytime between now and 2012, there would be a serious risk of Roe vs Wade being overturned in short order. If I was a pro-life activist, I would be focused on electing a GOP presidential candidate in 2012, and I would feel that a big victory was well within reach.
Good point, although I think Megan was talking about the present situation. The notion that abortion should be decided by which president wins the election and gets to appoint the crucial fifth vote underscores how miguided the Roe decision was to seize power on the issue of abortion.
I'm not so sure about that four justices point. The four would almost certainly have not have imposed Roe vs. Wade if it was a current court issue with no previous relevant court history (or even no relevant history past Griswald), but I don't think its at all clear that all four or even a majority of them would actually vote to overturn it now. Erode it on the edges maybe, but a full scale reversal isn't a lock, and wouldn't even seem particularly likely.
If McCain had won, Souter would probably have been replaced by a relative moderate. McCain isn't a particularly strong conservative, and also the Dems would still have won control of congress.
@ RobM1981:
It matters who abandoned the political process because you make a claim that the exclusion of the Confederates de-legitimizes the politics of the 13th Amendment. But that exclusion, and the violence immediately preceding it, results from their own abandonment of political resolutions and taking to arms.
I think Reconstruction did involve a lot of "thuggery" as you put it, but the example you mention is not a problem. That the Confederate states did not immediately regain a full say in the government they had renounced does not shock me.
And it also matters who abandoned the political process because Megan is making the analogy to a specific side, the abolitionist side, abandoning the ballot box. (The anti-slavery movement did not abandon the ballot box; they won the Presidency.) Brown, who turned to violence to free the slaves, failed. The widespread turn to violence was taken in *defense* of slavery, and Lincoln, who had won a peaceful electoral victory through political means, was dragged into the war.
But my larger point is this: since, as you say, the abandonment of the political process was so devastating, why is Megan talking about pro-lifers lacking "reasonable recourse" within that process? Why suggest that pro-lifers should even consider abandoning a political approach to their goals?
Every time I check out this blog, I have to wonder how Megan ever got this job. I mean, most of the commenters here are more intelligent and reason better and write better than she does. Megan's way over her head in any discussion among intelligent readers.
Megan McArle wrote
I think Megan ignored/forgot important parts of Hilzoy's argument. Specifically, this one:
The war in Vietnam produced massive casualties , many of whom were innocent civilians. A whole lot of lives were at stake. Despite that, I think the Weather Underground was wrong. Because the fact that lives are at stake is not enough to justify giving up on democracy.
So far, everything Megan said could be used to defend (or, at least, empathize with) the actions of The Weather Underground. In fact, members of TWU were much more justified in their actions, since they didn't intend to murder people with their bombings.
Oh, and there are no doubts about Vietnamese or American soldiers personhood.
Megan didn't say that Tiller's killer was right, or what he did was acceptable. She said he should go to jail. Her point was not to praise or even tolerate him (or the Weather Underground), but to point out that excluding one side from the political process makes such violence more likely, and otherwise is generally not a desirable thing.
Also the Weather Underground analogy is a bit faulty because the anti-Vietnam war cause was not excluded from the normal political process, and in fact eventually the idea had enough political support to cause the Americans to pull out, and even to stop air support, or even simple resupply to the forces for the Republic of Vietnam.