…and this is a 
We're all Dakotans
Category: Reproduction
Posted on: February 25, 2006 7:06 PM, by PZ Myers
Just a thought…but you know, my town isn't far from the South Dakota border, and there really isn't that much difference between my neighborhood and that of some small South Dakota town 50 miles away. I think the piggish prigs who are pushing the legislation to criminalize abortion are contemptible, but does that mean we people of the progressive state of Minnesota are any better? That got me wondering—I'm a fully entitled, blissfully unaware, card-carrying member of the Patriarchy, after all, so I've never had to consider what it would be like to be female, 17, and worried that I might be pregnant.
I tried to imagine it.
I can get a pregnancy test kit from the Pamida down the road. I'd feel a bit weird about it, though: this is a small town. We know everyone and they know us, and those are high school and college kids working the cash registers there. Everyone is going to know about it if I buy one…I suppose I could try shoplifting it, but jeez, if I got caught shoplifting a pregnancy test, I might as well just die.
If I somehow got the test and it were positive, the next step would be difficult. There is a sign on the edge of town here that purports to be helpful— it says "Pregnant? Need advice?" with a phone number on it—but it's put up by some of the local religious wackos, and all they'll do is tell you to keep the baby and slap you upside the head with a Bible, so they certainly aren't to be trusted.
The phone book isn't much help. I wouldn't trust the Morris hospital either…locals again, and they have a reputation for being very conservative. They don't do abortions anyway. The nearest Planned Parenthood clinic is 45 minutes away, they don't do abortions either, but they do provide emergency contraception…except that they're only open on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. WTF? Do a lot of people get knocked up on Monday and Tuesday nights or something?
As it turns out, the only abortion providers in Minnesota are all in Minneapolis. Three hours away, by car; to get there by bus requires a shuttle to Alexandria, then taking Greyhound the rest of the way. It isn't easy, and it isn't cheap. Once there, though, there's more. Minnesota has a parental notification law, so at least one parent has to come along, and the other has to send along a notarized letter granting permission. Then there is a state-mandated 24 hour waiting period: at the first appointment, they have to counsel the person against getting an abortion, and can only do the procedure the following day…as if a young lady who has had to struggle that much just to get there hasn't already thought things through thoroughly. Spending a night in the Big City is going to cost.
Did I mention that the procedure itself is going to cost $500+?
I'm beginning to realize that the only young women who will be able to get abortions in my part of the state are the ones with a supportive family, or who are old enough and prosperous enough that they can afford the rigamarole and hassle. The ones who are going to be most distressed by a pregnancy, who are least able to cope with it, are the ones who are going to be excluded.
I'm feeling a bit ashamed of being a male and not having thought much about this before. That little Y chromosome does confer some privilege in this regard, and it seems petty and cruel that we should so unthinkingly impose a greater pain on those who have already had more than their share.
Right now, a few scrofulous boars in South Dakota have raised their snouts and squealed loudly, asserting their selfish rule over women, and it's easy to condemn them. But there are only about 750,000 South Dakotans, so most of us don't live there anyway; it seems to me that maybe what we ought to be doing is also looking to our own states' laws on abortion. Our pigs might be a little more muted, but they've been busy for years, planting a lot of little restrictions that add up to a substantial hurdle.
"I think the stars are aligned," said House Speaker Matthew Michels, a Republican. "Simply put, now is the time."
Maybe he's right. Maybe now is the time to wake up and do something about this everywhere, not just South Dakota.
Here's an interesting tidbit: South Dakotans disapprove of the law by a large majority. How do these morons get elected?
Comments
I'm not sure that it's a case of *unthinkingly* imposing even more pain on girls/women who get or want to get abortions. I don't even think it's really about abortion, I think it's about punishing girls for having sex because sex is bad (except for the guy involved, of course). Therefore the abortion should be punishment, and the purpose of refusing abortion would also be to punish the mother-to-be.
And since Minnesota has a parental consent law for minors, how progressive of a state could we really be talking about? As an outsider, it seems to me that Minnesota is just South Dakota minus the steroids.
Posted by: Joe | February 25, 2006 7:47 PM
That was my point: Minnesota has a reputation as a reasonably progressive state, but even here these restrictive laws are creeping in. South Dakota is just a bit more blatant about it.
Posted by: PZ Myers | February 25, 2006 7:59 PM
Posted by: SEF | February 25, 2006 8:10 PM
Thanks, PZ, for putting a human spin on this topic. With all the heated political/religious talk on both sides I think we rarely consider actual 17 (and 16, 15, 14 ...) year old women and girls who have to face the current harsh social reality. Unless the left wakes up and the middle finds its spine, and I'm cynical enough those things won't happen soon, I'm afraid we're going to see abortion again criminalized and go through a long cycle of seeing women brutalized by backalley witchdoctors before we as a society again come to our senses.
Posted by: AndyS | February 25, 2006 8:23 PM
Joe, you said, " I think it's about punishing girls for having sex"
Haven't you noticed that prolifers like babies? We look on a baby as a blessing. How can you equate wanting the girl to be given a blessing with wanting to punish her? That makes no sense.
Posted by: Christina | February 25, 2006 8:25 PM
You want a human face? How about Linda Padfield and Yvonne Mesteth? Are their faces human enough?
Posted by: Christina | February 25, 2006 8:26 PM
Darned few "pro-lifers" care enough to make sure that babies get adequate health care, that they and their mothers are safe from harm, that there'll be even rudimentary reliable education available...talk is cheap. Spending time, money, and effort on the actual requirements of actually living people is hard. And the "pro-life" movement isn't there. If everyone who said "I think every conceived child is entitled to the basics of a healthy life" went on to say "and it's my responsibility to do my part", and did their part, the US wouldn't be so far behind the rest of the developed world in infant mortality, malnutrition, and a lot else. Show us an improvement in the quality of life for American children across the board that has anything at all to do with "pro-life" activism - anything measurable, and anything that applies to all children, regardless of the sinfulness of their mothers.
Posted by: Bruce Baugh | February 25, 2006 8:41 PM
On the note that Mr. Baugh started, y'all may enjoy (by which I mean, be incensed by) this article: After they're born, compassion ends. Some excerpts:
Posted by: Skemono | February 25, 2006 8:49 PM
What do we know about the condition of South Dakota's child protection system? Before I passed a law that, in effect, will create a surge in the number of unwanted babies, I'd be dang sure my state had a top-notch adoption system.
Posted by: Grumpy | February 25, 2006 9:18 PM
Christina,
It's punishing her if she's "being given a blessing" against her will.
Posted by: Brian | February 25, 2006 9:24 PM
Haven't you noticed that prolifers like babies? We look on a baby as a blessing.
On the other hand, the only time where this issue of pro-life vs. pro-choice comes up is when the mother-to-be doesn't feel the same way. In which case it is extremely misleading to say you're wanting the girl to be given a blessing, when she sees it as a curse.
In which case, the attitude that I've come across seems to be "well, you had the sex, you're stuck with the baby". In this sort of situation, it could be legitimately implied that the baby is being used as punishment for the sex.
Posted by: Corkscrew | February 25, 2006 9:30 PM
My own experience (at 16) was similar but not quite so bad. The birth control thing was absolutely an issue. Everywhere you could get birth control, i.e. condoms, they were stocked behind the counter, so you had to ask. When I got pregnant at 16, I managed to make myself an appointment at the only place where I could get an abortion across state lines, about 1/2 hour away. I got a friend lined up to drive me there and we got enough money together ($200). Then my mom found out and we kept the appointment and she drove me instead. I have no idea if there was a parental notification law or not. I might have been turned away when I got there. Can you imagine what I might have done then?
How do we fix this problem? All those issues you just mentioned? Those are state laws, so I guess we have to start there unless we want to push the Supreme Court to rule that these barriers constitute an undue burden. Why aren't we rioting? (That's my new motto.)
Posted by: Laura | February 25, 2006 10:11 PM
Christina, do you seriously get sad every time you have your period. If you think that every child is automatically a blessing, maybe you should be trying to get one every time you possibly can. Maybe everyone should feel that way, then the person who will solve the overpopulation problem will come sooner. And be doubly sad if you are having unprotected sex and have your period, since there is a good chance you just spontaneously aborted a defective embryo.
[I apoligize for the comments if you are infertile. If you're not, then they stand]
Posted by: natural cynic | February 25, 2006 10:28 PM
Christina, I think this whole thing could be solved quite tidily if you'd just take all the unwanted blessings off their hands.
Posted by: bmurray | February 25, 2006 10:40 PM
"they have to counsel the person against getting an abortion"
Gads, I've heard about that kind of thing. I read about it here once, and I wouldn't be surprised if it passed. They say "Well, women have a right to know all that", but really it's just condescending BS assuming that women lack the capacity to look up information on abortion themselves and base their decision on it (and thus they have to be talked OUT of it, naturally "information" only goes one way). And the American Right likes to make noise about personal responsibility...
Posted by: Rey | February 25, 2006 10:50 PM
Christina, why not also show the faces of the women who die in childbirth, which is more dangerous than a first-term abortion?
Posted by: wolfa | February 25, 2006 11:39 PM
Uh, trimester.
Posted by: wolfa | February 25, 2006 11:41 PM
I'm speechless, PZ. I didn't realise it was that bad in the mericas.
You should submit this to the next Carnival of the Feminists, I'm thinking.
Lucky for me I'm not even in your state, let alone your country, as it seems that even in the "land of the free", or whatever you call it, not much freedom exists. For some groups at least.
Posted by: the amazing kim | February 25, 2006 11:49 PM
I have known one pro-lifer I really respect - he and his wife have adopted six or eight children on a permanent basis, and run a foster home, and the kids they shelter get good education and a lot of help with self-esteem and go on to lead better lives. He's also active in environmental issues, including water quality (they live out in the California semi-desert), and a bunch of local measures to help with quality of life. I call him pro-life without any irony or qualification - I disagree with him a lot about abortion, but he's doing more for the cause of life than almost anyone else I know.
Then, um, then there are all the rest.
Posted by: Bruce Baugh | February 26, 2006 12:00 AM
I'm so disgusted right now. Seriously. I want to throw up.
Posted by: Xavier | February 26, 2006 12:20 AM
Gee Christina, my sister was repeatedly raped by my stepfather, and only dumb luck prevented the bestowing of a blessing upon her, at age 14. Does that throw a wrench in your binary absolute world where things are either all good or all bad? Quandaries can be difficult without comic-book-simple dogma to light the true path. You should sweat an ambiguity some time...it strenghtens a trait called "thinking".
Posted by: rat-terrier | February 26, 2006 12:29 AM
How can you equate wanting the girl to be given a blessing with wanting to punish her?
How can you even equate being pregnant against one's will with a blessing? That is seriously warped (and frightening) thinking.
Posted by: kutsuwamushi | February 26, 2006 1:31 AM
Haven't you noticed that prolifers like babies?
Christina: how many unwanted babies have you adopted? It's lovely for the pro-life/anti-choice crowd to say "we love babies and we want fetuses to become babies," but then when push comes to shove I don't see conservatives lined up at the adoption center. So if y'all get your way, what happens is girls are forced to have babies they don't want (or they'll just self-induce abortions or go see "back alley doctors"), and then those children will predominately live terrible lives because, hey, no one wants them and they aren't provided for or cared for or loved.
Then if you take conservative thought and compare it to the Iraq War where a utilitarian perspective justifies killing people to make us safer from terrorists (not really though), and if you apply that to abortion you have to accept a pro-choice position. But I forget, as a rule intellectual consistency doesn't agree with conservatives.
Tell you what, you go adopt three inner-city crack-babies and I'll start seriously considering your "argument" that pro-lifers are only in it because they love babies. Until then, I'll insist that you're deluded and have bought the patriarchical mythology of the Republican party.
Posted by: Joe | February 26, 2006 1:44 AM
I think the statistics are something like 87% of counties in the US do not have an abortion provider. Even if the Supreme Court doesn't end up allowing states to severely restict abortion it is already very hard to obtain an abortion for women who are not close to a metropolitan area (as PZ has pointed out).
Coincidentally, my first post on my new web page deals directly with the problem of limited access to abortion.
Posted by: Bruce | February 26, 2006 3:35 AM
"The stars have aligned"
I find it telling that the South Dakota politician used an astrology metaphor. If your critical thinking skills can't eliminate astrology, who knows what whacko ideas you will believe?
Posted by: Drake | February 26, 2006 4:38 AM
In the UK you can get free pregnancy tests from the doctor, sexual health/family planning clinics, student unions, and many places related to young people's welfare (e.g... I can't think what to call them... but we have a centre here where young people can go for counselling, young parent workshops, cheap food and showers etc). You can also buy them in just about every pharmacy, supermarket, even the pound shop (dollar store).
You can buy emergency contraception over the counter in the chemist/pharmacy if you are over 16 after discussion with the pharmacist. You can also get it free from family planning clinics, doctors' surgeries, and hospital emergency or GUM departments. I believe some school nurses can also dispense it.
It's a shame not everyone has as much access to this as people in the UK. It's still difficult for a lot of teenagers, but it's a lot easier than it sounds like it would be where you live.
Posted by: Rosie | February 26, 2006 5:53 AM
It's not like one could get an abortion in SoDak before this got passed. The only providers came from Minneapolis two or three times a month and could not perform very many procedures in a day.
Posted by: Ken | February 26, 2006 6:17 AM
PZ, though you've also demonstrated it many other times, you (like many other rational men) are an ally to women. Don't worry that you haven't thought about it before; thinking about it today puts you in the top 2-3% of men who have.
Posted by: Kate | February 26, 2006 7:23 AM
Haven't you noticed that prolifers like babies? We look on a baby as a blessing. How can you equate wanting the girl to be given a blessing with wanting to punish her? That makes no sense.
If you look on babies as a blessing, good for you! Except, it's not about you. What makes no sense is forcibly subjecting someone else to an increased risk of morbidity and mortality based on your own likes/outlook/beliefs/etc.
Posted by: ema | February 26, 2006 8:01 AM
Ah, the blessing of a child!
How blessed to pay for $20 of diapers a week, a $100 baby car seat, a $100 stroller, a $100 high chair, and a $300 crib.
What a blessing to have to pay for those things and baby clothes WITH THE EARNING POTENTIAL OF A TEENAGER IN A SMALL TOWN!
What a blessing to have to wake up in the middle of the night when the baby is teething!
Having a baby is a tremendous, sustained, expensive effort... and it should not be forced on somebody because she disobeyed daddy's "don't have sex until you're married" lecture.
Posted by: Redbeard | February 26, 2006 8:04 AM
I dunno if PZM or anyone here knows, but something struck me with the parental notification law: if the notification of both parents is required, what if one somehow cannot be notified (deadbeat dad, currently out of contact for legit reasons, just plain dead)?
Then of course there's the issue of a situation like rat-terrier described.
Of course, the whole thing could be avoided by just staying home and eating an assload of wild carrot, mugwort or pennyroyal. Sometimes I'm genuinely tempted to just circumvent all this BS and start "herbalabortion.com", since all-natural/herbal remedies don't have to pass FDA approval.
Also, I find great irony in the "stars aligning", in part because my mind immediately associated that with Lovecraft's fiction and how Cthulhu would rise again when the stars are right. If that's who they really worship, it explains a lot.
Posted by: Henry | February 26, 2006 8:14 AM
The solution is simple: No abortion for me? No sex for you.
Women (and responsible men) need to make it absolutely clear to the mean spirited boneheads that there are consequences to their actions. Even in South Dakota, immaculate conceptions aren't that common so we're just calling on guys to do their part to help end abortions. No sex no unwanted pregnancies.
This might sound like abstinence idiocy but since I'm the one saying no (not anybody else telling me to say no) it's about reclaiming my procreative powers.
Let's print up bumper stickers. No abortion for me? No sex for you.
Posted by: brook | February 26, 2006 8:22 AM
I'd just like to second Rosie's thankfulness for the NHS and related initiatives in the UK. It seems curious that we should be in a situation where socialised medicine feels less politicised than private care.
Posted by: Lemony | February 26, 2006 8:42 AM
I have no issues with abortion in certain cases -- medical necessity, or when pregnancy is the result of rape, and the procedure should be readily available for those cases.
I do have a big problem with using abortion as a means of birth control. This is both morally wrong, and unethical, in my opinion.
People make all sorts of bad decisions, and willingly assume risks that can have devastating, life-long consequences. Having unprotected sex falls into this category. Sure, it's convenient to abort a fetus to make the problem go away. Not too long ago, it was also convenient to just leave the baby out in the woods to die of exposure, which also solved the problem. I don't see much difference between the two.
Posted by: Ray | February 26, 2006 9:07 AM
Ray: You don't see much difference but many others - myself included - do. You're equating the in utero foetus with a developed and delivered human child. You're imbuing with a "human spirit" or some other philosophical concept, we would suggest that for much of pregnancy it merely represents a bundle of cells with no "spirit" independent of its mother, this means that its removal is entirely analogous to the removal of the scar tissue I've developed over the years from other willingly assumed risks.
I wouldn't allow damaged cartilage in my knees from skiing and climbing accidents to massively change my life when the problem can be removed. Why should a woman be forced to allow a bundle of cells to develop into something which will likely have a much greater effect on hers?
Posted by: Lemony | February 26, 2006 9:30 AM
Ray, have a vasectomy and encourage all your friends to have one too and you'll be part of the solution not the problem.
Posted by: brook | February 26, 2006 9:46 AM
Ray, have a vasectomy and encourage all your friends to have one too and you'll be part of the solution not the problem.
Because, as we know, it is the man who carries all responsibility for being fertile.
You're equating the in utero foetus with a developed and delivered human child.
What is the magical difference?
I am for the right for abortion when there are health problems or the pregnancy is a result of a crime. I am against abortion as a magical cure for irresponsibility.
PZ, w/r to your heartbreaking story: if someone is not mature enough to ASK for a condom in a store, he shouldn't have sex. End of story.
Posted by: Roman Werpachowski | February 26, 2006 9:58 AM
I really like Brook's bumper sticker slogan: No abortion for me? No sex for you.
Ray, *even if* you consider the fetus to be a baby, a human person (which, before viability just seems absurd to me), you can't justify forcing a woman to live in a parasitic relationship for 9 months. Unless your position is that the government should force all people with two healthy kidneys to donate one of their kidneys when someone else needs one.
Shorter Ray: You got pregnant, you should pay the price! And you people are insisting that this *isn't* about punishing women/girls for having sex?
Posted by: Joe | February 26, 2006 10:01 AM
And there it is too in Roman's most recent comment (2/26/9:58am) -- the WOMAN "carries responsibility for being fertile."
Posted by: Joe | February 26, 2006 10:06 AM
Roman,
One magical difference is that one of them is a bundle of cells that cannot feel pain and one of them is a baby.
Another magical difference is that one of them can be handed over for adoption, but the other one can only be kept alive by forcing a woman to keep a pregnancy she doesn't want.
I see you'd allow exceptions if the pregnancy is the "consequence of a crime". If a foetus is, as you claim, equivalent to a baby, would it be OK to kill a rapist's baby after birth?
Posted by: MissPrism | February 26, 2006 10:09 AM
Joe - I don't know if a fetus is a baby or not, but it will eventually become one. In any case, what's the difference, really, between aborting a fetus and killing a newborn baby, other than a trip through the birth canal? Then end result is the same: one fewer person in the world.
As I said, pregnancy is risk of unprotected sex. If you assume the risk, you live with it. It's no different form driving drunk, or a driving recklessly and getting into an accident. The resulting car accident is not a punishment, it's a consequence of a poor choice. The pregnancy is not a punishment either, it's also the consequence of a poor choice.
A big problem, of course, is that many people who oppose abortion on religious grounds also oppose sex education, and throw a hissy fit when someone suggests making birth control available to teens. I'm all for education to make sure people understand the risks, and making birth control readily available, but abortion is not an ethical birth control measure.
Posted by: Ray | February 26, 2006 10:12 AM
Ray,
If someone crashes their car while drunk, the hospitals still treat them. The nurses don't say "Take some responsibility! You drank the beer, you walk on the broken leg." If they did, we'd rightly see it as punitive.
People occasionally do irresponsible things, and then deal with the consequences as best they can. Sometimes a woman decides that the best way to deal with a pregnancy is an abortion.
Posted by: MissPrism | February 26, 2006 10:17 AM
So it's been said.
However, what I'd really like to know is this: abortions cost hundreds of dollars. And also, "over time, women having abortions have become increasingly likely to be poor".
So tell me, Ray, Roman: just who the hell are these people who use "abortion as a means of birth control" or "a magical cure for irresponsibility"?
Posted by: Skemono | February 26, 2006 10:19 AM
PS: and what about when contraceptives don't work? The Pill has a 1% per year failure rate even if used perfectly. Has the woman who gets pregnant whilst on the Pill made a poor choice?
Posted by: MissPrism | February 26, 2006 10:35 AM
I dunno if PZM or anyone here knows, but something struck me with the parental notification law: if the notification of both parents is required, what if one somehow cannot be notified (deadbeat dad, currently out of contact for legit reasons, just plain dead)?
Here's another thing to ponder about parental notification laws: if a teenager becomes pregnant and decides to take the action (termination) that will lower her risk of death, she has to obtain parental permission because she's not deemed mature/responsible enough to make that medical decision on her own. However, if she decides to do the opposite--increase her risk of death by carrying the pregnancy to term--just like that, she's a model of maturity, and requires no adult control.
Frankly, I don't see what argument a state with parental notification laws can use to prevent a parent from forcing his/her teenage daughter to undergo an abortion based on the parent's concern over the teenager's health/life.
I do have a big problem with using abortion as a means of birth control. This is both morally wrong, and unethical, in my opinion.
Please provide evidence that abortion is used as a birth control method in the US (it is in Japan).
Sure, it's convenient to abort a fetus to make the problem go away.
What methodology do you use to define the effect of health states/medical procedures on prefect strangers? Also, you mean "the problem" of an increased risk of morbidity/mortality (with carrying a pregnancy to term), no?
Posted by: ema | February 26, 2006 10:42 AM
Yes, pregnancy is a risk of sex (protected or unprotected). But childbirth is not an inevitable result of pregnancy -- you can miscarry, or you can abort, or you can give birth.
Posted by: wolfa | February 26, 2006 10:44 AM
Has the woman who gets pregnant whilst on the Pill made a poor choice?
"You assume the risk, you live with it." Apparently yes.
If you drive at all, not just drunk, you have assumed a risk, and then you live with the consequences if anything happens.
You have a choice not to smoke but also not to eat or drink anything unhealthy; if you assume the risk, and you get cancer, live with it!
Posted by: windy | February 26, 2006 11:01 AM
Ray:
You honestly see no difference between a first-trimester embryo and a newborn?
You don't know that birth control can fail? That it is not always easily available? That the number of women who can legitimately be accused of using abortion as birth control is pretty damn small? It's an expensive and uncomfortable method to say the least.
"Convenience." Y'know, nine months of pregnancy, the risks of pregnancy and childbirth, and at the end of it a baby doesn't add up to an "inconvenience" in my book. For a teenager, and for many other young women, it is Armageddon.
But you don't care about all that, do you? You know, if you think abortion is unethical, you can stay the hell away from the clinic, and let the rest of us make our own ethical decisions.
Posted by: Shell | February 26, 2006 11:06 AM
I think the auto accident analogy is a valid one. If you have an accident, and injure someone, you have a responsibility to the other injured party. If you paralyze someone in the accident, you're not allowed to kill them just because it's easier and cheaper than providing for their long-term care.
Similarly, if you have sex, you assume a certain risk of pregnancy. The risk can and should be minimized, but it can still happen. You can be the best driver in the world, and still have an at-fault accident. In both cases, you have a responsibility to live up to.
Interesting questions: if you don't beleive that a fetus has rights, does that mean it's OK to impregnate women with the specific purpose of then aborting the fetuses for use in medical research? How about viability? What if medical science advances to the point that a first-semester fetus can survive outside the womb? Where do you draw the line?
Posted by: Ray | February 26, 2006 11:09 AM
I've just noticed: nobody's yet made a pun about South Dakoathanger.
Posted by: MissPrism | February 26, 2006 11:10 AM
Missprism: Oof! I think your b3tan background's showing a bit there!
Posted by: Lemony | February 26, 2006 11:18 AM
Great post, PZ. I wish every adult in our states had to work out how s/he'd deal with the mundanities of getting access to health care, and really thought about it when they voted. Maybe it would help.
Posted by: Bardiac | February 26, 2006 11:37 AM
Could the difference be, oh, I don't know... DEVELOPMENT? Identifying personhood with a stage of development is not magical thinking. Note that the mysterious ineffable life force your position postulates as having entered the fetus (presumably at conception) also has to leave at some point. "Pro-lifers," if they're going to be consistent, should really be protesting the fact that our notions of medical death have changed over time as well, since all of that stuff identifies the brain as the seat of personhood. Note also that the rest of our laws - concerning the rights of children and the mentally ill, for example - are all consistent with the view of personhood and rights being granted at stages of development.
Posted by: poke | February 26, 2006 11:51 AM
Yeah. I've been having this conversation for years with people who focus solely on Roe v Wade and the Supremes. I keep saying, 'but abortion is already unavailable in a great many places, partly because so many providers have been intimidated out of doing them.' Scary that a lot of people aren't aware of that.
Posted by: Ophelia Benson | February 26, 2006 12:12 PM
If you paralyze someone in the accident, you're not allowed to kill them just because it's easier and cheaper than providing for their long-term care.
But we also distribute the risk by having traffic insurance (I don't know the rules in the US but I assume it's similar)
So, should we have sex insurance that everyone having sex is required to pay? We might require a higher premium from anyone having unprotected sex, but isn't that a bit hard to control?
Then if there is an "accident", the insurance could either cover all costs of child care up to 18 years, or a $500 abortion (if you keep the baby, you pay for it yourself.)
What do you think would be the insurance premiums in each case, and which would be more popular? If you think obligatory sex insurance is wrong, why then should reckless drivers have better coverage than reckless sex-havers?
Posted by: windy | February 26, 2006 12:16 PM
If for the sake of argument, we accept the anti-abortionist point of view that the immediate product of conception is human life, then we have a major public health crisis on our hands - it seems that some 15% of conceptions end up in miscarriages - and that is a conservative estimate. This would be the leading cause of death among humans, I think. Is there any research going on to alleviate this massive loss of human life?
Posted by: Arun | February 26, 2006 12:20 PM
you can be the best driver in the world, but you still run a small risk of smashing headlong into a semi-truck every time you get behind the wheel. this is the risk you willingly, knowingly assume by driving; therefore, you have no moral right to mitigate it by wearing seat belts, or buying a car with an air bag -- you took the risk, you live with it.
in fact, we should all be driving rattletrap 1965 chevies, made back before Ralph Nader introduced all these immoral "safety features" that only allow people to escape their responsibility to die painfully, purely for their own convenience's sake.
oh, and my nasal mucus has all the same human rights i do. throwing it into the trashcan wrapped in a dry paper towel makes me a murderer.
seriously, ray: the mere fact that the line is difficult to draw does not absolve us from the moral responsibility to draw it somewhere, and to support our choice of place to draw it. you want to refuse that challenge by forcing others to live as if no distinctions could ever be made between gametes and adults, which is ridiculous on the face of it. i see that as a gross moral failure on your part, and it makes me view you as contemptible.
Posted by: Nomen Nescio | February 26, 2006 12:28 PM
It is all about impressing the the will of some against the poor. Why to rich folks not care, simple, they can afford an abortion by traveling to it even if it means going to a foreign country - or Minneapolis...
Posted by: George | February 26, 2006 12:30 PM
What is the magical difference?
Well:
1. Children *after* they are born don't generally place the life of the mother in potential danger.
2. We don't see a large number of them aborting *after* being born, on their own, or an even larger number due to stress to the mother. Or did you miss the recent studies that show male children are more likely to be spontaniously aborted than girls, when the mother is under extreme stress, like, oh, I don't know, having an unwanted child...
3. Once they are born, you pretty much lose any chance to deal with birth defects that are not enough to have aborted them, but sufficient to turn the initial costs of the birth, crib, etc. into a long term investment that could leave them in constant *extra* care and cost tens of thousands a year, just to keep them in a state that is "sub-human" and which they will never improve from. And some people on the pro-life side are insane enough to believe that runing *two* lives is *still* a blessing, because God is merely testing the mother.
The problem with the argument that there is no difference is a) its not necessarilly scientifically valid prior to certain stages and b) it fails to consider *anything* other than the emotional knee jerk reaction to the idea that there isn't a difference, which some people have.
Posted by: Kagehi | February 26, 2006 12:50 PM
Ray: in response to your position that one should face the consequences of unprotected sex, you are focusing on only one side of the issue. Pregnancy is the result of a female egg being fertilized by a male sperm and said egg successfully implanting in the female womb, Currently only fertile females face the consequences of pregnancy. Men are required to accept any legal responsibility only if they are married to the pregnant female.
In order to equalize responsibility, if the outrageous abortion ban passed by my State becomes settled law, I think it fair a companion law be passed that requires the father of the �baby� (as determined by DNA test) be responsible for his fair share of the medical expenses of the mother to be and the child to be throughout the pregnancy and beyond, and further be responsible for child support for the next 18 years of the child�s life.
Ray as a supporter of responsibility for unprotected sex, would you support such a law?
To those who argue for the right of a female to determine the health and welfare of her own body and mind, the above is not meant to negate or marginalize any such arguments. I fully support all of them. It is only meant to point out the �irresponsibility� of Ray�s argument.
Posted by: S.D.jim | February 26, 2006 1:29 PM
PZ and others, it's so great to see people talking about this. I hadn't thought about this issue in years. As a 28 year old woman, I'm ashamed to admit I didn't know ANYTHING about the Congressional Ban in 2003 or any of the other junk. Until I started reading about in at Bitch PhD and other blogs. So I sat down the other night and completely educated myself (at least as much as I could for one night) and posted my findings at a blog I have with a friend of mine. The next morning, my friend (of the blog) and I had a discussion where it was decided this type of post would make our blog (with all women readers right now - just started it) too serious. She was afraid we'd alienate our conservative friends and admitted that although she thought the information was useful, she found it a little hard to think about the details of late-term abortions. because i think it's important information I moved it to my own personal blog.
This experience made me sad. All my friends who are admittedly from the South, but who are also in their peak productive years (some with daughters of their own) don't even want to talk about this! It's just too uncomfortable! WTF?!?! And then I realized that no one here at my forward thinking, liberal, West Coast University is talking about it either. And if I bring it up, they say it's too serious, too much of a downer.
So I'm glad you thought about it, and I'm glad you posted about it - because people like you with widely read blogs have such a large impact. Thanks, PZ.
Posted by: sp | February 26, 2006 1:39 PM
Ok, this mightn't help too much as I hear its also difficult for teenagers in this country (I'm an Australian transplant to the US) to get access to the contraceptive pill but..
The Morning After Pill (MAP), which is the emergency contraception that one can take within 72 hours of unprotected sex (NOT RU-486, the 'abortion pill'), is essentially a really high does of the regular contraceptive pill. What it does is increase the hormones in a woman's body to a very high dose, so that when they drop off again, as they normally do right before a period begins, they trigger a period. This prevents any possibly fertilised eggs from implanting in the womb lining (with a certain percentage success rate, something like 75-80%, I don't recall precisely). It also turns you into a raging PMT monster that needs to be separated from society, and can cause extreme nausea. The usual dosage of this pill is that one takes an anti-naseua agent 20 minutes before the hormone pill, and then repeats the process 12 hours later (although I think in more recent versions they've combined the anti-nausea agent with the hormone pill - I'm old and its been a long time since I had to take it). So it basically takes a day. Your period should then arrive relatively swiftly, and assuming it does, one can be fairly certain the MAP has worked, and you won't become pregnant.
How does this help? Well it is just a higher dose of the normal pill. Which means if you can get access to birth control pills (through friends, parents, whatever, and you only need about 4 of them, so its possible to nick a sheet for emergencies) then you have access to emergency contraception. You must also be able to fight the nausea and keep it down, and I'm sure there are the usual contraindications for the pill that would make it a risk to take medication that wasn't prescribed to you - but it sure is better than nothing. I know this because I once took a higher-than-usual dose of my pill as I couldn't get to my GP in time, and when I did, he told me I'd self-medicated successfully and went through the science with me. I think its information that should be being given to more women, especially teenagers who have so little control over their own reproductive capabilities.
Posted by: Melee | February 26, 2006 1:40 PM
Let's say that anyone involved in a car accident which results in somebody being paralyzed, will not only have to support the victim for the rest of their lives, but also move in with them, hand-feed them and wipe their asses. That's only fair.
Posted by: windy | February 26, 2006 1:40 PM
Scar tissue?
So much for the evolutionary concept of emergent properties, I guess.
Posted by: Harry Eagar | February 26, 2006 1:48 PM
In order to equalize responsibility, if the outrageous abortion ban passed by my State becomes settled law, I think it fair a companion law be passed that requires the father of the �baby� (as determined by DNA test) be responsible for his fair share of the medical expenses of the mother to be and the child to be throughout the pregnancy and beyond, and further be responsible for child support for the next 18 years of the child�s life.
Ray as a supporter of responsibility for unprotected sex, would you support such a law?
Absolutely. It takes two to make a baby, and both parties should share responsibility for the child. The State also has a responsibility to educate people, and to ensure that those most at risk for unwanted pregnancy have adequate access to birth control and medical services.
Unfortunately, the religious pro-life folks have no real interest in providing for the social services that their position demands.
And BTW, I agree with you that the SD anti-abortion law is a horrible idea. Government should not be in the business of denying access to medical care, and there are certainly legitimate reasons why a woman might have an abortion.
My issue is with using abortion as birth control, which is the scenario painted in PZ's original post. Someone who has unprotected sex, gets pregnant, then goes looking for an abortion, is using the abortion as a birth control measure. Unfortunately, the pro-choice people for the most part refuse to consider the ethical and moral implications of this, and instead accuse anyone who brings it up of wanting to oppress women.
Posted by: Ray | February 26, 2006 3:03 PM
As others have pointed out, there's a fundamental problem with this claim:
As I said, pregnancy is risk of unprotected sex. If you assume the risk, you live with it.
A problem here is that this statement presumes that the fetus has a certain moral standing. Let me illustrate with another example:
Doctor to patient: It seems you have a tapeworm. As you know, eating undercooked meat puts you at risk of acquiring parasites like tapeworms. Since you assumed the risk, you must live with it. I therefore will not provide any treatment for your tapeworm.
In the case of a tapeworm, of course, we see that this claim is absurd -- a tapeworm has no moral standing. So what moral standing does a fetus have? Certainly reasonable people can disagree about this, but to claim that an early-term fetus has the same moral standing as an infant seems implausible. Anyone who believes that abortion is allowable in cases of rape or incest admits as much -- there is a difference in the moral standing of a fetus and an infant.
Posted by: John | February 26, 2006 3:06 PM
I'm all for using abortion as birth control. Why not? Why should we have any mystical attachment to a blastocyst or gastrula or fetal blob? Go ahead, flush 'em away.
Humanity is the product of interaction with other members of humanity. It isn't something as simple and stupid as chromosome number or the right arrangement of fingers and toes or even, as too many anti-abortionists claim, a property of a single cell.
Anti-abortionists devalue human life when they make these godawful arguments for an absolute definition of "human" that is entire-fuckingly-ly cytological. It defines a person as a scrap of meat, and in particular, treats a living breathing thinking conscious woman as a meat incubator.
Posted by: PZ Myers | February 26, 2006 3:30 PM
Humanity is the product of interaction with other members of humanity. It isn't something as simple and stupid as chromosome number or the right arrangement of fingers and toes or even, as too many anti-abortionists claim, a property of a single cell.
That's nice, but then at what point do people obtain their "membership cards"? When, exactly, do you get your rights, and are eligible to have them protected by society?
It used to be an accepted practice to take unwanted babies out into the woods and leave them there to die (or provide the local fauna with an easy meal). Is that OK too, or is it sufficient to simply leave the womb in order to have rights?
Posted by: Ray | February 26, 2006 4:04 PM
I am glad Laura brought up the difficulty of getting condoms. I lived in a small town as a teenager, and the thought of going into the one drugstore in town to buy condoms (possibly from a high school classmate, as PZ points out) would have terrified me. Man, just thinking about the situation we have created in this country makes me furious.
I am inclined to agree with Shell, who pointed out that the number of women using abortion as birth control is likely very small. It's kind of like the idea of the "welfare queen." It's just one more caricature that keeps the wingnuts fuming, but which has little basis in reality.
And Brook - the bumper sticker idea? Awesome. Maybe women across the country should withhold sex from men who vote Republican until their party takes its head out of its ass.
Posted by: graefix | February 26, 2006 4:06 PM
People don't get "membership cards". That's the problem with the anti-choice mentality: it's all black or white, you're human or you're not. There are shades of gray here, and we as a society have to draw a line, somewhat arbitrarily, but hopefully with a mind to utility and with a sense of fairness to the women involved. Saying that the line is drawn at fertilization is absurd and definitely places an undue burden on women.
Personally, I don't have as much of a problem with infanticide as you might think. It has a very long cultural history, and makes a great deal of sense biologically—and I have three kids. I know full well that there isn't much human about those squalling blobs until they start to interact with the world. Like I said, it's shades of gray, though, and after birth is starting to get very close to an uncomfortable edge.
If I had to draw a line myself right now, though, I'd say first trimester, no problem. Second trimester, OK...but some social censure is reasonable (there ought to be some responsibility here, and geez, lady, if you don't want a baby, don't wait months to take care of it). Third trimester, we're getting to the point where it's viable, and that looks like the point where I'd say the woman and ideally, her partner, is obligated to accept the responsibility fully, and abortions should only be allowed when the life of the mother is endangered.
I'd also add another qualification that won't be popular. I think it ought to be reasonable for a parent to request that no special effort be made to preserve the life of a premature baby. Kids born a couple of months premature can be saved, at extravagant cost that can break a family from the beginning; it ought to be acceptable to just let the kid go.
I'm rather more radically pro-choice than most people, and less sentimental about babies.
Posted by: PZ Myers | February 26, 2006 4:45 PM
Ray: It used to be an accepted practice to take unwanted babies out into the woods and leave them there to die
Damn those skanky stone-age women that had such a convenient method of birth control! Just carry the baby full-term while gathering food at the same time, give birth with no medical help, and then leave the baby to the wolves! Just so you can have more irresponsible sex with cave-men.
This method of birth control sounds so convenient, I'll start using it right away!
Posted by: windy | February 26, 2006 4:59 PM