…and this is a 
I have to join with my colleague Revere in saying that I am pro-abortion. Furthermore, I find the willingness of the devout anti-choice mob to distort the evidence so appalling that I would not join with them in anything.
When I gave a talk at UW Stevens Point last week, there were a few protesters outside the building — friendly, non-violent people who I invited in to listen. It's a shame, though, that I was giving a neuroscience talk, since I also have a talk that rips into the bogus developmental biology that 'pro-lifers' use — and the group picketing me were Catholic right-to-life weirdos. They also were handing out flyers complaining about my desecration of crackers.
Myers hammered his rusty nail while gleefully boasting that "nothing is sacred." One has to wonder if he would likewise gleefully drive nails through the hands and feet of Christians he so publicly despises?! Obviously Christians themselves are not sacred to him.
There they go again, making my point for me. I do not think Christians or crackers are sacred, not because I devalue human life, but because "sacred" is an invalid rationale for doing so; the value comes from the individuals themselves, not from some imaginary decree from a nonexistent ghostly entity. It is also a great shame that Catholics so obliviously and so willingly equate themselves with crackers; they assume that because I would abuse a piece of bread, I would treat human beings in exactly the same way…apparently because they think that cracker is just as precious as a person.
That's a rather gross and dangerous error. A cracker is a flat piece of ground up vegetable matter, baked and processed, mostly inert, sold with the intent of being further broken down in someone's digestive system. Throwing it in the trash in no way implies that a complex and dynamic being can be similarly disposed of, or be casually destroyed and consumed. Sane people have an appropriate perspective on the relative importance of foodstuffs and human beings. Crazy people can't tell the difference.
And speaking of crazy people…one kind of insanity destroys the ability of normal people to distinguish between embryos and people, and encourages them to lie to others about the status of the embryo, treating it as the moral equivalent of a child. It's almost the same problem as revering a cracker over a person. A better question to ask is whether they would kill someone to defend a Jesus wafer? (And some, at least, have told me that they would.) Would they be willing to throw away their purported reverence for the sanctity of life to kill someone to defend a fetus? (We definitely know that some will.)
There are groups that are actively blurring the line between embryos and human beings, and I consider them just as wicked as the howling haters lined up outside women's health clinics — they use mistruths to foment attacks on people to defend non-people. One of the biggest, noisiest, and most dishonest is Pro Life Across America, which puts up billboards all across the US; we have a similar outfit here in my state, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life.
Their work is easily recognizable. They have one theme: fetuses and babies are exactly the same. All of their signs feature cute baby pictures coupled to factoids about development, and they thoroughly enrage me — I see them all along the roadsides on my drive in to Minneapolis. They are basically generating false associations about development.
Here's a standard example:
Awww, cute plump smiling baby with eyes and ears and a tongue…and did you know he formed those in the first month of pregnancy? How can you support aborting adorable little children!
It's even sort of weakly, tenuously true. The embryo does have non-functional primordia of those organs at 28 days, but it's not exactly cute — it looks more like a worm — and it's only about 4mm (or about 2/10 of an inch) long. It's 'face' is a couple of branchial arches. If they wanted to be honest in their advertising, they ought to revise the billboard to look like this:
I suggest they add another line of copy, too: I also had a tail!
You get the idea. All of their billboards are like this, listing a known developmental landmark, the earlier the better, and showing a picture of a post-natal infant as if that has any relevance. It's an attempt to make an emotional tie to developmental events. It works with a lot of people, too, the people who are ignorant of reality — and of course, these ads do nothing to educate them.
Here's another of their ads that plays games with the concept of conception:
Yes, that baby did get his genes at conception. So? A collection of genes does not make a human being. There was no teeny-tiny infant spontaneously bursting into existence at the instant a sperm cell punched into an oocyte — it was something that looked like this:
This is a point absolutely and solidly established in biology. The embryo is not the adult. It does not contain the full information present in the newborn -- that will be generated progressively, by interactions with the environment and by complex internal negotiations within an increasingly complex embryo. Pretending that 46 chromosomes in a cell is sufficient to define a person is the most absurd kind of extreme biological reductionism.
The fertilized oocyte is a human cell, but it is not a human being.
Way too many people think that is a sacrilegious idea — we have to cherish every single scrap of human tissue, especially the bits that have the potential to go on and develop into a child.
No, we don't. We don't have to revere every block of rough marble because another Michaelangelo could come along and sculpt it into something as wonderful as his David; we don't have to treasure every scrap of canvas because the next Picasso is going to use it for a masterpiece. The value isn't in the raw materials, but in the pattern, the skill, the art put into it. Similarly, those cells are simply the raw clay that the process and time will sculpt into something that is worth love and care.
Which is more important, the pigments or the painting? Even worse, do you think the pigments are the painting?
A couple of additional points: notice how clever I was in not saying precisely when the fetus becomes a human being? That's because there is no sharp magical border, it's grey and fuzzy all the way. That's a social and personal decision. Don't even ask me when — I'm a guy. I don't have the same responsibilities as a pregnant woman, so I don't get the same privileges.
Also, some people are 'uneasy' about the whole abortion thing. Fine; don't get one. Your personal feelings of yuckiness shouldn't be a factor in deciding what other people do. Churches make me queasy, but I'm not planning to criminalize attendance.
Comments
Posted by: Givesgoodemail
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April 18, 2010 4:46 PM
THANK YOU! (Love the "baby" picture redos.)
Something else that is starting to be worrisome is the Personhood movement. They're trying to do an endrun around the abortion question by declaring that everything with human genes be declared "a person".
Why can't wingnut anti-choice types just go off and shoot each other, or something?
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 4:50 PM
PZ:
*Applause* Very well written, thank you. I imagine we'll get some interesting
chew toystrolls on this one. I hope they're interesting, the latest batch have been duds.Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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April 18, 2010 4:52 PM
As a chemist I'm probably more interested in pigments than paintings, actually.
Interesting 'argument' about the genes. Did they just pop into existence at conception? Weren't there just as many genes before conception? What's so special about the fusion?
I used to be a blood donor - I guess it's a good thing that red blood cells don't have nuclei. It'd be horrible if I went around distributing little humans willy-nilly like that.
Pity we have better things to spend out money on; I think it'd be amusing to put up billboards with foetuses of humans, cats, chickens, apes, fish &c at the same stage of development. And ask the prolifers to pick out the 'person'.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 4:53 PM
Givesgoodemail:
That's been going on for years. There's an evangelical group in Colorado who has been all hyped up about that for ages now.
Posted by: Jordan
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April 18, 2010 4:54 PM
I say mandatory abortions for all women everywhere!
But I can sort of sympathize with the anti abortion side, regardless of whether it's cute and cuddly or not, the idea of terminating something that has the potential to be a full fledged human some day makes me kind of uneasy.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 4:57 PM
I really like this argument, and how you tied it in to the concept of a soul in the talk I heard you give in Syracuse. When you give up the idea that there's a "soul", then that unformed embryo is even less of a special snowflake. And the thing is, even every pro-life activist knows it. If you give them the burning IVF clinic scenario, not one single person would opt to save a dish full of 100 embryos over a single living child. They know there's a difference, but choose to ignore it in favor of punishing the sluts who dared to have sex.
Because, of course, it all goes back to control of women. This post was one of the first to really turn my thinking around on the abortion issue when I was a baby atheist. It's since had a rather long addendum put on it, but the first part is simple and direct, and really puts the whole thing in perspective. Money quote: "When pro-choice feminists like Wolf, or liberal men, or a lot of women, even, say things like, "I'm pro-choice, but I am uncomfortable with... [third-trimester abortion / sex-selection / women who have multiple abortions / women who have abortions for "convenience" / etc.]" then what you are saying is that your discomfort matters more than an individual woman's ability to assess her own circumstances. That you don't think that women who have abortions think through the very questions that you, sitting there in your easy chair, can come up with. That a woman who is contemplating an invasive, expensive, and uncomfortable medical procedure doesn't think it through first. In short, that your judgment is better than hers. Think about the hubris of that. Your judgment of some hypothetical scenario is more reliable than some woman's judgment about her own, very real, life situation?"
Posted by: Stephen Wells
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April 18, 2010 4:57 PM
Dandruff.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 5:01 PM
Then I suppose masturbation and menstruation also make you uneasy? Same thing.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 5:04 PM
Jordan:
Well, you shouldn't. These people do not hold life sacred. They don't care one iota for "potential persons" or "the pre-born". They don't care at all that the child resulting from a forced birth may be born into poverty or an abusive situation. They don't care if a woman has serious and frightening medical issues. They don't care if a woman has been raped. They don't care if a girl has been subject to incestuous rape. They don't care how many women died from back alley abortions; they don't care if women die now due to the difficulties in obtaining abortions. They have worked hard and long to make obtaining an abortion difficult, they're happy with what they have done.
They do not want women to be able to abort, nor do they want women to be able to obtain birth control. Pro-lifers are not about "saving babies" - what they are about is controlling women. Full stop.
I used to escort at clinics, and I saw more than one "stand-up, pillar of the christian community, pro-lifer" bring in their daughter for an abortion. Like all hypocrites, it's one rule for them, and one rule for everyone else. They deserve nothing more than complete contempt.
Posted by: immichaelyoung
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April 18, 2010 5:06 PM
"the idea of terminating something that has the potential to be a full fledged human some day makes me kind of uneasy."
With the right technology (and it's not so far off), the DNA in the skin cells you discard when scratching your nose could be extracted and used to generate a clone. So then, scratching your nose = destroying a potential person.
In general, potential x's don't have the value of x's. And good thing, too, or else it would be deeply immoral to scratch your nose.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 5:08 PM
pfft... my breakfast used to have eyes, ears, and a tongue, too.
I love the picture re-do's... we have those posters all over town, too, and in my more vicious and ambitious moments I have the urge to start a counter-campaign with lineups of embryos or fertilized eggs and captions along the lines of: "future cowboy, or future steak?" or "a precious baby, or a dangerous disease?"
I'm guaranteeing most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
Posted by: conelrad
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April 18, 2010 5:11 PM
Every so often there is a case where a family sues a medical examiner because a gall bladder wasn't replaced into the body cavity before interment. Sometimes they even disinter the body in order to replace the missing piece. I always wondered: what about all the fingernail clippings?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 18, 2010 5:11 PM
For anyone thinking there is anything to the "pro-life" side, ask where are they from birth to the eighteenth birthday, when it takes a quarter of a million dollars these days to raise a baby to 18. Not one cent from them for that. Just getting the fetus born. Says all you need to know about their hypocrisy...
Posted by: MoonShark
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April 18, 2010 5:13 PM
Well that's the least controversial Sunday Sacrilege I've read yet. Of course religious folks are going to disagree, and keep conflating the forest and the trees, the bricks and the house, etc.
One thing that might help though is to really push the idea that most genetic traits we care about are probabilistic rather than deterministic. I just saw GATTACA again in my Behavioral Genetics course, and I love the film (yeah we criticized it), but I think many otherwise intelligent people buy in too literally to the idea that "we are our genes". That's just not the whole story.
But environment, gene expression, epigenetics, proteomics... those take time to explain.
Posted by: Leah
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April 18, 2010 5:13 PM
These redone ads are genius. I want to see these sitting next to highways.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 5:14 PM
and the thought that my breakfast was once an intelligent being, and was murdered for my pleasure sometimes makes me queasy. That's not a reason to outlaw all meat though, or to sympathize with those who would try to outlaw it.Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 5:17 PM
Nerd, that's a valid point, but what bothers me more is what I mentioned in #9 - that in many cases, these pro-lifers know a woman has an unstable situation and there is a high probability a child she births will face a very bad life and oftentimes a very short life.
The fact that they don't give a damn that a baby/child ends up killed, that it's all okay because the now dead child wasn't aborted is what infuriates me.
Posted by: Jordan
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April 18, 2010 5:18 PM
Jesus fucking Christ let me clarify:
I don't want to outlaw abortion and I don't want to support people who want to outlaw abortion.
I just fucking said it makes me uneasy.
Posted by: RowanVT
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April 18, 2010 5:19 PM
Carlie, I'm pro-choice but do have some reservations. One of them was created when I overheard a 19 year-old suite mate in my dorm complaining that she missed a party because she was getting her third abortion. Some people are too stupid to have children, so in that sense I was glad she wasn't spreading her genetics around... but if she's also too vapid and whiny to care about the correlation between not using a condom and getting pregnant, I feel that in a proper sense of justice (and malice) that she should be forced to carry the fetus to term and go through labor without an epidural. Maybe then she'd use birth control. And before someone says something, she didn't use the pill because it decreased her sex drive, and condoms felt funny so that's why she didn't use any. No health problems.
But that desire to make stupid young twits deal with pregnancy in order to prevent them breeding is counterproductive, because then they've bred. So I would never try to have something like that enacted as law, because I don't want other people enacting other laws that tell me what I may and may not do with my own uterus. People can still have reservations, can still think certain choices others make are not wise, without imposing their own will.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 5:20 PM
you said you sympathise with the anti-abortionists because it makes you queasy. that's different.Posted by: Josh, "Raquel Dommage," Porte-parole Gay Official
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April 18, 2010 5:20 PM
"I also had a tail!"
Can't. Stop. Laughing.
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 18, 2010 5:23 PM
Great post. Why can't everybody read and understand this?
Posted by: Jordan
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April 18, 2010 5:23 PM
"you said you sympathise with the anti-abortionists because it makes you queasy. that's different."
I said I sort of sympathize. Just trying to put myself in the shoes of people with different viewpoints.
Posted by: Josh, "Raquel Dommage," Porte-parole Gay Official
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April 18, 2010 5:25 PM
Yes, each used Kleenex and tampon is a cemetery.
Posted by: rturpin
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April 18, 2010 5:25 PM
PZ nails a key point. Much of the religious rhetoric about abortion and other start of life issues is designed precisely to avoid looking at the biological realities, substituting instead a kind of fairy tail story of development. That in turn meshes with the myth of the sole, and the religious idea that their god is somehow intervening directly to give instantaneous creation to that soul. Look at the biology too closely, and the latter myth seems as remote as the Greek gods residing on Olympus.
Increased biological knowledge and technology also tear down the notion that there is something special in the potential to become a person. With current cloning techniques, many of the cells in one's body possess that same potential.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 5:25 PM
I really don't like the "potential" argument. I tend to ask people whether that means we should never let an ovum go unfertilized, or let an ejaculation go to waste, because they all have potential to become babies. They usually try to tell me that somehow that's different, but they can never explain to me why.Also, with the advent of cloning technology, doesn't that mean we should not let the skin cells we lose every day go to waste either? Won't they have the potential to become babies too?
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 5:27 PM
Jordan:
Which is why I responded in length about 'pro-life' viewpoints. If you're going to express such things, then be prepared for people to respond.
Posted by: Anneanimouse
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April 18, 2010 5:27 PM
I love the idea of equating 46 chromosomes with a human being. This of course implies that any human being with a genetic disorder resulting in a chromosome count of more or less than magic number 46 is actually not human and therefore should be allowed to be terminated before or after birth. Sorry, Klinefelter's syndrome baby, you've got one chromosome too many! Not human!
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 5:29 PM
This statement scares the crap out of me.
Yes, yes, I know that you said you were pro-choice, but damn. Pregnancy and children as punishment because you feel like slut-shaming this poor girl?
Consider my mind blown.
Posted by: Josh, "Raquel Dommage," Porte-parole Gay Official
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April 18, 2010 5:29 PM
Shudder. . . that was unusually ugly. If abortion itself is acceptable, why does it matter why the abortion was chosen? If you find some reasons for choosing abortion to be unacceptable, that means you find something about abortion per se to be wrong. What is that, and why?
Posted by: Leah
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April 18, 2010 5:29 PM
"We don't have to revere every block of rough marble because another Michaelangelo could come along and sculpt it into something as wonderful as his David; we don't have to treasure every scrap of canvas because the next Picasso is going to use it for a masterpiece. The value isn't in the raw materials, but in the pattern, the skill, the art put into it."
A wonderfully humane and rational way of looking at it, but of course the pro-embryo (a more apt appellation) kooks are just going to see "babies = scrap material" and start screaming.
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 18, 2010 5:30 PM
Jordan,
But the different viewpoints are not equivallent in their relevance. One is based on reason and evidence, the other on myths.
Posted by: Sir Eccles
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April 18, 2010 5:30 PM
So does that make bananas people? Or is the whole bananas share 50% of our genes thing a myth?
Posted by: Glock21
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April 18, 2010 5:30 PM
I'm generally pro-choice, but I think birth is a lousy cut-off point for where the real ethical concerns arise. Embryos, zygotes, etc are more the territory for people who believe in ensoulment though I think atheists can reasonably argue about the ethical concerns with them and come to the conclusion that the mother's liberty has to take primacy.
Drawing the line later is the difficult part for me, especially with premature siblings. I don't think any of us believe that a fetus magically becomes a human being once exposed to air. An 8 month fetus or 1.5 month premature baby is generally at the same stage of development. I think there are reasonable arguments on which side to err on the side of caution, whether it be the mother's liberty or ethical concerns about a more developed fetus.
I think the pro-choice side and the pro-life side obfuscate some of the more pressing ethical dilemmas of abortion by their tendencies to stick to the extremes though. The pro-choice side likes to stay in the safe territory where the offspring resembles a booger. The pro-life side stays safely towards the cute developed baby end when depicting the question.
Skipping past the absurdity of ensoulment and the depiction of abortion only being about the removal of embryos nearly indistinguishable from snot-wads... I'd like to see some better arguments from the rational middle on where and why the draw the line on fetuses. Is viability too early? Too late? Do we need to err more on the side of caution for the mother or the fetus do to potential abuse of the rules?
Just to clarify though: I'm not begrudging atheists who take on the religious yahoos who keep abortion arguments in the durrrr stage of discussion. It's just frustrating that the discussion rarely seems to get out of it.
Posted by: MoonShark
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April 18, 2010 5:30 PM
RowanVT said:
Well the other problem with that (besides an idiot breeding) is that it's unfair to the newborn child to be brought into a world where it's not wanted... or at least somehow barely (and wrongly) tolerated over the "funny" feeling of condoms. *sigh*
Sounds to me like what the dumb bitch needs is an education, not physical pain or a financial burden that the rest of us could potential have to shoulder.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 5:33 PM
@Jordan and Caine: how about the following distinction:
I can understand people who don't want to have an abortion. I can not understand people who want to deny abortions to others.
Posted by: Leah
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April 18, 2010 5:33 PM
You are not pro-choice. I am revoking your membership card. Dues are non-refundable. Thanks for playing.
Posted by: Jillian Swift
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April 18, 2010 5:33 PM
Nothing makes me more uneasy than the idea of a child being produced when that child is not wanted, when that child can't or won't be properly supported, when that child will be born with fetal alcohol syndrome or some other drug related problem.
Abortion is not a tragedy, abortion prevents tragedy.
Posted by: Randy Owens
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April 18, 2010 5:34 PM
I'm surprised you missed the point that, if they think you'll willingly do to humans what you did to that cracker, it follows that they'll willingly eat humans like they do their crackers. They made the comparison themselves, and when applied to themselves, it doesn't have the extra layer of error from being used against a strawman.
On the other hand, maybe it's just too obvious, and the Christians = cannibals point has certainly been made, just not usually by themselves, and usually with the cracker as the point of emphasis, rather than the humans to which they're supposedly equivalent.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 5:36 PM
Rowan @ 19:
That's an amazingly ugly, vindictive statement. It also happens to be just how pro-lifers think. Congratulations, you just may be an ugly pro-lifer!
*Yes*, I read the part where you wouldn't want to make this law; that doesn't much matter when you think this way. The primary problem with the above ugliness is that it's all about punishing that slut, who gives a shit about the kid that results from a forced birth, eh?
Women who depend on abortion as a form of BC are rare. I knew a woman who did that, and she's the only woman I've ever known to do that. I'd take a long, cold, hard look at your thoughts on this matter. You're closer to being a pro-lifer than you know.
Posted by: sharky
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April 18, 2010 5:37 PM
There is no such thing as "justice (and malice.)"
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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April 18, 2010 5:38 PM
It happens that post-partum depression or other unfortunate circumstances (fear, uncertainty, doubt) causes a mother to kill her child after birth - either immediately or some time afterwards.
I think that in most cases - when the 'culprit' is found - she's more likely to receive help and therapy rather than imprisonment.
I think I tend to think that babies are not in fact fully persons and while it does squick me out, I have to say that in some cases infanticide isn't 'as bad' a crime as murder.
The main reason I tend to feel different about infanticide than abortion is, I think, that once the baby is out, there are other ways of getting rid of it - put it up for adoption, leave it in the dropbox that, thankfully, are getting more common. So there's no reason to kill a baby once it's born, just as there's no reason to kill a pig, you don't intend to eat.
Posted by: Jordan
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April 18, 2010 5:38 PM
My thoughts exactly. However, I do have to say that I find it unfair that some people make out all anti abortionists to be these religious morons who have no concern of the welfare of the child after it's born.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 5:41 PM
Wow.
Wow.
Really?
Wow.
Um, no. If abortion is ok, then three are ok. Twelve would be ok. Twenty would be ok. The only reason it's not ok is if you think there is a soooper special soul in that little blastocyst. Otherwise, get the hell out of her business.
But some of us understand that it does magically become no longer dependent on the woman who housed it at that point. I can word your issue another way: at what point in pregnancy should a woman cease to become an autonomous free citizen and instead become a slave of the state? Because forcing a woman to remain pregnant against her will is doing exactly that. Late-term abortions are dangerous. They are painful. They are expensive. They are already not undertaken except in the most dire circumstances. All outlawing them would do is to condemn an awful lot of women in that situation to a painful death because their doctor is too scared of losing their license to do what's necessary to save them. Again, go back to the quote I provided earlier. Do you really think that women are so stupid and immoral that making late-term abortions legal means that women would flock to getting pregnant and carrying it around for several months just for the heck of it, so that they could then undergo a dangerous and painful procedure? Do you really think that little of women?
Posted by: Thomas Winwood
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April 18, 2010 5:41 PM
You are not pro-choice. I am revoking your membership card. Dues are non-refundable. Thanks for playing.
No, he's pro-choice - he supports her right to have abortions. He just thinks her reason for having them is stupid.
(That said, I disagree with him vehemently, and agree that his sentiment is quite viscerally grotesque. Attack him for his misogyny in that particular instance, not for his fictional anti-choice stance.)
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 5:45 PM
Jordan:
Anti-abortionists do not want any woman to be able to obtain an abortion, whether they are religious or not. They certainly aren't going to follow all the women prevented from aborting around to see the resultant child is taken care of properly.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 5:45 PM
Hah, I don't feel uncomfortable about abortion at all, not that a male's opinion on the subject deserves any consideration.
Abortion fits in well with my generally misanthropic attitude toward doomed swollen monkey-brain evo-FAIL.
In fact if there wasn't an abortion, I'd have to invent one.
They should have a Downs kid on the Billbaord "I got my genes on extra value day"
Or one of the severe Iraqi birth defect babies: "I got my genes at conception, and depleted uranium in utero. Thanks, America"
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 5:45 PM
I have yet to find an anti-choice activist whose final argument was not a variation on one of these:
1) Women deserve to be punished for having sex or generally not following “The Rules”.
2) I am catholic or an ex-catholic and it’s really hard to shake the childhood programming.
3) Thinking about not existing gives me existential anxiety and as such I respond emotionally to any issue like abortion that makes me think about that by trying to make it go away.
4) Sperm Magic, baby. The sperm is the only important part of a pregnancy because it’s the only part that involves a man. Once the sperm hits the egg, it’s all on automatic with little input from the woman because otherwise the man’s role in a pregnancy isn’t as impressive as the woman’s and makes it more about the man and isn’t that what’s really important?
5) Surgery is gross when visualized and I haven’t bothered to think about the issue in any personal manner yet.
6) A combination of some or all of these. All share a general disregard for the woman and she is largely left out. 1 and 4 are the most popular by far and are definitely the big sellers, though 2 and 3 often pop up among the “earnestly struggling with it” types. And 5’s pretty much end up pro-choicers naturally when they start dealing with their lives as adults.
In general, all forced birthers share a general disregard for the woman who is the sole human in the debate. She is viewed rhetorically as a void that stuff happens in rather than her genuine biological role as an active agent, literally leeching the nutrients from her body to literally build piece by piece, the developing embryo.
They’re also almost always male, almost always either religious or libertarian, and often don’t support anything that genuinely reduces the number of abortions, because those methods often involve improving the lives of sluts (I mean women) rather than punishing them for not slutting up with the men arguing against abortion.
They will also argue like abortions aren’t the most commonly performed surgery in this country nor that the “sluts” would be 1/3 of all women, most likely including your mother or another close relation.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 5:46 PM
@Jordan:
Maybe not all of them, but the correlation is good enough for a rule of thumb.
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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April 18, 2010 5:46 PM
I really had a good laugh at the realistic photo replacements.
The way I see it, our side really is pro-life despite their claim to the name because we value the people carrying the embryo over the embryo and we value the lives of the doctors and other medical staff who provide women with the means to a safe abortion. We are pro-person.
The so-called pro-life side is really the pro-force side. They are only interested in forcing every woman to live by the ideals that the pro-lifers hold; they are fascist in that regard. Their reasoning for their position is entirely irrational. I can't think of a better way to point that out than how you just did.
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 18, 2010 5:47 PM
I don't think it's that difficult:
nobody has the right to use someone else's body.
Nobody means no human being or no fetus. A sick person in urgent need of a heart transplant doesn't have the right to take someone else's heart. If a woman doesn't want a fetus using her body, she should be allowed to get rid of that parasite. If society deems that the fetus is too precious to be killed and can be saved, it should take care of it if it's viable.
If medical and technological progress means that the age limit for viability changes, it doesn't change the principle.
Posted by: Jordan
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April 18, 2010 5:47 PM
I was trying to be nice about, but yeah, you were the "some people" I was referring to. I think you're just as ignorant and unreasonable as your anti abortionist counterparts.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 5:48 PM
Sili, The Unknown Virgin:
Except for the fact those 'safe harbor baby drops' didn't work out. When possible, the mother is still traced and usually prosecuted.
Posted by: RowanVT
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April 18, 2010 5:50 PM
So... I'm not allowed to have nasty thoughts about people? Woot! Call me evil and send to me Hell. That's where all the fun people are anyways.
I'm not always a nice, sweet, wonderful, loving person. I desire, for example, Glen Beck to be smited by an asteroid. I think G. W. should have his colon explode from constipation.
I will fight tooth and nail for that child in a woman's body to have her abortions that make her miss parties. I even said I was glad she made that choice as spreading around her genes (and yes, punishing a child with a life that includes her as a mother) would be detrimental to everyone involved.
Posted by: Glock21
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April 18, 2010 5:50 PM
#42... I think that's an interesting end of the argument that lends weight to the idea of keeping abortion legal all the way through the pregnancy. Unfortunately it would be political suicide to suggest that babies themselves may have less value (in spite of various other age restrictions on liberty and inherently their value) since it directly conflicts with instinctual psychology to adore/protect babies. Though infanticide does happen it's mostly an aberration. I also think we tread on dangerous territory when our ethical concerns try to put instinctual traits such as empathy, or in this case defense of our young, on the back burner. We may need to rationally temper them, but I hope you're not suggesting we ignore them entirely.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 5:51 PM
Cerberus:
I'll argue that one, Cerberus. I've known way too many female pro-lifers.
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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April 18, 2010 5:51 PM
FuckWhat country are we talking about here? I only really know of the, because there was talk about them working in Germany, and therefore we might should* get them here in Denmark as well.
*Damn you LanguageLog, when did I start thinking in double modals?
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 5:52 PM
There is a nice summary of anti-abortion policies and whether they are consistent with the hypothesis that a fetus is a baby or whether they are designed primarily to punish women here. No surprise how it turns out.
Posted by: Leah
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April 18, 2010 5:53 PM
The reasons for having an abortion are irrelevant. Citing them at all is evidence of judgment and a desire to punish.
He is not pro-choice. You cannot simultaneously be pro-choice but also cherry-pick who should be entitled to abortions based on their personal reasons, sexual behavior, or any other factor.
Doing so imposes morality on abortion, which is the entire point that pro-choicers refute.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkZ6bud_2OWnH4ya1KYZ-QpvDKkqP4LTac
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April 18, 2010 5:54 PM
I especially like the "soul at conception" hoo-ha. Oh, really!? What about twins who separate up to 14 days after conception? Try again, fetus lovers.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 5:55 PM
Jordan:
Yes, Jordan. Because believing that women have the right to autonomy and advocating for wider and easier access to birth control as well as better education makes me an unreasonable, irrational, evil person who wishes to mandate other people's morals.
Sili, The Unknown Virgin:
The U.S.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 5:58 PM
Oh, trust me, I noticed.
Do you really think it's a good idea to slut shame a girl who has had "too many abortions" on a thread like this, on a blog like this? No one is going to let you live down your incredibly horrific opinion.
Sure, you say that you're pro-choice, but you echo the same exact sentiments of many anti-choicers that I have known. The suite-mate is a slut! Abortion as birth control is wrong! Forced birth! It's a disgusting view point and you will continue to be called out on it.
Posted by: Jordan
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April 18, 2010 5:58 PM
Bad choice of words. Let me clarify:
I think that your attitude that all anti abortionists are evil stupid people makes you a bitch.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 5:58 PM
How about the octoMom kids, "We got our genes at Bob's discount fertility clinic"
Or a Bill Donahue angerBear billboard, "I got my genes at conception, too bad my mom drank Thunderbird the whole nine months"
Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD)
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April 18, 2010 5:59 PM
Thank you, Glock21. The last time I noticed a thread about abortion here I saw a lot of talk about blastulas and "fucking clumps of cells," completely ignoring the fact that by the time a lot of women know they are pregnant it is no longer a blastula, and a lot of abortions (though I do not know the percentage) do not involve anything I would consider to be a "clump of cells." I guess any organism could be considered a clump of cells, but that term implies to me a lack of differentiation in the cells (i.e. no tissues or organs). I am pro-choice, but I don't like seeing my side distort the issue so badly.
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 18, 2010 6:00 PM
#63
Oh Noes...
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 6:01 PM
Also, for every abortion thread, it is worth noting, primarily because many people apparently believe embryos grow completely without input in a hyperspace womb that has no real connection to the woman involved, that even if fetuses and embryos were in fact completely 100% equal to fully grown human beings, abortion would still be moral and anti-choice activism would still be women-hating garbage.
How can I say this?
Because by ordering a woman to bring a fetus to term, we grant fetuses a right we do not grant any living person, the right to someone else's body without their consent (i.e. the right to rape or the right to enslave).
If I'm a combination of Douglas Adams and Albert Einstein and you are the the combination of Skeletor and Hitler and I need one of your non-vital organs to survive? I do not have the right to it. If I need your blood to survive? I do not have the right to it. If I need to rape your body and inhabit you for 9 months leeching the nutrients from your blood, bones, tissue, and other organs? I most certainly do not have that right.
But, suddenly if its a woman and a meaningless bundle of semi-tumorous cells and suddenly we're all supposed to pretend like a massive new unheard of right is just "common sense" to "protect the babies".
No, not even to live do FULL HUMAN BEINGS have this right.
And I think we're only so susceptible on abortion because the notion that a woman is a full human being who has a right to her own body (i.e. the right to consent and the right to not be raped) is relatively new. Women are still treated as house-slaves in many religions, rape is woefully under-prosecuted and practically something every woman has experienced once in her life, and we're still accustoming ourselves to the idea of women in the workplace, the educational systems, and the sporting tournaments.
No wonder when someone says, hey a clump of cells has the right to enslave and use the bodies of women who dare sleep with men who aren't you, the response of too many idiots is "That sounds fair."
Posted by: Josh, "Raquel Dommage," Porte-parole Gay Official
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April 18, 2010 6:03 PM
@Rowan:
Posted by: Yunomi
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April 18, 2010 6:03 PM
Venture Brothers had an answer for the soul thing:
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkZ6bud_2OWnH4ya1KYZ-QpvDKkqP4LTac
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April 18, 2010 6:06 PM
For those of you wringing your hands at "when does the fetus become equal to a pre-term baby" meme, the answer is "when it is no longer housed in my property." Abortion is property rights. No one may live in my property w/o my permission. Ever. My property, my decision.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 6:06 PM
What Cerberus said, a hundred times over. Oh, how I want to engrave that on the arm of every fauxgressive who says "but abortion is icky so it's ok to limit it and Hyde amendment and waiting period and mandatory ultrasounds and late-term and and" and force them to read it 20 times a day.
Even more squicky, what about chimeras who twin and then fuse? What happens to the poor other soul?
Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD)
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April 18, 2010 6:07 PM
We do that for guns and plastic surgery. Not great analogies, I know. Just saying.Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 6:08 PM
switching from implicit to explicit misogyny improves your point... how?Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 18, 2010 6:08 PM
KOPD,
why would it matter whether it is a clump of cells or a mature person?
I'll repeat the simple and only relevant ethical principle:
Nobody has the right to use someone else's body
Not a mature adult, not a fetus. Whatever age.
That throws away the whole discussion about when someone should be considered a person. It's an irrelevant discussion.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 6:11 PM
How about a Fat Blob Teabagger on a hover-round at a tax protest billboard: "I got my soul at conception but I still can't fucking dance"
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 6:11 PM
Wishing actual pain on someone else? Yeah, that's pretty misanthropic. And when it's just because she doesn't act sexually the way you think she should? Misanthropic, misogynistic, and creepy as hell.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 6:11 PM
Jordan:
I see. Well, your choice of words has certainly clarified your position.
Posted by: Josh, "Raquel Dommage," Porte-parole Gay Official
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April 18, 2010 6:11 PM
whoops. . blockquote fail, sorry.
Posted by: Cathaholics Anonymous
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April 18, 2010 6:12 PM
A couple of points I like to raise about this issue:
A) The need for abortions is a symptom of a problem in society: what to do with unwanted pregnancies. [There are many reasons a pregnancy is unwanted, but let's not get sidetracked.] Abortion is just one of several options to deal with this problem. The need for abortions would then evaporate if there were no unwanted preganancies. So, preach birth control! -(duh!) Unfortunately, there is a jingle going through my mind about "every sperm is sacred" which means these knuckleheads will never come around to a reasonable solution for minimizing if not eliminating abortions....
B)The part about chromosomes equals a human makes me think that the catholic opposition to stem cell research and cloning is truly based on the fact that if successful, all catholics can never take a shower without committing murder of potential life from the skin cells that are sloughed-off via the cleansing process!
Posted by: claudia.sawyer
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April 18, 2010 6:13 PM
I would also suggest that PZ's first altered image show the 12 week fetus to scale.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 6:13 PM
Oh, you wanted us to be more reasonable about this? OK. Reason with me, if you will:Which political party in the US is most loudly opposed to abortion and is trying everything in its power to restrict access to them? And which party has been trying to block any improvements of social security which would benefit children and single parents, such as universal health care that also covers children with pre-existing conditions? And which party is most vocally religious?
Is it a coincidence that all of these questions have the same answer?
And besides, if the anti-abortion crowd really cared about preventing abortions so much, why do they also generally want to restrict access to contraceptives and safe-sex education, arguably the most effective ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies? It suggests that anti-abortion is not primarily about the babies, but it's part of a wider agenda. It's about sex. It's about not letting women get away with having free access to it.
Posted by: ButchKitties
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April 18, 2010 6:15 PM
The anti-choice movement continues to ignore the plain fact that the legality of abortion has next to nothing to do with the incidence of abortion. Western Europe has relatively unrestricted abortion and the lowest abortion rates in the world. Around 3 in 250 women between ages 15-44 will get an abortion. In Brazil, where abortion is illegal except for rape or medical necessity, the lifetime average is between 1-2 abortions per woman. Clearly, making abortion illegal does not prevent abortions, though it is pretty good at making them unsafe.
What would reduce the incidence of abortion would be to eliminate unwanted pregnancies (no demand for abortions = no abortions), but I've yet to find a "pro-life" group that focuses on ending abortion by improving access to doctors, contraception, or mandating comprehensive sex education. Because they aren't actually interested in preventing abortion. They are interested in punishing women for having sex.
Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD)
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April 18, 2010 6:17 PM
@70
So you're saying you're okay with abortion up to and including when labor has begun.
Posted by: ex-Texan Barb
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April 18, 2010 6:18 PM
Judie Brown of the "American Life League" is my favorite pro-life crazy. I check her out regularly for info on what's new with wingnuts. One of my favorite chestnuts, re pregnant 10 year olds: A raped child shouldn't be subjected to the further trauma of abortion!
Today Judie responds to a troubled supporter (or maybe a troll!) who's read a (truly) horrifying story in Newsweek about women who are coerced by abusive boyfriends into becoming/remaining pregnant. This potentially lost soul is starting to wonder if abortion is always so bad after all!
But Judie sets her straight!! Read on if you can even follow it, but do be sure to check out the end of the first paragraph. I think someone's finally seen the light:
Dear Marie
We live in a culture of violence brought about by the ongoing slaughter of the most innocent in our midst, the preborn. To address the wrong being perpetrated against women like those discussed in the Newseek article we have to begin at the root cause of such discrimiation and abuse, the Lord.
A culture of violence is a culture that hates God.
This is not a popular topic for mainstream media, they dislike the discussion of faith and the power of God, but believe me in a world attempting at every turn to deny God's creation and His power, this sort of abuse will only increase.
Judie Brown
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 6:19 PM
Caine @56
Right, the catholics. Majority, then? Pretty much if they aren't male, they strongly identify with the patriarchy and sustaining it. I would argue that over 75% of anti-choicers also either fought against the ERA or would have if they had been around back then.
Certainly almost every single female pro-life leader is literally recycled from that old battle or other battles against "encroaching feminism".
The fact that it's about controlling women and punishing them for the victories they've made towards equality is not subtle.
It's especially worth noting that this is because free reproductive health is critical for women's rights. The ability to plan when you will give birth is critical to being able to plan your career, take priority of your education and be a full individual including the right to experience a sex life if you so choose.
Having to sacrifice an element of personhood to "have the freedom" of a career or knowing that a tryst could end up knocking you out of a job or an opportunity before you are ready are huge stumbling blocks.
And this is before we get into the fact I hinted at in my last post which is that the abortion war is a cleaned up version of the rape-culture war. I.e. men have lost a large amount of ground on the war to dictate that some women by virtue of angering the patriarchy deserve to be raped and that men have inherent rights to use their spouses and partners for sex on their terms rather than their partner's consent.
Abortion tries and dilute the idea of female autonomy and the right to your own body while female, by saying that a "cute, lil' baby" gets to trump a woman's right to autonomy...by the virtue of the man impregnating her and putting her in her place.
A lot of it is also sperm magic.
A fetus does not automagically "grow" into a baby. It is constructed BY THE WOMAN. Enzymes in her surrounding tissues recruit nutrients, blood, bones, tissue, etc... from the food the woman eats and mostly from her own body. Piece by piece she cannibalizes herself to construct the "miracle baby". So much so that women who have many problems or can't take care of nutrition for two is having her body heavily compromised by the strain.
Let me repeat that. Women build fetuses into birthable children by cannibalizing their own body.
Again, without consent, this is a horror show. Something akin to the way a tumor leeches the nutrients and important tissues of the body in order to grow itself.
Without the mother's input of differentiation signals and the like, there would be no difference between growing fetus and tumor cluster.
But men aren't used to thinking of women as wholly human so thinking about all of that is distant, unreal, disconnected. But not existing. The existential dread of that is terrifying and to think a woman with her vagina denata has that power and that she almost entirely alone is responsible for most of the creation of "the miracle of life".
That just will not stand for so many.
And to all of them, I'd like to say, Le Fuck You.
Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD)
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April 18, 2010 6:20 PM
Whether it makes a difference is not the same as whether it's honest. Is a bit of honesty too much to ask?
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 18, 2010 6:20 PM
Those pro-lifers really think we're stupid, don't they?
Is it supposed to be some revelation that the genes come together at conception? Do they think we're okay with legal abortion because we don't realize a fetus has the full set of human genes?
Yeah, you got your genes at conception. And you had to parasitize another person's bloodstream, hormones and organ functions for the next 40 weeks! I did the same thing. I'm here and typing because that person and her husband actively decided to have children. I exist not because my mom was pro-life (she wasn't) but because I was a wanted baby. The real tragedy is that an awful lot of people can't say that.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 6:22 PM
Carle @ 71
It becomes a plot device in a hollywood B-movie horror flick.
Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere
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April 18, 2010 6:23 PM
An advertising campaign being misleading? Never. Next you're going to tell me that if I buy a Lexus beautiful scantily-clad women aren't going to drape themselves over it... you're just talking nonsense PZ.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 6:24 PM
I've yet to find a "pro-life" group that focuses on ending abortion by improving access to doctors, contraception, or mandating comprehensive sex education. Because they aren't actually interested in preventing abortion. They are interested in punishing women for having sex.
Just repeating that for emphasis.
So you're saying that your ridiculous hypothetical is so much more important than actual cases of late-term abortion that yours should be the primary rationale for formulating law?
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 6:24 PM
KOPD @83
Yes.
And you should too.
Now read my posts and grow the fuck up.
Love,
A bitch
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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April 18, 2010 6:25 PM
When and where has that happened when it wasn't medically necessary?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 18, 2010 6:28 PM
*checks to make sure alisonmiers#87 is on a list*
PZ, Molly time is overdue...
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 18, 2010 6:28 PM
KOPD,
what's dishonest about saying that nobody has the right to use someone else's body? Nobody means no person or no clump of cells. it doesn't matter.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 6:30 PM
Cerberus @ 85:
A fair amount of catholics, yes. I've known too many female pro-lifers who aren't catholic though. They run the spectrum of "christian" from fundies to moderate. Abortion is a polarizing issue, however, what I cannot stand is the pro-lifers refusing the idea of a woman having autonomy. In that regard, yes, there is the standard "a man is head of the household" garbage, but it's not limited to one particular flavor of christianity.
Women have been finding ways to abort since they've been getting pregnant. It's foolish to think it will stop. A lot of my anger towards the lifers not just the attempt to stop abortions; it's the constant fight to make BC unavailable and deny better education. Apparently, though, my thinking on these issues makes me a bitch. Ah well.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 6:30 PM
If you're not, how many women are you comfortable with killing to prevent this hypothetical situation from happening? One? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? If abortion is limited, it will happen. Some of them will die. How many are you comfortable with? That's not a rhetorical question. How many?
Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere
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April 18, 2010 6:31 PM
Well said Carlie. It's amazing that pro-lifers aren't looking at which countries have the lowest abortion rates in the world and seeing what reasons there are for it. You'd think that if they really cared about lowering abortion rates they would be all over that.This is merely the thin edge of the wedge they can use to push their greater agenda. If it were actually about stopping abortion then they are failing spectacularly.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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April 18, 2010 6:32 PM
A thought just occurred to me.* Many if not most anti-abortion folks are in favor of punishing women for having sex. The ones who allow exemptions in anti-abortion laws for rape and incest give those women a pass because sex was forced on them and they probably didn't enjoy it.
*Yes, it does happen occasionally.
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 18, 2010 6:32 PM
Why does this scenario need to be an issue in the debate?
If a woman is pregnant and doesn't want to be, she's not going to wait until labor has begun and then decide to get rid of it. She's not going to wait until the third trimester, if she has a choice in the matter.
If a woman doesn't want to be pregnant, she will terminate the pregnancy as soon as she is able. She's not going to subject her body to all that strain for a child she doesn't want. If she ends up waiting too long, it's probably because she couldn't afford the procedure or she walked into one of those "crisis pregnancy centers" that gave her the run-around until she was past the cut-off stage.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 6:33 PM
alysonmiers @ 87:
Damn straight. And QTF.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 6:34 PM
@Kel, OM:
Not that amazing, as they are all evil socialist countries. You don't want to become like them.
Posted by: Walton, Marquis of Carabas
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April 18, 2010 6:34 PM
That's utter bullshit. A pro-choicer is someone who accepts and supports the principle that women should be free to have an abortion, without fear of coercion or punishment. That doesn't mean all pro-choicers have to believe it's always morally right to have an abortion. There is a difference between believing that people should be free to do X, and believing that X is morally acceptable.
It's exactly like freedom of speech. I support everyone's right to freedom of speech, without exception, from Sunsara Taylor to Fred Phelps and everyone in between. That doesn't mean I agree with or approve of the things that Taylor or Phelps say. It just means that I accept their right to say it without state coercion, because the state should not be trusted to determine what is and isn't acceptable speech.
Equally, I have always found late-term abortion morally repugnant. I do not, however, think it should be illegal - because I don't want to trust the state with the power to make decisions about what individual women can and can't do with their bodies, or to enforce such decisions by coercive force. Because once we entrust the state with control over individuals' bodies, we make ourselves, in a sense, slaves to government.
Believing that women should be free to have abortions, and that this freedom is a fundamental right, is not the same as saying that abortion is a morally neutral act. In my personal opinion, it isn't. I don't think an entity transitions magically from "nonperson" to "person" the second it emerges from the mother's womb; rather, the process is obviously more gradual. But I nonetheless believe that a woman should have a legal right to an abortion - because a woman's body is her property, not the state's.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 6:35 PM
Just wanted to give props to good statements by Deen @81 and alysonmiers @87.
It's really very (what's a word that means to make me want to hug every feminist on the planet and thank them for their work just from hearing the excuses of the rape culture) having to listen to the endless runaround.
It's just the case that we don't yet have a solid grounding in especially American culture on the idea of a woman as a full human being and for her right to her own body.
We're always looking for exceptions in the male dominant culture. Well, is it still rape if we are both drunk? What if I just didn't hear her say no? What if she withdraws consent at the very moment I'm climaxing? Is there a way a fetus can trump her rights to her own body? It's a cute child isn't it? Well then, when does it become a cute child? Can we push that back a little ways? How about a little more? I hear conception is a nice point, that way when I forget to pull out she'll have to carry my proof of virility.
It's (again, I search for the word). The worst in us as a culture, maybe?
Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere
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April 18, 2010 6:36 PM
Oh, that should be ButchKitties who should be congratulated.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 6:39 PM
yup. even though I was an accident, and to an unmarried college student no less, I can say with 100% certainty that I was wanted, because my mom had the choice, and choose to have me.Posted by: Finch
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April 18, 2010 6:40 PM
As always, an insightful bit of commentary.
I do however, have one bone to pick with our squidly overlord. I think it's important to say one is pro-choice, and not "pro-abortion," just as a matter of not playing into the paranoid delusional fantasies of the "pro-life" (read: anti-woman) movement. They love mentioning things like China's population control and conjuring up police-state imagery. I'm sure that nobody here would actively force a woman to have an abortion against her will.
Just as we need to educate the public about biology to prevent them from being able to manipulate them using biological ignorance, we need to prevent them from being ignorant of what pro-choice actually means. That way pro-lifers can't manipulate that ignorance.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 6:41 PM
Sorry Kel, I should have cited. When I was composing it I *thought* I would be the very next comment below, but should have known a few others would pop up in the meantime.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 6:42 PM
@Walton:
What, always? As in, under all circumstances? What about cases where the continuation of the pregnancy is likely going to kill the mother and probably the child too? It happens, you know.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 6:42 PM
alysonmiers:
That's a fact, one I can vouch for personally.
Unfortunately, that happens all too often. The thing is, most late term abortions are due to medical issues, very serious issues. Women who find themselves in the position of having to abort late-term are in an agonizing position; generally speaking, these women want the child.
There are already limits on when you can abort, no more laws are needed in that regard. I'd also like to point out that there is a difference between an unwanted pregnancy and an unwanted child. For example, adoption is not a solution to an unwanted pregnancy, where it can be a solution to an unwanted child.
Posted by: serpdesu
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April 18, 2010 6:43 PM
The replacing of cute baby faces with more accurate pictures is pretty funny and fair enough, and I especially like the tail comment, but your "raw materials" analogy dances vaguely and distantly around the not-at-all easy question about what defines life and when we should dignify that life. What about infants? what about prematurely born infants? Viable fetuses of a comparable age? Surely I agree that a 28 day old fetus ought not be morally equivalent to a todler, but the "line" isn't and has never been "easy" and abortion is not a simple matter of women's rights vs. sexist oppression, but listening to some of the cat-herd here meow about it, you'd think it was the new women's suffrage.
Posted by: Morgan
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April 18, 2010 6:44 PM
#85 -
You have to know that your "killing a fetus/baby is ethically acceptable up until the moment the umbilical cord is severed" viewpoint is not held by very many people. I see your point about gene combination not equaling a human being, but you're taking it to kind of a ridiculous degree.
I think it's an important thing to emphasize here, amongst the rampant ad hominem attacks and constant vitriolic rants:
There exist people who are as intelligent, educated, and thoughtful as you are, who nevertheless do not agree with your opinions.
Shocking, I know, but it's true. By standing in a black or white square screaming about how everyone else are idiots, you lump yourself in with all of the jackasses you're trying to lambast.
By the way, I'm not necessarily counting myself amongst the people who don't agree with you - I am very much counting myself among the people who don't agree with your violent, divisive and infantile manner of "debate".
Scientific knowledge does not by itself suffice when discussing matters of ethics and morality.
Posted by: AnthonyK
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April 18, 2010 6:45 PM
Hah! Because they might become preborn again Christians? I only worry about the postborn.Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 6:45 PM
That's a non-argument, an abortion during labor is called a Cesarian, and if done correctly all survive.
Posted by: Walton, Marquis of Carabas
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April 18, 2010 6:45 PM
Jordan,
Seriously, fuck off.
Using misogynistic language does not help your case. It just makes you look like a sexist moron.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 6:46 PM
Walton @102
It's worth noting that philosophy aside, the only late-term abortions that occur (including in super-ultra-commie countries where they allow more unfetered access to abortion) are those necessary for the life or health of the mother.
Most of the stories are horrifyingly gut-wrenching. Fetuses that have died inside the womb and need to be expunged, fetuses born with giant holes in the back of their heads, fetuses born without skin or organs, fetuses that can't be birthed without endangering or killing the mother.
Late-term abortions, by their very temporal nature tend to be wanted pregnancies where something has gone horribly horribly wrong and it is medically necessary to remove the damaged fetus with a safe medical procedure.
It is not "sluts who 'forgot' to get an abortion deciding to whack an angel baby which totally has a brain and everything because the act of pushing the baby through labor would totally ruin the fuckability of their twat".
So even though I would argue the only "moral" position is one that doesn't allow any person, organization, or object to enslave full human beings without their consent, even without that, there is no reason to be troubled by the "moral question" of late-term abortions.
They are a medically necessary procedure for the life of the mother. So her surviving children or future children can still have a mother and so her loved ones can still have a lover, a family member, a friend, and she can have the right to LIVE.
So you don't need to be bothered at all by the procedure.
Posted by: nixscripter
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April 18, 2010 6:49 PM
[Abortionist of the future:] Oh my god!! You CLONED yourself!? An abomination! Terminate that thing! Praise be to the
crackerLord!Posted by: Glock21
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April 18, 2010 6:50 PM
#103... you seem to be imply (forgive me if I'm misinterpreting) that even acknowledging that there may be ethical concerns with a viable fetus and whether any of those may conflict with the liberty of the mother is on par with being pro-rape. This comes off as totally unhinged (and again forgive me if I'm just misinterpreting) and little different than with pro-lifers accuse me of being pro-genocide for being unconcerned with zygotes and embryos after weighing the arguments.
You make a good argument on why abortion should remain legal in almost any situation, but I think the ethical issues get far more complicated when the difference between protected baby with rights and unprotected fetus with none is exposure to air. I think you would surely argue the mother's liberty outweighs all of those concerns, but your implication, intended or not, that even acknowledging those concerns is on par with being pro-rape is indefensible. If it was something where someone was defending policies that would force raped women to carry babies to term, either directly or through imperfect legislation, the accusation would seem to make more sense.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 6:50 PM
Morgan @ 111:
Your concern is noted. Don't clutch your pearls too tightly, you might choke yourself.
Posted by: Walton, Marquis of Carabas
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April 18, 2010 6:51 PM
Yes, I know that the great majority of late-term abortions are medically necessary to save the mother's life. And no, I don't have any moral qualm about it in that circumstance.
Anyway, as I said - and as I will say again - a woman absolutely should have a legal right to an abortion. Regardless of my or anyone else's moral views, it should be clear that individuals' bodies are their own property, not the state's property, and that it should be up to the woman to make her own choice about abortion. As I said, for me, it's exactly the same as freedom of speech; whatever I think of someone's political opinion, I believe in their right to express it without fear of coercion.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 6:51 PM
^5 Jordan. I'm on your side.
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 18, 2010 6:52 PM
Already-born, breathing infants, whether born at full term or prematurely, are no longer parasitizing their mothers' bodies, and so the debate over abortion rights does not apply to them.
If the pregnant woman had a choice in the matter, and she has carried the fetus to viability, then she probably doesn't want to get rid of it, so again: not relevant.
By all means, keep calling us the cat-herd. Great way to get us to listen to you.
Posted by: Stardrake
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April 18, 2010 6:52 PM
When I let my full feelings out about the forced birthers, I find there's only one word that properly describes them:
SLAVERS.
They basically believe that women are property--property of men, property of the fetus, property of God. They're just popping babies instead of picking cotton.
I also note that the old-school slavers also thought they were doing God's will--which just happened to be convenient for them, as well.
It's time we called them what they are.
Posted by: evergreenotter
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April 18, 2010 6:52 PM
In contrast to last week's blasphemy, where I felt denying the existence of a soul was extreme and indefensible, this was a simply amazing post end-to-end. Your point about extreme biological reductionism and the disturbing philosophy it represents was particularly enlightening.
As a bisexual, I occasionally come across issues involving transgendered people since the fate of all sexual minorities are rather intertwined. There is almost always someone using that exact same genetic reductionism argument to deride the notion that a person's psychology and external phenotype could ever diverge. The pigment-painting analogy is particularly powerful rebuttal. I think it would be particularly accessible to people lacking a sophisticated understanding of science.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 6:56 PM
Morgan @111
James Watson doesn't believe that black people could be as smart as white people. Physically. He believes this against all evidence of reality and the facts on the matter.
It's very easy to be intelligent, educated, thoughtful and wrong.
I'm a warrior for a large number of minority groups. Mainly because I belong to many of them. I am trans, I am woman, I am asexual, I am part of the LGBTQ community, I am poor, I am a strong ally of those fighting for racial equality, etc...
I have met large numbers of very intelligent, very educated, very thoughtful people carrying on the social prejudices, carrying out the actions of casual bigotry without a thought, because it's natural, because that's how they were raised, because that's the culture, because it's hard to empathize and really imagine when your brain is inserting all sorts of emotions and biases.
You may think you are making a point here.
You are trying a dismissive form of aggressive privilege known as the "tone argument".
Also, I've yet to meet an anti-choice person who did not fit one of the six types I noted way back in comment 48.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 18, 2010 6:57 PM
Phew, the Trophy Daughter™ is on the side of reason (big surprise). Lots of potential Molly material (HINT PZ) here.
Posted by: Glock21
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April 18, 2010 6:57 PM
The colloquial use of the term parasite seems a bit off for a biology based blog. It'd be difficult to use the biological term parasite to describe something as fundamentally necessary to life as reproduction. Arguments for the mother's liberty make more sense than something as easily picked off as a misuse of biological jargon.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 7:01 PM
Glock21 @ 117:
That does happen, you know. At least here in the U.S. South Dakota, a while back, legislated that abortion was completely illegal, with no exception in the cases of rape or the health/life of the mother. This was after successfully hounding the only clinic in the area which had provided abortions into closing and went hand in hand with a measure which stated, by law, that pharmacists had the right of "religious conscience". That means any pharmacist in the state can decide to not carry birth control or refuse to dispense it on 'moral grounds'.
Now, imagine discovering you're pregnant while living in that particular state, and you don't want to be pregnant. Good luck, you'll need it! The nearest places a woman in SD can obtain an abortion: Fargo (ND), Grand Forks (ND) or Minnesota. Those clinics have all been made to use ultrasound and impose a mandatory 3 day wait before termination. Just think about the difficulties involved.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 7:01 PM
@Walton:
I don't think you come off that easily. Moral condemnation of abortion is still an extra barrier for women to actually go out and get an abortion. It's not a limitation by the state, but pressure from the state is not all that matters. Social pressure matters too.
Sure, you have the right to express your moral views, but you may still be wrong, and it may still have harmful effects.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 7:02 PM
Glock @117
I was talking about incrementalist arguments regarding the autonomy of women.
Buhhutt.
I would urge you to read my comment @67 for why the viability of a fetus is a red herring.
However, I am fully willing to let people remove their fetal tissue at any point and allow it to attempt to build itself to full personhood without the intervention of a womb. At that point it is not violating a person's right to the consent of their body.
Seriously, my comment @67, read it.
Posted by: Glock21
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April 18, 2010 7:03 PM
#127... I realize it does happen and it should be called out. The post I was responding to seemed to be implying even discussing the ethical concerns was on par with being pro-rape. Reminded me a bit of the other side's unhinged accusations.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 7:03 PM
What else would you call it? It's one organism completely dependent for its survival on siphoning off resources from another, with no reciprocal nutrition going the other direction. Parasitic correctly defines the relationship.
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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April 18, 2010 7:04 PM
I see. So we should stop calling cancer a decease, since it's merely good, lifefurthering celldivision?Posted by: staceyjwsolar
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April 18, 2010 7:08 PM
One thing everyone is missing is that anti-choicers DON'T WANT to lower the # of unwanted pregnancies- they want to push women into having them and giving them up for adoption through their CPC centers.
http://www.exiledmothers.com/adoption_facts/robbing_the_cradle.html
http://www.abortionaccess.info/chooselie.htm
Ever since Roe v Wade, the rate of adoptions has plummeted (from 25% to 1%,last I read). Xtians created CPC centers to "educate" women away from abortion. Basically, CPC's tell desperate women that they would be sinning to "kill their baby", and that they will pay for everything if they don't abort! Later on, the woman finds out that they are only supported IF they give the baby up- there is NO PLACE for women who want to KEEP their unplanned pregnancies! Some are told if they don't give the baby up, they will have to pay back any assistance given to them!!!
This is a little known facet of the abortion wars, and shows where all their anti-life policies (anti-WIC, welfare, sex ed) lead.
Yes, the anti-choicers have "biblical" reasons for their abstinence only nonsense, and their hatred of contraception, but these aren't the only things that push them. Behind it all is a desire to control women- reverse all the gains we have made and return us to submissive breeders without rights.
And for all of those (not here) who say "adoption is the answer- please remember that it causes lots of lifelong hurt. Of course, its the WOMAN that hurts, and anti-choicers don't care about her at all. Adoption is a great option for those who CHOOSE IT, not those who are coerced into it, as so many scared and desperate women are.
"Adoption is a violent act, a political act of aggression towards a woman who has supposedly offended the sexual mores by committing the unforgivable act of not suppressing her sexuality, and therefore not keeping it for trading purposes through traditional marriage. The crime is a grave one, for she threatens the very fabric of our society. The penalty is severe. She is stripped of her child by a variety of subtle and not so subtle manoeuvres and then brutally abandoned." - Joss Shawyer, Death by Adoption, Cicada Press (1979)
(I was adopted, and realized how much heartache went into it when I met my first-mom)
And Jordan- guess I'm a BITCH then, since I do think all anti-choice activists that try to limit my rights are EVIL STUPID SCUM!!!
Posted by: Glock21
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April 18, 2010 7:09 PM
#131... it's not about nutrients, as I pointed out.
#132... um... no. How is pointing out that parasitism wouldn't apply given the function of reproduction at all related to cancer somehow being good because cells divide? That doesn't make a lick of sense.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 7:09 PM
Glock21:
Of course it's a parasite. The exact nature of the 'relationship' is parasitical. People shy away from parasite because they don't care to think realistically about the process.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 7:10 PM
For Glock, the summation of my 67 comment is this:
Forced birthers seek to extend a right given to no other FULL HUMAN BEING (the right to another's body without their consent). If I am Secular Jesus and I need an organ to survive, a small amount of blood to survive, leech the nutrients, bone mass, and vital energy and enzymes of another person for 9 months and the only person who can give it is a combination of Pat Robertson and Hitler?
I do not have that right. I will never have that right. I can never have that right.
Ever.
So why are we giving it to growing cell matter being constructed by the mother's body into something that may at one point at birth be a full human being?
There is no other reason but the complete lack of respect we naturally give to female personhood and autonomy and how little respect we give to exactly what is occurring in the "creation of a baby".
Posted by: serpdesu
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April 18, 2010 7:10 PM
@alysonmiers
whether or not a baby is "parasitizing" the mother shouldn't affect whether it is considered a living being or not, hence i see no justifcation for calling a baby which is soon to be born distinct from a prematurely born baby as far as it's status as living is concerned.
even if we justify this in cases of danger to hte mother's life as one life for another, do we place no restrictions on the conditions under which this is allowable? should we consider it morally and legally neutral even if there is not danger?
i don't claim to have an iron definition on where i say life begins, i only wish to call attention to the fact that the issue IS debatable, not obvious, and not a simple matter of oppressing or not oppressing women.
and yes, i generally try not to resort to barbs an name calling, but i've been in this debate before and tried to be sensible and fair to no avail. this is an issue many atheists really seem to get their A t-shirts in a bundle about and I don't really care about winning most of them over becaue i don't think it's possible.
i do, however, expect the more sensislbe people here to be as annoyed as i am by the various overreactions and exclude themselves from my insults.
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 18, 2010 7:12 PM
I think the concept of "rights" is inapplicable to the fetus.
"Rights" implies that the entity makes a decision. Since a fetus cannot communicate a preference, make a decision, or accept responsibility, it has no rights, actually.
So then you might ask me: then how does a newborn baby have rights? It can't make decisions or accept responsibility, either.
My answer to that is: no, the breathing infant doesn't have rights, either.
We make protections for the safety and dignity of infants. Perhaps that's merely a semantic distinction rather than a real argument, but I think it's an important distinction. A late-term fetus or newborn infant does not have rights in the same sense that you and I do.
The difference between protections for a breathing infant and protections for a gestating fetus is that the breathing infant does not need to be protected from a non-negotiable caretaker. Whereas protecting a fetus necessarily affects the liberty of a pregnant woman. If she wants to protect her gestating fetus, then all is fine and dandy. But if she doesn't want to be pregnant, then protecting that fetus is a lot more complicated than looking after the welfare of an already-born child.
A breathing infant can be placed in foster care. A fetus can only be protected in ways that affect the bodily autonomy of its mother.
Posted by: Glock21
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April 18, 2010 7:14 PM
@ Cerberus... thanks for the clarification. I believe I just misunderstood who you were directing the comment at. Sorry about that. I do think you make a good case for a woman's rights taking primacy. No misunderstandings there.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 7:15 PM
Cerebrus at 124
What is the Q at the end of LBGTQ? I haven't seen that before. I assume it means queer but not sure what 'queer' adds.
just curious
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 7:15 PM
not really. some things procreate by parasitizing other species; some things procreate by parasitizing their own. the method is the same though.Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 7:16 PM
@serpdesu: did you just define "sensible people" with "people who agree with me"? Seems like a sensible way to get those that don't agree to listen to you...
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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April 18, 2010 7:16 PM
So cell division is not an integral part of reproduction - and life, itself?Posted by: SquidBrandon
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April 18, 2010 7:17 PM
Indeed. These individuals have carefully weighed the scientific literature, have cross-referenced this with the copious scripture passages that specifically address this matter, and have circumspectly considered the ethical issues a woman faces when choosing this procedure. We should not slight them by failing to acknowledge the judicious opinion they have formulated: an opinion certainly more holistic in approach than our own.
How dare we even consider challenging these opinions (even in the most milquetoast of approaches) without offering these courageous and ever-decorous individuals the utmost respect and deference? We should agree to disagree and keep our opinions to ourselves.
I feel that I may be in need of a fainting couch if this discussion continues the way it has been developing...
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 7:18 PM
way tho miss the point. fully and inarguably alive human beings don't have the right to use other human being's organs against their will, even if it would save their lives; why would fetuses?Posted by: Glock21
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April 18, 2010 7:18 PM
#141... but when an organism uses another to allow it's offspring to be a parasite of it, that other organism does not actually get any gain. It just loses. The original organism does get a benefit: reproduction. You can see how the comparison falls flat.
Posted by: Josh, "Raquel Dommage," Porte-parole Gay Official
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April 18, 2010 7:19 PM
Several people here have talked about moral qualms about abortion, even if they support a woman's right to have one.
All right then, lay them out on the table. Specifics. No vague words like "uneasy," "ethically unclear," or any of that. Tell us why and specifically what the actual foundation is to your moral qualms. Until I hear these, I'm going to assume they're based on a vague "ick factor." That's understandable as far as emotions go.
But it's not good enough for this conversation. This is a vitally serious issue, and until we can get past the infantile stage of going about about "moral" qualms without identifying their roots, we're getting nowhere.
I've asked Rowan about this, he hasn't answered. Walton's used the same phrase, and he hasn't done any better.
We need to do better. Let's please start. The entire anti-choice movement is founded on "moral" concerns that no one ever demands be explained in foudational, specific terms. We have to interrogate ourselves - and the rest of society - about this if we're ever going to get past this.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 7:19 PM
Finch @ 106
He did that on purpose. Once you have taken the squidly overlord into your heart, you begin to know these things.
You need more faith, take my word for it.
Posted by: wisnij
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April 18, 2010 7:20 PM
Not uncontrolled, malignant cell division, no.Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 7:21 PM
no it doesn't; your claim is actually begging the question, assuming all reproduction is good, harmless, and wanted.Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 18, 2010 7:22 PM
Neoplasm.Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 7:22 PM
serpdesu @ 137:
At this moment, I'm annoyed with idjits who can't figure out where the shift key is and manage to use it coupled with an inability to spell or use a spellchecker.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 7:22 PM
From the embryo's point of view, it's entirely about the nutrients. You can claim that it's a bad PR idea to call an embryo a parasite, but you led off by saying that description was "off" for a "biology based blog". It's an entirely appropriate descriptor for a biology based blog. Did you know that there are hundreds of animals that die as soon as they give birth because their energy has been so spent by feeding the embryos? That straw itch mites not only devour the energy of their mother during development, but then turn around and eat their mother to death within minutes of birth? Is that not parasitic? Reproduction is a parasitic experience in any organism that has internal gestation. If you like, you can argue that it's not a politically expedient term to use, but you can't say that it's biologically incorrect.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 7:23 PM
@Glock21 in #146:
I think I get what you're trying to get at. Parasites live off their hosts without giving the host any benefit, and you think the "no benefit" part doesn't apply to human babies, because it's how humans procreate. Am I right?
Well then. Explain to us what the benefit is of a baby to a mother who doesn't want it.
Nothing? "Parasite" it is then.
Posted by: Glock21
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April 18, 2010 7:23 PM
#143... assuming you aren't being willfully obtuse to argue for the sake of argument, the cell division of a tumor isn't typically beneficial to the "host."
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 7:23 PM
Also glock, I just noticed the straw man you erected so I might as well knock it down.
I and no one else is trying to "take away your right" to be all confused about the humanity of a fetus or trying to talk about viability. Nor do I equate having that discussion as equivalent to an actual crime.
You fully have that right and the right to seek that discussion.
And we, we have the right to note the problematic history of that discussion, how it ignores greater issues and that some people with greater understanding of the biology of the matter will answer it in ways you didn't expect with the leading nature of your questions.
Some people even have the right to call you a woman-hating asshole who's JAQing off.
Some people even have the right to think less of you or too react angrily and make sweeping assumptions about your moral character.
We all have rights.
But the right to not be called an asshole is never a right.
Now, I know the emotional response you will have to all that. I'm not one of the some people and I'm not entirely sure you're on the "not being called an asshole is a right" bandwagon.
But being of a lot of minority groups, I've run into people who've been of that school. They think that the right to disagree goes only one way and that a crowd of people enraged by the dishonest nature or dismissive of humanity nature of a conversation somehow do not have the right to disagree or even bring in their own knowledge bases.
So yeah.
That all said, the abortion debate is triply infuriating for me. As a woman it's dismissive of my humanity and right to personhood and bodily autonomy (which yes, affects the rape culture). As a feminist, it's dismissive of women's rights in general and again, female bodily and sexual autonomy, which are critical for most all women's rights. And most of all as a biologist, all the hand-wrining is based in an ignorant understanding of micro and cellular biology, which are my goddamned fields of expertise.
Constantly those "struggling with it" are completely ignorant about what a fetus is, how its formed into a "person", and the toll that process takes on the mother's body. There is an easy glide into thinking it a type of magic that's all smiles, rather than a disgusting inch by inch snapshot of evolution where the mother's enzymes and hormone levels "direct" the sculpting of the cell division into the formation of more and more complex human-like objects.
And that infuriates me. Just like the evolution debate or the climate change debate. Ignorant people trying to make their delusions and desires trump reality, especially when even if they could rewrite reality, what they are asking for is for this special class of "human" to have rights granted to NO OTHER HUMAN BEING.
Infuriating.
Posted by: wisnij
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April 18, 2010 7:24 PM
Not true. Suppose Al and Bob are adult conjoined twins. Al can't say "This half of the body is mine, cut him off" if he knows it will kill Bob or Bob doesn't consent to the surgery.Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 18, 2010 7:25 PM
And if the original organism is not interested in reproducing at the present time, then there is no benefit. Only exploitation.
Whether it is considered a "living being" is not the point. The question is what that living being is entitled to demand from another living being.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 7:27 PM
And to state it another way, they are asking for women to have rights taken away from them that are taken away from no man.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 7:28 PM
glock @146
Ah, balls. Ignore my straw man related opening in my comment 157. It was way of target and will do more harm than good now.
The comment can continue on from "That all said"
Sorry for its inclusion.
Posted by: serpdesu
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April 18, 2010 7:28 PM
@jadehawk
so if i were born a siamese twin, and i could be given the liberty of independent movement by lopping off my living twin, you would support this as my right? now imagine further that i had a choice in my twin coming into this state of affairs, but my twin had no choice. harsh, eh?
ignore the implausibility of the exact situation, i make the analogy only for the purpose of comparison.
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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April 18, 2010 7:30 PM
Nor is an unwanted baby. Unless of course you reduce procreation to selfish genes in which case the mother just becomes a hindrance to her own genetic material.An unwanted pregnancy is in no way, shape or form different from a cancerous growth.
And cancer can be quite beneficial for the procreation of selfish genes. Somehow I don't think Henrietta Lacks woulda been particularly grateful for the immortality her womb (ironically) granted her.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 7:31 PM
why would I do such a thing? in a discussion of real issues concerning real humans, idiotic and unrealistic hypotheticals are nothing but red herrings.Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 18, 2010 7:32 PM
Oh, I see what you did there.
If you don't want a baby, then don't have sex, right?
Yeah, no. Try again.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 7:33 PM
Abortions are only performed near birth when the mother's health is at risk. There are substantially fewer ethical dilemmas than you might think.
Posted by: serpdesu
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April 18, 2010 7:35 PM
@jadehawk
what-if's are good tests to see where an individual's moral rules lie, even when they are implausible or difficult.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 7:36 PM
glock @156
Got to correct you, a fetus most definitely has a parasitical relationship to the host pregnant woman.
The reason is not because it's "using her nutrients", but because by using her nutrients, it is leeching (or technically, the woman's enzymes are cannibalizing her for the sake of growing the fetus) out of critical structural parts of her body. A woman who gives birth a large number of times will have a great risk of having her teeth fall out because of the drained calcium. Her bones will be weaker because calcium was drained out of them. Her organs during pregnancy are running under extra stress because it is running the homeostasis for an additional life-form. There is a drain in ATP production which puts the mother under additional risk of mitochondrial-related diseases, greater risks of infections, etc...
It may be less deadly of a parasitical relationship than say a cancerous tumor cell, but it is definitely not commensalism (one party benefits, the other party, nothing happened because the womb is a magical portal to another land and it doesn't at all cause any damage to the mother in growing).
Making that choice is a fine one to make. If my sexual organs could work, I'd love to birth a life into this world, but it needs to be on the consent of the mother that this parasitical process is occurring.
Posted by: Morgan
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April 18, 2010 7:36 PM
@124 Cerberus
No, I was making a point, just not the one you assume. I wasn't attempting in any way to say that you are wrong, nor that all people who meet the criteria of educated, intelligent, and thoughtful are necessarily right. In order to be accused of using an appeal to moral superiority (i.e., the tone argument), I would have to follow up with "therefore, you are incorrect".
The point I was making is that your method of debate by insult and hyperbole is ineffective, inflammatory, and actually reduces the impact of your views.
If it would make it more clear, add as many adjectives to the list of "thoughtful, intelligent, and educated" as is necessary to describe someone on par with your self-image. That wouldn't make them correct, but it would make them just as worthy of being listened to with an open mind as you are.
Glock21, you are by far the most respectful, insightful person in this discussion, and I salute you for that.
Posted by: Chgo_Liz
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April 18, 2010 7:37 PM
Thank you for this thread.
This issue is so deeply painful to me, and thus normally reading any comment thread on the subject is gut-wrenching. It's good to be around people who know how to think deeply and with compassion. As opposed to, you know, anti-choicers who don't give a shit about people like me once we're born.
My mother got 5 (illegal) abortions after waiting too long the first time and getting stuck having me, but is vehemently against anyone else having the right to choose, since they're all just sluts who deserve to be saddled with a baby as penance for their sins. She swallowed the misogynistic hatred transmitted by her religion and believes it to this day, to her own detriment.
Somehow I lived through my childhood, no thanks to the anti-choicers. Slavers, indeed. And torturers. They had no right to do that to me or my mother.
Besides: the fact I didn't die in utero doesn't mean I won't die as an end result of their actions.
They have no moral leg to stand on.
Posted by: Glock21
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April 18, 2010 7:38 PM
Cerberus... no worries. I share pretty much all of your frustrations.
Others on parasitism... I'm treating the human as just another animal here. The macroscopic considerations seem to fit better with the colloquial use of the term than the biological. I think, especially given our population problems, that those macroscopic considerations are important and cannot be dismissed in this debate. I just don't think it's relevant to whether parasitism is the proper descriptor. I don't think it is critical to the argument on why abortion should be legal, the use just bugged me.
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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April 18, 2010 7:39 PM
You do realise, of course, that sometimes parents have to make that decision on behalf of their conjoined children in order to ensure the survival of at least one.
If parents can do it, why shouldn't the individuals involved be able too, once they're of sound mind?
That said, I have no idea what should be done in that case. I suspect that Bob would smother Al in his sleep, though.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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April 18, 2010 7:39 PM
Captain Catholic #155
The original pictures showed infants and pretended that's what a fetus looked like at early development. Which is more honest, to show a baby and pretend it's a fetus or to show an actual fetus?
There is a difference between human and potentially human. Something that's potentially human doesn't have human attributes or a human appearance.
Posted by: otrame
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April 18, 2010 7:40 PM
I think Walton is right. There can be a wide range of ideas about when/if it is morally wrong to have an abortion, but that is for the WOMAN who is pregnant to decide. The LAW has to be that the woman's body is her body and that is that.
I personally would probably only have an abortion for medical reasons. The idea of aborting a fetus for any other reason bothers me.
But so what? So what if it bothers me? That's me. In such circumstances it would be my body. That's my choice and I would not under any circumstances try to enforce my own personal squick-factor on the rest of women. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have only had one unwanted pregnancy and it turned out to be ectopic, so I did not have to make that decision).
And I agree whole-heartedly with those who believe the leaders of the anti-choice movement have no interest in babies. Remember, these are the same creeps who have tried mightily to prevent the vaccination of all our young women to end cervical cancer. That is all the proof you need that what they want is to control who women have sex with.
So until I see these self-righteous fuckers working hard to reduce abortion by making education and birth control technologies available to everyone so that unwanted pregnancies are reduced, they get nothing from me but my contempt.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 7:42 PM
really? splendid.would you abort Rosemary's baby?
would you let Hattie Durham have an abortion?
these are important hypotheticals. really.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 7:43 PM
I'm having a problem with the use of the word 'parasite.'
All of the biological definitions I can find are similar to this one:
par·a·site noun
1. an organism that lives on or in an organism of another species, known as the host, from the body of which it obtains nutriment.
Further definitions are mostly sociological. I'm fine with poetic liscense in metaphors, as long as it's clearly metaphorical.
If the use of the word 'parasite' here is not meant to be metaphorical, then I have to assert that the statement is wrong.
Words have meanings, meaning builds knowledge, knowledge informs actions, and actions have consequences.
Posted by: serpdesu
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April 18, 2010 7:43 PM
@Sili, The Unknown Virgin
you do realise that adding mortal danger to both twins ruins and invalidates my analogy thus making it pointless to answer at all.
Posted by: ambook
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April 18, 2010 7:44 PM
I've got to ask - @Rowan - have you actually experienced labor? It's something I would not wish on my very worst enemy and using childbirth as torture for slutty college students is a pretty brutal way to enforce those great values of yours. I hope someone like you doesn't make sexual health decisions for actual real world people.
This girl's vapid attitude towards abortion is an example of really bad sex ed and health care more than anyone else. She deserves some serious education about available methods of birth control (progesterone IUD, maybe - easy, foolproof, and lasts up to 7 years?). And who taught her that condoms "feel funny" and that this outweighs all concerns about STDs? Probably some boyfriend who's never heard of lube. Her punishment for having had this bad education, which is almost certainly not her fault, is that she undergoes significant hormonal disruption (early pregnancy is not particularly fun) and a painful and expensive medical procedure three times! Shouldn't that be punishment enough for you? Or do you need actual torture to satisfy your judgments about her sexual ethics?
Many pro-life Catholics whom I know are explicit about caring about fetuses more than actual born children because the fetuses have never committed any sins of their own and only have the imaginary taint associated with having a "soul." One woman actually told me that she was far more concerned with sin than with suffering, which I though said a lot about her values. Having worked with children who've been raped and known women struggling with violence, severe poverty, and health issues, I'd rather live in the real world, which is often difficult and requires one to compromise and choose the least-bad option.
When anti-abortion activists ignore the contribution of the maternal environment, it's just another facet of the sexism inherent in their desire to restrict reproductive freedom. It's as if the contribution of the mother's body and the dangers associated with pregnancy are irrelevant to the "personhood" of the embryo instead of factors which contribute to the "person" it may one day become. It's also another problem with the magical idea that people have a soul in the first place, or that we get our souls all in one chunk. There are saner religious traditions, including Judaism, which view decisions about abortion as more of a balancing act (i.e. choosing the least bad option) and which teach that whatever magical soul we acquire comes in bits and pieces over time. Even as a metaphor, I think this is a better approach to the process of becoming a person, whatever that means.
Funny how the religions that don't have that Christian idea of "soul" (UUs, Buddhists, pagans, a lot of strands of Judaism) don't get to have much of a voice in the debate...
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 7:45 PM
IOW: the slaughter of imaginary people concerns me not in the slightest.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 7:45 PM
No, but it often gets people off-guard (like it did with you) and can sometimes make them think about the issue from a different angle.Posted by: Morgan
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April 18, 2010 7:46 PM
@scooterKPFT #176
Is that last line a quote, or original? I just want to be sure of whom I'm going to be plagiarizing :)
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 7:46 PM
The most troublesome thing I find in this discussion is the belief that you must be crazy, sexist, and/or religious to not be okay with abortion. I'd like to disprove this.
Hello, I'm Skatje. I was raised without religion, by the author of this blog. Personally, I would not have an abortion, unless my life was at stake. I do not find this stance to be inconsistant with my other moral values; in fact, I would say that not holding this stance would prove to be inconsistant. And of course, according to my own values, I believe that other people shouldn't have abortions either.
Am I going to go protest outside Planned Parenthood? No. Let me attempt a convuluted explanation of why I'm not an activist: The matter of what value to place on embryos/fetuses is not as simple as the soundbites and faulty analogies portray. The line is blurry. I don't pretend that an embryo is the same as a child. I don't even pretend that a 6 month fetus is the same as a 1 month fetus. There's a gradiant of some sort here, and the lack of a solid sense is why I don't jump down other people's throats, but I at least know which side of the line I want to be on.
Anyway, I think it's apparent that I'm not one of the lunatics so commonly lanced in these comments. And I promise it's not out of some kind of woman-hating self-loathing.
Posted by: Dr Paul
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April 18, 2010 7:46 PM
I blogged here on this topic four years ago. As the title suggests, the post coincided with a debate in the Australian Federal Parliament which culminated in the easing of restrictions on the availability of RU486.
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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April 18, 2010 7:48 PM
Point taken.I'm still inclined to side with Al, but as I said, Bob'll likely take matters into his own hands if it comes to that.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 7:49 PM
This, holy shit, this.
I think it is immensely helpful to take the "mystery" and "miracle" out of pregnancy and childbirth, which is why I like PZ's doctored billboards so damn much.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 7:51 PM
And torturing her and then forcing an child into her care that was unwanted, to live with a selfish mother with little to no impulse control makes sense ... how?
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 18, 2010 7:51 PM
Morgan, #169 wrote:
That is the tone argument - at least around here. If you wish to keep using it you have to demonstrate that [the truth + harsh language] is in some way less effective than [the truth plus fawning deference].
We get a lot of assertions that it is - but (funnily enoguh) very few examples.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 7:54 PM
Morgan @169
Uh, that's not the tone argument. The tone argument is where someone argues that the method by which someone is arguing their case is too angry/emotional/caustic/confrontational/etc... and thus the words and meaning of their argument are less than and can be safely ignored. Furthermore it is argued that that someone needs to be "less X" in order to be worthy of debate and that the other party is perfectly justified ignoring the argument until it is placed more civilly.
The reason that the tone argument is so famous in anti-oppression circles is because a) it happens all the time and b) there is no way to be "nice" enough to be listened to.
There have been several informal studies that showed that even when the author of a point about an oppression was exceedingly polite and open-minded in their tone, they would still get accused of being angry or insulting or close-minded. We can see this all the time in creationist arguments regarding Richard Dawkins who is about as unflappable and approachable as you can be.
Here's a link.
Also, quelle surprise, the person arguing for your case just so happens to be the only "respectful person" here? Shocking.
Maybe, maybe, some of us are responding naturally to the arguments being made. We're having conversations where the anti-woman side are making arguments they are wholly detached to and where the pro-choice side are arguing for the basic recognition of their personhood, their right to bodily autonomy naturally assumed and protected for men, and their basic human rights to not lose rights and have said unprecedented rights granted to something, rights that no full human being have.
It's a familiar tactic is what I am saying. But feel free to continue to tut tut us angry nasty feminists.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 7:54 PM
Skatje, be specific. What is going on under Roe that is not okay?
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 18, 2010 7:55 PM
This:
is not the same as this:
These are two very different positions.
I don't think a 1-month fetus is the same thing as a 6-month fetus, either. I see the gradient. I also see a significant difference in the stage of decision-making between a pregnant woman gestating a 1-month fetus, and one gestating a 6-month fetus.
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 18, 2010 7:55 PM
I used to be "uneasy" with the whole abortion topic because I was always getting mixed up with the definition of personhood. Why at birth? Or why from the moment of viability? Or why from the moment of sufficient neurological developement? It all seemed rather arbitrary, ethically unclear.
But it's really when I came accross Judith Jarvis Thomson's A defense of Abortion and the straightforward and very clear ethical principle that nobody, whether a mature person or not, has the right to use someone else's body against her/his will, that I became convinced that women must have the right to abort an unwanted pregnancy at any moment during its course.
We're still far from there in most countries in the world. But we must fight to get there, we must stop the enslavement of women, and especially as men we have an additional moral responsibility to fight for this: it's not our body that's enslaved, we must stop being such inconsiderate assholes.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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April 18, 2010 7:57 PM
skatje.myers #182
It's one thing to decide you don't want to have an abortion. It's something altogether different to decide no woman should have an abortion. You've made a choice that you won't have an abortion except for medical necessity. Nobody here has a problem with that because we're pro-choice.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 7:58 PM
@Skatje: but do you think that your preference that women shouldn't have abortions should result in a ban on abortion? If not, wouldn't that make you still pro-choice?
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 7:59 PM
+10 for that reference. :)
I think you're confusing outcomes and correlations with intent. Of course we know that not everyone who is anti-abortion is literally crazy, or definitively religious, or consciously sexist.
HOWEVER.
Almost all people who are activists for anti-abortion are religious. Almost all of the groups that bankroll lobbying to the government against abortion rights are religious groups. There is a very, very strong correlation there, and as the original post was meant to convey, it is important for people who claim to not be religious to understand that the feelings they have regarding pregnancy have been very much colored by the religion-soaked milieu. As Josh requested, step past the "morally uneasy" feeling and define it. If you get that feeling from religious teachings you've absorbed through culture, you ought to at least recognize that.
As for being sexist, the results of anti-abortion legislation are most definitely sexist. That may not be the intent of some of the people who advocate for it, but the effects are the same. The effect of anti-abortion legislation is that more women die. Abortion rates don't change; women's death rates skyrocket. Study after study after study, in every country that it's been done in show this. Advocating for something that kills women but not men IS sexist. Advocating for something that denies women agency over their own bodies IS sexist. It doesn't matter if the intent to be sexist was there or not, the effects are still sexist.
Posted by: ambook
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April 18, 2010 8:03 PM
On the "parasite" idea - I got scolded mightily by a psychoanalyst friend for referring to my 5 month in-utero twins as "naked strangers living in my belly," while another psychoanalyst friend asked me late in pregnancy why I hadn't had a reduction. Apparently, for friend #1, I was supposed to feel some magical connection with the fetuses, but I was just awed that these two totally separate people were living inside of me and using my body to build their own. Now the twins are 14, love the idea that they were once "naked strangers," and are vehemently and loudly pro-choice, although they still debate who should have been "reduced."
And friend #1 has decided that if she were ever to reproduce she'd hire an surrogate in India so that she didn't have to deal with the ickiness of having a parasite in one's body.
People are really very strange. And I now number significantly fewer psychoanalysts among my friends, which has led to a lot fewer bizarre comments being directed my way.
Posted by: eleusis
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April 18, 2010 8:03 PM
Walton #102:
There is a difference between believing that people should be free to do X, and believing that X is morally acceptable.
In practice there is, but there shouldn't be. Morality isn't just personal preference. Morality is a set of prescriptions or proscriptions on behavior, and it is illogical to be believe that people should not do X (immoral), but should be free to do X.
I believe murder is immoral, which is precisely why I think people shouldn't be free to do it (it should be banned, and offenders prosecuted). I don't have a preference for gay sex, but I don't think it is immoral, which is why I think people should be free to do it.
When people say they think something is immoral but people should be free to do it, they're really not taking their morality seriously. They are relegating it to personal preference.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 8:05 PM
Morgan @ 180
I'm paraphrasing Matt Dillahunty from Atheist Experience, he expresses that a lot. I imagine that line of reasoning has been around awhile, but I heard it in distilled fashion from Matt.
http://atheist-experience.org
great stuff
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes
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April 18, 2010 8:05 PM
Having failed to develop a very compelling sense of morality (and being somewhat of a misanthrope), I am pro-choice for very utilitarian reasons. I am unwilling to contribute to the upbringing of all the children that would be born were abortion illegal. The point at which a person becomes human is not empirically identifiable. "At birth" seems to be a convenient milestone, precisely because the direct dependency on a single other person has been removed.
I mean I do care about women's rights, but even if I didn't I would still likely be pro-choice.
Posted by: Dr Paul
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April 18, 2010 8:05 PM
Briefly in response to Skatje's point, here in Australia we have a bumper sticker that reads "If you are against abortion, don't have one".
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 8:05 PM
I'm going to go out on a limb and say it probably has more to do with her veganism than religion...Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 8:06 PM
Carlie:
QFT.
Posted by: Ibis3, féministe avec un titre française de fantaisie
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April 18, 2010 8:06 PM
Hear, hear!
I'll be interested to read the comments, but for now, I just gotta say I heartily agree. What's more these ignoramuses put a human cell above a real, living, full human being.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 8:06 PM
To clarify, if legislature was proposed to ban abortion, I wouldn't be opposed it. I'm just not going to start a fight for it.
And no, there's no way I could hold the position that it's not okay for me to have abortions, but it's okay for other people to. The babies in other people aren't less privileged than the babies in me. If I believe the one in me should not have anyone intervene in its existence, I believe the ones in other people should not have anyone intervene in their existence. Am I making sense here?
Posted by: dmorrison
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April 18, 2010 8:07 PM
I would love to see a campaign based around something like your "revised" billboards.
Embryos are embryos. For a fairly healthy chunk of their development it is impossible to distinguish between a potential human and a potential-vertebrate-of-your-choice, and driving that point home might open a few eyes.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 8:07 PM
I don't *think* I would either. Never having had to face that decision I don't actually know.
I do know, for instance, that in my previous life I would likely have had an abortion. I was seriously psychologically wounded and might have even been dangerous to a dependent child. Poor and homeless, I can't imagine childbirth in complete poverty would have done any thing good for either of us. Would it have allowed my abuser a permanent place in my life and access to my child?
Not to mention how it might have impacted me psychologically. Might I have survived? Sure. Like I said, I never had to face it. I didn't get pregnant. Always took birth control (thank you Planned Parenthood for your cheap exams and low price pills!!!), didn't sleep around anyway.
But I have seen a lot of people in my short life who are not ideal, and I do think some who had an elective abortion made the right decision. Especially one I know whose first child was already taken away by the state. That she, a single woman with serious mental and drug problems, chose to abort her second pregnancy... avoided pain and suffering for all involved. Can you make such people disappear? I don't know, but I suspect not. What would you do with them anyway? Lock them all up, put them down like dogs? What's the difference then?
Really though I think that the law and the state should not have any rule over what is inside of a human body anyway.
More people suffer where abortion is illegal from what I have seen, so making it illegal makes society worse IMO.
For the record because of the degree to which access to birth control helped my via planned parenthood now that I have a much more fortunate life I try very hard to make significant annual donations to them. They do good work!
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 8:08 PM
Or they are thinking deeply enough to see that the effects of enforcement may be more immoral still.
Or careful enough about the authoritarian impulse and its effects on a society. (Voting Republican is immoral, but should not be illegal.)
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 8:09 PM
ambook @171
Yes, very much.
I think it's related to sperm magic. Somehow, it's not "right" if the woman's body is doing way more work in the creation of a child. Nine months of sculpting cell division by enzymes and hormone levels and the only contribution by the man was adding some DNA material that may or may not implant. That seems "wrong" by our society, so its better if the magic addition of sperm takes this inert lifeless egg and makes it start duplicating and directing itself and growing all on its own without any input from the mother. A full human unto itself that just happens to need the womb as a protective environment that doesn't really effect anything too important.
And that illusion of parity or male-directed growth is so critical that it must be defended against the horrible truth that men really don't do much in the making of a child. It's the woman cannibalizing herself, going through the rigors of labor and pregnancy, and that it's her egg that contains the mitochondria that drive the energy for the cell division in this purposeless set of growing cells.
But admitting that, seems scary, because then men aren't dominant in that conversation, so they need to insert themselves by forcing women to suffer the consequences of their delusion by being forced to give birth.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 8:10 PM
Briefly in response to Skatje's point, here in Australia we have a bumper sticker that reads "If you are against abortion, don't have one".
Hardy har. I've heard that. I used to think that was clever when I was 14.
If you are against murder, don't kill people.
This is basically what that statement is equivalent to, in the eyes of people who place a right to life on fetuses. So that's a pretty stupid thing to say to me, IMO.
Posted by: Glock21
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April 18, 2010 8:11 PM
#194... some may confuse the various hormonal responses for magic or the divine. That's a bit sad. There's an insane mom posse out there that is convinced biological responses are godliness. Sometimes it's just a response to depression of their otherwise failed lives and latching onto anything to live for. The religious analogy is pretty obvious. Still sad though.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 8:12 PM
and this is where the "effect is more important than intent" thing comes into play.just as libertarian policies are often racist because they affect racial minorities more than whites rather than because the libertarians in question hold racist views, so would an abortion ban be sexist; not opposing sexist laws is sexist, intents and beliefs notwithstanding.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 8:15 PM
skatje.myers @ 202:
Not to me. What you're saying is that you are fine with women's autonomy being legislated by others; that one group's morals be allowed to override all women.
As Carlie noted, illegalizing abortion will not change anything, except for the death rate of women. I know a lot of people are too young to know about Jane, I'm old enough to remember. I was a kid, but my mother and grandmothers were a part of Jane, and I helped where I could. When women are put in a position where they have no choices, it's a terrible thing.
Those who fight abortion are not on the forefront when it comes to birth control and education; they fight those just as strongly. This reduces women, it demeans them, it turns them back into chattel and locks too many of them into unthinkable situations.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 8:17 PM
Am I the only person who's thinking fake Skatje?
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 18, 2010 8:17 PM
But there is an important difference between the fetus that grows in you and the fetus that grows in another woman. YOU can decide whether you want to be a parent to the fetus growing in you. YOU can decide that you agree to use your body for the next 40 weeks to grow another person.
You can't make that decision for other women. You can offer to foster their children IF those women agree to maintain their pregnancies to term, but you can't do the baby-growing for them.
The process of bringing a pregnancy to term is quite a bit more complicated than simply not intervening in a gestating fetus's existence. It requires more work and sacrifice on the pregnant woman's part than asking her simply not to terminate. She must spend the rest of the pregnancy eating, drinking, breathing, sleeping and exercising both for herself and for the benefit of the fetus. She must subject herself not merely to inconvenience but also to non-trivial risk in order to maintain the pregnancy and give birth. Even a perfectly healthy pregnancy requires a great deal of physiological recovery. It's not a matter of non-intervention.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 18, 2010 8:18 PM
There's a very easy way to reduce the number of abortions in dah USA. Simply have the anti-abortion groups supply half the cost of the quarter million dollars to raise a child to 18. Something about actually putting their money where their mouths are. I'm sure their offer will be taken up by a large number of women...
Posted by: Randomfactor
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April 18, 2010 8:18 PM
Forgive this non-biology-major's question, but are there human cancers which have 46 chromosomes? What differentiates them from blastulas, or are both to be "persons" under the personhood movement's thinking?
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 8:21 PM
If it were a fake Skatje, the shock waves from the epic bannation would be felt all the way to the Yucatan peninsula.
Posted by: Becca the Over Socialized
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April 18, 2010 8:21 PM
Wow. I have so many thoughts about this swirling in my head, I hope I can be coherent...
As I've said before (to the point of boredom, I'm sure), my kids are adopted. Neither kid was wanted by their birth mother - she'd had 2 or 3 abortions before in her life. Both kids were conceived through multiple forms of birth control (she says, and knowing her, I believe it). In both cases, she didn't realize she was pregnant until it was too late to have a first-trimester abortion. Thea chose adoption, because she recognized (rightly) that she would have been a horrible mother. We have an open adoption, and my kids have grown up knowing Thea and knowing she is their birth mother.
that said, I totally support a woman's right to choice. I believe that abortions should be cheap and easy to get, because if a woman doesn't want to give birth to a child, she shouldn't have to. Making it difficult for her just makes a difficult situation even worse.
Had Thea decided to abort Tori during the first trimester, I would have gone with her and held her hand.
*That* said, I'm terribly glad that Thea lived in enough of a state of denial when she got pregnant with Tori that I have Tori as my daughter - because even though Thea didn't want her, I did and do.
But I have NO RIGHT (I'd say that in blinky colors worthy of a TimeCube if I could) to force another woman to continue a pregnancy and give birth just so *I* could have a muchly desired child.
I don't totally agree that adoption is a violent act, per se - but *forced* adoption certainly is. Someone above used the word "slavery" and that surely is an accurate word.
I could say much, much more on this, but I'm afraid I've already gone into tl;dr range. Sorry. I'll get off my soap box now.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 8:21 PM
Either way, I direct the person using the skatje name, whether the real Skatje or not to read my comments at 48 and 67, especially 67, which is on why it would be granting "pre-born babies" rights extended to no other fully formed human being on the planet.
And if it is someone using her name to post anti-choice garbage. For shame, troll. For shame.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 8:23 PM
@skatje.myers:
Well, you're trying to be consistent and apply the same rules for everyone, which is sensible. But the problem is that you appear to assume what is actually under discussion here: you assume that a fetus is the same as a baby.
Besides, do you support other types of interventions that prevent the existence of babies, such as condoms, contraceptives and morning-after pills? If not, why not? If so, why support those, but not early-term abortions? Clearly you don't believe some special magic happened at conception, so that can't be it.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 8:23 PM
That you are willing to give up your own choice does not grant you the right to make the choice for others.
Would it be acceptable if women who are known to be seeking abortions are imprisoned? If not, how could a law be enforced? What would be an acceptable penalty for breaking it?
Increased police enforcement brings its own inherent problems, as the drug war shows. Who wants to live in the kind of society where anti-abortion laws could again be implemented? Is there a great and pressing need for the intrusion of SWAT teams into medical clinics?
Posted by: ambook
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April 18, 2010 8:24 PM
@Glock21 - not sure how this relates to my anecdote - all I meant to say is that prescriptions for how one "should" experience pregnancy are just like prescriptions for how one "should" experience anything else. Friend#1 thought that I wouldn't have the right "maternal" attitude towards my kids if I didn't feel all blissed out and merged, which I agree would be a hormonal thing, whether from the pregnancy itself or from the neurochemical imprints left by previous life experience. Of course, my lack of blissed-out-edness was ALSO a hormonal/neurochemical thing, but doesn't seem to have left some horrid scar on the twinks.
It's pretty problematic to view ANY parental behavior as serving a particular religious or nationalistic cause. I remember reading once that women of Japan felt tremendously betrayed because their work caring for their families had been portrayed as supporting the war effort and supporting the war was viewed as shameful after WWII. (Probably a gross oversimplification of the argument, but I hope it makes sense.)
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 8:24 PM
This and exponentially. It isn't just the women who will kill themselves trying to self abort or getting illegal abortions and dying of sepsis and blood loss. (One of my mom's good friends, Tina, in high school died this way, cutting into her vagina with a long knife and bleeding to death alone where she had hidden to do it. It was labeled a suicide.)
It's also the women who will be allowed to die because the surgeons and doctors will have to save the baby at any cost.
Death death death. If you like death, then ban abortion.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 8:25 PM
Carlie:
Indeed. I'm trying to remember from when Skatje last posted...didn't she usually have a link to her blog in her name?
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 8:25 PM
Not to me. What you're saying is that you are fine with women's autonomy being legislated by others; that one group's morals be allowed to override all women.
This isn't a women's right issue at the core. The issue isn't whether women can do whatever they want with their own bodies, it's whether fetuses are a protected entity. Asking whether women can do what they want to "their body" is begging the question; that fetuses are merely part of their body.
Those who fight abortion are not on the forefront when it comes to birth control and education; they fight those just as strongly.
You're conflating "pro-life" with other, SEPARATE views that are sometimes commonly held. These are different things. Don't forget that.
Posted by: skeetar
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April 18, 2010 8:27 PM
Skatje plz don't abort your ferrets =*(
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 8:28 PM
That is, you've only worked out part of Kant's imperative. You haven't established that you ought to possess authority to enforce your point of view with the police.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 8:29 PM
nope.they are however using those bodies. which is fine if permission to do so is given. but no one gets to use other people's bodies without that consent. why would fetuses get a special right in that regard?
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 18, 2010 8:29 PM
Since the fetus cannot survive without using its mother's body for shelter, warmth, nutrients and hormones, and in fact cannot survive without significantly affecting the way its mother's body functions, the fetus cannot be considered a protected entity without interfering with women's bodily autonomy.
The two ideas cannot be separated any more than a fetus can be separated from its mother's body and still survive.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 18, 2010 8:30 PM
No, that's Skatje. She's asserting her independence and intellectual autonomy so that I have no excuse to abort her any more.
Dang. Why didn't I raise a family of obedient slaves?
Posted by: skeetar
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April 18, 2010 8:30 PM
It is not fake Skatje. We are all in IRC cybering and worshipping ferrets.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 8:31 PM
Also, for those arguing, remember that many of us are also arguing from a pragmatic perspective. We aren't dwelling in gauzy hypothetical conjoined twin delivery minus a day situations; we're concerned about women who are pregnant now. Women who will be pregnant next year. Women who are bleeding out from prolapsed uteri, and women who are frantic and losing their grip because they can't take their antipsychotics while pregnant, and women whose husbands will beat them when they find out they have another mouth to feed, and women who are crushed with grief because they've found out their baby has no brain, and women who are holding their acceptance letter to college in one hand and a positive pregnancy test in the other. These are women who don't have the luxury of thought experiments.
Do you want abortion to be entirely illegal? Then there will be many, many back alley abortions, and many, many women will die from them, and an awful lot of those women will leave behind families who need them. Lots of women with children have abortions to try and maintain a decent standard of life for those they already have.
Do you want abortion to be available only if the life of the mother is at stake? Then either doctors will circumvent that completely by making up excuses, in which case you're advocating a whitewash solution, or (more likely) they'll hesitate in emergencies, not quite sure whether they'll be able to properly prove it or if their license will get pulled, and women will die as their doctors try and decide.
Do you want abortion to be available in cases of rape and incest? Then you can't say you care about the embryo; that is a position that is only consistent with punishing the woman in question if she's not pure and innocent enough.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 8:33 PM
So, you're willing to make reproductive choices for other women because of your magical thinking about your womb-boogers?
Does it mean nothing to you that we can never be fully equal members of society if we have no choices about where, when, and how we start our families? You're implying that the potential life is more important than my life and I find that incredibly -fucking- offensive.
Posted by: Numad
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April 18, 2010 8:34 PM
"You're conflating "pro-life" with other, SEPARATE views that are sometimes commonly held. "
They weren't conflating anything. They were considering the overlap between these views as being significant.
I think there's more call for it than for the reverse: dissociating views from the people holding them, from other views and from their consequences if they are applied; until being "against abortion" is something very abstract indeed.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 8:35 PM
Internet arguing while at work on a slow connection is frustrating. I'll do my best.
Am I the only person who's thinking fake Skatje?
Sorry to disappoint. We can't all be clones with the same opinions. And also, I've been posting from this username since the comment registration thing was implemented. I used the gmail sign-in thing, where there was no way to have a link to my blog (which is not really there anymore, anyway).
That you are willing to give up your own choice does not grant you the right to make the choice for others.
It's not my choice that causes me to think that others shouldn't abort either. It's the placing a certain value on fetuses that I do.
And yes, this does allow me to tell other people what I believe is the right thing for them to do. We all have our own ideas about right and wrong, and we all wish to see the world operate according to our own beliefs.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 8:36 PM
skatje.myers:
No. It most definitely is a women's rights issue. If you put fetal protection above the woman who happens to be hosting it, you have condemned that woman to incubator status, not human adult status. When an embryo or fetus can maintain life outside of a host, you can get busy protecting them.
No, I'm not. I have spent so much time involved with women's rights, escorting at clinics, etc., that I'm well aware of the agendas going on. For sure, not every single person who is anti-abortion is also anti-birth control and anti-sex education, however, the majority of them are. Just look at all the schools teaching abstinence only, look at all the initiatives for 'religious conscience'.
If you are honestly against abortion, you should be seriously involved in campaigning for widespread, ease of access, affordable birth control. You should be involved in campaigning for good sex education. Those things will reduce the abortion rate. Attempting to stop a/o illegalize abortion will result in only one thing: dead women. As your priority seems to be fetuses, that would make you pro-dead women along with pro-forced birth. These are not good things.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 8:36 PM
Yes. This is one thing I have never understood about this position. If the potential baby trumps the woman's life then why would a potential baby that is female also do so? It seems hypocritical. After all the potential female baby will only become a female, and thus lose value to society as anything but a womb.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 18, 2010 8:36 PM
I've never had any problem with a woman who say "abortion is not for me". My problem comes when that is expended to other women. That is where the first woman's personal decision ends, and the second woman's begins. Just like with smokers. Their right to smoke ends halfway to my nose.
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 18, 2010 8:37 PM
The problem I have with making exceptions for rape and incest is that the distinction is unenforceable.
Make that law, and suddenly every girl who doesn't want to be pregnant is a rape victim. A heckuva lot of them, anyway. How do you sort out the liars from the real victims? Either you assume they're all telling the truth, in which case most abortions that would have otherwise happened will still happened. Or you set up a well-intended but inevitably imperfect system for deciding which unhappily pregnant women were actually raped and which of them just failed to prevent pregnancy, and there will inevitably be some actual rape victims who are denied legal abortion procedures. Either way, what looks defensible on paper doesn't work out in reality.
Posted by: ambook
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April 18, 2010 8:37 PM
No, PZ, you'd REDUCE her. Gotta use the right euphamism when they begin asserting independence and intellectual autonomy.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 8:37 PM
Actually you are begging the question: you assume that even if a fetus is a "protected entity" it should be afforded the right to occupy a person's body against that person's will.
Our system of laws regularly holds that a person may have a right to live, but not the right to be given all those things which sustain life.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 8:38 PM
But they are quite related: contraception is an intervention to prevent babies being born that happens before conception, abortion an intervention that happens after conception. The effect is quite the same: no baby is being born, and especially if abortion is done early enough, nobody has suffered any harm. What's so special about conception that it should change our opinion about intervention? It's one of the main issues of the original post, and you haven't addressed it.Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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April 18, 2010 8:38 PM
In other words, you are anti-abortion. You would deny other people the right to make their own decision about their own bodies
So every fetus holds its mother hostage because you don't like abortion.
I don't like rap music. Most of what I've heard is crude, misogynistic, and promotes violence. Should my personal dislike be the basis for outlawing rap? No, I don't think so. If I don't like rap then I won't listen to it. But I will not make that decision for anyone else.
Similarly, your dislike of abortion should not be made mandatory for other women who might not hold your views.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 8:41 PM
Ah ok, PZ. Thanks.
I was worried that it was a sick joke.
Sadly, knowing Skatje is the real Skatje both comforts me and makes me feel really depressed.
The battle for the cultural recognition of female sexual and bodily autonomy is a long ass one and we're winning it, but it's always sad to see young women parroting the same old.
Ah well, why we fight, right? To try and argue the case, etc...
I still might need to bow out. It's way too late here and arguing with someone who had all the education and privileges of a non-abusive non-coercive raising environment and deliberately chose ignorance is just going to bum me out royally.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 8:42 PM
Skatje, you're not being clear. We understand you would not have an abortion, and you think other people 'shouldn't' have abortions.
Those are personal beliefs and personal beliefs are to be respected otherwise, uh-oh, here come the thought crime police.
I respect your right to be wrong.
However, if you want to impose your beliefs on others through legalistic coersion, then your personal rights are overlapping others' personal rights and that's why we have politics.
Your right to your beliefs end where others' rights begin. The overlap is the public arena.
If you think we should overturn abortion on demand, then I disagree with you, I think you are wrong because you want to impose your beliefs on others.
Morality is a strategy, and people in societies have rights because the society grants those rights. Progressivism is the expansion of rights to others. If we grant marriage rights to gays, that is the expansion established legal rights to include more people. If we continue to deny gay marriage, we are practicing discrimination.
A woman's right to control her reproduction is currently a right granted by our society, I fully support that, and I think you're entitled to your opinion.
I respect your right to be wrong.
Hey, I used to be a libertarian
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 8:44 PM
skatje.myers:
You absolutely have the right to tell other people you think abortion is wrong, and they are all kinds of fucked up if they think differently.
What you have said though, is that you wouldn't mind at all if your personal opinion was turned into law. That is not the same at all. I'll support your right to an opinion, however, that opinion of yours does not get any say in regard to my body.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 8:44 PM
No one disputes your right to tell whoever whatever.
But mere desire does not grant rightful authority. What gives you the right to use police violence to get your way?
Posted by: jemand
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April 18, 2010 8:46 PM
Skatje, you say you would be ok aborting if your life was at medical risk in the continuation of pregnancy. What risk do you think should be lawfully *imposed* forcefully on you? Under your system, we are just quibbling where the line should be drawn, and that women should not be the ones permitted to draw it.
ALL pregnancies carry an increased risk of death to the mother, an increased risk of permanent disability.
It is hypothetically theoretically possible that even ectopic pregnancies in the fallopian tubes, may possibly somewhere in some woman not be fatal. *Most* people would say that is a stupid amount of risk to legislate women to take on. Many pregnancies carry no more risk than live kidney transplants, should that be the level of risk mandated?
You say you would only abort in the case of medical necessity. But I am quite certain that *YOU* still want to be the one deciding quite exactly how much risk results in medical necessity. It is YOUR life, and your future we are talking about. And if you are allowed to decide which line of medical risk justifies your abortion, than you should allow other women that same right.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 8:47 PM
Let's use the organ donor experiment, but change it a little. Let's make it a wee baby. A very, very cute baby who needs a new liver very, very badly.
Skatje, you have a liver that baby could use. It's ok, they just cut off part and adults can usually regrow it just fine. You probably shouldn't ever drink alcohol after that just in case, and it will be a few months of recovery time that will put off your studies in college (and if you have a scholarship, you might lose it due to the down time), and you'll have a pretty big scar, and that part of your body will always twinge a little, but the baby needs it, and you're compatible. Can the state of Minnesota force you to undergo the surgery and donate your liver? Should they? It's the only thing that will save the life of this cute innocent baby. It's in the best interest of society for you to donate it. Can we force you to?
If you think so, why don't we do that already? That scenario plays out dozens of times in this country every day, in every state. So, so many babies could be saved. If not, why not? And what exactly makes this different than forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy? That is a serious question, and gets right back to what Josh asked. Why is a pregnancy any different? Do you have any reason other than "she had sex so she asked for it"?
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 8:48 PM
Cerberus:
I'm feeling the same way, if it helps any. I've been thinking, while replying to Skatje, that she's had a privileged life. She was wanted, loved, cared for, has parents who actively wanted her to get a good education, etc.
So many women are not in that boat.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 8:48 PM
they are however using those bodies. which is fine if permission to do so is given. but no one gets to use other people's bodies without that consent. why would fetuses get a special right in that regard?
The fetus isn't some parasite that just popped up there. YOU put it in your body. It is YOUR fault.
I recognise that pregnancy is a serious thing, full of discomfort and health risk. But I'm going to have to say I would place the right of a fetus to live over your right to ignore the consequences of your actions because they're too hard.
If you are honestly against abortion, you should be seriously involved in campaigning for widespread, ease of access, affordable birth control. You should be involved in campaigning for good sex education.
Obviously I am. It's the reason I donate to Planned Parenthood, even though they spam me with email about abortions.
Posted by: ambook
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April 18, 2010 8:51 PM
Thinking that something is wrong and that it should be illegal are different. I can think that it's wrong for people to teach their kids that the world is 6000 years old without thinking that making this illegal would cause way more harm than good. This is where I differ from religionists - I believe in harm reduction and choosing the least-bad alternative and think that the totalitarian state in which I could forbid other people from having abortions would be WAY worse in terms of human suffering.
Plus I am not so arrogant as to assume that my beliefs about right and wrong are definitely the correct ones, or even that there are definitive right and wrong categories. (See my earlier comment about how religious traditions that believe that abortion can be the correct decision get ignored in the abortion debate.)
If I don't think abortion is right for me and don't view abortion as a trivial decision for other women, I can seek to support the women in whom fetuses abide so that they can make decisions other than abortion. And I can do this without a lot of inflammatory and abusive rhetoric about ensoulment and murder. Universal health care, a decent social safety net, and quality child care and public education are the best ways to make abortion less frequent, but those are way less dramatic than flouncing around holding signs with pictures of aborted fetuses.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 8:51 PM
pffft. in that sense, I place exactly the same value on fetuses as on born people: neither gets to use my body against my will, and in both cases I'm willing to do whatever is necessary to stop them if they try, and I will plead self-defense for doing so.Posted by: otrame
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April 18, 2010 8:52 PM
Skatje, leaving all the "morals" out of whether abortion should be legal, you have to accept that making it illegal will once more will increase the incidence of this. ( Warning:There is a photo in this article that is NSFW and is extremely unpleasant to look at. But that photograph is the truth about making abortion illegal.) Making abortion illegal won't stop abortion. It will just stop safe abortions.
And Skatje, I believe that if you are a moral person who feels as you do about abortion, then you must become an activist for birth control technology and education being available for all young women. That is the way to stop unwanted pregnancy and thus abortion.
I do admire your courage to come here and express an opinion that you know very well is not shared by most here and is not shared by your dad. That took real courage. In all the anger I feel towards the anti-choice crowd, I sometimes lose track of the fact that some people simply can't get away from the potential that is inherent in an embryo. That doesn't make them (and you) crazy or evil. But though I also have feeling for that inherent potential and, as I said above, would probably not have an abortion myself unless it was medically necessary or I knew the embryo was badly damaged (for instance by rubella), I truly believe a woman has a right to control her body and even leaving that aside, I truly believe that it is far more harmful to society in general for abortion to be illegal.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 8:52 PM
As a final note to Skatje, before the despair sinks me to sleep, read my comment @67
No human has a right to someone else's body without their consent.
If I am a combination of Richard Dawkins and Superman and I will die tomorrow if I don't get a non-vital organ or a blood transfusion from someone who is a combination of George Bush and Hitler? If Bush von Hitler doesn't grant his consent, I get to die.
I certainly don't have the right to occupy his body and drain his nutrients for 9 months without his consent.
This is as a fully grown, full human being. Why in Bob's name would this right be granted to dividing cells that need the mother's enzymes, nutrients, and hormone concentrations to sculpt them into anything even resembling human and build from scratch the organism we call a human being?
A right not given to LIVING HUMAN BEINGS?
Because a fetus is a babee and babees are cute? Because a woman deserves it for spreading her legs?
These are not reasons. If I am SuperDawkins and I need something of the body of Bush von Hitler to survive, I don't have the right to take it or demand it. No matter how awesome or innocent or necessary to my life it is. No matter how bad of a person he is, no matter if he is planning to kill himself the day after I die anyways.
I don't have the right. No one has the right.
But you want to give that unprecedented extra right to a fetus and deny the human right of bodily autonomy to all women.
That's insanity.
Also, how much jail time should a woman serve for murdering a fetus in your mind? 10 years, life, the death sentence? How many years should women serve in prison for having an abortion?
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 8:52 PM
So you agree that pregnancy and birth, no matter how damaging to both parties, is an acceptable punishment for women who have sex.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 8:54 PM
No. I'm not capable of conscious self-fertilization.Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 18, 2010 8:55 PM
Placing a certain value on a fetus by definition means also placing a corresponding value and purpose on its mother. If you tell a pregnant woman that her fetus is a protected entity and must be allowed to develop to live birth, then you are also telling that woman that her purpose is to grow a baby. The effect is that her body no longer belongs to her. If she does not get to decide whether to maintain the pregnancy or not, then she is no longer in control of her life. It means that whatever ill effects she suffers from the pregnancy and childbirth are her responsibility to bear because she happened to become pregnant.
There are no protections on a fetus that do not affect the rights of a pregnant woman. The two cannot be separated.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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April 18, 2010 8:55 PM
What if the fetus is the result of rape? Then it wasn't put in the body, it was forced into the body.
This is the rhetoric we see all too often from the people who want to punish women for having sex. There are better arguments against abortion. I suggest you use them instead of this misogynistic ranting.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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April 18, 2010 8:55 PM
Jeez I started typing responses offline an hour ago and comments keep on coming. Guess I'll post what I've got and quit.
I'm in total agreement with PZ's OP and I support abortion rights 100%.
That said, I find many of the arguments and rhetoric used by people on "my side" unfortunate. Also as per usual I get picky about some of the details.
Seriously? The same? Fighting one false equivalence with another--not wise.
This sort of broad-brushing is largely inaccurate and (puts on accomodationist hat) unhelpful. Any one of those "they don't care" statements is going to be untrue of many, many individuals among "them". I think they are mistaken and confused and misinformed and irrational and arrogant and probably hypocritical, but I doubt that the vast majority of them are insincere.
By and large they truly think it's evil to murder babies, and they truly think of fetuses as "not-yet-born" babies. That's it. That's all. That's as far as they can or are willing to think about it. It doesn't even necessarily have to be about "souls". The whole controlling-women's-bodies thing is a largely unexamined consequence of that priority, not a motivation (except perhaps unconsciously in those who are also misogynistic). Hey, I think murdering babies is evil, too.
agreed
And if they try, they should be killed? Because of "property rights"?
Unfair. It was not her sexual activity that was criticized ("slut-shaming"), it was the irresponsibility and selfishness of her choice to avoid contraception.
Those anti-abortionists who are also anti-contraception (I have no idea what proportion that is and I doubt you do either) are hypocritical fools, of course. Those are your Papists. But their opposition to contraception is motivated purely by religious fealty, whereas their opposition to abortion really is about baby-killing (to them). Of course, these folks also think that sex outside of MW marriage is wrong, etc.
Nope. They--the individual people we are referring to as "They"--really are interested in stopping abortion. Women being punished is a (perhaps, to them) unfortunate consequence but not the motivator.
*eyeroll* Pretty melodramatic. If we laid eggs then women would "cannibalize themselves" to put all the raw materials into the egg and the embryo/fetus would still build itself. Mammals just provide the raw materials mostly from income rather than capital.
Really? Reproduction is like cancer to you?
Correct. Technically, a parasite must reduce its host's fitness. Since fitness is measured (first pass) in population-relative offspring, an offspring cannot in general be a parasite.
That is true of ALL reproduction and it's simply not what parasitism means in a technical sense.
This makes no fucking sense at all.
Wrong. Just because eutherian reproductive physiology is real-time rather than front-loaded does not change the difference between reproduction and parasitism.
A nursing baby is also a parasite by this definition. Hell, my 14-year-old gets all her nutrition from me (indirectly) and gives me no nutrition back. She's no parasite.
ridiculous.
You're wrong about this, Carlie.
Wrong. That's called "commensalism". Parasitism by definition harms the host, and in biology that means specifically "decreases reproductive success."
You can use words casually however you want, but the point here is that a eutherian fetus is not, biologically, a parasite.
Wow. You're a biologist and that's your take on what's going on in mammalian development?
Because it's "unwanted"? That's a very, very weird argument.
Gah! You may be a microbiologist but you don;t know shit about ecology! It's REPRODUCTION. Reproduction is mutually exclusive to parasitism BY DEFINITION.
but whatever. Keep on arguin'.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 8:55 PM
No shit!
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 18, 2010 8:56 PM
skatje.myers wrote:
Methinks you're going to regret turning to that line of argument, since it's tantamount to saying 'sluts get what they deserve and shouldn't be allowed to avoid punishment'.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 8:57 PM
@skatje.myers:
So if it's not your fault, abortion would be OK? If you took all the precautions, but despite condoms and birth control you get pregnant anyway? Or if you got raped? Then where is the line? Do you still qualify for abortion if you used some of the precautions, like condoms only?
Or would abortion still not be OK? If so, then why use this argument?
And even if it is your fault, for instance because you didn't think through the consequences of unprotected sex, do you really think that a forced pregnancy is an appropriate punishment for this crime?
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 8:57 PM
Ah, so there it is. The "bitch asked for it" rationale.
What do you think about the fact that all contraceptives fail? Is a woman less liable for a pregnancy if she's on a birth control that fails than if she's not on any? What if she's on two? What if she's lied to about whether her partner had a vasectomy?
Do you think that no one should have sex, ever, unless they are fully capable and willing to have a child?
Do you think that 9-10 months of pregnancy, subsequent childbirth, and 18-20 years of fully supporting another person is appropriate punishment for a half-hour of what may or may not have been a rash decision?
What about women who have medical reasons that they can't have a baby? Should they be celibate for life?
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 8:57 PM
so you'd be ok with refusing medical treatment to all smokers, obese people, athletes, couch potatoes, people who knew they're allergic to peanuts but had a reaction anyway, etc. ad nauseam?interesting.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 8:58 PM
skatje.myers:
FFS. Do you even understand how "damn sluts, that what you get for having sex" that statement is?
I got pregnant one time. I've had an abortion one time. I was using two types of birth control when I got pregnant. It happens. Any child I would have been forced to birth would have had an excruciatingly miserable life.* I know this, because I know myself. So, as far as you're concerned, all that would have been worth a so what, you're the one who had sex, it's your fault, you should have thought first or been celibate forever, now take your punishment, and screw what the kid's life will be like!
Nice. Real nice.
*Don't bother to bring up adoption. Not an answer for me, never was an answer.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 18, 2010 8:58 PM
Skatje just used argument #1 of my post @48.
...
Caine @248 Yes, exactly. 100%
But right now, I need to cry myself to sleep.
Someone that loved, raised without so much garbage women have in this society, using a version of the "sluts bring it on themselves" argument...
I understand it. I understand why, but damnitt if this isn't hitting hard.
Night all.
Posted by: jemand
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April 18, 2010 8:58 PM
skatje, number. What is the percentage chance of death which the state shall mandate upon all straight women for the privilege of having sex?
What is that number? You are ok for abortion in the case of medical "necessity" but what percentage chance of death must a woman be compelled to experience against her will?
Posted by: Peter H
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April 18, 2010 8:58 PM
Yep, dandruff. (This may have already been touched upon.) And every time I trim my finger- & toenails. And when the Goodwife trims my hair. The countless intestinal cells sloughed off every time I take a dump. Innumerable bazillions of doomed "persons." This would all be hilarious (and not always in good taste) if this sham philosophy & bozo biology were not taken so seriously by folks several sandwiches shy of a picnic.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 8:58 PM
Skeetar @ 224
Three of my family members find your comments offensive and insensitive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNpHtJW4GCA
The primate is my son, the other two are distant relatives. Comparing a tame weasel to a potential primate is an insult to muscalites everywhere, which include those adorable otters everybody is so crazy about.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 8:58 PM
Again, why do you presuppose that a fetus has the right to be provided with an incubator, by an individual who does not consent to this, all with the force of the state?
You have not established that such a right exists, nor why it should override a woman's right not to serve as a forced incubator for the government.
I would ask again, what is wrong with the legal system we have now under Roe?
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 9:03 PM
But the male half of that equation, he gets off* with no consequences?
There is nothing wrong with consequence-free sex, even if birth control fails or is not used.
Once again, the potential for life should never ever ever trump an actual life, even if one (or both) partners screwed up.
*Pun totally intended. Heh.
Posted by: staceyjwsolar
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April 18, 2010 9:05 PM
Sorry, Skatjie, but you are NOT disproving the opinion that you don't have to be crazy, sexist, and/or religious to be against abortion- you certainly ARE SEXIST, even if it's only towards this one (VERY CRITICAL) issue.
As soon as you place the rights of a fetus ahead of the rights of the LIVING WOMAN, you become both sexist and anti-choice. That you wouldn't actively fight to ban abortion means nothing.
The most troubling thing I see in any discussion about abortion is the way that WOMANS AUTONOMY gets ignored straight away! Not that women have negative opinions about their oppressors (and YES, anti-choice is oppression).
I sure hope you never have to make a personal decision about abortion, but even more, I hope you never try to make it for ME! Here's a link to some stories of women that said they would NEVER have an abortion, and fought against it, but ended up doing it anyway (its always different once its your problem!):
http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html
The whole "If you don't like murder don't commit it" is ignorant nonsense that I would expect to hear yelled at a fundie wing nut rally, not here.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 9:05 PM
There is nothing wrong with consequence-free sex
It's to be preferred.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 9:05 PM
Tryyying to keep up. Mostly skimming at this point.
The battle for the cultural recognition of female sexual and bodily autonomy is a long ass one and we're winning it, but it's always sad to see young women parroting the same old.
Condescending ass. Parroting the same old? No. I did not form my opinions from hearing pro-lifers argue. Because most of them are retards who think that billboards like the ones above are rational arguments. I resent the idea that I can't come to my own conclusions in my own way, that I must somehow be the same as the rest of the people under this hideous label.
"No one disputes your right to tell whoever whatever. But mere desire does not grant rightful authority. What gives you the right to use police violence to get your way?"
Allow me to explain how the world works.
If I was morally okay with beating people up who didn't give me their money, I guess that's what I would do. But the next person, who has the view that people who beat up other people should go to jail, gets the right to try to put me in jail. etc. Sounds chaotic. Usually something prevails, ends up in law, and we're all forced to follow it, not because we believe it, but because of punishment. I'm fine with the world working that way. I find this to be the best way. So I'll participate.
Skatje, you have a liver that baby could use. It's ok, they just cut off part and adults can usually regrow it just fine.[...]Can the state of Minnesota force you to undergo the surgery and donate your liver?
First of all, I'm going to point out that you're talking to someone who has looked into donating her liver to someone who needs it.
And... I do not find this analogy relevant whatsoever. That is a very different situation.
Posted by: monado
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April 18, 2010 9:06 PM
If a woman is that irresponsible, surely you don't want her raising a child? It would be unfair to the child.
Posted by: TimKO,,.,,
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April 18, 2010 9:06 PM
"I am pro-abortion"
I'll one-up you, PZ. Abortion should be mandatory in many cases.
You need a license to drive (and you need other licenses of sorts to do many society interactions); the law can force you to take a pill if you drink and interact in public (in Colorado, they can force you to do this if you have 2 beers and then ride a bicycle); yet the biggest responsibility, that of creating a human, is unregulated. How many children are the result of planned, wanted pregnancy? Unwanted children are the result of eventual problems in too many cases. The churches have convinced people that this is okay.
Case in point, me babysitting my neighbors kid, born after a few-night-stand to a 19 yr-old-mother. She's since quit college & ended up homeless and government-supported (thank FSM for this because she otherwise would have changed the crime statistics). She'll never be educated and the kid has so little opportunity. Because she wasn't ready, she's a shitty mother (it all led to a drinking problem). All because she felt threatened and frightened by the Catholic church. Yeah, it was real fun to watch. Just one story I have out of a dozen on this topic. Conversely, how many unprepared mothers/couples have had this happen BECAUSE of legal, easy abortion? We use medication/medical procedures to improve our lives/lifestyles routinely. Termination of pregnancy should be likewise routine.
Posted by: jemand
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April 18, 2010 9:08 PM
also, I did NOT consent to be born a straight female. It is none of my damned fault, I didn't do it to myself. So if I get pregnant, it's *not* something I "did to myself" and it's NOT "my fault."
The ability to pursue sexual fulfillment is a strong part of what it is to be fully human, a real person with a real healthy, psychological state. Birth control may sometimes fail. My status as a straight woman is not going to fail. And it is no more my "fault" or something I "did to myself" than the sexual orientation or gender of anyone else on the planet.
Posted by: ambook
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April 18, 2010 9:09 PM
Let me echo those who say that you are really brave to express unpopular opinions on your dad's blog. Personally, I'm sort of afraid to do that, and I don't ever have to deal with him at breakfast... (The homeschooling debate got sort of hairy for me, but I did stick around.)
On the "fault" issue, however, no, that's not true. Even IUDs, Norplant, and sterilization can fail. There are plenty of teen girls who get pregnant and don't know how it happened (think chastity ball attendees). There are women who are raped in relationships, women whose partners sabotage birth control, women who are raped by strangers or family members (think of that 9 year old Brazilian girl pregnant with twins by her rapist stepfather). I am not willing to treat pregnancy and motherhood as a punishment for sexual activity or victimization. Pregnancy often feels like re-victimization for women who have experienced sexual violence, even when it's a planned and highly desired event - how dare I tell a rape victim that she has to devote a year of life (9 months plus at least 3 months hormonal and physical recovery) to the pregnancy her rapist produced?
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 9:09 PM
I'm cynically amused that skatje's original post was about using herself as an example of someone who's anti-abortion but not sexist, only to result in a thoroughly sexist "sluts must be punished" argument.
total fail.
Posted by: ravenkatie
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April 18, 2010 9:11 PM
PZ, although I am in agreement with the main points you made today- how do you counter the church's biggest argument, that the fetus counts as a living human being once it gets a heart. No it's not the same thing as a fully formed baby, but once it has a heart- stopping that is difficult to swallow. Doesn't that argument make your blog post somewhat irrelevant?
That said, I do consider myself pro-choice (although not pro-abortion). But my reasons are that as distatesful as I find abortion, I find harassing women making the most difficult choice of their lives, the legal complications of outlawing it(who decides what is rape or what is medically necessary for any exceptions to an abortion law?), and risks from backwoods abortions all far more distateful.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 9:12 PM
Whores who fuck deserve what's coming to them? So what kind of women get pregnant? Do you have a mental image? What are their lives like? I'd love to hear it described. Because clearly there's no diversity here.
What happens to them after they're forced to have a baby. Will anyone help them? How about the unwanted and possibly unhealthy children, or the orphans? Their welfare is tied to the welfare of the unwilling slave that was forced to bear and now care for them.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 9:13 PM
Again, it's not that simple. There has to be a victim, which is apparent in the case of beating up adults, but which is less obvious in the case of abortion. When do you even propose that a fetus acquires rights, anyway? You haven't offered important details. Like what is an acceptable enforcement mechanism, who should be punished and how.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 9:13 PM
@ravenkatie: I thought the idea that the heart was the seat of the soul was falsified a long time ago? Wouldn't it be more important to look at the development of the brain?
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 18, 2010 9:13 PM
OurDeadSelves wrote:
To be fair, there is at least a reasonable proportion of males who experience 'consequences' as the result of their contribution - but (obviously) it's nowhere near as impactful as the consequences for the woman.
For me (a male, for those who weren't aware) the thought of an accident leading to pregnancy is something that's affected relationships I've had because I most certainly do not consider myself fit to be a father - not just financially and emotionally but genetically; the thought of passing on what I consider unsuitable characteristics is, for me, a serious consequence that I would have to live with should it happen.
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes
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April 18, 2010 9:15 PM
Fuck me. I work on parasites. All the times that my parents called me a parasite, and I never thought of this response.
*self-loathing*
*regret*
Posted by: Peter H
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April 18, 2010 9:15 PM
"...as a living human being once it gets a heart..."
The presence of a functioning circulatory system is no more assurance of "a living human being" than having a given number of chromosomes. Or a tail. Or undeveloped gills.
Posted by: staceyjwsolar
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April 18, 2010 9:17 PM
"We have anti-choice women in for abortions all the time. Many of them are just naive and ignorant until they find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy. Many of them are not malicious. They just haven't given it the proper amount of thought until it completely affects them. They can be judgmental about their friends, family, and other women. Then suddenly they become pregnant. Suddenly they see the truth. That it should only be their own choice. Unfortunately, many also think that somehow they are different than everyone else and they deserve to have an abortion, while no one else does." (Physician, Washington State)
Not sure if its on topic, but wanted to add it anyway.
There IS a difference between being morally against something, and using the power of the government to make others do what you think it right. I don't care if people think abortion is wrong, as long as they don't stand in the way of others that don't agree with them.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 9:20 PM
Neither did I, and I resent it to the point that I have sometimes thought I should not be one, but becoming transgender is too much for me.
Truthfully I see myself as neither sex.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 9:21 PM
Only because we've separated them. Seriously, how are you arguing this? Because it doesn't reduce the fitness level of the individual, is that right? So a parasite is only a parasite if it reduces overall fitness? I can have lice and still have just as many babies as I would without them; does that make the lice nonparasitic? There are all kinds of parasites that routinely operate at a sub-fitness level of injury, and we don't avoid calling them parasites. And even if you want to argue that, I could say that any individual pregnancy has a huge possibility of reducing the overall fitness of the mother, due to lasting health effects like calcium depletion, internal scarring if it was a traumatic birth, and you know, death during pregnancy and childbirth. You mentioned nursing; that's the whole underlying hypothesis behind weaning conflict. The infant wants to keep parasitizing, which reduces the ability of the mother to reproduce again, so they fight it out over a few weeks or months. That's the hypothesis behind infanticide as a form of male competition; the male has to remove the current batch from the mother or she won't come into heat again so she can reproduce. In an animal that has a lot of gestational and infant care like mammals, each pregnancy can most definitely reduce overall fitness.
What would you call the relationship between fetus and host, then, if not parasitism? You can't just call it "reproduction"; that's sloppy, and covers everything from eutherian mammals to sponges' broadcast spawning. What do you define it as?
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 9:21 PM
Oh no, I didn't mean to imply that I felt that men were by and large scumbags!
I was reacting to the "it's YOUR fault*" argument-- with the implication that unwanted pregnancy is completely the woman's fault. If we're going to be punishing people for being sexually active, then the men have to fit into that equation somewhere.
*AKA that filthy slut deserves it.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 9:24 PM
Jadehawk, OM:
+10 and QFT.
Posted by: molto legato e sostenuto
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April 18, 2010 9:24 PM
@Carlie #44:
You expressed that very well. I think you may have changed my point of view from being more like Glock21's to being more like yours. This kind of thing is one of the reasons I'm glad to be on Pharyngula.
Posted by: Scorpy1
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April 18, 2010 9:26 PM
I heard this on my commute last week, but didn't have a topic that it fit in:
Newly Passed 'Fetal Pain' Bill in Nebraska Is a Big Deal
Expect more of this in the next year or so.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 9:26 PM
So, here come the strawmen.
No, this isn't punishing women for having sex. This is telling them (men and women alike) that "not 100% effective" means something, and you should understand that. You engaged in something, knowing that a pregnancy could result. There is only so much sympathy I can feel. I don't get off on people suffering for it, I wish no one did, but I'm not going to pat you on the back and act like you and the man who impregnated you had no part in the result. (and FYI, I emphasise the bit about the man in this. He's just as responsible, and should never get to abandon (at minimum) financial responsibility)
If I end up pregnant, I won't be sitting there going "oh man, how did THIS happen? I better get this taken care of". I'm aware of how effective my birth control is. I'm aware of what will happen if it fails. I know that if it does, I will have to own up to the result.
It's called admitting responsibility. Not punishment.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 9:28 PM
@molto in #291:
We always hear people who claim that these discussions are pointless, because nobody ever changes their minds. Good to hear that is not true.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 9:28 PM
The World Health Organization in recent years conducted a comprehensive study of abortion rates in nations around the world.
Their findings were extremely consistent, allowing me to simplify greatly here without sacrificing accuracy:
In nations where abortion is illegal, the rate of abortions performed was equal to the rate in nations where abortion is legal. In other words, no matter whether abortion is legal or illegal, the same number of fetuses get killed. Procuring abortions is so important to women who need them, that the possibility of jail time is no impediment. And that makes sense, because the rational person weighing her options can see that the possibility of imprisonment (or death; see next paragraph) is preferable to the certainty of unwanted childbirth and childrearing.
That was the first finding. Illegality does not reduce the number of fetuses being killed.
However, in nations where abortion is illegal, more women die during and after the procedure. That also makes sense. Of course back-alley abortions are going to be more dangerous than abortions in a hospital or clinic with well-trained staff under minimal pressure.
Summary: outlawing abortion does not reduce the number of fetuses being killed, but it does increase the number of women being killed.
Still wouldn't oppose a ban, Skatje?
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 9:29 PM
ravenkatie:
So, brainless is okay, as long as there's a heart?
Posted by: jemand
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April 18, 2010 9:29 PM
@ Ol'Greg,
yeah... I wasn't trying to make any statement on transgender or androgynous persons. I actually am not unhappy or resentful of *being* a straight woman. I am *quite* resentful of the double standards and sexist treatment this ensures me in the modern world.
I was just trying to tie the autonomy of female bodies to all other freedoms we are currently fighting for, that of gays and lesbians to be able to pursue sexually fulfilling and full lives, that of transgender persons to pursue their own sexually fulfilling and full lives in the bodies and genders (not necessarily binary) they identify with.
I actually *do* happen to identify fairly well with being a straight woman. I see absolutely NO reason why this should be the only class of person who should not be permitted to pursue sexually fulfilling and full lives, with full bodily autonomy and self-direction.
I am happy for the advance of gay and lesbian rights, but it sometimes appears that even long after we grant the ability of everyone else to have fulfilling and self determined lives, straight women will still be having to fight the same battles, over, and over, and over again.
Which depresses me :(
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 9:31 PM
Not hardly. Unless men gain the ability to get pregnant, there's absolutely no way he can responsible (at this stage at least) at all.
And if that choice works for you, all the more power to you. However, because that works for you, do you honestly think that it would work for me? Should I have to put my entire life on hold because of a mistake?
And if you sit back and think about it, yeah you are using a slut-shaming argument, no matter how you phrase it. I will say it again: There is absolutely nothing wrong with consequence-free sex.
Posted by: monado
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April 18, 2010 9:31 PM
Leah, you're being too harsh. It's quite typical for people who haven't thought deeply about abortion to be vaguely pro-choice but to have some reservations. If they do think about it, they tend to move to a firmer pro-choice position. E.g. suppose it is a person. Suppose it's conscious. Does the person next to me in a crowd get to use my body against my will, even to keep himself alive? No. Does anyone force me to use my body to keep him alive? No. Is anyone contemplating laws to force everyone to keep others alive by using yet more others' bodies for life support? No. Then it's not about personhood, it's about punishment.
Adult women who have abortions in their lifetime is more about 40% now, not 33%.
I don't know the exact legal situation now, but up til 3 months killing a baby used to be infanticide, which was a less serious crime than murder.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 9:32 PM
I find it a shame that women bear the most of the responsibility of reproduction. If the world was perfect, it would be equal. Because both parties' actions are equal. I don't hate my gender specifically, I hate them both equally.
Posted by: monado
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April 18, 2010 9:34 PM
Anyone arguing "personhood" has let the other side set the terms of the debate. Personhood is irrelevant in the face of the precedent for life support, e.g. organ donation or blood donation, which is key.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 9:35 PM
Automobiles are not 100% safe. Should people who ride in cars not be medically treated in the case of accident? Why not just let them suffer and die so they can admit responsibility?
Subjecting women to unnecessary pain and forfeiture of medical choice sure sounds exactly like "punishment."
Posted by: AJKamper
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April 18, 2010 9:35 PM
We live in Minnesota, and my wife and I enjoy mocking those billboards (which are ALL over along the interstates).
Someday I would like to produce a billboard that says, "I could slam dunk a basketball six months after I was conceived!" and has a silhouette of a fetus with a basketball springing toward the hoop, Nike-Air Jordan style.
If anyone can help me with this, it would bring my joy.
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 18, 2010 9:36 PM
OurDeadSelves wrote:
Agreed. I see slut-shaming as one of the worst justifications for holding anti-choice views, if for no other reason than it's so ridiculously one-sided. If I've impregnated her then it's grossly unfair for me to get off so easy if the woman is to be punished with forced pregnancy.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 9:37 PM
And going for an abortion is a method of taking responsibility for what happened. Abortions aren't a visit to the ice-cream shop; they take time, and effort, and pain, and often ridicule from the protesters outside, and money. Why shouldn't this option be open? Why is this not a form of taking responsibility?
I'm getting frustrated, so I should stop for the night. But glancing over the thread again, I see that what I've written are views that have honestly taken me several years to develop. I don't expect that you, or anyone, will suddenly say "Oh yes, it's all true as you said it!" It's the kind of thing that, for a person who is really wedded to the idea that embryos are precious snowflake people, takes an awful lot of time to unpack. Yes, the idea of women = people is a simple one. But there are so many entanglements here, and people do fall at various places in their comfort level, and there are so many angles to approach it from. It takes a long, long time to formulate a solid viewpoint on the subject that isn't just a knee-jerk response, whatever that viewpiont is. I think the biggest thing anyone can ask is for you (and anyone else with that view) to take the time to really evaluate what you think about it and why. Look past the stereotype straw woman of a slut who doesn't bother to use birth control and see all of the reasons women have abortions, and all of the situations they're stuck in. Think about what it really means to privilege a fetus over the woman outside it. If you want to hold that position, be sure that you understand all its underlying assumptions and all of its ramifications.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 9:37 PM
@ 293
Interesting, because as much as I disagree with you in principle, it was sloppy birth control and bureacratic firewalls that turned me into a family man, with no regrets.
However, that was a joint decision with my partner (now wife) which ignores this:
High school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
That she found on the floor of the laundromat
A woman with kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what'll she do
Forget the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith? live on hope?
High on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it's way too late to just say no
You can't make it here anymore
Posted by: jemand
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April 18, 2010 9:39 PM
sometimes, being responsible looks like using contraception.
sometimes, being responsible looks like getting an abortion.
sometimes, being responsible looks like pursuing adoption.
sometimes, being responsible looks like properly caring for a child.
Often, children aren't cared for. THAT is irresponsible. Anything in the above list is responsible.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 9:40 PM
So what do you suggest women who don't want children do? No sex at all? How is this not a women's rights issue if you are willing to frame it like this? You don't need to be forced through a pregnancy to admit responsibility. You can also admit responsibility for the unintended pregnancy and then very responsibly go to an abortion clinic to end it.You still haven't explained why it's OK to intervene before conception, but not after.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 9:40 PM
You're still insisting that only one type of woman or one type of sexual activity results in pregnancy.
You're expectations here are unrealistic. Should a family with four children be forced into poverty because of failed birth control?
These aren't strawmen, they are the real stories of human beings whose lives are ruined by the delusions for which you argue so prettily.
Delusions that pretend away the realities of life.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 9:40 PM
And if that choice works for you, all the more power to you. However, because that works for you, do you honestly think that it would work for me? Should I have to put my entire life on hold because of a mistake?
I wish the consequences weren't so dire, but that's unfortunately how life is.
And if you sit back and think about it, yeah you are using a slut-shaming argument, no matter how you phrase it. I will say it again: There is absolutely nothing wrong with consequence-free sex.
There is something wrong with it if it results in the death of something that ought to be allowed to live. Which brings us back to the main argument.
Posted by: Dianne
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April 18, 2010 9:41 PM
the fetus counts as a living human being once it gets a heart
So would you say that someone who took a person, opened their chest (without anesthesia) and ripped their heart out had committed murder? In many circumstances I would too, but not in one special circumstance: if the person in question were brain dead and the heart were being removed for organ donation. No brain, no living person. One can debate at what point "brain birth" happens or if the concept even makes sense but it is absolutely certain that an embryo (it's not a fetus yet) at the time of first heart beat does not a working brain.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 9:41 PM
getting an abortion is being responsible. it's just not the flavor of responsibility you like, because you'd like to confer on fetuses the special right of slaveholders.but just like a slave doesn't actually have any automatic moral responsibility to their slavemaster, even if their capture was the unintended consequence of their actions, so a woman doesn't have an automatic moral responsibility to a fetus, just because her enslavement was the unintended consequence of her actions.
and if unicorns shat sandwiches, we could end world hunger.wishful thinking and hypotheticals are a shitty basis for arguing the fate of real human beings.
Posted by: Dornier Pfeil
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April 18, 2010 9:42 PM
As a further commentary on the sanities and insanities of our culture; zygotes are not people, but corporations are, atleast as far as our Supreme Court is concerned.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 9:42 PM
It appears to be the same situation. At issue is one's need of another's body to survive, and the role of the state in deciding how much one should be forced to give to another.
Why shouldn't the government be allowed to decide that you should give me part of your liver, or a kidney?
If this is "just different," exactly why is it too different?
Posted by: Peter H
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April 18, 2010 9:43 PM
"Reproduction is mutually exclusive to parasitism BY DEFINITION.
Try telling that to your mitochondria.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 9:44 PM
A fellow misanthrope, I salute you.
Freinds of George Carlin and Mark Twain
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 9:44 PM
Oh yes it is punishment. It's blatant slut shaming. Anyone who thinks a woman must be forced to birth is all about the punishment. You denying that isn't going to make it so.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 9:45 PM
Why do I eternally use the wrong form of your/you're
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 18, 2010 9:45 PM
skatje.myers wrote:
But if the child is adopted out, the man need only pay for his share up until the birth and then he's 'done his time' - while the woman being punished has to bear any physical consequences of having had the child* for the rest of her life. How is that comparable?
*Which - as has been noted - include death, infertility and other very serious physical ailments, not to mention any psychological/emotional problems they might suffer.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 9:46 PM
But it doesn't have to be, that is my point.
Any what's with the magical thinking about fetuses? Potential for human life =/= human life.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 9:47 PM
ought? yeah, I don't think so. just like I'm not going to legislate cannibalism because the death of one might save a bunch of others, I'm not gonna legislate forced pregnancies.Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 9:48 PM
Objectively correct.
How life is: we have Roe as settled law, and we're lucky as a society for it.
How life is: nations with more restrictions do not have fewer abortions, but they do have more deaths of women.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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April 18, 2010 9:48 PM
Corect. This is not my personal definition, but the conventional term of art in community ecology.
Yes. It makes them commensal (unless they are disease vectors).
This is crazy talk. Without pregnancy fitness is zero.
No, the "infant" "wants" to keep receiving direct parental care. It's not parasitizing, again, by definition. Parental care increases the mother's fitness. Fitness is not how many kids are popped out, it's how many kids go on themselves to successfully reproduce. But you know this.
Read what you just wrote there. Sorry, parental care most emphatically does not decrease overall fitness; if it did it wouldn't evolve.
I wouldn't refer to a pregnant eutherian as a "host". "Reproduction" is exactly what it is. Extended gestation is much more similar to laying eggs or broadcast spawning or even asexual budding than it is to parasitism. That's not "sloppy," it's basic biology.
You mean what do I call the relationship? "Gestation."
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 9:48 PM
Automobiles are not 100% safe. Should people who ride in cars not be medically treated in the case of accident? Why not just let them suffer and die so they can admit responsibility?
Irrelevant. Ignoring the fact that women must deal with this pregnancy because suddenly there is another entity within her.
You're expectations here are unrealistic. Should a family with four children be forced into poverty because of failed birth control?
Man, does adoption NOT exist?
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 9:49 PM
317
forced to birth and abortion rights are not the same thing, that's a logical fallacy. Or maybe phallusey, whatever, my spelling suckles.
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 18, 2010 9:50 PM
Again, there is a divide between intent and effect.
No contraceptive method is 100% effective at preventing pregnancy. However, abortion is 100% effective at ending it. If there is nothing wrong with having sex, then there should be no consequences of unwanted pregnancy and childbirth. A fertile woman should not have to "admit responsibility" for her actions if she has done nothing wrong.
This here:
ultimately means that, by having sex with a man, a woman of childbearing age has done something wrong and must accept the consequences. It means that having sex is somehow wrong, and it must be justified with the possibility of childbearing.
It ultimately means that the baby is her punishment.
I don't know about y'all, but I think children deserve better than to be their parents' punishment.
You can say that's not what you mean, but if your opinions are made into public policy, that is the effect. There is no equivalent punishment for a man or a non-fertile woman. If abortion is illegal except in severely restricted circumstances, then the concrete effect is that fertile women are punished for having sex.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 9:51 PM
Posted by: SquidBrandon
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April 18, 2010 9:51 PM
skatje.myers spake:
Since hypotheticals are popular today, how about this: What if legislation was adopted banning all abortion without exception? Even if an abortion was medically necessary to protect the life of the mother, because fetuses are determined to be "protected entities." The state would enforce this law so that any woman determined to be a high risk pregnancy was immediately institutionalized and subsequently physically/chemically restrained to ensure the pregnancy would be carried to term, such that the mother (let's say it's you) could in no way even choose to endanger this protected entity. In fact the protected entity will benefit from proper medical care. If the mother dies, the resulting baby would be then adopted by some eager parents-to-be.
You said:
This hypothetical legislation is really about the protected entity and has nothing to do with a what decisions a woman can make about her own bodies, right?
At what exact milestone should the fetus become protected? Would you feel comfortable if that milestone was used for the legislation in this scenario?
The vibe I'm getting from some commenters here is: "Oh I support a woman's right to choose, but we need to have a serious discussion of a theoretical dividing line that we could employ to determine which abortions are less icky. I mean it's not a black-and-white decision and coming to a consensus on a agreed upon milestone in this forum will make it easier for the women who might have to have to make a decision about her body. And easier for me to sleep at night without feeling anxiety for all the potential persons forever lost to mankind"
Posted by: echidna
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April 18, 2010 9:51 PM
skatje,
Other people are in a multitude different situations - and the law is a very ineffective tool to use when the decisions are so complex.
In a quiet moment, you might want to try out listing the potential situations that any such law will apply to - everything from the 9 yo incest victim, people with miserable/fatal genetic flaws, drug user, pedophile, person in abusive relationship, college applicant, person who really doesn't know how they became pregnant (date-rape drug?), malformed fetus, financial constraints, mother has health issues, girl who has not had sex education of any sort, and so on.
Try to write a law that will give you the desired outcome, knowing that if you exclude people who feel they need an abortion from obtaining one, that you are increasing their risk of misery and death, and possibly rendering them infertile due to a botched abortion.
You will find that such a law is difficult to get right, because it is so dependent on circumstances. The question is not so much if abortion is right or wrong, but who is in the best position to make that decision: the individual or the state.
Posted by: Dianne
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April 18, 2010 9:51 PM
Something else that is starting to be worrisome is the Personhood movement. They're trying to do an endrun around the abortion question by declaring that everything with human genes be declared "a person".
Ah, crap. If they win what am I going to do about all those people sitting in petri dishes in my lab? They've got human genes, they're alive, they must be people. Ok, they're single celled and do nothing but reproduce, but so what? They're people. I guess it doesn't really matter since I've also been committing mass murder against a bunch of cancer cells with human genes anyway. So what if they were going to kill their hosts, they're alive and have human genes, they must be people, right?
In short, are the people involved in the "Personhood movement" prepared to take the consequences of their actions: No cancer treatment of any sort whatsoever, a drastic reduction in the amount of biology and medical research that occurs in the US, and the need to support, eternally, a bunch of cell cultures? Anti-abortion advocates often talk about "taking responsibility". Are they prepared to take the consequences of their philosophy and actions?
Posted by: Yubal
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April 18, 2010 9:52 PM
I think you should not have an abortion whenever possible. Although you should not deny a woman the right to have an abortion who made this tough decision. It is a personal matter not a legal one.
As a man, I can speak only about my putative offspring here, and I would actually not respect but rather accept a woman's decision to abort my genetic information. Instead I would try to convince her to deliver this child and give it to me. Most people reject a moral like mine, but it is a product my own selfish thinking. If the fetus is mine, I want it to develop to a child and get a fighting chance to make a difference in this world. I would even pay her three times her regular salary for the nine month and 6 month after to, at least financially, compensate her for the effort. I know that there is more to it than just a couple of month of pregnancy and money, but again, if it is my genetic information I would do everything allowed by the law to preserve it.
Something I learned in the age of 15 which had a big influence on my personal ethics is this:
When my mom was pregnant with me, several doctors told her that she and her baby would die if she doesn't have an abortion right. So to say, I was a medically justified abortion. She took the chance and lived to become old, healthy and happy.
Mommy is my hero!
Y.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 9:53 PM
abortion is a way of dealing with it.what you're suggesting is that she must face the full consequences rather than choosing the best option available. that's punishment. and since it only affects women, it's sexist punishment.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 9:53 PM
Just caught this:
I love you Jadehawk. :D
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 9:54 PM
skatje
Oh no, you really haven't done too much research on this.
Yes adoption does exist, there is a great demand for white babies in the US.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 9:55 PM
But we have changed how life is. We now have RU-486 and other methods to safely end pregnancies. The consequences don't have to be dire at all. Why do insist that the consequences continue to be dire? So what about all the babies that you didn't allow to live because you never allowed any sperm to reach the eggs? Why don't you consider that wrong as well?Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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April 18, 2010 9:56 PM
what?
Posted by: Yubal
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April 18, 2010 9:56 PM
sorry, missed one word which is necessary for context
"she and her baby would die if she doesn't have an abortion right away."
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 9:58 PM
One last comment for the night -
There's a very interesting book called "The Unit" by Ninni Holmqvist that was translated into English last year. It's about a society in which people over the age of 50 have to check into government-run facilities where they live in the lap of luxury - except that they have to donate any part of their bodies needed until they finally collapse from the losses. The concept definitely has some parallels with the current discussion.
Posted by: eleusis
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April 18, 2010 9:58 PM
I love how people keep saying Skatje is so brave for posting her opinions on her own father's blog, knowing full well that everyone else knows she's the overlord's daughter, and they will (and in fact are) granting her a lot of respect, mostly for that very reason.
If she used a pseudonym, or even deigned to offer a religious argument against abortion, you would be on her like hounds in the most visceral way, and making oneself vulnerable to the kinds of abuses regularly thrown at religious commenters is a much better show of bravery.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 9:58 PM
Let's carry this to it's logical extreme.
All women found pregnant are held in state control and forced to undergo a regime of health activities geared toward preserving the infant's health.
Mentally ill women are sedated and kept in restraint.
After the infants are harvested from these women, the state will then determine which of them are fit mothers and which should have their children remain in state care.
The wages of sin are to remain as permanent reminders in the woman's bodies of what they brought on themselves by allowing a penis inside of them under any circumstances.
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 18, 2010 9:58 PM
skatje.myers wrote:
It's not irrelevant because you linked pregnancy with responsibility. The comparison is apt, and you can't just handwave it away as you have done.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 9:59 PM
You said that because people know condoms are not 100% effective, they should not be allowed to have a medical procedure that addresses the problem.
This is an extremist claim, one that does not make sense alongside the other ways we deal with medical risk in this country. We do not normally withhold medical treatment just because the patient could have avoided the need for treatment.
You have not yet established that there is a right to use another person's body for one's own subsistence. Neither have you explained when during the pregnancy this right is supposed to arise, or why.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 9:59 PM
and just because I think this really needs to be said:
I really wouldn't have minded if my mom had aborted me.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 9:59 PM
@ 335
interesting point, I think we might be able to turn Skatje a bit with the RU-486 (morning after pill)
Hopefully PZ will have some grandkids though.
Posted by: Dianne
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April 18, 2010 10:00 PM
Man, does adoption NOT exist?
Adoption has its own consequences, including severe and often life long depression in the relinquishing mother. The issue hasn't been studied extensively but all available evidence suggests that placing a baby for adoption is extremely dangerous to a woman's mental health. Even assuming that her physical health is only minimally affected by the pregnancy.
Posted by: echidna
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April 18, 2010 10:00 PM
Yubal,
That was a piece of luck - your mum took a big risk, and it panned out.
Not everyone is so fortunate, so you are quite right to recognise that evaluating the risk is a personal decision.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 10:02 PM
IIRC, RU-486 is an abortion pill. Plan B (the "morning after pill") is a wicked high dose of birth control that does not allow the embryo to implant in the uterine wall.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 18, 2010 10:03 PM
I think this is Skatje's point: if you have reached the conclusion that a fetus at age X is an individual, some reasonable approximation of a human being, then the argument about the woman's autonomy doesn't matter -- you don't get to kill a person simply because they are dependent on another individual, their mother. It's a fairly principled position that says no one should kill another person...and makes the assumption that the fetus has some status as a person.
It's a fair argument, but it's also one that ignores the central point of this post: whether the fetus is a person is ambiguous. Sure, there's some point where it is; it's definitely later than conception, but precisely when that personhood is instantiated is undefined, and probably can't defined.
I'd push it to a date much later than most people (I'm not even certain that a newborn counts as a human being). Others set it much earlier. Reasonable people can argue about where the dividing line lies. Except that only crazy people can argue that it is at conception, which ignores all the biology that must intervene to turn a one-celled or multi-celled mass into something functional.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 10:03 PM
I see that Skatje is answering comments after #295. It's an appropriate time to ask, then:
Skatje, why would you allow the banning of abortion when you know that such laws do not reduce the number of abortions, but do cause the deaths of more women?
Why are you OK with more women dying?
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 10:04 PM
And babies whose mothers aren't addicted to narcotics, on crack, have AIDS.
Yes skatje... AIDS. I've volunteered at a hospice for babies born HIV positive. Does adoption exist for these women, who have been infected by their last partner, who may very well have been their husband?
No, really it doesn't. The amount of people willing to care for these children vs the number of them does not balance.
In the case of an AIDS infected pregnant woman, abortion may be the most humane thing she can do.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 10:04 PM
no, Plan B prevents ovulation. RU-486 is the high-dose birth control that induces an abortion.
Posted by: Dianne
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April 18, 2010 10:05 PM
Not everyone is so fortunate, so you are quite right to recognise that evaluating the risk is a personal decision.
Yeah. A patient of mine decided to take that risk. She's dead now. Despite aggressive prenatal care. Pregnancy can kill and it does. More often than we like to pretend.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 10:06 PM
Yes, it exists, in a highly broken state in the U.S. There are a wealth of children who don't get adopted. Adding more isn't the best thing. A lot of people don't want to adopt anything other than a very young baby. A lot of other people simply want to do their own breeding. IVF wouldn't have the clients it does if adoption were such a solution.
However, adoption is not an answer to an unwanted pregnancy. I've said this before. I have never had the least desire to have children; if I had been in a situation where, through lack of choice, I had to birth, adoption would still mean I had a child "out there" somewhere. I didn't want that.
I'm not an irresponsible adult. I used birth control until I was able to get sterilized (something which is incredibly difficult for a young woman to do. A doctor won't think twice about a pregnant 15 year old; however, if an 18 year old wants to be sterilized, you get patted on the head and told to come back when you're 35, after you've had kids).
I got pregnant while using two forms of birth control. I made the responsible choice of aborting. I know that was the right choice. You don't get to make the decision for me, citing your self-righteousness as knowing what's best. You don't understand what responsibility entails. If you did, you wouldn't be so focused on reducing women to incubator status or punishing them for having sex.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 10:06 PM
Already
being
done.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 18, 2010 10:06 PM
In #147, Josh asked for moral qualms about abortion (right?). A bit about me: I have been on both sides of this issue. I have been a birth mother twice rather than have an abortion. That was years ago, and if I knew then what I know now, I would have chosen to have an abortion in the second case (it would have been illegally late in the first case; for medical reasons that pregnancy was undiagnosed until well into my second trimester). At that time I shared Skatje's views, almost identically.
I am now pro-woman on the issue of abortion. However, if I was to express why I might think abortions are not morally neutral now, I would say these things (and I do not necessarily defend them, I am just offering something like a lingering state of doubt):
1. To be forced to admit that I am bearing an unwanted and/or coerced pregnancy would be shameful to me, and having an abortion would be the same as making such an admission, and I would feel ashamed. I would feel like an incompetent slacker if the reason for getting an abortion was economic or due to something like depression, and like there was something wrong with me fundamentally as a reproducing woman if there turned out to be something wrong with the fetus. Because this causes me such deep personal pain, I would not want to put any other woman in the position of having to make that admission. I can't think of a reason for getting an abortion that would be one hundred percent praiseworthy and desirable. (This is not altogether rational, I admit. My failure to think of such a reason does not mean that such a reason could never exist.)
2. The fetus, whatever else it is, is mine. It is approximately half my own genetic material, and it is being built out of my own body. It is either part of me or it is not. Many abortion rights proponents, in order to build the claim that I have the right to evict it, say that it is. If I agree, and if I have normal self-esteem, I should naturally feel protective of and take ownership of that part of my self, and see that it develops naturally and normally and under the best possible circumstances, as I would any other part of my body. I would protect it against harm because I protect myself from harm. The fact that it will be autonomous later is irrelevant until the moment it actually gains autonomy.
Again, I am absolutely one hundred percent on the side of reproductive freedom. Remember, I was once pretty vocal about Libertarianism on this blog (under a different name, though). Though I am a Libertarian no longer, I still uphold personal freedom of choice.
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 18, 2010 10:06 PM
A pregnant woman does not simply "allow" her fetus to live. She goes through the work of maintaining the pregnancy. Again, this is not a matter of simple non-intervention.
Furthermore: have you ever donated blood, Skatje? If so, whose decision was it for you to get in that chair and let that nice white-coated phlebotomist take your blood?
If the hospital and blood bank suddenly ran out of blood in your type, and surgery patients and accident victims desperately needed transfusions in order to survive, could you be forced to get in that donation chair at a moment's notice and give up another pint? I'm not asking you if you would be willing to donate, I'm asking what the authorities could do to you, regardless of your consent.
If those patients died because no one could be persuaded to donate blood, are those deaths murders? Can the people who didn't feel like donating blood recently be charged with a crime?
And if a car crash victim cannot be entitled to a blood transfusion, then why does a fetus have an absolute entitlement to live off its mother's body without her consent?
That is a...TREMENDOUS empathy fail.
Posted by: echidna
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April 18, 2010 10:09 PM
BigMKnows,
Skatje gets respect in part because she uses the phrase "beg the question" correctly :-)
I think that she is getting treatment similar to Walton - we know he is intelligent, young, and sometimes quite wrong, and so people are generally patient and write respectfully and at length, hoping to persuade, knowing that he will be able to understand the arguments (eventually), even if he rejects them.
Maybe patience is extended a little more for Skatje, and there is less cursing, but notice the way her arguments are ripped to shreds with no mercy.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 10:09 PM
Well, shit. I should have looked that up before I opened my mouth.
Side note: I don't understand why a thoughtful, educated, godless woman would feel that sex ought to have consequences. It just doesn't jive.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 10:10 PM
This slut-shaming business is ridiculous. I didn't set the damn rules. To accuse me of targeting women is nonsensical. If it was men who had to be pregnant, I would STILL say that a fetus has some degree of a right to life. Go figure.
Anyway. I'm glad a few people have decided to remember what this discussion was originally about.
The point I was trying to make somewhere was that I give fetuses some level of value, which is higher than the right to consequence-free sex. This value is not the same as a child. Or an adult. The mother's life takes precedence over the fetus' life. But the mother's comfort (plus degrees of health effects, etc.) after knowingly bringing about a life does not take precedence over the fetus' life, IMO.
If you think it's more important for you to be able to have sex without worries than to allow a fetus to live, then I'm not going to change your mind. You place your values there, I place my values here. Why I do is a bit longer than I can post in a comment thread on Pharyngula, while I'm at work and procrastinating writing my senior seminar paper. I might get around to it on my own site someday, but not right this second.
I think I started this by just wanting to point out that we're not all religious conservatards. But then I ended up in a debate. :S
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 10:11 PM
This would hurt my mom a lot, but I some times wish she might have.
I have had a hard life and don't feel I've done much worthwhile.
But my mother was very bright and talented. Her main fault was staying faithful to an abusive man. She wanted children and chose to have one although it was not a good situation.
I love my dad, but he is unstable in the extreme and an addict.
My mother put us both through hell, and she lost most of her options in life in order to have me.
If she had not had me, or had aborted me, I can't help but think maybe she would have left 30 years ago and done some of the things she wanted to with her life.
Instead my childhood can be summed up by Eliot Smith pretty eloquently:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO37ro-IfVQ
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 18, 2010 10:13 PM
One thing that is wrong with Skatje's "responsibility for having sex" argument is that it is perfectly possible to get pregnant without having penetrative sex. All it takes is for the sperm to meet up with the egg somehow, someway, whether carried by fingers, mouth, or (in one notable case in the medical literature) speeding bullet.
Skatje, I'm telling you, it may save your life someday to know that it is possible to get pregnant while deliberately avoiding pregnancy.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 10:13 PM
@Yubal:
A woman has just as much right to reject your genetic information when it is embedded in a fetus as when it is in your sperm.
You also speak as if you can own a fetus, and pay a woman for the use of her body. At least you are already aware that you are selfish and your morals are off.
Posted by: ambook
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April 18, 2010 10:13 PM
I'm only impressed because she's disagreeing vigorously with someone she presumably has to have a continuing relationship with, and in a very public and archived manner. Same as I was impressed with my 10 year old daughter took on an anti-abortion acquaintance in a face-to-face argument and held her own beautifully. And while I'm not particular concerned about "tone," I personally don't like to behave like a hound, even when I agree with those who do. Preferences vary...
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 10:14 PM
but they don't. the real results of your positions have disproportionate consequences on women. that alone already makes them sexist. make your peace with that, if you're going to insist on holding these opinions.Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 10:15 PM
And here's a point that has been brought up, but as far as I can see, not addressed:
I am a smoker. I know the risks to my health that cigarettes pose. I have tried to quit several times (my personal triumph was remaining smoke-free for a year). Should I be denied live-saving medical care if I develop cancer, even though I know the risk of tobacco use?
Should my life end because I made a stupid mistake in my teens?
Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD)
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April 18, 2010 10:15 PM
Cerberus:
What the fuck are you on about? Save your histrionics for somebody who gives a fuck.
Aratina:
Don't know. Don't care. Not the point. In fact, there wasn't a point other than I was just trying to clarify Cerberus' position so I knew for sure what he/she meant.
Negetropyeater:
Nice red herring. That has nothing to do with what I said. Try addressing what I actually said. It is dishonest to call any fetus a child, and it is dishonest to imply that all fetuses are a "fucking clump of cells" or a blastocyst. One of those changes the moral implications, the other doesn't. But they are both dishonest. Dishonesty is something I feel should be avoided. Do you think I'm wrong about that?
Carlie:
Extremely distorting me here. Read what I wrote and you'll see that there were no value judgements in there at all. I was merely clarifying Cerberus' position for the sake of honest dialog. That appears to be a crime here.I am pro-choice and said so already. The answer, by the way, is ZERO!
Skooter
What I told everybody else. There was no fucking argument. The point of that post was not to make a fucking argument. Just translating idiomatic language into honest direct language for the sake of clarity. Jesus Hussein Christ!
Meta: It is interesting that just trying to keep people honest is interepretted as attacking some sacred cow. There is a lot of emotion invested in both sides of this issue and I think it is clouding people's judgement and reading comprehension. Hopefully I've cleared it up adequately. This is precisely why I usually don't comment on these threads and will not on future ones. Even agreeing with you people is not enough to avoid being attacked.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 10:15 PM
@339
Well DUHHHH we are a tribe, so we do hold back on the polemics when dealing with our young.
However I think if Skatje had introduced herself as a circa 19 year old young woman she would have gotten the same restrained responces. It's the adults with power we seek to destroy and hopefully exterminate in Obama FEMA camps, so we can wipe them out and take all their stuff.
Young minds like Skatje's are to be indoctrinated into the way of the squid, we all understand that, or maybe you didn't get the memo
Posted by: monado
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April 18, 2010 10:16 PM
When you give the state the right to deny you an abortion, you give it the right to force you to have an abortion, because you have already conceded that the state knows better than you what to do with your life.
Mark Twain, I believe, said that it's always easy for people to decide what other people should suffer for. Some of the anti-choice people who come in for abortions literally say, "But this is me. This is different. I really need an abortion." Some of them even look down their noses at all the "sluts" in the waiting room. And they go right back to picketing.
Frankly, I'd make them sign an agreement that they were authorizing me to release the videotape of them asking for an abortion at my discretion and tell them it would be on local TV if they continued their anti-abortion activities. Nothing like exposing the hypocrisy of "one rule for me, another for you." That's my own little revenge fantasy. Norma Scarborough once said that if a little light went on over the head of every Member of Parliament whose wife, mother, girlfriend, or sister had had an abortion, they would never be able to pass anti-abortion laws.
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 18, 2010 10:17 PM
Jadehawk wrote:
Interesting you should mention that.
Would it be fair to say that that's a counterintuitive way to think because humans have evolved to value their own lives?
By that I mean we're programmed to think that way because if our ancestors didn't they would have died more easily when faced with hardships. We've been selected to want to live, because wanting to live (funnily enough) increases your chances of actually living.
And I think that's maybe why a lot of anti-choicers are the way they are, because it's a kind of a cognitive no-no to be okay with your own non-existence, and they're projecting that perception onto the fetus?
This comes from no scholarly sources, mind you; it's just something that occurred to me - so I'm happy to have the flaws pointed out.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 10:17 PM
"I don't understand why a thoughtful, educated, godless woman would feel that sex ought to have consequences. It just doesn't jive."
It's not a damn handshake. It's how we reproduce. Human beings are the result of this action. Immediately or in 9 months or somewhere in between. If you think it's an easy call, you're being stupid.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 10:17 PM
Jadehawk, OM:
It's more to the point that you wouldn't have known. I get what you're saying though. My mother would have aborted me, she wanted to, except her fear of dying via a back alley abortion prevented her from taking that action.
Given the dynamics of my family, and the utter nightmare which was my childhood, it would have been the best and most responsible decision she could have made. I appreciate her not wanting to die, that's something I can definitely understand.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 10:18 PM
You are still assuming all women who get pregnant are as smart as you, as privileged as you, as rich as you, and as healthy as you.
THEY ARE NOT!
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 10:18 PM
Again, you have not explained why you believe you should have the authority to use police violence to get your way, or how more police violence would be an improvement on the situation.
How you choose to assign value is your business, but you've made no argument for why your choice should be the more compelling.
You have not even made that case. It appears that you are assigning rights to organisms without any interests, or brains to prefer one thing over another. If that's the case, then it's not apparent how your belief is any different from believing in souls.
Posted by: jemand
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April 18, 2010 10:18 PM
"I didn't set the damn rules."
You ARE setting the rules. Pretending not to be is just being dishonest. If abortion were technologically impossible, than your argument would have merit, that it isn't a socially imposed discrimination that pregnancy falls on women only.
But no! Abortion exists, either occurs before any sentience or in the event of a medical necessity later, and YOU are the one making the 'rule' that it is may not be used.
Don't pretend you aren't the one making the rules, and you are being discriminatory. Your argument that sex is inextricably linked to reproduction is one and the SAME argument against gay rights. If it is not possible to separate sex and any reproductive risk, no matter how hypothetical or small, than gay sex isn't *really* the same kind of sex now, is it?
So yeah, your views are regularly used to promote all kinds of harm and cruelty in the world. Don't pretend they aren't.
Posted by: Dianne
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April 18, 2010 10:19 PM
Skatje: A thought experiment, but one that might well happen in real life. Suppose a person has aplastic anemia. They fail immunosuppressive therapy and their only option is a hematopoietic stem cell transplant. Unfortunately, they have no matched related donor. So, their doctor scans the donor registry for a volunteer unrelated donor. Remember, you are not in this registry unless you freely, voluntarily signed up to be in it. No one is forced to be in the registry. One match is found.
The person who is the match is contacted and agrees to donate. He or she passes all the physical and mental requirements for being a donor. As is usual now, a peripheral blood stem cell collection is planned. The volunteer takes neupogen to mobilize stem cells. He or she comes-voluntarily-to the blood bank for stem cell harvest. The procedure is started. Shortly thereafter-long before enough cells are collected to contemplate transplant-s/he suddenly changes his/her mind and demands that the procedure be stopped.
What should the phlebotomist do? Remember, the volunteer agreed to everything up to this point, is at very little risk (the death rate for volunteer HSC donors is 10-100X less than that of the average pregnancy), and there is a life at stake. The patient WILL die, soon, without the stem cells. Should the volunteer be legally forced to continue the donation? Should the phlebotomist simply refuse to stop the pheresis? What do you recommend as the ethical and legal solution?
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 18, 2010 10:19 PM
Sigh. That's really a severe mischaracterization of the last 360 comments. Please at least acknowledge that you've been given rationales from the points of bodily autonomy, the absence of forced body donation in any other circumstances for any other group of people, the actual abortion/death rates of pregnant women in countries with and without abortion restrictions, the many reasons that women might medically need abortions, the ways in which anti-abortion laws can backfire, and the questionable status of rights granted to embryos at varying developmental points. There's a reason so many of us spent so much time today tied to our computers on this thread, and it wasn't just to say "I want teh sexx but no babeez".
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 10:24 PM
skatje @ 359
The word 'knowingly' makes that sentence ridiculous in context. I'm trying to hang with you, but there's some old saying about stop digging that has to do with holes
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 10:24 PM
Oh? Who set them then? Your views are right in line with patriarchal based religious people's views. By insisting that women have no right whatsoever to abort because they had sex, so it's their fault, you certainly are slut shaming.
It was you who yelled "It's YOUR fault!" You don't get to walk away from that now.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 10:24 PM
So you're not targeting women, you're targeting those that are able to become pregnant. Which just so happens to be women. Right, much more sensical. Well, you've at least established that. Then again, that was never really in dispute in the first place.Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 10:25 PM
Are you, the person who's been insisting that abortion should be more restricted than the compromise of Roe, seriously accusing other people of thinking reproductive choice is an easy call?
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 10:25 PM
of course. but I have significantly less existential angst about the idea of never having been born than about dying sometime in the future. that's actually precisely my point. None of us really would have minded, because we didn't precisely have the capacity for minding. just like vegetables on life support can't mind. and we kill them all the time, too.Anyway, I just wanted to make a counterstatement to all this "I'm glad I wasn't aborted/the abortion failed/whatever, because now I'm alive" statements. Because I really don't care. If my mom had aborted me, I wouldn't be worse off than now, because I simply wouldn't ever have been to make that comparison.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 10:25 PM
Posted by: ambook
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April 18, 2010 10:26 PM
Actually it serves a bunch of other purposes for humans, which makes us different from many other animals. Recreation leading to group and/or pair bonding come to mind. Irrelevant to the fetal rights argument.
Now I have to go to sleep and the overlord's daughter should go write her paper and stop engaging random people on the internet.
Posted by: Rutee, Shrieking Harpy of Dooooom
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April 18, 2010 10:26 PM
What about abortion in the case of rape? Knowingly requires some measure of consent, of intent.What of those who specifically go out of their way to avoid bringing about a life?
I don't care if people do or don't have them. I just think that that removing agency is pointless.
Posted by: phoenixwoman
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April 18, 2010 10:26 PM
This discussion reminds me forcibly of the irony of the very success of vaccines having made possible a world where children, particularly in developed lands, have very good goods of surviving to adulthood -- to the point where several generations have come along who have never known, firsthand, the terrors of polio, rubella, or even HIB, and who have never heard of herd immunity.
The existence of Roe v. Wade as well as the legalization of effective birth control (both of which were and are fought tooth and nail by the same religious authorities that PZ combats every waking day) are what make it possible for middle-class white girls and young women like Skatje Myers to live lives where they don't have to worry about pregnancies putting an end to any dreams they may have had of supporting themselves, much less getting through college and into a career that uses their talents to the fullest.
Especially if they live in big cities or places where the pharmacist isn't a nosy prick, girls and women of Skatje's generation and social class never have had to worry about not having access to birth control or not being able to find a doctor willing and able to do a therapeutic abortion to save them from runaway pre-eclampsia, which less than a century ago in America was an extremely common, and extremely horrible, way for women to die, usually while pregnant with their first child after having sex for the very first time. (By the way, the risk of pre-eclampsia decreases with each time that a woman is exposed to the sperm of a single partner before getting pregnant.)
Skatje, look at all the women and girls you have known in your time on earth. Every third one of them has had an abortion.
Let me repeat that:
Every third one of them has had an abortion.
And it won't be the ones that you think had them, either. At least one of the Nice and Sensible Girls (or Women) you know will have had at least one.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 10:27 PM
Fucking blockquotes. Let's try this again:
Sex isn't all about reproduction, sorry. Many people have sex (hetero-, homo-, solo or otherwise) simply for pleasure. Modern birth control and modern abortion techniques allow those who engage in hetero sex to behave sexually without having to worry about the consequences of bringing another child into this world.
Two questions: Why is it so wrong to enjoy sex without producing a child? Why is it wrong to abort a fetus if a mistake was made or birth control failed?
(Re-posted for clarification.)
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 18, 2010 10:28 PM
I just want to know why more women dying is the preferable thing.
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 18, 2010 10:30 PM
But you ARE trying to set the damn rules. You are trying to trying to set the rule that the rightful consequence of heterosexual sex on a fertile woman's part is 40 weeks of pregnancy.
The reality remains that women are the ones who suffer the physiological and emotional effects of pregnancy and childbirth. We do not live in a world where the responsibility of childbearing is equally distributed. There is no equivalent consequence of sex for a man or a non-fertile woman. We also do not live in a world where there is always a ready family waiting to adopt any unwanted child, or where society gives single mothers and poor families a fair deal, or where children are never neglected or abused by overwhelmed, unprepared parents. We do not live in a world in which maintaining a pregnancy to term and then handing the newborn over to a stranger never to see it again is a non-damaging alternative to an early pregnancy termination. We do not live in a world where unwilling fathers can be relied upon to care for their accidental offspring.
I take issue with your use of the word "knowingly" here. Any woman who is trying to procure an abortion was, by definition, NOT trying to get pregnant, therefore did not "knowingly" put an embryo in her womb. She has not given consent for her blood and organ functions to be used for the survival of that life. If she has the same rights as any other member of society who could choose to donate blood, or bone marrow, or a kidney, but not coerced into doing so, then she cannot be forced to give birth.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 18, 2010 10:32 PM
Folks, I have fought anti-born-person activists alongside Skatje before. She knows the arguments. We're not telling her anything she hasn't already heard.
Of course, that brings up the question of why she no longer accepts some of the arguments she was once in favor of, but I think I see... it is just absolutely repugnant to think and act like no fetus has any intrinsic value. I agree with that.
However, I believe that when set against the value of the interests and the reproductive freedom of a living, old-enough-to-reproduce woman, that value is anywhere from significant to negligible. The question is, who assigns the value?
Skatje can't assign value to the fetus of another woman. Only the woman carrying the fetus gets to determine its value. And that value can never, never exceed the value of any born, living person.
Posted by: Becca the Over Socialized
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April 18, 2010 10:33 PM
Hold on there. I'd really like to see some evidence for that statement. The only people I've heard make claim are people who have bought into CUB's (Concerned United Birthmothers) propaganda... and CUB is entirely made up of people who have either placed children for adoption and regretted it or who are opposed to adoption for other reasons.
All I have is anecdotal evidence of my kids' birth mother, who was forced to go through pregnancy and birth and forced adoption when she was 17 (long years before she got pregnant with what turned into my son David). She was bitter about the way she had been treated, but not bitter about the adoption, nor did that doom her to a lifetime of depression.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 10:33 PM
and... um... not to sound creepy, but both O' Greg and Caine have even stronger arguments for my point than I do.
Like I said earlier, my mom did have the option, but she chose otherwise, and it worked out. And it's nice to know I was wanted, and I'd like that for everybody, because it's a better fate than being unwanted but born anyway. But I really really can't say that I'm happy she didn't get an abortion, because I can't say I'd be unhappy if she had.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 10:33 PM
P.S. I do not need a lecture about casual sex from a teenager. I have had random encounter sex and you know what? It really wasn't much different from a handshake, only slightly more pleasurable.
Does that make me a bad person because I didn't place enough importance on the act of intercourse? I sure as shit hope not.
Posted by: Dr Paul
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April 18, 2010 10:34 PM
Skatje at #207:
Except that the crucial difference is that you and I would agree that (for example) the 3000 people murdered on 9/11 were all conscious human persons with the characteristics which make human persons morally considerable as human persons, whereas people such as you and I genuinely differ in good faith about whether a newly fertilised ovum, an embryo or a foetus at various stages of development is a human person, indeed is capable even in principle of being a human person until relatively late in pregnancy. Skatje, it is only your opinion, and far from either a settled fact or a generally accepted philosophical conclusion, that such entities are human persons.
For my part, arguing that a human person comes into being at the moment of conception has the superficial merit of providing a clear-cut answer to the question of when does a human person come into being, but is completely unconvincing to those of us for whom mind and consciousness are central to the concept of human personhood and the moral considerability of human (and other) persons.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 10:34 PM
strange gods before me:
You're not going to get an answer. I said the same thing at least a hundred posts ago (probably more), so did Carlie and quite a few others. Apparently being pro-women's deaths is better than abortions.
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 18, 2010 10:38 PM
Jadehawk wrote:
I wasn't saying counterintuitive = wrong - just that it's a cognitive stumbling block. Because I realised that not feeling bad about not being born is quite a sensible state of mind - but only after I thought about it. When I first considered it, I found the concept very unsettling.
I think you have to be able to think your way into being okay with your non-existence - and not everyone can do that, because it goes against how we've evolved. That that also plays a part in the delusion of religion - since, according to most of them, you can never not exist - is more than a little significant.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 10:38 PM
There's a lot of things that won't get an answer... because she's operating under the delusions of unexamined privilege. She thinks all women are her equals.
It's kind of sweet, but it's very sad.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 10:42 PM
Jadehawk, OM:
First, you aren't being creepy. What you say here is the absolute truth. Being unwanted, having been birthed solely because your mother feared death does not equate to a happy time for the child. That, by the way, is one fuck of an understatement.
I'm getting pretty sick and tired of a young, white, spoiled, privileged
girlwoman insist she knows what's best, and what's best is you pay the fucking consequences for sex. Fuck that noise.Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 10:43 PM
oh, I know. And I can't say that non-existence isn't unsettling for me. I'm actually sometimes quite scared of death (or more precisely, of dying) and prefer to pretend it's never gonna happen.But I'm just not bothered by the idea of never having existed. because they I would have never had to consciously experience dying.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 10:44 PM
@badgersdaughter: thanks, that's a great summary.
Now I really need to go to sleep. I've been sucked into this discussion for way too long again.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 18, 2010 10:44 PM
Becca, I was happy about the outcome of my second pregnancy. I had an open adoption, in which I chose the parents of my daughter (a teacher and a psychologist both specializing in gifted and special education, important to me because I am gifted and ADHD and Aspergers run in my family). They were caring, decent, intelligent people who I was glad to give my daughter up to. If I had never found out the name they gave her, I would think a little better of them... honestly, what a bloody tin ear for names they had... but if that's the worst, you know what they say.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 10:46 PM
Ol'Greg @ 396, agreed. It's getting on every last nerve, though.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 10:46 PM
I'm officially too drunk to continue this argument.
Goodnight.
Skatje, you seem bright, let's try to make a world where abortion is almost unheard of because no one ever depends on it!
Posted by: Glock21
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April 18, 2010 10:47 PM
PZ Myers said:
Wholeheartedly agree here. The serious ethical concerns are far later and could cross past actual birth. Rational people can argue on these ethical issues and debate both the historical ramifications for women as equals, as many have passionately argued thus far, or argue tirelessly that at some point the fetus becomes indistinguishable from other protected humans and argue passionately for empathy and taking responsibility for ones actions.
There is a great debate to be had here that I wish was the true focus of the abortion debate than the dumbed down ensoulment nonsense that the religious tend to drag it down into. I think it's great that Skatje jumped into the fray (even if it seemed more like hitting a bees nest with a stick) to drag the conversation towards a debate between the two rationalist sides of the debate.
That said I still have grave concerns that any abortion policy that attempted to limit abortion would be either unenforceable to ensure that the liberty of the mother is fully protected against non-chosen pregnancies (ie rape, incest) or would force them to prove something that is notoriously difficult to prove. Current policy may be the most ideal to err on the side of caution as far as the law is concerned yet have defenders of ethics arguing to the people in rational ways (as opposed to ensoulment, sin, and other mystical nonsense) to ensure that women have the highest degree of freedom given the circumstances of this world and leave it to the people themselves to instill matters of conscience, something a modern Madison might even support.
Anyhoo, that's my 2 cents. Hopefully less controversial than taking a definition of parasitism out of a biology text.
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 18, 2010 10:47 PM
Personally, I exist as a result of my parents deciding to have a baby. When my mom found out she was pregnant, bringing me to term was an easy call because they were invested in reproduction. When I came into the world it wasn't as a consequence to my parents' actions, it was as a welcome addition to the family.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 10:50 PM
thanks, I was hoping that didn't sound weirdly creepy.Anyway, to sum this up from the "bottom up" perspective: a world in which every born child is a wanted and cared-for child is a better world than one in which there are no abortions.
Posted by: kb
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April 18, 2010 10:51 PM
Ugh. I hate the arguments that a blastocyst/zygote is a full human being (like billboard 2). In a lab, it has the potential to grow into a bunch of nerve cells, or a liver, or a pancreas, and will probably be considered an important medical treatment one day. Without IVF, a procedure that results in multiple killed blastocysts, many innocent, wonderful children wouldn't be here today. In the series of tubes that is the female reproductive system, it could split into two, resulting in multiple babies, and the majority (I think) of its cells are really only potential placenta. It was never a me--it was a potential me that could also be a potential twin but was mostly a potential placenta.
I reject the idea that if there's a fetus in my uterus, then I necessarily put it there. I've had sex whose existence was consensual but whose unprotectedness was not: men are heavy, and I do not have impressive upper body strength. It was not a 50/50 decision, it was a 100/0 decision, and I was the 0. (I did not get pregnant though, which was lucky--for me.)
Even if I did decide to have consensual sex, and the protection failed, and I ended up pregnant, I would still like the choice to keep the baby or not. I'm nearing a time in my life when I'd decide abortion is not for me, but I have trouble not thinking of fetuses as parasites. In the first week or so, it eats the wall of your uterus. Like, literally. It digests your uterus. It's not sharing nutrition with your circulatory system, it's taking the contents of your uterus cells, and absorbing them for energy. I mean, score one for procreation, but I guess that explains my slight chronic anemia (cause, you know, girls shed the sacrificial uterine offering to potential procreates every month or so, if it doesn't get eaten first).
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 10:52 PM
"It's a fair argument, but it's also one that ignores the central point of this post: whether the fetus is a person is ambiguous. Sure, there's some point where it is; it's definitely later than conception, but precisely when that personhood is instantiated is undefined, and probably can't defined."
Which isn't really any different than what I believe. I've said from the beginning that the line is blurry.
"Skatje, why would you allow the banning of abortion when you know that such laws do not reduce the number of abortions, but do cause the deaths of more women?"
Because I simulataneously advocate better sex ed, readily available contraceptives, and other things that reduce abortion rates. I also advocate a cultural shift that places more value on life and less on instant gratification, but I'm just an idealist hippy.
"You don't get to make the decision for me, citing your self-righteousness as knowing what's best"
Every cites their own self-righteousness as knowing what's best. I'm no different than anyone else for this.
And I think I just realised that I was reading comments made a long time ago. Huh.
"Are you, the person who's been insisting that abortion should be more restricted than the compromise of Roe, seriously accusing other people of thinking reproductive choice is an easy call?"
Try reading the rest of the discussion that has been going on. I already said I wasn't pushing for a law. I would just not stand in the way of it, should it come about. Because I have more important things to be passionate about than something I don't feel certain on.
"What about abortion in the case of rape? Knowingly requires some measure of consent, of intent."
Blah blah, I'm okay with abortion in cases of rape.
"Of course, that brings up the question of why she no longer accepts some of the arguments she was once in favor of, but I think I see... it is just absolutely repugnant to think and act like no fetus has any intrinsic value. I agree with that."
Some of the arguments I was in favour of I realised were fallacious and poor. Which causes me no end in shame.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 18, 2010 10:52 PM
Oh, and KOPD, Cerberus is a woman, as you would know from reading her posts (you did actually read them, not just react to them, right?). Using the pronoun he/she to refer to Cerberus constitutes abuse once she posted her gender, even more so since she identified as trans. Be more careful than that, unless you want to be identified as an ignorant bigot.
Posted by: Peter H
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April 18, 2010 10:54 PM
skatje wrote:
"...a fetus has some degree of a right to life..."
This projects a legalistic referent upon a biologic instance. How does a fetus have any more "right to life" than a developing tumor? Both may occur within the same "nurturing" body? We generally treasure and protect the one while abjuring and (hopefully) excising the latter. That the fetus "may" develop into a viable, living person is not always assured; many nightmares and tragedies may possibly result - physiological, social, economic . . . Consult any gynecologist for a reality call that Mother Nature does not always give us what we desire - or are even capable of adequately dealing with. She can present nightmares beyond SFX imaginings - and some of them "viable."
And, then "...to some degree..." waffles you out of the picture entirely.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 18, 2010 10:58 PM
Skatje said, Some of the arguments I was in favour of I realised were fallacious and poor. Which causes me no end in shame.
I'm sorry, Skatje, I did not mean to shame you and I don't think you need feel ashamed. But I do not recognize your right to impinge upon the choices of others on matters affecting their own reproductive health. And for my part I would consider any effort to limit my own reproductive choices (to the extent I still have any, since I'm almost twice your age and my cycles are slowly tapering off) a personal attack on my mind and body.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 10:59 PM
Dr. Paul @ 309
Doctor Dickhead, the death toll of 9-11 was 2200 not 3000, please ask a seven year old child for a math book and learn about how numbers are rounded.
Everybody who died in those towers had a vote, so the majority of them were responsible for the government that pissed off the agressors, and are fair game as all American citizens are fair game to be killed by outside forces who feel they are under attack by us, because we bear direct responsibility for the actions of our government, there is no such thing as innocents in a democracy..
What is not fair is to kill civilians of dictatorial nations who have no input into the insanity of their governments, they are fellow victims. Read the slaughter of Iraqis under stalinistic rule.
any other red herrings you'd like to stink the place up with, I can forward to Karl Rove.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 10:59 PM
... Can I ask how many people currently participating in this discussion are under the false impression that I'm storming the capital to get Roe v. Wade overturned?
I would like to say, yet again:
I personally will not have an abortion. I think it is wrong to do so, for myself and anyone. But the definition of where life begins is fuzzy, and therefore, I don't push my views on other people. I recognise that I do not have The Answer on this question, and therefore do not advocate actively preventing people from getting abortions, and can really only alter my own behaviour and try to engage people in discussing it further.
This is the same thing I was saying in the beginning, but it sounds like some people missed that.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 10:59 PM
Jadehawk, OM:
Absolutely. Unfortunately that isn't the case. I can (and do) respect someone who finds abortions distressing, and as a result, works hard to make abortions legal, accessible and rare. Ease of access and affordability of birth control, sterilizations and education help to make abortion rare.
Insistence on making abortion a moral issue and degrading a woman's status do not make abortion rare. Views which involve increasing womens death rates and consider pregnancy a consequential punishment for having had sex are contemptible and don't do a damn thing to decrease abortion. It's an ugly attitude, and like many others, I've had enough of it for one night. I'm headed for the endless thread.
Posted by: Deen
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April 18, 2010 11:01 PM
Wait, what? If it's all about the fetus' rights, then why would a fetus resulting from rape have less rights than one resulting from failed birth control? Oh yeah, that's right, it's all about the sex after all.By the way, didn't hippies believe in free love?
Posted by: Joe
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April 18, 2010 11:02 PM
For anyone who doesn't think they live privileged lives as white (Or white looking, in my case) people, spend a bit of time on a rez. It'll help to see what the real bottom rung and results of cultural genocide are.
Anyways.
It's been mentioned a few times: The countries with the lowest abortions rates are not the ones that make abortion illegal... all that does is kill women. WHO studies support that.
What does reduce abortions is easy access to contraceptives, and comprehensive sex education.
Neither of which is available across the US.
The human cost of making abortion illegal is /extreme/.
Again, using the WHO as a source.
Skatje's arguments, unfortunately, are coming from a flawed, and privileged, position.
Because, at it's core: This IS a woman's rights issue. Saying it isn't doesn't make that so.
The issue isn't even legal abortions.
It's /safe/ legal abortions, done by trained medical staff.
Because it's worth restating: Legalization of abortion, and making sure that it's safe procedure available as a woman's choice is about saving lives. Period.
Source:
http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/unsafe_abortion/ua_paper/en/index.html
Posted by: Dornier Pfeil
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April 18, 2010 11:02 PM
The original poster does just fine conveying the sense that she understands the baby does not deserve the injustice of being born to such a mindless slut as she describes. I am revoking your reading comprehension card, back to kindergarten with you.I agree with the sentiment, if only it WERE possible to force that person to carry a fetus to term and go thru labor WITHOUT the result being a baby that didn't deserve to be born to such an irresponsible person.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 11:03 PM
and in my ideal world, people could only have children if they consciously decided on them; they would be carefully crafted to avoid genetic diseases, and pre-gestated (or not, for those freaks who like being pregnant for 9 months :-p) to the desirable level, and then sent home with the happy new parents.
And maybe someday this will even happen.
But I live in the here and now, and my flights of fancy have fuck all to do with reality. and therefore, abortion must stay legal, safe, and easily accessible, because forced births and forced abstinence suck for everyone involved.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 11:05 PM
What types of torture and corporal punishment do you support for other crimes?
Maybe nails beneath the fingernails, small wounds poured with lye, acid up the butthole?
What other pain and suffering do people deserve?
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 11:05 PM
no one is missing that, but you've already admitted you'd let others ban abortion. from where I'm standing, it's all the same.Posted by: jemand
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April 18, 2010 11:06 PM
" I don't push my views on other people. "
OH???
Posted by: Becca the Over Socialized
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April 18, 2010 11:07 PM
badgersdaughter @400 - We, too, have an open adoption. I know it's not for everyone, but we've made it work.
In our case, it was the birth mom pushing for odd names for the children.
but, Skatje, adoption as an option still has to put a woman through pregnancy and delivery with an unwanted child. In my day, girls "went to live with a relative" for a year, or "went to Europe" for a year... enough time for them to be pregnant, give birth, and recover from it. But that option isn't open to everyone, and there is a terrible amount of prejudice against birth mothers in our culture. Should a woman have to put up with not only the shame of being pregnant when she didn't want to be, but also the "shame" of being an "unnatural" woman for not wanting to parent the child herself?
I'll say it again: no woman should be forced to be a baby factory against her will for my benefit.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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April 18, 2010 11:07 PM
What is wrong with instant gratification?
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes
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April 18, 2010 11:08 PM
You can't be serious.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 18, 2010 11:08 PM
Deen:
Yes. And I am actually old enough to be one. With that, I really am out of this thread.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 18, 2010 11:09 PM
In my ideal world people worry about their own damned lives and recognize how little their experience has to do with anyone else.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 18, 2010 11:09 PM
Thanks for clarifying, Skatje, I actually wasn't clear that you didn't mean that you were for limiting the reproductive choices of other women. It is simply hard to see how someone who has at least the normal helpings of brains, decency, and self-esteem would deliberately fail to take action to protect that which she sees as both intrinsically valuable, and tragically undervalued by other people.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 11:09 PM
I totally agree.Posted by: Dornier Pfeil
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April 18, 2010 11:13 PM
Sure there is. That is simply the definition of vengeance.
Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD)
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April 18, 2010 11:15 PM
I thought she had identified as female, but didn't take the time to go back and check. I was attempting to clarify the meaning of one fucking sentence and didn't think it was relevant. I see now that I was mistaken. Apparently the rule here is that if you aren't sure you understand exactly what a person means by something, you should close you browser and move on to another thread. Got it.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 11:17 PM
Wait, what? If it's all about the fetus' rights, then why would a fetus resulting from rape have less rights than one resulting from failed birth control?
Longer answer summed up: With the burden of pregnancy on a woman who will now probably suffer emotional distress from a pregnancy she did not consent to being worse than the usual case, the amount that we must ask a woman to bear for the sake of a fetus's life is now greater, and, I would tentatively say outweighs. See how these values are placed arbitrarily and uncertainly? That's why I'm not going out and trying to stop abortion.
OH???
Yeah, because debating in comments on Pharyngula is REALLY forcing my views into your life.
By the way, didn't hippies believe in free love?
I'm using the modern "someone who rejects the established culture" definition of hippy.
Posted by: monado
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April 18, 2010 11:17 PM
Any time you want to get depressed, look at the maternal mortality statistics for Nicaragua, a country that banned all abortions not so long ago. I think about 80 women died in the first 11 months of that ban. That were counted officially, I mean. In Ontario, deaths by illegal abortion were usually recorded by the Coroner as something else to save the family from embarrassment. Morton Shulman, who was the Chief Coroner in the 1950s-60s, wrote in his biography that he had been a force in getting abortion legalized, simply by honestly declaring illegal abortion as a cause of death instead of concealing it.
Interesting that the anti-abortion people can't see the cause and effect:
Posted by: Joe
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April 18, 2010 11:18 PM
Oh... Unrelated: You have Protesters PZ!
Congratulations!
There really should be a special card for this... or a cake?
Some sort of special dinner?
Roast lamb in a red wine reduction crusted with host crumbs?
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 18, 2010 11:20 PM
KOPD: Funny, if someone pointed out that I had made such a hideous mistake, I would be embarrassed, and apologize to both the person I inadvertently insulted, and the person who pointed it out. But maybe I was brought up differently from you. Because it's not a blog rule (around here rudeness is the expected thing and courtesy is a lagniappe), it's just an indicator of whether or not you care about the thoughts and feelings of other people.
Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD)
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April 18, 2010 11:21 PM
And what's with this "them?" I was not "reacting" to her posts, just making sure I was parsing one of them correctly. Fuck me for giving a shit if I'm reading correctly. But I would like to apologize to Cerberus for one thing. Sometimes when I read a lot of posts I do forget who said what. The post I was attempting to clarify did give an indication of gender that had slipped my mind by the time I was composing #366. I was focused on the posts I was responding to in #366. I am sorry. I will not forget who you are again.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 11:25 PM
"no one is missing that, but you've already admitted you'd let others ban abortion. from where I'm standing, it's all the same."
How the fuck is that the same? I prefer to withhold my vote when I feel that I do not have enough information and reason to MAKE a vote.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 18, 2010 11:25 PM
OK, I admit I am "pushing my views on you"; in fact, I'm doing worse, I'm taking personal offense at something you did to a third party. Tell me to go to Hell, and I will do so, cheerfully, and probably enjoy the company. :)
Posted by: Joe
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April 18, 2010 11:27 PM
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/un-urged-condemn-nicaragua-abortion-ban-20100204
It's horrible.
And it's the poor who suffer the most. Brown, poor, and desperate.
The rich just go to other countries where it's legal.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 11:27 PM
because the result is the same.I live in a world where results matter more than intent.
Posted by: phoenixwoman
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April 18, 2010 11:27 PM
Yup.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 18, 2010 11:28 PM
But in actuality, I am merely going to bed, where I have, unfortunately, no company at all, except for three lead-footed cats who like to walk on me at two in the morning. Ciao meow.
Posted by: windy
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April 18, 2010 11:29 PM
Of course sex is more important to me than a fetus, otherwise I wouldn't be using birth control.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 11:29 PM
Skatje, you haven't adressed the real challenges to your argument.
1. where abortions are illegal there are just as many abortions and more women die.
2. upon what version of morality do you base your opposition to abortion, other than your icky feeling. Your arguments are all vague, you are not nailing it.
3. how do you reconcile the class difference in your convenient opinion, knowing that if you get pregnant you can fall back on established family resources compared to someone who is all alone? Y
4. where do your personal opinions and political ideals infringe on the rights of others, and what grants you the right to coerse others to your will, if indeed you support the right for women to choose, which you have not clearly stated? You seem to be just jerking us around.
5. If you found out that PZ and I were having a torrid sexual affair for the last five years how would that effect you?
Oh
Wait a minute.
strike number 5.
Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD)
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April 18, 2010 11:33 PM
I just realized I fucked up more than I realized. Because of the way Cerberus responded to me in #91, my faulty memory had me thinking that it was Cerberus who had posted #70 that I was responding to earlier. And so in #366 I said that it was Cerberus' position I was trying to make sure I understood. It was not. It was a googlemess account.
Cerberus, I really do owe you an apology. I am sorry for getting you confused with somebody else. I still don't know why you told me to grow the fuck up, but I guess I may never. I will, though, go back and re-read your posts and see if they shed some light on why you reacted to me the way you did.
Posted by: monado
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April 18, 2010 11:33 PM
To continue about the student who bled to death, I wrote to a Conservative MP and asked if she realized that this was probably a result of the Conservatives' anti-abortion law. She wrote back that she didn't think they were related. So they do deny, stop up their ears and run away.
Posted by: Joe
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April 18, 2010 11:35 PM
The consequences of making abortion illegal have been pointed out. Credible research has been done, and sources are easy to find.
Yes, you donate to planned parenthood. Good. :) So do I.
World isn't black and white... sometimes you have to take a stance for something you find distasteful to prevent something far worse.
Like defending someone's right to free speech even if you dislike what they do with it.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 18, 2010 11:35 PM
gotta go.
Don't let'em tear you down , Skatje, but all chinks in the armor are worth investigating.
Posted by: jemand
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April 18, 2010 11:39 PM
"Longer answer summed up: With the burden of pregnancy on a woman who will now probably suffer emotional distress from a pregnancy she did not consent to being worse than the usual case, the amount that we must ask a woman to bear for the sake of a fetus's life is now greater, and, I would tentatively say outweighs."
So, you see that emotional distress can outweigh the value of keeping a fetus around. But still you presume to say that you, and only you, can properly measure the amount of emotional distress another woman is going through in relation to her pregnancy.
That is NOT something you can presume to know.
If a woman is asking for an abortion, the emotional distress of that pregnancy is already by definition more than the "usual case" because she's not comfortable in carrying it to term.
Posted by: Joe
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April 18, 2010 11:40 PM
Something to think about for those that think it could never happen here.
It did. And it could still.
Even if you don't like abortion, or disagree with people who have them: This is the cost of doing nothing to protect reproductive freedom for women.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 18, 2010 11:41 PM
anyway, to conclude my part in this discussion, I'll say that I can understand wanting a world in which abortions don't happen. But to stop there is simplistic and deadly to women, and to refuse to protect women from those who actively want to cause this suffering by outlawing abortion is privileged bullshit, and not sufficiently different from those who actively promote this shit. And I'm fucking sick of privileged Americans who boil all the worlds problems down to "personal responsibility".
Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD)
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April 18, 2010 11:41 PM
Okay, I have reread your posts and I still don't see why you attacked me for trying to make sure that in googlemess's mind
"For those of you wringing your hands at "when does the fetus become equal to a pre-term baby" meme, the answer is "when it is no longer housed in my property." Abortion is property rights. No one may live in my property w/o my permission. Ever. My property, my decision."
is absolutely equal in no uncertain terms to
"I am okay with abortion up to and including when labor has begun."
I never said I disagreed, I was just trying to get past the metaphors and make sure I understood clearly what was meant.
Posted by: Alex
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April 18, 2010 11:46 PM
I am not sure that some of the commenter's here have thought about their ideas long enough. The only way that I have seen the morality of abortion presented is through the righteousness of the action, but I think that the intent of an action is also important to take into account. It seems like a lot of people are universalizing abortion to be equal in all circumstances, while it may be legal in all circumstance and I would never suggest denying that, it may not be moral in all circumstances. For example it is legal for two different women to receive abortions, however if one of the women is having one performed because she was a rape victim or it will cause health complications and the other is the girl with three abortions mentioned near the top, then there is a difference in the moral intent of the act of denying the pregnancy. And I think that you can all intuitively feel that out. I think that this is the source of Jordan's uneasiness.
If you disagree with me that is fine most people have different views of morality anyway, so if you have a logical argument against me please share I love having my viewpoints changed.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 18, 2010 11:49 PM
I'm going to be bad and admit I am staying up past my bedtime simply for the sheer pleasure of replying to Jadehawk's comment, And I'm fucking sick of privileged Americans who boil all the worlds problems down to "personal responsibility".
I wish I had said that. It's why I refuse to call myself a Libertarian anymore, in case anyone wanted to know.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 11:50 PM
Does she realize just who she's making common cause with? The leaders of the anti-choice movement don't like effective birth control, either.
I know that just about every pro-lifer is an idiot. That's not going to make me okay with abortion, though. It just means I have to kick pro-lifers as often as I kick pro-choicers.
where abortions are illegal there are just as many abortions and more women die.
I find statistics such as these very dubious. If you posted them before, I apologise, I haven't read every comment. But are there statistics regarding nations similar to the US in terms of both development and culture? These are pretty important variables, I think.
upon what version of morality do you base your opposition to abortion, other than your icky feeling. Your arguments are all vague, you are not nailing it.
I know, I'm guilty of being vague. I haven't found a way to condense many long philosophical/ethical discussions into a single comment for explanation. I may write something longer about it someday. For now... lesee... If we value life after birth, but not before, there must be a very significant difference between the two. The differences that people claim do not sway me, and it seems the distinction is more out of convenience than anything else.
where do your personal opinions and political ideals infringe on the rights of others, and what grants you the right to coerse others to your will, if indeed you support the right for women to choose, which you have not clearly stated? You seem to be just jerking us around.
I'm not positive what you're getting at here, but I'll say some words. The idea of coercing others to our will because of what we see as "just" isn't alien, and I don't find myself out of line here. Would you not advocate intervening in a case of child abuse? Or is that too far outside your moral jurisdiction?
If I'm missing your point, please let me know. :S
Posted by: Joe
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April 18, 2010 11:53 PM
Alex -
I don't think the moral issue should come into it at all.
Not my place to dictate what a women does with her body. That's hers and hers alone.
But, back to my point: Laws based on the morality of abortion will be flawed, because morality isn't fixed. It changes as society changes.
Best to leave that out of it completely, and concentrate on what we do know. Making abortion illegal has a direct and dramatic effect on mortality rates of young women.
Posted by: Glock21
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April 18, 2010 11:53 PM
Abortion rights are founded upon the right to privacy, not the right to property. To be clear we're not talking about privacy as in what is done in secret without anyone else seeing. The right to privacy is the right to private decisions, they belong to you as an individual and the government fundamentally lacks the power to deprive you of such a fundamental liberty without due process of law. People are not property. Neither your womb nor your person constitute "property" under the law.
I fully support a substantive due process right to property, not for abortion, but for almost anything within the realm of liberty. I'd like to see it more broadly applied. Property rights arguments for abortion are clever, but they inherently rely on ideas that have been thrown out years ago in other civil rights litigation. It's a non-starter per Constitutional law. Griswold is the case to read on the substantive due process arguments (especially the concurrences that led to Casey): Griswold v Connecticut.
The legal end is far more complex than the slogans of either side and it is worth knowing for an activist or interested party leaning or strongly supportive of either.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 18, 2010 11:55 PM
That is NOT something you can presume to know.
Wow. No shit. Are you understanding now why I'm too hesitant to ever make a vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 18, 2010 11:55 PM
Alex, there is clearly a moral difference between the two cases. In the first case, the rape victim lost her volition and we feel sorry for her, and in the second, the party girl took a risk and we feel contempt for her. In other words, we feel that the first woman was moral because her virtue was violated, and the second was immoral because, you might say, she had no virtue left.
However the moral difference does not extend to the right of each woman to have an abortion. The moral choice is different. It is moral to uphold each woman's right to bodily integrity and reproductive choice for reasons known and chosen only be herself, and it is immoral to restrict her rights because a third party decides to do so without the woman's consent.
Posted by: Glock21
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April 18, 2010 11:56 PM
Quick typo correction I noticed during the lag: "I fully support a substantive due process right to property, not for abortion, but for almost anything within the realm of liberty." should have been "I fully support a substantive due process right to liberty, not just for abortion, but for almost anything within the realm of liberty."
Posted by: kb
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April 18, 2010 11:56 PM
skatje.myers:
I've known people who carried and raised babies conceived in rape. It's not an unbearable burden. There's a TED talk where Eve Ensler asked a woman what she felt about her baby that was a result of rape, and the woman says, "How could I not love my baby? It's my baby and it's full of love."
My feelings towards my uterus and its inhabitants are not judged as important, merely because I consented to sex. A pregnancy is an emotional event for a rape victim, but not for someone going through a divorce, or who knows their partner will not be supportive, or who can't financially support a child, or who just wants a stable life, one where they can bring up a child with a partner they have a strong bond with, a bond that will be ruined by a baby now instead of later. It's emotional to create a baby when the sex was forced, but if not, you can "just give it up for adoption." If it's consensual, it's not *as bad.* I don't think I'm being frivolous when I choose the rest of my life over a fetus, I think it's more than life-altering, more than important, more than just convenient. I can understand women who would risk their lives to end a pregnancy, who want their uterus empty so badly they would risk infection and death. No, I'm not treating it as a full human being, but to do that, I think you have to accept that it is worth the suffering of rape victims.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 19, 2010 12:01 AM
Alex, I should add that what you characterize as "morality" is rarely so cut-and-dried. What if, as is sadly not all that uncommon, the woman in the case was raped at a party while drunk and high, after flirting drunkenly with the man who turned out to be her rapist? Rape, risk, volition, intoxication, not so easy, is it?
Posted by: TimKO,,.,,
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April 19, 2010 12:03 AM
@#50
Right, and the funny thing is, so-called pro-lifers are (almost always) pro-death penalty, and war advocates. They're wayyy more pro-death than pro-life. It's a misnomer.
@#133
"the anti-choicers have "biblical" reasons"
No. They have extra-biblical reasons. They make it all up. Abortion is revered in the bible and there are several verses which say that life begins with first breath.
My billboard:
Hi! I'm Zyggy the Zygote. Give me special rights or I'll make God hate you. Cheers.
Posted by: monado
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April 19, 2010 12:03 AM
The World Health Organization had concluded that access to contraception, safe abortion, and safe childbirth is one of the biggest health issues for women. They estimate that 875,000 women die every year as a result of unwanted fertility.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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April 19, 2010 12:05 AM
"A parasites by definition has to reduce fitness?
Correct. This is not my personal definition, but the conventional term of art in community ecology."
I'm surprised at a science blog no one caught this bullshit. No a parasite does not have to reduce it's host fitness. all it has to do is take and not give. In fact, a parasite does not WANT to reduce its host's fitness. Killing your host is a bad way to live as a parasite. The vast majority of parasites are asymptomatic. Even many ones that are notorious disease causes only do so unintentionally. Take Shistosomes (the blood fluke). The adults are mostly benign (they do cause fever and some other ill symptoms but not particularly deadly...many folks brush off the symptoms), it is only when their offspring accidentally burrow into the host tissue (humans are not their intermediate host and thus they can't mature in it) do they get stuck in the body and cause an immune response.
Another example is T. Vagilaris (take a WILD guess where they live). As many as 25% of the world may have it. YOU might have it right now. It can cause vagina or urethra rash and itching and inflamed prostate, many are unaware they have it. It is successful because the vast majority of its hosts are so unaffected by it to continue spreading it unawares.
Hell, some absolute parasites may even work reduce their impact on their host. Leishmaniasins secretes chemicals that down regulate host immunity. This allows it to survive, but it also hast he added bonus of sometimes preventing host complications due to inflammation. Since some of them can actually wind up in the brain or visceral tissue, letting them do this can be preferable to allowing an inflammation response.
The parasites that wind up causing diseases and reducing fitness are the minority. You are coated with many many many parasites. They eat your by-products, they get their nutrients from you and they don't give a damn back. Even many of the disease causers want you to live a long happy healthy life and only cause you trouble when something does horribly wrong for them.
I don't give a crap what ECOLOGY might consider a parasite, but PARASITOLOGY most definitely has buggers that don't reduce fitness.
Posted by: kb
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April 19, 2010 12:05 AM
"That is NOT something you can presume to know.
Wow. No shit. Are you understanding now why I'm too hesitant to ever make a vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?"
Well, that answers my comment, which was written in the meantime.
Posted by: Haley
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April 19, 2010 12:07 AM
I have little to add to the debate that has commenced, but I do have a story.
My great-grandmother got married on her 16th birthday, from what I can understand because she was pregnant. She had three children in 3 years and named them all after movie stars because what she really wanted was to leave her tiny town and move to New York. She died when my grandma was less than a year old from an illegal abortion- with knitting needles. My great grandfather died when my grandma was 10 from miner's lung, but that of course is another cause.
I would have supported my great-grandmother's right to a safe, legal, affordable abortion. Even when she was pregnant at 15- even when she was pregnant at 18 with my grandma. Even though I'm a philosophy major, and it's practically my job to be overwhelmed with the existential complexities of what would happen if I had never existed.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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April 19, 2010 12:09 AM
"I would have supported my great-grandmother's right to a safe, legal, affordable abortion. Even when she was pregnant at 15- even when she was pregnant at 18 with my grandma. Even though I'm a philosophy major, and it's practically my job to be overwhelmed with the existential complexities of what would happen if I had never existed."
..But if you did that and succeded then your grandmother wouldn't be born and thus you wouldn't be born and thus no one would go back to support her right so your grandmother would be born so *headasplodes*
Posted by: DLC
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April 19, 2010 12:12 AM
but it's such a cute little pharyngula . . .
Posted by: octopod
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April 19, 2010 12:13 AM
One more question that I'd like Skatje to answer that might have slipped by: Sex only for reproduction is the way that it works for most mammals, but humans (and bonobos, which bolsters the argument) do not visibly mark when they ovulate, and therefore have sex all the time throughout their menstrual cycle including when they can't get pregnant. Doesn't this imply that non-reproductive sex is a natural human social function, such that it's rather otiose to say that sex is "not a handshake" -- by implication, "only for reproduction"?
That is: I look at birth control and abortion and see humans having got better at non-reproductive sex, not having invented it.
Also, you keep rejecting the "mandatory organ donation to strangers" thing, so I'm going to propose a hopefully more-relevant hypothetical. Say I knock someone up accidentally. She decides to carry the unwanted pregnancy to term, dumps me, and raises the kid with someone else who will probably be a better father. Then this child, who I have never met but would not have existed without my decision to have sex with my girlfriend, needs a kidney transplant; her mom calls me and tells me this. Regardless of my personal choice at this point, is it reasonable for the law to compel me to donate one of my kidneys to her? And if this hypothetical is not a reasonable analogy to the process of pregnancy, can someone tell me why?
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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April 19, 2010 12:14 AM
Also on the "slut shamming" ie the sex has consequences arguement.
If we have Joe Whitetrash who due to his own amazing stupidity poor judgment winds up hacking off his leg with a chainsaw on a drunken bet...would you thus deny Joe the emergency treatment to reattach the leg? Or even give him a prosthetic?
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 19, 2010 12:16 AM
*picks up the pieces of Ing's head*
Except that since all possible outcomes exist in some branching universe somewhere, Haley would still exist in a form for all intents and purposes identical to her existing form, yet have a different (though obviously not a very different) grandmother. In fact there would be an infinity of possible Haleys with and without grandmothers, including the Haley momentarily created ex nihilo in the middle of an exploding star by sheer force of chaos, only to be ripped apart again a nanosecond or so later by the same forces.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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April 19, 2010 12:20 AM
*hugs Badgersdaughter for actually knowing the branching universe time travel*
I can't tell you how long i've spent trying to explain this to friends. I have graphs and charts on napkins that rival Glen Beck.
Posted by: makyui
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April 19, 2010 12:22 AM
Okay, I wasn't going to comment, but this pissed me off something fierce:
Do you realize how overtaxed adoption services are with the children that are already here? Do you realize how many of them are never adopted? Do you realize what happens to them when they come of age? Do you realize what an effect this has on their lives, and on the society they live in?
Forcing a woman to carry to term just to punish her for being "irresponsible" affects more than just the woman, or the man who sired the kid.
Oh, there is.
The former has been put into the system, and the latter hasn't.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 19, 2010 12:22 AM
such that it's rather otiose to say that sex is "not a handshake" -- by implication, "only for reproduction"?
Um, why are you accusing me of saying "only for reproduction"? That is not what I said at all.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 19, 2010 12:25 AM
Sigh....
TL;DR and TMI warning.
My grandmother was forced to marry my grandfather. She beat both children mercilessly. My dad is an addict and completely insane although not really a mean or bad person. His sister has BPD. My grandad was a sadist. My grandmother went insane and began prying her teeth out. She then caught encephalitis from mosquitoes and became brain damaged. Now she is living in a spare room where my dad lives off of her social security. She's a bedridden invalid who stares out of a window all day.
I support any of them having an abortion along the way. Really. I'm trash, from trash and always trash. The stigma I carried with me through modeling and into a relationship with a guy who would have killed me. It's an accident I ended up alive past the age of 19 really. I owe a lot of it to a very nice man who let me live with him and didn't hurt me. Pure dumb luck, that.
People like me are real.
My life is not very enjoyable and seriously not important. The damage done to people all along the way is sad. I try to do things that I think are worthwhile or important.
When I was 7 or so I resolved never carry on the family, realizing I was the last one.
Now by some fluke I've found myself earning a middle class salary. I found my way through college, and for the past 10 years I've worked on dealing with my PTSD and various problems from a lifetime of chronic abuse.
I repeat, people like me are real. There is no easy solution, and it is only good luck that I did not end up with my birth control failing at some point.
There is a very strong possibility, given how close I have come to suicide in the past, that under the emotional pressure of pregnancy I might have killed myself anyway.
I can not safely say that my giving birth is a good thing anyway. I'd like not to be hated for what I am, but I am also not capable of being anything but what I am.
I don't feel different from whores on Robinson, or people in prisons. That's where I come from. And yet I was never cruel in my disposition.
Hell, I had to have it explained to me that giving other kids eggs I found was not the purpose of an Easter egg hunt.
Please don't pretend away these things. It's painful to people like me who wonder some times if they will ever be real people. I'm not some outlier you can smooth out. If you add up the abnormalities I'm very certain they will outnumber the norm and you'll see that your perfect curve is basically artistically selected to find only the points that manage some semblance of a curve.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 19, 2010 12:26 AM
LOL, Ing *hugsback* You owe Neil Stephenson a hug, too, then, given that I basically ripped the whole example out of Anathem, substituting Haley for the ice cube created in the middle of the star. ;)
Posted by: Alex
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April 19, 2010 12:27 AM
badgersdaughter you are right, there are many instances if not most in which the moral ambiguity of an action makes it impossible to come to a verdict of what is and isn't the right action. This is the reason that I am a pro choicer. However, there are instances when it is quite clear on what did and didn't happen, and i think that in these instances a person is liable for the consequences of their actions.
As this is impossible to tell on a case to case basis we cannot take the liberty of making the judgment on the chance that we do infringe on an individuals rights. But that doesn't stop the act from being not moral, I am for abortion, but I think that we should stop trying to justify it as being right in order to make us feel better about it.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 19, 2010 12:34 AM
Alex, if I didn't know better, I would say you meant "if the woman commits a sexual sin, it's perfectly justifiable to force her to live with the results as a deserved punishment." The reason I do know better is that you identify as being pro-choice.
I think that instead of calling abortion "immoral" (I know you said "not moral" and you may see those two words differently, but others may not), it might fit better with how you feel if you chose words like "tragic," or "regrettable," or "unfortunate," or "sad."
It's worth repeating, however, that many abortions represent something positive indeed: an actual freeing of a woman from an intolerable burden or a medical emergency.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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April 19, 2010 12:37 AM
I have to wonder what people would think if it wasn't a human life, but a sentient alien that reproduces via implanted spores. Would humans implanted against their will be allowed to have the embryos surgically removed? Is it the cute cuddly factor at work? If it looked like a space lizard with a bad weave would it make a difference?
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 19, 2010 12:40 AM
I actually hate the entire concept of "morality" anyway.
What the fuck is a "moral" or a moral value?
What does it really mean but an emotionally held judgement.
I think it should all be about net destruction vs net gain.
Posted by: llewelly
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April 19, 2010 12:40 AM
Jadehawk, OM | April 18, 2010 5:14 PM:
For this very reason, today's atheist youth are opting for a scrumptious, serving-size fetus rather than a full-term baby stewed overnight with vegetables.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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April 19, 2010 12:41 AM
"I think that instead of calling abortion "immoral" (I know you said "not moral" and you may see those two words differently, but others may not), it might fit better with how you feel if you chose words like "tragic," or "regrettable," or "unfortunate," or "sad."
I'm fine with people stating their criticism as seeing it as a bad choice as long as they don't meddle...just like how many would say smoking is a bad choice but not deserving out outlawing
*smokes a zygote*
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 19, 2010 12:41 AM
Ing, if a person found they were impregnated and that the embryo was going to grow up to be a (squee!) cute fuzzy helpless little kitten, I'm sure the ick factor would still be firmly at work.
Posted by: dustycrickets
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April 19, 2010 12:44 AM
"..... an actual freeing of a woman from an intolerable burden or a medical emergency.
#478
As in....
"Anencephaly is a cephalic disorder that results from a neural tube defect that occurs when the cephalic (head) end of the neural tube fails to close, usually between the 23rd and 26th day of pregnancy, resulting in the absence of a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp[1]. Children with this disorder are born without a forebrain, the largest part of the brain consisting mainly of the cerebral hemispheres (which include the neocortex, which is responsible for higher-level cognition, i.e., thinking). The remaining brain tissue is often exposed—not covered by bone or skin.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anencephaly
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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April 19, 2010 12:44 AM
Pulling this quote out for scrutiny, I would like to say that so many times have I heard this exact argument used to blame AIDS on gays, and it is utter bullshit. It is not our fault that biology works the way it does, which is why we have developed ways to assess, reduce, and eliminate the risk of biological interactions and to control or avoid their side effects. Sex, for humans, is not usually primarily about reproduction even though a specific variant of it is a direct cause of pregnancy.
If one were to take the stance quoted above to its moral conclusion, then no female should ever allow a male to copulate with her through vaginal-penile sexual intercourse unless the female was knowingly attempting to reproduce and well prepared for the consequences, which is a favorite political theme of those under the most stringently vile of god delusions. It is necessarily anti-choice because it favors the non-person organisms featured above on the accurate billboards over the lives of women, and it certainly paints a picture of a society I would want no part in, for where would the moralizing end?
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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April 19, 2010 12:45 AM
"I actually hate the entire concept of "morality" anyway.
What the fuck is a "moral" or a moral value?
What does it really mean but an emotionally held judgement.
I think it should all be about net destruction vs net gain."
Ok you've given the emotionally held judgment a new label. Feel better? Some of us actually base our morality by making a few goals and using reason and logic to build up from there. I personally start with the principle of autonomy and everything has kind of built up from that.
Posted by: windy
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April 19, 2010 12:46 AM
It's not "bullshit". It refers to the overall effect, it doesn't mean that the parasite will produce a measurable decrease in offspring in each and every case. Even if serious complications are rare, they will result in a statistical reduction of fitness, however small.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 19, 2010 12:47 AM
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 19, 2010 12:52 AM
If one were to take the stance quoted above to its moral conclusion, then no female should ever allow a male to copulate with her through vaginal-penile sexual intercourse unless the female was knowingly attempting to reproduce and well prepared for the consequences...
You mean, no male should allow his females to expose themselves to a fertile male in any way unless he is prepared to support the consequences of them possibly coming into contact with sperm, right. (snerk)
Remember, because it bears repeating, that sperm up the vagina can be accomplished in lots of ways besides the default vaginal/penile penetrative intercourse. I remember my mother explaining how a virgin high school friend of hers got pregnant because she had masturbated after having given her boyfriend a hand job. (Yeah, Mom was not exactly a shrinking violet with the birds-and-bees thing.)
Posted by: Alex
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April 19, 2010 12:52 AM
badgersdaughter once again you are correct, on most accounts. I did specifically mean not moral, I did not mean immoral. I think that abortion in some instances but definitely not all, is not the right choice, and there is really no immoral choice out of the two.
I do feel though that abortion is not the moral choice in some instances, the grey areas I will not judge, but the others should not be attempted to be justified because the times where it does become a benefit to health or psychology. We cannot say that an action as a whole is alright because of the good it does in some instances when in others it is does not.
And I think that the jump from what I said to crazy religious nut is something you need to be more careful of. I am an atheist, most who read this blog are, and i think that you should not relate the ideas of a person in one topic to theirs in another. I know that there are pro lifers who do not use religion as an argument at all
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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April 19, 2010 12:57 AM
"It's not "bullshit". It refers to the overall effect, it doesn't mean that the parasite will produce a measurable decrease in offspring in each and every case. Even if serious complications are rare, they will result in a statistical reduction of fitness, however small."
And again there are parasites that don't effect reproductive fitness at all. Like...none. The Guinea Worm is selected for irradiation programs specifically because of this. It lacks the Parasitologist dilemma, ie infection has no result on birth rate.
I'm reading right from the text now "Parasitism is the symbiotic relationship where the organism benefits at expense of the host." period. Nothing about 'reduced fitness' One looses, another gains. that's it. E. Dispar is a completely benign parasite. It causes NO disease, no infection, no complication. it is only of note because it's confused with it's pathogenic cousin E. hystolitica.
Saying reduced fitness is redefining it just to make your argument.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 19, 2010 12:58 AM
And I think that the jump from what I said to crazy religious nut is something you need to be more careful of.
No, you need to be more careful of it. You are ascribing culpable sexual carelessness, if not wrongdoing to the "immoral" woman, and allowing extra lenience to the "moral" woman. I really can't see how that differs in anything but jargon from calling the first woman a sinful slut who deserves her wretched fate, and the second a criminally victimized innocent who deserves rescue.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 19, 2010 1:01 AM
I guess it really doesn't matter. Health, including reproductive health, is as important to all women as is food, water, and shelter. What's immoral is depriving them of it, or looking down on certain women because they avail themselves of the doctor more often than others.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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April 19, 2010 1:01 AM
No, it's not a new label. What is a moral? It can mean fucking anything. It's a useless word."
Define "net destruction vs net gain" then.
by your definition I can kill 1 man to harvest organs for 5 right?
Posted by: Ceryle
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April 19, 2010 1:03 AM
Maybe I'm just hormonal, but Skatje's comments re potential mothers not *deserving* a choice have made me cry. (Hormones, cos my baby is 11 weeks old, and apt to cry cos my sister-in-law had her baby less than 3 hours ago. Note: both of these babies were wanted - mine planned and theirs unplanned.)
That being said, I want to be able to choose any continuing family that we (are not planning to) have. If I do have another child, then that pregnancy will NEED to end in a 'planned c-section' (not elective - I will need to have it), done by a senior registrar with experience in the matter. Not only that, but I am regarded as 'geriatric pregnancy' (I am currently 37), and with that comes all other kinds of health issues - not just for me, but for the (eventual) child. When you say that you are ok for abortions for health reasons - is that just for the mother or the fetus as well?
Here in South Australia, if you are high risk of fetal problems, you can have a scan at 13 weeks, and everyone gets a scan at 20 weeks - at this time is when they find the (health) problems for the majority of pregnancies, and then look at medical abortions. These can be performed up to 22-23 weeks here. Are these fetuses too old to be aborted by you?
PS - with regards to the billboards - the kids are older than my 11 week old - they are about 6 months old (at least) by the look of them
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 19, 2010 1:03 AM
Whatever. I'm not up to it right now. You win. I don't give a fuck.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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April 19, 2010 1:03 AM
Oh hey, by pure Net destruction vs Net Gain, we HAVE to force the mother to give birth if she has twins, even at expense of her own life. 2 for the price of 1 right?
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 19, 2010 1:04 AM
Gah, midnight. Sorry, my coach is turning back into a pumpkin and I need to get my glass slippers out of here. :)
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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April 19, 2010 1:06 AM
Oh ffs are you really that stupid?
Posted by: DominEditrix
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April 19, 2010 1:07 AM
Skatje -
Despite your denials, you are indeed slut-shaming. Your comments are rife with blame, and with judgement. As to your views re: women who've been raped perhaps being entitled to an abortion: Either all fetuses "deserve" the right to potential life or you're simply giving a pass to women who are "innocent" of being sluts-who-should-know-better. Either abortion is killing a baby or it is not; how a woman got pregnant cannot come in to that equation.
Is the emotional distress of a woman who gets pregnant when using birth control, who is the sole support of her family and who cannot afford the loss of hourly work time/pay from, say, prolonged morning sickness, any less mentally distressed than a woman who has been raped? Is a woman whose doctors tell her that her fetus suffers from a condition that will kill it shortly after birth, should she not choose to terminate, more or less distressed?
A lot of the commenters here are quite correct: You're a privileged, young, white girl whose family would not literally kick her out onto the streets for getting knocked up. I've given living space to girls who were kicked out - you have no idea of the "distress", mental and otherwise, faced by some women, or the non-medical dangers they face.
Re: What Every Woman Should Know: Several of my son's friends, in high school, had heard or read various myths: A girl can't get pregnant the first time, or if she doesn't have an orgasm, or if she douches immediately after intercourse. They thought they knew what they needed to know. Several of them got pregnant. My kid took to passing out condoms and explaining just how that sperm and that egg got together.
As for adoption - and I am an adoptive mother - the "market" is for blonde, blue-eyed, healthy babies. Babies born with birth defects, babies of colour, babies with fetal alcohol syndrome, babies with genetic diseases, babies with AIDS - very few people want to adopt them. Most of these children end up in foster care, where they are shunted from family to family and often neglected and/or abused, sometimes killed and sometimes ending up a suicide. Adoption as an option is far more fraught with complications than you seem to understand.
Posted by: Chgo_Liz
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April 19, 2010 1:08 AM
Skatje:
But that's just it: the baby in my mother's uterus (me) WAS less privileged than the one in your mother's uterus (you). You do people like me no favors by conflating your reality with what we go through. An abortion would have caused much less pain and suffering -- to TWO people, my mother and me -- than what we've both endured for 50 years.
It's amazing I actually was born alive, thanks to the alcohol, etc. that she used to self-medicate in her anger and fear. No prenatal medical care. Labor and delivery was spent alone in a dark hallway with virtually no medical assistance....the hospital staff's decision to punish her for getting pregnant out of wedlock, with no concern over how that might affect the bastard coming out.
Oh, and then there was the physical, sexual and emotional abuse that nearly killed me many times. Yeah, not much similarity in our childhoods there, I'll bet.
Ah, the luxury of being so privileged.
Why did I have to suffer for a lifetime just so people like you could punish my mother for being a slut?
Sidestepping the issue of the pregnant woman's bodily autonomy by playing the "fetuses have rights too" card isn't going to work with me around. I'm one of the anti-choice movement's victims too. Your naive arguments are insulting when used against actual victims.
More death and more victims: the anti-choice position isn't about valuing human life at all.
By the time I was a teenager -- younger than you -- I already knew the truth that has thus far eluded you. As I used to joke: I had human rights once, for about 9 months...and then a funny thing happened on the way to the delivery room.
The fact that you have no empathy for unwanted fetuses as actual people but instead value us merely as political pawns cannot be explained solely by your young age.
Posted by: Citizen of the Cosmos
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April 19, 2010 1:09 AM
In my own experience, most people who call themselves pro-life are the ones more likely to support death penalty and war, while opposing universal healthcare. The only reason they are "pro-life" regarding abortion is because that is the only option where women lose the most control over their own lives.
And why don't they say that the egg has the potential to be a human being? Or the sperm? Why is it only after fusion that those "unique" genes matter?
Posted by: Alex
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April 19, 2010 1:09 AM
Firstly I am not judging anyones sexual choices, I cannot make those prescriptions, I am saying my opinions on what I see the moral challenges in a reproductive sense.
Next I am not saying that people shouldn't get an abortion, if I was in the circumstance right now, I might have wanted one. What I am saying is that just because it is not the wrong action does not mean that it is the right action, and therefore it is not praiseworthy.
Lastly, none of what you said has anything to do with my complaint about regressing into a religious ad hominem.
Posted by: makyui
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April 19, 2010 1:10 AM
I don't know about that.
What's the cost of raising the two to the same level of skills/usefulness/whatnot as the mother, compared to keeping the mother and losing the two? What's the cost of having an 18+ year gap in that time? What if they never reach her level of skills/usefulness/whatnot, even together?
Or am I misunderstanding the "net" in this?
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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April 19, 2010 1:11 AM
I actually thought about stating it as a shared responsibility, but that really isn't how the stance was put. It was all about how it was TeH Weemenz fault. Either way, female's responsibility, male's responsibility, or shared responsibility, it would make society look fairly militaristic or extremely hierarchical.
Too true, I used to rage about that when saddlebacking first came up. I also remember that sperm poster the other day that said sperm can survive for hours in certain places. Which is why all kinds of interactions that involve the possibility of sperm being ejaculated in the proximity of a female would be strictly controlled in this brave new society where abortion is illegal.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 19, 2010 1:11 AM
It is not our fault that biology works the way it does, which is why we have developed ways to assess, reduce, and eliminate the risk of biological interactions and to control or avoid their side effects. Sex, for humans, is not usually primarily about reproduction even though a specific variant of it is a direct cause of pregnancy.
I find the idea that we can't overcome our own biology because of our consciences rather... dehumanising.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/O.jullMj0I2VvJaxMMVeNKSfOPf73voLSxJAe9PdlOWwi8Y-#258ec
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April 19, 2010 1:12 AM
The whole subject is uncomfortable to me> I see no reason that it should be comfortable or easy.
I am a male and I do not get pregnant so I do not see how I should be expected make that kind of decision for anyone. It is often a very difficult and serious one for the woman but lets be honest not always. Is that OK? I do not know nor do I think it is even possible to know.
Until such time as we require testing and certification of suitability and a proper license for parenthood I do not see that say anyone but the woman involved has any business getting involved uneasy or not.
The argument is not so simple as to be about babies alone it is tied up with the identities of the protesters and deep emotional conflicts of the anti-abortion protesters. reason will not help.
It is reproduction after all we are talking about, if there is any other thing that would be entangled in our emotions and hence our DNA isn't it what life wants to do, what it is all about?
Th issue of abortion is part of the larger issue of reproduction and there will be no simple solutions or resolutions either.
uncle frogy
Posted by: Morgan
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April 19, 2010 1:14 AM
#187
That is exactly what I said: the argument is that those who argue in a caustic, insulting manner must therefore be less correct. That can't be the case if the last bit - the "therefore they are wrong" part - is left out. I specifically pointed out that I wasn't saying that you were "therefore wrong", nor had I in the previous post.
That isn't the same as saying that therefore respect in debate is worthless. If you want people to listen to you, being an ass is not a good way to go about it.
I'm not trying to say that if you're respectful everyone will listen to you and like you. I'm just saying that it's hard to debate with someone who is admitting through their vitriol that they aren't going to listen to anyone else's opinion.
This quote is the main reason I felt compelled to reply. I literally laughed out loud when I read it, because in my original post I had included the following:
"PS - Cerberus: Keep in mind that just because I'm admiring Glock21's demeanor does not mean that I think they are more or less right than you are"
I took it out because I thought it was redundant and baiting. :D
That certainly offends me as a feminist.
Regardless, I never argued against your positions, some of which I agree with, some of which I don't. I was just angered by your self-righteous, hate-filled posts.
Posted by: James F
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April 19, 2010 1:14 AM
I just can't look away from the arguments....
PZ @ #348:
This makes sense. May I suggest a corollary? Given that personhood happens at some point after conception, isn't it a reasonable moral imperative to terminate a pregnancy as quickly as humanly possible after the decision to terminate has been reached? If I'm reading some of the posts above correctly, any time up to the moment of delivery is fair game to terminate the pregnancy - I suppose that's a philosophically consistent position, but...just...damn.
Posted by: Chgo_Liz
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April 19, 2010 1:19 AM
Ol' Greg: try EMDR for the PTSD.
Believe me, I know.
Posted by: Citizen of the Cosmos
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April 19, 2010 1:20 AM
I would think it starts to get interesting when the brain starts to develop, so I think 12 weeks, as is the law where I live, reasonable.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 1:20 AM
so does the RCC, and the celibacy thing is working just splendidly for them, don't you think?it's a naive thing to say we can "overcome" our biology; we're not gods, we're animals. we can adjust and tweak and tame it, but we cannot overcome it. if we could, there could be no fat people either.
like I said: really fucking sick of this American and libertarian obsession with reducing everything to personal responsibility
Posted by: makyui
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April 19, 2010 1:23 AM
Why should we have to "overcome our own biology" in this case? Why are we less of a human if we choose not to?
What's wrong with having sex for the fun of it?
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 1:28 AM
also, I love how claiming that we should stop fucking to satisfy other people's consciences is suddenly a valid argument, just because it's not framed in terms of god, sin and purity. it's still the same argument.
did you even read the posts by those who said they'd rather their ancestors had aborted? did you consider the fear and love- and joylessness in which women would live their lives if abortion weren't an option? that's the reality of what you're advocating: misery for the living, because death makes you squeamish.
Posted by: Al B. Quirky
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April 19, 2010 1:28 AM
If its got a beating heart and a mother, its a life. If its human and you kill it, that's murder (IMHO). Religion's got nothing to do with it, its just common sense.
Posted by: makyui
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April 19, 2010 1:31 AM
"...its just common sense."
Too bad common sense was never a good barometer for moral codes.
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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April 19, 2010 1:31 AM
Could you elaborate? I don't follow exactly what you are getting at by that, especially with how it would apply to reproduction. Do you mean something like asceticism? Like something Gandhi would have done?
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 1:32 AM
Ol'Greg:
^This brought me back to the discussion. For what it's worth, I know exactly what you mean and how you feel. I have never considered myself a 'person'. I will never know who I might have been if I have been born to someone who wanted me. I will never know who I might have been had I not felt completely shattered at a young age by verbal, mental, physical and sexual abuse.
The things I went through, I wouldn't wish on anyone. If my mother had not feared dying from a back alley abortion, a whole lot of lives would have been better. My mother's life would have been better, so would all the relatives lives who I was dumped on (and bounced back and forth between, when my mother wasn't busy ripping me away). I certainly wouldn't have suffered; nor would I end up having to spend the bulk of my 52 years in an attempt to be a somewhat normal person.
It's exhausting enough to live such a life; it's worse when you have judgmental idiots jump on you because you understand it isn't right, or moral, if you wish, to value an embryo's life over that of an adult woman, nor is it right to question why an adult woman might want an abortion.
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 1:33 AM
Hello all. As the name says, I am a lurker, have been for about a year now. On this issue I feel I have to throw my two cents in. I'm glad PZ's daughter had the advantages that she did but feel very sorry that she doesn't see the illogical and sexist argument she is making.
First of all, I am the demographic at the heart of the issue. I became pregnant at 16, my father was an abusive alcoholic and had left 2 years earlier, my mother was a pot head turner crackhead and I was in an abusive relationship. I was on birth control and we did use condoms. After the cycle of abuse had been gone through several times and he thoroughly had his clutches in me (which admittedly wasn't hard, I was a fucked up kid) he pulled the whole “you're on birth control, you're cheating on me and using BC to cover it up”. Well, like I said I was young, stupid and “in love”. I fell for it and we started having unprotected sex. Not a big surprise that I got pregnant soon after, but I was admittedly shocked. I didn't think it would happen to me. I wasn't thinking coherently or logically at the time. I looked into all of my options including abortion, but my abuser at the time made it clear I was having the baby or else.
Abortion was too expensive and the people I met with made it hassle with guilt trips, God talk and other such nonsense. Personally, adoption wasn't an option either since I didn't think I could willingly give up my child after pregnancy and birth. (Did I mention said abuser told it me that wasn't a choice either?). Well, I got kicked out on the streets once the pregnancy became known to my mother and then went bouncing from shelter to shelter. I soon got my senses, left my abuser (had him arrested and everything but in this state nothing happened, again no surprise), got an education, and got my life together. I am now in my own apartment, two associates degrees and am taking classes while I wait for a seat in a Nursing BA program. I do plan to get my master's degree to become a Physician's Assistant. This productive member of society is here, proud and loud because of welfare programs and shelters. It pisses me off to hear people spout off about things they have no clue about.
I know how much shelters suck (some are hardly better than the streets), I know how much welfare helps, I know how difficult the DECISION is whether or not to keep a fetus. Let me tell you, I may not think I could ever get an abortion, but it is completely different problem in reality than if you think about it is abstractly. There are a million factors and there are plenty of women who say they wouldn't get one, until a situation arose to where they DECIDED too. Thankfully, I got my act together because I didn't want my child to grow up in my situation. I became a logical, determined and educated individual. However, I have known lots of women in my situation who did not and their children are suffering because of it. It becomes a cycle.
While no one has the right to force them to have an abortion, since it is their bodies, we can only offer help to those accept it and rescue the kids and arrest the parents when it turns criminal. I am vehemently pro-choice and am appalled at those who would dictate how others make such life changing decisions about their bodies, their minds, and their lives. All the logical arguments have been made on this thread for pro-choice and I wholeheartedly agree with them, like the fact that the embryo or fetuses isn't a person and doesn't have rights. I'm just not going to try to say it better, since all of you guys here, PZ especially, have said it so well. ( I also have to add how sad it is that I had to go to college to actually be educated and make an informed decision on this and other important issues )
Skatje, I respect your right to your own opinions and to make the decisions about your body. However, it has been pointed out to you how illogical your argument is. While you may feel that you can make a better decision whether or not I should or should not have had an abortion, I can assure you that you cannot. I may have been an educated, poor, homeless kid, who was shaped and molded by coercion and abuse, but I am still the only one who could have made the decision because I am the one who has to live with it and through it.
While I do credit my pregnancy with waking me up, since that I didn't want my child to go through the same crap I did, not everyone will have the same positive outcome as I. I do not regret keeping my child because I made the decision (despite my circumstances if I really wanted an abortion I would have done it illegally and probably died) and I take care of my child damn well, thank you very much. While you may think you know whats best for me and my child you certainly do not. You don't know whats best for anybody else on this issue.
On a related note, my mother didn't want me at all. She was looking into an abortion but because of her circumstances she kept me so she could have a place to live, food to eat, etc. It sucks knowing that she had to keep me for her own self preservation. Though it does helped explain a lot of why she was such a horrible parent. I feel much better knowing that I can tell my child, while you were not planned to be conceived, when you were I decided to keep you. I fought for you and provided the best I could for you. Now when you grow up you can make the same decision about your life and your body and you and any children of yours will be better off because of it. As another commenter said, I wouldn't have minded if my mother aborted me but with the current circumstances I am glad I am here.
I'm sorry if this post is long and too much information but I wanted to share since I am a demographic often quoted and a prime example of why abortion should be legal, why BC, morning after pill, and sex education is important, and why it is important for us to have welfare, shelters and other aides.
P.S It is also late here and I am tired ( I have a full schedule with 40 hour work weeks, part time school, a soon to be three year old running around and everything else to boot) so if there are grammar mistakes please forgive and If I don't make sense feel free to ask questions, I will try again to clarify. I apologize if I muddled my attempt at adding to the discussion. Admittedly, I sit back and learn a lot from this site, googling where needed and have always been to afraid to post because I didn't want to make an ass out of myself in front of people I respect and on a blog I love. I also usually don't have anything useful to add to the mix.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 19, 2010 1:38 AM
...isn't it a reasonable moral imperative to terminate a pregnancy as quickly as humanly possible after the decision to terminate has been reached?
You know, that initially appealed to me purely as an alternate way of thinking about abortion law. What if "as soon as possible" was written into law instead of a certain defined date before which abortion was legally permissible and after which abortion was legally impermissible? We currently do have laws on the books with "as soon as possible" language in them.
After I thought about it some more, though, I realized how dangerous this was when applied to abortion. "As soon as possible" is a very difficult call, legally. It requires careful law writing to make at all plausible (what constitutes possibility? when do you determine due diligence has been performed? what about mitigating circumstances?). It requires a painstakingly built body of case law and precedent that can be relied upon as the basis for an argument as to whether the mother actually did act as soon as possible, or not. And there is no hope that such a law could be applied equally to all groups of pregnant women. The groups that would suffer the most from such a law would be the least privileged, least able to obtain an abortion in the first place, most likely to be thought of as lazy and indolent by prejudiced juries, least able to deal with medical complications from a botched job, and least able to live with the consequences of being denied an abortion or of being punished by fines or imprisonment for having one deemed illegal. Plus, when is "as soon as possible" actually in practice? If an abortion is consistently made impossible to obtain, for whatever reason, for nine months or more, it is de facto eliminated altogether.
As far as the morality gradient between moment-of-conception and moment-of-birth, it's an appealing idea, but as we explained in the comments above, the morality lies not in whether the developing fetus gains an increasing foothold in humanity and human rights, but in whether the woman carrying it is to be granted her full entitlement of human rights, or not.
Posted by: windy
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April 19, 2010 1:40 AM
Ing:
This is getting rather far off topic, but... the guinea worm?? Idiotic. You don't think this has any negative effects on fitness?
Jadehawk back in @141
True, but it's not really about the method, it's about the outcome.
For instance, we say that "the common cuckoo is a brood parasite of songbirds", even if the cuckoo and the songbird offsping depend on the same method to feed themselves. It would get confusing if we had to say that "songbirds are parasitized by their own young which are sometimes replaced by a different parasite, the cuckoo"
I can think of a counterexample, that we speak of "parasitic males" although they are necessary for the female's reproduction. But IMO, that's more a figurative use of the term parasite, than a rigorous biological definition.
Posted by: serpdesu
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April 19, 2010 1:46 AM
attacking her age and her upbringing instead of arguments is real compelling
instant argument, just ad hominem!
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkZ6bud_2OWnH4ya1KYZ-QpvDKkqP4LTac
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April 19, 2010 1:46 AM
Glock @451, my uterus is more my property than any piece of real estate could ever be. If it is not, then we should all go home because that means none of us own our own bodies.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 19, 2010 1:48 AM
Is the emotional distress of a woman who gets pregnant when using birth control, who is the sole support of her family and who cannot afford the loss of hourly work time/pay from, say, prolonged morning sickness, any less mentally distressed than a woman who has been raped?
This has been addressed, already. And I already acknowledged that the line is blurry, and I've never been certain about these things. There may be cases which I find equivalently stressful as rape. I've never said this is my only free pass to give, and I've never said I knew all the answers.
I am continually amazed at just how ready people are to jump down my throat on my tentative moral ideas. You would think I had just murdered a few women for enjoying sex too much or something. :/
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 1:49 AM
fuck off serpdesu. pointing out privilege is an essential part of these conversations. you can't have a conversation about realities without pointing out blind-spots, and how they affect the way people form opinions about things.
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 1:51 AM
@517
Completely, agree and that is the point I was trying to make with my post. I just added my personal experience in since it was relevant and thought it would help having a living person example of all the statistics and arguments. Again, a regular poster does it better than I ever could. Should've figured that =)
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 1:52 AM
serpdesu:
No, it is not an ad hominem. Learn the actual definition. Her age and upbringing are factors in her current thinking on the subject, and they are relevant. No one has said "oh well, you're young therefore you're stupid and wrong." That would be ad hominem.
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 19, 2010 1:53 AM
The original organism does get a benefit: reproduction. You can see how the comparison falls flat.
And if the original organism is not interested in reproducing at the present time, then there is no benefit. Only exploitation.
As you point out - it depends merely on the state of mind of the female. Her perspective. I can pretty much guarantee that if the female decides her next implanted embryo is a desirable state of affairs, she won't be going around complaining about the "exploitive" "parasite" in her womb, will she? So we have heard your version of pregnancy, which is completely subjective to the whim of the female at any given moment.
Here is a perspective for you, as equally overblown as your own: from the embryo's perspective, he/she/it has been kidnapped and is being held hostage against its will. By a landlord who feels it is her right to kill anyone on her property, even if she is responsible for bringing it into her home.
Whether it is considered a "living being" is not the point. The question is what that living being is entitled to demand from another living being.
Well, that cuts both ways, doesn't it? Generally, in a free society we want to maximize our individual liberty up to the point where we bring injury to others. Killing someone over a property rights issue would be extreme, to say the least, and would land you in prison for a very long time if that someone was only ten seconds old.
Of course, an embryo is not a person yet. It is, however, a potential person and given some time will, in all likelihood, emerge from its hostage situation as a bouncing baby. An implanted embryo is on an ineluctable arc to personhood, powered by every natural instinct and provision of human evolution. Every day it becomes more like a newborn human than it was the day before. A matter of time.
How much time are talking about? Nine months is an endless stretch of purgatory to the female who believes she has a (temporary) parasite growing in her, a brief special period of overwhelming actualization to the proudly expectant mother, a vanishingly small slice of geological time. It's all in the perspective.
I think it is important to recognize that people of goodwill can have varying perspectives on this issue. Roe v Wade seems a pretty good compromise after all.
Posted by: makyui
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April 19, 2010 1:56 AM
Possibly because you implied that other women should be forced to comply to them?
Having tentative morals are fine (to an extent, I suppose), until we expect other people to follow them.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 1:56 AM
JustALurker:
Nonsense. Your post about your particular experience and life is important and it was compelling. Thank you for taking the time. It certainly does help to have an upfront point of view from someone who is considered a vital statistic.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 1:57 AM
the core and application of your "tentative moral ideas" has done precisely that, and ruined the lives of many others.so yeah, you're going to get people a mite upset when you're making such claims, especially since you're not bloody likely to find yourself in any of these shitty situations.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 19, 2010 1:58 AM
@ 423
I could not be more serious, I have posted on this blog almost three years and have yet to get a single rational response to my claim that american nationalist idiocracy is far more stupid, illiterate, drueling knuckle-dragging horseshit than a cave man worshipping cow dung, I am still pondering whether Islamic terrorist fundamentalism is more r54etrograde anti-intellectual.
But as far as the kill record, there is no competition.
I'll be up for another hour if you'd like to give me a try, but if you think that as an American, I consider you one of my tribe, I wear a maple leaf jersey when I leave the country so as not to be confused with the pondscum I have to suffer daily in this thrid rate cesspool of stupidity you idjhits call a democracy.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkZ6bud_2OWnH4ya1KYZ-QpvDKkqP4LTac
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April 19, 2010 2:02 AM
Gingerbaker @527 "Killing someone over a property rights issue would be extreme" So, if you own property and a person you invite over to dinner brings a friend and the friend plugs in their life support machine, are you compelled to let them live there for 9 mos using your resources against your consent?
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 19, 2010 2:06 AM
Wow, when I travel abroad, I do so quite openly as an employee of an oilfield engineering megacorporation from Texas, and I get no hassle from anyone. Maybe I improve people's impressions of the breed. ;)
Posted by: monado
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April 19, 2010 2:09 AM
{{{{{{{Ol'Greg}}}}}}} hugs.
Bp, there are cases where pregnancy starts but it's all (or mostly) placental cells. That's called a molar pregnancy. The mole must be removed by a D&C and then the woman is monitored for a year for recurrences of the mole, which is essentially cancerous--uncontrolled growth in unwanted spots.
Posted by: mcbender
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April 19, 2010 2:15 AM
I'm a bit of a latecomer to this discussion here, but I'd like to weigh in nonetheless.
When thinking about abortion issues, there's a thought experiment I like to bring up. It's known as the "violinist" case conventionally, but I usually divest it from that qualification because I think it's needlessly confusing. Here it is (slightly modified by me):
Mr Smith was at a party, had a bit too much to drink and passed out. When he woke up, he found himself attached to a machine, and a doctor in a white coat explained to him what was going on. The machine was providing life support to a man he did not know, Mr Jones, who had suffered a terrible accident and would not recover for a year. During this year, Smith would need to remain attached to the machine in order to power it (hey, this is science fiction, give me a break here); if at any point he chooses to remove himself, Jones will die. Jones is unconscious and cannot be consulted on the matter; Smith knows nothing whatsoever about who he is or what he will do with his life after (if) he recovers. Is Smith permitted to opt out even though it will kill Jones?
For what it's worth, I think he can. I tend to take a Kantian perspective on this, which I think is what most people are unconsciously doing: the problem with forbidding abortion is that it then forces the woman (or Mr Smith in my imaginary case) to be used as an unconsenting means to the end of preserving another's life (whether a fetus or the imaginary Mr Jones). This is not treating the woman, nor Mr Smith, as a rational being, but merely using them.
In the case of Smith and Jones I actually find it slightly harder to justify my stance than in the abortion case: Jones has already lived for a while (hence has accumulated experiences and presumably influenced others' lives) and is a being capable of suffering, while an embryo fails both criteria. A utilitarian approach which concerns itself with minimising suffering ends up coming to a similar conclusion: to forbid abortion is to place the minimal (if any) suffering of an aborted embryo above the (very real and significant) suffering of the woman throughout the pregnancy; the calculation is obvious.
Whichever approach to morality ("ethics" if you don't like the word morality) you prefer, it ends up being immoral not to be pro-choice.
I'll add one further consideration: the last thing we need in this overpopulated world is more people to consume resources. Encouraging people to be more conscientious about their breeding practices would clearly be beneficial in the long term, and in order to do that it seems to me that the termination of pregnancy must remain an option.
-M. C. Bender
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 2:16 AM
Are we supposed to feel sorry for you now? Do you remember when you wrote "I'll teach you how the world works"? The arrogance you have displayed on this thread has been nothing short of stunning.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 19, 2010 2:16 AM
Ing @ 463
It was brought up multiple times by myself and others at least 100 posts before you mentioned it.
Posted by: Ibis3, féministe avec un titre française de fantaisie
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April 19, 2010 2:17 AM
@skatje I recommend you watch this documentary: When Abortion Was Illegal. This is what happens in real life when access to abortion is cut off. This isn't a vague, airy ethical question that doesn't actually matter.
Fertile women shouldn't be coerced to give birth just because they've chosen to have sex. There is only one contraception that is 100% effective for fertile women, and that is complete abstinence from sex with virile men.
Moreover, we do not require more human beings on the planet. Our species is not in danger of extinction. We have enough to deal with providing resources to the children who are wanted. Forcing the birth of the unwanted is not good for the planet.
You are the only one who has the right to decide whether to carry your pregnancy to term. Period. Not the state, not your doctor, not the sperm donor, not a judge, not the police. Not another woman.
Abortion, both pharmaceutical and medical (depending on what's possible of course), should be safe, accessible, and affordable/cost-covered, from the beginning of gestation till the end.
Anything else is giving precedence of something not even an individual over a live, real human being. That is morally unjust.
Posted by: octopod
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April 19, 2010 2:21 AM
Alright, maybe I misunderstood your "handshake" comment -- sorry.
I'm pretty sure the reason people are jumping down your throat for these "tentative moral ideas" of yours is strictly because you suggested they should be applied to other people, though. It's sort of like wandering in somewhere saying "I'm vegetarian on ethical grounds -- we should legislate it such that everyone else is too!", except with even more unfortunate implications of sexist enforcement (even if not sexist intent).
Posted by: mrcreosote
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April 19, 2010 2:22 AM
On a related note
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2867545.htm
Stem Cell Ethics
Couple of quotes - first from the arsehole Catholic 'ethicist'
Assoc. Professor Nicholas Tonti-Filippini
'The Church's view is that the embryos be taken out of storage and allowed to succumb.'[i.e. not be used for stem cell research]
but then, the winner for me is
Carrie Beetham
'When I die or when I get to heaven or wherever, I’ll be asking why didn’t you send us a cure? And maybe the reply would be well "we did..."'
Posted by: mr.obelus
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April 19, 2010 2:35 AM
I'm pretty much down the line in agreement with just about everything that is posted here.
But I just can't go here with P.Z. on abortion:
"Don't even ask me when — I'm a guy."
Well, now, that doesn't make the line so gray and fuzzy, does it? Just gotta be a woman, right?
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 19, 2010 2:36 AM
No. Do you think you should be allowed to shoot him in the head?
What I meant to convey is that this parasite analogy sucks. One woman's "parasite" (and I believe that Sven DeMilo did a damn good job of dismantling that "parasite" analogy) is another woman's reason for being. Even the same woman on a different day.
At some point along that "ineluctable arc" a blob of cells turns into a human being. Many people think it is morally reprehensible to kill innocent human beings. So, at some point ethics compels most of us to recognize the interest of the fetus. And Roe v Wade, it seems to me, does a pretty good job of balancing the interests of the woman as well as the fetus.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 19, 2010 2:37 AM
badgersdaughter @ 533
Depends on where you are traveling, I'm sure they love you in the fascist dictatorships and kingdoms, but I wouldn't wear a Chevron T-shirt in Nigeria, outside of air conditioned towers.
South and Central Americans tend to get a bit dodgy if you brag about your pathetic little pit of North American greed since we ran out of Indians to murder here, and have moved into their neighborhoods and are scraping them off the surface so as to access the minerals beneath.
I used to be a tool of evil Texas oil fucks, which I considered a step down the moral chain from biker drug gangster, but I managed to find a real job. The pay sucks but at least I can look my children in the eye. Good luck with your mega oil texas money fuck. May your houses be large, your school districts white, and your Pharyngula posts cheerful, positive and properly toned.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 19, 2010 2:42 AM
Soooo many anecdotal sob stories.
As an aside to people who keep referring to me as a spoiled little privileged white girl, fuck off. To the people who keep saying "How did godless, educated parenting go so wrong?", fuck off as well.
I've had good luck in some ways, shitty luck in others. Overall, I'm much better off than most people, but that doesn't mean I lack empathy and live in a fantasy world where everything is just peachy. Get off your my-life-was-harder-than-yours high horse.
--
I still find this slut-shaming thing to be absurd. If we were seahorses, I guess I would be a player-shamer. And man, all those libertarians are racists. Their policies hit minorities pretty hard. I mean, intent irrelevant, it's only effect that matters, right?
--
There are cases of abuse, rape, extenuating circumstances, etc., where I feel like, when weighing things against each other, I would side with the mother. I don't pretend this is as clear-cut as the pro-lifers you're used to arguing with say it is. So if you would kindly stop acting like I've made some definitive proclamation, I would appreciate it.
You're crying and condemning me for actions I have not committed. If I knew that discussing with Pharyngulites recently developed moral ideas that I wish to become more certain on would result in accusations of hating women and people actually crying, I wouldn't have bothered. :/
--
Do you remember when you wrote "I'll teach you how the world works"? The arrogance you have displayed on this thread has been nothing short of stunning.
No, actually. What are you talking about?
P.S. I think I lost my patience and coherence somewhere after midnight. And congealed confusing, broken thought processes into a single comment. Meh. Whatever.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 2:43 AM
mr.obelus:
What's your point? As it's a woman who becomes pregnant and must make the decision to carry to term and birth, and if she decides to birth, to then support that child, so, yes, it's "gotta" be a woman.
Posted by: somewhereingreece
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April 19, 2010 2:48 AM
I think I should have a reward for going through about 470 comments in one go.
To Skatje Myers
What I am about to tell you is what I would say even if you weren't a kid who can't even drink legally and PZ Myers' daughter.
Just by thinking about typing "YOU put it in your body. It is YOUR fault." you instantly became the most smackable person in the blog and, considering the nature of this blog, that says something.
You have had the luck to have a very sheltered life with doting and loving parents in a social milieu that gives you unlimited access to health information and services. You don't know of the statistics that demonstrate the massacre that is caused by unwanted fertility in places where abortion is illegal. And you have the unmitigated gall to make sweeping statements such as THAT? Nothing you say or do after typing this will ever help you live this down.
Be very very glad you are not *my* daughter. I would have kicked you out of the house and send you off to work with Caine, Fleur du Mal/women's shelters/NICUs and paediatric wards that deal with abused children/orphanages and not let you back in the house until you were in the same time-space continuum as the rest of the planet.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 2:51 AM
yes. I actually already said that. Do you really think this is some absurd over the top statement?or, let me put it this way: if someone grew up in a racist culture, and was therefore unconsciously often racist, but he supported policies which didn't affect minorities more than the majority, would his policies be more racist than that of a man who didn't have any racial prejudice, but whose policies disadvantaged minorities?
Posted by: skeptifem
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April 19, 2010 2:53 AM
skatje-
" I also advocate a cultural shift that places more value on life and less on instant gratification, but I'm just an idealist hippy."
Do you mean values the quantity of life, or quality of life? Unwanted children do not generally experience the same quality of life as those of us who were wanted. Being born as a punishment for your mom is damaging to children. Those kids who have been hurt psychologically by this situation, and are likely to be less economically privileged as well, live in the same society as you and I. We all affect each other, and I suspect that unwanted kids being born would ruin society for the wanted kids, too. I just could not expect any other result, the work of mothers and parents and other caring adults is the glue that holds society together and is taken for granted. What happens to children who do not get cared for isn't mysterious and it makes for an extremely unpleasant reality for the rest of us. Poverty, violence, mental illness, etc all affect us collectively. Kids do not ask to be born and suffer real consequences when they are born unwanted. I cannot stress this enough; worrying about who is 'at fault' for a thinking feeling human being is a terrible thing to concern yourself with. Imagine being born a punishment- imagine your very being here as a punishment for someone else. The guilt involved for existing would be crushing to an adult, but we are talking about children feeling this. Imagine how human and unsaintly parents are, and how they would treat the punishment-human compared to someone they want around. It is cruel to want people to be born into the world for your personal satisfaction when they will just be hurt for being born. The alternative- not existing, and improving the circumstances for the rest of us, seems completely fine as an alternative. I cannot figure out why the pain involved with unwanted kids being born is preferable at all. If you are wishing for people to always want their kids then yes, that is idealism in the extreme, and should be abandoned because of how unlikely/immoral that aspiration would be.
My life experiences are influencing my opinion, and I want to talk about why. For one thing, my mom was born unwanted, and actually I suspect none of the kids in her family were wanted. Their mom did not have birth control or abortion as options as the time, and was socially expected to marry. Her oldest kid raised all the other kids (poorly, she beat them quite often with things like high heeled shoes), and when the catholic nuns would beat my mother there wasn't anyone around to notice. My mom went into dangerous parts of town and hung out with other kids who had parents who didn't care about them. She was told that she was stupid for her entire childhood, and believed it until she got up the courage to try college (in her 30's). There are a million other things I could mention, but how awful it was isn't exactly the point.
She normalized all of this and did not figure out how abusive it was until she had us. This made her severely depressed (understandably), which I in turn had to deal with as a kid. The problems that come from stuff like this do not just end abruptly or follow any defined course, it can proceed on for generations.
So I know, *yawn* she didn't have the option for birth control, but it is still very relevant. Choosing to have unwanted kids isn't any less horrible than being forced to, if you are looking at it from the child's point of view.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 19, 2010 2:55 AM
Just by thinking about typing "YOU put it in your body. It is YOUR fault." you instantly became the most smackable person in the blog and, considering the nature of this blog, that says something.
Poor phrasing on my part, admittedly, but I feel I adequately explained my position afterwards. "Fault" has more negative connotations than I intended for it.
"You have had the luck to have a very sheltered life with doting and loving parents in a social milieu that gives you unlimited access to health information and services."
Yeah, like I said earlier, fuck off. What the fuck do you know about my parents? I swear... goddamn, I'm out of patience for this bullshit. Stop presuming you know everything about my life.
Posted by: mcbender
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April 19, 2010 2:58 AM
Skatje:
Please consider the thought-experiment I outlined above; divest the scenario from any feelings about sex or "going into things with knowledge of the possible consequences". Make it a completely capricious occurrence and a man connected to a life-support machine and then tell me where you stand.
That ought to put this slut-shaming business to rest (which, incidentally, you did do but it's easy to do accidentally), along with all of the other confounding factors that are confusing things here. Let's ignore who your parents are, where any of us grew up, who we are, our personal histories, all of these irrelevancies... let's even ignore the fact that it's fetuses.
Let's get the core issue out in the open: do you think a person can be used merely as a means to another's life? Can I force you to give me a kidney if I'll going to die otherwise? Can Mr Smith be connected to a life-support machine without his knowledge or consent, then forced to remain connected for a year (at significant inconvenience to himself) without any say in the matter?
It's all the same issue. It's exactly the same. Casting the debate as only being about abortion specifically seems to me to confuse things unnecessarily; it's about using people for others' benefit without their consent. It doesn't really matter whether the party benefitting is a blastocyst, a fetus, or even a full-fledged human being.
Posted by: BdN
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April 19, 2010 3:08 AM
Not that it is my opinion (I think the opposite), but someone could point that the difference lies in the fact that you did do something that caused, at least in part, what happens next in one case and not in the other. The hooked up man should've done something prior to the abduction for the analogy to really work.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 3:14 AM
um. yeah. people tend to dislike others theorizing about them possibly losing their ability to control their own bodies. And since you've admitted you wouldn't stand in the way of those wanting to take this control away from them, and agree that fucking means consenting to pregnancy, people take this theorizing seriously.Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 19, 2010 3:15 AM
mcbender:
He should be able to opt-out.
This isn't relevant to abortion, though. Jones is completely irrelevant to Mr Smith. In the case of pregnancy, the "other" life, the fetus, was not just some random happenstance that wants to use the mother. It is a direct result of the mother's action.
Maybe... more equivalently... let's try a different analogy. It's completely absurd, because I'm tired and can't be bothered to think of realistic things, but it's useful anyway. Let's say Mr Smith played a game of chance. Push a button, and you could either win a million dollars or Jones here is going to lose a liver. If Smith chooses to take this gamble, and it ends up with Jones losing his liver, I honestly feel that *morally* (we'll keep legality aside here for the time being, for simplicity), Smith should give Jones his liver. As his predicament is a direct consequence of his actions, he should bear responsibility.
I'm really tired. I hope I'm making a sense. ;__;
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 3:18 AM
mcbender:
How about you read the whole frigging thread? Your scenario has been brought up countless times, hundreds of posts ago.
Let's not, because those things are not irrelevancies. You are missing the point by miles on end.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 3:19 AM
except that Jones didn't agree to lose his liver, just like a person walking down the street doesn't agree to being run over by a drunk driver.
Posted by: BdN
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April 19, 2010 3:28 AM
That's exactly what comes to mind when people say that a girl dressing sexy has it coming if she gets harassed or raped.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 19, 2010 3:30 AM
Does how I was raised, my age, etc., effect my thinking?
Yes.
Am I so stupid as to be unable to think outside that, to put myself in other people's shoes?
No.
Now shut up. :|
Posted by: Walton, Marquis of Carabas
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April 19, 2010 3:31 AM
So you think it isn't immoral for Fred Phelps to protest at funerals and rant about the evils of homosexuality? Or do you think he should be banned from doing so?
The reason that there are circumstances in which people should not do X, but should be free to do X, is because we recognise the need for limitations on state power. There are a whole range of decisions which government cannot be trusted to make, because it leads to authoritarianism and the corruption of power, and makes individuals slaves of the state. One of these is the political, religious and other opiions which a person holds. Another of these is what decisions a woman makes about her body. In both cases, government should not be permitted to make those decisions, because this gives government far too much power over our lives. That's the whole point of individual liberties.
By saying that there is no difference between "people should not do X" and "people should not be free to do X", you're saying that you trust government absolutely to make moral decisions about our lives, and that the whole concept of individual liberty is meaningless to you.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 19, 2010 3:33 AM
Skatje:
Being priveleged, as far as not being poor, or white, over which you have no control, are extremely relevant. Spoiled and little and girl (you are a woman) are the derogatory terms.
I'm not even a Marxist but your class is more important than your ethnicity, your color, your gender, or which state you were born in as far as your options, which dictate the baseline from which you launch your morality.
That is the essence of the moral strategy.
I would never murder you, a woman and daughter of a friend, unless it was an apocalypse, and you were the only meat left to feed my children.
I'm sure PZ would do the same for you.
Your options and situation will hopefully always influence your morality, and at this point in your life, the morality that defines your expressed points of view is an affordable strategy.
There is nothing spoiled or brattish about it, it just is.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 19, 2010 3:33 AM
except that Jones didn't agree to lose his liver
Let's substitutes the intended entities in the analogies now.
"except that the fetus didn't agree to be dependent"
Wait, how is this supposed to be in your favour?
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 19, 2010 3:35 AM
I didn't see it that way at all. Skatje made that statement in response to one (of the many) defective premises of the parasite analogy, which presented the impregnated female as being invaded out of the blue. She rightfully pointed out that the female was not invaded but was herself responsible for the placement of the "parasite".
Some people responded with a knee jerk accusation of slut-shaming, which, IMO, totally missed the mark. I don't recall that Skatje ever made an argument that a female's lack of morals deserved punishment.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 3:35 AM
So, are you more upset about the accusations or people crying? For what it's worth, I didn't cry, you've simply pissed me off no end. You're coming across as being put upon unnecessarily, and people should have been supportive and nurturing of your recently developed moral ideas.
What happened is people took issue with your ideas, and you got a lot of real world experience right back atcha. You came across as an arrogant know-it-all, who was capable of deciding what was right for all women in all situations. This happens when you decide to test out new ideas to a large group of diverse people. That's part of life experience. Happens to us all. In the end, it's generally a positive thing, because it presents different points of view and gives a lot of food for thought. Do with it what you will, ignore it, think about it, whatever. All I ask is that you don't presume to know me (or anyone else) with such certainty of moral certitude that you can claim what is right for all women.
Posted by: J. Goard
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April 19, 2010 3:37 AM
That's because there is no sharp magical border, it's grey and fuzzy all the way.
This is clearly true, and a very important point to make.
That's a social and personal decision. Don't even ask me when — I'm a guy. I don't have the same responsibilities as a pregnant woman, so I don't get the same privileges.
This is a bullshit cop-out. As a participant in civil society, you have a say in deciding what people can do to an 8-month-old fetus or a 1-day-old neonate. If you decide that the choice to kill the former is a fundamentally protected right, while a choice to kill the latter is first-degree murder, then you ought to give reasons.
I don't say for a moment that decent reasons don't exist, or that PZ doesn't have them. The bulk of the post is excellent. We absolutely have to consider developmental details and counter deceptive propaganda from people who believe in ensoulment. But if we conclude that late-term fetuses are a lot more like neonates than they are like embryos, then dumping off the ethical reasoning on "the woman's decision" is a default on our social responsibility.
Now, in today's political climate, this kind of argument should not be made without pointing out how very few abortions are late-term, probably less than 1,000 per year in the US after viability, and most of these because of medical risk. Still, I think there is a good moral case for legally discouraging late-term abortions while strongly protecting early abortions, especially if public information underscores early abortion as a responsible act for women who are likely to become unsure later.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 3:38 AM
oh yeah. you're extra-special-super-woman who, unlike virtually everybody else in the world, can overcome her privilege bias just by the awesome power of her smarts[/sarcasm]Posted by: windy
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April 19, 2010 3:40 AM
Couldn't this be turned around and applied to your own argument? We can overcome our own biology by interrupting a pregnancy, but you are arguing that we should follow the "rules" imposed by... biology.
Don't take it personally, some of your moral ideas have gotten a much better reception here :)
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 3:41 AM
@544
First off, I wasn't on a my life was harder than yours high horse. It wasn't meant to be a sob story for you to snide at. I was trying to add to a living discussion about something I have personally gone though. If you cannot see the value that is your own loss. A discussion about x is happening, I offered my personal anecdotal knowledge of x. period. I am not saying my life is harder than anybody's. I do not know you personally or your childhood or anything you have gone though. I am not passing judgment and wouldn't even if I knew you personally. Everybody goes though different things. There are plenty of people that have gone though painful but different things than me and people that I know have gone though worse. I was not trying for pity or sympathy. I'm a demographic and statistic because of my sad life but do not imply or stuff words in my mouth about it. My tone was not oh woes is me, or you're so sheltered in your fantasy world. Nor did I say or mean it. I said “if I was in situation x I would do y” but due to my personal experience I sincerely do not believe you can REALLY know what you are going to do until you are in situation x, which in this case was unplanned pregnancy.
Yes, I said glad I am you had a better, stable environment (meaning no drug abusing parents, poverty, lack of health care, etc.) from what I know. I didn't say you were sheltered or happy or shit didn't happen, that is two different things. Yes, I said it was sad you didn't see your illogical sexist argument for what it is, but I say that for every person who holds your same views. Its especially sad because you were indoctrinated in your childhood or anything else. You were left to make up your own mind, with every advantage available as you pointed out and still reached the same fucked up conclusion. Let me clarify, I mean your views are fucked up in my opinion ( no, that's not ad hominem) since you want to control my body and my life.
You have said several times that you don't have all the answers and that's why you are not willing to vote either way on the issue. You can't claim the right to make the decision for others (has you have in previous posts) then claim you don't know what to do. If you don't have the answers, don't get all pissy when people ask you questions can all you on your statements. If this is tentative for you and you are still making up your mind, I suggest looking at ALL the evidence and then making your claims. Instead of doing it half cocked. I also suggest not making such decisions on a gut feeling either. Just because you feel* its not right for you doesn't mean it isn't okay for someone else., just because you feel* the fetus has more value. Try hitting us with a logical and reasonable reason why fetuses have more rights then women, why women should be shackled with the burden of childbearing when there isn't a necessity to, why should others decide my reproductive life? Oh, wait there isn't.
* to have a general or thorough conviction of; think; believe; but in this instance provide no logical argument, evidence or otherwise thought provoking reason to believe said feeling.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 3:41 AM
Gingerbaker:
Oh? What exactly do you call that? Try reading the whole fucking thread.
Posted by: danielm
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April 19, 2010 3:43 AM
Dear Skatje, I'm glad you are proving that atheists are quite capable of bringing up children who don't simply tow the party line when it comes to moral and ethical decisions, but I have to say I am saddened that you choose the side which thinks slavery is okay.
Understand this, that when you put the "rights" of a bundle of cells above the rights of a fully-formed, independant, thinking and feeling human being, you are advocating slavery.
You state that you wouldn't have an abortion, but that you wouldn't fight laws that would remove the possibility for others (and yourself) - and at the same time state you wouldn't "interfere" with the existence of another fetus. Sorry to say, but your amicable inaction is interference, leading to consequences of the worst kind.
Gedanken experiment here - you did nothing, the anti-abortion laws came into effect, you get raped. Would you bring up that child? Seriously? Many people would say yes.
Would you protest the choice, the ability to choose, the law that allows choice, or the decision? Would you take away that choice? Because that is the question here - not your choice, but the availability of that choice.
Now, imagine you're pregnant, but there's something wrong. The anti-abortion law is in effect, and you're going to die if you don't break it.
You may think this is a game (and it is, of a sort), but it's a very real problem.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 3:44 AM
then the fetus can move out and get a job.Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 19, 2010 3:45 AM
How exactly did she do that? By saying she might not vote if anti-abortion legislation was introduced?
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 3:49 AM
JustALurker @ 566:
It sure as hell wasn't. Excellent post, by the way. There's a distinct lack of empathy happening, when your explanation of your circumstances is taken so wrongly.
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 19, 2010 3:50 AM
Try reading my post that you just cut and pasted.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 3:53 AM
Gingerbaker:
First, see post #567. Didn't bother to answer that, I see. Then, read the whole fucking thread.
Posted by: Morgan
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April 19, 2010 3:53 AM
I'd just like to weigh in that scooterKPFT is *hilarious*. Generalizations for all, and to all a good night!
Thank you.
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 19, 2010 3:54 AM
skatje.myers wrote:
What an odd thing to say; I'm going to put it down to your tiredness.
Because I believe that, since the blog we're on belongs to your father, and he talks about himself quite a lot and your mother from time to time, it's entirely accurate to say that we - the regulars at least - know about a metric fuck-ton more about your parents compared to what you know about any of us.
I've also met the man, and spent a few hours in his company; from that I can tell he's a genuinely nice guy - or a very, very good actor.
So, with that in mind, we know he's not going to disown you, kick you out on the street to fend for yourself, beat the shit out of you or some combination of the above if you come home knocked up - can you honestly say you know the same is true of every other woman who gets pregnant?
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 19, 2010 3:57 AM
Couldn't this be turned around and applied to your own argument? We can overcome our own biology by interrupting a pregnancy, but you are arguing that we should follow the "rules" imposed by... biology.
If you could get around the rule of a female having to carry it in her for nine months, please do.
But I don't find giving value to a fetus really a "rule" imposed by biology, that we may overcome. I am not sure you're making sense here.
You can't claim the right to make the decision for others (has you have in previous posts) then claim you don't know what to do.
This is by no means inconsistent. If I wish to tell others what to do, I feel it is completely reasonable and appropriate to do so. It's that I have chosen not to.
It may have looked confusing for me to argue with people who are saying things akin to "What gives you the right to decide for other people?", but it was a question asked of me, and I would give the same response (approx.) if someone asked me "What gives you the right to tell other people they can't murder people?"
If you don't have the answers, don't get all pissy when people ask you questions can all you on your statements.
I find it not far out of comprehension that I get pissy when people accuse me of being a whiny spoiled brat, who wants to punish people's mothers. This clearly isn't me being pissy at questions. This is being pissy at other people's pissiness. In summary: This is all a great big pissfest.
If this is tentative for you and you are still making up your mind, I suggest looking at ALL the evidence and then making your claims.
Probably more applicable to someone who spent all their time as a pro-lifer, as opposed to someone who spent years arguing AGAINST pro-life, then later decided to lean away from their original position.
What "evidence", as you call it, I lack is more likely to be found in discussing this with pro-choice people. Or so I had thought.
Oh? What exactly do you call that?
I call that "taking some poor phrasing that was later clarified, assuming a few extra propositions, and running with it".
Posted by: mcbender
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April 19, 2010 3:57 AM
@Caine (554):
I have read the entire thread, thank you very much, and similar scenarios have been brought up, yes. My intention was to make the analogue as close as possible but in such a way as to tilt intuitive moral judgments in the opposite direction; if I failed to do that, then yes, I was probably being redundant.
And I still maintain that personal idiosyncrasies should be irrelevant to what is at least in theory a discussion of objective principles.
@Skatje (553):
I don't think your new analogy works. There is no way to justify Smith's taking a gamble where the stakes affect somebody else (some other agent who has interests of his own).
A fetus is not an agent. It simply does not have the capacity that a fully-fledged human does (let's not get into potential here, the grown human has already realised his/her potential while a fetus has not; there's no comparison). Nor does the fetus have the capacity for suffering.
Let's assume I ignore that and grant you the analogy of sex : gambling with Jones' liver. It still doesn't work. Jones exists as an agent prior to any of the gambling occurring, and its affecting an entity which has interests makes that gamble a very different scenario from sex (which has a probability of creating something which might under the proper conditions become an agent).
-For the time being I'm going to bow out of this discussion, as it seems as though (1) I'm not contributing anything productive and (2) it's getting late.
Posted by: Walton, Marquis of Carabas
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April 19, 2010 3:59 AM
Yes, this is true.
Making abortion illegal is not an effective way to reduce the number of abortions. It just makes them less safe, and causes more women's unnecessary deaths. The criminal justice system is a very bad tool for social change: just as bans on alcohol and drugs have always been disastrous failures, and have caused more human suffering while achieving nothing, so too with bans on abortion.
Rather, the best way to reduce the number of abortions would be to ensure the availability of birth control to everyone, teach more sex education in schools, and provide enough welfare, childcare, health support and so on that no woman would have to worry about being plunged into poverty by giving birth. With this in mind, it's sad that much of the "pro-life" movement also opposes birth control and sex education, and wants to reduce welfare for single mothers. Indeed, the ideas of religious "pro-lifers" seem carefully formulated to produce the maximum possible human suffering.
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 4:01 AM
@570
She did that on several comments -
@181
@202
@232
@359
@553
There's more but read the whole thread if you want more evidence.
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 19, 2010 4:04 AM
Walton wrote:
'Sad' isn't strong enough to truly reflect 'pro-life' attitude; I'd substitute 'pathetic', 'hateful' or 'monstrously shit-headed' instead.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 19, 2010 4:05 AM
Note to PZ,
she's definitely yours
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 4:06 AM
well, it really isn't. it's a question of real-life policies regarding real-life situations that happen to real-life people.Because in principle, we all want pregnancy only to happen when it's wanted, and no such a pregnancy ending in abortion. Until the invention of the 100% safe contraception that doesn't require the sexual version of anorexia nervosa and a shitload of luck, this principle is another meaningless red herring.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 4:06 AM
Gingerbaker:
I did. And that's called quoting, you know, like you just did with my post?
Gingerbaker:
Rightfully, eh? As it has been said, women do not have a "consciously impregnate" button. Pregnancy is sometimes a consequence of having sex, however, unless one is actively trying to get pregnant, it's an unintended consequence. It can, and often does, happen even when multiple forms of birth control are being used. In such a case, a woman most definitely did not want to get pregnant.
Skatje's argument was not one of biological accuracy. It was one of blame, which she elaborated on. She made the point that if a woman does not wish to get pregnant, she shouldn't have sex, as she is aware that no birth control is 100% effective. This is blaming the woman for having sex in the first place.
This has all been argued, in depth. Read the whole thread. If you have nothing more than Skatje's lame arguments, go away. If you feel you can present her same arguments so they will actually make sense in the real world, go for it.
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 19, 2010 4:27 AM
I have read the whole thread. And the quotes you have provided ( thanks for the effort that took, btw) don't look to me like Skatje was:
"...an arrogant know-it-all, who was capable of deciding what was right for all women in all situations."
That seems to imply that Skatje would vote for legislation to severely restrict, if not outlaw abortion. As far as I can see, she has not gone that far. She has said she might not "stand in its way" which is not the same thing.
Her other statements basically say that she feels she has the right to her opinion, and to voice that opinion. This does not, it seems to me, to deserve the hyperbole being thrown at her, although I must say that people seem to be talking past each other in this thread - not picking up on each other's points, and then misreading intent.
I'm on the East coast - it's 4:15 am here - I've got insomnia - do we all? :D
Posted by: windy
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April 19, 2010 4:29 AM
Easy: abortion. We can now get around that "rule" by choosing not to carry a fetus to term.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 19, 2010 4:29 AM
Pregnancy is sometimes a consequence of having sex, however, unless one is actively trying to get pregnant, it's an unintended consequence.
but not an unsurprising or really unexpected one. this is a matter of people PLAYING THE ODDS, intentionally. i do it, everyone else does it. but i'm willing to fess up to my mistake if that .3% failure rate comes around.
Either take the gamble, knowing that it might end with unintended consequences, or learn to appreciate oral sex more.
i have no sympathy for "BUT I DIDNT MEAN TO" when you know your method could very well end up this way. it's not an excuse.
This is blaming the woman for having sex in the first place.
I "blame" both equally. As I said before. And "blame" is a word I've possibly used but offers more negative connotation than is accurate.
idonteven imtootiredtokeepgoing
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 4:30 AM
not insomnia; nightowls and non-Americans abound.Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 4:37 AM
neither is getting hit by a car, but I wouldn't suggest people stop leaving their homes.It's nice for you that you have the resources to "fess up to [your] mistake(!)" by means other than abortion. but to say that every woman should play by your rules is bull. Sex is not a reward for the luck of having a stable life. that's just punishing people for being poor, in unstable life-situations, etc.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 19, 2010 4:38 AM
What an odd thing to say; I'm going to put it down to your tiredness.
Because I believe that, since the blog we're on belongs to your father, and he talks about himself quite a lot and your mother from time to time, it's entirely accurate to say that we - the regulars at least - know about a metric fuck-ton more about your parents compared to what you know about any of us.
I've also met the man, and spent a few hours in his company; from that I can tell he's a genuinely nice guy - or a very, very good actor.
That is unbelievable. You think you understand my childhood because you read the things my father writes on his blog? You think you understand my father because you spent a few hours around him?
That's... ridiculous. A level of presumption and fake analysis that Freud couldn't even pull off.
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 19, 2010 4:42 AM
skatje.myers wrote:
But many of the consequences of that 'mistake' aren't as serious for you as they are for all women - and that's the point people have been trying to make all day/night/morning and which you seem to keep missing.
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 4:42 AM
@576
How is that not inconsistent? You said you were against all abortions except if it was necessary to save the woman's life. You were asked simple examples, like what if the mother was raped, or lied to about birth control, or if birth control failed. If you want to dictate how other people live you better damn well have all the answers instead of making shit up all the way so that people actually do know what they are dealing with. And just because you want dictate other's life does not give you the right or ability to. This not murder we are talking about. Murder is the killing of another person. The debate lies whether or not a fetus is a person, what constitutes a person, and when does another person have the right to use another person's body. As for evidence, provide some of what makes a fetus a person for starters and why you get to make a personal decision for somebody else. Ok, maybe evidence was a bad word for this example , how about logical reason? Something other than,” this is what I feel and others should have to follow it” would be nice.
As for an analogy try this on for size*, say a drunk driver hits a person who is fatally wounded. The person needs a heart transplant, should said drunk driver be responsible to give up their heart since it was their reckless actions that cause the person's injuries? How about a liver? The person hit was just walking by, didn't want to get hit, has no say and no other way to live but the drunk driver's heart/liver. The answer is no, obviously the drunk driver has to pay damages and go to prison but we don't make them give up their life, their body. The difference is a woman shouldn't be punished for having a abortion since fetuses do not meet the requirements of a person. Hell, even if you give the fetus rights no person on this planet has the right to use my body to live no matter what I did to said person to make it so. It may be a nice thing to do but still its not morally or legally my responsibility to do so. Would you have the fireman save 1,000 embryos or living child? All embryos have the potential to become human, obviously same man and woman donated to create them and go through the same development but there is a difference. Fetuses are not children or a person. Honestly, if you rather save the embryos please never become a firewoman! LOL =)
Also, I was not pissy with you on my original post. I made a simple statement. I never called you a spoiled little brat. And you are most certainly punishing said mothers to carry a fetus if they don't want it due to economic, physical, social problems, which is only to name a few of the issues when a woman becomes pregnant. You said it yourself consequences are dire but seriously should I carry a fetus that would economically screw me over, send me back to the shelters, disrupt and maybe end my education goals and screw my 3 year old and ruin all the progress I've made in the last 4 years because my IUD and condoms broke? Are you kidding me? A fetus is nothing but a bunch of parasite cells with 46 chromosomes. So what if it has half my genes? I don't punish my daughter for having half her genes come from her bastard father, why would I care more if it has my genes. Plenty of people love their adopted children just as much as I love my daughter, genes don't matter. If it gets to the 3rd trimester and would be able to survive if it was born prematurely, at that point I could birth it and openly adopt it to a loving couple who could help all parties in this situation and be involved. But that's just me and it would be mainly because I would feel it moving, and I would get all attached to it. And it wouldn't be that much longer anyways. No way in hell I'm going to make that decision for anybody else, just like I wouldn't decide their careers, lovers, opinions or college.
*yes, its a lame one but the best I can do so late and so tired as it is. All analogies can be defeated simply by saying there are not similar enough but the goal is to look at the moral principals involved. And I'm sure someone mentioned the firemen already but I just had to reiterate.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 4:42 AM
Gingerbaker @ 584:
I didn't provide the quotes. JustALurker provide them @ #579. You obviously aren't reading very carefully.
What that means is she would either not vote at all, or vote for it. It means she would not choose to uphold a woman's right to autonomy.
To which I responded, vociferously, that she does indeed have the right to spout her opinion to all and sundry, but that is not at all the same as passing something into law. I'm beginning to doubt you read the thread. If you had, you would have noticed my response.
It's not hyperbole. She has been incredibly arrogant, and I'm far from the only person to think so. When many people point out the same thing, it's generally a good idea to take stock of what you're saying. Skatje has not done that.
I'm nocturnal.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 4:46 AM
WowbaggerOM:
Emphasized and Quoted for truth.
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 4:49 AM
@571 and 529
Thank you for your kind words and support. I didn't mean to ignore you or take so long I was just trying to respond to skatje quickly.
Posted by: windy
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April 19, 2010 4:54 AM
Sure, like having to get an abortion. That's not an intended consequence.
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 4:56 AM
@584
I didn't mean to sound condescending when I said read the whole thread for more, simply a statement and I hate scrolling and searching for quotes. Its a pain but necessary to quote someone correctly. And the first quote I gave specifically states since she doesn't want an abortion no one else should have an abortion and she has the right to dictate that on all women. In reality she has to vote to get her opinion across and its not her opinion alone that makes it possible (she's not queen of the world) but I'm not talking about whether or not she's going to vote agianist woman's rights.
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 19, 2010 4:59 AM
PZ #348,
No, that no one should kill another person isn't an ethically sound position. First, you have to demonstrate that not allowing someone to use your body against your will in order to survive means that you are the one responsible for killing that person. But why you and not everybody else who isn't accepting to let that person use his body? Second, what about self defense? If someone is about to tie you up to a chair and torture you for months, aren't you allowed to use that gun that you've got hidden in your pocket?
It's quite clear that the only sound ethical principle is that noone should kill another person unjustly. That's the basis for our system of laws.
So you have to demonstrate that if someone, say a famous violinist, is about to tie you up to a bed for nine months and connect a machine to your body to use it to extract poisons from his blood that his own body is incapable of and will die if not done, you are the one responsible for unjustly killing that person if you don't let him do it.
Whether that someone is a famous violinist or a fetus doesn't change the answer to that question. It doesn't matter if that someone is a fully mature person or a clump of cells where you have some difficulties deciding if it has the status of a person or not. It is impossible to show that separating you from it and possibly causing its death represents unjust killing.
"The right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not to be killed unjustly. Therefore, to show that abortion isn't morally permissible, it is by no means enough to show that the fetus is a person and to remind us that all persons have a right to life—we need to be shown also that killing the fetus violates its right to life, i.e., that abortion is unjust killing. And is it?
J.J.Thomson
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 4:59 AM
@584
I didn't mean to sound condescending when I said read the whole thread for more, simply a statement and I hate scrolling and searching for quotes. Its a pain but necessary to quote someone correctly. And the first quote I gave specifically states since she doesn't want an abortion no one else should have an abortion and she has the right to dictate that on all women. In reality she has to vote to get her opinion across and its not her opinion alone that makes it possible (she's not queen of the world) but I'm not talking about whether or not she's going to vote against woman's rights. I'm talking about why she believes the fetus is a person, what makes it person and why should society force women to give birth if they don't want to. I never said she was a brat or spoiled, but she certainly came off as a know it all and said she had the right to make that decision for all women. But maybe thats just me.
Sorry, this is what I meant to post, I accidentally clicked to soon. My bad. =(
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 19, 2010 5:03 AM
skatje.myers wrote:
Did you read the rest of the post where I wrote that? Here it is again:
Are you saying I'm wrong about that? Are you implying that the PZ Myers whose words we read every day isn't the person we think he is and he's going to suddenly abandon his daughter if she gets pregnant?
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 5:06 AM
@590 and 588 and 597
I wholeheartedly agree and second that!!! Of course there are so many awesome posts by commenters here I really can't list them all. =(
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 19, 2010 5:16 AM
I wasn't thanking you, I was thanking justalurker for his/her post. My post was to justalurker, not you, it just contained your quote cut and pasted, he-he from his post.
If she would vote for it, I would have a (big) problem with that. But she gave no indication of that, and therefore your charge of her being "...an arrogant know-it-all, who was capable of deciding what was right for all women in all situations" is unfounded.
You and she seem to be talking at cross purposes here. You are talking about legislation, and she is talking about voicing her opinion to people. I get the impression that she has not picked up on your intent.
Posted by: Pinkydead
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April 19, 2010 5:17 AM
@Josh #147 via negentropyeater #190
I'm sure like me you would have moral qualms about killing a newly born infant is wrong - and I'm also sure that like me you would see nothing wrong with the morning after pill.
So where did you transition from the latter to the former? Was it a discrete transformation, say at 27.56 days? Or is it like me, and I imagine everyone with "qualms" that the closer you get to birth the less acceptable termination is?
It is a continuous curve. And after two weeks, you might be 0.001% "uneasy"; after 2 months 1%; after 8 months 90%.
You could of course, be fine with termination as long as the [insert stage] is dependent on the mother, up to and including 5 minutes before it is born. If you're that cold, well then fine - but I would have to question your overall ethical model.
I think that the black and white viewpoint is very much the domain of the absolute moralist, and should be avoided at all costs. We should have our qualms, but we should also be aware that qualms have to be weighed against the rights of the individual.
@negentropyeater et al
(And getting myself into bother)
You talk of rights as if they were some kind of "written in stone" nonsense. And that there is an unquestionable right for the mother to her own body (which I pretty much agree with).
But we only have rights because we all agreed that we should - the right to life or the right to free speech are not carved in stone. And the same applies to the right being in charge of your own body.
Anyone who suggests that the Magna Carta, or the Bill of Rights or the UN Convention on Human Rights are some kind of fundamental principles of the universe, is as daft as someone who says that the 10 Commandments are.
The reason foetuses don't have rights is because they can't contribute to the debate.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 5:18 AM
WowbaggerOM:
I think Skatje is trying to imply that her situation, really, isn't any different from any other woman's. This isn't so, obviously, but many arguments have been forthcoming in regard to her very fortunate position in life, and that fortune would continue if she were to find herself pregnant.
Now, this is just my opinion, mind, I think Skatje doesn't want to face the fact that she is, indeed, privileged, unlike many women. She has a firm support system in place, and I imagine that's making her uncomfortable. Again, just my opinion.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 5:22 AM
Gingerbaker:
In that case, don't be an asshole and use names for the specific bits you quote. Other people have done that throughout this thread, including myself. If you're going to act the assclown, expect to be treated like one.
Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere
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April 19, 2010 5:28 AM
Being pro-choice is easy. You don't even have to be for abortion., just a recognition that there should be a choice. Heck, even if you are against abortion there are good grounds to legalise the practice so as to get rid of some of the shit that goes along with it.
Being pro-infanticide, now there's a hard position to sell. Because if you're not going to categorically rule out that in some circumstances that termination of a infant is best for all concerned, then that's the equivalent of saying you eat babies.
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 19, 2010 5:32 AM
Caine, Fleur du mal wrote:
I think it's understandable to be blind to one's own privilege in a broader sociocultural sense - I suspect many of us here have spent at least some of our lives in exactly that position - but I'm less inclined to be forgiving about being blind to the fact that not everyone in the world, regardless of any other factor, has two parents who love them and would look after them if they needed help.
I don't need a degree in psychology (although, incidentally, I have one) to know PZ loves his daughter a fuckload more than a lot of fathers do.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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April 19, 2010 5:36 AM
Caine, get some sleep. Gingerbaker is being neither an "asshole" nor an "assclown." You misinterpreted a perfectly clear response comment.
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 19, 2010 5:42 AM
Pinkydead,
You seem to confuse termination of the pregnancy and killing the fetus. One doesn't necessarily mean the other. Nobody with a sane mind would suggest that terminating the pregnancy 5 minutes before term (what does that even mean?) and needlessly killing the baby is the right thing to do.
Please point me to where I suggested that rights were carved in stone?
Either you agree that nobody has the right to use someone's else's body against one's will, or you don't. If you don't, please explain in which cases you think it's wrong.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 5:43 AM
WowbaggerOM:
Agreed. And PZ is very proud of his children. I imagine it's a grand thing, to have two parents who love you. I had a mother who didn't love me, and she made sure my father was not in my life past the age of four. Although, to be fair, I'm sure my grandfather trying to shoot him didn't help matters much.
And before you start, Skatje, no, that's not whining, it's a simple statement of fact. It's yet one more data point that you have much more than a great many people have. No, we don't know the details of your childhood. On that score, you don't know about ours, either. I said a very small bit about mine in #517. Do you think, if it were possible, you'd trade your parents and childhood for mine? I'll tell you what, no one in their right mind would.
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 19, 2010 5:46 AM
You are calling me an asshole? Fuck you if you think every other post is about you. You gratuitously rude shithead.
Posted by: theflyingtrilobite
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April 19, 2010 5:50 AM
Which is more important, the pigments or the painting? Even worse, do you think the pigments are the painting?
Exactly.
Exactly!
Posted by: jack.rawlinson
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April 19, 2010 5:50 AM
It really is quote depressing to see someone who is clearly intelligent and well-educated using an argument which is, at root, "Biology is unfair and the victims of biological unfairness should simply suffer the consequences of it - as if we haven't developed, as a species, to the stage where we can address biological unfairness".
And it doesn't do to try to sneakily ass-cover by saying one would neither support nor oppose a legal enforcement of this attitude when one has also said:
- which is a pretty disgracefully loaded way of describing most women's decision to abort. "Ignore the consequences"? Really? Is that what you think they do when they abort?
- which is simply untrue, and delivered with quite stunning arrogance.
- no, you're just willing to stand aside and not resist should others decide to do that. Nice.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 5:50 AM
Sven @ 607, I disagree. Oh, and thanks ever so much, but I'll go to sleep when I'm ready to do so.
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 19, 2010 5:52 AM
Okay, so NOW, OK, I'm an asshole. But I only aspire to be an assclown.
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 19, 2010 5:53 AM
Skatje ended this thread at post 412.
It was over. Read it.
But there is no concept of over at Pharyngula.
Everything is up in the air, they run from our shadows, and we fake withering before whatever is fashionably cringeworthy, laughing all the way.
Somehow Skatje was sucked back into the never ending conversation about what the fuck is up with whatever.
And it went on from there, and beyond ond ond omnd.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 19, 2010 6:02 AM
It doesn't need to have anything to do with your particular father.
Unpacking white privilege.
Unpacking middle class privilege.
You have an exceptionally good background, whether there's teen angst involved or not. That's one of the major things people are trying to explain. And as for this:
No kidding, those are important variables. Do you think that no one else realizes that? Did you notice that the information comes from the World Health Organization, which is normally considered to run pretty good studies? Is your personal thought that those statistics are dubious more important and real than the fact that those statistics exist? It's really disheartening to think that you're ignoring data, especially when you then summarily dismiss it. I understand that it was late at night and you had other things to do, but then you should have said "I don't have time to check everything out right now, I will and get back to this thread later" rather than continuing to argue your point without even pretending to address anything that was being said to you.
Also, reading assignment:
The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler
When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973 by Leslie Reagan
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 6:06 AM
@601
Well, if your comment 584 was for me, I have responded and clarified about the voting and the spoiled brat part at comment 598. I respect her right to her opinion and told her that in my first post. I was disputing whether or not her opinion was right with anecdotal evidence to help back up the arguments for women's rights already stated up thread. I would be against her voting choice to abolish abortion but I would never be against her right to cast such a vote. I would simply do what every other citizen can by vocalizing, organizing and voting pro-choice myself. I was simply trying to get her to understand my situation to enlighten her views on women's rights since she will never be in a position like me. She may sympathize but she could never fully understand or empathize with a situation like mine. Again this is my own opinion of her from her postings here. I could be wrong but I honestly don't think anyone who could understand my situation would be "pro-life". I refer you to South Park's "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson" for more enlightenment about understanding not understanding LOL ;)
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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April 19, 2010 6:06 AM
*shrug* Caine, it was a friendly suggestion. You're coming off as uncharacteristically irrational. You did misinterpret Gingerbaker's comment, and Gb is not an asshole for pointing that out.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/2WTs7ZsrpIHTKihob3v2es8wEMG7Mmo-#60d8b
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April 19, 2010 6:07 AM
I'm going to link to Julie Jarvis Thompson's paper which is the one that contains the origonal violinist example modified by Mcbender because the origonal paper is so wonderful and thourough and debunks pretty much every single one of Skatje's arguments http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm
And here's the majoriy opinion on Roe v Wade, which discusses 'essential liberties' and declares for health only exceptions to be violating the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. Roe is far more complicated than 'privacy rights' and the opinion discusses state interest vs personal liberties, which is covered far more thouroughly than privacy. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO.html
I also wanted to mention something on the 'better off aborted' discussion. First of all, I dislike this because it once again makes it about fetal value, which is a line of argument I despise because it generally sets certain groups of born people as being less desering of existence rather than actually discussing bodily automony and rights of pregnant people. Secondly, just because an event is part of a causal chain that creates a person does not make it good. I know a wonderful woman whose grandparents met in a Nazi concentration camp. Her parents were from different nations and social classes, so it is almost certain she would not have existed but for the Holocaust. This, however, does not make the Holocaust good or mean that people who wish the Holocaust never happened hate this woman and don't want her to exist. The fact that a terrible situation such as lack of birth control, lack of abortion access, or rape caused a child does not make it good, nor does it make the resulting child bad. I love my little sister who was born as the result of reproductive coercion (my father sabotaged my mother's birth control), but that does not mean that I think it is ever acceptable to poke holes in condoms to coerce your spouse into a pregnancy to prevent them from divorcing your abusive, drunken ass. Innocent people are not less valuable because their existence happened due to an immoral occurance. My sister is not less valuable because of how she was concieved, but that does not mean that we should not understand that how it happened was immoral and bad. Ol'Greg rightly notes that his family situation meant that the way he entered existence involved a painful situation for others. However, this does not mean that Ol'Greg is of less worth because of this. I want to stress that because it seems like he has a large amount of ongoing emotional trauma over this. Ol'Greg, your family and social situation was not your fault or responsibility and you are no more to blame than the woman I know is to blame for the Holocaust because it resulted in her birth.
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 6:11 AM
@619
While it seems this thread is dead or everyone just left (yea right this is pharyngula there are always people here LOL) I appreciate your links and comment, I have read them before in class and will now bookmark for future reference =)
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 19, 2010 6:12 AM
Who says she gets to determine when it's over? There are multiple reasons to post, only one of which is engaging one specific person. We're all cognizant of the fact that these threads are on the internet and can be read by anyone. There may be a whole number of people with similar views to her who are reading along and might want to read a little more about it than she does. I look at a lot of these threads as repositories of information - just because she might decide she doesn't want to deal with it any more doesn't mean that no one does, and it doesn't mean those who like the practice of thinking through and writing out their justifications ought to stop.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 6:13 AM
Sven, I'll give you a *shrug* back. Even JustALurker couldn't tell his [GB's] missive was addressed to her.
You're perfectly within your rights to consider me wrong. This, considering the topic, is an asinine thing to argue about, so no more about it from me.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 6:18 AM
Yahoomess @ 619:
Ol'Greg is female.
Posted by: emilyjharders
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April 19, 2010 6:19 AM
I am an IVF mother and have been attacked by these "pro-lifers" before. According to them, I have killed babies. Apparently my 3 day old embryo in a petri dish was a baby. It sickens me that people feel the need to make an incredibly difficult situation, like IVF, harder.
For the record, I believe that every woman should have choice.
Posted by: Snorre
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April 19, 2010 6:21 AM
Of course people makes queasy. Its a big fucking decision. But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be free for those unfortunate enough to need it.
What you should do (I, myself, am from Denmark, where it IS leagal, AND free) is to help women to avoid getting pregnant before they want to. For example overfly most bigger cities, dropping pamphles with the text "this i how you avoid pregnancy/abortion" an one side, and a condom taped to the other.
Posted by: John Morales
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April 19, 2010 6:21 AM
Clearly, a very emotive issue.
I'll just quote the post's headline again,
an embryo is not a person,
so that I can emphatically say: I unequivocally agree.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 19, 2010 6:27 AM
OK, folks, I just have to say one thing: "Privilege" is not privilege if you don't actually have the privilege.
I was a normal middle-class college student, going through normal shit like my parents getting divorced, when my boyfriend and future abusive husband coerced me into getting pregnant. I was too ashamed to tell my parents because I was taught that (I'm trying to put into words something I no longer believe) only "bad," low-class, ignorant girls had unplanned pregnancies. My mother, when she found out, refused to have anything to do with me because she considered me my boyfriend's responsibility at that point, and my father literally called me "stupid" when I called him from the hospital to tell him he was a grandfather. I had no help from my family to survive as a new mother, and no help in any meaningful sense from my boyfriend, who still depended on me to work and pay his bills.
Nobody would have thought my parents would act like that. Certainly I had every reason to believe my parents wouldn't be less supportive than the parents of my friends who got pregnant in high school. I'm not saying Skatje's parents would act the same way mine did, but one never knows, does one?
I don't particularly like Skatje that much, and frankly I never have; we would never make good friends because we would both be much too critical and intolerant of each other, I'm guessing. She reminds me very much of my spitfire red-headed grandmother... who, come to think of it, is currently the only member of my family to be on my side about what happened during that time in my life, so, who knows, really.
If Skatje ever found herself in some such predicament as I did when I was her age, though, she would be welcome to my spare room and my help while she worked things out, because the little I know of her puts her closer to me than perfect strangers, of whom I am wary. And because I believe her to be equal to living up to her convictions, as I was when I shared her beliefs about abortion, and I support her right to live out her own life and maintain her own body as she chooses, even though she does not necessarily fully support mine. But mostly because she's proud and gifted and I know how specially hard it is for such a person ever to ask for assistance for something they believe is their fault and their responsibility.
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 6:38 AM
@627
I never said she wouldn't, I just said I don't think anyone including her could ever really know what they would do in that situation until they are since there are so many variables and life changing consequences. I also never addressed the privileged thing either but I don't know her, her family or situation personally. I may think great things of our tentacled overlord but I don't actually know so I refrain from judgement. He did however make a brief statement on the Endless thread about it. I do have know how well people can act, lie and hide abuse, etc. from personal experience.
Posted by: Deen
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April 19, 2010 6:48 AM
@Carlie in #616 (quoting skatje.myers in #453):
To be frank, I'm not sure there are any nations comparable to the US at the moment. Economically, it's one of the richest nations in the world, but socially it's by far the most backward first world nation.
Of course, it's also trivially easy to find information on the health effects of legalizing abortion in the US itself.
Posted by: echidna
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April 19, 2010 6:52 AM
Skatje said:
I think there is one particular privilege which is almost taboo to examine: intelligence, of which Skatje has plenty. She assumes, as most of us do, that everyone is as intelligent as she is because anything different is, well, conceited.
To put yourself in the shoes of someone less intelligent than yourself is extremely difficult, because to do this you have to assume that you are smarter than other people - which is something that we are conditioned to consider arrogant.
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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April 19, 2010 6:58 AM
This is no different from the "It's YOUR fault" line, still blaming the woman because she played the game and got knocked up (lost her liver). Under your system, there isn't anything she can do about it; under ours, there is.
I still have to go over many of the comments, but getting back to what is "dehumanizing", I think, if you were talking about total abstinence from sex in that comment, that asceticism is what is dehumanizing so you would have it backwards. Ascetics continually pretend that they are not human, much in the same way Roman Catholic nuns and priests do. They live in a perpetual state of denial of self and sometimes denial of reality to attain their mystical goal. It takes all the fun out of life as a human.
Posted by: echidna
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April 19, 2010 6:59 AM
Just wanted to emphasise that I am not implying anything about any group of people, just wanting to point out that examining privilege is not trivial, even when you put great effort into it.
Posted by: Jason A.
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April 19, 2010 7:01 AM
skatje:
You seem to be hung up on this idea that sex carrying the possibility of childbirth is just the way it is, 'the rules'. It doesn't have to be. We make the rules. Your argument seems to hinge on the idea that there are some eternal, sacred 'rules' of nature that cannot be changed.
Exactly. Like, y'know, abortion.
I find this statement completely at odds with what I've quoted from you above, at least in a pragmatic sense. We obviously can overcome our own biology - that is what the whole discussion is about. But you think that particular solution is unacceptable? What I'm getting from this is you think it's wonderful to overcome our biology through asceticism, but dehumanising to overcome it through technology. Where is the difference? Why?
Having read all of the things you've posted in this thread, I don't think it's an entirely unfounded accusation. Of course you would think it's crazy, just as you would think it's crazy to accuse you of being blind to the effects of privilege on your views. That's the the really insidious thing about privilege, or sexism, or any other preconception: the people who are affected by them don't realize they're affected. They always think the accusations are crazy. That's what it means to be prejudiced: you views are skewed in a way you don't realize.
I don't actually know anything about you besides what I've read in this thread, so I'm not going to say you're definitely a slut-shamer or blind to your privilege. But I can certainly see how someone could come to that conclusion by reading this thread.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 19, 2010 7:01 AM
Echidna, it is more difficult, not less difficult, for intelligent people to feel entitled to assistance that less intelligent people take for granted, if only because more intelligent people are aware of their privilege in that respect and often ashamed to admit they are in the same predicament as less intelligent people. It is more, not less, difficult for intelligent people to receive help, because those who offer it believe that they're most charitable to give to the least deserving--they have the belief that those who have the capacity to dig themselves out of a hole must do so. It is more, not less, difficult for intelligent people to be at the mercy of their bodies in a situation that has nothing to do with how intelligent you are, only with how fertile you are. And it is more, not less, difficult for intelligent people to avoid be manipulated emotionally, because they are used to living on their wits and often lack heart-wisdom, especially when they are young people who have been correctly trained to consider their fine brains one of their finest assets.
Posted by: echidna
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April 19, 2010 7:09 AM
No argument with any of that, badgersdaughter.
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 19, 2010 7:11 AM
I also agree. But I do think it's a sidetrack.
What I'd like to understand is from people who believe an embryo or a fetus is a person, why do they think we should force a woman let that "person" use her body ungainst her will?
Do they also agree that if they were in a situation where a person was in dire need to use their body in order to survive, society should force them to allow that person to use their body?
If not, why is it different if that "person" is an embryo or a fetus? Why do we need to protect them and not other people in urgent survival needs?
I think a lot of the emotionality around the discussion about abortion comes from the fact that most people have a lot of difficulty telling what's a person from what's not, and not only because of religious myths. Of course it's a very difficult question, because there is no evident and consensual basis for a clear dividing line.
All I'm trying to understand why it matters.
Posted by: black-wolf72
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April 19, 2010 7:12 AM
(semi-OT) This is nice:
(article in German) German court orders bishop to shut up
http://archiv.c6-magazin.de/06/news/?neuigkeit=3503
The Berlin state court has ordered the bishop of Regensburg, Mr. Müller, to cease repeating, reiterating and spreading his allegations against the Humanist Union (HU). When the German secretary of justice, Mrs. Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, herself a member of the HU, had criticized the Catholic Church for their inadequate cooperation with the law a few weeks ago, Müller had lashed out verbally. His claims that the court order was issued against were that the HU regarded paedophilia as a "normal reality", and that they promoted an agenda of legalizing sexual conduct with minors.
Müller had also criticized atheism, saying that it offered no positions of orientation and ordering force, and that atheism had only been thought up to train people in irresponsibility and to thereby make them more ideologically manipulable.
When the court declared its decision, representatives of the HU clarified that they in no way advocated decriminalization of paedosexuality, but called for a rational and non-demonizing treatment of the offenders.
Posted by: JeffreyD
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April 19, 2010 7:15 AM
Post #544, First line: “Soooo many anecdotal sob stories.”
That may be the single most condescending, insensitive thing I have ever seen written on this blog by someone who was not obviously trying to be a troll of assholeroic proportions. What the fuck do you think human existence is except a series of stories? Sob stories are suspect, is that it? Someone who has had a bad life has no right to express an opinion, especially if it was their own fault? OK, yes, engaging in some hyperbole here, but I do find that phrase nasty, hateful, and rude. If you wanted to prove you were missing the points of people arguing with you, you could not have done a better job. If you wanted to prove you were more interested in your views of morality than the real world of those who make difficult choices, you nailed it with that line.
Spit! Nope, still have an unclean taste in the mouth.
JustALurker, please be less of a lurker and more of a regular. (smile)
Posted by: Pinkydead
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April 19, 2010 7:20 AM
@negentropyeater
Exactly, so there is point where we have qualms and a point where we don't.
And I don't believe there is a discreet transition from one to the other - it has to be gradual. (Unless, of course, you believe that it all happens in the last 5 minutes - which is clearly an absurd case.)
So to a certain extent we must all have "moral qualms" about this issue, that we weigh up against our sense of practicality. And though we might all have a different standard, it is merely obtuse to suggest that this is just vague "ickiness".
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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April 19, 2010 7:22 AM
I don't know about that.
What's the cost of raising the two to the same level of skills/usefulness/whatnot as the mother, compared to keeping the mother and losing the two? What's the cost of having an 18+ year gap in that time? What if they never reach her level of skills/usefulness/whatnot, even together?
Or am I misunderstanding the "net" in this?"
Besides the point. The point was that "Net destruction vs Gain" is just as 'meaningless' as "morals"
Posted by: JeffreyD
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April 19, 2010 7:23 AM
To be clear, I neither expect nor want a reply to my last post. Your opinions and reasoning are clear to me from your posts. I have posted my opinion in reply. Time for me to close this canker sore of a thread and not bother to come back.
Spit! Nope, mouth still tastes bad.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 19, 2010 7:24 AM
I think the answer often given (and given here by Skatje) is that the embryo is there just because the woman dared to have sex. Which again is slut shaming, and doesn't really hold up. If sex is the problem and embryos are the forced consequence, what about all the times that sex doesn't lead to pregnancy? Are those ok? It leads to the conclusion that man-man sex is ok, and woman-woman sex is ok, and man-woman sex is ok for the man, but man-woman sex for the woman is sometimes HA SUCKER YOU ASKED FOR IT! but sometimes not, and for some reason although we have defied our natural biology in every freaking way possible through modern medicine, somehow that one is off-limits.
JeffreyD - it's even more obnoxious given that she said that she would moderate her opinion in the case of rape and other situations in which the angst was strong enough to pass her own internal mental barrier. And then, given situations describing such angst, dismissed them as anecdotal sob stories. That doesn't give me much confidence that her barrier is low enough for anyone to pass by it.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 7:32 AM
JeffreyD:
Yes, it just oozes empathy and compassion, doesn't it.
Posted by: Jason A.
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April 19, 2010 7:33 AM
If we're going to talk about how an embryo has the 'potential' to create a sentient person, we might as well talk about how the sex act itself has the 'potential' to create a sentient person.
I understand, Skatje, that you have placed a dividing line somewhere in there, so that it is okay to 'abort' the potentiality of the sex act by using contraceptives, but not okay to abort the potentiality of the embryo. What I don't understand is how you came to make that distinction, or, more importantly, how you came to decide that it would be okay if everyone else were forced to abide by that distinction.
(Yes, I know you said you're not actively promoting making abortion illegal, but not minding if it becomes illegal is the same as not minding everyone being forced to comply.)
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 19, 2010 7:38 AM
Pinkydead,
Moral qualms about what issue? About what's a person or about whether we should force someone let another person use one's body against one's will? I understand "moral qualms" about the former, I understand why women who are confronted with the decision to let the fetus use their body or any other person in a situation of making a decision about whether to let someone in an urgent survival situation use their body have "moral qualms".
But I don't understand why anybody would have "moral qualms" about whether or not to force someone else do this against their will.
Please answer my questions in #636.
Posted by: Rutee, Shrieking Harpy of Dooooom
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April 19, 2010 7:47 AM
Oh good, going to sleep didn't stop people from nailing Skatje for the trap I set for her. Thanks for catching the turn around ("It's about the fetus' rights! No wait, that person didn't knowingly put it there so it's about the person's rights!"), folks.
Get an Ackbar, girl, they help.
So can you ethically defend slut shaming, or are you willing to change your mind on what other women /should/ be allowed to do? I don't care whether or not you're willing to, merely whether or not you're okay with other women exercising autonomy over their bodies?
There was a discussion on slacktivist's blog on this a few months ago, actually. The conclusion was that English lacks sufficient levels of meaning for bigot. We use the same word for everything, which generally means that when someone is being ignorant, we assign the same moral culpability as when someone is being a jackass. However, until that new word is made: Yeah, they're being racist. They're less blameworthy actors in it then the guy who shouts about niggers, but they're not blameless either.Posted by: KingUber
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April 19, 2010 7:49 AM
So hypothetically, if I could go back in time and kill you as an embryo, there would be nothing wrong with me doing that?
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 19, 2010 7:51 AM
I cried myself to sleep last night.
Going back and reading through the discussion I see there have been some excellent posts overall.
It's disheartening in a lot of ways to see skatje parroting so much anti-women crap without her realizing it. Especially as I really don't think she fully grasps exactly what she is saying.
Many wonderful people have dog-piled on the slut-shaming, the idea of the denial of the sexual for women and feeling like sex for women should come with a price. And yeah, it's really critical. I'm asexual, but 99% of humanity is sexual and the sexual urge for sexuals is something really important. Arguing that someone can just "forego" any hope of meeting it is a denial of full humanhood in no uncertain terms.
Plus, it reinfores traditional narratives that hinder full-and-informed consent and prevent women from fully understanding their sexuality and the right to free expression on par with men.
This is another way in which one cannot be anti-choice and pro-woman. The anti-choice position in every way blocks the free expression of a woman on the same par as a man and claims a sinfulness of sexuality with disproportionate punishment on the woman.
It's sad that someone presumably raised in a very feminist household seems to have stumbled into a raw sexism which would seek to deny women the full comfort of sexuality and that one raised with a full biology education would buy into unscientific sperm magic "baby at conception" ideas about reproduction.
And that's why I cried myself to sleep.
But, I also don't think Skatje has a clue exactly what she is arguing and I think this is where the arrogance and privilege comes in that many people had excellent posts knocking down.
Skatje may be a Kinsey 6 homosexual or a Kinsey X asexual, she may even be a he and a transman. But more likely than not, she'll be somewhere in the Kinsey 0-5 side of things and as such, presumably finds men sexually attractive and either has sex with them or would like to have sexual encounters with them in the future.
And Skatje doesn't seem to realize that her slut-shaming "sex has consequences, if you didn't want it, don't do it" would make every single sexual encounter she has with any boyfriends or one-night-stands potentially a life-sentence.
I don't fully think she appreciates the depth of what she is arguing women like she presumably is would have to do with their lives for 5, 10, 20, 80 years.
Say she'd be happy if she got knocked up at a critical point in her University or right before a critical job, even if there was absolutely no hope of paternal support. Is she happy never having sex again if she doesn't want to have a second child? Ever? Is she happy remaining sexually frustrated and trying to clear out the mental stresses that can build? And if she isn't ok with the first, is she really thinking she can avoid ever fulfilling her sexual desires with a partner she lusts for until allowing herself one and only one sexual encounter when she's planning to have a kid?
I don't know much about the sexual world, but I hear that kind of shit is really not easy on you, nor is it necessary. We have procedures now that if we didn't have such a women-hating sex-phobic culture would allow women to enjoy the similar freedoms a man does to enjoy sex on their own terms and plan when they want to have children. We have contraceptives, day-after pills, abortions.
But women have always been trained culturally to feel ashamed of their sexuality, to view their desires as "less important" compared to men, and that it is natural that all the "punishment" for "giving into sin" should fall onto them.
Secularizing those messages does not mean the same as not internalizing them. That's why we call it internalized sexism.
I hope that Skatje's views change with experience. If she is like most sexually-active heterosexual women, the simplistic ideology will quickly fall apart at the first inconveniently timed pregnancy scare.
Because she apparently has no idea exactly what she is arguing for herself and all sexually active women who are attracted to men.
Penetrative sex shouldn't be a one-way life-sentence for women.
And if antis want to continue arguing with that slut-shaming, then I'm more than willing to pass a law banning the dangerous act of penetrative sex, arguing that men must instead use strap-ons or face 10-20 years in prison for potential endangerment unless both parties are deliberately trying to procreate.
But yeah, depressing thread, but great comments. Kudos to everyone who fought. There have been some fantastic Molly-worthy comments on this thread.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 7:55 AM
KingUber @ 647:
Who are you addressing?
Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere
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April 19, 2010 7:57 AM
Only if the issue is discussed in a vacuum. Take an abstract form of the argument and all you're ever doing is conforming to an ideal not present in reality. Put the question in a greater context and all moral qualms go away - at least for me.Posted by: John Morales
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April 19, 2010 7:58 AM
KingUber:
First, that's not a hypothetical, since it could not possibly occur; it's a fantasy.
Second, do you think any embryos are reading your comment? If so, you're just being silly; if not, killing an embryo is not killing any "you"s reading your post.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 19, 2010 7:59 AM
There sure as hell would be if the woman surrounding the embryo doesn't want you to. What is it with making the woman disappear? :(
Would you mind if I used that argument from here to eternity? Because that's a fantastic way of putting it.
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 19, 2010 7:59 AM
But any person in urgent survial need is there because the mother (and the father) dared to have sex. Does that mean we should force parents donate their Kidney to their offspring if that's required for their survival.
If people like Skatje make that argument against abortion, they should also argue that parental organ donation should be required by law. Actually, maybe we should force the father first as the mother was already forced to donate her body in the past.
Posted by: Rutee, Shrieking Harpy of Dooooom
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April 19, 2010 7:59 AM
Does my mother approve of you doing so? If so, then fine. If not, then no.
She's pretty hard catholic, so she'd mind, a lot. But that's besides the point, because it's her decision, not yours.
Honestly, it'd save me a lot of trouble right now.
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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April 19, 2010 8:01 AM
Injecting some Star Trek into this, Worf (the Klingon) actually chose to let a person die rather than save that person with some sort of transfusion. Nobody tried to force Worf to save the life though they implored him to do so and could have taken that option, and nobody held him responsible for the death. Of course, from the point of view of the people making the story, that was supposed to be an alien moral action, but even so, the humans remained pro-choice.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 19, 2010 8:05 AM
Kingtroll @647
If you "killed me" as an embryo, I wouldn't have been around then so it wouldn't really matter.
And this would be all the way back to my comment @48, argument #3.
Yeah, thinking about never existing gives us all existential anxiety on a philosophical level. If I was aborted then I would have never been. But I like existing.
The thing is there would never be a you to not like existing if you never existed, you'd just never existed.
However, the time-traveling thought experiment is designed to trigger all the existential anxiety we have about dying. Being killed. We are emotionally trained then to dump that baggage on a theoretically potential you.
This seems especially potent for people who strongly suspect that their mothers may not have chosen them or fully wanted them. It's sort of a fuck you, mom, I'm glad I existed at your expense.
I think that's kind of sick. I wouldn't want to exist by causing my mother that level of pain. Hell, my partner probably would have had her very real life come to an ignoble end if her mother hadn't had an abortion. She was being raised on starvation rations already and her mother was heavily emotionally compromised already, so trying to have that second child probably would have killed her mother and potentially her as well, possibly in "mommy's taking her babies to the angels now" fashion.
Death is scary and as most science-fiction fans know, thinking about not-existing is scary as well. But the thing to realize is that generalized anxiety about theoreticals does not trump real people, real lives, and the very real biology behind abortion. Even if we were to ignore the substantial fact that no one has a right to another's body without consent, even to live. It is the case that a fetus is in no way comparable to an existing child and until VERY late on (in fact most of it grows and develops after birth) there is no brain and no even potentiality of a consciousness of any form.
If you were aborted, you wouldn't have cared, because you would never have had a consciousness that could be sad about not existing. But the trick of it is that emotional existential anxiety is a bitch to shake off so the reality of that is difficult to penetrate.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 8:08 AM
Cerberus:
We also have sterilization. Or should have, anyway. I started seeking sterilization when I was 17. (This was before I discovered women sexually.) I cannot begin to tell you the amount of condescending asses I had to deal with, all the pats on the head, all the "oh, you don't know your own mind, of course you want kids, come back when you're 35, after you've had children" lines, all the "*chuckles* you aren't even married yet, dear" crap, etc. These same doctors didn't blink twice if a pregnant 15 year old landed in their office.
*Yes, I know a certain percentage of women change their mind about sterilization. This does not excuse treating all women like idiots who couldn't possibly know their own mind.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 19, 2010 8:10 AM
Carlie @652
Please please do.
Also, yes, yes, a thousand times yes to your first response to the troll. I didn't go into that in my response to them, but yeah, the whole thing about abortion is basically, minimize the women involved and pretend they don't exist or aren't affected or that the womb is a sort of extradimensional object with little connection to the mother. It seems the only time the pregnant woman is acknowledged is as part of a "women suck because they are so stupid" or "sluts need to keep their legs shut" sort of argument.
Posted by: windy
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April 19, 2010 8:13 AM
This is what I was getting at in #565, but you said it much better.
I wonder how different attitudes towards the termination of pregnancy would be in a world where reabsorption of fetuses was more common in humans (and perhaps could be intentionally triggered from the outside). The moral issues should theoretically be the same, but I suspect people's intuitions about the "rules" would be very different.
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 19, 2010 8:16 AM
I don't think arguing for the legality of abortion means arguing for the legality of anybody (that includes yourself) forcing an abortion on a woman against her will.
So obviously the answer to your perfectly stupid question is NO.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 19, 2010 8:18 AM
Caine @657
True. I didn't really mention that, because I don't think a fertile hetero or bisexual woman should only have two choices if she wants to have sex that of never having children ever or having no real control over when they have children and risking it every time they have penetrative sex.
And the thing is even with sterilization, we end up needing the emergency options. Someone's tubes untie and suddenly that "we're in a closed relationship and we don't need to use contraception" turns into a "what the fuck" sort of deal.
But back to your point, yes, sterilization is definitely on the list of things we have as humans to better control reproduction and gives great freedom of thought to those who either do not want children ever or those who do not want any more children than those they already have.
Posted by: Rutee, Shrieking Harpy of Dooooom
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April 19, 2010 8:19 AM
FFFFFFFFFfffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccckkkkk that makes me angrier then I was from learning other things. Those people are SO ANNOYING. Doubly so when they're family -.-
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 19, 2010 8:22 AM
#660, I meant, the answer is NO, there would be something clearly wrong with that
Posted by: Pinkydead
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April 19, 2010 8:29 AM
@negentropyeater
The former, as per the original challenge in #147.
As for #636. I agree with everything you say. But I think you are creating a strawman there.
I haven't seen anyone (long thread though) suggesting that you don't have the right to control your body. See #102 for example.
Posted by: John Morales
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April 19, 2010 8:31 AM
Cerberus,
Winner.
Posted by: Dianne
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April 19, 2010 8:32 AM
Skatje (and anyone else who's interested), may I direct your attention to post #375? I'd like to see your response to this situation.
At its heart, your argument seems to be that withdrawl of consent is not valid (please correct me if I'm misinterpreting what you wrote). A person can consent to taking the risk of pregnancy or not, but once the pregnancy is established-whether intentional or not-they can not withdraw their consent and discontinue the pregnancy. Currently, the usual ethical statement in medicine is that the patient has the right to withdraw their consent at any time. Also in law-if a person changes his or her mind about having sex, even after sexual contact has been initiated, the other partner does not have the right to force him or her to continue. Why do you believe that the rules should be different in pregnancy? Or do you think that the rules should be different all around: that withdrawl of consent is an invalid concept?
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 19, 2010 8:34 AM
Also that by negentropyeater @660
Pro-choice means that a woman is allowed to carry a wanted fetus to term and childhood without someone trying to force an abortion on her and an unwanted fetus can be aborted from leeching her body without her being forced to bring it to term and have that 9 months of hell ruining her life.
And I think this again highlights the undercutting rage that is part of this. A lot of men in particular seem angered that they have so little control over reproduction. That it really is all the woman doing it and that it's really hers and only her decision whether or not she wants to carry it to term or not.
They want some way to reach in and impose their mark, either by demanding the right to get rid of it (I could go back in time and stab the fetus like you stabbed me in the cock by saying I'm mostly ancillary to reproduction) or by demanding she bring it to term against her will (yeah, see how haughty you are about being the bringer of life now bitch now that I dictate when and how my precious seed will erupt and how it's dealt with).
A lot of it is residual cultural anger from the patriarchy about women no longer being property. It is a very recent development and culturally there are many pockets even here in America where women and children are very much considered property of the "man of the house". Some men seem unable to handle the fact that women are full people and that they aren't toys to play around with.
And some women by internalized sexism are willing to go along with this patriarchy for the illusion of being "better than those women" in some way.
Posted by: Dianne
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April 19, 2010 8:39 AM
So hypothetically, if I could go back in time and kill you as an embryo, there would be nothing wrong with me doing that?
Yes, there is, but not what you think: If you went back in time and killed the embryo that would eventuallly form me because I annoyed you then you would have violated causality. Very bad behavior. The same as if you prevented my parents from having sex at just the right moment to conceive the blastulocyte that became me. Both are equivalent acts and I'd really prefer you did neither, but not wanting you to prevent my conception does not mean that I'm pro-continuous orgies to produce as many offspring as possible.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 19, 2010 8:45 AM
Also to negentropyeater @660
The "you're not even married types" or "why aren't you married types" are really annoying.
The asexual community almost has as many horror stories of that crap as the more general feminist community, because for aromantic asexuals, they aren't really wanting to fall in love and have no other desires to punt them towards marriage, but they almost get attacked by strangers about it. "Why aren't you marrying? What's wrong with you? God wants you to marry and reproduce. You'll think differently when you have children." Like it's an affront that a group of people somewhere may not want to have kids.
Personally, it's kind of apparent we have a population crisis. Thus, I'm cheered by people who naturally decide to abstain from having kids, because allowing people with this natural inclination is a very natural, women's choice-centric way to lower the amount of unwanted children and the amount of population growth.
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 19, 2010 8:55 AM
Pinkydead,
Well I still don't get what you were trying to say in your comment #602 then...
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 19, 2010 9:02 AM
Cerberus,
I don't understand what you mean...
Posted by: Deen
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April 19, 2010 9:03 AM
Except of course for the right to stop your body from being pregnant.Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD)
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April 19, 2010 9:04 AM
This.
Posted by: Dianne
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April 19, 2010 9:12 AM
But the definition of where life begins is fuzzy
No, it's not. Life began in the precambrian and has come from non-life since then. What is uncertain is when consciousness begins. The available evidence suggests that the answer is probably long after birth. Babies don't pass the mirror test until about 12-18 months of age. Which is not to say that infanticide is ok: of course, it's not, if only because the newborn is an independent life and not living parasititcally off another person.
Nor is a fetus just a newborn in another place. The fetus lives in a low oxygen environment which might prevent consciousness from existing, even assuming that the neurons and axonal/dendritic connections for forming consciousness are present. Which they may not be. So saying that life (ie independent life with rights) begins at birth is actually a fairly conservative position. And the position most consistent with current ethical thinking. Why should pregnancy be different?
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 19, 2010 9:13 AM
negrentropyeater @671
Sorry, I put it poorly. I was basically adding on to what you said regarding the annoying "but you're not married and you may want kids someday" pushers.
More critically, the thing you're personal experience is the most like?
The bs surrounding getting a transition. All of these steps, unnecessary psychological appointments and having your gender deemed "real" by the official say-so of a doctor working off bad Harry Benjamin protocols about what a woman and a man are, because "Oh noes, you might change your mind, we need to make extra, double-plus sure because it's so likely that you're making a huge mistake".
Nope, women gotta remain fertile and trans people need to stay locked in bodies they hate because there might maybe could possibly be a chance you'd change your mind if we just delay it out.
Moving that to the abortion debate, the current assaults on abortion access are all about that, delaying when a woman can access an abortion clinic in the hopes that the delays will somehow change her mind or otherwise make it "too late".
This would be medical paternalism, of course.
Posted by: Deen
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April 19, 2010 9:27 AM
As well as requiring the woman to make multiple trips and take multiple days off from work. For many women, that means they effectively have no access to abortion anymore.Posted by: Stibbons
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April 19, 2010 9:30 AM
Oh, this is a tricky one. I am pro-choice. But someone already stated that it was a sliding scale of uneasiness with it and, well, yeah. Pro-choice, but that choice always has to be informed and I recognise that for some individuals, due to medical, mental, societal or financial reasons (bad or good) the only choice they feel they have is to abort. I value life, but a cell is not a human being, an early term embryo is not a human being, a wasp I swat is a more complex and viable organism but I have no qualms about killing that. However I would not like the job of deciding when, during a pregnancy, abortion ceases to be an option, and when it can still be carried out.
Not every culture has been so squeamish...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/2WTs7ZsrpIHTKihob3v2es8wEMG7Mmo-#60d8b
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April 19, 2010 9:34 AM
Oops, sorry I misgendered you Ol'Greg, it was not intentional, just a sloppy result of assuming from your name.
On the 'five minutes before birth' issue, like Thompson said in the article I linked to, it is the right to terminate a pregnancy that is absolute, if it can be done without fetal fatality, that's perfectly acceptable. Thompson's position would be that the woman always retains the right to remove the fetus from her body, but after there is a chance for viability, barring health and other factions, induction or c-section should be the preferred removal method. If the fetus can survive outside the womb, by all means it may do so without further imposition on the woman's body. (Also, as a practical matter, five minutes before delivery is too late to prepare for anything but delivery in terms of removal and too late for induction meds to really get the fetus out any quicker).
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 19, 2010 9:39 AM
Stibbons @677
Which is why the best method is to leave each woman to decide that for herself, educate the public about what a fetus is and is not with real scientific data, and fully fight for feminism and greater cultural equality for women so she is more and more treated as a full human being.
Your link to infanticide has no relevance to any of that or even the abortion debate at all. If a person wants to give up the rights of parenthood of a specific child they can do so and if they fail to prove competence that endangers the child, the government can take them away.
This again, has nothing to do with a fetus being developed with toll on the woman's body by the woman's body, especially when consent has been withdrawn.
I think birth is a fabulous compromise of when to mark the independent humanity. But even if we tried to push back humanity, there is no way we should be granting "potential life" greater rights than those given to actual living people.
And the reason we do so gets at the heart of the ideas of "innocent" and "fallen world" that permeate even our secular culture as well as the more generalized misogyny and dismissal of the humanity and bodily autonomy of women only.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkZ6bud_2OWnH4ya1KYZ-QpvDKkqP4LTac
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April 19, 2010 9:40 AM
Gingerbaker @561 - rape is invasion. So the Smith/Jones analogy holds in the case of a pregnancy by rape. So abortion is ok in the case of rape? And by the way, sex is not an invitation to pregnancy if one takes precautions that fail.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 19, 2010 10:01 AM
googlename @680
Pregnancy isn't consented to if one didn't consent to being impregnated and just like someone can withdraw consent during sex if it isn't working for them, they should be able to withdraw consent during pregnancy.
It isn't just, did they use precautions. The very act of seeking an abortion is pretty much a clear sign the pregnancy is not being consented to, nor the impregnation.
We make precautions as available as they are to limit the amount of unwanted pregnancies by giving more options to prevent unwanted fertilization and implantation so that an unwanted pregnancy does not occur, but when it does occur it should be freely available cause, yeah, consent has been withdrawn. All those in the womb must vacate with all post haste.
Posted by: Chgo_Liz
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April 19, 2010 10:13 AM
And yet, when some of us who were unwanted fetuses unwillingly brought to term come into this discussion to talk about what we've experienced as a direct result of anti-choice laws, our life experience is discounted/ignored/insulted by Skatje.
Toying with theoretical ideas that end in denying human rights to women *and* the unwanted babies they are forced to carry is doubly wrong, ignorant, immoral, unethical...pick an adjective.
Posted by: Cath the Canberra Cook
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April 19, 2010 10:16 AM
Oh dear. My great grandmother and a great-aunt died because abortion was illegal. But that's just a meaningless sob story, right? As is the story of my grandmother, who got pulled out of school, aged 13, to be the carer for her five siblings, because her mother was dead. Anecdotes are such dull things compared to abstract ethical speculation, aren't they?
I'd like to think that sort of thing was all in the past, at least in the first world... and yes, I am very much reminded of the anti-vacc people who have never seen polio or pertussis.
Posted by: eleusis
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April 19, 2010 10:35 AM
PZ wrote:
if you have reached the conclusion that a fetus at age X is an individual, some reasonable approximation of a human being, then the argument about the woman's autonomy doesn't matter -- you don't get to kill a person simply because they are dependent on another individual, their mother.
Yet that misses the point that so many others were making, that the personhood status of the fetus is irrelevant, because you don't have the right to use another person's body, even if you will die as a result. Imagine that you are the only compatible organ donor for someone on the verge of death. They do not have the right to force you to undergo an operation and make the organ donation.
Imagine a more hypothetical situation, where someone could only live if they physically attached themselves to your body. Without getting your permission, you wake up one morning to find that they HAVE physically attached themselves to your body. You would have every right to remove them, even if it meant that they would die. That is the case with fetuses.
Posted by: somewhereingreece
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April 19, 2010 10:54 AM
JeffreyD:
Quoted For Truth.
I mean seriously. The stories recounted are not (sadly) rare occurrences, but they are heart-wrenching nonetheless.
You are a vegetarian due to some empathy with animals. Yet when some of your own species bare their wounds, instead of showing, if not compassion, then at least common courtesy, you wave off the painful life experiences of people who have suffered in the past and perhaps still do. And, according to your first post, this is not how you were raised.
The thought that someone as callous and uncompassionate as you has a right to vote fills me with dread, as you are demonstrably unfit to be part of any societal decision-making process. For if you had the slightest bit of any decent attribute, you would have humbly apologised to Ol'Greg and czgo_liz and everyone else who had to suffer for hurting their feelings and thank profusely Caine, Fleur du mal, and everyone like her for their efforts to stand by women during what is always a trying time.
Congratulations Skatje Myers. You managed to elevate yourself from most smackable person in the blog to Most Smackable Person In The Internet. I hope you enjoy your title in whatever fantasy land you live in and that unicorns don't eat your rose bushes.
PS: Oh, and something else, MSPITI. I see your "fuck off" and I raise you double. I had more empathy and compassion for unwanted children and suffering pregnant women at less than *half* your age, when I was still a pious and sanctimonious little shit who believed that only "bad" girls have sex outside of marriage (of which belief I eventually recovered before 19, mind you). So far the only thing you have achieved is how proud you are of being irrelevant to the human condition.
Posted by: Yubal
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April 19, 2010 11:11 AM
@ Deen #362
That is exactly what moral is supposed to be. Selfishness. Morales are self-righteous, any attempt to expand then to the entire society will eventually fail on our individual diversity.
That is correct, but also, women are supposed to choose the partner based on their judgment of the genetic information before they receive it. That is the major obligation of the female in breeding and also a major drive in evolution.
Female -> Only pick the worthy male for pregnancy is resource expensive.
Male -> Pick every mate possible.
I did not say that. You can not own a fetus or a child. A fetus IS part of the female body with the inherent property to develop in a child. I would always give it a chance, that is what I said. What other options do I have in this society than offering a bribe? I can not force her to go through this process.
I am enlisted for bone-marrow donation. Which means I might need go through a short but very unpleasant procedure without rewards in order to 'maybe' save someones life I do not know. I can refuse the procedure if I do change my mind when the situation comes up. I guess if the particular patient would know my name, he/she or the patient's family would try to bribe me into that procedure, too. Don't you think?
Posted by: frog, Inc.
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April 19, 2010 11:16 AM
JillianSwift: Abortion is not a tragedy, abortion prevents tragedy.
Ahh, this assumption that abortions are 99% of the time by young girls, drunks, and child abusers.
It's assumed on both sides, when the reality is that families often have abortions under more difficult conditions. They often want the child, but realize that they simply don't have the resources, that the timing would be detrimental to currently existing children, that you are too old, and so on.
So often it is a tragedy, but also prevents a tragedy. Life is complicated like that. We are often stuck on the horns of a dilemma.
So, you end up sad that you couldn't raise another child -- that you had to be practical and minimize harm, rather than maximize the good.
Being finite is a tragedy -- the tragedy of existence. It is also what makes our choices so valuable, our lives heroic in a sense.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 19, 2010 11:23 AM
Ah balls, I just figured out why negentropyeater was so confused at 671, the original comment and my follow-up was actually going off Caine at 657 and I got a brain-fart on the names and the numbers.
Does studying Alzheimer's actually cause Alzheimer's?
Anyways, apologies to both negentropyeater and Caine for the confusion.
Posted by: Azkyroth
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April 19, 2010 11:39 AM
Dunno if this point was addressed (and ain't gonna read through to find out) but...
even assuming the embryo WAS a person, why would this legitimize essentially enslaving another person for a minimum of nine months in order for it to use the second person's body to keep itself alive? Would anti-choicers also argue that people who refuse to donate organs be compelled by law to do so?
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 19, 2010 11:45 AM
Apparently, only if they had sex with the person who needed the organ first.
Posted by: Ibis3, féministe avec un titre française de fantaisie
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April 19, 2010 11:46 AM
@678
With the medical technology we have this is not a theoretical "5 minutes before birth" nonsensical scenario. Very much undeveloped foetuses/neonates can be kept alive through extensive medical intervention. Are you suggesting that if a woman is 23 or 24 weeks pregnant when she decides to terminate, that she should be forced to give birth and have the preterm neonate hooked up to machines to keep it alive? Despite the suffering of the infant, the possible brain damage, incomplete development, cerebral palsy etc.? Not to mention the fact that you'd be forcing her to become a parent with all the responsibilities of supporting and raising this child for the rest of its life? or putting her in the position to have to adopt it out (& what are the chances of that happening successfully given the aforementioned medical complications)?
This is a nightmare scenario if I've ever heard one.
Sorry, even if the foetus is viable, it's still all right for the woman to have an abortion and terminate the foetus. In the real world (especially one where there are no bars to abortion), it would be a rare thing indeed for a healthy woman to say "let me carry this healthy foetus until it's nearly fully developed (i.e. 36-40 weeks) and then I'll terminate the pregnancy with an unpleasant medical procedure".
Posted by: craig.mcgillivary
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April 19, 2010 11:46 AM
PZ should read Peter Singer's Practical Ethics and Animal Liberation. The thing is that a newborn baby has less cognitive abilities than an adult pig. The problem with the pro-life position isn't that they claim that a fetus is a human being. Its that they claim it is a person and then don't make similar moral claims about animals. Moreover there are many cases where infanticide is justified such as when a baby is born without a brain stem or with other severe disabilities. Its definitely true that we ultimately have to draw the line somewhere arbitrary, but we have to base it on the morally relevant characteristics of the being and not insist on a superior status for beings of our species. I also don't think men can extract ourselves from discussions about where these lines should be drawn.
Posted by: Deen
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April 19, 2010 11:55 AM
@Azkyroth in #689: don't worry, it was only brought up a dozen or so times ;)
Posted by: Dianne
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April 19, 2010 12:02 PM
Moreover there are many cases where infanticide is justified such as when a baby is born without a brain stem
If you mean anencephaly, that's not infanticide, that's organ donation. No brain activity=dead.
Posted by: Ibis3, féministe avec un titre française de fantaisie
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April 19, 2010 12:03 PM
@myself #691
I feel compelled to add that, as far as I'm concerned, the woman has the right to abortion even at the unlikely 36-40 week mark. Her legal responsibility as a parent begins at the same time as the father's: after she gives birth. Until then, the foetus is, for all intents and purposes part of her own body to do with as she wills (or a parasite if you prefer).
Posted by: Rutee, Shrieking Harpy of Dooooom
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April 19, 2010 12:06 PM
Wow, I just realized the "Anecdotal sob stories comment" was from Skatje.
Listen, you stupid twit, your argument is entirely theoretical and emotional. You have not submitted one iota of evidence. You have not provided even one shred of empirical fact that supports your position (For instance, that the children that go into adoption are generally happy, not miserable, or are well cared for, etc). You do not get the right to go "OMG ANECDOTES" at the side that has had the courtesy to provide empirical evidence in support of their points.
Posted by: Dianne
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April 19, 2010 12:07 PM
don't worry, it was only brought up a dozen or so times ;)
Brought up, yes. Responded to, no. Keep bringing it up until you get an answer or the thread dies of bloat.
Posted by: Deen
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April 19, 2010 12:08 PM
@craig.mcgillivary:
Actually, no we don't. There is no reason to impose some arbitrary line and expect it to apply to everyone. We can and should evaluate abortions on a case by case basis, with the ultimate decision resting with the mother, as she is the one taking all the risks. Incidentally, that's also how most abortion laws appear to be structured in practice.
Posted by: Aquaria
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April 19, 2010 12:15 PM
Man, does adoption NOT exist?
This is how we know you are young and thus completely unaware of certain realities that your privileged middle-class life post-Roe v Wade has protected you from.
Before Roe v. Wade, orphanages were both more abundant and more populated than they are now, probably millions of children in them at any given time, and not even 1% of the orphans were adopted. Roe v Wade made orphanages less of a blight on the landscape. But they will return with a vengeance if abortion ever becomes illegal again. There simply aren't enough adoptive parents to meet the supply of babies that would flood the market, dooming children to a very mean existence.
And for what? Abortion will never go away. Not entirely. Like it or not, women will get raped, forget birth control, have birth control fail, get abandoned by a man, fall for the wrong kind of man, lose their heads over a man, and have complications with pregnancies that will make many of them turn to abortion by any means necessary to rid themselves of an unwanted pregnancy. These realities will never change, and expecting that any of it will is both deluded and dangerous.
As for what happens when abortion is illegal, nothing needs to be said but this.
Look at that image long and hard, skatje.
That is what happens when abortion is illegal. That is what your ideal would result in. That's why it's an ideal--it's usually not possible in reality, and would cause horrific suffering if it were. Wanting abortion illegal definitely results in the latter.
Out here in reality, ideals about wielding pregnancy as a weapon against women who get ideas about being sexual will literally kill women who are mothers, daughters, sisters, cousins and friends. And when they die, they usually take with them the unborn you deem somehow superior to living breathing women. And superior the unborn are to you, because you care more about their rights than you do about the rights of the living, breathing women pregnant with them. That's why you are sexist, and all your obfuscating and denial won't change that.
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes
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April 19, 2010 12:19 PM
Of course there is. It would be a violation of the Temporal Prime Directive. In other words, Star Fleet would have your ass on a silver platter.
Posted by: Dianne
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April 19, 2010 12:28 PM
Star Fleet would have your ass on a silver platter.
Unless, of course, preventing the birth of the hypothetical person prevented Star Fleet from ever forming...
Posted by: smsprite
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April 19, 2010 12:30 PM
Being in my mid-30s I am realizing that I don't understand the generation that is younger than I. I've had students declare to me that they are pro-abortion when they tell me about debating abortion at school. I will smile and say, "don't you mean pro-choice" and they almost always look at me like I've sprouted a second head and say, "No... I'm 100% pro-abortion!" I'm positive they really don't know what that means.
Then there are those that are apathetic to the debate. The whole, "*I'd* never do it, but I'm not going to stand in the way of it becoming illegal." Like anyone really knows what they would or would not do when actually IN the situation of being pregnant unexpectedly. This group bothers me more than the pro-lifers. At least the pro-lifer brand of bat-shit craziness is identifiable.
I think that this next generation is very far removed from Roe vs. Wade and what things were like prior to that time. This detachment to the issue is changing the dynamics of the debate. That's their grandparent's time. I, myself, only have knowledge of that time from my mother's generation - those women that fought very hard for equal rights.
To them I would ask what would they hope for their daughters or grand-daughters in the future? Should they be not granted the privledge of control over their own bodies because YOU were too lazy to care whether or not abortion was legal or not? And let's not forget, those that would ban abortion also want to ban ANY form of birth control and stood firmly against the shot for cervical cancer prevention. Would you wish that on any future daughters of yours too? Because when the one falls, it will start a very slippery slope for the others also. We can't let the nutty pro-life movement have that momentum.
As an aside, while participating in the Planned Parenthood Solidarity Event on Good Friday this year (my first year participating in this counter protest) I was so proud when I overheard a woman in her SUV that was passing us telling her young children (looked like 2 girls and a boy between the ages of 5 - 10), "those women are out there standing up for your rights." Damn straight! I'll be out there next year too!
Posted by: MaxH
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April 19, 2010 1:11 PM
"Also, some people are 'uneasy' about the whole abortion thing. Fine; don't get one. Your personal feelings of yuckiness shouldn't be a factor in deciding what other people do. "
It's obviously not as simple as that. Like you said, the line is fuzzy as to when life begins.
So would you rather err on the side of protecting human life or destroying it?
And that decision isn't just for me. If our current law was more heavily influenced by religion, and the law said that a newborn didn't have a soul (and therefore life worth protecting) until the eighth day, would you nod and smile if they said, "Make your decision for yourself - we'll continue to retroactively abort on the third day after birth."
No, you'd call it wrong and work to stop the murder.
Posted by: Katharine
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April 19, 2010 1:16 PM
Shit, folks, just... shit.
Skatje, I'm frankly ashamed I ever had any respect for you now that you come out with something like what you've come out with.
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 19, 2010 1:23 PM
I'm probably not going to comment too much more here, since it's gotten so far away from what I was originally saying.
Do I feel sympathy for your great-grandmother, or grandmother? Yes. What has happened is tragic. Would I have supported preventing them from obtaining an abortion? Likely not.
Do I feel sympathy for you, who's simultaneously using your confession of personal information as a right to make condescending jabs at my personal life? Not so much.
I respect the people in your stories, but I see no reason to respect you. You're right that I wouldn't be disowned for getting pregnant. But you don't know me. You don't know what I can empathise with, you don't know who I know personally who may have similar stories. You are being awfully presumptuous.
(This is applying to the condescending jackasses, not to everyone. I was being pissy at aforementioned people, and apologise that some kinder people got caught in my fantastic blanket statementing.)
Also, the idea that I need to provide "evidence", because my argument is all theory, is rather silly. Sorry, no, this is going to come down to a philosophical debate. I can't give you a statistic on why I find it important to value fetuses, or value adult humans, for that matter.
--
To make my point clearer, let's say there was an election. One candidate was saying he would outlaw abortion. The other candidate was saying he would fix the adoption system, and/or put better sex education in schools, and/or, give out free contraceptives. This would be an easy choice. I care far more about those things and lowering abortion rates that way than to straight outlaw it. If that still offends you, by all means, keep crying.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 19, 2010 1:25 PM
Sorry, your question is inane. It is between the fetus and the human being. Her humanity you cannot be denied in any fashion. Stand across the street and take a photo of the alleged human being you are trying to save. I bet you will only see the woman. Saving her may require an abortion...Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 1:26 PM
@703
The example doesn't stand because once the child is born it can be cared for by any other human being. That would be considered infanticide and no way that would stand up especially based on something as nonexistent as a "soul". This point as been made before but let me reiterate, the fetus is not a person and even if it was no fucking person on the plant has the right to use my body to survive without my permission. My body, my right, my permission. period. I don't have to save another life by donated organs if it makes me "uneasy" but that doesn't mean I have the right to restrict others from doing so. Thats their body, their organs, their choice. Read the thread others have said it better and there's so much there to help educate you.
And no by having sex I did not give the embryo the right to form and implant. If you are so worried about life of an embryo, how about all the unknown miscarriages that happen simply because they didn't implant?
I apologize if I am overly sensitive, defensive, taking it out on you or whatthefuckever. But if you read the thread you will understand why, I'm tired of hearing this bull.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 19, 2010 1:34 PM
Protecting, of course, which is why women should be allowed to get abortions. Unless you don't consider women to be human life?
Posted by: dahduh
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April 19, 2010 1:44 PM
YEE HAH!
Stand back everyone and applaud. Dry your eyes, Cerberus, and celebrate. Where else will you find a (mostly) civilized debate on such an issue? Where do reasonable and rational people to arrive at different conclusions to challenge your own views? Where can the Farmer's Daughter write "learn to enjoy oral sex more" and at the same time be identified a _slut shamer_?
Pharyngula, that's where!
(And you're wrong, Skatje! Where the line is fuzzy, as you admit, you have to allow personal choice; to some a fetus is simply not human and you have yet to advance an argument on this point. Child abuse or murder on the other hand is not fuzzy. Of course we can impose our will on others in such a case, in defense of a victim who to whom the principle of reciprocity clearly applies.)
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 19, 2010 1:48 PM
I think it's rather pointless to try to protect a human life from the decisions of the one person who's capable of nurturing that life. Those resources could be used elsewhere.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 19, 2010 1:49 PM
What people have been telling you for seven hundred comments is that it is not philosophical so much as directly tied to hundreds of thousands of deaths of actual women, in addition to eliminating the basic rights of millions more. But hey, if you want to think it's just philosophical, knock yourself out. Your position doesn't bother me nearly as much as the fact that you absolutely refuse to consider any information that disagrees with your position. I don't know if it's embarrassed self-defense or a falsely gained sense of superiority that's causing it, but that's a stunning and disappointing display of willful ignorance.
Posted by: Anodyne
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April 19, 2010 1:51 PM
If we exclude people who oppose abortion only because they are ill-informed or their opinion is based on emotions instead of actual facts, what we have left is those who object strictly on religious grounds. When we generalize and look at what they believe as a whole, there is a glaring dichotomy. They are “pro-life”, but drop that stance once that life is assigned a social security number. They oppose not only the widespread use of birth control, but even teaching about it. They object to social welfare programs. They support the death penalty. (etc.ad nauseum…) Despite their claims to the contrary, they really don’t care about human beings. What everything boils down to is innocence. (read: lack of sin).
Some denominations** believe there is an age of accountability, before which one cannot be spiritually punished for any sins committed. Just about everyone else believes (as is stated in the bible) that upon birth, progeny automatically inherit the sins of their fathers and are thus accountable. [*gasps in horror* I just came to the startling conclusion that if there really is a hell (pffffft), it’s filled with screaming infants & toddlers. Terrifying. /digression…]
When we take into consideration this issue of innocence, the dichotomies make sense:
Innocent
Zygotes
Embryos
Fetuses
Not Innocent
Anyone that has ever had sex—ESPECIALLY those tramps and whores that some refer to as women. (Nearly as bad as the tramps: Anyone that has so much as even considered non-procreative, non-standard heterosexual sex.)
Babies, children, etc.
Soldiers
Convicts
Drug users
Single mothers (see: tramps and whores)
Anyone that is not employed
Anyone that does not have sufficient health insurance coverage
Every other living thing on this planet
Special Circumstances
Anything involving MY uterus
Anything involving my teenage daughter’s uterus
“[I’m/She’s] not a whore, just a person that made a mistake and is now in a very special and complicated situation that no person anywhere in the entire world has ever been in; therefore, I’m not going to hell for this even though those disgusting sluts I scream at every Friday in front of the Planned Parenthood clinic are.”
With this worldview, the mindset of “Even though I knew I had a serious life-threatening condition before I became pregnant, I would rather die and leave my 3 young children alone with an abusive father than abort this fetus that won’t even make it to term because I’ll be dead before the third trimester.” makes sense. She herself is not innocent, her husband obviously is not, and neither are their children. But the fetus…the innocent fetus…
Excuse me while I vomit.
**disclaimer: While I have no desire to give the Bible any sort of factual relevancy outside of its historical standing as a work(s) of literature, we still need to consider it when trying to understand the motives of this anti-women’s rights demographic. If we can’t address the real motives, then we’re going to have even more difficulty changing anyone’s mind.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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April 19, 2010 1:53 PM
"This is getting rather far off topic, but... the guinea worm?? Idiotic. You don't think this has any negative effects on fitness?"
Insults, nice. I said the rational for the Carter eradication programs is that it doesn't reduce reproductive rates. It reduces quality of life but doesn't lead to morality or decreased reproduction. Yes it's a horrible disease.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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April 19, 2010 1:54 PM
I've now read the whole thread (to comment 702) in one sitting... the day is gone...
Comment 204:
So... Planned Parenthood is a separate, private organization that lives off donations?
That's scary.
Over here, there's no such thing; instead, there's your friendly neighborhood gynecologist who lives off a tax (via universal healthcare) and prescribes your contraception.
205:
Perfect!
258:
LOL! True. :-)
(Yes, it is true of all mammals, monotremes included; the monotremes are just less extreme about it than others. They lay their eggs late, and hatch early, living off milk afterwards.)
351:
No, hormonal contraception (pill, mini-pill, NuvaRing, Mirena coil) prevents ovulation. Plan B, AFAIK basically a pill overdose, prevents implantation. Low doses of RU-486 likewise prevent implantation; higher doses are "abortifacient in the first two months of pregnancy".
385:
So... hang on a second: it's 1 to 2 abortions per woman in Brazil, 1 per 3 women in the US, and 1 in 83 to 84 in western Europe???
I know about the US deficiencies in sex education, access to contraception, and welfare state, but can it really be that bad? How were all these numbers calculated?
406:
ROTFLMAO!!!
Never thought I'd find an abortion thread so funny :-D :-D :-D
411:
...Interesting argument. :-S
However, do keep in mind that only nine people had the right to vote for POTUS in 2000. The decision in Bush v. Gore was a coup.
461:
As I've been saying for years (and I don't think I came up with it), Republicans stop caring about you once you're born.
The Catholic Church, on the other hand, is officially against the death penalty and now likes war a lot less than it used to; but their stance on contraception... <headdesk>
500:
The hospital staff!?!?!
WTF. That was not in their job description.
518:
:-O
Sometimes I'm glad I'm leading such a sheltered life that I haven't encountered this kind of attitude despite being 27 years old.
Incredible.
557:
Does how you were raised etc. affect what you know and what you don't know?
Apparently.
It has for me, just for the record; I'm still learning.
Stupidity has nothing to do with it – if you don't know the facts, you can't take them into consideration, and you end up deriving logically valid but wrong conclusions from false premises, "wrong" in the sense of unintended consequences like sexism and classism. (See comments 564, 606, 612, and 627, for instance.)
630:
More to the point, it's extremely difficult to figure out exactly which points are beyond the grasp of exactly which other person. Often it turns out that everything can be understood if it's only explained in some other way.
668:
LOL!
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 1:56 PM
@711
Thank you Carlie!
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 19, 2010 2:03 PM
I'm fairly sure that Plan B makes no difference in fertility if taken after ovulation. It basically prevents ovulation on shorter notice.
(However, if it did prevent implantation, I'd see nothing wrong with that and would not consider it an abortifacient. The pregnancy hasn't really begun until implantation. Anything before that is a non-abortion.)
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 19, 2010 2:04 PM
Compare: In the US, pregnancy has a rate of 17 maternal deaths per 100000 live births, while legal abortion has a rate of 1 maternal death per 100000 procedures.
Abortion in general is safer than pregnancy. A doctor's job is to care for the patient's health. If the patient seeks abortion, why should the doctor have to stand in the way of the patient's own choice to minimize her health risks?
Posted by: Anri
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April 19, 2010 2:06 PM
If a woman who is a doctor, in the course of being a doctor, encounters a situation she does not feel capable of, or emotionally prepared to, or qualified to deal with, we cannot force her to continue being a doctor, even if means the death of the patient. She can, in fact, stop being a doctor whenever she feels being a doctor is no longer in her best interest. She does not have to seek permission from a judge to stop being a doctor.
Please decide if you agree with the above statement.
Then, replace 'a doctor' with 'pregnant', and 'patient' with 'fetus'.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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April 19, 2010 2:06 PM
I've caught up! :-) :-) :-)
Remarkable how troll- and religion-free this thread is.
I'll look it up, I have to go. That it prevents implantation and thus causes "technically an early abortion" is what was taught to me 15 years ago.
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 2:06 PM
@ 714
Yea, that by no means is the worst of it either. I am not sad or mad however that I was not sheltered growing up. It has given me a great deal of experience, caused me to learn and grow up quick and speak up for the demographics and statistics in certain issues. I can't change it or go back, I just accept, learn, grow and speak the fuck up so my child will not have to undergo the same things. I would never wish someone to go through what I have. Believe me the stories get worse, but like I said before I am not looking for pity or oh woes me tone.
Posted by: Anodyne
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April 19, 2010 2:09 PM
For those that are inquiring, here is information regarding Plan B, from fda.gov:
Plan B works like other birth control pills to prevent pregnancy. Plan B acts primarily by stopping the release of an egg from the ovary (ovulation). It may prevent the union of sperm and egg (fertilization). If fertilization does occur, Plan B may prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the womb (implantation). If a fertilized egg is implanted prior to taking Plan B, Plan B will not work.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm4CYGXi1n4Armyc3H5WH0I3OSlKZ1Zvc4
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April 19, 2010 2:10 PM
Is my calendar broken? Is today April 1st? Surely Skatje doesn't really hang her hat on the garbage she has been shoveling? This certainly feels like it has prank-gone-too-far written all over it...
Posted by: SteveM
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April 19, 2010 2:11 PM
re 689:
In the few years that I have been reading Pharyngula, I have tried to make this exact point in just about every abortion thread here. To me, the whole question of the fetus' rights is a red herring. They (anti-choicers) would not allow an adult human to do to another person what they say a fetus has a right to. A person's (or fetus')right to life is not a right to enslave.
Posted by: The Otter God
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April 19, 2010 2:11 PM
This is neither here nor there, but it comforts me that the child of such a brilliant thinker can be so muddled. Neither of my parents are mental heavy lifters, and I wasn't nurtured by anyone else who was either, so I always felt like I was missing some starting spark that would have helped me along in life.
Some of the intellectual rags-to-riches stories are quite encouraging in the face of riches-to-rags ignorance.
Posted by: somewhereingreece
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April 19, 2010 2:17 PM
The Most Smackable Person In The Internet said:
Likely? Not very sympathetic then.
I respect the people in your stories, but I see no reason to respect you. You're right that I wouldn't be disowned for getting pregnant. But you don't know me. You don't know what I can empathise with, you don't know who I know personally who may have similar stories. You are being awfully presumptuous.
(This is applying to the condescending jackasses, not to everyone. I was being pissy at aforementioned people, and apologise that some kinder people got caught in my fantastic blanket statementing.)
MSPITI, you have been treated with much more kindness and patience than others have in this blog. These testimonials, both by the angry and the kind, were intended to educate you on the harsh realities many women have to face every single day and how their children are affected by it. It was your slut-shaming comments and deriding manner towards those who have suffered that brought about the "well, what do you know?" comments about.
Which brings us to the next quote.
Here is where you were supposed to answer the "Well what do you know?" question, but you still spectacularly fail at that. And you also still fail, by not understanding that the question is by no means philosophical. It is very real because it has very real effects on the very real lives of women and the very real lives of babies born in an unwelcoming family.
This example makes no sense. Is candidate No#2 supposed to support abortion or not? If yes, then picking him is a no-brainer. If no, it would make him the lesser of two evils, but he would be a crap choice nonetheless.
Denmark and the Scandinavian countries are very close to the ideal you have described, but women still have abortions there. Because they are too young to have a child. Because they are too young to be pregnant. Because they are under medical treatment that is toxic for the baby and would result in stillbirth anyway. Because they cannot afford to be out of the workforce during their pregnancy, even if they were to give up the child immediately. Because their child has a medical condition which means they will outlive it. Because they were raped. Because of all of the above AND birth control failed on top.
You have no place in your philosophy for real people in real conundrums, this much is well established. At least try to make your hypothetical scenarios internally consistent.
MSPITI, with this sentence you prove that you are, indeed, a privileged white young girl who has no idea what she is talking about. You insult people, you make no attempts at apologising and when you are called on your inhumane comments, you get all in a huff and go "Haters to the right". So off you go now, listen to something emo, mumbling "those condescending jackasses, how dare they have awful life experiences they can present as arguments" and all the while oblivious of the fact that if you were not Professor PZ Myers' daughter (which makes you white and a young girl), you would have been sent crying within a couple of your posts (which makes you privileged). Remember, your father has eaten Vegemite on Host for insults not even directed out him. And the only tears we may shed are for his sake.
Posted by: somewhereingreece
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April 19, 2010 2:20 PM
I apologise for the blockquote fail
Posted by: skatje.myers
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April 19, 2010 2:26 PM
Carlie, etc.:
The reason I have been delaying commenting on such things is because this is going to require me checking a few other sites. For the sake of some sense of fairness, I've been trying to address as many people as possible. With things slowing down now, I'm going to take a look at things you cited. If I find some compelling stuff there, which I suspect I might, I apologise for wasting time addressing less worthwhile arguments and insults. But y'know, trying to get around to everything.
Please be patient. I have to run and do other things at the moment.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 19, 2010 2:27 PM
Enough talking smack, please.
"About 60% of abortions are obtained by women who have one or more children. ... The reasons women give for having an abortion underscore their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner."
Many women who have abortions want to have a child later, but are not yet prepared to give a child all that they can offer. Why can't we let women make these complex and highly individualistic plans?
Posted by: jemand
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April 19, 2010 2:35 PM
"Would I have supported preventing them from obtaining an abortion? Likely not."
You are certain. CERTAIN that you wouldn't have an abortion. You don't just say "likely not."
But when it is a WOMAN's life on the line? When it is a WOMAN's life which could be saved? You only "likely" wouldn't promote what kills them.
Posted by: SC OM
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April 19, 2010 2:50 PM
http://ec.princeton.edu/index.html
This has been a public service hyperlinkage.
Posted by: kb
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April 19, 2010 2:55 PM
FWIW, oral contraceptives prevent pregnancy by preventing ovulation and making the uterus a hostile environment to implantation (you don't get nice, nutritious glands to eat). Plan B also prevents ovulation and makes the uterus a hostile environment to implantation. There is also something about the fallopian tubes not working as well, and cervical mucous being thick and difficult for sperm to get through. In either case, you can have ovulation anyway, but you may not get fertilization because of the fallopian tubes and cervical mucous, and THEN if that doesn't work implantation is also inhibited.
Posted by: whitebird
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April 19, 2010 3:03 PM
@211 - IT was my first thought, too. But I'm only up to your comment, let's see how this plays out.
Posted by: stuv.myopenid.com
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April 19, 2010 3:04 PM
I'm curious to see what Skatje finds, and whether it humanizes her.
OT: I think this would be a good thread to bookmark the next time censorship comes up over at the Colgate Twins' Fairytale Town.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 19, 2010 3:11 PM
Since the convential wisdom is that oral contraceptives inhibit ovulation, you need to supply a link to the appropriate literature. Which doesn't include anti-abortion web sites.Posted by: Robocop
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April 19, 2010 3:12 PM
138: I think the concept of "rights" is inapplicable to the fetus.
"Rights" implies that the entity makes a decision. Since a fetus cannot communicate a preference, make a decision, or accept responsibility, it has no rights, actually.
Irrespective of what one thinks about abortion rights, this is a terrifying assertion. Rights imply inherent status while "protections" do not. Without true rights, the sick, the infirm, the mentally ill, the aged, and others are at tremendous risk.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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April 19, 2010 3:16 PM
Thanks, Anodyne and kb!
Posted by: Ibis3, féministe avec un titre française de fantaisie
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April 19, 2010 3:16 PM
@skatje
One last post (I hope) before I go. I hope you take the time to read it and think about it.
From what you've said, I gather your position is somewhat like this: Life is precious. The embryo/foetus/whatever is alive and ought to be protected (even protected by law) unless there are serious mitigating circumstances (as in the case of self defence; i.e. similar to standards we hold for fully independent human beings). It's just too bad, so sad that all the major consequences of the implementation of this policy happen to fall on women, specifically those women who are the most heavily burdened by them. You won't go to the lengths of campaigning for legislation to protect these precious lives,* but you're content if such a policy is implemented through the agency of others. Because if a woman doesn't want to risk pregnancy she should be celibate, have sex only with sterile men/other women, or have a radical hysterectomy, even if she's in a marriage or otherwise committed relationship with her partner.
But wait, there are exceptions: like the rape victim or Hayley's great-grandmother. It's okay if they have abortions because you have sat at your bench and judged that their circumstances somehow absolve them of the great sin of having an abortion for mere convenience.
So really, you're okay with abortion as long as you're the one making the decision about which abortions are evil and which ones are ("regrettably") allowed. Now, what makes you (or some representative of you, i.e. a legislator, judge, or police officer) and not the woman whose life is at stake the best one to make that decision?
*So precious that women unknown to you would have to suffer unspeakable agonies if such a policy were implemented despite your lack of conviction, but not so precious that you should go out of your way to try to get such a policy implemented--do you even see the cruelty of that position? On the one side we have skatje who won't get up off her ass and go and picket with the pro-lifers and vote for anti-choice candidates but on the other she's perfectly willing to abandon any number of women to lives of penury and enslavement and children to lives of abuse and suffering for the exact same "principle". In other words, if the lives of foetuses are so valuable that we should condone the sacrifice those women and children, then they are so valuable that you should be prepared to sacrifice yourself to protect them.
If not, then you should be lining up with those who say leave it to the woman to decide whether this particular foetus is worth her own sacrifices.
Posted by: stuv.myopenid.com
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April 19, 2010 3:20 PM
And don't forget, it's a decision that affects at LEAST two lives: the mother and the child. Would not the mother also be the best judge on the quality of life the fetus would have if carried to term?
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood
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April 19, 2010 3:28 PM
I have never understood the position of the so called 'pro-life' (I think the term 'anti-choice' is more appropriate) brigade. If you do not accept a woman's right to control her pro-creative potential, then you are endorsing a gendered form of slavery. It really is that simple. You are reducing women to the status of living, breathing incubators whose rights as humans and citizens evaporate at the point of conception.
The argument that is sometimes wheeled out that contraception can replace abortion is vacuous. No system of contraception is 100% reliable, and if it should fail, then such people are right back to the woman-as-incubator paradigm. A woman must have the right to maintain her own biological sovereignty, and in practice this means abortion.
Religion has no place in this debate. It is utterly ridiculous to privilige one person's self-indulgent fantasy over another's fundamental rights, yet that is exactly what the pro-lifers are trying to acheive.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 3:36 PM
yup, PP is a non-profit organization; it does get some federal funding though IIRC.Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 19, 2010 3:36 PM
Skatje, the study is available from The Lancet. They compared all the nations they could compare. They did not find that restrictions on abortions reduce the number of abortions. There's no particular reason to assume that the US is unique in this regard; the need for abortion does not change when the law changes.
You could compare the US to itself. Data from illegal markets are hard to come by, but the American Medical Association's Council on Scientific Affairs has used an estimate of one million abortions a year in the US immediately preceding 1967. There are fewer than that now.
However, over a hundred women died each year in abortion at that time. The decrease is attributed by the AMA to legality via more experienced doctors, and also to earlier operations, both trends which would reverse if abortion were restricted again.
You would agree that earlier abortions are better, yes? When women don't have to put out word on the illegal market, a doctor can be quickly located and safe plans made without complicating delay. We need to have availability, for the sake of both speed and experience, in order to have a humane policy on reproductive rights.
Can you articulate what it is about current law under Roe that needs to be changed? And at what approximate time should fetuses be afforded legal consideration? I have a suspicion that you do not realize the sort of abortions you are worried about are already illegal under Roe's viability provisions.
Posted by: Morgan
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April 19, 2010 3:43 PM
#700 Antiochus Epiphanes -
I spent so much time reading this thread that I actually had a dream about it last night where it had gotten so off topic that people were vehemently arguing over what sounds a Federation phaser makes. So I thought it was great to see Trek actually got mentioned! :)
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 19, 2010 3:45 PM
Surprise, Robocrock is making the same inane point other right tolifelet me tell you how you must live groups say. Which has nothing whatsoever to do with abortion, and is simply a misdirection ploy. Just like saying gay marriage leads to beastiality. Meaningless and irrelevant.Posted by: Mercury
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April 19, 2010 3:45 PM
Suppose in a hundred years the mother's body is not required at all, and the entire process -- from fertilized ovum to 'birth' -- can be taken care of artificially. Then no one's body is being used, taking away one of the arguments presented above. However, the concept of voluntary termination of pregnancy (or rather voluntary termination of the fetus) will still be applicable. The question is, who should have the right to decide? Seems like it should be the parents who have the right to decide to turn off the life support system, not the State. In that sense it is not too different from the decision to turn off life support to an adult in a "vegetative" state. The adult may have personally designated someone to make the decision whereas a fetus cannot have, thus the default to the parents. Given the additional factors of the mother's body, rights etc. it only strengthens the conclusion that abortion should not be illegal. Making it legal does not imply making it a trivial decision.
I realize that the logic suggests that viability be defined as being able to live without a medical life support system, and consequently parents should also have the right to turn off life support to prematurely born babies. Not sure yet what to make of that.
Lastly, a pet peeve. <rant> Until people can take a dead egg cell and a dead sperm cell and create a living human being they should stop talking about when life begins. Life began several billion years ago. And since every cell involved, from the single celled fertilized egg onwards is identifiably a human cell, a fetus doesn't become human from non-human. But, as PZ said, an embryo is not a person.</rant opt=Thanks for listening>
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 3:46 PM
I finally figured out what this "it's your fault" argument reminded me of:
a while ago, in a bout of masochism, I read some posts on a radical separatist lesbian blog. one of them dealt with rape, and she was basically saying that rape-prevention means protecting women from being forced to be in the presence of men in general. However, if some women insist on putting themselves voluntarily in the company of men, then it's their own fault for getting raped, because that's what men do, and that they shouldn't go crying about how they were victimized, since they were knowingly and willingly putting themselves in that situation.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 19, 2010 3:54 PM
More on the degree to which pregnancy itself is a dangerous undertaking:
It should be a woman's choice to take that risk of her life, and if she wants to be pregnant then we should give her the sort of prenatal care that this nation can afford. But if she chooses her own health, we have no business forcing her to undergo a significantly greater risk of death.
Posted by: Robocop
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April 19, 2010 3:57 PM
Robocrock is making the same inane point other right to life let me tell you how you must live groups say. Which has nothing whatsoever to do with abortion, and is simply a misdirection ploy.
Even by your standards that's shockingly stupid, Nerd. If, as claimed, rights only apply to those who can "communicate a preference, make a decision, or accept responsibility [#138]," the groups I mentioned are indeed profoundly at risk. One can still, of course, justify abortion rights on other grounds (as you should have figured out from my "[i]rrespective of what one thinks about abortion rights" qualifier). Do you really want to argue that a child with Down's or a senior with Alzheimer's may have no rights whatsoever?
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 19, 2010 3:59 PM
If this level of technology comes to pass, then the situation will be very different. If a pregnancy takes place in a life-support machine, from fertilization to birth, then that pregnancy is probably not unintended. If the creation of the pregnancy requires a conscious decision on the parents' part, then many of the reasons for procuring an abortion procedure do not apply. Terminations would occasionally be sought in cases of life-threatening or impairing conditions in the fetus, but they would be far less common than the elective abortion procedures we have now to end unintended pregnancies. The debate would look extremely different.
Posted by: xyx
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April 19, 2010 4:07 PM
The idea that the only way one could value the life of a fetus over the temporary inconvenience of the mother is by being anti-women is ridiculous. I think even in the organ case people keep bringing up, there's a strong utilitarian case to be made that donation should be mandatory. I don't see why someone should ever die when someone else could prevent it at some cost minor in relation to that death.
That said, fetuses aren't people, consciousness is the dividing line and I don't believe that line is passed until substantially after birth. Therefore I am 100% pro-choice. But the personhood of the fetus is the only relevant issue. No one's property rights should be valued above anyone else's right to life.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 19, 2010 4:07 PM
What strange gods said - I'm really uncomfortable with calling anyone "smackworthy", much less a 19 year old female. I overlooked it the first time, but it keeps being repeated. And it's bad.
As for Plan B, it's super-duper high progestin, which helps keep a pregnancy going once it's started. That's how it prevents ovulation, by making your body think that you're pregnant already. From what I understand, the "may also inhibit implantation" was a phrase added at the beginning of birth control pamphlets just to cover all bases, before it was really studied in detail. What I do know for sure is that high levels of progestins will be helpful to pregnancy, not harmful. Here are a couple of studies:
Ortiz, M.E., R.E. Ortiz, M.A. Fuentes, V. H. Parraguez,and H.B. Croxatto. 2004. “Post-coital administration of levonorgestrel does not interfere with post-fertilization events in the new-world monkey Cebus apella,” Human Reproduction 19: 1352–1356.
Muller, A.L., C.M. Llados, and H.B. Croxatto. 2003.“Postcoital treatment with levonorgestrel does not disrupt postfertilization events in the rat,” Contraception 67(5): 415–419.
Posted by: monado
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April 19, 2010 4:14 PM
Skatje, let's try a thought experiment. Imagine that you go sailing on Lake Michigan. You enjoy sailing. You're a pretty good sailor, the weather is fine, and you try to stay close to shore and avoid sudden turns. You're wearing your life jacket, so you have two ways to keep from drowning or dying of hypothermia. But the current carries you farther out and a sudden gust of wind capsizes your boat. You still have your life-jacket, but you know that the cold water will kill you in an hour or less. You need prompt rescue. So you wave and call out to the people in a passing motorboat. And they yell: "You knew the dangers when you went sailing!" and keep going.
Getting pregnant while having sex for the pleasure of it is something like that. Sometimes, you don't even have to go sailing to get into trouble. Someone could just push you off the sea-wall into deep water. A little more than 5% of rape victims get pregnant.
Abortion is a necessary backup to contraception. Of course you are well within your rights to say that you wouldn't have an abortion because you think it's wrong, but you're hitting a sensitive nerve. I've noticed that young, single, childless women tend to think of themselves as the typical example. Most women who want abortions already have children; they know more about the reality of childbirth and the exhaustion of mothering an infant. Maybe abortion is wasteful or wrong from an idealistic point of view, but I think very strongly that forcing someone to have a child does much more harm and is much more wrong. Every barrier to safe, early abortion puts women into more danger. Unfortunately, even stating your opinion as you did, without qualifiers, e.g. "wrong for me" or "the lesser of two evils," makes it harder for them to act when they need to.
Posted by: BdN
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April 19, 2010 4:15 PM
May I ask a question ? I'm not trolling or anything, it's just something I've thought about lately and cannot quite get my finger on it so I thought I should ask more enlightened people than me.
I had a discussion last year with someone who held the view that women who dressed "inappropriately" (for whatever that means and notwithstanding the criterion change in space and time)and knew they had more chances of being harassed for that shared some kind of responsibility for it since they know it will happen and they do it altogether. I replied among other things, that, as Jadehawk pointed out, you have greater chances of being hit by a care while walking on the street than by sitting at home so if you do walk on the street, knowing that, you're partly responsible for what happens. Same thing with eating : you can always suffocate. Or drown if swimming, etc.
He and (his girlfriend) replied that it would be more like going in a mostly African-American neighborhood wearing a "I hate niggers" t-shirt and being beaten up. Or standing in the middle of the highway. Or eating fugu, etc. Of course, these are completely out of proportion compared to being responsible of being raped because your skirt is two inches shorter than some other women on the street. And even though we would recognize some degree of responsibility in those cases, we would still provide help.
But it made me think and I haven't quite reached a definitive nor really satisfying answer yet. What is the amount of personal responsibility before we can say "it's your fault" or "you had it coming" ? Because, I mean, trivially, we do it all the time to some degree or another(not always explicitly, but we still do it).
I think the reason I can't find an answer is because I don't phrase it correctly but still can't quite see where the problem is exactly. Any thoughts by some more brilliant minds than mine would be appreciated.
Posted by: monado
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April 19, 2010 4:19 PM
The usual analogy is, "He shouldn't have been wearing a suit and looking prosperous, so it's his fault he was robbed. Besides, he gave money to charity last year! He deserves it."
Posted by: monado
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April 19, 2010 4:23 PM
xyx, it's not property rights, although someone expressed it that way. It's bodily integrity of the woman.
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood
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April 19, 2010 4:23 PM
skatje.myers @ 705;
Carlie (or should I say Carlity?) @ 711 pretty much hit the nail on the head. While you may contend that this is merely a philosophiical debate supported only by anecdotal evidence, for millions of women world wide the issues, and the consequences, are very real indeed. This is literally a matter of life and death.
Even where the threat of death is not imminent, child birth is still a massively physically and potentially psychologically traumatic experience. Compelling a woman to undergo it by the use of legal power is not only a sorely misguided attempt to legislate morality, but could even be argued to be morally equivilent to state-sanctioned torture.
Should abortion be outlawed, this will not prevent abortion. One need look no further than the experience of Eire. Abortions will continue, the only real differences being that they will occur in backstreet abortionist clinics without proper equipment or medically trained personnel and likeely in utterly unsanitary conditions. Even if a botched operation does not kill, secondary infection may well finish the job. Such a law would directly condemn countless women to death, as it did in the Irish example.
@ 249
If I may be frank, I consider the idea that a woman is somehow deserving of all that befalls her because she chose to have sex to be the very nadir of misogyny. I honestly believe that if abortion is outlawed (especially on the prating, pseudo-ethical grounds put forward by the anti-choicers) there is a significant possibility that this will normalise the idea that if a woman choses to have sex she accepts whatever follows; that sex is sinful, and that women are somehow to be held morally accountable for this sin. From this flawed proposition, a whole host of further misogyny could easily flow.
It was a long, hard fight for women to acheive what rights they possess today, that even in the supposedly gender-equal Western world could hardly be termed to be unabridged equal status. No one should be eager to turn back the clock over an ephemeral sense of personal unease relating to abortion.
@ 232
You may, of course, think whasoever you like. Equally, the other commentators here are entitled to express their views on the opinions you choose to express on this thread, including calling you on statements that could give legitimate offence.
All I would suggest is that you think carefully about all the possible ramifications that your chosen position would have if adopted as law by society at large in terms of the rights and status of women and the sheer level of suffering that would be caused to actual, fully formed people as opposed to embryos that, on all the available evidence, are yet to develop individual personalities or even to have acheived the rudiments of consciousness. Are you sure that this is a potential future that you are happy to unreservedly endorse?
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 4:24 PM
BdN, let's start with the fact that women mostly don't get raped by strangers.
Let's then proceed to the part where systemic problems won't be solved by "personal responsibility"; we live in rape culture, and the separatist lesbian is right that the only way to take real responsibility is to remove yourself entirely from the system and avoid all men, always, at all costs.
So, just because we often trivially do lay blame at the foot of the victim for becoming a victim of a systemic problem (see also fat-shaming), it's actually always wrong to do so.
Posted by: xyx
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April 19, 2010 4:25 PM
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 19, 2010 4:25 PM
I love the smell of straw-men in the afternoon!
If a person is incapable of making a decision or communicating a preference, how exactly does that person exercise any rights?
How does a gestating fetus exercise any rights? How do you ask a fetus whether it wants to live? How does it answer? If it can't answer, then what exactly does it mean to have rights?
Furthermore, how do you get from the fetus to the impaired and infirm? A severely disabled child or senile adult is not dependent on someone else's bloodstream. No one else's bodily autonomy is affected by making sure they are treated with kindness and consideration. A fetus can only have one caretaker. This is not a slippery slope.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 19, 2010 4:35 PM
I never said that. Nor would I. I can take a picture of those folks with my digital camera. I can't take a picture of a fetus without invading the woman. Ergo, it is different. Even your meager intelligence should see that. And never brought up your strawman argument. Not even a good strawman argument. Just as lame as your proof of your imaginary deity.Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 19, 2010 4:38 PM
That is perfectly understandable. My (and possibly others') frustration was that you didn't say that, but did address the "easy" comments that were derogatory towards you. That made it look like you were cherry-picking what you were going to respond to.
The response is that there isn't a higher chance of being raped just because of being dressed inappropriately. Rapists rape because they can, not because someone turned them on by showing a flash of cleavage. See here and here, especially "Women aged 18-22 in the US who attend university are more likely to be raped than women who don't. Would Hitchens argue that female university students are therefore "partially culpable" in their own rapes? I mean, getting an education is presumably "acting responsibly," but it's also engaging in high-risk (for rape) behavior. What a conundrum! Who to blame…?"
For actual stats, there's the fact that 76% of rapes are committed by a partner, so how is being around your own partner acting irresponsibly? I keep seeing reference to "A Federal Commission on Crime of Violence Study found that only 4.4% of all reported rapes involved provocative behavior on the part of the victim" in several places, but can't trace down the original.
Posted by: SteveM
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April 19, 2010 4:39 PM
So you'd be in favor of the mandatory quarterly blood extraction of all citizens. Or the mandatory "donation" of kidneys.
With transplantation and immune system suppression at its current state it is likely that you would probably be a good match for somebody looking for a kidney right now. Would you object if you were forced to donate?
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 4:41 PM
no it isn't. I'm legally allowed to stab a rapist or a robber in the face with a screwdriver to stop them from raping/robbing me. Just the same, I'm allowed to stop a fetus from incubating inside me.Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 19, 2010 4:41 PM
xyx, if a pregnant woman dies in a car wreck and her fetus is still alive, do you think that if there are no volunteers, some woman should be surgically implanted with the fetus?
Posted by: Deen
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April 19, 2010 4:46 PM
As far as I'm concerned, a philosophical debate is all theory.Posted by: whitebird
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April 19, 2010 4:48 PM
My apologies if this has been said before - I have to leave the computer for a bit, but did get up to the mid-500's - but Skatje, I hold a very similar opinion to yours.
If I got pregnant, I would have an abortion because I am unmarried and don't have the resources to provide for a child. Since I feel that way, I think that all unmarried women who are below the poverty line should have mandatory abortions. And I wouldn't vote against making that law.
Posted by: xyx
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April 19, 2010 4:51 PM
I said I was in favor of mandatory organ donation in the post you were quoting. Whatever is most efficient for saving lives. There are details to be worked out, and society as a whole should compensate the donors monetarily, but, yes, I still don't see why someone should have to die because someone else wasn't willing to accept a relative inconvenience.
Posted by: Zaphod
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April 19, 2010 4:53 PM
I know I'm really late to the game here, but I so wanted to do this on the last abortion-related thread:
"-en this must be it, okay... *ahem* Good morning, this is your potential pilot speaking, welcome to flight number-r-r-r-r... [hmm, what's the plane's number again?] hang on, I need to get out and look at the side. [what? that isn't it?] Nevermind, my co-pilot is telling me that the number on the side of the plane isn't the flight number. Really? that is fucked up, man."
"Anyway, welcome aboard my very first piloting trip! Now don't worry, I may not be a pilot YET, but I certainly have the *potential* to be one. At least that's what my teacher said during orientation yesterday. I may not have that license in my hands for another year or... [how long does it take? REALLY?! Are you SHITTING me?!] WOW! My copilot says th- well now he's yelling at me again telling me not to call him my co-PILOT... something about implying that we are somehow equal in piloting ability. Well, he doesn't know it yet but I am going to be a really good pilot someday! Just as good as he is... definitely nicer, but anyway..."
"Where was I? Oh, forget it. Let's just get on our way, shall we? Let me just fire up the old engines and-oh WOW! You guys wouldn't be-LIEVE how many lights and knobs and things there are in here!!! Where's the ignition on this damned thing? [hey, how do you--hello?] well that other guy left, so I guess he thinks I can do this on my own already! How's THAT for a vote of confidence in my potential abilities, eh?"
"Hmmm, seems a bunch of lights are going off, something about the doors being opened. Hey, could one of you stewart-ladies check the door? Thanks. Now let's just put this baby into reverse and I can (*BAM-BAM-BAM*) Hey! Who is banging on the cockpit door?! That can be really distracting to a future pilot, ya' know. Good thing we weren't in the air or it could've made me crash or someth-(*sounds of door being broken and scuffling*) OUCH! HEY LEGGO!! This is MY Plane! Get OFF of me!! I'M A FUTURE PILOT!! I DESERVE TO SIT IN HE--"
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 19, 2010 4:54 PM
whitebird, see #717 and #295. Why is it better to favor increased deaths of women?
Posted by: BdN
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April 19, 2010 4:54 PM
@Carlie
Thanks a lot for the links and the info. But I meant to convey a larger thing. Rape was only the starting point and these are some arguments, not nearly as well worded as yours, that I also tried to use (that's why I wrote "among others"). But it made me think about the more general "responsibility" thing. I know that nobody likes it, as as been said earlier, but even IF there was a correlation between rape and the way women dress (because it would turn on the rapist or by another way), I would still think she doesn't have responsibility. That's why I tried using other examples.
@Jadehawk
Thanks for the answer an I get your point (I think). How do we differentiate systemic problems from others ?
Posted by: xyx
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April 19, 2010 4:59 PM
I am not a lawyer, but I do not believe it to be generally true in the US that you are allowed to use lethal force on someone else unless you are in danger of having lethal force used on yourself or some other.
The answer is no, but only because fetuses are not conscious and therefore their life is not to be valued as a person's is.
Posted by: BdN
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April 19, 2010 5:02 PM
Just to be clear the "nobody likes it" was meant to refer to the "if" way of thinking.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 19, 2010 5:03 PM
And if you found out you were wrong about consciousness, you'd favor cutting some random woman open.
Posted by: jemand
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April 19, 2010 5:04 PM
@ xyx,
Actually, your system is preferable to the anti-abortion argument, it is not explicitly sexist or misogynist for one. It does not have one standard of bodily autonomy given for men, even DEAD men, and then build in an exception to those rights for the *one* case that can only happen to women.
I disagree with your proposed legal system, but I don't see any additional bigotry or sexism in your plan, which makes it something I can *respect* even while I argue against it.
You have a uniform ethic, one which orders values differently than I do, but one which doesn't generally agree with mine except in the *one* case where only women are affected.
I still think it is unfair in that it will target certain people, those with rare blood types, etc, much more than others, etc.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 5:05 PM
I'm not allowed to use "excessive" force, but all necessary force to remove the threat to my bodily integrity is entirely legal.Posted by: Gregory Greenwood
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April 19, 2010 5:05 PM
xyx @ 776;
Let me get this straight. You are actually endorsing the manditory, (and, one assumes in the event of non-compliance, potentially forcible) removal of organs from perfectly healthy individuals, with all the attendent risks of complication and long term health impairment, in order to eliminate the waiting lists for organs?
You do not see the use of citizens for spare parts against their will to be oppressive? You do not understand why the performance of unsolicited and unnecessary surgery is considered an abuse of human rights? You do not see a problem with a government claiming the moral authority to declare de facto ownership of the bodies of its citizenry? You do not see how this would fatally undermine the balance between the government and the governed?
I do not wish to give gratuitous offence, but all I can say is that I am glad that you are not in power, and that this will remain no more than a particularly unpleasant Orwellian fantasy.
Posted by: stuv.myopenid.com
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April 19, 2010 5:08 PM
strangegods, did you not read all of whitebird's comment or are you being snarky?
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 5:11 PM
chgo_liz @ 682:
As one of your fellow unwanted former fetuses (who are dismissed by Skatje in her philosophical tower), I'll pick an adjective or three: Ugly. Hypocritical.* Deadly.
Also, +10 and QFT.
*Yes, hypocritical, Skatje. If you're gonna declare your love for the fetuses, you have to go all the way. You don't get an out for health or rape. As all our lives are meaningless next to a fetus, you certainly wouldn't dream of putting your own life first, I'm sure.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 19, 2010 5:12 PM
stuv, I'm probably high.
Posted by: Robocop
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April 19, 2010 5:15 PM
759: I never said that. Nor would I. I can take a picture of those folks with my digital camera. I can't take a picture of a fetus without invading the woman. Ergo, it is different.
Since I have expressed no opinion re abortion in this thread, you might work on your reading comprehension skills. I was reacting to the claim that "rights" only apply to those who can "communicate a preference, make a decision, or accept responsibility [#138]." Since we're discussing human rights, since they attach with personhood and since personhood can be established or denied on other grounds, we aren't necessarily discussing abortion, as I have pointed out three times now. On the other hand, since a child with Down's or a senior with Alzheimer's may indeed be unable to perform such tasks, if the claim were correct, persons with those kinds of disabilities would cease to be persons and would have no rights. I find that a horrifying concept. It's simple, really.
758: If a person is incapable of making a decision or communicating a preference, how exactly does that person exercise any rights?
As it stands now, the law grants rights to a person irrespective of whether s/he "is incapable of making a decision or communicating a preference." A person in a coma or in surgery can't do that but retains rights. If the incapacity extends longer term, the expressed intentions of the person can apply (as with living wills, for example). In some instances, others are granted the fiduciary capacity to act in another's stead, as with living wills or trusts for the benefit of minors, for example.
If it can't answer, then what exactly does it mean to have rights?
Irrespective of whether I am sufficiently healthy to act personally upon my rights, my rights still exist. If I own property, I don't lose that right on account of my lack of health, for example.
Furthermore, how do you get from the fetus to the impaired and infirm?
If the fetus is not a person (on other grounds), you don't. But if personhood is predicated upon your proposed standard, many of the infirm and impaired lose their status as persons and the rights associated therewith.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 19, 2010 5:16 PM
that's often difficult, and a lot of work actually. Sheer numbers of incidents in proportion to the population is a pretty good sign that something is a systemic problem rather than an isolated problem; usually though, when something is a systemic problem you can find all kinds of (cultural, social, physical, economic, whatever)infrastructure within that society that promotes or causes the incidence of a problem. I'm not sure at which point precisely you can say that this infrastructure is established enough for any given problem that something can qualify definitely as a systemic problem, but at least in the case of rape, the existence of Rape Culture is so obvious and ubiquitous, there's no doubt about its existence.Posted by: mr.obelus
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April 19, 2010 5:28 PM
@545:
Hooray! Since I have a penis, I am dismissed from caring about this issue.
Yay!
Posted by: Dianne
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April 19, 2010 5:31 PM
I don't see why someone should ever die when someone else could prevent it at some cost minor in relation to that death.
XYX: Could I refer you to comment #375? What do you think the phlebotomist should do about a stem cell donor who changes his/her mind in the middle of a donation? Should the donor be forced to continue?
Posted by: SteveM
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April 19, 2010 5:32 PM
re 766:
So put your kidney where your mouth is, have you volunteered to donate a kidney to those waiting for one? I have a cousin looking for a kidney, now, should I tell her you want to be tested for a match?
Posted by: Dianne
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April 19, 2010 5:44 PM
I have a cousin looking for a kidney, now, should I tell her you want to be tested for a match?
I'm not sure that there even is a living unrelated kidney donor program. Kidney donation is about as dangerous as pregnancy-and as such is considered way too dangerous to ask of random strangers.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 19, 2010 5:46 PM
I agree with Robocop#779.
Anyway, birth makes a useful dividing line because at that point we can demand a particular action with regard to unwanted babies: abandon children at a designated location. Abandoning them elsewhere is a crime and you can prosecute if you think it'll help. This is not an infringement upon anyone else's rights, and does not mean the surrender of the body to the state.
How would you enforce a functioning anti-abortion law? Women found to be seeking abortions would have to be imprisoned.
Posted by: Dianne
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April 19, 2010 5:58 PM
On the other hand, since a child with Down's or a senior with Alzheimer's may indeed be unable to perform such tasks
Er...have you actually met any people with DS or AD? People with Alzheimer's lose the ability to communicate and have a preference quite late in the disease. Heck, we elected a person with AD to the presidency and nicknamed him "the great communicator". If someone with AD has lost the ability to communicate then they are in very, very bad shape and are going to die soon regardless. Similarly, most children with Down's learn to talk and communicate their preferences in multiple ways. Only the very worst cases don't develop the ability to communicate. Unlike the world's smartest fetus. The mentation level of a person with moderate AD or DS is much, much higher than that of a fetus.
Posted by: Robocop
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April 19, 2010 6:15 PM
786: Er...have you actually met any people with DS or AD?
Yes. Related to some too.
People with Alzheimer's lose the ability to communicate and have a preference quite late in the disease. Heck, we elected a person with AD to the presidency and nicknamed him "the great communicator". If someone with AD has lost the ability to communicate then they are in very, very bad shape and are going to die soon regardless. Similarly, most children with Down's learn to talk and communicate their preferences in multiple ways. Only the very worst cases don't develop the ability to communicate.
So you agree with me that they may indeed be unable to perform such tasks.
Unlike the world's smartest fetus.
For the fourth time, my concern herein is not with abortion, but with the idea that rights don't attach when the individual at issue "is incapable of making a decision or communicating a preference." This isn't rocket surgery.
Posted by: Morgan
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April 19, 2010 6:16 PM
@786 -
"May be" - they said "may be unable to perform such tasks". If the theoretical inability of individuals with these particular conditions bothers you, replace them with other conditions that result in the person possibly not being able to perform said tasks. You're kind of missing the point.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 19, 2010 6:32 PM
What about having something to lose? A person who has been conscious before has something to lose. Prior to the first instance of consciousness, there is nothing to lose, except perhaps if pain-avoidance is not wholly contained by consciousness. It does not make sense to talk about a fetus's personhood in the same way as a comatose person.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 19, 2010 6:36 PM
BdN - I think I get what you're trying to do. Maybe it's that personal responsibility enters in at trying to violate physical laws of the universe? If you go out almost naked, you can't get blamed for being raped (that's the agency of another person who you can't control), but it is your fault if you get sunburned (because sun+skin=burn), but it isn't your fault if you wear SPF 50 sunscreen and it fails because the company that made it sucks (you did the best you could). If you play in heavy traffic and get hit by a car it's your fault (because drivers can't stop in time even if they see you) but not if you're crossing at a crosswalk and a drunk driver hits you (their agency). Is that along the right lines?
Posted by: xyx
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April 19, 2010 6:43 PM
I don't have time for a specific response to everyone right now. A general response:
I am not an expert in the details of organ donation. Therefore I don't think I am qualified to state whether in any particular case organ donation should be mandatory. My point is more general. The inconvenience of one person, even if quite substantial, should usually not be valued over the life of another. I say "usually" because even this standard isn't absolute--extending an individual's life from 80 to 82 at great cost to another individual may not be worthwhile.
Real life is messy. Should organ donation be mandatory if there's only a 25% chance the patient will live in any case? If there's some substantial chance the donor will die in the process? These are complicated issues, and I don't think it's necessary to work them out here. The important moral issue, the issue that would be relevant to abortion except that fetuses aren't actually people, is whether organ donation should be mandatory under some set of specified circumstances--or whether, alternatively, there should be some absolute prohibition on invading someone else's bodily integrity. This latter position is that of the people who argue that the fetus is mere parasite on the woman, which she can kill in self defense regardless of its personhood. And I think it's wrong.
Why? Well, I would rather live in a society where I had p chance of having to give up an organ than one in which I had p chance of dying from organ failure. Indeed, I have a hard time understanding the opposite position. Nature infringes upon my body much greater with organ failure than the government infringes on it by removing an organ (under ideal circumstances). It would seem to require an extreme anti-governmental prejudice to prefer nature's infringement in such a case over government's. Again, I understand that in real life organ donation isn't so simple as that, and I would need more thorough education in the relevant medical science to make a determination as to appropriate rules regarding real life organ donation. But on the moral issue at hand, I think the principle that one has an absolute right to bodily integrity, regardless of consequences to society, is just as wrong, and for the same reasons, as the principle that one has an absolute right to any other property regardless of social consequences.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 19, 2010 6:54 PM
No chance a government can handle such power without graft, an expanded underground market, and
targetednon-randomized organ hits.Posted by: CJO
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April 19, 2010 6:54 PM
But on the moral issue at hand, I think the principle that one has an absolute right to bodily integrity, regardless of consequences to society...
WHAT consequences to society? To maintain that there are consequences to society of a woman's choice to terminate a pregnancy versus any other decision she might make as regards her medical care is to assert that society has an interest in the continuation of that particular pregnancy. What is that interest?
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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April 19, 2010 6:55 PM
Dianne, I've been in near complete agreeance with your previous comments, but this is wrong (soon is relative) and comes off a tad bit flippant. People with Alzheimer's can continue living for years after losing the ability to communicate and even some time after losing all ability to speak and becoming 100% dependent on the care of others.
Anyway, given the history of human experience attained by people with Alzheimer's, I don't think they are an apt comparison to an embryo or fetus with absolutely no experience as a human, which starts at birth.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 19, 2010 6:56 PM
Fixed it for you. Your statement was nonsensical. Nobody was headed toward already born folks being euthanized. So why bother with your posts?Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 19, 2010 7:00 PM
Nerd, the 'rocket surgery' line is an old joke, combining 'rocket science' and 'brain surgery'.
Posted by: alysonmiers
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April 19, 2010 7:09 PM
I'm sure this is mainly a semantic disagreement rather than an ethical one, but what you're describing is not what I call "rights." A person in a coma with no predicted end in sight, for example, who never got around to writing a living will before losing brain function, cannot communicate their wishes and so whatever happens to them is not a matter of honoring their rights, it is a matter of someone else making decisions for them.
And this is the point that I wished to make as it regards to the abortion debate: if a person's rights consist of nothing more than someone else deciding what should be done to them, then those rights are not comparable to a conscious adult's right to decide what goes on in her uterus. The rhetoric of "an unborn child's right to life" is dishonest when placed against a fertile woman's right to bodily autonomy.
Furthermore, in my opinion, the issue of personhood is frankly moot where abortion is concerned. A fetus could arguably qualify as a person, but that does not mean it is entitled to live off an unwilling person's body. That entitlement belongs to no one.
Posted by: stuv.myopenid.com
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April 19, 2010 7:21 PM
I've heard people seriously making the argument that abortions are socialist because it will mess up the economy down the road (lack of growth), and that you can see this happening in Europe.
I invented the quad facepalm that day.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 19, 2010 7:22 PM
Not all of us understand every joke, nor remember them. Unlike my father, I can't remember a joke for even one day.Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/F95S8qIbhMwNLenl2gbXgkDKs4fjgIls1ctCKQ--#c565a
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April 19, 2010 7:24 PM
This is neither here nor there, but I saw the conversation is going in the direction of kidney donation -- and hey, I'm in the process of voluntarily donating a kidney right now! :) I can tell you all about the risks and such. And yes, non-directed altruistic donation (what they call it when you are not donating to someone in particular) exists and is going strong.
For kidney donation, the overall risks of dying are about 1/2,500. You will be in the hospital for 2-5 days, in bad pain for 1-2 weeks, and unable to lift more than 10 pounds for 6 weeks.
You aren't really saving a life so much as improving someone's quality of life for a few years since they'd eventually get off the waitlist somewhere anyway. That being said, some do die on the waitlist or find their condition deteriorate such that they are unable to receive an organ when their turn comes up, and imagine someone having a really crappy quality of life for (say) 3 years, having to put his/her entire life on hold -- that's definitely worth a 1 in 2,500 chance of dying, in my view.
I haven't read the thread closely enough to see whether kidney donation was brought up in the pro or anti life side. Personally, as the only actual soon-to-be (surgery scheduled) living kidney donor on this thread, I am proudly anti-life for all the reasons I saw others give above.
Posted by: Chgo_Liz
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April 19, 2010 7:27 PM
It might be inappropriate to introduce levity at this point, but in cleaning up my bookmarks I found this old chestnut:
http://www.slate.com/id/2196784/
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 19, 2010 7:33 PM
Everybody is fine with voluntary donation. Only the troll xyx appears in favor of involuntary donation...Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/F95S8qIbhMwNLenl2gbXgkDKs4fjgIls1ctCKQ--#c565a
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April 19, 2010 7:34 PM
P.S. One more thing (I'm that living kidney donor) -- if I ever got pregnant, I would sooner kill myself than carry it to term. An anti-abortion law would kill me. Period. Full stop.
Posted by: Robocop
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April 19, 2010 7:40 PM
789: What about having something to lose?
I don't think that helps. I think that someone who is severely disabled (for example) is entitled to the full rights of personhood irrespective of whether they "gained something" at some point. Those rights attach not based upon what they have, how smart or aware they are, or who they may be related to, but rather, based upon their status as human persons. Moreover, I think these rights are inalienable.
795: Fixed it for you. Your statement was nonsensical.
It was a joke, and an old an common one at that. Why do fundies, of whatever sort, tend to be so woodenly literal?
Nobody was headed toward already born folks being euthanized.
Let's sing along with Sam Cooke: "Don't know much about history...".
797: I'm sure this is mainly a semantic disagreement rather than an ethical one, but what you're describing is not what I call "rights."
Then you're using an idiosyncratic definition so divorced from reality as to make your claim essentially meaningless.
Furthermore, in my opinion, the issue of personhood is frankly moot where abortion is concerned. A fetus could arguably qualify as a person, but that does not mean it is entitled to live off an unwilling person's body. That entitlement belongs to no one.
Only if you deem the right of the parent to take full and complete priority over the rights of the fetus/person (assumed for the sake of argument) no matter the circumstances. I don't see nearly the bright line you do. Parents can (rightly, in my view) be forced to support their children after birth. You see a much clearer and more obvious distinction in that instance from a pregnancy than I do. Personhood is the crucial question in my view, and if personhood is granted, there are competing rights and interests to be considered and weighed.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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April 19, 2010 7:41 PM
somewhereingreece #725
Multiple Scattering Parameterization in Thermal Imagery?
Posted by: Becca the Over Socialized
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April 19, 2010 7:42 PM
@800
The anonymous stranger who died and donated a kidney to my older sister saved her life. You can't live on dialysis indefinitely, and when the one kidney she had failed, it was transplant or death.
I tried to donate to her, and discovered that I have compromised kidney functioning myself. I may live my allotted life span just fine, or may find myself looking for a transplant one day, and there's no way to tell when/if it'll ever happen.
Posted by: xyx
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April 19, 2010 7:44 PM
I don't understand why an expanded underground market would result. Increasing the legal supply would reduce the underground market. As for graft, this is a libertarian argument against all government intervention into society. Do you think it is a correct argument when generalized, or is there something in particular about organ donation that makes it susceptible to such issues?
Please read my posts in full before responding. I have stated in almost every post in this thread that fetuses are not people--thus, no negative social consequences for abortion. On the other hand, organ recipients are people--thus, the existence of negative social consequences for not having mandatory organ donation.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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April 19, 2010 7:47 PM
Jadehawk, OM #745
If the women were wearing burkhas then there wouldn't be a problem. The men would not get into rape mode. Plus earthquakes would be prevented.
Posted by: BdN
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April 19, 2010 7:47 PM
Sorry, I received an important phone call and now am out of free time and have to go. Sorry, I don't want to give the impression I asked questions and then ran away.
Jadehawk:
Glad to know it's not only because of my lack of intelligence. As for the rest of your post, I agree.
@Carlie
Yes, I think that's along the right lines (right being what I'm trying to say and that it is right, of course). And just to be sure, I'm no Meyrick Kirby who is gonna go "tada" after 50 posts. I wish it was as simple as "the rules of physics" or something like this but there are cases where I think this would fail. I really have to run so the only example that jumps to mind right now is this one.
2 years ago, a young man was killed where I live because he wore a coat which was the same color as the one used by one of two notorious gang members in the neighborhood to identify themselves. Not being from here, he couldn't have possibly known it so it is obvious he doesn't have any responsibility in it. And even if he knew, I can't imagine blaming the victim of a murder because she wore the wrong jacket in a particular place. You cannot simply stop living your life the way you want because criminals have made some decision. And there are those who ARE members of the gang and are getting killed because of their colors. Of course, that would probably at least in part fall under the "systemic" problem Jadehawk was talking about.
Anyways, I really have to go. Sorry again if I run away for now.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 19, 2010 7:49 PM
Um no, they can't. Not in any country I'm aware of.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/F95S8qIbhMwNLenl2gbXgkDKs4fjgIls1ctCKQ--#c565a
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April 19, 2010 7:49 PM
@ 806
I'm not denying one needs a kidney to live. I'm just saying that the marginal benefit of getting a kidney from me is (in expectation, i.e. on average across the population it would be) a few years of improved quality of life, because people on waitlists do tend to get them after a few years have passed anyway, from people who have died. And the more urgent one's need for a kidney from a waitlist, the higher one is on the waitlist, generally, although some people who have very particular needs (like whose body will reject almost all kidneys) might still have to wait too long.
Posted by: BdN
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April 19, 2010 7:55 PM
Edit :
right being what I'm trying to say and NOT that I am right, of course
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 19, 2010 7:56 PM
Carlie wrote [about parents having to support their children]:
I'm pretty sure that if the mother keeps the child the father is obliged to provide support.
Posted by: Robocop
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April 19, 2010 8:19 PM
810: Um no, they can't. Not in any country I'm aware of.
You're not aware of the United States of America? According to the American Bar Association, here's the general rule:
"Parents are legally responsible for their children until they reach the age of majority (usually eighteen), marry, or leave home to support themselves. In some states, divorced parents may be obliged to pay for a child's college or trade school education. In addition, a parent's duty to support a disabled child might continue for the child's entire life."
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 19, 2010 8:20 PM
Wowbagger - I was thinking in terms of giving up for adoption.
This isn't about to turn into "men have to pay money so that's why we should get to control women's bodies", is it?
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 8:21 PM
@813
That's true but I can tell you if you're a single mom don't hold your fucking breath. I have never seen support from my sperm donor (he has NO right to be called a father) and considering the circumstance I wouldn't accept it. Maybe AZ is just jacked up (well, ok it def. is) but heres no support help, no action for domestic violence. Women get screwed royally. Of course I'm willing to accept evidence that shows my story is is not how it normally works here but considering my experience of shelters, etc where I got to meet a lot of similar people I don't think there's any evidence that contradicts what I'm saying. I know there's men that get arrested for large amounts of outstanding child support but honestly from inside the system, it doesn't appear to be doing a damn thing. Again, its Pharyngula so I'm happy and willing to be educated =)
Also, I think she might also have meant theres no law to force the parents to house and care for the child since adoption and foster care is available but I could be wrong.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 19, 2010 8:31 PM
What is a human person, Robocop? I am proposing that animal awareness is enough to warrant rights. The person who has always been severely disabled still has this. If not -- if there is not sufficient brainstem to manage animal awareness -- then which phenomenon are you calling a person?
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 19, 2010 8:52 PM
Carlie wrote:
No, it's not; I'm a little surprised you'd think that that's where I might be going, given the comments I've made in this thread so far.
However, since it's come up, it is a fact that if the woman chooses not to abort and keep the eventual child, the woman is technically getting to control the man's body by being able to force him work to provide for the child even if he doesn't want to.
I don't really like that, but the alternative is -to me at least - unthinkable.
Posted by: whitebird
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April 19, 2010 9:01 PM
Strange gods @768 - "whitebird, see #717 and #295. Why is it better to favor increased deaths of women?"
Huh? Looks like abortion kills fewer women than childbirth..what are you saying?
Posted by: whitebird
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April 19, 2010 9:08 PM
..P.S. - ah, I see, strange gods...well, it is actually 4/20 somewhere :o
Posted by: Robocop
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April 19, 2010 9:13 PM
817: What is a human person, Robocop?
Honestly, I don't have a good answer to that question and the views I hold I hold extremely tentatively. I'm especially reticent because I'm male. In a way, I envy the certainty so many on all sides of this issue have because it surely eludes me. I'm not at all comfortable with what Singer proposes -- I don't think parents should be able to euthanize severely disabled children, for example. I recognize the problems and hardships that position could cause, but my fear of what could happen to the unwanted, the disabled and "undesirables" is too strong to allow me to go there easily. I think the common practice in China of sex-selection abortion is horrific but I'm not happy to give the state the power to control who gets an abortion and who doesn't, either. I'm also leary of any standard that risks becoming outdated quickly by scientific discovery or advance. Who knows what we'll come to learn in terms of awareness in the relatively near future? Practicality sugests the need for clear, universal standards but it's hard for me to apply any in difficult cases.
I wish I had a better answer....
Posted by: scooterKPFT
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April 19, 2010 9:38 PM
Wow, yall are still duking it out over here?
Impressive
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/Ca2cuGl3t4qNgU.SMSH5yFnUqgwxFV7GvUw-#88074
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April 19, 2010 9:40 PM
Ha ha. Great post. I also love the blatant logical fallacy, "Be happy your mother was pro-life!" No, my mother was pro-choice. Because pro-choice women HAVE BABIES TOO, idiots. :/
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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April 19, 2010 9:43 PM
please don't anastomose to teh Thread please don't anastomose to teh Thread please don't anastomose to teh Thread please don't anastomose to teh Thread please don't anastomose to teh Thread please don't anastomose to teh Thread please don't anastomose to teh Thread please don't anastomose to teh Thread
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 19, 2010 9:44 PM
Wowbagger, I wasn't questioning your motives, rather the original person who brought it up.
Not comparable though, as I'm sure you know. Financial obligation is a far cry from forced gestation.
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 9:48 PM
@824
I certainly don't plan to. The topic will stay here as it should. This has been a long and frustrating thread. At least for me.
Posted by: His Noodly Appendage
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April 19, 2010 9:52 PM
I am rabidly pro-choice. However, I do need to take exception to this argument in general.
The general form "If you find X immoral, simply avoid doing X, and STFU" goes plenty of places you really don't want it to go.
Case in point: FGM. You don't like people hacking up their children's genitals? Fine, don't do it, I'm not making you. Now, pass me that razor blade...
No. Nonono. Ethical relativism FTL. The morality of an action does not depend on the identity of the agent. It lies in the eye of the beholder.
Asking pro-lifers not to be idiots, and to get their ethical principles self-consistent is one thing.
But asking them to simply abandon their ethics, to stand by and not even say anything while (what they perceive as) atrocities are being committed?
Fuck no. I wouldn't stand for that, and neither would anyone here, I hope. Anyone tried that with me, I'd hit them.
I don't think the world is made a better place by encouraging people not to do what they believe to be right. By all means encourage them to change what they believe, but don't ask them to simply turn a blind eye.
And yes, personal feelings of yuckiness. I agree, the Argument From Ick is stupid and needs to be combated, but I think it's important to acknowledge that outrage and approval are inherently emotional responses.
Ones that we carefully tune and cultivate to be utterly compelling, and often according to a rational heuristic - but at heart, morality is something you feel first, and justify second. If it weren't, I don't think it would have much effect on people's behaviour.
As such, when dealing with misplaced outrage, I think it's foolish to try and do so without treating it as an emotion-wrangling exercise.
If you don't push the right buttons, the system won't respond the way you want it to. Just because the system is made of people and memes, doesn't change the principle one little bit. It's no good pushing the wrong button harder - you need to do what works.
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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April 19, 2010 10:00 PM
Carlie wrote:
Agree 100%.
I would, however, love for there to be a non-permanent, 100% effective form of male contraception to make sure guys are able to take complete responsibility from their end and remove the problem entirely.
Had such a thing existed in the past I might not have ended up ending relationships (at least partly) because of my inability to bring up the topic of birth control and subsequently being filled with so much fear about an accident that I couldn't sleep at night for worrying.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 19, 2010 10:14 PM
Carlie:
Yes it is. It shouldn't be diminished though. To me, it just emphasizes the need for greater access and affordability when it comes to BC, and education, education, education. The attitude towards sex in the U.S. is so incredibly backwards, and the years of abstinence only ed has done a lot of damage.
Posted by: Pygmy Loris
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April 19, 2010 10:18 PM
Wowbagger,
In the USA no one can force the man to work to pay child support. Remaining officially unemployed is one of the many ways to escape paying child support over here. A friend of mine had a horrible time getting child support from her ex-husband because he just kept quitting his crappy jobs as soon as the paperwork went through to garnish his wages. Remaining officially unemployed may not be the most attractive option, but it does mean you don't have to pay child support. Sucks.
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 10:20 PM
I laughed at this when I watched it so I just had to share. I have Ni Hao, Kai Lan on with my daughter watching as I make dinner for us and the message today is "Everyone is happy when they get a choice". No worries though she's not attached, addicted or watching that much T.V. Its just on as a pre-dinner treat and a distraction so I don't step on her while cooking. lol
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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April 19, 2010 10:26 PM
Not up to you, man. That was a plea to the ECO.
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 19, 2010 10:34 PM
ECO? Since people have already started talking about it there and was asked not to, I was just saying I wasn't going to be doing that. Did I misinterpret what you where talking about? My apologies for making myself look like an ass, I know I'm not that important and don't get to make the decision for everybody else.
Posted by: Pygmy Loris
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April 19, 2010 10:36 PM
Skatje,
I read your comments and all the replies over the last two evenings, and you've shown tremendous privilege. You have had a sheltered, comfortable life, and the evidence of that oozes from your every post. Denial of the facts won't change that. Further, people have repeatedly asked you to justify your anti-woman, slut-shaming position, but you have repeatedly refused to address why you think fetuses (and yes they're fetuses, not babies) deserve to leech off of another human being against her will. Saying she asked for it by having sex is a ridiculous and by definition sexist position.
If you have reasons besides "abortion makes me uneasy for indeterminate reasons related to fetus babies" that you have thought through, then it should not take you that long to post them in a few comments. You have not despite the opportunity to do so. Therefore, I have to conclude that you're running your mouth about things you haven't really thought through. Maybe instead of being condescending (the sob stories quote, really?) towards the people who choose to put themselves out there and engage you with the reality of your "philosophical debate" you could actually do some thinking and form some arguments that are not clearly anti-woman and unsound.
Here's a question for you to consider. Others have pointed out that the risk of death during an abortion procedure (even late term abortions) is lower than that of labor and delivery. You claim you would never choose abortion. If you were pregnant with a severely anacephalic fetus, would you get an abortion. The fetus has no chance of surviving outside of the uterus regardless of medical intervention, but an abortion is a volitional act that will actively kill the fetus. OTOH, it's safer for you and carrying the fetus to term will not change its life-outcome. What would you do?
Since you say you would get an abortion to save your life, I have to ask if you know how many doctors are trained to perform abortions for women whose lives are at risk from the pregnancy, particularly late-term abortions. There are fewer and fewer every year. The ones who are still practicing are also older and not being replaced by new doctors. Limiting abortion will result in even fewer doctors trained in providing this kind of life-saving care. In your hypothetical world without elective abortion, or even abortion for the health of the woman, getting an abortion when your life is at risk would be very difficult, and less safe.
Posted by: kb
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April 20, 2010 1:39 AM
@ 734:
I did mention in the first post that not only is ovulation inhibited, but also fertilization. Chronologically, first you have to ovulate, which is inhibited under both medications, then you have to get fertilized, which is inhibited under both medications, and THEN implantation is inhibited, on the off chance that you need that. Although it's not the primary purpose of either OC or Plan B, it could theoretically happen. Mainly, I was annoyed that people were saying they were different, which they aren't, they have pretty much the same mechanisms. It isn't one preventing ovulation and one preventing implantation. I'm sorry it wasn't clear, and I'm extra sorry, but also a little annoyed, if I set off crazy-troll alarms.
Because the two medications inhibit ovulation so well, and then after that inhibit fertilization, no one has caught a video of a blastocyst bouncing off the wall of a contraceptived uterus. Also, it would affect too few people to pick up in a study, unless you wanted to have a really really big study, and those are always about omg bloodclots. I was actually disappointed not to find a study that could say "x people ovulated, x-y people got fertilized, but only x-y-z people got preggers which means there MUST BE ANOTHER MECHANISM!!!!" Apparently it's hard to separate the anti-fertilization effects from the anti-implantation ones. But it is very well established that your endometrium is different on oral contraceptives, and lacks the lining that your body normally preps for being cannibalized (assuming "you" are female and have a fertile uterus). I have a few studies that say this:
"Hormonal Pathology of the Endometrium," in Modern Pathology, 2000, March, 13(3): 285-94
"Oral contraceptives exert a predominant progestational effect on the endometrium, inducing an arrest of glandular proliferation, pseudosecretion, and stromal edema followed by decidualized stroma with granulocytes and thin sinusoidal blood vessels. Prolonged use results in progressive endometrial atrophy."
(Normally, you have a lot of glandular proliferation and secretion of stuff a ball of cells would enjoy endocytosing. And large twisty blood vessels. Dinky decidualization and thin blood vessels are kind of like the uterus thinking it's traveling towards pregnancy but ending up in Idaho. Which we all know is barren.
Even perfect use of hormone oral contraceptives has a fail rate, which means that it's not impossible to have implantation. But it's plausible that it's less likely, and that's not just anti-choice people.)
"The effect of oral contraceptive pills on markers of endometrial receptivity" in Fertility and Sterility, 1996, March 65(3) 484-8
"These alterations in epithelial and stromal integrin expression suggest that impaired uterine receptivity is one mechanism whereby OCs exert their contraceptive actions."
"Effects of contraceptive agents on the biochemical and protein composition of human endometrium." in Contraception, 1980, Oct 22(4): 425-40
"Therefore, it is concluded that both types of contraception induce changes in the macromolecular composition of human endometrium, and that these changes may be related to their contraceptive modes of action."
("Both types" refer to IUD and OC)
And this one doesn't really make my point about available oral contraceptives, but some people worked on making a once-a-month birth control pill that would prevent implantation and not ovulation, so that lack of a secretory lining does matter to real scientists who aren't all like "Blarrgh!" about very small amounts of human tissue:
"A single dose of mifepristone (200 mg) in the immediate preovulatory phase offers contraceptive potential without cycle disruption." in Contraception, 2003, Sep 68(3):203-9
"If given in the early luteal phase, the formation of a secretory endometrium is inhibited or delayed and implantation of the embryo prevented."
Posted by: somewhereingreece
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April 20, 2010 1:50 AM
Carlie #750
I am sincerely sorry I am making you uncomfortable. In my defence, I did make it clear the very first time I used the term that this is what I would say to anyone who used phrases such as "it's YOUR fault" and "Sooooo many anecdotal sob stories". Moreover, Skatje Myers herself is burning with indignation towards those who take her youth into account when responding to her.
'Tis Himself #805
I wish I had thought of that.
Posted by: Bride of Shrek OM
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April 20, 2010 2:21 AM
Pygmy @ #830
It's the same here in Australia ( trust me, I've had to go head to head with a ton of these type of bastards when I was practicing family law). NO one can "force" you to work. Albeit you do have to "prove" you're "looking" for work on a fortnightly basis or you'll lose your dole money. Needless to say these "proofs" are not hard to come by and can be as lenient as stating you've loked in the paper and there's nothing there. Having said that,evem on the dole, you still have to pay the minimum child support patyment which is a measly fucking $5, or thereabouts, a week.
Fortunately most men ( and increasingly women as family shapes change) have the intestinal fortitude to know it is the CHILD that the support is for and THEY are the one suffering if they don't pay it, not the ex-spouse whom they are just trying to score petty revenge points off.
..ah, I don't miss family law at all, funnily enough.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/2WTs7ZsrpIHTKihob3v2es8wEMG7Mmo-#60d8b
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April 20, 2010 2:22 AM
@691, of course I understand that in real life the demand for elective post twenty weeks abortion is slim to none and that the women that do have these procedures in reality almost exclusively have health risks or fetal disability which is incompatible with life. I did specifically point out, however, an ability to survive outside the womb and the scenario was one in which there were not compelling health concerns for other procedures. So, we are talking about nonmedically nessecary elective abortions after 22 weeks or so (which is only legal in one state in the US up to 24, so yeah, this would be an increase in legal ability to remove the fetus, not a decrease at least in the US). Why is abortion ethical? That's the key question. It is ethical because a person has an absolute right to deny useage of their body to another, not because a fetus never becomes a person (embryos are definitely not people, newborn infants definitely are, there is some point in between where they pass that threshold), but because a person does not get to demand a right to use another's body. Now, I would generally hold a viable fetus to be a person, though, like any other person, it does not hold the right to nonconsensually use another's body. So, the woman maintains the right to exercise bodily sovereignty by removing it. However, if there is a method which does not risk her health wherein she may exercise her right and the fetus is free to survive if it can, this is the best method. The woman's rights are not being violated because no one is using her body without consent. Consider a case of surrogacy. A couple contracts a surrogate who becomes pregnant with their biological child. Then, the husband dies and the wife decides she does not want a child any longer. The state in which they live gives legal rights and responsibilities to the biological parents, not the surrogate. Surely, this woman does not have the right to coerce the surrogate to abort or to kill the born infant to refuse parental responsibility, despite the fact that she no longer wants the child and will suffer emotionally from its birth. She does, however, have the right to give up her legal rights over the child after birth, as would a woman who removed her viable fetus.
As to the issue of forced delivery, the medical procedure most commonly used for an abortion at this stage involves dilation of the cerivix and vaginal delivery, either in whole or in pieces. An intact D&E only requires a few less centimeters of dilation compared to a birth, but with a nonviable fetus, there is no reason to bother with the extra dilation (also, with the major health problems usually occuring in these cases, sometimes extra dilation involves health risk, but again, that would be a health reason). That fetus has to be removed somehow, and vaginally is the most common way of doing that in late term abortions, so a vaginal removal of a live fetus rather than a dead one is not a compelling distinction.
Also, while we do need better social support for infants and children with disabilites, this is not justification to suggest that such a life is not worth living.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 20, 2010 2:28 AM
relinquishing parental rights and responsibilities
Posted by: monado
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April 20, 2010 2:31 AM
Two things:
* Value accrues as the fetus develops; but women who don't want to be pregnant have abortions, if possible, before that value is significant. If you think this needs to be externally enforced in any way except by making safe abortions available, you are not trusting women to be adult moral agents.
* We don't normally force people to risk their lives. (Drafted military service under some conditions is an exception.) By forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy instead of taking the safer abortion, you are forcing her to risk her life against her will. It's unethical.
Posted by: Walton, Marquis of Carabas
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April 20, 2010 3:01 AM
OT, but: Bride of Shrek, did you get my email the other day?
Posted by: monado
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April 20, 2010 3:02 AM
Sadly, the "let her suffer" tone of some posts reminds me of a teenage girl who was murdered in St. Catharines several years ago by Paul Bernardo and his wife, who acted as a Judas goat in luring girls close enough to be abducted. One of their victims had missed her curfew, so when she came home later her mother locked her out of the house to drive home the lesson that it was dangerous to stay out late.
Posted by: danielm
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April 20, 2010 3:12 AM
skatje.myers and anyone else who would like to know what anti-abortion, anti-choice "pro-lifers" really think and do when it comes to their own choices and uteruses (uterii?) should read http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html because I believe it will open your eyes.
This is at the end of a long thread, I would not be surprised if it sank into the mire that is the internet without notice, which would be sad, but it is important that it get read.
Posted by: Bride of Shrek OM
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April 20, 2010 3:13 AM
Oh, Walton, sorry honey, I did and it's very rude of me to have not replied but I've been crazy busy. I'll send you and email later on tonight after my little "treasures" are in bed.
Posted by: dianoguy
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April 20, 2010 3:45 AM
Well, I've arrived late to a great discussion, as usual. I'd say I found this thread "entertaining," if it weren't such a weighty topic... I'll stick with "fascinating."
I thoroughly enjoyed the sudden appearance of Skatje, and was pretty surprised by the viciousness/rudeness of subsequent attacks on her position, which I found to be far more well-reasoned/-supported than most gave her credit for.... Some Skatje quotes I loved:
"This is a matter of people PLAYING THE ODDS, intentionally....Either take the gamble, knowing that it might end with unintended consequences, or learn to appreciate oral sex more."
"I have no sympathy for "BUT I DIDNT MEAN TO" when you know your method could very well end up this way. it's not an excuse."
"I would place the right of a fetus to live over your right to ignore the consequences of your actions because they're too hard."
I also note with amusement that by the wee hours of Monday morning, the conversation had largely devolved into what Skatje aptly termed a "pissfest," as often seems to happen here.
Posted by: dianoguy
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April 20, 2010 4:11 AM
Question for PZ (or perhaps a fellow commenter, who could direct me to previous statements by PZ on the topic): As you are a biologist intimately familiar with embryonic development, I'm very curious where you'd place full "personhood."
Obviously, no one (except the "crazy people") can claim that the line is anything but fuzzy. But if you *had* to place a line somewhere -- "at this point the developing human is certainly a person, and deserves the protection of the law" -- where would it be? Upon the emergence of what characteristics, either before birth, or even *after* birth, as you hinted in comment #348?
Posted by: DominEditrix
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April 20, 2010 4:39 AM
No, Skatje, real-life stories, as it is clear that your stance is purely theoretical, with no thought given to reality and no ability to empathise with others who are not in your position.
If your childhood was, indeed, not "privileged" by having two parents in the same middle-class household, access to higher education, a father who allows you to post ideas antithetical to his own without censoring you, and who has, on multiple occasions indicated his pride in you - and on at least one occasion, loosed a blast at people who would harass you for his thoughts and actions - well, why don't you tell us about it? All the evidence, including your own posts on your blog, indicate that your life has been and will continue to be a hell of a lot easier than many of your peers and that you have no concept of what hell life could be for a pregnant teen, much less for a pregnant woman. That's why people have been trying to get you to understand by telling you stories of real life. Not theoretical, not philosophical, but real life.
We aren't denying that you're capable of sympathy, but pointing out that you quite obviously don't have the life experience to understand what others lives can be like. I'm old enough to remember pre-Roe v. Wade times and what it was like for women. I worked in a hospital whilst at university and there were far too many women brought in haemorrhaging after a botched abortion. Whether you like it or not, whether it is legal or not, there will always be abortions. If, indeed, you truly value life, consider that women who are reduced to seeking an illegal abortion are far more likely to die or suffer hysterectomies or become unable to have wanted children - well, you should have a vested interest in keeping abortion legal and safe, whether you would ever have one or not..
Should there be better sex-ed and availability of contraception and more research into safer and more successful contraception? Of course - but there will always be glitches, be it a condom breaking or that tummy flu last month throwing off the effectiveness of an oral contraceptive. Your rather glib suggestion that people practice oral sex rather than intercourse is simply silly; that's not how life works in adult relationships.
Telling those who critique your worldview to 'Fuck off' is immature and only leads people to further discount your thought processes. Five year olds argue by trading potty-mouth insults; adults should know better.
Posted by: SQB (fuck death)
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April 20, 2010 6:31 AM
So the question is: Will the Fetus be Aborted?
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 20, 2010 7:17 AM
But they are different. Estrogens and progestins have opposing mechanisms of action, and Plan B is only progestin. That means that the action is different than in combination BC. One of the effects of progestins is to help out the whole implantation process. It can increase the lifespan of blastocysts, which gives them more time to implant, it and sets off the change in the endometrium to be implantable. That's why there's a huge progesterone spike right after ovulation. Plan B is only progestin, and in the studies I cited yesterday it didn't inhibit implantation rates at all. If there's a fertilized egg there, all Plan B does is help jump-start the pregnancy.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 20, 2010 8:01 AM
Where on earth do you see that? This has been one of the least pissy threads I've ever seen.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 20, 2010 8:21 AM
The thing about Skatje that probably depresses me the most (and yes, I'm trying to avoid fixating on the whole thing because it's not healthy) is that my partner is a philosophy major. And my partner is a wonderful person and philosophy as a degree and an institution has produced so many wonderful thinkers who do not try and shut their brains off to reality and facts in order to protect their nice clean theories and deep thoughts.
And yet, I keep running into members of this alternate crew of philosophy types. Religious freaks who try and hide their God in philosophical tautologies, conservative activists who learn philosophy for no other reason than to practice arguing in bad faith or otherwise derail any argument, people who think the major in and of itself means they are the only people who think, and yes, people, like Skatje who use it to trick themselves into supporting base bigoted positions and very unscientific views of important issues and still feel smarter than everyone else.
And these people really bother me, because not only are they often annoying and wrong and the worst types of people to debate (because they are often high-school debate club, argue to win types, fans of devil's advocate assholes), but because they are so abusing the major that is so important to the most important person in my life.
Skatje in general, well, it always sucks that someone who should know better doesn't and it always sucks when a woman of the generation that should know better seems just as susceptible to the "bitch shouldn't have spread her legs" type arguments. But I said way back in comment 48 that all the arguments end up in a handful of arguments. That Skatje ended up at #1 is not surprising. Furthermore, I have no doubt that if someone was to tease her super-secret philosophical reasoning for her position and why a fetus needs to be granted rights granted to no living full human being and why a woman needs to be denied fundamental human rights, we'd find out her argument would be a very haughty version of #3 (existential anxiety makes me anxious, thus women need to suffer).
Thing is, it's not really worth hammering too much on the Skatje thing. It's disappointing, yes, that someone with all of her privileges would turn up with views like these, but really, these views are not going to last long.
The thing about "I would never have an abortion, personally" types when they are fertile heterosexual women? Is that real life experience intervenes eventually to really make people who stumbled on that idea casually rethink things.
Sure, when we're thinking about how cute babies are and we're patting ourselves on the back about how diligently we use multiple forms of birth control and how we'd never be stupid like those sluts, it's easy to use it as a feel-good sort of clutch.
And then, an abusive boyfriend happens who keeps trying to forget his condom or a pregnancy scare will occur at a bad time, or a real pregnancy that just can't be handled without ruining one's entire life and the potential life of the fetus if you carried it to term. Or even they maybe make it to the point where they want to have kids and something goes so horribly wrong that they need to have an abortion of a wanted pregnancy.
And if not all that, then definitely one of the above for a close friend, another one of the "good girls" who's scared and frightened about what is happening to her.
Philosophical ideals based on a hunch may fuel some self-righteousness over the "sluts", but they tend to get hammered down by life when you're personally in the demographic that gets "punished" by things like this.
So, I doubt Skatje is long for her ill-reasoned self-righteousness. And really, weren't we all at some point annoying little shits growing up? I wrote a play in high school that had some serious Nice Guy TM elements including a throwaway line attacking feminism because I was too stupid at the time to know that my belief structure at the time was proto-feminist.
And I sincerely believe that each new generation, though we may all go through our fits and starts growing up and individual members may go astray, is on whole better than the generation previous. That they grow up with less baggage and will fight and win for advances that confer less baggage to their kids on average.
When the anti-choice brigade began, we had just begun the war on rape and for the idea of bodily autonomy. Men believed we had made up the right out of whole-cloth in order to ban all sex (because only men like sex, women are just there to delay or avoid it and be seduced by masculinity or so went the theory). Nowadays, we've made some strong gains and maybe another generation, we all will release that the whole issue of fetal viability is pretty well moot over the inherent rights of bodily autonomy (no grown human has the right to use someone else's body without their consent, the same is true of miracle potential life made of fucking magnets).
The fight is slow and long, but we are winning, brick by brick, piece by piece, struggle by struggle.
And to the late-comers who want to debate viability. Its moot. No fully viable human being, no matter how awesome has the right to use another person's body to survive. If all I need from you is a blood transfusion. I do not have the right to force you to give it to me. No matter how pure and good and worthy of life I am, no matter how cruel and evil and worthy of death you are. If I'm Richard Dawkins and you're Dick Cheney? No go. And just like sex, that consent isn't a universal for all time at the moment of penetration. I can withdraw the right of sex at any time and you don't have the right to continue, neither does magical magnet babies.
The fact that anti-choicers are also wrong about the point of viability and the potentiality of having a consciousness denoting personhood in the science is sort of the icing on the fail cake.
In fact, the fact that these arguments do not matter, gets at the heart that it's all the reasons I listed at my comment @48 and the universal dismissal of women, especially regarding the right to sex on equal terms of men that's the big sticking point.
As such, I'm more than happy to reiterate that I'll be happy to support continued roll-backs on abortion rights if penetration with a penis carried a 10-20 jail sentence for endangerment. Want to make penetrative sex a "punishment" for women or want to ignore women in pregnancy? Then men can learn to use strap-ons and start "enjoying more oral" as Skatje's inane argument went.
Posted by: Robocop
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April 20, 2010 10:03 AM
827: The general form "If you find X immoral, simply avoid doing X, and STFU" goes plenty of places you really don't want it to go.
Excellent point.
Some years ago I took another look at the Lincoln-Douglas debates in this context and was struck by how close some of the arguments seemed to be to some of those surrounding abortion. As I recall, Douglas kept coming back to the idea (although he didn't use contemporary language) that the slavers saw things differently and that the abolishionists should not be trying to impose their morality on them, especially since the slavers' rights in this regard were granted by the Constitution. In that instance, at least (and in my view), it was a morality that needed to be imposed and was, though far too late, rightly imposed.
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 20, 2010 11:04 AM
justalurker said:
Do you feel it is ethical to preserve this right at all times during your pregnancy?
Let's say a woman gets pregnant, wants the baby, and then, during delivery she changes her mind, and says "You know, this parasite no longer has my permission to reside in my body and has, therefore, no right to live . Since it is still inside my body, kill it."
Please don't avoid the question of whether that would ethical by simply arguing it is unlikely.
Posted by: negentropyeater
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April 20, 2010 11:30 AM
In public schools Yes.
Posted by: Chgo_Liz
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April 20, 2010 11:32 AM
Sheesh. OK, despite the idiocy of this strawman, I'll bite.
I assume you've never been present at a birth.
At the point of actual delivery, no one is in a position to change things. What would the doctor/midwife/nurse do differently at that point? Remember, whatever their personal beliefs about fetuses are, they're professionally prohibited from endangering the woman's life (unless it's a Catholic hospital...don't get me started on that side argument!). And if the pregnant woman were somehow able to hold the fetus in one position in the birth canal for an extended length of time (HAH!!), it's not like she can force the fetus to suffocate because it's not breathing yet anyway. Yes, obviously, fetuses do die in the birth canal in cases where delivery goes on too long, but that's because there are legitimate problems, not because the woman willed herself to keep the baby inside.
There is no difference to the physical health of the woman at that point (pregnancy vs. abortion), because any of the medical risks of pregnancy have already happened. If pre-eclampsia occurs, the medical staff would deal with it as they normally do. The woman's feelings about the baby (pro or con) don't enter into the medical procedures at that point.
Believe me, once you're in the delivery stage, things move quickly and there isn't time for intellectual discussion. Everyone is focused on GET.THE.BABY.OUT.
Who cares for it after it's born is open to discussion.
Posted by: SteveM
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April 20, 2010 11:36 AM
No she does not, and never had, the right to say "kill it". What she does say is "remove it from my body". It is just that most abortions are performed at a time when removing it necessarily kills it.
And FU anyway, it is not just "unlikely" but fucking absurd and does nothing to advance the discussion about the ethics of abortion. It is a trick to try to get people to either be inconsistent or "monstrous".
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 20, 2010 11:40 AM
chgo_liz,
My question is not about the exigencies and mechanics of birth.
I am just wondering if the people here who use the argument that the woman has ultimate ownership rights of her body believe - as justalurker seems to be doing -this should hold at ALL times of the pregnancy - including late-stage. My scenario was to illustrate the problem, as I see it, with an absolutist argument.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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April 20, 2010 11:41 AM
<headdesk>
This is the point where we should start to punish stupidity.
Uteri. -us, -i; -ius, -ii.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 20, 2010 11:50 AM
What if it was just born, and the mother grabs it and shoves it back in, then can she have an abortion?
No, Gingerbaker, your scenario did nothing of the sort to "illustrate the problem", it's as ridiculous and impossible of a hypothetical as what I just wrote.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 20, 2010 11:55 AM
Gingerbaker and robocop-
What part of no fully formed, living, existing, actual, non-theoretical full human being with full real human rights do not have the right to another person's body without their consent, is too obtuse to you morons.
But, but, the margins. The magic is in the margins.
The margins are a false game.
Yeah, it's absurd that you want to extend this non-precedented right (oh yeah, unprecedented except as you know slavery or the role of women as a male's property in times gone past) to growing fetal matter with no potentiality of consciousness, but even if every single miracle fucking magnet baby instantly got the brain of Einstein at the moment an egg's perimeter was breached, it wouldn't change a goddamn thing.
No one, no real actual human has this right. None. Nor should they.
Yet, you want us to grant this non-existant right to something that might only possibly be a human being if we stand on one leg and sort of squint?!?
And you want us to believe that you are at all not arguing from the standpoint of one of the women-dismissive arguments I listed way back at comment 48?
Allow me to scoff.
This among other reasons is why I hate anti-choicers and everyone who wants to "be fair to them".
And before you even start, no, infants do not have that right either. A parent has full right to abandon them at any point. They may be forced to pay child support or serve jail time depending on the method of abandonment, but they are not forced at any time to raise the child, nor can anyone even think of charging them with any form of crime if they should refuse to donate organs or blood to keep an infant alive.
It is an unprecedented right that those easily-swayed to dismiss women find satisfying that they think should only apply to the pre-born and at the expense of the already living.
Madness, stupidity, evil.
Posted by: Chgo_Liz
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April 20, 2010 11:56 AM
Gingerbaker, read SteveM @ #856 again.
I'm aborting you. Yay for killfile.
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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April 20, 2010 11:59 AM
@scooterKPFT #822: The thread will probably be aborted soon to preserve the life of the server.
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 20, 2010 12:11 PM
Cerberus:
Wipe the spittle off your monitor. It is impeding your ability to write a coherent sentence.
Cerberus:
I said any such thing. I'm not antichoice. Pay attention. You sound like a raving maniac.
I am simply wondering - for the third time - if the people who use the argument that a woman has ownership of her body during pregnancy believe that that this interest is absolute at all times, or whether they also believe that at some point the state has an interest in preserving the interests of the fetus.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 20, 2010 12:12 PM
Carlie-
Ooh ooh, what if she used a super future beam to turn a fetus into a theoretical 18 year old fully formed adult man in front of her that was fully autonomous and then she attached a robo-umbilical cord into his neck and started stabbing him with a knife because she's a feminist and thus hates babies and men screaming "smothering femininity will kill the man-sperm triumphant" right before going to her daily Wiccan orgies where she will try to get knocked up to repeat this action before the next day.
What about then? Uppity women? Does that margin mean something gets to trump your "body autonomy" and thus enshrine a clear reduction of women in comparison to men? Oh, no? Can I try another bullshit argument? How about now?
But how can you be so mean? We're only talking about beautiful bouncing BABEEZ, after all. Why do feminists like slaughtering infants?
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 20, 2010 12:20 PM
Gingerbaker-
Reduced for your reading comprehension.
No one has the right to another person's body for any reason.
Period.
Not to live.
Not if there survival depends on it.
No reason.
Not if the other person is a monster.
Not if the other person will die tomorrow anyways.
No reason.
No one has this right.
No full formed, fully human person has this right. From cute innocent infants to Most Giving Humanitarians to the Greatest Minds of our Generations.
No one has this right.
But you keep arguing "for" anti-choicers and ask us to really dig deep and play by their rules and ignore this unfortunate reality.
We can't.
It doesn't matter when a fetus is "viable". It does not have a right to survive with someone else's body without their consent.
Is this simple enough?
Do I need to use smaller words?
And gosh, women having their very humanity reduced and asked to consider losing basic human rights that often come at the cost of their very lives.
Gosh, I wonder why some of us may be spittle-flecked.
Oh, I know, I must be on my period again.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 20, 2010 12:31 PM
GB, check the real reasons for third trimester abortions. Then get back to us. Your game is played by the anti-choice folks to get us to move. We won't move. Which is why you are getting the response you are. If we were talking in private, your response might be different.
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 20, 2010 12:51 PM
Cerberus:
Yes. "Simple" is exactly the word that comes to mind.
Nerd of Redhead:
This "game" as you put it, is also played by Planned Parenthood and anyone who supports Roe v. Wade. Rowe balances two competing interests: a woman's autonomy over her body and the life of a viable fetus. It seems to me to be a pretty good compromise, an argument that is bolstered by the rarity of third-trimester abortion.
I find the position of Cerberus et al, who - if I understand them correctly - are unwilling to concede the state any reasonable interest to protect the life of a viable fetus to be astonishing.
Posted by: Deen
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April 20, 2010 1:08 PM
@Gingerbaker: How is killing the baby during delivery going to get it out of the body faster? It's a stupid question.
But yes, even in the last month of pregnancy, a woman has the right to terminate her pregnancy. It's just that by that point, induced labor or a cesarean are usually perfectly acceptable methods for doing so, for both the mother and child.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 20, 2010 1:25 PM
Cerberus @ 864:
Because they taste good and make wonderful roasts.
*I see Gingerbaker is being every bit the assclown. I sees 'em, I call 'em.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 20, 2010 1:26 PM
Gingerbaker.
If Richard Dawkins needs a blood transfusion from Dick Cheney to live. To survive. He does not get to have it if Dick Cheney refuses consent. If Cheney gives consent and Dawkins makes all the effort to get himself prepped and Dick Cheney decides to withdraw consent at the last minute, Richard Dawkins is shit out of luck and gets to die.
These are the laws and rights extended to fully born, full humans.
This isn't simplicity. This is the rights as granted about the value of the right to bodily autonomy versus the value of the right to live.
What your "thought experiment" and "gotcha game" amount to is trying to call those who acknowledge this reality child-murderers for not being willing to bend on this and grant this unprecedented right to something that isn't even remotely human for most of its development and only mostly human in late development (most of the important higher brain functions actually develop post-birth in the first year of an infant's life).
The compromise as went in Roe was made at a time when we were still in the thick of it fighting for a basic recognition of a woman's right to exist and to be considered a full human being. Of course it overbalances. Because the idea that a woman as separate from every human back then had a right to bodily autonomy was starkly new to the even more sexist culture we lived in.
Oh, yeah, we also do balance those two very well as SteveM @856 noted.
The way things work is to prevent a literal slavery. No one can hold you down and force you to give them your organs. No one can hold you down and rape you. No one has a right to your body and your labor without consent not even to survive, not even for a good cause.
It's the most important aspect of your rights to swing your fist end at my face. And yet for something that is clearly less than human, we demand the right to ignore this critical fundamental human right and pretend that it is somehow different from anything else suffered in the real world.
Today, a man will die, needing an organ or blood transfusion from a family member who will refuse to give it for one reason or another. They only needed it to survive and they will cease to be. A full real human being. Not an argument, not a philosophical margin definition game, people. Real people.
We still do not violate that fundamental human right. And this balance is fair and right. While we may all have certain rights when we are actually human persons, we do not have the right to those rights at the forced expense of another.
Parents who wish to leave their responsibility can give up children to adoption. No one has the right to a specific parent. People who want to fuck someone must first acquire their consent, we do not have a right to fuck a specific person without consent. People who want to live can seek a consensual donor, we do not have a right to take someone's blood, organs, or other tissues without their permission.
This is the right that trumps all others at least in the age post-slavery and it is good this right does so, because it is critical for us to plan and live our lives without fear of being highjacked.
So yeah, 9 months of pregnancy where your own body is leeching the very calcium from your bones and teeth, compromising your own immune system, blocking your full range of motion, draining your nutrients, leaving long-lasting damage on your body?
For something that is not even remotely a full human being? Because anti-choicers claim their hatred of women is just a concern about "balancing" the right to live with a woman's right to body autonomy in a way wholly different than we balance that right with full real human beings?
Yeah, no.
I'm sorry. I know you really really need this moment of dominance, but you're recycling garbage and its really on you to take a good long look at why you are so dismissive of the basic humanity of women that you would deny them this critical human right in your argumentation.
I don't mean in life, I mean in your argument. What does it say about you that you need to argue the margins and pretend like there is some point, some force where a fetus can gain rights and powers given to no other human being in the planet and women must suffer the loss of rights only lost by those currently being raped and slaves.
The right to bodily autonomy trumps the right to life. Every time in our society. No one can be compelled to risk themselves to save another. No one can be compelled to even give a non-essential bit of themselves to save another.
This isn't ideals, this isn't crazy feminist talk, this is the basic rights of man.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/2WTs7ZsrpIHTKihob3v2es8wEMG7Mmo-#60d8b
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April 20, 2010 1:32 PM
@robocop, the difference here is that abolitionist did not commonly secretly own slaves (and that they had more to their argument than "I think slavery is icky"), whereas anti-choice women are not actually less likely to get abortions (in the US at least). As anyone who has worked or volunteered long term at a clinic will tell you, the women who protest against abortion outside will come in for their own abortions before rejoining the picket lines. Anti-choice women see themselves as the exception, they aren't irresponsible sluts like the rest of the women who get abortions, no they deserve abortions because they are good girls with troubles. Here's a collection of some provider stories http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/22/9334/83825
Dr. Warren Hern, one of the few doctors who provides life saving late term abortion was actually sued for refusing to perform an abortion for a woman who called him a murderer and said that she hoped he was was killed by anti-abortion groups while she was in the clinic to have her abortion.
That said, I have alway preferred to use the slogan "If you can't trust me with a choice how can you trust me with a child?" Because, you know, those women that anti-choicers consider to be heartless, slutty bitches are expected to birth and raise these children.
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 20, 2010 1:35 PM
Caine:
And you're still a putz.
Posted by: somewhereingreece
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April 20, 2010 1:35 PM
@Gingerbaker #869:
Unless we are talking about a totalitarian state where all children are soldiers, or soldiers' mothers in potentia, the state has no interest in viable fetuses. What it does have interest in is having children born to families who want them in as great a percentage as possible, for these would be children less likely to be at risk, therefore less likely to put a strain in social services.
The delivery room argument is, to put it plainly, ridiculous. In a country where there is access to abortion, the mothers who want to kill their child in the delivery room are most likely psychiatric patients, like Andrea Yates, who need help and the child out as fast as possible. There is no way you can call the woman in this situation capable of making informed decisions.
It has been said before. Women who have third trimester abortions are carrying wanted children who are either setting their life in danger or have debilitating diseases and each and every case is tragic. This is not the droid you are looking for.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 20, 2010 1:39 PM
Gingerbaker, you know that late term abortions are not being performed for frivolous reasons.
So you can quit lying by implying otherwise.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 20, 2010 1:40 PM
OT
On a completely separate issue, arguing tired shit like this, makes me just say, "Fuck Children."
Seriously, every damn issue about minorities having basic human rights triggers the supremacist brigade to start hiding behind the children.
Gay people want to get married.
But, then my child might learn about gay people existing and may ask uncomfortable questions about how they do it! Ban it!
Trans people want to use the restroom.
Where my child will have her underwear off in close proximity to them and protected by privacy walls? No thank you. You freaks can pee at home.
Women want the basic human rights afforded to men.
Baby-killers (abortion)! What about your children? You're abandoning them (working outside the home). You're going to teach my child to become a slut (sex-education, contraception, STD testing, HPV Vaccine).
Blacks want equality and to be treated as full human beings.
You all are "bad influences" on my children. We need to get these people off the airwaves. Plus, you curse sometimes. Bad influences! Bad influences! Also scary and dangerous (falling into less use these days but an old favorite).
Recent Immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries would like their children to have some help acclimating to english-speaking schools so they can get a full education.
You're planning on stealing education resources from my children for this. Learn English if you want to live here!
People want to depict what actual life looks like on the media programs.
My kid could see it, ban it, ban it, ban it! Inappropriate for children.
Etc...
Every damn issue, this crap. But the children. And what's worse is that for most of it, the kids don't actually give a damn. Sexual innuendo flies over the heads of those too young. Kids can grasp people who are different than them apparently easier than their parents. And kids viscerally understand and suffer when it is clear they are unwanted or viewed as a punishment. Much less when they are used as a sex object by a family member or trusted church official.
And the same people block laws that protect actual born children "for the children".
It just makes me go, "fuck the damn children already".
Posted by: Rutee, Shrieking Harpy of Dooooom
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April 20, 2010 2:08 PM
Minor quibble with Skatje's response to 'the argument that you should provide evidence'.
Actually, I said "If you have no evidence, you have no ground to wave away anecdotes". I'm alright with you not having evidence on a matter of ethics, but you don't get to take the refuge of the rational (The plural of data is not anecdotes) if you do not provide actual data. You do not get to use the word 'anecdote' as a means to dismiss things htat are uncomfortable for your argument if you can not at least say, with clear evidence supporting you "Yes, but..."
If all you have is philosophy, you can pretty much shut the hell up and listen to what happens because of your philosophy.
Posted by: somewhereingreece
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April 20, 2010 2:13 PM
Cerberus, no hating on the children. They *have* the sense they were born with.
I think "fuck the damn breeders already" is a better phrase, as it puts the responsibility where it belongs: on the lap of those who allow sad excuses of human beings to use their children as an excuse for oppressing others.
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 20, 2010 2:15 PM
Cerberus:
Bullshit.
I'm not calling anyone a child murderer. Stop arguing with a strawman.
And WTF is this:
" and only mostly human in late development (most of the important higher brain functions actually develop post-birth in the first year of an infant's life)."
I have a sister who was born two months prematurely. By your standards she was not a full human being when she was born? That's absurd. Fetuses are human. Newborns are human. Shit, embryos are human - that's why we call them 'human embryos'. What species do you think they belong to?
This meme you believe in so rabidly - that a fetus is an alien residing in sacrosanct temple of a woman's body SUCKS - because it is extremist 'at the margins'. It is too intellectually pure to have meaning in the real world. You are trying to argue that this "right", as you put it, of a woman's privacy outranks the life interest of a viable fetus. That has got to be the most selfish position I have ever seen.
somewhereingreece:
That's wrong. IIRC, Rowe v. Wade went to the Supreme Court. The court most definitely affirmed the state's interest in protecting the life of a viable fetus. That is why third-semester abortions are regulated.
Um., yeah it's a scenario. Taking the "parasite in a temple" meme to absurd length to argue against its validity.
cerberus:
Project much?
I agree with the general principle of Rowe v. Wade which preserves the basic humanity of women up until a time when the interests of a viable fetus balance her privacy rights. Perhaps that time point might be moved later. But Rowe is the law of the land, and the timetable it created seems pretty darned reasonable. It balances the basic rights of the female and the fetus.
It is YOUR position, I would argue, that is "dismissive of the basic humanity". You dismiss the humanity of viable fetus - hell, you got damn close to dismissing the humanity of a one-year-old child, for fuck's sake.
When you are wedded to an argument that makes such conclusions mandatory, it is time to revise your position.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 20, 2010 2:15 PM
This is what happens when you restrict abortion.
A pregnant 10-year-old, allegedly raped by her stepfather, has become the latest lightning rod in the country's heated abortion debate.
Abortion is legal in Mexico's capital city, but prohibited or significantly restricted in most of the country's states. The girl's home state of Quintana Roo, on the Yucatan peninsula, allows abortion in cases of rape during the first 90 days of the pregnancy. But the 10-year-old girl is at 17½ weeks, nearly a month past that limit.
State Attorney General Francisco Alor Quezada said he did not know whether officials had told the girl she had the option of pursuing an abortion, and he did not know how far the girl was into her pregnancy when her mother reported the assault to authorities last month.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 20, 2010 2:32 PM
Gingerbaker, I've only heard your comments come only from the anti-choice side. And I've heard all the arguments since RvW was announced back when I was an undergraduate. Since we presently have limitations on third trimester abortions, the question is moot. But, I will always put the rights of those who I can see, like the woman, over the rights of those I can't, the fetus.
Posted by: Robocop
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April 20, 2010 2:42 PM
870: The right to bodily autonomy trumps the right to life. Every time in our society. No one can be compelled to risk themselves to save another. No one can be compelled to even give a non-essential bit of themselves to save another.
Societies often make exceptions to the usual rules for those most in need of protection. My children have no right to my financial support because they have reached the age of majority and are healthy. Yet had they suffered a severe disability they would be entitled to my financial support for as long as they live. I think that's just and proper.
Similarly, certain "usual rules" don't always apply to parents. A father can be tricked into parenthood in various ways and still be obligated to support the child. A father has no say whatsoever in the abortion decision yet is still be obligated to support the child if the situation comes to that. I think that's just and proper.
Most societies are further committed to the idea that children deserve special protection. For example, they are deemed unable to contract or make other informed decisions. They receive special protection from sexual abuse (as with so-called "statutory rape" -- usually when the age difference is relatively significant). I think that's just and proper.
Thus I don't think your "Unprecedented!" charge carries as much weight as you do.
I also see your claim that a mother's absolute right to revoke consent to pregnancy at any time as far more problematic than you do. From a biological standpoint, the primary purpose of sex is procreation. As such, I don't see the idea of consensual sex implying consent to the results thereof, even when reasonable attempts to prevent pregnancy are undertaken, as being necessary wrong. I recognize that various of my actions will have side effects and unintended consequences for which I may be responsible. To pick a mundane and relatively trivial example, in most states I am responsible if my dog bites someone irrespective of the precautions I may have taken to prevent it or of the lack of any indication that my dog would bite someone. It comes with the territory. I think that's just and proper.
On the other hand, I am well aware that pregnancy disproportionately burdens women and especially poor women. Hugely. Furthermore, as a male, I am uncomfortable making the rules in this area and in any way. But I have nothing like the certainty you do and, along with the vast majority of people and Roe v. Wade, I see a real interest in late-term fetuses that deserves at least some protection.
Posted by: somewhereingreece
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April 20, 2010 2:42 PM
Gingerbaker, I have worked both pregnant women, new mothers and newborns in both neonatal wards and NICUs. These are not nebulous scenarios I am talking about.
I had a patient who stayed in the hospital for two months because she had eclampsia, risking her life every minute of the day until her fetus was strong enough to survive delivery. I had a patient who was born at six months with severe sepsis due to chorioamnionitis and lived for a very, very miserable week. I have held the hands of women as they screamed bloody murder during vaginal deliveries and watched them forget everything once they held their babies. I have met a woman who got brucella while pregnant, whose child was in NICU for two months and suffered to the point that it own mother wished him dead, just to end his suffering.
Please pay more attention what everyone who has worked in women's health is saying. Women who don't want to get pregnant get abortions early. Women who end up having third trimester abortions put up with all the inconveniences of the first two trimesters but came to the point of either outliving their children or have their own parents outlive them.
Posted by: kb
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April 20, 2010 2:45 PM
@ Carlie, #849
You're right, I stand corrected. My bad. I was thinking they were both estrogen and progesterone, but turns out I was completely wrong.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 20, 2010 2:46 PM
Cerberus:
Nitpickin' here, but that should be fuck the damn "what about the chiiiildren!?" excuse. Reasonable people don't hide behind that monstrosity of an excuse, which is generally used as a front for some type of bigotry or irrational fear.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 20, 2010 2:48 PM
Gingerbaker-
Strawman much?
Oh, by the way, you blew your cover.
Rational, pro-choicer who's just policing the margins?
Yeah, no, you revealed yourself quite handily here:
Cause, no one has been arguing privacy rights. And you're trying to dismiss a whole bigger issue on the legalistic founding of Roe v Wade (which you can't even be bothered to look up the spelling of).
We have not been nor have we ever been talking about privacy. We have been talking about bodily autonomy. No, that's not a fancy term for privacy. It's not a fancy term for people should be able to murder their babies in secret. It's a fancy term for the right for someone to have the full ownership and right over their own body and the use of it.
It is the cornerstone of protection against rape, of protection against slavery, of the very value of the individual and what line cannot be crossed no matter how dire the reason.
Bodily autonomy is what can and can't be done with your body and whether you have the right to complain about how your body is used.
Giving this right primacy, allows the very idea of consent to work. If all someone needs is a good reason to use your body without consent, then what does your consent matter? And that right would expand as it is want to do and in decades past, having that right be so negotiable was at the cornerstone of the slave trade and the idea of wives as their husband's property.
Bodily autonomy is something men take for granted. They fully expect that their wishes regarding sex, their body and organs, and the like will be maintained and that the only rights they can abrogate will be those they voluntarily surrender in the realm of contracts.
Would that women were so equal that their bodily autonomy was so equally taken for granted.
While I'm thankful for Roe v Wade as written both for striking a moderate increase in freedom for women and enshrining the separate issue of privacy as a federally protected right of its own merit, it's not what we are talking about here.
But people who like comparing life to privacy?
They are everywhere in the anti-choice movement. They like to pretend that wombs exist almost outside the body and have no impact on the bodily integrity or autonomy of women and like to think as little about that.
And you just fucked up and admitted it.
So, what gives?
In lieu of fairness to any lingering ideas that you were at all arguing in good faith. I personally believe a very good marker of the margin at which we denote personhood is the marker we all use when we are honest about it (birth). Of course embryos are of human in the same way as a tumorous cell is a human cancer cell. It is not a full person denoting or deserving of the full rights of a human being.
I'd be willing to fully compromise with the idea that it gains those rights at the moment of birth when it is fully separated from the mother and is a recognizably unique individual. The potentiality of consciousness as another marker arrives very late and mostly grows post-birth, but I'll backdate it all to birth for legalistic cleanliness.
And a fetus unwanted is something unwanted leeching off your body against your will.
Imagine this scenario. You want sex, you initiate it, it's enjoyable. You withdraw consent, the other person continues. This thing that was wonderful and wanted is now horrifying, menacing, and traumatic.
This fetus during the usual months that a woman would be planning a voluntary abortion and pursuing such an option, is nothing. A lump of flesh still being sculpted by the mother's inputting hormones and enzymes telling which cells to die and which cells to switch to start dividing a new type of cell. It has nothing akin to anything we would denote as worthy of being given full human status in any form and again even if it were, it does not have a right to this uterus without consent.
It is not a human being being killed, it is an unwanted clump of cells that has no potentiality of any of the hallmarks of humanhood, especially anything in the way of nerves or the raw clumpings needed for any version of a primitive brain much less potential consciousness.
In cultures like Scandanavia, where access is much more unfettered, these voluntary abortions occur even more rapidly because access is not artificially constrained.
Late term abortions are almost universally of wanted pregnancies, fully consented to by the mother and desired where something truly horrifying has gone wrong (growing without a brain, without skin, died inside of her, birthing it will risk her life). There are pretty much no instances of late-term by choice, but in an infinite world, we can speculate and the exact type of person who would make that choice is very much the least able to handle emotionally the strains of raising a kid (people abused so far they were scared to get help until it was way too late, people with severe emotional issues that make them unsafe around other people, etc...).
Modern medical science allows us to induce birth or perform a cessarian to abort these as needed resulting in a now born child and a mother hastily filling out the adoption paperwork. Though of course the existing compromise usually means these women are more often than not shit out of luck and get a couple more months of suffering until this happens.
This would be that reality you claim my extremist ass is ignoring in my evil zeal to be dastardly.
Now, that answers the remaining illusion of good faith, but it's largely ancillary as you are very obviously, very clearly arguing in very bad faith.
Who knows, you may prove me wrong. I've been happily proven wrong in the past, but somehow I doubt it.
But do carry on anyways.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 20, 2010 3:01 PM
Robocop-
I fucking knew it. MRA was just sneaking around the edges of your shit.
But, bam!
Paying money is not the same as a violation of bodily autonomy (or are you one of those assholes that think paying taxes is the same as being raped).
I covered already that when someone gives up responsibility raising a child, we may have them pay money, we may take away the kids, but we can't force those parents to raise those kids. You couldn't be forced to raise those kids without your consent with your time and effort and the hard work and massive changes to your life to accommodate it. Nor would it have been right for any force to do so.
Pregnant women do not have that right. If they don't want their bodies to be used anymore bringing a dividing clump of cells to term, we get assholes like you saying, "but I pay money, thus that woman's body should be used against her".
No, it is truly unprecedented that the right to bodily autonomy is stripped away. Financial autonomy? All the time. Consented to use of someone's body in the form of jobs and contracts such as the army (certainly within limits). But never ever universal loss of bodily autonomy as is the focus point of the abortion debate.
No one has that right without consent, even to survive as we've pointed out through the medical examples.
And your example about children. They don't have the right to "consent" to sex with adults, because we know fully well that they lack enough knowledge about sexuality especially their own to fully understand what they are consenting to and their rights of bodily autonomy.
It is at worst, a removal of the right of consent, not of the right of bodily autonomy. Statutory rape would be the removal of their bodily autonomy.
Posted by: SteveM
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April 20, 2010 3:02 PM
re 878:
You claim to be pro-choice but you write like an anti-. Try reading the previous replies again, the argument is NOT that the fetus isn't human nor that it is some kind of alien. Just that it is not fully formed. And the crux of the argument that you seem to missing entirely is that even if the fetus was a fully formed adult, it would not have the right to commandeer another's body they way that a fetus has to until birth. The fetus, as any human, has a right to life, but we do not place that right above all other rights. That right does not grant a right to anyone else's body. The fetus is allowed access to the mother's body by her permission alone, not by the fetus' "right to life". And yes, the woman has the right to withdraw that permission at any time. But as I said earlier, that does not mean she can command it to be killed, just that it can no longer use her body. If that is late enough in the pregnancy then it should be an induced labor or a ceasarian.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 20, 2010 3:09 PM
Caine and somewhere-
Yeah, I know. My post was more about a bad reflexive response from constantly having to deal with "what about the children" arguments. I know that it's all about the cowardly people using the arguments trying to borrow the emotions we are instinctively drawn to regarding kids to protect and enshrine bigotry.
It's just what plays in my head as a snappy comeback before I start deconstructing them. Sort of a "fuck your children, this is real life, now stop hiding behind your children and start standing proudly behind your dehumanization and bigotry" sort of deal.
But yes, your points are very valid and very true and why it ends up remaining a private response that plays in my head rather than something I actually try arguing.
Posted by: Robocop
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April 20, 2010 3:34 PM
886: Paying money is not the same as a violation of bodily autonomy."
It is not and, if you would read my posts again, you'd see I'm no MRA. My point, essentially, is that the usual rules don't always apply to parents and children. In part that's because children are particularly vulnerable and in part that's because we see children and their care as so important.
I covered already that when someone gives up responsibility raising a child, we may have them pay money, we may take away the kids, but we can't force those parents to raise those kids.
By I would suggest to you that the reason for it has nothing to do with bodily automony and everything to do with the best interests of the child. At a more trivial level, it's why parents in a divorce may be prevented from moving. In general, the rights of children take priority over the rights of parents.
No, it is truly unprecedented that the right to bodily autonomy is stripped away. Financial autonomy? All the time. Consented to use of someone's body in the form of jobs and contracts such as the army (certainly within limits). But never ever universal loss of bodily autonomy as is the focus point of the abortion debate.
If I consent to enter the military and am inducted, I can't withdraw that consent until my term of service is complete. In a related way, I don't see it as far-fetched to consider that women who consent to sex and thus the risk of pregnancy may not have an absolute right to withdraw that consent at all times before birth.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 20, 2010 3:47 PM
Consenting to sex is not consenting to childbirth. It is consenting to sex.
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 20, 2010 4:12 PM
strange gods before me:
I never said they were, so please don't accuse me of being a liar.
I said that the fact that 3rd term abortions are rare bolsters the argument that Roe v Wade's timetable seems to be reasonable since almost all women get their abortions early.
I wish people in this thread would stop assigning all the shitty 'pro-life' arguments onto me, and would instead read with better attention and at least try to understand what I am saying.
I am pro-choice. I think that Roe v Wade is a reasonable decision. I support it, and the right of all women to get an abortion at state expense if they need to.
That's not exactly a radical position, unlike many here who are - if I understand them, which ain't easy - trying to claim that a woman has an absolute right to abortion at any time in her pregnancy, or that it is unreasonable for the state to take an any interest in preserving the life of a viable - that means capable of surviving outside of the mother - fetus.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 20, 2010 4:13 PM
robocop-
You have no idea what bodily autonomy is, do you?
Following the trail of sub-arguments however...
No, that's not the same thing regarding the army. Here's why. Let's look at the recent racists who have refused to deploy because there's a black man in charge of the country. They are being court-martialed for failure to honor their signed contracts, but there is no way to force them to serve on the front if the physically refuse to. We can't forcibly move their unwilling body to the front, we can merely dishonorably discharge them and charge them with breaking employment contract.
Similarly, with parents, children have rights of protection to have someone take care of them, but there is no ability to require that to be the birth parents. If you want to move away, you can forfeit visitation rights and pay child support, but no one can physically compel you to raise your child if you physically do not want to.
If you initiate sex and decide in the middle you no longer want it, you can revoke the consent to sex and no one can physically compel you to continue (this would be rape).
Yet, for fetuses we demand that the mother be compelled to carry the fetus to term for 9 months at the expense of her body, physically compelled. This is what is unprecedented. The violation of bodily autonomy. There is no other field where this is the case. Especially on the level we are talking about. The inner body. Our organs, our blood, our sexual organs. Even prisoners (at least legally, practically is another matter) have rights to their personal body that are supposed to not be violated (though the practice of this is indeed problematically enforced as is the rights of women to bodily autonomy in sex (See rape culture)).
And I think you grossly do not understand exactly what I'm referring to regarding bodily autonomy and why such a violation is such a horror.
I suspect this is because you unlike me have never had it violated. Nor have you ever expected that it would be.
Posted by: Chgo_Liz
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April 20, 2010 4:18 PM
I was thinking about this thread today and another aspect came to mind. It's along the idea of bodily integrity, but extends to the fetus's potential reality rather than that of the pregnant woman....
Q: Is it acceptable to sentence an American citizen to torture and death because his/her parents committed a crime?
A: No.
Q: Is it acceptable to sentence an American citizen to torture and death because his/her parents committed a religious sin?
A: Yes.
I've paid a terrible price for my parents' religious "sin" (and we've heard similar examples from others here, just in this one blog's microcosm). It's amazing I didn't die from the abuse or from turning to crime/drugs the way so many do in my situation. The fact is, though, I will die, not due to my mother's choice (which was legally denied her) but as the inevitable end result of society's edict.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 20, 2010 4:21 PM
Gingerbaker-
That's because you're too aggressively ignorant to grasp our points that "aborting the pregnancy" of viable fetuses results in an early birth. The "abortion procedure" for viable fetuses that can survive outside the mother is that of early induction of labor or a cessarian.
Capiche?
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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April 20, 2010 4:22 PM
Cerberus:
Oh just go fuck yourself. I'm done replying to you.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 20, 2010 4:38 PM
Gingerbaker-
Believe me, I'm not the one of us two in more deserving of a fuck you, miss "the extremists are arguing about the right to privacy rather than the right to bodily autonomy".
But it's probably for the best of both of us. I'm already in fantasizing about killing half the planet with an uzi mode so that's definitely a good twenty clicks past anything healthy and any hope of this being anything approaching a relaxing evening.
Frankly, It's beyond frustrating to me how little cultural respect we give bodily autonomy, consent, and equal sexual freedom. If the subject is women, we just consider it natural that something should trump them. Maybe children, maybe a man, maybe just the man's sperm in the person of an embryo or fetus, but always something.
It's literally dehumanizing and nowhere is that more apparent than the "abortion debate" where women are literally begging to have their humanity considered at all. The fetus is granted rights and considerations given to no existing full human being, even children all so it can be justified that there exists something where a woman's bodily autonomy can be trumped and she can be put in her place as second-class citizens.
And the debate rages on about fetal viability because the woman is an afterthought (oh yeah, something about privacy, maybe) rather than the only f-ing person for the vast majority of the debate's parameters.
It removes the woman's humanity, deliberately, and that is why the anti-choicers fight us there. Because they can't go out and state that they want women back in the kitchen, enslaved to men again, but babies? Everyone loves babies. And people don't love women enough to resist the emotional pull of innocence untouched by the fallen world.
And it causes a burning sensation in my gut in the same way as when someone calls me "it". Because it is my humanity and basic rights that's up for debate and more often than not, dismissal.
Posted by: Robocop
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April 20, 2010 5:01 PM
892: They are being court-martialed for failure to honor their signed contracts, but there is no way to force them to serve on the front if the physically refuse to. We can't forcibly move their unwilling body to the front, we can merely dishonorably discharge them and charge them with breaking employment contract.
To the extent possible, they will indeed be physically compelled to serve. The mechanisms will of course include force and intimidation. If all of these approaches fail, the brig and dishonorable discharge await. You are correct that they won't be forcibly carried to the front or some such, but most decidedly not because of some perceived bodily autonomy argument. They will not be forcibly carried to the front in order to protect their comrades.
896: It removes the woman's humanity, deliberately, and that is why the anti-choicers fight us there.
I have no doubt that you're correct in many instances. Why then do you think that every poll (at least that I've seen) shows men supporting abortion rights at a significantly higher rate than women?
Posted by: Walton, Marquis of Carabas
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April 20, 2010 5:10 PM
Thankfully, this is true today. But in less civilised times this was not always the case. Just saying.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 20, 2010 5:20 PM
chgo_liz @ 893:
Word. There are times I'm honestly surprised I managed to not commit murder. I've been close enough to it, in my younger years at least. If I can say the degree of abuse I went through had any sort of positive effect, it would be in having iron self control. When I was young, it was my "goddamn motherfuckers, I won't give them the satisfaction of seeing me break stubbornness that got me through. Not that it does any good with the consequent rage.
Posted by: Deen
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April 20, 2010 5:28 PM
@Gingerbaker:
When are you going to acknowledge that a pregnancy can be terminated by an induced early birth or a cesarean? It's been pointed out to you several times now. Abortion isn't about killing fetuses or babies, it's about ending pregnancies.
Finally, I have to point out that you are doing a terribly crappy job at communicating how you are pro-choice.
Posted by: aaronlogan
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April 20, 2010 5:33 PM
What does it mean to assert a "right to life" of a fetus when it has no right to, or even access to, health care? It's fucking insane that the pro-choicers in America aren't also lobbying to reduce the infant mortality rate.
Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification
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April 20, 2010 5:42 PM
Uh, aaron, pro-choicers are the only ones who have been working to reduce the infant mortality rate, perhaps you meant to say pro-lifers there?
Overall, guys, I'm sorry, but I'm out of energy. I'm really drained of this shit and I'm going to have to cut myself off for my own good. I'm killing myself during the day working to finish my thesis. I can't keep fucking myself up like this every night fighting people who are wrong on the internet (as the XKCD joke goes).
So for my own psychological health, I'm out.
Posted by: aaronlogan
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April 20, 2010 6:01 PM
Huge apologies, Cerberus, I meant the pro-lifers. Thanks for your contributions.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/F95S8qIbhMwNLenl2gbXgkDKs4fjgIls1ctCKQ--#c565a
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April 20, 2010 6:03 PM
@ 897
Uh -- duh. Women are more misogynistic, at least in polls, than men, usually. That's standard for an oppressed class. I can't believe anyone is using this argument. When you have a whole class of people who are condemned and shamed, lord knows that as a member of that class of people you're going to be very tempted to say oh but that's not me. I'm a good woman. I'm not a slut. Notice how many women are slut-shamers versus men.
Posted by: Robocop
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April 20, 2010 6:09 PM
904: Uh -- duh. Women are more misogynistic, at least in polls, than men, usually. That's standard for an oppressed class. I can't believe anyone is using this argument.
It wasn't an argument, it was a question.
Posted by: Deen
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April 20, 2010 6:46 PM
@Cerberus: you did more than your part. Have a good night.
Posted by: Deen
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April 20, 2010 6:53 PM
@Robocop:
I'm sure we can think of many ways an unwilling soldier could be useful in war without endangering its comrades. As a decoy, for instance. Cannon fodder. Sniper bait. Human mine sweeper. But I'm sure rules about bodily autonomy have nothing to do with the fact that we don't do any of this. Ah, but was it an honest question, or a leading question?
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 20, 2010 8:01 PM
@853
In that case, fine remove it. It's called a C section and then the baby can be taken care of by someone who wants it.
Posted by: monado
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April 20, 2010 8:13 PM
The standard doctors' rule for when to agree to a woman's demand for sterilization was the century rule: the number of children times her age had to be more than 100. In case she changed her little lack of mind, of course, or because she was trying to avoid her Duty to MankindTM.
Posted by: BBCaddict
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April 20, 2010 8:28 PM
Cerberus: "Frankly, It's beyond frustrating to me how little cultural respect we give bodily autonomy, consent, and equal sexual freedom. If the subject is women, we just consider it natural that something should trump them. Maybe children, maybe a man, maybe just the man's sperm in the person of an embryo or fetus, but always something."
I just wanted to say HELL YES.
HELL GODDAMN EFFING YES.
That's the gist of it. Anything else - all other arguments- are people trying not to seem like the giant dickweed they are for thinking that women are just pieces of meat.
Posted by: monado
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April 20, 2010 8:35 PM
I'm amused by the "I'm for protecting Innocent Life" brigade. It's not as if a fetus can go out and rob a bank or. Or have sex. It's the innocence of incapability.
But they do masturbate in the womb.
Posted by: monado
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April 20, 2010 8:53 PM
Our Seed Overlords state that Plan B prevents ovulation. Mike Dunford notes that after five years of delay, the FDA was ordered to make Plan B available without prescription to pregnant teenagers.
Posted by: monado
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April 20, 2010 9:08 PM
One more sob story.
And of course, infanticide is relevant. It was the cure for excess fertility before abortion. I prefer the pre-natal cure.
Walton, what a horrible bit of history! Besides that, "encouraging" bravery has a long history. Young Zulu warriors in battle were followed by older warriors who would spear them if they showed fear. And Russian troops were trailed by a female corps armed with rifles, who were there to shoot any who fled.
Posted by: monado
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April 20, 2010 9:35 PM
Cerberus, thank you for your many heartfelt comments. And don't forget that pregnancy makes the heart work 40% harder.
PZ, we need a fresh thread so we can play all night!
Posted by: bluedragonflye
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April 20, 2010 9:55 PM
@Windy (#520):
I don't know how you managed to get people defending the parasite-like properties of a fetus trying to come up with some documented parasite that never has any negative effect on fitness.
It's really this simple: pregnancy has the potential to negatively impact a woman's fitness. All sorts of horrible side-effects of pregnancy are well documented. Women have developed diabetes, lost limbs, and yes, even died in pregnancy - especially in places where modern medicine as we know it in the developed world is not readily available.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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April 20, 2010 10:14 PM
And of course, our very own host has written about Plan B as well.
Posted by: Robocop
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April 20, 2010 10:33 PM
907: Ah, but was it an honest question, or a leading question?
...because of course anyone with the temerity to disagree with you has to be dishonest, doltish or disingenuous donchaknow....
Posted by: Dianne
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April 20, 2010 10:44 PM
It seems to me that a lot of pro-life rhetoric is actually about making people afraid of sex. Sex might lead to pregnancy, even if good precautions are taken. Pregnancy, as has been repeatedly pointed out, can maim and kill. And is at best temporarily debilitating and painful. As for the male partner, I can't imagine that any decent man would not feel anxiety at the possibility of forcing someone he loved into a similar situation, even accidentally.
So, hard to relax and enjoy sex with all that hanging over your head, isn't it? And it's hard to connect fully with your partner if you can't enjoy sex and other physical expressions of love.
In short, maybe pro-lifers are really the front people for Oceania's anti-sex league.
Posted by: Chgo_Liz
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April 20, 2010 11:16 PM
Carlie wrote @ #916:
Does that mean we are his parasites?
*runs away giggling*
Posted by: pixelfish
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April 21, 2010 12:42 AM
A scattering of thoughts after skimming the thread:
A couple of folks have mentioned being depressed by Skatje's stance, and yeup, it's the stance of somebody who is privileged, loved, in good health, probably financially stable (and at least possessing a financially stable network of family and friends), and surrounded by folks who will support her personal choice, should she ever turn up pregnant herself, no matter what it is. As others have noted, much of this may have to do with her level of experience and seeing how this very issue affects people she knows directly, or herself. It's one thing to posit how you'd feel about a situation....and another thing to actually BE in that situation.
And like Cerberus noted, we all probably passed through stages where our politics or ideologies are a little half-baked. Hey, I grew up Mormon and once had the self-righteous smug thought that people should just take the consequences....and now I'm pro-choice because I realise that it is all about bodily autonomy. There are many reasons for a woman to end a pregnancy, starting with health (physical AND mental), financial resources, time and timing, personal inclination to be a parent, consideration for existing children, prior obligations or goals, being in an abusive relationship, inherited diseases, ability to perform one's job, age, and so on. Ideally people do their best to prevent pregnancy, but it really is a good thing to not force women to submit to a situation they don't want to be in.
As an aside, the whole "stand by the consequences" rhetoric I was raised with would like to ignore that with modern medicine you don't have to have the same consequences as once we did. Or the people promoting such nonsense would be delighted to have women suffer for the "sin" of spreading their legs. I remember the outcry when Obama said he would support his daughters because he wouldn't want them punished with an STD or a baby....and predictably the conservatives went up in flames. "OH NOES! He implied babies are punishment!" But that's how the anti-choice crowd treats them: you spread your legs, you reap the set of consequences they think you should have, not the ones you want. That's punishment.
(And can I say how much I want to smack people who say that you should just carry the child to term and give it up for adoption? Pregnancy crisis centers try to feed the line about how you will regret your abortion, but they never discuss how you might regret your adoption, how you'll still be susceptible to post-partum and other pregnancy woes. The idea that I should labour to produce a child for somebody else because my birth control didn't work or because I was raped just sets my teeth on edge.)
Interesting facts about abortion:
(from the Guttmacher Institute)
About 60% of abortions are obtained by women who have one or more children.
Women who have never married obtain two-thirds of all abortions.
The reasons women give for having an abortion underscore their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.
89 percent of abortions occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Fifty-eight percent of abortion patients say they would have liked to have had their abortion earlier. Nearly 60% of women who experienced a delay in obtaining an abortion cite the time it took to make arrangements and raise money.
Teens are more likely than older women to delay having an abortion until after 15 weeks of pregnancy, when the medical risks associated with abortion are significantly higher.
The abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level ($9,570 for a single woman with no children) is more than four times that of women above 300% of the poverty level (44 vs. 10 abortions per 1,000 women). This is partly because the rate of unintended pregnancies among poor women (below 100% of poverty) is nearly four times that of women above 200% of poverty* (112 vs. 29 per 1,000 women
(I suggest reading the whole page....it paints a picture that suggests that access to birth control and education to use the birth control correctly becomes much easier the better off you are financially, and that correspondingly abortion rates spike with poverty. I think it's interesting that a majority of the women say they wished they could have had access earlier than they did. )
A final note from the Guttmacher page: Family planning clinics funded under Title X of the federal Public Health Service Act have helped women prevent 20 million unintended pregnancies during the last 20 years. An estimated nine million of these pregnancies would have ended in abortion.
(Somehow I think it's hard to say the pregnancy crisis centers which are primarily religiously driven are having the same effect in preventing unwanted pregnancies, since they usually don't offer contraception, and will actively post or promote bad information about contraception. Random googling of a few crisis centers also had their websites spitting out information about how getting an abortion would leave you vulnerable to breast cancer, a link which has not been proven.)
Posted by: SQB (fuck death)
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April 21, 2010 4:14 AM
RU 486? Yes I am, sir.
Posted by: Deen
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April 21, 2010 4:21 AM
@Robocop:
Hey, no reason to get all huffy about it, I was just asking a question, donchaknow.
Posted by: boondockseven
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April 21, 2010 4:16 PM
I don't like how it's only the woman's choice. I'm not saying that a man should be able to tell a woman to have an abortion, that would be wrong. What I'm saying is that if a father wants an abortion and the mother doesn't, the father would still be liable for paying child support for the next 18 years. A father should be able to sign away all rights in that situation and not have to pay anything.
Also, since I'm married with two kids, if my wife were to get pregnant in spite of her tubal ligation, the decision is solely hers whether to keep the kid or not, yet it would effect both of our kids and me just as much once she has the child. We actually thought she was pregnant at one point and I said I would want her to get an abortion, to which she replied that she would not get one under any circumstances and that my only choices were to deal with it, or get a divorce. Is that fair? No, but I would have no choice but to listen to her and then have to raise another child (or pay for it if I left) when we don't have enough for the ones we have.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 21, 2010 8:38 PM
because of course anyone with the temerity to disagree with you has to be dishonest, doltish or disingenuous donchaknow....
yes, robo, you certainly would know all about being dishonest, doltish and disingenuous.
Posted by: pnrjulius
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April 22, 2010 3:23 AM
Admittedly there are some tricky questions in abortion, at least in late-term abortions that are performed on very infant-like fetuses which are now or might someday be (with technological advances) viable outside the womb.
Also, potential sentience does matter in fact---in some sense that is all I have when I am in delta sleep or under anesthesia---and it does seem cavalier to me to destroy life of any sort without a good reason, and I wonder whether most abortions are really performed for the right reasons.
But of course you're absolutely right that early fetuses are barely recognizable as human, and clearly do not deserve the same rights as infants. Most of the pro-life community is composed of dogmatists who cannot bear to accept the obvious fact that zygotes are not babies.
But on the other hand, there are also pro-choice dogmatists, those who insist that "the right to choose" outweighs all other considerations of moral harm, medical expenditure, social impact, or psychological damage that abortion might entail. "It's my body!" Well, first of all, that's part of the issue under dispute---at what point does your body end and your baby's body begin? But second of all, we don't actually grant you a right to do whatever you want with your body---you must participate in an appropriate way in society, and there are certain things you cannot do as a result. Your right to move your arm ends at the other fellow's face.
Because both sides are so unwilling to compromise, the abortion debate stalls and turns to violence. Pro-lifers are most responsible for this, but I do not think that pro-choicers can be entirely exonerated either.
What is needed here is self-reflection and nuance, not aggressive assertions of superiority.
Posted by: pnrjulius
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April 22, 2010 3:27 AM
It is particularly weird that the people who most hate abortion also hate contraception. The best way to eliminate abortion would be to make contraception cheap, easy, and effective.
Posted by: SteveM
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April 22, 2010 4:10 AM
You do not see how that is exactly the argument for letting the woman decide whether or not to permit the fetus to leech off her body? Your right to move your arm stops at the woman's face but a fetus has the right to implant a placenta into the wall of her uterus? You don't see this as giving the fetus a much more invasive "right" than any adult has?
Posted by: Evolved Dolly
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April 22, 2010 4:52 AM
Hello, long time avid lurker here. Probably too late now, but I wanted to read the whole thread before i put my foot in it (probably).
Skatje, you may not see this now as I've left it late like I said, but could I please just suggest a couple of books and stuff you might take a look at?
The Cider House Rules by John Irving
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
and the film 'Vera Drake', which quite apart from anything else has Imelda Staunton as the leading lady and I think she's wonderful!
But getting back to the point, I just think they might give you a few different angles on things.
Maybe some new ways to think about the whole subject, you may of course have already read/seen them.
And if anyone has previously suggested them as 'homework' so to speak, my apologies.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 5:21 AM
Because both sides are so unwilling to compromise, the abortion debate stalls and turns to violence. Pro-lifers are most responsible for this, but I do not think that pro-choicers can be entirely exonerated either.
Yeah, right, it's partially the fault of those who are pro-choice that pro-lifers bomb abortion clinics and kill doctors.
Roe v. Wade is a compromise -- abortions are state-controlled after the first trimester. But pro-lifers want far more than that.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 5:28 AM
It is particularly weird that the people who most hate abortion also hate contraception. The best way to eliminate abortion would be to make contraception cheap, easy, and effective.
It's not weird at all and that you think so reveals your ignorance. So called "pro-lifers" aren't; they are anti-choice, specifically anti women's choices; they are authoritarians who want to encode their small-mindedness into the law. Those who really truly dislike abortion are pro-choice, pro-woman, pro-education.
Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere
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April 22, 2010 5:31 AM
Pro-choice is the ultimate compromise position. One doesn't even have to take a stance on abortion, it's just the recognition that it shouldn't be up to the state to decide whether a woman should be forced to carry a zygote to full term. It's a question over legality. What can be a greater compromise than to take the issue out of the hands of legislators?
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 5:46 AM
Also, potential sentience does matter in fact---in some sense that is all I have when I am in delta sleep or under anesthesia
Another pathetically ignorant statement. What you have is a developed mind, personality, real relationships with other people -- a fetus has none of that.
it does seem cavalier to me to destroy life of any sort without a good reason
Better stop brushing your teeth, then.
What is needed here is self-reflection and nuance, not aggressive assertions of superiority.
Yes, your pompousness.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 5:56 AM
To clarify, if legislature was proposed to ban abortion, I wouldn't be opposed it.
You're fucked up. Does it matter to you what the penalty would be? How about capital punishment, since many people consider abortion to be murder?
And no, there's no way I could hold the position that it's not okay for me to have abortions, but it's okay for other people to. The babies in other people aren't less privileged than the babies in me. If I believe the one in me should not have anyone intervene in its existence, I believe the ones in other people should not have anyone intervene in their existence. Am I making sense here?
No, you're very very fucked up. First, there's a difference between a moral judgment -- that something is not ok -- and making it illegal. Second, you appear to have no concern whatsoever for the "people" -- that is, women -- whose existences are intervened in by having a "baby" in them -- oftentimes put in them by other "people" -- that is, men -- against their will. You appear to have never read or considered anything ever said or written justifying the right to an abortion. I daresay that what you have written here is one of the most appallingly ignorant and ill-reasoned statements on the issue I have ever seen. It's tragic considering the source.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 6:02 AM
I'm not one of the lunatics so commonly lanced in these comments. And I promise it's not out of some kind of woman-hating self-loathing.
You are mistaken:
This is a lunatic, woman-hating view.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 6:05 AM
If you are against murder, don't kill people.
This is basically what that statement is equivalent to, in the eyes of people who place a right to life on fetuses. So that's a pretty stupid thing to say to me, IMO.
As, so you do want the death penalty for abortion.
Lunatic.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 6:34 AM
And if it is someone using her name to post anti-choice garbage. For shame, troll. For shame.
No, it's the real person posting shameful anti-choice garbage. There was a comment about intellectual autonomy -- her intellect seems to be so autonomous that it is detached from reason, fact, and empathy for living human beings. There isn't really any such thing as autonomy; one must wonder what influences have led to such a deranged view. In any case, she should serve as a warning to all parents.
So, you're willing to make reproductive choices for other women because of your magical thinking about your womb-boogers?
But ... but ... they have human DNA! And potential!
Does it mean nothing to you that we can never be fully equal members of society if we have no choices about where, when, and how we start our families? You're implying that the potential life is more important than my life and I find that incredibly -fucking- offensive.
It's sickening. Here she goes:
It's not my choice that causes me to think that others shouldn't abort either. It's the placing a certain value on fetuses that I do.
And none on women.
And yes, this does allow me to tell other people what I believe is the right thing for them to do. We all have our own ideas about right and wrong, and we all wish to see the world operate according to our own beliefs.
But we aren't all authoritarian monsters who would impose our own moral judgments on everyone else through the force of law. And you are very lucky that we aren't.
The fetus isn't some parasite that just popped up there. YOU put it in your body. It is YOUR fault.
An authoritarian anti-sex monster.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 6:38 AM
^5 Jordan. I'm on your side.
And yet here is what Jordan wrote:
See, Jordan isn't fucked up the way you are and doesn't support your fucked-up-ness.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 6:49 AM
It's way too late here and arguing with someone who had all the education and privileges of a non-abusive non-coercive raising environment and deliberately chose ignorance is just going to bum me out royally.
She doesn't have the excuse of being from Oklahoma.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 6:58 AM
The fetus isn't some parasite that just popped up there. YOU put it in your body. It is YOUR fault.
Such a monstrous statement.
So you agree that pregnancy and birth, no matter how damaging to both parties, is an acceptable punishment for women who have sex.
...
No. I'm not capable of conscious self-fertilization.
Indeed, despite all her denial, her words make clear that she is extremely anti-woman. It's the woman's fault that her partner used psychological coercion to get her to have sex with him. It's the woman's fault that a man got her drunk and then had unprotected sex with her. It's the woman's fault that she was raped. It's the woman's fault that the condom broke. It's the woman's fault that her birth control pill together with her biology didn't manage to stop conception. The woman put a baby in her body and it's HER FAULT.
What millenium is this person living in?
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 7:17 AM
Condescending ass. Parroting the same old? No. I did not form my opinions from hearing pro-lifers argue. Because most of them are retards
Sorry, but after what you have written in this thread, you're in no position to make that distinction.
"Should I have to put my entire life on hold because of a mistake?"
I wish the consequences weren't so dire, but that's unfortunately how life is.
No, you little indistinguishable-from-those-other-pro-lifers monster, it's how you want to make it.
And speaking of crazy people…one kind of insanity destroys the ability of normal people to distinguish between embryos and people, and encourages them to lie to others about the status of the embryo, treating it as the moral equivalent of a child.
Well said.
This thread is so sad and depressing.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 7:31 AM
you don't get to kill a person simply because they are dependent on another individual, their mother. It's a fairly principled position that says no one should kill another person...and makes the assumption that the fetus has some status as a person.
Of course you "get to kill a person" if they are only surviving by being hooked up to you and killing them consists of detaching them -- you yourself have made this argument.
It's a fair argument
You would never say so of anyone else. It's understandable that you say it here, but it isn't credible. And this is not the only argument she made -- there's also that whole "it's your fault for getting pregnant" bit.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 7:47 AM
Skatje, why would you allow the banning of abortion when you know that such laws do not reduce the number of abortions, but do cause the deaths of more women?
Why are you OK with more women dying?
Yes, and then there's that about her "fair argument" ... the appalling ignorance so common among pro-life "retards" (her word). And the arrogance and the lack of empathy with her "your FAULT" and "Soooo many anecdotal sob stories" and the vast intellectual dishonesty.
The one good thing I can say is that few here treated her like a sacred cow -- her atrocious arguments and attitude received appropriate treatment.
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 22, 2010 8:05 AM
Truth Machine, I throughly enjoy your comments and thank you for posting them! If I wasn't a fan of your posts before, after this I certainly would be =)
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 8:06 AM
"Skatje, why would you allow the banning of abortion when you know that such laws do not reduce the number of abortions, but do cause the deaths of more women?"
Because I simulataneously advocate better sex ed, readily available contraceptives, and other things that reduce abortion rates. I also advocate a cultural shift that places more value on life and less on instant gratification, but I'm just an idealist hippy.
That doesn't answer the question. You really shouldn't talk about other pro-lifers being "retards" when you are so lacking in logic. Advocating all of those things indeed reduces the number of abortions, and we're all for them, but making them illegal doesn't -- so why make them illegal? Arguments about the rights of fetuses don't come into play since no fewer fetuses die because of the ban. (You could argue the contrary, but you didn't.)
"You don't get to make the decision for me, citing your self-righteousness as knowing what's best"
Every cites their own self-righteousness as knowing what's best. I'm no different than anyone else for this.
No, you are quite different from those of us who are not authoritarian monsters.
Posted by: Rorschach
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April 22, 2010 8:16 AM
Not monstrous.Just, not even wrong.How anyone could come up with this is beyond me.
Which is why I have stayed out of it.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 8:36 AM
But the definition of where life begins is fuzzy, and therefore, I don't push my views on other people. I recognise that I do not have The Answer on this question, and therefore do not advocate actively preventing people from getting abortions, and can really only alter my own behaviour and try to engage people in discussing it further.
This is the same thing I was saying in the beginning, but it sounds like some people missed that.
Don't blame everyone else for you being a crappy communicator and not even understanding -- or admitting -- the implications of your statements. You said that "if legislature was proposed to ban abortion, I wouldn't be opposed it. I'm just not going to start a fight for it." In normal political parlance that means you favor it, but you'll leave it up to others to do the dirty work. It means that, if it came to you for a vote, you would vote for it, not leave your ballot unmarked. And I believe you would do just that, and I condemn you for it.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 8:47 AM
Thanks for clarifying, Skatje, I actually wasn't clear that you didn't mean that you were for limiting the reproductive choices of other women.
That's because she did mean exactly that -- as evidenced not only by her original statement that she would not oppose a ban, but by the fact that, on all the numerous occasions when people wrote as if that was her position, she did not correct them.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 9:08 AM
"Wait, what? If it's all about the fetus' rights, then why would a fetus resulting from rape have less rights than one resulting from failed birth control?"
Longer answer summed up: With the burden of pregnancy on a woman who will now probably suffer emotional distress from a pregnancy she did not consent to being worse than the usual case, the amount that we must ask a woman to bear for the sake of a fetus's life is now greater, and, I would tentatively say outweighs. See how these values are placed arbitrarily and uncertainly?
Oh yes, arbitrarily and uncertainly indeed. Aside from how seeing wanting sex (and "instant gratification") as a bad thing permeates your thinking, why isn't your answer to a woman who was raped simply
"Man, does adoption NOT exist?"
Oh, wait, I already answered that: because wanting sex is a bad thing, so a different standard applies. The rights of the fetus matter far more to you if the woman had sex out of desire than if she was raped, which is why you don't just tell the raped woman to get an adoption like you would tell the impoverished mother of four (who most likely you blame for that).
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 9:35 AM
Oh yes. Again, the statement was monstrous.
also, I love how claiming that we should stop fucking to satisfy other people's consciences is suddenly a valid argument, just because it's not framed in terms of god, sin and purity. it's still the same argument.
Indeed it is.
I'm using the modern "someone who rejects the established culture" definition of hippy.
So Hell's Angels, the Mafia, Tea Partiers, Dominionists, and authoritarian monsters who would legislate morality through a ban on abortions are all "hippies"?
Posted by: SC OM
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April 22, 2010 9:53 AM
Right. This culture places a high value on life, especially the lives of women and girls:
http://reproductiverights.org/en/document/in-harms-way-download-the-report
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 9:56 AM
I'm reading right from the text now "Parasitism is the symbiotic relationship where the organism benefits at expense of the host." period. Nothing about 'reduced fitness' One looses, another gains. that's it.
Well, generally, an expense or loss is going to have a (statistically) negative effect on fitness. However, the latter isn't the case with a fetus, since "fitness" is defined in terms of having offspring. Which means that defining parasitism in terms of loss is not equivalent to defining parasitism in terms of fitness. And which of those definitions you use determines whether a fetus qualifies as a parasite. The "loss" definition seems more natural, with the "fitness" definition being derivative, making a fetus a parasite.
But that's just a word game. Regardless of all that, one should not make a woman suffer just because some people have authoritarian negative judgments about pleasure combined with irrational emotional judgments about organisms with no minds, no accomplishments, no personal histories, nothing that deserves elevating their interests -- even their existence -- over the interests of the woman.
Posted by: Chgo_Liz
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April 22, 2010 10:07 AM
In encouraging news, Obama is openly making the right arguments:
Supreme Court Justice nominee must recognize that women have human rights too
Here's a quote:
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 10:19 AM
Soooo many anecdotal sob stories.
As an aside to people who keep referring to me as a spoiled little privileged white girl, fuck off. To the people who keep saying "How did godless, educated parenting go so wrong?", fuck off as well.
I've had good luck in some ways, shitty luck in others. Overall, I'm much better off than most people, but that doesn't mean I lack empathy and live in a fantasy world where everything is just peachy. Get off your my-life-was-harder-than-yours high horse.
Fuck. Just ... fuck. What spoiled brat.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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April 22, 2010 10:27 AM
It's a matter of stipulating the currency by which we measure loss, gain, benefit, and expense.
In evolutionary ecology, the idea is to categorize all interactions among organisms, and here parasitism is one category among several (predator/prey, commensalism, amensalism, mutualism). The only currency that is meaningful across the spectrum is Darwinian fitness.
Parasitology is, historically, the study of organisms that live in and on people. Here it makes sense to apply a broader definition, presumably based on nutrient transfer (though unspecified "benefit" and "loss" is too vague). This is going to include some relationships that a community ecologist would classify as commensalism.
However, I repeat that if you insist on classifying eutherian placental nutrition as 'parasitism' by the nutrient-transfer definition* then you need to include all forms of reproduction by multicellular organisms, because it always involves parental transfer of nutrients to offspring with no benefit other than reproductive fitness to the parent. The only difference is that in metatherians (and certain sharks and lizards, btw) the nutrient transfer is from income ('trickled' at a rate that matches growth of the fetus) instead of capital (saving up all year to lay a clutch of eggs, e.g.).
But, look, regardless of its technical definitions, "parasite" is a word loaded with negative connotations, and therefore its use is a rhetorical device. And it's one that bothers me for its biological inaccuracy.
*it seems like parasitism mostly because the fetus is inside the mother's body; in the case of marsupials attached to the outside. There are many examples, though, of internal or attached development without further direct nutrient transfer beyond the egg investment.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 10:39 AM
but not an unsurprising or really unexpected one. this is a matter of people PLAYING THE ODDS, intentionally. i do it, everyone else does it. but i'm willing to fess up to my mistake if that .3% failure rate comes around.
Ah yes, sex is a mistake. And being forced to carry a pregnancy to term is "fessing up" to it.
How did PZ end up with a Catholic daughter?
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 10:45 AM
But, look, regardless of its technical definitions, "parasite" is a word loaded with negative connotations
Pregnancy is loaded with negative consequences.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 10:50 AM
i have no sympathy for "BUT I DIDNT MEAN TO" when you know your method could very well end up this way. it's not an excuse.
And I have no sympathy for someone this ... RETARDED. (It's your word that you apply to other pro-lifers.)
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 11:15 AM
It might be said that JeffreyD was being generous. Oh, wait, Carlie did:
A truly sickening thread featuring a truly sickening person.
Posted by: Anodyne
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April 22, 2010 12:53 PM
Skatja is of course waaaaaaaay off in her worldview, but she's also relatively very young. I've had friends and acquaintances that held pretty much the exact same view as her (Even I did as a younger teen...but I was raised by psychotic fundies. ugh.) Now that time has gone on and they've learned more about reality, a vast majority of them have since changed their views to "pro-choice" (I prefer pro-autonomy, because that's really what it boils down to.)
Nineteen is pretty young. There's still a ton of life experience to be had. While I wholly disagree with her stance (more like gobsmacked and absolutely disgusted), it's likely that she's still an intelligent person. ...But intelligence doesn't automatically equate to knowledge. I'm willing to bet that as she gains more knowledge about the way the world actually works, she'll change her tune a bit.
I'm hoping that the change comes soon.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 1:22 PM
It isn't just knowledge that she is lacking.
Posted by: Anodyne
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April 22, 2010 1:59 PM
Please elaborate, truth machine.
Posted by: Paul
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April 22, 2010 2:10 PM
She lacks empathy. If you can't tell that in this thread, you can't read.
Posted by: Anodyne
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April 22, 2010 2:41 PM
If you think one cannot become more empathic with time, you're sadly mistaken.
Posted by: Paul
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April 22, 2010 4:13 PM
Nobody said that. It's a whole different issue from gaining knowledge, though. And she's already shown a disdain for it in principle (I still can't get over "Soooo many anecdotal sob stories" in this context, I don't see how anyone with even a seed of the potential for empathy could say that).
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 22, 2010 4:30 PM
Sure she's young with a sheltered world view. Sure, she could grow, gain experience and empathy and change her views later. I certainly hope she does before she's faced with an unplanned pregnancy. However, that has nothing to do with any of it. I'm 19 too (well actually tomorrow is my 20th B-day) but I wouldn't want anyone here to give me a pass to spout bullshit because of my age or handle me with kid gloves. She clearly didn't want to be handled with kid gloves either.
If anything we should argue with her more to help show the reality of her argument. Especially since she claimed to formally be pro-choice. Admittedly, she stated she didn't have the answers, said it was a tentative moral of hers and that her argument was all philosophical. Now, If I'm trying to gain knowledge and understanding on something, I state that, ask for help and people here are always very helpful. However, she wasn't here to get information on the subject. She made her statements and defended them like any other pro-lifer with a horrible tone of "I can make the decision for other woman, I've thought this through and those sluts haven't". Now, I may not have ripped into her as others have but that's not because she's 19 or PZ daughter. This is the first thread I've posted on so I preceded with caution in the argument since I admire the regulars here and didn't want to embarrass myself. Everyone else here does it so much better anyways ;)
Posted by: Walton, Marquis of Carabas
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April 22, 2010 4:34 PM
Wow, there's actually someone here younger than me (other than Skatje)! I'm 20, will be 21 in June.
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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April 22, 2010 4:44 PM
How else do you expect her to rebel?Posted by: Paul
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April 22, 2010 4:49 PM
Well said, JustALurker.
As for proceding with caution, just make sure you don't claim anything you're not willing to support and you should be fine. It's always good to have another voice.
I miss being the youngest person I know on the internet...whippersnappers....
Posted by: Grandmaster
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April 22, 2010 5:01 PM
Priceless pics :)
Meanwhile, Givesgoodemail writes:
I got interested in the idea of personhood a while ago, and read a great paper by Glenn Langford. For Langford personhood is the capacity (not potential) to hold an internal representation of the mental states of others. But he put it better than I just did.
Langford, G (1978). Persons as Necessarily Social. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Volume 8 Issue 3, Pages 263 - 296
The point for me is, it sets the bar an awful lot higher than 'with human genes', whatever they are.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 22, 2010 5:04 PM
Anodyne:
Yes, people can develop empathy. However, people can also simply become more deeply entrenched in their beliefs which happen to lack empathy altogether.
Skatje doesn't get a special pass because she's 19. It's not that young. She refused, outright, what many of us were saying in regard to her particular fortune and possible lack of experience. Those of us who did relate stories for illustrative purposes (such as mine, I'm one of those former unwanted fetuses who was birthed due to my mother fearing death via a back alley abortion) were dismissed as "boo hoo, oh, all the sob stories".
Skatje's a sanctimonious snot who has led a privileged life. I won't cut her views any slack. If they happen to change later, great. I'm not going to pat her on the head and treat her like a wilfull child on the basis she might change her mind and she might develop empathy one day.
Posted by: Anodyne
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April 22, 2010 5:50 PM
Paul: I sincerely hope you aren't that cynical when it comes to young adults. I feel a vibe of "she's an uncaring and emotionless bitch, so she can just fuck off."
Granted, I can very much see where you're coming from. I just don't think you can label someone as rotten when they've barely lived life.
To address the whole "she doesn't just lack knowledge; she lacks empathy" thing--Last time I checked, gaining knowledge about others and their situations is a damned good way to develop some empathy.
JustALurker:
I wasn't trying to give her a free pass for having such idiotic views; I was trying to put a little bit of perspective on it. She's saying some truly horrible things. And I've seen the same kind of bullshit spewed by peers--and a lot of those peers have since changed their views. Does the phrase "teenagers think they know everything" ring a bell? For a lot of young adults, it takes time to develop a decent amount of humility. She's not exactly the first 19-year-old to be arrogant about their opinions. Like I said, I hope the change comes soon. It usually takes longer for the sheltered ones to change their views. And her views indicate that she is indeed very sheltered.
I'm not suggesting for one minute that her callousness and misogyny shouldn't be addressed--she absolutely needs someone to criticize her inconsistencies and haughtiness-- there are no "kid gloves". At no point did I neglect to mention that she holds a warped and disgusting viewpoint. Age is not a free pass; it's a consideration.
Her arguments should be ripped to shreds because they're absolute shit ideas. But there's a difference between calling someone an idiot and saying their ideas are idiotic. That is where age is a consideration--NOT a free pass.
Again, I'm not defending her; I just felt it was a nuance that bore consideration. Bringing a little bit of empathy into a conversation does not make one a yellow-bellied accommodationist.
Posted by: Paul
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April 22, 2010 6:08 PM
I never said that. I did say that she lacks empathy. Anything else you're just projecting onto me. I do not feel the need to treat her with kid gloves if she says something hateful, though. She's old enough to vote. She's considered an adult. She considers herself an adult, and got upset when she felt people weren't taking her seriously as an adult. Just something to think about, when you're trying to infantilize her and pat her on the head with a "well, she's still got a lot to learn". That's no reason not to take her seriously when she says hateful and callous things.
Yes, but gaining knowledge and gaining empathy are not synonymous. That's all I was saying, ffs. It's clear she needs the latter, and gaining the former won't help if she's dead set on slut shaming (which she gets offended if you point out) and dismissing anecdotal sob stories if they challenge her "philosophical position". Gaining knowledge won't help if she's actively steeling herself to ignore anything that goes against her "philosophical position", which is what she spent most of this thread doing.
Posted by: Grandmaster
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April 22, 2010 6:31 PM
He also mentioned, rather crucially, that those representations include the pictures that the other people have of other people's pictures about ... etc. Sorry about that. Read it a long while ago.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 8:08 PM
She also lacks philosophical depth, logical coherence, intellectual honesty, humility, introspection ... at least.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 8:15 PM
To address the whole "she doesn't just lack knowledge; she lacks empathy" thing--Last time I checked, gaining knowledge about others and their situations is a damned good way to develop some empathy.
Nice strawman you've built there.
me: It isn't just knowledge that she is lacking.
Paul: She [also] lacks empathy.
Anodyne: [non sequitur hostile attack]: If you think one cannot become more empathic with time, you're sadly mistaken.
Paul: Nobody said that. [duh]
Anodyne [continues to be a jerk]: I sincerely hope you aren't that cynical when it comes to young adults.
Posted by: Robocop
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April 22, 2010 8:31 PM
975: Anodyne (continues to be a jerk)....
Pot. Kettle. Introductions.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 22, 2010 8:33 PM
Been you since day one...Posted by: JustALurker
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April 22, 2010 9:35 PM
@966
LOL. Yep and just think I've been here the whole time...=). (Actually, lurking for about a year)
@968
Absolutely true.
@971
So you're saying we shouldn't have insulted her no matter how true the insults are because of her age? So you do want her to be treated with kid gloves , defined as kid gloves-To treat someone with extra care and gentleness see urbandictionary.com, because of the consideration of her age. She's 19, not 10. She's heard that language before. Almost everyone was very respectful and held their tongues in the beginning as far as insults go. That ended because of her attitude and responses. We're not protecting her innocence or ignorance by doing so. It wouldn't have mattered if we were nice and respectful in our attempt to educate her. It sure as hell didn't make a damn difference in the beginning. I was one poster that was respectful in that sense when I first commented around 600 and she shitted on everything I had to say. She dismissed my input entirely and told me fuck you and fuck off. There are plenty of people here who used to believe the same line of shit, people who were very religious then grew up, learned, had their eyes opened, etc and changed their views. Sometimes it takes a person most of their life to get out of it but no one (here, that I know of) holds it against them later though. I bet you that every single person that went through this change will say they deserved every bit of shit they received for their previous idiotic views.
There were posts of books,websites,etc for her to check out to help get her out of her ignorance and I'm sure she knows how to do some research at least. I don't understand how considering her age the responses to her should have been any different. And so what she thinks she knows all the answers? so what if she feels entitled to make all the decisions for everybody else? That means we aren't allowed to be as vicious in our comments? She didn't want to engage in an calm, adult discussion of the matter. She said "I believe X and because of my belief X is true". Her attitude is that of a teenage brat that thinks she knows everything. So what if we said her out on this and held no punches? She's a spoiled teenage brat and we called her one**. Big deal. She received fair enough treatment all things considered.
I never said you were defending her. I'm glad you're not. However, I just wanted to add my 2 cents in since I don't appreciate arguments about tone or language. She knew full well what she was getting in to, it was HER own fault for engaging in the first place.**(snark)
* Sarcasm about her slut slamming statement, her words, not mine.
**I may not have engaged in calling her a spoiled teenage brat and such before, while I was certainly thinking it and defend anyone else that said exactly what they were thinking.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 11:42 PM
Pot. Kettle.
Tu quoque/ad hominem/fallacy of irrelevance.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 22, 2010 11:48 PM
She received fair enough treatment all things considered.
She was treated considerably more gently than someone without her pedigree wold have been.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 22, 2010 11:50 PM
So you're saying we shouldn't have insulted her no matter how true the insults are because of her age?
I find that pattern seems to hold with Walton, too.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 22, 2010 11:53 PM
Can we include Robocop in the next Survivor: Pharyngula?
it has my vote, and has for a long time.
Posted by: JustALurker
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April 23, 2010 12:06 AM
Truth Machine - Agreed, it's why I put italics on considered. Next time, I will come right out and say what I mean. =)
Ichthyic - Yes, of course! How could I forget Walton? ;)
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 23, 2010 12:09 AM
How did PZ end up with a Catholic daughter?
I'd say it has less to do with the household that raised her, but where, geographically, she grew up.
I gotta think most of her peers of same age would be religious.
check out the history of Minnesota, and especially Morris, sometime.
I can't imagine but that it would have some influence.
I mentioned this in the OK thread, but I will here too. Having grown up in conservative Southern California (home of the folks that put Ronald Reagan in office, and where most of the money and effort came from to support props 13 and much later, 8), that most certainly had an impact on my early thinking. I voted for Reagan's re-election, for example. Bloody well learned the hard way that I shot myself in the foot with that one.
I lived.
I learned.
I'm a liberal now.
all my old friends hate me for it, but you live long enough you learn it doesn't matter what the fuck your friends think, if it's simply wrong.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 12:27 AM
JustALurker @ 978:
Yep. And this isn't the first time Skatje has put forth these particular types of views here. Some of us were around for the other discussion. I think Anodyne is just jumping because of her age and the potential for growth. That's one for the irony meter.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 3:20 AM
Can we include Robocop in the next Survivor: Pharyngula?
I think Robocop's contributions here, except for the last one, were high quality, well argued, and thought provoking.
Posted by: Robocop
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April 23, 2010 10:13 AM
TM -- Thanks for the kind words. I always find your posts challenging, thought-provoking and, sometimes, even convincing. But at the risk of "pearl-clutching," I'm going to talk about style for a bit.
I used to buy the "make nice" argument in its entirety. I've never seen anybody change his or her mind by being called names. And in real-life, personal interactions, I still think that. But I've come to think that if one is interested in changing cultural paradigms, a much stronger approach is needed in a public setting. Surprisingly, I came to that conclusion on account of Malcolm Gladwell and Atticus Finch (link). So I am no longer so sympathetic to the "tone" argument, especially on the internet (where courtesy is a very different thing than in RL; people I have had nasty arguments with online have become good friends in RL). Moreover, I am not sympathetic to a "woe is me" defense and try never to complain about how I am treated online. I recognize that I'm more than a bit of a contrarian and that I'm pretty comfortable defending my positions in places they are unpopular, so I expect a fair amount of stick.
But, even allowing for Pharyngula's rough-and-tumble culture, I think you do yourself and your position a disservice by being so abusive ("a truly sickening person", "RETARDED", "spoiled brat", "authoritarian monster", and so on). Despite your carefully-cultivated style (and I do appreciate it), I think it's excessive and excessively rude. Moreover, while some will take pride in the idea that they didn't hold back the vitriol from the host's daughter (as opposed to her ideas: love the sin and hate the sinner?) -- Pharyngula tries to be relentlessly egalitarian after all -- I think it's akin to being invited into someone's home and taking a crap on the living room rug.
So I'll take my pearls and go home, leaving you to your regularly scheduled programming.
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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April 23, 2010 10:42 AM
I dislike dismissing people's beliefs automatically as a function of their age, but there are some beliefs that are easier to hold when less experienced. Overestimating one's own and others' control over their lives and oversimplifying the complex processes involved in decision-making is likely when one simply hasn't yet had to make that many decisions.
I held beliefs about abortion very similar to Skatje's when I was 19. (And here I'd thought it was a remnant of my Catholic upbringing.)
Posted by: Paul
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April 23, 2010 10:58 AM
Posted by: Anodyne
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April 23, 2010 2:01 PM
Truth Machine:
Really? Name-calling? I'm a jerk because I said I hope someone's not that cynical about young adults? Please. If having a differing opinion from you makes me a jerk in your book, your value judgment is laughable and easily dismissed.
You're stretching the definition of non sequitur. And hostile? lol Do you even know what that means? Disagreeing with you doesn't make me hostile, you dingbat. If I said "you fucking piece of shit, you don't know what you're talking about. I hate people like you *plugs ears and goes lalalalala*", then maybe you'd have a point.
You don't.
-----------------------------
*tries to subdue chortle so that co-workers don't stare at her like she's crazy* -----------------------------Paul:
Looking back, you are fairly correct; it seems there was a misunderstanding of what the other said about knowledge and empathy. I understand what you were getting at, but it wasn't initially interpreted that way. Essentially, we're in agreement but differ a little in nuance. Not a big deal.
JustALurker:
Riiiiight... So, because I said she does need to be called out on her bullshit, that means I said that we can't tell her her views are infinitely retarded horse shit. Give me a break. I was saying that too many of the comments I read had the gist of "she's a hopeless case and a complete fucking retard", which on an emotional level I can definitely understand--she said some things that make me want to slap her upside the head too--but the point is that it's illogical to write-off someone at that age based on their assessment of the world. Yes, she's blatantly sheltered. And yes, she's acting like a totally heartless little prick. I've never denied that. In pointing out that she's young, I'm not giving her a free pass. It just bears consideration that she's 19 and it's not like sexuality and gender issues have been in her radar since the day she was born. Yes, they are legally an adult at that age, but the adult is primitive.
-----------------------------
Caine:
Explain how it's ironic. I don't want to make assumptions as to what you were specifically referring, so I'll address that later.
I wasn't jumping; I wrote a post based on my observations. That's it. If it sounded that way to you, I can assure you there was no panicked jumping involved. (Note the lack of !!1!1!!!1 and egregious upper case text :p)
I was pointing out that the attitude I see here labels her as a lost cause, and it's not appropriate. Because she is not steeped in fundie bullshit, the chances of her changing her mind are much higher than a lot of her peers that have been drowned in religion. So yes, she does have the potential to change her mind. Pointing this out as if it has some sort of negative connotation is absurd.
-----------------------------
Should I refrain from looking at the big picture since the lot of you don't seem to think it has any bearing on the discussion at hand?
For the record, my observations aren't only Skatje-specific. The same applies for all of her sheltered & secular contemporaries. And don't give me that 19-is-old-enough-to-know-better crap unless you're asserting that you're each some kind of super-human that never had to adjust their mistaken worldview at any time to sync with reality. I find it hard to believe that none of you were ever haughty about something and later discovered that you'd firmly placed your foot in your mouth and down your throat. I'm not saying that one's opinion is invalidated because they used to similarly think in poorly conceived terms, but to pretend like a 19-year-old that doesn't grasp why the right to autonomy is so important makes him/her just as repulsively culpable as a 45-year-old that holds the same beliefs is to deny reality.
Addendum -
I'm posting here at work, and getting interrupted several times during my commentary causes me to lose my train of thought, which sometimes lends itself to a lack of concise expression on my part. If in the future it should happen that I'm not making sense, it's probably not on purpose--by all means, if I contradict myself in a post, please quote it and point it out.
Posted by: Anodyne
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April 23, 2010 2:08 PM
Oops...fixed that.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp
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April 23, 2010 2:13 PM
this should be fun
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 2:21 PM
Anodyne:
You seem to have completely missed my first response to you (970). As far as many of the attitudes here, as I pointed out, this is not the first time Skatje has argued these viewpoints here. Some of us have more experience in regard to her views on this subject. This isn't a brand new "revelation" or anything. Also, her distinct lack of empathy is disturbing. One could reasonably expect her to have a finer developed sense of empathy at this point.
Yes, she may "grow" out of it. She may also simply "grow" more entrenched. As it stands, she's been treated better than most pro-lifers would be. I take this issue very seriously. If someone is going to persist in placing fetuses first, they are going to hear about it. Full stop.
Posted by: Anodyne
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April 23, 2010 2:51 PM
Okay, so someone's opinion hasn't changed fast enough for you. That doesn't invalidate anything I've said.
If I'm talking to a Christian whose views I've already countered, I'm not going to say "you're such fucking stupid son of a bitch--you really don't get it, do you? I've already told you why you're wrong, but since you're dense, I'll repeat." Do you really think that tactic is going to work on a strong-willed young adult?
Truth is truth, and it's not diminished if I concede that my opponent is a human being, however irrational they may be.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/Mdbh1xorz4JoVqjIu6xo7FGYS1mVeM75Mblf.9I-#28468
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April 23, 2010 2:53 PM
wow - I read the whole page and I can't believe it has to be said on a pharygula thread, but re: Rape and who is responsible -
As a female I am NOT responsible for preventing my rape; all those men out there are responsible for NOT RAPING ME. I should be able to walk outside, naked, in mixed company, and expect to not be molested or raped.
This idea that women can somehow be 'asking for it' is so sad, and so indicative of how our culture expects women to be on guard, and distrusting of sex (and men) at all times.
I won't even wade in to the abortion debate because, although I haven't had one, I WAS forcefully coerced into sex by my abusive then-boyfriend and getting pregnant by him (thereby allowing him into my life forever, even if I managed to get my self away at a later date) would have very much ruined my life - making me just another sob story. I very much suspect the position of "women should just accept pregnancy as a possible side-effect of sex" comes very much from someone who has
a) never been forced into grey-area sex where it's not so much that you didn't consent, but that you didn't think you would be *allowed* to not consent, and
b) never actually been pregnant or given birth (if you think early pregnancy is uncomfortable, try late pregnancy). I can tell you, there is NOTHING positive about being pregnant except that baby, and if you don't want that baby, WTF would you go through pregnancy??
c) hasn't spent time living in the house with a small baby. My youngest brother is 14 years younger than me and I took care of him a lot as a teen. That fact alone kept me celibate until my 20's when I met the above, abusive boyfriend. The burden born by a woman relative to pregnancy doesn't end with childbirth.
I'm now very happily married with a very-much-wanted daughter (who was accidentally conceived while I was using contraceptives), but I still spent the entire pregnancy/birth experience wondering how the species hadn't died out already. My hair grew in WHITE for the first trimester because the fetus took so much out of me.
Ok, a little wading - one thing I haven't seen addressed here is how much fucking HARD WORK the first couple of years of parenthood are, and unless you have some magical arrangement where the father can breastfeed, the onus is STILL on the mother. I mean, there are possible breaks, but the majority of care is still undertaken by the mother -mammals and all that- and taking care of a young baby makes pregnancy look like a picnic. A fetus is surprisingly portable and complacent. Not so after birth. True, my baby wasn't kicking my kidneys anymore, so that's a plus, but I didn't get more than 45 minutes of sleep together for the first six weeks. I would NEVER push parenthood onto someone who hadn't 100% signed up for ALL of it so yes, I FULLY 100% support a woman's right to not have a baby if she has any doubts. For every painful, sleep-deprived, horrific moment, I never once doubted that I wanted to be my daughter's mother. No one should be denied that or forced into a situation where they don't want it (pregnancy OR parenthood). Ever. And guess what, I came to that conclusion from the rights of the fetus too - every baby ought to be wanted. You could even say I wish there were more abortions (or more correctly, more prevented-pregnancies). I'll start aguing about the benefits of adoption when we suddenly have a surplus of adoptive parents and no unwanted kids to be found for them. Until then, for me the adoption argument fails full stop.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 2:56 PM
I'm going to talk about style for a bit.
And I'm not going to waste my time reading it; sorry that you wasted yours writing it.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 3:00 PM
I'm a jerk because I said I hope someone's not that cynical about young adults?
No, asshole, that's not what I said, or anything like it. Paul said that Skatje lacks empathy as well as knowledge; that's a simple fact that you agree with. Your LEAP to the notion that he was saying she couldn't change was unwarranted and stupid. Who knows, maybe you can change.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 3:07 PM
Ok, Robocop, I did skim your post and it's just the usual blah blah blah, but I will respond to one point:
"RETARDED"
As I noted three times, it was her word that she applies to other pro-lifers. Surely you aren't so retarded as to not be able to understand the point of applying back at her.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 3:11 PM
Anodyne:
*snorts* Anodyne, if you read the whole thread, you'd find many people took your preferred approach, which simply garnered vicious responses from our young correspondent.
For myself, this wasn't about changing anyone's mind. It certainly was about making my viewpoint known. This isn't and wasn't some sort of "rescue Skatje" mission, FFS.
For what it's worth, you're now bordering heavily on the concern troll argument. Tone and style might be important to you, however, they do not take precedence here. Substance does. By the way, most of us weren't peppering our posts with "you fucking idiot" or anything else of that nature. Some people did. So what? That doesn't invalidate the substance of their point or argument.
Look, clutch your pearls all you wish; maunder on about the need to gently guide and nurture young adults and so forth. I disagree with your parts of your viewpoint and have clearly set forth why. I am strongly opposed to anti-choice views and will counter them no matter where I find them. I don't care if they come from a 17 year old or a 70 year old. Simply because there is an off chance distasteful views might be held due to age is no reason to let them slide. Okay? Now, I'm tired of circular arguing which is rapidly descending into concern troll territory. I'm agreeing to disagree here. Vehemently.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 3:19 PM
I think it's akin to being invited into someone's home and taking a crap on the living room rug.
Now that is just so wrong. Both PZ and Skatje made the point that she is an independent and autonomous person. If anyone crapped on the rug, it is her with her "fuck off" and "sob story" and her whole attitude towards both the issue at hand and the people here. For the most part people were rather restrained in their treatment of her, including me. There was one instance of "stupid twit" from Rutee. As for "spoiled brat", look at what it was in response to. And sickening is a personal and honest assessment, and was in response and concurrence with what JeffreyD (someone highly regarded by those who have been here for a while) wrote of having a bad taste in his mouth that he couldn't get rid of and of this being a "canker sore" of a thread.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 3:25 PM
You're stretching the definition of non sequitur. And hostile? lol Do you even know what that means? Disagreeing with you doesn't make me hostile, you dingbat.
The point, you moron, is that you weren't disagreeing with Paul, you were disagreeing with a strawman of your own invention -- that should have been clear from the dialog I quoted, in which Paul simply asserted that Skatje lacks empathy -- nothing about not being able to change. Thus, your comment was non sequitur, idiot.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 3:35 PM
BTW, Anodyne, you stupid asshole, Paul twice (#964 and #972) noted that he had never said that Skatje couldn't change, and yet you still don't recognize that your attack on him as being cynical is non sequitur. You seem quite unable to separate your own thoughts, which you expressed well enough in #959, from those of others. No one has disagreed with what you wrote in #959 so stop treating them as if they had, jackass.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 3:45 PM
Looking back, you are fairly correct; it seems there was a misunderstanding of what the other said about knowledge and empathy. I understand what you were getting at, but it wasn't initially interpreted that way.
I love the passive voice. Try taking responsibility for your mistakes, asshole.
Paul: She lacks empathy. If you can't tell that in this thread, you can't read.
Anodyne [completely non sequitur]: If you think one cannot become more empathic with time, you're sadly mistaken.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 3:53 PM
I was saying that too many of the comments I read had the gist of "she's a hopeless case [...]"
Point them out, please.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 23, 2010 4:01 PM
People have her all wrong. If anything, it's an excess of empathy. This is the young woman who, on principle, recently announced that she was going vegan because she could not justify causing pain to domesticated animals. I think she's giving way too much benefit of the doubt to embryos, and that's the basis for her arguments here.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 4:12 PM
PZ:
You certainly know her the best. I'm happy to take your word on the matter. It can definitely be difficult sometimes, because what someone posts here is all we have to go on, and abortion is a hot button and emotional issue. At least for me.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 23, 2010 4:15 PM
And me, too. We'd fight over this at home except she's all tangled up in her senior seminar and finishing up classes and imminent graduation (which might be another contributor to her crankiness here).
Posted by: Paul
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April 23, 2010 4:16 PM
You fail to recognize this as not giving enough "benefit of the doubt" to the woman herself, because "she deserves to have to carry a fetus to term for having sex even if she used all available types of birth control". This is what we're calling a lack of empathy.
We get it. Your daughter is great, thoughtful, kind, wouldn't hurt a soul. But intention isn't everything. Her philosophical position leads her to not oppose a law that would result in more deaths of actual living people (citations have been provided, multiple times). "Lack of empathy" is the most charitable interpretation, really. I don't see how you can come down hard on Libertarians for the actual results of their shitty policies, and not recognize Skatje falls into the same field as well-meaning Libertarians. She holds a shitty philosophical position that will do real serious harm to living people if it is followed through with.
Not asking you to disagree with her, but at least recognize what people are arguing.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 23, 2010 4:20 PM
Say, did you read the post I wrote? The one way up top? I know it's easy to forget it a thousand comments down...but if you think I'm suggesting that I agree with her position, you aren't paying attention.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 23, 2010 4:21 PM
totally called it. still, it would help immensely if she finally realized that her stance will, in the real world, cause more harm and pain than legal abortion ever did.Posted by: Paul
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April 23, 2010 4:24 PM
Say, did you read the post I wrote 10 minutes ago? The one you replied to?
I was pointing out the error in saying Skatje's problem is too much empathy because she feels sorry for the little babies. We were talking about empathy with respect to the actual living women involved. Your comment was dismissive or ignoring what was actually being talked about.
Posted by: Phil
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April 23, 2010 4:26 PM
An embryo is not a person?
It's the unbeliever that has the problem.
Believers have HOPE - for eternal life!
Unbelievers have only dispair, and their short life on earth.
Psalm 51: "Indeed, in guilt was I born, and in sin my mother CONCEIVED me."
Did anyone on this blog walk on water?
Did anyone on this blog rise from the dead?
Does anyone on this blog have the authority or power or love for God's creation to forgive our sins of abortion (murder)?
Did anyone on this blog willingly allow themselves to be fastened with nails to the blood-soaked Cross of Golgotha so that mankind's sins can be forgiven?
Has anyone on this blog suffered "The Passion of Christ" so that human beings can CHOOSE to be baptized and OBEY God rather than man?
Why not stop with the useless opinions?
God's name is MERCY. And He will forgive even the sin of abortion.
You simply have to believe, and ask for forgiveness.
P.S. I'm headed for the local abortion clinic to pass out the TRUTH - not opinions.
TRUTH is not a thing.
TRUTH is a person, and his name is Jesus Christ.
Give Him a chance to save you - life is short, and eternity is forever.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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April 23, 2010 4:33 PM
fuck off, proselytising troll. jesus christ never existed, your "truth" is a lie.
also, pascal's wager is Teh Lame.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 4:43 PM
Phil:
No, it isn't. By the way, that book of myths you're quoting? It's quite fond of detailing the killing of infants and has nothing at all against abortion. Many passages are quite explicit in their approval.
Now, go fuck yourself. Sideways. With the rusty implement of your choice.
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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April 23, 2010 4:46 PM
Stupendous stupidity needs correcting, Phil.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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April 23, 2010 4:52 PM
As far as we can tell, this hope is false. As a certain Frank Zindler put it (according to a sidebar quote): "To believe that consciousness can survive the wreck of the brain is like believing that 70 mph can survive the wreck of the car."
I must have missed that somehow. Life, you see, is interesting.
Maybe you should publish a scientific article or do something else that will make you remembered?
Irrelevant.
Are you really capable of believing in something when there's no evidence for it?
Really?
Seriously?
Because I'm not.
That requires "Him" to exist in the first place. We're waiting for the evidence. Bring some.
Posted by: Chgo_Liz
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April 23, 2010 4:53 PM
I'm not convinced, PZ.
She had at least three former unwanted embryos describe some of the deleterious long term effects, both prenatal issues and after birth. In response, she insulted us and our real-world examples. She made it very clear that she doesn't give a hoot about unwanted embryos once we're born.
If she comes back after graduation with a heart-felt apology, going into specifics, THEN I'll believe your faith in her is justified.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/Mdbh1xorz4JoVqjIu6xo7FGYS1mVeM75Mblf.9I-#28468
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April 23, 2010 5:14 PM
it also seems (from the vegan standpoint) that she is arguing "anti" in the name of doing the least harm, but if you don't believe in a soul, doing the least amount of total harm IS aborting an unwanted fetus (baby/child) BEFORE they can attain the level of consciousness needed to realize that they are unwanted and suffer the pain that follows (and not just the abstract, emotional pain either. childbirth is an extremely distressing event for an infant, possibly more so than for the mother since the mother has some inkling of what is going on and knows that it will end). The fact that the harm done by their unwanted status is ameliorated over a lifetime does not negate it.
So yes, abortion is killing a [potential] baby, but that doesn't mean that it cannot be the kindest, most humane option for everyone in a given circumstance, despite my personal distaste for the procedure. I have been too recently pregnant to think of abortion in terms of abstract autonomy rights but I wholeheartedly still support a woman's right to choice.
Although, until I realized the above, I felt much the same as PZ's progeny (although I would have said that I don't know enough therefore I fight for the woman's right to choose). Going through pregnancy and childbirth and motherhood has taken me from an abortion-agnostic firmly into the pro-abortion camp.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 5:16 PM
People have her all wrong.
They are going by the evidence they have.
This is the young woman who, on principle, recently announced that she was going vegan because she could not justify causing pain to domesticated animals.
Yes, that's principle, perhaps even sympathy, but not empathy.
I think she's giving way too much benefit of the doubt to embryos
As has been noted here repeatedly, the argument for choice is the same if it's an adult who is dependent upon your body. As I noted, you yourself have observed this at times.
Posted by: amphiox
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April 23, 2010 5:17 PM
Like Brownian #988, when I was in that age range, my view on abortion was almost identical to what Skatje has expressed here, right down to the "playing the odds" and "personal responsibility" aspects of it. I don't know if I ever went as far as to express support for making abortion illegal - in liberal Canada where I grew up, the issue rarely came up and I was never called out on it and forced to take my position to that logical conclusion. In fact to this day I cannot really pinpoint at what point in my life I changed my mind.
But I think the empathy issue brought up by PZ is quite apropos. Because it is always difficult to distribute empathy in situations where both sides are deserving of it. There is a temptation to simplify the moral choice by choosing sides, to invest all our empathy with one party and not the other. And there is a powerful instinctive tendency for decent people to empathize more with the superficially weaker party, to root for the underdog as it were. And what is more weak and helpless than a fetus, utterly dependent on its mother and at the mercy of her every decision? Thus is not the fetus more deserving of protection, because it needs it more, because the woman is so much more powerful?
This is precisely why these baby-type adds are so dishonest. They deliberately present grossly distorted perception that exploits this humane instinct for pernicious ends.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 5:19 PM
if you think I'm suggesting that I agree with her position, you aren't paying attention
Nice how you respond to Paul's last sentence and ignore his entire argument.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 5:23 PM
In fact, you only responded to the first half of his last sentence. "... at least recognize what people are arguing." -- it would be nice.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp
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April 23, 2010 5:23 PM
Nope.
And neither has anyone else, ever.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 5:28 PM
P.S.
if you think I'm suggesting that I agree with her position, you aren't paying attention
I not only paid attention, but responded above:
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 5:30 PM
Rev. BDC, the Jesus Lizards run on water. I find that pretty impressive. Lots more impressive than an imaginary dude who never walked on the stuff.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 23, 2010 5:31 PM
As if I'm somehow arguing in support of my daughter's position. I disagree with it; I strongly think empathy for the women involved is more important.
I also happen to know a little bit more about the person we're arguing over.
Anything else you want to tell me I'm wrong about here, and how you understand my daughter's motivation better than I do?
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 23, 2010 5:31 PM
I think Robocop's contributions here, except for the last one, were high quality, well argued, and thought provoking.
must me a temporary thing then, since he's typically ignorant, delusional, and insipid.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 5:34 PM
Say, did you read the post I wrote 10 minutes ago? The one you replied to?
Well, he read the first part of the last sentence.
Your comment was dismissive or ignoring what was actually being talked about.
It sure was.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 23, 2010 5:36 PM
Anything else you want to tell me I'm wrong about here, and how you understand my daughter's motivation better than I do?
unfair, given that we can only respond to what she has written here, and you haven't actually clarified or changed any of the meaning of what she has said.
From what I see, she has "empathy" towards things that wouldn't respond to it (animals, embryos) and a distinct LACK of empathy towards things that actually would respond to it, like other women.
it's quite odd, if you account her behavior, as you do, to empathy.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 5:36 PM
As if I'm somehow arguing in support of my daughter's position.
Saying it's a fair argument supports it -- in part -- duh.
I also happen to know a little bit more about the person we're arguing over.
You're flailing.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 23, 2010 5:40 PM
Anything else you want to tell me I'm wrong about here, and how you understand my daughter's motivation better than I do?
frankly, it's quite common for parents to NOT understand how their offspring think, because they are too close to the issue.
have you forgotten basic psych?
Posted by: Paul
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April 23, 2010 5:41 PM
Oh, just for the record. When I said I didn't expect PZ to disagree with her, I didn't express myself clearly. I was simply trying to say that I don't expect him to argue with her in this thread like other people have. His position on abortion is clear, and obviously disagrees with hers. I was simply making allowance for the fact that a comment thread on a blog isn't really the place you would expect family members to hash out such a difference of opinion.
So I don't expect him to argue with her here. I do, however, request that he doesn't artificially prop her up by ignoring the actual arguments being made.
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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April 23, 2010 5:41 PM
I know; it was some time in my first term of my first year, when I learned from an anthropology 101 class just how widespread important family planning (including using methods such as lactational amenorrhea, phytochemical abortifacients, physical abortion, and infanticide) was to humans, especially to foragers and preagricultural ones. As I was going through a forager-romanticist phase, I was forced to reexamine my beliefs in innocence and potential, since foragers tend to care much less about such things as much as proven survivability. Not the most rational though process, I know, but useful for breaking out of the "every sperm is sacred" mindset.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 5:44 PM
it's quite odd, if you account her behavior, as you do, to empathy.
She loves plants and animals; poor women with four children, not so much apparently (PZ may have personal knowledge that we aren't privy to that contradicts what Skatje actually wrote) -- they can just adopt their children out.
Posted by: Dianne
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April 23, 2010 5:46 PM
Did anyone on this blog walk on water?
Yep. Quite frequently last winter.
Did anyone on this blog rise from the dead?
Not me, but I can introduce you to several people I raised from the (clinically) dead*. Does that count?
*They weren't really dead of course. Just didn't have a heart beat and weren't breathing. A little electricity, some drugs, a bit of artificial respiration took care of that. Those times.
Posted by: Paul
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April 23, 2010 5:47 PM
Nobody's talking about her motivation. We're talking about the obvious shortcomings of her position. Attributing it to lack of empathy towards women who find themselves pregnant is a hell of a lot more charitable than saying she wants women to kill themselves with a coat hanger in botched abortions when abortion is banned, isn't it?
Seriously, I don't get why you're deliberately ignoring what people are actually saying.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 5:50 PM
I was simply trying to say that I don't expect him to argue with her in this thread like other people have
To give him credit, in #348 he did offer a mild criticism among his defenses of her as principled: "it's also one that ignores the central point of this post: whether the fetus is a person is ambiguous". Of course, that is not the central point of everyone else here.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 23, 2010 5:51 PM
This threads going to get far stranger if we are to now have a debate with PZ over who can judge his kid's behavior better.
It's frankly a ridiculous thing to debate, can and should make everyone involved unfairly uncomfortable.
I myself would be red-faced if I ever said something like "Anything else you want to tell me I'm wrong about here, and how you understand my [relatives's] motivation better than I do?"
I mean, that has a tendency to just stifle discussion. might as well have just ended the thread.
I understand parental bonds are involved, but she jumped in the pool here. Skatje should more than be capable of clarifying her OWN motivations, yes?
*shrug*
there is now an elephant in the room.
Posted by: Dianne
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April 23, 2010 5:54 PM
Unbelievers have only dispair
And squirrels. I'll take real squirrels over false hope any day.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 6:00 PM
Nobody's talking about her motivation.
To be fair, saying that she lacks empathy is about motivation. Of course, it's overly sweeping; perhaps we should say that she has demonstrated a lack of empathy, towards women in various circumstances -- but not toward embryos or animals. Actually, people have said that, but PZ's response to the broad swipe is understandable -- though not charitable -- because it differs from his personal experience.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 6:00 PM
Ichthyic, I think it's fair to say that PZ probably gets a lot more nuance when arguing with Skatje than we do from her posts.
If Skatje wants to jump back into this or any other discussion on abortion a/o women's rights, I'll go right on arguing with her.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 23, 2010 6:01 PM
Yes, and it should stifle discussion. If all you have is speculation about her motives, and you're going to disregard what the fellow sitting in the same room with the person has to say, then yeah, I think you're done. You clearly aren't interested in the actual motives.
As for the rest...as I seem to have to remind everyone, I disagree with my daughter. I'm on the same side you are in this debate. I am aware of the shortcomings of her position. I am not arguing for her position.
Do I have to use littler words?
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 23, 2010 6:02 PM
I am sitting here in the middle of Odessa, Texas, a wasteland in more ways than just the fact it's the middle of the fucking West Texas desert. My fucking hotel has a TEN COMMANDMENTS MONUMENT in front of it. The maids refused to come clean my room yesterday because I threw the Gideon Bible in the trash and threw a used sanitary napkin and the remains of fast food in there on top of it (trash is trash). Around here it is standard to display crosses and religious plaques openly in the parts of businesses that are open to the public. I got asked today if I was a witch because I am wearing all black (I'm a geek, OK, and my blouse is sort of "goth"). I'm only saying this because I am so pissed off I scare myself. Fucking bumpkins. So those of you who care about tone, turn around and stick your fingers in your ears now; I'm going into "speedwell" mode.
About Skatje. Am I seriously reading the blog where we encourage Christian children to use their brains and question what they've been taught? Fuck, seems that's only OK anymore when we're expecting them to rebel against Christianity! We are so goddamned confident that allowing people to use their minds inevitably results in their adopting a mindset we agree with, that is until Skatje became involved and most of us lost our fucking minds. She is suddenly the exception to everything we say to other people. There is not a single bit of evidence in all her writing up until now that she is the kind of malicious, ignorant, sociopathic creep you are making her out to be--there is not a single bit of evidence that she is--until this thread, many of you would never have thought it of her, and I still don't. We have never had any reason to think of her as anything but gifted and original, if somewhat arrogant, and I, for one, still think of her that way. I never claimed to like her much, but, Christ, fair's fair.
Something is fucked up here, and it's not the fact that a young woman has decided to try on another sort of idea. We are supposed to value the rich experience of being able to think widely and come to cogent conclusions. We are supposed to encourage people to live according to their convictions, and to trust that the truth will, inevitably, out. Do we think Skatje is forever incapable of seeing the truth or recognizing it for what it is? Are we encouraging her to use her mind, or are we making overwrought emotional threats?
OK. So you hate what she said, fine. And you can hate what I said, and she will hate what I said because I openly called for treating her according to her age. But I happen to take the learning process very seriously, and I refuse to stand by without comment and see you, and her, fuck it up because your nifty brain chemicals are working overtime to scuttle the lifeboat.
Back off and give her some intellectual breathing room, for fuck's sake, or you will deserve every single time someone's called you narrow-minded and pretentious ivory-tower twits.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 6:04 PM
Do I have to use littler words?
You really should leave this thread alone before you do more damage to people's regard for you.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 6:09 PM
badgersdaughter, that's a nice ad hominem rant, but it doesn't actually address any of the substance of what people have written here.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 23, 2010 6:13 PM
My blog, my post, and you have the gall to suggest that I should leave?
Why? Do you need to be left without my input so you can speculate about my secret life as a pro-life Catholic zealot?
Posted by: Robocop
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April 23, 2010 6:13 PM
1043: We are supposed to value the rich experience of being able to think widely and come to cogent conclusions. We are supposed to encourage people to live according to their convictions, and to trust that the truth will, inevitably, out.
But once one is exposed to the capital-T Truth, its truthiness should be so obvious that only irrational, immoral, stupid and evil people (otherwise known as "them") can't see it and won't embrace it.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 6:14 PM
badgersdaughter:
Please, lose the drama. I didn't make any threat, emotional or otherwise. I will argue with anyone who has anti-choice, anti-women views. That's all.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 23, 2010 6:17 PM
Oh, I'm sorry, truth machine OM, I see that you're so wrapped up in your little rules that you failed to notice I wasn't playing your game of Calvinball. I wasn't arguing about abortion, I was calling you out about the way you, and others, are handling a specific situation with a specific person. last I checked, we were allowed to tell other people we thought they were being assholes. I'm sorry if that didn't address the topic of whether or not abortion was OK. I think I acquitted myself pretty well on that score dozens of posts ago, anyway, so stick that wrench in your truth-mechanical guts and grind burrs off of it.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 6:20 PM
truth machine:
Please speak for yourself here. My regard for PZ hasn't been affected.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 23, 2010 6:22 PM
Couldn't have said it better myself.
In the spirit of doing myself what I expect others to do, I'll drop the drama now. Never cared much for it outside Victorian novels anyway.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 23, 2010 6:27 PM
If all you have is speculation about her motives, and you're going to disregard what the fellow sitting in the same room with the person has to say, then yeah, I think you're done.
I see. We ARE going to discuss this, at your insistence.
Yes, and it should stifle discussion.
like i said, if that's the way you feel about it, why not just close the thread?
I seem to have to remind everyone, I disagree with my daughter.
I don't see where anyone said you agreed with her (there was a technical point made about tacit support, but it's irrelevant to whether you agree with her actual position), which it's rather obvious you wouldn't, given the years of pro-choice posts you've made. That you even mention this here suggests you are entirely missing the point of what people are saying.
You're getting way too defensive about this.
paul said:
Seriously, I don't get why you're deliberately ignoring what people are actually saying.
seems obvious to me. Parents should never jump into debates their kids get themselves into.
that said, perhaps, since we have the master interpreter present, he would be willing to translate some Skatje sayings for me?
please translate the following:
"Soooo many anecdotal sob stories."
does she think all of your stories you've posted about in the past 5 years regarding abortion are anecdotal too?
"Get off your my-life-was-harder-than-yours high horse."
does she think that actual evidence of experience is not relevant to the decision-making process?
"I still find this slut-shaming thing to be absurd. If we were seahorses, I guess I would be a player-shamer."
?? haven't a clue.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 6:29 PM
Why?
I stated why.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 23, 2010 6:30 PM
Robocop. Don't imagine that I am on your side just because you happen to be able to twist something I said to fit your particular twist.
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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April 23, 2010 6:30 PM
srsly?For once I have to disagree with you, TM. I'd rather PeeZed be honest, consequences be damned. Do you really want him to tone it down, so that you can maintain some sorta Platonic ideal of him in your mind?
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 6:33 PM
Please speak for yourself here. My regard for PZ hasn't been affected.
You are not coextensive with "people".
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 23, 2010 6:34 PM
We are supposed to value the rich experience of being able to think widely and come to cogent conclusions.
I must have missed the cogent part.
where was that again?
Posted by: Robocop
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April 23, 2010 6:35 PM
1054: Don't imagine that I am on your side just because you happen to be able to twist something I said to fit your particular twist.
I don't and provided no reasonable basis for you to conclude that I did.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 23, 2010 6:35 PM
There is no such thing. Oh, you must mean your imaginary deity and fictional/mythical babble. Which you can't supply conclusive physical evidence for. Which by parsimony means it doesn't exist.Posted by: Paul
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April 23, 2010 6:37 PM
Disagree. If I kick puppies in my spare time, one might say I lack empathy towards them. That does not mean I am motivated by empathy, although it does imply that empathy could be a factor in why I do not refrain from kicking puppies.
This is, of course, clearer and more to the point. Thanks for that.
Of course not. But her presence in this thread was a study in ignoring evidence/posts contrary to what she wanted to believe coming into the thread. It's worth pointing out. As if saying "it's a philosophical position" excuses ignoring the real world implications. As I pointed out earlier, it's the same situation you see with young Libertarians (and we've seen how much PZ is willing to assume good faith and accommodate their "philosophical positions").
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 23, 2010 6:39 PM
My blog, my post, and you have the gall to suggest that I should leave?
that's not what he meant, obviously.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 6:39 PM
I was calling you out about the way you, and others, are handling a specific situation with a specific person.
What you did was rant, and the rant was inaccurate and full of hyperbole.
I'd rather PeeZed be honest
Me too.
Do you really want him to tone it down
No, I really want him to honestly engage what people have actually said here, but that would be very hard to do now.
so that you can maintain some sorta Platonic ideal of him in your mind?
Who, me? C'mon, you must be kidding.
Posted by: windy
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April 23, 2010 6:40 PM
Who are these "everyone" who are arguing against that? Paul has explained in #1032 what he meant by "not asking you to disagree with her", so no one has denied that your position is different from hers.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 23, 2010 6:40 PM
Having been vegan significantly longer than I've been pro-choice, I remember using animal rights arguments against legalized abortion. I'm happy to answer any questions concerning that position. (With the caveat that we don't know for sure whether Skatje's veganism and anti-choice position are related, either in reality or in her narrative. In my case, misogyny was the real issue, and after I challenged my misogyny, animal rights were no further barrier to being pro-choice.)
We've all grown up in an extremely misogynistic culture which teaches that women should not be allowed to control their own lives, and women's primary purpose should be to produce offspring for men. Regardless of how well any parents raise their daughter to value her own autonomy, there is tremendous cultural pressure for women of any age to vie for relative status within the patriarchy -- though the younger the woman, the more overtly she is threatened and so the more she needs status -- by declaring that she would never deny a man his right to own her body, and any woman who would is irresponsible and thus inferior to her.
It is simply naive to imagine that your own daughter is special and immune to this pressure.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 6:42 PM
that's not what he meant, obviously.
That's not obvious to PZ, for reasons that you have noted.
Posted by: John Morales
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April 23, 2010 6:42 PM
This thread has well and truly succumbed to topic drift. Epic drift, at that, a la the Titanoboa thread — only less fun.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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April 23, 2010 6:43 PM
Fair enough. I hope we can all eventually come to see it as a lesson and not as a personal insult. Given that it's the Internet, that's not terribly likely or anything, but a few posts ago I claimed the role of standing in front of the herd of elephants, saying "Let's all be reasonable here," and I used to be one of those stubborn Libertarians myself, so I might as well go on and let myself be trampled, just for the sake of being consistent. :)
Posted by: Anodyne
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April 23, 2010 6:43 PM
Hey, Truth Machine--Go fuck yourself. You have no interest in civil discourse and I have no interest in continuing any conversation with you beyond this post.
Way to fail. Last I checked, I said "I understand what you were getting at, but it wasn't initially interpreted that way". I'm talking about myself, you fuckwit.Cain--
I clearly stated in a recent post that this wasn't about her, but about her demographic and I was using her as an example. I don't know Skatje and I'm not going on a personal crusade to defend anyone just because they're the blog owner's daughter, so don't pretend that I am.
When did I say we "need to gently guide and nurture..."? Don't put words in my mouth. And I'm not "clutching pearls" (why even use such a sexist phrase?) It seems everyone's estimation of my concern is way too high.
...but...sonofabitch...
I was just going to cite the part where I said something about not being that emotional or attached to the premise, but I can't find it anywhere, so it was probably deleted before making the post; I apologize--I thought that information was available to everyone. *extended facepalm* Fucking lame.
As am I! I really, truly care about this issue. (And put my money [and very soon some time] where my mouth is) I will fight tooth and nail for the right of others and myself to have control over our own goddamned bodies. What really pisses me off is people who implicitly say a woman is too helpless and stupid to know what is right for her life. That is where my passion lies--not with making excuses for people. It wasn't my intent to distract from the pro-choice sentiment; I wanted to mention the role of empathy--not sympathy--when you're addressing someone that age because it is entirely relevant.
It's not an "off chance". It's demonstrable. And at no point have I ever said you should let her slide. I've said it many times already, but I guess I have to say it again...She said cruel things and should be corrected. It our duty to point out how vile and reprehensible her opinions are. I am absolutely sickened by what she said, and I'm in no uncertain terms disagreeing with the fact that her words portray her as a huge fucking heartless asshole. I can, and will, point out bullshit when I see it, but that doesn't mean I have to be a quiet little good girl and not say anything when I feel that people are defeating their own purpose. It's that fucking simple.
While I heartily object to you putting words in my mouth, I do appreciate that you didn't try to rip me a new asshole because we are in disagreement.
--------------------------------
I've already said my point, and there's no need to rehash it over and over again. It is what it is.
And for some of the posters, when someone asks to have their inconsistencies pointed out in the interest of gaining knowledge, and you turn around and hurl cheap insults at them, you make it clear that you really don't give a fuck about increasing others' understanding or coming to any sort of an agreement. It's all about you and stroking your ego. Get over yourself.
Posted by: Paul
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April 23, 2010 6:44 PM
That's the problem. He's not being honest or arguing in good faith. He's picking and choosing very carefully to paint a nice picture while acting like everyone else is being unreasonable. He's pretending to address people's comments while completely ignoring what they're saying. He accused me of not reading his original post in the process of ignoring almost the entire content of the post he was replying to, ffs.
That's funny.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 23, 2010 6:45 PM
No, I really want him to honestly engage what people have actually said here, but that would be very hard to do now.
ayup.
near impossible.
Do you need to be left without my input so you can speculate about my secret life as a pro-life Catholic zealot?
I take your saracasm and run with it.
see, this is exactly where you miss the point. People are speculating about what skatje wrote.
I don't recall seeing you write about yourself supporting Catholicism or anti-choice stances, so why would anyone speculate about that?
seriously, can you not see the difference?
I'm done. You've made further debate pointless unless Skatje herself returns to clarify.
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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April 23, 2010 6:45 PM
I'd honestly be surprised if you did, yes. But I'm also surprised you a) asked him to leave the thread alone, b) used his reputation as the argument for doing that.Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 23, 2010 6:45 PM
Yawn, Anodyne the tone troll is back. Whoopie shit. Still nothing cogent.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 23, 2010 6:48 PM
asked him to leave the thread alone
again, he didn't. do I need to spell it out?
He was asking PZ to avoid taking this debate tack, as it is dishonest and stifles debate via parental fiat.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 6:49 PM
[... seahorses ...] ?? haven't a clue.
It's about gender being irrelevant. She would be just as uncaring about the circumstances of males if they were the ones who get pregnant.
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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April 23, 2010 6:50 PM
Such is life.Posted by: Robocop
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April 23, 2010 6:54 PM
1059: There is no such thing....
This wooden literalism is causing you to embarrass yourself again.
Which by parsimony means it doesn't exist.
Parsimony is a very helpful tool, especially for sorting. But it doesn't determine truth.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 23, 2010 6:54 PM
She would be just as uncaring about the circumstances of males if they were the ones who get pregnant.
ah.
well, at least she's not sexist. equal opportunity hater.
wonder if it's just the common "hate humanity because humans have fucked everything up" meme.
meh, but that would be just idle speculation...
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 6:56 PM
He was asking PZ to avoid taking this debate tack, as it is dishonest and stifles debate via parental fiat.
Well, what I was saying is that he was flailing about, attacking strawmen left and right as if they were "everyone", that it doesn't serve him well to do so (and yes, I am talking about his "reputation") -- and since he seems to be too emotionally invested to be able to do better, leaving it alone is a wise course.
He's not being honest or arguing in good faith. He's picking and choosing very carefully to paint a nice picture while acting like everyone else is being unreasonable. He's pretending to address people's comments while completely ignoring what they're saying. He accused me of not reading his original post in the process of ignoring almost the entire content of the post he was replying to, ffs.
Quite so.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 23, 2010 6:57 PM
But it doesn't determine truth.
your concept of "truth" is meaningless and irrelevant.
always has been.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 23, 2010 7:00 PM
No. The problem here is that I made the mistake of giving you the benefit of some knowledge I have about my daughter, and apparently that was not enough -- I did not paint a sufficiently evil picture of her to fit your preconceptions.
You don't know what good faith means, wanker.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 7:00 PM
Hey, Truth Machine--Go fuck yourself. You have no interest in civil discourse and I have no interest in continuing any conversation with you beyond this post.
Well, that's one way to avoid admitting to error and taking responsibility for your actions.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 23, 2010 7:02 PM
Doubtful. "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament."
We simply would not be having such discussions, none of us would. It would be unthinkable, because unlike women, men's right to control reproduction has never been questioned.
Posted by: windy
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April 23, 2010 7:02 PM
Selective abortion in pregnant male pipefish
Posted by: Ichthyic
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April 23, 2010 7:04 PM
I did not paint a sufficiently evil picture of her to fit your preconceptions.
conclusion not based on evidence.
too defensive.
done.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 7:07 PM
see, this is exactly where you miss the point. People are speculating about what skatje wrote.
Of course, my comment about Skatje being Catholic was tongue-in-cheek, but the attitudes she expressed, which I quoted when I made that comment, were the sort that many Catholics hold. And you [Ichthyic] gave a serious response (#984) from personal experience about the sort of influences that might contribute to such views. It was speculation, but it was also rational and informed.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 23, 2010 7:08 PM
Flailing about?
I explained why Skatje was making that argument. I did not justify it.
I explained that despite protests here, I am not defending a pro-life argument.
I said that I have been rather clear in my pro-choice position.
For that, we get this bizarre whining that somehow I am pretending that being pro-life means I do not comprehend how that position is anti-woman. And I get the ridiculous suggestion that I should leave this thread. I don't know what the hell planet you guys are living on, but it sounds like Planet Stupid so far.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 23, 2010 7:09 PM
Neither does your imaginary deity and fictional/mythical babble. You know that. Do you really want to have to prove yourself here and now, and fail again, as you already have again and again? You have nothing but hot air. We know that. You refuse the see that TRUTH.Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 7:10 PM
No. The problem here is that I made the mistake of giving you the benefit of some knowledge I have about my daughter, and apparently that was not enough -- I did not paint a sufficiently evil picture of her to fit your preconceptions.
You don't know what good faith means, wanker.
Sigh.
Posted by: Anodyne
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April 23, 2010 7:11 PM
Nerd--
Oh, please. A handful of people on the blog took exception to what I've posted, and I've replied, which I have every right to do.
A troll starts fights for the sake of pissing people off, doesn't address what people are actually saying, and delights in the fact that they can get people all riled up.
Project much?
I'm done with this quibbling.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 7:13 PM
strange gods before me:
I am so tempted to just say "Word" here. While a good part of me believes it wouldn't be an issue if it were men who got pregnant, the darker side of me says oh yes it would be. And, I think it would be an issue, eventually.
Back when I found myself pregnant and decided on an abortion, there was zero fuss. It was not an issue at all. (This was in the 1970s). No protesters, no pro-life nonsense, no hassle, nothing. The whole anti-choice movement is a recent one.
Posted by: Robocop
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April 23, 2010 7:14 PM
1087: Neither does your imaginary deity and fictional/mythical babble.
So you admit your error. It's a miracle!
Posted by: Becca the Over Socialized
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April 23, 2010 7:15 PM
PZ, I (and I think a lot of other people here) would like to give Skatje the benefit of the doubt - and not just because she's your daughter, although your insight is always appreciated. I understand that an excess of empathy, particularly for the vulnerable, can sometimes lead people down false pathways. What concerned me (yeah, I guess I'm being a concern troll here) was her total dismissal of other people's life experiences as "sob stories". There were so many other, more empathic ways she could have handled it. She could have said something along the lines of "Yes, I understand your lives have been hard, but my reverence for life is such that I believe that even the most painful and difficult life is better than non-life." Or one of a hundred other things she could have said.
but she didn't. She totally dismissed them, brushed them off.
If you say that she's under great stress from end-of-school stuff, I'll believe you. But can you also give us that, at least by her words here an excess of empathy was not in evidence?
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 7:18 PM
Windy @ 1083:
Oh my, those males, wanting sex without the consequence. Hahahaha, that was great, thanks Windy.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 7:18 PM
Flailing about?
I explained why Skatje was making that argument. I did not justify it.
I explained that despite protests here, I am not defending a pro-life argument.
I said that I have been rather clear in my pro-choice position.
None of which is the sort of thing I characterized as flailing. More like
For that, we get this bizarre whining that somehow I am pretending that being pro-life means I do not comprehend how that position is anti-woman.
I'm having trouble parsing that, but it doesn't look familiar. And of course
I don't know what the hell planet you guys are living on, but it sounds like Planet Stupid so far.
Posted by: Phil
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April 23, 2010 7:26 PM
Diane,
Faith in Christ Jesus is just that.
At some point in our lives, all human beings created in the image and likeness of God, MUST decide for God, or against God.
The consequences are eternal, either way.
The existence or non-existence of God is the most important question we humans are ever asked to answer.
However, Jesus Christ did leave us many reasons and a rational thought process to come to the Knowledge of Truth, and the opportunity to CHOOSE to believe and follow Christ unto everlasting life through forgiveness of our sins:
For example,
1) We experience the effects of the law of gravity. Though gravity is something we can't see, we know it exists. We know it functions consistently. It is one of the fundamental laws of the universe. Similar laws govern every aspect of the universe—laws of energy, motion, mass, matter and life itself.
2) Richard Dawkins, the famous atheist and professor at Oxford University even admitted: "Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, nor foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker"
A growing body of evidence to the contrary is leading more and more scientists to question assumptions popular in scientific circles for years. Although few among them are willing to admit compelling evidence of God's existence, an increasing number are admitting that everywhere they look they see evidence of a world that gives the appearance of intricate design down to the tiniest details.
3) No wonder the late renowned British astrophysicist and mathematician Sir Fred Hoyle, after examining the different settings that regulate our planet and the rest of the universe, marveled: "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as the chemistry and biology [of the universe], and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question" ("The Universe: Past and Present Reflections," Engineering and Science, November 1981
4) Our universe works like a giant watch, vast in scale and complexity yet precise in its mechanics. Several decades of space exploration have shown the precision of the universe. It is because of this predictability that NASA can rely on split-second timing when launching men into space and sending spacecraft to explore planets so far away that it sometimes takes years to reach them even at speeds of thousands of miles per hour.
5) Materialism argues for naturalistic abiogenesis —that life arose from nonliving matter through undirected chemical processes.
But that very concept is contrary to one of the most basic of all natural laws—the law of biogenesis. Throughout nature the law of biogenesis is abundantly evident: Life can come only from existing life, just as your life was conceived by living parents. Naturalistic evolutionists argue against the universality of biogenesis but can produce no concrete evidence of natural abiogenesis.
6) A thousand years after King David expressed his awe at these marvels, the apostle Paul told Christians in Rome that "since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made . . ." (Romans 1:20
7) Theoretical physicist John Polkinghorne, president of Queens College, Cambridge, and a member of Britain's Royal Society, wrote: "The intellectual beauty of the order discovered by science is consistent with the physical world's having behind it the mind of the divine Creator . . . The finely tuned balance built into the laws determining the very physical fabric of the universe is consistent with its fruitful history being the expression of divine purpose"
8) Michael Behe, associate professor of biochemistry at Pennsylvania's Lehigh University, concluded from his intensive study of the cell, the basic building block of life, that such tremendous complexity can be explained only by the existence of an intelligent Designer:
His conclusion: "Life on earth at its most fundamental level, in its most critical components, is the product of intelligent design"
The precision of our universe is not the result of an accident. It is the product of a meticulous Creator and Lawgiver, the universe's Master Watchmaker.
Just think of how wonderful it is when someone forgives us, or we find it in our hearts to forgive someone else. We can start over again, and not hate or hold onto resentments.
Consider those on this blog who I forgive for their unfounded words toward the Son of the Living God. They are doing the same thing that those who stood at the foot of the Cross did to Jesus Christ, who longs to forgive and HEAL everyone of us, if only we allow him.
"Come down off the Cross if you are the Son of God."
You see, like many on this blog, they want PROOF FIRST.
But Jesus remained on the Cross and proclaimed to all the world, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
There's plenty of reasons to believe, but not the 'absolute' proof many are looking for before they CHOOSE to believe.
That's the way it is with the Kingdom of Heaven.
It's a CHOICE to believe.
Why do many on this blog CHOOSE to ignore the existence of God and organize the world and their lives without reference to, and in opposition to the will of God? Is it in order to justify their unbelief, their moral and ethical relativism, and a life of disobedience to the One in whom we live, move and have our being? If there's no moral absolutes, as in Jesus Christ, the 10 Commandments, etc. then we can do anything we want, like procure abortions, and call it falsely, "A woman's right."
What about the right of the child in her womb?
God Bless you, and as yet, the unbelievers in their own opinions who appoint themselves the center of the universe.
Through God's gift of LIFE to us on earth, we can experience the marvelous life and existence of God who is infinitely Omniscient.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 23, 2010 7:27 PM
Fuck off, TM.
#1005: I post the justification Skatje is using. Nothing more. I don't defend it.
#1008: Paul pompously declares that I am not doing enough to condemn her position and completely misrepresents what I said. He sure does load a lot of shit into my brief comment.
There follows a flurry of nonsense in which various people complain that I didn't address every word Paul said. No, I didn't. Because what he said was inane and irrelevant.
#1026: I explain again that no, I am not trying to defend a lack of empathy for women, and I point out that I've got more inside info on my daughter's motivations than you do.
There follows more outrageous protests that I'm "flailing" to suggest that I understand my daughter a little better than you do, various reminders that I have to address all of the comments that she made that you don't like, etc., etc., etc. It doesn't seem to matter that I flatly say I disagree with her...somehow I must chastise her! Ferociously! Right now!
So let me repeat myself. Fuck off, TM.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 7:31 PM
.somehow I must chastise her! Ferociously! Right now!
No one said anything of the sort. You're flailing.
Posted by: Becca the Over Socialized
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April 23, 2010 7:32 PM
ah, the old "the lurkers support me in email" defense.
Posted by: Paul
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April 23, 2010 7:36 PM
No, I didn't. I pointed out that your "people have her wrong" was completely fucking wrongheaded if it didn't actually take into account what people were saying, which it didn't. If you were trying to say "I don't agree with Skatje", say that. But if you're going to pretend to be correcting what people are saying, you actually need to read their posts and properly represent what they are saying first.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 23, 2010 7:37 PM
Becca: I'm not saying to give Skatje the benefit of the doubt -- argue with her as much as you want. I disagree with her entirely on this.
My comment at #1005 was simply on one matter, that I think she has more empathy for the embryo than is warranted; I agree that she is not thinking it through to empathize with the women. I also think she's making a serious mistake in trying to justify that by pretending that getting pregnant is a choice that demands that women take unconditional responsibility for the embryo.
That has turned into a shitstorm of people reading far more into my comment than is legitimate. And that's why I'm telling TM to FUCK OFF. Again.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 23, 2010 7:37 PM
Yep, bad and illogical choice. No conclusive physical evidence for your imaginary deity, or your fictional/mythical babble. What a loser...Posted by: Paul
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April 23, 2010 7:38 PM
No, I didn't. I pointed out that your "people have her wrong" was completely fucking wrongheaded if it didn't actually take into account what people were saying, which it didn't. If you were trying to say "I don't agree with Skatje", say that. But if you're going to correct what people are saying, you actually need to read their posts and properly represent what they are saying first. All you've done so far is pretend to contradict people, so that maybe people who aren't paying attention will buy what you're saying. That's deceptive, and rather pathetic. Someone reading only your posts would have no honest idea of what the people you're responding to have said.
Posted by: Josh, "Raquel Dommage," Porte-parole Gay Official
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April 23, 2010 7:38 PM
This thread has gone in the most uncomfortable direction. It can only end badly when people are discussing other people's family members with those people's family members. No, I'm not referring to those debating Skatje's position, or saying that's invalid. I'm referring to how this has devolved into a meta-discussion with PZ about his daughter. There are no "good" positions to be in in such a conversation. Not for PZ, and not for commenters here.
May this be the last time I ever say anything even remotely tone trollish, but this is most uncomfortable, and I hope it stops.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 7:38 PM
Phil @ 1095, the adults are talking, so fuck off somewhere else. Your preachin' and moanin' isn't appreciated here.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 23, 2010 7:41 PM
You can fuck off, too, Paul. I was quite right to say that people have her wrong: you do.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 7:45 PM
That has turned into a shitstorm of people reading far more into my comment than is legitimate.
Not at all. You wrote "People have her all wrong. If anything, it's an excess of empathy." But people have addressed that and said exactly what it is they mean -- for instance, my
In response you have attacked people harshly without paying much attention to what they have actually said. Becca asked
But can you also give us that, at least by her words here an excess of empathy was not in evidence?
So, can you?
Posted by: Paul
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April 23, 2010 7:46 PM
I don't doubt there are plenty of things I don't know about your daughter (almost everything, as a matter of fact). But the fact that I'm more accurately representing her presence in this thread should give you pause if you were trying for any sort of honesty here. Not to mention the way you've dishonestly framed any participant that is not you or Skatje.
Framing! It's not just for Nisbet and Mooney anymore!
Posted by: Dianne
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April 23, 2010 7:46 PM
My feeling is that it's unfair to continue to criticize Skatje when she's clearly left the thread. She's made her statement, agree or disagree. If she wants to come back and argue more, great, maybe she'll learn something or change her position (or maybe we will) but what are we accomplishing by talking "behind her back"?
Let's do something fun like all jumping on phil instead.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 7:46 PM
Josh, OSG:
Me too. I've been discussing other aspects, such as how things would be if it were men who got pregnant. Even though that's some serious topic drift too.
Posted by: Kamaka
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April 23, 2010 7:46 PM
Compelling evidence? There is no evidence of gawd's existence. None. Zero.
Try peddling your nonsense somewhere else, it ain't sellin' here.
Posted by: Dianne
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April 23, 2010 7:50 PM
compelling evidence of God's existence
But...if there's evidence then faith is meaningless and god doesn't exist. That just about wraps it up for god.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 7:52 PM
It can only end badly
Which is why I suggested that PZ leave it alone -- however, it was foolish of me not to anticipate how he would react to that -- it was quite natural. And fully recognizing that now, I will now leave it alone.
Posted by: Paul
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April 23, 2010 7:53 PM
Actual, active criticism of Skatje ended not too long after she left the thread. The more recent shitstorm has been defending the original criticism against people saying "you shouldn't be mean, she's a teenager!" or "you don't know her like I do". At least I have no interest in beating any drums. I don't greatly care that someone has an opposing opinion on the internet. I do have an interest in defending any comments I have made thus far as legitimate (or if it is not, requiring fair argument on the point instead of a strawman), and that's as far as it goes.
Posted by: SC OM
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April 23, 2010 7:54 PM
I guess I pretty much expect a parent to be protective of his child in this situation, including, um, flailingly, even if he believes she can fight her own battles. That appears to be what's going on.
***
By the way:
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/3/471
"Homicide: A Leading Cause of Injury Deaths Among Pregnant and Postpartum Women in the United States, 1991–1999."
Posted by: Paul
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April 23, 2010 7:55 PM
And with that, I'll take everyone else's lead and leave it alone.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 23, 2010 8:05 PM
Fuck off, Paul. For someone who doesn't care about opposing opinions on the internet, you have invested a great deal of persistent effort in misrepresenting me. I have not been trying to claim that what my daughter has said is not what she said; I have said repeatedly that I disagree with it, and now I've said it so many times that I'm ready to tell anyone who persists in claiming that I'm somehow trying to whitewash her remarks to just fuck off. So do so.
And if you're so thick that you now say,
I will repeat: READ THE ARTICLE WAY UP TOP. YOU KNOW, THE ONE I WROTE. Isn't it kind of a little bit clear that I don't agree? What is your problem that you can't clearly see that I don't agree with my daughter on this topic?Again, it seems that my words weren't little enough. I don't agree with Skatje.
Now fuck off.
Posted by: Paul
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April 23, 2010 8:07 PM
Classy.
Posted by: Becca the Over Socialized
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April 23, 2010 8:08 PM
TM@1106 - PZ did give me what I asked for, in his post at 1100. I'm satisfied.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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April 23, 2010 8:09 PM
That ain't you...Ergo, your opinion is meaningless.Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 8:17 PM
"Homicide: A Leading Cause of Injury Deaths Among Pregnant and Postpartum Women in the United States, 1991–1999."
Wow. That is something I've never considered. There is so much violence toward women that people are not aware of.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 23, 2010 8:17 PM
Caine,
This anti-abortion movement did not just coincidentally arise after successes of feminism. That's backlash. Women have gained further independence since then, so it's become necessary to fall back on that most reliable of methods to making women dependent again: get them pregnant.
But if men got pregnant, there would never be such backlash as you saw since the 80s, because there has never been a need for a men's rights movement, since men's rights have always been natural and obvious and taken for granted.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 23, 2010 8:18 PM
Tell-tale sign of an obsessed troll: they announce they're leaving. Then they don't.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 8:23 PM
Paul @ 1117:
As if you're ever classy. Do us all a favour and take your assholism elsewhere.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 8:26 PM
If you're referring to me, I didn't announce that I was leaving, I said that I was going to leave "it" -- meaning our dispute/engagement/whatever -- alone. On being obsessed -- I've never denied it. On that other word -- well, I'll leave it alone.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 8:28 PM
strange gods before me:
Right, I understand that. I still think if everything changed, and men could get pregnant that there would, eventually, be an issue over abortion rights. However, I don't think any anti-abortion movement against males would ever be able to gain real traction.
Posted by: Paul
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April 23, 2010 8:30 PM
I said I was dropping the subject, not leaving the blog. Of course, then you decide to continue the misrepresentation on the Endless Thread. Real jackass move there.
Posted by: truth machine, OM
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April 23, 2010 8:31 PM
P.S. I realize that responding to that bait at all is not leaving it alone. At least I managed not to comment on the first half of SC's post. Oops, there I go doing it again.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 23, 2010 8:32 PM
Comments like #1103 are why Josh was on my Molly list this month. Considering his insight, I'm not going to say anything else about Skatje unless she's here on Pharyngula and I'm speaking to her directly.
Posted by: ambook
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April 23, 2010 8:41 PM
PZ, close the thread. This had gotten ridiculous - time to exercise your squidly authority. It's rapidly approaching what my spouse says about why public hearings are so excruciating: Everything has been said, but not everyone has said it.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 23, 2010 8:41 PM
Where would it come from? In our world, it came from the Abrahamic religions. But the Abrahamic religions were historically A-OK with abortion until the late 1800s and early 1900s. And I don't think it's a coincidence that this was the period of first wave feminism.
Why would religions, which are almost invariably patriarchal, suddenly turn against the patriarchy? I don't think Florynce Kennedy was using hyperbole. There's a very real likelihood that abortion would be a sacrament, since it would function to increase men's power.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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April 23, 2010 8:47 PM
strange gods before me:
Great point. I agree.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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April 23, 2010 8:48 PM
OK, TM, shut up and read. I will point out that you said in #1106,
I will point out that in #1100, I wrote:
It's exactly what you asked for, at rather greater length. I spelled it right out.
Curious thing, though: #1100 was posted before your request. Maybe you missed it.
Why, no...because you partially quoted my comment from #1100 in your comment at #1106. It was sitting there in front of your face, and you went ahead and made your stupid demand.
You aren't bothering to read what I write at all, are you?
So for the last time: fuck off. I'm getting extremely fed up with your constant misrepresentations, "Truth" Machine.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 23, 2010 8:59 PM
Well! Time to close the thread, then. ;)
Posted by: Phil
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April 23, 2010 10:00 PM
Diane,
Sorry, I should have made the point more clear.
The evidence in my post for the existence of God needs to be clarified as 'compelling evidence' because Faith is still required for entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven.
God allows compelling evidence to support and lead to each person's act of Faith, as in, "Peter, who do YOU say that I am?"
Compelling evidence is not the same as absolute proof. Hope that helps.
Of the two thiefs on their cross next to God, one said "Yes", and the other said "No"
God requires a yes or no from all who have been called forth from our lamentable wretchedness and nothingness into existence.
Science attempts to discover the truth about matter that already exists.
God creates matter out of NOTHING!
Please think of the spiritual darkness evident when a person chooses not to even consider reading and contemplating Holy Scripture or chooses not to ask Jesus Christ for the gift of Faith.
For me as well as for everyone, "If the light that is within you is darkness, how very dark will the darkness be."
God Bless your choices.
Phil
Don't know if I will make it back,
too many sins to atone for,
too many prayers to pray,
too many souls to HELP save.
So long. Hope and will pray to see you in eternity.
Posted by: Josh, "Raquel Dommage," Porte-parole Gay Official
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April 23, 2010 10:05 PM
There's no way to make your point clear, Phil, because you have none. You're a lunatic, and we don't take kindly to preaching here. Go away.
Posted by: windy
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April 23, 2010 10:07 PM
But if men could get pregnant, wouldn't they be the 'women'?
Posted by: Kamaka
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April 23, 2010 10:14 PM
No it's not, and you have neither.
In fact, your gawd looks a lot like made-up stuff. Indeed, the claims you make are preposterous.
Where's heaven? The folks who made this crap up thought the night sky was a bowl over the Earth, with little holes in it to let the light of heaven twinkle through. Heaven and gawd exist on the other side of the bowl of the night sky.
We have since proven otherwise. Absolutely.
Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem
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April 23, 2010 10:15 PM
Not if they still had the edge in physical strength, which is the root of one sex's control of the other.
Posted by: Dianne
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April 23, 2010 10:24 PM
@1134: Doesn't anyone read the classics any more? My comment was a clear literary reference.