Mark Kleiman explains the problem of abortion in American politics (Bill Hicks: "Yeah, I'm gonna win you all back with this one") in two paragraphs of this post:
Jane Galt is right that the country would be better off if the abortion debate sparked less hatred on both sides. Moreover, she's right that one key to reducing the ferocity of the debate would be for the pro-choice folks to admit that ending a pregnancy does pose what can plausibly be considered a moral problem, and that therefore it's possible to support limits on abortion for reasons other than hateful or dim-witted anti-feminism. (...)
But I think Jane misses one reason why many pro-choicers believe what they believe about the "pro-lifers:" the institutional leadership of the "pro-life" movement is indeed dim-wittedly anti-feminist, with a fixation on sexual purity. That's true of the Catholic bishops, of the Protestant Christian-right folks such as Focus on the Family, and of the more-or-less secular conservatives such as Phillis Schlafly.
Of course, you can easily extend this argument to, well, the entire modern Republican platform. There are, in principle, good reasons to support Republican Party positions on just about everything, that do not require one to be dim-wittedly anti-feminist, hopelessly corrupt, corrosively cynical, or just plain barking mad. As far as I can tell, that's what Asymmetrical Information and the Volokh Conspiracy are for-- they're the Jesuits of the Republican Party.
The problem is, those good reasons are kind of a moot point as long as the Bush-Rove-DeLay crowd are calling the shots. There may be good intellectual reasons for the general policies they propose, but that's not why they propose them. Either that, or they're so hopelessly incompetent at the execution of their favored policies as to make no difference.
There's a serious debate to be had about a lot of the major issues in American society today. These are not the people to have it with, though.
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Don't Think of an Elephant. Have you read this book, by George Lakoff? It's short; you can read it in an hour or two.
It gets to the root of the differences between "Republican" positions and "Democratic" positions. It's lessons could also be tremendously useful, I think, to anyone banging his or her head against the wall trying to figure out why science messages about evolution, creationism, global warming, astrology, and so forth, seem to always fall on deaf ears.
No, >a href="http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2006/08/reading_list_american_politics.php">don't read the "Elephant" because it is a short pamflet that omits the most important underlying theory - so read "Moral Politics" instead.
First, a longer Bill Hicks quote on the subject:
"Boy, I've never seen an issue so divisive. It's like a civil war, isn't it? Even amongst my friends, who are all very intelligent; they're totally divided on abortion. It's unbelievable. Some of my friends, for instance, think these pro-life people are annoying idiots. Other of my friends think these pro-life people ... are evil fucks. How are we going to come to a consensus? You ought to hear the arguments around my house: "They're annoying, they're idiots." "They're evil, they're fucks!" Brothers, sisters, come together! Can't we once just join hands and think of them as evil-annoying-idiot-fucks?
I beseech you. But that's me ..."
- Bill Hicks
And then I'd like to say, for the record, that I don't think we should give up ANY moral ground on abortion. Once you do, you've lost. It takes about 2 minutes of rudimentarly philosophical thought to figure out that any "immorality" there is in abortion is smaller than about 100 other things we do on a daily basis.
The anti-abortion position is not about morality, it's about power. Anti-abortionists want power to impose their will on everyone else.
I happen to belong to the Mind Your Own Damn Business Party. We think those raving, moralistic idiots should not be allowed to put their noses in other people's genitals. It tends to spread disease.
One of the things that most erks me about the right wing is a glaring ignorance of science. Well, it's more than being uniformed, it's a strange and disturbing refusal to acquire knowledge.
In the case of abortion, for the right, there tends to be the belief that "life starts at conception". But is this true? It's more complicated. Life started 4 billion years ago, maybe earlier if the theory of panspermia is correct. Just because a couple of cells decide to swap DNA doesn't necessarily mean that "life begins". If life then, is a continuum and is not discrete, you can't draw a line in the sand. You'd be forced to evaluate each situation individually to weigh numerous moral factors. And who better to do that than mommy herself?
I agree with Jane Galt that there are thoughtful, compassionate people who genuinely believe that abortion is murder. They are not inherently anti-feminist, or concerned with power, but genuinely believe that there is a serious moral issue at stake. I believe that they are profoundly wrong, and that their position is unsupportable given the science of the situation, so contrary to Galt I don't think there is a real ethical dilemma. But to demonize such people of good will, and to deny that they see a genuine moral problem, is to prevent any sort of political rapprochement on the issue.
Simply because someone believes honestly that an act is moral or immoral is not in itself a reason to compromise with them. A lot of very religious people justified slavery. They believed god was on their side, too. What I would say to any antiabortionist is, "Fine, don't have an abortion if you feel that strongly about it. Otherwise, mind your own damn business."
Mark, if someone genuinely holds a false belief that is indeed no reason in itself to compromise. But it is a reason to try and understand their point of view, and not to demonize them out of hand. Understand that I am speaking purely pragmatically here -- I think that if the pro-choice movement wants to advance, want to reduce opposition to its position, then it has to treat those "genuine believers" with respect, or else the debate will remain completely polarized. That doesn't mean compromising, but it does mean recognizing that they have a position they believe is valid, and one that isn't based on hating women or wanting power. If you can't treat your opponents with respect, then you can't expect them to listen to your position.
Who is Jane Galt?
(sorry, it's the first thing I thought of)
Simply because someone believes honestly that an act is moral or immoral is not in itself a reason to compromise with them. A lot of very religious people justified slavery. They believed god was on their side, too. What I would say to any antiabortionist is, "Fine, don't have an abortion if you feel that strongly about it. Otherwise, mind your own damn business."
With friends like this...
"Fine. don't own slaves if you feel that strongly about it. Otherwise mind your own damn business."
[***cue strains of "Dixie"***]
It's always been a mug's game hasn't it? We define the human species such that two sorts of homo sap. exist: The first, "humans" to whom rights (due process, civil liberties, life, yadda yadda) accrue and duties apply; and the second "not-human" homo sap.s to whom and with which we can do pretty much what we (the Real Humans) damn well please.
The Jews gave the world the first real moral advance in the history of the human species and you lot are happy to piss it away whilst preening your fine intellectual feathers.
Feh.
That's fine rhetoric, Carbonel, but it doesn't really contain any moral reasoning. It is immoral to treat differently-melanined adult h. sapiens differently because skin colour makes no difference to any reasonable moral criterion. By contrast, there are vast differences between a small collection of cells, without any mental function, and an adult human, differences that many believe justify different treatment, and can provide ethical criteria beyond "they both have souls".
And you are wrong that there are two sorts of humans with regards to morality -- in fact, there are a multitude. Children, for example, have many fewer rights than adults (they can't vote, can't drive, aren't allowed to make medical decisions for themselves). Brain dead humans, while still technically "alive", also generally have far fewer rights than a fully functional adult. Mentally disabled adults have a restricted set of rights regarding various aspects of their lives (usually around issues of competency to make medical or legal decisions).
Rights are not binary, either/or things, unless you believe in a single criterion, such as a "soul", that bestows them. If not, then reasoning what kind of rights accrue and duties apply instead depends on characteristics that the individual possesses, and a collection of cells in a uterus doesn't have many ethically relevant ones.
Tulse, thanks for saving me the trouble of replying to Carbonel's comment. I need to make a note to myself not to let Carbonel know if I need to have my appendix removed.
So- when does the "collection of cells" in the uterus become more than a collection of cells and worthy of some protection? Why does mommy get all the power and daddy and baby none? There are reasonable solutions to these dilemas but people like Mark and Jeff falsely call this "compromise".
I will confess to having libertarian tendancies which give me some sympathy for the "mind your own damn business" point of view that Mark and Jeff claim to have. But I don't hear them pounding on the low watt bulbs in the Democratic party who won't mind their own business when it comes to imposing a minumum wage, forcing me to "invest" in Social Security, limiting school choice, imposing racial quotas, etc, etc, etc...