![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
~
Over the decades my views on abortion have evolved. I'm still pro-choice, but I no longer see the issue as solely about women's rights or sexual freedom. It is more complex -- freighted always with the phrase "it depends" and tinged with regret: Something has gone wrong and something difficult has to be done about it. An abortion is not a mere exercise of a right like voting. It is more complicated than that.
-- Richard Cohen for The Washington Post
Monk was taken aback to see this example of Red-ward moderation. Mr. Cohen is a liberal Democrat, and in his column today we see some appreciable sympathy for the anti-abortion perspective.
This is not to say that he even considers accepting the full anti-abortion, right-wing position, as he is content to let the Republicans have the more extreme positions as enunciated in the column. Still, it's interesting...
___ ___ ___
Dickens wrote "A Tale of Two Cities." Cohen will write "A Tale of Two Movies." The first is "Alfie," the 1966 film starring Michael Caine, and the second, as it happens, is also "Alfie," this year's remake of the original, with Jude Law in the title role. In the first "Alfie" a woman of his acquaintance gets an abortion. In the second she does not. Therein lies my tale.
The second "Alfie" was obviously made before folks such as me decided that moral values were what made George Bush the winner of this year's presidential contest. Still, very little about making films is an accident -- movies cost too much -- so I can posit that someone had sensed that the zeitgeist had shifted: Abortion is no longer seen as central to sexual liberation but rather as much more troubling and problematic. Over the years, the so-called right-to-life movement has changed some minds.
Mine among them, I am quick to say. This is especially the case with late-term abortion, which in some cases has been not too unfairly packaged for propaganda reasons as "partial-birth abortion." Whatever it is called, a description of it turns the stomach and makes you wonder whether the procedure should be authorized only under certain circumstances. For the record, I stated my qualms a long time ago.
But the Democratic Party still marches to the tune of "Alfie" ("What's it all about, Alfie?") as if nothing has changed in almost 40 years. Abortion remains a core party principle -- up there with civil rights and, more recently, gay rights. Gay rights is one thing. It is nothing more than an extension of the party's traditional -- and politically costly -- embrace of civil rights. But abortion is a different matter entirely. It is no longer what it was -- simply about women's rights and sexual freedom. It is, as its opponents say, about life -- arguably about the taking of it.
Yet the party insists otherwise. It entertains no doubts and counters reasonable questions and qualms with slogans -- a woman's right to choose, for instance. The party is downright inhospitable to abortion opponents. Therefore, it was good Sunday to hear Howard Dean -- both a physician and pro-choice -- say on "Meet the Press" that "I have long believed that we ought to make a home for pro-life Democrats."
Dean may make a run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and so what he says could matter. As it is now, being pro-choice is a litmus test for all Democrats, especially their presidential candidates. It is almost inconceivable that a Democratic candidate could voice qualms about abortion. It's almost inconceivable, though, that the candidates don't have them.
Over the decades my views on abortion have evolved. I'm still pro-choice, but I no longer see the issue as solely about women's rights or sexual freedom. It is more complex -- freighted always with the phrase "it depends" and tinged with regret: Something has gone wrong and something difficult has to be done about it. An abortion is not a mere exercise of a right like voting. It is more complicated than that.
The next Democratic chairman ought to recognize that. Let the GOP become the bastion of know-it-alls and zealots. Let it take its opposition to abortion into the corner where it is finding itself -- against even stem cell research and hospitable to extremists who would, if they could, execute physicians who perform abortions. "I favor the death penalty for abortionists," the newly elected Republican senator for Oklahoma, Tom Coburn, said during the recent campaign.
Fine. Let the GOP defend that statement when, say, the abortion was performed on a 12-year-old rape victim or a woman whose health was in danger. Let the GOP become the party that cares more about ideology than about people and their concerns -- unwanted pregnancies, possible cures for hideous diseases or the irrational treatment of homosexuals.
It's been almost 40 years from one "Alfie" to the other, and much has changed. Contraception devices, once forbidden, are now advertised on TV. One era's simplicities have become another's complexities, and sentient people know it. Only in the political realm do life's most vexing questions become either/or questions with answers that only a guppy could accept. When it comes to abortion, for instance, the new "Alfie" tells us something. Maybe if Dean wins, he'll screen it at the DNC.
-- Richard Cohen, "Democrats, Abortion and Alfie"
.
Over the decades my views on abortion have evolved. I'm still pro-choice, but I no longer see the issue as solely about women's rights or sexual freedom. It is more complex -- freighted always with the phrase "it depends" and tinged with regret: Something has gone wrong and something difficult has to be done about it. An abortion is not a mere exercise of a right like voting. It is more complicated than that.
-- Richard Cohen for The Washington Post
Monk was taken aback to see this example of Red-ward moderation. Mr. Cohen is a liberal Democrat, and in his column today we see some appreciable sympathy for the anti-abortion perspective.
This is not to say that he even considers accepting the full anti-abortion, right-wing position, as he is content to let the Republicans have the more extreme positions as enunciated in the column. Still, it's interesting...
___ ___ ___
Dickens wrote "A Tale of Two Cities." Cohen will write "A Tale of Two Movies." The first is "Alfie," the 1966 film starring Michael Caine, and the second, as it happens, is also "Alfie," this year's remake of the original, with Jude Law in the title role. In the first "Alfie" a woman of his acquaintance gets an abortion. In the second she does not. Therein lies my tale.
The second "Alfie" was obviously made before folks such as me decided that moral values were what made George Bush the winner of this year's presidential contest. Still, very little about making films is an accident -- movies cost too much -- so I can posit that someone had sensed that the zeitgeist had shifted: Abortion is no longer seen as central to sexual liberation but rather as much more troubling and problematic. Over the years, the so-called right-to-life movement has changed some minds.
Mine among them, I am quick to say. This is especially the case with late-term abortion, which in some cases has been not too unfairly packaged for propaganda reasons as "partial-birth abortion." Whatever it is called, a description of it turns the stomach and makes you wonder whether the procedure should be authorized only under certain circumstances. For the record, I stated my qualms a long time ago.
But the Democratic Party still marches to the tune of "Alfie" ("What's it all about, Alfie?") as if nothing has changed in almost 40 years. Abortion remains a core party principle -- up there with civil rights and, more recently, gay rights. Gay rights is one thing. It is nothing more than an extension of the party's traditional -- and politically costly -- embrace of civil rights. But abortion is a different matter entirely. It is no longer what it was -- simply about women's rights and sexual freedom. It is, as its opponents say, about life -- arguably about the taking of it.
Yet the party insists otherwise. It entertains no doubts and counters reasonable questions and qualms with slogans -- a woman's right to choose, for instance. The party is downright inhospitable to abortion opponents. Therefore, it was good Sunday to hear Howard Dean -- both a physician and pro-choice -- say on "Meet the Press" that "I have long believed that we ought to make a home for pro-life Democrats."
Dean may make a run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and so what he says could matter. As it is now, being pro-choice is a litmus test for all Democrats, especially their presidential candidates. It is almost inconceivable that a Democratic candidate could voice qualms about abortion. It's almost inconceivable, though, that the candidates don't have them.
Over the decades my views on abortion have evolved. I'm still pro-choice, but I no longer see the issue as solely about women's rights or sexual freedom. It is more complex -- freighted always with the phrase "it depends" and tinged with regret: Something has gone wrong and something difficult has to be done about it. An abortion is not a mere exercise of a right like voting. It is more complicated than that.
The next Democratic chairman ought to recognize that. Let the GOP become the bastion of know-it-alls and zealots. Let it take its opposition to abortion into the corner where it is finding itself -- against even stem cell research and hospitable to extremists who would, if they could, execute physicians who perform abortions. "I favor the death penalty for abortionists," the newly elected Republican senator for Oklahoma, Tom Coburn, said during the recent campaign.
Fine. Let the GOP defend that statement when, say, the abortion was performed on a 12-year-old rape victim or a woman whose health was in danger. Let the GOP become the party that cares more about ideology than about people and their concerns -- unwanted pregnancies, possible cures for hideous diseases or the irrational treatment of homosexuals.
It's been almost 40 years from one "Alfie" to the other, and much has changed. Contraception devices, once forbidden, are now advertised on TV. One era's simplicities have become another's complexities, and sentient people know it. Only in the political realm do life's most vexing questions become either/or questions with answers that only a guppy could accept. When it comes to abortion, for instance, the new "Alfie" tells us something. Maybe if Dean wins, he'll screen it at the DNC.
-- Richard Cohen, "Democrats, Abortion and Alfie"
.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 07:32 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 07:25 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 07:37 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 08:12 pm (UTC)From:There is such a thing as responsibility. Is the life of an unborn child so unimportant that there should be no burden of responsibility on men or women to consider whether they should either modify their actions or be prepared to face the consequences? And how often do women have abortions not because they want them, but because men pressure them to have them? Is that what is meant by a woman's choice - to be given the opportunity to be pressurised into something she does not want by a man? That is a very strange definition of choice for women, and yet in practise that is very often exactly what it will mean.
Once you assert the idea of choice, it doesn't mean that what you envisaged necessarily has anything to do with what actually results from it. What has often been given is not choice, but an additional opportunity for men to abuse women through pressure and selfishness. How can one say that because legislation is made in favour of choice, that choice is inevitably the most characteristic result? That is an assumption.
Who would legislate in favour of dilemma? But is that not a more accurate description than choice in this case?
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 08:39 pm (UTC)From:Are you sure the figure for this happening is much greater than the 2% figure you give for abortions based on rape and incest? I don't think the remedy to the problem is to take choice away altogether from the women - something that would be done by predominantly male legislatures and Supreme Court.
Is the life of an unborn child so unimportant that there should be no burden of responsibility on men or women to consider whether they should either modify their actions or be prepared to face the consequences?
Especially when we are talking about the first trimester, I think most Americans are comfortable with the woman weighing her life interests more than with the conjectural interests of the embryo. It's the last trimester that troubles more people. I say leave the responsibility and the consequences with the people who must deal with them.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 11:09 pm (UTC)From:And who gave a foetus any choices? The same foetus that has no rights grows up to exercise those rights. A strange state of affairs ;)
Figures? Everyone will dispute figures, but on the basis that one ought to produce something, then here (http://www.afterabortion.org/survey1.html) are some.
Maybe you can tell me why I should think otherwise to (a) my entire experience (b) some figures I found by Googling. I'll be glad to have you undermine them, but if you do, perhaps you can produce some figures of your own?
Leave the responsibility and the consequences with the people who must deal with them.
Sure. Earlier. What is so great about leaving it late?
I think most Americans are comfortable with the woman weighing her life interests more than with the conjectural interests of the embryo
Are you, then basing your argument upon its public popularity? You might be in for a severe surprise, and you are moving away from principle to popularity. That's all right if you want to do that, but be clear that you did so.
At the moment my children were conceived, I was aware. I felt them arrive in my wife's womb. In each case I was right. The only two times she was pregnant, I knew, and told her. I have known my daughter's personality from the day she was conceived, not from the day she was born. She has been the same in nature from the moment her spirit passed me on its way to her mothers womb. So you can see I could never think that a little cluster of cells became worthwhile at some later point.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 03:04 am (UTC)From:Perhaps, but essentially reducing them to the choice of abstaining from sex or else seems too restrictive. I would prefer to think that we are more sophisticated than that. I think people should have more choice than that.
And who gave a foetus any choices? The same foetus that has no rights grows up to exercise those rights. A strange state of affairs
Not really. A fetus isn't a person or citizen (at least for now, as there are forces at work to change that, at least as a matter of law). A fetus is only a potentiality.
Figures?
I didn't introduce them. I just went off on your 2% figure, brought in to minimize the frequency that rape and incest is the reason for abortion presumably, and suggested that the moral case on the opposite extreme (of the abusive boyfriend) might be just as marginal.
You're right about the often inconclusive nature of figures. The ones you give are interesting, but they aren't really on point. Even aside from the source, it does suggest that a majority felt "forced" to have an abortion, but when it next goes into specific cases the study speaks of "Were you encouraged to have an abortion by..." This doesn't seem like a deadlock for the proposition that men are strongarming women to have abortions.
In my own experience, and remember that I live in the Bible belt, there seem to be also extreme cases of boyfriends forcing girlfriends to abstain from having abortions. In one Texas case, the boyfriend was the son of a police officer, and they used his office to hold the girl to keep her from having an abortion.
My sense has always been that women more often wanted an abortion because they didn't want to be sidetracked from their ambitions. This was certainly true in college, from the cases I would hear about. I cannot say that I begrudge them their choice to pursue their studies and career before pursuing motherhood. Nor do I begrudge a woman who elects to have the baby and still try to pursue her other wants. I just think it should be her choice.
Are you, then basing your argument upon its public popularity? You might be in for a severe surprise, and you are moving away from principle to popularity. That's all right if you want to do that, but be clear that you did so.
I think you are just fixating on one statement. If you want a statement of principle from me, you would've done better to focus on this one: "I say leave the responsibility and the consequences with the people who must deal with them."
I'm only glad that a majority still are pro-choice, as we do live in a democracy. But even if the majority shifts, I'll still believe in the aforementioned principle, but doing so as a disempowered minority.
At the moment my children were conceived, I was aware
Okay, you were aware, but you have special experiences, and I don't think it would be right that everybody should be regulated by virtue of your experiences.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 03:33 am (UTC)From:There are plenty of other choices. And on principle I lived that one before I believed a thing anyway.
A fetus is only a potentiality.
That is an assertion of a view. I assert the opposite.
boyfriends forcing girlfriends to abstain from having abortions
If a man is concerned about a woman having an abortion he should check what her attitude is first, or make sure her circumstances are not such that the idea crosses her head. He also can abstain or take proper precautions if he is concerned he is going to get her into a moral dilemma.
However there is another serious inequality here. If a woman gets herself pregnant deliberately having advised that she is properly protected against that, will not the father still be required to pay maintenance, even though he has been duped? Does anyone consider that fair? (Over here it is a trick to get free housing from the state. Nearby three generations of women live side by side in separate houses, rent free, with adequate benefits to live on, having never done a days work, and never having intended to do so. I have spent time repairing their children's bicycles, because the children are not at fault).
My sense has always been that women more often wanted an abortion because they didn't want to be sidetracked from their ambitions.
I don't begrudge them the choice either. I just think it reasonable they should avoid pregnancy rather than have abortions; or weigh the cost of motherhood as a risk. And yes, I abstained outside marriage myself.
I'm glad that a majority still are pro-choice
Although it's not my country, and you have better access to information, I am not sure you're right. Not that I think a majority makes an argument; it just makes for the power to do things.
Virtuous experiences? It's so funny. Either you believe that all experiences are relative, which I consider a logical impossibility, or I am wrong (in which case I guess well) or I am lying (you can believe that if you want) or I am right, and there is life from conception. But I do not believe that I call forth something unique into the world by being me. I have just regained what is natural to all, were it not for the lifelong indoctrination we get in science, which tells us there are no such things. And I am the scientist --- ! But at least you know that I have said it. You will at least now know that people do assert such things.
Ultimately the matter is this:
- Is a fetus of no worth, and not to be considered in anyway valuable?
- Can men and women be expected to show no consideration at all for the possibility of creating that fetus?
The former people will disagree on. The latter, since there are a variety of real alternatives, strikes me as a simple solution. Choose. Do it early. Don't carelessly make something you cannot prove is not alive. And don't think that abortion is over when the child is gone; it commonly causes real and lasting problems. And that in itself is a real and powerful reason to choose earlier. No one has yet chosen to debate that you can live responsibly or use contraception responsibly. Is not one or the other achievable? Should there be no responsibility to try?
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 04:39 am (UTC)From:You don't believe that people can experience things differently? Can't one person say this food tastes good and another say it tastes bad? Do not eyewitnesses have different accounts all the time of a particular event.
Personally, I believe that we experience life uniquely, bringing our own accidents of history/biography as well as our slightly different calibrated senses.
In any case, I would agree that there is life with conception, but that it is not the life of a person or child - understanding as you do that this is indeed the crux of the debate, and what drives the politics of the issue.
No one has yet chosen to debate that you can live responsibly or use contraception responsibly. Is not one or the other achievable? Should there be no responsibility to try?
Sure, we should try to be responsible. But the question is what should be the cost of 'failing.' Contraception doesn't always work. Should there be an exception to any prohibition on abortion on account of this, in addition to any exception for rape and incest, if you do accept these exceptions?
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 12:46 pm (UTC)From:Within the limits of the underlying reality. It seems to be popular to think the spiritual world can be whatever one imagines it to be. That is by definition imagination and not spirit. Imagination will result in creativity, but it will not have a direct relation to physical events.
there is life with conception, but that it is not the life of a person or child
It certainly becomes that. Perhaps if only those people who have never been a fetus were allowed to have abortions it would be fairer. That way they would not be guilty of killing something that someone was kind enough not to kill in their case. ;) More seriously, I am in no doubt that the spirit is fully formed at conception, abortion denies that spirit a worthwhile life, and that that spirit will be only too aware of the destruction of its fragile body. This is the sort of situation where I would take a wager of Pascals's type - if of course I were not already convinced. I think that it is reckless to go killing the unborn on the blatant, unproven assumption that in some way this is not destroying a life, whereas not to do so is simple prudence.
Contraception doesn't always work.
No, and one ought to ask oneself before sex, am I willing to live with the consequences? I don't think it says much for people if they are so selfish that they must unprovably assert that a fetus is not of any importance in order to allow them to do exactly as they please, whether they are men or women. Besides this, the whole attitude to controlling our fertility (positively or negatively) has resulted in an appalling attitude to children. They have become, once their conception is seen to be controllable (in either direction), seen as goods, personal projects, or as nothing but a nuisance.
exception for rape and incest
I think here that those of us who are concerned about both the mother and the child should dig in our pockets and do whatever it takes to at least provide the mother-to-be with options. Those who don't agree need not do so. Not all women want to abort in the case of rape or incest, and there is no shortage of potential adoptive families. If I believe that a woman who opts to give birth to the child is acting virtuously, I ought to be prepared to support her in some way.
Personally I'll be happy to have my DNA recorded and every other mans. Then lets see how much rape and incest there is left to argue about.
But having said all this, in every case there is one enormous assumption - that the same God that I believe does not believe in abortion, will do nothing if he is asked to intervene. And here's where the real stuff begins.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 09:42 pm (UTC)From:As you don't like others to tell you what you think (and I don't think I ever did that), I hope you can understand, on similar grounds, why others may not care for you to tell them what the underlying reality is, especially when you're notions of reality are filled with things that are not objective for others to be able to perceive and weigh.
I read your comments to Antilapsarian, and I was quite struck by your notions of logic/illogic, especially when I then read of your supernatural experiences with God. Such experiences may be 'objective' to you, but seeing how they cannot be objective in the more natural sense of being perceivable to neutral third-persons (as opposed to fellow believers of a shared faith), I trust you understand why people who rely on reason more than faith will take such stories with a grain of salt. Though, your stories are at least charming and the events seem rather healthful, in contrast to the other kind of stories when people hear God ordering them to, say, kill their children (as in another recent Texas case).
No, and one ought to ask oneself before sex, am I willing to live with the consequences?
See, this is why I earlier characterized your notion of choice as being essentially limited to this: abstain from sex or else. And that reality is just too restrictive for people who aren't encumbered be medieval notions and who value their freedom.
Again, all rests on the central question, as we've all agreed: the nature of the fetus. All though the belief is not limited to Christians, the idea that the conceived is a spirit is largely led and driven by them, and the idea that the woman's manifest rights are more real than the conjectural rights of a potentiality is insisted on by secularists who place reason over ancient faith.
And America has been in a sort of cultural war for some time over this. It is true that we are leaning more towards religiosity and fundamentalist these days. I've admitted that more Americans believe in the Devil than in evolution. You may see this as a triumph of God and truth, but I cannot help but regret this trend, thinking that it makes us more like those jihadic Islamists than people of reason and logic.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 01:16 pm (UTC)From:The first time she was naturally very worried, as the father wasn't interested in her welfare. The first I knew of it was when she rang me up and asked her for a lift. So I promised her one and arrived, and asked where to. It was the abortion clinic, for an advisory interview.
Well I'd given my word. And I also knew she was headstrong, so any amount of previous help would probably not count for much in discussion. So I drove her there, and got onto praying when I got home. I spent some time crying out to God for mercy for her, because I was in no doubt what this entailed spiritually. And it was not long before she was telling me she had no need of a further lift, because she had had a miscarriage.
That didn't make me feel great. But it did fit the bill. No one would have stopped the baby being killed. And this way she wasn't responsible for it. Nevertheless I felt gutted.
Later that year my friend got pregnant again. This time she wanted to keep the baby - for one thing the father had died in a car crash. This time she got visibly pregnant before events took hold.
In those days, when I knew a church that would allow God admittance at the door ;) I had the job of working the OHP for the preacher on a rota basis. One week when it was my turn, the result was I was right next to him whilst he preached on 'thou shalt not murder'.
Well when I came out I felt rather trembly, and thought of my friend. I went round to see her, but naturally I didn't want to talk about what I felt like. There we were happily talking away, and then suddenly she groaned and hit the floor. Having had one miscarriage she knew she was having another, and said so.
Just for a moment, I'm sorry to say, I stood there and considered how unfortunate I was. Incredible, isn't it. It was what I think of as a 'what does God want' moment. It wasn't a very long one. As soon as I came to my senses, I threw myself at the floor so as to reach it quicker than falling, and addressed God very directly over her stomach. Straight away everything went into full reverse, and very shortly my friend got off the floor.
Later she had the baby, and was very pleased to do so. Whatever else the second incident did, it made me feel a lot better, and removed the feelings I had from the first one.
If you wonder why God brings both death and life, there is no answer like putting yourself in the place where you are the one through who he will do it. Death and life are not ours to control. The strength of my friends position was that she didn't mind being prayed for. God does not force himself on people (though the church does, in cases like Sheepy's, which I oppose vehemently).
I wish more people would get out there and pray. It would be better than any amount of policy. But since there is always going to be a policy - one or the other - I cannot support abortion.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 01:14 am (UTC)From:Not that I think abortion is a good thing. Better contraception efforts, easier access to emergency morning-after pills (over the counter would be nice), free condoms, etc..
I think there can be a balance though between a woman who carries basic human rights--like not having to carry a baby if she doesn't want--and the right of an unborn child.
But for both sides, for now, it has to be all or nothing. Sadly. I think being pro-life on both sides would help. Better support for women, better support for planned families. Better support for those who do want children.
Just the other day, my girlfriend and I mentioned during a car ride that perhaps the best "family value" the government could support is giving aid (grants, not loans) to young people who get married and have kids. Pay for the wedding, pay for the prenatal care, pay for the first house. That certainly would encourage "family values."
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 02:02 am (UTC)From:A baby cannot survive without its parents for a very considerable time after it is born. Should we have contempt for babies too? When do they become important - once they are interesting in conversation? Why do we not abandon the poor, if they cannot support themselves? Why do we bother over countries that cannot pay their way and create aid programmes?
We have contempt for the unborn simply because they cannot be seen, because their destruction can be safely hidden away from society, and because they have no representation.
Over here a pro life lobby group wanted to show scenes from an abortion on TV during its alloted time so that people could make an informed choice. This was considered 'too horrific' to be shown, and banned. So we are kept in the darkness, not knowing; what is it that the authorities consider so awful that it cannot be seen, and yet cannot be debated? We can watch heart operations and all sorts of violence on the TV. If we cannot stand the sight of an abortion, we should not be able to stomach it either.
It is not compassionate to 'allow' women to do things that up to 80% of them will later regret, and in respect of which they are likely to get extreme pressure from every side, unless they are first advised about the likely consequences of an abortion, say by giving them access to a cross section of those who have had one in the past. Not to do so, is misleading and negligent, not compassionate.
There is the underlying assumption that an abortion somehow solves a problem. If it does, then it normally creates a new one, typically five years afterwards, that is not nearly so easily treated. But very few want to come out and talk about that.
It seems to me that those who campaign for abortions are not those who are having them or have had them, but are interested in the concept of rights as a tribal issue, or under the mistaken impression that an abortion is a matter that is over and done with when the stitches heal - the mind is another matter. I have known activists push a woman through abortion as a political project, and then show no interest in her when they have 'won' their battle to get her 'what she wanted'. That is what really annoys me; the interest in arguing over principles and ideas without attaching them to real people and real situations, and finding out what is involved in reality.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 02:40 am (UTC)From:I'm not sure I agree with your numbers, but I do think there needs to be more information on both sides. Like I said, something with less emotion and more balance. Taking the view that it is both a serious *and* valid decision for many women. I think both sides could stand to find a middle ground...I should hope one day the left can be reassured by the right that abortion as a right isn't going away and the right can be reassured by the left that we should take better care of dealing with the situation in a more thoughtful manner.
Honestly, if you ask me, the best representation for the unborn is the mother and whatever she wants to do with that baby in her womb. They are spoken for in that way. They don't get a vote on whether or not they can come into the world because that is nature's way, to be blunt. A baby's existence depends on a mother and father deciding to bring it into the world. Abortion, in those terms, is an extention of that. I dunno, I'm not sure abortion is a problem or a solution. It just is. People can choose how they want to live their lives and it falls under the category of free speech, freedom of religion. Yes, principles, but ultimately under those principles there are real people that need to be left the freedom to pursue happiness.
I dunno about the TV thing...I don't know too many people who want to watch heart surgery yet there is no debate over that being necessary. I tend to view abortion like I view organ transplants. I'm fine with those who want to donate. That is their choice. As for me, I am not an organ donor. But laws saying you should donate or not donate violate privacy and personal freedom. I simply want the ability to decide for myself either way whether I want to or not.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 03:06 am (UTC)From:Absolutely. That is when real talk about the matter can begin. Facts have been hidden too long in favour of theoretical rights rather than practical consequences (perhaps on both sides). Information would transform that. Why, I ask, has the matter been so much debated for so long, and yet so little attempt been made to gather hard facts?
If people want to condemn pregnant women and rave at them and are not concerned to help those who are pregnant and in difficult circumstances, I can't sympathise with that.
A baby's existence depends on a mother and father deciding to bring it into the world. Abortion, in those terms, is an extension of that.
It just doesn't follow. If the acts of conception and abortion are to be equated as parental, then the parents should perform the operation themselves. And I repeat, what is there to stop them making their decisions at an earlier stage? And accepting the responsibility for their actions? Why is that not ever to be considered?
The question remains, when does life begin? For as long as one cannot settle that, the issue remains unanswered. No one who believes that valid life begins at conception is ever likely to be agreeable to abortion, or to think it reasonable that others should undergo it; not out of hatred for anyone, but concern for the life of all. Those who do not will think differently.
If the mother truly thinks they are representing the foetus when deciding to abort, and believes that the foetus is meaningfully alive, they are not fit to have children. I don't think that happens. I think the question for the parent is one of the reality of the life of the foetus. Similarly if the redneck who spoke of the penalty for abortion being hanging had stopped to think, he should have realised that if abortion is an offence doctors will (mostly) not do it, and therefore the concept of a penalty is largely spurious, emotive, and empty.
If there is to be any common ground it has to be on the area of provision for those who need help with infants. For one thing there are just not enough babies being born in the Western world to support the future (the idea that the west need to reduce its population is one only of the economically illiterate), and just as when too many are being born we might respectfully support smaller families as a societal need, now we need to encourage larger ones, pronto.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 03:26 am (UTC)From:Which I think takes a need for births out of the picture. Those that want to should be encouraged and those who don't want a child should be helped to avoid it.
But yes, those who say conception starts life are never going to ok any form of abortion. But I think the realistic middle ground is that people are going to have differing ideas on when it begins. Heck, we can't even agree on when it ends even...look at the debate over the right to die, too. I think the major complain really comes down to those people, in fact. They don't allow that their belief is their personal belief and does not apply to all people everywhere. I do believe many are motivated out of concern. But it comes off usually as intolerance for the fact that what it comes down to is that nobody is forcing them to have an abortion.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 03:46 am (UTC)From:Absolutely.
being able to have children how, when, and where you want as a human right.
I simply do not believe that human rights are a useful approach to many things at all. I will fight for other people's rights in a practical and meaningful situation, but asserting 'rights' is just fantasy. You could assert a right to have rain only on Tuesdays. It results in all sorts of complex legal wrangling over conflicting rights and principles. I don't think it is an effective way of getting things done. And I want to get things done.
Nobody is forcing them to have an abortion.
This is not the point. Do you tell people who weep over the starving in Africa that they should not care, they don't have to watch the TV? If the same people cry over the unborn child, they do so because they care for that child, unseen, in the same way. No one is forcing them to do that either. So why would they be right to lobby the government to stop supporting vicious regimes, and wrong to lobby the government to stop abortion? You cannot stop paining them or being concerned for others.
And what is more, you cannot prove they are not right in their views. And since they beleive that life is being destroyed with pain, how can you ever expect to tell them that it is not their problem? You are telling them not to care, whether they are right or wrong. You can't, and they won't. This isn't going to change.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 05:50 pm (UTC)From:Which is not to say that one is not allowed to care. People can care all they want. Pro-lifers can make it their problem so long as they act as advocates and avoid trying to legislate their personal opinion as the law of the land. The right to be pro-life stops when it interferes with the basic human right of reproductive choice for others. One's right to be pro-life stops when it involves control over another's body.
That is where lobbying to "stop abortion" gets sticky. It is one thing to lobby the government for, say, more money for adoption causes to avoid abortion. Quite another to lobby the government to stop abortion altogether. The government represents the people...everyone. And has a duty to protect not only pro-lifers, but pro-choice folks as well. The government's responsibility is to allow people have the freedom and protection to live as they wish. Protecting those who do not want an abortion and those that do. It is exactly the point that nobody is forcing anybody to have an abortion.
One can talk and talk and talk about disliking abortion, but in the end that is where it has to stop. Not having one yourself. But others are free to make the choice on their own. Just as a parent cannot control adult children after 18, they do have control over children before that. Including choosing not to have the child altogether.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 02:30 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 03:06 am (UTC)From: