Abortion, that always-contentious issue
Commenter “OBloody Proofreader Hell” writes:
I think many, if not most, here, tend to be anti-abortion, while I take a much more middling approach, as I do not believe it is possible to defend anti-abortion without a referral to religion, and as such it should not be Law. It is also a reasonable assertion that at least 1/3rd or more of the populace is pro-Choice. And again, with that much opposition, it should not be a matter of Law.
Things which are made Law should match a general agreement of the people, ca. 90% or more supporting, which is one reason for the historical “Jury Nullification” standard, as that produces much the same defacto metric of support.
Abortion is a very heated issue almost guaranteed to spark intense responses. I’ve written on the subject many times, and I’ll add here that although I disagree with some of the arguments that OBloody advances, I find them interesting enough to devote a post and discussion to them.
(1) Is it possible to advance an argument against abortion that isn’t couched in religious terms? I believe it is. For example, now that ultrasound images of a fetus are highly detailed, one can certainly argue on scientific grounds that this is a small human life. Or, one can argue the same on general philosophical grounds without ever invoking religion. The fact that each argument is in league with religion (or some religions) doesn’t mean it’s a religious argument, although of course religious arguments against abortion are also commonly made.
(2) And it is extremely possible to advance an anti-abortion argument that is not religious if the abortion prohibition is only after a date that arguably can be said to constitute viability of the child outside the womb. Over the years, that date has been pushed back and back and back, until now it consists of something like 24 weeks (although younger babies have survived, and I have little doubt that the number of weeks for this metric will further decline over time).
(3) The ideas that laws must be made with the agreement of 90% of the people is certainly not the way law has been regarded traditionally, and it certainly is not mounted for other types of laws. Roe was a SCOTUS decision, which even many of its proponents agree was not based on anything in the Constitution but on extrapolations from some idea of privacy that was never articulated in that document. Prior to Roe and its nationalization of a right to abortion, states had the right to legalize abortion and quite a few already had done so. If it had been left to the states, my sense is that it would probably have been legalized in more of them – through legislative action, which is more responsive to the will of the people in each state – with different laws governing in different states as to the details. If a national prohibition on abortion was passed it should have been done so through an amendment to the Constitution, a process that would have assured pretty high majority approval – although not 90%, an unrealistic standard. And likewise if a national right to abortion was passed, it should have been done in the same way – by constitutional amendment.
I am opposed to abortion. I also believe it should be legal.
Most countries have a time limit for legalized abortions.It is the abortion fanatics in the US that believe it should be legal until the baby is born who provoke so much push back. If there was a 3-month limit, pro-lifers would direct their attention to teaching young kids not to have sex with dozens of partners and to promoting adoption.
One might consider this very contentious issue in terms of societal change oscillating between action and reaction. Had the feminist left been content with the mantra of the Democrats long ago (during Clinton’s term) that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare”, there might never have been such a strong and determined opposition as that which brought about the recent Texan legislation. But leftists, over the last decade or so, have become increasingly deranged and unhinged on the topic, regarding abortion now as something of an atheistic/progressive sacrament and an act to be shouted from the proverbial rooftops and endlessly celebrated on social media and elsewhere.
Rhetorical question; why is it that if the mother welcomes her pregnancy, it’s a precious baby but if she doesn’t want to be pregnant, it’s no different than an easily disposed of hangnail?
“If there was a 3-month limit, pro-lifers would direct their attention to teaching young kids not to have sex with dozens of partners and to promoting adoption.” expat
I suggest you refresh your memory with a quick internet search on the liberal-left’s reactions to abstinence programs.
I consider myself ‘uncomfortably pro-life’. By that I mean, I’m very hesitant and qualified in my opinion and thoroughly recognize many serious weaknesses in the general pro-life position and many strengths in the general pro-choice position. Nonetheless, I am pro-life because the pro-choice position would make me even more uncomfortable.
Geoffrey Britain,
It wouldn’t have to be an abstinence program. It could be talking to boys about the importance of fatherhood and to girls about the rewards of motherhood. Baby Mamas and Baby Dads should not be applauded. There are lots of ways to talk about sex being more than just a fun ten minutes.
I’m not religious at all, but I think abortion should be illegal for the same reason it’s illegal to murder your newborn, or toddler, or teenager, or ex-husband. There is a small amount of time when the fetus really is “just a clump of cells” before it has brainwaves or a heartbeat, and can feel pain. Abortion after that point is just barbaric.
And as for “my body my choice” let’s be honest. It’s not the mother’s body that will be dismembered and/or crushed, it’s someone else’s body.
There is no mystery in sex and conception. A woman and man have four choices: abstention, prevention, adoption, and compassion. The Pro-Choice religion denies a woman and man’s dignity and agency, and reduces human life to a negotiable asset.
That said, the wicked solution (to a purportedly hard problem: social liberalism, involuntary exploitation/rape… rape-rape, superior exploitation (e.g. incest)) a.k.a. planned parent/hood a.k.a. selective-child (one-child, delegated) is neither an exclusive nor a good choice.
Can they [elective] abort the baby (e.g. social justice), cannibalize her profitable parts (e.g. Mengele effect, clinical cannibalism), sequester her carbon pollutants (e.g. climate mitigation), and have her, too?
The failure of witch hunts and warlock trials (e.g. critical sexists’ theory – rape…rape-rape culture, assertions of diversity (e.g. sexism), and summary judgments) to be adopted by yesteryear feminists and the public at large, indicate that they are playing with a double-edged scalpel.
And still six weeks. Baby steps.
Elective abortion is already illegal past the point of “viability”. There are few states, organizations, cults, sects, corporations and clinics, which will abort a baby (fetus if you’re socially distant) at a late stage. That said, the tell-tale hearts beat ever louder.
Another good place to start is to remove govt funding.
Instead of giving money to elect legislators who force all to participate, let pro-abortion activists donate money to fund abortions for the poor. Let’s begin to remove this from the political sphere.
Ackler,
I don’t mean to be confrontative but out of curiosity, other than the life of the mother and the burden of carrying a baby to term that is the result of rape or incest… what “serious weaknesses in the general pro-life position and (especially) many strengths in the general pro-choice position.” might there be?
expat,
It could indeed be those things. Do you really think that the activist left would be accepting of that? I’m doubtful that they would be, especially as those in the vanguard of sexual ‘teaching’ are pressing upon students ‘alternative’ lifestyles.
LisaM,
“let’s be honest. It’s not the mother’s body that will be dismembered and/or crushed, it’s someone else’s body.”
Which is why they insist that “it’s MY body, MY choice”
n.n.,
“they are playing with a double-edged scalpel.”
There you go again, confusing the issue with facts and logic. They want what they want. That’s it, case closed.
“There are few states, organizations, cults, sects, corporations and clinics, which will abort a baby (fetus if you’re socially distant) at a late stage.”
The infanticide of born alive, botched abortion babies still proceeds apace. What legislation they can pass and what they can legally get away with are the only limits, that they very reluctantly recognize. It’s not just Obama’s former science adviser who maintains that a baby isn’t ‘really’ a person until after they reach the age of three…
JimNorCal,
What do you think the odds are that the pro-choice crowd will agree to getting the issue of abortion out of politics? Whereas, keeping it a political hot potato greatly benefits the democrat party financially through donations by selling the notion to the liberal-left that only democrat politicians can keep abortion legal in the face of religious fanaticism…
Geoffrey Britain:
Yes, demos-cracy is aborted in darkness. If someone wants to abort a baby (planned parenthood), a granny (planned parent/hood), or any other life that they deem a “burden”, they will, if they can get away with it. It is few who would choose a renewable spark, a mortal jab, or the rotting flesh of life incarcerated.
The Twilight Amendment (“penumbras and emanations”) is the source of much social justice and progress run amuck, not limited to shared/shifted/delegated responsibility.
All’s fair in lust and abortion, I suppose. Let us bray. In Stork we trust.
A reader pointed out to me that I skipped directly from #1 to # 3. Gee, you want me to be able to count, too?
I fixed it now, and put a #2 where I believe I’d originally intended to put it before I got distracted by whatever it was that distracted me.
Just stick to biology: two gametes merge, and the creation of that unique new DNA has never before been seen. It is unique, one of a kind, purely and simply. It is a human being from the moment of merger, tiny, one-cell, yes. But a human nonetheless.
To say otherwise is to say that a chive seed is not a (potential) chive.
All the chatter about rape-rape and incest is a simple distraction. They are both felonies. The human life that results is an entirely different matter, and to kill a human, no matter how small or how young, is murder by definition.
Are we smarter or more ethical than Hippocrates, ca. 400 BC? Swearing his oath commits a physician to never do an abortion. Ever.
I agree with Neo on all three points. I follow #1, myself. Modern knowledge and technology make the essential humanity, with DNA distinct from her mother, of a child growing in her mother’s womb a matter of scientific fact. In this case, my religion and science are in complete agreement.
Many do argue the “viability” approach, but to do so they must rely on feelings that define the child as not really a child until it can, if necessary, survive on its own. But even after birth the relationship between child and parent(s) is symbiotic, and it will be many years before she can truly survive on her own.
Ninety percent approval would mean we’d likely not have any laws at all. The Supreme Court would have been far wiser to leave this issue with the states. Probably most of them would have ended up with a ten-to-twelve-week limit on elective abortion, balancing Option #1 with Option #2 at a point where the issue would not tear the states apart.
Who is OBloody Proofreader Hell kidding. Thou shalt not kill is a religious argument. So are thou shalt not steal and thou shalt not commit adultery are the foundation of our legal system and make up the majority of all court cases. Shall we do away with them? He should be glad to know we nearly have. We by and large a lawless society. And no one who has witnessed the conduct of our once great institutions over the past 4 years should believe otherwise.
Except in rare medical edge cases it is utterly repugnant and indefensible (*).
The problem is that any legal accommodations for edge cases will be widened into eight lane highways by legal profession and various other usual suspects. So even if there is a tightening, eternal vigilance will be required.
(*) In the USA, a banning of abortion should be accompanied by mandatory sterilization after TBD offspring per female of (let’s be nice and call them) The Permanent Client Underclass — otherwise they’re going to outbreed everyone else. Nobody in their right mind would wish the Black proportion of the US population to be 25% instead of 14% for example. There’s a reason why Blacks get abortions at higher rate than other races — taken in the large less capable of foresight and executive planning and therefore can’t do contraception right.
WTF ? Only things that 90% of us all agree on should be law ? That’s lunacy.
Not to mention there’s a difference between enacting anti-abortion law, presumably at the federal level, and not abiding by a made up bunch of nonsense that there is an unwritten right to “privacy” that makes ending the life of an unborn child a constitutional right.
Those are two wildly different things.
Hmm,
I don’t believe I’ve posted since the new website came on line, but have made numerous flyby lurks.
“. . . which even many of its proponents agree was not based on anything in the Constitution but on extrapolations from some idea of privacy that was never articulated in that document.”
Isn’t it one of the tenets of the Founding that Rights predate the formulation of that document, indeed, predate the foundation of gov’t itself? So is it truly a good idea to argue against something on the basis that the putative Right upon which it was based was not articulated in the Constitution?
It would seem that such an exercise tends to obviate the purpose of both the 9th and 10th Amendments
c andrew
A snippet: Actress Jameela Jamil Defends Aborting Her Baby: “My Life Matters More Than an Unborn Human”.
I believe that the government or anybody else should have an overwhelmingly good reason to take a human life. I consider the product of a human egg and sperm cell to be human. I do not consider convenience or possible lack of love by the mother to be overwhelmingly good reasons to kill a human. I am an atheist and see no trace of religion in my view.
Adrian Day,
“Thou shalt not kill is a religious argument.”
Well, it would be if that were an accurate translation of the original. Since it is not, your assertion is somewhat misplaced. Substitutute “murder” for “kill” and you have the correct translation. Applying the term and meaning of “murder” to abortion presupposes that prebirth, a person’s body is developing within the womb of the mother. In which case, the argument for abortion utterly collapses.
c andrew,
That’s a somewhat valid point in that no one here is arguing that a right to privacy is not a ‘self-evident’ right. It is in asserting that right to include the ‘right’ to end the life of another life… wherein critics of the Roe VS Wade ruling find faut.
“Actress Jameela Jamil Defends Aborting Her Baby”
All-in-all a Net Win.
Also it’s good for them to go on the record. Should be encouraged.
Their side won’t have any problem with retrospective laws and proscriptions…
Law not religious? Look at the 10 commandments, all are based onthe behavior of men.
OBloody’s argument is childish and simple-minded. Our society is, or was, founded on the Judeo-Christian ethic. Our most fundamental laws are derived from that ethic, thank God. To say that we can’t have laws that derive from that ethic is to reject Western civilization, which, of course, we know is the worst civilization there is, except every other civilization there is or ever was. OBloody is with the same spirit of the times that will be the downfall of us all.
When belief in a homosexual gene was common, homosexuals argued against aborting fetus with the homosexual gene because that would be genocide, and no true woman should be allowed to choose genocide.
I am like OBloody in this matter, though not for precisely the same reason.
The Anti-Abortion position mostly argues that human life begins at the moment of conception, and that means that any abortion is murder. I find this argument utterly simplistic. They argue that all the rights of a human being accrue to that zygote in an instant.
But consider this… does a child have all the rights of an adult? We all know that is not the case. Children accrue rights, privileges, and responsibilities gradually, over the entire course of their childhood. Sure, we mark some milestones, such as driving age, legal adult and drinking age. In practice, though, we let our children win and negotiate their independence and adulthood… little by little. The reality is not a discontinuous function, like the law suggests.
So, why should the process be considered differently in the gestational phase of human development? I say it should not. Yes, human life begins at conception. But it begins at zero. And at “zero”, I assign no rights or privileges to a zygote… none. For the woman who does not wish to have that baby, it is a purely personal choice.
Obviously, I do not support late term abortion. A woman should make a decision long before that. In general, I am comfortable with abortion in the first trimester. I can see the possibility of medical reasons for abortion a fetus later. I do see a need for reasonable standards on this.
But, for me, to ban all abortion in all circumstances, is to make slaves to the state out of pregnant women. This would be a monumental step backwards, for women and for our society.
I believe that it is only a small percentage of Conservatives who are that radical, but they are as dangerous to the future of this country as Socialists and Marxists of the Left are.
Anyone who thinks a non-religious argument can’t be made in opposition to abortion either hasn’t heard one, or hasn’t given it much thought. Being agnostic atheist, I think the non-religious opposition to abortion is the strongest argument. A religious argument will bounce right off of people who are predisposed to reject religion outright.
The empirical reality is that we know when the genetic material is unique and replicating, and that it’s going to grow into a human, provided it makes it to term naturally. It’s not going to grow into a horse, or a cat; and we know that once the cells begin dividing, it is unquestionably life, or alive, by any scientific standard.
A ‘clump of cells’ doesn’t spontaneously generate into a human. ‘Personhood’ is a subjective philosophical concept, for which there is no physiological explanation of when it occurs. A ‘parasite’ does not share half its genetic material with its host, nor does it magically mutate into the same species as its host at some vague point. Those are the most common, yet absurd rationalizations used by abortion proponents.
Personally, I support abortions only in the rare cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother. But I also find my position harder to argue in favor of in the face of opposition such as Cicero’s above, than I do the absurd arguments I just mentioned.
@RoyNathanson:
Rights should accrue with age and achievement(*). Agree there.
Regardless, Abortion should be VERY difficult to access and should be fenced off with extreme social censure except in the most harrowing medical edge cases.
* I wouldn’t oppose re-institution of a moderate form of Patria Potestas / Longa Manus. Time for the pendulum to swing back.
Before 2020 and 2021, I would not have believed that humans are capable of denying or believing ANYTHING they need to deny or believe, for whatever reason. I should have known better, given history. We’ve seen the English language change, with the meanings of familiar words shifting sometimes to promote acceptance of violent acts, like “pro-choice” for abortion, while “pro-life” is meant to connote crazies and fanatics.
With 21st century evidence, sonograms and other medical devices, you’d think it would be impossible to think of a fetus as anything but a growing human being, deserving of life as much as any of us already born. This has nothing to do with religion. If your moral point of view considers murder a crime, I would guess most people would agree, whether or not they believe in a deity.
But no, if you’re desperate or find it inconvenient to think of a fetus in that way, then of course you don’t have to. Not today, regardless of evidence. The activists are assuring you that your body—what they really mean is your convenience, what you had planned for this time in your life—is all that really matters. It’s your sacred choice. There’s never a hint that this should even be a heart-rending decision, one that may well affect how you regard yourself for the rest of your life.
It’s only the pro-lifers that ask that you take the time, and the care, to think hard about this decision, explore alternatives, or maybe come to accept that this is what life is asking of you right now.
If only there could be discussions of such things, without the acrimony and hate, with mutual search for answers and problem-solving. If only that sort of thought could occur in government at the highest levels.
I probably sound naive, but what has brought us from the seriousness and dedication of our founders to the narcissistic, lying leaders we have now?
I find this argument utterly
simplistic.inconvenient“They argue that all the rights of a human being accrue to that zygote in an instant.” Roy Nathanson
Not at all. In fact, just one right. The right to life that nature has granted to that being. Neither the mother or father or you or I have the ‘right’ to end that life. Only God, a “Higher Power”, nature’s providence… call it what you will… has the right to end the life of the innocent.
To deny that right is to forfeit your right to life. You cannot in principle, deny the most basic of rights to the innocent, while claiming that right for yourself.
c andrew:
Roe was a SCOTUS decision based on a supposed constitutional right to privacy, a right that they used to overturn the power of a state to ban abortion. SCOTUS found a specific right in the Constitution (that doesn’t actually exist in the Constitution) and based its decision on that:
As far as the 9th and 10th amendments go, because the right to privacy is NOT enumerated in the Constitution, the 9th Amendment should have let the power to either ban or legalize abortion be retained by the states. And the 10th Amendment would indicate that, again because the right to privacy is not enumerated in the Constitution, the power to ban or legalize abortion should have been retained by the states. Of course, just as some people think a right to privacy is in the 14th Amendment, some think it’s in the 9th.
I became harder core pro-life as I got older, mostly as a reaction to the left. As an earlier commenter put it, when it was advanced as a rare thing taken with trepidation I could understand that there are exceptions, and could provide understanding if not approval in certain situations.
But now the left promoting and bragging about it? When it is a mass business that feeds huge donations to the the democrat party to fund it more and more, so they can advertise it more and make even more money? Ban it I say.
But note that one of the of effects of mass migration on society is to cheapen human life. If tens of thousands of people are passing in every single day what’s the big deal of a few abortions? A single new person in a mass of humanity means nothing.
The whole ‘first trimester’ nonsense is BS. As anyone who’s seen an ultrasound at 8 weeks knows.
JanMN gets close to the heart of the matter when she points out that when the activists say; ‘your body – what they really mean is your convenience – what you had planned for this time in your life’.
But even this is dishonest. And crazy. Because all of us who have carried a baby to term know it doesn’t stop you from doing all that much. You can still graduate. Hell, my BFF flew commercial airliners up to her last trimester. Nowadays she could probably keep flying even longer. Women always have and always will do practically everything while pregnant. So this progressive/feminist idea that carrying a baby to term is going to somehow permanently derail your life course is complete bullshit.
So then, having established that carrying a baby to term is similar in ‘inconvenience’ to breaking an arm riding a bike or snowboarding, why abort? Why not sacrifice a few months to give the gift of life? Most of us have probably spent more time than that working at the wrong job. No one is saying you have to raise the child, heavens, that baby will adopted in an instant.
And that’s where the crazy comes out. Because the abortion issue is not about saving a woman’s life from being ‘wrecked’- it’s really about avoiding the psychic pain of doing the right thing and giving up a child.
Think about it – abortion as a means to avoid heartbreak and a lifetime of questioning and doubt. How crazy is that?
@ Molly Brown > “…that baby will adopted in an instant.”
My turn to play the Freudian game (see the conclusion).
(Probably qualifies as a rant, but it’s late tonight so I’m gonna go with it.)
The majority of abortions, relative to live births, are sought by Black mothers.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/usa_abortion_by_race.html
There are almost certainly not enough qualified Black couples or even singles to adopt all of those children.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/
https://www.census.gov/library/working-papers/2017/demo/SEHSD-WP2017-10.html
Many Black children were being adopted by White families (and still are).
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED079647
The NAACP & other organizations tried to put a stop to that, because they objected to raising Black children in something other than “authentic” environments, whatever the heck that means.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-09-17-mn-46801-story.html
Translation:
They would rather kill their children than have them be raised outside the Democrat Plantation.
[*note: nothing was cited as evidence, which is why I put up all the demographic data first – but imagine what the numbers would look like if all the aborted children of all races were in line for adoption]
Now you can understand where CRT comes from: sublimated guilt.
(That’s the Freudian part.)
They can only justify their self-imposed genocide by condemning all Whites everywhere as inherently unworthy of adopting or nurturing Black children.
Why is it that Trump’s Afghanistan deal was the ONLY thing Biden didn’t feel he could change (although he did anyway, and just lied about it)?
https://notthebee.com/article/biden-reverses-federal-ban-that-prohibits-health-clinics-from-referring-women-for-abortion-allowing-planned-parenthood-back-into-the-federal-family-planning-program
“Yo “Evangelicals for Biden,” where you guys at?
Great job, guys.
You did it. You totally saved the country.
Except for the millions of dead American children at the hands of an industry straight outta hell itself.
But no more mean tweets!”
One of the reasons I think, freed from the Supreme Court diktat, that most states would still permit abortions for a month or two after most women realize they are pregnant (i.e, eight to twelve weeks), is the opinion of commenters here who hold a version of Neo’s argument #2. We have representative democracies. A position honestly held by substantial numbers of citizens is likely to get traction.
There are some things and actions that are not appropriately decided by democracy and polls. I am human and free, this is not subject to the whims of the vote of my fellow humans. Two wolves and a sheep voting on what is for lunch, for example, and abortion.
Contraceptive meds are very easy to obtain.
Abortion is the “choice” of careless people (in Fitzgerald’s sense of “careless”).
Geoffrey Britain,
In your argument against mine, you were forced to invoke religion. That was the original point made by OBloody.
All of human morality is a human construct. It requires no “higher power”. The most important moral good for any species or society is survival and continuation. Any other definition of the moral good is self-defeating.
Now, if you wish to debate the subject starting with that premise, there is room for constructive discussion. To rely upon the “God said it.” argument serves no useful purpose.
Steve Walsh: Bravo!
@RoyNathanson
You’re confusing simple with “simplistic”. A position is not rendered invalid because of its simplicity. Your position of opposing late term abortions is entirely incongruent with your position on accrued rights. What would you say the first right a human being accrues is? Obviously it is the right to live, so recognizing that right at any point after the beginning is entirely arbitrary, and problematic.
After all, rights that human beings accrue are due to their agency in achieving various stages of maturity. Your position allows for the late term abortions you oppose, since there is no physiological process that guarantees a right.
As for women becoming slaves of the state – that’s utter nonsense. As much so as thinking that protecting the unborn is as dangerous to society as the ideology responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions and the oppression of billions.
Both-sidesism is lazy.
From a practical standpoint, outlawing sin has always backfired terribly. Prohibition and the Drug War are two notable examples.
If the government were not involved public opinion would be against abortion and it would be avoided by most people. That would lead to much more responsible sexual conduct.
If the pro-life fanatics get their way the GOP will be destroyed. They think the crowd is following them, but they have not looked back lately.
The cure will be much worse than the disease. I expound in more detail here https://dickillyes.com/blog/february-12th-2018
Roy Nathanson, by any chance did you see the movie Unplanned which tells the story of Abby Johnson, a Planned Parenthood up and comer who became anti-abortion? I would be particularly interested in your thoughts about the scene where she is taught to put all the baby parts together to make sure nothing was left in utero. And to now know that these parts have been being used in chimeric experimentation to advance our medical means is a new one for me. Evil leading to greater evil.
“The Center for Medical Progress released a detailed new video today documenting shocking government-sponsored experiments on aborted human fetuses at the University of Pittsburgh, and the local Planned Parenthood’s participation in the fetus trafficking.
Publicly available information demonstrates that Pitt hosts some of the most barbaric experiments carried out on aborted human infants, including scalping 5-month-old aborted fetuses to stitch onto lab rats, exporting fetal kidneys across the country, and killing infants delivered alive for liver harvesting — funded by U.S. taxpayers via the National Institutes of Health, and in particular Dr. Anthony Fauci’s NIAID office.” From one of J.J. Sefton’s morning posts
Gmmay70: Reread my original and first comment. A newly conceived zygote has no rights… not even the right to live. It exists only at the pleasure of its mother and host.
For everyone arguing that a right to life is automatic and irrevocable upon conception, consider your position on capital punishment.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….”
One of our founding documents. Yes we are a long way from this or the Constitution being taken seriously. If our unalienable Rights are not derived from a Creator than O Bloody Hell’s idea or any body politic can do whatever they please. Toss the 10 Commandments? Keep some? 90%? A majority? a plurality? Whatever.
Roy Nathanson, I will always distinguish between innocent and guilty life.
Sharon W.,
I did not see it, but the points you mentioned are irrelevant to to issue at hand.
And (FYI) I do not believe that Planned Parenthood should receive any public funding. Furthermore, they should be subject to the same rules and regulations applicable to any other provider of medical care. I might even question their “non-profit” status.
Actually, we should question the “non-profit” status of a LOT of U.S. organizations. But that is a different issue.
Capital punishment (which is now rarely used) ends a life judged with due process of law to be guilty of a heinous crime, usually deliberate murder. A child growing in the womb is guilty of no crime.
So far as I know all the abortion-restricting laws allow for a woman or girl who has been forcibly raped to seek medical intervention. This should be done immediately, along with the filing of a police report.
Dick Illyes,
You are correct, Sir.
Although, I don’t classify abortion as “sin”.
In any case, your analysis that this issue would destroy the GOP if the radicals get their way is spot on.
Kate,
The convicted criminal (in a capital case) has forfeited his right to life.
The fetus has not yet earned its right to life.
Read my arguments for this above.
Roy Nathanson, I have seen your arguments and don’t agree. Neo points out what these two approaches are. Since both sides have substantial numbers, we are likely to end with a compromise, if the SC permits states to legislate. I appreciate your position that no public funding should be used for abortions (other than the obvious life-threatening situations).
@RoyNathanson
I read your original comment and responded to it. If you want to ignore my response fine, but I obviously didn’t ignore your position, illogical as it is.
@RoyNathanson
A common response, if not an attempt to deflect. My position on capital punishment is that while I do believe some people deserve to die, I don’t believe the state should have the power to take their life.
As for capital offenders – they have demonstrated their danger to society, where an unborn child hasn’t. The distinction is simple and easy to grasp, and logical.
Nothing more to be said…
For the people with radical positions on this subject, their minds are as frozen shut as the Useful Idiot Socialists.
A lot of good points in the post and comments (except for Zaphod’s nonsense). I especially appreciated Molly+Brown and AesopFan’s exchange.
Abortion is a topic that shows that not every issue has a legal answer. When the law is a hammer it looks for nails. This is one of many things we attempt to legislate that doesn’t fit into legislation.
First, based on the Constitution and the 10th Amendment there should be no Federal law for or against it.
Second, as some others have pointed out, in 90% (99%?) of cases, abortion is a personal problem. One of the most fundamental instincts of women is to protect their children. It’s also a fundamental instinct of men, but men often don’t experience their children until born. It is a testament to how debased and unmoored our society and culture have become that some women are detached from that instinct.
The fundamental question isn’t if abortion should be legal, or at how many months, weeks, days or hours it should be permitted or prohibited. As expat wrote, it starts with education and teaching morality, ethics, the humanities (and religion, for those inclined).
Now that Roy Nathanson has spoken nothing further is to be said. Presumably. However, I will say that his injection of the death penalty into the discussion is spurious, as gmmay 70 noted. Every society reserves the right to remove persons who by their actions have been judged to be a threat to others. The core question is whether society is now obligated to house and feed them, to provide medial care, and creature comforts for such people for the rest of their natural lives. I say no. The death penalty is one of the options that society has to protect itself, and it should be used with caution.
And I have a couple of other comments. I consider use of the term “right to abortion” to be an effort to tilt the argument. Not even SCOTUS, when they created the fanciful “right to privacy” went so far as to establish an “unqualified right to abortion”. Their decision stated that even in the first trimester, the decision to abort is at the discretion of the Attending Physician; and a state could limit the definition of Attending Physician to those who are licensed by the state, and prohibit abortions performed by others. So, the “right to abortion” advocates have gone well beyond Roe V Wade. By the way, SOTUS’ privacy right is proven meaningless in many ways as it is trampled with impunity; as witnessed by the recent experiences of Senator Sinema. But, that is a different issue.
It is also egregious to label all people who oppose abortion as “religious zealots”. What is the point of any society if not to protect the vulnerable? Can anyone who worships at the altar of science (hyperbole intended), state when life actually becomes viable? Does anyone actually know when an unborn child can feel pain, or has awareness of self? If not, it seems prudent for any moral person to err on the side of caution.
Given the uncertainties about the beginning of life, there are two situations to consider. Pregnancy most often results from a voluntary act on the part of two people who understand the potential consequences. “Buyer’s remorse” is a flimsy excuse for abortion. In those instances when it was not voluntary on the part of the woman, a more complex dilemma is created; and should be treated as such. There is then an argument that the woman should have an option.
Very well stated, Oldflyer.
I do not think Capital punishment should be legal for state offenses and, perhaps, only for treason at the Federal level*. I also hold no ill will for victims or relatives of victims of certain crimes who hold a different position.
*I almost certainly would personally kill another if he or she commits certain crimes against my loved ones, and I would have to deal with the legal and religious repercussions personally, but I hesitate to give the State that power.
My views have change from pro-choice to total ban. I have mention before that my wife and I had three failed attempts before a live birth. It changed me. I don’t even kill mice now. I use a catch and release system. Yes evicting mice from the nice safe garage into the yard where the weasel lives is probably a death sentence but that is on Mother Nature not me.
However, evil people are different and I am sorry to say some of them need killing.
The abortion issue is probably the key issue of our time. Guns are being bought by everyone and the old gun hating punch is gone, but the True Believers on both sides can always get crazy about abortion. That creates a big center who just want some sanity and common sense.
I just noticed that Yang’s Forward site was up https://www.forwardparty.com/platform
IMO this is going to be a big deal.
Some polls show Independents to be larger than both old parties. I am reading Yang’s new book also titled Forward. He is no friend of the Swamp. He has the support of people like Elon Musk. He wants Term Limits. He wants to decentralize. He is savvier than Ross Perot.
I think he will split the Democrat vote and set a new dialog in play.
Roy Nathanson’s thinking is seriously askew.
For him it is murder to kill a child or adult, but not a babe in the womb on its way to becoming the former, then the latter.
His aggressive illogic makes me shiver. His thinking on this topic is just as frozen as those whom he sneers at as having frozen minds.
Whether you like it or not, Roy, there is Right and there is Wrong.
Sociopaths know that but choose to ignore it, and just do what they want, sometimes murderously. Remember Ted Bundy?
Dick Illyes,
Thanks for the heads up on Yang. I had heard a bit about that, but hadn’t bothered to follow up. I will now. I agree that Yang may have the personality to get a new party with some momentum going. I also think Dave Smith’s usurpation of the Libertarian Party is interesting. Although I like him, he’s way too honest to make major inroads, voting-wise, but he could really shake things up on a debate stage. He’s a stand up comedian very comfortable speaking to groups and crowds, even hostile ones, and he is extremely well educated in political philosophy and U.S. history.
}}} For example, now that ultrasound images of a fetus are highly detailed, one can certainly argue on scientific grounds that this is a small human life.
A wax figure from madam tussauds looks like a human, too. Is it? Duh.
A horribly burned quadraplegic looks nothing like a human being… is it a human being? Duh, again.
More in a bit on your other points (i’m busy, this was a lull)…. but “Looks like a human” fails the litmus test.
}}} (2) And it is extremely possible to advance an anti-abortion argument that is not religious if the abortion prohibition is only after a date that arguably can be said to constitute viability of the child outside the womb. Over the years, that date has been pushed back and back and back, until now it consists of something like 24 weeks (although younger babies have survived, and I have little doubt that the number of weeks for this metric will further decline over time).
Ah, but what kind of measures does this take?
}}} (3) The ideas that laws must be made with the agreement of 90% of the people is certainly not the way law has been regarded traditionally, and it certainly is not mounted for other types of laws. Roe was a SCOTUS decision, which even many of its proponents agree was not based on anything in the Constitution but on extrapolations from some idea of privacy that was never articulated in that document.
It, is, however the actual basis of the Law. This where Jury Nullification applies, it is supposed to be used to reject overreaching legislative actions.
The net affect of a 12-man jury (which is another thing they are attempting to remove, since the SCotUS has rejected challenges to it for the last 100 years, allowing only for the procedural limitation of not being able to tell jurors about those responsibilities) is that any law which does not have widespread support WILL be nullified by juries for the most part. It was how both Fugitive Slave laws AND Prohibition were defacto beaten down in many jurisdictions.
This is relevant, since you can keep a brain-dead body alive indefinitely. Is THAT a human? Questionable at the least.
The general question here is both nontrivial and very important: “What makes us HUMAN?”
It’s also highly subjective, on some levels.
Many of the common anti-abortion answers are specious when it comes to actual evidentiary basis.
I personally (as stated above) reject the notion of “it LOOKS human, so it must be”.
I assert (again, as above) that it is probably brainwaves that give us the best current notion of “what makes a human a human”, hence the brain dead may be euthanized**, and why around the first trimester is a very good point — I’d assert that using an actual EEG of the baby would be the best litmus test for whether or not a woman should be allowed to have an abortion — if the fetus shows independent brainwaves, it is now a life which is actually fully independent of the mother, and more than a clump of cells with the potential to become a human.
I’m not adamant about any of this, but I think it is approximately the correct balance between what evidence there is and people’s faith-based preferences.
THIS is where my own Faith lies — God will do what HE wants done — We should encourage people to listen to their heart, and to not take the decision lightly. If God wants to touch them, he will. If they want to seek his guidance, then this should open their heart to it, even if they aren’t really thinking “God” as the voice in their heads… it will still allow Him open room to reach in and guide them.
It’s what He does.
The issue I have with forcing people to do other than what they feel is right, here, is that we don’t have sufficient evidence to justify that force for many cases, and by forcing people we — seriously — drive them away from God, and give the Devil’s forces plenty of “oomph” to divide her and many others from Him.
The fetus does not need US to protect them, only to encourage the mother to consider what she is thinking to do. That is adequate to Him, to my faith, and the fetus’ soul, assuming it has one, will not suffer because she makes the wrong choice. I just don’t see HIM acting that way.
Appeal to reason, and to the heart, not to “emotion”. The latter is a lefty thing. The others are our gifts from God, that make us other than animals.
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** And yes, this is a whole additional issue, but one with exactly the same question at its heart: “What makes a human life a human life, and not just ‘something that is alive, but not human, and thus not appropriate for the same protections’??”. This one has serious thorns, as it is at least as possible to do the Devil’s work, here.
NOTE:
Screwed up the previous one. The progression for 2) was supposed to be:
If the pro-life position is inherently religious because there are religions that forbid abortion, then so is the pro-choice position because there are religions that permit it.
And if you poll atheists you will find virtually none of them saying it’s okay to murder people. They have their own reasons, not rooted in religion, and no one says that laws against murder are inherently based in religion and so are illegitimate.
All one has to do is consider abortion to be murder and thus it’s not inherently a religious position. Many religions and many cultures have come done on all sides of the question, so there’s nothing entailed by it.
A very simple illustration: suppose a law were proposed that made the sale and consumption of pork illegal. It might have the support of Jews and Muslims for religious reasons, but atheist animal rights activists could also support it for non-religious reasons.
@OBloody Proofreader Hell:The fetus does not need US to protect them, only to encourage the mother to consider what she is thinking to do. That is adequate to Him, to my faith, and the fetus’ soul, assuming it has one, will not suffer because she makes the wrong choice. I just don’t see HIM acting that way.
Can you explain why that reasoning does not apply to say, six-week-olds or six-hour-olds? Powerful arguments have been made by respected professionals, not to mention ancient traditions in living memory.
Anyone wishing to read a well-thought-out and non-religious pro-life position can find it at lfl”dot”org.
This is the website of the Libertarians for Life.
Those supporting abortions might ask themselves what Principle distinguishes between a 7-month fetus and a 7-month premature baby – making it legal to kill the first, but a crime to kill the second.
}}} If the pro-life position is inherently religious because there are religions that forbid abortion, then so is the pro-choice position because there are religions that permit it.
Sorry, sir, that is a ridiculous concatenation of mismatched reasoning.
Anti-abortion is inherently religious because I have yet to hear anyone arguing anything for the sanctity of human life which does not, in some manner or another, fall down to a religious principle of the sanctity of life, ** from the moment of conception **
Not to suggest I disagree with that, per se. I just recognize that we can’t afford to use religion as the basis for Law. Period. If you do that, you lose all capacity to argue against Sharia, among other more subtle problems, such as, “Which religion makes the Laws?”
}}} it’s okay to murder people.
Aaaand here we see the problem, with someone sidestepping the point, even when it’s directly made to their faces.
Here, allow me to explain it with CAPS to emphasize it, since my previous statement was apparently too subtle:
THE QUESTION AT THE HEART IS, “WHAT MAKES A CREATURE ‘PEOPLE’?”
I will pretty much guarantee you that no one who supports abortion (I do not, I merely don’t agree with making LAW based on my beliefs, which is a very different proposition) agrees with the contention that a fetus is “People”.
}}} All one has to do is consider abortion to be murder and thus it’s not inherently a religious position.
ROTFLMAO.
This is called “Decision by fiat”.
No. I and many others — including many MANY perfectly moral people — reject your fiat.
You don’t even understand the basic question, so you can’t even argue for a valid answer. You just want to name it ‘x’ and make it the rule.
}}} Can you explain why that reasoning does not apply to say, six-week-olds or six-hour-olds?
Once again, this is because you fail to grasp the most basic question at the heart of this issue:
“What makes a creature HUMAN?”
I think you can very easily make the case that a 6h old is an actual human with feelings and thoughts and a comprehension of SELF.
I do not accept the notion that you can, without calling upon religion, make that same assertion about something which does not even exhibit its own brain waves. It may or may not qualify as a human by His standards. He has not seen fit to give us any way to PROVE it is a human. Let me know when that changes — when He offers us a scientific, not religious, means of testing for humanity.
}}} Those supporting abortions might ask themselves what Principle distinguishes between a 7-month fetus and a 7-month premature baby – making it legal to kill the first, but a crime to kill the second.
Aaaaaand, now we get the straw man argument.
While yes, there are liberal assholes who think anything up to birth is acceptable to abort, that is not in any regard covered by my own set of principles. We probably DO allow abortions during first trimester which fail my own positions, which is blatantly clear from even a casual reading of what I’ve said… and I would happily support revoking the power to abort anything which has an active brain independent of the mother’s. Prior to that, I believe it should be social opprobrium which discourages it, not LAW.
re: Lfl.org
“This domain is available for sale!”
ANNNK. try again. 😀