I don’t know! But, if not, and if this is lost in the privatization of marriage, is it enough of a loss to offset the gain of a guarantee of the right of same sex marriage? You raise a good question, very much in the spirit of the kind of question I’m trying to ask. If the government got out of the marriage business entirely, so that same sex marriage became legal, safe, free, and a matter of choice…would that be worth the cost in terms of the loss of various legislated benefits? If no two people could file income tax jointly – or if any two people could file income tax jointly – would the gain in equality that this entails be worth more than the monetary costs, one way or the other? Who might favor it? Who might oppose it?
That’s my real question: if government promised never to interfere with abortion rights, but at the cost of also not assisting abortion rights in any way…would that be emphatically rejected – to the degree of being totally unacceptable – by the pro-choice side?
To me, it would seem to be such a step forward as to be worth the small sacrifice. My friend seemed to think that it would be instantly rejected by any pro-choicer. I think my friend is wrong…but that’s why I asked.
I really beg all y’all not to play “The Genie Twists the Wish” games. That won’t help me understand.
Are you saying it would be completely unregulated by the government to the point where the abortion provider wouldn’t even have to be licensed like all other types of doctors are?
No… Only that it wouldn’t be restrictively regulated in a way to ban it de facto. Nor would it be regulated so lightly as to favor it over other medical procedures. Some regulation would obviously be necessary, but extreme waiting periods, mandatory ultrasound scans, etc. would violate the premise of my question.
'Zactly. And I do realize that it’s a question that cannot be fully defined. In part, that’s why I’m asking for opinions.
It just struck me, when my friend held forth his opinion, that I, at least, would be incredibly happy to accept the proposition, because, as I see it, the gains far more than offset the costs.
I guess another meta-reason to reject it is that it implies a kind of “foundational law” that can’t be amended, and we should all be wary of accepting any kind of deal, no matter how good, that we can’t get out of, ever. But, again, this isn’t really the kind of reasoning I wanted…
Okay, but you said the government also doesn’t do anything to make getting an abortion easier. Enforcing safety standards and that kind of thing definitely makes it easier.
Um… I don’t think I agree… Regulations can be “access-neutral.” In this case, regulations would make abortion safer, which might, I suppose, be taken by some to imply that they would be more common… Then again, regulations could increase the cost, which would make them a little less common…
In any case, for the purposes of my premise, assume a kind of “benign neutrality.”
(My friend is a libertarian…but I’m not sure if that is involved in his premise or not.)
I’d have no objection - if you were solely discussing their atheism and not trying to discredit atheism by linking it to irrelevant personal obnoxiousness or something. Heck, those two can’t possibly be more atheistic than me… at most we’re all tied at zero belief.
As a side note, I was not aware anyone considered de Sade an atheist, or at least not unusually so.
In all honesty, I’m not sure of it myself - if it is possible for two people (presumably on equal legal standing) to enter into a contract where communications between them are confidential and a court of law cannot compel testimony. I know it is possible to enter into a contract for services with an attorney, but it’s not the wording of the contract that will matter, but the recognized (and asymmetrical) attorney/client relationship. I gather it is also possible to form a contract for services with a doctor and, I would guess, a religious adviser, but again - the contract itself is not what establishes the privilege.
In any case, marital privilege is indeed a big deal, not something to be casually shrugged off with a slapdash “get government out of the marriage business” proposal. And the privilege is just what came to mind first when I thought about where a contract-law effort at replicating legal marriage would hit a major hurdle.
I figure all that is accomplished by the “privatization of marriage” is that marriage ceases to exist in any meaningful way. Sure, two people could get the clergyperson of their choice to preside over an extensive and elaborate ritual, but it’s legally meaningless - as empty as two teenagers who write “we’re married now” on a three-by-five index card which gets immediately torn up and discarded. Is the first marriage real, and the second one not? How would you prove it?
What you’re proposing is not a necessary or even desirable step to get same-sex marriage - rather it just makes marriage moot, destroying it out of spite rather than allowing it to be expanded. Even if you or anyone sincerely believes that the end result is a guarantee of the right of same sex marriage, it will be a right that has become completely useless.
I don’t even know how to argue this - it’s like developing a strategy to ensure everyone has the right of free speech, but the process of doing so renders everyone mute.
I wouldn’t reject it out of hand, myself. I’d need details on what this “non-assistance” entails. Medicaid won’t cover it? A pregnant woman in the military can’t get a military doctor to perform it? People who block access to (or vandalize) abortion clinics won’t be prosecuted? How extensive a hands-off did you have in mind?
In the mildest form - let’s say Medicaid and all other government funded health care won’t pay for the procedure, and no government-employed medical personnel (including all military personnel) can perform the procedure while on duty - I’d guess that might be acceptable for the trade-off of there no regulations or prohibitions from any level of government specific to abortion (I would assume - indeed, hope - that the generic medical regulations about sanitation and training and malpractice that would apply to medical professionals in any setting would continue to apply here, i.e. an incompetent doctor doesn’t get a pass because he clumsily killed a woman during an abortion, just as if he was performing any other medical procedure).
If someone sets up a charity to fund abortions for poor women who want them, can this charity be legally formed and registered with the the U.S. government under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3), or other sections as may apply?
The example of Canada shows that this is not a necessary trade-off, for abortion rights or gay marriage. We have no abortion laws (and we didn’t need government to become officially indifferent to abortion) and we have gay marriage (and we didn’t need to “privatize” marriage in the process).
Well, I guess I’d probably reject it (pending details of exactly how it would work) because it strikes me as overkill, like resolving the designated-hitter controversy by banning baseball. Sure, it would resolve the controversy, but at a preposterous price. Privatizing marriage is absurd. A governmental hands-off policy about abortion might be workable. Neither suggestion strikes me as the best way, or even a particularly good way, and (for marriage definitely, and abortion probably) not a small way to handle the respective issues.
I’m not trying to trap you or come up with some off-the-wall objection - marital privileged communication (as well as all other marital rights and benefits) is not something that should be or even need be thrown away just to extend it to homosexuals. The proposed stance on abortion is (probably) less extreme, but that doesn’t make it necessary or useful.
Only about objections to any sort of (remotely-related) government support or backing of abortion, not something what some people might do tangentally related to it.
Well, yeah, it can cut both ways. But it seems like you’re mostly just trying to take away the regulations that make it harder like waiting periods, and leave the generally helpful ones like safety standards. In that case, sure prochoice people would approve. Your Libertarian friend probably wants the government completely out of it though, which would be a dangerous mess that most prochoice people would oppose just like most people would oppose disbanding the FDA.
No; that would contradict the premise. I said, earlier, that this would not allow people to shoot doctors without penalty, and the same would apply to illegal blockade of access. The benign neglect would make abortion no easier, and no harder. Allowing blockades to close clinics would make abortion much harder.
This is pretty much the way I see the hypothetical question. Again, people here have been looking for the loopholes in the question – and I agree, they are easy to find – but you’re the first, so far – and thank you! – to address the question in the way I wanted to ask it, by massaging the premise to make it fit the spirit of the question.
Alas, as I see the premise of the question, no, it wouldn’t be given non-profit-status protection, any more than a charity to buy me a new car because I need one. This would count against accepting the premise…although, are such charities eligible for non-profit-status now? If pro-life legislators have already blocked this, then it isn’t an obstacle to acceptance, is it?
Agreed; but that isn’t relevant to the hypothetical. I certainly would prefer to “win it all.” I look forward to the eventual repeal of the Hyde Amendment, etc. (But, of course, “They” look forward to the repeat of the Affordable Health Care Act."
The hypothetical is in the realm of “Let’s just stop fighting about it, okay?” Obviously, it won’t happen. But if someone made the offer, would it even be a little attractive? I thought so.
The responses, so far, in this thread, aren’t helping me. Everybody’s poking holes in the premise – and, yes, of course, it’s a fantasy premise, so obviously it can’t withstand critical scrutiny. Still, arguing about how the Genie can twist the phrasing of the wish isn’t relevant to the question, “If a Genie offered you two million dollars for two years of your life, would you take it?”
You could hire a hundred lawyers to translate that wish into a thousand pages of titanium-clad legalese, and it still would be subject to a clever or ironic twist. But that doesn’t really answer the question.
I respect this answer. I’m concerned that it is kind of a meta-answer, but it is an answer. It rather rejects the compromise on the basis of its shaky antecedents: we don’t know how it was negotiated, or who negotiated it, or how the parties were selected – elections? Self-appointed nabobs? What, who, and how? It’s a little like saying that you would reject the Genie’s offer because you don’t know who created the Genie. In some ways, that could be very important! (Damned important, under some theological models!)
So far, you’re the only one who has even come close to playing the game I wanted to play, and to answering the question I wanted to ask. Everybody else has been telling me how the question is to be re-phrased.
I’ve learned something important here… Dopers love to drill way down into the minutiae!
(Hm… Ending the designated hitter rule by banning baseball… Hm… [Jack Benny voice]: I’m thinking, I’m thinking!)
Well, again, my intent was that the result by access-neutral. You say that I’m trying to take away regulations that make it harder, but leaving the regulations that make it easier. This is absolutely contrary to my intent, which was to create a “what if” scenario in which it isn’t made easier or harder, especially by government regulation.
Possibly one problem in all of this is that “Reality has a liberal bias.” Perhaps the very concept of the question involves unvoiced assumptions that lean one way or the other.
Maybe no one can answer the question.
Still, everyone except Bryan Ekers has been altering the question, and then saying that they can’t answer it because of the alterations. I am not convinced that this is the right way to do philosophy; perhaps long experience here on these discussion boards has led people to be worried that I, myself, have been laying a great big “AHA!” trap for them.
(Someone says, “Yeah, I think that’d be great,” and I instantly spring the trap. “You fool! You overlooked the issue of restrictive regulations! Ha ha! I’ve just proven that you’re actually pro-life when you thought you were pro-choice! Sayonara, sucker!”)
Is it helpful if I promise that I do not play those kinds of games, and hate it when others do?
I don’t understand the “Alas, no”. Aren’t there currently charitable organizations that provide the poor with useful goods like clothes and houses (i.e. Habitat for Humanity) and, I can imagine though I don’t know offhand of an example, cars? Perhaps 501(c)(3) doesn’t apply (I’ve no idea how Habitat for Humanity is legally structured in the U.S.) but numerous nonprofit organizations exist to provide goods and services to the poor. Are you proposing an abortion-specific exception to this?
If so, I guess a non-profit organization (if it can still be called that) could nevertheless carry on, even without the legal advantages of registering under Section 501(c), which I guess means they’d have to pay taxes on their donation income, or something. Can such an organization advertise its existence on television and radio or does that mean the FCC is somehow offering tacit support? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if pro-lifers (and politicians seeking the votes of pro-lifers) pursued such arguments.
Heck, I can picture someone saying “the government does not support abortion, therefore it cannot license people to perform abortions, therefore a medical licence does not legally entitle someone to perform abortions. After all, if someone gets a medical license, it doesn’t mean he also gets a license to fly planes, does it?”
I’m not trying to find loopholes, I just really didn’t understand what it was supposed to entail. If the main changes would just be no government-funded abortions in exchange for no laws requiring waiting periods and parental permission and things like that, then yes, I think a lot of prochoice people would consider that a good tradeoff. The government doesn’t usually fund abortions anyway, so why not.
That’s why I said alas: in terms of the hypothetical question, yes, there would have to be an abortion-specific exception. Otherwise, a government action – tax subsidies – would be granted to abortion facilitators, making it easier to get one.
I say alas, because I think such charities should exist, and should get non-profit tax-exempt status, and that this is one of the costs that makes the offer in my OP more difficult to accept.
But I also don’t know if existing laws have already been enacted by pro-life legislators to exclude abortion facilitators from tax exempt status. If they already are, then it isn’t as big an obstacle to acceptance of the original hypothetical offer.
(It’s always easier to “give up” something that has already been taken away from you!)
Please! “Access neutral.” If the FCC banned such advertisements, it would be a huge obstacle to access, and thus contradict the hypothesis.
I suppose they would…but this contradicts the hypothesis. In the hypothesis, none of this happens any more.
I don’t know whether to cry, throw up, or get drunk. This would contradict the hypothesis.
I agree the hypothesis isn’t realistic. It’s clearly a fantasy with loopholes. My only question is, why would pro-choice activists reject it? My friend said that they would shoot it down without a moment’s thought, and I don’t see why.
You-all keep changing it, but, so far, you’re the only one who has actually answered it without changing it.
That’s what I was asking! Yes! Thank you; I apologize for making it a difficult question, when my intent was really an examination of a fairly simple one. You’re the second person who has answered it in that spirit.
My reasoning was pretty much the same as yours; legislation has already taken away almost any government function facilitating abortion, and so, if they stopped making it more difficult with restrictive regulations – waiting periods, additional required medical tests, etc. – it would seem to be a net gain for the pro-choice side.
I asked, because I was hoping someone would say no in such a way as to give me insight into my friend’s objection. I really don’t see any clear “down side,” except at the meta-level, and, of course, that I still have hope of winning the issue outright, without any major sacrifice! (But that’s also irrelevant!)
Well, on that note, I guess I’m done. There’s not really much future in debating the finer points of a vague magic-dependent fantasy, nor does rejecting it outright or rejecting it after thoughtful consideration say anything in particular about the person rejecting it, except maybe that the latter shows one has too much time on his hands.
Well, I’m partly rejecting it because I don’t understand it as a proposal.
But I’m mostly rejecting it because, as a pro-choice person, I believe that abortion should be between a woman and her doctor or midwife. If a federal or state program provides funds for treating cancer or providing a knee replacement, then I think it should provide funds for an abortion. It’s a medical procedure without a whole lot in the way of risks and it’s very effective at treating the medical condition its meant to treat. The only reasons not to cover it at clinics receiving federal money that provide OB/GYN services or for women on state run health care plans (like Medicaid) are anti-choice reasons. So if you say that the government won’t pay for an abortion for a women whose medical care they otherwise pay for (if I’m reading your proposal correctly), then no, I won’t support that. That’s the anti-choice people “winning.” That’s them taking the choice of medical care away from a woman and her doctor.
Well, FWIW, you did a better job of working with the premise than anyone else (ETA: up until WhyNot) so, thank you!
This definitely does seem to be my fault; I apologize.
Cool! That’s exactly what I was hoping for (and wishing against!) i.e., you validate my friend’s view, and, while I wasn’t expecting it, I’m glad of it. I can go back to my friend and say to him, “You seem to be right,” and that was why I opened the thread to find out!
I didn’t see it that way, but I do not disagree with it either. To me, this is a kind of ideal, best-of-all-possible-worlds, daydream, “Come the Jubilee” sort of scenario. I very much wish it were the case, but the ugliness of realpolitik seems to make it unobtainable.
However, my very willingness to compromise may be part of why it is unobtainable, and perhaps I should be working harder for the ideal.
Anyway…you understood my question, and answered it, and I am very thankful to you for this.
I don’t see how this could be seen as anything other than a massive blow to the pro-choice movement. Right now, abortion rights are federally protected. You want to take that protection away, and replace it with some sort of government neutrality. Except the abortion debate doesn’t go away - so long as there are any legal abortions being performed in the country, the pro-life movement is going to keep fighting to have it outlawed. So, you’ve just shifted the needle from “protected” to “neutral,” which is one step closer to “outlawed.” Meanwhile, you still can’t get an abortion in Alabama, because the number of doctors who are willing to put up with the harassment and physical danger of being an abortion doctor in a deeply red state hasn’t changed.
What would be the point of this, exactly, from a pro-choice point of view?
Context: I was talking about WhyNot’s ideal that government pay for abortions. That is the “ideal” that I would admire to live under.
I’ll score two more votes against my viewpoint, and in favor of my friend’s viewpoint; he’s looking more and more correct by the moment.
The advantage I saw was that the issue itself would be supposed to simply go away; that the compromise ended the matter. The debate, as a debate, fades into the past, along with 54-40 or fight, or the Missouri compromise. I think it would be (and maybe some day will be) wonderful when that happens. It’s a “Why can’t we all just get along” idea. If it could happen, it would be nice, and I’d give up a little – but not a lot – to make it happen. But I’m seeing that my thought appears to be in the minority…and this is why I asked.