Even though in reality it couldn’t happen, the hypothetical seems to be that the government officials would somehow all agree NOT to keep trying to limit/ban abortion, not that the government would just stop protecting it and then the prolife side could just keep trying to push it further. If that was really the case then I think it would be a net benefit to the prochoice side.
Philosophically the government should fund abortion to whatever extent they do with other medical procedures, but in and of itself I don’t think it’s really that big of a deal in practice.
I’m revisiting this thread because I thought of a better way to explain my position.
“Getting the government out” of civil rights issues has a proven track record of miserable failure. The government must be able to guarantee and enforce rights, and that means getting the government (and sometimes even the national guard) involved to prevent people from taking those rights away.
I don’t want social conservatives to legally have the power to influence whether a woman is allowed to get an abortion. Unless the government guarantees this right, social conservatives are able to exert financial pressure on institutions that perform abortions. We saw it happen with contraception when conservatives lobbied to “get the government out of it,” when their obvious goal was to limit access to contraceptives.
What on Earth makes you think this would make the issue go away? The pro-life movement view abortion as literal murder. How does this idea placate them in anyway? Why would this “compromise” stop them from continuing to try to make abortion completely illegal through out the US?
That was my reasoning. Indeed, it seemed so obvious that I was surprised when my friend predicted that the pro-choice side would reject it, and that was what brought me here to seek a wider perspective.
As Blackberry notes, the hypothetical would bypass this problem. But, yes, I do agree with you in practice. In the real world, rights have to be fought for, won, and re-won, over and over again.
It’s the premise of the question. Like, “If Pearl Harbor hadn’t happened…” Saying, “But it did happen,” while totally valid, isn’t addressing the hypothetical. If the issue were to go away, how much of a sacrifice would either side make? How far short of our ideals would we retreat, if it would guarantee the rest of our position?
Well, both my friend and I agreed, from the outset, that the pro-life side would reject the idea, at the outset, without a moment’s hesitation. The premise was that abortion rights were assured, at least to the degree they are now, and probably more. No waiting periods, no additional medical tests, no burdensome regulations. The premise isn’t ideal for the pro-choice side, but for the pro-life side, it’s a blatant defeat, and I can’t imagine anyone on that side would entertain the notion for a millisecond.
I didn’t realize “And the pro-life side just gives up,” was part of your hypothetical. Of course, if the utter abandonment of their values is a necessary part of you hypothetical, I’m not sure why we’re bothering with this “no government involvement” stuff in the first place. If the capitulation of the pro-life movement is a necessary component of the hypothetical, then your proposal becomes moot, because we’ve already won the debate on our own terms, and we don’t have to worry about falling short of our ideals at all.
Well for the purposes of the thought experiment, I would say “It depends”. Roughly speaking, I would trade zeroing out governmental funding of all abortions for an end to the debate and permanent legalization of abortions through the third trimester. I’m not sure why anti choicers would credibly agree to that, but hey it’s a thought experiment.
I figure that private donations could pick up the slack and that furthermore we could establish more abortion clinics in places where they aren’t now. After all, we’re waving our magic wand and making anti-abortion protests go away.
I don’t see this thought experiment as especially interesting or relevant.
But does the Federal government or any state or local government actually fund abortions, e.g. through welfare benefits like Medicaid? I don’t see many moms with kids moaning about how they didn’t want to be a parent but they couldn’t afford an abortion and thus had to take the kid to term.
Well, seriously: would it be a good idea? Should we do it? Let’s say that we can keep nuclear reactors for power, and let’s say that we aren’t ending all radioactive processes (which would cause the earth’s core to cool off suddenly, leading to catastrophes later…) Hey, here’s a startling idea: let’s take the hypothetical at face value.
Should we? Would it lead to a new round of big conventional wars? It might… Is the insanity of MAD better than the insanity of one blitzkrieg after another?
I don’t know…but I lean slightly in favor of trying out this new idea. I don’t leap at it as the greatest thing ever, but I also don’t reject it.
Not exactly; they just lose. They no longer have any way to use the government to obstruct the right to abortion. The debate is over. I cited fifty-four forty or fight. It’s over, dude.
I’m almost certain that (if you will pardon me for using the term I’m more comfortable with) the pro-life side would never agree to it. But would the pro-choice side? You seem to be saying you’d favor the deal, but maybe not enthusiastically; you say “It depends,” but add, “I would trade…”
This is how I had thought all pro-choice advocates would feel, but I seem to have been wrong!
(Oops; I do not want to presume that you are on the pro-choice side; I’m trying to keep the main debate out of this thread.)
It has helped me, because it has let me work through a false assumption on my part. Thought experiments, by grievous simplification, sometimes shine light. It’s like converting a picture from color to black-and-white. It ceases to be a “true picture,” but sometimes, you can see certain things more clearly. Obviously, such an approach must be used judiciously; I’ve never denied the question involved a “magic wand.”
As I understand it, right now, by the Hyde Amendment and other laws, the Federal government funds almost no abortions. The exceptions are the very extreme emergency situations – horrible medical complications – where an abortion is an inescapable part of a life-saving procedure. Even most people in the heart of the pro-life camp agree that this is necessary: if the unborn can’t be saved in any case, but the mother can be saved, then she should be.
In my hypothetical, would this change? I guess so… Technically, the question involved total non-involvement either way. I don’t know about the “emergency room” approach. I’m guessing that no one would be forcibly turned away from an emergency room, but I can’t say for sure. This is a detail of the premise I haven’t thought about. Let’s say that the emergency medical care is provided, but is billed for afterward.
I think that’s because most of us simply assume that the other side would reject the idea, and the OP seems to understand why already, so no need to go there.
But sure, if you want to: “The pro-life side would be against the idea because they believe that abortion is murder, and the state should protect people against being murdered.”
Or we could go with the less charitable Der Trihs angle (which I don’t entirely disagree with): “The anti-choice side would be against the idea because they hate women and want to use legislation to force women to be chattel punished for daring to have sex. They won’t accept a proposal that doesn’t let them hurt women for having sex. If we don’t let them use legislation to do so, they’ll use outright violence, even more than they do now.”
Take your pick.
Or do you believe that they would accept the proposal? If so, why?
That was pretty much how I saw it…or, more properly, how I saw them seeing it…
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am that fool!”
By the way, I asked some friends about abolishing nuclear weapons, and they said it probably wouldn’t lead to a new round of major conventional wars (although, if it had happened in, say 1946, that it would have. The Berlin Blockade would probably have spun up out of control and into a general Soviet invasion of western Europe.) The feeling, among people I asked, was that you might see more border skirmishing, but not a major outbreak of big tank armies and big air fleets maneuvering for control of vast extents of territory.
So, I’ll change my stance to “mostly in favor” of abolishing nuclear weapons.
I agree that it probably wouldn’t happen much. One of the primary reasons for war is profit, and military conquest isn’t profitable these days. You’d still get the occasional attempt at conquest by some leaders who convince themselves that they’ll be the exception; like Bush & company being convinced that the Iraq conquest would pay for itself.
It seems that, while the pro-life side would reject it as against their core principals, the pro-choice side rejects it because they think it isn’t good enough and that they can get better.
Thing is, while this is correct on same-sex marriage, I’m not not convinced it is accurate on allowing women to have the choice to abort. The former has had pretty much all of its arguments against destroyed other than some religious ideal. But the pro-life position still has its claim of murder. I’ve pointed out to several people that abortion is not forbidden in the Bible, and they don’t care. Yet the Bible is almost invariably cited when I ask about same sex marriage.
As for me personally: I am neither pro-choice nor pro-life–I only believe in choice before viability. I personally think that only some sort of compromise will work, but I see no sign that this version will ever be accepted. Assuming it were accepted, I think I’d still be rather dissatisfied, but only because I do think killing viable fetuses is murder. The pro-choice portion of my position is completely satisfied.
Kinda sorta…but more accurately, I think we should demand/hold out for/work towards not “better” but “equal” for everyone. The sticking point for me here is that we’re still not going to allow poor/disabled women (those on government health care plans) to make their own choices in healthcare. It’s not enough for me to have Choice for me and my daughter…I believe we need Choice for every woman. And a woman poor enough to be on Medicaid is no less a woman than a woman rich enough to buy insurance which will pay for her abortion.
I’m not willing to sacrifice poor women on the altar of *increased *access, no. I’m not going to stop bitching and moaning (and voting) until there’s universal access.
And, like I said, there’s no *medical *reason to deny federal/state funds for abortion. Abortion is not unsafe, as medical procedures go. It’s not untested. It works. It’s not expensive, as medical procedures go. Every rubric Medicare uses to decide whether or not to cover a procedure - is it safe, does it work, is it prohibitively expensive compared to other procedures - abortion passes all of those. If it was a cancer treatment, it’d be approved and covered. The only reason it’s not has nothing at all to do with medicine, so this hypothetical is still giving ground to anti-abortionists.