He can translate it to “future Hitler” for all I care; it won’t help his arguments any. Arguably if he mentally translates it to something loaded it would make his arguments worse, because it might fool him into thinking that some premises are accepted when they aren’t.
He says this won’t be an issue though, and I’m willing to deal with things as they come.
I have no problem with the term “anti-abortion movement”. But when their chief legislative goal, as they themselves frequently claim, is the overturning of Roe v. Wade recognizing a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, then they are also, demonstrably and factually, anti-abortion-rights. So it’s ridiculous to claim that the accurate and descriptive term “anti-abortion-rights movement” isn’t sufficiently “civil” or “neutral”.
You could, and anti-abortion-rights activists frequently do. But it’s much less accurate and descriptive than the term “pro-abortion-rights”.
Because what abortion-rights supporters advocate is a woman’s right to choose an abortion, not her actual having of an abortion. If every pregnant woman in the world had guaranteed safe and easy access to abortion and every pregnant woman in the world freely and voluntarily chose not to get an abortion, abortion-rights advocates would not mind that one bit.
Why? Pro-choice people are aware, as has been mentioned in this thread, that most instances of abortion are for women who didn’t want to be pregnant to begin with. If pro-choice people could assure that any woman or girl of childbearing age had free and easy access to the means of birth control that was best for them, they’d make it happen in a heartbeat.
And this would drastically reduce the number of abortions performed.
Doesn’t sound very pro-abortion to me, does it to you?
No, the pro-choice movement isn’t pro-abortion. It’s pro-women having control over their own bodies.
Such a world would theoretically be win-win: every woman who needed or wanted an abortion could get one, but due to no-cost access to birth control with no unnecessary barriers, there’d be way fewer unwanted pregnancies, so the abortion rate would drop like a rock.
That implicit deal, of course, has been available to the antiabortion movement for decades. Like Clinton said in 1992, safe, legal, and rare. So tens of millions more abortions have taken place than would otherwise have happened, because they didn’t want that sort of deal. The ‘holocaust’ as they call it is largely on them.
You know what I think is the biggest reason they couldn’t handle such a deal? Because it would have meant that their darling daughters were getting birth control, which meant that their darling little daughters might be fucking some pimply teenage boys. That thought broke their little minds, and was a bigger deal to them than millions of abortions.
That seems fair to me.
Wait…we’re NOT?
Damn. Miss one meeting…I’ll go put the banner away and my clothes back on
I’ll cheerfully concede that I misread your intent.
I’m reminded of an anti-abortion ad that ran… must be 30 or more years ago. I recall that it was narrated by Peter Thomas, who also narrated a few Nova episodes.
Possibly the reason I remember it (and possibly the reason it didn’t run for very long) is because of the ambiguity of its message - I honestly wasn’t sure what side of the issue the ad was on until the tagline (“Life. What a beautiful choice.”). The gist of the ad was a woman expressing pain and regret about her abortion and the child-that-could’ve-been, but it was presented in such a way that (to me, at least) encouraged sympathy for her and the difficult choice she had to make. It seemed to me that the ad could have been a response to all the pro-lifers who dismiss or ignore the feelings of the woman, at most calling her decision to abort one of “convenience” or some other sneeringly-implied-trivial reason. I thought she was saying “It was a hard decision for me - back the fuck off and keep your sanctimony to yourself.”
I just searched Youtube on the tagline and while I can find several such ads from 1980-1992, that specific one remains elusive.
It’s tendentious to frame it in terms of “rights”. We don’t say NAMBLA is “pro-sex rights”, do we?
You seem to think that only right wing Republicans want to restrict abortion. But Gallup has repeatedly polled this question, and it’s consistently <30 percent of Americans who believe second trimester abortion should be legal. SECOND trimester, not third. That clearly includes a lot of people who vote Democratic, and I’d be willing to bet a disproportionate number of those are Latinos.
Associating abortion rights with NAMBLA? That’s pretty slick. :rolleyes:
Apparently you don’t understand how analogies and reductio ad absurdem arguments work. Something I encounter all the time, but would hope to see less of here.
Well, if we’re doing the analogy thing again (it seems to get disparaged when convenient), I suggest the following scenarios:
Picture a truly pro-life government, where no-one may take an action that could end or seriously endanger a human life, since human life is considered above all other concerns. Someone breaks into your home. Under other conditions, you might have a gun, but not here. It’s been decided that access to and application of deadly force is a right you simply don’t have. Sorry about your situation, but the decision has been made on your behalf.
Picture a truly pro-child government, where a parent has not only financial and custodial responsiblity, but is also required to take all available measures to preserve their child’s health since the well-being of children is considered above all other concerns. If your child needs blood, you must supply it. Bone marrow, same. A kidney. A heart. Refusal is a right you simply don’t have. Sorry about your situation, but the decision has been made on your behalf.
I daresay in either of those, someone accustomed to the liberties endowed by western civilization could easily be inclined to say “No, fuck you” to the government agent seeking to enforce the rule, or the eager citizen who wants to put the rule in place, regardless of how sincere his intent.
A few things that I keep seeing that I see as counterproductive to an honest and open debate is the implication and even claims that the “pro-life” side is the only side that is opposed to abortion. Many pro-choicers, myself included, are also against abortion. I find abortion to be a very sad thing, and would like to see it limited as much as possible. That embryo/ fetus/ thingy/ potential inventor of fusion and curer of cancer is a unique creation. That particular combination of genetic material never existed before in the universe, and will almost certainly never exist again. It does in fact make me sad to know that that unique potential will never get a chance to develop and show the universe what it can do.
Life doesn’t begin at conception, life began a few billion years ago when some complex groups of chemicals started reducing their internal entropy and replicating at the expense of the environment, conception is just the continuation of life, not the start of it. The same as when the Olympic torch is lit at the host game’s location, that is not when that fire started, even if the event itself is highly celebrated.
If someone asked my opinion on whether or not they should get an abortion, I would advise against it, but that is only if I am asked, and it would have the same level of enforcement as my preference for french vanilla over strawberry ice cream.
If I were to participate conceiving a child, I would certainly want to keep it. I would much more strongly advocate for keeping it if it were my child, and would offer my opinion, even if unasked. I would offer to raise the child myself, even if she wanted no involvement. I would do everything to make her pregnancy as comfortable and convenient as is in my power to do. However, it would still only be my opinion, and while I will concede that it would likely be the end of a relationship if she were to abort our child, I would not think to do anything to actually prevent her from doing so.
As far as the baby/fetus/thingy/potential tyrant of the seven continents(… how about”spawn”? That covers all times of life from conception to completion of a graduate degree), and it’s feelings on the matter, I don’t care much about that. I, as a grown and fully aware creature, fear and avoid death because I have plans. I have plans for tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and my death would interrupt those plans. I also fear and wish to avoid the death of my friends and family, as I also have plans with them tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year, and their deaths would interrupt those plans as well.
A pre-born spawn has no plans. It has no concept of death. Even if it is developed enough that it can feel pain, it cannot understand what pain means, that pain indicates problems that can result in injury or death, it is just another stimulus to a developing brain. If there is any awareness, it is aware of dark damp warm place with rushing sounds, a heartbeat, and maybe some exterior noise. If that awareness is suddenly snuffed out, it didn’t suffer, it didn’t fear the stroke of the knife, it just was for a bit, then it wasn’t, going back to the same place it was before it was aware.
If it is my child, then I have plans for it, and do not want it to be terminated, but if it is not my child, I have no plans for it, and hearing of its termination causes me the same amount of grief as hearing about the passing an acquaintance’s distant relative. A bit sad in the abstract, but not really something that’s gonna keep me up at night. So, in order for me to be upset about the abortion of someone else’s spawn, I have to have a reason that I have plans for that life. Do the pro-lifers actually have plans for other people’s children? If so, that actually disturbs me more than the floated ideas that it is against women’s rights in general.
Anyone who invokes a religious reason against abortion has automatically conceded the argument in any country that is not a theocracy. There are theocracies in this world, and they generally are not really all that great for their citizens, male and female alike, so I personally reject the imposition of theocratic based legislation, no matter which religion it is inspired by.
As far as policies to prevent abortion goes, I believe comprehensive sex education, along with access to free and freely available birth control methods, will prevent many of the unwanted pregnancies that lead to abortions, as well as a robust safety net, comprehensive healthcare, prenatal care and childcare will give potential mothers more options that may convince them to let their pregnancy come to term. If we can reduce the number abortions that are sought, then we will reduce the number of abortions performed, while also increasing the quality of life for the family and child, rather than ineffectively trying to force our prefered morality onto others with legislation.
To the particular Georgia bill, some of the stuff is maybe a bit of fear mongering, but not really. The georgia bill declares a fetus to be a person. It does not require any other special legislation to make injuring, killing, or risking injury or death to a person illegal, it already is. If someone conspired to commit murder, murder does not have to be committed in order for them to be prosecuted. So it does stand to reason that if someone conspires to commit abortion, then an illegal abortion need not be committed in order to face prosecution. Same with accidents and negligence. We recently had a guy go away for a few years because he was negligent and ran into and killed a garbage truck worker with his car. He had no intent to do so, he would have not killed the guy had he had a choice, but the circumstances still did involve him being responsible for the guy’s death, so he went to jail. If someone is responsible for terminating a pregnancy through their negligence, they could be held to the same account, even if it is the mother. If a woman gets in a car accident and loses her baby, then on top of the trauma and heartache that she would be going through, she would also potentially face legal consequences. Can you guarantee me that that won’t happen? I know that it has been stated by those in favor of the bill that those are extremes that would never come to pass, but it seems this bill paves the way, quite intentionally, for exactly that. Can anyone point what would prevent a prosecutor from charging a mother for losing her pregnancy unexpectedly?
As long as we seem to be sidetracked by the semantics of terminology, might as well go ahead and throw in my 2 cents there, too.
“Pro-life” to me, is someone who values life, not just someone who wants to restrict abortions. If you are against women having abortions, but are also for the death penalty, or advocate for unnecessary wars, or are against healthcare or other life sustaining assistance, then “pro-life” is not an accurate description. At most, it would be “pro life in regards to abortion rights”, but the shortening to “pro-life” is not an accurate description of most of those who choose that label. As an example, back in the day when I was in boy scouts, I was in the “Beaver Patrol”, and yet, I had not even ever seen a beaver. A self chosen label, not a descitroin, is “pro-life”.
That said, you can cal yourself “pro-life”, and in a discussion, I am more than willing to use the terms that people have chosen to label themselves. However, as long as you remember that that label is a name that you have chosen, not a description of your position. So if you proclaim yourself to be “pro-life” and feel as though that gives some sort of morally superior position, because being pro-life means that your opponents are “anti-life” then you have conceded that you have no intent to discuss in good faith.
And if you want to come back and say that “pro-choice” is not an accurate description of a “pro-choicer’s” position, because that pro-choicer doesn’t, for instance, think that having a mere 700 guns to choose from is good enough, then I will be very happy to append the same suffix of “in regards to abortion rights” as the pro-life side must append in order to maintain an honest discussion.
As pure descriptions,m the “pro-abortion rights” and “anti-abortion rights” is probably the most meaningful and honest discretion of the positions.
Just as someone calling gun control advocates “gun grabbers” has conceded that they have no interest in a produce conversation, I can agree that calling those that label themselves as pro-lifers by “anti-woman” or “anti-choice” also tends to bring down the level of discourse to that of name calling, rather than actual exchange of ideas.
Considering that the rhetoric from the pro-life side is much more likely to call a pro-choicer a “baby killer”, certainly a label with some pretty serious negative connotations to it, than a pro-choicer is going to level nearly as disgusting a label, it is best that the discourse stay civil. Do the pro-lifers here unnecessarily condemn the practice of labeling your opponents in this discussion as “baby killers?” If you hear someone at a pro-life rally cry out that abortion is murder, do you correct them? Much as I disagree with the pro-life side, even if I wanted to, I could not come up with as hateful rhetoric as is spewed out with glee by those who think that labeling themselves a s pro life actually means that they are pro-life.
Not to disagree with your post, and not even really to disagree with that bit, which is true enough, but I do want to throw this in:
At any given moment, no matter what we do about abortion or about anything else, the possibility of growth for an extremely large number of potential humans is vanishing into nothingness, because humans produce far more gametes than we could ever get fertilized, let alone bring to term.
I drove a friend to an abortion clinic, years ago. That particular friend has since then had three greatly desired children, all of whom are grown and two of whom have so far produced children of their own. All of them are excellent people, with lots of potential. If my friend had not had that abortion, the chances that any of them would have ever existed are pretty much zilch. She might have later on had other children; but, even if so, they would almost certainly not have been the children she did have.
If either of my parents’ lives had followed a different course in any of a lot of likely ways, I wouldn’t be here, because they wouldn’t have met, or wouldn’t have married, or even wouldn’t have had sex at that particular time. And I wouldn’t be here, typing this post. Nor would I care – there wouldn’t be anything of me to care. They might well have had other children, probably with other people; as it turned out, those possible children don’t exist and never will.
For that matter, the continuation of a pregnancy precludes by its very existence the initiation of a pregnancy involving some different egg from that mother in that womb for at minimum a number of months, and possibly much longer or forever.
Not every potential genetic combination can be born. It just plain isn’t physically possible.
– I’ve never been entirely clear why people who are opposed to birth control as well as abortion (and yes I do recognize that some people oppose abortion but favor easy availability of birth control, though I don’t think much of the current USA political movement does) are so often strongly in favor of abstention from sex. If the idea is that whether pregnancy occurs or not should be left up to God, isn’t it an even more effective way of frustrating God’s intentions to not have sex than it is to have sex but use birth control and/or abortion? Shouldn’t people who don’t want to get into God’s way on the subject be encouraging everyone to have as much sex as possible, starting as soon as their bodies are old enough to have a reasonable chance of producing/sustaining a pregnancy, and with additional people if they don’t catch quickly with their first choices?
K9b, that was a very thoughtful and interesting post. I don’t agree with you on every particular, but I found it to be an extremely valuable contribution to the discussion.
:raising hand: I believe we are much more numerous than you think, although very few of us are vocal about our beliefs. (Assuming “oppose abortion” can include “not happy about any abortion, but willing to enshrine the absolute right to first trimester abortion into the Constitution but also to ban virtually all abortions after that”.)
I think that would be an excellent principle if it were to include abortions after the first semester deemed medically advisable for either the mother or fetus.
That “View First Unread” deal is pretty glitchy: I missed this before. :smack: I agree, this is an absolutely fair critique of the religious right. Just one more reason I find it galling when the most militant pro-choicers lump me in with them.
But it also must be noted that Democrats are increasingly running away from “safe, legal, and rare”, as was discussed on the NPR Politics podcast this week.
My belief is that if “medically advisable” is too loosely defined, we’re right back to “between a woman and her doctor”. Just as there are doctors who will write a medical marijuana script for anyone who wants one, there will be feminist doctors who will find something medical for any comer. After all, pregnancy is stressful on any woman’s body. And then of course there is the vague category of “mental health” (putting that in scare quotes is not intended to present as dubiousness about real, legitimate psychological problems, just FTR).
As a Hispanic, and someone from a place that already does ban all abortions, I will have to say that leaving it to the woman and the doctors is a good thing.
Of course the intention is clear anyhow, what you are doing there is to prejudge what experts in their field would recommend. This is once again falling for the absolutists propaganda that assumes, in a big ball of an illogical fallacy, that all decisions from doctors about that issue should be suspect.
SlackerInc: Some medical exemption is essential, though. There are horrendous things that can go wrong in the second or third trimester. And it needs to include health as well as life, because not all of them outright kill the mother.
What would you suggest for definition or control?
– I expect that if both birth control and first-trimester abortion were readily available to everyone, along with proper education, there’d be a lot less demand for later abortions.
Definitely. I would ideally want it to be the kind of thing a serious bioethics panel or judge would determine, as is done in thorny medical ethics questions of other kinds. For example, when conjoined twins are sharing an organ and both will die unless one is sacrificed.
ETA: And yes: I want comprehensive sex ed in schools, jars of free condoms in the high school (maybe even middle school) bathroom, and a much more robust safety net to support young single mothers who choose to keep their child.
It’s going to have to be a panel that can, if necessary, be convened at three in the morning and make its decision in the length of time it takes to prep the patient for surgery.
Some of those things that can go wrong are emergencies.