Because restricting access to abortion arguably tends to produce increased infanticide:
As long as there are unwanted pregnancies, there will be women who want abortions. If abortion becomes unobtainable, it’s not surprising that many more unwillingly-pregnant women will become desperate enough to commit murder of living babies.
The idea that banning abortion would somehow magically produce a happy infanticide-free “culture of life”, where all unwillingly-pregnant women are automatically cheerfully reconciled to having children they don’t want and/or can’t care for, is a delusion.
Why is this even an argument? I’d love killin’ babies regardless of the state of abortion law. If baby-killin’ were an Olympic sport, I’d be a gold-medal baby-killer.
I think Uncommon Sense has raised a good question. Why is it so unthinkable that a woman kill her baby now when X time ago it would not have raised a ruckus?
I think it’s because when a baby is born, most people assume that the child is a wanted baby, a welcome baby. We’re conditioned to think of birth as a happy, wonderful time when you welcome a new family member. We’re conditioned to think that all mothers love their children unconditionally and would do anything for them. We’re shocked and horrified when we run across cases where that’s not so.
Regardless of the picture some would paint, reasonable people realize that a woman who is 8 months pregnant does not willy-nilly up and decide that she no longer wants the baby. If she did not want the baby, she’d have taken steps long ago, provided she was in the situation where she was capable of doing so. Some would tell you that nope, that’s not right, nearly all 8-month pregnant, normally functioning and happy women are a heartbeat away from aborting their babies and they do so with astonishing regularity, but that just ain’t so. Late term abortions are only performed under catastrophic circumstances for very valid medical reasons, and are presumably heart-wrenching for the women involved.
I really think you’d be very hard pressed to find people who support the right to have an abortion that are also enthusiastic or even accepting of infanticide. In no way can you really equate the two.
The entire “rationalisation process” you mentioned (and reiterated in this post) is a hypothetical. It’s what you think somebody might think. So we’re forced to read a lot into them.
‘Even though I’m wrong, my point stands?’ I don’t think so. The way you explained that situation, the fact that the mother could have aborted the kid a mere two weeks ago seemed significant.
And again, we’re not allowing more late-term abortions to be performed. So it does matter. I still think you haven’t backed up anything you’ve said here. You’ve repeated it, but not supported it.
If the mother received a light sentence because she had post-partum depression, it makes more sense to consider that as a mitigating factor instead of abortion. The fact that we now have laws that make killing a pregnant woman a double homicide (and they’re only a couple of years old) says to me that abortion is not making infanticide more acceptable, and then there are the historical issues discussed by other posters.
You are talking about situations where the LIFE of the mother was endangered. In contrast, the Doe v. Bolton decision pertains to situations where the mere health of the woman is compromised… and where “health” includes her emotional state.
In other words, the two situations are not even remotely comparable.
Your earlier statement referred to “**the ** Partial Birth Abortion law” (emphasis added). This implies a federal statute, rather that local laws. In addition, it only restricts a specific abortion procedure, not abortion in general.
Moreover, my point remains… The Roe v Wade ruling specifically says,
“For the stage subsequent to viability the State, in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.”
In other words, while there may be localized bans on late-term abortions, there is a legal loophole which allows them for the sake of the broadly-defined “health” of the mother. That is why the Senate Judiciary Committee declared that no *significant * barriers to late-term abortions exist.
Do you disagree? Then take it up with the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was their ruling, after all.
Don’t go involving the Senate Judiciary Committee in your opinion. It’s not their place to tell you what to think.
In order for me to agree or disagree, you’d have to actually clarify your stance one way or the other. Which you still haven’t done. I realize tapdancing is everyone’s favorite sport in this forum, but just think of the precedent you’d set by giving a straightforward “yes” or “no” to a question. Unless you happen to be running for office, I can’t begin to imagine why you’re refusing to do so.
While JT’s point may be interesting, it is of course, moot to the actual question. It is, in fact, of note, that if one assumes his interpretation is correct, then one is forced to conclude that even lacking any “significant legal barrier to late term abortions” very very few women exercise that option and very few healthcare providers practice that option except under the most extreme of circumstances. The widespread availability of early term abortions has not increased the rate of infanticide nor has it diminished the fact that most Americans still find later term abortions to be abhorrant except under the most extreme “Sophie’s choice” of circumstances. Our society is apparently wise for not making those tough choices on women’s behalfs since the only data available shows that infanticide rates are, if anything, greater in the absence of safe legal early term abortion options.
A child’s development, through pregnancy and beyond, is conceptualized as a continuum to most people, IMO. Just my opinion again, but it seems inarguable to me that the more acceptable it is to perform abortions at a particular point in a pregnancy, then the more “gray” it becomes for a point just beyond it, even if that point extends beyond the pregnancy. There are people (like Singer) who actually teach this, by the way–i.e., the moral justification for infanticide.
I think this at least partially explains the inability to get a PBA law to stick. And I believe strongly there are people who have killed their infants using this devaluing of the unborn as a moral justification. How could that not be a factor, not at all, not to any degree, not in any infanticide that has occurred? Is it widespread? That I can’t say.
And JThunder’s Senate Judiciary Committee cite seems absolutely unambiguous to me.
Have you read all the posts in this thread? Your opinion is absolutely not supported by available data. People have shown in this thread that infanticide is actually higher in societies that have highly restricted or no abortion available. The opposite of what you suppose.
I do not even follow this line of reasoning at all. Yes pregnancy is a continuum but one in which obtaining an abortion becomes more and more unacceptable as the pregnancy continues. There may be a “gray area” where we draw a line and say abortion after that point is unacceptable but it lies well before a woman in ordinary circumstances would give birth if nature was left to its usual course. As shown the data indicates that for the last 33 years later term abortions are not only rare but have barely fluctuated 0.5% up or down over that time. I do not see how any of this in any way comes remotely close to justifying infanticide.
Has there been at some point in history some deranged soul who justified killing their baby thinking that if abortion is ok then infanticide is ok? Probably. Sadly there are people in the world who do bad things and justify them in ways no sane person ever could. It does not make them in any fashion correct and they are far and away the exception and not the rule. There is no justification for infanticide in today’s society…using abortion being legal as one is just more flimsy than most other bad reasons someone could come up with.
Is it widespread? Nope…infanticide itself in the US is not widespread (stats on that were provided earlier) and for those who have done it I doubt they all would claim availability of abortions as an excuse.
That’s a rather disturbing statement. Are you able to prove it? I can’t say that it’s never happened, but I would definitely say that, based on clinical data, infanticide in the U.S. has very, very little to do with the availability of abortions. Please see kimstu’s cite, post #37.
I didn’t question the cite. I questioned whether or not it’s his belief that a woman is able to obtain a late term abortion based on flimsy medical complaints, as opposed to serious medical complications which endanger her life.
I think so. The cite I read–from an organization called the “Childbirth by Choice Trust”–makes that flat claim, but didn’t provide any statistical support for it, none I recall. It likewise mentioned it in the summary for two countries: India and Poland. It more typically cited that this led to underground abortions and travel to more lenient jurisdictions.
And the cite for Poland, it seems to me, is a particularly problematical one:
So, this was a society that had liberal abortion laws since 1956 that were overturned by a single vote. AT BEST, how to attribute the cited rise in infanticide is inconclusive, if such an increase actually occurred. But it is certainly plausible that someone indoctrinated in a mindset of easy access to abortion could have reacted to new restriction thusly because of that indoctrination. We shouldn’t confuse cause and effect or leap to conclusions.
Maybe we’re answering different questions. You seem to be looking for a significant statistical hiccup that would make this question moot. I am saying that if there are those who would find PBA acceptable–however many (and there’s several on this very board)–than some portion of them would likely find infanticide at least “gray,” at least a “lesser” crime. We have at least one poster on this board who feels that way, and I already mentioned Professor Singer from Princeton.
I think you’re creating a false conclsuion here. One needn’t be deranged to advocate the permissibility of infanticide. A Princeton professor takes that very position. Seems absolutely plausible that a desperate woman could under certain circumstances justify infanticide if, after all, two weeks before she could have simply aborted the same baby. Just my opinion, but it seems to me that the human condition makes this likely (which is not the same as widespread). And the woman needn’t be a lunatic to do so.
Frankly, if I believed in allowing PBAs, I think I would find the murder of a one-day old to be at least a lesser crime. Why not? And I’ll reiterate, there are people on this very board who believe in unfettered access to abortion right up to birth, all legal debate and constitutional niceties aside.
No. That’s why I offered it as opinion. I do assert though, that it would be silly to say that this type of rationalization has never occurred.
“Very, very little” is not the same as “not at all.” You may be searching for a certain statistical threshold that I am not. I believe there have been some cases of infanticide where the mother rationalized the act as described. I couldn’t say it’s widespread.
I guess I’m confused. If you don’t question the cite, it seems to me that you yourself either hold the belief you mentioned or you think the Committee was lying or wrong.
I worked with a woman who had prepared her Ph. D. thesis on infanticide commited by women in Victorian England. Life is too short to read anyone’s PH.D. thesis but I did discuss it with her. It was a gruesome tale because in many social groups there was little stigma associated with doing away with an unwanted child. “Baby Farmers” used to advertise their ability to disappear a child. There is a nice paper about the history here and it is always good to look back and see that no matter how terrible social ills appear now we have come an awful long way.
It’s a quoted excerpt without context, noted by Kimstu to be taken from various anti-abortion rights websites, with the full text of the report unavailable. And please note it apparently constitutes an opinion by a Senate committee whose makeup we do not know (were committee members anti-abortion rights, pro- or neutral, and were they motivated by a need to make it seem that there were insufficient curbs on abortion?).
And while their conclusions were amped up by JThunder in a subsequent post to the status of a “ruling”, it could have had no such status, then or now. It appears to simply have been an opinion in a report, made 23 years ago. Its relevance based on current medical practice, societal standards and law, is highly dubious.
You’ve mentioned Singer twice now, but it appears that you misunderstand his argument. The infamous infanticide justification must be viewed within its original context: in short, life is life, whether it be a rat, a rabbit, an ape or a human. Our culture exploits animals for food, research, fur, etc. Some of the animals we exploit are advanced creatures that have the ability to communicate, protect themselves and survive on their own. Because we (falsely, to Singer) place human life as more valuable than animal, we are willing to kill an animal that is more sophisticated than say, a fetus (abortion) or even a newborn (infanticide). To his mind, this is hypocritical.
To my understanding, it is not that Singer advocates infanticide per se but that he argues it is acceptable within our current moral system (with which he disagrees).