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The [Abortion] Debate, or why your aunt isn't invited to Thanksgiving dinner anymore
bficky
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Earlier this week, President Trump reinstated a policy that prohibits the use of foreign aid to health providers who discuss abortion. On Saturday, the Women’s March rallies took place all over the world, and many of the speakers and protest signs focused on women’s reproductive rights. Tomorrow, the annual March for Life Rally will take place in D.C., one of the largest (if not the largest) pro-life rallies of the year; VP Pence is scheduled to speak at the rally. The anniversary of Roe v. Wade was this past Sunday, and sermons and homilies reminded servicegoers everywhere of this fact.
In this thread, I’d like to have a civil, respectful discussion about abortion. The more civil we keep it in here, the longer this thread will be able to stay open. Discussions are healthy, but often the only “discussions” that happen about abortion are passive-aggressive “Likes” and shares on Facebook or people yelling “baby killer” or “stay out of my uterus” at each other. None of that in here, please. Discussions about abortion that rose above name calling and accusations are what helped me form my opinion on the topic, and I hope that this thread might do the same for others.
In this thread, I’d like to have a civil, respectful discussion about abortion. The more civil we keep it in here, the longer this thread will be able to stay open. Discussions are healthy, but often the only “discussions” that happen about abortion are passive-aggressive “Likes” and shares on Facebook or people yelling “baby killer” or “stay out of my uterus” at each other. None of that in here, please. Discussions about abortion that rose above name calling and accusations are what helped me form my opinion on the topic, and I hope that this thread might do the same for others.
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If you're for a right to choose the health of the mother isn't a requirement anyway. For some who believe in conception being life, there's no health of the mother concern and it's seen as a loophole.
Pregnancy is a major health event even in the best of circumstances and complications can result in a non viable fetus and death of the mother. It needs to be agreed on that terminating a pregnancy isn't always an actual choice based on desire to be a mother.
My thoughts on it are complex and conflicted for a variety of reasons, and I haven't completely solved the conflict in my head, save for medical necessity which is tragic but eponymously necessary. If a woman wanted to discuss it with me, I would suggest alternatives like adoption, but if she was settled on it, well I've no right to offer any further input. Honestly, I hope not to be tested in that regard.
Taking an assumption of good faith* opposition to abortion, I think prohibition taught us that straight up bans are possibly the least effective measure to stamp something out. If you're determined to reduce the rates, you may want to ask yourself what drives demand. Could society perhaps be more supportive of non-traditional families, systems to supplement or replace family networks, guaranteed childcare, and to flash my ambivalence, maybe not getting worked up on contraception or even sex itself. Again assuming good faith, if you're trying to prevent what you perceive to be sinful behaviour, trying to go for 100% purity and preventing all sex will fail, and those who fall through the cracks of your system will lead to consequences that are potentially even worse than the original offence. It's relatively easy to quantify that sex for sex's sake (SFSS) on its own is literally the lesser evil than either SFSS + abortion or SFSS + not being able to properly support a child.
I could talk more about my philosophical framework on it, but that might be going too far off topic. Put me in the Safe, Legal & Rare camp.
*I'm aware significant portions of Pro-Life arguments often have subtext of opposition to any kind of non-reproductive female sexuality or even female autonomy, and those arguments can swivel.
I think anyone who believes that life starts at conception owes us a explanation of how that works.
The kicker is it doesn't matter if that aunt or whoever is outspokenly pro life or outspokenly pro choice, the topic is so toxic that either one could be excluded, depending on the host's views.
This also applies to Planned Parenthood by the way; all the proposed cuts are exclusively to health services that aren't abortions. Cutting PP funding would likely increase the numbers of abortions.
According to a study by the Stanford Department of Medicine, it does increase the number of abortion.
The common counterargument to this among pro-life groups is that "money is fungible." In other words, if I give you $5 to pay for your coffee, that's $5 you don't spend out of your own pocket, which means the money in your pocket can be spent on drugs, which means I've effectively given you $5 for drugs.
There are many reasons why this is unmitigated bullshit. Whichever argument sticks in whatever awful dinner-table conversation you've found yourself imprisoned in will depend on the biases of the interlocutors.
https://thinkprogress.org/gop-money-is-fungible-for-planned-parenthood-but-not-faith-based-organizations-8668137a7f68#.s3nw8c25b (technically a tu quoque but whatever)
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/09/11/_money_is_fungible_at_planned_parenthood_not_actually_true.html
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
On the one hand, I am entirely sympathetic to the argument that a woman's body is her own. Our right to our own persons is something I consider to be near absolute, and it informs many of my beliefs such as self defence, etc. On the other, some of the rhetoric used in defense of this right makes me gag. When i see unborn babies described as "unwanted parasites" and the like it just... sets something off in my brain. The casual dehumanizing doesn't sit with me at all.
The other factor is the care of the child and the father's choice (or lack of). In my younger years I got mixed up with a lady I was too young and dumb for; she got pregnant and decided to keep it. It was very much a life flashing before my eyes moment, and the feeling of powerlessness was overwhelming. I was fortunate in that she wanted nothing to do with me or my money (of which I had none), but the complete lack of recourse I had was hard to handle. No say on whether to keep the child or not, no say on raising it or not and no say on being financially obligated if she had so chosen.
I'm not sure how this could change or what the options are, but I am convinced that a complete lack of choice or options is not an ideal state of affairs.
Some initial thoughts on the matter, hope thread stays interesting and productive.
Can I get a duh?
The thing is most of the most vocal and extreme anti abortion advocates consider many forms of birth control abortion.So that data isn't likely to persuade them.
It's the same as with abstinence-only education and safe injection sites: regressive ideologues are more concerned with the idea of tacitly condoning what they consider immoral than they are with actually, practically keeping people safe, healthy and happy.
I grew up in a semi-religious Catholic household, and I always called myself pro-life because I was taught and I believed that abortion was wrong. When I became politically conscious, I called myself a republican because republicans are pro-life and I'm pro-life, so I MUST be a republican. Later, it became "you know, I actually might have more in common with the Democratic party, but since they're pro-choice and therefore pro-abortion, I guess I'm stuck as a republican." After a brief stint as an Independent (oooh, look at me, I'm such a rebel who can't be placed in either of the two most common parties), I then realized that, for me, my stance on abortion should not outweigh everything else, so I became a pro-life Democrat… I'd vote for the democratic candidate, despite their pro-choice stance, and hope that maybe in the future when all other problems were solved (ha ha), maybe we could get rid of abortion as well.
It was (sadly) as recently as this past election season when I really came to terms with my own thoughts. During some GOP town hall or debate, Trump shocked the world when he said that "there should be some sort of punishment [for the woman]" when asked about abortion. It was probably my maleness's fault that I never thought through the entirety of the topic, but I kinda always assumed that yeah, if abortion is wrong/illegal and someone does it, she should have some sort of punishment. What that punishment should be, though, I couldn't figure out. Nothing felt right. Prison? Too harsh. A fine? That doesn't seem right... we're talking about a potential human life, right? It was only then that I realized that maybe pro-choice and pro-abortion are not the same thing... one could be morally opposed to abortion, but they don't have to think that it should be illegal. I have to admit, the realization that I was actually pro-choice was a little startling, because of the common misconception that pro-choice = pro-abortion.
So yeah, put me in the “safe, legal, rare” camp as well. I may still find the idea of abortion to be a tragic one, but who am I to tell someone to feel the same way as me.
It's internally inconsistent and that bothers me a lot. Abortion is complicated because sometimes life is complicated. It's much more emotionally gratifying to put pro-life on a shirt and not think it through.
Edit: I think the difficulty of moving from anti-choice to pro-choice is probably very difficult.
The response I usually get in such a discussion is a question of guilt. Children are held to blameless, choice less and ultimately defenceless. Whereas adult criminals are none of those things. It doesn't make their pov correct, but I don't find these to be conflicting world views.
Same. I saw a pro-choice hypothetical once based on the idea of a person developing a rare medical condition that made them completely dependent on perioidic blood transfusions from one specific person, with the claim being made that the person who would need to donate the blood would be well within their rights of bodily autonomy to just let the person with the condition die.
That's the Judith Jarvis Thomson violinist argument.
Actually, this would be a good time to quote MrMister.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Being pro-life can be consistent, as an extension of "all (human) life is sacred." As part of the standard conservative ideology less so, to be consistent you have to oppose the death penalty and violence in general
Nobody wants to describe themselves as anti-$thing though. Because $thing is usually a positive descriptor. People like life, and people also like choice
But then you add in hawkish attitudes towards war (where innocents will certainly die from collateral damage), funding foreign regimes that kill innocent people, hostility towards government pollution and health regulations, and hostility towards government healthcare...
Sure, for each of these issues individually there's a reasonable counterargument, but when you add them all together it seems an awful lot like "life" is far lower on the "pro-life" priority list than tax dollars or religious freedom.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Like, explain to me how the amount of abortions you are supposedly preventing outweighs all the beneficial effects that those groups also provided to the community.
I suppose asking this question to a conservative politician is a fool's errand because stuff like birth control prescriptions are seen as a moral evil by them as well, despite the fact that birth control prescriptions mean unwanted pregnancies are less likely, and less unwanted pregnancies means fewer abortions.
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Like I said above, the usual counterargument is fungibility. Here's a video version of the argument:
If you prefer, a text article describing the argument:
https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2016/10/fungibility-argument-center-40-year-campaign-undermine-reproductive-health-and-rights
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
http://web.archive.org/web/20170105160858/http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2012/02/answering-deceptive-arguments-made-by-planned-parenthood/
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
That doesn't seem like it actually addresses my issue, though. It merely explains the position that the government should be able to dictate how all money an organization receives spends, if they receive any government funding.
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Turn it around.
If the social good [organization X] is performing ex-abortions is so important, and abortions are really just a tiny part of their overall work, why are they willing to risk the overwhelming majority of the good they do to retain this one thing? Why is [X] organization not willing to sacrifice performing abortions so that they may continue to provide needed medical and health services for the communities they are in?
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Warning: some of the things said in this video are not easy to hear.
I mean that seriously. People speak frankly about other people in desperate situations.
I think an important thing when discussing whether or not abortion should be illegal (as opposed to whether it's moral or anything else) is the concept of bodily integrity.
The following all grants the premise that, upon fertilization, an embryo is automatically and legally a person.
I ain't no big city lawyer type, but my basic understanding of it is this: what you can and cannot be forced to do with respect to your body is (or ought to be) very strictly limited. You cannot, for instance, be forced to donate bone marrow to save someone's life. I've heard versions extending this to blood, or organ donation after death, etc. I dunno the legal backing of those versions.
But there is a strong argument, imo, that being forced violate your bodily integrity in order to ensure the continued existence of another person should not be legal.
I think that, for example, if someone intentionally hooked themselves to your cardiovascular system, you should be legally allowed to disconnect yourself. Similarly, if this situation somehow accidentally arose, you should still be legally allowed to disconnect. If you willingly entered into it, you should be allowed to revoke your consent. The only circumstance where I can see a case being made against it is where you force it upon someone else.
The primary rebuttal, then, would be that in situations where a person's actions result in such a situation, they can be held accountable. And then we have to get into various other semantics and stuff.
I will note, of course, that I think making abortion illegal is pretty monstrous, for reasons that I'm sure will be well covered, and that I doubt many of its opponents care about what's legal or how many abortions actually happen. It's an... icon. It is THE metric by which a person, a group, a country is judged to be good or evil. To have it be legal is to warp the moral foundation of the whole system, ensuring that it can never be good. For the true believers, there are no rational arguments that can be made, only emotional ones, and even those probably won't work.
For example, my mother is a devout Catholic who agrees with the Pope that Trump's rise looks a lot like Hitler's, and we must be vigilant. But Hillary supported the right to abortion and LGBTQ rights, and those perversions of our moral foundations are worse.
What can you say?
Everyone has an extra kidney (sometimes more) requiring compulsory donation would be pro-life.
So in the fusing case, only one would be a person, and the non-person gets absorbed. In the splitting case, it's two people right from the start. If there will be a miscarriage, no personhood is injected.
Of course, aborting them ensures that they are people.
On the legal front, we have Roe v. Wade as the controlling law in the US. Abortions are protected by law. That said, there is obviously the issue of state shenanigans to get around it (abortion may be legal, but good luck finding anywhere that does them). I think there's also the question of whether the government could ban them even were Roe v. Wade overturned.
First, I don't think Congress has the authority to regulate it anyways - it doesn't appear to fall under the enumerated powers and doesn't seem close enough to be necessary and proper. That doesn't forbid state action though (or the ever expanding economy clause...), and I don't know the state constitutions as well. There's also the issue of church and state, since the question of whether the government should ban abortion seems to invariably be a theological one. If you cannot justify it beyond "God says so", it seems to me that it's a flagrant violation of the first amendment and thus unconstitutional. I think any argument in the legal sense needs to be able to answer these issues.
The ethics front is probably where most of the contention arises from though. Primarily, whether abortion is ever ethical, when it ethical, etc... which also becomes a question of if the government should act. As I said before, my concern here is primarily that most arguments seem to boil down to religious beliefs, and I do not believe the government has any business imposing laws based solely on religious prescriptions.
I really don't want to get too deep into the non-religious ethical frameworks since I'm not well versed in their arguments either way (to be honest I don't know that's even a topic that comes up when discussing them much). But for the religious angle it basically comes down to "life begins at conception". This has always seemed to mean souls in particular. That said, it's a fairly recent belief in the Christian community to my understanding, at least as widespread dogma. And that makes me wonder as to the legitimacy of the position. Certainly, I'm not aware of any explicit biblical prescriptions on the matter (but then, it was hardly an issue of concern in that era I suspect).
Another issue that comes up though was mentioned already - science tells us that an embryo is pretty much not a distinct life at that stage (because the splitting/absorbing bit). So that's something I'd want addressed from the religious ethics standpoint.
Of course, even if you can convince someone it's sinful, it doesn't mean the government can or should ban it. There's an entire other line of argument whether people are supposed to be doing that in the first place, and that gets out of my depth on Christian theology so...
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I don't think science really tells us this - this is a matter of classification, and in science, classifications are generally done because they're useful. "Distinct life" isn't really a scientific concept. Actual biologists throw their hands up and go "well whatever you're not describing it precisely enough" when forced into this gray area, generally.
(Unless you mean that science says that it can't live on its own or whatever, which, yeah)
That kinda ruins the whole "at conception" bit since it pushes it back to the beginning of time.
Awesome isn't enough for this. This kind of deep, sometimes unsettling introspection is one of the very best things a person can do. It leads to a more fulfilling life for the individual and society, in particular the other people in their lives. Keep it up!
Something to keep in mind is that discussions about abortion are usually not actually about abortion. It's actually about female sexuality and the morality that surrounds it.
Note PA discussions about abortion are exceptions to the rule.
That's a fair reversal of my question, were abortion truly the only issue lawmakers had with Planned Parenthood, et al.
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Well, we'll never actually know, will we?
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The rational argument makes a distinction between requiring something for a situation you had no part in creating and one that you did.
Of course, it's not really about rational arguments; it's about sinful lifestyles, and whether we want to accommodate them or resist them.
There's really no winning argument. You have to present stories.
Case in point:
https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-lawmaker-no-abortion-access-would-force-women-to-be-more-personally-responsible-with-sex/
So if we took one of the embryo that didn't have a soul and intervened to have it grow up we would have a zombie?