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Originally posted by ChastMastr:
I'm talking about a position C which would hold that abortion is morally wrong, but that making it illegal will cause more harm than good.

It is even a position which can hold that abortion is indeed taking a human life--yes, a kind of infanticide--but that, again, making it illegal causes more harm than good.

I never, ever, ever heard anyone advocate this position, at least not in the US.

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Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Would you care to elucidate homosexual loan interest?

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
Of course, most people regard oxygen machines as non-sentient, inanimate objects without rights or opinions. Exactly why you think this is an argument that's equally applicable to women is a bit opaque. Clarification, please?

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Oh, crap. That's not the way I meant that at all and I sincerely apologize. I was trying for an analogy involving, say, someone having someone hooked up to an oxygen machine and, say, a company or person turning off the power. I was thinking of "unrestricted use of organs = unrestricted use of electricity," not "body = machine."

(Here in the US we've actually had a ... truly bizarre situation in which thousands of people are having their water turned off: "Activists call the move a violation of a basic human need, while city officials call it an economic reality." That's kind of what I was thinking of but I had to postulate something in which an adult human would be dead within minutes, so the "and the ... oxygen machine is in someone's garage! No, that's convoluted. Let's just stick with the oxygen machine full stop..." was what I did. Again, I was not trying to say people (women in this case) are machines or anything like that.)

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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity

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Originally posted by saysay:
It's actually an incredibly common position in the US. ... Laura suggested coming up with a third term that more accurately represents the position of the vast majority of women in the US: People in Favor of Limited Legal Access to Abortion (PFLLAA).

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I had no idea of any of this. Certainly I don't hear it on the news or whatnot--it always seems to be a clean dichotomy between those two groups, the moral/legal and immoral/illegal "sides." I actually thought I'd come up with an alternative position heretofore barely known if not unknown.

I feel like a caveman inventing the wheel and showing it off as a bicycle goes by.

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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that because the fœtus is parasitic upon the mother it has no capability of an independent existence? The question remaining is whether it has a right to the use of its mother's/host's body to sustain its dependent existence that can be forcibly protected by state action.

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:

quote:

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Originally posted by saysay:
It's actually an incredibly common position in the US. ... Laura suggested coming up with a third term that more accurately represents the position of the vast majority of women in the US: People in Favor of Limited Legal Access to Abortion (PFLLAA).

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I had no idea of any of this. Certainly I don't hear it on the news or whatnot--it always seems to be a clean dichotomy between those two groups, the moral/legal and immoral/illegal "sides." I actually thought I'd come up with an alternative position heretofore barely known if not unknown.

I feel like a caveman inventing the wheel and showing it off as a bicycle goes by.

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Originally posted by saysay:
It's actually an incredibly common position in the US. In fact, I remember a thread - I think it was started by Gordon Cheng - where he was challenging Shipmates to defend why, if they thought abortion was such a good thing, they didn't teach their children about it the way they teach them about chocolate (I had no luck locating the thread in the archives).

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Originally posted by saysay:
For a while I tried to get enough people with loud enough voices to talk about how that is in fact their position on abortion, but the croesos' of the world shouted us down with their beliefs that any woman who has a baby without the economic resources to care for it when they could have just had a really simple surgical procedure is just stupid and deserves whatever happens to her.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
Of course, most people regard oxygen machines as non-sentient, inanimate objects without rights or opinions. Exactly why you think this is an argument that's equally applicable to women is a bit opaque. Clarification, please?

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Oh, crap. That's not the way I meant that at all and I sincerely apologize. I was trying for an analogy involving, say, someone having someone hooked up to an oxygen machine and, say, a company or person turning off the power. I was thinking of "unrestricted use of organs = unrestricted use of electricity," not "body = machine."

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
What I find interesting is the way in which, just as it's rather hard to be anti-abortion without sounding like a misogynist, it's rather hard to be pro-choice without sounding like Ayn Rand.

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm pretty sure the position that "any woman who has a baby without the economic resources to care for it . . . is just stupid and deserves whatever happens to her" is actually part of the Republican platform (e.g. warnings about "welfare queens" [wink, nudge] deliberately getting pregnant for increased welfare payments, various proposals to cut AFDC, etc.), and they've never really been noted as advocates for abortion rights.

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
The thing about those organ is that they're always found inside someone else's body. That's one of the first tricks of the pro-life* movement; to erase the idea that pregnancy and childbirth in any way involves women.

The second trick, usually employed after the first has failed, is to imply that pregnancy and childbirth is trivially easy, like simply turning a valve to supply water or flipping a switch to provide electricity.

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Jade Constable: LeRoc - I'm just puzzled as to how you could guess my reproductive history. Not saying it shouldn't happen.

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:

Nobody would say to someone looking forward to having a baby that they may feel differently after the birth. It's only ever women who don't want children who get the 'you'll seeeeeee' argument.

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:

Nobody would say to someone looking forward to having a baby that they may feel differently after the birth. It's only ever women who don't want children who get the 'you'll seeeeeee' argument.

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Originally posted by saysay:
The "Welfare Queens" trope is so pre-Clinton Welfare Reform that I haven't heard it since I was a small child.

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Originally posted by saysay:
The "Welfare Queens" trope is so pre-Clinton Welfare Reform that I haven't heard it since I was a small child.

Meaning what? That it's now okay to admit what a shameful bit of race-baiting class warfare it was? (We'd already figured that out, thanks!) Or that if enough time goes by it no longer counts as sincere?

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That's not true anyway. The term may not be current any more but the stereotype is still immensely active to judge by what I see on facebook (mostly I have to admit posted by one one-time friend that I haven't defriended for old times sake) about food stamp recipients.

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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!

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Originally posted by Mechtilde:
Another raised hand here, but a slightly different rationale, which I don't think is unusual:

We can't say for certain whether a fetus is a human life, or when. I'm inclined to think that as long as it might be, then ending that life is not a moral risk I would be wiling to take. But I come to that position because of my religious beliefs, and in the U.S. religious beliefs are not a proper basis of law. Consensus crimes, like murder, are exceptions to that, but there is no consensus regarding abortion.

Note to Jade Constable: I did have a tubal ligation at age 25 and childless, a decision I never regretted and that I wish you could make! It was a luxury I could afford because 1) I had insurance, and 2) I knew I never wanted children. If I'd wanted them "someday," then I'd have had to take my chances with the various fallible forms of contraception. I can understand a woman's desperation when they fail.

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:
If even some of the effort (and money!) put into banning or legally interfering with abortion were put into education and birth control, fixing the social safety net, making adoption easier, providing help (including childcare) to women who find themselves in this situation, etc., then I think that would do a great deal of good.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that because the fœtus is parasitic upon the mother it has no capability of an independent existence? The question remaining is whether it has a right to the use of its mother's/host's body to sustain its dependent existence that can be forcibly protected by state action.

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What I find interesting is the way in which, just as it's rather hard to be anti-abortion without sounding like a misogynist, it's rather hard to be pro-choice without sounding like Ayn Rand. (Also a misogynist now I think about it.) 'Parasitic' was I believe Rand's favourite term of denunciation for all the people she didn't approve of. But all human beings are radically dependent upon each other - that's what makes us social animals.

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
Yes, I'm sure someone here will say that, as an individual, they're fully supportive of such things. But no organization billing itself as "pro-life*" does so.

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Then maybe there needs to be one. And if one exists I'd be thrilled to join it. Here in the US we have a few groups like Faithful America (religious but not right-wing), small but growing.

Of course the terminology may be so tainted that "pro-life" has become political code for "trying to make abortion illegal," so maybe a better way of putting it needs to happen. (I'm pro-family--all kinds of families--but "pro-family" basically is code for "anti-gay" here. And so on.)

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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by saysay:
The "Welfare Queens" trope is so pre-Clinton Welfare Reform that I haven't heard it since I was a small child.

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Meaning what? That it's now okay to admit what a shameful bit of race-baiting class warfare it was? (We'd already figured that out, thanks!) Or that if enough time goes by it no longer counts as sincere?

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quote:

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If you prefer a more recent example, there's the recent refugee crisis discussed over in Purgatory. It's difficult to take as "principled" the stand that the right to life begins at conception and ends at the Rio Grande.

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
Yes, I'm sure someone here will say that, as an individual, they're fully supportive of such things. But no organization billing itself as "pro-life*" does so.

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Then maybe there needs to be one. And if one exists I'd be thrilled to join it. Here in the US we have a few groups like Faithful America (religious but not right-wing), small but growing.

Of course the terminology may be so tainted that "pro-life" has become political code for "trying to make abortion illegal," so maybe a better way of putting it needs to happen. (I'm pro-family--all kinds of families--but "pro-family" basically is code for "anti-gay" here. And so on.)

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quote:

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Respondents could choose between the following statements: “I believe having an abortion is morally acceptable and should be legal,” “I am personally against abortion for myself and my family, but I don’t believe government should prevent a woman from making that decision for herself,” or “I believe having an abortion is morally wrong and should be illegal.”

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Originally posted by saysay:

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by saysay:
The "Welfare Queens" trope is so pre-Clinton Welfare Reform that I haven't heard it since I was a small child.

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Meaning what? That it's now okay to admit what a shameful bit of race-baiting class warfare it was? (We'd already figured that out, thanks!) Or that if enough time goes by it no longer counts as sincere?

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Meaning that it never played down south (at least where I was - in spite of what Yankees seemed to think) because the way we ran our social services meant that everyone knew that a lot of the recipients were rural ("trailer trash") white people.

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quote:

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Originally posted by saysay:

quote:

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If you prefer a more recent example, there's the recent refugee crisis discussed over in Purgatory. It's difficult to take as "principled" the stand that the right to life begins at conception and ends at the Rio Grande.

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Many of these faith leaders are also pro-life.

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Originally posted by saysay:
Meaning that it never played down south (at least where I was - in spite of what Yankees seemed to think) because the way we ran our social services meant that everyone knew that a lot of the recipients were rural ("trailer trash") white people.

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Alas, it certainly seems alive and well down here in my own part of the south.

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New York's race issues aren't my problem.

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Isn't racism everyone's problem?

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I don't recognize your caricature.

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I understand your problem. The Left in this country has adopted so many Rovian tactics

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We have?

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I mean, I know history, so I understand why people think a reference to state's rights is always a dog whistle to a politician's racist constituents.

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And yet sometimes I want to talk about the feds raiding the marijuana dispensaries in the states that have decided to experiment with legalization.

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If even NARAL is finally giving people a middle option instead of forcing them to chose between two extremes, then maybe we can make some progress.

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Originally posted by saysay:
...it's hard to talk about some of the issues that I consider important without being accused of basically being evil.

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:
more adequately than a 4-5 word bumper sticker.

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'll take the fact that your response to my assertion that hostility towards the poor (and particularly mothers having trouble providing for their children) is part of the Republican platform is to cite an event hosted by a prominent Democrat to be a tacit concession of the point.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that because the fœtus is parasitic upon the mother it has no capability of an independent existence? The question remaining is whether it has a right to the use of its mother's/host's body to sustain its dependent existence that can be forcibly protected by state action.

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What I find interesting is the way in which, just as it's rather hard to be anti-abortion without sounding like a misogynist, it's rather hard to be pro-choice without sounding like Ayn Rand. (Also a misogynist now I think about it.) 'Parasitic' was I believe Rand's favourite term of denunciation for all the people she didn't approve of. But all human beings are radically dependent upon each other - that's what makes us social animals.

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And referring to a pregnancy as parasitic is ridiculous and makes one appear as ignorant of science as YEC's.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

I think the argument has a name, but I've forgotten.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

I think the argument has a name, but I've forgotten.

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Stupid? Asinine? Ludicrous?
If that argument has value, then the dividing line at which one can kill the child is not birth, but well after.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

I think the argument has a name, but I've forgotten.

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Stupid? Asinine? Ludicrous?
If that argument has value, then the dividing line at which one can kill the child is not birth, but well after.

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I don't understand that. The same argument applies - the state does not force you to raise your child, if you don't want to, but why would you kill it? You can have it adopted.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

I think the argument has a name, but I've forgotten.

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Stupid? Asinine? Ludicrous?
If that argument has value, then the dividing line at which one can kill the child is not birth, but well after.

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I don't understand that. The same argument applies - the state does not force you to raise your child, if you don't want to, but why would you kill it? You can have it adopted.

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
More to the point, it's not an argument about the independence (or lack thereof) of the child, but the bodily autonomy of women.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
The same argument applies - the state does not force you to raise your child, if you don't want to, but why would you kill it? You can have it adopted.

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
This is fairly basic in a free society. Citizens are held to "own" their own bodies, or if ownership is the wrong way of looking at it, at the very least no one else "owns" your body more than you do.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
More to the point, it's not an argument about the independence (or lack thereof) of the child, but the bodily autonomy of women.

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Of course it is. But to label the child as other than a life is disingenuous. When the lump of cells becomes a life, and indeed, when its rights outweigh the mother's, are the conversation.

The parasite/body autonomy arguments ignore biology.

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Originally posted by saysay:

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
This is fairly basic in a free society. Citizens are held to "own" their own bodies, or if ownership is the wrong way of looking at it, at the very least no one else "owns" your body more than you do.

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The prisoners of West Virginia would like to know why they are charged with 'destroying state property' for self-mutilation or prison tattoos if this is in fact the case.

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
The same argument applies - the state does not force you to raise your child, if you don't want to, but why would you kill it? You can have it adopted.

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You're talking nonsense here. Except in very limited safe haven cases where you can abandon newborns, the state does not permit you to unilaterally walk away from your child.

You can certainly find someone to adopt your child, and if the state finds you to be an unfit parent, the state will take custody from you, but this latter action does not absolve you of your responsibility to pay for your child's upbringing.

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
In other words, when does my right to your liver outweigh your right to your liver (for example)? And can I get the state to enforce my right to your liver through legislation and enforcement?

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think the oddity of the arguments about livers, and also the old argument about the violinist, who is plugged into your circulatory system, which is keeping him alive - as I said, the oddity of these arguments is meant to highlight the oddity of asking the state to compel a woman to use her body for another being.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

I suppose many pro-life people see it as natural or inevitable, or morally compelling, that the state deprives a woman of her bodily autonomy, so the original violinist argument was trying to hit these ideas head-on.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion

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