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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: How could the Pro-life movement have wider appeal?
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Apparently there are several points at which life has historically been considered to have started legally:
Conception
Quickening
Viability
Birth
...
In between conception and quickening is implantation. I've heard it argued that implantation is the beginning of the relationship between mother and child - when the zygote becomes part of the human family, so to speak. Before that, it's just a cell with its own unique DNA.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
So, are you happy with infanticide as well, as long as it is medically regulated? Up to what age? Toddlercide? Teencide? Or does something magic happen to the baby as it passes through the birth canal, which changes its status?
The rabbis defined life as "breath" (which has very good Biblical backing -- cf. Gen 2:7). So yes, something very important happens when a baby starts breathing for the first time. This can be argued against of course. But it's not so completely ridiculous as to warrant your level of sarcasm.
How can the pro-life movement have wider appeal? By not resorting to this kind of sarcasm to "win" arguments, for one thing.
It wasn't ridiculous in those times perhaps, but then neither was exposure. But in our times, both kind of are. Sorry Canada, but viability is the most objective measure.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
This is what I mean.
Actually I don't. I think the article very reasonable. Other than it being more eloquent than I am capable of, I could have written it.
quote:
Part of the reason is that, as much as I'm appalled by the death of the baby in an abortion, I also think that women should be recognized by the government as sovereign over their own bodies — at least prior to fetal viability, when things get even trickier
This is an excellent synopsis of my position.
[ 06. August 2015, 14:46: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
This is what I mean.
Actually I don't. I think the article very reasonable. Other than it being more eloquent than I am capable of, I could have written it.
While I don't agree with everything in it, I also think it makes a lot of very good points and is an excellent example of a thoughtful pro-choice understanding of the question of abortion.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
(Responding to the article linked to above.)
The idea is common that pro-lifers are somehow hypocritical if they do not support intense campaigns for the widespread adoption of highly effective contraception. But that idea is ridiculous, and it remains ridiculous even if it can be shown conclusively that massive reductions in the abortion rate can be achieved in this way.
To make this clear, let's look at the following analogy. I morally oppose eating ice cream, as well as drinking coffee. One because it puts fat on one's hips, the other because it makes one jittery. You oppose eating ice cream, although only if one is already fat, but not drinking coffee. Now research conclusively shows that people drinking lots of good Java coffee eat almost no ice cream.
Does it follow that I must now abandon my opposition to drinking coffee, and join you in your campaign to bring good Java coffee to the world? Of course not! My opposition to drinking coffee has not been addressed at all. I'm opposed to drinking coffee because it makes you jittery, what effect it may have on eating ice cream is neither here nor there. I may find it nice that if people foolishly drink coffee, they at least eat less ice cream. I may see some good being worked from this evil. But that does not make drinking coffee OK. Again, if I was making some utilitarian calculus here, where eating ice cream give you 5 demerit points, but drinking coffee gives you only 2 demerit points, then I might calculate that people should drink coffee if they are likely to eat ice cream, because that avoids 3 additional demerit points. But that's just not the sort of calculus I'm engaging in. I think you should do neither, and for reasons that may be related in the sense of both concerning your health, but are independent in their evaluation.
What however does follow is that you should join me in my fight against eating ice cream, at least where fat people are concerned. Because we both agree there in our evaluations. The only sort of hypocrisy that is actually present here is you not joining my anti-ice cream cause just because I am not supporting you on pro-coffee. But this is not some tit-for-tat game. According to what you yourself think about ice cream, you should be giving me your support on ice-cream (at least as far as fat people are concerned). Whereas I should not give you my support on coffee.
So the author in the article is wrong to excuse himself from the pro-life movement just because they do not support contraception. If he is pro-life (if perhaps qualified by being so only after "viability"), then he should act according to that. Otherwise he is hypocritical, not the pro-lifers who cannot join him on contraception because of their convictions on that matter.
In practical political terms, it may of course be advantageous if he created his own pro-life subgroup which happily supports contraception. If he does want to set himself publicly apart from the pro-lifers that don't, then that's a reasonable desire. But one cannot deny one's own convictions just because some other group of people is not agreeing with all of them. That makes no sense at all.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
This is what I mean.
Actually I don't. I think the article very reasonable. Other than it being more eloquent than I am capable of, I could have written it.
While I don't agree with everything in it, I also think it makes a lot of very good points and is an excellent example of a thoughtful pro-choice understanding of the question of abortion.
And a few moments of (unintentional?) hilarity!
quote:
I have faith that Douthat's honesty and intelligence will lead him to concede that he's lost his debate with Saletan and that making birth control much more widely available could do enormous good.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Admittedly finding this funny requires knowing who Ross Douthat is, but the guy who considers contraception to be the ultimate bonerkiller isn't going to assess any new studies any more objectively than he did earlier ones.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
1. Being against contraception is not being pro-life because before conception there is no life. It's being pro-potential-life, perhaps. But equating contraception with being "pro-life" is absurd on the face. Killing an infant (if that's what abortion is) and preventing the formation of one (which contraception unarguably is) aren't even close to being the same thing, except that they have to do with unwanted pregnancy (either preventing or terminating it). Equating them brings much-deserved derision on the so-called pro-life cause. And when the so-called prolifers are not just indifferent to but fiercely opposed to helping the children that result from unwanted pregnancies, or their mothers, then it's time to call bullshit.
2. Yes, Croesus, I thought the same thing about Douthat.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Killing an infant (if that's what abortion is) and preventing the formation of one (which contraception unarguably is) aren't even close to being the same thing, except that they have to do with unwanted pregnancy (either preventing or terminating it). Equating them brings much-deserved derision on the so-called pro-life cause.
Who is equating these, when and how? It is certainly true that being against abortion and being against contraception are different things. Being against both is however part of certain conservative sexual ethics. The question is then what the label "pro-life" stands for. Likewise, being for the availability of abortion and for the availability of contraception are different things. Being for both is however part of a certain liberal sexual ethics. The question is then what the label "pro-choice" stands for.
If we say that "pro-life" and "pro-choice" indicate opposition on the matter of abortion only, then obviously being either does not say anything about one's stance on contraception. If these labels rather indicate specific conservative and liberal ethics, respectively, then in fact they can imply a stance concerning contraception.
Personally, I prefer the narrow definition of the labels. Thus there can be pro-lifers for contraception, and pro-choicers against contraception. Others may prefer using the labels for the respective "package deal" of sexual ethics. There is little mileage in trying to beat people up over such a choice of language. If one is deriding certain pro-lifers over including contraception into the label, then one should also deride certain pro-choicers over doing so. In both cases there is no necessary connection, even if such connections are common as part of popular sexual ethics packages.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
And when the so-called prolifers are not just indifferent to but fiercely opposed to helping the children that result from unwanted pregnancies, or their mothers, then it's time to call bullshit.
Whatever one may think of such support, it is once more a different matter. One can be for or against it, independent of being for or against abortion, and independent of being for or against contraception. Whether the label "pro-life" includes a stance on this, and whether the label "pro-choice" does, is a matter of definition. As mentioned, I personally prefer narrow definitions of these labels on the matter of abortion alone.
One can protest that the label "pro-life" is suggestive of being for pecuniary support of unwanted children ("pro ... the support of their ... life"). But then one could also claim that the label "pro-choice" sounds like one is free to either give support or not. It is misleading to read too much into the construction of these labels from the words "life" and "choice", respectively. Clearly, in both cases this was done for purposes of advertisement.
It may also be possible to accuse someone of ethical incoherence if they do not adopt specific "matching" policies on the three different issues now in play (abortion, contraception, support). But that is a much wider argument, and I reckon, a much more difficult one. And even if one can successfully show that it is morally incoherent to oppose both abortion and certain forms of child support, then one simply has not shown that it is wrong to oppose abortion. To pretend that somehow the moral argument on abortion is lost because of choices made concerning child support is really just a kind of "argumentum ad hominem". It is saying "because this person is morally incoherent here, they must be morally incorrect there." But this is a fallacy. One can of course be right about abortion but wrong about child support, and stating one's opinion on both does not change the truth value of one's opinion on abortion.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
... So the author in the article is wrong to excuse himself from the pro-life movement just because they do not support contraception. If he is pro-life (if perhaps qualified by being so only after "viability"), then he should act according to that. Otherwise he is hypocritical, not the pro-lifers who cannot join him on contraception because of their convictions on that matter. ....
Sorry, that makes no sense at all. As you've explained many times, the moral problem with contraception is that the partners are not "open to conception". There's a lot of ethical space between trying to prevent conception and having an abortion. Nobody thinks contraception is murder - that's patently absurd - and those who believe some contraceptives are "abortifacients" are simply WRONG. A non-Catholic can be consistently pro-contraception and anti-abortion. Like the majority of Catholics <cough> Chris Christie <cough>.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
If you want fewer abortions, it is common sense to push birth control.
If you want fewer abortions, but deplore birth control as well, the position is fearfully illogical. So illogical that it forces the observer to conclude that you are not actually pro-life, for commonly accepted definitions of the word 'life.' You are grinding some other agenda that you dare not articulate. Like controlling women, or anti-sex.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Sorry, that makes no sense at all. ... A non-Catholic can be consistently pro-contraception and anti-abortion.
Indeed, and I'm nor sure why you claim that I'm making no sense when you fully affirm my analysis? All I said about the author of the article in the above is that he cannot viably say "I will not join the pro-life side over contraception" if he is anti-abortion but pro-contraception. Perhaps he needs to start his own "pro-life" movement, if the existing one is anti-contraception. But if he is anti-abortion, then he has to act according to that. He has to be "pro-life" in that anti-abortion sense, whether other "pro-lifers" agree with him on contraception or not.
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
If you want fewer abortions, it is common sense to push birth control. If you want fewer abortions, but deplore birth control as well, the position is fearfully illogical. So illogical that it forces the observer to conclude that you are not actually pro-life, for commonly accepted definitions of the word 'life.' You are grinding some other agenda that you dare not articulate. Like controlling women, or anti-sex.
No. The problem is that you think I am against abortion and contraception in an utilitarian sense. But I'm not. The resulting number of abortions, the consequence, is not what determines my moral evaluations. The reason why one should not abort is that it is morally wrong. The reason why one (actually, married couples) should not use contraception is that that is morally wrong. I cannot approve an increase of the usage of contraception in order to decrease the occurrence of abortion. Why? Because contraception is morally wrong, and one may not do evil to achieve good. It literally does not matter at all to me what effect contraception may have on abortion numbers. Contraception is in and by itself not morally licit, and that is just the end of that. (Actually, my real position is more nuanced, based on the fact contraception is only morally illicit for married couples. But that's not relevant to the point I'm making here.)
Now, I don't expect you to agree with all this. But is is not "illogical". It is entirely logical based on its own premises. Again, if you believe in utilitarianism, then the very principles driving this logic may appear wrong to you. Fair enough, that is a discussion worth having. But it is a different discussion.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Killing an infant (if that's what abortion is) and preventing the formation of one (which contraception unarguably is) aren't even close to being the same thing, except that they have to do with unwanted pregnancy (either preventing or terminating it). Equating them brings much-deserved derision on the so-called pro-life cause.
Who is equating these, when and how?
You commented on these people just two pages back. Please try to remember stuff. There's a group of anti-abortion activists and prominent American politicians who claim the proper response to Planned Parenthood legally donating fetal tissue for research purposes is to cut federal funding for contraceptives and cancer screenings. (It's already the case that the U.S. federal government will not fund abortion.)
It seems rather disingenuous to pretend you don't remember discussing these people.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
Where in the post you linked to did IngoB equate contraception and abortion?
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Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Where in the post you linked to did IngoB equate contraception and abortion?
Never said he did. I was answering the question he asked about who was equating abortion and contraception by reminding him that he had discussed this exact "who" very recently.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
Bumping this for relevancy.
One way the pro-life* movement could have wider appeal is to abandon the use of terrorism as a tactic. At the very least they could try to rein in the they-had-it-coming-type statements after someone takes their empty rhetoric more seriously than they do.
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*Offer very obviously expires at birth
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
So, if the southern state (Texas?) that has been seeking an end run around the Constitution to severely limit abortion succeeds and then somebody shoots one of the responsible lawmakers, you are responsible?
Yes, there are tools in the some of the Pro-life movements. Especially in America, ISTM.
But that doesn't mean all of them.
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Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So, if the southern state (Texas?) that has been seeking an end run around the Constitution to severely limit abortion succeeds and then somebody shoots one of the responsible lawmakers, you are responsible?
Only if I'd been rhetorically casting such a constitutional maneuver as the moral equivalent of murder or genocide. You (generic) can't claim something is one of the worst atrocities ever and then act surprised when people take you at your word and take up arms against it.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
My point is you (specific and generic) are grouping a lot of mostly reasonable people in with the nutters.
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Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Not that he qualifies as a movement, but Nat Hentoff might be an example of someone sharing your position.
He's a social liberal, supportive of civil-rights and GLBQT equality, against the death penalty, resolutely opposed to all forms of censorship, AND opposed to legal abortion.
(On the other hand, he's gone to the right lately on foreign-policy issues, supporting the Iraq invasion for example, but still against the suspension of civil liberties in the USA.)
His article links to another one about the consistent life ethic, which you might find interesting.
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Not that he qualifies as a movement, but Nat Hentoff might be an example of someone sharing your position.
He's a social liberal, against the death penalty, resolutely opposed to all forms of censorship, AND opposed to legal abortion.
Consistent_life_ethic]the consistent life ethic[/URL], which you might find interesting.
Sounds like a man after my own heart! I also believe that all women should be at least as well paid as has men!
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
I attended a dinner at a nearby Catholic church over the holidays. Conversation at the dinner table:
Catholic 1: You are so brave, to go and protest at the abortion clinic every day.
Catholic 2: Well, you know, it's so much more convenient for us since they moved to their new location.
It's like, "I'd love to stop the murders, but I'd have to take two buses."
Not only that, the "abortion clinic" they are picketing happens to be in a building which also includes a psychiatric clinic, GP's offices, and a range of health services for the community ranging from parenting support to low-cost dental clinics and methadone treatment. Plus a drugstore and a really popular pizza-by-the-slice place.
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Macrina
Shipmate
# 8807
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Posted
I am reading a very interesting book right now which is an ethnographical account of the Christian Reconstructionist movement in the US.
I am only in my early 30s so I have grown up with the pro life movement and pro choice movements as they are now. It's very interesting to me that pro-life = anti abortion and anti contraception is actually a new slant on the position. It's one of my biggest stumbling blocks in being able to engage with any pro-life person at all. It doesn't make logical sense.
Posts: 535 | From: Christchurch, New Zealand | Registered: Nov 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Macrina:
It's very interesting to me that pro-life = anti abortion and anti contraception is actually a new slant on the position.
It might be interesting, but it isn't accurate.
Some very vocal people are anti-abortion and anti-contraception.
Some are anti-abortion and pro-contraception.
Some, like me, would see abortion kept legal but become rare for lack of necessity.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Here in the US there is some signs of a statement, "If you are pro-life you cannot be pro-gun." Sounds reasonable to me. If it is not OK to abort an unborn child then surely it is not OK to take a gun and shoot it.
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Macrina
Shipmate
# 8807
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Macrina:
It's very interesting to me that pro-life = anti abortion and anti contraception is actually a new slant on the position.
It might be interesting, but it isn't accurate.
Some very vocal people are anti-abortion and anti-contraception.
Some are anti-abortion and pro-contraception.
Some, like me, would see abortion kept legal but become rare for lack of necessity.
I'm like you *lilBuddha - I feel very very uncomfortable with the idea of abortion because of my views on what life is and when it begins. This whole thread was borne out of me realising I couldn't get into bed with either pro choice or pro life camps as they are commonly set out and my trying to find the grey ares.
Abortion is the termination of a life/potential for life and therefore should never be done casually or lightly. However, I think we all acknowledge there are pregnancies that just will end badly for all concerned for a lot of reasons and for that reason I think I'd much rather have abortion available safely and legally. Otherwise instead of just ending a life/potential life in the womb we risk the mother dying as well. Alongside that we need good social/welfare supports that actually work and last longer than the pregnancy.
[ 10. January 2016, 23:29: Message edited by: Macrina ]
Posts: 535 | From: Christchurch, New Zealand | Registered: Nov 2004
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Macrina:
It's very interesting to me that pro-life = anti abortion and anti contraception is actually a new slant on the position.
It might be interesting, but it isn't accurate.
Some very vocal people are anti-abortion and anti-contraception.
Some are anti-abortion and pro-contraception.
Some, like me, would see abortion kept legal but become rare for lack of necessity.
LilBuddha is right, but I do think that Macrina has a point: some 20 years ago, the same very vocal people were anti-abortion but pro-contraception. This has changed (and some of them deny that there ever was a change).
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Macrina:
I am reading a very interesting book right now which is an ethnographical account of the Christian Reconstructionist movement in the US.
I am only in my early 30s so I have grown up with the pro life movement and pro choice movements as they are now. It's very interesting to me that pro-life = anti abortion and anti contraception is actually a new slant on the position.
Fred Clark refers to this as "the 'biblical view' that's younger than the Happy Meal".
quote:
Originally posted by Macrina:
This whole thread was borne out of me realising I couldn't get into bed with either pro choice or pro life camps as they are commonly set out and my trying to find the grey ares.
Abortion is the termination of a life/potential for life and therefore should never be done casually or lightly. However, I think we all acknowledge there are pregnancies that just will end badly for all concerned for a lot of reasons and for that reason I think I'd much rather have abortion available safely and legally.
This illustrates an interesting but fairly common phenomenon: after claiming to reject both the "pro-choice [and] pro-life* camps", the speaker will then advocates a pro-choice position (abortion should be a legally available option in many or all cases).
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*Offer expires at birth.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Both labels have overtones that are not desirable to some.
The extremes of both are illogical and divisive. And whichever label one chooses, one is painted in the colours of the extremists. Though more so if one claims pro-life.
So the label matters, but we need better labels or better represtatives.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Macrina
Shipmate
# 8807
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
This illustrates an interesting but fairly common phenomenon: after claiming to reject both the "pro-choice [and] pro-life* camps", the speaker will then advocates a pro-choice position (abortion should be a legally available option in many or all cases).
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*Offer expires at birth.
Well yes but that's my point. I can't get on board with a group that says abortion should be available for all women all the time no hindrances because it's her body and her choice (as I believe that a foetus must have some worth and value of its own) so pro choice as it is commonly espoused is out for me. Nor do I believe as the pro life community tend to advocate that abortion should be completely illegal all the time and with the tag on views that sex outside of marriage is wrong etc etc. So I'm really in the middle. Pro choice people would say I'm not pro choice and pro life people would say I'm not pro life.
Posts: 535 | From: Christchurch, New Zealand | Registered: Nov 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Macrina:
I am only in my early 30s so I have grown up with the pro life movement and pro choice movements as they are now. It's very interesting to me that pro-life = anti abortion and anti contraception is actually a new slant on the position. It's one of my biggest stumbling blocks in being able to engage with any pro-life person at all. It doesn't make logical sense.
The Roman Catholic Church is against both for in theory different reasons. It's against abortion because it is the taking of a life, and it's against contraception for reasons to do with the supposed end of sex that don't make sense to almost anyone outside the church.
One suspects that some pro-life evangelicals have adopted the anti-contraception position because they're copying the Roman Catholics (which used to be a big evangelical no-no). However, one suspects that there is also a large element of pro-lifers who are not so much pro-life as anti-unmarried-women-having-sex.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Macrina: I can't get on board with a group that says abortion should be available for all women all the time no hindrances because it's her body and her choice (as I believe that a foetus must have some worth and value of its own) so pro choice as it is commonly espoused is out for me.
You say that this is what they espouse commonly. I don't believe you.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
One suspects that some pro-life evangelicals have adopted the anti-contraception position because they're copying the Roman Catholics (which used to be a big evangelical no-no). However, one suspects that there is also a large element of pro-lifers who are not so much pro-life as anti-unmarried-women-having-sex.
Are there many evangelicals who are anti-contraception in principle? I don't think that's an attitude I've ever encountered, though of course things may be different in other parts of the world.
I have occasionally heard evangelicals object to specific provision of contraception - by doctors or schools to under 16s, or to free condoms at university clinics - but that is (as you say) on the grounds of not encouraging immoral sexual activity, not because contraception is itself inherently wrong.
I also don't see any necessary inconsistency between being anti-abortion and being anti-contraception. Being anti-abortion does not imply having to support any measures that are alleged to reduce abortion, even if one thinks them immoral.
If, for example, I was to suggest reducing abortion by compelling all women to submit to surgical sterilisation, such procedure to be reversed (if possible) only for married women who obtain a breeding permit, there wouldn't be anything illogical if someone replied "I'm pro-life, but Eliab's scheme is evil and insane".
If Catholic or other Christians really do think contraception is inherently evil (hard though that is for the rest of us to imagine), they aren't being illogical in sticking to that, even if it might reduce abortion.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Are there many evangelicals who are anti-contraception in principle? I don't think that's an attitude I've ever encountered, though of course things may be different in other parts of the world.
As I understand it, it is a growing thing among conservative evangelicals in the US. I may be misinformed.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
This illustrates an interesting but fairly common phenomenon: after claiming to reject both the "pro-choice [and] pro-life* camps", the speaker will then advocates a pro-choice position (abortion should be a legally available option in many or all cases).
Well, of the permutations:
a.) Abortion is immoral and should be illegal;
b.) Abortion is not immoral and should be legal;
c.) Abortion is immoral but should not be illegal -
Option (c) does seem to be on the middle between (a) and (b). At any rate, it's not obvious that it's more of a sub-case of (b) than (a).
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
This illustrates an interesting but fairly common phenomenon: after claiming to reject both the "pro-choice [and] pro-life* camps", the speaker will then advocates a pro-choice position (abortion should be a legally available option in many or all cases).
Well, of the permutations:
a.) Abortion is immoral and should be illegal;
b.) Abortion is not immoral and should be legal;
c.) Abortion is immoral but should not be illegal -
Option (c) does seem to be on the middle between (a) and (b). At any rate, it's not obvious that it's more of a sub-case of (b) than (a).
And yet it's fairly obviously a pro-choice position (that abortion should be a decision in the hands of the woman involved, not the state). Introducing questions of morality into a debate about legality seems like an attempt to muddy the waters.
BTW, you omitted
d.) Abortion is not immoral and should be illegal
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
What Macrina said.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
And yet it's fairly obviously a pro-choice position (that abortion should be a decision in the hands of the woman involved, not the state). Introducing questions of morality into a debate about legality seems like an attempt to muddy the waters.
1. Since when has the abortion debate been solely about legality? If we want to classify what people actually believe, and are concerned about 'muddying the waters', then ignoring what they are actually talking about by unilaterally redefining the terms of the debate seems an odd approach.
2. I am not convinced that 'X should not be illegal' equates to a right to choose X. There was an unpleasant case about a year ago where a mother, against all advice, drank heavily throughout pregnancy, so that her baby suffered foetal alocohol syndrome and was taken into care. The local authority attempted to sue her, and while I personally can see their point, the majority opinion on the Ship was that legal action would be a counterproductive move. I don't think it follows that Shipmates believe in a right to choose to imperil one's child through excessive drinking.
Similarly, adultery is not illegal, but I don't expect my wife would be particularly impressed if I had an affair and then defended myself on the grounds that I had a right to do so.
3. Point (2) notwithstanding, you're the one who (correctly) keeps pointing out that 'pro-life' doesn't actually mean pro-life, so why is it suddenly important for you that 'pro-choice' means exactly what it says on the tin?
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Macrina:
... I can't get on board with a group that says abortion should be available for all women all the time no hindrances because it's her body and her choice (as I believe that a foetus must have some worth and value of its own) so pro choice as it is commonly espoused is out for me. ...
That's nice. If you think a foetus has worth and value, what do you expect the state to do about it? Whether an abortion happens or not is going to be somebody's decision; who or what should be making those decisions? In Canada, we used to have hospital abortion committees that decided these things, so whether or not a woman could get an abortion depended on the opinions / beliefs / desires / whims of the local hospital adminstrators. Needless to say, access to abortion - and by inference, the worth and value of the fetuses - varied widely across the country.
It is insulting to suggest that women don't know that fetuses have value or haven't thought about it or don't know what happens in an abortion. Women who have children have beliefs about abortion. Women who have never been pregnant have beliefs about abortion. Men who can't get pregnant have beliefs about abortion. And yet, as soon as a woman is pregnant, somebody else has to do their thinking and make decisions for them because the poor dears have no idea how precious a fetus is.
Really?
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
1. Since when has the abortion debate been solely about legality? If we want to classify what people actually believe, and are concerned about 'muddying the waters', then ignoring what they are actually talking about by unilaterally redefining the terms of the debate seems an odd approach.
Of course it's about legality. We can talk about the morality of abortion all day long, but when we stop looking at our navels, the only real question is: can a woman who wants an abortion have a safe, legal* abortion? If it were only a question of individual beliefs, anyone who thinks abortion is immoral is free to never, ever have an abortion, and would keep their noses out of other women's lives. It is impossible to reconcile the broad range of opinions and beliefs about abortion in our society; it is possible to decide as a society whether abortion should be safe and legal or illegal and unsafe.
quote:
2. ... Similarly, adultery is not illegal, but I don't expect my wife would be particularly impressed if I had an affair and then defended myself on the grounds that I had a right to do so.
But if adultery were illegal, your wife could call the cops and you might go to jail. Do you think that is a good way for society to deal with adultery? Or do you think individual couples should have the freedom to decide what adultery means to their relationship?
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*Because we know that laws against abortion do not stop abortions. They just stop women from having safe, legal abortions. Pro-life = expires at birth.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
It is insulting to suggest that women don't know that fetuses have value or haven't thought about it or don't know what happens in an abortion.
It might be insulting, but it is accurate. People think less than they think they think.
We are more a complilation of adopted belief than gathered information or collected wisdom. I have not met everyone, so there may be exceptions, but all those humans I have encountered have at least one area where they regurgitate rather than cogitate. How we discuss things matters precisely because it affects the way those things are processed.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
It is insulting to suggest that women don't know that fetuses have value or haven't thought about it or don't know what happens in an abortion.
It might be insulting, but it is accurate.
Every single pregnant woman? You can't possibly believe that.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
How do you get that from my post?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Of course it's about legality. We can talk about the morality of abortion all day long, but when we stop looking at our navels, the only real question is: can a woman who wants an abortion have a safe, legal* abortion? If it were only a question of individual beliefs, anyone who thinks abortion is immoral is free to never, ever have an abortion, and would keep their noses out of other women's lives.
Yes, that illustrates exactly what I am saying. People in camp (c) behave like people in camp (a) on an individual level and like people in camp (b) on a legislative level. Therefore it is an intermediate position.
quote:
But if adultery were illegal, your wife could call the cops and you might go to jail. Do you think that is a good way for society to deal with adultery?
Of course not. I don't know why you think I would think otherwise.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
How do you get that from my post?
Person A: It's insulting to say X about women.
Person B: It's insulting but it's true.
Me: You think it's true of every woman?
Gee. How would I get that from what you said? When someone says "women" without qualification, and neither you nor they say "some", then it means "women." As in, "All women." That's how the English language works.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Collective nouns can also be used to mean the group in general.
And read the bloody rest of the post for context. The bit you clipped could be taken that way, and could have been better phrased, but the rest that follows should clarify that regardless.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
When someone says "women" without qualification, and neither you nor they say "some", then it means "women." As in, "All women." That's how the English language works.
Pedantically speaking, it isn't how the English language works. Consider:
Birds can fly.
T or F?
English is a natural language, not a logical language. 'X have property Y' doesn't mean, All X have property Y (hence we have a word for 'all'). It means, Most X barring odd exceptions, corner cases, etc, have property Y.
Whether this makes any substantial difference to LilBuddha's response to Soror Magna's statement I leave to the reader.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
When someone says "women" without qualification, and neither you nor they say "some", then it means "women." As in, "All women." That's how the English language works.
Pedantically speaking, it isn't how the English language works. Consider:
Birds can fly.
T or F?
I would respond, "Well, most can."
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Apologies, great detective, there are no feces here.
Soror Magna said:
quote:
It is insulting to suggest that women don't know that fetuses have value or haven't thought about it or don't know what happens in an abortion.
This is the kind of no qualification statement you are objecting to, no most, no some: no modifier. Which is why I posted. I added a modifier. Most* of the post, the part you did not quote, is a modifier to the part you did.
Pregnancy does not confer knowledge or the desire to acquire it. And it is about more than legality, SM's point, precisely because of this. Putting aside coercion as a cause, an unwanted pregnancy often* relates from lack of consideration of consequence. Forget the potential life for the moment and think about the existing one.
Pregnant means there is the potential that disease has also been spread. It often* means that thought was not applied, that education failed.
*qualifiers. I do hope there are enough included.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Even with qualifiers, you paint a broad swath with a very black tar-brush.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
... It might be insulting, but it is accurate. People think less than they think they think. ... I have not met everyone, so there may be exceptions, but all those humans I have encountered have at least one area where they regurgitate rather than cogitate. ...
Which doesn't explain why - out of all the people in the world who have to make life-and-death decisions in difficult circumstances - pregnant women cannot be trusted to make the decision about an abortion.
There really are very few times under our current legal system where a person is automatically presumed to be unable to make decisions due to their health status. Regardless of how little one may think of pregnant women's decision-making powers, they should not be treated as if they were children or in a coma.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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