*democratic discourse* about abortion

[iverglas]

The original thread addressing the question of women's decision-making process when they are faced with unwanted pregnancies has become unwieldy, and diverged from its original topic. I would like to return to the topic of how best to address the "issue" in discussing women's right to make their own choices in respect of their own pregnancies.

It has been suggested that because many people appear to believe (or at least are willing to say) that many, or even some, women take/make this decision "lightly", those of us who defend women's rights need to address that, um, concern.

I strongly disagree. I strongly believe, and advocate, that those of us who defend women's rights should stick to defending women's rights, and therefore stick to the issue -- and insist that anyone who wishes the state to interfere with women's exercise of their rights also stick to that issue.


The ISSUE is this:

Does the state have justification for interfering in the exercise
of women's right to terminate their pregnancies?

That is the only issue that concerns me, and that is the only issue between the anti-choice brigade and anyone who is pro-choice.

I, and any other pro-choice individual, could agree or disagree with any anti-choice individual as to whether some women decide lightly to have abortions ... or white should be worn after Labour Day or the sky is blue today.

None of that has anything whatsoever to do with the ISSUE.

If I am interested in the opinion of an anti-choice individual as to whether white should be worn after Labour Day, I might well engage in a discussion, and even a debate, of that issue with him/her.

But I will not acquiesce in the claim that that question is somehow relevant to whether the state has justification for interfering in women's right to terminate pregnancies, by discussing it within the framework of a discussion of that issue.

And when I know perfectly well that someone's agenda is to arrange for the state to interfere in women's right to terminate pregnancies, I will not engage in any discussion of women's reasons for doing so, or feelings about doing so. To do that would be to acknowledge implicitly that I accepted that those questions were relevant to the issue. They are not.

No person of colour would address anyone's proposal that people of colour should not be permitted to go to law school by agreeing that it is not a good thing, and that it should be rare, blah blah, and that the decision to go to law school is one that people of colour agonize over, and thereby implicitly agree that any of those things should be considered in deciding whether the state should interfere in the exercise of their right to go to law school by dignifying it with a response.

No gay man or lesbian would address anyone's proposal that s/he should not be permitted to engage in sexual activity with the partner of his/her choice by agreeing that homosexual activity is not a good thing, and that it should be rare, blah blah, and that the decision to get married is one that gay men/lesbians agonize over, and thereby implicitly agree that any of those things should be considered in deciding whether the state should interfere in the exercise of their right to engage in sexual activity with the partner of their choice.

People have rights and may exercise those rights REGARDLESS of what anyone thinks of their reasons for doing so, UNLESS the state can justify interference in that exercise.

Most importantly, ALL people have rights, all the same rights, because they are human beings -- NOT because they have somehow demonstrated that they "deserve" the same rights as everyone else, or "deserve" to exercise their own rights as they see fit.

Because the claim that women NEVER make the decision to terminate their pregnancies "lightly" is so patently false, it is obviously counter-productive to make it. As REP pointed out in the other thread, it is very easily rebutted -- and so making it looks like a mark of desperation. Making that claim is an acknowledgement that the question is relevant to the issue, and a virtual admission of defeat on it.

Pithlet said in that thread: "But, people ARE going to think that abortion is not such a great thin<g>. Shouting them out of the debate does no good."

Refusing to be diverted from the ISSUE that is being debated is not "shouting <anyone> out" of that debate.

People can and may think whatever they bloody want about any old thing at all. But I will never acquiesce in their claim that what they think is relevant to the exercise of my rights, unless they can demonstrate that what they think amounts to justification for interfering in the exercise of my rights.

And that is why my only response to anyone's claim that women feel or don't feel any way at all about their abortions, when there is still an issue as to whether women's exercise of their reproductive rights may or will be interfered with, will always be: So what?

If the issue on the floor is whether the state has justification for interfering in the exercise of women's right to terminate their pregnancies, the person making such a claim must demonstrate its relevance to that issue. If s/he cannot do that -- which is done by answering "so what?", by demonstrating what relevance women's feelings or motives or reasons for exercising their rights has to the issue of whether their exercise of those rights may be interfered with, then there is no need whatsoever to respond in any way to any such claims.

Some are apparently afraid that if we do not respond to them, we will be allowing the anti-choice brigade to portray women as stupid, immoral flibbertigibbets who wander around having careless sex and thoughtlessly aborting their pwecious fetuses. And to that, again, I say: So what?

Stupid, immoral flibbertigibbets who have careless sex have a right to abort their pregnancies, thoughtlessly or not. Just as people of colour who support separatism have a right to go to law school, thoughtlessly or not, and whether we like them and their ideology or not; and gay men and lesbians who read violent pornography have a right to engage in sexual activity with the partner of their choice, thoughtlessly or not, and whether we like them and their tastes or not; and anyone who hates people of any other religion has a right to attend the religious institution of his/her choice, thoughtlessly or not and whether we find them abhorrent or not; and on and on and on.

NO ONE is required to approve of what anyone else does in the exercise of his/her rights, or the reasons why s/he perceives a need to exercise those rights. No one's approval of what they do is relevant to whether their exercise of their rights may be interfered with without justification.

And I just can't think of anyone else who would agree that his/her motives or feelings are relevant to his/her exercise of rights. Any African-American debating the issue of prohibiting the admission of African-Americans to law school who said "African-Americans are NEVER separatists", any gay man or lesbian debating the issuance of marriage licences to same-sex couples who said "gay men/lesbians NEVER read violent pornography", any Christian or Jew debating the issue of closing down their religious centres who said "Christians NEVER hate Jews" or "Jews NEVER hate Muslims", would

(a) look desperate and foolish, because plainly there are people who are/do all of thsoe things, and
(b) have agreed that the motives and reasons for people in his/her group wanting to exercise their rights were relevant to the issue of whether there was justification for interfering in the exercise of those rights, simply by dignifying the claims with a response in the context of a debate of the issue of justification for interference with rights.

As Karenina said in the other thread, doing that allows them to frame the debate.

It allows them to define us ... as something other than the kind of people who oughta be able to exercise rights -- because who among us can really be sure that s/he will not be regarded by them as a careless, immoral flibbertigibbet, no matter how much she protests her virtue or acknowledges her mistake, and how agonizing the decision was for her??

And the fact is that a whole lot of people do indeed think that if someone else doesn't meet their standards of intelligence or morality, it's just fine to interfere in the exercise of his/her rights.

And THAT is the problem underlying the abortion debate.

We will simply NEVER win any "debate" about the nature of women who have abortions -- because there is simply no such person as Everywoman, and no truth to the claim that women NEVER have abortions lightly. And because no matter how seriously *we* might believe that most women take their decisions to terminate their pregnancies, that is no answer either to those who will still believe that such a decision could only have been made lightly, or to those who will still believe that the decision was wrong and simply don't care how seriously someone took it. (And really ... don't we think that this is what most such people are really saying?)

It is counter-productive even to engage in it, because doing so reinforces the idea that people's entitlement to exercise rights is dependent on their nature as individuals or as a group.

We CAN win the debate about whether there is justification for interfering in women's exercise of their rights to terminate their pregnancies ... I mean, it's been won, right?

And since THAT is the ISSUE, since it is that debate that the anti-choice brigade wants to reopen, what on earth is the point in playing into their hands by discussing the very question that we reject as irrelevant?

People who talk about careless women having thoughtless abortions are DEMAGOGUES, not democrats.

They are appealing, and pandering, to the emotions and prejudices of their listeners. They are attempting to win a debate -- the debate about the exercise of other people's rights -- by fascist means: not by reason and persuasion, fact and argument, but by portraying other people as inferior and not deserving of protection of their rights. And how familiar is that??

Acquiescing in that notion in any way, including by responding to it, does not further democratic discourse about rights, and in fact impedes it by enabling those who would drown it out with demogoguery and with anti-liberal, anti-democratic discourse.

Democrats and liberals (and I speak in lower case letters) insist that discourse about public policy proceed from the principles that comprise the parameters for that public policy. We do not engage in discourse that assumes as its premise that those principles might not apply to certain individuals or certain groups if those individuals or groups are sufficiently distasteful to certain others -- not even by trying to persuade someone else that s/he is wrong about their distastefulness.

There will always be someone whom someone else finds distasteful. That is pretty much why we have developed principles like the universality of human rights -- so that the powerful may not prevent those they find distasteful from exercising those rights.

One may sometimes find one's self in a discussion with someone who genuinely finds some other individuals or group to be distasteful -- i.e. who is not simply asserting a distaste as a demagogic tactic for rallying others who might feel it to his/her cause. (I recommend skepticism in that regard.) In that instance, it might be fruitful to address the concern:

- I share your distaste for those people. I think they are dirty and smelly and have the morals of alley cats and are of sub-normal intelligence. BUT they have the same rights as we do, and we are part of a society that has agreed and vowed to protect everyone's rights. If we don't protect theirs, how can we expect ours to be protected from people who might find us distasteful?

- I disagree with you about those people. I have known many of them (or: maybe you didn't know that I am one of them). Some of them may be like you say, but not all of them are; and some of "us" are like that too, don't you agree? I think that if you get to know them better / get to know more about them, you might find that they do things much the same way as you do. AND they have the same rights as we do, and we are part of a society that has agreed and vowed to protect everyone's rights. If we don't protect theirs, how can we expect ours to be protected from people who might find us distasteful?

But I am talking here about discussions with individuals who genuinely, if mistakenly, hold certain beliefs about certain others. Certainly there is a hearts-and-minds component to discourse about any public policy issue: changing people's hearts can change their minds.

I have done it myself, for instance in discussion with an anti-choice individual who held quite mistaken ideas about pro-choice people, thinking that they were heartless and agenda-driven and didn't care at all about individual women and their problems (and therefore, although completely illogically, that the pro-choice agenda was bad); inadvertently, simply by demonstrating more concern about an individual woman than any anti-choicer in the vicinity had, I completely changed her heart, and her mind was thus opened to be changed, and she changed it. We still did not agree about the "nature" of abortion, but we agreed about women's right to choose it.

It can't be predicted what will change people's hearts. Racists may have a change of heart if a person of colour rescues their child from a burning building; homophobes may have a change of heart if they find their child is gay or lesbian; the anti-abortion may have a change of heart if they experience an unwanted pregnancy. But they also may not. Their reasons for being racist or homophobic or anti-abortion may be quite immune to that kind of influence.

OR they may not in fact be racist or homophobic or anti-abortion at all, and they may simply be using the discourse of racism or homophobia or opposition to abortion to further their agenda of oppressing vulnerable groups/individuals for their own benefit.

And of course the most obvious benefit is political power.

Surely it is obvious that the huge majority of anti-choice politicians, for instance, are nothing more than demagogues -- exploiting the anti-abortion feelings of their target audience, voters, to gain and keep power.

The individuals in the audience of voters may be anti-abortion for a whole spectrum of reasons, ranging from some sentimental or "moral" concern for fetuses to their own misogyny and wish to prevent women from controlling their own lives and participating fully in public life, for whatever reasons they might have. Just like the spectrum of people who present as racist or homophobic, or who express "moral" concerns about any other groups.

We cannot predict who, in that audience, is susceptible to a change of heart, and by what influence. We do know that for many, it is not a matter of "heart" at all; it is a matter of mind, of a conscious choice to act in their own interests, which they perceive as best advanced by interfering with other people's exercise of their rights.

That is the field on which the argument is won. Winning an argument does not necessarily mean persuading one's adversary. It means demonstrating that one's position is consistent with the premises that both parties accept, and that the other position is not.

Obviously, there must be an arbiter if there is to be a winner. That is what courts, and especially constitutional/supreme courts, are for in our societies.

Obviously, those courts are appointed by the politicians that people elect, and far too many of them are the demagogues who get elected by appealing to the emotions and prejudices of the electorate.

But that is all the more reason to frame the debate properly and not get dragged off onto battlegrounds where we cannot win.

The issue is: Does the state have justification for interfering in the exercise of women's right to terminate their pregnancies?

The right to terminate a pregnancy is inherent in the rights to life and liberty. We all have those rights, and we, as societies, are bound to protect others' ability to exercise their rights against unjustified state interference, regardless of whether any of us like any of them or not.

So the only answer to claims that women who have abortions are morally impaired or intellectually deficient is: So what?

Or, if you like: Can you explain how and why someone's immorality or stupidity would justify interfering in her ability, and the ability of all other women, to exercise her rights as she thinks best?

(If I don't think that *you* will think it through properly, or if I think that *you* are acting selfishly and short-sightedly, should I be able to prohibit *you* from making your own decisions and acting on them? What sort of justification should I be able to demonstrate for doing that?)

That is the only answer to any effort to interfere in anyone's exercise of his/her rights.

And if we respond differently to efforts to interfere in women's rights from the way we would respond to efforts to interfere in the rights of people of colour, or GLBT people, or people of non-Christian religions or non-WASP ethnicity -- if we confer legitimacy on the notion that people must be shown to deserve rights before being permitted to exercise them and acknowledging that such considerations belong in the public discourse about rights, by responding to irrelevant allegations about the nature of women who have abortions -- we're just setting ourselves up to lose.

We simply cannot persuade the entire population that women who have abortions (or women in general) are as clever and moral as they are (or stop the demagogues from playing to some people's belief that they are not). But we can win the argument about whether women may be prohibited from exercising their fundamental human rights.

.

[wtmusic]

1. agree

although the 'taken lightly' issue does become a part of politics when funding for counseling is involved.

Very important to support funding for counseling so this important decision is not taken lightly.

[iverglas]

3. not quite "agree"ing

"Very important to support funding for counseling so this important decision is not taken lightly."

That's not a reason to support funding, in my own mind.

People are entitled to take/make decisions lightly to their heart's content; I therefore would never say that the decision should not be taken lightly, as you appear to do when you suggest a measure to ensure that it is not.

I would say that it is important to support funding for counselling, for pregnant women, just as it is important to support counselling for young people considering dropping out of school, parents who are having difficulty with childrearing, depressed elderly people who are at risk of suicide, and a whole range of people who are in need of assistance in making decisions that affect their lives and well-being, many of which are at least as "important" as the decision about a pregnancy.

We (in my view) have a responsibility to assist people in difficulty.

That has nothing to do, however, with their entitlement to exercise their rights as they see fit, however ignorant they might be.

Any assistance that we offer must always be voluntary, i.e. made available but never made a condition of exercising the right.

If anyone were to propose otherwise in respect of pregnant women, that would be to claim that pregnant women are, necessarily or on the whole or on average or more commonly, less capable of making decisions in their own best interests than any other group of people.

Of course, it could also be to claim that decisions about pregnancies are something in which society has some greater interest that any other decisions that people make (is there some other decision for which we require that competent adults receive "counselling" before being permitted to act on it?) and therefore has justification for interfering in the decision-making / rights-exercising process. Which, of course, they aren't.

.

[Jane Roe]

2. Quotation question:

When you use quotes around "lightly" are you quoting an actual DU post, or do the quotation marks mean something else in this case?

Did somebody on DU actually accuse women of making pregnancy termination decisions "lightly?"

I know that one of the posters used the word "lightly" in the thread, but that poster was arguing that the decisions are *not* taken "lightly."

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

4. Without getting into the abortion debate, I think

you are asking people to participate in a very well-crafted tautology. Though your above essay is quite eloquent, well-written, and very convincing, it stages a debate where none can exist within its own terms. The issue is, it seems to me: Does the state have justification for interfering in the exercise of women's right to terminate their pregnancies? From your perspective, and from your argument, I think the question becomes this: since the courts have already spoken, does the state have a right to its legislative authority and its attempts to put into question the court's ruling(which could then be struck down by the courts again)?

You write, for example, in a thesis paragraph:
"The right to terminate a pregnancy is inherent in the rights to life and liberty. We all have those rights, and we, as societies, are bound to protect others' ability to exercise their rights against unjustified state interference, regardless of whether any of us like any of them or not."

You want the constitutionality of the debate closed off. But the consitution, I'm afraid to say, is not a closed system. It provides a legal framework that is always already in question. The constitution is organic, a document that was desedimentized before the ink dried. The debate is actually based on an interpretation of how the words and phrases of that legal framework are interpreted.

So, you're correct here:
"We simply cannot persuade the entire population that women who have abortions (or women in general) are as clever and moral as they are (or stop the demagogues from playing to some people's belief that they are not)."

But you're intelletually dishonest (you're mercilessly framing the debate) here (in the very next sentence):
"But we can win the argument about whether women may be prohibited from exercising their fundamental human rights."

From the anti-choice perspective, the debate is indeed about fundamental human rights. Now you can get into defining what a human is. The rabbis have their definition; the Church theirs; the medical field theirs. But the constitution? Didn't it at one time fractionalize the definition of a human (3/5)? The question of "human" is at the core of your "human rights" argument.

I hope you take my post in the spirit in which it was given: not as an endorsement or condemnation of abortion, but as a critique of your framing of the argument.

[iverglas]

5. the issue?

From your perspective, and from your argument, I think the question becomes this: since the courts have already spoken, does the state have a right to its legislative authority and its attempts to put into question the court's ruling (which could then be struck down by the courts again)?

I guess I'll just have to try to be clearer, eh? Even if it does invite further comment about all those words.

My position is not dependent on the courts having already spoken on this particular issue. It is dependent on the entire body of authoritative words about human rights and the exercise thereof -- or constitutional rights and the exercise thereof, your choice.

You write, for example, in a thesis paragraph:
"The right to terminate a pregnancy is inherent in the rights to life and liberty. We all have those rights, and we, as societies, are bound to protect others' ability to exercise their rights against unjustified state interference, regardless of whether any of us like any of them or not."

Uh ... yes, that is my submission -- based on the facts as I see 'em and as I have oft stated them. Anyone who disagrees is free to join issue.

You want the constitutionality of the debate closed off.

Hmm. And do you have a reference for that claim?

I assume that you mean "the debate as to the constitutionality". And nope, I have no desire to close it off. What I would like, of course, is for anyone seeking to engage in that debate to actually do so -- to debate constitutionality in the same way as the constitutionality of any other attempt to interfere in anyone else's rights would be debated.

And that doesn't include casting aspersions on the morality or intelligence of the people seeking to exercise the right -- or responding to such aspersions, in my submission. And that having been my point in this thread.

But the consitution, I'm afraid to say, is not a closed system. It provides a legal framework that is always already in question. The constitution is organic, a document that was desedimentized before the ink dried. The debate is actually based on an interpretation of how the words and phrases of that legal framework are interpreted.

Well sure 'nuff. And all anybody who wants to interfere in women's rights needs to do is demonstrate what interpretation of the words and phrases in that legal framework would permit such interference.

I'd still fail to see how women's motivations for making their decisions, or competence to make those decisions, would be an issue, of course. That being the question I was addressing.

So, you're correct here:
"We simply cannot persuade the entire population that women who have abortions (or women in general) are as clever and moral as they are (or stop the demagogues from playing to some people's belief that they are not)."

But you're intelletually dishonest (you're mercilessly framing the debate) here (in the very next sentence):
"But we can win the argument about whether women may be prohibited from exercising their fundamental human rights."

I'm afraid that I'm not seeing any foundation for an allegation of intellectual dishonesty, so I'm feeling that I've been the target of an unprovoked and inappropriate attack.

Can we *not* win the argument about whether women may be prohibited from exercising their fundamental rights? I kind of thought that we'd won it, to a significant extent and with some exceptions where you're at.

Are you suggesting that the debate should be framed some other way? Just asking, since I can't really tell what your objection to my framing of it might be. As far as I can tell, I have framed it exactly the way it is.

From the anti-choice perspective, the debate is indeed about fundamental human rights.

Well, it's about who has fundamental human rights, is that what you're saying?

I'm not engaged in that debate. It is a given, in the here and now, that women have fundamental human rights and that z/e/fs do not.

Now you can get into defining what a human is.

Why would I? I know exactly what a human being -- that which has human rights (if you're looking for tautologies) -- is. We've all known it for quite some time, although, granted, some individuals and groups may have been a little foggy on the notion at some times and in some places. (I've never been too eager to concede that point; I have always had a hard time believing, for instance, that when Thomas Jefferson had sex with a black woman, he believed he was having sex with "something" other than a human being. Believing -- or saying -- that it is just fine to do rotten things to other human beings, like enslave them, is a little different from believing that the "somethings" in question are something other than human beings.)

If someone else wants to get into defining a human being as something other than what it is currently defined as, s/he is welcome to give it a shot. That will require demonstrating that it is possible to define "human being" other than as we now define it ... just as someone who wanted to define "square" as something other than that which has two dimensions, for equal sides and four equal angles would have to demonstrate that it would be possible to do so. That is, that the definition would then convey meaning -- would *be* a definition.

If someone wants to do that, I'm all ears. Of course, I'll be needing some good reason for signing on to the campaign for such a change, and I haven't seen any.

But the constitution? Didn't it at one time fractionalize the definition of a human (3/5)?

Well, no. Your constitution never did any such thing. I'd think that before dragging this kind of allegation into the conversation (even by innocently asking whether it is true), one might make some effort to establish its accuracy.

The question of "human" is at the core of your "human rights" argument.

Again -- "question"? Is something a question just because someone says it is?

A human being is that which is born, alive and human. If someone "questions" whether something else should be a human being -- and asserts that it should -- then s/he will have to be prepared to provide a coherent answer, if s/he is genuinely engaged in civil, democratic discourse.

In other words, and as I have oft asked but never been answered: how's it gonna work?

The term "human being" conveys meaning; one of the most important elements of that meaning holds that a human being is that which we are required to treat in a certain way, by a certain minimum set of rules (which may indeed change). All human beings are entitled to be treated as required by those rules.

Human rights come as a set. No human being has the right to life but not liberty, or the right to liberty but not life. We do believe that we can have justification for interfering in the exercise of those rights in some cases, and we have rules for determining when that is. The rules will of course never be a complete, closed set, as you say. There are infinite possible situations to which they might have to apply, and the circumstances relevant to the question of justification can always change.

(I've always said that if the human race were in grave and imminent danger of extinction, and pregnancies were rare and maybe even dangerous, I might agree that my rights could be interfered with by compelling me to continue a pregnancy against my will.)

But anyhow. S/he who says that there is a question as to what is a human being, or who claims that "human being" should include or exclude something other than it now does, certainly has the onus of making persuasive argument for that position when adopting it would alter the entire scheme of our present relationships with one another.

Such a person has the onus of demonstrating how, say, a constitution that defined a z/e/f as a human being would work; how could some human beings (pregnant women, or z/e/fs) have fewer rights than others, or have their rights interfered with when others' could not be? (If pregnant women have to risk their lives and give up their liberty in the interest of another "human being", why could I not demand your bone marrow to save my life? If z/e/fs could be "killed" to avert a risk to the life of a pregnant woman, why could I not demand your heart to save my life?)

So many questions for anybody who might want to call that stuff into question ... such a dearth of answers to the questions whenever I've asked them.

In the meantime, we really all do know what a human being is ... and what isn't a human being. And we have our constitutions and precedents and stuff, for deciding when a human being's exercise of his/her rights may be interfered with.

And I'll still stick to them to the exclusion of women's morality and/or intelligence as relevant considerations when it comes to whether the state may interfere in women's exercise of their rights in respect of their pregnancies. The relevance of those latter considerations, and the wisdom of being dragged into "debate" about them, being the matter I was addressing, and all.

.

[redqueen]

6. I predict this will change, and soon

Your insistence that being human is dependent on being born is not prima facie knowledge so just asserting it will not make it so.

The facts are that babies are sentient while still in the womb, and this combined with viability is what I forsee will cause the shift in the laws. You can't say that a woman must forfeit her rights as soon as she becomes pregnant, but at some point during the pregnancy, the child becomes a separate person (with it's own rights). I'm confident it will be determined that that point arrives before the nine-month mark.

Just my opinion. :)

[iverglas]

7. try again

"Your insistence that being human is dependent on being born is not prima facie knowledge so just asserting it will not make it so."

Ah, if only I had insisted on any such thing, eh?

I pointed out that a human being is that which is born, alive *and* human. Please don't rewrite my words.

The facts are that babies are sentient while still in the womb, and this combined with viability is what I forsee will cause the shift in the laws.

You can make all the allegations of fact that you like, but it might help your case if you provided evidence of them.

I, myself, wouldn't be bothering to look at your evidence unless and until you had established that it was relevant to the issue ... which is:

Does the state have justification for interfering in the exercise of women's right to terminate their pregnancy?


You can't say that a woman must forfeit her rights as soon as she becomes pregnant, but at some point during the pregnancy, the child becomes a separate person (with it's own rights)

Now that's a weird one. Something that is not separate is "separate".

I mean, birth, after all, is the quite simply the process of separation.

Hey, I could say that my cat is a separate person with its own rights. (It's born and alive if not human, just as a z/e/f is alive and human if not born.) If I could explain how a cat goes about exercising rights and I can exercise my rights at the same time, I might get somewhere with that claim. Ditto for my fondly remembered grandmothers, who are born and human but no longer alive ...


But y'know, I thought I'd made it fairly clear in my initial post, and the one you responded to, that the point I was making was that women's "morality" or lack thereof, and women's intelligence or lack thereof, is not relevant to the question of whether the state has justification for interfering in women's exercise of their rights.

Agree? Disagree?


I'm confident it will be determined that that point <when a z/e/f beccomes a person> arrives before the nine-month mark.

Just my opinion. :)

Unfortunate that it doesn't have anything to do with my point, or my expressed opinion, or my post.

And nonsense to say that something that is a matter of definition could ever be "determined". How would you propose that we "determine" what the nature of a square is? Or the nature of a mayor, or a bachelor, or lunch, or any of a myriad of other things that "are" something because we say they are?

I was talking about applying the existing rules to women.

You want to change the rules. If so -- if you want to interfere in women's exercise of their rights, presumably because you want to create a conflict of rights and pronounce the z/e/f the winner -- you need to be doing what I suggested.

If a woman could be compelled to risk her life and give up her liberty for the benefit of her z/e/f, why could you not be compelled to do the same for me? What if I want your bone marrow or your kidney?

If a woman could be compelled to die for the benefit of the z/e/f (women do die in pregnancy and delivery, y'know), why could you not be compelled to do the same for me? What if I need your heart or your liver in order to survive?

If a z/e/f -- a human being, in this world of your imagining -- could be "killed" because its very existence, through no fault of its own, seems to pose a threat to the life of a pregnant woman -- why could you or I not be? What will there be to stop anyone from tossing us out of the lifeboat, or stealing our food to survive so that we starve to death, or doing anything to us that will endanger or end our lives but make it more likely that s/he will survive?

Are we all ready for this brave new world?

Or are you really proposing that women be the only ones whose rights could be intefered with ... whose lives could be ruined, or who could end up dead ... in this way?

.

[LeahMira]

11. I don't think that's the point...

I think that the point is that even if women took the decision lightly, it wouldn't matter in terms of rights.

An analogy. Some people take the right to vote lightly. Some take it so lightly that they don't even bother, but some vote Democrat because they always vote Democrat or because one candidate is better looking or for all sorts of strange reasons. Still, in spite of this, we wouldn't think of limiting the right to vote or eliminating it altogether. Every citizen has the right to vote, no matter what. Period, over and out.

Same thing with abortion. I believe one poster commented that the decision to abort a pregnancy is never made lightly and she felt upset that anyone would even think it was. But that was a different thread and I believe the point being made here is that whether the decision is reached after careful thought or whether it is reached "lightly" doesn't matter legally. Every woman has the right to abort a pregnancy, no matter what. Period, over and out.

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

8. First let me apologize.

I in no way meant to "attack" you. Please accept my apologies for the "intellectually dishonest" remark. I've reread my post, and it seems hostile. I don't know why. I really don't have any problems with the issues you bring up but only wanted to tease-out the way in which the debate is framed, which is an effective way of framing it for the pro-choice side. Again, I'm sorry.

I think my point is best summed up here in your own conflation of two ideas:
"human rights and the exercise thereof -- or constitutional rights and the exercise thereof, your choice."

I don't see human rights and constitutional rights as commensurate. You may; that's your decision. I don't need a constitution to tell me what human rights are. I can figure it out on my own.

This, of course, leads us to this. My question: "But the constitution? Didn't it at one time fractionalize the definition of a human (3/5)?"

Your response:
"Well, no. Your constitution never did any such thing. I'd think that before dragging this kind of allegation into the conversation (even by innocently asking whether it is true), one might make some effort to establish its accuracy."

I again may be wrong here, but I think it's Article 1, section 1 of said Constitution: "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years , and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons."

See Article 14, section 2 (1868) as a response to and undoing of Article 1, section 1, except that it also maintains: "excluding Indians not taxed."

You and I are in 100% agreement here (even with your point about my poorly constructed sentence which preceded my point):
"I assume that you mean "the debate as to the constitutionality". And nope, I have no desire to close it off. What I would like, of course, is for anyone seeking to engage in that debate to actually do so -- to debate constitutionality in the same way as the constitutionality of any other attempt to interfere in anyone else's rights would be debated."

Great line in response to my question of what a human being is:
"Why would I? I know exactly what a human being -- that which has human rights (if you're looking for tautologies) -- is."

Or, as our constitution, that document of human rights (what's the difference, right?), likes to put it: "excluding Indians not taxed."

All of your above points are well taken and very much appreciated. But the question of personhood, despite your well-crafted tautology :-), is at the heart of the "human rights" question. If defined as a person, then constitutional rights would be granted to the z/e/fs. But for the time being, that is neither here nor there to your argument.

Feel free not to respond to this post. I'm really just playing devil's advocate here, though I do think the above arguments have validity, though not constitutional validity--but neither did Licoln, who ultimately had to refer to the consitution's preamble to make his point about emancipation. But, again, that's another story of personhood, taking us away far from your constitutional argument.

[iverglas]

10. back at ya

I think my point is best summed up here in your own conflation of two ideas:
"human rights and the exercise thereof -- or constitutional rights and the exercise thereof, your choice."

I don't see human rights and constitutional rights as commensurate. You may; that's your decision.

Actually, the fact that I said "or", and "your choice", might suggest that I wasn't conflating anything. (Ah, I suppose you may have thought that I meant that the term was your choice, when I meant the choice of which set of rights.)

In this instance, I don't happen to see a need for a distinction. The rights of which I am speaking are pretty much covered by both heads. No problem going with the lesser included set, and the one that is actually enforceable -- constitutional rights -- at this point.

I don't need a constitution to tell me what human rights are. I can figure it out on my own.

Here we have a bit more of a problem. Can you also figure out what "a square" is on your own? What "a mayor", or "a bachelor", or "lunch" is? Without, say, a dictionary?

Dictionaries tell us what words are used to mean. In most cases, those meanings are the meanings we have agreed, by consensus, to apply to those words. (Sometimes dictionaries tell us what smaller subsets of "us" use words to mean, too.) "Lunch", for instance, is generally agreed to be the meal that people eat around noon. "A mayor" would be the leader of a municipality, chosen according to the rules adopted for that purpose.

One really cannot look at a sandwich and know that it is (or isn't) lunch without knowing what the definition of lunch is. Etc. The definition being an expression of our agreement on the question.

And one really can't look at a human being and know what his/her rights are, without knowing what rights we have agreed s/he has.

I mean, unless you're one of those "natural rights" folks, or believe that some god told you what your rights are, in which case there's no discussion to be had that involves how we know anything.

However, regardless of where we think our rights came from, we can still agree on what rights human beings have and what that means. Just as we can still agree that shoplifting should be against the law and nose-picking should not, whether we're atheists or Hindus and whether we're socialists or fascists.

Obviously, we are all always going to be talking in some sort of circle when we discuss these things. Who are "we"? How do we know what "we" have agreed to?

But for our purposes, we really do have answers: "we" are the citizens of our various countries, and what we have agreed to is stated in our constitutions. Those are the rules that govern what laws may be made and enforced. And yours and mine are sufficient for our purposes.

And yes, they can be changed. And yes, they can violate what you or I might call "human rights". And human existence is not static, and human life is a process, and generally we do try to get things right rather than wrong, if given half a chance. (Right? wrong? Hey, don't ask me. I can justify my opinion as consistent with my premises -- but nobody yet has been able to prove his/her premises.)

Great line in response to my question of what a human being is:
"Why would I? I know exactly what a human being -- that which has human rights (if you're looking for tautologies) -- is."

Or, as our constitution, that document of human rights (what's the difference, right?), likes to put it: "excluding Indians not taxed."

Forgive me for not seeing any connection whatsoever between the two thoughts. Did you miss my bit about how anyone, or any human group, choosing not to treat all human beings like human beings does not mean that they did not regard them as human beings? Does the fact that someone was not taxed really prove that s/he was regarded as "not a human being"?? (I thought it meant that there were treaties precluding taxation; do people normally make treaties with something other than human beings?)

I might add that since we make our decisions based on the current state of our knowledge, we sometimes make mistakes, eh? NOT about what the criteria for being a human being are -- but about whether something meets those criteria. (There may indeed have been people who thought that some other kind of human being wasn't "human". Mistake. We've made no such mistake about z/e/fs.)

I again may be wrong here, but I think it's Article 1, section 1 of said Constitution: "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years , and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons."

There ya go. Are you interpreting a statement that "three-fifths of all other persons" shall be added to the count of persons in a state, for taxation purposes, as meaning that the persons in question are not persons? Odd, that would be.

But the question of personhood ... is at the heart of the "human rights" question. If defined as a person, then constitutional rights would be granted to the z/e/fs.

And if defined as a square, a triangle would still have three sides. And you still wouldn't be able to put six of them together and get a cube.

If a z/e/f, although not meeting the criteria for being a human being, were defined as a person, it still wouldn't be capable of exercising rights unless we denied pregnant women the ability to exercise their rights without the same kind of justification that is required in order to deny anyone else the ability to exercise his/her rights.

And then there just wouldn't be any such thing as "rights" as we know 'em. There'd be arbitrariness. Any decision between the lives of two persons, where neither has done any wrong to the other or done anything else that we regard as justifying denying them the ability to exercise their rights, could only be arbitrary.

Pregnant woman whose life cannot be saved without "killing" her z/e/f, z/e/f which has done no wrong. Who lives, who dies? I don't think that even Solomon could decide that one. There is no due process in the world that could sort it out. It can only be decided arbitrarily.

If the z/e/f won out, and if there were to be equal protection of the law ... then I would get your heart when I needed a new one. I could not be denied the same protection as was given to the z/e/f, surely: the "right" to live when my continued life requires someone else's death. Ditto if the pregnant woman won, of course.

Sure, let's change the constitutional definition of "person" to include z/e/fs. And in so doing change the entire meaning of rights. Necessarily. To the point that it is simply meaningless, because it contradicts itself internally.

A square has two dimensions, four equal sides and four equal angles ... except when it has three sides. So what's a square?

A person has the right to life and liberty ... except when she is pregnant. So what rights does a person have?

Someday, someone will answer the questions.

... I do think the above arguments have validity, though not constitutional validity--but neither did Licoln, who ultimately had to refer to the consitution's preamble to make his point about emancipation. But, again, that's another story of personhood, taking us away far from your constitutional argument.

I'm afraid that dithering and disputing about what old dead white guys (in a foreign country) thought and did holds little interest for me. Nonetheless, I could have solved Lincoln's problem easily: one of those amendments guarantees all persons the right to life and liberty and not to be deprived thereof except by due process, and then there's the right of all persons to the equal protection of the law.

I would have just asked what any of my opponents proposed that people of colour were if not persons, and what they thought Thomas Jefferson (or any number of their living buddies) were up to when they had sex with someone of the other colour, and whether they thought that people of colour who committed homicides or robberies should not be prosecuted. Or various other questions to elicit what they actually thought about people of colour, and not what it was in their interests to say they thought.

Kinda like asking the anti-choice whether they think that children sexually assaulted by adults should be permitted to terminate their pregnancies, or virtuous married women with wanted pregnancies that will certainly kill them should be permitted to terminate their pregnancies, or some other even more pointed questions designed to elicit their real beliefs about z/e/fs rather than just what it is in their interests to say they believe, or to show that what they believe makes not a shred of sense.

Sorta like I keep trying to do. If only somebody would answer 'em.

.

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

9. Just so you don't pull your hair out,

I'll be sure to answer the basic question of your post.

"women's "morality" or lack thereof, and women's intelligence or lack thereof, is not relevant to the question of whether the state has justification for interfering in women's exercise of their rights."

Agree. There are potentially far better reasons :-)

[Selwynn]

12. Well, its like I parallel-agree :)

No person of color would address anyone's proposal that people of colour should not be permitted to go to law school by agreeing that it is not a good thing, and that it should be rare, blah blah, and that the decision to go to law school is one that people of colour agonize over, and thereby implicitly agree that any of those things should be considered in deciding whether the state should interfere in the exercise of their right to go to law school by dignifying it with a response.

The most obvious begged fact here is that there is a pretty large difference between deciding whether or not to go to law school and deciding whether or not to have an abortion. And guess what, I think most woman would agree with that fact. The abortion issue, is an ethical issue, like it or not. Even when asking should the state have the right to interfere, the answer will inevitably imply an ethical discussion - because the state would have the right to interfere if it was an injustice, or a moral wrong, or a violation of a protected constitutional right. And now we're off to the races, because that's really the meat of the great debate. The seriousness of the abortion decision is of an entirely different magnitude than the decision to go to law school, and again I think there would be a fairly broad consensus on the fact that this is true. Of course, I understand that the language that says "woman should agonize over the decision" may sound extreme. But as far as I'm concerned, all I'm saying is that it is a decision that is an important one - can anyone disagree with that?

The reason why the other abortion thread mattered to me is because of the all too frequent argument that someone the abortion choice is made frivolously or casually or indifferently by the majority of woman making the decision. That is just simply untrue by any standard.

People have rights and may exercise those rights REGARDLESS of what anyone thinks of their reasons for doing so, UNLESS the state can justify interference in that exercise.

And the reason why some believe the state should interfere is again, because they believe that there is a sanctioned injustice taking place. People have rights, but an unborn child has no rights? Or does an unborn child have some rights? Or does an unborn child have identical rights to a grown adult? This is really the heart of the question. If you believe the unborn fetus has no rights, then you would also believe the state never has justification to interfere the abortion decision. If you believe that the unborn has all the same rights as any other person, then you would believe that the state should always interfere, i.e. never allow abortion to be legal. Or for others who believe that the question is more complicated, then no easy answers present themselves, and a long and difficult process of trying to define the boundaries of abortion rights begins.

Most importantly, ALL people have rights, all the same rights, because they are human beings -- NOT because they have somehow demonstrated that they "deserve" the same rights as everyone else, or "deserve" to exercise their own rights as they see fit.

And once again I believe the fundamental debate is over what rights, if any a fetus has, and how those rights intersect with the rights of the mother, and all other people, and do these rights ever conflict with each other, and if so which set of rights should be honored? Slightly more complicated than an easy cut and dry.

The biggest difference between you and I is that you see abortion as an a-moral right, set in stone, regardless of circumstance. I however, believe that abortion can be a moral choice, a right moral choice, and I want to protect and defend the right of individuals to work out such questions of right and wrong on their own, not be told what to do by the state, especially on an issue such as this where no clear consensus of opinion can be drawn in any direction.

Now, the farther I read down into your post, the more I started to see your point and agree - however, I think I need to make a qualification that will tie into what I've said above:

We will simply NEVER win any "debate" about the nature of women who have abortions -- because there is simply no such person as Everywoman, and no truth to the claim that women NEVER have abortions lightly. And because no matter how seriously *we* might believe that most women take their decisions to terminate their pregnancies, that is no answer either to those who will still believe that such a decision could only have been made lightly, or to those who will still believe that the decision was wrong and simply don't care how seriously someone took it. (And really ... don't we think that this is what most such people are really saying?)

Ok, I do agree with you that the motives of woman is of no external relevance to the issue of abortion. Do I believe the motives of woman matter. YES I DO, however I do not believe any one can judge those motives but the individual herself. So, in terms of a issue of public debate, you are right - it IS irrelevant. However, in terms of private obligation, I certainly do think that this decision, as well as all decisions of weight and merit in our lives should me made with an appropriate level of reflection and seriousness - that's just the kind of person I am. But I say again - you are right, no one else can judge that and it has no bearing on public policy. A woman has rights regardless of my or anyone else's estimation of how responsible she is being. So I agree with you on that.

What I don't agree on is this:

Acquiescing in that notion in any way, including by responding to it, does not further democratic discourse about rights, and in fact impedes it by enabling those who would drown it out with demogoguery and with anti-liberal, anti-democratic discourse.

You know that's find and dandy. But this is a discussion forum, and I'll pretty much talk about whatever I like, thank you. :)

But then, I strongly agree with you on this:


(If I don't think that *you* will think it through properly, or if I think that *you* are acting selfishly and short-sightedly, should I be able to prohibit *you* from making your own decisions and acting on them? What sort of justification should I be able to demonstrate for doing that?)

You're absolutely right. There is a big difference between my saying that I think woman should take an abortion decision very seriously with my saying that woman should be denied an abortion of *I* don't think they have taken the issue seriously enough to my satisfaction. And I am definitely not saying the latter, but I am saying the former.

Look.. I don't have as much time as I thought to write through all of what you wrote. But I read it and I agree for the most part, with some room still for further qualification and discussion. The only reason the subject of the other thread came up is because a lot of us react badly when (mostly) men regurgitate the bullshit stereotype that woman who have abortions do so frivolously and recklessly when that is just not true by and large. No one, including liberalhistorian was trying to make justifying the attitudes of many woman a cornerstone of a DEFENSE of abortion. We're dealing with different things. So while I appreciate the effort of your writing and agree with you on most things, disagree on others - I really think your entire defense really pretty much misses the point of the other thread. No one is trying to defend abortion rights by ranting about the lameness of some arguments about woman's attitudes.

Anyway, I gotta go.

[iverglas]

13. sayin' it don't make it so

The most obvious begged fact here is that there is a pretty large difference between deciding whether or not to go to law school and deciding whether or not to have an abortion. And guess what, I think most woman would agree with that fact.

Damn ... I'm seeing a case of a pot calling a glass vase black. ;)

You are the one asserting that deciding whether or not to have an abortion is somehow very different from deciding whether or not to go to law school.

Maybe it would be for you (if you were a woman). Maybe it would be for women you know -- even all the women you know. But just maybe, you can't make statements like that about everyone ... not even every woman.

I mean, other than from the standpoint of stating the obvious -- in which case there is a large difference between deciding whether to go to law school and deciding what to have for breakfast, etc. etc. etc. Yup, the decisions are different; they are about different things. But ... are the differences relevant?

I don't know whether you are saying they are or not.

You say:

The abortion issue, is an ethical issue, like it or not.

Here, you've tossed an orange in with an apple or made an unprovable claim.

What, exactly, is this "abortion issue"? If we take it to be the issue that arises when a woman is "deciding whether or not to have an abortion", then your claim is simply unprovable. You have no way of knowing whether the decision whether to have an abortion is one that involves ethical (different from "moral"?) considerations, for any individual woman. Your asserting that something is "an ethical issue" just don't make it so.

If by "the abortion issue" you mean whether the state may interfere in a woman's exercise of her right to life and liberty by terminating her pregnancy if she so chooses, then no, that is not an "ethical issue". That is a public policy issue. Public policy is not determined by anyone's ethics (or morals).

Individuals may regard an issue as an "ethical" one, and take a position on the issue that they regard as determined by their "ethics", but that's no one else's concern, and they simply can't make their "ethics" someone else's concern.

Even if I were to agree that "the abortion issue", in the sense of whether women should be prohibited from terminating pregnancies, is an "ethical issue", where would we be? I would say that it is totally unethical to interfere in people's ability to live their own lives, and to cause the kind of pain and suffering and misery and even death that such a policy would cause.

So -- it would be an ethical issue. So what? Do I want to argue my ethics? Of course not. I can't prove that mine are right, no one else can prove that his/hers are right, and we're wasting our time.

Even when asking should the state have the right to interfere, the answer will inevitably imply an ethical discussion - because the state would have the right to interfere if it was an injustice, or a moral wrong, or a violation of a protected constitutional right. And now we're off to the races, because that's really the meat of the great debate.

Well, it would be. If we allowed someone else to define the issue.

There are quite particular rules about when the state may interfere in the exercise of a right, and they really do not amount to "if it was an injustice, or a moral wrong, or a violation of a protected constitutional right". We can rule out that last one of course. And very definitely the state does not have the authority to act to avert a "moral wrong", unless the state has a sufficiently compelling interest in whatever is going on. Most people would agree (for whatever reason) that adultery is a "moral wrong", even one that causes harm to individuals. That doesn't mean that the state has the authority to prohibit and punish people who commit it. Ditto for "injustice"; people do all sorts of horribly unfair things that the state is quite powerless to prohibit them from doing or punish them for doing.

The meat of the issue (as long as we're not talking about changing the rules themselves) is that the state must demonstrate its justification. And that, in democratic discourse, those who propose that the state interfere in the exercise of rights have a duty to address that issue and not appeal to emotions and prejudices. And frankly, that is just about what appealing to "ethics" amounts to, when the ethics in question are not the subject of consensus. Which they aren't.


The seriousness of the abortion decision is of an entirely different magnitude than the decision to go to law school, and again I think there would be a fairly broad consensus on the fact that this is true.

But what is the relevance of such a consensus? The magnitude of a decision is of no consequence to the state's ability to interfere in the making of it. There are many decisions that people make that are of equal or greater magnitude. Certainly not terminating a pregnancy -- having a child -- would be one of them. Does the state have some business interfering in *that* decision?


Of course, I understand that the language that says "woman should agonize over the decision" may sound extreme. But as far as I'm concerned, all I'm saying is that it is a decision that is an important one - can anyone disagree with that?

You are completely failing to answer my question, so forgive me for asking it again.

So the decision to have an abortion is an important one (I say, hypothetically). So what?

The importance of a decision to an individual's life, where the individual is a competent adult, does not make the decision a matter in which the state has any interest, let alone sufficient interest that it may interfere.

If you are asserting that the decision to have an abortion is necessarily important to someone other than the pregnant woman in question, you would have to demonstrate that this is so ... and that this somehow justified state interference. Regardless of how important it is to any other individual, it would simply never bear on that individual's life or liberty, and so there would still be nothing to overcome the interference with women's exercise of the right to life and liberty that prohibiting the abortion based on that other individual's (alleged) interest would constitute.


The reason why the other abortion thread mattered to me is because of the all too frequent argument that someone the abortion choice is made frivolously or casually or indifferently by the majority of woman making the decision. That is just simply untrue by any standard.

Sure. It's also completely irrelevant.

It's also completely untrue to say that NO women ever make the decision frivolously or casually or indifferently.

It would also be a complete misrepresentation of many women's choices and decision-making to say that the reason they did not make a frivolous, casual or indifferent decision was that they had moral (/ethical) qualms about the decision.

And anyhow, I'm just damned if I can figure out how it helps anybody's cause to say that women have moral qualms about having an abortion and then, choosing to act out of self-interest rather than in a moral way, just go ahead and do it anyway (painful as that may be for them). In what other case would we advance someone's moral qualms about what they are doing as a good reason to allow them to do it??


And the reason why some believe the state should interfere is again, because they believe that there is a sanctioned injustice taking place.

Come on. Some people believe that the earth is flat. Before they passed a law to stop you from circumnavigating the globe, wouldn't you want them to prove their claim?

"Injustice" is a nice, fuzzy (and emotional) word for what such people are claiming. But if they can't prove the constitutent elements of their claim, why should they get to enact laws based on it that violate someone else's fundamental rights?


People have rights, but an unborn child has no rights?

All I could say to anyone who said that is: you got it, although you really should not speak in such oxymorons.


Or does an unborn child have some rights?

How can anyone/anything possibly have some rights? I've certainly raised that question already.


Or does an unborn child have identical rights to a grown adult?

Well, do you have identical rights to me? How could anyone not have rights "identical" to anyone else's? We're talking about constitutional rights -- the rights to life, liberty, due process and equal protection. Who's gonna get just a little bit of those rights? Who's gonna get a big heaping helping?


This is really the heart of the question.

All I see is questions that answer themselves with only a smidgen of effort.


If you believe the unborn fetus has no rights, then you would also believe the state never has justification to interfere the abortion decision.

Sorry, that's a completely bizarre and incorrect statement.

I do not believe that cars have rights, and yet I believe that the state has justification for interfering in driving-speed decisions.

Animals do not have rights. And yet the state properly makes laws to prohibit certain behaviours harmful to animals. Apparently, the state has an interest in animal welfare, even though animals don't have rights.

The state has various interests. Public safety is one of them. That would be why the state could interfere in the decision to have an abortion to the extent of requiring that people who perform abortions be physicians, for instance.

At present, I am not aware of any interest on the part of the state that would enable it to interfere in women's decisions to the extent of prohibiting abortions, or that would enable burdening the right to obtain an abortion by imposing conditions not related to known interests like public health and safety.


The biggest difference between you and I is that you see abortion as an a-moral right, set in stone, regardless of circumstance.

Not quite. The right to terminate an abortion is inherent in the right to life and liberty (and, in Canada for instance, the right to security of the person, or in the US, the right to privacy). Abortion itself is not a "right", it is an exercise of rights. The rights in question may be set in stone, to all intents and purposes, but whether or not there is justification for interfering in the exercise of the rights is not at all "regardless of circumstance", it is rather entirely a matter of circumstances. Like I said, if the human race were in imminent danger of extinction, I might agree that the state had justification for prohibiting (some?) abortions.


I however, believe that abortion can be a moral choice, a right moral choice, and I want to protect and defend the right of individuals to work out such questions of right and wrong on their own, not be told what to do by the state, especially on an issue such as this where no clear consensus of opinion can be drawn in any direction.

But again -- what is the relevance of this belief? Do you not also want to protect and defend the right of individuals to make choices in this respect that you might regard as entirey immoral -- because it is their right to do so? Would you not oppose a law to provide that adulterers be liable to imprisonment, because it is their right to commit adultery, no matter how immoral you or I or even they might think it?

So why would you want to engage in a discussion of whether anyone's choice was "moral", or how difficult it may have been for her to make an "immoral" choice? What purpose does that serve?


However, in terms of private obligation, I certainly do think that this decision, as well as all decisions of weight and merit in our lives should me made with an appropriate level of reflection and seriousness - that's just the kind of person I am.

We can now hold hands and skip off to our mutual utopia, where everyone makes the decisions that are best for him/her (and for all the rest of us!).

Except, of course, that few of us can ever know which decisions those are, being unequipped with crystal balls as we are. Really. Sometimes all the reflection and seriousness in the world can lead to a very bad decision, and sometimes the most casual and frivolous decision in the world can have wonderfully good results for the decision-maker and everyone s/he touches.


Do I believe the motives of woman matter. YES I DO, however I do not believe any one can judge those motives but the individual herself.

I'll say to you what I said to the Cubans in Havana whom I asked to explain the "Emulación" campaign: something cannot "matter" in a vaccuum. It must matter TO someone/something (just as one must emulate someone/something). To whom do you believe that women's motives matter?

To themselves? Fine. A woman who has an abortion out of, say, revenge, without considering whether she would prefer to have a child, would perhaps not be acting in her own best interests, and might find that she later regrets the decision. That's her choice. I'd hope that she'd seek out assistance in making a decision in her best interests, but I (and the state) have no more interest in compelling her to apply seriousness and reflection to her situation than she (and the state) would have in compelling me to do the same in respect of any situation of my own.


You know that's find and dandy. But this is a discussion forum, and I'll pretty much talk about whatever I like, thank you. :)

I am unceasingly amazed at the ease with which some people seem to interpret someone else's statement of opinion as an effort to prevent him/her from stating his/her own.

I've attempted to persuade others of what I perceive as, and state to be, the wrong-headedness of a certain approach to achieving a goal that we share. I've explained the basis for my perception, and provided argument for my position. I have not called on anyone to stifle anyone else's speech. But your entitlement to talk about whatever you like implies, pretty much necessarily, my own entitlement to do the same. Including to talk about what you say, eh?


There is a big difference between my saying that I think woman should take an abortion decision very seriously with my saying that woman should be denied an abortion of *I* don't think they have taken the issue seriously enough to my satisfaction. And I am definitely not saying the latter, but I am saying the former.

And again, all I can ask is: to what end? What purpose is served by saying that?


No one is trying to defend abortion rights by ranting about the lameness of some arguments about woman's attitudes.

Granted ... although hmm, I'd avoid saying "no one". ;)

(No, no, I am not accusing anyone; I am merely following my own advice.)

I still see anything other than, say, "Please explain why you regard women, or choose to portray women, as stupid and/or evil ... and then explain what relevance any of what you say has to the issue of whether women's right to terminate an abortion may, constitutionally, be interfered with by law", as an ill-advised surrender of ground to demagogues.

I just don't feel compelled to respond to allegations that I or any other women are stupid or evil, or both, by protesting about how unstupid and unevil we are, y'see.

.

[Jane Roe]

14. I found this Selwynn reply insightful

Did want to respond to this quote:

"There is a big difference between my saying that I think woman should take an abortion decision very seriously with my saying that woman should be denied an abortion of *I* don't think they have taken the issue seriously enough to my satisfaction."

This quote seems to imply that there are two choices:

1. Prohibit abortions for pregnant women who don't seem to be taking the issue seriously; or

2. Allow pregnant women to take the issue of abortion as seriously and thoughtfully or as lightly and easily as they are inclined to do.

These are not the only two choices -- there is a false dichotomy going on here. Informed consent laws in medicine, as well as disclosure requirements in other areas of the law, show that the law can effectively encourage people to make serious decisions with more serious deliberation and in a more responsible way. These existing, non-controversial laws are not foolproof, but they are helpful. In the context of pregnancy termination, these kind of laws could potentially form a third path between the two imperfect choices set forth above.