The religious far right just want abortion banned. But many in the conservative movement know that Americans while they favor restrictions and oversight, also see abortion as a viable medical procedure so they try to chip away at it bit by bit. The theocons are tired of waiting.
The Republicans had the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court and it bears mentioning they made little to to no progress on the religious right’s drive to ban abortion. Because the Republicans know that to do that would be to deprive themselves of their most effective get-out-the-vote tool.
Oliver, Thomas Frank laid out the premise that Republicans wouldn’t outlaw abortions in “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” but I don’t buy it. They have done plenty to restrict a woman’s right to choose and are a Supreme away from overturning Roe v. Wade. When people tell you they are crazy and anti-American, believe them.
Your post was very confusing, Oliver. I’m not that tired this afternoon, and I don’t get it.
Zadura, can I ask you one question without reaping the whirlwind?
When you refer to a women’s “right to choose”, are you referring to ANYTHING but the right to choose an abortion?
Frank, let me first elucidate Thomas Frank’s position, if you haven’t read the book. He essentially argues that Republicans are dangling abortion before conservative voters as a way of inducing them to vote against their own economic interest but can’t let any of that legislation actually pass. To do so would enable social conservatives to move to other issues lower on their agenda, like poverty, which would break up the conservative coalition. I don’t buy the premise because I truly believe that Republicans are honest in their goal of eliminating legalized abortions, and I think it’s dangerous to minimize your opponent.
As for my own beliefs, I do not qualify my position. I honestly do not believe it is the domain of the State to enter into the private affairs of its citizens. If that means more mothers have babies, that is their choice.
Frank, if the only option they have is to have the baby, then they do not have a choice of any kind.
If you want fewer abortions, work towards fewer unwanted pregnancies.
Now, Frank, maybe you could address the questions of whether by “right to life” you mean ANYTHING other the the right of a fetus to life.
OK, fine. It is not impossible that Republicans in power might be cynical enough to think that someone has to “own the issue” and they can get good mileage out of it, without actually doing anything about it.
The answer to both of you with regard to the issue of abortion, per se,is this: Getting pregnant is the choice. Getting pregnant and not having a child is post fertilization birth control. The fruit of the sex act should not be destroyed because the possessor of the orchard (the womb) made a bad choice.
Think of it this way: Suppose you planted fig trees in your back yard. You come out one morning, and you see a bird’s nest in every tree, with eggs in each. Do you simply throw out the nests, and destroy all the eggs?
I’m assuming my motivation would be to have figs and not eggs.
Getting pregnant is the choice.
So you’re okay with abortion in cases of rape and incest?
That’s a genuine question, not a snark. I just want to know where your line is.
Frank, there is implicit sexism in your argument. If my neighbor has planted fruit, it’s their right to do with those trees as they see fit. They certainly don’t need you coming over the fence to inspect them.
SpiderJ: Personally, no. As a practical matter, I can live with it, considering how few that would be.
zadurs: The hypothetical was not intended for your neighbor. It was intended for whoever had the fig trees.
Duros, you seem to be saying that choices and rights are not really important. The fetus is just REALLY unimportant.
“When you refer to a women’s “right to choose”, are you referring to ANYTHING but the right to choose an abortion?”
Yes. Right to contraception as well, which the religious right is also trying to block.
“The answer to both of you with regard to the issue of abortion, per se,is this: Getting pregnant is the choice. Getting pregnant and not having a child is post fertilization birth control. The fruit of the sex act should not be destroyed because the possessor of the orchard (the womb) made a bad choice.”
You make the faulty assumption that this, ‘fruit’ has more rights than the, ‘orchard.’ And some on your side feel this way from pollination right to harvest.
Um…no. I’m saying that the intent was to have figs, not eggs. And they are my trees and I can deal with them as I see fit. And my neighbor should not tell me I can’t.
Again, Frank, you are proving yourself to be quite a sexist. Have you ever thought about how that factors in your personal life? Maybe you should quit worrying so much about who is planting what in other people’s garden and tend to your own crop.
Actually, can we drop the metaphors altogether? These are women and often men making excruciating emotional decisions, not mindless fruit and trees.
Frank, going by what you say, I assume you are all for birth control, right?
Let’s make it more personal, then. Let’s say you want to get a vasectomy (for whatever reason). Let’s also say that the doctor you go to ways you can’t have one. Period. Not even if it will save your life. NO, fuck you.
Would that be okay with you?
If you think the fundy Christianists will stop at abortion, you’re as crazy as they are. Bill Frist said he wanted to bring back the Comstock laws. These people want the 50’s back - the 1850’s.
Frank believes in faith-based birth control.
I am not opposed to birth control, and I am not opposed to sex, and I am not a sexist.
I believe that whether or not life begins at conception or some other time, the end result of normal pregnancies is childbirth, not whatever a woman decides she wants to happen between conception and delivery.
Why people think that that power is absolute and unassailable until after the child arrives kicking and screaming, and then suddenly disappears is a mystery to me.
It reminds me of the “dry feet” theory of Cuban refugees: If you are a refugee of any country but Cuba, and are found floating off the coast of the United States, you will be welcomed with open arms. But if you are from Cuba, then back you go.
Now, if you have been in the womb for any amount of time, your very survival is subject to the whims of your “Mother”.
Once you survive the exit from the birth canal, you now have powerful totalitarian allies in Child Protective Services until you are 18.
But I really, really, don’t want to argue about abortion, because you are way more concerned with beating me at this argument than I am with beating you.
…not whatever a woman decides she wants to happen between conception and delivery.
Well, yes, I have to concede there. She can’t decide to have a pony instead of a baby.
Now, if you have been in the womb for any amount of time, your very survival is subject to the whims of your “Mother”.
Some folks might use the term “Host.”
Frank, you live in a world of disjointed metaphors that once removed expose a rather uninteresting set of arguments. Without the accompaniment of all the peacock feathers, why don’t you just explain why a woman should not be allowed to control her own body. Forget the fig trees and Cuba and post-partum totalitarian states. Just focus on this little issue. It will tell you a lot about yourself.
zadura: spare me the attempts at “dime - store” analysis. (You’re aching to get at something personal in my life — just spit it out, will you?) I truly believe that there is a child growing inside a woman’s body. That is my personal belief.
If I were a woman, I would never consider having an abortion. If my ex - wife had ever expressed a desire to have an abortion I would have told her I didn’t want her to have one. Since that never occurred, I can’t predict what might have happened next.
A woman should not be allowed to control her own body, anymore than anyone has that right. Did you ever hear of controlled medicine? Prescription drugs? Being a certain age to drive, see movies unaccompanied, buy cigarettes?
No one has the untrammeled right to do what they want with their own body. There are states where you can’t get your ears pierced if you are a minor, without your parents’ permission, but you can get an abortion.
The question you should ask yourself (instead of engaging in the colossal waste of time involved in demonstrating that I am a sexist [irrelevant, if it were true]) is: Why is the womb the only place on earth that a possible murder can be committed, with an accomplice, and with the approval of the Supreme Court?
Another question you might want to ask yourself is why is there no problem with the idea that the 250 year old tradition of slavery in America was done away with because it was just plain wrong, but the not yet 40 year old history is treated like an ancient unassailable tradition in jurisprudence?
Did he just analogize slavery with abortion? Wow. I mean…wow.
Just do it, already. I dare you and Sam Brownback to demand that abortion be declared legally to be premeditated, capital murder. I dare you to take all the women who have had an abortion, the doctors who performed it, and in some cases the fathers who agreed to and possibly paid for said capital crime, and then have them lined up against the wall and shot en masse like the capital murderers you believe they are.
See how far that gets you. It may play like an opera in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, but I’d hope it wouldn’t fly here.
EL: The answer is no
Spider J: a) I said “possible”
b) If abortion were considered to be the taking of a life, it still wouldn’t have to be murder.
Something for you to think — think — about.
b) If abortion were considered to be the taking of a life, it still wouldn’t have to be murder.
Nice backtrack. If your position were as nuanced as this in the first place (and as it is, it’s more nuanced than Brownback’s), then you wouldn’t have tossed the word “murder” into it to begin with. Good job covering your bases with the word “possible,” though.
“Why people think that that power is absolute and unassailable until after the child arrives kicking and screaming, and then suddenly disappears is a mystery to me.”
Cause it’s her body that it’s living in. Once it is born it is not.
I can’t believe someone had to explain that to you.
“Once you survive the exit from the birth canal, you now have powerful totalitarian allies in Child Protective Services until you are 18.”
Oh jesus fucking christ!
Does this mean you think abortion is murder, but children are property of their parents, who should be free to abuse or neglect them?
Frank, minors are not allowed to smoke or go to age-restricted movies because the assumption under the law that they have diminished mental capacity. This is of course the same presumption that you apply to women and why I again restate that you are sexist.
Your failure to see it is precisely because you, as I have stated before, have no self-awareness. Why at this late stage in your life you think you have the right or ability to analyze other’s lives is beyond me. I would strongly recommend going back to the IRS.
zadura: I would strongly recommend that you go fuck yourself. I am not attempting to determine what a women should do, as if I know something they don’t. I believe that there is a child inside them. I don’t care what a few commenters on a left wing blog believe about that particular issue. I know you are wrong.
I want that child ti have every opportunity to be born.
If you don’t want the child, give it away, after it is born. It is not a kitten that you put in a sack and throw off a bridge when you can’t find a neighbor or relative to give it to.
Does anyone really believe this about empathy for women?
Then why use language like “choice” to disguise what’s really happening?
Why ignore the potential pain it may cause the father, the grandparents, and, of course, the mother — even if if you don’t believe there is a baby dying in the process.
And, zadura, since you’ve taken the lead in this cause, tell me how you see my position (which I see as protecting a child) as “presuming that women have diminished mental capacity”.
CSS: You have nothing whatever to explain to me about this issue. You are as ignorant as walnut, based on your comments so far.
I was simply pointing out that one single woman can stand against all the powers that be to make a decision, when all of us are slaves to the State in nearly all of our lives, and in a split second, that child is protected by one of the most powerful and totalitarian agencies in the United States.
I thought that was ironic.
Now back to Saskatoon with you, or wherever the fuck you came from.
Frank, I do not care to waste time analyzing your position. You are an unimportant person with unimpressive views. Bring someone to your side whose sentences aren’t laced with internal contradiction, and I will discuss the issue with them.
What a fucking cop out… You can’t explain the two most important pieces of your argument, and suddenly, I am not worthy?
I knew I would be sorry I got into this argument
But I really, really, don’t want to argue about abortion, because you are way more concerned with beating me at this argument than I am with beating you.
Posted by: fd10801 | Jun 4, 2007 7:06:01 PM
Ma, vive
Frank: “I was simply pointing out that one single woman can stand against all the powers that be to make a decision, when all of us are slaves to the State in nearly all of our lives,”
Are you fucking kidding me? I thought the United States was the land of the free. I’d love to hear your delusions of oppression.
“and in a split second, that child is protected by one of the most powerful and totalitarian agencies in the United States.”
I think the agency that runs GitMo is a little worse off.
“I thought that was ironic.”
I don’t think you should ever use the word, ‘thought’ to describe what happens in your head.
Your complaints appear to be based on delusions, not reality.
It’s the same thing with the flag burning ban, if it’s passed they lose a wedge issue.
If anyone is interested, I think I can state zadura’s position for him: For the state to prevent a woman from having an abortion is to put upon her a restriction by virtue of her gender, a woman being the only person who can have a child.
However, the problem with that argument is twofold: One, different people are affected by government regulations in different, and often unfair ways; and two, embryology and obstetrics are tending toward an earlier and earlier date for “quickening” — a reliable standard for describing what is going on in the womb. And, also, the ability of an prematurely - delivered child to survive has improved to a point where a baby born alive at 6 months of pregnancy is no big deal.
Finally, if it were to happen that tomorrow abortions were made illegal, there would be no problem making the act itself seen legally in several different ways, and the performance of that abortion in other different ways, and paying for it, or encouraging it, in yet other ways.
It is not a Christian assault on the womb. There is even an organization called Feminists for Life, with no religious affiliation whatsoever.
Frank, it appears you are going to try to have a conversation without resort to your potty mouth. Therefore, we will rehash the obvious.
The State should not enter into the private affairs of citizens. Abortion is a most deeply private affair. I trust that a woman who decides for whatever motivation that she is unable to bear and care for a child that she should have abortion as one option available to her. Part of that stems from the fact that I know some significant fraction of women would feel desperate enough to engage in a non-medical procedure as they did before abortions were legal in this country, but mostly it is because I am an American and liberty is virtuous in its own right.
Your rebuttal states that government regulations affect people in “different and … unfair ways.” I have no idea why that is even a position. It certainly shouldn’t be a plank in the platform of a party that sells itself on limited government. It certainly isn’t an argument.
Your second rebuttal states that there is an earlier and earlier date of “quickening” and that fetuses can survive out of the womb at ever-earlier stages of development. On the first note, improved medical supervision is not the basis for public policy. Just because we can now watch a baby move early in the second trimester by means of sonograms does not mean that life has suddenly begun more quickly. Quickening, by the way, is an ancient law standard, not a medical one. If you want the date for a medical life formation, I personally choose neurological inception as the entry into independent life, which is somewhere around the 6th month. On the second note, you state that a baby can be born alive at 6 months of pregnancy. That is true, although only with very serious medical intervention. They generally do not breathe on their own, take in food or fluids on their own or expel wastes on their own. Furthermore, I have trouble understanding how this bolsters your argument. You are certainly claiming to restrict abortions before the end of the second trimester, or have you conceded that territory?
Finally, please don’t try to claim that this is not motivated by fundamentalist Christians and conservative Catholics. You make yourself appear even more disingenuous than you do with these specious arguments.
I apologize for my language. I don’t take well to psychiatric diagnoses or career recommendations, at my age.
I have no idea why that is even a position. It certainly shouldn’t be a plank in the platform of a party that sells itself on limited government. It certainly isn’t an argument.
We live within the power structure of the state. Liberals believe that government can and should interfere in any number of affairs — from the Internet to meat — for the “betterment of us all”. It is not beyond the ken that abortion is a procedure worthy of government intervention. Yet each decision that attempts to influence that decision is treated as an “assault” on the unalienable right to an abortion, as if the right to an abortion were the fourth goal in the Preamble to the Constitution.
(That’s what was behind my reference to slavery being overturned, and the idea that the “right to an abortion” has only existed for thirty something years)
I referred to “quickening” for two reasons: one, it is a method (not the method) for measuring life in the womb; and two, because, as the struggle over partial birth abortion has shown, certain pro - abortion advocates don’t want ANY limitation to abortion, in terms of time in the womb.
If I had the power, I would forbid all abortions after 6 months of pregnancy immediately, except in cases where there is a substantial amount of proof that the mother would die in childbirth, or become gravely physically ill, or gravely mentally ill from childbirth, OR, the child in the womb would suffer horribly if born.
If I had the power, I would allow abortions for rape and incest victims.
If I had the power, I would extend the No Child Left Behind Act to include every newborn child for the first two years of its life, regardless of its needs, regardless of the SES of the parents.
{These three things, I believe, would virtually marginalize the Pro-Life movement}
A society that doesn’t care for its children and its elderly, does not deserve the label”civilized”.
Finally, I am not being disingenuous about the role of religion in this. But, two things need to be said: I see nothing wrong with that. It didn’t upset the Left when the clergy supported the Civil Rights movement, or the nuclear disarmament movement, or the anti Vietnam War movement.
Niall Ferguson wrote in the LA Times yesterday:
Secondly, I have tried to take a non - religious approach to the pro -life argument for years now, and I have changed my view on the “when does life begin” portion of the argument to this:
- Frank DiSalle
Frank, once you cut through all the crap, your position is basically the same as the majority of Americans who support some restrictions but generally support a woman’s right to have an abortion. Why did you put on this lame show to support for a conceptual right to life? Why do you choose to favor a party that has a conceptual view of the right to life as a party platform?
Well, I’m sorry you think my comment is full of crap. I’m sorrier still that you didn’t grasp the idea that I am totally opposed to almost all abortions, with few exceptions.
My use of the qualifier, “If I had the power” was a recognition of the idea that some people view a women’s imaginary “right to control her own body” as more important than the growing fetus’ claim to life.
What did you think, “Who are we, man or woman, to prevent that life from coming into the world?” meant?
But, please,no more. I can already sense that your insults will grow worse. You have absolutely no desire to change your mind. You have already acknowledged that you think I actually feel like everyone else does when I don’t.
Which means that you haven’t even learned anything about how opponents of abortion think and feel.
What a waste of time for both of us.
Agreed, a waste of time.
SpiderJ: Personally, no. As a practical matter, I can live with it
EXCUSE ME?! It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with the victim.
and I am not a sexist.
I don’t think you’re an unbiased observer in this matter.
It is not a Christian assault on the womb. There is even an organization called Feminists for Life, with no religious affiliation whatsoever.
Hate to break this to you, bud, but “Feminists” for “Life” are anything but.
Fix italics
Fix bold and italics
One thing, Zython, check your links a little more closely. While Pandagon grosses about “anti - choice” (yes, I’m anti - choice, alright. I was in a diner the other night, and I heard the waiter ask a customer, “What’ll you have?”
I shouted out, “Stop that man! He’s about to make a choice! And I hare choice!” ["Anti - choice", in - fucking - deed])
he doesn’t even hint that they are affiliated with any Christian denomination.
See, zython of Vulcan, or whoever you are, many religious folks are opposed to abortion, but many people are opposed to abortion for other than religious.
Here’s the hard part for guys like you: We just want the baby to live. That’s all. No sexism, no oppression, no religious conversion.
Just. Leave. The. Baby. Alone.
zython of Vulcan
I don’t even like Star Trek. If you must know, I crated this name for an MMORPG, and have been using it as my handle since.
he doesn’t even hint that they are affiliated with any Christian denomination.
No, but I’m just pointing out that “Feminists for Life” aren’t exactly feminist.
Here’s the hard part for guys like you: We just want the baby to live. That’s all. No sexism, no oppression, no religious conversion.
Just. Leave. The. Baby. Alone.
A few things:
1. Knowing you, I don’t believe you.
2. Prove that a fetus is a baby.
3. If you’re not a sexist, then why do you not trust women to make decisions about what to do with their own body.
I don’t know what a MMORPG is. I don’t care.
I said the FFL were not affiliated with a religious organization. You didn’t say they were. Does the word “for” bother you, too?
If you don’t believe me, then the other two points don’t matter.
But I have addressed those two points already in this very thread. Go re - read them.
why do you not trust women to make decisions about what to do with their own body.
Why do you not trust President Bush to make decisions about what to do in Iraq?
Prove that a fetus is a baby
Prove that a fetus is not a baby.
“Prove that a fetus is a baby”
“Prove that a fetus is not a baby.”
It isn’t by the very definition of the two words. I would suggest you look them, but that kind of information would hurt your brain.
By the way, the bible doesn’t say abortion is murder. In fact, killing your kids is actually considered appropriate punishment for swearing.
Maybe it’s time you realized the bible is not a good book, but filled with evil.
I don’t know what a MMORPG is. I don’t care.
You’ve never heard of Everquest or World of Warcraft? Ok then. Whatever.
Why do you not trust President Bush to make decisions about what to do in Iraq?
Because Iraq doesn’t belong to him. A woman’s body does belong to herself.
Prove that a fetus is not a baby.
Sorry, but the burdan of proof is always on the positive. Answer my question, and I will be willing to argue against it.