DAMON LINKER FEBRUARY 1, 2009
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My post on how to end the culture war has understandably inspired a lot of discussion around the web. For positive-to-mixed responses, see Chris Dierkes and his colleagues beginning here, and Bryan Pick here. Meanwhile, Daniel Larison contributes some characteristically intelligent criticism here and here. For those looking for a particularly charming example the anyone-who-would-propose-giving-an-inch-to-opponents-of-abortion-is-either-an-ignoramous-or-a-rich-white-guy-(or-both) style of liberalism need look no further than Scott Lemieux's post on the subject. Ed Kilgore, meanwhile, adopts a more moderate and civil tone than Lemieux but defends an equally uncompromising position here.
Having read and pondered these critiques, I'd like to restate something about the intended purpose of my post and then clarify (and sharpen) one of its central points.
First, my intention. Readers should keep in mind that what I proposed was intended to be something like a hypothetical thought-experiment: If liberals want to end the culture wars, this is what they would have to do. If Ed Kilgore, Scott Lemieux, and other liberals think either that the cost of pursuing the strategy I suggested would be far too costly or that it would fail, that doesn't mean that my core contention about the intractability of the culture war is wrong. I proposed what I think is the only way out. If liberals refuse to take that path, they will have to resign themselves to a future of continuing cultural conflict -- something that Lemieux almost seems to relish. We'll see how he feels the day after the election of our next Republican president (especially if it's this guy, let alone him or her).
Now, the clarification. As far I'm concerned, the strongest argument against my proposal to back away from an absolute defense of Roe came from Ed, who contends that the pro-life movement is a radical moral crusade that cannot be placated. Its members believe that the widespread practice of abortion is nothing less than legalized mass murder. If liberals give an inch or two, pro-lifers, far from backing down or becoming demoralized, will be emboldened to try for a mile. The culture war would thus continue, perhaps even more intensely than before.
The reason this objection calls for a clarification on my part is that I feel I walked into it by speaking imprecisely in my post -- as if the pro-life movement were synonymous with the conservative side of the culture war. It isn't. According to a Pew poll from August 2008 (it can be found here along with numerous other polls on the abortion question), 15 percent of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all cases. That's the pro-life movement and those who strongly support its maximalist goals. But there is another, larger group -- 26 percent -- that believes abortion should be illegal in most cases. These people lean in a pro-life direction, but they would be satisfied with a range of positions short of absolute prohibition. It is this group that I believe would be convinced to stand down from the culture war if the identity-politics provocation of Roe were removed. That would leave the 15 percent rump of the absolute pro-lifers fighting in the fields. Might they cause trouble in some state legislatures? Certainly. Would they have enough power to make the mess that Ed envisions? I tend to doubt it. But I admit that I'm speculating.
(Despite what Lemieux would have us to believe, abortion was not heavily regulated in many states before 1973 because of the awesome power of the pre-Roe pro-life movement, but rather because for much of Western history it was very widely believed by men and women alike that abortion is a grave moral evil. The breakdown of consensus on this matter -- a breakdown that has led to the current situation in which 54 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases -- is one of many consequences of the cultural revolution of the 1960s.)
A final point. As a (moderate) liberal, I feel the force of the classic rallying cry with which Ed ends his post: "Oppose abortion? Don't have one!" We liberals love this argument because it makes us feel like we're being morally neutral on the issue: whereas abortion opponents want to force all women into one box, the pro-choice position can be affirmed by those who for moral reasons would never choose to have an abortion as well as by those who wish to undertake the procedure. Who but a misogynistic tyrant could argue with such an open-minded position?
But here's the problem: the position isn't morally neutral at all. Consider: Can you think of any other matter in which the state grants
individuals the right to determine for themselves what does and what
does not constitute murder? Of course not. It only does so on the issue of abortion because (since Roe) the Constitution implicitly denies the humanity of the fetus. Don't think so? How would you feel about a slogan like this: "Oppose slavery? Don't own one!" You'd probably find it morally offensive. Why? Because you think that owning slaves is just plain wrong and that failing to publicly affirm this principle is tantamount to saying that owning slaves is a matter of moral indifference.
I hope it is clear that I'm not making a moral equation between abortion and slavery, as pro-lifers regularly do, but rather using an analogy to drive home the point that the post-Roe Constitution is not agnostic about whether abortion is a moral evil. On the contrary, the post-Roe Constitution actively denies that abortion is an evil. And that's the core (though of course not the only) reason why the culture war persists -- and why it is likely to persist for a very long time, all of Barack Obama's well-intentioned efforts notwithstanding.
8 comments
Damon, thanks for clarifying the earlier post, and for pointing out that the pointlessness of the "Oppose abortion? Don't have one!" slogan. However, I think it is exactly why that argument fails that your proposal won't work.
Unlike most touchstones of the culture war (sex ed, public prayer, etc.) the issue of abortion comes down to fundamental rights. Even though this strategy might co-opt some people in the middle to vote Democratic, you then have the basic problem of large groups on both sides seeing the status quo as a fundamental violation of rights. You'll have the ~15% on the right believing that even early first trimester abortions are the murder of innocents, and you'll have a substantial number of liberals organizing to fight for the rights of poor and oppressed women in red states, who will then have greatly diminished rights over their own bodies compared to women in blue states (in the liberal conception).
I think the comparison in the post is telling - people on both sides see this issue as one comparable to slavery (on the right) and civil rights (on the left). I think most likely is the scenario in which the hard right will "cause trouble in some state legislatures" will occupy a huge space of the national discussion, where states in the deep south impose extreme restrictions and drive local clinics out of business, and liberal groups building underground networks of providers, galvanized by the new scenario. Conflicts like this don't have a history of petering out, but rather one side achieving complete political victory. I just don't see that any likelier to happen with this proposal than with the current situation.
- japepper
February 2, 2009 at 1:45am
I think we've far-surpassed the point in which abortion makes do as the single most defining issue in the "culture wars." Take, for example, homosexuality. Will those 26 percent of right-to-life pragmatists -- the folks who say, "Abortion is murder, but the hell my daughter will carry her rapist's child!" -- be placated by a victory on that single issue? I would contend that those 26% would almost all be just as exercised by gay marriage. Or immigration, or English as the Official Language, or general "evil secularists are liberals and I hate liberals!" antipathy.
There's no single issue that would lead to de-mobilization of the levies. There never was.
- jfelliott
February 2, 2009 at 4:04pm
I think it better to make the counter slogan more contemporary: "oppose Capital punishment, don't kill anyone." but object to the state imposing death penalties on teenagers or the retarded, well that is wrong, people are imposing on the right of the state to mete out justice. Of course this is b.s. as is that idiotic statement "don't have an abortion." I am a guy, I couldn't even if I wanted one. Come to think of it, men don't have an explicit right to have an abortion, should I lobby for one?
The concept of when life begins, and the manner in which it ends, are issues that are best left up to the majority. Why shouldn't it be, beyond people's prejudice on this issue, pro or con I can think of no reason why it should not be. These two areas go at the heart of what it means to be human, yet the answer to this was determined in the states by 9 rich, old white men in 1973. William Brennan, the philosopher god of our age.
If Roe were overturned, would it be messy? Yeah, so what. Democracy is messy. As a moderately pro-life Democrat (I could easily accept abortion as expressed via the will of the people via the ballot box, as it would be) I had to live through 20 out of the past 28 years of Republican misrule because of jackasses like Lemieux. How many people died from lack of health care during that time? And we were far, far closer to Roe being overturned than most people are willing to admit. John Paul Stevens is 88 years old, if he lived a normal life span and died a few years ago, the final conservative vote would have been there to overturn Roe. Jackasses like Lemieux got lucky, it has nothing to do with his intelligence or intransigence.
In any event, I find it unlikely that Roe will be overturned, that just leaves Roe to be defined in different ways in the future as legislatures mess around the margins (partial birth abortion illegal, ok, RU486 legal, ok) If Lemmy doesn't like that, he can kiss my ass.
- blackton
February 2, 2009 at 5:43pm
Hmm, yes, we don't get to decide individually what constitutes murder. True enough. Then again, while there may be disagreement about what exactly should constitute murder and how severely, depending on circumstances, a killing should be punished, there is no disagreement that there is a harm to another person involved. Murder laws don't generally turn on a disputed claim as to the personhood of the victim. Similarly, slavery indisputably involved people. The issue there wasn't the literal personhood of slaves but rather what personhood requires. When we say that a racialist view denies humanity, we don't mean that literally. We mean, rather, that it denies humans the rights to which they're entitled by virtue of their being human. These examples do nothing so much as demonstrate the sui generis nature of abortion debates. (It's most akin to end-of-life debates, when we're talking about, say, brain-dead people and so on. Very thorny, though, even there, not entailing an imposition on liberty akin to that involved in abortion regulation.)
With abortion, the idea that the embryo or fetus is a person is highly contested. What's more, I say somewhat controversially, I think there's a pretty broad consensus that it's not. If you thought that embryos or fetuses were people, wouldn't you also think that abortion should be punished as murder is punished? Abortion would be premeditated murder, the worst felony there is. It would be punishable in some states by death or life in prison without parole -- for the woman and the person doing the procedure. In all states, a guilty verdict would mandate a very long prison sentence. Mere health or the fact that the fetus is your rapist's kid, for example, would not be defenses. The history of abortion regulation reveals that it was seldom if ever treated that way. In Merrie Olde Englande, the common law did not punish an abortion before "quickening" at all. Even post-"quickening" abortions were not, at common law, felonies. (They were "misprisons," as Blackstone put it -- what we now call misdemeanors.) Punishment was more severe then for both misdemeanors and felonies; the point is that abortion didn't make the top tier. Our pre-Roe abortion laws were more harsh than the common law, but even they did not punish abortion as severely as murder.
Meanwhile, of course, embryos and fetuses have never been regarded as people before our laws, and few are suggesting, I think, that they should be. A fetus can't sue (as infants can, by an appropriate adult of course), nor can a fetus claim any rights. They've never been legal persons, even before Roe; saying that they are would be quite a radical position.
So, what is this debate about if not really about the literal personhood of embryos or fetuses -- about "when life begins"? It's about weighing the moral status of the embryo/fetus against the liberty interest of the woman. We don't have to think that an embryo or fetus is actually a person to think that it has moral significance, and there is no disputing that the woman is a person and has rights and that an abortion prohibition poses a significant imposition on what she can do with herself. (Having a kid is often a blessing. It can also -- especially if you don't want it -- ruin your life. It imposes a mental burden, a physical burden, a financial burden, a legal burden, and an undisputed moral burden. For those who want a child, these burdens are not really burdens or, at least, well worth it. For those who don't, it can be a very different matter, and the situation may be very unhappy for all concerned, especially the kid.)
That's the framework for Roe. We've got the woman's liberty interests on the one hand and the state's interest in the moral status of the embryo/fetus on the other. Early, the latter cedes to the former. Later, as the liberty interest lessens because there's time to do something about it and the state's interest increases because the fetus becomes more person-like, not so much (although we can argue and tinker with that within the Roe set-up). It's not perfect. It involves some arbitrary line-drawing. But, then again, there's no avoiding the problem if you take the woman's interests seriously. Doing that *is*, by the way, a legacy of the 60's, and, I think, a positive one. In any event, I'm highly skeptical that this debate really is about what we so often hear -- when life begins.
- jhildner
February 2, 2009 at 10:27pm
Damon,
While I disagree with you on you adherence to Rawls' notion of a non-metaphysical political liberalism, everything else you post on here is great. I've rarely encountered a religious intellectual who really tries to understand the debates that motivate religious citizens rather than automatically accusing them of intolerance and irrationality or dogmatically supporting their positions. These are conversations people need to be having.
Thanks for the good work,
Marty
- martydenicolo
February 2, 2009 at 11:39pm
False analogy, Damon. Unlike the examples you cite, when, where, and if "life" or "personhood" begins before birth is both biologically and morally ambiguous. And as medical technology advances, likely to remain so for a long, long time. With that in mind, "Don't like abortion? Don't have one" makes perfect sense to me.
- micjimenez
February 3, 2009 at 5:45am
Mr. Linker, your discussions on surrendering Roe vs Wade in exchange for the vaugue promise of "ending the cultural wars" reminds me of that fellow, Neville Chamberlain, who believed that giving Hitler Czechoslovakia would result in "peace in out time". I actually have a greater, if grudging, repect for our blood enemies of the anti-choce forces, who at least have the courage to never give up and will not offer nor ask for quarter, than I do for the kind of "moderate liberal" like you who would so easily lay down in front of zealots, who will never meet us even 10% of the way. If you no longer have the heart to keep struggling against the forces of women's oppression then please go way and remain silent and write no more of these specious columns.
- frilz1
February 3, 2009 at 6:33am
Two points:
1. The breakdown of consensus on this matter was not a consequence of the cultural revolution of the 1960's, but a consequence of the industrial revolution, mass transportation, women working outside the home and modern medicine. Illegal abortions were prevelent and a tragedy, both for many women and for many doctors and nurses who tried to be compassionate, at least throughout the 20th century. Your language is too facile to do justice to the well-intended people who provide abortions to ease the suffering of desperate pregnant women.
2. There are other killings where the state grants individuals the right to determine for themselves what does and what does not constitute murder--to a great extent--a) accidental killings ("I was driving down the street at 30 miles per hour. He ran right in front of me. I couldn't stop."), and b) self-defense ("I really thought he was going to stab me. I had no choice but to shoot first."). Like self-defense killings (not a perfect analogy, by any means, but within the same class of "excused" killings), I see all abortions as the killing of an innocent life, but one we as a society choose not to punish criminally, within the first trimester. Why do you want to make most abortions a crime? Is a suffering pregnant woman who regretably chooses abortion a criminal? Is a doctor who compassionately eases that pregnant woman's suffering a criminal? What is so bad, in your mind, about a society that shows compassion to suffering pregnant women who choose abortion? I prefer to choose to excuse the abortion and hope that this one will be the last one that any pregnant woman ever chooses.
- kyoung
February 3, 2009 at 10:07am