The New Republic

Joseph Goebbels would have delighted in helping you find "the right words for abortion".  As if the "right words" can mitigate the monstrousness of the act.

But let me see if I can help, uh:

Non-person enablement

It's not a dead baby, it's a live parrot.

People moving

Embryo relocation

Birth postponement

Life avoidance

Problem solving

All this reminds me of the constant euphemising that the Left is so fond of.

Here in Los Angeles, the South Central district had a reputation as a place that was blighted, gang infested, and dangerous.

The solution the City Council came up with was to rename "South Central" South Los Angeles.

Now South Los Angeles is known for what it is:  blighted, gan infested, and dangerous.

This cycle is repeated constantly by renaming the handicapped "challenged," colored people "people of color," blacks "African American," illegal aliens "immigrants".  

On and on in superb Orwellian fashion.  With no irony ever noticed, of course.

You people, with all your expensive education, are risible in the highest.

Please never stop.  I'm having too much fun watching.

- ChanRobt

August 14, 2008 at 8:35pm

"We also recognize that such health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortion."

Wow, it sounds like the Democrats are finally starting to get it right; I am officially impressed.

ChanRobt, really? Surly an individual of your pedigree can discuss your disregard for pro-choice positions with more than hyperbole and derision. Not that I don't disagree with your assessment of Los Angeles' City Council, because they sound like the biggest bunch of boobs; then again look who elected them into office. As for the rest of your renaming issues, disappointingly unenlightened.

- GSpinks

August 15, 2008 at 6:48am

GSpinks, I don't know about my "pedigree," but I read my 'Animal Farm' and my '1984'.  So I know Newspeak when I hear it.

Even the term "Pro Choice" is a euphemism for Pro Abortion.  If you take offense to Pro Life, I'm perfectly happy to substitute Anti Abortion.

I'm sorry I've offended you.  But, the number of nascent lives snuffed out  (flushed down the toilet) since Roe vs Wade is 46 million.  That's pretty good competition for the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.  And someday it may be seen for the Holocaust against the helpless that it has been.

As to the other euphemisms and silly renamings that I cited, if you don't see the absurdity of "colored people" now being taken as an insult but "people of color" considered highly noble, then we don't even have common ground for satire.

Maybe I should draw up a longer list, plenty of which will have nothing to do with racial handles, and then you'll get it.

- ChanRobt

August 15, 2008 at 11:07am

article by Eric Zimmerman, and yet the RSS feed says Greg Veis.

- perkowitz

August 15, 2008 at 11:31am

Chan, I really don't think "pro-choice" is a euphamism for pro-abortion. I know people who are pro-choice but not pro-abortion. They think nobody should get an abortion, but they don't believe it should be criminalized, for lots of reasons I won't go into here. But there are lots and lots of these people, so it makes sense to just call everyone who wants it to be legal [in the first trimester anyway] pro-choice. The issue is legality, not whether or not you like abortions.

- psantillana

August 15, 2008 at 12:22pm

"Chan, I really don't think "pro-choice" is a euphamism for pro-abortion."

Of course, you don't, psantillana.  That's what makes it such brilliant Orwellian propaganda.  

A tip of my hat to the woman who made it up.

- ChanRobt

August 15, 2008 at 2:59pm

psantillana writes, "...They think nobody should get an abortion, but they don't believe it should be criminalized, for lots of reasons I won't go into here."

I'm sure that's true.  But, in order to make that wish real, you can't also advocate unlimited abortion on demand, no questions asked.

You have to have some process in place that would make a moral attempt to limit the carnage represented by 46 million abortions.

But, the abortion people are zealots, and brook no such suggestion.

- ChanRobt

August 15, 2008 at 3:02pm

"You have to have some process in place that would make a moral attempt to limit the carnage represented by 46 million abortions."

Wait, you "have to" have a process in place etc. if you are to be anti-abortion yet pro-choice? Are you saying they're illogical, or claiming that they are not sincerely anti-abortion, that they're lying? Those are two different things. You can argue process with them all day long, and that's fine and good, but, again, "pro-choice" is not a euphamism if some pro-choicers are also anti-abortion. I've met them, a lot of them are Catholic, and it just isn't accurate to call them pro-abortion. This IS about legality, whether you agree with them or not.

One reason they oppose illegality is that when it used to be illegal you had women [and often young girls] getting abortions anyway, and doing it unsafely and sometimes dying as a result. Maybe you believe that these deaths are ok if they are balanced by the live births of unwanted children that illegality might bring, and that's fine - you disagree on priorities and means to an end - but you still can't call these people "pro-abortion" just because you don't find them "anti-abortion" enough for you.

- psantillana

August 15, 2008 at 4:30pm

psantillana, the problem is akin to illegal immigration.  

Just because directly removing 12 million illegals would require Draconian and unpalatable action, doesn't mean you do nothing.

Abortion of 46 million is a horrible stain on our moral history.  

The solution is not to say you can't stop it so do nothing.

- ChanRobt

August 15, 2008 at 4:49pm

" if you don't see the absurdity of "colored people" now being taken as an insult but "people of color" considered highly noble"

"People of color" is considered as much of an insult as "colored people", at least by the demographic represented; the only difference is the use of a prepositional phrase, and this has never fooled anyone in this regard. That you are not aware of this is something of a surprise, but clarifies my impression of you signficantly.

"Just because directly removing 12 million illegals would require Draconian and unpalatable action, doesn't mean you do nothing."

and yet you fail to see the binary nature of your view on Abortion, especially in regarding to your "euphemisms"? If you can see that illegal immigration should be handled without getting draconian, why are you so draconian with the issue of abortion?

I agree with psantillana. Additionally, I think you've been a little brainwashed by the wingers who know they're thinking in binary and hold fast to their claims; it is utter fallacy to think Pro-Choice is Pro-Abortion, that is in fact why most Pro-Choicers have not argued with the naming of the Pro-Choice group, it is a perfectly accurate description of the opinion of the majority of the group. There are, of course, members of the group who are pro-abortion; but it is a fallacy concocted by the hardliners that they make up the majority.

Are you aware that the last anti-abortion bill to hit congress only failed because the authors refused to add an exception clause to protect the health of the mother? From what I can tell, that bill would have had a veto-proof majority in the Senate but for that one little nuance.

- GSpinks

August 15, 2008 at 6:26pm

Chan, you're arguing now about the solution, and that's a different issue than the name, or the views of the people covered by the name. To you - correct me if I'm wrong - a "do nothing" approach = pro abortion. That is just not true. You can be against "x" without thinking that legal intervention is necessary or desirable. That does not make you pro-x. It just does not.

Also, I don't believe that "do nothing" is a fair description of the pro-choice view. Already Roe v. Wade protects only the right to choose abortion in the first trimester. That's not nothing. Second, a lot - I think it's safe to say all - pro-choicers would prefer contraception to abortions being chosen, that is, pregnancy prevention vs. termination. So policies that provide access to contraception are abortion-preventers, and that is also not doing nothing.

Remember, "pro-choice" covers everyone from the pro-abortion end of the spectrum, to the anti-abortion end, and the only thing they have in common is the desire to keep it legal, which makes "pro-choice" the most accurate term to describe the lot of people who want to keep it legal. No matter how much you may disagree with their desire to keep it legal, it doesn't make your label any more accurate.

- psantillana

August 15, 2008 at 7:42pm

The real point, ChanRobt, isn't semantic. It's the simple fact that you're willing to see thousands of grown women -- you know, the already born people -- die or risk terrible injury. True, if you literally see abortion as murder, I understand there is no argument that will change your mind. But it's appalling that you don't get the distinction between a human being and a fertilized egg. And that you don't understand, or acknowledge,  the range of situations, whether economic and family crisis or medical emergencies, that lie behind most decisions to abort. This is about real life, not ideology and religion-driven belief.

Abortion is clearly, if you look at history, one of the oldest of medical procedures. The real semantic issue is the way the anti-choice crowd got hold of the pro-life label, when their goals, if achieved, would better be called pro-death -- the deaths of desparate women who would be left to return to the back alley.

It's unfortunate that given the current poltical landscape, the Democrats are making these overtures the rigidity of the pro-death crowd. Yet another issue on which the party is wimping out.

- LISAH

August 15, 2008 at 8:27pm

Yes, LISAH, but I'm sticking to the semantic point because it is also real.

And I am happy that the Democrats are making these overtures - even if I don't agree with the people who would make it illegal, if they really do see it as murder [I don't if it's got no central nervous system and is essentially a parasite that could no way no how exist outside the womb, blah blah blah, but that's me. I get their point.], I don't see why we need to insult unecessarily, by assuming they're all patriarchal tyrants who want all women barefoot and pregnant, or want to see women die by coat-hanger. That's not true, and it hardly wins hearts and minds.

I don't share Chan's view of the blastula, but pro-lifers ARE motivated by their reverence for life - again, maybe you and I disagree with their priorities on whose lives are more important, but that is what motivates them. So I would not call them "pro-death", just because their policies would [and did] result in death, any more than I would call pro-choicers "pro-abortion", even though their policies likely result in more abortions than would otherwise be performed. These things matter.

- psantillana

August 15, 2008 at 9:20pm

GSpinks, I'm glad my appalling ignorance has been clarified for you.  But, when I have read or heard the term "people of color" being employed, it was either by a black person or by a white pandering to what he thought were black sensibilities.

It reminds me of the equally stupid and earlier construct, "people of the Jewish faith".  Used by people who think that to call someone a Jew is an insult.

No, I don't use the term "colored people" because it is antique.  And I wouldn't use the term "people of color" because it is artificial, awkward, and embarrassing.

I also think "African American" is a ridiculous construct.  Blacks in America are about 300 or 400 years out of Africa. Do I call myself a "Northern European American"?  Not usually.

As in writing, simpler is almost always better.  "White" is perfectly understood and no umbrage is taken to it.  "Black" works clearly and is not an insult.  For that matter, "Negro" isn't an insult either.  Unless you think Spanish is an insulting language.

Look, I hope we evolve into a world where consciousness of skin pigment goes away completely.  In the meantime, let's keep it simple.

- ChanRobt

August 16, 2008 at 8:41am

GSpinks writes, "...If you can see that illegal immigration should be handled without getting draconian, why are you so draconian with the issue of abortion?"

I don't want to get too far off string, Spinks.  But, on the issue of illegal immigration, I believe it should be attacked mainly on the demand side.  First go after the large corporate employers who are hiring illegals.  

Second, stop providing the wide range of free services to illegals that we do.  If we nationalize medicine, as the Democrats essentially want to do, though denying it, there will have to be citizenship/eligibility i.d. system or nationalized medicine will be totally flooded and destroyed.

- ChanRobt

August 16, 2008 at 8:47am

Gspinks writes, "...it is utter fallacy to think Pro-Choice is Pro-Abortion, that is in fact why most Pro-Choicers have not argued with the naming of the Pro-Choice group,"

No, spinks.  The reason they have not argued with such naming is that they know how hideous the true nature of their cause is.  

Few wish to admit they are pro-abortion.  So a much more palatable name was created:  Pro-Choice.  

A palatable name for something hideous, spinks, is called a euphemism.

So we come full circle to my point.

- ChanRobt

August 16, 2008 at 8:51am

Lisah writes, "...But it's appalling that you don't get the distinction between a human being and a fertilized egg."

It's more appalling, Lisah, that the "Choice" movement does make a distinction between a third term "fetus" still in the womb and a new born baby just out of the womb.

The former can be legally killed via "partial birth abortion".  Oh, I'm sorry, "Dilation and Extraction".

The difference between a human being and a fertilized egg is the difference between moral vision and willful moral blindness.

Would you wish yourself to have never existed because you were destroyed when merely a "fertilized egg"?

Would you prefer yourself to have never existed beyond the first few days of infancy because you were left by the road to die of exposure (legal in Roman times).  

At what stage in your development, Lisah, would you be sanguine about having your existence cut short?

- ChanRobt

August 16, 2008 at 9:04am

Lisah writes, "...The real point, ChanRobt, isn't semantic. It's the simple fact that you're willing to see thousands of grown women -- you know, the already born people -- die or risk terrible injury."

Your assumption, Lisah, is that these "already born people" have only two choices-- death or terrible injury.  

You forget, ironically, since your movement is called "Pro Choice," that unlike the child still in the womb, the already born have the privilege of choice.

One obvious alternative to a wire hanger abortion is to give birth to the child you are carrying.  

An earlier choice available to already born people is whether or not to have sex.

Another choice available to already born people who have sex is whether or not to employ contraception.

So, if we are invoking Choice, Lisah, let's discuss the entire range of choices.  Otherwise, you are guilty of what Mr. Gspinks calls, being "binary".

- ChanRobt

August 16, 2008 at 9:13am

psantillana, re your last post, allow me to praise your honesty and even-handedness.

- ChanRobt

August 16, 2008 at 9:17am

psantillana -- yes, as I indicated, I understand that some anti-choicers really see (any) abortion as murder; there is likely no useful way to address their beliefs

ChanRobt, I'll take it on -- uh -- faith that you're one of those who hold a genuine moral belief that abortion is murder and not one of the sanctimonious hypocrites who see it as a (mostly) right-wing wedge issue useful for manipulating the true believers against all us dangerous non-right-wingers. But in the real world, contraception  accidents happen. So do terribler genetic and congenital conditions. So do third-trimester medical conditions that endanger the life and/or health of the living woman carrying a fetus.

Who are you to tell people not to have sex? Who are you to judge whether a family or a single mother, whether with children already or not, can afford to raise a child (yes, some people really do have serious econimc hardships)? Who are you to decide whether a teenage victim of rape or incest -- or any such victim of any age -- should be forced to go through with a pregnancy? Wgo are you to tell a wife and hisband that they must go through with the birth of a fetus with the Tay-Sachs gene? Who are you to risk sacrificing the life of a woman who goes into severe toxemia or out-of-control diabetes in the third trimenster?

You've got no business making the assumptions you made in your post answering mine. You need to understand the realities. You clearly don't.

- LISAH

August 16, 2008 at 3:31pm

LISAH writes, "...in the real world, contraception  accidents happen. So do terribler genetic and congenital conditions. So do third-trimester medical conditions that endanger the life and/or health of the living woman carrying a fetus."

Yes, LISAH, all of the above are true.  But, I warrant you, that the vast majority of the 46 million abortions of the last 35 years were not because of contraceptive accidents, congenital diseases, or rape or incest."

As to third trimester medical conditions, I've watched two children be born through Caesarian section.  That is certainly a viable option to killing a third trimester baby in the womb.

As to who am I to tell people not to have sex, that is hardly the question.  But, society certainly has a right to tell people not to have irresponsible sex and that they ought not take it for granted that an easily available birth control option is abortion.

You and I and everyone else knows that the vast majority of abortions of those 46 million were a result of irresponsible, unprotected sex.  Not any of the dramatic stuff like rape, incest, etc.

To invoke all of those emotional justifications is very dishonest.

Society has every right to legislate against moral wrongs, as society does in the case of law as against stealing, murder, assault, and criminal negligence.

Our laws make more judgements all the time.  Why should the very serious issue of abovrtion be immune to being subject to such judgements.

- ChanRobt

August 17, 2008 at 12:28am

TYPO CORRECTO

Our laws make moral judgements all the time.

- ChanRobt

August 17, 2008 at 2:43am

www.guttmacher.org/.../abortion.php ..... ChanRobt...that's a useful site with stats and reports...Pay attention to reality. To the -- uh -- nuances. The complexities. The problems. The issues. The accurate reporting.

Your response was predictable. No, the vast majority of abortions are NOT the result of irresponsible sex, whatever that is in your limited "moral" universe. And unless you're a trained medical professional (and in some instances, even if you are one) you certainly have no standing to decide, based on witnessing, did you say, 2 c-sections to declare a c-section a viable alternative to intact D&C or any other 3rd trimester procedure a doctor feels is best for an individual patient in a particular crisis situation. And of course the whole 3rd trimester dust-up is a manipulation tactic -- they account for something like 1 percent of all abortions.

And do you seriously think that most women would actually prefer having an abortion to using birth control? Are you just plain nuts? Sure there are some irresponsible people here, just as there are totally irresponsible people running our government these days -- and half the country was irresponsible enough to vote for them. . People do stupid things. Lots of times. Get over your pro-death nonsense.

As for your statements on society's right to make what you consider "moral" judgements: That's equally a non-starter. "Morality" isn't the issue on laws about murder, etc; the goal of such laws is pragmatic --  to insure that civil society functions to the benefit of its citizens. Sure, murder, assault, etc, are "wrong." But start getting into moral absolutes and there's no way to pass the laws that help insure social cohesiveness. You'll never get agreement. On anything.

Equally important, you and the laws have no business telling anyone else what's moral. Like decisions on whether to have an abortion or any medical procedure, or take any other action, these are individual decisions. The examples I used are real ones, not "emotional justifications" ....You're the dishonest one for not recognizing that basic point.

And remember -- if society can decree you can't have an abortion, it can also require you to have one. The point is to keep government from making decisions that are the individual's RIGHT to make.

And by the way...I gather you do approve of birth control? Do you? And what are your views on access to it? And by the way again, you don't get to tell people whether to have sex -- that is a good part of the point.

Nanny state -- here we come -- and your views are helping it along.

- LISAH

August 17, 2008 at 11:22am

LISAH writes, "...intact D&C or any other 3rd trimester procedure a doctor feels is best for an individual patient in a particular crisis situation. And of course the whole 3rd trimester dust-up is a manipulation tactic -- they account for something like 1 percent of all abortions."

One percent of all abortions, LISAH, is 460,000. We're not talking about zygotes here.  These are babies that could live either unaided outside the womb, or easily survive with common preemie care.

460,000 babies killed, rather nastily with their brains sucked out, sounds like a story out of Darfur.

- ChanRobt

August 17, 2008 at 2:37pm

Yes, LISAH, I approve of contraceptive birth control.

Meanwhile, if you don't like my guess that the vast majority of the 46,000,000 abortions were made necessary by the failure of couples to employ contraception, to what do you attribute these millions of unwanted pregnancies?  

Have there been tens of millions of instances of rape and incest since 1973?

As to laws not being based on moral judgements, what is the basis of laws against polygamy, for instance?  Or against man on boy sex, other age of consent laws, anti-trust laws, etc.

Moral judgements are made by legislatures all the time, and are the full or partial basis of many laws.

"All men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights..." is a religious and moral statement with no basis in proveable or empirical fact.

It is a moral, religious based belief.  If you don't believe in a "Creator" than you can't be endowed with any rights, unalienable or otherwise.

So for you to state or imply that only a nanny state would have the temerity to impose laws based on mere moral judgements is specious and ahistorical.

On what empirical principle, free of moral judgement, is it not legal to kill or neglect unto death a newborn infant, yet it is (or has been) legal to kill that same infant moments before it full exits the womb?

I would remind you once again, that Rome was a highly civilized nation, then empire, that had a republican form of government and the rule of law.   Under Roman law, it was legal to abandon an unwanted infant by the side of the road to die.  

This was one way Roman society dealt with inconvenient infants.  We, today, look upon that as barbaric beyond belief.  

Do you think that future generations might not also not view Dilation & Extraction as equally brutal and barbaric?  And, that more enlightened descendants might come to look upon 46,000,000 abortions as a Silent Holocaust.

It is morbidly amusing to me that the very same people who look upon the destruction of an obscure frog's or salamander's, or rare butterfly's habitat as a great wrong, do not see the destruction of a fertilized human egg as a wrong as well.

I don't belittle the seriousness of destroying rare creatures' habitats.  It is consistent of me to see the inviolability of a human embryo.

You keep talking, LISAH, about the rights of individuals to make decisions about their own bodies.  But, you are focused on just one of the individuals involved.

The fetus is also an individual.  One with no voice, and often no advocates for its life.  You say I would wish to deny one individual's right to choose.  I say you are denying another individual's right to live.

Consider it this way:  if I am wrong, millions of women would carry infants to terms.  The children would be born to fulfill their lives.  The women would live.

If you are wrong, then millions of women would not suffer the inconvenience and difficulties of pregnancy and childbirth, yes.  But, tens of millions of human beings would die, would never live, in order to spare women these not fatal, not injurious difficulties.

I submit to you that the consequences of your being wrong are far more dreadful than of mine.

- ChanRobt

August 17, 2008 at 3:05pm

One more consideration.  Whenever this issue is discussed, proponents of "choice" always site the specter of "unwanted children".  the presumption being that every one of those potential lives were to end up as children of the streets.  Or at least the large majority.

Can anyone show some demographic proof of that assumption?

But, far worse, 46,000,000 is not much less than the population of Great Britain or France.  It's half the population of Germany.  Four or five times that of Belgium or Switzerland.  

46,000,000 is more than twice the population of the United States in 1865.  And it's 15% of our population today.  it is far more than the populations of New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Portland and Seattle combined.

How many Picasso's, Brando's, Lincoln's, Reagan's, Steinem's, Frieden's, Sontag's, Truffaut's, Hitchcock's-- to create a very eclectic list-- have we lost to abortion?

How many ordinary, decent, contributing people will never exist because of abortion.

How many great men and women, born into very difficult circumstances in the pre-abortion era, would, with easy abortion never have come to be?

Can you easily tell me, LISAH, that these are not great, great moral questions?  And that morality has no balancing weight against the "right of a woman to choose"?

I submit to you, LISAH, that we may live in the most morally obtuse age of the past two millennia.  And that technology and secular values have made us so.

- ChanRobt

August 17, 2008 at 3:22pm

P.S. LISAH, one of the greatest moral decisions ever made was the decision that slavery was immoral, and had no place in a nation like the United States.

Britain made a similar moral decision in stopping the slave trade's shipments of human beings by sea.  

Before these moral decisions were made-- and acted upon at great cost in treasure and blood-- slavery had been an accepted fact of life back to time immemorial.  

Long before there were black slaves in America there were Hebrew slaves, Greek slaves, slaves from Gaul.  Any nation losing a war was subject to its people being enslaved.  The slaves sent to America were tribespeople who had lost wars in Africa.  for that matter, American sailors in the early 19th century were captured and enslaved by Arab nations like Libya.

Prior to the British actions and the American Civil War, slavery was accepted by many people, including of course in our own nation, as moral.  Uncomfortable for some, perhaps.  But no more immoral to most Southern planters than abortion is to you.

Abortion is a modern question very much equivalent to slavery once was.  that it has not lead to war is because there is no large economic question involved.  And there are no living examples of this evil to draw our gaze and cause reproach.

If there were 46,000,000 graves in one location as there were once millions of living slaves throughout the South; if those 46,000,000 could somehow present corporal evidence of their previous existence; perhaps we would be facing a national crisis, of Civil War proportions, over abortion.

- ChanRobt

August 17, 2008 at 3:37pm

One source (Wikipedia) on infanticide in the Classical World:

"Greece and Rome

…exposure of newborns was widely practiced in ancient Greece and ancient Rome. Philo was the first philosopher to speak out against it.[15] A letter from a Roman citizen to his wife, dating from 1 BCE, demonstrates the casual nature with which infanticide was often viewed:

"Know that I am still in Alexandria. [...] I ask and beg you to take good care of our baby son, and as soon as I received payment I shall send it up to you. If you are delivered [before I come home], if it is a boy, keep it, if a girl, discard it."[16]

In some periods of Roman history it was traditional for a newborn to be brought to the pater familias, the family patriarch, who would then decide whether the child was to be kept and raised, or left to death by exposure.

The Twelve Tables of Roman law obliged him to put to death a child that was visibly deformed. Infanticide became a capital offense in Roman law in 374 CE, but offenders were rarely if ever prosecuted.[17]…"

Tell me, LISAH, how this is much different than modern Dilation & Extraction.

- ChanRobt

August 17, 2008 at 3:44pm

ChanRobt -- It's clear we have nothing useful to say to each other on the rights/wrongs/issues of abortion -- as I said somewhere up-thread, I understand there's no point in a discussion with someone who truly considers it murder. You do -- so I see little point in responding to your emotional references -- did you even bother to look at the Guttmacher link?

But as for the following:

"Moral judgements are made by legislatures all the time, and are the full or partial basis of many laws.

"All men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights..." is a religious and moral statement with no basis in proveable or empirical fact.

It is a moral, religious based belief.  If you don't believe in a "Creator" than you can't be endowed with any rights, unalienable or otherwise."

This is, of course, from the Declaration of Independence. The preamble to the Constitution of course, places its basis in "We the People of the United States..." and calls on the provisions in it to set the basis of law. Ain't no recourse to a creator or morality. Just to the pragmatism and logic of law. The framers were truly wise.

As for the Roman analogy -- just reminds me yet again of the pro-death crusaders who are more concerned about the fetus than about living, born humans.

But again -- I understand we'll not agree.

Peace.

- LISAH

August 17, 2008 at 6:14pm

Lisah, I'm not a zealot.  But, there is much in your point of view that depends on certain assumptions that are far from "self evident".

I know the difference between a polemical, call-to-arms document like The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  

And so did Jefferson.  Who didn't participate in the Constitutional Convention.  

But, the Jeffersonian concept of rights "endowed by the Creator" permeate our national beliefs, attitudes, history.  And inform our laws even if those words are not the formal basis of them.

As to the Roman analogy, here you aren't making reasonable arguments, you're in full denial.  

Where on the rheostat of life falls a fetus, a new infant probably in a state of pre-consciousness (but not for certain) and a being you would consider a "living, born, human"?

As, Senator Obama conceded last night, this falls "beyond his paygrade".

Which ultimately means that a judgment that life does not begin before birth has, at best, no more basis in truth than a judgement that life begins at conception.

The question is, on which side of this question does the burden of proof most heavily fall?

As I said before, if I'm wrong, the consequences are far less monstrous than if you are wrong.  A vital point that you have not addressed.

- ChanRobt

August 17, 2008 at 8:36pm

ChanRobt....I was in too much of a hurry yesterday...But whether or not you're a zealot (let's not even go there re a definition -- as I said, chances are we'll never agree on abortion), what really annoyed me about your post was this:

"It is a moral, religious based belief.  If you don't believe in a "Creator" than you can't be endowed with any rights, unalienable or otherwise."

Do you seriously believe this? That an athiest, e.g., has no rights???? That seems to be what you're saying. As for Jefferson and the founders and their religious beliefs and/or doubts, well let's leave that one for forums that have more room than blogs. Your point is not a sure one...and religion is not in any way a basis for the Constitution -- aside from the obvious fact the framers knew it was a problem. The Declaration had a different purpose and needed, maybe, that language to accomplish its purpose.

As for the Roman analogy, and your sense of potential consequences -- the point, as you sort of indicate in your quote from Obama, is really that it is above everyone's pay grade. Along with making decisive judgements on what's "moral." I don't know. You don't know.

What I do know is that too many women have died from illegal abortions. And that too many more will die again if the pro-death crowd gets its way. That's the reality.

We each make our own judgements.

As I said, peace....

- LISAH

August 18, 2008 at 11:34am

I think it's a bit contradictory to be calling a whole raft of people, which include the clearly pro-life Chan, "pro-death", and then sign out "peace".

And I'm with Senator Obama, that we are all just speculating on when life begins, or, as I would put it, when the soul enters the body. I think bodies are houses for the soul, and that they can exist with or without a tenant, but again, I'm just speculating. I think we have some amount of choice as to when we leave our bodies, from things I've read about people dying, and I would imagine that we have some level of choice as to when to enter. I would not want to enter a cluster of identical cells. So I speculate that a blastula is not a person, and I'm ok with the morning-after pill, and first trimester abortions. After that, things get fuzzy for me and I'm inclined to come down on the "safe side" of whether or not I'm committing murder - I'd rather not risk it. I would have the kid, and if I didn't want it, I'd find someone to adopt it. I would want others to do the same.

Do I want others to be forced to do what I'd chose to do? And how successfully do laws succeed in forcing? It's relatively easy to get away with an illegal abortion, prosecutionwise. Healthwise, maybe not so much. These are factors to be addressed in deciding whether or not something should be legal, even if you are crystal clear about whether it's wrong or right to you.

I'm rambling, though, and offering nothing really useful to this conversation other than the basis of my speculations. But I do think conversations should be had, and had respectfully. Even with someone who thinks it's ok to leave an infant out to die of exposure. That person has a very different view of babies than anyone here, certainly, but there's just no point in berating people or inflaming them.

- psantillana

August 18, 2008 at 12:31pm

psantillana -- yes, I understand that it can be counterproductive to berate people...and ChanRobt is clearly thoughtful and careful and caring -- but getting back to semantics, I feel "pro-death" is the best description for those who put the welfare of a fetus above that of the woman. Chan is thoughtful -- but all too many of the anti-choice side are not, and all too many are interested in manipulating the issue for right-wing purposes.

There is no discussion possible with the extremists and manipulators. Unfortunately, they've co-opted the language. Whatever they say, they are not "pro-life." I'm for life. They are not.

Those who honestly feel abortion is murder -- well, whether they're being manipulated or come to that feeling on their own, I understand that there's no resolution....it's just hard to sort out who gets included where in the confines of a blog.

- LISAH

August 18, 2008 at 1:48pm

LISAH, I'll address your narrower points in a bit.  But your biggest point seems to be that we either cannot or have no write to declare anything moral or immoral.  Or to make choices or laws informed by a sense of what is moral or not.

Why do you find the concept of "moral" so alien?  Those who are against the death penalty, have to be making a moral judgement.  Otherwise, what's their beef?  And people who are against the death penalty are frequently not against abortion.  Just as people against abortion often support the death penalty.

But, all these opinions and positions have to be based on some sense of what is right, i.e. what is moral.

What are "rights" after all, if not a "moral" judgement.  In China, people don't have too many rights.  There no Creator to endow them with such.  And no men in power who are willing to.

So, on what basis do we in the West enjoy "rights"?  Rights are not necessarily a logical thing to enjoy.  Autocracies and tyrannies and non-democracies are frequently more efficient and organized than democracies where rights are given to indiviudals.

And right now, the tyrannies seem to be ascendant again.  Especially China.  Without the need of any "rights".  And not much "morality" as seen by our lights, in evidence.

Maybe you are arguing for a Platonic a priori sort of right.  That's reasonable.  And it comes from a tradition of Western philosophy intenely interested in the concept called "morality" tht you seem to find so off-putting.

- ChanRobt

August 18, 2008 at 2:02pm

psntillana writes, "...I'm rambling, though, and offering nothing really useful to this conversation other than the basis of my speculations. "

I think you added something very useful.  A woman's personal point of view and a non-intellecutalized response from the heart to very difficult questions.

I realize I am falling on the most difficult side of this argument.  But difficult doesn't mean you can walk away from it.

- ChanRobt

August 18, 2008 at 2:05pm

ChanRobt -- I have no problem per se with the concept of morality. Morals are useful guides and reminders to us of decent/proper behavior. But people have their own individual and/or group-based ideas of what's "moral."  My problem is with people who feel they can impose their ideas of morality on the rest of us. That's where things get dicey. I don't like people who "know" what's good for me.

Re the death penalty -- personally I don't oppose or support it in theory. I's not all that comfortable with it, but on the other hand it's sort of satisfying to see a Ted Bundy get it -- Main point in the current time frame, for me, is that it's clearly being imposed on innocent people, and not enough care is taken in the investigation and trial procedures that may lead to its imposition. This isn't, again, somehing I see as making a moral judgement -- it's a question of looking at the real-world situation in a pragmatic kind of way. Morality is a reasonable guide, but not a decisive one.

It's been awhile -- too long awhile -- since I read Plato. But what I seem to be remembering is that his concepts of justice and morals et. al. rested on what could work to make society function. They weren't absolutes, at least not in the sense that the word moral seems to imply to too many people today.

Our constitution certainly doesn't rest on moral assumptions -- at least as I read it, it's the ultimate in a real-world, pragmatic approach to making a country or society work as well as possible to the benefit of all within it. That's also essentially the basis of all the Western democracies, with or without any religious leftovers from the old days.  It's once you start imposing one group's morals, one group's religion, one group's morals or religion or whatever-basd system etc, on other groups that you wind up with the dictatorships.

And yes, psantinalla says, issues like abortion are intensely personal -- which is why I feel that ultimately it's all but impossible to not resolve them. At some point  it seems there is nothing more to say.

- LISAH

August 18, 2008 at 2:46pm

LISAH, I understand your view that the pro-lifers are pro-death because their position [make abortion illegal] results in death. And that is a very good argument to make to them, I just don't see the value in raising that point by way of a name-call. It alienates people before you can even explain it.

And I also think it's unfair [and some of them doing it to us - "baby killers" - doesn't make it okay] to charictarize someone's viewpoint in terms of the results of their actions. The pro-lifers are not pro-killing women, and to the extent that they concede the point that their position on the legality would result in deaths of same, they probably argue that those deaths are far fewer in number than the number of deaths of fetuses, and that, on balance, it's just a necessary evil and no way around it.

From there you can, if you like, argue that a woman's life is worth more than a fetus's, or whatever else you may counter with, but it's smoother sailing - and more accurate - to refrain from the "pro-death" salvo.

And don't fall back on this:

"There is no discussion possible with the extremists and manipulators. Unfortunately, they've co-opted the language. Whatever they say, they are not "pro-life." I'm for life. They are not."

Because there are a significant amount of pro-lifers who are not extremist manipulators, and your net of insult blankets them too, and that is very counter-productive.

There needs to be a Venn diagram on this, because it's not just two camps at all. A bunch of Venn diagrams, with a rationale attached to each field. For the death penalty but anti abortion? Rationale: embryos are innocent. For abortion but anti-death penalty? Rationale: embryos aren't people. I'm providing the rationales here, but I'd like to see an interactive web thingy where people can have a discussion for each and every field. People can represent themselves, justify their positions, find out other people's rationales, etc., instead of just lobbing insults over the wall.

Also, a legislative Venn diagram, featuring what people think should be legal or not. Then we can get away from equating the morning-after pill for a raped 12 year old with a truly late-term abortion by a perfectly healthy woman who wants to avoid a c-section scar. And yes, there will be people who think both should be illegal, and people who think neither should be, but those really aren't the only two camps.

- psantillana

August 18, 2008 at 3:18pm

About morality - Chan is right, it's everywhere in legislation. There is not one piece without it. And LISAH is right, morality is subjective. It's her morality that makes her not want to see innocent people put to death, and I'm sure she is happy to see legislative safeguards to avoid that.

Why are you two arguing about that? Is there something I'm missing?

- psantillana

August 18, 2008 at 3:21pm

LISAH writes, "...My problem is with people who feel they can impose their ideas of morality on the rest of us."

And, I'm saying, LISAH, we are surrounded by laws that do that very thing.  

The Left and the Right ask for laws to be passed that are partly or in full a manifestation of their moral beliefs.  You can't say, in the case of abortion, that's not fair.

I think there's something immoral about income tax.  It seems to me an intrusion into privacy by the government beyond what is Democratic.  

I think progressive tax is a moral concept.  It is fair (moral) say its proponents, to tax the rich at a higher rate than the poor.  Yes, part of the argument could be called logical.  But a large part of it is based on a notion of fairness.  And fairness is a moral construct.

You see that, I would bet, when you favor a law.  But deny it when you don't.

- ChanRobt

August 18, 2008 at 3:37pm

LISAH writes, "...Our constitution certainly doesn't rest on moral assumptions -- at least as I read it, it's the ultimate in a real-world, pragmatic approach to making a country or society work as well as possible to the benefit of all within it. That's also essentially the basis of all the Western democracies, with or without any religious leftovers from the old days."

Being as we are direct descendants of Greek and Roman Civilization, the latter of which converted to Christianity;  and being as all European nations, including England, were until very recently (England still) Christian based with divine  right of kings, etc) it's just absurd to think that our legal heritage is not chock full of religious moral assumptions.  Our laws are laced with them.

Yes, the Constitutions is intelligent, rational, and pragmatic.  But, it was not handed down to us from outer space.  Itr was written by men deeply marinated in Western Civilization, and a culture that was heavily marbled with Judaism and Christianity.  

There may be a deep wish for a totally secular culture by many these days.  But, while we have no state religion, neither are we secular only.  Not by a long shot.

And those civilizations that manage to remove all notions of religion from their government, seem always to end up with something like China or the Soviet Union-- and its vestige, Russia.

I'm not saying there can't be tyranny in the name of God.  But, when you remove any outside reference points for morality, it is extremely easy to fall into relativism.  And into the pit where your moral idea is as good as mine, so therefor there's no such thing as "morality".

- ChanRobt

August 18, 2008 at 3:45pm

psantillana writes, "...Why are you two arguing about that? Is there something I'm missing?"

I'm only arguing about it because LISAH maintains that to outlaw abortion at a  particular stage is to "impose your morality" on others.

I'm not disagreeing.  I'm just saying that all laws "impose morality on others".  And you agreed with me.

- ChanRobt

August 18, 2008 at 3:49pm

psantillana: Why are you two arguing about that? Is there something I'm missing?

ChanRobt: I'm only arguing about it because LISAH maintains that to outlaw abortion at a  particular stage is to "impose your morality" on others

Actually, I'm past just the abortion issue re morality -- I'm onto the broader question of the relation of law to morality...point is (I think!!!)  that I see morals as guides, maybe as idea(l)s to reach for -- given the process of making laws, yeah, sure there may be moral inputs, but no single moral "side" entirely gets its way -- if it gets its way at all. Laws as finally passed are mish-mashes of the self-interests, moral, pragmatic, etc., of those who lobby for them and pass them.  And there are laws and regs (e.g., building codes, say) where I find it hard to see anything that relates to morals at all.

Not gonna get iinto religion vs. secular, except to say that it's pretty obvious, as I'd guess you'd agree, that some of the greatest crimes have been committed in the name of the religions Western civilization ahs been marinating in -- and in the names of non-Western religions. And I don't see religion as the only "outside" guide to morals.

psantillana: I was specifically trying to draw a distinction between the manipulators and the manipulated  on the abortion issue. I guess I didn't succeed...The likes of Pat Robertson are the ones I'd call pro-death. Their followers? Well, it amounts to that if they totally oppose abortion, but I agree it wouldn't be useful, and likely would be counterproductive,  to toss that out at them. As for the morality or whatever of abortion in whatever trimester -- for me, that's totally the woman;s choice, the woman's decision. No one else's. Telling her what she can do is the ultimate intrusion into the personal, private realm.

ChanRobt: I think of fairness as a pragmatic way to approach decisions. Not a moral one. And the intrusions of the religious right into the public sphere today are intensely dangerous to our society in this country today, far more of a threat than any influence of non-bellievers.

An d I've got a job due to morrow....

Cheers

- LISAH

August 18, 2008 at 5:06pm

I think LISAH has left the building.

- psantillana

August 18, 2008 at 5:11pm

ok our posts crossed!

- psantillana

August 18, 2008 at 5:26pm

I'm done talking about abortion until I get that website up.

LISAH - in case you pop in after your job is done -

1. How laws end up as strange contorted compromises does not contradict the idea that morality went into them.

2. Building codes that have to do with public safety are totally moral, don't you think? Maybe there are some laws that are amoral [I can't think of any offhand], but I'd say the vast majority are. How else do you get the nerve to tell other people what to do? It has to be for the common good, and good = moral. Now of course people differ on what is good/moral, but what else is new?

- psantillana

August 18, 2008 at 5:33pm

Not quite, just trying to. Stop me before I post again. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gotta focus on getting paid....

- LISAH

August 18, 2008 at 5:38pm

psantillana, in my view, LISAH has a very myopic and narrowly political view of what constitutes "morality".

She essentially sees it as a club, created artificially and insincerely, by the Evangelical Right to beat and bully her side into submission.

There are many people from moral philosophers to the last pope who have written on the subject of abortion and its morality at great length, with great care, and not with an especially political axe to grind.

Returning to the somewhat parallel question of the death penalty, it has come to have hardly any practical application and exists strictly on the moral and political level.

I assume that the death penalty originally had the practical purpose of eliminating dangers personages from amidst the population.  And doing it pretty inexpensively.

The death penalty had the further moral and practical purpose of meting out an eye for an eye type justice with  a cause and effect that could be easily understood.  

It constituted both the people's revenge and hopefully a deterrent to a somewhat brutal population.  A very clear piece of moral theater was an execution.

Now the death penalty takes so long to invoke that the cause and effect aspect is totally lost.  And the people's justice or revenge (your choice) is so late in coming as almost to be neither justice nor palpable revenge, either.

the death penalty today is so expensive to bring about, and allows the murderer to live such a large portion of his natural life, as to punish the state more than the killer.

I would submit, then, that the death penalty as practiced in the United States has almost no practical purpose or effect.  And that it exists solely as a moral exercise and as a political one.

A consistent Christian, like the late pope, sees all life from the most hideous murderer to the most abstractly human entity (zygote, fertilized egg, early embryo) as equally sacred.  A consistent, moral Christian opposes the destroying of either of these lives.

How LISAH can fail to see such a judgement as profoundly moral, even if she disagrees, I don't know.

My best guess is my original thesis.  To her opposition to abortion is simply a phony stance of these unpalatable Right Wing Evangelical types who she finds culturally peculiar.

I believe LISAH ought to open her eyes and look at the wider world in this discussion.

- ChanRobt

August 18, 2008 at 8:09pm

Chan:

"I believe LISAH ought to open her eyes and look at the wider world in this discussion."

Once I get my mythical website up, everyone's eyes will be opened on all of it. Which is just what I need, another harebrained scheme, but this one would actually be popular if I could do it.

- psantillana

August 18, 2008 at 9:43pm

I look forward to your establishing that site, psantillana.   It sounds like a pretty big effort.

- ChanRobt

August 18, 2008 at 10:11pm