Still digging you mom. You just know that she has her own secret blog somewhere out there.
Great post. Poignant and well-written.
But about half of those women who have abortions this year are coming back for their second or third time---so they don't sound like your grandmother. A more balanced perception of abortion would be nice, though, and I think your post contributes to that.
But about half of those women who have abortions this year are coming back for their second or third time---so they don't sound like your grandmother.
What's that supposed to mean?
What's that supposed to mean?
"Like your grandmother" is shorthand (well, longhand) for "virtuous"
Look, can we all just agree to hate on women who have multiple abortions?
Once Andrew explains why one abortion leaves you still virtuous and two make you a fucking slut. If the second one is the result of rape with sodomy, does that make it okay? If it's as bad as it can be? Ooops, not a virgin, so probably not. Well, what if they're twenty years apart? How close together do they have to be before you're a slut? Maybe we should all be sterilized after the first one, because obviously we're halfway down the road to fucking sluthood. Perhaps a committee of patriarchs could rule on the question. They'd better hurry, because clearly the world is full of slutty sluts who've acquired a taste for surgery.
#6: not until both sex ed. and contraceptive availability are improved, at least.
I suspect he means that one abortion looks like an attempt to address an unexpected event; multiple abortions look like abortion as a preferred method of birth control. Or something like that - I'm not really sure, as it's hard for me to see it as a preferred method. But I don't think sluttiness has to enter in to it.
Well, for one, Tia's grandmother is dead.
Jeez. Becks.
Sorry about your grandmother, Tia. It was an accident.
You know, Andrew (and anyone else who's thinking the same way), it sounds as if you're willing to forgive a woman for having an abortion if she's had one -- if she's had two or more, though, she's an irresponsible tramp. Let's think that through a little. If one unwanted pregnancy can happen through what you're willing, in your position as arbiter, to think of as excusable accident, then what keeps it from happening twice to the same woman? If it's an excusable accident once, what makes it culpable the second time? Or are we concerned about her intent -- maybe she's having abortions for the fun of it, and the pregnancies aren't really accidental?
Really, do you have an articulable position here, and would you care to share it? If it's 'Any woman who deliberately eschews other methods of birth control than abortion, because she prefers having painful and invasive surgery at unplanned intervals, is ill-advised,' then I think you've got a lot of agreement here. If your position is otherwise, I'm interested to know what it is.
It's too bad women don't tell people anymore -- if they talked about it more, I bet it would really help correct the perception that there are "good girls" who become mothers and "bad girls" who have abortions, when really the women who have abortions and the women who become mothers are often the same people, just at different points in their lives. People might be surprised to find out who has had one. I know I was.
I tell people I've had an abortion for this reason. I know a lot of women who have had abortions -- mostly I know because I told them first. Something that I really don't think the kind of person who thinks of themselves as a Democrat, but thinks abortion is something liberals can give up easily realizes, is how very many women they know have needed abortions, and how terrifying the prospect of not having that available is.
And I appreciate that you do share your experience for that exact reason, LB. While I'm sure you're not the only person I know who has had one, you're the only person who has said so.
I have had two women in my life tell me they have had abortions. Both were totally unexpected (not that I have anyone pegged for "like to have had one"). It made me realize that you never know who has chosen abortion and that it is unfortunate that it has such a stigma when there are so many decent moral human beings who have done it. From what I understand multiple abortions are not the norm, but that is besides the point. I *hate* the line of thought where some abortions are okay and some are not. A woman's decision about her body and her autonomy is hers to make again and again.
I do wonder sometimes if my acquaintances are a statistical anomaly; unusually unlucky with the birth control or what. Everyone I know who's had an abortion (and yes, I know at least one woman who's had two. She's pregnant with her first baby now -- I'm crocheting a blanket) was using birth control: generally condoms.
(My children are so getting the lecture that condoms are necessary as disease prevention, but really aren't much use as birth control.)
Oh - I know one other person, a friend of the family. But that wasn't an elective procedure; it was a late-term abortion due to a severe birth defect in a wanted pregnancy. That was really traumatic for them -- in Ohio, after a certain point in the pregnancy, you are required to fill out a death certificate and have a funeral. Their OB/GYN did so few abortions that he wasn't aware of the law and scheduled the surgery the day after the time limit had passed. They had come to terms with the idea that they were going to have to abort the pregnancy but weren't emotionally prepared for having to have a funeral.
My sister had one.
I once had a friend who was telling me about her third abortion, and I kind of skeeved about it on the "I can understand having one, but..." ground, and she bit my head off. Deservedly.
15: Andrew's numbers surprised me a fair bit, too.
9: I don't think that's what he meant at all. But I await his explanation.
In the meantime, as a woman who has had an abortion, I will say that I sincerely believe that the woman who prefers abortion as a method of birth control is constructed from the same straw as the girl who has a partial birth abortion so she can fit into her prom dress.
Finally, here's my balanced view of abortion: A woman's body is not public property, and what she does with her uterus is her own business.
21: The bit about half of the abortions being multis.
19: I've googled to find them a bit -- they pop right up, but only, so far, on aggressively pro-life sites. I can't seem to find them from a neutral source yet.
12-
I think there's an articulable position behind Andrew's post. I don't know whether it's Andrew's actual position, but I could imagine someone thinking along the lines of: (1) abortion is a tragedy, a necessary evil, (2) unwanted pregnancy is (except in cases of rape) generally preventable with due care, (3) it's okay if people make mistakes and end up needing an abortion, but (4) they really ought to *learn* from their mistakes, and take extra precautions to ensure that it never happens again. Hence, those people who have multiple abortions deserve some degree of scorn, for demonstrating poor decisionmaking, with repeated tragic consequences. I think the argument isn't that you'd want to *prevent* anyone from being able to have a second or third or sixth abortion if they needed one, so much as you might legitimately question the lack of responsibilty demonstrated.
Of course, all of that depends on some degree of acceptance of proposition (1), which is of course not universally accepted. And if it's really of zero moral consequence then, of course, there's no reason to care if everyone has abortions by the dozen.
I don't know whether this was Andrew's position or not, I'm just offering it out there. Partly because whether or not Andrew feels this way, I suspect some not insignificant number of people do. But please: don't attack me personally w/r/t this, because it's sure as hell not my own personal opinion.
I think the argument isn't that you'd want to *prevent* anyone from being able to have a second or third or sixth abortion if they needed one, so much as you might legitimately question the lack of responsibilty demonstrated.
Not attacking you personally, not your opinion, but for anyone whose opinion it is, why the hell does it need to be brought up in discussions of abortions generally? If you (not Urple. The rhetorical 'you'.) want to advocate better birth control education, possibly even targeted at women who have had abortions, more power to you. If you want to make unpleasant little judgments about women you know who have had more than one abortion, I don't want to know you, but I can't stop you. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the issue of whether and when abortion should be legal, unless you want to say that "I'd be willing to let abortion be legal if I were sure that women would use it responsibly -- only when they really had to. Pity the irresponsible sluts have to spoil it for the rest of them."
in Ohio, after a certain point in the pregnancy, you are required to fill out a death certificate and have a funeral.
Dear Ohio,
Are you sick and spiteful, you fucks? Please check one.
[] Yes [] Yup
But the problem with (1) abortion is a tragedy, a necessary evil is that people always assume that the women who have abortions don't think that. Even though obviously, if you give five minutes' thought to the procedure, you're gonna realize it's not exactly something any woman is going to blithely get done without a good reason. So scorning people who have to have multiple embarrassing and awkward and crampy (at least) medical procedures seems kinda beside the point and holier-than-thou.
in Ohio, after a certain point in the pregnancy, you are required to fill out a death certificate and have a funeral
OK, maybe I can see the rationale for a death certificate past a certain (very late) point. But how can the state require you to have a funeral? That is an area where the law does not need to intrude.
maybe I can see the rationale for a death certificate past a certain (very late) point
I can't think of one. This is the state calling you a murderer in bureaucratese.
19, 23: Okay, the statistics look accurate -- I found them on the Alan Guttmacher Institute. It's worth remembering, though, that if half the abortions are performed on women who have had more than one, that means that well less than half of women who have had an abortion have had more than one.
I'll admit - the requiring to have a funeral thing I got secondhand from my mom. I'm not sure how it all played out but I do know (1) they hadn't planned on having a funeral, (2) they felt compelled to have one, and (3) a law somehow factored into the decision. I'm not sure exactly how the dots between 1, 2, and 3 got connected but they were and our friends were really pissed about it.
If half of abortions are performed on women who've already had one, what that suggests to me is that either those women haven't a clue about birth control (or have no access, or their lives are so fucked up that they don't or can't use it), or else that they're remarkably fertile, like the friend I had who got pg on bc twice. With twins each time.
There is something about the confessions, though. I was only 21 in '73, not very worldly, but several young women I knew had told me about their abortions. One a friend of mine who was the mistress--he was married--of a good friend/mentor of mine. Journey from Ohio to New York, in those days. From where we were, Buffalo was the closest city. Since that time, no one has ever discussed having an abortion with me, nor have I become aware of anyone I know having had one. This seems very implausible to me. They must have been having them and keeping quiet about it.
Part of it, as Becks suggests, was that they could keep quiet about it once it was legal and available. The right is premised on a right of privacy, after all. Before, when you needed support and cooperation for what was in effect a criminal act, it may have been more natural to reach out to your friends. Sad if true.
One way to find out is whether people from the great plains, where it is all but unobtainable without travel now, the old dynamic has reasserted itself. Anybody have any idea?
25- Agreed. But I reiterate that I don't think this is a straw opinion that I've articulated. I'm not sure people have worked the thought process all the way through. But also note that the post (to which I presume Andrew was replying) wasn't discussing the legality of abortion, but the morality and decnecy of it ("hey: normal, nice, grandmotherly people have abortions too!"). Someone who reasoned according to my post above could bring into *that* discussion this idea that "well, there's your grandma, but look at all *those* irresponsible people over there in queue at the abortion clinic!"
Or something like that. If not that, then I have no idea what he was trying to say.
That, and if you roll the dice often enough, people get unlucky. Some people get unlucky twice. I was in the waiting room in the clinic with a woman who was having her second abortion -- her first had been in the 70's, when she was a kid; in 1995 she was in her early forties.
Most women are fertile and having sex for nearly twenty years -- most women aren't trying to get pregnant for more than a year or two out of that time. That's an awful lot of scope for error.
35 to 32.
To 34: Oh, I don't think it's a straw opinion -- I think you accurately described what people who bring up repeat abortions are thinking, if you can call it thought.
Oh, for Pete's sake. Becks wrote that if more women like her grandmother talked about their abortions, the perception of those who obtain abortions might change for the better. I wholeheartedly agree, and I thought Becks's story really brought her point home. But I think that these stories only provide a more balanced perspective, rather than changing the negative perception completely, because Becks' grandmother is not the norm, as the statistic I mentioned demonstrates.
And of course I don't think that women who have multiple abortions are worthless tramps. Do I really seem that idiotic, callous, and cruel?
I knew this girl who had her first abortion just so she'd look good in her prom dress her senior year of high school. (She was at 8.5 months, so it was a partial birth procedure.) She enjoyed it so much she's gone back for more a few times a year ever since.
A friend of mine had two abortions in one year. The first was condom failure, and the second was some weird hiccup in a newish hormonal contraception plus condom failure, if I'm recalling this correctly. The second time really seemed like an act of (an insane) God. As sad as it was that she had to go through the whole thing again, none of her friends could say that she hadn't tried to improve her contraceptive regime substantially.
I've taken emergency contraception once, have never regretted doing so, and wouldn't feel the slightest guilty about doing so again. I don't want to take it again: I threw up a lot, and the doctors at Planned Parenthood made me feel like an irresponsible little shit. Still, if I were to identify a pregnancy risk in time, I'd do it again without a qualm.
You know, I used to be much more accepting of some restrictions on abortion. Then I starting reading what political pro-lifers were writing amongst themselves. It didn't take long for me to become an absolutist pro-choicer because, you know, if the alternative is giving choice to those people? Uh-uh.
the morality and decnecy of it ("hey: normal, nice, grandmotherly people have abortions too!") I actually think this is at the center of a lot of abortion argument--I mean, those of us on this thread who are defending multiple abortions are doing so, more or less, by excusing them as accidents that happen to normal, nice people, or else as unfortunate tragedies that happen to poor, victimized people. It's such a tough one, the balancing of saying, "yes, there are circumstances in which women have abortions where I wish they wouldn't" and yet holding fast to the idea that it's not anyone's business to second-guess other people's reproductive decisions. At least I sometimes find it so.
Becks' grandmother is not the norm, as the statistic I mentioned demonstrates. But I think the point is that Becks' grandmother isn't an anomaly, either. Especially not back in the days before reliable birth control.
41: I'm not disagreeing with Becks. Her grandmother might not be an anomaly, and I think it would be a good thing for public health generally if more stories like that were told. I'm just saying that there remains a sizable portion who don't fall into that category i.e. women who repeatedly fail to use birth control. These women are NOT tramps, sluts, etc, but they are easily painted by the pro-lifers as irresponsible individuals----in contrast to the responsible grandmother who simply has some bad luck.
And I have to admit that I'm a little insulted by some of the positions that have been attributed to me.
Here's what the CDC says:
For women who obtained an abortion and whose number of previous abortions was adequately reported (40 reporting areas), 54% were reported to have obtained an abortion for the first time, and 19% were reported to have had at least two previous abortions (Table 13).
The state by state numbers in the tables are interesting, and the breakdown goes: 54.4%, no previous abortions. 25.3%, one previous abortion. 11%, two previous abortions. 7.5%, three or more previous abortions. Looks like a bell curve to me. I wonder, if you could chart fertility levels, would it correlate?
also of interest:
For women who obtained legal induced abortions and for whom data on previous live births were adequately reported (41 reporting areas), 39% were known to have had no previous live births, and 32% had two or more previous live births (Table 12). The abortion ratio was highest for women who had three previous live births (291 per 1,000 live births) and lowest for those who had one previous live birth (194 per 1,000).
Here's the link.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5407a1.htm
24: I don't think your #2 is valid. I had an abortion after a failure of birth control. That this only happened to me once is a matter of luck, not morality.
41 - My grandmother was not an anomaly in the type of women who got one but she was an anomaly in that she was able to get one at all. She was only able to because of money and class. My grandfather was fairly wealthy, politically connected, and good friends with the sheriff and local doctor. Only because of those social connections was he able to arrange something and keep it quiet. Had she just been a typical middle-class housewife, she never would have been able to get one.
I actually think this is at the center of a lot of abortion argument
I would hate to think so. I think the idea of people who are "pro-life" as "punishment for immoral women" is a charicature. At least I've never met one of these people, and I've been in a number of pro-life circles.
I for one am very, very, very pro-life, and think it's always and everywhere a tragic decision that I honestly don't ever think is the right one, and one that I would never want my wife or my unmarried teenage daughter to make under any circumstances, but even with all that I'm pretty torn on whether it should be illegal. I wish no one anywhere ever chose to have an abortion, but I can't envision any circumstance in which I'd want to legally punish a woman who made that choice. I understand that it's (almost) always and everywhere a difficult decision forced on women by unfortunate and unintended circumstances. I recognize it's not something that people want.
But that's my point: I think that moving from "I'm pro-life in the sense that I think abortion is a horrible tragedy and I don't think it's ever the right decision" to "I think it should be illegal and women should be punished for having abortion" requires one to imagine women who have abortions as irresponsible, as not really finding the decision difficult at all, as lacking any sense of the importance of the thing. It seems to me that if one can imagine (as you do) that women who have them do, by and large, find the decision difficult for all the same reasons you do, then that goes hand-in-hand with an imaginative empathy that recognizes that, tragic or no, the vast majority of abortions aren't "irresponsible" in the way that pro-criminalization folks often argue they are.
Bphd- what I'm saying is that I don't think "punishing irresponsibilty" is as central a plank in the pro-life platform as you are making it out to be. I've never met anyone (who cared about the issue) who even indirectly suggested that was in any way part of the objective.
Well, then why are rape and incest the standard exceptions?
Not arguing--genuinely want to discuss this, btw, just in case that isn't clear.
These women are NOT tramps, sluts, etc, but they are easily painted by the pro-lifers as irresponsible individuals----in contrast to the responsible grandmother who simply has some bad luck.
Okay, Andrew, I apologize for attributing these attitudes to you, but I wish you had made it more clear that you were referring to other peoples' attitudes. And by the way, Becks' grandmother's story would not probably not seem exceptional to a pro-lifer, but would simply move her into the category of Bad Irresponsible Woman. After all, 42's not too old to be having a child, a wonderful surprise, think of Sarah (Abraham's wife, not our homicidal dream commenter), God's will, etc., etc.
"would not probably not" s/b "would probably not"
49/50:
Two things:
(1) it's funny, but I swear to you in all honestly I've never met a single person who described themselves as pro-life who supported a rape and incest exception as a matter of principle. In every case, it's a political expediency -- just a simple compromise. Surely, however, these people must exist, based on poll results. But I can't explain their position, because I've never had the chance to talk to one. I honestly can't think of any good rationale for the position, though. (Other than just improving the likelihood of getting a ban enacted.)
(2) I wish I could be more engaged in this discussion, but I'm still at work (east coast time), and it's going to be a few more hours before I leave, and I have to be here again in the morning bright and early, so I can't fully throw myself into this discussion. Sorry.
Why are rape and incest often exceptions for abortion opponents? Well, there's obviously no unitary response, but here are some ways you might think about it.
Proposition one: Aborting a pregnancy is a grievous moral wrong.
Proposition two: forcing someone to live through a harmful or traumatizing experience is a moral wrong.
Proposition three: a person suffering harm they in no way could have averted or prevented is worse than a person suffering a harm that was a risk of a choice they made.
Proposition two suffices to explain why people who are pro-life (proposition one 1) might think there were countervailing moral arguments in cases -- like rape -- where bringing a pregnancy to term might be especially traumatic. Of course, many people who hold proposition one and two may also hold proposition three, which perhaps counts as "punishing irresponsibility."
Although I agree with Urple that you'll find lots of pro-life people who reject the rape/incest exception because the idea, in their mind, is to save an innocent child.
See, I find the "innocent" part of the thing kind of offensive. Either life is valuable or it's not; some kind of moral judgment on whether or not it's "innocent" seems, to me, beside the point.
My argument would be this: if a person thinks there is *any* exception in which abortion may be acceptable, then I don't see how their anti-abortion position boils down to anything other than "my moral judgment is better than that of a pregnant woman." I'm willing to respect the absolute anti-abortion argument, but then I get hung up on the question of, okay, if abortion is so awful, why aren't we working on improving the world so that women aren't forced into situations where they have to make that choice? Cutting funding from places like Planned Parenthood increases abortion. I'm a lot more okay with the argument that abortion is a moral wrong, but I'd be a lot more respectful of it if I perceived that the people making it were also advocating for public support for single moms, more public spending on early childhood education, greater promotion of and access to birth control, and so on.
56-
B, given that, you'd probably feel something less hostile than outright contempt for these people:
http://www.feministsforlife.org/
This is the org. that John Roberts' wife was involved with, IIRC.
As for your other points, well I don't have time to go into things, other than to say that I am fully aware of the phenomenon whereby every position I like in theory that is then picked up by the Republican party (and especially its far right base), suddenly in practice stops looking so attractive to me, no matter how wonderful it still sounds as an idea. I'm sure this tied in to what you were saying in some way, but I'm tired now, and I've forgotten how this was relevent. But take it for what it's worth.
Oh, I know about Feminists for Life and I cautiously respect the organization--the more so as they explicitly don't take a position on whether or not abortion should be decriminalized, admittedly. If I were the feminist in chargge, I'd be cool working with folks like them.
I think what you've highlighted is true of any case in which we make a (negative) moral judgment: we think that we are correct and the person performing the bad act is wrong. We think our judgment superior to his or hers.
So I don't think criticism singles out any particular view on the circumstances in which abortion is justified. Whether you think abortion is always wrong, is wrong in the third trimester, is wrong only a week before birth, or is wrong only in cases where the mother will suffer a harm > X -- in every case, this just that a woman choosing an abortion in that prohibited circumstance is making the wrong choice.
I think that this frequent reversion to "we always judge other people" is an evasion of the point. Abortion is a hugely controversial issue, and pretty much everyone in the country has an opinion on the thing. I think it boils down to a really revealing problem of not trusting women, specifically, especially when so much of the discourse and legislation around abortion involves "waiting periods" and "informing women" and what is and isn't "responsible" etc. etc.
they explicitly don't take a position on whether or not abortion should be decriminalized
I assume you meant criminalized, I think, but that's not my point: I think what you've highlighted above ought to be the least important tenant of anti-abortionism. Punishing people who make tragic choices has to be the least just, and probably the least effective, way to deal with this problem (insofar as one views it as a problem, which I think anyone who is anti-abortion must). I just don't care that much whether or not abortion is legal; I'm not even honestly sure which I prefer. In fact, I think I feel exactly the same way about abortion as I do about prostitution (from a regulatory standpoint). I don't like it at all, and I think the vast majority of women who are involved are making difficult choices other than those they would make under ideal circumstances. I'd like it to go away, but I have very little conviction about whether or not it should be illegal.
Urple, that was a really meaningless comment.
re 42
"I'm just saying that there remains a sizable portion who don't fall into that category i.e. women who repeatedly fail to use birth control."
Andrew, this doesn't necessarily follow from the numbers, by the way.
I have no idea what the total percentages are like, but out of the women I know who have told me about an abortion, the vast majority have been due to failure of another form of birth control.
I certainly agree that abortion as an intentional form of birth control, given better alternatives is a terrible idea. You don't have to go further than the increased risk to the woman to establish that.
However, for your statement to really hold we would have to establish that a) these people had adequte eductation on birth control and reasonable access to it and b) they weren't using it.
61: Yeah, I meant criminalized. And basically I'm willing to say "hear hear" to your comment. I do think it has to be legal, because the alternative is dangerous--women are going to abort regardless, given that we don't live in a perfect world and that the means to do so is in their hands and, I think, morally speaking, it has to be allowed ultimately to be their decision to make, tragic or no.
I should go to bed too.
especially when so much of the discourse and legislation around abortion involves "waiting periods" and "informing women"
Anyone who has ever told you this was anything other than a simple attempt to reduce the absolute number of abortions at the margin (by placing an extra hurdle that some subset of women won't be willing or able to surmount) was probably lying to you.
That being said: I think you're being uncharitable with the whole "not trusting women" issue. It's right, insofar as it goes, to say that anti-abortionists don't "trust" women to make the "right choice" on abortion. But their position almost by definition is that there is only one right choice on this issue. It's really not the cynical "I could intelligently choose when to terminate a pregnancy, but you are too stupid and irresponsible"; it's a strong moral conviction that it's never the right choice for anyone to choose abortion. It's not that I think I'm somehow a better decisionmaker than you, it's that I just think you're about to do something very wrong.
It's like if a good friend was going (as a result of tragic circumstances) going to start shooting up, and you had a chance to talk to her about it. Wouldn't you be inclined to tell her that although that might seem like an easy way to ease her pain right now, it's not really the best answer? That there are better ways for her to deal with things, healthier ways? [I acknowledge this is a somewhat stupid example. I'm still at work and I'm exhausted. Just bear with me. Suspension of disbelief and all that.] Someone could in that circumstance start telling you that you simply "aren't trusting" your friend, or letting her figure out on her own what's best for her. But how much meaning would that have, really? What would "respecting her decision" look like, exactly? Abortion seems pretty analogous to me.
Thought experiment on the above theme.
Given a 20 year stretch of fertile sexual activity. Considering only (male) condom use. Multiple sources (eg http://www.wprc.org/11.16.0.0.1.0.phtml) give `perfect usage' failure rates at about 3% / year.
So over the 20 year period, this gives a nearly 50% chance of unplanned pregnancy despite b.c
`actual use' rates are given at 12% by the same source. So over the same period, which would give about 90% chance of pregnancy.
Urple, that was a really meaningless comment.
Likely true, but if you could be a little more specific it would help.
I don't think it is an evasion, and here's why. I took you to be distinguishing between two postions
One: abortion is wrong in every case
Two: abortion is wrong in cases X and Y, but not case Z
I took you to be distinguishing these positions, and suggesting that "one" was preferable to "two", based on the principle that "two" involved not not trusting women's judgments in a way that "one" did not. I don't think that distinguishes the cases. I think it's true in both cases.
An example: Many people think abortion is wrong in the third trimester, and not wrong earlier. It doesn't really make sense to criticize these people for usurping the judgment of woman as against those who oppose all abortion. Whether or not it's in the third trimester is a fact of the world. A woman may have more of the relevant information about the timing of her own pregnancy, but she's not in a unique epistemological position. So, again if you hold this view (3rd trimester impermissable, earlier permissable) you just will think that in certain cases woman who want to abort are making the wrong choice.
Now maybe if the reasons a person has for opposing abortion have to do with cases that the pregnant woman is uniquely positioned to make judgments about, then this criticism makes sense. (straw man position: abortion is wrong unless having the child will 'ruin a woman's life.' Possible reponse: who better to know that than the woman herself.) But most "immoral except in the case of" waivers to the pro-life position aren't like this.
65: comparing haveing an abortion to starting I.V. drug use is not just `a somewhat stupid example', it is pretty much insane. Regardless of how convoluted the scenario you propose, there is simply no rational parallel between the situations. If you can't see that, consider that one could easily turn it backwards (having the child equated with aquiring a habit etc) and it would make equivalent (i.e., not much) sense.
Urple, why are you so invested in this? You knock up some chick back in the day? Frankly, you're kind of creeping me out.
damn. 66 `which would' s/b `this would'
71 - I wasn't trying to compare the scenarios, I was trying to compare the moral judgments involved in discouraging the actions of the other.
"Should" doesn't mean "will."
Anyone who has ever told you this was anything other than a simple attempt to reduce the absolute number of abortions at the margin (by placing an extra hurdle that some subset of women won't be willing or able to surmount) was probably lying to you. However, these methods are cynical and not respectful of women; and the upshot of most of them is merely to postpone abortions to a later date, which is surely more morally problematic.
I don't think it's uncharitable, given a couple of things. One, there are a lot of people who are anti-abortion "except" in certain cases. That basically boils down to a judgment call. Two, the position that abortion is a moral wrong but we don't think it's right to punish women for making a tragic mistake admits, I think, that it's not quite on the same par with deliberate murder; that it's a tragic cutting short of life, of a potential person, yes, but that the fetus is *not* an autonomous person, it's *not* the same as if you shot someone. And I think that if that's the case, then it still boils down to "this is a moral decision," and that translating one's moral judgment into law or compulsion is wrong. I mean, picket, argue, present alternatives, etc. But advocating legislation (which I know you're not doing, but which the pro-life side basically does) that forces people into deadly dangerous situations is unconscionable.
74: yeah, that's kind of the point. you're hinging the validity of that comparison of moral judgements on the validity of some sort of parallel between the situations --- which just doesn't exist.
Now maybe if the reasons a person has for opposing abortion have to do with cases that the pregnant woman is uniquely positioned to make judgments about, then this criticism makes sense.
I would argue that your position (2) does, in fact, pretty much boil down to this. Take the "abortion is wrong in the third trimester" argument. Blanket statement? What if the fetus isn't viable? What if the woman is suddenly diagnosed with cancer? What if she develops some life-threatening condition that makes continuing the pregnancy or delivery extremely dangerous? Are there *any* exceptions to this "abortion is wrong in the third trimester" argument?
Because if there are, then we're back to the fact that, in every case of abortion, the woman *is* uniquely positioned to make the best judgment about her situation. And there's no getting around that.
Anyway, at the risk of disappointing Urple, I *am* going to have to go to bed now, since I have to get up in five hours and go teach three goddamn classes tomorrow.
bitchphd: but isn't that pretty much what *all* of these arguments boil down to? Either many of the edge cases are situations where the woman is uniquely positioned to judge (and hence we have to let her do it), or we assume no such situations exist and assert a right to enforce such decisions upon a woman against her will.
Bphd, I think you're taking objections to the wrong part of the case. Sure, we may think that "in the third trimester" is the wrong criterion, and that it's always a balance of a couple of factors. But that doesn't mean the woman is always in the best position to know whether these factors obtain. Just as a for instance, the viability of the fetus, whether or not the pregnancy will be life threatening, whether or not the woman has cancer --all the caveats you mentioned -- none of these things are facts that the woman is uniquely placed to know or make decisions about.
Now, you may already think that we know the criteria that makes abortion permissable, and that these criteria are just things that the mother is uniquely knowledgeable about (her own mental state, for example). That's fine. But it doesn't make other views of these criteria incoherent, or uniquely mistrustful of women's judgments.
I had an abortion at 11 weeks in my 40s when my youngest child was 9. The pregnancy was unplanned: a contraceptive failure. My husband didn't want another child, and felt that it would be bad for me and the children as I had been progressively more ill in my previous pregnancies. I had mixed feelings about it (as I love my children very much and could see that I would be missing out on the opportunity to love another child) but did not feel that it was an immoral choice. To me it was not yet a child, only potentially one.
My wife had an abortion. It was an ectopic in fact, quite ghastly, foetus mashed up via laparascopy.
"a tragic decision that I honestly don't ever think is the right one " demonstrates that someone isn't aware of all the possible circumstances, is in fact only aware of perhaps a few "popular" ones, filtered via partisan media. Creeps me out, too.
Just as a for instance, the viability of the fetus, whether or not the pregnancy will be life threatening, whether or not the woman has cancer --all the caveats you mentioned -- none of these things are facts that the woman is uniquely placed to know or make decisions about.
This comment in 80 reminds me of one of my cousins. She has two children now, after two absolutely horrific pregnancies. During the first pregnancy, she had a blood clot, discovered at about four months in. Not only did she nearly die, she was put on a regime of anticoagulants that were potentially harmful to the fetus, confined to bed for the rest of her pregnancy, and had a very dangerous delivery. During the second pregnancy, she was put on the anticoagulants because of her history, and then they discovered the uterine fibrous cysts... Again, in bed for most of the pregnancy.
If I had been her doctor, I probably would suggested the option of an abortion either time: the first pregnancy in particular was life-threatening and the measures necessary to preserve her life and the baby's were potentially harmless to the child. But she wanted these children desparately and was willing to assume the risks. (Of course, she also has a history of bipolar depression.) So if she has the right to decide to bear children in these situations, then she should have also had the right not to do so.
"potentially harmless to the child" s/b "potentially harmful to the child"
37, 41: Andrew -- sorry about assuming that you were defending the position you were describing (that the existence of women who have more than one abortion is an argument against legal abortion). It's one that makes me angry, obviously, and I misinterpreted you.
65:
Anyone who has ever told you this was anything other than a simple attempt to reduce the absolute number of abortions at the margin (by placing an extra hurdle that some subset of women won't be willing or able to surmount) was probably lying to you.
Thank you for saying that -- this is something I've had arguments about, and it's good to hear what I already knew to be the case from someone on the pro-life side of the issue.
80: As Jackmormon already said, the doctor is in the position to diagnose the problem; the woman is the only one who can decide what she wants to do about it.
79: Yes, I think that's what it boils down to. But as 82 suggests, every single conversation about this overlooks *some* situation in which pretty much anyone is going to say, "oh, well, in that case..." Which brings us back to the idea that it is impossible, as a matter of fact, for any one of us, or for the legislature, to know what all the parameters or situations are. Virtually all anti-abortion folks can think of *some* cases in which they'll concede that abortions are necessary. Once you're there, it's simply a question of who is in the best position to judge.
86 (second comment): I think we are on the same page about that. What I wish is that the larger conversations about this would be more honest about that.
Once you're there, it's simply a question of who is in the best position to judge.
I think it's who has the right to judge. We legislate some morality, but we wisely choose not to legislate other areas of morality. Abortion, if you acknowledge that there are a lot of hard cases, ought to be one of the latter kinds. Then it's not a question of who's in the best epistemic position; epistemology doesn't enter into it, except maybe if it's moral epistemology.
Most of what I say here is boldly asserted rather than argued for.
BTW, I think -gg-d had a thread about women who have multiple abortions, but I can't find it. Noted in case anyone else has more searching mojo and is curious what was said (I don't remember).
88 -- funny, I remembered that as being a Kevin Drum post. But now I think you're right and that it was an -gg-d post.
There's this Drum post but my unreliable memory has an older post, and one that involved a quotation from a specific red-state woman.
Can someone remind me when and why the fey "-gg-d" became the preferred useage?
topical: http://www.nerve.com/dispatches/baumgardner/secondabortion/printcopy.asp
Unfortunately, people have a tendency to congratulate themselves on the superiority of their own moral code, tending to see their avoidance of the procedure as prudence rather than happy accident. I have been told by more than one liberal woman that she disapproves of friends of hers who have had multiple abortions, and doesn't condone abortion as birth control--pointing to some "irresponsible" person she knows as an example. Sort of along the lines of B's 18.
93: multiple abortion and abortion as birth control are not the same issue though. As I understand it a rational argument against the latter (based on risk) can be made, but I don't have current data and would be happy to be corrected.
91: I don't know the exact thread, but I remember some jokes being made about ogged's divinity, and Jews often leave out the vowels of "God", as in G-d, as a written representation of the practice of never saying Yaweh or something like that. And -gg-d is like a play on that.
An interesting study on condom breakage.
93: Assuming a host of things, it could be either, right? I do think people have a tendency to think "WTF?" when you hear about multiple abortions, rather than "bad luck." I don't know why that is, but it's my initial reaction, and, in my experience, it's the standard reaction. And, when I think of it, that reaction doesn't seem sensible - based on the women I know, and in particular, on those I know who've had abortions, I should be thinking "bad luck." Weird.
Matt is right that the political question of abortion is who has the right to decide. And maybe the political issue is such a hot button that it's obscuring the discussion here, which it seems to me is about moral judgment about abortion: to wit, can we say "choice x was a bad choice, but choice y wasn't." People are talking past each other -- no doubt I am doing that. But I think that in addition to talking past there's actually a form of special pleading here, and application of a subjectivism to moral judgments about abortion no one would ever apply to other judgments. That's where epistemic access comes in.
I really think I'm hearing the claim that no one can ever (not just usually, or most of the time) be in a better position to judge the morality of an abortion than the woman herself, and that whatever she thinks just is the moral truth of the matter. This is not a tenable position. Here's a reductio. A woman has an abortion, believing it to be morally permissable. She later changes her mind, and believes she's done something wrong. Which of the always right women is correct? Surely, the woman herself will adjudicate between her "two selves" based on reasons, suggesting that it is these reasons that determine the morality of the choice, not the way the woman happens to feel at a given time. [By all means, feel free to flip the example: a woman who choses not to abort based on moral reasons, but then later determines that it would have been permissable]. But if it's a decision based on reasons, that means that someone else could get the reasons right and the woman could get them wrong. We may think this is really, really, really unlikely, because women always know much more about the relevant considerations, but it's not impossible, right? Or is abortion the one exception to moral reasoning as it applies in all other cases?
Now, if we just assume in advance that abortion isn't ever wrong, then sure, no one will be in a better position to judge than the woman. But that will only be because no one is ever in position to judge, because there's nothing to judge about: it isn't a moral matter.
This is really not meant to be an argument for a particular political position. There are lots of things the government shouldn't regulate that are entitled to be judgmental about.
baa, I think you're probably right that the epistemic privelege of the mother doesn't make a lot of sense morally. But from a practical legal perspective, it really does, and that's what B seems to be advocating. I guess that's what you mean by talking past.
98:
That reductio doesn't work (in either scenario). This is no different than later deciding any other decision you made was a mistake. In general though, you are the best judge of that, and the final arbiter. Hopefully you can get good advice along the way.
The underlying problem is that, in some (real) sense you aren't talking about the same woman.
100: That seems to imply that we don't understand something about the circumstances well enough to make a robust moral judgment about it. We don't really know what's going on, so we leave it up to the individual. Is that right?
I don't understand 98. Is the point that moral judgment, by definition, must be fixed and not situational? B/c I don't agree with that. And I don't see why it's contradictory to say "in X situation, I made a decision that I believed to be moral at the time, by now, with different information (e.g., how my life turned out, that motherhood is easier/harder than I expected, whatever) I would make a difference choice."
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my boss at a church where I worked, when I was still trying to Walk With Jesus. The church actually had a relatively lenient position on divorce, saying that if divorce was necessary, that was probably because God never really blessed the marriage in the first place, so divorce was sometimes the right thing. Better than some churches, but still kind of wack. My boss told me that if the divorce is not a sin, that means the marriage probably was. This was all very dicey, to be sure. I said to him, what about my parents, who were very strong church-goers, getting married, then divorced? I'm sure they prayed about it on both occasions, and received what they thought was God's blessing for both acts. Which was the sin? How are we supposed to know? Etc. He admitted I'd stumped him. But I really wanted to know. Then, I started down the path of, if there is a God, he must want us to go through some awful things as well as some good things, in order for us to develop fully as human beings. Not too long after: agnosticism!
Cool thread, great post. (Yay, baa is posting, and posted the non-strawman argument for rape/incest exemptions. Now I don't have to! Hooray!)
I've already all over Unfogged burbled out my views about the 'Do you trust women?' argument as construed as a moral argument. But it doesn't fare much better as a practical one; at least, not a practical one that yields unrestricted abortion access. Consider: it's a tricky moral issue, no one knows, everyone can think of easy exemptions. But the class of exemptions everyone agrees on probably gets us something like the usual melange of rape/incest/first trimester free/medical afterwards.
On the trickier cases, "do you trust women?" is easily met with a "These are the same women that think George Clooney is a real doctor, right?" It wouldn't be hard, I think, to take 'trusting a woman's judgment' as a reasonable legal standard but admitting of fairly strong restrictions. We trust your judgment up to a point, but hell, no one knows what the right answer is, and given all the cultural chaos surrounding an unplanned pregnancy, we'll err on the side of caution and save a baby..... Of course, we could just as easily err on the side of caution and leave abortion completely restriction-free, but that just says that 'do you trust women?" is a non-starter.
Personhood is the whole shebang. If the fetus is a person, as it is to most of the pro-lifers I know, "do you trust women?" is going to make as much sense as leaving a child with an abusive mom becase you trust women. I can't see the argument flying practically.
I feel sure the logicians amongst you all will not find it difficult to pull this to pieces, but I shall float it anyway just to see what happens.
The argument as I am following it would seem to cleave into these pieces:
A school of thought teaches that aborting a pregnancy is wrong. The reason given is that the foetus has a "Right" to "Life" which takes precedence over the right of the mother to control her own life and maintain sovereignty over her own body. Within this school of thought, two strands can be identified:
a) Abortion is wrong and is therefore always to be forbidden
b) Abortion is wrong but there exists a closed set of extenuating circumstances under which it might not be forbidden.
Now, proponents of a) argue either:
aa) That life is sacrosanct and may therefore NEVER wilfully be terminated by another, or
ab) That the life in question is innocent and must therefore be protected from external violation of its rights.
Whereas proponents of b) claim to be prepared to take a relative view of the right of the foetus to life.
So, my observation falls as follows:
Would the members of set aa) please NEVER let me hear them argue for the death penalty or that there is a case for just warfare. Would the members of bb) please explain what the difference is between innocence and guilt in application to the right to life and further I would like to know who is empowered to judge in this issue and by what authority? You see the law as such cannot judge; people make judgements. Just why is it that innocent life is more valuable than non-innocent? I do not understand. Please be very careful answering.
If non-innocent life can be terminated, would the Christian subset of ab) please explain to me why original sin is not a valid condition for removing the presumption of innocence in question.
In extension to that but moving away from the abortion issue, what is the valid test, that allows for "removal of civil rights" – as a certain historical European political grouping once phrased it.
It seems to me that the argument in ab) is so frought with paradox that it is worse that that of aa)
Does anyone have any data on the size of the union between the set of pro-lifers and the set of pro death penalty activists?
Now for b)
Who makes the list and according to what criteria. Where is the guarantee that it is exhaustive and by what right to you claim to have a unique knowledge of the circumstances under which an abortion might be allowable. This echoes largely B's statements earlier (as so often, I find myself in agreement with her). Please explain to me just HOW it is possible to legislate for all circumstances so as to achieve an equitable balance between the right of the child and those of the mother under those circumstances that you might just not have thought of?
If, however, you take the view, that you do not need to make the list exhaustive but merely wish to place upon the list those circumstances YOU find appropriate, please explain how this is different from arbitrary tyranny?
Seems to me that only aa) can have any claim on any kind of ethical self-consistency.
So how many states with strong pro-life lobbies also have the death penalty?
105: I've always admired that the Catholic Church seems consistent on the anti-abortion/anti-death-penalty. My admiration for Catholicism usually stammers around like a drunken pastor after that, however.
do you trust women?" is going to make as much sense as leaving a child with an abusive mom becase you trust women.
This is exactly what I was trying to say last night with that whole bizarre shooting up analogy, in case anyone is still confused. I really wasn't thinking too clearly.
I've got another post up on this, that touches on the same issues. Another way to put what I was trying to say is that "Do you trust women?" is a valid question if you think that the woman's motivation matters at all. If you don't -- abortion is wrong, regardless of whether the woman was, as some nitwit just said, a brutally sodomized religious virgin -- then your trust or lack thereof isn't an issue. Once you start talking about responsibility and irresponsibility, however, you're implicitly saying that the woman's reasons for having an abortion matter -- at that point, substituting your own judgment for hers as to whether her reasons are sufficient is a failure to trust her.
If, however, you take the view, that you do not need to make the list exhaustive but merely wish to place upon the list those circumstances YOU find appropriate, please explain how this is different from arbitrary tyranny?
Oh, come on. Nice rhetorical flourish and all, but seriously? Any restriction on abortion that isn't a perfectly coherent exhaustive list is tyranny? Democratically-elected tyranny?
Come on, none of our laws are perfectly coherent and exhaustive. I agree with the general thrust of YOUR statement ("restrictions should be more principled than personal prejudices"), but to call anything less tyranny seems overly inflammatory. Abortion law shouldn't have to be more principled than the tax code for it to avoid being tyranny.
Anyhow: aa, consistent, general position of the Catholic Church.
ab, also consistent, given that we generally think that innocence is a good reason not to go around executing people. ab) turns, however on granting the fetus personhood status. If that's granted, the pro-choice game is up anyway, unless the baby is somehow guilty of a crime.
b) requires a much longer answer, of course, if YOU wish to avoid TYRANNY. But baa's comment way up the thread provides a bit of a way out.
1)Abortion is a grievous moral wrong, because the moral status of a fetus, while not equivalent to that of a full-fledged person, is still more than a parasite or a tumor. Therefore, only certain conditions, such as harm to the mother, etc., etc., can trump this partial right to life.
2) Abortion isn't a grievous moral wrong early on, because there is no person there to injure. But as the pregnancy progresses there is [insert bright-line, viability, etc. here] a point where person attaches, or is in doubt enough that the state has an interest in protecting it.
Now, I'm not sure I'd agree with b1 or b2, especially as I just made them up. But it seems to me that you can hammer a coherent position out of it. What you can't hammer a consistent position out of is full personhood and anything but a life of the mother exemption (self-defense.) And I think 105 is right to point out that a lot of the pro-life rhetoric is very confused. ("Absolute right-to-life! Except in rape! Huh?")
But if you don't grant full personhood, but don't take the tumor/parasite route either, there's plenty of room to craft a reasonably principled set of restrictions.
No, it's what LB just said: "do you trust women" means that, if you grant that abortion is *ever* okay, you're granting that there are circumstances in which judgment must be exercised. What's being trusted is not "all women are impeccable moral judges"--that's stupid--but that individual women are the best judges of their individual situations, motivations, capabilities, etc.
110:
Well after having had dinner, I admit the use of the word tyranny may be inflammatory. Unfortunately i really do have a problem with legistlation whose general thrust is to intrude on largely private matters "Except for those, I/we approve of." I ll concede the usage though.
Birth control pills are about 99.6% effective even when taken correctly at the same time every day. That 0.4% makes for a fairly steady supply of accidental pill pregnancies given the size of the population on the pill.
I too had a friend who got pregnant while on the pill (and taking it conscientiously). She was only 19, in college (with a boyfriend she would marry 5 years later), and she went home for the abortion so her mother could take care of her while she recuperated. It was very sad.
I would take arguments about the abortion debate not being about stigmatizing women and their agency w.r.t. sexuality more seriously if, for example, I didn't get weird hostile looks from the pharmacist about 30-35% of the time that I fill my birth control prescription... and I'm sure I'm not alone...
When you say 99.6% you mean that when used consistently it'll fail 4 out of every 1000 person/years, or person/intercourses? The distinction seems not to be made clear often.
Person/years. Birth control effectiveness is pretty much always measured that way.