Maybe, but I think what bothers them is that a woman can have sex and then take steps to control the consequences, with fair chance of success. I don't think the mechanism is that important to the motivation.
Gee, LB, come down and join us in the comments.
Also: IDP gets it exactly right. People having sex just bugs the hell out of conservatives.
2? Where else am I ever but in the comments?
Some, but there really are some absolute abortion foes who don't want to ban birth control. They should know this stuff.
The New York Times had a long article on this topic this weekend. The article clearly takes sides, but I have no reason to think that the science it reports is not right. It expands on what LizardBreath has written in that regard.
People having sex just bugs the hell out of conservatives.
Right. We are twisted sexless gnomes. And we like it that way. You people out there being happy--stop! stop, I say!
I think it's abundantly clear by now that our friend Idealist is not at all typical of the conservative movement in this country. I'm just sayin'.
I always learned (from PP-provided materials) that the Pill (both in normal doses and EC) stops pregnancy in three ways: (1) preventing ovulation and (2) thickening the cervical mucus to inhibit sperm in order to avoid fertilization and (3) preventing implantation. This may make me a bad liberal but it seems that PP has decided that (3) is no longer a good thing to publicize so they're going to go with "the jury's still out on that one". I don't like it when either side spins science so, if that's what it turns out they're doing, I'll be mighty disappointed. I'd like to see the data on why they no longer think it prevents implantation and have changed their materials.
Me? I don't care if it prevents pregnancy by preventing implantation because I don't think life begins at conception. But, it does, I think PP needs to make their case based on the fact that BCP/EC should be allowed even if it allows fertilization but prevents implantation, not getting wishy-washy on the science to say we can't know for sure.
I'm actually bugged at this point by pro plan B people overstating the case. I've been seing a lot of people saying "it has been scientifically proven that plan B is never an abortofacient," and often justifying this by saying that it is a "scientific fact" that pregnancy begins with implantation, not conception.
There are three mechanisms that plan B might use: it could prevent ovulation, conception or implantation. While the former is the most likely, the other two have not been ruled out. The safest thing to conclude from ignorance is nothing. And right now that seems like the best thing to conclude.
Plan B is a wonderful drug that should be available over the counter, given out in high schools, etc. But I am wary of overstating the scientific backing for this position.
American sexual health activists sometimes fixate on scientific findings as gospel truth that must be constantly repeated. One sad result of this is that in the US AIDS activists continuted to repeat that Nonoxynol-9 blocked AIDS transmission even after newer evidence said it had the opposite effect.
Basically, I'm with Becks here. I got the first talking points memo about how the regular pill and EC work, and I don't understand why I'm being asked to change the message. As a result, I am off message, a classic problem for liberals.
Becks: Click through to PZ Myers, and read his post. Then do some googling looking for cites to the primary research supporting the existence of the implantation-preventing mechanism. There is, literally, no such research. The closest there is is a study suggesting that emergency contraception may be more effective than it should be if the ovulation-suppression mechanism were the only one, and therefore speculating on possible alternative mechanisms (some of which were pre-fertilization as well). Again, AFAIK, and I've spent some time looking, there is literally no positive evidence for the implantation-prevention mechanism.
This isn't political spin; it's an attempt to correct such spin by telling the truth.
While the former is the most likely, the other two have not been ruled out.
The thing is, the former is demonstrated. The latter is pure speculation. They aren't on the same level.
I worry that we (pro-choicers, that is) are conceding too much by arguing that Plan B prevents ovulation not implantation.
I think that preventing implantation of an embryo, which at that stage just a mass of undifferentiated cells, is as morally neutral as trimming one's fingernails. Belief in ensoulment at the point of fertilization is superstition. And unlike so many other superstitions, such as creationism, it has no scriptural support whatsoever, so there's not even that excuse.
If we're going to defend first-trimester abortion, we might as well defend Plan B regardless of its mechanism.
And, while I'm serial commenting:
I've been seing a lot of people saying "it has been scientifically proven that plan B is never an abortofacient," and often justifying this by saying that it is a "scientific fact" that pregnancy begins with implantation, not conception.
I agree with you that this argument is bullshit. If someone has a moral problem with interfering with the implantation of a fertilized egg, they aren't going to care (and shouldn't care) that you don't think a pre-implantation zygote counts as a pregnancy.
That is different from saying that because it can't be proven that a drug that is known to work in one way might not concievably work in another way, that we have to respect an argument that assumes without evidence that it does work in the second way. Hell, drinking too much coffee causes early miscarriages, when are we going to see people picketing Starbucks?
Belief in ensoulment at the point of fertilization is superstition.
How do you know this is superstition?
Or rather, is this belief any more superstitious than the belief in the ensoulment of *any* humans? Or that human lives are ever anything other than utterly meaningless, and valueless, clumps of organic matter?
Nice post, LB.
To my mind there are two things confusing the debate. First, most birth control pills do, as Becks says, advertise themselves as having a super-duper triple threat anti-pregnancy magic karate chop! One of which is unsubstantiated and practically an urban legend: it makes your periods lighter, so there's no womb lining for the fertilized egg to stick in. Well, it's certainly true your periods get lighter, but that's really neither here nor there.
Second, the medical definition of pregnancy is the implantation of a fertilized egg. Take the two together and it looks like even our common bcp is not an abortifacient, but only technically, which is certainly enough to give some people moral pause. (I mean, really. If you're worried about eight cells, you're going to be worried if you keep those eight cells from implanting.)
I think if you wanted to sell this to pro-lifers (whose objection i s mostly since moral life begins at conception, Plan B is an abortifacient), you'd have to make the (convincing) case that it won't harm a fertilized egg and reduce the advertising karate chop triple threat.
Now, it seems the first claim is, well, unsubstantiated, hopeful advertising by the magic anti-baby pill makers.
And that unsubstantiated advertising claim is what's confusing (reasonably) Becks and rob h-c.
Brock- The thing is, there are people who object to abortion at any time after fertilization, and don't object to contraception. Urple here may be one, although I admit I don't recall his position on contraception. We can defend abortion all we like, but it would be useful to take EC out of the category of things that need to be defended on the same terms as abortion -- we get more allies more easily.
I clicked through to PZ's post and agree that ABC News (and the others) are wrong to say that the primary method that EC prevents pregnancy is by preventing implantation. The quote he has shows that ABC didn't even mention that it prevents ovulation, which is the main way it prevents pregnancy.
This isn't political spin; it's an attempt to correct such spin by telling the truth.
See, I don't agree with this interpretation. I would see it as "correcting spin by telling the truth" if it had been only the pro-life side saying the Pill prevented implantation all of these years. If that was just spin to turn people against EC, why were pro-choice people saying it, too?
Now, it may be that there is new evidence that the Pill doesn't prevent implantation or it could be that the pro-choice side has been saying it prevents implantation all of these years when that was actually just a theory and there was no evidence to support it. Fine - if that's the case, they need to tell why they've changed their position on it. Otherwise, the pro-life movement can just accuse them of manipulating the science.
Back when Amanda (of Pandagon) was writing Mouse Words, she had a great argument that the entire anti-abortion, anti-birth control movement makes sense if you realize that they think that a man's orgasm = the Most Important Event. Anything that fucks with the Natural Consequences of Come is An Abomination Unto God.
the pro-choice side has been saying it prevents implantation all of these years when that was actually just a theory and there was no evidence to support it.
This is the case. There is, literally, no positive evidence for the implantation effect -- it was always an unsubstantiated claim.
Indeed. Brock, about three years ago, when the first round of EC was going through the news, my generally pro-life friends were debating it. Whether it should be allowed, whether it should be allowed over the counter (everyone said if it's allowed, making it only by doctor's visit was pretty retarded), etc.
But a big focal point of the debate was how does it work? with the consensus being that EC is a good thing to have, if it prevents ovulation or prevents the sperm from getting to the egg. This was a group of people generally pretty religious and pro-life to moderately pro-choice, and most of them were just fine with it as long as it was well, an emergency chemical barrier method.
This is more and more sounding like a good reason not to lie. I don't believe that the pill is an abortifacient in any sense of it, but I *am* a bit annoyed that now we'll hear: That Planned Parenthood will say anything to talk you into sex! First they said it would prevent an egg from implanting, but now, when it gets in the way, they say that was just, what, something they made up?
Is 16 claiming that ethics can't exist without a belief in the soul or some other justification for human uniqueness? If it's something more narrow than that, I don't think I can argue with it constructively.
I think 16 is just objecting to sneering at religious people who believe in an ensouled at conception, on the grounds that really, it's no weirder than believing in a soul generally.
Urple here may be one, although I admit I don't recall his position on contraception.
Contraception is an instrument of evil invented by the devil himself, for the explicit purpose of so de-populating the West that historic christendom will eventually be overrun by fertile Muslim hordes.
That being said, I don't see anything more troubling about "emergency" contraception than the routine sort. And, to prove LB's point, I had no idea that it *wasn't* basically just an abortion pill. Assuming that's right, I would think it ought to be sold in the condom isle.
26 was me. I'm not sure why my name didn't show up, but I'll assume it's the result of some sort of anti-life prejudice on the part of the moderators.
4: Where else am I ever but in the comments?
I was merely commenting on your furious posting today. I commented to a co-worker today that unfogged is, properly, a full-time job.
5: People having sex just bugs the hell out of conservatives.
Right. We are twisted sexless gnomes. And we like it that way. You people out there being happy--stop! stop, I say
Of course. I didn't mean conservatives perjoratively. Rather, I meant that a lot of the people I know (I run in rather conservative circles, you see) oppose Plan B precisely because they think it encourages promiscuity.
Also, as someone else pointed out upthread, you seem to labor under the delusion that you are regular Republican. Wrong again.
I was merely commenting on your furious posting today. I commented to a co-worker today that unfogged is, properly, a full-time job.
unfogged s/b reading unfogged.
Unrelated to your furious posting today.
You talk to your co-workers about Unfogged?
the condom isle
Stunning beaches there.
. Rather, I meant that a lot of the people I know (I run in rather conservative circles, you see) oppose Plan B precisely because they think it encourages promiscuity.
See, this seems to be another myth that needs to be addressed. I've never taken Plan B. As I understand it, though, rather like taking twelve birth control pills at once. Hardly a walk in the park, even if you manage not to vomit all over the place.
It's really not going to lead to hordes of hot women tripping on their stilettos breezily through the town and into bed where they have teh hott sex, down a nightcap of Plan B and cognac, and pass out.
When I had a condom-breakage freakout in college, I went to the local PP, got a gigantic condescending lecture about birth control, and got two pills of emergency contraception with instructions to go buy some dramamine so that I'd keep the fuckers down long enough (half an hour?) to work before the projectile vomiting began.
Also, as someone else pointed out upthread, you seem to labor under the delusion that you are regular Republican.
I know it's bad form to come back on a comment that was very nicely meant, as I believe yours was, but I have to note that you are mistaken.
I am pro-life (as I conceive it), belong to the Federalist Society, mostly am a liberatarian constitutional originalist, think Justice Thomas is the best of the sitting Supreme Court justices (though I guess I have not formed an opinion of the Chief Justice or Justice Alito), believe that race-based government action like affirmative action should be unconstitutional, think we need to stay in Afghanistan and Iraq until the job is done, have never voted for a Democrat for President (I might of voted for Carter, if I did, gosh, that was a mistake), and if given a chance, probably would vote for Bush over Kerry if the election were held again today. So, I know you were trying to say something nice, and I appreciate it, but I am a typical Republican.
Well, for the record, I think belief in the soul is in itself superstitious, but belief in ensoulment at conception is more superstitious than belief that fully developed human beings have souls.
I suspect that the primary motivation for belief in one's own soul is fear of death. Once you take the existenct of one's own soul as axiomatic, one can reason by analogy that other fully developed human beings have souls also.
But belief that an embryo prior to implantation, an undifferentiated mass of cells, has a soul? The only reasoning I can see toward that conclusion is "The soul had to get there sometime; so it must have been at the point of conception." Which is, of course, pure rubbish.
So I think belief in ensoulment at conception is more superstitious than a general belief in souls.
I don't think you can seriously argue that there are different levels of superstition. How can one absurd idea be more absurd than another absurd idea?
And Ideal, all those things you mentioned definitely make you a Republican, but most Republicans these days believe a bunch of other stuff that you have specifically rejected in this forum. So I stand by my contention that you aren't typical.
I don't think that establishes that ensoulment at conception is more superstitious than, say, ensoulment at gestational age seven months, or two years, or age forty-two.
In fact it may be somewhat more motivated, since most of the actual arguments I've seen run like this:
1) All human animals have souls.
2) We don't know when a human animal gets its soul.
3) Killing something with a soul is bad.
4) We should err on the side of caution and assume that a human animal has a soul during its entire physical existence.
36 seems crazy. But not as crazy as 35.
To 35: A belief in popular astrology, e.g. that the positions of the stars and planets at the time of one's birth influences one's personality, is superstitious. But it's not nearly as superstitious as say, believing that building the third temple in Jerusalem will make Jesus come back.
So yes, there are degrees of superstition.
To 38: Well, if we're erring on the side of caution, I suppose there might be a soul in every one of my spermatazoa, and I'm committing mass murder every time I masturbate. Though I suppose depriving me of that pleasure might be next on the wingnut agenda.
To 35: A belief in popular astrology, e.g. that the positions of the stars and planets at the time of one's birth influences one's personality, is superstitious. But it's not nearly as superstitious as say, believing that building the third temple in Jerusalem will make Jesus come back.
So yes, there are degrees of superstition.
To 38: Well, if we're erring on the side of caution, I suppose there might be a soul in every one of my spermatazoa, and I'm committing mass murder every time I masturbate. Though I suppose depriving me of that pleasure might be next on the wingnut agenda.
I'm committing mass murder every time I masturbate
I don't know about that, but I masturbate pretty much every time I commit mass murder.
38
I don't think that establishes that ensoulment at conception is more superstitious than, say, ensoulment at gestational age seven months, or two years, or age forty-two.
Ensoulment occurs at age 47.
So ... we all have souls.
cue Sam & Dave
So ... we all have souls.
Except only hair keeps the soul from leaking out the top of your head, so it's a dilemma.
45
Ah, but the hair on the palms can be used to plug the gaps.
It sustains my soul, at the expense of all those little souls.
41: You know, there's actually a whole body of literature written by really smart people that isn't reducible to such strawmen! Hard to believe, but the liberals don't have all the intellectuals. Really!
In any case, I think 47 is a good age. This justifies more than enough for all my nefarious plots.
46 is brilliant, though. From nothing nothing comes, even lil hair plugs.
In any case, I think 47 is a good age.
47: References?
I've been there and I can recommend 47. 48 and 49 had some superlatively good moments. 50 has had it's ups and downs, but I still can recommend it as well (it is, at any rate, better than the alternative).
Is this the kind of reference you wanted?
Well, what I really want to know is at what age I'll no longer be up for "committing mass murder" on a daily basis.
Well, what I really want to know is at what age I'll no longer be up for "committing mass murder" on a daily basis.
Well, I think individual results vary significantly.
The sperm! Will nobody think of the sperm?!
but I am a typical Republican.
Nope, the sense of humor renders you decidedly atypical.
You know, I've been told I was too sensible to be a Democrat, and was really, underneath it all, a deeply conservative person. And while I'm sure it was well meant (it was, right, Ideal?) my reaction was a strong desire to kick the speaker sharply in the shins until he stopped calling me conservative.
So I think the civilized thing to do is reread 35, recognize that Ideal is, sadly, a typical Republican, and then organize a mob to go after him with pitchforks and torches.
And while I'm sure it was well meant (it was, right, Ideal?) my reaction was a strong desire to kick the speaker sharply in the shins until he stopped calling me conservative.
It was meant with the best of intentions and greatest of goodwill, and while there was no shin kicking, there was harsh and hurtful language and very scary looks in response. I recommend to anyone considering it that they think twice before telling LizardBreath that she really is a conservative.
I don't think that establishes that ensoulment at conception is more superstitious than, say, ensoulment at gestational age seven months
At least for me, it's the physical nature of the embryo at conception that makes the "ensoulment at conception" seem more bizarre than say, ensoulment at birth. It just seems weird to imagine that if I tease apart that early embryo into several cells will now develop independently, that either I'm splitting the soul as well, or that God's watching, and at the moment of separation is zapping a soul into each new embryo.
We all have our coping methods. I acknowledge that baa and Idealist are Republicans; in my world, they are also well-known drunks.
gswift, it's pretty bizarre, too, if you imagine God zapping the soul into the baby at birth but not the moment before. Kind of like a football announcer: "The head's crowning, down to the five, we have a nose!!! okay, there's some pushing and shoving and it looks like YES! YES! we have a soul!!"
Oh, and my dad thinks that because I'm intelligent, I'll be a conservative eventually. It's sort of maddening, because he tolerates my crazy left-wing... moderate views because it's a phase I'm going through, like wearing dark lipstick or refusing to eat any green vegetables.
29: a lot of the people I know...oppose Plan B precisely because they think it encourages promiscuity.
33: See, this seems to be another myth that needs to be addressed...It's really not going to lead to hordes of hot women tripping on their stilettos breezily through the town and into bed where they have teh hott sex, down a nightcap of Plan B and cognac, and pass out.
I agree with Cala that it's 98% a myth. But the perception that SamK cites does exist, and it's heightened by pieces like this op-ed from the May 4 Philadelphia Inquirer:
During my second year of college in 2004, after a late-night "accident," I found myself in the waiting room of a Planned Parenthood clinic. One quick medical exam and $36 later, I was strolling down the street with the 21st-century girl's new best friend - an unmarked brown bag with the emergency contraception pills known as Plan B. The nurse even gave me a couple of extra doses, "just in case."
New to the world of forgotten condoms and unprotected sex, I laughed at the "just in case" attitude and tossed the extra pills in the bottom drawer of my desk. These were emergency contraception pills, not condoms, I said. Lo and behold, one empty box of condoms later, the pills were gone. Whoops.
Like Becks's point about science, I think the answer here is for advocates not to make absolutist statements. Stick with the facts; the facts can be pretty persuasive all by themselves. Stupid op-eds like the above notwithstanding.
[HTML skills not up to making the link show up properly: http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/opinion/local2/region/14494317.htm ]
Hm. Why must a soul be something instilled by a creator? I'm a pretty solid (if unreflectively so) believer in a soul -- a psychic facet of being which distinguishes humans from non-human entities. But I don't think that necessarily entails that the soul has to not be there and then bang! be there at some moment.
The most natural notion seems to me that the soul develops gradually over the course of gestation. Why not? The body develops gradually, and it is certainly at least as complex as the soul -- I should think it would be more complex. I think of the soul as a fairly homogenous stuff, maybe with differences in density and consistency but without complex organlike structures.
So if the argument against abortion is that it is immoral to kill something possessed of a soul (Note: this doesn't ring quite true to me), I think that could fit in all right with abortions performed in the first trimester, when the body is not developed into something recognizably human -- presumably the soul has not either.
Here's a Texas (of all places) state legislator pointing out some (actually quite practical) slippages of trying to define when life begins:
With this bill, we are defining when life begins. Yet currently, the law says one has to be born to receive rights. One has to be born to receive inheritance, to be counted in the census or to receive citizenship.
'magine if all them Messicans just had to gets knocked up to have they babies be 'murickans...
TMK: Is this soul of which you speak immaterial? Does it persist after the decay of the body? Is it, to use Descartes' terminology, a substance? (The terminology dates back before Descartes, but he's the central figure for dualism vs. materialism.)
If not, you're just using the word "soul" loosely, to mean something like "mind," or "thought." I've got no problem with that, although I think you're mistaken to deny that non-human animals, at least some of them, have it, to some degree.
Although I'm at a loss as to how something can be both complex and homogenous.
I might of voted for Carter
Idealist, is that really you? I am (almost) unspeakably shocked and disappointed.
I mean, "might of"?
I mean, "might of"?
[hanging head in shame]
This is what happens when you graduate in the bottom half of your high school class and have an undergraduate degree that is based mostly on college equivalency test and work experience credit--sort of a college GED. It is sad, but true.
Oh, fuck. It's what happens when you post on the Internet. My college degree is bona fide and I'm sure I've typed 'might of' somewhere.
"Might of voted" is what they say in Picksburg instead of "might of voting". So: I might of voting for Carter. There's still a verb elided after "I", but it's plain enough that it's "am". ("To be" gets no respect.) I am might of voting for Carter. Tarzan agree! Tarzan suggest definite article: I am the might of voting for Carter. And voilą, perfectly standard English. A weird-ass thing to say, but to each his gout.
67: Kid-ding! Pleeze, I'm just trying to fill in for BWo; WMYMMFLSALB?
Justice Thomas is the best of the sitting Supreme Court justices
I finished my 2L year by taking Crim Pro, so I'd be happy to talk about (by which I mean shrilly criticize) his 4th Amendment, Self-Incrimination clause, or Assistance of Counsel jurisprudence.
"[T]oday" should have appeared after "Pro".
might of = maybe?
No, in "I am the might of voting for Carter", might = power, strength, etc.
I occasionally catch myself saying "I might could do that."
Shouldn't it be "I have the might of voting for Carter," by analogy?
An upside to the "latest comments" weirdness: Weiner's comment birthed apo's into existence.
But does it have soul?
re: 75
That sort of double-modal construction is quite common in Scots (by which I mean the Germanic language/dialect similar to English, rather than gaelic).
'I micht could dae it, if it wisnae fir yon'
Stand up for your bloody rights, McGrattan, Scots is a language. If it was a dialect I might have to pretend to understand it.
Well, it meets most of the criteria for a language, for me too. However, referring to it as a language is like a red rag to a bull for some people.
Double modals are quite common in Northern English (that's England English) and Scots. The settlement patterns of people of Scottish ancestry in the southern U.S. might would account for the concentration of the usage there.
And.
You talk to your co-workers about Unfogged?
No, only one co-worker. Also my roommate.
Ooops, linking issues. Source of block quote.
re: 82, Interesting.
I never use double modals despite growing up in an area where a fair bit of Scots is spoken. Cross-polination with English grammar, I presume.
Huh. I use double modals pretty often when speaking. Good to know it isn't illiterate, just southern. The line can be so thin.
In medieval times, when, oddly, no one thought of abortion as a morally significant issue at all, theologians debated the time of ensoulment as a bit of academic curiosity. The conclusion, based on scripture and what little they knew of fetal development, was that the soul entered the womb on the 30th day of pregnancy. This conclusion was common among theologians from all of the big three monotheisms.
This was considered an academic issue because the men pretty much had the women in line. Since women’s sexual behavior was thoroughly controlled, no one stopped to worry about the morality of abortion. Free of political influence, the medievals went for the thirty day mark. The conception line was introduced in the late 19th century, specifically in response to women’s growing sexual autonomy.
67: Kid-ding!
I know. Really, for once, I was not taking offense. 67 was just the only response I could think of.
79, 80: Is there still a substantial Scots-speaking community? I would have guessed that pressures from media-induced bilingualism would have brought it closer to English to the point where, even if it had been a separate language in the past, it had now become more of a dialect. But I don't actually know a thing about it, beyond trying to puzzle through a novel by George MacDonald in Scots way back in college.
87 - could you give me some citations for some of these theologians?
Seriously, I'm curious. I also don't believe you, but that's secondary.
87 - could you give me some citations for some of these theologians?
Seriously, I'm curious. I also don't believe you, but that's secondary.
I occasionally catch myself saying "I might could do that."
This is perfectly acceptable, cracker.
I think rob's details are a little off, but read this: The Catholic Encyclopedia. While it asserts that abortion was prohibited by the Church all along, it does say that:
The keenest mind among the ancient philosophers, Aristotle, had conjectured that the future child was endowed at conception with a principle of only vegetative life, which was exchanged after a few days for an animal soul, and was not succeeded by a rational soul till later; his followers said on the fortieth day for a male, and the eightieth for a female, child. The authority of his great name and the want of definite knowledge to the contrary caused this theory to be generally accepted up to recent times.
agreeing roughly with what rob said about the Church's position on ensoulment, and:
Now Gregory XIV had enacted the penalty of excommunication for abortion of a "quickened" child but the present law makes no such distinction, and therefore it must be differently understood.
That distinction, however, applies to another effect which may result from the procuring of abortion; namely, he who does so for a child after quickening incurs an irregularity, or hindrance to his receiving or exercising Orders in the Church. But he would not incur such irregularity if the embryo were not yet quickened. The terms "quickened" and "animation" in present usage are applied to the child after the mother can perceive its motion, which usually happens about the one hundred and sixteenth day after conception. But in the old canon law, which established the irregularity here referred to the "animation" of the embryo was supposed to occur on the fortieth day for a male child, and on the eightieth day for a female child.
suggesting that abortion before ensoulment was regarded as a different category of offense than that after ensoulment. That is, given that the Catholic Church has generally been opposed to birth control (although I don't know much about the early history of that opposition), a statement that they regarded early abortion as sinful does not necessarily imply that they regarded it as murder, or as worse than, or different from, contraception.
Rob, of course, may have better or different support for what he said.
My understanding is pretty much 93, and the explanation I've heard is that the severity of abortion has paralleled advances in science. The quickening was a useful rule of thumb; four or fifth month, you're sure you're pregnant and not just late, too malnourished for a period, etc.
Before that, too difficult to discern. Except now we can judge pregnancy and fertilization very early, and so the line's been moved back earlier and earlier.
My understanding is pretty much 93/95 as well, which (to me) seem pretty different from 87.
re: 89
Most working class people from the eastern half of the country probably speak a mixture of Scots and English in their everyday life. There's more a continuum of usage than any clear boundary.
You might use a lot of Scots and/or dialect words and Scots grammatical features when talking to one group of people, use more or less standard English grammar with a lot of Scots words to another group of people, and finally 'formal' educated English in another context.
It varies a lot by area and by age. I get the impression that the rural North-East still has a particularly strong Scots linguistic base, people in the central belt where I am from, a bit less so. My own usage, for example, when I am speaking to people I grew up with, is mostly standard English grammar but fairly Scots in vocab.
Whether you want to call the usage somewhere in the middle of the continuum between formal Scottish English and Scots a dialect or a language is an open question. The debate is muddied by purist 'enthusiasts' each of whom has a different definition of what 'pure' Scots is and who will go out of their way to denigrate any attempt to do anything useful in Scots.
There is an attempt to revive official use of Scots in Scotland -- the Parliament has produced some of its documents in Scots e.g. http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/language/scots/makingYourVoiceHeard/index.htm.
to 96:
Well, 93 is in accordance with 87 to some extent. If you consider murder the killing of something with a soul, and according to 93 the Church for most of its history believed that the soul did not enter the fetus until 40/80 days after conception, the Church considered abortion something other than murder (by the 'killing something with a soul' definition) for most of its history.
My sources are all secondary--histories of abortion, etc--and I'd have to go back to make sure they say what I remember them to say, but this is what I have read on the subject:
Feldman, David M. 1968. Birth control in Jewish law; marital relations, contraception, and abortion as set forth in the classic texts of Jewish law. New York: New York University Press. BM720.S4 F44 1968.
Mohr, James C. 1978. Abortion in America: the origins and evolution of national policy, 1800-1900. New York: Oxford University Press. 0195022491.
McLaren, Angus. 1990. A history of contraception: from antiquity to the present day. Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Mass., USA: B. Blackwell. 0631167110.
The Mohr book is fascinating. It documents how abortion went from being, in 1800, a legal procedure that no one thought much about to, in 1900, a heinous crime. Along with this was the disappearance of the belief in the moral significance of quickening.
Mohr identifies several causes. One is the point that Cala idenfies: increasing scientific knoweldge about fetal development. Others were probably more important, though, including (1) the belief that Catholics were outbreeding protestants, (2) a power struggle between regular doctors and all the other practioners of medicine, including midwives and abortion and birth control providers, and (3) a reaction against increases in women's reprodcutive knoweldge and autonomy, linked to a dramatic rise in the abortion rate right before the civil war.
I should also clarify what I meant by abortion not being "a morally significant issue at all." Yes, the Catholic Church has opposed abortion since the beginning, however for most of its history, the basis of the ban has been the same as the basis for a ban on birth control: It is wrong to interfere with the process of procreation. It was only in the late 19th century that abortion was lumped in with murder.
What I meant by not morally significant at all was really that, even though it was banned, no one really thought much about it. It was not the sort of issue that divided nations.
Another clarification. I said 30 days for ensoulment. LB said 40 or 80 depending on gender. I think I was getting the 30 day line from the book on Jewish birth control law. That may explain the discrepancy. I also just could be wrong.
97: Not just in Scotland, apparently - http://www.ulsterscotsagency.com/.
97:
Thanks; the linked page is fascinating. I find it completely comprehensible, which surprises me a bit -- I remember my last contact with Scots as much more impenetrable. But I suppose that was a 19C novel, rather than political outreach.
What I meant by not morally significant at all was really that, even though it was banned, no one really thought much about it.
Which I guess means that I shouldn't have used the words "at all"
Well, your basic point stands, that 'early abortion is murder because it's the killing of a being with a soul' doesn't go back, historically, to before the 19C.
re: 102
TBH, it's not really full on Scots even by my own not-especially-robust standards. I suspect it's aimed at people who think of themselves as being a bit 'Scottish' in their manner of speech rather than, say, rural Scots speakers. It's a step in the right direction though.
Something like:
http://scotstext.org/makars/traditional_fairy_tales/tale_01.asp#whuppitystourie is more 'traditional' Scots.
"I trow this set up the wife o Kittlerumpit's birse; for tho she haed twa bleert een, an a lang reid neb forby, she thocht hersel as bonny as the best o them. Sae she bangs aff her knees, sets up her mutch-croun, an wi her twa hands faulded afore her, she maks a curchie doun to the grund, an, "In troth, fair madam," qo she, "I micht hae haed the wit to ken that the likes o me isna fit to tie the warst shae-strings o the hie an michty princess, Whuppity Stourie!"
[from above link]
her mutch-croun
Whatever this actually means, it's my new favorite euphemism.
re: 107
I had to look it up, 'croun' is obvious but I wasn't sure what 'mutch' meant in this context.
Whatever this actually means, it's my new favorite euphemism.
Here's another good one: my parents' next-door neighbors sold their house recently, and the man who is moving in is somebody dad knows, who used to be on the city council. (Dad is a city planner and pretty familiar with the local government.) So anyways, dad mentions this to a friend at church who knows the new neighbor, who replies. "Oh... you know he's had a lifestyle change, right?"
