Maybe if Kant had used this as an example of contradiction in willing instead of failure to develop one's talents, more people would find that part of the Groundwork plausible.

What does "after four attempts" mean? Do the abortions sometimes not take?

Presumably it means that she visited the clinic four times and either she or the clinic workers didn't feel that she was really ready to agree to the procedure.

Oh I see.

It's of a piece with the classism running through the US nowadays. Unsurprising, but still unwelcome.

Yes to B's 3, but to answer your general question, Clownæ, in rare cases abortions are incomplete, requiring that the procedure be redone.

I know someone who is the result of a botched abortion. Her mother even told her so, when she was a young child.

Today, her mother would have a cause of action for "wrongful birth". She could sue the OBGyn for all the money it takes to raise a chiild.

Wow. I'm genuinely surprised by this, but I guess I probably shouldn't be.

Re "Wrongful birth" lawsuits, I take that back. On further research, it appears this only applies where the child is born disabled. My friend isn't.

Those are amazing to read.

Great article. It amazed me too when I read it 3 or 4 years ago.

These are the people who, when posed bphd's frequent question on the abortion issue "Do you trust women to make the right decision?" would answer "No, of course not."

The first part of 11 is the nicest way of saying "pwnd!" we've yet come across here.

Great article. It amazed me too when I read it 3 or 4 years ago.

This reminds me of a put-down I think comes from the economist George Stigler, and which is useful at conferences: "I'm sympathetic to your line of argument here. In fact, until three or four years ago I thought the same way myself."

I was just suggesting that the discussion of this may be limited, compared to its importance, because so many people have seen it already.

Also, ur pwnz0rd lawlz.

11.2: In their cases, though, they might be right...

Surely this can't become the one-upmanship thread. Why, I had assumed that you would have had one of those already.

There are probably only about a dozen people in this country who actually think that abortion is "murder." As for the remaining body of hypocrites, they love the feel of the phrase as it exits their body, but their anti-choice rants are not at their base about abortion per se, but rather about some people's abortions. The abortions they want to ban are the ones for women who attempt to control their own sexuality and the ones for members of the underclass.

I hadn't seen this article, but have heard plenty of similar stories. The folks who work in the clinic are much better people than me, because I'm really not sure I could resist the temptation to refuse to provide them the service.

Surely this can't become the one-upmanship thread. Why, I had assumed that you would have had one of those already.

Surely it is in the nature of one-upmanship that one is not enough?

psychopathic inability to generalize

I agree with this diagnosis. I just can't understand why such a powerful experience wouldn't lead one to think that others might also deserve to have this choice in an awful situation.

Since some of the examples were young girls back out on the protest line with their families, hopefully their lives had more room for rethinking abortion later.

I think it's really a confusion of what it means to say something "should be illegal." What they mean by that is "people shouldn't have abortions"--including themselves; that is, people shouldn't be in the position to need one in the first place. Which is true; needing an abortion is not a desirable situation.

A while back there was a video making the rounds (I even blogged it, but can't find the link anymore) of interviews with anti abortion protesters; most of them when asked if women should go to jail for abortions, said no, and seemed not to realize that that was the logical conclusion of saying abortion should be illegal.

Not necessarily: it could be that the women get a fine, or the doctors go to jail.

Anyway, haven't we all done things that we would argue, strenuously, people ought not do? Or that ought even to be illegal? Like, say, buying crap in unnecessary plastic packaging or petty theft or beating up Iranians?

18: One of the doctors quoted in the article did refuse to perform the operation, after the patient called her a murderer.

It's logically inconsistent to say that abortion = murder, and then say that women who procure abortions shouldn't go to jail.

25: Only if you assume women have agency.

Those were some nice doctors. I fear that in their shoes I might have told some of those women to go fly a kite.

You know what's fun? The Democrats are going to continue to fund these religious nutjobs.

23: If beating up Iranians is wrong, I don't want to be right.

I don't find this all that surprising. It's pretty easy to explain to yourself mentally. The other women, you see, are Prom Queens® who didn't want to fail to fit into their gowns, or they're sluts who use Abortion As Birth Control. But their daughter? Or themselves? She's a nice girl who just made a mistake. She's not like them. She's going places.

It's a piece of the phenonemon that allows people to have one rule for the world, and one rule for those they know and love. The poor kid who vandalizes the school is the troublemaker from A Bad Home who will amount to No Good; when your son does it, it's just Youthful Exuberance. Heck, the student screaming in the restaurant just Needs More Discipline, until it's your kid. Then he's just an Active Child.

The poor kid who vandalizes the school is the troublemaker from A Bad Home who will amount to No Good; when your son does it, it's just Youthful Exuberance.

As Warren Zevon said, "He's just an excitable boy."

I have to run, but I'm curious to know what people think about the providers who feel that it's their job to educate the anti-choice people about abortions generally (not the medical aspects of one which they should obviously be doing). Is it the doctor's duty to take care of that particular patient in that moment without concern for teh broader system. Is it really a doctor's job, in the context of treating a specific patient, to try to change that person's political opinions.

I mean, I might find a pro-life ob-gyn who was great at delivering babies and really open to some important aspect of delivery--vaginal births or whatever. I wouldn't want that person to lecture me about abortion.

BG: completely OT, but you never replied to my email... which is okay if you changed your mind, I just want to make sure there wasn't a mix-up.

A doctor has a duty to all his or her patients, and to public health. The anti-choice person demonstrating outside the clinic is attempting to negatively affect the wellbeing of the doctor's other patients and of women in general, so when such a person comes into the clinic for an abortion, why shouldn't the doctor treat this as a teachable moment?

I wouldn't want my doctor pontificating to me on the rest of his beliefs. If my dad has a DNR order, I don't want to hear from the doctor that she's a Free Terry supporter and believes only in heroic measures. &c, &c. I don't pay my doctor for teachable moments.

But I think if someone's a known protestor of that clinic, or complaining actively in the room about the whores needing abortions or how it's murder, then *they're* the ones that have started the political dialogue, and it's perfectly fine to say something, if only for the sake of the other patients. And if someone is honestly convinced that they're murdering their baby by having an abortion, I think the doctor shouldn't provide the service, on the grounds of the patient's mental health and not wanting to get sued.

Since we're analogizing, if I tell my doctor that I don't believe in germs and that I never wash my hands before I go to my food-handling job, it's his duty to try to convince you to wash your hands before you go to work. And of course you're not paying your doctor for a teachable moment. Your doctor is giving you that for free, for the benefit of his other patients. The patient is always free to seek an abortionist whose beliefs are more consistent with her own. And if my doctor were a Free Terry supporter and believed in always taking heroic measures, I'd sure as hell want to know it, so that I could find another doctor.

I agree that if the patient honestly thinks abortion is murder, the doctor should refuse to provide one, for the reasons you give.

This is why I said they are better people than me. I wouldn't be trying to create a teachable moment or change anybody's beliefs. I'd be doing it purely out of spite. "You aim to make abortion more difficult? Well, I'm about to make your getting one more difficult for you. Now you and your baby have a nice day."

Wot 38 said.

There is lots of self-loathing in this world. You shouldnt be surprised to read about people who cannot live up to their ideals.

re: 40

I think that's generally right. People often fail to live up to their ideals, and often they remain sincerely in favour of those ideals. I'm not someone who thinks that a charge of hypocrisy trumps everything else.

However, when their sincerely espoused ideals are causing actual harm to other people, then I see no problem with calling them on their hypocrisy.

41:

How are their ideals causing actual harm to others?

Well, you could certainly make the case that an active anti-abortion movement is harmful to the interests of women.

43:

That seems to me to be a relatively indirect harm.

It's indirect, but still gigantically harmful.

32: They're not lecturing or, as in 35, pontificating. Docs who go into women's health--especially those who perform abortions and work in public clinics--do so out of a sense of mission. They're not just, as one doc in the article said, abortion vending machines; they seem themselves (rightly) as being part of a larger movement for women's health and autonomy.

And folks that provide abortions also take the procedure pretty seriously; they *do* counsel patients. See, e.g., this site. Good medical care recognizes that the technical stuff is part of a larger whole. If you're having an elective procedure that you're highly conflicted about, it seems eminently reasonable that a responsible health care provider will try to help you come to terms with that. And how can you come to terms with having an abortion that you think is murder without owning up to its being your choice, and to the fact that your ability (and responsibility) to make that choice is *precisely* why the procedure's available in the first place?

42, 44: Protesters who harass (there's that word again) patients and workers heading into a medical clinic are directly impeding women's ability to get health care. That's a pretty direct harm.

47:

Harassment, yes. Peaceful protest, no.

46:

BitchPHd is correct. Every good clinic has counselors who explain and discuss all of the options. Many women have thought about this issue in the abstraction, but it can be a much different issue when it is the reality to be dealt with today. A good counselor makes sure the patient is as comfortable with their decision as possible.

48a: Telling women that they're murdering their babies is harassment, regardless of its constitutionality.

46: I guess I'm worried about the flip-side. I know a couple of pro-life girls from my high school who trained as midwives. I wouldn't want them using teaching moments, particularly if it involved "we could save you but your baby is more important."

Anti-choice protestor directly harm women:
1. By making it impossible for clinics to operate in rural areas, anti-choicers make it hard if not impossible for rural women to get abortions and other family planning services.
2. By creating a climate of fear in public discourse, anti-choicers make it hard for many pro-choice people to exercise their right to speak out for more reproductive freedom.
3. By providing a mass of low-level supporters, anti-choicers make it possible for misogynist terrorists like E.R. Rudolph and the Nurem/berg F/les guy to operate.
4. By physically blocking clinics, anti-choicers prevent women from receiving healthcare.
5. By moving the political discourse to the right, anti-choicers make it easier for misogynistic policies like welfare "reform" to be instituted.

"protestors" obviously.

Anyway, I'm not going to comment further, since this is one of my two troll-enabling issues on the nets.

Bitch:

Not every protestor is telling the women that they are murdering their babies.

Many protestors are vile, horrible, and nasty. But there are also perfectly acceptable protestors as well.

Maybe I have just become jaded and accepted them as part of the landscape. I don't want to jinx myself, currently, they are not so bad here.

50: I think there's a real difference there. Frankly, if I had a midwife who thought that in a crisis, the baby's life was more important than my own, I would want to know--although I don't think that follows from being pro-life. A lot of midwives and doulas and the like, actually, are pro-life--that's part of what that whole NAPW organization's all about. And responsible doulas and midwives, I think, *do* advocate for the fetus by advocating for good prenatal care, natural childbirth, and so on. Hopefully they do so by presenting facts rather than scolding women about not drinking and the like, but plenty of them do the latter. One avoids them, but on the grounds of their being wrong on the facts, not wrong in trying to be advocates for the health of mother and baby.

46: Really, do you think they would feel justified in making that decision?

Oops, I meant Cala's 50.

In my experience as an "escort", the protestors at the door of the clinic don't yell at the women or accuse them of being murderers. They try to act as forlorn and sincerely concerned as possible in order to induce maximum guilt. There's usually some nice-looking young people who follow every woman going into the clinic down the street, addressing her as "Mom". "Mom, can we just talk to you for a second? Mom, we're concerned about what might happen to your child. Mom, just let us tell you the truth, you're not getting the truth in there."

Of course, they are also surrounded by posters with pictures of dismembered fetuses. And there seems to be some old women at either end of the street whose job is to whisper hateful things at the women while holding a rosary.

The protestors I would classify as "perfectly acceptable" are the ones who stand there doing nothing but saying the "Hail Mary" over and over.

53: Of course not. But some of the women discussed in that article do precisely that, even in the recovery room. You asked how their ideals--presumably the ideals of the specific women in the article--were causing harm, and that's my answer.

If you're talking instead about generic woman who thinks abortion is wrong and it would never happen to her and suddenly she shows up in the clinic needing an abortion, then no, she's not harming anyone. We all know that a lot of women who get abortions fall into that group. I think the article's specifically talking about women who explicitly harass, at least, the clinic workers in the process of providing their care.

Back to the original topic, the real fear for the medical provider is that you are being set up. That fear is very real.

However, most of the medical (docs, nurses, counsellors, reception people) staff has long ago accepted that they might suffer personal or professional consequences for being involved in women's health. It isn't something that you can afford to dwell on. You simply have to go forward

Wow, Unfogged is a liberal place when I am the one defending some of the protestors.

That is pretty funny actually.

57 sounds like harassment to me. With the exception of the Hail Mary people, which, okay fine. Pray in public, fine with me.

I think you're defending b/c, as you say in 59, the medical staff "have accepted" that they might be set up, and one goes forward. Which fine, I'm sure that's true for most providers--else you couldn't do the job. But as a matter of discussion, getting used to the protesters doesn't mean that what they're doing isn't harassment, y'know.

62:

You are probably correct. Protestors simply do not bother me too much.

My current frustration is how too few people understand that the Carhart case was not about elective abortions. So making a non-elective abortion more dangerous for women should generate outrage. THAT pisses me off.

Oh god, I hear you on that one. I'm afraid to some extent we fucked that one up by ceding the theoretical argument that terminating a severely disabled fetus is a "choice."

In re 30 and my comment in 5, I just remembered I had a comment on this at Making Light a couple of years ago. I stand by the analysis though not, on revisiting, the writing.