... on Bloggingheads!
ADDED: The volume discrepancy between me and Amy has been fixed. What caused it? I think she actually was speaking in a louder voice to overcome the sound of air conditioning in her room, and I had adjusted the volume on my phone so it wouldn't hurt my ear. So it wasn't really a technical problem. I was using a quieter voice because I had a quieter room. The real solution is to turn off the ventilation in the room before recording.
IN THE COMMENTS: Simon says with two women, we shouldn't be saying "diavlog" but "divalog."
ADDED: Simon has a lot of trouble with what I've said and written about the abortion case, and he's written about it here.
November 10, 2006
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
14 comments:
Two points in response to what Amy Sullivan said:
1. Using D&X (the procedure prohibited in the Act) in an emergency is an odd choice -- it takes two to three days to dilate the cervix, and the woman is usually sent home or to a hotel each day.
2. Yes, late term abortions are only a "small percentage" of total abortions. Of course, since total abortions are over 1 million per year, that small percentage adds up. Alan Gutmacher Institute estimates 18,000 late term abortions per year, with 2,000 to 3,000 via D&X.
This diavlog (or, perhaps, divalog) and yesterday's comment thread presents a perfect encapsulation of the problem. You're all engaging in precisely the debate that the court's abortion jurisprudence devoids of any meaning: is abortion or is abortion not a good thing. The very fact that it has become impossible to debate an abortion lawsuit in legal terms rather than moral or medical terminology is precisely the problem. It would be far better for the court to depart the field entirely, and let the wholly reasonable concerns that you raise be thrashed out in the normal course of the state legislative process, where -- I am reluctantly forced to admit -- you may very probably carry the day. This is a question of public policy, not law, and as such, it should be removed to the legislative field where it belongs. I dissent.
Pace Dave's comment above, you do look exhausted, but this diavlog flatters you, actually.
And come to think of it, it's (I presume unintentionally) hilarious that you raise the issue that no one wants to drain the humanity out of it and focus on legal arguments - yet, given that your post earlier in the week focussed on precisely the emotional and humanitarian issues that feed into people's normative preference on abortion.
I fully support draining the emotional content. Let's do precisely that! My God - the joy that I would feel if we could drain the emotional content out of the court's abortion jurisprudence. Let's drain the swamp. But I do not think that would produce the result you want. It cannot result in anything other than the court's headlong retreat from ground it should never have occupied in the first place.
I am not a minimalist; I do not agree with Cass Sunstein and John Roberts. In my view, it is emphatically the province of the judiciary to say what the law is, and in my view, the disposition of this case requires the court to do two things: to overrule Stenberg (and, if you were right earlier in the week that Stenberg is a package deal with Roe-Casey, then those cases too), and to strike down this law as ultra vires.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts."
-Daniel Patrick Moynihan
"Daniel Patrick Moynihan is dead."
-Frederick Nietzsche
Tyler: I'm pretty upset about that too. They had some technical problem which also caused them to take a day and a half to get it posted. There's also some background noise, which I think is the ventilation or air conditioning at Amy's end (it's not a my end). Maybe they had to turn Amy up to get her audible over her background noise... That doesn't really make sense.
"Maybe they had to turn Amy up to get her audible over her background noise..."
I figured it out. Amy was simply talking more loudly because of her background noise. And I reacted by turning down the volume on my earpiece. I was talking at a volume that made sense in my own quiet room.
And, couldn't they get poor Amy a cup, or one of those big decorative Pottery Barn saucers to drink her water out of?
Must the viewers be treated to her guzzling water straight out of the bottle?
No matter how cool and hip Amy thinks it is, gulping down water that way, on camera only shows how tacky and uncouth she really is.
Love, Maxine
I'm with Simon: Call the all-female editions divalogs rather than diavlogs.
Dyslexics of the world -- UNTIE!
Oddly enough, I thought Amy Sullivan was too loud.
"Nietzsche is dead." --God
Ann,
I'm still searching for the right words to respond to your comments about the emotional content of these cases, but I took another imperfect go at it here.
Post a Comment