... Kirsten Moore, president of the pro-choice Reproductive Health Technologies Project, said that when members of her staff recently discussed whether to recommend that any prenatal tests be banned, they found it impossible to draw a line — even at sex selection, which almost all found morally repugnant. “We all had our own zones of discomfort but still couldn’t quite bring ourselves to say, ‘Here’s the line, firm and clear’ because that is the core of the pro-choice philosophy,” she said. “You can never make that decision for someone else.”Those who support the right to choose do not have to feel dissonance here -- not yet, at least. Abortion rights respect the pregnant woman's moral autonomy, and that respect should embody a belief that the individual is best at making the decision about what will happen inside her own body (even when it means the destruction of a developing one). The new prenatal tests will test not only the condition of the unborn child but also the soundness of our respect for the autonomy of the woman. If we see a graphic demonstration of prejudice, narcissism, and eugenics instead of a difficult engagement with morality, it will shake our belief in the superiority of individual decisionmaking.
(Note: The linked NYT piece refers back to this article, which appeared in the paper on Wednesday and which I blogged about here. The new article quotes my blog post.)
Posts
49 comments:
Why "the right to choose to abort a disabled child" rather than "the right to abort a disabled child"? All rights involve choice. The "right to choose to do X" is redundant.
You can never make that decision for someone else
Are you not making that decision for the unborn baby you murder?
"they found it impossible to draw a line — even at sex selection, which almost all found morally repugnant. “We all had our own zones of discomfort but still couldn’t quite bring ourselves to say, ‘Here’s the line, firm and clear’ because that is the core of the pro-choice philosophy"
Thus we are provided with an outstanding example of the moral bankruptcy of a large segment of the pro-choice movement.
"If we see a graphic demonstration of prejudice, narcissism, and eugenics instead of a difficult engagement with morality, it will shake our belief in the superiority of individual decisionmaking"
Stand by for your belief to be shaken. This one's easy, regardless of where you stand on abortion - the moment you've had any sort of genetic testing done, your legal right to abort that pregnancy disappears.
Althouse had a previous discussion on Down's Syndrome. Some of the severe genetic defects are far, far worse than Downs - dooming the potential offspring to months and even years of hideous suffering, slow dying. The parents to stress and far greater likelihood of divorce and damaging their healthy children's relationships.
And allowing some of those severe defects to come to term with ensuing huge health care obligations - in an era where we are rationing good medical care in more productive sectors of public health and have one in 6 working Americans uninsured - inflicts massive critical care costs on family, taxpayers, and medical insurers.
Society cannot afford the "cost is no object or concern" medical care model.
It may come to a point where insurers fail to cover care for "fatal or listed class of severe genetic disorders the parents knew of but elected not to abort for" but require screening as a condition of insurance.
Nor can government afford to have the costs fobbed off on taxpayers if insurers no longer can manage the costs, and has to look at limiting care for the defective offspring of welfare wards, prisoners, and illegal aliens that now get a far better "deal" (free medical and dental as demanded) than many working Americans do.
Which will leave it still up to the "choice" of certain Right To Life fanatics to elect NOT to abort - as long as they understand they will not pass the costs of their choice onto the rest of society but will pay for it with wiping out their equity and spending the rest of their lives, long after the defective offspring dies - paying off their medical bankruptcy obligations. Perhaps for the rest of THEIR lives.
Abortion rights respect the pregnant woman's moral autonomy, and that respect should embody a belief that the individual is best at making the decision about what will happen inside her own body
What is this moral authority? Where does it come from? What are it's limits? Do men have a similar moral authority? Does it extend to moral choices such as prostitution, drug use, selling body parts?
This "moral authority" business is new to me.....it is a penumbra of privacy rights?
Society cannot afford the "cost is no object or concern" medical care model.
So who gets to decide?
How long before we decide that supporting the elderly is too expensive? How about the handicapped? Fat people, you're next!
The right to choose to abort a disabled child
This may sound like legal-speak, but there is no "child" here. Nor it is "disabled". Both are mere possibilities and both--in the case that abortion is performed--counterfactuals.
It is a misnomer to call a pregnant woman a "parent". This goes double for the man who sired the potential offspring. I will grant someone at least some ambivalence on the part of the woman.
The fetus does not become a "child" until it is out in the open, living, breathing on his own. This makes the case of premies difficult--depending on gestational age, they may well not be capable of supporting their own life. This is why we make a distinction between "viable" and "living". It is not a triviality.
But Ann seems to make no distinction with her headline--does that mean that she cannot draw the line in the same sense that the very subject of her interest here cannot draw the line at what is an ethical decision that may lead to abortion?
Let's face it, the problem is not "our belief in the superiority of individual decisionmaking". It's a different kind of absolutism--the standard, conservative absolutism declared moral norms to be absolute and unchangeable (a proposition I find impossible to substantiate with historical evidence). But the opposition has its own absolutes--individual decision making is not superior (what would it be "superior" to?), but rather inviolate. It's just a different brand of moral absolutism--what is taken to be absolute is different, but the belief that the truth is unassailable with facts is the same. Pox on both houses!
The problem is not simply restricting the choice because of immoral decisions. Yes, most people believe (as do I) that choosing abortion as means of sex preference in children (as was popular in South Korea before the tests were banned) is immoral. But there are two difficulties here. First, there must be a reason why Koreans found the selection morally acceptable--it's not because Koreans are inherently immoral, but because cultural norms dictate a different kind of moral decisions (there are plenty of things that Westerners would not lose sleep over but Koreans find immoral). Second, if we institute a test for reasons behind the abortion decisions, we are only inviting flexibility in moral choices instead of fixing them. If we proscribe some categories of elective abortions because of the reasons behind the decisions, we will simply see a decline in those reasons being cited. I am sure that such laws would give some a warm glowing feeling of doing something to protect public morality, but, in reality it would do nothing at all.
Instead of proscribing, we can educate. Offering options, other forms of relief, would go a long way in reducing the number of abortions. Bill Clinton did make that point when he said that he wanted to see abortions as "safe, legal and rare". Moralizing bullshit will not accomplish this goal.
If it begins to be a problem, I think a good case can be made for disallowing sex selection, because there's a social interest in balancing the numbers, if they begin to get out of balance.
As to whether it's a baby or a fetus, someday ordinary usage will be noticed, and it will be discovered that a soul is not a mysterious philosophical problem, but a way of talking about connections to others, and it will be possible to argue about souls again. You could say that people would see that that's the religious meaning as well, so there's no roadblock to talking about it, in this ideal future.
To see if the baby/fetus has a soul, do not look at the baby/fetus, but at the parents. Do they have plans for it, have they bought a nursery set, purchased a child's baseball and mitt, and so forth? Then, by that connection, it has a soul. If not, not.
They may find that a baby/fetus with this or that genetic disorder doesn't seem like their baby, not the one that fits any plans, and then that's that. It's up to them.
I leave it to mothers to say at what age a baby begins to connect to other people, which is where certainly you'd want to say it's a person ; but at birth it's cute to others, and others connect with it, and so that's as good a place as any to draw the line.
It doesn't matter except that it has to line up with common usage ; and the way to argue it is to figure out when you're inclined to use the word ``soul'' in natural conversation, as opposed to this or that theory.
Note as a start that every argument for ``right to life'' will make the fetus as cute as possible ; and every argument against will stress the mass of tissues. The point being to establish or deny a connection from others to the fetus/baby, which ought to tell us that it all depends on the connection, and that depends on us ; and it's not arbitrary in all cases, but has a common usage to be discovered and placed.
One other thing. It is easy to comment on abrogation of moral responsibility on the part of the people one disagrees with--and that comes across rather strongly in Ann's post. I call that condescension.
But consider the alternative to individual moral decision-making. Is relying on religious teaching not an abrogation of individual moral responsibility? Morality requires freedom of choice, so substituting someone's rules for one's own decision is not a moral choice. It has nothing to do with morality--it's just following the rules.
Conservatives--especially pseudo-libertarians--often complain of "nanny-culture", because governments seem to make far too many decisions for us for our "own good". But would the same not apply to religious teachings? Do they not aim to "protect" us from various forms of "evil" by telling us what we ought to do for our "own good"? Is it not hypocritical for someone to try to protect us from decisions by one external entity by handing the control over to another?
Individual decisions are not "superior", as Ann put it. They are essential for existence of morality.
Gahrie: "'Abortion rights respect the pregnant woman's moral autonomy...' What is this moral authority?"
The word I used was "autonomy," not "authority." The gist of my post is that the good of autonomy is open to question and will be questioned by more people they don't think morality is part of it.
shadowfox: "The fetus does not become a "child" until it is out in the open, living, breathing on his own....
But Ann seems to make no distinction with her headline..."
I deliberately used the word child. It is especially apt in this context, because the woman's motive is not to avoid pregnancy but the child itself. The elimination of the child is not a byproduct of a decision to forgo pregnancy, but the whole point of the procedure. It doesn't meet her standards as a human being that deserves to live.
I see it as a problem in the future if those who support abortion rights continue to rely on presenting abortion as inconsequential, the destruction of nothing significant. It needs to be a serious moral decision. And I agree with your later statement that autonomy is necessary for morality. If you have a choice forced on you, you can't claim any virtue (other than following the law). But we don't for that reason let people make all their own choices. I support lots of personal autonomy, but there are still plenty of things I'm not going to accept people making their own decisions about (like running red lights, dumping toxic wastes, and torturing animals).
From the NY Times article: "Mr. Imparato said he was disturbed to learn recently that in several states with legislative efforts to restrict abortion rights, groups like Planned Parenthood often lobby for an exemption for women who learn their child would have a disability."
Confirmed by: "I see it as a problem in the future if those who support abortion rights continue to rely on presenting abortion as inconsequential, the destruction of nothing significant. It needs to be a serious moral decision."
I agree. I'm pro-life, but am significantly (and admittedly illogically) less offended by first trimester abortions than by the abortion lobby's stated position of "any abortion at anytime for anyone" (their positions against parental consent and in favor of partial birth and child selection abortion are particulary offensive). Their unapologetic placing radical, absolute abortion rights above any and all considerations will likely be the one thing that puts their whole enterprise at risk. Excess and over-reach have always been a political risk in a democracy - and the abortion lobby is not immune to this.
Althouse:
OK, "autonomy," not "authority."
But you are still sidestepping my questions. Where does this "autonomy" come from? What are it's limits?
We constantly legislate morality in a civilized society. We even make suicide illegal in most places. So you have the autonomy to kill your unborn child, but not yourself? Why this one exception? Or do you support further exceptions? And doesn't anarchy lie in that direction?
Absolute moral autonomy is nothing more than the state of nature prettied up. Civilization requires that we surrender our moral autonomy and enter into a social contract. Once this autonomy is surrendered, it becomes a process of agreeing on which behaviors to allow, and which to prohibit.
What right do you have to seek to prohibit my "running red lights, dumping toxic wastes, and torturing animals"? The same right I have to seek to prohibit the killing of unborn children. There are no higher and lower levels of autonomy...it is an absolute by nature. You are either autonomus or you aren't.
Why "the right to choose to abort a disabled child" rather than "the right to abort a disabled child"? All rights involve choice. The "right to choose to do X" is redundant.
Pro-aborters must put some distance between themselves and the stark reality of what they do and/or support others in doing. If nothing else it helps them face themselves in the mirror. Messing with words has long been one of their favored means.
Where does this "autonomy" come from?
Perhaps it comes from the same place that the proposition "Autonomy has to come from somewhere" comes from.
Perhaps it comes from the same place that the proposition "Autonomy has to come from somewhere" comes from.
Everything comes from somewhere. Our Founders believed that we were given natural rights by our creator. Autonomy is not one of these rights.
Perhaps the arguement is that autonomy is inherent. Well, do other animals have autonomy? What makes us different?
If I am autonomous, how can the state demand that I not use drugs? Or abuse animals? Surely these are moral choices?
I again state the thesis that autonomy is just a synonym for the state of nature. I doubt that Althouse or most pro-choicers would chose to return to a state of nature.
This may sound like legal-speak, but there is no "child" here.
The reason it sounds like legal-speak is that you are engaging in just that. In actual fact the term "child" is, and can, be used to refer to an unborn infant. The usage is common enough for it to be included in a number of dictionaries.
Of course, this fact proves particularly inconvenient when we talk about abortion, because the term just has more of a suggestion of "life" to it than "fetus" does. And you know, we really can't inject such emotional issues into a discussion about abortion, can we?
Gahrie:
We constantly legislate morality in a civilized society. We even make suicide illegal in most places.
Really? What is the penalty for suicide? Do we have an extradition treaty with St. Peter? And how would you arrange for the perpetrator to confront the accuser/victim? That would be quite a trick.
If there is a law anyplace stating that suicide is illegal then that has to be the dumbest law I've ever heard of in my life, and I'd want to know which legislators passed it and why they were wasting their time on such a stupid and nonsensical law.
As far as this post is concerned, I think those who accuse pro-choice people of not having morality because they can't draw the line are missing the point.
Like most pro-choice people, I don't like abortion. Several years ago my then fifteen year old daughter got pregnant and I recommended against abortion (and she didn't have one). However, if she had chosen to have one, I'd have supported her decision up to and including paying for it-- because I support her right to make her own decisions.
Further, that was my daughter. I consider that I have the right to give her advice, but that the final decision is hers.
But here is the best thing-- the 'morning after pill' is going OTC, and anyone can buy one. I suspect you will see a sharp drop in abortions over the coming years, and that is a good thing, wouldn't you agree?
I'm also not opposed to policies that would favor women choosing child-bearing over abortion; I mentioned one a few days ago, in which I proposed a tax on abortions which would be used to cover the costs of prenatal care and a hospital delivery for uninsured women.
But the bottom line is that what a woman does with her body is her choice, and you won't convince me that's not the case, whatever my personal feelings on abortion (if she decides she wants to ruin her body (along with damaging any fetus therein) by chain-smoking, that's her right too-- I may also find that to be a terrible choice, but I won't support making it illegal and forcing her not to smoke.)
clarification:
My first paragraph parroted what I read. In fact, pro-choice people can draw the line very clearly. The line is:
Her body, her choice.
Excerpt from Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men:
Here a year or two back me and Loretta went to a conference in Corpus Christi and I got set next to this woman, she was the wife of somebody or other. And she kept talking about the right wing this and the right wing that. I ain’t even sure what she meant by it... She kept on, kept on. Finally told me, said: "I don’t like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion." And I said "well mam I don’t think you got any worries about the way the country is headed. The way I see it goin I don’t have much doubt but what she’ll be able to have an abortion. I’m going to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she’ll be able to have you put to sleep." Which pretty much ended the conversation.
H/T First Things
Eli
You must be auditioning for George Carlin when you ask Gahrie how one prosecutes under anti-suicide laws a person who is already dead.
Ya see, sometimes the attempt doesn't succeed & sometimes the suicidal person has had help & some societies don't want people to get the idea that such acts are sanctioned.
We know that the law is an ass, but gee, lawmakers generally do understand the basic laws of physics, chemistry, & biology, which pro-choicers want to ignore when it comes to abortion.
But here is the best thing-- the 'morning after pill' is going OTC, and anyone can buy one. I suspect you will see a sharp drop in abortions over the coming years, and that is a good thing, wouldn't you agree?
Hot flash: Over the last 20 years abortion rates have already dropped sharply, doncha know? Scope it out. Gen Xers and Gen Yers are not nearly as keen on killing their babies as baby boomers were.
"Several years ago my then fifteen year old daughter got pregnant and I recommended against abortion (and she didn't have one). However, if she had chosen to have one, I'd have supported her decision up to and including paying for it-- because I support her right to make her own decisions."
Some would see this as noble. I see it as you being willing to kill your grandchild.
At fifteen did you give your daughter the right to choose whether or not to go to school? Whether or not to use illicit drugs?
Perhaps if you had given your daughter fewer choices at fifteen, and more moral guidance, she wouldn't have gotten pregnant at fifteen?
I deliberately used the word child. It is especially apt in this context, because the woman's motive is not to avoid pregnancy but the child itself. The elimination of the child is not a byproduct of a decision to forgo pregnancy, but the whole point of the procedure. It doesn't meet her standards as a human being that deserves to live.
Ann, I suppose you might also argue that vasectomy is a method of preventing pregnancy. But it's not pregnancy that is being prevented in such a case--but the children that might result form these yet unrealized pregnancies. The goal is to eliminate the possibility of unwanted children, not to prevent some woman (often a spouse) the discomfort of being pregnant.
So the distinction is vacuous. If you feel so strongly about it, you must also object to vasectomy, non-tumor-related hysterectomy, tubal ligation, etc. This is why there is a somewhat consistent Catholic doctrine of opposition to birth control. The doctrine, however, is absurd as a normative concept. At least, traditional Catholicism had a flip side of social care for those who needed it. The current version comes with no such strings attached. As pro-choicers like to say, the pro-life position ends at the womb.
In actual fact the term "child" is, and can, be used to refer to an unborn infant. The usage is common enough for it to be included in a number of dictionaries.
You don't eliminate the problem by redefining the terms--and this is exactly what you are engaging in. Conservatives like to talk about moral relativism that is allegedly behind liberal positions, yet, they often engage in the kind of reframing that is far closer to relativism than any thought out social liberal position that I have encountered.
Besides, you language betrays you even here--you replaced the term "child" with "unborn infant". I suspect that you will find that even harder to find in dictionaries. I certainly could not find any of the 17 on-line dictionaries that would condone the use of "unborn infant", as infant refers to period from birth to speech (or including "toddler" in its British use). It may extend up, but not "down".
Of course, I can see how someone who claims that "child" should refer to the pre-born would find it equally plausible that the definition of "infant" as "child in the earliest stages of life" would also refer to the pre-born--as being in the womb is already "the earliest stage of life". The goal appears to be to blend the distinction between an independent life and a fetus.
But this is a religious position and I am not going to allow any religion to redefine language to make it convenient to argue its position. If you want to make a philosophical argument why we should consider life to begin at conception, that's fine--I may disagree with the argument, but at least, here, we have an issue of philosophical, not linguistic divergence. But to corrupt the language in an attempt to influence the direction of the discussion crosses the line.
Ya see, sometimes the attempt doesn't succeed & sometimes the suicidal person has had help & some societies don't want people to get the idea that such acts are sanctioned.
inwood, some cultures, in fact, place suicide as something that is indicative of virtue. It is not something that ought to be taken lightly, but it is certainly considered to be an honorable option (in fact, hesitation or failure in suicide is dishonorable).
The problem here is that we are not concerned with any kind of suicide, but the kind that specifically Western societies consider a taboo. But it is quite common among a certain sector of the population to view suicide in terms that are far closer to those expressed in Asian religions. Consider suicide as an honorable option out of a sticky situation for cops and military men (just recall the high-ranked general who shot himself because one of his medals was questioned).
There is a whole cultural ritual around suicides among American cops--it is nearly always billed as "accident" because the gun cleaning kit is out, yet, everyone knows what actually transpired. The purpose of this designation has nothing to do with social opprobrium, but is a consequence of the way insurance policies are written (suicide does not allow to collect).
In more generalized Western perspective, suicide is a sign of weakness--an inability to find a path out of a sticky situation (quite different from Roman times, oddly enough). In Asian cultures it is a sign of strength and determination.
But, more to the point, we may have certain social mechanisms that show disapproval of suicide (e.g., insurance policies), but few, if any, laws that actually proscribe suicide. And even then, it's all a consequence of religious perspective (one's life is not his to end--that's a job either for a hangman or God). That's why those incarcerated may be put on suicide watch, why unsuccessful suicides are treated as mental disorders (they may be a consequence of a mental disorder, but this correlation is not an identity).
Gen Xers and Gen Yers are not nearly as keen on killing their babies as baby boomers were.
Zeb, have you checked the birth rates for Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers? Or are you unable to interpret simple statistics?
Have you considered the possibility that these generations are more comfortable with birth control than their ancestors? Or is this position also anathema to you?
Tim - I agree. I'm pro-life, but am significantly (and admittedly illogically) less offended by first trimester abortions than by the abortion lobby's stated position of "any abortion at anytime for anyone"
Tim, I highlighted your response area about you thinking "illogically" - by being less concerned about a early fetus than a later one.
It's not illogical. In an examining Board I was a part of, 1997-2001 we interviewed fireman/EMT job applicants on logical skills in triage, among other skills and judgement looked at.
We did the standard - burning building or drowning, your unit is 1st at the scene. In jeopardy are a family of 5 trapped, a puppydog in peril with a boy, an ex-con, a room with two Alzheimers patients, and a brother firefighter hero. What would you prioritize for rescue? (Correct answer is family of 5 1st, a Brother firefighter...all the way down to the "puppydog in peril"
A feminist on the Board was unhappy and suggested that we add 25 frozen embryos in the med clinic in the same building fire/other rescue situation..I didn't think much of her idea until the 3rd applicant we had in that year said that 25 frozen fetuses, even if not to be used and discarded soon, were "innocent babies" and a higher priority than
any other situation.
And if all the rescues had to be abandoned to work on getting refrigeration back on the Petrie dishes? Yep, the 25 human baby eggs mattered more than the other 10 human priorities - so much that they coud be sadly ignored so the petrie dishes could be salvaged.
We recommended that guy not be hired under any circumstances.
"Tim, I highlighted your response area about you thinking "illogically" - by being less concerned about a early fetus than a later one."
Cedarford,
The illogic comes from my belief new human life is present once conceived, and therefore I really should not draw any distinction between a first and a second-trimester pregnancy. And, were I an elected official with the ability to overturn Roe v. Wade and/or outlaw abortion, I would do so. I understand practical, worldly considerations such as the one you pointed out, and yes, there is a moral calculus, or triage as you so aptly put it, that most of us go through in making these decisions, or in assessing our feelings about them. I'm acutely aware of the conflict between the intensity of my feelings regarding first v. second or later trimester abortions; and while I'm by no means 'pro-choice,' I try not to discuss this without acknowledging certain inconsistencies on my part.
It should be clear I find the abortion rights absolutist abhorrent, and no surprise I do believe abortion on demand + prenatal testing = distributed, do it yourself eugenics. This is a world not only made possible by the abortion rights absolutists - it is now one that exists.
Otherwise, regarding the "child" v. "clump of cells" discussion elsewhere, if it were only a clump of cells, please be first in line to tell a grieving mother her miscarriage is nothing to be upset about. After all, it is just a clump of cells no more important than a finger nail or some-such, right?
And then get back to us on how well your enlightenment project went. I, for one, would be curious as to how that worked out for you.
But to corrupt the language in an attempt to influence the direction of the discussion crosses the line.
Bah. Its sub-human. Kill it already.
After all, it is just a clump of cells no more important than a finger nail or some-such, right?
And even if you believe its just a clump of cells, where do you draw the line? 2nd trimester? 3rd? Do we have 100% certainty? I thought that was a principle of the Left - we shouldn't execute criminals because we can't be sure they are guilty.
I didn't think much of her idea until the 3rd applicant we had in that year said that 25 frozen fetuses, even if not to be used and discarded soon, were "innocent babies" and a higher priority than
any other situation... We recommended that guy not be hired under any circumstances.
What if the 25 were babies held in some kind of stasis? Where would they fit on your triage ladder?
I happen to think that there is no reason to think that there is anything wrong with the decision to abort a fetus that has a genetic defect. In fact I think it is a good thing, despite PC pieties. You have children to pass on your genes, so there is not much point in investing in kids who are unlikely to bring grandkids. In Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche wrote:
I TEACH YOU THE SUPERMAN. Man is something that is to be surpassed. What have ye done to surpass man?
All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and ye want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than surpass man?
What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame.
Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of the apes.
Even the wisest among you is only a disharmony and hybrid of plant and phantom. But do I bid you become phantoms or plants?
Lo, I teach you the Superman!
The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Superman SHALL BE the meaning of the earth!
I conjure you, my brethren, REMAIN TRUE TO THE EARTH, and believe not those who speak unto you of superearthly hopes! Poisoners are they, whether they know it or not.
Despisers of life are they, decaying ones and poisoned ones themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so away with them!
– trans. Thomas Common, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Prologue, sec. 3,
"You can never make that decision for someone else."
And "Her body, her choice."
So it is OK in China where abortion is routinely used to select for sons? Not with me.
But then I am anti-abortion in most cases so I have it easy.
Trey
So it is OK in China where abortion is routinely used to select for sons?
Trey, I think, you are missing a point with China. They still use it as a means of population control, so, given the option of maintaining a pregnancy or "trying" for a boy before the mandatory family size limits kick in is not as trivial as you make it sound.
As I said, Korea ran into this problem almost a decade ago and their response was to eliminate testing for gender--I don't know if they banned ultrasound or used some other means to restrict access.
But in China, there is a huge problem, as cultural norms demand at least one son--much as in some Western cultures as well (but not in Thailand, for example, although the reasons for preferring girls in Thailand are even less morally defensible). Under normal circumstances, even without restrictions, chances are that some potential parents would have preferred aborting female fetuses. But that number would have been relatively small. But, with the pressure of family size limits, the decision rises to the level of panic. Families that find out that the child would be a girl become desperate and make decisions that they probably would not have made otherwise.
And "Her body, her choice."
So it is OK in China where abortion is routinely used to select for sons? Not with me.
Not your business Trey. What about a family of 4 sons who aborts hoping for a daughter? OK then?
What if it's not ok with me that some people "choose" to bring embryo's like your triplets to life? Who gets to decide?
Work to shape morals, rather than restricting procedures. You take away the right to an abortion for rape, because you're worried some might abort healthy homosexual babies, or females, you're making choices that influence society. Why gain consent if you can just choose and impregnate, criminally if they catch you but your seed lives on because no one can abort?
Choice brings choices we don't like. Lots of women have used abortion for convenience, or for reasons we might not all sign on to. You can't take away the legitimate choice for all women because you don't trust how some will use it. Sorry. You can't just "force", you have to use your diplomatic skills to change morals and help people make better choices. Sure it's hard. The culture is bucking against it. But if you take away the idea that you can force your ideas on women, that's the work that's cut out for you.
ShadowFox:
You don't eliminate the problem by redefining the terms--and this is exactly what you are engaging in.
Nonsense. It is I, not you, who accepts the common usage of the term "child" to refer to the fetus. I'm not the one redefining the terms at all. The term "child" has been used in this manner well before the modern abortion debate. Whether you think it correct or not, the fetus has been personified for longer than the English language has been in existence.
Conservatives like to talk about moral relativism that is allegedly behind liberal positions, yet, they often engage in the kind of reframing that is far closer to relativism than any thought out social liberal position that I have encountered.
Well again, I simply reject as nonsense the premise that calling the unborn infant, fetus, whatever-you-call-it a "child" is reframing. Just the opposite: the effort to eliminate the use of personal language to describe that child on the pro-choice side of the abortion debate is the reframing.
If something is inherently evil, why is the burden on those who are against it to "teach" others and gain agreement?
Should the abolitionists have forgone any political action and simply created tracts and leaflets to teach? The entire pro-abortion position is predicated on the idea that the separate life within is (a) not a life, or (b) not as important as the mother, thus giving her the power to kill it at will. (Not the right to forswear any responsibilities to that life, but to end it.)
It's an odd constitutional right that always ends up in the destruction of a human life. To the tune of over 1 million per year.
Option (b) requires the kind of bizarro logic as seen in rhhardin's comments, wherein the right to life is not inherent and protected by default, but only in relation to the "connections" that others have for you. In short: your worth as a human being is only what others say it is.
The similarities among 20th Century European Jewry, African Americans in US History, and the unborn now become a little clearer.
"Work to shape morals, rather than restricting procedures."
Yet another empty pro-choice argument that wouldn't fly if you were talking about any other "procedure" (murder, rape, theft, arson, treason,--even if committed by a doctor! etc. etc.). All of those could be prevented by "shaping morals" better in our society, but for good measure and to be clear, we ban them as well.
It's amazing how almost every single pro-choice argument contains an unstated assumption that abortion does not end an innocent human person's life (Can you legally end a human person's life in private? For your "autonomy"? Because some people will do it even if it's banned? Because it involves your body--you can kill a federal drug tester? Because it furthers women's economic and social interests? Because you were raped--could you kill your acquitted assailant? Because the person you're murdering is or might be better off dead?)
I think the answer to all of the above is clearly "no." They're all sympathetic reasons, all good mitigating factors. But they're not justifications. So all those arguments, to escape irrelevance, have to assume that a fetus is not a fully living human person. But what evidence is in this thread, or in the post, to prove that very important assumption?
Some just say it's a "clump of cells" (strictly speaking true of all humans, and at 8 weeks a fetus certainly has a figure) or too "dependant" (true of any baby that's fed) or not it's own unconnected body (true of any twins joined at birth and people on dialysis).
You could make a pain or consciousness argument, but you'd have to go at length through all the human beings who have less intelligence and awareness than some monkeys (infants), or who don't feel pain or have a consciousness (coma patients, and infants).
All the earlier time-wasting pro-choice obfuscations rest on a single assumption that they don't spend anywhere near enough time trying to prove. And they have to prove it--1.3 million fetuses aborted a year represent some pretty high stakes for a guess.
A number of commentators to this thread & other abortion threads who have condemned pro-lifers as rigid & simplistic, in turn simplistically sloganeer with the bumper-sticker phrase
“her body her choice”
as if that were the trump card, the holy grail of the abortion argument.
Free legal advice: If one of your daughter’s, wives, friends, whatever does a Vincent Van Gough & you bring her & her ear to the emergency room where they’re re-united, don’t expect to walk out with her & don’t think that the phrase “her body her choice” would have the slightest effect in any habeas corpus petition you might then submit for her release.
As some wag has said “Bumper Stickers are not the answer”.
Shadowfox, despite your thoughtful and kind post, I am having trouble getting your point. Sorry, but please make it again.
I think you are saying that I am over-reacting in my concerns about Chinese abortions of children because they are girls. That is is rare, and not really an area worthy of concern.
But I really am concerned. If convienence can be legitamized as a reason to abort, I worry about what is next.
I support abortion in case of rape. I support abortion in the case of a child who would not survive. That is my understanding of partial birth abortion, where a child with no brain is terminated. So for me, the partial birth circus is a distractor.
I understand that in rare cases abortion is necessary and to me acceptable. But I worry about and grieve many of the reasons that are now acceptable and reasons that may become acceptable.
But please try me again with your point, I want to hear it.
Trey
Mary wrote a thoughtful post that I would like to respond to.
"Not your business Trey. What about a family of 4 sons who aborts hoping for a daughter? OK then?"
No, this is not a question of gender, it is a question of morality.
"What if it's not ok with me that some people "choose" to bring embryo's like your triplets to life? Who gets to decide?"
I see a difference between starting life and ending life. I bet you do too.
"Work to shape morals, rather than restricting procedures."
We are in total agreement about working to shape morals. Well said! And I have never given a nickle to an anti-abortion group. I just state my opinion and vote. But isn't it OK for me to give to anti-abortion groups if I chose to? Instead, I recommend adoption and advocate for that. My wife and I were in the process of adoption when we were offered the donor embryos. If I clear some more money, we plan to adopt. It is a loving, Christian thing to do, and I am all for it.
"You take away the right to an abortion for rape, because you're worried some might abort healthy homosexual babies, or females, you're making choices that influence society."
Sorry I was not more clear, I do indeed support abortion in the case of rape. And I make choices that influence society everyday, as do you. When I am kind or rude, help or hinder, seek health or illness, I effect myself, my wife, children, neighbors, etc. I do vote my conscience on abortion, as do you I wager.
"Why gain consent if you can just choose and impregnate, criminally if they catch you but your seed lives on because no one can abort?"
Not sure where you are going here, but I support abortion for rape survivors and support the continued criminalization of rape.
"Choice brings choices we don't like. Lots of women have used abortion for convenience, or for reasons we might not all sign on to. You can't take away the legitimate choice for all women because you don't trust how some will use it."
I would change your first use of the word choice to freedom, but we agree after that. And I cannot take away legal abortion, but I can vote and if enough people agree with me we can change the law. (Not that there is much in the way of abortion legislatin per se.) That is the democratic part of our republic, and I support it.
"Sorry. You can't just "force", you have to use your diplomatic skills to change morals and help people make better choices. Sure it's hard. The culture is bucking against it. But if you take away the idea that you can force your ideas on women, that's the work that's cut out for you."
We agree, but I do not see where you got the idea that I wanted to "force" anyone. I vote. That is all I do. You are not telling me how to vote are you?
And as a society we curtail individual choices routinely. Many of those restraints I bet you heartily endorse. I support the restraints against private ownership of surface to air missles, rocket propelled grenades, and bazookas. I like it that our country restrains people from selling intestinal parasite eggs as a sure fire, guaranteed weight loss aid. And just today I called and reported someone to the authorities for using a child for their sexual pleasure. You likely agree with me on all these constraints of freedom of choose.
Trey
Shadofox
Gharie said:
“We constantly legislate morality in a civilized society. We even make suicide illegal in most places.”
Eli then attempted to do a comedic riff, pretending (for effect, I assume, he must’ve heard of Dr Jack Kevorkian, as must you), that Gharie’s affirmation meant that legislators thought that those who’d successfully committed suicide could be prosecuted in an earthly court.
I explained to Eli that his attempt at humor was registering a flatline on the laugh meter.
Now you want to debate Gharie’s simple, true statement with me. Yet you seem to agree that the statement is true in Western societies. Of, course, as you’ve noted, its force is leavened by bureaucrats, doctors, & churchmen who are loathe to condemn a poor wretch who has taken his/her life, especially when such judgment may well lead to a loss of benefits for his/her heirs. So I don’t think that either Gharie or I have any quarrel with you or that we need to divorce ourselves from his statement.
Whoops
Should not have had an apostrophe in the word "daughters" in one of my posts.
I've been thinking about these two posts quite a bit, and I suddenly remembered a story of my sister's from her med school days, probably about 10 years ago now. They had a medical ethics lecture from a visiting expert, and he was talking about disabilities and quality of life and the humaneness of aborting with certain conditions. He specifically mentioned a condition, I think it was spina bifida but I might be wrong about which condition it was, and singled it out as an example of a case in which a child would have no quality of life and a short life at that, and so aborting would be recommended. Whatever condition he was talking about, what he didn't know was that sitting there with my sister, as one of the medical students, was a young adult who was born with that very condition. His lecture taught those students, those who knew about their fellow student, an important lesson, but probably not the one the lecturer meant to convey.
How many parents are receiving similar recommendations from doctors who are just trying to avoid a lawsuit rather than portray an accurate picture of possible outcomes, or who haven't seen the positive outcomes and so only discuss the negative?
Trey,
My concern is that you find upsetting the particular reasoning in a chain of events where the earlier actions are far more disturbing.
We may frown upon a Chinese couple deciding to "try for a boy" in the same way that we would frown on any couple that makes a similar decision. But the context, in this case, is different, so we should condemn the action that leads to the situation rather than just the outcome.
Effectively, we are confronted with a government policy that puts people before a decision between a number of unpalatable choices. Instead of condemning each of the choices, we should focus on the policy that leads to them.
Inwood--NP on suicide.
Thanks for the assist Shadowfox, I am with you now. And I agree, I was speaking to the point of the post, abortion. But I am no fan of oppressive regimes either. Why China has most favored nation status is beyond me.
Actually, I do know why. The same reason that the Republicans are not interested in stemming illegal immigration. There is money to be made on the backs of the mistreated illegal immigrants and one slight step up from slave labor Chinese. And the people making the money give it to Republican candidates.
As a conservative, it makes me sick.
But thanks for your patient explaination.
Trey
Besides, if we're going to talk about the Chinese, let's not forget abortion vans that make house calls whether you want them to or not, and committees (in the rural areas, mostly, I think) who will come and drown your baby in front of you if you manage to sneak it all the way to birth.
As for the "one step above slave labor," as Trey mentioned, given that a good part of Chinese manufacturing is conducted in prison camps, I think "one step above" might be giving too much credit.
In addition to the social imbalance (and boy, what an imbalance!) caused by China's one-child policy and people aborting for sex-selection as a result, what about the girl babies left to die in gutters and along the roadsides? Is that just as morally acceptable as abortion for sex selection?
Ann -
This is such a contentious issue, I'm almost afraid to post here! But I wanted to throw my two cents in here as I talked about that NYT article in my post I'm Pro-choice...and Pro-life and addressed your quote at the end:
“Some religious conservatives say that they trust God to give them the child that is meant to be,” wrote Ann Althouse, a law professor in Madison, Wis., who identifies herself as an abortion rights supporter on her legal blog. “But isn’t there something equivalent for social liberals? Shouldn’t they have moral standards about what reasons are acceptable for an abortion?”
Cheers,
Juno
Post a Comment