One of the great things about working at Slack Tide is that we have a lean masthead – I’m it. Not only does this cut down on HR complaints and tedious editorial meetings, but if I don’t wish to write about a subject that everybody else is writing about, it’s usually as simple as having a heart-to-heart with my assignment editor (myself), who gives me permission to skip it, before we adjourn and go fishing.
Nothing makes me want skip it and go fishing more than the subject of abortion. I have never done a reader survey here, but I’ll venture a guess that roughly 100 percent of you didn’t subscribe to this site to be subject to my thoughts on abortion policy. And in my experience, there’s no faster way to clear out a roomful of friends, enemies, or paying customers than to bring up the A-word, since everybody is convinced of their own righteousness, whichever way they lean, and has been since God was in short pants. I have had spirited abortion debates in the past. I consider myself a semi-convincing person when I get a full head of steam and/or tankard of Jesus Juice in me. Not to mention, when I whip out sonogram pictures (if you’re not into science denial). And yet, I don’t recall ever changing a single mind, for whatever that’s worth. Neither will I even attempt to, now.
Cards on the table to readers of all persuasions: I’m pro-life. There, I said it. My libertarian instincts make me wince at the government ever telling anybody what they must or mustn’t do with their bodies. But of course, when what someone wants to do with their body affects another body, even if it is one that lies in various stages of embryonic development on the dark side of the birth canal, well, that muddies the picture considerably.
I won’t recap the entire overturning Roe v. Wade draft opinion leakage controversy. You can read about it literally everywhere else. Here’s the Politico piece that kicked it all off. Here’s a contrarian examination of the ins-and-outs of the leakage itself by my old friend Jack Shafer. (Spoiler: Jack’s an old-school journalist, and so, is always pro-leaking.) Neither do I feel it necessary to elucidate how I think that wherever you stand on abortion, Roe v. Wade is and always was bad, extra-constitutional legislating from the bench. (Abortion is never mentioned in the Constitution, and I have a lot of pro-choice company in holding that Roe v. Wade is jurisprudential dog-turdery .)
The bottom line, of course, is that if Samuel Alito’s draft opinion and the preliminary justices headcount is a true indication of where the court will land (and as of this writing, there’s no evidence that it isn’t), Roe doesn’t look to be long for this world. This will not ban abortion outright, but will remand the issue back to the states, where, according to the New York Times, 13 states have existing trigger laws that would ban abortion immediately or quickly, five states have a pre-Roe abortion ban that could be enforced again, and 14 states might restrict abortion to 22 weeks or earlier. For the abortion-sky-is-falling types, it might be worth noting that the NYT, citing pro-choice researchers, estimates this will only represent around a 13 percent reduction in legal abortion, which hardly represents abortion extinction. Though if you’re committed to abortion rights, and are in the Biden administration, you might want to start whittling those gas prices down now, since plenty of women will be driving a lot further to get one. And if you’re a Chinese developer, hellbent on buying up America’s burgeoning hot properties, you might want to start snatching up our back-alley real estate, stat.
Not to be glib about abortion. It’s pretty serious business – literally, life and death. Which is why this new development turned my thoughts to an old profile subject of mine, Randall Terry. Almost exactly a decade ago, when I was still at The Weekly Standard, I did a lengthy profile of Terry, who was then in the middle of an election caper too complicated to recount here, but who was once known as America’s foremost pro-life agitator, having headed Operation Rescue. He’d led a movement that saw 70,000 arrests in abortion protests in what were, up until that time, the largest civil disobedience efforts since the civil rights protests of the sixties.
Terry was always a cross between an angry Old Testament prophet and a rodeo clown/court jester. His enemies – he had them on both sides – accused him of many things, but never of being too subtle. You won’t find Randall referring to abortion services as “reproductive health.” He calls it “child killing.” In protest of what he regards as millions being slaughtered, he might chain himself to an abortion clinic sink, or dump a pile of bloody baby dolls in Nancy Pelosi’s office. As a hobbyist musician, he might perform pro-life songs of his own composition, such as “Crying for You Baby,” sung in the style of his musical hero, Barry Manilow.
Why, just a few weeks ago, after progressive anti-abortion activists (yes, there are some) were indicted for a former protest, shortly after revealing they’d recently recovered 115 aborted fetuses from a medical-waste company driver - with several of the babies appearing to be very late-term and viable - there was Randall shepherding them through the media circus. And just the other night, after the Roe v. Wade news broke, there was Randall in front of the Supreme Court, getting his glasses literally punched off his face by an angry pro-choice activist, while hauling around his ukulele, and singing another of his songs, “We’re Gonna Dance on the Grave of Roe Vs. Wade.” Sample lyric: Baby don’t cry/ You’re not gonna die / Abortion will/ Be a crime. You can watch Randall get punched here. (Scroll to the 1:15 mark.)
Bottom line? Randall’s not everyone’s speed. He’s probably not yours, even if you’re pro-life. But I’ve always had grudging respect for him, and not just because I have a soft spot for eccentric screwballs. (He once filmed a music video featuring a firing squad in Obama masks executing baby dolls with paintball guns to the strains of Alice Cooper’s “Dead Babies.”) But because Randall puts his money where his mouth is: another time, he not only talked a prostitute out of having an abortion in front of an abortion clinic, but he later adopted two of her children. Love him or hate him, but the guy lives his gig.
And because he takes abortion as seriously as the rest of us often only pretend to, he frequently asks hard and uncomfortable questions. Which brings us to today’s discussion thread. I should note here that I just conducted a discussion thread in my very last piece (on Elon Musk and Twitter), and didn’t mean to repeat another right away. However, this subject is practically begging to be one. The last time, a major high-traffic aggregator generously picked us up, and so a lot of angry strangers who were itching for war came over the wall and entered our comments section, and they wanted nothing more than to turn the dump over. I had to play bouncer for about three days straight, instead of just moderating the thoughtful commenters that usually peacefully coexist here, even in disagreement. That won’t happen this time. If anyone gets abusive, even though I’m pro-life, I’ll abort them straightaway. And if many break the rules, I’ll slap a lock on this piece for paid subscribers only, which usually clears up any problems. So there’s no need for people with good manners to cower in fear, whichever side of the ball you’re on. Even if you disagree with me, I want you here.
Some conversation starters for my pro-choice readers: If abortion isn’t taking a life, what is it taking? And if it is taking life, doesn’t the right to live enjoy primacy over all other rights, no matter how inconvenient or tragic the story of the person who feels the need to have an abortion? (When women feel the need to abort, they are usually not happy stories, admittedly.) If it’s just a mass of tissue, and not a child, why did Joe Biden call it the latter? Why do we have the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which recognizes a fetus or embryo in utero as a legal victim if they are injured or killed during the commission of over 60 federal crimes, but we don’t regard deliberately killing a child in utero as a crime in itself, so long as the parent wishes it to cease to exist?
For readers generally: What are the ramifications of Roe V. Wade getting overturned? Does leaking a draft opinion portend the unrepentant politicization of the Supreme Court? Is collegiality over, and will everyone on the court have to watch their backs now? Is this an overreach by the court, and will conservative politicians overreach even more by trying to legislate abortion out of existence? Did conservatives just hand liberals a midterm elections gift, since a majority of the country, according to polls, doesn’t want to see Roe V. Wade overturned?
For my pro-life readers, here, I’m handing the mic over to Randall Terry, who I asked to jot down some hard questions for those who say they want to make abortion illegal, but who often give short shrift to what it will actually mean for a society in which all those unwanted children might be born. Randall:
If you are really pro-life, would you be willing to sponsor or raise the money for an unwed pregnant teen; would you take a teen into your home – who then becomes a new teen mom? Would you take in a pregnant mother in distress, and provide her a place to stay before and after she has her baby – with or without government help – to help get and keep her on her feet? Or would that be too much inconvenient work? If we, in effect, compel pregnant women to carry their babies to term, what are we willing to do to see that the mom and child are not trapped in ignorance and poverty – the horrific twins of Scrooge’s nightmare? How dirty are you willing for your hands to get? How much mercy are you willing to show, and how much sacrifice are you willing to give, to help that mom and child? What personal sacrifice of time, money, comfort, and above all, reputation, am I willing to give? What am I willing to endure to not only make child-killing illegal, but to help the moms and children in meaningful ways if the full fruit of a political victory is realized?
I readily admit that there is something here to offend everyone. Don’t take it personally. It’s what the country is facing, and as much as I’d like to blow it all off and go fishing, we must, to some degree, face it as well. Feel free to answer my/Randall’s questions, or ignore them while going off on your own tangents. All that’s required for you to participate is that you be respectful of others, even while being pointed, and don’t hurt anybody. I will be a ruthless enforcer on that front, whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice or undecided. The world’s all stocked up on hatred, and I don’t want any more of that in my sanctuary. So be gracious, no matter what’s being discussed. Graciousness is the only bridge over irreconcilable differences.
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Here's the thing, the entire pro-life argument hinges on the idea that "life begins at conception", however, this assertion is extremely debatable, and has literally no biblical support or historical basis before the modern era.
And don't quote the "knit together in my mother's womb passage" at me, as that passage has nothing to do with the issue of abortion or the timing of when a person becomes a person. Also, have you ever seen an old woman knitting? It's a process, and sometimes even takes weeks. But I digress.
Hardly any protestants in the US were pro-life before the 70's and suddenly, not only was abortion oppostition a popular topic within protestant circles, it was sacrosanct. You can't be a Christian and not be pro-life they say. I'd say that's debatable as well.
Bascially, the political side of the pro-life movement seeks to make abortion illegal. And the justification of this is that children are being killed, so it doesn't matter what a woman wants, or even if she was raped, or even if her life is in danger. Innocent babies hang in the balance, so really, the woman can go to heck. And this is not just a restriction that should be placed on Christian women or religious women, it will be placed on all women. If you are female and you get pregnant, then your baby is the priority, and you don't have rights or choices anymore.
And I'm sorry, I'm a Christian, and I generally view abortion negatively. But I'm going to have to call BS on this whole view. There is literally no passage in the Bible directly condemning abortion (in fact there is this odd passage in Exodus where if a man thinks his wife is cheating, she has to drink a potion that will cause her womb to shrivel if she is guilty). We as Christians have no mandate to impose our view of life's beginnings on the secular population. We cannot prove that "life begins at conception" as this is a philosohpical and theological question, that is unanswerable by secular law.
Yes, abortion can be restricted. People can choose to make their own laws and they can make things illegal that they find distasteful. But do Chrisitans have a mandate to impose this on the world? No. Also, what happens when 20% of the population (conservative protestants and catholics) wants abortion to be 100% illegal, but 80% doesn't want this and mostly favors a grey area between?
Roe will be overturned, but I think pro-lifers should lower their expectations that this is some kind of step along the way to a pro-life future. Sure there are going to be some very restrictive bills passed in red state. But what happens when a bunch of young women die for want of an abortion and the media justifiably makes it a huge deal? You will see those bills reversed. Because it turns out that Americans actually like having the freedom to make decisions over their own bodies.
I agree with a lot of your thoughts here but the bible does actually have something to say about abortion and it goes like this: Thou shalt not kill. The current issue at hand is more about adhering to the consitution than it is about abortion rights. Our courts have violated the consitution with Roe and that is what needs to be reversed. Rules on things such as abortion are to be left to the electorate and are not to be handed down from an unelected judiciary. When it comes to abortion both sides have grossly overplayed their hand. Public funding of abortion should have never happened. Citizens should not be forced to participate in abortion by being mandated to fund them for others because like I said, there is that whole Thou shalt not kill thing which some of us have bound ourselves to live by. And for those who don't adhere to that rule then they should be free to live with their decisions as long as they don't impose the costs on others.
Obviously, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" would apply if you believed that a zygote/embryo/fetus was a fully-formed human being with a soul. But that is the million dollar question.
A few nights ago, my teenage daughter was asking some questions about all this, especially the morality issue.
I told her I was one of the few pro-choice people she'll meet that believes abortion is, in most cases, immoral but that it's worse to me that the government, especially at the behest of what mostly is a religiously based minority, would tell a woman she doesn't have the right to decide what to do with her uterus and would force women to go through pregnancy and give birth.
So yes, I think choosing abortion because it's an inconvenient time to be pregnant is immoral, but I also think that sometimes it's the right thing to do in the bigger picture, and I think it should be the woman's choice.
It does get more difficult the more a pregnancy has progressed, and it's easy to see why support drops so much for abortions in the second and third trimesters, and while it's probably healthier to seek compromise laws when it comes to those things, I personally tend to think it should be legal at any time, gruesome as that might sound. What I find compelling about that is that almost all late-term abortions are by mothers who actually do want the child, but something has gone terribly wrong. Despite what voices on Fox News might be trying to suggest, I seriously doubt there are mothers who, the day before their due date, shrug their shoulders and say, "Nah, I've changed my mind. Let's end this."
"I told her I was one of the few pro-choice people she'll meet"... Actually I think she will meet a lot of people who see it as you do. They won't be activists. They are not well represented by either party. But your position is common. Remember the days when a common position for Democratic politicians was 'personally opposed but do not think it should be illegal'? That sounds a lot like your position, and the politicians picked it because it is widely held. Activists hate it, not pure enough.
In your case you think it should be legal at any time, but you say it is healthier to seek a compromise. Your willingness to accept a compromise loses abortions activists of all stripes, but you haven't lost me! Compromise is where I go when I accept both sides make serious claims.
Question for pro-life people: Smoking increases miscarriage and stillbirth. Should we regulate smoking by pregnant women? Should we establish a sort of OSHA for the womb?
Most fertilized ovum (zygotes) fail to implant or are rejected. Should we consider this a medical emergency and devote enormous energy to reducing this loss of human life? Considering the vast number of yearly deaths shouldn't this trump other medical research, such as cancer research? (Let's not forget the Natural Fallacy).
The problem is the tendency to adopt extreme positions on the moral significance of zygotes and fetuses. If a zygote fails to implant does that mean a human life has ended? Biologically a strong case can be made that it has, the mistake is either to conclude the case settled, because all human lives are morally equal, or to deny anything important important happened at conception (ho hum, the DNA from to persons has knitted together and formed a new organism genetically separate from both, nothing to see here).
Consider a variation on the Trolley Problem: You are at a switch and can redirect a train about to barrel into a crowd onto either a track with a 2-year old (who will be surely killed) or another track with a tray of zygotes (they will surely be killed). What would Randall Terry do?
A morally and intellectually coherent resolution is rejected by the Democratic and Republican Parties alike, yet popular among Americans: From zygote to infant we all pass through a liminal zone where our moral importance and claim on others increases in tandem with our development and our ability to live independent of our mother.
Such a conception leads to an abortion regime widespread worldwide and supported by most Americans: low regulation on early abortion increasing to heavy regulation close to term.
Is that position pro-choice or pro-life? Both?
A practical question I have for the pro-life side: Pharmaceutical abortions are already the most common type of abortion. Abortion restrictions will accelerate the trend (check out plancpills.org), how in all practicality do you propose enforcement without resorting to a police state?
And a question for the pro-choice side: What exactly is the problem with safe, legal, and rare?
I've appreciated your comments here. The answer to your pro-choice question is, that nothing at all is a problem with "safe, legal, and rare," as long as the woman involved determines these qualities. As a committed and loving husband and father, I can't find a way to imagine that my "choice," to abort or to keep, can ever be my decision above my wife's. In the same way, I cannot imagine the presumed decision by an unborn baby can take precedence over the mother's. I have given it the most-careful thought I can give, going back to 1973, and I cannot consider any regulation at all that can put a mother into second-class relation to a father, to an unborn baby, and certainly not to government.
While I can wholeheartedly sympathize with all who hold the view that abortion is murder—not a thing about that view is inherently morally incorrect—I see no way to get past the mother—whether on the unborn baby's side or on the opposite side where all the rest of humanity stands, and judges.
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When people are being slaughtered in Ukraine, more or less to prove Vladimir Putin's point, it's sickening for all the rest of us to debate whether the U.S. has ever been worse, or whether Pres. Zelensky supports nazification of Russian Ukrainians. Once abortion touches you personally, no matter the causes or the results, you will likely be sickened to listen to others, standing around, idly, debating whether some other person, not them, has a right to decide how to handle the blessed gift of a potential child.
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I must again apologize for personalizing this, as I have now done here, several time. I can no longer help hearing all those anti-abortion people messing themselves up in my wife's personally-lived tragedy.
I was hoping for something more, but the approach -- questions for both sides -- is a good start.
How about this: present each side in a light that someone on the other side would find compelling. This is a strategy that good history teachers take in presenting controversial figures and movements from our past.
I should state from the beginning my own bias. I think Roe v. Wade was a sensible step -- Casey was a further step -- toward a better societal approach toward abortion. We need to move beyond Roe and Casey, not go back to before Roe and Casey. Use of the criminal sanction (i.e. "bans") to deal with abortion is societal incompetence, and an abuse of the law.
Abortion terminates life. It's wrong. I like to think that my own life began as a gleam in my parents' eyes, even before conception. I like to think that the reason for being of the entire cosmos is so that a child would be born and love its mother.
What can society do to support and encourage carrying to term life once begun? The problem is practical, not theoretical. Taking a principled view -- it's about life; it's about autonomy -- avoids the practical realities. Fundamentally, this is a human problem not a legal problem. Why does it make any sense to treat it as a legal problem, "legalize" it or make it "illegal"?
Let me take a small detour before continuing. For those who have actually read the Roe opinion, Roe did not "legalize" abortion. Roe constrained the power of the state to interfere with a pregnant woman's decision. The issue was the use (and abuse) of state power, a perspective which was lost in the hype about "legalization". The reason this perspective remains important is that there is a difference between ends and means. Making abortion "illegal" stops the conversation. Should not society carefully consider the means used to achieve the desired end of carrying life to term? Roe used a rather crude timeline to constrain the use of state power -- first trimester, nothing; second trimester, regulation of the doctor; third trimester (viability), prohibition -- so it was but a first attempt to take into account the complex reality of mother and child as one until birth.
The public discourse has essentially lost the valuable perspective taken by the Supreme Court in Roe. We have the spectacle of a myopic preoccupation with whether abortion should be "legal" or "illegal". Is that even the right question?
The complex reality of mother and child as one during pregnancy can be illustrated by imagining that they are not one. Picture this: a nursemaid is pushing a stroller. Inside the stroller is an unborn child, encased in a womb. The life and welfare of the unborn child is paramount. Out of concern that the nursemaid -- whose womb is in the stroller -- may choose an abortion, the state takes responsibility for the womb. Once conception has taken place the nursemaid is just a hireling.
A simplistic view would use this fiction to characterize the pro-choice faction as being outraged that the pregnant woman is being taken as a mere nursemaid, a hireling. But this characterization might give pause to the pro-life faction. Is it really just about the life of the child? Conversely, the image of a nursemaid as caretaker for a life not her own might give pause to the pro-choice faction. Is it really just about the woman's body?
This fictional separation might also give pause to legislators who are still thinking in terms of "legal" and "illegal". Instead of the state taking eminent domain over the womb, perhaps it makes more sense to support the caretaking role of the nursemaid. The "legality" of abortion seems an inadequate focus for legislative attention. If the legislature keeps the whole picture in full view -- which is the point of the fictional separation -- the underlying problem is no longer simple. If the problem were likened to brain surgery, dealing competently with it would require a scalpel rather than a meat cleaver. Focusing on "legality" is like using a meat cleaver for brain surgery. By comparison, Roe v. Wade used a scalpel.
Which returns me to the law, and its abuse. Using a meat cleaver in these circumstances is an abuse of the law. As a society we can do better. Rather than overturn Roe and Casey the Supreme Court should move beyond Roe and Casey. Why is a timeline (trimester or otherwise) and viability proper bases for regulating state intervention in this complex reality? Meat cleavers should be forbidden. Minimum competence for state intervention should require grasp of the whole complex reality -- nursemaid, womb, and child in one. The Mississippi statute at issue in Dobbs fails this test.
One last point. Alito's draft opinion does not portend well for the rule of law. It is not simply the spectacle of this women being treated radically differently from one state jurisdiction to another. If Alito's draft is given five votes there will be strongly reasoned dissents, and these dissents are likely to become law at some point in the future when the composition of the Court changes. It is not lost on anyone that these five votes are the product of determined politics by the pro-life movement over many decades. Good lawyers and good judges have different views on the subject. It is not a question of bias on the part of any justice. The bias lies in the political process for selecting justices.
The prospect of Dobbs itself being reversed at some point even decades or more in the future by a differently composed Court -- particularly if Dobbs cuts its own stare decisis throat by overturning a fifty year old precedent -- is surely on the minds of the present Court. For that reason I doubt that Alito's draft will become the Court's opinion.
But we will see. In the event that Alito's draft does not become the majority opinion it will be interesting to see whether the Court simply avoids expressly overturning Roe or whether it finds a way to move beyond Roe and Casey, in the direction of a better scalpel. I'm not holding my breath -- this is an exceedingly difficult problem -- but our society deserves better than the meat cleaver approach we are likely to get from state legislatures that simply want to prohibit abortion.
Fine, but if you want to get technical, neither is overturning Roe making abortion "illegal." Not even a little. It's remanding it to the states. Now if you don't think it should be decided on a state-by-state basis - because some states will make it illegal - that's fair. A lot of pro-lifers, ironically, don't think that's right either, btw. From a pro-life perspective, why should it be legal to kill a baby in Massachusetts, and not in Arkansas? Is that fair to the baby in Massachusetts? Which is not a completely frivolous moral inconsistency protestation. But what I don't get, in your otherwise supple approach, is how does the meat cleaver vs. scalpel distinction actually work itself out on the ground? What would that actually look like and is it even possible? At some point, do lines not actually have to get drawn? Or undrawn? Aren't these absolutes we're speaking of? (Either it's a life, or it's not, and you can either take it, or you can't?) As you yourself just said, "Abortion terminates life. It's wrong." So why play semantic games? What does it look like on the ground to address the "wrongness"? Because as I had Randall do in my piece, he addressed many of the other societal concerns. Which are real concerns, admittedly. But if a law becomes a law, or 50 laws become the law, a lot of other hard realities get dried in cement. So what should that look like?
Love your work Matt and appreciate the courage of taking on this topic.
The topic is very emotional for all involved. And each fact pattern is unique to that situation. I've heard compelling arguments from both sides and rarely is an opinion changed. Which maybe there isn't a "right answer" other than how do we (to borrow Clinton's phrase) make abortions "safe, legal and rare". e.g. will we criminalize abortions? Even if we do, that hasn't stopped and won't stop them, just likely make them less safe, having the affect of risking the lives of pregnant women. Is that pro life?
Currently, the phrase "pro life" seems inappropriate. It seems "pro birth" is more appropriate. In addition to the list of things Randall asks, I'd add a few. None of which actually require any time or money, i.e. an even lesser commitment than Randall. Would you support laws/officials that deny expanding health care (access) to children? That deny child care credits? That don't require vaccines/masks when deemed necessary to protect the life of another? That aim to reduce legal immigration for parents seeking a better life for their children? That don't assist (in some way) in providing affordable child care so parents can work? etc...
How does Randall feel about two wrongs making a right, i.e. are rape and incest appropriate exceptions?
On a different vein, I'd also ask. If one believes this issue is best left for the states, then why is the state in a better position than the federal government to decide what's best in that situation? Conservatives believe that the best decision are made by those closest to the issue. If the state is closer to the issue than the federal government, the natural extension would seem to be isn't the family/mother/doctor closer to the issue than the state? Or why not the county/city? The fundamental legal question seems less to be is abortion OK or not, BUT WHO DECIDES? It seems disingenuous (or maybe it's just "convenient") to say "the state gets to decide" not the federal government, not the city, county or individual. Why is the state the best "decider" (to borrow a Dubya term)?
Again, thanks for the courage to add this to your repertoire of topics.
Ehhh... first, a note on tone. I typically like Matt's writing for his ability to write with lightness even when discussing dark topics. But the column above is... a bit too flip? Maybe? And I speak as a writer who gravitated toward flippers myself. Not important. That's a complaint of personal taste, but I think that opinion might influence my further words.
My position on abortion is driven by two things: my centrism, and being Canadian. We're hardly living in a snowy progressive utopia up here (Trucker Convoy, anyone?) but I tend to think we've got things right up here. "Safe, legal and rare" seems to sum it up.
It's not a fun process. I have friends who've gone through it and it is both physically and emotionally devastating. But the one thing I think we've gotten the most right is the element of democratic compromise. Nobody gets everything they want; everybody gets something.
The problem (as usual) in the American discussion is polarization. It goes hand in hand with your political system. Pro-life or Pro-choice! Team Red or Team Blue! Hockey or Football! Cake or pie! Not everything needs to be that kind of fight. You can actually meet in the middle, where nobody is happy.
Really though, I'm not trying to Both Sides this. While I can understand pro-lifers being upset at pro-choice callousness (yes, it's a baby and yes, you're taking a life; please take it seriously), there's mountains and mountains of hypocrisy to dig through from pro-lifers.
Here's what I'd need to see from the Pro-Life Movement before taking their arguments seriously:
1) Gun control advocacy. This problem isn't one of scale, but is perhaps the most visible of backward, barbaric public policies. Every other modern nation has solved this problem. Saving babies so you can arm them is ridiculous.
2) Take COVID seriously. A million dead Americans in two years. If you care about life, stop with the anti-vaxx, anti-mask, anti-Mexican (I wish I was joking) intemperate rhetoric. If you care about life, take the virus seriously.
3) Extend this stance to being anti-war. I know, I know, the only way to separate an American from their war machine is to drop it on some foreigner. But don't those lives have a right to exist?
4) Love thy Gays. Okay, so this one is obviously flip, but I'm also being serious. No unwanted pregnancies from that community! They tend to be into adoption! Pro-lifers should be *zealously* pro-gay! "The Book says No" is an insufficient excuse!
5) Anti-abortion should mean pro-contraception. And for those of you who feel like quoting this list to your friends and relatives (please don't), really crank this one up. Pro-condom! Pro-IUD! Pro-sodomy! Pro-handjob! Pro-vasectomy! Pro-porn! Pro-BJ! All of these lead to fewer pregnancies and thus fewer abortions. This seems like the easiest bit of advocacy - you're advocating stuff most people will probably want to do *anyway* (something something Market Forces) - but the vast majority of Pro-lifers won't do it. (Hypocrisy is sticky, ain't it?)
6) Be pro-Single Mom. Stop stigmatizing single mothers! Start stigmatizing men who are irresponsible impregnators or seek to exert toxic or dangerous control over women by dint of impregnating them! This does not seem like difficult moral calculus!
Well, now that I've alienated another gaggle of potential readers, have a nice Saturday. I'm going to continue worriedly watching your country from my Socialist Petrostate Ivory Tower.
Hey Canada, I think you were being a little too flip about handjobs. Serious business. But I salute your centrism, and your gentlemanly disagreement. And I'm pro-contraception, for whatever that's worth. Though I should remind you, as you condemn American polarization, that you kids did give us the truckers' "Freedom Convoy," the worst use of freedom-as-a-modifier since "Freedom Fries." It was BJ and The Bear meets Alex Jones. I realize that Canada's favorite export is self-congratulation, but as the Good Book says, "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye!"
I appreciate your honesty. Maybe we could join forces and start a bi-national advocacy group promoting contraception during handjobs. Who wants to clean up that mess?
You proceed correctly by asking the hard questions. Thank you.
As a woman who had an abortion years ago, I asked all those questions at the time -- actually, I was forced to, by influential friends who opposed my decision & offered a modest degree of help. I am grateful for their pressure.
Later, as a Christian convert, I challenged my views, continually. They never changed: The unwanted child would have been fatherless & bi-racial, with a mother who had significant mental health problems, judgmental conservative parents thousands of miles away, a judgmental employer & no money.
I had not been protected from my mother's mental health problems, even in my intact family & I was not going to bring into the 1970's a child I could not protect, of a racial mix for which there was no adoption "demand."
It isn't a baby. It is the beginning of one, & I even had a sense of it being aware of my struggle over whether to carry it to babyhood; & understood my decision.
Did my choice culpably thwart God in an intention to bring this person to life? I don't think so. God knew my difficulties, & my intent; & He rarely presents His Will in such a neat package. It is sentimental to insist to the contrary, & outrageous to assert such a belief to force a woman to carry a pregnancy she rejects.
I don't understand how anyone can assert with a straight face that personhood, in the sense of rights, occurs at conception. That belief, too, seems to me a choice, & in common practice, an opinion that deplorably substitutes one pro-life person's judgment for what women like me feel & believe.
The Bible says nothing about this. Christian churches have "chosen life," but have often understood that the mother's life was a value too. Although to be honest, they have more often de facto decided that the value of a woman's life can righteously be set at zero when she is impregnated under bad circumstances.
If a woman intended to survive that situation, people other than the church had to help. Probably people like me, who thought, felt & believed that human life is a continuum from those first cells to actual babyhood; & the continuum can be interrupted to save a human life, the mother's.
It is certainly not true that every fertilized egg becomes a baby. There are a lot of genetic mistakes. God does indeed make mistakes, but gives us the mercy to be relieved of some by miscarriage. Perhaps a well-considered abortion is just an extension of that? I believed this, & no one who disagrees has a better right than me to the opinion, or to what I did, based on my belief. (And I fully understand that miscarriage is a tragedy in so many other situations; which demonstrates how the Will of God is much harder to discern than many glibly think!)
Counter-Arguments: There is no population problem! There's lots of resources left for every pregnancy we can force to term! THIS IS NOT TRUE.
Our Constitution enshrines "life." THIS IS NOT TRUE EITHER.
We need babies to adopt! This might be true, especially White babies, which is its own tragedy. A woman who can see the value of this, gives a great gift. But there are many stories of adoptions gone wrong, or producing life-long trauma for both mother & child. And forcing women to carry pregnancies under terrible conditions or against their will isn't going to make the stories better. Anyway, this borders on commodification of reproductIon; which is offensive.
What about the fathers? How soon after the 6 weeks does their child support start? And the rapists, stalkers & abusers -- how does a woman get free? & how much visitation, placement with the abuser's parents & child support (from the mom who gives up custody) will be compelled before she gets what's left of her life back?
These are the vile consequences that will rain down if Roe is overturned. Alito's opinion is ludicrous in the face of this hell.
We can fix all this & enter on a new age of joyful parenting! Really? You can't even confidently get righteous rape or spousal abuse convictions in most courtrooms. People with really serious health problems can't reliably get care; for years now, administrative requirements have been increased with the intention of forcing people out if these programs if they slip up. Real wages haven't risen for years, but at the slightest uptick, Fox News starts to beat the drums of fear about alleged wage inflation. We are a ongoing way from a world that doesn't warp any life afflicted by an unintended pregnancy.
And conservative people have been complaining for decades about Welfare Queens ... if we ever create meaningful financial supports for young unwed mothers, we will enable confused & immature young mothers, if they achieve nothing else in life, to at least reproduce. And the angry people will be angry about THAT.
Roe is a sad commentary, but you won't like what takes its place.
Nicely said--and thank you for it. The male Justices will never understand your voice and Mrs. Barrett is too privileged to understand it either. Oh, but if your thoughts were only presented to them....
Which unborn ? The 3 beautiful children she will have with her great husband or the baby she was forced to keep from the fling with the French trumpet player with the heroin addiction & the smooth talking Macho voice .
I am so infuriated by the glaring hypocrisy and cruelty of "justice" Alito. He is more of a thug in a black robe. And I am a man. If I was a woman, I probably would have been jailed by now for harming a "pro-life" asshole.
Hey Charles, I hate to bounce people. And I know passions run high on this issue. But let's dial it back. We try not to talk like that around here. It's a conversation killer and causes people to act like they do on the rest of the internet. Something my readers generally avoid.
OK no problem. The standards are different with other people and I forgot to notice that this is a separate publication. Delete it if you wish, no harm no foul.
I want to begin by saying that I think most people are "pro-life" in the sense that they value life, support life, are sad when they see something or someone die or be destroyed. No one, but perhaps a severely mentally ill person, enjoys aborting a baby-in-the-making. I don't even like thinning my radish rows or carrot rows. I figure I started these seeds growing and I feel sorry for the ones I have to terminate their growth because there are too many. All that said, who am I to involve myself in a woman's decision whether she terminates, aborts, ends the developing life form inside her uterus? It doesn't matter to me if you call it an embryo or a fetus or a human being or a baby. It's connected to this woman and its continuation is completely dependent upon her and what she does while she carries it. It is her creation, not mine. Maybe she'll smoke or drink alcohol or take drugs or all of the above. Maybe she'll punch herself in the abdomen over and over to try to stop this life form from growing, but is that to me? It's part of her body. It's part of her process. It's up to her to decide what she wants to do or not with this growth in her body.
Even if I think she's killing a baby which quite honestly is a debatable and deeply philosophical and religious idea, shall I tie her hands behind her back, strap her to a bed, and turn her into an incubator until that "baby" is ready to be born? It's just ridiculous when you think about the power another human being is imposing on this woman from outside of herself because s/he is convinced that developing human being has to be born. Why does it have to be born? Probably the logic is that it is a "gift from God," a "blessing," or a "potential soul in heaven." All of these ideas are religious ones. I personally believe that human beings are capable of producing human bodies, but incapable of producing human souls that inhabit these bodies. I read of a case where two twin boys, after reaching the age of speech, told their mother that they had chosen her to be their mommy, but "a bad man took us out of you. Because we loved you, we came back into you again." The woman had gotten an abortion previously and it turned out there were two babies-in-the-making. Those souls, two boys, just turned around and jumped back in to her again. At least that's what they said when they were beginning to talk. I personally don't think it's possible to kill anyone whether in utero or on the battlefields of Ukraine.
Imagine this for a moment. A woman is violently raped, a knife held to her throat, an evil hateful man tormenting this innocent woman. He leaves her naked body in her backyard shaking, sobbing, unable to speak because of her terror. She crawls across the lawn and turns on the spigot full blast inserting the end of a garden hose into her vagina hoping to watch out that God-damned son-of-a-bitch sperm from her violated body. A well-meaning white Republican senator rushes up to her, seeing what's happening and immediately turns off the water, finds a rope, and ties her knees together and tells her, "You're going to thank me someday. You've already suffered by being raped. I don't want you to suffer more by killing your unborn child." What a horrible, ridiculous, unloving and even violent act by a well-meaning conservative who is committed to his doctrine, his belief system, and blinded to the plight of this desperate woman. In Jesus' words, he is "straining out the blood in a gnat and swallowing an entire camel's worth of blood."
I would argue the same for a twelve-year-old girl who is carrying her brother's fetus or father's fetus. Even if you want to call it her brother's baby or her father's baby, show some compassion for this child. Use some common decency and stop worshipping the letter of your law and stomping all over the spirit of love of the law. I would argue the same for the woman who gets caught up in the passion of the moment and gets pregnant when she didn't want to be pregnant, who makes an error of decision like so many of us make all the time, but we don't suffer the consequences of starting a life in utero. I have no problem with the idea of using a morning-after pill that makes the uterus unwelcome to the conceptus. I personally think the sooner one terminates a pregnancy she doesn't want the better. I do not support the idea of burning a baby alive with a saline solution. Perhaps this isn't even done anymore. I don't know. I do not support the idea of what was called "partial birth abortion." What a sick man Martin Haskell is with his "intact dilation and extraction procedure!"
If I knew that any species, whether cats, dogs, mice, or hummingbirds were routinely aborting their babies in utero I would think, "What a bizarre behavior? What is wrong with those animals?" I have to ask the same question of the human species. What is so wrong with our species that we have reached a point where over a million, perhaps even a million and a half, abortions are "necessary" in this country alone? What mental illness or callousness disregard for life could cause such an epidemic? We obviously need to grow in our values of respect for each other and respect for our bodies and the bodies of others, respect for babies and respect for children and respect for our grandparents. We should be promoting self-control, expressing real love for others that results in responsible sexual behavior, real love for ourselves that results in responsible sexual behavior, easy availability of contraception so that unwanted pregnancies are a thing of the past. There should be no shame involved in being sexual people and wanting contraception. Bowls of free condoms should be available and distributed everywhere including the entrance to your place of worship.
So, I'm done. I ended up getting far more involved in this conversation than I intended. It is not an easy conversation and it should never be thought to be an easy conversation. Anyone who thinks it is simply is not capable of considering the multifaceted reality in which we live. Peace to everyone.
Please pardon my getting personal here; I generally avoid bringing emotions to logic-based discussions, but I noticed that this one, here, is nauseating me:
It was my wife you’re talking about, and it was to be our fourth child. the child was not viable, and it would have been sheer around-the-clock torture for my wife to carry our fourth child to term, at which time, God might or might not have finalized the process. Our long-time Catholic OB/GYN referred us to a non-opposed doctor. The hospital staff, especially its profoundly sympathetic nurse, who treated us as in our other pregnancies/births, was an incredible relief—given the tragedy that we were forced—arguably by God—to endure. Our final fifth or fourth child was born in excellent health and form, a year later.
I recognize a shift of topics, that seeks to treat abortion as if it is ever—ever—independent of a mother, in an active state of pregnancy—regardless whether she is a profligate harlot who may use abortion as a contraceptive—or all the other thousands of mothers, everywhere, in every condition and circumstance, who miscarries or still-births or must terminate for any number of medical/pregnancy conditions.
The preceding sentence may have grown inchoate. All who argue—not against their own potential abortions, but against those of others—speak as if the mother involved lacks Standing.
But, of course, she has Standing. She has it in the highest, primary form. I realize that Anti-Abortion (AKA euphemized as “Pro-Life”) persons, are either limited in the range of their thinking, or are else of the Nurse Ratchett variety of thinkers and feelers: those who lack genuine concern for the health and well-being of others.
Twenty-first Century America ought not to be a contemporary version of Salem, Massachusetts, witch-hunts. No American practice of religion allows Me to intercede in Your determination to sin—if sin, these medical procedures be. No conscientious, Constitution-loving American, can support the kinds of evil invasions of privacy—including legislated vigilantes and cross-state-line-incriminating laws.
The Anti-Abortion folks are either inadequate thinkers or else meddling torturers. I can not imagine using abortion as a means of birth control. We dearly love each of our four children. For you or Justice Alito or anyone else to get in the way of our health and safety—and medical privacy—in this way, is an evil far greater than even Christ would allow any of us, to judge an aborting mother on His behalf.
So my wife and I were in the same boat as you about 20 years ago. We had a child with a fatal birth defect that was detected by sonogram. We elected to NOT have an abortion and it was a good decision even though our child died because that way we got to spend time, however short, with our child. But that was our decision, our choice. You and your wife made a different choice, but it is your choice to make.
Thank you, that was poignant, what a difficult thing to go through, and my heart goes out to you and your family. Not sure how I would have met that test. My wife’s birthing was relatively easy for our three. What you talk about there near the end is one, if not the biggest thing, about those who wish to make no exceptions that infuriates me. How dare they? It makes me conclude that they really don’t care about human life, they are just checking a box. Harsh perhaps, but I don’t know else how to comprehend it. Bottom line to me: it is a fundamental breakdown in human compassion. That is distinctly unlike the teachings of Christ. And he is the one we should be trying to follow.
If we, too, had stopped at three, we would still have supported any woman’s right to make her own medical decisions. But our daughter desperately wanted a younger brother, and we did our best so provide. Was it God who temporarily got in the way?
Regardless, we learned first-hand, not only that indiscriminate obstruction to terminate the death-sentence pregnancy would have been horrific, torture, but also that tens of thousands of families go through the same thing—and right now, here in Texas, God spare them!
You and I surely share a prayer, that not one single woman more must go through the Hell of a defective pregnancy or miscarriage.
I’m not one to intercede between any person and God. To do this is so clearly a sin, I can’t help but question the true motivations of all who so-dispassionately stand in the way. And as I say elsewhere in this whole set of comments, my ability to remain calmly courteous is now frayed.
It’s my wife, and could have been your wife, these people are talking about. I apologize again—to you and anyone else my expressions impose on:
To unequivocally oppose abortion for others, unless you practice Christian Science yourself, and abjure all medical science, is Wrong.
And, I should add, I’m not hard over that Christianity is the only way, it’s just that Jesus is the teacher that I have identified with the most in my life…
To me, it's like vegetarianism/veganism. You may not think eating meat or using animal products is morally justified. (For the record, I do both.) You may not think an animal has the same level of consciousness or moral value as a human or is lower on the Darwinist food chain, and that's fine, but pretty much no one denies that you're killing a living creature which does feel pain and probably would prefer to be alive. And let's be honest, no one (I hope, anyway) likes seeing videos or photographs of factory farms, killing floors, etc.
But yet plenty of us do eat animals. And we might or might not be squeamish about that.
The abortion question, for me, is fundamentally about pluralism. If we sit down to dinner and you choose not to order a cheeseburger, and I do, that's totally fine. If we want to have a polite discussion about why we choose to eat what we eat, that's cool too.
But for my fellow carnivores out there, would you find it acceptable if your dining companion started calling you a murderer, raising their voice, waving a picture of a butchered cow around? How would you feel if animal rights activists were camped out in front of a Burger King, screaming at you and calling you a murderer, insisting that they are nobly speaking on behalf of the poor animal that can't speak up for itself and is anyway way outmatched?
And for some people, certain animals are considered sacred. So eating them isn't just gross in their eyes, it's blasphemy. Does that give them the right to forbid you to eat a burger?
Now, if hypothetically PETA had a majority in Congress and decided to pass legislation to ban purchasing or consuming meat on a national basis, because of moral reasons or health reasons (no doctor, other than Dr. Feelgood, ever encouraged everyone to eat MORE red meat) or environmental ones (I'm told that less factory farms, which is where we get most our meat, pollute like crazy) how would you react?
If you don't think abortion is morally acceptable, then you can still think and act in a way that is in accordance with your beliefs in a pro-choice world. A pro-lifer isn't forced into doing anything, but in overturning Roe, they're supporting legally forcing other people NOT to do something which is morally acceptable to them ultimately because it just really bothers them a whole lot.
I don't think this logic applies to every topic, to be clear, but I think as far as abortion goes that's unfair and kind of outrageous.
And as far as state's rights are concerned, it has to be a national standard because otherwise legally you run into all sorts of problems. If an abortion is outlawed in the red state where I live, but I do it in a blue state, I find it hard to believe that anyone who is deeply opposed to abortions will leave it at that.
It reminds me a little of the controversies over things like the Fugitive Slave Law and the Missouri compromise, where the question was: what happens when the slave I legally have in my state (which is, I think it's safe to say, an objectively morally repugnant set of circumstances) escapes and makes it north? Are they therefore home free? Or are they still my property? Am I legally allowed to forcibly take them back? How far do my rights in my home state extend? This is the kind of thing that gets us into trouble.
If something's legal here then it must be legal over there, because if it's not then you've got serious lawsuits and legislation on your hands.
I also think it's worth mentioning that I don't think getting rid of all abortion rights is very popular nationally (which certainly isn't everything but is significant).
And since the Supreme Court is lopsided because of overt chicanery (Merrick Garland didn't get a hearing because it was "during an election year" while A.C. Barrett was shuffled into a lifetime position less than a month before the election) the idea of chucking Roe and whatever else might be down the line, and basically saying Nayna Nayna Boo Boo about it, really is over-the-top.
I honestly don't mean to attack anyone, but for these reasons I do think that outrage over this news really is quite justified.
I find the notion of "throwing it back to the states' elected officials" to be troubling. Gerrymandering (I live in NC - we have had some pretty funky districts!) and crazy primaries often lead to minoritarian rule. Many state legislatures are overwhelmingly white, male, and of a certain socio-economic class. I'm not sure why these district-rigged elected officials would be the proper authorities to force a pregnancy to term with no medical knowledge or personal understanding of the situation at hand. I guess they just have it on faith that an egg that has been breached by a spermatozoa is a "life" in exactly the same sense as themselves. God help the woman who has a miscarriage in the days ahead. I do hope we don't criminalize tragic situations.
Wouldn't citizenship status grant full autonomy to the woman carrying the life inside of her? Maybe the courts should grant primacy of privacy to the person already with the birth certificate in hand to make decisions.
I understand the concept that abortion = murder, but cannot find a way for that potential crime to supersede the preferences of the person compelled to carry that pre-murdered entity to term. The compelled carrying—by one person, of another—crosses a clear line for me. One Example: To make a miscarriage potentially a capital felony seals the deal. I have yet to see any way for the most-ardent anti-abortion arguer to make their way around that. In other words, regardless of how I (a male) think about pre-viable pregnancy terminations, I share your view: it is the ultimate line–the right to one’s life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, that no democratic government like ours can cross.
Much of the discussion around abortion has been hijacked, or at least confused, by couching it in the high-sounding terms of “a woman’s right to choose.” For the record, I want to officially announce that I am three-fourths pro-choice! But hear me out. A woman has complete freedom to choose whether or not she associates with a man. A woman has complete freedom to choose whether or not she becomes intimate with a man. And a woman has complete freedom to choose whether she employs some means of contraception while she is being intimate with a man. To all this I say yes, amen, absolutely - in all of these situations choose! Choose wisely, choose freely, choose consistently, and choose in a timely way! However, if a woman has not chosen thusly, if she has passed on her three opportunities to choose, then it is totally hypocritical to start talking about her “right to choose” after the fact - when a child has already been conceived. (In truth, both the woman and the man have equal choice and responsibility when bringing a child into the world. But since it is the woman who is championed on the placards, I have stuck with that wording.)
Full disclosure, I lean pro-life bc I believe we are all made in the image of God from the get-go. And I hope (but am skeptical) for a day when abortion isn’t even an issue. I know many on the pro-life side who give large amounts of time & money to helping women who do not wish to have an abortion. But also, many are correct that when it comes to policy, they don’t vote towards expanding the social network. I am of the belief that Roe is unconstitutional, but also worry that if it is given to the states in this climate, the result will be “political drama” creating extreme laws. I’m not confident that compromise and understanding can occur today. Not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but Freakanomics had a chapter on the reduction of crime coinciding with the legalization of abortion.
For my part there are two important and diverse aspects to the abortion issue. First, what is morally right? And secondly, what, if anything, does the Constitution say about this issue?
As to the first question, I personally believe that a child developing in the womb is a human being - at whatever stage of development it may be. It follows then, that to end a pregnancy is to take a human life. I cannot possibly see this issue in no other way. So I will personally practice accordingly and do my best to encourage others to do the same.
As to the second question, I do not believe that the Constitution, or the amendments thereto, speak to this issue in any way. This issue was never near the minds of the Founding Fathers, or those who later amended the document; and they did not in any way address it. Therefore, it stands as one of many things that are reserved to the States to decide. (See the Tenth Amendment.) This is why some states have "prolife" laws and some states have "prochoice" laws. Part of the present uproar is that people have been told there is a constitutional right to abortion that, in truth, is not in the constitution. Read the underlying clauses for yourself.
At the same time, with an issue as important as this, it would be good to have a consistent national policy - rather than a patchwork quilt. A policy that was codified by a deliberate focus and a thorough debate on this specific issue - not one that rides on the coattails of an activist judicial interpretation of, at best, very ambiguous wording.
There are two ways in which this can be done. Congress could pass a law making abortion legal - or else forbidding abortion. The president signs this law, whichever way it reads, and this then becomes the law of the land. The second approach would be a constitutional amendment - either making abortion legal or forbidding abortion. When duly ratified by the states, whichever way the amendment reads, this then would become the clear law of the land.
That would solve the legal issue of abortion, but it would not really address the underlying moral issue. That requires a clear moral decree - a revelation if you will - that transcends the American political process or the opinion of fifty million Frenchmen. So whether this issue is ultimately resolved by SCOTUS, by legislation or by amendment, I shall continue to think, vote and practice "prolife" and encourage others to do the same.
Thank you for such a clear descrption of the framework you use for considering the whole question. I find it very constructive.
You highlight how laws themselves cannot resolve a moral issue.
This is so true.
We will have to resolve the moral issue among ourselves
Pro life and pro choice citizens will need to find some common moral ground.
I can see this happening in two areas: prevention and support.
Joint efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and joint efforts to provide support and security to pregnant women so they are able to have their babies.
I believe by working together on this issue we can not only prevent a great many abortions, we can begin to heal the serious divide in our country.
At the risk of rebeating a beaten and stoned mangled subject, I offer this to those who are not persuaded that Roe v Wade is bad law. https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/7/10/17553832/roe-v-wade-myths-kavanaugh-abortion-supreme-court. This piece was written by Scott Lemieux, a Professor of Political Science at University of Washington and a blogger at Lawyers, Guns and Money. I found this bit helpful in understanding the legal precedent surrounding Roe v Wade.
Great article and great comments. In reading through them, unless I missed it, I haven't seen adoption mentioned as an option for a woman who doesn't want to abort her baby but also doesn't feel she can take on the--really--lifelong job of being a parent. I thank both of the birth mothers of my two adopted children for deciding to give birth to them. (One of these women I met when my son was 45 and was able to thank her in person; she told me how grateful she was to me for the love I gave our son. The birth mother of my daughter I haven't met, so I thank her in my prayers.)
On the questions--I am a follower of Christ and it makes sense to me that if we really loved our neighbor as ourselves, we would create a place to live where all parents and their children would be cared for, where there was true acceptance of adoption as a loving option for pregnant women, and not looked on as a shameful abandonment, where there was adequate sex education and access to birth control so there would be way fewer unplanned pregnancies, and where no pregnant woman and the father of her baby had to face the dread of knowing they did not have the means to care for their child.
Yes, I believe that what is inside the mother's womb is a human being and should not have his or her life taken away, but I also have enormous compassion for the women who become pregnant in this screwed up place we live, knowing that they are on their own to raise this child unless they are lucky enough to have loving families to help. I absolutely understand why some of them just can't imagine any way they could keep and raise their baby and cry for them.
More. I just read the link you sent. Should have done that first. Apologies. As I see it she simply thinks it could have been better done. OK, fair enough. She did not like having to use right to privacy as the basis for Roe thinking this neglected the real issue of a womans right to choose. Well, she is certainly right there. Still, Roe as constructed has worked perfectly well until we got a conservative court. What makes anyone think that the court as constructed would not strike down a right to abortion as uncondtitutional given its present leanings? There is no such thing as settled law.
No worries. Though I wasn't actually talking about the GInsberg link I sent, but rather, the link I had in the original piece, naming and claiming several lib critics: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/in-criticizing-roe-sessions-aligns-with-most-legal-scholars. Including Mike Kinsley, a lib I haven't always agreed with, but who I respect quite a bit, as he's an honest man who was never afraid to buck his own side when called for. He wrote: 'Liberal judicial activism peaked with Roe v. Wade, the 1973 abortion decision….
Although I am pro-choice, I was taught in law school, and still believe, that Roe v. Wade is a muddle of bad reasoning and an authentic example of judicial overreaching. I also believe it was a political disaster for liberals. Roe is what first politicized religious conservatives while cutting off a political process that was legalizing abortion state by state anyway."
If you're against the state-by-state legislative process on this issue, and think abortion is merely a "right" that should be nationalized, okay, fine. But when the court goes the other way, and essentially nullifies it nationally, well.........live by the sword, die by the sword. Although it is now going to become a state-by-state battle. And Kinsley is probably right that the momentum was on the libs' side back then. Who knows if it will be now? But there are plenty of libs who just don't think the court had the right to dictate it in the first place. And if, for the sake of argument, we agreed that it was iffy law, it was not only iffy law, but iffy law that enabled and even helped force-multiply a robust pro-life movement, giving it a very clear focal point to rally around. Which is why we now have at least five, and possibly six justices who will now go to the mattresses against it.
Then why are conservatives now clamoring for a National bill banning it?
I also thought conservatives weren’t supposed to upset 50 years of precedent and multiple rulings? I thought that was judicial
Activism?
I’m confused as to what conservatives are supposed to believe these days.
(Honestly Alito gave up the charade when he said it was terrible law, there no right to privacy, Roe needed to be excised….and said those same arguments were ok for other things (gay marriage, etc))
Being part of this string I think Matt is on top of this pretty much. I would like to throw out the issue of the status of married women at the time most of Alitos history of a right to Abortion discussion occurs in his draft opinion. During this entire time of men pontificating about abortion being murder or some other form of mayhem, Blackstone had this to say about married women, "By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in the law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing." This was the status of women during this formative period. Does this damning inequality have a place in this discussion? Well certainly. When have women become empowered enough to speak to question of their rights as women. Men have been blathering on and on about for 250 years as though women did not exist.
Hey Scott, don't know how long you've been reading this site, but if you expect a spirited defense from me about the remarkable consistency of conservatives, you've come to the wrong place. I've written about their hypocrisy with some regularity. I was merely pointing out that it's perfectly fair to call it iffy law, since all kinds of pro-choice liberals have, too, as quoted in the links I've provided. I would agree with you that if they keep saying "return it to the states," then immediately turn around and pass a national law banning it......well, that would be a bit of a hypocrisy problem. One that I'm sure plenty of them would have no trouble getting over, the same way they seem to be just fine about DeSantis punishing Disney when conservatives are supposed to abhor the government punishing private companies for political insubordination. Though some might argue that even with a national law, the people have a more direct legislative say in abortion laws than they do through the more distant remove of a Supreme Court decision. (As of now, of course, such a law would never pass since Republicans don't have the numbers. Which is why plenty of us think this serves as pretty strong get-out-the-vote bait for Democrats for midterms, when they had almost nothing to rally around before, other than not wanting to see a Trump cult retake the majority in advance of 2024.) However, we should all be grateful that precedent is occasionally revisited. These rulings aren't all handed down on stone tablets from God. If they weren't revisited now and then, Plessy v. Ferguson would still be a going concern. And it was only overturned by Brown v. Board, after standing for nearly 60 years. There's a long list of similar decisions that you (and plenty of conservatives) were probably glad were revisited. https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/a-short-list-of-overturned-supreme-court-landmark-decisions
That's your characterization, not mine. But let's do away with legal niceties for a moment, and make it more intellectually honest, as you like to call it. Am I going to boo-hoo if a legally suspect justification (Roe) that essentially enshrined the extinguishing of innocent children under false constitutional pretenses might be given the sword for being the crap decision that it was? No. Not especially. And not solely because it was crappily reasoned. (As many pro-choice scholars have pointed out, not just Alito's draft opinion.) But also because of what it lead to. I.E., the snuffing out of 63 million or so children. I know it's inconvenient to be reminded of them in an abortion debate, as long as we're talking intellectual honesty - the same way it's somehow considered bad form to introduce sonograms or pictures of what the carcasses look like post-abortion. But......seems fair game to me. The same way I think it's fair game to grill anti-abortion lawmakers on how they plan to strengthen the social safety net if abortions get banned. Since we ought to face what we're talking about square in the eye on all sides. You should be able to look at what you espouse. I could send you some photos from Randall's most recent abortion-clinic/remains caper in DC that would curl your hair, if you had the stomach to look at them. Holes punched in the back of the head. One eye open, etc. (They've been published. Photos available upon request.) As long as we're talking about hiding behind badly-dressed legal arguments............But if you want to further explore hypocrisy and/or get back to legal niceties, I highly suggest reading yesterday's piece from the Washington Post's legal columnist, Jason Willick, who makes a pretty strong case that overturning Roe (which remember, doesn't ban abortions - it just doesn't maintain the federal protection for them) actually makes America more democratic, not less. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/06/overturn-roe-v-wade-states-decide/ Excerpt:
"But if the court does in fact have a “structural” bias in favor of the GOP, that’s all the more reason for policy to be decided at the state level as a matter of democratic fairness. State legislative districts have strictly equal population sizes (unlike the states represented in the U.S. Senate), and there’s no electoral college in gubernatorial races. If Roe falls, alleged democratic shortcomings in the Supreme Court confirmation process are irrelevant; authority over abortion policy would lie primarily with state officials, who are more responsive to political majorities than justices appointed by presidents of either party."
This is funny. Kinsley suffers from Parkinsons. He underwent deep brain stimulation to try and improve the matter. When he came out of anesthesia he remarked, " when you lower taxes of course government income goes up. Why couldn't I see that before?"
Well written. Early people have thought a great deal about this - and cleary. In the end, here we are with the Alito opinion as many had predicted. Though I still maintain had the thing been decided differently, say on the issue of a womans right to govern the "affairs" of her own body, we would be fixing to undo that opinion also. I doubt that cleaner law would have saved it.
Not bad news at all. Where do you get this? I admire her but like the opinions of other senior justices better. Read some of the stuff that does not agree with you. If it were not for the notion of the umbrella extending Constitutional notions, the Code of Federal Regulations would the size of a comic book - not the length of a football field in fine print. How does the Supreme Court legislate air travel and other technologies not extant at the time of the Constitutions creation - like machine guns and lasers and. . . Yeah, the same way they did Roe v Wade. So, rest in peace RBG, knowing I disagree with you on the validity of Roe v Wade.
That's fair, actually. But there was plenty of lib pushback on the validity of Roe. I linked to some of it. I could find a lot more if I was so inclined. But you have Google, too.
And yes. Which is why we find ourselves in this endlessly foul discussion about abortion. The only worse outcome would be allowing each state to go its own way, futhering the butchering of the carcas of an already fully filleted America.
I said I was recusing myself from further discussion of this. I lied. I can now be seriously considered for a position on the Bench at the Supreme Court. I failed to note how sophomoric I found Labashes depiction of the actual law, Roe v Wade. This law was passed under the notion of the penumbra of rulings made by the court that rationally extend a clearly stated constitutional foundation. Roe v Wade is not the only piece of legislation so passed. Conservatives think the laws passed that favor them under such extensions are just fine. It might be noted that the word God does not appear in the Constitution either but is plenty abundant in arguments before the Court on various subjects. Dog turdery indeed.
I realize I am late to this thread. I want to state up front I am not overly sympathetic to the pro-choice side though I generally fall in the center to left on the political spectrum. My main concern with Roe being overturned is the downstream consequences for rights decided in a similar legal vein. All of that being said I don’t know how pro-life people can be so aligned with the Republican Party. They describe poor people as “takers” and continually cut programs meant to help them. How can anyone be pro-life and not be for a robust social insurance safety net? In a way a progressive pro-life activist actually makes the most sense. I for one am willing to pay more taxes to fund these programs. Many don’t realize that the overturn of Roe will have immediate consequences for real people in need as we all (including myself) clack away on our opinions on the internet. The supposedly pro-life side has for years cut programs and stymied others at all levels and has done nothing to prepare for this moment. I say it again the word many on the right use for poor people in need is “takers” where is the compassion in that? Lest anyone think I’m a socialist I might add I’m open to any and all programs administered either federally or through the cherished federalism or public/private partnerships at the local level. I am not even religious but I want people to be taken care of and to have the opportunity for a good life, the pro-life crowd should want the same. At first I naively though this could lead to a realignment of formerly pro life people fighting for programs to help people as their main objective was achieved. Now I know it will just lead to state and federal legislative battles and no progress. People can’t see past their ideology anymore, they are just too selfish.
Republicans give more to charitable causes than Democrats. We don’t oppose safety nets, we just want them cast more narrowly because we believe humans flourish more when they are self sufficient.
I appreciate that. I do have a question for you. I am not passing judgement but for many decades (perhaps longer, I am mostly going off of my lifetime) people have been raised to be selfish. Abortion, is a selfish act, again not passing judgement, right or wrong it is just a fact that getting an abortion is about the person who is pregnant and no one else really. So why then, in a society taught it be individualistic and selfish, is abortion such a hot button issue? And sense it is, why can’t we then be less selfish in other areas of society if we now are going to be less selfish in this one? Instead it’s about what you can get for yourself in all other areas, it’s about tax cuts and having the government leave you alone and making money and being “successful” come hell or high water. I just have a hard time squaring the circles created by the current political system.
You really think the government is more responsible with our tax dollars than we are? How about you let me keep more of my tax dollars so I can choose where I donate them? You have a cynical view of people. I don’t think we are selfish, I derive great joy in my life by helping others…Big Sister, Meals on Wheels, befriending lonely old people, etc.
I give too and not just money but also time, and please note I didn’t say explicitly government I just said that is an option and it is only taken off the table by ideology. Also, a government that was truly accountable to the people would be responsible with our tax dollars but that requires ending gerrymandering and closed primaries for starters. The years of small government crusading haven’t led to smaller government I might add, it has just led to increased cynicism about it and corruption and lack of accountability within in it. And yeah I am cynical sorry for having come of age in the last decade watching all of the adults fail.
Thank you, I am genuinely asking from a place of good faith. I am 100% behind the idea of a more compassionate society, it’s been difficult to become an adult in the past decade, I know we have always had differences in our country and there have been contentious periods before but we always made it back before and it is becoming harder to see that as an outcome now, at least with our current political parties and all their respective baggage and animosities.
I agree and perhaps I am a bit too cynical. It is just hard when you see people try to maintain power over solving problems. Giving in to partisanship even at the citizen to citizen level. I take your points though and I think the thrust of your argument is right. It is frustrating when talking about the welfare of the people is now taken to mean progressivism or some type of socialism. Those words are literally in the preamble of our constitution and are in the constitutions of many states and carved into statehouses and government buildings all over the country. This combined with the egalitarian nature of the Declaration of Independence should be enough to make people realize that America is about the pursuit of happiness yes, but individual happiness, though important, does not supersede all else at all times. I get that the founding was not perfect either but the seed for a better society is there. Lately I’ve made the four freedoms of FDR my North Star: Freedom from want, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, and Freedom from Fear. If everyone would strive for those things for themselves and others than society would automatically improve. I think we pigeon hole ourselves too much with ideologies based on decadent political parties that are invested in keeping us divided for their own power. I have rambled a lot, to sum it up I am looking for aspirational leadership instead of the current grievance based system we have.
Randall makes some good points. I reckon, as a lukewarm moderate pro-Lifer (I’d settle for a ban after the first trimester as a political compromise), I’ve been stunned over the last few years to see how many of my more rabid friends were merely performatively pro-Life. I’ve come to the conclusion that the loudness of one’s pro-Life professions are inversely proportional to the amount of effort one would exert to actually care for a baby involved in a crisis pregnancy. In the spirit of disclosure, I’m a bad Catholic who’s just become the dad of a beautiful baby boy via IVF, after sixteen years and eight miscarriages, the last of which almost killed my wife. A lot of the laws passed in “pro-Life” states would have made the implements that saved my wife’s life illegal. And yes, we made probably a dozen non-viable souls during the IVF process. I’ve learned more about fetal development, gynecology, and obstetrics over the last fifteen years than I ever expected. My prior experience consisted of a health class at Episcopalian school where our golf coach simply asked, “Do you know how to put on a rubber, boys?” We all said yes, and for the remainder of the course we did homework for our other classes. I’ve fallen way short of where my Catholic ideals say I should be, but I have also learned a lot, realized that most pro-Lifers are grandstanding do-nothings, experienced some really weird preternatural things that aren’t explained by SCIENCE or Holy Mother Church, and now have a beautiful seven-week-old son. So maybe I’m just too emotional right now and shouldn’t have opened my mouth. I have a Pyrenees giving me the stink-eye, saying I’m three hours late on our daily Barking Time. See y’all on the flip-side.
With the acceptance of single motherhood and abortion, there are way more couples seeking babies than babies being put up for adoption. It doesn’t really need encouragement. That’s why there are major crises in adoption whenever a country like Russia or China cut off adoptions for Americans. I could go on about how our adoption system is broken, but needless to say, our friends who have gone the adoption route have either adopted from a family member or family friend, or suffered horrors dealing with a malfunctioning adoption process. It’s a complicated issue. But the demand far exceeds the supply in today’s environment.
Great article! Lots of difference between being pro-life vs. anti abortion. I especially liked, “ …who say they want to make abortion illegal, but who often give short shrift to what it will actually mean for a society in which all those unwanted children might be born. “ To me, thinking about that is the key to moving forward on this issue. Thanks for your thoughtful piece!
I do get that aspect, and I would include adoption support as part of a thoughtful response to the issue. I have friends who have gone through the pain and frustration of trying (and some succeeding) to adopt, so have a little understanding of what it’s like.
God is able to end a pregnancy - we don't have to aid Him! Every conception is ordained of God since He is the giver of life. He has a purpose for every life, even in the earliest embryo stage. That being said, your questions were very convicting, Matt.
who are the broad "they" that would have had Hitchens "killed" (aka cancelled? - and I assume you mean more or less today or at least in the last 11 years) for talk like that? More than he was already "killed" during his lifetime, I mean, for heresies like being unapologetically in favor of the Great Iraq eff up as well as his sort of Nat Hentoff anti-abortion from the left posture, although Hentoff was rather more a left-libertarian seamless garment type than Hitchens as far as abortion goes, or at least so I remember).
Quoting Hitchens from the interview
"Nobody on the left can avoid noticing that the so-called ‘pro-life’ forces are overwhelmingly female and from income groups that traditionally voted Democratic. "
I would have been fairly far left by US standards in 1988 (I was 30 then, and ex-Christian since late teenage years) on most sexual morality issues and seamless garment of life things like euthanasia (I was hardass right on economics and social mobility and Stoic personal responsibility - kind an atheist Kevin Williamson way ahead of my time, so the 1988 model sui generis Trotskyite Hitchens would not have considered me "left" at all - I've mellowed a lot on the hardass stuff since and become an anti-woke liberal technocratic dissident a la Scott Alexander) .
and I found it quite easy at the time to not notice what Hitchens describes in the US (things indeed different in the UK at the time, but Hitchens is presumably talking about the US since he says "Democratic" rather than "Labour"). Looking back, I still don't see what Hitchens is talking about when he describes US "pro-life forces" that were (in 1988 and in previous years as "overwhelmingly female", unless he was limiting "forces" to a population count at anti-abortion rallies and the like. I went back and looked at the old Gallup polling back to 1975 and it's hard to even see much trend in the difference (they only started asking "pro-choice" vs "pro-life" ID question in 1995). n.b. I have no doubt that given the total data available in 1988, you could - and perhaps Hitchens did - come up with some definition of "forces" and "overwhelmingly" that would make his statement at least defensible. But without non-cherry-picked examples of each in other domains, I'd call it rhetoric for rhetoric's sake rather than argument.
(my GF/POSSLQ in 1988 was a secular right Republican - she'd been an intern in GHWB's VP office, worked on the 1984 GE campaign, and her mother was a moderate level Republican macher - mom knew GHWB personally though not well, etc., so I was reasonably familiar with the hot issues of the Republican party at the time - in particular abortion - were playing out just behind the MSM of the day)
Then again, while I love Hitchens for his uncomprising contrarianess, I would consider his statement that "X is true as a factual claim", for any "X", to be weak evidence against "X", and I would certainly independently test "X" rather than do anything based on his bare assertion.
Absolutely - in the last decade since his death. As a man of the left, he pissed off plenty of lefties in his time - his support for the Iraq War for instance. (Which more of them supported at the time than now like to admit - which I remember keenly since I wasn't so hot on it myself.) But if Hitchens, who was a friend of mine, pulled half the stuff he used to now, in the cancel-culture era, it would've been tough sledding for him. I have a hard time seeing him even being a regular columnist for Vanity Fair or Slate, both of whom he wrote for for many years, in the new climate. God help us if he would've been relegated to Newsmax, or something. But I don't discount the possibility that he'd probably be running the world's most successful Substack, because a lot of his former editor friends just wouldn't have had the balls to publish the dissents he was so fond of writing. He once wrote an entire piece for Vanity Fair on how women weren't as funny as men. It was an entertainment - a deliberate provocation. But if he did that with today's Vanity Fair, there'd be mass staff resignations, if they didn't outright burn him at the stake, first. Much as New York mag did to Andrew Sullivan. Everybody's lost their sense of humor. It's awful. And Hitch never did, which is why I liked him so much. And even when I thought he was wrong, which I did plenty, I always thought he came by his wrongness honestly. Which is more than I can say for most people.
Oh, if it wasn't clear, I admire(d) Hitchens very much (anyone who was willing to criticize Mother Teresa gets props for cojones), though I didn't know him personally as you did. And the world is a worse place for him being gone from it, and the fact that there is no room in the ecosystem anymore (I'm trying to think of who the best right leaning equivalent to Hitchens is and coming up a bit blank - Kevin Williamson perhaps? - not enough of a provocateur)
I recall Hitchens as being more cancelled toward the end of his lifetime than you do, but I'll defer to you on that. Quickly checking his bibliography, I see that Atlantic posthumously published his Vanity Fair essays about his cancer. I think I was thinking more of relative cancellation versus absolute - how many standard deviations out of cancellation was he versus the median?
I also recall, maybe incorrectly, that Hentoff was not cancelled on the left in the same way after leaving the Voice for Cato and the WSJ, so perhaps there is another variable in there in addition to abortion. Hentoff's sincerity and general aversion to bomb-throwing might have played a role.
And I agree all too much about how more than half of the left and almost all of the right (a few paleocons excepted) were nice and gung for Iraq II, and almost all of those who are still either in office or still punditing have managed to memory hole the whole thing without ever looking at how/why they were wrong. I don't forget though.
I agree that he'd very likely be running his own Substack - watching him and Sullivan go at it would in duelling Substacks would be entertaining at least, and possibly enlightening as well.
Where I think we (you and I) differ is what the epistemological standard is for coming by one's wrongness honestly in assertions of fact.
In that particular case the gender distribution of prolifeness in the US in and shortly before 1988, I think he failed the standard for due diligence and badly. I have no idea if anyone ever questioned him on it (his brother was unlikely to do so in that interview at that time): I did some quick searching and found nothing.
To be honest, I don't know. I don't have access to the pro-life 1988 gender breakdown data. Though I don't doubt it exists. (What doesn't exist?) But I think you might be losing the forest for the tree. The more important point was he wasn't afraid to buck what was then his own tribe, which you don't see much anymore, because even if he didn't believe in God, and therefore had no religious convictions on the matter, he kind of believed that abortion was killing babies, even it's not then, or now, fashionable to say so.
When I read this thread (thanks Matt), it is hard to understand why everyone isn’t pro-choice. I don’t know anyone pro-abortion. If you deeply believe a human begins at conception , you would never choose abortion even if unmarried, poor, unable to care for the kids you already have, have an abusive spouse, or were raped. None of those would circumstances would matter. You would choose to be happy and grateful you have another life to raise and nurture. The perfect choice for you. However, imagine if the government was telling you, you must abort. Can you imagine how outrageous, preposterous that would be? And yet that’s where we land….the government telling a woman she must carry a child to term. Forced motherhood. In the land of freedom. Returning this to the “people” is the answer? That’s like you asking 15 strangers to tell you who you must marry, even if you don’t want to marry; that you must have 4 kids, even if you don’t want kids. Something we would never, ever think of doing. Every unplanned pregnancy is unique and the choice as to what to do is always complicated and difficult. And not every planned and wanted pregnancy goes the way we dream. There are miscarriages, fetuses die in vitro, severe life ending conditions are now routinely diagnosed, women still die in childbirth. All of these situations are heartbreaking and a challenge. I, for one, do not want anyone else, not invited, weighing in on these most personal decisions. I absolutely don’t understand how pro-choice is not the sane, middle ground where consensus lies.
But-but-but: It’s clear (as you likely, intentionally know) that God doesn’t see each “human egg” this way. Nor the counterparts to each “human egg.” If we are to outlaw abortion, we might also outlaw masturbation and nocturnal emissions. This might at least be a bit more-fair, concerning our God-given genders. (I posit this reply to show how selective we full-grown “human eggs” can be in our individual determinations of God’s views on the subject.)
That's the same argument many non-slave-owning southerners used for slavery. Good thing someone was willing to stand up for the defenseless and force their beliefs on others. (All laws force someone's beliefs onto others).
After reading all the comments, it seems that the answers to your questions to the pro-life side have become self-evident.
Since NO ONE has said, "Yes, I would adopt a child," "Yes, I would pay to support the mother" we can see that the clear answer is No. (Interestingly, the pro-choice side HAS answered your questions; the pro-life has not...just re-affirmed their pro-life reasoning.)
But really, you didn't even need to ask the question. We (America) have run the experiment. The results? Over the last 50 years, the GOP has derided "welfare-queens" who "just have babies to collect a welfare check." Or watched the GOP cut WIC and food stamp programs. Just last year the GOP killed the child tax provision that was providing thousands of dollars a year to families.
Sure...The pro-lifers are suddenly going to change.
No, this has always been about control. Being able to dictate one's beliefs on "the others."
As a life-long Republican (up until Trump), I thought people were honest about their beliefs about abortion, gay marriage, etc. But recent events have shown they weren't.
It's been all rank hypocrisy for the GOP. The abortion issue is no different.
Example: Roe v Wade should be overturned and the states allowed to decide. What happened the moment it leaked that RvW was going to be overturned? Yep...calls for a national law banning abortion. What happened to states deciding it?
You make a lot of angry accusations against pro life supporters with sketchy evidence at best. You might want to calm down and consider the possibility that some Americans sincerely believe in the sanctity of all human life and are compassionate toward women who face the difficult choices that an unwanted pregnancy bring. We exist, trust me.
I'll answer the questions in two parts - Pro-choice and pro-life.
For the pro-choice questions, to me, life begins when one takes its first breath. So, does that mean I think abortions should be legal right up to that moment? No. I would put the line at "capable" of taking it's first breath (and surviving). That usually falls around 24 weeks. The current "compromise" of 20 weeks seems a decent compromise.
But the counter claim that says "at inception" leads to no compromise whatsoever. Why rape and incest allowed? Isn't that still "murder?"
What about ectopic pregnancies (where the embryo embeds in tissue outside the uterus (usually a falopian tube? Untreated - meaning removing it (aka, an "abortion") - will almost certainly lead to the death of the mother. Not "possibly," not "maybe"...like 90% likely. That's ok?
Or is the removal OK, because it's in the fallopian tube, but not OK in the uterus?
The pro-life position can ONLY BE (without being intellectually dishonest) that it should be left untreated and the mother...well good luck to her.
As a solidly pro-choice person who deeply respects the other side and is in no way an expert on the issue (and who believes that 90 percent of America could agree on 90 percent of the practical aspects of the issue and save many lives without having political fights), I had one main reaction to this latest chapter: I don't see what constructive purpose was served by this leak of a draft opinion. For either side. Even though, as a working journalist like Jack Schafer, I usually reflexively argue that everything should be leaked and public all the time.
This will reveal more about me than I usually wish to have revealed. First, I am diligently not religious. Having been duly tutored in Catholicism for 17 years, it did not take. Second, I am pro choice. I do not have these scientific nightmares about life or not life. Living, developing tissue - yes - life as Elton John - no. I can whittle this much finer of course, but there is a point, well enough defined by science and just bare reason, beyond which a woman must have a stern moral discussion with herself and her doctor or whomever she trusts to be rational, before abortion. This discussion must not be had in the Supreme Court of this country. Am I interested in Amy Coney Barret and her fundamentalist blathering in tounges bunch deciding this issue? Or perhaps Mrs. Justice Thomas? Or maybe, 'Its settled law Kavanaugh'? We are the very same ilk discussing this in this forum at this moment. I hereby recuse myself and hope I set an example for the US Supreme Court.
As a pro-lifer, Terry’s comments are convicting. I wish I could say more, but I would only be fooling myself.
As to the question of the beginning of life/viability of the fetus- I worked with a faith-based anti abortion group that took a non-confrontational approach with the expectant mothers. We started using a counseling model, but were later able to offer sonograms, and the number of women who initially planned to abort but then carried to term increased drastically. The mother knew instinctively she was carrying a child when she saw the image, regardless of what the courts or politicians might say about viability.
Last, I recall Bill Clinton coining the term ‘Safe, legal, and rare’ to describe his, and presumably his party’s, stance on abortion. It sounded like a somewhat moderate idea. Sadly, what was sold as moderation was in reality a coercive system that allowed clinics to use a protected status to avoid basic health safety requirements, and caused nurses to be fired for trying to offer a few minutes of basic compassion for infants who managed to survive late term abortions. I hear the examples put forth about rape, incest, mother’s health, and so on, and while those are
legitimate reasons to have these discussions, I think those are too often used as a smoke screen to hide the darker reality of unrestricted abortion on demand.
NOTHING MATTERS at the end of the day except what the woman decides. Every damn one of us is a fool at some level if we are honest about our selves. Should she take the man’s thoughts and beliefs in consideration, yes. But it’s her body and that man might disappear a few weeks from now for one reason or another.
Stephen- I agree that if men would fulfill their obligations, abortions could be reduced, maybe significantly. Where you and I would probably have to agree to disagree is my contention that there is a third party in this equation who has to depend on the woman or man (preferably both) having some sense of fiduciary responsibility. I may not entirely agree with it, but a rational case can be made that the man's rights are subordinate to those of the woman. In that same vein, though, the rights of the unborn child should be given consideration. Exactly when the unborn acquire those rights has been thoroughly hashed out up and down in the comments, and likely with no minds changed in the process. Back to the agree to disagree thing...
I don’t understand the fight against requiring a sonogram. I guess it is an intrusive procedure early on but I view it as being a part of informed consent. The reality of what you are doing must be shown. That reality often hits women when they DO want to take to pregnancy to term and then the regret can be crushing for years.
Not a subject I usually discuss with anyone other than my wife. But...you threw down the gauntlet, and I'm in a rather testy mood about a lot of things tonight after a full day of SUCK at work. So, I'm gonna' pick it up and throw down myself. With due respect and affection for all, and animus toward none. Except, perhaps, for those whose concern for lives other than their own ends at their front doorstep and in the delivery room with babies born into desperate circumstances pulling themselves up by the straps of their own baby booties. If they're lucky enough to have any. Not too fond of the simply pro-birth crowd, whatever their political tribe, religious leanings or lack thereof.
Like so many people, I have mixed feelings about this issue. I acknowledge the argument of " If it's not life, what is it?" cannot be dismissed out of hand, or at this time really be answered by anything other than one's own conscience. Sorry, Science, I fear your distinctions between zygotes, feti and human beings are a bit inadequate to resolve this issue, and likely will be for...ever? Or at least until the scientists laboring up one side of the Mountain of Truth run headlong into the theologians and philosophers clambering up the other side as they all scramble over the final crest, only to find themselves standing face to face in the same place. Then, perhaps, we'll have an answer satisfying to all. But until then...
I have only this to add to the discussion, since all I have to say about what I believe has been said by others over and over all over the place ad infinitum. But I don't hear this position too often, and the more I think about it, the more merit I see in it. Will probably catch flak for it. Don't care. Testiness has been duly noted.
I think it might be a good idea if all the men - and I mean ALL THE MEN - who feel compelled to be the arbiters of right and wrong on this issue shut up and let the women who have the biggest stake in it and the more valid claim to the right to sort it out...sort it out.
Sorry, boys, but our share in the procreation process from 0 to 9 months doesn't amount to much, regardless of circumstance or intent, at least not enough that I don't see male dominated decision-making institutions as stacked decks on this one. I don't think there's anything more uniquely 'female' than gestation and birth. And while I know nothing of what this is like in any meaningful way beyond trying to be a supportive husband as each of my daughters were created and brought into this world by their mother, I'm pretty sure I'd resent the bloody hell out of any man not just telling me, but deciding for me what I should or shouldn't do in this regard if I were a woman, rich or poor or of whatever circumstance, contemplating an unintended pregnancy.
Of course, there is another answer. We could actually make an effort to be a life affirming society and country with values deeper than having the largest thin screen TV on the wall or the latest go-faster laptop in our laps. Or the smartest phone or latest whatever-it-is. We could put some serious money and serious effort into creating a society in which life - all life - is a slightly higher priority than anyone's bottom line, one in which fewer and fewer women would see abortion as their only or best alternative. It would cost us all something. Nothing such as this is free. But if we were to pick up that gauntlet and run with it, the benefit to all would be incalculable, one such benefit being that perhaps abortion would become so rare that when one day someone asks Do we really have to talk about abortion?, the answer will be no. No, we don't.
But don't dash off any emails or messages to politicians demanding that they pursue this agenda. Because the only way this ever happens is if we demand it of ourselves first.
I don’t buy the “no man should have any say” position. If men are the losers who aren’t going to step up and support the child, then it would stand to reason they’d all be pro choice, no?
Sorry, BC, I'm not following too well here. You don't agree with me, and that's fine. But I'm not quite making the connection between your 1st sentence and the second about deadbeat dads, which I assume is the explanation as to why you don't agree. Guess I'm just a little dense, but I'd like to understand what you're saying, so if you have a minute and wouldn't mind, maybe you could elaborate a bit. Not looking for an argument of a fight. Asking in good faith.
A common pro choice argument: If women are forced to have children, then society better step up to the plate to ensure the child doesn’t live in poverty. That assumes men aren’t going to support the child so if that’s the case, men would tend to be pro choice so why wouldn’t women WANT men to have a say? They’re more likely to be on their side, no?
OK. I follow you now. Sorry about the confusion. What you say makes some sense from the perspective of one side gaining more support. I was looking at it from the standpoint of if ever there was a "women's issue", this is one that has to be near or at the top of the list for the majority of them, and I felt it made more sense for them to sort it out and resolve it, since they would be affected more than anyone else. Wasn't really advocating for one side or the other in that regard.
These are good thoughts... and I'm even going to be good and pocket my challenge to the Mountain of Truth claim there. Put in a pin in that for another day.
I always hesitate to bring it up because so few modern pro-lifers fit this mold, but there remain a small number of what one might call "wicked church lady" types, you know the ones. Victorian caricatures who are motivated to be oppose abortion primarily by schaudenfraude and the desire to take vengeance on anyone who has offended their long outdated sensitivities. People who want to tear down and destroy "sinners" rather than treat them with grace and mercy. Against this type of person I pledge my undying animosity.
Oh hell, C, I read most all your stuff here and elsewhere, and you're 'good' even when you're *bad*!! ;-) Glad you found a little something worthwhile in what I said.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think we got into a back and forth about something similar once before somewhere else. It's been quite a while, so it may have been someone else. I just remember it went on for a while until 'a pin' had to be stuck in it due to mutual time constraints. But for now, I'll say the 'mountain' thing's more a mental construct for me that I sometimes use to try to make a point than an outright claim. But would be happy to pull that pin when the opportunity presents. Would probably be rather enjoyable.
As to that pledge, I'm all in on that one with you, my friend. Those who can only stand tall by trying to put others on their knees really, really gets my motor running. Have had to work elbow to elbow with a couple of guys like this for long periods of time IRL. Hoo boy! A testament to my restraint and somewhat good sense that I'm typing this from my couch and not on a cot in an 8 x 10 somewhere.
Well, I suppose we could take the pin out a little, and I believe you are correct that this is round two. Suffice to say I think the scientists got well ahead of the theologians on the Mountain of Truth and caused an avalanche that swept most of the theologians right off the mountain. Many are now at the very bottom of the hill and have taken to digging instead of climbing. Those that remain are bereft of gear and the guide ropes have been swept away… and the metaphor has been strained beyond all recognition (by me I mean) at this point!
Yeah, reading this I realize it was you. Cool. Won't torque the metaphor any more myself except to say I won't gainsay the point you make, since science has sort of taken a hammer to religion and theology in a lot of ways and put the truth seekers there in what seems a defensive rather than expansive mode. Which I guess is a pretty natural reaction on their part, all things considered. And that makes me a bit sad, as I've never viewed 'truth seeking' in either camp as being a mutually exclusive enterprise.
I don't know, we all ultimately have to live and travel through life by our own lights. But a little extra candle power from someone somewhere else often helps to better illuminate the trail. Even a few photons from an exchange like this one. Shine on.
For sure - and even when we end up in a different spot it’s both fun and illuminating to mark out the contours of the disagreement. I do view them as mutually exclusive for all the reason that better thinkers and sharper minds have noted, but I can understand why folks take the other side of that argument.
Ultimately I don’t see how the theological way of knowing can possibly illuminate in a disenchanted world. It requires a bit of magic that cannot exist under the bright lights of reason.
Now, we’re all mostly stumbling in the dark… but that’s why I love these two quotes from HL Mencken so much:
“A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it.”
“The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable.“
Like the quotes...have heard the one about the cat in the dark (always brings a smile), but not the other, which rings pretty true.
There are plenty of better thinkers, smarter minds and more articulate voices than mine out there. And that's why I don't insist that my view is the only correct one in matters such as this, and never begrudge others their beliefs, however different from mine they may be. Some follow reason and rigid epistemological discipline exclusively. Others, like myself, believe in and depend on reason to guide their daily lives but still believe and have faith in things reason alone cannot explain. The cause of this varies by individual, I suppose. I can't really make a 'reasoned' argument about why I have faith in and believe the things of a religious nature that I do, since there's no scientific proof or rigid logic for them.
But what I can say is that I don't 'believe' because I was taught to in Sunday school or church (BTW...been absent from the pew for a long time now for a number of reasons.) Or anywhere else, for that matter. Rather, my belief and faith (or 'magic', if you will) is the result of the sum total of my life's physical, mental and emotional experiences. I sometimes question some of its parameters, but I never doubt its essence. And it is the fact that I'm willing to question some facets of my own beliefs from time to time that allows me to be open to hearing of and learning about the beliefs of others and the explanations for them.
One thing we can probably agree on is that with all that stumbling around in the dark, we're all going to stub our toes now and then, which can sometimes be a bit painful, a common human experience we share even when our beliefs about other things differ.
My demographic: oldish white male. Red state. Raised Catholic but not practicing ("once a Catholic, always a Catholic").
I too Matt was anti-abortion, and I guess I still am. Its depressing to me that nature's most intelligent species seeming has little qualm about terminating a life of one of it's off-spring in such a manner.
However in the real world, I have subjugated that personnel belief. Why? Because I didn't and don't like who I was standing on that side of the line with.
If it's all stopping abortion, I say we should be doing everything in our power to reduce that risk. Like sex ed. Like subsidized condoms and birth control, no questions asked. Like child care, like mom care and a full range of potential positive outcomes for the child regardless if they have 2 parents, 1 parent or no parents.
The intersection of anti-abortionists and those supporting what pro-active preventative steps to minimize the opportunities of abortion in that Venn diagram can be measured in single pixels.
No, it's about people who are all about controlling people's sex lives AND MAKING SURE IN CASE OF ERROR THOSE PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING THE CONSEQUENCES. Unless of course it is their kid in that situation in which case an exception needs to be made and will be made. Quietly of course.
Ultimately I just couldn't hang with that predominantly phony crowd. Because for the most part, they aren't pro-life, they are pro punishment - for everyone else.
I think that's being reductive of a lot of good folks on the pro-life side.....but........I have met the type you speak of. So I get why you're sour. Though I'd submit that if it's a moral consideration, the morality of it exists independently of who is espousing it. Though it's easy to lose sight of that when some angry church lady is banging on the table.
Matt: If it’s a moral question, are not moral decisions to be taken individually – your morality may not be my morality – rather than by the state – you can’t legislate morality. You may rejoinder that the fetus-child cannot take its own decisions; who will take it for them? Well, the current noise is that, at least when it comes to education, the parents, (albeit that the child is now considerably more able to take decisions for themself).
(This would seem to lead to the position that there is a pro-choice argument to be made for the benefit of the child.)
Matt, I think my view of the pro-life crew is closer to reality than yours. However, I will admit that in this day and age many pro-lifers might indeed keep to themselves as they have decided to let the culture warriors have at it.
Speaking of culture warriors, Randell Terry being an example, bring about mixed emotion for me.
On the plus side, they are out there regardless of personal cost, logical, loyal and consistent. All things that I strive to be and traits I admire in others.
Yet, like other sticky issues (guns) our society faces, these are the people that never seem to be satisfied with compromise and compassion. Often the leaders of the "slippery slope" arguments. And loud as hell when they aren't getting their way. Which is why we can never seen to get to the bottom of these complex societal issues.
The fact that some of these warriors find it a great way to make some cash from people that otherwise don't like to get their hands dirty doesn't help things. #professionalwarriors
There's no doubt that's true of plenty of them. The same way the left fundraises on baby carcasses as well. They're about to do a whole helluva lot of it with the Roe developments. It's good for business for both sides - let's admit. If the abortion wars are ever over, there's gonna be a lot of people who are going to need to go out and get real jobs But the reason I would encourage you not to reflexively impute unclean motives to all those loud, rude, pugnacious people on the pro-life side, is that if you actually believed that abortion is mass murder, wouldn't you get loud and pugnacious about it, too? That's one of the reasons I like Randall, even if many don't. He acts as though he actually believes in what he says he believes in. There's an honesty to it, even if it doesn't make for polite table banter. Even if he's unsubtle as hell.
To be clear, this is not a "left-right" phenomenon. And it's been around forever (Al Sharpton anyone?, although the good Rev strikes me as a guy that once the money is in pocket there is forgiveness for all).
Additionally, to be clear, I don't hate the Randall's of this world. They "put their money where their mouth is" which one has to respect. I don't think you can argue however that the respect (outward, begrudging, silent) they endue gives them a outsized role (maybe deserved because of investment) in determination of the societal compromise that ultimately needs to be made.
It's almost like what it takes to get to that respected spot and stay there means by definition, compromise is off the table or one really wasn't all that committed to the cause.
We don't like compromisers but we do like getting difficult discussions behind us. Tough to have it both ways.
I would love to hear from Randall if he would support a) free birth control as a preventative measure and b) abortions in the case of incest or rape if it helped lead to a spot that the majority of our society could agree on. Just curious.
Failure to compromise at the bottom of so much of what burdens us all in one way or another. Compromise=Losing for way too many people who can't countenance the thought of not getting absolutely everything they want and think that they need, regardless of the cost to all the rest of us. But without compromise on some issues, we all end up losers.
I have some sympathy with the position that, well, an early abortion doesn't really seem to be taking something much like a baby. The skin is not a baby's skin, right? The eyes are shut. The fingers are barely formed. The lips can't nurse. The proportions are different. Whatever it is, can't survive outside the womb.
But I would propose that what this means is we have a human life needing and deserving the protection of the womb until ready to live outside of it. That that is what the womb is for. That the very fact the unborn child seems so different from a born child is because the unborn child still needs the protection from light, from air, from sound, from touch that the womb affords. Not to be deprived of life, but to be protected.
No other type of clump of cells has unique human DNA and is on a straight-line trajectory to what all identify as baby-like characteristics (inside or out of the womb).
I am unable to read an opinion like yours without noticing that one of the two entities directly involved in the situation are not represented. If God wanted us to take the view that anti-abortion people take, He could have set pregnancy up outside the uterus, as is done with non-mammal life. In the Bible (AKA the Old Testament), as I understand it, are found a number of texts that support abortion. As I’m non-religious, I don’t rely on these texts to inform my own view. But laws that compel one citizen, to bear the care and feeding of another without potential respite, is an unconstitutional abridgement of rights too-far, for me. (If you’ve never been in a situation where the debate is personal, yet not about viability of your unborn child, you are a lucky person—but maybe not in such good standing to force that tragedy on others.)
Hi friend, a few thoughts. It is interesting--pro-life people would take the view that in abortion, one of the two entities are not represented, and the unrepresented one loses life.
Adoption, I would think, means that pro-life laws are not compelling one citizen to bear the care and feeding of another without respite. Respite comes less than a year after conception.
The Old Testament does not directly name the act of abortion. It does exhort us to "open our mouths for the dumb"--those unable to speak--and who is less able to speak than an unborn child?
There are some verses about the penalties for men fighting with each other, injuring a pregnant woman in the process, and the difference in penalty depending on whether she miscarries, or not, that some have argued weigh against the full-humanity position of pro-lifers. I don't believe these texts prove that one way or the other. I could explain that more fully, but would need to come back with some more information, and would be glad to do that if you are interested.
Much more compelling to me is Psalm 139, which makes it abundantly clear that the psalmist considers his own life to stretch continuously into the past, to his time in the womb and indeed, to his conception.
In contrast with your citing of Psalm 139, here is one rabbi's view on biblical texts related to abortion: https://bit.ly/3wui6j8
As I said elsewhere in this discussion, my personal connection to the overall subject makes me a bit more-emotional in maintaining a strictly intellectual approach: it surprised me how much actually standing in a war zone differs from debating the merits of that war from afar.
I appreciate your returning with that thread, and I too appreciate your courtesy. I am also sorry that some deeply painful circumstances have occurred in your life to which you have discreetly referred. I'd mention though that it is actually not safe to assume that the same couldn't possibly be true of someone taking a pro-life position. One of the most pro-life women I know is one who had an abortion before she came to see the matter as she does now. Her deep regret is part of her deep concern for the issue now.
On the Rabbi's point that there are times one must prioritize the life of the mother over the life of the unborn child, I believe that is also the view of the overwhelming majority of pro-lifers from two other traditions, Catholic and evangelical. So for instance, the case of ectopic pregnancies, and I believe there are other examples. The problem many have with "health of the mother" abortion exceptions is with how broad and elastic they are. A life of the mother exception might find broader acceptance.
To the interpretation of the passage on the penalty for the fighting men who induce a premature birth in a nearby woman (indeed, the same passage I had in mind earlier), this piece gives an alternative explanation which it asserts is more faithful to the meaning of the Hebrew words. I recognize the name of at least Vern Poythress and he does know his Hebrew language. https://wng.org/roundups/wielding-scripture-against-the-unborn-1635270285
I would add to that, suppose we assume for the moment that the thread you shared is correct instead about the meaning of the words, and the passage is treating an adult, born life as different for penalty purposes, in that era, to an unborn life. I would note that this is not final for our current purposes to determine what we should think and do today. More than one Mosaic law is concessive. So for instance, in the matter of divorce, the disciples of Jesus (who knew their Mosaic law, being Jews), come with a question about Moses' permission of and regulation of divorce, which was more liberal than the standard Jesus had just set forth. Jesus' answer was that Moses, as the civil administrator of Israel, had allowed this because of the hardness of heart of the nation in that day. It was an administrative regulation more than a moral regulation. It did not actually embody the full sweep of God's requirement. In fact, it never had. Knowing that such cases do occur in Old Testament law does, I think, need to inform one's understanding of another civil law matter in Old Testament times, the one you have cited. It is at least possible, even under the Rabbi's interpretation of the meaning of the words, that this regulation was a concession that does not fully elucidate the actual ethical issues.
I need to add that I am not seeking to act here insensitively to you or to anyone reading who may not be a follower of Jesus. I understand not everyone believes he is Israel's promised Messiah. My point though for the moment is just that a very significant group of Jews, those who did believe Jesus was the Messiah, and the Gentiles who joined them in that belief, found in Jesus a more rigorous moral ethic than the Mosaic applications of the moral law (along with a glorious and blessed freedom from the ceremonial law!) and believed Jesus' more rigorous moral ethic to be binding to the end of the world. It had actually always been present in the 10th commandment, which takes the commandment against theft and applies it to the heart by banning even covetousness, but Jesus opened this implication up further when he showed the heart dimensions of murder, adultery, etc. and the true narrowness of the just causes for divorce.
Thank you again for your courtesy in our exchange.
My courtesy shall not likely survive much longer. You seem not to realize that you sit on an elevated dais, judging my wife.
If you were to read over your responses in this light, with you as the tormented pregnant mother and Justices Alito, Barett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas dispassionately staring down at you, you might see that “Pro-Life” is a deliberate, Frank Luntz-crafted misnomer. It is convenient for energizing “Anti-Abortion” Americans to interfere in the misery of so many others—under the premise that others, less-deserving of the protections of Medical Care and Privacy, are willfully aborting unborn babies, willy-nilly.
You, here, speak from a luxury that countless women are denied. It is evil, whether you see this or not.
I regret that my courtesy has now been used up. May God have mercy on your soul’s views, whatever they may turn out ultimately to be.
Hello again, friend. I understand this is personal for you. I do not know your wife's circumstances, and so I have no idea what I would think of them--perhaps there might be some surprises for me or for you. But I am not asking you to share them, either.
I do know that not everyone who considers an abortion is treating it like some everyday method of birth control. Thank you for entering into this discussion. I wish you and your wife well.
I'd like to pose a couple of questions for consideration. 1. Do you believe that the body is what creates the eternal soul within, or that the body is simply a vehicle for the soul to occupy? 2. Do you believe that if that life is cut short by abortion, whether therapeutic or spontaneous (ie, natural), that the eternal soul that was intended to occupy that body will never have another chance at a body to occupy? 3. At what point do you believe the soul enters that developing fetus? (Keep in mind that, according to the Mayo clinic, "Miscarriage is the spontaneous loss of a pregnancy before the 20th week. About 10 to 20 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage. But the actual number is likely higher because many miscarriages occur very early in pregnancy — before you might even know about a pregnancy.") So if a soul is unlucky enough to enter an embryo or fetus that then spontaneously aborts and is expelled from the uterus, (which is about a one in five change it will) is that if for the soul? Too bad, so sad, you will never have another chance to experience life? I personally think God had a better plan in mind than that. It used to be thought that "quickening" was an indication the soul had entered the body, which usually happens around the 20th week. Perhaps that should be reconsidered.
I honestly don't know the answer to these questions. And they are good ones. But let me ask you a question of my own: If you believe in a God, and it sounds like you do, do you believe that if he implants a body with a soul, that he intends for mankind (or womankind) to extinguish it on their own volition?
This question is both engaging and puzzling. In the latter case, it seems to put a good deal of evaluative judgment on what God did do, or would do, etc. To make such a judgment, one must stand Above God. To question God's intention suggests that He can misjudge. To render our own judgment on this question of God's intentions, in any or all cases, must we not see through God's eyes?
I take your point that people can get into dangerous territory when they purport to speak for God. And abortion is complicated, maybe the most complicated thing people debate. But that goes both ways. Hypothetical on "rendering our own judgment on God's intentions": Let's say I walk up to a grown man, put a .38 to his head, and pull the trigger, dropping him dead. Let's say someone then walks up to me and says, "You shouldn't kill one of God's children." If I responded with, "How do you know what God's intention for him was? Maybe it was God's will that I snuffed him"......... would that logic fly? I doubt it. You could at least understand, then, what you take for the rigid moral absolutism of the pro-life side, even if you don't agree with it.
I especially acknowledge your "dangerous territory" point, in relation to the relevant logic. I respect your intentions here, to make a courteous discussion of the subject. You have found reasonable participants. This is quite an accomplishment, these days. Thanks for letting me participate, especially as I personalized my view, in this discussion, in a way that I had not intended.
Yeah, everybody did okay for the most part. I'm proud of 'em. Even the ones who came at me. Was a nice surprise. Thought I'd have to shut this bad boy down - that people would start battle-axeing each other. But that didn't happen. And quite all right on your end. I appreciate your courtesy as well. I read your posts, and know it's a deeply personal and painful issue for you. And I freely admit that it is often way too easy for us to judge people whose shoes we've never walked in. Less judgment and more empathy is probably not a bad remedy for what ails us. Or not a bad place to start, anyway. Thanks for participating.
During the middle ages, St. Thomas Aquinas posited that 'ensoulment' . . . The moment the soul enters the body . . . of a fetus took place 40 to 80 days after conception depending on the gender. Guess who got theirs first. That Tom . . . What a character.
St Anselm, another Doctor of the Church (will we never be freed from these doctors?), didn't quite agree so they had a series of lively exchanges and finally decided on the end of the first trimester. I should mention that they were much opposed to anyone choosing to end a pregnancy. Kinda interesting to have two holy men having the debate.
I only mention this because I consider myself pro-life but I am also against capital punishment, wars of choice, nuclear weapons, the sale of AR-15's, and ammo magazines with dozens of rounds and much in favor of supporting any woman who needs help being a mom. Not charity either but good old fashioned subsidies for every child. You know, like the sugar industry requires.
But . . . That is my choice and I am loathe to judge anyone else's choice. A just God, in his infinite wisdom, will make the call at some later date. Too many of us are so sure about the sins of other people. He who is without sin . . . And all that.
If God specifically asked us to love one another and turn the other cheek, to offer food, water, friendship to the stranger, does he intend for us to rationalize criteria where we institutionalize cruelty, deprivation, weapons solely intended to take human life, and exploitation of the environment for greater share holder value? Wonder what Tom and Anselm would say about that.
This post shares some refreshing additions to the discussion. (If you’ve never been in a situation where the debate is personal—yet not about viability of your unborn child, you are a lucky person—but maybe not in such good standing to force that tragedy on others. I expect you are sympathetic to this point, despite that I say it a bit un-artfully.)
One of the reasons I tend to dread this discussion is because I find most answers lacking. There are so many good comments on here, but I still walk away feeling like we haven't said everything that needs to be said. I'm including myself when I say answers are lacking. And after reading the questions from Randall Terry, I feel like my personal response is lacking as well. In my opinion, abortion is tragic, but so are some of the circumstances that result in an abortion. I can't stand most the grandstanding and lack of humility on this issue (not talking about anyone here, mostly talking about politicians and celebrities). I'm thinking the best thing for me to do is look for the helpers, and help the helpers where I can. Otherwise, it all seems too overwhelming.
Having glanced through the comments below, I recognize that much of what I am saying is what others have already said, but FWIW:
—There are a lot of words not used in the Constitution but that courts have interpreted the words that were used to encompass (Scalia managed to read “semi-automatic rifles” into the word “arms” in Heller; others the word “wire-tap” into the phrase “search”l; as just two examples); it is one of the obligations of any judge or justice applying the Constitution. The document does not use the word “abortion “, but it does use the word “liberty”. The “Constitution does not use the word ‘abortion’” line of argument is one that, taken to its logical extreme, rewrites much of the last two centuries of Constitutional law (including Heller).
—I personally am against abortion, so in that sense am “pro-life”, but would not impose my wishes on any woman, starting with my wife and daughters (three in their 30’s), so in that sense am “pro-choice”.
—Some of the same people who are saying to leave this issue up to the states are now considering legislation making abortion illegal throughout the U.S., without exception (argument: if embryos are life, abortion is murder, and should be illegal everywhere without any exception). This was never really about federalism.
—Constitutional amendments are extraordinarily difficult to effect, purposefully so to limit the ability of simple majorities ever to change the rules for everyone else. Read The Woman’s Hour, by Elaine Weiss, about how close the 19th Amendment allowing women to vote came to never being ratified by the requisite 3/4ths of state legislatures (the last available state, Tennessee, narrowly ratifying to put it over the edge), only a little more than 100 years ago.
—Thanks, Matt, for creating a civil platform for all this airing, pro and con.
In your second paragraph, you precisely define the Pro-Choice position. I’ve never personally met anybody who is “Pro-Abortion.” It is more than likely that some unfortunate Souls use abortion as a form of birth-control. But enough of us are out there, where reasonable medical care is essential, or close to it. My family has been there, once. I can tell you would not put your wife or daughters through what Justice Alito would have put my wife through. It’s nauseating, when it becomes personal. Reading intellectualized discussions like these, without seeing my wife and daughter in the potential consequences, is hard to stomach. May your daughters stay safely out of the harm’s way of This. Thanks for your prudent post.
The issue of abortion is a religious, political, and a woman’s issue.
As far as the religious issue goes: I was raised Roman Catholic and abortion was a sin, as was contraception, and eating meat on fridays. So much for an institution telling me what a sin is.
In the book of Genesis, God created man out of dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils and he became a living being. Perhaps taking the first breath may be the criteria for life. This includes premise who need a ventilator to breath.
I believe the creator of the universe gave us knowledge and made us partners in creation. Perhaps in making us partners in creation, he gave us the responsibility of deciding when another human is to be born.
An embryo is part of a woman’s body until it can live outside it—it isn’t viable. It is not an independent being.
Abortion has been around for thousands of years before Christ. Jesus didn’t think it important enough to make an issue out of it.
Yes, an embryo is alive but abortion is not murder as in the sense of shooting children in school.
Why are the so-called pro-life people so concerned about embryos and not real children? What about providing food and education for them?
Abortion has become a political hot button encouraging people to vote Republican solely for that reason—no matter the corruption and lies of the party.
As a woman’s issue. The mother’s life should take precedence. Women died with self-induced abortions before Roe-vs-Wade. Pregnancy is much more risky to a woman’s health than abortion.
These new state laws are scary for women. What if a woman is raped or in case of incest? 13yr olds can become pregnant by their fathers or brothers. Are states going to force them to carry them to birth and then raise them? What about cases of rape? Some of the new state laws don’t allow abortions in those cases. If a woman is forced to carry a pregnancy to term—shouldn’t the father be forced to provide for the child to adulthood? No state laws even address that justice.
The abortion rate has been going down every year since Roe -vs-Wade. It would go down even more if birth control were accessible and affordable to every woman.
I don't want to flatter you people. Don't want it to go to your head. But so far, you've been wonderful. Even you bastards who disagree with me. (And are wrong - but I welcome your dissents.) I've only had two subs cancellations thus far, which on this topic, is something like a miracle. If we can have this many commenters on all sides of the ball on the most divisive issue of our day kind of get along, well, I don't want to say it restores my faith in our country. But it sort of does. Though I reserve the right to change that opinion. You disappointers are out there, and I don't sell you short......
Good article. Few questions regarding Randall Terry's questions. Why isn't the father of these unwanted children asked to provide support and financial aid? When did this entire burden fall on society? Any one who believes the men have no responsibility to the health and welfare of their off spring hasn't been in divorce court lately. I'm neither pro-life or pro-abortion. I feel like this whole issue is being used as a political cudgel. The Democratic party has very little to run on in the mid term elections. If they really want to end this debate, they control the legislative and executive branch of the government. Biden could at least issue an executive order while proper legislation is drafted.
I've had that very same question. I wonder what the answer is. I realize in some cases the father may not be known. Even where he is known or suspected, legal action to get him to submit to a paternity test could be expensive. And then, what if he is young and not yet an earner, etc. Yet morally, I agree with you completely and one of the angles on abortion that I think is much too little spoken about is how it tends to serve the convenience of men who don't want the responsibilities of fatherhood. Or the convenience of embarrassed families. Etc. Sometimes a woman would love to be a mother and those around her are pressuring her. The legality and convenience of abortion has made it so easy for them to do that. In some cases a boyfriend says he'll leave if she doesn't get the abortion. What?? He should be staying and being a dad. Instead he says I leave unless you have the abortion. Her heart may be torn but she feels she doesn't have a choice. I am pro-life and believe we should support her and help her to see she has resources. Keep the baby, let the irresponsible boyfriend go, we will help you make it . . . but indeed, the fact that no one comes after the dad for financial support leaves the woman with all the challenges.
I wonder if those with feminist leanings find themselves in a bind on this topic. They shouldn't really like the idea of men being shirkers and leaving burdens unfairly on women, I would think. Yet they value an independence from men. So maybe they have a motive too to lead them to advise abortion to women as a solution.
Katherine, thank you so much for your insights. I find them deep and constructive, and free of judgment.
I agree that unfortunately abortion can be a factor that allows a man to evade responsibility.
I remember a first date I had with a nice man who was highly attracted to me. I liked him as well. Somewhere along in the afternoon, things were going great, and he subtly raised the topic of abortion.
I still recall the look of disappointment and dismay on his face when I said I was pro life. Though we continued our date quite well, he did not ask me out again. I always wondered why,
but the most plausible explanation
I could come up with was he didn't want to take the risk.
I think it works both ways, as you say. A feminist values independence from men. Access to abortion may be seen as part of it.
So, if neither the man nor the woman wants to be burdened with the child and the accompanying relationships and responsibilities,
it is the child who has to go.
We value the self-defined freedom of the man and the woman over the life of the unborn child, who has no voice in the matter.
I pray those of us on both sides of the abortion question can join together, share our insights, and lovingly find a way to respect the freedom and life of all three.
Thanks, Gary. And I agree - the father should be carrying his share. As we know, that rarely happens in a lot of these situations. So I think what Randall was saying is if a government is going to make the laws that make it more difficult or even impossible to have a legal abortion, then it is their duty to make sure the safety net is strong enough to absorb these additional children. Which is a discussion conservatives - even religious ones - often don't want to have. It's all about, "You shouldn't have an abortion." Okay, then what, when you're a 16-year-old single mom, the father went AWOL, and you have no real means of support? Not very compassionate to then turn around and say, "Sorry, doll, lotsa luck with that." Which is what Randall was getting at.
And I agree - but the Dems might be stupid NOT to use this as a political cudgel, particularly to mobilize young voters, who already vote for them in droves anyway - if they turn out. They don't have many issues to turn people out with right now. Look around. It ain't going so hot. So not to be cynical, but they probably don't want to end the debate.....at least not before November. Republicans, on the other hand, can't seem to talk about it little enough. They'd rather just talk about the (presumed) liberal leaker. A curious diversion. when you're on the brink overturning a half-century old abortion decision. It's almost as if they're sorry they're getting what they say they've always wanted. Which Randall has addressed in the past, too. (See my profile of him.)
Well, that did it for me: I subscribed. I had been on the fence for some time, with each new post putting me a bit more on the fence, if you know what I mean. That last comment pushed me over. I'm neither a believer nor pro-life. And I don't fish. But I do appreciate what you are doing over here and look forward to wherever the tides take you.
Here's a link to Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life survey on abortion where 5 sociologists conducted in-depth interviews with 217 Americans from a wide range of demographic groups. Not a pick-one-of-the-following-answers type of survey. How do Americans, even individual Americans, feel about abortion? It's complicated.
I have debated if I should enter into this debate. Here it goes. Morally I believe abortion is wrong and I am pro life, however, I am not comfortable with the government, deciding what a woman can and cannot do with her own body. That being said, respectively, this is the question I always wanted to ask: why can't the question be: I choose to become pregnant and welcome a child OR chose to prevent pregnancy? I feel that there is ample ways to prevent unwanted pregnancy relatively cheaply. Thank you again Matt.
I see efforts to frame abortion / reproductive rights in terms of black and white. It's biology. It's grey and messy. Because it's grey and messy, the decision should rest with the parents, their own understanding of God and medical advice when necessary. Remanded back to the states- phooey. There are some things that are intensely personal and private, and healthcare, including unborn fetuses, is one of those things. Abortion is a genie that can't be put back in its bottle. Decreasing abortions requires a holistic, compassionate approach. Persuade people that the life is precious, if that's your take. Have some faith in humanity and let individuals take responsibility for their decisions. Meanwhile, what about in vitro fertilization and all those zygotes that get tossed out, or fail to implant? Who's rescuing those "children"? What about ectopic pregnancies? Fatal developmental abnormalities? What about IUDs? To restate: biology does not lend itself to nor care about our philosophical, legal or religious pontifications.
Here's the thing, the entire pro-life argument hinges on the idea that "life begins at conception", however, this assertion is extremely debatable, and has literally no biblical support or historical basis before the modern era.
And don't quote the "knit together in my mother's womb passage" at me, as that passage has nothing to do with the issue of abortion or the timing of when a person becomes a person. Also, have you ever seen an old woman knitting? It's a process, and sometimes even takes weeks. But I digress.
Hardly any protestants in the US were pro-life before the 70's and suddenly, not only was abortion oppostition a popular topic within protestant circles, it was sacrosanct. You can't be a Christian and not be pro-life they say. I'd say that's debatable as well.
Bascially, the political side of the pro-life movement seeks to make abortion illegal. And the justification of this is that children are being killed, so it doesn't matter what a woman wants, or even if she was raped, or even if her life is in danger. Innocent babies hang in the balance, so really, the woman can go to heck. And this is not just a restriction that should be placed on Christian women or religious women, it will be placed on all women. If you are female and you get pregnant, then your baby is the priority, and you don't have rights or choices anymore.
And I'm sorry, I'm a Christian, and I generally view abortion negatively. But I'm going to have to call BS on this whole view. There is literally no passage in the Bible directly condemning abortion (in fact there is this odd passage in Exodus where if a man thinks his wife is cheating, she has to drink a potion that will cause her womb to shrivel if she is guilty). We as Christians have no mandate to impose our view of life's beginnings on the secular population. We cannot prove that "life begins at conception" as this is a philosohpical and theological question, that is unanswerable by secular law.
Yes, abortion can be restricted. People can choose to make their own laws and they can make things illegal that they find distasteful. But do Chrisitans have a mandate to impose this on the world? No. Also, what happens when 20% of the population (conservative protestants and catholics) wants abortion to be 100% illegal, but 80% doesn't want this and mostly favors a grey area between?
Roe will be overturned, but I think pro-lifers should lower their expectations that this is some kind of step along the way to a pro-life future. Sure there are going to be some very restrictive bills passed in red state. But what happens when a bunch of young women die for want of an abortion and the media justifiably makes it a huge deal? You will see those bills reversed. Because it turns out that Americans actually like having the freedom to make decisions over their own bodies.
I agree with a lot of your thoughts here but the bible does actually have something to say about abortion and it goes like this: Thou shalt not kill. The current issue at hand is more about adhering to the consitution than it is about abortion rights. Our courts have violated the consitution with Roe and that is what needs to be reversed. Rules on things such as abortion are to be left to the electorate and are not to be handed down from an unelected judiciary. When it comes to abortion both sides have grossly overplayed their hand. Public funding of abortion should have never happened. Citizens should not be forced to participate in abortion by being mandated to fund them for others because like I said, there is that whole Thou shalt not kill thing which some of us have bound ourselves to live by. And for those who don't adhere to that rule then they should be free to live with their decisions as long as they don't impose the costs on others.
Obviously, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" would apply if you believed that a zygote/embryo/fetus was a fully-formed human being with a soul. But that is the million dollar question.
A few nights ago, my teenage daughter was asking some questions about all this, especially the morality issue.
I told her I was one of the few pro-choice people she'll meet that believes abortion is, in most cases, immoral but that it's worse to me that the government, especially at the behest of what mostly is a religiously based minority, would tell a woman she doesn't have the right to decide what to do with her uterus and would force women to go through pregnancy and give birth.
So yes, I think choosing abortion because it's an inconvenient time to be pregnant is immoral, but I also think that sometimes it's the right thing to do in the bigger picture, and I think it should be the woman's choice.
It does get more difficult the more a pregnancy has progressed, and it's easy to see why support drops so much for abortions in the second and third trimesters, and while it's probably healthier to seek compromise laws when it comes to those things, I personally tend to think it should be legal at any time, gruesome as that might sound. What I find compelling about that is that almost all late-term abortions are by mothers who actually do want the child, but something has gone terribly wrong. Despite what voices on Fox News might be trying to suggest, I seriously doubt there are mothers who, the day before their due date, shrug their shoulders and say, "Nah, I've changed my mind. Let's end this."
"I told her I was one of the few pro-choice people she'll meet"... Actually I think she will meet a lot of people who see it as you do. They won't be activists. They are not well represented by either party. But your position is common. Remember the days when a common position for Democratic politicians was 'personally opposed but do not think it should be illegal'? That sounds a lot like your position, and the politicians picked it because it is widely held. Activists hate it, not pure enough.
In your case you think it should be legal at any time, but you say it is healthier to seek a compromise. Your willingness to accept a compromise loses abortions activists of all stripes, but you haven't lost me! Compromise is where I go when I accept both sides make serious claims.
Question for pro-life people: Smoking increases miscarriage and stillbirth. Should we regulate smoking by pregnant women? Should we establish a sort of OSHA for the womb?
Most fertilized ovum (zygotes) fail to implant or are rejected. Should we consider this a medical emergency and devote enormous energy to reducing this loss of human life? Considering the vast number of yearly deaths shouldn't this trump other medical research, such as cancer research? (Let's not forget the Natural Fallacy).
The problem is the tendency to adopt extreme positions on the moral significance of zygotes and fetuses. If a zygote fails to implant does that mean a human life has ended? Biologically a strong case can be made that it has, the mistake is either to conclude the case settled, because all human lives are morally equal, or to deny anything important important happened at conception (ho hum, the DNA from to persons has knitted together and formed a new organism genetically separate from both, nothing to see here).
Consider a variation on the Trolley Problem: You are at a switch and can redirect a train about to barrel into a crowd onto either a track with a 2-year old (who will be surely killed) or another track with a tray of zygotes (they will surely be killed). What would Randall Terry do?
A morally and intellectually coherent resolution is rejected by the Democratic and Republican Parties alike, yet popular among Americans: From zygote to infant we all pass through a liminal zone where our moral importance and claim on others increases in tandem with our development and our ability to live independent of our mother.
Such a conception leads to an abortion regime widespread worldwide and supported by most Americans: low regulation on early abortion increasing to heavy regulation close to term.
Is that position pro-choice or pro-life? Both?
A practical question I have for the pro-life side: Pharmaceutical abortions are already the most common type of abortion. Abortion restrictions will accelerate the trend (check out plancpills.org), how in all practicality do you propose enforcement without resorting to a police state?
And a question for the pro-choice side: What exactly is the problem with safe, legal, and rare?
I've appreciated your comments here. The answer to your pro-choice question is, that nothing at all is a problem with "safe, legal, and rare," as long as the woman involved determines these qualities. As a committed and loving husband and father, I can't find a way to imagine that my "choice," to abort or to keep, can ever be my decision above my wife's. In the same way, I cannot imagine the presumed decision by an unborn baby can take precedence over the mother's. I have given it the most-careful thought I can give, going back to 1973, and I cannot consider any regulation at all that can put a mother into second-class relation to a father, to an unborn baby, and certainly not to government.
While I can wholeheartedly sympathize with all who hold the view that abortion is murder—not a thing about that view is inherently morally incorrect—I see no way to get past the mother—whether on the unborn baby's side or on the opposite side where all the rest of humanity stands, and judges.
____________________
When people are being slaughtered in Ukraine, more or less to prove Vladimir Putin's point, it's sickening for all the rest of us to debate whether the U.S. has ever been worse, or whether Pres. Zelensky supports nazification of Russian Ukrainians. Once abortion touches you personally, no matter the causes or the results, you will likely be sickened to listen to others, standing around, idly, debating whether some other person, not them, has a right to decide how to handle the blessed gift of a potential child.
____________________
I must again apologize for personalizing this, as I have now done here, several time. I can no longer help hearing all those anti-abortion people messing themselves up in my wife's personally-lived tragedy.
Regards,
(($; -)}™
Gozo
I was hoping for something more, but the approach -- questions for both sides -- is a good start.
How about this: present each side in a light that someone on the other side would find compelling. This is a strategy that good history teachers take in presenting controversial figures and movements from our past.
I should state from the beginning my own bias. I think Roe v. Wade was a sensible step -- Casey was a further step -- toward a better societal approach toward abortion. We need to move beyond Roe and Casey, not go back to before Roe and Casey. Use of the criminal sanction (i.e. "bans") to deal with abortion is societal incompetence, and an abuse of the law.
Abortion terminates life. It's wrong. I like to think that my own life began as a gleam in my parents' eyes, even before conception. I like to think that the reason for being of the entire cosmos is so that a child would be born and love its mother.
What can society do to support and encourage carrying to term life once begun? The problem is practical, not theoretical. Taking a principled view -- it's about life; it's about autonomy -- avoids the practical realities. Fundamentally, this is a human problem not a legal problem. Why does it make any sense to treat it as a legal problem, "legalize" it or make it "illegal"?
Let me take a small detour before continuing. For those who have actually read the Roe opinion, Roe did not "legalize" abortion. Roe constrained the power of the state to interfere with a pregnant woman's decision. The issue was the use (and abuse) of state power, a perspective which was lost in the hype about "legalization". The reason this perspective remains important is that there is a difference between ends and means. Making abortion "illegal" stops the conversation. Should not society carefully consider the means used to achieve the desired end of carrying life to term? Roe used a rather crude timeline to constrain the use of state power -- first trimester, nothing; second trimester, regulation of the doctor; third trimester (viability), prohibition -- so it was but a first attempt to take into account the complex reality of mother and child as one until birth.
The public discourse has essentially lost the valuable perspective taken by the Supreme Court in Roe. We have the spectacle of a myopic preoccupation with whether abortion should be "legal" or "illegal". Is that even the right question?
The complex reality of mother and child as one during pregnancy can be illustrated by imagining that they are not one. Picture this: a nursemaid is pushing a stroller. Inside the stroller is an unborn child, encased in a womb. The life and welfare of the unborn child is paramount. Out of concern that the nursemaid -- whose womb is in the stroller -- may choose an abortion, the state takes responsibility for the womb. Once conception has taken place the nursemaid is just a hireling.
A simplistic view would use this fiction to characterize the pro-choice faction as being outraged that the pregnant woman is being taken as a mere nursemaid, a hireling. But this characterization might give pause to the pro-life faction. Is it really just about the life of the child? Conversely, the image of a nursemaid as caretaker for a life not her own might give pause to the pro-choice faction. Is it really just about the woman's body?
This fictional separation might also give pause to legislators who are still thinking in terms of "legal" and "illegal". Instead of the state taking eminent domain over the womb, perhaps it makes more sense to support the caretaking role of the nursemaid. The "legality" of abortion seems an inadequate focus for legislative attention. If the legislature keeps the whole picture in full view -- which is the point of the fictional separation -- the underlying problem is no longer simple. If the problem were likened to brain surgery, dealing competently with it would require a scalpel rather than a meat cleaver. Focusing on "legality" is like using a meat cleaver for brain surgery. By comparison, Roe v. Wade used a scalpel.
Which returns me to the law, and its abuse. Using a meat cleaver in these circumstances is an abuse of the law. As a society we can do better. Rather than overturn Roe and Casey the Supreme Court should move beyond Roe and Casey. Why is a timeline (trimester or otherwise) and viability proper bases for regulating state intervention in this complex reality? Meat cleavers should be forbidden. Minimum competence for state intervention should require grasp of the whole complex reality -- nursemaid, womb, and child in one. The Mississippi statute at issue in Dobbs fails this test.
One last point. Alito's draft opinion does not portend well for the rule of law. It is not simply the spectacle of this women being treated radically differently from one state jurisdiction to another. If Alito's draft is given five votes there will be strongly reasoned dissents, and these dissents are likely to become law at some point in the future when the composition of the Court changes. It is not lost on anyone that these five votes are the product of determined politics by the pro-life movement over many decades. Good lawyers and good judges have different views on the subject. It is not a question of bias on the part of any justice. The bias lies in the political process for selecting justices.
The prospect of Dobbs itself being reversed at some point even decades or more in the future by a differently composed Court -- particularly if Dobbs cuts its own stare decisis throat by overturning a fifty year old precedent -- is surely on the minds of the present Court. For that reason I doubt that Alito's draft will become the Court's opinion.
But we will see. In the event that Alito's draft does not become the majority opinion it will be interesting to see whether the Court simply avoids expressly overturning Roe or whether it finds a way to move beyond Roe and Casey, in the direction of a better scalpel. I'm not holding my breath -- this is an exceedingly difficult problem -- but our society deserves better than the meat cleaver approach we are likely to get from state legislatures that simply want to prohibit abortion.
Fine, but if you want to get technical, neither is overturning Roe making abortion "illegal." Not even a little. It's remanding it to the states. Now if you don't think it should be decided on a state-by-state basis - because some states will make it illegal - that's fair. A lot of pro-lifers, ironically, don't think that's right either, btw. From a pro-life perspective, why should it be legal to kill a baby in Massachusetts, and not in Arkansas? Is that fair to the baby in Massachusetts? Which is not a completely frivolous moral inconsistency protestation. But what I don't get, in your otherwise supple approach, is how does the meat cleaver vs. scalpel distinction actually work itself out on the ground? What would that actually look like and is it even possible? At some point, do lines not actually have to get drawn? Or undrawn? Aren't these absolutes we're speaking of? (Either it's a life, or it's not, and you can either take it, or you can't?) As you yourself just said, "Abortion terminates life. It's wrong." So why play semantic games? What does it look like on the ground to address the "wrongness"? Because as I had Randall do in my piece, he addressed many of the other societal concerns. Which are real concerns, admittedly. But if a law becomes a law, or 50 laws become the law, a lot of other hard realities get dried in cement. So what should that look like?
Love your work Matt and appreciate the courage of taking on this topic.
The topic is very emotional for all involved. And each fact pattern is unique to that situation. I've heard compelling arguments from both sides and rarely is an opinion changed. Which maybe there isn't a "right answer" other than how do we (to borrow Clinton's phrase) make abortions "safe, legal and rare". e.g. will we criminalize abortions? Even if we do, that hasn't stopped and won't stop them, just likely make them less safe, having the affect of risking the lives of pregnant women. Is that pro life?
Currently, the phrase "pro life" seems inappropriate. It seems "pro birth" is more appropriate. In addition to the list of things Randall asks, I'd add a few. None of which actually require any time or money, i.e. an even lesser commitment than Randall. Would you support laws/officials that deny expanding health care (access) to children? That deny child care credits? That don't require vaccines/masks when deemed necessary to protect the life of another? That aim to reduce legal immigration for parents seeking a better life for their children? That don't assist (in some way) in providing affordable child care so parents can work? etc...
How does Randall feel about two wrongs making a right, i.e. are rape and incest appropriate exceptions?
On a different vein, I'd also ask. If one believes this issue is best left for the states, then why is the state in a better position than the federal government to decide what's best in that situation? Conservatives believe that the best decision are made by those closest to the issue. If the state is closer to the issue than the federal government, the natural extension would seem to be isn't the family/mother/doctor closer to the issue than the state? Or why not the county/city? The fundamental legal question seems less to be is abortion OK or not, BUT WHO DECIDES? It seems disingenuous (or maybe it's just "convenient") to say "the state gets to decide" not the federal government, not the city, county or individual. Why is the state the best "decider" (to borrow a Dubya term)?
Again, thanks for the courage to add this to your repertoire of topics.
Ehhh... first, a note on tone. I typically like Matt's writing for his ability to write with lightness even when discussing dark topics. But the column above is... a bit too flip? Maybe? And I speak as a writer who gravitated toward flippers myself. Not important. That's a complaint of personal taste, but I think that opinion might influence my further words.
My position on abortion is driven by two things: my centrism, and being Canadian. We're hardly living in a snowy progressive utopia up here (Trucker Convoy, anyone?) but I tend to think we've got things right up here. "Safe, legal and rare" seems to sum it up.
It's not a fun process. I have friends who've gone through it and it is both physically and emotionally devastating. But the one thing I think we've gotten the most right is the element of democratic compromise. Nobody gets everything they want; everybody gets something.
The problem (as usual) in the American discussion is polarization. It goes hand in hand with your political system. Pro-life or Pro-choice! Team Red or Team Blue! Hockey or Football! Cake or pie! Not everything needs to be that kind of fight. You can actually meet in the middle, where nobody is happy.
Really though, I'm not trying to Both Sides this. While I can understand pro-lifers being upset at pro-choice callousness (yes, it's a baby and yes, you're taking a life; please take it seriously), there's mountains and mountains of hypocrisy to dig through from pro-lifers.
Here's what I'd need to see from the Pro-Life Movement before taking their arguments seriously:
1) Gun control advocacy. This problem isn't one of scale, but is perhaps the most visible of backward, barbaric public policies. Every other modern nation has solved this problem. Saving babies so you can arm them is ridiculous.
2) Take COVID seriously. A million dead Americans in two years. If you care about life, stop with the anti-vaxx, anti-mask, anti-Mexican (I wish I was joking) intemperate rhetoric. If you care about life, take the virus seriously.
3) Extend this stance to being anti-war. I know, I know, the only way to separate an American from their war machine is to drop it on some foreigner. But don't those lives have a right to exist?
4) Love thy Gays. Okay, so this one is obviously flip, but I'm also being serious. No unwanted pregnancies from that community! They tend to be into adoption! Pro-lifers should be *zealously* pro-gay! "The Book says No" is an insufficient excuse!
5) Anti-abortion should mean pro-contraception. And for those of you who feel like quoting this list to your friends and relatives (please don't), really crank this one up. Pro-condom! Pro-IUD! Pro-sodomy! Pro-handjob! Pro-vasectomy! Pro-porn! Pro-BJ! All of these lead to fewer pregnancies and thus fewer abortions. This seems like the easiest bit of advocacy - you're advocating stuff most people will probably want to do *anyway* (something something Market Forces) - but the vast majority of Pro-lifers won't do it. (Hypocrisy is sticky, ain't it?)
6) Be pro-Single Mom. Stop stigmatizing single mothers! Start stigmatizing men who are irresponsible impregnators or seek to exert toxic or dangerous control over women by dint of impregnating them! This does not seem like difficult moral calculus!
Well, now that I've alienated another gaggle of potential readers, have a nice Saturday. I'm going to continue worriedly watching your country from my Socialist Petrostate Ivory Tower.
Hey Canada, I think you were being a little too flip about handjobs. Serious business. But I salute your centrism, and your gentlemanly disagreement. And I'm pro-contraception, for whatever that's worth. Though I should remind you, as you condemn American polarization, that you kids did give us the truckers' "Freedom Convoy," the worst use of freedom-as-a-modifier since "Freedom Fries." It was BJ and The Bear meets Alex Jones. I realize that Canada's favorite export is self-congratulation, but as the Good Book says, "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye!"
Hey, come on! I was the one that brought up the Convoy! And I was *absolutely * being too flip about handjobs! 🤣
I appreciate your honesty. Maybe we could join forces and start a bi-national advocacy group promoting contraception during handjobs. Who wants to clean up that mess?
Never again. NEVER AGAIN will I complain about flipness or the lack thereof! 😂
Wonder what Terry’s stance is on death penalty, guns, etc.
Forcing women to birth is authoritarianism without socialism.
Hi there.
You proceed correctly by asking the hard questions. Thank you.
As a woman who had an abortion years ago, I asked all those questions at the time -- actually, I was forced to, by influential friends who opposed my decision & offered a modest degree of help. I am grateful for their pressure.
Later, as a Christian convert, I challenged my views, continually. They never changed: The unwanted child would have been fatherless & bi-racial, with a mother who had significant mental health problems, judgmental conservative parents thousands of miles away, a judgmental employer & no money.
I had not been protected from my mother's mental health problems, even in my intact family & I was not going to bring into the 1970's a child I could not protect, of a racial mix for which there was no adoption "demand."
It isn't a baby. It is the beginning of one, & I even had a sense of it being aware of my struggle over whether to carry it to babyhood; & understood my decision.
Did my choice culpably thwart God in an intention to bring this person to life? I don't think so. God knew my difficulties, & my intent; & He rarely presents His Will in such a neat package. It is sentimental to insist to the contrary, & outrageous to assert such a belief to force a woman to carry a pregnancy she rejects.
I don't understand how anyone can assert with a straight face that personhood, in the sense of rights, occurs at conception. That belief, too, seems to me a choice, & in common practice, an opinion that deplorably substitutes one pro-life person's judgment for what women like me feel & believe.
The Bible says nothing about this. Christian churches have "chosen life," but have often understood that the mother's life was a value too. Although to be honest, they have more often de facto decided that the value of a woman's life can righteously be set at zero when she is impregnated under bad circumstances.
If a woman intended to survive that situation, people other than the church had to help. Probably people like me, who thought, felt & believed that human life is a continuum from those first cells to actual babyhood; & the continuum can be interrupted to save a human life, the mother's.
It is certainly not true that every fertilized egg becomes a baby. There are a lot of genetic mistakes. God does indeed make mistakes, but gives us the mercy to be relieved of some by miscarriage. Perhaps a well-considered abortion is just an extension of that? I believed this, & no one who disagrees has a better right than me to the opinion, or to what I did, based on my belief. (And I fully understand that miscarriage is a tragedy in so many other situations; which demonstrates how the Will of God is much harder to discern than many glibly think!)
Counter-Arguments: There is no population problem! There's lots of resources left for every pregnancy we can force to term! THIS IS NOT TRUE.
Our Constitution enshrines "life." THIS IS NOT TRUE EITHER.
We need babies to adopt! This might be true, especially White babies, which is its own tragedy. A woman who can see the value of this, gives a great gift. But there are many stories of adoptions gone wrong, or producing life-long trauma for both mother & child. And forcing women to carry pregnancies under terrible conditions or against their will isn't going to make the stories better. Anyway, this borders on commodification of reproductIon; which is offensive.
What about the fathers? How soon after the 6 weeks does their child support start? And the rapists, stalkers & abusers -- how does a woman get free? & how much visitation, placement with the abuser's parents & child support (from the mom who gives up custody) will be compelled before she gets what's left of her life back?
These are the vile consequences that will rain down if Roe is overturned. Alito's opinion is ludicrous in the face of this hell.
We can fix all this & enter on a new age of joyful parenting! Really? You can't even confidently get righteous rape or spousal abuse convictions in most courtrooms. People with really serious health problems can't reliably get care; for years now, administrative requirements have been increased with the intention of forcing people out if these programs if they slip up. Real wages haven't risen for years, but at the slightest uptick, Fox News starts to beat the drums of fear about alleged wage inflation. We are a ongoing way from a world that doesn't warp any life afflicted by an unintended pregnancy.
And conservative people have been complaining for decades about Welfare Queens ... if we ever create meaningful financial supports for young unwed mothers, we will enable confused & immature young mothers, if they achieve nothing else in life, to at least reproduce. And the angry people will be angry about THAT.
Roe is a sad commentary, but you won't like what takes its place.
Nicely said--and thank you for it. The male Justices will never understand your voice and Mrs. Barrett is too privileged to understand it either. Oh, but if your thoughts were only presented to them....
Which unborn ? The 3 beautiful children she will have with her great husband or the baby she was forced to keep from the fling with the French trumpet player with the heroin addiction & the smooth talking Macho voice .
I am so infuriated by the glaring hypocrisy and cruelty of "justice" Alito. He is more of a thug in a black robe. And I am a man. If I was a woman, I probably would have been jailed by now for harming a "pro-life" asshole.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-there-are-no-women-in-the-constitution
Hey Charles, I hate to bounce people. And I know passions run high on this issue. But let's dial it back. We try not to talk like that around here. It's a conversation killer and causes people to act like they do on the rest of the internet. Something my readers generally avoid.
OK no problem. The standards are different with other people and I forgot to notice that this is a separate publication. Delete it if you wish, no harm no foul.
No, man. I'm gonna leave you up, because I like what you just said. It's all about grace......
I want to begin by saying that I think most people are "pro-life" in the sense that they value life, support life, are sad when they see something or someone die or be destroyed. No one, but perhaps a severely mentally ill person, enjoys aborting a baby-in-the-making. I don't even like thinning my radish rows or carrot rows. I figure I started these seeds growing and I feel sorry for the ones I have to terminate their growth because there are too many. All that said, who am I to involve myself in a woman's decision whether she terminates, aborts, ends the developing life form inside her uterus? It doesn't matter to me if you call it an embryo or a fetus or a human being or a baby. It's connected to this woman and its continuation is completely dependent upon her and what she does while she carries it. It is her creation, not mine. Maybe she'll smoke or drink alcohol or take drugs or all of the above. Maybe she'll punch herself in the abdomen over and over to try to stop this life form from growing, but is that to me? It's part of her body. It's part of her process. It's up to her to decide what she wants to do or not with this growth in her body.
Even if I think she's killing a baby which quite honestly is a debatable and deeply philosophical and religious idea, shall I tie her hands behind her back, strap her to a bed, and turn her into an incubator until that "baby" is ready to be born? It's just ridiculous when you think about the power another human being is imposing on this woman from outside of herself because s/he is convinced that developing human being has to be born. Why does it have to be born? Probably the logic is that it is a "gift from God," a "blessing," or a "potential soul in heaven." All of these ideas are religious ones. I personally believe that human beings are capable of producing human bodies, but incapable of producing human souls that inhabit these bodies. I read of a case where two twin boys, after reaching the age of speech, told their mother that they had chosen her to be their mommy, but "a bad man took us out of you. Because we loved you, we came back into you again." The woman had gotten an abortion previously and it turned out there were two babies-in-the-making. Those souls, two boys, just turned around and jumped back in to her again. At least that's what they said when they were beginning to talk. I personally don't think it's possible to kill anyone whether in utero or on the battlefields of Ukraine.
Imagine this for a moment. A woman is violently raped, a knife held to her throat, an evil hateful man tormenting this innocent woman. He leaves her naked body in her backyard shaking, sobbing, unable to speak because of her terror. She crawls across the lawn and turns on the spigot full blast inserting the end of a garden hose into her vagina hoping to watch out that God-damned son-of-a-bitch sperm from her violated body. A well-meaning white Republican senator rushes up to her, seeing what's happening and immediately turns off the water, finds a rope, and ties her knees together and tells her, "You're going to thank me someday. You've already suffered by being raped. I don't want you to suffer more by killing your unborn child." What a horrible, ridiculous, unloving and even violent act by a well-meaning conservative who is committed to his doctrine, his belief system, and blinded to the plight of this desperate woman. In Jesus' words, he is "straining out the blood in a gnat and swallowing an entire camel's worth of blood."
I would argue the same for a twelve-year-old girl who is carrying her brother's fetus or father's fetus. Even if you want to call it her brother's baby or her father's baby, show some compassion for this child. Use some common decency and stop worshipping the letter of your law and stomping all over the spirit of love of the law. I would argue the same for the woman who gets caught up in the passion of the moment and gets pregnant when she didn't want to be pregnant, who makes an error of decision like so many of us make all the time, but we don't suffer the consequences of starting a life in utero. I have no problem with the idea of using a morning-after pill that makes the uterus unwelcome to the conceptus. I personally think the sooner one terminates a pregnancy she doesn't want the better. I do not support the idea of burning a baby alive with a saline solution. Perhaps this isn't even done anymore. I don't know. I do not support the idea of what was called "partial birth abortion." What a sick man Martin Haskell is with his "intact dilation and extraction procedure!"
If I knew that any species, whether cats, dogs, mice, or hummingbirds were routinely aborting their babies in utero I would think, "What a bizarre behavior? What is wrong with those animals?" I have to ask the same question of the human species. What is so wrong with our species that we have reached a point where over a million, perhaps even a million and a half, abortions are "necessary" in this country alone? What mental illness or callousness disregard for life could cause such an epidemic? We obviously need to grow in our values of respect for each other and respect for our bodies and the bodies of others, respect for babies and respect for children and respect for our grandparents. We should be promoting self-control, expressing real love for others that results in responsible sexual behavior, real love for ourselves that results in responsible sexual behavior, easy availability of contraception so that unwanted pregnancies are a thing of the past. There should be no shame involved in being sexual people and wanting contraception. Bowls of free condoms should be available and distributed everywhere including the entrance to your place of worship.
So, I'm done. I ended up getting far more involved in this conversation than I intended. It is not an easy conversation and it should never be thought to be an easy conversation. Anyone who thinks it is simply is not capable of considering the multifaceted reality in which we live. Peace to everyone.
Please pardon my getting personal here; I generally avoid bringing emotions to logic-based discussions, but I noticed that this one, here, is nauseating me:
It was my wife you’re talking about, and it was to be our fourth child. the child was not viable, and it would have been sheer around-the-clock torture for my wife to carry our fourth child to term, at which time, God might or might not have finalized the process. Our long-time Catholic OB/GYN referred us to a non-opposed doctor. The hospital staff, especially its profoundly sympathetic nurse, who treated us as in our other pregnancies/births, was an incredible relief—given the tragedy that we were forced—arguably by God—to endure. Our final fifth or fourth child was born in excellent health and form, a year later.
I recognize a shift of topics, that seeks to treat abortion as if it is ever—ever—independent of a mother, in an active state of pregnancy—regardless whether she is a profligate harlot who may use abortion as a contraceptive—or all the other thousands of mothers, everywhere, in every condition and circumstance, who miscarries or still-births or must terminate for any number of medical/pregnancy conditions.
The preceding sentence may have grown inchoate. All who argue—not against their own potential abortions, but against those of others—speak as if the mother involved lacks Standing.
But, of course, she has Standing. She has it in the highest, primary form. I realize that Anti-Abortion (AKA euphemized as “Pro-Life”) persons, are either limited in the range of their thinking, or are else of the Nurse Ratchett variety of thinkers and feelers: those who lack genuine concern for the health and well-being of others.
Twenty-first Century America ought not to be a contemporary version of Salem, Massachusetts, witch-hunts. No American practice of religion allows Me to intercede in Your determination to sin—if sin, these medical procedures be. No conscientious, Constitution-loving American, can support the kinds of evil invasions of privacy—including legislated vigilantes and cross-state-line-incriminating laws.
The Anti-Abortion folks are either inadequate thinkers or else meddling torturers. I can not imagine using abortion as a means of birth control. We dearly love each of our four children. For you or Justice Alito or anyone else to get in the way of our health and safety—and medical privacy—in this way, is an evil far greater than even Christ would allow any of us, to judge an aborting mother on His behalf.
So my wife and I were in the same boat as you about 20 years ago. We had a child with a fatal birth defect that was detected by sonogram. We elected to NOT have an abortion and it was a good decision even though our child died because that way we got to spend time, however short, with our child. But that was our decision, our choice. You and your wife made a different choice, but it is your choice to make.
Thank you, that was poignant, what a difficult thing to go through, and my heart goes out to you and your family. Not sure how I would have met that test. My wife’s birthing was relatively easy for our three. What you talk about there near the end is one, if not the biggest thing, about those who wish to make no exceptions that infuriates me. How dare they? It makes me conclude that they really don’t care about human life, they are just checking a box. Harsh perhaps, but I don’t know else how to comprehend it. Bottom line to me: it is a fundamental breakdown in human compassion. That is distinctly unlike the teachings of Christ. And he is the one we should be trying to follow.
If we, too, had stopped at three, we would still have supported any woman’s right to make her own medical decisions. But our daughter desperately wanted a younger brother, and we did our best so provide. Was it God who temporarily got in the way?
Regardless, we learned first-hand, not only that indiscriminate obstruction to terminate the death-sentence pregnancy would have been horrific, torture, but also that tens of thousands of families go through the same thing—and right now, here in Texas, God spare them!
You and I surely share a prayer, that not one single woman more must go through the Hell of a defective pregnancy or miscarriage.
I’m not one to intercede between any person and God. To do this is so clearly a sin, I can’t help but question the true motivations of all who so-dispassionately stand in the way. And as I say elsewhere in this whole set of comments, my ability to remain calmly courteous is now frayed.
It’s my wife, and could have been your wife, these people are talking about. I apologize again—to you and anyone else my expressions impose on:
To unequivocally oppose abortion for others, unless you practice Christian Science yourself, and abjure all medical science, is Wrong.
Saddest of Regards,
(($; -)}™
Gozo
And, I should add, I’m not hard over that Christianity is the only way, it’s just that Jesus is the teacher that I have identified with the most in my life…
To me, it's like vegetarianism/veganism. You may not think eating meat or using animal products is morally justified. (For the record, I do both.) You may not think an animal has the same level of consciousness or moral value as a human or is lower on the Darwinist food chain, and that's fine, but pretty much no one denies that you're killing a living creature which does feel pain and probably would prefer to be alive. And let's be honest, no one (I hope, anyway) likes seeing videos or photographs of factory farms, killing floors, etc.
But yet plenty of us do eat animals. And we might or might not be squeamish about that.
The abortion question, for me, is fundamentally about pluralism. If we sit down to dinner and you choose not to order a cheeseburger, and I do, that's totally fine. If we want to have a polite discussion about why we choose to eat what we eat, that's cool too.
But for my fellow carnivores out there, would you find it acceptable if your dining companion started calling you a murderer, raising their voice, waving a picture of a butchered cow around? How would you feel if animal rights activists were camped out in front of a Burger King, screaming at you and calling you a murderer, insisting that they are nobly speaking on behalf of the poor animal that can't speak up for itself and is anyway way outmatched?
And for some people, certain animals are considered sacred. So eating them isn't just gross in their eyes, it's blasphemy. Does that give them the right to forbid you to eat a burger?
Now, if hypothetically PETA had a majority in Congress and decided to pass legislation to ban purchasing or consuming meat on a national basis, because of moral reasons or health reasons (no doctor, other than Dr. Feelgood, ever encouraged everyone to eat MORE red meat) or environmental ones (I'm told that less factory farms, which is where we get most our meat, pollute like crazy) how would you react?
If you don't think abortion is morally acceptable, then you can still think and act in a way that is in accordance with your beliefs in a pro-choice world. A pro-lifer isn't forced into doing anything, but in overturning Roe, they're supporting legally forcing other people NOT to do something which is morally acceptable to them ultimately because it just really bothers them a whole lot.
I don't think this logic applies to every topic, to be clear, but I think as far as abortion goes that's unfair and kind of outrageous.
And as far as state's rights are concerned, it has to be a national standard because otherwise legally you run into all sorts of problems. If an abortion is outlawed in the red state where I live, but I do it in a blue state, I find it hard to believe that anyone who is deeply opposed to abortions will leave it at that.
It reminds me a little of the controversies over things like the Fugitive Slave Law and the Missouri compromise, where the question was: what happens when the slave I legally have in my state (which is, I think it's safe to say, an objectively morally repugnant set of circumstances) escapes and makes it north? Are they therefore home free? Or are they still my property? Am I legally allowed to forcibly take them back? How far do my rights in my home state extend? This is the kind of thing that gets us into trouble.
If something's legal here then it must be legal over there, because if it's not then you've got serious lawsuits and legislation on your hands.
I also think it's worth mentioning that I don't think getting rid of all abortion rights is very popular nationally (which certainly isn't everything but is significant).
And since the Supreme Court is lopsided because of overt chicanery (Merrick Garland didn't get a hearing because it was "during an election year" while A.C. Barrett was shuffled into a lifetime position less than a month before the election) the idea of chucking Roe and whatever else might be down the line, and basically saying Nayna Nayna Boo Boo about it, really is over-the-top.
I honestly don't mean to attack anyone, but for these reasons I do think that outrage over this news really is quite justified.
I find the notion of "throwing it back to the states' elected officials" to be troubling. Gerrymandering (I live in NC - we have had some pretty funky districts!) and crazy primaries often lead to minoritarian rule. Many state legislatures are overwhelmingly white, male, and of a certain socio-economic class. I'm not sure why these district-rigged elected officials would be the proper authorities to force a pregnancy to term with no medical knowledge or personal understanding of the situation at hand. I guess they just have it on faith that an egg that has been breached by a spermatozoa is a "life" in exactly the same sense as themselves. God help the woman who has a miscarriage in the days ahead. I do hope we don't criminalize tragic situations.
Wouldn't citizenship status grant full autonomy to the woman carrying the life inside of her? Maybe the courts should grant primacy of privacy to the person already with the birth certificate in hand to make decisions.
I understand the concept that abortion = murder, but cannot find a way for that potential crime to supersede the preferences of the person compelled to carry that pre-murdered entity to term. The compelled carrying—by one person, of another—crosses a clear line for me. One Example: To make a miscarriage potentially a capital felony seals the deal. I have yet to see any way for the most-ardent anti-abortion arguer to make their way around that. In other words, regardless of how I (a male) think about pre-viable pregnancy terminations, I share your view: it is the ultimate line–the right to one’s life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, that no democratic government like ours can cross.
Much of the discussion around abortion has been hijacked, or at least confused, by couching it in the high-sounding terms of “a woman’s right to choose.” For the record, I want to officially announce that I am three-fourths pro-choice! But hear me out. A woman has complete freedom to choose whether or not she associates with a man. A woman has complete freedom to choose whether or not she becomes intimate with a man. And a woman has complete freedom to choose whether she employs some means of contraception while she is being intimate with a man. To all this I say yes, amen, absolutely - in all of these situations choose! Choose wisely, choose freely, choose consistently, and choose in a timely way! However, if a woman has not chosen thusly, if she has passed on her three opportunities to choose, then it is totally hypocritical to start talking about her “right to choose” after the fact - when a child has already been conceived. (In truth, both the woman and the man have equal choice and responsibility when bringing a child into the world. But since it is the woman who is championed on the placards, I have stuck with that wording.)
Full disclosure, I lean pro-life bc I believe we are all made in the image of God from the get-go. And I hope (but am skeptical) for a day when abortion isn’t even an issue. I know many on the pro-life side who give large amounts of time & money to helping women who do not wish to have an abortion. But also, many are correct that when it comes to policy, they don’t vote towards expanding the social network. I am of the belief that Roe is unconstitutional, but also worry that if it is given to the states in this climate, the result will be “political drama” creating extreme laws. I’m not confident that compromise and understanding can occur today. Not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but Freakanomics had a chapter on the reduction of crime coinciding with the legalization of abortion.
https://freakonomics.com/2005/05/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/
For my part there are two important and diverse aspects to the abortion issue. First, what is morally right? And secondly, what, if anything, does the Constitution say about this issue?
As to the first question, I personally believe that a child developing in the womb is a human being - at whatever stage of development it may be. It follows then, that to end a pregnancy is to take a human life. I cannot possibly see this issue in no other way. So I will personally practice accordingly and do my best to encourage others to do the same.
As to the second question, I do not believe that the Constitution, or the amendments thereto, speak to this issue in any way. This issue was never near the minds of the Founding Fathers, or those who later amended the document; and they did not in any way address it. Therefore, it stands as one of many things that are reserved to the States to decide. (See the Tenth Amendment.) This is why some states have "prolife" laws and some states have "prochoice" laws. Part of the present uproar is that people have been told there is a constitutional right to abortion that, in truth, is not in the constitution. Read the underlying clauses for yourself.
At the same time, with an issue as important as this, it would be good to have a consistent national policy - rather than a patchwork quilt. A policy that was codified by a deliberate focus and a thorough debate on this specific issue - not one that rides on the coattails of an activist judicial interpretation of, at best, very ambiguous wording.
There are two ways in which this can be done. Congress could pass a law making abortion legal - or else forbidding abortion. The president signs this law, whichever way it reads, and this then becomes the law of the land. The second approach would be a constitutional amendment - either making abortion legal or forbidding abortion. When duly ratified by the states, whichever way the amendment reads, this then would become the clear law of the land.
That would solve the legal issue of abortion, but it would not really address the underlying moral issue. That requires a clear moral decree - a revelation if you will - that transcends the American political process or the opinion of fifty million Frenchmen. So whether this issue is ultimately resolved by SCOTUS, by legislation or by amendment, I shall continue to think, vote and practice "prolife" and encourage others to do the same.
Thank you for such a clear descrption of the framework you use for considering the whole question. I find it very constructive.
You highlight how laws themselves cannot resolve a moral issue.
This is so true.
We will have to resolve the moral issue among ourselves
Pro life and pro choice citizens will need to find some common moral ground.
I can see this happening in two areas: prevention and support.
Joint efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and joint efforts to provide support and security to pregnant women so they are able to have their babies.
I believe by working together on this issue we can not only prevent a great many abortions, we can begin to heal the serious divide in our country.
At the risk of rebeating a beaten and stoned mangled subject, I offer this to those who are not persuaded that Roe v Wade is bad law. https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/7/10/17553832/roe-v-wade-myths-kavanaugh-abortion-supreme-court. This piece was written by Scott Lemieux, a Professor of Political Science at University of Washington and a blogger at Lawyers, Guns and Money. I found this bit helpful in understanding the legal precedent surrounding Roe v Wade.
Great article and great comments. In reading through them, unless I missed it, I haven't seen adoption mentioned as an option for a woman who doesn't want to abort her baby but also doesn't feel she can take on the--really--lifelong job of being a parent. I thank both of the birth mothers of my two adopted children for deciding to give birth to them. (One of these women I met when my son was 45 and was able to thank her in person; she told me how grateful she was to me for the love I gave our son. The birth mother of my daughter I haven't met, so I thank her in my prayers.)
On the questions--I am a follower of Christ and it makes sense to me that if we really loved our neighbor as ourselves, we would create a place to live where all parents and their children would be cared for, where there was true acceptance of adoption as a loving option for pregnant women, and not looked on as a shameful abandonment, where there was adequate sex education and access to birth control so there would be way fewer unplanned pregnancies, and where no pregnant woman and the father of her baby had to face the dread of knowing they did not have the means to care for their child.
Yes, I believe that what is inside the mother's womb is a human being and should not have his or her life taken away, but I also have enormous compassion for the women who become pregnant in this screwed up place we live, knowing that they are on their own to raise this child unless they are lucky enough to have loving families to help. I absolutely understand why some of them just can't imagine any way they could keep and raise their baby and cry for them.
More. I just read the link you sent. Should have done that first. Apologies. As I see it she simply thinks it could have been better done. OK, fair enough. She did not like having to use right to privacy as the basis for Roe thinking this neglected the real issue of a womans right to choose. Well, she is certainly right there. Still, Roe as constructed has worked perfectly well until we got a conservative court. What makes anyone think that the court as constructed would not strike down a right to abortion as uncondtitutional given its present leanings? There is no such thing as settled law.
No worries. Though I wasn't actually talking about the GInsberg link I sent, but rather, the link I had in the original piece, naming and claiming several lib critics: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/in-criticizing-roe-sessions-aligns-with-most-legal-scholars. Including Mike Kinsley, a lib I haven't always agreed with, but who I respect quite a bit, as he's an honest man who was never afraid to buck his own side when called for. He wrote: 'Liberal judicial activism peaked with Roe v. Wade, the 1973 abortion decision….
Although I am pro-choice, I was taught in law school, and still believe, that Roe v. Wade is a muddle of bad reasoning and an authentic example of judicial overreaching. I also believe it was a political disaster for liberals. Roe is what first politicized religious conservatives while cutting off a political process that was legalizing abortion state by state anyway."
If you're against the state-by-state legislative process on this issue, and think abortion is merely a "right" that should be nationalized, okay, fine. But when the court goes the other way, and essentially nullifies it nationally, well.........live by the sword, die by the sword. Although it is now going to become a state-by-state battle. And Kinsley is probably right that the momentum was on the libs' side back then. Who knows if it will be now? But there are plenty of libs who just don't think the court had the right to dictate it in the first place. And if, for the sake of argument, we agreed that it was iffy law, it was not only iffy law, but iffy law that enabled and even helped force-multiply a robust pro-life movement, giving it a very clear focal point to rally around. Which is why we now have at least five, and possibly six justices who will now go to the mattresses against it.
So….
The issue of abortion should be up to the states?
Then why are conservatives now clamoring for a National bill banning it?
I also thought conservatives weren’t supposed to upset 50 years of precedent and multiple rulings? I thought that was judicial
Activism?
I’m confused as to what conservatives are supposed to believe these days.
(Honestly Alito gave up the charade when he said it was terrible law, there no right to privacy, Roe needed to be excised….and said those same arguments were ok for other things (gay marriage, etc))
Being part of this string I think Matt is on top of this pretty much. I would like to throw out the issue of the status of married women at the time most of Alitos history of a right to Abortion discussion occurs in his draft opinion. During this entire time of men pontificating about abortion being murder or some other form of mayhem, Blackstone had this to say about married women, "By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in the law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing." This was the status of women during this formative period. Does this damning inequality have a place in this discussion? Well certainly. When have women become empowered enough to speak to question of their rights as women. Men have been blathering on and on about for 250 years as though women did not exist.
Hey Scott, don't know how long you've been reading this site, but if you expect a spirited defense from me about the remarkable consistency of conservatives, you've come to the wrong place. I've written about their hypocrisy with some regularity. I was merely pointing out that it's perfectly fair to call it iffy law, since all kinds of pro-choice liberals have, too, as quoted in the links I've provided. I would agree with you that if they keep saying "return it to the states," then immediately turn around and pass a national law banning it......well, that would be a bit of a hypocrisy problem. One that I'm sure plenty of them would have no trouble getting over, the same way they seem to be just fine about DeSantis punishing Disney when conservatives are supposed to abhor the government punishing private companies for political insubordination. Though some might argue that even with a national law, the people have a more direct legislative say in abortion laws than they do through the more distant remove of a Supreme Court decision. (As of now, of course, such a law would never pass since Republicans don't have the numbers. Which is why plenty of us think this serves as pretty strong get-out-the-vote bait for Democrats for midterms, when they had almost nothing to rally around before, other than not wanting to see a Trump cult retake the majority in advance of 2024.) However, we should all be grateful that precedent is occasionally revisited. These rulings aren't all handed down on stone tablets from God. If they weren't revisited now and then, Plessy v. Ferguson would still be a going concern. And it was only overturned by Brown v. Board, after standing for nearly 60 years. There's a long list of similar decisions that you (and plenty of conservatives) were probably glad were revisited. https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/a-short-list-of-overturned-supreme-court-landmark-decisions
Thank you for agreeing that the hypocrisy is strong.
But you can’t agree that it’s there then fully embrace it. That’s called intellectual dishonesty.
Are you fully prepared to defend the overturning of gay marriage? Sodomy? The SEC?
None of those are explicitly called out in the Constitution.
Or, just admit - you really don’t care what the justification is…as long as abortion is allowed to be illegal.
Dress the legal arguments as you will…the end goal is the same.
That’s what Alito did.
That's your characterization, not mine. But let's do away with legal niceties for a moment, and make it more intellectually honest, as you like to call it. Am I going to boo-hoo if a legally suspect justification (Roe) that essentially enshrined the extinguishing of innocent children under false constitutional pretenses might be given the sword for being the crap decision that it was? No. Not especially. And not solely because it was crappily reasoned. (As many pro-choice scholars have pointed out, not just Alito's draft opinion.) But also because of what it lead to. I.E., the snuffing out of 63 million or so children. I know it's inconvenient to be reminded of them in an abortion debate, as long as we're talking intellectual honesty - the same way it's somehow considered bad form to introduce sonograms or pictures of what the carcasses look like post-abortion. But......seems fair game to me. The same way I think it's fair game to grill anti-abortion lawmakers on how they plan to strengthen the social safety net if abortions get banned. Since we ought to face what we're talking about square in the eye on all sides. You should be able to look at what you espouse. I could send you some photos from Randall's most recent abortion-clinic/remains caper in DC that would curl your hair, if you had the stomach to look at them. Holes punched in the back of the head. One eye open, etc. (They've been published. Photos available upon request.) As long as we're talking about hiding behind badly-dressed legal arguments............But if you want to further explore hypocrisy and/or get back to legal niceties, I highly suggest reading yesterday's piece from the Washington Post's legal columnist, Jason Willick, who makes a pretty strong case that overturning Roe (which remember, doesn't ban abortions - it just doesn't maintain the federal protection for them) actually makes America more democratic, not less. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/06/overturn-roe-v-wade-states-decide/ Excerpt:
"But if the court does in fact have a “structural” bias in favor of the GOP, that’s all the more reason for policy to be decided at the state level as a matter of democratic fairness. State legislative districts have strictly equal population sizes (unlike the states represented in the U.S. Senate), and there’s no electoral college in gubernatorial races. If Roe falls, alleged democratic shortcomings in the Supreme Court confirmation process are irrelevant; authority over abortion policy would lie primarily with state officials, who are more responsive to political majorities than justices appointed by presidents of either party."
This is funny. Kinsley suffers from Parkinsons. He underwent deep brain stimulation to try and improve the matter. When he came out of anesthesia he remarked, " when you lower taxes of course government income goes up. Why couldn't I see that before?"
He's a funny man. Wish he was still writing regularly. We miss his bat.......
Well written. Early people have thought a great deal about this - and cleary. In the end, here we are with the Alito opinion as many had predicted. Though I still maintain had the thing been decided differently, say on the issue of a womans right to govern the "affairs" of her own body, we would be fixing to undo that opinion also. I doubt that cleaner law would have saved it.
Not bad news at all. Where do you get this? I admire her but like the opinions of other senior justices better. Read some of the stuff that does not agree with you. If it were not for the notion of the umbrella extending Constitutional notions, the Code of Federal Regulations would the size of a comic book - not the length of a football field in fine print. How does the Supreme Court legislate air travel and other technologies not extant at the time of the Constitutions creation - like machine guns and lasers and. . . Yeah, the same way they did Roe v Wade. So, rest in peace RBG, knowing I disagree with you on the validity of Roe v Wade.
That's fair, actually. But there was plenty of lib pushback on the validity of Roe. I linked to some of it. I could find a lot more if I was so inclined. But you have Google, too.
And yes. Which is why we find ourselves in this endlessly foul discussion about abortion. The only worse outcome would be allowing each state to go its own way, futhering the butchering of the carcas of an already fully filleted America.
I said I was recusing myself from further discussion of this. I lied. I can now be seriously considered for a position on the Bench at the Supreme Court. I failed to note how sophomoric I found Labashes depiction of the actual law, Roe v Wade. This law was passed under the notion of the penumbra of rulings made by the court that rationally extend a clearly stated constitutional foundation. Roe v Wade is not the only piece of legislation so passed. Conservatives think the laws passed that favor them under such extensions are just fine. It might be noted that the word God does not appear in the Constitution either but is plenty abundant in arguments before the Court on various subjects. Dog turdery indeed.
Hey Ron, bad news for you. Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the secular saint herself, wasn't a fan:
https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-offers-critique-roe-v-wade-during-law-school-visit
I realize I am late to this thread. I want to state up front I am not overly sympathetic to the pro-choice side though I generally fall in the center to left on the political spectrum. My main concern with Roe being overturned is the downstream consequences for rights decided in a similar legal vein. All of that being said I don’t know how pro-life people can be so aligned with the Republican Party. They describe poor people as “takers” and continually cut programs meant to help them. How can anyone be pro-life and not be for a robust social insurance safety net? In a way a progressive pro-life activist actually makes the most sense. I for one am willing to pay more taxes to fund these programs. Many don’t realize that the overturn of Roe will have immediate consequences for real people in need as we all (including myself) clack away on our opinions on the internet. The supposedly pro-life side has for years cut programs and stymied others at all levels and has done nothing to prepare for this moment. I say it again the word many on the right use for poor people in need is “takers” where is the compassion in that? Lest anyone think I’m a socialist I might add I’m open to any and all programs administered either federally or through the cherished federalism or public/private partnerships at the local level. I am not even religious but I want people to be taken care of and to have the opportunity for a good life, the pro-life crowd should want the same. At first I naively though this could lead to a realignment of formerly pro life people fighting for programs to help people as their main objective was achieved. Now I know it will just lead to state and federal legislative battles and no progress. People can’t see past their ideology anymore, they are just too selfish.
Republicans give more to charitable causes than Democrats. We don’t oppose safety nets, we just want them cast more narrowly because we believe humans flourish more when they are self sufficient.
I don’t disagree with you about safety nets and flourishing. I will call into question your first statement which is explicitly partisan.
Not to worry about coming late
This party is always open
I find the views you offer here
very thoughtful and constructive
I like how you challenge pro life
people like me
Yes we need it
I appreciate that. I do have a question for you. I am not passing judgement but for many decades (perhaps longer, I am mostly going off of my lifetime) people have been raised to be selfish. Abortion, is a selfish act, again not passing judgement, right or wrong it is just a fact that getting an abortion is about the person who is pregnant and no one else really. So why then, in a society taught it be individualistic and selfish, is abortion such a hot button issue? And sense it is, why can’t we then be less selfish in other areas of society if we now are going to be less selfish in this one? Instead it’s about what you can get for yourself in all other areas, it’s about tax cuts and having the government leave you alone and making money and being “successful” come hell or high water. I just have a hard time squaring the circles created by the current political system.
You really think the government is more responsible with our tax dollars than we are? How about you let me keep more of my tax dollars so I can choose where I donate them? You have a cynical view of people. I don’t think we are selfish, I derive great joy in my life by helping others…Big Sister, Meals on Wheels, befriending lonely old people, etc.
I give too and not just money but also time, and please note I didn’t say explicitly government I just said that is an option and it is only taken off the table by ideology. Also, a government that was truly accountable to the people would be responsible with our tax dollars but that requires ending gerrymandering and closed primaries for starters. The years of small government crusading haven’t led to smaller government I might add, it has just led to increased cynicism about it and corruption and lack of accountability within in it. And yeah I am cynical sorry for having come of age in the last decade watching all of the adults fail.
great question David, thanks
let me ponder
and get back to you tomorrow
Thank you, I am genuinely asking from a place of good faith. I am 100% behind the idea of a more compassionate society, it’s been difficult to become an adult in the past decade, I know we have always had differences in our country and there have been contentious periods before but we always made it back before and it is becoming harder to see that as an outcome now, at least with our current political parties and all their respective baggage and animosities.
David, I hear you asking from a place of good faith.
I am deeply touched and honored that you asked me.
Thank you for your trust.
If you were truly a cynic
you would not have done it.
It grieves me that your experience of coming of age was, in your words, watching all the adults
fail.
Though I do not think
they did, I will go with your perception here.
Witnessing the failure
of all the adults
would give you nothing strong and hopeful
with which to identify.
No role models, no leaders you respect.
No examples of compassionate politics. You would surely feel abandoned and disheartened.
And it would be very difficult for you to even imagine
our country coming through and transcending this terribly contentious period we are now embattled in.
If I hear you correctly,
I think you are asking me: Where is the hope for building a compassionate society?
How can we rise above all our selfish ways via which we evade our responsibilities to be there for each other?
The core of my answer is:
it begins with your own
inner state of being.
You cannot control the path that others take.
If they are a disappointment you cannot change them.
You can never rely on others to give you hope.
Hope is something you nurture and cultivate and grow within yourself,
Yes you can look for leaders and people at any point in history who inspire you.
But it is up to you to decide
whether you yourself will be an inspiration.
Whether you will proceed through life as a light
that others love to see.
Or as a flickering wick that brings no glow to anyone.
You are young, David.
You can become a builder.
A builder of our more compassionate country.
But you must cast off all traces of cynicism.
It is a cancer.
Nothing good on earth
was EVER built by cynics.
If it was, it was IN SPITE
of their cynicism
not because of it.
Faith in others only comes when you first have faith in yourself.
It doesn't have to be religious faith.
Faith in your own goodness and compassion.
Faith in your own capacity to always seek the best in others, not the worst.
Faith in your capacity to find others who share your values, and to begin building real freedom
with them.
This site is full of good hearted people on both sides of our great divide.
We are drawing closer
as we share here.
This is a worthy endeavor
and proves there is hope.
We can inspire and support each other as we share our thoughts and feelings and ideas on moving forward.
Our country needs all of us builders now.
I hear the call.
You hear the call.
We are going to reach out into our communities,
find the gold in each other,
and never let go.
We will create and build political policies and programs that strengthen and support each other through thick and thin.
This is our America
and we are going to give it
a new birth of freedom.
I agree and perhaps I am a bit too cynical. It is just hard when you see people try to maintain power over solving problems. Giving in to partisanship even at the citizen to citizen level. I take your points though and I think the thrust of your argument is right. It is frustrating when talking about the welfare of the people is now taken to mean progressivism or some type of socialism. Those words are literally in the preamble of our constitution and are in the constitutions of many states and carved into statehouses and government buildings all over the country. This combined with the egalitarian nature of the Declaration of Independence should be enough to make people realize that America is about the pursuit of happiness yes, but individual happiness, though important, does not supersede all else at all times. I get that the founding was not perfect either but the seed for a better society is there. Lately I’ve made the four freedoms of FDR my North Star: Freedom from want, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, and Freedom from Fear. If everyone would strive for those things for themselves and others than society would automatically improve. I think we pigeon hole ourselves too much with ideologies based on decadent political parties that are invested in keeping us divided for their own power. I have rambled a lot, to sum it up I am looking for aspirational leadership instead of the current grievance based system we have.
Randall makes some good points. I reckon, as a lukewarm moderate pro-Lifer (I’d settle for a ban after the first trimester as a political compromise), I’ve been stunned over the last few years to see how many of my more rabid friends were merely performatively pro-Life. I’ve come to the conclusion that the loudness of one’s pro-Life professions are inversely proportional to the amount of effort one would exert to actually care for a baby involved in a crisis pregnancy. In the spirit of disclosure, I’m a bad Catholic who’s just become the dad of a beautiful baby boy via IVF, after sixteen years and eight miscarriages, the last of which almost killed my wife. A lot of the laws passed in “pro-Life” states would have made the implements that saved my wife’s life illegal. And yes, we made probably a dozen non-viable souls during the IVF process. I’ve learned more about fetal development, gynecology, and obstetrics over the last fifteen years than I ever expected. My prior experience consisted of a health class at Episcopalian school where our golf coach simply asked, “Do you know how to put on a rubber, boys?” We all said yes, and for the remainder of the course we did homework for our other classes. I’ve fallen way short of where my Catholic ideals say I should be, but I have also learned a lot, realized that most pro-Lifers are grandstanding do-nothings, experienced some really weird preternatural things that aren’t explained by SCIENCE or Holy Mother Church, and now have a beautiful seven-week-old son. So maybe I’m just too emotional right now and shouldn’t have opened my mouth. I have a Pyrenees giving me the stink-eye, saying I’m three hours late on our daily Barking Time. See y’all on the flip-side.
It’s unfortunate we don’t encourage adoption more.
With the acceptance of single motherhood and abortion, there are way more couples seeking babies than babies being put up for adoption. It doesn’t really need encouragement. That’s why there are major crises in adoption whenever a country like Russia or China cut off adoptions for Americans. I could go on about how our adoption system is broken, but needless to say, our friends who have gone the adoption route have either adopted from a family member or family friend, or suffered horrors dealing with a malfunctioning adoption process. It’s a complicated issue. But the demand far exceeds the supply in today’s environment.
David I am so glad you opened your mouth.
Otherwise I would not have heard
and be in tears of joy for you and your wife having your beautiful seven week old son
My heart is full just imagining
what it must be like
for you both to hold him close
To touch the wonder of his little fingers
He will love playing with your "puppy"
and you will have a second childhood
when he wants his first train 🚊
Great article! Lots of difference between being pro-life vs. anti abortion. I especially liked, “ …who say they want to make abortion illegal, but who often give short shrift to what it will actually mean for a society in which all those unwanted children might be born. “ To me, thinking about that is the key to moving forward on this issue. Thanks for your thoughtful piece!
You’ve never tried to adopt have you? There are more than enough people who would be in line to take in a newborn.
I do get that aspect, and I would include adoption support as part of a thoughtful response to the issue. I have friends who have gone through the pain and frustration of trying (and some succeeding) to adopt, so have a little understanding of what it’s like.
God is able to end a pregnancy - we don't have to aid Him! Every conception is ordained of God since He is the giver of life. He has a purpose for every life, even in the earliest embryo stage. That being said, your questions were very convicting, Matt.
Hey, your name is familiar. Any relation to Matt?
Teehee
In case this was missed.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/christopher-hitchens-on-abortion/
If he weren't dead already, they'd have had to have killed him with talk like that........
who are the broad "they" that would have had Hitchens "killed" (aka cancelled? - and I assume you mean more or less today or at least in the last 11 years) for talk like that? More than he was already "killed" during his lifetime, I mean, for heresies like being unapologetically in favor of the Great Iraq eff up as well as his sort of Nat Hentoff anti-abortion from the left posture, although Hentoff was rather more a left-libertarian seamless garment type than Hitchens as far as abortion goes, or at least so I remember).
Quoting Hitchens from the interview
"Nobody on the left can avoid noticing that the so-called ‘pro-life’ forces are overwhelmingly female and from income groups that traditionally voted Democratic. "
I would have been fairly far left by US standards in 1988 (I was 30 then, and ex-Christian since late teenage years) on most sexual morality issues and seamless garment of life things like euthanasia (I was hardass right on economics and social mobility and Stoic personal responsibility - kind an atheist Kevin Williamson way ahead of my time, so the 1988 model sui generis Trotskyite Hitchens would not have considered me "left" at all - I've mellowed a lot on the hardass stuff since and become an anti-woke liberal technocratic dissident a la Scott Alexander) .
and I found it quite easy at the time to not notice what Hitchens describes in the US (things indeed different in the UK at the time, but Hitchens is presumably talking about the US since he says "Democratic" rather than "Labour"). Looking back, I still don't see what Hitchens is talking about when he describes US "pro-life forces" that were (in 1988 and in previous years as "overwhelmingly female", unless he was limiting "forces" to a population count at anti-abortion rallies and the like. I went back and looked at the old Gallup polling back to 1975 and it's hard to even see much trend in the difference (they only started asking "pro-choice" vs "pro-life" ID question in 1995). n.b. I have no doubt that given the total data available in 1988, you could - and perhaps Hitchens did - come up with some definition of "forces" and "overwhelmingly" that would make his statement at least defensible. But without non-cherry-picked examples of each in other domains, I'd call it rhetoric for rhetoric's sake rather than argument.
(my GF/POSSLQ in 1988 was a secular right Republican - she'd been an intern in GHWB's VP office, worked on the 1984 GE campaign, and her mother was a moderate level Republican macher - mom knew GHWB personally though not well, etc., so I was reasonably familiar with the hot issues of the Republican party at the time - in particular abortion - were playing out just behind the MSM of the day)
Then again, while I love Hitchens for his uncomprising contrarianess, I would consider his statement that "X is true as a factual claim", for any "X", to be weak evidence against "X", and I would certainly independently test "X" rather than do anything based on his bare assertion.
Absolutely - in the last decade since his death. As a man of the left, he pissed off plenty of lefties in his time - his support for the Iraq War for instance. (Which more of them supported at the time than now like to admit - which I remember keenly since I wasn't so hot on it myself.) But if Hitchens, who was a friend of mine, pulled half the stuff he used to now, in the cancel-culture era, it would've been tough sledding for him. I have a hard time seeing him even being a regular columnist for Vanity Fair or Slate, both of whom he wrote for for many years, in the new climate. God help us if he would've been relegated to Newsmax, or something. But I don't discount the possibility that he'd probably be running the world's most successful Substack, because a lot of his former editor friends just wouldn't have had the balls to publish the dissents he was so fond of writing. He once wrote an entire piece for Vanity Fair on how women weren't as funny as men. It was an entertainment - a deliberate provocation. But if he did that with today's Vanity Fair, there'd be mass staff resignations, if they didn't outright burn him at the stake, first. Much as New York mag did to Andrew Sullivan. Everybody's lost their sense of humor. It's awful. And Hitch never did, which is why I liked him so much. And even when I thought he was wrong, which I did plenty, I always thought he came by his wrongness honestly. Which is more than I can say for most people.
Oh, if it wasn't clear, I admire(d) Hitchens very much (anyone who was willing to criticize Mother Teresa gets props for cojones), though I didn't know him personally as you did. And the world is a worse place for him being gone from it, and the fact that there is no room in the ecosystem anymore (I'm trying to think of who the best right leaning equivalent to Hitchens is and coming up a bit blank - Kevin Williamson perhaps? - not enough of a provocateur)
I recall Hitchens as being more cancelled toward the end of his lifetime than you do, but I'll defer to you on that. Quickly checking his bibliography, I see that Atlantic posthumously published his Vanity Fair essays about his cancer. I think I was thinking more of relative cancellation versus absolute - how many standard deviations out of cancellation was he versus the median?
I also recall, maybe incorrectly, that Hentoff was not cancelled on the left in the same way after leaving the Voice for Cato and the WSJ, so perhaps there is another variable in there in addition to abortion. Hentoff's sincerity and general aversion to bomb-throwing might have played a role.
And I agree all too much about how more than half of the left and almost all of the right (a few paleocons excepted) were nice and gung for Iraq II, and almost all of those who are still either in office or still punditing have managed to memory hole the whole thing without ever looking at how/why they were wrong. I don't forget though.
I agree that he'd very likely be running his own Substack - watching him and Sullivan go at it would in duelling Substacks would be entertaining at least, and possibly enlightening as well.
Where I think we (you and I) differ is what the epistemological standard is for coming by one's wrongness honestly in assertions of fact.
In that particular case the gender distribution of prolifeness in the US in and shortly before 1988, I think he failed the standard for due diligence and badly. I have no idea if anyone ever questioned him on it (his brother was unlikely to do so in that interview at that time): I did some quick searching and found nothing.
To be honest, I don't know. I don't have access to the pro-life 1988 gender breakdown data. Though I don't doubt it exists. (What doesn't exist?) But I think you might be losing the forest for the tree. The more important point was he wasn't afraid to buck what was then his own tribe, which you don't see much anymore, because even if he didn't believe in God, and therefore had no religious convictions on the matter, he kind of believed that abortion was killing babies, even it's not then, or now, fashionable to say so.
Here is a link to the epidemiology of abortions. More than politics and religion, it is a health care issue. Hard truths for a difficult subject
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/banning-abortions-will-not-stop-abortions?r=d4m8j&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
When I read this thread (thanks Matt), it is hard to understand why everyone isn’t pro-choice. I don’t know anyone pro-abortion. If you deeply believe a human begins at conception , you would never choose abortion even if unmarried, poor, unable to care for the kids you already have, have an abusive spouse, or were raped. None of those would circumstances would matter. You would choose to be happy and grateful you have another life to raise and nurture. The perfect choice for you. However, imagine if the government was telling you, you must abort. Can you imagine how outrageous, preposterous that would be? And yet that’s where we land….the government telling a woman she must carry a child to term. Forced motherhood. In the land of freedom. Returning this to the “people” is the answer? That’s like you asking 15 strangers to tell you who you must marry, even if you don’t want to marry; that you must have 4 kids, even if you don’t want kids. Something we would never, ever think of doing. Every unplanned pregnancy is unique and the choice as to what to do is always complicated and difficult. And not every planned and wanted pregnancy goes the way we dream. There are miscarriages, fetuses die in vitro, severe life ending conditions are now routinely diagnosed, women still die in childbirth. All of these situations are heartbreaking and a challenge. I, for one, do not want anyone else, not invited, weighing in on these most personal decisions. I absolutely don’t understand how pro-choice is not the sane, middle ground where consensus lies.
I have abortion fatigue
I will not force my belief on anyone else.
I believe that ALL human eggs are human.
Discuss
But-but-but: It’s clear (as you likely, intentionally know) that God doesn’t see each “human egg” this way. Nor the counterparts to each “human egg.” If we are to outlaw abortion, we might also outlaw masturbation and nocturnal emissions. This might at least be a bit more-fair, concerning our God-given genders. (I posit this reply to show how selective we full-grown “human eggs” can be in our individual determinations of God’s views on the subject.)
That's the same argument many non-slave-owning southerners used for slavery. Good thing someone was willing to stand up for the defenseless and force their beliefs on others. (All laws force someone's beliefs onto others).
Pro-life questions....
After reading all the comments, it seems that the answers to your questions to the pro-life side have become self-evident.
Since NO ONE has said, "Yes, I would adopt a child," "Yes, I would pay to support the mother" we can see that the clear answer is No. (Interestingly, the pro-choice side HAS answered your questions; the pro-life has not...just re-affirmed their pro-life reasoning.)
But really, you didn't even need to ask the question. We (America) have run the experiment. The results? Over the last 50 years, the GOP has derided "welfare-queens" who "just have babies to collect a welfare check." Or watched the GOP cut WIC and food stamp programs. Just last year the GOP killed the child tax provision that was providing thousands of dollars a year to families.
Sure...The pro-lifers are suddenly going to change.
No, this has always been about control. Being able to dictate one's beliefs on "the others."
As a life-long Republican (up until Trump), I thought people were honest about their beliefs about abortion, gay marriage, etc. But recent events have shown they weren't.
It's been all rank hypocrisy for the GOP. The abortion issue is no different.
Example: Roe v Wade should be overturned and the states allowed to decide. What happened the moment it leaked that RvW was going to be overturned? Yep...calls for a national law banning abortion. What happened to states deciding it?
Yeah...rank hypocrisy.
You make a lot of angry accusations against pro life supporters with sketchy evidence at best. You might want to calm down and consider the possibility that some Americans sincerely believe in the sanctity of all human life and are compassionate toward women who face the difficult choices that an unwanted pregnancy bring. We exist, trust me.
Sketchy evidence?
When Texas passed their law outlawing abortions, did they also pass a law the increased money for WIC, SNAP, Medicaid (for prenatal care)?
Did Oklahoma? Or any of the other dozen or so states that basically passed laws to “ban” abortion?
Oh they didn’t? Why not?
Just saying you are compassionate doesn’t make it so.
You’re very passionate in your belief, and I’m sure anything I could say would not alter your position. We can agree to disagree, best of luck.
Hmmm…so you don’t have any examples of the GOP/States increasing support for unwed mothers and their children.
It’s not me having “beliefs.”
And no, we can’t “agree to disagree” when you claim to care about the unborn - right up until then they are born, and declare it’s not your problem.
I'll answer the questions in two parts - Pro-choice and pro-life.
For the pro-choice questions, to me, life begins when one takes its first breath. So, does that mean I think abortions should be legal right up to that moment? No. I would put the line at "capable" of taking it's first breath (and surviving). That usually falls around 24 weeks. The current "compromise" of 20 weeks seems a decent compromise.
But the counter claim that says "at inception" leads to no compromise whatsoever. Why rape and incest allowed? Isn't that still "murder?"
What about ectopic pregnancies (where the embryo embeds in tissue outside the uterus (usually a falopian tube? Untreated - meaning removing it (aka, an "abortion") - will almost certainly lead to the death of the mother. Not "possibly," not "maybe"...like 90% likely. That's ok?
Or is the removal OK, because it's in the fallopian tube, but not OK in the uterus?
The pro-life position can ONLY BE (without being intellectually dishonest) that it should be left untreated and the mother...well good luck to her.
As a solidly pro-choice person who deeply respects the other side and is in no way an expert on the issue (and who believes that 90 percent of America could agree on 90 percent of the practical aspects of the issue and save many lives without having political fights), I had one main reaction to this latest chapter: I don't see what constructive purpose was served by this leak of a draft opinion. For either side. Even though, as a working journalist like Jack Schafer, I usually reflexively argue that everything should be leaked and public all the time.
This will reveal more about me than I usually wish to have revealed. First, I am diligently not religious. Having been duly tutored in Catholicism for 17 years, it did not take. Second, I am pro choice. I do not have these scientific nightmares about life or not life. Living, developing tissue - yes - life as Elton John - no. I can whittle this much finer of course, but there is a point, well enough defined by science and just bare reason, beyond which a woman must have a stern moral discussion with herself and her doctor or whomever she trusts to be rational, before abortion. This discussion must not be had in the Supreme Court of this country. Am I interested in Amy Coney Barret and her fundamentalist blathering in tounges bunch deciding this issue? Or perhaps Mrs. Justice Thomas? Or maybe, 'Its settled law Kavanaugh'? We are the very same ilk discussing this in this forum at this moment. I hereby recuse myself and hope I set an example for the US Supreme Court.
In no particular order:
As a pro-lifer, Terry’s comments are convicting. I wish I could say more, but I would only be fooling myself.
As to the question of the beginning of life/viability of the fetus- I worked with a faith-based anti abortion group that took a non-confrontational approach with the expectant mothers. We started using a counseling model, but were later able to offer sonograms, and the number of women who initially planned to abort but then carried to term increased drastically. The mother knew instinctively she was carrying a child when she saw the image, regardless of what the courts or politicians might say about viability.
Last, I recall Bill Clinton coining the term ‘Safe, legal, and rare’ to describe his, and presumably his party’s, stance on abortion. It sounded like a somewhat moderate idea. Sadly, what was sold as moderation was in reality a coercive system that allowed clinics to use a protected status to avoid basic health safety requirements, and caused nurses to be fired for trying to offer a few minutes of basic compassion for infants who managed to survive late term abortions. I hear the examples put forth about rape, incest, mother’s health, and so on, and while those are
legitimate reasons to have these discussions, I think those are too often used as a smoke screen to hide the darker reality of unrestricted abortion on demand.
NOTHING MATTERS at the end of the day except what the woman decides. Every damn one of us is a fool at some level if we are honest about our selves. Should she take the man’s thoughts and beliefs in consideration, yes. But it’s her body and that man might disappear a few weeks from now for one reason or another.
Stephen- I agree that if men would fulfill their obligations, abortions could be reduced, maybe significantly. Where you and I would probably have to agree to disagree is my contention that there is a third party in this equation who has to depend on the woman or man (preferably both) having some sense of fiduciary responsibility. I may not entirely agree with it, but a rational case can be made that the man's rights are subordinate to those of the woman. In that same vein, though, the rights of the unborn child should be given consideration. Exactly when the unborn acquire those rights has been thoroughly hashed out up and down in the comments, and likely with no minds changed in the process. Back to the agree to disagree thing...
I don’t understand the fight against requiring a sonogram. I guess it is an intrusive procedure early on but I view it as being a part of informed consent. The reality of what you are doing must be shown. That reality often hits women when they DO want to take to pregnancy to term and then the regret can be crushing for years.
First, Matt, you are a mensch.
Not a subject I usually discuss with anyone other than my wife. But...you threw down the gauntlet, and I'm in a rather testy mood about a lot of things tonight after a full day of SUCK at work. So, I'm gonna' pick it up and throw down myself. With due respect and affection for all, and animus toward none. Except, perhaps, for those whose concern for lives other than their own ends at their front doorstep and in the delivery room with babies born into desperate circumstances pulling themselves up by the straps of their own baby booties. If they're lucky enough to have any. Not too fond of the simply pro-birth crowd, whatever their political tribe, religious leanings or lack thereof.
Like so many people, I have mixed feelings about this issue. I acknowledge the argument of " If it's not life, what is it?" cannot be dismissed out of hand, or at this time really be answered by anything other than one's own conscience. Sorry, Science, I fear your distinctions between zygotes, feti and human beings are a bit inadequate to resolve this issue, and likely will be for...ever? Or at least until the scientists laboring up one side of the Mountain of Truth run headlong into the theologians and philosophers clambering up the other side as they all scramble over the final crest, only to find themselves standing face to face in the same place. Then, perhaps, we'll have an answer satisfying to all. But until then...
I have only this to add to the discussion, since all I have to say about what I believe has been said by others over and over all over the place ad infinitum. But I don't hear this position too often, and the more I think about it, the more merit I see in it. Will probably catch flak for it. Don't care. Testiness has been duly noted.
I think it might be a good idea if all the men - and I mean ALL THE MEN - who feel compelled to be the arbiters of right and wrong on this issue shut up and let the women who have the biggest stake in it and the more valid claim to the right to sort it out...sort it out.
Sorry, boys, but our share in the procreation process from 0 to 9 months doesn't amount to much, regardless of circumstance or intent, at least not enough that I don't see male dominated decision-making institutions as stacked decks on this one. I don't think there's anything more uniquely 'female' than gestation and birth. And while I know nothing of what this is like in any meaningful way beyond trying to be a supportive husband as each of my daughters were created and brought into this world by their mother, I'm pretty sure I'd resent the bloody hell out of any man not just telling me, but deciding for me what I should or shouldn't do in this regard if I were a woman, rich or poor or of whatever circumstance, contemplating an unintended pregnancy.
Of course, there is another answer. We could actually make an effort to be a life affirming society and country with values deeper than having the largest thin screen TV on the wall or the latest go-faster laptop in our laps. Or the smartest phone or latest whatever-it-is. We could put some serious money and serious effort into creating a society in which life - all life - is a slightly higher priority than anyone's bottom line, one in which fewer and fewer women would see abortion as their only or best alternative. It would cost us all something. Nothing such as this is free. But if we were to pick up that gauntlet and run with it, the benefit to all would be incalculable, one such benefit being that perhaps abortion would become so rare that when one day someone asks Do we really have to talk about abortion?, the answer will be no. No, we don't.
But don't dash off any emails or messages to politicians demanding that they pursue this agenda. Because the only way this ever happens is if we demand it of ourselves first.
Good read M. Better points. Thanks.
I don’t buy the “no man should have any say” position. If men are the losers who aren’t going to step up and support the child, then it would stand to reason they’d all be pro choice, no?
Sorry, BC, I'm not following too well here. You don't agree with me, and that's fine. But I'm not quite making the connection between your 1st sentence and the second about deadbeat dads, which I assume is the explanation as to why you don't agree. Guess I'm just a little dense, but I'd like to understand what you're saying, so if you have a minute and wouldn't mind, maybe you could elaborate a bit. Not looking for an argument of a fight. Asking in good faith.
A common pro choice argument: If women are forced to have children, then society better step up to the plate to ensure the child doesn’t live in poverty. That assumes men aren’t going to support the child so if that’s the case, men would tend to be pro choice so why wouldn’t women WANT men to have a say? They’re more likely to be on their side, no?
OK. I follow you now. Sorry about the confusion. What you say makes some sense from the perspective of one side gaining more support. I was looking at it from the standpoint of if ever there was a "women's issue", this is one that has to be near or at the top of the list for the majority of them, and I felt it made more sense for them to sort it out and resolve it, since they would be affected more than anyone else. Wasn't really advocating for one side or the other in that regard.
These are good thoughts... and I'm even going to be good and pocket my challenge to the Mountain of Truth claim there. Put in a pin in that for another day.
I always hesitate to bring it up because so few modern pro-lifers fit this mold, but there remain a small number of what one might call "wicked church lady" types, you know the ones. Victorian caricatures who are motivated to be oppose abortion primarily by schaudenfraude and the desire to take vengeance on anyone who has offended their long outdated sensitivities. People who want to tear down and destroy "sinners" rather than treat them with grace and mercy. Against this type of person I pledge my undying animosity.
Oh hell, C, I read most all your stuff here and elsewhere, and you're 'good' even when you're *bad*!! ;-) Glad you found a little something worthwhile in what I said.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think we got into a back and forth about something similar once before somewhere else. It's been quite a while, so it may have been someone else. I just remember it went on for a while until 'a pin' had to be stuck in it due to mutual time constraints. But for now, I'll say the 'mountain' thing's more a mental construct for me that I sometimes use to try to make a point than an outright claim. But would be happy to pull that pin when the opportunity presents. Would probably be rather enjoyable.
As to that pledge, I'm all in on that one with you, my friend. Those who can only stand tall by trying to put others on their knees really, really gets my motor running. Have had to work elbow to elbow with a couple of guys like this for long periods of time IRL. Hoo boy! A testament to my restraint and somewhat good sense that I'm typing this from my couch and not on a cot in an 8 x 10 somewhere.
Well, I suppose we could take the pin out a little, and I believe you are correct that this is round two. Suffice to say I think the scientists got well ahead of the theologians on the Mountain of Truth and caused an avalanche that swept most of the theologians right off the mountain. Many are now at the very bottom of the hill and have taken to digging instead of climbing. Those that remain are bereft of gear and the guide ropes have been swept away… and the metaphor has been strained beyond all recognition (by me I mean) at this point!
Yeah, reading this I realize it was you. Cool. Won't torque the metaphor any more myself except to say I won't gainsay the point you make, since science has sort of taken a hammer to religion and theology in a lot of ways and put the truth seekers there in what seems a defensive rather than expansive mode. Which I guess is a pretty natural reaction on their part, all things considered. And that makes me a bit sad, as I've never viewed 'truth seeking' in either camp as being a mutually exclusive enterprise.
I don't know, we all ultimately have to live and travel through life by our own lights. But a little extra candle power from someone somewhere else often helps to better illuminate the trail. Even a few photons from an exchange like this one. Shine on.
For sure - and even when we end up in a different spot it’s both fun and illuminating to mark out the contours of the disagreement. I do view them as mutually exclusive for all the reason that better thinkers and sharper minds have noted, but I can understand why folks take the other side of that argument.
Ultimately I don’t see how the theological way of knowing can possibly illuminate in a disenchanted world. It requires a bit of magic that cannot exist under the bright lights of reason.
Now, we’re all mostly stumbling in the dark… but that’s why I love these two quotes from HL Mencken so much:
“A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it.”
“The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable.“
Like the quotes...have heard the one about the cat in the dark (always brings a smile), but not the other, which rings pretty true.
There are plenty of better thinkers, smarter minds and more articulate voices than mine out there. And that's why I don't insist that my view is the only correct one in matters such as this, and never begrudge others their beliefs, however different from mine they may be. Some follow reason and rigid epistemological discipline exclusively. Others, like myself, believe in and depend on reason to guide their daily lives but still believe and have faith in things reason alone cannot explain. The cause of this varies by individual, I suppose. I can't really make a 'reasoned' argument about why I have faith in and believe the things of a religious nature that I do, since there's no scientific proof or rigid logic for them.
But what I can say is that I don't 'believe' because I was taught to in Sunday school or church (BTW...been absent from the pew for a long time now for a number of reasons.) Or anywhere else, for that matter. Rather, my belief and faith (or 'magic', if you will) is the result of the sum total of my life's physical, mental and emotional experiences. I sometimes question some of its parameters, but I never doubt its essence. And it is the fact that I'm willing to question some facets of my own beliefs from time to time that allows me to be open to hearing of and learning about the beliefs of others and the explanations for them.
One thing we can probably agree on is that with all that stumbling around in the dark, we're all going to stub our toes now and then, which can sometimes be a bit painful, a common human experience we share even when our beliefs about other things differ.
Short term reader, first time writer.
My demographic: oldish white male. Red state. Raised Catholic but not practicing ("once a Catholic, always a Catholic").
I too Matt was anti-abortion, and I guess I still am. Its depressing to me that nature's most intelligent species seeming has little qualm about terminating a life of one of it's off-spring in such a manner.
However in the real world, I have subjugated that personnel belief. Why? Because I didn't and don't like who I was standing on that side of the line with.
If it's all stopping abortion, I say we should be doing everything in our power to reduce that risk. Like sex ed. Like subsidized condoms and birth control, no questions asked. Like child care, like mom care and a full range of potential positive outcomes for the child regardless if they have 2 parents, 1 parent or no parents.
The intersection of anti-abortionists and those supporting what pro-active preventative steps to minimize the opportunities of abortion in that Venn diagram can be measured in single pixels.
No, it's about people who are all about controlling people's sex lives AND MAKING SURE IN CASE OF ERROR THOSE PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING THE CONSEQUENCES. Unless of course it is their kid in that situation in which case an exception needs to be made and will be made. Quietly of course.
Ultimately I just couldn't hang with that predominantly phony crowd. Because for the most part, they aren't pro-life, they are pro punishment - for everyone else.
I think that's being reductive of a lot of good folks on the pro-life side.....but........I have met the type you speak of. So I get why you're sour. Though I'd submit that if it's a moral consideration, the morality of it exists independently of who is espousing it. Though it's easy to lose sight of that when some angry church lady is banging on the table.
Matt: If it’s a moral question, are not moral decisions to be taken individually – your morality may not be my morality – rather than by the state – you can’t legislate morality. You may rejoinder that the fetus-child cannot take its own decisions; who will take it for them? Well, the current noise is that, at least when it comes to education, the parents, (albeit that the child is now considerably more able to take decisions for themself).
(This would seem to lead to the position that there is a pro-choice argument to be made for the benefit of the child.)
Matt, I think my view of the pro-life crew is closer to reality than yours. However, I will admit that in this day and age many pro-lifers might indeed keep to themselves as they have decided to let the culture warriors have at it.
Speaking of culture warriors, Randell Terry being an example, bring about mixed emotion for me.
On the plus side, they are out there regardless of personal cost, logical, loyal and consistent. All things that I strive to be and traits I admire in others.
Yet, like other sticky issues (guns) our society faces, these are the people that never seem to be satisfied with compromise and compassion. Often the leaders of the "slippery slope" arguments. And loud as hell when they aren't getting their way. Which is why we can never seen to get to the bottom of these complex societal issues.
The fact that some of these warriors find it a great way to make some cash from people that otherwise don't like to get their hands dirty doesn't help things. #professionalwarriors
There's no doubt that's true of plenty of them. The same way the left fundraises on baby carcasses as well. They're about to do a whole helluva lot of it with the Roe developments. It's good for business for both sides - let's admit. If the abortion wars are ever over, there's gonna be a lot of people who are going to need to go out and get real jobs But the reason I would encourage you not to reflexively impute unclean motives to all those loud, rude, pugnacious people on the pro-life side, is that if you actually believed that abortion is mass murder, wouldn't you get loud and pugnacious about it, too? That's one of the reasons I like Randall, even if many don't. He acts as though he actually believes in what he says he believes in. There's an honesty to it, even if it doesn't make for polite table banter. Even if he's unsubtle as hell.
To be clear, this is not a "left-right" phenomenon. And it's been around forever (Al Sharpton anyone?, although the good Rev strikes me as a guy that once the money is in pocket there is forgiveness for all).
Additionally, to be clear, I don't hate the Randall's of this world. They "put their money where their mouth is" which one has to respect. I don't think you can argue however that the respect (outward, begrudging, silent) they endue gives them a outsized role (maybe deserved because of investment) in determination of the societal compromise that ultimately needs to be made.
It's almost like what it takes to get to that respected spot and stay there means by definition, compromise is off the table or one really wasn't all that committed to the cause.
We don't like compromisers but we do like getting difficult discussions behind us. Tough to have it both ways.
I would love to hear from Randall if he would support a) free birth control as a preventative measure and b) abortions in the case of incest or rape if it helped lead to a spot that the majority of our society could agree on. Just curious.
Failure to compromise at the bottom of so much of what burdens us all in one way or another. Compromise=Losing for way too many people who can't countenance the thought of not getting absolutely everything they want and think that they need, regardless of the cost to all the rest of us. But without compromise on some issues, we all end up losers.
Thank you for a useful contribution to this discussion.
What does an abortion take?
I have some sympathy with the position that, well, an early abortion doesn't really seem to be taking something much like a baby. The skin is not a baby's skin, right? The eyes are shut. The fingers are barely formed. The lips can't nurse. The proportions are different. Whatever it is, can't survive outside the womb.
But I would propose that what this means is we have a human life needing and deserving the protection of the womb until ready to live outside of it. That that is what the womb is for. That the very fact the unborn child seems so different from a born child is because the unborn child still needs the protection from light, from air, from sound, from touch that the womb affords. Not to be deprived of life, but to be protected.
No other type of clump of cells has unique human DNA and is on a straight-line trajectory to what all identify as baby-like characteristics (inside or out of the womb).
I am unable to read an opinion like yours without noticing that one of the two entities directly involved in the situation are not represented. If God wanted us to take the view that anti-abortion people take, He could have set pregnancy up outside the uterus, as is done with non-mammal life. In the Bible (AKA the Old Testament), as I understand it, are found a number of texts that support abortion. As I’m non-religious, I don’t rely on these texts to inform my own view. But laws that compel one citizen, to bear the care and feeding of another without potential respite, is an unconstitutional abridgement of rights too-far, for me. (If you’ve never been in a situation where the debate is personal, yet not about viability of your unborn child, you are a lucky person—but maybe not in such good standing to force that tragedy on others.)
Hi friend, a few thoughts. It is interesting--pro-life people would take the view that in abortion, one of the two entities are not represented, and the unrepresented one loses life.
Adoption, I would think, means that pro-life laws are not compelling one citizen to bear the care and feeding of another without respite. Respite comes less than a year after conception.
The Old Testament does not directly name the act of abortion. It does exhort us to "open our mouths for the dumb"--those unable to speak--and who is less able to speak than an unborn child?
There are some verses about the penalties for men fighting with each other, injuring a pregnant woman in the process, and the difference in penalty depending on whether she miscarries, or not, that some have argued weigh against the full-humanity position of pro-lifers. I don't believe these texts prove that one way or the other. I could explain that more fully, but would need to come back with some more information, and would be glad to do that if you are interested.
Much more compelling to me is Psalm 139, which makes it abundantly clear that the psalmist considers his own life to stretch continuously into the past, to his time in the womb and indeed, to his conception.
In contrast with your citing of Psalm 139, here is one rabbi's view on biblical texts related to abortion: https://bit.ly/3wui6j8
As I said elsewhere in this discussion, my personal connection to the overall subject makes me a bit more-emotional in maintaining a strictly intellectual approach: it surprised me how much actually standing in a war zone differs from debating the merits of that war from afar.
Thank you for your courteous response.
Regards,
(($; -)}™
Gozo
I appreciate your returning with that thread, and I too appreciate your courtesy. I am also sorry that some deeply painful circumstances have occurred in your life to which you have discreetly referred. I'd mention though that it is actually not safe to assume that the same couldn't possibly be true of someone taking a pro-life position. One of the most pro-life women I know is one who had an abortion before she came to see the matter as she does now. Her deep regret is part of her deep concern for the issue now.
On the Rabbi's point that there are times one must prioritize the life of the mother over the life of the unborn child, I believe that is also the view of the overwhelming majority of pro-lifers from two other traditions, Catholic and evangelical. So for instance, the case of ectopic pregnancies, and I believe there are other examples. The problem many have with "health of the mother" abortion exceptions is with how broad and elastic they are. A life of the mother exception might find broader acceptance.
To the interpretation of the passage on the penalty for the fighting men who induce a premature birth in a nearby woman (indeed, the same passage I had in mind earlier), this piece gives an alternative explanation which it asserts is more faithful to the meaning of the Hebrew words. I recognize the name of at least Vern Poythress and he does know his Hebrew language. https://wng.org/roundups/wielding-scripture-against-the-unborn-1635270285
I would add to that, suppose we assume for the moment that the thread you shared is correct instead about the meaning of the words, and the passage is treating an adult, born life as different for penalty purposes, in that era, to an unborn life. I would note that this is not final for our current purposes to determine what we should think and do today. More than one Mosaic law is concessive. So for instance, in the matter of divorce, the disciples of Jesus (who knew their Mosaic law, being Jews), come with a question about Moses' permission of and regulation of divorce, which was more liberal than the standard Jesus had just set forth. Jesus' answer was that Moses, as the civil administrator of Israel, had allowed this because of the hardness of heart of the nation in that day. It was an administrative regulation more than a moral regulation. It did not actually embody the full sweep of God's requirement. In fact, it never had. Knowing that such cases do occur in Old Testament law does, I think, need to inform one's understanding of another civil law matter in Old Testament times, the one you have cited. It is at least possible, even under the Rabbi's interpretation of the meaning of the words, that this regulation was a concession that does not fully elucidate the actual ethical issues.
I need to add that I am not seeking to act here insensitively to you or to anyone reading who may not be a follower of Jesus. I understand not everyone believes he is Israel's promised Messiah. My point though for the moment is just that a very significant group of Jews, those who did believe Jesus was the Messiah, and the Gentiles who joined them in that belief, found in Jesus a more rigorous moral ethic than the Mosaic applications of the moral law (along with a glorious and blessed freedom from the ceremonial law!) and believed Jesus' more rigorous moral ethic to be binding to the end of the world. It had actually always been present in the 10th commandment, which takes the commandment against theft and applies it to the heart by banning even covetousness, but Jesus opened this implication up further when he showed the heart dimensions of murder, adultery, etc. and the true narrowness of the just causes for divorce.
Thank you again for your courtesy in our exchange.
My courtesy shall not likely survive much longer. You seem not to realize that you sit on an elevated dais, judging my wife.
If you were to read over your responses in this light, with you as the tormented pregnant mother and Justices Alito, Barett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas dispassionately staring down at you, you might see that “Pro-Life” is a deliberate, Frank Luntz-crafted misnomer. It is convenient for energizing “Anti-Abortion” Americans to interfere in the misery of so many others—under the premise that others, less-deserving of the protections of Medical Care and Privacy, are willfully aborting unborn babies, willy-nilly.
You, here, speak from a luxury that countless women are denied. It is evil, whether you see this or not.
I regret that my courtesy has now been used up. May God have mercy on your soul’s views, whatever they may turn out ultimately to be.
Regards,
(($; -)}™
Gozo
Hello again, friend. I understand this is personal for you. I do not know your wife's circumstances, and so I have no idea what I would think of them--perhaps there might be some surprises for me or for you. But I am not asking you to share them, either.
I do know that not everyone who considers an abortion is treating it like some everyday method of birth control. Thank you for entering into this discussion. I wish you and your wife well.
I'd like to pose a couple of questions for consideration. 1. Do you believe that the body is what creates the eternal soul within, or that the body is simply a vehicle for the soul to occupy? 2. Do you believe that if that life is cut short by abortion, whether therapeutic or spontaneous (ie, natural), that the eternal soul that was intended to occupy that body will never have another chance at a body to occupy? 3. At what point do you believe the soul enters that developing fetus? (Keep in mind that, according to the Mayo clinic, "Miscarriage is the spontaneous loss of a pregnancy before the 20th week. About 10 to 20 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage. But the actual number is likely higher because many miscarriages occur very early in pregnancy — before you might even know about a pregnancy.") So if a soul is unlucky enough to enter an embryo or fetus that then spontaneously aborts and is expelled from the uterus, (which is about a one in five change it will) is that if for the soul? Too bad, so sad, you will never have another chance to experience life? I personally think God had a better plan in mind than that. It used to be thought that "quickening" was an indication the soul had entered the body, which usually happens around the 20th week. Perhaps that should be reconsidered.
I honestly don't know the answer to these questions. And they are good ones. But let me ask you a question of my own: If you believe in a God, and it sounds like you do, do you believe that if he implants a body with a soul, that he intends for mankind (or womankind) to extinguish it on their own volition?
This question is both engaging and puzzling. In the latter case, it seems to put a good deal of evaluative judgment on what God did do, or would do, etc. To make such a judgment, one must stand Above God. To question God's intention suggests that He can misjudge. To render our own judgment on this question of God's intentions, in any or all cases, must we not see through God's eyes?
Regards,
(($; -)}™
Gozo
I take your point that people can get into dangerous territory when they purport to speak for God. And abortion is complicated, maybe the most complicated thing people debate. But that goes both ways. Hypothetical on "rendering our own judgment on God's intentions": Let's say I walk up to a grown man, put a .38 to his head, and pull the trigger, dropping him dead. Let's say someone then walks up to me and says, "You shouldn't kill one of God's children." If I responded with, "How do you know what God's intention for him was? Maybe it was God's will that I snuffed him"......... would that logic fly? I doubt it. You could at least understand, then, what you take for the rigid moral absolutism of the pro-life side, even if you don't agree with it.
I especially acknowledge your "dangerous territory" point, in relation to the relevant logic. I respect your intentions here, to make a courteous discussion of the subject. You have found reasonable participants. This is quite an accomplishment, these days. Thanks for letting me participate, especially as I personalized my view, in this discussion, in a way that I had not intended.
(($; -)}™
Yeah, everybody did okay for the most part. I'm proud of 'em. Even the ones who came at me. Was a nice surprise. Thought I'd have to shut this bad boy down - that people would start battle-axeing each other. But that didn't happen. And quite all right on your end. I appreciate your courtesy as well. I read your posts, and know it's a deeply personal and painful issue for you. And I freely admit that it is often way too easy for us to judge people whose shoes we've never walked in. Less judgment and more empathy is probably not a bad remedy for what ails us. Or not a bad place to start, anyway. Thanks for participating.
During the middle ages, St. Thomas Aquinas posited that 'ensoulment' . . . The moment the soul enters the body . . . of a fetus took place 40 to 80 days after conception depending on the gender. Guess who got theirs first. That Tom . . . What a character.
St Anselm, another Doctor of the Church (will we never be freed from these doctors?), didn't quite agree so they had a series of lively exchanges and finally decided on the end of the first trimester. I should mention that they were much opposed to anyone choosing to end a pregnancy. Kinda interesting to have two holy men having the debate.
I only mention this because I consider myself pro-life but I am also against capital punishment, wars of choice, nuclear weapons, the sale of AR-15's, and ammo magazines with dozens of rounds and much in favor of supporting any woman who needs help being a mom. Not charity either but good old fashioned subsidies for every child. You know, like the sugar industry requires.
But . . . That is my choice and I am loathe to judge anyone else's choice. A just God, in his infinite wisdom, will make the call at some later date. Too many of us are so sure about the sins of other people. He who is without sin . . . And all that.
If God specifically asked us to love one another and turn the other cheek, to offer food, water, friendship to the stranger, does he intend for us to rationalize criteria where we institutionalize cruelty, deprivation, weapons solely intended to take human life, and exploitation of the environment for greater share holder value? Wonder what Tom and Anselm would say about that.
This post shares some refreshing additions to the discussion. (If you’ve never been in a situation where the debate is personal—yet not about viability of your unborn child, you are a lucky person—but maybe not in such good standing to force that tragedy on others. I expect you are sympathetic to this point, despite that I say it a bit un-artfully.)
One of the reasons I tend to dread this discussion is because I find most answers lacking. There are so many good comments on here, but I still walk away feeling like we haven't said everything that needs to be said. I'm including myself when I say answers are lacking. And after reading the questions from Randall Terry, I feel like my personal response is lacking as well. In my opinion, abortion is tragic, but so are some of the circumstances that result in an abortion. I can't stand most the grandstanding and lack of humility on this issue (not talking about anyone here, mostly talking about politicians and celebrities). I'm thinking the best thing for me to do is look for the helpers, and help the helpers where I can. Otherwise, it all seems too overwhelming.
I agree we are still lacking
my response was lacking
but we have dared to begin....
dared to soeak from our hearts...
and now we have a little flame
of mutual regard
and shared insights
glowing in this place
and we can gently blow on it...
Thank you.
Having glanced through the comments below, I recognize that much of what I am saying is what others have already said, but FWIW:
—There are a lot of words not used in the Constitution but that courts have interpreted the words that were used to encompass (Scalia managed to read “semi-automatic rifles” into the word “arms” in Heller; others the word “wire-tap” into the phrase “search”l; as just two examples); it is one of the obligations of any judge or justice applying the Constitution. The document does not use the word “abortion “, but it does use the word “liberty”. The “Constitution does not use the word ‘abortion’” line of argument is one that, taken to its logical extreme, rewrites much of the last two centuries of Constitutional law (including Heller).
—I personally am against abortion, so in that sense am “pro-life”, but would not impose my wishes on any woman, starting with my wife and daughters (three in their 30’s), so in that sense am “pro-choice”.
—Some of the same people who are saying to leave this issue up to the states are now considering legislation making abortion illegal throughout the U.S., without exception (argument: if embryos are life, abortion is murder, and should be illegal everywhere without any exception). This was never really about federalism.
—Constitutional amendments are extraordinarily difficult to effect, purposefully so to limit the ability of simple majorities ever to change the rules for everyone else. Read The Woman’s Hour, by Elaine Weiss, about how close the 19th Amendment allowing women to vote came to never being ratified by the requisite 3/4ths of state legislatures (the last available state, Tennessee, narrowly ratifying to put it over the edge), only a little more than 100 years ago.
—Thanks, Matt, for creating a civil platform for all this airing, pro and con.
In your second paragraph, you precisely define the Pro-Choice position. I’ve never personally met anybody who is “Pro-Abortion.” It is more than likely that some unfortunate Souls use abortion as a form of birth-control. But enough of us are out there, where reasonable medical care is essential, or close to it. My family has been there, once. I can tell you would not put your wife or daughters through what Justice Alito would have put my wife through. It’s nauseating, when it becomes personal. Reading intellectualized discussions like these, without seeing my wife and daughter in the potential consequences, is hard to stomach. May your daughters stay safely out of the harm’s way of This. Thanks for your prudent post.
The issue of abortion is a religious, political, and a woman’s issue.
As far as the religious issue goes: I was raised Roman Catholic and abortion was a sin, as was contraception, and eating meat on fridays. So much for an institution telling me what a sin is.
In the book of Genesis, God created man out of dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils and he became a living being. Perhaps taking the first breath may be the criteria for life. This includes premise who need a ventilator to breath.
I believe the creator of the universe gave us knowledge and made us partners in creation. Perhaps in making us partners in creation, he gave us the responsibility of deciding when another human is to be born.
An embryo is part of a woman’s body until it can live outside it—it isn’t viable. It is not an independent being.
Abortion has been around for thousands of years before Christ. Jesus didn’t think it important enough to make an issue out of it.
Yes, an embryo is alive but abortion is not murder as in the sense of shooting children in school.
Why are the so-called pro-life people so concerned about embryos and not real children? What about providing food and education for them?
Abortion has become a political hot button encouraging people to vote Republican solely for that reason—no matter the corruption and lies of the party.
As a woman’s issue. The mother’s life should take precedence. Women died with self-induced abortions before Roe-vs-Wade. Pregnancy is much more risky to a woman’s health than abortion.
These new state laws are scary for women. What if a woman is raped or in case of incest? 13yr olds can become pregnant by their fathers or brothers. Are states going to force them to carry them to birth and then raise them? What about cases of rape? Some of the new state laws don’t allow abortions in those cases. If a woman is forced to carry a pregnancy to term—shouldn’t the father be forced to provide for the child to adulthood? No state laws even address that justice.
The abortion rate has been going down every year since Roe -vs-Wade. It would go down even more if birth control were accessible and affordable to every woman.
Thank you, Susan.
I don't want to flatter you people. Don't want it to go to your head. But so far, you've been wonderful. Even you bastards who disagree with me. (And are wrong - but I welcome your dissents.) I've only had two subs cancellations thus far, which on this topic, is something like a miracle. If we can have this many commenters on all sides of the ball on the most divisive issue of our day kind of get along, well, I don't want to say it restores my faith in our country. But it sort of does. Though I reserve the right to change that opinion. You disappointers are out there, and I don't sell you short......
Matt,
Good article. Few questions regarding Randall Terry's questions. Why isn't the father of these unwanted children asked to provide support and financial aid? When did this entire burden fall on society? Any one who believes the men have no responsibility to the health and welfare of their off spring hasn't been in divorce court lately. I'm neither pro-life or pro-abortion. I feel like this whole issue is being used as a political cudgel. The Democratic party has very little to run on in the mid term elections. If they really want to end this debate, they control the legislative and executive branch of the government. Biden could at least issue an executive order while proper legislation is drafted.
I've had that very same question. I wonder what the answer is. I realize in some cases the father may not be known. Even where he is known or suspected, legal action to get him to submit to a paternity test could be expensive. And then, what if he is young and not yet an earner, etc. Yet morally, I agree with you completely and one of the angles on abortion that I think is much too little spoken about is how it tends to serve the convenience of men who don't want the responsibilities of fatherhood. Or the convenience of embarrassed families. Etc. Sometimes a woman would love to be a mother and those around her are pressuring her. The legality and convenience of abortion has made it so easy for them to do that. In some cases a boyfriend says he'll leave if she doesn't get the abortion. What?? He should be staying and being a dad. Instead he says I leave unless you have the abortion. Her heart may be torn but she feels she doesn't have a choice. I am pro-life and believe we should support her and help her to see she has resources. Keep the baby, let the irresponsible boyfriend go, we will help you make it . . . but indeed, the fact that no one comes after the dad for financial support leaves the woman with all the challenges.
I wonder if those with feminist leanings find themselves in a bind on this topic. They shouldn't really like the idea of men being shirkers and leaving burdens unfairly on women, I would think. Yet they value an independence from men. So maybe they have a motive too to lead them to advise abortion to women as a solution.
Katherine, thank you so much for your insights. I find them deep and constructive, and free of judgment.
I agree that unfortunately abortion can be a factor that allows a man to evade responsibility.
I remember a first date I had with a nice man who was highly attracted to me. I liked him as well. Somewhere along in the afternoon, things were going great, and he subtly raised the topic of abortion.
I still recall the look of disappointment and dismay on his face when I said I was pro life. Though we continued our date quite well, he did not ask me out again. I always wondered why,
but the most plausible explanation
I could come up with was he didn't want to take the risk.
I think it works both ways, as you say. A feminist values independence from men. Access to abortion may be seen as part of it.
So, if neither the man nor the woman wants to be burdened with the child and the accompanying relationships and responsibilities,
it is the child who has to go.
We value the self-defined freedom of the man and the woman over the life of the unborn child, who has no voice in the matter.
I pray those of us on both sides of the abortion question can join together, share our insights, and lovingly find a way to respect the freedom and life of all three.
Thanks, Gary. And I agree - the father should be carrying his share. As we know, that rarely happens in a lot of these situations. So I think what Randall was saying is if a government is going to make the laws that make it more difficult or even impossible to have a legal abortion, then it is their duty to make sure the safety net is strong enough to absorb these additional children. Which is a discussion conservatives - even religious ones - often don't want to have. It's all about, "You shouldn't have an abortion." Okay, then what, when you're a 16-year-old single mom, the father went AWOL, and you have no real means of support? Not very compassionate to then turn around and say, "Sorry, doll, lotsa luck with that." Which is what Randall was getting at.
And I agree - but the Dems might be stupid NOT to use this as a political cudgel, particularly to mobilize young voters, who already vote for them in droves anyway - if they turn out. They don't have many issues to turn people out with right now. Look around. It ain't going so hot. So not to be cynical, but they probably don't want to end the debate.....at least not before November. Republicans, on the other hand, can't seem to talk about it little enough. They'd rather just talk about the (presumed) liberal leaker. A curious diversion. when you're on the brink overturning a half-century old abortion decision. It's almost as if they're sorry they're getting what they say they've always wanted. Which Randall has addressed in the past, too. (See my profile of him.)
Well, that did it for me: I subscribed. I had been on the fence for some time, with each new post putting me a bit more on the fence, if you know what I mean. That last comment pushed me over. I'm neither a believer nor pro-life. And I don't fish. But I do appreciate what you are doing over here and look forward to wherever the tides take you.
Welcome to the campfire, Kit
Ain't no place anyplace
anything like THIS place
So glad you see and value
what Matt is doing here
We have more freedom to speak
than in many (most?) universities
Actually listen and learn
from each other
And like you we look forward
to wherever the tide takes Matt
Fantastic, thanks KIt! Sincerely appreciate that sort of attitude.
We have risen to the occasion
because you believed in us.
You asked the impossible of us.
You risked it all.
This could have been a godforsaken DISASTER, Matt,
and everybody here knows it.
Ah but now we all have SKIN
in this community.
This is no game.
It is our country.
Yes
by coming here and speaking and listening and caring and building bridges
on this most divisive of all issues
we are healing our country.
This is how we bridge
our horrendous divide.
This is how we prevent civil war.
You are a peacemaker Matt.
Thank you for your deep love of country
that I saw in you long ago.
It no longer flies under the radar.
It flies free, and leads us as we grow.
Here's a link to Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life survey on abortion where 5 sociologists conducted in-depth interviews with 217 Americans from a wide range of demographic groups. Not a pick-one-of-the-following-answers type of survey. How do Americans, even individual Americans, feel about abortion? It's complicated.
https://f.hubspotusercontent40.net/hubfs/2077093/Content%20Offers/AAS%20Research%20Report/Research%20Report_How%20Americans%20Understand%20Abortion.pdf
I think David French may have recommended this as well. Thanks for posting the link!
Matt, thanks for having this discussion
I have debated if I should enter into this debate. Here it goes. Morally I believe abortion is wrong and I am pro life, however, I am not comfortable with the government, deciding what a woman can and cannot do with her own body. That being said, respectively, this is the question I always wanted to ask: why can't the question be: I choose to become pregnant and welcome a child OR chose to prevent pregnancy? I feel that there is ample ways to prevent unwanted pregnancy relatively cheaply. Thank you again Matt.
I see efforts to frame abortion / reproductive rights in terms of black and white. It's biology. It's grey and messy. Because it's grey and messy, the decision should rest with the parents, their own understanding of God and medical advice when necessary. Remanded back to the states- phooey. There are some things that are intensely personal and private, and healthcare, including unborn fetuses, is one of those things. Abortion is a genie that can't be put back in its bottle. Decreasing abortions requires a holistic, compassionate approach. Persuade people that the life is precious, if that's your take. Have some faith in humanity and let individuals take responsibility for their decisions. Meanwhile, what about in vitro fertilization and all those zygotes that get tossed out, or fail to implant? Who's rescuing those "children"? What about ectopic pregnancies? Fatal developmental abnormalities? What about IUDs? To restate: biology does not lend itself to nor care about our philosophical, legal or religious pontifications.