The Abortion Conundrum

Let me warn you at the outset, I have not thought this one out. I rarely do before I spout off on my blog because I find this a good place to START thinking about things, often with the help of your insight.

All I know is this. This one makes me sad and angry and deeply worried. But as always, a little ambivalent. I am rabidly pro-choice, but never comfortable arguing the subject because frankly, neither side is having an argument about any of the same issues. While we discuss women's freedom to make choices about their bodies, they discuss murder. And you know what? Their argument is not so far from the truth as to be implausible. We all know abortion ends a life -- is it the life of of something or someone? It matters, for legal reasons, but ultimately it's splitting hairs.

Rarely do pro-choice people acknowledge that abortion is a tragedy. No woman looks forward to an abortion. and no woman is not in some way wounded psychologically by the experience. We have to acknowledge that.

That said, this is not about babies or women at its source: it is about one human being's right to live and be healthy. And no human being has that right at the expense of another human being. (So yes, in this sense, a fetus of a certain age, to me, is a human being.) If I am dying of liver disease, I can't grab you and insist you give me your liver. In this same vein, a fetus does not have a right to life at the expense or potential expense of the life of its mother. But then again, does the reverse necessarily follow?

HOWEVER. This does also beg the question: if we have this standard for health and for life, what about quality of life? If a woman aborts a fetus for non-health reasons (say, she can't support it, or she was raped) after the fetus reaches a certain age, this guideline would not apply. Again, we are in the arena of "at what week does a fetus have rights?" And to have any answer other than "at birth" creates a subjective legal and moral morass that would be unmanageable.

So again I am left with supporting abortion in all cases, and feeling dissatisfied with where that places me morally.

Comments

[carla]

Well, hell, I'll jump in there with you. I think part of the problem here--and one of the things that makes me so angry about the anti-choicers--is that it's an incomplete argument. Would it be a good thing to reduce the number of abortions? Why, yes, I think we can all agree on that, whether we are pro-choice (as I am), or not. I'd say yes on that one. Why, then, are we telling kids to "just say no" (like that's worked EVER in human history) and telling them that contraception doesn't work, and not making information or contraception available--which is the upshot of the "abstinence-only" crap? Why aren't we making contraception available to anyone who wants it, along with the education they need to use it properly? Reducing the number of abortions can be accomplished by reducing the number of (unwanted) pregnancies, no? Then let's give people the emotional, psychological, and technological resources to do that.

Would it also be a good thing to make those (increasingly rare, if we do it right) abortions possible earlier rather than later in a pregnancy? Hmm, I'd say yes on that, one, too. Why, then, are we making it increasingly difficult for women to get an abortion? Why aren't we making emergency contraception more widely available? I'd argue that, in at least some cases, rather than making the abortion not happen, we are making it happen at a later stage in the pregnancy, which isn't a result that anyone really wants.

And, of course, many of the same people who are so vehemently anti-choice don't care a fig for that fetus once it's born--they've aligned themselves politically with the party that takes health care away from people who can't afford it, that has ravaged the school system and the economy. Essentially, politically they're willing to sacrifice the already born for the unborn, and that seems wrong to me.

[Carpenter]

You're confused because the issue is confusing.
The problem is not with you, it's with people who pretend that there are no ethical shades of grey in the debate.

[Tom]

This is a huge problem. I know lots of people who are pro-life. The ones that I know are intellingent and believe it or not even occassionally liberal on other issues. For their own reasons they are convinced that abortion = murder. These people never fail to vote and they are hell bent on electing candidates who will pack courts and overturn Roe v Wade. I find myself constantly arguing with them that the candidates that they back for their pro-life stands pursue contradictory policies on the death penalty, war above diplomacy, family unfriendly policies which exacerbate poverty leading to increased abortions and are often against sex education. Still it is like talking to a brick wall. I've even accused those who hold these views (and are not sterotypical fundamentalist no-nothings or abortion clinic bombers) as willing to support even a Hitler if he said he was pro-life!

Where has this gotten us? Lots of otherwise reasonable folks have voted against there own self interest and elected a bunch of neo-cons who pay lip service to caring about the sanctity of life when in fact they hate the poor and the weak with every fiber of their being.

People of good will on both sides of this issue need to come together with the goal of minimizing the occurence of abortions. Not ending the legality of abortions, ending the necessity of abortions or the pressure to abort. I have argued that ending the legality of abortions will simply move the practice underground. Not so much to back alleys with coat hangers as some claim but to illegally obtained abortion drugs from a prosperous black market. (That's a whole other subject.) So if the goal of pro-life activists is to prevent abortions they should end their effort to change the law and instead change policies that actually promote abortions.

What are these policies:

Number one over 40 million Americans with no health care. How many abortions take place because a young person or couple has no insurance, is already struggling to make ends meet and is terrified at the prospect of bringing a child into a world which has declared that it believes in the survival of the fittest and that the poor and the weak should die in the street. We tell our fellow citizens every day that in America they have to struggle and bear their burdens alone with little to no help from the state. If they can't "pull themselves up by the bootstraps" then they are a burden to the rest of us. Is it any wonder that many desperate young women decide that the world is unwilling to help them mother? Do conservative policies do anything to dissuade them of the truth of these fears?

Number two: the death penalty. If life is sacred and people should not choose to end the life of an unborn child because it will impose a burden on its parent(s) then should not the same rule apply to society when it comes to the death penaly. Let's be consistent. End the death penaly.

Number 3: Education: Many people scoff at the idea of sex education in the simlistic view that kids know where babies come from - penis enters vagina; voila, baby - simple. Of course it is much more complicated than that. All schools should teach details of human sexuality and reproduction and contraceptives should be readily available to all who need them. Some conservative think that teaching kids about sex "tells them that it is ok to have sex". Ridiculous. Reproduction is so fundamental to all life that to not teach this subject would be an outrage.

I could go on but I am at work and need to stop. By the way Dennis Kucinich, who I have not decided to support or not yet, has made all of these points very well.

What do you think?

[Lisa]

It is SO tiring to read comments like, "Rarely do pro-choice people acknowledge that abortion is a tragedy." That's just bullshit. It's the kind of thing I expect to hear from Limbaugh. Fighting to keep abortion legal is not the same as saying it's a fun procedure that women look forward to undergoing. Hey, let's have an abortion party! Woo-hoo! The abortion-rights movement has always included the right to effective, safe birth control as part of its platform. The anti-abortion movement fights even that. So which group is seriously trying to limit the need for abortions? Do you know anyone personally who has had to struggle with this decision? Do you know anyone who has had to struggle with the news that the fetus they are carrying is severely deformed, will drain their finances, need continual medical care, and essentially will destroy their entire young family's life for an indeterminate period of time until it slowly dies? Who should make such a terrible decision for these people, other than themselves? Who lives with the decision that is made, other than themselves? This is a serious fight, this fight for abortion rights. It's playing with people's lives. Real living born people who are making real tragic serious decisions that, I'm so so sorry to say, can't really take into consideration how you feel, ethically speaking.
I know people who have struggled with these decisions. Wonderful fabulous parents. Good people. So you go debate your ethics, your gray areas, your confusion. But leave these decisions to those who have to live with them.

[Lisa]

Addendum: "and no woman is not in some way wounded psychologically by the experience. We have to acknowledge that."
No, we don't have to acknowledge that, because that's patently untrue. And, again, it's a myth perpetuated by the right-wing, pro-life movement. Why in the world are you buying into it...not to mention that to make such a ridiculous claim that would, on its face, require you to have spoken to every single woman who has ever had an abortion?

This posting is a great example of why the extremists are winning the battle. Repeat something often enough, and pretty soon everyone starts repeating it as fact.

Women who have abortions suffer psychologically, women who have abortions suffer psychologically.

"Hey, did you hear that all women who have abortions suffer psychologically?"

"Yeah, I heard that! I won't think about the impossibility of knowing such a fact or how you'd even go about studying such a theory, because if people say it, it must be true."

Sounds like a Tom Tomorrow cartoon.

[julia]

and no woman is not in some way wounded psychologically by the experience. We have to acknowledge that."
No, we don't have to acknowledge that, because that's patently untrue.

It seems a little reductive to say that sitting in a waiting room full of women, some of them just barely, who are waiting to go into a room, assume an undignified position and have something extremely painful done to them, something many of them would desperately rather not have been in a position to undergo, might not find it a bit traumatic, even if it might be politically uncomfortable for you to acknowledge it.

It's an abortion, not a walk in the park, and it sucks for the people who have to have one. Treating it as if you can define it into no big deal is not going to win you points with women who have had one and it's going to give everyone else a fabulous excuse to dismiss the good points you have to make out of hand.

And no, I'm not speaking for all women, and yes, I know precisely what I'm talking about.

[Lisa]

I know what I'm talking about, too. So doesn't that just show that every situation is different, as different as women and situations can possibly be? I never think about the abortion I had. It does not dog my mind. You know what was the most traumatic thing about it? The protest gauntlet I had to go through. That was the worst thing about it.
The people I know who had the late-term procedure, well, that's a whole different story. They wanted the child, they found out about a genetic defect late in the pregnancy. Different situation, different feelings.
What I'm saying here is, don't buy into the extremist argument that "all women suffer psychologically," 'cuz it just isn't true. It isn't. Just because it sucks, as you say, doesn't mean it causes psychological harm. Just because it isn't "a walk in the park" doesn't mean it causes psychological harm.
Let's not make sweeping generalizations that cannot be substantiated and then insist that we acknowledge them to be true. There lies the road to crap, and really, do we need to step into any more of that?

[julia]

See, now I wonder if we're talking at cross-purposes? I don't buy the Everybody has a horrible crippling experience and spends their remaining days in sackcloth and ashes thing, which I know is being promoted, and I know people get past it like they do everything else they have to get past.

I tend to assume that when I hear that rhetoric, it's coming from a man or someone who hasn't finished beating themselves up over their own experience yet.

It's not the end of the world, but it is a crappy, hard experience, and I think we should at least nod to that, or it feeds the whole idea that pro-choice people think it's a casual thing.

I've never met a pro-choice person who thinks it's a casual thing. That's why we support adequate birth control.

[lisa]

I don't think it's a casual thing, but I also don't think it's always traumatic. And that's what I objected to in the original post.

The idea that all women suffer some psychological wound after having an abortion originated with the pro-life movement. And it's a crock. It's just a sop, an attempt to convince women that They Care About Us. Like the breast cancer argument: Women who have abortions are more likely to get breast cancer, They Said. Well, that turned out not to be true, either. (Personally, I think that was a bit of wishful thinking on their part.)

Here's the deal: Some women are casual about it; some women are traumatized by it; some women feel like it it was a tough decision; some didn't have to weigh the pros and cons at all but knew immediately what they'd do.

A question I'd like to throw out there is, does that have any bearing on whether it should be available to her or not? Does that have any bearing on whether it should be legal?

Because I think some people feel better about being pro-choice (and I'm not pointing fingers at anyone here; I've just been thinking about this a lot today) as long as the woman feels guilty or traumatized or psychologically wounded. "OK, you can have your abortion, as long as you feel bad about it and I can feel sorry for you having to make this terrible, terrible choice." But what if she doesn't feel terrible? What if it really IS a choice that she made with her head held high, with no doubts and no regrets?

Isn't that also OK?

I think so. It's OK to feel however you feel about it. And I think that's an OK message to have out there, in front of the pro-lifers and everyone.

It is a message that says, "Hey, we're adults, we make our own choices, and this is my life. I don't have to explain anything to you or feel a certain way or do penance or feel bad to justify what I'm doing. I don't have to have been raped or a victim of incest.

"I don't have to be anything for you. Because it's none of your business."

One gal's opinion... Thanks for the interesting day. I thought about this a lot today, and that's always a good thing. Thinking, that is. A good way to spend a day.

[julia]

A question I'd like to throw out there is, does that have any bearing on whether it should be available to her or not? Does that have any bearing on whether it should be legal?

No, I don't think it does.

Still, I think it plays into the hands of the people who want it to be illegal not to acknowledge that it can be (and often is) an awful thing for the woman who's doing it, because right now it's being played as something women do because it's easier for them than remembering to put in a diaphragm.

I'm trying to be strategic, here, not accusatory - it's just that it seems as if this whole thing has been framed so much Their Way that the pushback is to frame it as Not Their Way, and I don't really give the position of most of the "ProLife" community the credence to think that it's even accurate enough to be reliably 180 degrees from the truth.

[brooke]

Thanks for this, all of you. Lisa,I expected an argument like yours because I'm the type of person who would offer one. But I'm trying no longer to be afraid of poltically unpopular positions, even when they make me unpopular among people I largely agree with. You mayargue semantics: what exactly constitutes "psycholologically damaging"? But I think that line of argument is a distraction. I agree all aborton should be legal. I also think all abortion is tragic, for both the unborn and the woman. The real guts of the argument here, where we get to the meat, is when we talk about both sides coming together in a mutual, apoltical effort to reduce the *occurence* of abortion through social reform. Education, health care, social services. My frustration is with absolutist arguments is that we are NOT allowed to acknowledge the uncomfortable part of this issue. And maybe that's because we feel we don't have the political freedom in this dark time to really explore these. But I'm too old to believe in a ideology without weighing the principles behind it. I want emotional and ethical credibility. And that is what makes this issue in particular so difficult for me.

[Bethany]

This is a pretty heated topic that I am a little afraid to jump into, but since I just recently found my own little place in the gray areas, I wanted to try to articulate it.

I lived with several very intelligent pro-life women for a couple years, and we continually had discussions that left me unsettled. Their argument was that the only spot that you can identify as "when life begins" is when something new is introduced into a woman's system. You know the argument. It's hard for me to refute, since I do feel that life is sacred, and shouldn't be taken away by anyone.

But here's the thing; that's my belief. Not everyone sees it my way, and not everyone even thinks of it as life at that point. They see it as a part of their body, which is under their control, and who am I to try to legislate that? I would be trying to force my beliefs on others, something I have never agreed with.

I'm still in a wavery gray area, I know, and feel free to jump on the weak spots. Should I support someone a little out of his head who kills 30 people, thinking they are actually cockroaches infesting his life? After all, it's not his belief that they are living and life is sacred. Where do you draw the litigation line? I don't really know, and there is a lot of confusion. But I have finally found my peace.

Also; good points in earlier comments. Can't we all just chill out, and admit that while some people have no problem with the decision, many do, and try to offer more extensive counseling, etc? If we are fighting about whether this experience always scars women or not, we are ignoring the women that are being hurt.

[Carpenter]

Yeah, I just wanted to check in and answer the question that was posed earlier about whether those of us who characterize the abortion debate as confusing or ethically clouded somehow think that public policy should be informed by that sense of unsureness.

The answer, for me, is a very unequivocal "no." Simply because I feel troubled by the issue of abortion does NOT mean that I think it should be illegal. I meant only what I said - that I find it a confusing and disturbing topic.

I 4find some of the rhetoric coming from pro-choice groups to be insulting, because it insinuates that once one of us acknowledges that we find the matter to be troubling, we have sold out the pro-choice movement. Which is bullshit.

Also, a big high-five to what was articulated earlier by Tom: that the very same movement that wants to pass laws protecting precious unborn fetuses magically doesn't give a rat's ass about that fetus once it becomes a disadvantaged child who needs a school lunch and Head Start. A REAL pro-life movement in America would actually have a lot more in common with the left wing than this hypocrital and morally bankrupt Jesus-fest.

[Carpenter]

I meant "hypocritical." Oops.

[carla]

And maybe I'm being trivial here, but--in line with what Lisa said above--I'm getting extremely tired of TV characters who start out intending to have an abortion and then they (a) have a convenient miscarriage or (b) decide to have a baby instead or (c) something bad happens to them (presumably because they were considering an abortion). I'm not saying everyone has to have an abortion, but how about every once in awhile, just to stay in line with reality? (Law & Order/SVU last Tuesday was particularly annoying on this front.) Because plenty of women do decide to have an abortion, and they do it, and that's the extent of it, and I don't understand why we're supposed to make them feel tortured because they did it.

[julia]

carla, here again is a right-wing trope that can accurately be referred to as "the Santorum maneuver"

Mrs. Santorum, who famously miscarried a damaged fetus (as happens in a third of all pregnancies, but generally earlier) was scheduled by her doctor, with her and her husband's presumably informed consent, for an intact dilation and extraction procedure (ak to the Santorums and their friends a "partial birth abortion"), but were spared the necessity by Mrs. Santorum's miscarriage.

It seems odd that he would collude in the decision that his wife's life, and her presence in the life of their family, was more important than the life of the irreparably damaged "potential life" within her, and then make the blanket decision that no other woman or doctor could possibly morally justify the same decision.

The joker in this deck is that the procedure is only illegal under this new legislation if the failed birth proceeds vaginally, which means that "partial birth" abortions by caesarian are still legal.

Caesarian deliveries are, of course, far more likely to damage or kill the woman undergoing them, particularly if she is already at risk.

I suppose it would be too much to ask that we be allowed the latitude that the proponents of this measure allow themselves.

My mind is doing the amoeba and glass pipette thing about how the Santorums would have handled bringing the body of their unborn child home to meet the other kids if the procedure had been completed.

[steve]

"that the very same movement that wants to pass laws protecting precious unborn fetuses magically doesn't give a rat's ass about that fetus once it becomes a disadvantaged child who needs a school lunch and Head Start. A REAL pro-life movement in America would actually have a lot more in common with the left wing than this hypocrital and morally bankrupt Jesus-fest"

>>>>>>>

I stumbled upon bittershack through another blog, ghost in the machine dot net. I was interested in reading what was said about abortion, as someone who would consider himself pro-life, a REALLY unpopular opinion on this site...

As much as most of you probably don't like being lumped into the "those pro-choice left extremists" category, neither do I, because of one decision based on many different life experiences, want to be lumped in with "right wing pro-life republican" bunch just because I believe that life begins at conception.

Where DO we draw the line anyway? I've heard many arguments that dismiss the fetus since it can't care for itself and is dependent on the mother for life...what about the elderly on life-support? babies born prematurely living on life support? Do we have a right to end those lives? They can't live on their own. They're fully dependent on those around them and cannot sustain without help.

What about the decision to have unprotected sex? Is that not factored into "choice"? I am not one who feels ALL abortions are morally wrong. If the life of the mother is in danger of course her life should be saved...but to eliminate a life because it will inconvenience us sets a dangerous precedent.

Sorry to sully the discussion with potentially right wingy type monologue...but it seemed under-represented...

I'm NOT a republican and am not a fan of Gee Dubbya Bush and I do give a rat's ass about a child in crappy life situations...

[carla]

Steve--
I think it's a mistake to lump together elderly people on life support, premature babies, and fetuses. They require different expenditures of resources, and different people can (or cannot) share in the provision of those resources. (Not so incidentally, how many elderly people actually want to exist on life support? I know many who deeply and profoundly DON'T want that. Should we run out and kill them? No. Should we help them choose their deaths as much as possible, understanding that this will mean different things for different people? Probably--and we should acknowledge that these will not be easy questions.) but the point here is that many people--"society," if you will, if we had a health care system that actually worked--can share in the care of elderly people, or people with an array of disabilities, etc. Society cannot carry a fetus to term. And society, at least in this country, is not particularly interested in the child, and many people in the governing party in fact want to take benefits (schooling, health care, Head Start) AWAY from the child. And don't say adoption is the answer: if the child is a white healthy infant, it'll probably find a home. If it's not any of those things, the task becomes much harder--and then, of course, you have disasters like the foster care systems in New York, New Jersey, and Illinois. Would you feel worse about having had an abortion, or about finding out that the child you put up for adoption was tortured by its adoptive/foster family?

But I see that I am combining several issues here. First, yes, I think that (a) people should act responsibly and (b) we should collectively provide people with the means (knowledge, technology) to do so. We are all of us irresponsible on occasion and we're gonna screw up sometimes. When that happens--when a woman gets pregnant, because the birth control failed, or she didn't have any, or she couldn't afford it, or she was just lazy about it, or she couldn't get him to use it, or he didn't bother using it--she still gets to decide whether to carry that fetus to term. If we want to reduce the number of abortions, then it makes sense to reduce the number of unplanned/unwanted pregnancies, and there are a number of ways to do this, none of which we do now as a matter of federal policy. In fact, abstinence-only education will certainly increase the number of unplanned pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases.

Second, elderly people on life support and fetuses are not the same.

Third, it is a legitimate question to ask about the resources required. I don't have any clue how to answer this question, but our resources--personal and societal--are limited, not infinite, and we have to make some judgments about how to expend those resources. A capitalist society is interested in (a) profits for the owners and (b) a large supply of cheap labor. It is therefore in the interests of the capitalists to have a large but expendable population of workers. We should keep that in mind. Otherwise, we might choose to allocate resources differently: provide health care for everyone, for example, and child care, and public transportation. And, yes, I think these things are part of the larger issue here.

Fourth, in answer to your question of where we draw the line, I'd say we draw it at my vagina. I get to decide what goes into, or comes out of it. You don't. You can provide me with technologies (in the form of contraception), or information (about how to choose when I want to have sex, or how to avoid pregnancy), or assistance (e.g., in the form of an adoption and foster care system that really works, or in the form of a society that will support the child when it is born), but I still get to decide.

And, finally, I think one real point in this whole discussion is that many people who claim to be "pro-life" really are only voting on fetal life--that issue trumps anything else, even if the party/person for whom they are voting doesn't support lives outside the womb. That, to my mind, makes it a morally suspect choice. In contrast, many of the people who are pro-choice also support policies and politicians that support the lives of the already-born, in addition to supporting the right of women to decide whether to bear a child--they are truly "pro-choice."

[julia]

Steve, I think you fit nicely into the right-wing "pro-life" paradigm - your primary concern is not with the life of the fetus, but with controlling the behavior of the woman carrying it.

If you're OK with abortions In Some Circumstances, it's not the sanctity of the life that concerns you. You're willing to balance that life against whatever you think is more important.

I think that's just fine, and when you're faced with an unplanned pregnancy of your own you'll know just what you feel right doing. Until then, I'd say that you've tossed away the only moral grounds you have for imposing your personal standards on anyone else.

In the mean time, golly, son, condescending much? I think the "pro life" position can be extremely principled, particularly when it's part of a seamless garment argument that also condemns the death penalty, and insists on human dignity. I have a great deal more respect for people who believe that they're trying to save valuable human lives than I do for people who have decided to plant the measured balance of their principles in my uterus.

[steve]

Carla,

First, yes you're right, the other issues (the elderly, premature children) are PERHAPS seperate issues, but then again, they are also an issue of who decides when life is life.

>>"Second, elderly people on life support and fetuses are not the same."

Ok. But in our society there are parallels. Both need outside support to survive, without which they cannot live. Both lack the ability to protect themselves or make decisions for themselves. The baby (fetus as you refer to it) can't just pop out and start feeding itself, but does the fact that it is helpless and needy make it worthy of termination/death/removal? Can we terminate a child if it won't be a perfect specimen? With new technology we can learn more and more about the child before it is even born...what if the child will have an incredibly low I.Q or some sort of mental retardation or birth defect? Is it THEN ok to terminate as long as it's within a certain time period (whichever trimester is the legal limit)? My concern with abortion is the thought process of our ability to control someone else's life, the child's. I honestly don't see how intellectually you can say a fetus isn't a child until it's born, then it's a human (if I'm putting words into your mouth, please clarify, but this is how I understand your argument). In that case, children born prematurely are human before children born regularly. It's a slippery slope, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject.

By the way, I agree with your desire for a national health care system. HMOs and PPOs and all that other crap is such a waste. It's very inequitable and a country of our size should have more for its people (ALL its people) in this and many other areas. But, as you also mentioned, their are limited resources, and we must choose the lesser of many evils...(and I guess the existence of evil is a WHOLE other debate for another day).

>>"I think one real point in this whole discussion is that many people who claim to be "pro-life" really are only voting on fetal life--that issue trumps anything else, even if the party/person for whom they are voting doesn't support lives outside the womb."

I agree. I think many Protestants (the "Religous Right) vote only based on that one area and I think they need to look at the other impacts a politician or a policy has on other aspects of those lives already happening outside of the womb. But those people are not me and I am not them. (That sounds deep...like, from the Matrix or something).

And to Julia who said:
>>"Steve, I think you fit nicely into the right-wing "pro-life" paradigm - your primary concern is not with the life of the fetus, but with controlling the behavior of the woman carrying it."

Thanks, but you don't know me or my primary concern for women or children.

>>"If you're OK with abortions In Some Circumstances, it's not the sanctity of the life that concerns you. You're willing to balance that life against whatever you think is more important."

I think each case has to be looked at individually...what is the chance the mother will survive? the child? Can both do it safely? I don't think you can generalize and I'm sure that's a weakness in many of the existing laws.

>>"I think that's just fine, and when you're faced with an unplanned pregnancy of your own you'll know just what you feel right doing. Until then, I'd say that you've tossed away the only moral grounds you have for imposing your personal standards on anyone else."

I think "unplanned pregnancy", in most cases, is an excuse for irresponsibility, with the exception of rape. All women (and men) make choices about getting pregnant. If you don't want to get pregnant, you don't have to have sex. Or are you saying that THAT'S impossible? Many don't think about the consequences of their sexual behavior. Just because someone is irresponsible and unplanned, does this give them the right to get rid of an inconvenience?

I don't claim to have all the answers (does anyone?) but I do feel strongly about this topic and have yet to see a convincing argument to sway me. I'd like to hear your thoughts...I do enjoy the dialogue.

>>"when you're faced with an unplanned pregnancy of your own you'll know just what you feel right doing. "

By the way, we PLANNED our pregnancy...we stopped using birth control and when it happened, it happened.

>>"golly, son, condescending much? I think the "pro life" position can be extremely principled, particularly when it's part of a seamless garment argument that also condemns the death penalty, and insists on human dignity."

Golly, mom! Wouldn't it be nice if all pro-lifers fit so conveniently into your idea of "The Right" so that it would be easy to condemn them all in one fell swoop? I know that the same is true of pro-lifers opinions of pro-choicers, broad generalizations and sterotypes that are only partially true.

[brooke]

Hey kids, let's not degenerate into name calling. Steve, thanks for offering your opinion. I don't agree with everything, but I think you have gray areas too, and I admire people who can admit that.

I think your argument about the elderly and infants on life-support does have some merit. A lot of people in my camp toss around the "viability" argument. But this makes decisions about care for the dying elderly and for people in vegetative states a big question. I don't have the answer, and I will not pretend to.

Again, I think we're talking about so many different things, and all talking past one another. This is why this issue is so hard for me.

I LOVE Carla's statement:

Fourth, in answer to your question of where we draw the line, I'd say we draw it at my vagina. I get to decide what goes into, or comes out of it. You don't. You can provide me with technologies (in the form of contraception), or information (about how to choose when I want to have sex, or how to avoid pregnancy), or assistance (e.g., in the form of an adoption and foster care system that really works, or in the form of a society that will support the child when it is born), but I still get to decide. Bravo. I fully agree. But again, until we have a system that actually provides these things, there are some moral ambiguities.

Shouting at each other only makes those ambiguities more immutable.

To Julia, I think you're being unduly harsh on Steve. He was trying to offer a point of view in a non-threatening way. You maydisagree with him,. but isn't it more powerful to try to change his mind by establishing common ground than by villifying him?

[julia]

Perhaps. I suppose I should leave open the possibility that Steve hasn't ever discussed this with anyone who disagrees with him, and explain precisely what I found so offensive about what he had to say. It could easily be a matter of phrasing, in which case, of course, I apologize (as I do anyway if I was intemperate).

First, I made (as do others here) a distinction between a pro life position and a "pro life" position, which is code for anti-abortion and not pro life at all. A pro life position is one which springs from a respect for the life which the holder perceives the fetus to have from conception, and which they cannot morally justify taking away.

The first thing that offended me, Steve, about what you wrote, is that you actually quoted someone saying that a true pro life position is one that they would find to be similar to their own, and followed it up with an introductory statement that clearly the people in this conversation were hostile to the pro life position.

As I've already said, I am not hostile to a principled pro life position. I am, clearly, rather hostile to people who use the rhetoric of the principled pro life position to support their own less principled and consistent stances, which is what I perceive you to be doing.

To be willing to be flexible in a case where the life of the mother is in danger is, I think, a possibility if you are actually pro life. To be willing to make exceptions in the case of rape and incest is in no way consistent with a position springing from a pro life stance; and to be willing to kill if the father does something you disapprove of and the mother is "innocent" makes it clear that it's not the life of the child but the behavior of the mother you have a problem with. Since the father is equally at fault, the goal of your position appears to be to bring the child into the world as a punishment to the woman carrying it, which I find rather distasteful, if nothing else. A child, whatever else it is or is not, is not a punishment or a reward. It is at the time of its birth unambiguously a human being.

Parenthetically, not all incest is non-consensual, and not all of the get of incest are genetically damaged - would you let the baby live if someone's sister or first cousin said yes?

That is why so many people who are pro-choice, of all strains (and there are many) make the distinction between the pro life position and the "pro life" position. My closest friend and the godmother of my child is militantly pro life. You, if you believe what you represent to, are not. You're against abortions you don't feel are warranted. There's an enormous difference.

I don't feel that I can argue her beliefs, and I wouldn't want to. They're principled. We vote for different people, but I respect her a great deal, or she wouldn't be my child's godmother.

What you're asking women to do is arrange their reproductive destinies based on your comfort level, and I don't feel constrained to respect that position, although I certainly respect your right to hold it and vote in support of it.

It would merely be far more within my own comfort level if you would refer to your views with a label that more accurately represents them.

Also, and this is also a comfort level issue, while my husband was extraordinarily supportive and generous during my forty three week pregnancy and my thirty six hours of unmedicated labor (nine pounds ten ounces. ouch.), at no time did I feel that We were pregnant.

I do understand that mileage varies on that one, but I am, as I said, somewhat uncomfortable with the trope which makes men who have watched pregnancy from close up somehow specially abled to speak on a physical experience that they really can't share.

Possibly this too is intemperate? If so, I didn't mean it to be - I will admit to being somewhat nettled by the fact that your initial post made it seem as if you hadn't read the conversation. Perhaps it's merely that the perspective you're seeing is so foreign to your experience that you hadn't grasped what was being said, in which case I apologize for seeing dismissal where I should have recognized misunderstanding.

[carla]

Steve:

The fact that it is "helpless and needy" does not make it "worthy of death/termination/removal." The fact that it is inside my body, essentially as a parasite, gives me the right to decide whether I want to bear it. I think it is wrong to equate a person with a fetus. Yes, the fetus is a potential person (but so is every egg and sperm--sorry, but now I want to break into "Every Sperm is Sacred"). I do not think we should take that lightly or treat the situation cavalierly, and the women I know who've had babies and abortions and miscarriages do not. (Are you aware that a substantial portion of pregnancies end in miscarriage, often before the woman knows she is pregnant?)

Who decides when life is life? That's a complicated question, of course, and we're never going to all agree on that one--witness the fights over whether someone without a functioning cerebral cortex is "alive" and should be maintained--and I don't know that we can. There are too many competing cosmologies for complete agreement. Given that, I want to decide what life grows in my body; I don't want you, or that bunch of old men who aren't even doctors, deciding for me. Even your question about extreme disabilities--again, that's a choice that families have to make for themselves, preferably in the first trimester. Some people do not have the (emotional, financial, whatever) resources to raise a child with severe disabilities; some do.

I don't know how to better explain to you that it isn't a child until it's born. It's not a magical transformation, it's not an event--it's a process, with varying stages of viability, starting with "not at all" to "I want to come out now."

I have to say that I'm irritated by your comment that "unplanned pregnancy, in most cases, is an excuse for irresponsible behavior." First of all, how the hell would you know that? You've talked to lots of women about it and they've told you? You're guessing? Assuming? have you checked out the failure rates of contraceptives--cause they're there. I personally know TWO women who've gotten pregnant while on the pill; no, wait, make that THREE. (Two had the kids--one of whom is my younger nephew--the third had an abortion.) A condom never broke or slipped off when you were having sex? Second, why do you want to punish the woman AND the eventual child because mom was, in your view, "irresponsible"? WTF? If you want to punish irresponsible behavior, then fight drunk drivers--they kill a whole lot of already born people every year. How about, instead, get out of the way, let the woman have an abortion unmolested, and maybe she'll get pregnant and have a kid later in her life, when she's better able to provide the care it will need? Just as a for example.

[steve]

Here I am again, Steve "Sucker for Punishment" Guy.

First, I want to apologize if I have come across as antagonistic or intemperate in any way.

I can see that we don't agree, and that's ok. I feel very unintelligent when reading your posts, and I've always thought myself an intelligent, thinking, caring person.

I had written a long reply, but I just deleted it because it seems it will just continue the circle.

Julia, you're right, a lot of your arguments are foreign to me. It is obvious that we have different life experiences, situations, and beliefs that form our understanding and points of view on this topic.

>>"To be willing to be flexible in a case where the life of the mother is in danger is, I think, a possibility if you are actually pro life. To be willing to make exceptions in the case of rape and incest is in no way consistent with a position springing from a pro life stance; and to be willing to kill if the father does something you disapprove of and the mother is "innocent" makes it clear that it's not the life of the child but the behavior of the mother you have a problem with. Since the father is equally at fault, the goal of your position appears to be to bring the child into the world as a punishment to the woman carrying it, which I find rather distasteful, if nothing else."

I AM flexible in the case of the mother's life being in danger, and you are correct in SOME cases I do have a problem with the behavior of the mother (AND the father for that matter!) Do you not believe that our actions affect others than just ourselves? And the fact of the matter is, I have no say it what someone else decides and I would not condemn them after having made the decision.

I have not thought of all the possiblities because I have not personally encountered them, so of course I may have to make paradigm shift as life throws curves at me.

>>"Perhaps it's merely that the perspective you're seeing is so foreign to your experience that you hadn't grasped what was being said, in which case I apologize for seeing dismissal where I should have recognized misunderstanding."

This comes off as a little demeaning, but we disagree, so I guess I understand that you misunderstand.

Carla

>>"I don't know how to better explain to you that it isn't a child until it's born. It's not a magical transformation, it's not an event--it's a process, with varying stages of viability, starting with "not at all" to "I want to come out now.""

So I have to take it on faith that it's not a child till it's born? That still doesn't answer the question I brought up in my last post. Does a child born two weeks earlier have more right to life than one born four weeks later?

Someone earlier on in this discussion mentioned that if something is repeatd over and over again enough times, it somehow becomes a fact...the simplistic statement that "life begins outside of my vagina" doesn't seem logical or thoughtful.

I'm not wanting to "punish" anybody. It's just I think YOU are punishing a child by killing it and you think I'M punishing a woman by restricting her choice. I am not as hardline black and white as you must think I am. I know there are some many circumstances and different situations that it boggles the mind. I pray for wisdom and that a good decision is made when the time arrives, until then, I will not allow whatever is popular or spoken the loudest become my truth.

I hate those who abuse, torture, harrass and otherwise make miserable those who go to get abortions. What would Jesus do? (Many wearing that bracelet being the harshest and most critical and cruel to those getting abortions). I don't know what he would do, but I am certain he would show love and respect for those woman making that difficult decision, regardless of what they decided.

Ok. Once again, I apologize for what I have said or might say. I'm thinking as I type, then deleting and retyping. My son woke up screaming a few minutes ago for no apparent reason. Good night.

[steve]

Ugh. Grammar suffered. Forgive the many misspelled words and meandering thoughts.