Ah, those liberals
Via Paul Muller, comes this article:
The fundamental difference between the decent and indecent left is their contrasting views of American power. The indecent left views American military might through the lens of Vietnam and therefore regards our armed forces as the greatest threat to world peace. Walzer wrote, “The leftist critique, from the Vietnam years forward — has been stupid, overwrought, grossly inaccurate. It is the product of what Philip Roth, in his novel ‘I Married a Communist,’ aptly described as ‘the combination of embitterment and not thinking.'”
This is very similar (in my opinion) to being one of those liberals. I like those liberals. The mindless moonbats are a nuisance as are the wingnuts. To be fair and balanced, there is a decent and indecent right also. You can’t convince the indecent left that there is a decent right; nor can you convince the indecent right there is a decent left.
October 15th, 2003 at 2:47 pm
Why do you feel that these labels are so important?
(Yes, this question is as open-ended as it sounds)
October 15th, 2003 at 3:00 pm
I don’t think a label is important at all, and i am in the minority. Typically, the label is interpreted to determine where you stand. For example, it commonly beleived that if you’re conservative/liberal you’re for/against the death penalty.
Peoples’ ideals are shattered when you’re a pro-abortion republican, for example.
https://saysuncle.com/archives/000862.html
October 15th, 2003 at 4:51 pm
You know, I cringe audibly every time I hear the term “pro-abortion”.
October 15th, 2003 at 7:39 pm
Agreed. Pro legalized abortion is the term i meant.
October 16th, 2003 at 9:58 am
Why cringe? Pro-abortion is the proper term. Pro-choice is a euphemism designed to remove yourself from the unpleasent emotional burden that is the logical consequence of supporting abortion rights.
The abortion dichotomy has always intrigued me. So many people claim to support abortion rights, but not abortion itself. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say something along the lines of “I would never choose to have an abortion myself, but I won’t make that choice for somebody else.” The next time you hear that argument, or any of it’s many cousins, ask the person why abortion would be a wrong choice for them.
If you can cut through the squirming evasions, you almost always get to point pro-lifers make; it’s a baby, and they don’t want to be personally responsible for killing it. However, even though the end result, a dead baby, is identical, those very same people feel comfortable with allowing other people to have abortions.
This is a wonderful example of a classic moral philosophy problem known as the footbridge/trolley problem
Pigliucci makes the argument that moral decisions are made based on emotion, not reason, and the research seems to bear that out.
The parallel with the abortion debate is striking. Most people will pull the switch, ie, allow another person to have an abortion, but relatively few would actually consider having an abortion themselves, ie, throw the person onto the tracks. By insulating ourselves from the consequences of our decisions, we are capable of causing consequences that we could not face through direct action. (I only pushed a switch.)
October 16th, 2003 at 4:29 pm
rich:
I find your post illogical and uninformed at best.
Pro-choice is a euphemism designed to remove yourself from the unpleasent emotional burden that is the logical consequence of supporting abortion rights.
No, it’s the accurate term. It implies that abortion is a deeply personal decision, and that the decision must be made at a personal level only. And for reasons far more complicated than your oversimplistic “a baby dies.” Abortion is an uncomfortable, invasive procedure, and it’s not an “easy way out,” as its opponents often choose to paint it. It can be very emotionally trying. But then, so can giving birth to a baby you didn’t want and for whom you can’t provide. It cuts both ways, which is why the decision must remain personal.
Most people will pull the switch, ie, allow another person to have an abortion, but relatively few would actually consider having an abortion themselves, ie, throw the person onto the tracks.
Sounds good, but doesn’t bear out in practice. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, roughly half of all unintended pregnancies in the US are terminated by abortion. Which means that your “very few” analogy doesn’t bear out. Substitute “roughly half.”
The other half of your premise doesn’t work, either. I don’t think that “most people” are willing to let others have abortions, either. I think the pro-abortion/anti-choice divide is pretty much right down the middle in this country.
Now getting back to your major point: I wouldn’t ask my wife to abort if she were to become pregnant, primarily because we have the means and ability to actually care for the child, and to pay the medical expenses during the pregnancy. If those aspects were different, I would recommend abortion with very little hesitancy. Quality of life is infinitely more important than quantity of life, and in the case of an unintended pregnancy in which I was involved, it would absolutely be hers and my decision (and no one else’s) to make. Fortunately, I’ve never been in that position.
Frankly, I would be willing to take most anti-abortion people a helluva a lot more seriously if they were actually serious about ending abortion, rather than just making it illegal. If they really cared about ending abortion, they would be fighting its cause — unintended pregnancy — by any and all means necessary, up to and including endorsing any and all forms of contraception. Instead, many generally take the “abstinence only” approach, meaning that the only time it’s acceptable to have intercourse is when you’re willing to have a child. Meanwhile, those same people vilify contraceptives such as the pill, while being suspiciously quiet about all those “little blue pill” commercials on TV.
That same crowd is also often guilty of saying that all life is sacred and precious out of one side of their mouths, while simultaneously saying people with unintended pregnancies “got what they deserved” out of the other, as if the pregnancy were punishment for the sin of adultery. Which is it, gift from God, or punishment?
That sort of hypocrisy is sickening to me, and makes it impossible for me to take these people seriously.
You can’t end abortion by making it illegal. You can only end it by making it unnecessary. And you do that by educating, by promoting and encouraging contraception (rather than vilifying it), and by providing viable alternatives for women with unintended pregnancies.
October 16th, 2003 at 4:39 pm
Tom, so many pro-choice people minimize/attempt to justify around/fail to acknowledge the a baby dies aspect. That is equally deplorable.
You can’t end abortion by making it illegal
Werd!
October 16th, 2003 at 4:50 pm
Well, I would argue that whether or not “a baby dies” depends largely upon when the abortion is done. It’s the whole “when does life begin” question, and that’s not one easily answered. At one end of the spectrum, there’s the “life begins at conception” idea. At the other end, there’s the Biblical definition, wherein life begins with the first breath (i.e., after birth).
I think the vast majority of people land somewhere in the middle. For me personally, it would probably land somewhere in the second trimester, where the fetus actually starts to be easily differentiated from a fetal pig (which is remarkably similar to a human fetus, especially early on). EC, taken within 72 hours of conception, prevents the embryo from even implanting in the uterine wall, which emulates an otherwise natural “failed” pregnancy.
But remember that if abortion is murder, then a miscarriage is manslaughter. đŸ˜‰
By the way, I recommend everyone from all positions on the issue have a look at those AGI stats I linked. They’re pretty eye-opening in terms of who’s having abortions and why they’re having them. Some surprising facts in there.
Elsewhere on the site, I’ll have to look, they give statistics regarding abortion rates in countries where abortion is illegal versus countries where it’s legal — the legality of it doesn’t seem to be relevant, hence my closing point above.
October 16th, 2003 at 4:58 pm
Actually the baby dies issue is fairly cut and dry for me. Either 1) a life is ended or 2) a potential life is ended. Either way, a life that would ordinarily come into being has been snuffed out.
Mind you, i think abortion should remain legal because prohibitive type laws rarely work (guns, prohibition, drugs).
October 16th, 2003 at 6:48 pm
For you, the difference between 1 and 2 is apparently much less significat than it is for me. Coitus interruptus ends potential lives, too. The Monty Python “every sperm is sacred” song springs to mind. đŸ™‚
In option 2, depending on when, a life that MAY (not “would”) have ordinarily come into being has been snuffed out. But I admit that’s splitting hairs. For me, it’s more the quality versus quantity issue.
October 17th, 2003 at 10:26 am
Coitus Interuptus does not. Sperm will not become life on its own.
May? I tend to think that the high percentage of successes in that area would classify it more as probable.
October 17th, 2003 at 12:14 pm
Sperm will not become life on its own.
But if you would have put it where you were supposed to, one of them could have. đŸ˜‰
October 17th, 2003 at 2:21 pm
Illogical and uninformed? Hardly.
It’s the whole “when does life begin” question, and that’s not one easily answered.
Actually, it’s very easy to answer. Strictly from a biological viewpoint, a new life is created at conception. The embryo has it’s own DNA and must be considered as a separate organism. The debate comes when we try to assign personhood to the new life. This distinction is not trivial, since personhood, and not life, is the basis of most of the legal decisions around abortion.
It implies that abortion is a deeply personal decision, and that the decision must be made at a personal level only. And for reasons far more complicated than your oversimplistic “a baby dies.”
Deciding to end another life is not just a personal decision; society has a vested interest in protecting those who cannot protect themselves. You’re the one who is oversimplifying the issue, by claiming it is solely personal. If an unborn baby has personhood rights, then certainly the state has an obligation to protect those rights. As you point out yourself, we are ambiguous on what those rights are, and how far they extend, so it seems to me that until we reach some consensus on the issue, government should err on the side of caution.
Abortion is an uncomfortable, invasive procedure, and it’s not an “easy way out,” as its opponents often choose to paint it. It can be very emotionally trying.
Show me where I said anything different? If you want to attack my position, do me the favor of attacking my words, not someone elses. In fact, acknowledgement of the often devastating impact of abortion is fully implied in the quote you comment on.
Sounds good, but doesn’t bear out in practice. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, roughly half of all unintended pregnancies in the US are terminated by abortion. Which means that your “very few” analogy doesn’t bear out. Substitute “roughly half.”
What I said was the common attitude about abortion was that most women supported abortion rights, but wouldn’t have one themselves. The abortion statistics you cite do not dispute this, since over 3/4 of all pregnancies do not result in an abortion. You’ve misused the data by not including the entire sample. By excluding intended pregnancies, you screen out half the female population.
Sloppy. But it gets worse.
According to your source, half of unintended pregnancies end in abortion. Reading further, we find that nearly half(47%) of all unplanned pregnancies occur among the 7% of women at risk who refuse to use contraception. Obviously, this relatively small group skews the data, so you cannot use them to represent the female population as a whole. It would be like me using the same data to claim that since 47% of unplanned pregnancies occur among women who don’t use contraception, and 50% of unplanned pregnancies end in abortion, that most women who have abortions are using it as retroactive birth control.
Looks persuasive, but it’s garbage.
I don’t think that “most people” are willing to let others have abortions, either. I think the pro-abortion/anti-choice divide is pretty much right down the middle in this country.
Not according to this poll it doesn’t. 82% favor abortion for the life or health of the mother, and 57%, a solid majority, favor it in almost all cases. But the data also points to the divide I mention, since the same majority, 57%, oppose ‘convenience’ abortions, which by your source, accounts for the vast majority of abortions.
Frankly, I would be willing to take most anti-abortion people a helluva a lot more seriously…makes it impossible for me to take these people seriously.
Long rant which doesn’t adress anything I said.
You can’t end abortion by making it illegal.
We haven’t wiped out murder, so let’s get rid of the laws prohibiting it. Same logic. The success of a law in changing a behavior is not measured in absolute success or failure. It is clear that laws reduce the occurance of behaviors, just as it is clear that some will break the law and continue the behavior. That is not an argument to remove the law.
EC, taken within 72 hours of conception, prevents the embryo from even implanting in the uterine wall, which emulates an otherwise natural “failed” pregnancy.
Yep, and I could administer a poison to you that would mimic a heart attack. It would still be a murder. This whole “Abortion = miscarriage” argument is fatally flawed, as I just demonstrated. The difference is in action vs occurance. If you die from a heart attack, it’s not a crime. If I give you a heart attack, it is a crime.
October 17th, 2003 at 6:59 pm
Strictly from a biological viewpoint, a new life is created at conception. The embryo has it’s own DNA and must be considered as a separate organism.
True enough, but those lives aren’t necessarily viable. For example, it’s quite common, even in the total absence of birth control, to have a fertilized egg which never implants in the uterine lining. Those are new lives by your definition, and get flushed down the toilet by the millions every day. So viability does play an important role.
Deciding to end another life is not just a personal decision; society has a vested interest in protecting those who cannot protect themselves. You’re the one who is oversimplifying the issue, by claiming it is solely personal. If an unborn baby has personhood rights, then certainly the state has an obligation to protect those rights.
Wrong again. If I’m guilty of oversimplifying, you’re guilty of making huge logical leaps. Right here, you’ve skipped from “life” to “baby.” It isn’t a baby until it comes out. It starts out as an embryo, and progresses through fetus before it becomes a human. Is it a potential human life? Yes. But it ain’t soup yet.
If it’s the state’s business to protect all those potential lives, then the state should be putting filters in all the toilets to try and capture and rescue the millions of unseated embryos that get flushed daily.
Now obviously, you aren’t arguing for that. So let’s skip the semantic games, shall we? The real debate becomes when does that potential life become viable, and worthy of such protection? And there’s no clear cut answer to that question. Again, a personal decision, based on your beliefs, your God, or whatever it is that inspires you.
There’s also the much stickier question of given a choice between the health and safety of the mother and the health and safety of the fetus, which do you choose? For me, it’s the health and safety of the mother, without hesitation. For others, it may be different.
The abortion statistics you cite do not dispute this, since over 3/4 of all pregnancies do not result in an abortion. You’ve misused the data by not including the entire sample. By excluding intended pregnancies, you screen out half the female population.
Gee, maybe I left out the intended pregnancies because they’re not relevant to the discussion. If people were commonly aborting intensional pregnancies, I would agree that there’s a huge problem here. The fact is that when women are actually faced with an unwanted/unintended pregnancy, roughly half of them choose to abort. Let’s go back to what you originally said:
So many people claim to support abortion rights, but not abortion itself. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say something along the lines of “I would never choose to have an abortion myself, but I won’t make that choice for somebody else.”
You can argue about what people say they believe or what they say they would do, but the statistics I give show what people actually do when faced with the situation, which I think is more valuable information. People often say they would never steal, or never break the law, or never kill anyone. But when given more specific circumstances, their answers change.
People who say the would never ____ are giving a broad, simplistic answer to a complicated question, and it’s not that informative. What they actually do is considerably more informative. And in the case of people who are actually faced with an unwanted pregnancy, roughly half of them choose to abort. You can twist numbers all you want, but you can’t change that fact.
Reading further, we find that nearly half(47%) of all unplanned pregnancies occur among the 7% of women at risk who refuse to use contraception.
This speaks more to the problem of needing to encourage contraception rather than vilifying it, than to the abortion debate in general. Apart from that, the inclusion of that doesn’t really skew the statistics for purposes of the “nearly half” point I’m trying to make.
By the way, I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of the people who refuse to use birth control do so for religious or ethical reasons. If so, I’d find it ironic that they are the group most likely to actually have an abortion.
82% favor abortion for the life or health of the mother, and 57%, a solid majority, favor it in almost all cases. But the data also points to the divide I mention, since the same majority, 57%, oppose ‘convenience’ abortions, which by your source, accounts for the vast majority of abortions.
That’s an interesting statistic, because “ending unwanted pregnancy” would actually account for “most cases.” So the answers given are inconsistent. Still, to me, 57% isn’t too far out of line from “roughly half,” especially when you account for the three point margin of error.
Regarding the life/health cases, and the rape/incest cases, I think an interesting follow up question would be “would YOU have an abortion under those circumstances?” That would go a long way toward proving or disproving your idea that people who wouldn’t actually have abortions say that they support them.
We haven’t wiped out murder, so let’s get rid of the laws prohibiting it. Same logic.
The key difference you ignore, however, is the general consensus that murder is wrong. With abortion, no such consensus exists, so it makes no sense to legislate it. Crimes like murder and theft harm another sentient human being. Crimes like drug use and obscenity are victimless, and prohibitions on such things are pointless. Abortion is not so cut and dry, because it comes back around to the earlier arguments about viability and personhood. But without anything even close to a consensus, it’s folly for the government to try to step in and define such things through legislation.
Yep, and I could administer a poison to you that would mimic a heart attack. It would still be a murder. This whole “Abortion = miscarriage” argument is fatally flawed, as I just demonstrated.
You chastize me for attacking arguments you never made, and then you attack an argument I ever made. Please show me where I said “abortion = miscarriage.” What I actually said was that if abortion is murder, then, by extension, miscarriage must be manslaughter. Remember, manslaughter = murder minus intent, and can still be a crime.
So if, for example, a pregnant woman continues working against the recommendation of her doctor, and as a result, she miscarries, then she would be guilty of reckless endangerment and manslaughter.
Another example is fertility clinics. They create embryos (lives, by your definition) for the purpose of implantation into the uterus, knowing full well that most of the embryos (lives) that they create will be destroyed. How is it that, in the eyes of many, destroying an intentionally created embryo is A-OK, but destroying an unintentionally created embryo is not? You didn’t argue that explicitly, but you did say that “The difference is in action vs occurance [sic]” — clearly in the case of a fertility clinic there is explicit action. If we’re going to stop abortion, then we certainly need to end that practice, too.
But crumple ALL of that up and throw it away. The bottom line is that abortion remains an extremely contentious issue, and because of this, it’s best for the government to stay the hell out of it. Especially since, as I pointed out, making abortion illegal doesn’t reduce the incidence of abortion at all; it only reduces the safety of it for the woman.
For me, it comes down to the practical question of “should a woman be able to choose whether and when to become pregnant?” And for me, the answer is an unequivocal yes. Safe, legal abortion is a necessary component in making that possible. Quality over quantity.
May 25th, 2004 at 12:58 pm
This world is done. Sin and depravity have condemned it to death. Thank God when the Human race is finally done.
October 17th, 2003 at 12:00 pm
RTB Congratulations
. . . to Say Uncle, whose “boys can swim.”…