katha, saletan and alito

The 33d Roe v Wade anniversary seemed quiet this year, considering it may well be the last celebration of legal abortion. Among providers, there is a grim despair as all efforts to alarm, persuade, appeal, filibuster, and more have been lost. As a provider in Ohio said, "We can hear the clock ticking on legal abortion."

Interestingly, though, abortion beat reporters and many organizations fundraising for abortion rights are enjoying a resurgence. Fundraisers are well attended; people are paying attention to their disappearing rights. And after decades of trying to get reporters to cover something OTHER THAN the anti-abortion arguments are beginning to write the people involved in abortion experiences back into the stories.

Most amusing to me is the sniping between Wm Saletan, author of Bearing Right, How the Conservatives Won the Abortion War, and Katha Pollit of the Nation. Both are pro choice, both make a lot of sense to me, and yet they are screaming at each other about who is losing abortion rights for all of us.

Saletan, who has analyzed opinion polls about abortion and understands better than anyone how all kinds of Americans feel about abortion, and how that affects policy, says that we should just acknowledge that abortion is bad and focus on getting to zero abortions, better birth control etc etc.
Pollit strongly trumpets the need for legal abortion and the positive good it does for women in providing for their children, contributing to the economic and social well being of our society, and for basically saving women's lives.

It's so odd to live in the day to day world that is so talked about, screamed about, killed over, and agonized over. And of course, I think I have the answer, not only to reconcile Saletan and Pollit, but also our society, or most of it, about the divisive issue of abortion. You see, every single day, I talk to women who do not think abortion is a great thing-- they feel bad, they cry, but they face something that the opinionated public does not: a decision about how to have life, how to bring life into the world. Every single woman wants to make life better and their conclusion is that by ending the potential life inside them, they can better provide, or realize their dreams, or contribute, or just be healthier. They don't love that they have to make such a decision, they know that society looks down on them, that their family or partner or co worker might judge them, but they cannot avoid a choice so they look at their lives and make the best choice, the least bad choice, their choice. And if anyone can tell me how to put that on a bumper sticker or in a sound bite for middle America, please let me know. In the meantime, I will continue to post what I see and hear on the real Abortion Front--in the hearts and minds of women who are pregnant and don't want to be.
Thanks for listening.
--bon

Comments

[Christine]

L.-

Well, at least your equal opportunity when it comes to killing people, and you don't just favor your own children.

[Christine]

Christine=Me, Christina=Someone who is not me.

There is one major difference between a chicken embryo and a human embryo: One is a chicken and the other is a human. Killing a human being post-utero is murder. Killing a chicken after hatching is lunch (for some people). Killing a chicken before hatching (assuming it's fertilized) is breakfast.

You maintain that it's okay to kill a human being in one stage or location of life and not another. Is this because human beings have souls?

Whether or not humans have souls is irrelevant. The fact that some have legal protection based on location and others are disposable is more that inconsistent, it's the worst kind of discrimination.

Do you oppose late term abortions where the child is fully formed and viable?

[DP]

L: I would say that by the time the fetus is anything that can reasonably be called a person (around 30 weeks by conservative estimates), the fact that the woman carrying it has not had an abortion is giving it implicit consent to live in her uterus as long as it needs and that therefore she has some obligation to it that she does not have to, for example, a person who needs bone marrow or a kidney. Unless, of course, she has previously agreed to donate bone marrow to a person in need, in which case she has the same sort of committment.

Of course, this postulate assumes that the woman has reasonable access to birth control and abortion earlier on, but if she does and does not use them then she has made some committment to the fetus. Of course, that doesn't mean that she's promised to give up her life so that the fetus can live (or, more often, even though the fetus won't live anyway), but for ordinary risk pregnancies the policy I'd like to see is greatly improved access to early abortion and moderate restrictions on third trimester abortion.

(Preparing for attack from all sides...)

[DP]

Christine-Incidently, is your user name Christine or Christina...or are there two people with similar names posting?

I went to the link you supplied. It doesn't look like any baby I've ever seen. Most babies have skin, for one thing. I notice you also didn't actually answer the question in the link I supplied: which embryo has an immortal soul, which would make a tasty mcnugget? My answers are (to part a): either both or neither have an immortal soul since they have about the same level of brain development (none) so have the same likelihood of having a soul and (part b) there is no such thing as a tasty mcnugget.

I didn't say that the majority of surgical abortions occured before the end of the 8th week, I said the majority of abortions did. A medical abortion can be done just about any time after the test turns blue up to (I think) the eighth week. Statistics from both the Guttmacher Institute (http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html) and the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus05.pdf#summary table 16) show that the majority of legal abortions performed in the US are completed before the 9th week of gestation.

The "reassembling parts" aspect of an abortion that you're giving yourself nightmares over is only necessary in later abortions. In early abortions (ie those in which a D and C is performed) the embryo or fetus is removed whole and examined under a microscope to make sure that no bits were left behind. "Bits" in this case is far more likely be mean "placenta" than "arm" or "leg" though.

Brain development in the embryo and early fetus...I don't know where you get the claim that an eight week old embryo has a measurable EEG, it's not supported by either of the links you gave. Neither of them talks about EEGs at all that I saw. Please point out to me if I missed it. Either way, stationary neurons first appear in the embryonic brain at about day 54. Neural-neural connections at about day 70. (See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=2671226&query_hl=3&itool=pubmed_docsum) In short, the first time neurons might be in communication with each other is at the end of the 10th week. Over 78% of induced abortions are performed before the end of the 10th week. A 12 week fetus does have some brainstem activity, but so did Tom Delay's father when Delay decided, with legal and ethical backing, to take his father off life support and allow him to smother, dehydrate, or become toxic from his own waste. Why did Delay have legal and ethical backing for doing this? Because his father was in a persistent vegetative state and had only brainstem activity. The current best guess as to when fetuses develop signficant cortical activity is around 30 weeks. (See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=11653234&query_hl=6&itool=pubmed_docsum) Even then, there is some question as to whether the cortex can operate under the low oxygen conditions of the uterus, so it is quite possible that birth is the signficant event in terms of conciousness because it is the first moment in which the brain has enough oxygen to allow conciousness to appear.

I'll admit to having exagerated in saying that all embryos are microscopic.

[L.]

Christine, I don`t judge embryos by their looks, but by their location. If your grandmother somehow innocently found her way into my uterus, I`m sorry to say, she would no longer be alive.

[Christine]

DP-

The one on the left is a 4 week HUMAN embryo, (a human being in early stages, like my grandma is a human being in late stages. But they are both human beings. You want to kill my grandma, too?)

Hate to burst your bubble, but surgical abortions can not be performed this early and so regardless of the point you were trying to make, it's irrelevant to this topic. The earliest age at which abortions are performed, the tiny humans look like this:

http://www.uhcg.org/Stem-Cell/week6.jpg
(I went to your link, now go to mine. It's a picture of a live baby, not a dead one. God forbid you should actually see an aborted baby whose dismemberment you supported).

Awww...Yes, those are his little eyes and little hands. That doesn't look like a chicken at all, does it?

By the way, didn't you learn in elementary schools we're not supposed to judge people by their looks? Especially not whether they should live or die.

[DP]

Christine: I'll write more later, when I have time. But for now, just wanted to know if you could answer PZMyer's question at the link below:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/01/guess_which_one.php

[Christine]

DP-

It's also a known fact that following the abortion procedure, the doctor or nurse has to reassemble the baby's body to make sure all the body parts (arms, legs, face) are accounted for, because they will otherwise decompose in the woman's womb and cause an infection.

That would be hard to do if the fetus were microscopic, wouldn't it?

That counts as a dead body to me.

I think if you actually learned about fetal development and abortion procedures, you might change your mind since you put so much effort into disputing medical fact.

[Christine]

DP-

Your facts are wrong. Read any biology textbook. At the time most abortions occur (according to Planned Parenthood's Guttmacher Institute, the baby is 12 weeks old, and that baby is about the size of a lime at 3 and 1/2 inches in length (not microscopic as you said.) Even a 6 week embryo, the earliest a surgical abortion is performed, the child is at least 1/4 inch. Still not microsopic. A fetus at 12 weeks can make a fist and suck his thumb, also.

Fetal brain waves start at 42 days after conception (6 weeks) and at eight weeks, the fetus looks like a little person with a big head.

Just a few non-biased websites (nothing pro-life), and we'll use 8 weeks since that was your choice:
http://www.pregnancy.org/pregnancy/fetaldevelopment1.php
http://babies.sutterhealth.org/babygrowth/fetaldev/bg_fetaldev-2.html

And 8 week baby has brain waves and a heartbeat.So there is a dead body albeit a small one and brain waves do stop. Even by your own definition abortion is killing.

[DP]

"Even a vagrant trespassing on somebody else's property -- an adult imposing himself on another through an act of will -- has a right not to be put to death for the trespassing."

Actually, in "pro-life" Texas, a trespasser can legally be shot by the property owner.

[DP]

"the dead body"

Which is microscopic and resembles a chick embryo of a similar stage more than a human baby at the time most abortions occur, but why let those facts get in the way of a good round of moralizing?

"and the heartbeat cessation"

The cessation of heartbeat is not a good indicator of death. I know dozens of people who are alive and reasonably well even though their heartbeats ceased years ago (they were defibrillated successfully, and the heartbeat restarted, of course). That's why cessation of brain waves is used as the definition of "death" these days. 8 week embryo in uterus: no brain waves. 8 week embryo out of uterus: no brain waves. So, where's the proof that a killing took place?

[Christine]

Indeed. Those who beleive abortion is not killing can not prove it is not killing and pro-lifers can't prove it is killing(although the dead body and the heartbeat cessation I think it pretty powerful evidence).

My point is, if there is any doubt, shouldn't the benefit go to not possibly killing anyone?

If there is a rustle in a bush that could be a person or a deer, does the hunter just shoot?

Therefore until you can prove it's not killing (although it's pretty obvious that it is), I don't think we should even risk killing people.

I think some people just have a vested interest in delusion so they can do as they please or fit comfortably in a paradigm. Around 50% want to beleive that abortion is okay so that they can have them or support others who've had them, or feel okay about having had them or support the most attractive political platform. They fact that an aborted fetus has fingers and toes and a little face can't shake what they want to beleive.

Along those lines, I, myself, don't want to beleive abortion is killing. It's disturbing that 4400 women kill their own children every day. Plus, I would like to be able to have sex when I wanted to and with whom and if pregnancy unsued, just be able to have an abortion and not deal with childbirth or not liking the father anymore and parenting, etc. But abortion is killing. Me wanting it not to be doesn't change that.

[L.]

Gee, if beliefs were really irrelevant, abortion wouldn`t be so contentious.

And since we can`t empirically prove spiitual beliefs, there`s no way to prove that abortion kills "anyone," to people who don`t think it does.

[Christine]

You are talking about what people believe and I'm saying that beliefs do not excuse actions. Because you beleive something doesn't make it true and because you don't beleive something doesn't make it not true. And because some people are fine with abortion isn't relevant to whether the act is right or wrong. Many pedophiles are fine with being pedophiles and many murderers are fine with being murderers.

Beleifs are irrelevant. Since we can't prove anyone's spiritual afterlife (heaven, hell, nirvana etc) or reincarnation hypothesis, isn't best to err on the side of just NOT killing anyone?

[L.]

Christine, I`m not talking about court, or about laws here. I`m talking about what some people believe.
And where would you draw the legal line? If "abortion is murder," then contraception that might kill a fertilized egg is murder, too. This means we have a society of murderous people.

[Christine]

L.-

If someone truly beleives that your soul wouldn't die, but be reborn somewhere else, does that give them justification to kill you?

I doubt that would be a good defense in court.

[L.]

The "trespasser" metaphor falls short because we`re talking about a woman`s body, not a piece of property. My womb and my house are different.

I`m going to bring up sopmething I`ve said before -- many women I know, especially in Japan (but not limited to there), truly believe that the soul of the potential child they abort doesn`t die, but is born somewhere else. I think this belief explains why some (not all, but some) women feel very at peace with the concept of abortion.

[Christina]

Kyra, the fetus is guilty of no overt acts of aggression against its mother. It's simply minding its own business. It's not "forcing" anything on the mother, because it lacks any capacity to do so.

Even a vagrant trespassing on somebody else's property -- an adult imposing himself on another through an act of will -- has a right not to be put to death for the trespassing. A landlord who wants to get rid of an unwanted tenant isn't permitted to simply shoot him. The landlord must, legally, give the person time to locate someplace else to live. Why, then, is it so unreasonable to require somebody who, after all, brought the fetus into existence, to refrain from killing it until alternative living arrangements can be provided?

[Christina]

Kyra, the embryo or fetus did nothing to create the woman's bad situation. He or she was brought into existence by forces outside his or her control. Should another human being be deprived of all experiences and choices just because another person wishes to deny him or her these experiences and choices? That sounds a lot like considering yourself to be the master in a master/slave situation. And feminism once aspired to better than that.

[Christine]

"Rather, paying for someone to get it *out.* I don't mind at all if it's not dismembered."

The end is the same- Your child is dead.

[Kyra]

""every person has the right to life, but not at the emotional and physical expense of another unless the other consents to it."

Exactly how can the zygote obtain consent before being conceived? Come up with a way that you can show that the zygote was derelict in its duties toward its parents before coming into existence, and I'll grant your argument some relevance."

I am in this case not presenting an argument but pointing out precedent. When dealing with real, live humans whom everyone agrees are people, one person cannot force another to donate. Even if they would die without it. Why should fetuses get rights the rest of us don't?

As for deriliction of duties, it implanted, regardless of whether the woman wanted it to implant. Consent is demonstrated by allowing it to remain there; lack of consent is demonstrated by removing it. And what do you want the zygote to be able to do with its ability to ask first should the answer be no? Not live?

[Kyra]

"No, abortion is killing what has already been created. If nothing was created, there'd be nothing to kill. Certainly no heartbeat on the doppler."

OK, then, if it's already been created, what's it need the woman's body for?

"By the way, declining is such a passive term for paying someone to stick sharp instruments into your womb and dismember your baby, as if you are not completely responsible for that act."

Rather, paying for someone to get it *out.* I don't mind at all if it's not dismembered.

[Kyra]

"My problem is with women choosing, after having created a new human being, that she doesn't want to be responsible for her offspring, and snuffing it rather than placing the child in a loving home."

Of course! What a wonderful idea! Instead of killing it, put it up for adoption! Just deliver it and you're done!

Granted, at eight or ten weeks' gestation, both will generally have the same result, but it's not in the woman's body, so she's happy, and it's been delivered rather than killed, so the pro-lifers' complaints (or at least the one quoted above) have been addressed---yes, that seems to solve everything perfectly.

[Christine]

Diatryma-

That is an assumption that is not based on anything I've said. I have no problems with women not wanting children. I have problems with women killing children they create. You 'not wanting' children all day long doesn't kill anyone. Abortion does.

I am not suggesting that your friends die at all! If getting pregnant would kill me, I'd do my damnedest not to get pregnant (snip and tie). If I got pregnant anyway, sounds like both of us would die without an abortion. That reason, however, is not the reason why 99% of women abort. But it seems to be the one that pro-choicers incessantly harp on.

"Part of being a feminist, to me, means letting women do what the want, regardless of whether I think it's a good idea."

See, my idea of feminism is protecting oppressed women, whether they live in the womb or out of it. You can tattoo yourself with dirty needles all day long and drink yourself into a coma. I don't think it's a good idea, but you're not hurting anyone else. My brand of feminism says that women certainly can do as they please if it doesn't hurt anyone else- but abortion always hurts (kills) their child.

If you don't want to address me (for whatever reason) I will respect that and not reply in kind. I just wish the reasons you cite were true. I'm fine with you not talking to me because you just don't like me. :) But please don't accuse me of killing your friends or saying that all women want babies. I am none of the above.

[Christina]

Diatryma, I can't speak for Christine, but I have no problems at all with women choosing to remain childless. It takes all kinds. Some want a dozen kids, some don't want any. To each her own.

My problem is with women choosing, after having created a new human being, that she doesn't want to be responsible for her offspring, and snuffing it rather than placing the child in a loving home. Choosing not to make a baby is fine. Choosing to snuff one after you've created it is another matter entirely.