At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. – Anthony Kennedy, in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey (1992)
Forty years ago today, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its landmark Roe vs. Wade ruling. Though the decision was a predictable step in a long series defending the rights of individuals to be free from state control of their private lives, its slaughter of several sacred cows made it many bitter enemies and it has been assailed as sloppy jurisprudence even by some who actually agree with its conclusion. This is extremely unfortunate, because if the judgment had been more clearly defined as the natural outgrowth of the founding principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and of the constitutional abhorrence of the state exercising undue control over people’s bodies or restricting their personal freedom (as exemplified by the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 13th amendments), the anti-sex crowd would have fewer legal avenues by which to challenge the right to abortion, and Roe vs. Wade would have been merely the first of many decisions rolling back unconstitutional 19th century intrusions into individual lives which would have appalled the Founding Fathers.
The majority of Americans are woefully ignorant of history; perhaps this is a predictable outgrowth of our cultural fascination with progress, because minds mired in dualistic thinking (as most human beings are) tend to abjure, abhor or simply ignore the “opposite” of whatever they believe to be good and admirable. In other words, it isn’t surprising if a dualistic mentality which has been taught that “newer is better” concludes that the past is not worth knowing about. I’m going to avoid the obvious Santayana reference because repeating the past is not really the issue here; rather, it’s the woeful lack of perspective. Have you ever considered why alcohol prohibition was repealed in a mere fourteen years, while prohibition of other drugs has dragged on for almost a century? It’s precisely because the drive to repeal was launched so soon after the enactment, and took less than ten months from proposal to full ratification. In 1933 everyone in Congress and virtually everyone old enough to vote could remember the time before Prohibition, and the damage it had done was evident to all but the most delusional. By contrast, the number of people who can clearly remember the time before widespread drug prohibition is very small indeed; a very large fraction of the population believes that drugs have essentially “always” been illegal, and that governments have routinely inserted themselves into people’s private business since time immemorial. Similarly, most people believe that abortion, homosexuality, prostitution and other sex-related acts have been defined as “crimes” at least since Moses, when in fact none of these things was typically criminalized until the 19th century, and not on a massive scale until the early 20th.
Incalculable damage is done to the principles of liberty by the ignorant but widespread belief that legal prohibition of private behavior is some kind of venerable tradition. Most humans are naturally resistant to change, and the older they get the more calcified this resistance becomes. The majority of people find “we’ve always done it that way” to be a compelling argument, and even those who do not may fear sailing into uncharted seas, and thus inclined to “leave well enough alone”. Were these people to recognize that prohibitionist laws are nothing but a recent (and failed) experiment, and that secular governments in the Common Era did not generally base laws on Judeo-Christian religious teachings, things might be very different. Certainly, we’d still have the fanatics who believe that “America is a Christian nation” and the “progressives” who believe that people are too stupid to make decisions on their own and must therefore obediently submit to the wise dictates of “experts” enforced at the point of a gun (and implemented through official theft and “corrective” imprisonment). But these would-be dictators are a minority; shorn of their veneer of “precedent” and “tradition” they would be revealed for what they are: busybody cranks obsessed with other people’s private lives.
It’s not too late, however. The supporters of human rights and individual liberty need to educate our less-informed brothers and sisters, to point out to them that prohibitionism is a relatively-recent scheme dreamed up by control freaks with the same mentality as those who want to ban soft drinks and censor the internet. For too long, prohibitionists have dominated the discussion, pretending that those who oppose all the various consensual crimes are some kind of dangerous and wild-eyed radicals who want to plunge the world into chaos by dismantling some ancient edifice of “protections”; opponents of Roe, for example, are fond of saying that the justices “found” or “invented” a right of privacy in the Constitution, when it is obvious to anyone with eyes to see (and a knowledge of 18th-century history and philosophy to draw upon) that it is not only there to begin with, but clearly implicit in the document (not to mention spelled out in the 9th and 10th amendments). It is prohibitionist laws that are unconstitutional, not rulings (however poorly-worded) which attempt to rectify the violation by removing the offending legislation; though it is rarely recognized as such, this principle (extended by Lawrence vs. Texas and future judgments against other tyrannical invasions of privacy and bodily autonomy) is truly the most important legacy of Roe vs. Wade, and the one for which it will be remembered in centuries to come.
Not a fan of Roe …
Oh now, I’m Pro-Choice, finally – but my opinion that RvW was bad law has not changed.
Further – another little fact hasn’t changed and that is … a “right” won through the courts is only valid as long as the government that legitimized those courts still exists. When it ceases to exist – then no one is bound to those “rights”.
Oh but that’s true also for constitutional rights – correct? Well sure, but there is much more widespread agreement on constitution rights that were articulated specifically, and in writing at the time of the founding – and through the amendments. It would have been much better to pass a constitutional amendment and enshrine Roe that way – vice the very inelegant solution given to us by the courts.
You’ve often said – that just because something is “law” doesn’t make it morally right. Well, the Pro-Life people use that exact reasoning to justify their opposition to RvW.
I was Tea Party when it first began and we had a lot of Libertarians. New to the business, we didn’t have a clue how to organize and demonstrate but … the Pro-Life crowd showed up at our meetings and offered to help us organize. We were pretty greatful – and then we were pretty INDEBTED to them. That’s when the social issues began to infest the Tea Party and I left it … along with a lot of other libertarian minded people.
But prior to leaving – I got the feeling that many in the Pro-Life crowd were a part of that movement only because of, or mostly because of, the way they perceived government, through activist judges “shoved it down our throats”.
I know you like rights won through the court. Not me though, because those rights go away when the government changes (and the one in the U.S. will – eventually – nothing last forever). When that happens – it’s what’s in the hearts and minds of PEOPLE that most greatly influences what comes next. As a Command Master Chief in the Navy – I had the power to force any goddam change I wanted – and persecute anyone who disagreed. I would not have been a very good leader had I done that. What I found, is that winning hearts and minds and getting people to believe in something – is the best method of change possible.
Please link the essay or comment in which I said that I “like” rights won through the courts. Recognizing the likelihood of something and “liking” it are two entirely different things; I understand that it’s likely the police state will get much worse before it gets better, but that doesn’t mean I like that fact.
Sorry Maggie – that’s just the general “feel” I’ve gotten from reading your blog for two years. I stand corrected. 🙂
I don’t like rights “won through the Courts” because in the founding of our system those rights exist independent of courts. Courts find ways to limit our rights, they seldom expand them (even the most expansive interpretation of our rights by Courts is at best an asymptote). When they do expand them, usually but not solely, it’s an expansion of positive rights not negative rights. (Negative rights are actually the better, think First amendment rights, but are being overall have been constricted year after year post 1924.)
We have the 9th Amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” That doesn’t take much judicial, may I call it wild-ass, theory with a volume of writing to decide that at a particular time a “new” right, i.e. something government has no power to limit, has been determined to be a right by the people. I’m pro-life, but Roe is a no-brainer by the 9th. I’m left to argue to limit, but that’s what we do in a Constitutional Republic. We argue.
I agree with the general gist — but if the 20th Century has taught us (Americans) anything at all, we should have learnt that the Constitution, which was supposed to protect our rights for eternity, does nothing of the kind and indeed is only enforced when it’s convenient for those in power.
What this means is that no political victory, no matter how gained or where the result is written, can be taken for granted. We will always have to be willing to fight, in any or all of the possible meanings of that word.
Well-developed arguments against prohibitionism, but describing abortion as a “sex-related act” or “consensual crime” is questionable. Pro-lifers can’t be convinced by appeals to “personal freedom” or “bodily autonomy” if they extend these rights to the fetus.
If pregnancy isn’t sex-related, I’m not sure what is.
“abortion as a “sex-related act” or “consensual crime” is questionable”. Abortion is directly related to sex; no sex, no pregnancy, no abortion, and immaculate conception is one-time only.
“Pro-lifers can’t be convinced by appeals to “personal freedom” or “bodily autonomy” if they extend these rights to the fetus.” I’m a pro-lifer, and convinced by personal freedom, with reservations that the first choice should be life, but choices aren’t that simple. It’s really easy to straw man pro-lifers, but if you looked at all the damn surveys on abortion you’d understand your view is a parody not the reality. You’re the one in a fantastical view of reality. The rest of us make hard choices.
Now as for “fetus”, yeah wrap it in a dead language and it’s no longer an “unborn-child” “or “nascent human being”. Hate to tell you but in Latin it means the bringing forth of offspring, or just “offspring”, so your euphemism falls flat while it illuminates. Of course, you’ll fall back on that’s “what science calls it, so that’s what it is” with no exploration to the meaning of words beyond what serves you. The term wasn’t used for human babies through out my entire childhood and adolescence (I was 18 in 1972) but became prevalent year after year after Roe v. Wade. The truth is you are a moral coward when killing “offspring” or “unborn-children” or “nascent human beings” but with a change of word you become a hero in “personal freedom”. Fetus is an easy kill for you.
Euphemisms are great for avoiding reality, especially killing. Try not using the word “fetus” from now to 01/22/2014, use “unborn child” or “offspring” like the word really means in Latin. We’ll talk then.
I, for one, am totally in favor of killing unborn children.
(Maggie, I’ll understand if that gets modded as trolling. I just *really* hate this sort of argument-by-connotation)
Ariel,
Zygote, embryo, fetus and infant are specific terms that reflect scientific terminology to differentiate essential stages in development and birth. It doesn’t matter what they meant in Latin or Greek except as an etymological curiosity. The number of people endorsing your worldview in a sample of people is no determinant of the truth; if mere numbers were the arbiter of that then I think that the Hindus and Buddhists would rank very high in the truth scale as compared to particular xtian sects. And speaking of fantastical views, parthenogenesis, unless you’re speaking of amphibians, fish or invertebrates, surely qualifies.
And as far as “straw-manning” the pro-lifers; Personhood USA has sponsored a number of referendums that seek to do what I detailed below and the prosecution of teenagers for criminal miscarriage are a matter of public record. If this be strawmanning, then make the most of it.
Speaking of moral cowardice, what makes you think that those who support a woman’s right to choose an abortion (or not!) aren’t aware of the hard choices that most women face in those situations? I think that you are smuggling in an idea here that if those hard choices don’t ultimately conform to your worldview, then they are not hard choices at all. And that’s a pretty easy conclusion to come to. (If you feel that this characterization of you is unjust, then revist your characterization on the same subject.)
My personal preference on this issue would be that abortion not be so frequently used, that contraception is the superior choice. As one who has watched his older sister try again and again without success to bring a fetus to term and is incapable of doing so due to massive problems with endometriosis dating back to her teens, I’m well aware of how emotionally fraught such questions are. From her perspective, she could never understand why someone would voluntarily terminate a pregancy.
On the other hand, having had a niece persecuted, er, I mean prosecuted for a baby that died 3 days after being born and prosecuted by those with a mindset that stands behind the “criminal miscarriage” nonsense, I’m not about to endorse giving them license to further intrude into that process prenatally. And that is aside from endorsement of woman’s right to choose even if I happen to dislike her choices in the matter. It’s not my body, so I don’t get to dictate what she does with it.
And trying to say that a zygote is an embryo is a fetus is an infant? That’s asserting that distinct phases differentiated for specific reasons are in fact an identity. They’re not. That’s the fallacy of continuum.
c andrew,
I do understand the terms. Fully. “The number of people endorsing your worldview in a sample of people is no determinant of the truth”, and I agree with that fully; that’s the fallacy of numbers, as if how many people believe or think something true makes it so, a truly ridiculous concept.
“Speaking of moral cowardice, what makes you think that those who support a woman’s right to choose an abortion (or not!) aren’t aware of the hard choices that most women face in those situations?” I don’t think that they aren’t aware, I think the words they choose are chosen to run away from that awareness. I’m a harsh man on words. I see euphemisms for what they are, an inability or unwillingness to face harsh truth.
“I think that you are smuggling in an idea here that if those hard choices don’t ultimately conform to your worldview, then they are not hard choices at all.” First, my take on euphemisms hardly constitutes a world view (weltangschauung), just a view on how euphemisms are used by people to replace the harsh or offensive with the innocuous. My world view encompasses so much more than this one thing. I accept those hard choices as hard choices, I don’t accept the words used to hide from how hard the choice is.
“My personal preference on this issue would be that abortion not be so frequently used, that contraception is the superior choice.” My take entirely, and usually the preference of most Americans when the polling questions are neutral.
Please don’t hold me to what some stupid group does because “pro-life” is used by them. I’m not part of that group. Personhood USA means nothing to me. I am sorry for your sister’s troubles, we lost a child in utero and I can only imagine the multiplicative pain.
I can’t address your niece’s prosecution or persecution; that the legal system turns things on their heads, writes stupid laws, or that a prosecutor creates new meaning not there (sexting as child pornography encompasses all three), but I can address this though murkily: “And that is aside from endorsement of woman’s right to choose even if I happen to dislike her choices in the matter. It’s not my body, so I don’t get to dictate what she does with it.” And this is why it’s murky, and unfortunately I have to do it socratically knowing there are no good answers: when viability is reached whose body is it? because one sex of our species has to gestate, therefore it’s only their body in question?; reproduction is two sexes, but only one has the right to reproduce because it is the only one that gestates? So that viable fetus is only that of the one sex that gestates?. In the 19th Century, that viable fetus was the father’s, in the 20th the mother’s. I think either is wrong-headed.
A,
“I, for one, am totally in favor of killing unborn children.
(Maggie, I’ll understand if that gets modded as trolling. I just *really* hate this sort of argument-by-connotation)” The first sentence is refreshing, but the parentheses not so much. Words are both denotative and connotative, and both have meaning in arguments. I understand your emotional take, as mine is the reverse of yours. Though my argument isn’t by connotation, but by euphemism.
c andrew,
“Zygote, embryo, fetus and infant are specific terms that reflect scientific terminology to differentiate essential stages in development and birth.”
Yes, and science in your example has no voice in the realm of values and meaning, nor the epistemology of values and meaning. It’s solely about the physical (I’m including the neurological, but even that is only an expression of how the brain works in terms of chemistry and chemo-electrics).
The question of when a human is human isn’t in the realm of science. Science describes, even gives clues, but it doesn’t answer except when we take what it describes as an answer, or elevate clues to answers. Often at our peril, or in this circumstance at others peril. Look more to philosophy, or to the worst, religion.
I’m still wondering, by the arguments of pro-choice, why we can’t kill infants. Many cultures did before us. If breath, certainly not, but if by independence or autonomy, why not the sword?
There is no _practical_ reason to consider a fetus a person. It is only a “person” if you buy into some religion’s preaching. So anti-abortion is just religion in disguise, the same as mandating teaching creationism in schools.
In the Republic of Ireland, a foetus, from the moment of conception, has equal rights under the law as the mother.
That is incorrect.
I’m not the least bit religious yet here I stand, morally conflicted about ending a potential human life. Only reason I’m “Pro-Choice” now is because I’m ANTI-PROHIBITIONISM in any form. If we preserve even one prohibitionist practice, we’ll never see the end of them. But let me tell you – this leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.
This is the problem with the Pro-Choice side. You guys continually paint your adversaries as “non-thinking neanderthals”. They are not – they have logical reasons to oppose abortion. When does human life begin? Is it right to end it? Hitler considered Jews to be less than human – certainly not on par with the Aryan race, he had all the scientists who remained in Germany on his side.
Why is it okay to terminate a pregnancy 5 minutes before the “fetus” moves down the birth canal but it’s not okay to terminate it after it leaves the birth canal? Oh, except in the case of a botched abortion – where IT IS okay to terminate the … what do we call it at that point? Living, breathing, fetus? Does a woman’s vagina “magically” instill human status to a fetus?
I mean – these are questions you guys need to answer. Let me know what they are when you think them up too – because I’d like to get this bad taste out of my mouth.
A fetus is not a person. A fetus is a future person that cannot exist independently of the mother. Okay, fine, a fetus contains human DNA? So does your hair. So does a tumor, or a wart. Nobody would say boo if a woman had a tumor, it was messing her up, and she wanted to remove it.
What always kills me is that the same people who are so hard-charging to save the fetus’s life, don’t give a rat’s ass about the kid once it’s born — because god forbid that the mother get “free stuff.”
Have you never heard of a Cesarean birth? A fetus can be viable at 20 weeks, which invalidates your argument that a fetus cannot exist independently of a mother, What amazes me is that in America the debate is dominated by extremists who either believe no abortion ever,or abortion up until the head has passed the vagina. Where are the moderates? The cut off point should be around 20 weeks if we want to be scientific.Most abortions take place in the first trimester, when the fetus is clearly not viable. .
Here’s a broader presentation via wikipedia of the issue of fetal viability. No record exists of a premature birth surviving at 20 weeks; the earliest recorded is 21 weeks, 6 days. But it should be emphasized that these are outliers.
Outliers? Oh sooooo … it’s okay for me to say then, that capitol punishment is appropriate even though SOME who are executed may be innocent – however, they are “outliers”.
By the way – there are several organizations that work to clear prisoners on Death Row by providing their innocence.
There are ZERO doctors out there attempting to “prove” fetal viability prior to performing abortions.
We take data when it gives us warmth, not when it leaves us cold. Police departments take little data about when their officers break constitutional law, and take data, often skewed, to support their effectiveness and justify what they do and their existence; not justifiable if you hold truth to be the highest ideal, but often justified for other reasons where truth is but one lesser reason. Why would any profession do anything different?
Exactly, that’s why viability is defined on what is possible not what is predictable. Also babies have survived albeit for short periods of time outside the womb at 20 weeks, that makes them human. Only in America is the argument dominated by the extreme positions. In Europe, the extreme ends of the argument are between 12 and 24 weeks, with 20-23 weeks being considered the more realistic.
krulac,
My objection to capital punishment is epistemological rather than ethical so I wouldn’t agree with your analogy on that basis anyway. My point about setting the target at some number of weeks as viable is that you are still compelling the fully developed person to conform, by threat or use of government force, to an action that
they don’t consent to, may harm them, or run counter to their well-being. You are trying to “balance” the rights of a fully autonomous individual with the “rights” of a potential that requires the physical body of that autonomous individual in order to come to full autonomy. And you can’t effect that “balance” without state power being used to violate the autonomy of that fully realized person.
This isn’t to say that women don’t routinely take great risks voluntarily to bring that potential to fruition. For instance, my sister-in-law cannot be exposed to NSAIDs of any kind after the 4th month of pregnancy without risking widespread dermal necrosis. But they get to choose the risks to themselves that they are willing to accept, not some medical bureaucrat or gov’t enforcement officer.
And ultimately, this is where the anti-abortion activists are headed. If abortion is murder, then spontaneous miscarriage is manslaughter. And if your actions during pregnancy don’t conform with what they consider to be appropriate, then prosecutions for criminal miscarriage will follow. This isn’t speculation. Maggie has posted instances where miscarriages have been prosecuted – the two instances I’m aware of were in Utah and IIRC, Alabama.
You cannot balance the “rights” of the fetus with those of the mother without denigrating the rights of the mother. Or, as Paul Ryan put it, succinctly, “Rape is just another form of conception.”
c andrew,
“Because outside the womb, is outside the mother. In that state, you don’t have conflicting issues regarding the body of the person involved.” Very true, no conflict on that particular issue while you, meaning to or not, acknowledge that there is a conflict prior.
“The personhood types draw it at conception before implantation.” No that’s really the soul types, who do fight contraception. Personhood (I realize how the word is muddied by the soul types) fall into later states of development where contraception has no bearing but abortion does.
“You cannot balance the “rights” of the fetus with those of the mother without denigrating the rights of the mother.” So pregnant with scare quotes…
GrimGhost,
“A fetus is not a person. A fetus is a future person that cannot exist independently of the mother.” Nor can an infant, without mother or wet-nurse. Formula is just a technological substitute for breasts, like incubators for womb. Our long neoteny makes the argument of independence from severance of umbilicus less than well thought out (siily in short form). One minute before and for months and years after, still dependent. Equating breathing with independence is well, just dumb. If you want to test that, take your new-born and place them outside, come back in a few days. I do not endorse this.
“What always kills me is that the same people who are so hard-charging to save the fetus’s life, don’t give a rat’s ass about the kid once it’s born — because god forbid that the mother get “free stuff.”” Not only a complete non sequitur, but an old political bromide that doesn’t stand up to light.
“You are trying to “balance” the rights of a fully autonomous individual with the “rights” of a potential that requires the physical body of that autonomous individual in order to come to full autonomy.”
I have three children. By the words of your argument, my wife and I should have had the right to terminate for a number of years after the magic of the birth canal. I will grant after that magic trip, it took two bodies not one (I went with 4-6 hours of sleep for 9 years while working my job, weekend make-ups of 10, I had the strength/stamina then that she didn’t), to get those children to some degree of autonomy. The use of autonomy as some demarcation at birth is just poor as a justification because it’s at best poorly thought out
A human infant isn’t autonomous; to even use the term on an infant means not having applied even a modicum of thought to the subject. There’s no magic in breath. It’s a long slog in bringing a human being to autonomy, it may begin with conception but it doesn’t end at birth. Not by a long shot.
Fully autonomous individuals raise that potential human being that (rather than who) fully requires the physical bodies of those individuals. “It” just doesn’t require an umbilicus for oxygen.
There’s a huge difference: children who have been born can be given up for adoption. It’s true that the busybodies have even made that much harder than it used to be, but before birth it isn’t even physically possible, much less legally.
Maggie, exactly but lacking fullness in argument: “but before birth it isn’t even physically possible, much less legally”, the former obvious, and I agree the latter wrong. But you ignored the specious autonomy, as well what males do to support females throughout gestation and post gestation. We aren’t just observers in the process from conception to adulthood, we play a large part throughout. We just don’t get enlarged bellies, and that period is only 9 months out of many more years. Even during those 9 months we make runs to Taco Bell at 0200, and go to work at 0800.
There are three choices: abortion, adoption, and keep. Abortion, no male reproductive rights but no responsibilities (while the male may suffer emotional harm as it isn’t just women that have attachment to off-spring). Adoption requires male sign-off, and if the male correctly identified and timely notified as the father won’t allow adoption the woman may seek ways to legally or illegally end his say (no male responsibility, but still emotional harm). This is too often held justifiable because the mother did it or if the child has bonded with its adoptive parents; reverse the situation where a male whisks away the child to adoptive parents and it takes years for the female to find that child. That is exactly what some males face.
As for keep, you get into only the woman has keep as a right, but the man has keep as a responsibility. After the keep, you run into too many times where the woman believe she’s the gatekeeper to the man’s involvement with her children. Note the last three words “with her children”, a gynocentric view that is too often supported today. Children are neither the mother’s or the father’s, but of both, and both should have a right to a full life with their off-spring, and their off-spring should have the same right.
Gynocentrism or androcentrism is just pure BS. Two-sexes of one species and we both have an equal right to our off-spring. It’s the balancing that we argue…
Wikipedia is hardly a great source. Viability is classified as the earliest a child could survive outside the womb. Now that could be with on-going medical intervention and has nothing to do with long-term survival percentages. The fact that 20 weeks is considered the limit of viability, is it’s at the absolute extreme, long term survival rates are improving at under 23 weeks but they are not good and I’ve never heard anyone suggest otherwise but that’s not the point. A 20 week baby can survive and have done over short periods. Outside the womb they are treated as human beings and are LEGALLY regarded as such i.e. they have the same legal rights as you. That creates a moral and legal paradox because they weren’t regarded as human beings inside the womb at 20 weeks. But even if you want to regard viability at 21 weeks my point still stands, a fetus can survive outside the womb independently of the mother and as such it’s flagrantly dishonest to pretend that a fetus does not become a human being with thoughts and actions before birth.
Because outside the womb, is outside the mother. In that state, you don’t have conflicting issues regarding the body of the person involved. Specifically, the mother in question. Now all of your arguments would have validity if we were bringing embryos to term through artificial wombs. But until that happens, what you are saying is that the state has the right to use force to compel an actual human being to conform to a standard of conduct that protects something within her that is not yet fully human. You are saying that because something may become human the state has the legitimate power to coerce a nominally free individual to act as the state desires rather than as she desires.
This rationale can be used at any stage of development including conception before implantation, which is what the personhood movements are pushing. If you assert that the rights of the potential human trump the rights of the mother carrying it, there is no means of drawing that line on the basis of natural process. You choose to draw it at “viability.” The personhood types draw it at conception before implantation. This essentially leads to a denial of the right to any form of contraception except barrier contraception as the personhood opposition to IUD and morning after pills indicate. The conflation of contraception and abortion did not originate on the pro-choice side, protestations by conservatives to the contrary notwithstanding. Google Comstock Laws for an illustration of that point.
The only point at which the rights of the mother may be preserved while countenancing the rights of the offspring is when they are physically separate. Otherwise you are endorsing the state’s power to violate the person of the mother in support of a not yet fully realized individual.
That is why I’m an absolutist on the question of a woman’s right to choose in this matter. However much I may personally abhor the choices that they may make.
Clarification:
“This essentially leads to a denial…” is in reference to the personhood standard, not the viability standard.
On March 1, 2011, Maggie wrote;
“Now all of your arguments would have validity if we were bringing embryos to term through artificial wombs. But until that happens, what you are saying is that the state has the right to use force to compel an actual human being to conform to a standard of conduct that protects something within her that is not yet fully human. You are saying that because something may become human the state has the legitimate power to coerce a nominally free individual to act as the state desires rather than as she desires.”
Hey, artificial wombs are all ready here, it’s why “viability” is a march down. Leaving all the sexism of “she” behind, as it’s central to your argument but not to mine, the state compels me to take care of and protect something that is no more human 1 week before that magic of travel in the birth canal than 1 week after. It got oxygen by umbilicus before, by lungs after, but is no less dependent afterwards for many years. It dies easily and quickly without support.
So why your arbitrary distinction? Is infanticide 1 week after birth any different than abortion 1 week before? If not, 2 weeks after/before? Three weeks? My point is that if birth is the arbitrary line, it’s actually the center point from which arguments apply both before and after that line. If anything, autonomy as a reason for killing applies much longer after birth than before, if only because lack of autonomy stretches well longer past gestation than gestation takes.
Fetus is a Latin word meaning “off-spring”. We’ve turned it into, self-servingly by cowardice, some mass of tissue not a human-being, unless it survives outside the womb at whatever point. Or if we want it, and then it’s a “baby” or “unborn-child” at even 10 weeks.
Really people quit using words to make yourselves feel better, you’re cowards by doing so. You kill a baby, we have as a society or individually by accepted right, decided that’s okay in certain circumstances, but you still kill a baby. Don’t hide behind fetus, because all you are doing is joining a long line of euphemisms.
I mean, collateral damage is okay, nothing to do with “innocents killed”, because collateral damage is just damage done while doing a good.
I am not religious, but I have answers that satisfy me, and “5 minutes before birth” is not one of them.
In terms of moral rights, a person is defined by intelligence — the capacity to understand and exercise choices, and to respect those of other people. A fetus’s “personhood”, then, begins when it has a cerebrum — about weeks 13-15. Even then, of course, its rights must be balanced with those of the mother.
I believe those who want the law to establish personhood at conception should have the burden of showing that the newly fertilized egg meets this standard of intelligence. And I have never seen them attempt it, except by asserting that God has attached a soul to the embryo — a circular argument that gives me the giggles.
krulac,
That’s where I stand too, though we may disagree on particulars. I’ve been a declared atheist since the middle of my 10th year (talk about family problems), and I’m morally conflicted about ending innocent, potential or otherwise, human life. Really, is a two-month old infant anymore a potential human being than a 7 month fetus in the womb? Because it breathes?, as if breath is some magical difference. Food and warmth are still necessary.
I’ve seen pragmatic arguments for infanticide that cover both independence and development of early infants. The arguments are no different in substance.
Should the government stay out of it? Probably. I’m reticent to write absolutely only because I’m torn by words like “innocent”, “life”, and “moral”.
“I mean – these are questions you guys need to answer. Let me know what they are when you think them up too – because I’d like to get this bad taste out of my mouth.”
I’m going to go brush my teeth and comb my tongue. The bad taste will be there, still, because the arguments won’t change. They’re more decrees than arguments.
This coming Tuesday’s column is about just this point. It’s possible to be against something, and even to think it’s wrong, and yet also believe the government should stay completely out of it.
Absolutely.
Folks, Roe v. Wade is possibly the most diligently researched Supreme Court decision, in terms of science, in history. Harry Blackmun spent months reading the pertinent medical literature, and consulting with his former clients at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Mn.,coming up with that Court decision. If I remeber, it was held over for one term at Blackmun’s request to insure the thoroughness of his work.
As to the fetus, I agree with St. Thomas Aquinas: it is not a human being until it draws breath.
Richard,
I agree with your point here. Some folks may quibble that it should have been based on the 4th or the 9th – as I think some of the concurring opinions were – rather than in privacy out of Griswold’s penumbras and emanations – but your point remains. In fact, historically, wasn’t the difference between infant death and stillborn the question of drawing breath? And that distinction, I believe, is still used as a legal standard in “fetal abductions?”
“none of these things was typically criminalized until the 19th century,”
The Buggery Act 1533 made sodomy (anal sex) and bestiality an offence, prior to which it had been an offence under cannon law. The 1624 Act to prevent the destroying and murthering of bastard children’ made abortion a capital offence after quickening, prior to which it had been an offence under English common law. So sodomy and abortion were certainly illegal prior to the declaration of independence, in fact they were capital offences.
I agree with your general point on prohibition, the current gun prohibition debate in America being a prime example. Also whilst American society is becoming more tolerant of homosexuality, it still has some very antiquated sexual laws on the books. The primary age of consent in all States ranges from 16 to 18 years and nearly all States prohibit adult incest. Incest and bestiality laws are no less oppressive, absurd or unenforceable than anti-homosexuality laws.
By “typically” I mean in most places and times. There were exceptions in any given place and time you might name, but AS A RULE those things weren’t typically criminalized under civil law.
“but AS A RULE those things weren’t typically criminalized under civil law”
Homosexuality was unquestionably illegal throughout most of Christendom from at least the 10th century and civil laws from the mid 13 century, and that would eventually include not just Europe but also Hispania and the British Empire. In Castile from the mid 13th century punished by castration followed by stoning, in Orleans it was punished by castration or clitoris removal, for a second offence penectomy or mastectomy, and for a third offence burning at the stake all under civil law.
I don’t see what it matters whether it’s civil law, cannon law, common law or royal decree. It’s still the law and still punishable. These laws were enforced look at the trial of Jacques Molay and the Knights Templar in France, the creation of the Uffiziali di Notte to prosecute sodomites in Florence, the burning of sodomites by the Spanish Inquisition and the Holy Inquisition during the auto de fe. Abortionists were usually sentenced to death as murderers, so whether they were sentenced under common law or civil law the result was the same.
The difference is that American legal tradition descends from a secular legal tradition, not a religious one, no matter what fanatical Christians claim. There were no widespread laws against, to use your example, homosexuality until the 19th century despite the vociferous condemnation under religious law. In fact, when homosexuality was criminalized in the UK Queen Victoria specifically struck out references to women, making only MALE homosexuality illegal.
Maggie your absolutely right that the American legal tradition is secular because there is a very clear separation from Church and State but you are absolutely wrong if you assert that buggery was not a criminal offence in the Americas prior to the 19th Century because it was and it was punishable by death. Until 1776 America was subject to rule by Westminster. So acts of parliament were law on American soil.
The buggery act 1533, repealed in 1553 and reenacted in 1563 was in effect
from the Mayflower to Independence. It was not repealed until the Offences against the Person Act 1828, which still provided that buggery was a capital offence, until repealed by the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which made buggery an offence punishable by 10 years to life imprisonment. Now obviously the Offences against the Person Act 1828 did not apply in America. American introduced it’s own sodomy laws in the late 18th and 19th centuries. These laws re-criminalising buggery and in many cases widen the definition of sodomy to include oral sex and sometimes male masturbation.
“In fact, when homosexuality was criminalized in the UK Queen Victoria specifically struck out references to women, making only MALE homosexuality illegal.”
This is a commonly cited myth. The act of parliament you’re referring to is the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, which created a separate offence of “gross indecency between men”. Queen Victoria did not strike out references to lesbianism because there were none (why would there be when fathers or husbands could punish or imprison their daughters or wives?) and Victoria didn’t have the power to even if she wanted to. An act of parliament passes through both houses before being given Royal assent.This act did not appeal the 1861 offences of buggery or attempted buggery, which included anal sex with women, but allowed juries to convict men of the unspecified crime of “gross indecency” rather than anal intercourse or bestiality. This offence removed the legal obstacle of having to prove buggery.
These acts were repealed and replaced by the Sexual offences Act 1956, buggery and “gross indecency between men” were still offences. It was the Sexual Offences Act 1967 that actually repealed consensual buggery between men over the ages of 21 but it did not repeal consensual buggery between men and women. That was repealed by the Sexual Offences Act of 2003.
I stand corrected on Victoria, but the point remains: what was illegal in one country for one period does not compare to the wave of prohibition which swept the entire Western world in the 19th century, affecting nearly every country, and even spreading to Eastern and Southern ones via European colonialism in the 19th and 20th. By the 1980s, there were more prohibitionist laws on every subject in the world than there had ever been at any time in history, and that tide has only just begun to recede.
Maggie, you’re making a good point but you’ve got it about face. It’s not just the entire British Empire that buggery was punishable by death, at the turn of the C18th it all of the Western world (to the best of my knowledge).On the 30 November 1786, Pietro Leopoldo II of Tuscany, later Holy Roman Emperor, reformed the Tuscan penal code abolishing the death penalty. He was the first European leader to do so. In so doing he abolishes the death sentence for sodomy commuting it to hard labour. In 1778, Thomas Jefferson tried and failed to pass a law in Virginia which would commute the death sentence for sodomy to castration.
On the face of it the 19th century legislation that sweeps through the western world, might look like a wave of anti homosexuality but it’s the opposite these are largely progressive legislation. By the end of the C19th buggery is no longer a capital crime in most of western world. This was the result of European liberalism in the face of considerable conservative opposition.
“Progressivism” is not the friend of any non-conformist; its defining principle is the notion that “experts” should be allowed to determine what’s right for everyone, For Our Own Good. It spawned more prohibition of every type – substances, actions, sexuality, businesses, even foods – than any religion ever did. For example, most religions at least tolerated prostitution; it took Progressivism to attempt to ban it. Same could be said about alcohol. The “War on Drugs” and the “War on Whores” are both products of the paternalistic “progressive” mindset.
Indeed. Though conservatives are hardly innocent of seeking to ban certain acts based on their (typically) theological beliefs, progressivism is a drunken tyrant; stumbling from fad to fad cloaked in technocratic jargon and (alleged) best intentions. It’s the ideological strain that spawned and let thrive eugenics, and which today seeks to ban things like energy drinks and french fries. You can usually guess what rights a conservative wants to abridge, but with a progressive it all depends on what’s popular at the moment you ask. One week a thing is banned. The next week it’s mandatory. The notion of leaving things to personal choice is foreign to both groups. /rant
They change their minds when new information comes in? Damn them!
I wouldn’t disagree with any of that, actually I’ve argued it often enough. In fact, it is the attempts to decriminalise sodomy that led to the defining of homosexuality as a psychiatric condition.
Shades of T.R.
Progressivism is just a pale cousin of Fascism or Marxist-Leninism in that regard.. Experts will guide us to that better world, whether we want it or not.
Maggie, not any progressivism I’m aware of, and certainly not mine, You consult experts, and listen to both sides, then you make your decision. But a decision of “do nothing” is a valid as any other under the correct circumstances. But then, my progressivism is driven far more by the ideas of William O. Douglas than it is Henry Wallac or Robert LaFollette.
That act was repealed in 1553.
re-enacted in 1563.
And the age of consent was around 11-12 in the US until sometime in the 1880s. Europe had at least one country with 16 much earlier, but in both pre-revolutionary America and Europe you’re going to find marriageable ages going down to 9 even 7 (from Wiki, 12th Century Gratian gave normal as puberty at 12-14, but allowable down to above 7) . It really pinches the argument of Mohammed and Aisha.
Most states in the USA are at 16 today as the age of consent, as is most of Europe. 18 in the USA is a Federal standard which the Feds push with the usual threats of “no money”. My state is 18, not one minute sooner. Stupid because a Senior in HS can be 18-19, and another Senior 17 (I’m assuming no double standard where statutory rape only applies to male on female). I will admit statutory rape is usually, in my example, parents being stupid.
Previous laws on sex mean what exactly?
Some states have the rather morbidly called “Romeo & Juliet laws,” in which two people close in age are legal for each other. IOW, some states were wise enough to realize that charging two fifteen-year-olds with raping each other is pretty, well, stupid.
Other states are of course unimpeded by such wisdom.
SB,
I forget now the number, but I believe a large number of states have what I call “proximity age” exceptions. My state is flat-out 18. Stupid if not criminal.
I know that Hawaii has this proximity age thing, and Oklahoma had a rather complicated one, though I don’t know if they still do.
Hi, SB,
I lost Maggie’s post on where you called “Bullshit” on my critique of our latest and greatest generation (pregnancy, STDs, et al). I followed your links and of course have criticism, where would either of us be without?, but crashed and lost all (my critique was so scathing that Satan’s ears would have burned, or Dante would have considered only one Circle, or I just give my take too much worth).
If you remember the post, please provide. My response now will likely be lackluster, the edge is off.
I’ll see what I can do. I have plans for tomorrow (Valentine’s Day and all), but I aught to be able to find it.
I haven’t been able to find it, and I’ve been scanning every post of 2013 for it. Been scanning for my name, in particular. Can you remember when it was, or even the month?
Found it.
http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/physician-heal-thyself/
Ariel,
The age of consent is very difficult to establish in most of Europe prior to the Napoleonic codes, Marriageable ages were often not defined by age or were defined retrospectively Sir Edward Coke, which was meaningless. Age of consent laws didn’t exist in Europe come into prominence until after 1791. Currently the age of consent is 14 in most of Europe, or at least Western Europe. Italy, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Hungry, are all 14 France is 15 and Spain 13. The only big European country to have 16 is the UK. Ireland has an age of consent law of 17 but they’ve only recently legalised abortion.
So i would say that the European age range 13 -16 (or 17 with Ireland) vs 16-18 in the US is significant in itself but even more so when you consider enforcement. You said about your own State “18, not one minute sooner.” If that is enforced then the considerable difference because even in the UK statutory rape charges will not be pursued if the girl is 13 and does not support charges, unless there is vulnerability issue. So the de facto age of consent is 13 and doctors will give contraception and sexual health advice to underage patients.
Hi, Stefi,
Yeah, it’s a hard thing to pin down. I’m going by what I’ve read where the age of consent was roughly 11-13 around the 11th-14th Century. “Currently” wasn’t my point, but I thank you for correcting me on Europe because I thought it was all the “John Derek” exception by now.
Our Federal government has been pushing 18 on the states since it adopted 18 as a standard for transport across state lines. It uses the typical method of denying funds. We should have a system, adopted by all states (many do at this juncture), that accepts proximity of age so no 19 year old girl in HS that had sex with her 17 year old boyfriend would be labeled a “sex offender”. I hate that term because it labels so much that is normal, and the list, with a vehemence that has no bounds. You piss in a bar parking lot, you employ a prostitute, you have sex with your underage boyfriend, etc., and you’re a sex offender. What a sick society we are that we can’t make the distinctions of normal and outlier (I’ve taken a piss in a number of places, guard your daughters I must be out to defile them).
Neglecting Europe, a lot of statutory rape charges are generated by the parents or the boy afraid that the parents will find out.
The feds haven’t been very successful at it. The national average is sixteen, and only ten American states have eighteen as their AoC.
Something I’m very happy to see, but the Federal government is relentless. I’m not happy with sixteen if you can be 55 with he/her. If your age is proximal I’m fine with it.
How long do you keep that proximal age thing going? How old is old enough that you can legally do it with ANYBODY that old or older? If I’m 14, a 15 shouldn’t be arrested for having consensual sex with me, though perhaps a 40 should. But if I’m 30, I should be able to consent to having sex with a 110-yr-old. As people live longer, and in better health, this is something we have to think about. Is proximal age forever, or is there a threshold?
My “thing” with proximal age is a pragmatic one to protect teenagers and early 20s from government prosecution. If the ability to have sex with a 55 year old at 18 has to be sacrificed, so be it. But if both keep their mouths shut there is no issue. There is an obvious flaw in my last.
SB,
My take on proximal is what should be to save some 18 year old, who had sex with her 16 year old boyfriend, from the “sex offenders list”, or any other repercussions because she had sex with a minor. Obviously, from that a 40 year old laying a 100 year old has no bearing.
The other issue is that in many states with these either/or lines, you have to report that your 16 year old son was statutorily raped by his 18 year old girlfriend or you face repercussions. In my state: max two years in prison and the Prosecutor will hit you with that and anything else she can come up with (abuse, negligence, and parking tickets). Plea agreements are so satisfying to avoid those two years. What a choice.
Reality, people, not patriarchy or matriarchy. Men and women made this system. Neither sex is victim, nor either blameless. Each suffer in different ways at different times.
I’m sorry, but proximal age is paternalistic bullshit. If you had told me at 16 I could only “safely” have sex with guys up to 18, and any more was “exploitation” or “rape”, I would’ve told you, “If you like fucking 18-year-old boys so much, let them fuck you because I’m not interested.” I’ve always been attracted to men much older than me, and I’m not alone; my body is not the property of the state to assign to some age group, with my only choice being which one of these inexperienced kids I want to have me.
At sixteen I certainly agree. But I do feel that at some point, something like proximal age would make sense. Personally, I don’t think that two (or a dozen) ten-year-olds who get caught doing sexual things together should receive any punishment, unless they’re doing something genuinely dangerous (“let’s see how many Lego blocks we can fit inside of Sally!”). But if I do something sexual with a ten-year-old, I’m in big trouble and should be.
The difference, of course, is that sixteen is not ten.
That’s because puberty is the REAL “Age of Shazam”, and changes people as profoundly (though not as quickly) as any magic lightning. Unfortunately for lawheads, it doesn’t happen at one particular age and get done in a day.
Maggie, I’m not being paternalistic or maternalistic, just pragmatic. Legislators want to draw arbitrary lines; I’d rather those lines drawn where sex is more likely to happen than a line that allows sex when it’s less likely but illegal when it’s more likely.
There’s a better way: stop pretending that people under 18 are as clueless as toddlers. Anyone over 12 who isn’t mentally impaired can decide for herself or himself if she or he has been wronged, and press charges accordingly. For the state to press charges “on behalf of” someone else sets a dangerous precedent that has already led to mandatory prosecution DV laws and the Swedish model, and will lead to many more such abominations before we’re done.
Oddly, we’re actually in more agreement than disagreement. I’m being pragmatic on this because I don’t think those other voters can come around without time. My proximity argument is more, but not solely, about saving males or females from that excrement called “the sexual offenders list” than whether a 55 year-old male or female wants to ride an 18 year old. My best lover was 16 years plus older (she never gave me her actual age)
As for paternalistic bullshit, women as a group uphold the social order and all it’s rules as much and more than men; men are more agents than actual drivers. I’ve met more women that care about this social order than men.
Remember that 19th Century bullshit that women are the “fair sex, the civilizers”. Women drive the culture. Men go along and enforce it. Something about chivalry and pussy…
You had just as well say maternalistic bullshit. You would have been no more correct and no less wrong.
Just a question, though so rhetorical, which sex actually drives “the Swedish Model” or the “Duluth Model”?
Hi, Maggie,
Unfortunately this comment falls out of the pertinent thread; I clicked the reply but it still fell to the end.
“There’s a better way: stop pretending that people under 18 are as clueless as toddlers. Anyone over 12 who isn’t mentally impaired can decide for herself or himself if she or he has been wronged, and press charges accordingly.” I agree with your first sentence because we infantilize teenagers and grown women in this culture (for the latter: man kills his children it’s because he’s a monster; a woman kills her children, what happened to drive her to it, how was she abused, who caused her to do this). But the “anyone over 12 who isn’t mentally impaired” is just a weasel phrase; anyone over 12 who can’t decide for themselves becomes mentally impaired. A lot of 12 year olds can’t decide for themselves because they can’t make the hard decisions a calloused adult , life-wise or life-weary, can. Nor can a lot of adults who aren’t.
It didn’t. I’m so happy.
stefi,
One reason I’m not an advocate of legal definitions (or arguments arising from same) is the absolute asininity of some of those definitions (not having looked at all, I can’t be sure it isn’t all). Sodomy is anal sex, thank you for keeping it straight, going way back in literature, but does have “unnatural act” or “act against nature” tied to it. So legal definitions of sodomy often include fellatio and cunnalingus as sodomy, because well they’re all “acts against nature” as defined by Legislators who likely perform those same acts with blinds drawn (do Southern Baptists really want to claim they have never, well, gone down?).
As for stupid definitions, 40 CFR (RCRA) around 260-261 defines a gas, liquid, or solid waste as a “solid waste” for it’s purposes. Given that it turns 3 of the 4 naturally occurring states of matter into one, I can certainly understand how sexting between teenagers becomes child pornography. They just can’t make distinctions clearly.
English common law defined buggery from cannon interpretation of sodomy as anal sex. Blowjobs were okay. I guess various Pope’s enjoyed getting blown. The American extension of sodomy to include oral sex and masturbation is a puritan thing. The Catholic position on masturbation is relatively recent. English Nanny’s used to masturbate the boys they looked after. When they still executed men in Europe for buggery, men could still openly get blowjobs off prostitutes in the street. In fact, it is hypothesised that is how syphilis spread. I’ve never heard of cunnilingus being regarded as sodomy but it doesn’t surprise me. I’m no fan of most sex laws. As long as all parties consenting and over 13, I don’t the what right the state has to interfere, with the exception of prostitution. If the age you can work and pay taxis 16, that is the age I think girls should be allowed to sell sex.
I agree in principle, but in this modern age where we artificially extend childhood, I think we need to take that into account. Of course, if we stop doing that, or did it gradually so that the teen years were transitional, instead of just making Billy wait longer to shout SHAZAM!, then maybe…
Maggie, you seem to contradict yourself a bit here, and yet I do believe that you are right. The contradiction is that
a) we tend to pooh-pooh history because we believe in progress and thus we feel that the past is of little value, and yet
b) we tend to hold on to practices of little or even negative value out of respect for tradition, even if it isn’t really traditional.
And yet, there does seem to be some truth to both. As a smarter man than I once said, “Humans are highly illogical,” so I don’t doubt but that many of us could follow a) and b) simultaneously.
I think it has to do with the fact that humans care more about their feelings than they do facts. People are deeply concerned with conforming, and if they feel that something has ‘always’ been around, they will support it’s ongoing existence even if it merely winked into the universe a moment beforehand. Their perception is what counts in the equation, not their actual interest in history as it really was.
Man, have I been making typos as of late. a) was supposed to read:
One word corrected and emphasis added. Sailor Barsoom regrets the error.
SB,
I don’t believe in progress in some Fabian Socialist way of linearity. Societies grow and die by their own progression. All societies die, ours will too. And all our assumptions and beliefs with it. Romans, Greeks, Goths, Magyars, Huns, or Mughal, all died after their height, like we all do after adolescence. The Romans civilization lasted about 650 years, the USA is at just past 200. Do you see 450 more years?
We give up traditions thinking we’re better, more wise, without understanding the bases of those traditions; without looking beyond what we have been given as the bases of those traditions. There are reasons why out-of-wedlock births are bad, why promiscuity is bad, why hedonism is bad, why jingoism is bad, why selfishness rather then self-interest is bad, etc.; one reason of the many may overwhelmingly apply at one time (by example, pregnancy at one time for promiscuity, STDs for another time) but another reason will show up when the other has been dismissed with prejudice.
Ecclesiastes is right. There is nothing new under the sun. Zelazny with “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” makes new for this “it marks the gradual progress in self-indulgence, to which the young especially are prone; they see the roses, but do not discover the thorns, until pierced by them”, but still nothing new under the sun even on Mars; the “rose” having been before but now new only because of the loss before. Societies go through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and senescence; prone to not discover the thorns until pierced and so prone too late to know they are bleeding.
First, I had to look up Fabian Socialism. Laura walked by, saw what I was looking at, and it turns out she already knew about them. Ah well.
Classical Greece is no more, but many of the philosophies and other influences live on. Rome fell, but we carry much from Rome even today. There’s a reason the Senate is called the Senate. Paul (nee Saul) has been dead for nearly two thousand years, but his ideas and influence are alive and well. So no, I don’t expect that all our assumptions and beliefs will die, because that isn’t what happened with other societies.
Does the US have another 450 years? I don’t know, and neither do you, and to be blunt neither does anybody else, for all that cries of “the end is nigh” are forever popular. I suspect that IF the US is here in another hundred years, let alone four hundred, it will be a lot different than it is now.
You mention Ecclesiastes, on the Internet, which didn’t exist at the time Ecclesiastes was written, because the Internet is new, and thus Ecclesiastes is wrong (at least in the one sense, as applied today; it was pretty true back then).
Actually Sailor, the concept of “representative democracy,” was a new one, as my old pal Thomas Jefferson pointed out.
This is true. Thom Hartmann was asked if the US was a democracy or a republic, and he replied that we are a “constitutionally-limited democratic republic,” which is quite a mouthful. But then, the real world is a complicated place.
There are many things new under the sun, because things move faster today than they did back in Old Testament times.
Yeah Sailor. But something that is not new is self-interest as a basis for a system of morality. Socrates–as demonstrated by his students Alcibiades and Critias was an early proponent, as was Marcus Tullius Cicero. If you read Cicero deeply, he thought that all of the “lower classes” should sacrifice themselves for the good of the state, by which he meant the good of the upper class.
I think Hartmann’s full quote is a “constitutionally limited, democratically elected, representative republic.”
You’re probably right on the quote. I’m going off a memory now three or four years old.
Hartman did write a book you and I both like. WWJD, indeed.
Sailor Barsoom,
I’m not “the end is nigh” type, but I do accept that all civilizations die (history demands it with prejudice). Accept it, because we aren’t even today the US of 1800. We change to a point where the civilization we knew yesterday, we know today, doesn’t exist tomorrow. I was raised by people that were born before the Spanish-American war and before the Armistice; today isn’t their world. Tomorrow won’t be ours, and at some point it isn’t the same civilization. 450 years, 200 years, no matter.
Ideas may carry over, as you pointed out with Classical Greece or may I add Roman or even Medieval Europe, but the civilizations that created those ideas did die. They don’t exist today except in those ideas, as those ideas fade into the distance of time. I’m an Enlightenment baby, I think that that period really set forth the boundaries of government and the social compact. It is fading into the distance…
I mentioned Ecclesiastes because I like Ecclesiastes. Why? Well your example of the Internet, which of course didn’t exist when Ecclesiastes was written but neither did the Cotton Gin. The Internet has only changed the speed at which we get information, like the Cotton Gin gave speed to making cotton fiber, but it has changed nothing else. Information at high speed isn’t necessarily knowledge, but it is certainly not wisdom.
Using Ecclesiastes “For wisdom is a defense, and money is a defense: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.” Knowledge, at whatever speed, is nothing without wisdom. Nothing has changed. Knowledge is mistaken for wisdom still.
I like the Bhagavad Gita too. The discourse between Krishna and Arjuna on pride, duty, etc., is priceless.
Yeah, I think I said that. Even in the 1960s (the decade in which Laura, Maggie and I were born), it was a very different America and a very different world. I was a year old when Virginia v Loving happened. The 1860s? A person from then was lucky if he had any science fiction to even get him wondering about the future. He wouldn’t be saying, “Where’s my jet pack?” he’d be saying, “Why don’t any towns make you turn in your guns when you enter?” (because the Wild West isn’t what we see on TV)
The Internet is a lot more than information moving faster. In Queen Isabella’s day, if a new insect showed up in a farmer’s fields, he was out of luck. It isn’t just that it would take a long time to carry one of the bugs to some far-off center of learning, it’s that he couldn’t afford to. Today, a farmer in what we used to call a Third World country takes a pic with his smart phone, posts it online, and within hours knows what the bug is, what is does, and if dangerous, how to deal with it. In the olden days, that didn’t just take more time, it didn’t happen at all. The farmer had to learn via trial, error, and famine how to deal.
Edward R. Morrow would have trouble doing the sort of research Maggie does for this blog. With the full resources of the National Broadcasting Company behind him, and spending gobs of money and manpower, he could do (sometimes) what Maggie does in a couple of days.
The Internet isn’t just fast, it’s ubiquitous and cheap. And THAT is new.
I was watching Racheal Maddow the other evening, and it was interesting that she and her guests also point out that there are a huge number of American’s (mostly the younger crowd) who don’t even know what Roe v Wade is or the specifics of it. In addition, people who are anti-abortion and the media keep reiterating a distortion of facts, one example: There are somehow more abortions since Roe v Wade (when in fact that really hasn’t been the case), but abortions have become safer, even more safer than giving childbirth. Prior to abortion becoming legal in the US so many women and young girls died from complications of botched self abortion. The stigma was so horrible for women that they died from bleeding in their homes after either hiring someone to help them abort, or trying to abort the fetus on their own via “coathangers” or drugs, or other means. The truth is that abortion has always been around. Women have always aborted unwanted fetuses for various reasons. That will never change. But the youth today has no memory of this. They have been fed so much bull by the anti-abortion crowd and media, being lead to believe that abortion was virtually non-existent prior to Roe v Wade and that is very far from the truth. What Roe v Wade has done is made women safer, made abortion safer. Another very sad fact is that so many American’s have a poor understanding of basic biology concerning Human Development. They picture an actual formed baby, one that is viable outside the mothers uterus as being the object that is being (killed) aborted. Most abortions (98%) happen within the first trimester when it is nothing more but a zygote or embryo not even formed enough to be viable or considered a human being by science. The anti-choice crowd deceives people who do not understand the biology of this, and have even gone so far as to use fake tiny preemy baby dolls to hold up in jars in public protests to make the uneducated think that is what is being aborted. If they held up the “real” thing that is being aborted it would look more like a huge blood clot in the palm of ones hand, with no real form to it whatsoever. Since most of the anti-abortion crowd have not been able to overturn Roe v Wade they have now pushed to enact so many restrictions in most of the bible belt states that it makes it almost impossible for clinics to remain open, for doctors to do their job, making it harder for women to gain access. Giving these 72 hour waiting periods, forcing doctors to read aloud to the woman “untrue, false, exaggerated” statements to scare a woman prior to getting an abortion. Vaginal probes which are not even medically necessary are now required in some states (to me this is just a form of medical rape, designed to humiliate and drive up the cost to the women). They are forced to listen to the fetal heartbeat, and the doctors in some states have to literally record in the patients file the patients reaction to listening to the fetal heartbeat. All of this is a fringe, extremist group who are pushing their religious ideology down the throats of American’s through these restrictions. 76% of American’s believe that abortion should be legal and be between the woman and her doctor, but you have less than 10% who are the extremists pushing their ideological agenda’s on the the majority. I for one am sick honestly of all this crap and we really do need to push back hard on this. Here is an interesting article if you care to read it about the science of Abortion and Human Development, and also the legal terms of murder. http://alstefanelli.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/abortion-is-not-murder/
The stigma was so horrible for women that they died from bleeding in their homes after either hiring someone to help them abort, or trying to abort the fetus on their own via “coathangers” or drugs, or other means.
In France, certain abortifacients remain illegal to this day; Ruta graveolens (common rue) being a prominent example. Knowledge of these herbs could prove useful should fundamentalists succeed in further restricting the surgical option.
Abortifacients or abortifactants (no distinction) were available and openly advertised in the USA until sometime in the 1850s. I’m not sure of this, but the rise of the Christian abolitionist movement as well the earlier rise and proliferation of various post-Protestant American religions may have played a hand in banning same.
A lot of those pre-Roe v Wade horror stories were also before effective contraception. So spare us unless the Pill is being banned. And the cosmetic features of an embryo are irrelevant. I’d rather nurture one of those cute creatures in a fishbowl than a howling blob-like “baby”. Appealing to consensus is no argument. Google what 76% of Americans believe, and you’ll find abortion, along with a Jesus-centered Christmas, and UFOs. If we could document an abortion clinic over the course of a year, the patients’ circumstances, the medical waste, the money, I suspect the depravity of the practice would be obvious to most decent people.
Sensiablue,
If you’re going to do the argument you need to get facts and terms straight. I’m doing this from memory but there are at least 5 stages from conception to birth; the first I forget, the second is zygote (4 days roughly), blastocyst (4-6 or so days again roughly), embryo, then fetus. I forget the demarcation stage between embryo and fetus (c andrews, yeah I know the terms, I even remember some of the periods. Edit: embryo goes to about 11 weeks). I knew your 98% on first trimester was wrong, but did have to look it up. First trimester is low 88% high 92%, with only about 2% aborted after the outlier 21 weeks (which is just wrong unless deadly to the mother or some horrendous genetic issue, I’ll assume both).
“within the first trimester when it is nothing more but a zygote or embryo not even formed enough to be viable or considered a human being by science.” Okay, you now know that it’s been a (whatever), zygote, blastocyst, embryo, but it also becomes a fetus before the end of the first trimester. It certainly isn’t viable by today’s technology. But I’m troubled by the wrapping of “human being” with “determined by science”, as if science is the latest revelator of all truth (I’ve been listening to “John the Revelator”). Really that’s just a transparent attempt to wrap your argument in “stamped by science”. Science doesn’t make that distinction nor can it make that choice. Genetically, at each stage it’s homo sapiens sapiens (I’ll neglect with prejudice the argument by category error of hair, tumors, or big toe).
” If they held up the “real” thing that is being aborted it would look more like a huge blood clot in the palm of ones hand, with no real form to it whatsoever.” I have seen ultrasounds of all three of my children at 12 weeks, so I know you are ill-informed. Arms and legs begin at 7 weeks. At 12 weeks it has a chin, nose and facial profile. First trimester. You really have no idea of how rapid the changes are do you?
Here’s a really nice site for you http://www.baby2see.com/development/week1.html. And no, it’s not a pro-life or anti-abortion site. Just fetal development. Experiential science. No value judgement, no philosophy, no religion, just pure science. What is, not what we want it to be.
” The anti-choice crowd deceives people who do not understand the biology of this…”. The problem of course is you are part of the deception on this issue because you don’t understand the biology either.
Sensiablue,
Your link was only science in about four paragraphs. Even there it was weighted by his need to justify his subsequent poorly argued polemic.
“There are somehow more abortions since Roe v Wade (when in fact that really hasn’t been the case)..,” support that “hasn’t been the case” with some real hard verifiable facts, unless that means the states that did allow abortion prior to Roe v Wade had one hell of a lot of traffic, “but abortions have become safer, even more safer than giving childbirth.” Can’t disagree there, abortions have maybe an elevated risk of sterility (if a D&C, or a scraping of the uterus is necessary, do it well, no problem, do it poorly..) but likely a lower risk of death.
Given the mortality variance between abortion and childbirth, I think it behooves you to argue that all fetuses, 88% to 92% in the first trimester, should be aborted for the health of the mother. Artificial certainly beats natural here.
And just because I’m an equal opportunity refutist, after looking up all the stages, I get by consensus (whatever that’s worth) that zygote is the first stage but morula is the process. One reference said “no, morula is the first stage and often confused with zygote”, which matches my memory of a first stage, but a zygote is still ended in roughly 4 days. And that growth of hair, or tumor or big toe is still a fetus before the first trimester ends (I saw 9 weeks as a transition between embryo and fetus, but I don’t buy that one). I have yet to go to an anti-abortion site.
Oh, come now; I’ve allowed this debate to continue without impedance because everyone has been fairly sensible, but anyone can agree that statement is absurd.
Of course it’s absurd, as is the “abortion is safer than childbirth” when used in anyway as a justification of abortion. That was the point, Maggie. One is a natural process, the other artificial. They shouldn’t be compared.
I considered ending with something to point out the absurdity of either in my previous post. Evidently, I should have. My bad.
Amen.
I’m tired of all of these small minded knucklehead control freaks too.
My question when I meet these people is always thus: Why do you care if someone else is doing___________? How does that affect you and yours?
In the eternal words of the troubadour Hank Williams : ‘why don’t you mind your own business?’
As long as folks are doing their thing and paying their own tab… have fun I say.
-W
Ah, hedonism clear stated and thus at it’s best and worst.
I agree. I say those people are pro-birth. Once its born (to a mother that didnt want it) they dont give a shit.
I wrote a paper on Ayuasca and its main ingredient dmt. We have dmt in our bodies. It is called the spirit molecule and comes into the body at the 7th week (if i am remembering correctly) of gestation and this is also the time when thw sex of the baby, fetus, unborn child is determined. So to me that is when you maybe can say its a little person but before you can determine if its a boy or girl , its just cells with the possibility of being a future human. Also i have read that 50% of sperm uniting with egg are washed out during your monthly cycle. That is what nature does . There is a reason for all things.
I have always been pro choice but i have also thought hard on the rights of the father. But my reason for being pro choice is that until it can survive without me it is part of my body
. Another reason is that you are on one side or the other . You either feel it is wrong or you feel its the womans choice. When they start making exceptions it is just opening a can of beans.
So botttom line if there is a possibility that some law could ever make someone who was raped bear the rapists baby then i will always be pro choice. If they want to i am 100% supportive but i could never stand by and accept that as a given. Other than that i still believe in choice but too many people use abortion as birth control and i dont like that. But look at all the pro lifers (most) are also against birth control. That kind of thinking is ignorant.