Amen, Kevin.

If you do run for office, I'll be your first donor.

I'm male, and not Republican. Can I post?

Thanks, Kevin!

You could only get elected in a country that loved the truth instead of "truthiness."

I'd vote for you.

A fetus is, medically speaking, considered to be a part of the woman's body.

Discussions about whether a fetus is a living being deserving it's own separate set of rights seem to ignore this basic fact.

Therefore, showing concern for the mother's health and medical needs, and right to decide on her own fate, shouldn't be viewed as controversial.

thanks kevin, but curious what you think of this post

http://www.voicesofreason.info/2004_11_21_archive.html

By rights, the husband/father should have some say in the matter. But that would be awfully hard to legislate. Women who are in a loving, caring relationship will discuss this with their partner. Women who aren't probably won't.

Kevin -- I bet the trolls will come out soon, so I'll say this: thanks for being candid. You and Anne Lamott said what needed to be said.

For all I care, women are free to use abortion as their standard method of birth control if they want to.

I believe in the Soviet Union this was largely the case. And it was devastating. The emotional strain is very great. Almost no woman takes abortion lightly. It is a decision that weighs heavily. And to think, like the anti-abortion forces do, that getting an abortion is some simple thing like changing your hair color is to be dishonest or ignorant.

Anyone who truly believes we should limit the number of abortions would be shouting as loudly as they can about sex education and birth control. These are the methods for eliminating unwanted pregnancies. Abstinence-only is a fairy tale. The faux moralists who oppose sex ed and birth control and rail against abortion have an agenda of controlling women.

I don't think abortion is a morally ambiguous issue,

Even a day before birth? In moral terms, that is a weak position to take.

I just wish people could realize there is a difference between taking RU-486 and a late second-term abortion. Anti-abortion people act like all abortions are babies torn apart, and that is simply not the case.

But again, it isn't about abortion. It is about power / control.

Question for Christians who support abortion: When does the fetus become a baby in your view (i.e., has a soul and would be murder under the eyes of God to kill him or her)?

Well said, and moral to the core.

I don't think abortion is a morally ambiguous issue,

Even a day before birth? In moral terms, that is a weak position to take. Posted by: Edo

Go be a literalist asshole elsewhere.

I just wish people could realize there is a difference between taking RU-486 and a late second-term abortion. Anti-abortion people act like all abortions are babies torn apart, and that is simply not the case.

100% agree. (just in case my previous comment gave the wrong impression)

By rights, the husband/father should have some say in the matter.

That's not true at all. In an ideal world they get input, but no rights. No power. It's the woman who has to risk the pregnancy, she is the only one who should have the right to make the choice. Would you say a man's wife/girlfriend has rights to have a say on a needed kidney transplant? Both the transplant and pregnancy involve risks to the person's life. Good relationships involve consideration of the partner's opinion. But that's very different from the right to make the decision.

But that would be awfully hard to legislate.

That's what I was going to say. I used to think parental notification was a good law, very sensible, until I saw Howard Dean speak about it. He said any doctor worth his salt is going to get the parents involved unless it's a fucked-up family.

The law can't come in at the 11th hour and heal broken relationships. All those laws do is lump additional burdens on people who are already in a bad position.

Even a day before birth? In moral terms, that is a weak position to take.

Oh, please. Don't be an idiot.

" I have had my abortions, and I have had a child. "-Anne Lamont

Kinda in denial about her actions.

If its OK to kill a baby in the second trimester because she's unwanted. Why have orphanages or adoption?

Pretending that adoption isn't an answer for a healthy pregnancy is a lie at the current state of affairs. Their are long waiting lists for babies.

When you abort, you are killing a life to avoid the social pain, the risks of pregnancy, economic losses and the pain of giving up a child. The question is, is killing a life or even a half-life worth that?

wow...two ad hominem attacks without any moral reasoning to back up the attacks. hmmm...

No, the question is whether the government should legislate that decision.

A-freakin-men, Kevin--now can please go smack your fellow center-liberals into some sense? I like to think of it this way:

Needing an abortion sucks, whatever the reason you need it; being able to get one when you need it is wonderful.

We need better birth control and sex ed for all kinds of reasons besides reduction in the abortion rate--and unwanted pregnancies suck for a lot of reasons BESIDES the fact that the best solution to them is an abortion. (No, adoption is not an equally good solution--that does indeed end parenthood, but the only way to end *pregnancy* is abortion. It often gets lost that aborting women don't just want to end up without a baby, they want to not be pregnant ASAP.) The fact that there is any solution at that point in the process is a godsend.

Speak on, Kevin!

Even a day before birth? In moral terms, that is a weak position to take.

Kevin said:

I don't think nonviable fetuses are human beings.

Nonviable being the key word there. Yes, there's a gray area, but the day before birth is clearly not part of that gray area. Count me with Kevin.

Kevin quotes Anne Lamott: "I knew what I was supposed to have said [...] that the abortion rate in America is way too high for a caring and compassionate society."

To the extent that women who want to have abortions are prevented from doing so by various obstacles that the anti-abortion lobby has put in place, the abortion rate in America is too low for a caring and compassionate society.

If I were running for office, I would campaign in part on the urgent need to drastically reduce the human population of the Earth from its currently unsustainable 6.5 billion to 2 billion or less, which is the approximate maximum human carrying capacity of the Earth's biosphere that both allows a decent standard of living for all humans and is sustainable in the long term.

In order to achieve that reduction in the most humane manner possible, it is absolutely essential to provide all women and men everywhere with all possible means of reducing the number of children they have. In in addition to taking steps to improve the social, political, educational and economic status of women and girls to empower them to control their own lives, and in addition to providing free, effective and easy to use contraceptives (including free vasectomies for any men who are courageous and compassionate enough to choose that option), free abortion on demand should be provided for any woman anywhere in the world who wants one for any reason.

Amen, Kevin... one of my many gripes with so-called swing voters (and even the angst-ridden pro-choicers) is that too many of them seem to think that there's some validity in legally diminishing actual citizens just to express cultural disapproval, as if this was some meta-episode of Oprah that gives everyone's personal feelings weight. It's not; if you think women are fully-functional human beings and citizens (I realize that many in the religious right do not, but they're generally anti-Enlightenment anyway), it's up to you to learn to deal with your disapproval of their actions. The consequences of abortion, whether physical, practical, or spiritual, are for the woman to bear, and are no one else's business.

I still find it morally ambiguous in lots of ways.

But the emotional temperature always gets too high for any real discourse, for me anyway.

I appreciate your comments Mr. Drum. Well said.

Same goes for Ms. Lamott.

Wow Kevin,

You used to be so nuanced and so wishy-washy.

As De Long says, welcome to the shrill. Because the trail of logic is pretty direct - in the end it's whose decision is it?

But I wouldn't agree that lowering the abortion rate isn't a good goal on practical grounds. Abortion is more expensive and invasive than birth control. The rest of the industrialized world has much lower rates of abortion. So should we.

You say you're a husband, Kevin. How many kids?

Tomeck: That's why I said the husband shouldn't have any "legal say" in abortion. In any remotely healthy relationship, of course, the husband has plenty to say. But ultimately, it's not his call.

Puppethead: I'd prefer that we lived in a society in which abortion wasn't a traumatic experience. However, I only said that I didn't care if women used it as birth control, not that this is a good idea. There are, obviously, far cheaper and more convenient methods available, and it's pretty foolish not to take advantage of them.

Edo: I said "nonviable fetus." That means I support abortion up through (approximately) the second trimester. I'm willing to support restrictions after that point, although frankly, I still think it should primarily be a decision made by a woman and her doctor, not the state.

A fetus is, medically speaking, considered to be a part of the woman's body.

Discussions about whether a fetus is a living being deserving it's own separate set of rights seem to ignore this basic fact.

Semantic conventions are hardly "facts" of moral significance.

Good for her. I hope that people realize that abortion is more than a thirty-second wedge-issue shout-fest.

Unfortunately, we need consensus, not a swinging pendulum. Our two-party system feeds on the bloodiness of this debate. We need real reform in order to bring real closure to this gut wrenching issue. Instant-runoff voting would be a good start; lets get some leaders in this country who are more interested in American than red-bloody partisan meat.

You say you're a husband, Kevin. How many kids?

It doesn't matter, because what Kevin is acknowledging is that he doesn't have property rights over his wife's body, and the actual issue is rights, not emotions.

"I don't think getting one should be an emotionally traumatic experience..."

How do you propose to avoid this? Even as a non-woman, I should think abortion would always be emotionally traumatic.

For all I care, women are free to use abortion as their standard method of birth control if they want to.

I believe in the Soviet Union this was largely the case. And it was devastating. The emotional strain is very great. Posted by: puppethead

Still is, so far as I know, the primary birth control option for women in Japan. "The pill" is hard to come by. However, it isn't a moral issue. Well, actually, it is. Doctors favor abortion as a cash cow, if you will. If women had free access to all options of birth control, then they wouldn't be getting knocked-up as frequently as Red State trailer trash, and that would punch big old hole in their income.

Question for Christians who support abortion: When does the fetus become a baby in your view?

Question for Christians who support the occupation of Iraq: When does mutilating another human being by cutting off her/his head become a trophy to send home to your brother?

I think the right showed what they think of a husband's rights in Florida

I think the right showed what they think of a husband's rights in Florida with our bou DeLay at the lead.

Even as a non-woman, I should think abortion would always be emotionally traumatic.

Nope, no irony there. ::eye roll::

Even a day before birth? In moral terms, that is a weak position to take.

Depends. MOST fetuses have become fully-formed and functional human babies by the "one day before birth" stage...unless they are severely deformed/inviable (anencephalic, for instance - NOT human, just a human baby shell lacking even a hint of a creamy nugut center) but one is normally aware of such severe abnormalities well before "one day before birth" and so they can be eliminated well before that point. In any case, NO ONE DOES ABORTIONS ONE DAY BEFORE NORMAL BIRTH. It's ridiculous to bring that extreme point up.

There is a point, somewhere along the development ladder (probably AFTER initial "viability" outside the womb via technological means) where a fetus can and should be declared to have nearly complete human rights (A woman's right to live must always outweigh the fetus'. Only the particular woman in question can decide to sacrifice her life for that of a potential human). It is NOT simply a matter of "See? It responds to sound!", or "See? It is sucking its thumb!". CONSCIOUSNESS and ability to feel pain are the only metrics that should be considered. Reactivity to stimulus does NOT equate to ability to feel pain, either. Different parts of the nervous system develop at different rates. The autonomic nervous system is complete LOOOONG before any higher brain functions are possible. Autonomic is all you need for "reactivity to "painful" stimulus".

Hell, an amoeba will respond to "painful" stimuli...without feeling pain (no brain, no consciousness, no pain...pain actually requires a consciousness to experience it, otherwise it is merely stimulus response/reflex, like your leg jerk when your knee is struck with the rubber hammer). The problem is basically anthropomorphizing of the fetus. ADULTS who make this mistake wrt fetuses are mistakenly empathizing with the fetus as if it has a fully adult brain that just happens to lack an education. Totally inaccurate.

Brain development should be the basis of when a fetus begins to acquire a subset of full human rights. NOT erroneous perception by the uneducated, naive public of brain development state, but based on scientific data on brain development. The former is not real, the latter is based on objective reality.

In any case, I'm with Lamott. I don't think nonviable fetuses are human beings.

Where did Lamott say anything about "nonviable"? She said "fetuses are not babies yet", without the qualification.

Its amusing that you pretend to be joining Lamott in a risky, non-nuanced stand when by injecting your own qualifier, you've washed away the only thing that makes her stance particularly edgy or risky or controversial.

Its as if you've gotten tired of the complaints some people have made accusing you of centrist vacillation, and decide to try to take a stand to prove them wrong -- but couldn't quite get up the courage not to hedge, even then.

So much for "so much for nuance."

order to achieve that reduction in the most humane manner possible, it is absolutely essential to provide all women and men everywhere with all possible means of reducing the number of children they have

Posted by: SecularAnimist on February 10, 2006 at 1:20 PM | PERMALINK

Just bring back exposure and legalise infanticide.

If we are going to reduce the population for greenie reasons, can greenies take one for the team and lead by example by mass suicide?

Alternatively, just don't have sex or tie your tubes or have a vasectomy = no kids ever

Its the willingness of the public to kill so they have their kid at the convenient time that bothers me. Rape, pre-quickening and deformity are the only exceptions in abortion that are grey areas.

just as i was starting to think tbrosz was starting to be a more reasonable person over time, he says something stupid and offensive. all is right with the world again....

just as i was starting to think tbrosz was starting to be a more reasonable person over time, he says something stupid and offensive. all is right with the world again....

Its the willingness of the public to kill so they have their kid at the convenient time that bothers me

Then maybe you should find something better to do with your time than worry about the painful choices other people make. Isn't your own life enough to handle? Why does it matter to you what someone else does?

Arguably you should be running for office, Kevin.

First, I don't think that perpetual running away and triangulation is good politics. I think a lot of American voters would be more likely to support a candidate with a forthright view that they disagree with than to support a mush-mouthed candidate who seems to be speaking in code. Irrational if you think that voters choose candidates by ideology, but that's not how most voters do choose.

And second, something a lot of Democratic political consultants often seem to forget: abortion isn't actually unpopular. There's a case for pragmatic politicians to run away from politically unpopular causes, but too many Democratic politicians, listening to too much Beltway elite conventional wisdom and mistaking the voice of the Washington Post/Times editorial page for the voice of the people, have run away from politically popular causes.

When I say so, Hostile.

When I say so.

I still don't get how someone can claim to be Christian and not have any problem with abortion. I can see the "I'm against abortion but it shouldn't be illegal," but to have no moral qualms whatsoever means ignoring about everything Jesus taught.

Would He have ever told someone he or she was better off not being born as Lamott argues is the case for some people?

The viability question is more than a gray area: as medical technology advances, the threshold for viability could reach the first trimester or earlier. Further, while Kevin makes this distinction, Lamott does not, so the point raised indelicately by Edo needs to be faced. What is the strong liberal position on post-viability, third trimester abortions?

I'm a husband and a father and I was raised Catholic, although now (cue the monicker) I'm as collapsed as it gets:

Drum (and Lamott) miss the point.

PEOPLE DISAGREE WITH YOU, just as you pointedly disagree with people who figure that the purpose of sex is procreation.

Jeff figures it's okay to call somebody who asks the obvious, harder than it looks question about an abortion the day before birth "a literalist asshole".

So don't blame pro-lifers exclusively for polarizing the issue.

Drum has evidently never actually confronted WHY most people find abortion a morally conflicted (which ain't the same as ambiguous) issue.

I notice that when somebody says that the father ought to have rights, they're slapped down -- it's the MOTHER's pregnancy, after all. He gave up his rights when he had sex, because he's no longer in control over the consequences.

THAT's the moral conflict. Who among us controls the consequences of all our actions? Moral conflicts arise when people have to do more or less bad things because they did more or less good things, and vice versa.

So why doesn't the mother give up some of her rights, just as the father does?

Why doesn't the baby have rights? (Puh-leeze, everybody knows the semantics are bogus: zygote, fetus, viability. Use bright lines.)

As a matter of the law, the baby does have rights: kill a baby in the womb in a car accident, and you'll find out. So it's the pro-choice folks, not the pro-life side, who are inconsistent and unprincipled in their arguments: OUR way, or theh highway -- and, oh yeah, you cannot dissent cuz it's the Constitution.

Pro-choice folks: watch out what you wish for, cuz the Roberts Court will gave it to you.

I'm pro-choice, cuz it IS a set of choices for me: who decides is the key. Women should be trusted with the choice, if only because nobody else should be.

But it ain't courage, and it ain't clarity, to scoff at folks who see a bit deeper into it, and conclude that the real moral of the story is the same for the mothers AND the fathers: if you can't be a parent, don't have sex.

And when -- imagine! -- you do have sex, and find there's a baby coming, that is a morally conflicted choice UNLESS you've been living your life consistent with the cause and the effect.

.

When you abort, you are killing a life to avoid the social pain, the risks of pregnancy, economic losses and the pain of giving up a child. The question is, is killing a life or even a half-life worth that?

Newsflash to McA$$... women who get abortions in the second trimester typically have found out that something is wrong with the fetus, or their own health or life is at risk.

I know of two women who had second-trimester abortions. In both cases, they would have given birth to a baby who would have died soon after.

You willing to force that fate on a woman? Think about it before you start lecturing other people on their selfishness.

I don't think nonviable fetuses are human beings. Terminating them doesn't bother me, and it's none of my business anyway. For all I care, women are free to use abortion as their standard method of birth control if they want to.

Honestly, this strikes me as quite equivalent to Truman's assertion, after using the atomic bomb on Japan, that he never lost a night's sleep over it. It's simply morally callous.

Look, even Lamott's position is more nuanced. She qualifies her position thus,

And somehow, as I was answering, I got louder and maybe even more emphatic than I actually felt, and said it was not a morally ambiguous issue for me at all. I said that fetuses are not babies yet; that there was actually a real difference between pro-abortion people, like me, and Klaus Barbie.

Clearly, she feels SOME pull from the idea that in choosing an abortion, she is deciding for the lesser of two evils.

I don't think that abortion is murder, or anything even remotely approaching it. I think women only have the right to choose whether they want an abortion. But I also think that there is something at least sad and unfortunate that a potential, albeit not actual, human being is being terminated in an abortion.

And I don't think that we are better people if we try to convince ourselves otherwise.

Question for Christians who support abortion: When does the fetus become a baby in your view?

You know, there is a difference between opposing the criminalization of a thing, and supporting that thing.

Personally, as a Christian, I think that a person becomes a person at sometime before birth, that that moment is knowable to no one but God, that it is morally best if each individual act, for themselves, to avoiding harming others were human from the moment of conception and, yet, not, as a rule, judge or punish others based on that presumption.

Would He (sic) have ever told someone he or she was better off not being born as Lamott argues is the case for some people? Posted by: Frank J.

Perhaps not. But then again, Jesus didn't have the benefit of a formal education. What the hell's your excuse?

cmdicely,
I used the phrase "support abortion" specifically because Lamott is arguing more than that abortion should be legal, but that also it's not immoral.

As a matter of the law, the baby does have rights: kill a baby in the womb in a car accident, and you'll find out.

The state can punish me for destroying a historical monument, too; that doesn't mean the monument has "rights". That the state asserts because it is deemed to have value to people -- like the parents -- who are unquestionably legally persons an interest in protecting something that is carried out through criminal law does not give that thing rights.

A fetus does not, in general, have any legal rights or interests not contingent on birth. The unborn are not legal persons, whatever their moral status.

The bottom line is that there are too many people on this planet. Why bring another consumer of resources into this life if the parents are unwilling or unable to provide for it? This is a woman's private decision. Anyone else, from self-righteous Christians to pompous legislators to obsequious judges, needs to STFU.

I'm with the Spartans: No infant born of a woman is a human being until it has lived the night out on it's own.

Not only am I pro-abortion, I am firmly of the belief that women who kill their infants at birth do so due to temporary insanity, and should be medicated and counseled, not jailed.

Would He (sic) have ever told someone he or she was better off not being born as Lamott argues is the case for some people? Posted by: Frank J.


I have no problem telling a hydrocephalic or a Down's person that it would have been better had they not been born. These things are a HUGE burden, seldom or never live a normal life, and WHAT happens to them WHEN THE PARENT DIES?

I certainly, when we were having our first child, would have aborted the fetus in a heartbeat had the fetus been down's fetus.

Just read the Lamott's article.

If you want a thoughtful view on abortion, Annie Lamott's article isn't the place to look. Just more of the shrill yelling and profanity that is commonplace from today's lefties. Here, she is a one-dimensional shouter. The only thing missing was the typical zinger, "If men could have abortions, abortion would be a sacrament." That's about the level of Lamott's piece.

elfranko:

Not sure where you got "stupid and offensive" off my question about whether or not Kevin has kids. It makes a real difference in my opinion.

I have two kids. My first is in college, now. It's pretty hard to see a child as "non-viable tissue" at any phase of the process when your wife goes through a pregnancy and gives birth. Most women who go through a miscarriage in the first trimester--not uncommon--feel like they've lost a baby, not a kidney.

Anne Lamott has a right to her opinion. It's not surprising she feels that way. She's had abortions herself. Lamott, a writer I admire, is a highly introspective person who has at least one kid, and I don't think she could handle her own history if she hadn't convinced herself that a fetus wasn't a child.

Step one in this controversy is to cut off the extremes. Leave out the person who thinks the "morning after pill" (often wrongly confused with RU-486) is evil for preventing a fertile egg from implanting. Leave out the person who sees no problem at all with third-term or partial-birth abortions for non-emergency reasons. A surprising number of Americans would meet quite happily somewhere in the middle.

If my wife hadn't had an abortion years ago, we wouldn't now have a 14 month old son.

Getting an abortion that you desparately need is not so traumatic as much as a relief. Been there done that. Like Annie, I also have a kid (a wanted one).

It should be the woman's decision, period. All the rest is political and religious bs.

I still don't get how someone can claim to be Christian and not have any problem with abortion.

It's perfectly possible to be a Christian and recognize that other sentient humans have free will and are responsible for their own actions and their own souls. It's also possible to be a Christian and believe that outsiders have no standing in the matter, and therefore that it is not to be decided by secular law.

Personally, as a Christian, I think that a person becomes a person at sometime before birth,

That is not a christian opinion. In fact, never, not one single place in the bible, does Jesus or anyone say that.

In fact, to the Jews, 2nd trimester abortion is not a problem.

So, don't make statements like that. THis is not christianity. It's your own, personal, fiction of the soul, which is a fiction.

I really hate it when I have to support tbrosz, but he has a point. Kevin's post is written from a kind of disinterested, academic position. And that's fine.

But actually having children - especially, going through a pregnancy and then being there when they come out and say "buy me something!" - it changes your perspective a lot.

Which doesn't mean that Kevin's wrong. I agree with the content of his message. But it does mean that I found his tone a little scary. It was kind of, um, fundamentalis, and that makes some people, including me, nervous.

McA writes: Its the willingness of the public to kill so they have their kid at the convenient time that bothers me. Rape, pre-quickening and deformity are the only exceptions in abortion that are grey areas.

I'm curious: why do you include rape in that list? Surely if you believe the fetus has the right to survive generally, then surely it can't forfeit those rights just because it was conceived against the will of its mother. (In the case of deformity, I will assume that you mean cases severe enough as to preclude reasonable hope of a happy life.)

For the record, I'm pro-choice, although I don't think that's a choice I could ever make.

I don't think that abortion is murder, or anything even remotely approaching it. I think women only have the right to choose whether they want an abortion. But I also think that there is something at least sad and unfortunate that a potential, albeit not actual, human being is being terminated in an abortion.

And I don't think that we are better people if we try to convince ourselves otherwise.
Posted by: frankly0

Nor is it clear that Lamott was contending anything different.

You've pretty much summed up the issue for intelligent, compassionate adults, except that one must include that it is not the state's business. End of story.

Next topic.

Worth pointing out that given the assumption that abortion is morally not at all troubling, it is still better that abortion be rare and not used as a standard method of birth control. Why? Same reason knee surgery being rare is good. Surgery of any sort is annoying and at least slightly dangerous. From a women's public health perspective it is still better to have fewer abortions.

Not that that changes the main thrust of your argument anywhere.

If I were running for office, I would campaign in part on the urgent need to drastically reduce the human population of the Earth from its currently unsustainable 6.5 billion to 2 billion or less, which is the approximate maximum human carrying capacity of the Earth's biosphere that both allows a decent standard of living for all humans and is sustainable in the long term.

Source? The estimates I've seen, years ago, with technology that is currently known well-deployed, suggest well over an order magnitude more -- the problem is economic justice, not capacity. If you're advocating wiping out most of the Earth's population, you better have damn solid support for the numbers.

Seeing what my wife has to go through when pregnant really has crystallized what I believe--I DON'T CARE WHEN THE FETUS/EMBRYO/UNBORN CHILD/WHATEVER is considered a "person." While it is in a woman causing all of these horrible symptoms lasting months on end, that woman has the intrinsic, human right to have it removed. Period. No one should be required by law to experience the weight gain, nausea, leakage from the majority of the body's orifices, headaches, lack of sleep, heartburn, etc. etc. etc. if (1) they don't want to and (2) there is a way to prevent it. Not to mention the pain of labor. Jesus, I don't quite understand why this is even an issue anymore.

Now, if you want to talk to me about requiring doctors or hospitals or whomever to try to save viable fetuses when doing so would not cause any additional risk to the woman, then I'm all ears. But requiring a woman to keep a foreign parasite in her body, causing her all sorts of health issues and risking death? Not me, bub.

It is immoral to force a woman to go through a pregnancy just to give the baby up for adoption. She is not a baremachine.

It is immoral to make a woman give birth and force her back to work without giving her the opportunity to nurse her baby, to just make her pump her milk and just leave the baby alone. We don't do that to dogs but to women.

It is immoral to not give her and the baby a chance to bond or provide childcare while she is at work and in commute for maybe 10-12 hours a day.Oh, the republican good people don't think that is enough, the women should work longer hours.

To all the so called good christian people I say, live your life according to your religion and keep your nose out of other peoples life.

Your stand on abortion is your god given right but it is not your right to push your religion down on other people.

By the way, during the dalk ages catholic believe was the sole entered a male fetus after about 90 days and a female after about 100 days, and contraception to this day is still a sin.

craigie, not everyone has kids, and believe me there are plenty of us who are happily married, successful and childless and none worse for the wear.

Well said, Kevin. But I do have one caveat. Keeping abortions safe and legal is necessary but not sufficient. In an ideal society, there would be ample and widespread sex education with full information available about the range of birth control options available, about what to do when those options fail, about STDs and birth control and the like. And while we are at it, lets add full-fledged social services support for early child care, for those who do find themselves pregnant unexpectedly and don't want to abort.

Source? The estimates I've seen, years ago, with technology that is currently known well-deployed, suggest well over an order magnitude more -- the problem is economic justice, not capacity.

There's a bit of a difference in the technologically forced and extended carrying capacity of the earth for HUMANS and a desireable or good level of population. The biosphere, the ecology that includes NON-human animals is a critical component here.

It may be theoretically possible to pack a human at a density average of 1 per 5 square meters via the wonders of advanced technology, but that planet is totally devoid of anything OTHER than humans packed together in a sweaty mess. There is a sustainable level environmentally that is emotionally and psychologically acceptable and desirous that is much superior to the mere total number that CAN be sustained by force through technology.

Source? The estimates I've seen, years ago, with technology that is currently known well-deployed, suggest well over an order magnitude more -- the problem is economic justice, not capacity.
Posted by: cmdicely

Never been to a really big city in the "developing" world, have you? Have you even been to LA, for that matter?

Sure you could spread the current population out much thinner across the globe, if you started forced migration to really shitty places like N. Dakota, Nebraska, eastern Colorado, central Nevada, Siberia (oh, never mind, they already tried that), the Australian Outback. You go first.

Even the U.S. is overpopulated, and the maddening fact of the matter is that this is primarily the result of immigration policy.

TBroz, do you practice condescension before a mirror every day before you set out to infest Kevin's place?
"I don't think she could handle her own history if she hadn't convinced herself that a fetus wasn't a child."
Because of course, she could not possibly believe exactly what she says she believes.Newsflash: many of us do not need to convince ourselves that a fetus is not a child. WE DO NOT BELIEVE IT. Period.

Frank J the christian ninja chickenhawk is worried about abortion except when he is making jokes about abortion. At the risk of increasing traffic to his 'political humor' site see here Roe v. Wade Fun!

It should be noticed that the question of whether or not fetuses are to be considered human beings does NOT exhaust the question of the morality of abortion.

See, e.g., the oldie-but-pretty-goodie Beginning Lives, by Rosalind Hursthouse.

Far too many, it seems to me, consider the question of the morality of abortion to begin and end with the question of whether or not fetuses are well-considered to be human beings. It's simply an erroneous presupposition.

If you're advocating wiping out most of the Earth's population, you better have damn solid support for the numbers

Jared Diamond wrote in Collapse that Australia, which has a current population of 20 million, is probably only capable of sustaining, on an on-going, open-ended basis, about 8 million people. Which is pretty much in line with the idea that 6.5 billion people need to really be 2 billion.

Of course, that can't happen in any realistic way. Which means that it is likely to happen in a much more traumatic way. I remain convinced that we are going to see some serious human population loss in this century, due to disease, natural disasters and most especially ecological collapse. But then, I'm an optimist. Maybe it will happen sooner...

I don't think nonviable fetuses are human beings.

1. How about if they are viable?

2. Should the decision whether to restrict abortions be a political matter for state legislatures, like the restrictions on appendectomies? For example, can state legislatures prohibit "back alley" abortions? Require they be performed only by MDs? Require testing for HIV in the fetus and proper disposal of the (biohazardous) remains? Why, given that the right is grounded in privacy?

3. Too many of your posts contain "I don't care if ... ." Your writing about Schiavo said that you didn't think any liberal principles were involved. On another occasion you praised your own "ironic detachment".

I have to say that this is a fairly sensible thread. It seems like a lot of the moral straining is contained in premises that if we examine intially in the framing question, a lot of the controversy goes away.

While there's some remaining ambivalence to be sure (Edo, cmdicely, Americanist), it appears that there's a very strong consensus on the main point of the post:

That it's a woman's decision, period.

I really think that's the essence of the matter. All moral reasoning has to apply after that fundamental fact.

Bob

Even as a non-woman, I should think abortion would always be emotionally traumatic.

Nope, no irony there. ::eye roll::
Posted by: latts

I don't get it, latts. Are men and women different species, that one can't identify with the emotional trauma of the other? And the point is, by what fiat will Kevin eliminate emotional trauma? I thought it a thoughtless remark in an otherwise thoughtful post.

craigie, not everyone has kids, and believe me there are plenty of us who are happily married, successful and childless and none worse for the wear.

That wasn't my point. And believe me, if you are childless, you don't know anything about "wear"!

I'm sorry, is this the Kevin Drum blog?

I still don't get how someone can claim to be Christian and not have any problem with war for oil. I can't see the "I'm against war but it shouldn't be illegal," but to have no moral qualms whatsoever means ignoring about everything Jesus taught.

Would He have ever told someone he or she was better off cutting off someone's head for a trophy, as Frank J argues is the case for his brother?

Jeff II writes: "Doctors favor abortion as a cash cow, if you will." What absolute crap.

Performing abortions is a good way to get demonized and shot at; it is a very poor way to get rich. Those doctors who still work in that area of medicine are extremely dedicated, committed people who perform abortions out of a sense of duty; much of the compensation they receive pays for bulletproof vests, plane flights in from out-of-state because many red states have scared off all the in-state OB/GYNs from performing abortion procedures.

I am a progressive Catholic, but I abhor the Democratic party's total capitulation to the abortion supporters. Just remember that the same consequentialist arguments that are used to justify abortion are also used to justify unjust war, torture, and nuclear weapons. No side is fully consistent. Well, I get harassed all the time on Catholic sites for sticking up for progressive causes, and for arguing that a Chistian in good conscience cannot support the GOP. And then I come over here and see this post, which is... well, disheartening. I urge everybody to read the excellent essay enitled "The Coherence and Importance of Pro-Life Progressivism" by Mark Sargent: http://www.mirrorofjustice.com/mirrorofjustice/sargent/prolifeprogressivism.pdf.

I also think Praedor hit on an extremely important point about anthropomorphizing the fetus. Viability is a scientific, not a sentimental question, and reflex reactions are not indication of a consciousness that experiences pain.

Bob

For all those opposed to abortion, are you opposed when the child is a Tay-Sachs child, who will die, with P(Death

After all, if you support life, TS children have as much right as any other child.

Oh my god Kevin finally posted something I agree with a hundred percent. I have nothing to add except that he and anne lamontt deserve some thanks for just saying it like it is.

a pro-choice, pro-abortion mother of two young girls.

aimai

I still don't get how someone can claim to be Christian and not have any problem with abortion. I can see the "I'm against abortion but it shouldn't be illegal," but to have no moral qualms whatsoever means ignoring about everything Jesus taught.

I still don't get how someone can claim to be a Christian and not give all their money and time to the poor and work to feed the hungry and heal the sick, or how one can claim to be a Christian and enlist in the Marines and be taught to kill, but well, that's just me.

Would He have ever told someone he or she was better off not being born as Lamott argues is the case for some people?

John Calvin, not exactly a liberal, and the spiritual forefather of much of American Protestantism, believed that it would have been better for most people if they had never been born, as they were predestined for damnation anyway. In his "Institutes of the Christian Religion" he praises “the correctness of their opinion who considered it as the greatest boon not to be born, and, as the next greatest, to die immediately; nor was there anything irrational in the conduct of those who mourned and wept at the birth of their relations, and solemnly rejoiced at their funerals.”

That is not a christian opinion.

YOu are free to believe that.

In fact, never, not one single place in the bible, does Jesus or anyone say that.

Well, first, yes, there are places where things suggesting that are said in the Bible; and, second and more importantly, the belief that the Bible is the sole source of authoritative Christian belief is, while common to Protestantism and central to fundamentalism, not general to Christianity. Not being a Protestant and, a fortiori, not being a Protestant fundamentalist, sola scriptura has no weight with me. And, since it is my opinion rather than something I hold to be definitively true, it would not be inconsistent even if I held to that strange fundamentalist doctrine you seem to think defines Christianity.

In fact, to the Jews, 2nd trimester abortion is not a problem.

There are many beliefs consistent with (or even central to) Christianity that are not held by Jews. So?

So, don't make statements like that.

I will make accurate statements of what I believe as a Christian, with or without your permission.

THis is not christianity.

It is my belief, as a Christian. I did not suggest it was a Christian doctrine -- Christian denominations (including my own) have their own official doctrines which range from far more restrictive than what I have articulated to far looser.

John Calvin, not exactly a liberal, and the spiritual forefather of much of American Protestantism, believed that it would have been better for most people if they had never been born, as they were predestined for damnation anyway.

By the end of Intro to Philosophy of Religion, I was fairly well convinced it would have been better for most people if John Calvin had never been born...

cmdicely:

:)

Bob

Male and married here, too. I'm emotionally conflicted about abortion. About the only thing I'm certain of is that how *I* feel doesn't mean a good God damn. If we allow people to act on their own conscience, instead of having that of others impose on them, then the issue of abortion will be settled.

My bet is, abortions will decline in number because the anti-choice faction (oops, did I just make my position known?) are better at disseminating their viewpoint. But with that in mind, why not let the free market decide this matter, rather than get the gubbmint in our bedrooms? (Rhetorical question, okay.)

I don't think nonviable fetuses are human beings. Terminating them doesn't bother me, and it's none of my business anyway. For all I care, women are free to use abortion as their standard method of birth control if they want to. Nor do I really care much if we reduce the abortion rate in America. Safe and legal is good enough for me.

I don't think kittens are human beings, but terminating them does bother me. It's not none of my business; it's just a little bit of my business, and way, way more of the mother's business. And part of my business is also ensuring that everyone has access to good family planning.

I think this is a dumb way to set things up, and it doesn't jibe with my sense of the world. The fact is that every country with widespread easy access to good sex education, prophylactics, and abortion also has lower abortion rates. In fact, abortion rates in countries where it's ILLEGAL are higher than in countries where it's legal and where prophylaxis and sex ed are universal, along with good government-funded prenatal and postnatal care. People who want to ban abortion are the ones who want the abortion rate to rise, and I don't see why I should let them get away with claiming that they have any concern with the actual welfare of fetuses, women, or anybody at all.

By the end of Intro to Philosophy of Religion, I was fairly well convinced it would have been better for most people if John Calvin had never been born...

Yes, but then we'd have missed out on those delightful "John Calvin and Hobbes" cartoons....

cmdicely:

Check out the Fourth Amendment thread if you haven't seen it since this one (the traffic's pretty high atm, as it tends to be in abortion threads).

I scriped out a DNC ad in opposition to the *cough* Terrorist Surveillance Program :)

Bob

I don't get it, latts. Are men and women different species, that one can't identify with the emotional trauma of the other?

No, but fully identifying with the potential for abortion-related emotional trauma really requires identifying with the potential for emotional (and physical, and economic, and many other kinds) trauma related to childbearing as well, and those issues are so alien to most men that it may seem that we are different species. The ways in which pregnancy & having small children makes women vulnerable are so pervasive and complex that it seems almost impossible to relate them all. In any case, my point was that men might be able to empathize with the shame (either cultural or in the sense of losing control of one's life), the loss of potential that is so strongly instilled in most of us, and even the physical discomfort, but without having a full understanding of the complex realities of the alternative to an abortion, that empathy must still be incomplete. Context is everything, and abortion always happens in the context of facing an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy, which is a truly overwhelming life issue.

I wrote: ... 2 billion or less, which is the approximate maximum human carrying capacity of the Earth's biosphere that both allows a decent standard of living for all humans and is sustainable in the long term.

cmdicely skeptically inquired: Source?

For example, see this article by Dr. David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agricultural science at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University ... excerpt:

Some people are starting to ask just how many people the Earth can support if we want to cease degrading the environment and move to a sustainable solar energy system? There is no solid answer yet, but the best estimate is that Earth can support about 1 to 2 billion people with an American Standard of living, good health, nutrition, prosperity, personal dignity and freedom.

cmdicely wrote: If you're advocating wiping out most of the Earth's population, you better have damn solid support for the numbers.

It is a certainty that the entire current human population of the Earth -- approximately 6.5 billion human beings -- will be "wiped out" within a century, for the simple reason that in the best of circumstances, i.e. without any unusual events that kill off large numbers of humans suddenly, almost none of them will live longer than a century anyway. In other words, if a virus like the one Kurt Vonnegut imagined in his novel Galapagos rendered all human beings sterile virtually overnight, then the human species would be extinct within a century anyway, even given "normal" death rates and even supposing unusual longevity for all living humans.

So the question is not about "wiping out" anyone, about how many humans will die in the 21st century. The question is how many new humans will be born during the 21st century. So no, I am not advocating "wiping out most of the Earth's [human] population", I am advocating a drastic reduction in birth rates.

Having said that, as things are going now, it seems to me probable that there will be a substantial and relatively sudden "die-off" of the human species during the 21st century, and if we continue on the present path the human population will be drastically reduced by extremely inhumane means, such as mass starvation, plagues and war. A drastic reduction in birth rates -- which is in my view, a more humane way of reducing the human population -- is a crucial part of any hope to avert that outcome.

Jeff II writes: "Doctors favor abortion as a cash cow, if you will." What absolute crap.Posted by: Joe Buck

Joe Buck, that post was comparing Japan to practices in the former Soviet Union.

If you have problems keeping up here, don't post.

I said that fetuses are not babies yet

Well, there's the nugget of the issue. And it's also the one that never gets addressed. Roe -v- Wade is all about privacy, which is ancillary to whether the fetus has any personhood whatsoever.

If the legislative branch had a single hair on it's collective privates, this is an issue that would be addressed head-on in the proper venue. Instead, we run to the courts to rule on cases where the issue to be judged is twice removed from what is actually driving people. I wish we'd amend the constitution one way or another to say either fetus = appendix or fetus = person. Maybe a cut-oof date.

This is from the NY Times website. It would appear that Australia's politicians are much more adult than ours.

February 10, 2006

Debate on Abortion Pill in Australia Becomes Personal

By RAYMOND BONNER
SYDNEY, Australia, Feb. 9 — The continuing debate here over the so-called abortion pill RU-486 — the Senate voted Thursday to make it more easily available — has revealed many of the same fierce emotions as abortion debates do in the United States.

But it has also produced some moments unfathomable in the United States.

"I bring to this debate personal experience," said Senator Nick Minchin, who opposed the legislation. "A former girlfriend of mine had an abortion," he said Wednesday on the floor of Parliament. Mr. Minchin, 52, is also the country's finance minister, from the conservative governing Liberal Party, but there is no suggestion that he will lose his post, or even his next election.

What was perhaps more stunningly personal was the statement on the Senate floor by Senator Lynette Allison, a sponsor of the legislation.

"An estimated one in three women have had an abortion," she said. "And I am one of them."

She was 18, and abortion was illegal then, in the 1960's, she said in an interview. She came from a conservative family, "which would have been ashamed of their daughter having an illegitimate child," added Ms. Allison, 59, who was a secondary school teacher before she got into politics. It was not difficult to make the public statement, and she did so out of solidarity with other women, she said.

"There are a lot of efforts to shame women who have had a termination," Ms. Allison said. "It was important to send a message to women that they were not alone, that there were people who understood."

Abortion here is regulated by the states, and it has generally been legal for 30 years.

"It is a decision for a woman and her doctor," said Wendy McCarthy, a businesswoman who recently stepped down as chancellor of the University of Canberra and advocates abortion rights.

Under various state laws, the woman's physical and mental condition, as well as her economic status, are factors doctors may consider in deciding whether to perform an abortion.

Roughly 80,000 abortions a year occur in Australia, making abortion the most common operation in this country of 21 million. The government medical plan covers the cost.

In recent years, the number of abortions has been gradually declining, largely because of better sex education, not only in the schools, but also in magazines for women, and a greater availability of contraceptives, Ms. McCarthy said.

The RU-486 debate was over who has the authority to regulate the importation and sale of the pill in Australia. That power resides with the Ministry of Health, which is led by Tony Abbott, a conservative Catholic who opposes abortion.

Ms. Allison proposed legislation that would strip the ministry of this power, and treat drugs that induce abortion like all other pharmaceuticals, which require approval by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, a government body of doctors and scientists. The legislation had broad political support, at least from women. Ms. Allison leads the small, liberal Democrats Party. The co-sponsors were Judith Troeth, of the Liberal Party; Fiona Nash, of the Nationals, a small, rural-based conservative party; and Claire Moore, of the center-left Labor Party, the major opposition party.

The Senate debate lasted two days — longer than the Senate recently spent debating antiterrorism laws, which gave the police and intelligence agencies sweeping powers to monitor, arrest and detain terrorism suspects.

"It is galling to listen to the men — and it is mostly men — who have such contempt for women who terminate unwanted pregnancies who have neither the compassion nor the understanding of the huge, and for many, daunting task of taking an embryo the size of a grain of rice to adulthood," Ms. Allison said during the debate.

Mr. Abbott, a Liberal, expressed strong opposition to the bill, arguing that ministers were accountable to the public, unlike the drug agency. He vehemently rejected suggestions that his personal and religious views had dictated his position.

It is "about preserving women's safety, not restricting existing rights to abortion," he argued Monday in an newspaper opinion piece in The Australian.

He said he was not in favor of withdrawing public financing for abortions, and he invoked the words of former President Bill Clinton that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare."

The vote on the legislation was what is known here as a "conscience vote," meaning that there were no instructions from the parties' leaders, which is highly unusual here.

Prime Minister John Howard said he supported Mr. Abbott's position, which was considered a signal to Liberal Party members to oppose the bill. But his effort failed.

The 45-to-28 Senate vote reflected gender politics, with 24 of the 76-member Senate's 27 women — from five parties, from the left to the right — supporting the bill. Twenty-five men voted against the bill, 21 for it and 3 abstained. The bill is subject to approval by the House of representative, where a closer vote is expected.

"I have to say that this is a fairly sensible thread." Posted by: rmck1

How could a thread that ventures into a serious discussion of wiping out most of humanity not be!

Calvin may have been cribbing from Sophocles' "Oedipus at Colonus" where the chorus says:

Say what you will, the greatest boon is not to be;
But, life begun, soonest to end is best,
And to that bourne from which our way began
Swiftly return.

Around here, women are having more kids than they can afford because they have been taught that abortion is a sin. It's ridiculous.

Kevin is entitled to his opinion, and so is Anne Lamott. There are reasons on both sides of this issue.

But Kevin throws in a very important caveat the truth of which cannot be in doubt. Politically speaking, he notes that his lack of nuance on this issue makes him unelectable. This is true and becoming truer. Young people seem to becoming more, not less, uneasy at the prospect of abortion. I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

Over time, I have become more uneasy myself. A couple of months ago, I was called upon to baptize a newborn baby who weighed less than 2 pounds. Until she was born, she was a five month old fetus. One drop of baptismal water covered her entire face. She was beautiful in her tinyness. She is doing fine now and is at home with her Mom and Dad.

Maybe such events mean nothing to Kevin or Anne Lamott. I live with a lot of contradictions in my life. That forces me to nuance my positions.

I am skeptical of those who cannot see both sides of this argument.

"'I don't think getting one should be an emotionally traumatic experience...'

How do you propose to avoid this? Even as a non-woman, I should think abortion would always be emotionally traumatic."

And as a woman, I sort of agree. Not that abortion is ALWAYS emotionally traumatic, but that it probably USUALLY is. Still, pregnancy, terminated or not, is USUALLY emotionally traumatic, so you can argue whether the termination is what causes the trauma, or the pregnancy itself.

I also agree with the "parasite" comments. And for an unwanted pregnancy, that's what causes the emotional trauma--abortion is the solution, not the problem. Most men have absolutely no idea, as witness Tom Cruise's reaction to Brooke Shields.

As for when the soul comes into existence, I'm with Monty Python:

"In the universe, there are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source which act upon a person's soul. However, this soul does not exist ab initio, as orthodox Christianity teaches. It has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved, owing t