it was her claim that whenever someone thinks that our government, through its lawful decision procedures, has done something that will result in the deaths of innocents, that person is justified in using lethal force to get her way.

They are called extremists for a reason. Somewhere in their heads, a short circuit keeps rational neurons from completing their task.

By the way, I'm glad to hear someone else say the Truth That Dare Not Speak Its Name:

Obama is practically a Republican himself, minus the nastiness.

McArdle: "If you think a fetus is a person..."

That's a religious belief.

Why must we have someone else's religious belief forced upon us ?

Within the past 30hrs (or so) I must have seen the term "justifiable homicide" at least 10 times. I realise that what Hilzoy is doing is, in essence, denouncing the concept but... could someone, pretty please, actually state it boldly and in just a few words?

There is no such thing as "justifiable homicide".

"McArdle: "If you think a fetus is a person..."

That's a religious belief.

Why must we have someone else's religious belief forced upon us ?"

It's not even that. The Bible plainly states the termination of a pregnancy is a propoerty crime, and would be settled with a fine. In comparison, all forms of murder are death sentences. Hell, planting beans and corn in the same field is a death sentence - as is wearing a poly-cotton blend. By His own laws, God makes it clear that terminating a fetus rank _below_ wearing cheap Wal-Mart clothes in the list of sins; to atone for the former, you sacrifice a couple of doves, but for the latter you die. Beleiving a fetus is a person and that abortion is murder is directly contrary to the dictates of God His Own Damn Self. Anyone claiming different is committing blasphemy, and the punishment for that is death.

exlibra: I disagree, actually. Examples of justifiable homicide include self-defense (when you cannot defend yourself by non-lethal means), killing enemy soldiers in a just war, etc.

Typical McMegan BS. The fact that this has to be spelled out to her again and again surprises me not in the least. I'm almost certain she'll still refuse to acknowledge she was wrong. (Or alternatively, to admit that under her framework, liberals would have been morally compelled to violently overthrow the Bush administration)

Hilzoy: as a foreign speaker of English, I can't argue semantics with you (a native speaker), but I'll try to explain.

To me, a killing in self-defense is "excusable", not "justifiable". And I have some problems with the term "just war"; basically, the only "just war" I can think of is a defensive one, so we're back to "excusable".

To me, the word "justifiable" carries a whiff of "righteous", because of its common root with "justice". Before you know it, it becomes "heroic". And that's something that my stomach just can't digest with ease...

And, even by your standards, the term (justifiable homicide), *in reference to Tiller*, has been floated around way too much; it ought to be refuted using those same terms. I think :)

exlibra: I shudder to think what I'd write in your language, whatever it might be, and I had no idea you weren't a native speaker of English, which is impressive. That said, 'justifiable homicide' is a legal term, with a fairly precise meaning. (Homicide: killing a human being. Justifiable: when it's OK under the law.)

there aren't enough abortions.

As I said in commenting to another post by Hilzoy, earlier today,
"Simply publish her home address, office address, spouse/children's contact information (if she has them), personal, cell and business phone, email addresses. How and when she goes to "work", if she leaves her home.

I don't even know who this person is and have never heard of her before today. What could she possibly have going for her if this is her point of view on Dr. Tiller's murder, specifically, and abortion, in general? Her neighbors certainly need to know who lives in their neighborhood to protect themselves from her enemies, who may take violent action against her. Ever heard of collateral damage?

Obviously, anyone who finds her words threatening to life or safety has a perfect right to follow her suggestions, because the "law" doesn't seem to be doing anything to protect us from her insanity.

Too much anger?"

McArdle: "If you think a fetus is a person..." That's a religious belief?

No, it is a philosophical definition. The fact that the definition arises, for some people, through reasoning that involves theocratic concepts is irrelevant to its application as law.

The law states that a fetus, when viable outside its mother, is a person with full legal rights. A fetus still inside and physically dependent on its mother is of debatable status. That physical dependence on another human being, also a person with full legal rights, is the sticking point of the legal debate.

The anti-abortion forces wish to force pregnant women to carry fetuses to term. The pro-abortion forces posit that forcing a woman to carry a fetus to term makes her the chattel of the state.

You cannot force me to donate a kidney to a sick relative. I cannot force a woman to donate the use of her body to support a fetus, considered a person or otherwise.

No religious argument that consigns any group of citizens to chattel status can have any force in American law.

Megan claims to find "the certainty of the pro-choice side so disturbing..."

Well, that's rich... it's not pro-choicers' certainties that have motivated them to intimidate, assault, murder, bomb, vandalize, burglarize women and health care providers. The way she is thrashing around on this 35 year old issue suggest that she frankly has a pretty feeble grasp on the issues. She argues like she's a beginner.

If she really believes that abortion is murder than it is her responsibility to call for women to be prosecuted and punished. She also might do something to minimize the need for abortion. Something more productive, and intellectually coherent than thinking/saying we don't understand personhood, clearly implying that because some of us don't believe abortion is murder we are morally deficient. Her comment implies that we just haven't really thought this through or we would agree with her. Personhood is a central component of this cluster of issues. I personally know women who had abortions before Roe v Wade, and before Griswold (1965) when birth control was difficult to obtain/illegal in many areas. These are issues that most women of my generation (boomers) genuinely wrestled with, whether for themselves or on behalf of people we loved.

McCardle needs to come to terms with the fact that many of us just flat don't agree with her assumptions, judgments, and policy prescriptions. She should live, lobby and preach her code of morality. She does not have the right to impose her definition of when "life begins." Many like me stopped listening to those who would impose their theological/religious judgments. When the McCardles of the world are ready to talk seriously about programs to reduce the perceived need for abortion, then we're ready to listen and work along side them.

Calling abortion murder is a tactic to justify their repulsive actions against it. It's akin to the Bush/rightwing spewing all that ahistorical nonsense about how 9'11 and Islamic terrorism being the biggest threat EVER. See, the trick is, it's how you justify the wrong/immoral/illegal things you do. Frame the issue in the most extreme terms, then extreme actions are justified.

Wrong.

Megan McCardle has a rather peculiar response to my last post:

Ummmmm...this is a person who suggested that anti-war protestors should be beaten with 2 x 4s.

You shouldn't expect anything reasonable from such a person.

Conversely, if Africans are not people, then slavery is not wrong.

No one should be surprised that McArdle instinctively speaks of Africans when she thinks of slavery. McArdle and her fellow inbred Irishers are more suitable candidates for bondage, as their mental retardation renders them unable to plan escape. McArdle is not a human being, yet slavery is still wrong.

I should have added, "and got promoted for saying it."

Yes, proposing violence against those who peaceably disagree with you is what gets you ahead in the media today.

According to USA today, the alleged murderer, reportedly a muslim man, of a young military man at a recruiting office in Arkansas has been charged with murder, attempted murder of another man who hopefully survive, and 15 counts of terrorism because of the other people who were there. If it turns out that these were indeed politically motivated shootings, then charge him with terrorism. And the same goes for the alleged murderer of Dr. Tillman. Political murders are terrorism. Period.

And my most profound regrets and sympathies to the loved ones of the two Arkansas men. They are a tragic loss in a profoundly senseless way.

No religious argument that consigns any group of citizens to chattel status can have any force in American law.

Not so. Besides the obvious exception of convicted criminals, the law can indeed force a "chattel status" on a woman if the slave master/fetus is sufficiently gestated.

Why bother with McArdle at all? She may very well be the dumbest person on the planet.

You cannot force me to donate a kidney to a sick relative. I cannot force a woman to donate the use of her body to support a fetus, considered a person or otherwise.

Nobody is trying to force placental donations. What some of us are trying to do is to prevent the withdrawal of these donations.

I was hoping that someone would tell me who this Megan McAddled person is. I've never heard of her before.

But I have run across lots of people who are of a similar mindset. They seem to feel that violence against people who disagree with you is justified and is a reasonable response and a cogent argument.

And for those of you who feel that life begins at conception, sorry, but you are demonstrably wrong and obviously have no idea of how biology works. Actually individual existence begins when the gamete separates from the stem cells of the parent so every time that a woman has a period without getting pregnant, she is responsible for the death of a human being. And every time some guy ejaculates, he is responsible for the deaths of millions of human beings. How about that?!

Check out firemeganmcardle.blogspot.com to learn more about this...person

I think you are being unfair to the Weather Underground. After the first incident in which people died, they gave up on killing and changed their tactics. Also, to complete the analogy, you would have to have had an election year in which Mike Huckabee, on his way to the Republican nomination, and Rick Warren, say, were both assassinated, and then ask about who still believes in democracy. This is not to justify what the W.U. did. But it's not actually the same as the anti-abortion killers.

It all makes sense now:

The inhabitants of Iraq are persons. We have a system for resolving political disputes in this country. We will let them kill however many Iraqis they want by violence, and we will oppose that violence every four years with an up or down vote for another bloke who will kill however many Iraqis they want by violence. Because violence is wrong n stuff.

I become enlightened.

Nobody is trying to force placental donations. What some of us are trying to do is to prevent the withdrawal of these donations.

So the donation can never be withdrawn, no matter what? Even if the developing fetus is found to have anencephaly or Potter syndrome or Trisomy 18 and will not survive more than a few days after birth, if it survives long enough to be born at all?

Those are the cases that Dr. Tiller dealt with -- the hard ones, where parents had to decide whether they wanted to subject their child to a short, painful life of a few hours or days (assuming it survived to be born at all) or end it painlessly. It's easy for you to say that of course women should be forced to give birth to doomed babies that they know cannot survive. You're not the one who has to care for them, are you? You're not the one who has to go bankrupt paying for $100,000 of care to eke out a couple of extra weeks on a respirator. You're not the one who has to plan the funeral.

And yet you think you should be allowed to make medical decisions for complete strangers even though you won't have to bear a single one of the consequences for that decision.

McArdle is a very stupid person who delights in cultivating an awed audience of stupider people. It is a choice that has been very good for her career.

Megan claims to find "the certainty of the pro-choice side so disturbing..."

That's because she is incapable of distinguishing the "right to choose" from the "right choice".

While I wait for my last comment to be released from auto-moderation (one too many hyperlinks, I'm guessing), I have to say that I'm always freshly astounded at the number of people who think they should be allowed to make medical decisions for complete strangers. We saw it with the Terri Schiavo case, and now we're seeing it again.

By killing Dr. Tiller, not one single child will be saved. Not one. In fact, there will probably be additional deaths as women with doomed pregnancies or dead fetuses are denied medical care because a few fanatics think that they know what's better than the people most intimately involved.

I can't tell you how many times I've actually seen "pro-life" people online state that, yes, of course a woman should have to carry a child to term that she and her doctors both know will be stillborn or live at most a couple of hours past birth. Because, apparently, the pain and suffering of that woman and her fetus are completely justifiable as long as some "pro-life" asshole gets to gloat about how they were able to control what medical care a complete stranger received.

The abortion debate is NOT about personhood.

If something or someone is located inside my body, then I'm entitled to have it/him/her killed, no matter what it/he/she is.

If all the people in the world, including all the innocent ones and all the fetuses, were assembled somewhere inside my body, along with Baby Jesus, Almighty God, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, then I'd be entitled to kill any or all of them any time for any reason or for no reason. That's part of the meaning of the word "my" in the phrase "my body".

Giving you a short life inside my body does NOT obligate me to also give you a longer one. Just as donating blood does not obligate me to also donate the next transfusion the patient might need.

If abortion on demand is homicide, then it is JUSTIFIABLE homicide.

I think Buermann has a point.

If our elected officials are killing people and the political process does not or cannot stop them then you're o.k. with just shrugging your shoulders and saying, "Well, maybe next election we can do something about it."

That sounds more like "Democratic Centralism" than Democracy.

I'm also curious, does your criticism apply equally to the abolitionist John Brown and his attempt to forcibly free slaves?

Under the circumstances of the mid-Nineteenth Century, do you really think that the political process would have ever lead to the abolition of slavery?

Note, I'm not trying to justify this act of terrorism. I'm debating the general principle that Hilzoy seems to be arguing here.

"Listening to the debates about abortion, it seems to me that really broad swathes of the pro-choice movement seem to genuinely not understand that this is a debate about personhood,

It's nothing of the sort. That is falling for the wingnut frame.

The *debate* is about balancing competing rights.

Hilzoy,

Three good posts on this topic today. I thought that the comments were better than usual as well.

This was a terroristic murder, that is a kill plainly designed to terrorize others. The qualifications and "understanding" or "explanatory" analogies just don't do. You have all done a good job shredding McCardle's comments.

.
' "In a way, conservatives now face a choice similar to what liberals in the late 1960s and early 1970s faced during the hayday [sic] of the Weather Underground. Some on the New Left defended them as legitimate-albeit-excitable members of their broad coalition, while other more traditional liberals attacked them as extremists who violated liberal ideals. My sense of the history is that enough on the New Left defended extremists to tar all of liberalism. Will that happen for conservatives now?" '

The "New Left" came out of the non-violent civil rights movement, the ban-the-bomb/ pacifist movement, and the anti-Vietnam War movement, and was entirely peaceful. 99.999999% of the Movement was completely horrified and totally against any violent actions against anyone. Everyone back then regarded the rare incidences of violence as complete aberrations and acts by psychotics who had nothing in common with us.

It was widely believed that such acts were the work of government agents provocateurs, whose JOB it was to "tar" the Left. But they could never tar it as effectively as the Old Right tarred and bloodied itself from Mississippi to Hanoi.

This is the same old tired bullsh*t that always pops out of the wingnuts' mouths: "WELL HE DONE IT TOOOOO!!!" In this case, as in most others, oh no, "he" didn't.
.

would Hilzoy have accepted the law of slavery under "democracy" before 1865? How much "democracy" has to exist to retain its legitimacy in her eyes?

Looking back at the demonizing of Janet Napolitano in April, when Boehner stated should would have to answer for issuing a report on right wing terrorist groups, he was in fact enabling them. Also now, the right wing seems to be justifying the killing of this doctor, if that is the case we can expect more right wing terrorism.Heaven help us if the set their sights on our president.

It always amazes me, the duplicity of the religious right. By that I mean the Sunday morning preaching of love followed by the outpourings of hate for those not like themselves.

I have a cousin who used to picket abortion clinics as part of operation rescue. They would hurl obscenities at the women as they walked towards the clinics. They'd spit, they'd allow hatred to fill their souls.

I always wondered why they didn't show up instead, with a basin and a towel and wash the feet of the women headed into the clinic. The pregnant women are in great inner turmoil and needing of spiriutal attentions. Washing of the feet is a magical gift, bringing calmness and love to both washer and washee. And it's certainly within the Christian tradition as Jesus washed the feet of the disciples. I think it would have turned more of the pregnant women around than the hatred that was applied.

But you know, those crazy Christians...

If you're gonna make slavery analogies, go all the way: Garrison publicly burned the Constitution because it protected slavery, much the way many pro-life folks essentially argue that IF (as they dislike Roe) there is a Constitutional right to privacy that extends to abortion, the hell with the Constitution itself.

That's not an illegitimate position -- it's principled and consistent.

But the rest of the analogy is pretty damning: Garrison also rejected Lincoln's attempt to save the Union. His view of secession by slave states was "Wayward sisters, go in peace" -- the idea being that actually abolishing slavery by preserving the Union wasn't worth it.

Not the best place for an abolitionist to be.

The ultimate pivot point for the pro-choice/pro-life argument isn't whether the baby is a person: McCardle is simply wrong, and folks who accept her premise (as Hilzoy does) haven't thought it through.

The pivot point is: WHO DECIDES.

The analogy to slavery doesn't work, because there are these people called "mothers" (or, if you want to get weaselly about the wording "pregnant women") who have a decision to make about whether they will give birth. It is necessarily an individual decision, which is not the case with slavery.

The closest thing to analogizing slavery to the abortion debate is the Clinton slogan "safe, legal... and rare". Confronted with a practical way of genuinely minimizing abortions by reducing unwanted pregnancies through education and contraception, a very large chunk of the pro-life movement simply rejected ideas and policies that made them uncomfortable or which they found to be immoral.

That was their Garrison moment -- "wayward sisters, go in peace." Garrison, the archetypal abolitionist, would have perpetuated slavery because he wouldn't fight for the Constitution; the pro-life movement, for all their gab about the evil of abortion, is unwilling to actually reduce 'em.

On personhood. If it is a person at conception, which identical twin is not a person? If you have two identical twin cells that are separated and reconnect them such that they are now one cell group where did the other person go?

Some are making references to the slavery question in 1865, and what should the response have been. A more historically recent example is the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s. African-Americans had been victims of white violence for literally centuries, with 20th century lynchings and other murders, beatings, bombings, and general repression being the norm, especially in the south. Progress during the 50s and early 60s appeared to be extremely slow, and there was no certainty at all that democracy was going to yield any fundamental change. By the standards of the anti-choice murder justifiers, black Americans had ample reason to resort to violence.

Yet does anybody seriously believe that Barack Obama would be president now if Martin Luther King and the other leaders and heroes in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had adopted a policy and strategy of violence instead of non-violence? If racist elected officials and law enforcement personnel across the south and in Washington D.C. had been murdered, does anyone think that Lyndon Johnson would have been able to get a reluctant Congress to pass the landmark civil rights legislation that removed most of the legal impediments to full citizenship? The answer is that there would have been an apoplectic nationwide reaction against the idea of overturning the system of discrimination and racism. Anybody who thinks otherwise is delusional and unfamiliar with human nature. The particular genius of Dr. King and the other civil rights pioneers alongside him was in their non-violent approach in philosophy, strategy, and tactics, and it should be emphasized that these beliefs and actions were fundamentally based in Christian scripture. The anti-choice murderers' claim of justification by Christian principles is an especially grotesque perversion of Jesus Christ's teachings.

Dr. Morpheus: "Under the circumstances of the mid-Nineteenth Century, do you really think that the political process would have ever lead to the abolition of slavery?"

Maryland did.

The example of slavery (and the civil war) does have some relevance to the abortion debate: initiating violence to produce political change in the US does not work, at least not in the way advocates want.

The south started the civil war with their attack on Ft. Sumpter, afraid that an Illinois president, in spite of his public statements, would abolish slavery. While the south was fighting to protect slavery, the north didn't have abolition as part of its program until late in the war. The south, that started the war, was demolished and slavery abolished. They lost, badly.

More recently, Weather Underground never stood a chance; it would have taken "revolutionary" violence on the scale of the russian revolution to get the US to change course in Vietnam. And that was never in the cards, so violence from WU was not just immoral but pointless. They lost, and rightly so.

The anti-choicer's only hope for violence to further their cause is if pro-choicer's start bombing Operation Rescue meetings. If you think that will ever happen, please have yourself committed PDQ.

Actually, I think the right "anti-choice movement" analogy from US history would be the Temperance movement. Some small-scale violence and intimidation, appeals to morality, with political success (prohibition) that finally turned into ultimate, profound failure (repeal).

Midland: you probably didn't mean it, but those of us who support choice are not "pro-abortion"; rather, we support the right of choice. We aren't running around, stalking women, throwing them in vans and forcing them to abort. McCain tried that term in the debates, and it's (as Steve says) blisteringly stupid.

My guess is that you "managed" not to kill anyone because you're a f***ing pantywaist who thinks marching around with puppets is an effective method of striking a blow for democracy.

So this former wrestler turned Quaker was having a quiet meal with some of his fellows when a belligerent patron tried to pick a fight. Calmly the Quaker replied that he was avowedly non-violent, as violence never solved anything. Undeterred the patron continued to needle and taunt the Quaker about his pacifism.

Finally, to his companions' great surprise, the Quaker stood up and accepted the challenge.

The challenger lept at the Quaker who calmly grabbed him and threw him - hard - at the nearest wall, which shuddered from the impact. As the challenger slumped to the ground the Quaker said "Now do you believe that violence never solves anything?"

"Hell no!" came the defiant reply.

"My point exactly", said the Quaker as he turned and left.

On personhood. If it is a person at conception, which identical twin is not a person? If you have two identical twin cells that are separated and reconnect them such that they are now one cell group where did the other person go?

It's always interesting to ask the True Believers (who think personhood/soulhood is conferred at conception) whether it's G*d or the mother who is responsible for killing the extra soul(s) in cases of tetragametic chimerism. They tend not to want to give either answer...

"My guess is that you "managed" not to kill anyone because you're a f***ing pantywaist who thinks marching around with puppets is an effective method of striking a blow for democracy."

Really? And what would you do? Swagger around like a boozed-up teenager thinking he's immortal and has the right to do whatever he wants to whoever he wants? Would you consider that more effective and manly? Is that the kind of mindless sociopathic inhuman you are?

This is the Talibanization of our society.
There can be no middle ground. There is only right and wrong and for those true-believers, you BETTER be on the right side, which happens to be theirs.

Saletan at Slate http://www.slate.com/id/2219537/ has a pretty good piece where he asks what might be called, following the slavery analogy, the John Brown questions. (which is a bit more thoughtful and less fake ballsy than Dead Hand)

Cuz, yanno, the Quaker story is simply wrong: the vast violence of the Civil War really DID solve something. It preserved the Union by abolishing slavery. Violence worked. Period.

Calling that sorta intellectual/political bluff is a mitzvah, a blessing: the point of political violence is NOT to convince somebody. It's to CONTROL them. Some control is good, other control is bad.

What's missing from the Quaker story is what the fight was about -- as if that didn't matter. Some people figure that it doesn't matter, that 'violence solves nothing', but that's obviously wrong.

F'r instance, supposing the guy had been trying to pick a fight with an abolitionist Quaker? Sure, the belligerent slaver would have remained unconvinced by getting slammed into the wall -- but, as it actually happened in history, it was NOT the pacificist "abolitionist" guys who killed slavery.

That was Abraham Lincoln and the slow grinding slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people. Nor did they convince slavers that they were wrong -- but Lincoln preserved the Union by freeing the slaves, which was the real point.

On the other hand, suppose the Quaker was also a slave holder -- like William Penn. (He was, you know.) Then it wouldn't have been pointless, it would have been an affirmatively GOOD thing that violence didn't convince the guy trying to pick a fight that he was wrong, just because he got slammed into a wall. (Think Shiloh, the Peninsula, Antietam, Fredericksburg, First Wilderness, Gettysburg, Second Wilderness, Cold Harbor, and so on. The Union cause hit a lot of walls -- notably McLellan's campaign to end the war without victory in 1864, which would have preserved slavery.)

Saletan looks at Tiller, and his killer, and points out that these guys in their own way have the courage of the convictions that other people tend to soft-pedal: every pro-life person who pays lip service to the idea that abortion IS murder needs to ask just what, then, gives them any moral standing to condemn Tiller's assassin?

On the other hand -- and you can see it in this thread -- lots of pro-choice folks do some fancy rationalizations to get around the obvious fact that it's a baby. (The ensoulment of chimerae? Gimme a break. That's not just barking up the wrong tree, it's climbing a redwood for apples.)

John Brown was a pathological maniac who killed people in cold blood and was properly hanged for it -- but he was serious about killing slavery, too; when many of his fellow abolitionists were not. Abortion is not like slavery in many essential ways, but like I said, if you're gonna use the analogy, use all of it.

The mere fact of a dispute creates identification with sides, like pro-life, pro-choice -- but that perpetuates, rather than solves a problem: the analogy doesn't ultimately work, as even Saletan undertands.

Hate abortion? Help make fewer of 'em happen.

Megan McCardle wrote: "... this is a debate about personhood ... If you think a fetus is a person, it is not useful to be told that you, personally, are not required to commit murder, as long as you leave the neighbors alone while they do it."

It's true that this is a debate about "personhood".

In the context of this debate, "personhood" is not a religious or philosophical concept. It is a LEGAL concept. The debate is about whether and when a human fetus should be considered as a person under law.

That question has been addressed and answered by the judicial system, specifically by Roe v. Wade, which is the settled law of the land.

To Ms. McArdle's individual who "thinks" that a fetus is a person and that his neighbor who had an abortion is a "murderer", the answer is really simple:

He is wrong.

Under law, a fetus is not a legal person (with caveats as per Roe v. Wade), and abortion is not legally murder. Indeed, under law, abortion is a Constitutionally-protected right.

Those who disagree with the existing law and wish to change the legal status of human fetuses and the legal status of abortion need to change the law. Anti-abortion advocates who work to do so are acting entirely within their rights and in accord with their conscience.

McArdle is arguing that anyone who disagrees with the law should resort to violence and murder.

As far as I can tell, she does so because she is an asshole.

Something people seem to be forgetting in the discussion of whether slavery could ever have been extinguished through the political process (and what it might mean for the abortion debate in this country) is this: First, look outside the U.S. borders for once, willya? Britain successfully ended slavery through the political process in 1833 -- so it certainly was possible in the mid 19th century for a country with similar (though not identical) political and social values to those of the U.S. to end the practice through the political process. Second, as far as the U.S. experience with ending slavery is concerned, it was the pro-slavery side that felt forced to abandon the political process by seceding in response to the prospect of a potential political end to the practice of slavery foreshadowed by Lincoln's election. In other words, it was the defenders of the immoral practice of slavery who resorted to violence in the first instance -- not the people who were trying to end it. So the analogy is really, really bad.

...fancy rationalizations to get around the obvious fact that it's a baby.

Very interesting and thought-provoking post, particularly on the Quaker fight joke...but that quote is tilting at a strawman.

There aren't too many pro-choicers denying it's a baby - in the sense that it's a human foetus, and that if all goes well it will be born and grow up to become an adult human. And that includes me.

But there ARE plenty of anti-abortionists who claim that a full human person is created at conception, and that its interests basically always override those of the mother. And many of those justify their position by asserting that the soul enters the body at conception. In which case, questions about rare but nevertheless real events are quite valid at probing what people really believe and whether they are comfortable applying them to the things that happen in the real world.

theAmericanist wrote: "... lots of pro-choice folks do some fancy rationalizations to get around the obvious fact that it's a baby."

The vast majority of abortions are performed at a stage when the human embryo has not developed a central nervous system or the capacity to experience pain, suffering or fear -- when it is not sentient.

To assert as you do that such an entity "IS" a "baby" is absurd.

And if you like "fancy rationalizations" you won't get much fancier than the people who claim that birth control pills "kill babies" because there exists a theoretical possibility that birth control pills could cause a newly-fertilized ovum -- a single cell -- to fail to emplant in the uterus, and of course "it's an obvious fact" that a fertilized ovum "is a baby" and therefore such an occurrence would be "murder".

If a human fetus is an unborn baby, then you are an undead corpse.

I would also like to second SecularAnimist's observation that McArdle is an asshole.

fancy rationalizations to get around the obvious fact that it's a baby

As others have pointed out, that assertion isn't a fact, let alone an obvious one.

"Cuz, yanno, the Quaker story is simply wrong: the vast violence of the Civil War really DID solve something. It preserved the Union by abolishing slavery. Violence worked. Period."

Provided, of course, that you forget the anger and oppression, first of Reconstruction and then Jim Crow, that lasted for the next 100 years. In fact, arguably, we still aren't fully over that even yet.

Which is not to say that I feel the Civil War was unnecessary, but to claim it solved the issue is, at best, a vast oversimplification.

I don't normally think it is nice to make comments about other people's intelligence, but since McArdle seems to be fond of saying that the people she is arguing with "don't get it," I feel justified in saying... Megan McArdle isn't very bright.

I'm just glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks McArdle is dishonest and a dope. I thought her "expertise"(and I use that term very loosely) was in economics, but she seems equally clueless on that subject as well.

my point concerning slavery was about definitions of "democracy," rather than to defend anti-choice actions. Women couldn't vote before 1920, most blacks couldn't vote till the 1960's. Moreover,capitalism is a dubious economic foundation for "rule by the people". These were the issues I raised in terms of Hilzoy's comments about always supporting "democracy". And, by the way, Garrison contributed mightily to the ending of slavery, which did not end in the U.S. through democratic means at all, simply brute force.

Megan McArdle is, by her own writing, a terrorist sympathizer. And needs to be treated as such. Cheney would approve torturing her into a false confession that groups the torturer didn't like were planning violence against the United States

I too second the motion that Megan McCardle is an asshole, and I am pro-choice, but I think the debate is more complicated than people like Hilzoy and Secular Animist think. Unfortunately for their arguments, McCardle, like the blind squirrel, found a bit of nut with her point about personhood, which raises the stakes quite a bit.

Secular Animist argues that "In the context of this debate, "personhood" is not a religious or philosophical concept. It is a LEGAL concept. The debate is about whether and when a human fetus should be considered as a person under law."

Right, but the point is that what is legal is not necessarily just. If Congress passed a law ruling that Muslims were not people under the law that would not make the law just or mean that everyone has to sit back and allow rednecks to hunt Muslims.

Hillzoy's analogy with decisions to go to war is not as strong as she thinks either. Ostensibly anyway, an allegedly just war is a matter of self defense. Theoretically, no one intends to kill innocent non-combatants in a war. But in the case of abortion, if a fetus is a person (which it is not, as a matter of fact) then abortion amounts to intentionally murdering the innocent.

You can't just blindly submit to the law. If there is ever a time when civil disobedience is called for, it is when murder of the innocent is happening under color of law.

That is why McCardle's argument has to be met head on. You have to show that a fetus is not a person. If her argument turns on souls, then McCardle has to prove that souls exist and how she knows this and how she knows that having such a thing endows one with rights. She doesn't get to appeal to revelation. Since she doesn't get to appeal to revelation she has no way to prove her argument since souls do not actually exist in reality and are figments of religious imagination.

Grasp the nettle, folks.

I came to this blog for the hot tranny catfight videos, not all this talk about abortion.

Can we get back on topic please?

One other small point: asterisks which leave the word still easily discerned are just stupid.

The Fool,

I don't think that the moral question of whether it is permissible to kill the unborn has any resolution at all. Pro-lifers make a question of: Is an unborn child a human life, or not? But why is that the relevant question? Why do we allow the taking of life in the case of animals, but not humans?

Yes, we can certainly enumerate ways in which humans are different from animals, but those ways don't apply to all human life; a human fetus seems to me to have no significant characteristics that are not shared by fetuses of other species, other than the potential to become fully human. But if we base our moral decisions on potential, then why is a fetus any more special than the egg before fertilization? It has the potential to become fully human. Is letting a human egg cell or sperm cell expire without producing an embryo akin to murder (of a potential human being)?

The practical benefit of arguments from what is legal is that they allow us to short-circuit a potentially endless philosophical debate about what is moral.

The concept of being "similarly situated" is what eludes discussions of this sort. An adult black male is in every way similarly situated to an adult white male, but for his race. Using the blackness of one's skin to deprive an individual all protection under the law is invidious discrimination for that reason.

Fetuses are not "similarly situated" to persons already born in important and fundamental ways -- they are not self-sustaining or even sentient until a distinct gestational point. To equate personhood with distinctive DNA is a radical concept with no jurisprudential support and disturbing consequences.

The issue here is when -- and what -- legal rights attach to one being such that they block the legal rights of another, at least to some extent. It is logically incoherent to analyze a state of being solely in terms of what it could become, as if it has already attained that status. We don't do it for children and we shouldn't do it for fetuses. ("All thre year olds should have the right to vote because in 15 years they would be adults if they are allowed to grow up.") This is why, I think, most people don't seem to have a lot of heartburn over the concept that there should be a sliding scale application of scrutiny to terminating a pregnancy that calls for greater scrutiny and more restrictions as a pregnancy develops.

In fact, I am satisfied that most women undergoing later abortions are probably scrutinized more than most of us could bear, and are trying to avoid real suffering and possibly death, and, yes, financial ruin in a society that wants to tell them what to do but won't pick up the tab for the results.

Now, take a tip from me, who once faced a situation that might have sent me to Kansas: If you are over 35 get an amnio. If you are under 35, get an early level II sonogram and if the results are dubious, get an amnio, and then, pin your ob's ass to the wall until he gives you a prognosis, and if he can't or won't make him give you a referral to the closest Children's Hospital that can nail down a diagnosis. Every ob in America knows what the law is and how important that 24 week demarcation point is -- when you read the stories of Dr. Tiller's patients, what you find are Ob's who are in a state of denial or who have a seeming inability to focus in a way that really takes their patients' interests to heart. Many people simply weren't dealt with honestly on a timely basis, and for that reason, they had to travel far away to get services. Indeed, if you are an older mom, you should have a discussion with your ob at the beginning of your pregnancy about his or her attitude towards your rights.

The Fool wrote: "... the point is that what is legal is not necessarily just."

The point is what do you do if you believe the law is unjust. Megan McArdle says you should commit murder and other acts of terrorism. Do you agree?

I believe it is unjust for the law to allow billions of sentient, sensitive, intelligent non-human animals, such as chickens, pigs and cows, to be cruelly confined in miserable conditions and then brutally slaughtered so that humans can eat their flesh.

Do you think my proper response should be to firebomb slaughterhouses, and supermarkets that sell meat, and restaurants that serve meat? Should I murder slaughterhouse workers and owners?

The Fool wrote: "That is why McCardle's argument has to be met head on. You have to show that a fetus is not a person."

I have addressed that argument head on. Personhood is a matter of law, and the law already addresses the question of the legal personhood of the human fetus. This brings us back to the question of what one should do if one believes -- for whatever reason, whether religious or otherwise -- that the law is unjust. McCardle says that murder and other acts of terrorism are the proper response. Do you agree?

The Fool wrote: "If there is ever a time when civil disobedience is called for, it is when murder of the innocent is happening under color of law."

Murder and other acts of terrorism are not "civil disobedience." And if Scott Roeder believed that they were, then he would not have fled the scene of Tiller's murder. He would have waited for the police to arrive, taken responsibility for shooting Dr. Tiller, and surrendered peacefully.

Barbara wrote: "The issue here is when -- and what -- legal rights attach to one being such that they block the legal rights of another, at least to some extent ... most people don't seem to have a lot of heartburn over the concept that there should be a sliding scale application of scrutiny to terminating a pregnancy that calls for greater scrutiny and more restrictions as a pregnancy develops."

Which is, of course, the law of the land as per Roe v. Wade.

@Daryl McCullough

Yes, we can certainly enumerate ways in which humans are different from animals, but those ways don't apply to all human life; a human fetus seems to me to have no significant characteristics that are not shared by fetuses of other species

Agreed, which is why its ok to kill them.

But if we base our moral decisions on potential, then why is a fetus any more special than the egg before fertilization?

It is not, which is why I base my own argument on personhood, not potential.

The practical benefit of arguments from what is legal is that they allow us to short-circuit a potentially endless philosophical debate about what is moral.

The problem is that the legal arguments really don't short-circuit the debate when the issue is mass murder. I'm not saying it IS mass murder, but the other side is saying exactly that. Of course, their unwillingness to apply legal sanctions consistent with that degree of culpability seriously call into question their honesty, but, sincerely or not, that is the argument they are making.

@Secular Animist:

I believe it is unjust for the law to allow billions of sentient, sensitive, intelligent non-human animals, such as chickens, pigs and cows, to be cruelly confined in miserable conditions and then brutally slaughtered so that humans can eat their flesh. Do you think my proper response should be to firebomb

No, because, while I agree with you that animals should not be mistreated since they are sentent beings, they are nevertheless due less protection than a self-conscious person.

Personhood is a matter of law, and the law already addresses the question of the legal personhood of the human fetus.

Personhood is not really a matter of law, even if the law touches on it. It is what it is, and the field of philosophy, informed by neuroscience, is best equipped to address the question.

This brings us back to the question of what one should do if one believes -- for whatever reason, whether religious or otherwise -- that the law is unjust. McCardle says that murder and other acts of terrorism are the proper response. Do you agree?

Depends on HOW unjust. If I honestly thought that a holocaust was taking place, I would certainly have to consider it and, under the right conditions, it would be my duty to revolt. Certainly many revolutions have been undertaken on lesser grounds, including the American Revolution.

The Fool wrote: "... while I agree with you that animals should not be mistreated since they are sentient beings, they are nevertheless due less protection than a self-conscious person."

The question is not whether you agree with me that non-human animals are "due" the same protection as human beings.

The question is what you think that someone such as myself, who believes the law is unjust in regard to non-human animals, and who believes that this injustice causes vast and horrific suffering, should do about it.

As I understand your comments, you say that a human fetus is "not, as a matter of fact" a "person", and therefore you disagree with anti-abortionists who believe that "abortion amounts to intentionally murdering the innocent".

And yet, though you disagree with them, you seem to feel that their beliefs justify committing murder and other acts of terrorism against what they, and not you, consider a grave injustice.

You similarly disagree with my beliefs about non-human animals. Do you similarly feel that my beliefs justify committing murder and other acts of terrorism against what I, and not you, consider a grave injustice?

The Fool wrote: "Personhood is not really a matter of law, even if the law touches on it. It is what it is, and the field of philosophy, informed by neuroscience, is best equipped to address the question."

Of course personhood is a matter of law.

Those who are legal persons are eligible to have legal protections -- including protection against being murdered -- and legal rights.

Those who are not legal persons are ineligible to have legal protections and legal rights.

Are you aware that corporations are considered "legal persons" in the USA, and that as a consequence corporations enjoy legal protections and rights that were originally intended for human beings?

Are you aware that Roe v. Wade gives consideration to the stages of development of the human fetus and the implication thereof to its status as a legal person with legal protections and rights at different stages of development?

Are you aware of the efforts underway around the world to establish legal personhood for at least some non-human animals (e.g. Great Apes) such that they would be entitled to legal protections and rights like those recognized for human beings?

Certainly, neuroscience and philosophy and religion may "inform" the law in establishing the boundaries and qualifications for legal personhood.

But when all is said and done, it is legal persons -- not philosophical persons, or neuroscientific persons, or religious persons -- whose interests and rights are recognized, established and protected by force of law.

In short, the debate about the legal personhood of human fetuses, or of non-human animals, or of corporations, is not about whether any of these entities "IS" a "person" (according to whatever arbitrary and subjective criteria may govern someone's opinion about that, and according to whatever notion someone has about what a "person" is), but about whether any of these entities SHOULD BE recognized by the law as a legal person with rights and interests under law.

Megan McCurdle is an intellectual cretin. A smug neocontrarian smarty pants who thinks she's the cat's meow, when in fact she's just a mediocre diversity hire. He musings are either dull or absolutely rediculous which was why Sadly No! was able to generate post after post on her thought bubbles. I have no doubt she will be promoted to the top echalons of American journalism, after all her opinions are almost always the "right" ones.

And Bill O'Reilly has blood on his hands and in his soul. (that thread is closed so I had to post this here)

@Secular Animist

Though you disagree with them, you seem to feel that their beliefs justify committing murder and other acts of terrorism against what they, and not you, consider a grave injustice. You similarly disagree with my beliefs about non-human animals. Do you similarly feel that my beliefs justify committing murder?

I do NOT believe that their beliefs justify violence, because I think their beliefs are wrong. All I'm saying is that IF their beliefs WERE right then they would be of the requisite caliber to have the potential to justify violence. But since they're not, they don't.

Same with your beliefs about animals.

Of course personhood is a matter of law etc.

There is no dispute over whether the concept of personhood figures into the law. The question is whether the law has the final incorrigible word, as a matter of justice, over and above the law. The answer is, "no."

I thought I made this pretty clear with my example of a hypothetical law declaring Muslims not to be legal persons. Ex hypothesi, it would be a law but certainly it would not be a just law, and it would be a law that Muslims and others would have every right to resist with violence, if need be.

The Fool wrote: "I do NOT believe that their beliefs justify violence, because I think their beliefs are wrong. All I'm saying is that IF their beliefs WERE right then they would be of the requisite caliber to have the potential to justify violence. But since they're not, they don't. Same with your beliefs about animals."

Well, that's really great.

The whole problem has been solved.

Whenever a question arises about whether someone's beliefs about anything justify murder and other acts of terrorism, all we have to do is to ask you whether their beliefs are "right" or "wrong", and you can settle the question.

Because your opinions about whether other people's beliefs are "right" or "wrong" are infallible and will be respected and obeyed by everyone.

I'll alert the media.

@Secular Animist:

Hey dumbass: you asked me what I thought and if I agreed etc.

In addition to saying I thought they were wrong I told you WHY I thought they were wrong, pinhead. They think abortion is murder because they think a fetus is a person. But, as I explained, a fetus is not a person because it doesn't have self-consciousness. Therefore killing it is not murder. Therefore there is no holocaust. Therefore they have no justifiation for violence.

God, you're stupid.