A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics
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A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics | |
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August 17, 2005Pro-Choice but Anti-NaralAn interesting op/ed by the New York Times today by John Tierney (bio), in which Tierney argues that NARAL's strategy - displays a PETA-esque ability to alienate. This goes beyond, Tierney says, the organization's patent tomfoolery over the Roberts nomination (actions best characterized, I would argue, as desparately thrashing around in the shallow waters of irrelevance, flailing for an enemy - any enemy). Their entire approach of framing abortion as a civil rights issue, "presenting it as women's fight for freedom against an oppressive patriarchy" is wrongheaded and self-defeating. "It's true that pregnancy is a uniquely female burden and that most pro-life politicians are men - but then, so are most pro-choice politicians. There's no gender gap in opinion on the issue...Treating the issue as a civil rights crusade may be good for mobilizing some women, but this strategy alienates the public because it ducks the central issue. If you believe that life begins at conception, then protecting women's rights means protecting the rights of females in the womb, too." While Justice Ginsburg's polite disapporoval of Roe rings hollow, Tierney's piece expresses a feeling of "how'd I end up on the same side as these idiots" that must surely ring true to mostly everyone who'd begin to contemplate themselves as a moderate. Can there be anyone on the moderate wing of the GOP who hasn't regarded Fox News' perpetual chicken little complex with, at best, polite bemusement? Or a democrat who didn't try to hide a pained look when Howard Dean railed against the "right wing justices trying to give your home to private developers" after Justices --err-- Stevens, Souter, Breyer, Ginsburg (aka, the court's liberal bloc) and Kennedy voted to give your home to private developers? But anyway, Tierney concludes: "I wish the pro-choice movement would appeal to centrists of both sexes instead of playing to its activist base. The best way to keep abortion legal is to rely not on the Supreme Court but on the public, because three-quarters of Americans do not want to outlaw abortion." I do not agree with him, insofar as I do not agree that keeping abortion legal is a good thing, I do not agree with him that returning the issue to the states will serve his goal in the way he thinks, and I believe that if pro-choicers had any conviction that this was the case, they would immediately repudiate Roe and its progeny, and resort to the democratic process. It's not my belief that liberals, any more than conservatives, want to further their cause illegitimately through the courts, but that they do so in the absence of any other way to do so. However, I do concur with Tierney's remedy, insofar as he is correct to dismiss the role of the Supreme Court. Abortion, in my view, is not now, nor has ever been, a right protected in the Federal Constitution; nor is discretion over it granted to the Federal Government. It therefore is and will remain legitimately an issue for the states, where Mr. Tierney and I will politely argue past one another, and the matter will be legitimately resolved by the democratic process. It would also mean that this issue - which has done more than any other to inflame passions and partisanship - would cease to be an issue at the level of national politics, which can only serve to cool the temperature of the national political debate. Most centrists would not agree with my views on abortion (or the discipline of the constitution, I suspect), but the goal of brining rational debate back into play is one we can all agree on. Posted by Simon at August 17, 2005 10:30 PMComments
I can understand and agree that women have the right to determine for themselves whether they will carry a child to term. But I don't see why it isn't a good idea to reduce the number of abortions or why it shouldn't be required of women to have an abortion early on, if they choose to have one. (Maybe it would be counterproductive in practice to ban most late-term abortions, but certainly not in principle.) BTW, have you seen the anti-naral piece over at the Mighty Middle? Michael tried to give them some helpful advice on their blog, but they deleted all his comments and responses to his comments! Naral can't even blog Posted by: Adam at August 17, 2005 11:29 PMIn this thread? I need to digest his comments again in the morning, seems interesting (although, of course, I'm not going to cheer him on too loudly - if NARAL want to self-destruct defending untenable ground, that suits me just fine!) Posted by: Simon at August 18, 2005 12:30 AMSimon, since you seem to be pro-life, perhaps you'd care to outline the mechanisms which you envision under which you'd require pregnant women to carry all fertilized eggs to the point of birth. Would you also criminalize the act of going to another state or nation in order to get an abortion? Posted by: bk at August 18, 2005 08:33 AMOh boy! Here we go. Can we stick to the constitutional/federalist issues for a little while before we get into that? Let's at least figure out the rules before we start playing the game. Posted by: WHQ at August 18, 2005 09:24 AMbk - Simon already acknowledged that abortion is legitimately the purview of the states. Since more than half the states had already legalized abortion to some extent by the time Roe was decided, Roe was, at that time, an unnecessary intrusion by the Federal government. Not to mention that some very prominent legal scholars, including liberals like Lawrence Tribe, widely agree that Roe was flawed Constitutional reasoning. Posted by: Literally Retarded at August 18, 2005 09:25 AMSorry - I wrote too soon. Abortion was legal in 17 states, and an additional 16 had bills in process. 16 states still have anti-abortion laws on the books. Posted by: Literally Retarded at August 18, 2005 09:33 AMLit, right, but he has also said, if memory serves, that he is pro-life, and has also asked how one can be logically consistent withing this view and even allow for exceptions for rape, incest, health, etc. So I think it's legitimate to ask "how would it work if you had your way?"' We can all speculate as to how any possible forthcoming legal changes might unfold. And I do think it's reasonable to forecast, as many have here, that what we'd see on a state by state basis would be an increase in limits, more in some states than in others, but little or no outright banning. But the logical conclusion of the most avid pro-lifers is that they'd like to see something pretty close to outright banning. What I've noticed is that many pro-lifers are very eloquent on the moral necessity of protecting the rights of the unborn, and jump to demean any characterization of the issue as one of personal choice by the mother. But most such people I have talked with about this tend to fall silent when it comes down to saying how they'd deal with FORCING women who don't want to carry a pregnancy to full term to do so. IMO, if we are going to have restrictions, I think it's very legitimate to ask what they're going to be and how they'll be enforced. Don't you? Posted by: bk at August 18, 2005 10:24 AMBrian, However, that having been said, I agree that it is a valid question to ask how something might be enforced. I don't share Irving Kristol's view ("work out what you want before you work out how to pay for it"), but it's certainly pertinent to to the discussion. Because it's secondary, in my view, my answer can only, at best, be half-baked, though. ;) I would imagine that the process would not be difficult; one would simply expand the definition of murder to explicitly include the taking of a child in utero. In my conception, the person performing the operation ("the abortionist") would be liable for criminal prosecution, as would the person having obtained one. Would the father be liable somehow? I'd like to think so, but I don't know by what mechanism this would be enforced. There are obviously holes in this approach - how do you regulate people who never see their doctor about the pregnancy in the first place, for example? But I have never understood the pathology that grips so many legislators when drafting a bill that "it has to be exact and perfect and complete the first time, for when we hath passed this bill, it is fixed in stone for all time henceforth; tommorow, the rapture (and/or the environmental meltdown if they're a green) begins, and we will be judged by this bill in front of us today and none else". You know, you draft it carefully, you try to work out in advance which challenges might be brought in court, and you write a narrow, well-crafted bill which can later be built on, expanded or narrowed as necessary, and set it to expire in two years, with the proviso that it should be modified at that time with due respect to its subsequent practical operation. As regards border crossing, I would want to examine laws already on the books for similar actions. For example, and without meaning to imply equivalence, I believe that Georgia bans the use of sex toys; does Georgia ban owning such toys, and if so, what does the law say about going out of state and buying them, only to return? Or, if you have a dry state (of which I'm not aware there are any), what are the laws there? Similarly, laws about assisted suicide. I can't tell you the precise result, but in terms of methodology, you look generally to comparable procedural situations. My initial inclination would be to preclude residents of the state from terminating their pregnancy by artificial means, period - if they go out of state to do so, on their return, they would be treated no differently than someone who had obtained an abortion in-state. However, obviously, there would be only one prosecution, not two: we couldn't prosecute the doctor who administered the abortion, unless he did so in violation of his own state's laws. Obviously, I would vote to strike down a federal law made under the interstate commerce clause, which hoped to influence border-crossing abortion (BCA?), either to promote (dem) or regulate (rep) it. Posted by: Simon at August 18, 2005 12:09 PMMy initial inclination would be to preclude residents of the state from terminating their pregnancy by artificial means, period - if they go out of state to do so, on their return, they would be treated no differently than someone who had obtained an abortion in-state. Under what theory of jurisdiction? And then there's the practical problem of obstetricians (particularly high-risk maternal/fetal specialists) leaving the banning state in droves rather than be subject to murder charges for any treatment plan that might conceivably result in miscarriage. Won't do much for the quality of obstetrical care. Both the pro-lifers and the pro-choicers present their positions as very simple moral absolutes. Simple moral absolutes leave no room at all for the ambiguities of reality. Posted by: Tully at August 18, 2005 12:20 PMI bring those little details up because there are indeed VERY sound medical reasons at times to perform mid- to late-term abortions (severe pre-eclampsia, for example). And there are also times when the choice is between forcing a mother to gamble on the odds, or get an abortion. Who gets to set what odds are acceptable (the odds themselves being a judgement call)? Times when that decision is by definition a medical judgement call, to be made by the patient and her physician, not by a court. And that's NOT a bright line in reality. Posted by: Tully at August 18, 2005 12:29 PMI don't think classifying abortion as murder fully answers the enforcement question. Who reports the fetus missing in the first place? How does one go about refuting a woman's claim that she aborted spontaneously into her toilet and flushed the evidence? We're talking about a missing person with no history. Perhaps the threat of prosecution is enough to prevent some abortions, and that's good enough. I'm not sure. Posted by: WHQ at August 18, 2005 01:05 PMI also am skeptical that applying murder laws to abortions is the best approach, assuming you can catch people in the first place. Setting the bar for criminality that high would make prosecution very difficult given the nature of the crime. You'd better find quite the jury for that trick to work. And you'd better have some highly motivated policemen on the scene if you think you're going to get sufficient evidence to get beyond reasonable doubt. We know in practical terms that reasonable doubt has some correlation to the penalty, whether it's supposed to in theory or not. You might get more prosecutions with a lesser criminality applied to abortions, thereby preventing more than you would by considering them murders. Posted by: WHQ at August 18, 2005 01:14 PMIn addition, you have to wonder how many women would go get pre-natal care if they knew that any and all pregnancies would be registered as "people", and they would be under suspicion of murder if said "people" were "killed" in miscarriages. Some pregnant women miscarry if they smell the wrong thing: other pregnant women can ride the Wild Mouse Ride fifty times in a row and still feel great. How can anyone say "Jane Doe is an innocent miscarrier", but "June Doe deliberately miscarried.'? It's difficult enough to prove murder when the victim has been born: to make the FBI and the police investigate murder whenever a woman's period is a few days late would leave no time for investigating any other crimes, let alone prosecuting them. Posted by: Blue Jean at August 18, 2005 05:49 PMYes. That's exactly the way it was in 1972. Posted by: Literally Retarded at August 18, 2005 08:55 PMActually, in 1972, while there were many anit-abortion laws on the books, they were usually vague and didn't consider the fetus a "person" in the legal sense of the word. Also, unlike Simon's criteria, it was only the doctor who was usually prosecuted under the statute, not the woman. (For example, if I hire A to murder B, then I'm as legally culpable as A. But if I ask A to abort fetus B, then only A is prosecuted) That was one of the big problems the Roe justices had with the original Texas statute; the doctors were the ones prosecuted if they induced abortions, but if the woman induced it herself, she could not be held legally accountable. So, no, I'm afraid Simon's world would be more logically (and legally justified) than the pre-Roe world, it would not be like it was in 1972. Posted by: Blue Jean at August 18, 2005 10:10 PMI think Simon is discussing two things 1) philosophical underpinnings of abortion 2) legalities of abortion. (Simon correct me if I'm wrong.) While those two aspects clearly interface they are truly separate discussions. Isn't that the approach of certain pro-life democrats who state "While I'm personally opposed to abortion, I support a women's right to choose". If you all are looking for an abortion stance stat provides perfect comfort, I don't think you'll find one. Posted by: c3 at August 19, 2005 03:30 PMI think it is dangerous to embrace a framework in which it is either murder one or morally neutral up until birth. To me, and I don't see any other way of conceptualizing it philosophically, we are forced to determine the relative worth of a woman's freedom and autonomy and the worth of a particular stage of human life. Neither of these things have infinite value and neither is without value: so we each have to weigh in our own minds not only which to preference but when to preference it. Most people support the pill (but it can be an abortifacient--I think?) and most people oppose infanticide (though this is not universal throughout human history). So there is some hazy point in people's minds where it crosses the line. To choose life over freedom in all cases is to demean a woman: reducing to nothing her wishes, hopes and dreams--a mere baby maker. To choose freedom over life in all cases is to demean the humanity of the unborn child. (This paragraph in particular is inspired by Ambivablog's abortion rant found archived on the main page in two parts.) These questions turn on things which are unknown to us: questions for which we have only our own intituition to guide us. There is also the problem of the fetishization of either autonomy or life on the opposing sides. I heard a bioethicist on c-span, appointed by the president for a stem-cell research ethics committee, lament this. He also influenced my thinking on this, by discussing the various moral goods, and pointing out how some pro-lifers seem blind to all goods except that of life. He mentioned the case where some would prefer that an embryo be born to a pig were no mother available. The ardently pro-life side often seems to uphold the worth of the fetus above all else: even born life. People are starving and racked with disease and being shot in our inner cities, yet there is this fixation: a seeming obliviousness to the great drama of life and death--millions die and are born every day. Life is fragile and ephemeral. All this to say that we ought to ditch these benighted and all-too-abstract dichotomies. We all wish to lower abortion rates and I think the real task is is to figure out the best way to do this. The most important question is to guage the effect of a strict pro-life policy. Would it actually reduce the numbers of abortions or would it be like the drug "war"? If it would not reduce the numbers of abortions, then we can safely ditch this position as a matter of policy. I think most of us would agree to carefully phasing in some legal limits to abortion: the difference is how far we would go. Also, on the practical side, we need to guage how much it would cost and how difficult it would be to enforce. To get (some) pro-lifers out of their entrenched positions I ask: if it would bankrupt the nation to enforce this policy would you still support it? If it resulted in a nasty black market for abortion that increased crime, injury and suffering would you support it (let's assume in this case that actually the abortion rate did drop but not by too much: is a black market worth it?)? To me, I feel what the law should do is to encourage women to have abortions early, to faciliate the responsible use of birth control, This does not mean we can do nothing; but it does mean forswearing draconian measures. It is truly a question of how to foster self-government in the deepest sense: of fostering people to act morally and govern themselves in an ethical manner. The law is a coarse instrument and much be used wisely. James Madison once said, "If men were angels, then there would be no need for government." Posted by: Adam at August 19, 2005 08:07 PMWell said, Adam. But let's remember that women are only half the equation. It's a rather empty exercise to talk about women's rewsponsibility without talking about men's responsibility too. Posted by: Blue Jean at August 20, 2005 02:19 PMI agree, Blue, men are exactly half the pregnancy equation. They should accept half the responsibility, and be able to exercise half the right. Posted by: Literally Retarded at August 20, 2005 03:07 PMI agree with you, LR; accepting half the responsibilty is only fair, but accepting half a right is a little tricky. Any ideas? Posted by: Blue Jean at August 20, 2005 11:31 PMSure. Any abortion requires the consent of both parents. Posted by: Literally Retarded at August 21, 2005 08:35 AMAnd before I get accused of being flippant, I think that dads must be identified for any pregnancy, and that at least half the financial, emotional, and physical capital to be spent must be theirs. The 60's treated women like toys. The 70's made birth control the sole responsibility of women. In the 80's this all became normal. Man or woman, you didn't make that baby on your own. You don't get to decide anything about it on your own. Posted by: Literally Retarded at August 21, 2005 11:47 AMAnyone who believes that banning all abortion would NOT have serious public health consequences should review the mortality tables for South and Central America, where abortion is almost entirely illegal. Particularly the morbidity and infertility stats for women 14-44. You don't have to subscribe to either extreme to dislike "conception-to-birth on demand" abortion, nor to recognize that there are very good reasons to avoid total bans. MOST first trimester procedures are strictly elective contraceptive procedures. MOST later-term procedures are for purely medical reasons. BOTH extremes want to portray abortion as a simple absolute right--either the mother's or the baby's. Both ignore the complicated realities in promoting their all-or-nothing absolutist positions. And yes, the American people find an awful lot of (IMHO) reasonable middle ground between the two extremist factions. Posted by: Tully at August 21, 2005 12:32 PMAssuming what you say is true about most contraceptive abortions occur early and most late-term abortions are for medical reasons, maybe our abortion laws just need a touch-up here and there, and more stringent laws would cause more trouble than their worth. Maybe we ought to just focus on lowering unwanted pregnacies in the first place, via better sex-ed and intelligently implemented social problems. What say you Tully? Posted by: Adam at August 21, 2005 02:41 PMGee, I'd agree, if it wasn't that we really don't need any more social problems, much less intelligently-implemented ones...or did you mean programs? I support (or not) individual "social" programs on their merits. The government in general isn't very good at intelligently implementing them. ;-) Posted by: Tully at August 21, 2005 05:26 PMAnyway, yes, the generic ratios I supplied are correct. For more precise figures, 88% of all US abortions are performed in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, and those are overwhelmingly not done for medical reasons, but "personal" ones. Procedures past 21 weeks are less than 2% of total procedures, past 26 weeks are almost unknown, and both are generally limited to cases of severe fetal abnormalities or situations when the life or health of the pregnant woman is seriously threatened. As I've said, you don't have to approve of abortion to see sound reasons for keeping it legal. Some restrictions could be seen as reasonable--but not severe restrictions. Not unless you're willing to pay the piper. Other factoids to muddy the waters: The risk of death from giving birth is approximately 11 times that involved in a legal medical abortion performed in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy. The risk of complications (including death) from abortion soars when the procedure is outlawed, but the number of procedures does not apparently drop much, if at all. What changes is who's performing them. While it's tough to come up with accurate figures for actual abortions performed in countries where the procedure is illegal, best-guess estimates are that in South America the ratio of abortions to pregnancies is significantly higher than it is in the United States. The ratio of complications requiring hospitalization or leading to death is also tough to figure out in those countries (gotta know how many performed to get the ratio) but in the US it runs under 1%. Best-guess in South America is that it runs 20% or higher. EX: Abortion estimates for Brazil were about 1.4 mil in 1991, and there were almost 300K hospitalizations for abortion-related complications in Brazil that year. That figure does not count any deaths occuring prior to hospitalization. Roughly half of all abortion patients report they were using (if possibly incorrectly) contraception of some sort when they got pregnant. Posted by: Tully at August 21, 2005 06:07 PMTully, you seem to be suggesting an acknowledgement of reality. I'm not sure if I'm ready for such radical thinking. Posted by: WHQ at August 22, 2005 09:08 AMYeah! Geez Tully, we're trying to grow a movement here fer chrissakes. You're going to scare people off. Posted by: bk at August 22, 2005 01:03 PMWhile it's tough to come up with accurate figures for actual abortions performed in countries where the procedure is illegal, best-guess estimates are that in South America the ratio of abortions to pregnancies is significantly higher than it is in the United States. The ratio of complications requiring hospitalization or leading to death is also tough to figure out in those countries (gotta know how many performed to get the ratio) but in the US it runs under 1%. Best-guess in South America is that it runs 20% or higher. EX: Abortion estimates for Brazil were about 1.4 mil in 1991, and there were almost 300K hospitalizations for abortion-related complications in Brazil that year. That figure does not count any deaths occuring prior to hospitalization.Roughly half of all abortion patients report they were using (if possibly incorrectly) contraception of some sort when they got pregnantAgree with the stats but keep in mind a key confounding factor is that most countries that "outlaw" abortion severly limit contraception. That would tend to increase the number of abortions. Posted by: c3 at August 22, 2005 03:34 PM a key confounding factor is that most countries that "outlaw" abortion severly limit contraception I didn't have time to survey contraception laws for twenty countries, but a spot check of Mexico, Brazil, and Chile shows that's not true for those countries. Contraception is legal and widely available in those three countries, while abortion is illegal or very severely restricted. But that's a good reason why abortion should be "measured" as a ratio of pregnancies rather than a simple population ratio. For whatever reasons, some countries will have higher pregnancy rates than others, so a straight population ratio would be misleading. My main purpose was to illustrate the massive rise in the rate of serious complications (2000%+!) where the procedure is banned. SA/CA both have ratios of abortions versus pregnancies as high or higher than the US. Sticking to just the Brazil example, I note that almost all contraception methods are already legal in Brazil, are distributed through government family planning clinics as well as by private sale, and have been since the 1970's, but abortion remains illegal. It's a good country to use as a comparitive. Posted by: Tully at August 23, 2005 09:07 AMI hate to offer questions far more often than I can offer facts, but does anyone (say, Tully) know what sort of criminal penalties are imposed on those found to have illegally obtained abortions in the countries banning them? Posted by: WHQ at August 23, 2005 02:00 PMIN Mexico, the penalty for performing an illegal abortion is up to ten years, and for having one it's three years. (Yes, the patient is also prosecuted.) It used to be five years, but that was reduced to three by the Mexican Supreme Court a coupla years back. Actual restrictions vary from state to state. Criminal abortion is the fourth-leading cause of maternal death in both Mexico and Brazil. In Brazil abortion is a felony on the order of manslaughter, although I couldn't find the penalties. Both abortionist and patient are prosecuted. Posted by: Tully at August 23, 2005 03:17 PMThanks, Tully. Sounds like effective policy. NOT! Posted by: WHQ at August 23, 2005 04:23 PMOn the abortion debate, there's a lot of talk about individual rights (in this case women) but we still have to hear serious talk here about two undeniable facts: I am not into an absolute denial of abortion rights, but in our day and age everything seems to be about "me", my rights, my happiness, my comfort... How about the rest of society? 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