Abortion Rights - We Need to Change the Way the Issue Is Framed

Reasons why women should have the right to an abortion

There are many reasons why women should have the right to an abortion, including the one that is most commonly put forth – that a person should have the right to do what one chooses with his or her own body.

And there are several other reasons as well, relating to the public health consequences of making abortion a crime: When abortion is illegal, women are forced either to obtain an illegal abortion or to have an unwanted child, whom they are usually unprepared to care for in a satisfactory manner. Illegal abortions are often performed by unqualified practitioners, under circumstances that often led to horrible infections and death. Unwanted, uncared for children often lead lives of quiet desperation or turn to crime. The resources of our planet are already stretched near to the breaking point, and continued population growth will hasten the day when that breaking point is reached, resulting in human catastrophes of unknown magnitude. Our country already contains the largest number of imprisoned persons of any country in the world, and a larger proportion of our citizens are imprisoned than of any other industrialized country in the world. Do we want to increase the proportion of our citizens who are imprisoned even further?


“Pro-choice” is not a good way, by itself, to frame a defense of abortion rights

Though the phrase “pro-choice” is the most frequent phrase used in the defense of abortion rights, I believe that it is the wrong argument to use, if used alone, either as a sound bite or as part of a reasoned argument. As a sound bite argument it encourages the stereotype that Republicans work so hard to pin on us Democrats: That we are the selfish, immoral people, who care only about our own personal choices, regardless of how immoral those choices are. That stereotype of course is beyond unfair, but I feel certain that the phrase “pro-choice” encourages it.

As a reasoned argument the term “pro-choice” is no better. Here is the way I have seen it argued on DU: “If they (i.e., “pro-lifers”) think that abortions are immoral, that’s fine with me, they don’t have to have one. But they have no right to tell me or anyone else what to do”.

The fallacy of that argument can be seen if we simply imagine the tables turned around the other way. What if we object to the practice of infanticide or child abuse and feel that there ought to be laws against these things (which I’m sure we all do), and someone says to us “If you think that these things are immoral, that’s fine with me, you don’t have to do it, but you have no right to tell me or anyone else what to do”. What would we think of that argument? Well, it’s the same argument that some of us sometimes make to defend abortion rights, only with a different subject.

My point is that this is a bad argument, regardless of the subject, and whether the conclusion is right or wrong. The reason it is a bad argument is because it does not address the central issue, as posed by the other side: That abortion is tantamount to murder. That is their main point, and if we engage in an argument with them and fail to address that one issue, regardless of how many valid points we do address, then we are just talking past each other.


The political consequences

The Christian right is a powerful obstacle to our electoral success. (I say this even though I don’t believe that Bush won a fair election either in 2000 or 2004 – but without the Christian right he wouldn’t have even received enough votes to make the election close enough to steal IMO). It is true that there are more people in this country who are “pro-choice” than “pro-life”. But the “pro-life” people tend to be much more uniform in their voting patterns. Many of them attend church regularly and are told by their religious leaders to vote Republican, and that’s what they do, as if there was no other issue that mattered. I know people like that in my own family. Some of them are good people, though often quite ignorant (to the possibility of there being other issues on which to base their vote). All they know is that the Democrats want “killing babies” to be legal.

Our “pro-choice” line of arguing this issue has no effect on these people. In fact, it probably even inclines them more towards the Republican Party, because that kind of argument has the potential to infuriate them. And it infuriates them because it doesn’t address their main concern. They probably feel like how we feel when Republicans use the “cut and run” phrase to characterize our desire to withdraw from Iraq. That phrase fails completely to address our central issue, which is “what good do we accomplish in Iraq if we stay, and does it outweigh the bad?”


So what arguments should we use?

We should continue to use all of the arguments I mentioned in the first section of this thread, as well as any other legitimate arguments. But in addition, we must address the central concern of the “pro-lifers”. They say that abortion is tantamount to murder. We don’t see it that way. We must say that we don’t see it that way, and explain WHY we don’t see it that way. (My personal reason for believing that abortion is not murder is that I don’t believe that fetuses have thoughts or feelings, and therefore I don’t consider them to be in the same category as women, who have a lifetime of thoughts, feelings, and experience behind them. I’m sure that that will sound arrogant to some pro-lifers. However, I don’t mean to state that as an established fact, but rather as my belief. And it is that belief that allows me to weigh the rights of the pregnant woman against the life of the fetus in my considering the merits of criminalizing abortion.)

And then, after having established why we feel that abortion is not murder, we can discuss and compare what we consider to be the harmful effects (to the pregnant woman especially, and also to the unborn child and society) of criminalizing abortion against the beneficial effects of protecting the fetus that criminalization of abortion would entail.

My main point is that this issue needs to somehow be addressed. But in addition, we need to address it without showing disrespect for the opposing point of view. I emphasize this because I know that some of us feel that the main motivation of “pro-lifers” is to control the lives of other people. Undoubtedly that is true of some of them. But I’m just as certain that there are others whose main motivation in being “pro-life” is concern for the fetus. So, we if we are going to communicate with them on this issue we must assume that their beliefs are sincerely held and well intended. And by the same token, we would do well to keep in mind that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision was based on trying to strike a balance between the life of the fetus and the rights of the pregnant woman:



Nevertheless, no matter how tactfully we put forth our explanation as to why we feel that the pregnant woman’s rights should over-ride those of the fetus, this will be a courageous argument to make, because it opens us up to the possibility of severe criticism and hostility. But it is also a straight forward and honest argument to make in defense of a woman’s right to an abortion IMO. In the absence of such an argument a “pro-choice” type of argument evades rather than addresses the main concerns of the other side.

Will this argument convince most pro-lifers? I doubt it. But will it convince some of them? I think it will, and that just might be enough to make the difference in the next election. Since they’re not convinced by “pro-choice” type arguments, why not try something different? And perhaps, even though we will undoubtedly not convince most of them, maybe at least they’ll respect us more for being honest about it, and maybe that will help open the door to further discourse.


One more argument – which Party is really the pro-life Party?

We also can, and probably should, try to co-opt the “pro-life” banner from the Republicans. “Pro-life” sounds so wholesome and so uncontroversial that one would think that only a monster could argue against it. But who is really the pro-life party?

- Leading us into an imperialistic war on false pretenses is NOT pro-life.
- Social policies that send people into poverty are NOT pro-life.
- Withholding funding for levees to prevent the loss of thousands of lives to a hurricane is NOT pro-life.
- Statutes that cause women to obtain dangerous and often lethal abortions are NOT pro-life.

And finally, since they are so concerned about abortion and life, we can ask them to consider the role of family planning services in reducing the abortion rate, how maternal deaths decreased dramatically following the liberalization of abortion laws in the early 1970s (page 3 of this document), and how the abortion rate declined significantly during the Clinton Presidency (page 2 of this document).

Only the individual can decide what is right for him/her. This is not a gender issue.

Others may not agree with the decision but the individual must be free to make the final decision.

It is called freedom.

As the OP has (in my view correctly) pointed out, that argument in itself can be used to justify absolutely anything, including things that definately shouldn't be legal.

To make it work, you need to qualify it further, prove the reduced version, and show that abortion comes within the restrictions: I would say that "any action *which doesn't negatively impact other people* should be legal", "because there's no valid reason it shouldn't be" and - and this is the clincher: "abortion doesn't impact other people *because a foetus is not a person*".

The devil is in that last bit. It's easy to argue that if a foetus isn't a person then abortion should be legal, and I for one think that is they were then it shouldn't be, but the part of justifying abortion that is non-trivial is showing that a foetus isn't a person.

Essentially, any argument for the right to abortion that doesn't contain the step "a foetus isn't a person" is not sufficient, and when you have that step, all the others are trivial by e.g. the argument you advance.

Stick to the issue and there is no argument.

argument.

It's effectively conceding.

Trying to 'make' an argument to allow others to decide what one can and cannot do surrenders one's rights and freedoms. Allow each to decide for oneself.

Whose body is it anyway?

Luckily, you could use a very similar-sounding argument to just say, "It's not wrong."

Being forced to carry a pregnancy to term is a great imposition, but not so great as being killed.

That's why you have to show that the foetus isn't a person and therefore doesn't have rights comparable with the mother to justify abortion.

If you are taking a decision that effects other people then you definately *do* have to justify it.

Abortion doesn't effect other people, *because foetuses aren't people*, but if they were then it wouldn't be a "personal decision", and as such would need to be justified (and justifying it wouldn't be possible.

The conclusion you reach is correct, but you're leaving out the vital step in your argument. Once you've showed that a foetus isn't a person, you don't need to go any further to justify abortion. Until you've done that, you haven't.

Very few people disagree with the claim that decisions not effecting anyone else shouldn't be legislated, so belabouring that point doesn't achieve anything. What people do disagree about is whether abortion effects anyone else, and so that's what arguments justifying abortion need to address.

To use your terms, yes, "a person does not have to justify personal decisions to anyone", but you still have to show that abortion is a personal decision.

Again you make my point. The issue of abortion is a non-issue when one understands 'the person decides what is right for him/herself.'

In the end, one is responsible for one's self. People may not agree with one's decision but only the person can decide what is right for her/himself.

It is called freedom.

It's good to see that at least one person understood the point I was trying to get across.
:toast:

It appears from reading almost all the other responses that my message didn't get through. Either I didn't do a good job of stating it, or else this is just too emotional of a topic for people to think clearly about, or else I'm just plain wrong. :shrug:

The only person capable of deciding what is right for a person, is the person.

Whose body is it anyway?

Abortion can be justified- under ANY circumstances- even if the fetus is a person.

The best strategy here is to hypothetically concede that the fetus is a person, but then show how abortion is still entirely within a woman's rights.

And it is.

After that, you still have the fact that it's only a fetus to fall back on.

for self is absolute. Whose body is it?

Are you saying that it's a woman's body, therefore it isn't wrong (in other words, it's within her moral rights), or are you saying it's a woman's body, so even if it's wrong she can do it anyway?

That's the difference, here. The second one, which is the new fad around here, won't work.

Further, what I'm proposing is a hypothetical concession for the sake of argument. Just putting aside the person/not person issue, if the fetus is a person, does that change anything? No. That's the point.

how would you justify killing it?

give them the right to attach to and feed off another person's body?

Whether the fetus is a person or not, a woman has the right to abort her pregnancy. A fetus has no right to a woman's womb, and neither would a three-year-old if it had to have one in order to live.

I use it to mean "something self aware/sentient/with a personality". As such, it's a continuum, rather than a yes/no thing, which is why I favour abortion on demand in the first two trimesters and in some situations in the third, and why I'd choose to save the life of a child rather than a newborn baby if faced with the choice.

I think that anything which is self-aware has rights in proportion to that self-awareness, and anything which isn't doesn't.

While being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term is a great imposition, it's clearly not as great as being killed, so I think abortion can only be justified if the mother's rights are far more important than those of the foetus. I think they are, because the mother is a person and the foetus isn't, but if you're using a definition of "person" that justifies rights then they probably
wouldn't be.



If I discovered that zygotes could talk and reason and discuss the relative merits of Mozart and Brahms I'd be out there nail-bombing abortion clinics.

Less extremely, if I saw a flash of blue light and converted to a religion which preached that the defining characterisic of a person was not self-awareness that developed slowly, but a soul that entered the body at conception, I'd probably vote for abortion to be illegal.

response?

But that's not the point. If we can reach and communicate with only 5% of them why shouldn't we do that? Should we say that because the other 95% are unreasonable we can't discuss this with anyone?

we need to be standing up for the real progressive ideals. Why worry about reaching 5% fo them? Most people will stand with us if we are willing to stand For Them.

That's one reason why it's important to reach them if we can.

Anyhow, I didn't say anything about not standing up for our rights or the rights of other people. I'm only advocating having reasoned arguments with them.

Reason does not reach too far into the minds of the Fundies I have met. For the most part they seem to prefer to be told what to think rather than go to the work of actually thinking. IF you are determined to fight the fight I believe privacy is the proper frame for the debate.

"The right of a women to terminate an unwanted pregnancy".

Or something similar.

Some things require more than one word or a three word phrase to get your point across.

against the potential life of the fetus. The right to privacy is not the only thing that they discuss in their decision.

from an historic standpoint, one that some of the justices on the Supreme Court say they want to go back to, a fetus was not considered a human being until "quickening", which happens around the beginning of the second trimester.

As for a religious argument-I think we should let people know that we don't believe that one religious belief should be given precidence over others. Personally, I don't believe the soul enters the body until the time of birth, so to me personally the idea of life beginning at conception doesn't make sense.

I think that those are the kinds of arguments we ought to be making.

It's a PRIVATE matter between a woman and her doctor, though we do need the law to keep the procedure decriminalized and protect them both.

and I feel it's an excellent way to do so.

But that phrase by itself doesn't explain WHY we think it should be legal.

Though I appreciate your thread and I don't want to belittle your contribution.

as it seems to be a black/white approach to Roe vs Wade on this. That RvW is somehow a magic bullet for the entire issue. The discussions mostly only go until birth. While some "pro-life" groups (some Catholic ones I know) do regular charity outreach for diapers, baby food, etc... not all do.

The entire point of abortion is way away from what it should be.

Dean has said he is not going to use the words "pro-choice" and "pro-life" anymore. He said they have been misused. Matthews was ruthless in this interview, but I do like the way Dean got his message out....."keep the government out of our private decisions."

http://howardempowered.blogspot.com/2005/10/howard-dean-on-hardball-1031.html

Dean: This administration continually wants to insert themselves into family business--the Terri Schiavo case--that's the family's business, not the government's business. All these abortion cases, that's a family's personal business, not the government's business, and we'd like to keep the government out of people's private lives.

Matthews: So the Democratic party is a pro-choice party, period?

Dean: No, my party respects everybody's views, but my party firmly believes the government should stay out of people's personal lives.

Matthews: But you're a pro-choice party are you not? You sound like you're against them for being pro-life, are you pro-choice?

Dean: I'm not against people for being pro-life. I actually was the first chairman who met for a long time with the pro-life Democrats.

Matthews: The people believe the Republican party, because of its record, supports the pro-life position. Does your party support the pro-choice position?

Dean: The position we support is that a woman has a right, and a family has a right to make up their own mind about their health care without the government's interference.

Matthews: That's pro-choice.

Dean: A woman and a family have the right to make up their own minds about their health care without government interference. That's our position.

Matthews: Why do you hesitate from the phrase "pro-choice"?

Dean: Because I think it's often misused. If you're pro-choice, it implies you're not pro-life, and that's not true. There are a lot of pro-life Democrats. We respect them, but we believe the government--

Matthews: Do you believe in abortion rights?

Dean: I believe that the government should stay out of the personal lives of families and women. They should stay out of our lifes. That's what I believe.

Matthews: I find it interesting that you've hesitated to say what the party's always stood for, which is the pro-choice position--

Dean: The party believes that the government does not belong in our personal lives--

Matthews: It's just that I'm learning things here about a hesitancy I didn't know about before. We'll be right back with Howard Dean. Now you're getting hesitant on the war, hesitant on abortion rights--it's very hard to get clarity from your party.(Uh Chris, that WAS pretty clear, I think.)

So, Dean is saying he thinks people should be trusted to make up their own minds about life-changing decisions instead of the government doing it for them?

Wow. That's so vague.:eyes:

Matthews seems unable to grasp the concept. Gee, you mean you can have pro-life and pro-choice people in the same party? That just doesn't fly!

I think it's funny that Dean talks about the government staying out of private citizens' personal lives. I seem to recall being told the "other side" was all about that.

Matthews is an idiot.

Good show, Chairman. Good show.

Dean held his own. There is a video up at MSNBC, and it got very uncomfortable. Matthews' let his true colors show there.

Here is the video link...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9883824/

Or it may be the video on page 2 of the article.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9883824/page/2/

Dean is right on this one - the frame should read that Democrats want
the government out of our personal lives. That covers health care from
conception or contraception to pregnancy outcome to death. These
are family matters and decisions.
In addition, we Dems should insist on the right to have guns in our personal lives - no government interference in our right to protect
our families.
This is a true libertarian position and will attract independents and especially Westerners - we will take Oregon, Washington, Montana, Colorado with this sort of position. And that means the House and Senate in 2006 and the White House in 2008.
We need a candidate who can run on the above message and it is NOT
going to be Hillary - General Clark can run on this kind of reframed
set of issues.
(By the way, gay rights need to be reframed as a combination of getting the government out of your business and states rights.) Massachusetts wants to let gays marry. Fine. Nebraska doesn't want to - that's fine too. Gay people can move from Nebraska and the whole state won't have anyone left to do their hair, decorate their houses, arrange flowers, or improve their taste. Serves them right. Take those gay tax dollars elsewhere to a state that wants them.

Only a lunatic or an ignoramus would consider pregnancy and childbirth to NOT threaten a woman's health, social support system, finances, and LIFE. It has to be voluntary. If not, (and yes, all birth control has a failure rate) the woman MUST be able to defend herself.

Of course, the right qualifies as lunatics, since they're also dead set against the very things that lower the incidence of abortion: contraceptives and Plan B for emergency protection.

The right is so against abortions and wants to make it illegal. But their policies foster the conditions that make abortion more prevalent. Lack of contraceptive education, poor living conditions, less aid for the poverty-stricken.

They always want to attack the symptom and avoid the problem. They are a bunch of cold pills when we need vaccines.

Instead of pandering to these people, why don't you ask them why they think it IS any of their business?

We can all make moral judgements about the way other people live their lives-- and whether their actions harm or enhance life-- but we don't TRY TO RUN THEIR LIVES now do we?

IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THEY THINK IT IS "MURDER" WHEN IT IS NOT THEIR LIFE. They are allowed their opinion. They are not allowed to INFLICT IT ON OTHER PEOPLE IN A FREE SOCIETY.

Splitting semantic hairs and "framing," when these people want to MAKE WOMEN "MURDERERS" at the outset, will not succeed.

Let's turn around and ask these people why they don't care about fetuses when they are OUTSIDE the womb?

:puke:

Misogynist fundies cannot and will not listen to reason, and I'm sick of coddling these bastards.

:kick:

Abortion isn't murder, but if it were then in definately *would* be the business of fundamentalists and everyone else to prevent it, in the same way as we have a duty to prevent any other sort of murder.

Saying "it is not their life" doesn't get you anywhere unless you're also willing to claim that you shouldn't intervene in any other murder because it's not your life.

To explain why abortion should be legal, you have to justify why it isn't murder, instead of just asserting it. Once you've done that, you've essentially won the argument, and if you haven't done it then you've definately lost it - no argument for abortion that can also be used to justify murder is valid.

(For reference, the reason *I* think abortion isn't murder and should therefor be legal is because a foetus isn't self-aware, and hence isn't a person).

The farmer never counts his harvest by the number of seeds he ready for next years planting. I also find the whole debate very specious on the grounds it is mostly a male initiated response to a medical procedure done to a women. I wonder how men would like it if each time they were to have sex with women that they would need get test and bring a voucher guaranteeing they were fertile?

Stop with the hypocrisy already :shrug:

Firstly, I've already said that I'm in favour of legal abortion, just not for the reasons given above, and secondly the fact that I am male and the procedure is mostly done to women is nothing to do with anything.

If you believe, as I do, that A has the right to restrict B's actions if they impact on C then the relative genders of A, B and C don't make any difference to the ethics involved: I have no more and no less right to tell women what to do than I do to order other men about.

If a foetus were a person, it would have as much right to protection as any other person, and so abortion would be moral, irrespective of whether I'm male or female. As such, to show that abortion is not immoral, it is necessary to show that a foetus is not a person.

I was just trying to add addendum to you post and agree with you.

The extrapolation of a medical procedure being murder comes from an ignorance of science in general. What comes next is nut-cases implicating doctors for saving peoples lives. They will reason god wanted them to die and that is why god gave them diseases. Safe to reason a doctor removing a cancerous growth from my body does not impugn the cancers right to live but my ability to decide what is under my legal right to control.

The idea of transplants from incapacitated passed away donors sounds like like a plot from a hideous Frankenstein novel on paper. In actuality it prolongs many peoples lives often for many years and even returns sight to some through corneal transplants.

It gets back to reasoning a person in a free society is the controller of all their bodily functions. The control of any of them functions from outside force is a form of tyranny. To give a none-viable fetus citizenship status is extracting the liberty to control ones body from others.

This point of a the 'fetus' is becoming ever more mute with the advance of science in stem cell research. The question coming is of individual rights the primary or different groups moral reasoning primary. Are these groups theological rights are being trampled by an individuals right to control their own body. Most courts rule physical injury or incapacitation takes precedent over mental anguish

:puke:


"To explain why abortion should be legal, you have to justify why it isn't murder, instead of just asserting it."

I guess that you think it is so obvious that abortion isn't murder that there's no point discussing it (if I've misunderstood, please elaborate). If so, I'd suggest that there's no point you getting involved in the abortion debate - most people who oppose abortion think that it *is* murder, and if you're not willing to explain to them why they're wrong you're not going to get anywhere.

Also, I'd point out to you that if a child asked most people, including most pro-choicers, what "murder" was the answer would probably be something along the lines of "deliberately killing a human being" if they didn't want to make it too complicated, and that by that definition abortion *is* murder.

The reason it's not is because murder is actually deliberately killing a *person*. If we met another intelligent species then killing them would be murder; if we genetically engineered things which were physically human but had no minds then killing them wouldn't be. A foetus is a human; it isn't a person.

I fully agree that abortion *isn't* murder, but it's definately something that needs to be justified rather than assumed, both for logical clarity and to have any chance whatsoever of convincing people who oppose abortion.

If it was something else about what I said you object to then this may not answer your questions, but I think it's still something useful to bare in mind.

which, by the way, are indoctrinated and directed by authoritarian church figures who demand complete allegiance--- without question.

Your insistence that abortion must be justified by proving that the fetus is not a person is absurd-- and yes, beyond discussion. Hinging the human rights of women on a flimsy bit of twisted logic, demanding that WE prove that abortion IS NOT murder is arguing for the wrong side, buddy.

“Being forced to carry a pregnancy to term is a great imposition, but not so great as being killed. That's why you have to show that the foetus isn't a person and therefore doesn't have rights comparable with the mother to justify abortion.

You are using the moral bigots framing, imagery and arguments:

“If I discovered that zygotes could talk and reason and discuss the relative merits of Mozart and Brahms I'd be out there nail-bombing abortion clinics.”

“....which is why I favour abortion on demand in the first two trimesters and in some situations in the third, and why I'd choose to save the life of a child rather than a newborn baby if faced with the choice.”

“Saying "it is not their life" doesn't get you anywhere unless you're also willing to claim that you shouldn't intervene in any other murder because it's not your life.”

“...to show that abortion is not immoral, it is necessary to show that a foetus is not a person.”

“To explain why abortion should be legal, you have to justify why it isn't murder, instead of just asserting it.”

“...so, I'd suggest that there's no point you getting involved in the abortion debate.”

I’d suggest that you don’t belong in the abortion debate-- unless it’s on the other side.

If you want to convince someone they're wrong, you have to talk to them, rather than saying something completely different.

Advancing arguments for the legality of abortion which don't invalidate the arguments advanced to claim it should be illegal is a waste of time.

Demanding that you prove your case isn't arguing for any side; it's something one should do to every moral argument where there's even the slightest dispute, and even to those where there isn't if one can be bothered.

And what makes you thing I belong on the other side of the abortion debate? As I've said, I think abortion isn't murder, for the reasons I've advanced. Saying "I think X needs to be proved, and here is how to prove it" gives me a far firmer footing than saying "I think X doesn't even need to be proved, and I'm not willing to discuss whether or not it's true".

The whole premise of the purported "moral argument" with demands that WE prove abortion is not "murder";

Plus this conditional support for women's rights based on proving fetuses are not persons, saying that otherwise abortion IS murder;

And your statement:

“If I discovered that zygotes could talk and reason and discuss the relative merits of Mozart and Brahms I'd be out there nail-bombing abortion clinics”

clealy shows which side of the abortion issue you identify with.

Please read the posts and don't ask again what they mean. It's quite clear.

Demanding that we develop arguments to "convince'" people who are controlled by their church leaders is truly a waste of time.

Democrats must stand strong with women and for womens' rights-- rather than giving ambivalent support while more concerned about appeasement of the hatemongering hypocrites who would impose their moral view on the law of the land.

So is my support for every other cause - I will support it unless there's a contrary better argument. It's not possible to unconditionally support two things, because they can conflict; to unconditionally support one thing is called "fanaticism" and is a vice, not a virtue.

And as to reading posts, I have said, again and again, that I *do* support the right to abortion, *and I have given logically coherent reasons why it is right to do so*, which you haven't. Consider the difference between "I would oppose abortion if things were different" and "I oppose abortion".

Saying "I support your right to an abortion, and here is a logically coherent reason why I do so" is far more use to womens rights than saying "I support your right to an abortion, and I'm not willing to discuss whether or not I'm right to do so because that's not unconditional enough support".

And what on earth do you mean "battling arguments that are already invalid is a waste of time"? Surely it's battling *valid* arguments that is a waste of time; battling invalid arguments is often productive.

It would be very comforting to believe that all those opposed to abortion are brainwashed fundies; it would also be a very grave mistake. A lot of them are good, well-meaning people who just haven't fully thought through what murder is and why it's wrong; and therefor assume that the arguments against it apply to abortion too; pointing out to them why they don't is well worth the time it takes. Yes, there are a lot of brainwashed fundies out there too, and nothing much is going to get through to them, but convincing even a relatively small number of people to change their minds would make a big difference.

on others.

You have set up a false "conditional" proposition to hinge your argument and your support upon.

You and the fanatics can argue this til the cows come home.

As long as you realize that your personal opinion is only that-- a separate matter from the Constitutional rights of others.

You, the fanatics and others on the Democratic side who only "conditionally" support women's rights need to comprehend the distinction.

Women's rights to reproductive health and privacy under Constitutional law have been affirmed by the Supreme Court. Under the law, your personal opinion and morality are relevant to your decisions-- NOT to the decisions of others.

It is time for the Democratic Party to stand firm for women's rights and the Supreme Court decision, rather than waffling and pandering to the fanatics and others who don't understand the difference between their opinion and the law.

It is time for the Democratic Party to stand firm for all women's rights under the law, independent from what each individual would decide to do with those rights when it personally affects them.

"A lot of them are good, well-meaning people who just haven't fully thought through what murder is and why it's wrong;"

These concepts and language ("haven't fully thought through what murder is and why it's wrong" "nail-bombing abortion clinics") are repugnant and, intentionally or not, set up false arguments that are mere distractions from the core issue.

and I wish the dems would become the "mind your own business" party and extend this to other social issues...

frisson

that obsessively telling other people what to do does.

friction

of some other obsessive behavior

that's why letting consenting adults make up their own damn minds about stuff will probably never sell as a political position, not on this planet.

Too much fun to be a control freak, I guess.

you would know :evilgrin:
:hi: :yoiks:

Sure, whatever you say.

:hi:

Edit: Actually, it's weird. I seem to be missing that gene entirely. Being a cop, literally or metaphorically, has never appealed to me. Nor has monitoring the vice and virtue of other people. So long as they leave me and mine the hell alone, everyone involved is a consenting adult, and they aren't harming anyone else, I really don't care how other people get their jollies. And I don't think there is ANYONE more qualified to decide what a human should do with his or her own body than him or her self. That applies to abortion as it applies to a whole range of things people do with their bodies that seem to get other people's shorts in a bunch.

I know, I'm obviously a mutant-- and in the minority of this species.

ones life and body and future. We all have our rights to our beliefs in this country, don't we? They should be our own and not inflicted upon others. Get religion out of government and out of each others business.

We are for women and their right to decide what to do with their own bodies, as well as with the next 18-plus years of their lives.

when you bring up the 'government should stay out of my personal life' arguement is, "So, if I want to murder my neighbor then the government should just stay out of my life and let me do it."

They just pretend not to hear you when you point out the difference between a breathing human with feelings, thoughts, and experiences and a fetus. They also pretend not to hear you when you compare the mind of a fetus and the mind of, say, a dog (a dog is more self-aware than a fetus, but many conservatives don't agree with animal abuse laws).

I like "we're pro-life AFTER birth". That means that we're for increased pre-natal care, WIC, health insurance coverage for pregnant women and babies, child care, etc. Frame it as the cost of caring for all of these unwanted children.

Education about responsible behavior needs to begin in the upper elementary grades...taking care of yourself, healthy activities and respecting others. From there, sex education (including contraception) and an emphasis on future parenting skills might help to bring home the idea that sexual activity is a serious matter. Not to negate the potential for disease. A whole lot needs to be done in the area of personal responsibility. I'm tired of the argument that the government doesn't care about children after they're born. Both father and mother have the responsibility to care for their child, not the government.

Yes, keep government out of our personal lives, but instill in our children strong standards for sexual behavior. Not because the Bible of some Fundamentalist says so, but because learning to care about those who can't speak for themselves is the ethical thing to do.


A woman has the right to choose abortion, but let's help make that difficult choice exceedingly rare.

procedure to the denial of many medical procedures. The religion argument is only to distract and control a message. In reality, religion has nothing to do with this. Religion is a red herring.
It does have everything to do with people making power judgments. I believe it is a short leap into ugly territory for women.
Can you imagine going to a doctor, who tells you that (pick as many as you like)
You weigh to much
your nose is to big/small
You haven't proper lineage
you are not morally up to snuff
or your the wrong religion...
to qualify for open heart surgery??
Can you imagine congress (mostly men) determining that women are simply not worth the expense for breast cancer research or treatment?

Abortion is a medical procedure. And that is all. When we deny one medical procedure and we cloak our reasoning in religion or any other excuse we can think of...it is not long before we deny other medical procedures based on equally repugnant reasoning.

Been saying this for quite awhile, now.

I don't like abortion and neither do you. I don't know if it's murder or not and neither do you. I acknowledge that there are reasons that justify it, you don't.

Instead of fighting each other, let's invest in technology that will make abortion obsolete. We can already cryogenically freeze embryos. We can keep 5 month old fetuses alive. We can use surrogate mothers and all kinds of other nifty things. How far away is technology that would allow women to remove the fetus and keep it on ice until they were ready to bring the baby to term? How far away is the possibility of donating an embryo to an infertile couple? We can already do a lot of these things and with enough money, a national unwanted fetus freezer (of course the marketing whizzes could come up with a better name) would be entirely possible. This would remove the pressure on young women to have babies before they were ready. It would allow older couples with financial difficulties to give the baby away without the hassle of carrying it to term (or wait until the financial crisis was resolved and then have the kid.) It would prevent "murder" if that's what the fundies want to call it. And if they're really so concerned about the unwanted fetuses, they can give birth to a few of them.

While we sit around wringing our hands about right and wrong, legal and illegal, my rights and it's rights, technology is removing the necessity for this to be an either/or question. The problem is that we're so politically invested over hating each other on this issue that we haven't sat back and thought about what else is possible.

to practice medicine.

The idea that "we" are losing on "values" issues is a lie cooked up by the same people who run the four corporations that own all the major news outlets, and spew garbage propaganda 24-7 far to the right of the American public's views, all the while floating this crap about the 'liberal media'. It's brought to you by the same people who want us to believe that if we were just more Republican... less tolerant of gays, less strident about rights of personal self-determination, less insistent about that pesky establishment clause of the First Amendment, "we" might win over these elusive "heartland values voters" who, we are told, comprise some kind of fucking mandate majority in this country.

Bullshit, bullshit, and bullshit again. The MAJORITY in this country thinks the government should stay the fuck out of people's bedrooms, people's bloodstreams, and womens' uterii. The MAJORITY in this country thinks the Iraq war was a dumb-ass idea, and our boys should come home--- NOW. (Funny, aint it, then, that neither party will get behind that position?) The MAJORITY in this country is not rural, 'left behind' loonies who honestly believe there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark, the majority is Urban, suburban, and exurban, intelligent, liberal leaning, socially libertarian people who pretty much would like their personal lives to be left the hell alone by a reasonably competent government that will take care of things the free market can't address alone (like health care coverage) while not selling our children into hock or wasting all our tax dollars on illegal wars abroad and a police state at home.

Why don't the election results show that? Because, in conjunction with a media owned wholly by far right corporate interests, we have been sold a system of ever higher tech vote theft. Sure, look over here, keep courting the folks who hate gays and don't want science taught in schools... pay no attention to the Diebold GEMS central tabulator sputtering, sparking, and smoking in the corner.

But I'll say it again: "We" don't need to re-frame ANYTHING, vis a vis abortion- most Americans ARE PRO CHOICE ALREADY. Only thing we ought to be doing, and screaming from the rooftops, is that the "pro-life" movement is also ANTI BIRTH CONTROL. People who truly want to prevent abortions should be working overtime to make sure that everyone who needs contraception HAS IT- not defending the "conscience" of Jesus-drunk pharmacists who lecture rape victims instead of dispensing pills.

personally i like this argument: if it's your body: you decide, if it's my body: i decide. don't like abortion? you are free not to have an abortion...end of story.

If the government says it has oversight into very personal medical decisions, it can, for instance, say a woman cannot have an abortion...or down the road decide that the best interests of government demand that the woman must have an abortion.

Once government has established the precedent, it could go either way.

except by their church leaders anyway.

I appreciate the thought and care you put into your OP. Yet the logic and assumptions of your premise really deserve scrutiny.

This is about respect for women, women’s rights and women’s health.

“As a sound bite argument it encourages the stereotype that Republicans work so hard to pin on us Democrats: That we are the selfish, immoral people, who care only about our own personal choices, regardless of how immoral those choices are.”

:kick: You want to argue the morality of abortion-- and from a point of weakness, putting women on the defensive from the outset.

“The fallacy of that argument can be seen if we simply imagine the tables turned around the other way. What if we object to the practice of infanticide or child abuse and feel that there ought to be laws against these things (which I’m sure we all do), and someone says to us “If you think that these things are immoral, that’s fine with me, you don’t have to do it, but you have no right to tell me or anyone else what to do”.

:kick: You enable and aid the moral bigots by equating abortion with infanticide or child abuse.

“The reason it is a bad argument is because it does not address the central issue, as posed by the other side: That abortion is tantamount to murder. That is their main point, and if we engage in an argument with them and fail to address that one issue, regardless of how many valid points we do address, then we are just talking past each other.”

:kick: You propose that we have to address that abortion is “tantamount to murder” rather than stand strong with women and refute the moral bigots rights to impose their belief systems on others.

“Our “pro-choice” line of arguing this issue has no effect on these people. In fact, it probably even inclines them more towards the Republican Party, because that kind of argument has the potential to infuriate them. And it infuriates them because it doesn’t address their main concern.”

:kick: You assume that they are thinking for themselves. In fact, it infuriates them because they have been told what to believe, think and say by powerful authoritarian figures who use coercion and emotion, not logic.

“We must say that we don’t see it that way, and explain WHY we don’t see it that way. (My personal reason for believing that abortion is not murder is that I don’t believe that fetuses have thoughts or feelings, and therefore I don’t consider them to be in the same category as women, who have a lifetime of thoughts, feelings, and experience behind them... And it is that belief that allows me to weigh the rights of the pregnant woman against the life of the fetus in my considering the merits of criminalizing abortion.)

:kick: You think that your personal belief about the “category” of fetuses and women makes all the difference while you are “considering the merits of criminalizing abortion.” Like the anti-choice congregation, you think that how YOU feel about it, what YOU believe, should influence the choices and freedoms of other people. This is the REAL point that is missed. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO YOUR OPINION BUT NOT THE RIGHT TO IMPOSE IT ON OTHERS-- any more than the anti-choice flock does.

“And then, after having established why we feel that abortion is not murder, we can discuss and compare what we consider to be the harmful effects (to the pregnant woman especially, and also to the unborn child and society) of criminalizing abortion against the beneficial effects of protecting the fetus that criminalization of abortion would entail.”

:puke: You have got to be kidding.

“Nevertheless, no matter how tactfully we put forth our explanation as to why we feel that the pregnant woman’s rights should over-ride those of the fetus, this will be a courageous argument to make, because it opens us up to the possibility of severe criticism and hostility.”

:nuke: “Severe criticism”? “Hostility”? Worse than the intimidation, harassment, physical violence, murder, terrorism, etc. that has been perpetrated by anti-choice people on women, doctor’s and health centers, (and now high school students on their campuses)?

The one person on the thread that you thought really got your point had this to say:

“If I discovered that zygotes could talk and reason and discuss the relative merits of Mozart and Brahms I'd be out there nail-bombing abortion clinics.”

Back to your quotes:

“...no matter how tactfully we put forth our explanation as to why we feel that the pregnant woman’s rights should over-ride those of the fetus...”

More of “their” language. THE RIGHTS OF THE FETUS? OVER-RIDE?

Please, if you guys really want to help you need to:

Quit putting your point of view and concerns about offending fundie relatives above all else;

Respect women, women’s rights, women’s health and the power of the procreative process;

Respect the fact that women’s bodies and the life within are not TWO SEPARATE THINGS.

“Though the State cannot override that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman’s health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a ‘compelling’ point at various stages of the woman’s approach to term.”

THE POTENTIALITY OF HUMAN LIFE.

Think about it. Think about what that means. What if you thought about it from a female perspective. A biological perspective. A unified perspective.

Not a “which one is worth more because I say so” perspective.

Are the Republicans interested in the fetus, or is it the right to privacy they find offensive. A right to privacy restricts the prying eye of government and business (insurance and credit industry).

Remember back during the Reagan and first bush presidency. Every judge nominated by them said there was no right to privacy. Some Republican lawmakers (don't ask me their names, I can't remember) have stated that they were against Roe Vs Wade because it affirmed a right to privacy.

Is the Republican objection to Roe Vs Wade driven by religious belief, or their desire to have total access (power over) to the most private aspects of our lives?

"Is the Republican objection to Roe Vs Wade driven by religious belief, or their desire to have total access (power over) to the most private aspects of our lives?"


Ssshhhhhh-- don't tell anybody. Apparently it's a SECRET!

letting anyone have that level of control over what anyone else can do with their body -under any circumstance, or for any self-described 'good reason'- is plainly noxious.

privacy that they find offensive"

That is an important question, because when you argue with someone it is always best to address the issues where you disagree. If it is the right to privacy that they find offensive, then that is what we should discuss with them. If they are concerned about the fetus, then that is the issue we should discuss with them if we hope to have any basis of communication.

I happen to believe that Republican arent' a completely monolithic bunch, and that we should try to find grounds for argument with those who can be reasoned with, rather than just assume that every last one of them has sinister motives and so isn't worth talking to.

(1)-The right of women (both as an oppressed class and as individuals seeking fulfillment in a presumably "free" society) to determine and establish the terms by which women's issues are defined and debated: for example, most progressive-minded Caucasians would have never presumed to lecture Afro-Americans on how to "frame" the Civil Rights debate, at least from the Rosa Parks incident onward -- and it seems to me only elementary all progressive-minded males should automatically extend the same courtesy to women. That we sometimes do not suggests our notion of equality "needs work" (as generations of female teachers have no doubt at one time or another written on all our report cards).

(2)-Again as males, our need for broadening our collective and individual understandings of the extent to which women's issues are microcosms of the macrocosm of human issues: for example, the fact the Christian Fundamentalist attack on abortion rights is merely one prong of an unprecedented offensive against ALL women's rights and thus -- not only because of shared male/female humanity but because women are the source of all life -- against the basic principles of liberty itself.

(3)-The fact that human morals are derived from far more elementary formulations -- Jung's archetypes or Campbell's masks of god -- which makes moral consensus impossible without apriori agreement on archetypes or masks themselves: the clash of Abrahamic fundamentalists versus agnostics, atheists, adherents of various non-Abrahamic spiritualities and Abrahamic modernists -- is a clash that can never be resolved because the underlying archetypes are not only hopelessly divergent but nearly antithetical (particularly given the fundamentalists' avowed intent of global conquest and extermination of heretics).

(4)-The historically proven lethal risk of attempting compromise with people and ideologies who by their own proclamations seek not merely our oppression but our eradication: the classic historical example is of course the ruinous consequence of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler, but it is perhaps more productive to contemplate the results of the internal debates within Germany at the time (in which the left attempted ever greater compromise while Nazis became ever more intractable in their hatreds), and to contemplate too the debates in the U.S. during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s: while many of the uncommitted were rallied to the cause of civil rights, the true bigots -- the Ku Klux Klan and their ilk -- became, like the Nazis, ever more murderously unyielding. (And -- yes -- the implication the anti-abortion movement is identical in hatefulness and fanaticism to the Nazis and the Klan is not only intentional but proven unequivocally by history.)

(5)-The fact that the corporate right, both by its control of mass media and its funding of the fundamentalist revival (Christian in the U.S., Islamic in the Middle and Far East), has already seized control of the terms of the debate: what we are discussing here is the proper response -- once again the ancient question, "What Is to Be Done?" And I believe the answer is clear and simple: write off the anti-choice minority as hopelessly reactionary, close ranks, and concentrate on mobilizing the pro-choice majority (if indeed it has survived the recent conversion of 63 percent of the U.S. citizenry to Fundamentalism) -- educating ALL pro-choicers to the true significance of this issue. Though I do not for a second doubt Time for a Change's sincerity and good intentions -- surely as honest and positive as those of Chamberlain -- this (like Munich in 1938) is another instance in which compromise with the forces arrayed against us can only have disastrous (and probably fatal) results. As OM said so succinctly: we "must honor women's rights -- not pander to those who won't be swayed."


Edit: typo in head.

What I advocated was a way of discussing the issue which I felt that some well meaning fundies would find more convincing.

If you believe that ALL "pro choice" advocates are hopelessly reactionary, to the point where reasoned arguments will have no effect, then you are correct - the arguments that I advocate will not work.

But please do no put words in my mouth to the effect that I am advoctating appeasement.

Men control the power. Could you imagine making it law that a slime like Dick Cheney had to endure 9 months of pregnancy whether he liked it or not? No way in hell would it be given an ear by these same hypocrites we call Repukes!

the 4th amendment of the Constitution. NOTHING else is the argument. IF we allow it to be framed in any other manner we are allowing the slippery slope we now see ourselves in with birth control pills. Did you see Dr David Hager on TV this week on 60 minutes? This is science, he's made it politicalbased on his religious beliefs. I will not allow them to make this political by 're-framing' the issue.

U.S. Constitution: Fourth Amendment
Fourth Amendment - Search and Seizure


Amendment Text | Annotations
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.



If our founding fathers care about my VCR, they sure as hell care about my right to privacy concerning my body!

Or Family & Medical Privacy.

Frame:

This is about Family Privacy. Republican extremists have no business meddling in the affairs of my family or my doctor.