that is not true. I believe that the pregnant person should make the decision for herself, whether it be give birth or not, or give up for adoption. It should be her choice to make.
if the ongoing process of pregnancy is unwelcome, by trying to stop someone from terminating the process, you are by "default" forcing the gestation process on that person. So yes pro-lifers are trying to "enforce the gestation process". If i am pregnant and you stop me from getting an abortion, you are by default forcing me to endure pregnancy / childbirth.
This comment seems to try to refute my prior point, without addressing me directly. Your rebuttal, consists in trying to argue that preventing someone from exercising force against another one, amounts to forcing. By your logic, if I'm attracted to one given woman, and since I have the right to a satisfactory and happy sexual life (the WHO dixit), I could try to access to the desired woman unilaterally; and stopping me from doing that, would be forcing me to an unhappy sexual life. Summarizing, your point can be used to morally justify rape, and therefore is both flawed and absurd.
I'm sorry, but this is an extreme and ridiculous strawman analogy. When it comes to pregnancy, a woman has two options: abort or remain pregnant. To abort is the ONLY avenue she has to purposefully avoid remaining pregnant - it is the one singular thing she can do no longer be pregnant. By taking away that one singular thing she can do to not carry to term/go through childbirth, you inherently force her to carry to term/go through childbirth. In your analogy, having *** with that woman is not the one singular thing you can do to have a satisfactory and happy sexual life. There are other avenues available to you to achieve such without forcing yourself on this one particular woman; therefore, taking away your access to that one particular woman does not necessarily cause you an unhappy sexual life. Plus, the crux of the pro-choice argument is that no person's rights (whether it be the right to live or the right to a happy sexual life) supersede another person's bodily autonomy - so your right to a happy sexual life would not supersede the woman's bodily autonomy and rape would most definitely not be justified in that scenario. The point that "outlawing abortion forces women to remain pregnant and undergo childbirth" therefore can NOT be used to morally justify rape - you claiming that is what's absurd.
What did you think about the content of the article? Also, please correct me if I'm wrong, but you've said elsewhere that you're in favour of making abortion illegal after the first trimester. How do you reconcile that with your hardline bodily rights stance?
well, i am pro-choice, so i will not deny i am biased. I think they are trying to skirt around the issue of enforcing pregnancy. If you stop someone from interrupting a gestation process, you are by "default" forcing or enforcing or allowing (if that helps) the process to continue. Which if such person does NOT want it to continue, you are forcing them to endure it. I will use an example. You find yourself that you have a parasite in your intestines. I ban every type of medication that can kill or remove the parasite from your body. By default, i am no forcing you to live with a parasite, (because it isn't like it will leave on its own). I am removing a way for you to stop such parasite from living inside of you. Or if i stop you from going to the doctor to treat it, is another form of by default, you have to live with that parasite in your body. When you remove the alternative whether be a treatment or procedure, you are allowing the process that could be terminated or removed from continuing.
That rhetoric still seems misleading. Let's imagine that producing the medication in question required killing an endangered animal or conducting cruel experiments on humans. If this were the case, and you proposed banning the medication, I don't think it would be right to say that you're forcing me to live with the parasite. You could plausibly argue that you're not interested in forcing anyone to endure a parasitic disease, but unfortunately we don't currently have an ethical way of treating it. You would gladly support a different medication, you're just against people killing endangered animals.
It seems to me that the issue is a fairly simple semantic one: "What is the most common def. of 'to force'?" Or maybe better: "If we talk about 'forced pregnancy' or 'forced birth,' what def. of 'to force' will arise in most people's minds?" Or best: "If we talk about 'forced pregnancy' or 'forced birth,' what imagery will arise in most people's minds? Is that imagery congruent with the reality of the enforcement of pro-life laws?" When I hear someone say, "X is a forced-birther," I picture X pumping up the embryo with a bicycle pump to make it grow, then inserting herself in the uterus behind the unborn and pushing it out. That's what "force" would mean to me. It's not congruent with the reality of the enforcement of pro-life laws, and thus "misleading," as Timothy Brahm said. It's hard to prove a negative, and I think it would be an unwinnable diversion to argue that someone else's def. of force is "wrong." Better to argue that if they really spell out their def., it will conjure up an image of something innocuous – preventing violence. "If that's your def., then sure, pro-life laws call for forced birth. But the problem is that most people will understand the push-it-out def. (which pro-life laws do not call for)."
How about "enforcing birth" is that a better term? When i think of "forcing birth", i look at it more like, you are using pro-life laws to enforce gestation and birth. You want to make sure that the person does not get to escape the gestation process. Kind of like enforcing a contract, you are enforcing the person to comply with the contract, you are with laws stopping a person from terminating the "contract" gestation process" and by enforcing it on the person. What do you think about that picture in my mind?
Though I understand what you are saying. I disagree that abortion is unethical. The morality of abortion especially in the 1st trimester is subjective and Not everyone views it as a wrong.
Not everyone views rape as wrong, particularly if the woman shows too much skin or walks to the mailbox without a man next to her. There are entire rape cultures in South Africa and the Middle East, and in some cases it's considered most honourable for the victim's family to stone her to death. We still have laws in place to protect human beings from violent acts.
I understand that. Here in the United States Abortion is considered morally gray area, their is no universal acceptance or condemnation if it. It is morally subjective. Moral constructs sometimes are driven by societies acceptance or condemnation, abortion falls somewhere in between.
So what level of "universal condemnation" does something need for it to be appropriate to ban the practice? Do you think it's wrong to ban female genital cutting in countries where it's controversial?
I also want to add, here in the United States bodily autonomy is highly valued, in some ways more than the right to life, that is why abortion is somewhat accepted and regarded as a valid choice. In this country you cannot compel someone to donate blood or organs, so gestation is compared to a form of bodily or organ donation. You may disagree, but many people do believe that a woman's right to her bodily autonomy and to refuse gestation trumps anyone's "right to life" at the very least in early pregnancy. So abortion is not objectively wrong, it is very much subjective.
While Josh would likely disagree with me on this one, I don't think most people actually see pregnancy as a form of organ donation. If we take the bodily autonomy arguments to their logical conclusions, abortion should be legal up until birth (or at least viability). https://blog.equalrightsinstitute.com/bodily-rights-arguments-necessitate-extremism/ Yet that's not what the polls show. According to Gallup, a slight majority of pro-choice Americans favour limiting abortion to the first trimester (along with 90% of pro-life Americans). This is on par with the poll conducted by Marist in early 2017, indicating that over 70% of Americans would limit abortion to the first trimester (or go even further than that). http://www.gallup.com/poll/148880/plenty-common-ground-found-abortion-debate.aspx http://www.kofc.org/un/en/resources/communications/marist-poll-scotus-nominee.pdf Since the first trimester ends well before even the earliest threshold of viability, I don't think the organ donation analogy is where most people actually are.
While Josh would likely disagree with me on this one, I don't think most people actually see pregnancy as a form of organ donation. If we take the bodily autonomy arguments to their logical conclusions, abortion should be legal up until birth (or at least viability). i agree that bodily autonomy is NOT absolute, I just posted to you my middle of the road compromise, read it and let me know what you think.
I don't know it is hard to say. Abortion is different because it involves 2 people occupying the same body, and you cannot give both equal rights to the same body. That is why it is one of those gray areas that i think each person has to decide for themselves, kind of like drinking and prohibition. Some people are against drinking, and others think it is fine. Each person has to decide for themselves.
I don't know it is hard to say. I want you to think carefully about this one. You can read about female genital cutting in this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation Abortion is different because it involves 2 people occupying the same body, and you cannot give both equal rights to the same body. Why not? That is why it is one of those gray areas that i think each person has to decide for themselves, kind of like drinking and prohibition. Some people are against drinking, and others think it is fine. Each person has to decide for themselves. When you get behind a steering wheel though, it's no longer a matter of personal choice (even though "having one for the road" was widely practiced throughout most of the 20th Century). It's a matter of keeping other humans safe from harm.
That is why iam middle of the road. I believe a woman's right comes first at 1st trimester to refuse the use of her uterus by the embroyo and has a right to have it removed. At the same time do believe in fetus having more consideration after 12 weeks. Meaning more restrictions maybe with exceptions for health or birth defects. I am trying to be fair to both, I think this would be a reasonable compromise. Where the woman would have up to 12 weeks to decide for purely elective reasons.
But by accepting limits on second and third trimester abortions, by your own definition you're forcing women to endure pregnancy and childbirth. You and I might disagree by a few months on when the gestational limit should be, or what kinds of exceptions should be permitted. But it's dishonest and inflammatory to say that pro-lifers are all about forced birth and you're all about freedom for women. There's clearly a lot more going on.
Abortion is different because it involves 2 people occupying the same body, and you cannot give both equal rights to the same body. Why not? Because it is impossible, you cannot have both claim the same body, the body either belongs to the woman or it belongs to the fetus? So the question becomes, who owns the uterus, does the woman or does the fetus/embryo? Does the embryo/fetus rights supersede the mother's or vice versa? Their is much disagreement in this area, this issue is difficult, some people side with the embryo/fetus, some with the mother, who is right? That is why i said what i said, it is a gray area with different moral intuitions and opinion with really no consensus.
To help you think a bit more about your questions, I've thought of a scenario. Instead of thinking about it in terms of a woman's body, think about a one-room apartment where the woman lives with her baby. The woman goes to work, pays the babysitter, buys food, and pays the bills. It is, for all intents and purposes, the woman's apartment. But as soon as the woman's child can talk, he's going to call it "his home", even if his mom is the one paying for it. Just like she's his mom even though she is also her own person. Going off that scenario, I would say that the baby has just as much right to be in the apartment as his mom because he has a right to life and it would be child endangerment for the mother to kick him out.
I disagree an apartment is not the same as a uterus. My view about this is that it is about the woman's body. It is her body that is doing the gestating. She has the right to refuse anyone from using her body against her will. NOBODY born or unborn have a right to life inside the body of another. Sorry you will not convince me that a woman loses her rights to her uterus.
I disagree an apartment is not the same as a uterus. My view about this is that it is about the woman's body. Nobody says they're exactly the same. The point is that two people can have an equal right to occupy something even if only one of them is actually the owner.
the point is that two people can have an equal right to occupy something even if only one of them is actually the owner. At the same time the owner has the right to have it removed since the owner owns the space (uterus) it resides in. Just like if you are renting a house, the owner has a right to evict you, tell you to leave because he will be selling the house, or just does not want you living there.
Stopping a woman from having an abortion by making it illegal would not force her to endure pregnancy. Abolishing abortion does not automatically make every fertile woman pregnant. I believe that is what the article is addressing: that a sexual act between a man and a woman has the potential for conceiving a child, and it is their responsibility, not the pro-lifers', if that is the result of their actions. Implying that there is some threatening action, and not a desire to love all people no matter their stage in life, behind the pro-life movement is a danger to the cause. Using phrases like "desiring forced pregnancy/parenthood" is very weighty wording. It can have the effect of equating pro-lifers to rapists and sexually abusive spouses, when the reality is we want to help parents, especially mothers, in difficult situations to come to the best conclusion about what is best for both her and her child. But we can't do that if abortion is constantly presented as a viable option, even if it is only offered as a last resort.
If abortion is illegal and a woman has no choice but to stay pregnant she is being forced. A world where abortion is illegal and women are no longer seen as people who can make choices about their own body is a nightmare. Sex does not mean a woman agrees to be pregnant and to give up everything.
Just think of abortion this way. When a woman has an abortion she may be getting rid of the doctor who finds a cure for a disease or becomes the president exc.
Please correct me if I'm wrong; I really want to understand your position on this. The way I understand your position is that you have two objections as to why abortion should become illegal: one, that a woman should not have to remain pregnant if she does not want to because it puts limitations on her body, and two, that sex is about more than conceiving a child. Therefore, (assuming I have correctly interpreted your perspective) if a conceived infant is the result of a sexual act, then the woman should be able to abort her child because she did not want to become pregnant?
I actually agree that the purpose of sex is not just to become pregnant. There is something beautiful about a man and a woman coming together and giving themselves completely to each other. I see it as an unparalleled expression of love (with the exception of jumping in front of a bullet to protect someone, but I can't imagine that happens very often). I also agree that intercourse should be a choice made by the woman, but it should be a decision made in agreement with the man in question as well. However, I disagree with your earlier statement that a woman gives up everything by becoming pregnant. There have been so many women who are successful in life who are also mothers. I believe that it is actually empowering to women of all ages to know that there are women who are CEOs, engineers, doctors, etc. that are also great moms. That there are women who have the strength and skill to be successful in a career and successful in their family lives. While motherhood is not for every woman, I think a statement that women "give up everything" by choosing parenthood devalues the women who decide to become mothers, in a sense, because it makes it seem as if that was a bad decision on their part. It must also be taken into consideration that a woman can have sex without becoming pregnant, without even taking contraceptive measures.
When a pregnancy is unwanted the woman is giving up everything and gaining nothing. I think it should go without saying that I mean unwanted pregnancies. Not all women see popping out a kid as empowering. Some see it as empowering to stay child free and to focus on their career and relationship.
Could you explain a little more what you mean by "giving up everything and gaining nothing"? I find your word choice to be a bit confusing. To clarify, I agree that not all women would be empowered by pregnancies. Depending on the woman, a pregnancy could take a lot out of her, or maybe it's just not in her personality or temperament to be able to or want to be a mother, and that is perfectly fine. I am also not trying to say that women who decide to not have children are weak or bad people for not wanting to be mothers because they do not feel it is a good fit for them. Being a mother is a very demanding vocation. But my earlier point was not that just the women who work and have kids were empowered by their own life decisions, although that was part of it. I said that it was empowering to know (i.e. for me to know) that there are women who can be successful in a demanding career while being a great mom. What I meant, although I did not explicitly say it, was that working women who are mothers can be great inspiration because those women who have accomplished so much have shown by living out their calling just some of the ways a woman can be strong. They can be great role models by inspiring their fellow women to achieve just as much in whatever it is they want to do.
I think that the author does not understand that not allowing a woman to have an abortion is forcing her to stay pregnant. If you take away her only choice - she is forced to do whatever is left, even if she would rather not.
It seems pretty clear to me that he understands that. He said this much in the article: Saying “don’t kill” has consequences. For Molly, it means a difficult life. For women who are considering abortion, it means any number of tough things, like dropping out of college, the pain of childbirth, the pain of placing a child for adoption or the hardship of raising a child. But the person who says “killing is wrong” is not forcing these consequences on her any more than a person who says “bank robbery is wrong” forces someone to be in poverty.
Not everyone is in agreement that abortion is an objective wrong. The morality of it is subjective , it is not universally condemned, so each person has to decide for themselves .
Someone has a choice to get out of poverty. It's not like robbery is the only choice. For a lot of women abortion is the only choice to avoid those things. Forcing a woman to stay pregnant is forcing all of those bad things on her
Anyone that's actually lived in poverty would be able to tell you that it's very difficult to get out (unless you get extremely lucky with the Powerball). It's not just a matter of "choosing" not to be poor anymore. And for many people, they start out in poverty by no fault of their own. Last I checked, women don't start out pregnant. This comic might be helpful to you. https://i.pinimg.com/736x/2a/79/a1/2a79a10f006ba952c20856756af63ed8--short-comics-comic-artist.jpg
I was very poor awhile back. I went back to school and have an amazing job now. It was a lot of work but I didn't have to rely on anyone to take care of me.
Yes... but for some people it could if they made better choices. I know not everyone, but I know a guy who spends all his money on booze and won't get a real job because he couldn;t drink all night.
Absolutely, there are people like that (just as there are women that could have avoided pregnancy had they made better decisions). But that's not everyone. For some people, it is not just a matter of choosing not to be poor.
Nobody is saying anyone deserves to be punished, we're saying that using violence to solve your problems isn't acceptable (even if you're only unlucky rather than careless).
the rest of my comment got cut off: For a person who just does NOT want to be pregnant, you trying to stop someone from terminating the gestation process, can be perceived as coercion and or allowing an unwelcome gestation process to continue, that is a violation of a woman's rights to her body. And adoption is NOT an alternative to gestation, gestation is non-transferrable, either gestation is completed or not. I hope that make sense.
Stopping an ALREADY pregnant person from terminating is "forcing the gestationg process to continue" does that wording more clear to you? I equate pro-lifers with trying to enforce childbirth. If a woman does NOT want to continue a pregnancy, and you say that she has to stay pregnant even against her will, then yes that is a form of "enforcing or coercing" childbirth. I will put it to you this way. If i become pregnant and i refuse to
I see your perspective more clearly now, I think. I apologize if I seemed calloused before. I must have misinterpreted what you were trying to convey. Perhaps you could explain to me a bit more about your viewpoint on bodily rights?
i am glad that i made sense to you. I have hard time communicating this way sometimes. As far as bodily rights. We all have rights to not have our bodies be used (gestation, giving blood, organ donation) without our consent. I believe pregnancy falls under this category. Now of course i don't consider a 1st trimester embryo a person with rights to use a woman's body to live. I don't mean to sound callous, but i believe a woman's right to not have her body used against her will even if the embryo dies. Now i do believe in reasonable restrictions further along in pregnancy. I am not sure if i consider a fetus a person, but at the very least should not be aborted will nilly after say 2nd trimester without a good reason ( woman's health, birth defects, defomities). At 1st trimester i do believe a woman's right to refuse gestation should supersede the embryos right to life. That is my position on this issue.
I agree that people have rights to their own bodies; they are not objects to be used. I also agree that causing pregnancy against the will of the woman i.e. conceiving an infant in rape is wrong. To be used sexually by someone else for their sheer pleasure is a heinous crime, and the perpetrator needs to be punished. A lot of struggles can also come from being pregnant, and childbirth is painful. However, I see a problem with placing the woman's right to her body over the life of a child because I believe personhood begins at conception. Could you expound a little more on your opinion of pre-born rights and what constitutes a person?
Well it is a philosophical question, i don't consider the pre-born being persons until late in pregnancy like 20 weeks and on, or at birth. I don't consider they having MORE rights than the pregnant woman, i believe her rights come first. Of course legally the pre-born are not persons until birth. I would consider them probably at 20 weeks and on when they have developed a brain and possibly feel pain.
Correct me if I'm wrong. As I understand it, you consider the dividing line between personhood and not to be the development of a brain and the perception of pain?
You've said that this is a philosophical question, and I agree that one's understanding of what makes a person a person depends on what set of beliefs that person adopts. But what I'm trying to understand is what you understand to be the qualities of a pre-born child that make him a person. Is it viability, or neural development, or something else?
In all this interesting discussion, I'm surprised nobody has pointed out that while a full term pregnancy is often inconvenient and leads to minor or moderate health issues, those are relatively small and usually easily mitigated in the grand scheme of things. For women with relatively normal pregnancies and deliveries who choose to adopt out their babies, they could get by with just being set back 6 months or a year in their education or career. Are we so selfish that we'd rather abort than face the comparatively minor consequences of our own bad decision (having sex at a time when we couldn't accept the potential outcome of a child)?
Thanks for your comment! Tim doesn't make this point because it is not all that helpful for pro-choice person to change their mind. Often times a smart and charitable pro-choice person will respond to this common point by saying something like, "Assuming you're right, that pregnancy is a minor convenience, the woman should not be legally obligated to go through that minor convenience, even if in the grand scheme of things it will save the child's life. This is because we should not legally deny her bodily autonomy during pregnancy in the same way we do not legally require people to donate blood, even if it would save another's life. Donating blood is a minor inconvenience, especially for people who don't like needles, but we don't legally force people to do so because it is a violation of their own autonomy." As the pro-life advocate it is important to point out that abortion is a different kind of choice than donating blood to help someone. Abortion is not just refusing help, it is intentional killing. It is about the kind of action it is, not the severity of the consequences. You do make a good point in your comment that I think is very helpful for some pro-choice people to think about. We are responsible for our choices. We you have sex you engage in an act that you know might result in the creation of an inherently needy child to whom you owe compensation. Sex has a direct cause and effect relationship with pregnancy, so we have different moral obligations to the child than if we did not participate in the act which created them.
I've seen people use this language against pro-lifers before and it never made sense. This article explains why it's just plain false to say that pro-lifers are forcing someone to do something as if pro-lifers are the ones getting all the women in the world pregnant somehow.
UPDATE: One of our original changes included turning off guest commenting to make it easier to enforce our comments policy. Unfortunately this had the unintended side effect of virtually banning several or our commenters who are uncomfortable with creating Disqus accounts. So we did some googling and came to believe that we can still attempt to enforce the policies while allowing guest commenting. Given that, we've reinstating guest commenting abilities on our blog. We've updated the comments policy to be more clear about what is and is not okay in comments on our blog. Because of the update above, the primary change is this extended section on what is not allowed: The goal of the comments section on this blog is simply and unambiguously to promote productive dialogue. But there is a major obstacle to that goal: the internet is a terrible place for dialogue. People are much more inclined to be poor at dialogue and impossible to reason with on the internet. Our solution is to ruthlessly and without warning ban anyone that is engaging in poor dialogue activity (as outlined below) for the good of all. The result of this is that some people we ban will not appreciate or agree with it. That is unavoidable. Some of these calls will be a simple matter of our discretion. If you want to debate people in a free-for-all environment where you can say anything you want, go to almost any other part of the internet. If you want to dialogue respectfully, charitably, and reasonably, we hope you’ll find this to be a helpful place to seek truth with us. Examples of bannable bad dialogue activity include (but is not limited to): being snarky, disrespectful, off-topic, libelous, flagrantly uncharitable, defamatory, abusive, harassing, threatening, profane, pornographic, offensive, false, misleading, or which otherwise violates or encourages others to violate my sense of decorum and civility or any law, including intellectual property laws; or (d) “spam,” i.e., an attempt to advertise, solicit, or otherwise promote goods and services. You may, however, post a link to your site or your most recent blog post.
If we think about what a pregnancy is and what an abortion is, it's kinda paradoxical that we, pro-lifers, are the ones accused of forcing anything. Our stance consists in letting an ongoing process follow its natural course, whereas in order to "terminate" the given pregnancy, it's necessary to use force. The spontaneous, physiological and healthy outcome of a pregnancy is birth, for an abortion to happen it's indispensable to exercise violence.
so where would you stop? obviously not everyone can go on living like before and give birth to a healthy baby. would you make it illegal for a pregnant person to drink alcohol or take medication that may affect the fetus? would you check their browser history for things like "how to cause miscarriage" (or an innocent "what causes miscarriage")? don't you think that a ban on abortions will prevent people from getting medical appointments if they're not sure they're willing to carry the pregnancy to term?
"Saying “don’t kill” has consequences. For Molly, it means a difficult life. For women who are considering abortion, it means any number of tough things, like dropping out of college, the pain of childbirth, the pain of placing a child for adoption or the hardship of raising a child. But the person who says “killing is wrong” is not forcing these consequences on her any more than a person who says “bank robbery is wrong” forces someone to be in poverty." I'm sorry, but you guys act as if you have no problem with this. There are no consequences for the man, and pregnancy can be very difficult for the woman (pelvic floor issues, etc). I have three answers:
1) We must get busy inventing technology that allows women not to remain pregnant without killing if that is what they want, plus better contraception. 2) We need to start thinking in a more community-minded sense, start pitching in and helping (even with the ungodly daycare centers) so that the woman doesn't have to drop out of college. Also consider that part of the reason women drop out of college is they feel an intense responsibility to their children, heavily impressed on them by society, that men don't feel; we must reform this so that women don't have to lose their careers. Unfortunately our society is so selfish that I doubt either of these things will happen. 3) You would think that if women should morally carry to term, without inventions and other such, that prolifers would feel more morally obligated to get into the medical, pharmaceutical, and physiotherapy professions and come up with new, inventive ways to help women to overcome, or significantly reduce the chances of morning sickness, pelvic floor problems, etc., because they care about women and want to help them do the right thing. But so far, I have seen nothing of the kind. The fact that you come across as if you couldn't care less about someone losing their dreams makes me blush for you, to be honest. It's so easy to preach and tell people what is right when everything is going right for us. If prolifism isn't about suppressing women (I know it's not but the attitudes and behaviour of some people sure make me wonder) then we need to confirm that by doing things that make it easier for the woman to do the right thing. This attitude of not caring is, ironically, counterproductive to women doing what is right, because such apathy could actually lead the woman think "Oh, well, no one cares, might as well have an abortion because there's no other way to fulfill my dreams." Shame on you!
Crystal, rule #4 of our comments policy is this: "You may disagree with me. I welcome debate. However, I ask that if you disagree with me—or anyone else, for that matter—do so in a way that is respectful. In my opinion, there is way too much shouting in the public square to tolerate it here." https://blog.equalrightsinstitute.com/comment-policy-2/ This comment is honestly one of the least respectful comments I've ever seen. We have this comments policy, which is admittedly stricter than many others, for a reason. We want to encourage a certain kind of dialogue, and comments like this make that impossible. As a result of how ridiculously rude you're being, especially when you've been around our material enough to know better, I'm banning you from being able to comment on the blog.
Reposting our decision about Crystal below for visibility: Crystal, because of your apology, Tim and I have decided to un-ban you. A few things I'd like to say for clarity. It makes total sense to me that you were so rude because you had a bad day and this post triggered you in an unexpected way or something. We've all had bad days and lashed out at people. However, I find your explanation that your comment was directed at the pro-life movement and not the author of this piece to be very strange. "I blush for you" and "shame on you" are not statements directed at the movement. You directed that at Tim. I think that's about as obvious as anything can be. However, we still accept your apology, and want you to consider this a warning. We really want to create a productive dialogue atmosphere on our blog, and we don't have that right now. We'll be updating our comments policy, probably later today, to make it more clear what is and is not okay on this blog. But the basic goal is for people to feel respected and safe to disagree with each other without being attacked. Unfortunately the only way to accomplish that these days is to have a very strict comments policy and to be fairly ruthless in policing it. That's our plan moving forward.
Hi! I second Josefarma´s appeal. Crystal was coming across too strong in her post, assuming too much and being too hostile. But, I do not think a ban was justified; as Jose points out below, a warning would be a better idea. If you just warn her, she can abstain from making inflammatory comments like this one. Most times, she is a very civil and respectful poster, in my experience. She´s a great contribution to a website, and I think banning her would be a loss for your comments section Sincerely Pere Callahan
I'm new on this forum but, with all due respect, I'm going to dare to speak on behalf of Crystal, and ask for you to reconsider the banning. I think that if she committed any wrongdoing, a warning would be both more effective and more just than a banning. After all, I've seen that she has apologized and that's a sign of good faith. I know that this blog follows stricter commenting rules than many others but, on the other hand, I think that speaking on behalf of another poster, could be good to exercise debate skills (one the of main points of this blog); I'd be interested in your thoughts on my petition and whether or not I have formulated it properly. Thanks for your time.
Crystal, because of your apology, Tim and I have decided to un-ban you. A few things I'd like to say for clarity. It makes total sense to me that you were so rude because you had a bad day and this post triggered you in an unexpected way or something. We've all had bad days and lashed out at people. However, I find your explanation that your comment was directed at the pro-life movement and not the author of this piece to be very strange. "I blush for you" and "shame on you" are not statements directed at the movement. You directed that at Tim. I think that's about as obvious as anything can be. However, we still accept your apology, and want you to consider this a warning. We really want to create a productive dialogue atmosphere on our blog, and we don't have that right now. We'll be updating our comments policy, probably later today, to make it more clear what is and is not okay on this blog. But the basic goal is for people to feel respected and safe to disagree with each other without being attacked. Unfortunately the only way to accomplish that these days is to have a very strict comments policy and to be fairly ruthless in policing it. That's our plan moving forward.
I consider it only fair to attempt to explain the purpose of my comment. I meant it as a rebuke against the mainstream religious PL movement, rather than as a personal criticism of you and Tim, okay? Please consider the online interactions we have had for years; I am an admirer of your work, so tell me when have I ever unreasonably attacked you and Tim, and why would I start now? My comment was not intended the way you took it. It was not meant to attack you or Tim, at all. At the same time, I repeat that if you are willing to give me another chance, I will apologise and be very happy to discuss the comment with you, properly.
Please do not ban Crystal. She is actually one of the most civil commentators I have run across. She is definitely pro-life, but she also, very often, bends over backwards to be fair to the arguments that legal abortion supporters are making. This was one of those times. If we are going to ever 'reach' the other side, we have to understand their thinking. I am totally for social reforms like paid maternity leave, universal healthcare, affordable childcare, and more financial aid to struggling families. I think those are the right things to do, AND I believe these reforms would save unborn lives. I also hope for a future with effective, cheap, safe, and easily reversible sterilization techniques. Artificial wombs, accompanied by effective and safe 'womb rescue' of unwanted young would also be a plus. I also strongly favor changing our current abortion-on-demand laws. In fact, I beleive there is a case to be made that the unborn are ALREADY protected under the 14th Amendment. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/08/19758/ We need reasoning pro-life advocates like her on this blog.
I had no desire to engage in ad homs, by the way. I was pointing out a problem, a flaw, with the thinking. But I could have done it differently; I will admit that.
"As a result of how ridiculously rude you're being, especially when you've been around our material enough to know better, I'm banning you from being able to comment on the blog." I wasn't trying to be rude. I was having a hard day and was just frustrated. Usually I am very patient and I have never attacked any commenters on this blog; I certainly did not intend my comment as an attack on anything, but rather trying to point out a problem. But if it makes you feel better, I'd be happy to apologise humbly for such hostility and discuss this issue properly with you. I am concerned about it and would really appreciate if you would lift the ban and let me try again.
Welcome back. We all get pretty emotional about all the ratifications of abortion, in our own way. I pointed out in my earlier post that I favor a lot of social reforms to aid pregnant women and struggling families. I would also like to make it clear that I feel abortion is not the answer, even when times are hard. This link gives the historical perspective of perhaps the earliest prolifer, Dr. Horatio Robinson Storer, in the 1850s. https://churchpop.com/2016/02/23/19th-c-pro-life-doctor-hero/ Remember, there were no 'social safety nets' at all during this period, and abortion (along with childbirth) were far more dangerous than they are today. But, even in that scenorio, he still opposed abortion for mostly the same reason prolifers do today--that it unjustly kills a defenseless human being.
Crystal You should not apologize, you brought up legitimate points about women and the hardships of pregnancy and childbirth. Remember what i told you before about bodily autonomy on SPL, I support what you said.
I got banned, gladys. I am very upset about that especially as I have never been banned from any forum before, for any reason, and have been one of the most polite and respectful commenters on this forum. I suppose the way I came across was more aggressive than usual, and I am prepared to respond in a more charitable fashion if given another chance; people need to allow others to vent and express anger at the same time, I think. But thanks for the support. I don't think I'll be responding to too many comments on this thread as I don't want to be banned again.
I told you that pro-lifers do not care about a woman's bodily autonomy. I was trying to warn you about that. You got banned because you said the truth, you were NOT rude.
Gladys, it's amazing to me that you think a comment saying "I blush for you" and "shame on you" is not rude. It is precisely the kind of comment we have always had a policy of banning for because it causes other people to be afraid to post their thoughts for fear of being attacked. The fact that you believe Crystal was not being rude says a lot about your character. This comment is also an implication that we at ERI don't care about bodily autonomy. It's fine for you to disagree with us, but as our comments policy has always clearly said, misleading comments about other people are not allowed. Tim and I are among the foremost voices in the pro-life movement stating that "bodily autonomy arguments are not stupid and should be taken seriously." We have plenty of material on this blog to show that, and it's a ridiculously uncharitable read of this article to take it as a statement that bodily autonomy doesn't matter. If you didn't even read the article and just made a sweeping judgement based on how you think all pro-lifers are, then that's even worse. Consider this a final warning. This comment is a clear violation of our comments policy, and the next violation won't be tolerated. We'll be updating our comments policy later today to make it more clear what is and is not okay in our blog comments section. I'll post the update as a top comment on this article since this is where we've been having problems lately. But the basic goal is for people in the comments under our blog to feel respected and safe to disagree with each other without being attacked. Unfortunately the only way to accomplish that these days is to have a very strict comments policy and to be fairly ruthless in policing it. That's our plan moving forward.
I understand you have a strict policy, at the same time you have to understand that this is an emotionally charged topic, and you cannot expect people to not have emotions over this. I also do remember stating to me 'not to worry about offending"?
Gladys, if you’re referring to the blog post where we encourage people to say in in-person dialogues that the other person can’t offend us, that isn’t a license for people to act offensively on our blog. In-person conversations are very different than online conversations.
well, i still think you were to harsh with Crystal, and she was speaking out of frustration which is understandable. I am glad you have re-instated her, she is very kind and generally not offensive.
I'm not asking people to be emotionless. I'm asking them to be respectful. Can you send me a link to my comment where I told you not to worry about offending? I'm guessing I meant that in a narrower sense than you're interpreting it, but if I could see the context I'd be happy to clarify.
you said that to me when you and i emailed each other a few months ago, the conversation was short lived. We talked about relativism and bodily autonomy, and you said i was rude and you stopped talking to me. I don't know if i still have the emails on my phone.
I have the email exchange. I thanked you for sharing your views with me and ended the dialogue because you were ridiculously uncharitable in the way you interpreted my arguments, you indicated closed-mindedness over and over, and you attacked my character by calling me cruel and dehumanizing. Yeah, I don't continue dialogues with people who do that.
Your ability to interpret a statement in the most uncharitable way possible is impressive. Anyone that follows our work at all knows that we care about both the mother and the baby. There is nothing wrong with the section of the blog post that you quoted at the top of your comment. The purpose of that statement, and the blog post as a whole, wasn't to address what society should do about abortion (we've addressed that topic extensively elsewhere). It was very specifically focused on the misleading rhetoric of saying pro-lifers are "forcing" women to be pregnant. You read into that as a statement that we don't care about women. You're the one that should be ashamed of yourself and you shouldn't expect me to spend much time, if any, replying to you in the future.
"'is not forcing these consequences on her'" Of course the author would be the best person to reply to this, but as one reader, I didn't understand this to mean "is not at all instrumental in causing these consequences." I understood the whole article to mainly be taking issue with the word "force."
I'm honestly not sure what this difference in wording is supposed to mean; could you please explain? What I'm concerned about is the very real possibility - nay, probability - that the apathy shown in the quote might just encourage someone to consider abortion as a way out. Prolifers need to do a lot better than that. Please read my comment carefully and respond to the thoughts therein if you wish to comment; thanks in advance.
I didn't read carefully enough last night (where I am) when I wrote that. The paragraph you quoted could be misconstrued as a denial of pro-lifers' causal role in the hardships of continuing pregnancy, and I thought you were misconstruing it that way. You weren't, but I wonder if you aren't misconstruing it another way. To me the enumeration of "tough things" in that paragraph shows empathy and compassion as far as it goes, not apathy. I think the reason it does not go farther and voice a loud call for pitching in and helping is that pitching in and helping is not the subject matter of the article. I don't see how the absence of that loud call is evidence that the author doesn't think pitching in and helping is important, or evidence that, for all we know, he may not spend a lot of his time pitching in and helping. It seems to me that saying "apathy" puts a burden on you to show that there is apathy, which is not shown just by the fact that the subject matter of this particular article doesn't happen to be pitching in and helping. "respond to the thoughts therein if you wish to comment" Regarding your number 1, one time No Brown M&Ms, who has a scientific background, said that artificial-womb technology was probably feasible, but he calculated that it would almost certainly be too labor-intensive and otherwise expensive to be widely used. What is your response to that? Before I talk about other points, I'd like to ask if you agree with me that once there's an unwanted pregnancy, we have to start thinking about the least of all the evils, and there is rarely going to be a perfectly happy outcome. Do you agree? As regards fulfilling dreams, isn't it the human condition that everyone dreams way more than can ever be fulfilled? We should have "the courage to change the things we can" for the benefit of women in crisis pregnancies, and the courage to make our share or more than our share of the sacrifices, but we should also have the wisdom to recognize there is no such thing as a free lunch.
"Even a pro-choice person should agree with me that it is misleading to say that Debbie is forcing Molly to be a parent, and if it is misleading language in that case, then it is misleading in the case of pro-lifers and abortion." Like a lot of pro-choice arguments, this pro-choice rhetoric must generally contain the hidden assumption that the unborn does not have the moral value of a born person. Maybe you can get the pro-choicer to admit that and move on to that discussion. Given that assumption, "forced pregnancy" would not be misleading. But the one I've heard most is "forced birthers." Yet "forced birthers" is problematic even if the unborn has no moral value. Because it is nature, not pro-life laws, that causes the unborn to grow, causes contractions to start, etc.
I don't think the rhetoric of "force" is only misleading if they assume the unborn doesn't have serious moral status. It's misleading even if they are primarily arguing from a bodily rights perspective, which they usually are. In terms of the Debbie/Molly thought experiment, none of them would deny that Molly's son Jason is a human person, but it is still misleading to say that Debbie is forcing Molly to be a parent.
Thanks. "I don't think the rhetoric of 'force' is only misleading if they assume the unborn doesn't have serious moral status." I said that given that assumption "forced pregnancy" would not be misleading.
Gotcha, I'm tracking. I think if an embryo is a non-person that will one day become a person, and if early in pregnancy you shouldn't consider the pregnant woman a mother, then "forced parenthood" would not be misleading rhetoric. It seems like "forced pregnancy" still would be misleading because she's already pregnant, but if the embryo isn't a person that isn't really a big deal. You don't need to justify abortion with "forced pregnancy" language if the embryo isn't a person.
Thanks. How about "If an embryo is a non-person that will one day become a person, then 'forced pregnancy' still would be technically misleading because she's already pregnant, but if the pro-choicer means or says 'forced continuation of pregnancy,' it would be reasonable" – ? Switching to the topic of "if they are primarily arguing from a bodily rights perspective, which they usually are," I now agree that "forced pregnancy/birth" must often be part of a bodily-rights argument. Thanks for clarifying that. (And I think specifically that they are trying to equate pro-life laws with forced organ donation in language terms as well as in their usual terms.) But then what about your: Even a pro-choice person should agree with me that it is misleading to say that Debbie is forcing Molly to be a parent, and if it is misleading language in that case, then it is misleading in the case of pro-lifers and abortion. If I understand correctly, your basic argument in your article is not that pro-lifers don't want to exert force at all, but that the intent of the force, just as when Molly's filicide is outlawed, is to prevent killing, and the fact that that leaves Molly with a child on her hands is a foreseen but unintended consequence ("other things naturally follow from that"). Thus though Molly is in fact forced to continue parenting (until she can make some other permissible arrangement for her child), "forced parenting" or even "forced continuation of parenting" would mislead as to the intent. Is that correct? (Whereas if an embryo didn't have serious moral status, prevention of killing would not be a legitimate intent, so the intent of pro-life laws would have to be continuation of pregnancy, and "forced continuation of pregnancy" would not be misleading.) If your basic argument does indeed use an intent framework, then within that framework, couldn't the bodily-rights cohort reply to your above sentence with "I do agree with you that it is misleading to say that Debbie is forcing Molly to be a parent, but I do not agree that it is misleading in the case of pro-lifers and abortion. Prevention of killing would not be a legitimate intent in preventing abortion, because unlike Molly, a woman whose unborn is using her body has a right to kill. Therefore the intent seems to be forced continuation of pregnancy" – ?
“Forced continuation of pregnancy” would be weird, but at least more reasonable if the unborn is not a human person but will become one at some point during pregnancy. But again, if the unborn isn’t a human person, you don’t need this kind of language to justify abortion. “If I understand correctly, your basic argument in your article is not that pro-lifers don't want to exert force at all, but that the intent of the force, just as when Molly's filicide is outlawed, is to prevent killing, and the fact that that leaves Molly with a child on her hands is a foreseen but unintended consequence ("other things naturally follow from that").” I’m definitely not appealing to double-effect distinctions. I think an argument like that is more specific than mine is intended to be. I’m just saying, “Look at the Molly case. Clearly it’s rhetorically cheating for Molly to say that Debbie is forcing her to have a bad life or something.” I’m undecided what the best way is to explain what the nature of the rhetorical cheating is. I’m not personally inclined to appeal to intent, primarily because I think it’s too slippery (as your last paragraph demonstrates). I’m probably more inclined to distinguish between people being prohibited from doing things and people being forced to do things. Pro-lifers are not forcing women to walk through a specific door, we are just closing the doors that involve murder. The fact that they don’t like the alternatives isn’t our fault. I’m not sure yet what the best way would be to spell out those distinctions yet, but the Molly case shows that something is definitely wrong.
Or maybe we could say that "forced pregnancy/birth" is designed to justify the legality of abortion, but to do so indirectly, by how it characterizes the effects of pro-life laws.
Thanks again. I appreciate your taking the time for this. "'Forced continuation of pregnancy' would be weird" Naturally they would look for a catchier turn of phrase, but might not "forced continuation of pregnancy" nevertheless turn out, if they are pinned down, to be what they mean by "forced pregnancy"? "if the unborn isn’t a human person, you don’t need this kind of language to justify abortion." I think that both the isn’t-a-human-person cohort and the bodily-rights cohort already had expansive formulations to justify abortion before the "forced pregnancy/birth" phrase came along. Couldn't we say that that phrase is not designed exactly to directly add to their justifications for abortion, but rather to characterize what they claim to be the real effect of pro-life laws? Aren't they saying in effect, "Pro-life laws don’t legitimately prevent killing as advertised, because (due to isn’t-a-human-person or bodily rights) killing is not illegitimate. So what do those laws accomplish? All they accomplish is to force (the continuation of) pregnancy, either incidentally because pro-lifers are stupid, or because pro-lifers irrationally want those embryos to grow, or to punish women" – ?
So yes pro-lifers are trying to "enforce the gestation process".
If i am pregnant and you stop me from getting an abortion, you are by default forcing me to endure pregnancy / childbirth.
Your rebuttal, consists in trying to argue that preventing someone from exercising force against another one, amounts to forcing. By your logic, if I'm attracted to one given woman, and since I have the right to a satisfactory and happy sexual life (the WHO dixit), I could try to access to the desired woman unilaterally; and stopping me from doing that, would be forcing me to an unhappy sexual life.
Summarizing, your point can be used to morally justify rape, and therefore is both flawed and absurd.
I will use an example. You find yourself that you have a parasite in your intestines. I ban every type of medication that can kill or remove the parasite from your body. By default, i am no forcing you to live with a parasite, (because it isn't like it will leave on its own). I am removing a way for you to stop such parasite from living inside of you. Or if i stop you from going to the doctor to treat it, is another form of by default, you have to live with that parasite in your body.
When you remove the alternative whether be a treatment or procedure, you are allowing the process that could be terminated or removed from continuing.
You could plausibly argue that you're not interested in forcing anyone to endure a parasitic disease, but unfortunately we don't currently have an ethical way of treating it. You would gladly support a different medication, you're just against people killing endangered animals.
When I hear someone say, "X is a forced-birther," I picture X pumping up the embryo with a bicycle pump to make it grow, then inserting herself in the uterus behind the unborn and pushing it out. That's what "force" would mean to me. It's not congruent with the reality of the enforcement of pro-life laws, and thus "misleading," as Timothy Brahm said.
It's hard to prove a negative, and I think it would be an unwinnable diversion to argue that someone else's def. of force is "wrong." Better to argue that if they really spell out their def., it will conjure up an image of something innocuous – preventing violence. "If that's your def., then sure, pro-life laws call for forced birth. But the problem is that most people will understand the push-it-out def. (which pro-life laws do not call for)."
When i think of "forcing birth", i look at it more like, you are using pro-life laws to enforce gestation and birth. You want to make sure that the person does not get to escape the gestation process. Kind of like enforcing a contract, you are enforcing the person to comply with the contract, you are with laws stopping a person from terminating the "contract" gestation process" and by enforcing it on the person.
What do you think about that picture in my mind?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km-u-jg__7Y
Moral constructs sometimes are driven by societies acceptance or condemnation, abortion falls somewhere in between.
You may disagree, but many people do believe that a woman's right to her bodily autonomy and to refuse gestation trumps anyone's "right to life" at the very least in early pregnancy.
So abortion is not objectively wrong, it is very much subjective.
https://blog.equalrightsinstitute.com/bodily-rights-arguments-necessitate-extremism/
Yet that's not what the polls show. According to Gallup, a slight majority of pro-choice Americans favour limiting abortion to the first trimester (along with 90% of pro-life Americans). This is on par with the poll conducted by Marist in early 2017, indicating that over 70% of Americans would limit abortion to the first trimester (or go even further than that).
http://www.gallup.com/poll/148880/plenty-common-ground-found-abortion-debate.aspx
http://www.kofc.org/un/en/resources/communications/marist-poll-scotus-nominee.pdf
Since the first trimester ends well before even the earliest threshold of viability, I don't think the organ donation analogy is where most people actually are.
i agree that bodily autonomy is NOT absolute, I just posted to you my middle of the road compromise, read it and let me know what you think.
That is why it is one of those gray areas that i think each person has to decide for themselves, kind of like drinking and prohibition. Some people are against drinking, and others think it is fine. Each person has to decide for themselves.
I want you to think carefully about this one. You can read about female genital cutting in this article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation
Abortion is different because it involves 2 people occupying the same
body, and you cannot give both equal rights to the same body.
Why not?
That is why it is one of those gray areas that i think each person
has to decide for themselves, kind of like drinking and prohibition.
Some people are against drinking, and others think it is fine. Each
person has to decide for themselves.
When you get behind a steering wheel though, it's no longer a matter of personal choice (even though "having one for the road" was widely practiced throughout most of the 20th Century). It's a matter of keeping other humans safe from harm.
At the same time do believe in fetus having more consideration after 12 weeks. Meaning more restrictions maybe with exceptions for health or birth defects.
I am trying to be fair to both, I think this would be a reasonable compromise. Where the woman would have up to 12 weeks to decide for purely elective reasons.
body, and you cannot give both equal rights to the same body.
Why not?
Because it is impossible, you cannot have both claim the same body, the body either belongs to the woman or it belongs to the fetus?
So the question becomes, who owns the uterus, does the woman or does the fetus/embryo?
Does the embryo/fetus rights supersede the mother's or vice versa?
Their is much disagreement in this area, this issue is difficult, some people side with the embryo/fetus, some with the mother, who is right?
That is why i said what i said, it is a gray area with different moral intuitions and opinion with really no consensus.
It is her body that is doing the gestating. She has the right to refuse anyone from using her body against her will. NOBODY born or unborn have a right to life inside the body of another.
Sorry you will not convince me that a woman loses her rights to her uterus.
Nobody says they're exactly the same. The point is that two people can have an equal right to occupy something even if only one of them is actually the owner.
At the same time the owner has the right to have it removed since the owner owns the space (uterus) it resides in.
Just like if you are renting a house, the owner has a right to evict you, tell you to leave because he will be selling the house, or just does not want you living there.
A world where abortion is illegal and women are no longer seen as people who can make choices about their own body is a nightmare. Sex does not mean a woman agrees to be pregnant and to give up everything.
However, I disagree with your earlier statement that a woman gives up everything by becoming pregnant. There have been so many women who are successful in life who are also mothers. I believe that it is actually empowering to women of all ages to know that there are women who are CEOs, engineers, doctors, etc. that are also great moms. That there are women who have the strength and skill to be successful in a career and successful in their family lives. While motherhood is not for every woman, I think a statement that women "give up everything" by choosing parenthood devalues the women who decide to become mothers, in a sense, because it makes it seem as if that was a bad decision on their part.
It must also be taken into consideration that a woman can have sex without becoming pregnant, without even taking contraceptive measures.
To clarify, I agree that not all women would be empowered by pregnancies. Depending on the woman, a pregnancy could take a lot out of her, or maybe it's just not in her personality or temperament to be able to or want to be a mother, and that is perfectly fine. I am also not trying to say that women who decide to not have children are weak or bad people for not wanting to be mothers because they do not feel it is a good fit for them. Being a mother is a very demanding vocation. But my earlier point was not that just the women who work and have kids were empowered by their own life decisions, although that was part of it. I said that it was empowering to know (i.e. for me to know) that there are women who can be successful in a demanding career while being a great mom. What I meant, although I did not explicitly say it, was that working women who are mothers can be great inspiration because those women who have accomplished so much have shown by living out their calling just some of the ways a woman can be strong. They can be great role models by inspiring their fellow women to achieve just as much in whatever it is they want to do.
Saying “don’t kill” has consequences. For Molly, it means a difficult
life. For women who are considering abortion, it means any number of
tough things, like dropping out of college, the pain of childbirth, the
pain of placing a child for adoption or the hardship of raising a child.
But the person who says “killing is wrong” is not forcing these
consequences on her any more than a person who says “bank robbery is
wrong” forces someone to be in poverty.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/2a/79/a1/2a79a10f006ba952c20856756af63ed8--short-comics-comic-artist.jpg
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/the-mobility-myth
For a person who just does NOT want to be pregnant, you trying to stop someone from terminating the gestation process, can be perceived as coercion and or allowing an unwelcome gestation process to continue, that is a violation of a woman's rights to her body.
And adoption is NOT an alternative to gestation, gestation is non-transferrable, either gestation is completed or not.
I hope that make sense.
I equate pro-lifers with trying to enforce childbirth. If a woman does NOT want to continue a pregnancy, and you say that she has to stay pregnant even against her will, then yes that is a form of "enforcing or coercing" childbirth.
I will put it to you this way. If i become pregnant and i refuse to
As far as bodily rights. We all have rights to not have our bodies be used (gestation, giving blood, organ donation) without our consent. I believe pregnancy falls under this category.
Now of course i don't consider a 1st trimester embryo a person with rights to use a woman's body to live. I don't mean to sound callous, but i believe a woman's right to not have her body used against her will even if the embryo dies.
Now i do believe in reasonable restrictions further along in pregnancy. I am not sure if i consider a fetus a person, but at the very least should not be aborted will nilly after say 2nd trimester without a good reason ( woman's health, birth defects, defomities).
At 1st trimester i do believe a woman's right to refuse gestation should supersede the embryos right to life.
That is my position on this issue.
Of course legally the pre-born are not persons until birth. I would consider them probably at 20 weeks and on when they have developed a brain and possibly feel pain.
We've updated the comments policy to be more clear about what is and is not okay in comments on our blog. Because of the update above, the primary change is this extended section on what is not allowed:
The goal of the comments section on this blog is simply and unambiguously to promote productive dialogue. But there is a major obstacle to that goal: the internet is a terrible place for dialogue. People are much more inclined to be poor at dialogue and impossible to reason with on the internet. Our solution is to ruthlessly and without warning ban anyone that is engaging in poor dialogue activity (as outlined below) for the good of all. The result of this is that some people we ban will not appreciate or agree with it. That is unavoidable. Some of these calls will be a simple matter of our discretion. If you want to debate people in a free-for-all environment where you can say anything you want, go to almost any other part of the internet. If you want to dialogue respectfully, charitably, and reasonably, we hope you’ll find this to be a helpful place to seek truth with us. Examples of bannable bad dialogue activity include (but is not limited to): being snarky, disrespectful, off-topic, libelous, flagrantly uncharitable, defamatory, abusive, harassing, threatening, profane, pornographic, offensive, false, misleading, or which otherwise violates or encourages others to violate my sense of decorum and civility or any law, including intellectual property laws; or (d) “spam,” i.e., an attempt to advertise, solicit, or otherwise promote goods and services. You may, however, post a link to your site or your most recent blog post.
I would really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Let those babies live! We just want to give them a chance to see the light of day!
life. For women who are considering abortion, it means any number of
tough things, like dropping out of college, the pain of childbirth, the
pain of placing a child for adoption or the hardship of raising a child.
But the person who says “killing is wrong” is not forcing these
consequences on her any more than a person who says “bank robbery is
wrong” forces someone to be in poverty."
I'm sorry, but you guys act as if you have no problem with this. There are no consequences for the man, and pregnancy can be very difficult for the woman (pelvic floor issues, etc). I have three answers: 1) We must get busy inventing technology that allows women not to remain pregnant without killing if that is what they want, plus better contraception.
2) We need to start thinking in a more community-minded sense, start pitching in and helping (even with the ungodly daycare centers) so that the woman doesn't have to drop out of college. Also consider that part of the reason women drop out of college is they feel an intense responsibility to their children, heavily impressed on them by society, that men don't feel; we must reform this so that women don't have to lose their careers. Unfortunately our society is so selfish that I doubt either of these things will happen.
3) You would think that if women should morally carry to term, without inventions and other such, that prolifers would feel more morally obligated to get into the medical, pharmaceutical, and physiotherapy professions and come up with new, inventive ways to help women to overcome, or significantly reduce the chances of morning sickness, pelvic floor problems, etc., because they care about women and want to help them do the right thing. But so far, I have seen nothing of the kind.
The fact that you come across as if you couldn't care less about someone losing their dreams makes me blush for you, to be honest. It's so easy to preach and tell people what is right when everything is going right for us. If prolifism isn't about suppressing women (I know it's not but the attitudes and behaviour of some people sure make me wonder) then we need to confirm that by doing things that make it easier for the woman to do the right thing. This attitude of not caring is, ironically, counterproductive to women doing what is right, because such apathy could actually lead the woman think "Oh, well, no one cares, might as well have an abortion because there's no other way to fulfill my dreams." Shame on you!
This comment is honestly one of the least respectful comments I've ever seen. We have this comments policy, which is admittedly stricter than many others, for a reason. We want to encourage a certain kind of dialogue, and comments like this make that impossible. As a result of how ridiculously rude you're being, especially when you've been around our material enough to know better, I'm banning you from being able to comment on the blog.
Crystal, because of your apology, Tim and I have decided to un-ban you.
A few things I'd like to say for clarity. It makes total sense to me that you were so rude because you had a bad day and this post triggered you in an unexpected way or something. We've all had bad days and lashed out at people.
However, I find your explanation that your comment was directed at the pro-life movement and not the author of this piece to be very strange. "I blush for you" and "shame on you" are not statements directed at the movement. You directed that at Tim. I think that's about as obvious as anything can be.
However, we still accept your apology, and want you to consider this a warning. We really want to create a productive dialogue atmosphere on our blog, and we don't have that right now. We'll be updating our comments policy, probably later today, to make it more clear what is and is not okay on this blog. But the basic goal is for people to feel respected and safe to disagree with each other without being attacked. Unfortunately the only way to accomplish that these days is to have a very strict comments policy and to be fairly ruthless in policing it. That's our plan moving forward.
I second Josefarma´s appeal. Crystal was coming across too strong in her post, assuming too much and being too hostile. But, I do not think a ban was justified; as Jose points out below, a warning would be a better idea. If you just warn her, she can abstain from making inflammatory comments like this one. Most times, she is a very civil and respectful poster, in my experience. She´s a great contribution to a website, and I think banning her would be a loss for your comments section
Sincerely
Pere Callahan
I know that this blog follows stricter commenting rules than many others but, on the other hand, I think that speaking on behalf of another poster, could be good to exercise debate skills (one the of main points of this blog); I'd be interested in your thoughts on my petition and whether or not I have formulated it properly.
Thanks for your time.
A few things I'd like to say for clarity. It makes total sense to me that you were so rude because you had a bad day and this post triggered you in an unexpected way or something. We've all had bad days and lashed out at people.
However, I find your explanation that your comment was directed at the pro-life movement and not the author of this piece to be very strange. "I blush for you" and "shame on you" are not statements directed at the movement. You directed that at Tim. I think that's about as obvious as anything can be.
However, we still accept your apology, and want you to consider this a warning. We really want to create a productive dialogue atmosphere on our blog, and we don't have that right now. We'll be updating our comments policy, probably later today, to make it more clear what is and is not okay on this blog. But the basic goal is for people to feel respected and safe to disagree with each other without being attacked. Unfortunately the only way to accomplish that these days is to have a very strict comments policy and to be fairly ruthless in policing it. That's our plan moving forward.
I meant it as a rebuke against the mainstream religious PL movement, rather than as a personal criticism of you and Tim, okay? Please consider the online interactions we have had for years; I am an admirer of your work, so tell me when have I ever unreasonably attacked you and Tim, and why would I start now?
My comment was not intended the way you took it. It was not meant to attack you or Tim, at all. At the same time, I repeat that if you are willing to give me another chance, I will apologise and be very happy to discuss the comment with you, properly.
She is actually one of the most civil commentators I have run across.
She is definitely pro-life, but she also, very often, bends over backwards to be fair to the arguments that legal abortion supporters are making.
This was one of those times.
If we are going to ever 'reach' the other side, we have to understand their thinking.
I am totally for social reforms like paid maternity leave, universal healthcare, affordable childcare, and more financial aid to struggling families.
I think those are the right things to do, AND I believe these reforms would save unborn lives.
I also hope for a future with effective, cheap, safe, and easily reversible sterilization techniques.
Artificial wombs, accompanied by effective and safe 'womb rescue' of unwanted young would also be a plus.
I also strongly favor changing our current abortion-on-demand laws.
In fact, I beleive there is a case to be made that the unborn are ALREADY protected under the 14th Amendment.
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/08/19758/
We need reasoning pro-life advocates like her on this blog.
I have since made it stronger.
you've been around our material enough to know better, I'm banning you
from being able to comment on the blog."
I wasn't trying to be rude. I was having a hard day and was just frustrated. Usually I am very patient and I have never attacked any commenters on this blog; I certainly did not intend my comment as an attack on anything, but rather trying to point out a problem. But if it makes you feel better, I'd be happy to apologise humbly for such hostility and discuss this issue properly with you. I am concerned about it and would really appreciate if you would lift the ban and let me try again.
We all get pretty emotional about all the ratifications of abortion, in our own way.
I pointed out in my earlier post that I favor a lot of social reforms to aid pregnant women and struggling families.
I would also like to make it clear that I feel abortion is not the answer, even when times are hard.
This link gives the historical perspective of perhaps the earliest prolifer, Dr. Horatio Robinson Storer, in the 1850s.
https://churchpop.com/2016/02/23/19th-c-pro-life-doctor-hero/
Remember, there were no 'social safety nets' at all during this period, and abortion (along with
childbirth) were far more dangerous than they are today.
But, even in that scenorio, he still opposed abortion for mostly the same reason prolifers do today--that it unjustly kills a defenseless human being.
You should not apologize, you brought up legitimate points about women and the hardships of pregnancy and childbirth.
Remember what i told you before about bodily autonomy on SPL,
I support what you said.
But thanks for the support.
I don't think I'll be responding to too many comments on this thread as I don't want to be banned again.
This comment is also an implication that we at ERI don't care about bodily autonomy. It's fine for you to disagree with us, but as our comments policy has always clearly said, misleading comments about other people are not allowed. Tim and I are among the foremost voices in the pro-life movement stating that "bodily autonomy arguments are not stupid and should be taken seriously." We have plenty of material on this blog to show that, and it's a ridiculously uncharitable read of this article to take it as a statement that bodily autonomy doesn't matter. If you didn't even read the article and just made a sweeping judgement based on how you think all pro-lifers are, then that's even worse.
Consider this a final warning. This comment is a clear violation of our comments policy, and the next violation won't be tolerated.
We'll be updating our comments policy later today to make it more clear what is and is not okay in our blog comments section. I'll post the update as a top comment on this article since this is where we've been having problems lately. But the basic goal is for people in the comments under our blog to feel respected and safe to disagree with each other without being attacked. Unfortunately the only way to accomplish that these days is to have a very strict comments policy and to be fairly ruthless in policing it. That's our plan moving forward.
Can you send me a link to my comment where I told you not to worry about offending? I'm guessing I meant that in a narrower sense than you're interpreting it, but if I could see the context I'd be happy to clarify.
I don't know if i still have the emails on my phone.
Anyone that follows our work at all knows that we care about both the mother and the baby. There is nothing wrong with the section of the blog post that you quoted at the top of your comment. The purpose of that statement, and the blog post as a whole, wasn't to address what society should do about abortion (we've addressed that topic extensively elsewhere). It was very specifically focused on the misleading rhetoric of saying pro-lifers are "forcing" women to be pregnant. You read into that as a statement that we don't care about women.
You're the one that should be ashamed of yourself and you shouldn't expect me to spend much time, if any, replying to you in the future.
Of course the author would be the best person to reply to this, but as one reader, I didn't understand this to mean "is not at all instrumental in causing these consequences." I understood the whole article to mainly be taking issue with the word "force."
What I'm concerned about is the very real possibility - nay, probability - that the apathy shown in the quote might just encourage someone to consider abortion as a way out. Prolifers need to do a lot better than that. Please read my comment carefully and respond to the thoughts therein if you wish to comment; thanks in advance.
You weren't, but I wonder if you aren't misconstruing it another way. To me the enumeration of "tough things" in that paragraph shows empathy and compassion as far as it goes, not apathy. I think the reason it does not go farther and voice a loud call for pitching in and helping is that pitching in and helping is not the subject matter of the article. I don't see how the absence of that loud call is evidence that the author doesn't think pitching in and helping is important, or evidence that, for all we know, he may not spend a lot of his time pitching in and helping.
It seems to me that saying "apathy" puts a burden on you to show that there is apathy, which is not shown just by the fact that the subject matter of this particular article doesn't happen to be pitching in and helping.
"respond to the thoughts therein if you wish to comment"
Regarding your number 1, one time No Brown M&Ms, who has a scientific background, said that artificial-womb technology was probably feasible, but he calculated that it would almost certainly be too labor-intensive and otherwise expensive to be widely used. What is your response to that?
Before I talk about other points, I'd like to ask if you agree with me that once there's an unwanted pregnancy, we have to start thinking about the least of all the evils, and there is rarely going to be a perfectly happy outcome. Do you agree? As regards fulfilling dreams, isn't it the human condition that everyone dreams way more than can ever be fulfilled? We should have "the courage to change the things we can" for the benefit of women in crisis pregnancies, and the courage to make our share or more than our share of the sacrifices, but we should also have the wisdom to recognize there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Like a lot of pro-choice arguments, this pro-choice rhetoric must generally contain the hidden assumption that the unborn does not have the moral value of a born person. Maybe you can get the pro-choicer to admit that and move on to that discussion.
Given that assumption, "forced pregnancy" would not be misleading. But the one I've heard most is "forced birthers." Yet "forced birthers" is problematic even if the unborn has no moral value. Because it is nature, not pro-life laws, that causes the unborn to grow, causes contractions to start, etc.
"I don't think the rhetoric of 'force' is only misleading if they assume the unborn doesn't have serious moral status."
I said that given that assumption "forced pregnancy" would not be misleading.
I think if an embryo is a non-person that will one day become a person, and if early in pregnancy you shouldn't consider the pregnant woman a mother, then "forced parenthood" would not be misleading rhetoric. It seems like "forced pregnancy" still would be misleading because she's already pregnant, but if the embryo isn't a person that isn't really a big deal. You don't need to justify abortion with "forced pregnancy" language if the embryo isn't a person.
Switching to the topic of "if they are primarily arguing from a bodily rights perspective, which they usually are," I now agree that "forced pregnancy/birth" must often be part of a bodily-rights argument. Thanks for clarifying that. (And I think specifically that they are trying to equate pro-life laws with forced organ donation in language terms as well as in their usual terms.) But then what about your:
Even a pro-choice person should agree with me that it is misleading to say that Debbie is forcing Molly to be a parent, and if it is misleading language in that case, then it is misleading in the case of pro-lifers and abortion.
If I understand correctly, your basic argument in your article is not that pro-lifers don't want to exert force at all, but that the intent of the force, just as when Molly's filicide is outlawed, is to prevent killing, and the fact that that leaves Molly with a child on her hands is a foreseen but unintended consequence ("other things naturally follow from that"). Thus though Molly is in fact forced to continue parenting (until she can make some other permissible arrangement for her child), "forced parenting" or even "forced continuation of parenting" would mislead as to the intent. Is that correct?
(Whereas if an embryo didn't have serious moral status, prevention of killing would not be a legitimate intent, so the intent of pro-life laws would have to be continuation of pregnancy, and "forced continuation of pregnancy" would not be misleading.)
If your basic argument does indeed use an intent framework, then within that framework, couldn't the bodily-rights cohort reply to your above sentence with "I do agree with you that it is misleading to say that Debbie is forcing Molly to be a parent, but I do not agree that it is misleading in the case of pro-lifers and abortion. Prevention of killing would not be a legitimate intent in preventing abortion, because unlike Molly, a woman whose unborn is using her body has a right to kill. Therefore the intent seems to be forced continuation of pregnancy" – ?
“If I understand correctly, your basic argument in your article is not that pro-lifers don't want to exert force at all, but that the intent of the force, just as when Molly's filicide is outlawed, is to prevent killing, and the fact that that leaves Molly with a child on her hands is a foreseen but unintended consequence ("other things naturally follow from that").”
I’m definitely not appealing to double-effect distinctions. I think an argument like that is more specific than mine is intended to be. I’m just saying, “Look at the Molly case. Clearly it’s rhetorically cheating for Molly to say that Debbie is forcing her to have a bad life or something.” I’m undecided what the best way is to explain what the nature of the rhetorical cheating is.
I’m not personally inclined to appeal to intent, primarily because I think it’s too slippery (as your last paragraph demonstrates). I’m probably more inclined to distinguish between people being prohibited from doing things and people being forced to do things. Pro-lifers are not forcing women to walk through a specific door, we are just closing the doors that involve murder. The fact that they don’t like the alternatives isn’t our fault. I’m not sure yet what the best way would be to spell out those distinctions yet, but the Molly case shows that something is definitely wrong.
"'Forced continuation of pregnancy' would be weird"
Naturally they would look for a catchier turn of phrase, but might not "forced continuation of pregnancy" nevertheless turn out, if they are pinned down, to be what they mean by "forced pregnancy"?
"if the unborn isn’t a human person, you don’t need this kind of language to justify abortion."
I think that both the isn’t-a-human-person cohort and the bodily-rights cohort already had expansive formulations to justify abortion before the "forced pregnancy/birth" phrase came along. Couldn't we say that that phrase is not designed exactly to directly add to their justifications for abortion, but rather to characterize what they claim to be the real effect of pro-life laws? Aren't they saying in effect, "Pro-life laws don’t legitimately prevent killing as advertised, because (due to isn’t-a-human-person or bodily rights) killing is not illegitimate. So what do those laws accomplish? All they accomplish is to force (the continuation of) pregnancy, either incidentally because pro-lifers are stupid, or because pro-lifers irrationally want those embryos to grow, or to punish women" – ?