Very poignant, multilayered article in the most recent Atlantic that is, in some ways, about abortion, and in other ways is about desire.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I read it. It made me very uncomfortable. The six paragraphs she tosses off to make it "balanced" consist mostly of trying not to think about living being with fingers and hands and hiccups that gets crushed and flushed in the abortions.
ETA: The only mention of adoption is to quote the women who say they would a thousand times rather have an abortion than give up their kid. No mention of other mothers who, you know, choose to let someone who desperately wants a child to raise the child instead of ending all hope of life.
I thought the article was terribly slanted. It's a propoganda piece, not a dispassionate or balanced examiniation. That's fine if that's what it was meant to be, but it has all the credibility of an e-mail forward.
[ April 10, 2007, 10:09 AM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
I did not find it slanted, as it goes into some detail into the humanness of the unborn, how there are other options.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
We'll have to disagree about that. I think the other side was given some lip service, but there was no doubt where all the sympathy lay.
Three paragraphs about, you know, the living being that she spends the rest of the article lamenting how difficult it used to be to get rid of.
quote:In it is much more than I want to know about the tiny creature whose destruction we have legalized:
so...back to covering her eyes and singing lalalalala and thinking about the poor girls who want love SO MUCH that they give into the lecherous men who just want sex but that they aren't ready to attach themselves emotionally to because that would mean leaving their mothers.
I get all of that, and I understand there is a lot of heartbreak all the way around, but none of the pains of growing up and having an adult love life justify ending the life of the being who has "a beating heart, a human face, functioning kidneys, two waving hands that seem not too far away from being able to grasp and shake a rattle."
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I think the books are clearly one-sided, but, then, they have to be. The other person involved in each story in the first book is dead, and the other person involved in each story in the second book is untraceable due to anonymous adoption. Their sides can't be told at all.
A corollary book to the second could be written, of course. Maybe call it "The Ones Who Weren't Killed."
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
quote:Originally posted by katharina: We'll have to disagree about that.
Yep.
quote: I think the other side was given some lip service, but there was no doubt where all the sympathy lay.
Three paragraphs about, you know, the living being that she spends the rest of the article lamenting how difficult it used to be to get rid of.
quote:In it is much more than I want to know about the tiny creature whose destruction we have legalized:
so...back to covering her eyes and singing lalalalala and thinking about the poor girls who want love SO MUCH that they give into the lecherous men who just want sex but that they aren't ready to attach themselves emotionally to because that would mean leaving their mothers.
I get all of that, and I understand there is a lot of heartbreak all the way around, but none of the pains of growing up and having an adult love life justify ending the life of the being who has "a beating heart, a human face, functioning kidneys, two waving hands that seem not too far away from being able to grasp and shake a rattle."
She actually says something along those lines, you know.
quote: All they are asking, in a societal climate in which out-of-wedlock pregnancy is without stigma, is that pregnant women give the tiny bodies growing inside of them a few months, until the little creatures are large enough to be on their way, to loving homes.
*shakes head*
I just do not see how this article is slanted.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I thought it was a moving piece. I did not think it covered everything or was meant to cover everything.
It did not, for example, talk about the fathers - whether they loved the women, were just driven by a need for sex, whatever. I think that men, like women, have deeper reasons for wanting to have sex with someone than just physical urges.
But, given the scope of the article, I thought it was a good piece.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
It can be well-written and moving and still be slanted.
The last paragraph is about how adding a shag carpet to an abortion clinic finally allowed abortions to be performed humanely. There is no way to have that sentence be the final clincher and still consider it a human being killed. The three paragraphs she spends on the point of view of the being being killed ends with saying she is torn in two directions, but the rest of the article makes it very clear where she landed and where her sympathies lie.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Not to me, sorry.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Stormy, do you read that article and have any doubt at all that she is in favor of legal abortion done in cozy atmosphere? In all the horror stories of possible deaths from illegal abortions, does she ever mention that actually there is ALWAYS a death from illegal abortions, but that sometimes there were two?
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
I read the thread before reading the article, although kat's lastest post about the carpet wasn't here yet. And I was having a hard time seeing how it was slanted, until the last paragraph waxing rhapsodasical about the womanliness of blue shag carpet and how it somehow put an end to "the river of blood." That idea is just weird.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
I think you want her to say point-blank that abortion is the taking of a human life. The problem with this is that this is de facto the pro-life point of view. To say this would not be balanced.
The other side of coin that I think you do not see is that she doesn't say straight out that it's *not* human, either. What is a good word, a good way, to describe the unborn that neither describes them as human or not-human? It's a hard line to walk. Calling the unborn 'creature' as she does, is a little bit jarring, but really, I don't know that there's a better word. Even while I'm writing 'unborn', for instance, I'm thinking that tilts too much towards the 'pro-life' side....
I think she does a good balancing act by pointing out that the humanity of the unborn inside the womb. Without actually calling it a human, her conclusion is that there's really no need for an abortion these days. Why not wait?
I don't see that, at all, she's arguing for abortion.
On the other hand, I don't disagree that she's not arguing to make abortion illegal.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:In all the horror stories of possible deaths from illegal abortions, does she ever mention that actually there is ALWAYS a death from illegal abortions, but that sometimes there were two?
Would a pro-choice person agree with this? It seems to me to be a statement of the pro-life position elevated to fact. I don't see how this would make it balanced.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Stormy: Maybe it isn't possible to write an article about an abortion with an opinion in it and have it not be slanted. Since all writing - especially the personal reviews the Atlantic likes - contains an opinion, maybe it is inevitable that it be slanted.
In that case, this article can be put in the "well-written, non-rabid, pro-legal-abortion" file.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
I'm now professionally obligated to keep my mouth shut about stuff like this, but I will say that I think there are two separate but related ideas in this article and that debate on this subject sometimes confuses them.
First there is the issue of abortion, whether it should be legalized, whether it's right or wrong. Part of that is understanding just what effect the legalization of abortion had on American society.
Second is society's conception (no pun intended) of a woman's sexuality. This is the root of the attitude toward unmarried pregnant women, and something that probably resulted in a higher number of dangerous abortions during the time abortion was illegal.
I would say the legalization of abortion was one consequence of changing attitudes in society that gave women greater sexual freedom and removed social stigma. How much the legalization of abortion enhanced that cause is another thing entirely. But I think the article was definitely mixing the two together - those heartbreaking stories happened because of the way society reacted to unmarried pregnant women. The blood came from the fact that one way of ending the pregnancy was illegal.
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:In all the horror stories of possible deaths from illegal abortions, does she ever mention that actually there is ALWAYS a death from illegal abortions, but that sometimes there were two?
Would a pro-choice person agree with this? It seems to me to be a statement of the pro-life position elevated to fact. I don't see how this would make it balanced.
*raises hand* I'm politically pro-choice, and I agree with that statement whole-heartedly.
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
I think Kasie's point is important.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
quote: In that case, this article can be put in the "well-written, non-rabid, pro-legal-abortion" file.
I just want to point out that there *is*, I believe, a not insignificant difference between being 'pro-legal-abortion' and 'pro-access to legal abortion'. I would put her in the second camp.
I also think Kasie's point is important.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
I'm not necessarily sure that I agree with her assessment of its place in the article, though. That is, I don't think the article was confused on it.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
Storm,
To clarify, I mostly meant that debate here seemed to be conflating the two issues, not necessarily the article.
I do think that the article, in some points, implied that legalized abortion made everything better (i.e. the blue carpet in the abortion clinic). I think *that* confuses the two issues, because really a combination of two things - non-stigmatized out-of-wedlock pregnancy AND legalized abortion - helped women like those in the books.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
Although, upon further consideration, the blue carpet could be understood as the intersection of the two, the carpet representing the new conception of female sexuality.
I haven't decided.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
I think it was meant as a contrast to the river of blood resulting from the illegal abortions presented in the rest of the article:
"It helped women to know that abortions didn’t have to be bloody and butchery. Certainly, you wouldn’t put that kind of rug on the floor if it was going to be ruined.
It was a very womanly thing to do—to set your heart on a shag carpet, to trick someone into buying it for you, to rely on the fact that once it was installed, everyone would love it and forgive you. And it was womanly because of the way a simple bit of decoration could send a powerful and audacious message that only other women would be able to interpret. A river of blood runs through The Choices We Made, and it runs throughout the history of womankind. That river stops, more or less, with the installation of that shag carpet. The carpet, and the women who found the money to pay for it, along with all the women and men who made possible a context in which an abortion could be performed legally, safely, and even humanely—together they say: Enough."
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:an abortion could be performed legally, safely, and even humanely—
This sentence requires not believing that the being with hands and fingers and a heart is humane.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
You mean, I assume, human?
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
quote:Originally posted by katharina:
quote:an abortion could be performed legally, safely, and even humanely—
This sentence requires not believing that the being with hands and fingers and a heart is humane.
I don't agree, but I understand that if you believe that all abortion is inhumanely killing the child, then I understand your position.
Note that I'm not going to get into that debate. Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
Hmm. Okay, well, my first clarification stands, then.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
A lot of this changes depending on whether or not Katie meant 'human' or 'humane', and on whether Storm thought that she meant 'human' or 'humane'. Those qualifiers in mind...
Abortion cannot possibly be humane if the aborted fetus (and 'creature' has its own subjective baggage as well) was actually a human being. Some people may call lethal injection a humane method of execution, but it cannot possibly be a humane thing to do to someone who has done no wrong.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:As storm says, if you grant that it is a person, then you are speaking the pro-life line, and have unbalanced anything else you might say on the other side.
That's not entirely true - witness Olivet.
Further, if you say that abortion is humane (or "safe" for that matter), you are definitely speaking an anti-pro-life line and have unbalanced anything else you might say on the other side.
quote:And thats the central contention of the abortion debate. Is it a person? is it not?
But Paul, I seem to recall that you have said that even if the unborn child is alive and human, abortion should still be legal. Even if my recollection concerning you specifically is inaccurate, I know others have said that here.
I agree with Kat - the sop to the other side is their for rhetorical effect, and the blue carpet paragraph - plus the "I don't want to know what it is we're killing" - is what makes this crystal clear. It's legal abortion that stops her "river of blood" - a contention that can only by made by denying the humanity of the child and therefore the blood being shed in far greater numbers now.
I don't expect a pro-choice person writing an article like this to be "balanced." But an article whose conclusion absolutely depends on the premise that abortion is safe and humane and doesn't come with its own river of blood is not balanced, and accuracy demands that it not be called balanced.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
I shall have to re-read -- I totally didn't get "I don't want to know what it is we're killing" out of that section. Quite the opposite.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
This is the sentence I'm referring to specifically:
quote:In it is much more than I want to know about the tiny creature whose destruction we have legalized: a beating heart, a human face, functioning kidneys, two waving hands that seem not too far away from being able to grasp and shake a rattle.
It is this that creates the sympathy she speaks of. But this suggests that she doesn't want the sympathy to exist, because she doesn't want the knowledge that created it.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
Dagonee- Did olivet say that a person is killed with each abortion? Its not what I'm reading. And if its not what she said, then what she said and what I said are different things.
Laws against the inhumane treatment of animals do not prevent us from killing animals. They prevent us from torturing them. Death can be, and often is, more or less humane.
I don't think its impossible for a pro-choicer to concede that a death comes with every abortion. I think most do. But the very fact of a death doesn't make it inhumane, necessarily.
"But Paul, I seem to recall that you have said that even if the unborn child is alive and human, abortion should still be legal. Even if my recollection concerning you specifically is inaccurate, I know others have said that here."
Depending on how you mean human, then you are remembering incorrectly. I agree that an embroy or fetus is genetically human. Thats biological fact. I don't think anyone disputes that. I don't agree its a person deserving of as much legal protection as a infant, child, or adult.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Did olivet say that a person is killed with each abortion? Its not what I'm reading.
She said she agrees with this statement wholeheartedly: "there is ALWAYS a death from illegal abortions, but that sometimes there were two."
Unless she's agreeing that the article doesn't say what Kat wanted it to say, but that wouldn't make sense in the context of Squick's question.
Olivet, can you clarify? Are you saying that you agree whole-heartedly with "there is ALWAYS a death from illegal abortions, but that sometimes there were two"?
quote:Laws against the inhumane treatment of animals do not prevent us from killing animals. They prevent us from torturing them. Death can be, and often is, more or less humane.
I don't think its impossible for a pro-choicer to concede that a death comes with every abortion. I think most do. But the very fact of a death doesn't make it inhumane, necessarily.
I disagree with your definition of humane if it allows intentional killing of a human being with no finding of danger or culpability.
Regardless, it's clear abortion is not safe for at least one entity involved.
quote:I don't agree its a person deserving of as much legal protection as a infant, child, or adult.
My statement was an if statement, so what you currently believe doesn't speak to it. Thank you for clarifying, and I'm sorry I recalled incorrectly.
I do know others have said that legal abortion is constitutionally required even if an unborn child were considered a person morally or legally, so it's clear it's not dispositive for all people on each side. It's the very purpose of the violinist analogy that has been presented here recently - it's a very active thread in a certain strain of pro-choice philosophical and legal justification.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
To clarify, I don't read Olivet as saying a person dies during abortion. I read her as saying a death occurs. A death occuring, and a person dying, are different things.
"I disagree with your definition of humane"
Thats nice. The vast majority of english speakers don't disagree with me. Go look around at some of the organizations that seek to legislate humane treatment of animals, or humane treatment laws. By far the majority of them use humane in such a way that it is not incompatible with humans killing animals. In fact, most of them are asking that we be humane in how we kill.
"I disagree with your definition of humane if it allows intentional killing of a human being with no finding of danger or culpability."
I don't see human beings here. I see biological humans. but that "being" implies quite a bit more then being of the genetic material of homo sapiens.
"I do know others have said that legal abortion is constitutionally required even if an unborn child were considered a person morally or legally,"
I'd be interested to hear from any of those people, because I don't think I've seen this argument before. Until I do, I'm going to tend not to believe you, since as far as I can tell this would be a contradictory and illogical, as well as deeply immoral and illegal, position to take.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: "I do know others have said that legal abortion is constitutionally required even if an unborn child were considered a person morally or legally,"
I'd be interested to hear from any of those people, because I don't think I've seen this argument before...
I remember that thread...been busy playing Oblivion's expansion
I don't know about constitutionally "required".
However, I would be up for arguing that even if an unborn child were considered a person morally, that certain kinds of abortion would still be defensible until the fetus reached a stage where it could live on its own. As Dagonee pointed out, it does go back to the violinist thought experiment.
I would further add that there is one of your four assertions about such a stance that would not really be up for debate. It in fact would not be an illegal stance, in certain countries including Canada.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
<snip everything I wrote because you're not worth the effort after reading this>
quote:Until I do, I'm going to tend not to believe you, since as far as I can tell this would be a contradictory and illogical, as well as deeply immoral and illegal, position to take.
quote:Granting for the sake of argument that the fetus has a right to life, Thomson uses thought experiments to argue for the moral permissibility of induced abortion. Her argument has many critics on both sides of the abortion debate,[1] yet continues to receive defense.[2] Thomson's imaginative examples and controversial conclusions have made A Defense of Abortion perhaps "the most widely reprinted essay in all of contemporary philosophy".
...
You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but in nine months] he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.[4]
Thomson takes it that you may now permissibly unplug yourself from the violinist even though this will cause his death: the right to life, Thomson says, does not entail the right to use another person's body, and so by unplugging the violinist you do not violate his right to life but merely deprive him of something—the use of your body—to which he has no right. "[I]f you do allow him to go on using your kidneys, this is a kindness on your part, and not something he can claim from you as his due."[5]
For the same reason, Thomson says, abortion does not violate the fetus's right to life but merely deprives the fetus of something—the use of the pregnant woman's body—to which it has no right. Thus, it is not that by terminating her pregnancy a woman violates her moral obligations, but rather that a woman who carries the fetus to term is a 'Good Samaritan' who goes beyond her obligations.
Note that the life being compared is undoubtedly a human being - a grown man.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Just as another datapoint, I would also suggest that such people would not actually be quite as rare as you (Paul) suggest:
quote: Abortion in Canada is not limited by law. While some non-legal obstacles exist, Canada is one of only a few nations with no legal restrictions on abortion, and access there is still among the most liberal in the world.
Polls continue to show that a majority of Canadians believe abortion should remain legal in some circumstances (see Opinion polls, below). Over 110,000 abortions are performed in Canada every year. 90% of abortions are performed in the first trimester, with just 2 to 3% performed after 16 weeks. ... Although the issue of abortion rights has popped up from time to time in Federal elections as a wedge issue, the issue is consistently rated as a low priority for most Canadians. The Christian Heritage Party of Canada claims to be Canada's only stated pro-life federal political party, but has never had a member elected to parliament. ... In a poll conducted by the National Post in November 2002, 78% of respondents answered "yes" to the question: "Should women have complete freedom on their decision to have an abortion?". ... * In an October 2005 Environics poll, commissioned by Life Canada, when asked "at what point in human development should the law protect human life," 30% of respondents said "From conception on," 19% said "After three months of pregnancy," 11% said "After six months of pregnancy," and 33% said "From the point of birth."
I think almost everyone would agree that the fetus develops into a "person" some arbitrary time before birth. Yet there are still 33% who only favour legal protection from the point of birth. I submit that the discrepancy lies at least partially, in that there are a fair proportion of that 33% that feels that abortion before birth "may" abort a person and "may" be immoral, but yet do not favour laws enforcing that belief.
Edit to add: I picked the polls by the National Post and Life Canada partially out of amusement, partially to avoid the charge that I'm giving biased data. Life Canada is a Christian pro-life group. The National Post is probably Canada's most (notable) conservative newspaper.
Posted by MattB (Member # 1116) on :
quote:In it is much more than I want to know about the tiny creature whose destruction we have legalized: a beating heart, a human face, functioning kidneys, two waving hands that seem not too far away from being able to grasp and shake a rattle.
I think Kasie's right, and it's my impression that she's exploring her own ambivalence in the essay; she's torn between the sonogram on the one hand and the sink of bloody towels on the other. Firstly, she expresses her sympathy for the girls (and I use the term purposefully, because Flanagan does) who, because of their pain and isolation and fear find sex "a small price to pay" to avoid being lonely, without thinking through the consequences. We can say, well, they should think about the consequences. But loneliness and fear and the immaturity of being a teenager means that this doesn't always happen.
It's clear to me that the above passage in context is the other side of the war going on in her head; she didn't want to know about the sonogram because it forced her to rethink her own assumptions, and she words the passage the way she does to illustrate the difficulty this posed for her. It's a rhetorical device; she's not being literal, and further, I think it's a rhetorical device that indicates she's aware of the potential gravity of supporting legal abortion. Clearly she _does_ know about the heart, the face, the hands; as she says, her sympathy for abortion's opponents rises by the day.
Now, clearly, the sample Flanagan is talking about comes from the books she's reviewing; so it's hard to say what she thinks about abortion absent the mitigating circumstances of the insecurities of youth. Her conclusion makes clear that she still supports legal abortion. However, the above passage demonstrates to me that she's at least pondered the ramifications of it. Her position is a thoughtful one, which I appreciate.
If we believe abortion is murder, then it's a very simple choice. The problem is that not everybody does believe it, so a wavering position like Flanagan's is to me quite understandable.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Yes. Well said.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
How evil is it, I wonder, to abort a baby, when compared to the murder of adults, even broken ones, for crimes they commit?
Which, I wonder, is worse?
How evil is it to support a war and the death of thousands and maybe millions of adults, children, babies, old people, everyone, and the destruction of the means for survival for many, and the hatred which things cause, when compared to the killing of an incomplete human being who is not yet any more conscious than my arm?
If killing human life is a sin, is amputating an arm an equal sin, as it kills billions of human cells? Why is that not equal to the thousands and sometimes millions of an incomplete human being?
The form of the cells? The purpose of the cells? The things they will develop into or not develop into?
Is it equal, more or less than killing an older human, a baby already out in the world, unconnected to its mother, still helpless and unable to live on its own?
Is killing that clump of cells equal to killing the clump of cells which is its parent?
Is the evil done to a young (or older) woman in response to illegal abortions equal to the abortion itself?
Is the natural abortion, miscarriage, equal?
Is the damage to a woman's life in the modern day, the evil of their suffering, equal?
Are the answers to these things always the case? Why? Why not?
Is it not evil to force a woman to do a thing which could result in her death, which could have any number of consequences, regardless of the cause of that event, just because the thing she wishes to do may not be moral itself?
Is the dignity of a human worth more than the life of one in and of itself?
Are we all evil, for using more than our share of resources, thus helping allow people in othe rlands to die when they would not otherwise?
-----
In the end, I'll try to be mroe clear because I'm quite tired:
Whose life is worth more? The life of a fully formed human being, or the life of an incomplete one, still nto an individual really anymore than my arm is an individual?
Is the one worth more than the other? Either way, in this particular thing, yuo must choose.
I choose the human being, not the clump of cells that will become one. To do otherwise would be evil to the human that exists. And while it would be evil to the one that does not yet exist as a human, but is merely potentially a human... the sin against a full human is worth more. To say that a clump of cells that could evenutally become human is worth more than the human that already exists is something that makes me wary of being a human being.
A human being is right there, already! One that may make an error, may do something that is not, strictly, right. But the other? Human, yes, no less so than my arm, and with more potential than my arm. But is not more than my arm, and in some ways less than my arm, until a time much later.
But at what cost to the human already existing? Shall we abandon that one, when the process is so damn problematic and intertwined with that human?
My arm cell can be used to clone a new human being, fully formed from that single cell and no other.
Should amputating my arm then be a sin, for those cells which COULD become a human being are now unable to?
[ April 11, 2007, 01:11 AM: Message edited by: 0Megabyte ]
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I think you already know the answers to most of those questions.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
I don't. I think all the moral equivocating gets out of hand in much the same way animal activism gets out of hand. Yes, killing is wrong, but a very high percentage of females who become sexually active, whether after marriage or whatever, have at some point naturally aborted. Innocent lives are taken every day (especially these days) in events completely unrelated to abortion, and some of those events are championed by the very groups (not individuals, so don't begin to try making it personal) who cry out about the evil of abortion. Also, why do the people who die have to be innocent before we view taking their lives without giving them a choice as evil?
Naturally, it is a sliding scale of considering something reprehensible, and that slide is different for each person. That doesn't make the act of abortion any more right (though I believe there are circumstances where it is necessary), but the very second post in this thread was an emotional appeal veiled in an assertion of logic where there was none, and the discussion just went downhill from there.
This has been the most significant part of a post so far.
quote:We can say, well, they should think about the consequences. But loneliness and fear and the immaturity of being a teenager means that this doesn't always happen.
I would go so far as to correct that from 'teenager' to 'person', and 'immaturity' to 'insecurity'. If a real and genuine discussion about the subject of abortion is going to take place, it needs to leave the realm of emotional appeals and images of dying infants and enter the realm of why do we foster a culture of unconsidered consequences, and what can be done to repair that while still staying within the context of a free and democratic society? If that isn't the focus, the discussion quickly becomes one side calling the other murderers, and the other side calling the first behavioral fascists. Neither is productive, and both are inevitable. Or do we need eight pages before it wears everyone out again?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:why do we foster a culture of unconsidered consequences, and what can be done to repair that while still staying within the context of a free and democratic society
This is a good discussion to have. It is not, however, the only or the most important discussion to have.
Further, the context of a free and democratic society demands that the dying infants be taken into account. When the law fails to protect helpless victims, there is a gap in the free and democratic nature of our society.
quote:the very second post in this thread was an emotional appeal veiled in an assertion of logic where there was none, and the discussion just went downhill from there.
The article itself is an emotional appeal veiled in an assertion of balance. Or are emotional appeals and images of dying women somehow better?
There is a reason I made the first post in this thread that I did: many of the "victims" of anti-abortion laws are still around to tell their stories and make emotional appeals. It's a dichotomy that I thought important to get on the table. And it underscores the inherent imbalance instilled into the discussion when one side insists on precluding the actual issue from discussion. If we can't talk about dead children, including whether there are any or not that result from abortion, then we're not talking about abortion.
*****
By the way, Storm, if you ever feel like explaining that brick wall comment, I'd appreciate it.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
quote:If we can't talk about dead children, including whether there are any or not that result from abortion, then we're not talking about abortion.
That is why it will never be productive.
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
quote:Yes, killing is wrong, but a very high percentage of females who become sexually active, whether after marriage or whatever, have at some point naturally aborted.
I've heard this point made before, and I've never understood why it was relavent. It's equivalent to saying that people die of natural causes every day, so what's the big deal if we choose to kill some?
quote:why do we foster a culture of unconsidered consequences, and what can be done to repair that while still staying within the context of a free and democratic society?
I agree, this is a good discussion to have. I'm not sure we can continue to do everything in our power to take away negative consequences to behaviors, while simultaneously encouraging people to "consider the consequences". Adultery is no longer a crime; divorce is nobody's fault; unwed pregnancy is no longer much of a stigma; abortion is an acceptable answer to an unwanted pregnancy - we have all kinds of safeguards in place to protect us from the consequences of our decisions, and yet we expect people to "consider the consequences ... but just in case you don't, we can make them go away."
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: The article itself is an emotional appeal veiled in an assertion of balance.
Did the article itself ever assert or claim "balance"?
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw:
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: The article itself is an emotional appeal veiled in an assertion of balance.
Did the article itself ever assert or claim "balance"?
Not that I read.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
quote: By the way, Storm, if you ever feel like explaining that brick wall comment, I'd appreciate it.
I can't think of a way to elaborate on it that will be productive, but I kind of think I owe you at least some elaboration. Suffice to say that I quite often find it frustrating to engage you in dialogue on 'serious' topics. As I've mentioned before, though, I'm sure I play a large part in this. I do note that other people have made comments to the same effect in passing.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
By the way, let me stress that I am in no way shape or form am saying that I am better than you. Bob only knows that I have my own issues when engaging in dialogue with people.
I also want to point out that I often enjoying talking to you. These times, though, normally are not the times where we have a difference of opinion.
And, please, for the rest of the forum, don't turn this into a popularity contest. I know most of y'all get along with Dagonee and he's well liked.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Suffice to say that I quite often find it frustrating to engage you in dialogue on 'serious' topics.
It doesn't suffice, actually, because in the post in question made a specific allegation about me, not a declaration that you find something frustrating. What is most perplexing is that I directly addressed what you said, demonstrating that I had read and processed it. Unless you are using "talking to a brick wall" in a way in which I am utterly unfamiliar, I can't even tell what you meant by that post.
quote:Originally posted by dkw:
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: The article itself is an emotional appeal veiled in an assertion of balance.
Did the article itself ever assert or claim "balance"?
I posted after performing only half an intended edit to my original draft. I meant to say, "The article itself is an emotional appeal that seems to be perceived by some as balanced."
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Originally posted by Olivet:
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:In all the horror stories of possible deaths from illegal abortions, does she ever mention that actually there is ALWAYS a death from illegal abortions, but that sometimes there were two?
Would a pro-choice person agree with this? It seems to me to be a statement of the pro-life position elevated to fact. I don't see how this would make it balanced.
*raises hand* I'm politically pro-choice, and I agree with that statement whole-heartedly.
Cheerfully ammended to: Would most pro-choice people agree with this?
I don't think it changes the point any.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Dags, I can tell within about ten seconds of reading any of your posts whether the topic in question is something that you're going to argue about or dialogue over. (edit: I should also point out that I've noticed that whether or not you go into this mode depends on who you're talking to....)
When you get in argument mode, you don't listen. Your sole focus is on defending your thesis and undercutting the other person's thesis. I don't enjoy talking to you or anyone else when they're in this mode.
This is the last I'm going to say about it, as I have nothing more to say. As I said before, I'm just anwering your question on this because I believe I owe you an elaboration. I don't believe you'll listen.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
quote:Originally posted by JennaDean:
quote:Yes, killing is wrong, but a very high percentage of females who become sexually active, whether after marriage or whatever, have at some point naturally aborted.
I've heard this point made before, and I've never understood why it was relavent. It's equivalent to saying that people die of natural causes every day, so what's the big deal if we choose to kill some?
That is how it may sound to you, but what it is saying is that there is more to the process of bringing a zygote to full term than 1-2-3 and there is life. "Life" is not that simple a thing to judge using an emotional evaluation.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
That's not an elaboration, and it doesn't fit the facts of what happened at all. Here's the post in question:
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Does he really need to provide numbers?
At minimum, he needs to provide evidence that blue states provide more than $500 in care over that provided by Texas - something that would pretty much require numbers.
quote:If women are having abortions because of cost, which is the premise of giving them $500,
No, it is not the premise of giving them $500. The premise of giving them $500 is that some people will choose not to have an abortion if given $500 not to do so. This might be related to cost, but it might not be.
quote: then it is logical that the more they save, the more money they get when they're pregnant, then the less likely they will be to abort because of cost.
So, if the state offered some kind of medical insurance to pregnant women so they didn't have to pay for it out of pocket, a plan that is usually associated with 'blue state' liberalism, and this saves women more money, then they will be less likely to abort.
If this idea is not true, then I don't see how the $500 dollar idea is true.
Beyond the difference in how someone values $500 in cash and free medical care, the mere offer of $500 might make people investigate their options more thoroughly. In doing so, they might discover that, in Texas, adoption agencies can provide medical expenses, legal fees, counseling expenses, and living expenses.
Each of the nested quotes is something you said. My responses were direct answers that could not have been made had I not listened to what you actually said.
Apparently, when I have an opinion that differs from yours, I'm being argumentative. Even when my response is to YOU disagreeing with something I've said.
You stated that the premise of the entire plan was X. I disagreed. I contradicted you and gave a more general premise that fit the plan as well.
Your response? "Why do I bother. Jesus, it's like talking to a brick wall."
You then stated that if $500 won't make up the difference between the red and blue state medical aid, then the plan must fail. I gave two ways the plan might succeed even if it doesn't make up the difference.
Your response? "Why do I bother. Jesus, it's like talking to a brick wall."
So you say you're not going to comment any more. Fine. I just wanted to expose the hypocrisy in plain view. You chose to address me in that thread. You chose to disagree with me. Your disagreement motivated me to respond with actual analysis of the issue.
Your response? "Why do I bother. Jesus, it's like talking to a brick wall."
Yeah, I'm the brick wall here.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
It's good cover anyway - "that's all I'm going to say about it" means you don't have to admit that you can't back up what you've said.
Edit to remove veiled profanity. Or vulgarity. I can never remember which is which.
[ April 11, 2007, 11:10 AM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
That is not a useful tactic. Or, at least, that is what I have been told. Also, you are condemning Storm Saxon for saying why does he bother, yet you post the following.
quote:<snip everything I wrote because you're not worth the effort after reading this>
If you are going to condemn Storm Saxon for dismissiveness being a cop-out or a hypocritical, you may not wish to engage in such behavior yourself.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:When you get in argument mode, you don't listen. Your sole focus is on defending your thesis and undercutting the other person's thesis. I don't enjoy talking to you or anyone else when they're in this mode.
Well, this is a bunch of garbage. Setting aside the fact that in order to listen and undercut the opposition, you have to listen, it seems to me that the number of arguments Dagonee starts is very heavily outweighed by the number he participates in.
Edit:
quote:(edit: I should also point out that I've noticed that whether or not you go into this mode depends on who you're talking to....)
Yeah, and you don't change your tone and style depending on who you're talking to? Such as to Dagonee, dismissing things he says with brick-wall remarks?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Dagonee listens and still manages to disagree cogently and intelligently.
It is possible for someone to understand completely and still disagree.
Trust your argument, Storm. If you're persuasive, you don't have to resort to ad hominems.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I disagree. Storm is correct in what Dag does in some cases. He plays games that can be very tiresome. (edit: Or at least that's my perspective.)
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Dagonee doesn't need to resort to playing games. He has clear positions with well-thought-out justifications.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Dagonee--
It would actually help the situation if you didn't say things like "It's good cover anyway - "that's all I'm going to say about it" means you don't have to admit that you're full of s&^%."
Storm--
quote:And, please, for the rest of the forum, don't turn this into a popularity contest. I know most of y'all get along with Dagonee and he's well liked.
I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. Unless you're implying that we agree with Dagonee merely because we like him.
That would be very silly.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jutsa Notha Name: That is not a useful tactic. Or, at least, that is what I have been told. Also, you are condemning Storm Saxon for saying why does he bother, yet you post the following.
quote:<snip everything I wrote because you're not worth the effort after reading this>
If you are going to condemn Storm Saxon for dismissiveness being a cop-out or a hypocritical, you may not wish to engage in such behavior yourself.
The big difference is that I didn't accuse Paul of anything and then refuse to elaborate after TWICE admitting that he was owed elaboration. Paul accused me of lying. I decided that there's no point addressing the rest of the discussion with that accusation present. I did, however, address his accusation.
Storm made a specific accusation. He admits I'm owed elaboration on it. He hasn't given it.
The hypocrisy is not that Storm won't answer. It's that he justifies his accusation of brick-wallness by saying he doesn't like behavior that 1) I haven't engaged in and 2) that he himself engaged in.
quote:I disagree. Storm is correct in what Dag does in some cases. He plays games that can be very tiresome.
And yet, when you are asked to explain why answering the very questions you asked is a game, you don't answer. I'm going to assume it's because you're incapable of doing so until proven otherwise.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Storm--
quote:And, please, for the rest of the forum, don't turn this into a popularity contest. I know most of y'all get along with Dagonee and he's well liked.
I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. Unless you're implying that we agree with Dagonee merely because we like him.
That would be very silly.
I know exactly what he is saying, and it isn't about agreeing. It is about this turning into a Storm Saxon dogpile because he had the gall to say something Dagonee found unacceptable.
I find your post refreshing, Scott R, in that it chides both to take a deep breath before continuing. That is an even handed approach, and probably the best in this case. I must admit to having slightly more sympathy for Storm Saxon in this case, though, and I am sure it is coloured by my own experiences (not with Dagonee, who has been generally consistently engaging with me even when disagreeing, but in general).
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
Dagonee, I know the two are not the exact same, but just like has been told to me my behavior in one post affects how others are going to react to separate posts. Wouldn't that naturally apply to more than just me?
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
That's me-- I'm as refreshing as an Irish Spring.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
Except I would not want you in the shower with me.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I think that's as close to flirting as you'll get, Scott.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Ooo...kat beat me to it.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
I'm apathetic.
Meh.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
I don't believe you are owed an explanation, Dags. I can understand why you're frustrated with what Storm said, and I think him saying he knows he "owes" you an explanation of his way of saying he understands you're frustrated, too. But if an explaination is something he doesn't feel he can give, or just doesn't want to give, that's his perogative. It's the same discussion that went on with kat in another thread in the last few days. . . if someone choses not to talk about a topic, that's their right. There are ways to do this that piss people off more or less than others, and of course it's everyone else's right to chose not to engage with that person anymore if they feel they are not acting in good faith. But there's no way to collect words you feel you're owed.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I think he's owed an explanation because Storm himself said he owed him an explanation. Beyond that, I don't have an opinion except that Storm was hiding behind his brick wall comment before, and is hiding now behind his "you're not going to listen" and "popularity contest" now, neither opinion having any bearing on whether or not an explanation is owed.
I'm also pretty darn sure that Dagonee is not challenging Storm Saxon's right not to talk about something that he doesn't want to, or asserting that he's owed an explanation in the same way he'd be owed a couple of bucks.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
Reading through the article and the thread, I'm struck by Dagonee's initial comment that the article is necessarily biased, and by his later comment that the article "is an emotional appeal veiled in an assertion of balance," since amended to: "an emotional appeal that seems to be perceived by some as balanced."
The second set of comments put the first in a greater light. Dagonee's comment that the article is biased is in fact biased. I'm sure Dag will agree with this, as he acknowledges his bias against abortion.
But the article does something that violates pro-choice propaganda standards. It admits that numerous changes have taked place that will prevent society from ever going back to the back-alley coathanger abortion that is described.
To wit:
* Information availability. Abortion is a simple procedure if done correctly. It is possible to find instructions on the internet that can allow a non-professional to provide abortions that are comparable to licensed abortions.
* Availability of newer abortion techniques, particularly drug induced abortions. There is a black market for all kinds of drugs. If abortion is made illegal in the U.S., abortion drugs will remain available though black market channels. Abortions done this way are even safer than surgical abortions.
* Societal changes that remove much of the pressure to have an abortion in the first place. The High School in my district has a nursery so students with children can continue their education, for example. This never would have happened during the time period discussed, largely for reasons associated with religion. See The Madgalene Sisters for a better understanding of this mechanism.
This last change is the most important of the three in my mind. Hillary Clinton's slogan of "Safe, Legal, and RARE" can only be achieved if unwanted pregnancy can be prevented. If there is a part of the article that is disengenuous, it is the fact that the article fails to mention two things: Birth Control, and Abstinence education.
quote:The real question is not how far a man would ride a bicycle to have sex. It’s how much ruin and butchery a woman will risk to have sex—which turns out to be as much ruin and butchery as the world has in it. The heroic and audacious and mystifying part of the stories in these two books isn’t how women got through abortions or adoptions; it’s how they got the courage to have sex in the first place.
To begin with, of course, there is erotic desire. "Despite all of that terror—and I’m talking tooth-gnashing terror," recalls Rita Moreno,
quote:I still now and then would give in, succumb, to those pleasurable moments. It’s astounding. When you’re that scared you usually stay away from the thing that scares you, but not with sexuality.
But women have always bound other emotions with their eroticism. To hear these women talk about sleeping with men for reasons that have nothing to do with sexual impulses is to understand something essential about women, and about why they have been so easily exploited by men for sex. "Nobody ever took into consideration feelings," writes Polly Bergen about the harsh lectures she was given about sex when she was a girl:
quote:They never took into consideration wanting to be held or wanting to be loved or wanting to be cared for or wanting to not feel alone or frightened … putting out seems like such a small price to pay for not being lonely.
To me, this is the crux of the article. Abstinence education will never work for the reasons explained in the quote above. Yet the article does not make that argument, it leaves it up to the reader to fill in the blanks. The alternative to abstinence is birth control, but that isn’t mentioned either. Perhaps those of the pro-life persuasion feel a discomfort similar to what Ms. Flanigan feels with the knowledge of what is destroyed during an abortion, when they consider how much suffering is caused by taboos against birth control. I don’t know, but they should.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"Paul accused me of lying."
NOW I'm going to accuse you of lying. I didn't before. I said I wasn't going to believe you. The gulf between "I don't believe you," and "you're lying" is an incredibly large one.
From someone who argues the way you do over many of teh Bush administrations actions (i.e. "I'm not going to argue whether this is right or wrong, I'm simply going to show how it could be considered to be legal") you not only should be able to recognize the difference between the statement "I'm not going to believe you," and the statement "you are lying," you hold yourself to that standard of expectation.
Lying means deliberate attempt to deceive by spreading false information.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I stated I had seen it here. I pointed out a specific example of someone justifying abortion even if it kills a human being due the right to life. The example itself showed used an entity specifically chosen as inarguably a person - to remove the element of personhood from the points in dispute.
The entire purpose of the analogy was to demonstrate what an argument you chose to "not believe" existed.
You didn't just disbelieve the general contention that some people have argued as I said they have. You also disbelieved a reference to a specific such argument.
The only way what I said would not be true is if I either made up the violinist example or the violinist did not meant what I said it meant. My intent to say what I meant was clear. My claim was such that error is not a credible defense to the charge of lying. There's no credibly way for me to wrong about my claim and not lying.
Either way, you are terribly, terribly mistaken that no one has argued "legal abortion is constitutionally required even if an unborn child were considered a person morally or legally." People have, and the argument is still a significant thread of the various justifications for legal abortion.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:The gulf between "I don't believe you," and "you're lying" is an incredibly large one.
If someone makes a carefully considered, deliberate statement and then you reply with, "I don't believe you," just how big is the gulf?
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
Pretty big, when the conversation is about people here on hatrack, and he makes reference to someone who wrote an essay 35 years ago (and doesn't link it, just makes refernece too. I'm fine doing my own reserach, but I'm not always going to, especially if the way the question is presented is done in such a way that its not apparent what is being referenced).
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I saw that edited post, Paul.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
Edit: Yup, you did. The full thing is here. End edit.
Storm is basically right about what you do, Dagonee.
You didn't read what I was saying, you read the peice of what I said that allowed you to go into attack mode.
You did it the last time we got in a fight, and you're doing it now again.
You aren't interested in what people say. You're interested in how you can show them to be wrong. Unfortanately, that means you often show yourself to be an asshole because you don't take in the peice of what people say that shows how your proof of incorrectness is irrelevent.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Hey, you've got more in common with Storm Saxon than disagreeing with Dagonee Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:You aren't interested in what people say. You're interested in how you can show them to be wrong. Unfortanately, that means you often show yourself to be an asshole because you don't take in the peice of what people say that shows how your proof of incorrectness is irrelevent.
You really are incapable of civility. That's twice you've called me that now, Paul.
What's really rich about this, though, is the bold part. Consider your statement about the word "humane":
quote:"I disagree with your definition of humane"
Thats nice. The vast majority of english speakers don't disagree with me. Go look around at some of the organizations that seek to legislate humane treatment of animals, or humane treatment laws. By far the majority of them use humane in such a way that it is not incompatible with humans killing animals. In fact, most of them are asking that we be humane in how we kill.
It would be a fine statement - a good refutation of my argument - if it, in any way, shape, or form actually addressed my argument.
Let's look at what it was actually in response to:
quote:I disagree with your definition of humane if it allows intentional killing of a human being with no finding of danger or culpability.
Seems to me you left out "the peice of what [I] said that shows how your proof of incorrectness is irrelevent" - you know, the part where I specified human beings, not animals.
Fine, you disagree about the personhood of the unborn child. But that's kind of my point. If one speaks of the humaneness of abortion, one is not taking into account the personhood of the entity killed.
So before you accuse me of ignoring the part that makes a proof of incorrectness irrelevant, take a look at your posts.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:If one speaks of the humaneness of abortion, one is not taking into account the personhood of the entity killed.
Or one who speaks of the inhumaneness of abortion is not taking into account the lack of personhood of the entity killed.
Your assertion that they are, that they have a soul, etc. simply doesn't hold any water when you are arguing with someone who believes that a soul cannot exist without adequate nerve function and connectivity to achieve self-awareness.
The article in question demonstrates the inhumaneness of a society that would put women through the trauma of a back alley abortion. That inhumaneness demonstrably exists regardless of whether the fetus is self-aware.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Or one who speaks of the inhumaneness of abortion is not taking into account the lack of personhood of the entity killed.
Glenn, you need to read the whole context as to why I posted this. It is NOT an attempt to argue about the morality of abortion. It was an attempt to demonstrate that the article was not balanced, but very definitively taking a side.
In other words, the fact that you say this is a demonstration of my point, which is that a pro-choice person speaking about the humaneness of abortion is presenting the world from their premises.
This is a perfectly proper thing to do given those premises - it's not dishonest, it's not manipulative, it's not rhetorically tricky.
But it's not balanced, anymore than an article that states that abortion is killing a human being is a balanced.
"Not balanced" <> "bad." It just means it's not balanced.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:In other words, the fact that you say this is a demonstration of my point, which is that a pro-choice person speaking about the humaneness of abortion is presenting the world from their premises.
This is a perfectly proper thing to do given those premises - it's not dishonest, it's not manipulative, it's not rhetorically tricky.
Fair enough, but...
quote:It was an attempt to demonstrate that the article was not balanced, but very definitively taking a side.
And that's actually where I disagree with you, hence my first post. The article concedes points that are rhetorically deadly to the standard pro-choice arguments, and also concedes emotionally damaging points that allow the pro-life side to make exactly the claim you're making: that they are disregarding the humanness of the fetus. While it's clear that her perspective is pro-choice, she's going to great lengths to be balanced. I don't think it's fair to discredit that.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
It would be very easy for someone moderately, or more, acquainted with the english language and how it is used in the united states, to apply the word "humane" to abortion, even if that person believed a fetus is also a person.
Which means that the presence of the word does not unbalance the article.
Which was the original point I was making.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:It would be very easy for someone moderately, or more, acquainted with the english language and how it is used in the united states, to apply the word "humane" to abortion, even if that person believed a fetus is also a person.
I disagree. When we talk about humane killing in the United States (in my experience), generally we're speaking of a few very limited things. Either animals, or convicted human criminals. I can't recall ever reading a newspaper headline about someone murdered 'humanely' in their sleep.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:While it's clear that her perspective is pro-choice, she's going to great lengths to be balanced. I don't think it's fair to discredit that.
We may simply be using a different definition of balanced. The article recounts several tales of hard choices made and hardships suffered by women choosing to abort or having children taken for adoption either against their will or at least without informed consent.
The effect of the other entity involved in these stories is not addressed at all except to recount one mother who thinks aborting is better than sending her child into the woods and to mention the unwelcome nature of the knowledge presented by 3d ultrasound - knowledge that doesn't change her opinion.
The article is powerful because of the personal stories. That power is specifically and intentionally not applied to the other half of the decision.
She's not going to great lengths to be balanced - she's taking a side. She is going to great lengths to demonstrate her understanding of the other side - a good thing, but not balance.
quote:It would be very easy for someone moderately, or more, acquainted with the english language and how it is used in the united states, to apply the word "humane" to abortion, even if that person believed a fetus is also a person.
Vacuum aspiration, injection of caustic solution into the uterus, intact dilation and extraction, and sharp curettage. These are not humane.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:That power is specifically and intentionally not applied to the other half of the decision.
I don't understand what you mean here. She specifically and intentionally left out stories told from the perspective of a fetus?
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
No, she left out stories of women who, facing an unplanned pregnancy, decided instead of abortion to carry their children to term and give birth to them. That is the side that is not represented.
Edit: I realize the article mentions women forced to go to "maternity homes" but what I'm referring to are the stories of people who made a conscious choice, who wanted their babies and raised them and/or lovingly gave them up for adoption and don't regret that decision. Not those that were forced into homes against their wills. That's decidedly lacking here, as Dag said, the one woman who spoke of adoption said she preferred the idea of abortion.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold:
quote:That power is specifically and intentionally not applied to the other half of the decision.
I don't understand what you mean here. She specifically and intentionally left out stories told from the perspective of a fetus?
Yes, she left out all those stories. She didn't even represent the other perspective of children given up for adoption - the vast majority who will, if asked, probably say that they prefer their mother's choice to the alternative being lauded as humane in this article.
She also didn't give any stories of the few survivors of botched abortions - and by that, I mean children born after failed attempts to kill them in utero.
She also didn't give the stories Belle mentioned, either.
Balance means more than having two things on the different sides of the scale. It also means those things being equal in weight (not precisely in this kind of situation, but at least close). Personalizing large issues is a powerful rhetorical technique. She only used it to represent one set of perspectives.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:It would be very easy for someone moderately, or more, acquainted with the english language and how it is used in the united states, to apply the word "humane" to abortion, even if that person believed a fetus is also a person.
I disagree. When we talk about humane killing in the United States (in my experience), generally we're speaking of a few very limited things. Either animals, or convicted human criminals. I can't recall ever reading a newspaper headline about someone murdered 'humanely' in their sleep.
1) Convicted criminals are people.
2) I recall the word humane being used in reference to the nursing home and hospital patients killed during the Katrina evacuations.
I'm not arguing whether or not the procedure is humane, but it is clear to me that it would be possible for someone to use the word while still acknowledging that the fetus is a person.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
It's not just the personhood, it's the procedure. While an injection that lets someone peacefully drift off to sleep might be considered humane by some, I doubt actual dismemberment - even of a completely anesthetized person - would be considered humane. Nor would chemical scalding.
Further, both the criminal and the nursing home patients had some form of justification (I'm not saying it's valid justification, but it's present). Absent the circumstances that made someone consider the actual killing a moral act - that is, either moral desert on the part of executed criminals or an imminent, more painful death on the part of the nursing home victims - I doubt most or any people would consider those acts of killing humane.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
dkw,
Of course they are...but they're a very specific set of people. If fetuses are actually human beings, though, then they're totally random human beings. Not the same thing at all.
You're right about Katrina, that is one instance that made the papers...but it certainly wasn't a universal application, either.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Again, I am not arguing whether the procedure is humane. I am saying that the use of the word does not exclude the possibility that the entity being killed is a person.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw: Again, I am not arguing whether the procedure is humane. I am saying that the use of the word does not exclude the possibility that the entity being killed is a person.
I don't think I was clear - I'm not saying that the use of humane in connection with a killing automatically means the person saying it is denying the humanity of the killed entity.
If all we know is that entity A was killed by person X, (edit to add: and that entity A is a person) we do not necessarily know that the act of killing was inhumane.
However, we know more than that here. We know the entity killed has committed no moral wrong. We know that, in the vast majority of cases, there is no imminent threat of physical harm to another person and there is no imminent death or pain to the entity killed which is averted by the killing. We also know the method of killing.
I'm saying that the use of the word humane in connection with an abortion means the person saying it is denying the humanity of the killed entity based on 1) the fact that few people would consider analogous methods of killing a person humane even if performed while the person killed is under anesthesia and 2) the lack of circumstances that are generally considered to morally justify the act of killing a human being.
Either of those is enough to remove a specific act of killing of a human being from the category humane. And each of those is present in the thing the author called humane.
[ April 16, 2007, 11:28 AM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
I think we must have differnt connotations for the word humane. I don't see how your "2)" is relevent. Whether or not the killing itself is "humane" has nothing to do with why the animal/person is being killed.
Wait . . . rethinking . . . I guess that isn't true. I've heard it used to justify euthanasia (of animals and people) as "the humane thing to do." So the reason for the killing can come into the choice to use the word. I don't think it always does, though.
And I think it's possible that someone could believe that current medical/surgical abortions are more "humane" even toward the fetus than the earlier illegal methods described in the books/article. And I have heard the argument that aborting unwanted children is better than being born into unloving and therefore likely abusive homes. Which seems to me to be the same rationale as the Katrina killings -- "the alternative would be worse." The Katrina situation was just a "stronger" case of that argument.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote: And I have heard the argument that aborting unwanted children is better than being born into unloving and therefore likely abusive homes.
This is an argument that has always seemed pretty laughable to me. My thinking is (and I know you're just mentioning it as an argument you've heard, dkw) that if the argument were merit-worthy, we'd be seeing a much higher suicide rate among children who lived in abusive homes, or adults who came from abusive homes.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I think it is a convenient fiction people tell themselves to make themselves feel better.
That's just guessing, but the original quote is as well.
As long as there are more parents longing for a baby than there are babies put up for adoption, it doesn't work.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote: I don't see how your "2)" is relevent. Whether or not the killing itself is "humane" has nothing to do with why the animal/person is being killed.
Wait . . . rethinking . . . I guess that isn't true. I've heard it used to justify euthanasia (of animals and people) as "the humane thing to do." So the reason for the killing can come into the choice to use the word. I don't think it always does, though.
Are serial killers who kidnap victims unaware via chloroform and then kill them while unconscious acting humanely? Assuming he is actually preventing all pain, is this a humane killing?
I don't think so, and I think the inability for it to ever be humane is the choice being made, including the reason for it.
quote:And I think it's possible that someone could believe that current medical/surgical abortions are more "humane" even toward the fetus than the earlier illegal methods described in the books/article.
Is there a threshold for humaneness?
Certainly the serial killer referenced above is acting more humanely than one who waits for the victims to awake and then dismembers them alive. But is the first humane, even though he ensures there is no pain felt by the victim?
In a sense, any act that is less inhumane is more humane, so that shooting someone so they bleed out in 5 minutes would be more humane than burying them alive. But even those who would say "the shooter was more humane than the burier" would be unlikely to say "the shooting was humane" absent some other factor.
quote:And I have heard the argument that aborting unwanted children is better than being born into unloving and therefore likely abusive homes. Which seems to me to be the same rationale as the Katrina killings -- "the alternative would be worse." The Katrina situation was just a "stronger" case of that argument.
But the word "humane" wouldn't have been applied to Katrina victims who wouldn't have died had adequate rescue been available. And, in the vast majority of cases, there is adequate rescue available in the form of adoption.
It's also clear the author isn't making this argument - her use of the word humane was related solely to the mother. It was inhumane prior to legal abortion (at least for poor or unconnected women); it was humane after. The humaneness was emphasized by the effect the rug would have on the women undergoing abortions - this is central to her point.
Her whole calculus of humaneness is from one perspective only - the mother's. And the triggering event is a set of decisions that allowed abortion for any reason at all - that is, with no moral justification required for the specific act.
It's undeniable that her use of "safe" in the same sentence is from the perspective of the mother only. No one can say that abortion is safe for the unborn child. The only way abortion can be "safe" as a whole is if it's not harming anything we would consider capable of being in danger.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:This is an argument that has always seemed pretty laughable to me. My thinking is (and I know you're just mentioning it as an argument you've heard, dkw) that if the argument were merit-worthy, we'd be seeing a much higher suicide rate among children who lived in abusive homes, or adults who came from abusive homes.
I don't think this is necessarily true, because it assumes suicide is a decision usually made rationally. Few people actually stop to think "is the net amount of suffering in my life worth the benefits my life gives me."
If people are generally unable to actually make that decision - especially if the act of examining the issue actually causes pain - then it would be possible to view another person making that decision for the abused child as doing something the child is unable to do for itself, for its own good.
I think it's obvious I don't agree with that perspective, but I also don't think the perspective can be disproved by the relative absence of suicides.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Dag, I think your post (edit: two posts up) makes the point I was trying to make -- there is no specific value or technical measurement to the word "humane." Yes, cholorforming the murder victim is more humane. I'm pretty sure I've even read about mafia killers who prided themselves on how humane (meaning in this case quick and clean) their murders were. The usage of humane does not always include the componant of morally justifiable.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:My thinking is (and I know you're just mentioning it as an argument you've heard, dkw) that if the argument were merit-worthy, we'd be seeing a much higher suicide rate among children who lived in abusive homes, or adults who came from abusive homes.
I'd be inclined to disagree. Not only does this presume that people are able to logically calculate the net value of their life, but it assumes that we do not tend to assign infinite value to our own existence once we exist. It's the flipside of what I said earlier, about how being grateful to God or your parents for your birth is a ridiculous idea.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
What other standard should be used, aside from the person's own though, Tom?
You're right, people generally establish a value on their own life that is greater than just about everything else (if the decision ever truly comes up), but what's the other option? Deciding for them? Because that's what's being done, when you say that aborting them to protect them from a miserable life is for their own good.
Edit:
quote:I'd be inclined to disagree. Not only does this presume that people are able to logically calculate the net value of their life
Oh, and if a person cannot logically calculate the net value of their life, certainly no one else has any business doing so and then making it stick.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Oh, I've got no disagreement there. Even back when I was depressed and suicidal, I never actually did it precisely because I wanted to keep my options open, and suicide did just the opposite.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw: Dag, I think your post (edit: two posts up) makes the point I was trying to make -- there is no specific value or technical measurement to the word "humane." Yes, cholorforming the murder victim is more humane. I'm pretty sure I've even read about mafia killers who prided themselves on how humane (meaning in this case quick and clean) their murders were. The usage of humane does not always include the componant of morally justifiable.
I think I need to back up here. My claim here is that this article is not balanced. Note that I'm not calling it deceptive or propaganda (in the negative sense that has become the near-exclusive sense of the word).
My key points in support of this are:
1) the lack of any use of the most powerful rhetorical technique she employs - personalized stories demonstrating the effect of abortion policy - to personalize the arguments against legal abortion. In fact, the one mention of anything that might personalize the effects of abortion on the unborn child is recoiled from. She doesn't want the victims of abortion to be personalized.
2) her consideration of the safety and humaneness of abortion from only the perspective of the mother. (edited, see dkw post below)
Each of these leads to imbalance because it takes only the favorable (to her point of view) aspects of those techniques/topics and places them on the scale. She mentions they exist, but she doesn't give them the weight. Balance is a very apt metaphor here.
This is a woman who has a definite opinion on the subject: that the effect of Roe was good, and that abortion should be legal and available to any woman who chooses it (the lateness of availability in the term is not touched on in the article at all - she may or may not have a time limit on this).
She has, very capably, written an article that advances her opinion, one whose primary technique is deliberately applied only in her favor.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote:2) her consideration of the safety and humaneness of abortion from only the perspective of the child.
I think you may have misspoke there.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw:
quote:2) her consideration of the safety and humaneness of abortion from only the perspective of the child.
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