posted
This thread has some interesting discussion, and seems to be doing much better in the signal/noise ratio that most abortion threads (or even most hatrack threads, for that matter).
My question for the self-identified pro-choice believers: What objections would you have to the Supreme Court recognizing that its decision in Roe v. Wade has not only caused a considerable mess, but was constitutionally problematic when decided and all but incoherent each time it's been revisited? This would have the effect of returning the issue to the state legislatures, where it could be democratically debated.
This thread seems to indicate, to me, at least, that plenty of people subscribe to neither extreme position as they are typically potrayed in the media. It seems likely that in a legislative setting, without the poisonous rancor introduced by the all-or-nothing model forced on us by the courts, that the peoples of the various states could come up with democratic compromises that would leave a greater number of adults satisfied than the current status quo does. Some states would enact significant restrictions. Other states would enact few or no restrictions. We might even be able to compare different laws and see how well they work. Candidates could articulate a compromise position on abortion that voters who disagreed slightly could still live with, allowing the litmus test effect to fade in significance.
In contrast, the current status quo basically consists in states (or Congress) trying to enact some token restrictions (with significant majority support), and Justice O'Connor decided (by means known but to her) which ones are 'constitutional' and which ones aren't. Regardless of your position on abortion, I have a hard time seeing how anyone can defend this based on democratic principles.
So, I ask, with full recognition that democracy likely would not bring about my most ideal outcome, what would be wrong with introducing some more democracy to the process? And why are judicial nominees who indicate that Roe was bad law routinely demonized, without actually analyzing the merits of their claims or the policy outcomes of their proposals?
Posts: 40 | Registered: Nov 2001
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It's tough for parents that WANT the job, PLAN for the job . . .
The children you are referring to, CT, are those children that get the parents that didn't want the job, the responsibility, can't take care of themselves and frankly could care less about the life they bring into this world -
Bring on the aerosol -
Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Tom - that's okay. I don't agree with a lot of pro-choicers either. I don't generally agree with anybody that refuses to acknowledge gray areas in subjects such as this. But if you permit the woman to have an abortion at demand at any point in the process, you're pro-choice. Kinda by definition.
Han - Pro-choice advocates fight against even the hint of abortion restriction because they feel that any restrictions, no matter how small, will make further restrictions easier and ultimately to a ban of abortions altogether.
It wasn't a democratic decision in the way you're suggesting (let the people decide) as much as a constitutional issue. The Supreme court found in Roe v. Wade that "State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here... violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy..."
Right now states do have the right to limit abortions at certain times. The decision stated that:
A woman and her doctor may freely decide to terminate a pregnancy during the first trimester. State governments can restrict abortion access after the first trimester with laws intended to protect the woman's health. Abortions after fetal viability must be available if the woman's health or life are at risk; state governments can prohibit other abortions.
Apart from the first trimester, states can ban all abortions as long as they include outs for women's health emergencies. I, for one, would not want to let states have the option of banning them altogether unless crossing state lines to have one was permitted.
[ January 14, 2004, 06:59 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
"Pro-choice advocates fight against even the hint of abortion restriction because they feel that any restrictions, no matter how small, will make further restrictions easier and ultimately to a ban of abortions altogether."
Except that this doesn't make sense. Except for the most token momentum-building restrictions, every restriction that moves policy closer to the median voter makes the next restriction that much harder to enact. Plenty of people in this thread have indicated some support for early-term abortions, but none for late-term. Once the late-term ones are banned, such people would stop voting for abortion restrictions. On the other hand, playing the game all or nothing is much more likely to lead to an extreme solution on either side. Give the Roe effect [abortion supporters not reproducing in comparable numbers to abortion foes] a few more years, and it's certainly possible that the pro-life position will accumulate a large enough majority more uncomfortable with the status quo than with a total ban to enact a total ban.
"It wasn't a democratic decision in the way you're suggesting (let the people decide) as much as a constitutional issue."
But why should it have been a constitutional issue? It has even less grounding in the Constitution than 'liberty of contract' from the Lochner era did. My main beef is that it hasn't been a democratic decision--and every time the Court invents something in the Constitution to justify its policy preferences, the process suffers.
"Right now states do have the right to limit abortions at certain times."
My understanding is that this is ridden with loopholes. Why else would we just have had a monumental flap over the democratically supported partial-birth abortion ban?
"I, for one, would not want to let states have the option of banning them altogether unless crossing state lines to have one was permitted."
I suspect something of this nature would be necessary to make my proposed solution work. The exact consequences of doing so were beyond the scope of my original question, though we can discuss them if you'd like.
It doesn't seem many people are interested in discussing this further, but I'll ask once more: Why is the pro-choice movement afraid of democracy?
Posts: 40 | Registered: Nov 2001
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quote:Pro-choice advocates fight against even the hint of abortion restriction because they feel that any restrictions, no matter how small, will make further restrictions easier and ultimately to a ban of abortions altogether.
I think this comment is accurate and it led me to a weird little epiphany (one that will no doubt get me in trouble).
Is it just me, or is this equivalent to the NRA and its resistance to just about any legislation that gets introduced to put new controls on gun ownership, recordkeeping, etc.?
posted
No, it's exactly the same thing. It's the same reason that people against Bush would die before they would admit he did anything right, the same reason that some evolutionary scientists hate admitting that they haven't figured it all out yet. They're terrified that any compromise strengthens the other view.
"Why is the pro-choice movement afraid of democracy?" Point of order, not all of them are. The extremists are. I consider myself pro-choice and I'm not.
However, there are also plenty of examples of the majority of people wanting a wrong thing. When the ban against black/white marriage was struck down, polls at the time showed something like 75% of Americans were against it. The court ruled in favor of it anyway, on constitutional grounds, and lover of democracy that I am I can't fault them for it.
[ January 14, 2004, 03:53 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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posted
Yeah, it comes from the same basic instinct.
I'd like to point out I'm both for bans on late term abortions, and for more gun buying checks plus more gun education.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Is it only the woman's choice that's important, or should a man be able to choose whether or not to support a child he didn't want?
Not that I'm opposed to double standards--after all, men and women are different--but it seems to me that fewer people would be screwing around on the trapeze if we took down the net.
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Boon
unregistered
posted
Frisco,
How 'bout this? What if every girl/woman who finds herself pregnant out of wedlock were required to notify in writing every possible father for her baby within, say, the first 9 weeks of her pregnancy, on penalty of losing any chance at future child support. Further, the possible father(s) should have the option of bowing out at that point by written notification within, say, 2 weeks.
If she fails to notify him, she can't get child support unless he chooses to be part of the child's life. She'd still have to notify him if she wanted to give the baby up, and he'd then get the choice.
If he chooses not to pay, he automatically gives up all rights. She would then be free to make any decision she chooses for herself and the baby.
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posted
Boon, your suggestion only seems fair if you don't recognize any moral objections to early abortions.
Posts: 896 | Registered: Feb 2001
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Boon
unregistered
posted
quote: Boon, your suggestion only seems fair if you don't recognize any moral objections to early abortions.
True, but that wasn't the question, was it?
Okay, maybe something more, say, preemptive, is in order. A sex contract, if you will, that says: By having sex with this man I recognize a child could result and I agree to support said child alone. He also gives up all future rights concerning said child.
posted
Child support isn't about the rights of the mother - it's about the rights of the child. The mother has no moral right to waive a father's obligations to his child.
posted
No, but I think he should be able to, as long as he's willing to give up the priveledges too. I just think it should be either up front or not at all. Then the mother can decide whether she wants to raise a baby "alone" or opt for adoption FROM THE BEGINNING.
I don't think either parent should be able to just "give up" their child after the child reaches a certain age, without showing cause. But I do think either, or both, should be able to, in effect, put their baby up for adoption. The fact that the other biological parent chooses to take on the entire financial responsibility instead of giving the child to someone else should have no bearing.
Sorry if I'm not making sense...as always, I'm tired.
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posted
The contradiction between child support being the right of the child-though often abused by the mother (and sometimes the father)-and abortion being about the right of the mother is, in fact, one of the less-frequently mentioned hypocrisies concerning the abortion debate.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Tthe legal argument is about the right to control your own body, and has nothing to do with men's rights because abortion has nothing to do with men's bodies.
Some people use a different argument, but the legal argument isn't hypocritical at all.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Tthe legal argument is about the right to control your own body, and has nothing to do with men's rights because abortion has nothing to do with men's bodies.
:::laughing::: Men don't have wombs, but they're still required to make a baby.
Admittedly, I'm only looking at it from the standpoint of the guy who wants to keep the baby.
Though it certainly complicates things, I don't think it's fair to say that men should have no say in the process. They may not have the womb required, but I know quite a few with the heart required.
Posts: 2425 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
I think if more men and women discussed from the very beginning of any partnership that includes sex what their thoughts are on abortion/child support, there'd be a lot fewer court battles over the latter and probably fewer of the former, too.
Every man realizes that having sex outside of marriage with one or multiple partners may lead to an unwanted pregnancy. A slight chance, yes, but it's still there -- it's always there. What should happen from the very beginning is a conversation about what would happen should that event occur.
she: "i don't want a child now, but i would probably have the child anyway and keep him/her as my own"
he: "i would advocate abortion, and wouldn't want the baby born at all."
she: "well, then, maybe we shouldn't have sex."
OR
he: "you should bring the child to term and then give it up for adoption, that seems the best thing to do."
she: "no, i don't want to deal with that, i would want an abortion."
he: "i'm not comfortable with that. Maybe we shouldn't have sex."
Why doesn't anybody discuss these things? It could solve so many problems!!
Then again, to play devil's advocate...i think some people just don't know what they would want/do in that situation. So for those people, the point is moot.
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
There are a lot of good points throughout this thread by people with differing beliefs. I'm not completely decided on my own beliefs, so I don't want to jump right in, but I was struck by one recurring point. Pro-Choice people often comment on the evils of people who are not equipped to be parenting being forced to have children, and on abortion being more merciful to the fetus than being born into an ill-equipped, impoverished, or possible abusive home would be. Many of us were born into less than ideal families. Many of us were poor and/or abused, and I reckon virtually everybody at least knows somebody with this type of background . . .
Is the party line, then, that such people would have been better off not having been brought to term?
-o-
Incidentally, I assumed CT was being somewhat facetious about the aeresolized birth control thing (though I'm not so sure about Slash or Frisco . . . ) I certainly sympathize with the sentiment, having had to take a parenting class to be permitted to adopt, while all sorts of lowlifes can bring children into the world with no restriction, but I wouldn't seriously act on that fanciful wish.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
As someone who was born "defective", I tend to get irate when I hear claims that people who aren't going to be born healthy shouldn't be born at all. Although my problems have been partially fixed surgically and are not the sort of ongoing difficulty someone with, say, cerebral palsy might have, they were potentially lethal and cost my parents an arm and a leg. I could have had a considerably better life if I was born healthy, but under normal circumstances I'm glad I was born.
Posts: 1041 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Ic, what if the antidote for the aerosol were available over-the-counter, merely insuring that any child conceived is done so with intent?
Bam. The problem of unnecessary abortion is solved.
Toy with the price a bit, and I bet we could stop couples who can't even afford to have one child from having seven.
And maybe the pill could contain meat to keep annoying vegans and vegetarians from reproducing and coffee grinds to keep the...oh, never mind. Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Seriously? My knee-jerk reaction to that is that it gives the government too much power. Then I think some more about it and I say, why? I mean, the government has power over so many less important decisions we make, why don't we as a society control something as crucial as who gives birth? But there's the rub . . . government /= society. And we are told that driving is a privilege not a right, but I'm not so comfortable saying that having kids is a privilege and not a right. It seems unnatural.
The potential for abuse is overwhelming. I can see this turning into an institutionalized form of classism. I see the unfairness of people having children they don't have the resources to raise and expecting society to shoulder the burden. But preventing people from giving birth seems like a rather draconian way to prevent this. I don't think a formula for who can give birth can be developed that we can all agree on. In your example, the antidote is easily available, but your facetious idea of massaging the price to control access makes the point that this opens the door to government control of conception. (I would be slightly less uncomfortable if it were free, I suppose, but how could we be sure it would be kept free? And can you imagine the disaster if everyone were humping like bunnies, secure in the notion that they would not conceive, and something went wrong?)
Heck, if the point is to keep society from having to pay for the children of people who were too poor to have them, why not stop aiding poor families who keep on having kids. Let 'em starve rather than making society accept the burden. This may be an evil attitude, but it seems like a lesser evil than having the government control conception. The ills we currently have seem like lesser evils to me.
I think about China's ZPG laws and this seems like a far more efficient way to bring something like that about. I know some people who are strident enought to think this is a good thing, but I don't think it is. Once we put this power in either government or corporate America's hands, will we as individuals be pleased with how they decide to use it? The whole thing seems Brave New World-ish to me.
All of this is completely disregarding the fact that the idea would be abhorrent to many religious persuasions. Again, it seems like even if the majority were for it, it may be a case of the majority trodding unfairly on the minority.
It's a good topic to speculate on in its own right . . . maybe passive universal birth control would make a good thread all its own.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote: The potential for abuse is overwhelming. I can see this turning into an institutionalized form of classism. I see the unfairness of people having children they don't have the resources to raise and expecting society to shoulder the burden. But preventing people from giving birth seems like a rather draconian way to prevent this.
The U.S. has already been there and done that. Due to the efforts of the eugenics movement, about 30 states had involuntary sterilization laws on the books - in many places they were implemented aggressively. And they were implemented in ways that were both racist and classist. That was by design. When it was all over, between 60 and 70 thousand Americans were sterilized under these laws. Unfortunately, I don't think we're teaching this in American History in public schools.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
You're right. At least, not when I was in high school. I think I'll go ask the history teacher next door if things have changed.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
As I said, I am rational enough to be glad I am not in charge of making public policy on this. I'm currently in the state of preferring that our species die out than have to examine another baby with waist-down 3rd degree burns from having been dipped into scalding water.
Of course, many people have intentionally harmed the very children which they desired to have.
Again, I remind you that I am glad that I am not in charge of public policy. Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:Unfortunately, I don't think we're teaching this in American History in public schools.
Did I just get lucky in my public school? Almost every time I’ve heard someone say “This is isn’t taught in public schools,” it turns out to be something I learned in public school.
I learned about the sterilization laws. I learned about the syphilis experiments on uninformed black patients. I learned about how the developer of blood transfusion techniques died outside a whites-only hospital in (I think) North Carolina. I learned about Rosewood. I learned about Crispus Attucks. I learned about the Trail of Tears and the Middle Passage.
I even learned about evolution. And I went to public school in Virginia. Hell, we learned about the ozone layer decaying and global warming in the late 70s.
I don’t doubt anyone who says they didn’t learn something in public school, and I’m sure there are gaps in my knowledge that other people had filled in high school. It’s just the really popular “nobody teaches that” incidents were all covered.
It’s just weird. I didn’t think my school system was that great.
Dagonee, it could be that Virginia is one of those places where it is being taught. Much of the leadership of the eugenics movement was situated in the state. The Supreme Court that eugenics advocates orchestrated originated there as well. As a result, Virginia has had more public awareness about the history of involuntary sterilization than most others. It's possible that the public education efforts of some of the people involved in "rediscovering" this history led to the inclusion of this in your school curriculum.
I know it's not part of the curriculum in New York state schools. Three years ago, my niece was dissed by her history teacher in high school when she said the first victims of the Nazis were disabled people. She got dissed when she told him Hitler modeled his sterilization laws after our own. She was right. He was wrong. Didn't matter. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Almost every time I’ve heard someone say “This is isn’t taught in public schools,” it turns out to be something I learned in public school. ... And I went to public school in Virginia.
quote:Dagonee, it could be that Virginia is one of those places where it is being taught.
Yes, yes, it could be. There might be another explanation, though. We should keep looking.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Thanks for pointing out the mistype - happens when I don't bother to proofread. Meant to say that Virginia might be one of the few states where the history of sterilization is taught.
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