posted
Why then Dag, do you feel that making abortion illegal is a critical part of stopping abortions? As best I can see, the legal fight against abortions for the past 31 years has been at best a waste of time and at worst counter-productive.
Wouldn't we be much better off if all the time and effort spent on trying to change Roe-vs-Wade had been put into helping young girls find practical solutions to their problems besides getting an abortion?
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quote:But have could you provide evidence for "probable cause" without the medical records? Without medical records, there is no reliable evidence that a woman was pregnant. Anything but medical records (except perhaps the 1st hand testimony of the women involved), is heresay. This is the entire problem with abortion -- all the evidence comes from the body of the woman. ALL.
I'll explain more in the other post. But I think you misunderstand what hearsay means. I'll make sure to cover that in some detail.
quote:Frankly, Bob, if my taking a ten year break is contingent on your success in encouraging people to work with you, this thread is enough to make me skeptical.
Ouch!
Well, Dag, you're right. This has not been my best effort at coalition building. And I owe you and Hobbes (and perhaps others) an apology.
I think that it would be wonderful to start up coalitions to work on specific aspects of the issue in a cooperative manner. I think that it would take some restraint on everyone's part to stick just to the issue at hand (say, providing teens in realistic sex education -- defining what that is and how best to deliver the message, etc.). We'd all have to agree to not try to force the agenda into areas of disagreement and just hammer out something practical on the thing we set ourselves as a task.
I'm probably NOT the best person to conduct that kind of coalition building, but I would certainly like to be part of something like that.
It would mean a tougher sell among some folks, since they have a natural antipathy towards the opposition, but maybe it would work afterall. I'm no expert in this. I just want to see people working towards solutions instead of yelling at each other.
quote:Why then Dag, do you feel that making abortion illegal is a critical part of stopping abortions? As best I can see, the legal fight against abortions for the past 31 years has been at best a waste of time and at worst counter-productive.
Wouldn't we be much better off if all the time and effort spent on trying to change Roe-vs-Wade had been put into helping young girls find practical solutions to their problems besides getting an abortion?
For two reasons, one normative, one practical.
The normative reason is that criminal laws are one of society's best means for declaring certain behavior as outside society's moral norm, and for declaring to the potential victims of the behavior that they are part of the community of human beings worth protecting.
The practical reasons are that the mere illegality will stop some people from obtaining them, both from fear of getting caught and from receiving the message encapsulated by the normative reason above. It will also likely make more people consider the alternatives. In short it is likely to shift "get an abortion" from the position of default response to unplanned pregnancy for some people.
quote:I think that it would be wonderful to start up coalitions to work on specific aspects of the issue in a cooperative manner. I think that it would take some restraint on everyone's part to stick just to the issue at hand (say, providing teens in realistic sex education -- defining what that is and how best to deliver the message, etc.). We'd all have to agree to not try to force the agenda into areas of disagreement and just hammer out something practical on the thing we set ourselves as a task.
I've thought of this - it was my plan for when my company went public and I didn't have to work any more. Oh, well.
I would likely not work on sex ed portions (although I wouldn't oppose them) but rather on making sure real options were available for women facing unplanned pregnancies. It's an area where a coalition would be much more successful.
quote:The normative reason is that criminal laws are one of society's best means for declaring certain behavior as outside society's moral norm, and for declaring to the potential victims of the behavior that they are part of the community of human beings worth protecting.
I'm not sure that the data would support that position. For example, speeding is against the law everywhere and yet for large fractions of the population it is consider to be acceptable behavior. In fact, most people don't even consider that they are endangering the lives of others when they exceed the speed limit.
In contrast, everyone I know considers cheating on their spouse to be an unacceptable behavior even though it is perfectly legal. Even the people I know who have cheated on their spouses agree that it was wrong.
If more than a tiny fraction of the population decide to ignore any given law, the law is unenforcable even under the most oppressive systems. Laws only work when they prohibit something that the overwhelming majority of the population already view as unacceptable. For this reason, I can't imagine that making abortion illegal in the US would be anything short of a dissaster both normatively and practically.
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posted
One of the saddest aspects of abortion is the number of women who get abortions because they can't face telling their conservative "christian" parents that they are pregnant.
Some of them simply under-estimate their parents, but many of them are truly in a situation where they will be disowned if their parents find out.
Personally, I would rather be disowned by my family than kill an unborn child but I have never had to make such a choice. The women in this situation have my deepest sympathy, particularly since many of them are still young and dependent on their parents for support. I can't imagine how hard it would be to have a child when you are young and unprepared without even the support of those you love.
Somehow as Christians, we must become better at loving the sinner. So much better, that our love is never doubted by those who need us most.
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quote:I think OSC's point has never been that things should be just like they were in the 50s. Rather, it is that correcting the bad aspects of society in the 50s did not require outright dismissal of the good aspects. Where he fails to make this clear is when he speaks only of the good aspects of 50s society.
How about when, in so many words, he says exactly what you claim he hasn't?
quote:The 1950s were the last decade in which marriage was still believed to be permanent, illegitimate births and abortions were rare, and adults chaperoned children to keep them from having sex before they were ready to deal with the consequences.
No civilization has ever been as successful at bringing freedom, self-government, relative safety, and a chance for happiness to such a large proportion of the human race as the civilization of western democracies under the leadership of the United States of America. And a rational claim can be made for the idea that the 1950s represent the peak from which we have deliberately and unnecessarily fled, heading irrationally downward into darkness.
Dagonee, he's basically made it clear that the 1950's is the measure by which he judges today. He missed a few points in his cherry-picking, though:
The 1950's marked the resurgence of what is the modern Klu Klux Klan movement.
The 1950's was when "under god" was forced into our Pledge of Allegiance.
The 1950's marked a divisive period in American history topped only by the Civil War itself with the McCarthy era.
The 1950's was the time that rose the bar higher in our Cold War arms race than any other decade.
The 1950's was the decade where we began our actions that led invariably to the mess that was the Vietnam War.
The generation that was born in the 1950's is the generation that 30 years later gave us one of the highest divorce rates in the world.
Dispute my list against his until you're blue in the face, but the only way either are viable examples of the 1950's is if they are taken in context together, not separate. OSC separates the good from the bad and states explicitly that the 1950's are the ideal from which the modern day must be judged, yet you claim he doesn't do that. Are you OSC under another persona, or do his own writings not speak better for his opinion than your own opinion of his writings?
[ October 25, 2004, 11:47 PM: Message edited by: Jutsa Notha Name ]
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posted
The darkness was always there! Hidden under the surface! DIDN'T THEY LINCH PEOPLE BACK THEN! ARRRRRRRRRG! I need to brush up on my history. What year did they start intergrating blacks into schools?
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posted
Hobbes-- You know I like you, but that argument is specious. Making it illegal to shoot arrows in schools won't keep people from doing it-- it just gives us the ability to punish them for it. Making abortions illegal won't keep people from having them.
I'm thinking that if people could come to recognize that unborn babies are people, and maybe also come to see that women who give birth to unwanted babies are heroic instead of 'whores'... then maybe public opinion would swing aroundso that it wouldn't seem like the 'best' option for some people.
I know it sounds silly, but the movie <I>Babe</I> actually decreased the worldwide consumption of suckling pig. People's minds can be changed, and behaviors can be affected.
Laws don't prevent crimes, they just give us means for revenge or punishment.
I would like to see stronger emphasis on preventing pregnancy. I would like to see abortions limited to worst-case scenarios of medical necessity. Laws won't do that. People don't obey laws that don't make sense to them, or that the public at large no longer care about. When was the last time someone was arrested for spitting on the sidewalk in the U.S.? It's illegal for a free woman to wear an ankle bracelet in my home town, but I wasn't hauled off to the pokey the last time I was there.
It's like prohibition. A good idea. Our society would be better without alcohol, no question in my mind. But the genie was out of the bottle (so to speak) and the only thing prohibition got us was very organized, very profitable crime (which didn't go away when the booze came back).
When it comes to building a utopia, rulebooks don't work. It may seem fruitless to try to change even one person's mind, but to that one person it isn't.
I want to live in a world where people protect the innocent and helpless-- and people won't do that sort of thing just because someone tells them to, I think.
I haven't been here much lately, and that isn't about to change. Just a warning that I probably won't see this thread again.
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quote:Are you OSC under another persona, or do his own writings not speak better for his opinion than your own opinion of his writings?
Hmm. "Peak" as in "best we've achieved," not "best possible."
I may disagree with him about the state of society as a whole, but "peak" does not suggest that "things [as in ALL things] should be just like they were in the 50s." My next two sentences make it clear that I meant the "as in all things."
And 4 of your 6 items in your list indicate the start of things getting worse - hardly inconsistent with a peak.
Maybe he doesn't mean what I think he means. If not, he can clarify. But your interpretation of his words isn't any better than mine.
posted
I want education and honour. Is that too much to ask? A society where people are honourable, responsible so there is no need for abortions, ever! That is how you stop abortion! There's just so many things that need to be fixed to solve the problem...
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quote:And 4 of your 6 items in your list indicate the start of things getting worse - hardly inconsistent with a peak.
And I would argue that of those four, none of them had to do with the decade in which they happened, much like almost all of OSC's list. It is inconsistent with a peak because he's claiming correlation or causation where there is little or none.
And your opinion as to what he said aside, the only way we can know for sure is if he were to post here and settle it. However, take my post as a warning to stay away from such definitive statements of the opinion of others, especially when so little interaction takes place. Unless, once again, you have something to tell us that we formerly did not know. I'm suggesting that you may be projecting a bit.
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quote:However, take my post as a warning to stay away from such definitive statements of the opinion of others, especially when so little interaction takes place.
posted
I understand that you said those words, but the words that followed were using definitive phrasing. I'm not trying to pick on your use of the English language, but the vehemence which you followed up the "I think" with belies a bit of projection. Where you think he doesn't, I think that after reading that and some other essays there that he most definitely does. Whether that is a useful thing or not is a whole nother debate, but I think the examples of his idealizing the decade grossly outweigh your "I think" on this matter.
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quote:Hobbes-- You know I like you, but that argument is specious. Making it illegal to shoot arrows in schools won't keep people from doing it-- it just gives us the ability to punish them for it. Making abortions illegal won't keep people from having them.
I like you too.
Consider this though, if laws don't stop people, if they're only purpose is to impose revenge, then we would be better off without laws wouldn't we? I would agree that an argument that making something, anything illegal would stop it is a specious argument. I think just as specious an argument is that making something illegal would have no impact on how often it occurs. If we made murder legal most people would not run out and shot up their neighbor just because they could, or more to the point, most people would not take some old grudge as an excuse to kill, people are normally bound by their morals. But I find it highly unlikely that legalizing murder wouldn't still lead to a very high increase in murders, don't you?
I think your solutions, the ones you present in your post, are absolutley great, and I would be thrilled so see them enacted, and am thrilled so far as they are already in motion. My argument is not that we should abondon these methods! Certainly that would be a bad idea, but I do not think it is necessary to forgo legal issues to pursue these methods, nor beneficial to do so.
quote:I understand that you said those words, but the words that followed were using definitive phrasing. I'm not trying to pick on your use of the English language, but the vehemence which you followed up the "I think" with belies a bit of projection. Where you think he doesn't, I think that after reading that and some other essays there that he most definitely does. Whether that is a useful thing or not is a whole nother debate, but I think the examples of his idealizing the decade grossly outweigh your "I think" on this matter.
Do you think he thinks Jim Crow was a good thing, or that he is unaware of its existence throughout the 50s? If so, then we have vastly different, and probably irreconcilable, opinions of the man.
I agree he doesn't express the distinction between what was good and what was bad in the 50s often or well enough. But I think there's a lot more support for the presumption that he's both aware and opposed to many of those bad thing than for the presuming the opposite.
posted
It feels like to me that he totally ignores the bad aspects of the 50s and views it as this perfect, golden aged idealic time for America. Perhaps on his side of the fence, but on others, it wasn't. Which reminds me...
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quote:Do you think he thinks Jim Crow was a good thing, or that he is unaware of its existence throughout the 50s? If so, then we have vastly different, and probably irreconcilable, opinions of the man.
Absolutely not. He seems to feel quite the opposite, in my opinion.
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posted
I certainly can't speak for the man, but when I read the article I got the impression he was saying that when people wish for a return of the fifties they aren't wishing for a return of everything that happened in the fifities, they're wishing for a return of what they remember the fifties as. The fact that the fifties, like any period in time, had a lot of things we all hope never return can be used as ammunition against such wishes, but the motive of the wisher isn't to bring back racial intolerance and all these terrible things, but to bring back what was good about the time.
quote:quote: ----------------------------------------- Do you think he thinks Jim Crow was a good thing, or that he is unaware of its existence throughout the 50s? If so, then we have vastly different, and probably irreconcilable, opinions of the man. -----------------------------------------
Absolutely not. He seems to feel quite the opposite, in my opinion.
Which is the chief underlying assumption that the problem is one of effectiveness of communication, not of what he believes. I'm basing this on my understanding of his morality from many of his writings, fiction and non-fiction, and evidence of his knowledge of the events, if not the underlying reasons and trends, of history.
But you're right, neither one of us can know for sure.
posted
But what if the good stuff didn't exist purely? Wouldn't it be better to say, Let's work hard to create a society with strong families, people taking care of their kids and being responsible right now with no precedent, just create something that's completely real and based on honour, compassion love and stuff we really need! (and it would include gay people too ^^)
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posted
Yes, I think it would be better to be more explicit.
You have to remember that he's responding to attacks on the 50s as a whole, attacks which attempt to say that all the good stuff was actually a thin facade over a core of corruption.
And yes, I've seen such attacks, both explicit and implied. I simply don't think they're worth responding to.
quote:But what if the good stuff didn't exist purely?
quote:Wouldn't it be better to say, Let's work hard to create a society with strong families, people taking care of their kids and being responsible right now
That would be equally valid, and I wouldd happy to hear that become our societie's mantra.
quote:with no precedent, just create something that's completely real
Once again, I'm confused. What do you mean "competely real", or more to the point, what was said above that was less than real that now needs to be made real?
quote: honour, compassion love and stuff we really need!
I wouldn't list them in that order, but a society based on those things has a good chance of making it.
quote:(and it would include gay people too ^^)
I'm all for a general society that includes anyone who is willing and desirious to become a part of it.
posted
It's rather late, so my thoughts are not as clear as they should be. I reckon I have mixed feelings about movies and books that portray the fifties or suburbs as being places with underlying corruption. But, at the sametime, I dislike it when they portray such an era as being completely perfect and free of corruption.. *Sighs* I am not making myself clear >.< It shouldn't be based on... dammit. Why is that so hard to explain? *Growls in frustration*
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posted
Wow, this has been pretty active lately, huh?
Dag:
quote: would likely not work on sex ed portions (although I wouldn't oppose them) but rather on making sure real options were available for women facing unplanned pregnancies. It's an area where a coalition would be much more successful.
I was wondering what you would say to Bob's post at that point, as I know you are a RC.
I think there is a bit of misconception here, as I see it.
To me, Dag isn't a polarizing force, really. He is willing to work with people who don't agree with him on this issue, and most of the people I know (and I know a lot of them feel too strongly to ever be able to restrict themselves and their views to do so effectively. A lot of them are RC like Dag, but they wouldn't allow anything they were involved in to promote anything resembling birth control.
Not that RC's (or pro-lifers) have a lock on intolerance...a lot of people who are pro-choice are just as set in their ways, and every bit as intolerant as the other side.
I think the people whom Bob_S was talking about are those others, who feel so strongly about these issues that they don't see the damage they are doing in the name of their "cause".
Sort of like those aid workers who were detained in the middle east for preaching Christianity to the people in the relief camps. They were there under false pretenses, lied about their motivations and their willingness to help others without proselytizing, and then when they were caught claimed that it was all justified.
All aid was stopped from entering the country for a while, and Arabs everywhere lost trust for the UN workers and aid associations from the west....but it was all justified?
I don't think so. We should have left them there to rot, IMO, rather than insisting on their release.
I think Bob's point is that there are people out there that think outlawing abortion techniques is the ONLY way to lower the abortion rates...and that a lot of those very groups are the reason so many young girls feel unable to have the child in the first palce....so in fact those same groups are fighting the battle but losing the war.
And that a lot of pro-choice people are so worried that Roe vs Wade will be overturned that that make outrageous claims about their opponents, without seeing that their radical messages hurt their own cause.
Most people believe something in the middle, and so we are very uncomfortable with either extreme....and don't trust either side at this point.
Not that I speak for American,now,but most of the people I know detest the concept of abortion, but don't want the option removed from the women who would be most affected by it.
quote:By the way, Dag, I'm pro-life too. I just don't think we should legislate it.
Bob, if you feel this way, then you're probably not pro-life. Why? Because, to a pro-lifer, abortion is murder; it's the needless killing of a completely innocent child.
If you felt that way, I suspect that it would be inconceivable for you to contemplate not legislating against it. You're in traffic safety, right? Think about this: we have laws requiring people to wear seat belts and use turn signals, and presumably these are good laws -- and yet not wearing a seat belt and not signalling a turn do not always result in death. Abortion, to a pro-lifer, does.
Many members of the pro-life movement, in fact, believe that they are already being reasonable and already meeting pro-choicers halfway by discussing lesser legal penalties and/or exceptions for rape and incest and the like; to them, these conciliatory gestures are in fact murders they are agreeing to ignore in order to find some common ground and stop a larger number of murders. To a lot of pro-lifers, this is already an almost unacceptable amount of equivocation.
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posted
I think some people can be personally pro-life (in the mindset of "I personally believe abortion is wrong and would never ever get one myself") without feeling like they have to legislate their beliefs on others.
I don't know if that is what Bob was saying or not -- I'm sure he will answer that.
There are many things I am against (such as adultery) that are not presently illegal. But I can personally say I feel they are wrong.
posted
One of the biggest obstacles to discussion is always who gets to define the terms.
I’d say The Rabbit has already provided a counter example, Tom. She believes that abortion is wrong, but that “trying to pass laws against abortion is more likely to violate women's human rights than it is to stop abortions.” Is she wrong to call herself pro-life because of that stance?
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posted
As long as that logic allows me to be considered pro-choice, since I support steps to increase the range of choices for unborn children who would otherwise never be able to make them, I'm fine with it. I can be more precise as needed, and am generally in favor of increased precision.
posted
It seems to me that the logical definition of "pro-life" is someone that thinks the fetus has some sort of right to live, hence the "life" in the "pro-life."
And that would not preclude anyone from thinking other rights or responsibilities might allow us to supercede that right to live. After all, I'd suspect we all think adult human beings have a right to live, but many believe there are times in which it's okay to kill nonetheless.
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posted
I would say that Rabbit would not be recognized as "pro-life" in that case by most other pro-lifers -- unless, of course, her logic really is that it is better to accept a limited number of state-assisted murders each year to keep the total number of murders down. It seems to me that the defining characteristic of a "pro-lifer" is that the person in question believes both that the baby is a living human being and has an intrinsic right to live.
I suppose you could argue that Rabbit -- and Bob -- both believe that this human baby's right to live is less important than some other right, but I suspect that many other people would find that position more repugnant than the alternatives.
posted
I'd imagine that the pro-lifers do, in the same way that pro-choicers get to decide who's pro-choice and Methodists get to decide who's really Methodist.
quote:I suppose you could argue that Rabbit -- and Bob -- both believe that this human baby's right to live is less important than some other right, but I suspect that many other people would find that position more repugnant than the alternatives.
As I said above, most people believe even the right of adult humans to live is occassionally superceded by other things - meaning it is okay to kill them.
quote:I would say that Rabbit would not be recognized as "pro-life" in that case by most other pro-lifers -- unless, of course, her logic really is that it is better to accept a limited number of state-assisted murders each year to keep the total number of murders down.
But being recognized as pro-life by extremist pro-lifers is not the same as being pro-life. After all, some Christian groups say Catholics aren't Christian, but that doesn't make them not Christian.
And Methodists don't get to decide who is Methodist. They only get to decide who they let into the church.
posted
But first you need to decide who’s included, so you can decide who makes the decision. I see this one as more equivalent to the term “Christian,” in that there’s no official body to decide. Witness all the delightful discussions we’ve had on Hatrack over who gets to call themselves Christian, and whether other Christians should/must recognize them as such.
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posted
So, since the baby's right to live can be ignored at another human's convenience, even adult rights to live can be ignored at someone else's convenience.
Why is murder against the law anyway?
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posted
Murder isn't always against the law. Right now many people support the President in sending out our people to murder the enemy soldiers who are out to murder us, for instance.
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quote:As I said above, most people believe even the right of adult humans to live is occassionally superceded by other things - meaning it is okay to kill them.
The problem with this, Tres, is that the people who think that (and presumably you're talking about self-defense and capital punishment), the people who it's OK to kill must do something first. Something other than merely being an unpleasant reality.
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posted
Not so, Rakeesh. We've just recently in a war killed countless Iraqi civilians who did nothing to warrant death. In that case their right to life was superceded by our need to win the war, which meticulously avoiding all possible civilian deaths would make difficult or impossible.
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posted
Common law doesn't get to decide what the definitions of words are, for one thing.
But more importantly, that definition proves my point. By saying there are legal excuses for killing, it implies that the right to life can be superceded. That means you can believe fetuses have a right to life and yet also believe mothers have a right to choose to kill them.
posted
Nope, it really doesn't. In this case it's clearly wrong: Murder is actually "wrongful killing" which is often legal - particularly when repressive governments do it.
Or did Hitler not murder anyone? The law of Germany at the time was on his side, after all.
posted
I would contend that no definition of "right to life" is meaningful if the law makes the termination of that life to be always lawful, regardless of circumstances.
And that is the state of law, explicitly for first trimester abortions and effectively for the other two trimesters.
quote:I would contend that no definition of "right to life" is meaningful if the law makes the termination of that life to be always lawful, regardless of circumstances.
Being inside a mother's womb is a very very big circumstance.
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