The pro-life movement is celebrating a victory, because after over 30 years of Roe v. Wade, the scourge of abortion, or at least public support for it, has waned and is now the minority position. South Dakota passed an outright abortion ban, believing the time was right to challenge the law. Poll after poll demonstrates that the public knows that conception is the "moment that changes everything" where a new life is created and begins its journey to birth. Are we a pro-life nation then? The answer to that question is still 'no'.
It seems a contradiction to say while most oppose abortion it does not follow the nation has become pro-life. That is, until you take a look at the new battlefields of the pro-life movement. Terri Schiavo is the most popular example.
An unbiased observer would certainly be taken aback at the concept of the individual making decisions for Terri was a husband who had since gotten engaged to another woman and had two children with her. There is an obvious conflict of interest there. However, the public was largely unconcerned with that.
The point where support for Terri fell the most was when the cameras showed images of Terri Schiavo to the world. The public saw someone who was unmistakably alive but unmistakably having a "low quality of life". Most felt that it was not worth being alive in those circumstances. Suddenly, it didn't matter what Michael Schiavo's motivations were or his conflict of interest. He was making the "right" decision to end a life not worth living.
It is known that the abortion movement grew out of the eugenics movement and it should come as no surprise that the husband of the lawyer who litigated Roe v. Wade lobbied Bill Clinton to approve RU-486, not for easy access to abortion or women's rights, but because "twenty-six million food stamp recipients is (sic) more than the economy can stand." It isn't about life, it is about a productive life (in Ron Weddington's case, where the financial output is greater than the input).
This can also been seen in the recent burst of "futile care" cases (where hospitals unilaterally decide who should die independent of the families wishes or objections). While few would argue that those who are alive only with the help of life support equipment (i.e. respirators, not a feeding tube) can be "unplugged", futile care laws have been used to try to kill children, including a child perfectly able to heal, the uninsured, and Katrina evacuees that were "no worth moving". With talk of universal health care, one wonders if that will finally put complete control on whether (poor) patients should be left untreated.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Margaret Romao Toigo
You are correct, Mr. Bambenek. The vast majority of Americans are anti-abortion, always have been. After all, it is an abomination, a most vile act of self-mutilation.
The vast majority of Americans also believe the notion of "white power" is offensive, irrelevant and anachronistic, but they will nonetheless acknowledge that people who hold such opinions have a right to express them and they would never dream of outlawing such "hate speech."
The same is true with regard to abortion. Most people do not like it and wish that nobody would do it any more.
However, nearly two-thirds of Americans are pro-choice, even if most of that two-thirds take that position reluctantly, knowing that outlawing abortion would only make it into something worse than it already is while also setting a precedent that limits the right to self-determination.
Your take on the economics/eugenics angle is a most interesting one. Whether we care to admit it or not, regardless of how civilized and democratic we strive to be in the 21st century, our base human nature has not really changed all that much over the past 200,000 years or so. We still form hierarchical societies in which the strong oppress and tyrannize the weak, we're just not as blatant and cruel about it as we once were -- but we do place a higher value upon life now than we ever did in the past.
Have you ever considered that campaigning to outlaw abortion is not the best way to go about promoting the value of life? Wouldn't it be more productive to work toward promoting the idea that every child is a blessing, regardless of the mother's age, marital and economic status, or the circumstances under which it was conceived and that such young women might need moral, social and economic support so that they do not feel that abortion is their only viable option?
I think you and I are in the same moral place with regard to this issue, we just have different political ideas about how to go about getting there.
2 - John Bambenek
Well, to be strictly technical, I'm not campaigning for anything, I'm just a guy with a blog. I also don't see say legislation against abortion and providing economic, moral, and social support for mothers as mutually exclusive. In fact, if there was that support for motherhood, I doubt that abortion would even be on the table in the first place.
However, since we aren't there I don't think that means we should throw up our hands and give up, certainly when there are cases of abortion that should simply be legislated away. There is absolutely no reason for partial birth abortion. It would be medically simpler, safer, and cheaper to just deliver the child at that point and put it up for adoption. (Where the waiting line for any infant is years long).
I think if we are going to ban abortion, we need to deal with the women in crisis. Just banning abortion and letting those women hang is just not keeping up with out end of the deal.
3 - Ray Ellis
The larger issue here is that society's stance on ethics has been subverted by the mega-insurance corporations'need to turn a healthy profit. The bean counters are really the ones who decide life or death.
4 - Maurice
My oldest son is mentally and physically handicapped. He doesn't speak and is not able to walk without assistance. He wears a diaper but often has potty successes just by 'timing'. Thanks to social security he is able to live in a group home with 24/7 caretakers. He also gets physical therapy once a week and occupational therapy once a month. He consumes much and contributes nothing. I am glad I live in a country that provides this benefit for the disadvantaged.
We must care and respect all life.
5 - John Bambenek
Ray-
While I'm no fan of insurance companies, somehow I doubt they've affected the moral fiber of society. Doctors, maybe. Hospitals, maybe. But the consumer? I doubt it, especially considering we hold them in so low a regard that they rival Congress for the gutter.
6 - Michael J. West
A couple of points:
As Margaret indicated, I think it's a mistake to suggest that supporting abortion and supporting Roe v. Wade are the same thing. Roe v. Wade has such substantial support that it can be fairly said that mainstream America supports it. Mainstream America is not, however, in favor of abortion.
Secondly, my personal experience has seen insurance companies putting profit before ethics when it comes to the consumer as well. My father was nearly killed--with 19 broken bones, a kidney and gall bladder that had to be removed, 55 percent blood loss--by an uninsured driver who
* had TWICE lost his driver's license for reckless driving;
* was driving his mother's car illegally because he'd totaled his own car in the traffic incident that had most recently cost him his license;
* hit my father at 65 miles an hour--AFTER leaving a 30-yard skid mark trying to brake from God-knows-what speed (i.e., AFTER hitting the brake for 90 feet, he was still traveling at 65 mph when he made impact with my dad's car);
* got ANOTHER citation for reckless driving two weeks after the accident with my dad;
...the insurance company still refused to pay out. They cited contributory negligence, although three separate investigations (including the official poice report) concluded that my father had operated completely within the law and all reasonable standards for safe driving. The reason behind their claim of "contributory negligence"? My father had looked in his mirror before the accident, but "he should have looked in it twice."
So forgive me if I can't quite agree that insurance companies haven't had an adverse effect on ethics for the consumer.
7 - Ray Ellis
In point of fact, John, they have. It's not a question of morality--it's about expediency and the bottom line. I would disagree that you can hold doctors and hospitals responsible--the insurance giants are pulling their strings, too. And I would also submit that the insurance companies could care a whit less about that level of esteem in which they're held--it's profit that drives them.
8 - The Fifth Dentist
Bambenek:
I am horrified when pro-death degenerates such as yourself claim that human life doesn't begin until the moment of conception. What about our sperm bretheren or as I call them the littlest, most helpless humans? How many hundreds of millions of these defenseless little guys do you coldly destroy every time you find some alone time with the victoria's secret catalog? Even worse, how many of these mini-humans do you simply allow to waste away and be canibalistically reabsorbed back into your body? It's mass murder on a scale dwarfing Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan, and Ted Bundy put together. When will you realize that the only morally acceptable way to live is to beat off into a ziplock bag three times a day and store it in your freezer until the day that scientists figure out what to do with it all? When will you realize that meiosis is the "moment that changes everything."
9 - John Bambenek
Ray and Michael-
Now the claims has changed. I was making a statement on social values, you responded that insurance companies have driven our social values, I disagree, and then you show how insurance companies have adversely effected consumers. Those are different issues. Of course insurance companies try to limit their costs, that's what business do. The problem with insurance is that it allows an entity to externalize all risk on society instead of taking it on themselves. That's all interesting economic theory, and likely we'll agree, but that has nothing to do with how our moral framework has been influenced.
The Fifth Dentist-
Sperm doesn't spontaenously generate into life. It's only after conception that a full genetic code is present to create a biological human. You would know that if you weren't a product of public education. And in unrelated news, I don't have a 7th grade sexual maturity, I don't beat off the second I see a girl in a bra, or for that matter, don't go searching for pretty little pictures to fantasize over. You don't need to project your sexual pathologies unto others...
10 - Ray Ellis
The very fact that insurance companies "externalize all risk on society instead of taking it on themselves", as you put it, has everything to do with our moral framework. That's not economic theory--that's rationalizing evil.
Let me reiterate--the corporations place profit above ethics,and no spin can alter that fact. If turning people away from medical care because the policy doesn't cover it isn't immoral, I don't know what is.
Insurance in general is a con game-- you're betting something bad will happen--the insurer is betting it won't. And since they run the table, they almost always win.
11 - John Bambenek
Dave-
A single skin cell is not a human, it's part of a human. Let's have serious arguments please. I'm one person, not billions of little cell-people. A post-conception cell isn't the same as skin or blood cells. Can we attempt to pretend we're intelligent here?
Ray-
You are talking about **THEIR** ethics, I'm talking about societies' ethics. I'd be prefectly happy to get rid of insurance all together because in almost all cases it is nothing more than welfare for lawyers and actuaries. Did I create that system? No. Did anyone who is reading this thread? No. I fail to see how they're actions are changing my morality, and that's my point.
The reason people are turned away by their insurance companies when they need medical care is because the patients aren't the customer. Insurance companies are paid be either (a) employers, (b) the government, or (c) no one. If health insurance companies had to fight in a meaningful way for customers, you'd see alot less pissing off customers.
There are ways to align the profit motive so that you get ethical results. Rule one for doing that is by making every business internalize their costs, not externalize them (With insurance).
12 - Ray Ellis
"Their" ethics become "our" ethics when we sit idly by and not admitting we allowed this system to happen. To say that we have to make businesses internalize their costs rather than externalize them through insurance is ludicrous.
Talk to the seniors whose medication is no longer covered, to the millions who have to choose between meds and food, to all the Americans who have seen their options systematically stripped away by the new trend towards privatization before you hold insurance companies blameless.
You are right in one regard, though. We are on the path to creating a super race--and it will be ruled by those who can afford to live in the corporate world.
13 - Margaret Romao Toigo
John Bambenek writes, "I also don't see say legislation against abortion and providing economic, moral, and social support for mothers as mutually exclusive. In fact, if there was that support for motherhood, I doubt that abortion would even be on the table in the first place."
To be sure, stating that the two are mutually exclusive is a false dichotomy, even if the latter would actually reduce the number of abortions, while the former would not be very effective at all.
That last sentence was the exact point I was trying to make. If we were to give meaningful support to motherhood, the abortion matter would eventually take care of itself, regardless of the status of Roe vs. Wade.
Did you know that most late-term abortions are performed because the fetus has died inside the womb and that these procedures are necessary to save women's lives?
Women who obtain abortions for the purpose of "convenience" almost always do so in the first trimester, before they start gaining weight. Women who are vain enough to use abortion as a form of retroactive birth control do not usually procrastinate about these things -- and almost all of us womenfolk can tell that we are pregnant within a week of the onset of amenorrhea.
14 - Margaret Romao Toigo
Okay, I mixed up "former" and "latter" in that last comment. Sorry about that.
15 - Margaret Romao Toigo
No, I did not mix them up. I just got confused for a second. Sorry.
16 - Michael J. West
Did you know that most late-term abortions are performed because the fetus has died inside the womb and that these procedures are necessary to save women's lives?
And sometimes the fetus has died and the procedure is necessary to save their sanity.
My mother once had a pregnant friend whose baby formed without a head. And even worse...she knew it had no head, yet still carried the baby fullterm and gave birth to it.
That was going to be horribly traumatic for her either way. But even she said that it would have been much easier for her if she'd had a late term abortion.
Instead she carried around a headless baby, growing larger and larger, having well-meaning people ask when she was expecting and "do you know the sex?" "Have you picked out a name?" for a child that was already gone.
Many would say that she did the right thing by not aborting it. But no person of conscience would have considered her a monster if she'd had the abortion.
17 - John Bambenek
Ray-
Their ethics don't become our ethics until we start doing the same thing. If you want to make another point, fine, but that has nothing to do with what I'm saying. We can get into a fine discussion about our responsibility for the insurance system, but our legal system has done it's finest to keep the "common man" out and relegate laws, litigation, and legislation in the hands of a specialized elite. If your suggestion is simply more of the same socialist nonsense, I'm sorry, history has shown that to be a far worse setup.
Margaret-
I simply don't accept that we must allow complete unfettered access to abortion simply because any regulation wouldn't have any effect. Do we throw up our hands with rape laws and say we must allow rape to occur because the law won't have any effect? That's just absurd. While I don't think we should prosecute mothers, I do think if we make abortion illegal we should nail providers to the wall. No one to provide abortion, abortion goes down. However, I want to reiterate, if we outlaw abortion we are implicitly taking on the responsibility to deal with women in desperate situations. Ignoring them is no solution either.
If the fetus is dead, then it isn't abortion. You don't go to Planned Parenthood to deal with a miscarriage.
18 - Margaret Romao Toigo
Aside form the civil rights aspect of the matter, there are practical considerations, too.
Outlawing abortion today will have the same effect as it did before Roe vs. Wade. Abortions will be unregulated and the criminal element will seize the opportunity to benefit from that deregulation, regardless of the severity of the punishments.
No matter the intent, this always happens when we attempt to impede the natural laws of supply and demand because our human nature always finds its way around such impediments. Prohibition (1920-1933) and the current war on drugs are two classic examples of this dynamic. Gun control legislation is another.
I understand how this notion of eschewing interdictive measures and bowing to supply and demand can be misconstrued as "giving up." It makes no sense to repeal laws -- or to not enact them at all -- simply because some people violate them regardless of the degrees of the penalties.
However, in a free country, laws are not supposed to be made for the purpose of regulating the behavior and personal choices of the people for the good of the collective society, but rather to protect and defend the individual rights of the people.
Legislation against abortion does not protect or defend the rights of the people unless we recognize fetuses as people, which is, realistically speaking, an unworkable proposition.
This is not a simple issue and it has gotten even more complicated since Roe vs. Wade because, in the last 30 years or so, modern science has confirmed that a fetus is a living thing from the moment of its conception.
The question now is not really a matter of what qualifies as life, it is one of what qualifies a living thing as a person.
19 - John Bambenek
Margaret-
Aside of the fact that the right to commit murder isn't a civil right, outlawing does have a practical affect on the numbers of abortions. There was nowhere near the number of abortions per capita before Roe than there is now. You could say the same thing for rape, murder, theft, etc. Outlawing it would make in unregulated. Of course it would, but that's not the point. There may be a demand for rape victims, that does not necessarily follow a just society should supply that demand. There are simply some things we shouldn't leave up to the market.
I'm not sure why recognizing conceived but unborn children is unworkable. Roe v Wade tried to draw a line (albeit the wrong ont). The line when life begins NEEDS to be drawn somewhere. It is simply arbitrary that the line is at "birth" (and in practice "abortions" have been done after birth).
The danger with playing with terms of what qualifies as a "person" is that people develop convenient self-serving definitions. The same was true for slavery, the Holocaust, and pretty much any human abuse throughout history. People simply developed terminology to dehumanize whoever was on the business end of their atrocities. The psychology of racial (and other) slurs is a fascinating (albeit horrifying) testament to the ability of human beings to define away someone else's humanity.
We can come up with philosophical constructs that make this a much easier problem to solve. Conception is the "moment that changes everything", not birth. Birth is an inevitable result of conception, not vice versa.
We can handle the issues of life-threatening illnesses to the mother (i.e. treat the illness which except in the case of an ectopic pregnancy is almost never being pregnant). We can handle the cases of an already dead child in the womb.
The civil rights issue you speak of, the woman's right to her body is dealt with in consent laws. If a woman consents to sex, she implicitly consents to the results that naturally come about from sex. I support a woman's right to choose which is why I support the vigorous enforcement against the (what should be) capital crime of rape. However, the choice is made manifest when she decides to have sex. By pretending that the decision to have sex and the decision to get pregnant are two seperate events, women and men simply don't take as much precaution as they would otherwise, or even **gasp** abstain from sex.
20 - Margaret Romao Toigo
Since abortion was unregulated until 1973, nobody has any way of knowing how many abortions were performed. Therefore, you may be right or you may be wrong about those pre-Roe statistics.
The laws of supply and demand don't actually apply to criminal acts that violate the rights of the people, even if criminality is sometimes, unfortunately, a part of doing business for some people.
It is easy to determine what is or is not a crime in a free society, it is an act that violates the rights of another person.
Murder, the intentional killing of a person, violates the victim's right to life. The crime of rape is actually violation of several of the victim's civil rights.
Now, speaking of rape -- not in an unseemly manner, of course -- in those cases, a woman doesn't get to choose whether or not to have sex or to implicitly consent to the results that naturally come from that act, yet she can still become pregnant with her rapist's child.
(Yes, I know that very very few rape victims actually get pregnant.)
Now, if a fetus is a person, entitled to the right to life, there can be no exceptions made in the case of rape. Ever. Because fetuses conceived via rape have the same right to life as fetuses conceived under any other circumstance.
Even in situations in which the mother's life might be in jeopardy, but her fetus is not dead and the pregnancy is not ectopic. Nevermind the options, who would make that decision?
As far as the choice to have sexual intercourse and the implicit consent to the natural outcomes of it, I can only remark that contraception sometimes fails. I got two of my four kids that way!
Which brings me to the personal side of it. Sure, I got pregnant by accident, twice. But I was -- and still am -- happily married, in excellent health and financially stable (for the most part, at least).
No matter how disgusting and vile I find the very idea of abortion, I just can't sit in my "ivory tower" and decide how other consenting adults should conduct their private sex lives or decide what other women -- especially the ones who are far less fortunate than I -- may or may not do to their own bodies.
A fetus is a living thing, for certain, but it doesn't become an actual person until it comes out. I've been pregnant four times and that's how it always worked for me. I loved my children before they were born, but they were a living part of my body, which was a very precious and special blessing, until the moment they were born and became people, separate from me.
I do not take my radically pro-choice position easily or lightly, I just cannot think of any other way to reconcile the unfortunate reality of abortion with my personal experiences and my principles.
21 - John Bambenek
Here's a question, and I'm not being facetious in posing it.
How would you react to the concept of someone voluntarily selling themselves into slavery to another person?
What about a relationship where the woman consents to an physically abusive relationship?
22 - Bliffle
JB: "It's only after conception that a full genetic code is present to create a biological human. You would know that if you weren't a product of public education."
How then to explain parthenogenesis?
23 - Bliffle
JB:
You're very courageous to be the first republican (that I know of) to say that The Culture Of Life leads inevitably to Universal Health Care.
24 - Dave Nalle
I think JB sees that as a bad side effect of the 'culture of life', Bliff.
Dave
25 - John Bambenek
Let's put it this way... should there be Universal Health Care? Sure. As long as the government does it run it or pay for it (which would inevitably lead them to running it).