Senator Rick Santorum, not to be confused with the neologism coined by Dan Savage meaning “a frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter sometimes the byproduct of anal sex”, is publicly very much against abortions, especially “partial birth abortions” where the baby is terminated any time after three or four weeks and has to be passed out of the woman’s body via the birth canal. Basically meaning any abortion. The description I’ve given is in no way an exaggeration or a falsehood, and the whole point of the term “partial birth” is to demonize the concept of abortion out of hand, making it seem like you’re giving birth to a viable human baby then stabbing it in the heart before it’s out the door. It’s a dirty tactic, but one in line with Santorum’s namesake neologism, certainly.
Santorum’s views are unapologetically black-and-white. He advocates that any doctor performing an abortion under any circumstances should be criminally charged.
Even for rape. Even for incest. Even for saving the mother’s life. None of them justify abortion in Rick Santorum’s world.
Unless it happens to be Rick Santorum’s wife, and she might have died if not for her 20-week-old fetus being “partial birth” aborted. That’s different. Because, you know, that’s JUSTIFIED. Unlike all those other mothers.
In October, 1996, his wife Karen had a second trimester abortion. They don’t like to describe it that way. In his 2004 interview with Terry Gross, Santorum characterizes the fetus, who must be treated as an autonomous person, as a practically a gunslinging threat, whom the mother must murder in self-defense. Karen has had to justify her decision to save her own life by explaining that if she died her other children would have lost a mother.
[…]
Karen Santorum is the wife of right-wing, anti-abortion Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). In 1996, Senator Santorum led the debate on a bill that attempted to ban late-term abortions, and refused to make an exception even in the case of “grievous bodily injury” to the woman. In Santorum’s article, she expresses her view that carrying a non-viable fetus to term is the only option, and apparently does not think the woman’s health or future fertility should be a consideration.
I hereby call on Rick Santorum to sue the doctor who performed the surgery that saved his wife’s life. While it may not be a criminal act yet, at least you can get damages from the doctor for daring to save your wife’s life at the expense of your wife’s constitutionally endowed infection source. That act was a second-trimester abortion. It was a “partial birth abortion”. It was done only to save your wife’s life. It is done generally only to save other mothers’ lives. It is not a criminal act in any respect. If you do not sue this doctor, you are a hypocrite of the highest order, and deserving of the worst epithets people can Google-bomb you with.
Choosing abortion is not an easy choice to make. Sometimes, it’s the only option. People do not have abortions out of hand, despite what right-wingers and religious nuts would have you believe. Oftentimes, choosing abortion is choosing life — for the mother, who is often also the mother of other children.
Do not legislate that their wombs become pressganged into being baby factories for rapists or a death sentence for the womb’s owner. Trust doctors, and trust women, to make the choice only when necessary. If you don’t like abortion, then simply don’t have one, even if it costs you your life and your children their mother. And if you aren’t a woman or a doctor, shut the fuck up and stay the fuck out of the argument altogether. Especially if the reasons you’re horning in on this conversation — the reasons you believe you have any moral say in the matter whatsoever — have anything to do with a really old book.
And let’s stop pretending this is about pleasing god. Throughout the bible, abortion is not just permitted, it is in at least three places PRESCRIBED and performed by priests. The important point is that the woman has no opinion at all, she being chattel; it is entirely the husband’s idea and choice (which might make it okay with people like Santorum).
Of course, the woman frequently died (the process being designed to poison her, anyway), and of course there was no need to defend himself or to show that she had done anything to deserve it, but the important point as explained in Numbers 5:31 is, “Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity.”
By the way, the bible advocates “abortion” at any time, up to a month after delivery of the child–not, of course, with any consideration as to how the mother might feel about it.
So if one is going to talk about abortion, I think a minimal level of integrity requires not pretending that you oppose it because big daddy doesn’t want you to do it.
That alone should allow a more rational discussion.
The thing is, there’s no problem with being anti-abortion. The problem is when you start to force your purely arbitrary opinion on others.
Fiona,
Completely agreed with you on that. Religious opposition to most “hot-button” issues is completely unfounded, and I’m glad you pointed that out because I wasn’t aware abortion was on the list. (I did know that according to the Koran abortion is allowed up to 120 days, but since the religious right is generally Catholic or Protestant Christian, I didn’t figure that was super-relevant.)
That said, I’m opposed to abortion on ethical grounds. I don’t believe abortion should be illegal; I think it is a symptom of deeper problems, namely the factors that lead women to unplanned pregnancy in the first place (lack of legitimate education and access to reliable birth control, rape and sexual coercion, etc) and also the factors that make unplanned pregnancy such a painful situation (social stigma, the idea that parents and partners should be allowed to pressure women to abort, financial hardship, lack of childcare services and resources for young and single mothers, etc). I think that promoting abortion as a basic component of reproductive freedom, rather than advocating to change the factors that lead women to seek abortion, only perpetuates these problems and harms women.
I also believe that since it is scientifically impossible to prove that a fetus at any stage in pregnancy (including the stages at which most women seek abortions) is not a person, choosing to kill a fetus for any reason other than medical necessity is knowingly risking the death of a blameless person, and therefore is morally equivalent not to murder but at least to driving drunk or exposing residential areas to highly toxic compounds.
“Unethical,” like “immoral,” simply means “I feel queasy about this and want to judge someone’s behavior, but I can’t find a rational basis.”
The bottom line, really, is this:
There are only two human drives that are of any consequence at all, survival and reproduction. They override all others: If that were not true, the species would have long since died out. Because pregnancies have always been risky, evolution has developed so that they happen easily and often, so the termination of any number of them does not affect the balance of the system. In fact, that safety factor for species survival is so effective that we now have a rapidly exhausting planet, dying under the weight of successful pregnancies.
Life being, for the moment, relatively safe, we now have an excess of successful pregnancies. Rather than assuring survival of the species, we are well on our way to condemning it with our sheer numbers.
If you believe, under the circumstances, that your pregnancy is valuable enough to you to preserve and produce a child, fine. But there is no absolute or abstract reason you should have any similar feeling or role as regards pregnancies in general.
Strip away the superstition, and I think you will find that’s the bottom line.
I would argue, too, that it is our right as individuals to go extinct if we want to. The whole idea that forced birth could be moral if there were a time when humans might be on the verge of extinction is as intrinsically wrong as rape.
Aratine Cage, #306: I would argue, too, that it is our right as individuals to go extinct if we want to.
Heh. Every one of us will, as individuals, go extinct.
But I think I know what you meant.
Fiona and Aratina,
Yes, I agree that humans have a right not to reproduce, and that unsustainable population growth has seriously harmed the planet.
But that has absolutely nothing to do with abortion, since it is far easier, safer, and cheaper to prevent pregnancy in the first place.
I’m a sexually active feminist currently obtaining a minor degree in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality (English major). I’m a volunteer for my university’s upcoming week-long event devoted to sexual health, education, and awareness, an event that is distinctly sex-positive and feminist. I’m all for sexual freedom, including the freedom to have children or not have children as one wishes.
The fact is, Fiona, you chose to IGNORE my rational basis for being opposed to abortion as a practice. In case I didn’t state it quite bluntly enough, here’s a for-dummies recap:
A) Why promoting abortion as a form of birth control is harmful to women:
1. 93% of abortions are for women who got pregnant unintentionally, not from rape, and do not need the abortion for medical reasons.
2. 77% of these women were not consistently using birth control at the time. Those who were almost exclusively used either the pill or male condoms, both of which can have failure rates of up to 10%.
3. This shows that the overwhelming majority of unintended pregnancies resulting in abortion could have been prevented by the consistent use of reliable birth control.
4. Abortion is more expensive and poses greater health risks than birth control.
5. Providing women with comprehensive education about and access to reliable contraception would reduce abortions in the US to less than 1/4 the current number AND would save women time, money, stress, stigma, and potential health problems.
B) Why abortion is unethical:
1. Killing a person is unethical except when it is that person’s decision to be killed (e.g. suicide) or when killing that person is intended to save the life of another person (e.g. self-defense).
2. Various actions that may result in the killing of people without justifiable cause are unethical whether or not the killing is the intended result. e.g. Drunk driving is unethical because it frequently kills people without justifiable cause, even though killing people is not the intended result of the drunk driving.
3. The field of science is not presently able to determine at which stage in pregnancy a fetus becomes a person.
4. Because it is not sure that the fetus is a person, aborting it is not ethically equivalent to willfully killing a person without justifiable cause (e.g. murder).
5. However, because it is not sure that the fetus is NOT a person, aborting it MAY result in killing a person without justifiable cause; therefore, abortion is ethically equivalent to any other action that may result in the same.
6. Abortion in the case of medical necessity IS ethical because it meets the criteria for justifiable cause for killing a person, which is to save the life of another person.
I honestly don’t believe that you refuse to accept the existence of ethics or morality. You apparently believe that denying women access to abortion is “wrong”; by the very definitions of the terms, that means that you believe it is unethical and/or immoral. As far as I see it, that comment demonstrates very clearly that YOU don’t have a rational way to refute my arguments or to ethically defend abortion, so you’re choosing to ignore the issue to save face.
I believe wholeheartedly that merely claiming “x is immoral” is not an argument against it; but a logical demonstration as to WHY something is immoral is perfectly valid grounds for opposing it.
You and your college friends are amazing to me. Tell me, did you start at one end of the spectrum and move to “on the fence” (somewhere in the middle I presume) from one side or the other, or were you dropped precisely on to the top of the fence from above with no preconceptions?
Your entire ethical calculus breaks at “3. The field of science is not presently able to determine at which stage in pregnancy a fetus becomes a person.”
This is not a question of science. Define person.
5. However, because it is not sure that the fetus is NOT a person, aborting it MAY result in killing a person without justifiable cause; therefore, abortion is ethically equivalent to any other action that may result in the same.
Assuming that it makes sense that it might be possible to consider a fetus a person (and I don’t think it makes any sense at all), we still have plenty of justifiable cause to terminate it.
It’s taking up residence inside of another person. Physically present, causing physical changes to the body. And, in some cases, causing emotional and social problems.
By this definition, killing a rapist in self-defense (assuming that said rapist doesn’t demonstrate a clear intent to kill the victim) is unethical. Is that your belief?
Sheesh,
Actually, I was dropped onto the militant pro-choice side by my parents and have arrived at my current position after several years of independent reading (including mainly medical studies or links from pro-choice sources), conversation with women who have had abortions, and debates with friends of mine who are currently getting degrees in philosophy. As far as my friends go, I’m not entirely sure how they arrived at their current views on abortion, but they have expressed to me that they are, quote, “not sure how [they] feel”. I’m not sure why you want to believe that no one is unsure about abortion. The fact that there are multiple opinions on the issue demonstrates that it isn’t as black and white as you would like to make it out to be.
As to the issue of personhood: For the purposes of this argument, I use “person” to mean any human being that is recognized as being entitled to human rights, such as the right not to be harmed by others and the right to live. I am assuming that we recognize human adults and children as such persons.
With this assumption, Sheesh, my argument actually IS one of science. We recognize that a child that has been born is a person, entitled to not be harmed by other people. Medicine has definitively shown that the process of birth does not quantitatively or qualitatively change the human who is born; that is to say, there is no observable difference between a child in utero and the same child outside of the mother’s body except for its location. Thus, there is no logical or medical grounds for claiming that birth is what transforms a non-person, not entitled to human rights and thus permissible to kill or abort, into a person entitled to protection from harm. From this it can only follow that the baby or fetus must change from non-person to person at some point during pregnancy. Were scientists able to identify this point, abortion would be inarguably permissible before that point and unacceptable afterward (except in cases of medical necessity). But since science has thus far been unable to identify any point at which a fetus is definitively not a person—that is, since we cannot know for sure that a fetus at any stage is not a person—abortion necessarily entails the risk of killing a person without justifiable cause.
Forbidden Snowflake,
I would say that killing a rapist without any indication that the rapist intends to kill his victim is NOT killing in self-defense, because the killing is not necessary to defend oneself. However, I will concede that justifiable cause is more nuanced than I previously implied it to be, and I will accordingly adjust my claim.
I derive the idea that it is generally unethical to kill a person from the right not to be killed, which is a right to which all human persons are entitled by nature (the origins of this are capitulated by a number of philosophers in more detail than I wish to include here; if you’re interested, go and look it up yourself). Basic human rights mainly derive from the idea of selfhood: One has certain rights over one’s own body, thoughts, personal information, and so on. The right not to be killed comes from the right over the body, as does the right not to be raped, beaten, harmed, touched, and so on.
It is possible for a person to intentionally or unintentionally waive one’s rights. For example, someone may waive one’s right not to be touched intentionally by inviting someone to touch them, or unintentionally by choosing to enter an area which requires a patdown for security. Generally, one waives certain of one’s rights when one infringes on the rights of others. The most notable and obvious example of this that one waives one’s right not to be killed when one attempts to infringe on another person’s right not to be killed, i.e. if you attempt to kill someone, that person may kill you in order to protect their right not to be killed. Another way of saying this is that we may exercise our rights willfully so long as they do not infringe on the rights of others, and that when we do infringe on the rights of others, certain of our rights are waived, generally insofar as required to prevent or stop us from infringing on the rights of others.
That is to say that killing a rapist in self-defense would be permissible, but only insofar as killing the rapist was required to protect one’s own right not to be raped. If someone were able to incapacitate the rapist without killing him, then killing him would no longer be an act of self-defense, and would not be ethical. As such, whether or not it is unethical to kill a rapist “in self-defense”, as you say, depends on the situation and on the victim’s ability to defend him/herself through other means. If a victim is incapable of defending him/herself from a rapist without killing the rapist, then killing the rapist is not unethical; if the victim is capable of defending him/herself without killing the rapist, then killing the rapist IS unethical. By capability, I include any relevant ability or lack thereof, meaning, for example, that if a victim were in theory physically capable of non-lethally incapacitating his or her assailant but lacked the mental ability to figure out how to do so, he or she still would not be able to do so, and killing in self-defense would not be reprehensible.
Does that make more sense?
kat, if the people who are “on the fence” wilt about my saying “stay the fuck out”, surely they would wilt at your saying “fuckwad”. Physician, heal thyself.
Jason,
I don’t use the word fuckwad in conversation. I was using it in semi-sarcastic response to the poster above me.
I assume that you haven’t read my other posts, which point out the glaring factual and logical flaws in your article. If you’re interested in defending your integrity or your choice to include these errors, you’re welcome to read my explanations here:
https://the-orbit.net/lousycanuck/2011/06/19/santorums-wifes-abortion-was-different-you-see/#comment-46106
I’m interested in hearing your responses.
And Jason, how do you justify forbidding men from opining on abortion when you yourself are male? Or is it only men who disagree with you?
You absolutely must define “person” if you’re going to have this discussion with me, kat. I agree with most everything you say about the legality of abortion, but I strongly disagree that people should consider it a moral issue where there is absolutely no evidence that a “person” is being harmed in an abortion but there is a significant amount of evidence that a REAL PERSON might be harmed if forced to carry that blastocyst to term.
Additionally, I exhorted that non-doctors and non-women stay the hell out of the “making abortion illegal” argument because we don’t want non-doctor males making laws about a medical procedure for women if we want to be totally intellectually honest about this issue. Since you’ve obviously drawn your lines in the sand and are unwilling to consider that maybe I have a point, I suspect that’s why you were willing to mischaracterize what my last thought in the original post was all about. I am pleased that you rose to take that bait, because it was left there explicitly for people like yourself, of whom there have been many in the comments field of this specific post. All of whom fail in recognizing that abortion is an issue between a woman and her doctor, and NOBODY ELSE. Especially not the government, which was Santorum’s entire MO.
Thanks for spelling out your opinion for dummies, Kat. I do have a lot of trouble understanding your arguments. Unfortunately, you may have to dumb them down a little more, as I still don’t see what they have to do with me, or anyone else except you.
I still hear you saying, “I, Kat, have concluded that having an abortion is no way to run a well-tempered life.” Good. That works for Kat.
I’m just having trouble following the part where you say, “Therefore, all women must recognize that mine is the only valid view, and must make their own abortion choices consistent with my rules.” I’m still hung up in thinking their decisions are none of your damned business.
Guess I’m just slow.
Jason,
I did define a person, in this post: https://the-orbit.net/lousycanuck/2011/06/19/santorums-wifes-abortion-was-different-you-see/#comment-51412 ; and as stated, I believe that since there is as of now no way to prove that abortion does NOT involve killing a person, the possibility that killing a person is involved should at least be considered before all caution is thrown to the wind. There is also serious evidence that a woman can be harmed from abortions: You should check out Finland’s research on mortality rates for childbirth and abortion within that country, which provides legal abortions through hospitals rather than private clinics (as opposed to the majority of the US) and has more accurate medical records than the US. (That is not to imply that a woman is not allowed to take medical risk, merely that there is risk on both sides and that abortion is not invariably safer than childbirth.)
And actually, Jason, I think everything you said about Santorum was spot-on. I just vehemently disagree that ANYONE’S opinion about an issue should be censored. I think you are perfectly within your rights to oppose the criminalization of abortion; I just think it’s a shame you use blatantly incorrect medical data to do so, and that you deny anyone else the right to disagree with you, myself, a woman, included.
Fiona,
Maybe you didn’t catch the part where I explicitly stated that women should NOT be prevented from seeking and obtaining abortions. I personally believe that abortion is unethical, and that ethical reasoning belongs in any legitimate discussion of the issue, but I have ABSOLUTELY NO INTEREST in interfering with other women’s decisions by making abortion illegal. Instead, I want to help women to not I DID say that, SEVERAL times. I guess you were too busy trying to make me look like a reactionary asshole who wants to restrict your freedom.
Snowflake,
The article you cite does not actually demonstrate a single change in the baby that occurs at birth. The only things that might be considered a legitimate change is that the lungs filter air instead of amniotic fluid once the umbilical cord is cut (notably not when the baby is moved outside the mother’s body), but the lungs themselves are not changed; and that the liver begins to break down substances that are no longer broken down through the umbilical cord. The other “changes” actually occur during pregnancy, which the article says itself, if you read it:
“In some cases, the baby passes stools (meconium) while still inside the uterus.”
“The developing baby’s kidneys begin producing urine by 9 – 12 weeks into the pregnancy.”
“The immune system begins to develop in the fetus, and continues to mature through the child’s first few years of life.”
“Newborn skin will vary depending on the length of the pregnancy. Premature infants have thin, transparent skin. The skin of a full-term infant is thicker.”
A person has a right to control their own body, and I agree with you that this right extends to include the right not to get pregnant or have children. However, as I stated, a person may waive certain rights through their actions, and I fail to see how knowingly risking pregnancy does not constitute waiver of the right not to get pregnant. Since abortion may constitute a violation of a person’s right not to be killed, when a woman waived her right not to get pregnant, it is at best risking a serious violation of human rights. In the case of rape, when a woman did not waive her right to become pregnant (i.e. she did not consent to sexual activity), the situation is less clear, and to be honest I am not sure where I stand. However, rape accounts for only 1% of abortions in the US, and so for the majority of cases the above argument will suffice.
I apologize. I realize reading those statements again that my position in that situation was unclear. I meant to express that if the only way to protect one’s right not to be raped is to kill the rapist, that is not unethical, since the rapist willfully attempted to violate the woman’s rights and waived his right not to be harmed, and since it is the woman’s right to protect herself from violations of her rights by others.
I recognize the intended parallel between the fetus and the rapist. The problem with that analogy is that in 99% of cases, the fetus is inside the woman’s body because of the woman’s willful actions, and not because of its own. The fetus, unlike the rapist, has done nothing of its own accord to harm the woman or her rights, and therefore has not waived any of its own rights; the woman, unlike the rape victim, HAS willfully chosen to risk becoming pregnant, and therefore has waived her right not to become pregnant.
@Chiroptera
It was my poor wording. What I meant is that if humans were on the verge of extinction, a woman should still have the right to choose to abort any pregnancy she is having and thus allow or help enable the extinction of our species.
The idea that a woman should lose her right to abort a pregnancy because doing so could lead to human extinction is as wrong as the idea that torture should become ethical if it is the only way to stop a ticking time bomb about to go off in a major city.
“You have no right to step away from that ledge! Once you walk up to it contemplating jumping, you have to jump no matter how far down the drop is or how scared you are or how dire the consequences might be.”
kat,
As far as I am concerned, as long as you agree that abortion should remain legal and accessible, I consider us on the same side. If you want to fight to provide women with more information and access to birth control (thereby reducing the need for abortions), more power to you.
Personally, I don’t worry about fetal personhood, because I think it’s pretty clear that fetuses lack sentience and memory. And without sentience and memory, it goes without saying that their own lives have no subjective value to them. And given that the arrow of time only points one way, there’s no conscious individual there who could, from “beyond the veil”, regret the time s/he’s not going to have on Earth.*
That being so, I absolutely value the woman’s bodily integrity, and her right to self-determination, over any putative “right to life” a fetus might have.
* Of course, we have to pick a point at which to declare “personhood”. It is to some extent going to be an arbitrary point–as so many of our definitions are. I think the one we mostly use is just fine: when the fetus is no longer parasitically dependent on its mother. In other words, birth; with abortion remaining rare and mostly being done in cases of medical necessity after viability.
kat:
No observable difference? You may have overstated your case a bit.
Also, your self-defense clause suggests that the situation a person is in is crucial in determining what may be done to that person. So that “location” is not as unimportant as you would claim.
Here’s the thing: I believe that the right not to be forced to give birth belongs with the right not to be raped, beaten, touched, etc.. You, apparently, don’t. Why?
Thank you for the long explanation of how it’s not self-defense when more harm is done than necessary. To be super clear, my hypothetical involves a situation when:
1. The rapist does not appear to be intended to kill the victim (i.e., you never know what he’s thinking, but he doesn’t demonstrate any intention)
2. The only way to stop/prevent the rape would result in the rapist’s death (i.e., there is no less harmful alternative)
And with all your words, you still haven’t clarified your position about this situation.
Would you kindly make up your mind?
kat,
What does it mean, “waiver of the right not to get pregnant”? If someone gets pregnant because her sex partner tampered with the contraceptives, are his actions A-OK because hey, she waived her right not to get pregnant by having sex with him?
Yes, by having penis-in-vagina sex we take on some risk of becoming pregnant. We do not, however, lose our right to damage control in the form of abortion, and we do not sign away control of our bodies for the following year.
Self-defense is about defending your body from unwanted invasion. It does not deal with assigning blame, which you seem to be doing. If you have an unwanted fetus in you, the extraction of said fetus is either self-defense or not. It does not depend on whether the pregnancy was your “fault”.
Again with the blame thing. Self-defense is the victim’s right by virtue of the fact that their body is under attack, and not a result of the attacker’s intentions.
Your argument really has a whiff of the old “shoulda kept her legs shut” slut-shaming thing going on.
I must also add that the whole “the fetus may or may not be a person; we just don’t know” line seems a bit absurd to me. It’s kind of like saying “what this guy did may or may not be legal; we just don’t know, and if we don’t prosecute him, we risk letting a criminal go”. No, “person”, much like “legal”, is a social construct, the value which we place upon entities and actions. It’s legal if we say it is. If you want to pose an actual scientific question regarding fetal personhood, tie personhood to some objective criterion, such as sentience.
Well yes, that’s it’s not black and white or an issue with sides was kind of my point, but a little more subtle than that. The issue is black and gray, and you’re in the pro-abortion gray side. (Anyone willing to make exceptions for any reason, self-defense, incest, rape, etc. is on the gray end.) In fact, you explicitly said you’re anti-prohibition, so that puts you pretty far from the only certain position: absolute prohibition.
The unscientific nature of your personhood assumption/”axiom” has been addressed above, so I see no way your ethical argument can get past your #3.
But let’s also look at #5 some more, “because it is not sure that the fetus is NOT a person, aborting it MAY result in killing a person without justifiable cause; therefore, abortion is ethically equivalent to any other action that may result in the same” (my emphasis) — like driving to work. Driving to work may result in killing a person without justification. It’s pretty absurd to apply this agnosticism to any other ethical claim (e.g., say the exact frequency of your mobile phone causes pain or death to some sentient creature, but you don’t know that it’s out there being harmed by your calls, maybe it’s a couple light years away, yet is still able to ‘hear’ this transmission; using your phone is unethical now, because hey, science has found these guys!). If you examine this further, there’s probably hundreds of activities in our daily lives that have the potential to kill people (or may certainly kill future not-yet people) or unwittingly do harm others, yet we blithely ignore them. E.g., from conversations past, isn’t it unethical to not build moonbases and space-arks because that’s dooming not-yet persons to extinction?! (Vote Newt!) Absolute farce.
Er, oops. Typo in my goofy example: “science hasn’t found these guys!”
What the h*ll? This long, bizarre, convoluted, irrational dance, trying to tease out of reality anything that gives you a putative right to meddle in (or, apparently more important to you, JUDGE) another person’s pregnancy, is ‘way over the edge. There is no “right not to be forced to give birth” because there is no right to force someone to give birth in the first place. The admission that abortion is moral in some situations leaves you without a foothold to argue that it is forbidden in other situations you are happy to arbitrarily choose out and impose on half the human race–but that is of zero consequence because you have established absolutely no argument that would make your admission relevant.
If you intend to continue going around the world feeling morally superior, it will be easier to maintain that stance if you don’t go around sharing it with people of reason.
Meanwhile, as you have nothing to say, I have no more time to listen.
Stacy,
I agree with almost everything you’ve said. I also recognize that whatever line we do draw is going to be arbitrary—I just strongly believe that the potential risk in choosing the wrong point means we should err on the side of caution. That said, I definitely understand and respect your opinion, and I honestly appreciate you responding with thought rather than hostility.
Snowflake,
No, a man tampering with contraceptives to increase the chance that his partner will get pregnant, knowing that she doesn’t want to get pregnant, is entirely reprehensible. But it’s the MAN, not the resulting baby, that is the one that has acted reprehensibly and is entitled to punishment.
I disagree with your definition of “self-defense”. Healthy pregnancy does not cause harm to a woman any more than abortion does, and a fetus does not “attack” the woman whose body sustains it in any way that is comparable to an assailant she would have to defend herself from. I simply don’t believe that not wanting to be pregnant is grounds for killing a person.
And Snowflake, I have absolutely no interest in “slut-shaming”. I think it’s a vile practice. Women have the right to have sex with whomever they want, as often as they want, provided that sex is consensual and doesn’t harm others. But pregnancy is a known consequence of sex, especially of unprotected sex (which accounts for a large majority of abortions in the US), and so any woman who engages in it knowingly and willingly subjects herself to the possibility of becoming pregnant and having a fetus inside her. I don’t believe in shaming individuals for their choices, but I do believe that individuals should be held accountable for the consequences of their actions. If you text and drive, knowingly risking a car accident, you’re responsible for compensating the people you affect, whether or not you “change your mind” about the accident. If you have sex, knowingly risking pregnancy, you’re responsible for not killing the child you create, whether or not you change your mind about creating it.
Snowflake, sentience is just as subjective as the idea of personhood that you critique. An infant outside the uterus is no more sentient than the same infant before it was born; does that mean that the infant isn’t a person either? Why don’t YOU tell me at what stage in pregnancy it stops being okay to abort the infant—or, if you approve of abortion all the way up to birth, explain to me how the infant that has been born is different from the viable infant inside its mother.
Sheesh,
I agree with you that abortion is all about shades of gray. I got a different impression from your comments about people who are undecided.
I’m not sure whether you misunderstood or are ignoring my point about personhood. You must recognize that in abortion it’s not that “there may be a human there, or there may be no human at all”, as with your space analogy; it’s also not a case of statistical improbability, where the randomized chance of killing someone is so slight that it can’t be considered a legitimate risk, as with your driving analogy. I chose drunk driving as an example because the chances of killing are quite high, and the perpetrators undertake it with full knowledge of the likelihood that they may kill someone. But you’re right: It isn’t a perfect analogy. Neither are yours. A fetus is a living human being with a heartbeat; it’s not as developed as the infant that we recognize as being entitled to protection, but it shares all the same genetic characteristics and, depending on the point in pregnancy, many, most, or all of the same physical characteristics, too. If the infant that has been born is a human person with a right not to be killed, then at some point during pregnancy the fetus must become a human person with a right not to be killed, and after that point it must necessarily become unethical to kill it. When would you draw this line, so that before that time it were perfectly acceptable to kill that fetus?
Fiona,
You have yet to present a single argument of logic; all you’ve done is judge me for voicing my opinion on a practice that I believe to be harmful. You’ve shown no reason why any of my arguments are actually invalid. I never argued for a right to force another person to give birth (i.e. preventing women from getting abortions by making it illegal); I said it’s unethical for someone to kill an infant in utero, which is a matter of personal choice (i.e. the choice to do or not to do what is ethical). It’s “moral” to punch someone in the face if they’re attacking you, but not if they aren’t going to harm you; are you really going to say that because it’s sometimes okay to punch people it’s ALWAYS okay to punch people? Because unless you agree with that, your statement about the morality of abortion is a lie. I’m going to interpret your flippant attitude, refusal to defend your own position (instead of attacking mine), and dramatic storming off as evidence that you aren’t capable or willing of participating in legitimate or respectful discussion, and that you aren’t interested in trying to change the opinions of those who disagree with you.
[…] should remember Rick Santorum’s wife Karen had a partial term abortion ‘to save her life’ but he does not want any other woman in America the option of making this same […]
Wow, this is still going on?
Kat
Please repeat after me:
A zygote is not a baby.
An embryo is not a baby.
A fetus is not a baby.
If you are pregnant yourself, you are perfectly welcome to call it your baby, I think everybody is fine with that, given the importance said zygote/embryo/fetus has for you.
No babies are hurt through abortion, because abortion doesn’t deal with babies.
So, let me see how you’re exactly not slut-shaming, no, no.
In your example:
Texting while driving = having sex
Accident = pregnancy
Compensation = giving birth to baby
So, do you actually realize that your whole premise relies on equating something perfectly healthy and normal with a known dangerous and irresponsible action?
In order to make your analogy work you have to equate sex with something bad. Also, the burden is only on one side of the equation. That’s not slut-shaming at all, no-no.
I reserve the right to access my body-functions and feed off my resources. It is a privilege granted that can be revoked.
That’s why I find the whole “personhood debate” utterly meaningless. No person is entitled to even an ounce of my bloof, plasma or my kidney, not even if I am solely responsible for them needing it in the first place.
If said fetus can be removed from my body without killing it, well, that would be some point to discuss.
Absolutely not true.
9 months of pregnancy change a body way more than a first-trimester abortion.
Also “healthy pregnancy” is a misnomer. It usually means that the adverse effects aren’t considered bad enough or the adverse effects haven’t happened yet.
Fact it: before the pregnancy is over you have no clue where on the scale from “mildly annoying with minimum damage” to “deadly” you are.
If it makes people feel better about the whole thing, you can read the bible on the subject. The biblical position is that “abortion” is fine at any time, up to one month after birth.
I would owe these people money, not a goddamned kidney. Bodily autonomy: kind of the thing we’re discussing here, remember?
It’s not supposed to be about punishment, it’s supposed to be about self-defense. It can’t be about both, and you’re being inconsistent by starting with one and ending with the other. The man is to blame, but the fetus is the intruder inside the woman’s body.
And minimizing the difficulty of pregnancy isn’t going to help you, either. Even a healthy childbirth involves pushing a whole goddamned baby out through one’s vagina.
[…] https://the-orbit.net/lousycanuck/2011/06/19/santorums-wifes-abortion-was-different-you-see/ […]
Some of you made some really good points. Some of them were utterly ridiculous. I don’t even like Santorum and regardless of any hypocritical statements made by him, ALL Politicians do this– EVERY SINGLE ONE of them do, and it can be PROVEN. It IS a totally different thing for a woman to want a pregnancy and something go wrong and her and/or the baby be dying and then to have to abort the baby to save hers and/or the baby’s life. And to the TOTAL idiot that asked why she didn’t pray for a miracle….SHE DID YOU MORON!! The hopes of the Santorums, according to the book, not just your opinions, was that in having the baby and saving her life, that some miracle would come to save the baby. They knew the odds were that it would not survive, and she wouldn’t have either if they didn’t deliver, but it IS what she prayed for. When a woman goes and choses to have an abortion, that is NOT what she is wanting. She is NOT wanting the baby. However you want to spin it and the ridiculousness of trying to blame a man, it is OUR responsibility as a woman to NOT get pregnant if we do not want a baby. Yes the man does and should have responsibility, but so should WE. I am a woman, a mother AND I had an abortion when I was a teenager. It is the ONLY decision I have truly regretted, and even after 16 years, wish I could take back. My views now do NOT make me a hypocrite. They make me a human being with actual experience to back up my words. I am Pro-Life now, but I also believe that it is not up to me to judge someone else for ANY of their faults, that is between them & God. I will have to answer for mine, they for theirs and YOU for yours. I am SO sure that NONE of you have ever, ever said anything that was hypocritical in the slightest, right?? PLEASE!! If ANY of you don’t like being lied to and yet EVER told ANY lie at all, guess what?? YOU are a hypocrite. In reality, we ALL are, it’s just that some may be a little more obvious about it!
Chrystalhogan,
You’re missing the major point here, which is that Santorum wants to deny other women the right to make the exact decision that his wife had to make regarding a pregnancy. His wife would have died under the rules that he wants to enforce for every woman except for his spouse.
We might all be hypocrites of one stripe or another, but the sort of hypocrisy that would lead to the deaths of others, while creating exceptions for the people you love, should most definitely be spoken out and resisted against.
[…] in effect sentencing women to the death penalty. Which you should already know, since, you know, Rick Santorum’s wife had a lifesaving late-term abortion. (And yes, I realize that this particular bill includes a few exemptions to save the mother. […]
DEE…
I’m married to an OB/GYN. Your statement “… has the doctor kill the baby, either before birth or after…” is incorrect. If my husband were to kill a baby after birth he would (rightly) be a murderer and in jail.
Usually when one thinks they know it all, they actually know very little.
I love life and babies. We have 2 beautiful children and had an abortion when we got pregnant at a very unhealthy time in our marriage. I was about 10 weeks. I’ve never had a moment of regret, on the contrary, I feel blessed that legal abortion was available for me – for my entire family really. Having a baby at that time in our lives would have put our marriage and our children’s happiness at too great of risk. A good mother (and father) does what is best for their LIVING children and I suspect God agrees. There is no mention of “I shall not abort” in the bible.
I would never presume to tell another how to live and I wish to God you good Christians would do the same. You’ve (CINO’s) brought about more destruction than debt, taxes, natural disasters and terrorists. If you get pregnant DON’T HAVE AN ABORTION, but don’t you dare tell another woman or family they can’t get this legal procedure done. I assure you they’ve thought long and hard about it and don’t do it lightly. Don’t think for a moment I’m impressed that you choose to keep a child when its unwanted, unaffordable and will be an added burden to living children. Not only is it cruel and stupid, I personally believe it goes against God’s wishes – as I said earlier – if it were so important it would have been a Commandment.
Its time you grow up and keep your hands off women that don’t belong to you. How you martyr yourself is up to you.
Agreed. (1) Karen Santorum’s abortion was necessary to save her life (which is not a condition of legal abortion, anyway). (2) Her husband is intent on closing the door to other women’s having the same opportunity to live, and of course to deprive them of choice.
What people don’t often talk about is that the fetus was defective, and the infection was introduced by an attempt to correct the defect in utero. How’s that for submitting to god’s will?
Please refrain from using “us” and “our” in that context.
It’s embarrasing enough to share a species with you.
In short: nonsense.
Not meaning to divert the topic, but why is it that almost every right-wing poster in this thread has to add a condescending insult within their reply? Can someone answer that for me? I see some clear, concise, and factual answers, which are responded to with things like “If in someone’s poor excuse for a mind” and “mental slobs,” etc. This reminds of children with inferiority complexes casting aspersions to make themselves feel superior. Weak sauce, folks.
I wonder how many “pro-lifers” are also recreational hunters? “Food” for thought…
Robholio,
You’re right about the insults—but most left-wing commenters have included insults that are just as hostile: “It’s embarrassing to share a species with you”, “pull the stick out of your ass”, “infantile”, “grow fucking up”, etc. Let’s be fair and acknowledge that people have been unnecessarily aggressive on both sides.
As far as hunting goes, I think the basis for self-identification as “pro-life” is pro-HUMAN life, though I’ll agree with you that hypocrisy exists within that term for supporters of war and capital punishment.
Gilliel,
I sometimes use the terms fetus and baby interchangeably because some, though a minority, of abortions take place post-viability. Babies (fetuses) have been delivered and survived into childhood as early as 14 weeks; abortion is legal in many places up to 20 weeks. I’m aware that zygotes and embryos are not babies, but most elective abortions are of fetuses, not embryos and certainly not zygotes.
I acknowledge wholeheartedly that sex is healthy and normal so long as it is consensual. But it is also, in most situations, a risky action: Any person who engages in sexual activity can into the risk of unwanted pregnancy, including ectopic pregnancy; contraction of HIV and other STIs; minor infections such as bacterial infections (quite common); negative emotions; and potential social consequences. I’m not passing a value judgment on sex because of these consequences. I think sex is awesome. But they ARE negative consequences, potentially life-threatening or lethal ones, that can arise from sex. That doesn’t make a person “bad” or imply that they should be ashamed. It’s just a fact. And the very characterization of pregnancy as “dangerous”, a “violation”, and “parasitic” that has been exhibited in so many of the comments on this page clarifies that pregnancy is a dangerous and risky behavior indeed. And I think it is BOTH partners’ responsibility to mitigate the risks of these consequences as much as possible and handle the outcome with compassion. The fact that the woman and not the man is the one who is pregnant is unfortunate and, yes, unfair, but it’s a fact of life, not a misogynist practice.
I’m struggling to understand where that idea of total self-entitlement comes from, but I don’t expect that it’s one that can be explained. I do ask, though, why you wanted me to draw a line of personhood when you thought personhood was irrelevant in the first place.
I also get tired of perpetual arguments that abortion is justified because pregnancy is a taxing process. Pregnancy is just as natural as sex and can be healthy. Yes, it has adverse side effects. So do other healthy and/or natural processes like exercise, dieting, sex, innumerable treatments for disease and injury, ageing, adolescent growth, and so on. And yes, I am aware that the side effects of pregnancy are more extreme than the side effects of the things I’ve mentioned; comparisons and analogies to sex, pregnancy, and abortion are imperfect because there is little in life that is actually analogous to those things. But dismissing pregnancy as a meritless disease is absurd. Studies have shown pregnant women actually have a considerably lower mortality rate than non-pregnant women. And Finland’s records of “safe, legal abortions” show that death results from abortion several times more often than it does for childbirth. I don’t believe that the health consequences of abortion make it wrong; I only point them out because they are frequently overlooked while health consequences of pregnancy are frequently played up. And while it’s true that you can’t know how damaging a pregnancy will be until it’s over, it’s also true that you can’t know how damaging an abortion will be until it’s over.
Fiona,
I state my feelings about the idea of bodily autonomy/entitlement above.
The fetus is not an “intruder”. In order to intrude, one has to forcibly enter into a place. The fetus did not enter into the uterus, it was put there by the actions of the man and woman who conceived it. Just like if a person puts a live chicken egg inside their house and it hatches, the chick isn’t an intruder in their home.
And you took my statement about the man being reprehensible out of context. That was in response to a hypothetical situation involving a man tampering with contraception, NOT in reference to consensual sex.
As long as the pregnancy is consensual. That’s the whole point.
Word games. However the fetus ended up there, it doesn’t own the place, and if it isn’t wanted there, it can be evicted.
Do you think that a person who puts a chicken egg inside their house shouldn’t be allowed to get the chicken out of there after the egg hatches?
kat
Citation very much needed.
I call bullshit
Lies.
More lies.
Here’s the actualy conclusion of the study:
To interprete this as “abortion kills women” either means that you have the reading comprehension skills of a second grader, or you’re simply dishonest.
BTW, that’s no unnecessary agression, it’s a fact.
The study looks at a span of 14-21 months.
Fun fact: The first year after a child is born, most women actually don’t engage in many high-risk activities. People even drive more carefully when they have a baby in their car, not to mention the fact that they travel a lot less.
This doesn’t hold true for women whose pregnancy doesn’t end in a live baby.
Actually, if they engaged in high-risk behaviour before a pregnancy, this could make a major difference.
Secondly, of those pregnancies that were terminated, there were quite some that were terminated for the health of the mother.
Which means that the abortion isn’t the cause of death but a failed attempt to save her life.
You know, if Mrs. Santorum had died from the infection during the abortion, it would have been the pregnancy that killed her, not the abortion.
It’s like saying that cardiac massage kills because more people die who get one than the general popolation.
Thirdly, some women who had medically induced abortions due to severe health problems actually kill themselves. The fact that people tell them they are murderers might have something to do with it.
Fourth, you’d need to eliminate many variables from such a study to conclude that it actually is healthy in terms of direct physiological effect to be pregnant and have a child and not due to changes in lifestyle.
A woman whi dies in a workplace accident in a position she wouldn’t have been allowed to work if she were pregnant doesn’t die from not being pregnant, she dies from a fucking workplace accident.
In fact, when talking about actual health effects, the study tells you that
As for the personhood: It is irrelevant to the question of abortion. It may not be irrelevant in other terms (like financial protection)
kat, #341: Just like if a person puts a live chicken egg inside their house and it hatches, the chick isn’t an intruder in their home.
That is one of the stupidest analogies I’ve ever come across. This isn’t an insult, by the way, it is a fact: this is one of the stupidest analogies I’ve ever come across.
It certainly doesn’t demonstrate the point you want to get across. If a person puts a live chicken egg inside their house, they are perfectly free to take it back outside and smash it on the street. Hey, I changed my mind: it’s a great analogy!
Ooh, and when that egg hatches, the person is perfectly free to kill the chicken and eat it for dinner. Oops! Looks like the analogy isn’t going where you want it to.
As far as hunting goes, I think the basis for self-identification as “pro-life” is pro-HUMAN life,
Ok, how many of them are in favor of universal health care, social programs demonstrated to improve survival and quality of life for poor children, increasing funding for the NIH, and ending aggressive wars?
Dianne
Well, you know the answer: Since they can’t punish women alongside for having a sex-life, even when it’s not a voluntary sex-life, they don’t bother.
most elective abortions are of fetuses, not embryos and certainly not zygotes.
Not even close to correct. The majority of abortions, including medically indicated abortions occurred prior to the 9th week of pregnancy. In other words, in the embryonic period.
As far as your claim that pregnancy reduces mortality, the paper you cited does not support that claim at all. I have a suspicion you may have read the abstract only, not the full paper. The bottom line is that women who are not healthy are not as likely to become pregnant and are also more likely to die. Women who become pregnant and are not healthy are more likely to have an abortion to improve their health. They are also more likely to die in the next year.
I would also direct your attention to table III in the paper: examination of the causes of death. Women who completed pregnancy were more likely to die of pregnancy related causes, but less likely to die of other “natural causes”. Additionally, women who had a spontaneous or induced abortion were less likely to die of natural causes than women who were not pregnant, again supporting the thesis that healthy women are more likely to get pregnant and complete a pregnancy. Then there’s the last row: death due to violence. Women who underwent abortion were much more likely to die from violence than women who were not pregnant or who completed pregnancy. What conclusion would you draw from that? Perhaps that women whose partners are violent or whose situation is unstable are more likely to get abortions than women whose partners are not violent? Or perhaps that an unwanted pregnancy is one way that abusers try to control their victims?
Dianne, #345: Ok, how many of them are in favor of universal health care, social programs demonstrated to improve survival and quality of life for poor children, increasing funding for the NIH, and ending aggressive wars?
Back in the late ’80s there was a pro-life group (I can’t remember whether they were national or local to the area where I was living at the time) that took “pro-life” as seriously as your comment suggested they should.
They actually made up a score card that included, besides anti-abortion, obvious “pro-life” positions on topics like social welfare, education, and so forth.
And the elected officials who scored the highest on their score card…wait for it… were liberal Democrats who were also pro-choice in regards to abortion.
Funny, come to think of it, I haven’t heard anything about that group since.
Chiroptera, Dianne et al: I’ve said it before. Pro-lifers are only pro-life until the fetus is born, then they’re on their fucking own.
The “leave a chicken egg in your house” argument is ridiculous. So if someone were to drop an egg off somewhere in your house, and it hatches and you suddenly have a chick wandering around your bedroom where you had no idea it existed in the first place, you’re — as others have hit upon — legally required thereafter to raise that chick until it’s a full-grown chicken? Look at the immorality of the intentionality in this argument. Do men intentionally impregnate people without their knowledge or consent here? Is it up to the homeowner to install anti-egg technologies on their doors, or else never invite people to visit their homes because that makes them sluts? What about in the case of a break-and-enter, someone breaks in, puts an egg somewhere, writes “you are never safe” on all the mirrors to destroy the homeowner’s psyche, does that mean the person has to carry that “egg” to chickenhood?
Jason Thibeault, #351:
And fetuses have more rights than actual babies after they are born.