~Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Roe v. Wade, 22 January 1973
Seventy-seven percent of anti-abortion leaders are men. 100% of them will never be pregnant. ~Planned Parenthood advertisement
Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.
~Edward Abbey
Saturday, January 22, 2011 was the 38th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision which confirmed the right of women to privacy, including making the choice regarding abortion and pregnancy.
The battle ground for the next round of culture wars is set, including abortion, as conservatives prepare to invade that privacy, forcibly inserting themselves into the decision making process between women and their health care providers, family and spiritual advisers.
Meanwhile, I am reminded by this story of the concerns about making abortion procedures legal, and safe, and affordable, contrary to the days of backstreet abortions (whether legal or illegal) in this story about how bad such desperate measures for women can be back in the bad old days before Roe V.Wade.
Conservatives want to cut funding for health care, including contraception. Conservatives want to fund abstinence only sex education instead of comprehensive sex education which would leave our already beleaguered students who are falling behind also ignorant of contraception. Conservatives want to cut out the safety net which affects the economic aspect of the decision to continue a pregnancy or seek an abortion, a decision which can affect the very survival of both woman and child, never mind other family members.
"Abortion numbers go down when the economy is good and go up when the economy is bad, so the stalling may be a function of a weaker economy," said Michael New, a University of Alabama political science professor.Women don't seek abortions because they are cheapskates. Women seek abortions because they are making decisions based on economic necessity, not selfish whim.
In this sense, abortion can be thought of as an "inferior good" -- i.e. something a consumer would demand less of if they had a higher level of real income. While abortions aren't cheap (in 2009, according to the Guttmacher Institute, the average amount paid for a non-hospital abortion with local anesthesia at 10 weeks' gestation was $451), they are far cheaper than having a baby. (The average cost of having a child in the hospital in America in 2005 was between $5,000 and $10,000.)
"No woman wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg. ~Frederica Mathewes-Green"The realities of funding for health care, and for making both abortions and contraception available are this:
While it's impossible to know the rationale behind this decision, conservative groups such as the Family Research Council -- not to mention the Catholic Church -- have lobbied strongly against including contraception in the preventive health category. In the meantime, in a separate study, the Guttmacher Institute found that 18 percent of women on the pill in households that make less that $75,000 a year have resorted to inconsistent pill use to save money.As a woman who came of age after Roe V.Wade, I am grateful for the decision. I am blessed to have had the benefits of comprehensive sex education, including accurate information on contraception and sexually transmitted disease, and a rational rather than regressive, restrictive, and shame-based view of human sexuality. It would be wrong to undo any of that, it would be bad public policy, it would be bad public health policy in particular.
So if the idea is to have fewer abortions -- but contraception is prohibitively costly for the most fertile groups of women . . . well, you do the math. As Amanda Marcotte wrote in Slate earlier this year, "There's a reason that the United States has the highest teen pregnancy and abortion rates in the developed world, and that's because we're just not as good at using consistent contraception. And that it's a major hassle and expense to get it is a big part of the reason."
But conservatives are going to try. And I for one, will be pushing back against them for it. Because when I see or hear the conservative positions on health, and sex, what I see is a view which regards sex as a sin, a sin for which women bear a greater penalty. I see a world view which does not value women, and which seeks to undermine our independence and equality. I see a worldview like this, from July 2010, which posits women as dependent on men, and anti-feminist, not pro-equality.
"Unmarried women, 70% of unmarried women, voted for Obama, and this is because when you kick your husband out, you've got to have big brother government to be your provider," said Schlafly, president of Eagle Forum and infamous for her opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment.As a woman, I say NO. Hell NO! NO!
I have said for some time that I think Roe v. Wade was wrongfully decided. However, that isn't a surprise to DG. I also object, as I always do, to her attack on the Roman Catholic Church.
ReplyDeleteIts her right, and I support her right, to disagree with the Church's teachings, but I have the equal right to push back.
I think that abortion for the purpose of economics is akin to abortion as a means of birth control. It might be legal given the current state of the law, but it is a moral outrage. Those women who resort to abortion as a form of birth control do so at the peril of their souls.
"I also object, as I always do, to her attack on the Roman Catholic Church."
ReplyDeleteToE, this isn't about the Catholic Church, much less an attack on it. Anyone who wishes to believe and follow the teachings of the Roman Catholic church, or any other religion should do so. I am objecting to those who would impose their religious beliefs on others, punitively.
Wgat I wrote IS, however, very much about pushing back against conservatives.
What I wrote is, I suppose, tangentially, about the Catholic Church or any other specific religion imposing their beliefs on others through the decisions of government such that other people cannot avail themselves of legal medical procedures or products, including both contraceptives and abortions.
ToE wrote: "Those women who resort to abortion as a form of birth control do so at the peril of their souls."
It is my understanding that the Roman Catholic church asserts that all contraception, at least, all effective contraception,
imperils our souls, so from that perspective women have nothing less to lose eternally by making either choice. Proestants, Hindus, Atheist, and those RC who disagree with their own church's position should have that choice.
The use of contraceptives is not an evil, (however much the Roman Catholic church resists change, I suspect eventually they will have to acknowledge that their biblical basis for the position is flawed) and it should be a matter of personal choice. Refusing to fund contraception as a public policy health option is folly.
Part of the duties of a church, any church, is acting on their beliefs. If the Church sees Roe v Wade as legalizing murder, they have an obligation to their beliefs to try and get that law changed peacefully. It is this same obligation that saw lots of Catholic priests and Jewish rabbis in the south in the 60s marching with Martin Luther King.
ReplyDeleteTuck, do you agree as well that Roman Catholics should do everything in their power to oppose federal funding of contraception among the lists of preventive medicines?
ReplyDeleteBecause if you read what I wrote, it made the point that an absence of available, affordable contraception results in increased abortions.
If people seriously oppose abortion, then they should stop getting in the way of other people choosing to use contraception.
However you try to spin it, it comes down to one group of people forcing their views onto others who choose to believe differently on the pretext that they know better how people are allowed to live their lives, a rather sanctimonious view.
The Catholic Church's position on contraception is well known, and while its subject to change, as it has over the centuries, is what it is. In the meantime, even IF contraception were permissible within the doctrines of the Church, abortion as a means of contraception would not be. Abortion, especially abortion for the purpose of "family planning", or birth control, or "economics", is repugnant.
ReplyDeleteDG would have us believe that abortion because its "more economical" is somehow less repugnant than when the woman has just had a change of attitude about bringing a new life into the world.
Both are equally repugnant, and both are mortal sins. On this issue, I don't expect that the Catholic Church will change any time soon, because in those cases, its akin to murder of a child, an equally heinous sin.
ToE accused me of attacking the Catholic church for its position on abortion.
ReplyDeleteWhat I wrote used a quote that was critical of the Catholic church's position to restrict contraception, pointing out that less available and affordable contraception resulted in more, not fewer, abortions.
If the church is so interested in avoiding abortions, they shouldn't be making contraceptives less available.
ToE and Tuck object to my standing up for a right for women under the constitution, in opposition to the Catholic Church's position, despite the fact that I am not a Roman Catholic.
Yet this is similar in many respects to what Tuck and ToE do, when they differ from the Roman Catholic church, standing up for the 2nd Amendment, in opposition to the position of the Roman Catholic church (courtesy of MikeB).
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1100159.htm
VATICAN LETTER Jan-14-2011 (930 words) Backgrounder. With photo. xxxi
Gun control: Church firmly, quietly opposes firearms for civilians
By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Catholic Church's position on gun control is not easy to find; there are dozens of speeches and talks and a few documents that call for much tighter regulation of the global arms trade, but what about private gun ownership?
The answer is resoundingly clear: Firearms in the hands of civilians should be strictly limited and eventually completely eliminated.
But you won't find that statement in a headline or a document subheading. It's almost hidden in a footnote in a document on crime by the U.S. bishops' conference and it's mentioned in passing in dozens of official Vatican texts on the global arms trade.
The most direct statement comes in the bishops' "Responsibility, Rehabilitation and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice" from November 2000.
"As bishops, we support measures that control the sale and use of firearms and make them safer -- especially efforts that prevent their unsupervised use by children or anyone other than the owner -- and we reiterate our call for sensible regulation of handguns."
That's followed by a footnote that states: "However, we believe that in the long run and with few exceptions -- i.e. police officers, military use -- handguns should be eliminated from our society."
That in turn reiterates a line in the bishops' 1990 pastoral statement on substance abuse, which called "for effective and courageous action to control handguns, leading to their eventual elimination from our society."...
On the world stage, the Vatican has been pushing for decades for limitations not just on conventional weapons of warfare, such as tanks and missiles, but also for stricter limitations on the illegal and legal sale, trade and use of small firearms and weapons, said Tommaso Di Ruzza, the expert on disarmament and arms control at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
[Di Ruzza]said while many countries are open to limits on larger weapons systems, most nations aren't interested in regulating small arms even though they "cause more deaths than all other arms (conventional and non-conventional) together."
I believe I can make a good argument that guns are involved in far far more deaths than there are abortions in the United States.
Does this make Tuck and ToE taking an opposition agrument over Constitutional protections to that of the Roman Catholic church an ATTACK on the church for that difference?
I believe the usual term for a Roman Catholic agreeing with some of the positions of the church, and strongly disagreeing with others is cafeteria catholic - the idea being taking some things, not taking others, of the church's positions and teachings. Which describes the overwhelming majority of Roman Catholics.
I guess that puts me in good company, including ........theirs.
ToE wrote "DG would have us believe that abortion because its "more economical" is somehow less repugnant than when the woman has just had a change of attitude about bringing a new life into the world."
ReplyDeleteNO.
DG would have us believe that contraception should be available, including as preventive medicine, and that not using it should be the option of those who wish to conform to that teaching of the Roman Catholic church - which is NOT true of many who identify themselves as Roman Catholic, who routinely use contraception.
DG would have us believe that sex education should be factually accurate and empower men and women to control their own reproduction through means other than ignorance and abstinence,to reduce the incidence of abortion. But that to preseve the lives of women, those fewer abortions with the availability of contraception and education should still be safe and legal, not dangerous or criminalized.
DG recognizes that there are profound economic pressures that are part of the reasons women seek abortions in the real world, and that conservatives seek to make those economic pressures harsher, in removing more and more of the social safety net that would mitigate those economic pressures.
The conservative position (Roman Catholic or otherwise) is anti-woman, and it is mysoginistic, as enforced in conservative politics.
I forgot to add this quote from the preceding quoted article:
ReplyDeleteAnd as Pope Benedict wrote in his message to the disarmament conference, no reduction or elimination of arms can happen without eliminating violence at its root.
Every person "is called to disarm his own heart and be a peacemaker everywhere," the pope said.
I will be looking forward to Tuck and ToE changing their position on firearm regulation (note - I haven't called for elmination or banning, just some tightening of regulation) to be consistent with the pope's position and that of the Roman Catholic church. If not..... then I don't expect to be accused of attacking the church in future for disagreeing, as a non-catholic, with one or more of its positions, while agreeing with others.
DG clearly, in her article, advocated that economics should be an acceptable reason for an abortion. This position is hers to have.
ReplyDeleteAbortion for any reason other that to save the life of the mother and rape/incest (if able to be proven, i.e. name the attacker and/or cooperate with authorities), is a mortal sin. I have first hand (although not personal) experience with women who have claimed rape, although the intercourse was consensual. (I have represented a few of those women's victims)
The point is, DG's article clearly states that abortion should not only continue to be legal on demand, but that it should be an economic decision. This plays right into the "death panels" argument, of course. Only, in this case, its the liberal state what is allowing pregnant women to become their own death panel... condemning their unborn baby to death, for their personal convenience.
It may be legal. It also damns their soul.
"Abortion for any reason other that to save the life of the mother and rape/incest (if able to be proven, i.e. name the attacker and/or cooperate with authorities), is a mortal sin. I have first hand (although not personal) experience with women who have claimed rape, although the intercourse was consensual. (I have represented a few of those women's victims)"
ReplyDeleteWe do not set public policy in this country on what one religion believes will jeaopardize someone's soul. That would be tyranny by one religion over non-believers. There are plenty of protestants who are in favor of respecting abortion rights, and who do not agree that life begins at conception.
Nor do many current conservative politicans respect preserving abortion for rape, incest, or the life of the mother either.
And apparently, by their actions, neither does the Roman Catholic church which excommunicates nuns for preserving the life of women.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Media/church-excommunicates-nun-authorized-emergency-abortion-save-mothers/story?id=10799745
This places the lives of women last after every other concern.
Anyone who wants to decrease abortions will not restrict contraception. Real life means that we as human beings DO consider the economic factors in reproduction. It is outrageous that anyone would judge a woman harshly who was faced with the possibility of being homeless along with a new born and prior children with harshly diminished social support, versus termination of a pregnancy that would not leave her and her dependents homeless.
Regardless, it is wrong to force a woman to endure an unwanted pregnancy. I support the position of Roe V. Wade that the first two trimesters are an appropriate time limit. I believe that science, not a belief, should inform that choice in public poicy and respect for constitutional rights.
Women's lives matter.
By placing this as an economic argument, you are lowering yourself to the level of death panels. Children aren't "inconveniences", they are lives, with souls, and those souls matter.
ReplyDeleteIts an abomination that anyone would consider an abortion on economic grounds, just as it is when the pregnancy is going to be "inconvenient" for the woman. This is a "me" mentality that makes me sick. The woman who makes that type of decision is thinking not of anyone else but herself.
One does not have to agree with the Church's position on abortion, but I think that many people of faith would be and should be very disturbed at the idea of aborting simply because its an economically inconvenient time to have a child.
As I've said over and over, apparently without any comprehension by DG, abortion itself is bad enough. When the reason for that abortion is purely selfish economics, then it goes beyond that to moral ourage and a mortal sin.
ToE,
ReplyDeleteI think you are hung up on DG's comment about the "economic aspect" a bit more than needs be. She neither believes nor argues that having an abortion (certainly not late term) for economic grounds is permissible or ethical.
What she is saying is that the position of conservatives makes the LIKELIHOOD of such a decision grow, and emprical evidence supports it. Thus, they are defeating themselves with their position. Their economic paucity is driving MORE not fewer abortions. We can hope people will not decide things for eocnomic reasons, but just like our invasion of Iraq, or our failure to help the third world, people DO make such decisions. We can howl against the moon about it, but it still will occur.
Thus we have to face the reality that being "cheap" about education and contraception (not abortion) - leads to more trouble, more abortions, not fewer.
Pen, you understand exactly what I am saying, exactly what I have written.
ReplyDeleteBut further, the assertion that an individual is a life with a soul at conception is a belief, abelief not shared by a majority of people, a belief not established in any way by sciene. It is not a fact.
No woman should be compelled to be pregnant against her will. That is a terrible thing.
ToE is working overtime to put the worst possible interpretation on what I have written rather than a fair or balanced understanding, when he writes:
"When the reason for that abortion is purely selfish economics, then it goes beyond that to moral ourage and a mortal sin."
I wrote about desperation, not pure selfishness. There is - as Pen noted in his recent post about serving breakfast to the homeless - real deprivation in this country, homelessness and hunger.
To callously categorize making a decision on the basis of desperate circumstances, calling it selfish economics is unfair and unkind, and unworthy and uncharacteristic of his usually very kind character.
As was characterizing this as an attack on the Catholic church, when it is not.
I don't see ToE or Tuck rushing to comply with the teachings of the Roman Catholic church on guns yet. I hope that they aren't attacking the position of the Roman Catholic church, merely disagreeing with it.
DG, since you say you are not Roman Catholic then you probably do not know the difference in the Church between doctrine and opinion. The official Catechism of the Church condemns abortion in the strongest possible terms. Birth control is in there also. What is not in there is anything about gun ownership. There are passages saying that you should take legitimate measures to defend yourself and your family and you should try not to use more force than is necessary to do so. The statements you quote are an opinion of bishops and not an official teaching of the Church.
ReplyDeleteAs far as guns killing more than abortion that is just flat out wrong. The latest figures I could find that were compiled by the same organization came from the Center for Disease Control in 2004 and that year abortions were at 839,000 in the US, deaths by gun were 39,000 with about half of those being suicides. So roughly 20 times the abortions as the gun deaths.
Oh and just to see if the numbers in the US are a little off I checked the worldwide numbers. Roughly 42 million abortions and gun deaths (including wartime) are either 200,000 (according to people against stronger regulation) or 500,000 (according to people in favor of stronger regulation). So best case ration is 84 times as many abortions as gun deaths worldwide.
ReplyDeleteTuck, I do understand what the difference is between doctrine and the position of the pope (not just the bishops).
ReplyDeleteI'd be delighted to go toe to toe with you on knowledge of the development of church doctrine over the span of church history, both Roman Catholic and Protestant. Or to go toe to toe on comparative religions. Or on the biblical basis (more often ABSENCE of it) for those Christian doctrines.
Pretty much the only effective difference is that the position on contraception and abortion has been around longer. However both positions are the official policy of the church, and are being acted on to determine U.S. policies by and at the direction of Rome.
It still comes down to this. Abortion is a decision between a woman, her partner or spouse, and her doctor, and if she has one - her own clergy. Not your personal belief being imposed on that woman. As a roman catholic, if you believe abortion OR contraception is a sin - don't do it. Don't have an abortion. Oh, wait, as a man you can't.
But you have no right to impose your religious beliefs on others to control their practice of religion or to control their bodies.
While I happen to agree with Rome and the POPE (not just bishops) about sensible restriction of guns - like not selling them to felons, or the dangerously mentally ill, or drug users - I don't agree that Rome should be dictating U.S. policy on ANY issue. Nor should any other religious body, either foreign or domestic.
You both have, in the name of religion, badly twisted what I have written. That is too bad, it is a part of what is wrong at the very core with the debate over abortion rights. I cede to you both the final word if you want it. I'm done.
I'm pro-choice. I believe that the decision to abort is so singularly and directly related to the woman making the decision, that no one else should really have much to say about it, especially men.
ReplyDeleteI always find it odd that the loudest pro-life voices belong to men.
Thanks MikeB; I don't think even the most empathetic man can really appreciate what women experience, much less dismissing their experience as being selfishly motivated, or a pregnancy as an 'inconvenience'.
ReplyDeleteWhile undoubtedly there are some shallow women, just like there are shallow men in the world, I think overall, from my experiences in talking about this choice with other women, that characterization is tremendously unfair to women overall. I find myself wondering if the reason so many of the most fiercly anti-abortion adherents are men not women might be in part because the roles in pregnancy ARE so intensely specific to women, leaving men to experience the shared experience more vicariously.
I commend those men who are supportive of a woman's pregnancy, but it has to stop short of coopting control of her body, taking that control away from her.
I respect people's beliefs, just not the belief of a Presbyterian OVER that of a Lutheran, or a Roman Catholic over an Episcopalian.
Or someone who is Jewish, or Muslim, or Hindu, Buddhist.....or atheist / agnostic. Fully respecting any one of those in the context of freedom of religion means respecting all of them, not one over others.
That in part was the basis for my appreciation of the spirituality of the Chief Rabbi of the UK, Lord Sir Jonathan Sacks, who asserted that the oldest books of the Bible which comprise the Torah aka the Pentateuch, do not claim exclusive truth.
It is that very insistence on claiming exclusive truth, and the demand that the rest of the world convert and conform to any one imperfect version of that truth, violently forced if necessary, which has in part been at the root of much of the conflict of Islam and Christianity. Conflict with each other, and conflict with other cultures, religions, and society.
What I take from the lessons in that is that it is imperative we distinguish between belief and knowledge, faith and fact, before we compel anyone to let us override their free will and choice.
But a discussion of the role of free will in religion is another topic, and not a brief one.
Btw - Tuck, you were correct that the numbers for abortions are greater than the numbers for hand gun deaths. We could quibble about what those respective numbers actually are - sources vary - but you were definitely correct that there are more abortions than gun deaths.
ReplyDeleteThank you for that correcttion, it is important to me that if I am in error on a fact, that I make the correction - and that I thank whoever brings it to my attention.