The central argument for abortion has been “a woman’s right to choose.” It is in their very monicker – “pro-choice.” The position rests on an assumption that a woman has the right over her body. However, if the debate was strictly over choices a woman can make about her body, why are feminists not fighting for legalizing prostitution across the country?
If a woman has the right to her body and should not be told by the government what she can or cannot do with her body, why then is there no uprising in support of prostitution. Should women not be able to “choose” the so-called oldest profession in the world if they so desire – it’s their body after all.
The logicall fallacies of such arguments are astounding. We regulate what woman (and men) can do with their bodies all the time, such as the case with prostitution. The government tells women that they cannot take illegal drugs, thus controlling their bodies in another aspect.
Looking at numerous cases of state and federal law, we clearly have an establish pattern of the government telling, constitutionally, a woman what she cannot do with her body. Not to mention the feminist positions against pornography which is also a “legitimate” choice for many women.
The common explanation for the extent of personal freedom is that my freedom stops where your freedom begins. But this is muddier water for abortion than it is for drug use or prostitution, both of which involve willing participants. Abortion has the unknown variable of a unborn baby, which cannot make their request made known.
My contention is that it has less to do with choice and more to do with choices without consequences. Women have both the joy and pain of carrying children and giving birth. Whether you believe evolution or God designed it that way – the results are the same. Woman have been given the responsibility of carrying for the unborn.
Sometimes that responsibility for the unborn results in sole responsibility for the born, as sperm donors (not fathers) skip town and force the woman to bear most of the consequences by themselves. Modern society has sought to somewhat equalize the situation by forcing men to pay child support – this is a stop gap measure at best. This leaves so many women in bad situations where they view the birth of a child as making their circumstances even worse.
The current feminist position, while proclaiming that it empowers woman, actually makes them even less powerful and portrays them as helpless at best. Men are told that they can choose whether to have sex or not. If they choose to have sex with a woman, then they’d better be prepared for the potential consequences. Women somehow are not granted the power of choice*, it is assumed that they had no say in the matter of having sex. The woman can decide to take on the responsibility of the child or she can decide she is “not ready” and abort the baby.
Many women view having children as an interuption to their routine, their career, their life. So they view abortion as the way to postpone children until they have accomplished what they want to do. No thought is given to the responsibility aspect of it, excpet in regards to the men. Is it not the case that if women do not want to have children then they can simply avoid the situations that result in children, just as men can?
The abortion debate is hardly about granting woman the power to make choices over their bodies. Again if that was the only goal, NOW would be promoting prostitution, pornography and legalization of drug use (at least among women). The abortion debate is about engaging in an activity with known risks and wanting an out when those risks come to fruition.
*I am ignoring, of course, the horrific situations of rape and incest. I would argue that in those terrible circumstances the unborn child did nothing worthy of punishment. However if those are the only exceptions in place, abortions would all but cease, seeing how the overwhelming majority of abortions are used for birth control.
A lot of feminists do support the legalization of prostitution on precisely the grounds you articulate. Many disagree, of course. It was an interesting debate that raged throughout the late '80s.
If they choose to have sex with a woman, then they'd better be prepared for the potential consequences. Women somehow are not granted the power of choice*
Um, no.
My point was that women under the feminist position apparently have no choice over what they do. They are not required to take the consequences. They are innocent victiims of the evil man, regardless of what happened consentually.
That position, to be true, must maintain that women are inferior to men and incapable of making an education decision that weighs the consequences of their actions.
Women are given twice the choice of men: they have the choice to have sex, and the choice to carry a kid to term if the risk is realized.
Your argument, that somehow women are given the second choice because they're unable to competently make the first, is pretty odd.
I don't think women are unable to make the first. I think the feminist position must maintain that to be consistent. My position is that both men and women have a shot at choice and if they choose their actions, both should accept the responsibilities of that action.
Aaron,
If prostitution was legalized, then abusive johns could be reported to police. This would be a good thing. As it is, women who find themselves selling sex have no legal protection, because the minute that they report a rape, or abuse, or whatever, the police arrest them. So yes, prositution should be immediately legalized.
And as for your drugs argument, I again would argue that women (and men) should be free to make their own decisions regarding drugs. Why I can't choose to not smoke marijuana myself is unbelievably stupid.
Finally, I find the implied argument in your position interesting: that sex is bad if children aren't intended. I enjoy it when the blinds are pulled back on this particular position of the pro-life crowd. "Sex has consequences, and can only be safely fun when children are expected within the confines of marriage." The notion of no consequence sex is abhorrent to (some) Christians…
But maybe that argument is for another day.
And speaking of xian hatred of "no consequence" sex, check out this from a New Yorker article on vaccine development for sexually transmitted diseases by Michael Specter:
"Religious conservatives are unapologetic; not only do they believe that mass use of an HPV vaccine or the availability of emergency contraception will encourage adolescents to engage in unacceptable sexual behavior; some have even stated that they would feel similarly about an H.I.V. vaccine, if one became available. 'We would have to look at that closely,' Reginald Finger, an evangelical Christian and a former medical adviser to the conservative political organization Focus on the Family, said. 'With any vaccine for H.I.V., disinhibition' – a medical term for the absence of fear – 'would certainly be a factor, and it is something we will have to pay attention to with a great deal of care.' Finger sits on the Centers for Disease Control's Immunization Committee, which makes those recommendations."
I am constantly amazed at xians.
I don't think women are unable to make the first. I think the feminist position must maintain that to be consistent.
At the risk of sounding daft, I'll just admit I don't follow the argument. If you have time, could you unpack it?
Sam – I know your position of essentially legalize everything, but that is not the position of the modern feminists movement which maintains a disapproval of both prostitution and pornography for their negative impact on women and society.
My implied position is not that sex without children is bad. I only said that if you have sex, you know the consequences – both man and woman. If you feel you are responsible enough for sex you should be responsible enough to deal with what comes as a result of sex.
Louis – I'm not sure who fair a New Yorker and New York Times writer is going to be to evangelicals. Even looking at that quote you gave. Finger didn't say he was against anything, he just said he wanted to evaluate the disinhibition of a AIDS vaccine. I would be in favor of any company producing a AIDS or HPV vaccine, but I don't want the vaccine to be madatory and forced on everyone.
jpe – The feminist position as I understand it, removes the responsibility of the act of sex from the woman. The man is held to be responsible – he must pay child support, etc. They are told, as is the argument in the "Roe v. Wade for men" case that has come up recently, that they knew what they were getting into when they had sex. They know where babies come from. He choose to have sex with a woman and he knows a child could result from that – no matter if the woman tricked him, lied about birth control, etc.
While all that is true for the man, the woman is someone incapable of understanding the ramifications of sex (in the feminist) argument. She should be fully free to kill the unborn child if she feels like it. She is not forced to bear the consequences of her actions. Somehow she is so ignorant of where a child comes from that she is not held to the same standard as a man.
I view it like affirmative action, which holds some races to lower standards just because of their race. That is soft racism. This is soft sexism. You patronize the woman by telling her that she doesn't have the power to say no (again leaving out the case of rape). When two people have consenual sex, two people have consenual sex, but only person is expected to face the consequences no matter what. It seems condescending to me to not expect women to be able to understand what happens after sex.
All – I don't think there is a such thing as "no consequence sex." All sex has either positive or negative consequences. This is why I can say that Christians do not disagree with sex or hold it a low view, as the stereotypes go, but rather we hold it in such a high view that we believe it has lasting impacts.
the woman is someone incapable of understanding the ramifications of sex (in the feminist) argument.
Aren't you confusing the capability to understand something with being forced to deal with the ramifications? They're two different things, no? I can understand some negative consequence x without being forced to undergo it; and I can undergo X without understanding. They're conceptually distinct. If you could dissolve one into the other, then you'd be closer to being able to argue that feminism is committed the infantilization of women, but that's no small task.
That's the crux of it Aaron – so much of these policies about peripheral subjects actually comes down to Christian dislike of sex. You say it yourself: sex has consequences. But you're implying that because people can take steps to eliminate those consequences – contraception, or HPV vaccines – then people are forgetting the real issue: sex has consequences.
And that's what's ridiculous. We live in a modern world (and incidentally, not all feminists agree with what you're saying they do – younger feminists have different views on a number of these issues) that has developed ways to deal with the consequences of sex. The morning-after pill, condoms, vaccines, whatever. Unfortunately, that doesn't well mesh with the view of (some) Christians: sex has consequences.
I just wish that more Christians would get out there and start saying what they mean. IE, rather than saying they're concerned about life (which they obviously aren't based on numerous OTHER policies from our "Christian" administration: the death penalty, help for the poor, etc.), I'd like them pounding the pavement that people need to stop having sex immediately. I'd like to see social conservatives win elections on that nonsense.
jpe – Are not the capability to understand and being forced to deal with the ramifications connected? We don't force children to deal with all the consequences of their actions becasue they are not fully capable of understanding what takes place and what will take place as a result of their actions. Feminists place women in that same role.
Sam – Did you not read my last part? Christians do not dislike sex. In fact, I like it very much. ;)
We hold a very high view of sex that maintains it is very important and very influential on the future of an individual. We don't view it simply as a physical release, but as having much more emotions involved that people want to admit.
We do live in a modern world that says it can give people sex without consequences, but it is mistaken. Even if you are able to remove all the physical consequences from the equation, there are still the emotional ones.
Many Christians position on vaccines and condoms are not that they should not be available to those who want them, but that they should not be forced on teenagers who are making decisions on sex and when they want to have it (by the way an increasing number of them are waiting until at least after high school, many until after college and some until marriage).
Sam, I'm not sure who you are intending the comment about not being "concerned about life," but if you are pointing that my way then I take great offense at that. The two issues you raised are seperate and distinct from abortion. If I cannot say that the ability to understand and dealing with consequences are the same, you certainly cannot say abortion is the same as death penalty is the same as hand-outs for the poor.
Neither of those issues needs to be debated here, but just as a small explanation about the issues. Death penalty deals with justice being served against someone who has committed a crime, unborn babies have committed no crime except inconviencing their mother. You disagree with the way conservatives want to address issues dealing with the poor, but that does not mean they "don't care." I think reducing welfare would be a tremendous help to the poor in the long run, but I honestly must not care about them because I don't think the government should take money from someone else and give it to them. (As a matter of disclosure, my family and I are qualified for basically every type of government assistance. Our adjusted income for tax purposes is 0. But we do not take medicare, medicade, welfare, food stamps, etc. Why? Because I am principly against them and I know that people are capable of sustaining their families without relying on the government to take care of them.)
To be honest, I would trade almost every other issue for the issue of abortion. I would give the death penalty, government hand-outs, condoms in school, etc. if it would mean that we would stop killing unborn babies. Please don't question my committment to life and play it off as some uncomfortability with sex.
Sam, I don't think you meant to offend by that, but you don't know me or the things that I have seen. You don't know where my priorities lie, so please do not assume that I view abortion as some political football to use to for Christians to stop people from having sex.
It is honestly none of my business if people have sex outside of marriage. That is their choice, I think it is a poor one, but I could not (and would not) want to do anything to stop that legally, but it is my business when babies are being murder so as to not interupt the lifestyles of women or because a couple is "not ready."
I will spare you my whole life story, but my wife and I weren't "ready" for my first son. We were both unemployed, living in the ghetto with robberies and murder on a regular basis. We werent' "ready" when they told us they saw a spot on his brain in the ultrasound and we should do some tests to see if he was hadicapped so we could have the option of aborting him. I remember almost throwing up. I feel sick to my stomach (wanting to cry) even typing that as I remember leaving my almost four-year-old son at home this morning, perfectly healthy, but above anything else my son that I love. I have no sympathy for someone not "ready" to have a child – close your legs. If you can't, be a man or woman and take the responsibility of your actions or at least put the baby up for adoption.
This is not some political issue that I just enjoy debating. This is not even a conservative principle (like government hand-outs) that I am against. This is a passion for seeing children like my son have the opportunity to live even if their parent's weren't "ready."
*I apologize for the emotion, but as you can see this is a very emotional issue for me.
"It takes a special kind of psychosis to argue for killing an innocent unborn baby and saving the life of a convicted murderer"
-P.J. O'Rourke on Abortion and The Death Penalty
*on a side note, I am the heartless bastard that is for both… (with caveats)
Death penalty deals with justice being served against someone who has committed a crime, unborn babies have committed no crime except inconviencing their mother. You disagree with the way conservatives want to address issues dealing with the poor, but that does not mean they "don't care." I think reducing welfare would be a tremendous help to the poor in the long run, but I honestly must not care about them because I don't think the government should take money from someone else and give it to them.
I agree completely, and have said the same (to Sam, see point#5) in the past. A little repetition never hurts ;)
Lonnie,
Nice quote. I agree with it. I might replace the word psychosis with "idiocy", but otherwise, P.J. is preaching to the choir here.
"It takes a special kind of psychosis to argue for killing an innocent unborn baby and saving the life of a convicted murderer." -P.J. O'Rourke on Abortion and The Death Penalty
Yet that is the position typical to religious hedonists, probably because their principles are defined by their own desires, so everything comes to be about dissolving principles or ethics that do not comport with their form of hedonism. It leads to an odd argument though, supposedly pro-life people are to be condemned for not caring about the lives of serial killers and the like when the very reason that pro-life people support death as a penalty for being anti-life is because they are pro-life. It's a consistent and objective position while in contrast subjective and inconsistent positions are typical to religious hedonists who define themselves, morality and principle by their own desires.
I think the anti-death-penalty and pro-choice combo subverts justice in both cases, misapplying mercy. It rescues the guilty and condemns the innocent.
However, I do agree that the "accidental" capital punishment of someone who is in fact innocent is a terrible crime. DNA evidence is going a long way towards fixing this problem, but it is a difficult problem with the death penalty.
Aaron,
(Sorry I disappeared for awhile – I was down near you in the Carolinas.)
Anyway, you can claim the emotional high ground all you want – and I genuinely have no problem with you taking it – but if you're serious about being pro-life, then I believe you're being incredibly wrong-headed in opposing, for instance, contraception. Especially birth control and condoms. The correct use of both by a vast majority of Americans would drive the abortion rate through the FLOOR.
But of course, Christians claim objection to contraception. Why? Because the correct use of contraception can prevent the actual issue: SEX HAS CONSEQUENCES. I don't think that many Christians are as moved by personal experiences as you are – I think most feel that the options that Americans currently have thus encourage expressed sexuality, and those Christians disagree with any such expression. By slowly rolling back the means by which one of sex's biggest consequences can be avoided, people can be theoretically scared away from sexuality. I find this to be both devisive and stupid.
But the bigger issue is this: if you're so pro-life, why aren't you advocating more assistance to mothers? Why aren't you advocating welfare policies that make sense for young parents? Why aren't you advocating a justice system that FAIRLY deals the death penalty, instead of overwhelmingly foisting it upon the poor and minorities? I have a very hard time believing that pro-life people are genuinely that pro-life when only one of their proposed policies really has anything to do with life: the abortion issue.
I'm sorry if that offends you Aaron, but you're unfortunately being tarnished by those that agree with you. In the same way that Seeker occaisonally sees me as nothing more than a brainless liberal.
First of all, I have no problems with condoms. (Now, I don't want my 13 year-old getting a box in his gym class, but that is a different story.)
Birth control is a slightly different matter. I have no real conviction on it, but my wife is adamantly against it. She did research on it and asked our doctor about it. Part of the way a birth control pill, patch, ring, etc. are 99% effective is that the line the wall of the uterus. So theoretically it is possible for birth control to not allow a fertilized egg to attach to the uterus.
I also would think it is stupid for Christians to say no condoms or bith control just because we want people to suffer consequences. As I have said before, an unwanted pregnancy is not the only consequence that comes with sex – there are myriad of emotional, psychological baggae that comes with it when not done within marriage.
Now to your other issues – I don't think more welfare is going to help the situation. That is one of the reasons the black community is in its current shape – fathers are not needed because the government takes their role. The black family was one of the most stable things in the nation before the welfare society ruined them. It keeps them dependent on the government instead of themselves and each other.
As I have said before about welfare, specifically dealing with young parents. I am a young parent I have two kids and I make basically squat (more than others, but a lot less than most). I fall below the poverty line (my adjusted gross income is 0) and I could get on numerous government hand-out programs. I don't think they are right and I think they are harmful to the individual and the family in the long run. The better way is to encourage people to find jobs, not rely on the government.
I'm not sure what you want me to say about the death penalty. I think whoever committs a crime worthy of the death penalty should get it – I don't care how much money they make or what their skin color is.
I understand that more poor and minority individuals are arrested and put to death than rich, white people. But I guess the root of that needs to be evaluated. Do more poor and minority people committ death penalty crimes than rich, white people?
And as I have said before I would trade government hand-outs and the elimination of the death penalty if I could eliminate abortion. You could give poor people all the money you want and only have life in prison and make the jails "look like America" if no more babies get killed.
Your current argument doesn't offend me, challenging my reasons for my beliefs does. I don't care if you challenge someone elses' ;)
By the way, where were you at in the Carolinas? I'm guessing you were in NC. Did you go visit J.J. Redick?
Aaron
1. I was at Hilton Head, a bastion of guys wearing loafers and boat shoes without socks. However, what can I say? The beach is probably the greatest invention in the world. I'm glad that beaches slowly were created over time.
2. I did not say hi to J.J. Reddick. I cannot wait for Duke to be inevitably upset in the tournament. I am beyond myself with excitement.
3. But seriously, the issue isn't you or your wife's personal stand on contraception. Social Conservatives make it their business to deprive teenagers of adequate sexual education ("Just don't ever have sex and you'll be fine, and if you decide to have sex, well, we're not going to tell you how to do it safely because we want you to suffer the…"). That lack of adequate sexual education, and Christian objection to birth control, is partially at the root of the number of abortions in this country. Again, teenage girls and boys who use contraception appropriately won't get pregnant. (Which is why I genuinely believe that most of the pro-lifers don't really care about abortion. Not you, but others.)
4. To say that welfare programs are the result of problems in the black community seems incredibly overly simplistic. I mean, at the same time that welfare programs we're being put into place, the places in which blacks lived and worked were collapsing economically. I think that the lack of jobs has at least something to do with these issues. Perhaps. Maybe.
5. Honestly Aaron, it doesn't matter if you're a young parent who wants to go it on his own. That's great for you. But there are plenty of other people who made the right "Christian" decision (by which I mean, having the child) who could use some assistance. Is it really so awful if parents rely on WIC programs or daycare programs? I mean, that really doesn't seem like the end of the world.
6. Finally, don't play dumb on the problems in the justice system. You know EXACTLY why rich whites don't get the death penalty (and it isn't that fewer of them commit heinous crimes). The issue is the legal protections available to rich whites versus the poor. In other words, the poor can be quite easily railroaded into death penalties. That isn't quite so easy when the defendant has expensive legal protection.
Or, to look at this another way, those guys on Innocence Project are never rich. (I don't see how death penalty supporters can visit a website and still believe in the Death Penalty. It really, really, REALLY, boggles the mind.
There may be way too many rich (white?) guys who get away with crimes, but none of that has to do with the rightness or wrongness of abortion. Either it is right by itself or wrong by itself. All of the other things are periphial at best.
You can say you would believe pro-life people more if they support they things you want them to support to make it seem rational to you, but none of that means abortion is right or wrong.
It may make more sense to you and the way you view things, but again that does not neccessitate the rightness of something. Just because it makes sense to me or you does not make it right or wrong.
You may be completely right on everything from government assistance (I'm not saying the people who take it are bad, simply saying that it is not always needed), contraceptives and the death penalty, but none of that equates to abortion being perfectly fine.
Take the Clinton position – make abortion legal, safe and rare. But why? If abortion shoud be legal if it is nothing but a routine operation then why does it matter if they are rare.
Does anyone really care how many gall bladders are removed in the nation? Is it a crisis if too many are taken out? If the "fetus" is simply a part of the mother's body that she can with as she pleases, why do we need to reduce abortions?
That is something I have never understood about the pro-choice position. Most maintain it is something to be avoided, if at all possible, but should be available if needed. Why avoid them, if there is nothing wrong with them morally? If it is okay to kill a fetus why would it be desireable to not do so?
Social Conservatives make it their business to deprive teenagers of adequate sexual education
I think you are unfortunately correct that most abstinence pushers are anti-birth control in general. However, I think that you are also perpetuating a myth here. Most evangelicals have a problem with the *emphasis* placed on safe-sex as compared to abstinence. I don't think most of us want some simple "just say no" curriculum.
In fact, here's what James Dobson has to say.
Also, here's some good articles from the Heritage Foundation
Comprehensive Sex Education vs. Authentic Abstinence: A Study of Competing Curricula
Facts about Abstinence Education
What Do Parents Want Taught in Sex Education Programs?
Aaron,
The issue of the death penalty is one of great importance, I'd argue. I'm not arguing about the rich people who end up in jail – I'm talking about the ones who can, at the minimum, buy their way out of the death penalty. And incidentally, I simply don't understand how you can tolerate the death penalty. That is as anti-life as anything.
But obviously, you cannot tolerate abortion. I must admit that I find myself concerned about individuals who do nothing but rely on the abortion as birth control. Those people rarely exist. Just as the victims of rape and incest who end up pregnant rarely exist. But those people are arguments for the legality of abortion. There is no reason a 14-year-old raped by her father (or preacher, or whatever) should be forced to carry a child to term. I don't see how you can possibly argue otherwise.
And as for your point Seeker, I wish I could agree with you. But it seems like the loudest Christians have no interest in abstinece+contraception. They have only an interest in abstinece. My problem is that this sort of education only appeals to the kids who probably weren't going to have sex anyway. The issue isn't those kids – it's the kids who ARE going to have sex. That's why contraception needs to be taught. Because some kids simply aren't going to listen to the abstinence argument. And those are the ones who need more.
Which is where we end up back at the original point: that (some) Christians desperately want the consequences of sex to be visited upon those who engage in sexual activity. That's why we see the cruelty of Christians who suggest that the cancer vaccine shouldn't be given to children. As far as those Christians are concerned, those kids deserve whatever they end up with for daring to go against God's alleged opinion of sex.