The Tomiknockers

Kristin Devine

Kristin has humbly retired as Ordinary Times' friendly neighborhood political whipping girl to focus on culture and gender issues. She lives in a wildlife refuge in rural Washington state with too many children and way too many animals. There's also a blog which most people would very much disapprove of https://atomicfeminist.com/

Related Post Roulette

457 Responses

  1. Oscar Gordon says:

    Well, this is obviously my favorite post by our Irradiated One.

    *Oscar approves!*Report

    • Road Scholar in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      ConcurReport

    • North in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      Agreed, it’s a well written article.Report

      • Francis in reply to North says:

        I disagree. I have many problems with the writing. My analytical approach will be to compare first sentences of each paragraph with the materials that follow.

        I despise abortion. Why? This most basic of questions is not answered in the materials that follow.

        para 3 — actually very well-written.

        A government with minimal power to regulate morality guarantees that a minority group of any philosophical bent could never seize the reins of power and inflict their beliefs onto everyone else. This sentence indicates that the paragraph is going to be about how courts should give a very broad construction to the 5th and 14th amendments as to limit the police powers of States. Anyone reading this post should know that the current state of the law is that States actually have very broad powers to regulate morality except in a very few narrowly-constrained exceptions arising from the US Supreme Court’s case law regarding the intersection of the Bill of Rights and state powers. But, oops, that analysis doesn’t exist.

        Also, minorities actually do regulate morality, all the time. There is a huge body of political science research as to how minorities with a concentrated interest in a policy issue can get their way over the diffuse objection of the majority. Witness, for example, the federal tax code.

        Finally, the argument (only when most people agree that something is wrong could it ever be made illegal) by the premise allegedly supports the conclusion is extremely tenuous. Most voters have little idea on what the law is. Perhaps a high-profile issue results in a seat being flipped and a law changed (Virginia comes to mind), but re-election rates are staggeringly high. People say that they hate their government, but act to re-elect their representatives.

        So the premise is wrong, the conclusion is wrong and the purported linkage between the two needs evidentiary support.

        The idea that none of us have the right to dictate issues of morality to our neighbors is the foundation of … small-government conservatism. Assumes the existence of a philosophy that is very much not in evidence. The number of consistent small-government conservatives at the federal level is the same as those that believe in federalism — i.e., the Minority Leader and a handful of true believers. Kristin goes on to say: The kind of power that would be required to ban abortion in the United States would be unbelievably intrusive. Texas, among other states, is discovering just how far they can go, by imposing ever-stricter regulation of suppliers. Unsatisfied demand? They can damn well give birth.

        That is the fundamental argument as to why abortion must not be made illegal. It’s not about right or wrong. Wait, what does “That” refer to. Is abortion an issue of morality or enforceability? Even a philosophical novice like myself understands that there is an enormous difference between those two.

        Some would argue that we already place this kind of power into the hands of the government in the name of criminal justice. … The problem is, abortion is much like a victimless crime. … Again, is the issue of one morality or one of enforceability? If you start from the basic premise that a fetus has personhood as of the day of conception, then it is entirely appropriate to place abortion in the criminal justice system, no matter how hard the cases are to prove. Victimless? Tell that to the dead fetus!

        (Personal note: The unwillingness of the anti-choice movement to admit that the logical conclusion of their point of view requires the criminal prosecution of both the woman and the service provider galls me no end. The way to end a hated practice is both to change minds and to punish harshly those who disobey.)

        I’m obviously having a bit of fun here, but there would be nothing fun about trying to enforce laws about abortion. What do you mean by “would be”? Under existing state laws, women face drastically different restrictions on the availability of abortion. After the failure of panty-sniffer laws, states are now just focusing on the supply side.

        I hate abortion. But turning our nation into a police state and blowing up our national debt even more is not the solution. Sure, change minds not laws. But including our national debt in this sentence is just bizarre. Abortion regulation is virtually entirely a state issue, and states have to balance their budgets.

        In conclusion: I don’t know why Kristin hates abortion. I don’t know why Kristin spent the first few paragraphs about morality when her main complaint appears to be about enforceability. I don’t see that Kristin has engaged at all with supply-side regulation of abortion. I don’t see that Kristin has engaged at all in the 40+ year legal history of abortion regulation, despite framing her analysis, in the beginning, as being based on limitations on state power. I see a substantial amount of strawman argument against liberal positions (“Cultural Marxists”, really?) and factual errors (the federal goverment funding of Planned Parenthood is not actually used for abortions).

        So, no, not a fan of the piece.Report

        • notme in reply to Francis says:

          I despise abortion. Why? This most basic of questions is not answered in the materials that follow.

          It may be interesting to know why but is it really relevant? Maybe so. Maybe she is one of the few liberals that can admit that abortion takes a life, who knows?Report

          • Kimmi in reply to notme says:

            notme,
            Abortion takes a potential life (until viability). Until the nascent life can survive on its own, it fits the functional definition of a parasite, not a life capable of living on its own.

            Your mitochondria are not alive — they depend on your cells to actually exist.

            I don’t really care if you want to say “we should preserve nascent life”– that’s fine and dandy. Just don’t try to put the EXACT same rights on a “not alive” thing as on a living woman. We do want to save the woman instead of the baby if the baby’s at nine weeks.Report

            • Dark Matter in reply to Kimmi says:

              Just don’t try to put the EXACT same rights on a “not alive” thing as on a living woman.

              No, this is incorrect. No living woman has any right to my (or anyone else’s) body, even if it’s lack will kill her.

              “Exact same rights” is very, VERY far away from where they want to be.Report

        • DensityDuck in reply to Francis says:

          I despise abortion. Why?”

          Why do you care why?Report

          • Francis in reply to DensityDuck says:

            Because there are so many different reasons to hate abortion, and the author’s opposition to the anti-choice movement oscillated wildly.

            What, you don’t think that authorial intent matters? Can we apply that reasoning to legislative / constitutional interpretation? Only the text matters and if the text is vague there is no basis to use authorial intent to resolve possible disputes?Report

            • DensityDuck in reply to Francis says:

              “Because there are so many different reasons to hate abortion”

              Sure!

              Why does it matter to you which one?

              “you don’t think that authorial intent matters?”

              When the authorial intent achieves your desired aim then why do you care?Report

          • atomickristin in reply to DensityDuck says:

            I have the funniest feeling it’s because by refusing to state my personal reasons (which I believe would have made the post heavy, unfocused, scattershot, and all over the place) it’s because I don’t give anything for people to pick apart.

            Just a theory.Report

    • pillsy in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      Yup. Ideologically, I’m pretty far from the target audience, but still quite good.Report

  2. J_A says:

    I do have a big problem with this fragment

    forcing nuns to pay for birth control, forcing all Americans to fund Planned Parenthood and abortions overseas.

    The Little Sisters of the Poor were never required to pay for birth control, they were required to sign a form so that their female employees could receive birth control (their legal right) from their insurance provider without using the nuns money to pay for it. The nuns considered that signing the form that would release the birth control coverage was “contributing to a great evil” (a term of art) and refused to do so.

    Likewise, taxpayers do not fund abortions when they fund Planned Parenthood, they fund all the other services PP provides. You might believe withholding pap smears for other women is a worthy price to pay to decrease your direct contribution to a great evil, but that’s just shifting onto others the cost of your preferred policies.

    I understand your arguments, we don’t want the police investigating if you did something that could have contributed towards your “miscarriage” (scare quotes intentional). But I would be interested to see how you address, as a libertarian or a conservative, the argument that the woman should not be forced to become the host of another being, at great cost and a great risk to her health.Report

    • pillsy in reply to J_A says:

      Also, the somewhat related Hobby Lobby case boiled down to essential religious liberty for an employer to get tax benefits for providing their employees with health insurance.Report

      • Richard Hershberger in reply to pillsy says:

        Also the implied claim that a corporation has religious beliefs. When did Hobby Lobby convert to Christianity? Was Hobby Lobby at a revival, where it heard a stirring call to dedicate itself to Jesus, at which point Hobby Lobby went up the aisle and was saved?

        The whole point of a corporation is to create a wall of separation between a business and its owners. Were Hobby Lobby unable to pay its creditors, its stockholders were not be on the hook to pay these doubts out of their personal assets. The religious liberty argument smacks me as a strong desire to simultaneously eat and not eat cake.Report

        • DensityDuck in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

          “Also the implied claim that a corporation has religious beliefs. ”

          I strongly agree with your argument that, as a corporation is an entity distinct from its shareholders and directors, actions taken on behalf of the corporation qua corporation or at its behest in no way reflect upon the judgement or moral nature of the individuals performing those actions.

          https://youtu.be/VrDWY6C1178Report

      • DensityDuck in reply to pillsy says:

        “for an employer to get tax benefits for providing their employees with health insurance.”

        uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it’s kind of funny to describe not paying a penalty for failing to take an action as a benefitReport

        • pillsy in reply to DensityDuck says:

          Be that as it may, Justice Alito’s majority opinion in Hobby Lobby cited the considerable tax advantages associated with providing employees with health insurance as well as the tax penalties for not doing so.Report

          • DensityDuck in reply to pillsy says:

            Alito’s opinion says nothing about tax advantages for providing health insurance.Report

            • pillsy in reply to DensityDuck says:

              FTFMO:

              The companies could attempt to make up for the elimi- nation of a group health plan by increasing wages, but this would be costly. Group health insurance is generally less expensive than comparable individual coverage, so the amount of the salary increase needed to fully compensate for the termination of insurance coverage may well exceed the cost to the companies of providing the insurance. In addition, any salary increase would have to take into account the fact that employees must pay income taxes on wages but not on the value of employer-provided health insurance. 26 U. S. C. §106(a). Likewise, employers can deduct the cost of providing health insurance, see §162(a)(1), but apparently cannot deduct the amount of the penalty that they must pay if insurance is not pro- vided; that difference also must be taken into account. Given these economic incentives, it is far from clear that it would be financially advantageous for an employer to drop coverage and pay the penalty.

              Emphasis mine.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to pillsy says:

                Either way, you’re describing “avoiding a penalty” as a tax benefit.

                Also I love the implication that a group who would go to the Supreme Court over an issue of morality is actually just a bunch of money-seeking bastards out to squeeze any advantage they can out of society. (It fits with your insistence that there’s only one kind of antiabortion, and if you say that you’re any other kind then you’re lying.)Report

              • pillsy in reply to DensityDuck says:

                No, because the deduction for employer-provided health insurance isn’t just avoiding a penalty. There’s a benefit and a penalty, and Alito appeals to both.

                Also I love the implication that a group who would go to the Supreme Court over an issue of morality is actually just a bunch of money-seeking bastards out to squeeze any advantage they can out of society.

                One should take joy where one finds it, I suppose.

                (It fits with your insistence that there’s only one kind of antiabortion, and if you say that you’re any other kind then you’re lying.)

                That’s certainly an interesting way of interpreting my argument. Not a remotely correct way, but an interesting way.Report

    • atomickristin in reply to J_A says:

      First point – I’m saying that is the argument that SOME make. I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with that (although I’m sure it’s fairly easy to extrapolate my position as a libertarian that government is probably better off doing none of those things)

      Second point – as someone who does actually kind of have a moral problem with ~many~ abortions, I feel a woman who has chosen to have unprotected sex may have to acknowledge that engaging unprotected sex carries with it a certain consequence. Just like drinking and driving may carry with it the consequence of prison time. Hence my moral dilemma.Report

      • dragonfrog in reply to atomickristin says:

        On the second point – not only have “cultural Marxists” not seized the reins of power so much that they fund abortions overseas – it’s the very opposite.

        Whatever the opposite of a “cultural Marxist” is (maybe the “cultural McCarthyists”?) have control of the reins of power to such an extent that no overseas entity receiving US funding is allowed to provide abortions, not only with the funds it receives from US sources (already been illegal without interruption since 1973 – same year as Roe v. Wade by tooootal coincidence), but now also with any of its funds from non-US sources. They’re not even allowed to provide accurate medical information – they can’t even mention the option of abortion.

        I see no sign that “cultural Marxists” exist within a hundred miles of power in the US, nor ever have since Karl Marx was born.Report

      • Kimmi in reply to atomickristin says:

        atomickristin,
        I think we vastly overestimate how many women “choose” to have unprotected sex.
        (of course, we’re then taught to vastly overestimate odds of pregnancy, which doesn’t help in women choosing unprotected sex).Report

    • Troublesome Frog in reply to J_A says:

      Likewise, taxpayers do not fund abortions when they fund Planned Parenthood, they fund all the other services PP provides.

      My issue with it is more fundamental than simple accounting. There are a lot of people who don’t want to fund wars overseas or no-knock raids on pot growers or any number of other things they feel are immoral. If consensus on the moral correctness of each dollar is a litmus test, the government simply goes away. At some point, you take the good with the bad.

      I’m much more sympathetic to arguments against being compelled to do something directly that you find morally offensive than to arguments about where a dollar that comes out your pocket eventually goes somewhere down the line.Report

      • J_A in reply to Troublesome Frog says:

        I totally agree, but the argument was not about moral disgust on what the Government does with our tax dollars. It was that tax dollars were used for something specific. And it happens that that particular fact is not true.Report

      • Murali in reply to Troublesome Frog says:

        If consensus on the moral correctness of each dollar is a litmus test, the government simply goes away. At some point, you take the good with the bad.

        You don’t have ot go so far as actual consensus. Some kind of rational agreement on the correctness of each dollar could get you some government without spending tax money on morally controversial stuff.

        This is basic Rawlsian public reason liberalism folks. It cannot just be public reason for thee but not for me.Report

        • pillsy in reply to Murali says:

          Some kind of rational agreement on the correctness of each dollar could get you some government without spending tax money on morally controversial stuff.

          Yeah, but in the absence of that–and we very much have the absence of that what with the drone strikes and the rest–what we actually get is special treatment for “pro-lifers”. Their “moral controversies” are real, but when anybody else objects to things they think are moral controversial they can go screw.Report

          • Dark Matter in reply to pillsy says:

            Government doesn’t care about morality, especially it’s own. Government cares about having enough votes to swing elections.

            As for other “moral issues”, get enough people to vote on it and government will pay attention; Get a workable platform and it will probably be implemented. That last is what the Pro-life movement is really missing.Report

        • Troublesome Frog in reply to Murali says:

          We do seem to have “some kind of rational agreement,” though. It’s not as though government policies are created by a hereditary monarch these days. There are elections, multiple branches of government and a whole bunch of veto points involved.

          Given that, the fact that a losing subset of that polity finds some uses of their money objectionable becomes sort of a, “So what else is new?” kind of thing rather than a shocking violation of basic decency. I mean, one could argue that it should be even harder to make policy in the US than it currently is, but that’s just quibbling over how large the offended minority needs to be before their outrage is enough to set policy.Report

      • atomickristin in reply to Troublesome Frog says:

        Personally, I’m one of those people that don’t want to fund wars overseas, or raids on pot growers, or any number of things that I find immoral. But that’s a different piece, really.

        My argument was mostly addressing the conservative viewpoint which is (whether I agree with it or not, whether it’s fully true or not) that their tax money shouldn’t go to Planned Parenthood, abortions overseas, whatever. Many conservatives do make that argument. It’s a hypocrisy case – the old “you want government out of your bedroom, then don’t make me pay for it” argument. I was trying to anticipate and preempt that argument by comparing the difference between the governmental power required to force funding for PP (minimal) and to enforce abortion laws (intrusive, invasive, and massive).

        For those people ESPECIALLY (I mean, those who resent governmental overreach forcing them to fund PP) then it’s really quite insane to think that handing over more power to government is a grand idea. That’s why I mentioned it, felt remiss not to point that angle out.Report

  3. Richard Hershberger says:

    This doesn’t strike me as an argument that will convince anyone not already convinced. The underlying argument is whether or not a zygote is fully human, with all the appurtenances thereto. To someone who believes that this is the case, the argument that abortion is “like” a victimless crime is unpersuasive. The similarity is that there is no one complaining an no obvious evidence. By this logic, killing a homeless guy in the woods and making it look like an accident also qualifies.

    I don’t buy the “pro-life” argument because I don’t buy the claim that a zygote is fully human. Furthermore, I don’t believe that the vast majority of people making the “pro-life” argument believe it either. They rarely-to-never act like they do, outside of the narrow confines of debating abortion. The claim essentially is that zygotes-are-humans is hugely important with respect to abortion, but has no other implications whatsoever. Yeah, right. Combine this with the strong correlation of right-to-lifers with anti-approved-sex arguments on other pelvic issues and the conclusion that suggests itself is that these pelvic issues are the real issues, and that zygotes-are-human is mere window dressing.

    Once we get past zygotes-are-human, the game is up. No one has come up with any other argument for banning abortion that doesn’t amount to the government meddling in people’s sex lives. In reality, many people are perfectly OK with–even enthusiastic about–the government meddling in people’s sex lives. But this clearly isn’t a winning argument, hence the need for window dressing.Report

    • Doctor Jay in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

      I would like to expand this a bit by noting that in religious terms, the salient point is when the zygote gets a soul. In the 60’s most Protestants felt that this corresponded to viability. Other peoples have felt this corresponded with the first breath of the child, and I can’t say they are wrong.

      They felt also that they had the backing of scripture, which mandated the penalty when a man struck a woman and caused her to miscarry to be a monetary fine, as opposed to the penalty for murder, which is stoning.Report

    • But, by that same token, the “they” you’re referring to also make distinctions between “abortion as birth control” and “in the case of (deep breath) rapeincestmotherslifeindanger”.

      “They” make distinctions between abortions in the first trimester and abortions in the third.

      “They” are allowing for a surprising amount of nuance in “their” thinking.

      Though, I’ll grant, “they” don’t all agree with each other.Report

      • North in reply to Jaybird says:

        Yeah but once “they” are talking about abortion as birth control vs. r/I/mild then they’re no longer debating the status of the alleged life inside the woman and are instead talking about the woman in question at which point they’ve ceded the point and are just being moralizing busybodies who can be very casually dismissed and be told to fish off.Report

        • Jaybird in reply to North says:

          I’ve rarely been persuaded by an argument similar to the above.

          If anything, it seems like a formula for “nope, not even when there are extreme extenuating circumstances.”

          (Which, I suppose, allows for people to paint the opposition as monsters who can’t even allow for X under extreme extenuating circumstances. “Okay, we’ll allow it under extreme extenuating circumstances.” “HA! YOU DON’T REALLY CARE ABOUT THE THING YOU SAID YOU CARED ABOUT!”)Report

          • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

            If anything, it seems like a formula for “nope, not even when there are extreme extenuating circumstances.”

            Given the way the modal anti-abortion activist describes the modal abortion, any other position seems pretty bizarre.Report

          • North in reply to Jaybird says:

            Look, Jay, the fact is that by and large pro lifers don’t care about the alleged lives inside them. Fertility clinics mass produce fertilized zygotes like jellybeans rolling off a conveyer belt and most pro-lifers don’t give a rip (there is an consistent minority faction who do but they are TINY).

            Is the fertilized zygote morally equivalent to a breathing living baby or a 3 year old or a 20 year old? The question as to the circumstances of its conception are incidental to that question.

            So if someone is complaining about abortion as birth control or parrying with r/I/mild (or vice versa) then they’re no longer talking about protecting the life of the fetus; they’re talking about controlling the life of the mother. That’s an arena that the pro-choice positions can survive pretty well in but the pro-life ones implode on exposure with.Report

            • Jaybird in reply to North says:

              Fertility clinics mass produce fertilized zygotes like jellybeans rolling off a conveyer belt and most pro-lifers don’t give a rip (there is an consistent minority faction who do but they are TINY).

              What would count as “giving a rip”?
              Would it be okay to use these zygotes for medical testing? If we ask that question, we quickly come to the conclusion that they do, indeed, give rips. Remember when John Edwards said “If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again”?

              Good times.

              That’s an arena that the pro-choice positions can survive pretty well in but the pro-life ones implode on exposure with.

              Well, this is always the interesting part of the framing.
              We define “pro-life” as “NO ABORTION EVER!” (which, by definition, is crazy nutball) and “pro-choice” as “not pro-life”.

              As if the victory is to be found in getting people with heavy “pro-life” sympathies to admit that they think that there are some circumstances in which abortion shouldn’t be illegal. “HA! YOU’RE PRO-CHOICE!”Report

              • North in reply to Jaybird says:

                Giving a rip as in substantively fighting it. There are seven hundred some abortion clinics in the US. that destroy fertilized zygotes- 1-2 zygotes per client. They are besieged, assailed and subject to attacks both legal, protest and in some foul cases violent.

                There are many times more IVF clinics than that which purposefully fertilize and produce dozens and dozens (sometimes hundreds) of zygotes for each client. One or two of those zygotes are used. The rest are left in frozen limbo for a time and are then disposed of. They are not attacked, not besieged nor are they particularly harassed legally. Yes, you have picked one of the few times that the pro-lifers have gotten a bit scaly about IVF as a counter example but it is glaring in its rarity. Are the IVF zygotes somehow less dead than the abortion clinic zygotes? Nope. If the pro-life movement actually did take a run at IVF would they have much success? Probably about as much success as a toddler licking an electrified train rail.

                Which generally supports the basic point that it does not appear that the pro-life movement’s priority is zygote life preservation first or foremost.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to North says:

                Which generally supports the basic point that it does not appear that the pro-life movement’s priority is zygote life preservation first or foremost.

                They now not only need to be focused enough to oppose abortion, they have to now oppose IVF.

                Do they have to bomb IVF clinics before we allow them the honor of having a position worth taking seriously? Have their own martyrs willing to shoot the countless IVF versions of Tiller out there?Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                They have to signal that they’re genuinely committed to the lives of zygotes by pushing policies that will seriously damage their own coalition before we’ll make concessions that will damage our coalition.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to pillsy says:

                And opposition to stem cell research on those skin-taggy things is insufficient to that end?Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                Yes, because the costs associated with that opposition are so diffuse (potential future benefits to healthcare of inherently speculative basic research). Indeed, the speculative nature of the research, and the uncertainty surrounding its benefits, have long formed a key talking point that anti-abortion advocates against embryonic stem cell research.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to pillsy says:

                So what’s the bare level of opposition to IVF they need to demonstrate before you’re willing to listen to them talk about abortion?

                Would them saying “life begins at implantation” be sufficient for them to do so?

                Because it seems like a bit of a shell game if we insist that they all have to say “life begins when the sperm enters the egg” just because some of them say that.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                Introducing legislation to criminalize IVF in states where there are pro-life majorities in the legislature and pro-life governments, passing that legislation, and defending that legislation in the ensuing court challenges.

                You understand the whole point is that they incur significant costs here, right? If they just give the idea lip service, it’s not going to be an effective signal.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to pillsy says:

                If they just give the idea lip service, it’s not going to be an effective signal.

                It seems like an additional cost for an unrelated procedure that you’re imposing on them and demanding they pay before you refuse to have your mind changed about the first thing that they were talking about.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                Maybe.

                Then again, “I seriously believe this enough to screw myself over to demonstrate it, just like this,” can be a damned effective argument.Report

              • North in reply to Jaybird says:

                Have to oppose IVF? They don’t have to do anything. But it does tend to make it look like controlling the bodies and behavior of women is a higher priority for pro-lifers than preserving the lives of fertilized zygotes is if they don’t.

                I wouldn’t require that they bomb IVF clinics for me to consider them consistence but in that both IVF clinics and abortion clinics destroy zygotes I would expect them to do the various non-illegal actions they do to abortion clinics: picket them, heckle IVF patients, harass IVF doctors and employees etc… Otherwise pro-choicers could continue to make a pretty solid point that pro-lifers actions do not match their stated intentions.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to North says:

                Do they have to oppose the death penalty too?Report

              • North in reply to Jaybird says:

                I’d consider death penalty and/or war opposition bonus points rather than central to their core theme which IVF is.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to North says:

                What if they argue something like “IVF is a medical procedure designed to create a child and has the unfortunate side-effect of destroying unimplanted zygotes while abortion is a medical procedure designed to destroy an implanted baby.”

                Hypocritical?Report

              • North in reply to Jaybird says:

                If, as the pro-life side alleges, a fertilized zygote is a real human person with moral weight equal or very near equal to that of any other human in the world then your rationalization doesn’t work at all. Not so much hypocritical as simply doesn’t parse.

                Abortion is a process where a couple unintentionally create one (or very rarely more) zygote and then terminate it. IVF is a process where a couple intentionally creates dozens of zygotes, choose one to live then destroy all the rest. If the zygotes carry the value pro-life rhetoric assigns them then a woman getting an abortion is something like a 2nd degree murderess while a couple getting IVF are first degree mass murderers.

                Hmm though I grant the IVF couple can say “but look we made a baby” while the abortion recipient can’t, so there’s that.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to North says:

                Hmm though I grant the IVF couple can say “but look we made a baby” while the abortion recipient can’t, so there’s that.

                Some might argue that that is enough for the so-called “pro-life” people to focus their ire elsewhere.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                Some might say that, but I’m pretty sure if some did say that, a lot of “pro-choice” people would think that justified their suspicions, and I don’t think they’d be wrong to do so.

                I can’t recall ever seeing that argument in the wild, perhaps because it seems like such an obvious own-goal.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to pillsy says:

                such an obvious own-goal.

                The wacky thing about hypocrisy is how obvious it is when other people do it.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                “I’m not gonna make this argument because it seems self-serving and would tend to confirm others’ worst suspicions,” is a train of thought that I would describe with almost any word other than “hypocrisy”.Report

              • North in reply to Jaybird says:

                And if that is enough that says volumes about the pro-lifers.Report

              • Pinky in reply to North says:

                Do you think we’d win that debate? I don’t. If I thought we would, I’d gladly have it. If the hope is to move public opinion toward the pro-life position, I think that’s got to be done gradually. But for some people, the consistency of opposing abortion and IVF would be persuasive. We need both, the intellectuals making the consistent argument and the pragmatists advancing the cause at the margins.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Pinky says:

                Both sides put their strongest case forward. The pro-choicers always talk about the 14-year-old girl who was raped by her father, and that gains sympathy. The pro-lifers talk about late-term abortions for convenience, and that gains sympathy. Surgical abortion is more visceral, both figuratively and literally, than the morning-after pill. Back to the gun control analogy, anti-gun activists aren’t going to show pictures of adult men who look like gang members in the gutter if they’ve got pictures of innocent-looking teens.Report

              • North in reply to Pinky says:

                Oh sure, I get the strategy argument all the way down to my bones. But it sure is easy, if you’re not a committed pro-lifer, to look at that and say “it sure seems like controlling women is a lot more important to a lot of pro-lifers than the welfare of those wee zygotes.” If you’re the cynical sort anyhow.Report

              • Pinky in reply to North says:

                The ease with which a cynical pose can be taken is not an argument.Report

              • North in reply to Pinky says:

                Neither is “we won’t protest IVF clinics because it’d make us look bad and we have to be strategic”. Waving signs and screaming at frightened pregnant women outside abortion clinics isn’t exactly telegenic either yet zygotes matter so pro-lifers do it. Yet the IVF clinic down the way which does basically the same thing only in much greater volume per client gets a pass?Report

              • Aaron David in reply to North says:

                Dunno @north.

                I am a pretty committed pro-choicer, but never have I heard the Pro-L argument and thought it was about controlling women. That always came across as a really ugly strawman. In fact, that line of thought always came across as a justification for not liking pro-lifers post hoc.Report

              • North in reply to Aaron David says:

                Guess we read in different circles. The “they should have thought of this before they did the things that got em pregnant” is a pretty common sentiment in plenty of pro life conversations I’ve had.Report

              • Aaron David in reply to North says:

                We don’t tend to think of placing someone in jail for killing a three year old as attempting to control women, but we might warn of consequences of people actions, no?Report

              • North in reply to Aaron David says:

                Sure, if one morally equates a zygote to a three year old that parses subjectively. If their society equates the same then it parses logically. But subjectives are different for different people and our society does not currently consider three year olds and zygotes morally equivalent.Report

              • Tod Kelly in reply to Aaron David says:

                I think the case to be made about women stems largely from the ancillary policy and cultural debates, not merely the actual surgical procedure.Report

              • Aaron David in reply to Tod Kelly says:

                I think you spot light the difficulty with this idea, in calling it ancillary. Its a straw man argument at best as it is one that I have never heard from the pro-life side*. I use the example of someone actually killing someone and how society deals with that for a reason, as the pro-life movement tends to consider abortion murder. And as we don’t consider such an action if performed by a woman to be “attempting to control women” for a reason. Nor do we call enforcement of child support “attempting to control men.”

                *Will happily admit that I don’t know that many pro-lifers, outside my ex-wife’s family, but this would show up a lot in quotes, messages, etc. Someone could make the dog-whistle argument, but that holds very little water with me. YMMV.Report

              • Tod Kelly in reply to Aaron David says:

                It’s a straw man argument, I suspect, to the extent that it does or does not effect you.

                To take guns as a corollary, there is a bi chunk of the left that very much wants to eliminate all handguns, all semi-automiotic firearms, or all firearms period. 2A advocates, therefore, are concerned when those same people pen laws that merely make it more difficult to obtain firearms. Their “they want to outlaw guns” arguments might be a straw man to many, but not to them, because they (correctly) surmise that each law is one step in a larger strategy to eliminate some/all firearms.

                Abortion is similar situation with most women I know, because the Venn diagram of people pushing pro-life legislation very hard and people proposing other actions that certainly seem to be wanting to control women’s rights and economic/healthcare choices are pretty close to a circle.

                So yeah, it’s a straw man, but it also isn’t.Report

              • Aaron David in reply to Tod Kelly says:

                I think your causallity would work better if the pro-life side was making the argument that controlling women was the goal. In the 2nd ammendment issues, there are many who directly state that they want to get the camels nose in. But as far as I am aware, no one of the pro-life side has said that the goal is to control women. Now, one can reasonably make the argument that this will control women unreasonably, but if you consider abortion murder, that is an OK side affect, ancillary. But not the reason for doing this to start with.

                And that is what makes it a straw man.The intention. With your example of the second amendment, the intention is to remove the firearms. And is so stated by many advocates of this action.Report

              • Tod Kelly in reply to Aaron David says:

                I respectfully disagree.

                In fact, I have long held that if abortion was really just about aborting fetuses, a compromise could be made that both sides could (largely) live with. But it isn’t just about aborting fetuses, on either side of the fence. It’s about bigger issues, most of which relate pretty directly to women.Report

              • Aaron David in reply to Tod Kelly says:

                Well, respectfully, you are going to have to show me something to make your case. If you believe that a compromise would have been reached if the pro-life was arguing in good faith, you need to show something to that effect.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Aaron David says:

                Lots of countries have reached stable-seeming policies on abortion that are pretty… well, compromise-y, by US standards. AFAIK, abortion doesn’t have anything like the same sort of culture war raging over it that it does here, in any of those countries.

                It’s not conclusive or anything, but it may constitute evidence supporting @tod-kelly ‘s point.Report

              • Tod Kelly in reply to Aaron David says:

                It’s not a question of bad faith, and certainly not by one side.

                I think at some level, both sides prefer the abortion battle exactly as it is.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Tod Kelly says:

                I want to say that “some level” certainly includes politicians.

                They treat abortion the same way they treat the repeal of the PPACA. When there is no risk of anything changing, it’s all “WE NEED TO ABOLISH IT!”

                When there’s a guy in the White House who might actually abolish it?

                “Well, you have to understand… reality is complicated and we don’t want to hurt anyone who might be hurt if we made some sort of sweeping change…”Report

              • Francis in reply to Aaron David says:

                As evidence, let me offer the following quote:

                I feel a woman who has chosen to have unprotected sex may have to acknowledge that engaging unprotected sex carries with it a certain consequence

                the source being the very author of this post.

                the form of the forced acknowledgment is, notably, not proposed. [hyperbole] Scarlet Letters are so tacky, you know.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Tod Kelly says:

                A lot of stuff that reads very heavily like controlling women to social liberals looks like nothing of the sort to social conservatives [1], at least partly because of the different ways in which liberals and conservatives react to policies and preferences that have a disparate impact on the sexes. Social conservatism overlaps heavily with the pro-life movement, and social liberalism overlaps heavily with the pro-choice movement [1], and it’s pretty hard to argue that abortion prohibitions don’t have a disparate impact on the sexes, so here we are.

                Now, sometimes this goes further, and someone will argue that the whole abortion thing is a pretext, and the real goal is controlling women. I’m not saying that’s never a thing [2], but it’s way rarer and the accusation is much more likely to be dirty pool.

                [1] To the extent that a position on abortion is probably the first or second thing that comes to my mind when I encounter the phrase “social conservative” or “social liberal”

                [2] I’ve seen it from some weirdo MRAs over the years.Report

              • Tod Kelly in reply to pillsy says:

                A lot of stuff that reads very heavily like controlling women to social liberals looks like nothing of the sort to social conservatives

                A lot of it does, yes. But a lot of it is stated pretty categorically as a way to control women.

                For example, I am remembering a couple of years ago when we had a long conversation on this very site about a Fox News show where the three anchors stated pretty emphatically that women should not be allowed to earn the same or more than a man because it was “anti-science” and made them less dependent on men, which was the natural scientific order of things. And a lot of cons online defended them by saying, yeah, they’re right, that’s what needs to happen.

                I’m guessing that if you’re a woman and you see stuff like that coming out of the party that wants to dictate your birth control/birth car options, you are likely not to see “controlling women” as a straw man.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Tod Kelly says:

                (I want to say that that was this thread here. But it might also be this one. .)Report

              • j r in reply to Tod Kelly says:

                I absolutely agree that a certain element of opposition to abortion and social conservatism writ large is about controlling other people’s behavior. Most political arguments are about controlling people’s behavior. Why would this be any different?

                That said, you see some interesting things when you look into opinions on abortion. For instance, women who are pro-choice tend to hold stronger pro-choice opinions than men who are pro-choice. That makes sense, right? But women who are pro-life also tend to hold stronger pro-life opinions than men who are pro-life. What to make of that? We can probably come up with lots of stories to explain that.

                The more interesting question, though, isn’t whether social conservatism is about controlling people’s behavior (it is), but about who is trying to exercise that control.Report

              • J_A in reply to Aaron David says:

                @aaron-david, @north

                Aaron David

                “I am a pretty committed pro-choicer, but never have I heard the Pro-L argument and thought it was about controlling women. That always came across as a really ugly strawman. In fact, that line of thought always came across as a justification for not liking pro-lifers post hoc

                North, answering

                Guess we read in different circles. The “they should have thought of this before they did the things that got em pregnant” is a pretty common sentiment in plenty of pro life conversations I’ve had.

                We don’t need to go far to find an example of what North is quoting. In this same thread, from the author herself

                Atomickristen, above

                Second point – as someone who does actually kind of have a moral problem with ~many~ abortions, I feel a woman who has chosen to have unprotected sex may have to acknowledge that engaging unprotected sex carries with it a certain consequence. Just like drinking and driving may carry with it the consequence of prison time. Hence my moral dilemma.

                Report

              • Aaron David in reply to J_A says:

                How does that attempt to control women? It simply states that there are consequences to actions. What should be the most uncontroversial fact of all time.

                Babies spring from sex. I think this is pretty basic knowledge at this point.Report

              • J_A in reply to Aaron David says:

                I was responding to the “I have never heard abortion opponents claim that abortion is just birth control for lazy people” or abortion opponents say “if you don’t want to get pregnant, don’t have sex”, or “an aspirin is a guaranteed form of birth control. Just hold it between your knees”.

                Me, personally, I would have a lot of issues if a woman I had sex with became pregnant and wanted to abort the fetus. But I’d try to solve it between her and me, and I understand that she has the tie breaking vote.Report

              • North in reply to Aaron David says:

                Babies spring from sex… unless you have an abortion or use birth control. A great deal of disgust is expressed by conservatives, especially by social conservatives, that said linkage has been severed. Now your anecdotal experience seems primarily based on personal face to face debate while mine is primarily based on debate/reading stuff by pro lifers online so it’s entirely understandable that our experiences are different. That said I do not think it’s out there at all to note that pro-lifers and social cons lament* that abortion (and for the more extreme ones contraception) has reduced or eliminated womens incentive to be conservative with doling out sexual favors to men. Indeed this is often labelled as modern original sin with regards to the “degredation” of culture. The baby as the ball and chain so to speak. You can see that as merely consequentialism but I see it as a pretty naked appeal to control women. Our biology once had these iron rules that technology softened leading to freedoms AB&C for women that social cons decry and it would be nice (to them) if that softening of the iron rule of procreation were removed so that maybe things would go back the way they were.

                And I’d like to clarify that I do believe that a genuine religious belief that fertilized fetus’s are morally somewhat close to babies is the dominant rationale in pro-lifers thought processes. I just do not believe it’s their only one or that it’s even the only major one.

                *Though modern pro-life movements have very wisely muted their complaints in these areas down as the years have passed for obvious reasons.Report

              • atomickristin in reply to Aaron David says:

                The bitter irony of this chain of comments is that men actually use abortions and threat of abortion to control women all the time.

                There are many, many women who are forced to have abortions against their will, or are pressured into it, or who have it held over their head for their entire pregnancy. Get in an argument? “Well, maybe you better just have that abortion after all because this isn’t working out.” and it doesn’t take long before you learn very quickly that you had better toe the line.

                Men controlling women’s reproductive rights is something that exists entirely separately from abortion. It gets wrapped up into a lot of different things, but it cannot be pinned down as an exclusively Republican, pro-life position at all. Because reproductive rights can also be taken to mean having children when one wishes to and not only the right to birth control and abortion.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to atomickristin says:

                I disagree pretty strongly with this message for the simple reason that EVERYONE believes what you’re describing is wrong. I think forcing someone to have an undesired abortion would fit pretty comfortably in a reasonable definition of domestic violence and therefore be criminal under any scheme related to abortions.

                “But some people are criminals” seems like both an irrelevant objection to how much control women should have over their bodies and like a truism used to falsely inject a BSDI-deflection against the claim that to be “pro-life” is to believe you should control how others use their bodies.

                Do I agree that “Men controlling women’s reproductive rights is something that exists entirely separately from abortion”? Sure, some men do. We call that a crime. Do I think that has any connection to the fact that a bunch of men in Washington (and states across the country) pass laws seeking to explicitly control women’s reproductive rights, while people on my side seek to allow women to control their own reproductive rights? Not in the slightest.Report

              • I would have a much easier time with this argument — consequences to actions — if the consequences were as close to equal for the two people involved as practical. That is, if the same states were passing laws that said “If you don’t want to be on the hook for the time and money for maternity care, child birth, and child raising, keep your dick in your pants.” This is largely the advice that my dad and both my grandfathers gave me.

                We have the tech to identify the father within acceptable error rates. Almost certainly with smaller error rates than we seem to have in handing out the death sentence for adults.Report

              • atomickristin in reply to North says:

                North, I’m going to need a citation on these fertility clinics producing dozens and hundreds of zygotes per client. Because I actually work with women who are doing IVF and they have to put their bodies through hell to make a handful of zygotes if that even.

                Doctors are VERY careful not to overstim women’s ovaries because if they do, it can cause a situation known as OHSS that can be fatal. And additionally many times when the ovaries pump out a lot of eggs, those eggs are low quality and aren’t fertilizable. They don’t all go on to make babies. Most successful women that I work with come out of egg retrieval with 6-8 zygotes to choose from (and they are happy to get them). No woman in her right mind would put herself through that process again and again to accumulate hundreds of zygotes, because those women want to be pregnant.

                So, I freely admit you may have access to some information that I am lacking but I’d really like to see where your info is coming from.Report

              • Francis in reply to atomickristin says:

                Possibly relevant: The records of the UK’s fertility watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. show that 1,687,260 embryos have been transferred to uteri since 1991, and 2,315,262 destroyed

                source: hereReport

            • Pinky in reply to North says:

              Catholics oppose IVF. We aren’t a tiny portion of the pro-life movement.Report

              • North in reply to Pinky says:

                Catholics also officially oppose birth control.

                Now I’ll grant you I haven’t heard of many nuns or priests getting IVF or abortions; the laity though? Umm…Report

              • Pinky in reply to North says:

                I’ll grant you that the percentage of Catholics who are pro-life activists and oppose IVF is small. But the percentage of pro-life activists who are Catholics are oppose IVF is not trivial.Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Pinky says:

                Well I am glad my wife and I are not part of that set, because I really like my son.Report

      • Richard Hershberger in reply to Jaybird says:

        Does anyone who self-identifies as being “right to life” allow for abortions in the first trimester? Yes, there are people who allow for abortions in the first trimester but not the third, but these seem to be a pretty distinct group from the “right to life” crowd.

        “Abortion as birth control” is more window dressing. Of course abortion is birth control. That is trivially obvious. This is where we come to the strong correlation between the “right to life” stance and opposition to birth control, or to birth control for the wrong people. Abortion is terrible as a first-line birth control strategy. Some people, recognizing this, work to make the various other forms of birth control widely available. Others work to prevent the various other forms of birth control from being widely available. There is a strong tendency for that latter group to also identify as “right to life.” If you don’t think a woman should have access to birth control, the “abortion as birth control” critique is merely a thinly disguised critique of that woman for having sex: for being a slutty slut sluttily slutting around. Shame on her!

        “Rapeincestmotherslifeindanger” is directed at people who don’t really care about the issue and haven’t thought about it, and who want to strike a “sensible center” position. If a zygote is fully human, then a “but we can murder him or her if his or her mother was raped” is obvious nonsense. If a zygote is not fully human, then “the government can regulate a woman’s body, unless she was raped” also makes no sense. This is not nuance. It is dodging the issue.Report

        • Is there room for a position between “NO ABORTION! EVER!” and “I’m not comfortable with third trimester sex-selection abortions…”?Report

          • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

            In theory? Sure.

            In practice? Not nearly as much as you might think.Report

          • Jaybird in reply to Jaybird says:

            A poorly phrased question.

            Is there room for a consistent-enough-to-take-seriously position that says something like that?

            I mean, now that we’ve established that if a position has any measure of inconsistency we no longer have to take it seriously.Report

            • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

              Is there room for a consistent-enough-to-take-seriously position that says something like that?

              It depends on what you’re trying to do to operationalize it. All the carefully constructed, internally consistent ethical reasoning in the world isn’t going to make abortion rights advocates interested in compromising with a movement that’s demonstrated, time and again, that it’s really interested in, “NO ABORTIONS EVER!” and isn’t terribly interested in coloring inside procedural lines in order to achieve those ends.

              And you know, in a way it’s hard to fault them for that if they take the basic “Abortion is murder,” premise seriously. But it still makes negotiation virtually impossible.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to pillsy says:

                And you know, in a way it’s hard to fault them for that if they take the basic “Abortion is murder,” premise seriously. But it still makes negotiation virtually impossible.

                The best part is that if they’re willing to move to a “negotiation is possible” position, we can dismiss them for being inconsistent!

                Win-win!Report

              • North in reply to Jaybird says:

                Heh, now you’re just snarking.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to North says:

                Hey, I’m just seeing a Catch-22 here.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                It’s only a Catch-22 if the only possible rationale for the anti-abortion movement is, “Abortion is murder!” and the only way to secure its political allegiance is to elevate the least compromising members of it to high political office.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to pillsy says:

                Are there other ones? “Human life is something that ought to be taken seriously and held as sacred. Abortion treats human life as something inconvenient and something that can just be tossed away.”

                “AH-HA! WHAT ABOUT (deep breath) RAPEINCESTMOTHERSLIFEINDANGER?”

                “There are a great many things being weighed against many other things in those. To jump ahead to the least icky of those examples, when we weigh the life of the mother against the life of the fetus, it seems somewhat obvious that the mother’s life would weigh heavier on the scale…”

                And, at this point, what happens? We’ve seen these arguments given a thousand times. We all know the litany by heart.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                And, at this point, what happens?

                What happens is it becomes obvious that the person making those rhetorical concessions can’t back them up with policy concessions because too much of the anti-abortion coalition rejects them.Report

              • Richard Hershberger in reply to pillsy says:

                If the rationale is not “abortion is murder” then what is it? Really, that is even the rationale for banning third trimester abortions, the argument being that viability is the criterion, and the third trimester standing in as an objective proxy for viability.

                For the record, I think the third trimester crowd has a very good argument. But it is also obvious that there is another crowd willing to use third trimester as a stalking horse for the zygotes-are-human position.

                As I said earlier, without the abortion-is-murder argument, what we have is government interference in women’s bodies. If anyone wants to make an argument in favor of this, let them.

                The irony is not lost on me that the crowd that usually is open to government regulation is opposed to it in this instance, while the crowd that is usually adamantly opposed to government regulation is enthusiastic about it when the topic turns to the pelvic issues. Only one side is being inconsistent, however, Being open to government regulation is not the same thing as advocating government regulation in every particular instance.Report

              • As I said earlier, without the abortion-is-murder argument, what we have is government interference in women’s bodies. If anyone wants to make an argument in favor of this, let them.

                Abolish the FDA!Report

              • Richard Hershberger in reply to Jaybird says:

                Be serious. The point of the FDA is to ensure that pharmaceuticals are safe and effective. It is entirely proper for the FDA to regulate abortifacients for this purpose. Of course there is the libertarian argument that this regulation is bad because the free market will better ensure safety and efficacy, but that is a separate discussion.Report

              • If anybody was wondering the limit to how far “government interference in women’s bodies” goes, I found it.Report

              • North in reply to Jaybird says:

                If we pick and choose from uncharitable comments of wingnuts on any given mass movement’s side we can manufacture a catch-22 easily. That doesn’t yield us any valuable information or any salient point.

                Is the pro-choice movements’ ultimate goal the forcible abortion of every pregnancy? No of course not. Can we say the same in reverse, no of course not. The two sides are not equivalent. Indeed in most of the industrial world the pro-choice side has accepted compromise positions and abides by them.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to North says:

                Is the pro-choice movements’ ultimate goal the forcible abortion of every pregnancy? No of course not.

                Are there any abortions that allow us to feel nausea?

                “I found out that the father is 1/16th negro.”
                “The baby tested positive for the gay gene.”
                “The baby tested positive for having two X chromosomes and we wanted a real baby.”
                “The baby’s eyes will end up being hazel and we wanted a baby with green eyes.”Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                Feel nausea all you want. The sticking point is the public policy you build on top of the nausea.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to pillsy says:

                Oh, I believe that public policy is immoral.
                Not even once.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                So what’s the desired concession here? Absolution for an aesthetic reaction (or a moral intuition) that a lot of pro-choice folks don’t share?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to pillsy says:

                Concession?

                I’m not trying to force anybody to concede anything.

                I suppose I’d like them to come to a similar conclusion to the one I’ve reached, but I understand that they might not feel like they can admit having done so in public, given that their concession might be used against them to create public policy.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                I dunno. The underlying beliefs (racism, sexism, homophobia, et c.) are pretty gross, but deciding to have an abortion based on those beliefs doesn’t make them more gross.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to pillsy says:

                It’s weird, I see a difference between “if I don’t get an abortion, I will die” and “if I don’t get an abortion, I’ll have to change majors” and “if I don’t get an abortion, my child will be degenerate”.

                And some of those I have no problem with. Some of them make me say “none of my beeswax”. Some of them make me nauseous.

                Though I’m not sure that last one should count because it’s not a deeply enough held position that I am willing to have the cops show up at someone’s home and shoot their dogs over it.Report

              • Kimmi in reply to Jaybird says:

                Jay,
                If people are going to murder their mentally degenerate children (and i mean that literally), I’d rather they do it before they’re born. If nothing else, it’s cheaper that way.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Kimmi says:

                A lot fewer Trisomy-21 children walking around today than there seemed to be when I was a kid.

                Hard to argue that we, as a society, aren’t better off because of this one simple trick.

                I mean, unless you have significantly different priors.Report

              • Kimmi in reply to Jaybird says:

                Jay,
                Ah, but trisomy-21 isn’t what I’m thinking about. It is possible to create a brain so… mentally unstable, that it degenerates back to being inhuman fairly quickly (so, chimplike intelligence, maybe). Lack of speech, lack of empathy, lack of basic toilet functions.

                Now, the fun part: it’s the parent’s responsibility to sink as much resources into the kid as nearly humanly possible, unless they’d rather go to jail. People lose marriages over this sort of bullshit.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Kimmi says:

                Some kind of “We Need to Talk About Kevin” scenario?

                We haven’t gotten sophisticated enough tests to figure that one out yet.

                I suppose that’s what we have the Death Penalty for.Report

              • Kimmi in reply to Jaybird says:

                comment in mod?Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                It’s not that I don’t see why you might think there’s a difference, it’s just that I don’t think there’s any particularly straightforward way to do anything about the difference, except maybe saying, “Don’t have abortions to select for sex (eye color, et c.)”

                That’s even before we get to cops showing up and shooting dogs.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to pillsy says:

                it’s just that I don’t think there’s any particularly straightforward way to do anything about the difference

                We can say “it’s wrong”.

                Sure, it inspires the followup question “but do you think it should be *ILLEGAL*?” as if it were a knockout punch and then guffaws when the answer comes “no”.

                I mean, assuming “right” and “wrong”.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                I don’t think it’s a knockout punch, except that if you want to say, “I don’t think it should be illegal, but I think it’s wrong to have an abortion because you don’t like the child’s eye color,” you can, well, knock yourself out.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to pillsy says:

                “It’s not that I don’t see why you might think there’s a difference, it’s just that I don’t think there’s any particularly straightforward way to do anything about the difference”

                Oh, I get it now! This is one of those things where you aren’t actually disagreeing with anyone here, you’re just pointing to fake people that aren’t around and claiming that whatever we decide here won’t matter because those fake people are so horrible.Report

              • pillsy in reply to DensityDuck says:

                Oh, I get it now!

                That makes one of us. What are you even talking about?Report

              • North in reply to Jaybird says:

                Sure, everyone’s allowed to have various nauseous reactions. I think sex selective abortion is pretty nose wrinkly myself. That said it’s meaningless, I mean hell, you and I are both pro-choice. Pro-choice principles can very solidly survive abortion making people feel uncomfortable. The “abortion is the same as skin-tag removal” line of hectoring is not even remotely central to the pro-choice position (which, being pro-choice yourself you know perfectly well).

                But the point was you were snarking. The same catch-22 can be inverted against pro-choicers and still tells us nothing.Report

              • Kimmi in reply to Jaybird says:

                Jay,
                Do we care more about this being an abortion than if we had a magic birth control that would allow only girls to get made?Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Kimmi says:

                Do we care more about this being an abortion than if we had a magic birth control that would allow only girls to get made?

                It exists, google “Microsort”. And “no” because Microsort got kicked out of the country (the other methods of sperm sorting don’t work).

                This technology only exists to gender select, we can ban it without too many side effects. But trying to prevent gender selection abortions if we’re going to allow “choice” requires… what? Lie detectors?

                Then we’re faced with what to do with a woman who wants an abortion for a reason we’re trying to prevent… do we strap her to a bed and make her stay pregnant? Didn’t we outlaw slavery?Report

              • j r in reply to Jaybird says:

                I don’t get this catch-22 argument at all. Really it just seems like an argument against certain forms of the pro-choice position, which isn’t really an argument about abortion. It’s a meta-argument about identity.

                There are a number of coherent positions:
                – Abortion is morally wrong; therefore I’m going to oppose allowing it to be legal
                – Abortion is morally neutral or morally right; therefore I’m going to fight to keep it legal
                – Abortion is morally wrong, but outlawing abortion would result in an even greater moral wrong; therefore I reluctantly support keeping it legal

                Maybe what you’re claiming is some form of the third choice, but it sounds more like you’re saying, abortion is morally neutral or morally right, but only so long as we are sufficiently concerned about it and don’t do it for certain unapproved reasons. Sounds a bit Puritanical, like sex is fine as long as we only do it for procreation and don’t do it too much.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to j r says:

                “There are a number of coherent positions:”

                According to pillsy, no, there are not.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to j r says:

                The catch-22 seems to be something like the following:

                1. People who are consistently pro-life are waaaaay outside of the overton window and their arguments need not be seen as serious because their position is crazy
                2. People who are pro-lifers who make concessions about abortion are inconsistent in their position and their arguments need not be seen as serious because they are hypocrites

                Therefore: since the only possible ways to be pro-life lead us to the conclusion that pro-life arguments need not be seen as serious, the only conclusions that are serious are the pro-choice ones.

                Q.
                E.
                D.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                1. People who are consistently pro-life are waaaaay outside of the overton window and their arguments need not be seen as serious because their position is crazy

                I’m not sure why you equate, “This position is not serious,” and, “This position is not amenable to compromise.”Report

              • Jaybird in reply to pillsy says:

                In this case?

                Do we even have any pro-lifers on the board who are not willing to give an inch when it comes to (deep breath) rapeincestmotherslifeindanger?

                It’s a position that is so very pure that we can’t find anyone who has it.

                A position that is held by no one is… well, it’s difficult to call it a *SERIOUS* position.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                There are a lot of nationally prominent politicians who identify as pro-life who won’t give an inch when it comes to rape or incest, and outright reject any medical reasons for abortion that fall short of the mother’s life being in danger.

                So I’ll grant you the mother’s life being in danger, but the rest?

                No, it’s quite common for pro-life activists and politicians to reject those exceptions.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to pillsy says:

                Here’s what ballotpedia has about the last big national election.

                Even Mike Pence, the guy even worse than Trump, hedged on (deep breath) rapeincestmotherslifeindanger when he was governor of a pretty dang red state.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul all–at various times–denied similar exceptions IIRC. Ryan defended Romney’s line (which did include exceptions) while running as VP, though, so there’s that.Report

              • North in reply to Jaybird says:

                But we can invert this effortlessly and it carries the exact same (none) weight:
                1. People who are consistently pro-choice are waaaaay outside of the overton window and their arguments need not be seen as serious because their position is crazy
                2. People who are pro-choicers who make concessions about abortion are inconsistent in their position and their arguments need not be seen as serious because they are hypocrites.

                It’s the same assertion, it has the same heft (none), which is why the original point was snark rather than argument. It certainly says nothing at all about pro-lifers or pro-choicers.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to North says:

                1. People who are consistently pro-choice are waaaaay outside of the overton window and their arguments need not be seen as serious because their position is crazy

                But this is false. “Abortion on Demand” is a mainstream position. It’s not outside the window at all.Report

              • North in reply to Jaybird says:

                Odd, that’s not what pro-lifers say. Abortion as birth control, for instance, is a hideous aberration that no one in society wants to think about. Partial birth abortions are abominations that no one in society tolerates if it’s brought to their attention.Report

              • pillsy in reply to North says:

                The issue that people in group (2), when they offer compromises, have no way of binding people in group (1) to those compromises. Their beliefs can be totally serious, or totally frivolous; neither changes the extent to which they can make commitments on the part of the anti-abortion movement as a whole.

                This is hardly unique to abortion–you do, as @pinky noted, see a similar issue with gun control. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen arguments of the form, “You may be willing to stop with this particular gun control measure, but DiFi/HCI/et c. won’t!”

                And you know what? Even when it comes to areas where I think a gun control measure is Constitutional and has benefits that outweighs the costs, I won’t bother advocating for them because I don’t have any way of showing that yes, it really will stop there, because I know there are some very relevant players who have no interest in stopping there.

                Sometimes you really can’t have nice things.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Jaybird says:

                Well, yes.

                If someone insists on adhering to a position that brooks no compromise, it shouldn’t be surprising that people don’t trust them when they say they want to compromise.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to pillsy says:

                “If someone insists on adhering to a position that brooks no compromise”

                I feel that it’s important to recognize, here, that you are the one saying there can be no compromise.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to pillsy says:

                How else do you want us to interpret “If someone insists on adhering to a position that brooks no compromise”?Report

              • pillsy in reply to DensityDuck says:

                As a contingent fact about the state of the political controversy over abortion in the contemporary US.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Jaybird says:

                To use the gun control analogy, an opponent of firearms could propose a law for handgun safety. His opponents would say “you really want to get rid of all guns”. He could reply, “Yes, I do. I hope to one day. But this is a position that 50% +1 people can agree upon, and I’m supporting this reform right now.”Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Pinky says:

                So we have to keep the nose of the camel out of the tent, not because the nose is going to impose problems, but because we don’t want to find ourselves outside of the tent.

                Fair enough, I suppose.Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Pinky says:

                “He could reply, “Yes, I do. I hope to one day. But this is a position that 50% +1 people can agree upon, and I’m supporting this reform right now.””

                To continue the analogy, you come along and say “I don’t believe you, because the only way that gun control as a philosophy makes sense is if you want all guns banned forever. Therefore I think you’re either lying that you support the reform, or you have some nefarious reason other than public safety for wanting to restrict gun ownership”.Report

              • Pinky in reply to DensityDuck says:

                Yeah, that’s about as far as most conversations get. Interestingly, in my experience, it’s easier to get some middle-ground abortion bill signed into law than the equivalent gun control reform.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Pinky says:

                it’s easier to get some middle-ground abortion bill signed into law than the equivalent gun control reform.

                There are states where you can be arrested for driving through them with legally owned firearms. (See, for example, New Jersey.) Massachusetts has a mandatory one-year-in-jail for possession of an illegal firearm law.

                There are other states that have “Constitutional Carry” laws or exceptionally different attitudes about registration. (For example, when I brought my inherited firearms to Colorado, I stopped by the police station to register them. I was told that I didn’t have to.)

                There are more parallels to be drawn with abortion, of course.Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Jaybird says:

        And then there are those who oppose birth control as abortion.Report

    • j r in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

      I don’t buy the “pro-life” argument because I don’t buy the claim that a zygote is fully human. Furthermore, I don’t believe that the vast majority of people making the “pro-life” argument believe it either. They rarely-to-never act like they do, outside of the narrow confines of debating abortion.

      The pro-life position exists whether you believe it or not. It’s a real thing. People believe in it. People vote based on it. People take action – march, protest, etc. – on it. Once you have established that you disagree, pointing out that you don’t believe the argument strikes me as an exercise in question-begging.

      I could go up to a PETA member and say, “come on, you don’t really believe meat is murder. If you did, you’d be marching on farms and liberating as many animals you can instead of standing here handing out flyers.” I could do that, but I doubt that person is going to suddenly put down their flyers and go have a Big Mac. I doubt that they’re even going to stop handing out flyers or doing whatever bizarre, and inane form of street theater that PETA members like to do.

      Let’s be honest. Most people don’t come to their positions based on logically constructed arguments. Most people have a set of moral intuitions that come from some combination of genetics, upbringing, and life experience that gets translated into a world view. The likelihood of changing someone’s view on abortion is related to how foundational their position on abortion is to their worldview. And that should lead us to realize that the bet way to change someone’s mind is to ask them for the least amount of change, which by the way, tends to be the exact opposite of how most political conversations play out.Report

      • Richard Hershberger in reply to j r says:

        I believe that people who haven’t given much thought to the proposition that zygotes are fully human believe this proposition to the extent that they will repeat it without thinking about it. Why do they do this? In most cases I expect that the proximate cause is their social environment. But ultimately? I cannot help but notice that the only implication of “zygotes are humans” that finds any practical application is one that also include slut shaming.Report

        • j r in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

          I don’t think that argument really holds up. There are people who oppose euthanasia, but whose actions imply that they don’t exactly equate it with gunning down a healthy person. Does that mean that those people don’t really believe that the very old or the terminally ill aren’t really human?

          There are a lot of people who oppose the death penalty, but very few who do everything in their power to stop the state from taking the life of a condemned man. Does that mean those people don’t really oppose the death penalty?

          No, it means that epistemological and ethical frameworks are complicated things that defy our efforts to game people out of their beliefs.Report

        • atomickristin in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

          But you can be a slut and not have abortions. You can trust me on that. 😉

          Seriously – most conservative people really admire single moms and birth moms that gave babies up for adoption. Not much shaming going on there, at least not that I’ve seen. To be honest some of the things I saw liberals saying about Bristol Palin about her pregnancy were a lot more slut-shamy than anything I’ve ever seen a conservative say to any woman pregnant out of wedlock.

          I think it’s just the teensiest bit of an assumption to assume that conservatives are not down with abortion because they don’t like the sex. I get why people say that, but I just don’t think that’s the reality and hasn’t been for a looong time.Report

          • pillsy in reply to atomickristin says:

            Maybe it’s changed a lot in recent years (stranger things have happened, and there have been substantial social shifts that would explain it) but back in the day I saw a lot of, “Just keep your knees shut!” and complaints about sexual license from anti-abortion activists.

            Not to mention the ongoing preoccupation with “illegitimacy” as the source of all other social ills, weird hangups about homosexuality, insistence on “abstinence only” education, and so on.Report

          • Nevermoor in reply to atomickristin says:

            Why, then, are so many pro-life conservatives anti-birth-control?Report

            • Pinky in reply to Nevermoor says:

              First of all, a good number of them are Catholics. Next, there are a few methods of birth control which may inhibit a fertilized egg from implanting and developing. Then, many conservatives don’t want government to have any say in birth control because they don’t believe it’s the government’s job. Additionally, you have many people who may oppose pre-marital sex but respect the willingness of a pregnant single woman to carry her child to term.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Pinky says:

                Right, but Catholics also rather explicitly don’t like (most kinds of) sex, so I assumed that wasn’t what @atomickristin meant when she said “I think it’s just the teensiest bit of an assumption to assume that conservatives are not down with abortion because they don’t like the sex.”Report

            • Marchmaine in reply to Nevermoor says:

              I’m not sure that they are, unless you are speaking of some sort of disagreement on when birth-control should be introduced/taught/used? And then just labeling them anti-birth control?

              Most all of the Protestant churches have left contraception up to individual conscience (in short form)… with a few groups reevaluating contraception piecemeal. The end result is broad support for contraception within Marriage.

              The Catholic Church, of course, has widely published and just as widely ignored prohibition against artificial contraception. {The end result is broad support for contraception within Marriage}.

              Even Hobby Lobby’s restrictions were to certain forms of contraception… not to contraception in toto. In fact, last time I quoted here from Guttmacher, the “approved” Hobby Lobby contraception methods are the methods used by ~89% of all women.

              It is a strange meme that is going around leftist circles that is rather baffling to me, one of the rare unicorns who actually doesn’t use contraception, but is surrounded by oceans of Christians who do so licitly within their church’s teachings.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Marchmaine says:

                You can thank George Stephanopoulos for it, asking that contraception question during the 2012 primary.Report

              • Marchmaine in reply to Pinky says:

                Really? The part where he says their’s no constituency for that and no movement to do that and exasperatedly says “Contraception is fine, leave it alone” and everyone in the audience laughs and applauds?

                Weird.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Marchmaine says:

                Ever seen Wag the Dog? It was the B-3 bomber.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Marchmaine says:

                Introduced, taught, used, made available, protected against discrimination, etc. etc. etc.

                And I’m not sure how else you could characterize Tom Price (to use one of the most prominent current examples) besides anti-birth-control.Report

              • Marchmaine in reply to Nevermoor says:

                “In addition to being anti-choice, he’s also opposed to free birth control”

                Being against *free* birth control is a very expansive interpretation of anti-birth control; but that’s what I expected was probably the case.

                It would seem you have a class/economic/policy issue with Mr. Price. I can’t see any evidence that he wishes birth control were not available at all, or that he’s leading a campaign ban it.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Marchmaine says:

                If a statist thinks something is beneficial, he thinks it should be given away for free. If a statist hears that a conservative doesn’t want to give something away for free, he assumes that the conservative doesn’t think it’s beneficial.

                And it’s even worse than that. If a statist thinks something isn’t beneficial, he will want to ban it. So if a liberal says that something shouldn’t be for free, it’s as good as saying it should be banned. They have no framework for understanding the middle ground.Report

              • KenB in reply to Pinky says:

                The language is a bit sweeping (though goodness knows that happens here often enough in the other direction), but it’s certainly a tendency or trap for folks on the left. There was similar confusion about the “ban” on embryonic stem cell research in the Bush administration that was really just a stop on federal funding for that research.Report

              • Joe Sal in reply to Pinky says:

                The bigger problem with the statist is they assume they have authority to give things away as an ideology principle. It is a logical fallacy, yet when any other ideology pushes back against the legitimacy of the ideology, the statists typical frame the ‘other’ as question begging. It took me awhile to see that they were assuming they had ownership of social objectivity, when in fact, they don’t.

                Then there is the problem in vantage point. From a particular vantage a person can produce the logic/rationality that a vantage point is wholesome like bread, and the other vantage points can be logically/rationally shown to be toxic/poison, depending on the parameters taken into consideration.

                The middle ground is really no longer viable, and this is a real put off about centrist or middle grounders, is they are constantly telling people with bread/poison rationality that they should like a vantage point of half bread mixed with half poison.

                Whats worse is that when several factions work to alter ‘truth/fact’ to prove their social objectivity is the true one, then societies die of poisoned bread syndrome.Report

              • Nevermoor in reply to Marchmaine says:

                In this case “free” meaning “covered by ACA-compliant policies”

                Anti-birth control doesn’t mean “bombing Trojan HQ” it means restricting access. I’m not sure you can express “restricting access” more clearly than staking out a position that IUDs and other forms of birth control shouldn’t be covered by healthcare policies.Report

              • Marchmaine in reply to Nevermoor says:

                No.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Nevermoor says:

                In Colorado, you have access to marijuana.

                Healthcare doesn’t cover it, though.

                I assure you, you have access to it.Report

              • KenB in reply to Nevermoor says:

                In this case “free” meaning “covered by ACA-compliant policies”

                In what way is it free? If your health plan must include the cost of covering birth control, then that’s figured into your premium. Either you’re paying it directly as part of your contribution or indirectly as part of your overall compensation package. It’s bizarre to equate this in any way with “free”.Report

              • Kazzy in reply to KenB says:

                I’m undecided on whether I feel this is a fair quibble or not.

                If you are paying a premium for something, well, you’re paying for it. And odds are you’re paying some sort of co-pay to actually access the service. But I venture to guess the inclusion of birth control coverage has a pretty negligible influence on premium costs (and even seen it argued that it lowers premiums because the use of birth control lessens the likelihood of other, far more expensive services). So if someone is looking at the difference between an unnoticeable decrease in their take home pay plus a $5 copay a month as compared to paying out of pocket can make the former feel like “free”.

                It’s like people with Amazon Prime who talk about their free shipping. No, they don’t have free shipping. But it feels like free to them and seeing as how they’re actually footing the bill, letting them call it as such doesn’t seem to be harmful.

                Now, if people are calling for free birth control and meaning they want it provided by the government and funded by tax dollars, well, that is both not free and a different ball of wax.Report

              • KenB in reply to Kazzy says:

                But it feels like free to them and seeing as how they’re actually footing the bill, letting them call it as such doesn’t seem to be harmful.

                People can think of their own choices however they want, but at the point where one is accusing politicians of opposing “free” X when the policy being opposed is actually forcing people to pay for X, that to me doesn’t seem particularly benign.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Marchmaine says:

                Here’s an example of a major pro-life leader coming out strongly against exactly this sort of access to birth control. Franklin Graham responds to UC Davis putting Plan B in vending machines by saying:
                “This is just promoting sin and the acceptance of it–bad idea.”

                And of course the way he phrases the objection is redolent of the idea that his sexual morality should be enforced on others, which is not surprising if you’ve heard anything else the dude has ever said about anything.Report

              • Marchmaine in reply to pillsy says:

                Billy Graham is/was famously pro-Contraception. Nothing by his son suggests any sort of change (that I’ve seen). Again… this is an argument among supporters of Birth Control over what lines can be drawn and where.

                Rhetorically you can call them “Anti-” all you want, but that’s all it is, a rhetorical attempt to “other” people who broadly agree with you… they are just not sufficiently zealous in ways in which you would prefer.

                I’m mostly surprised that all these pro-Birth Control Protestants somehow get tripped up by 8th grade rhetorical tactics. Or maybe they aren’t, but the fact that the argument is over a marginal difference of opinion is not what is being reported.

                Its certainly true that some Protestants are reevaluating their thoughts on artificial contraception, but so are Liberal Feminists… and I’ve even heard that some of the 97% of Catholics who use (or have used) contraception are revisiting it as well.

                But, ultimately this started with a comment that there was an Anti-Contraception movement as part of the Pro-Life movement. There isn’t… even among the very few of us who don’t practice artificial contraception. Not everything that is immoral must be illegal.

                Finally, Franklin Graham as a Major Pro-Life leader? Meh, the Pro-Life movement is so diffuse that I’m not sure you can call anyone a Major leader… even the people who ostensibly work full time as Pro-Life Major Leaders (TM) – whose names I could not even begin to give you (even as a “member”). We make people like Debbie Wasserman Schultz look positively autocratic in their control over constituents (ok, maybe a bad example after the 2016 primaries… but you get the picture).Report

              • pillsy in reply to Marchmaine says:

                Nothing by his son suggests any sort of change (that I’ve seen).

                How is, “Making birth control easier to purchase is bad because it promotes sin,” not an anti-birth control statement? This isn’t an opposition to “free” birth control, which was the distinction a lot of people are making in this thread.

                Also, while anti-abortion activists may not want to ban contraception, I’ve seen that quite a few want to make it possible to ban, in that they don’t just want to overturn Roe v. Wade and other decisions recgonizing a right to abortion, but want to uproot the whole concept of a right to privacy all the way back to Griswold v. Connecticut.

                “We don’t think states should ban birth control, but we do think that states should be able to ban birth control,” is opposed to birth control, because whatever you think those states should do, we have a ton of evidence of legislatures doing completely preposterous things in the name of “sexual morality”.

                Including, you know, banning contraception–which is why we even have Griswold in the first place!

                Meh, the Pro-Life movement is so diffuse that I’m not sure you can call anyone a Major leader… even the people who ostensibly work full time as Pro-Life Major Leaders (TM) – whose names I could not even begin to give you (even as a “member”).

                Perhaps that means that there are no leaders who can make commitments on behalf of the anti-abortion movement, which is one of the things I’ve been arguing all along.Report

              • Marchmaine in reply to pillsy says:

                You are almost literally barking at squirrels. But barkers gonna’ bark.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Marchmaine says:

                I’m curious which part of my argument you think is wrong or overly tangential, but if you’d prefer to drop it that’s fine by me.Report

              • KenB in reply to pillsy says:

                I won’t pretend to speak for Marchmaine, but my reactions to your first comment were:

                * one doesn’t have to be a fundamentalist Christian to express concern about passing out morning-after pills on a college campus like candy. Plenty of people would be concerned about that messaging, even people on the left.
                * objecting to distributing morning-after pills from a college vending machine is a far cry from what most people would consider “restricting access to birth control”.
                * it’s probably not worth engaging you on this, because you’re clearly approaching the issue from deep within your ideological bubble.Report

              • pillsy in reply to KenB says:

                Fair enough. I mean, I obviously disagree on all three points, but they make sense.Report

              • Stillwater in reply to pillsy says:

                The Catholics I’ve talked to seem to hoe a broad line between accepting/admitting that the Church’s Official View prohibits the use of contraceptives and accepting/admitting that most Catholics actually use those dang things anyway. Which, I gotta admit – being the rabid atheist that I am – is a bit whiplash inducing. Nevertheless, it’s a real thing. So when March says that christians, and in particular Catholics, aren’t opposed to birth control, he may be making a distinction between theory and practice.

                And you know the difference between theory and practice.*

                *Part of me wonders if that’s why so many Trump defenders rely on the distinction between taking his words literally and taking them seriously: they have an in-built, culturally reinforced predisposition to literally not take anything anyone says literally.Report

              • Francis in reply to KenB says:

                KenB:

                *1 — It’s a little jarring to read on this heavily libertarian website people advocating for increased regulation of OTC non-scrip medication. The FDA, an agency not know for wacky liberalism, has decided that PlanB is about as dangerous as Claritin-D. And I’m not sure what messaging is being conveyed that you’re concerned about — sex has no consequences?

                Yes, I’m sure that someone somewhere has had an imprudent one-night stand knowing that PlanB was available. But personally I’m a long way from persuaded that the secondary-level message on easy availability of PlanB — Sex Is Without Risk, or something along those lines — is worse than the primary effect of reducing unwanted pregnancies / increasing the need for later-term abortions.

                What did you think of Rev. Graham’s rationale for taking PlanB out of vending machines? If you are not persuaded, what are the compelling arguments as to why some people who are not fundamentalist Christians are concerned about easy access to PlanB?

                *2 — taking PlanB out of a vending machine is explicitly restricting access to family planning medication. What else would you call it?

                *3 — I believe that it is in the interest of every participant at this site to eliminate all use of ad hominem** arguments against fellow participants. “[I]t’s probably not worth engaging you on this, because you’re clearly approaching the issue from deep within your ideological bubble.” But it’s still worth trying.

                ** There may be a better term than ‘ad hominem’ for describing your rhetorical move, but I can’t think of it at the moment.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Francis says:

                I believe that it is in the interest of every participant at this site to eliminate all use of ad hominem** arguments against fellow participants.

                The way I see it is that I asked a question and @kenb was kind enough to answer it. No fallacies involved.Report

              • KenB in reply to pillsy says:

                You’re being very cool about that – thanks. I think it came out more prickly than I intended it.Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Francis says:

                I believe that it is in the interest of every participant at this site to eliminate all use of ad hominem** arguments against fellow participants.

                Exactly the kind of thing you’d say.Report

              • KenB in reply to Francis says:

                I don’t think that’s ad hom at all. My sense from reading Pillsy’s comment was that ze was looking at the issue from within hir set of assumptions, where ze already had the right answer and was arguing for it as opposed to considering how others might approach it and being open to multiple possible views. Whether I was right or wrong about that in this particular case, it’s not my thing to engage people who are advocating for the rightness of their own views.

                By the way, you’re making some incorrect assumptions about my personal opinions based just on my pushing back on other people’s arguments. I’m not arguing for a particular set of views in this case, I’m arguing against any particular set being the only correct one.Report

          • Seriously – most conservative people really admire single moms and birth moms that gave babies up for adoption. Not much shaming going on there, at least not that I’ve seen. To be honest some of the things I saw liberals saying about Bristol Palin about her pregnancy were a lot more slut-shamy than anything I’ve ever seen a conservative say to any woman pregnant out of wedlock.

            The two points in that paragraph track pretty closely with my own observations (especially the Bristol Palin comments), except that I have seen conservative people engage in slut-shaming, etc..

            About your first point, I’ll also say I’ve known people who are (almost definitely) pro-life in more than just how they vote. They adopt children. They help single parents in substantive ways–not just money, but in devoting their time. One family, who were probably just about as Catholic as you can imagine and who probably personally opposed abortion, stayed overnight with my mother in law while her husband was dying in a hospital and waiting for my spouse and me to arrive in town.

            Maybe, like @richard-hershberger says, these people are not in the “vast majority” and the “vast majority” “rarely-to-never” act that way. But enough of them do in my own experience to show that a lot (maybe not a majority, but no one here is offering more than anecdata to back up their claims) take it seriously.Report

          • Oscar Gordon in reply to atomickristin says:

            most conservative people really admire single moms

            To a point. A single mom, who has a job, and only one, maybe two kids from a single failed relationship is fine. Once the working hours decrease, the welfare assistance increases, the number of kids &/or father’s goes up, the admiration drops off a cliff.

            Ergo, the admiration is for a subset of single moms who satisfy a lot of priors.Report

    • Of course a zygote is fully human. This is not up for debate.Report

      • It must be matter of some dispute or the GOP would be nominating them to the Supreme Court.Report

      • Kimmi in reply to Christopher Carr says:

        Chris,
        Actually, there is plenty of debate on when an organism becomes human. How much life experience before it can functionally be “a person”. If you really want to stretch, you say that it’s when they are capable of moral decisions.
        Most rational people will say that a kid becomes human at something around age two or so.

        Still homo sapiens before that of course.Report

      • Dark Matter in reply to Christopher Carr says:

        Of course a zygote is fully human. This is not up for debate.

        So was Terri Schiavo, who had far more brain function than the typical zygote.

        Terri didn’t have a right to life, much less a right to enslave others.Report

        • KenB in reply to Dark Matter says:

          My sense is that the convention these days (which presumably is what Christopher is following) is to use the term “human” for the biological classification and “person” as a stand-in for the entitlement to the bundle of rights we’re all on the same page about granting to the fully-formed.

          It’s a little silly, these terminological games. The real issue isn’t what to call it, the issue is why we grant those rights in the first place. If we could settle on the underlying reasons, then we could see to what extent they apply to fetuses at various points during gestation. But absent a coherent explicit philosophical or religious basis for privileging human life, we argue over words, or try to use analogies to rare edge cases among adults to apply to the common case of pregnancy.Report

          • Dark Matter in reply to KenB says:

            If we could settle on the underlying reasons, then we could see to what extent they apply to fetuses at various points during gestation.

            Jump to the absurd extreme and give *all* of the rights of an adult to a single cell fertilized egg.

            We have a vast body of medical ethics with laws backing them up. Not only did Terri Schiavo not have a right to life, or to some else’s organs, I don’t either. I have no right to force someone to give me their blood, even if they’re my parent, even if they’ve agreed to it, even if they’ve done it before, even if I’m going to die without it. We let many thousands of people die every year for want of an organ donor.

            And after we’re done looking at medical ethics, we could examine the 13th amendment to the Constitution. Then we could examine separation of church and state. Then we could examine the level of interference we want to let the state put on people’s sex lives and their reproduction.

            It’s possible to build a society compatible with where the pro-life movement wants to go, but it’s amazingly ugly and we’ve moved away from that for good reason.

            To their credit they don’t seem to want that, to their discredit they don’t seem to understand it. IMHO the pro-life movement doesn’t want to restructure society so it’s compatible with preventing abortion, it just wants everyone to voluntarily choose to not have one… and for that it really shouldn’t be trying to change laws.Report

    • atomickristin in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

      I actually think there is a not-small group of conservatives who might listen to this argument and respond to it. I think a lot of conservatives are more willing to bend on this than many think.

      Obviously there are many murders, robberies, etc that are able to be covered up. Just like there could be a woman turning tricks on the corner outside somebody’s house in front of a witness who dials 911 (a victimless crime that’s reported). But the lion’s share of abortions would take place privately with no witnesses, no one to report them, and thus that invites all the problems described in the piece.Report

    • @richard-hershberger

      I don’t buy the “pro-life” argument because I don’t buy the claim that a zygote is fully human. Furthermore, I don’t believe that the vast majority of people making the “pro-life” argument believe it either.

      A couple points. First, there’s a middle ground claim. One doesn’t have to believe the zygote to be “fully human” to claim that it is an object of moral concern with its own interest in realizing its full potential and that preventing that full potential from being realized is something that needs to be justified in moral terms. I realize that vocal pro-lifers tend not to make that argument (and perhaps a majority wouldn’t buy it), but looking at the issue that way is not as extreme-sounding.

      Second, the “they don’t really believe it” argument seems to falter. I think a lot of pro-choice people actually believe it. One pro-choice argument I’ve heard is that most women who get abortions don’t look at the procedure merely as birth control by other means. According to that argument, for most women, it’s a personally somber choice. It’s somber probably because it’s an invasive medical procedure with whatever complications that can come with even the most routine procedures. But it’s probably also somber because the person has some sense that they are ending a life. Maybe not a human life, but some kind of life.

      For the record, I consider myself pro-choice: I want it to be legal to any woman who chooses one, I don’t believe any woman should have to justify her decision to the state, and I am willing to help poorer people pay for it. But I also believe the zygote is an actual human life and that the decision to abort is the ending of a human life. I don’t believe I have any personal standing to condemn it, but neither do I have any right to ignore my own moral sensibilities.

      All that said, the “they don’t really believe what they say they believe” is something that pro-lifers should ponder over. Perhaps too many pro-lifers (though, I suspect, not a “vast majority” as you say) really are too uncaring about the life of the born than about the life of the unborn. Maybe that argument is a chance for introspection, even though the gist of the “they don’t really believe….” argument seems to preclude any respect for the pro-lifer’s moral agency.Report

      • Richard Hershberger in reply to Gabriel Conroy says:

        I think a lot of pro-choice people actually believe it.

        I don’t, because if they did, it would have huge implications beyond abortion politics. Yet it doesn’t. Why is that?Report

        • DavidTC in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

          I don’t, because if they did, it would have huge implications beyond abortion politics. Yet it doesn’t. Why is that?

          You are both right and wrong.

          Pro-lifers *say* that they believe ‘life beings at conception'(1), but have given absolutely no thought to the any moral ramifications to that thought.

          Not just to IVF, but to the fact that literally 3/4th (If you count from conception, not implantation.) of the human race has dying pre-birth from miscarriages and lack of implantation, with that being the *greatest medical disaster* of human history. Well, except it has been happening *for* all of human history, so in weird sense it *is* humanity’s medical historically: Statistically, in that logic, human life generally consists of dying of miscarriage or lack of implantation, those of us walking around making more people are the weird anomaly.

          No pro-lifer seems to be doing anything about *that*, either.

          *However*, you seem to think the pro-lifers saying they believe this, and not thinking about any ramifications, means they are dishonest. That…is not true.

          In reality, this just means that they, like most people, have cobbled together their beliefs via osmosis and random things they’ve overheard, and never examined it at all.

          It is possible that pointing out the flaws in their moral reasoning will convince them. I suspect not, but do whatever you think is best.

          1) Again, I feel I should point this is incorrect and dumbass phrasing by *anyone’s* logic. Sperm and ova are both, clearly, alive. Every living cell in a human being has been alive for billions of years, because all living cells are formed by an existing living cell splitting in half. If anything, conception actually *removes* ‘life’ in a numeric sense by turning two living cells into one…the sperm basically dies. (Of course, they do that anyway.)Report

  4. Joe Sal says:

    I see the abortion topic as a dual issue.

    The first as most folks look at it, killing is bad. Killing something that has done nothing ‘wrong’ is even more bad. I hold this as a individual construct.

    In working through how I look at abortion, I also look at the natural condition. In hunter gatherer times if a woman didn’t want a child, she could leave it to the elements, which was almost certain death for the child. Any child between the ages of 0-5 years. All the parameters contributing to the abandonment I hold to be none of anyones business. I hold the awareness of this natural condition as a individual construct.

    There is some internal conflict of the existance of these two, but the conflict is within individual constructs of my own making.

    I see it as possible to be a religious/moral person and still hold these as individual constructs that don’t precipitate into social constructs. I meet a few conservatives like this, so not all conservatives are the same.

    That is somewhat a dividing line. In the right there is a demarcation between the tendency to precipitate individual constructs into social constructs. The slow movement into authoritarianism versus the struggle to remain anti-authoritarian. I must say this doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

    Social constructs are largely promoted and used as leverage by a particular faction. The law is one of the most weaponized of those tools. The legality of things has become about tactical comfort/discomfort.

    Good work on this one Kristin.Report

    • atomickristin in reply to Joe Sal says:

      Thanks!

      I completely agree with your larger point with one small quibble.

      RE the natural condition, my take on that is that people did all kinds of effed up stuff in nature that we no longer allow. It’s not my most favoritist argument ever (and I’m not saying this is the argument you’re making but I have seen many make it) when people justify abortion 2017 because hunter gatherers did X, Y, Z in a totally different world, in horrible circumstances we cannot comprehend.

      People used to beat their wives, marry 12 year olds, owned slaves, did human sacrifice, all kinds of things we’d find abhorrent now. We don’t just throw up our hands and say, “Welp, that’s just the way things are in nature so we have to accept these things happen now and then” (again, not saying that is your implication but I have seen others make it.) We acknowledge that it’s a different world now, and our morals and values are different.Report

      • Joe Sal in reply to atomickristin says:

        I agree and that’s why I used it in the context of my own personal construct. The reason why I look at the natural condition of that time, is it had the fewest formal social constructs that impinged on individual freedoms.

        There wasn’t a official law against child abandonment, there wasn’t a official law/fee/permit against picking up an abandoned child.

        Say what you will about the natural condition, it didn’t have mechanised warfare, proliferation of nuclear arms, or the nanny state. Social constructs these days practice human sacrifice of a different flavor with a higher magnitude or of a different kind.Report

  5. Doctor Jay says:

    You said this:

    I suppose that’s at least in part why I consider myself libertarian; it’s why I can’t make the leap to conservatism even though I share most of the same personal values as conservatives do.

    As far as I can tell, I share most of the same personal values as conservatives do. I certainly align with all my relatives that are conservative, for instance. Where we differ is on how to put those values into policy. And abortion. In some sense they are right, it’s a litmus test, and that litmus test is harming the country, since there’s a good fraction of voters who would support a lot of the things I support, but have been taught that people like me are evil because they are pro-choice.

    In fact, as best I can tell Kristin, you have many of the same values as those SJWs you seem to dislike so much. You don’t like the same things that they don’t like, but you don’t like the way they protest it, or the details they promote and propagate, or the language they use. That’s not really a difference in values, or at least not a big one.Report

    • atomickristin in reply to Doctor Jay says:

      I absolutely have many of the same personal values as SJW but if ya had to put me into a category I think the vast majority of people would file me under “conservative”.

      I don’t think I’m the only person who feels the SJW movement has taken a turn that is highly concerning. I may share the same values in many ways but that’s kinda like saying, “We are all in agreement, we don’t like mice in the barn” and then they want to set the barn on fire to get rid of the mice. Setting the barn on fire is a bad and dangerous idea; it also wouldn’t work because all the mice would just run out and then we’d have no barn either.

      I don’t like mice in the barn, but just because I agree that the mice are bad, doesn’t mean that I would then have to agree with any solution no matter how extreme or wrongheaded just to get rid of the things. There are better solutions to most problems than burning down the entire barn, even if that means that there are still a few mice skittering around the dark corners.Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to Doctor Jay says:

      “In fact, as best I can tell Kristin, you have many of the same values as those SJWs you seem to dislike so much.”

      Well, it’s the litmus test again, only with a different strip. “I think that people should be free to say whatever they please” has become as big a litmus test as “I think that people should be free to get abortions whenever they please”.Report

  6. Pinky says:

    Kristin – Do you have any problem with persuading others that abortion is wrong? If a majority could be persuaded in a state that a particular restriction is just, would you support its being written into law?Report

    • atomickristin in reply to Pinky says:

      No, because the costs to civil liberties would be too high.

      The only possible scenario I could see where I’d support the idea was in a world with much higher level of technology and understanding of pregnancy loss and why it happens. As it is now, most women have no idea why a pregnancy ends, doctors know very little about the mechanisms involved and it would be an absolute disaster trying to differentiate between miscarriage and abortion (in addition to the many, many other problems that making abortion illegal would cause)

      I would hope that in that world, we’d also have advanced technology to such a point where the entire thing was no longer necessary. Better birth control, and so on.Report

      • Pinky in reply to atomickristin says:

        But doesn’t that negate the self-rule aspect of your argument? I ask because it seemed like a feint. If you believe that the mechanics of enforcement would make an abortion law untenable, then your argument doesn’t hinge on the rights of the minority or majority to make such a law. I’m also struck that you wouldn’t entertain any restriction.Report

        • Kimmi in reply to Pinky says:

          Pinky,
          By making abortions easily obtainable, we can actually put some limits on “how” they’re done.
          Say, by making it illegal to do a surgical one without anesthesia. (Yes, I posted about a movie that got into that. Mindless Diversions maybe not so mindless…)Report

        • atomickristin in reply to Pinky says:

          Sorry I was on my way out the door as I wrote that.

          To answer your question, not everything that the majority agrees upon as being “moral” should be made into law. Of course not. It’s a good jumping off point, possibly, but at the end of the day minority and individual rights have to enter into the equation. My point in mentioning it in the piece was not as a feint but to point out that in order to have a government that could ever have the strength to inflict the moral will of a minority, even a large and vocal minority, would be so utterly strong that it could then be misused by whoever happened to come along next.

          There are really two issues – first is that a huge group of people don’t agree abortion should be made illegal and thus it probably shouldn’t be since we don’t want to hand over the ability for any moral minority to be able to inflict their morality upon the rest of us, and secondly, the enforcement would be impossible anyway. So both are issues that I think any libertarian/small-government conservative should take quite seriously.

          RE restrictions, I took that to mean banning outright. I do support some restrictions on abortion as I think most people (even those who are otherwise prochoice) do.Report

          • Pinky in reply to atomickristin says:

            Maybe this conversation is too broad, then, because I don’t see why your “some restrictions” would necessarily be free of minority coercion and enforcement issues. If you’re saying that you’d only favor the restrictions that are relatively free of undue pressure on those who disagree and require comparatively small government activity to enforce, then…well, that sounds good, but I’m not sure if it means anything. I’d have to see where you think we’re crossing the line.

            If there’s a restriction on late-term abortions, you could argue that it could only be enforced by spy satellites and undercover agents. But would it? That might be true for 100% perfect enforcement, but we don’t enforce any law with 100% effectiveness. Perfect parking enforcement requires spy satellites and undercover agents.Report

            • atomickristin in reply to Pinky says:

              Well, it’s glaringly obvious that a pregnancy loss at 6 weeks is very different than at 6 months and so without delving into a lot of rather gross details, I’ll just say that yeah, I think it would be infinitely harder to enforce a ban on first trimester abortion than third.

              I do not expect any law to be enforced perfectly. I mentioned above, yes, people do get away with “the perfect crime” sometimes even with things like robbery, murder, etc. But it just seems a sensible position to take the idea of reasonable ability to enforce into consideration before passing a law. Actually wish they’d do it a little bit more often.Report

          • DensityDuck in reply to atomickristin says:

            “I do support some restrictions on abortion as I think most people (even those who are otherwise prochoice) do.”

            The problem with “supporting some restrictions on abortion” is that those restrictions are still going to grab people who you don’t actually want.

            See, late-term abortion is not something that you do for reasons of convenience. If you are using abortion for birth control, that happens at 8 weeks, not 26. Abortion at 26 weeks is something that happens because of a fetus with defects incompatible with life; like, “organs did not develop” defects, things that won’t kill the fetus prior to term but the baby’s “life” will be two weeks in NICU, full of tubes, with no human contact or comfort.

            And, to pull from the OP’s reasoning, the things you’ll have to do to stop the rare instance of late-term abortion-of-convenience are things that will cause a lot more pain, to many people you don’t know about, than it will save you.Report

            • Kimmi in reply to DensityDuck says:

              DD,
              I support having the doctors do their best to keep the lady alive. Child optional, but obviously very desired.

              My restrictions on abortion go along the lines of “please use anesthetic if it’s a surgery! Make that a law!”Report

  7. Jaybird says:

    Good essay.

    My take on the whole abortion thing is that, assuming the existence of morality, abortion is an act with moral content.

    I’m 100% down with saying that, on a pragmatic level, it’s not really something that can be made illegal without causing greater harm than the act of abortion.

    I’m 100% down with saying that, on a pragmatic level, it’s not really something that falls under the jurisdiction of government to punish.

    It’s the “and another thing!” argument that points out that feti are like skin tags that gets me to clear my throat and say “well, the act of abortion contains moral content”.

    Which, in the past anyway, has inspired people with whom I was arguing to engage in some light psychoanalysis and question whether I really believed it contained moral content because I was hoping to get the nose of the camel into the tent and start making certain acts that weren’t under the jurisdiction of the government illegal (even though enforcement would be nigh-impossible).

    There’s this weird assumption made by huge swaths of the society that if something is immoral then, therefore, it ought to be illegal. And, by modus tollens, if something ought not be illegal, then, therefore, it is not immoral.

    This assumption strikes me as being a bad assumption.Report

  8. Saul Degraw says:

    Besides what @j_a and @richard-hershberger said, I don’t see this as the only viable argument for abortion. I think you do because it might be the only one that confirms with your priors.

    Roe v. Wade gives a good history of abortion. In Anglo countries, the previous mark of when it became morally questionable was the Quickening. So first trimester abortions were okay.

    The recent anti choice measures are all about control of women’s bodies and Christianist Fascist dominance. But there is also no reason
    to assume a zygote is a being yet.Report

    • pillsy in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      I think you do because it might be the only one that confirms with your priors.

      Someone [1] pointed out, in an otherwise forgettable article, that the arguments that convince you are extremely unlikely to convince people who disagree with you. This makes persuasion even more difficult than it might otherwise be.

      To pick on @jaybird ‘s argument a bit, the idea that the typical abortion has moral content strikes me as profoundly weird. Nonetheless, I’ve yet to encounter an anti-abortion activist who finds, “Abortion is wrong? Whatever,” to be a compelling argument.

      [1] I think it was Megan McArdle, which would be a particularly striking example of a stopped clock being right twice a day.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to pillsy says:

        I’ll give an example from my own life that might help illuminate.

        The best part is that it uses kittens rather than humans!

        I’ve mentioned before the Summer of Sixteen Cats in which we trapped, caught, spayed/neutered sixteen feral cats from the backyard and got the kittens (four of them!) adopted and returned the rest (well, with the exception of one who was very, very sick who was euthanized).

        One of the things that got me to ask “what the hell am I doing?” was taking a queen in to the veterinary clinic and signing a form that said something to the effect of “when we go in there to spay the cat, we may find that she is pregnant, sign here to terminate the pregnancy”.

        I signed. Hey. That’s what we went in there to do, after all.

        But there was this unsettling feeling in my stomach that I was spending my money and my free time catching wild (or feral, anyway) animals, taking them to a clinic, having their reproductive organs removed, then putting them back. Oh, and if they happened to be pregnant, terminating their pregnancies.

        Assuming the existence of a Tao/Dao, it felt like something completely contrary to the Tao/Dao.

        But, again, I signed the form.Report

      • Saul Degraw in reply to pillsy says:

        @pillsy

        That observation is fair enough. It might also be obvious to the point of banality.

        I’ve just been in a cynical and combative mode over the past few months and growing rather disenchanted with all the games we play when it comes to policy debates and elections.

        There seems to be a fiction that the media and very serious people like to do that the vast majority of Americans (at least those who vote regularly or semi-regularly) are non-ideological, non-party aligned, and always up for grabs in a battle of images and words and messaging. I don’t think this is true but there are certainly ways in which parties behave that political actors make it seem like they believe it is true.

        I’ve made a point before yesterday that Ezra Klein made on Vox yesterday. The GOP and conservatives do a weird kabuki dance with healthcare because the smartest and most cynical of them know that there real position (“Government does not and should not have a role in helping people get insurance/healthcare”) is a vastly unpopular one. So they talk about “access” perhaps but not about quality and that “access” turns out to be rather crappy.

        I can respect someone who gets up and says “I don’t think the government should provide healthcare” because it is a direct and honest statement. I don’t agree with it but it is ideologically and philosophically honest. What the GOP does on healthcare is not.

        One of the things that has always rubbed me the wrong way about much conservative writing is that it always seems so damned pompous. I can imagine MBD and Ross D wanting to wear smoking jackets and puffing on a pipe while they write their essays. You see this sometimes slip in conservative writing. During the Derbyshire scandal, Lowry wrote about how Derbyshire was like an Oxford Don. To be fair, I am sure my writing can come across as pompous and pretentious to conservatives or right-leaning people. But my basic response to a lot of conservative essays is that I want to call them Avignon Popes for assuming an authority that they don’t have.

        So I am very much interesting in scrapping aside all the veils and dances and getting people to admit to partisanship and deeply help beliefs.

        I’ve mentioned this before but I would be very interested in seeing an election held in strict philosophical terms of Rawls v. Nozick and seeing the result.Report

        • DensityDuck in reply to Saul Degraw says:

          “One of the things that has always rubbed me the wrong way about much conservative writing is that it always seems so damned pompous. ”

          Gotta tell you, hoss, you aren’t doing yourself any favors in that regard by rolling in with things like “I want to call them Avignon Popes”.Report

          • Marchmaine in reply to DensityDuck says:

            Especially since the Avignon Popes were legitimate Popes.

            Unless, he’s concerned that Douthat is increasing falling under the influence of the NYT and that we should be praying for another—doubtless very different—St. Catherine of Sienna to encourage him to return… to return… to the Atlantic?Report

    • Pinky in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      Saul, you are complaining about someone bringing his own biases into a conversation? Then you go on to discount all arguments against abortion as Christianist Fascism? Is this a parody?Report

  9. Francis says:

    I despise abortion.

    Which version?

    As a threshold matter, what is abortion? Is it only those acts which are intended to terminate a specific pregnancy? What about acts intended to prevent pregnancy in the first place? I will note that there is plenty of dispute as to whether the Pill / IUDs / morning after pills are or are not abortifacients.

    Even assuming that we can develop a universally-accepted definition of abortion (which I doubt) there are still any number of hotly-disputed issues around the topic. To name two: why is it that pregnancy prevention is generally acceptable but abortion is to be despised? And, why is it that most Americans are generally OK with early-term termination but not with late-term?

    Not to be too cute about it, the short answer is that most Americans have an intuitive presumption that women have a strong liberty interest (to use constitutional language) to control their own reproduction up to the point where the pregnancy starts to look viable. You, Kristin, may hate abortion, but most people don’t (and would rather not talk about it).

    Whether or not the American attitude towards abortion is defensible philosophically, or legally, the attitude exists. So, giving the majority their due, this means that the timing of the abortion is not an issue that can simply be glossed over. Abortion via a morning-after pill or RU-486 is just different from a D&C or a D&E, according to the voters (and Supreme Court justices). And few people draw a distinction between a process that prevents conception from one that prevents later processes such as implantation.

    90% of all abortions take place during the first trimester. By the end of the second month, the fetus is one inch long and is just starting to develop a nervous system. This is more or less the point at which medication-based abortions, which can be done in the privacy of one’s own house, become no longer available. One month later, by the end of the first trimester, a fetus is 4 inches long and weights an ounce.

    Is a pharmaceutical abortion to be equally hated as a surgical one? Why? What is so important about the change in procedure that makes one kind of abortion acceptable and another despised?

    Perhaps the thing to be hated is the need for abortion. While the number of abortions done annually is dropping rapidly both on a total population and a per reproductive-age woman basis, there were likely around 900,000 abortions last year. That’s a lot of need.

    This is where the small-government conservative and libertarian philosophy collapses. Reducing the need for abortion means, at the least, increasing government spending on Planned Parenthood and other family planning providers so that they can give young poor women long-acting reversible contraception and increasing government spending on Medicaid / WIC / EITC etc. so that poor families and single mothers can afford to raise their child. We can try to pray away abortion or pretend that government shouldn’t be involved. But if we’re going to be serious about the issue, neither the Republican party nor libertarians has a plan for reducing abortions that’s actually going to achieve its goals.

    Perhaps the concern is for the unique little genome. Well, there’s no biblical basis for that concern, and mother nature herself terminates a staggering percentage of pregnancies through miscarriage. And if each little genome were so special, then Americans would have long since prohibited most forms of IVF.

    So, to reiterate my opening question, which version of abortion do you hate? Is it the use of IUDs, RU-486, second-semester D&Cs or 21st-week surgical abortions (which are almost entirely medically necessary)? How do you justify where you draw the line?Report

    • Oscar Gordon in reply to Francis says:

      I will note that there is plenty of dispute as to whether the Pill / IUDs / morning after pills are or are not abortifacients.

      Only in the way that there is dispute as to whether vaccines cause autism.Report

      • Aaron David in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

        No, as whether or not something is an abortificant is a moral decision, but as of this time we haven’t found a causal link between autism and vaccines.Report

        • Oscar Gordon in reply to Aaron David says:

          Err, huh?

          If something is an abortifacient is not something up for debate, it either is, or it is not.

          Methotrexate is an abortifacient, it will cause a miscarriage.

          Something that prevents the release of an egg, or prevents fertilization, or prevents implantation, is not an abortifacient.Report

          • Francis in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

            The electorate is chock full of people holding inaccurate factual “beliefs” and voting on that belief. Recent examples include global warming, vaccines, and much of the Trump agenda during the last campaign.Report

          • Aaron David in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

            To abort a pregnancy is to end it. Whatever the method. To use the term abortificant solely to designate a certain class of drug is to misuse the term. While those drugs are abortificants, other things in other peoples eyes may also be abortificants. The main discrepancy is for one group to determine when something counts for life. And as I state below, that is a moral question.

            “And then there are those who oppose birth control as abortion.” Mike Schilling says above. This has more to do with language being fully mutable, but what can I say. In other words, if I describe life as starting when the egg and sperm join, then anything that ends that connection is an abortificant.

            This has nothing to do with my beliefs (probably more liberal than most on this topic), rather, it has more to do with the liberties that people take with what is and what is not actually science.

            “Something that prevents the release of an egg, or prevents fertilization, or prevents implantation, is not an abortifacient.” As I state above, I disagree,
            but that is due to how language works. I don’t believe those things constitute a pregnancy, but others do.

            I suspect we might disagree here.Report

            • Oscar Gordon in reply to Aaron David says:

              Language is mutable, to a point. If that point didn’t exist… well, communication is hard enough as it is.

              Abortifacient has a precise definition. Expanding that definition to repurpose the term into a catch-all obfuscates the issue and promotes dishonesty in communication. This, to me, is a larger moral failing.Report

              • Aaron David in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                Mmm… The mutablity of language is to me one of its finest points. To lock a term down as only having one definition doesn’t allow one to deal with language as it exists. I understand the want to keep it only meaning what we proscribe it to mean, but that isn’t how it works, sadly. No moral failing though, it is just how people speak. If professional users want to keep a term (with a specific and often legal meaning much of the time) to a specific meaning, they are more than welcome to do so*, but that will not stop the spread of slang. And slang is how the language starts to change. And this is only sped up with the internet and such.

                *Along with slang, I love professional jargon. But what they both provide is an excellent communication for an ingroup. Which sometimes is good, but at other times isn’t, for either the ingroup or the outgroup. By way of an example, I was went to the doctor complaining of shoulder pain. When I pointed to the area in pain (I was talking about the area between the arm and the neck), the doctor seemed irritated that I wasn’t referring to my rotator cuff and that area (he was a sports medicine specialist.) At that point I said “look a**hole, this is what everyone who is not a doctor calls a shoulder.”Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Aaron David says:

                Fine! Have it your way!

                I do hereby declare that a Parsec is also a unit of Time, Lucas knows better than some stuffy ol’ Astronomers, and we can stop retconning asinine explanations of Hans singular boast!

                😛Report

              • Aaron David in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                Parsec? Isn’t that how French teenagers get pregnant jumping off buildings?

                /puts tinfoil hat back on, in the shape of a fedora.Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Aaron David says:

                Parsec = Parkour Sex?

                That’s a fun portmanteau.Report

              • J_A in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                Which is something French teenagers wear when having sex (in the rain)Report

              • Aaron David in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                “Lets go Parkour car…”Report

              • notme in reply to Aaron David says:

                Where, in Havard yard?Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Aaron David says:

                Kidding aside, there is, to me, a marked difference between the mutability of common language, and the mutability of terms of art.

                Abortifacient is a term of art. Co-opting and mutating it’s meaning isn’t a minor thing, and people insisting upon doing so should be called upon to defend that action.Report

              • Joe Sal in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                There are reasons to parse empirical science and social science.

                (FTR, I dont trust any institution that tries to apply/teach both on the same campus.)Report

          • Pinky in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

            Something that…prevents implantation, is not an abortifacient.

            Is that correct?Report

    • j r in reply to Francis says:

      What’s the point of pushing back against someone who says that she hates abortion, but refuses to support making it illegal? For arguments sake, let’s say that hating abortion is the unenlightened point of view. Even then, what do you get out of policing other people’s point of view. Is there some benefit from convincing people to like abortion more? What’s the path from A to B?

      Also, this is an odd argument:

      This is where the small-government conservative and libertarian philosophy collapses. Reducing the need for abortion means, at the least, increasing government spending on Planned Parenthood and other family planning providers so that they can give young poor women long-acting reversible contraception and increasing government spending on Medicaid / WIC / EITC etc. so that poor families and single mothers can afford to raise their child. We can try to pray away abortion or pretend that government shouldn’t be involved. But if we’re going to be serious about the issue, neither the Republican party nor libertarians has a plan for reducing abortions that’s actually going to achieve its goals.

      For one, it switches between indicting an ideological viewpoint by making unproven empirical claims. How do you know that all of these things are either necessary or sufficient for reducing the number of abortions? It’s always interesting to me that the people who claim to be the most concerned about poverty can also be the most insistent that only interventions based on their pre-existing ideology can be effective (and that’s something that happens across the ideological spectrum). But anyone who has spent time studying and understanding anti-poison interventions understands that what works isn’t always what we think should work. And sometimes the things that we are absolutely convinced will make huge differences end up having very little to no effect.

      Actually, I guess it’s not that odd, as people make this sort of argument all the time. @rmass does the very same thing just below. What makes it odd is how sure you guys are about your empirical claims. For that matter, it’s odd how sure you are about how well you understand other people’s? ideological viewpoints, when it’s pretty obvious that you are tilting at straw men.Report

      • North in reply to j r says:

        I’d agree that there isn’t a point. The rational pro-choice position is “as long as you don’t support using force to impose your opinions on other women then feel however you like.”
        The thought policing aspect is a natural and problematic evolution from endless trench warfare that is the abortion debate.Report

      • atomickristin in reply to j r says:

        Thanks JR.

        I actually think I did list a few ways in the piece, tangible things that Republican legislators could do to possibly reduce the number of abortions as it sits here and now.

        Increasing funding to WIC – which if you’ve ever been on it, is awful, awful, awful – is not one of them.Report

    • atomickristin in reply to Francis says:

      Totally beyond the scope of the piece, and completely irrelevant.

      I wasn’t writing “Kristin’s 100 Page Long Treatise on Abortions and All Her Many Opinions”. I was writing “Why It’s Actually Kind of Dumb for Conservatives to use Abortion as a Litmus Test”.Report

      • Morat20 in reply to atomickristin says:

        Maybe abortion isn’t a litmus test. Perhaps it’s a proxy for the real litmus test.

        Although given some of the ridiculous laws passed by conservatives involving abortion (including the fun invasive ultrasound ones), I can’t imagine it being a proxy for anything –aside from “women who don’t want to be pregnant but have sex deserve to suffer”.

        Which, if nothing else, the position “slut should have kept her knees shut” is at least a more coherent and consistent position than “Abortion is murder, except when it’s rape. Or when it’s IVF. Or like when it’s my kid*”

        *Read a fascinating piece many years back about abortion doctors who noted the surprising number of picketers they’d find in their clinics, or in a neighboring one, often for their daughters. They’d be right out on the picket line a few weeks later, troubled not at all at “Abortion is murder” weeks after helping their child arrange one.Report

        • Kimmi in reply to Morat20 says:

          Morat20,
          The line between “slut spread her legs” and “I was raped” is a lot finer when you are young and inexperienced. It goes doubly so when you are accosted by a guy who DOES know what he’s doing.

          And,add to that, these self-righteous bitches know that their daughter wasn’t asking for it, because she dresses proper.Report

        • Pinky in reply to Morat20 says:

          Unmasking people as hypocrites is an easy way to look like you have the upper hand in an argument, and it’s even better when it’s based on hearsay. When it’s based on hearsay and targeted at unspecified people, and the hearsay is from their political opponents, it’s about the easiest thing in the world. In fact, hey, I just remembered that I once saw everyone who’s ever disagreed with me in a room doing a bunch of things they said they’d never do. Wow, I win!Report

          • Morat20 in reply to Pinky says:

            You must live a very sheltered life if you’ve never encountered the “My abortion was different” crowd. I thought the fact that there were enough clinic workers who recognized patients (or their families) from picket lines to write an article about was interesting (hence why I recall the article), but it’s not like it’s a particularly rare occurrence.

            Off the top of my head, I know….at least three women who fit into the “Mine/my daughter’s abortion was different”. I can even recite the litany of reasons (“It was a bad time/I wasn’t ready/It would have ruined her life/She’s too young…”).

            I wouldn’t even call it hypocrisy. Just something of a flaw in human reasoning. Same thing as “Bob’s great, he’s a great guy. He’s nothing like those other [insert faceless group]”.

            It’s really very easy to say “I made this difficult choice after weighing all these factors, and this was the call I made” and “I was careful, but accidents happen” about yourself, and then just assume everyone else there is because they can’t work a condom.Report

            • gregiank in reply to Morat20 says:

              See Fundamental Attribution Error and Actor Observer EffectReport

            • Nevermoor in reply to Morat20 says:

              See also: Government spending is waste and can’t create growth; don’t you dare close the military base in my town, we’d be ruined!Report

            • DensityDuck in reply to Morat20 says:

              It’s possible to think that the government should deploy the military to do something about genocide in Rwanda without believing that spending trillions of dollars on the military is a good thing.Report

              • Kimmi in reply to DensityDuck says:

                DD,
                Doing something about genocide in Japan, Australia, or Israel, however…
                If your line in the sand is going to be genocide, we’d better man up.Report

              • Damon in reply to Kimmi says:

                As someone once told me, “it’s not “torture” if we (the US) does it. You can replace “torture” with anything you like. As long as people tolerate that type of attitude nothing will ever change.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Kimmi says:

                Doing something about genocide in Japan, Australia, or Israel, however…

                Eh? How are those countries engaged in “genocide” without dumbing that word seriously down or reaching way back into the past?Report

              • Kimmi in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Dark,
                Genocide is the deliberate elimination of a people. There are plans on the books (and actively in development in two of them) to commit genocide.
                In Australia, it’s “Trail of Tears” Style “dealing with refugees”.
                In Japan, it’s forced sterilization.
                In Israel, it’s deliberate, prolonged decimation of the Palestinians.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Kimmi says:

                Genocide is the deliberate elimination of a people.

                Yes.

                There are plans on the books (and actively in development in two of them) to commit genocide.

                RE: Israel
                What percentage of the Palestinians has Israel killed or even planned to kill? How about if we discount the various wars and security needs?

                In terms of planning Genocide, one of the big movers for the Palestinians expressly calls for the death of every Jew in their Charter.

                RE: Japan
                The laws permitting forced sterilization were eliminated in 1996. Before that… the only numbers I found was that “from 1940 to 1945, sterilization was done to 454”.

                So less than 100 a year by Nazi era (and Nazi style) government. If they’ve been doing that emass since then or are planning to, I didn’t find it.

                RE: Australia
                Opposing open borders is not “genocide”. They’ve managed to kill… 19(?) people (wiki goes back to 1992 but I gather it’s gotten worse recently but this is counting every suicide as murder).

                To put that into perspective, the Trail of Tears killed a quarter or third of it’s people.

                Unless you’re looking at different numbers, you’re misusing the word “genocide”. Not all bad ideas are “genocide” and deliberately devaluing the word makes it harder for the world to deal with actual genocide when it comes up.Report

              • Stillwater in reply to Dark Matter says:

                In terms of planning Genocide, one of the big movers for the Palestinians expressly calls for the death of every Jew in their Charter.

                Can you cite that, Dark? I don’t want to appear anti-Semitic here of course, but what you wrote strikes me as a strange thing to include in the goals of a political group’s political charter. Ie. the death of everyone, everywhere, who’s an X. Especially given the Palestinian’s specific grievances against Israelis.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Stillwater says:

                Can you cite that, Dark?

                Fair enough.

                The Hamas Covenant also known as Hamas Charter, refers to the Charter of the Hamas, issued on 18 August 1988, outlining the movement founding identity, stand, and aims. (wiki)

                Article 7: “The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslim, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’ Only the Gharkad tree would not do that, because it is one of the trees of the Jews.”

                There are other planks in their Charter detailing in pretty start racist terms why it’s a good idea. It’s worth looking up on wiki.

                Big picture here. There are two “peace” plans for Israel.

                Way #1 is Israel is forgiven the crime of it’s existence and accepted as a normal country. Boarders are fixed and so forth. Israel and most of the West back this idea.

                The big problem with this is the refugees from the various wars, who have had their lives on hold for 3+ generations are shafted. They don’t get “their” land back. All the various promises made to them will be proven to be lies. All the various wars will be shown to have made things worse.

                Way #2 is Israel is destroyed, it’s people killed or “driven into the sea”.

                This has actually been attempted several times, various groups are ideologically committed to it, and it’s a very popular idea in some circles… and it’s been “the plan” since before the war of 1948 (long before the Settlements).

                Various elements of the West try to portray the rest of the world as buying into Way #1 with Israel as the bad actor in the room while refusing to believe the loud announcements (and actions, and charter, etc) that various groups are serious about Way #2.

                Or in short, it’s a mess. Which is not to say that Israel is blameless in all of this, they do things which made it worse, they act in their own interests. But if we’re going to talk about genocide, then there are groups which either fit (ISIS) that description or who want to fit it.Report

        • Brandon Berg in reply to Morat20 says:

          Read a fascinating piece many years back about abortion doctors who noted the surprising number of picketers they’d find in their clinics, or in a neighboring one, often for their daughters. They’d be right out on the picket line a few weeks later, troubled not at all at “Abortion is murder” weeks after helping their child arrange one.

          Pretty sure I read that too, or something similar. I never really thought to question it before, but looking back now, it sounds like exactly the kind of thing someone would make up. It’s a perfect morality play that has the virtue of being totally uncheckable because of medical privacy laws. I mean, I’m sure it’s happened before, but what I find less plausible is that it’s common enough that it would happen on a regular basis at any one clinic. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but fiction is much more on-the-nose.

          I’m not saying the doctors quoted in that piece were definitely lying, but I don’t think absolute credulity is warranted here, either.Report

      • Francis in reply to atomickristin says:

        To start with, I found that your piece was largely an incoherent ramble between arguing for (presumably court-enforced) limitations on police powers (“government with minimal power to regulate morality …”), morality-based arguments (“The idea that none of us have the right to dictate issues of morality to our neighbors is the foundation of not only libertarianism, but also small-government conservatism”), effectiveness-based arguments (“Making victimless crimes illegal has never worked”), and consequentialist-based arguments (“We’d have to live in a police state to ban abortion”).

        I don’t think you made your case on any of those points. To reiterate: States have broad powers to regulate morality, rarely limited by the courts. Libertarians and soi-disant small-government conservatives are all too happy to dictate morality, they just have a different morality than liberals. Answering the question of whether a law illegalizing victimless crime “worked” first requires consensus on what “worked” means; as best I can tell the current Attorney General is absolutely thrilled by the success of American drug laws in locking up members of disfavored communities. And finally, Texas is doing a bang-up job in restricting access to abortion; they’re just focusing on the supply side.

        Most discussions about abortion are useless because there is very little room to change minds. You seemed to have changed yours, but your arguments didn’t persuade me at all. So I thought it might be worthwhile to tease out the basis on which you hate abortion so I could better understand why you are arguing that conservatives should abandon the fight.

        Did you start as a libertarian, and recognize that libertarian philosophy is inconsistent with abortion regulation? Or did you start as a conservative and became a libertarian because of the conservative position on abortion? If the latter, then the basis for your hating abortion becomes relevant. Most people don’t shift ground on strongly-held beliefs. You did, which is unusual. So in addition to looking at the arguments which persuaded you to shift ground, I think it’s relevant to look into how strongly you held your belief and the underlying basis for that belief.Report

        • pillsy in reply to Francis says:

          At the risk of nitpicking (but perhaps not) this part really rubbed me the wrong way:

          To start with, I found that your piece was largely an incoherent ramble between arguing for (presumably court-enforced) limitations on police powers (“government with minimal power to regulate morality …”),

          I’m not a libertarian at all, but I don’t think one has to be a libertarian to think that the whole of government (state and federal, legislative, executive and judicial) ought to be concerned with protecting people’s rights, and limiting police powers as necessary to do so. “We would need to vastly expand the presence and power of the police in order to enforce this…” should be a valid objection at any step of the way.

          Sometimes the courts are gonna screw up and let some bullshit slide, and even when they don’t it’s often gonna take one poor shmuck (or thousands of poor shmucks) getting ground up by the system before they step up and do something about it.

          Liberty requires defense in depth.Report

          • Francis in reply to pillsy says:

            pillsy:

            I appear to have inadvertently used a legal term in a misleading way. Police power does not mean the power of the police department. It means the power of the polis (Greek for city). As compared to the federal government, which at least theoretically has limited powers, states have general powers to pass laws, limited only by rights reserved under the federal and state constitutions to their citizens and the scope of their polis / police powers. Generally speaking, states have unlimited police powers, except in those areas reserved solely to the federal government. The debate over police power is usually between a state and an inferior government agency.

            Take, for example, the bathroom bill in North Carolina. A lot of that debate was about police power — whether the municipality would be empowered to grant certain rights to a distinct minority or whether the state was going to strip the municipality of that power.

            There are, however, important limitations on state police powers, found in the 14th Amendment among other places. But empowering courts to review actions of state and local governments to see whether the action is constitutional (including whether the action was within the scope of the government agency’s powers) is traditionally a liberal position in this country. The fact that Kristin didn’t mention the judicial system in that part of her post was one of the many reasons I found her post to be incoherent.Report

  10. rmass says:

    This is me being a jerk, but until libertarians stop being useful idiots for conservatives your not gonna get your small gov dream. Your gonna get tax cuts, bombs, and gods will translated to us law.

    But at least your not liberals, because we have no soul to damn. Its our secret.Report

    • Saul Degraw in reply to rmass says:

      @rmass

      Exactly. This essay seems to be another great example of someone calling themselves libertarian but really a socially conservative Republican but Republican is still a damaged brand.

      But those college students and professionals are so snooty so….

      I don’t even know what cultural Marxist means because there is no serious Marxist in the US. The far left is even more impotent than the Libertarians. But the fever dreams of the right imagine Chuck Schumer, that friend of Wall Street is a Trotsky in the waiting because he is Jewish, from New York, and voted against Goresuch.Report

      • pillsy in reply to Saul Degraw says:

        I think this is a really bizarre reading of an essay that spends most of its time rejecting one of the sine qua non positions of conservative Republicans on essentially libertarian grounds.Report

        • Saul Degraw in reply to pillsy says:

          @pillsy

          Maybe but I think that there is something odd going on with libertarians and the right in general where they are focusing on cultural Marxists like they are a super-big force in the United States.

          Any sensible writing and realization of politics would show that the phrase is a vague and inchoate right-wing conspiracy theory and that there is really no such thing with any power beyond the Pacifica Foundation (which is so broke that it often as to scramble to pay their rent and transmission fees) and maybe some aging radicals on a few college campuses who were lucky to get tenure.

          The Democratic Party is pro-capitalist and pro-market including most of their voters even if they want more regulation of the financial sector and a healthy welfare state.

          The phrase cultural Marxist has such a long and dirty history of being a codeword for an “dirty, urban Jewish person with socially liberal sympathies*” that I find it hard to engage with people who use the phrase word. Maybe current users don’t intend for it to be anti-Semitic, maybe they do, it is hard to tell and I don’t think prejudice is so open as to being Richard Spencer or not-bigoted at all. Either way it spreads something I consider anti-Semitic in effect even if it is not meant so in intent.

          I think Kristen is a good writer but a lot of her writing to me reflects a nostalgia for a world that never really existed and it is something I see a lot in right-wing writing. A yearning for a world that was allegedly simpler, often, inadvertently or not, whiter, more rural, less high-knowledge worker, etc. A world, in my opinion, that never existed.

          *Whether people know this or not is besides the point. People absorb all sorts of beliefs and knowledge and prejudices without knowing their full origin. But there is a long history in the United States and abroad of attacking Jews for being High Capitalists and High Marxists simultaneously but certainly always urbane and sophisticated against the “real folk” or “simple folk” and this can get just as absorbed into culture as anywhere else especially in a country where anti-Semitic attitudes persist and thrive even in areas without any or many Jews.Report

          • Jaybird in reply to Saul Degraw says:

            … there were riots in Berkley the other day.

            You read about them, right?

            I suppose the argument might be that Berkley doesn’t count because it’s such a small percentage of what we’re talking about.Report

            • Saul Degraw in reply to Jaybird says:

              Yes there were fights at Berkeley. There was also a very civil and peaceful protest in San Francisco.

              Civil Unrest in Berkeley does not equal the power of cultural Marxists. Yes Berkeley tends to swing to the left as do many towns and they pass some silly ordinances “banning” nuclear weapons from the town.

              The fights in Berkeley seem to be between pro-Trump people and anti-Trump people.

              This still has nothing to do with the so-called power or not of “cultural Marxists” and the long abusive history of the world.

              Despite claiming not to be on the right, you seem to have endless sympathy for them but any small bit of the left using physical force proves all the conspiracy theories on cultural Marxists somehow.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Saul Degraw says:

                Thanks for the free psychoanalysis.

                The riots in Berkley seem to involve Antifa forces in addition to the anti-Trump ones. “Cultural Marxism” manifests in a handful of different ways and one of the wacky ways it manifests is, you guessed it, in prominent colleges.

                We’ve got Antifa and Popehat links to three very interesting college op-eds (including one from Berkley!) in his latest here. Cultural Marxism is a thing that is out there. It’s true that conflating it with Jewishness in general is a mistake that the Nazi types out there make… but the fact that they make this mistake isn’t evidence that Cultural Marxism isn’t a cultural set of influences.Report

              • Saul Degraw in reply to Jaybird says:

                No cultural Marxism is not a thing and Popehat is not someone I find very convincing on proving its existence. Nor is linking to some college op-eds convincing of a widespread thing either.

                What’s the thing we said about sources and convincing skeptics? Popehat is a libertarian anarcho-Capitalist. He is not going to convince me that there is a specter of cultural Marxism in the left.

                I’d consider him largely just as influenced as the fever dream of the right. His work as a criminal defense lawyer is admirable but that does not make him an authority on why we shouldn’t have a welfare state.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Saul Degraw says:

                I’m pretty sure Ken White isn’t an Ancap. Popehat is a group blog, and one guy who used to post there (Clark) was an Ancap, but he’s got his own thing going on now.

                Also, not for nothing, but the linked article makes no mention “Marxism”, cultural or otherwise.Report

              • Saul Degraw in reply to pillsy says:

                @pillsy

                I concur that reprehensible people like Richard Spencer deserve free speech rights. Or do people on the far-left even if they raise my blood pressure which they can because I am a liberal and not a radical. That being said, when these clashes occur, the blame always seems to go on the left and not on the right.

                There is this strange fiction that we seem to believe in that all political debates and confrontations can happen with the language of a very polite tea party. This is non-sense.

                And again, I worry that people’s moral compasses seem to be so weak that we seem to think they can sincerely think “Nazis are bad but some college students and some self-described anarchists engaged in some physical action in Berkeley so I gotta go for Trump now.”

                This still has nothing to do with “cultural Marxism” which is a great boogeyman term that animates the right-wing and libertarian forces in the United States. Forces that seem incapable of determining the differences between a welfare state and reasonable business regulation to protect people and the planet and the second coming of Lenin and Pol Pot.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Saul Degraw says:

                Is “cultural Marxism” something that would benefit from a definition of terms?

                Because, maybe, when I say it I mean something that you absolutely would agree exists and when you say it you mean something that I absolutely would agree does not exist.

                We might be talking past each other!Report

              • Dave in reply to Jaybird says:

                Jaybird:
                Is “cultural Marxism” something that would benefit from a definition of terms?

                If I get to define it, sure.

                I get what it’s aiming for but it’s a garbage term used more for effect than substance.

                The fact that I’ve seen so many dipshits throw that term out there makes me wonder why the hell it’s in a post that’s featured on this page.

                Good post but shitty use of a term.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Dave says:

                All the more reason to hammer it out!

                Maybe when I say it I mean something that you absolutely would agree exists and when you say it you mean something that I absolutely would agree does not exist!

                Then we can stop talking past each other by hammering out what we mean when we use the term!

                Then you can say “oh, that phenomenon… outside of universities and weird corners of the internet, nobody thinks like that” to me and I can say “oh, you’re talking about *THAT* phenomenon… outside of weird corners of the internet, nobody believes that that even exists” to you and we can both smile and nod!Report

              • gregiank in reply to Jaybird says:

                Meh. Defining cultural Marxism is just for cultural Fascists.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to gregiank says:

                I am 100% Culturally Antifa.Report

              • gregiank in reply to Jaybird says:

                I’m 100%.Report

              • notme in reply to gregiank says:

                I’m 110%Report

              • dragonfrog in reply to Saul Degraw says:

                The fights in Berkeley seem to be between pro-Trump people and anti-Trump people.

                Or not. Which would make sense – pro-Trump and anti-Trump people who swing by after work ought to be able to make do with dueling protest chants. Explicit white supremacists and Antifa who bus in from out of state armed for a fight, probably not so much.Report

              • notme in reply to dragonfrog says:

                Are you ready to rumble?Report

              • dragonfrog in reply to notme says:

                I just ate lunch. I’ll probably be rumbling in an hour or so.Report

            • Saul Degraw in reply to Jaybird says:

              You also did your dada thing again where you completely ignore what someone wrote and go on a tangent to try be Socratic.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Saul Degraw says:

                If someone is talking about Cultural Marxism and you start talking about how the Nazis have always conflated Cultural Marxism with Jews and so people complaining about Cultural Marxism sound like anti-semites, I kinda see it as an open invitation to freely associate with whatever thoughts I have wand’ring through my noodle.Report

              • Saul Degraw in reply to Jaybird says:

                @jay

                Eh no. Words and phrases have a history. You can associate it with whatever you want but the history of the word is there and it is not just from Nazis.

                Right-wingers in the United States (not Nazis but fundies) have a long history of anti-Marxism, anti-Semitism, and conflating the two.

                See: The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far Right from the Great Depression to the Cold War by Leo Ribuffo.

                You don’t get to deny history Jaybird.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Saul Degraw says:

                Oh, I’m not denying it.

                My point was more that the history of the word is there and it is not just from Nazis. Right-wingers in the United States (not Nazis but fundies) have a long history of anti-Marxism.Report

              • notme in reply to Saul Degraw says:

                Sure they do, unless they are in the constitution. Then it’s a living document and they mean nothing.Report

              • Jesse in reply to notme says:

                I have zero problems with American’s in a militia shooting how ever many muskets they want.Report

              • notme in reply to Jesse says:

                An attempt to be clever. Even back then “arms” didn’t only mean firearms.Report

              • Joe Sal in reply to notme says:

                Michael A. Bellesiles has been pretty much discredited, but some folks don’t give it up.Report

              • Dave in reply to notme says:

                @notme

                And the word “People” doesn’t mean what people that support an individual rights interpretation of 2A think it means. I tried to explain that to a zealot around Thanksgiving. Kicking his ass made my weekend. 😀

                In fact, the Constitution, properly understood as a compact (which it was…sorry folks…take it up with Madison) and the individual rights view of 2A can’t reconcile with one another.

                Keep your guns though. I don’t care about them. Your business not mine.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Dave says:

                Does “people” appear elsewhere in the Constitution?

                If “people” appears elsewhere in the Constitution, has it traditionally been interpreted by the courts in those instances as you say it should be interpreted here?

                If the 2nd Amendment people are saying “oh, this ‘people’ means something different than the other ‘people’s that show up”, it seriously seems like they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.Report

              • Joe Sal in reply to Jaybird says:

                There really wasn’t a leg to stand on anyway. The constitution was an attempt by the state to write rule of law, which in the end can’t be legitimately produced by a formal state, or even a faction of state.

                (think of the state as an agent attempting market capture of rule of law)Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Jaybird says:

                Every word in the Constitution is there for a reason. Except “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”, which was a typo.Report

              • And if we look at the 1st:

                Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

                It’s clear that it protects only political speech, as was explained by a very famous originalist. You know, the one Teddy Kennedy was so mean to.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                When it talks about the right of the people peaceably to assemble, it’s not talking about *EVERYBODY*.

                It’s just talking about White Male Landowners.

                If we agree to extend that to gun ownership as well, we can probably get most of the Republicans on board.Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Jaybird says:

                It’s not talking about people whose immigration status is in question. Sessions wants to deport both criminals and activists.Report

              • Dave in reply to Jaybird says:

                @jaybird

                Quickly.

                1. Yes, “People” is mentioned elsewhere, and as I argued almost ad nauseum some months back, “People” was understood as a body politic consistent with the notion of popular sovereignty as opposed to people as a random collection of individuals.

                That’s a very important distinction since the ratifying parties were the people as a body politic, the only sovereigns that could ratify the :Constitution. The Constitution references both people and persons. They both had separate meanings.

                To the traditional interpretation, yes it was traditionally interpreted that way until 2008.

                To your last paragraph, it’s interesting. People that argue that Constitution was at ratification intended as a limited grant of power would say that the historical record is crystal clear on this point. It is, less because of the text but rather the underlying contexts which were a) a deep distrust towards centralized power and b) the records of the ratification conventions themselves. Self rule meant retaining most powers for themselves, a sentiment that was ultimately reflected in the Tenth Amendment as it was previously in Article II of the Articles of Confederation.

                Here’s the kicker. The strongest evidence for the limited nature of the Constitution – the intent of the ratifiers as documented in the state ratification debates, is the weakest evidence for the individual rights view of the 2A for the obvious reason: it wasn’t discussed. It kind of makes sense when you consider the bigger picture.

                It’s not hard to see how the individual rights version of the 2A could be construction given 1) the more nationalist theories of the Constitution that were first developed starting in the late 1820’s and 2) the compact theory being relegated to the dustbin of history largely due to the stain of the Confederacy (Madison be damned) and 3) modern theories of the Constitution, predominantly libertarian in nature, that have elevated the Constitution into the kind of nationalist yet rights respecting document that went well beyond design and the expectation of the founding generation.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Dave says:

                Is that how the courts have traditionally treated “people” as it appears elsewhere in the Constitution?

                We might have been getting the First Amendment all wrong!

                “the right of the people peaceably to assemble” might mean something completely different than how the nutball libertarians I used to hang out with interpreted it.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Jaybird says:

                All this legal dancing to make the 2nd AM allow gun control and disallow individual gun ownership may convince the public that the other amendments have no value either.Report

              • notme in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Meh, we all know that some civil rights are more socially valuable then others.Report

              • Like the 15th, repealed by the Roberts Court.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                Like the 15th, repealed by the Roberts Court.

                Your actual claim is grandchildren can legally be assumed to be guilty of the same crimes as their grandparents. That is a bad idea and muttering “racism” doesn’t change that.

                Either find some evidence the current generation has the same problems or apply your nifty laws to everyone. Those are both great options.

                Equality before the law is one of the basic principles of liberalism. So is not discriminating on the basis of national origin.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Dark Matter says:

                This ridiculous claim has not improved with repetition.

                Equality before the law is one of the basic principles of liberalism.

                Equality of people, not administrative divisions.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to pillsy says:

                This ridiculous claim has not improved with repetition.

                The Supreme Court disagrees with you, and points to data taken from two generations ago which needs to be updated.

                Equality before the law is one of the basic principles of liberalism. Equality of people, not administrative divisions.

                So if I live in a Northern state, my chosen representatives have the authority to carry out my will, free from federal oversight.

                But if I live in a Southern state, I don’t, because of what my grandparents did?Report

              • pillsy in reply to Dark Matter says:

                I know the Supreme Court disagrees with me. That’s the whole point of this line of argument. Appealing to the Supreme Court’s judgement when it’s the Supreme Court’s judgement that’s being criticized is… weird.

                As for the “right” in question, (a) it’s a pretty silly “right” and (b) Congress made that determination, which is in line with its Constitutional power. It’s not like there weren’t bailout provisions, and for that matter it’s not like people from those districts [1] that weren’t didn’t have representation in Congress when the law was reauthorized.

                [1] Which were not, in fact, all from the Sourth, and IIRC there were districts in the South which were not subject to pre-clearance.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to pillsy says:

                Appealing to the Supreme Court’s judgement when it’s the Supreme Court’s judgement that’s being criticized is… weird.

                I’m making an appeal to authority, but you claiming there is no legal case for this is easily countered by pointing out that the Supremes thought differently. Further, I strongly suspect they’re better than either of us at this.

                Congress made that determination, which is in line with its Constitutional power.

                Are you admitting this determination was based on data two generations old?

                Are you claiming the civil rights situation is unchanged from then… or just that it doesn’t matter? If the later, then how stale can the data be for this sort of thing? If two generations is fine, then how about 3? 10?Report

              • pillsy in reply to Dark Matter says:

                “Your criticism of the argument made by the Court is wrong because the Court disagrees with it,” may be the most perfectly circular argument I’ve ever seen.

                As for the data, sure, I’ll admit it. I just don’t particularly care, because, “I don’t think this policy is very good,” is a bad reason to invalidate a law, it becomes a worse reason when we’re talking about a very clearly enumerated power of Congress, and conservatives in particular insist on the Court deferring to the elected branches when possible.

                You may be able to make a solid argument that the law was dumb, but just because it’s dumb doesn’t make it unconstitutional.Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to pillsy says:

                Circular arguments are appropriate here. Shelby County was decided by Roberts citing a principle first stated in a previous decision written by Roberts himself. Add to that the fact that Roberts’s dislike for the VRA goes back to his days as a GOP operative, and it’s clear that Shelby County is the result of a very long game indeed, and a perfect example of goal-oriented jurisprudence with no respect for precedent or the text of the law. The sort of thing that’s called legislating from the bench when the other side does it.

                But, hey, all it does is disenfranchise voters. It’s not evil, like letting people marry.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                The sort of thing that’s called legislating from the bench when the other side does it.

                “Legislating from the bench” is when you claim everything other than your opinion is unconstitutional and/or when you rewrite laws.

                For example if the Court had said that the legislature can’t use 40+ year old data, so the Court would update it with the most recent data and the law would apply to states ABC instead of XYZ.

                Striking down part of a law and handing it back to the Legislature for rewrite is the opposite of “legislating from the bench”.Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Bzzzzt! Try again.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                If you have a better answer you should try posting it. You can’t beat something with nothing.Report

              • Either find some evidence the current generation has the same problems

                OK. All the states gloating about how they were going to suppress votes as soon as the VRA was gutted, and all the states that have done just that.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                Dark Matter: Either find some evidence the current generation has the same problems

                Mike Schilling: All the states gloating about how they were going to suppress votes as soon as the VRA was gutted, and all the states that have done just that.

                This is akin to pointing to one grandchild who looks like his grandpa and claim that because of that, all of them must.

                “All the states who are gloating” is not the same as “the same states and them-only have the same problems”. Some of them have gotten better and (what I’d hope is more concerning for you is) some other states have gotten worse. The Civil Rights situation in 2017 is in no way comparable to what existed in the civil rights era.

                The law that you’re thumping for has become a Symbol of civil rights, which is why the left is all outraged about the Supreme’s ruling, no matter how removed from common sense the facts are and how stale the data that law tries to apply.

                As far as I can tell, stripped of emotion you have no case. The amazing thing isn’t that a majority of the Supremes ruled this way but rather that a minority didn’t.Report

              • greginak in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Well yeah only a couple of states have been found to be intentionally trying to disenfranchise minority voters in the last couple years. Not counting Alabama where it wasn’t a federal judge finding the discrimination but only tawdry texts between the luv guv and his paramour talking about closing DMV’s in “certain special” areas.

                We really need to see some data.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to greginak says:

                We really need to see some data.

                My expectation is that either…
                1) The racial situation has greatly improved in the last 4 decades and the main parties are “only” attempting to suppress each other’s vote, as opposed to doing it on skin color (which admittedly is a fine point to dance on if 90%+ of one color is going Dem); Or…

                2) We’ve lowered the bar so much on what “racist” means that pretty much all states’ voting rules should be covered.

                And if I had to pick one of those, I lean towards #2. Detroit probably has a history of suppressing the white vote. Even my local area carefully picks school tax vote days for when turnout will be very low and only parents are likely to show up (so probably everyone does it).

                But yes, we need data.Report

              • greginak in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Yeah i’d ignore that two federal judges have found deliberate attempts to disenfranchise minorities to if i was dead set on making the point you want to make. Throwing in Detroit is a nice distraction attempt especially based on that real solid “probably.” Muddy up those waters is the best tactic sometimes.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to greginak says:

                Think about what things were like when this law was passed. A third of the country was openly and constantly suppressing minority vote, and doing so on a scale that attempted to be total.

                If current day was still like that then we’d have a hundred judges needing to get involved. Instead we have two, and even with those it’s nowhere near the scale or degree of yesterday.

                Two is a victory.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Dark Matter says:

                This sounds like policy argument that pre-clearance is no longer necessary, not a constitutional argument that it’s not permissible. Again, the constitution specifically authorizes federal legislation to protect the voting rights of minorities but contains no requirement that federal laws apply equally to the various states.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Don Zeko says:

                Oh, preclearance is certainly permissible (although yes, from a policy standpoint IMHO there are larger problems now-days and better uses for scarce resources… even if we want to focus on voter suppression).

                The problem comes from the idea that we’re going to let problem states go (because their grandparents didn’t have a problem) while we crack down on states that don’t have a problem (because their grandparents did have a problem).Report

              • pillsy in reply to Dark Matter says:

                States don’t have grandparents.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Again, this sounds to me like you’re saying that the pre-Shelby County VRA was constitutional but should have been reformed, not that the ruling was correct or even defensible.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Don Zeko says:

                Again, this sounds to me like you’re saying that the pre-Shelby County VRA was constitutional but should have been reformed…

                Yes.

                …not that the ruling was correct or even defensible.

                The Supreme Court upheld all of the VRA except for section 4(b), and only axed that part because of the entire “your grandfather did it” issue.

                So yes, the law needed to be “reformed” so the coverage area has some relationship to the present day. The next issue is, “reformed” by whom? My view is Congress didn’t do their job and the Supremes refused to do it for them.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Well ok, but the pre-clearance provision is precisely what we’re fighting over. It’s not the job of the Supreme Court to determine whether or not Congress could write a better law than what Congress has written; it’s their job to determine what is and is not constitutional. I’m not seeing an argument on your part for why the “grandfather did it” complaint about the VRA makes section 4(b) unconstitutional.

                If you’re not saying Shelby County was correct, then I’m not clear as to what you are saying. Is it that it’s a good thing SCotUS ruled incorrectly because the VRA needed to change?Report

              • Stillwater in reply to Don Zeko says:

                I don’t think Dark has much of an argument on this issue other than the one thing he brought up the last time this issue came up. Dark mentioned that his objection (or one of em, anyway…) with the VRA was that it unfairly singled out specific states as bad actors subject to increased federal scrutiny/regulation and that doing so was prejudicial and that a better law would impose the same burdens on all fifty states equally and fairly. And on that particular point, I agree with him. In my opinion, the SC clearly – like, obviously – went the wrong direction in that decision.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Don Zeko says:

                I’m not seeing an argument on your part for why the “grandfather did it” complaint about the VRA makes section 4(b) unconstitutional.

                If we’re allowed to use totally out of date irrelevant data to determine who should be punished, then why bother have data at all?

                Texas has a problem, so in the name of that problem, let’s change the rules for California, even though they don’t? Surely I can find some point in history that will support what I want to do if I go back enough decades or centuries.

                This is an abuse of power. There’s a total disconnect between the claimed problem and the proposed solution. If the courts allow that as a general operating principle then it’s hard to see how it doesn’t get abused.

                IMHO assuming, without data or any attempt at proof, that a group of people are guilty because of the area they live in breaks basic concepts of equality under the law.Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Dark Matter says:

                What constitutional principle or provision does that violate?Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Don Zeko says:

                What constitutional principle or provision does that violate?

                Given that it’s a bad idea easily abused, it seems that it should be on you to explain why the Supremes are wrong and it’s Constitutional to do this.

                It is not the case that Congress is allowed to do anything except for what is carefully banned. What Constitutional principle lets them take multigenerational data long since stale and misapply it to assume guilt?Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Dark Matter says:

                The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

                There’s specific authorization for Congress to pass legislation to protect the voting rights of minorities. Your argument seems to be that “appropriate” means only legislation that does not offend vague principles that are not spelled out anywhere else in the Constitution, even if that legislation was extremely effective and desperately needed when it was passed. You also seem to be saying that a law’s very success can render it unconstitutional, and of course that this whole analysis somehow adds up to judicial restraint. I don’t buy it.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Don Zeko says:

                For something to be unconstitutional rather than simply unfair or unwise (which this provision absolutely is not)

                The law’s total disconnect with current events means it’s targeting areas which shouldn’t be targeted and not targeting areas that should be. That sounds both unfair and unwise.

                Would it be Constitutional to pick areas totally at random? It clearly would not be Constitutional for law enforcement to decide who are criminals at random, no matter how “just” and “needed” the purpose of the law is.

                Your argument seems to be that “appropriate” means only legislation that does not offend vague principles that are not spelled out anywhere else in the Constitution,

                I am saying there needs to be some connection between the current problem and the solution, and saying “your grandparents did this” isn’t.

                even if that legislation was extremely effective and desperately needed when it was passed.

                That legislation specifies guilty parties who are now dead. So yes, it was fine at the time, and yes, it has problems now.

                The State has an interest in preventing it’s tools from being used for racism (thus 15th AM), so the VRA would be Constitutional if it were linked to current events and not dead people.

                You also seem to be saying that a law’s very success can render it unconstitutional…

                Success and/or the passage of time. Affirmative Action would be a clearer example (as Sandra Day O’Connor suggested).

                Absent history, AA would be unconstitutional. The State isn’t supposed to be in the business of checking skin color before deciding how to treat people. These kind of laws past Constitutional muster is because of the racist way the tools of the State were used in the past.

                But the past keeps getting further into the past. State created injuries get older and older. The injured parties are creeping towards retirement, eventually they’ll be dead.

                There will come a day when the only people who have experienced State mandated racism did so because they’re Asian and AA kept them out of college to make room for Blacks.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Dark Matter says:

                @don-zeko

                After thinking about it some more…

                The question comes down to this: Can the federal gov pronounce a state guilty and strip it of various authorities, simply because it can without any supporting facts or even suggestion of data? Even if it’s letting all other states continue with business as normal and even if there are no federal interests or funds involved?Report

              • Don Zeko in reply to Dark Matter says:

                For something to be unconstitutional rather than simply unfair or unwise (which this provision absolutely is not), there needs to be a specific constitutional problem. The government must be exercising a power that the constitution does not authorize, engaging in conduct that is constitutionally forbidden, etc. You keep appealing to a principle of fairness: that states which are currently behaving the same must be treated the same. But that requirement isn’t in the Constitution. The 15th Amendment’s mandate that Congress protect minority voting rights is.

                And even in the terms that you want to discuss the issue, I don’t see the strength of your argument. States subject to preclearance still write their own voting rules and regulations, while those not subject to it must comply with federal election law and the constitution. This imposition on state sovereignty isn’t nothing, but it’s small potatoes next to the history of violations of voting rights in this country…or, for that matter, the flood of racially targeted restrictions on voting that immediately followed Shelby County.Report

              • greginak in reply to Dark Matter says:

                At least you are admitting two entire states deliberately tried to suppress minority voting. What is the highest priority? Making sure no voters are suppressed or getting rid of pre-clearance which irritated those very people who tried to suppress minority voters. It’s clear you are making the argument protecting the rights of minority voters are less important.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to greginak says:

                At least you are admitting two entire states deliberately tried to suppress minority voting.

                Of course I’m admitting it, it’s a fact. Those two states? Having proven it’s still a problem, they deserve preclearance. The others on that list? Not so much.

                It’s clear you are making the argument protecting the rights of minority voters are less important.

                I’m saying there are Constitutional problems with assuming guilt based on what previous generations did. Apply pre-clearance to everyone uniformly or base it off of behavior of the current generation, not the behavior of dead people.

                And note you’re trying to create a situation where my own state could do that sort of thing without problems because I picked my grandparents well. That list deserves to be a lot more flexible in terms of getting put on it and in terms of getting off, but it’s not the job of the Supremes to rewrite the law.Report

              • The 2nd was always interpreted as allowing widespread gun control a the state level until the originalists got hold of it.

                “Originalists”. Get it ?Report

              • Dave in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                Mike Schilling:
                The 2nd was always interpreted as allowing widespread gun control a the state level until the originalists got hold of it.

                “Originalists”.Get it ?

                If I had the time and the energy, I would go back and write a review of Randy Barnett’s Restoring the Lost Constitution. I fell in love with it 10 years ago. Today, I almost universally disagree with him. Personally, I think Kurt Lash has the better arguments.Report

              • Joe Sal in reply to Dave says:

                “Since the book appeared, however, I became aware of another more individualist concept of popular sovereignty that existed at the time of the Founding but which is generally neglected. This concept does not rest on the collective consent of a body of people- which in practise means consent by a majority of those who are allowed to vote- but is instead based on the individual sovereignty of each person”
                -Randy E. Barnett
                Restoring the Lost ConstitutionReport

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Dave says:

                As did Bob Rum and George Sodomy.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                I never know whether to be proud when I get one of these jokes, or ashamed.Report

              • pillsy in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                Wasn’t the argument in MacDonald that Second Amendment protections of an individual RKBA were incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment?

                I’m a massive unfan of originalists for a lot of reasons, but that particular argument doesn’t seem inconsistent with originalism.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                The 2nd was always interpreted as allowing widespread gun control at the state level until the originalists got hold of it.

                So we should allow widespread state level control over speech & assembly? Should the 1st AM be interpreted in the narrowest way possible so it can be made meaningless?

                It seems reasonable to bring the 2nd AM in line with the others.Report

              • If you ignore the actual text, the intent of the law at the time it was passed, and hundreds of years of precedent, sure. Tell me again what “originalism” means.

                Oh, right, it means being self-righteous about the shit you make up.Report

              • Dave in reply to Jaybird says:

                Chances are it does.

                They are nutballs and they’re wrong if they didn’t understand assembly as to assemble in convention which would not have been held as an individual right but as a right of a sovereign people to self govern. I’m kidding…sort of…

                Understanding the meaning of the Constitution properly understood requires an understanding of the concept of popular sovereignty that very much drove the ratification debates. From a modern constitutional law standpoint, it wouldn’t matter at all, but form a historical perspective, it most certainly does. Remember, we the people of the United States didn’t all band together and say “hey, let’s create a new document”. These were sovereign colonies that wished to retain as much control over their own destinies as possible.

                That would included private property rights, which included firearms ownership, an area typically handled via the common law and the police power of the states.

                The evidence that these matters of common law were elevated to a constitutional level don’t exist.

                I don’t hate the vision of the Constitution that leads to an individual right to bear arms because properly understood it provides robust protection to individual rights across the board (at least it should but let’s not argue the details). I just don’t think it’s historically accurate. I’ve read the literature. I think it makes assumptions about constitutional design and structure that are incorrect.

                But hey what do I know? According to Oscar I do CrossFit.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Dave says:

                The evidence that these matters of common law were elevated to a constitutional level don’t exist.

                Yeah, you’d think that the fact that they were all Dead White Men Who Owned Slaves would have covered that.

                But we know what words mean now.

                What does “people” mean *NOW*?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Dave says:

                And I’m not particularly interested in the mindset of the founding fathers. What did they know? Like Thomas Jefferson supported Sally Hemmings’s right to own a gun!

                I’m more interested in how modern courts with modern understanding of what words mean have interpreted “people”.Report

              • Joe Sal in reply to Dave says:

                Meh, we’re going for constitutional carry of cannons next.
                😉Report

              • notme in reply to Joe Sal says:

                No, I want a phased-plasma rifle in the 40-watt range.Report

              • Joe Sal in reply to notme says:

                Do they make those in double barrel?Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Joe Sal says:

                I tried to carry my cannon with my copy of the Constitution, it wasn’t helpful at all. The thing still weighs 25 lbs and pulls my pants down! Plus it tore my Constitution.

                Now shoulder sling cannon carry is much more effective.Report

              • notme in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                Just make sure you keep it at the low ready and index your finger.Report

              • Joe Sal in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                Yeah, it’s kind of a struggle, but nothing says howdy like grape shot heading down range.Report

              • Joe Sal in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                Like that, but with bigger balls.Report

              • El Muneco in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                Bah. If you switch to third person view, you can see that “Serious Sam” Stone keeps his cannon, along with up to a full load of 25 full size cannonballs, in his back pocket…Report

              • Pinky in reply to Joe Sal says:

                You can barely stand up when you’re just wearing the holster.Report

              • Joe Sal in reply to Pinky says:

                Yeah, but it’s real leather and has my initials. What finally busts the belt loops is the thirty rounds of ammo.Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Joe Sal says:

                Artillery or the Great Books?Report

              • Dave in reply to Joe Sal says:

                I got cannons hanging off my shoulders. I flex and bad things happen. 😉Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Dave says:

                I flex and bad things happen.

                Yeah, the rest of us think, “Uggh, one of THOSE guys. He probably does crossfit, better leave before he starts up…”

                😉Report

              • Pinky in reply to Dave says:

                I thought this was going to head in a bad “I’m packing a cannon” direction – I’m relieved that it was about oversized arms.Report

              • Joe Sal in reply to Pinky says:

                Since we’re not talking packed cannons, howinhell did you end up with the name Pinky?Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Joe Sal says:

                He did a stint with a megalomaniacal rodent with delusions? of grandeur.Report

              • Dave in reply to Joe Sal says:

                Joe Sal:
                Since we’re not talking packed cannons, howinhell did you end up with the name Pinky?

                LMAO!Report

              • Dave in reply to Pinky says:

                Pinky:
                I thought this was going to head in a bad “I’m packing a cannon” direction – I’m relieved that it was about oversized arms.

                You said oversized.

                I like you so if I have ever offended you here, and I don’t know if I have or haven’t as I haven’t checked my Haterade Fan Club list lately, then I apologize.

                Anyone that compliments the guns is ok in my book no matter what 😀Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Jesse says:

                “I have zero problems with American’s in a militia shooting how ever many muskets they want.”

                Telephones did not exist in 1792, therefore wiretapping is OK.Report

              • notme in reply to Saul Degraw says:

                No witty rejoinder Saul?Report

              • Saul Degraw in reply to notme says:

                I generally don’t think you are worth my time.Report

              • notme in reply to Saul Degraw says:

                I’ll try and remember my place from now on. Heavens forbid I should bother my betters.Report

              • notme in reply to Saul Degraw says:

                Saul, I’ll try and work on being worthy of you. It will be my new goal in life.Report

        • atomickristin in reply to pillsy says:

          Thank you, pillsy, Jaybird.

          As for the rest of all that, not sure any of it is worthy of response. In fact, pretty sure it’s not.Report

    • atomickristin in reply to rmass says:

      Yeah, I been saying that since the Clinton administration.Report

    • Dave in reply to rmass says:

      @rmass

      That there above is the libertarian bashing equivalent of “Do you even lift”? I’m a libertarian, and if you’re a jerk, then someone that can’t even bench press his/her own bodyweight is strong.Report

    • Damon in reply to rmass says:

      You’re not going to get small gov’t PERIOD. Not enough of the population wants it. They want their fat subsidies, their tax breaks, the “punishing of those who disagree”. 80+% of the population supports the process of the gov’t taking stuff from other people to give to someone else, they are just in disagreement over who gets what and how much.Report

      • Dark Matter in reply to Damon says:

        80+% of the population supports the process of the gov’t taking stuff from other people to give to someone else, they are just in disagreement over who gets what and how much.

        There was a time when most everyone supported the state having a religion, but because they couldn’t agree on who should be oppressed by the church state, the 13 colonies decided to separate church and state.Report

    • Brandon Berg in reply to rmass says:

      But at least your not liberals

      Libertarians are liberals. It’s everyone else, including you lefties, who are illiberal.

      And if you’re going to go around calling other people idiots, you might want to get the your/you’re thing figured out.Report

  11. Aaron David says:

    The scientific method allows us to describe several interrelated discreet actions, from intercourse to cutting the umbilical cord, that can morally be phrased as the start of “life.” Science places no value on any part of that. Only an individuals morals can do that. Morals that may, or may not, be influenced by their religious affiliation, their political beliefs, maybe even the sports teams they root for. To say anything else is to grossly misunderstand science and how the method works. Now, arguments can be made that it (life) starts at any point along that continuum, but they are just that, arguments. Data has no argument of its own, only interpretation by others. When people ascribe life to an action, from the sperm meeting the egg or the quickening, hell, even intercourse itself, is open to interpretation. And is going to be fought over, according to the fighters beliefs.

    Interesesting piece @atomickristinReport

    • Pinky in reply to Aaron David says:

      I don’t know. By any scientific definition I can think of, the fertilized egg is as alive as any other human cell.Report

      • pillsy in reply to Pinky says:

        Just so!Report

      • Oscar Gordon in reply to Pinky says:

        Absolutely, and just like any other cell, killing it should not be viewed as a moral failing.Report

      • Aaron David in reply to Pinky says:

        And that is your argument @pinky. Others (in this very thread!) will disagree. Science doesn’t care, it simply points out what is happening. If you call that life*, that is a moral position, one that not everyone shares.

        *You use the term alive, while I am using life. So we might be talking about completely different things. Again, language.Report

        • Pinky in reply to Aaron David says:

          No. Either the fertilized egg is alive or it isn’t. Either it’s human or it isn’t. This is science. It has human DNA which is different from its host and it is capable of biochemical processes including growth. You can argue about when it should be given rights, but you can’t argue that it’s a fish or a rock.Report

          • Aaron David in reply to Pinky says:

            I get what you are saying, but that isn’t what I am referring to above, IE alive or life. Yes, the cell has human DNA, will grow and mutate, etc. Not arguing that it wont.Report

  12. Dark Matter says:

    First, I agree with Atomic, enforcement would be amazingly ugly… but I think she’s actually under estimating just how ugly. Forget miscarriage, what we’d be doing is claiming that a fetus is a full person and that it’s rights/needs trump the woman carrying it.

    If the fetus is human, then the instant problem is pregnancy-without-ongoing-consent is not a victimless crime. Pregnancy forces damage on a woman’s body worse than the typical beating. Without ongoing consent, humans can’t do that to other humans’ bodies. Even if we’re long term lovers, the moment someone says “no” it becomes rape and society is obligated to step in and separate them.

    Slavery is the word for a relationship where one party is legally obligated to use their body, against their will, to help another person in an ongoing relationship where all the benefits flow to the 2nd person and all the risks to the first.

    Humans are not allowed to enslave each other, even if I consented at the beginning. “Consent” thing is one of the bedrocks of our society when we deal with people’s bodies. Think sex-without-consent, organ-transplant-without-consent, or even boxing-match-without-consent.

    The rest of society’s rules and ethics have already resolved this sort of thing, even to the point of amending the Constitution. The only carve out people want is for pregnancy, and the people who want it to make it illegal typically assume the law will magically convince everyone their way is right so it won’t need to be enforced.Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to Dark Matter says:

      “Slavery is the word for a relationship where one party is legally obligated to use their body, against their will”

      Trying too hard, Swift did it betterReport

    • Damon in reply to Dark Matter says:

      “Humans are not allowed to enslave each other”

      Wrong. “Either a person rules himself exclusively, or someone else rules him completely or in part. The latter is called “slavery”.Report

  13. InMD says:

    I thought this was a good piece. Watching my wife go through pregnancy has made my views on abortion much more complicated. On the one hand I get why people would want to prohibit it in a way I never quite understood before. I could never imagine doing anything or wanting to terminate her pregnancy and I regularly worry something out of my control would cause that to happen. On the other I’ve also developed a much better appreciation for the physical labor of carrying a child and women’s medical needs more broadly. I get why you wouldn’t want far away legislators, bureaucrats, and law enforcement involved in personal decisions. I certainly wouldn’t want them there.

    I think the best practice in a world of imperfect options is to remain pro choice on public policy grounds, but support efforts to minimize unplanned pregnancies, including making contraception widely available.Report

    • Nevermoor in reply to InMD says:

      I understand why reasonable people can disagree with the first part. If you literally believe it is murder (at least for some definition of life), then “public policy grounds” don’t go very far.

      What I can neither understand nor accept is opposition to the second part. It seems clear that an unwanted baby is a big problem for both the individuals and society, and pro-lifers obviously feel preventing that unwanted baby is an even bigger problem. The odds of facing that dilemma can be VERY cheaply reduced in a lot of different ways. So let’s do that.Report

      • j r in reply to Nevermoor says:

        The odds of facing that dilemma can be VERY cheaply reduced in a lot of different ways. So let’s do that.

        Curious to know what you mean by this. I’ve never seen any convincing evidence that there are a whole bunch of cheap or easy ways to reduce unwanted pregnancy. Nonetheless, I do see folks maintaining that we could deploy all the right tools to drastically reduce teen/unwanted pregnancy if only those stubborn social conservatives would let us teach real sex education and provide contraceptives.

        I’m no expert, but everything that I’ve come across on the topic, gleaned from talking to people who I’ve known who work directly with teens and from reading the academic literature, tells me that unwanted pregnancies don’t happen because women don’t know about or can’t get contraceptives. Unwanted pregnancies happen because of some combination of social/relationship pressure, low opportunity costs, and the belief that having a child would provide some worthwhile experience in a life lacking in worthwhile experiences. If there is some cheap or easy solution to those issues, I’d love to hear it.Report

          • j r in reply to Jesse says:

            I stand corrected.

            When I wrote the comment, I was thinking about things like relatively cheaper things like sex ed and handing out condoms. I almost wrote a third sentence saying that if you really wanted to make a quick dent in the rate of unwanted pregnancies, you’d likely have to get as many women as possible on Norplant or IUDs. Didn’t realize that someplace had already tried it. Would love to see it rolled out I’m other places and studied to see if it can be replicated and scaled.

            Also, the Colorado results are impressive, but they’re not that far out of line with the national average over the same period: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact. Looks like it had a marginal positive effect, which is definitely something, though.Report

          • Nevermoor in reply to Jesse says:

            YupReport

        • Don Zeko in reply to j r says:

          If you don’t mind the time lag, there’s always aggressive environmental lead abatement.Report

        • DavidTC in reply to j r says:

          Unwanted pregnancies happen because of some combination of social/relationship pressure, low opportunity costs, and the belief that having a child would provide some worthwhile experience in a life lacking in worthwhile experiences.

          Erm, that last one does not seem to be an ‘unwanted’ pregnancy. It might be an irresponsible pregnancy, but not ‘unwanted’.

          Likewise, I’m not sure what you mean by ‘social/relationship pressure’. If you mean that women are pressured into deliberately having children they do not want…those pregnancies aren’t really ‘unwanted’ either, at least not in any possible sense of them being stoppable by *anything*. If a woman ‘chooses’ to get pregnant, even if that’s not the choice she *wants* to make, it’s hard to see how we’d expect anything to stop it.

          OTOH, you might mean that there is social pressure, by their male partners, to not use contraceptives. That is a real thing, and why *female controlled* birth control instead of condoms works better. (In addition to it just working better.)

          And I can’t figure out what ‘low opportunity costs’ is supposed to mean in this context.

          I don’t even understand your concept here. You seem to be implying that all, or at least most, unwanted pregnancies are by …women who secretly wanting that, or get coerced into going along with it by a man.

          Not only are those *not* the vast majority of unwanted pregnancies, they aren’t *any amount* of them, by definition. Those pregnancies are intentional!

          In reality, access to contraceptives reduces pregnancy, and that’s pretty much universally understood to be true. Likewise, easy of use contraceptives reduces it more, because the less work, the more likely the use of it.

          Additionally, access to *long term* contraceptives like implants (And even to birth control pills to some extent) reduces the whole ‘pressured into pregnancy’ thing, because the woman can use birth control *secretly*.Report

    • atomickristin in reply to InMD says:

      That was when I first started to really think about it, when I had my first. I realized that my opinion privately was actually very different than the public face I put on (I was adamantly pro-choice then) and it really gave me a lot to consider.Report

    • Oscar Gordon in reply to InMD says:

      Interestingly enough, my wife’s first pregnancy complicated my views on it as well, mainly because it was an ectopic pregnancy, and two rounds of abortifacient didn’t terminate it. If we had abortion laws similar to, say, El Salvador (which some pro-lifers find acceptable), I’d likely be a widower, instead of a father.Report

  14. Hoosegow Flask says:

    If someone needs a piece of my body to survive, and I don’t want to give it to them, then tough luck. It doesn’t matter if it’s an organ, marrow, or “just” blood. Likewise, it doesn’t matter if it’s a total stranger, a distant relative, or my own newborn child.

    As a man, nobody has a legal claim to any part of my body. And that’s the way it should be.

    I don’t see why it should be any different for women.Report

  15. Test1743 says:

    Thank you Kristin Devine for this provocative essay on abortion. It certainly has generated a lot of responses. Add this to the long list.

    Your basic argument seems to me to be pretty much identical to the one presented in what is probably the most famous article on abortion. That article (1971) was “A Defense of Abortion” written Judith Jarvis Thompson. It has been said to be the most widely read piece written on the ethics of abortion appearing in more anthologies than any other article ever written on abortion.

    So, let me state Thompson’s argument in rather more verbose form than it is usually presented. I would like to know if this argument is somewhere in the logical vicinity of the argument that you have proposed. Another way of looking at this would be to pose the question: would I be correct in saying you hold the following propositions to be true?

    1. The human embryo from the moment of conception is a human being – a person – with a moral right to life.
    (I don’t know if Thompson believes this proposition – She merely has us assume this is true as a premise to her argument.)
    2. Killing this embryo by abortion is always morally wrong.
    3. But other adult human beings have moral rights, that are more important than the embryo’s right to life: rights such as the right to privacy or the right to conduct our lives as we choose free of harrasment from political authorities, and the right to refuse to carry a pregnancy to full term.
    4. Protecting the embryo’s moral right to life would inevitably lead to violation of many of these other rights that all of us, including pregnant women, have.

    To 1-4 you add 5 (Thompson does not have 5 in her argument)

    5. Anything more than very limited government cannot be morally tolerated. Limited government cannot protect the rights of embryos when they clash with the rights of others.
    6. Therefore, We are morally justified and even morally obligated to protect the rights of adult human beings even at the expense of the lesser right to life of the embryo.

    Perhaps a couple of points require explanation.

    The argument uses the standard definition of a moral right, i.e., X has a moral right to do y if and only it is not morally wrong for X to do y. This is a biconditional, if it is not morally wrong for X to do y, then X has a moral right to do y and if x has a moral right to do y then it is not morally wrong for x to do y.

    Some might think there is a contradiction between the claim (a) killing the embryo by abortion is morally wrong and (b) that a woman can still have a right to abortion.

    Lots of ink has been used in arguing over the idea that a woman’s rights trump the embyo’s rights.
    What is being suggested is that the logic of rights is somewhat complicated. The assumption is that some rights are more important than other rights. All things being equal, you have a right to expect that I will return your lawn mower to you on Tuesday afternoon as I promised. But, if I have a severe heart attack Tuesday morning, my right to go to the hospital trumps the duty I have to return the mower on that day. You have no moral right to expect me, under these conditions, to return the mower in the afternoon as promised.

    In the argument above, the rights of other people including the pregnant woman trump the rights of the embryo.

    I think this is your basic argument. But please correct me if this is off track. I am not trying to spin your argument into something you do not accept. I am merely trying to put your argument in the form that most of those who are familiar with the history of the arguments of the ethics of abortion.

    My own general evaluation of your argument, for however little such an evaluation is worth, if I am right in thinking it is somewhere in the vicinity of the argument layed out above, is that it is fundamentally sound. However, I think that you go pretty nearly off the rails in using what I have numbered proposition 5 to defend proposition 4 of the argument. Many of your claims are much too strong in some cases maybe (I’m not sure yet) irrelevant to the argument.Report

  16. George Turner says:

    Back to Tomi Lahren, a new legal controversy has emerged over her butt warmer.

    Which staffer had to warm Tomi’s butt pads up in the microwave?Report