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Is it possible to re-cast the debate on abortion? Are we stuck with the same arguments, framed thirty years ago and repeated at regular intervals since? John Roberts’s Supreme Court nomination is already reviving America’s favorite and most divisive political debate. In this country, abortion defines candidates and wins or loses elections, but is there a way to actually make the problem better? It can start, we hope, at least, by trying to think of it in a different way.
Chris, in a meeting this morning, described the prospect of a family locked into a living room that no one likes. It’s impossible to paint the walls a different color or move the ottoman; the arguments are old and intractable, so we sit on the couch we all hate and glower at each other.
But what if we just moved?
Frances Kissling
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President, Catholics for a Free Choice
Author, Is There Life After Roe?.
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from Robin’s pre-interview notes:
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Essentially what I have put forward is the notion that the abortion question has to some extent deteriorated because it’s only viewed as a political question. When you put an issue that is as essential, an almost primordial question related to reproduction, to life itself, when life will be be allowed to come to fruition and when it will not, you are really touching on issues that are more than political. There is enormous dissatisfaction throughout the whole country with the political reality and the courts, that this is something which is either legal or illegal. That doesn’t settle the question.
What I’m saying is that to some extent, those of us on the pro-choice side have to move beyond the discourse of the law, the courts, and Roe, to cultural and moral terms. Not because of the Democrats, but because of the reality and desire for a conversation with multiple components.
William Saletan
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Author, Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War
Chief Political Correspondent, Slate
Stuart Taylor Jr.
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Senior writer and columnist for National Journal and a contributing editor at Newsweek. He’ll join us from his office in Washington, DC.
An intriguing aspect of the abortion “debate” is the changing terminology — not just the hyperbole of “partial birth” but the curious shifts in the definition of “life” itself. Atrios, for example, highlights today a double homicide in Oklahoma where a pregnant mother was shot.
How can we talk when we treat language so badly, implying differences in meaning where there really aren’t any (like a D.A. who charges someone with 17 crimes for a single event) and blurring distinctions when there are worlds apart.
I cannot possibly imagine the continuation of the “all or nothing” world of the abortion debate – and by that I mean that it just cannot GO anywhere. It is a dead standoff.
IF the conservative right pushes for the whole Roe V Wade thing to go to the Supreme Court (regardless of current and future Bush appointments), are they certain they will get what they secretly want in their hearts (a complete ban on abortion)?
My guess is that those people have not realized (admitted to themselves?) that there is a large continuum of middle ground, 9 months large. What if (and I’m picking simple numbers for this example) we take that Supreme-Court/Congress route and end up with “All abortions in the 6 weeks are allowed and all after that time are not, complete exclusions for rape or medical emergency”. That still leaves a majority of the current abortions (as counted by the conservative people). Why might the courts/congress do this? Because the “belief” in the “ensoulment” of humans at the moment of conception is just that, a religious belief. If you push the world into making a more informed medical, scientific decision on the issue than it did 30+ years ago, you are going to get one based on what we know now. Someone is going to have to make a decision about, precisely, when “legally defendable human life” begins, and it will never, ever, be the moment of conception – because if you made THAT declaration then you would have to police it in order to enforce it – and by inference you then have to FUND that policing. My point – it all HAS to land somewhere in the middle ground some day.
And just who is going to stop people from ordering RU486 over the internet from Europe? The genie is already out of the bottle.
My point, the whole “all or nothing” camp of people (on both sides) really is a misdirection, and I cynically think all the politicians (on both sides) know this and mine it for votes. Oh, there is a small percentage of public servants who actually care about their stance. Small.
My prediction, the re-cast and more interesting debate WILL (someday) be “Just where IS the middle ground going to be, who will decide it, on what criteria, and how often will it be revisited as new medical information becomes available?”
What will we (large, societal “we”) decide is the legal beginning of human life? How will we test for that decision point in legal cases? How will we handle exceptions? How will we enforce it? How will we compassionately deal with the hard line pro-life and hard line pro-choice people in our midst? Messy questions.
All of us, right, left, and center, are going to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into a world where this becomes legally defined most of us will hate the answer.
But at least it could mean an end to the parade of Democrats who rely on their share of the abortion vote and the Republicans who rely on theirs.
Amen.
I tried to call in but Melissa and Paul blow anything I might have to say right out of the water. Fantastic, you guys!
I do have a few thoughts about the constitutional framing of abortion, though, so I’ll give it a try.
I dont think this is at heart an argument about when life begins. That’s how the debate is framed now because that’s one of the few arguments that still has serious traction. When Rove v. Wade was decided it wasn’t an argument about whether a embryo is a human being, it was about privacy. Women used to get abortions to avoid the social stigma of being an unwed mother. That stigma is gone now.
Alongside the privacy question, I think there’s always been an underlying question constitutional question whether we have a fundamental right to sexual freedom, or whether it’s a sin that should condemned and punished. That’s the same argument that said we shouldn’t be able to buy condoms or birth control pills, or that sodomy should be illegal, or that gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry. But I the sexual freedom argument has for the most part won. We don’t talk about illegitimate children or being born out of wedlock any more, and we don’t talk about sodomy or the stigma of being gay anymore. The debate is now around narrower issues of the rights of the unborn, or of churches to limit marriage to one man and one woman.
After I realized that the new court would probably overturn Roe in the next few years, I realized that I hadn’t thought beyond that point. What happens the day after Roe?
It gets kicked back to the states.
Well, I live in Massachusetts. What will happen in my state is that we will pass a law legalizing abortion.
As usual, Red states will bear the heaviest burden of their choices: the President they elected has impoverished them (Red states have seen a sharp decline in personal income, much larger than blue states), sent them to war (people serving overseas are much more likely to be from rural areas), and now they will get this other thing that they want.
And then they will have to live with what they asked for.
I’m the Paul that called into the show. Chris Williams, you’re very kind.
There is so much more to say about this issue, and I feel as though I was pretty inarticulate, particularly when Chris was asking me about morality and the law. I said that I thought we should have constitutional amendments guaranteeing equal access to health care and quality education through college for all citizens. So what does this have to do with the abortion debate?
Well, I think that there is room for compromise and real understanding for people on both sides of the issue. I can respect it if someone’s moral code says that life begins at conception and that, therefore, they can’t suppoprt abortion. It’s not my view, but I understand it.
What drives me crazy is logical inconsistency. How can a “culture of life” come down so hard on women, often poor and single, for wanting to abort a fetus, but be so silent on the tens of thousands of civilians – including women and children – dead in Iraq? How can they so often be silent on the death penalty? I imagine that people on the other side of the issue ask the same questions. How can someone support the right to kill an unborn child, but oppose the execution of a mass murderer?
So, fine. Why can’t we iron out some of the inconsistencies? If abortion opponents want a consitutional right to life amendment, then no more death penalty, and no more treating innocent civilians like the eggs we have to break in order to make an omelette in the Middle East. Life means ALL LIFE.
Moreover, I’d say that if we’re going to have a right to life amendment, we should also have a right to LIVING amendment. This is where the health care and education came in. If abortion becomes illegal, or even much more restrictive, poor folks and people who are ill prepared to be parents will be forced to have children. Rich folks will be able to get an abortion someplace from someone. So if we’re serious about caring for the welfare of children and families, then we should guarantee some of the basics that people need to be healthy and successful. Everyone gets to go to the doctor. Everyone gets a good education. That’s a Federal guarantee, no dependent on whether you live in a town with a rich property tax base.
Ultimately, I think that by the time the decision comes down to whether or not to abort, there are no good decisions. No woman WANTS her choices to come down to abortion or an unwanted child. Abortion is a flashpoint for a huge suite of issues: poverty, sex education, sexual freedom, the lack of support for kids and families in the country. Unfortunately, progressives have allowed the religious right to bash them around the head with the issue, the way they have with race and other social issues. So we all end up arguing about abortion, rather than the conditions that make abortions more likely and make having and raising a healthy child more difficult.
Dear Paul. Chris here. You are spectacularly articulate on air, and on the page. I want to apologize for getting in your way, if that’s the way it felt. But believe me: everybody heard you loud and clear from your first words. Radio is amazing that way–quite unlike television: people hear your heart. And all I ever wanted to do was encourage you. Thanks no end for following up on the site. You are ready to run for president, or at least for the Massachusetts Legislature from Quincy.
I really did appreciate this look into the abortion issue. It’s rare to find a perspective that focuses on the actual process of living, as opposed to theoretical legalistic arguments.
I have always said to friends that I didn’t understand how some politicians didn’t want “children killed” by the process of abortion, but the same politicians also didn’t care whether those children were going to be raised properly, clothed, fed, provided with health care and education, etc. I am not necessarily saying that goverment must provide all those things, but goverment must provide the freedom to make a responsible decision to terminate pregnancy in situations that won’t provide a good environment for a child.
Isn’t it just a slow death versus a fast one? If the only two choices are having a child which will die slowly due to malnutrition, possibly raised by an irreponsible parent, and barely educated in an inadequately funded school system, or having a child that doesn’t get the chance to be born and suffer all the above – I’d rather the child not suffer.
I also think a good term to replace “pro-choice” might be “pro-educated decision”. I do agree that a woman should have the right, if she desires, to receive any type of counseling or information that would help her in making the decision that is right for her. I don’t think it is appropriate for government to force a woman to have two doctor visits or an excessive amount of such counseling, however. I don’t think abortion should be considered as a form of birth control, and I find the news of bipartisan efforts to increase access to birth control comforting.
I find the need for re-framing this argument (for that’s what it seem to have become – an argument, not a debate) hugely important if we are to ever get to a satisfactory resolution.
To me, it seems that the issues of a women’s rights or the fetus’ rights are the wrong way to frame this argument. The point of this is truly when does a fetus become a human being? The moment a fetus becomes a human being, it has human rights and killing it – regardless of its mother’s ability to care for it – is illegal. On the flip side, before the fetus is a human being, it has no human rights and the mother can do with it as she wishes. This seems pretty straightforward to me.
The question, of course, is where do we draw the line.
Rather than deciding on which euphemism we like better, “pro-choice” v. “pro-life,” we should be focusing on the larger question: what makes something a human being? The answer is going to be increasingly important as we progress along scientific paths of genetics and artificial intelligence. At some point, we’re going to have to decide if a clone is a human being, or if an artificial construct that mimics every aspect of life has human rights.
The current debate is too limited in scope. We need to expand our thinking.
I think there is an important aspect that is lacking here. The right to an abortion is the right for a woman to have sex and not serve a life sentence for it. And for the child. The political debate has been framed now with rare talk of absolutely no abortion, but of greatly reducing its occurrence. Most people agree that in the case of rape a woman could have an abortion. Other limitations such as parental consent will be discussed in a moment.
The debate used to sound (simplistically) like this: “Abortion is murder because the embryo has a soul/is a human being” vs “An embryo isn’t a human being until the (third) trimester so abortion is ok before that stage.”
Now those first voices admit that it’s ok in cases of rape. When those voices say that, they have just proven themselves wrong. If a person truly believes the embryo has a human soul, then ALL abortion is murder, no matter how the embryo was conceived. There can be no compromises!
What accounts for this discrepancy? In the case of rape, the woman did not want to have sex. In all other cases she did. I have argued many anti-choicers down with this fact until they have actually had to admit that the bottom line is that woman should pay for having voluntary sex. There is no other conclusion to come to.
As a side note, parental consent is a cruel sham, because it is exactly those children who have been raped by their fathers that cannot get parental consent. Girls who have a good relationship with their parents are not going to have a problem getting parental consent. The constraint therefore has no use except to force victims of incest to be further disadvantaged. What a cruel law.
I didn’t know I was pregnant until the random ultrasound two days before abortion would be illegal (in Germany). The doctor had told me that the pills she gave me worked as birth control. I would have been out of luck had I not happened to be in Germany for a 5-day visit because in Ireland where I was living, there is no legal abortion. Germany is a country where people are taken care of, and so I was gently led through the process of talking briefly to a counselor and getting permission from my health insurance. The process takes three days but they fit it into two for me. I do not regret anything. It would have been a catastrophe for me to bear a child at that point. Some of the reasons why I could not have cared well for that child, are being mentally ill myself and being in a physically abusive relationship. My child doesn’t get abused.
Mouse makes points that are particularly timely given that Governor Mitt Romney has just vetored a bill that would have expanded the availability of emergency contraception.
The governor lays out his decision in an op-ed column in today’s Boston Globe.
“Though described by its sponsors as a measure relating to contraception, there is more to it than that,” he writes. “The bill does not involve only the prevention of conception: The drug it authorizes would also terminate life after conception… I have spoken with medical professionals to determine whether the drug contemplated under the bill would simply prevent conception or whether it would also terminate a living embryo after conception. Once it became clear that the latter was the case, my decision was straightforward.”
Really? Which medical professionals? There is wide consensus among doctors that the morning after pill is contraception, not abortion. In fact, it’s what you take to PREVENT an abortion. It’s ironic that the Governor’s decision, will actually end up causing the thing to which he states he is morally opposed.
I’m sure that the governor has probably been able to find SOMEONE in the medical profession to say that emergency contraception is abortion. After all, his buddies in the Bush Administration have been able to find a stray scientist here and there to contend that global warming is a hoax. If you look long enough, you can usually find someone with credentials who can argue against any scientific consensus.
In any decision we make as a society, all we can do is look at the evidence with intellectual rigor and an open mind, then choose. When our elected officials start playing games with evidence and opinion, it makes it virtually impossible for citizens to make good decisions. This kind of obfuscation is particularly vile when it is done to serve special interests or for political purposes, as the Governor does now.
(Read Romney’s op-ed at http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/07/26/why_i_vetoed_contraception_bill/)
My phone call to last week’s program discussing “new ways to talk about abortionâ€? was dropped, so here I am. After reading some of this thread, it appears that my thoughts are along the same lines as SevenCharlie’s post above:
“…The point of this is truly when does a fetus become a human being? The moment a fetus becomes a human being, it has human rights and killing it – regardless of its mother’s ability to care for it – is illegal. On the flip side, before the fetus is a human being, it has no human rights and the mother can do with it as she wishes. This seems pretty straightforward to me…”
The moment that life begins is a gray area, although it needn’t be. And, it seems that neither side (as well as O.S.) is willing to seriously, scientifically, and morally engage this question, perhaps because they are afraid of what they might find.
Here is an example of how to reason forward from this type of uncertainty:
Rhode Island just passed a law requiring drivers to wear seatbelts. I always wear my seatbelt, although I don’t know for certain if it will ever save my life. It certainly restricts my freedom, and places limits upon my body, but I wear it regardless because it MIGHT SAVE my life.
If those on the pro-choice side of the issue are truly open-minded, they will admit that we don’t know for certain when life begins. Therefore, they should be willing to admit that avoiding abortion MIGHT SAVE a life, just as a seatbelt does.
Since this is a battle of MIGHTs and a gamble of uncertainly, we must consider what we/others might win, and might lose. Perhaps the choice within being pro-choice is this:
1. A consequential, yet unwanted pregnancy MIGHT be a hardship.
2. An abortion MIGHT take a life that we will forever grieve, as one caller shared.
Like choosing to wear a seatbelt, I am willing to accept limits that CERTAINLY restrict my freedom and inconvenience so that I MIGHT save a life. This carries a hint of selflessness, which isn’t very popular anymore, on either side of this issue.
On a side note:
Open Source aspires to be “fast and free all over the globe,� but if it is so fast that calls cannot complete his or her succinct thought, then O.S. is missing the essence of the internet.
Responding to Lisa Williams,
I believe Massachusetts has a decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that would continue to permit women to choose to have an abortion, and that this decision is actually stronger than Roe. Alas, I don’t have the citation. Some states already have in place laws or constitutional circumstances that do not rely on the Federal level Roe vs. Wade decision. I believe New York and California are two examples.
Some likely sources of further info are:
ACLU of Massachusetts
http://www.aclu-mass.org/home.html
NARAL ProChoice Massachusetts
The Massachusetts Affiliate of NARAL Prochoice America
http://www.prochoicemass.org
NARAL Prochoice America
http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/
http://www.naral.org
National Abortion Federation (a group of providers)
http://www.prochoice.org
And, an example from another state:
Here’s a staement from California, describing their state’s situation.
http://www.prochoicecalifornia.org/s04politicalupdates/rights.shtml
http://www.prochoicecalifornia.org/s04politicalupdates/govpowers.shtml
Following up…
My general comment is that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, we get fifty versions of what’s possible, depending on the each states’s posture via its state constitution, and depending on that state’s enacted and enabling laws.
The NARAL Prochoice American web site gives the summary on Massachusetts status, should Roe be overturned.
http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/yourstate/whodecides/states/massachusetts/issue.cfm?issueid=2639
To see your own state’s status, see:
http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/yourstate/whodecides/states/
The key to this issue is separation of church and state (more specifically, the anti-establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment). Separation of church and state requires that every law have a secular basis in evidence and reason. That means any law must be subject to revision upon the application of better reason or evidence. Religious beliefs aren’t susceptible to such revision. Separation of church and state does not rule out enactment of religious doctrines if they can also be supported by secular reasoning.
Anti-abortion advocates generally base their argument on the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception. This belief can only be shaped and affected by religious inspiration, not by reason or evidence.
Our legal system affords rights to persons. Traditionally, persons were defined as born humans. The advent of scientific observations of developing embryos/ fetuses has led many people to believe that the unborn are persons. Similarly, they believed Terri Schiavo’s remains, which continued to function in rudimentary biological ways after her brain death, were a person. I question both assertions. Reason and evidence tell us that embryos totally unable to think or remember, and brain-dead “persons� similarly and permanently limited, don’t have rights the state has a duty to protect. Even the most ardent pro-life advocates don’t claim that age should be measured from the date of conception, that women should be constantly monitored to determine whether they are carrying fetuses, that death certificates must be issued for human beings aborted naturally or otherwise at any stage of development, or that names should be assigned upon conception, all of which would be required if the pro-life position were consistently applied.
The challenge for the pro-life group is to formulate secular grounds for the reversal of Roe v. Wade. So far, they haven’t done it. Meanwhile, I think Roe v. Wade has provided a secular determination that we can live with. Although the right to privacy was cited as a major underpinning of the decision, the secular determination of when a fetus begins to have rights is equally and essentially embodied in the decision. Separation of church and state requires that a religiously motivated ban on abortion in the early stages of pregnancy not be embodied in law.
The First Amendment of the Constitution does not require that every law have a secular basis in evidence and reason. The writings of the Founders demonstrate that the Founders religious beliefs informed their lawmaking. What the Founders thought was important was keeping the institutions of the church and the government separate for the good of both the church and the government. But they never imagined, and would have scoffed at the idea, that one could live and govern without reference to what one thinks and believes about God.
For example, I am a Christian, and my whole life is influenced by what Christ taught and what Christ has done for me and for others. It is impossible for me to live without reference to those facts. When I approach the issue of murder and how to deal with it, Christ’s teachings inform my views. As a Christian, if I were making a law regarding murder, I would treat it as an evil to be punished. But to make that law, I do not have to give it a “secular basis in evidence and reason.� I can present a bill with the law providing punishment for murder and then give all kinds of arguments for its passage. To those who share my religious presuppositions, I could make theological arguments for its passage. To those who do not share my religious presuppositions, I would make arguments that would appeal to them. If I can find enough people that I can convince, using a variety of arguments, then the bill will become law. Nothing in the First Amendment says that such a way of approaching lawmaking is prohibited. In fact, the “free exercise� clause protects such a way of approaching lawmaking. The idea that the First Amendment to our Constitution bans religious discourse from the public square is totally foreign to the First Amendment.
With regard to abortion, if Christians wish to make laws protecting fetal life, they ought to focus on three things: 1) They ought to seek to convince as many people as possible that the teaching of Christ should be treated as authoritative. In other words, they should seek to make as many people Christians as they can, using the methods that Jesus used.
2) Once they have done that, they ought to seek to establish the link between what Christ taught and how fetal life should be treated.
3) They ought to find ways to convince non-Christians that laws protecting fetal life will benefit society.
But Christians who oppose abortion should also go beyond lawmaking and focus on other ways to protect fetal life. In fact, this is where most of their effort ought to be placed. They should promote adoption and provide practical help to pregnant women who don’t want to keep the children they have conceived. As long as pregnant women feel they have no viable option other than aborting the fetus they are carrying, then fetal life will always be in jeopardy, regardless of what laws are in existence.
At the present time, what the pro-life movement needs most is not a change in the laws of the land, but a change in how Christians treat pregnant women. What is needed is not more law, but more love. I think this is what Jesus would say.
It’s unfortunate that funding for birth control and education regarding birth control have been treated as morally and potentially legally improper by the Bush Administration. While I believe life begins at inception and not some time after I also believe that people should have the right to prevent unwanted pregnancies by the use of birth control. I’m not advocating teen sex but I am advocating proper education and protection if necessary by someone that has been well informed. In other words abortion should be illegal except in the case of rape or the potential for loss of life to the mother. On the other hand sex education should be fully funded and taught in public schools starting in the 8th grade. Birth control devices and pills should be available to anyone that has been well informed of the use and misuse thereof. Complicating the issues by trying to define when a fetus is a human being or denying teen’s access to birth control only makes matters worse for us as a nation with policies that contradict common practice. Common sense should play more of a part in a Supreme Court decision than a religious moral stance since the US Constitution clearly dictates separation of church and state but within those rulings there also should be a mandate to allow citizens to make educated and moral decisions for themselves.
Thanks to rlier for his critique of my principal argument against the pro-life position: that it seeks to put a religious belief — that is, a belief that comes from revelation, scripture, or religious authority — into law, without sufficient secular basis – that is, without reasoned analysis of evidence.
The fact that “the Founders� (a very broad and ill-defined term, by the way) were religious doesn’t imply that they would have approved laws that merely codify religious beliefs. In any event, their views on separation of church and state have been transcended by the First and 14th Amendments, as well as many other enactments that have erected a wall between church and state at all levels of government.
Certainly rlier can propose outlawing the eating of pork because that offends his religion. If pork were infected with something like mad cow disease, there would be a secular basis. Lawmakers would err under our system of government if they imposed such a ban on everyone without secular grounds.
Rlier says it’s mistaken to think that the First Amendment bans religious discourse from the public square. I agree. But enacting a particular religious belief into law, without any secular basis (or worse, against secular considerations), would have the effect of furthering one religion and limiting the freedom of all others. Separation of church and state is probably the main reason religious diversity exists in this country, and religious diversity, which equates to freedom of religion, is precisely why we don’t need official religion, as exemplified by such things as “In God we trust� and “under God� on currency and in the pledge. We have millions of churches to supply all the religion we need without getting government into the act.
Pro-lifers contend that human beings merit full protection from the moment of conception (“Life begins at conception�). This is a religious belief. Pro-lifers don’t pay attention to arguments to the contrary based on reason and evidence. Nor do they offer substantive secular analysis in support of their belief. The closest thing I’ve heard to such an argument is the contention that one can remember events that occur in the womb. I’ve seen no persuasive evidence of that. I’m convinced that a fetus couldn’t recall events in the womb, particularly those occurring before development of the brain. Nor do pro-lifers pay attention to the consequences of their belief, which they would do if they considered secular matters. If humans at conception are fully equal to born humans, then the state should issue birth (or conception) certificates for “persons� in the womb, and death certificates for those who don’t make it out alive. To accomplish this, the state would have to collect vaginal discharges from all women who might be able to conceive to be sure that deceased “persons� spontaneously aborted shortly after conception are accounted for. There would have to be analysis of deceased early products of conception to be sure that twins, triplets, etc., were not created, lest some deceased “persons� be missed. Pro-lifers never consider these things, because their belief is religious.