South Dakota abortion ban. Thoughts?

TheGreatGodPan on 24/2/2006 at 22:37

Regarding the validity of opinion polls vs. school curriculum: It was claimed that we are "heading off the deep end", but if you wanted to show that you should have evidence of policy changes or that there has been a sizable enough shift in public opinion to change policy. If things were as they have been for years, why should we expect change now?

I think all pro-life people should support access to birth control. I don't think it belongs in schools, but then again I don't think we should have public schools. However, if someone doesn't want to sell it I think its ridiculous to try to force them to. If I don't have to buy something, why should someone else have to sell it? Private businesses are not owned by the public.

I am generally opposed to making various activities illegal, especially what are referred to as "victimless crimes". I think that the reduction in the occurrence of many of them is not worth the cost, but I don't believe there is no reduction at all. It's pretty simple economics (impose a cost, demand decreases). Abortion doesn't seem as lucrative a business as smuggling contraband (it's a lot harder to stuff an abortion doctor in the lining of your car) and its not the kind of product/service a consumer might use habitually (except in Russia).

What seems most encouraging to me in this thread is the willingness of blue-staters to leave states to their own devices.

I posted a (http://www.isteve.com/abortion.htm) link about this earlier, but what's with the presumed connection between outlawing abortion and an increase in single mothers who can't/won't take care of their kids? The largest increases in that occurred after Roe v. Wade. I know that abortion became legal at different times in different places, so if someone could point out some stats showing a reduction in percent births illegitimate in places legal vs. illegal that would be nice.

fett on 24/2/2006 at 23:13

The main thing I learned from that link was never to turn my back on a 16 year old. Holy shit. :eek:

Jennie&Tim on 24/2/2006 at 23:30

Quote Posted by Convict

By admitting that your definition of human/person can be changed, then you admit that the definition of human/person is arbitrary.

Yep. I'd be perfectly willing to grant personhood to an alien species without our DNA, provided they were intelligent critters, ditto for AI's. My definition is extremely crude, and I don't have the philosophical depth to say that it is the be all and end all of definitions. Right now, in the context of making this particular choice, it works for me. There might be things I don't know about that would make it reasonable to refine it, particularly with regard to how much and what kind of function the cortex would need. Fetuses exist along a continuum, and that makes definitions really, really hard to bright line. Life is messy, particularly when you get down to details.

Life support in the womb is qualitatively different than life support outside the womb; because it doesn't draw directly from the mother's health and body. As I said before, no-one is legally required to supply blood or other tissues to a breathing child; you are not required to risk your life to rescue that child. Admittedly, most mothers would if they needed to; I've certainly put myself between my children and dangers, and it was pure instinct. I have no idea what the history of the legal obligations to a child are. You can certainly give them up for adoption, and in some societies infanticide has been legal.

I'm aware that some women must grieve over their abortions, Japan apparently has a ceremony for it, which is very civilized of them. I certainly still grieve for my early miscarriages. I cannot imagine growing up without some choices that are sufficiently hard to make for regrets no matter which way you choose. If one of my CVS's had come back to show a serious flaw, then I would have grieved that abortion; but I would have also known it was the right thing to do. If some women have made a choice that tears them asunder, they made a bad choice for themselves; but it doesn't mean that everyone should be forbidden to make that choice. We wouldn't outlaw marriage because some of them leave lasting scars. We wouldn't outlaw military service because it can leave lasting scars. We simply try to help people make the best choices for them, ones they can live with. Studies do show that women who abort an unwanted first pregnancy have no higher risk of depression than women who carry unwanted first preganancies to term:

(http://www.webmd.com/content/article/114/111286.htm)

This deals with statistics, and not individuals; and so does not negate that some women may experience considerable pain and regret for a hard choice in a hard time.

Pyrian on 24/2/2006 at 23:42

First comment: Creationism/Intelligent Design is not being taught in state U.S. schools to any significant degree. This is, however, a condition which has been fought over continuously and has only come about due to strong legal and political action.

Quote:

scumble
The fact that one may not be killing a sentient being does not negate the fact that a fetus will become a sentient human, and no-one knows how their lives will turn out. I suppose it's a call I wouldn't be willing to make, unless there were some severe birth defects involved (like you say with the downs issue). The mere fact that the future cannot be seen is enough for me.

You could just as easily use that precise argument for the sanctity of every sperm, every egg, every potential act of sex. You could even justify rape with that argument: a person who otherwise wouldn't have had a chance at life exists due to it! There's no reasonable way to assign rights to potential people. There's simply too many of them. Every living, DNA-bearing cell in your body could be made into a new person with technology that either exists or will soon exist.

Quote:

scumble
I have to say that the pro-life bandwagon still looks like a bunch of idiots to me - again, instead of trying to use coercion to drive abortion underground, why not promote better birth control?

The vocal band-leaders are just as against birth control as they are against abortion. They call it "a license to have sex". They want sex to stay in marriage and produce children, as they believe god intended.

Quote:

jprobs
Abstinance-onle sex education?? Hardly.

Perhaps you live in California, where we've spurned the federal mandate. However, in recent years most of the rest of the country has been getting exactly that.

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jprobs
I had it starting in 1983 at the age of 13... While Reagan was in the white house. And it didn't have jack to do with "chastity".

Ancient history, I'm afraid.

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Convict
Jennie, you seem to be defining a person as having homo sapiens DNA and a "functional cortex". Do you wish to keep this definition of a person?

That's so close to the medical and legal definitions of personhood as to be eminently legitimate. One of the underpinnings of Roe vs. Wade was the fact that fetus's had never been considered "people" in any other context before. Even your age is based on your birthday.

Quote:

Convict
By admitting that your definition of human/person can be changed, then you admit that the definition of human/person is arbitrary.

Of course. All definitions of life are abitrary, and none of them fit easily into reality, which is far more complicated.

Quote:

paloalto
The emotional trauma that women gor through after an abortion reveals the fact that we are not talking about losing tissue here.As a women friend of mine said that she had 'killed her baby'.Would you invest such emotion in losing finger?

While I really don't think this is a meaningful distinction, I feel quite confident in stating that the trauma associated with limb loss is far, far greater - and far more consistent - than that associated with abortion.

Quote:

Gingerbread Man
But surely when contraception and abortion are outlawed it'll be a lot easier to force the "No sex before marriage, and even then only for the purposes of procreation" angle.

That's certainly the ultimate goal for many of the most vocal partisans.

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fett
Yet, some of the most common marriage counseling I've heard in christian circles consists of, "Have sex ALOT."

Yes, when married, and without birth control, at least amongst the fundamentalists. It's worth noting that far-right Christianity is extremely over-represented in the government and air-waves compared to, say, Presbyterians.

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TheGreatGodPan
What seems most encouraging to me in this thread is the willingness of blue-staters to leave states to their own devices.

Heh! States-rights in the U.S. is always the cry of the party (or position) out of power. It never really has anything to do with any philosophical leanings in that direction. Did you notice how, once the Republicans took federal power, they dropped states-rights from their functional agenda immediately? Poof! Gone! And now the Democrats are championing them. It's only about power.

Convict on 25/2/2006 at 00:15

Morte I think you do not understand what arbitrary means.

Quote Posted by Uncia

I'm curious why life doesn't begin before conception. It seems rather arbitrary to say "well, this organism that would not survive on its own is not a living/human being at THIS point... but here, right here where we need it to be for our arguments, this organism that would not survive on its own IS."
Or does your soul get infused when your DNA combines?

I guess because a new human is not a man's semen or a woman's oocyte, but when a man comes together with a women they can create a new human.

Quote Posted by StD

Naturally, as that's the moment when the foetus becomes independent from the mother. Until that point, it makes sense from both a legal and moral standpoint to treat it as a part of the woman.

A foetus gets born and it is still not independent from the mother since it needs breast feeding etc. If the mother dies during pregnancy and the doctors are able to get the offspring out of the mother surgically before term, then would the offspring become human?

Quote Posted by GBM

But surely when contraception and abortion are outlawed it'll be a lot easier to force the "No sex before marriage, and even then only for the purposes of procreation" angle.

I don't think anyone was talking about banning contraception and the pro-life camp wants to ban abortion because they believe it is murder, whereas contraception is a personal morality issue. As a side note I hear that the OC pill reduces a woman's sex drive - does this mean Catholics have more sex?

Quote Posted by Dia

Orphanages are overcrowded & underfunded. People in poverty stricken areas continue to give birth to one child after another even though those families are living a hand to mouth existences as it is. Yeah, let's bring another couple hundred thousand unwanted babies into this world. Only from now on, let's make those very same pro-lifers be personally responsible for those babies, financially, morally, etc., from birth until those kids are old enough to strike out on their own.

I'm not opposed to teaching contraception in schools etc - I think we need to separate the debate of abortion from the debate of contraception. It is difficult for some people to have more children, but in Australia (I don't know about America) there is a decent social security network which means that you can have 12 children and be financially supported for them (which actually creates a welfare circle trap but nonetheless). Indeed many poor women (from anecdotal evidence only) are having children for the $5000 the government will give them for a baby.

Agent Monkeysee on 25/2/2006 at 00:45

Quote Posted by Convict

Indeed many poor women (from anecdotal evidence only) are having children for the $5000 the government will give them for a baby.

This is one of those "facts" that gets tossed around all the time without any backup. Is there any evidence that a substantive portion of welfare mothers actually do this? One human interest story doesn't count as evidence as there are always exceptions to the rule.

Convict on 25/2/2006 at 01:11

I want to clarify that my point is that our welfare system (in Australia at least - heck we have a top marginal tax bracket of 49 cents in the dollar plus the base tax payment) easily allows women to bear offspring. I'm not aware of any research into it - (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/26/1085461838851.html?from=storylhs) however the (then opposition leader) "Labor leader Mark Latham quoted in Parliament a 2003 cabinet submission, recently leaked, that suggested fortnightly payments rather than lump sums might be a better form of payment for teenage mothers... Backbencher Roger Price, who led Labor's attack after Mr Latham put his stamp on it with a cautiously worded question, said that for people in his and many other electorates, the $3000 lump sum was "temptation".

"Why should we have a Government policy on the Coalition side sending a market signal to teenage women that, if you get pregnant, you get a lump sum of $3000?" Mr Price said."

N.B. The baby bonus increased to $5000

Pyrian on 25/2/2006 at 01:53

Quote:

Convict
I don't think anyone was talking about banning contraception and the pro-life camp wants to ban abortion because they believe it is murder, whereas contraception is a personal morality issue.

Hear no evil, eh? Or perhaps you were just talking about this thread, rather than, say, the Bush government and it's all-front push to oppose birth control wherever and whenever possible, including removing any funding (even - indeed especially - for AIDS prevention) or education, to the limits of its authority.

Quote:

Convict
...I think we need to separate the debate of abortion from the debate of contraception.

Of course you do - it serves your purposes. I, however, refuse to hold the religious right free from it's blatant hypocrisy. Birth control is a far, far better solution to abortion than outlawing it. Trying to pretend that they're "separate issues" is quite disingenuous - after all, isn't the biggest complaint the use of abortion as "mere" birth control?

Abortion is very nearly obsolete. With proper support to birth control technology, it could easily become virtually unnecessary (i.e., pregnancy becoming strictly opt-in) within my lifetime. And I feel that those that oppose abortion while simultaneously opposing a vision of the future where it's unnecessary are the worst sort of scum around: it becomes obvious that the REAL goal - no matter how deeply couched in theology - is simply the subjugation of women.

Convict on 25/2/2006 at 02:05

Woah boyoh you got some anger in you!

For the first part I was talking about this thread (and remember I live in Australia not America).

Secondly, it serves my purposes to separate the abortion debate from the contraceptive debate??? Really, WTF - burning strawmen.

Thirdly, I would like birth control (as in preventing conception) to be 100% reliable - I'm not trying to dictate whether people have sex before marriage or not. I have my views which I am allowed to have and express but I am not and have not tried to make anyone else follow them.

mopgoblin on 25/2/2006 at 02:11

Quote Posted by Convict

I guess because a new human is not a man's semen or a woman's oocyte, but when a man comes together with a women they can create a new human.

It's not new life, though. In fact, "life" really isn't the word to use in this case. Life started a few billion years ago and has kept going ever since. "human" isn't a good one either, since it just refers to the species of the cells/creature, and doesn't even require that they be alive. "person" is the term that fits best, and I'd say a creature can't be a person until its brain has certain capabilities. Not that you can do whatever you want to it before then, but it shouldn't automatically receive the same legal or moral status as a person, even if it has the potential to become a person in the future.

Quote:

A foetus gets born and it is still not independent from the mother since it needs breast feeding etc.

It can survive on other sources of nutrition, though. An insufficiently developed foetus can't survive outside the mother's womb. That's the difference.

Quote:

I'm not opposed to teaching contraception in schools etc - I think we need to separate the debate of abortion from the debate of contraception.

They can't be separated until decent sex education and contraceptives are available to everyone.