Maybe someone can point this out to Loeb, in answer to her question "Are we really still butting heads over abortion?"
Yes.
Yes we are.
And this is exactly why.

And next time, I'll actually close the tag. *sigh*

Who do these people think they are telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies? Do they not realise that if there is an abortion ban, there will be A LOT of women dying because they took matters into their own hands? You can't stop the determined, just force the weak to submit.

People are going to do things, and they're going to keep doing things because it's something they want to do. And no one and no thing is going to stop them.

Against abortion? Don't have one! The most simple idea in the world. Let the women who want/need one be. Mind your own business. Sheesh.

And Loeb can sit on her thumb and rotate. she doesn't seem to have a clue about what's going on in the world.

Meanwhile, one shouldn't let the trigger law obscure the more insidious and plausible laws that will probably pass:

"Frankly, [the trigger law is] not going to be my priority," said Joe Pojman, executive director of the anti-abortion group Texas Alliance for Life. "I don't see Roe as being overturned anytime soon, and I want to put our resources behind things I think will save lives right now," Pojman added. He's more concerned about funding for adult stem cell research and tightening a so-called "women's right to know" law meant to discourage abortion. (from the linked article)

As someone who sometimes involuntary follows the Texas Legislature, it's no doubt going to be another depressing session on many fronts.

Speaking as a recent escapee from the state of Georgia, I'm not surprised that people there are talking about this. It's just one of those places where Christian sanctimony overrides practicality and realism. I mean, so much for Christian compassion for the pregnant battered wife. We's got to git us sum more yunguns in this fine state of Jawja.

Yech. What a miserable place.

Who do these people think they are telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies? Do they not realise that if there is an abortion ban, there will be A LOT of women dying because they took matters into their own hands? You can't stop the determined, just force the weak to submit.

Of course they realize that. That's the thing- that doesn't matter to them. If some dumb girl dies in a back alley because she went to go kill a baby, then, well, too bad. Sucks, but she shouldn't have been such a stupid slut. It must have been, after all, God's will that she die.
They don't care about that. This isn't about choice, to them. And that's a major difference in where we're coming from.

People are going to do things, and they're going to keep doing things because it's something they want to do. And no one and no thing is going to stop them.

I think this goes right past them. To make a comparison- imagine if someone said that about rape. You can't stop it, it's going to happen because it's some men want to rape people, and nothing is going to stop that. It took me a while, but that's how some of them really feel. To them, you're talking about choice on a topic that, to them, seems patently ridiculous to talk about choice on.

Against abortion? Don't have one! The most simple idea in the world. Let the women who want/need one be. Mind your own business. Sheesh.

And that's where the problem lies. We're butting heads with these people, and we're pulling our hair out over this, and we're not going anywhere, and I've realized, I think... I used to think that a lot of it was hype. The whole "pro-life" thing? I used to think that was just a catchy slogan- a rallying cry. I'm not so sure. I thought that calling the fetus a baby, or talking about it like it's murder... I really thought that was just rhetoric. I'm not so sure, now. I think they really do think it's murder. Maybe I'm just slow on the uptake, but that's... I don't know... shocking? To me.

And I don't know how to approach that. I mean, here's the thing. I try to consider that view-point, and I just don't know how you get there, but, once you're there, I don't know how to get away from that. I imagine how hard it would be for someone to come up with anything resembling a convincing argument that it would a matter of choice to rape someone, and I realize that I don't have any words to convince someone that divorced from my position. What can I possibly say to someone like that, that would have any weight? "Hey, look... it's not actually murder, here's why..."
Right.

If someone really believes that the fetus is an "innocent baby" and that abortion is the murder of that innocent baby... I just don't see how I'm going to convince him, but I can definitely see why saying "if you don't want one, don't get one" isn't going to work.

Anyway. Yeah. Sorry- just my thoughts spilling out, I guess. It's a source of distress for me right now. It's been bothering me for a while, and I just haven't come up with an answer. *sigh*

That is why the abortion issue will never be even close to being solved or compromised.

I frequently see pro-lifers being called anti-choicers, but they don't see it that way.

Just as pro-choice people don't see themselves as anti-life people.

They are two completely different arguments. You're right, when you are arguing with someone who absolutely believes it's murder, you're never going to get anywhere.

That is why I believe the rhetoric behind abortion issues must change. Right now, everything is at a complete impasse with neither side attempting to use the other's language.

I'm not suggesting you "compromise" on the actual issue, but in order to speak the same language, we need a translator, if not to extend the analogy too far.

Roymac you're not alone in your feelings.
I guess all I can say is that although we may never change the anti-choicers' minds, we can still agitate for abortion on demand, and never get complacent.
When I had an unwanted pregnancy terminated a few months ago, I had to really confront my own feelings about who has the greater right to life, me, or the fetus I thought I had avoided conceiving wih the Pill.
It is hard to accept that there are people who think I'm a murderer because my contraception failed, and I ended a pregnancy that may have possibly concluded with the birth of a baby.
So yes, this is a topic close to the hearts of many. You aren't alone in your anger and frustration.

Sarah Wheat, director of public affairs at Planned Parenthood of the Texas Capitol Region...said polls have consistently shown that Texans oppose politicians banning abortion, especially without an exception for the health of the mother, incest or rape.

"Most Texans think this should be a private decision," she said.

Yeah, I don't see Texas passing this law. Almost every year, something like this is introduced and goes nowhere. We're too poor a state; if such a ban passed, an overwhelming need for state services would arise, and we'd go bankrupt. We're already last nationwide in uninsured kiddos!

Hell, I'm a state employee and my state-issued insurance fully covers elective terminations. So, while the anti-choice rhetoric is loud and persistent here, many people think the gub'mint should stay out of their business. For better or worse, Texans really value the notion of independence.

Anorak - hug? hug?

As for pro-lifers: as one of my friends put it, it's not that he doesn't feel sorry for women, it's just that he feels worse for the kid.

What I do NOT get is how pro-lifers don't want exceptions for fatal deformities. If you find out that your baby doesn't have most of its brain, why wait until it can feel pain and kill it slowly through labour and delivery? If your baby has Tay-Sachs, why have her live for two years and then die slowly? There's nothing pro-life about suffering.

Thanks oenophile, I'll take one please!
What I'd say to your Pro-Life friend is that it's NOT a kid. Yet.
But that's the whole argument right there, isn't it?
If that fetus could have survived without my body, well, then it's a kid.
Up until that point, it's a potential kid.
I know that sounds blunt, but that is really how I see it.

oenophile: I think it's a very different perspective on "life", and what it means to have one. When you say "why have her live for two years and then die slowly" and what they hear is "she has a potential for life, and you want to murder her because she's sick!"

When you suggest that an abortion is, at the very least, something to consider, and maybe even the best course of action, they start hearing you say it's okay to murder a child just because the child is sick, and that's just not okay to them.
"What if they find a cure?" they ask.

oenophile, I thought you were pro-life. Am I mistaken?

I'll be honest. I don't like abortion. I think it's a difficult choice that no one should have to make in an ideal world. I think that there should be free access to abortion, but that prevention, like access to birth control, condoms, and EC, are arguably more important.

If the abortion rate is to go down, we need more support for both reproductive rights and family rights, and this is where I take issue with the traditionally pro-life crowd. There are children languishing in the foster care system, growing up in extreme poverty, living through horrible abuse, and they don't care about any of that. I don't have numbers, but I'm sure that many of those children even die. Why is that I don't see the people willing to kill to prevent abortion doing anything to raise money for infants born with HIV or an addiction, or, like oenophile said, a fatal deformity? Why can they not trust someone to make this choice in the same way that families struggle with whether to let a brain-dead relative die? (I know there's controversy over this as well. It's just an example.)

Lastly, I was just thinking about this... if I needed to, say, donate part of my liver to someone so they could live today, I don't think I would be able to do it. It would a long, hard, awful decision, but the fact is that I am not the healthiest of people right now. I have depression, an iron deficiency, and a lot of stress. My liver's probably not even in all that great shape right now. I would have financial problems because of the recovery period. And no one would be able to force me to give up that chunk of my liver.

For the same reasons, I can't have a baby right now. That's not to say that I couldn't do it in the future. Just not right now. Forcing either of the situations would result in a mess for all the parties involved. And when that happens, it'll be me dealing with the mess, not the pro-lifers who have suddenly disappeared.

Prairielily, I don't think anyone *likes* abortion.

I also think no one knows how they'll respond to an unwanted pregnancy until it happens to them.

I wish we did live in an ideal world.
Abortion is sometimes just the best of bad options, and until the day contraception never fails, women are never raped, pregnancy never endangers a woman's life, we're gonna need abortion.

Making sure that those abortions are as safe, as stress-free (ha!) and as accessible as possible seems like the *right* thing to do, hand in hand with preventing as many unwanted pregnancies as humanly possible.

Prairielily,
On rereading your post, I see we're saying pretty much the same thing.
Right On!

every time i see something like this, or really every day of my life for the past 7 years, i thank god/goddess/my parents that i live in NY.

Pro-choice on policy grounds, given the society we live in. Even if things were changed, I would still split with the pro-lifers on some issues (rape, fetal deformity) because I don't think those decisions should be legislated.

I will further add, "Abusive boyfriend/husband" to the mix. Under the laws in some states, a woman cannot put her baby up for adoption without the father's consent. He can demand visitation if she keeps the kid - and thereby use the pregnancy to keep himself in her life forever. (I do know someone to whom this happened, and she still hates the fact that she had no choice but to abort.)

As for nomeclature: ask any woman who is excited about being pregnant, and she'll tell you that she has a baby. Ask any woman who is not excited, and she'll tell you that there is a foetus. IMO, both women are correct.

Re: "What if they found a cure?" Simply not possible within the time frame. If you know anything about pharmaceutical development, patenting, and clinical trials, you know that it takes about 15 years for a drug to be made, about ten of which happen after grant of patent. If there's nothing in the pipeline, there won't BE a cure for another decade.

anorak, we are in agreement. I was detailing why I have such a problem with pro-lifers. They offer no support for the aftermath, when the pregnancy has been carried to term. I can't accept that they REALLY think that life is so important when do so little for living, breathing babies as they grow up and their families.

I can't necessarily agree with that. That treats the issues like they're the same, and they're kind of not. It's like when pro-lifers trot out some pro-choicer's opposition to the death penalty: "Oh, you're opposed to the death penalty, but you'll kill little babies?" They're not the same.
I agree, those are huge problems, and someone should do something about them, but I don't think that a pro-lifer has any particular mandate to solve that problem if s/he is focusing on fighting abortion, anymore than I think that feminists have a mandate to solve third world hunger or to find immediate solutions to the problem of child labor in sweatshops. Poeple have limited time and resources, and they prioritize- some pro-lifers do do charity work trying to help the homeless or trying to find homes for orphans, but... well... if I were pro-life? I'd totally be focusing on abortion over worrying about kids with HIV. The kids with HIV have hospitals and all kinds of other groups working towards cures. Who, from the perspective of someone who thinks that abortion is murder, is looking out for the "innocent babies?"

God. Why do I feel slighty dirty all of the sudden?

roymac, pro-lifers aren't concerned enough about children after they're born. they mostly want to control women and their sexuality.

the reason over 70% of pro-life leaders are men is because women know all too well their lives as they know it are over after they have a baby. women know primary childcare is a form of enslavement for the rest of their lives.

"What if they find a cure?" they ask.

roy, this made me laugh. Cures and things sure are nice possibilities. Gee... maybe we should federally fund research for promising medical developments... hmmm...

the reason over 70% of pro-life leaders are men
Not true. There is virtually NO gender gap in pro-life/pro-choice.

Law Fairy: even if research is being done, it is NOT going to be done in time to help the children in question. It may be there 10 years from now, but that isn't going to save the life of the unborn baby/fetus.

oenophile, I'm sure you know more about this than me. I just found it a terribly amusing retort since pro-lifers are the ones opposed to stem cell research. Stem cell research holds potential to find cures for a lot of diseases and conditions, and life-enhancing treatments for others. It just strikes me as ironic and funny that pro-lifers are the ones simultaneously making it harder to find cures on the one hand, and positing the potentiality of eventual cures as a reason not to abort, on the other.

Isn't responding to the "possible cure" argument a bit beside the point?

I understand abortion is a complex and difficult issue, and not all Pro-Choicers feel the same way about all examples, but doesn't being able to control one's own fertility includ the right to choose whether you continue with a pregnancy or not?

Without having to find excuses and then defending those excuses?

Every Child a Wanted Child, etc?

Or is this taking abortion rights a step too far?

anorak, I wasn't really responding to it. I was just commenting that it amused me. I wasn't trying to add anything more helpful than that :)

I'm not even sure who I was addressing my remarks to!
Just talking into the ether I guess!
Yeah, it is a pretty silly argument to make...

When you suggest that an abortion is, at the very least, something to consider, and maybe even the best course of action, they start hearing you say it's okay to murder a child just because the child is sick, and that's just not okay to them.

There's a pretty big misconception lying around about what fetal deformities are used as grounds for abortion. There are abortions caused by relatively small things like Down's Syndrome, but most are caused by things that are a lot more immediately fatal, like anacephaly.

Some of them are genuinely pro-life. To them, I would make an argument in favor of expanded access to birth control, universal health care, guaranteed paid maternity leave for all women, and guaranteed affordable child care -- because there are women who have abortions because they lacked birth control, women who have abortions because they lack health insurance to cover the pregnancy and childbirth, women who have abortions because they can't take time off work or because they cannot afford child care and cannot afford to quit their jobs.

Anyone who raises an objection to any of that? Is anti-woman, not pro-life. If you are opposed to birth control because the dirty slut deserved to get pregnant for not keeping her legs closed, if you are opposed to governmentally funded child care because the guv'mint shouldn't be responsible for kids and your taxes shouldn't pay for someone else's kids, if you are opposed to guaranteed maternity leave because it will hurt business... and yet you are anti-abortion... then you are anti-woman. There's no ifs ands or buts about it. You want women to be enslaved to men as financial providers, and only to rich or middle-class men at that, and if the bitches are poor and can't land a rich guy? Well, then, they should just not have sex. Actions have *consequences*, doncha know.

To the pro-life minority of the anti-abortion movement, I would argue for liberal policies in general because they help to make sure children are wanted and can be cared for. To the anti-woman majority, I have only words of war. They hate women and children (children are a punishment for sex), and they are evil, and for all their rhetoric about libruls killing the little babeez, they are the ones torturing and killing children.

My personal philosophy is that no human being has the right to live inside anyone else without permission, for any reason. We cannot compel a person to donate their kidney to their child, so why do we think we have the right to compel women to yield the use of their bodies against their will? I don't *care* if someone will die if they don't use my body, they still don't have the right to use it without my permission.

No complaints from me on that one, Law Fairy.

I take HUGE issues with pro-lifers who have different standards for the same thing. Women who seek fertility treatments create a LOT of extra embryos. Most of them end up rotting away in freezers (they have a shelf life, believe it or not), even though it would be pretty simply to legislate that issue away. You could make laws limiting the number of embryos to be created in each round, or you could mandate that women either use them for their own pregnancies or give them up for adoption - all of which would be really reasonable.

Re: stem cells. I think that some of the pro-life problem is that, currently, you need to destroy the embryo for some stem cell research but not for others. The umbilicial cord is an excellent source for stem cells and adult stem cells can also be used for certain diseases. It actually is reasonable to say that we should do that which is morally acceptable before doing that which is morally questionable.

Anorak - as they often say, the right to swing your hand ends where my face starts. No rights are absolute. I'm sure that you are very found of the right to free speech (enshrined in, "Congress shall make NO LAW abridging the freedom of speech"). I really doubt that you - or any woman worth her salt - would claim that the right to free speech extends to sexual harassment.

When there is another being affected by the exercise of your rights, you are stuck arguing why your rights trump.

Yet, there doesn't seem to be a push for comprehensive sex education in Texas nor Georgia. I guess what this really comes down to is anti-sex. These "pro-lifers" are not pro-life, being pro-life means caring for the child's life AND the quality of life of the child.

“When there is another being affected by the exercise of your rights, you are stuck arguing why your rights trump.� Here we go again. Though we argued over this for ever and ever on another thread, I’d like to say again that I am not “stuck arguing� why my rights trump. Because it is pretty obvious that my rights, a sentient human being, with emotions and aspirations, trump the rights a fetus – a bunch of cells, which can’t even feel pain. For the same reason that my rights trump those of the chicken I eat, or the fly I swat, or the trees that were cut down to make my furniture. Each of those should by the way have more of a right to life, because they’re more than a bunch of cells. And finally my rights trump its right because – and this one has become a cliché but it is true never the less – it is *my* body. And like I said in the other thread if an actual child of mine (not a fetus) needed my kidneys and I was the only one who could give it to him/her a court of law would not be able force me to do so. (An actual such case is mentioned in Susan Bordo’s “Unbearable Weight�). So what is it that gives that potential child more rights than an actual one?

oenophile, "77% of anti-abortion leaders are men; 100% of them will never be pregnant" is a poster from the 2004 March For Women's Lives (see poster at bottom of link). I was at the March. I'm guessing you weren't.

"The fact that leaders in anti-choice groups are overwhelmingly men (insanely misogynist men, I should add) isn't coincidental. And numbers aside--no matter how many men are pro-choice, abortion is still a women's issue. To try and separate it from women is not only naive, it's insulting."--Jessica Valenti

Sojourner, it's also the baby's body. And life. :) Without sounding like a biology textbook, here goes:
-conception, day 1
-heartbeat, 18 days
-closed circulation, own blood type: 21 days
-respitory system: 28 days
-brain waves: 42 days

Babycakes, if you want to stand for the right of a woman to terminate a "bunch of cells," be aware that every pro-lifer in the country will cheer you on. Because a week and a half after implantation, it's no longer a "bunch of cells," and that justification will do more to undermine abortion rights than parental consent, spousal consent, and waiting periods laws, put together.

The potential child does not have greater rights than an actual one. Both depend on their parents for support. An actual child could not be killed because a parent couldn't afford it or found caretaking to be inconvenient.

As I've said before and will say again, the courts are NOT obligated to undo biological reality. Would we ask our legal and medical systems to undo sexual dimorphism? The law is not designed to put all of life's burdens and benefits in equipoise. Yeah, it's not fair that women have sole responsibility for children until birth, but "unfair," by itself, is no justification for anything.

The reality is that YOU put yourself in the position of creating another human life that would need you for survival, through a knowing, voluntary, and willful act. You're old enough to know that the storck is about as real as Santa Clause. You would not have created the situation in which a child would need your kidney.

-

Donna - without sounding completely snitty, could you provide some actual data? Jessica is tough and brilliant, but quoting her isn't exactly the same as Gallup Poll.

Likewise, an amateur pro-choice poster isn't exactly unbiased info, either. "Anti-abortion leaders" is a different animal than a "pro-lifer."

Consider:
http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/survey.htm
According to PP's former Prez, 51% of women either want abortion to be entirely illegal or only for rape, incest, and life. Planned Parenthood! Sure, it might be biased, but it would be biased the other way!

winelover,

if you've been following this site at all, you'd notice that most of those frothing-at-the-mouth anti-choice leaders are men.

anti-choice leaders = pro-lifers

The posters were made by Pro-choice Public Education Project whose steering committee included NARAL, Planned Parenthood and the Ms. Foundation. DeVito/Verdi got the pro-choice artist Barbara Kruger's permission to imitate her style:

"The pro-choice movement didn't have anything like that--until 1999, that is, when a coalition called the Pro-choice Public Education Project (PEP) hired the prizewinning New York agency DeVito/Verdi to design a series of ads illustrating the American "value" of choice. PEP is a consortium of more than fifty women's rights organizations, with a steering committee that includes NARAL, Planned Parenthood and the Ms. Foundation. If you live in New York City, you can't have missed its first set of ads--posters consisting of a black and white image with red type, prominently displayed in subways and on buses throughout the city. (DeVito/Verdi got the pro-choice artist Barbara Kruger's permission to imitate her style.) The ads illustrate the sexism and apathy behind the erosion of abortion rights. For example, "77 percent of anti-abortion leaders are men," reads one poster, featuring a photo of dour old white patriarchs. "100 percent of them will never be pregnant." Another, in which a tattooed and pierced 20something gazes up at the camera, asks provocatively, "You think you can do what you want with your body? Think again." A new series of subway posters just about to be launched contains images that vividly recall the back alley."--The Nation

Sojourner, it's also the baby's body. And life. :) Without sounding like a biology textbook, here goes: -conception, day 1 -heartbeat, 18 days -closed circulation, own blood type: 21 days -respitory system: 28 days -brain waves: 42 days

See, and this is what I'm talking about. It's two different conversations. To me it doesn't matter that it's alive. It's never a question of whether the fetus is "alive." It's obviously alive, or it wouldn't need to be killed. The fact that it's alive says nothing about what rights it might have, though.
When I was younger, my response was always "So what?" So what if it's alive? That tells us nothing. Should the fetus' "right to life" trump the woman's right to control her body?
I say "no" for reasons that have been listed too many times to count, I'm sure.

The potential child does not have greater rights than an actual one. Both depend on their parents for support. An actual child could not be killed because a parent couldn't afford it or found caretaking to be inconvenient.

No, but it could be removed from the home. Nobody would, as others have pointed out, force you to donate a part of your body to any other person, so it doesn't make sense to force a woman to allow a fetus the use of her body.

The reality is that YOU put yourself in the position of creating another human life that would need you for survival, through a knowing, voluntary, and willful act.

And that is no argument justifying anything, either. I put myself in the position of potential injury or even death every time I get behind the wheel of my car- I don't see that as a reason to deny me medical care should I get in an accident.

You're old enough to know that the storck is about as real as Santa Clause. You would not have created the situation in which a child would need your kidney.

That's the kind of patronizing statements that make people think that pro-lifers aren't really so much pro-life as they are "anti-slut." It makes it less about the fetus' life, and a lot more about "Well, you asked for it- should have kept your legs crossed."

Bah.

You're old enough to know that the storck is about as real as Santa Clause. You would not have created the situation in which a child would need your kidney.

See, then we get into this grey area where people can say things like, "If you're too poor to support a child, then you can't have sex." That logic makes sex something that only rich people can do, and that's an idea that just turns my stomach, because it's so disgusting.

Without sounding like a biology textbook, here goes: -conception, day 1 -heartbeat, 18 days -closed circulation, own blood type: 21 days -respitory system: 28 days -brain waves: 42 days

I don't remember anything before I was two years old. Not feelings, thoughts, pain. Pro-lifers want to control women and their sexuality because they don't do anything for children after they're born. They don't push for child welfare like they have in France, they don't care that 41% of the homeless in the U.S. are FAMILIES because of the affordable housing crisis. Why hasn't any pro-lifer addressed the affordable housing crisis?

Without sounding like a biology textbook, here goes:
-conception, day 1
-heartbeat, 18 days
-closed circulation, own blood type: 21 days
-respitory system: 28 days
-brain waves: 42 days

- sufficiently many synapses complexity to feel pain: 31 weeks
- sufficiently many synapses for some form of consciousness: around birth

Having your own brain waves doesn't make you sentient. Fish have their own brain waves.

Why haven't they proposed slavery trigger laws, in case the 13th amendment is ever repealed?

"I don't *care* if someone will die if they don't use my body, they still don't have the right to use it without my permission."

*Applauds* That is exactly how I feel!

oenophile wrote:
"Sojourner, it's also the baby's body. And life....."

That sure as hell doesn't matter to me. I don't care if it's alive. It's "life" means as much to me as a speck of dirt. Having an abortion, to me, was akin to removing a parasite. Because that's exactly what it was. A glorified parasite, because it was there without my permission, and I sure as fuck didn't want it there. My life (and quality thereof, and health because I had hyperemesis), at least to me, is a hell of alot more important than something that I doubt can even form a coherent thought.

Then you write:
"The reality is that YOU put yourself in the position of creating another human life that would need you for survival, through a knowing, voluntary, and willful act. You're old enough to know that the storck [sic] is about as real as Santa Clause [sic]."

Wow. You sound like one of the pricks that scold women for getting pregnant in the first place. Accidents happen, no? I was on birth control and had (and of course, still have) PCOS (which supposedly makes it hard to get pregnant) when I got pregnant. After a year and a half of having sex with my boyfriend. I suppose that was my fault. I should have "known" I would get knocked up. Silly me. I should have kept my legs closed because an accident, by some small chance, might happen. And meanwhile, I could kiss my sex life goodbye.

Or what if a woman had become pregnant from being raped? I suppose she entered into that willfuly and knowingly?

I'm not going to sacrifice my livelihood and mental/emotional health for an accident/parasite. Because I'm a fully living, thinking, breathing, walking, talking grown human being. And it's just a fetus with a primitive brain and heart at best. Now, any rational, logical person would see that the importance of their own life trumps that of a fetus.