« Wednesday Catblogging | Main | When Do I Catch The Bouquet? »
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Tackling The A-word
My latest column in Blue and Red: N. Todd Pritsky gets right into the swing of things and sets his sights on the Abortion divide.
ntodd
February 23, 2005 | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c525c53ef00d83422bedb53ef
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Tackling The A-word:
» Common Threads from Bark Bark Woof Woof
NTodd of Dohiyi Mir is a weekly contributor to the new on-line magazine Blue and Red. This week his column, Common Ground, takes on the debate about abortion.
A lot of the argument surrounding abortion rights rests on rhetorical framing and false di... [Read More]
Tracked on Feb 24, 2005 1:49:38 PM
Comments
Wow, great article. And thanks for such a well-balanced point of view.
I have never understood those who are against abortion, yet also against birth control or reproductive research. You would think that insuring every child was a wanted child would be the most logical of steps.
It confuses me to think that these people would take steps to keep themselves healthy, stay ahead of the latest threatening virus, even prevent decay of their teeth by using up to date medicines and medical procedures, yet say the woman cannot do anything to prevent an unwanted pregnancy.
Do they also believe the man cannot say no to having unwanted sex? Do they say that if a man has frozen sperm and ANY woman demands she be allowed to have access to his DNA, he cannot say no? (Would he then have to pay child support?)
An excellent book to read is 'Mother Nature, A History of Mothers, Infants, and Natural Selection by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy' which shows that females of other species most definitely have the ability to abort, to thin, to dictate when the elements are right for giving birth and dedicating that much energy into raising the young. Abortion in the wild is not unusual.
I think the undercurrent never addressed is that some people, and some men especially cannot concede to the idea women can control their bodies. It is the last frontier of dominance to lose that threatens their 'power'. It is disguised as religion and as respect for life, but often the most rabid of fanatics embraces the right to life cause as a control factor. Women breeders create more members.
If we saw that the 'right to lifers' fought for every orphan to be adopted, every desperate mother-to-be had comfort, every neglected child had assistance, every prison death sentence protested, everyone alive was a reflection of this holy dictate and must be so honored, then their frothings over abortion would carry more weight. Some actually do this. Most do not. It isn't unusual to see right-to-lifers support the death penalty and war.
This resistance to birth control and reproductive rights so often is connected to the sense that sex is a sin, pleasure in it must be punished, and the baby is the millstone you must place about your neck. (See the discussion of hedonism of lesbianism and the selfishness of childless couples in Keyes' last rantings for just a few recent examples.)
Therefore every sperm and ova is holy. God speaks, and life begins, rather than the mundane process of sharing DNA for the species to continue. No wonder evolution must be denied.
Posted by: ellroon | Feb 23, 2005 1:42:56 PM
I don't know, NTodd. I'm not ready to meet in the middle. Perhaps it's the lingering memory of the odor of the stink-bomb tossed into the clinic and offices of the local Planned Parenthood when I was doing contract work for them in 1988. Perhaps it's the memory of a local TV reporter, Hispanic and Catholic, who used his news crew to break the clinic defense line (to all appearances deliberately) and allow anti-choice protesters to do their worst to the women within. With due respect to people who merely personally oppose abortion without engaging in violence against women seeking healthcare, moderation does not seem to be a strong suit of the anti-choice crusaders.
I have often written that Planned Parenthood has prevented more abortions than all the anti-choice groups put together, because Planned Parenthood has facilitated the prevention of more unwanted pregnancies than just about any other group, and one doesn't need an abortion if one is not pregnant. If the anti-choice zealots really wanted to prevent abortion, they would not only not protest at Planned Parenthood, they'd contribute money to it.
But they don't. Instead, they throw bricks through clinic windows, harass women on their way to pick up contraceptives, physically lean on clinic protectors (technically committing assault), and yes, in the most extreme cases, murder members of the medical staff. This behavior is the antithesis of any reasonable concept of being "pro-life."
Negotiate? Find a middle ground? Excuse me while I drink some coffee in an attempt to cover the remembered stench of that "negotiation" decades ago ...
Posted by: Steve Bates | Feb 23, 2005 6:01:45 PM
Therefore every sperm and ova is holy.
Oh, don't get me going on a Monty Python riff.
I'm not ready to meet in the middle.
That's not your job. It's mine. All part of the checks and balances.
Posted by: NTodd | Feb 23, 2005 6:41:14 PM
That's not your job. It's mine. All part of the checks and balances.
It's not a matter of whether it's my job: it's not within my ability to meet halfway. Your and my past experiences are different, and each of us must live with his own. I wish you well in your mission to engage in dialogue... as long as you don't give away the farm.
What most people seem not to recognize is that large portions of a woman's right to choose abortion have already been compromised away. We are not starting from some ideal context in which the positions surround some existing midpoint where each side gets something and gives up something: we are instead starting from a point at which the anti-choice faction already has probably 90 percent of what it wants. Where is the fairness in negotiating from that point? Why should the pro-choice camp agree to do so?
Posted by: Steve Bates | Feb 23, 2005 10:10:08 PM
Steve, I don't think anybody ever starts at the ideal point. We're down--though I don't see how you can quantify it at 90%--and we've got to change the dynamic. In S.20 we've got a chance to stem the tide that will only lead to further erosion of reproductive rights by guaranteeing access to contraceptives and other important things. I don't see how refusing to compromise does us any good at this point.
Posted by: NTodd | Feb 23, 2005 10:20:18 PM
I don't see how refusing to compromise does us any good at this point.
Forgive me, NTodd, for what I'm about to say... but you're sounding like Tom Daschle. Or maybe old Clayton "if rape is inevitable..." Williams. Refusing to compromise is always a valid approach when compromise means giving in on fundamental principles of individual liberty. And this is most certainly such a case.
I justify my 90 percent by the fact that practically everything but the bare bones of Roe is now lost. The law second-guesses doctors about the medical necessity of certain kinds of abortions. The law erects impossible barriers against abortions sought by pregnant teens for whom obtaining parental permission would with certainty lead to parental abuse and often enough even parental violence against the teen. The law forbids free speech between doctor and patient about abortion as an option, if the doctor works for a clinic that accepts federal funds. The law mandates unfree and manifestly false speech about abstinence-only sex education. What the fuck is left? Just barely, what's left is what Roe protects. And that will go as soon as Bush appoints a couple of Justices to the Supremes.
Sarah Weddington, in her book A Question of Choice, warned us that Roe is ultimately doomed, as is the approach of depending on the federal courts to protect women's rights. (If only she had known how useless those same courts would be in protecting a whole multitude of rights!) Protective legislation in Congress is scarcely an option right now; it won't happen. So what's left? do we give up and say, OK, Roe made clear that abortion is among a woman's fundamental constitutional rights, but whatthehell, let's compromise anyway?
Posted by: Steve Bates | Feb 24, 2005 2:17:26 AM
Fie on Daschle!
Compromise is not inherently evil. What the Dems have done until recently doesn't count as compromise in my book--it's capitulation. S.20 isn't even really compromise, but a meeting in the middle based on mutual goals. It does nothing to erode Roe v. Wade, and in fact builds a barrier around other aspects of reproductive freedom that are also under assault.
I don't believe in giving up on principles. That's why I condemned the Democrats who voted to confirm Condi and Gonzo. That's why I condemned them for caving on the Iraq War Resolution and the Bush tax cuts.
Finding common ground is not giving up. It's acknowledging that despite the partisanship that is dividing this country, we do in fact have things in common. Starting from agreement rather than disagreement will go along way toward resolving the inevitable differences we have.
Posted by: NTodd | Feb 24, 2005 9:26:20 AM
Fie on Daschle!
...
I don't believe in giving up on principles. That's why I condemned the Democrats who voted to confirm Condi and Gonzo. That's why I condemned them for caving on the Iraq War Resolution and the Bush tax cuts.
Agreed about Daschle, and agreed about Democrats' go-along-get-along behavior... fie on Daschle, and I condemned those votes, too. I think we've found some common ground, NTodd! :) I mentioned Daschle only because it seems to me that capitulation is indeed where we are headed in the abortion issue, and that we're almost there.
OK, I'll give S.20 a fair reading... well, as fair as I'm able... and see whether I still feel that way.
Finding common ground is not giving up. It's acknowledging that despite the partisanship that is dividing this country, we do in fact have things in common. Starting from agreement rather than disagreement will go along way toward resolving the inevitable differences we have.
That's true, as far as it goes. But the abortion issue, while the major parties have taken sides, seeking to gain in particular constituencies, is anything but a partisan political issue. It's a human rights issue. Women either do or do not have control of their reproductive status; you can't be "a little bit pregnant."
It's not that I believe in a woman's right to choose because I'm a Democrat, but rather that I'm a Democrat (in part) because I strongly believe that abortion is (as Roe proclaims) a fundamental right, and Democrats as a party do not infringe that right. (Individual Democrats sometimes do. YMMV.) But I reemphasize, this is a partisan issue only secondarily, not intrinsically.
NTodd, we really do bring different experiences to this, mostly because of our different generations. Did any of your women friends almost die of sepsis, incident to a back-alley abortion? (And no, I was not the one who caused her pregnancy.) You don't... you can't... remember what it was like before Roe. This is, necessarily, personal to me, and to many people of my generation. I hope we never reach a point at which your generation and younger generations have to learn all over again, the hard way, about what happens to women when abortion rights are compromised. But I have a reasonable fear that that will happen. And thus I have good reason to dig in my heels on this issue.
Posted by: Steve Bates | Feb 24, 2005 10:16:49 AM
Hey, more common ground: I agree it's a human rights issue.
It's just that I don't think we're going to overcome the entrenched GOP majority just yet, so I'd rather chip away at what they've done to our nation's laws, effectively taking the same approach they have over the past couple decades.
But it's not just a cynical, political exercise for me. I honestly think that we focus way too much on the things that divide us, and not enough of the stuff we have in common. I think we could deal with the differences a lot more if we started from a point of mutual understanding and respect. Imagine if we work from the position of agreeing that abortions should be safe and rare--then we'd have an easier time safeguarding the right to have one because we'd dispel any of the right-to-lifer notions that liberals want abortion on demand as a form of birth control. No, we want access to safe, effective birth control in the first place, and oh by the way, we want the government to stay out of controlling birth control of any type, including abortion.
You're right that we come from different eras. I was born before Roe, but didn't become politically aware until after the decision. Obviously that will color our views, and that's cool.
I meant what I said earlier: it's not your job to find common ground. We need you to be partisan. Everybody has to keep each other honest. That means you're role in the system is to make sure I don't give away the farm in my quest for the middle. It's up to me to ensure the left and right don't drift too far out. Checks and balances, from the individual to the Federal level. It's all good.
Posted by: NTodd | Feb 24, 2005 10:34:31 AM
Very good article and very good points in this discussion.
I have been aware of the debate and discussion about family planning all my life; my parents have been involved with Planned Parenthood for over forty years. I also think that as a gay man, I am the very last person to tell a woman what to do with her body - and I wouldn't even try - but my orientation isn't the point. My gender is, though. This has been a male-dominated issue when it has no right to be. It is the woman's body, it is her life, and the assumption that she is incapable of making the choice is beyond chauvinism. Yes, the father ideally has to participate in the choice, but the ultimate decision must be hers. Otherwise you've turned the woman into a human copier.
Not to be too quippy about this (who, me?), I usually have a short and quick answer to the "right-to-lifers" when they go off on the "every sperm is sacred" riff. That is to ask them if a fetus can get a passport.
"Huh?" is the usual response.
The Constitution is pretty clear that our rights are obtained when we are born. You get to vote when you're eighteen years of age, and that's counted from your birthday, not the day you were conceived. Therefore, you can't obtain a passport for a child that hasn't been born yet because they're not a citizen. Medical science may determine that there is a specific point of viability so that we can pin down when a fetus can survive outside the womb and therefore obtain the rights of citizenship, but, unlike birth, it's not a real specific point in the process of pregnancy. Birth, on the other hand, is well-documented. So unless there's some plan to re-write the definition of citizenship in the Constitution, a fetus is, until it can live on its own, a part of the woman's body and she should have the final say as to what should happen to it.
Posted by: Mustang Bobby | Feb 24, 2005 10:46:12 AM
NTodd, thanks for your response. I suspect we have more in common, if we just look for it... outside this issue, maybe? :)
I just read S.20, and I'm really glad it's short, because no summary is provided. The bill is a pro-choice (or, more accurately, pro-contraception) wish list. As introduced, it's a good bill. Who on "our" side would not support it.
Yet that question is more than rhetorical: the Senate sponsors are, as far as I can tell, 21 Democrats and 1 Independent... no Republicans, unless I missed one. So about half of my fellow partisans in the Senate chose not to line up behind this bill. This bill "ain't goin' nowhere." (Cue the Chopin funeral march. Dum, dum, da-dum, dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum...)
Posted by: Steve Bates | Feb 24, 2005 11:10:54 AM
That means you're role in the system is to make sure I don't give away the farm in my quest for the middle. It's up to me to ensure the left and right don't drift too far out.
Todd - I don't find this helpful. Do you agree with Howard Dean, for example, that the spectrum has shifted massively towards what used to be the extreme right wing these days? If so, if the boundaries keep shifting, then isn't what is now seen as 'the middle' is quite far to the right of what used to be 'the center.' ? Moving to the center necessarily means moving toward the right these days (if one tends to believe in things like human rights, civil rights, and the Bill of Rights), and I just don't see what good that's going to do.
I mean, modern-day Republicans have just about managed to make me become a Democrat (although not quite), after many, many years sitting comfortably as an independent.
Given that extremist rightwingers have power, and extremist leftwingers have virtually no voice (not even a voice, much less any actual power) in any serious public debate at all, I think it is rhetorically disingenuous for you to suggest that you have an equal burden in making sure the left and the right don't "drift too far out." Instead, I think the burden is to rein in the extremist wingnuts who are actually implementing their radical ideas (and not just talking about them.)
Posted by: Medley | Feb 25, 2005 8:27:07 AM
Medley - I guess I didn't express myself very well. I certainly believe that the country and the GOP in particular have lurched rightward. It means my job at the moment is to watch the Republicans more than the Dems at the moment.
For the most part, I've been pretty pissed with the Dems because they haven't been extreme enough! That's what an oppo party is for, so I'm glad Dean is in charge of things.
All that said, I refuse to ignore genuine opportunities to find common ground.
Posted by: NTodd | Feb 25, 2005 9:00:29 AM
That's fine, although I'm curious what makes you think there are opportunities with this particular issue. My sense is that Planned Parenthood, for example, has been advancing this kind of perspective for years, without success.
Posted by: Medley | Feb 25, 2005 10:13:26 AM
Planned Parenthood is, first and foremost, a healthcare provider, not a political organization. It has become politicized by necessity, not as a reflection of its long-ago charter. Medley, I agree with large parts of your argument; I'll only add this: if you think the right wing has gone too far, and that Planned Parenthood has been ineffective in fighting back, I'm sure Planned Parenthood would welcome your volunteer services and financial help.
<recruiting_pitch> Oh, and Medley... you would be most welcome in the Democratic Party. G.W. Bush has persuaded a lot of people, former independents, political centrists and true conservatives, to join our ranks. I know quite a few such people in my city. C'mon over; we could use someone who is bright and effective... especially effective; that's the part we seem to lack these days. </recruiting_pitch>
Posted by: Steve Bates | Feb 25, 2005 10:42:19 AM
Oh I have so much to say, but I have to go to lunch with a prosecutor first. Oh horrors.
Posted by: Rugo | Feb 25, 2005 12:55:37 PM
Sorry, Steve - I wasn't trying to criticize PP (I'm a member and donate) so much as point out that this approach of attempting reasonableness and rationality about shared goals (fewer abortions, better healthcare, etc.) just won't work. And it's not the fault of those who seek real policy solutions that too many are driven by an ideology that has no interest in actual solutions, preferring simple demagoguery.
Perhaps I'm too cynical, though.
As for the party business - I'm with NTodd in having a distaste for "parties" per se, but it's probably really a moot point as these days I vote for and give money to Democrats... My state doesn't require registration to vote in primaries so I can maintain my 'independent' status in at least name. ;-)
Posted by: Medley | Feb 25, 2005 1:48:53 PM
but I have to go to lunch with a prosecutor first. Oh horrors. - Rugo
Hmm...
(Rugo, solo)
I am facing horrors greater than the very very worst,
For I must attend a luncheon with a prosecutor first.
(Savoy chorus)
She is facing horrors greater than the very very worst,
For she must attend a luncheon,
Yes, a necessary luncheon,
An inevitable luncheon
With a prosecutor first.
(... as old W. Schwenk Gilbert does one more turn in his grave...)
Posted by: Steve Bates | Feb 25, 2005 1:53:07 PM
Cute Steve
Lunch was wonderful, thank you for composing.
As for the the A word and birth control, this can be such a loaded topic, and of course there should be room if not for compromise at least for understanding.
For example, why is it so hard to understand that some Catholics don't believe in artifical means of birth control? Should we allow them to legislate that belief absolutely not, but should we support and understand that for them every child is a wanted child, and that when they took their vows they promised to be open to children, and that for some Catholics this is as important to them as being faithful is to others. As someone who knows and is related to some of these Catholics, the belief that they have is not wrong persay, it only becomes that way when they attempt to legislate it for others.
As for abortion, it is the decision of an individual woman and her doctor based upon the the condition of and the circumstances surrounding her pregnancy. I have had 3 late 2nd trimester miscarriages, one was late enough in my pregnancy to require what is known as an D and X, or the procedure that is outlawed now in many states as a partial birth abortion. Even 10 years ago, it was difficult to find a doctor who would perform a DnX, most hospitals won't do them unless you are bleeding out. Finally one was found and it was an odessey of back elevators and underground parking, while having a caring staff. What is so sad is that while my pregnancy had already ended in a miscarriage it turns out that the fetus would not have survived being born anyway. His brainstem was the only part of his brain to develope. I was saved from having to make a choice by a miscarriage. One week later and I would have had my sonogram and have found out about the birth defects. This is what making abortion difficult does though, a woman with a late 2nd term miscarriage will have an even more difficult time finding a doctor willing to help her, because the procedure is illegal and women with severely deformed fetuses like mine were, are robbed of choice. I promise you that at that far along for most women they have come to love that child and they grieve no matter the outcome of the pregnancy, no matter the choice.
Posted by: Rugo | Feb 25, 2005 4:27:52 PM
Rugo - thanks so much for sharing your story. It seems the personal stuff gets lost in all the vitriol around this issue. I guess that's not surprising: it's always easier to demonize the other side rather than seeing them as real people.
Posted by: NTodd | Feb 25, 2005 6:12:49 PM
It is such a difficult issue, and for me it has become very personal because I know that women with fatally flawed fetuses are being denied a choice. It is also disturbing to know of women who are now required to deliver dead infants, and have death certificates issued, because they can't have a medical procedure. I can understand and respect other's points of views and beliefs, and have even tried walking a mile or two in their shoes at times, what I have trouble with is when the legislating of those beliefs prevent medical care and cause a woman who is already grief stricken even more grief.
Who knew you would have such a big proponent of partial birth abortion on your blog?
And my sister is one of those no birth control Catholics...so we just don't talk much about much anymore.
Posted by: Rugo | Feb 25, 2005 7:04:44 PM
Rugo - alas, the Right has controlled the discourse and framing almost since we won with Roe v. Wade, and "partial birth abortion" is a perfect example. I'm glad there's an advocate for what the procedure is really for on this here blog.
Posted by: NTodd | Feb 25, 2005 8:29:14 PM
Buy me stuff off my 
