the looming culture war

the upcoming confirmation hearings of judge alito are, in reality, the larger culture war played out on the political stage. if this man is confirmed, there stands more than a fair chance that historic and long standing rulings regarding discrimination, worker and work-place rights, and, of course, abortion, will be overturned.

with regard to the last item, for a long, long time, those of us on the left have been afraid to debate the subject of abortion rights with the venom and tenacity of those on the right. it makes sense. to them, an unborn fetus is the same as a living, breathing person. and, frankly, while scientifically, and most likely, philosophically false, i do understand the belief. to care for children is the most natural of human traits.

in defending their position of being against abortion, and in seeking to make the action illegal, most, if not all of these persons, vilify those who perform and seek abortions. in their eyes, the providers are akin to concentration camp workers, extracting joy from the taking of a life. the person seeking the abortion -- a harlot completely given to self-indulgence and wanton excess.

but, in painting their opposition in such stark, and grossly false terms, and in holding the belief that abortion is same thing to the murder of a 3 year old child, they keep their argument in the black and white, and end their internal discussion with the self-satisfying belief that abortion is evil. period. no more needs to be contemplated.

but to those on this side of the debate, i offer the following: very, very few of those who are for the right of a woman to choose whether or not to seek an abortion believe that abortion is a great thing. and those who receive abortions, 99.99999% of them, anyway, see both sides of the issue. their choice in the matter, whatever the result, is tinged with doubt, soul searching, and feelings of helplessness. what prompts these feelings? finances, logistics, future education, familial support. yet, you who draw your stark lines in the sand, who seek only to end abortion, fail to account for the full spectrum that abortion encompasses, and fail to offer any, let alone rational and reasonable, solutions as to what to do if your side succeeds in outlawing the practice.

apart from the horrors of incest, rape, and the terminal condition of the unborn child, which probably don't account for many abortions, I suspect that the most common reason for seeking an abortion is that the woman is not ready, mentally or financially, to support a child. moreover and as alluded to previously, she, more often than not, finds herself alone in this decision making process -- despite the obvious fact that the pregnancy was not achieved by individual means. 'then seek adoption' anti-abortionists say. and, to be fair, that is a reasonable option to consider. however, because pregnancy is, again, not the result of an individual act, neither outlawing abortion nor proffering adoption as the only solution is reasonable.

this is because, in both cases, only the female, in a legal, societal, and philosophical sense, is left to carry all of the burdens associated with pregnancy. i'll come back to adoption in a moment, but let me get to the heart of where i want to be: if the right to life's main argument is/was merely about preserving life, because life is precious, why does their plan for ending abortion not go beyond said act? for, to be certain, at least three lives are now involved: the baby, the mother, and the father of the child. to put it more directly, what i have never seen from any of these groups is the plan for how to handle mother, father, and child once abortions are rendered illegal. even the most puritanical of the religious right must understand that undesired pregnancies will still occur. And, until they can outlaw premarital sex (perhaps the ultimate taliban-ish goal of the christian right), it seems that we need to at least level the playing field and make all persons responsible for the pregnancy culpable. In addition, as we (our society) have restricted these persons' right to choose whether or not to remain pregnant, and we place value on human life, we must insure that the life in question is protected not just before birth, but after the pangs of labor as well. therefore, in addition to seeking an end to abortion, anti-abortionists should be morally compelled to simultaneously pass laws that, at a minimum, insure the following:

    1. any woman who becomes pregnant may seek as many paternity tests as necessary to determine the identity of the father.
    2. once the father is determined, he shall have his wages garnished through pregnancy and until the child is 18.
    3. since the state has mandated that abortion is illegal, adequate childcare and health care coverage shall be provided  by the state.
    3. no institution, corporate, academic or otherwise, may discriminate on the basis of pregnancy.
    
Anything less would reveal the anti-abortion movement is more than just about preserving life. if the movement removes the ability to obtain an abortion and places most/all responsibilities for raising the child on the shoulders of the female, then they have revealed themselves to be just as concerned with limiting the rights of women as they are with protecting the life of an unborn child.

Comments

[Aim]

Hey, if you ever consider running for an office, you'll have my vote. You.ve made more sense here that all the republicans currently in office smashed together.

[Anonymous]

The irony here is that you're criticizing an entire group of people, those who oppose abortion, for painting a black and white picture of the situation. But your very criticism does the same thing, it paints a black and white picture of those you oppose. It gave me a good laugh.

[rickyboy]

thanks for the comment, matthew. you can feel free to sign your name. don't be such an ass, though. if those opposed to abortion have as much nuance and confliction as you suggest, tell me...because i don't see it. it's hard to paint nuance when none exists.

[Fred Flinstone]

What's the fun in posting a real name?

You have to admit it is quite funny to criticize your opponents as painting a black and white picture, and then you turn around and paint this black and white picture of all of them.

The argument against abortion primarily hinges on the question as to whether or not the person not yet born has rights under the constitution. Scientifically we know that yes they are human -- and that really has never been in question. But personhood is not a scientific issue, and right/wrong is not a scientific question, rather, it's a philosophical or theological claim.

The issue is difficult, as you mentioned; there are financial, mental, and time concerns on the part of the mother. However, we don't generally think moms are allowed to terminate their kid's lives at 3. The argument that having kids is causing her mental or financial hardships doesn't fly at that point. So if we are consistent, we wouldn't use that argument before birth either. With our increased technology, the claim that the child is dependent upon the mother also doesn't fly quite as well anymore since kids can live at much earlier ages outside of the womb. With the USA being one of the wealthiest countries, as you described in your India journal, I find it hard to imagine that most people here are incapable of providing the basic necessities for a child. I think if we're being very honest we would all readily admit that the basic truth is people simply don't want to lose out on some of the financial comforts they're used to. The dad perhaps doesn't want to give up his subscription to NFL Sunday Ticket, the mom doesn't want to get a less expensive car, etc...

And to suggest that people need to pay for medical insurance is quite a bit over the top. Medical Insurance is a luxury, not a necessity. Again, kids in India surely do not have the level of medical care that we have here. But regardless of the logical fallacy in that part of your argument, I would gladly support better medical care for all people. I would suspect that many of those "Christian-right" folks already give 10% of their income to churches, charities, many of which try to help single moms. But doesn't the US already support adoption agencies? Don't we already support orphanages with tax money?

But ultimately the question comes down to whether or not that child has a constitutional right to life. At what point does that the child gain that right? At conception? At a certain trimester? At birth? At age 3?

And some point you either make up your own standard of right/wrong, or you "get" your standard from some god. If there is no god, then both sides are making up their standard of right/wrong. And ultimately in this case, it's really just a personal preference. So if Bob wants to kill his wife to save money for football and a bigger tv, then it may be disgusting to us, but there's no real sense of it being more "wrong" then Alice's notion that she shouldn't be killed.

But your wording is misleading, such as when you write "most, if not all of these persons, villify those who seek and perform abortions." By definite, anyone who supports a law against rape also "villify" rapists. That's what laws do. A law says an action is wrong.

I think your best bet is to firmly establish a standard of right/wrong. You should come up with something everyone can accept as being a legitimate basis for how we determine whether something is right or wrong. And then from there you would have a basis to say to the other side that their notion of right/wrong on this issue is incorrect because it violates some more fundamental law that we do agree upon. The vast majority of people do seem to agree that children should not be killed. We agree on the moral issue. We just disagree on whether or not an unborn child is a child. It's similar to the old argument against slavery. People accepted the fact that other people should not be tortured, but they just didn't accept the fact that blacks were people.

But the picture you painted was grossly incorrect about those who oppose abortion.

[rickyboy]

matthew,

thanks for your response. and i'll respond in kind, but probably not in my journal...as it is *my journal*. but there are a couple of things that i wish to point out now:

Speaking of irony, i find it somewhat ironic that, given your attempt to frame yourself as the person in this debate most concerned with the sanctity of life, in providing commentary to my journal, you chose to attack my stance on this issue, but offered no comments, much less a condolence or sympathy within or with regard to my previous post.

In that light, you seem to be much more of a political beast, and much less of a philosopher, than you'd care to admit.

finally, a note with regard to the origin of morality. your assertion has been and always will be, that morality comes from god. And you are being misleading when you use the genertic term, for there is no doubt in your mind that the one and only source of morality comes from the god of the christian bible.

this, despite the fact that you have yet to properly explain how said text overlooks and gets wrong its position on easy moral stances such as slavery. further, if your position is correct, you still haven't explained how the billions and billions of people who don't worship the christian god still manage to somehow act in a moral manner.

but, we've been down this road before, haven't we matthew?

[rickyboy]

some other ironies:

Ok, I can't help myself. Damn you, matthew, i need to work. i also find it ironical that you attempt to mock my, in your words, presentation of the conservative voice in this issue as being black and white, and then offer a moral creed that allows for absolutely zero nuance. your argument is this:

morals came from god (and we all know that you mean the christian god). if they didn't, then people would be free to rape their sisters and murder babies with no consequences.

and you don't find that laughable?

irony, indeed.

[Mr. Hume]

Ummm. Some interesting points amidst the vitriol.

I like Rickyboy's points that if we (US society) are going to outlaw abortion, then we ought to finish the task and require the father to cough up the money to pay for the kid. And the state should step in when this is not enough and pick up the slack so far as healthcare, etc., goes (like we do in education). (No, I don't take comfort in the fact that India has lots of kids who don't have any healthcare. Doesn't make me feel better in the least that kids in the US might not, or don't.)

But I'm puzzled about Fred's argument. At one point he says that the issue about abortion comes down to a consitutional right of the fetus having a right to life, but then he goes on to say that morality either comes from God or yourself.

Now, if abortion is an issue of consitional right of the fetus, I'm really curious to learn where in the constitution this right is located (especially from one that I assume is a strict constructionist and rails regularly at activist judges who read into the constitution their own ideas).

After all, the constitutional Framers didn't stipulate that individuals from all races of humanity were persons with rights in the US; as we all know, they allowed some to be chattle. That all individuals are persons with rights didn't get established constitionally until the 14th Amendment. Where does Fred Flintstone see the comparable addeddum that specifies that a fetus is a person with full rights? Or does Fred think that the Framers intended consitutional rights to attach to a fetus? What evidence is there for that assertion?

And if the issue about abortion is one of constitutional rights, what does that then have to do with morality - whether it comes from God or not? Consitutional matters are legal matters, not moral ones. As Fred himself acknowledges, just because something is legal doesn't make it moral. But by the same logic, just because something is immoral doesn't make it illegal.

In short, given the way Fred has framed the issue, what's morality got to do with it? Nothing that I can tell. And I can't see how he can get a constitutional right to life for a fetus from a strict reading of the constitution.

Makes we wonder why he didn't argue the ususal postion: there is no right to privacy in the constitution, hence a woman's right to abortion can't be based on it. But Fred will have to answer that.

[Fred Flinstone]

Are there not already laws compelling fathers to pay child support? My friends and family members who are single moms are getting paid by the father's of their children.

There are 2 different issues with abortion. The first is whether or not there it is legal to abort or whether or not some judges have gotten it wrong within the constitution. On the one side, as Mr Hume stated, the writers of the constitution seemed to leave open the door for who is considered a person. My stance might be that we take a scientific approach at defining a person instead of just leaving it vague so that we can discriminate against various groups of people at various times. Why not specify what a homosapien is and then leave it at that?

But then there is also the notion of whether or not the act of abortion is morally right or wrong. And this seems to be what Rick is concerned about in this journal entry. If morality has evolved and everyone makes up their own morality, then there is no objective way to actually measure whether or not some moral opinion is "more right" than another. It would be like saying, "Is it right to like the taste of green beans?" and then to go on to say, "Is it right to like the taste of green beans more than corn?" Clearly if morality is something evolved or made up by people, then there is no actual objective standard for measuring it. Thus, Rick's notion that abortion is morally acceptable, and the conservative right's attack on abortion clinics is wrong is just his personal opinion, just as his distaste for Taco Bell. But there is no real notion of saying that his personal opinion is "more right" than the conservative right's opinion.

But again Rick... your best approach I think is to find the underlying moral law that both sides DO agree upon, and then present how that moral law overrides the moral law that the conservative side is using. But it is very difficult to say, "I think red is the right color, and if you don't agree then you are wrong." And this is what you end up with unless you can establish a reason for morality being objectively real and not arbitrarily made up.

My apologies for commenting in your journal though. I'll refrain from now on :)

[rickyboy]

comments are fine. personal attacks are even fine. this is public domain after all, and if i didn't want criticism, all i have to do is shut off comments, or keep my journal in a notebook. however, when it comes time for serious discourse on the subject, then we need to move to a more suitable place. perhaps I'll make another thread for such a purpose.