A focus on reducing the number of abortions that goes beyond the futile fight to criminalize abortion.

Related.

Comments

[Spag]

If there is nothing wrong or bad about abortions, why should anyone care about reducing them?

[Roch101]

Who says there is nothing bad about abortions? You are attempting to set up a straw man. The question is, in a free country, do we allow women to have control over their reproductive decisions, or do we subjugate that to the will of the state? There are plenty of bad things, like smoking, obesity and drinking to excess that we allow adults to do because, uh, you know, we are a country of free people where people are allowed to make their own decisions about their bodies. We seek to lessen abortion because it is often a stressful if not traumatic experience for women AND because there is a large segment of the population that finds abortion morally repugnant. We address both of those concerns by either insisting that women's bodies become instruments of government directives or we give women their freedom and find other ways to reduce abortions.

[Ed Cone]

I missed the part where abortion was declared no big deal.

You've raised this red herring in the past. The fact remains that abortion is a serious medical procedure with, for many, including many who believe it should be legal, profound moral questions attached.

[Dave Dobson]

Unwanted pregnancies are unquestionably bad, and they lead to a choice between undesirable options. I'd rather have the women than the state make the choice, but I'd rather have the state actively engaged in preventing the situation in the first place, rather than promoting worthless religiously-steeped abstinence-only programs.

[Spag]

"We seek to lessen abortion because it is often a stressful if not traumatic experience for women AND because there is a large segment of the population that finds abortion morally repugnant."

We also seek to lessen child molestation because it is often a stressful and traumatic experience for victims. We do this by making it illegal to molest children.

We also seek to lessen drunk driving because it is often causes stressful and traumatic experiences for victims. We do this by making it illegal to drive drunk.

So let's cut past the phony "it's bad, just not THAT bad" or "let's pretend we think it's bad to get through this election cycle" b.s., and get to the point. If abortion is bad and undesirable, why not make it illegal just like we do so many other things that we consider bad, stressful or traumatic?

Assume the Court overturns Roe (which gets the "rights" argument out of the way"), are you prepared to allow the states to criminalize abortion in order to reduce the number of abortions? Surely that would be more effective in reducing the "bad" results than providing more government money.

I love how some of you skirt the issue with the dumbest logic. "It's a bad thing (we won't tell you WHY), but it's not bad ENOUGH to criminalize it."

Why is it "stressful and traumatic for women" if there is nothing involved but an infamous unviable tissue mass?

There is no straw man here, just a confrontation between stupid logic and an unwillingness to admit it.

Ed, your last comment answered nothing and contributed nothing. I'm not surprised. You always want to have it both ways.

[Ed Cone]

Society seeks to lessen the frequency of many things that we don't outlaw, including teenage pregnancy, obesity, tobacco use, tooth decay, etc.

Nobody here seems to take the physical, emotional, and moral dimensions of abortion lightly. To acknowledge those dimensions, though, does not lead inevitably to the belief that abortion should be made illegal.

The post is about reducing the number of abortions without coming to consensus on the desirability of keeping abortion legal. The impetus for this movement is the still-high incidence of abortion, and the seeming impossibility of reconciling all parties on the underlying question.

You've dismissed those who disagree with you on that underlying issue as stupid and duplicitous. Not sure what's left to say after that, except that it underscores the importance of the movement described in the post.

[Spag]

"Nobody here seems to take the physical, emotional, and moral dimensions of abortion lightly."

Nice non-answer Ed, because you fail to address the "why?" involved in all of those things you cite.

It seems to me that the "stress and trauma" cited by Roch is related to the unwanted pregnancy itself, not how it is resolved. Abortion would eliminate that stress and trauma, and therefore should be encouraged, right? Unless of course abortion itself is a bad thing, in which case society should have the ability to pass laws to prevent it like they do other bad things.

Your post is about reducing abortions which begs the question "why?" and also begs the question as to why reducing abortions by making them illegal is a bad idea. You fail to answer either.

[Ed Cone]

The case for minimizing the incidence of any surgical procedure is obvious. That alone seems a good argument for reducing the number of abortions. There may also be emotional and moral issues associated with terminating a potential life, even if one does not believe that a fertilized egg is equivalent to a human life.

I don't think we're going to agree on whether abortion should be legal. That's what makes the subject of the post interesting. It doesn't require people to relinquish or renounce their beliefs, or to agree with those with whom they have profound disagreement. It just tries to reduce the number of abortions.

You ignore the post in order to question the integrity and intellect of people who disagree with you. Noted. We're stupid and dishonest.

Now, about that post...

[Spag]

"There may also be emotional and moral issues associated with terminating a potential life, even if one does not believe that a fertilized egg is equivalent to a human life."

Ed, that is simply a foolish statement that cannot be reconciled with any reason. A dog isn't equivalent to human life either, yet we make cruelty to animals illegal because we believe it is immoral. Your line of reasoning would make the morality entirely subjective. If Susie has no problem with abortion, we shouldn't prevent her from having one. It's the people who do that we should be concerned about. By the same logic, it should only be illegal for people who have moral objections to animal cruelty to beat their dogs. For those who don't find it immoral or have no emotional qualms, beat away.

Back to your post. Do you really expect anyone to believe that a policy that provides financial care for expectant mothers who don't have any money is something new? Further, the author spits out complete lies when he pretends that conservatives have done nothing to help expectant mothers. Indeed, it is the pro-life Right that has been most responsible for persuading women to avoid abortions by providing assistance to them. Passing this off as some new, morally alternative way for Democrats to claim that they can help prevent abortions is pure sophistry.

Here's a hint for Democrats who want to regain some leverage on moral issues: First you have to admit that something is immoral. But doing so would cause you to favor a repeal of Roe v. Wade, because the Constitution does not protect immoral behavior.

I'm calling B.S. because that's what it is.

[Ed Cone]

You seem to be arguing that nobody who believes abortion should be legal can also believe that abortion may be a complex and fraught decision.

This is simply not so. I believe both things, for example, and I get the impression that others on this thread do as well, and I know many people who feel the same way.

The pastor in the article is a conservative Republican, for what that's worth.

The idea discussed in the post is reducing the number of abortions.

That's nowhere near as interesting or important as excoriating your perceived enemies, I realize, but maybe worth discussing.

[Spag]

Way to not address my points about how there is nothing new being proposed here that conservatives aren't already doing.

Way to not answer why you believe that "abortion may be a complex and fraught decision".

Don't accuse me of changing the subject, Ed, in an effort to deflect your own non-responsiveness. My comments have been directly on point and challenge some of the key premises of your post- premises that you have thus far been unable to defend in any logical manner. The fact that others may think as you do does not strengthen your argument. A lot of people thought the earth was flat, too.

Thus far, you seem to admit that "ending a potential life" is a bad thing. Okay, if that is the case, why not make it unlawful to end a potential life? I assume that "ending a potential life" is somewhat worse than speeding, and it is against the law to speed.

[j. neas]

I was having a discussion about this exact issue earlier today - it is increasingly frustrating that both sides of the abortion issue ignore common ground. Certainly, abortion is not the ideal outcome. Unwanted pregnancies are not desired in society or by anyone, but our constitution has been interpreted (rightly, I'd say) that it is up to the individual to decide how to handle it when it happens.

That right has to be protected, but reducing the number of abortions - through support for women who carry to term, comprehensive sex education that does more than simply stress abstinence (which eventually creates parents that teach their children the same thing), broader access to birth control for lower income people, etc. - is a priority for both.

I would argue that 'ending a potential life' is an unwanted situation, but not 'bad' or 'good.' The examples given so far dance around the fact that they don't really compare to abortion - not as long as our society deems fertilized eggs as unequal to a born/living human. Drunk driving mostly affects living humans. Speeding, the same. Child molestation, the same. You're treading (or potentially treading) on recognized rights. Fertilized eggs/fetuses up to the end of the second trimester, by and large, don't have those.

[Ed Cone]

Why might people who believe abortion should be legal regard the decision to have an abortion as complex and even fraught? Because it's a surgical procedure, because it means a woman is choosing not to continue a pregnancy and (probably) have a baby, because it changes the direction of her life, because she may mourn what might have been. Really not that hard to understand.

The point made by the pastor is that many people wish to reduce the number of abortions, for whatever reason, and that there may be ways to do so outside of the endless debate over legality.

[Beelzebubba]

The Constitution authorizes the federal government to deal with 3 crimes: piracy, counterfieting and treason..with good reason. The feds intervention into drug crimes has made it more profitable to be a distributor of "illegal" drugs and a participant in the prison/industrial complex. Its intervention into poverty prevention has increased poverty. Its war on terrorism has stepped up the number of attacks and is yet to define terrorism. If the government were to get into the fetus protection racket men would be having abortions in a few years. Do-gooders and party platforms prattling about abortion is ineffective. Work for less restrictive adoption laws, encourage private educational efforts to show women and families the alternatives. If government cannot protect its own citizens, how can it protect a fetus that the mother has taken out a hit contract on? As long as the government is a model for state sponsored murder, citizens who are looted, coerced and plundered by the temporary regimes are not going to outperfom them in the morality department. The palace prophets who rant against abortion but wave the righteous war and occupier banners are disconnected.

[Spag]

The "potential life" argument is pure b.s. because nobody wants to tell you when it transforms to "actual life". This whole argument is based on a phony morality which requires one to believe that something can be "a little bit alive". Kind of like pregnancy itself- you can't be a "little pregnant".

[Spag]

"Fertilized eggs/fetuses up to the end of the second trimester, by and large, don't have those. "

At what second of what minute of what hour of what day does the "fertilized egg/fetus" acquire these rights?

[Beelzebubba]

potential life and kenetic life conflict..what a field for politicians to be meddling in..unnatural selection makes this possible

[Roch101]

Sam, you are of the mind that anybody who does not agree that life begins at fertilization cannot have valid opinions or beliefs on this issue. That's your prerogative, but it's a dead end. Science does not give a clear answer. Theology does not give a clear answer (in fact, the Bible is all over the place on this one, from admonishing the spilling of one's seed to a child not being alive until it takes its first breath). Add to the mix a woman's right to privacy (something you ignore, and I'd ask how you incorporate that into your position, but I assume that you believe a woman gives up any rights to her own medical decisions when she becomes pregnant.)

What we have is a legitimate uncertainty, where neither "side" has a clear and unequivocal claim to right. The question then is, what do we as a society do in such a situation? Beat the other side up even as they try to minimize the source of your distress? By all means, continue to try to work a cultural change if you think America can be brought around to your point of view, but in the mean time (and the mean time is now 35 years), are you willing to work with those with whom you disagree on anything other than criminalization that would lessen abortions?

[Beelzebubba]

Criminalization of alcohol by the USG made victims of thousands caught in the crossfire, increased the number of addicits by a 1000%, made it profitable for professional criminals and corrupted law enforcement officials and judges. Please keep government out of the decison process when it comes to human lives.

[James Protzman]

If abortion is equivalent to premeditated murder, as the so-called pro-life crowd argues, shouldn't the death penalty be imposed as a matter of course? If not, why not? Murder is murder.

And for those who don't believe in the death penalty, shouldn't women who have abortions by sentenced instead to life in prison? That would put approximately one million women behind bars each year.

And in case you're thinking, "ah, that wouldn't happen if it were illegal," you'd be wrong. Recent research outside the US shows that the rate of women having abortions is similar in regimes where it is legal and where it is not legal.

So. Shall we kill all those murderous women, or at least imprison them for life?

[Roch101]

That's an excellent question, James. I'd like to hear Sam's answer.

[Beelzebubba]

If Congress needs a law to protect their pensions, you'll get a law. As it stands all they need provide is lip service to the lumpen. Killing women who kill children sounds preemptive enough, if you kill them before they can get knocked up... and the most critical factor..MEN should make these laws. Now ignore the plunder, looting and coercion for a while and save a few bastard fetuses from the hazmat containers.

[Anthony]

Sam,

"the Constitution does not protect immoral behavior"

Wrong - because there are different views on what is moral and immoral, the Constitution does protect what some people consider "immoral behavior". Someone may think that looking at porn is immoral. Yet you are allowed to look at porn. I may think that lying is immoral. Yet the Constitution protects your right to spout off all the lies you want. Someone may think it's immoral to work on a Sunday, or have sex before marriage, yet people are allowed to do so if they like. There are all sorts of "immoral" behaviors that are protected by the Constitution.

[Beelzebubba]

The Constitution was intended to protect citizens from immoral behavior by the federal government..not from behavior by states or individuals. Thats why several states had no qualms about money from state coffers going to the churches to aid members of the preferrred state church. If a citizen of one state opposed the actions of his legislature he could move to another state. Radical federalism has removed this option.

[Timbo]

Nobody takes Spag to school, nobody. Can we agree on one thing? He's never gonna say uncle. It's all black and white to him. We will never get him to change his mind because he thinks it is a moral and intellectual distinction to be absolutist. He believes there are objective moral truths AND that he has access to those truths. So let's all just move along here; there's nothing to see...

P.S. I read this elsewhere but I thought it was an interesting thought experiment. There is a terrible fire at a fertility clinic. Spag is there (that's my lil' addition) and would be able to rescue one thing before the whole place explodes. He runs into the inferno and he is faced with a choice, viz.: save a 43 year old doctor or save a nitrogen flask filled with hundreds of embryos. Who (or what) does Spag save? Please be complete in your answer showing all calculations.

[Roch101]

Let's add this to James' question: If life begins at fertilization and we are are going to confer the rights of law based on that notion, do users of birth control pills, which prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine wall, become murderers too?

[Timbo]

Oops, Roch, too late: White House Tries to Define Contraception As Abortion

[scharrison]

I think for a young girl facing the decision to keep or abort, we (as a society) often provide her with the resources and information we think she needs, as opposed to what she may really need.

Whether someone is preaching to her about the evils of abortion, or someone else is preaching to her about the evils of bringing a child into the world that she won't be able to care for properly, she's pretty much been given a "no win" scenario.

It shouldn't be like that.

[David Hoggard]

Timbo... It is likely that Spag would save neither and let the place burn while he tries to find out how the fire started and why.

[Ed Cone]

Duh, the Clintons started the fire. And even if they didn't, liberals have started fires in the past, why aren't we talking about that, huh?

You people pretend to be interested in reducing the number of abortions without getting mired in the endless argument about legality, but that's nowhere near as important as rehashing the endless argument in order to tell you that you are wrong (and stupid, and dishonest).

[Timbo]

Hmmmm... Spag is so uncharacteristically quiet. He's gotta have the last word. Mebbe he's just lulling us into a false sense of security. Mebbe he has a client. He does occasionally mention how well he does in his practice, so I guess he does have to go to court once in a while. Can't always be fighting the good fight against the libruls. I got it, he's treating himself to a pedicure and a back waxing! Just to be safe, could someone run by his office and make sure he hasn't spontaneously combusted or something? He hasn't posted since 8:32AM, and I'm getting worried. The idea of him reduced to two charred feet and a pile of greasy ashes...shake it off, Tim. They say he could smolder so slowly that it wouldn't even set of a smoke detector.

[Roch101]

As is probably apparent by now, I have no problem disagreeing with Sam on issues, even arguing with him on style, but I don't think it's necessary to mock his profession. In fact, Sam is donating his professional time and abilities to a lawsuit trying to pry public records from the hands of city lawyers. That's something that should be of interest to people regardless of politics and really makes the mockery seem small and ignorant of his professional efforts.

[Tony Wilkins]

In strong agreement with you Roch.

[Timbo]

No professional mockery there Roch, just wondering why he's so quiet. I know he doesn't give up, so there must be an answer to why he is away from this pressing debate for almost eight hours. Libruls unchallenged are free to wreak havoc. How could he let that happen? There's no mockery in supposing that if he isn't saying anything he's either dead or simply out of the office. Well there is a general snarky tone. Mocking his profession would be to tell a lawyer joke (a got a million of them: Two lawyers, one is Spag, are walking on the beach. A beautiful girl in a bikini jogs past them, and the first lawyer says "I'd really love to screw her." Spag gets a puzzled look and asks "Outa what?"), or to point out the inordinate amount of time he spends on Ed's blog tilting at windmills when he claims to be, and for all I know is, such a busy attorney. He might want to get a more fulfilling hobby than acting like a choad over here at Ed's place. And by choad, I mean King of Fallacious Argumentation, a pompous ass, and a smug prick. I hear needle-point can be relaxing. Notice how I rarely say anything except to respond to or to tweek him? Nobody gets under my skin the way he does. So if you can deal with his sarcasm, hubris, didacticism and open insults to almost anyone he disagrees with, especially Ed, then I think my sarcasm (admittedly a broader sarcasm than his) is well with in bounds. Besides, I hardly think Spag needs you or anyone else to hold his coat. He seems to rather enjoy the fray. But I do like it when you hold his feet to the fire, and I'll never fault you for liking (I assume you do) the 3-D world analog to the Spag of cyberspace. I am sure he is the salt of the earth, but he is a dick online. I'm not the only one who thinks so either. I just happen to have manners nearly as bad as Spag's.

[Spag]

Cut through the shit folks. This post was about how Democrats can gain some kind of high ground on abortion by doing what conservatives have been doing already. It starts from the position that there must be something wrong or bad about abortion. None of you want to explain what that is, so you come up with stupidity ("surgery costs money", "potential life") to avoid saying what really needs to be said 1) either it is a life at stake in which case you cannot in good conscience be pro choice anymore or 2) there really is nothing wrong with abortion so nobody should be concerned about reducing them, but let's pretend there is to try and gain some moral high ground after getting our ass beat on moral issues for three decades.

A lot of you say it's bad, but doesn't even rise the level of a speeding ticket. Must not be that bad. Assume for a moment that it isn't a "life" at stake, but there is still something immoral about it or simply a behavior that society wants to discourage. Why not criminalize it? It doesn't have to be murder. I doubt any of you trying to pretend you have a moral objection to it will even goes so far as to make it a Class 3 misdemeanor. It must not be that bad to you then, so spare me the phony posturing. Just come out and say "I don't believe there is anything wrong with abortion. In fact, it is a good thing because it liberates women from unwanted pregnancies and I disagree with anyone who believes it is immoral". That would at least be honest.

Anthony, you are simply wrong about porn. Even the Court said that it is governed by community standards of decency. We may disagree what those standards are, but there is no absolute right.

[Timbo]

HE LIVES!!!!!!

[Timbo]

Spag, you said a bad word.

[Ed Cone]

Terminating a pregnancy may be stressful and emotionally difficult. It's a surgical procedure. Why wouldn't people, even those who believe that it should remain legal, want to minimize its incidence?

[Dave Dobson]

Timbo, attack the argument, not the man, please.

Sam, the basis behind being pro-choice is that my position is necessarily less important than the woman whose body is involved. It's possible, and rationally consistent, to want to preserve an option for others that you would not choose for yourself.

Also, it's very Kantian of you to want things to be strictly good or bad. Like it or not, there is a big obvious difference for most folks between tiny lump of cells and baby with a cute hat on, and there's a corresponding difference in assignment of humanity and rights. Life's full of gray areas, and I think you know that. Roe vs. Wade picks a spot in the middle of that gray area, which is guaranteed to please nobody, but which honors the differences in opinion.

But the point is, whatever shade of gray you or I might pick, we're not going to get pregnant.

And the point of the post Ed linked to, which I don't really think is a Democrat vs. Republican thing at all, is that unless you're actually pro-abortion, which nearly nobody is, then the best way to reduce the numbers is to deal with the underlying causes rather than trying to turn desperate women into felons. That seems like common sense.

[Roch101]

I'll take it a step further. In addition to the reasons mentioned above, I'd like to see a reduction in abortions, preferably to zero, because of the uncertainty about when it may be morally wrong. Science and theology come up short in explaining where we should draw the line.

This ambiguity is not just among those who believe abortion should remain legal, it exists among those who would outlaw it. Just look at Sam's suggestions for punishment--that maybe abortions should be at least a misdemeanor. That is not the position of someone who is certain abortion is murder. One who truly thought such a thing, with no doubt, would insist that abortion be punished the same as other premeditated murders.

[Ed Cone]

It would be good for the country to lessen the intensity of a divisive political issue, too.

Unless one is more concerned about using the divisive issue than about abortion itself...

Hey, wait a minute.

[Spag]

"Terminating a pregnancy may be stressful and emotionally difficult"

That's the cost of "choice" then, isn't it Ed? I choose, you pay. It seems to me that such a position is well within the purview of the state to regulate. You also still refuse to elaborate on why it is stressful and emotionally difficult. It would seem to me that the unwanted pregnancy is what is stressful and emotionally difficult and therefore abortion should be viewed as a way to relieve that stress and emotional difficulty- unless of course there is something inherently wrong with the abortion itself that causes it to create its own stress and difficulty.

Ed also never addresses the contention that conservatives have been doing exactly what his original post advocates for decades. Instead, the post claims that conservatives have been a failure on abortion and its time for Democrats to take control of the issue by reducing abortion through other means. Unfortunately, those other means are what conservatives have been doing already. This makes the post completely illogical and bogus and it is this kind of reasoning that injects the politics into the issue, not anything I've written. The whole point was to advocate a method for DEMOCRATS (this is IN the post) to gain headway on this issue. It also begs the question that I have addressed that Ed refuses to substantively answer- why should we be "concerned" about abortion if there is nothing wrong with it?

So when Ed writes "unless one is more concerned about using the divisive issue rather than about abortion itself" he is really speaking about himself considering that he posts a blurb about using abortion politically and then when challenged as to the underlying premise, can't offer an explanation beyond "it's a surgery" or "it's emotional and stressful". A root canal is a surgery, too, Ed and is also stressful. Using Ed's logic, an abortion is no different than a root canal. Fine, say it. Don't put out this nebulous morality that you cannot elaborate on or refuse to be honest about.

Roch makes some sense in his position and at least makes an argument that one could conclude shows that he is actually thinking about the issue rather than adopting inconsistent slogans and/or pandering. Roch gave the best answer yet, the one Ed should have given- the idea that those who are pro-choice may actually be wrong about where the line is. This leaves room for some criminal sanction between a speeding ticket and murder to discourage the behavior lest we get that line wrong even if that isn't what Roch is advocating.

I have said many times before that if we disagree about when life begins, there is no point in having the discussion because it will always be a stalemate. This thread isn't really about that at all, but about whether life is the moral issue in question. Ed reduces it to surgery and stress, etc., none of which are moral issues.

[Beelzebubba]

If conservatives were genuinely sincere in their efforts to curb or stop abortion, there has been legislative recourse. Article III section 2 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to strip federal courts, including the Supreme Court, of jurisdiction over a very broad category of cases. 1857 Dred Scott and Reconstruction policies of the late 1860's come to mind. If the courts fail to abide by the Constitution, the Congress can employ this remedy and overturn the decision of Roe. Then it would revert to the states since no appeal to the federal courts could be heard. The so-called conservatives had their day with the simple majority by bowed to public opinion, evidently. Let there be no more prattle from conservatives on the abortion issue. This humorous thread of opinion disguised as an argument should be over now.

[Eric]

@Spag: " 1) either it is a life at stake in which case you cannot in good conscience be pro choice anymore or 2) there really is nothing wrong with abortion so nobody should be concerned about reducing them,"

Nonsense.

Unlike others in this thread, I'm perfectly willing to say that I believe there really is nothing wrong with abortion (at least insofar as I take Sam to be talking about "moral" wrong as opposed to other sorts of "wrong" or undesirability like expense or possible surgical complications, which he dismisses as not being plausible grounds for desiring a reduction in the frequency of abortions). It hardly follows from that proposition that I would not be interested in reducing the incidence of abortion.

There are countless things in the world that are not morally wrong, but that nonetheless it would be good to have less of. Bad pop music, telephone solicitors, ignorant blog comments, and reality TV shows, just to name a few that come immediately to mind. It would be good to have less of these things, not because they are morally wrong or even especially harmful, but because they are unpleasant, disruptive, annoying, wasteful, or otherwise undesirable in some way not rooted in morality.

Abortion is simply another example of this category. Even if, like me, you don't have any moral objection at all, there are plenty of other good reasons to believe it might be a good thing to have fewer of them. Others in this thread have already mentioned some of those reasons: cost, medical risk, and so on (though I hasten to note that, at least as far as cost and medical risk are concerned, abortion compares rather favorably to a full-term pregnancy and delivery). Sam pretends that these cannot possibly be serious reasons to want less of something; which is merely one of many reasons that Sam's arguments (such as they are) do not deserve to be taken seriously.

The real question is what is the alternative to abortion? If the alternative is forcing women to continue pregnancies and bear children against their will, than I most certainly do not think reducing the frequency of abortions would be a good thing at all. On the other hand, if the alternative is some safer, less expensive, less intrusive, or otherwise better means of accomplishing the same end result as abortion -- i.e. enabling women to avoid unwanted pregnancies and deliveries if they so choose -- then by all means let's have fewer abortions and more safe, effective, affordable, and available contraception.

[John Burns]

Child pornography is a "bad thing." We could eliminate child pornography by constant surveillance of the private and public activities of everyone, warrants be damned. We don't do that because, as a society, we have adjudged the Fourth Amendment and the right to personal privacy to be of greater value than whatever increase in convictions we would get by shoving it aside.

In other words, the autonomy of the person is an important value which we as a society choose to protect, even when doing so leads to consequences that most, if not all of us, would judge "bad" when considered outside of the context of protecting that autonomy.

One of the ways we do so is to allow a person to have autonomy over her own body, including everything growing within it, until whatever is growing within it reaches a point where it is suitably autonomous to deserve its own protection.

There is, of course, a sliding scale of when that autonomy is reached. In ancient Rome an Greece, that point was reached well into early childhood, and infanticide - real, honest-to-pete, leave them in the desert to die or throw them in a pit infanticide -- was common. The Catholic Church now argues that a single cell, which may or may not ever implant and grow, has such autonomy. There are valid philosophical, religious and moral principles supporting these extremes, and all the points in between.

Let's face it, we are arguing about what point is the proper point for the autonomy of the mother should be sacrificed, by law, to the autonomy of the fetus. Assuming that people who differ as to when that point is reached are murderers or nutjobs is not conducive to a rational and productive policy.

I've yet to meet anyone, on either end of this debate, who would approach an abortion with glee and excitement. It is a sad, sad thing. There are those, however, who celebrate society's recognition that women are autonomous and capable of making this decision themselves.

It therefore would seem important for us to reduce the necessity and occurrence of abortion by reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies through education and public health campaigns that bear some relation to reality, instead of a fantasy of chaste young women and gentlemanly young men who never think of having sex.

Furthermore, this rational policy would provide incentives through pre- and post-natal care, adoption, and assistance in early childhood (see, e.g., Sweden), to make the decision not to have an abortion easier for a woman to make.

But let's not kid ourselves - personal autonomy is, or at least used to be, a core value of our entire system, and to deny it to women in this most personal and traumatic of decisions, is an act of governmental oversight and ultimate authority that Sam and others who fancy themselves libertarian(ish) would decry in any other context.

[Spag]

"Even if, like me, you don't have any moral objection at all, there are plenty of other good reasons to believe it might be a good thing to have fewer of them."

Eric, that isn't how Ed's initial post is being couched. It is couched in terms of abortion as a moral issue, not simply something that is undesirable.

John makes sense even though he and I disagree on some key points. At least he knows how to formulate an argument instead of reducing the issue to some ridiculous pretense that all the fuss is over the inconvenience and stress of a surgical procedure.

From the post Ed cites:

“If we insist on keeping this an ideological war we’re literally not saving the babies we could save. The Democrats have a huge opportunity here to really steal the thunder from those who are seen as traditionally pro life.”

Clearly the issue is about the morality of reducing abortion to "save the babies" not preventing the inconvenience of surgery or stress, etc in the mother. But Ed wants the reader to ignore that and pretend that I am changing the subject and also pretend that I am the one injecting politics when the post itself is all about politics.

[Anthony]

Sam,

"you are simply wrong about porn. Even the Court said that it is governed by community standards of decency. We may disagree what those standards are, but there is no absolute right."

1) I never said there was an "absolute right" - only that there are some people who find the legally acceptable limit to be immoral, and to that extent, an immoral action is legally protected.

and

2) You (partially) addressed one example out of four. My point still stands that in many cases what some consider to be "immoral behavior" is indeed Constitutionally protected.

[John Burns]

Actually, Sam, if I recall correctly, the Supreme Court said indecency is protected. Obscenity is not. And again, there's that sliding scale. But there is, in fact, a protected right in the Constitution to indecent or profane speech.

[Ed Cone]

Reality check.

If people really want to reduce the number of abortions, the original post might be of interest.

The BeliefNet column cited at the link says, "Continuing with the same culture war paradigm is therefore morally dubious." It quotes anti-abortion pastor Joel Hunter: "If we insist on keeping this an ideological war we’re literally not saving the babies we could save."

[Ged Maheux]

For me, the answer to Sam's long, drawn out point is really quite easy to address. Is abortion morally a "bad" thing? Yes, and it's not just bad, I consider it to be "really bad".

Does that "badness" outweigh a woman's right to control her own body? No, not by a long shot.

We don't live in Orwell's version of 1984 (although we're coming closer to it every day) and so morally objectionable decisions do not override the freedom of the individual. At least in this case.