You Mean It's Not A Polyp?
Irradiated by LabRat
Apparently continuing in the vein of third rails, let’s talk about abortion!
No, not the moral debate, and not so much the biology either, which I am not ready to do now if ever. Specifically the issue of the odd practice of legislating making women look at sonograms of the fetus before allowing her to abort, up to the point of playing the fetal heartbeat. The ostensible point of this is pretty fucking condescending on its face, which is making REALLY REALLY sure the woman knows it’s a developing fetus she’ll be aborting and not, I don’t know, a chest-burster. I generally see the theoretical point of this, as paternalistic and ham-handed as it is; it’s a serious issue and you want to make sure people are taking it seriously. I don’t even faintly agree with it, but I can see the point.
Turns out it doesn’t even have a point, going along with my original gut reaction. In terms of actual data collected rather than emotional testimony, seeing a sonogram doesn’t change anyone’s mind.
No shit. What really gets me seeing red about this family of laws is the way it assumes women are impulsive and emotional children that either can’t face what they’re really doing, don’t understand that’s a fetus that could become a PERSON someday, or otherwise just need to see it to believe it. I may think the world is full of idiots and assholes, women included, but no matter how you slice it that’s an autonomous organism taking root inside your own body, and more than that we’re all profoundly steeped in the abortion debate unless we’re deaf, dumb, and blind. Nobody decides to run by the local chop shop for a quick cup of abortion, unless something better’s on TV or someone reminds them that babies are cute. Even for someone that really did regard the fetus as a parasite rather than a potential person, it’s not a decision to be taken lightly- having a doctor rummaging around in your vagina is pretty awful just for a pap smear, let alone slicing out a substantial chunk of uterine lining. It’s frightening, it’s painful, and that’s even if you have somehow managed to entirely remove all moral and emotional qualms.
So let’s add a dose of mandatory humiliation and condescension onto there, in case she JUST DIDN’T THINK ABOUT IT. (As one doctor who specializes in cases of pregnancies in which the fetus dies in the womb or has some catastrophic mutation points out, not all abortions are elective and not all sonograms are cute, either.) Only a legislator could not only come up with this crap, but continue to defend it.
I have enough respect and sympathy for the pro-life position that I can agree with the idea of wanting to reduce abortions. But if you’re going to try and make a law to reduce abortions, don’t do it by treating women like idiot children, and don’t arbitrarily punish and harass adults for doing something that remains, in fact, legal.
February 17th, 2011 at 6:50 pm
Ah heck, I’ve gotten reamed for my position on open carry, why not add to the list of people wanting to take me behind the woodshed…
I’m morally and intellectually pro-life. (Notice the lack of leading caps.) I believe that choosing to carry to term is an admirable thing, and being mature enough to put the child up for adoption if you’re not able to be a good parent is commendable. I’ve also held a friend’s hand and given her a shoulder to cry on after she had an abortion, with no judgment on my part. I’ve even recommended abortion to someone due to their position in life.
That tells you where I stand morally. HOWEVER, I believe that abortion is a decision which one must square with their own moral, religious, ethical, and logical tenets. In other words, just because I think abortion may be wrong, the only argument I can make for it being wrong is from my own moral and religious beliefs. Since we do not all have the same religions or morals, ultimately it becomes a matter of science as to when a fetus is sustainable outside the womb, and is therefore too late to abort.
It is a legal activity. Agree or not, it’s not my decision whether someone else chooses to have an abortion, and not any of my business either.
February 17th, 2011 at 7:31 pm
I think a lot of people assume others disagree because they just don’t know enough to realize they’re wrong. How often in the gun rights community do you see people assuming that a strongly anti-gun person will change his stripes after a range trip? (Of course, there _are_ debates with a higher-than-average correlation between knowledge and a particular side, and guns may be one of those, but still, I think the point’s valid).
Of course, a lot of people are just dicks who really couldn’t care less whether a given policy works, so long as it lets them symbolically tell an opponent what hoop to jump through.
February 17th, 2011 at 9:49 pm
I think the anti-gun one might be at least slightly grounded in reality, at least working from a slightly “weaker” example: junior cadets coming in, thoroughly frightened of/anxious about firing even air rifles, and, through experience, becoming entirely comfortable with the things.
Exposure to gun owners should have the same effect on those concerned about firearms ownership: if nothing else, it’ll convince them that, say, John of Argghhh! is nothing like the occasional crazed, news-making outlier, and that the latter group worries the common-or-garden gun owner as much as they do the anti-gun sort.
As far as abortion, the US seems to have too many Christian (let alone all the others) viewpoints for moral, emotional, or religious approaches to any issue to be anything but a nasty, confused mess of raw nerves.
Inflicting additional, and in its manner offensive and condescending, stress on a hormonally and emotionally stressed woman is uncivil to an extreme, and seems at odds with the medico’s code of ethics.
February 17th, 2011 at 11:33 pm
Every year, we have about 4.25M live births in the US. We have about 1.5M abortions every year here. Do we REALLY want our population growth to skyrocket by 35%, and have those new births be unwanted?
February 18th, 2011 at 3:54 am
I’ll take the randian approach on this one.
No slavery, even on behalf of an innocent fetus. You either own your body or you do not.
Yes, abortion is snuffing out a human life. So is refusing to donate a kidney to someone with renal failure. Too bad for the kid and too bad for the kidney patient.
February 18th, 2011 at 6:56 am
i agree with Kristopher. the pro-choice/pro-life debate is silly. most of us who ARE pro-choice aren’t necessarily pro-abortion…we support the right to choose. we own our own bodies, and no one should have the right to tell me what i may or may not do to myself.
i feel the same way about seat belt and helmet laws for adults…and i’ve just made myself an incredibly unpopular person, i think. ah well.
February 18th, 2011 at 8:00 am
Off the rails with the very first response. It’s all downhill from here
On the main point, I agree with LabRat. The mandatory viewing laws are stupid. It reminds me of the time Kim DuToit said he doesn’t like SciFi, and everybody came out of the woodwork to “educate” him about the differences between good and bad SciFi. The thrust is a condescending “You’d change your mind and agree with me if only you knew better.” I can’t stand that approach, be it abortion, guns, entertainments, science, or religion (some overlap).
February 18th, 2011 at 8:31 am
As usual, “The Simpsons” figured this issue out long ago.
“Abortion for some… Miniature American flags for others!”
February 18th, 2011 at 11:33 am
Obviously anyone who doesn’t like scifi is an uncultured fool in desperate need of cultural re-education. I am partially tongue in cheek there, if only because there probably is at least one instance of any genre that will appeal to any particular human, while the rest is unappealing. Even though that is the case, the vast majority seem to like scifi or whatever BECAUSE it is scifi, with little correlation between whether it is good or not, and try to push the entire genre no matter the preferences of their victim, ie. whether or not it interacts well with their current life situations. That is really the key issue at hand, I think.
That metaphor could probably be expressed more clearly along the lines of “Just because they might like Firefly if they see it does not mean they would ever be interested in becoming a Trekkie. Some folks are just different.”
February 18th, 2011 at 12:15 pm
The number one factor in reducing abortions is cheap, widely available, confidential access to birth control. Helping people avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place is WAY more effective than any ghoulish “but look, it has little fingers!” game.
Unfortunately, to do that we’d have to give our tacit approval to non-reproductive sex, and apparently that’s still a touchy thing in politics despite the fact that 80% of the voters are doing it and most of the rest wish they were.
February 18th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
As a person, I consider abortion to be an immoral action-you are killing someone for your convenience. As a biologist, I realize that 50 of conceptuses miscarry. I think that position that minimizes harm leaves abortion safe, legal and rare. There are a couple of interesting questions involved that I never have been able to resolve, and they are: 1. When do you get the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? and 2. could we be consistent across the board?
For the first point, we are not Ancient Romans, where the paterfamilias could accept or reject a child, and the kid had no rights until then. When is an action abortion and when is it murder?-That might be nice to figure out. It makes a difference in my work, what kind of paperwork I fill out. A consensus as a society would be useful.
For the second point, it really narks me when people refer to a fetus as “a parasite”. Just try congratulating someone who had a miscarriage on getting rid of their parasite. I’d like to watch. The penalties for killing a pregnant women are worse than those for killing a non-pregnant woman. Babies in utero are either valuable additions to the family or inconveniences depending on the whims/wants/desires of the mother.
It bothers me that something of human origin can have a status that is so nebulous.
@Kristopher. I see where you are coming from. I submit that your approach may be too simplistic. To fail to donate a kidney is an act of omission. To perform an abortion is an active act. I don’t say I have the answers.
February 18th, 2011 at 12:30 pm
@Holly
Certainly, the best way to reduce abortions is to never have the need for the one in the first place. I agree.
February 18th, 2011 at 1:09 pm
William- to be totally clear, I only included the parasite reference because there are indeed people that think that way, and horrifyingly I have met them. But when a growing fetus is capable of doing things like sapping a mother into gestational diabetes or eclampsia, I can also see how seeing it as less than innocuous is a not entirely incomprehesible point of view.
Your thoughts and feelings more or less align with mine: the point that makes it all so maddening is just how incredibly inconsistent it all is. What troubles me even more is that if I pick consciousness/brain development as my line to try and work around, things get worse, not better; an eight week old puppy is much closer to a cognitive status I’d define as “conscious” than a six month old infant is… and euthanizing animals for convenience is something we don’t like but broadly accept as necessary.
February 18th, 2011 at 3:00 pm
William: What is the difference between perfect contraception and abortion? Is Plan B abortion or contraception?
Those sperms and eggs are all potentially viable human beings.
All these are gray areas. I can only find one bright line here. If someone tries to enslave me or others, and I will be seriously tempted to shoot that someone.
February 18th, 2011 at 3:21 pm
Kristopher-zygotes are not people. There seems to be a qualitiative difference between the apoptosis of the uterine lining which happens monthly under endocrine control, and deliberately using a curette to scrape out the lining.
Is your bright line in the sand you are willing to kill at any time up to term? The baby has no rights whatever until birth? If so, might perhaps a surgical sterilization procedure be the best way to proceed? Would it be different for a man (outpatient) than for a woman (abdominal surgery)
@Labrat- I wasn’t referring to you, particularly. I have heard others use that reasoning specifically. And I agree, pregnancy is not benign. I know people whom if they got pregnant, they would not carry to term and no kidding die. With modern prenatal care and attention, those are reduced, but pregnancy does take it’s toll on a body, no doubt about that.
I ask the questions not to be a gadfly, but because I AM interested. I also agree with Holly-access and making contraception use praiseworthy would be a major, major step forward.
February 18th, 2011 at 3:33 pm
One of those posts that I’ve shied away from doing partly out of remaining personal conflictedness and partly out of fear of the resultant comment war is putting up and breaking down proposed biological lines of “yes this is a person” now.
February 18th, 2011 at 6:36 pm
Eric, I can’t stand scifi, but I lurves me some classic SF. That you even write “scifi” shows that you are not qualified to have an opinion on this subject.
February 18th, 2011 at 6:38 pm
P.s. At this very moment I am rocking page 58 of “Galactic Patrol” by Doc Smith, copyright 1937.
February 18th, 2011 at 9:05 pm
I’ve known a couple of psychopathic Barbie dolls who used abortion as a way to circumvent mommy and daddy’s starry-eyed, idealist refusal to accept that their darling is boffing the entire lacrosse team.
You may as well show a woman like this a rerun of “Jersey Shore” as a sonogram of her fetus. She’s simply not capable of caring about anything beyond where the it party is tonight and what she’ll wear.
But - most women who endure the pain and psychological trauma of abortion - or giving babies up for adoption or single motherhood - are tortured by the decision they made for the rest of their lives. Why do we need to make this worse for them?
February 19th, 2011 at 9:04 am
William: I’m more inclined (when arguing this side of it) to treat it like an eviction than a murder.
If someone came into your house and chained themselves to your refrigerator and intended to survive by eating your food, you’d be within your rights to kick them out.
Even if you invited a guest into your house originally, (analogy: voluntary sexual intercourse) you have the right to tell them when it’s time to leave.
So, eviction. If what you remove from the mother can survive on its own (with normal care and feeding), it was a baby. If not, it’s not one yet.
—-
That said, I tend to fall on the “I dislike abortion and would like to minimize the need for them as much as possible” position on the chart, pretty much right next door to Holly. And I concur with her position that it severely undermines the “Pro-life” arguments when they insist on often being the same people who are so stringently opposed to sex education and easy access to contraception. It gives the appearance of wishing to punish women for their wickedness in engaging in sex by removing all of their options to avoid potential consequences of the act that men can’t possibly experience.
On the gripping hand, gays never (highly rarely, at any rate) need abortion services!
February 19th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
It gives the appearance of wishing to punish women for their wickedness in engaging in sex by removing all of their options to avoid potential consequences of the act that men can’t possibly experience.
That’s a shame too, because my understanding (of at least one arm) of the pro-life idea is that a fetus/child is *not* supposed to be a punishment, and that thinking of one like it is is in fact missing the point.
Yet in practice, circumstances make celebration not always easy to do, to put it mildly, and the vast majority of the women who seek out abortions are not of the Cheerleader Barbie Scared of Parental Wrath variety-although seriously, get Cheerleader Barbie some birth control, because despite being frivolous she has a right to access risk-aversion measures just as much as anyone else. Absolutely agreed with Holly and others, that any serious conversation on progressing toward less abortions must be centered on ready and equitable access to contraception. If we’re talking about fundamental rights, access to that has to be one of them. Although for the record, although this doesn’t make me feel good, I tend to ultimately take the “eviction” view expressed so eloquently above.
February 19th, 2011 at 8:46 pm
The bottom line, as has been pointed out already, is to avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place. Having cheap, easy access to birth control is the first step, and having people be educated in birth control and safe sex is the other second step.
I am a teacher; I have taught middle school kids for several years and I hate to break it to anyone, but there are kids as young as 12 and 13 having sex. With single-parent homes, or both parents working full-time to keep the rent paid and dinner on the table, supervision over the kids’ lives between the end of the school day and the time Mom and Dad get home from work is dwindling. Kids are curious. Kids think everyone else is doing it and they don’t want to be left out.
I can also guarantee, from observation, that shaming kids (“If you have sex I will know about it and I will kick you out!” etc.) never works and in some, only sends that “Oh, yeah? I’ll show you!” reflex into overdrive.
Where I’m going with this is that we need comprehensive sex ed programs in our schools-starting as young as 6th grade, when the hormones start rattling around and giving kids those funny feelings. Programs that teach kids about the very real risks and dangers of unprotected sex while also acknowledging that kids are going to be kids and giving them a safe and comfortable way to get birth control.
Also related to this is the recent House vote to bar Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funding. It can still be killed in the Senate, so start writing letters and making phone calls. Planned Parenthood is about education and health, and if they are allowed to continue their cause, there will be fewer abortions.
Great post, Atomic Nerds. I couldn’t agree more.
February 20th, 2011 at 12:36 pm
writelhd: That’s a shame too, because my understanding (of at least one arm) of the pro-life idea is that a fetus/child is *not* supposed to be a punishment, and that thinking of one like it is is in fact missing the point.
Even if one doesn’t consider the fetus/child itself to be a punishment, it’s not unreasonable to consider a 9 month sentence to increasing functional uselessness (Sorry if that offends anyone, but seriously, an 8 month pregnant woman simply isn’t as capable of many manual tasks as a non-pregnant woman is, and you should take the reproductive design of humans up with God, not me
) with a side order of potentially major medical issues and a non-zero increase in the possibility of death above and beyond simply being alive in the first place to be a ‘punishment’. And “Well, if you didn’t want to deal with the consequences, you shouldn’t have been having sex” doesn’t do much to counter that perception.
Certainly not saying you’re expressing that view (you seem to be on my side, but you provided the appropriate lede), or even that anyone here is, but, well, the Nerds and I live in a very Catholic state, so, it’s not at all uncommon to see people who are strongly opposed to both abortion and contraception. Or teenage mothers as young as 13, to echo Meg above, for that matter.
February 20th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
There are plenty of things that are both legally mandatory and are also humiliating. I’m also of the mind that if we’re okay with homicide being okay without needing to show necessity or mistake then perhaps we could do with a little bit more humiliation.
I’m also curious as to the longer-term effects of viewing a sonogram. Do women who nonetheless abort their current fetus change their sexual and birth control practices? Is there any difference in the rate at which they obtain abortions in the future?
Would there be a problem, or a change in numbers, if you had to go through, say, three separate visits before obtaining an abortion? If you had to hand-write a statement declaring your knowledge and intent? Be required to file for permission (on a three-day shall-issue basis) from the local circuit court? Be unable to obtain one if you have a history of mental illness?
February 20th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
I’m sitting here wondering if you deliberately rewrote anti-gun arguments and legislative goals or if it’s merely a coincidence.
February 21st, 2011 at 11:40 am
William: Others disagree with your definition of zygote /= life.
As for the uterus … in vitro fertilization works fine, and ranchers have used ectopic pregnancy in steers to avoid risking prime breeding stock.
Steers.
I wonder if any male in the anti-abortion movement is willing to volunteer HIS body to save a fertilized egg?
February 21st, 2011 at 12:51 pm
I’m with PhillipC. I think that it is wrong, but I fail to see how sticking guns in doctors and pregnant women’s faces and throwing them in jail will do anything to help the problem.
That being said, the Gosnell case has exposed some pretty ugly realities of abortion in America. We were told that we had to legalize abortion or women would be getting dangerous procedures in dirty, unsanitary conditions by untrained thugs. Well, that’s exactly what was happening in the Gosnell mill, because the pro-abortion absolutists (which isn’t all pro-abortion people) decided that any inspections were a barrier to “Womyns Rights”.
Add in that there is some pretty strong evidence that women were being forced to get abortions there by others, and the whole idea of “my body my choice” gets turned on its head.
February 21st, 2011 at 5:01 pm
While I definitely agree with you that abortion clinics need as much oversight as any other clinic, IMO the Gosnell case wasn’t so much the fault of extremist activists as it was an endemically corrupt city culture that wasn’t and probably still isn’t holding anyone accountable.
February 23rd, 2011 at 10:02 am
Thank you for the post. I hope you will take up the biology issue some day, as I am interested in your observations and conclusions.