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Abortion Politics
ABORTION POLITICS....In the New York Times yesterday, Ross Douthat made the case that hardline views on abortion didn't have much to do with the Republican defeat in November. I think he's basically right about that. Abortion just wasn't a high profile issue this year.
However, then he goes a step further, arguing that conservatives aren't really so very hardline on abortion these days anyway. "Compromise, rather than absolutism," he says, "has been the watchword of anti-abortion efforts for some time now." Steve Benen replies:
The evidence of conservative willingness to "compromise" on abortion is surprisingly thin. In 2005, for example, pro-life and pro-choice Democrats crafted the Prevention First Act, which aimed to reduce the number of abortions by taking prevention seriously, through a combination of family-planning programs, access to contraception, and teen-pregnancy prevention programs. Dems sought Republican co-sponsors. Zero — literally, not one — from either chamber endorsed the measure.
What's more, this year, pro-life activists in South Dakota and Colorado forced strikingly inflexible anti-abortion measures onto their statewide ballots. Both lost, but it was a reminder of the movement's "absolutism" on the issue.
There is, of course, another side to this as well. As Ross himself points out in his piece, the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade means that "the pro-life movement is essentially trapped." He takes this to mean that pro-lifers can't offer any genuine compromises because Roe doesn't allow them, but there's more than a whiff of disingenuousness to this. After all, does anyone really believe that the pro-life movement wants to overturn Roe (and Casey) merely in order to open the door to European-style compromise on abortion law? Anyone care to sound out James Dobson on that notion?
The truth is more prosaic: pro-life activists have done exactly what you'd expect them to do. They've pushed for the most restrictive possible laws they can get away with, and in many states they've succeeded in making abortion de facto unavailable. If Roe were overturned, compromise would be the last thing on their minds.
Since a fertilized egg is morally a human being.
And since up to 1/4 pregnancies don't come to term because of miscarriage.
God is the greatest abortionist.
I await their campaign against God.
But you are failing to understand a point that was so eloquently paraphrased by Pres. Nixon:
When God does it, it's not illegal.
They sound to me more anti-abortion than pro-life. Can we not let them frame the debate in this way?
Why is it that no one ever seems to acknowledge the obvious fact that Roe v. Wade is already a compromise?. The pro-life crowd wants no abortions, pretty much under no circumstances, which is about as far from a compromise position as one can get. The pro-choice crowd, with perhaps a few exceptions, is not suggesting the opposite extreme, but merely accepting a reasonable position in the middle.
Thank you, Steve! Can we please stop letting the far-right-wingers frame the terms of the debate? There is nothing "pro-life" about these people; they reject barrier birth control (or any birth control) for developing countries, which increases the spread of the AIDS virus, they support capital punishment, they openly or tacitly support assassinations of doctors, they reject legal exceptions to protect the life or health of the mother. They are not "pro-life." They are anti-choice. Please, Kevin and other influential bloggers, stop using the term they gave themselves, which is completely inaccurate! You'd never refer to Bush as a "compassionate conservative," would you?
The reason we are hearing about compromise now is that their side lost the elections, so compromise is as good as they're going to do at the moment. If they still had the White House and both houses of Congress it would be all about uncompromising bans, both for abortion and any form of birth control they could manage.
But how about just being honest to what the Constitution says. Roe is a bad decision, which invents rights from whole cloth. That's the truth that liberals will not admit.
Douthat is supposed to be the thinking man's conservative.
But last time I heard him speak, he was going on about how CEO pay in the US was perfectly justified, and the resurrection of union power was sure to destroy the country.
Honestly, who gives a damn what he thinks about anything --- the man is either a moron or a liar.
"Roe is a bad decision, which invents rights from whole cloth. That's the truth that liberals will not admit."
Unlike, say, a Federal marriage statute? Or a Federal official language statute?
Or Federal overruling of states on medical marijuana and euthanasia and CO2 control?
When the GOP actually adheres to the spirit of the constitution, even when this harms its position (like the ACLU does all the time) I'll consider your points. Until then, STFU.
Also, not enough attention has been paid here or elsewhere to the egregiously crazy claim at the heart of Ross Douthat's argument: the claim that both Roe and Casey represent pro-choice "absolutism," and thus, that more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger he and his right-wing friends are forced to focus on judicial politics and trying to get some 'winger judges in there who don't believe in stare decisis and will overturn Roe.
Um... Did Ross ever READ Casey, or even a summary of the holding? Casey set up the "undue burden" test and then held that all of the restrictions at issue in the case, from parental notification to forced speeches by doctors to 24-hour waiting periods, were just fine, and NOT an undue burden, with the one exception of the truly evil provision that would ban abortion for married women unless they tell their husbands. Casey said to the right, go for it! Pass restrictive laws! The Constitution won't stand in your way! Roe was already a compromise, but Casey was a much more egregious compromise that basically gave away everything to the right, leaving only the hollow shell of a right to abortion left.
That Ross Douthat calls this pro-choice "absolutism" tells you all you need to know. This is like "liberals want to revive the fairness doctrine" talk. It's totally unhinged.
What this country needs is another category of behavior--terminating pregnancies--criminalized. Because the criminalizing of substance abuse has worked out so well. Just think, we can have that abortion black market back again, this time with the addition of a new product--RU486! Plus the internet for hooking up pregnant teenagers with providers! Nobody can imagine anything bad resulting from that.
How about being honest about what the constitution says:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
I realize that giving individuals rights isn't popular with the kind of dumbshits who imagine that the reporting of torture is worse than the act of torture, but Republicans are now clearly a minority in this country. Their input is of the same high quality as confessions garnered via torture.
What sort of compromise can we give, anyhow, at this point, without compromising access to medical treatment for those who really need it?
After all, does anyone really believe that the pro-life movement wants to overturn Roe (and Casey) merely in order to open the door to European-style compromise on abortion law?
Well, that's a little hard to answer, because there's no one identifiable entity called "the pro-life movement" capable of holding a unified opinion. I mean, this "movement" runs the gamut -- everything from people who think bombing clinics is doing the Lord's work work to people who, say, have progressive leanings but are squeamish about voting for progressives because of the abortion issue. So yes, I suspect Ross in largely correct: plenty of people in the "movement" -- if you want to use a liberal definition of who belongs to said movement -- would be overjoyed to live in a nation that eschews American-style pro abortion rights extremism (the fetus is fare game until the cord is cut) for, say, a sort of Euro-style, minimal compromise that in some cases protects the life of the fetus (restrictions on, say, second or third trimester abortions).
They've pushed for the most restrictive possible laws they can get away with, and in many states they've succeeded in making abortion de facto unavailable.
And that's because, as Douthat rightly points out, there's no constitutional path available to protect fetal life in only some cases. Under the constitution it basically can never be protected.
Women need to take responsibility for there own bodies. No one has the right to
terminate a child's life. How about Male rights! Say men can
kill any child they don't want
within 9 months of birth! Ludicrous isn't it. Abortion is
an abomination against god and
directly reflects on the apathy
and immaturity of the USA!
You certainly made me lauf. That's crazy with extra crunch thrown in there.
JFK "proved" you can be a good Catholic and a good American, so let the diversity crowd use euphemisms for religious groups, like "conservative" or "neoconservative." LOL.
I thought BIRTH CONTROL was the compromise?
People want to have sex.
Conservatives don't want them to have abortions.
Compromise: birth control
John Hansen:
Roe sits pretty squarely on Griswold. It extends Griswold rather than inventing a new concept of reproductive privacy rights. You can't take out that critical aspect of Roe without overturning Griswold.
Are you in favor of overturning the right of married couples to have access to birth control? You can't have it both ways.
Abortion may not have been a big issue this election, but I know a lot of women who went from liking Obama to hating McCain when McCain put "air quotes" around the phrase "health of the mother" in the last debate.
You can't take out that critical aspect of Roe without overturning Griswold.
Xeno: Of course you can. A court could simply rule that a right to privacy is indeed guaranteed by the constitution, but said privacy right doesn't extend all the way to the right to kill a fetus. Were the court ever to make such a decision, of course, it would hardly mean the end of abortion rights, because voters in many (most?) states would surely fire lawmakers inclined to support prohibition. Heck, even in 1972 most Americans lived in states with liberalized access to abortion, and since then public attitudes toward such issues have mostly grown more progressive.
Hey, "Pete", men need to take responsibility for their own bodies. Why do men insist on having sex with women whom they don't know well enough to predict their reaction to an unwanted pregnancy? Abortions would just go away if all men refused to have sex with women who weren't committed to carrying any pregnancy to term. Sure, you have to spend a year or two getting to know the woman, and learn her history, and meet her friends and family. A small price to pay to stop the abomination of abortion! And it doesn't require any new laws. All you have to do is start educating men about their responsibility to prevent abortions.
I can think of a few.
I can think of a few. Usually it is because of conquest. Troy, Persepolis, Chaco canyon, come to mind. Sometimes there is no going back.