hellz yeah!

Dave, I just left a comment over there which linked back to a previous feministing discussion about "why don't more women identify themselves as feminists?". In the other thread a few months back, I had specifically asked whether they thought the feminist label would be appropriate for someone like me, and they said it would. But the current thread is expressing a very different opinion.

I don't feel the same level of belonging to the label "feminist" as I do to the label "pro-life", so if the overwhelming consensus was that a feminist must be pro-choice, I wouldn't mind calling myself something else. But that would also mean that feminism had abandoned some of its most famous founding mothers.

i think many feminists get so wrapped up in fighting their platforms (and understandibly because there are so many womens issues that deserve a fight) that many forget a) the women who paved the way for feminism and b) the value of femininity. i am not one to make hard and fast distinctions about what is and is not feminine but i think it is pretty undeniable that carrying a baby is pretty unique to women. and while a woman's value should not be wrapped up in whether or not she is a mother, neither should mothers be robbed of the value of their experience. which sadly is what often occurs when people equate motherhood or the rights of a baby with compromising "women's rights"

as i once said to a blog-friend who is a stay at home mom, "really what is the value of femininity if we are told to deny it? motherhood, while not the only one, is a beautiful expression of femininity. after all, what good is the women's movement if it leaves us unable to choose to be mothers?

at the end of the day, the advances made for women should benefit all women, not just those who are trying to make it in a "man's world". so i say that unless a woman has the freedom to choose to be a homemaker just as much as to be a doctor than what have we accomplished? if feminism were so rigid as to deny that facet of femininity than it would be just as oppressive as male dominance.

i cherish for you the right to be a mother just as much as i cherish for myself the right to choose not to be."

Thanks for this post - I appreciate it... well stated. I have listened with interest to the debate about Robert's wife...

i think this story is really relevant to the last paragraph of my quoted comment:

U.S. Sets Own Course on Maternity Leave

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Business WriterTue Jul 26, 6:08 PM ET

In Santa Fe, N.M., Linda Strauss McIlroy, a first-time mother, is trying to get used to the thought of soon putting her two-month-old boy in day care so she can get back to work.

"It's hard for me to imagine leaving him," she says. "Just not being with him all day, leaving him with a virtual stranger. And then that's it till, you know, I retire. It's kind of crazy to think about it."

Across the border in Vancouver, British Columbia, Suzanne Dobson is back at work after 14 months of paid maternity leave.

"It was great," she says. "I was still making pretty good money for being at home."

Across the ocean, in Sweden, Magnus Larsson is looking forward to splitting 16 months of parental leave at 80 percent pay with his girlfriend. They are expecting their first baby in a week.

With little public debate, the United States has chosen a radically different approach to maternity leave than the rest of the developed world. The United States and Australia are the only industrialized countries that don't provide paid leave for new mothers nationally, though there are exceptions in some U.S. states.

Australian mothers have it better, however, with one year of job-protected leave. The U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act provides for 12 weeks of job-protected leave, but it only covers those who work for larger companies.

To put it another way, out of 168 nations in a Harvard University study last year, 163 had some form of paid maternity leave, leaving the United States in the company of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.

How did it end up this way?

"To me it's a puzzle. I can give you all the arguments that have been used, but that still doesn't really solve the puzzle," says Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, a professor of child development and education at Columbia University.

According to Brooks-Gunn, some countries, like France, expanded maternity leave after World War II to fight falling birthrates and encourage childbearing. That argument has been missing in the United States, where immigration has ensured population growth.

Jane Waldfogel, also a professor at Columbia, says another part of the puzzle is that the European and American feminist movements had differing goals.

In Europe, feminists emphasized special treatment for mothers, including maternity leave and child care.

"The American feminist movement didn't want to hear anything about mothers," Waldfogel says. "They wanted equal rights for women and didn't emphasize special treatment."

The U.S. feminist movement has moved away from this viewpoint, but that hasn't led to a change in maternity rules. One reason is that U.S. women are used to having about three months off and consider it the norm, Waldfogel says.

For many, of course, that norm feels alien. To Strauss McIlroy in Santa Fe, those three months certainly feel inadequate.

"I thought, being kind of a career woman, that I might be one of those who'd be kind of looking forward to going back, that I'd be all babied out," she says. "But I'm really very apprehensive about it."

In Canada, Dobson's feelings about her son, Gavin, and the country's maternity leave rules are a better fit.

"I don't think I would have been ready to hand him over to anyone at six months," Dobson says. "At 12 months, he's a little person, and he can kind of tell you what he wants and doesn't want."

There have been several attempts at introducing paid maternity leave in the United States. The Clinton administration wanted to allow states to use unemployment funds for maternity leaves, but that was shot down by the Bush administration after opposition from business groups concerned with increased contribution to state unemployment funds.

A bill introduced in the House by Reps. Pete Stark and George Miller, both D-Calif., would establish a fund that would replace 55 percent of pay for workers on FMLA leave. Contributions to the fund would come from employers.

"There are a couple of central problems when we look at paid leave legislation. The first is: who's paying for it?" asks Michael Eastman, director of labor policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

U.S. employers already pay $21 billion a year in direct costs related to the FMLA, Eastman says, in addition to indirect costs like additional overtime for those who fill in for workers on leave.

Waldfogel agrees that it's too much to ask employers to shoulder the cost of introducing paid maternity leave.

"As long as what we have in mind ... is asking employers to both hold the job open and pay the salary, we're going to get tremendous resistance from employers," she says.

California went a different route, and last year introduced family leave with around 50 percent pay for six weeks, paid from a fund that employees, not employers, pay into.

"Once they did that, there were no longer any objections from employers," Waldfogel says.

Five states — California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island — and Puerto Rico require employers to have temporary disability programs, which pay benefits if the pregnancy is defined as a disability by a doctor. A few others have infant care programs that pay subsidies to low-income families for up to two years.

In New York City, Kelsey Goss, a public-school teacher, is trying to build her tutoring business so she and her husband can stay afloat financially when she goes on unpaid maternity leave in October.

"When I tell people that as a teacher I get zero paid maternity leave, they're stunned," she says. "In a job like that, that's about taking care of kids, those are the benefits?"

How does she think her benefits compare with Europe?

"I don't even want to know," she says.

I'm curious if those of you who identify as pro-life feminists would be willing to punish women for terminating their pregnancies. And if so, what would be the approprite punishment?

Ms./Mr. Anonymous...if abortion was illegal, yes, I think that women would have to be punished for terminating their pregnancies.

As for the appropriate punishment? I can honestly say that I am not sure.

You know...I wrote that a little while ago, and now I am re-thinking this. This is a dilemna - I understand why women have abortions. There are hundreds of reasons. But at the same time I believe that the baby that they are carrying is a life that is worth keeping.

There is no easy answer to this. No...I do not want to see a woman put in prison for life because she had an abortion. But I also do not want abortion to be legal so that unborn babies can die.

I hope I'm not being obnoxious here but I would like to know how you feel about a scenario where a pregnant woman tried to encourage a miscarriage by jumping up and down or hitting her stomach? Would that be considered a crime? Or what if she were just deliberately careless - say, she rode roller coasters a lot or tripped and fell on her stomach or "accidentally" fell down some stairs? She could hurt herself in the process I suppose with that last one but desperate women have been known to be creative. I'm also wondering about the potential for all miscarriages to be considered suspect.

The appropriate punishment should be the same as infanticide. I'm not as "understanding" as Dave is. There are hundreds of reasons why I want to kill people too, but I don't do it because it's wrong and because the punishment is stiff.

No...you are not being obnoxious. Though I am not a big fan of the anonymity.

I understand what you are getting at. Like I said in my second comment, it is a difficult dilemna. If abortion was illegal, I do not think that any of the above circumstances would, or could, truly be prosecuted. I know that some in the country may try. I am not one of them.

I think you are completely accurate in saying that it could put all miscarriages under suspicion. And that would be a major concern.

Thanks, I was just curious. Sorry for anonymous. I'm sure it is probably annoying .. just rather not sign my name to this touchy subject. thx.

my opinion is a little bit different. i think that women who have undergone an abortion have been through severe trauma as it is and do not need to be branded as criminals. while it is a separate person that they are terminating, we must keep in mind that the "procedure" is not only performed on the child but on the mother as well. all operations can be painful and traumatic and post-abortive mothers need to be treated delicately, shipping them off to prison for murder isnt going to keep desperate women from taking what they see as their only option.

i think criminalizing abortion opens up a whole host of problems that our system isnt ready to handle. the easy answer for me would be to say that the doctors and clinics performing the abortions should be prosecuted but not the mothers, but that will only lead to more unsafe, back alley procedures and more mothers throwing themselves down the stairs.

i think the only feasible way to reduce abortion is by alleviating the circumstances that lead to it: make sure women have access to affordable birth control, health care (pre-conception as well as prenatal and post natal), paid maternity leave, support systems and child care centers, remove societal stigmas about umwed motherhood, and make sure fathers actually take responsibility for the babies they create, resources for women who are abused, raped, spousal raped, and forced to become pregnant, etc.

if the "pro-life" organizations put half as much money and effort into helping alleviate these conditions as they do to passing ineffective legislation, i would bet money that we would see abortion rates decline.

You are a feminist, pro-life and proud of it.

Good for you – However, I didn’t find anything in your message other than a lot of random assertions. No arguments—no new facts—nothing really to discuss.

You may be right that “abortion is not a pretty thing - it is traumatic. It is painful. And it is depressing. And it ends the life of a defenseless, unborn baby.”

Abortion does not kill babies. It kills embryos mostly – many of them about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. They have no brains, no hearts, no features that we can recognize as qualifying them for personhood.

Even if the human embryo is a baby – a real person with a right to life– the arguments for a woman’s right to abortion are still stronger than the arguments against abortion.

See the second half of David Boonin’s recent book “A Defense of Abortion” (Cambridge Univ. Press) where he shows that even if you accept the premise that the fetus is a person with a right to life it still doesn’t follow that abortion is morally wrong.

Please, fewer assertions and more careful evaluation of the arguments.

i think that women who have undergone an abortion have been through severe trauma as it is and do not need to be branded as criminals.

If I was to kill everyone who inconvenienced me, I would probably be traumatized too. That however does NOT excuse murder, nor should it gain me any sympathy.

shipping them off to prison for murder isnt going to keep desperate women from taking what they see as their only option.

Incarcerating murderers rarely affects the murder rate. But it punishes THOSE murderers and it prevents them from doing it again. "oh people are going to kill anyway so let's just legalize killing". That makes no sense.

i think criminalizing abortion opens up a whole host of problems that our system isnt ready to handle.

Worse than 40 MILLION slaughtered and mutilated innocent people?

but that will only lead to more unsafe, back alley procedures and more mothers throwing themselves down the stairs.

ok so if we legalize murder because people are going to do it anyway, then we should supply safe hygeinic "murder clinics" where I can drag my victims instead of just shooting them in the street. The whole argument of "people are going to do it anyway and unsafely too so we should just let them do it" arument is 100% fallacy.

if the "pro-life" organizations put half as much money and effort into helping alleviate these conditions as they do to passing ineffective legislation, i would bet money that we would see abortion rates decline.

I'm a bigger fan of personal responsibility and facing consequences for one's actions.

Abortion does not kill babies. It kills embryos mostly – many of them about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. They have no brains, no hearts, no features that we can recognize as qualifying them for personhood.

They meet every qualification of life. They have their own unique DNA, they respond to stimuli, convert matter into energy, etc. They are just as human and alive as you and i.

Robert T - it is interesting, because you are unhappy with use of assertions, and then go on to use many of your own:

Even if the human embryo is a baby – a real person with a right to life– the arguments for a woman’s right to abortion are still stronger than the arguments against abortion.

Says who? Is this not a complete opinion? Okay, so you believe that the arguments for abortion are stronger than the arguments against abortion. But you have provided no support for this, and have simply stated your opinion. Yes, you provided one book that agrees with you. But that hardly supports your assertion that your arguments are better than other arguments.

The crux of your argument is this: Abortion does not kill babies. It kills embryos mostly. And basically this comes down to when life begins. I have begun to believe (and many, many scientists agree) that life begins at conception. You may disagree with this, but you have provided little to back it up.

Myste...I agree with much of what you said. And I still struggle with whether or not abortion should be illegal. But I feel that if I am going to be consistently "pro-life", then I cannot be in favor of it being legal (at least in most cases).

Your point here is key:

i think the only feasible way to reduce abortion is by alleviating the circumstances that lead to it...

if the "pro-life" organizations put half as much money and effort into helping alleviate these conditions as they do to passing ineffective legislation, i would bet money that we would see abortion rates decline.

You are right. I think that it is MUCH better to support the alleviation of circumstances that lead to abortion. If you reduce the need for abortion, you reduce abortions.

I have another question that I would like to ask Roland.

If there's a burning building and there's both a child and an embryo (in a test tube or petrie dish) inside, and you could only save one, which one would you choose?

I must point out that Roland is not a feminist. In case there was any confusion! :)

why do you say roland is not a feminist? i'm really just curious. the definition of feminism is supporting the political and social equality of women - or something close to that. do you think roland doesn't support the equality of women? did he say he's not a feminist because he doesn't like all the baggage attached to the title? i find it hard to believe that roland wouldn't - by the dictionary definition - be a feminist. just wondering where this came from.

Because I have argued with Roland for over two years now. I know that he is not a feminist. I am not sure if he would call himself one (Roland - would you?), but he does not act like one.

I am more egalitarian than most in the evangelical community, but not as much as Dave.

"but he does not act like one."

explain, please. how does a feminist act?

roland - none of my business, i'm just curious. would you not support social and political equality for women? i dislike most extremist feminists myself and can understand the wariness to shy away from the title. but what they represent isn't feminism - they've simply hijacked the term.

Well...for one, he does not believe that women should be allowed to be in certain leadership roles in church.

But I am pretty sure that Roland can fight his own battles, and if he has a problem with me saying that he is not a feminist, I am waiting to hear that.

roland i understand where you are coming from and i am not saying that abortion should be legalized but that criminalizing it probably wont do anything for cutting down on the millions of babies that are aborted. and those who are consistently pro-life should care more about reducing the actual number of abortions and not just adding to the rhetoric

"I'm a bigger fan of personal responsibility and facing consequences for one's actions."

so you dont actually care about reducing the number of innocent children that are killed, only that those responsible face consequences? that doesnt sound very helpful in saving babies lives.

>>Abortion does not kill babies. It kills embryos mostly – many of them about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. They have no brains, no hearts, no features that we can recognize as qualifying them for personhood.

>They meet every qualification of life. They have their own unique DNA, they respond to stimuli, convert matter into energy, etc. They are just as human and alive as you and i.
Permalink 08/03/05 @ 22:18

An insect has its own DNA, responds to stimuli, converts matter into energy – they have no rights. Every living cell in every living body has these characteristics. No embryo has ever had even a single thought or desire. Human embryos may have rights including a right to life – but not because they have unique DNA, respond to stimuli or convert matter into energy.


Comment from: Dave [Member] · http://brendoman.com/hippydave
Robert T - it is interesting, because you are unhappy with use of assertions, and then go on to use many of your own:

>>Fair enough—but I did refer to the arguments in David Boonin’s book: “A Defense of Abortion” (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004).

Even if the human embryo is a baby – a real person with a right to life– the arguments for a woman’s right to abortion are still stronger than the arguments against abortion.

Says who? Is this not a complete opinion? Okay, so you believe that the arguments for abortion are stronger than the arguments against abortion. But you have provided no support for this, and have simply stated your opinion. Yes, you provided one book that agrees with you. But that hardly supports your assertion that your arguments are better than other arguments.

>> Not only do I believe it, I think that after fair reading of Boonin’s book you would too. After all, the authors of the two leading arguments against abortion have pretty much conceded the point. See the blurbs on the back of the book. Stephen Schwartz ( or is it Swartz) (The Morality of Abortion) has abandoned the defense of his book.

The crux of your argument is this: Abortion does not kill babies. It kills embryos mostly. And basically this comes down to when life begins. I have begun to believe (and many, many scientists agree) that life begins at conception. You may disagree with this, but you have provided little to back it up.
Permalink 08/03/05 @ 22:56

>>No it does not come down to when life begins. A ten year old child is a living being – but that child does not have the right to vote, drive, drink alcohol, serve in the U.S. military ……. The right to life may well depend on other characteristics other than just being alive or just being made of human cells.

But even if a human embryo has a right to life it does not immediately follow that the right to life is absolute. It may be the case that the woman’s right to control what happens to her own body trumps the right of the fetus to USE her body without her explicit permission.

My feminism:
I believe in equality between the sexes in the public sector. In the church however...well my hermaneutics are fundamental. There are certain passages regarding women in spiritual leadership that I just can't get around. But my church has a female children's pastor who gets paid the same as our male youth pastor.

So I'm more egalitarian in that I don't think women should be in long dresses with no makeup squeezing out a uni every nine months, but I also don't think they should be senior pastors. I like telling non-believers that no human being in the history of mankind did more for women than Jesus Christ.

criminalizing it probably wont do anything for cutting down on the millions of babies that are aborted.

And I'm saying it doesn't matter. Killing is wrong and people who do it need to be held accountable for that.

so you dont actually care about reducing the number of innocent children that are killed, only that those responsible face consequences? that doesnt sound very helpful in saving babies lives.

I believe that we are all free to make decisions. Up until the point in which someone breaks the law, what they do with their lives is none of our business. Their lives are their responsibility.

Not only do I believe it, I think that after fair reading of Boonin’s book you would too.

Thanks for the response. I will say that I will make an attempt to take a look at that book.

But even if a human embryo has a right to life it does not immediately follow that the right to life is absolute. It may be the case that the woman’s right to control what happens to her own body trumps the right of the fetus to USE her body without her explicit permission.

This is possible. I do not think that I agree with you, but it is a possibility. I will check out the book and think through it more.

Even if the human embryo is a baby – a real person with a right to life– the arguments for a woman’s right to abortion are still stronger than the arguments against abortion.

Nope. The right to exist trumps them all. Without this right, you have NO other rights. You have the right to your own body unless it interferes with another person. Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose. Your right to control your own body ends when you make the conscious decision to engage in an activity that might result in another human being being created in there. In which case, it is your primary responsibility to care for that defenseless innocent human being.

Abortion is the new slavery. Someday we will look back and shake our heads at how barbaric we once were to allow an entire class of human beings to be treated like animals.

Roland, you didn't answer my question.

"The right to exist trumps them all."

I don't think this is a right. Perhaps you should protest funerals?

"You have the right to your own body unless it interferes with another person."

You are assuming that we all agree on the definition of person.

"Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose. Your right to control your own body ends when you make the conscious decision to engage in an activity that might result in another human being being created in there. In which case, it is your primary responsibility to care for that defenseless innocent human being."

Hm, that doesn't follow.

Would you let me latch on to your body if not doing so meant I would die? Do I have the right to exist at your expense?

>> The right to exist trumps them all. Without this right, you have NO other rights. You have the right to your own body unless it interferes with another person. Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose. Your right to control your own body ends when you make the conscious decision to engage in an activity that might result in another human being being created in there. In which case, it is your primary responsibility to care for that defenseless innocent human being.


I. Suppose Jones requires a kidney transplant in order to survive. My kidney is the only one that matches well enough. Do you think Jones’ right to exist and to continue existing trump my right to control the use of both of my kidneys? I think not.

I suggest that your point about right to exist trumping other rights fails.

II. Your point that a woman’s voluntary participation in sexual intercourse constitutes consent to the fetus to use her body for nine months would be devastating to any defense of abortion if you could sustain this position.

But consider:

Suppose I had consented to donate one of my kidneys to Jones but upon learning how serious the procedure is, I decide against it. Do I have a right to go back on my previous explicit consent? I think believe I do – esp. given that my initial consent was based on ignorance of the seriousness of the procedure.

Your point about voluntary sex implying implicit consent to the fetus to use your body for nine months fails as well.

The problem here is with the concept of consent.

You say >> Your right to control your own body ends when you make the conscious decision to engage in an activity that might result in another human being being created in there.

You clearly are referring to the notion of consent – by voluntarily engaging in sex, aware of the possible consequences, I have consented to give the fetus the right to use my body in order to survive.

There appear to be three conditions sufficient for consent (1) voluntariness, (2) causality and (3) foreseeability. These are the conditions implied in your statement. But I want to suggest that there is more to implied consent than this.

Look I could go on with this, but I really doubt that you are interested in the various arguments. Let me know if you want to continue.

You're right, I'm not interested. I'm interested in the 40 million innocent people who were slaughtered and mutilated. Protecting the defenseless. And someday my side will be looked at alongside John Brown, Frederick Douglas, and Harriet Tubman.

>> Comment from: Dave [Member] · http://brendoman.com/hippydave
Thanks for the response. I will say that I will make an attempt to take a look at that book.

Excellent – There is a blurb on the back cover from Don Marquis (Phil prof U of Kansas--
Marquis is the author of the strongest arguments against abortion that I know of.)

Marquis writes: “David Boonin book is must reading for anyone seriously concerned with the abortion issue. Boonin discusses all the important perspective. His analyses are clear and insightful. Boonin’s book is the best available book on the ethics of abortion.”

Powerful words – especially from (in my opinion) the author of the strongest argument against abortion.

By the way it was published in 2003 not 2004. How time flies.

>>Comment from: Roland [Visitor]
You're right, I'm not interested. I'm interested in the 40 million innocent people who were slaughtered and mutilated. Protecting the defenseless. And someday my side will be looked at alongside John Brown, Frederick Douglas, and Harriet Tubman.
Permalink 08/04/05 @ 19:31

The reference to John Brown is especially interesting to me – I had two ancestors that were with Brown during at Harper’s ferry. One escaped the other was hanged with Brown.

I appreciate your honesty and I congratulate you for having DIRECT access to TRUTH. The rest of us will labor in our own fallible human ways and attempt, the best we can, to discover the truth through good old fashioned work. The group of people who --in my experience, have the desire to work on their own beliefs – to examine them, to examine the criticism of their beliefs and to try to improve on their beliefs -- is small. You are honest enough to admit that you are not in that small group.

I am as interested as you are in protecting the lives of defenseless and innocent people. Our disagreement centers on whether the human embryo is a person with the right to life and the nature of that right is it has it.

I'm sorry, upon considering the meaning of 'ancestor' let me revise that to say two 1st cousins several times removed. They were offspring of an ancestor.

I appreciate your honesty and I congratulate you for having DIRECT access to TRUTH. The rest of us will labor in our own fallible human ways and attempt, the best we can, to discover the truth through good old fashioned work. The group of people who --in my experience, have the desire to work on their own beliefs – to examine them, to examine the criticism of their beliefs and to try to improve on their beliefs -- is small. You are honest enough to admit that you are not in that small group.

Don't patronize me. I'm on a journey just like everyone else. But there ARE absolutes one of them is that slaughtering defenseless people is an absolute wrong. There is no spin you can put on it that will ever make it acceptable..just like slavery.

'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
Matthew 25:45

>>But there ARE absolutes one of them is that slaughtering defenseless people is an absolute wrong.

Please tell me how many absolutes there are and state each one as clearly as you can.

Again, maybe it is an absolute that killing defenseless people is wrong--it does not follow from this (without additional premises) that abortion is wrong.

What good does such an absolute do us in deciding issues of morality?

Do we know with certainty that it was morally wrong to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Killing innocent defenseles people is a foreseeable result of war -- does it follow that war is always morally wrong?

Calling a principle an absolute does nothing to further our understanding of a moral issue.

I hope you can enlighten me.

it does not follow from this (without additional premises) that abortion is wrong.

My response to this is a blank stare. I don't know what to say to anyone who doesn't think that slaughtering and mutilating an innocent baby is wrong. Especially without invoking Godwin.

Roland - I think it's not clear that abortion is the slaughter and mutilation of a baby. Infants are independent, sentient human beings. Embryos and developing fetuses are not.

I also really wish you had addressed some of my questions. I'd like to know if you really think an embryo is the same thing as say, a 5-year-old child. I'd also like to know if I have the right to exist at your expense.

I hope I will be forgiven for jumping in w/out reading all the way back to the start of the thread...

I just find the slavery analogy interesting. It does seem similar -- the South didn't want outsiders telling them what to do -- it's as if the morality of the issue was irrelevant-- the issue of independence seemed to trump the morality of slavery (most Confederate soldiers marched to war giving life and limb with no stake in the slavery issue, as most didn't actually own slaves). Am I sensing this today -- women may not be pro-abortion, but resent outsiders telling them what they can and cannot do, just like the Southerners who might have agreed that slavery was wrong, but strongly resented outside meddling?

I find it a confusing debate. Personally, I feel it's an evil. Which is not to say it can't be, like war, sometimes a necessary evil. So at the least I hope we can seek to limit the occasion of abortion, and my remedy is better sex education and a willingness for government and/or charity groups to unconditionally give a blank check to expectant mothers (remove money as a reason for abortion). I want any woman who gets pregnant to know that she CAN "choose life" -- that the very necessary material needs and medical services will, without condition, be provided for.

Comment from: Roland [Visitor]

>>My response to this is a blank stare. I don't know what to say to anyone who doesn't think that slaughtering and mutilating an innocent baby is wrong.

I suppose I would respond in a similar fashion. Killing innocent babies is wrong. But this is not to the point in a discussion of the morality of abortion – unless you want to avoid the discussion and move directly to your conclusion – that abortion is morally wrong.

Comment from: Ringsabre [Visitor]

>> I just find the slavery analogy interesting. It does seem similar -- the South didn't want outsiders telling them what to do -- it's as if the morality of the issue was irrelevant-- the issue of independence seemed to trump the morality of slavery.

Interesting point about outsiders. I’ve given talks on the morality of abortion and there are always a few women that show up who think that it is silly to think that a man’s opinions about the morality of abortion would have any value.

As you say, they “resent outsiders [men or anyone else] telling them what they can and cannot do….”

>> I find it a confusing debate. Personally, I feel it's an evil.
>> So at the least I hope we can seek to limit the occasion of abortion.

Just about everything looked at with any intellectual depth is confusing.
Its those people who aren’t confused and think they have direct access to truth that we should be afraid of.

Sure we can try to limit the number of abortions – no one wants to have an abortion anymore than anyone wants to have cancer surgery. Avoid it if you can – it’s not something women do for enjoyment. Much better if the woman takes the “morning after pill” or “plan B”.

there are always a few women that show up who think that it is silly to think that a man’s opinions about the morality of abortion would have any value.

I'm not Jewish either but I still know that the Holocaust was wrong. Just as wrong as the abortion holocaust which has killed 40 million. THAT is truth. Both holocausts are Absoultely Wrong. God save us from the people who are confused and can rationalize it.

Robert T: Just about everything looked at with any intellectual depth is confusing.

Roland: God save us from the people who are confused and can rationalize it.

There are many types of confusion – someone might be utterly unable to make any sense out of the buzzing, loud, random sequence of sense perceptions.

Another sort is the inability to follow a difficult sequence of reasoning in which each step of the sequence has various challenges to meet.

Take, for example in the abortion argument that begins with the premise
‘The human fetus is a human being or person with a right to life.”

As I count them, no fewer than eight different arguments have been brought forward in the published literature to support this premise.

Each of the premises of each of these arguments have met with counter-arguments and each of the premises of each of the counter arguments have in turn been met with counter-counter arguments. In turn the premises of the counter-counter arguments have critically examined as well.

Now this is only the first premise in one of several arguments against abortion. The second and third premises of the first argument have been examined in the same way.

I hope Roland, God or anyone else could help me keep all these arguments straight so I don’t get confused. Truth and knowledge result from hard work and clearing up of confusions—not by avoiding them and excusing oneself from the hard work by claiming direct access to truth.

Those who believe they have a priviledged access to truth are the dangerous ones.

Those who would deny an entire class of people their humanity are truly dangerous and have led to hundreds of millions being enslaved and murdered.

Someday our society will be enlightened.

I believe that there is no real way to be a feminist and not be pro-life because even then you still have a lot of choices. By saying that a woman's body is her choice is fine, but to say that it is a woman's choice to abstain from the actions that define womanhood is anti-feminist. You may as well be a man. I agree you can choose when you would like to carry a child, at a time during your life when you feel that you are ready to do so, or if you choose that you will never be ready to do so, is fine. But if you choose to never bear children then it is your responsibility to undergo all necessary actions to prevent your body, as a woman's body, from doing what it will strive to accomplish. It is no one's fault, and especially not a baby's(or fetus if you so choose to call it)if you have not done so. I, myself, recently gave birth to twins. It was unplanned, and I felt that it was not the best time during my life to begin raising children, but that's something that I can overcome because I know that I should have made an attempt to actually not get pregnant if I didn't want to. Babies have bodies, too and it's time that people came to respect that.

I think that abortion is a terrible thing. Babykilling, straight up.

I also think that in a lot of cases, it's for the best. Yeah, I really am sure that it's better that that person's life will be over before they become self-aware. We're living in critical times, hard to deal with. A mother makes this decision for her child, and it's a terrible one to be faced with.

I feel a bit priveleged in my pro-choice position: I, after all, have been a pregnant teenager. I have been raped. I have been marginalized.

I also love dispensing random facts: Impoverished African women who begin recieving AIDS treatment often don't understand that their fertility will return. Of those women who unwittingly become pregnant, 90% do not wish to continue their pregnancies. What do you say to her? "I'm a feminist, so I'm all about your rights. Have this baby, let it die in your arms, watch it starve, tell yourself that you did the right thing while scavengers rip it to shreds."

Easy for you to say. YOU weren't aborted.

I'm a feminist and a liberal and I, too, am pro-life. I think there's probably a lot of us out there than most people think.