National Review Meltdown Watch

by hilzoy

The National Review front page link to this article asks:

"Is there a connection between the criticisms of vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin and repressed post-abortion grief?"

Let me think long and hard about this one:

No.

This has been another edition of 'Simple Answers To Stupid Questions' (TM Atrios).

The slightly more complicated answer: given all the obvious reasons to criticize Sarah Palin, why on earth would anyone feel the need to reach for something as exotic and far-fetched as repressed post-abortion grief? It's like asking: Why do people dislike George W. Bush? Could it be an unconscious feeling of empathy with scrubby plants and brush?

Comments

[Keith]

...and all the male critics have uterus-envy?

[Mike Schilling]

The NR article itself is far too stupid to require further comment [1]. It is fascinating that a staunchly anti-feminist party which has always said it believes, along with Phyllis Schlafly, that mothers with young children belong at home, also believes that the mother of Trig Palin, who requires an extraordinary amount of care, belongs in the White House.

1. OK, just one. The connection between criticisms of Obama and dislike of black people in general is far more direct and obvious; there's even actual evidence for it. Guess what NR has to say about that one?

[hermano]

i have been concerned that if obama wins, there will be really few good jokes about the presidency because he's a dull smart guy.

but i shouldnt worry with jokes about republicans because NRO's supply of stupid jokes will increase significantly if obama wins!

[Jesurgislac]

"Is there a connection between the criticisms of vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin and repressed post-abortion grief?"

Let me think long and hard about this one:

No.

*snorfle*

given all the obvious reasons to criticize Sarah Palin, why on earth would anyone feel the need to reach for something as exotic and far-fetched as repressed post-abortion grief?

Because (a) they are claiming that there are no obvious reasons to criticize Palin, who is a foreign policy expert, an energy expert, has the executive experience that all the other P/VP candidates lack, is a mother of five, and knows how to skin and gut a moose; (b) they claim that "repressed post-abortion grief" is something every woman who's had an abortion and every man whose precious seed has been aborted feels, but doesn't acknowledge even to themselves (hence the "repressed" part). If Palin is unpopular, it is just because of the prevalence of this syndrome. Abortion must be made illegal immediately to save these women from themselves.

Keith: ...and all the male critics have uterus-envy?

Didn't you know Abortion Hurts Men Too? The awful pain of knowing that your sperm has been brutally murdered! Do not repress your grief! Weep for the fallen sperm, so tragically dead before their time!

Mike: It is fascinating that a staunchly anti-feminist party which has always said it believes, along with Phyllis Schlafly, that mothers with young children belong at home, also believes that the mother of Trig Palin, who requires an extraordinary amount of care, belongs in the White House.

This is a party that has always supported the right of wealthy and powerful people to tell other people what to do while doing exactly what they want themselves. This is an anti-feminist party that has always supported policies that require mothers with very new babies have to go back to work or lose their job - it's not a party that actually supports mothers staying at home with their children, only a party whose members make a point of saying so, disapprovingly, to women who have no choice.

[Warren Terra]

... wait, there are reasons other than personalized resentment of Palin's near-messianic perfection to oppose her candidacy? See, I, like the writers of the NRO, didn't know this! (A bit more seriously, the portrayal by anti-abortion advocates of Palin's decision to keep her pregnancy after the diagnosis as being a self-sacrifice in support of Christian Truth akin to the crucifixion would offend me very personally if I had a family member or close friend dealing with Downs - or for that matter if I were or ever had been a Christian.)

[rea]

"Is there a connection between the criticisms of vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin and repressed post-abortion grief?"

Let me think long and hard about this one:

No.

But that's exactly what some one suffering from repressed post-abortion grief would say, isn't it? ;)

[And, let me hasten to add, their conception of repressed post-abortion grief does not seem to confine its sufferers to people who have actually had abortions, if everyone who dislikes Gov. Palin is suffering from it.]

[Hartmut]

Are you or have you ever been palling around with a member of the abortionist party?
Have you ever thought about having an abortion? That would be enough to induce preemptively the post-A-grief.
If you are male, have you ever thought of changing your sex, so that you could have an abortion in order to prove that inevitable post-A-grief is bogus?
Have you ever thought of having sex with a sex-changed Sarah Palin in order to bring her grief by aborting the resulting child?

[Gary Farber]

Andy McCarthy proudly doesn't apologize. He pays no attention to the fact of racism, and wants everyone to know that!

[Jesurgislac]

Have you ever thought of having sex with a sex-changed Sarah Palin in order to bring her grief by aborting the resulting child?

I can say with absolute certainty No.

On the other hand, if photographic evidence of President Palin's lesbian affair with a British socialist pacifist feminist would bring about the fall of the Fourth Reich, well, buy me a ticket to Washington DC and I'll take one for the team. Even though it's against my principles to have sex with non-vagitarians.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, of course abortion hurts men, too, Jes; Over half of the abortees are male, after all. Did you somehow forget that?

And, anyway, if we guys can be forced to pay for their upbringing even if we're defrauded into helping conceive them, I don't see why we can't get emotionally invested in them, too.

[rea]

if we guys can be forced to pay for their upbringing even if we're defrauded into helping conceive them

"She tricked me into ejaculating, Your Honor."

[Jake]

Shorter McCarthy: It doesn't matter that the assault didn't happen, because it TOTALLY could have.

[Jesurgislac]

Brett: Well, of course abortion hurts men, too, Jes; Over half of the abortees are male, after all. Did you somehow forget that?

Did you really want to have a serious discussion on the issues that a woman's right to choose may bring up for men? Or was this your brand of light snark? If so, I think it was a little too heavy for my taste: try again with larger eggs.

[russell]

Remember the 90's, when Bill Clinton was President? Remember the unending torrent of crazy, paranoid, tabloid-level weirdness unleashed against him, his wife, and anyone connected with them?

It ain't over 'til it's over, but there is some likelihood that we will have a Democratic, Ivy educated, Northern big city based, unapologetically liberal BLACK MAN with an African/Arab name as the next president of the United States.

It's the end of the world as they know it, and we're going to get to share every ounce of their pain.

I sincerely hope Obama pulls this off, but if he does, I think we should all expect four to eight years of scary, full-on, crazy weirdness, walking right down Main St in the full light of day.

Fear and loathing of Palin's fecundity? Small potatoes. A simple warm-up effort.

Freak shields up, folks. Buckle up, because the circus is just getting started.

Thanks -

[Brett Bellmore]

Joke about it, but it's the law: You have to pay child support even if the woman lies to you about being on the pill.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, Jes, that's just the point: For some of us any reference to the victims of abortions is just snark, to others it's unavoidably relevant.

[russell]

Joke about it, but it's the law: You have to pay child support even if the woman lies to you about being on the pill.

I just know, somehow, that I will bitterly regret wading in on this, but my day has been pretty good so far, so I have some good mood to burn:

In turn, women not only pay when men lie about, frex, having a vasectomy, but they get to carry the kid around for nine months, and are then almost always on the hook as primary care-giver for the next twenty years.

When men and women have sex with each other, sometimes the woman gets pregnant. Even if they take appropriate precautions.

If nature takes its course, "pregnancy" turns into "child".

Children need to eat.

If you want to screw around, you may end up having to contribute to that. If you're a guy, whatever you pay will probably be dwarfed by what the woman has to contribute in terms of time, money, lost opportunity, etc.

So either be ready to pony up, or keep your pants on. Especially if you oppose abortion as an option for the woman.

If that doesn't suit, here is a simpler solution:

Don't have sex with people you don't know and trust.

That will take care of the problem in most cases.

Thanks -

[matttbastard]

Noooo please don't reward Brett's blatant derailment ploy with undue attention!

*headdesk*

[CharleyCarp]

I'm willing to entertain the thought that there was a time when conservative outlets like NRO were worth reading -- it ain't now, and Russell is right that it ain't going to be during an Obama presidency either.

I'm not interested in echo chambers. Intelligent conversation with/among intellectually honest conservatives is frequently rewarding. Wasting time in the various manifestations of Bizarro World never is.

[Jesurgislac]

russell: Don't have sex with people you don't know and trust.

That will take care of the problem in most cases.

Yeah. I know women who say they would never have sex with an anti-choicer. To be honest, I suspect this is political grandstanding, since it seems unlikely it comes up (so to speak) in casual encounters, though if a man is pro-life enough that he rants about it on a first date*, that would be a good reason to terminate the date early. But I can see why a woman with self-respect wouldn't form a relationship with a man who thought it was his right to force her to carry a pregnancy to term against her will, or to abort it if he didn't want to support the child. Anyone, except perhaps the pro-life men themselves, could understand that.

Brett, I can assure you that once a male fetus gets old enough to be a man, it is generally 13 to 21 years too late to abort him. So even with your reference to fetuses as the "victims of abortion", it actually makes no sense to argue that they are men who are victims of abortion... but why would I expect sense from a forced-pregnancy advocate?

[Jesurgislac]

matttbastard: Sorry. I did try.

[Gary Farber]

"Wasting time in the various manifestations of Bizarro World never is."

There's humor value.

[Anarch]

Not enough.

[John Thullen]

I believe the following:

I'm pro-choice, but I'm anti-abortion.

I'm so liberal that I believe public policy should dictate the following:

Sarah Palin's Down's Syndrome grandchild ought to receive the love of his or her parents and family, the full financial support of the State, probably at the Federal level, and should be the beneficiary of affirmative action programs for all job classifications, including Vice President of the United States.

Does NRO hire Downs Syndrome victims to write columns, I ask you? Why not?

Why should individuals who are ignorant, stupid and lack common sense because of an accident of birth be denied advancement in this great country of ours because some have worked all their lives to become ignorant, stupid, and bereft of common sense?

Why, temperment alone would seem to dictate that the former should advance (all lovely people, not a mean bone in their bodies) over the latter, whose "nasty" quotient and their place on the National Dyspeptic Bell Curve seem to rise along with the election calendar.

You don't get much less elitist than your average Down's Syndrome victim and there is no evidence whatsoever of a link between intelligence and governance, all the more obvious given our current mess.

Garrison Keillor said today in his column that the current occupant knows less "about governance than a cat knows about a can opener", which seems to my liberal view to be unduly harsh to cats.

My view of cats and governance is much like Alec Guiness's view of acting: less is more, despite the fact that my cat is an activist and would sign laws into place willy-nilly.

I find conservatives' and libertarians' view of sperm to have some merit, however. It seems to me that once those sperm swim away from me into their Darwinian ballet, they are on their own.

Should we limit their freedoms to go where they may, say through taxing one sperm producer to provide another sperm producer with the means to prohibit their sperm from traveling, or worse, through spermaticide?

That's an open question, still, after all these effing years of human civilization and debate.

Perhaps a compromise would be to provide sperm with public transportation to return to their place of origin, or perhaps provide sperm with half-way houses when their destination declines entry.

In closing, NRO columnists have risen in my estimation because they have shown, through their contempt for Barack Obama's achievements, a latent guilt about all of those lynchings their grandparents attended those many years ago.

Who says sperm can't evolve?

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, go ahead, define away the inconvenient people. Honestly, Jess, is your belief that the fetus is at no stage a person driving your pro-choice convictions, or driven by them?

I'm not one of those "every sperm is precious" loons, but a realistic appraisal of the situation is that the fetus progresses along a continuum from single cell non-entity to separately viable person. As it progresses, so must our recognition of it as a moral agent with rights.

But that's a little too inconvenient for people who like a nice binary step, located at a delivery intended to be alive. (But not when a botched abortion accidently results in a live birth, of course. That's different.)

At any rate, I agree the notion that Democrats are going insane about Palin because of some kind of "repressed post-abortion grief" is crazy. They're going nuts about her for the same reason Democrats go nuts whenever a black runs as a Republican: Democrats own those interest groups, members aren't supposed to stray off the plantation, and never successfully.

[MeDrewNotYou]

Jes- Rather than contribute anything substantive, I just want to thank you for this:
Even though it's against my principles to have sex with non-vagitarians.

New vocabulary words are awesome!

[matttbastard]

Just remember, kids: As per the Clinton-addled imagination of BB, POC and women = "interest groups".

He's so cute when he's (not) trolling.

[Jesurgislac]

John Thullen rules! I just thought I'd mention that.

Brett asked: Honestly, Jess, is your belief that the fetus is at no stage a person driving your pro-choice convictions, or driven by them?

If you're interested in what drives my pro-choice convictions, Brett, I direct you to my post on the basics.

The summary version is: I believe women are human beings, whose human rights cannot be abrogated. Therefore, I am pro-choice.

[russell]

my cat is an activist and would sign laws into place willy-nilly.

The first law of cats: everything I see is mine.

The second law of cats: there is no second law.

They're going nuts about her for the same reason Democrats go nuts whenever a black runs as a Republican: Democrats own those interest groups, members aren't supposed to stray off the plantation, and never successfully.

Look, Brett, ask yourself a simple question:

Would Democrats be "going nuts", as you have it, if Hutchison was the VPOTUS candidate? Or Liddy Dole? Or any of another 10, or 20, or 100 prominent, accomplished Republican women?

The reason lefties react negatively to Palin are two:

1. She is on the ticket solely and exclusively to piss us off, and thus energize the social conservative base
2. She doesn't know shit from shinola

Trust me when I tell you this.

"Co-opting our interest groups" is crap.

Thanks -

[matttbastard]

Speaking as "a black", I would also like to sign off on Jes' 11:46am.

Special interest group solidarity!

BTW, am I the only one who briefly thought Andrew "apologies are for liberal socialist losers" McCarthy was also this ex-Brat Packer?

I'd find it much easier to excuse one of the great minds responsible for Weekend at Bernie's for being a reality-averse asshat...

[Doctor Science]

Was the National Review always infested with nutjobs? Is it something about the Internet? I mean, I thought they were supposed to be one of the Serious Conservatives places. Did they change, or was it always like this when I wasn't looking?

[Gary Farber]

"I'm not one of those 'every sperm is precious' loons, but a realistic appraisal of the situation is that the fetus progresses along a continuum from single cell non-entity to separately viable person."

Be that as it may, given that one doesn't become a "man" without first being a "boy," no fetus is ever a "man," Brett. No "men" are aborted, nor "women," either.

One needn't even have an opinion about abortion to notice this.

"Was the National Review always infested with nutjobs?"

Yes.

"Is it something about the Internet?"

No.

"I mean, I thought they were supposed to be one of the Serious Conservatives places. Did they change, or was it always like this when I wasn't looking?"

Always.

(There were also some serious and good writers and thinkers at times, too -- Garry Wills immediately springs to mind, for instance. But never without some accompanying nitwits and nutjobs. All the internet does is given them more room to shine.)

[Doctor Science]

Thanks, Gary. It's good to know they're *consistent* -- how could they be conservatives if they weren't?

[MeDrewNotYou]

Jes- If you have time, I think you might find http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2817/when-does-human-life-begin>this article interesting. Probably nothing new to you, but Cecil Adams and The Straight Dope has always done a good job of presenting controversy pretty fairly.

I'd be particularly interested in your response to his last point on rape/incest.

[Jesurgislac]

Cecil does a reasonably good job for someone focussing exclusively on the "problem" of when a fetus becomes a person, and ignoring completely the real-world issue: when does a pregnant woman cease to be a person?

[MeDrewNotYou]

I agree. I'd argue that the woman has more value from having been alive for however many years. Ruining her life is a more serious affair than doing the same to a fetus with next to no connections to the outside world. (Inelegant way of saying it, but I think I got my point across.)

I sympathize with the view that a fetus from rape/incest isn't at fault, but I don't agree with the conclusion that that makes it somehow deserving of being carried to term regardless of the consequences. (Primarily social/financial, if the fetus is going to kill the woman, then its a no-brainer.) Making a woman carry the child of her rapist is just incredibly cruel, even if it isn't the kid's fault.

I enjoyed the basics post you linked earlier, but do you have something discussing rape/incest abortions? I'd like to be able to articulate a better defense next time

[vaux-rien]

Cecil does a reasonably good job for someone focussing exclusively on the "problem" of when a fetus becomes a person, and ignoring completely the real-world issue: when does a pregnant woman cease to be a person?

The question "when does human life begin?" is interesting in itself and was the question Cecil was asked. Your argument seems sound to me but it would be meaningless to someone who considers abortion homicide.

I tend to agree with your point 3, "Most people who use the rhetoric of abortion=murder don’t mean it" but Cecil does a good job of fleshing out your point 2, "Abortion is not murder" which is useful in cooling off the rhetoric.

The history of the church's positions on the issue is also very interesting (if utterly irrelevant).

Also re: MeDrew's last, I think Cecil is saying there shouldn't be a rape/incest exception for late-term abortions, no?

[mark]

Cecil Adams and The Straight Dope has always done a good job of presenting controversy pretty fairly.
I'm shocked to find myself saying this, but I think Cecil is wrong. Both the pre-joining egg and sperm are human and alive. "Human life" began millions of years ago. Genetic individuality begins at conception.

[Doctor Science]

And of course, mark, genetic individuality is not what makes for personhood -- unless identical twins (who usually split one to two weeks after conception) aren't real people. I've never gotten anyone who holds with "life begins with at conception" to tell me what they think about identical twins, much less mosaics (resulting from the fusion of fraternal twin embryos) or molar twins (where one twin embryo encapsulates the other).

When you add in the fact that so-called "partial birth abortion" can be the only way to save one twin when the other is dead or dying, I have to conclude that they just don't like twins much.

[MeDrewNotYou]

I think Cecil is saying there shouldn't be a rape/incest exception for late-term abortions, no?

Reading through it again, I think you're right. While I don't agree that there should be a restriction on those late-term abortions (woman's right trumps all else), I'd hope that the woman would have the abortion ASAP if for no other reason than the earlier the abortion is performed, the simpler and less risky it is.

mark- Cecil is never wrong! He sometimes delibrately http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1058/do-maps-have-copyright-traps-to-permit-detection-of-unauthorized-copies>inserts mistakes both as a protective measure and to keep the Teeming Millions on their toes. ^.^

[KRK]

The first law of cats: everything I see is mine.

Don't forget the corollary: Unless it stinks, is sticky, or otherwise offends the feline senses -- in which case, why haven't you removed it already?

[Jesurgislac]

vaux-rien: The question "when does human life begin?" is interesting in itself and was the question Cecil was asked.

True enough. And I agree that the history he outlined was interesting.

Your argument seems sound to me but it would be meaningless to someone who considers abortion homicide.

Well, someone who considers an early abortion to be homicide - one done when the fetus is still so tiny it is removed from the uterus whole - is either hypocritical* or ignorant. It is never considered homicide to refuse the use of one or more of your organs to keep another person alive, therefore an early abortion can't be homicide, since it merely consists of a woman refusing the use of her uterus to keep the fetus alive.

*I never encountered any pro-lifer who went around arguing that anyone not on a live organ donor register was guilty of homicide. I suppose someone who believed that the government ought to have a right to harvest kidneys and blood against the (former) owner's will to keep other people alive isn't a hypocrite: just a monster.

I think Cecil is saying there shouldn't be a rape/incest exception for late-term abortions, no?

Yes, that's what I understood him to be saying, too.

MeDrew: I enjoyed the basics post you linked earlier, but do you have something discussing rape/incest abortions? I'd like to be able to articulate a better defense next time

I've written a couple of posts about people who oppose a woman's right to choose abortion even in cases of rape (I'm presuming "incest" is used here as a special case of rape, rape of a girl by a member of her close family). One was inspired by the Catholic Church's decision to withdraw support for Amnesty International after AI made it policy that if a woman or a girl had been raped, AI would support her right to seek abortion and to obtain medical treatment if she needed it after an illegal abortion, and the other was inspired by a couple of specific instances of pro-lifers referring to the fetus carried as the "innocent child" in need of protection - the child who had been raped evidently no longer being innocent and not deserving of protection.

[Turbulence]

Your argument seems sound to me but it would be meaningless to someone who considers abortion homicide.

Are there enough "abortion is homicide" people to be politically relevant? I know there are tons of "life begins at conception" folk and lots of Brett-like "life begins sometime between conception and birth but I dare not say" folk, but is there really a group of people that (1) believes that women who get abortions should go to prison for decades and (2) is large enough to matter electorally?

I suppose we might find out soon depending on how Colorado votes on proposition 48.

[liberal japonicus]

I never know if YouTube links work for everyone, cause I have to go thru the Japan YouTubes site, but if you can't watch this, search for Libertyville Abortion Demonstration

[Dan S.]

"At any rate, I agree the notion that Democrats are going insane about Palin because of some kind of "repressed post-abortion grief" is crazy. They're going nuts about her"

because, among other reasons, she says stuff like this

Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You've heard about some of these pet projects they really don't make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not. [emphasis added]

Youbetcha!

[Mike Schilling]

Yeah, go ahead, define away the inconvenient people.

The male voters who have an irrational dislike of Palin because they themselves were aborted?

I feel entirely justified in defining them away, but then I'm a dirty ****ing hippie.

[MeDrewNotYou]

Jes- Thanks for the links. And yes, by incest I really mean special cases of rape. In retrospect it seems kind of redundant, a rape is a rape.

LJ- Jeeze. I got the impression that the people from the video don't care about the woman (obviously). More surprising was how little they seem to care about the fetus. If abortion really is murder of the fetus, why wouldn't you punish the murderer? Its not like we say to John Wayne Gacy or Charles Manson that, "Yeah, you're a killer, but you must feel bad about it, so just go home and think about what you did. And don't let it happen again!"

The only person who seemed to have any clue was the woman at around the 5min mark, and even then it was obvious she'd never considered the implication of making abortion illegal. The woman who came after her (the last one) particularly pissed me off. Legal abortion means society wants women to get as many as possible. But illegal abortion with no judicial punishment makes everything better?

It certainly drove home the point that for the vast majority of anti-choice people, it really is about controlling women

[John Spragge]

I avoid people who attempt to abuse the language of therapy by applying a simple rule: politics stops at my skin. If you want to understand me, leave your political agenda at home.

For whatever worth it has, I thought and think that the greatest contempt to Governor Palin and the people to whom she appeals comes from those who consider her and her "peeps" as reliable Republican voters who would jump to the polls and mark the "right" ballot in response to the appropriate Karl Rove dog whistle.

And I offer, for your moment of schadenfreude, the latest dissection of the growing consternation in greater wingnuttia, as the voters fail to answer the dog whistles, and the smears just slide off the advancing Democrats, and more and more of their comrades fling down their weapons and flee the field.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Well, someone who considers an early abortion to be homicide - one done when the fetus is still so tiny it is removed from the uterus whole"

My infant son was removed from the uterus whole at 8 lbs, 21 inches, so I think that distinction you're trying to draw is a bit less than useful.

"when does a pregnant woman cease to be a person?"

When she suffers brain death, I suppose, but the question is not relevant; Pro-lifers aren't denying that women are persons, they're denying that women being persons has the sort of implications you claim for it.

[Jesurgislac]

My infant son was removed from the uterus whole at 8 lbs, 21 inches

Whereas a fetus at >13 weeks (when 90% of abortions are carried out) is typically less than 1.5 ounces and less than 3.5 inches long.

so I think that distinction you're trying to draw is a bit less than useful.

If you think there's no useful distinction to be made between a fetus in the first trimester of development and a newborn baby, you can have no possible objection to a woman terminating her pregnancy in the 13th week, since obviously, that 1.5 ounce 3.5 inch fetus will do exactly what an 8 lbs, 21 inches baby will do...

Pro-lifers aren't denying that women are persons, they're denying that women being persons has the sort of implications you claim for it.

So you say pro-lifers feel being a person doesn't mean that you have the right to refuse the use of your organs to save a life? That the government has the right to harvest blood, kidneys, and other chunks of your body to save lives? Funny, Brett: you've never given the impression before that you think the government ought to have the right to harvest your body for other people's good.

[Brett Bellmore]

Jes, my point is that, barring certain medical conditions, there simply isn't a point in the pregnancy where the fetus can't be removed whole. There's certainly a difference between the fetus at various stages of development, but that isn't one of them.

The chief relevant change is "viability"; Past that point, the right of the woman to cease being pregnant stops being identical to a right that the fetus die, because the fetus can be removed alive. At that point, the decision to abort rather than deliver isn't about personal autonomy, it's about making sure somebody inconvenient dies.

We're balancing the interests of two people here, Jes. At the beginning of the pregnancy the fetus has essentially zero claim to being a person with rights, and so that the woman prevails is a no-brainer. But as the fetus becomes more of a person, that decision gets harder to defend, and post-viability, it becomes impossibly difficult to justify.

I don't think women have a right to kill a viable infant, just because they don't really want to be a mother, and didn't make the decision while it was still morally unproblematic.

[Turbulence]

I don't think women have a right to kill a viable infant, just because they don't really want to be a mother, and didn't make the decision while it was still morally unproblematic.

I might agree with you except for the fact that many women do not have easy access to abortion providers. They may be too young or live too far away or be unable to afford the time and transportation needed to reach one. Now, if abortions were free or extremely low cost, and if we eliminated pointless laws that do nothing but artificially increase the cost, and if we ensured that 90% of woman in the country lived within 30 miles of an abortion provider, you might have a point. Do you think anyone of those things, let alone all of them together, is likely to happen in the next few years? I don't. In other words, you can't hold people responsible for failing to make a timely decision when there are tons and tons of roadblocks that make executing that decision difficult or impossible.

[Jesurgislac]

Brett: The chief relevant change is "viability"; Past that point, the right of the woman to cease being pregnant stops being identical to a right that the fetus die, because the fetus can be removed alive. At that point, the decision to abort rather than deliver isn't about personal autonomy, it's about making sure somebody inconvenient dies.

Well, that is a fairly short window: before 24 weeks, a fetus isn't viable: after 32 weeks, presuming the fetus and the pregnant woman are both healthy, there is no medical reason not to perform an early delivery rather than an abortion.

Post 24 weeks pregnancy, the notion that women abort for "convenience" is a pro-life scare myth. Abortions done for what pro-lifers call "convenience" - that is, the woman simply never wanted to be pregnant - are carried out much earlier.

The notion that a woman could find a doctor who would perform an abortion between 24 and 32 weeks just because of "convenience"... really, Brett, why do you regurgigate such silly scare stories?

There is a point past which the fetus is sufficiently developed that a dead fetus can't be brought out safely whole: pro-lifers in the US actively prefer then to have the fetus cut up inside the uterus and brought out in pieces, and, as I'm sure you're aware, have passed legislation to enforce their wishes. The safer method of late abortion, IDX, has been federally banned.

Turb: Now, if abortions were free or extremely low cost, and if we eliminated pointless laws that do nothing but artificially increase the cost, and if we ensured that 90% of woman in the country lived within 30 miles of an abortion provider, you might have a point.

You can add to that list of pro-lifer actions one of the most important: health insurance companies are allowed to refuse to pay for a woman to have an abortion. A woman can have health insurance, and still have to delay for weeks trying to get the money together to pay for her abortion. A soldier or a soldier's wife will have to get offbase to have an abortion: US military doctors aren't allowed to perform them as part of the health service.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, the proportion of abortions in this country *I* think are morally problematic is relatively small. Though not zero.

"Post 24 weeks pregnancy, the notion that women abort for "convenience" is a pro-life scare myth."

That they do it frequently would be a myth. That it happens at all is scarcely the stuff of myths, and if you think so, you've got a poor appreciation for the diversity of human motivations. Real people do some ugly things, and find help in doing it.

"There is a point past which the fetus is sufficiently developed that a dead fetus can't be brought out safely whole:"

Nope. We're not talking about the surgical removal of fetuses that died in the womb. That's non-controversial. We're talking about a live fetus somebody has decided to kill, and kills inside the womb only because a legal technicality protects them from prosecution for infanticide.

Is delivering the baby alive a bit more risky for the mother than abortion? Yeah, possibly. Too bad there are two lives to consider at that point, and we can't just chose certain death for one to marginally improve the odds for the other.

[wonkie]

Brett, someone more familiar with the detais of the law can correct me on this if I'm wrong but my impression is that discretionary abortion of a viable fetus in=s not legal. Roe vs Wade made the abortion of unviable fetuses legal. The late stage abortions of fetuses thaht would be viable are done when there is something very seriously wrong with the pregnancy, not as a discretionary abortion.

I realize that medical technology has made it possible for earlier deliveries to be survivable than was the case when Roe vs Wade was decided. Nethertheless the time period of for a legal abortion as determined by Roe vs Wade does not include viable fetuses.

As I said, corredt me if I am wrong on this.

[Brett Bellmore]

Ok, let me correct you on this: Due to Doe v Bolton, decided the same day as Roe, if a doctor chooses to say a late term abortion is medically necessary, nobody is permitted to question his decision. Leaving him free to lie about it. To characterize, for instance, her desire not to give birth to a live infant as a mental health issue.

Basically, the difference between finding a doctor to say that you really need that morphine prescription, and finding a doctor to say that you really need to abort your viable infant, is that the latter knows that he's safe doing so.

[Jesurgislac]

Due to Doe v Bolton, decided the same day as Roe, if a doctor chooses to say a late term abortion is medically necessary, nobody is permitted to question his decision.

No, that's factually wrong. The pregnant woman is always entitled to question the doctor's judgement, (and the doctor is not allowed to simply "decide" that a pregnant woman will have an abortion). As is anyone to whom she has given a power of medical decision-making. You were claiming earlier that pro-lifers do regard women as persons, yet you've just asserted that the pregnant woman is "nobody".

Further, all medical decisions by any doctor are always subject to review by peers in their professional association, at the very least - and most likely by their peers in the partnership or the hospital in which they work, too.

Is your "but my point is" in response to my point about government organ harvesting, an acknowledgement that you are pro-choice up to 24 weeks, Brett, by the way?