Michigan Anti-Abortion Bill, 'Most Extreme' In The Country

RichardGarfinkle

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I think what you're basically saying is that pro-lifers have a moral view that is not supportable by law, and yet they want to make it so. I totally see what you are saying, because I have put myself in your place, completely.

If you could put yourself in the pro-lifers' position completely, you would see how they feel abortion is too common, too unrestricted, too unreasonable. NOT supporting the Michigan bill, mind you, but some sort of reasonable restrictions. I've talked to several pro-life acquaintances who are horrified by the implications of the Michigan bill.

I mean, sure, there are people who are that die-hard. But the vast majority of the people who don't want abortion to be a casual thing just want exactly that--for it to be prevented wherever reasonably possible.

It seems to be a dichotomy. A polarization. Hmmmm.... welcome to politics, again?

I'm 100% for compromise.


Nor I you.

Agreed wholeheartedly.

I think most of us (common folk) are only concerned with human beings, both women, fetuses, soon-to-be-babies, whathaveyou. If each side would take the time to understand the legitimate concerns of the opposing views, we WOULD get somewhere. I truly believe it. But there will always be crazies, and there will always be political maneuvers.

ARGH.

What you don't seem to understand is that Roe V. Wade addressed precisely that need for compromise. It states that there is no state interest in the first trimester a growing interest during the second and a full interest after viability.

Therefore, as the zygote becomes an embryo becomes a fetus the law and society grant it more and more presence and concern and abortion goes from an absolute right to something that needs a justification on the order of rape, incest, life, or health of the mother.

Justice Blackmun created the compromise in the Supreme Court case that legalized abortion.

The compromise is what the "pro-life" side is trying to get rid of.
 

Chrissy

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Because you're claiming that pregnancy is not or should not be a risk to women's lives and therefore we shouldn't need abortion while you are citing a source that is telling us that pregnancy is a risk to women's lives and that abortion is one way modern medicine helps prevent that. Seriously, do you not see the contradiction there?
Wrong. I claimed that pregnancy no longer has to be life-threatening, as stated by the World Health Organization. I have never claimed what YOU concluded above (my bold.) I don't know how many times I have to say that I strongly believe in abortion in cases where it is performed in order to save a woman's life.
Oy gevalt, seriously? Are you really completely unaware that you are, in the same conversation, telling us we shouldn't need abortion if we use modern medicine, which is provided by doctors, and, at the exact same time, telling us we dont need to use modern medicine provided by doctors? Are you seriously arguing that women are and should be in charge of our own bodies and pregnancies at the same time that you defend restricting women's access to abortion partially on the grounds that we don't respect our own bodies and pregnancies? Finally, are you really going to try to draw a gender conflict line between women and doctors?
Wrong again. No, I'm not. First bold: I said women don't necessarily have to be dependent on modern medicine. I praised midwives, relayed my experience with one as compared to my experience with a doctor. And for the third time: I was responding to another post where midwifery was brought up. Second bold: I have never claimed that women don't respect their bodies, and while I have said pregnancy should be respected, this is not "grounds" for restricting abortion. The "grounds" for restricting abortion is the life at stake. Nothing more, nothing less.

You seem to have such an insistent need to create an argument, complete with personal insults, that you are willing to take my statements and draw whatever conclusions you must in order that you can then tear me apart. It's quite interesting, from a psychological perspective, but it's also very tiring, trying to untwist all your conclusions from my statements.
 

Chrissy

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What you don't seem to understand is that Roe V. Wade addressed precisely that need for compromise. It states that there is no state interest in the first trimester a growing interest during the second and a full interest after viability.

Therefore, as the zygote becomes an embryo becomes a fetus the law and society grant it more and more presence and concern and abortion goes from an absolute right to something that needs a justification on the order of rape, incest, life, or health of the mother.

Justice Blackmun created the compromise in the Supreme Court case that legalized abortion.

The compromise is what the "pro-life" side is trying to get rid of.

I see your point. I guess the two sides have different ideas of what compromise means. You remember I asked the question, if post-20 week (or even, let's say 24 weeks, Roe v. Wade's viability mark, after which they leave it to the states) abortions were limited to those where the mother's life is at risk, would people be okay with that. No one was. Richard, you and others brought up excellent points about risks of permanent damage to health, and I am, after much consideration, open to inclusion of those types of risks as well. But I don't think even this is an acceptable compromise on the pro-choice side.

And if everyone would please keep in mind that I'm discussing this from a theoretical standpoint and I have no intention of forcing my view on anyone, anywhere, at any time. It's just me expressing my feelings and opinions at this point; I am not, and I don't want to be, the token representative of the pro-life movement. If that makes sense.
 

Celia Cyanide

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It occurs to me that a big part of the problem is that pro-life is a moral stance, and pro-choice is a legal stance. They can't agree or compromise, because they aren't really having the same debate.
 

RichardGarfinkle

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I see your point. I guess the two sides have different ideas of what compromise means. You remember I asked the question, if post-20 week (or even, let's say 24 weeks, Roe v. Wade's viability mark, after which they leave it to the states) abortions were limited to those where the mother's life is at risk, would people be okay with that. No one was. Richard, you and others brought up excellent points about risks of permanent damage to health, and I am, after much consideration, open to inclusion of those types of risks as well. But I don't think even this is an acceptable compromise on the pro-choice side.

And if everyone would please keep in mind that I'm discussing this from a theoretical standpoint and I have no intention of forcing my view on anyone, anywhere, at any time. It's just me expressing my feelings and opinions at this point; I am not, and I don't want to be, the token representative of the pro-life movement. If that makes sense.

Two points about this:

1. As others pointed out, the limitation of just the life of the mother was too limiting. What you were as it were offering was too low for anyone to find acceptable.

In relation to which here is the relevant part of the decision in Roe V. Wade:

(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician.

(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.

(c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.

Note that even past viability, preservation of life and health of the mother mark an impermissible boundary on regulation. You set the bar too low even for post-viability.

It is in the middle area where Justice Blackmun wrote that the state may regulate abortion only in promoting the interest of the health of the mother.

For the period between 20 weeks and viability you set a bar far too low for anyone not on the pro-life side.

In short, you sought to compromise the compromise toward the side you wanted. Naturally, no one on the pro-choice side went along with you.

2. As muravyets said:

your arguments are representative of the classic, mainstream of anti-choice positions, and that's why I keep jumping on your points. By challenging your points, I'm focusing on the main arguments of the entire anti-choice movement....

Anti-choice arguments are raised, pro-choice counter-arguments are raised, and the other side just repeats their original arguments as if they are responsive to the counter-arguments, but they're not.

Anyone who has been through these kinds of debates is hearing standard arguments brought up, without historical argument, context or any consideration of what happens if these positions are put in force.

Abortion discussion cannot be carried out on a theoretical level, any more than any other branch of medical ethics is. Human lives are involved, therefore argument must be practical.

Nothing kills people faster than badly applied theory.

You make emotional arguments for fetuses, but come across as dismissive about the lives of pregnant women. Your emotional and revelatory approach are not theoretical. They are narrative. This is a writer's board. We recognize stories. And we find the holes in them.
 

RichardGarfinkle

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It occurs to me that a big part of the problem is that pro-life is a moral stance, and pro-choice is a legal stance. They can't agree or compromise, because they aren't really having the same debate.

Pro-choice does seem to me a moral position. It asserts bodily autonomy as a moral right of the individual even for pregnant women.

Pro-life is also a legal position since it is trying to create a legal definition of life and personhood.

They can and do speak similar languages on both fronts. They just disagree on both fronts.
 

Chrissy

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Two points about this:

1. As others pointed out, the limitation of just the life of the mother was too limiting. What you were as it were offering was too low for anyone to find acceptable.

In relation to which here is the relevant part of the decision in Roe V. Wade:



Note that even past viability, preservation of life and health of the mother mark an impermissible boundary on regulation. You set the bar too low even for post-viability.

It is in the middle area where Justice Blackmun wrote that the state may regulate abortion only in promoting the interest of the health of the mother.
This is a very good point, and it seems to me, then, that the Michigan bill cannot pass (or will be overturned) because it would be in direct opposition to federal law.

You make emotional arguments for fetuses, but come across as dismissive about the lives of pregnant women. Your emotional and revelatory approach are not theoretical. They are narrative. This is a writer's board. We recognize stories. And we find the holes in them.
I have never felt dismissive of the lives of pregnant women, but I have apologized, and I apologize again, for where that has come across. I have felt that others are dismissive about the life of the fetus. I have also tried not to be emotional, but rather logical, as regards life and rights. Even though this subject is always emotional, on both sides. It was emotional from the first post of this thread before I ever said a word.
 

RichardGarfinkle

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I have never felt dismissive of the lives of pregnant women, but I have apologized, and I apologize again, for where that has come across. I have felt that others are dismissive about the life of the fetus. I have also tried not to be emotional, but rather logical, as regards life and rights. Even though this subject is always emotional, on both sides. It was emotional from the first post of this thread before I ever said a word.

You should probably look over this thread again. I reread the whole thing last night. Look in particular over the discussion of preeclampsia. In at least one post you took your own experience of it as representing the absolute worst that a woman suffering from it might undergo. You were actually dismissive of the word "suffering" when I used that word to describe the effects of preeclampsia (post #203).

It's hard to read things like that and not conclude that you were being dismissive.
 

RichardGarfinkle

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Romantic Heretic

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Snerk. Good for her.

On the subject of those two women being silenced my first thought when I read about it was, "You know, for people who pride themselves on their toughness they are real wimps, aren't they?"
 

Chrissy

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You should probably look over this thread again. I reread the whole thing last night. Look in particular over the discussion of preeclampsia. In at least one post you took your own experience of it as representing the absolute worst that a woman suffering from it might undergo. You were actually dismissive of the word "suffering" when I used that word to describe the effects of preeclampsia (post #203).

It's hard to read things like that and not conclude that you were being dismissive.

It's hard to read this post and not conclude that you just want to write me off as dismissive, even though in several posts subsequent to #203, I showed I was not being dismissive and even felt persuaded to change my own views.

And it also occured to me when re-reading this thread, that stories such as those from sulong, icerose, crunchyblanket and others showed me things I did not know. Those stories helped me to understand different points of view. So your comment about my story-telling seems grossly incorrect.
 

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Yes, but that's how you claim you feel now. Your statement that Richard was responding to was:

Chrissy said:
I have never felt dismissive of the lives of pregnant women...

That's a pretty sweeping statement to make given how many things you've said in this thread. And, regardless of whether or not you've "felt" dismissive, many of your statements in this thread have been dismissive, despite how your felt they should have been received.
 

Mustafa

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It occurs to me that a big part of the problem is that pro-life is a moral stance, and pro-choice is a legal stance. They can't agree or compromise, because they aren't really having the same debate.

I disagree. Both are moral stances. Pro-life people might simply have a different definition of "life" than pro-choice people. But it is not as simple as, Row vs. Wade said X, so that's what we all must believe. It's not so simple. Science defines life a certain way, and a fetus is a life. It has metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction. It's why many physicians who are not religious, still refuse to perform "elective" abortions. It's not elective when it's medically necessary.

A fetus is not just a blob of tissue. It's a human organism. Just like we are human organisms. It is, for all intents and purposes, alive. Believing such, does not make someone nuts. It's a valid point.

Also, here's an article on Row vs. Wade, published by the LA Times, that illustrates some of the reasonable issues people have with that ruling. http://articles.latimes.com/2005/sep/14/nation/na-abortion14

This isn't necessarily as simple as women vs. the world. Or women fighting for the right to control their bodies. Many people, many women, see abortion as the opposite of empowering. http://www.afterabortion.com/

Also, if you, like so many people see a fetus as a life, how could you not fight for restrictions on abortions? And before you say, 'but there are restrictions on abortion,' please read the above LA Times article so you understand the opinion of some that there aren't enough.

It is inaccurate and really, fear-mongering, to say that restrictions on abortion = women being forced to carry rapists babies, or that they're forced to continue a pregnancy despite medical conditions that might make pregnancy life-threatening. Those situations account for fewer than 1% of the abortions performed. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.pdf

And I've yet to see any side propose a restriction on abortions in those cases. In fact, I haven't even seen religions opponents to abortions oppose abortions in those instances.
 

Mustafa

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Mustafa, life=/=human being, and it's Roe vs. Wade.

A zygote can easily be classified as a human life, Celia, depending on your opinion. It has human DNA. ETA: it is stage one of human development. What you're doing is conflating human with "person" which is an entirely non-scientific definition.

My error on spelling. Thanks for pointing that out.
 

Alessandra Kelley

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A zygote can easily be classified as a human life, Celia, depending on your opinion. It has human DNA. ETA: it is stage one of human development. What you're doing is conflating human with "person" which is an entirely non-scientific definition.

My error on spelling. Thanks for pointing that out.

It is true that a zygote has human DNA, but I hope you are not using that as your sole basis for classifying it as human life. Human cancers and tumors have human DNA as well, but no one, so far as I know, has tried to classify tumors as humans.

A human in potentia is not the same as a human, for that matter.
 

muravyets

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It occurs to me that a big part of the problem is that pro-life is a moral stance, and pro-choice is a legal stance. They can't agree or compromise, because they aren't really having the same debate.
The problem as I see it is that the anti-choice side doesn't understand that. Based on arguments I have seen made, I believe they think the law is equivalent to morality and therefore the law should match morality (not recognizing that there are different concepts of what is moral), or else, they see the law as a tool that will enable them to apply their moral stance to the whole of society. To me, the former is a misunderstanding of law and the latter is a misuse of law.
 

Mustafa

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It is true that a zygote has human DNA, but I hope you are not using that as your sole basis for classifying it as human life. Human cancers and tumors have human DNA as well, but no one, so far as I know, has tried to classify tumors as humans.

A human in potentia is not the same as a human, for that matter.

I was just trying to point to the argument as not being baseless. Once the sperm penetrates the ovum, the development to adulthood will continue unless interrupted by accident, external intervention, or disease.
 

muravyets

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Wrong. I claimed that pregnancy no longer has to be life-threatening, as stated by the World Health Organization. I have never claimed what YOU concluded above (my bold.) I don't know how many times I have to say that I strongly believe in abortion in cases where it is performed in order to save a woman's life.
I suppose you'll have to keep saying it as many times as you need to use it as a disclaimer to soften your broad and extensive anti-choice arguments.

As for what you said or didn't say, I clearly and obviously was not quoting you or attributing wording to you, but rather summarizing the totality of your arguments taken together. I refer you back to the rest of your posts in this thread, in which you stated several times that there is no reason aside from medical necessity for any woman to have an abortion. It is not unreasonable to reiterate that as women should not need elective abortion. Then you asserted, inaccurately, that pregnancy is not or should not be (that is your wording) a risk to women's lives and health, and you did so in the context of the rest of your arguments. It is not unreasonable to interpret that as expanding "should not need elective abortion" (my wording) to "should not need abortion" (my wording).

Nothing in your objection above leads me to change my interpretation, because your explanation is entirely contradictory to everything else you keep saying. It leads me instead to believe you really cannot see the flaws and contradictions in your argument, and that reinforces my inclination to reject your argument in regards to abortion law.

By the way, you are still misrepresenting, or at least misapplying, the content of the WHO information you cited.

Wrong again. No, I'm not. First bold: I said women don't necessarily have to be dependent on modern medicine. I praised midwives, relayed my experience with one as compared to my experience with a doctor. And for the third time: I was responding to another post where midwifery was brought up. Second bold: I have never claimed that women don't respect their bodies, and while I have said pregnancy should be respected, this is not "grounds" for restricting abortion. The "grounds" for restricting abortion is the life at stake. Nothing more, nothing less.
So, you never said this?

This particular statement always annoys me to no end, although I don't doubt that some people are anti-woman.

But being anti-abortion does NOT make a person anti-woman. I am one of the most independent women on the planet. I detest all things housewifery and women's "roles" and "standing by your man no matter what" and "no woman is complete with a man" and "women are the weaker sex" blah blah blah. I'm extremely pro-woman. I think women are amazing. I think women have great power. I think women should run the world. :D

And half of those fetuses are future women, not to mention human beings.

Being an "incubator"--that is, being the only way on this earth to bring a life into the world--is a great honor and a great responsibility. Because of this, we need more education regarding birth control and women's health. There's no conceivable reason, aside from health reasons, that any woman on this planet should have been pregnant for 20 weeks and THEN decide she wants a abortion. Fuck that, if women knew their bodies intimately and took great care to avoid and/or detect pregnancy, any abortion deemed necessary by a woman would occur within a month. And if birth control were treated as The Most Important Thing a woman could do for herself, and if she embraced her own responsiblity to prevent unwanted pregnancies, we'd have less abortions overall.

We need to respect the reproduction process, not treat it like some, "oopsies! well, I can just go scrape this clump of cells out of my body, no biggie!" The flippant attitude towards human life makes me sick.

And FWIW, so does this bill. Because it's not doing a damn thing to educate women or provide birth control. Most of the stuff the GOP has been pushing in these various states isn't going to do crap about the prolifery of abortions today.

But I don't have a problem with making abortions illegal after 20 weeks, save for health reasons.
Well, my apologies, then.

You seem to have such an insistent need to create an argument, complete with personal insults, that you are willing to take my statements and draw whatever conclusions you must in order that you can then tear me apart. It's quite interesting, from a psychological perspective, but it's also very tiring, trying to untwist all your conclusions from my statements.
You might have less difficulty if you spent more time reading what I actually write - and maybe your own arguments, too - and less time trying to psychoanalyze someone you know nothing about. If it makes you feel any better, you give me migraines and stomach upset, too.
 
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RichardGarfinkle

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I was just trying to point to the argument as not being baseless. Once the sperm penetrates the ovum, the development to adulthood will continue unless interrupted by accident, external intervention, or disease.

No. As others have linked to, the probability of going from zygote to human seems to be less than 50%. Therefore, it cannot be deemed the normal course of development.

Furthermore, outside of a human womb, the probability of development is 0, therefore you are omitting a factor at least as critical as fertilization, the continuous activity of the mother's body. DNA is software. Fertilization simply provides a complete set of code. It does not cause the development it simply provides the information for how development needs to go.

The mother's body provides the material that is used to build the body often at great cost to the health of the mother.

A zygote on its own dies.
 

muravyets

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A zygote can easily be classified as a human life, Celia, depending on your opinion. It has human DNA. ETA: it is stage one of human development. What you're doing is conflating human with "person" which is an entirely non-scientific definition.

My error on spelling. Thanks for pointing that out.
A tumor has human DNA, too, and is comprised of living cells. Is chemotherapy murder?

If you lower the bar for classification that low, you enter the realm of the arbitrary, and then you can do whatever you want. You can advance the cause of animal rights and environmentalism as well as the anti-choice movement by declaring every mammal -- hell, even every animal -- on the planet a human being since we all descend from the same base genetic stock.

ETA: I find it kind of astonishing that you chide Celia as using an unscientific definition in the same paragraph in which you say the classification of what is a human life can be determined by opinion.
 

Mustafa

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No. As others have linked to, the probability of going from zygote to human seems to be less than 50%. Therefore, it cannot be deemed the normal course of development.

Furthermore, outside of a human womb, the probability of development is 0, therefore you are omitting a factor at least as critical as fertilization, the continuous activity of the mother's body. DNA is software. Fertilization simply provides a complete set of code. It does not cause the development it simply provides the information for how development needs to go.

The mother's body provides the material that is used to build the body often at great cost to the health of the mother.

A zygote on its own dies.

Richard, what is your point? That being dependent on an external entity for survival means something is not a life?

Also, as I pointed out, in my post, baring accident, external intervention, or disease, the zygote will continue to adulthood. Miscarriages, which you're pointing out as accounting for 50% zygote or fetal death, is arguably a result of one of those factors.

http://suite101.com/article/chromosomal-abnormalities-a57012

http://voices.yahoo.com/incompetent-cervix-impact-miscarriage-future-381015.html

etc etc. I'm not going to list every cause of miscarriage, but accident, disease or external intervention covers them.
 

muravyets

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I was just trying to point to the argument as not being baseless. Once the sperm penetrates the ovum, the development to adulthood will continue unless interrupted by accident, external intervention, or disease.
And if a tree don't fall on it, it'll live till it dies. What is the point of that observation, except to underscore the fact that pregnancy is not guaranteed to yield a baby?
 

thebloodfiend

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Richard, what is your point? That being dependent on an external entity for survival means something is not a life?

1) As others have pointed out, you haven't defined human life, except in terms of human DNA. According to your definition, tumors, parasitic twins, and urine are all human life.

2) Something that relies on another entity for survival is a parasite, which the host has all rights to remove.

3) Even if you could define personhood, which you're probably confusing with life, if the zygote/fetus was a person, its rights as a human being -- not human life -- would not trump those of its host.
Also, as I pointed out, in my post, baring accident, external intervention, or disease, the zygote will continue to adulthood. Miscarriages, which you're pointing out as accounting for 50% zygote or fetal death, is arguably a result of one of those factors.
In order to prevent all accidents, external intervention, and disease, a woman would have to sit inside of a glass cage and eat nothing but vitamin enriched foods. And, even then, genetic abnormalities might cause her to miscarry. There's no such thing as the perfect pregnancy.

But I don't understand your point. Because a zygote might get born, it should just be left alone until things go wrong because nature will preform its wonderful, miraculous task?
 

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Don't mean to butt in, but I've been following this thread for days.

Also, as I pointed out, in my post, baring accident, external intervention, or disease, the zygote will continue to adulthood.
Unless the zygote was created in a lab, in which case it requires external intervention (i.e. implantation in a uterus) to continue growing.

This isn't necessarily as simple as women vs. the world. Or women fighting for the right to control their bodies. Many people, many women, see abortion as the opposite of empowering.
I don't understand this. Choices have consequences, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, usually a little of both. Just because some people have experienced some negative consequences, they shouldn't have the right to choose?