Evangelical vitae

Joe Carter's evangelical outpost is one of the higher-traffic sites in the born-again blogosphere. Michelle Boorstein of The Washington Post profiled Carter last week: "Evangelical Bioethics and the Web.

The angle for Boorstein's piece, which Carter seems mostly to agree with, is that A) evangelical Christian politics are mainly driven by bioethics, and B) that this bioethics is essentially Roman Catholic. (This angle arises from this post of Carter's, "What Evangelicals Owe Catholics: An Appreciation).

Here's Boorstein:

By some measures, the change among evangelicals has been dramatic. A generation ago, leaders rarely spoke out against abortion; even the Southern Baptist Convention voted in 1971* to support making it legal under conditions including rape and "severe fetal deformity." Today, Americans who identify themselves as evangelical are the most opposed of any faith group to abortion -- far more than those who identify themselves as Catholic -- even in cases of rape or danger to the mother's health, according to a new survey by Baylor University.

I would argue the change has been even larger. Boorstein writes, "Americans who identify themselves as evangelical are the most opposed ... to abortion." Actually, evangelicals identify themselves as evangelical because they are opposed to abortion. As a defining characteristic, opposition to legal abortion is probably more important than any doctrinal definition or revivalist impulse.

This is so deeply ingrained that if you point to a counter-example, someone like Anne Lamott say, and point out that she is a born-again, Bible-reading, church-going evangelical, you will be told that, since she does not wish to criminalize abortion, she must not really be born again, she isn't really reading the Bible, and that the church she goes to must not be a real church. She may be a Christian, but she's not an RTC.** (See also Obama, Barack.)

We're talking here about abortion -- a subject I prefer to avoid since, generally speaking, once you mention abortion you can't mention much of anything else. But, if at all possible, I want here to avoid repeating the arguments for and against Catholic bioethics. What I'm interested in here is not the merits or demerits of this evangelical tenet, but with the history of it and with the reasons for that history. How did it come to be that American evangelical Protestants -- a group traditionally inhospitable to anything even remotely associated with Roman Catholicism -- have come to adopt this very Catholic point of view?

(That ends with a question mark because it's a question. I have some guesses, but I really don't know the answer.)

- - - - - - - - - - - -

* The Southern Baptist Convention of 1971, of course, no longer exists. That convention was replaced by a denomination, a church. The right-wing takeover of the SBC, which began in the 1980s, brought with it not only Catholic bioethics, but Catholic polity -- hierarchy enforced by inquisition.

** James Dobson helps to clarify the difference between Christians and Real True Christians. Dobson said of former Sen. Fred Thompson, "I don't think he's a Christian." A Focus on the Family spokesman later clarified what Dobson meant:

In a follow-up phone conversation, Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger stood by Dobson's claim. He said that, while Dobson didn't believe Thompson to be a member of a non-Christian faith, Dobson nevertheless "has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian — someone who talks openly about his faith."

"We use that word — Christian — to refer to people who are evangelical Christians," Schneeberger added.

And for added clarification, see the recent letter from Dobson et. al. to the National Association of Evangelicals, in which they call for the dismissal of NAE's top lobbyist, Rich Cizik, because he thinks torture and climate change are Bad Things:

Cizik’s disturbing views seem to be contributing to growing confusion about the very term, “evangelical.” As a recent USA Today article notes: “Evangelical was the label of choice of Christians with conservative views on politics, economics and biblical morality. Now the word may be losing its moorings, sliding toward the same linguistic demise that “fundamentalist” met decades ago because it has been misunderstood, misappropriated and maligned.” We believe some of that misunderstanding about evangelicalism and its “conservative views on politics, economics and biblical morality” can be laid at Richard Cizik’s door.

So from these two cases, we can see that for Dobson there are two parts to being a Real True Christian: You must, unlike Thompson, "talk openly about your faith." And you must, unlike Cizik, never vary from the agreed-upon "conservative views on politics and economics." Both ingredients are necessary, but neither one alone is sufficient.

Comments

[Rosina]

Alsafi: And if they are trying to reclaim the phrase, then the responsibility is theirs to explain that this is why they are using the term in manner inconsistent with standard modern American-English usage.

It is more important to try to reclaim such words as "Christian", "Evangelical", "freedom", and "patriot". I am prepared to give up describing myself as pro-life, and seek for a circumlocution (I am in favour of life, and think there should be more of it for each of us) but I find that the backlash against the loud-mouthed hate-mongers ends up condemning all Christians etc.

Why are they allowed to re-write the dictionary (and unlike Pat and Mike and his kosher cheese-and-bacon buttie, they are trying to define us, not just themselves)?

[Francis]

the accepted meaning of "pro-life"

Accepted where?

In liberal circles, I will agree with you. (Other than pointing out the exceptions of some liberal Catholics and a few free-thinkers who want to protect the foetus, it being the weakest individual in the equation).

In conservative circles, the accepted meaning of "pro-choice" is something more along the lines of "sluts who can't keep their legs together and are not prepared to take responsibility for their actions" and pro-life is something more along the lines of "decent and responsible human being".

The more mainstream a group gets, the less extreme and less malevolent its agenda gets. And regrettably the phrase pro-life is mainstream in all too many places. And particularly in those places, you have an uphill battle - which isn't normally won by solidifying the opposition.

In my experience, they by and large do not

By and large != all.

somebody is out there voting for these policies and the politicians who champion them. otherwise, it would not be an issue.

The American Right-Wing is depressingly good at selling shit sandwiches to people. Just witness the number of people that were persuaded to vote for Bush. And the number of people that don't examine their goals to see whether their methods are in line with them.

[Raka]

pro-criminalization of abortion and/or sex

Yay! Let's all play the reductionist game! If you don't want me to grab you in an uninvited lip-lock and suck the air out of your lungs, then you're pro-criminilization of breathing! All that blather about "assault" and other circumstances don't matter; the point is that you want to send me to jail just for breathing. You're anti-air!

Most pro-lifers do not want to outlaw absolutely all forms of abortion (say, ectopic pregnancies). For that matter, most pro-choicers don't want to remove all restrictions (say, allowing unlicensed medical practitioners to provide them). Secondary consequences are often important (like the higher death rates for women when abortion is restricted), but not always (like my "right to breathe" from someone else's lungs). Stupid reductionist absolutes that play off of secondary consequences remove the distinction between important and unimportant consequences. They distract from the valid points (more women dying is bad) by exagerating them to the point of ludicrous inapplicability (soldiers in combat conditions commit rape at a higher rate than they do at home; anyone who supports American involvement in WWII is pro-rape!). They're worthless except as flame-bait.

[McJulie]

@Francis: What I am trying to convince you to do is to think on what that means and to use better tactics.

I can't speak for Jesurgislac, but I know that I am not interested in using "better tactics" to spare you the pains of cognitive dissonance.

The "pro life" movement is what it is. And Jesurgislac is absolutely right about what it is: a political movement that is ostensibly about re-criminalizing abortion and restricting women's access to birth control, but is actually about getting Republicans elected.

If you don't support those aims, maybe it's time you stopped identifying with the movement. If you continue to identify with the movement -- well, I have no choice but to consider you part of the problem.

(Even if I love you dearly. Not that I love you, Francis, except in the vaguest and most general Christian-type love, since I don't even know you. But I love my Catholic mother-in-law. And it's painful to watch her get tricked, year after year after year, into supporting crazy hate-filled right wingers just because they say the right words to press her anti-abortion buttons.)

[Mnemosyne]

And what proportion do you think just sit at home without particularly strong feelings or actions either way other than when it comes to voting.

So I'm not supposed to be cheesed off at pro-life wankers** because, hey, all they do is vote to restrict my rights?

Gosh, I feel all warm and fuzzy towards them already. Thanks for only using your vote to oppress me rather than walking up to me in the street and spitting in my face directly!

(** I include two of my aunts as "pro-life wankers" as they spend a lot of money buying retail items like personal checks and address labels with anti-abortion messages on them so they can inflict their beliefs on the innocent cashier at the Jewel.)

[the opoponax]

"The American Right-Wing is depressingly good at selling shit sandwiches to people. Just witness the number of people that were persuaded to vote for Bush. And the number of people that don't examine their goals to see whether their methods are in line with them."

ok, so you're saying here that it's not so much that anti-criminalization pro-lifers are liars or hypocrites, but that y'all are just stupid.

ok. if you're the one saying it, i'll wholeheartedly agree.

if the vast majority of pro-life sympathizers were really against further laws restricting abortion, the american political landscape would be VASTLY different. i'm willing to agree with you that there is a lunatic fringe out there, as well as that the republicans are as you say "able to sell Americans a shit sandwich". but the bottom line is that the right wing idea that abortion should be criminalized is not some big state secret they hide while talking a big game about how they're going to provide free contraception to everyone. it's right there, out in the open. it's the cornerstone of their entire platform, in every single election. if you somehow think that what the politicians really mean is that they want to make abortions obsolete, i'm sorry, but you would have to be stupid to a level that i'm just not willing to ascribe to such a large percentage of the american public.

[Raka]

Most pro-lifers do not want to outlaw absolutely all forms of abortion (say, ectopic pregnancies). For that matter, most pro-choicers don't want to remove all restrictions (say, allowing unlicensed medical practitioners to provide them; or [more contreversially] allowing late third-trimester abortions up to and including during labor without extenuating circumstances).

I started one point and wandered onto another (the bolded is new and a better example). Where I was going with the above is that both groups described by the above could be said to be "criminilizing abortion" (though it would be sort of stupid to say so). Neither side is at the extreme end of the spectrum. That means both draw the line for legal restriction somewhere between one extreme and the middle. Absolutist labels for either will miss the mark for both.

[Francis]

I know that I am not interested in using "better tactics"

To me, that says that you aren't interested in winning (unless it's simply that you disagree about tactics which is a different issue).

If you don't support those aims, maybe it's time you stopped identifying with the movement. If you continue to identify with the movement -- well, I have no choice but to consider you part of the problem.

I don't identify as part of the movement. And they'd throw me out in a heartbeat unless I started producing testimony-style conversions as I have done far too much they would consider wrong when it comes to providing Emergency Contraception...

And it's painful to watch her get tricked, year after year after year, into supporting crazy hate-filled right wingers just because they say the right words to press her anti-abortion buttons

And my point here is that it isn't just the scumbags there who are saying the right words to press her anti-abortion buttons - it's well meaning people on our side (such as some of Jesu's comments above).

[Francis]

I know that I am not interested in using "better tactics"

To me, that says that you aren't interested in winning (unless it's simply that you disagree about tactics which is a different issue).

If you don't support those aims, maybe it's time you stopped identifying with the movement. If you continue to identify with the movement -- well, I have no choice but to consider you part of the problem.

I don't identify as part of the movement. And they'd throw me out in a heartbeat unless I started producing testimony-style conversions as I have done far too much they would consider wrong when it comes to providing Emergency Contraception...

And it's painful to watch her get tricked, year after year after year, into supporting crazy hate-filled right wingers just because they say the right words to press her anti-abortion buttons

And my point here is that it isn't just the scumbags there who are saying the right words to press her anti-abortion buttons - it's well meaning people on our side (such as some of Jesu's comments above).

But I don't think I'm going to get anywhere here so I'm going to drop it.

[the opoponax]

wait, so Francis, what are you saying here?

that by bothering to put up a fight, pro-choicers are somehow "forcing" people who are generally neutral on the abortion issue to go with the raving right-wing maniacs?

what are we supposed to do, then? what is it that we are currently doing that causes such a chain of events?

[alsafi]

Fair enough, Raka, I was making a few jumps, though it has been my experience that the "pro-life" position tends to treat as ipso facto criminals women who have sex without desiring to have a child, by accusing her of either seeking abortion as birth-control, or also trying to restrict her access to safer and less invasive forms of birth control--pregnancy is used as a punishment for sex. I don't see the parallels to your first example, however--possibly because I'm coming at my "reductionism" from a different angle than you seem to think I am. But then, I am living in TN, and do find my life circumscribed on a daily basis by those who see me as less-than-fully-human because I'm female, so I find it hard to be serenely detached from this argument.

Francis: even in those conservative circles, is it untrue that most of them who describe themselves as "pro-life" also vote for "pro-life" pols? And that these "pro-life" pols are virtually universally in favor of recriminalizing abortion? I would think that in conservative circles (I know it to be true where I am, at least) that those who do NOT approve of the re-criminalization of abortion also do not arrogate to themselves the description (preferring, in my experience, to remain silent on the subject), or if they do, tend to say, "I am pro-life, but in the more meaningful sense of wanting to lower the number of abortions, rather than being in favor of outlawing them entirely." (They would fit my second group--people trying to reclaim the term. Only they are doing it in a way that doesn't demand that people who describe themselves as "pro-choice" must also be mind-readers or constantly walk on eggshells to avoid the chance that they might offend someone.)

[Jesurgislac]

what I am saying is that the majority of those who consider themselves pro-life are at the Hapax end of the spectrum

Then they need to stop identifying themselves as pro-life and thus remove their implicit support from the people who do want to make abortion illegal. (You're claiming they're a majority. I have no idea, but if you can show me polling data demonstrating that the majority of those who identify as pro-life want abortion to remain legal and available to any woman who needs it, with the woman/her physician being the only two who get to decide what "needs it" means - that is, the status quo in the US - I'd appreciate it.)

Because they know they aren't mysogenistic scumbags (and certainly not in the way you indicate), they can freely dismiss you as a hysterical lunatic and hence go further into the pro-life camp.

Well, if they know they're really pro-choice (as the opo points out, we have already had that argument) they won't go "further into the pro-life camp": they'll want to make clear that despite identifying themselves with a label that makes them sound like part of a group that's pro-forced pregnancy, they're really not.

If, however, they really are pro-forced pregnancy, and just hate being called on it, they'll use being called on it as the excuse. "You were rude to me! So I'm not going to stand up for my principles, I'm going to abandon them completely!" It really makes no sense to argue that someone who isn't really pro-life will become pro-life if it's pointed out to them the implications of their identifying themselves as pro-life.

[Jesurgislac]

Oops. Everyone else has already said what I was saying, and said it better. :-(

[Hagsrus]

...allowing late third-trimester abortions up to and including during labor without extenuating circumstances)...

It's always puzzled me why any woman would go through all the discomforts and hassles of pregnancy and then seek a late term etc abortion if there were not extenuating circumstances -- can anyone enlighten me as to possible motivations?

[ako]

It's always puzzled me why any woman would go through all the discomforts and hassles of pregnancy and then seek a late term etc abortion if there were not extenuating circumstances -- can anyone enlighten me as to possible motivations?

I can't think of any. That hypothetical of the woman who has a late-term abortion for no particular reason always seemed to have an unspoken caveat "getting a late-term abortion without extenuating circumstances (that I consider good enough)."

In that case, it's women who discovered fetal health problems (that someone else doesn't think are serious enough), women whose life circumstances changed radically (in ways someone else doesn't think are worthy enough), women who've been unable to get abortions earlier due to time/money/distance barriers, women who suddenly face complications (that other people don't think are dangerous enough), women who decided to take the health risks before but change their mind (when someone else doesn't think the risks are serious enough), etc.

[Fraser]

Pro-life rationalizations are wildly inconsistent.
Abortion is bad at x number of weeks because the fetus looks human, has a heartbeat, etc., but it's just as bad if the fetus is a clump of a half-dozen cells.
Abortion is bad because sluts shouldn't be able to sleep around and then avoid the consequences, but it's just as bad if the woman is a faithful wife whose husband's vasectomy didn't take.
And so on. At least, that applies to the local bible-belt crop of right-to-lifers. Who are also often against contraception.
As for the Passion of the Christ, what's really funny is that Gibson believes everybody outside the Catholic Church is damned to Hell, so those Protestants who flocked to it are being fleeced (I can't see anything in the movie that would cause them to convert to Catholicism).
Re: Dobson, someone suggested on another site that it's mostly about power: Republicans will listen to his calls for imposing Bible-based morality on us all only because he can deliver a solid block of votes. If evangelicals start haring off after false non-Republican idols such as global warming and anti-torture legislation, the votes could dwindle and so will his clout.

[Jesurgislac]

Hagsrus: can anyone enlighten me as to possible motivations?

A (male) regular commenter on Obsidian Wings once suggested: "second thoughts upon seeing their body changing".

[alsafi]

Hagsrus, I am inclined to believe that there aren't many women who would, but I suppose it depends on how you define "extenuating circumstances." For example, I would consider it to be an extenuating circumstance that abortion-providers are nearly non-existant in rural areas. So if a woman from an area without access had been trying to obtain an abortion and failing until she reached her third trimester, at which point she was finally able to find and get to a clinic that would perform it, I would feel she had extenuating circumstances. Likewise the woman who escapes an abusive relationship and seeks a late-term abortion because she had no opportunity at an earlier point. But on the other end of the spectrum, I have talked to people who believe that only the imminent death of the mother qualifies as an "extenuating circumstance." And on one memorable occasion, with someone who felt that even that was not enough.

[alsafi]

In other words: what ako said.

[Francis]

Last comment until I can work out a better way of expressing things:
that by bothering to put up a fight, pro-choicers are somehow "forcing" people who are generally neutral on the abortion issue to go with the raving right-wing maniacs?

No. I'm saying that by putting up a fight reminiscent of American behaviour in Iraq, pro-choicers are massively encouraging neutrals to oppose them.

You don't "put up a fight" by slapping round the face everyone who looks at you the wrong way or who wears the wrong lapel pin. You try to only do that to those who are irredeemably opposed to you. Instead, you try to separate the bystanders rather than slap them round the face - and to win them over, you try to separate those who are likely to join in against you and convince them to stay neutral, and you go after the small core who are irredeemably hostile (or just looking for a fight) with whatever you have.

[Jesurgislac]

Francis: You don't "put up a fight" by slapping round the face everyone who looks at you the wrong way or who wears the wrong lapel pin.

Odd: seems to have worked well for the pro-life movement, who use exactly those tactics on anyone who identifies as pro-choice. For example, see the pro-life attacks on John Kerry, who would - if your theory about the majority of pro-lifers wanting to keep abortion "safe, legal, and rare" was correct - have been the darling of the pro-life movement. But, because he explicitly said he wanted abortion to remain legal, he was slapped around the face and so were his supporters: at least one Catholic bishop claimed it would be only right to deny communion to anyone who voted for Kerry.

You could argue that because being pro-choice is for decent people, we ought not to do what the pro-lifers do: but after all, we don't. When pro-lifers use words to slap people around the face, they lie a lot. They claim that being pro-choice is the same as being pro-abortion. They claim that a fetus is identical to a baby. (Or a toddler!) They claim that they only want to make abortion illegal to protect the babies.

But you can hardly argue that the tactic of attacking those who oppose choice doesn't work: it's why so many people are afraid to identify as pro-choice even when they are. The pro-life movement has got them convinced that if they say they're pro-choice, people will think that means they're heartless babykillers.

[Raka]

alsafi: Yeah, I did a bad job of explaining what I mean by "reductionism" in this case. I often hear arguments to the effect of "if you support X, and X will result in more women dying, then you support more women dying. You are anti-women. You don't value women's lives." This argument is correct if X is a lever somewhere that will kill some random women and have no other effect; if you know this and still support pulling the lever, you're certainly not a great human being. But if X has another obvious goal, it's inaccurate and unreasonable to characterize it solely by the secondary and unintended (even if unavoidable) consequence. My first example in this format would be "You support current assault laws, and those laws prevent me from breathing as I choose (out of your lungs without your permission). You are anti-breathing." The obvious goal of assault laws is to prevent me from manhandling you; the fact that this prevents me from breathing as I would choose to do is a secondary and unintended (even if unavoidable) consequence.

The other side of the coin is that people who support X have to acknowledge such consequences and decide whether or not X is worth it-- they can't ignore them or pretend that they have no responsibility for those consequences. The pro-life movement does have a tendency to ignore or deny such responsibility, which is bad (certainly worse than using a crappy logic structure to insult pro-lifers). For my air analogy, I think it's safe to say that anyone who looks at the "anti-breathing" secondary and unintended consequence of assault laws would decide that my preference certainly does not outweigh the primary intent of the laws. When it comes to weighing the benefits of outlawing abortion compared to a statistical increase in women's deaths, that's a much less cut and dry issue. But it shouldn't be assumed by pro-choicers, nor ignored by pro-lifers.

I've spent so much time defending pro-lifers who do not hate women, sex, or freedom that I really should clarify that I've met far too many who do. When I say that all pro-lifers aren't misogynistic patriarchs I don't want to imply that misogynistic patriarchs don't exist or play a significant role in the movement. I think an even bigger issue are the people who aren't misogynistic patriarchs by nature, but fail to fully examine the beliefs they were raised with and take for granted, which often have misogynistic patriarchal implications.

[Jesurgislac]

ako: That hypothetical of the woman who has a late-term abortion for no particular reason always seemed to have an unspoken caveat "getting a late-term abortion without extenuating circumstances (that I consider good enough)."

I can't recall exactly where this came up, but I do remember it as a pro-life argument during some attempt to make third-trimester abortion illegal with no health exceptions: the argument was, that if health exemptions are allowed, doctors will always put the health of the pregnant woman first, and that means fetuses will be aborted who were just making the woman extremely sick, not actually killing her.

The obvious problem with that argument is, well, a recent instance in Poland, where a woman who was warned that carrying her pregnancy to term could damage her eyesight, couldn't get an abortion because this wasn't lethal, and did go blind: ruptured capillaries in the retina during labor.

The problem keeps coming back to that: If a woman decides that it will be worth the risk of going blind to have her baby, she should absolutely have the right to make that decision. But it ought to be her decision, not the decision of a doctor who thinks it's okay for a woman he doesn't know to go blind because that's not going to kill her.

But, more widely than that, nor ought it to be the sweeping decision of a legislative body, that it's okay for women to suffer damage to their health so long as they don't actually die of it: exactly how much damage? If the doctor isn't allowed to decide, and the woman isn't allowed to decide, there will come a point where abortion won't save the woman's life: the damage will be too extreme.

The struggle is fundamentally between people who believe women don't have the virtue or the wit to make good decisions for themselves (and for their family), and therefore ought not to be allowed to do so: and those of us who believe that while we're all imperfect and we all sometimes make bad decisions, still, where our own bodies are concerned, those decisions ought to be for us to make, no one else.

[PK]

Very well said, Raka.

[Jesurgislac]

Raka: But if X has another obvious goal, it's inaccurate and unreasonable to characterize it solely by the secondary and unintended (even if unavoidable) consequence.

But that doesn't apply to the pro-life movement. (Or rather, it does, since the pro-life movement has a bunch of obvious goals like denying women contraception and denying single mothers financial support.) But the first goal of the pro-life movement is to force women through unwanted pregnancy and childbirth, with criminal sanctions if they try to avoid being so forced. You may claim that the lethal result of this forcing is an "unintended consequence" but that sounds rather like the "collatoral damage" about the deliberate killing of civilians. ("Sure, we knew that when we dropped a bomb on the restaurant where we thought Saddam Hussein was having a meeting that a lot of civilians would be killed, but that was a secondary and unintended consequence"!")

[Raka]

Francis, I'm not sure if civility really would have all the pragmatic benefits you seem to be implying it would. I certainly don't think that neutrals see pro-choicers as the shrill and strident group.

I agree that civility is a more honest and long-term form of persuasion, and that it's preferable to Jesu's verbal bludgeon for other reasons. But I don't think the pro-choice movement would see significant material or political gain even if every single one of us became a master of Socratic moderation. Frankly, they'd probably do worse politically. Our electorate doesn't generally reward reason and logic.

[Michèle]

Hagsrus:
> It's always puzzled me why any woman would go through all the discomforts and hassles of pregnancy and then seek a late term etc abortion if there were not extenuating circumstances -- can anyone enlighten me as to possible motivations?

Because "it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind", even at the last minute? Because women are flighty that way?

[the opoponax]

@ Raka:

but the problem with your analogy is that "abortion correlates somehow with more women dying, though this is of course nebulously connected and unintended" is NOT the reason feminists think that an anti-abortion stance is anti-woman.

the reason that restricting women's access to abortion is anti-woman is that it takes bodily autonomy away from women. it says "your body does not belong to you, but to the state". which is, by definition, anti-woman.

[the opoponax]

@ francis:

i'm confused as to what, exactly, in your opinion, is the insulting and uncivil behavior of the pro-choice movement?

it it in being openly feminist and justifying their stance on feminist grounds?

is it in saying that anyone who does not share our opinion is, of necessity, not feminist, or anti-woman?

is it in openly standing up for our belief that abortion should remain legal and largely unrestricted?

is it in making other political demands which are connected with abortion rights?

i'm just honestly wondering WHAT, exactly, you think is so awful about the behavior of the pro-choice movement? because at this point all i can see is that you're pissed that those of us who are pro-choice are trying to tar you with the "unfeminist" brush. which, well, if you're in favor of criminalized abortion, i'm sorry, but unfeminist is exactly what you are.

[Raka]

Jesu: the first goal of the pro-life movement is to force women through unwanted pregnancy and childbirth

Those big sillies. Why are they wasting time trying to legally restrict abortions when they could do so much better by kidnapping women and restraining them in their insemination compounds?

that sounds rather like the "collatoral damage" about the deliberate killing of civilians
I agree (non-sarcastically this time), the situations are very close. In both situations, one has to weight the benefits of the goal (Y) and the likelihood of achieving (b) it against the consequences (X) and the likelihood of them (a). Most of us aren't inhuman enough to simply say, "If a(X) < k(b(Y)), then fire at will!", even assuming such probabilities were really knowable. But most of us are willing to effectively do so, especially as the benefit side of the inequality gets very large compared to the consequence, and/or as the degree of direct involvement with the consequence grows smaller (shooting a child in the head to stop a nuke from destroying NYC, vs defusing the same nuke in a way that releases radioactives that will probably result in 5 eventual cancer deaths). Like I said: the consequences cannot be ignored, but neither can the goal. Your summation of the pro-life goal is wrong: they don't want more pregnancies or more criminals. They want fewer legal abortions. The others are consequences that need to be weighed against that goal.

[Raka]

consequences that need to be weighed against that goal

For what it's worth, I weigh them against each other and come down quite firmly in the pro-choice camp. But I don't get confused about what's on the scale.

Yay, me.

[Jesurgislac]

Raka: Why are they wasting time trying to legally restrict abortions when they could do so much better by kidnapping women and restraining them in their insemination compounds?

Because it's illegal to kidnap women and forcibly impregnate them. (Though I would imagine that all of the men who do restrain women in their insemination compounds) are pro-life. But it's not illegal to campaign to change the law to force women into unwanted pregnancy and through unwanted childbirth, which you euphemistically refer to as "legally restricting abortions".

Your summation of the pro-life goal is wrong: they don't want more pregnancies or more criminals.

Nonsense. The claim they don't want "more pregnancies" is straightforwardly false: no pro-life organization in the US - not one - supports constraception, and most actively campaign against contraception. They want more pregnancies, and they actively campaign for a change in the law that will make several hundred thousand women a year criminals. So, yes, they want more criminals.

They want fewer legal abortions

Nonsense, again. If that was what they wanted, that would be what they were campaigning for: and not one of the pro-life organizations in the US campaigns for that goal.

[Jesurgislac]

Raka: But I don't get confused about what's on the scale.

Your comments suggest that you are deeply confused about what's on the scale, due probably to taking pro-life propaganda at face value, rather than looking at the actual goals of the pro-life movement.

[twig]

PK;

Also, people are apparently no longer allowed to be "pro-choice but anti-abortion" these days.

It's just another iteration in the argument. I personally liked this comment in response:

http://pandagon.net/2007/02/22/time-to-open-up-the-overton-window-some-more-abortion-is-a-moral-good/#comment-365798

[twig]

Ah, dammit. It still works if you cut and paste it. The basic conclusion:

"If the pro-choice position isn’t strong enough to acknowledge that it can be a sad thing for a woman to have an abortion, because she wanted the baby that embryo or fetus would become but for reason couldn’t carry to term, then there’s something wrong with the pro-choice position."

[Sam C]

A minor point, just in case Erick Oppeen is still reading, or in case anyone else is interested: see http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/10/global-warming-on-mars/ for an informed response to the 'Mars is getting hotter, therefore climate change on earth is not anthropogenic' nonsense.

[Mabus]

Jesu, what would you think of someone who does not believe anyone has the right to choose death (as a primary result, at least) for another person, then? Not a parent, not the state, not anyone. There are a few situations in which a person must die (that is, where the death penalty should be required), but none in which death is merely allowed. It is not some fault in women that causes this--it is simply the logical progression: life is required for choice, precedes choice, and is therefore more important than choice.

I must admit you've persuaded me to change my mind on issues like universal health care, though. If the only way to provide for women and keep their children alive is to confiscate other people's property, that theft is justified. I find this bitter (thus the irony; I'm not being sarcastic to tease)--I thought I had found an adequate balance between property/freedom rights and life rights, that didn't require me to "Hail the almighty state!" Guess not, though. Sorry, Scott.

[the opoponax]

@ twig and/or PK:

but the pro-choice movement does allow for such opinions. i am one such person -- i think abortion is sad, and on morally shaky territory. but i think that it is necessary for them to be legal, and i'm not willing to make that choice for anyone but myself. and yet i've spent close to 10 years as a pro-choice activist. i've attended huge political rallies and marches to that effect. i've worked for pro-choice groups. the pro-choice movement seems to be just fine having me as not just a rank-and-file member, but on the front lines.

[Michèle]

Mabus:
> Jesu, what would you think of someone who does not believe anyone has the right to choose death (as a primary result, at least) for another person, then?

I think the keyword here is "person". Is a gamete a "person"? Is a zygote a "person"? Is an embryo a "person"? Is a first trimester fetus a "person"? Is a second trimester fetus a "person"? What about third trimester? At what point does the "lump of cells" gain personhood?

[hf]

Accepted where?

Google, Bartleby's American Heritage Dictionary, and Merriam-Webster online if you follow their link. Wikipedia now has a more ambiguous introduction, but it still says that in popular discourse "pro-life" means opposed to abortion rights. Britannica seems to avoid the term unless you ask their website to search Journals -- in which case you get articles about abortion -- or look at the web results on their main search page -- in which case you see a site-description that begins with the words, "Campaign against abortion," for a site that opposes abortion rights. Conservapedia curiously has no entry for "pro-life", but their Roe article uses the term in a way consistent with American English. The talk page refuses to define the term on the grounds that everyone knows what it means. This is literally the first I've heard of anyone post-Roe using the term in a contrary way unless they explicitly wanted to point out the hypocrisy of the anti-choice movement. And if people who identify as pro-life don't know what that means in practice, then someone should rub their faces in the real views of the movement they endorse.

[Make That 85%]

Not a parent, not the state, not anyone. There are a few situations in which a person must die (that is, where the death penalty should be required), but none in which death is merely allowed.

Isn't the state choosing death for the condemned?

[twig]

opoponax;
I was just responding to PK's mention of a Pandagon post, where the argument was made that the pro-choice movement was wrong on both logical and moral grounds by not proclaiming abortion as a moral good.

I just felt that anyone who read the original post would be remiss in not also reading through the comments.

[Cogito]

Raka said:

Those big sillies. Why are they wasting time trying to legally restrict abortions when they could do so much better by kidnapping women and restraining them in their insemination compounds?

What you're missing is that Jesu is referring to "pro-forced-pregnancy" not in the sense that they want to produce the maximum possible number of births, but in the sense that they want to have pregnancy as an unavoidable punishment for illicit (in their minds) sex. It is darn hard to find self-defined pro-life people who act as though what they say is true. If a first-trimester abortion is equivalent to the death of an infant, one would expect massive grief over every miscarriage. If the point is to protect innocent fetuses from harm, no exceptions for rape should be allowed, as that has no influence on whether a fetus is a person and whether it deserves to live.

Again, what I see from most pro-life arguments is pretty obviously anti-woman - women should be punished for illicit sex, and since we can't police every bedroom we want biology to do it for us. Underlining this is the close connection of pro-life groups with causes like suppressing birth control and promoting chastity until marriage.

Mabus said,

There are a few situations in which a person must die (that is, where the death penalty should be required), but none in which death is merely allowed. It is not some fault in women that causes this--it is simply the logical progression: life is required for choice, precedes choice, and is therefore more important than choice.

Honestly, I don't know what you're saying here. Can you rephrase or explain this?

[Mabus]

Make that 85%> That depends on what state you're talking about. I'm making a distinction between the possibility of a mandatory death sentence and one which is only permissible. If people feel obligated to impose the death penalty for a certain crime, then it should truly be an obligation, not an "if" or a "maybe". One should never choose to kill.

Cogito, I'm pointing out that the dead get no choices. In order to preserve a right of choice, one must first preserve a right of life.

I should also point out what you're overlooking re: rape (and incest). Every exception to the no-abortions-allowed policy pro-lifers favor is a political compromise. Check your publications--early pro-life arguments either do not mention rape as an exception, or agree with you that it should not be one. But when it became clear that no political traction could be obtained that way, pro-lifers decided to save whom they could. Therefore your claim on the subject is either made in ignorance, or it's a deliberate Catch-22 to prevent any progress on our parts.

[paulf]

What Dobson is trying to say is quite simple, which is obscured by all this scrutinizing. In Dobson's mind, evangelical = conservative Republican = Christian.

If people think that he has a religious test for public officials, it's the other way around -- he has a party affiliation test to be a Christian, which is even more cynical and evil.

[paulf]

Let me restate what I just said to be more accurate -- what Dobson is saying is less that he has a religious litmus test for elected officials, but that he has a political litmus test to determine who is a Christian.

[Mabus]

Paulf, has Fred not often stated here that Republican economic tenets disqualify Republicans as truly Christian? Does that not count as a political litmus test?

[Cogito]

Thanks, Mabus. What you say about political compromise does make sense in many contexts. However, it doesn't really explain your average person on the street who expresses the same stance. Frankly, when I was pro-life, I had internalized a general feeling of blaming women and trying to put "responsibility" for their choices on them. I even wrote some allegorical fiction on the theme, which I'm sure was Vogonian in its awfulness. I never thought about the cognitive dissonance of advocating for babies by trying to get no-account people who didn't want them to raise them.

Anyway, as to death and choice. Sure, in order to preserve the right of potential choice of the fetus, one must first preserve a right of life for the fetus. I guess it's true as far as it goes, but totally unhelpful. Your statement merely brings us back to the original problem: whose choices take precedence? In this situation, we must take choice away from one party to give it to the other.

As for choosing death for someone else, in the death penalty scenario, people still make the choice. For jurors, it would merely be moved back to the guilt/innocence question, and in any case the legislators would have made the choice to impose death. Personally, I do think we have limited rights to choose death for someone else, such as in cases of self-defense, and that does inform my stance on abortion.

[Michèle]

Mabus, would you mind answering my question, please? It wasn't really meant to be rhetocical, but is a crux of the issue. At what point does the "lump of cells" gain "personhood"? Gamete, zygote, embryo, early fetus, late fetus, newborn, etc?

[Mabus]

Sorry, Michele. I apologize for not answering earlier...I've heard the question so often, and there's no clear non-philosophical answer. I believe that a zygote qualifies as a person--though because of the problems involved with twinning I can understand people who wait till the blastocyst phase. But the question really isn't empirically answerable.

Cognito, are not all people responsible for their choices? What meaning would choice have apart from that? You have a point about people who don't want to raise their children, but social services takes kids from their families all the time.

As to death and choice, unless the woman's life is in danger she has a great many other choices. (Never quite figured why "pro-choice" only ever takes that one particular choice into account.) The child, OTOH, will never get to make any choices at all if aborted.

I suppose I see your argument re: choice. Still, it seems to me that all issues of life and death should be removed as far from individual choice as possible and referred to the law (aside from the specific individual already at risk, anyway).