At the NAPW Summit opening, Lynn Paltrow requested that everyone presenting open her remarks with her personal history of being pregnant—luckily, the diversity of the participants was such that a lot of people had more interesting wrinkles in their history than how many pregnancies and what was the outcome. And they were good-natured enough to respond to the spirit of the question and give those textured histories, up to and including desire for pregnancies that haven’t happened, partner’s pregnancies, the desire to be childless, their own births, and adoption histories. I enjoyed that so much that I’m going to give my brief history, which is that I’ve never been pregnant and Disco Ball willing, will never be pregnant. And that I am permitted to have the life that I want in this way is the direct result of the reproductive justice movement that emerged in the 20th century and continues to this day.
Because of this movement that might even be expanded to be called the sexual justice movement, I have been able to access my favored contraception (birth control pills) and that contraception is safe, legal and covered by my insurance or available for discounted rates at Planned Parenthood. Because of the sexual justice movement that made AIDS a political and social issue that couldn’t be ignored, I also grew up with a healthy respect towards condom use, and this has meant that I’ve had the fortune to be STD-free. None of this is to judge anyone who hasn’t had my great luck, but to drive home the point that my very life is an example of how the pro-choice movement’s policy ideas work. They work on two levels—they allow people to pursue happiness as promised in the Declaration of Independence and they also work at achieving the stated (though not actual) goals of the anti-choice movement, which is to prevent the spread of disease and to reduce the incidence of abortion. I’ve never had an abortion, not because it’s illegal, but because it’s legal—because my right to control my body is respected, I have the level of control to make the unwanted pregnancy and therefore the abortion much less likely.
At the NAPW Summit, I heard and spoke to many people who had performed a number of abortions and many people who help deliver babies. Of relevance is noting that everyone in the former category also belonged to the latter. I find this an interesting wrinkle to the point that was brought up over the course of the conference repeatedly that women who have abortions generally also have children, so the anti-choice demonization of women who have abortions as somehow unmaternal is factually incorrect. And even those rare pro-choicers like me who don’t want to be mothers one day still are not the baby-hating harridans of the anti-choice imagination. I listened to and spoke with women who have lifelong religious objections to abortion (and some even the right to have one if you believe differently), but who were nonetheless at this Summit because they had personal experiences with the patriarchal need to control and dominate women’s bodies by using pregnancy as an excuse. Pregnancy is a favorite excuse to control women for a number of reasons, but one thing that kept cropping up as women told their storie is the assumption held by society that women are basically too stupid to be allowed to handle something as important as their own reproductive capacity, and that it’s just for the best if our social structures ignored the self-evident fact that women are completely human and instead treated us as Rickie Solinger in her new book Pregnancy and Power recorded one doctor stating, “Woman is a uterus surrounded by supporting mechanisms and a directing personality.”
Speaking of Solinger, everyone was really impressed by her presentation as she moderated a panel about who gets defined as a legitimate reproducer and in her discussion about the limitations of the word “choice” as a rallying cry. “Choice” is basically, in her words, “rights lite”, and while the concept has plenty of use, it has drawbacks—the big ones being it implies that the choice is to become a mother or not (which has led to the misunderstanding that there’s women who have babies and women who have abortions when they are the same women), it has led sexist men to grouse and complain about how they don’t have a “choice” of what to do with a pregnancy that resides in someone else’s body (which just reinscribes the notion that female bodies belong under male control and that fucking a woman should give a man legal claim over her body), and has led people away from looking harder at the various ways that women don’t have choices. You’re not empowered by choice if you want to have a baby but can’t because they’ll kick you out of school or off welfare or you’re afraid your husband will beat you even more. The time has come to push past the word “choice” and start talking about rights and justice. Women have a right to self-determination and bodily intergrity.
In the worst case scenario, the concept of “choice” is often used to strip women of rights. The logic goes as follows: You have a choice to continue or terminate a pregnancy, but if your choice is not what the establishment wants it to be, you can lose rights. This is the logic being employed to throw women in jail for giving birth to stillborns or to cut off welfare benefits for having “too many” children.
Which leads me to my second point, which is the ridiculous attempts amongst more conservative Democrats to suggest that “compromise” on the subject of rights for women will somehow be the ticket to luring anti-choice voters from the Republican party to vote for the Democratic one. Needless to say, the mish-mash of misogyny and often of racism that leads people to yearn for more government control over the bodies of women isn’t going to go away by tossing them a parental notification cookie here or a bunch of pointless hand-wringing over how bad abortion is there. (The latter of which assumes wrongly that anti-choicers are stupid—they know damn well that abortion is a good thing if you need one and are motivated by the belief that sexualized women do not deserve good things.) But here as this summit that most conservative Democrats would characterize as being some sort of crazy leftist feminist feel-good crap, I saw with my own eyes that NAPW and Lynn Paltrow were able to bring people who are antagonistic to the table not by compromising their views, but by expanding them.
One woman whose name I’m not sure I can spell correctly (Laura Pemberton I think) gave one of the most moving presentations at the summit when she told her story of trying to evade a court-ordered C-section that violated her religious beliefs. (She had one C-section before under genuinely dangerous circumstances, and the “no vaginal after a C-section” rule kicked into effect.) Hers was a horrific story of a patriarchal medical and court system that came into collusion and forced this C-section on her in a way that made it clear that after a certain point, it was a punishment against her for refusing to deliver at the hospital and trying to deliver at home. After all, by the time the police came to the house, arrested her, strapped her down to the table at the hospital and had the court order in hand to operate, the baby was just about to come out. (She said she was dilated to 9 centimeters—I don’t know what this means, but it made the audience gasp.) After she told her story, she was asked about her views on abortion and she got rigid, stating that she thought it was wrong, and she made it clear at another part of her presentation that she felt it was a woman’s god-given duty to have children. This woman was the religious conservative red stater that people who talk about compromise on abortion want to lure over. And yet here she was sitting at the table with a bunch of crunchy feminists, queer activists and generally cantankerous pro-choicers (literally, she sat with our little group at lunch one day and was winking at and laughing with some of our more goofily feminist jokes)—not because we had limited our demands for women’s rights but because we expanded those demands and the expanded view of what women’s rights are was appealing to her. Talk about choice, she’s not at the table. Talk about a woman’s right to self-determination and that means something to her. The reason that liberals are losing people is because we’re too timid about pushing forth our agenda. And this came up again and again—women who for whatever reason aren’t overly interested in this discussion of “choice” came to the pro-choice table because the people at NAPW are talking about the much larger concept of justice and the right to self-determination.
Blog For Choice Day has been selected to honor the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade and indeed, that day was a momentous event that, like the decision Brown vs. the Board of Education is when a social justice movement began to really, truly resonate with the general public. In Pregnancy and Power, Solinger notes how the number of women who had babies while single didn’t really go down after Roe, but the percentage of them giving those babies up for adoption plummeted—immediately after Roe. Which does go to show how the concept of choice does have massive importance, because women saw the new right to choose abortion as a tactic indication that we had other rights to choose, including the right to choose to keep a baby instead of give it up for adoption. The right to have an abortion was seen not just by women generally as a symbol of our new right to self-determination, but it also became the flashpoint of anger over women’s rights in the general public, just as school desegregation was for decades. After this weekend and talking to and listening to so many people talk about all the various fights they’ve engaged in post-Roe to expand the public discourse on women’s rights, I feel all the more optimistic that these are fights that we can win despite the setbacks of the backlash.
91 Responses to “Blogging For Choice and beyond choice”
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Exactly. I really think there are so many people out there who are liberal and pro-choice and don’t know it because of the ways the issues are sometimes framed.
BTW, 10 cm is fully dilated. The audience was gasping because she was literally about ready to push the baby out. Why did she have a court order on her? That’s just horrifying.
9 cm dialated means that the baby is so close to coming out that the surgeon doing the cesearean will have to disengage the baby’s head from the pelvis in order to bring it out. It’s medical lunacy of high order to do a c-section at that point unless there’s clear evidence of maternal or fetal distress (not counting the distress of being arrested and strapped down to a table).
Pemberton vs. Tallahassee Memorial Regional Medical Center is online at:
http://faculty.smu.edu/tmayo/pemberton.pdf
The story of the woman forced to undergo a C-section really is horrifying and unfortunately I imagine there are many more that remain silent. It’s disgusting the kind of control doctors (usually male) want to exert over women when we are most vulnerable.
I don’t want to hijack the thread by taking this too far off-subject, but this post had me thinking about one of the things I absolutely hate most in TV and movies.. the storyline revolving around a woman in labor in dangerous situations. It’s like there’s almost this titilation factor about a woman completely exposed, vulnerable, in surroundings she can’t control. ER has had several of these, and so many shows with pregnant characters have to use crisis during the labor to boost ratings. Along with this there is the pregnant/in-labor women are irrational, crazy and out of control and can’t possibly know what they really want.
I think these things help to enforce the patriarchal view of pregnant women and giving birth which dictates that women are not in control, can’t be in control, and that a vulnerability is the natural state for women and so a man/men/society needs to step in and take control.
Thanks for the link!
Talk about dangerous language in a court decision: “whatever the scope of mother’s constitutional rights, they did not outweigh the interests of the State in preserving the life of the unborn child”
It’s ironic to me that after my wife and I went through the intensive Lamaze course literally yesterday, the news is awash with R v. W news. Astraea is right that the media overdoes the pregnant woman in danger theme. Part of it is the drama factor, esp. on ER when any patient they see is in an emergency situation (although the two of the doctor characters had risky, ultimately dangerous, deliveries). However, after going through Lamaze classes and my wife going to La Leche League I think an even more sinster problem is the attack on women-centered pregnancy options.
Breastfeeding (I’m thinking of a Law and Order episode) and natural childbirthing advocates are seen as demented harpies bullying pregnant women and new mothers into potentially unsafe situations to suit their ideological agendas. Even Lamaze, common as it is in hospitals, is often portrayed as silly and pointless (Bill Cosby and Dave Barry both have funny, if not currently accurate, stories of Lamaze. That maybe how things were, but it wasn’t like the class I went to.). You get the impression that Lamaze teachers are completely against drugs during delivery when in fact they just want to give women options apart from drugs. Our teacher gave the whole list of drug options without the slightest hint of judgement. These horror or comedic stories discourage women from seeking anything other than passive acceptance of doctors’ orders.
I agree, Histrogeek, I think the contempt for women’s choices regarding pregnancy is extremely troubling. Along with the Lamaze thing, it’s pretty common to see scenarios on tv about a woman determined to have a “natural” childbirth, and then at the first cramp she demands painkillers. Just another episode of Doctor Knows Best.
The Pemberton case is just chilling - basically it seems to imply that a woman isn’t “qualified” to make decisions about treatment when there is an impending birth. That somehow the “states interest” is for the soon-to-be-newborn and not the person laboring it. Basically, this could be interpreted to make all homebirth illegal - since the census of the ACOG is that midwives and birthing at home is not ok.
Bullocks says a woman who had both her kids at home with the help of a very experienced midwife.
Hey, I hate to go off-topic, but I thought Amanda or Pam might have something to say about Alexandra Pelosi and her new documentary, “Friends of God.” She was just recently (I have no idea whether the interview was tivoed or not) on one of the morning news shows, and among other things said:
1. Pastor Ted was her “tour guide” and she was devastated by the scandal.
2. In the “culture wars,” she’s on “their” side (because she’d rather have Jesus than Paris Hilton — actual quote)
3. She’s raising her child religious, because doing so is important. Otherwise, they become “unchurched” (said in severe tones) and are more likely to join “extremist religions” (presumably not the form of Christianity that bombs abortion clinics and murders gays, though — that’s cool).
Those are just the highlights. I nearly broke the TV in anger at that last part.
ill have to say i hate watching movies/shows with a childbirth scene particuarly because they always seem ridiculously over dramatic. humans have been giving birth for how many years now and we still arent comfortable with it? its just ridiculous. not to mention the almost flat backed legs up position they usually have the actress in for it, which completely doesnt make sense…why would give birth AGAINST gravity?
im even rethinking seeing “pans labrynth” because of a particuarly brutal childbirth scene that i just want no part of. although apparently that is a pretty feminist movie (from a surprising amount of reviews ive read)
Excellent post, and thanks for the inspiration.
I’m horrified by the stories of forced C-sections. How can that ever be justified? Doesn’t every competent adult have the right to refuse medical treatment, however strongly recommended it may be? These are the sort of things that make me not want to become pregnant, as it seems many people think that pregnancy should mean a woman loses here basic human rights.
I like the extended choice discussion, and completely agree that there is more to reporoductive rights than abortion, though of course the abortion issue is still relevant and important.
[…] I am pro-choice because reproductive rights are far more than abortion, and because I want to see us live in a true culture of life — one where men, women and children are truly valued, and where pregnancy doesn’t turn a woman into a second-class citizen. […]
[…] I am pro-choice because reproductive rights are far more than abortion, and because I want to see us live in a true culture of life — one where men, women and children are truly valued, and where pregnancy doesn’t turn a woman into a second-class citizen. […]
Pregnancy and Power recorded one doctor stating, “Woman is a uterus surrounded by supporting mechanisms and a directing personality.�
Paging Commander Fred, Republic of Gilead. Commander Fred, please report to the white courtesy phone.
I do not know Ms. Pemberton’s case; under EMTALA, a woman is not supposed to be able to be coerced in that way; she has the right, by law to refuse any treatment she does not want, including c/section. I have heard lesser stories of coercion in this vein that would make me believe this is not impossible with a sufficiently bad judge to issue the subpoena. Usually psychological pressure is used instead, and since you’re very vulnerable/distracted in labor, it’s often quite effective.
I know one midwife who unhesitatingly uses the term “birthrape” to describe what happens when staff ignore women’s pleas and do what they want to her during the birth process. I know women who exhibit many similar symptoms to assault victims stemming from the way they were abused in the hospital. But they’re told that if they baby’s healthy, they should just shut up.
The idea that VBAC (va. birth after c/sec) is too dangerous to attempt is outdated and ludicrous, and far more about doctors fearing lawsuits than women being in any danger.
And in today’s Notre Dame student paper, we have this ugly thing:
I’ll be blogging a response to this and submitting some of it to the Editorial Board after I do my regular coursework tonight. Anyone care to help me rebut the lies and other false claims in this monstrosity?
In the Pemberton case, apparently, the doctors were concerned because her previous c-section had been with a vertical incision. Not that that excuses the forced section, apart from the fact that she had probably been through most of transition if she was at nine centimeters, but it explains the concern.
i hate watching movies/shows with a childbirth scene particuarly because they always seem ridiculously over dramatic
Yeah… as far as I can tell, labor’s pretty boring. I hear that a fast one’s more exciting, and without drugs there’s certainly more to actually do– I remember being vaguely creeped out at a former job when coworkers would call in during their own labors to chat, because there was nothing on tv, the monitor wasn’t all that entertaining, and they really couldn’t feel anything beneath their rib cages anyway thanks to the epidural– but it’s for most people a fairly tedious effort with a predictable sequence of events.
Blog for Choice Day…
Shakespeare’s Sister lets us know that today is Blog for Choice Day, and the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Shakes concludes her post, “So on we march, from one battle to the next, fighting for the right to choose, to make…
[…] Amanda as pandagon has a very informative and interesting post discussing her experience at the NAPW conference (a women’s rights conference). […]
I am horrified by Ms. Pemberton’s case, but there are a few mitigating factors that make this more complicated and raise several questions for me, though I am hesitant to think those mitigating factors justify this level of intervention against a woman’s will.
As Ledasmom mentioned, she had a vertical incision which does increase risk of uterine rupture and she had come to the hospital requesting an IV after more than a day of labor because she was dehydrated and unable to keep down either fluids or food. Did this suggest that the birth was already experiencing complications? She was attended by a midwife, but there is no indication what the midwife’s position was on the practicality and safety of continuing the homebirth given that Ms. Pemberton was dehydrated (which, IMO, is part of the problem with the current medical model- it unfairly undermines midwifery without regard for clear evidence that homebirth has equal or better morbidity/mortality outcomes than hospitals).
Is there any circumstance under which it becomes obvious that a patient (and their support) is not rational in their assessment of risks or do we always honor their will even if it will result in certain death? What liability does a hospital hold if a patient voluntarily admits themselves for one treatment, but requires another potentially life-saving procedure, but does not perform the life-saving treatment? Why can’t we devise a system whereby hospitals/healthcare providers are absolved of liability if a patient refuses to consent to a procedure, leading to a poor outcome?
I want to reiterate that I am not trying to justify what happened or suggest that it was okay, but trying to understand it in all its complexity.
Amanda, this was a great post. I like what you’re talking about regarding the difference between the words “choice” and “right” — this was something that I touched on today in my own blog for choice entry, but didn’t state outright as well as you did. It occurs to me that people can always say, “well, you shouldn’t be having sex if pregnancy is dangerous/something you don’t want right now”. But when you think of it as a right — that women have the right to have sex without “consequences” (that’s a great way to refer to children), and also have the right to control what goes on if they decide to bear children… yeah, it gets a lot harder to protest against in my mind (not that the anti-choicers out there will stop doing so). But yes, great post.
Elektrodot,
As a bit of irony, I saw Pan’s Labrynth the same day as our main Lamaze class (not even realizing it had a pregnancy plot line). In this case, I think it would be hard to explain the deadly childbirth in anti-femnist terms since essentially every choice that made the birth deadly was the result of Captain Vidal’s (the husband’s) appallingly, almost absurdly, patriarchal decisions such as:
1) Dragging his wife out of the city to BFE during an apparently risky pregnancy because sons should be born near their fathers.
2) Shooting the only doctor in town as a republican collaborator (Franco’s Spain).
3) Beating up his step-daughter in front of her mother.
4) Preventing Ofelia from using magic to defend her mother and baby brother (if you take the magic plotline as being real rather than imaginary).
5) Telling the doctor (possibly the medic too, I don’t remember) that if it comes to it, save the baby not the mother.
Naturally any death in childbirth plays to the stereotype, but the film goes to major lengths to show that Vidal made the choices that led to the tradegy. So really it’s definitely anti-patriarchal.
no no histrogeek, i even mentioned in my post that i had read alot of reviews about how it was a very anti patriarchal movie. im just annoyed when every single childbirth scene in any movie is either ridiculously over dramatic/brutal. watching movies you wonder why any woman would ever get pregnant since its portrayed as the worst thing EVAH. im totally still gonna see the movie though
It occurs to me that people can always say, “well, you shouldn’t be having sex if pregnancy is dangerous/something you don’t want right now�.
I just saw the Rox Populi short-and-sweet statement on this, but your response kinda hit on the thing that had been niggling in the back of my mind: we can call it slavery, but the anti-choicers’ position is more like comparing forced pregnancy to indentured servitude. As you point out, there’s nothing wrong with choosing to have sex, but from their POV, all sexual activity (with marriage simply being analogous to having enough money to minimize risk) is like gambling or running up huge debts that will catch up with one eventually, and pregnancy is simply a predictable outcome of behavior they consider at its core indulgent and irresponsible, and therefore it should be accepted as a punishment. The idea that indentured servitude itself was exploitative and wrong is alien to them, as is the notion that avoiding ‘consequences’ for essentially harmless behavior is a good thing.
In my experience, the “drama” in my 2 births was excitement, not fear. There was quite a bit of pain involved in both (one epidural, one medication-free), but the pain really wasn’t all that “dramatic,” per se.
We keep treating pregnancy and birth like a medical condition that must be treated by (mostly male) doctors, instead of a natural part of life.
By the way, OBs are trained as surgeons, not as birthing coaches/leaders what-have-you.
Andrea -
I think of it as a “right” not to have sex without consequences (the pregnancy itself is a possible consequence) but as a right to decide on your own healthcare. No one would tell a patient to ‘wait four days and think about it,’ before they got an appendectomy. No one would think that the judge could tell a diabetic patient the right treatment for them out of a range of options. (Damn it, I don’t like the idea of drugs - I’ll just order you to have your foot cut off.)
Why does the government get the right to interfere with women’s healthcare because they are pregnant?
I have to share this VERY timely post from a CA midwife regarding, in great and clinical detail, the ways women are mistreated in hospitals when they are not following “Protocol” (in this case, transferring to hospital during a homebirth that wasn’t progressing), and how when abuses take place, women (and patients in general) are deliberately excluded from the complaint/redress process.
http://observantmidwife.blogspot.com/2007/01/its-time-to-tell-story.html
A few years back, before I I stumbled on a little blog called Mouse Words, Pams blog, and Lauren when she blogged at Feministe, I had thought real liberalism (base root Liber=free) was dead.
Thank you for your writing. I hope you have some real idea how important what you are doing really is!
When my son flipped breech at 38 weeks gestation and I was faced with the “automatic C-section” mentality present in obstetric medicine, even from progressive caregivers, I made one thing abundantly clear: under Massachusetts law, I make all the decisions about my medical care. The Patient’s Bill of Rights did not say “does not apply to preggers”.
I also did my medical literature searches, being, at the time, a professional medical researcher. What I put together in a couple of days stayed on file at my OB/GYNs practice for quite a while. Studies of tens of thousands of children followed to age ten and beyond in europe. Studies of various types of breech position and birth number and such versus short- and long-term outcomes, information that could serve as a guide to which births might go right, and which breech births were truly too dangerous (footling breech births are a total nightmare 60% of the time). The automatic rule (admittedly not totally automatic to my caregivers) wasn’t just stupid given the screening criteria, it was dangerous given the risks of c-section.
And the risks of c-section to the mother are ALWAYS vastly underrated or underexplained or downplayed, if the attending physician even knows what they are to begin with! 25% postpartum infection rate. Bladder prolapse and injury. Hemhorrage. Reaction to anesthesia. Embolism. Meningitis. Inability to perform activities of daily living, such as caring for the baby or other children, for weeks.
It wasn’t like I was totally and adamantly opposed to being sliced open. I was simply totally and adamantly opposed to being sliced open without a clearly stated medical emergency reason! Had I labored without progressing or getting into heavy contractions - which happens in about 25% of such cases as mine - I would have agreed to the necessity of the procedure. Otherwise, the surgery was of absolutely no value to my son over coming out butt first or head first, and totally debilitating to me. That simply does not satisfy my sense of proper risk-benefit analysis!
Too many doctors feel a need to control birth, just as too many anti-rights folk feel the need to control all aspects of fertility. It is so much easier for the doctor to perform major surgery to achieve birth, particularly when a woman’s health doesn’t seem to count for shit. Far fewer medical centers follow outcomes for mothers than outcomes for babies - a value judgement that bears intensive scruitiny. For all the worst of ob/gyns care, they would consider Bobbi Jo Stinnett’s birth experience acceptable because the baby got out alive!
When such major abdominal surgery is viewed as “routine” and “always best for baby”, things get warped and the procedure becomes seen as having little consequence for the mother - save for when the gravida rears up on her hind legs and says “I count, my health and safety count, and I am in charge here”.
excellent, very well-written and thoughtful post, Amanda. I’m linking to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arCITMfxvEc
Well, maybe things have gotten slighly better over the years. There is still room for improvement, though.
What an excellent post. I love this blog. Thank you, Amanda, for chaneling your intelect into such important work. The idea about reframing questions of choice as issues of general rights to self-determiniation, really resonated with me.
I’ve been kicking around another way of reframing questions surrounding pregnancy and abortion. I’m sure we’ve all noticed that the language we use to describe pregnancy reflects the attitude that women are passive in the process. She’s just “carrying” it for nine months, after all, right? And all the disgusting metaphors involving “seed” and “fertility”? These plant metaphors make it seem that the developing embryo only needs a hospitable environment and a few nutrients to grow into a baby. Most of the language around pregnancy and terminating pregnancy reflects this view.
I think that instead of using all of this language that suggests that pregnant women are passive baby-incubators, we should instead think about how during pregnancy, a woman is building a baby. Creating a baby. From conception forward, her body is actively constructing this being of her own flesh and blood, a real and creative process, a magical and quotidian project that she has every right to take on or not take on. In this formulation of events, terminating an early pregnancy isn’t, can’t possibly be, “killing a baby,” because the woman hasn’t made that baby yet — this baby doesn’t exist. And it becomes easier to think about self-determination in a way that doesn’t suggest that women are at war with their own bodies — a woman has every right to take on this project of baby-building on her own terms.
I think that we’re blinded by the invisibility and unconsciousness of this project — in goes semen, out pops baby, so it must be that the magic of a baby is in the semen! I think this helps to give rise to the passive language. The pregnant woman becomes a black box. I think this has to change.
Maybe I’m totally off the mark here — I’m very interested to hear what other people have to say, as I’ve been irritated by the passive language for a while.
Blog for Choice…
Blog for Choice today because it matters. When science finds a way for men to get pregnant, no woman will need to argue for control of her body and control of her life. Until then, men will be trusted with blowing up the world, a world where no woman…
Where does one find a progressive obstetrician, even in Massachusetts? When I was pregnant with my second, planning a homebirth, my obstetrician (backup to my midwives, but never tell them they’re backup!) dropped me because I wouldn’t have a dating ultrasound. Mind you, the dating of the pregnancy wasn’t in doubt. There was literally only one time that conception could have happened (and, given the eventual size and state of maturity of the baby, my dates were undoubtedly right).
I could not find another obstetrician, and if I had ended up transferring to a hospital to deliver I’d have been taking pot luck. Also, the pediatrician who first saw my baby (not my regular pediatrician) saw fit to ream me out for having a homebirth (we are less than a minute from the hospital, by car). The nurse, however, thought it was pretty neat.
PugBug, you’re totally on the mark about the WORK it is to grow a baby. I like to put it this way: imagine you had to grow a new limb, an arm or a leg. Think of how much work that would mean for your body, how many nutrients and proteins you’d eat, how many calories you’d burn doing something like that as an adult. Now think of growing a baby, which has a whole skeleton, plus all the complex organs, etc. Now throw in an extra organ, the placenta. Now increase your overall blood supply by 50 percent. No wonder pregnant women get so tired! Then you’ve got to haul that thing around inside you everywhere you go.
I’m pregnant now, and when my husband teases me about the way I feel, I tell him “Lay off, I’m growing an entire human being inside my own body right now!” (When it’s born, I’ll graduate to Lay off! I’m feeding an entire human being with my own body right now!)
Ledasmom, this was nine years ago (cannonball will be 9 on wednesday). I was not terribly interested in a home birth anyway (too much work to prepare for and clean up, small apartment privacy, etc.), and I was risked out of birthing centers too due to idiopathic high blood pressure with number one and number two grabbing his knees and flipping over butt down.
I don’t know if Womencare in Arlington still does homebirth support, but they are extremely progressive otherwise. They were once one of the few VBAC centers around and with cannonball boy they tried twice to flip him - something not all breech baby moms are offered out of caregiver ignorance. The midwives were actually more sketchy on the breech birth than the ob/gyns were (probably because they were US trained and thus less aware of extensive European experience with various sorts of breechness, parity, previous birth experience, etc.).
Thank you, from a woman nostalgic for choice. There is a tendency for those of us on the downside of middle age to…not necessarily surrender the fight, but rather, to let the young’uns do the heavy lifting.
Amanda reminds us that our voices are no less important, and no less valid. I have granddaughters.
Thanks again.
Ledasmom, here you go (they also handle pretty much all aspects of female reproductive care if you are done with the babies):
Women Care
1 New St
Cambridge, MA 02138-1222
Phone: (617)441-5550
http://www.womencare.org/
Gah! Sorry for my misspellings. Embarrassing (or, should I write, embarasing).
Question,
Either you misunderstood my point (or I wasn’t articulate enough, this also happens at times), or I have misunderstood yours.
In my original post, I was agreeing with what everyone was saying here; that a woman should have the fundamental right to have sex without punishment, and that she should have the right to make medical decisions for herself in any case (without outside coercion), be it a decision regarding what cold medicine to take or a decision between a natural birth or C-section. What I was commenting on was that I really like the idea of framing it in terms of being a right as opposed to a choice, because as Amanda points out in the OT, anti-abortion people (especially those calling themselves libertarian) will say that yes, everyone has the “choice” to do whatever they want, but if you make the “wrong choice” (meaning, a choice other than what the patriarchy would have you make), then you have to face the consequences of making that choice. Framing this debate in terms of a right — a woman’s fundamental right to have her body belong to her and not the nearest male — gets around the libertarianesque debate a little bit.
So… that’s my point. I’m sorry if I came off in any way sounding like a court ordering a woman to have a c-section was a good thing, because nothing could be further from the truth.
[…] Encouraged by Pandagon, I’m going to do something to mark the 34th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. And what better way to do it than smacking around some lies from the anti-sex “pro-lifers”. This garbage ran in Notre Dame’s daily student paper today. I’m going to skip the intro and last sentence as those were directed at a specific author from last week and have no bearing on the issue at hand. When the Church condemns an act as wrong, therefore, it does so because that act is detrimental to the functioning of humanity. […]
You know, that makes perfect sense, too. By expanding your views, you show more about what you’re fighting for, and you can make every single piece of the battle that much easier to win.
Try this.
A government with the power to outlaw abortion also has the power to require it. Those who support reproductive choice as part of the female person’s right to bodily autonomy are safeguarding the rights of those who wish to continue their pregnancies, even those of which government/society might not approve.
EXCELLENT post, Miss Marcotte!
Talk about choice, she’s not at the table. Talk about a woman’s right to self-determination and that means something to her.
Yep! That’s me. Talk about choice and you’ve lost me and I don’t much care; talk about ensuring that women are treated well in the hospital, that women have the ability to adopt or leave their newborns at the police station, that women have access to birth control, to Plan B, that hospitals (regardless of religious affiliation) actually act like hospitals and provide Plan B to rape victims, that pharmacists not act in the place of doctors and determine whether or not a woman can get birth control, that insurance companies cover birth control (because it is a medical issue, and millions of women take the Pill for medical reasons ranging from endometriosis to heavy bleeding to anemia to ovarian cysts)… and you’ve got me on board.
Talk about choice beyond abortion - improving adoption laws, allowing for a range of adoption options, from never seeing the baby again and sealing all records, to adoption without the consent of your abusive boyfriend, to open adoptions with court-ordered visitation - and you’ve got me on board.
Talk about how women like me, who never have wanted children and will never want them, cannot get tubal ligations, and there’s some serious fur flying from my direction.
All but the most rabid pro-lifers want to give women the power to be responsible. The need for abortion is, in 2007, a social ill in its own right. Because when abortion is needed, there’s something wrong - there’s a woman who couldn’t get access to birth control, a woman who is abused, a woman who cannot give up her baby for adoption because her abusive boyfriend won’t allow it and giving it up to him so he can abuse the baby is pure evil - and that really is not acceptable.
“Choice� is basically, in her words, “rights lite�, and while the concept has plenty of use, it has drawbacks—the big ones being it implies that the choice is to become a mother or not (which has led to the misunderstanding that there’s women who have babies and women who have abortions when they are the same women), it has led sexist men to grouse and complain about how they don’t have a “choice� of what to do with a pregnancy that resides in someone else’s body
I blogged about the legal aspects of the Michigan case. Here’s an excerpt:
He claimed that, as the law gives her the choice to abort but not him, it is a denial of Equal Protection to require him to pay child support. Several flaws in this argument:
1. Men and women are not similarly-situated during pregnancy (therefore, Eq. Prot. argument does not apply);
2. After pregnancy, men and women are similarly situated. At this point, neither party can renounce financial support without consequences.
3. With respect to adoption, men and women are similarly-situated but treated differently in only one respect: when the woman wants to give the child up for adoption but the man does not. Mr. Dubay makes this argument, stating that women can opt out of parenthood but men cannot. Good argument, wrong remedy. Correct remedy is to prohibit adoption without the consent of the father. Also, child support is thought of as the right of the child to financial support, not a right of the parent, which weakens his argument against the burden.
4. Mr. Duby ignores the distinction between financial support and actual child-rearing. Adoption allows a woman to get out of the ’specific performance’ aspect of child-rearing - changing diapers, feeding at 2 am, and all the attendant burdens of full-time infant care. A man who does not want a child is never forced to undergo these duties against his will. (Should he want the child and the mother not want it, he can seek full custody and child support.) The current system ensures that neither party is forced to raise a child that they do not want; both parties can be forced to pay financial support for a child that they do not want. Ergo, similar treatment.
—-
My apologies for this being way too long.
OH no you did NOT just go there!
Oenophile, the existence of adoption is not evidence for self-determination but against it. The vast majority of women who give up babies are in coercive situations—why do the poor give up children but not the rich? Real self-determination, real respect for reproductive justice means adoption as we know it would disappear
A world that respects real self-determination never forces women to be pregnant at gunpoint. That you have this massive blindspot doesn’t make it less true. That Pemberton was blind to that fact doesn’t mean she isn’t the beneficiary of the pro-choice movement, insofar as we are her greatest defenders.
I don’t know if I know how to to a trackback or pingback here.
Intersting how the father’s rights movement seems to stem from two developments in society: the expectation that men are always to contribute adequately to the rearing of their offspring and foolproof paternity testing via DNA.
I Choose, Therefore I Am…
Today is the 34th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the second annual “Blog for Choice Day. The suggested question this year is a basic one: Why are you pro-choice?” Is “I think, therefore I am” taking the easy……
oenophile:
“police stations”? wtf. what exactly is supposed to happen to the unwanted kids dumped off at the precinct? that sounds like a recipe for unqualified disaster, right there. is the woman supposed to birth the kid herself? at home? in a public restroom? would she go into labour, check into hospital, and then lug the baby over to the station and leave it on the front step? why is that a preferable option for a pregnant woman? why subject her to nine months of pregnancy? what is she supposed to say when her friends/family/neighbours/employers suddenly notice that she’s mysteriously unpregnant, yet still childless? what if, after nine months of pregnancy, she no longer has an employer?
it’s important to work towards giving women all the options you mention (except for the police station thing) *and* abortion. all the permutations of adoption law reform/healthcare reform/access to care you can think up will still fail to serve women who need an abortion. i’m sorry if you don’t ‘much care’ about that fact, but it is still fact nonetheless.
1) Electrodot
….its just ridiculous. not to mention the almost flat backed legs up position they usually have the actress in for it, which completely doesnt make sense…why would give birth AGAINST gravity?
I would just love it if all actresses decided that we would simply say ‘no’ when asked to act scenes this way, ie: cab pulls up to the hospital, desperate woman in labour in the back seat flat on her back with knees in the air. Let’s just start refusing; it’s so ridiculous. Blew my mind when I was pregnant and watching lots of ER - all this attempt at versimilitude, and then no reality at all. Is it ‘cause advertisers would veto the woman squatting?
2) My doctor dropped me as a patient when I opted to give birth atended by certified midwives in the hospital (here in Ontario they’re an option covered by public health care). He also tried to shame me that I didn’t care about the health of my baby and he was belligerent, scolding and threatening. By dropping me as a patient in a town with a long standing doctor shortage, he caused my baby to have no health care, no physician. My eyes were opened.
I am thrilled to see so many “blogs for a choice” today.
I was raped a few months ago and they gave me Plan B. It was one of the easiest things… for which I have to stop and be very thankful…
It was my “right” to have that option. That was the silver cloud. Unfortunately the right to bring charges against him was not as convenient. That silver cloud might be why I am not carrying my rapist’s baby.
Kidlacan,
I’m sorry that you are clueless. That doesn’t happen to be my problem. You probably don’t recall, but there were a few cases in which women (esp. teenagers) would hide the pregnancy from their family and friends and then, in a fit of desperation, strangle or kill the newborn. One egregious example of this is the girl who killed her baby when she gave birth at the prom.
“Safe haven” laws were designed to address this. Frankly, your ignorance is astonishing; the fact that you think it’s my problem is comical.
http://www.theplainsman.com/state_local/safe_haven_law_allows_for_unplanned_adoption_to_avoid_death
Educate yourself, m’dear.
Miss Marcotte,
I don’t have a blind spot. I, unlike you, am well aware that a fetus is a living human. I do not think that any exigency faced by any human - woman or man - negates that truth. As such, I think that abortion is evil - a necessary evil, in light of a society in which women don’t use birth control, but still an evil. The only reason that YOU hate adoption is because you see it as inferiour to infanticide. (Yeah, I brought it. Want ice for the bitch-slap?
)
For all of your sanctimonious whining in that post, you fail to see that, in an ideal world full of reproductive justice, abortion would disappear long before adoption. Women who choose to remain pregnant now are not doing so “at the point of a gun,” but rather because of a desire to conduct their lives in accordance with their values. (51% of women think that abortion should be illegal outright, or only allowed for rape, incest, and life… yet only 38% of the population overall thinks that, leaving us with a grand 25% of men who want the same. Patriarchy it ain’t, dahlin.)
Bristle all you want. Fact is, I did nothing save advocate for the option that many women wish they had. Any woman who calls herself pro-choice - and the gall to call herself woman, at that! - ought to advocate for a world in which women are given full options for all their choices, including adoption.
Pregnant at gunpoint?? LMAO!! Excepting for women who are raped, no one is pregnant at gunpoint, nor ever will be.
Pregnancy is a choice, born either of carelessness (the abortion rate is fifty times the birth control failure rate) or deliberation, but a choice nonetheless.
FYI: poor women give up babies for adoption because they can’t afford to raise them, whereas a wealthy woman can afford the extra child. Just like poor women abort more!
But I don’t see you railing against that sacred cow, nor will you, anytime soon.
How pointing out essential - scientific or mathematical - truths makes me “blind” is something I cannot fathom, unless you think the universe should be reordered to suit your conveniences. I am pro-choice despite extreme hatred of abortion - that form of birth control designed by barbarians and practiced by societies not civilised enough to prevent pregnancy in the first place. A reduction in unwanted pregnancies simultaneously achieves the goals of being both pro-woman and anti-abortion. Offering a myriad of choices to women who would abort, but for such options, is also pro-woman and anti-abortion. The only people - like yourself - who advocate against those choices are either anti-woman or pro-abortion, or both. Take your pick, Miss Marcotte, but do not pretend that one can be anti-adoption and pro-choice!
kidlacan,
not disagreeing with you on the overall badness of dropping off a baby at a police station being a woman’s only option (percieved or real), but while we live in an imperfect society, safe haven laws are important. It does help some women to be able to drop off a baby at a police station or hospital and not have to worry about being prosecuted for child abandonment on top of the numerous other problems they’re having (assuming that a woman in a relatively stable and safe situation would not have to avail herself of that particular option). Someday maybe we won’t need it any more; for now it should be available at need.
Safe Haven Laws FAQ (NJ)
This is so true it’s practically a law of nature. No one is interested in supporting rights in which they have no stake—until they understand that those rights are inseparable from other rights, ones that they do care about. Realizing that supporting women’s autonomy (i.e. her own autonomy) means letting other women sometimes do things of which she strongly disapproves, well, she weighs that against being forcibly c-sectioned and comes down on the side of autonomy.
It’s all a matter of scope. I want these rights, but they are tangled up in these rights which don’t matter much to me, which are in turn connected with yet more rights which I find downright repellent. How far are you willing to go, how alien are the rights you are willling to fight for, in order for you to secure your own? To my mind, liberalism consists of little more than taking this argument to its logical limit: that all rights are connected, and diminishing any of them diminishes all of them.
“I don’t have a blind spot. I, unlike you, am well aware that a fetus is a living human.”
That’s not awareness. It’s an opinion based on theology, not on observation. The word “awareness” refers to observations.
Hope that helps.
Who the fuck said abortion was about fetuses? The vast majority of abortions are abortions of EMBRYOS. Yes, EMBRYOS. In societies where abortion is on demand without much question, nearly all are at the embryonic stage.
Want home fries with that?
When fetuses anywhere near or past viability are aborted, the mother typically has to go through a legal process. This only happens when 1)she was prevented from an early abortion by lack of access or money or (more often) 2) when the child is not viable (i.e. a friend of mine aborted a non-viable pregnancy with no brain or head, just a face).
A Day Late and an Issue Short…
Well, yesterday was Blog for Choice Day, and I missed it. That in itself wouldn’t be so bad, but I just happened to write a flattering post about a pro-life Republican that day, so it hurts all the more.
I guess the millions of other pro-choice…
Bitch-slap?
Bitch-slap?
Just ‘cause it’s delivered by a bitch don’t make it a bitch-slap.
It’s gotta hurt to be a bitch-slap.
Listen, I don’t like to talk for other people, but I’ve seen Amanda think, I’ve seen her write, I know a bit about her, and if you think that she, deep in her heart of hearts, thinks abortion is infanticide, but has buried it under rhetoric, you’re more than merely prejudiced, you’re past fool and into the realm of idiot.
It’s hard for the narrow-minded to believe, but there are people who look at the same information as they do, and come to different conclusions. Sorry, but that’s just the way life is. Worse, sometimes these people have the audacity - the very audacity! - of being right… making you twice a fool for believing in your own superiority, rather than trying to think and understand.
And if you think you can “bitch-slap” a sound thinker and centered person with a two-bit lecture and moral superiority, you’ve got another think coming.
oenophile:
my reaction stemmed not, as you seem to think, from the sheer horror of having my charmed bubble popped, but rather from the idea that you somehow think forcing a woman who would otherwise seek to have an abortion* to, instead, carry her pregnancy to term — likely alone, in secret, and without support — give birth — again, likely alone and in secret — and then skulk over to a police station and deliver up what is now a child to become a ward of the state, unless a home can be found. i don’t doubt that some woman, some where, for some reason might at some point in time need this option. i took your comment to indicate, however, that you advocate offering this solution to women while taking away the option of abortion, since, gee, choice for women just isn’t all that interesting to you.
*since you state, in your followup, that women denied the safe-haven option in your scenario would instead abandon or kill their babies immediately after birth, i am assuming that abortion would have been an option they were willing to consider, were it available to them. since you point to teenagers, specifically the horrible sex-having slutty kind who aren’t going to let a little thing like a pregnancy get in the way of an awesome time at Prom, i’m assuming that abortion wasn’t available to them particularly.
For all of your sanctimonious whining in that post, you fail to see that, in an ideal world full of reproductive justice, abortion would disappear long before adoption.
not as long as there are women like me in the world, women for whom pregnancy just is not an option — for career reasons, or personal reasons, or health reasons. invisible pink unicorn spare us from a world where i’d be forced to risk health and home to make ms. oenophile feel a warm fuzzy. all the “reproductive justice” you care to envision won’t mitigate health problems, bad timing, or the fact that some women JUST DO NOT WANT TO BE PREGNANT MAYBE AT THAT TIME KTHNX.
Pregnancy is a choice, born either of carelessness (the abortion rate is fifty times the birth control failure rate) or deliberation, but a choice nonetheless.
wait. so people are choosing to have their birth control fail? man! why did the prescribing doc not mention the part about willing the pill to work, in addition to the whole same-time-every-day part?
The myriad of child birth miseries certainly range for horrible to just annoying. I have my own story of disatisfaction.
I have two children. In both cases labor was induced. Disappointing, but was probably the right thing to do as neither child showed any signs of wanting to be born. And they were definitely overdue, my cycles are regular enought to know that. That actually wasn’t where my disatisfaction came in.
During the birth of my first kid, I had told the labor nurse that I did not want an epidural unless it was unavoidable. I could see the horrified look on her face. I should have paid more attention to that. Later the labor pains became so bad, that I decided that I had to have the epidural. I hated it. I hated not being to feel anything and was angry with myself for caving in.
Fast forward two years. I am back being induced again (this child turned out to be a monsterous 9 lb 4 oz, a lot for my 5 ft 2 in frame). I explained to the labor nurse that I wanted to avoid an epidural because of my previous experience. This nurse was really nice. When things got too bad, she dialed back the pitocin so that I can make it through.
That first b$%%^ of a nurse not only didn’t do that, but I am inclined to think she deliberately made sure she didn’t provide any relief because a patient with an epidural is less work.
Twelve years later and I am still pissed about this.
Urk. Oenophile’s reply with the plainsman link was not visible when I posted my bit on Save Haven laws. Seeing mine next to that one makes me cringe now, and I apologize, because it comes off as chiming in to support oenophile, and it really wasn’t meant to be.
I do stand by the benefits of Safe Haven laws, though, because there are women - young ones especially - who do hide pregnancies out of fear and shame and wind up not knowing what to do with the baby when they give birth, alone.
Oh, cripes, Rocket Girl, that sounds awful. I didn’t have pit with either birth - I went slightly early with the first, a few days after estimated date with the second - but from what I’ve heard it can make the contractions much harder and more painful. I used to watch those pink-and-baby-blue-flavored birth shows (you know, maternity ward, lots of laboring women) and the one that actually had me yelling at the TV showed - I think she was a teenager - who didn’t want the epidural, her mother was supporting her and the nurse was making the most awful disparaging comments to the camera. Just completely refused to believe that such a thing was possible. Ass.
I still get mad, thinking about the ob-gyn who dumped me as a patient when I was halfway through my pregnancy. One only gets choice in how one conduct’s one’s pregnancy on the sufferance of one’s caregivers, seems like.
Oh, and nine pounds four ounces? Ouch.
The problem with the abortion debate as it is currently framed lies in the juxtaposition of incommensurate elements. On the one hand are the screaming Christians: Life at any cost! On the other are the screaming feminists: Our bodies, ourselves!
What neither side seems to understand is that the other is not listening. To be sure I find the (stereo)typical feminist-abortionist position, on the whole, to be morally vacuous; their argument is predicated on a hypostasization of the Self, and indeed an apotheosis of this Self into some kind of transcendent moral absolute. This in no way takes away from the validity of their contention that women’s bodies have in many cases been commandeered, in a certain sense. But what the argument fails to notice is that there is, precisely, another Self in question, the fetal Self.
We can argue all day about when precisely human life begins, but there cannot be a determination of the answer that is not philosophical, and hence, to a certain degree, up for dispute. Screaming feminist-abortionists fail to adequately consider that, for the screaming Christians, abortion is murder, the decision by one Self to snuff out the existence of another Self. This is a position with which one may agree or disagree. The content of one’s decision is not important. What is important is that, to a certain degree, the question is undecideable. Christians have a simple solution, perhaps too-simple a solution: life begins at conception. The problem with more-complicated solutions is that they inevitably decline into vague generalities and impossible definitions. One would have to end up siding with Peter Singer, who argues (theoretically) in favor of infanticide, from the ethical foundations of our meat-eating, abortionist culture.
This is by no means to venerate the Christian position. By and large the evangelical element–Catholics and “mainstream” (a word that means less each day) Protestants present a slightly different issue–cares nothing for life. Their religion is simplistic, brutish, and cruel. A genuine commitment to life is a commitment to happiness and justice, not a commitment to the words of one putatively sacred text or another.
But on the whole it is the abortionist-feminist point of view that is far more damaging for society in the long run. Evangelical Christianity stifles the human spirit, but at least it pays lip service to trascendence, to some grander design, to something that will or can take us outside of and beyond ourselves. The other perspective frames the entire discussion in terms of an abstract “freedom” that means nothing so much as a license to seek pleasure when, how, and to the degree that one wishes, at any given moment. One may find much ludicrous in the Catholic position that so-termed “Naturally Family Planning” is not a contraceptive “because it leaves room open for God.” And to be sure there is much about this position that is ludicrous. On the other hand, there is in the abortionist-feminist agenda a pronounced manic desire for control. The entire argument proceeds from the notion that, somehow, for some never-fully-articulated reasons, it is right and good that human beings should choose and control every aspect of their lives. Why this is particularly desirable, and indeed whether this is even possible, is never actually questioned. The point is that, if having a baby doesn’t fit in with one’s life’s plans, then one is totally free to decide that this inchoate Self, this Self-to-be, may be sacrificed in the name of one’s own desire or fear. Science, the great panacea, serves humanity by allowing individuals to have whatever combination of life-experiences they wish.
Personally, I find it ridiculous for a microscopic clump of cells to be considered equal to a human being, and I find the majority of abortions abhorrent and unnecessary. This does not mean they should be illegal. It does, however, mean that our society is suffering from a number of profound illnesses, chief among them the related ideas, inherited from the Romantics, that sex and pleasure are ends in themselves, and that our wills should be regarded as absolute. Abortion is not the evil; it is, rather, a symptom of much more sinister and general malady.
More Blogging for Choice…
Blog for Choice day was a huge success - hundreds of pro-choice bloggers posted their thoughts on the importance of reproductive rights (according to the official Blog for Choice site, about 500 bloggers signed up on the official site, with more blogge…
Oh fer the love of Pete, A. Yiannopoulos, really:
“The other perspective frames the entire discussion in terms of an abstract “freedomâ€? that means nothing so much as a license to seek pleasure when, how, and to the degree that one wishes, at any given moment”
Anyone here find themselves dropping their shorts and screwing in front of the town hall at noon and frightening the horses? No? Well, takes care of that argument.
Silly statement? So was yours.
I agree with Yiannopoulos. Let’s sacrifice the here-and-now lives of all women for some amorphous social side-emphasis on an ephemeral transcendence. Who needs actual data? Yiannopoulos says that most abortions are done for frivolous reasons, and if Yiannopoulos is willing to go to all the trouble to pull a truthoid like that out of his or her asshole, that’s good enough for me.
Indeed. It fails to address the fundamental question of living in a free society.
Because you can’t precisely define when a person is being harmed by abortion, you need to wait until there’s some level of certainty that a person is being harmed. That happens far after conception. To do less is to allow society to punish people, not for something they’ve done wrong, but for something that might be wrong, because it makes some people queasy.
(ACHOO!)
Please, if you’re going to beat a strawman, do it outdoors. It raises dust and other allergens.
Christians have a simple solution. So do Jews - life begins at birth. So does the law - life begins at viability absent mother’s physical support.
If we listen to either Christians or Jews, we become a theocracy. If we listen to the rule of law, particularly in areas where there is no scientific consensus, we are a democracy.
Why philosophy is bullshit, Exhibit A.
“Anyone here find themselves dropping their shorts and screwing in front of the town hall at noon and frightening the horses? No? Well, takes care of that argument.
Silly statement? So was yours. ”
No, my point isn’t “silly.” Is it overstated? Perhaps, but not by much. I’m not talking about things as they are; I’m talking about things taken to their logical conclusion. The *foundation* of the argument is absolute freedom determined on the basis of a freedom-for-pleasure. Does that mean that everyone whose beliefs are predicated on that determination will always act in accordance with those beliefs, e.g. by screwing in front of the town hall at noon? Not any more than all Christians always act perfectly in accord with *their* ethical ideals.
The issue isn’t that abortion is necessarily wrong, or that everyone who’s pro-choice is an amoral nihilist. *That* would be a silly statement. But when you (I) pay attention to the language of most pro-choice advocates, overwhelmingly the arguments for abortion are framed in terms of “I choose what is best for my life.” Again, it’s not even that I disagree, it’s much more that I question the long series of presuppositions about what constitutes happiness, justice, and ethical conduct that come before the determination of what is “best,” or that having an abortion could be construed as the “best” course of action.
So it’s not a “straw man” to say that this is more damaging. Though, come to think of it, I rescind that statement, because it’s incorrect. The line of reasoning that says “my pleasure is an end in itself” is *just as* damaging as the line of reasoning that the screaming Christians take.
“If we listen to either Christians or Jews, we become a theocracy. If we listen to the rule of law, particularly in areas where there is no scientific consensus, we are a democracy.”
The problem is that there can be no “scientific consensus” on this issue, because science is totally unable to say anything on the issue. Anything science *does* say will have to be interpreted, and any interpretation is going to come with an agenda, Christian, Jewish, materialist, or otherwise.
As for the “rule of law” and democracy, I agree. But there’s always a danger in regarding the law as some kind of absolute handed down from above, or founded entirely on self-evident principles, or whatever. The law is a human construction–a necessary one, but a fallible one. The point is, it has to be founded on something, and there’s a danger in founding it on what we take to be “common sense,” first of all because there’s going to be disagreement about that, and second because there’s nothing to prevent a crazy religious person (for example) from saying that his or her religion constitutes “common sense” in its entirety.
The strawman is the creation of your very own “abortionist-feminist point of view” that was built, just so you could beat on it.
However, pleasure is a fine end in itself. What the heck is wrong with pleasure? Not a damn thing. An innocent hedonist who tries to leave the world in as good a shape as s/he found it in is doing a hell of a lot better than a lot of would-be world saviors, and is often wiser, too.
Pleasure is not the be-all and end-all, but then, no one suggests that it is.
That you pretend that other folks have made such a claim is why you are beating a strawman.
“However, pleasure is a fine end in itself. What the heck is wrong with pleasure? Not a damn thing. An innocent hedonist who tries to leave the world in as good a shape as s/he found it in is doing a hell of a lot better than a lot of would-be world saviors, and is often wiser, too.
Pleasure is not the be-all and end-all, but then, no one suggests that it is.
That you pretend that other folks have made such a claim is why you are beating a strawman. ”
First, I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with pleasure, I’m saying that the search of pleasure, for pleasure’s sake, is inherently destructive. Yes, there is no such thing as “innocent” hedonism, and certainly no such thing as a “wise” hedonism. Would-be saviors are a different issue, and I’m just as suspicious of them as I am of you.
Incidentally, how would you untangle “pleasure is not the end-all” vs. “pleasure is a fine end in itself”? What is one statement, but the exact opposite of the other? If pleasure isn’t the end-all, then what would it be in the service of? And if it is in the service of something other than itself, isn’t it, in that case, *not* an end in itself?
Finally, I’m not “pretending” that other folks have made such a claim. I’m pointing out that the claim is implicit in many pro-choice rationalizations of abortion, in rather obvious ways. Of course, it’s not explicit; if it were, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I would also like to say, again, that I am not against abortion in any and every circumstance, perhaps not even in most circumstances. What I take issue with is the presuppositions of the camps, not their positions themselves.
Do you understand the expression “the be-all and end-all”?
That’s a serious, and sincere, question. If you don’t, I’ll be glad to explain.
If you do, then you’re not even asking a sensible question, and I’m forced to assume you’re playing games of the sort that I simply will not play.
I understand the term, but maybe I’m not understanding how you’re applying it here. The point is, if pleasure is actually an end-in-itself, then it’s by definition the be-all-end-all, at least as I understand such things. If it *isn’t* an end in itself, then it exists in the service of other things; which is my point of view, more or less, but directly contrary to your statement that “pleasure is a fine end in itself.”
The matter is simple. We live under a secular legal framework that requires evidence other than religious meanderings. If secular science cannot determine when human life begins, then human life begins at the point where we are certain of it - when VIABLE fetuses reach the point where they become viable without maternal support.
Otherwise it is up to the woman and her ethics and her God or lack therof to decide. This is the law, this should be the law, and this what it means under the rule of law.
So a married woman, with children, using multiple birth control and taking drugs known to cause birth defects who while having sex with her husband has a birth control failure is just being selfish and thinking of her own pleasure to consider having an abortion.
Great idea A Yiannopoulos. You are more articulate than the average troll, but more horrific as this is the situation described in a recent comment by another pandgonian.
You, sir or madam, are an ass.
A. Yiannopoulos: ” The point is, if pleasure is actually an end-in-itself, then it’s by definition the be-all-end-all, at least as I understand such things”
You’re confused. “An end” does not equal “the be-all-end-all”, a term which implies one overridingly important end - therefore the use of the definite article “the”. Pleasure is an end and a good, but not the only end or good - see? That is, other ends, other goods are considered as well; it’s not pleasure first and always foremost.
A. Yiannopoulos:
If you’re hungry, getting fed can be an end in itself; eating is not the be-all and end-all.
If you’re hungry, a fine steak can bring pleasure, more so than a cheap hamburger. Both might have the exact same nutrients. The pleasure of eating the steak can be an end - a goal - in itself.
Not everything has to have a clearly defined purpose. Sometimes just doing something for its own sake is good.
Shrug. Comforting the dying might do nothing further than making a dying person comfortable, and once that person is dead, for all we know, there is no further beneficial effect from it. But doing so can be an end - a goal reached - in itself. If we looked at greater goals, well, the dying person will still be dead soon, and we can’t prove our compassion accomplishes anything. Nevertheless, I say that it’s important, even though it’s ephemeral.
I think we might be getting offtopic–but no, that’s exactly my point. If you say “pleasure is an end,” that’s very different from saying “pleasure is an end in itself.” Of course pleasure is an “end.” Lots of things are “ends.” Pain can be an end, if that’s your thing.
The point is that if you say something is worthwhile to do for its own sake, as an end in itself, then that necessarily means that it’s worth doing at the expense of other things. Now you could say, I have one end, what I take to be morality, and another end, pleasure. Sometimes these will be in conflict; sometimes not. When they are, though, we usually tend to decide on the basis of some kind of a balance between the two; little immorality, big pleasure, okay, big immorality, little pleasure, not-okay. So that means that the “end in itself” isn’t pleasure, or morality, but some kind of a balance.
What I take issue with is that the language used to justify abortion frequently borders on implicitly stating that the pursuit of (frequently, sexual) pleasure is an end in itself, that it’s some kind of absolute right. “Pursuit of happiness” = “pursuit of pleasure.” I disagree. Vehemently. I disagree with that as much as I disagree with the proposition “pursuit of happiness” = “pursuit of money,” for just about the same reasons. That doesn’t mean that I think abortion should be made illegal; it means that I think we should re-think our ideas about what is and is not helpful for ourselves and society, and the process by which we arrive at those kinds of decisions.
I mean, I think everyone is in agreement that abortion is, at the absolute best, a necessary evil. So the question becomes one of, why do we need to have abortions in the first place? Is premarital sex (just as an example) actually helpful to ourselves and society? Maybe in some cases, I mean, who knows? But it tends to get accepted uncritically, and it would seem to me that we should ask those questions.
Now you could say, I have one end, what I take to be morality, and another end, pleasure. Sometimes these will be in conflict; sometimes not….
implicitly stating that the pursuit of (frequently, sexual) pleasure is an end in itself, that it’s some kind of absolute right. “Pursuit of happiness� = “pursuit of pleasure.� I disagree. Vehemently. I disagree with that as much as I disagree with the proposition “pursuit of happiness� = “pursuit of money,� for just about the same reasons.
What, did Ivan Illich crawl up your ass and die? You have a really limited definition of “pleasure.” What a desperately sad life you must lead.
I mean, I think everyone is in agreement that abortion is, at the absolute best, a necessary evil.
You think wrongly. It’s a class of medical procedure on which moral subtext has been imposed by a particular ideology. Not all of us share that ideology. Some of us think the procedure is ethically neutral, some think it an almost unqualified (if not exactly pleasant) good. If a group of politically powerful zealots arose who decided the adenoids were little gods, that wouldn’t mean everyone agreed that tonsillectomy was “at best a necessary evil.” You presume that your own blinders are worn bny everyone else.
Let’s try to keep the ad hominems out of it, hmm? In fact I’ve noticed my life has become happier the less fixated on pleasure I’ve become. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy things, or that I don’t seek out pleasurable experiences. It means that, personally, I’ve found that happiness and pleasure are no more related than pain and unhappiness. This is a relatively common experience.
Second, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that abortion is “ethically neutral.” I mean at the very least you’re destroying something that *could* be a human being, with just a little more time. It’s much more “almost a human being,” at the very least, than just an egg or just sperm.
Very simply, it is possible to have more than one end-in-itself, but not more than one be-all-end-all. Got it now? Saying pleasure is an end in itself doesn’t mean pleasure is the only end, it means pleasure makes the act worthwhile (in the absence of counterbalancing factors) even in the absence of other justifications.
But you see-and now we’re definitely offtopic-that’s precisely the point, when you say “in the absence of other counterbalancing factors.” I’m not contesting that pleasure can be an end (in the sense of “goal”). Of course it can be an end. Eating salt can be an end. Standing on your head can be an end.
But if you try to justify pleasure as an end in itself, what you’re saying is that it’s worth doing no matter what. That’s what makes something an end in itself, is that you don’t need to look any further than that thing for justification, because it is its *own* justification. That’s how Aristotle and Kant talk about human life. If a goal, an end, can or should be overstepped because of “counterbalancing factors,” then it’s not an end in itself: it isn’t sufficient to determine our course of action. The “balancing” is the end-in-itself. In situations where there’s no need to worry about balance, because we can act virtuously without unpleasantness or have pleasure without vice, then one or the other is the “end,” but that doesn’t make either the “end in itself.”
This is exactly why you’re arguing a strawman position.
No one says that pleasure should be undertaken regardless of the consequences, and saying pleasure is a fine end in itself, able to be sought, solely for its own purpose (i.e., to feel good *just to feel good*) does not mean you get to ignore everything except that pleasure.
You’re inventing that position, and doing so just so you can attack other people who don’t deserve to be attacked. It’s not only fallacious, it’s wrong and nasty (even though few people seem to recognize the nastiness of the tactic).
(Hopefully) for the last time: what you have said makes no sense as a coherent position. I’m not attacking a “straw man,” I’m explaining the logical conclusion of what you’re saying.
For the record I don’t think pleasure should be sought just for itself, and further that there is such a thing as pleasure in the abstract, “innocent hedonism” as someone said earlier.
But all that aside, the point is that in saying one “ought” to be able to pursue pleasure for no higher reason than pleasure, what you’re saying is that pleasure is its own justification. Hence that one has an absolute right to pursue pleasure. If that’s *not* what you’re saying, then you’re saying something *other* than that pleasure is an end in itself. Perhaps pleasure can be a worthwhile goal, other factors notwithstanding. But that would mean that the point, the “end in itself,” is working out some kind of a calculus or balance between pleasure and whatever else. It would mean that pleasure is anything *but* an “end in itself.”
It’s really pretty simple logic.
No, you’re certainly not explaining anything about logic, let me assure you. You are instead trying to dictate language use, and whining because it doesn’t work according to your dictates.
You should have said so earlier; when you have ridiculous sets of axioms, there is no possibility of meaningful discussion.
You don’t dictate the uses of the English language. I’m sorry you find that concept so bothersome.
[…] Blogging for and beyond choice - Amanda (Pandagon) This woman was the religious conservative red stater that people who talk about compromise on abortion want to lure over. And yet here she was sitting at the table with a bunch of crunchy feminists, queer activists and generally cantankerous pro-choicers (literally, she sat with our little group at lunch one day and was winking at and laughing with some of our more goofily feminist jokes)—not because we had limited our demands for women’s rights but because we expanded those demands and the expanded view of what women’s rights are was appealing to her. Talk about choice, she’s not at the table. Talk about a woman’s right to self-determination and that means something to her. […]