Supporters of abortion are concerned about women being stigmatized for getting abortions. I wonder if women who refuse abortions and have children under difficult circumstances now run the risk of being themselves stigmatized, i. e., women who choose to carry Down's Syndrome babies to term.
Quite apart from pro-choice, there is a pro-abortion movement that really does encourage people to get abortions. I think pro-lifers put too much emphasis on winning a political battle over abortion laws and even abortion funding. The real abortion battle takes place in the minds and hearts of women making choices about difficult pregnancies. I think the mainstream position at Planned Parenthood is to push the idea that women should never be stigmatized for getting an abortion. In this way they minimize the serious moral decision that has to be made, and I think it's going to have the effect of stigmatizing people who DON'T get abortions when other people think they should. "Well, you had a choice. You knew this was going to be difficult. Why do you go ahead and have the baby?"
This article, by a pro-choice philosopher, illustrates the problem.
50 comments:
As the father of a child with severe autism, I invite you to imagine just how impressed I am with the pro-abortion argument here. That "stigma" would be a badge of honor, particularly from people who want to make everyone believe its okay to kill your offspring so long as you catch them early enough.
Link doesn't function.
Just like the argument that there is a difference between the "pro-choice" and "pro-abortion" positions from the perspective of the deceased.
If you concede that there should be no moral/legal obligation to keep one's offspring alive then why shouldn't society demand that you get rid of the defective. They use up resources and spoil things for the non-defective. Don't your neighbors have a right to demand you weed your garden so they don't waste their resources on the problems you created? Then they can use their resources for things that are moral/legal obligations?
BTW, this is not a bug in the software program of all the intertwined/NGO groups like Planned Parenthood. It's been a feature from the beginning and the conclusion follows logically from the premises.
That's why I see no rational reason to distinguish among abortion supporters.
Why is stigma the ultimate evil in this discussion (and other issues). Stigma will not be irradicated, it will only be redirected as good is called evil.
Stigmatizing people is only wrong if you are the one being stigmatized apparently.
Consequentialist abortion supporters (but I repeat myself) attempt to stigmatize pro-lifers all the time as being "single issue voters" in an attempt to bully them into ignoring abortion. Maybe people who like to stigmatize shouldn't complain when the tactic is used on them. Either that or stop using the tactic themselves.
Fixed the link.
It does seem to me that there is a difference between saying that abortion is wrong, or wrong in many or most cases, but there are reasons for keeping it legal, and saying that abortions are always justified, and that there is no more reason for thinking abortion wrong as there is for thinking a nose job wrong.
Bmiller, I suspect that for you the overall right-wing agenda is a good think as a whole, so promoting the pro-life cause and promoting the right wing is like getting a two-for-one deal. For me, I find both extremes of the political spectrum dangerous, and the right wing has gotten really dangerous of late. And, I think that the identification of the pro-life cause with political conservatism is pretty much a historical accident--if politics were logical the Democrats would be pro-life and the Republicans would be pro-choice. So, people since 1980 have voted to end abortion. We got ripped up safety nets and tax cuts for the wealthy, but no end to abortion during Reagan. We got two wars in Iraq under the Bushes and no end to abortion but, once again, more tax cuts for rich people. We got nativism, tax cuts for the wealthy, and an attack on our election system and the rule of law, but no end to abortion under Trump. I'm closer to agreeing with conservatives on abortion than I am on any other issue, but it's just not enough.
Victor,
Bmiller, I suspect that for you the overall right-wing agenda is a good think as a whole, so promoting the pro-life cause and promoting the right wing is like getting a two-for-one deal.
A wise man said this to me recently:
"Never mind the source. What about the arguments? A valid argument from Satan is still a valid argument."
I agree with that man. Not the man that brings up the supposed sins of his opponent.
According to the first man, the subject of the morality and/or the legality of abortion can be examined independently of the question of what other unrelated public policies should be followed and by which party.
The second man is implying that my pro-life arguments make me or anyone else agreeing with me a war-mongering, lawless, racist cheater and punisher of the poor (with perhaps bad dental hygiene).
Aside from the rhetoric, it seems to me that the conclusion of the second man stems from a consequentialism. By my lights, I would think that consequentialism is incompatible with Christianity. Doesn't that philosophy do away with the 10 commandments by denying the existence of norms without exception? I see you arguing against moral relativism in other places. That's confusing to me.
The 10 commandments are mostly negative norms that start "Thou shalt not..."
But you don't have to be a Catholic, another type of Christian or even a theist to see that justice demands that negative rights take priority over positive rights. Philippa Foot was an atheist:
Charity, on her account, demands that we aid others, but we cannot do so at the expense of violating rights to non-interference, or negative rights.
The listing of mostly negative rights in the 10 commandments makes sense from this perspective. You can't intentionally kill an innocent person so that others may derive a lesser benefit. You can argue about the best way to help others, but there are lines you can't ethically cross.
It does seem to me that there is a difference between saying that abortion is wrong, or wrong in many or most cases, but there are reasons for keeping it legal, and saying that abortions are always justified, and that there is no more reason for thinking abortion wrong as there is for thinking a nose job wrong.
I read the article. The author (an ASU professor) lists 3 conclusions she has reached from her years of study. Only one is a moral conclusion: (2) women have a moral right to decide whether they will use their own body, in an incredibly invasive and intimate manner, to support the life of another human being, .
If this is the moral rule that rules them all, then it's simply game over for any argument about the objective value of the offspring. It also seems to be game over for objective morality and rational decision-making period. In exactly the same circumstances 2 women could make contradictory decisions in the same respect at the same time and both would be considered morally correct. That looks like a violation of the law of non-contradition.
She speaks of her involuntary revulsion at the reaction of the mother's friends that immediately labeled the Down's Syndrome baby an "it" when they heard the diagnosis and told her to abort. From a Christian perspective, this looks like the law written on her heart was giving her a poke to move in the right direction. I hope her conscience will develop someday.
As it is, she's made a god of every woman's conscience and is noticing that her polytheism has produced a wide range gods. Some she considers good and some she considers bad.
But as I pointed out earlier, she has also tacitly enabled other liberal abortion supporters to legitimately criticize the mother for not aborting and that's just what they did.
This is an interesting story about how Philippa Foot came to her way of viewing things. When she started to Oxford, the big moral questions had been settled. There was no dispute that there was no such thing as right or wrong there was only "Hurrah" or "Boo".
Then the Holocaust happened.
It seems relevant to this topic.
I wasn't arguing against the pro-life position, I am arguing against the idea that I have to forget about everything else and vote for the most pro-life party. As a Christian, I believe you can't always get the laws that reflect a Christian world-view. There is a moral battle that is more significant than the legal one. And yes, people who are pro-choice can have widely divergent moral views of abortion. To lump my former colleague Bertha Manninen in with the likes of Valerie Tarico because both are pro-choice is ideological insensitivity.
As a Christian, I believe you can't always get the laws that reflect a Christian world-view.
That's right, nor will we until Christ establishes his kingdom. And even then people will rebel the first chance they get.
The act of voting itself is a compromise in light of Christianity. Ask yourself which party Jesus would vote for. If the answer is "neither", I suspect you are correct. To the extent a Christian identifies himself as a Democrat or a Republican, that is the extent to which his faith has been compromised by politics. Both parties are problems.
Obviously if one's conscious is particularly pricked by a great evil in society, one should seek to overcome that evil. But in seeking to use the vote to change laws (that will subsequently be changed by the other side), one has to remember that not only are political parties corrupt, unwieldy tools that are literal representations of the most base traits of the masses, but voting for one of them is a vote to support part of the Christian worldview at the expense of other parts. In what way are you willing to indirectly support evil with your vote? Has to be considered I think.
A Christiam woman who opts not to kill her child because it might have Downs Syndrome has demonstrated the love of Christ in a manner that the pro-abortion side never will. But that same Christian woman might turn away someone fleeing literal rape and death in their home country because they should "just use the immigration system". And a woman who had an abortion might take in the refugee and feed and clothe them. Both can demonstrate the love of Christ with the policies of one of the parties, and both can utterly fail to walk in the love of Christ with the policies of that same party.
This is why I'm done with politics. To the extent I can change lives in the love of Christ and his work on the cross, it will not be done with a vote.
If the moral battle is more important than the legal one, then please stop telling me how to vote and tell us how intentionally killing innocent people is a moral good?
Christians have a duty to promote the good of the society they live in and to oppose the evil. They are not called to win elections at any cost. In our society you should vote to promote the good as long as you don't end up supporting intrinsic evil. Even though you may not change a life with your vote, maybe you can save a life.
George W Bush was pro-life. From what I recall he had a pretty good record on that topic. He also is responsible for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and played a huge role in the creation of ISIS. Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of innocent people dead and millions more permanently scarred, physically and mentally, due to that man's actions. A vote to save the unborn at the expense of the born, so long as they die somewhere out of sight.
Starhopper calls Trump evil, but Trump was an elementary school bully who puts grasshoppers in girls' hair compared to the school shooter that was Bush. Yet Bush was the only option pro-life people had. That's how pathetic Democrats are.
I can't vote for either party in good conscience.
Kevin,
If you know that one candidate will be responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people and the other candidate will not then you have a moral responsibility to vote for the second candidate.
Even if his opponents would have done the same thing, Bush still is blameworthy for unjust wars. But do you know people who thought it was OK to vote for Bush killing innocent people just as long as he fought against abortion?
But do you know people who thought it was OK to vote for Bush killing innocent people just as long as he fought against abortion?
Did any conservative Republicans support the wars? Yes. I'm sure if I pinned them down they might express discomfort at the innocent deaths resulting from them, but many of them bought the rhetoric.
Did any conservative Republicans support the wars? Yes. I'm sure if I pinned them down they might express discomfort at the innocent deaths resulting from them, but many of them bought the rhetoric.
Right. A lot of Republicans supported the wars and more Republicans than Democrats.
But I wonder if they actually did the calculus that you're implying. Did they intend to support what they knew was an unjust war in only in order to further the pro-life political cause? Did they consider this some sort of trade-off?
Here is the statement I'm referring to:
A vote to save the unborn at the expense of the born, so long as they die somewhere out of sight.
I'm sure there were some. I hope everyone now sees the wars were unjust.
Let's try this. Being pro-life means what? What is the goal of being pro-life? What I take it the goal is the cessation of abortion. I heard someone in 1980 say "i'm a one issue voter. The issue is abortion, and the candidate is Reagan." People for the last four decades have voted Republican in hopes that the Republicans would enact policies, and appoint justices that would help to end abortion. Most of the justices who have been nominated to the Supreme Court, and six of the nine now serving, were put there by Presidents who ran on a pro-life platform and who said they wanted people on the Court who follow originalist jurisprudence, which is popularly thought to lead to the conclusion that Roe was a judicial overreach. But Roe has not been overturned. My suspicion is that Roe is here to stay, like it or not, no matter who is in the White House. But when it comes to who gets aborted, I see no difference in result between Democratic and Republican administration. Abortion rates are not lower under Reagan, the Bushes, or Trump than they were under Clinton and Obama. The ripped up safety nets, the wars, and the tax cuts for rich people, and even the recent attack on the fundamentals of American democracy all actually happened under Republican administrations. The promised prevention of abortion did not happen. So, what is the point of voting pro-life?
Leaving aside your "ideologically insensitive" view of the pro-life position, let me see if I can summarize your argument.
People who vote to promote life have been unsuccessful at achieving their ends. Because they have not been successful, they never will. Meanwhile them voting the way they do frustrates your liberal view of the world. So they should stop it already.
Who do you think can be persuaded by this?
Dennis Rader once ran for president of his church council. People voted for him because they thought he would do good things and he certainly did when he won. Some had moral concerns about electing him, but others thought he did more good things than bad things. He did 20 good things and only 10 bad things they said. Overall that calculates out to the best benefit for the most people. The others thought it was more concerning about what those 10 bad things were. They thought those things disqualified him.
What do you think?
Same story can be told about Donald Trump's election in 2016. BTW, what are you aiming at when you grab women by the *****, when you are not married to the person. It can result in an unwanted pregnancy. What do you think millionaire playboys do when they cause unwanted pregnancies? Pay child support and college tuition for a lifetime? Or pay for an abortion and cover it up with an NDA? I think the latter is more likely.
This wouldn't matter if the law was is only thing that matters. But it's not. And now, notice that Donald Trump is doing all he can to destroy the Republican party. For the left, he's the gift that keeps on giving.
Thank you for complimenting me on my analogy by resorting to Argumentum Ad Trumpium. Must have been quite effective.
Of course I'm trying to illustrate why pro-lifers vote the way they do. They don't want to participate in the intentional murder of the innocent by electing those that either support it or allow it to go on. Adding up good things and bad things to reach a moral decision is wrong when you trade intrinsically evil acts for possible goods.
But I am arguing that voting Democratic or Republican, in the vast majority of cases, makes no difference when it comes to who gets aborted. Is your primary goal to get the abortion rate as law as possible, or is it something else, and if it is something else, what is it?
My goal is heaven.
It turns out that refusing to participate in murders will not only help me reach my goal, but also is the morally correct thing to do for people who don't care about heaven.
If Democrats would stop being evil by promoting murder then fewer will be murdered. So stop it already.
So, what is the point of voting pro-life?
Because you oppose the intentional killing of the unborn, as Democrats increasingly champion as something to be proud of.
The ripped up safety nets, the wars, and the tax cuts for rich people, and even the recent attack on the fundamentals of American democracy all actually happened under Republican administrations. The promised prevention of abortion did not happen. So, what is the point of voting pro-life?
So here's a question for died-in-the-wool Democrats. If all of your dreams would come true overnight for all of the policy issues you desired and the only thing you would have to change would be one policy why wouldn't you do it? Why are you willing to forgo all of these goods that you claim the Republicans are blocking for just a single issue? Just think of it. Become pro-life instead of pro-choice and what you consider your natural allies will flock to your party in a heartbeat and you will be invincible. No more single issues voters right?
Or is this the single issue that Democrats cannot give up? Ripping up safety nets, allowing endless wars, allow tax cuts for the wealthy, allowing attacks on democracy are these all small prices to pay as long as abortions are not restricted under any circumstances? Why is this issue more important to Dems than any of the others they cherish?
Tell you what. I'll give up ripping up safety nets (my favorite pass-time) if you outlaw abortion. Deal?
No takers? Interesting position.
Let everyone suffer and die as long as the right to kill is not infringed.
That's what I call commitment. Maybe even supernatural commitment?
No problem for me. Of all right-wing goals, getting rid of abortion is probably the one I have the greatest sympathy with. Biden, for example hates abortion. I've seen him talk about it. What Democratic politician besides Biden has had conversations with Pope Benedict about his views on abortion? I don't know how successful he will be at pushing back against the abortion fanaticism in his own party, (which I find really disturbing in many of its manifestations). Fighting the prevailing winds within one's own party is an uphill climb. Just ask Liz Cheney.
Funny. Sounded like you were defending the right to kill.
Your fellows aren't gonna change if people like you keep defending it.
But that would involve being honest with your friends and tell them the reason they feel certain instances of abortion is indecent is because it is indecent full stop. The question then is, for them, why have they deadened their conscience to that fact?
You don't have to mention to them that you got the idea from me. When they realize you're right they would probably want to hug me. I'm not a big hugger.
Papalinton,
You seem to be very politically naive......
You made me scroll back through all the comments to see if there was anything I actually wrote that caused you to respond the way you did. Did you have something you expect me to respond to?
bmiller
My deepest apologies. I wrongly attributed the statement to you, which is completely wrong.
Would you wish me delete it?
Just out of interest-
The right-wing will never get rid of Roe v Wade, despite right-wing State governments attempting to make it harder for women to get abortions. They must be seen to be doing something for the radical pro-lifers but the right-wing Congressional party will not remove it from the statutes. The reason being? While it remains a contentious issue it is good for the GOP because it binds the conservative Evangelicals and other radical right-wing pro-lifers to their side of politics in perpetuity, particularly when their votes are needed at the next ballot box.
Should they repeal Roe v Wade, most will go home happy and comforted thinking they have won that 'existential' battle, but the party might no longer have the support base necessary for the next election having won their one reason to stay within the party. In other words, they may not show up to vote in the droves they need to gain or remain in power.
Even with the advantages of rigged redistricting over decades and a string of recent voter nullification laws, the GOP has lost the popular vote in every election in the last couple decades. More Americans voted Democratic than Republican. We know with the Senate as it is now constituted, the 50 GOP senators represent only 40% of the American population. What that tells us is that a tipping point, in shear numbers, is about to be reached where the GOP will not be able to win an election in their own right. And possibly for decades to come. HAVE A READ OF THIS. :)
So, to keep the gut fires burning, and keep their voters even closer, I don't think the GOP is likely to purge Roe v Wade from the books any time soon.
Just saying.
I read recently that a Pew Research poll found that over 50% Of liberal, white women under 30 have a mental health issue. I wonder if it's related to the guilt they have to choke down.
It would be nice for you to refer to the site so that we all can read it too.
Here's a story on it.
I couldn't pull the raw data myself because it looks like you have to have an account at Pew. That's what the guy posting on Twitter did who is referenced in the article.
Thanks
Consequentialists (moral relativists) conclude that the ends justify the means. Therefore right to life people should concede to the right to kill people because, they argue conceding to the right to kill people is a small price to pay for the most benefit to the most people. The right to life people must suck it up and participate in what they consider murder so that other "good" things can happen. The means involves participating in murder, but the ends are worth it. This is not an atractive proposition to those who are not consequentialists.
However a rational consequentialist (even an Australian) can see that if the party supporting the right to kill, would drop that single position, they would get everything else they want. Since the ends justify the means, giving up the right to kill as a means to the end of the wonderful goodness of the party's other goals should be a "no brainer". Consequentialists can remain true to their own values and allow the right to life people to remain true to theirs. Win-win.
So why is this not happening?
Could it be that the consequentialist is not really interested in the greatest good for the greatest number after all? Consequentialism can be a useful rationalization for any evil if you want it to be. And it seems many want it to be.
It seems to me that there's no reason to believe anything a consequentialist tells me.
Prove me wrong.
Regarding the author's references to Thomson and Hursthouse. An analysis HERE
A quick summary here:
Thomson claims the right to kill is OK even if the unborn are full-blown "persons". Even if the pregnancy lasted an hour the unborn could be killed. She asks us to ignore the humanity (of at least one of those involved) of the situation and treat it as a purely property rights argument. But is justice really served by enforcing the rights of the landlord to the extent of the death of the temporary undocumented guest? We have laws against that don't we?
Hursthouse (a virtue ethicist) claims that the right to kill can be decided without deciding the moral status of the unborn. Since a human being is always killed, some "evil" is always done and most are done in callous manner. So while most abortions are "vicious" some are "virtuous".
But virtue ethics (derived from Aristotle) allows that some things can never be done virtuously:
If we return to Aristotle, we find another way in which absolute prohibitions make an appearance within a virtues approach. In Book II, Chapter 7 of the Nic. Ethicshe notes that
"not every action or feeling admits of the mean. For the names of some automatically include baseness–for instance, spite, shamelessness, envy [among feelings], and adultery, theft, murder among actions. For all of these and similar things are called by these names because they themselves, not their excesses or deficiencies, are base. Hence in doing these things we can never be correct, but must invariably be in error. We cannot do them well or not well–by committing adultery, for instance, with the right woman at the right time in the right way. On the contrary, it is true without qualification that to do any of them is to be in error. (1107a10-18)"
So why would Hursthouse not include abortion among those prohibited, vicious acts? It seems because she smuggled in the moral status of the unborn in her argument afterall.
This is the reason the author was surprised by her own reaction. Being well versed in Hursthouse, she wasn't supposed to notice that you can't get away from the moral status of the unborn, but of course, it's only the moral status of the unborn that makes it wrong at all.
Once again @bmiller can’t talk about anything else but abortion. Sheesh! Starhopper is right. You’re a real one trick pony.
:-)
I'm only bidding my time until "The First Way" comes up again 😉
I’m ready for another round with Dusty if you are. I wonder if he still has the same strange opinions regarding causation
Born Ready!
I just read the obituary of G.E.M Anscombe at the Guardian website. This quote struck me:
However purportedly different, in fact, all contemporary moral philosophies lead to this sort of "consequentialism" (it was Anscombe who coined that now-indispensable term), which blithely countenances the execution of an innocent person as a potentially right action. Anscombe famously asserted of someone who thought in this way, "I do not want to argue with him: he shows a corrupt mind."
It's the same thing I mentioned above. There's no point having a discussion with a consequentialist. If this is the way they think, then there is no reason to believe anything they say. They'd just as soon lie to you as not so long as they get their way.
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