PAS?

Anti-choicers have long claimed that abortion causes PAS - Post Abortion Syndrome. They claim that women suffer anxiety, depression, substance abuse, etc, etc, after having an abortion. This is a highly contentious claim. The anti-choicers justify this claim by referencing the anecdotal stories of women who are unhappy with the choice they made, and regret it (I wonder who made them feel bad? Could it be all the idiots insisting that they are cold hearted if they don't regret their decision? Could it be all the zealots calling them murderers? As I've discussed before, the anti-choicers might be partially to blame in this).

But now the Dakota Voice (a right wing news source) is reporting on a new study has been released claiming a correlation between abortion and various anxiety and substance abuse issues. While I can't actually get into the study itself, and hence can't assess its worth, it's being published in what I take to be a decent peer-reviewed journal. Of course, given the other studies which deny this claim (linked to from the Voice article), and given the fact that statistical science is the least reliable of the sciences, it's still not clear that PAS actually exists.

And honestly, I wish the anti-choice crowd would stop pushing this. It's just another indication that they are completely devoid of any understanding of basic critical thinking skills. Even if abortion carried with it the risk of PAS, that does not make it any less a legal right. Children of religious nuts might vary well suffer psychological damage, but that doesn't mean we should make it illegal to teach your children that they are inherently worthless and evil and are headed for fire and brimstone. Many women suffer post-partum depression, but that's no reason to make having children illegal. Many of the choices we make carry with them risks to our persons - both physical and mental - but that doesn't necessarily mean that those choices should be made illegal. You've got to make an argument for that.

But that's just the thing. The anti-choice crowd lacks any reasonable argument for their position. They rely on religious dogma and emotional appeals to convince people. And that's what they are doing with PAS - attempting to use it to frighten women away from making a choice that might actually be best for them in their situation.

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Lame Duck on a Rampage

Think you're finally done with Dubya's idiotic run of our country? Think Dubya can do no more damage? Think again.

In the spirit of so many leaving administrations, the Bush Administration is quickly instituting - via executive order - things that might take us years to be rid of. Here's a few of the sampling the Houston Chronicle reported on:

A proposed Justice Department regulation would allow local and state law enforcement to collect and share sensitive information on citizens even when they are not suspected of involvement in criminal activity. The Americans with Disabilities Act would be weakened by permitting state and local governments to make only a fraction of their facilities accessible to the handicapped.

A Department of Health and Human Services rule change would deny federal funds to family planning organizations and clinics that refuse to hire staffers who will not provide birth control to patients upon request. The regulation would also define forms of birth control as abortion, allowing physicians and others a legal basis for declining to provide family planning counseling that includes birth control techniques.

That's right, Bushie boy, take your last few days to make life worse for the handicapped, damage our civil liberties even more, force employers to hire people who refuse to do their job and enshrine legally your unscientific, medically inaccurate, religious boogaboo definitions of birth control, pregnancy and abortion. That'll do wonders for your legacy.

We're not done with Dubya yet. I just hope he doesn't do too much damage that can't be undone.

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Bishops on Reducing Abortions

According to some Catholic Bishops, abortion rates cannot be reduced unless Roe v. Wade is overturned.

You might think that makes sense, but it's false. Guttmacher's statistics indicate that there is no correlation (much less causal relationship) between the legality of abortion and the number of abortions that occur in a country:

while it may seem paradoxical, a country's abortion rate is not closely correlated with whether abortion is legal there. For example, abortion levels are quite high in Latin American countries, where abortion is highly restricted. (In fact, 20 million of the 46 million abortions performed annually worldwide occur in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws.) At the same time, abortion rates are quite low throughout Western Europe, where the procedure is legal and widely available. Also, Eastern and Western Europe have the world's highest and lowest abortion rates, respectively, yet abortion is generally legal throughout the Continent.

In fact, if you put a little thought into it, you realize that the best way to reduce the number of abortions is to prevent what causes them - unwanted pregnancies. How do you prevent unwanted pregnancies? Birth control! And the data bears this out:

Abortion levels are high in countries where the desire for small families is strong but contraceptive use is low or ineffective. For example, in most of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics, where desired family size has been small for many years, modern contraceptive methods were not generally available until recently. As a result, women relied on abortion—which was legal, safe and easily accessible—to regulate births. However, as contraceptives have become much easier to obtain in recent years, the situation has begun to change rapidly, and abortion rates in some of these countries fell by as much as 50% between 1990 and 1996.

Of course, the Bishops can't tell you that greater access to contraception will lower the abortion rate in the U.S. because they oppose contraception just as vehemently as they oppose abortion. When will these people let their conclusions be informed by the data? When will they assess the facts on the basis of evidence rather than their preconceived dogma?

Oh wait... they're bishops. Nevermind.

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By Request: The Elegant Argument for Abortion Rights

A silent but much treasured reader has requested that I post on the so-called "Elegant Argument" for abortion rights. Since I'm terribly pleased to have any readers, much less requests from them, I'm happy to oblige. So here goes:

First, don't ask me why they call it the "Elegant Argument". I've no idea. As far as I'm concerned, all logically valid arguments are elegant, so I see no reason to claim special status for this one.

By any name, the Elegant Argument for abortion rights is, to my mind, the strongest argument for said rights. Before we can get into, though, a few things have to be made clear up front. First, for the purposes of the argument, we'll be assuming that a fetus is a person with all the rights that you or I have as persons. The question of whether a fetus is a person is often viewed by people on both sides of the debate as the central issue. As we're about to see, the issue of personhood is actually irrelevant to the abortion debate.

Second, we must keep in mind that there is a clear distinction between what is morally correct and what is legally permissible. It is entirely possible for someone to have a legal right to do something immoral. The homophobe who gets on his soapbox and condemns gays is doing something immoral, but he has every right to do it. It may very well be immoral for you to refuse to help a relative in need by giving him a few bucks. But you have every legal right to refuse. The distinction between the legal and the moral is important to keep in mind, because the elegant argument for abortion rights is an argument for a legal right. It says nothing about the moral status of abortion in general or of any particular abortion.

Alright, enough with the preliminaries. There are three main premises to the elegant argument: (1) There is an inherent human right to bodily autonomy (2) When the right to bodily autonomy is being violated, it is legally permissible to kill in order to stop the violation (3) An unwanted pregnancy constitutes a violation of the right to bodily autonomy. We'll take each of these in turn.


There is an inherent human right to bodily autonomy.

The right to bodily autonomy - that is, the right to dominion over our person - is so basic that we take it for granted. But the best way to see that we have such a right is by noting that certain actions which we take to be violations of a right have the one thing in common - a violation of our control over our own person. Think about the following case for a moment: you go in to the dentist for, say, a surgery on your gums. He puts you under for the surgery, and when you awake you discover that he pulled a perfectly healthy tooth. Let's say he's got a collection, and he thought yours would make a nice addition. You're still alive, and you're experiencing no pain. Still, you've been wronged, haven't you? The dentist has violated your rights. In fact, we're inclined to say that he's violated you. But what right has he violated? Not your right to free speech. Not your right to trial by jury of your peers. Not even your right to life. You're still alive, after all, and were in no danger of death. You might be inclined to say it's your right over your property. But there is something more to it than that. If the dentist happily gave you your tooth to keep, you wouldn't be deprived of your property, but a violation has still occurred. And we'd feel the same if a different doctor came in during your oral surgery and poked around in your insides, but didn't take anything out. Why? Because you have a right to bodily autonomy - you have a right to say what happens to your own body, and other people can't just do whatever they like to your body without your consent.

These doctor cases are pretty clear cut cases of a right to bodily autonomy, but the right is even clearer in cases of rape. A rapist is most certainly violating the rights of his victim. But what right? None of the standard rights seem to apply. If the victim is not killed, there is no violation of the right to life. And no property is taken. The whole act of rape consists in using another individual's body without their consent. And that is only a violation of rights if we possess the right to be free from non-consensual use or manipulation of our bodies.


When a violation of the right to bodily autonomy occurs, it is legally permissible to kill in order to stop the violation.

Imagine the following (now rather famous) scenario. You wake up one morning to find yourself hooked up to another person. You are immediately told that the person you are connected to is a famous violinist who has a fatal illness. He needs to be hooked up to you, you are told, for the next 9 months so that he can use your body as a filter and nutrient provider. After 9 months he'll be healed and the two of you can go your merry ways. The music appreciation society had looked high and low for someone who would be compatible with the violinist, and just in the nick of time, they found you, seemingly the only person who can keep the violinist alive. Last night, while you slept, they hooked you up to the violinist, who is unconscious and knows nothing of the situation. Here's the question: do you have the right to unplug yourself from him? Note, the question is not "Is is the right thing to do?" or "Would it be wrong of you to unplug him?" The question is "Do you have the right to unplug him?"

If the case is too abstract to get your intuitions going, then just imagine a woman being raped. She has kicked and screamed and bit and hit and done everything she possibly could to get her assailant off her. She's even managed to get ahold of a rock which she's being hitting her assailant with, but nothing short of killing the rapist has managed to get him to stop. Now, does the rape victim have the right to use that rock to kill her attacker to get him to stop? Most people have a very strong intuition that she does.

What these cases are supposed to do is to draw out your intuitions as to whether or not an individual can use deadly force to stop a violation of their right to bodily autonomy. Now, obviously, if the rape victim could get her attacker to stop by using something less than deadly force, then we'd be a bit hesistant about claiming that she could legally kill her attacker. But if she's in a position in which they only way to stop the violation of her right to bodily autonomy is to kill the person doing the violating, then our intuitions tell us that she has the right to do so. Note that I said "person". The rapist is a person, and he has the same rights as any other person - including the right to life. The right to life is not a right that is forfeited by committing this particular crime. We do not execute rapists, we merely put them in jail. Despite his right to life, however, it seems that the rape victim has the right to kill him in order to end his violation of her right to bodily autonomy. Note, too, that it doesn't matter if the rapist is unaware of what he is doing. A rape victim has just as much right to kill a sleepwalking rapist or a clinically insane rapist or a severely mentally handicapped rapist. What matters is not what the rapist does or doesn't know or intend but rather the violation of the victim's right to bodily autonomy.

There is, I think, a reason why bodily autonomy wins over life in this conflict of rights. The right to life is important. But without the right to bodily autonomy, the right to life is nothing more than a right to breathe and eat. In the absence of the right to bodily autonomy, an evil doctor could put you in any number of terrible states, but as long as you weren't technically brain dead, he wouldn't have violated your right to life. In a way, the right to life is best justified by appeal to the right to bodily autonomy, and this is especially true when you consider that your life just is the continued functioning of your body (this is true even if you believe in an immortal soul). If you don't have dominion over that body, then why would you have a right to it's continued functioning?


An unwanted pregnancy is a violation of the right to bodily autonomy

The first two premises usually aren't that controversial. Most everyone sees that there is a right to bodily autonomy, and most everyone agrees that it is legally permissible to kill in order to end a violation of that right (when killing is the only way to end the violation). It's this third premise that strikes up controversy.

We'll start with something clearly uncontroversial. The relationship between a pregnant woman and the fetus is one in which the fetus is using the woman's body. That seems clear enough. Remember, though, that the only way one person's use of another's body is a violation of the right to bodily autonomy is in the absence of consent. In the case of sexual intercourse, for example, consensual sex is not a violation of anyone's rights. It is only when one party does not consent that we have a case of rape. For an unwanted pregnancy to be a violation of the pregnant woman's right to bodily autonomy, then, it must be the case that the pregnant woman did not consent to the pregnancy.

In cases of pregnancy resulting from rape, it is clear that there no consent on the part of the woman. If you accept the first two premises, you automatically accept that abortion is legal in cases of rape.

It's cases of consensual sex that cause controversy. After all, the common pro-life quip is "The woman had a choice. She chose to have sex." Behind this line is a claim that consent to sex is automatically consent to pregnancy. But it's not clear that this is the case. It seems possible to draw a distinction between responsibility for an outcome of one's action and consent to that outcome. If someone drive recklessly, knowing full well that reckless driving leads to accidents, they are certainly responsible for the accident they get into. But did they consent to it? Similarly, I smoke cigarettes (yeah, yeah, I know. Bugging me about it won't get me to quit any quicker). I know that smoking causes cancer. If I get cancer, I am completely responsible for it. But, at least from a subjective standpoint, I don't believe I'm consenting to cancer. Nor do I believe that the person who eats McDonalds on a regular basis, knowing how fattening the food is, consents to getting fat. They are responsible for it, but I don't believe they consented. Similarly, an individual who engages in sexual activity knowing that it may cause pregnancy may be responsible for the pregnancy, but that doesn't mean they consented to it.

This becomes clearer when we add in the factor of "birth control". Imagine that I know there is a prowler about in my neighborhood, and I know that this prowler is going to try to get into my house any way he can. By continuing to live in the neighborhood, I knowingly put myself in a situation in which it's likely that the prowler will get into my house. Now, if I foolishly leave the window open, and the prowler comes in, I'm certainly responsible for his being in my house. To my mind, I didn't consent to his presence. But maybe your intuitions run differently. But what are your intuitions if I put bars up on my windows. If the prowler still gets in, have I consented to his being there? I don't think I have. After all, I've done something to prevent his presence, and this seems inconsistent with consent, even of the tacit variety. Similarly, in cases in which a woman engages in sexual activity and uses contraception, if she does conceive, it seems odd to say that she consented to the pregnancy.

Even if you don't by the foregoing lines of reasoning, and you hold firm that consent to sex is consent to pregnancy, when it comes to bodily autonomy, consent can be withdrawn. If a woman consents to sexual activity initially, her initial consent is not equivalent to consent to the entire act. Consent can be withdrawn at any time. And if a woman were to withdraw her consent mid-coitus, continuation of the act on the part of her partner would constitute rape. By analogy, then, even if a woman initially consents to pregnancy by consenting to sex, she may withdraw her consent at any time.


The Conclusion

Alright, so, to sum up, individuals possess an inherent right to bodily autonomy. If the right to bodily autonomy is violated, an individual may legally kill to effect cessation of that violation. And an unwanted pregnancy involves a violation of the right to bodily autonomy. It follows, then, that a woman may legally kill the fetus - even if it is a person - to effect cessation of the violation of her right to bodily autonomy.

Note that one may only kill if this is the only way to cease the violation of their right. That means that if we someday come up with a way for a woman to be rid of a pregnancy without killing the fetus, then it may be the case that abortion would no longer be a legal option for terminating the pregnancy.

And remember that this argument is only about the legality of abortion. It says nothing about whether or not it is moral. This is why it is entirely possible for people to think that abortion is wrong, and is a tragedy, and also think it is a legal option for a woman with an unwanted pregnancy.

So, that's it. The elegant argument for abortion rights. If any ethicists are reading and find fault in my description of the argument, please let me know.

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Palin's SCOTUS Gaffe

To her credit, the problem was not that Palin couldn't name any SCOTUS case, it was that she couldn't name one other than Roe that she disagreed with. That's still pretty sad. She doesn't disagree with Kelo? Dredd Scott? Plessy v. Ferguson? I'm pretty sure she disagrees with Planned Parenthood v Casey. You'd think for such a staunch pro-lifer, she could have named that one.

Here is a comparison of Palin and Biden's answers on the question:


Now, I have to say that I disagree with part of what Biden says about Roe. Getting close to a consensus in a heterogeneous society is not the job of SCOTUS. They are there to interpret the constitution, and it doesn't matter what the great mob of our "multicultural society of religious people" has to say.

By the way, what about us non-religious people? Don't we count? Of course we don't. Doesn't matter which side of the aisle you are on, you're never gonna stand up for the 15% of the population who have no religion. And atheists? Ohh boy. We don't even deserve to have our voices heard. Sorry, it just really stinks when there is no political party that will give you a voice. It gets annoying having to vote for people who at best act as though you don't exist and at worst think that you are a scourge upon the earth that must be destroyed. Oh well.

Also, apparently Biden's conservative friends haven't actually read the bill of rights. If I was him, I'd tell them to go read the 9th Amendment and then get back to me.

So I'm not perfectly happy with Biden's answer. But Palin's answer is much, much worse. What worries me most about Palin's exchange with Couric isn't that she can't name a SCOTUS case she disagrees with. That shouldn't be the least bit shocking to anyone who has been paying attention. Anyone who hasn't been watching Fox news knows that she's at least one standard deviation below 100. There is only so much information she can fit in that tiny brain of hers, and I'm sure remembering the crazy names she's given to her ever expanding brood probably takes up a lot of storage space already. And keeping an eye on Putin's head probably requires significant intellectual effort.

Rather, what bothers me is that Palin's answer on Roe seems to indicate that she doesn't understand how our system is supposed to work. She thinks abortion is a states issue. Okay. But then she says there is a right to privacy in the constitution, but individual states can best handle the will of the people on that issue. Um... Sarah, honey, if there is a right in the constitution, then the states can't decide to deny it even if it is the will of the people in that state. The Bill of Rights is there to protect our individual rights from the federal government, and the 14th Amendment expands that protection such that it guards us from state action as well. Welcome to the United States of America, Gov. Palin. If you actually want to rule this country, I suggest you figure out how it works first.

Now I'm really interested to find out what her view of the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban is. If abortion is a states issue, then the federal government has no business passing laws about it, and so Palin should oppose that ban on the basis of her federalist principles. Something tells me, though, that she has no opposition whatsoever to the ban.

I don't know about you, but I can't wait for the debate tonight. In case you didn't notice, my pickup switch has been moved from "Cold, rational argumentation" to "Mean, sarcastic argumentation". This should be fun.

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If Roe Goes...

Linda Hirshman has an excellent piece at the Washington Post examining the question of how far states will be able to take their "states' rights" if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned. In particular, she looks at the issue of whether or not states where abortion would be criminalized would be able to prosecute women who travel to states where the procedure is legal to obtain an abortion.

If John McCain wins the election, we are but a few years, at most, from witnessing the overturn of Roe. It looks clear that at least one, if not two, spots will be opening up on the highest court in the land, and McCain has repeatedly indicated that he will appoint judges like Roberts and Alito. The overturn of Roe v. Wade is a real possibility at this point. So what would happen if Roe was tossed out?

Well, abortion wouldn't automatically become illegal throughout the land. Rather, the issue of the legality of abortion would be left to the states. There are a number of states where abortion would become illegal following the demise of Roe. And just as was the case before abortion rights were nationally recognized, women living in states criminalizing abortion would travel to states without criminal abortion laws to obtain the procedure. "Okay," you might think, "not such a big deal. Women can still get abortions, they just have to travel a bit." A woman living in Missouri - a state which will likely criminalize abortion nanoseconds after Roe is overturned - would just have to travel across the border into Illinois to get the procedure done. No problem (as long as you can manage to get the money together to make the trip). Missouri couldn't do anything to stop her or penalize her for doing something in another state, right?

Well, apparently it's not that simple. It seems silly to think that an individual could be prosecuted in his or her home state for doing something in another state which is perfectly legal in that state. To me, that sounds like saying that the US government can charge you for possession of marijuana because you bought and smoked some in a cafe in Amsterdam. But it looks as though there are some precendents in favor of allowing states to do just that. According to Hirshman,

Under the American constitutional system, a state does have some authority to regulate its citizens' conduct even when they aren't on its territory. The Tenth Amendment and numerous Supreme Court rulings have recognized the broad reach of state sovereignty. In 1792, the Supreme Court approved Virginia's prosecution of a Virginian for stealing a horse from another Virginian, even though the dastardly deed took place entirely in the District of Columbia...

...In some indirect -- but ominous -- cases, the Supreme Court has shown itself to be open to the idea that a state has an interest in its citizens' behavior wherever it occurs. In 1985, the court allowed Alabama to prosecute an Alabama defendant for his wife's murder, even though he had already been tried and convicted in Georgia, where the actual murder occurred. In 1993, the court recognized the interest of a state that forbids gambling in upholding a federal law prohibiting broadcasters from tempting its citizens with advertisements for out-of-state lotteries.

So it looks like a state with an abortion ban might have some Constitutional backing if it decided to bar women from leaving to obtain abortions or prosecute after the fact. And we shouldn't forget that if a majority of five neo-con justices were to include in their reversal of Roe a declaration that the fetus is a person, states might then have the power to prevent women from leaving their boundaries by claiming that such action is necessary to protect the fetus. If the state can take custody of a child for its protection, and the fetus has all the same rights as a child, then the state might argue that it has custody over the fetus, and bar the woman from taking the fetus outside the state. (This, of course, ignores the whole issue of bodily autonomy. But the anti-choice side of this debate never actually addresses that issue anyway)

Thankfully, it looks like there is some Constitutional support for the conclusion that states cannot prosecute women for deeds in other states:

There are, of course, limits to what states can do to stop out-of-state abortions. They have to comply with the restrictions of the federal Constitution, such as the clause saying that no state may deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Courts apply this due-process clause to prohibit states from taking "arbitrary" actions. A state's decision to prosecute a woman for an abortion that it holds to be illegal but that was legal where she got it could be seen as arbitrary -- meddling in behavior that's none of its business -- unless that state shows that it has a legitimate interest in the out-of-state act.

Unfortunately, it looks like we've already suggested a way in which a state with an abortion ban might argue that it has a legitimate interest in the out-of-state act - if a SCOTUS ruling contains a declaration that a fetus is a person, then the woman's home state could claim that it has a legitimate interest in protecting the fetus.

In fact, it might not even be necessary for SCOTUS to make the declaration. If the state itself has amended its Constitution to confer the status of personhood on the fetus (as was attempted in Colorado recently), then that just might give the state enough of a ground to claim legitimate interest in the out of state act.

Hirshman looks at this issue from a number of angles in her article, but I think the article leaves out two critical facets of this issue that should be examined. First, while she is keenly aware of the fact that this issue boils down to a question of states' rights, her article fails to bring into the discussion the fact that conservative justices are often staunch supporters of states' rights. Prima facie, this would lead one to conclude that they will be more likely to rule in favor of the states that are attempting to assert their "rights" - that is, the states that wish to prosecute their citizens for obtaining an abortion in a state where it is legal. That should trouble those who are concerned with protecting the right of women to terminate a pregnancy.

Second, I think it important to keep in mind the highly emotional nature, for many, of the abortion issue. Justices are human; they have deepseated convictions and dearly held beliefs just like anyone else. I do not find it improbable that a number of the Justices on the court who oppose abortion rights will select a ruling that matches their dearly held beliefs and then find a legal justification for it, rather than following legal justifications to the ruling. It very well might be that for such Justices, the relevant states' rights case law will take a back seat to preventing women from obtaining abortions.

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5 Reasons Bristol's Pregnancy Matters

So, with the news that Sarah Palin's 17 year old unwed daughter, Bristol, is pregnant, there has been a lot of chatter about how this is a private family matter and we should all just leave poor Bristol Palin alone. I agree that we should leave Bristol alone, but her pregnancy should force some light on the conservative policies and stances that her mother and McCain support. Here are 5 reasons Bristol Palin's pregnancy matters:

#1 Conservatives claim the moral high ground.
It is often complained by liberals that conservative republicans have hijacked the issue of values. And for the most part, this is true. Conservatives tout themselves as the religious who want to preserve traditional marriage (aka deny gay rights), love "the unborn" (aka force pregnancy) and prevent sex from destroying our culture (aka push their backward view of morality on everyone else). Yet Bristol's pregnancy seems to undermine that claim. Not because her pregnancy is wrong. I'm not one to say that premarital sex is immoral. Nor would I expect most liberals to say that there is something morally suspect about coitus before marriage. To most of us liberals, it's none of our business. But religious republicans, republicans like Palin, would say that it is immoral. This is a scandal by their standards, not ours, and yet they are reacting as though their core beliefs do not hold this situation to be a sin in the eyes of their god. I smell hypocrisy.

#2 Conservatives, including Palin, oppose comprehensive sex-ed and fight for abstinence-only education.
Many conservatives oppose anything but abstinence-only education for our teens, claiming that comprehensive sex-ed will lead to more sex. Palin herself opposes comprehensive sex-education and supports abstinence-only. McCain has also claimed that he supports abstinence-only. Now, as we should all be well aware at this point, studies have shown that abstinence-only education does not work, and in many cases, these programs disseminate false information to teens about sex and pregnancy. Furthermore, studies have also shown that comprehensive sex eduation programs are effective in helping teens to dely sexual intercourse or protect themselves from STDs and pregnancy.

Now, what should we take away from this? Comprehensive sex education helps prevent teen pregnancy and transmission of STDs. Abstinence-only education does not. And yet conservatives like Palin and McCain want to prevent teens from getting the information that might help them to avoid the situation that Bristol Palin is now in. Don't you think a mother who is dealing with helping her daughter with a teen pregnancy and has the political clout would work to keep other girls from being put in the same unfortunate position that her daughter is in? Apparently not Sarah Palin.

#3 Many conservatives oppose hormonal birth control or are unconcerned with women's access to it.
Even if sexually active teens and women know that they can protect themselves from pregnancy through various means, that doesn't help if they don't have access to contraception. But many religious republicans flat out oppose hormonal contraception, tossing out science to call the pill and its variants "abortifacents", and hence immoral. That means that the use of contraception is also immoral to this people and if they think abortion should be illegal, then surely "abortifacents" - things that cause abortions, should also be illegal. Furthermore, many conservatives have pushed to allow doctors and pharmacists to refuse to write prescriptions for birth control or fill those prescriptions if they have moral objections, thus limiting women's access, especially in rural areas (like, say, Alaska?).

Now, it's not clear what either McCain's or Palin's positions are on this. Republicans have a way of avoiding discussing their views on birth control (since the vast majority of the American populace is okay with it). But if Palin's "right to life" credentials are good enough to garner the support of the religious wingnuts like Dobson and Robertson, then it's likely that she opposes birth control as well. That would certainly explain why a busy woman in her 40s who already had four children would manage to get pregnant, despite the risks of birth defects (like Down Syndrome) for babies of older women. But denying access to birth control just means more teen pregnancy. More girls like Bristol Palin.

#4 As Governor, Palin slashed funding that would have gone to teen mothers.
Palin used her line item veto to cut funding for a program that helps teen mothers. The program gives young single moms a place to stay while they acquire some skills that will allow them to get by in the world. So, Palin doesn't want kids to be educated on how to avoid pregnancy, (probably) doesn't want them to have access to the means to prevent pregnancy, and yet won't give them money to help them once they (surprise!) get pregnant. Of course, this won't affect girls like Bristol, who, thankfully, have supportive (and rich) families to take care of them. But for lots of other young women who get pregnant, that support isn't there. And apparently Palin doesn't care.

#5 "Choice"
In the press release from the campaign on the pregnancy, the family claimed, "We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby". The talking heads have been claiming that the fact that Palin practices what she preaches (i.e., that her daughter "chose life") will actually help with the conservative base. With regard to Palin's own recent pregnancy, in fact, many have been pushing the notion that she chose to have the baby despite his condition.

Well, guess what, Sarah Palin is pro-life. She believes that abortion should be illegal, even in
cases of rape or incest. She does not believe that women have the right to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy. And if she were really, truly pro-life, then neither she nor her daughter would have a choice in the matter. If you are pro-life, then there is no option other than carrying the pregnancy to term. And if there is only one option, then there is no choice. If Palin really practiced what she preached, then she didn't choose anything, and neither did her daughter. Yet the media does not bring this up. Instead, they laud her choice. Wrong. Pro-choicers can laud her choice. To pro-lifers, neither Palin nor her daughter actually had one to begin with, and true pro-lifers should be offended by the idea that either Palin or her daughter actually chose to carry their pregnancies to term. After all, "it's a baby, not a choice" right?

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Praying For Judges

The video below is of a prayer offered during the National Day of Prayer for right-wing, anti-abortion justices.

Two questions. First, do you think she really means all the manifestations of religious freedom? Does that include the freedom not to believe? And second, if this prayer isn't answered, and they don't get their right wing appointments, does that mean that it was God's will that the judiciary be stocked with pro-choicers and people who will uphold the separation of church and state enshrined in the constitution? Or will it just mean that prayer doesn't work?

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Anti-Choice Logic 101 - Abortion is Gross! Make it Illegal!

One of the things you often hear from anti-choicers when questioned about their use of grotesque photographs in attempting to shock people into believing as they do (rather than, say, using reason), is that abortion really is grotesque. That's what these people have to say in response to this challenge (note also the incoherence of what the latter commenter has to say. Why did they even publish that?) If you see what an abortion is, you’ll know it’s wrong. This is an argument, of sorts, and the argument is “This shocks your sensibilities, therefore it is wrong and should be illegal.”

Well, let’s get this straight. First, many of the pictures that are commonly used are misleading on their own. But even if they were pictures of what they purported to be, you’re arguing that we ought to ban all abortions because some of them are gross. And there are two things wrong with this argument. First, not all abortions are as grotesque or as shocking to our sensibilities as the pictures that anti-choicers favor. According to Guttmacher, 89% of abortions occur in the first trimester, and nearly 2/3 are performed before 9 weeks. Those abortion photos (when accurate) wouldn’t look anything like the anti-choice poster boy, Baby Malachi.

But the photos may still be disturbing. And this leads us to the other fault in using such photos as evidence that abortion should be illegal. There are lots of things that would really gross us out if we saw pictures of them. Don’t believe me? Try this one on for size (warning: you will likely be grossed out). Don’t you think that what happened to that poor sweet baby should be illegal? Isn't that just disgusting? Or how about this (again, warning). Looks an awful lot like some of the abortion photos, doesn’t it? In a way, it is an abortion photo. Note the little hand, almost gripping onto the forceps, and the hair just starting to grow on its little contorted head. Its life was ended prematurely, as it was ripped from that which sustained it. Shouldn’t that disgusting procedure be illegal too?

Well, the first image is a harlequin baby. Nature did that, terrible as it is. The second is actually an embryo that, through one of nature’s weird flukes, became a tumor. It’s a teratoma. It’s a twin, if you will, that failed to develop in utero, was absorbed by its sibling, and then spontaneously began to grow later. Its removal was not necessarily required to save the life of the host, but would you really want that thing growing inside you?

So what’s upshot of all this? The fact that something is disgusting, or really makes your stomach turn, or whatever, isn’t reason to make it illegal. This is the most common “argument” made by anti-choicers. And it’s completely fallacious.

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Anti-Choice Logic 101 – Margaret Sanger believed in Eugenics

You hear this from anti-choicers all the time. Margaret Sanger, one of the founders of Planned Parenthood, was a bigot who believed in eugenics. She thought that birth control should be used to wipe out “lesser” populations.

Well, it’s true that Margaret Sanger held these terrible beliefs. But it’s important to think about what the anti-choicers are trying to prove when they point this out. While many don’t state them outright (it’s easier to hide the flaws in your logic when you leave your conclusion unstated), there are 2 conclusions that they are usually trying to get people to draw. The first is that Planned Parenthood is an inherently racist organization that is trying to wipe out the African American population. The second is that the pro-choice ideals that Sanger held – the belief in the right of women to access contraception and abortion – must be wrong.

Let’s take the second of these conclusions first. According to this anti-choice argument, because Sanger was wrong about eugenics (and I mean really wrong), the rest of her beliefs must be wrong as well. Particularly her beliefs about birth control and abortion. Once the argument is clearly laid out, it should be immediately apparent how fallacious it is. Buddha was a sexist, therefore everything Buddha says must be wrong. But that’s just silly. People have both good and bad beliefs, but the presence of bad beliefs does not somehow magically poison all the other beliefs. Ghandi was a racist. Does that mean that everything he had to say about peace and harmony and passive resistance was wrong? Of course not. Buddha was a sexist. Does that mean that everything he had to say about spirituality was wrong? No. The founding fathers were slaveholders who thought they slavery was the way things were supposed to be. Does that mean that their beliefs in the democratic process and the value of liberty were wrong? Not at all. Their beliefs about slavery may have impacted the way they viewed democracy and liberty, just as Sanger’s belief in eugenics may have impacted the way she thought birth control should be used. But that doesn’t make the belief in the rights of women to have access to contraceptives and abortions wrong any more than the founding fathers’ misguided sense of how to dole out liberty makes their belief in the principles of liberty and democracy wrong. This argument is just a blatant non-sequitur.

Now, the first conclusion. The argument here is as follows: Margaret Sanger believed in eugenics and she was a founder of PP. Therefore, PP is a racist organization that is trying to wipe out the African American population. Now, as should be clear, this is the same sort of non-sequitur in the argument above. Just because the founder of an organization had a certain belief does not mean that the organization itself subscribes to it. The fact that the founder of PP believed in eugenics does not mean that PP believes in eugenics. To show that you will have to provide independent evidence.

And the anti-choice movement has attempted to do this. They point, for example, to statistics that show that African Americans have higher abortion rates. What they fail to mention, however, is that African Americans also have higher poverty rates, meaning that it is less likely that an African American woman who finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy will have the resources to raise that child. They also fail to note that higher poverty rates usually means less access to contraception, making it more likely that a woman will find herself with an unwanted pregnancy.
So the fact that African American women have higher abortion rates doesn’t mean that this is the result of some evil eugenics plan of PP. Just another example of the “logic” of the anti-choice movement.

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McCain the Maverick? Not on Reproductive Rights.

There are a good number of people in this country that view John McCain as a bit of a maverick, a man who is willing to stand up to the Republican party has a whole, cross the isle in search of effective compromise, and stand behind his own beliefs even when they conflict with the dominant views of the party. This may very well be true with regard to some issues, but despite some public misconceptions to the contrary, reproductive rights certainly isn't one of them. There are some who have, due to McCain's image as a maverick, taken him to be pro-choice, or at least less anti-choice then the likes of far-righties like G.W. Bush, Mike Huckabee, etc. NARAL has started up a website where you can, according to them, meet the real McCain. And if you follow the links in search of info on McCain's record, you'll be led to a compilation of McCain's anti-choice votes and statements.

If you read through that list, you might be surprised to discover that:

*McCain is staunchly anti-choice, openly in favor of overturning Roe, and determined to nominate judges who will ignore the rights of women.

*McCain has voted to support abstinence-only education programs, which have been shown to be ineffective and often involve disseminating falsehoods to kids. He's also voted for substantial funding for such programs to be allocated from the fund for HIV/AIDS. That means that rather then putting our money toward effective means of reducing HIV/AIDS in areas of the world that are experiencing a devestating epidemic, the money is being wasted on ineffective, and dogmatically motivated, programs.

*McCain has voted to support the global gag rule, which precludes any openly pro-choice international organization from obtaining federal funds, even if they use non-federal money to provide abortion services or do not offer such services at all. This prevents these organizations from giving much needed family planning and women's health services to some of the poorest women in the world, and places a burden on other organizations which they may not be able to meet, thus leaving women out in the cold.

*McCain has voted against measures that would make birth control more accessible to women, and has actually voted for parental notification laws that would make it more difficult for teens to access birth control.

*McCain voted to end Title X, which provides women in need with all sorts of medical services, from birth control to vaccinations to cancer screenings.

Now, even if you're opposed to legal abortion, you've got to admit that McCain's record is not just anti-choice, but clearly unconcerned with the reproductive rights and reproductive health of women here in America and around the world. Unless your place on the ideological spectrum has you nestled between Dubya and Pat Robertson, some of McCain's record is going to leave a bad taste in your mouth. After all, if you're interested in reducing abortions, increasing access to and knowledge about contraceptives should be at the top of your list. It's not at the top of McCain's. If you're worried about the AIDS crisis in Africa, then making sure that we are funding programs that have the greatest effectiveness in reducing the transmission of HIV/AIDS should be one of your concerns. It's not one of McCain's. If securing the rights and improving the health of women in the US and around the world is something that is important to you, McCain may not be your candidate, because his record clearly demonstrates that it's not important to him.

McCain may have the image of an ideological maverick, but when it comes to reproductive rights and women's health he's right in line with the far right. We should all be aware of that fact when we enter the voting booth this November.

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Horton Hears A.... What?!

This is just too rich. Anti-abortion protestors decided the perfect venue would be the premiere of Horton Hears A Who - a children's flick. I don't know whether to laugh out loud or let out a big long sigh.

The reason the anti-choice crowd has latched on to this flick? It's theme is "A person's a person no matter how small". Well, duh! But guess what? That doesn't translate to "A person's a person even when it's just a collection of pluripotent cells". And once again - it doesn't matter if a blastocyst/embryo/fetus is a person! No person has the right to use another's body without their consent. Sheesh. How long are we going to talk past each other?

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Proposed Bill Makes CPCs Inform Patients That They Can Lie

This is good news. It’s about time that someone did something about these stupid Crisis Pregnancy Centers. What would be better if the bill actually made it the case that they have to tell the truth. But this is a start.

Joseph Bartlett, a Republican who opposes the bill, had this to say in defense of allowing to continue the centers to operate the way they have been:

The premise that we're going to require these organizations to disclaim that they don't have to tell the truth is just about the silliest thing I ever heard," he said. "We certainly don't do that in the case of politicians, do we?

Well, no, Joe, we don’t have a law that tells politicians that they have to admit that they don’t have to tell the truth. But as much as CPCs are more like politicians than they are like actual clinics, these places are falsely giving the impression that they are medical centers, which can be sued for lying to their patients. They aren’t medical centers, and as a result they are free to disseminate all the false information they want without penalty. And they do. Well, if we’re going to allow them to continue parading about like actual medical centers, we can at least make sure that women who go to them are aware of the stakes. What’s really silly here is the fact that you seem to think it’s okay for people to pretend to be offering medical services and then lie to the women who come to them for help.

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Let's Go Be Lazy in Wisconsin

So, anti-choice pharmacists in Wisconsin don't want to do their jobs. I've given my take on this before. If you can't perform the tasks of your profession, get another job. Don't ask the state to give you an exception. But the anti-choice, anti-birth control pharmacists of Wisconsin are in an uproar about more than just the prospect of dispensing what the doctor prescribes. They're ticked off about the Birth Control Protection Act, which not only protects the rights of patients by forcing pharmacists to do their job, but also defines 'abortion' so as to exclude the effects of contraceptives.

According to ChristianNewsWire, this is beyond the pale, since

It is a medical fact that the morning-after pill (a high dosage of the birth control pill) and most, if not all, birth control drugs and devices including the intrauterine device (IUD), Depo Provera, Norplant, the Patch, and the Pill can act to terminate a pregnancy by chemically altering the lining of the uterus (endometrium) so that a newly conceived child is unable to implant in the womb, thus starving and dying.

Well, no, actually, it's not a medical fact. If you define pregnancy as beginning at fertilization, then yes, IUDs do result in the termination of a pregnancy. And hormonal methods may have the same result, albeit very rarely, since their primary function is to prevent ovulation and thicken the mucus lining the cervix to prevent sperm from penetrating. And usually, if they don't succeed in that, the result is not an embryo being flushed from the woman's system, but implantation. But not only is it not a "medical fact" that pregnancy begins at fertilization, it's silly to even think of defining it as such. If that's the case, then many sexually active women have been pregnant numerous times and had miscarriages. Of course, they can't inform their doctors of this, since they don't know. Additionally, imagine attempting to expand this definition out, given the advances in reproductive technologies. When a doctor fertilizes a woman's egg with her partner's sperm in a pitre dish, is she pregnant? If a store of her fertilized eggs is preserved in deep freeze, does she remain pregnant until her blastocysts die? If she dies while those blastocysts are still being preserved, does that mean that a dead woman can be pregnant? If a couple enlists the aid of a surrogate mother, who is pregnant? It's obviously not the biological mother. But then the woman who has preserved blastocysts can't be pregnant either. If pregnancy begins at fertilization, then someone has got to be pregnant, though. The egg is fertilized, after all. Is the tank pregnant?

ChristianNewsWire's nutty statements of "medical fact" aside, what really caught my attention was this:

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the right to freely exercise one's religious convictions. The Wisconsin Constitution expressly protects the rights of conscience. Under Article 1, Section 18, of our state constitution, "any control of, or interference with, the rights of conscience" shall not be permitted.

Now, obviously ChristianNewsWire and the anti-birth control pharmacists who are pushing this line against the Birth Control Protection Act are thinking that they are going to stop this legislation by claiming it violates their religious freedom through their rights of conscience. Here's the problem. Not every one who is anti-choice is religious, or is anti-choice because of their religious convictions. Are these Wisconsin pharmacists suggesting that it's okay to force someone who is anti-choice, but has no religious affiliation, to dispense birth control? I doubt it. But if this really is about conscience, and not about religion, then the Wisconsin constitution would seem to protect the rights of conscience of vegetarians who work at McDonalds and don't want to serve meat, or vegans who work at Mervyns but refuse to sell wool or leather, or school nurses, or doctors, who believe that vaccines are evil and refuse to distribute them to kids. Or heck, some renegade pastafarians who refuse to serve spaghetti, but insist on working at Italian restaurants. It's their right of conscience, after all. I guess anyone who has scruples against doing something required by a profession can work in that profession and yet not do their job in Wisconsin. My new set of principles - never prostituting my labor out for pay. I think I'll go get a job in Wisconsin.

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Surprise! The More Religious the Society, The Higher the Abortion Rate.

Given that many religious ideologies involve the condemnation of comprehensive sex-ed, or something like it, and various birth control methods, this actually isn't surprising at all. If you're really interested in reducing the number of abortions, taking a more liberal attitude toward human sexuality is definitely the way to go. Oh, and if that's the case, then John McCain is not your man.

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Colorado Has Lost It Too

On the heels of Georgia's proposed bill to define personhood as beginning at conception, Colorado now has a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would do the same. And Mike Huckabee has endorsed it.

I don't think it necessary to rehash the idiocy, from a practical standpoint, of legally defining a fertilized egg as a person. What really confuses me is that it seems as though the people of Colorado and Georgia haven't really thought about this - which is certainly something one ought to do before making something the law of the land.

Speaking of the people of Colorado and Georgia making something the law of the land, since when are facts determined by a popular vote? There is a fact of the matter as to whether or not a fertilized embryo is a person. This is something that certainly hasn't been determined. And without significant justification for the claim, which anti-choicers haven't provided (and I suspect can't provide), voting to recognize this "fact" seems both premature and arrogant.

I'm not saying that we can't possibily recognize a fact even when it's not completely settled. What I am saying is that before you can legally recognize a fact, you should have and provide evidence that it is a fact. Anti-choicers have not done this.

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Vote Pro-Choice and Sit With Satan

Joe Feuerherd is wondering whether voting for a pro-choice democrat will endanger his immortal soul. I've posted on this issue before, but I think it's important to continue dialogue about it. Feuerherd is pro-life, but takes other issues facing the country to be more important. As a result, he plans on voting for a democrat despite the fact that church leaders (in this case, the Vatican) have said that doing so may result in eternal damnation. Now, I certainly do laud Feuerherd's bravery and integrity. He's willing to risk it, presumably because he thinks that, on this issue, the church is wrong. But how many others will be frightened away from voting their conscience by the warnings of church leaders that if they vote for anyone who supports abortion rights they will have to spend eternity at Satan's place? Can we really expect a large portion of the "flock" to go their own way, under the threat of hellfire? I don't think so. And that's scary. This is one of those points where the organization of religion is more dangerous than religious belief itself (although, it is, of course, sustained by religious belief).

Religious leaders should be ashamed of themselves. Not only is there no real theological or biblical foundation for the idea that abortion is a sin, but even if there were, it is sheer arrogance on their part to assume that they know which issue is more important in any given election. And it is even worse for them to try to frighten people into voting one way rather than another. Religion may be motivated by fear, but that doesn't mean voting should be.

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Carlin on Abortion Rights

In a previous post, I mentioned some of the problems with legally defining a zygote as a person, as a bill before the Georgia state legislature proposes. George Carlin hits pretty much each and every point I made... with much better timing.

Warning: He uses explicit language and there are adult themes, so if you're seriously offended by that sort of thing...well, you're missing out.

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Pharmacists and Plan B

Another idiotic ruling with regard to pharmacists and Plan-B has been handed down. At the core of this dispute is, to my mind, the special treatment given to religion in our society. If a vegetarian got a job at McDonalds and then refused to serve meat products because he believed their consumption to be grossly immoral, do you really think a judge would claim that he has a right to keep his job but not fulfill all the obligations that come along with it? Of course not. I have a personal hatred of guns. It's part of the core of my belief system, but I'm pretty sure that if I started working for Walmart and refused to sell the guns they keep in stock, no judge would say that I should have an exception. But because these pharmacists are objecting on religious grounds, they can get away with not doing their job and denying women much needed services. What a load of BS.

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Georgia Anti-Choicers Have Lost It

A bill is being pushed in the Georgia state legislature by anti-choicers in that state. The bill criminalizes abortion, enshrines in law false statements about the effects of abortion, but also, most shockingly, defines a fetus as a person from the moment of conception.

Now, attempting to criminalize abortion is the full out goal of the anti-choice movement, and it is not shocking that they would attempt to legitimize some of the false claims they make about abortion by having them included in legislation. What's really crazy about this bill is the fact that it makes the bald assertion that personhood begins at conception. I'm seriously wondering how the anti-choice movement in Georgia could have failed to consider the implications of making this actual law.

First off, contrary to the reasoning in Roe, a woman's right to an abortion has nothing to do with personhood status, or lack thereof, of a fetus. The right to an abortion derives from the human right to bodily autonomy. No person can use the body of another without their consent. This is what grounds our right not to be raped, our right not to have our organs forcibly removed from us, and our right not to be used in crazy experiments without our consent. Whether a fetus is a person or not may very well impact the moral status of abortion, but it has no relevance to whether or not a woman has a legal right to an abortion.

So defining a fetus as a person from the moment of conception doesn't impact the reasoning behind the conclusion that a woman has the right to choose. But it seems to me that the Georgia legislators who introduced this bill, and the anti-choicers that are pushing it, haven't thought about the implications separate from the abortion issue that result from defining an embryo as a person. Would every embryo be given a social security number? How would that work? Would parents of this embryo get a child tax credit? Would the presumptive father have to start paying child support right then and there? How are they defining conception? If they mean fertilization, this would seriously impact the question of birth control. A number of methods allow fertilization but prevent implantation. Would use of those methods be murder? It seems like they must be, if these anti-choicers are right. And many of them stand behind this conclusion, holding that birth control is an abortifacent - and hence murder.

Invitro fertilization would also seem to lead to murder, since many fertilized embryos created in the process are never implanted, and are eventually destroyed. Guess that means that barren couples will just have to suffer despite the fact that the science exists that would allow them to have their very own child.

Additionally, a goodly number of fertilized zygotes fail to implant and are flushed out of the body. Are those to be counted as deaths? How will we know when such a death has occurred? Will we have to start mandating monthly pregnancy tests for women? Will we be reduced to checking tampons and maxi-pads for the remains of the dead? If they are really serious about this, then, on pain of inconsistency, it seems as though we would have to go through serious privacy violating measures in order to keep track of all these zygote-persons.

If a woman miscarries, or if a fertilized embryo that failed to implant is flushed out of her system, will we be holding her accountable for the death of this "person" if she, say, exercised too much? Or smoked? Or had a glass of wine or two? Or didn't eat enough? How much jail time should a woman who exercises vigorously be given if we happen to find a zygote on her tampon?

The Georgia anti-choicers apparently haven't thought about all this. But then again, that's not surprising. If anti-choicers thought a bit more about the implications of their views, they probably wouldn't be anti-choice.

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