ON ABORTION
An e-mail from a reader and fellow protestor against the Sudan genocide. My comments after, except for these two: 1) I didn't compare large-scale abortion to genocide, I merely said that some people would (not necessarily me) and 2) we all know the line about Bush being "pro-bombing innocent children in Iraq" is beneath contempt (does she imagine that genocide in Sudan could somehow be stopped with NO collateral damage?!) but let it pass, keep reading.

Well... i read your blog and politically we're on very different pages! Still, I love a good debate and I want to set the record straight. I am not angry with you but I must say that I didn't like your comparison of my organization to the Sudanese government. We SAVE lives everyday by providing people with prevention (contraceptives, STD tests, mammograms, comprehensive, medically accurate sex ed (including abstinence education)), and many other services. Actually, 80% of what we do is prevention based and has nothing to do with abortion. (About 2/3 of this health care service goes to low-income women)

I support abortion because it is important to keep it safe, legal, and RARE. Since conservative legislators find it necessary to preach ineffective abstinence only sex ed instead of comprehensive, medically accurate, age-appropriate sex ed, more people are contracting STD's and having unplanned pregnancies that they may need to terminate. Additionally many people need to terminate their pregnancies because they are unable to afford to have children, their lives might be endangered by carrying a pregnancy to term, and or they are survivors of rape. I have a cousin who had to carry a pregnancy to term after she was raped. She chose not to terminate the pregnancy but she said she would have been devastated if that choice had been made for her.

We all know that many conservatives don't support universal health care, increasing education funding, or any other social welfare programs for that matter. I always also argue that the minute every American citizen is entitled to universal health-care, adequate education, affordable and safe housing, equality under the law and in practice, safe and clean water and food, clean air, and a foster care/adoption system that doesn't discriminate there might be a minute argument people could use to justify restricting choice... and STILL it would be wrong because it is not fair for the church or unscientific ideologies to take priority over a woman's HUMAN right to make her own decisions about her fertility.

I find it ironic that our president is anti-choice but he is pro-death penalty, and pro-bombing innocent children in Iraq. Bush's government doesn't even want to allow exceptions for saving the life of the mother. This shows me that women who are living, conscious, and breathing are viewed as less important than fetuses that haven't even been born.

In my opinion, it is offensive to connect slavery, genocide, and the holocaust to abortion. As a person of color I am offended by his distortion of the argument. Genocide is the systemic killing of entire ethnic and or religious groups. Abortion is a choice that women make. It is only a choice and we give women all of their options. Our organization provides women and men with adoption information and neonatal health information if they want to carry the pregnancy to term. We believe that every child should be a wanted child and we don't make moral decisions for women. Women are autonomous beings who should be able to make their own decisions about their fertility.

I don’t believe in placing ideology over science.It is not the government's place to interfere with our personal and private affairs. It is between a woman, her God, and her physician. Making abortion illegal will not rid the world of abortion. It will cause more people to die because people will not be accessing safe health care. We can never go back to back alley abortions. We must provide people with accurate sex-ed, a sex positive culture, and options for protecting themselves from HIV and AIDS and unwanted pregnancy.

Interesting perspective. My reaction:

1. I can't understand the "safe, legal and RARE" line. If the fetus is a person, abortion is killing a person, so presumably it should be illegal. But if the fetus is NOT a person, why should we want abortion to be rare? It's morally neutral, just another form of birth control! Maybe all they mean is that it's more expensive and involved than, say, wearing a condom, so we should avoid it if we can, in which case the point is uncontroversial-- though even then I actually disagree with it: if some girl just wants to have lots of unprotected sex and doesn't mind the frequent abortions, and IF THE FETUS IS NOT A PERSON, what's wrong with that? Anyway, the "rare" seems to me to be a mock concession, like "we think it's bad too, but we're not so extreme as to outlaw it altogether, see how reasonable we are!" But just because you make centrist noises doesn't mean your position is coherent. Some of the other phrases are even more baffling. "A woman's right to make decisions about her own fertility" sounds nice, but how could it possibly trump a human life. I support "a woman's right to make decisions about her own parenthood" too, but not if it means that she can kill her child if she decides she doesn't like parenthood after all. Likewise, we all wish that "every child is a wanted child," but not if that means that when some particular child happens to be unwanted by anyone, we should kill her. The same with "it is not the government's place to interfere with our personal and private affairs"-- does this apply to child abuse too? All these arguments fall short if what we are doing is trying to justify the killing of a human being; if the fetus is not yet a human being, on the other hand, all these arguments are unnecessary. It seems to me that the only morally serious pro-choice argument is basically: "The fetus is not a person, abortion is not murder." It does seem to me a bit odd that someone would be certain that the fetus is not a person, but since I can't make head or tail of that question myself, I won't gainsay them if they do. And while I would love to see Roe vs. Wade overturned, that case being one of the greatest mockeries of constitutional interpretation ever (eclipsed only by Planned Parenthood vs. Casey), that would just leave abortion to the states, many of which would allow it, so I realize it's not feasible to make abortion illegal, and I prefer not to follow my thoughts any further.

2. The liberal laundry list was interesting. "Safe and clean water and food" are to be guaranteed-- my sister got food poisoning from Taco Bell once, so I guess I'll have to give up my bean burritos. "Safe and affordable housing" for all, too. Affordable on what wage? Any wage? And if the housing is affordable, what about the food? If the food is going to be safer and cleaner (I wasn't aware that it was dirty or dangerous, but oh well) then it will cost more, won't it? No doubt they will be making that affordable too next. With subsidies, I suppose. What I wonder is, how far towards socialism does this feel-good agenda really point? After all these years liberals still haven't come to terms with the problem of scarcity. On "universal health care," though, although I oppose it, I admit she has a point: while government-run health care systems are inefficient and quash innovation, a free-market health care system is beset by so many problems of adverse selection and moral hazard that it's not clear it works any better. It's worth keeping an open mind on this point.