The Party of Death

That’s “Ponnuru”, not “Ponnorru”. Although after this post his name should be “Pwnuru”.

In light of this Washington Post article quoting the vice president of Focus on the Family on the subject of partial birth abortion, the idea that they want to punish women by making them have unsafe abortions seems reasonable:

A Focus on the Family spokesman said that Dobson would not comment. But the organization’s vice president, Tom Minnery, said that Dobson rejoiced over the ruling “because we, and most pro-lifers, are sophisticated enough to know we’re not going to win a total victory all at once. We’re going to win piece by piece.”

Doctors adopted the late-term procedure “out of convenience,” Minnery added. “The old procedure, which is still legal, involves using forceps to pull the baby apart in utero, which means there is greater legal liability and danger of internal bleeding from a perforated uterus. So we firmly believe there will be fewer later-term abortions as a result of this ruling.”

The vice president of Focus on the Family has explicitly said that the reason that the so-called partial-birth ban might reduce abortions is that the “procedure [that] is still legal[] involves using forceps to pull the baby apart in utero, which means there is greater legal liability and danger of internal bleeding from a perforated uterus.” So it may be a matter of dispute whether (as Lemieux says) the ban “does nothing to protect fetal life, but simply tries to force doctors to perform abortions using less safe methods in some cases,” but a prominent proponent of the ban admits that the minuscule effect it has on abortion rates comes about because the ban will lead to physical harm to some women who get abortions. So the harm to women is intended, even if it isn’t the purpose of the ban.

Ponnuru’s line about federalism is particularly disingenuous, BTW; Paul voted for federal abortion regulations, which is about as incompatible as can be with the state’s-rights position on abortion.

:-(

Honestly, the reason that we have a “partial birth abortion” ban is because it played well in the media and because Anthony Kennedy found that procedure partially gross.
Abortion opponents just picked a restriction that they could win with in Congress and on the Court.

This is as good a time as any to remind everyone to refer to “waterboarding” as partial drowning interrogation.

Actually, Ponnuru’s claim that Lemieux’ charge is self-evidently absurd appears to rest on his reading of the ambiguous phrase, “regulating female sexuality”. Ponnuru takes this phrase to mean, “regulating female sexual activity”, whereas Lemieux interprets it more broadly as “regulating female sexual and reproductive activity”. Under the former interpretation, Lemieux’ charge would, indeed, be absurd–and both Lemieux and Ponnuru would probably agree on that.

Whether the latter interpretation is reasonable, on the other hand, depends on which side of the abortion debate one embraces. After all, if one believes a late-term fetus to be a full-fledged human being, then its protection has as little to do with “regulating female sexuality” as does, say, protecting a three-year-old child from parental abuse. And conversely, if one believes a late-term fetus to be essentially an extension of a woman’s sex organs, then one could plausibly assert (although it’s something of a rhetorical stretch) that abortion restrictions are a way of “regulating female sexuality”. (More standard formulations, such as, “regulating women’s bodies”, are a much less labored extension of the pro-choice position.)

Similarly, the claim that the partial-birth abortion ban is a way of “punishing women” whose abortions would be safer without the ban is either an absurdity or a rhetorical stretch, depending on one’s moral view of (late-term) abortion. If one considers it immoral, then the partial-birth abortion ban no more “punishes” abortion-seekers than barbed wire “punishes” thieves, who must then risk serious injury while burglarizing fenced-in premises. On the other hand, if one considers (late-term) abortions a morally unexceptionable choice–like, say, drinking whiskey–then it’s more plausible, though still somewhat strained, to say that a ban “punishes” those who must therefore resort to more dangerous means (say, homemade stills) to exercise their choice. (More straightforward conventional phrasings, such as “unfairly interferes with”, or even, “cruelly deprives”, are much more defensible.)

Of course, Lemieux obviously didn’t choose the phrases “regulating women’s sexuality” and “punishing women” for their scholarly precision, but rather for their incendiary rhetorical effect. So nobody should be surprised if his opponents interpret them in the most uncharitable light–under which they do, indeed, render his argument absurd.

I got the impression that what Ron Paul is concerned about is what he sees as an arbitrary legal line drawn between just-before and just-after the birth. From wikiquote:

…I can get paid a lot of money to do the abortion right before birth, but if I do it one minute after birth I go to prison for murder. And one time there was a case where the abortionist did the abortion, but the baby was born alive, so he drowned the baby. I think he was convicted of a crime, but if he could have only killed the baby sooner…

…because, you know, nothing annoys me more than the fact that an abortionist can make money killing a live viable fetus, in the 3rd trimester, and they think nothing about it, and they make a living doing this. Any yet, one minute after birth, that same mother, who might throw the child away, rightfully is called to task, and actually charged with murder. So that inconsistency has to be resolved.

That’s his constant theme. He wants to see a more granular, nuanced approach:

John Lofton: Do you think abortion is murder?

Ron Paul: Yes, but we have in our state laws, which enforce the law against murder, there are degrees. You have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree murder. I think somebody who takes a pill the day after probably isn’t committing quite the horrible murder when you see somebody lying on the floor and somebody takes a gun and puts it to their head. I don’t equate those…

I mean, certainly he’s a radical; taking a pill the day after is, of course, nothing like murder of any degree, but his concept itself is not illogical, I don’t think. And I certainly don’t get the impression that for him this is about regulating female sexuality.

Brett: “No, for pro-lifers it’s about regulating murder, not sexuality. ”

Which is why ‘pro-lifers’ (a) go after just about every means of birth control that they can, an d (b) are generally kill-freaks when it comes to killing the already born.

Pull the other finger.

Brett, do you know anything about late-term abortions? The version that was banned involves dismemberment after the foetus leaves the womb. The version that is still un-banned involves dismemberment whilst still in utero. I fail to see why one form is seen as more “gruesome” than the other. Yet the un-banned version is considerably more dangerous.

Before birth, the child is a total parasite upon the mother. The minute after birth, this is emphatically no longer true. There is a pretty obvious and non-contradictory social line that’s crossed here.

Well, no, actually the generally accepted (though still not necessarily obvious) line is ‘viability’.

Aaron_m- I will give you a thought experiment:

Suppose someone requires the use of your liver to survive. You can get hooked up through some weird tubes and both use the same liver. And it has to be your liver. So you volunteer to do this and it works out for a while, but after some time you decide its too much of a burden to you. So you decide to cut the guy off, which will result in his death. Should the state use the force of law to prevent you from doing this?

This situation is comparable to a pre-viability abortion.

The ban on partial birth abortions is similarly bogus b/c it doesn’t address the reasons for such an abortion. If you wanted to ban abortions of choice of viable fetus’, you might have a good argument. But most abortions of choice happen in the first trimester. Most of these late term abortions are related to health or viability concerns. If the woman’s health is impacted by not having the abortion we are back to the liver example. The recently approved bans do not make exceptions for the woman’s health.

ps I think Ponnuru is using the old, “if a major figure is advocating it, it can’t be crazy” defense. I think we’ll be seeing more and more of this from Republicans moving forward.

One thing that would obviate this tiresome discussion would be if we prochoicers would just come out in favor of babykilling. (After all, if there really is no difference between killing a blastocyst and killing a newborn baby…)

supporters of a ban on partial-birth abortion want to punish women for having sex by exposing them, in some incredibly tiny percentage of cases, to unsafe abortions? That’s absurd.

Yes, it is absurd, but that’s the Cult of the Fetus for you. What? You thought opposition to abortion had a rational basis?

In general, abortion opponents haven’t been too clear on the actual nature of abortion procedures. I don’t know if this is due to squeamishness, intellectual laziness, or what. But from the Nebraska ban on late term abortions that was struck down in the 90’s to the most recent SCOTUS decision, the fetus huggers can’t seem to tell D&X fro D&E.

I don’t know what “incredibly tiny percentage” is supposed to mean. If I have to sit and watch my wife get ripped up by a hydrocephaly case just because some religious extremists took the law hostage, I’m gonna go shoot me a fetus hugger or two.
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John, I think you’ve missed the obvious. I help. :)

You write: What is Ponnuru’s argument? It seems to be this. If Lemieux were right, it would be fair to accuse abortion opponents of being, in a certain sense, ‘pro-death’. But anyone who accuses the other side of being ‘the party of death’ must be wrong. Therefore Lemieux is wrong.

But it seems to me that Ponnuru’s argument is simpler than that: Anyone who accuses Republicans of being ‘the party of death’ must be wrong. Therefore Lemieux is wrong. After all, demonstrably Ponnuru has no problem with Democrats being accused of anything at all.

“Perhaps we could also ban the surgical treatment of fistulae?

That’s some nasty.”

I assure you, I don’t find it gruesome in that way; Anatomy/physiology was my 2nd major in college, after all, and blood and guts don’t move me at all. Morally gruesome, to tell the truth.

mpowell,

Your thought experiment is not too informative and the normative implications are not self-evident, but the added info about the abortion law at issue was helpful.

I guess I got caught up on the word parasite. This is sometimes used in philosophical debates of abortion to denote the generally taxing nature of normal pregnancy, but in this case the commenter means a more aggressive kind of parasitic relationship. It is still the wrong word to use because babies do not have as an evolutionary strategy to harm or kill their host.

ah, the specter of the mental health loophole. because deep in the black, black heart of every woman burns the secret desire to dismember her own infants. and only the sage restraint of the federal government is holding us back.
no, this isn’t about respecting women as autonomous moral beings, capable of making the life & death decisions that are an unavoidable part of our human lives. this is about the regulation of murder, which is always & in every case, morally reprehensible. and if only one woman ever goes through with a d & x for convenience (because it’s equally self-evident that it’s terribly convenient to carry a baby for 8 months and then have this procedure. and never mind that no doctor in his or her right mind would perform an elective d & x any more than they would perform an elective amputation), then it’s well worth denying every other woman in real circumstances this medical option.
hey, why don’t we apply this logic to all our legislative decisions? if only i could imagine a case in which a man might use, say, a gun, to take the life of an innocent baby… then we could all rest easily knowing that no man (or woman) has the moral capacity to operate one rationally.

If a woman is willing to go through the nightmare that is a late-term abortion, than there is always a very good reason for it.

The state should stay the hell away from the issue.

No, I must not, because 40% of American women have not aborted viable fetuses. I’ve been quite specific that my opposition to abortion is limited to post-viablity.

On this, Dr. Paul and myself part company.

Hard to say, the abortion industry has defeated efforts to collect reliable statistics. I’d venture to guess that it’s in the low three figures, but that would only be a guess.

In comment # 23, perianwyr argues, “Before birth, the child is a total parasite upon the mother. The minute after birth, this is emphatically no longer true.” Methinks perianwyr uses English infelicitously, and has never raised a child. What perianwyr would have said, given a better grasp of English, would be that the child is “totally dependent” upon the mother, and as any mother and many fathers could tell you, that doesn’t end with birth.

But then again, perhaps perianwyr would be content to say that an aging parent who has suffered a debilitating stroke is a parasite upon his or her children, or upon the state.

From there, it’s a leisurely stroll to the argument that a disabled soldier or laborer is a parasite. When the Democratic party turned down that alley, it abandoned all that was best in its heritage.

Barry writes:

“Which is why ‘pro-lifers’ (a) go after just about every means of birth control that they can, an d (b) are generally kill-freaks when it comes to killing the already born.

Pull the other finger.”

The expression is “pull the other one” as in leg. I’m not sure what you mean by (a) since I know a number of pro-life people who have nothing against birth control that doesn’t destroy already-formed embryos. (b) makes no sense because there are also many pro-lifers, particularly Catholic ones, who oppose the death penalty, euthanasia, etc.

Wanting to believe pro-lifers are obsessed and hypocritical doesn’t make it true. Ask Nat Hentoff, for example.

Grand Moff Texan wrote:

“Yes, it is absurd, but that’s the Cult of the Fetus for you. What? You thought opposition to abortion had a rational basis?

In general, abortion opponents haven’t been too clear on the actual nature of abortion procedures.”

And

“If I have to sit and watch my wife get ripped up by a hydrocephaly case just because some religious extremists took the law hostage, I’m gonna go shoot me a fetus hugger or two.”

The first part of Grand Moff’s post is just nonsense on stilts. There’s a long and rational line of reasoning focused on why abortion on demand should be illegal, centering on the concept of the fetus as an independent and unique human life form, distinguishable from both mother and father. In addition, pro-lifers have focused far more on the actual nature of abortions than pro-choicers or those in-between (many of whom, it seems, would rather people not discuss those details at all, even with the abortionist before the procedure). From Nathanson’s Silent Screan to the Partial debate, the specific nature of abortions have been up front and detailed, and it should be added, integral to the argument against abortion on demand being made.

The second part is, let’s say a bit more telling. First of all, if the scenario Moff draws is a life endangerment one (which is difficult to tell as such cases vary in severity) no pro-lifers I know of are directly opposed to the application of abortion, of which there are a number of options available.

Secondly, “taking the law hostage” is a subjective opinion, and close to an oxymoron in this case, since the law is created by the people’s representatives and judged by the judiciary for its Constitutional validity. Sure they get things wrong (see Roe v. Wade) but “hostage is just rhetoric.

I certainly hope the promise to “shoot” “Fetus-huggers” is rhetoric too. I don’t know any “Fetus-huggers” myself, since technically hugging a fetus is physically problematic, but given Moff’s tendency towards broadly inaccurate rhetoric, I suspect he’ll shoot first and ask questions later.

Goatchowder writes:

“Goodness no, they’re not “pro-death”.

They’re “anti-sex”.

That’s what all this “pro-life” crap is about: it’s about being against sex. And yes, indeed, it is all about “punishing” women for having sex. Their god is a vengeful, jealous beast, and loves punishing people more than anything else.”

So this is of course why pro-lifers have regularly abused and killed pregnant women who visit crisis centers, right? As if that happens at all. I also don’t recall proposed laws offering criminal penalties for adultery, fornication, etc. being offered by the pro-life forces.

No, what Goatchowder really means by the word “punishment” is “responsibility.” I saw a news photograph ages ago of a pro-choice student protestor holding a sign that said “sex without punishment.” “…without responsibility” is what they meant. After all, the pro-life people don’t steal into fornicators homes at night and secretly impregante them, just to make sure. I don’t see drug stores burning, just because they have Trojans on display or carry the pill.

What Goatchowder does understand is that abortion for one side IS about sex. It’s seen as the last line of “birth control” (and I guess it is, because killing the fetus will certainly prevent live birth). A friend of mine once told me that he was voting for Mondale because, in my friend’s words “I’m for sex, so I’m for abortion.”

Simple really. Incredibly irresponsible and selfish, but simple. It’s like the psychological analyses that point out that certain personality types that complain about something in someone else are really just calling attention to their own concerns. For Goatchowder and others of that mindset, sex is obviously more important than their unborn children, the ones they create of their own action and then propose to destroy for the simple crime of coming into existence and getting in the way of their good times.

“Vengeful, jealous beast” sounds then a much better description for someone willing to do that rather than take the time to wear a condom or a diapraghm.

We should open a pool to predict Brett’s results. He’ll end up filtering out non-white fetuses as unviable, leaving behind those women so foul as to abort white babies.

No, Brett, I just think you’ve amply demonstrated that you’re a racist, desperate for any grounds to support your conviction of white superiority. There are plenty of conservatives I don’t think are any more racist than I am; they happen not to have extensive posting histories with fervent enthusiasm for every bit of racist claptrap pseudo-science that comes along, unlike you.

who (52): There’s a long and rational line of reasoning focused on why abortion on demand should be illegal, centering on the concept of the fetus as an independent and unique human life form, distinguishable from both mother and father.

The fetus is unique only in an attenuated and nonmoral sense: its DNA. What makes organisms unique in a moral sense is their traits and experiences. Fetuses have neither: no thoughts, no feelings, no sensations of any complexity. They simply don’t have the neurophysiology for them. And of course they’re not independent in any sense, as others have pointed out above.

who (54): I also don’t recall proposed laws offering criminal penalties for adultery, fornication, etc. being offered by the pro-life forces.

This is either obtuse or disingenuous. Until quite recently (ie, a couple of centuries ago), both abortion and “adultery, fornication, etc” were severely sanctioned, legally and extra-legally, by religious traditionalists. That is precisely the state of affairs whose passing many if not most “pro-life forces” lament and whose reestablishment they ardently desire.

lol! It’s certainly possible to be married to an asian, and still be a racist; We can take much of the population of Japan as proof of that. But I’d guess that being married to a member of another race is at least as good circumstantial evidence that one isn’t a racist, as their being open to the possibility of slight inate differences between races is in favor of the proposition.

In my ideal world the clause of the Constitution prohibiting ex post facto laws would be much more seriously enforced than is presently the case, so, no “rounding up”.

“What’s the penalty for the woman who has a “medically unnecessary” abortion?” Nothing, if the fetus wasn’t viable to begin with.

If a fetus IS viable already, and the abortion isn’t medically necessary, then let’s be clear about this: The decision to abort isn’t a decision to end a pregancy. THAT could be done with a live birth. It’s a decision to KILL. And, yes, should be legally sanctioned, the same as if she did it five minutes after giving birth. There’s no good reason premeditated infanticide should be tolerated, and that’s all the elective abortion of a viable fetus is: Infanticide.

I’d guess that being married to a member of another race is at least as good circumstantial evidence that one isn’t a racist

And I’d guess you’re full of shit.

I can easily imagine parents who would take their child marrying an Asian-American in stride, but would have an absolute shit-fit over their child marrying an African-American. By your lights, those people aren’t racist. Hell, by your lights, they’re probably just sensible.

It’s been fun, as always.

Brett being non-racist:

“most Japanese are racist”

You know Brett, a model for a racist and sexist foreigner in japan, is the white man who tells the Japanese girls that he is soooo much less racist and sexist than the Japanese boys…

Moff writes:

“I’m assuming that Who meant to write “Silent Scream,” a film which manages to get virtually every relevant fact of fetal development AND the abortion process wrong. It’s also odd that Who doesn’t think there’s such a thing as a clearly medically necessary abortion or pro-lifers who oppose such things. As I said, these aren’t rational people. They’re not even particularly bright.

As for taking the law hostage, the pro-life movement and its various vigilantes have attempted all kinds of back-door measures to inflict their superstitions on other people. Phill Kline comes to mind.

Finally, having helped my wife through a protracted and painful series of complications after delivery, if I thought for one moment that someone had inflicted them on her from the relative safety of the law, thus abused, then yes: I would kill that person.

Now you know.”

Being a married man I sympathize with the protectiveness of one’s wife. Since,in moff’s follow-up, above, he indicates that he considers murder justifiable for inflicting suffering I can only assume then we know where he stands on issues usch as capital punishment (which I myself oppose FWIW).

The rest though is pretty thin gruel. Getting past moff’s obsession with immaculately typed text (although to be fair, he did get the referenced title right, even if he demagogued the content to an unrecognizable extent – Nathanson’s film, which I’ve seen – is an ultrasound of an abortion. If I remember correctly, the film was the product of Nathason’s own observations as a practicing abortionist – the complaints moff argues are strangely similar to those offered at the time by Planned Parenthood, a group with no small stake in the outcome), he manages to twist my phrase “if the scenario Moff draws is a life endangerment one (which is difficult to tell as such cases vary in severity) no pro-lifers I know of are directly opposed to the application of abortion” into “It’s also odd that Who doesn’t think there’s such a thing as a clearly medically necessary abortion or pro-lifers who oppose such things.” Perhaps this is a simple case of not recognizing that the difficulty I allude to is not one of medical cases but of his own example of hydrocephaly, to which the “medically necessary” outcome depends on the severity of the case. To be fair, a second reading of his phrase could call for the most extreme example of such cases, but an equally fair reading of my own phrase should allow that not only do most pro-lifers recognize the potential, few, if any (I am open to the possibility though unfamiliar with absolutists in this case) suggest prohibitions against abortions in cases where the mother’s life is endangered.

There is some debate about how certain such determinations are. I’m open to the strong possibility of “clearly medically necessary” examples but there are physicians who disagree. I don’t think pointing that fact out in any way diminishes the acceptance of a “life of the mother” exemption, especially when such detrminations are made rigorously and in the patient-doctor relationship. The fact stands that the exemption is the policy recommendation of the vast majority of pro-lifers.

Alternatives to partial-birth have served as the response to that particular thorny issue, and this is probably one of the things moff refers to when he references “back doors”, but the relative, comparative safety of such procedures is not an easy or simple fact to establish especially when weighed against the physical cruelty of the procedure to the fetus. The availability of more “humane” methods to the fetus indicate that such life exemptions are still protected, even with a general ban on partial-birth procedures.

Given moff’s clearly sincere anger and vehemence regarding suffering, perhaps it’s not too much to ask to suggest that the suffering of one’s own child, even though doomed, be considered in this context.

Look, guys—if you think it’s a life, then YOU carry it to term in YOUR belly. End of discussion.

You are missing the point. You don’t have to carry it to term, but you also don’t have to kill it when it’s viable. Take it out and keep it alive, put it into an incubator and then place it for adoption or to the appropriate state institution. What exactly is the problem here?