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Ross Douthat

Divided by abortion, united by feminism

The best way to argue with a Todd Akin is to dismiss him as a chauvinist, a creep and the enemy of a more enlightened future. But the best pro-choice rebuttal to the young idealists at the March for Life or the professional women who lead today’s anti-abortion groups isn’t that they’re too reactionary — it’s that they’re too utopian, too radical, too naïve.

This means that the abortion rights movement, once utopian in its own fashion, is now at its most effective when it speaks the language of necessary evils, warning Americans that while it might be pretty to think so, the equality they take for granted simply can’t be separated from a practice they find troubling.

For its part, if the pro-life movement wants not only to endure but to triumph, then it needs an answer to this argument. That means something more than just a defense of a universal right to life. It means a realist’s explanation of how, in policy and culture, the feminist revolution could be reformed without being repealed.

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Killing innocent, unborn human beings is an acceptable, necessary evil. Got it.

When people call good evil and evil good…

Utterly sickening. More so because I suspect a fair number of people who attended that rally in support of the pro-life movement had previously had abortions. Nothing utopian or idealistic there.

Feminism does need to be reformed, back to what it was originally. That means taking it back from the liberal hacks who hijacked it and twisted it. That means giving it back to the pro-lifers.

Logus on January 27, 2013 at 9:39 PM

That means something more than just a defense of a universal right to life

Oh that. The only smart thing to do is stop pointing out the truth.
Got it.

Mimzey on January 27, 2013 at 9:39 PM

Look, I’m kind of neutral on the whole abortion thing (in an undecided but not apathetic way), but this smacks of desperately twisting reason to justify a pre-determined conclusion.

Count to 10 on January 27, 2013 at 9:43 PM

Here’s an idea: liberation theology doesn’t work. It’s just rehashed Marxism. If feminist want to separate from that, then have at it.

nobar on January 27, 2013 at 9:44 PM

For its part, if the pro-life movement wants not only to endure but to triumph, then it needs an answer to this argument. That means something more than just a defense of a universal right to life. It means a realist’s explanation of how, in policy and culture, the feminist revolution could be reformed without being repealed.

Wrong. Since life is a prerequisite for any other right, it takes priority over all others. So no, nothing more than a defense of a universal right to life is required, because without it no other rights can exist. A right to free speech, property, or anything else can be easily eliminated if you extinguish another person’s life.

Furthermore, overturning Roe and banning abortion has no effect on the right to vote, equal pay, or any of the other legitimate advancements of the feminist movement. If the feminist movement is defined by the right to slaughter one’s offspring, then it is an evil movement that deserves to be crushed.

Stoic Patriot on January 27, 2013 at 9:44 PM

It is insane to argue moderation with murder.

Scribbler on January 27, 2013 at 9:56 PM

Look, I’m kind of neutral on the whole abortion thing (in an undecided but not apathetic way), but this smacks of desperately twisting reason to justify a pre-determined conclusion.

Count to 10 on January 27, 2013 at 9:43 PM

You’ll see less and less of that the more emboldened the left becomes. I don’t want to link it here since it’s already been covered at HotAir, but just the other day there was a piece in Salon, the tone of basically which was “It’s taking a life. So what? I’m still pro-choice.” That level of honesty is refreshing and sickening to me all at the same time.

gryphon202 on January 27, 2013 at 10:21 PM

Most pro-choice people are anti-abortion. It might seem counter- intuitive but it is true for myself and a majority of Americans. I will support a woman’s right to make reproductive decisions but I would like to see abortion rendered obsolete and unnecessary through education, contraception, and available alternatives. I have enormous respect for the motivation of pro-life proponents but the debate over abortion in the US is defined by extremists on both sides. I do not think a six week week old fetus should have the same legal protections and status as newborn child.

lexhamfox on January 27, 2013 at 10:24 PM

I do not think a six week week old fetus should have the same legal protections and status as newborn child.

lexhamfox on January 27, 2013 at 10:24 PM

Then at what point should that fetus acquire those legal protections, and on what basis do you assert that? “I do not think…” is an indicator of an opinion. Nothing wrong with that, except that it’s an incomplete argument to base policy on. Should a 20 week old fetus have those legal protections? How about a 39 week old fetus? Or a fetus in the process of being born, mere hours away from seeing the light of day? Even if I disagree with it, I’ll have a lot more respect for you if you can justify that opinion rationally…

gryphon202 on January 27, 2013 at 10:35 PM

gryphon202 on January 27, 2013 at 10:35 PM

I would say that is left to conventional wisdom of the day. I am fine with restrictions against late term abortions. Most other developed nations like ours have legal abortion with limits. Deciding at what point depends on the prevailing politics. I do not think a month old fetus is a fully formed human.

lexhamfox on January 27, 2013 at 10:56 PM

Most other developed nations like ours have legal abortion with limits.

As far as I am aware, the only legal limit in this country is for you actually to have been born (except in certain Chicago-area hospitals, apparently).

Knott Buyinit on January 27, 2013 at 11:14 PM

I would say that is left to conventional wisdom of the day. I am fine with restrictions against late term abortions. Most other developed nations like ours have legal abortion with limits. Deciding at what point depends on the prevailing politics. I do not think a month old fetus is a fully formed human.

lexhamfox on January 27, 2013 at 10:56 PM

“The conventional wisdom of the day” says you can stick a fork in a baby’s brain while its crown is the only thing still in the birth canal. And you didn’t address my question. If you don’t believe that a month-old fetus is a fully formed human, when do you believe that it is? Again, “I do not believe…” constitutes a personal opinion and an incomplete argument on which to base public policy.

“Late-term abortion” is generally held to mean abortion during the last trimester. Since you do not think that a month-old fetus is a fully formed human, what about two months? What about three months? How about months four-through-six? “The conventional wisdom of the day” is awfully weak tea, dontcha think?

gryphon202 on January 27, 2013 at 11:19 PM

Most pro-choice people are anti-abortion. It might seem counter- intuitive but it is true for myself and a majority of Americans.
lexhamfox on January 27, 2013 at 10:24 PM

How about a contradiction in terms?

“I’m against abortion. Therefore, don’t stop it!”

Stoic Patriot on January 27, 2013 at 11:21 PM

Wait, the feminist movement is all about getting rid of unwanted children?

ButterflyDragon on January 27, 2013 at 11:23 PM

Wait, the feminist movement is all about getting rid of unwanted children?

ButterflyDragon on January 27, 2013 at 11:23 PM

So says Salon.com.

gryphon202 on January 27, 2013 at 11:31 PM

gryphon202 on January 27, 2013 at 11:19 PM

Policy is driven by personal subjective viewpoints all the time. What do you think drives election results? A majority of Westerners agree with my viewpoint. I myself do not have a precise cut off date but would support restricting abortion to the first two trimesters and have it prohibited in the last. Conventional wisdom drives science and politics. Hardly weak tea. What do you suggest?

lexhamfox on January 27, 2013 at 11:32 PM

Policy is driven by personal subjective viewpoints all the time. What do you think drives election results? A majority of Westerners agree with my viewpoint. I myself do not have a precise cut off date but would support restricting abortion to the first two trimesters and have it prohibited in the last. Conventional wisdom drives science and politics. Hardly weak tea. What do you suggest?

lexhamfox on January 27, 2013 at 11:32 PM

I suggest that insofar as policy is driven by subjectivity and/or conventional wisdom, we can attribute the decline of America to that fact.

And either abortion will be legal or legal under any given circumstance. The law may be debated on the basis of subjective interpretation, but once that bill is signed into law, it ceases to be subjective. It must be followed.

And so once again, noting that you have failed to address my question, I shall ask it again: Given that you have stated that a one-month-old fetus isn’t, at what point do you believe a human child is entitled to the right to life?

I am sorry if this makes you feel uncomfortable, but I am not going to let you get away with an intellectually lazy argument that essentially lays that question off.

gryphon202 on January 27, 2013 at 11:41 PM

And either abortion will be legal or illegal under any given circumstance.
gryphon202 on January 27, 2013 at 11:41 PM

Whoops. FIFM.

gryphon202 on January 27, 2013 at 11:42 PM

It doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all to discuss this subject and America was founded in such a way to reflect conventional wisdom rather than be a calcified code. I’m not sure why you think America is in decline. I addressed your question.I am firm in my own opinion about when a fetus should not be afforded the legal protection of human life. I am open to persuasion as to when it does or to at what point we restrict abortions by law. There is nothing intellectually lazy about it. What do you yourself suggest would be appropriate?

lexhamfox on January 27, 2013 at 11:51 PM

It doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all to discuss this subject and America was founded in such a way to reflect conventional wisdom rather than be a calcified code. I’m not sure why you think America is in decline. I addressed your question.I am firm in my own opinion about when a fetus should not be afforded the legal protection of human life. I am open to persuasion as to when it does or to at what point we restrict abortions by law. There is nothing intellectually lazy about it. What do you yourself suggest would be appropriate?

lexhamfox on January 27, 2013 at 11:51 PM

You’re barking up the wrong tree with me, Butch. Fully 2/3 of the American colonists either were loyal to the British Crown or didn’t give a shit enough to help the cause of the Revolution. The remaining 1/3, many of whom ended up directly aiding and abetting General George Washington and his Continental Army, bucked the prevailing conventional wisdom.

And that’s to say nothing of the constitution that many of those same founding fathers wrote and endorsed, the first document in mankind’s history to literally codify the principle of subsidiarity into a nation’s government.

As for what I think would be appropriate viz-a-vis abortion, it comes in two parts:

A) Roe v Wade is itself an unconstitutional ruling. It carries no weight of law. That is not my opinion. It is fact.

Given the above,

B) Since the constitution itself says nothing about abortion, states should be free to regulate abortion as they see fit. Some states may ban the practice entirely. Others may lift all restrictions entirely. Some would probably restrict the practice without outlawing it outright.

That would be the constitutionally sound way to approach this problem. As for my personal opinion, I believe that the only scientifically sound argument to be made is that life starts at conception. I personally wouldn’t mind seeing the topic broached at an Article V convention, but we’d have to convene an Article V convention first.

gryphon202 on January 27, 2013 at 11:59 PM

And that’s to say nothing of the constitution that many of those same founding fathers wrote and endorsed, the first only the second document in mankind’s history to literally codify the principle of subsidiarity into a nation’s government.

I take that back. There was one that I am aware of before our constitution, and that was the Jewish Torah.

gryphon202 on January 28, 2013 at 12:03 AM

gryphon202 on January 27, 2013 at 11:59 PM

You have asked me to elaborate on my own opinions on the subject at hand and I have taken the time to answer your questions. Don’t act all hurt and offended by my polite answers to your questions. You initiated the debate so be man and handle it when someone holds a differing view than your own. We are not debating the merits of the revolution here. The constitution is what it is and it is subject to amendment and interpretation. Wider legislation is absolutely subject to prevailing wisdom.

I agree that Roe v Wade is really awkward and bad law. I am going to assume that you think that any life should be afforded the full protection of law based on your answer.

lexhamfox on January 28, 2013 at 12:19 AM

I agree that Roe v Wade is really awkward and bad law. I am going to assume that you think that any life should be afforded the full protection of law based on your answer.

lexhamfox on January 28, 2013 at 12:19 AM

If by “any life,” you mean that life begins at conception, then yes. That is what I personally believe. I also believe that based on the intentions of the founding fathers, the protection of that life needs to be done at the state, rather than the federal, level, absent a constitutional amendment. The federal government simply has no say in it since the constitution does not give them that power. cf. 9th and 10th amendments.

In abortion, as in all political matters great and small, I advocate for a return to the constitutional subsidiarity that our founding fathers endorsed and which we moved away from long before I was born.

And I would like to endcap this debate by genuinely apologizing if I came off as snooty or elitist in my last post before this one. It wasn’t my intention. I merely wished to illustrate that America was in fact founded on bucking conventional wisdom in order to do what is right and unpopular. Our founding fathers saw democracy as a malign influence, and the more American history I study, the more it appears they were right.

gryphon202 on January 28, 2013 at 12:28 AM

lexhamfox on January 27, 2013 at 10:24 PM

In discussing abortion the first thing to do is to set aside the euphemisms that obfuscate the reality. It’s not a ‘reproductive decision’ It’s making a decision as to whether not to have a living human being killed.

INC on January 28, 2013 at 1:12 AM

In discussing abortion the first thing to do is to set aside the euphemisms that obfuscate the reality. It’s not a ‘reproductive decision’ It’s making a decision as to whether not to have a living human being killed.

INC on January 28, 2013 at 1:12 AM

A sentiment with which I personally agree. But Lex doesn’t see a one month old fetus as a living human being. You and I do, so arguing on those terms is useless.

gryphon202 on January 28, 2013 at 1:18 AM

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, ‘I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so’. Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:

‘While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.’

…The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.

George Orwell, Politics and the English Language.

My emphasis in bold; his in italics.

INC on January 28, 2013 at 1:19 AM

You and I do, so arguing on those terms is useless.

gryphon202 on January 28, 2013 at 1:18 AM

I realize that. But he needs to realize this:

Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.

Now I’ll go find some real pictures that the euphemism ‘reproductive choices’ hides.

INC on January 28, 2013 at 1:22 AM

Here are some nice photos of the child in the womb:

Fetal Development Pictures Slideshow: Month by Month at MedicineNet

This charts out development:

Fetal Development: First Trimester at The American Pregnancy Center

Week 7 – Gestational Age (Fetal Age – Week 5):

At 7 weeks gestation, every essential organ has begun to form in the embryo’s tiny body even though it still weighs less than an aspirin. The hair and nipple follicles are forming, and the eyelids and tongue have begun formation. The elbows and toes are more visible as the trunk begins to straighten out.

40 week pregnancy is dated from the beginning of a woman’s last period to determine an approximate due date, so the gestational age includes 2 weeks when the woman wasn’t actually pregnant. That’s why the baby is actually 5 weeks old.

INC on January 28, 2013 at 1:30 AM

This is relatively mild.

http://www.jillstanek.com/2013/01/aborted-babies-represented-at-obama-inauguration/

Created Equal held up posters of aborted babies along the inauguration route. You only see part of the poster in the photographs: tiny, bloody hands on a quarter.

INC on January 28, 2013 at 1:38 AM

These posters show pieces of babies–still from Obama’s inaugural route.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.415391591871821.94524.117507584993558&type=1

I’ve seen worse.

INC on January 28, 2013 at 1:39 AM

Some of the videos are pixelized to obscure the horror.

http://www.abort73.com/videos/

No photographs, illustrations are used.

http://www.abort73.com/abortion/abortion_techniques/

Some photographs, click to enlarge.

http://www.abort73.com/abortion/abortion_pictures/

INC on January 28, 2013 at 1:48 AM

So if we’re going to talk about abortion, let’s lay aside “Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.”

Let’s talk about it with those real pictures in mind.

INC on January 28, 2013 at 1:50 AM

gryphon202 on January 27, 2013 at 10:35 PM

I would say that is left to conventional wisdom of the day. I am fine with restrictions against late term abortions. Most other developed nations like ours have legal abortion with limits. Deciding at what point depends on the prevailing politics. I do not think a month old fetus is a fully formed human.

lexhamfox on January 27, 2013 at 10:56 PM

So you were A-Okay with the conventional Wisdom of the Day and the Prevailing Politics that decleared the Jewish Population of Germany and Europe to be sub human and in need of extermination in the Ovens at the Concentration camps?

Thank you for letting me into your world view!

jaydee_007 on January 28, 2013 at 3:11 AM

In discussing abortion the first thing to do is to set aside the euphemisms that obfuscate the reality. It’s not a ‘reproductive decision’ It’s making a decision as to whether not to have a living human being killed.

INC on January 28, 2013 at 1:12 AM

And I’ve always wondered that if it’s so acceptable, show it on TV commercials. The baby squirming (I’m sure) to get away, the dismemberment, everything. Does that not meet FCC regs?

I’m hoping some day that abortion will be as abhorrent as slavery. Hopefully the Democrats will be labeled as the killers, unlike with slavery.

8 weight on January 28, 2013 at 6:36 AM

And I’ve always wondered that if it’s so acceptable, show it on TV commercials. The baby squirming (I’m sure) to get away, the dismemberment, everything. Does that not meet FCC regs?
I’m hoping some day that abortion will be as abhorrent as slavery. Hopefully the Democrats will be labeled as the killers, unlike with slavery.
8 weight on January 28, 2013 at 6:36 AM

The key marketing components of liberalism are diversions and obfuscation. Abortion isn’t murder – just don’t ever show visuals of it.

We can fix the debt problem – we just need to tax the wealthy. Never mind that their proposed tax increases won’t cover in 10 years the deficits they run in 1.

They only ever want to take your AR-15. When my NY CCW expired, they wanted to confiscate my handgun. (I had moved out of state.)

crrr6 on January 28, 2013 at 8:02 AM

I do not think a six week week old fetus should have the same legal protections and status as newborn child.
lexhamfox on January 27, 2013 at 10:24 PM

Wow, that’s pretty much the same rationalization used by slave owners and Nazis. “I don’t think those subhuman negros/Jews should have the same legal protections as us normal humans”

tommyboy on January 28, 2013 at 9:37 AM