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PZ Myers. 2006 Jan 09. The red is for blood. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/the_red_is_for_blood/>. Accessed 2006 Feb 13.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Monday, January 09, 2006

The red is for blood

Give Up Blog has a map of abortion possibilities—the states likely to restrict abortion if Roe v. Wade is undermined, as estimated by the Guttmacher Institute.

That's disturbing. The South and the middle of the country would throw away an essential clinical service that many women depend on at some point in their life, as you can see from this overview.

Half of all pregnancies to American women are unintended; half of these end in abortion.

In 2002, 1.29 million abortions occurred.

At current rates, about one in three American women will have had an abortion by the time she reaches age 45.

88% of abortions occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

A broad cross section of U.S. women have abortions.

56% of women having abortions are in their 20s;

61% have one or more children;

67% have never married;

57% are economically disadvantaged;

88% live in a metropolitan area; and

78% report a religious affiliation.

Legal restrictions won't change those numbers, except perhaps in one way: more women will die or be rendered sterile by botched illegal abortions, so there will be fewer repeated abortions. I guess if that's what you want, it makes sense to legislate greater risk for women…but I would hope a majority would not want that. I fear that most vote for restrictions based on short-sighted priggishness, with no thought for the consequences.

I'm also looking at that strange island of Minnesota, surrounded by a sea of red and pink. I suspect that there are many hypocrites in the Dakotas and Iowa and Wisconsin who would willingly legislate the morality of the poor underclass of their state, knowing full well that if their daughters have a little 'accident', they can just slip across the state line for a weekend in Minneapolis—and maybe catch a little casino action in Mille Lacs after the procedure.

Posted by PZ Myers on 01/09 at 10:41 AM
Politics • 0 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink

I can't imagine what possessed them to put Ohio in the "most likely to protect abortion" category. Outside the (struggling) major cities this state is dominated by reactionary mouthbreathers, and currently has not a single Democratic statewide officeholder. GiveUpBlog must know something I don't. I sure hope so.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 09:51 AM
I'm extremely disappointed to see that my home state of Michigan is apparently in the reactionary mouthbreathers camp. It always seemed like a pretty reasonable state, but I guess things may have changed since I left.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 09:58 AM
Give Up Blog also has some reservations about the data, so don't blame them.
#: Posted by PZ Myers on 01/09 at 10:07 AM
PZ, when you wrote "I suspect that there are many hypocrites in the Dakotas and Iowa and Wisconsin who would willingly legislate the morality of the poor underclass of their state, knowing full well that if their daughters have a little 'accident', they can just slip across the state line for a weekend in Minneapolis" it reminded me of Dan Barker's book "losing Faith in Faith: from Preacher to Atheist"

On page 210 he writes the of the following exchange:

"I was talking with a Catholic attorney recently who said "Dan, this abortion issue is so emotional that no one is ever going to change their mind"
"I did" I answered
"Well, I was raised to respect the sanctity of life" he said "And I will always vote with my church"
"And that's why I changed my mind - I respect the sanctity of the woman's life"
He looked at me for a moment, and in hushed tones said "Butyou know what? I don't know what I would do if my fourteen-year-old daughter got pregnant"
"You would get her a quick, quiet abortion and worry about the morality later" I offered. With a guilty grin, he nodded his head in agreement. "You have the money and you have the contacts" I continued "but if you keep voting wrong you may not have the option." He didn't know what to say, the big hypocrite."

The entire book is well worth a read.
#: Posted by aa on 01/09 at 10:13 AM
I'm so happy to see Dan Barker's wonderful book receive a mention here! Always remember, the abortion 'controversy' is not about the babies, it's about the women. If it were about the babies, those against abortion would offer full sexuality education and access to effective contraceptives for those who need them. Banning abortion instead of preventing it is merely punishing women for being sexual creatures. PZ, your consistent efforts to enlighten people away from religion is the most effective tool we have! Thanks!
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 10:41 AM
Wow, Tennessee is on the good side for a change. Wonder how that happened?
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 10:42 AM
I have the most remarkable coincidence to report. This is a map of the incidence of chlamydia by state:

And this is a map of the incidence of gonorrhea by state:

What are the odds that STDs could be used to predict whether or not a state was anti-choice?

Due diligence: the US syphilis map looks like this:

and doesn't seem that useful in this context. I have to say that I'd think very hard about sleeping with someone from either Texas or Louisiana, though.
#: Posted by James Nicoll on 01/09 at 10:48 AM
"Half of all pregnancies to American women are unintended"

Half? Is birth control really that unreliable/unavailable? Are people making stupid decisions?
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 11:33 AM
Half the population has below average intelligence and smart people do dumb things (smart and stupid being merely a difference in relative frequency).
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 11:41 AM
Half? Is birth control really that unreliable/unavailable? Are people making stupid decisions?

I'm not going to bag on J for his/her/its lack of empathy here. I'm just going to list some factors in no particular order:

- aggressively know-nothing fundamentalist attitudes toward sex in much of the country

- little if any useful sex education in much of the country (see first item)

- lack of easy availability of birth control in many small towns (especially for women), due often to social pressure

- rape

- alcohol or other drugs as a way of life for bored young people in a lot of small towns

- occasional birth-control failures

And remember, the statistic is half of all pregnancies, not half of all intercourse resulting in pregnancies. Each of the factors I mention above tend to increase the likelihood of pregnancy when there is intercourse, and that pregnancy is likely to be unintended, if not ultimately unwanted. The actual number of people in the country who are actively seeking to be pregnant is a much smaller number than the number of people having sex. So the statistics are going to bear that out.
#: Posted by paperwight on 01/09 at 11:48 AM
No idea how much credence to give to "Half of all pregnancies to American women are unintended", but just want to point out that not all abortions result from unintended pregnancies. Some are carried out when wanted pregnancies turn out to have problems; other pregnancies are wanted to begin with but become unsustainable (because of, e.g., changes in financial/domestic circumstances or risks to health).
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 11:49 AM
(Sorry, reading that back it looks like I'm saying the same thing twice. What I meant was to distinguish between terminations carried out because the fetus becomes unviable and those prompted by a change in other circumstances.)
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 11:53 AM
"Half of all pregnancies to American women are unintended"

"Half? Is birth control really that unreliable/unavailable? Are people making stupid decisions??"

Unintended may not be the same as undesired: I know of a number of married couples who did not plan the timing of their kids [1].

Also, it seems to me the worse the sex-ed a person gets (whether from school or at home), the less able they are to make informed decisions about fertility. Sure, those condoms may be available at the local drugstore but if someone has been told that they don't work, why would they use them? Or if they've been raised to think that sex should be a spontaneous act of affection, thinking ahead to have birth control handy may seem too cold blooded.

1: In one case, I commited a social transgression when I noticed all their kids were born at the same time of year, and counted back nine months to see why then, particularly.
#: Posted by James Nicoll on 01/09 at 11:59 AM
This map simply needs more categories. Illinois and Indiana are nowhere close on the abortion issue. And Tennessee as white? That's highly suspect.

Why does My Old Kentucky Home fail me on nearly every social issue? It really is a wonderful place...if only we could make education as popular as NASCAR and basketball.

Heh. My submit word is zygote.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 12:02 PM
"Half of all pregnancies to American women are unintended."

Isn't it also the case that 40-50% of all pregnancies, whether intended or not, end in "spontaneous abortion," i.e. miscarriage? So how come the Intelligent Designer gets to perform abortions? El Gordo nailed it--the abortion controvery is not about babies, it's about women. After all, one of the most popular anti-abortion slogans that I hear are "Why do you baby killers want to be men?" Uh--do men have abortions, perchance? No, but men make the majority of life-and-death decisions--and the ultimate goal, in my opinion, of the anti-choice camp is not to ban all abortions, but to force particular people that they don't like to have them.
#: Posted by Kristine Harley on 01/09 at 12:15 PM
That island in the midwest is the reason why we need to make sure our state is well-funded and the growing conservative demographic doesn't ruin what we have going. This will be nothing new to us, we've taken plenty of impoverished from neighboring states, now it will be those who wish to have a safe and legal abortion.

I know it costs the residents of this state, and I'm not going to get into the debate of whether these decisions are right or wrong. I just hope that we continue to be an example of social altruism for the rest of the region.
#: Posted by JMJanssen on 01/09 at 12:18 PM
i might be of here, but isn't the taboo on pre-marital sex also problem? it leads to a lot of pent up desire, which makes release under relaxing conditions (i.e. drinking, which is also repressed. lovely loop) that much more likely. especially when profilactics are hard to get, or unfamiliar (poor sex-ed).
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 12:19 PM
There is a functional paradox in that women who are expecting to have sex and assent to the necessary precautions are far less likely to have unintended consequences than women who engage in dating with mixed thoughts and emotions about sex.

It shows up clearly in the statistics about absinence-only sex education
#: Posted by decrepitoldfool on 01/09 at 12:25 PM
I fear that most vote for restrictions based on short-sighted priggishness, with no thought for the consequences.

I've always been and still am a staunch supporter of a woman's right to choose, and I believe that right should be as unencumbered as possible by any restrictions. Still, it gives me pause to read such dismissive and insulting commentary, even from people who apparently hold a similar position on the issue as I do. There are, I'm sure, anti-abortion types who fit your description, but I think there are many more who are genuinely troubled by the ethical or moral questions posed by willfully destroying something that will become a human life. One need not be a fundamentalist or even particularly religious to regard an embryo as an entity deserving of some kind of legal protections. The real questions for most people involve where to draw the line that balances a would-be mother's right to self-determination with the right of the child-to-be. I hardly would call that short-sighted or priggish and it most certainly is giving thought to the consequences. That you could be so callous in your disregard for people who find themselves struggling with these questions says more about your lack of consideration of these issues than it does about the varied attitudes and opinions about people who would restrict abortion more that I would like to see it restricted.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 12:39 PM
What's happened to the Land of the Free? These hypocrites are destroying America, the stronghold of freedom and democracy. And they're taking away the rest of the western world with them.
#: Posted by Andy on 01/09 at 12:55 PM
I think it's interesting the people who would shoot a juvenile delinquent in “self-defense” for breaking and entering are usually the same ones that call abortion murder. In the first instance someone’s shot because he broke into your home intending to deprive you of a TV set or whatever. That’s self-defense. I wouldn’t want to be the only liberal in Buttfuckville, Texas to defend the right to life of the little miscreant who’s going to hell because in the Bible it says thou shalt not steal. And anyway shooting him is a Constitutional right under the Second Amendment blah blah blah. In the second instance, someone -- a barely differentiated blob of cells, to be exact -- dies so the mother might not be deprived of an education, career, & etc. -- basically the next twenty years of her life. That’s murder.

See how that works? TV, good; life, bad.

Bottom line: I don’t want my tax dollars supporting some slut who had sex out of wedlock and it serves her right she has to raise a child in poverty and if it turns to drugs and becomes a juvenile delinquent that we shoot in the back for breaking into our homes to steal our TV sets to sell to homosexualists to get money to buy drugs, well that’s what Jesus would do.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 01:07 PM
Isn't it also the case that 40-50% of all pregnancies, whether intended or not, end in "spontaneous abortion," i.e. miscarriage?

Actually, I think it's a bit more than that. The number I've heard is 50-70%. And therein lies a little problem for the self-proclaimed pro-lifers. If they really believed every conceptus was a person, fully equal to any adult in every way, then why aren't they agitating for increased funding into the causes of spontaneous abortion? If up to 70% of newborns died on their first day of life, I would expect there to be a huge outcry demanding research on this problem in order to end the pandemic as quickly as possible. So, why are the pro-lifers not demanding that the causes of spontaneous abortion be examined and that pandemic ended? The two possible (non-exclusive) reasons I can think of are 1. They don't know enough biology to know that this problem exists. In which case, why are we paying any attention to their ramblings on a subject they know nothing about? 2. They don't really believe that an undifferentiated ball of cells is a person and are only pursuing a ban on abortion in order to harass women. In which case, why are we listening to obvious bigots?
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 01:33 PM
Anyone who considers Florida to be a secure-abortion-rights state hasn't been paying much attention to the (admittedly unappetizing) state legislature here.

The most likely consequence of illegalized abortion will not be a return to "back-alley" abortions, but a flood of black-market "abortion pills" - possibly even more dangerous, given the vagaries of the contraband pharmaceuticals industry and the folklore of desperate users. As a side benefit for the christocrats, feminist/healthcare activists setting up underground abortion networks will be liable to drug-war prosecution.

Call your senators to oppose the Alito nomination now.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 01:38 PM
mcubed, I used to think somewhat as you do. Then I started listening more carefully to what "pro-life" types actually say, and of course, also vetting their positions on other issues (viz. Ali Baba's post) to see how consistently "pro-life"- and pro-child- they really are. The more I do that, the more I come to believe that it really is at least 95% about "all your uterus are belong to us". That's not callousness, it's coming to terms with an unpleasant reality.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 01:45 PM
Well, your usual high-quality commenters have weighted in already, and I like the follow-up research on STDs and the likelihood of a state's protection of women's rights.

I'm troubled by the idea that if Roe is struck down (or the Democrats make a strategic retreat on it), what happens in those states who claim the ownership of all female reproductive systems w/in their sovereign borders? Will we see stakeouts of women's health clinics at state lines, like we used (still do) see liquor stores on county and state boundaries, with any eye to publicizing/harassing women who have to leave their own state for health care?

In the spirit of the graphics above, does anyone know of the equivalent of the CIA world fact book, but for states? It would be interesting to see how states fare on all kinds of metrics, from education funding/child, personal rights (recreational drugs, abortion, bike/motorcycle helmets), tax rates, etc. Call it the Freedom/Personal Responsibility Index if you like. I would be interested in seeing some kind of national comparison.

And I think PZ stacks the deck on his submit words: mine is genus.
#: Posted by paul on 01/09 at 02:17 PM
It's a good thing this isn't Imperial America and I'm not the Emperor. If it were up to me I'd give every 14-year-old male in the country a state-sponsored vasectomy and only after his second consecutive tax return was filed would he be allowed to "reconnect". The women have had to pay the price for too long.
#: Posted by Carl Buell (OGeorge) on 01/09 at 02:23 PM
Overpopulation is eventually going to settle the abortion issue. Even right wingers tend to excuse current Chinese policies that lead to widespread abortions because they recognize that the Chinese absolutely must limit population growth if they are not to sink back into misery. We're not to the Chinese point yet, but we'll get there.
#: Posted by Jim Harrison on 01/09 at 02:31 PM
Sorry to weigh in again, but I was just reminded of a story in Paul Auster's collection of user-submitted stories (I thought my father was god[1]).

There was a story in there, I think from the Dakotas, where the writer's mother reacted to the discovery of the skeletal remains of a long-missing classmate. The girl was popular, pretty, and seemed to have a bright future, but she disappeared and no one knew where she had gone.

Years later, a farmer discovered a skeleton and upon examination, it has a smaller one, almost birdlike inside it. The girl had died of a botched abortion alone in a farmer's field, all the promise of her life gone, and her family likely never knew what happened. I flash between imagining her feeling alone and dying in that field and the feeling of the father of the child helpless, perhaps unable to imagine the consequences beyond the here and now. Did he stay with her to the end? Or did he leave her to her fate? Did he even know?

And some people want to go back to those days?

1. http://tinyurl.com/aad99
#: Posted by paul on 01/09 at 02:35 PM
Mr Meyers,

I don't understand the logic behind this post. I appreciate that you're not fond of much to do with religion, but I fail to see how this relates ET versus ID/C.

Do you realise that some non-religious people do have valid concerns (cheifly legal & etheical) with abortion on demand? You do not *have* to be religious to be a moderate pro-lifer.

I know that there's the whole socio-economic/political side to the abortion debate, so I'm not going to officially advocate my position here, but I'd like you consider that the all pro-lifers are not neccessarily religious in the same way that all ID/Cers are.

Fair enough?

Anyone can reply to this, btw.
#: Posted by Jeffahn on 01/09 at 03:34 PM
My experiences match mcubed's.

However, my experiences are largely limited to three sources: pro-lifers I know personally from southern New Jersey, mainstream media, and the Internet, with all its sundry message boards and blogs. I feel that these three, even in combination, do not allow me to generalize to anything like a "consensus ideology" for the pro-life movement. In fact, I wonder whether anyone can really get at something that big.

Most of the pro-lifers I know personally match mcubed's description - these people have (to my mind, understandable) qualms over the moral and philosophical ramifications of treating a fetus as a cell mass and not as a human-to-be.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 03:47 PM
Jeffahn,
You're projecting quite a bit here. PZ doesn't even mention religion in this post. He's not an evolution/religion blog-bot; he can have an interest in matters that aren't necessarily related to evolution and religion.

The fact that, despite the above, you read this as a religious issue speaks volumes, I think.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 04:12 PM
In ref. to post 57058 by paperweight:

These are the exact pieces of info that people who are anti-reproductive rights (i.e. against the right to choose) need to digest. People are going to have sex, and if they are going to have sex, they need to be smart and educated about it.

Serious sex education is required for everyone in today's society (and not just the "wait till marriage" or "STD horror" show type education), contraception must be readilly available for those who require it, people need to make smart and informed decisions, and, of course, rape (all forms) should be eliminated from our culture.

Of course, accidents will happen with contraceptive...rape (sadly) will occur. A person's right to choose must be preserved (though, if it was me, I would most likely choose life...but that's just me...and it depends on the circumstances, but I digress). What shocked me is that 1/2 of all pregnancies are unintended. That reflects that the problems in this country dealing with sex, contraceptives, and education, are very great indeed.

Thank you, paperweight, for listing these factors so concisely and not commenting excessively on my level of empathy (which, unfortunately, you know squat about).
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 04:26 PM
G-Do: I feel that these three, even in combination, do not allow me to generalize to anything like a "consensus ideology" for the pro-life movement. In fact, I wonder whether anyone can really get at something that big.

My estimation is that most of the posters here don't want to ponder a "consensus ideology" of the pro-lifers, they simply want to wallow in their own prejudices and traffic in insults and barbs. In short, they're not anymore broad-minded or thoughtful than the people they are criticizing, though they are more hypocritical since it is clear they believe themselves to be more broad-minded and thoughtful.

If anyone is really interested, there's currently an interesting back-and-forth discussion of some of these issues going on between Daily Dish (Andrew Sullivan's blog) and the Corner on the National Review. Specifically, it addresses the issues of what can/can't, should/shouldn't be considered "life" with regard to zygotes, embryos, spontaneous abortions, and so on, and the ethical implications thereof. But I suspect most posters here want to remain secure in their own smugness and continue to disparage pro-lifers as residents of "Buttfuck, Texas," in Ali Baba's words.

It's really disappointing that so many people on both sides of contentious issues like abortion don't actually want to engage people who disagree with them in meaningful discourse, preferring instead to oversimplify. But I guess it's a lot easier to set up a strawman and knock it down than actually listen to what people are saying.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 04:28 PM
Wait...you want to encourage informed discussion of a difficult issue, and you refer us to NRO vs. Sullivan? Yikes.

I don't think pro-lifers are necessarily ignorant. I do think they've shackled themselves to a purely emotional argument, however.
#: Posted by PZ Myers on 01/09 at 04:40 PM
That map looks like utter b.s. I mean--Illinois? Michigan? DELAWARE?!
#: Posted by Justin Slotman on 01/09 at 04:43 PM
Regarding the high rate of miscarriage and the ignorance of this phenomenon by the anti-choice camp, Dianne writes: "The two possible (non-exclusive) reasons I can think of are 1. They don't know enough biology to know that this problem exists. In which case, why are we paying any attention to their ramblings on a subject they know nothing about? 2. They don't really believe that an undifferentiated ball of cells is a person and are only pursuing a ban on abortion in order to harass women."

Unfortunately, I think that there is a third explanation. 3. Anti-choice folks, while believing that an undifferentiated ball of cells is a person, have no problem with ascribing anything done to this "person" by "God" (like miscarriage, birth defects, poverty, or you-name-it), as being natural, or even "God's will." I remember a letter to the editor in the STrib that made this very argument.
#: Posted by Kristine Harley on 01/09 at 04:55 PM
PZ -- Wow, that was fast ... you read the discussions at DD and NRO already? Including the letters from the doctors regarding the state of knowledge about pregnancies, false pregnancies, moles, spontaneous abortions, etc., already?

And still you came to the rather simplistic conclusion that the arguments are purely emotional? I'm not even sure what that means, "purely emotional." You mean valuing human life is "purely emotional"? I would say it involves ethical and/or moral concerns. Or do you mean ethics and morals are pure emotion?

Oh, wait, you didn't bother checking it out. You prefer to remain uninformed.

I rest my case.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 05:04 PM
I had pretty much the same reactions as Kristine and Dianne vs spontaneous abortions. Also, since sexeducation and contraceptives will prevent spontaneous abortions too, it makes it illogical for antiabortionists to argue against those measures however their main issue turns out.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 05:08 PM
My estimation is that most of the posters here don't want to ponder a "consensus ideology" of the pro-lifers, they simply want to wallow in their own prejudices and traffic in insults and barbs.

It says as it slings insults and barbs...

But I guess it's a lot easier to set up a strawman and knock it down than actually listen to what people are saying.

It says as it props up and tackles it's own strawman...

Don't lecture me about hypocrisy you holier-than-thou ass-hat.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 05:10 PM
Oh, one more thing...

I rest my case.

I hope you mean it.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 05:12 PM
Half of all pregnancies to American women are unintended; half of these end in abortion.

Can this be true, that 25% of all pregnancies are aborted? Per Eleanor, above, that may not include abortions of planned pregnancies, and we don't know how the spontaneous abortion rate figures in. But still... isn't that a lot?

I'd like to see a state-by-state comparison of the quality of adoptions nationwide. Hopefully, states that outlaw abortion in the future (and have practically outlawed today) will have a feasible alternative in place.

Safe, Legally Available, and Rarely Needed
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 05:12 PM
Ummm, mcubed...I'm a developmental biologist. I'm fairly familiar with all of the arguments out there, and I know NRO and Sullivan by reputation. And by "purely emotional", I mean that the basic argument is an emotional attachment to babies (which is just fine) which is transferred to a relatively undifferentiated zygote.
#: Posted by PZ Myers on 01/09 at 05:26 PM
Jeffahn: ...some non-religious people do have valid concerns (cheifly legal & etheical) with abortion on demand...

Some people have valid concerns about alcohol abuse - but the intelligent and aware ones realize that the crude tactic of Prohibition was and would be a grotesque failure. Unfortunately, the "pro-life" movement as a whole has not reached that level of understanding; for that matter, hardly any of the individuals within it have grasped that blatant and prolonged lying isn't acceptable either (judging by the extreme rarity of any such activists criticizing the endless disinformation & distortions from their colleagues). Even (some) creationists show a higher ethical standard.

As a 15-year clinic escort, I've dealt with hundreds of anti-choicers face to face. Admittedly, the ones who come out to harass women on the streets are by definition at the lower end of the moral spectrum, but in my experience it is quite fair to characterize the typical "anti" as closed-minded, hypocritical, and utterly incapable of imagining the lives & perspectives of the women they target.

Call your senators to oppose the Alito nomination <bold>tomorrow</bold>.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 05:40 PM
You mean valuing human life is "purely emotional"?

mcubed,

If you value human life you must be a strong supporter of abortion, seeing how a female carrying a pregnancy to term has a 1:10,000 risk of death vs. 1:263,000 for terminating a pregnancy (for legal, 1st trim abxs).*

And one more point. An abortion does not terminate/kill/whatever you want to call it a zygote-/embryo-American, or even a fetus/baby/child/intrauterine unborn. An abx terminates a pregnancy (as in, the products of conception do not = free floating fetus/etc).

*Williams 21ed, p1518
#: Posted by ema on 01/09 at 06:24 PM
3. Anti-choice folks, while believing that an undifferentiated ball of cells is a person, have no problem with ascribing anything done to this "person" by "God" (like miscarriage, birth defects, poverty, or you-name-it), as being natural, or even "God's will."

They may say this, but do they "accept god's will" or "natural consequences" when it comes to themselves and their born children? Not generally. Most anti-choicers (like most pro-choicers) vaccinate their children, give them antibiotics when they have ear infections, cast broken bones, etc. And if they or their child is unlucky enough to have an incurable illness, they aggitate for research to find a cure and approve of the use of their tax dollars to fund research into the cure of that and other diseases. So, why don't they do the same for their just-conceived "children"? I must go back to my previous two theories.

But perhaps I'm missing something. Jeffahn? Can you explain why anti-choicers seem unwilling to put their money where their mouths are in terms of finding the reason for the pandemic of early spontaneous abortion? If one considers all concepti to be people then it is a huge public health problem. Much larger than heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or abortion.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 06:33 PM
, but I think there are many more who are genuinely troubled by the ethical or moral questions posed by willfully destroying something that will become a human life.

Mcubed, I don't disagree with you, exactly--I know such people exist.

However, everyone who opposes abortion claims to be motivated by their devotion to the preservation of life.

And if that were so, how on earth could they possibly rationalize supporting, as most of them did, an administration that went to war so casually, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of people, and that insists on maintaining a perogative to torture human beings?

Clearly, they are lying. What's consistant with their actions is a phobia about sex.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 06:34 PM
I don't have any references handy to back me up on this, but I wouldn't see Illinois going to the red side any time soon. As far as I know, there are no parental notification laws, no waiting periods, no huge legal obstacles between women and abortion. Tack on a governor who decreed that pharmacists must dispense emergency contraception, and IL should look as non-red as MN.
#: Posted by Orange on 01/09 at 07:16 PM
illegal abortions

My mother always told my sisters, that she would definitely prefer them not to.. but if they did, to see a doctor. We know someone, that many years ago attempted one.. illegally.. with an untwisted hangar on the side of a river. Its definitely not pretty, I'll leave you with that. She almost died from blood loss.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 07:30 PM
Well, that's democracy for you. Damn if people sometimes vote the wrong way (i.e., to restrict the practice of ripping the limbs of babies, crushing their skulls, etc., etc.).
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 08:47 PM
PZ Myers: I mean that the basic argument is an emotional attachment to babies (which is just fine) which is transferred to a relatively undifferentiated zygote.

I didn't mean uninformed about the biology, I meant uninformed about the objections, as indicated by the off-handed manner in which you summarized the reasons people would vote for restrictions on abortion. I think your analysis is simplistic, I think the anti-abortion arguments I've read are far more complex and considered than "an emotional attachment to babies." Ultimately, I don't find the arguments convincing, but I wouldn't be so quick to belittle or dismiss them as you are. And frankly, I think one of the reasons the anti-abortion movement has gained such steam is precisely because many pro-choice advocates are so often condescending and downright insulting. (See, for example, your charming commentator, "yorktank.")

As I made clear in my first comment, I'm staunchly pro-choice -- something that seems to be lost on "ema." Most of the people I know in my life who disagree with me on this are not Bush supporters, nor were they in favor of the Iraq War, nor are they in favor of torture -- a combination of beliefs that seems inconceivable to "Molly, NYC." I also do not pretend that abortion is just another medical procedure, having had the sobering experiences of accompanying two different friends to the clinic (one of whom was having her second abortion). I can't dismiss my friends' misgivings and regrets about their experiences as the result of mere "emotional attachments." I won't pretend that every woman who's had an abortion, or every couple who's taken the decision jointly, has been affected in the same way as every other, but the experience can and frequently does leave psychological scars that go deeper than any other medical procedure I've had experience with (directly or indirectly), and that includes the experiences of numerous people I know and have known who struggle with HIV, as I do. I think that says something about the complexity of the issue that you appear unwilling to acknowledge.

Ultimately, we all like to believe that the positions we align ourselves with are the reasonable positions that reasonable people would hold. Frankly, I expect a degree of small-mindedness, bigotry and derisiveness on the part of some who hold opposing views, and I'm always glad to find people in the opposition who are, in fact, reasonable and articulate, even if unpersuasive. I would count Sullivan as one of those, and it's unclear to me whether you've taken his comments (and those he refers to) under consideration or if you're only aware of what his ilk has to say "by reputation" (which, uncharitably, could mean you're content to rely on received opinion). What pains me is to find small-mindedness, bigotry and derisiveness among people whose positions I agree with.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 08:56 PM
Contraception, abortion, and the right to support herself place reproductive decisions solely in the hands of women. Before women were allowed to support themselves (to be economically independent of male domination), able to prevent unwanted conception and unable to reliably/safely get rid of an unwanted pregnancy a certain percent of women had babies by men whom they did not want to have children by. But with economic independence, contraception, and abortion women are able to restrict the fathers of their children to those men whom they want to father their children. Domination is - increasingly - no longer an effective reproductive tactic for men. In several (10? 20?) generations this may have some interesting social effects...and provide some interesting data for studying how genes affect behavior. So - jerks, make sure that a tissue sample gets archived so that your 'missing contribution' can be studied, because your genes are going away...
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 09:46 PM
Colorado should NOT be red.

The state legislature is Democrat now...both houses.

Colorado was one of the first states to legalize abortion, in 1967 iirc.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 09:52 PM
spencer wrote:

I'm extremely disappointed to see that my home state of Michigan is apparently in the reactionary mouthbreathers camp. It always seemed like a pretty reasonable state, but I guess things may have changed since I left.

As a born-and-raised Michigander, this disappoints me too, but I imagine Michigan's "red" status on this issue has something to do with the reactionary turn that the Michigan GOP took in the 1990s along with its control of the state legislature and its big fat gerrymandering. The political culture in Michigan is still rambunctious enough that a good defense of reproductive choice can still be made there, especially with the aid of a Democratic governor who is willing to veto any attempt by the Lege to ban abortion rights.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 10:09 PM
mcubed: ...the experience can and frequently does leave psychological scars that go deeper than any other medical procedure...

The reasons for seeking abortion are usually "deeper" (wider, longer...) than those for seeking other medical procedures. An infection or injury involves a lot less than poverty, a relationship break-up, a dysfunctional lifestyle, or any of the other common motivators leading to abortion; and the abortion itself easily becomes the representation of all the issues which made it happen (the latter process facilitated by a massive & manipulative guilt/propaganda campaign).

Your points are legitimate, as far as they go - but they're in apparent disregard of the undeniable fact that abortion is the front line of a very ugly theocratic putsch attempt now in progress. Expecting reasonableness in this context is about as practical as holding a discussion on the validity of Martin Luther's "95 Theses" during an IRA-UDF showdown in Belfast: the conflict has moved well beyond its nominal issues.

Note that this thread began with a look at prospects for one side's goal of employing the machinery of law enforcement to impose its absolutist ideology on all of us. Like every other form of freedom, abortion rights are laden with "gray areas" and subject to abuse - and those problems will be seized upon by the enemies of that freedom - but the elimination of those rights will clearly lead to much greater problems. Don't be surprised if your discourse, echoing the themes of anti-choicers' rhetoric, produces the reactions provoked by antis’ arguments.

Does this mean that discussions of the nuances and ambiguities of abortion are taboo until abortion rights are securely established in the US (i.e., not during our probable lifetimes)? No (though they might as well be in certain contexts), but it does require a recognition that such points are superglued to extraneous sharp-edged shrapnel, and cannot be handled as if they were unencumbered.

Those of us “opposing” you in this dialog are not necessarily small-minded, just under serious pressure and perhaps rather irked that you seem oblivious to this. I doubt that many Frenchmen in 1914 approved of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, but deploring the criminality of that murder would not have made you many friends while awaiting the German advance at the Marne 10 weeks later.

Take a good look at the rants which energize the rank-&-file of anti-abortion activists (and compare them to the facts in particular cases, such as “partial-birth” abortion): PZ has it exactly right that this culture war is driven by 200-proof emotionality. Whatever lah-di-dah niceties the National Review crew may chatter over their teacups, I guarantee they will neither call for a calmer approach nor contradict any of their own faction’s vast and steaming falsehoods. It’s not the pro-choicers who flogged reasonableness out of the arena.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 10:35 PM
I mean that the basic argument is an emotional attachment to babies (which is just fine) which is transferred to a relatively undifferentiated zygote.

I agree with mcubed. This is bald rationalization. The woman is having an abortion to prevent a baby.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 10:46 PM
So,NSE it is the same as abstinance or condoms. Actions taken to prevent a baby. Of course you cant prevent a baby, unless it isnt already a baby, which it isnt.

Thanks for your support.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 11:02 PM
So,NSM, it is the same as abstinence or wearing condoms. Actions taken to prevent a baby. Of course you cant prevent something that already is, so you agree that it isnt a baby being aborted. A pregnancy is being terminated to prevent a baby, which does not yet exist.

Thanks for your support.
#: Posted by on 01/09 at 11:05 PM
I agree with mcubed. This is bald rationalization. The woman is having an abortion to prevent a baby.

Preventing the potential for a baby to happen in the future is not killing a baby. Abstinence is similarly practised to prevent a baby.

-The Rev. Schmitt.
#: Posted by The Rev. Schmitt. on 01/09 at 11:13 PM
Isn't it also the case that 40-50% of all pregnancies, whether intended or not, end in "spontaneous abortion," i.e. miscarriage?

Wikipedia says it's 78%.

Legal restrictions won't change those numbers

Won't they? Since 1973, the number of annual abortions in the US has almost doubled.

It's a good thing this isn't Imperial America and I'm not the Emperor. If it were up to me I'd give every 14-year-old male in the country a state-sponsored vasectomy and only after his second consecutive tax return was filed would he be allowed to "reconnect". The women have had to pay the price for too long.

If they can abort, why do males need vasectomies?

If it were up to me, there'd be government-funded abortion on demand up to week 40 with no parental notification laws whatsoever. If a 9-year-old girl gets pregnant, she should be allowed - even encouraged - to terminate her pregnancy.

Overpopulation is eventually going to settle the abortion issue. Even right wingers tend to excuse current Chinese policies that lead to widespread abortions because they recognize that the Chinese absolutely must limit population growth if they are not to sink back into misery.

No, it won't. The USA needs to increase its population at least three-fold for that to happen, but current population projections hold that it will stabilize at far less than that.

You mean valuing human life is "purely emotional"?

Valuing the life of someone who happens to be homo sapiens by species but doesn't have a brain sufficiently developed for consciousness is emotional. It looks human, ergo it's a rational being that deserves moral protection.
#: Posted by Alon Levy on 01/09 at 11:59 PM
"If it were up to me, there'd be government-funded abortion on demand up to week 40 with no parental notification laws whatsoever. If a 9-year-old girl gets pregnant, she should be allowed - even encouraged - to terminate her pregnancy."

Ah, but that's rationality speaking. We can't expect rationality of the fundies.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 12:19 AM
From the CDC

The 6 million-plus pregnancies in 1996 in the U.S. resulted in 3.9 million births, 1.3 million induced abortions and almost a million fetal deaths. This means that 62 percent of pregnancies ended in a live birth, 22 percent in abortion and 16 percent in a miscarriage or stillbirth. Trends in birth, abortion, and fetal loss have varied over the past 20 years, but since 1990 the rates for all three have declined: live births, down 8 percent; induced abortions, down 16 percent, and fetal losses, down 4 percent.

Your comparison for 1973 to today is missing some important information. What is the change in total population or appropriate aged female population over this time period? Did it also double? increase by 50%? In addition, there is no data prior to 1973 because abortion was not legal in all states, so at the least data would be skewed, if available at all. So we cant really compare illegal vs legal abortions rates in the US, since illegal rates are unknown.

What is the point of using a 9 year old as your example when most 9 year olds are pre pubescent?

While we may agree on the end goal here, I again find your arguments flawed and misleading.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 12:25 AM
What is the point of using a 9 year old as your example when most 9 year olds are pre pubescent?

My point obviously applies only to pubescent girls. I deliberately used a very low age to highlight the fact that I don't think there should be parental consent below a certain age, say 14.

What is the change in total population or appropriate aged female population over this time period?

Between 1973 and 1990, when the number of abortions peaked, the USA's population increased from 211 to 249 million. I don't have hard data on your other questions, but any changes over these 17 years must have been small: slight aging of the population, and a slight reduction in the average age of puberty. Population growth can't possibly account for all or almost most of that growth in abortions.

Before 1973 there's no reliable data that I know of, which is a shame, because I honestly want to know what the effect of legalization on the number of induced abortions was. Normally I'd go for an international comparison, but there are huge cultural differences, which make such comparisons spurious.

While we may agree on the end goal here, I again find your arguments flawed and misleading.

Those aren't my arguments. When debating whether abortion is moral or should be legal, I don't talk about the number of abortions, but about fetal (lack of) consciousness.
#: Posted by Alon Levy on 01/10 at 01:10 AM
People sometimes talk about the population problem as if the limiting factor was space. What's in short supply is not standing room, bu raw materials such as oil for which substitutes aren't readily available. The rate of population growth is indeed declining but the momentum of growth means that the world's population will keep on growing past the the current 6.5 billion for some time. I personally think that a die back is the most likely end of the episode. Chashes are what normally happens in cases of exponential growth, but the better placed nations may be able to cope with the problem by less drastic means. Under those circumstances, abortions aren't going to effectively outlawed.
#: Posted by Jim Harrison on 01/10 at 02:17 AM
Of course you can have a lot of interesting discussion about "what can/can't, should/shouldn't be considered "life" with regard to zygotes, embryos, spontaneous abortions, and so on, and the ethical implications thereof. " But when you're actually facing the real-life consequences of a pregnancy which, for whatever reason, you can't cope with, the detached reasonings of other people about what ethical status they would personally allot to these things may not seem terribly important. Pregnancies mean different things to different people in different circumstances, and while it's very easy to theorise (especially when you're one whose biology means you will never be in that situation yourself), cold reality can be terribly different from theory - as the many, many pro-life women who seek abortions and pro-life men who facilitate them on behalf of their wives and daughters ought to understand. Looking for a one-size-fits-all solution based on (frequently abstract, and too frequently politically motivated) philosophising is pointless in an area so very complex, so very differentiated, so very subject to chance/fate/accident/whatever, and so very emotional and personal.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 03:21 AM
Pierce R. Butler: the abortion itself easily becomes the representation of all the issues which made it happen

...Which is among the reasons why abortion is often considerably more traumatic than other procedures. Needing an abortion is typically an indication that something has failed. Most women do not seek to have abortions, the way a person might seek to have plastic surgery. They have an abortion because the prospect of carrying a pregnancy full term is untenable. The comparisons some are making to birth control (or even abstinence) is way off the mark because birth control is proactive. Women (or couples) practice birth control precisely to avoid the necessity of an abortion. If there were no moral, ethical or psychological distinctions in most peoples' minds between birth control and abortion, then most women wouldn't bother with birth control at all.

But these distinctions exist for all but the most extremist of pro-choice advocates. The majority of Americans are pro-choice, but the majority are not "pro-abortion." Take the hard-core, fundamentalist minority of Americans who are rigidly anti-abortion out of the equation and you are left with a majority for whom abortion is an unpleasant, undesirable, but necessary fact of life. Treat that majority with disdain -- deny the distinction between birth control and abortion, poo-poo the ethical considerations involved in taking a deliberate step to terminate a viable pregnancy (vs. preventing that pregnancy from occuring in the first place), dismiss the psychological trauma that abortion can induce as "emotional attachment" -- and you will succeed in driving some of that pro-choice majority into the anti-abortion minority. Put plainly, people don't like being told their issues are silly, nor that they are acting out of "priggishness."

Note that this thread began with a look at prospects for one side's goal of employing the machinery of law enforcement to impose its absolutist ideology on all of us.

Note that my objection to this thread began not with a criticism or refutation of those prospects, but with the dismissive and reductionist attitudes expressed about people who are anti-abortion. Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land for 30+ years, yet many pro-choice advocates carry on with the rhetoric of the beleaguered and embattered. It rings as hollow as the Upper-Middle-Class- Straight-WASP-Male who claims that affirmative action means he's being discriminated against. People with every advantage in a given situation should learn to take the high road because it is human nature to champion an underdog. Right now, anti-abortion forces are the underdog and they are playing that card effectively, in particular by appealing to the conflicts most people have about abortion. I disagree with your contention that the nuances and ambiguities of abortion are taboo, in any contexts. I think those are what people who are pro-choice need to address, and some do this quite effectively. The biggest risk is with trivializing these ambiguities to the point where you come off sounding like what the more heated of anti-abortionists would call a baby-killer. If pro-choicers were not the ones who flogged reasonableness out of the arena, they are the one who need to bring it back.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 03:27 AM
If there were no moral, ethical or psychological distinctions in most peoples' minds between birth control and abortion, then most women wouldn't bother with birth control at all.

Why? Even if you honestly wouldn't have any qualms with aborting, it's easier and less physically painful to be on the pill or demand that any man you have sex with put on a condom than abort. In most countries there's also a cost issue: abortions cost more money than contraceptives and prophylactics.
#: Posted by Alon Levy on 01/10 at 06:28 AM
Before 1973 there's no reliable data that I know of, which is a shame, because I honestly want to know what the effect of legalization on the number of induced abortions was.

As you point out, the comparison is not perfect, but one can get a pretty good idea of what would happen by looking at the Romanian experience. At one point, Romania's then dictator decided that his country was underpopulated. So he banned abortion. The immediate result was a decrease in the abortion rate. But within a few years, the abortion rate was back to pre-ban levels. The maternal mortality rate, on the other hand, had skyrocketed. After the fall of communism, the ban on abortion was one of the first laws reversed. The immediate effect was a large increase in the abortion rate, especially late (second trimester) abortions. However, again, within a few years, the rates were back to pre-legalization levels. The maternal mortality levels went down to near western levels as well. So basically, it appears that banning abortion doesn't prevent it, it just makes it much more dangerous.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 06:54 AM
mcubed,
"Which is among the reasons why abortion is often considerably more traumatic than other procedures."

I think it this is both rather irrelevant and an example a reductionist attitude that you discount. As Eleanor say, pregnancies and thus abortions mean different things to different people. Since you bring it up, I would think that amputations could easily be as traumatic, and they are also indications of failure. This could be tested, there are likely to be a number of women who had both procedures who could be asked which was experienced as worst.

"many pro-choice advocates carry on with the rhetoric of the beleaguered and embattered"

I don't live in US, but I have the impression from news report as well as this thread that this is the case around some abortion clinics. So I am not surprised to find the rhetorics reflect the facts.

Alon,
I agree.

But I would also like to see a pill for men since that would bring even more advantages. Pills for women bring some risk to them while apparently pills for men will not incur risks. Condoms, while good for causal sex, is a bother for a couples.

And the pill for men will perhaps balance responsibilities and opportunities more. Today women (should) own the decision to stop pregnancies; it's their body. Tomorrow men (should) own the decision to start pregnancies; it's their sperm.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 07:15 AM
mcubed makes my point beautifully. The majority of Americans have no principled "pro-life" argument at all against abortion- if they did they'd have to be in favor of a blanket ban. (Even extreme pro-lifers are highly inconsistent in their positions, as Dianne has pointed out.) The restrictions they favor are based on little more than squeamishness- and patriarchal thinking. That's not a morally impressive position, and mcubed's attempt to defend it is confused to say the least. Why should I treat with respect a morally incoherent position that forces X to pay a steep price for Y's squeamishness about sex?
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 07:28 AM
P.S. The facts discussed in the following post urgently need to be factored into the moral equation, and I don't see the people mcubed is defending doing that at all: http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2006/01/blogging-for-choice-month.html
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 07:32 AM
Returning to the maps showing sexual disease frequencies, can I ask for a source? I'd like to see the maps for other diseases.

I would be very dubious about correlating incidence of sexual disease against abortion policy (as a signature of more general sexual policy) without also correlating them against other disease incidence rates. What you should be looking for is a correlation between sexual policy and sexual disease rates AND the lack of correlation between sexual policy and non-sexual disease rates. It could be that disease rates are higher across the board in those states.

(I should also insert the usual caution about leaping from correlation to causality too.)
#: Posted by Bob Dowling on 01/10 at 07:44 AM
Hey, remember guys, mcubed is pro-choice. Sure, every comment is then filled with anti-choice talking points, which do not accept any actual ambiguity over abortion whatsoever. Oh, and the people defending choice here are the real out-of-control self-righteous ones. All of this is classic trolldom: "I'm a liberal, but...[RNC talking points]." "I'm an atheist, but...[defense of Dominionists]." "It's you people here that are the real problem, because...[projected behavior]." It's actually sort of sweet to see. Many trolls don't even pretend anymore.

Anyway, lots of people have weighed in about Illinois being pink in the map. While it does not seem to make sense based on the current political climate, I would wager that it is based on the fact that Illinois still has a "trigger law" on the books. If the Supreme Court overrules Roe, the “policy” of Illinois to prohibit abortions “shall be reinstated.” The provision also bestows rights on the “unborn.” However, it doesn't ban abortion outright, since Illinois repealed its criminal statute. If a new ban were enacted, it might be struck down under the Illinois Constitution, though this is of course uncertain. So this is where "moderately likely" comes from in the illustration. The "trigger laws" are the land mine in all of this.

And of course, none of this takes into account that once Roe has been overturned to "let the states decide," the extremist fundamentalist Christians will start screaming for a federal ban. The current Republican leadership might figure, why not? They and their well-off backers will always have access to abortion, and they can transfer all the electoral frothing at the mouth to the evils of homosexuality. Note that they've been setting this up as a backup already.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 08:03 AM
oscar zoalaster said something interesting:

In several (10? 20?) generations this [male domination of a woman's reproductive system] may have some interesting social effects...and provide some interesting data for studying how genes affect behavior.

It already has had social effects...
A great new book by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner called FREAKONOMICS has correlated the legalization of abortion with the massive decline in crime since Roe vs. Wade in 1973.
According to the US Deparment of Justice (Bureau of Justice Statistics): In 1973 there were 44 million violent and property crimes compared to 23 million violent and property crimes in 2002. That's a reduction of almost 50%!
QUIZ:Can anyone tell me why Levitt and Dubner believe that legalizing abortion is correlated to lower crime rates since '73?
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 08:46 AM
Anyone who supports abortion at 40 weeks is "rational" only in the sense that it was "rational" for the Germans to kill the Jews, or for Catholics to kill the Protestants, or for anyone to kill someone else who is in the way. It's pure barbarism.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 09:26 AM
And anybody who supports restrictions that, by making access to abortion difficult, is causing timely, first-trimester abortions to be less likely, is thereby working to increase the freequency of 40 weeks + abortions. You did take that onboard in your moral calculus, right? Oh, and by the way, if you're American, what are you doing to help decrease the appalling rate of infant mortality in this country? Or do they stop counting once they're born?
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 09:37 AM
Do you really want to compare Jewish people to newborn infants?

This is exactly what I meant: it's the purely emotional argument, in this case using the appeal of little babies to draw out a kneejerk reaction.
#: Posted by PZ Myers on 01/10 at 09:45 AM
And of course, none of this takes into account that once Roe has been overturned to "let the states decide," the extremist fundamentalist Christians will start screaming for a federal ban. The current Republican leadership might figure, why not? They and their well-off backers will always have access to abortion, and they can transfer all the electoral frothing at the mouth to the evils of homosexuality. Note that they've been setting this up as a backup already.

A federal ban will be harder to set up. For one, the Supreme Court may well strike it down - if I'm not mistaken, Scalia said he would strike such a law down because abortion is up to the states to decide.

QUIZ:Can anyone tell me why Levitt and Dubner believe that legalizing abortion is correlated to lower crime rates since '73?

Because people born because of unwanted pregnancies commit crimes at higher rates people born because of wanted pregnancies. Furthermore, people only start lives of crime in their late teens, and indeed the Americans crime rates started freefalling in 1991, 18 years after Roe; more importantly, in states that legalized abortions before 1973, such as California and New York, the crime rate began freefalling a few years earlier than 1991. Mind you, until 1991, crime rates in the US had climbed, not fallen.

Anyone who supports abortion at 40 weeks is "rational" only in the sense that it was "rational" for the Germans to kill the Jews, or for Catholics to kill the Protestants, or for anyone to kill someone else who is in the way.

You're wrong, because humans become sentient in a gradual process starting shortly before birth and ending shortly after birth. So around birth, I ask, "What is the benefit of aborting?" just like I ask "What is the benefit of this?" when contemplating the morality of a lethal experiment on great apes. After birth, the answer is clearly none. Before birth, it is sometimes, "A lower likelihood of the pregnant woman dying," which precisely describes the instances in which women abort so late in the pregnancy.
#: Posted by Alon Levy on 01/10 at 10:22 AM
In response to the quiz question, Alon Levy said:

Because people born because of unwanted pregnancies commit crimes at higher rates people born because of wanted pregnancies.

Precisely!
When I first began hearing of this possible correlation I was dubious, but then it began making some sense. Nothing perpetuates poverty, desperation and the crime that goes along with it quite like an unwanted baby.
Besides abortion being a RIGHT, it happens to serve society by giving desperate parents an emergency exit out of possible lifelong poverty.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 10:49 AM
mcubed: If there were no moral, ethical or psychological distinctions in most peoples' minds between birth control and abortion, then most women wouldn't bother with birth control at all.

As Alon points out, there are also real physical, medical & economic consequences to the procedure. You do yourself no favors by treating this as an abstraction.

...dismiss the psychological trauma that abortion can induce as "emotional attachment"

This is a misrepresentation of others' words, and likely to provoke justified anger. PZ accurately used that phrase to describe a major motivation of the anti-choice movement as a whole, then you imply it's a sneer at the emotional distress of individual women. Either your own emotions are getting the better of your thinking, or you're deliberately distorting his words - I'm presently unable to think of another scenario.

...people don't like being told their issues are silly, nor that they are acting out of "priggishness."

Maybe they don't, but sometimes silliness and priggishness are valid analyses.

... dismissive and reductionist attitudes expressed about people who are anti-abortion.

An overwhelming number of those people are eagerly and foolishly embracing a carefully packaged assortment of misogynistic and hysterical lies. If they choose to resent criticisms of their positions on a personal basis, so be it: those who disagree are not thereby obligated to just shut up. Comments about emotionality are hardly out of place here...

Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land for 30+ years, yet many pro-choice advocates carry on with the rhetoric of the beleaguered and embattered.

How many "right-to-life" offices have been firebombed, how many anti-choice activists have been gunned down, how many "crisis pregnancy" centers are routinely surrounded by fanatical picketers, how many legislators introduce new bills to shut down or interfere with anti-choice services? Again, this is not a matter of abstractions.

If pro-choicers were not the ones who flogged reasonableness out of the arena, they are the one who need to bring it back.

We try, just as pro-science people try to emphasize it in confrontations with creationists. Just about anyone here can tell you what happens then - and creationists are a lot less histrionic and reality-challenged than anti-abortion crusaders.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 10:57 AM
Alon Levy: ...if I'm not mistaken, Scalia said he would strike such a law down because abortion is up to the states to decide.

Before November 2000, Scalia would have said that counting votes is up to the states as well. Please do not underestimate the tactical flexibility of the extreme right.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 11:14 AM
Do you really want to compare Jewish people to newborn infants?

What a dumb response. I'm not comparing Jewish people to newborn infants. I'm comparing someone who advocates infanticide to someone who advocates killing any other group of people.

But hey, maybe the Nazis would have been alright if they had limited themselves to killing newborn Jews? Right? Because that would have been a totally different thing?

This is exactly what I meant: it's the purely emotional argument, in this case using the appeal of little babies to draw out a kneejerk reaction.

I wouldn't let my children anywhere near someone who doesn't have an emotional reaction when it is proposed that we should kill 40-week-old babies.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 11:18 AM
Do you really want to compare Jewish people to newborn infants?

That is silly. I'm not comparing Jewish people to newborn infants. I'm comparing someone who advocates infanticide to someone who advocates killing any other group of people. This is a pretty elementary logical point.

But hey, maybe the Nazis would have been alright if they had limited themselves to killing newborn Jews? Right? Because that would have been a totally different thing?

This is exactly what I meant: it's the purely emotional argument, in this case using the appeal of little babies to draw out a kneejerk reaction.

Personally, I wouldn't let my children anywhere near someone who doesn't have an emotional reaction when it is proposed that we should kill 40-week-old babies.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 11:25 AM
I wouldn't want MY child anywhere near somebody who supports cuts in social spending that are sure to cost the lives of actual, already-born babies. Where's the outrage from pro-lifers about that?
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 11:57 AM
I wouldn't let my children anywhere near someone who doesn't have an emotional reaction when it is proposed that we should kill 40-week-old babies.

Cool, and a lot of people wouldn't let their children near someone who doesn't have an emotional reaction to miscegenation. What's your point?

But hey, maybe the Nazis would have been alright if they had limited themselves to killing newborn Jews? Right? Because that would have been a totally different thing?

Name me one important pro-choice advocate who supports forced abortion of any kind.
#: Posted by Alon Levy on 01/10 at 12:03 PM
Niels Jackson laughably proposes that infants are a "group of people" like Muslims, natives, or blacks. By that admission he is proposing that abortion is a form of sanctioned genocide.
That, my friends, is logical contortion of the most ugly kind. That kind of logic is what leads anti-choicers to bomb clinics and kill physicians; they really believe they're fighting genocide!
PLEASE keep your children away from me and mine. You know what they say about the apple not falling far from the tree and all.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 12:05 PM
alon: "humans become sentient in a gradual process starting shortly before birth and ending shortly after birth."

Could you cite your evidence for this? (I'm curious as to how it was determined and how definitive the evidence is, not challenging it, btw.)
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 12:59 PM
I just find it hard to believe that 25% of all pregnancies are aborted. This just can't be right.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 02:38 PM
Do you guys (all guys apparently) realize what barbarians you are? Someone brags that he wants 40-week-old babies to be killed. Now there is absolutely no dispute about their humanity. Everything is there -- heartbeat, brain, ability to feel pain, ability to recognize music or the mother's voice, etc., etc. It is 15 or so weeks past the point of viability, and there are lots and lots of preemies that are already out in the world at that point. And even the most fanatical liberals will usually admit that by the 40-week point, the only humane thing to do is let the baby live.

But here comes someone bragging that he favors letting them be killed.

And your reaction? To mock. To miss the point. To claim that the abortion isn't "forced" (as if that makes a difference). To deride as "emotional" anyone who objects to infanticide.

There's a reasonable case for the pro-choice position as to early-term pregnancies. But you men are just radically barbarian. You'd have fit in well in ancient Carthage.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 03:09 PM
For the record, I for one did not come out in favor of 40-week abortions, and you've been completely unresponsive to what I did say. But then, your cognitive faculties appear to be rather primitive. Trolls do have rather small heads, after all...
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 03:51 PM
Jason: I just find it hard to believe that 25% of all pregnancies are aborted. This just can't be right.

Sad but true (or at least consistently reported in studies year after year).

The numbers fluctuate mostly according to economic circumstances: in newly "liberated" Russia, the rate has gone over 50%.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 03:53 PM
I came across a review of a book which is available online: the memoirs of a doctor who did abortions. In it, he mentions that the current estimate (1939) was FIVE abortions for every completed pregnancy. I have not been able to verify that comment. I remember hearing that 1959 was the peak year for teenaged pregnancies. After effective birth control became available, the rates of teen pregnancies and abortions dropped. After abortion was legalized, whole hospital wards were closed that used to contain women ill or dying of septic abortion. Illegal abortion is about 3 times more dangerous than pregnancy & childbirth -- or more in third-world countries. Legal abortion is about 1/11 as dangerous (World Health Org. figures). To refuse women legal and thus safe abortion is to demand that they undergo a physical risk that they do not want. In no other case do we demand that people lend their bodies to the life support of others. Using someone's body against their will is generally frowned on. However, some people want to deny women the right to be moral beings who make their own decisions, and that has disastrous consequences. The government in Canada passed a law in the lower house (Parliament) re-criminalizing abortion. It got a lot of publicity but it still had to be passed by the upper house (Senate), where it was rejected. In the meantime, within a week a young woman at my old university residence bled to death trying to perform an abortion on herself. That had been unheard of for years. Coincidence? I think not! The only thing that making it illegal does is make it more dangerous, especially for those with fewest resources.

As far as post-abortion trauma goes, what do you expect if you have people yammering at a woman that she's an evil baby-killer? Studies have shown that the major feeling after abortion is relief. The aftermath of pregnancy and childbirth is depression in anywhere from 10 - 25% of cases. Scary, isn't it?

Here's the review: http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/3490824

The review links to the whole book.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 05:24 PM
Oh, and I should mention that the whole "late abortion" furor is a bit of a red herring. An unwillingly pregnant woman wants an abortion yesterday. It is restrictions on abortion that cause late abortions—lack of hospitals, lack of doctors, lack of referrals, committees that must meet to give permission, lack of funding, and the like. The exceptions would be medical conditions that are discovered later in the pregnancy.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 05:42 PM
Steve -- you're offended that I didn't respond to your irrelevant post? Great, you didn't defend 40-week abortions, but you were very eager to leap to the defense of the guy who did. (And you also conspicuously failed to register even an ounce of discomfort with his position.)

You said: I wouldn't want MY child anywhere near somebody who supports cuts in social spending that are sure to cost the lives of actual, already-born babies. Where's the outrage from pro-lifers about that?

Cuts in social spending = hacking to death a 40-week-old infant? How's that again? That's like saying that a cut in highway spending is the equivalent of the Holocaust -- it betrays a certain lack of seriousness, proportion, and the ability to discern the difference between budgets and hacking people to death.

And anyway, who says that cuts in social spending lead to anyone's death? Did that happen after the 1996 welfare reform bill?
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 05:46 PM
monado: After abortion was legalized, whole hospital wards were closed that used to contain women ill or dying of septic abortion.

Many of those wards were closed after the use of antibiotics became widespread following World War II - lots of women were still showing up at hospitals due to botched abortions, of course, but the mortality rate and hospitalization figures dropped significantly.

If abortion were re-criminalized, we would certainly see a rapid increase in medical complications (as is presently observed in Latin America). If the same punitive mindset now crusading to arrest pregnant women with positive test results for illegal drugs were running health care facilities, thus scaring a lot of should-be emergency patients from seeking medical help, the mortality rate would also jump.

Similar results of "pro-life" policies are already in evidence around the world, due to the "gag rule" now attached to US aid for health programs such that if any doctor, nurse, counselor, etc, even mentions the A-word - regardless of the patient's medical necessities - the entire facility loses its budget. The Bush-Cheney regime is very conservative with its compassion.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 06:09 PM
Niels how about a suggestion, since we're all such barbarians...why don't you pick up your toys and leave?

Clearly you sully yourself by spending time in our presence.
#: Posted by Sean on 01/10 at 06:34 PM
Alon, Dianne:

"humans become sentient in a gradual process starting shortly before birth and ending shortly after birth."

Sentience is about basic consciousness. As there is still not a clear definition of consciousness, no empirical tests currently exist to test consciousness as a whole. So I don't think the above can be supported.

OTOH selfrecognition, which is an indicator of consciousness is testable. Humans pass the test somewhere after 18 months.

(Excerpts from Wikipedia; hopefully someone knowledgeable corrects me if wrong.)

Niels:

You say "40-week-old babies" or "infants", but I think you mean fetuses. Otherwise the rest of us will feel much older than before.

I suspect a 40 week limit was about abortions for medical reasons. Where I live few fetuses are allowed to be aborted after week 22, the current neonatal survival extreme limit (though with almost certainty for damages).

2002 there was 31 of these abortions out of around 30 000, all on fetuses with severe and inoperable damages. Of the 232 late abortions (after week 18, the supposed achievable extreme limit), all was performed on drug addicts, young teenage girls or women with severely damaged fetuses.

The only reason I can see for that one would wish set a higher limit, is if there are strong forces opposing informed and regulated abortion practices...
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 06:40 PM
Absolutely no way that Illinois is more likely to ban abortion than Florida.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 06:53 PM
Are there any economic arguments against abortion?

Just curious. My impression is that the anti-abortion faction bases its arguments entirely on religion, morality, ethics, or affective considerations. I'd like to see an instrumentaly rational, economic and societal argument or two in favor of outlawing abortion.
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 08:56 PM
sara: Are there any economic arguments against abortion?

There are those who claim, somehow, that the world is facing imminent catastrophic depopulation. There are also those who make a slightly less irrational argument that "we" (the currently born) will need as many as possible of "them" (the, ahem, pre-born) to support us in our retirement.

This purported logic is a pro-natalist position, and if taken seriously would entail anti-contraceptive policies even more than anti-abortion crusades. As a demographic argument, it's painfully simplistic at best. If you're masochistic enough to pursue it further, the rantings of one Steven W. Mosher at the Population Research Institute should satisfy your cravings, and probably ruin your appetite for days; go to the Population Reference Bureau for more rational analyses.

(Hah! My spamblocker word is "progeny" - how can anyone not Believe?)
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 09:24 PM
With reproductive choices [along with being allowed to work and earn their own income] increasingly in the hands of women the tactics that men have to use to be deemed worthy of becoming fathers - dominance and violence are increasingly 'out', and love, consideration, and respect are the only viable routes left... Jerks around the world should donate tissue samples to a biology archive because their genes are less and less going to be a part of our species!
#: Posted by on 01/10 at 09:38 PM