In his recent column, Ross Douthat doubled down on his usual strategy (tactic?) of eliding the central, seemingly irresolvable conflict in abortion and muddying the waters with tangential issues. This time, he talked about sex-selective abortion and how it’s bad because it’s sex-selective (yes) and because it’s abortion (no). He expands on that in a blog post.
the story of sex-selective abortion creates more difficulties — both intellectually and, I would submit, emotionally — for abortion-rights supporters than it does for those of us on the pro-life side of the argument. For one thing, it presents a policy problem: If the right to abortion is a fundamental human liberty, how do you address sex selection without infringing dramatically on the right to privacy?
As far as blog warfare goes, this is a well chosen argument. As far as reality goes, it is as simple as pointing out to Ross that freedom compels us to allow lots of things that we think are bad. I support freedom of speech. I even support the right to say shitty things. I don’t support people saying shitty things. Whatever will I do? Surely this is an unresolvable dilemma that points to fundamental flaws in my ideology!
Except that it isn’t, and it doesn’t. We attempt to prevent behaviors that we want to remain legal the way that we always do, with social conditioning. It’s just as legal now for people to use the n-word as it was in 1950, but there are many, many less people using the n-word now, and thank goodness. We didn’t need to ban it to greatly reduce its use. We made it socially unpalatable to use it, and the social consequences are severe. Behavior does not spring completely from legality, and I’m glad it doesn’t. No civil society could exist if it had no lever to influence behavior other than the law.
Sex-selective abortion is bad. Abortion must remain safe and legal in a free society. Those two statements are no more contradictory than any of the myriad other “X behavior is bad/X behavior must remain legal in a free society” statements. That’s freedom, that’s democracy, those are the wages of liberty.
Update: No, I don’t think people are going to come up to me at a party and ask me what I think about them aborting a female fetus because it’s female. The social conditioning I’m talking about is building a culture that recognizes the equal value of women. That’s called feminism, and liberals have been working on it for decades. People in such a culture would surely choose to abort female fetuses because they are female far less often, without coercion.
The Moar You Know
You don’t. Any other questions?
srv
the story of accidental shootings creates more difficulties — both intellectually and, I would submit, emotionally — for gun supporters than it does for those of us on the anti-gun side of the argument. For one thing, it presents a policy problem: If the right to guns is a fundamental human liberty, how do you address accidental shootings without infringing dramatically on the right to guns?
daveNYC
I think you should renounce Stalin, just to be on the safe side.
rob!
I see Ross Douthat on Real Time a lot, and his arguments so dumb and poorly thought-out I’m shocked someone has the cojones to go on big time TV and espouse them.
In my personal life, I try not to get too vitriolic with my political arguments because, you know, sometimes I worry I might be wrong.
I would love to know, just for one day, what it feels like to be so uninformed, yet be so bloody confident in what I’m saying that I could go on TV or get paid a sh*t-ton of money by a newspaper to spout my opinions. Must be great!
david mizner
Good piece.
Gross stuff, even for Ross Douchehat.
Sex selection is a problem that grows of out sexism and patriarchy — people want to have boys because they’re more valued — but he would address that problem by…further oppressing women. Trying to solve a symptom by deepening the disease.
jacy
I believe abortion should be legal. Why someone gets an abortion is none of my business. The end. Wow, that was easy!
MattR
To me a more troubling issue will be when genetic engineering becomes more advanced. I firmly support abortion rights, but I don’t think I support the right to genetically manipulate the embryo to obtain certain desired characteristics (and I think I would support laws to outlaw that). But I do see a contradiction between saying that it is your body and you can destroy the embryo if you choose, but you cannot modify it to suit your wishes.
kdaug
Doctors make mistakes in the OR. People die.
Eliminate ORs?
Shinobi
I love how Douhat’s argument is all about abortion, while completely ignoring the root cause of these abortions.
Women in a misogynist culture that undervalues and limits the freedom of women are aborting female babies because female babies are seen as second class.
Hmmmm how can we possibly fix the consequences of misogynist societies that treat women like second class citizens? I know! Lets make sure to take away these women’s right to control their own bodies.
Jager
Ross needs to find that “chubby Reese Witherspoon” and just give it up.
cleek
If the right to free expression is a fundamental human liberty, how do you address restrictions on the sale of pornography without infringing dramatically on the right to privacy?
If the right to the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human liberty, how do you address bans on drugs without infringing dramatically on the right to privacy?
this is fun!
Han's Solo
Shinobi @ 9 – What you say + 100
Freddie deBoer
I renounce Stalin!
slag
How about…by promoting gender equality? As in…the exact opposite of restricting a woman’s freedom over her own body.
ETA Or what Shinobi said.
MBunge
“We attempt to prevent behaviors that we want to remain legal the way that we always do, with social conditioning.”
And the evidence that liberals are or will ever be willing to use social pressure or conditioning to reduce or eliminate sex-selective abortion is…where? I sure don’t see much in the first 12 responses on this thread.
Mike
Freddie deBoer
It’s called feminism, Mike.
uptown
And we’ve done so well with changing behavior using laws:
Svensker
Oh, man, the fruit is practically dragging in the dust here.
someguy
I wouldn’t worry about all these excess males causing trouble. They’re all brown people, and we’re conducting 3 pretty effective wars right now to kill off brown males. Gotta keep that assembly line runnning, or Xe’s profits are going to slip…
artem1s
I would argue that sex selection isn’t the issue…gender preference/privilege is the problem. The argument doesn’t really have anything to do with abortion now, does it?
MBunge
“It’s called feminism, Mike.”
And I believe that’s called a non sequitur.
The vast majority of responses so far either have no problem with sex-selective abortion or only have a problem with it because they equate sex-selective abortion with aborting females. Males fetuses are just out of luck. None of them see at all keen on using any sort of social conditioning/pressure/sanction to discourage or stop the activity.
Mike
Cat Lady
Men just need to STFU about abortion. The end.
The Moar You Know
MBunge: That’s really not the issue, toolbag. It’s not my business if you decide to have ten boys. Period.
Freddie deBoer
Mike, the problem Ross is talking about is people in the developing world aborting female babies because female babies aren’t valued in those cultures. If a culture that values women is created in those cultures, many fewer parents will choose to abort their female babies, and we can ameliorate the problem without coercion. If you can provide evidence that there is in fact a problem anywhere with parents aborting boys because they are boys, I’m happy to read it.
Litlebritdifrnt
What Cat Lady said.
Roger Moore
I think Matt Yglesias did a really good job of dismantling this argument. His point is that the problem is with sex selection rather than with abortion. If there were a sex selection pill, it would present the exact same social problems but without implicating abortion at all. Chunky Bobo just wants to highlight the abortion side of things because it’s a good excuse to bash abortion.
And, FWIW, sex selection technology is coming. It’s already being used agriculturally so, for example, dairy farmers don’t have to worry about half their calves being unproductive males. There are apparently some clinical trials quietly underway in people. The developers are trying to keep it under the radar to avoid controversy, but it’s going to be here sooner than anyone wants.
slag
Ha! And MBunge once again demonstrates his profoundly complex understanding of feminism.
Martin
This sounds like the voter fraud issue – investing vast intellectual energy in a problem that essentially doesn’t exist.
If Ross can’t write his op-ed in Chinese and have it published on the mainland so that the only appropriate audience can read it, then he’s not interested in actually solving the problem and instead just wants to jerk off in front of everyone.
NonyNony
Mbunge
Come back to me when there’s actually a problem where people are selectively aborting male fetuses because they really wanted a girl.
And not one or two anecdotes – the kind of systemic social problem that Douthat is actually talking about in his column where female fetuses are being aborted because they’re girls.
(And Douthat is an even bigger douchebag about this because in the societies where they use sex selection abortion to terminate female fetuses they ALSO have a culture where they would abandon/kill girl babies AFTER being born. The abortion side is a red herring – it’s the mistreatment of women that’s a problem and Douthat is twisting it to make it all about his personal opposition to abortion).
geg6
Exactly.
As usual, Duncehat is being a douche. He think he’s found the perfect argument against abortion. And as usual, the feminists are on the right side of both issues, abortion and sex selection. Because, as usual, those who are anti-abortion and those who use abortion for sex selection hate and fear women.
Same old, same old.
SST
@ Roger Moore:
The development of the technology and how soon it gets here is exactly what I was wondering about as I read both the column and the responses. As Patton Oswalt has said, “We’re science: all about coulda, not shoulda”
Martin
Is it a problem? Are families holding out disproportionately for one gender over another? There’s no evidence that’s actually happening in the US. Sure, some specific families hold out for a boy, others for a girl.
Seriously people, you can’t typically identify the gender until close to 20 weeks. That lands you in late-term abortion territory which is a quite rare procedure and you’re highly unlikely to find anyone willing to perform one without some diagnosed condition to warrant it. This is a bullshit argument from the outset.
Mattminus
I’m sure this will be assimilated into the right wing hive mind as “160 million blonde girls are missing! Someone call Nancy Grace so she can browbeat abortion!”
Han's Solo
Okay, so I read the Douthat column, and I don’t see a lot of evidence that this happens in the USofA. He makes one reference towards it happening in Asian communities in the US, but I don’t see any backup.
If this isn’t even happening in America why would we want to make laws banning it? I guess it is like voter fraud, a good way to rile up the rightwing base over a non-issue.
slag
It’s tellingly hilarious that, while sex-selection is well-known to be more detrimental to girls than boys, MBunge still goes off on a But-What-About-The-Boys?! rant. How odd.
And by “odd”, I mean “typical”.
Shinobi
This IS a problem in Asia, but not in America. On the other hand, this is relevant because OMG ABORTION.
Ruckus
Cat Lady
What if we agree with you on the issue? Would you like our support or not? The reason I ask is that a lot of men really are on your side. And then what about the women who seem to like to be chattel? Who are just fine with giving up their rights.
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
Off the top of my head, I can think of four children (three gay, one straight) who state flatly, in front of their parents, without being corrected, that their father/mother really wanted a boy/girl. My favorite being Edwina– the oldest of five girls and one boy (Edwin Jr.)– who says “I went as far as I could to please Dad… I play sports and I screw girls. For some reason, he didn’t appreciate all of my efforts.”
I know half a dozen more who believe it but don’t say it (sexual preference split), and a bunch more who don’t say it, but have major Daddy/Mommy issues.
Douthat believes children have a right to life. I believe they have a right to life with parents who want them. I support abortion for any reason: sex selection, abortion for physical defects, abortion because Mom broke up with Dad and can’t stand to be reminded of him any longer and abortion just because the parents(s) changed their mind
The alternative is kids who are likely to be unloved, neglected, mistreated and sometimes even physically abused, molested or killed.
Martin
No, this is a problem predominantly in China because China erected a different set of policies which force the gender selection issue. Get rid of (or modify accordingly) those policies and the selection bias gets a LOT better.
Zifnab
@Cleek:
Porn is legal. Why isn’t selling porn to minors legal? Because we don’t recognize a right to privacy for people under the age of 18.
Drug use (arguably) causes social harms that go beyond your own body. Specifically, they correlate with crime. People suffering from heavy addiction are more likely to steal or harm their neighbors.
David Hunt
One of the problems with being as tragically uninformed/ignorant/incompetent/stupid as Douthit, is that people at that level of mental awareness generally don’t know that they’re incompetent. They just go on in blissful confidence that they’re qualified in they’re field.
Either that or he’s a lying obnoxious douchebag. Or both. I generally block Douthit out of my memory minutes after watching any episode of Real Time that he’s on, but I’m pretty sure that I had both opinions of him simultaneously when the episode was playing, so I’m going to go with both.
Drinking Jim Crow
Um, the same way our society has addressed hate-filled expression without infringing dramatically on the right to free expression?
Felinious Wench
If someone really cared, you could have an amnio as early as possible to determine the sex of the baby early and abort, if wanted. Way before the 20 week threshold for “sight” sex determination.
Amazingly, this doesn’t seem to be a common trend.
geg6
OT, and I never read HuffPo (got the link at Digby’s place), but I sure hope Michael Keegan really sent this letter:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-b-keegan/dear-arnold-new-york-vict_b_886839.html
Bulworth
Bulworth likes this.
Martin
No it’s not. You think there’s only one alternative path? How about adoption? How about changing state and national policies so that alternative family arrangements are more favorable? How about fucking family counseling?
And you have a causation problem. Do the parents have a preference before the kid is born or do they not realize it until after the kid is born? Or do they come to that preference because of the kid (not blaming the kid, but discovery comes about in many ways). You need to establish that preference way back, basically before conception, before abortion becomes a ‘solution’ to the problem – and I’d bet you can’t do that.
L2P
Sex selection is the problem, not abortion. Off the top of my head, sex selection can be accomplished through:
Ovulation timing;
Centrifuge selection for x or y chromosome sperm;
Embryo implantation;
Selected abortion;
Infanticide.
I’m not sure why Ross sees abortion as the only one of those that’s problematic. Personally, I’m a little more troubled by infanticide, but that’s just me.
Shinobi
@Martin,
And India, because of the very high dowries that female children represent. But it is those two countries specifically, and not all of Asia, you are correct.
slag
Yes. Let’s require people to attend fucking family counseling until they learn to love their children. I like this strategery. Very sound.
Han's Solo
Ah, so you think only addictive drugs are illegal? Because quite a few illegal drugs aren’t physically addictive. Marijuana, LSD and shrooms come to mind.
For that matter several drugs that ARE addictive are legal, alcohol and nicotine for instance.
schrodinger's cat
Martin@45
This is a problem in India too and not just among the poor. Its because male children are more valued by the traditional patriarchal society. The traditional blessing to a newly wed woman is may you have 8 sons.
Cat Lady
@ Ruckus: If a woman asks for your support and you can offer it, fine. In all other instances, STFU. It’s just that simple.
Ruckus
Zifnab
Drug use (arguably) causes social harms that go beyond your own body. Specifically, they correlate with crime. People suffering from heavy addiction are more likely to steal or harm their neighbors. Or are they committing crimes because the drugs they use are not legally available? (I did see the arguably in there) Are many pot users committing crimes other than possession or selling?
slag
Exactly. Live near a Frat Row long enough, and you’ll be all about prohibition once again.
Makewi
Life can be hard. It’s better to just kill the little problems.
jnfr
@Cat Lady
What you said.
NonyNony
Martin
Thanks for the reminder – I’d forgotten how late sex determination happens. That makes the whole argument even more stupid since this is something that literally can’t happen legally in the US anyway, and is actually a problem in cultures where girl babies are already being abandoned or killed after they’re born.
That’s what needs to change – the idea that having a boy in those countries is somehow superior to having a girl.
ppcli
Oh for heaven’s sake. Exactly the same issues would arise if a pill or barrier were developed that could guarantee male offspring. Or indeed if it were discovered you could get the same guarantee from some kind of rhythm technique for whoopee (on a trampoline, perhaps? Bungee cords?). The fact that abortion is the technique used is completely irrelevant.
Once again the only talent Douthat has is revealed to be the talent for obfuscation. Douthat has written with some contempt for the philosophy classes he decided not to take at Harvard, but he clearly needs a few.
Edit: BTW – is the Reply function gone for good? I miss it, even though I’ve learned to make my own tags.)
Ruckus
Cat Lady
That’s pretty harsh for someone who if they didn’t get support of some men would not have a majority opinion in this country. Take out all the men and what do you have left? Some women do not agree that abortion should be legal. One is even “running” for president. But if you don’t need me on the side of personal rights, OK then.
Tonal Crow
Good argument, but you mis-spelled “Doubthat”.
Villago Delenda Est
I know of at least one woman who would have done the world a favor if she’d had an abortion…Douchehat’s mom.
Martin
Hmm. As a solution to:
You focused on the first one, and ignored the remaining five. How about we expand the use of family counseling for those last five then, and at least solve those problem? How many families would like to use family counseling even for the first one, but can’t afford it or don’t have insurance which covers it? Let’s work through the broad spectrum of solutions before we jump straight to the ‘let’s support abortion rights for sex selection before 95% of parents even know what sex their fetus is’ answer as the sole solution, okay? And let’s not completely overlook the much broader problem not of parents not loving their kids because of work/family/marital/financial/health whatever problems – none of which abortion solves – in favor of this one category, which, I might is vastly more likely in Woodrow’s example to be 75% more likely to be a heterosexual bias than a gender one (again, better addressed with counseling unless we’re also aiming for abortion of gay fetuses), unless we want to go down the sure to be civil path of suggesting that the homosexual tendencies of those 3 cases is really because daddy didn’t love them enough.
Jesus, this place is marinating in McArdle stupid sauce today.
The Moar You Know
Zifnab: Make them legal and the price falls to the cost of production. Which is minimal.
Crime problem solved.
Felinious Wench
Yep. That’s the stupidity of the whole discussion. Gender selection does not equal abortion.
Cat Lady
Look, my position is men should default to the understanding that they know nothing about what they’re talking about when it comes to abortion and vote for the candidates who promote the most unrestrictive policy. Nothing more is needed or wanted from men, I assure you.
freelancer
I support abortion because it’s a woman’s fundamental right to make decisions about her body. That said, your cheering on abortion because Mom and Dad might have some neuroses sounds a bit gratuitous. You mean life isn’t exactly like what people imagine it to be? Fuck it, abort the kid, otherwise they might not grow up under ideal circumstances?! It’s her right to, for whatever reason, but the several you ennumerate here display a shocking level of fuckupedness. It’s almost like you’re supporting a retroactive time-machine abortion for people who are already alive and through no fault of their own are disappointments to their parents. It is incoherent and smacks of wishful thinking that so many “pro-lifers” are guilty of when they sidestep any nuance about families and situations and just say something like “I support the family, and every child should have a mother and a father and not be abused and be raised right”.
Life is rough and complicated. Hugs are available. Helmets are too.
Han's Solo
ppcli at 57 – So my question is if you take abortion out of the equation, so you develop a pill or a procedure that can determine the sex of the child, is there anything wrong with it?
I don’t think so. But I don’t think there is anything wrong with a procedure that could insure that your child isn’t born with the same hereditary problems you have. If I had Tay-Sachs or heart disease or any of a million other genetic disorders, I’d want to spare my child from it.
Ruckus
Cat Lady
Just to clear the air here a little. I believe that men or women don’t have any right to restrict a woman’s right to choose. But until that argument becomes a cultural reality as well as the legal right it is I feel you need everyone on your side you can get. Not to make any decisions but for the right and the ability to make them. That is effectively being taken away from most or at least many women, I think that is wrong and I think I should be able to say so.
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
@45 Martin
I’m going to take a not-so-wild guess that you’re not a therapist, you’ve never worked in reproductive rights and you don’t know anyone in the first two groups.
Here’s the reality: Women get pressured to have the baby. Then they get pressured to keep the baby. After they keep the baby, they take it out on the baby. Or, if the dad didn’t want the baby, he takes it out on the baby.
By the way, I can also pretty much guess you don’t work for an HMO either, because you don’t have any clue about the percentage of plans that cover counseling, or the number of sessions they pay for in a year.
You go have a long talk with Andrea Yates or Susan Smith– or any of the thousands of mothers who didn’t generate those sorts of headlines, but didn’t want the baby and made it clear, indirectly — and then come back and tell me that there are good alternatives.
Lee
Cat Lady
As a father of 2 young daughters I say this will all sincerity: fuck off.
Defending their right to control their own bodies is part of my job description (Dad). I take that job very seriously.
cmorenc
@MattR:
What if instead, the genetic manipulation of the embryo was done to *correct* some otherwise debilitating physical or mental defect, to permit it to have normal rather than severely handicapped functionality? How debilitating, and in what sense would the purported “defect” have to be before you would allow it to be considered such, rather than merely a disallowed “improvement”? The distinction between intervening to prevent “defects” and intervening to produce “desirable” effects or improvements isn’t that easy for anyone to draw, and why should YOU be the one empowered to decide that issue for someone else’s embryo? Or else, should the only available option when there’s a potential genetic defect be a timely decision whether or not to abort the embryo before it’s too far along to permit that under Roe v Wade? All or nothing?
Han's Solo
Lee – Are you defending your right to control their bodies or their right?
Because it sure sounds like you want to control your daughters. Which is fine while they are young, but they grow up in time. And quicker than you would like.
Linda Featheringill
Men and the topic of abortion:
Everyone has the right to have an opinion. Period. You could make an argument for everyone having the right to express that opinion.
What I object to is a group of males making decisions about abortion and forcing women to go along with these decisions. [Actually, I would object if a group of females made decisions about abortion and then tried to dominate all females. But that’s not the way it usually works.]
ppcli
Han’s Solo at 66:
I don’t see any reason in principle why a family with six boys shouldn’t use such a method to make their next child a girl, or a family with six girls to make their next child a boy if that is what they want. I know at least two couples (one with three boys, one with three girls) who would have taken advantage of such a method for the fourth if it had been available.
The problems come up when there is a massive society-wide imbalance, as in China. The issues are complicated, and I don’t have a firm opinion on many of them. My point was just that the complications have nothing whatever to do with abortion as such.
Lee
@Han’s Solo
Which part of this did you find confusing?
slag
Martin-
You’re a bit over the top on this. Supporting abortion rights in all circumstances is not at all incompatible with supporting the availability of a vast array of family services. One does not supplant the other.
Cat Lady
Well, isn’t paternalism just the perfect bludgeon to wield when the men’s fee fees get hurt. Fuck off to you too Lee.
Martin
Wife in the first category.
Abortion doesn’t solve any of those problems unless you’ve got a time machine as part of the deal. What’s your actual solution then?
I know the percentage of plans that cover counseling and how many sessions they pay for in a year – I have one such plan. How many people have such a plan? Not many. Most people don’t have an HMO, and what an HMO covers under an employer sponsored plan is what the employer negotiates with the HMO as part of the group plan. There are only two things that are going to help your argument here:
1) A health insurance mandate, which isn’t yet implemented
2) Legislation that requires that counseling be required in all group plans, which, if it does exist, is only in MA and HI, and I doubt either of those states even requires it.
Otherwise, you need to address the 45 million Americans without healthcare, which is dominated by young people. Given that there’s not a lot of child birthing among the Medicare set, the lack of counseling coverage in plans among 20-40 year olds is actually quite high.
You aren’t making the case at all here. You’re saying that the mothers didn’t want the baby. Okay, that’s fine – I’m not arguing against abortion rights. I fully believe in abortion rights – including late term, and for girls under 18. But you’d have to make the case here that Andrea Yates or Susan Smith acted DUE TO THE GENDER OF THE CHILD for this to have any relevance to the conversation. Stop solving problems that don’t exist, or make the case that the problem actually does exist.
Your anecdote was dominated by gay kids. Guess what – gay/straight bias is a VASTLY bigger problem than gender bias by parents, and it’s neither solvable by abortion nor incurable if you just substitute counseling for praying for the vast majority of parents.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
Actually it’s a problem in several Asian countries. India also has a serious problem with skewed gender ratios. South Korea had a serious problem about a generation ago but has shifted back to a more normal ratio more recently. South Korea was able to weather the social problems associated with their skewed ratio in part because they were rich enough to attract women from poorer countries who were willing to immigrate to marry up from poverty.
Han's Solo
Lee – Then why are you pissed at Cat Lady? She isn’t trying to take your daughter’s rights away; she just thinks men like us have no damn clue and should STFU about abortion.
I agree with her.
Lee
@Cat Lady
If the bludgeon fits, I’ll wield it.
Since we can’t rely on all woman to defend their own rights are you will to take the chance and reject support from men?
So you would be ok with someone making the exclamation that women should just STFU about the NFL since it is a male sport?
Or are you just a hypocrite?
Martin
No, I’m not. The problem is that nobody ever gets to the vast array of family services when you spend all of your time fighting over imaginary problems. There is no significant gender bias problem relative to parents and their children in this country, and where there is one, abortion is not a solution. Full stop. Don’t even entertain the idea that abortion is a variable here because it’s not.
Woodrow is arguing that women that are pressured into having kids have a solution in abortion. Well, clearly they don’t because they can have an abortion now and they didn’t get one. Why? Well, probably due to the same forces that pressured them into having kids in the first place. It’s a stupid argument and not germane to the topic. And he’s also arguing that some kids (sample set of 4, 3 being gay) assert that their parents wanted a different gender kid. Okay, but abortion doesn’t solve that, and it’s not established that the preference existed at a time early enough to do anything about it (genetic manipulation, for example). Further, his conclusion was that kids are going to be neglected and abused, presumably, because parents lack the ability(?) to selective abort kids due to gender, which I posit is utter bullshit, both that the remedy is actually a remedy, and that it’s even a reasonable remedy given other options.
Lee
@Han’s Solo
Because it is a stupid argument to make.
So only veterans should speak about war?
Astronauts about space?
Pick a topic, and only those that have directly experienced it or can experience it should be allowed to comment?
Comrade Kevin
Keep digging that hole…
Cay
What Cat Lady and Han’s Solo just said. My blood pressure went up 10 points reading this thread!
Shinobi
@Lee
NFL is a terrible example there. The NFL is a male sport because of gender biases in this country, not because of some biological difference, which is what makes abortion a bigger issue for women than men.
I’m trying to think of a similar example where the state attempts to exert control over the bodies and actions of men. Maybe the draft? But that’s not necessarily biological, one could argue that is also a result of sexism.
I don’t totally agree with Cat Lady, I think men who support choice are great, and I appreciate them. I think men who don’t are assholes and should STFU. This makes me sound like I’m only interested in including people who agree with me. Really I’m only interested in listening to people who aren’t trying to make laws or restrictions that will never apply to them.
BattleCat
I’m liking the looks of this thread.
Frankly, if abortion were more prevalent then I wouldn’t need to buy condoms by the bulk anymore.
As for sex-selective abortion, whatever. I’m alive, they’re not, tough shit. They don’t even know what they’re missing.
Ruckus
Linda Featheringill
This is my point as well. Telling me to STFU accomplishes nothing. And if I didn’t agree on the topic it would probably just piss me off and make me a bigger asshole. And I don’t think women or any group which has an issue of self-determination should pass on using any help they can to move the law and society towards that. Using a probably inappropriate metaphor, it’s throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
@65 Freelancer
I’m not cheering anything on. I’m expressing a very simple, completely child-focused idea: People who don’t want to have children, shouldn’t.
Idea #2: If Mom doesn’t want to have the baby and Dad does, Mom– who has to do the heavy lifting– wins.
Folks get all Saletanesque about the issues, but if you begin with the question “Is it fair to the child to compel parents to have a child they don’t want? Is it fair to force them to have a child if they’re not sure?” this gets very simple.
People who want to do something tend to work very hard to achieve the goal, and that can overcome a lot of obstacles. People who don’t want it tend not to do it well, and that can erode an awful lot of advantages.
If you believe Ghod gives every child a soul the minute the egg gets fertilized– and that each soul gets one and only one chance at existence– you can argue that a slim chance of a decent life that begins as an unwanted child is better than nothing. I don’t believe that nonsense, but it at least has some internal logic.
To argue that children should be obligated to suffer for some other reason– especially reasons that boil down to “that possible future is really icky”– is morally bankrupt.
As a number of people have pointed out, this actually boils down to whether you believe parents should have the right to select a baby’s sex. I don’t welcome the concept of parents ordering babies off the genetic menu, but if the alternative is “the child suffers because the parents are unhappy with it”, I like that one even less.
Finally, if you really believe in rights, you should be willing to frame your support in a way that indicates full understanding of all possible consequences.
Really, what you and some other people are saying reminds me of the 60’s, when people had to invent medical reasons why they didn’t want to have a baby, even though health issues had nothing to do with it. Not wanting a third boy and no girls, or a cleft palate or (if you believe this idea) a homosexual– or even a brunette– doesn’t make you a wonderful person. But saying they ought to have the kid anyway is a lot worse.
Brachiator
Great post. Reproductive rights means that you don’t pry into or evaluate people’s choices.
By the way, I would only say that sex-selective abortion is selfish, not bad. But the bottom line is that the reasons behind this choice ain’t my freaking business.
@MattR:
Wouldn’t genetic engineering to prevent a fatal disease count as manipulating the embryo to obtain certain desired characteristics?
Linda Featheringill
I do have a question about the women who have the gender-selecting abortions in cultures where women are basically untermenchen:
Are these women being pressured into having abortions?
It would seem to me that in such cultures, a decision like this would likely be made by the husband or other men.
schrodinger's cat
Linda @91
Short answer. Yes.
Husband and mother-in-law most likely.
Paula
What about “selective reduction”? Women that take fertility drugs have multiple embryos, or as some would call them babies. Anyone know if the new laws restricting abortion rights in some states covers selective reduction? I’m thinking no, because it is a rich women’s right.
Cat Lady
Yeah Lee, watching and playing football is EXACTLY like having a problem pregnancy! When I said men should STFU because they have no idea what they’re talking about, I was talking about you.
ETA: and what pluege just said, also too.
pluege
the mistake pro-abortion rights people make is in arguing about abortion at all. Abortion isn’t the issue. The potential human/fetus/fertilized egg/whatever isn’t the issue either. The fundamental issue and right the forced birthers attack is the inalienable right every person has to dominion over themselves.
Given that people have such an inalienable right, then a woman should be able to do anything thing she damn well pleases with herself for her own reasons and its no one else’s business regardless of any belief system – end of story.
And what should really scare people about the forced birthers is that they are willing to impose their beliefs on others in violation of others inalienable right to dominion over themselves. A person willing to violate such an inalienable right in one instance is perfectly capable of making up other instances where such violation they think is warranted.
Brachiator
@Linda Featheringill:
Very interesting question. But abortion may be one of a number of bad options. A quick google search turned up an article with this sad observation about sex selection in India:
And there is also this, from the same article:
Back in March, Indian publication Central Chronicle reported that “invariably, the women who killed their infants revealed that the dowry system, grinding poverty and the harassment from inebriated spouses have prompted them to send their female child to the abode of Yama (the God of death in the Hindu mythology).” As one village woman told the paper: “We have lived a miserable life. Why bring more girls in the world to face a similar fate?”
BattleCat
@94:
I don’t think a problem pregnancy is a real possibility for you, Cat Lady.
Cat Lady
@BattleCat – it’s not about me, but you don’t have any idea about me anyway.
BattleCat
@98:
I’m trying real hard to troll here, but without the reply button its almost useless.
This shit is really killing me.
taylormattd
OMFG.
You have the audacity to write this?
Are you fucking kidding? You have ZERO credibility on the issue of a woman’s right to choose, given you have already declared you are not going to vote for Obama in the general election.
How’s about instead of this faux-concern for reproductive rights, you drink a big cup of shut the fuck up.
Felinious Wench
I absolutely want the support of pro-choice men. Hell, any man who wants to support me on my journey as a woman in a society that seems to really want to tell me what to do with my body, please, be someone for me to lean on.
But, these are MY issues to navigate. I don’t want a man TELLING me what I should do. Or under what conditions my choices of what to do with my body are acceptable. That’s women’s work…a man just can’t *get* what a woman’s body goes through and the level of choice we face when deciding whether to keep or terminate a pregnancy. What happens to our bodies and our minds…only another woman can truly identify. In the same way there are things about men that I can try to understand, but I think only another man can *get.*
The vast majority of people getting involved in taking our reproductive rights away are men trying to tell women how they should be women. That’s flat-out infuriating.
So yes, for me, I absolutely want that support as I work out these questions of how to navigate all of these complicated questions. But in the end, these are questions for ME to answer for myself without a man’s input on what the answer should be for all women, including me.
Joel
No need; you’ve already provided a shining example of what a failed man looks like.
Freddie deBoer
Look, if men who support women’s rights and reproductive rights just “shut up about abortion,” then only non-feminist men will participate in the conversation, and we’ll lose the legal right to abortion. Are you under the impression that pro-life men are going to do as you say and shut up about it? This is a blog where people love to worship process over principle. OK, well look– telling men to shut up about abortion is probably the easiest way imaginable for restrictions on abortion to pass. So what’s your priority? Talking tough? Or protecting a woman’s right to choose?
No one of Importance
She already told you how to be an ally. Vote right and shut your mouth. This thread is full of men expounding on a subject that doesn’t affect them and never will, and ignoring the voices of the women who *are* affected. That’s not allydom, that’s oppression 101.
There is no woman’s health issue on which men’s views are wanted or needed, unless the view is “it’s up to the woman.”
Now let’s have your little local Fucen Idjit come along and tell me that men pay for their offspring, so women need to shut up like the valueless incubators they are, and call me a frustrated lesbian for daring to question the might of the overweaning male voicebox.
No one of Importance
Funny how letting women speak and listening to women aren’t on your list of options. Says wonders about what kind of ‘supporter’ you are.
No one of Importance
Here we go again. As soon as a woman speaks out of turn, her attractiveness/fecundity/sexuality is derided.
I wonder if men who trot this out ever wonder how likely it is that their mighty sceptre of extreme fertility is likely to ever get within twenty feet of a receptive vagina without the aid of Rohypnol?
Once again Balloon Juice shows its true colours. Really, *guys*, no woman needs ‘support’ like yours. You can keep your stale, underpowered sperm and hand-roughened wangs to yourselves too.
Cat Lady
No One of Importance Word. It’s just a couple of commenters though, not Balloon Juice. This place is great. The irony is the perception from some of the men here that I’m probably a big childless hairy dyke. It’s no one’s business, but I’m not big, childless, hairy, or a dyke, and the point being it shouldn’t make any difference.
Lee
So you are telling a whole gender to sit down and shut up about civil liberties.
How did women feel about that when men were saying the same to you pre-1920?
different church-lady
Here’s the deal: do people (couples or women) have the right to abort based on nothing but gender preferences? Yes. Unequivocally yes.
Are people god damn fucking ten thousand watt selfish assholes (bold double underline) for aborting based on nothing but gender preferences? Also unequivocally yes.
D L-C +2 (although at the moment it feels like more…)
No one of Importance
Get back to me when men need abortions.
Ruckus
I have words but none of them will probably convince some people that not all men want or need to control women in any way. Or that women can find allies in their fight for self-determination on the male side of the table.
So my final question is, as a white male adult can I fight for civil rights, women’s rights, children’s rights or do I just have to fuck right off on all of them? Because none of these affect me directly but those groups having them makes my world a dramatically better place.
murbella
What about your standard tactics?
libertarian reach around.
some examples.
murbella
those guys are all libertarians.
just like you.
i think we should call you all illibertarians, because that is what you really are.
Have you read the Paradox of Libertarianism by Dr. Jim Manzi?