No One is Absolutely Anti-Abortion

Via Mahalanobis comes this excellent gedankenexperiment to check the claimed beliefs of anti-abortion absolutists against their intuitions.

Let's ask ourselves what position opponents of abortion — say on the Supreme Court or elsewhere — might take if two biological facts about the world were to change. The first assumption we'll make is that for some unknown reason — a strange new virus, a hole in the ozone layer, some food additive or poison — women throughout the world suddenly become pregnant with 10 to 20 fetuses at a time. The second assumption is that advances in neonatal technology make it possible for doctors to easily save some or all of these fetuses a few months after conception, but if they don't intervene at this time all the fetuses will die.

Abortion opponents who believe that all fetuses have an absolute right to life would surely opt for some intervention. Otherwise, all the fetuses would die.

Their choice would thus be either to adhere to their absolutist position and be overwhelmed by a population explosion of overwhelming magnitude or else act to save only one or a few of the fetuses. The latter choice would be tantamount to abortion since all the fetuses are viable. It would, nevertheless, take someone very, very doctrinaire to opt to have the birth rate increase, at least initially, by a factor of 10 to 20.

[...]

The argument's point is that if certain contingent biological facts were to change, then presumably even ardent abortion opponents would change their position, suggesting that their position is itself contingent and not absolute. After this is acknowledged, the haggling over the details might proceed.

There is in fact a sense in which this argument is little more than an extension of current possibilities: how many anti-abortionists would refuse a woman who'd undergone IVF and was subsequently found to be carrying, say, 5 viable fetuses, the chance to have at least some of them terminated so that she could actually live to carry the others to term? How many "pro-life" advocates would call her a mass murderer for bearing only 2 of the 5 to term?

Comments

[odocoileus]

The Catholic church and other anti choice groups oppose IVF for that reason - the necessity of disposing of viable embryos.

[Nanette]

It's possible that you are giving them too much credit.

I can't remember the exact details (and a quick search failed to produce them), but a year or two ago there was a woman in the UK who was carrying 8 (or so) fetuses. Her doctors warned that in order for a few to have a chance to survive, some would have to be removed.

That made perfect sense to me, and to some pro-"life" people, but there were definitely a number of them agitating for her to carry all of them to term and not murder her own babies and blah blah blah.

From my recollection, this is exactly what she tried to do, but unfortunately, all 8 died.

[Julian Elson]

While many pro-lifers care more about restoring sexual propriety or making sure women get their "just deserts" than about fetal life, isn't this way of putting it a bit silly? By this logic, hasn't Belle Waring shown ( http://crookedtimber.org/2004/06/18/by-the-power-of-stipulation-i-have-the-power ) that no one is really absolutely anti-torturing-innocent-children-to-death? Can't you make up hypotheticals in which pretty much anything is acceptable?

[Abiola Lapite]

"By this logic, hasn't Belle Waring shown that no one is really absolutely anti-torturing-innocent-children-to-death?"

But that *is* indeed what she has done! Kantian absolutes notwithstanding, the fact is that one *can* sometimes justify harming a few innocents for the sake of the many; the only question is how to distinguish in a principled manner between when such a course of action is acceptable and when it isn't.

In the end we are *all* utilitarians to some degree, and while it is certainly laudable to take a stand against government-endorsed torture, the argument that torture, even of the innocent, is "never" justified no matter what the circumstances, is manifest nonsense. If an airtight case could be made that torturing an innocent child could, say, get his terrorist father to take his finger off the trigger of a nuke set to turn London into ashes, I'd let the torture happen and struggle with my conscience afterwards (assuming I lived to have an afterwards, of course). I'd think you too would do the same if the decision were yours to make and your own city under threat, rather than cheerfully allowing yourself and all your acquaintances to perish while entertaining the smug thought that at least you opposed torture ...

"Can't you make up hypotheticals in which pretty much anything is acceptable?"

Even assuming the truth of this, it hardly means that such exercises are therefore pointless: extreme thought-experiments provide a useful way of forcing people to fully think through the consequences of the positions for which they make absolute claims.

The fact of the matter is that many anti-abortionists take the ridiculous stance that even blastocysts are full human beings, and hypotheticals like the one Paulos provides are useful for showing up the absurd consequences to which their positions can lead.

In any case, this is all something of a diversion: we aren't really talking about some outlandishly farfetched scenario, as the IVF example I provided shows, and if you go to the Mahalanobis thread I linked to, you'll see from my comment there that it isn't hard to get the same conclusions from utterly plausible assumptions about future developments in medicine.

[Kenji]

It's interesting that this discussion developed into this direction. I just finished reading an article by Jeremy Waldron in the latest issue of the Columbia Law Review regarding torture(http://www.columbialawreview.org/articles/index.cfm?article_id=781). I wanted to point out that his article deals exactly with the issue above, just in case someone was interested.

[Frank McGahon]

Isn't this rather beside the point? Yes the hardcore pro-lifers who maintain that life begins at conception are wrong in this supposed belief but so what?

a) The hardcore pro-choicers are equally wrong in their supposed belief that a fetus is a clump of tissue right up until the mother decides to give birth as Megan McArdle pointed out the other day.

[If your typical strongly pro-choice woman is five months pregnant, and has a miscarriage, she does not call her mother to say "I lost the fetus"; she sobs "I lost the baby". Nor would she vote to allow a woman to slit the throat of her premature baby, even though this is functionally equivalent to a procedure that she thinks should be legal, the "intact dilation and extraction" aka the "partial-birth abortion".]

http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/005540.html

b) It's not the hardcore pro-lifers who have their way at the moment, nor are they ever likely to - the best that they can hope for is for Roe to be overturned allowing a number of states to ban abortion, so far as I can tell none of whom would seek to prosecute anyone who had obtained an abortion in another state for "murder".

c) It's not the middle of the road pro-choicers who have their way at the moment but the hardcore pro-choicers who have legal abortion right up to birth enshrined as a constitutional right. Including the right to slice a living nine month fetus into pieces and dump it into the medical waste bin.

d) Those selfsame hardcore pro-choicers avail of arguments such as this to discredit any kind of "moderate" pro-life position as they view this "right" as so inalienable that no restriction of any sort be permitted lest it be a slippery slope towards an outright ban.

e) The characterisation of this issue as a "right" is part of the problem as it encourages i) the maximalist position as per d) and ii) the notion that poor women in anti-abortion states would have their "rights" infringed. But there's no reason why poor women in, say, Alabama wouldn't be able to obtain abortions. Poor women in Ireland are able to obtain abortions in the UK and I'm sure all of those pro-choice organisations would be quite happy to fund abortions for poor women in anti-abortion states.

Incidentally, I'd suggest that most people actually fall outside the hardcore pro-life and hardcore pro-choice positions. I'd be willing to bet that there would be popular support for an abortion regime which permitted first trimester abortions, and second trimester under certain conditions but outlawed those in the third trimester.

[Abiola Lapite]

"Yes the hardcore pro-lifers who maintain that life begins at conception are wrong in this supposed belief but so what?"

Sure, it's of no consequence, even though they're only the ones driving the Republican "base" and all ...

"The hardcore pro-choicers are equally wrong in their supposed belief that a fetus is a clump of tissue right up until the mother decides to give birth as Megan McArdle pointed out the other day."

The "hardcore pro-choicers" have absolutely *no* influence today in an American government dominated on all levels by the GOP, so I'm not going to waste my time debating their stance.

"It's not the hardcore pro-lifers who have their way at the moment, nor are they ever likely to"

This is absurd: do you really think all those televangelists who have an open door to the White House, and all those grassroots types angered by Harriet Miers' lack of strong anti-choice credentials, are voiceless? Do you think the likes of Scalia and Thomas, both of whom are avowed Catholics staunchly opposed to abortion, are mere pawns?

"It's not the middle of the road pro-choicers who have their way at the moment but the hardcore pro-choicers who have legal abortion right up to birth enshrined as a constitutional right."

Again, this is nonsense. You might actually want to *read* the "Roe v. Wade" decision and the subsequent "Planned Parenthood v. Casey" judgments yourself at some point to see why.

"Including the right to slice a living nine month fetus into pieces and dump it into the medical waste bin."

Pure propagandistic claptrap. There isn't any such "right" endorsed by the courts and there never has been; 99% of all abortions are performed before 24 weeks, and the extremely small number of third-trimester abortions which *are* performed are only carried out when doctors determine that the foetus has extremely severe abnormalities or carrying the pregnancy to term would endanger the mother's health. Fully 30 of America's 50 states currently have laws on the books regulating third-trimester abortions, with many of these prohibiting it outright, all with the full grace and favor of the Supreme Court: so much for that as a "right" then.

"the notion that poor women in anti-abortion states would have their "rights" infringed. But there's no reason why poor women in, say, Alabama wouldn't be able to obtain abortions. Poor women in Ireland are able to obtain abortions in the UK and I'm sure all of those pro-choice organisations would be quite happy to fund abortions for poor women in anti-abortion states."

This is absurd, especially in light of the recent Katrina tragedy in which great numbers of poor people were stuck in New Orleans when the storm hit, despite government assistance. Your comparison of America to the UK and Ireland is preposterous given how vast the United States is and the reality that most states are landlocked, not two small islands with just a tiny stretch of water to separate them (and in any case women can simply cross the border to Northern Ireland).

There are an unusually large number of straw men and outright false claims in this argument of yours, I must say.

[Ross]

"(and in any case women can simply cross the border to Northern Ireland)"

Actually abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland as well as the republic.

[Frank McGahon]

"The "hardcore pro-choicers" have absolutely *no* influence today in an American government dominated on all levels by the GOP, so I'm not going to waste my time debating their stance."

Huh. The hardcore pro-choicers don't need to have any influence on the Republican party (They already have plenty of influence on the Democrat party which may well be in government soon). There is already a hardcore pro-choice abortion regime in place most of the provisions of which command popular support among supporters of both parties. Despite the noise made by the religious right and the views of Scalia and Thomas, there is no prospect of a nationwide abortion ban being implemented. The best that the pro-life constituency can hope for is for Roe versus Wade to be overturned which is not the same thing at all.

"Again, this is nonsense. You might actually want to *read* the "Roe v. Wade" decision and the subsequent "Planned Parenthood v. Casey" judgments yourself at some point to see why."

The vehement opposition to the Federal "partial birth abortion" act (which specifically related to the D&X procedure) by all pro-choice organisations rather belies the notion that the constitutional "right" to an abortion doesn't include those carried out in the third trimester. As does the Supreme Court ruling, Stenberg 2000 that Nebraska's pba law violated the Constitution.

"99% of all abortions are performed before 24 weeks, and the extremely small number of third-trimester abortions which *are* performed are only carried out when doctors determine that the foetus has extremely severe abnormalities or carrying the pregnancy to term would endanger the mother's health."

But I'm not talking about the 88% of all abortions carried out in the first trimester (which I don't have a problem with) or even the 11% carried out in the second trimester (although I'm a lot more queasy about those) but rather the 1% in the third trimester some of which involve dismembering a live fetus, a procedure permitted under the current "hardcore pro-choice" regime in most states.

http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_BPBA.pdf

"Fully 30 of America's 50 states currently have laws on the books regulating third-trimester abortions, with many of these prohibiting it outright, all with the full grace and favor of the Supreme Court: so much for that as a "right" then."

Looks like it's 36 with 13 outright (albeit apparently unconstitutional) bans

http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_RPA.pdf

The Supreme court guarantees an abortion post-viability so long as it is necessary to preserve the mother's "health". Sounds like a "right" to me, however it is "regulated". Further, "health" and "life" can be very loosely interpreted. As I recall, UK law provides for an abortion *only* if there's more risk to the mother's physical or mental health than if she continued with the pregnancy yet in practice this amounts to abortion on demand.

"This is absurd, especially in light of the recent Katrina tragedy in which great numbers of poor people were stuck in New Orleans when the storm hit,"

Oh come on. There's a huge difference between one woman buying a bus ticket (or making a phonecall to a pro-choice charity) and evacuating an entire city. How much does it cost to get a bus from, say, Alabama to another state? 30 bucks or so? It's probably less expensive than the flight or ferry from Dublin to London. (By the way abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland too)

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"Pure propagandistic claptrap. There isn't any such "right" endorsed by the courts and there never has been; 99% of all abortions are performed before 24 weeks, and the extremely small number of third-trimester abortions which *are* performed are only carried out when doctors determine that the foetus has extremely severe abnormalities or carrying the pregnancy to term would endanger the mother's health."

What is your basis for believing the clause beginning with "are only carried out"? All the research I have done on the topic has shown that statistics on the reason for late term abortions are quite specifically not kept and doctors are not required (and in fact do not) keep any publically accessible records on why late term abortions are performed. Every attempt to keep such statistics (even on an anonymous basis) has been to my knowledge successfully thwarted by NOW and NARAL. On what basis do you come to your conclusion?

[Abiola Lapite]

"The hardcore pro-choicers don't need to have any influence on the Republican party"

Sure, which is why they've been able to successfully get the FDA to permit general access to the morning-after pill: no wait ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/16/wpill16.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/16/ixworld.html

["Democrats yesterday accused the Bush administration of denying women the morning-after pill because it offends the religious Right.

The row re-ignited America's passionate debate on the role of Christianity in everyday life, which has seen some liberals allege that the country is becoming a theocracy.

Social conservatives believe that the morning-after pill encourages sexual activity. Liberals counter that it will reduce abortion."]

Note that the GAO has established that there were several ... "unusual" aspects to the FDA's decision-making on the matter, so you can't say it wasn't partisan anti-abortion politics driving this.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/11/15/gao_fda_ruling_on_morning_after_pill_was_unusual/

You insist that the religious right anti-abortion zealots aren't the ones to worry about, yet here they are successfully blocking a measure with the potential to do a great deal to reduce the number of second and third-trimester abortions. The evidence is clear: these groups would happily ban *all* abortion as soon as they could get away with it, and their concern for "states rights" on the issue is as hypocritical as their concern for "states rights" only when it happens to support criminalizing and demeaning the activities of gays.

"The vehement opposition to the Federal "partial birth abortion" act (which specifically related to the D&X procedure) by all pro-choice organisations rather belies the notion that the constitutional "right" to an abortion doesn't include those carried out in the third trimester."

That group X believes Y does not establish anything whatsoever about the truth of the matter. The fact is that Planned Parenthood v. Casey establishes that the government has the right to restrict abortions after viability, which is an even sterner test than that in Roe v. Wade, and if D&C abortions were indeed a "right" as you claim, there wouldn't be any need for NARAL and co. to agitate against legislators wishing to ban them.

"but rather the 1% in the third trimester some of which involve dismembering a live fetus, a procedure permitted under the current "hardcore pro-choice" regime in most states."

You may not like it, but what about the alternative? Would you rather that the mother perish, be rendered permanently infertile or otherwise be severely damaged for the sake of an infant which has never seen the light of day? Do you really think that most women who wait till that late in the day to get abortions are doing so for trivial reasons, rather than out of dire necessity? As for the "hardcore pro-choice" dig, again, this is nonsense from start to finish: a "hardcore pro-choice" regime wouldn't have mandatory parental notification, wouldn't have 24 hour waiting periods, wouldn't force women to be subjected to long, patronizing, fear-mongering lectures on the risks of abortion, and it certainly wouldn't need a health (or "health", as you like to put it) exception to allow women to terminate their pregnancies as they please. Such hyperbolic language on your part only saps your credibility.

"The Supreme court guarantees an abortion post-viability so long as it is necessary to preserve the mother's "health". Sounds like a "right" to me, however it is "regulated"."

It is only a "right" to the extent that a pregnant woman has a "right" to expect that her own survival should take precedence over that of the one she's hosting in her body. The way you say it, one would think most abortion doctors were callous hacks who cared nothing for ethics or the law and were willing to cut out any third-trimester infant on the say-so of every dizzy bint who walked into their offices. It's a funny sort of "right" which requires a woman and her doctor to establish that her health would be seriously endangered before utilizing it. Rights don't require permission to utilize, which is why they're called "rights."

"There's a huge difference between one woman buying a bus ticket (or making a phonecall to a pro-choice charity) and evacuating an entire city. How much does it cost to get a bus from, say, Alabama to another state? 30 bucks or so?"

1 - Again you deeply underestimate the sheer size of the United States. I've taken more than a few Greyhound bus rides in my time, and if you think it's just a matter of a quick "nip across state lines and be back before nightfall" you could not be more mistaken: even going from New Hampshire to Boston is a much more sizable undertaking than you imagine, let alone trying to get from, say, heartland Texas or Oklahoma to some state in which abortion is more easily available.

2 - Who says that if state A has severe restrictions on abortion, neighboring states B, C, and D will make things any easier? Regional cultures being what they are, the odds of this being true are slim to none unless one lives close to the Mason-Dixie line. What exactly would you have the rest do?

3 - You're a poor single woman working a low-wage job in which a day off is enough to break the bank or get you fired. How easy will it be for you to saunter off for the two or three days it'll take to get from Lousiana to Florida, wait 24 hours (as can be required by law), get your abortion, recuperate and then return to work? Exercise: calculate the opportunity cost in lost income, even if your employer is willing to play along, rather than being an anti-abortion zealot.

Your breezy dismissal of how onerous a burden it could become to get an abortion if you happen to live in the wrong state only shows how little you know of what life is like for people who are often too broke to live on more than food stamps. Some 1 in 4 *families* in New Orleans were surviving on less than $19,000 a year, many on much less than that, and yet here you are implying that it's no big thing for the millions of Americans who live in such hardscrablle conditions to perform the equivalent of going from Belgium to Austria to get an abortion.

"What is your basis for believing the clause beginning with "are only carried out"?"

Statistical evidence from studies done by shady groups such as the American Medical Association? Or perhaps I ought to turn instead to more trustworthy sources like the Concerned Women of America and Focus on the Family ...

"All the research I have done on the topic has shown that statistics on the reason for late term abortions are quite specifically not kept and doctors are not required (and in fact do not) keep any publically accessible records on why late term abortions are performed."

This is absurd: why do you think one needs to keep such statistics to know with any confidence what the facts are? Haven't you ever heard of surveys?

"Every attempt to keep such statistics (even on an anonymous basis) has been to my knowledge successfully thwarted by NOW and NARAL."

Yes, who are those evil baby-killers to be worried about the abuses to which even supposedly "anonymous" data can and have been put? You write as if concern over such data gathering were unique to pro-choice groups, when you yourself have endorsed in the past my libertarian concerns about similar data-gathering on race by the US census bureau. NARAL and NOW have every right to oppose a move to give the government information which powerful interests with noxious agendas

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"This is absurd: why do you think one needs to keep such statistics to know with any confidence what the facts are? Haven't you ever heard of surveys?"

Quick, how many doctors are going to respond affirmatively to: "Did you perform any abortions in the past year that were medically unnecessary?"

About the same number of prison guards who will respond affirmatively to: "Did you illegally beat the crap out of black inmates last year?"

You survey the inmates and then work with the fact that some of them might inflate reports of abuse. Or you might survey unexplained injuries that are of the type that typically appear in abuse.

You can't survey the fetus, it is dead. You can't survey the injuries because it isn't allowed.

I've heard of surveys. Which survey would you like me to look at?

"You write as if concern over such data gathering were unique to pro-choice groups, when you yourself have endorsed in the past my libertarian concerns about similar data-gathering on race by the US census bureau. NARAL and NOW have every right to oppose a move to give the government information which powerful interests with noxious agendas."

Fine. But then you can't be confident that late term abortions are only implemented for medical necessity--which was my query.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"Statistical evidence from studies done by shady groups such as the American Medical Association?"

Show me the study, and I will show you that it is self-reported without backup documentation. If you think self-reported is sufficient, so be it. But I know for a fact you wouldn't take self-reported police racism statistics which basically amount to "Do you personally think you are racist?" at face value.

[Abiola Lapite]

"Quick, how many doctors are going to respond affirmatively to: "Did you perform any abortions in the past year that were medically unnecessary?""

And who is to determine necessity, you or some other armchair layman? Some ignorant fundie congressman who thinks dinosaurs walked alongside men? Yes, let's allow politicians and bible-thumping activists to second-guess every doctor's decision - who needs medical review boards and other elitist expertise-based bodies anyway?

"About the same number of prison guards who will respond affirmatively to: "Did you illegally beat the crap out of black inmates last year?""

Dumbest.analogy.ever. It's ridiculous to compare women who voluntarily go to doctors for the sake of their personal health with prison inmates who are at the mercy of wardens with plenty of reason to fear and despise them.

"You can't survey the fetus, it is dead. You can't survey the injuries because it isn't allowed."

Pure emotional bullshit. As if even a living fetus could testify to any medical matters!

"But then you can't be confident that late term abortions are only implemented for medical necessity--which was my query. "

You can't be certain that the sun will rise tomorrow, or that the reason the waiter was late with your check isn't because he hates your music or hairstyle; you can't be certain that Hitler isn't alive in a secret bunker at the center of our hollow earth either: so what? This is nothing but a meaningless rhetorical retort - the only people who can provide certainty about anything are mathematicians.

"Show me the study, and I will show you that it is self-reported without backup documentation."

I love your little hermetically-sealed, irrefutable system: just throw out any evidence you don't like as "self-reported without backup documentation", as if all doctors were liars by nature. No doubt I'm sure you'll treat your own private physicians with the same attitude the next time you have a health problem.

"But I know for a fact you wouldn't take self-reported police racism statistics which basically amount to "Do you personally think you are racist?" at face value."

Again, it's pure stupidity to compare the potential abuse of government power to mistreat ordinary citizens with a medical doctor's obligations towards his or her client: in what fantasy world are physicians roaming the streets hunting for innocent pregnant women to waylay? And while we're talking evidence, where *is* your evidence that doctors aren't any more to be trusted to tell the truth in surveys of their practices than the LAPD is to be trusted when asking about brutality?

You can keep spouting this GOP b.s. you've absorbed from wherever to no effect, or you can go to obscure websites like the following

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed
http://search.ama-assn.org/
http://jama.ama-assn.org/
http://content.nejm.org/

run a few searches on "abortion" and start to deprogram yourself. What you must *not* ever expect is that I'll buy into illogical, fact-free and emotional nonsense which flies brazenly in the face of all evidence under the cover of "argument." There once was a time when I had no strong feelings on this issue, but years of reading up on it and catching the anti-abortion types in lie after lie after lie now has me firmly convinced that the truth lies pretty much completely with those who oppose them.

PS: By the way, following is an excellent example of why NARAL and NOW are so concerned about the sort of data-gathering of which you are so fond.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15968942&query_hl=2

["In February 2004, privacy concerns captured the public's attention when the United States government, the defendant in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, sought to subpoena the medical records of patients receiving intact dilation and extraction (also known as "partial birth") abortions in six different hospitals and six Planned Parenthood centers across the country."]

Yup, the fears of pro-choice activists are *obviously* baseless ... And here's why it's such an incredibly stupid idea to allow politicians to second-guess doctors on such matters:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=10404899&query_hl=2

["The three articles by Dr. Gans Epner, Drs. Sprang and Neerhof, and Dr. Grimes centered around the issue that criminal laws against so-called partial-birth abortion go beyond banning any one abortion procedure or just "late-term" procedures. It is noted that even the authors gave different definitions of "late term". In addition, neither the phrase "late term" nor "intact dilation" and evacuation is present or defined in any of the partial-birth abortion laws passed in 27 states or in the federal bill."]

Keep on parroting all that anti-abortion propaganda written by people who don't even know what they're talking about and see how much credibility it buys you.