Adoption is a viable option but some women have decided that they would rather not be inconvienced. Ok, I support your right to make that decision but don’t try to sound high and mighty about it. Simply say I choose to terminate the life growing inside me because: I do not want to carry the child 9 months.

Believe me, that is absolutely A-OK with me and a whole lot of other people I know. I have no desire whatsoever to echo the hand-wringing euphemisms spouted so constantly in the media.

I do not want to bear the burden or just……fill in the blank.

However, I would appreciate it if you would do others the same courtesy and not suggest that pregnancy is simply an inconvenience. Those of us who have had to face the prospect of it know only too well that the burden and the responsibility are HUGE. Your implication that one would need some further justification for abortion than ‘not wanting to take on that burden’ suggests a tendency to be somewhat high-and-mighty about women’s reproductive choices and specifically, the task of motherhood, yourself.

Having said all that, I am sorry you and your wife had to go through the experience of so many miscarriages. It is terribly unfair that some women hate the idea of having children and yet get pregnant, while others struggle to conceive.

No, really, we mustn’t. If a foetus is a person, then the intentional killing of that foetus is murder. We don’t allow mothers to kill off their teenage children because they’re worried about their mental health, or because the child reminds them of the child’s father, who was violent and abusive, we don’t kill teenage children because we think they’ll have a fairly crappy life, and we don’t kill teenage children because of some kind of congenital abnormality. If a foetus is a person, then the only case in which it is justifiable to kill the foetus is as a side-effect of a medical procedure to save the life of the mother (cf. the separation of conjoined twins) – not just the “birth has more medical risks than abortion” piece of sophistry that is used to obtain abortion on demand under current UK law. If a foetus is a person, it’s really very easy.

If a foetus is a wad of cells, it’s also easy. Mother’s body – mother’s choice.

In reality, the current law, with its uneasy compromises, age limits and hedging, is a result of the fact that most people think the truth is somewhere in the middle. A foetus isn’t a person, but also isn’t a non-person. Just found out you’re pregnant, and don’t want to go through 8 more months of pregnancy? There’s a way out. Six weeks to go, and you’ve decided you can’t face bringing up a child? You’ll just have to tough it out for the next six weeks or so, and if you still feel that way, then here’s some information about adoption.

It’s an uncomfortable compromise, and doesn’t alter the fact that being a woman who is pregnant but doesn’t want to be is a pretty sucky position to be in, whatever your local laws surrounding “reproductive choice” and whatever decision you make.

The problem is that we have no way of knowing, scientifically, when personhood starts.

“Personhood” isn’t even scientifically definable. It’s a moral and legal statement, not a scientific one.

[On contraceptive implants for teenage girls] However, i think this policy is incredibly presumptuous and morally unsound; as this would effectively result in state control of the reproductive rights of millions of girls in their formative years.

Well, the state does control the reproductive rights of teenage girls. It says that you’re not allowed to do it until you’re sixteen.

so surely girls who are deemed responsible enough to have sex legally should also be considered responsible enough to have dominion over their own bodies.

That seems like a reasonable enough statement to me. But if these same “responsible” girls are going to be turning around and asking for state handouts because they can’t afford to support their children, then maybe the state does have an interest in preventing their pregnancies.

That aside, I agree that this is an astonishingly bad idea, largely because it will be seen by many teenagers as a licence to have unprotected sex, with the obvious results for STIs.

No contraception is fool-proof, and if this sex education is not provided, it is likely that many abortions will just be deffered from foolish, confused yet protected teenagehood into slightly less confused, unprotected adult hood. This is the government not wanting to deal with the base causes of teenage pregnancy, and quick-fix, totalitarian reproductive policies like this stink all too much of eugenics.

but In Great Britian Westminster tells its electorate how much it needs more people in the country via mass immigration yet they have set up pregnancy ‘advice’ centres in every town and have so far presided over 6 Million abortions to date.
they are proposing to Sterilise British school girls.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=514542&in_page_id=1770

They are creating a new race of People.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/865

http://www.truthout.org/100908WA

In addition, the woman has a right to choose…to not have unprotected sex.

Obama supports infanticide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIdbYjmbFzo&feature=related

I thought the femenist movement was dead. NOW has to have under 200,000 members. Women absolutely have the right to equal jobs and pay. Its over now though…….

Any pregnancy is a risk to a woman’s health, sometimes a small risk, sometimes a large risk because the pregnancy puts a large stress on a woman’s body.
Outlawing abortion is putting the rights of a “potential” human above the rights of an existing human woman or girl.
It’s equivalent to demanding that one being be allowed to risk the health of another to maintain it’s life (even thought the zygote or fetus isn’t yet a human being with rights).
A law outlawing abortion is equivalent to a law mandating kidney donation from any matching donor to a person who needs one. (After all, donating a kidney is pretty low risk and involves about the same surgery as a C-section).

Stop quibbling. Anyone who doesn’t support reproductive choice believes that women do not have full rights of self determination, and is certainly not a feminist.

You’ll have seen that I’m happy to engage civilly with people who are debating in good faith, and indeed with you, if you could stick to *either* deploring aggression, *or* passive aggression. My advice would be to drop the holier-than-thou attitude and keep the oh-so-subtle digs; neither are much help to communication, but the digs are more fun.

“There is a lack of consensus among feminists about some issues, so while we can agree on the general principles, we can and no doubt will argue about the specifics.”

Come on, stick your neck out. What ARE the general principles that we can agree on?

Sure, there was a point where things went in circles where people where saying that there could possibly be a form of feminism where you are pro-life, and everyone else saying that “No, then it’s not up to the individual woman.” Of course, in varying degrees of hostility.

As I see it: A majority of feminists believe that the choice of a woman should be up the individual woman, as long as her choice does not also force others to follow it. (adhere?)
If a majority of feminists think so, you can probably say that it’s a requirement for a feminist these days. What was considered feminism in the days of yore, and what is considered feminism now should not be the same thing, since that implies that nothing have happened. But it also says that there will be new forms of feminism. Most people that know this will realize that Pro-life feminist are not considered feminist, and probably never will because of how a majority of what is considered feminism looks today.
That would at least be my personal reason for why I’d never call anyone pro-life a feminist, and why I doubt there will ever be such a thing recognized by a majority of feminists.
Then again, it’s also speculation, so I can’t claim to know.

I don’t really understand how the US functions at all, considering the cross breading of church and state going on, but then again I am Swedish, so religion has never been much of an issue in politics for me.

And also to add to the above posts, the above is an argument you need to have with someone that is feminist and anti-choice, but ultimately such arguments come down to (yet again) whether the right to life, based on a pre-judged belief on when life is formulated, is a higher right than the rights feminists fight for. It all comes down to, as ukliberty put it, the placement in the venn diagram of everyone’s views.

You may call this meaningless but it is almost as if you are putting too much of the personal in to this whole discussion. Nothing in this debate was ever about the sanctity of your views or attacking them…yet it’s been interesting to see several times this argument being used that we shouldn’t be discussing this subject because “the hypothetical doesn’t matter” or “our experiences matter more”. It really just seems to be confusing to sides of the same discussion, both can quite happily coexist in a discussion of this nature.

One of the reasons why I comment and read articles and other comments here is that there is a general air of civility that I don’t find in some other, perhaps more high profile places, even though I might disagree with some of the views put forward, and even though some commenters very occasionally resort to ad hominems and non sequiturs.

I don’t mind engaging in a robust discussion, but there is a difference between that and plain aggression. I am well used to Usenet and of course there it is easier to ignore or killfile people who don’t seem interested in reasonable discussion but rather insulting people and point scoring.

LC seems to have a reasonable standard of discussion, but I found this thread particularly aggressive relative to most other threads I’ve read on LC, and it’s a shame a mod didn’t say, hang on, let’s be a bit more civil.

“some people” in your post, one can’t be sure exactly what arguments you refer to)

I didn’t want to mention anyone particularly because I thought it would result in even more aggression.

Now, I don’t insist people accept the validity of opinions they disagree with, far from it – and it would be hypocritical of me to do so particularly regarding what I wrote in my previous comment and the content of my blog.

But there are some things that are a matter of opinion and there are some things that are a matter of fact. It is a matter of fact that the Earth is roughly round and you are just plain wrong if you think otherwise. However, the meaning of words is a bit different because it is here that consensus defines correctness. We can therefore correctly say that feminism involves X, Y and Z, and that there is a disagreement over W. There is a lack of consensus among feminists about some issues, so while we can agree on the general principles, we can and no doubt will argue about the specifics.

I would say Palin is wrong if she wants to prevent women from choosing abortions. What I would not say is that this bars her from being a feminist, because I understand there to be a lack of consensus among feminists about the abortion issue.

But some commenters here think that believing W completely obviates you from being a feminist. This seems absolutist by definition. They seem unreasonable, in the sense of not conforming to reason, and they also seem unreasonable in the sense of lacking civility.

‘Ideology’ can be merely a set of ideas; why would it then be unreasonable to adhere to those ideas?

Well, it depends on what the ideas are and the extent of the adherence, doesn’t it?

thomas @ 319 seems spot on.

It is also noticeable how the left mirror the right in only accepting half of the argument, and opposite halves at that. Yet the ideas of pro-life/anti-abortion and pro-choice/pro-abortion are not incompatible if you choose to seek their means of reconciliation.

I think the only workable solution in a society is to listen to the opinions of all sides and try to address all the concerns. I think the liberal position is to make the case for exceptionalism – because the exceptions prove the rule that absolutism doesn’t work.

So we do have a rational state where the acceptable line of compromise is draw and on the issue of abortion the fact that we hear equal howls of dissatisfaction from left and right proves this. Abortion is a ‘fundamental’ right, but it is restricted by time-limits; Abortion is also banned after the expiry of those time limits, but there are exceptions.

Abortion should not be encouraged, but also nor can it be prohibited. It is in the recognition of exceptional circumstances which we find space to allow for flexibility in the practise of law by decentralising the decision-making process according to each individual case in agreement with (and under the supervision of) professional medical advice.

The people who undergo such an experience or dilemma are not heroic figures deserving of our recognition and desiring celebration, but also neither are they demonic figures deserving of our stigmatisation and humiliation – they are just normal people in abnormal circumstances trying to live healthy lives.

As far as ‘feminism’ is concerned Sarah Palin is the embodiment of how the trend of debate has already turned against the paleo-emancipationists to the neo-emancipationists with a greater degree of spirituality combining with some former aspects of rationalism. I don’t see anyone agreeing that to terminate the pregnancy at 5 months is a lesser evil than a shotgun wedding and as the term reaches completion so the balance tips further.

So a clearer understanding of the label as no more than a subset of prior political beliefs by which that political philosophy can be applied to specific problematic questions is essential to contending and defeating the propositions and prescriptions you dislike or disagree with.

What the feminists here are calling ‘feminism’ is really ‘liberalism’ applied to feminist subjects, but many of these ‘feminists’ dislike this reality because they consider themselves (like the author herself) socialists. Divisive articles like these are designed to squeeze conciliatory and inclusive liberalism out of the picture by coopting the liberal feminists into the socialist camp through the old-fashioned and conservative method of polarisation. We could go into another long discussion about means and ends, but I think this thread has proved the point.

“I don’t think it has to, so long as one takes the view that one has already taken one’s choice at the moment of conception (well, about ten minutes before conception, really ), chosen to risk becoming pregnant, then the two views can surely be compatible – you choose every time you have sex to risk the possibility of having to host another life for nine months.”

Ten minutes, eh? I believe the UK average is more like three.

Srsly, the problem with this point as I see it is that it relies on the false premise that one has only one opportunity to make that choice. Oh, wait, I get it – you’re talking about how to reconcile a belief in the right to life with feminism. Well, hmm, I can see how this would be valid if applied to your *own* choices, sure. Other women might say, ‘I chose not to get pregnant by using contraception/partner said he’d had a vasectomy/I was told you can’t get pregnant while on your period’ (OK that last only valid for very sheltered teenagers!)

And, of course, what about victims of rape? They have not taken the choice. But if the right to life supersedes the right to boldily autonomy, they should not have abortions. And denying a rape victim an abortion is not only dogmatic, it’s applied dogmatism with a lifetime of consequences.

I’m new to this site, and it does seem that the tone here is less aggressive than, say, on the Guardian’s CiF pages, so in deference to that I’ve toned it down a bit recently. Having said that, I’m not sure that laying on the passive aggression entitles one to the moral high ground either, particularly while hurling accusations around like confetti.

Dressing fundamental disagreements in the language of ‘reasonableness’ isn’t automatically a good thing. ‘Ideology’ can be merely a set of ideas; why would it then be unreasonable to adhere to those ideas? I think this insistence that people must accept the possible validity of an opinion they utterly disagree with stifles debate at least as much as insults. In fact, if you look at the thread as a whole, the bits where people actually patiently respond to questions like ‘What if feminism means killing your child? No, really – would you support that? Would you, though?’ are, IMO at least, the most tedious by a country mile.

You claim that it is absolutist and dogmatic to state (presumably; due to the ubiquitous “some people” in your post, one can’t be sure exactly what arguments you refer to) that an anti-abortionist cannot also be a feminist. It would be more reasonable, you say, to talk of spectrums and Venn diagrams than of mutual exclusion.

However, you don’t offer any justification for this. Saying that one thing logically and necessarily excludes another, and *giving reasons why you think this is so*, is not dogmatic. You offer a solution to the problem of ‘absolutism’ without stating why it is a problem.

You also repeat the orthodoxy that one should avoid concentrating on ‘labels’, despite the fact that one particular label was the subject of this article. Feminism has been ridiculed, discredited and co-opted so much in recent years that I think debate about what the ‘label’ means is entirely valid.

Of course there are different types of feminists and disagreements between them. However, I think Laurie and others have made a coherent argument that deserves better than to be subsumed in meaningless metaphors of Venn diagrams and suchlike for the sake of not disagreeing with each other.

That argument is that since feminism is fundamentally about female emancipation from the various factors contributing to their oppression – this may be only one of several fundamentals, but it is one nevertheless – you cannot seek to deny women such a basic right as reproductive freedom and still call yourself a feminist. Cath’s post gave me serious pause for thought, but I still believe that Laurie’s point was right, and I don’t think a Venn diagram is necessary to illustrate that.

Who had comment number 312 in the sweepstake?

“Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist. “

The religious right hate working woman, and hate woman having any control in society. For people like Palin to support them, is like Jews for Hitler.