Hi Emma, I’m not actually sure what you’re saying here.

You say you are pro-choice and clearly put a pro-choice case but you also seem to imply in opening para that you are opposed to abortion.

If that’s the case what are your concerns? Where are you coming from?

I’m probably being slow or have missed something but if the point of the piece is to show that “lefties” who are opposed to abortion can talk openly about that then, well, you haven’t actually done that.

Personally I’m firmly pro-choice but would welcome a more open debate where people feel able to express themselves freely.

I think with your inability to actually make a valid point you’ve hit the nail on the head. Namely that there is no right or wrong answer to this.

Denying woman a choice feels instinctively wrong, but then again so does attaching a pump to a vagina and ripping a baby limb from limb out of the womb.

The problem with this debate is the amount of vitriol, as opposed to reasoned discussion, emanating from both sides.

`Excepting, of course, the extenuating circumstances that do happen: i.e. finding out late after a rape or by a perpetrator of domestic violence.’

Incoherent would sum up this piece. You are anti-abortion but pro-choice which is fine but you must be anti-abortion because you are `pro-life’ right? So why does it make a difference if the child in the womb is the result of rape? Why does that child get to be killed?

Medical and legal opinion and most ordinary people think 24 weeks is right. Before that we are not dealing with an autonomous human life after that we are. It gives plenty of time for the woman to find out and make a choice that is not medically but personally grounded.

Cant make head nor tail as to why you are posting this but the idea that consciousness is gender based is interesting.
Perhaps only poor people should be allowed to talk about poverty!

@ Jim,

I am pro choice but , for emotional reasons bias because I am already a mother, in good circumstances, I have sympathy for unborn foetus’ too… That’s why the “pro life” I merely believe that when possible the sooner the better. It just seemed on twitter yesterday you can’t be both.

@Dave,

Thank you, I think, that was my point. This is such a complex issue. There is no real when to draw limits and it comes down to trusting that the women making this decision are doing so in the best interests of themselves and their unborn. It’s becoming ever more apparent that that is not happening so much..
Everyone has an opinion and for the many of us it’s a hypothetical decision for ourselves. As is my view.

There is nothing “incoherent” about believing that abortion is wrong but not being willing to use the power of the state to enforce that belief on a woman who feels differentlyand who is the one who will have to deal with the consequences of whatever choices are made.

The sooner we can get over the legal arguments on this and then be able to engage in the moral discussion without the threat of legal coercion the better.

You keep saying it is complex. It is not. Before 24 weeks not an autonomous human being. After 24 weeks autonomous human being. Simples. Women who have abortions before the 24 week cut off are no less `pro-life’ than you but you are trying to lay this moral guilt trip on women for seeking to exercise their choice just as men sometimes wear a condom or others take the pill. But you blew your supposed moral case when you said that you’d make an exception to your `pro-life’ beliefs for children that were the result of rape or domestic violence.

Denying woman a choice feels instinctively wrong, but then again so does attaching a pump to a vagina and ripping a baby limb from limb out of the womb.

Nothing wrong with attaching a pump to a vagina and ripping stuff out of the womb, provided that’s what the person whose vagina and womb it is wants. A more honest comparison would end simply “so does splitting a baby limb from limb”.

You keep saying this is a complex issue. It isn’t. Before 24 weeks not an autonomous human being but a foetus. After 24 weeks an autonomous human being. Stop trying to guilt trip women who have abortions. They are no less `pro-life’ than you. Maybe even more as after 24 weeks they are unlikely to try to justify illegally aborting a child for personal reasons even if it was the result of rape whereas you I’m not so sure.

@ David,

I didn’t think I was making a moral case just pointing out that this decision is made for different reasons, I have sympathy for whatever a woman’s reasons are but maybe more so if she has suffered from an assault. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel for her or the foetus any less.

I’m not sure what that makes me, explains the confusion in the post? Maybe the terms “pro life” and “pro choice” are too black and white??

@6

Thank you, I think, that was my point. This is such a complex issue. There is no real when to draw limits and it comes down to trusting that the women making this decision are doing so in the best interests of themselves and their unborn.

Surely the term ‘trust’ in this context is terribly patronising. If you believe that women can look after there own interests then what is there to chat about.

I doubt anyone really wants to go through an abortion or either have a child thrust upon them in difficult circumstances.

Rather than pro-life or pro-choice what about the idea of pro-leaving everyone to get on with their lives in the best way they can.

Surely the basic issue is at what stage a pregnancy gives rise to a human being and therefore when termination becomes killing. Views on this ranges from at intercourse (the official Catholic position) right through to at birth. As there is such a range of opinion on this, societies inevitably have problems in reaching a widely acceptable conclusion, quite apart from individuals – and institutions – wanting to push their own conclusion on to every woman.
So yes, I am pro-choice, as actually is anyone who does not hold the view that preventing conception is killing a child-to-be! Anyone who wishes to limit abortion should have to explain why it is appropriate to deprive any woman of the choice of an abortion after their chosen time period – and that after ensuring that any woman can in practice access abortion before that time elapses.

I’m not sure what that makes me, explains the confusion in the post? Maybe the terms “pro life” and “pro choice” are too black and white??

Had you ever thought that if people were not interfered with by religion from either camp they could be in your words
‘trusted’ to get on with there own lives.

I suspect no-one tells you when to brush your teeth!

@ 10 David Ellis

“You keep saying this is a complex issue. It isn’t. Before 24 weeks not an autonomous human being but a foetus. After 24 weeks an autonomous human being.”

Boiling an issue down to the current legal reality is not the same as showing that the issue is simple.

I mean, that 24-week thing is a pretty arbitrary line in the sand. And we can’t avoid that unless we want to outlaw abortion or legalise it all the way up to birth, but we should recognise that it’s a necessary bodge.

@ Emma

My issue with this article is that it seems to have pulled a 180-degree turn by the end. It could be summed up as “Everyone has the right to talk about abortion, now everyone who’s against abortion must STFU”. Unless I’m misreading.

@7

The sooner we can get over the legal arguments on this and then be able to engage in the moral discussion without the threat of legal coercion the better.

Do you not think the idea of moral discussion is not the heart of the problem since the law around this are is heavily tarnished with morals, usually someone elses.

You either trust women to manage their own bodies, or you don’t. Everything else is just posturing or moral grandstanding.

Buggers!!! I spent 5 minutes writting my thoughts on this an got an error message when I posted loosing what I had written. Anyway, not going to write it again, but will link to an article I was going to post. Its worth a read.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/mar/02/i-was-conceived-by-rape

“Medical and legal opinion and most ordinary people think 24 weeks is right.”

Actually opinion polls show people are pretty evenly split on the issue re limits: http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/category/abortion

18 – You either believe in protecting unborn children or you don’t.

Actually that’s not what the debate is solely about but neither is it about just trusting women.

I had no idea a 12 week limit was the norm in most of Western Europe. The BBC and others have done a very poor job of reporting this.

@4. David Ellis

“Medical and legal opinion and most ordinary people think 24 weeks is right. Before that we are not dealing with an autonomous human life after that we are.”

Simply wrong. My mother was a neonatal specialist and routinly looked after 23, and even some 22 week babies. Many of whom are walking the earth today. There has even been a report of a 21 week 5 day child surviving.

Nevertheless, why should that change medicines push to help children even younger survive by artificial means?

@ 19 Freeman

“Buggers!!! I spent 5 minutes writting my thoughts on this an got an error message when I posted loosing what I had written.”

I now habitually CTRL-C long posts before hitting submit. Because my thoughts are very important! Well, no, because I hate retyping.

“I am a human being that feels sympathy for an unwanted unborn child but I feel sympathy for those women thinking about what’s best too.”

Exactly, Emma, exactly!

It’s a grey area, a trade-off, part of the messy world in which we live…

So, IMO, up to a reasonable limit of (say) 20+ weeks, abortion should be a matter of the woman’s conscience. Late abortion should be more regulated, but lightly ,if physicians are willing to perform the operation.

Now, can we please put the abortion issue to bed? It’s soooo boring….And those who wish to prohibit abortion tend to have a totalitarian mind-set.

PS PERSONAL NOTE: 25 years ago, my wife and I were offered a termination (at 12 weeks), given the risk of a serious abnormality. After much heart-searching, we declined; and our daughter has thrived, and is now a solicitor….But, to me, this is an argument for choice. Our lives could have been blighted by caring for a handicapped child. We took the risk: that was our choice, not one imposed upon us. Fortunately, it turned out well…though there are still demands on the bank on mum-and-dad!

@tory #22:

I had no idea a 12 week limit was the norm in most of Western Europe.

That’s probably because it isn’t…

12 weeks is the norm for abortion on demand. For abortion on medical, socio-economic or other grounds, there is a huge variety of gestational limits – see this post (and the linked IPPF review of abortion law and summary table) at the Ministry of Truth:

http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2012/10/15/deborah-orr-and-the-abortion-debate/

@ 2 Dave.

Erm, it’s not a baby, its a fetus. Babies have independent existance. It’s also not an oak tree, it’s an acorn. It’s not a chicken, it’s an egg. It’s not a butterfly, it’s a caterpillar. This is a game that the pro-poverty / pro-overpopulation / anti-choice people have playing for years now, sadly pro-choice campaigners don’t seem to have much understanding of how language works.

@ 22 tory.

Well, in Britain, 91% of abortions take place within that time period. The 9% of abortions that take place after that are usually for mediacal reasons – often these occur after tests for Down’s syndrome which cannot be conducted until the 16th week.

It’s also worth pointing out that in those countries where they have a 12 week time limit, abortion is considered a women’s right – unlike here in Britain – and there are no hoops, 2 doctors signatures etc.

As an aside, Mehdi Hassan is using a religious basis for his objection to abortion. In Islam I understande that it is not generally considered that the soul enters the fetus until the fourth month, which is why there have historically been Muslim religious authorities who have said abortion is acceptable. Still, if Mehdi fells more comfortable following a more illiberal tradition, who am I to argue?

@ 18 Cylux

“You either trust women to manage their own bodies, or you don’t. Everything else is just posturing or moral grandstanding.”

Pretending the other side of the argument doesn’t exist so that you can demonise people who disagree with you: not helpful.

The worst thing about the abortion debate is that so many people on both sides act as if there’s only one possible moral conclusion and that anyone on the other side is therefore a total bastard. So we have pro-choicers pretending that whether or not the foetus should have rights is irrelevant to the debate, rather than the basis of pro-life opinion, and therefore straw-manning their opponents. And we have pro-lifers basing their claims on unfounded religious beliefs, or making out that pro-choicers actively love abortion for its own sake, or claiming that abortion is racial eugenics by the back door, and likewise straw-manning.

And then people insist on using terms for the other side that they know will be taken as offensive – anti-choice, pro-abortion – and at that point you haven’t got a conversation, you’ve got a shouting match between two sets of zealots.

CF Israel and Palestine.

@Freeman #23:

My mother was a neonatal specialist and routinly looked after 23, and even some 22 week babies. Many of whom are walking the earth today

How many survived for how long with what disabilities? These are the mid-90s numbers from the EPICure study:

http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/neonatal-medicine/neonatal-medicine-background-extremely-premature-babies

Of 379 children live-births (so we are already excluding those who didn’t survive birth) at 22-24 weeks gestation, only 28 survived to discharge from hospital; and the 22-23 week group of 138 had only 2 such survivors.

Of the 28 who left hospital, only 3 reached the age of 6 years with no impairment; and 6 had severe impairment.

These figures (which haven’t significantly changed) suggest that your mother would not have routinely treated neonates of 22-24 week gestation, in the sense that it was routine for them to survive (and by implication unusual for them not to do so).

Erm, it’s not a baby, its a fetus. Babies have independent existance.

You’re blurring an awful lot of definitions. A baby is an utterly dependent being – you leave it to fend for itself and it will die. The logical conclusion of the ‘autonomous existence’ argument is that it should be permissible to “abort” newborns. (Toddlers too, given their apparently total absence of survival skills).

There was, in fact, a paper in the BMJ precisely on this point last year, which came to the conclusion that as there was no moral distinction between an unborn child and a newborn child, abortion of the one should be as permissible as of the other. This was written from a pro-choice perspective, and ended up arguing for the right to abort babies “a few weeks” after they were born (astoundingly this paper is no longer on the BMJ’s website, though there’s a BMJ blog discussing it here)
http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2012/03/02/why-is-infanticide-worse-than-abortion/

24 weeks is nothing more than a convenient fudge on viability – the idea that the day before you have a clump of non-sentient cells, and the day after you have a baby really is nonsense.

My apologies for my inability to articulate properly and if I caused any offence to anyone.
I take all critisms on board. This was about debate and who contributes. To me, no one should be excluded wherever they stand on the issue because it is a part of our society.
I don’t have conflicting issues and I don’t think I do a 180 degree turn because for me that arbitrary line is clouded. Which was the main point I was trying to make. I stand in a grey area on this.
I trust the scientists, law makers and ultimately the women making the decision to do what’s right and best.
My apologies once again if that seems offensive to anyone.

Ultimately, if your moral code says abortion is immoral, that’s that. It’s not sexist or right-wing. It’s not about men controlling women, but rather about morality or God’s law controlling everyone.

My morality isn’t like that, but the idea that opposition to abortion is somehow sexist is erroneous. It may be harder to campaign for abortion rights after accepting that, but ultimately that’s what we have to do.

Chris/32: My morality isn’t like that, but the idea that opposition to abortion is somehow sexist is erroneous.

No. In practical terms, banning abortion has an effect on women massively larger than its effect on men because the number of women who become pregnant is much larger than the number of men [1].

That given particular basic principles it is the logical moral conclusion, does not make it “not sexist” – it just means that in this particular case it is morally correct (by those morals) to do something sexist – or, if the particular basic principles in question also allow “sexism is wrong” to be concluded, it means that there is an inconsistency in either the principles, the conclusions, or the applications of the conclusions.

[1] Should this change such that pregnancy is roughly equally distributed by gender, then opposition to abortion would no longer be sexist. But for now, it is.

Thank you Emma, for sponsoring a much calmer debate on this contentious issue, than what usually takes place.

Personally, I think people should try to separate what the law should be and what morality dictates, as they are not necessarily the same. In the case of abortion, I would say it is the woman’s body, so she has a right to terminate, but that is not necessarily a moral thing to do.

@13 Ian:

Surely the basic issue is at what stage a pregnancy gives rise to a human being and therefore when termination becomes killing. Views on this ranges from at intercourse (the official Catholic position)

I thought the Catholic position was that “ensoulification” occurs at conception.

(Which is nonsense, BTW, because of identical twins and chimeras).

The truth is that there is no special status in biology to a human being. A sperm or egg is just a bunch of highly-organised matter, as is a ferilised egg, as is an embryo, as is an adult human. Life doesn’t begin because all those things are alive.

If people of a political persuasion are somehow forbidden from discussing certain issues then there’s something wrong.

Why would a lefty not be allowed to have reservations about abortion? Or a righty about the free market?

Having doubts and debates suggests you’re actually thinking, rather than following some unspoken consensus. We should all applaud that.

Of course, the endless repetition of stale old arguments as we see here is an obvious pitfall.

You either believe in protecting unborn children or you don’t.

And iffn’ I preferred worrying about the already born children instead, would that make me a monster?

It’s not just a matter of personal morality, there is also a pragmatic side to the question.

Even if you are ethically pro-life, I think you should have serious misgivings about banning abortion outright, because we all know where that ends up – illegal back alley abortions, and everything that comes with them.

It’s not always advisable to legislate morality.

Being created in the image and likeness of Almighty God, each individual human life is absolutely sacred, from the point of fertilisation to the point of natural death, which can and does happen at any point after fertilisation, a matter for its Author and Lord, not for us. I make no apology for arguing from a specifically religious perspective in the conduct of debate on public policy, since freedom of religion is not civic or societal freedom from religion (to which individuals are entitled, but the State and the wider society are not), but rather includes the freedom so to argue.

On that basis did Shaftesbury and Wilberforce, Tories both, use the full force of the State to stamp out abuses of the poor at home and slavery abroad, both of which are now well on the way back in this secularised age. Victorian Nonconformists used the Liberal Party to fight against opium dens and the compelling of people to work seven-day weeks, both of which have now returned in full. Temperance Methodists built the Labour Party in order to counteract brutal capitalism precisely so as to prevent a Marxist revolution, whereas the coherence of the former with the cultural aspects of the latter now reigns supreme. Shaftesbury and Wilberforce, the Victorian Liberals and the Christian Socialist pioneers, all did as they did precisely because they believed as I believe about the sanctity of life.

That principle rules out numerous practices, among which are direct abortion, indirect abortion either at all or (and I am told that this would never happen anymore) where any other course of action would result in the loss of both lives, euthanasia, assisted suicide, destructive experimentation on embryonic human beings, human cloning, human-animal hybridity, the creation of “saviour siblings”, capital punishment (it is a plain and simple lie that opponents of abortion are usually pro-hanging), and unjust warfare, if any war be just, but certainly including total war, as well as the manufacture, stockpiling or use of nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological weapons, together with the international trade in arms.

It therefore further entails the active struggle against numerous underlying evils, including poverty, ignorance, squalor, illness, idleness, racism, sexual promiscuity, pornography, eugenic ideologies, the alienation or marginalisation of people with disabilities, the lack of due respect for old age, the failure or refusal to celebrate the infinite beauty of every human being as the image and likeness of God, the classification of human beings solely or primarily as economic units (as in both capitalism and Marxism), and the pursuit of policies likely to give rise to armed conflict. Neither of these lists is anything approaching exhaustive. Truly, being pro-life is an entire way of life.

Iain Duncan Smith is probably pro-life, but he showed little or no sign of it while he was Leader of the Opposition. The last Party Leader to have been known as and for it was John Smith. Whereas Margaret Thatcher, she of Hillsborough and of 11 consecutive New Year’s Eves, every single one during her Premiership, spent with Jimmy Savile, legalised abortion up to birth under three of the four circumstances under which the 1967 Act, which she had supported, had legalised it at all. She also legalised destructive experimentation on embryonic human beings.

Her dear friend Ronald Reagan, whose oft-proclaimed pro-life credentials were and are an out and out lie, had legalised abortion in California, where he had also introduced the no fault divorce that has since been copied across the United States. By contrast, both of George McGovern’s running mates were pro-life. Although Henry Hyde himself was not only a conservative Republican but almost a sort of European Catholic monarchist, the Hyde Amendment banning federal funding of abortion was passed by a Democratic Congress and signed into law by Jimmy Carter; it has never failed to achieve its required annual renewal by both Houses of Congress. ObamaCare specifically excludes abortion, but RomneyCare specifically includes it. Mitt Romney continues to draw an income from the provision of abortion by the interests of Bain Capital.

If “there is no such thing as society” (and yes, Margaret Thatcher really did say that), then there can be no such thing as the society that is the family, or the society that is the nation. There cannot be a “free” market generally but not in drugs, prostitution or pornography. The economic decadence of the 1980s is no more acceptable that the social decadence of the 1960s. The principle of the planned economy came down to the Attlee Government, via the Liberal Keynes and via Franklin Delano Roosevelt, from an ultraconservative Catholic, Colbert. The principle of the Welfare State came down to the Attlee Government, via the Liberals Lloyd George and Beveridge, and via the Conservative Governments of the Inter-War years, from an ultraconservative Protestant, Bismarck.

Those who looked to the union-busting criminality of pirate radio, which was funded by the same Oliver Smedley who went on to fund the proto-Thatcherite Institute of Economic Affairs, were enfranchised in time for the 1970 General Election, gave victory to what they thought were the Selsdon Tories, and went on to support first the economic and then the constitutional entrenchment of their dissolute moral and social attitudes by Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.

Labour MPs defended Catholic schools, and thus all church-based state schools, over several successive decades. Early Labour activists resisted schemes to abort, contracept and sterilise the working class out of existence. Upper and upper-middle-class people joined the early Labour Party precisely because their backgrounds and involvement in the Church of England made them familiar with the importance of State action against social evils.

Many Social Catholics in post-War Italy promoted Keynesianism and felt a strong affinity with the domestic policies of the Attlee Government, but they were also sceptical about NATO. Jakob Kaiser’s vision was of a German Christian Democracy that looked to British Labour for its inspiration in giving effect to Catholic Social Teaching, and which gave such effect by emphasising co-operatives, the public ownership of key industries, extensive social insurance, and the works councils later suggested in the SDP’s founding Limehouse Declaration and advocated by David Owen, while also seeking a United Germany as a bridge between East and West, allied neither to NATO nor to the Soviet Bloc.

The witness of Bob Santamaria in Australia is also of crucial historical importance, including as a warning from time to time. The New Deal was passionately supported by Southern Evangelical Protestants and by “white ethnic” Catholics and Orthodox. Civil Rights grew out of, if it has ever become “out of”, Baptist and Pentecostal churches and those in the unreconstructed Wesleyan Holiness tradition, churches lately no less active in the defence of traditional marriage and increasingly conscious of the triple genocide of the black male in the womb, on the streets and on the battlefield.

More controversially in Italy, but they cannot be discounted, were the Cattocomunisti, no less Catto than comunisiti; in any case, the left-wing Democristiani were well to the Left by British standards even at the time, and most of the Italian Left has been subsumed into the Democratic Party, which has elected as its President Rosy Bindi, late of Azione Cattolica and Democrazia Cristiana. Her election, together with that of her preferred candidate for Leader, is an immensely positive sign, and she herself deserves much credit for having reached out in this way, when we consider that she lost at least one close friend to the Red Brigades. Their erstwhile supporters exist on the fringes of her major new party. But its internal electoral results leave no doubt as to where its centre of gravity lies, as to what is its mainstream.

Within the East German Bloc Party system, much of the CDU opposed the legalisation of abortion in 1972, only one year before its legalisation either on demand or at all, but by judicial fiat rather than by even so inadequate a parliamentary means, by the overturning of the laws of all 50 of the United States of America. It is worth researching how much Christian Democracy, Liberalism, Nationalism or Agrarianism was carried over into each of the Bloc Parties other than the SED, or for that matter how much Social Democracy rather than Communism was carried over into the SED itself. Say it again: East Germany legalised abortion only one year before the United States did so, and fully five years after its legalisation in California by Ronald Reagan.

In huge numbers, members and supporters of Fianna Fáil (which Seán Lemass called “the real Irish Labour Party”, not the whole of its heritage but nevertheless there), of Fine Gael (which for all its economic faults did manage to produce the 1965 General Election manifesto Towards a Just Society, so these things are not unheard of within it) and for that matter of the Irish Labour Party, have felt able to become members and supporters of the British Labour Party.

Irish Labour has since been taken over those who had become Democratic Left and lined up with Fine Gael up to its old tricks again. But whatever else may be said of the Workers’ Party, it is still functioning in Northern Ireland, and, unless anyone knows better, there seems little reason to doubt that its remnant voters are at least occasionally observant Catholics, if not fully practising ones, just as in the days when the Cold War was being fought hotly by proxy within the Republican subculture there, between the agents of two superpowers equally, and equally violently, opposed to the continued existence of the United Kingdom. The Workers’ Party had several internal disputes over abortion. Every SDLP MP has been and, where applicable, remains totally pro-life.

Cardinal Manning led the 1889 London dockers’ march serenaded by the Salvation Army band, and he played a pivotal role in settling that strike. Catholic and other Labour MPs, including John Smith, fought tooth and nail against abortion, not least including Thatcher’s introduction of abortion up to birth. David Cameron’s choice of responsible Minister, Anna Soubry, one of his most obvious ideological soul mates, advocates the assisted suicide that Gordon Brown consistently and cogently ruled out.

The name of Margaret Thatcher is abominated in pro-life and pro-family circles. Matched only by the abomination of the name of Tony Blair.

@ Tim J 30.

In the sense that the BMJ article meant, I would agree as the article to which you refer was dealing with abortion ethics from a scientific determinist perspective.

In practical terms however we uise the word “foetus” to refer to something that has no independent existance. A foetus does not take in food or oxygen via its mouth or lungs, but rather in a direct feed from the mother’s body through the umbilical cord. This is a fundamental difference.

I agree that the time limit of 24 weeks is arbitary (having a scientific determinist bias myself) but the 24 week rule isn’t as hard and fast as most people think. It is interesting to note that British law allows for abortion to take place up until birth if ther mother’s life is a risk, or in the case of foetal abnormality – though this is infrequent. British law does not permit the killing of a baby after birth under any circumstances. British law therefore already accepts the fundamental difference between the foetus – pre-birth – and the baby – post-birth.

36/Cherub: If people of a political persuasion are somehow forbidden from discussing certain issues then there’s something wrong. [...] Having doubts and debates suggests you’re actually thinking, rather than following some unspoken consensus. We should all applaud that.

I look forward to the follow-up articles, from big-state anarchists and genocidal pacifists [1].

If a political stance is to be meaningful it has to have some agreed positions, and disagreeing with those positions means that you cannot be said to hold that stance.

As regards “the left”, I do disagree with those saying that being pro-choice is incompatible with being “left”, since the only unifying feature of the UK “left” is “We’re not the Tories” rather than matters of principle or policy.

[1] If the original claim had been “It’s possible to be a lefty and defend genocide” then it might have been strictly true, but I don’t think people’s responses to it would have been the same, and arguments that we shouldn’t be following the “unspoken consensus” automatically would look more than a little odd.

“Erm, it’s not a baby, its a fetus. Babies have independent existance.”

By that definition as soon as sits ripped out of the womb it is a baby then

@ 31 Emma

“My apologies once again if that seems offensive to anyone.”

I personally don’t think there was anything offensive in there. A bit of ad hominem against males, but it’s not like you insulted people or went on a rant.

Re-reading, I’m wondering if the conclusion is meant to be: “Everyone has a right to express their opinion on abortion, but blaming an individual woman for her choice within the law is out of order.”

@ 33 cim

“No. In practical terms, banning abortion has an effect on women massively larger than its effect on men because the number of women who become pregnant is much larger than the number of men [1].

That given particular basic principles it is the logical moral conclusion, does not make it “not sexist” – it just means that in this particular case it is morally correct (by those morals) to do something sexist”

So it’s nature that is sexist? Because that’s where the distinction comes from. Also, any policy ever can be described as affecting one gender, race, sexuality etc. more than another (even, say, a tax rise will inevitably have percentage differences between groups), so you’ve just defined terms that allow you to declare everything sexist, in turn making the word meaningless.

Personally, I hate this bullying tactic of finding excuses to call things bigoted when they’re not.

Oh, and CIM:

Under legal abortion, 100% of people who will see their genetic children aborted against their personal wishes are male.

Ergo abortion rights are horrid and sexist.

@ 42.

Yes, we could say that… tell you what. We scrap abortion and instead allow women to have a caesarian section at any stage during the pregnancy. What do you think the survival rates would be?

@liyhfitdllyuft #40 : you have put it very clearly! The foetus/baby distinction is quite clear in British law.
And @David Lindsay #39 puts the extreme religious no-choice-ever position clearly in his first para…. which is presumably also the point of the Catholic concept of “ensoulification” (vide @Phil Hunt #35)
Which leads me to request particularly the second part:

Anyone who wishes to limit abortion should have to explain why it is appropriate to deprive any woman of the choice of an abortion after their chosen time period – and that after ensuring that any woman can in practice access abortion before that time elapses.

“Under legal abortion, 100% of people who will see their genetic children aborted against their personal wishes are male.

Ergo abortion rights are horrid and sexist”

Well that’s bloody stupid and wrong.

Haven’t enough people already told you that most of the later abortions are happening to women who’d rather be having normal healthy, babies that will live and thrive but …not this time. It’s not exactly their greatest wish to have to start pregnancy all over again now is it?
And the women who were up for mutual, shared parenting until Mr 50% of the DNA left because apparently he didn’t want in?
What about them?

Religious men, atheist men, right wing men and left wing men – you all sound the same when you say women’s actions and opinions don’t matter as much as yours do.
Which is what Mehdi Hasan tried to do back there.

And that was sexist.

Chris @ 32:

“Ultimately, if your moral code says abortion is immoral, that’s that. It’s not sexist or right-wing. It’s not about men controlling women, but rather about morality or God’s law controlling everyone.

“My morality isn’t like that, but the idea that opposition to abortion is somehow sexist is erroneous. It may be harder to campaign for abortion rights after accepting that, but ultimately that’s what we have to do.”

Agreed, and well said.

Fundamentally, the issue of abortion is a matter of individual conscience. Distasteful though I find abortion, I would never wish to impose by law my moral views on another moral agent.

Which means, I believe, that health professionals should not be compelled to provide abortion against their conscience; but that women should always be able to have an abortion on request, subject to certain general criteria and providing staff are available to perform the operation.

@ 48

“Well that’s bloody stupid and wrong.”

Agreed. That was my point.

Please read my comments in context rather than make baseless accusations.

So it’s nature that is sexist? Because that’s where the distinction comes from.

Well, I wouldn’t describe the behaviour of spiders, or elephant seals, for instance, as a model of gender equity.

But… nature is where the different rates of pregnancy come from. How we react to that is only a part of nature in the trivial sense that all human society is a part of nature. So I feel there’s a moral duty to consider the consequences of our actions as well as the moral principles that suggest them.

so you’ve just defined terms that allow you to declare everything sexist

If a policy has an effect that discriminates, then it is a discriminatory policy. It may be necessary, or provide for a greater good somewhere else, but if that’s the case then you can make a moral case that while the policy disproportionately harms women (or men), that it is nevertheless justifiable.

If we’re going to take each other’s position to absurd extremes, then I can say that you are arguing that only the principles behind a policy can be considered sexist, not its consequences, which you’re clearly not…

At any rate. saying that “God says so, therefore it’s not sexist” or the secular equivalent “My moral principles say so, therefore it’s not sexist”, as the comment I was replying to did, is ridiculous.

@ 51 cim

“Well, I wouldn’t describe the behaviour of spiders, or elephant seals, for instance, as a model of gender equity.”

We’re talking about physical characteristics here, though. If you’re gonna accuse nature of sexism you’re aiming a moral accusation at something that lacks a mind.

“But… nature is where the different rates of pregnancy come from. How we react to that is only a part of nature in the trivial sense that all human society is a part of nature. So I feel there’s a moral duty to consider the consequences of our actions as well as the moral principles that suggest them.”

Absolutely we should consider the consequences of our actions. I have trouble understanding a moral system that doesn’t do that: to me, intentions define morality, and intentions require expected consequences.

So we could say that abortion sounds bad on the face of it, but if we’re gonna ban it that has huge consequences in terms of the freedom and wellbeing of women. I would say that, in fact: it’s the main reason I’m pro-choice.

None of this adds up to it being sexist.

“If a policy has an effect that discriminates, then it is a discriminatory policy.”

No. I think this might be the source of our disagreement. The policy itself does not discriminate. It just so happens, like any policy, to affect one group more than others due to background conditions – 100%:0% in this case.

A pro-lifer should not change their stance if we woke up tomorrow and found that 50% of pregnancies had been transferred to the father. If that happened and they did, that would be a good indicator of sexism.

“It may be necessary, or provide for a greater good somewhere else, but if that’s the case then you can make a moral case that while the policy disproportionately harms women (or men), that it is nevertheless justifiable.”

Absolutely, but that’s a different case to whether or not it’s sexist.

Sexism, if it means anything, surely means unfairly judging someone based on their gender, or treating them differently based on their gender. The vital part there is that it is YOU making the distinction, rather than the distinction already existing.

Pro-life applies a principle that happens to only affect women. In the same way, legal abortion happens to only affect men in forcing them to accept that their child will be aborted against their wishes. Neither policy is sexist, they just exist in a world where men and women are not identical.

And there are more absurdities. Any policy decision on testicular cancer – whether to increase funding or decrease it – would be defined as sexist under your rules.

“If we’re going to take each other’s position to absurd extremes…”

When did I take your position to absurd extremes? I simply applied the exact same logic to a different situation, one where I suspected you wouldn’t agree with the outcome.

I honestly think that saying “pro-life is sexist!” is a rationalisation. It’s certainly an ad hom, but I think it’s a rationalised ad hom into the bargain.

That doesn’t preclude the possibility that misanthropy feeds into some individuals’ decision to be pro-life: their hatred of women makes them disinclined to empathise and put themselves in the woman’s shoes. I’m just saying it’s not inherent to the position or to everyone who holds it.

“At any rate. saying that “God says so, therefore it’s not sexist” or the secular equivalent “My moral principles say so, therefore it’s not sexist”, as the comment I was replying to did, is ridiculous.”

As I read it, Chris was saying “Hypothetical!Me did not arrive at a pro-life position through sexism, he arrived at it through the belief that the unborn have the right to life.” If so, that’s not the same thing. Moral principles are being raised as an alternative cause to sexism, not as a disproof of sexism.

Chaise/52: Neither policy is sexist, they just exist in a world where men and women are not identical.

This seems to be a rejection of the entire concept of “indirect discrimination”. Would you, on the same grounds, claim that the US voter ID laws, largely advanced by the Republican Party on the stated ground of preventing fraud, are not racist because they only coincidentally prevent African-American voters from voting considerably more than they prevent white voters from voting, due to other pre-existing factors correlated with race? If not, what’s the distinction?

A pro-lifer should not change their stance if we woke up tomorrow and found that 50% of pregnancies had been transferred to the father. If that happened and they did, that would be a good indicator of sexism.

I agree. But I don’t think that logic works in reverse. If you have a policy which you do not believe to have a disproportionate gendered effect, and then either a change in the context or new-to-you evidence shows you that in fact it does, I think there is a responsibility there to reconsider the policy.

The vital part there is that it is YOU making the distinction, rather than the distinction already existing.

In this particular case I would say that there are two distinctions, though.
1) People with a uterus can become pregnant.
2) People with a uterus can be legally required to stay pregnant.
Distinction 1 is pre-existing. Distinction 2 is being made.

You seem to be saying that Distinction 2 is not real (or perhaps not part of the policy?) because people who cannot possibly become pregnant are also required to stay pregnant if the impossible happens.

In the same way, legal abortion happens to only affect men in forcing them to accept that their child will be aborted against their wishes.
Leaving aside the existence of lesbians, which would replace “only” with “mostly”, there…

… in this particular case, yes, this is a disproportionate effect on men. On the other hand the other option has a much more disproportionate effect on women. So sexism is minimised in the current context by the pro-choice position. By then working to reduce the need for abortion at all (better contraceptives, better education, reduced poverty, better medical care, reduced sexual and/or domestic violence, etc.) then both the absolute level of sexism of each option, and the gap between them, is reduced (though pro-choice will always end up lower except when the number of wanted abortions is zero)

And there are more absurdities. Any policy decision on testicular cancer – whether to increase funding or decrease it – would be defined as sexist under your rules.

Not quite. Setting it to the value which causes medical funding in general to result in a gender-balanced research profile, taking into account prevalence of various bits of anatomy within the population, likelihoods of various cancers, existing medical knowledge, other non-medical demands on the budget, etc. etc. would not be sexist.

I don’t view “sexism” as a binary thing which something (idea, person, whatever) either has or doesn’t, and if it/they has it, it’s/they’re bad. I view it as a scale [1] on which most actions are inevitably going to be some way off zero … but the distance from zero must be justified.

So, for instance, the ability to give birth is strongly correlated with gender, and this is an underlying cause of a lot of other inequality … but it’s also one we can’t do anything about directly, so it is for now justified. (But on the other hand I’d be suspicious about attempts to prevent research into technology which might change that)

On the other hand, the pro-life position has the major consequences you state in terms of freedom and well-being of women (and a few men, too, anatomy not being perfectly correlated with gender). But there is a position which has a much lower level of inequality available … so the difficulty of justifying that position gets much higher. (In practice, I’ve never seen a pro-life argument *attempt* to justify it as opposed to ignoring or denying those consequences, but I’m sure there must be some people who do)

Given the size of this comment compared with the original article, I think you can understand why I originally shorthanded that to “yes, it’s a sexist policy”!

[1] Simplifying here: more a set of scales along with other forms of discrimination, of course.

@ cim

“Would you, on the same grounds, claim that the US voter ID laws, largely advanced by the Republican Party on the stated ground of preventing fraud, are not racist because they only coincidentally prevent African-American voters from voting considerably more than they prevent white voters from voting, due to other pre-existing factors correlated with race? If not, what’s the distinction?”

I wouldn’t call that racist, I’d call that vote-fixing. But perhaps the test would be: would they still be pushing for voter ID if it affected all races equally, or actually hit their own voters harder?

I don’t know if I reject the idea of indirect discrimination. Does that mean doing things that happen to turn out to have stronger negative effects for one group or another – like raising some tax and finding that it affects 5% more whites than blacks? Or does it mean working to oppress a group but putting an innocent face on it – like the French pretending they want to ban “face coverings” because they actually don’t like burkhas?

“I agree. But I don’t think that logic works in reverse. If you have a policy which you do not believe to have a disproportionate gendered effect, and then either a change in the context or new-to-you evidence shows you that in fact it does, I think there is a responsibility there to reconsider the policy.”

Of course: when the facts change, I change my mind. But that doesn’t make the policy *sexist*. It might make it wrong, but that’s a different thing.

“You seem to be saying that Distinction 2 is not real (or perhaps not part of the policy?) because people who cannot possibly become pregnant are also required to stay pregnant if the impossible happens.”

Put more simply: if you have a child inside you, you are required to keep said child. For some people, this happens not to apply. Almost all of these people happen to be female.

Incidentally, just thought of a gender-swapped example. You remember we were discussing whether women can (morally) rape men the other day? Say someone came along and said that a woman forcing a man to have normal intercourse with her should be rape, but that the act of being penetrated makes it worse for the victim, so men should get higher sentences than women. I might actually agree with this position. Either way, in terms of normal intercourse at least (for argument’s sake, imagine no other forms of sex exist), that divides cleanly down gender lines. I would not call it sexist against men.

“Leaving aside the existence of lesbians, which would replace “only” with “mostly”, there…”

My original wording was their *genetic* child, assumed that would be taken as still standing.

“… in this particular case, yes, this is a disproportionate effect on men. On the other hand the other option has a much more disproportionate effect on women. So sexism is minimised in the current context by the pro-choice position.”

So your position is that both policies are sexist, but some sexisms are more sexist than others? In other words, the only way to fight sexism is with sexism, in this case?

“Not quite. Setting it to the value which causes medical funding in general to result in a gender-balanced research profile, taking into account prevalence of various bits of anatomy within the population, likelihoods of various cancers, existing medical knowledge, other non-medical demands on the budget, etc. etc. would not be sexist.”

No, you’ve changed the rules. Funding for testicular cancers is currently at whatever pounds. The act of increasing/decreasing it will affect men more than women, whether positively or negatively. Ergo, the act of changing funding becomes inherently sexist, regardless of existing background conditions.

“I don’t view “sexism” as a binary thing which something (idea, person, whatever) either has or doesn’t, and if it/they has it, it’s/they’re bad. I view it as a scale [1] on which most actions are inevitably going to be some way off zero … but the distance from zero must be justified.”

I’m fine with this, it makes sense. But I think a lot of things aren’t on that scale at all. Nature. Spiders. Rocks. Taxation without ulterior gender motives. Pro-life views, if they honestly come from the position “unborn children deserve the right to life” and nothing else.

“So, for instance, the ability to give birth is strongly correlated with gender, and this is an underlying cause of a lot of other inequality … but it’s also one we can’t do anything about directly, so it is for now justified. (But on the other hand I’d be suspicious about attempts to prevent research into technology which might change that)”

Well said and agreed.

“On the other hand, the pro-life position has the major consequences you state in terms of freedom and well-being of women (and a few men, too, anatomy not being perfectly correlated with gender). But there is a position which has a much lower level of inequality available … so the difficulty of justifying that position gets much higher. ”

Again, I agree, but would frame this as “right vs wrong” rather than “sexist vs non-sexist”.

“(In practice, I’ve never seen a pro-life argument *attempt* to justify it as opposed to ignoring or denying those consequences, but I’m sure there must be some people who do)”

Meh, could say the same about the majority of interested pro-choicers I talk to*. The default pro-choice line seems to be pretending that unborn personhood is not in question, so lifers must be motivated entirely by teh evilz. It’s a polarised and generally shitty debate all round.

“Given the size of this comment compared with the original article, I think you can understand why I originally shorthanded that to “yes, it’s a sexist policy”!”

I can understand, but it’s like shorthanding to “yes, opposing immigration is racist!” It just insults the other side, half of whom don’t deserve it, and puts everyone into Battle Mode.

*Most people I know IRL are pro-choice and fairly reasonable about it. But pro-choicers who argue on the internet tend to be dug into a position and refuse to have a grown-up conversation about it, at a rate (in my experience) approaching but not reaching that of pro-lifers. You’re an exception to that, BTW.

This seems to be a rejection of the entire concept of “indirect discrimination”. Would you, on the same grounds, claim that the US voter ID laws, largely advanced by the Republican Party on the stated ground of preventing fraud, are not racist because they only coincidentally prevent African-American voters from voting considerably more than they prevent white voters from voting, due to other pre-existing factors correlated with race? If not, what’s the distinction?

Not to mention that someone on Free Republic, on the subject of same sex marriage, advanced the claim that gay people had the exact same rights to marriage as everyone else, in that they were perfectly free to marry someone of the opposite sex. A technically true argument, but to agree with it you must ignore the indirect discrimination involved.

@ 55 Cylux

That would be a classic case of nasty-intentions-hidden-behind-innocent-motives (very poorly, in this case). As relates to abortion, it’s not the same thing: only women (more or less) can be allowed/banned from having abortions, because of how the world is. Marriage, including its traditional “mixed gender only” rule, is a social construct to start with.

Chaise: I wouldn’t call that racist, I’d call that vote-fixing. But perhaps the test would be: would they still be pushing for voter ID if it affected all races equally, or actually hit their own voters harder?

There’s a natural experiment on that: fraud related to postal votes is orders of magnitudes higher than that related to in-person voter impersonation; postal votes tend to be more Republican than average; the Republicans don’t propose legislation about it.

I feel pretty confident in this particular case saying that their intent is in fact racist, because they’re not at all subtle about it … but if they were being much more subtle and/or reaching the same conclusion from non-racist premises, the consequences would still be the same.

No, you’ve changed the rules

I’ve been more precise about the expression of them, at least. For clarity, I would not (in general) view a policy which decreased the overall level of gender inequality as sexist.

In other words, the only way to fight sexism is with sexism, in this case?

Not quite. I’m saying that there are no policies available at this time given technology, social context, anatomical statistics, etc. which can have no differential effect whatsoever. Therefore, we should pick the one with the smallest differential effect unless there are other benefits to the other option which justify the increased differential. There is currently no perfect option.

(And both pro-choice and pro-life people should be able to agree on various policies to reduce the demand for abortion as I mentioned at 53)

Pro-life views, if they honestly come from the position “unborn children deserve the right to life” and nothing else.

In terms of intent, sure. But the consequences are mostly unaffected by the original intent, and it’s the consequences that matter to other people. Intent is between the person and any consciences or gods they may or may not have.

Now, okay, their expressed intent and my beliefs about it would probably influence what methods I considered appropriate to convince them to change their policy, but that’s different.

For what it’s worth, I will probably reserve statements of X-ist intent for the most clear cut cases. X-ist consequences I have a much lower threshold for not least because if they weren’t consequences of an X-ist intent, the person with that intent may well want to reconsider.

(Perhaps it’s unfortunate that the words for both are the same)

The default pro-choice line seems to be pretending that unborn personhood is not in question

There are two separate lines of argument, I think:
1) Unborn foetuses should not be considered to be people. (An argument which I think works fine early in pregnancy and gets into a big grey area later on, though I’m uneasy for different reasons about the idea of using ‘viability’ as the marker for the compromise)

2) Even if you do consider them to be people, they don’t have sufficient rights to stay where they are without the consent of the owner of the uterus.

The set of rights necessary for the foetus to hold to forbid abortion would be significantly larger in some areas than those they are commonly agreed to hold after birth. (A pro-lifer who argued that those rights did hold after birth too would have a strong case, though not a popular one)

@ 57 cim

“Perhaps it’s unfortunate that the words for both are the same”

This seems to be the root of this whole discussion, actually: You define “sexist” to include “anything increasing gender inequality”, regardless of intent and possibly even agency. I don’t. To be honest I think you’re misapplying the word, but I’m not in charge of the English language and I certainly don’t fancy a dictionary war.

Either way, it might be a good idea to use a different term for your definition of the word, simply because, if you say to someone “your policy is sexist!”, they’re naturally gonna hear that as “you are sexist!” and respond appropriately (i.e. angrily). Basically it makes it sound like you’re ad homming when you’re not. Even if you’re not equivocating, they’ll equivocate for you without realising it.

Regarding your pro-choice positions, those are both perfectly good arguments. The problem is that, in the wonderful world of the internets, pro-choicers tend to instead huffily say things like “You pro-choicers still can’t explain why someone can’t do what they like with THEIR body!”, which is straw-manning and point-missing on an epic scale. Pro-lifers are saying you can’t do what you like with the child’s body.

They enter a debate about unborn personhood, and take the starting assumption that the personhood issue has been resolved in their favour. That’s seriously fucking stupid, and I see a depressing number of smart people fall into it.

“My apologies once again if that seems offensive to anyone”

Emma: your apologies for this disgraceful article are not accepted. You have tried to use your stupid religious beliefs to guilt trip women who have had abortions (excepting those who have had abortions after rape for some unexplained reason).

You claim these women are somehow less `pro-life’ than you and yet only amongst religious freaks is it not accepted that an embryo only becomes an autonomous human baby at 24 weeks and even then not so autonomous that an abortion isn’t still accepted for medical reasons if the life of the mother is threatened by its continuation. Before that it is merely an embryo which is half a click up from an egg or a sperm. Medial science may one day be able to bring under 24 week old foetuses to fruition outside the womb and may already have done so but that does not alter the fact that they were dealing not with an unborn baby but a foetus. Get off your high horse. You are not better than women who have had an abortion or more `pro-life’. In fact your lack of empathy marks you out as worse.

Deborah Orr in the Guradian on Oct 12th quoted some interesting statistics: which at first glance suggest some of the commentors above should have researched before speaking:

ritain is exceptional in Europe when it comes to abortion. Lots of countries offer abortion on request, unlike us, and Britain should too. But the gestational time limits are fascinating. Among EU countries, 16 out of 27 are with Hunt, on 12 weeks. In France, abortion on demand is available until week 12. In Germany, it’s also the first trimester. In Italy, it’s within the first 90 days. Ah, you say, that’ll be the Catholic influence. Perhaps. But that doesn’t entirely explain Sweden, at 18 weeks, Denmark, at 12 weeks, and Greece, at 12 weeks.

On this issue, at least, the Tories are in step with Europe, and the left in Britain is out on its own. Well, not completely. Closest to us is the Netherlands, which gives abortion on request up to 13 weeks, and allows it up to 24 weeks if the mother is in distress. Only Cyprus allows abortion notably later than the UK, at 28 weeks, but always under very strict conditions.

Now, I don’t point out these facts because I have a hidden agenda as a pro-lifer. I’m as pro-choice as the next progressive type.

@ JV

Robin had addressed this above. Basically, it seems to come down to the fact that abortion options outside of “abortion on demand” differ between countries, which makes direct comparisons on that limit misleading.

Your Netherlands citation, for example: I don’t know the system there, but “if the mother is in distress” could mean anything from requiring a psychiatrist to confirm that she’s suffering major psychological harm, to requiring that she tick a box saying “I am distressed”.