UTERUS INTERRUPTUS: OF FALLACIES, FINGER-POINTING AND FALLOPIAN RESPONSIBILITY

My apologies if the title offends: I'm making no effort to be glib here. It's a serious topic, to be sure.

As I'm a white, middle-aged single male, I've avoided this topic for some time (at least here), because:

1. I've never fathered a biological child, and


2. I don't have a uterus.

I walk the middle road on this. I am pro-choice, but to quote Harlan Ellison, "I'm not anti-abortion: I am anti-waste."

I am of the position that all human life is sacred (yeah, it's a religious term. I'm an atheist, but I'm still going to use it. Don't like it? See ya in court). I am of the opinion that it should indeed be safe, legal, and rare.

Now, I realize that atheists and theists alike will likely never agree on this point. The issue being: the soul. Efforts to inject an unquantifiable abstract into real life seem to us to be ridiculous, at best. That is observation only.

For the theists, I give you this:

Genesis 9:4 "But flesh with the life thereof, [which is] the blood thereof, shall ye not eat."

Leviticus 17:11, 14 (cp. Deuteronomy 12:23) "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.... For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof ..."

Exodus 21:22-25
"And if men struggle and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

I have not found any history of induced miscarriages vis-a-vis the ancient Hebrews, so it is hard to say whether or not they practiced this. Midwifery is mentioned twice (that I know of) in Genesis, I can only speculate in this regard.

I do view it as the slaughter of innocents. I also view it as a necessary evil. This is by no means contradictory. I am going to inject the observations of Thurgood Marshall, who stated my position with far more eloquence than I could ever muster [note: yes, it IS a dissenting opinion, ergo not law]:

http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/library/index.asp?document=50
Harris v. McRae
Dissenting opinion by Thurgood Marshall [Harris v. McRae]
"The consequences of todays opinion has consequences to which the Court seems oblivious are not difficult to predict. Pregnant women denied the funding necessary to procure abortions will be restricted to two alternatives. First, they can carry the fetus to term even though that route may result in severe injury or death to the mother, the fetus, or both. If that course appears intolerable, they can resort to self-induced abortions or attempt to obtain illegal abortions not because bearing a child would be inconvenient, but because it is necessary in order to protect their health. {Footnote: Of course, some poor women will attempt to raise the funds necessary to obtain a lawful abortion. A court recently found that those who were fortunate enough to do so had to resort to "not paying rent or utility bills, pawning household goods, diverting food and clothing money, or journeying to another state to obtain lower rates or fraudulently use a relatives insurance policy.... [S]ome patients were driven to theft." Womens Health Services, Inc. v. Maher, 482 F. Supp. 725.} The result will not be to protect what the Court describes as "the legitimate governmental objective of protecting potential life," but to ensure the destruction of both fetal and maternal life. "There is another world out there, the existence of which the Court ...either chooses to ignore or fears to recognize." Beal v. Doe (BLACKMUN, J., dissenting). In my view, it is only by blinding itself to that other world that the Court can reach the result it announces today."

Let's now defer to a historical example:

"English common law generally allowed abortion before the "quickening" of the fetus (i.e., the first recognizable movement of the fetus in the uterus), which occurred between the sixteenth and eighteenth weeks of pregnancy. After quickening, however, common law was less clear as to whether abortion was considered a crime. In the United States, state legislatures did not pass abortion statutes until the nineteenth century. After 1880, abortion was criminalized by statute in every state of the union, owing in large measure to strong anti-abortion positions taken by the American Medical Association. Despite the illegality, many thousands of women every year sought abortions. Under a heavy cloak of shame and secrecy, women often had abortions performed in unsafe conditions, and many died or suffered complications from the procedures."

Now, let's move to the caricatures:
A. Pro-choicers are farcical vaudevillian villains of the Simon Legree variety.

This is a poor fallacy, silly at best and stupid at worst. I find it highly unlikely that doctors who perform these procedures are rubbing their hands maniacally, pulling their handlebar mustaches, all the while revelling in infanticide.
Grow the fuck up, people. These two-dimensional cartoon characters are, in a word, puerile. I can barely stand them in movies: real life ain't like that.

B. Abortion as a means of post-contraception.

There's just so much wrong with this...misperception, words almost fail me. Give me an example of a woman who's had ten abortions, or more. You can? Okay, multiply that by a hundred. Show me, as the old Missouri adage says. What? Can't hear you. You can't?

C. No one told them to have sex!

Oy gevalt! This one's propagated by middle- to upper-middle class to rich folks. Yeah, you try sitting around (when you're not working 3 or more jobs), with nothing to do because you HAVE NO MONEY - let's see how you spend your time. Further on this: if a man goes and has unprotected sex, gets an STD, is he refused treatment? Or the 'extreme' sports nut falling off a mountain and breaking his leg? After all, no one 'told' these two guys to 'go out and do that!' Besides, most folks will object to having their biological needs subject to scheduling and permission.

D. Use abstinence.

See commentary above. I also refer to the faith-based 'Abstinence Now' program, which, before it went defunct, had an 88% failure rate.

E. premarital sex is wrong!

Good luck legislating that. Most pro-lifers don't want to let MARRIED folk have the operation either.

You want it gone? So do I. Can you just slam a door, and throw away the key, and never will the subject broached again? Highly unlikely that'll EVER happen. So let's stop this 'blame the victim' nonsense. The Japanese have a wonderful saying: "Fix the problem, not the blame."

We're talking about the less prosperous portions of society here. We're talking about women who have very few options in their lives. Let's reform the social ills that this stems from. Be honest: this is a SYMPTOM, not a disease. More education, more personal responsibility, higher standards of life, I mean, my list just goes ON and ON. Meanwhile, let's teach RESPONSIBILITY, and SEX EDUCATION, fer cryin' out loud, while we're at it. Hey, you don't want your kids learning it from someone else? Fine. Teach them when they ask: let's dump the Victorian nonsense already, we're in the 21st CE, instead of the kid learning some idiocy at the HS locker about 'how you can't get pregnant if you do it standing up.'

In the past, I've made efforts to shame pro-lifers with the following statement: "If you feel so strongly about abortion, how about offering to adopt the child?" Because, hey, if you're willing to go out and TAKE a life because of how strongly you feel (which to me is just so...hypocritical in the extreme), howzabout you shoot for the LONG-TERM ramifications? If you're so passionate about this, how about something a little more proactive than, say, harassing some poor woman who's agonizing over this decision anyways (because, as I understand it, it's a pretty hard choice, and somewhat scarring afterwards as well), or pointing a gun at a doctor, or distributing literature aimed at provoking a knee-jerk reaction? There's so many knee-jerk responses in this country anyways, chiropractors'll be raking in the bucks for years to come. So do something ELSE besides ranting and raving in the streets, or interfering with someone's free will.

I have an idea. I don't know if it's been implemented before, so it may or may not be original, but who cares?

Let's combine the abortion clinics with adoption agencies.

Hey, the government already regulates them both, right? Sure, it'd be a bureaucratic nightmare at first. But an outright ban? Something like this isn't a light switch, folks: you can't just flick it on and off. You're talking about human nature here: you can only legislate so much of it, before it goes ka-plooey! in your face (Prohibition comes to mind). Let's start providing OPTIONS, alternatives, instead of this 'either/or' nonsense that's becoming a such a rut, you can see the circles worn into the ground from miles away.

Passion is a fine thing: it runs in my veins as well. But it cannot be the ruling force here. Else we will have violence in the streets. And there's enough violence in the world, without us adding to it.

I leave you with these words, from one of the Founders of this country:

"Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest numbers of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best. "
John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

That is my nickel's worth, dear readers: spend it wisely, and well.