I know we talked about this before, but I can’t find it, and I figured that, if we’re going to have esteemed legislators hanging around here, maybe they’d like some input. (Ha, ha, ha.)
First, let’s tackle the big question: “I hate abortion and think it’s wrong. Why can’t I just work to make it illegal?”
Well, as we’ve talked about repeatedly, there is no way to make abortion illegal that respects a woman’s right to control what happens to her body. Making abortion illegal means that the State has the right to force you to have a baby, even when you don’t want to. This is just basic human rights stuff. The State cannot force you to do something dangerous and possibly deadly that then saddles you with an 18 year commitment against your will and claim with a straight face that you are free and equal to other citizens.
But here’s the other reason. Making abortions illegal does not end abortion. We know that. The Government claims that there are about 800,000 abortions a year. We’ve talked about why I believe that number might be closer to a million. We’ve also talked about where this 1.3-1.5 million number comes from and why I believe it to be so far off. We can talk about those things again.
It’s difficult to estimate what the abortion rate pre-Roe was, of course. But folks have made attempts. Folks like this claim that the rate probably wasn’t that much lower than it is now. Even if you think the number is way off, the lowest estimates I’ve seen are 200,000 a year and, if you anti-abortion folks are serious about being anti-abortion, even 200,000 ought to seem like too many.
Making abortions illegal also increases the risk to women who are desperate to end their pregnancies, and again, if your goal is to reduce the cost of human life, a strategy that endangers women ought to be off your plate.
So, what can we do to reduce abortions that will actually have the effect of, you know, reducing abortions, while still respecting that women are equal and autonomous citizens under the law?
1. Comprehensive sex education in school. Here’s how human bodies work. Here’s how pregnancies happen. Here’s how to prevent them. Emphasis not only on abstinence (which is being taught right now as “never have sex or you will be a slutty slut who will get pregnant and probably commit suicide”), but on being sure and clear and able to express what you want from your partner, if you want anything at all.
Right now, we’re teaching our kids that sex is a war of attrition, that boys want it so bad that their whole lives revolve around getting it and that girls don’t need sex the same way that boys do, and so our jobs are to keep boys from having sex or else we are Slutty Whores. Boys try and try and try and girls say no and no and no until the boys wear down our resolve and we give in.
Girls who believe that their role is to just passively wait for boys to wear them down are notoriously bad about a.) getting and regularly using birth control and b.) about insisting that boys wear condoms.
Speaking of condoms, Conservative Christians, perhaps you don’t remember what it was like to be a teenager, but believe me, when you’re up there saying “Condoms don’t work. You can’t trust condoms. Abstinence is the only way to keep yourself safe,” for every one person you’re keeping a virgin, five others are hearing, “Well, there’s nothing we can do to keep ourselves safe; why bother trying?”
We know ABC (sex ed with an emphasis on “Abstinence, being Faithful, and using Condoms”) has worked well in other countries to reduce HIV/AIDS. If it works for that, why not try it for unwanted pregnancies?
2. A society-wide emphasis on the importance of an enthusiastic “yes” from your partner. Not only would this drastically reduce date-rapes, people who want to have sex and feel good about having sex are much more likely to take proper precautions when having sex. Right now, still, we have this idea that sex in certain situations is wrong. Say like, going to a bar and picking someone up and taking them home. A lot of people do this. Many of those same people believe it’s wrong. So, rather than preparing by having a purse or wallet full of condoms, which would indicate that we knew we were going out to have sex, we don’t prepare and go out and pretend like we were just caught up in the moment.
3. Pressure all insurance companies to cover birth control. Thank god for Viagra as many insurance companies that didn’t cover birth control and tried to cover Viagra were shamed into covering birth control too. Not all, though.
4. Government funding of birth control. Oh, I know you conservatives just about fell over at that, but most folks in this country don’t have insurance, and the majority of abortions in this country are had by poor women. Providing them with low-cost or free birth control would go a long way towards reducing those abortions.
4a. Gosh, you know,if only there were some large non-profit who would provide low-cost reproductive healthcare to women and also provide free condoms and low-cost or free birth-control pills.
5. Pour more funding into March of Dimes and other organizations that are looking for cures for birth defects.
6. Provide free healthcare and a food stipend to, at least, children living in poverty, if not all children in the U.S. Right now, poor and low income women account for more than half of all U.S. abortions and, since 1990, a majority of women having abortions already are mothers. Clearly, most poor and low income mothers would be more likely to not have abortions if they could afford to have another child.
7. Along those same lines, 80% of women who have abortions are unmarried. I propose a two-fold approach here. One is that we more strenuously go after dead-beat dads for child support. The other, again bound to be unpopular with the Conservatives, is that the Government provide child support to the woman as a kind of mandatory loan. So, you see what I’m saying, Johnny is the father of Sally’s child. He’s obliged by the court to pay her $500 a month in child support. He skips out. Sally goes to court and proves that Johnny has skipped out and is not paying. The Court can take the steps to get his pay docked and so on, if Johnny can be found. In the meantime, Sally gets $500 a month from the Government. Johnny is eventually found. Now he still has his $500 a month payment to Sally and a $2,500 loan from the Government he’s got to repay.
8. Get over this idiotic notion that the morning-after pill causes abortions and insist on it being widely available to women.
Hmm. Well, shoot. I can’t think of any more than eight.
But also, I want to reiterate that these are eight things I think we as a society can do secularly. Families and churches can still insist on setting a goal of virginity until marriage and then being open to children in marriage when they come. That’s your business and, if it works for you as a religious mandate, hurray!
Folks should, of course, feel free to add on in the comments.
(Also, I got a lot of information about who’s having abortions from here, if you’re interested.)
Tiny Cat Pants 
Sorry, just getting around to responding to your earlier comment on the last abortion post. I’m not trying to play gotcha, and I’m sorry that it sounds that way. Although, I have to say growing up in Nashville that every time I hear or read a “Bless your heart” it comes off, rightly or wrongly, as a “Southern woman bares teeth.” I just really don’t understand your logic. I get – and agree – with abortion as a bodily autonomy issue. But when you say that you think abortion should be legal up to the point of birth, even though you think it’s morally wrong, I don’t get that.
Here’s why: you say that it’s a bodily autonomy thing, and you shouldn’t have to deal with something growing inside you and feeding off your body if you don’t want to. OK. But if that’s the case, I still don’t understand how you use it to support abortion at any point during pregnancy. If you want the fetus gone, take it out. But why do you have to abort it? It’s just as gone from your body once you have a C-section or induce labor. Why does it need to be terminated to protect your right to bodily autonomy? Bless my little heart, it just seems to be that you want it to be this way, and you’re grasping at straws to support it.
See, Susan, but from my end, what you’re saying sounds barbaric to me. By and large, women have late-term abortions to save their own lives. They don’t have c-sections or deliver because it’s too dangerous. Often, women have late-term abortions because the fetus has some horrible defect that will ensure it dies a painful death upon delivery or shortly afterwards. A woman might feel that the kindest thing she can do for her child is to end its life swiftly rather than letting it suffer. And again, aborting the pregnancy is often the safest way to ensure that the mother’s reproductive organs remain intact so that she can try again.
To me, for you to advocate forcing women to put themselves in danger or to give birth to a baby they then have to watch die in incredible pain seems cruel.
And the thing I don’t get is that your position is not incompatable with mine. You can recognize that a woman has to have control over her own body in order to be an autonomous citizen, and you can recognize that such control must extend throughout pregnancy, and you can still think that its wrong for women whose health is not in danger and who are carrying viable pregnancies to have late term abortions.
And, because you think that, you’re still free to take out public service announcements or preach against it in your church or write letters to the editor explaining why you think it’s wrong and trying to convince others of the correctness of your position.
And, who knows, you might reduce or almost entirely eliminate what you consider to be unnecessary late-term abortions. Shoot, you might be so eloquent that you talk women out of having abortions at all.
More power to you, if that’s the case.
But as long as your strategy involves letting the State take over the bodies of women in order to force women to have babies against their will, I’ll stand against you.
The State cannot force us to give birth AND also pretend that we’re equal citizens. There’s just no way.
A fetus doesn’t have to be terminated to protect my right to bodily autonomy. I could still have bodily autonomy in a society where women freely chose to never have abortions. But I can’t have bodily autonomy if I don’t have the choice to have one.
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By the way…your “4a” is one of the main reasons why I staunchly support Planned Parenthood.
Who says I don’t support some late-term abortions? I would never encourage let alone require a woman to put herself at risk to have a baby. The birth defect issue is stickier. You never answer Martin’s question about killing infants – do you think it would be ok to kill a newborn with a defect? Euthanize the newborn, if you prefer that term? And even so, what on earth does terminating a severely malformed fetus have to do with bodily autonomy? Nothing, from where I sit.
I just don’t think the hyperbole about being made slaves if there is some protection for fetuses is right. By that, I mean not only that it is incorrect, but that it’s counterproductive, because it goes too far. The State takes over people’s bodies all the time, in one form or another. I don’t understand how you can logically argue that this is so much different. You can only get there emotionally because you want it to be different so badly.
I’m actually pretty comfortable with the existing trimester framework. States do regulate third trimester abortions, and it seems to be working pretty well.
We do get into iffy ground post 2nd trimester viability abortion, absent maternal/fetal health issues, and I think we can let existing standards ride.
No need to provide the opposition with heavy artillary.
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Susan, I did answer Martin’s question. Yes, I believe it would be completely wrong to kill a born baby for any reason. Babies have a right to life and they have bodily autonomy.
Please name for me one other instance where the State can compell you to donate your own organs to another person. Or where the State can compel you to do something harmful to yourself that usually requires a hospital stay in order to recover from it. There is none.
Here is the other thing I wonder about. You talk about “protection for fetuses.” From whom? And yet, who is going to raise that baby? Shoot, who’s even going to carry that fetus to term? Is the fetus magically capable of changing a woman who doesn’t want it into a good mother? Are you going to recommend that, if a woman wants an abortion for reasons that fall outside of what you find acceptable, and the State denies her, that she be assigned some officers to follow her around to make sure that she doesn’t do things that are harmful to it?
If a fetus needs “protection” from the woman carrying it, how far are you willing to extend this protection? What, exactly, will that look like?
Ahunt, here’s my problem. I’m not actually advocating for a change in the laws; our opposition is. I’m taking a hardline because I do believe that women are not stupid and can make the decisions they think they need to make for whatever reasons they make them.
So, I see what you’re saying, but when you say, “There’s no need to provide the opposition with heavy artillery,” I have to ask, are we really saying that reminding people that there are two lives under consideration here and that one of them is a born woman with rights that have to be respected, even if we disagree with her, really providig the opposition with heavy artillery?
I’m not sure that I disagree with you. In fact, I think you might be right. We, as a society, probably do find the idea that women are autonomous beings so shocking that we feminists are probably right to feel like it could be used as ammunition against us.
But we rarely admit that outloud, do we?
Broader education would work to reduce abortions if unwanted pregnancies were a matter of ignorance. I think they are primarily a matter of a lack of self-control aka maturity, parental oversight, and family (dis)function. However, the why of unwanted pregnancy is complex and debatable. This though is what I don’t get. No, this is what positively confounds me…
If I didn’t think abortion involved the taking of a human life I’d encourage more abortions rather than try to reduce them. I’d favor a policy, driven by the data, of encouraging single, poor women to have abortions.
Let me add that abortion as a policy matter is easy for me, but I recognize that people like me can be misunderstood. I recognize that abortion is so much more than a policy matter. I think most women get abortions because they don’t see any choice. They are desperate, often alone, young, and fearful. Condemnation is not in order but rather love, forgiveness, understanding, and support.
On reduceing abortions, I would have a somewhat different approach.
Martin, the evidence from Europe is overwhelming that better education about pregnancy, sex, etc. helps to improve self-control. At least, Europeans start having sex at a later age than Americans, on average. And they have fewer pregnancies among teenagers as well. Don’t underestimate how ignorant kids can be. Good education is a wonderful tool.
Martin, I swear, the more I talk to you, the more I find I don’t understand your position. To start with, most abortions are had by poor women in their twenties who already have a kid. How can we say that they are suffering from a lack of parental oversight or family disfunction?
Second, why on earth would you ever encourage women to have abortions just because they’re single and poor? Can single and poor women not love their children? Are single and poor women exempt from having their wishes and hopes for their lives taken into consideration? Let alone if the State started “encouraging” single and poor women to have abortions. We’ve already seen what an evil mess that can be. As women who were sterilized without their consent, just because they were poor and uppity.
And third, even if you believe that a woman is doing something wrong by having an abortion, and needs love, understanding, and support, why in the world does she need your forgiveness? What wrong has she committed against you?
But we rarely admit that outloud, do we?
OH absolutely Aunt B! So ingrained in our collective psyche is the mental construct of women as self-sacrificing, nurturers who exist solely to serve the needs of others…that any deviation from the construct is wielded as a club against us.
And it is an effective cudgel.
Hey, find me any right wing screed of career-oriented, childless men being described “selfish,” and I’ll buy the morning coffee for the next year, Aunt B.
nm, Very different demographics between Europe and America, but the data is a challenge to interpret. I think the vast majority of those who get pregnant know what causes the condition.
B,
1. A single woman in her twenties, with a child, who gets pregnant again, is likely the product of disfunction and lack of parental oversight. The impact endures beyond the teen years.
2. The data would drive that policy. Poor, single women with children are far more likely to consume resources in the form of social services and end up with a delinquint child. Look at the data. It has nothing to do with who loves their children more (isn’t abortion morally neurtal for you? What do you care who gets or is encouraged to have an abortion?)
3. She doesn’t NEED MY forgiveness in some theological sense. I do think it helps a shattered and guilt-ridden person to understand the concept of forgiveness. I was speaking, on a personal level, about how those who are opposed to abortion should embrace those, who many of us believe are co-victims, who are struggling.
In a Judeo-Christian theological sense, sin is not a private matter. If I sin against charity by being rude to a waitress it is not merely between me and the waitress. I have done something which has a detrimental impact on the community. Ever hear of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)? Ever hear the Penitential Rite at a Catholic Mass? … I confess to Almighty God, and you my brothers and sisters that I have sinned… in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and what I have failed to do… We live in community.
Suppose the aborted baby would have rendered aid, 20 years later, to an accident victim… but now will not. Isn’t the accident victim hurt by the abortion?
Suppose the aborted baby would have rendered aid, 20 years later, to an accident victim… but now will not. Isn’t the accident victim hurt by the abortion?
Strawman, and the stock answer is: “What if Hitler/Stalin/IdiAmin’s mother had chosen abortion?”
Not a strawman but a response to B who seemed to imply that an abortion has nothing to do with other people, with the community at large. Your response ahunt seems to lend support to my contention.
Martin, again, I think a woman ought to have bodily autonomy. She, not anyone else, decides whether or not she’ll have an abortion (among other things that bodily autonomy infers) in a perfect world. I care very much if the State tries to get into the business of pressuring women into having abortions. I certainly don’t think the State’s actions are morally neutral.
It’ll be interesting to see if NM jumps in here, but I have indeed heard of Yom Kippur. My understanding is that Jews believe that God doesn’t want to hear you begging forgiveness from him until you’ve gotten forgiveness from the person you’ve wronged, but I could be misunderstanding that theological point.
I must admit that I’m completely unfamiliar with the idea that sin is not a private matter. I thought that was the point of going into a booth to give confession, hidden even from the priest by a screen or curtain, because your sin was between you, your god, and the person sinned against. I thought that was one of the reasons for the priesthood of all believers, so that each person could have a personal relationship with your god so that he or she could go directly to Him for forgiveness without needing an intermediary.
But maybe things have changed since I left the Church.
Martin, somehow you manage to believe both in pre-destination AND free will.
the notion of moral wrongs not being a private matter actually sounds more like a secular idea to me. there’s one school of thought that states all ethics is a societal concern only, that a hermit having no contact with any other humans is free to behave any which way they please, or set their own “moral code” completely arbitrarily; only when other humans, and their separate interests, get involved, does any real ethical philosophizing become necessary in order to resolve the conflicts.
but i’ve only run into that line of thinking in explicitly secular ethics, where the point is to construct a moral philosophy without deities. seems to me like religions with omnipresent god(desse)s could just as easily state that there are no isolated hermits, and build from there. mileages may vary, of course.
that said, i hope i’m misreading Martin’s comment #14. because if i’m not, then his point #2 — when read in context — looks an awful lot like supporting some kind of social darwinism based on who needs how much social support, that is in effect, who’s poor. if religion is truly all that keeps mr. Kennedy from thinking and feeling like that, then this atheist would encourage him to keep going to church, early and often. (but i’m still not moving in nextdoor to him, nohow.)
Martin: Condemnation is not in order but rather love, forgiveness, understanding, and support.
B: even if you believe that a woman is doing something wrong by having an abortion, and needs love, understanding, and support, why in the world does she need your forgiveness? What wrong has she committed against you?
Martin: sin is not a private matter. If I sin against charity by being rude to a waitress it is not merely between me and the waitress. I have done something which has a detrimental impact on the community. Ever hear of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)?
B: My understanding is that Jews believe that God doesn’t want to hear you begging forgiveness from him until you’ve gotten forgiveness from the person you’ve wronged, but I could be misunderstanding that theological point.
I’m not quite sure why Martin is appealing to Jewish Law here, since nothing else in his argument is based on it, or shows any familiarity with it.
However: Jews believe that sins can be forgiven by admission of the sin and atonement. But the sin must be admitted to, and atonement must be made to, the entity sinned against. If I lie to you, I can’t get divine forgiveness unless I admit to you that I have lied, do whatever it takes to make up for any damage that was done to you by my lie, and win your trust (and your explicit forgiveness) again. If I sin not against a person but against divine law, I must admit this sin to the entity hurt: I must pray and admit the sin. I must further do what is necessary to get my heart/soul right to make up for the sin, and will then receive divine forgiveness.
The point of Yom Kippur is to acknowledge, communally, that all of us have sinned (so that no one can point a finger at others and act pure him/herself), and, by thinking seriously about and addressing in prayer the question of what sin is, reminding ourselves of sins we might have overlooked. We then, communally, acknowledge the divine mercy of forgiveness. Note that going through the service will not win forgiveness for sins against other people that we have not previously admitted and atoned for to the persons we hurt.
So I don’t see how anyone individually needs Martin’s forgiveness for having an abortion, unless someone aborted his child without discussing it with him or against his wishes.
BTW, Jewish Law discourages abortion, but doesn’t consider it murder until the body has been ensouled, which is held to take place during the fifth or sixth month. To revert to the topic of another thread, Jewish Law demands that if a woman’s life is in danger her fetus must be aborted even up to the moment of birth, and the Talmud describes some pretty gruesome procedures that can be used even during birth, if necessary to save the woman’s life, keep her healthy, and make it possible for her to bear children safely in the future. This is not a denial that at that point the about-to-be-child isn’t practically human or deserving of protection; it’s an acknowledgement that at that point there are two humans involved, and since a tough call has to be made the actual life takes priority over the potential one.
A time that the State can force someone to donate her organs? Can’t do it. But then again, most of the ones someone would want donated would end up causing death to the donor, and as I mentioned, I would never suggest that a woman should choose death, or even a reasonable probability of death, over a late term abortion.
As to a time they can make you do something dangerous that could result in a hospital stay? Rescue situations. Any time you put a person into peril – say you make them swim out too far, or hike into the wilderness, or you go out quail hunting and shoot your buddy in the face and have to carry him out or he’ll die, the State will make you pay for it if you don’t put rescue her, even if it would result in a hospital stay, or potential death for you. It’s pretty well settled.
Ahunt said it better than I did, anyway, about going too far. I wouldn’t propose sending child protection officers around after women who might have illegal abortions. I think you know that, and you’re trying to score points. That’s fine. But you should recognize that there’s a moral force in having laws that discourage activities, even if it’s something that would never be prosecuted.
But now in turn, this is what I don’t get. You’ve repeated that a child that has been born unequivocally has bodily autonomy. How do you propose that infants exercise this autonomy? Hell, most 13 year old adolescent girls don’t get “autonomy” in any real sense, legally, and they can talk, and communicate, and you know, use their higher order brain functions. How does this infant bodily autonomy manifest itself? Are you suggesting legal emancipation at birth?
B,
1. I believe in free will.
2. Sin just a private matter? See Penitential Rite referenced above.
3. In Jewish scripture, Adam and Eve ate the apple but all subsequent generations were barred from Paradise. Abraham had a son by his wife’s servant Hagar – Ishmael. Subsequent generations had to (have to) deal with the that fall out.
This is not real hard; if I kill someone – a sin – it is not only the man I kill who realizes a loss, but his family, his brothers, his parents, his children, employer, his friends, the entire community. The notion that there are some sins that have no broader impact is flawed.
nn, Not really sure what your point is (regarding my point #2 and #14. I didn’t leave comment #2). Regarding the whole “if religion is the only thing that is keeping…?”
That is like saying that “if the Grand Canyon were the only thing keeping the North rim from the South rim… ”
On what basis does an atheist make any moral judgment? Why is it wrong to kill people? Enslave them? Rape them? Torture them? No God = No unalienable rights.
I don’t think you understand Jewish Scripture very well. You are citing Christian theology, not Jewish. Y’all read those books very differently than we do.
Susan, aside from organs that the loss of which might kill you, what about blood or bone marrow? Why can’t the State compel you to donate those things?
I looked it up in the Tennessee code and I didn’t see anything directly applicable to what you’re talking about. It seems like a failure to render aid might bring you under scrutiny for having committed the initial crime against the person, but it doesn’t look like rendering aid would be enough to make you not guilty of a crime, so I don’t really think it’s directly applicable. I’m not even sure if it’s true, what you’re saying. Do you have case law?
And I don’t think it matters that a baby can’t exercise its right to bodily autonomy. That seems to be a strange claim. Whose ever heard of a right going away just because you can’t exercise it? I don’t own a gun; have I forfetted my second amendment rights? Does a 40-year-old disabled woman not have a right to bodily autonomy just because the nature of her disability makes her reliant on nurses? I’m sorry. I guess I don’t get what you’re getting at here. Do you really believe that you have to be able to exercise a right in order to have it?
And I think it’s a strange claim to make to say that it’s okay for a law to be enacted that is never enforced. You say it carries moral weight. And yet, all the laws that we’ve ever enacted that curtail reproductive freedom have been used against women one way or another.
Again, the longer we go back and forth, the less sure I am about your position and how you justify it to yourself morally.
Martin, you tickle me. If you believe in free will, then you cannot talk with certainty about someone who is supposed to be somewhere in the future doing something. If they’re supposed to be there and it screws things up with they’re not, then they had a destiny. If folks have a destiny, then at least one possible outcome of the world is set.
If there’s a storyline that’s set and all we can do is either stick to it or rebel against it, we don’t really have free will. We’re just in a cycle of reacting to our destiny.
I just don’t think you’re ever going to convince me that sin is not between the sinner, the sinned-against party, and your god and not between the sinner, the whole community, and your god.
If what you’re saying is true, it seems to me that it makes Jesus a liar. I think a fundimental tenant of Christianity is that the Bible does not lie about Jesus. So, if we agree that John said of Jesus, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” then Jesus must really take away the sin of the world.
If sin is forgiven, no, not just forgiven, taken away by Jesus once the sinner has confessed and been forgiven, how can that sin also echo throughout the community? The sin is no longer there. Jesus took it away.
Martin, I just can’t believe you honestly believe that the only thing keeping most people good is a belief in a god who will punish them if they’re not.
…. I just don’t think you’re ever going to convince me that sin is not between the sinner, the sinned-against party, and your god and not between the sinner, the whole community, and your god…
OK B. I’ll no longer try, but I hope you don’t try to intervene when someone is getting rude treatment – none of your business. I am glad you are not upset by the forced prostitution rings – it does not involve you. I hope you’ll never defend the abolitionists – bunch of busybodies.
… Martin, I just can’t believe you honestly believe that the only thing keeping most people good is a belief in a god who will punish them if they’re not…
Never said that. But how does one, how do you, even make a judgment about what is good or bad without bringing God into it?
No. Don’t answer that. I’m sure such a question…
a. doesn’t make sense
b. shows that I just don’t get it
c. would be answered in a way that contains myriad contradicitons
When people respond with things that you neither said nor implied it is time to get out of the discussion.
Aw, Martin, I’m sad to hear that because it’s finally here in this post that I understand (I think) where you’re coming from and how you misundertand where I’m coming from. And, in fact, I think this conversation, which I think has been difficult on both sides, precicely illustrates why these things are still so fucked up and painful for folks in the larger society to talk about.
So, let me see if I understand you. It seems to me that you equate something wrong with being a sin. I mean, to you, it seems to me, something wrong=a sin. So, for you, you can use those terms interchangeably. You can see someone committing a sin (doing somthing wrong) and step in and stop it or rouse people to act against it.
The lightbulb goes on over my head.
See, I think we are morally obligated to act against wrong if we can, but I see “wrong” as having, possibly, two componants–a secular componant and a sacred componant.
Sometimes those line up. Murder is wrong AND it is a sin. But sometimes they don’t. Farting in an enclosed space is wrong, but it’s not a sin. And having sex before marriage is not wrong, but it is a sin.
So, I expect the secular world to take care of the things that are wrong and I expect everyone in the community to work together to stop wrong behavior (depending on its severity; obviously, I’m not going to run around stopping you from farting).
And I expect that your god takes care of the sacred side–the sin–and that, I understand, as being between the sinner, the sinned against, and your god.
So, for me, a sin can be utterly washed away. You can be square with your god and the person you’ve sinned against, but the wrong part, the secular part, can still linger and still have an effect on people.
So for me, I have a personal code of conduct–my morals–that may or may not line up with secular ideas of what is right and wrong (my morals may be too loose or too strict to make sense extrapolating to a larger group, hence my reticence in imposing them on others); I have what society at large tells me is right and wrong; and, if I were Christian, I’d take into account what was a sin; and between the three, I’d shape my conduct in the world.
In fact, it occurs to me that that’s a good explanation for how atheists decide how to behave. They measure their personal code of conduct against what society has decided is right and wrong and they go out in the world behaving accordingly.
Well, anyway, perhaps the conversation has reached its logical conclusion, but I really appreciate you sticking with it as long as you have and your willingness to be honest about this.
I don’t think we’ll ever agree, but until you brought it up, I really didn’t understand where you were coming from and I’m glad to feel like I do now.
in most anglo-saxon derived legal systems, there’s no common law duty to render aid, no. certain people get such a duty, either because they have special training (doctors, EMTs) or because they have some special connection to the injured, but there’s no general requirement to help anybody else, even to save their life.
which doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a shitty thing to do, just ignoring somebody else’s needs. but it’s one of those cases where morality hasn’t been legislated, and possibly it’s a good thing too.
mr. Kennedy, we atheists make moral judgements exactly the same way you believers do, we just don’t credit any deity with our own moral sense. humans are innately ethical animals — we have to be, in order to successfully live in social groups. (this is another argument for why ethics are inherently societal, by the way.) really, your consternation seems pretty strained from my side of things; why do you seem so fixed on the necessity of a god(dess) in this equation? (and have you read your euthyphro yet? your questions are not new to philosophy, not by a long shot.)
These last two comments are something new and worthwhile.
B, I appreciate your effort to understand. Now we can see our differences. I disagree with your particular compartmentilization but appreciate your clarity.
My response: All sin should not, and often can not, be addressed legislatively. My question: Why is farting in a room wrong? Are you hurting your fellow man (assuming it isn’t a joke where all get a good laugh)? Are you imposing a cost without offering compensation? Why is speeding in a school zone wrong? Why is it wrong to drive at night with broken headlights? These things are not wrong, in the sense that 2 + 2 = 5 is wrong; they are transgressions. They hurt people or expose people unnecessarily to danger. This in the realm of traffic – a seemingly secular sphere.
… we atheists make moral judgements exactly the same way you believers do, we just don’t credit any deity with our own moral sense…
Fine, NN, but here is the difference: An athiest can not appeal to any absolute sense of good and evil. There is none to appeal to. An example: One athiest might believe slavery to be unjust while another favors slavery and owns slaves. The anti-slavery athiest can not claim that her moral judgement is superior to the other’s (absent a deity it boggles the mind how an athiest can even derive a notion of justice or make moral judgments). An athiest might not have a preference for slavery, or murder, or rape but it has no more weight than a preference for ketchup when eating a hamburger. The preference comes from the athiest.
A believer on the other hand can say “not only am I against slavery but I am against my neighbor owning slaves. I think it is evil universally. I think humans have unalienable rights.”
Surely a believer can think the opposite – that he has a right to own slaves, but again the claim to qualitatively different from an athiest’s preference to own slaves.
In a world without God there is no concept of “rights” only preferences.
Of course my questions are not new to philosophy. I wouldn’t be so presumptious to think that.
BTW, there is no word ‘athiest’. Or maybe there is: something that is the most athy, whatever athy might be. You are looking for the word ‘atheist’, which is someone who is not a theist or believer in a divinity. I point this out not in the sense of playing gotcha, but because I think your spelling problem indicates something deeper: you keep appealing to your concept of what certain theologies and philosophies claim without having a very clear idea as to what their claims are.
I think my poor spelling reveals a lack of ability to spell well. Atheism is not a philosophy is it? It is non-believe in God. I would imagine there are as many perspectives among atheists as there are atheists. This is silly nm. If I don’t have a clear idea enlighten me but please stop the nonsense. It is worse than “gotcha.” It is petty and sophmoric. It is tiresome.
Fine. I’ll stop the nonsense of pointing out where you are mistaken, and you can stop the nonsense of dismissing any evidence presented to you as irrelevant, and the nonsense of telling others what their beliefs and ethics are when you don’t have a clue.
That you personally cannot imagine something does not mean that it cannot be imagined. There are plenty of ways to derive universals that do not have as their first cause an assumed Deity. That’s what the many movements known collectively as the Enlightenment were all about, right? Again, we come up against the limits of your knowledge (I’d say belief or frame of reference, maybe — as an economist, you have thrown your professional lot in with the Enlightenment thinkers rather decidedly) rather than the impossibility of the thing to be contemplated.
Blood and bone marrow – frankly, if you had given the State a compelling reason to take your blood or bone marrow, such as you’re the only match for someone you’ve injured, I think they could.
Nomen, you’re generally correct, and it will help me answer Aunt B’s question. Let me copy and paste your comment:
——–
in most anglo-saxon derived legal systems, there’s no common law duty to render aid, no. certain people get such a duty, either because they have special training (doctors, EMTs) or because they have some special connection to the injured, but there’s no general requirement to help anybody else, even to save their life.
——
Two points to make. First, one of the categories of people with special connections to the injured is … parent to child, though not vice versa. Second, you’re correct as a general matter at common law, and in 47 of the 50 states – Vermont, Massachusetts, and R.I. I think actually have or have had general “duty to rescue” statutes on the books. But the other common law exception is if the “wouldn’t-be” rescuer is responsible for the peril in the first place.
Whether it’s a good thing or not, this law, I don’t know. Here’s an article about it. http://www.utexas.edu/law/journals/tlr/abstracts/84/84hyman.pdf
As far as giving you the law, yes, it’s going to be caselaw, and unfortunately Westlaw is being difficult so I can’t give you any TN caselaw, though I’ll be happy to give you some when it comes back up. Think about it in terms of committing the act that was the cause of the peril, though, and it will start to make sense. There’s no need for explicit statutory language. I would also point out that tort law has the same duty to rescue concerns.
Now to your other question about autonomy … those examples you gave are completely inapposite. If you want a gun, go out and buy one. That’s your right. You can decide to do it and you can then do it. The disabled woman has “autonomy” because she can make decisions for herself. Maybe she can’t execute them on her own, so that’s a slightly better example, but she can still determine what she wants and execute it, even if only through an agent. How can an infant make decisions for herself? I absolutely believe you have to be able to exercise a right in order to have it. How can you believe anything else? How is it a right if you can’t exercise it? That’s like saying I have the right to jump up out of my house and spread my wings and fly to California. On my wings. Infants have no ability to freely determine their will or actions. Maybe we’re using different defintions of the word autonomy, but I think mine is closer to the generally accepted definition.
My position quickly and without spell check – everybody’s got interests. I think that once a fetus makes it to clear and obvious viability, this unfettered right to an abortion is outweighed by its right to life. I think that assuming for the sake of argument there is an infringement on my right to bodily autonomy because of this, it’s pretty minimal. I think if I wanted an abortion I should have had one earlier on, always assuming, of course, that there’s no threat to my life or anything of the sort where my interests then outweigh any others. I also think that changing your reasoning to “how do you make someone who wants an abortion into a good mother” is somewhat disingenous.
Martin, of course atheists can appeal to absolutes. i keep pointing you at Plato’s (Socrates’) Euthyphro dialogue, which eloquently demonstrates how moral absolutes are disjunct from the notion of a pantheon. this difficulty you seem to have with that little detail has been addressed for two millennia already.
but i, personally, do not appeal to absolutes, and frankly find the notion vaguely meaningless. try this for a metaphysical exercise: explain what, precisely, would make any moral absolute, absolute. what is the precise difference between an “absolute” ethic and a plain old everyday non-absolute one? if i give you a moral code sans context, how can you reliably identify it as either absolute or non?
i could, mind you, leverage your strong connection of absolutism to theism (which i don’t believe is valid, anyway) and point out how different religions have greatly different ethics associated with them, even though most of them claim to be both absolutist and divinely inspired; so, obviously, theism gives you no guarantee of absolutism. but, really, Plato already did all that over twenty-three centuries ago, so why should i bother?
… That you personally cannot imagine something does not mean that it cannot be imagined…
That is true Bridgett.
… There are plenty of ways to derive universals that do not have as their first cause an assumed Deity.
I’d like to see the derivation.
… as an economist, you have thrown your professional lot in with the Enlightenment thinkers rather decidedly.
Not sure about that. I don’t think so.
NN,
I read it. Forgive my slowness but can’t grasp the larger meaning. Did he derive universal principles sans the gods? I didn’t get that from what I read. Don’t universal principles imply a god? As I recall from my college days he was accused of atheism but defended himself on that charge (might be wrong here).
No theism does not gaurantee absolutism, or at least agreement on what is absolute, as you point out.
I am left confused. I am not sure whether you hold that theism is unnecessary for deriving universal principles or simple that universal principles do not exist.
I am saying that theism is unnecessary for deriving universal principles. Again, a review of Plato would be the place to start. There is also an abundant literature on the development of “natural rights” or human rights as a universal. Your college reference librarian can help you locate short introductory materials on that.
Martin, you did have to take a History of Econ class to get your PhD, didn’t you? Adam Smith and all that? Even if not, you surely have taken your share of economics methods, theory, statistics, and so forth? You’ve heard of the dude they call “Homo Economis” — the rational consumer upon whose postulated existence the first two hundred years of your discipline was founded? You believe that you can gather data on certain problems, interpret that information, and reach some sort of conclusion about the way humans behave, correct? You can set standards by which to evaluate the credibility of information in your field, argue about the results of multiple studies with other people, and arrive at better answers through those arguments, right? You think that economics as a discipline has something to say (predictive, prescriptive, or merely observational) about human behavior as a whole, I’m guessing, rather than just about what Bob bought yesterday?
That’s what I mean about owing your professional life to the Enlightenment. No Enlightenment, no empiricism, no skepticism, no econ method as currently be taught or practiced, no big explanatory statements about why humans do the things they do, no pretense of being either a social science or a humanities discipline.
*sigh*. i’ll try to distill a good part of freshman philosophy into a short post, but it’ll likely be deadly dry. (sorry, B.)
the point of Euthyphro is to question the strength and validity of the link between “gods” and “universal principles”, using as an implicit lever the assumption that gods have individual agency.
that is to say, IF gods are intelligent, thinking entities that deliberately and specifically communicate with us — telling us “such-and-so is good” — THEN we can ask of them, “why do you say that?”.
IF such-and-so is “good” ONLY because the deity says so, you run into a number of philosophically troubling consequences. (among other things, it becomes meaningless to say that that deity is “good”, or “acting in a morally good way”. google “divine command theory” for the details.) but IF such-and-so is “good” ANYWAY, and the deity just tells us so because the deity happens to know it, THEN obviously divine fiat is not necessary for a thing to have moral value, and in that case absolutes do not depend on divinity.
no derivation of first principles was involved, merely the demonstration that EITHER (1) absolute principles can exist regardless of deities, OR (2) we run into a metaphysical and ethical minefield, because divine command theory really does get very distasteful indeed. it’s like one of those mathematical proofs that demonstrate that something either can or must exist, without managing or bothering to show what that thing might be.
along the way, Plato/Socrates manages to show that the terms “pious” and “holy” are not well defined, and are not at all easy to define. but that’s a sidetrack, although an interesting one for an atheist to point out.
the Euthyphro dilemma could be sidestepped by claiming, for instance, that whatever gods might be are not personal; that they don’t have individual agency as we understand it, and/or that they aren’t conscious, intelligent personae like we are. a “god” that is merely an anthropomorphic personification of a basic principle isn’t subject to the dilemma, necessarily. Spinoza might not have minded such a god, but most religious believers do mind. (among believers it seems almost universally given that gods are people, and the further you get from that the more uncomfortable your average believer will seem. strange but true.)
personally, i hold that theism is unnecessary for deriving universal absolutes (i reject divine command theory, obviously), AND i question the existence of universal absolutes. the latter because i’m not at all certain what it would even mean for a thing to be “universally absolute”, and yet still “exist”.
math and logic i can accept as always and everywhere the same, but that is in no small part because they’re invented abstractions. fixed ideas might be said in some sense to be universal and absolute, but they don’t “exist” in quite the same way the real, tangible world does. (i’m not a Platonic idealist, in other words.) i think the verb “to exist” is overloaded with several different meanings, and keeping them straight is important. e.g., gods exist and gods don’t exist, for two separate meanings of “exist”.
Susan, I’m not changing my reasoning. My reason has and remains that you cannot be a full citizen if you don’t have bodily autonomy. You cannot, by definition, have bodily autonomy if the state can compel you to give birth against your wishes.
I have never in my life heard of the State being able to force someone to donate blood or marrow to anyone else, but there are lawyers who pop in every now and again. Maybe someone can straighten me out.
I’m not sure it matters, though, because all of your examples rely on a person being injured or put into danger by the party who then has his or her rights stripped. You’d have a hard time convincing me that “being a fetus” equals “being a victim.” How has the state of “being a fetus” indebted the mother to the fetus in some way?
Anyway, clearly, we’re getting nowhere on this. You’ll never convince me that women don’t lose the ability to participate as full citizens in our society if the State can step in and run our lives when it feels like it. And I’ll apparently never convince you that it matters.
Moral isn’t something that depends on your faith, as logic. Nothing to argue about..