Abort, Retry, Fail?

Tempest in a teapot about an "abortion party" (a fundraiser, actually). Really silly arguments.

Feminists and progressives want abortion to be legal, taken out of the political sphere. Fine. But these goal do not require that abortion be rendered morally unproblematic.

It is true that the pro-choice political position does not require it, but early abortion should be morally unproblematic.

But once again, abortion is not, and will never be, a matter of moral indifference.

And why not?

The woman in the story was having an early abortion. She had just discovered she was pregnant, and was taking steps to abort as soon as possible. (And, don't forget, if abortion were free, as it should be, she wouldn't need to waste time on fundraising and could have the abortion even earlier.) No issues of whether the fetus is conscious or feels pain are even remotely at play. The only reason to make this into a moral issue is religious woo - and that's no reason at all. Such early abortions should indeed become a matter of moral indifference - and that is necessary for the society to have a rational debate about abortion. Forcing early abortion to be a moral issue is the source of all current abortion-related hysteria.

Michelle Cottle makes an utterly irrelevant point about the original story:

in calling the piece "highly dubious," I'm not suggesting the party didn't happen as broadly outlined, merely that (a) this is the kind of piece that smacks of literary embellishment--or at the very least features a situation prone to heavy personal interpretation--in service of a point; and (b) even assuming events unfolded precisely as recounted, the experience is so outside the mainstream that it tells us virtually nothing about sexual relations, much less abortion politics, more broadly.

I don't know if the piece was "literary embellished", and neither does Michelle. But why does it matter whether the experience is typical? The author certainly didn't imply that it was. Interesting observation usually come from unusual experiences. Cottle seems to be concerned that the story will make pro-choice people look bad to "the mainstream", which reminds me of the unprincipled and short-sighted position of the "Neville Chamberlain atheists".

Conor Friedersdorf's question is more relevant, but I think it misses the point somewhat:

But I suspect that the same norm inevitably leads some men to ask -- wrongly in my view, but understandably -- if you think that abortion is ethically unproblematic, and whether to have one or not is your choice, why should I have to pay child support for 18 years if you decide against having one?"

The proper analogy is not with abortion, but with carrying a pregnancy to term and giving the baby up for adoption. That is the situation that challenges the consistency of the current legal rules - the mother can relinquish all legal and financial responsibility for the child in a way the father cannot.

It doesn't make much sense to compare compelling a man to pay child support and compelling a woman to carry a pregnancy to term. The latter is an involvement at a much deeper level, affecting the woman's body and potentially health. But once the pregnancy is over, that distinction is lost. Sure, after a "typical" birth (especially a wanted one), the mother feels a connection to the baby and would be devastated if she had to give the baby away; but we are not talking about "typical" situations, but specifically those where the mother truly does not want to keep the baby (but was not forced to carry it to term). A man would not be forced to raise the child (have custody), and neither should a woman. But a man - even if poor - would legally have some financial responsibility for the child. This is the area where legitimate questions of equal treatment do arise.

The Left vs. Larry Summers

It's another of those rare occasions when I have to disagree with Digby. I am puzzled with the Left's allergy to Larry Summers; one of its symptoms is obsessively scratching and digging up the 1991 World Bank memo about the possibility of selling toxic waste to Third-World countries. Says Digby:

Jonathan goes on to point out the unpleasant truth about such allegedly "out of the box" thinking --- that the people who reap the "benefit" of such things usually don't have to live in the putrid, polluted hellhole that's created by our toxic waste.

All I have to say in response is what I already wrote in a comment to a similarly-themed diary on Daily Kos, and an important part of it was the exact mirror image of Digby's thought - the people who scream that it is horrible and evil even to consider such ideas also don't have to share the fate of the poor people in the Third World:

In third world countries there are cities where children spend all day scavenging landfills. Perhaps there is unpolluted nature 20 miles away, but that does not help to make the lives of those children any safer, healthier, or more hopeful. Some more wealth in the country might, though - provided we can make sure it is actually spent on developing the country's economy and not on the leaders' luxury.

My current opinion (which is reality-based, so it may change with new information) is that toxic waste trade would be a bad idea, primarily because we could not effectively ensure that the money would be well spent. My educated but fallible guess is that Summers holds a similar view; my million-dollar bet is that he would similarly try to base his conclusions on reality and facts.

Look, some ideas seem yucky. But dissecting frogs is also yucky, and if you can't get over it, you can miss out on learning science. Part of maturity is that we should not let the yuck factor dictate our thought process and evaluation of ideas.

C'mon, people. All Larry is guilty of is bad taste.