I'v done my best to keep out of these abortion threads - we have actually had them before, and there comes a time when you stop learning from such interchanges, but there are a couple of points to note, I reckon.
Whilst I shall never agree with the nature of Yoshie's argument, I am still left with an effectively across-the-board 'pro-choice' position (the scare quotes are justified as I know some people - and at least one couple - who maintain they never wanted the abortions they went on to have - so 'choice' can be a bloody cancerous, and therefore counter-productive, word at times). But there's the matter of the nature of Yoshie's argument, and there's that of how she's arguing at the moment.
>The above paragraph by Steve is, however, wonderful in that it clarifies,
>once again, one of the foundations for men's desire to control women's
>sexuality & reproductive capacity: unless a man is sure it is *his* child
>that *his* woman is carrying, and unless also he has a say in the fate of
>*his* woman's pregnancy, he is absolved of responsibility; and if a woman
>expects support from a man, she must allow him to control what happens to
>her body. Now you are bringing back Chastity Belts (see Engels).
Who are the men on this list who seek to control women's sexuality and reproductivity capacity? Steve is explicitly and expressly not to be numbered amongst them, that's for sure - only the most tendentious deconstruction would have it otherwise. Yoshie was much fairer to me when we argued these same points a couple of years ago.
As for private responsibility (as we live in a world that enforces such distinctions), I clearly am privately responsible for only the children I've fathered. In the context of today's west, what's wrong with that? With responsibility must come some rights with which to do the job of fathering, no? There's no coherent formulation available by which I may determine whether my mate has an abortion or not - although I would expect my feelings on the subject to be taken into account by the party for whom the decision is the more crucial. That ain't control - but then Steve is clear he doesn't want this either.
But it should be remembered that one of the things that makes this difficult (if still the only conclusion logically possible in our world) is that men have, at a particularly decisive moment, all responsibility and no rights. I did nothing with my genitals my partner did not do with hers, yet she has the womb - which grants here rights and obligations specific to the bearer of a womb. As the bearer of a penis, I share much of the responsibility, but none of the rights. I shall argue that this is the way it has to be, but it might go some way to explaining the extent of the 'dead-beat dad' phenomenon, no?
I could solve my problem if I used Carrol's argument, I suppose - if a foetus is just so many meaningless cells, to be disposed of as tubercolosis germs are disposed of, I would reserve equal rights in the disposal of those cells. After all, the cells may physically manifest in only one body, but the impact of those cells has huge implications for both parties.
But these cells are not a disease, they are potential people and, well before birth, are indistinguishable from people (reactive to external stimuli and able to survive independently of the mother's womb - some even believe preparatory education is possible before birth!). Where the distinction between potential and actuality lies seems beyond us - yet we may suspect, actuality (a sentient human being who can survive outside the mother's body) can be brought forward by technological developments. And what I may not do is compare the worth of two lives about which at least one other is better placed to judge. And, where the impact of the decision is important to three people in such relationship to each other, the fact remains that it is typically less so on the father than on any other.
Anyway, where there is disagreement on this question, I reckon we have before us a triangle where there is a morally difficult choice that no other may judge at one corner (which subject must be taken as knowing her own interests best, and whose own interests are most immediately and fundamentally tied to those of the foetus), no choice at all at the second (he has a profound and valid interest, but it can not coherently be held to be decisive in respect of either of the other two interests involved), and not even the capacity for choice in the matter at the third.
And let's remember also that anybody outside the triangle doesn't even know if the woman effectively had control over access to her womb in the first place (if not, we risk imposing responsibility in the absence of the mutually constitutive right) - surely that alone clarifies the issue and renders judgement, never mind decisive intervention, from outside *a wholly bad thing*. And we might also remember the social distribution of labour du juour - what having the baby would mean for a life to be lived in the real world. The pregnancy and birthing are physically imposed on one and one alone - and then we add what 'mother' currently means - always a difficult and materially unrewarding task, and certainly the equivalent of a long sentence, even a life sentence, to one disinclined to the role.
All in all, the question of abortion highlights how mutually bound is human existence, yet the answer seems inescapably one of rights and obligations in individualistic terms. A decision has to made; disagreement is possible; and then the balance of interests, and the optimal locus for the determination of those interests, inevitably brings to the fore a wholly decisive mother.
And Carrol writes:
"In any case, I think the moralistic wailings of Steve and Eric should be ignored rather than replied to."
With which I disagree absolutely (still) - and with which very few abortion patients would agree (both my experience and my general understanding of my world would have it thus). No use crapping on about stuff in ways that don't accord with the vast majority's lived life, for mine.
And if we are to reduce this question to one of practical coalition-building, let me assure those who think an insistence on morality in this issue is the equivalent of misogyny, I would never be able to extend enough trust and loyalty to one who avoids moral quandaries with name-calling, and me with hatred for half the human race, to join them in any meaningful and enduring way.
I don't agree with Ellen when she writes:
>>The idea that the state has an interest
>>in the fetus that can be imposed regardless of, or despite,
>>the desire of the mother, is founded on
>>a deep contempt for women, a horror that the process of reproduction
>>lies, ultimately, in women's hands.
But I do agree that (a) the state has no rights in the matter, and (b) the *ultimate* decision is the woman's alone..
And Yoshie might have the right to say stuff like:
>You certainly exhibit hatred and contempt for women whose ideas do not
>agree with you.
... but I reserve the right to think it wasn't one of her better moments.
Cheers, Rob.