In all the discussions of abortion laws no one ever mentions the male's consequences for getting someone pregnant. Females are punished for having sex and "getting pregnant"... and now will be forced to give birth - effectively ending their school, work, career, family &/or life plans, and mental health - if this was something they did not want to do for good reason. Yet men and boys go scott free - walk away with no responsibility (who is going to enforce child support from a 17 year old deadbeat dad?) Why isn't there a law that requires any male who gets a female pregnant to quit school or give up any other plans so that they can work to support that unwanted baby until the child turns 18?... The situation for forced, unwanted pregnancy and birth should be just as harsh and miserable for the "father." If a couple has sex that results in pregnancy shouldn't the responsibility -- and the sacrifices needed -- be equally shared?
Or is patriarchy just too ingrained in America for people to even be discussing this as a necessary, fair, logical next step in the laws around pregnancy and birth? Of course a law like this will never happen here because we are so righteous about degrading and punishing women.
I don't even feel at this time that protesting in the streets is the right action to take for women. It would be just another way for society (men) to disrespect and humiliate and dismiss us, and deride our rights and our speaking our opinions as irrelevant.
Underlying the overturn of Roe is the desire to control women, to keep them βin their place;β therefore, improved sex education and access to birth control is not attractive because it would not serve this goal.
Clearly, the goal of SCOTUS is not preserving life, as is evidenced by the loosening of gun restrictions this week.
Like several others here, I was once a part of the fundamentalist Christian movement that is now celebrating this long-sought destruction of Roe - and like them, I have friends and family who remain firmly embedded in that camp. These loved ones refer to me as "pro-abortion," even though I despise the procedure and support all the efforts that you have pointed out are actually effective in reducing abortions.
But the same points bear repeating: the anti-Roe camp, for the most part, operates with such religious fervor and conviction that there is no room for logic or debate - only absolutism. This faith in absolutes is the core component of fundamentalism; there is no wiggle room in things like the virgin birth or the resurrection, and certainly no room to question the notion of salvation, eternal life, or heaven and hell. When your entire belief system is built on a foundation of such absolutes, and questions like abortion and related medical procedures are relegated to the mysterious ether of "God's will" and not logic & reason, there is simply nowhere else to go. "Abortion is murder," "Pro-choice is pro-abortion," and "Thou shalt not kill" leave no room for any discussion such as this one.
This is one reason America's "founding fathers" fought so strenuously to avoid the pitfalls of creating a theocracy: our nation was founded during the age of enlightenment, when citizens began to understand the fundamental inequality and unfairness of the historical concept of a divinely inspired ruler. Let's not forget that soon after the founding of our nation, Europeans witnessed the bloody, cruel French Revolution, which wiped out once and for all the notion of divinely inspired monarchs and replaced them with the newly emerging concept of governmental power and legitimacy originating from the will of the people rather than something divinely imposed from above.
Yesterday's Court ruling was inspired by the same foundation that ancient Egypt's pharaohs and Louis XIV used to justify their authority. The Republican Party has not just taken back a half century of established rights in our nation, but has reached back millennia for justification to do so.
Youβre screaming into the wind. Anti-abortionists are conservative Christians; they donβt want comprehensive sex education or better access to contraceptives because they believe those things encourage sex outside of marriage, which God apparently hates. As a former believer who once wholeheartedly supported this dogma and who has many relatives who still do, believe me when I write that this is a very calculated, surreptitious religious war. These people will not stop until there is a federal ban on all abortion, gay marriage, and prayer is re-instituted in public schools.
The very same Republicans who extol access to guns which are now killing more children than car crashes are now rushing to block abortion altogether. This is not about βchoosing lifeβ at all. It is about controlling women.
Excellent piece. Thank you Nicholas. But... a good number of pro-lifers don't believe in birth control, especially the conservative/traditional Catholics. Improving contraception access is a non starter for this highly religious group. Still - there is much that could be done to reduce the number of abortions without making it illegal. Let's start with access to affordable health care, child tax credits and paid parental leave. It's baffling that many of the "pro-life" red states refused the ACA's medicaid expansion. How did our thinking get so twisted about basic issues?
I have many, many friends who are anti-abortion. They call themselves βpro-life.οΏΌβ Itβs not about controlling women. It is because they genuinely believe that even a zygote is a human being and that abortion at any phase of development is murder.
We talk about the οΏΌmillions of poor in this country. They talk about the millions βmurderedβ every year. The two sides talk right past each other.
What we need is to stop the ad hominem attacks and begin talking. Both sides agree that they want to reduce unwanted pregnancies. οΏΌLet both sides work together to do thatοΏΌ. Letβs work to improve sex education. οΏΌLetβs work to improve access to birth control. If we share a common goal, then wοΏΌe can find a common ground. οΏΌ
Letβs offer family planning through classes at our local hospitals & community centers, social workers trained in family planningοΏΌ who can counsel when they visit their οΏΌwelfare recipients, and even subsidized birth control to those below the poverty level.οΏΌοΏΌ
And on a much smaller note, letβs work to reduce rape in this country, even if just buy a littleοΏΌ. LetβsοΏΌ publish in local newspapers and in social media the names of johns picked up for sex with a minor; in the same vein, οΏΌletβs publish οΏΌοΏΌthe names of those convicted of incest and rapeοΏΌ. If states are going to punish children and women οΏΌby forcing them to carry the children of their rapists to full-term, it is but an infinitesimalοΏΌ penalty for these menβs crime. οΏΌοΏΌ
Mr. Kristof, I would be fascinated to hear your take on the idea that liberals reason through consequentialism ("If you want fewer abortions, do X, Y, and Z. If you ban abortion, that will only make A, B, and C happen," as you've done here.) while conservatives reason through a form of virtue ethics heavily influenced by Calvinism. ("We use laws to create a system that affirms virtue. Also, you're already fated to be good or bad and your actions only confirm this truth.")
So liberals keep doing something that conservatives think looks corrupt: "By creating a society in which people don't have to be virtuous to be successful, you're CHEATING! If people don't have to be hardworking and sexually abstemious to survive, everyone will be corrupted into a lazy slut!" (Similar to the idea that people have to believe in God and the afterlife to not commit sins left and right.)
Conservatives keep doing something that, to liberal reasoning, looks like lying: "You say you want fewer abortions. But your actions don't produce fewer abortions. They DO produce more babies and less education ...you must be LYING! You must REALLY want lots of uneducated young people for cheap labor!! But I've figured you out, ha ha ha!"
Iβd like to see men entering this conversation. Iβm sure there are husbands, fathers, boyfriends, etc., who feel the same way their womenfolk do. Thereβre many reasons not to go through with a pregnancy: some of them are the affordability of raising children, inherited genetic defects, disease and many other reasons which men and women share. The men have as big a role in this issue as women do and I wish they would speak up to support their women and add their voices to the reasons that Roe v. Wade should not be scrapped.
And (a BIG AND) where is the companion ruling/legislation to pro-lifersβ determination to insert their beliefs and governmental interference into peoplesβ lives by forcing women to give birth β¦ how are these freedom deniers planning to care for and support the thousands (or millions) of unwanted or severely disabled babies once they are born via coercion?
There are some choices that are so intimate and private, so integral to a person's being, that they cannot be practically imposed by law. We cannot compel anyone to give blood or donate a kidney. The person in the best position to make the choice about an abortion is the woman. βViabilityβ is a poor standard for judging abortion. When a woman chooses an abortion, it is not a foetus (or that βpotential lifeβ) that is in question: the choice terminates not only a womanβs pregnancy, but carrying the baby to term, the birth of a baby and the care of that child into adulthood and beyond. It's not a choice that can be imposed on anyone. If you don't like abortions, your best bet is to influence the choice, not attempt to compel the behavior.
The reason the free-exercise of religion is in the same amendment as the free speech and assembly amendment is that religion is thought to be a question of faith or belief. If you do not believe in contraception or abortion, you are free to influence the choice, by exercising your free speech rights. You are free to "save" the sinners and bring them into your belief (and invite them to assemble with you in your place of worship). You are free to believe in the sentence of death for apostasy, but don't try to carry out that sentence under our civil laws. Our civil laws against human sacrifice or animal cruelty may inhibit your free exercise of your religion, but you may continue to believe in those practices and to convince others.
What about a pregnant woman diagnosed with cancer? I assume the fetus gets the preferential treatment and the woman can't get chemo until the baby is born.
I've asked this question of anyi abortion folks and have not received an answer. Their true goal is imposing a twisted Christian version of Shiria law. Look at what Thomas said In his concurring opinion. I hope this wakes people up to the dangers we face if we allow Republicans to take over. Protect liberty, vote for Democrats.
Jon Krakauerβs book βUnder the Banner of Heavenβ suggested the U.S. population would turn more conservative due to the tendency of conservative families to produce more children. πIβve aged out of the relevance of the abortion issue, but have long worried about the use of single-issue politics by both political parties. I hope the Democrats can come up with a message that is more comprehensive, because the mendacity of the current Republican party is appalling.
I wish President Biden would use this moment to issue a public challenge to conservatives. "The harsh truth is that for decades, the same people who fought to overturn Roe v Wade have also fought to make unplanned pregnancy as frequent and terrifying as humanly possibly. Today, that must stop. I invite conservative legislators to join us in making unplanned pregnancy LESS frequent (through universal access to effective contraception, and universal access to information about the same) and LESS terrifying (through policies that genuinely support American families in their need for housing, health care, fair labor laws, and paid family leave." Maybe futile -- but maybe, maybe, maybe a tiny bit not??
In all the discussions of abortion laws no one ever mentions the male's consequences for getting someone pregnant. Females are punished for having sex and "getting pregnant"... and now will be forced to give birth - effectively ending their school, work, career, family &/or life plans, and mental health - if this was something they did not want to do for good reason. Yet men and boys go scott free - walk away with no responsibility (who is going to enforce child support from a 17 year old deadbeat dad?) Why isn't there a law that requires any male who gets a female pregnant to quit school or give up any other plans so that they can work to support that unwanted baby until the child turns 18?... The situation for forced, unwanted pregnancy and birth should be just as harsh and miserable for the "father." If a couple has sex that results in pregnancy shouldn't the responsibility -- and the sacrifices needed -- be equally shared?
Or is patriarchy just too ingrained in America for people to even be discussing this as a necessary, fair, logical next step in the laws around pregnancy and birth? Of course a law like this will never happen here because we are so righteous about degrading and punishing women.
I don't even feel at this time that protesting in the streets is the right action to take for women. It would be just another way for society (men) to disrespect and humiliate and dismiss us, and deride our rights and our speaking our opinions as irrelevant.
Underlying the overturn of Roe is the desire to control women, to keep them βin their place;β therefore, improved sex education and access to birth control is not attractive because it would not serve this goal.
Clearly, the goal of SCOTUS is not preserving life, as is evidenced by the loosening of gun restrictions this week.
Guns now have more protection than women.
Like several others here, I was once a part of the fundamentalist Christian movement that is now celebrating this long-sought destruction of Roe - and like them, I have friends and family who remain firmly embedded in that camp. These loved ones refer to me as "pro-abortion," even though I despise the procedure and support all the efforts that you have pointed out are actually effective in reducing abortions.
But the same points bear repeating: the anti-Roe camp, for the most part, operates with such religious fervor and conviction that there is no room for logic or debate - only absolutism. This faith in absolutes is the core component of fundamentalism; there is no wiggle room in things like the virgin birth or the resurrection, and certainly no room to question the notion of salvation, eternal life, or heaven and hell. When your entire belief system is built on a foundation of such absolutes, and questions like abortion and related medical procedures are relegated to the mysterious ether of "God's will" and not logic & reason, there is simply nowhere else to go. "Abortion is murder," "Pro-choice is pro-abortion," and "Thou shalt not kill" leave no room for any discussion such as this one.
This is one reason America's "founding fathers" fought so strenuously to avoid the pitfalls of creating a theocracy: our nation was founded during the age of enlightenment, when citizens began to understand the fundamental inequality and unfairness of the historical concept of a divinely inspired ruler. Let's not forget that soon after the founding of our nation, Europeans witnessed the bloody, cruel French Revolution, which wiped out once and for all the notion of divinely inspired monarchs and replaced them with the newly emerging concept of governmental power and legitimacy originating from the will of the people rather than something divinely imposed from above.
Yesterday's Court ruling was inspired by the same foundation that ancient Egypt's pharaohs and Louis XIV used to justify their authority. The Republican Party has not just taken back a half century of established rights in our nation, but has reached back millennia for justification to do so.
Youβre screaming into the wind. Anti-abortionists are conservative Christians; they donβt want comprehensive sex education or better access to contraceptives because they believe those things encourage sex outside of marriage, which God apparently hates. As a former believer who once wholeheartedly supported this dogma and who has many relatives who still do, believe me when I write that this is a very calculated, surreptitious religious war. These people will not stop until there is a federal ban on all abortion, gay marriage, and prayer is re-instituted in public schools.
The very same Republicans who extol access to guns which are now killing more children than car crashes are now rushing to block abortion altogether. This is not about βchoosing lifeβ at all. It is about controlling women.
Excellent piece. Thank you Nicholas. But... a good number of pro-lifers don't believe in birth control, especially the conservative/traditional Catholics. Improving contraception access is a non starter for this highly religious group. Still - there is much that could be done to reduce the number of abortions without making it illegal. Let's start with access to affordable health care, child tax credits and paid parental leave. It's baffling that many of the "pro-life" red states refused the ACA's medicaid expansion. How did our thinking get so twisted about basic issues?
I have many, many friends who are anti-abortion. They call themselves βpro-life.οΏΌβ Itβs not about controlling women. It is because they genuinely believe that even a zygote is a human being and that abortion at any phase of development is murder.
We talk about the οΏΌmillions of poor in this country. They talk about the millions βmurderedβ every year. The two sides talk right past each other.
What we need is to stop the ad hominem attacks and begin talking. Both sides agree that they want to reduce unwanted pregnancies. οΏΌLet both sides work together to do thatοΏΌ. Letβs work to improve sex education. οΏΌLetβs work to improve access to birth control. If we share a common goal, then wοΏΌe can find a common ground. οΏΌ
Letβs offer family planning through classes at our local hospitals & community centers, social workers trained in family planningοΏΌ who can counsel when they visit their οΏΌwelfare recipients, and even subsidized birth control to those below the poverty level.οΏΌοΏΌ
And on a much smaller note, letβs work to reduce rape in this country, even if just buy a littleοΏΌ. LetβsοΏΌ publish in local newspapers and in social media the names of johns picked up for sex with a minor; in the same vein, οΏΌletβs publish οΏΌοΏΌthe names of those convicted of incest and rapeοΏΌ. If states are going to punish children and women οΏΌby forcing them to carry the children of their rapists to full-term, it is but an infinitesimalοΏΌ penalty for these menβs crime. οΏΌοΏΌ
Mr. Kristof, I would be fascinated to hear your take on the idea that liberals reason through consequentialism ("If you want fewer abortions, do X, Y, and Z. If you ban abortion, that will only make A, B, and C happen," as you've done here.) while conservatives reason through a form of virtue ethics heavily influenced by Calvinism. ("We use laws to create a system that affirms virtue. Also, you're already fated to be good or bad and your actions only confirm this truth.")
So liberals keep doing something that conservatives think looks corrupt: "By creating a society in which people don't have to be virtuous to be successful, you're CHEATING! If people don't have to be hardworking and sexually abstemious to survive, everyone will be corrupted into a lazy slut!" (Similar to the idea that people have to believe in God and the afterlife to not commit sins left and right.)
Conservatives keep doing something that, to liberal reasoning, looks like lying: "You say you want fewer abortions. But your actions don't produce fewer abortions. They DO produce more babies and less education ...you must be LYING! You must REALLY want lots of uneducated young people for cheap labor!! But I've figured you out, ha ha ha!"
Iβd like to see men entering this conversation. Iβm sure there are husbands, fathers, boyfriends, etc., who feel the same way their womenfolk do. Thereβre many reasons not to go through with a pregnancy: some of them are the affordability of raising children, inherited genetic defects, disease and many other reasons which men and women share. The men have as big a role in this issue as women do and I wish they would speak up to support their women and add their voices to the reasons that Roe v. Wade should not be scrapped.
And (a BIG AND) where is the companion ruling/legislation to pro-lifersβ determination to insert their beliefs and governmental interference into peoplesβ lives by forcing women to give birth β¦ how are these freedom deniers planning to care for and support the thousands (or millions) of unwanted or severely disabled babies once they are born via coercion?
There are some choices that are so intimate and private, so integral to a person's being, that they cannot be practically imposed by law. We cannot compel anyone to give blood or donate a kidney. The person in the best position to make the choice about an abortion is the woman. βViabilityβ is a poor standard for judging abortion. When a woman chooses an abortion, it is not a foetus (or that βpotential lifeβ) that is in question: the choice terminates not only a womanβs pregnancy, but carrying the baby to term, the birth of a baby and the care of that child into adulthood and beyond. It's not a choice that can be imposed on anyone. If you don't like abortions, your best bet is to influence the choice, not attempt to compel the behavior.
The reason the free-exercise of religion is in the same amendment as the free speech and assembly amendment is that religion is thought to be a question of faith or belief. If you do not believe in contraception or abortion, you are free to influence the choice, by exercising your free speech rights. You are free to "save" the sinners and bring them into your belief (and invite them to assemble with you in your place of worship). You are free to believe in the sentence of death for apostasy, but don't try to carry out that sentence under our civil laws. Our civil laws against human sacrifice or animal cruelty may inhibit your free exercise of your religion, but you may continue to believe in those practices and to convince others.
What about a pregnant woman diagnosed with cancer? I assume the fetus gets the preferential treatment and the woman can't get chemo until the baby is born.
I've asked this question of anyi abortion folks and have not received an answer. Their true goal is imposing a twisted Christian version of Shiria law. Look at what Thomas said In his concurring opinion. I hope this wakes people up to the dangers we face if we allow Republicans to take over. Protect liberty, vote for Democrats.
As ever, a compassionate plea for sanity and working together to solve problems, improve lives, and uplift our humanity.
Izabela's story is tragic beyond words. I feel physically ill imagining it and the insanity.
Jon Krakauerβs book βUnder the Banner of Heavenβ suggested the U.S. population would turn more conservative due to the tendency of conservative families to produce more children. πIβve aged out of the relevance of the abortion issue, but have long worried about the use of single-issue politics by both political parties. I hope the Democrats can come up with a message that is more comprehensive, because the mendacity of the current Republican party is appalling.
I wish President Biden would use this moment to issue a public challenge to conservatives. "The harsh truth is that for decades, the same people who fought to overturn Roe v Wade have also fought to make unplanned pregnancy as frequent and terrifying as humanly possibly. Today, that must stop. I invite conservative legislators to join us in making unplanned pregnancy LESS frequent (through universal access to effective contraception, and universal access to information about the same) and LESS terrifying (through policies that genuinely support American families in their need for housing, health care, fair labor laws, and paid family leave." Maybe futile -- but maybe, maybe, maybe a tiny bit not??