In response to this
diary:
This is a cynical post. This post points out why Lincoln 1860 strategy will work. This post points out why Dems can run as strong proponents of the right to choose and gain political advantage. This post will remind you who Justice Scalito's favorite Doctor is. If, by some chance, you feel moral outrage, that is entirely an unintended consequence.
Alien Abductee wrote:
Every diary on abortion that I've seen here misses the point, IMO, including [Armando's].
The people who are pushing to ban abortion and certain kinds of birth control are doing it because they see human life as beginning at the moment of conception. They believe they're preventing the murder of human beings. . . .The key to winning this issue, IMO, is not just to draw a line in the sand and aggressively differentiate (Lincoln 1860 strategy), but to differentiate on the basis of when human life begins. Prolifers say human life begins at conception. . . . I believe the key to framing this issue has to be in drawing the line as to where human life begins. Prolifers say it's at conception. Hardline prochoicers say it's at the moment of birth. My understanding is that the law as presently written avoids taking a firm stand on this question. It suggests that up to the end of the first trimester the fetus is not a human life and therefore abortion is a personal medical issue; that for the last trimester the fetus is at least a quasi human life and therefore should be subject to broader legal regulation; the middle trimester is a battleground between the two ends of the spectrum, with "viability" the moving line of demarcation, with medical advances always pushing that line earlier.
Wiith due respect to alien abductee, he confuses a political argument with an intellectual one. While it is true that much of a political argument can draw on honest intellectual work, one should never confuse the two.
My argument on Lincoln 1860 and contrast is political, and references the control the hard line Right has on the GOP. It references the extreme positions forced upon the GOP by this Hard Right. To wit, the GOP is the Party of Dobson, and this is a political argument at our disposal and it must be deployed. But it is not the only weapon in the arsenal.
As for the argument Alien Abductee forwards, I have never missed that point and I will prove that on the flip.
At the conservative site tacitus, founded by my good friend the conservative Josh Trevino, I discussed the very points alien abductee raises. Josh
wrote:
. . . Suffice it to say that it's quite obvious that many -- though not all . . . -- pro-choicers "completely reject the premise that the fetus is a 'child.'" . . . This much is not in question.
. . . We may, of course, examine this: I posited the humanity of the fetus as "probable." (I believe it is certain, but qualified the wording to avoid precisely this manner of dullish riposte.) Lemieux's imaginary universe of philosophically identical pro-choicers posit the humanity of the fetus as "wholly absent." If we're formulating public policy on the premise of a reasonable consensus between extremes, we might posit the humanity of the fetus as possible. Ronald Reagan once asked whether you kick a paper bag without knowing what's in it; in this case, the pro-choice answer becomes, "Yes, if you wish." The fetishization of freedom of choice as the prime value is exposed as a monstrosity when applied to the decision to kill. How is it less monstrous when applied to the decision to perhaps kill? Are we really positing uncertainty as the moral mitigator?
Lemieux's contented projection nullifies this: but it is useless as policy and, as anything but a rhetorical technique, insupportably absolutist. For my part, I wholeheartedly urge his fellow pro-choicers to indulge in this stupidity: the more we can force him and his into denying the humanity of these children, the easier our job becomes.
The rest of his post consists of poking holes in the national GOP platform, and complaining that social conservatives aren't always consistent. Do tell. This, I suppose, is what passes for astute analysis in Lemieux's department. The world is messy, and political movements are cobbled-together monsters that make little sense in the details -- even as they are crystal clear on the One Big Thing. To advocate some manner of moral consistency as a means toward policy consistency is not to deny this. That Lemieux bores down upon this imagined denial as he does is not accidental: it is avoidance. Having gotten the subject wrong from the start, and having staked out a profoundly foolish position on the core issue at hand, all that is left is for him to demand that the reader ignore the forest in favor of some rather unusual trees.
I responded:
I thought I understood your point in that post and I think I still do. But I disagree with your reasoning.
I am going to ignore the phrase "extreme Left" and instead concentrate again on the heart of the Liberal position on the issue - Roe and Casey:
We have seen how time has overtaken some of Roe's factual assumptions: advances in maternal health care allow for abortions safe to the mother later in pregnancy than was true in 1973, see Akron I, supra, 462 U.S. at 429, n. 11, and advances in neonatal care have advanced viability to a point somewhat earlier. Compare Roe, 410 U.S., at 160 , with Webster, supra, 492 U.S., at 515 -516 (opinion of REHNQUIST, C.J.); see Akron I, 462 U.S., at 457 , and n. 5 (O'CONNOR, J., dissenting). But these facts go only to the scheme of time limits on the realization of competing interests, and the divergences from the factual premises of 1973 have no bearing on the validity of Roe's central holding, that viability marks the earliest point at which the State's interest in fetal life is constitutionally adequate to justify a legislative ban on nontherapeutic abortions. The soundness or unsoundness of that constitutional judgment in no sense turns on whether viability occurs at approximately 28 weeks, as was usual at the time of Roe, at 23 to 24 weeks, as it sometimes does today, or at some moment even slightly earlier in pregnancy, as it may if fetal respiratory capacity can somehow be enhanced in the future. Whenever it may occur, the attainment of viability may continue to serve as the critical fact, just as it has done since Roe was decided; which is to say that no change in Roe's factual underpinning has left its central holding obsolete, and none supports an argument for overruling it.
Viability is the central fact of Casey and Roe -- it is the basis for the compelling State interest overcoming the fundamental right to privacy.
It is a position that recognizes the value of life, and allows the State to protect it, while properly balancing the fundamental right to privacy.
While you obviously disagree with the balance and where it comes out, it is not true that the potential life involved is not a critical part of the balance.
In that sense, I believe your post, as did our previous one, mistakingly asserts that the Liberal position does not take into account the "potential life." It clearly does.
Josh is a friend of mine and someone who I respect, but with whom I have serious disagreements, politically and one might say on some moral questions. But my answers to Josh are written to someone who is honest, intelligent and capable of engaging in a discussion while understanding that disagreement does not mean war.
My purposes with him are different than those for structuring an effective political argument.
Alien Abductee would treat our national discourse as I treated my discussion with Josh Trevino. Well, it would be a beautiful thing if politics worked that way.
But it does not. At least it has not in my experience. If it did, George Bush would never have become President.