Redux: Rape, Abortion, and "Personhood"

I can't think of a more sexually repressed society than modern Western mainstream society.

One cannot even wonder whether the sexual urge is a need or a desire, without being assigned to the looney bin.

 

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Well, you should.

I've demonstrated my point to LG.

For starters, the number of people studied.

And even if millions of people would be studied, the findings could still not be taken as normative for the whole human population. Because to derive norms from statistics is to say, for example, that everyone with two whole arms should amputate a part of their arm, because the statistical average for the number of arms on a human is less than two. Obviously, this is aburd. When people talk about norms that people are expected to comply with, they are working out of notions that are not derived from statistical averages. We have an idea of what a normal human body is, one that, among other things, has two whole arms, and this norm is not derived from statistically observing actual humans, but from another idea.
Same with sex: ideas of what is "normal human sexuality" are not derived from statistics, but from particular sets of beliefs and values.
Which is why basing one's norms on statistics is misleading.

Depends on the way one does it and why, yes.
I would think this is obvious.

For example, if you defecate in a public space, your action will be considered morally reprehensible and you will be charged with misconduct.

Humans are not robots, so that the same standards would work for everyone, nor is everyone to be expected to comply to the same standards.

Yeah, so much for your superiority.
:bugeye:

Which doesn't change the values and beliefs behind modern Western mainstream ideas about sex.

 

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Well, when you get right down to it ....

You don't. That's the thing:

It would appear that our neighbor's intention is to sideline the primary topic in order to dance about and beg everyone else for attention. If Wynn finds it problematic to make any affirmative statements, so be it.

I mean, look at the response to my earlier post:

"I can't think of a more sexually repressed society than modern Western mainstream society.

One cannot even wonder whether the sexual urge is a need or a desire, without being assigned to the looney bin."​

Nothing about the slide show; nothing about the newsletter; nothing about the scholarly article. Just a vague, uninformed statement about "Western mainstream society", and then a personal reflection on a subject that would be addressed at least in part by the resources willfully ignored. Never mind, of course, the litany of Western scholarship that might get one arrested for distributing in other, apparently less-repressed societies.

Furthermore, note the dualism of the argument, "whether the sexual urge is a need or a desire". It can, apparently, only be one or the other. Which, as those who attend even the slightest amount of psychological education are aware, is incorrect.

Brown's Life Against Death, especially the second section, "Eros", would probably make our neighbor's head explode.

 

What title can I possibly give this post?

Okay, it's my turn to disagree, albeit only slightly. To the one, Wynn raised the point as something that hasn't been discussed in the thread, though I would look back to an early post and note that the issue is on the record; in the prior thread, the point about moralists was controversial in the other direction ... I think. That is, it's hard to tell what the response from another poster meant.

To the other, Wynn's inability to simply note it's a rhetorical question suggests that the point was never a valid consideration for our neighbor in the first place. Adding to this consideration is a point that seems like trolling: "One cannot even wonder whether the sexual urge is a need or a desire, without being assigned to the looney bin."

So, to the one, Wynn is apparently offended that you are attributing the sentiment so directly. To the other, the question was not introduced in any useful context, and thereafter went off on this oddly trollish tangent.

Notice that Wynn picks out a phrase to focus on, and trying to keep the discussion as a distraction based on personal disputes: "I am not telling you to do anything." Well, technically that's true, but the response demands a certain overstated literalism with no contextual depth; it ignores entirely the next sentence in your post. And then returns to a strange cultural denunciation. It becomes very much apparent what is important to Wynn in this exchange, and that is a self-centered need to be the focus of attention. That is, it's not about getting attention in order to make an important point, but, rather, getting attention in order to get attention.

Okay, I'll stop splitting hairs ....

Yes and no. Something about splitting hairs, eh?

In my lifetime, the American standard for abortion has invoked a third trimester cutoff and a creeping viability cutoff, as well as the broader suggestions of abortion on demand and no abortion at all.

Viability is not without its merit; it satisfies certain psychological needs as demanded by political discourse, and in the end, I take from these laws what I can get—after all, it's my friends, neighbors, and daughter I'm arguing and voting on behalf of.

But in any case short of abortion on demand, the question of the woman's status being trumped by that of the fetus will arise. Sadly, we've had decades in the U.S. to attempt to resolve this issue, and not only is a resolution escaping us, we're not really trying.

However, looking back to your statistical distillation, if it was left to me with my testicles and necktie° to make the decision, I would need something better than a fifty-fifty shot, so the 80% at twenty-six weeks would probably become my viability threshold. Your accompaniment questions—

"Do we adopt the 50% approach? If we do, how do we reconcile that with the fact that approximately 80% of pre 26 week deliveries have some form of disability ranging from near-sightedness through to cerebal palsy and an inability to walk?

Do we forcibly administer steroids to improve the babies chances of survival, or do we let the mother make that decision and abide by her wishes?"​

—are indicative of the tremendous complications we must navigate in order to accommodate such a standard.

I'll take what I can get, but since it's not ever going to be my body, I don't know how much say I should get, merely for being part of the society, in setting the standard. Hence, my dry-foot policy.

In a larger context, though, at least as far as the American discussion is concerned, consider this:

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Guttmacher Institute, via RH Reality Check​

In the 2010 midterm election, one of the stories most people overlooked was the tremendous gains made by Republicans at the state level. That huge spike on the graph for 2010-11? That's the result of voters electing Republican state-level officials (governors, state legislators) who ran on a jobs agenda. The liberal joke is, "Jobs, jobs, jobs, jabortion."

In July, Rachel Benson Gold and Elizabeth Nash, of the Guttmacher Institute, noted:

So far this year, states have enacted 39 new restrictions on access to abortion. Although this is significantly lower than the record-breaking 80 restrictions that had been enacted by this point in 2011, it is nonetheless a higher number of restrictions than in any year prior to 2011. Most of the 39 new restrictions have been enacted in states that are generally hostile to abortion. For example, 14 of the new restrictions have been enacted in just three states—Arizona, Louisiana and South Dakota—that already had at least five such restrictions on the books. Fully 55% of U.S. women of reproductive age now live in one of the 26 states considered hostile to abortion rights.​

Part of the slowdown this year comes from running out of laws to pass; another part comes from judicial—constitutional—barriers. But that isn't particularly encouraging.

In Ohio, Republicans have abandoned, for now, a "heartbeat bill" that would have prohibited abortions at the point of fetal heartbeat; Steve Benen notes:

Ohio Republicans this week gave up on their so-called "heartbeat" bill, which would have banned abortions so early that many women might not realize they were pregnant by the time they needed to make a decision. You might think Ohio Republicans pulled their bill because voters sent a strong enough signal this month that restrictive social policies do not make for a winning agenda.

But that's not why. The point of a bill like Ohio's is to get sued over it. Backers want supporters of abortion rights to challenge the law in court, and the higher the court, the better. With President Obama now in charge of picking Supreme Court nominees for the next four years, Ohio Senate President Tom Niehaus (R) decided he didn't like his chances.​

Or, as Julie Carr Smith reported for Associated Press last week:

GOP Senate President Tom Niehaus told reporters a Romney victory was a condition he had set with proponents for advancing the so-called "heartbeat bill." The legislation proposed banning most abortions at the first detectable fetal heartbeat, as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

Niehaus announced earlier this week that he would not schedule a vote on the bill. Backers planned a legislative maneuver to force a vote, but Niehaus assisted a procedural move Thursday that put a stop to that effort.

Niehaus said a Romney win over Democratic President Barack Obama would have increased the likelihood of a lineup of new U.S. Supreme Court appointees that would be favorable to a legal challenge to the heartbeat measure.

Backers had hoped the legislation's passage would spark a legal challenge that could lead to overturning the high court's landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, which legalized abortion up until viability, which is closer to 22 weeks after conception.

Ohio anti-abortion activists were fiercely divided over the bill, with some fearing a court challenge could undo other abortion restrictions already in place.

"The risk became, do you send a bill to the U.S. Supreme Court that has the potential to undermine all of the good work that the right-to-life community has done over the previous decades?" Niehaus said. "Could it have undone Roe v. Wade? I don't know the answer to that question. That appeared to me to be an extreme risk to take, and I was not willing to take that risk."​

Right now, viability is subject to "fetal pain" consideratins; Nebraska pushed its abortion prohibition to twenty weeks, a month earlier than the viability point established in Supreme Court considerations of abortion, and Iowa uses the same logic of fetal pain to set an eighteen week cutoff.

I can certainly "accept" viability insofar as I have a say; it has long been the standard for political compromise. But the present context of the American debate over abortion seems to disregard it.

And this is actually a process that repeats itself in American politics, and is largely responsible for much of the Democratic Party's rightward drift in recent decades.

That is, if the compromise between prohibition and abortion on demand is viability, that is the compromise. If the new conservative proposition is six, eight, or ten weeks, what is the liberal opening bid in negotiating a woman's right to govern her body? Do we start with viability? Of course not, else the compromise will be some silly number like thirteen or fourteen weeks.

Democrats do this all the time, opening with the idea of keeping various standards in place, and end up compromising somewhere short of that. In national security issues, such as domestic espionage, the result is that the Democratic Party of the twenty-first century is now to the right of the Republican Party circa the 1970s. And this is a fairly consistent outcome whenever Democrats play this game.

But we know that the anti-abortion goal is to outlaw abortion entirely. Fetal pain? It's just an effort to move past viability. Fetal heartbeat? Even more so.

And the stake that keeps getting ignored is women. The right to reproductive services including birth control and abortion has had a tremendously positive impact on women's educational opportunity, economic status, and physical and mental health. Certes, feminists and other abortion-access advocates will scream to the moon about these points, but they're largely ignored in policy debates, subordinate to emotional appeals about personhood.

Like the ultrasound laws some states passed in the last couple years. Was it the governor of Pennsylvania who said that a woman strapped into the stirrups, with a foreign instrument inserted into her body under force of law, could simply look away or close her eyes? It's perverse. The whole thinking behind the ultrasound laws is an appeal to emotion. Can't afford a baby? Look, look at the image. It's a little person! Why would you murder that little person? Aren't psychiatrically prepared for parenthood? Look, look at the image. It's a little person! Why would you murder that little person? Aren't ready to divert your continued education in order to be a parent? Look, look at the image. It's a little person! Why would you murder that little person?

And, really, it's condescending and hateful: Your mental health? Your long-term physical health? Your economic status? Your education? Look, look at the image. It's a little person! Why would you murder that little person?

So, of course, the law says the doctor has to stick this up your vagina, but, hey, you can close your eyes.

Would I accept viability? Yeah, sure, it's what I'm politically accustomed to; but it's never going to be me on the table with a wand inserted into my body by force of law. Rather, it will be my daughter, some of my best friends, and countless American neighbors who happen to be female.

There was a time in my political evolution when I could be shamed or taken aback by the "Five Minutes Before Birth" appeal to emotion, but these days its only real effect is to remind me that these people don't just not give a damn about women, but actually hate them.

I have a dry-foot policy because it's not me. The very least I can do, as an American, is trust my female neighbors to be able to make decisions for themselves.

By the way, did you happen to see Prometheus? (What follows counts as spoiler information.)

Spoiler

Dominic Holden of The Stranger reported in July:

A movie theater company is apologizing after a man named Jorge, who attended a recent showing of Prometheus, got a politically charged spoiler alert from the employee who was tearing his tickets. "I have to warn you," Jorge recalls the employee telling him and his guest. "Halfway through the movie, the main female character will perform a self-induced abortion."

This happened at Regal Cinemas Thornton Place Stadium 14 in Seattle. "I asked some other people entering the same auditorium if the same guy had warned them about the contents of the movie, and they said he did," says Jorge, who asked that we not use his last name.

He immediately complained to the manager. Although the manager reportedly said there was no political agenda on the cinema employee's part, Jorge sees it differently: "I totally disagree." He can't explain why else the employee would reveal a key development of an R-rated movie's plot.​

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Abortion: The "aborted fetus", top. It wasn't exactly a "successful" abortion, bottom.​

That's the state of the American abortion debate. And this is in Seattle, of all places.

It's a very strange context for a political discussion that taps so deeply into questions of ontology and human rights.
____________________

Notes:

Benson Gold, Rachel and Elizabeth Nash. "State Legislative Trends in Reproductive Health Law and Policy: Mid-Year 2012 Analysis". RH Reality Check. July 11, 2012. RHRealityCheck.org. December 5, 2012. http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/07/11/state-legislative-trends-at-midyear-2012

Benen, Steve. "Elections have consequences: Ohio GOP reconsiders 'heartbeat' bill". The Maddow Blog. November 30, 2012. MaddowBlog.MSNBC.com. December 5, 2012. http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2...sequences-ohio-gop-reconsiders-heartbeat-bill

Carr Smyth, Julie. "OH senator says Romney loss sunk 'heartbeat' bill". Associated Press. November 29, 2012. SFGate.com. December 5, 2012. http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/OH-senator-says-Romney-loss-sunk-heartbeat-bill-4077079.php

Holden, Dominic. "Prometheus Features an Abortion (UPDATED with Comments from Regal Entertainment Group)". Slog. July 5, 2012. Slog.TheStranger.com. December 5, 2012. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/ar...ustomers-that-prometheus-features-an-abortion

Prometheus. Dir. Ridley Scott. Twentieth Century Fox, 2012. DVD.

 

Brief recent example:

which was false but not irrelevantly so, and then followed by

Comedy, yes - but there is purpose here, consistency of approach, a larger strategy.

So why this type of response, consistently, from this political faction? A lack of self-awareness, maybe, but after a few times around the rosy the blindness appears more and more to be cultivated. Amnesia can be a great asset to the committed, especially those committed to a corrupt and ugly cause.

Slander, that. And a false assertion (see Taoist and many other pagan beliefs systems, honor as a separate concept from pride, etc) set up as a strawman (few if any people believe that their one life is "all there is" - a a minimum, they have family, tribe, etc). And a deflection from the discussion of the thread.

Why not argue one's case directly and in good faith, without the gratuitous crap? In most other contexts, one would suspect fear.

 

noted once again that you still lack the confidence to reiterate your points and instead opt for slinging insults.

Classic behaviours for one with a failed argument ...

 

H.R 23: Here We Go Again

Here We Go Again ....

Some might recall the name of one Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), a medical doctor and member of the House Science Committee, who last year explained that science comes from the Devil.

Touting his medical credentials, Broun is back at it, this time reviving a failed LACP bill that will likely go nowhere, but is cosponsored by the GOP's former vice presidential nominee, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Laura Basset of Huffington Post brings us the news:

Despite the deep unpopularity of fetal personhood bills in 2012, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has again decided to cosponsor the Sanctity of Human Life Act, a bill that gives full legal rights to human zygotes from the moment of fertilization.

Ryan, who reportedly has 2016 presidential ambitions, had to de-emphasize his opposition to abortion without exceptions during the 2012 election to align his position with presidential candidate Mitt Romney. But this year, Ryan has been tapped as a keynote speaker for the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List's sixth annual Campaign for Life Gala, and he is re-upping his support for the most extreme anti-abortion legislation in the country.

The personhood bill, first introduced in 2011 by Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) and reintroduced by Broun last week, specifies that a "one-celled human embryo," even before it implants in the uterus to create a pregnancy, should be granted "all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood." Similar legislation has been rejected by voters in multiple states, including the socially conservative Mississippi, because legal experts have pointed out that it could outlaw some forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization as well as criminalize abortion at all stages.

Broun said in a statement that a zygote's right to life should be "defended vigorously and at all costs."

"As a physician, I know that human life begins with fertilization, and I remain committed to ending abortion in all stages of pregnancy," he said. "I will continue to fight this atrocity on behalf of the unborn, and I hope my colleagues will support me in doing so."​

And let us be clear: This bill would effectively ban hormonal birth control and intrauterine devices (IUD). HR 23 is intended, "To provide that human life shall be deemed to begin with fertilization". Called the "Sanctity of Human Life Act", the bill asserts:

In the exercise of the powers of the Congress, including Congress' power under article I, section 8 of the Constitution, to make necessary and proper laws, and Congress' power under section 5 of the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States--

(1) the Congress declares that--

(A) the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being, and is the paramount and most fundamental right of a person; and

(B) the life of each human being begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, irrespective of sex, health, function or disability, defect, stage of biological development, or condition of dependency, at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood; and​

(2) the Congress affirms that the Congress, each State, the District of Columbia, and all United States territories have the authority to protect the lives of all human beings residing in its respective jurisdictions.​

​

No rape exception. No consideration for the health of the mother. Specific refusal of exception for crippling and painful birth defects, or even conditions leading to stillbirth. Women are, literally, personae non gratae under HR 23. While we can take reasonable comfort from the idea that this bill went nowhere last time, and will not be making any greater progress on this occasion, it is still unsettling to see such profound misogyny among House Republicans.

The bill has seventeen cosponsors, including Rep. Ryan. Interestingly, Rep. Martha Roby (R-GA) is a cosponsor, as well. Thirty-six years old, with two children, she has signed onto this effort to dehumanize women, including herself and her daughter, Margaret.

HR 23 is also a reminder that the topic proposition remains a viable consideration, and will as long as anti-abortion forces insist on such extreme measures:

... the life of each human being begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, irrespective of sex, health, function or disability, defect, stage of biological development, or condition of dependency, at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood ....​

We might, for a moment, entertain the asserted inhumanity of women: Ladies, it is now your responsibility to tell your husbands and boyfriends, "No". Remember that condoms are not 100% effective as birth control; the pill is not 100% effective as birth control; there is no 100% effective birth control except to entirely avoid contact with human sperm.

That's right, my female neighbors: If Republicans get their way, it will be up to you to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and the best way to do that is to entirely abstain from sexual contact with men.

I don't believe the Lysistrata Solution is viable. I don't believe total abstinence, or even strict limitation to reproductive sexual contact, is psychologically healthy for individuals or a society.

But this is what you're worth, women, to the Republican Party: Nothing.

In the political context, there isn't really a question of why conservatives push these bills. That is, the answer is already clear: Supporters of these bills are misyogynistic idiots.

But there are legalistic questions. Some conservatives might take umbrage at the suggestion of misogyny, but it remains their obligation to demonstrate their point. What separate but not quite equal protections should we put in place on women's behalf in a theoretical society living under HR 23?
____________________

Notes:

Pearce, Matt. "U.S. Rep. Paul Broun: Evolution a lie 'from the pit of hell'". Los Angeles Times. October 7, 2012. Articles.LATimes.com. January 9, 2013. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/07/nation/la-na-nn-paul-broun-evolution-hell-20121007

Bassett, Laura. "Paul Ryan Cosponsors New Fetal Personhood Bill". The Huffington Post. January 9, 2013. HuffingtonPost.com. January 9, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/09/paul-ryan-personhood-bill_n_2440365.html

United States House of Representatives. "H.R. 23: To provide that human life shall be deemed to begin with fertilization". 113th Congress, First Session. January 3, 2013. GovTrack.us. January 9, 2013. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr23/text

 

This is where I fall for now.

 

A cluster of cells is only a cluster of cells. I mean, your skin cells have the "potential" to become a person if subjected to gene therapy and cultured. I draw the line at late embryonic or early fetus (the line is somewhat arbitrary) as potential to be a human.

 

The only way that one's skin cells have the potential to become a person is if one uses part of them in conjunction with a fertilized egg in a womb ... which really doesn't bring anything to a discussion about the nature of life being conceived in the womb

 

I'm pretty sure the egg is no longer needed. Even sperm can be chemically induced to develop from skin progenitors that have been reprogrammed. Soon the womb will no longer be required either.

I'm fairly confident that most people here, had they handled a small 7 week late stage embryo would quickly lose their interest in pro-choice. Let alone a large 23 week fetus.

 

I'm pretty sure you are wrong

I'm not aware of progenitor cells being located in the skin, much less there is credible evidence of sperm being synthesized from them ... and even much less more of life germinating without an egg from these attempts at sperm synthesized from stem cells

Given the problems of your two previous claims, its poor form to suggest this

Its a strange outlook to suggest that cosmetic distaste is reasonable grounds for killing something or not rendering medical aid - "Doctor: I'm sorry maam, but due to the horrendous injury your husband sustained to his lower gastric system as a consequence of the car accident, we had no choice but to euthanize him due to the putrid, absolutely disgusting nature of his condition."

 

Well. I attended and presented research at the last International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) in Yokohama Japan (June). The research you read about on the Internet is a few years out of date from research presented which is obviously a year or so out of date from bench top work. Yes, the skin, heart, brain, etc... have niches for progenitors. In the brain, for example, these give rise to new interneurons. In the skin those progenitors give rise to skin. This years Nobel Prize (2012) in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka for changing adult cells into stem cells; these cells (originally performed using skin cells) can be turned into pluripotent ES cells which can become a new organism (including human, although that research is restricted; except maybe in China). So, to be clear, there is NO NEED for an egg OR a sperm. A single adult skin cell can be reprogrammed a developed in a petri dish into a new embryo that will, if implanted, become a fetus and eventually organism. Oh, and yes, sperm can be made from a skin cells. An "eye" can be grown from a skin cell complete with retinal layers and lens.


As for the fetus or late embryo, I just don't think most people are prepared to support pro-choice when confronted with a real life fetus. At 20 weeks we're talking about a 20 centered fully formed human being. Most people have no rational bases for their pro-choice or pro-life support, the decision they make, is made post-hoc of a gut feeling born out of an emotive argument made to them by a media outlet at some point earlier in their life. pretty much like everything else they "think" about.

 

Exactly, and now genes aren't even required just the right combinations of chemicals for the appropriate durations.

 

That question never comes up, and that "projection" into the cell cluster is never in effect, at any other time than when confronting deliberate abortion.

Many miscarriages occur at that stage, for example, and are simply flushed down the toilet or incinerated with other similar medical waste - nobody seems to have even noticed the issue involved. Environmental pollutants that raise miscarriage rates are not treated, in the public mind, the media, or the law, as if they were "effectively murdering" anyone.

There is no serious movement to establish completely at-will abortion at 20 weeks in the US, and never has been. Roe vs Wade, for example, drew the key line at 12 weeks.