Hi all-
It has been a busy couple of weeks, and I have not had emotional or intellectual energy to post, although there are so many topics that I hope to have more material shortly. Today I am going to violate one of my blog rules, and write about abortion. This is inspired by the Gosnell trial and moe particularly its media coverage.
There has been remarkably little media coverage of this trial in the liberally oriented MSM. This criticism was first leveled in USA Today. Further complaints followed, such as by Mollie Hemingway, then a confession from Atlantic, then a denial of a problem by the same publication. Now comes an item from NARAL about the world before Roe, linking Gosnell's case to the need for rather than the prohibition of abortion. The net result (so to speak) has been a flurry of coverage from various angles and a stimulation of discussion.
Well, what if everyone is right? We now phrase all discussions as dichotomous and acrimonious, as if rightness were a zero-sum game. But it is not, and in this case especially all the articles I have read do not produce a result of either/or but of both/and.
The complaints about media coverage are well founded. One health reporter for a liberal publication actually claimed that the Gosnell trial was not a health news story. There has been virtually no MSM coverage of the trial since the doctor's arrest. Those who use the story to point out the horror of abortion are also right. How someone decides when a fetus is 'alive' is beyond me. To pretend what Gosnell did is not murder is completely ridiculous. That abortion at any age MIGHT be murder is simply true. We do not know. One writer was at least emotionally and intellectually honest about that. She did not deny the possibility of murder but claimed the right to kill, although in the name of the mother's overall wellbeing. And Huffington Post is right. 'Clinics' like Gosnell's are distressingly like what existed before Roe v Wade, although the horrors are exaggerated by the advanced gestational ages involved.
Most people are unaware of the socio-political events leading up to Roe v Wade. Abortion was legal pre RvW. It was unrestricted in 4 sates and limited to the health of the mother, rape, incest, a damaged fetus or combinations of those in 16. 40% of the states had legalized abortion in some form before Federal intervention! The biggest result of legalized abortion was a dramatic drop in maternal death. Deaths from illegal abortion declined from 1,682 in 1940 to 235 in 1969, 39 in 1972 and 5 (!) in 1974. Interestingly the total number of abortions hardly changed. this is unsurprising for several reasons. Among them is the number of states where it was obtainable, but also the fact that the US birth rate did not decline in 1974. If abortion had been rare and then suddenly common and legal there would have been a drop in births. There was not, indicating, as Arthur Miller said about sex, that a lot fo people quietly got abortions and didn't talk about it. While I am personally quite uncomfortable with elective abortion I do believe it should remain legal, for its reduction of maternal injury and death.
The demand for abortion is unquestioned. Depending on race 40-70% of all US pregnancies are unintended. 22% of all conceptions in the US end in abortion, and there is a 1 in 3 chance of a woman of any race having an abortion in her lifetime. And just like the times before RvW, few women talk about or report these things to their ob/gyn, legal or not.
But here there is an analogy with alcohol, drugs and prostitution. No one claims these things, or abortion, are moral. They all involve a twisting of some parts of very broadly accepted values, and I am not talking about Christian values. If we use societal law to moralize, then alcohol and abortion should be illegal. Conversely, if we allow alcohol and abortion why do we not allow drugs and prostitution?
Two points are relevant. First, attempts at prohibition have been spectacular failures everywhere and always when they have been tried. No matter how desirable the moral position, attempts to legislate morality have always failed. We of course have our national experience with Prohibition and our idiotic and failed 'war on drugs' as examples of this. Second, when there is a demand for something it will always be fulfilled. Even when the demand is outrageous, such as child prostitutes, or cadavers for dissection in the Middle Ages, the demand is always met. It is a perverse and immoral version of 'ask and you will receive'.
All of this illustrates the motto of the University of Pennsylvania- leges sine moribus vanae. Laws without morals are worthless (vain). In a moral society, law is unnecessary. In an amoral society, law is pointless. The value of law is to guide, restrain and inhibit, not to prohibit. And so I come to my original point. Everyone is right on Gosnell. The coverage has been lame, it causes outrage over abortion, and legal abortion has saved lives.
Now for heaven's sake let's go out and lead our own lives and make our own decisions. It is the morality of individuals that makes for a moral society, not law.
Ted
It has been a busy couple of weeks, and I have not had emotional or intellectual energy to post, although there are so many topics that I hope to have more material shortly. Today I am going to violate one of my blog rules, and write about abortion. This is inspired by the Gosnell trial and moe particularly its media coverage.
There has been remarkably little media coverage of this trial in the liberally oriented MSM. This criticism was first leveled in USA Today. Further complaints followed, such as by Mollie Hemingway, then a confession from Atlantic, then a denial of a problem by the same publication. Now comes an item from NARAL about the world before Roe, linking Gosnell's case to the need for rather than the prohibition of abortion. The net result (so to speak) has been a flurry of coverage from various angles and a stimulation of discussion.
Well, what if everyone is right? We now phrase all discussions as dichotomous and acrimonious, as if rightness were a zero-sum game. But it is not, and in this case especially all the articles I have read do not produce a result of either/or but of both/and.
The complaints about media coverage are well founded. One health reporter for a liberal publication actually claimed that the Gosnell trial was not a health news story. There has been virtually no MSM coverage of the trial since the doctor's arrest. Those who use the story to point out the horror of abortion are also right. How someone decides when a fetus is 'alive' is beyond me. To pretend what Gosnell did is not murder is completely ridiculous. That abortion at any age MIGHT be murder is simply true. We do not know. One writer was at least emotionally and intellectually honest about that. She did not deny the possibility of murder but claimed the right to kill, although in the name of the mother's overall wellbeing. And Huffington Post is right. 'Clinics' like Gosnell's are distressingly like what existed before Roe v Wade, although the horrors are exaggerated by the advanced gestational ages involved.
Most people are unaware of the socio-political events leading up to Roe v Wade. Abortion was legal pre RvW. It was unrestricted in 4 sates and limited to the health of the mother, rape, incest, a damaged fetus or combinations of those in 16. 40% of the states had legalized abortion in some form before Federal intervention! The biggest result of legalized abortion was a dramatic drop in maternal death. Deaths from illegal abortion declined from 1,682 in 1940 to 235 in 1969, 39 in 1972 and 5 (!) in 1974. Interestingly the total number of abortions hardly changed. this is unsurprising for several reasons. Among them is the number of states where it was obtainable, but also the fact that the US birth rate did not decline in 1974. If abortion had been rare and then suddenly common and legal there would have been a drop in births. There was not, indicating, as Arthur Miller said about sex, that a lot fo people quietly got abortions and didn't talk about it. While I am personally quite uncomfortable with elective abortion I do believe it should remain legal, for its reduction of maternal injury and death.
The demand for abortion is unquestioned. Depending on race 40-70% of all US pregnancies are unintended. 22% of all conceptions in the US end in abortion, and there is a 1 in 3 chance of a woman of any race having an abortion in her lifetime. And just like the times before RvW, few women talk about or report these things to their ob/gyn, legal or not.
But here there is an analogy with alcohol, drugs and prostitution. No one claims these things, or abortion, are moral. They all involve a twisting of some parts of very broadly accepted values, and I am not talking about Christian values. If we use societal law to moralize, then alcohol and abortion should be illegal. Conversely, if we allow alcohol and abortion why do we not allow drugs and prostitution?
Two points are relevant. First, attempts at prohibition have been spectacular failures everywhere and always when they have been tried. No matter how desirable the moral position, attempts to legislate morality have always failed. We of course have our national experience with Prohibition and our idiotic and failed 'war on drugs' as examples of this. Second, when there is a demand for something it will always be fulfilled. Even when the demand is outrageous, such as child prostitutes, or cadavers for dissection in the Middle Ages, the demand is always met. It is a perverse and immoral version of 'ask and you will receive'.
All of this illustrates the motto of the University of Pennsylvania- leges sine moribus vanae. Laws without morals are worthless (vain). In a moral society, law is unnecessary. In an amoral society, law is pointless. The value of law is to guide, restrain and inhibit, not to prohibit. And so I come to my original point. Everyone is right on Gosnell. The coverage has been lame, it causes outrage over abortion, and legal abortion has saved lives.
Now for heaven's sake let's go out and lead our own lives and make our own decisions. It is the morality of individuals that makes for a moral society, not law.
Ted
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