Rights, choices and exceptions
Sep. 5th, 2012 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI am sick of hearing about exceptions. If you actually think choice is a right, that people are allowed to do what they want to do with their bodies (and that women are people) then being upset that Romney, or Ryan, or Akin, or any other person doesn’t want to allow some people to have abortions while denying them to everyone else is not only inconsistent, it’s foolish.
I think it has been making the entire debate harder to have, because it cedes a vast piece of moral ground to the anti-choice side. It says that some abortions are more acceptable than others, which implies that all the rest are, in some way, not acceptable. That absent some extenuating circumstance the fetus, presumptively, has rights.
That’s not a good position to be in, if what one is arguing is the right isn’t one to life (on the part of the fetus) but the right to autonomy on the part of the woman. It makes it easier for those who are opposed to choice to get their foot in the door with those who are on the fence. It gives the waffling people a way to salve their consciences. Those people get to tell themselves they aren’t denying, “good women” the right to abortions. No, the people who are “deserving”, those who aren’t, “trying to run away from their responsibilities” will still be able to get an abortion if they, “need” one.
Well it’s not about need. It’s about freedom. Freedom to choose. Freedom to not lose one's freedom the moment one gets pregnant. Freedom to have children when one wants them, and to not have them when one doesn’t. An unwanted pregnancy is an unwanted pregnancy, no matter how loving, or hateful, the circumstances which led to it.
I have some of the same problems with people who defend non-heterosexuals having rights because, “they were born that way”. I don’t give a damn if it’s nature, nurture, a question of politics, or pure hedonistic choice. People are people. They have rights. If those rights can be stripped, because it’s a choice, then they aren’t rights.
One can argue the moral values of when legal personhood begins, that’s fine. But saying some types of abortion are legitimate, because the cause of them is squicky is an act of moral cowardice (on both sides). Choice is legit, or it isn’t. I know why the strategists chose incest and rape as the poster child for making the anti-choice people look monstrous, it’s because those are things we react to with horror, and it allows a certain type of logical fallacy to play out in the id. It allows for some guilt by association. If the anti-choicers won’t allow exceptions for rape and incest victims, then they are supporting rape and incest.
The nice thing about it, from that standpoint, is the claim doesn’t have to be overt. People’s revulsion to the concepts kicks in at a level below reason. But I think it backfires. It allows the people on the fence to think only “bad” pregnancies are deserving of choice. The better exception to be using, when the anti-choice crowd is going full-tilt, as they seem to be in this election, is the question of medical necessity.
Ryan, for example, is against it, when third-trimester abortions were being debated in the house, he said, “"The health exception would render this ban virtually meaningless.". Ryan doesn’t care if a woman will die; not if she’s pregnant. It’s a harsh thing to say; I know people will say I am exaggerating, but it’s what banning medically needed abortions means. It means that as soon as a woman becomes pregnant she is slave to the state. Her life is not her own, and it’s not her own until she is no longer legally responsible for the child.
That’s what choice is about. It’s about being your own person. The Republican Party, nor Romney, nor Ryan, nor any who accept its platform, don’t think women should be allowed to be their own persons, no exceptions.
I think it has been making the entire debate harder to have, because it cedes a vast piece of moral ground to the anti-choice side. It says that some abortions are more acceptable than others, which implies that all the rest are, in some way, not acceptable. That absent some extenuating circumstance the fetus, presumptively, has rights.
That’s not a good position to be in, if what one is arguing is the right isn’t one to life (on the part of the fetus) but the right to autonomy on the part of the woman. It makes it easier for those who are opposed to choice to get their foot in the door with those who are on the fence. It gives the waffling people a way to salve their consciences. Those people get to tell themselves they aren’t denying, “good women” the right to abortions. No, the people who are “deserving”, those who aren’t, “trying to run away from their responsibilities” will still be able to get an abortion if they, “need” one.
Well it’s not about need. It’s about freedom. Freedom to choose. Freedom to not lose one's freedom the moment one gets pregnant. Freedom to have children when one wants them, and to not have them when one doesn’t. An unwanted pregnancy is an unwanted pregnancy, no matter how loving, or hateful, the circumstances which led to it.
I have some of the same problems with people who defend non-heterosexuals having rights because, “they were born that way”. I don’t give a damn if it’s nature, nurture, a question of politics, or pure hedonistic choice. People are people. They have rights. If those rights can be stripped, because it’s a choice, then they aren’t rights.
One can argue the moral values of when legal personhood begins, that’s fine. But saying some types of abortion are legitimate, because the cause of them is squicky is an act of moral cowardice (on both sides). Choice is legit, or it isn’t. I know why the strategists chose incest and rape as the poster child for making the anti-choice people look monstrous, it’s because those are things we react to with horror, and it allows a certain type of logical fallacy to play out in the id. It allows for some guilt by association. If the anti-choicers won’t allow exceptions for rape and incest victims, then they are supporting rape and incest.
The nice thing about it, from that standpoint, is the claim doesn’t have to be overt. People’s revulsion to the concepts kicks in at a level below reason. But I think it backfires. It allows the people on the fence to think only “bad” pregnancies are deserving of choice. The better exception to be using, when the anti-choice crowd is going full-tilt, as they seem to be in this election, is the question of medical necessity.
Ryan, for example, is against it, when third-trimester abortions were being debated in the house, he said, “"The health exception would render this ban virtually meaningless.". Ryan doesn’t care if a woman will die; not if she’s pregnant. It’s a harsh thing to say; I know people will say I am exaggerating, but it’s what banning medically needed abortions means. It means that as soon as a woman becomes pregnant she is slave to the state. Her life is not her own, and it’s not her own until she is no longer legally responsible for the child.
That’s what choice is about. It’s about being your own person. The Republican Party, nor Romney, nor Ryan, nor any who accept its platform, don’t think women should be allowed to be their own persons, no exceptions.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-06 08:26 am (UTC)Ryan's stance is... fascinating. No exemptions for rape or incest, because what American NEEDS is more 14-year-old mothers. Pregnancy is God's punishment to women for sex, so of course they shouldn't be allowed to end it, NO MATTER WHAT.
(And um. I very much want to know how widespread the concept of voluntary conception is... how many elected officials in the Republican party really believe that women can choose not to get pregnant? How many OTHER basic facts of biology are they clueless about?)
And I'm sick of the "born that way" argument, too. I wasn't born Pagan; nobody was born Christian, and yet everyone in the US has the right to practice their religions. Whether you've been of a particular faith for forty years or just converted last week, you have the right to pray in the manner of your faith, decorate your home and dress your body accordingly, and, if you are so inspired, attempt to convert others to the True Path (given certain limitations having to do with others not being required to stick around and listen).
If a person was born gay, or realized it yesterday, or actually changed... does not matter. Like a religious faith, orientation is not a matter of "choosing" but of finding; the label is an external adjunct to the internal sense of "this is who and what I am."
Anyone can, of course, hide that. It's no harder to live as passing-for-straight than it is for a Christian to live as passing-for-Muslim in an Islamic country... just keep your head down, mumble when they ask about holidays, and never mention what you truly want to do with your private life. And of course, accept that you can't have a marriage arranged the way you want it, and can't set up your property rights the way you want them; the state doesn't allow it.
I have no idea why anyone in the US thinks this is a reasonable approach to any categorical identity.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-06 09:17 am (UTC)This.