Over at ConservativeHome there’s a survey suggesting the social conservatives are doing the Guardian’s work for it by trying to make one’s position on abortion a party-political issue in Britain. The next generation of Conservative MPs support a lower time limit for abortions says an email questionnaire to 225 candidates, answered by just under half. I’m as irritated by this sort of spinning of some very doubtful evidence as I am by the contrary stuff – to the same effect – from the Guardian, which has recently started to suggest (as a measure of its desperation) that no-one who favours abortion choice should vote Conservative.
What really winds me up, though, is the mendacious presentation of their position by the proponents of this staged debate. The legal position of abortion in Britain is the sort of muddy compromise people with a clear ideas about the question are quite right to resent. But the approach of many abortion-banners (as they actually are) is anything but frank, and reminiscent of the step-by-step strategy of the anti-smoking lobby. For every principled (usually religiously principled) pro-lifer, there is someone who secretly shares their conviction, but makes the case for just a little cut in the time-limit now “because science tells us that babies of that age can now survive outside the womb”.
It’s nonsense. Without a lot of help a two-year-old can’t survive outside the womb. And the prospect of those few born at the limit of current paediatric technology surviving uncrippled to live a normal life is tiny even with a massive input of medical and nursing resources. But worse, it is mendacious nonsense – they don’t care about “viability” in the slightest. What they want is a plausible excuse to cut the availability of abortion just a bit.
So I have a test to flush them out. It is provided by that ghastly muddy compromise. Britain doesn’t in law permit women to choose abortion, unlike most rich countries. It is an extraordinary construct of bureaucratic paternalism.
What British (mainland) law does is to permit pregnant women to petition doctors to give them permission to abort on the grounds that it will be bad for their well-being to carry the baby to term. With two doctors assenting to this opinion in writing (that is, as the doctors’ professional opinion – the woman’s view doesn’t matter in law), you may have an abortion. Where the ‘time-limit’ comes in is that those two doctors can only approve an abortion to preserving the patient’s social or mental well-being before a certain point. After that terminations may only occur where there is a substantial risk to life or health, or in cases of severe foetal abnormality.
So in practice, in the UK you have a choice only if you approach the right doctor armed with the right argument. A naive or poorly educated, woman who seeks help from her GP when the GP happens to oppose abortion, or who mistakenly calls a pro-life charity canvassing itself as offering help to the unexpectedly pregnant (as opposed to one of the pro-choice groups who do the same thing) may never find out how to get an abortion, or at least not until it is too late. The late abortions themselves aren’t occuring as a lifestyle choice – which is another mendacious narrative element in the pseudo-debate.
My test is this: Next time anyone says they want the time-limit for abortion cut to because “science shows” the baby can survive outside the womb after X weeks. Say, “And of course you support changing the law to allow abortion on demand before that date, don’t you?” Then watch them flounder.
The two doctors thing is a bit of a myth. The likes of Marie Stopes clinics. Rubber stamp it. Such is my understanding of such things. You are right about the naive and ill-educated though.
And that’s a good test Guy.
You can apply a slightly modified version:
One of your arguments against abortion is that it’s traumatic for the patient. Why did you therefore oppose (and they will do*) the use of ru-486 which is much less traumatic?
*(Link)
Due to the “mental health” thing in the 1967 Act there already is de facto “abortion on demand” Guy.
And if Conservatives support abortion who are anti abortion people supposed to vote for?
A single issue party?
Still I suppse trying to restore morality by state action is like trying to turn back the line on a sundial.
If it is now considered moral to kill babies (and, contrary to the propaganda, “back street abortions” were very rare as recently as the 1950’s) then no chance in the law is going to change that belief.
We must either accept the eventual extermination of the West (as I know of very few Western countries were the fertility rate is 2 babies per women or higher – and many of the babies born in some Western countries are born into subcultures that are hostile to the West), or find alternative means to bring humans, or near humans, into the world.
I am enough of a conservative to be uncomfortable about manufacturing sentient beings – but as long as they have the same rights as anyone else there is no libertarian argument against it.
And, as I have said at other times, there is something appealing about the idea of a future Osama shaking their fist and screaming “damn you Rogue Trooper – curse the day you were cloned”.
Even if “clone” is not the correct word for the new beings (who might be different from us in various ways).
Wot Nick said, the two doctors thing is a myth.
I have known pregnant women who on entering a hospital for any reason were met with an expectation that ‘of course’ they were going to have an abortion.
The two doctors requirement is a meaningless formality, almost nothing more than a legal fiction.
There are good and sound reasons for most positions on abortion, and I don’t see any reason to judge on that one issue.
And killing a two year old, regardless of how helpless they are, is a crime. So not only does your comparison not help your argument, but it can be used to it’s detriment.
Ah yes, the boa constrictor strategy. They’re using it in the U.S. too. I dislike it because it’s sneaky, but even more because it works.
One side of it is that the pro-choice side now has to defend our rights so vigilantly and sniff over ever proposed piece of reproductive and infant legislation so thoroughly for disguised anti-abortion clauses that we have Barak Obama called an infanticide for opposing the Illinois Induced Infant Liability Act. He’s said that he’d have supported it if it were worded the same way as the recent federal act, but I seem to be the only around asking how those acts are different.
As you say, a 2-year old can’t survive outside the womb for long either. In fact, even I start wasting away without Mrs Paleologos to help me, and I’m 38.
So do you support killing of babies up to the age of 2? Why is it different?
Nick M,
The two doctors thing is a bit of a myth. The likes of Marie Stopes clinics. Rubber stamp it.
Yes. But it is not a myth. In the absence of abortion-tolerant doctors then no rubber stamp is available. In practice we have abortion on demand as long as you know who to ask, and have the funds – which might in the case of a charity providing free – terminations to the poor such as Marie Stopes still mean a train ticket from your home town to their clinic to get the doctors’ sign-off.
In theory, and in practice if you are unfortunate, it remains a paternalistic system in which someone else exercises direct discretion over a hugely important and personal decision, and can be in a strong position to obstruct you or exercise undue influence. This is more pernicious because young women in particular may well be mis-informed about the procedure and suffer real hardship if told “No, I won’t authorise it,” by someone they were relying on for help.
Perhaps we might look on this issue (and its elements) and how it arises in the public discourse.
In the instance cited here, it is being raised to foment a “political” issue, that will divert energies and concentration of the electorate away from the mess politicians have made (and are making) of other matters that are more fiitingly within their province.
Think back over how long this issue remained outside the political arena. Consider how and when it “grew” in inportance – indeed correlating with the intrusions of politicians into private sector matters through use of the mechanisms of governments.
A plausible case can be made that all this concern arises because those who seek to attain the rents of political offices need “issues” that are polarizing, but deflect concern from the actual operations of governments.
Paul,
And if Conservatives support abortion who are anti abortion people supposed to vote for?
My point was akin to the one RRS raises, viz – this used not to be a party-political matter, but a matter for the conscience of the particular MP on which parties were held to have no position at all.
Some social conservatives in the Tory party (who care about the constitutional convention and the fate of their party less than they do about than they do about stopping abortion), and some Labour-party tribal loyalists (who care nothing for constitutional convention and assume that everyone who opposes abortion, is unspeakably nasty and so are Tories therefore so identifying the Conservative Party will justifiably damage it), would like to see a partisan split on the issues in this country mirroring that in the US. They are both wrong.
The present government has given the tendency a push by whipping the recent Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill, which the convention would have made a matter of conscience and thus a free vote. I wouldn’t put it past them to have done so deliberately for the same strategic reasons: despite the fudge being unsatisfactory in logic and yielding some injustice in practice, Britain is at actually at peace over abortion which is extremely marginal as a political issue. Most people are happy about the status quo, and would be worried by radical changes. Were the Conservative party to be seen as the anti-abortion party – whether or not this were an official position – that would be an electoral liability among women in particular, and it would also contribute to the vague impression that is is ‘extreme’, which is disadvantageous as an abstract characteristic at the ballot box regardless of the content of the policies that lead to that impression.
The Guardian socialist head-bangers won’t have analysed it as subtly as that, just seeing Tories = nasty, pro-lifers = nasty; but you can bet Labour strategists will have done.
Guy,
I’m not sure how coherent your argument is. If you favour private healthcare then obviously a lot of that has to be on the individuals own initiative. Helping out the poor, unfortunate, naive and poorly educated seems that it would involve some level of paternalism.
Also, to what extent was your original post actually about abortion rather than using it as an example of creeping regulation.
I almost added different examples. Islamic demands for “toleration” is one. Green taxes is another. To be honest I got a little bamboozled because it applies to everything. That’s why thery’re “progressive” and not “revolutionary”. Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey.
Paul,
I attribute falling birth-rates primarily to the growing need for two incomes for a decent standard of living for a family. This is less the case (or was) in the USA. Hence they have higher birth-rates. In many ways we have got effectively poorer over the last few decades. Just look at house-price inflation.
Nick M,
If you favour private healthcare then obviously a lot of that has to be on the individuals own initiative. Helping out the poor, unfortunate, naive and poorly educated seems that it would involve some level of paternalism.
Not the same sort. Everyone in the States knows 30+ years after Roe v Wade you can get an abortion on demand by going to a specialist clinic if your own doctor won’t do it. All know medecine is negotiable. Charity may be available to the very poor.
In Britain people generally expect medical services to be available on the NHS and private medicine is rare. But also, you still need permission from a doctor. People used to being patronised and not negotiting their care are in a different position when that is refused.
OK. It is a general problem with the NHS. People are used to getting what they’re given. Well a lot are anyhoo. It’s why middle-class cancer patients have a better chance than lower-class ones. They’re more likely to make a fuss.
But I stand by my contention that the two doctors thing is rather a polite fiction which, considering we legalized abortion in the 60s(?) pretty much everyone ought to know by now.
You didn’t answer my second question. I’m still curious.
Guy the voters are always being fobbed off with the “conscience” of M.P.s
Perhaps the voters were wrong on such things as capital punishment, immigration, the E.U. (and so on and so on …….).
But they still deserved to have the issues argued before them – not decided over their heads.
Very few people vote on the basis of the individual candidate – they vote according to PARTY.
The “conscience” of an M.P. always just happens to be the B.B.C. or the Guardian letters page.
In short the “conscience” is either what they were taught in school and college, or what will get them in to fashionable events.
If someone wants to stand as an independent that is fine – then let the people vote for this independent person of conscience.
But with ut political groups with DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW (not just different party names covering the same left liberal belief system) elections lose their meaning.
By the way on abortion – the idea of Doctors not friendly (at least publically) to abortion is always under pressure.
Both medical training and medical practice are being made more and more political – if someone does not have P.C. opinions qualifying or practicing as a doctor is going to get more and more difficult.
Again – perphaps the pro abortion position is the correct one.
But the opinions of a person on a political question should not effect their chances of qualifying as a doctor – or how they are treated after they qualify.
Nick M.
You may well be right about the reasons for falling fertility rates (I prefer this measure to birth rates – because it is simple and to the point) – most people do indeed (I suspect) find it harder to live as they expect to live than they did some decades ago and that is partly due to such things as housing costs (one of the things left out of the CPI I believe).
However, there is also the question of expectations.
I am told that “Rednecks” (i.e. Scots-Irish Americans in rural areas) are still breeding enough to replace themselves – and they tend to be poor (lower incomes than blacks – although, as most blacks live in urban areas, their housing costs are higher).
The Redneck does not expect to have a high standard of living – and he does not resent people who are richer than he is (which has been the nail in the backside of “progressive” Americans for a century – they depend on envy, sorry on the John Rawls idea of “self esteem being dependent on a measure of material equality”), so he does not mind not having a television that works (or keeping his truck on bricks because he can not fix it just now) in order to feed the children.
Till quite recently such attitudes were normal. Now people prefer toys (non sexual “adult toys”) to children.
And, of course, there is the religion factor.
Like British people till a few decades ago, the Redneck (male or female) believes killing kids is a crime against God – so they do not tend to do it very much.
Paul Marks, you are not entirely correct about Britain. We, too, have class of people who do not see it as normal to commit infanticide when it is inconvenient for them to bear the consequences of their decisions. We call them ‘chavs’ and they are the object of unbridled, often justified, opprobrium, from everyone else. However, and this needs to be remembered especially by our Conservative party, an underclass woman who takes other people’s money in the form of benefits to support her children is infinitely preferable to a middle class one who murders it so as to have more fun at university
Nick M,
Also, to what extent was your original post actually about abortion rather than using it as an example of creeping regulation.
Scarcely at all, though I see some commentators have taken it to be. Nor is it about creeping regulation. It is about the mendacious approach of some political campaigners, pretending to believe one thing in order to promote and entirely different goal. It is also about a danger for the British political system. Because we have strong parties, if they are induced to adopt rigid moral postures to suck up to small groups then the parliamentary system will break down even further than it has done.
Paul Marks,
Guy the voters are always being fobbed off with the “conscience” of M.P.s
And they ought to be, in a representative legislature. I think that parliament has too much power, but I would rather that power were exercised by representatives consulting conscience and evidence rather than instantiating the will of the mob.
You can plausibly argue that MPs generally fail to represent their constituents’ interests because they are party delegates, and don’t engage properly with any debate, merely voting the party line. But the one point at which that well-made criticism fails absolutely is when the parties consider a matter to be conscientious, and therefore permit a free vote.
Let me speak up in favor of incremental abortion regulation on the road to elimination. The media in the US has painted such a mendacious, untrue picture of what a society that is with highly restricted abortion (nobody wants to ban all of it, not even the Pope). I suspect that the UK media is at least as false to the facts.
So you end up with bizarre situations with babies left to die without even normal care after they left the womb because they were born alive because the logic of choice carried to its ultimate conclusion has led (in the US at least) to actual infanticide.
Transition regulation along the way that is at the outer edge of the currently politically possible is a legitimate tactic to overcome this disinformation on the pro-choice side. For those in favor of the “muddle” approach but feel that the rules are currently too liberal, it’s not dishonest to come along for the ride on some regulations but not others. This swells the pro-life ranks and gets bills passed but doesn’t satisfy the philosophical opponents.
How about evidence shows ‘it’s’ an individual….
This in womb out of womb stuff is a progressive misdirection technique…
Anyway, I’m ‘that guy’ who really would just like to see the limit rolled back but who doesn’t want abortion to be illegal. I’ve been in arguments with pro lifers about the same things… No side agendas past protecting fetuses that seem to be fully formed human beings from being killed. Blop of cells rapidly dividing? Ok. Unborn baby? Not ok.
As you say, a 2-year old can’t survive outside the womb for long either. In fact, even I start wasting away without Mrs Paleologos to help me, and I’m 38.
So do you support killing of babies up to the age of 2? Why is it different?
Posted by manuel II paleologos at June 7, 2008 01:58 PM
You still haven’t answered this. If libertarianism abhors the initiation of force, I have no idea what’s more forceful than killing those human beings who are least capable of any kind of self-defense.
Gabriel:
The Redneck does not tend to be on welfare (although there have been vast efforts to get them on welfare – right from the 1930’s and again in the new programs of the 1960’s), which makes them rather better than the British “chavs” (although I am not certain what sorts of person this term covers).
Guns and God – well the welfare class in Britain may have time for guns (if they are members of gangs), but they have as little interest in God as they have real self respect (their self esteem is the John Rawls kind – it is based on personal possessions “look at my new flat screen television and my branded clothing”).
I am interested in people who are prepared to make sacrifices to feed their children by using their own money – not something the welfare class do (or something that I do myself – I am a typical libertarian, i.e. a childless dead end).
Guy.
I went too far (in implying that ALL MPs have not real moral principles) and I sorry for that.
I have seen M.P.s show genuine conscience:
For example, Mr Ridley dragged himself off his death bed (in terrible pain – by an almost superhuman effort) to speak and vote against the European Union treaty during the Major government period.
I was very impressed – but most M.P.s were not.
Most MPs being scum (and I do not mean in the sense of being poor) who have as much conscience as a lump of dirt has.
But again I forgot about the minority of MPs (of all political parties) who are worth something (in moral terms) and I am sorry for that.
Gabriel:
The Redneck does not tend to be on welfare (although there have been vast efforts to get them on welfare – right from the 1930’s and again in the new programs of the 1960’s), which makes them rather better than the British “chavs” (although I am not certain what sorts of person this term covers).
Guns and God – well the welfare class in Britain may have time for guns (if they are members of gangs), but they have as little interest in God as they have real self respect (their self esteem is the John Rawls kind – it is based on personal possessions “look at my new flat screen television and my branded clothing”).
I am interested in people who are prepared to make sacrifices to feed their children by using their own money – not something the welfare class do (or something that I do myself – I am a typical libertarian, i.e. a childless dead end).
Guy.
I went too far (in implying that ALL MPs have not real moral principles) and I sorry for that.
I have seen M.P.s show genuine conscience:
For example, Mr Ridley dragged himself off his death bed (in terrible pain – by an almost superhuman effort) to speak and vote against the European Union treaty during the Major government period.
I was very impressed – but most M.P.s were not.
Most MPs being scum (and I do not mean in the sense of being poor) who have as much conscience as a lump of dirt has.
But again I forgot about the minority of MPs (of all political parties) who are worth something (in moral terms) and I am sorry for that.
I’m a bit worried by this test, because at the point I’m supposed to flounder, I think “Yeah, that’s right.” Since, as you say, a two year old needs help to survive, why shouldn’t abortion be legal up to the age of two ? Or six ? Or ten ? The obvious and entirely rational non God-bothering reason is that at two, or six, or ten, somebody other than the mother can look after it. A mother can, technically, shrug of any responsibilities at age two, six or ten, using a method which does not lead inexorably to the creature’s death. Hence while she may be entitled to abandon her responsibility for it, she’s not allowed to choose a method that kills it. (On another day we can worry about the age at which mothers should be entitled to shrug off responsibilities for helping their progeny to survive, ie the age at which it may be presumed that the mother has accepted responsibility.)
And, as scientific techniques develop, the answer on survival without the mother seems to be that it’s possible at 22 weeks or so. But not, yet, at 18 weeks. So abortion on demand up to the point where the thing can survive with somebody else’s help seems entirely reasonable.
That’s not quite the same as saying that no abortion should ever be permitted after mother-free survival status has been achieved – that depends on the abortion method. There is a distinction between the mother evicting the thing in a way that allows for its possible survival, and dicing it up in a way that ensures its non survival. Abortion may be morally permissible later, if it is done by a mere eviction method that doesn’t kill the creature. (Though how much later depends on the answer to the earlier question about when mum’s abandonment option expires.)
Likewise if there’s a clash between the survival of the mother and the creature, there’s no reason to prefer the creature’s life over the mother’s. (Again philosophy 101ers will be familiar with the slightly different moral positions of the mother in such a case, and of third parties.)
Anyway, although lots of “lower limiters” may indeed flounder at your test, I don’t.
PS I avoid words like child, baby, fetus, embryo, lump of cells etc so as to avoid the spin value of each
Lee Moore,
Well that’s fine, because the function of the test is to detect those who are absolutist anti-abortionists masquerading as something else, and that is what my post is about. (You, and Thomass, are plainly the something else they are pretending to be.) My suspicion is that there are quite a lot of masqueraders though.
I also have other suspicions about other common positions on this subject. For example, absolute pro-lifers often allow exceptions on grounds that seem to have nothing to do with protecting the ungrown child, which leads me to believe that their convictions do not spring from the source they claim. But one thing at a time.
Well absolute pro lifers will have to speak for themselves. Mostly. However, despite not being a Catholic, nor religious at all, I do get slightly fed up with spotty undergraduates ridiculing Catholic positions on abortion as if they had suddenly come up with a knock down new argument that the Catholics haven’t thought of – in total ignorance of the fact that pretty much any moral argument about abortion that you can hear now had been considered by Catholic theologians long before Thomas Aquinas was a lad. You may not agree with the Catholics on abortion (and I don’t) but one thing that you can’t accuse them of is making up some daft argument on the spur of the moment. They’ve been thinking about this subject, pretty seriously, for getting on for a thousand years.
Plenty of the odd looking exceptions to the general Catholic anti-abortion strictures, such as the doctrine of double effect , are the result of logical reasoning from the premise that both mother and baby are fully human, and of equal value in the eyes of God.
I find it odd that a rational man should take such umbrage at the simple low politics of people settling for half a loaf. I feel no shame in arguing that the top rate of income tax could usefully be reduced to 38% from 40%, while what I really believe is that there is no moral case for progressive tax rates at all (beyond a modest tax free allowance.) I just think I’m likely to find more allies for my 38% poposition than I would for abolishing higher rates entirely. Likewise, if I thought that humans acquired all their natural rights at conception, but I was in a minority on that point, would it be so shameful for me to support reducing the abortion time limit to 20 weeks from 24 where I might find enough allies actually to win ? I can always try and come back for the other twenty weeks later.
Why the high horse on this particular issue ?
I meant to add that the current “ghastly muddy compromise” is the result of pro-choicers settling for the half loaf that they could get their hands on in 1967.
Were they wrong to do so ?
For example, absolute pro-lifers often allow exceptions on grounds that seem to have nothing to do with protecting the ungrown child, which leads me to believe that their convictions do not spring from the source they claim.
Some do; some don’t. Some do for reasons of pragmatism. Some do make exception (for, say, rape) for reasons of believing that it makes a difference of whether the pregnant woman in question can be said to have any fault or responsibility for the child’s existence. It’s certainly not a reason that lacks a rational basis.
So people who believe a more extreme version of things use arguments to appeal to the middle? Hardly shocking or contemptible. Would you equally condemn a libertarian who believes that all Taxation is Theft for arguing for a particular tax cut on capital formation on efficiency and pragmatic grounds? “Next time anyone says that they want to cut a particularly tax on capital because `research shows’ that it will increase economic growth and revenues. Say, `And of course you support raising other taxes rates that won’t affect growth as much until government revenue is maximized, don’t you?’ Then watch them flounder.”
Is it illegitimate for a pacifist to argue that one particular war is one that won’t even succeed in its aims?
Paul, I did not mean to argue that chavs were either godly or self-sufficient, for in both cases I would be spectacularly false. I simply wanted to point out that they don’t buy into the prevailing British consensus that it is normal to murder your unborn child (conceived via consensual intercourse, with full knowledge – as everyone in fact has – of the possible consequences) if circumstances make it convenient to do so.
For this reason, whatever their other flaws, they are vastly morally superior to the British middle classes.