But that doesn’t matter: sure, legal abortions allow fetuses to be killed, which some people call murder. I don’t know about that. What I DO know is that outlawing abortion kills women. And that *IS* MURDER. And it takes away rights from people that I *know* should have them.

So I’m going to support policies that prioritize preventing actual, provable murders of women over maybe-sorta-theoretical “murders” of cell clumps, while still hoping that eventually the debatable latter ones will end as well. So I don’t see a contradiction at all, in upholding a woman’s right to get an abortion while working towards them no longer being needed.

So, in answer to the question “do you value the woman’s life more than the fetus’ ‘life’?” I say: um, hell yeah. Why should I value a woman’s life less than ANYONE else’s?

I think you are fooling yourself if you think that a comprehensive ban on abortion in an affluent, modern country like the U.S. wouldn’t severely reduce the abortion rate. In any event, your argument seems to cut both ways. If the existence of abortion laws have no measurable effect on the incidence of abortions

A ban on abortion would reduce the rate of abortion for SOME women. Already in rural areas abortions are difficult to obtain, which puts them out of the reach of poorer women. Women who have the resources can travel to obtain their abortions. Under an abortion ban the same thing would happen. Poor women would be shit out of luck when it came to safe abortions, but middle class and urban women would be able to find a way. My guess would be that if there was a rape exception the number of reported rapes would skyrocket, if there was a health exception the number of problem pregnancies would spike, and women of means would make up the difference by heading to Canada or forming groups like JANE in Chicago. In the meantime poor women would still seek abortions, they’d just end up like poor women in other parts of the world where abortion is illegal.

how do such laws “control” women?

All laws are about control. Thats why we have laws, to control behavior between individuals. Police, prisons, and all the other things that go with breaking the law are designed to provide disincentives for behavior society would like to discourage. Perhaps you’ve not often found yourself on the wrong side of a law, but the booking process and the behavior of police is designed with coercion in mind. The stated goal of prisons can be seen in the language we choose to use when describing them. They are “correctional” facilities, the idea being that a stay in them will correct behavior society has deemed unacceptable. Everything is set up to send the same message: do as society says or we will hurt you until you comply.

A ban on abortion, whether it worked or not, would be something meant to control the behavior of women. In this case it would be something meant to tell women that their choices are to either undergo sterilization, celibacy, or risk being an incubator. The message is that recreational sex and bodily sovereignty are trumped by the high subjective value placed upon potential life as an end in itself. It is saying that new life, no matter the outcome, is always more important than liberty or the pursuit of happiness. On a deeper level it is saying that the lives and existences of women are inherently subservient to the needs of the next generation, that any plans or desires they have must always come second to their assigned social and biological function. It is a way of telling women what their place is and where they are in the social hierarchy. It is a way of controlling the discussion about that role by forcing dissenters to argue from a disadvantage, to have to overcome the idea that they are advocating murder or other criminal activity, to have to overcome orthodoxy and inertia before their arguments can even be heard.

Perhaps you might not see things that way. Perhaps the world has done well by you. Perhaps you have never had the experience of seeing society align against you and bring it’s full weight into pushing you back down to your assigned station. Thats called privilege.

If it did, we’d never know. Illegal abortions are invisible. All you would ever be able to say is MAYBE the ban is working.

That’s an impressively-worded paragraph, but it boils down to mere assertion. Today’s abortion opponents aren’t bound by the “historical and social rationales” that derive from other places and times.

“Many such restrictive policies have been in response to declining birth rates, overpopulation or nationalism. But as with policies molded by religious morality, the primary target demographic is the same: women of childbearing age.”

Obviously, any abortion regulation will have women of childbearing age as its “target demographic.” That’s like pointing out that plantation owners were the target demographic of the Thirteen Amendment.

“The ability to control one’s own reproductive destiny is indeed one of the most important factors in a woman’s life. And her choices have social, cultural and economic ramifications for generations to come. It is indeed a grab for control.”

Let’s speak in plain English. When you talk about “the ability to control one’s own reproductive destiny,” that simply means the decision whether or not to have children. I agree that the decision whether or not to have children is one of the most important decisions (“factors”?) in ANYONE’s life (not just women). And by “ramifications for generations to come,” you’re referring to the unremarkable fact that a child born today could, in theory, have children of his or her own and thus help propagate the parents’ bloodline indefinitely. I won’t dispute that observation, although I question its relevance to this discussion. Your third sentence, however, is a complete non sequitur. First, abortion bans do not ipso facto mean that men and women no longer control the decision of whether or not to have children. People can still choose whether to mate, whom to mate with, and, using birth control and family planning, when to get pregnant. Second, just because abortion laws relate to procreation, it doesn’t follow that such laws are created solely for the purpose of controlling women. Simply asserting, or repeating the assertion, that abortion laws are about controlling women doesn’t make it so.

“What is most striking about these recent studies of abortion around the world is that whether it is legal or not, women are just as likely to get an abortion. The World Health Organization, with AGI, found in 2007 that abortion rates are “virtually” equal in rich and poor countries. Looking at abortion trends from 1995 to 2003, researchers concluded that regardless of restrictive abortion laws, women sought abortions.”

I think you are fooling yourself if you think that a comprehensive ban on abortion in an affluent, modern country like the U.S. wouldn’t severely reduce the abortion rate. In any event, your argument seems to cut both ways. If the existence of abortion laws have no measurable effect on the incidence of abortions, then how do such laws “control” women?

I would further submit that Amie’s statement that “to be anti-choice is to oppose legal abortion on the basis of wanting to control women’s lives” is also, fundamentally, a statement of faith, unsupported by objective evidence.

There is no such thing as objective evidence, there are only the arbitrary rules based upon the values of the most powerful members of a given society. Talking about, or expecting, objective evidence is something to be done with science. This is politics/philosophy/ethics. Objective data is limited by the fundamental assumptions made by the participants in any given discussion.

Obviously, laws denying access to abortion have the effect of “controlling the lives” of those women who would otherwise choose to have an abortion. Similarly, traffic laws “control the lives” of people who would choose to drive 90 mph in a school zone. However, the object of the law isn’t the control over people’s lives, it’s to ensure the safety of kids in the school zone.

Thats a false parallel. When discussing the law the only data that really matters, outside of periods of revolution, is what has happened before. The current state of the law is to view a fetus as a clump of cells and an walking child as a human being. Those definitions are certainly up for discussion, but until you change the working definitions you have to abide by them. In our society we make laws, in theory, based upon the defense of human liberty. A man doing 90 in a school zone is endangering the life of another human being (as defined by the law), a woman having an abortion is doing nothing more than exercising her time honored right to bodily sovereignty. In order to change that you need to first change the law so that a fetus is considered a human being, then make a compelling argument as to why the rights of that human being trump the rights of the human being whose body it has invaded.

If people want to find common ground on the abortion issue, a good place to start would be to check your paranoia at the door.

Yeah, some of us liberty loving folks get a bit twitchy when someone shows up who has an argument which boils down to “your body can be commandeered by someone else any time they please so long as they need it to live.”

Amie’s sentiment is correct and can be validated by examining various historical and social rationales for societies and regimes within the last century that have implemented governmental policies in the attempt to manipulate reproductive practices and ultimately demographics.

Many such restrictive policies have been in response to declining birth rates, overpopulation or nationalism. But as with policies molded by religious morality, the primary target demographic is the same: women of childbearing age.

The ability to control one’s own reproductive destiny is indeed one of the most important factors in a woman’s life. And her choices have social, cultural and economic ramifications for generations to come. It is indeed a grab for control.

Consider the further evidence about what we are talking about:

“What is most striking about these recent studies of abortion around the world is that whether it is legal or not, women are just as likely to get an abortion. The World Health Organization, with AGI, found in 2007 that abortion rates are “virtually” equal in rich and poor countries. Looking at abortion trends from 1995 to 2003, researchers concluded that regardless of restrictive abortion laws, women sought abortions.”
Nowfoundation.org

Objectively speaking, restricting access to abortion in light of this data, is indeed plenty evidence of a desire to control the female populace.

I agree, but pragmatically speaking, there is no way one side of this argument is going to wake up one morning and agree with the other. I think taking one side of the argument, not budging, and expecting the other side to “come around” is not realistic. If not to try to find the practical, realistic points of agreement – what would you suggest be done instead? I am not being a smartass with this question.

No, I get your question and that you’re not being a smartass, its something I’ve struggled with as well. I suppose my answer about what there is to be done comes from a slightly different angle. I would challenge one of the assumptions you (and, honestly, most people involved) seem to be making: that because there is an argument there is a lack of clarity. SCOTUS has, despite being a relatively conservative body, ruled in favor of abortion more than once. A pretty solid majority of people in this country are in favor of abortion. There are some people who disagree with abortion but really their opinions do not matter. This is a settled issue. Just as some people got up in arms over the Brown v. Board of Education decisions, some people are up in arms over Roe v. Wade and it’s implications. The fundamental reality is that the pro choice side won the war, they managed to get abortion declared a constitutional right. They’ve won the consciousness of a solid majority of the American people. Continuing to engage a relatively small minority of little tyrants because they’re loud and have managed to gain a chokehold on one of the major political parties puts defenders of abortion rights in a position where they have everything to lose and nothing to gain.