Commenter Kate left a comment on my post Life At Conception Act that deserves a wider audience. So here it is:
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Oh, the fun I could have with this… I’ll be nice.
Data point one: Where abortion is available AND there are no-identification abandonment places for women to leave unwanted infants, there are still babies being abandoned.
Data point two: You don’t have to go far back in history to find primary accounts of dead babies in alleyways – abandonment continued to happen long after the Greeks and Romans. And still happens. Just not as often.
Data point three: Greece recently experienced a huge upsurge in child abandonment as the economy there did its black hole impression.
Data point four: Under Ceaucescu, Romania not only banned contraception, they required a minimum of four children per family. Many of those children wound up in hellish orphanages or were abandoned because the parents couldn’t feed them.
Data point five: Why in hell is ANYONE arguing over abortion when the economy here is racing towards people not being able to feed THEMSELVES?
Data point six: The last time I looked the constitution does not make any claims on what happens in any person’s bedroom. Even if that bedroom happens to straddle a state line.
Data point seven: There are already states criminalizing women for behaving “badly” during pregnancy if they miscarry. It’s not much of a jump from that to the period police – particularly since it’s not always possible to tell whether a miscarriage was caused by maternal misbehavior or something else. No thank you.
As for TheAJ: abortion and miscarriage are technically the same thing. Popular culture uses abortion to mean “induced miscarriage”. The estimate is that somewhere up to 90% of fertilized eggs are aborted naturally by failing to implant or not being well enough formed to be viable. Most of these fail so early the woman has no idea she was pregnant. Ergo, nature is the biggest provider of abortion. Simple logic.
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What made me decide to post this? It is in response in part to Eric’s post The meaning of “local” depends on what we consider national! And the meaning of national depends on what narrative we want! and the people who think that There Ought To Be A Law.
A comment I left there (approximately):
Humans is an ugly lot. And there is no government solution to that. See Kate‘s comment above.
You can’t correct human nature with laws. At best you can punish the worst excesses. Try to go farther than that and you create a disaster.
Look at Alcohol Prohibition. Look at Drug Prohibition.
Look at the Gun Prohibition now on the table. The idea is to punish all gun owners for the excesses of a few.
Anti-abortion laws will have similar results.
The difficulty is that utopians just focus on solving one problem. But you can’t just solve one problem. There are side effects. And sometimes the side effects create more problems than the “solution” solves.
Utopians NEVER consider side effects.
We have sufficient laws to deal with the likes of the Kermit Gosnell case Eric mentioned in his post. We don’t need to criminalize all abortions and every miscarriage to get at Gosnell. How do I know this? Because Gosnell IS being prosecuted.
Comments
16 responses to “Why The Government Solution Will Not Work”
Humans are humans. There isn’t any way around that. We haven’t changed that much in recorded history, and we probably won’t change that much in the future.
Women have always found ways to be rid of unwanted pregnancies and babies, and will always do so. As far as I can tell, the best thing anyone can do “about” it is to allow them to do so safely – which includes adoption for the babies born from late-term abortions, and making sure that the clinics are safe and clean.
Gosnell failed miserably on every front, and the PA government failed equally miserably. There has been muttering in this part of the world that if he and his clientele hadn’t been black and poor, there would have been prosecutions much sooner. I suspect this is the case – the “soft” bigotry of low expectations.
THIS adoptee is standing and applauding this post. So there. 🙂
What are the differences between abortion rights hero and martyr George Tiller and Kermit Gosnell. One induced labor and then severed spinal cords; the other injected saline into hearts or other vital organs, and then induced labor. One was sloppy with sterilization, janitorial tasks, and body disposal, the other was neat. They both killed many viable babies who posed no physical threat to their mothers.
I suspect that forced Eugenics has a greater chance of returning to the US than a complete outlawing of abortion.
I applaud the reasoned arguments on both sides. I don’t expect a resolution.
Will,
What is most interesting to me is that abortion is for the most part the left killing its future.
And yet the right wants to stop that.
The rule in battle is: when your enemy is making a mistake don’t stop him.
Which says that the right does not see the conflict as a battle for the future. Or even a self pruning of the gene pool which will correct itself over time.
In most cases I agree that it is not unreasonable to let those who relinquish their right and responsibility to reason for themselves reap the rewards of following their chosen group-think. Which is one reason I am a hermit. When a group-think approaches the “Never Again” I object.
Will,
When it comes to Never Again Nature/God is the biggest abortionist.
I think turning every miscarriage into a murder investigation is a very bad idea.
People are still being poisoned and killed by bad moonshine. Is that an argument that alcohol should be prohibited?
You can’t correct human nature with laws. At best you can punish the worst excesses. Try to go farther than that and you create a disaster.
Murder prohibition hasn’t worked out so well, either. Are you arguing that we should legalize that? Perhaps go to a weregeld system?
Let’s give the anti-abortion argument its due–they argue that abortion is one of the worst excesses. When I contemplate the euphemistic assault on the English language by the pro-abortion folks, I often wonder if perhaps they “anti-” side is right. A fetus is not “a clump of cells”. Scientifically, it’s a human life. The fiction that it’s unimportant is doing a great deal of damage to a lot of people. I think there are good arguments against prohibition, but presently the debate is dishonest.
Neil,
I object to turning every miscarriage into a murder investigation.
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Data point seven: There are already states criminalizing women for behaving “badly” during pregnancy if they miscarry. It’s not much of a jump from that to the period police – particularly since it’s not always possible to tell whether a miscarriage was caused by maternal misbehavior or something else. No thank you.
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By Jewish abortion law going back over 2,000 years abortion is not murder.
And it is not a human until 1/2 the head or 1/2 the body (breech birth) exits the woman.
And it is not even considered partially human until quickening.
On top of that abortion is REQUIRED if the life of the mother or her mental health is at stake.
But I do grant you the cult of embryo worship is an interesting one.
The people favoring a government solution are in the minority in the US.
I know absolutely nothing about Jewish law, but I have sat through a couple of 3-D ultrasounds. I can tell you that a gestating baby is human. I do not wish to give the government any more power over our bodies than is absolutely necessary–I recognize the danger there. However, we as a society need to be honest about the moral choices we make.
Referring to a gestating baby as “a clump of cells” and refusing to recognize its essential humanity has polluted the health-care industry to the point that we aren’t seeing to the real emotional hurt suffered by women who have an abortion. Not to mention we now have respected medical ethicists musing that perhaps infanticide is morally acceptable if the baby turns out to be less than perfect–after all it’s only separated from “a clump of cells” by a brief trip through the birth canal.
Meanwhile, for all the “Handmaiden’s Tale” scare stories that are nowhere near reality, a fellow named Gosnell committed serial infanticide for years, right out in the open. Advertised for it, even. And it took years for someone to stop him because he called it “abortion”, and we’re not allowed to think honestly or critically about that.
Personally, I am always in favor of thinking honestly and critically.
Neil,
Honest about the moral choices we make? Really? Never happen.
Our Federal Government is currently engaged in a crime against humanity. Denying medicine to the sick. And few attack it on those grounds.
But it is not just moral choices. It also represents making women in a certain age group wards of the state. Do you really think you can pass that law?
Meanwhile, for all the “Handmaiden’s Tale” scare stories that are nowhere near reality,
One need only see the progression of the Drug War when it was more popular to put the lie to that. It need not start out at that level. Just a reasonable progression.
Germany didn’t start out with Auschwitz. Just several tens of thousands in political prisoner camps. Things did not get really bad until after the Wannsee Conference in 1942.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference
I have seen the ultrasounds live and in person. That still does not make me want to turn every miscarriage into a murder investigation. To “test” women weekly for signs of pregnancy. Don’t want them taking RU-486. The morning after pill. Or similar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mifepristone
And I might add Gosnell is being prosecuted under the laws we have.
But if we are going for murder prevention why not gun bans? And knife bans.
In fact all kinds of bans will be required.
I really don’t understand why changing the culture is not the best option. But then again I’m a small government guy. Never very popular among the “Something Must Be Done” crowd.
Well something was done about people lacking healthcare.
And Neil,
Please explain how you will prevent Black Markets. The Soviets couldn’t. Is American Government any more adept?
And if fetal health is important shouldn’t women of child bearing age be denied alcohol?
Referring to a gestating baby as “a clump of cells” and refusing to recognize its essential humanity has polluted the health-care industry to the point that we aren’t seeing to the real emotional hurt suffered by women who have an abortion.
And you propose to keep women from hurting themselves? Really?
Are you willing to bear the costs of raising these children? The Catholic Church calls for increases in welfare payments. Which is at least morally consistent. You up for that?
One other question:
What is the value of children raised by women who don’t want them? Will they be an asset or a liability?
Will they tend to be a welfare burden or will they be producers?
Is economics a moral issue too?
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