File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9801, message 415


Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 09:17:56 -0500 (EST)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Britain's abortion row



The abortion issue is heating up again here too, on the 25rth anniversary
of Roe v. Wade. The prochoice forces are losing the battle. After Webster,
the Court has been upholding all sorts of restrictions as not imposing an
"undue burden" on the fundamental right to abortion. Prolifers are passing
lawsthat restrict certain procedures in late term abortions, although
these laws are not being upheld in the courts. Roe itself, in whatever
watered down form it survives, hangs on by a single vote on the S.Ct. 84%
of counties have no abortion providerrs. A third of ob-gyn programs don't
even teach abortion techniques. A S.Carolina court jailed a woman drug
addict for "child abuse." The situation looks bad. There is little doubt
taht most states would ban abortions if Roe were overturned.

The abortion issue is more complex, morally, than either James or Boddhi
asserts it to be. There are no esay lines to be drawn in either directions
because the development of the fetus is gradual and not qualitatively
broken into nice stages. A fetus about to be born is little different from
a newborn. If it's wrong to kill a newborn, it's not obvious taht it's OK
to kill the fetus in that stage. But if we push the argument back because
there are no clean lines to be drawn, we end up with the Cathlic position:
"every sperm is sacred." On the other hand an embryo just seems like a
collection of cells with no more moral standing than a kidney. But if we
push the argument forward, it's not obvious that we can stop befiore we
get to newborns.  

I'm speaking morally of course. Legally the fetus in America has interests
but isn't a person and has no due process rights.

I think that the metaphysics is not resolvable and that the law should not
base its decisiona about where to draw the line on the basis of
metaphysical subtleties about the nature of personhood evenif we had
better arguments than we do. I suggest (this should be noi surprise) a
pragamtic solution.

We can't take the issue outside of its social context. Prolifers want to
ban abortion because it fits in with their total conception of woman's
place in the world, as subordinate to men. I don't get this from the air:
see Kirsten Luker's fine Abotrtion and the Politice of Motherhood, based
on careful research into the psychology of theactivists on both sides.
Prochoicers more explicitly want to defend abortion because it fits with
their idea of woman's emancipation. If we think that feminism, or if you
don't like the term, woman' emancipation, is the better perspective, that's
a reason tobe prochoice. We can use taht as our basis for saying that
fetusses have no standing. If we are uncomfortable about late term
abortions, we can say that they should be regulated for that reason, All
of this treats the line as a matter of social context, something that goes
outside in, global to local, rather than as inherent in the subject
matter. That's my theory, anyway.

--jks 

On Wed, 21 Jan 1998, James Heartfield wrote:

> In message <CMM.0.90.0.885366978.kbevans-AT-panix3.panix.com>, boddhisatva
> <kbevans-AT-panix.com> writes
> >       Abortion rights may be a foregone conclusion but they are
> >definitely a moral choice.  Other medical procedures do not include the
> >willful termination of human (albeit undeveloped and pre-sentient) life.
> 
> A fetus is not a person. If rights attach to 'human life' then even an
> appendix is a part of 'human life'. Rights belong to social individuals,
> not human tissue.
> 
> >The state has no business
> >denying the unborn fetus due process even if the mother's rights are found
> >to prevail every single time.  We must be conscious that fetal rights are
> >being compromised even if we are sure that abortion rights are absolute.
> 
> I think the concept of fetal rights is a fiction. The British law does
> not in any sense enshrine the rights of the unborn. The law does not
> recognise fetuses as legal persons in any respect. Rights do not attach
> to persons because of their natural characteristics, but because they
> are social persons. That does not apply to the fetus.
> 
> > 
> >
> >
> >       If we don't deal with the moral question, we lose the argument. 
> >This has happened in the U.S..  The left has refused to articulate a clear
> >moral argument, and the religious right has made inroads against womens'
> >rights. 
> 
> I think the reason that the left was on the defensive over abortion
> rights, was because they gave too much ground to the idea of 'abortion
> is a terrible thing' or 'of course nobody wants to see abortions' when
> they should have been making the positive (and moral) case, that women's
> rights are indivisible, no matter whther they ar pregnant or otherwise.
> 
> >Furthermore, it strikes me very unwise to simply create a class of
> >rightless human beings, given what we know about capitalism and fascism. 
> >When capitalism makes the argument that things having no social utility
> >(fetuses, criminals, the old and dying) have no rights, socialists should
> >shudder.
> 
> I think the comparison of criminals and old people with the unborn is
> unsustainable. In fact the very idea that a fetus' rights are on a par
> with a free person's shows a degradatioon of the meaning of rights and
> liberty.
> 
> 
> >  I don't believe the state has the right to tyrannize or oppress
> >women by restraining their reproductive freedom in the guise of protecting
> >fetal rights. 
> 
> That's my point.
> 
> > I also know that, in a world of advancing medical
> >technology, human flesh is a marketable commodity and human life is a cost
> >sink for capitalism.
> 
> 
> This seems confused to me. There is a labour market. But its
> precondition is that people are free to sell their labour.
> 
> Fraternally
> -- 
> James Heartfield
> 
> 
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