United Liberty
Why Americans are moving pro-gay marriage, but also pro-life
Fri, 05/25/2012 - 12:20pm | posted by Brian Lehman
When talking about so-called “social issues” in politics, the subjects of same-sex marriage and abortion are very frequently mentioned in the same breath. The assumption goes like this – if someone is on the conservative side, that person will both favor banning gay marriage and banning abortion; if that person is on the liberal side, he will support gay marriage and abortion rights. However, in reality there is no fundamental reason that the subjects need to be linked. It is entirely possible, and in fact quite common, for someone to be okay with gays marrying but find abortion to be objectionable.
And in fact, the polls show this to be the exact direction that Americans are moving. Most people now favor gay marriage rights, and the amount of Americans calling themselves “pro-choice” has shrunk while “pro-life” has gained share. This fact should not be the least bit surprising to anyone who understands the issues at hand. Gay marriage will naturally become more popular because it is a message of inclusion; the arguments against it are weak and becoming weaker as more people realize it will not hurt them in any way. And as for abortion, improved medical imaging, the survival of fetuses at increasingly earlier stages, and wider acceptance of contraception has rendered abortion less necessary and more morally questionable.
Yet it seems that in our mainstream politics, we are still largely defined by the idea that you must take a certain position on each issue based on your political side. It’s part of our idiotic political culture that demands absolute fealty to one party’s positions and spits upon those who find themselves in between. If a Republican finds himself supporting gay rights or anything other than the extreme, terrifying pro-life stance of Santorum and Bachmann, he is excoriated and called a “RINO”. If a Democrat favors anything but totally unrestricted abortion, he is called anti-woman. As a country we suffer from the ridiculous idea that people fit nicely into one of two camps, and those that don’t like either camp that much are thrown to the wild.
Instead, what we need to adopt are reasonable stances on both abortion and gay marriage. Republicans and conservatives need to understand two things, lest they be thrown to the dustbin of history.
First, that abortion is going to be legal to some degree, likely for a very long time. I realize that this is hard to accept, but it’s reality. However, the pro-life argument is very strong and gaining ground. Conservatives should not shy away from this. The argument that unborn life is worth something is compelling and rational. The huge mistake to make is to push too hard, and go too far, to such an extent that regular folks are repulsed. Mandatory ultrasound laws (including those requiring invasive probes) are a disgrace, as are vague, poorly realized “personhood” laws. The goal posts are moving – but they need to be moved slowly.
Second, that gay marriage is inevitable, and that arguments against it are becoming increasingly weak. It was already incredibly hard to convince someone that their hetero marriage was “threatened” by Bob and Steve down the street being married. So anti gay marriage rhetoric has increasingly become reduced to playing on people being uncomfortable with homosexuality and disgusting fear mongering about people being able to marry their dogs. Ideally, the state should get out of marriage totally; but if it is in the business, it must treat all parties equally. One’s personal discomfort with gay sex has literally NOTHING to do with what public policy should be.
This is the direction that most Americans are moving. It makes sense as the younger generations become more at ease with gay people and abortion becomes more seen as something to be avoided. A smart leader understands these trends and steps ahead of them instead of lagging behind and playing to the worst of us. The American public is increasingly growing tired of the games being played. It’s time for us to act like adults and make the case for our positions.
I demand that the LGBT community be allowed to be as miserable as the rest of us.
So Mr. Lehman acknowledges, rightly so, that the positions of Bachmann and Santorum are extreme and terrifying, but favors moving in their direction? And he opposes mandatory ultrasound laws and personhood amendments, but favors more subtle, odious measures to invade the private lives of women and restrict their choices?
Allow me to manipulative your own words to explain the abortion issue, Mr. Lehman:
“One’s personal discomfort with ABORTION has literally NOTHING to do with what public policy should be.”
Much better. One of the fundamental tenets of the liberty movement is removing government from private life and allowing individuals to make their own choices. Hence homosexuals should be allowed to marry, regardless of how third parties feel about the morality of their relationships. Likewise, women should be allowed to make their own choices regarding their bodies, not to have those choices dictated by moralistic dogma.
I’m all for one being able to make their own choices - PROVIDED it does not harm another person. In the case of abortion there clearly is another party involved - the growing fetus. We can argue all day about what rights it has but to pretend it’s not there is just silly. This is NOTHING like the case of gay marriage where the only parties are two consenting adults.
A person does not become a living human until birth. I would expect you to agree with this, given your opposition to “personhood” laws.
There is precious little difference between Santorum’s idealized forced births of rape babies and China’s state mandated abortions. Whether it is a moralistic theocracy or a draconian bureaucracy, the state should not be involved in, much less controlling, the reproductive choices and bodies of women.
“A person does not become a living human until birth.”
Could you elaborate on that? It’s most certainly alive before birth, and it’s most definitely human.
To manipulate your words:
“A person does not become valuable until birth. Why? Because that’s what my feelings tell me, based off my own arbitrary criteria of what makes a person valuable, and stemming from the idea that some people have more value than others. I feel so strongly on this that I have convinced myself it’s not even Homo sapiens. The government should keep its grubby hands off this, because it can’t be murder if its not human.”
Humans become living beings at birth. A fertilized egg is not alive, nor is a fetus. Science and medicine dictate what I believe, not religiosity.
I don’t want a single law to exist based upon religious doctrine or “feelings.” I believe very strongly in the separation of church and state, and I am vehemently opposed to moral diktats becoming government policy. The government should keep its grubby hands out of people’s bodies, people’s bedrooms, and people’s free choices.
“Humans become living beings at birth. A fertilized egg is not alive, nor is a fetus. Science and medicine dictate what I believe, not religiosity.”
It is an undeniable scientific fact that the fetus is alive before birth. Scientists say the fetus (and all life) is made of cells. These cells are active (i.e. chemically functioning) in the fetus, giving it a metabolism (remember, the mother supplies nutrients through the umbilical. No metabolism = no need of nutrients). Furthermore, what has a metabolism is living, perforce. Unless you have a funky definition of ‘alive’ that isn’t found in my Oxford English Dictionary, you’re not making much sense.
“Science and medicine dictate what I believe, not religiosity.”
Then why have you concluded that the fetus is not alive and (per your previous post) not human? Now those ideas take true faith! Sometimes I will argue with those in favor of abortion who use reason, but I can’t argue with you as long as you worship in the Church of Absolute Subjectivity. If you have a novel idea of how the fetus isn’t human or isn’t alive, could you elaborate and explain precisely how that is the case? Otherwise you seem to be going against the most basic concepts of cellular biology itself, based solely on your feelings.
Humans are composed of cells, not the converse. Eggs aren’t living humans, nor are sperm, stem cells, or a fetus. There’s a reason human life is measured from birth to death; that’s when a person is actually alive. A fetus and a dead body both have living cells for some time, but neither is alive as a result.
The “life begins at conception” crowd uses feelings, I do not. There’s a reason no church on earth inscribes epitaphs with dates from conception to death - not even they believe that life begins at conception, much less the scientific community.
“that’s when a person is actually alive”
What on earth do you mean by “actually alive”? There’s no point in arguing if you won’t explain that in an objective manor.
Allow me to propose a thought experiment. Suppose a mother is carrying twins, goes into labor, and delivers one of them several hours before the other. In the interim, you would argue that the twin remaining in the womb is not alive? How would that work, scientifically speaking? And if it is not wrong to abort the one still in the womb, shouldn’t it be ok to euthanize the one that has already been born?
In fact, some philosophers have argued that abortion justifies infanticide. Look up the article “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?” by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva. This is the can of worms abortion has opened.
Actually alive, meaning living. A human is alive from birth until death. That’s as objective as it gets and the standard used by every church, government, and scientist on planet earth. If you wish to believe in some esoteric, alternate definition of human life, so be it.
Your hypothetical scenario is not complicated. One twin has been born, the other has not yet.
If you wish to dabble in morality plays, my version is as follows. The same woman has given birth to one twin, but the second has resulted in severe complications. It is entirely likely that if the woman attempts to give birth to the second child, she will die. If the child is aborted, it is probable that her life can be saved. Since in your world the power to make these decisions no longer rests with the woman, her family, and her doctors, but rather with you and your elected representatives, what do you do? And do you really believe that you and a bunch of lawmakers should be making that decision, rather than the people actually involved in the case?
“Actually alive, meaning living. A human is alive from birth until death.”
I still don’t understand. What exactly happens during birth that causes it to become alive? I don’t see that anything changes except location. Five minutes before birth it has five toes, hair, a beating heart, and few mental facilities – five minutes after birth it has five toes, hair, a beating heart, and few mental facilities. What changed, aside from location? You act as though this process involves magic – that somehow there is a mysterious transformation during birth.
“That’s as objective as it gets and the standard used by every church, government, and scientist on planet earth.”
The use of birth on records has been a social custom for a good part of human history – it predates knowledge of how conception worked or was calculated. Aside from being a naturally convenient point to make records, if we changed it now we would have to backdate all recorded information from before the change. It’s much more convenient to leave it alone. But it’s only a social custom.
The fact that it is customary for birth, rather than conception, to be the basis for records does not in any way dictate that life starts at birth. If you take social customs so literally, I would avoid using the Christian dating system – since calling this year ‘2012’ would be to commemorate Jesus and dictate yourself a Christian.
Now the answer to your question (which is a technical one rather than a moral one) is simple. You only mention abortion and birth. However, a surgeon can extract the fetus/infant just as quickly as an abortion can be performed. If there are complications, emergency C section is just as viable an option as abortion – but with a lot fewer ethical questions.
Once again you skirted my question. What fundamentally separates the natures of these twins so that one is alive and the other isn’t? I quote here from the After-birth Abortion article: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.” Now these folks disagree with you about where life (or personhood) begins (presumably because they assume that nothing magical happens), and they conclude that infanticide is not morally wrong. They would find no fundamental difference between the two twins, thus it would be morally acceptable to kill both of them. Could you explain to them how they are wrong?
You still don’t understand how birth differentiates those who are living from those who are not? And you believe birth is irrelevant, with conception dictating life? And the answer to all obstetric complications is apparently to perform a caesarean section? I cannot have a rational debate with someone who is so clearly irrational and removed from reality.
“You still don’t understand how birth differentiates those who are living from those who are not?”
No I don’t, because you haven’t explained it at all - you’ve just restated your initial assertion several different ways. Until you explain the mechanism behind your assertion, I doubt I will understand. Maybe you could explain the mechanism instead of calling me irrational?
Now let me propose my question again: What fundamentally separates the natures of the fetus and infant (from the twin example) so that one is alive and the other isn’t? What exactly changes during birth, aside from location? If you could explain to me how this is so, maybe I could understand you. I would very much like to understand, but I simply can’t read your mind.
“vague, poorly realized “personhood” laws [are a disgrace]”
I don’t get this. What’s “disgraceful” about defining a conceived human being as a “person”?
I also found the comment “not a living human until birth” very interesting, and ridiculously inaccurate. Are you aware you must have a burial for any miscarriage after you’ve reached your third trimester (I think that is when). As if it were a born child. In my own opinion there are FEW circumstances in which abortion should be an option. If the woman was raped especially if it were by a family member, because the chances of that child having difficulties is high. Also if the woman cannot physically carry/ deliver a child. Also if it were a child herself that had gotten pregnant (I’d say anyone younger then 14. Other then that I don’t think it’s right. Can’t even begin to comment my views on gay marriage… This comment is already ridiculously long, but I support it, I’ll leave it at that.
There are certainly no federal laws mandating burial services, and I highly doubt any such state law exists. Such a mandate would be an egregious violation of religious freedom and personal liberty.
For you to make arbitrary decisions about what someone else should and should not be allowed to do with their own body is wrong and an affront to liberty. Our great country is the best in the world precisely because of our freedoms. If you would prefer a repressive regime with moral codes legislated by the state, there are plenty of countries to move to that readily oppress women and impose their “values” on society.
Much better. One of the fundamental tenets of the liberty movement is removing government from private life and allowing individuals to make their own choices. Hence homosexuals should be allowed to marry, regardless of how third parties feel about the morality of their relationships.
IAS Coaching in Chandigarh
Likewise, women should be allowed to make their own choices regarding their bodies, not to have those choices dictated by moralistic dogma.
Post new comment