Of course I agree with you about late term abortions. In fact, about abortions much past the end of the first trimester. (There is new research on prenatal neurology that helped clarify certain issues, at least for me. I am surprised it hasn't been more discussed. When I read it, I felt confirmed in my intuitive sense that the point at which aborting a fetus becomes infanticide is not long after the end of the first trimester.)
But you probably know my feeling about late abortion.
Many conservatives believe that immediately after the sperm and ovum unite, it should be the government's right to interfere with a woman's, or family's, decision not to have a child.
Anybody who aborts a nine month fetus is, of course, killing a baby. I haven't ever met anyone who believed that that was acceptable (unless it was to save the life of the mother, which must be a rare circumstance indeed), but there are plenty of ideologues about, and some must make the unrespectable inside/outside-the-body argument you describe. I have heard the viable-outside one, though, and I am not convinced it isn't an ideology-uber-ethics position.
This is all personal, though, and plowing plowed ground. And it is a complex issue.
But in fact, the morality of abortion is not what I was asking conservatives about. And I certainly was not to force any conservative to get an abortion.
To make the point that conservatives are hypocrites, or perhaps only deluded, when they say they believe the government shouldn't intrude on private life, I specifically discussed their attitudes toward very early abortion. Say, as early as... the morning after.
You, of course, preferred to discuss late term abortions.
But let's talk for a minute about extremely early abortion and the light that specific problem throws on conservatives claim to disapprove government intrusion into private lives.
Many conservatives claim both that they believe at one and the same time, two contradictory things:
that the government shouldn't be intruding into private lives
and
that the government should prevent a woman from carrying the morning after pill from England to America. (Or her doctor from importing it. Or an American drug company from manufacturing it for women who want it.)
Many conservatives, Michael, are very desirous of governmental intrusion in even the most intimate decisions and discussions between a woman and her husband the very next morning after a condom has broken.
I've made it simple! just the morning after pill. Nothing else.
Would you describe as grossly hypocritical a conservative who would call for the government to prevent an American woman from getting that pill from her doctor in the same way English and French and German and Swedish and Norwegian and Dutch and Belgian women get it from theirs; who would call for the government to force her to carry the fertilized ovum until it became an embryo, and then a fetus, and then a child; who would call for the government to set itself above the wife and her husband in the matter of deciding what to do in the morning, after the condom has broken the night before... do you think a conservative who would call for the government to do these things, while claiming that conservatives oppose governmental "intrusion into private life," grossly hypocritical?
Because what that conservative wants is the government to intrude into private lives selectively... with themselves doing the selecting of the victims of the intrusion. Because they are doing good. And those who will be intruded upon by the government are doing bad. Of course.
Do you think you are capable of answering the question about this restricted case? Without saying things like "that is unusual," or "most cases involve..."?
What do you think it means about a conservative's attitude toward government intrusion into private lives if that conservative would have the government rifle through a woman's purse when she gets off the plane at La Guardia to be sure she doesn't have morning after pills prescribed for her in London or Paris in it, and arrest her if she does? |
