Consistency on the issues has never been one of Arlen Specter’s character traits as a politician. Yet for all of his flips and flops on just about everything, not to mention his two changes in party affiliation, there is one issue on which the ultra-cynical senator has been fairly consistent: abortion. Indeed, if there is any one point of contention that defined him in his Senate career as a “liberal” Republican, it was his “pro-choice” beliefs. But despite three decades of such a stance and the fact that he has now joined the party that generally treats the backing for abortion as a litmus test, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the premiere pro-abortion lobby, is throwing Specter under the bus in the midst of his life-and-death struggle to hold on to his Senate seat.
NARAL endorsed Specter’s opponent Rep. Joe Sestak yesterday in a statement that dismissed the senator’s decades of work without so much as a backward glance. Indeed, far from treating the question of which pro-choice Democrat to back in the primary as a dilemma, NARAL Pro-Choice America’s president Nancy Keenan stuck the proverbial knife in the back of her group’s erstwhile loyalist by saying: “Many Pennsylvanians are under the impression that Arlen Specter might be a reliable pro-choice voice, but his record says otherwise. Pennsylvanians deserve a senator who considers being pro-choice a position of conviction, rather than a position of convenience.”
Ouch! Reading that, you have to sympathize a bit with Snarlin’ Arlen. You might well say that such a swipe at his character would be justified if you were talking about anything else, but it’s hard to argue that his stand on just about the only issue on which he has been consistent was merely a matter of convenience.
What’s NARAL’s motive? Is it belated payback for Specter’s roughing up of Anita Hill? Maybe. But according to its release, it’s the fact that Specter voted for Republican court nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito and at one point voted, along with many Democrats, in favor of a ban on partial-birth abortion. But Specter’s record on court nominations has been anything but consistent, given his participation in the vicious attacks on Robert Bork in the 1980s, which pleased NARAL, and his vote in favor of the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor last year.
But the real answer may be elsewhere in the statement, where Keenan claims, “Joe Sestak is the candidate who is best positioned to defeat an anti-choice opponent in the November general election.” Which is to say that she has read the polls, which show that Specter’s lead over his opponent has evaporated and that Sestak may be a tougher opponent for likely Republican nominee Pat Toomey. Now that he really needs them, Specter is finding that NARAL, like every other political entity, prefers backing likely winners to helping out old friends.
But just to show that ingratitude and extremism aren’t confined to the pro-choicers, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the long-shot challenge to Toomey in the Republican primary next week is also motivated by abortion. Activist Peg Luksik thinks that the former congressman isn’t sufficiently fanatic on the issue because despite his consistent pro-life record, he believes there should be exceptions to any potential ban on abortion in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother. Luksik’s claim to fame is that 20 years ago, she won 46 percent of the vote in a failed attempt to deny a GOP gubernatorial nomination to Barbara Hafer, a pro-choice Republican. Since then, she twice ran as a third-party candidate for governor against Tom Ridge.
Toomey is a prohibitive favorite and doesn’t have much to worry about in the primary. But looking ahead to November, he does seem to have a firm grasp on the difference between running against Specter and running against Sestak. While claiming that either would energize the Republican base, the Inquirer quotes Toomey as summing up the contrast between the two in this way:
“If Joe Sestak wins the nomination, I do think it will be a much more substantive discussion about policy, whereas if it was Arlen Specter, it would be a series of personal, negative ads trying to smear character. That’s the way he’s always operated.”
This all boils down to force. If a woman adamantly doesn’t want to have a child, then the state must use coercion to force that birth. Do we put those women in prison,in a straight jacket, until the happy day arrives. Then,for those who abort, it becomes a criminal justice nightmare. What will the charges be? for the woman? for the doctor? for the clinic? etc etc. If guilty, do we put those women in jail?
“You would think that a person like Mr. Obama–a former constitutional law professor who presumably has thought long and hard about this issue–would know all that.”
Barack Obama is a shallow and poorly read individual. I was perhaps the first one who saw this clearly. Many Americans simply do not know about the overall low standards of Harvard University. The scam operation has been very successful. We should treat with instant respect only those who earned a hard science credential at this institution. The softer degrees are highly suspect. Anyone possessing a liberal arts degree from Harvard should be regarded as an idiot until proven otherwise.
“If a woman adamantly doesn’t want to have a child”
This could especially be true if the child is now an eight year old brat. Yup, she should be able to get rid of it as she sees fit.
No liberal democracy can act arbitrarily or capriciously towards its citizens—a tyranny can and arguably legally on a purely positivist account of what law is. If the state’s rational treatment of its citizens is one of its constituents—in the nature of a liberal democracy so to speak, partially constitutive of it—then it seems to me follow that that is—at least conceptually— preceded by man’s inherent, inalienable rights as he contracts socially with his fellow (soon to be) citizens and the liberal democratic state in giving birth to it.
So on my way of thinking, these state-defining rights flow from man’s inalienable individual rights and often get formal expression in states’ constitutional rights documents. That is surely the American theory in any event. And that theory is one way of understanding why enumerated rights at least in American law do not preclude the constitutional status of unenumerated fundamental rights. Such rights according to the case law await recognition and declaration by the court.
In common (sense) usage there are material differences between “the right to be let alone” and privacy. The latter does seem more narrow and specific than the former, and the American cases, after emanations and penumbras, speak about a constitutionally protected zone of privacy. But if there is something more narrow and focused and specific about “privacy” compared to the right to be left alone, I have trouble separating it from the more general idea. On a plain dictionary definition of “privacy”, one of its meanings is “The state of being free from unsanctioned intrusion: a person’s right to privacy.” I can’t see real meaningful differences between that definition and the idea of being left alone—and I only use the latter phrase because it was Brandeis’s in his dissent in Olmstead, which is said to be the jumping off point for modern privacy jurisprudence.
As opposed to judges who sought to derive a right of privacy from things like the 4th Amendment and other provisions, Brandeis reasoned that the right to be let alone (which is conceptually indistinguishable from privacy though perhaps broader) is at the very unstated essence of the Constitution. Therefore, to repeat, every time a privacy related provision of the Constitution gets raised—search and seizure, others—privacy and its claimed violation are necessarily present. So my analysis is that privacy is not derivable from other provisions by necessary implication, penumbras, emanations, what have you. It of necessity precedes all those provisions which are simply—or not so simply—instances of it.
So one does not infer a zone of privacy; one recognizes that it must necessarily and foundationally be there. It is analytically necessary to start with the proposition that what a woman wants to do with her body is her presumptive constitutional right as a matter of her right to privacy. This line of reasoning seems unassailable to me.
When the fetus is viable outside is the functional marking point in the American cases—getting away from the trimester analysis in Roe—when, essentially, the state has a recognized interest–the life of the fetus– to vindicate.
Until this functional marking point gets reached, the embryo is de minimis. If it would verge on the arbitrary and capricious to forbid a woman one day after sex from, say, destroying conception from 24 hours before, then the state ought not be able to press such a restriction onto her. And it can’t, because she can do with her body what she wants: either as an incident of her right to be let alone: or of her privacy; or the security of her person; or her substantive 14th Amendment liberty;or the Blessings of Liberty.
At this point the state has no interest it can rationally point to. And an essence of the court’s constitutional role is to protect individuals’ fundamental rights and liberties against their violation by the state. If this line of reasoning is robust to this point, then where do we draw a line?
We draw it where we rationally conclude that that the state has something to talk about—when the fetus gets its sea legs, so to speak. It is not for legislatures to deprive women, as a matter of their own collective morality, of women’s fundamental rights. After all, a fundamental right is a fundamental right no matter what the legislature and the convention of the day say. Just as the court was right to say in Brown v Board of Education, it is not equality for whites and blacks de jure to need to go to separate schools even if arguendo the facilities are tangibly equal. Arguments were made in that case too about states’ rights—ie the right of the democratic state to legislate the will of the people and the complementary right of the states to be free from federal court fiat.
I just want to know what the rules will be once abortion is illegal. Exactly how will the fetuses be protected? & exactly what will happen those who are involved in Illegal Abortions?
“And it can’t, because she can do with her body what she wants”
Those slave owners can also do with their property as they see fit. That eight year old kid had also better be able to earn a living. If not, the parent should be able to kill them. Why should any mom or dad be forced to raise a brat?
Baseman, it is universally accepted now in courts of law that “own body” means “own DNA.” If one is to respect the mother’s “my body” argument how is one simultaneously to ignore the “other body with its OWN DNA” involved here, the one whose life is at stake? It seems to me that your logic is self-refuting. Of course, that is not all there is to the abortion argument. I am merely responding to the rote “it’s her body” refrain that pro-choicers caw as if that settled anything. It’s as inadequate a defense of abortion as it is “unassailabe.”
Many years and tears ago, in 1978, I think, the novelist Walker Percy, an MD by the way, wrote an op-ed in the NYT raising the same lethal objections to position’s like Obama’s, i.e., that it’s all “so mysterious,” that Weigel does. It definitely is NOT unknowable as to when a new life begins. It can be timed to the second.
What Weigel argues, and others as well, as that the pro-life position is the only correct position. Unfortunately reality is not so simple. Nevertheless, Obama and the pro-choice crowd should be open and forthright for the pro-choice position, that is to say, they should not try to couch their position with attempts to reach out and commiserate with the opposition. Just state your position, and be done with it, and let the voters decide, that’s how a democracy should work.
WHY are we assuming that Obama has “thought long and hard about this issue?”
Liberalism is a fashion statement.
It’s a prejudice of the mind.
They don’t see a SERIOUS countervailing argument existing on the legitimacy of abortion rights.
They see it as one of women’s “choice,” thus freedom, versus those who wish to “take us back,” presumably to petticoats and preambulators.
I very much doubt that Obama has allowed his mind to wander down the rabbit hole concerning abortion.
The science is clear, and simple enough for a 7th grader. Two haploids make a diploid. Remember mitosis and meiosis?
“Obama’s effort to portray abortion as an issue which is beyond reason and science, and is therefore at its core, and even solely, an issue of faith, is simply wrong. This view ignores what we know about embryology.”
One thing that baffles me with respect to all of the critiques of Obama’s position on life and abortion, is that everyone seems to wonder why he hasn’t addressed this issue with clarity. And the answer is…clarity and the truth of his convictions are extremely anti-fetus/infant, and therefore articulating them would be inexpedient. He can’t justify this scientifically or morally, and one is tempted to say that he is either lazy or heartless or both. For him, when life begins is beside the point: the product of an abortion is by definition a waste product, no more deserving of human treatment than the dirty surgery pads it’s wrapped in. There is the woman, and there is her “bodily waste” which, if we would consider it life, would traumatize the woman (in his words, ‘punish’ her) and cause just too much red tape, oh dear, you’d have to call in another doctor! This has to be the first time in history that a Liberal is against more intervention and red tape.
Obama is adamantly pro-abortion, including late term abortion, which always entails the death of the baby (except when a mistake is made) regardless of its viability, and as such, is never medically necessary. Medicine, science, morality: these are non-factors and critiquing him on these grounds is easy, but basically pointless.
Can America really elect a man who would condone infanticide on “constitutional” grounds?
“The science is clear, and simple enough for a 7th grader. Two haploids make a diploid.”
and you shall name this zygote…
Both Wehner and Weigel miss the point. However science ultimately answers the question, when does life begin, it remains above all an emotional controversy beyond or outside logical analysis. Surely a tight scientific proof that life begins at conception would change the mind of few pro choicers. And conversely, the voiding of even the earliest beginning of a child, is anathema to most pro lifers, the best scientific argument be damned.
It was therefore not unreasonable for Obama to step back and say, I am not smart enough (or stupid enough) to reach my hands into this matter of the heart.
Interestingly enough, all my life I, as a believing Catholic, have had to put up with condescending folks who tell me that I am not scientific, that, in Bitter Bierce’s formulation, I believe without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge of things without parallel.
Now I’m told by some of those folks who chided me on my & my church’s lack of, shall we say, enlightenment, but who seemingly have no knowledge of scientific reality when it comes to gestation & birth that I must ignore evidence of when life has begun, even in the “Fourth” Trimester.
And they don’t want the knowledge that may be found in films, videos, whatever shown about that thing in the womb. Nothing there, just move along.
Look, argue if you must that some formulation justifies killing the unborn, as well as the physically & mentally weak & the old (is this a life I see before me or is it a life of the mind), just don’t tell me that I must ignore the science & that it’s all just theology & philosophy.
Thank you to Barbera and Inwood. Denying the basic biology in favor of an expedient argument to the contrary is chilling indeed. Certainly no science..
And for those “crazed” women who will absolutely abort their offspring,when we force them to deliver,do we allow “natural” childbirth,or just a planned C Section. I assume that any damage done in this process,wouldn’t fall under medical malpractice.
By the way: on a related issue Obama was principled and courageous in voting no to the Illinois legislation. Jerrold Nadler’s advice in the House to assent to the federal bill was tactical and strategic and arguably wise in some tactical and strategic senses. But there were laws on the books giving full legal protection to any child born, whether of a botched abortion or otherwise.
So long as that proposition holds water, the Illinois bill was clearly unsubstantial; it was posturing; it was meant to force abortion’s hand by working its legislative, educative and cultural impact from after birth to before birth. Obama could have been, like Nadler, *wiser* to have been more “deft” and approve the state bill. And I don’t know what motivated Obama to vote against it: principle; his own cost benefit calculus; some of both.
But the argument from principle is there to be made: why approve a bill the legislative impact of which is redundant and the real purpose of which is to eventually swamp Roe?
As well it is incorrect in my view to see infanticide as the homicidal logical consequence/homicidal weak spot corollary of the pro choice position. Anyone committed to Roe and its successor Casey recognizes and agrees that the state’s interest in protecting the fetus grows as pregnancy progresses and that by the third trimester only something like the the mother’s health can justify a late term abortion.
Here too Obama has made welcome comments–to the disgust of certain pro choice zealots–that the exception for the danger to the mother must be a real physiological, life threatening or other sever physical danger–and not emotional fluff. Such a real health danger raises a tragic but legitimate limit on the total abolition of third trimester abortions.
When life starts (and all that) is certainly above my pay grade. The functional line of viability outside the womb makes workable sense to me. But the demagoguing of this issue against Obama has been some shameful. And I have yet to see a robust, spirited and principled defence made of his opposition to the Illinois bill, when Obama was arguably being principled and steadfast in voting against the bill.
What difference does it make as to when life begins?
I’m sure there are people who seriously believe that a law that determines that life begins at conception will prevent women from having abortions by criminalizing the act. But, nothing could be further from the truth.
Before abortion was legal in the United States women had abortions. After Roe vs Wade women continued to have abortions. If Roe vs Wade is repealed women will have abortions. Some would go to jail, others would not. There is no time in known history that women did not abort or attempt to abort an unwanted pregnancy. Some women have even committed infanticide to rid themselves of an unwanted child. Some went to jail, others did not. I agree with nacl’s post 13 the argument “remains above all an emotional controversy beyond or outside logical analysis.”
The fact is that so-called “pro-life” people hardly ever spell out how abortions should be penalized. Yes, they argue as to the immorality, the beginning of life, infanticide, etc. Yet not a one will go on record as to what they wish the law of the land should be and how it would be enforced, and what the penalties would be.
As to penalties, to be consistent, I assume that ‘pro-life’ partisans will demand the death penalty to any doctor abortionist since the doctor is, after all, killing a life.
I will adress the question made here repeatedly of what laws we shall have and how do we criminalize abortion. First, I do not have to go to the planet Xenon to figure this out. Before 1972 all the states made laws about this and enforced them. Second, all of Europe has more restrictive abortion laws than the U.S. and enforces them.
Almost no mother’s were prosecuted under these laws in the past or today. They take aim at the abortionist and the industry supporting it. Doctors don’t like having their medial licences revoked and pharmaceutical companies don’t like RICO suits.
The argument that their were abortions when it was illegal and that there are abortions now is so stupid I almost refrain from commenting but the number of abortions goes down when it is both illegal and frowned upon.
Finally, some places like N.Y. would have an open abortion regime and people hell bent on death would go there, some places like Nebraska would have few. We would reduce the number of abortions and return self-government to the people of the United States.
Also, the “coathanger” myth as been so thoroughly exploded elsewhere that I will simply deride it and let you look up the facts on your own.
“The argument that their were abortions when it was illegal and that there are abortions now is so stupid I almost refrain from commenting but the number of abortions goes down when it is both illegal and frowned upon.”
jjv, I agree with you. If abortion was made illegal, more than likely the amount of abortions would go down. However, as I posted earlier, they would not end.
“Almost no mother’s were prosecuted under these laws in the past or today.”
This is simply not true. Many mothers were prosecuted under the abortion laws imposed by the states. I agree that we didn’t fill the jails with them, but to imply that the laws were not enforced is misleading.
” Doctors don’t like having their medial licences revoked and pharmaceutical companies don’t like RICO suits.”
Again, I agree with you, if the law allowed that doctors who performed abortions would lose their license to practice medicine, then yes, many would opt not to perform abortions. However, someone would perform them! Some would perform them properly, some would not. Which, would return us to the very situation that allowed the Roe vs Wade decision.
I don’t follow your reasoning as to how pharmaceutical companies would be prosecuted under RICO.
The reality is we’re not going to start a murder investigation every time a zygote miscarries to determine if the mother purposely aborted her child. Which, would be the thing to do if we follow the logic that life and human rights begin at conception.
“Finally, some places like N.Y. would have an open abortion regime and people hell bent on death would go there, some places like Nebraska would have few. We would reduce the number of abortions and return self-government to the people of the United States.”
Here you lost me. Maybe it’s a vision thing. When exactly were the people of the United States self governing?
Scrappleface, playing on the riddle (based on Bishop Berkley’s philosophy) as to whether a tree, falling in the forest with no one to hear it, makes a sound, says:
“if a crying baby falls to the floor of an abortion clinic, but no law is there to protect it, does it make a sound?