[Peace-discuss] abortion debate

[Carl Estabrook]

Tom--

You and I would indeed agree "that in the end what is required is the
construction of a society that places human need above the private
accumulation of wealth."  And, if you would forgive me, I'll quote you
further to suggest that that bit of "transcendent morality does indeed
form the basis of your thinking" -- as it should, for serious people
throughout history.  The Mahabharata says, "When one prefers one's
children to the children of another, war is near."

(And BTW, on this point, the Right-wing judge who wants to post the
Decalogue because "it's the foundation of all our laws," is curiously
correct, even though he doesn't understand it, when we realize that that
text in its original form is not the justification for authority as it's
been interpreted for the last few centuries, but a demand for the
"construction of a society that places human need above the private
accumulation of wealth.")

I think I may have failed to make my examples clear, however.  The first,
revolting one, was meant merely to show that were some things that we
could say were wrong regardless of the circumstances ("absolutely" wrong).
Examples of people doing what I instanced, torturing children for
pleasure, and even thinking that that was ethical, don't overthrow the
point that it wasn't.

The universal prohibition against killing (which most admit is not
absolute --- i.e., there are conditions that can justify it, notably
self-defense or defense of others) is indicated by the vast amount of time
and effort expended in getting around it.  But once again neither
violation of a principle -- not the specious justification of its
violation -- is proof of its non-existence.

And I didn't say that "the Civil War was about 'legislating morality'."
I said that it was appropriate for abolitionists to demand that the state
end slavery -- a moral goal, just as we would now demand that the state
provide universal health care, another moral goal.  States in themselves
are not moral agents but the arena for the conflict of class interests, a
conflict that is be no means perspicuous.  That's why we argue, e.g., over
what are morally appropriate demands.  I think the ending of abortion is
one, and you clearly don't.  But I think we disagree about that more than
about states.

Why should we prefer on set of class interests to another?  Because that
class is more numerous? Less powerful? Or because it's going to win
anyway?  I think -- and I think Marx thought, though he might be as
uncomfortable as you in putting it this way -- that it's because it has
justice on its side.

Regards, Carl


On Thu, 18 Nov 2004, Tom Mackaman wrote:

> Dear Carl,
>  Thank you for the thoughtful response.
>  It seems to me that the belief in a transcendent morality does indeed
> form the basis of your thinking.  To support your argument you use the
> extreme example of torturing children ("torturing children for pleasure
> would I think be wrong under slavery, feudalism, capitalism, or
> communism, hence absolutely wrong").  But it strikes me as post hoc ergo
> propter hoc:  you mention several social systems, or modes of
> production, in which child abuse is presumably a moral violation, to
> arrive at the conclusion that this represents a trans-historical value,
> and therfore rises above the mode of production or social system from
> which the same values arose.
>  Second, even though you conjured up an extreme example for rhetorical
> value, if we look at it in the detail can we be so sure?  What about
> foot-binding for young girls in early modern Japan?  What about the use
> of Italian boys as "castrati" for the pleasure of opera enthusiasts?
> Roma children in the circus?  These examples, and many others, should
> suggest the impossiblity of finding anywhere, at any time, transhistoric
> moral imperatives.
>  Those who argue that there is some sort of permanent moral violation
> against killing need only open the newspaper.  There one will find the
> bloodlust of US imperialism and its media outlets in full effect.
> Killing "insurgents", even if it means "collateral damage," is now the
> noblest pursuit of the nation.  As it is in Israel.  And as it was for
> the Wehrmacht in WWII.  And so it was also when the US exterminated the
> Native Americans.  And so on.
>  The brutality of US imperialism arises from the crisis of US capitalism
> and its need to dominate oil markets.  The mouthpieces of the ruling
> elite--the politicians and the media-- provide the rest of us with the
> moral superstructure so that we understand what a heroic project it all
> is.  Killing, war, murder:  these are in fact the moral values we live
> under.
>  I think you would argue that this is exactly why we need to expose the
> hypocrisy of the right wing and its claims to defend a "culture of
> life."  And you would be right.  But I think such an analysis also must
> affect the way one views the nature of the state in the US.  It should
> make one understand that it is hopelessly bankrupt to attempt to
> pressure such an instrument to live up to moral criteria.  For example,
> it is very likely that in the coming years abortion will become illegal
> as the right wing dominates the judiciary more and more.  It would be
> the height of self-delusion for leftists, anti-aborition or not, to call
> this a victory for "life".  There will be no victories for "consistent"
> life under capitalism as we now know it.
>  In parting, I'd like to address your question:  "Those who say the
> state shouldn't legislate morality seem to be using the term morality in
> a restricted sense, one that I at least don't understand. What else
> should the state legislate, except morality?"  And then you make yet
> another comparison to the Civil War and the abolition of slavery.  This
> is exactly the sort of transhistorical argument that is in fact deeply
> a-historical.  In a previous posting you argue that the Civil War was
> about "legislating morality."  This is not an argument that would earn a
> high mark on a midterm exam.  Clearly, there was much, much more going
> on than that.  In any case, do you really want to compare Marx's
> critical support for the cause of the Union and aboltion--which, by the
> way, he understood dialectically as introducing a new period of class
> struggle in the US-- with an attempts to pressure the Bush-led
> right-wing to abolish abortion?  To ask the question is to answer it.
> It's absurd, and the
>  comparison hides much more than it reveals.
>  I think that the imperative for leftists is to fight the growing police
> state in all its forms, including defending women's reproductive rights.
> It is inconsistent, hopeless, and ultimately self-defeating to support
> one aspect of the capitalist police state, in this case the
> criminalization of abortion, and fight the rest.
>  I appreciate, as always, reading your thoughtful posts, Carl.  And I
> think we would agree that in the end what is required is the
> construction of a society that places human need above the private
> accumulation of wealth.  Perhaps that alone will finally consign these
> arguments to the realm of historical curiosity.
>
>  Best regards,
>  Tom
>
>
>
>
> Carl Estabrook <cge at shout.net> wrote: Tom--
>
> You are of course correct that "the question of abortion, or emergency
> contraception for that matter, cannot be neatly abstracted ... from the
> entire mess of politics and history confronting humanity." I've thought
> for a while that it's a great error for both opponents and proponents to
> treat those issues in isolation. Instead of a political discussion about
> rights and who possesses them, we have the increasingly feverish
> insistence that abortion opponents must always be religious fanatics
> arguing from mystic premises (who, e.g., "suddenly 'discover' that God
> reveals conception starts earlier than He had previously revealed"),
> even when they don't.
>
> But must it be always and everywhere true, that moral issues cannot be
> trans-historic phenomena? That would seem to make that assertion
> trans-historic and at least verge on contradiction. Marx' assertion that
> all morality is class morality alerts us to the importance of the social
> construction of moral codes, but I don't think that that fact allows us
> to assert that moral conclusions are always and everywhere solely the
> result of an historical conjunction, liable to change from moment to
> moment, from decade to decade, or even from productive mode to
> productive mode.
>
> Circumstances, perhaps particularity historical circumstances, certainly
> enter into proper moral decision making, but I still think we want to
> maintain that we can find things that are absolutely wrong (absolute
> means regardless of circumstances). E.g., torturing children for
> pleasure would I think be wrong under slavery, feudalism, capitalism, or
> communism, hence absolutely wrong. (Of course most things that are
> wrong, even very wrong, cannot be absolutely wrong, and some trivial
> things might be -- lying, Kant said).
>
> You're as aware as I am of those who argue that Marx' own work is
> prompted by a profound ethical imperative: things should not be this
> way. It's true that some Marxists have argued that he was merely an
> observer of changing conjunctural ethical formations, but I doubt it: he
> was pretty far from Auden's Unknown Citizen, who "...held the proper
> opinions for he time of year; / When there was peace, he was for peace;
> when there was war, he went."
>
> It may not surprise you to learn that I'm a Chomskyan on this issue:
> ethical principles are like the universal grammar of human language.
> Different societies' moral codes are like different human languages,
> varying a good bit according to local parameters, but all arising from
> the same human mental structure. (A view that has some kinship to
> Aristotle's: "...there is in nature a common principle of the just and
> unjust that all people in some way discern even if they have no
> association or commerce with each other"; Marx, as the last and greatest
> of the Aristotelians, held something similar, I think.)
>
> Just as a Martian sociologist would regard all human beings as speaking
> the same language with regional variations, so the same alien
> sociologist would probably find all human societies following the same
> moral code, with regional variations. We're very much aware of those
> variations, as we should be; especially since the Enlightenment, they
> have prompted us to reasoned discussion and philosophical reflection on
> ethics (and a great deal of imaginative literature), as attempts to
> discover at an always less trivial level who we are and how we should
> act.
>
> Chomsky asserts (and convinces me) that the attempt is not pointless.
> People are not plastic, so you can't do anything you want with them.
> Wittgenstein wrote in his Notebooks, "Ethics does not treat of the world
> -- ethics must be a condition of the world, like logic." We can make
> moral discoveries, get to understand ourselves and our history better
> (Marx' own contribution), and come to valid moral conclusions -- in
> history, of course (how would we get out?), but nevertheless correctly:
> we can conclude what then should be done.
>
> [1] I think you misconstrue slightly the debate on this list about
> "emergency contraception." I objected to AWARE's co-sponsoring a rally
> on the subject for two reason, one substantive and one tactical, but
> neither of transcendent importance. Emergency contraception may be
> necessary for victims of rape, but it's understood by some as an
> abortifacient; its general promotion does seem to suggest a casualness
> towards human life that we decry in other US government policies.
> Tactically, it's the sort of issue that Tom Frank describes in "What's
> the Matter with Kansas?" as derailing progressive politics. An anti-war
> group that wants to talk to people other than self-described liberals
> should stay away from it.
>
> Regarding "...the very practice as we know it today is made possible
> only by recent gains in scientific understanding," it might be just as
> true to say that it's made possible by marketing campaigns by the
> pharmaceutical companies. Some contradiction is involved when
> self-described Leftists are shilling for the general use of a product
> from one of the most corrupt and politically wired industries in the
> country.
>
> [2] I certainly agree that abortion should be seen in the context of the
> "broad-based assault on the gains working people made throughout the
> twentieth century," but not the same way as you do. E.g., the remark
> ascribed to Che Guevara, "It's easier to kill a guerrilla in the womb
> than in the hills," describes the anti-natal policies followed by the US
> government in a number of Third World countries, as Alexander Cockburn
> has described.
>
> The task is to decide what policies (or moral positions) are
> reactionary, not to dismiss them simply because some reactionaries hold
> them. Ideas are not responsible for the people who believe in them, as
> Marxists should know better than most. My radio colleague, Paul Mueth,
> likes to say, "If your coalition doesn't include people who make you
> uncomfortable, it isn't large enough."
>
> But I've argued elsewhere that opposition to abortion belongs more
> consistently on the Left than on the Right , and I'd contend that I
> don't have too much in common with Right-wing antiabortionists, who have
> been rightly characterized as believing the right right to life "begins
> at conception and ends at birth." Opposition to abortion necessitates
> attacks on the conditions that most often lead people in this society to
> have abortions -- and that means demanding universal health care,
> guaranteed annual income, housing, free education, etc.
>
> [3] And therefore I agree wholeheartedly in the need for "creating a
> society in which the fundamental causes of the problem are eradicated
> ... Poverty, violence, lack of time off for working women, lack of
> health care, day care, etc., these are the problems that must be faced."
> The Right-wing antiabortionists who think that they can accomplish much
> just with a law are mistaken if not hypocritical. (For all their talk
> about abortion, Republicans in power do nothing on the matter -- they
> seem to prefer it as a shibboleth.) The people associated with the
> Consistent Life position have often said that their goal is not so much
> to make abortion illegal as to make it unthinkable, because anyone old
> enough to remember knows that abortion was neither uncommon nor
> particularly difficult to obtain before 1973, when it was generally
> illegal in the US.
>
> [4] Those who say the state shouldn't legislate morality seem to be
> using the term morality in a restricted sense, one that I at least don't
> understand. What else should the state legislate, except morality?
> Aren't progressive campaigns precisely campaigns for the state to do
> something morally appropriate -- to attack poverty, violence.
> exploitation, etc., because people have a moral right not to suffer from
> those things? When people use morality in that restricted sense, they
> seem already to have decided what belongs in the sphere that classic
> Liberalism said lay outside the purview of government (like religion). I
> think the protection of human life is both moral in a larger sense and a
> proper subject for state action. We spend a lot of time demanding the
> government do that in general. The question is, Is abortion that sort of
> matter?
>
> Anarchism -- libertarian socialism -- was described more than a century
> ago as having "a broad back, like paper it endures anything" (as do what
> Bush calls "the internets"). It coincides with the Left-wing Marxism
> that Lenin so excoriated, and it's clear that one of its major
> differences with Marxism-Leninism is its hostility to the state, which
> Leninists hold must be used to (in one sense) legislate morality against
> the unjust rule of the bourgeoisie. But an anarchist society would not
> be one of no rules -- just no rulers. An anarchist society would have to
> be a highly organized one, where both the polity and the economy would
> be democratically run. Marx in his maturity wrote, "Freedom consists in
> the conversion of the State from an organ superimposed on society into
> one completely subordinated to it..." Exactly.
>
> To be an anarchist is to have a vision of such a thing, but it doesn't
> tell you what to do today. Do you seriously think it was inappropriate
> for abolitionists to demand from the bourgeois American state of the
> 19th century an end to slavery? (Marx didn't think so, as his letter to
> Lincoln at the end of the Civil War shows.) I agree entirely that the
> state is "an historical instrument by which one social class dominates
> another; the modern US government is the instrument by which US
> capitalism impoverishes millions in this country and leads us on
> terrible wars of conquest abroad." But it's important to remember what
> Perry Anderson calls one of the basic axioms of historical materialism:
> that secular struggle between classes is ultimately resolved at the
> *political* -- not at the economic or cultural level of society..." As a
> friend says, "Sometimes the most revolutionary thing you can do is ask
> liberals [which would include the present US government] to live up to
> their principles."
>
> Thanks for your comments and a chance to discuss what I think are
> important matters. Regards, Carl
>
>
> On Tue, 16 Nov 2004, Tom Mackaman wrote:
>
> > One of the problems with this debate is that it treats the moral
> > issues surrounding abortion as trans-historic phenomena. In fact, the
> > question of abortion, or emergency contraception for that matter,
> > cannot be neatly abstracted as a "moral issue" from the entire mess of
> > politics and history confronting humanity. I think that much of this
> > discussion has taken as a starting point that there exist timeless,
> > unchangeable, universal morals that operate outside and above human
> > society. As much as we might wish that to be the case, I think a
> > serious engagement with history shows it is just plain wrong. Much
> > could be said, but I wanted to make just a few points: 1. The very
> > practice as we know it today is made possible only by recent gains in
> > scientific understanding. Those who oppose it often act as though
> > their opposition is based upon some timeless moral tablet, when in
> > fact there would be no discussion were it not for scientific
> > discovery. The absurd stand against emergency contraception is a
> > perfect example of this: A scienftic discovery threatens to make
> > antiquated the entire debate on abortion. Instead, the anti-abortion
> > zealots suddenly "discover" that God reveals conception starts earlier
> > than He had previously revealed. 2. We cannot separate the attack on
> > abortion rights from the broad-based assault on the gains working
> > people made throughout the twentieth century. The same moralizers who
> > attack abortion also attack basic programs such as Planned Parenthood.
> > And they attack the publics schools, Medicare, Social Security, and so
> > on. Some moralizers are no doubt sincere in their effort to defend
> > life. But many others are not, and no matter how one might wish it
> > away, to join forces with the reactionairies on the matter of abortion
> > is itself reactionary. 3. To the extent that we accept abortion as a
> > problem, the solution lies not in pressuring our reactionary
> > government to outlaw it, as Carl calls for, but in creating a society
> > in which the fundamental causes of the problem are erradicated, which
> > Carl also, to his credit, calls for. Poverty, violence, lack of time
> > off for working women, lack of health care, day care, etc., these are
> > the problems that must be faced. 4. Carl, I know you consider yourself
> > to be an anarchist. But I have to point out that your call for the
> > government to legislate morality is as far away from an anarchist
> > position as can be, as when you write, "it would seem that sometimes
> > government would have to be the driving force of individual morality
> > (as in ending slavery?)". Although I do not consider myself an
> > anarchist, I know that the one of its central inspirations has been a
> > revolt against state-sanctioned morality, especially in the historic
> > epicenters of anarchism: Church-dominated or -influenced states such
> > as Italy and Spain. And the basic tactics and strategy of anarchism is
> > the destruction, not the strengthening, of the state and its police
> > apparatus. Socialists, who also should favor the dissolution of the
> > state, should agree on this score. We do not call upon the state to
> > legislate morality or adopt new police measures. We view the state as
> > the historical instrument by which one social class dominates another.
> > The modern US government is the instrument by which US capitalism
> > impoverishes millions in this country and leads us on terrible wars of
> > conquest abroad. It is a reactionary utopia to imagine that such an
> > instrument can ever truly enforce "morality."
> >
> >
> >
>