[Peace-discuss] peace and contraception

[C. G. Estabrook]

Some comments, Ricky:

[1] Despite the frequent assertions on this list that "emergency
contraception is not abortion," there are those who see interference with
fertilized ova as abortion, and that's what these drugs do.

[2] The abortion debate should begin (not end) with the observation that
it's unreasonable to hold that human rights are conferred only at birth
and do not exist before.  It's not of course a matter of "the same rights
as an adult human being" (voting, for instance), but the one-day old child
does have the right not to have its life ended -- we agree that
infanticide is wrong.  When does that right begin?

[3] You write "...granting the fetus this more or less absolute right to
life means taking away rights from pregnant women ... [which] may include
life, health, autonomy to varying degrees, economic well-being or a number
of other things."  I'm not quite sure who's doing the granting -- the left
has historically argued for the recognition of rights that were being
ignored by a repressive society -- but you certainly would not come to
similar conclusions in the following cases:
	[a] "...granting the Palestinians this more or less absolute right
to life means taking away rights from Israeli Jews ... [which] may include
life, health, autonomy to varying degrees, economic well-being or a number
of other things"; and
	[b] "...granting slaves in the antebellum South this more or less
absolute right to life means taking away rights from plantation owners ...
include life, health, autonomy to varying degrees, economic well-being or
a number of other things."
	But [a] and [b] seem true.  In each case there are rights that may
indeed possibly conflict, but they can't be simply ignored.

[4] I think you may have misunderstood my remark to Jen.  Her questions
were rhetorical, designed to expose the ludicrousness of the positions
they seemed to represent.  I simply agreed.

[5] Finally, I do think we should worry about "alienating, for example,
anti-war Democrats or anti-war Zionists or anti-war free-traders or
anti-war pro-Chief folks or any number of other anti-war types."  And I
think it's an even greater mistake to change the anti-war focus of the
group.  Sponsoring the EC rally is like sponsoring a rally for brave
little Israel (another point on which we'd be agreement with the Kerry
people), or against the new anti-Semitism (David might object to our doing
that), or to honor the Chief...
 
"That's really our job ... to communicate as best we can the need for and
the hope of making a difference through opposing the war, and then act
together, as we have been."  I quite agree, with the proviso for the need
to expand and not contract the number of those so communicating.

Regards, Carl


On Sat, 16 Oct 2004, Ricky Baldwin wrote:
> 
> ...I think we need to keep in mind that the rally we are discussing is
> not for abortion at all, but emergency contraception, as both Brooke’s
> message and the original rally announcement I passed around at the
> meeting have pointed out.  That is, emergency contraception prevents
> fertilization and/or implantation of the fertilized egg into the wall
> of the uterus.  It prevents pregnancy; it does not terminate it.  If
> someone has an objection to contraception, let’s discuss that -- or
> discuss abortion but not hinge this endorsement on it.
> 
> Thirdly, I have to say every time we have this debate, we seem to
> start again at the beginning.  The only objection to what most of
> consider abortion rights seems to be the assertion that a
> fetus/embryo/zygote at whatever stage of development must have the
> same rights as an adult human being.  I’ve argued before that I don’t
> think anybody really believes that -- the evidence being all the
> restrictions on children’s freedom, the control over their little
> lives that parents routinely exert, and so on, that we can agree on --
> but besides that, as Carl is so fond of saying, what is gratuitously
> asserted can be gratuitously denied.
> 
> Carl does argue that opposition to abortion belongs on the political
> left, because the left’s historic direction is the expansion of rights
> to more and more people.  But I think it’s an oversimplification of
> the issue, because granting the fetus this more or less absolute
> “right to life” means taking away rights from pregnant women (or in
> this case, women who might become pregnant without access to emergency
> contraception).  These rights may include life, health, autonomy to
> varying degrees, economic well-being or a number of other things --
> things the left has fought long and hard for, I might add.  These
> points have all been raised before and either ignored or dismissed
> (like Carl’s reply to Jen’s point: “I don’t take it seriously”) which
> I don’t think really gets us anywhere.
> 
> Others have painted a moving picture of what these issues mean to
> women's and raised points which, in my opinion, deserve an answer of
> one kind or another.
> 
> And just one more point (sorry).  I’m troubled by this argument that
> we shouldn’t risk alienating the anti-war pro-lifers.  We never seem
> to worry too much about alienating, for example, anti-war Democrats or
> anti-war Zionists or anti-war free-traders or anti-war pro-Chief folks
> or any number of other anti-war types.
>  And I’m not suggesting we should sacrifice our principles to do so.  
> The point is that we are constituted as a very loose, anarchic group
> -- intentionally -- to allow for the widest possible flexibility of
> action and discussion around certain core principles.
> 
> The problem here is that we disagree on the application of those
> principles.  So be it.  But most of us have been in crowds where we
> didn’t support everything that was said or every position of the
> principal organizers.  I know I’ve probably spent more time in
> churches as a nonbeliever than I did as a believer, and I’ve certainly
> spent more time meeting with preachers.  Do we think that others can’t
> do the same?  I know they can, if only from the diversity of people
> who turned up on Prospect especially during the fever pitch before the
> war.  Most of them I talked to assumed they disagreed with us on some
> things (often the disagreement turned out to be less than they
> thought), but they weren’t shy about turning up.  They didn’t check to
> see what other events we had cosponsored, even if they could have, and
> they couldn’t have cared less.  They were there for the same reasons
> we were: to stand up against an unjust war.  And I think, given the
> need and the hope of making any difference, they’d be back.
> 
> That’s really our job, in my opinion, to communicate as best we can
> the need for and the hope of making a difference through opposing the
> war, and then act together, as we have been.  I seriously doubt we’ll
> persuade one another on this issue.  I do think we might be able to
> understand one another’s positions.  Maybe we can’t.  But what we
> definitely can do is do our best to maintain a hospitable environment
> for disagreement, do what we do best, and stay as open as we can to
> coalition efforts.  Coalitions won’t always be possible, of course,
> but I think they usually are if we work at it.
> 
> I guess we’ll see where tomorrow night’s meeting leads, but there’s my
> two cents.
> 
> Thanks for getting this far, Ricky
>