Three and Out

Thoughts on Tennessee.

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205
Democratic state Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville speaks during a vote to expel her from the state Legislature on April 6, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Seth Herald/Getty Images)

I dislike “both sides” punditry but there’s no dodging it sometimes, especially in this era.

For instance, the biggest political story in America this week involves an embarrassing right-wing authoritarian who threatens the rule of law being indicted by a left-wing prosecutor on a legal theory that’s embarrassing and threatens the rule of law.

We’re not sending our best, to paraphrase said authoritarian.

Both-sides-ism tends toward the obnoxious because it’s usually deployed in bad faith to minimize the sins of one side. How many times have we heard populist Republicans try to whatabout Donald Trump’s coup attempt by noting that, in years prior, a few House Democrats also filed pro forma objections to counting the electoral votes in elections won by Republicans?

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Thanks for adding the context about what happened in Tennessee. Makes sense that there was more to the story than the pat narrative about RW extremism.

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  2. Mamadr57

    So disappointed in this article. Though there is the "insecure Republicans" image which was probably worth my time. When people who argue about the sanctity of life really mean it, that is when that life is out walking around instead of being in a woman's body, then I'll take those anti-abortionist arguments seriously. Until then, I expect to see more rallying around keeping those guns and controlling women.

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  3. Trichwages

    I wish this was getting more coverage.

    https://reason.com/2023/04/04/tennessee-will-use-eminent-domain-to-evict-black-farmers-for-ford-e-v-factory/

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  4. Wsampson

    bulldoze legislative business....My god, have you not listened to the members of that body. Love your addition to the Dispatch but this is just garbage.

    when you can't report that your team killed people without saying the other side once got a speeding ticket, you are lost. This is a story that stands on its own unless you can't let it. The norm for The Dispatch, which seems like a written rule from reading y'all, really makes you seem intellectually weak.
    The GOP, thus conservatives or the conservative movement, is showing itself. They are behaving as they are. None of that needs comparison to the DEM. To water-down this clown show is a disservice to your readers and seems to drive a strategy that is more important of what you want your brand to be because center-right is an open position. (I get it, we don't need 2 of the Bulwark). That being said, I would rather you put it out there without the both-sidesism. Just write two different stories, please.

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  5. Keatonm88

    Bringing a bullhorn into the chamber was inexcusable. If Marjorie Taylor Greene or any other nut did this in DC, she should be thrown out too for good reason.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Pbanuski

      Maybe you're not very good at remembering history, MTG actually WAS in a similar position where her incendiary remarks landed her in enough trouble that a BIPARTISAN vote stripped her of committee assignments.

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    2. Kittyecws

      No, she wouldn’t. The Republican majority in the House would defend her.

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      1. Wsampson

        or put her on 60 minutes. The Dispatch memo about always saying, but the other guy...needs to get shredded.

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      2. J. Everett Schubert

        Sadly, you're not wrong.

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  6. Dougrhon

    I think expulsion was excessive for a multitude of reasons. But does anyone doubt that even if they were merely censored, Kamala Harris, Barak Obama and company would be there defending their right to "protest" as if rules of order don't exist or shouldn't exist. While more and more Republicans embrace the Trumpist style, it feels like the entire Democratic party has thrown over any thoughts of decorum, decency or reason whether its shouting down speakers, rioting in the streets, or confronting and threatening politicians and judges they don't like in their own homes. Someone somewhere has got to blow the whistle and call time out or our republic isn't going to be able to last much longer.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Jim Canestrari

      Native Tennessean here. This was not our best hour. I have wondered "what if..." since this all started. I am also inclined to believe that "just a censure" would've been a bridge too far for the Left and believe also that much of what drove the decision made by the House came from other recent events in our nation that have caught interest (namely Stanford Law) - and this was their way of "blowing a whistle" as you put it. I don't know yet if this was the best decision. I wonder if, had I been a legislator, I would've pushed for a censure with a very specific nuclear trigger. That when they eventually couldn't resist fist-punching it they would be presented with something like a TRO from the House. THAT would've been like prison and intolerable for the three - but at least would've afforded their electorate the benefit of knowing the morons they elected willingly broke the rules.

      Do I believe this would've prevented the circus surrounding this entire event? Not really, it was something of a circus already. But it would've been at least something short of expulsion which did nothing but elevate these losers to a national status they didn't deserve or have the capacity to understand. I don't necessarily wish for "cooler heads" who will allow a handful of districts in the state to overrun the House by acquiescence. I think I would've liked to have seen more of a muzzle shoved on to their faces first and let them parade around with those while in the business of the legislature.

      But I'm probably hoping for a reasonable reaction here. I think I know this wouldn't have made any difference either. Maybe the House leaders just needed a break from them for a while. Couldn't hurt.

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    2. Avatar photo
      Ms. SSM

      Actually I doubt any of us would have even heard about this if they had just been censored. People get sanctioned all the time. It’s not that special. Expulsions are rare. And that’s why it’s a big story. Which is why it was stupid for the TN house to do this.

      Also I don’t think you have the impact of these actions right. It doesn’t play as a blow for decorum. It’s not a time out that will save the republic. It’s the kind of thing that increases the temperature not decreases. And the TN Republicans have contributed to the preverse incentive of performance politics. 1 because the expulsion won’t last. Both gentlemen will be back in office no doubt. So doing this was performative for the Republicans. And 2 because they made them famous in progressive circles. Indeed i expect more marches in state houses. Which means more performative Dem action. Lots of playing to the base all around.

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      1. Dougrhon

        The first thing I wrote was I think expulsion was excessive.

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  7. Meggymish

    Let me begin with a quote. You said, "your stance on abortion is a matter of being true to who you are. You would no sooner modify the tenets of your religious faith than you would the tenets of what you want from your political representatives." I think that while you do have a good understanding of the politics of various groups, left and right, you don't grasp the reality of what abortion actually is.

    Abortion is the intentional ending of a human's life. By barbaric means, though that's actually secondary. How exactly is a person who understands that reality supposed to compromise? By the age of the human in question? By their level of development? By their gender? Or their disability? Should we compromise and let some lives be ended without protest because of who their parents are?

    Analogies might help you see what I mean. Imagine you lived in the US when slavery was legal. Imagine further that you know, based on your reason and possibly on your faith, that slavery is evil, that it degrades human beings, destroys families, ends lives, and so on. If you lived back then and knew slavery was a moral atrocity, would you be silent because the political moment wasn't right? Would you take the Douglas position, that what some other state decides about this moral atrocity is none of your concern? Or would you at least speak up about it? Entire generations were impacted by slavery and the gross violations of the rights of a whole class of human beings.

    I could offer more direct analogies, but to do so would violate Godwin's Law. You get the point. Abortion is the gravest of violations of a human's rights; it ends a life. Some people who argue in favor of abortion use appeals to pity for the mother in distress, some use ad hominem attacks on prolife people, some make actual arguments. All beg the question: they assume the human being in the womb is not a rights bearing individual. The only question that matters is: does the living human entity killed in an abortion belong to humanity (i.e. is that human entity a person) and therefore have the same right to live as any other.

    If you are inclined to say something like, "well, that embryo doesn't yet have the capability to do X," where X is any activity or sensibility that all humans by their nature have the capacity to do or experience, you are making personhood an arbitrary and accidental (in the philosophical sense) thing. In other words, your personhood depends on whatever people bigger, richer, older, more powerful, etc. feel like you deserve. Like Lincoln pointed out in his debates with Douglas, your rights, whether to freedom or to live, can't depend on accidental traits like race, size, location, development, or dependence.

    I understand that I am an outlier regarding abortion and the right to life. You might even call me an extremist. But I also understand that the greatest civil rights issue of our generation is whether all human beings have the right to live. I can't assign that right arbitrarily to one baby in the womb because he is wanted and deny it to another because she is not, or because one has a heartbeat and human features while another is younger and hasn't developed a recognizably human face yet. You can see the irrationality of a sort of sliding scale of having rights based on such arbitrary and irrelevant criteria.

    The prolife movement has been making incremental progress long before Roe finally fell. I know that we have an even longer way to go before it once again becomes safe to be a human being in his or her mother's womb. Before abortion can be made illegal, it has to become unthinkable. But I can no more vote for someone who believes that there is a stage (defined by relative wantedness, apparently) where human offspring are disposable "clumps of tissue" than I could have voted for someone who believed that slavery or Jim Crow was a good thing for anyone.

    This is a difficult position to be in, politically speaking, since national security and strategic issues are also critical to me. But nothing else is possible. I would vote third party again over someone corrupt, but I will never vote for someone who sees a whole class of living human beings as chattel to be disposed of at will. I hope this explains the political situation of people who are consistently prolife.

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    1. AJLiberty

      Thanks for the thoughtful comment, though I think you discount where compromise has been inevitable.

      First, you make the argument that there is no difference, at least in a biological sense, between a 10-week old fetus and a 10-week old newborn. They both simply need food and protection and they will naturally continue to develop. The problem is that even the most staunch pro-lifer would draw a distinction between someone who hires an individual to kill the newborn versus killing the fetus. You don't argue for murder charges or even diminished capacity manslaughter charges. It's difficult to argue that all women seeking abortions are incompetent to understand their murderous intent, so unlike any other murder, the pro-life position is to simply assert it's not murder...even though your logic strongly suggests that view it is. This is a clear compromise because politically it will be impossible to move forward while arguing that you want your daughters and sisters incarcerated.

      Second, you argue that women are morally culpable for the sex that they have and the consequence of using or not using contraception. That's fair, but it does miss those that are pregnant due to rape or incest. The sanctity of life argument, however, does not have an exemption for how the life got in there. So once again, most pro-lifers compromise on the question. Life is sacred unless it's due to rape or incest. This is a political compromise, but it's a widely-acknowledged compromise no less.

      Now third you argue that the biological similarity between a fetus and a newborn compels certain moral consequences. We all recognize that if a newborn is neglected or mistreated, that the state, through its police power, has the legal right to intervene and assume care for that child. With that 8-week fetus, that intervention is not possible because the state cannot directly assume care by assigning a trusted care-giver, it must commandeer the mother. So, as the Court reasoned, the state has more interest as the pregnancy gets beyond viability -- where the state can more practically assume loco parentis. Now you may not view this as a compromise, but many pro-life individuals do. They personally view abortion as morally unacceptable, but grudgingly believe that some time period should be available for women to make up their own minds. This is what we see in western Europe where most countries have settled on 12-15 week periods, which is a compromise with allowing late-term elective abortions.

      I applaud your down-thread suggestions for helping with crisis pregnancies. I think this is the best way to start changing hearts and persuading women to choose to go to term. But there is not much new in the moral and biological arguments with abortion. I think it is difficult to compel individuals through the law when those women must assume all of the risks and costs of pregnancy, birth, and potentially child rearing. There's difficulty with providing assistance and subsidizing something, so there is tension on how the state should act. I appreciate that you are civil and well reasoned.

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    2. Avatar photo
      Hussey

      Very well said. And, predictably, your detractors ignore your central point and fling their ad hominem attacks.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Ronnie B

        I noticed that too.

        They always go to the ad hominem attacks. It surely has something to do with the fact that in a deep part of themselves they don’t like to look at, they know abortion is an ugly thing and they feel a little uncomfortable being “pro abortion”.

        The only way to surpress that feeling they have that maybe they shouldn’t be so pro-abortion is to instead attack the people who oppose it as being the “real” moral monsters; “It isn’t that they care about unborn babies, they are motivated by hatred of women!!” And all the other crap they tell themselves to make themselves feel like they are on the moral high-ground and it’s actually the pro-lifers that are supporting evil.

        It’s really the same reason Trumpers hate NeverTrumpers. Because the existence of NeverTrumpers makes them feel dirty, that there are people that didn’t sell out their soul to a sociopath, they hate them for making them feel dirty for selling their soul. It’s the same motivation for why pro-abortion people can’t simply say that they understand abortion is a horrible thing, but unfortunately it needs to be available, instead they need to demonize the pro-life people.

        Because they make them feel ashamed, in a part of their mind they don’t like to look at.

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        1. Kittyecws

          I don’t know of anyone who is “pro” abortion. Thankfully, I also don’t know any abortion purists on either side.

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            Ronnie B

            Pro-abortion is infinitely more accurate than “Pro-Choice”, which is nothing more than a Madison Avenue marketing slogan, designed to dilute saying the thing you are actually for.

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    3. Todd.S.Boyce

      You write:

      “The only question that matters is: does the living human entity killed in an abortion belong to humanity (i.e. is that human entity a person) and therefore have the same right to live as any other.”

      Your claim posits that all human life is equal in this. So, let’s test it.

      I need your kidney to live. I will die without it. I understand you—like the mother who doesn’t want to carry the unborn—don’t want to do it. However, that is irrelevant in your claim as my (the unborn) need to live trumps your desire.

      Will I pay you for it? No.

      Will it take you months to recover? Sure.

      Will I cover the costs of your surgery? No.

      Will I require you to pay for mine? Yep.

      When can I expect your kidney?

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      1. Meggymish

        In fact, I am an organ donor. If you (or anyone) needed a kidney and I was the only person on earth (or whatever geographical region) who could help, I would volunteer to be a living donor. However, your "test," or example, falls short as a parallel to the point I made about the right of the unborn human being to live. This is the same case Judith Jarvis-Thomson made in her famous "unconscious violinist" defense of abortion and fails on the same points.

        The unborn human being is not a random stranger online who needs a kidney, whose existence and dependence is independent of any actions I took or didn't take, but rather he or she is the offspring of the pregnant woman and her sexual partner. He is a dependent being, by nature, and the only place he is supposed to live by nature is in his mother's womb. His mother is responsible for his existence and his dependency because sex has the foreseeable consequence of such a dependent human coming into existence. This is not the case in either your example or the example of the violinist in Jarvis-Thomson's case.

        Back to your request for a kidney and the supposed parallel to an unborn baby: if I were to get pregnant, I would be responsible for the existence of a needy human being, responsible because of my actions and as a mother. On the other hand, I am responsible for neither your existence nor your need for a kidney.

        Also, kidney donations are accomplished by artificial means, by surgery and then medication. Pregnancy is natural, not a disease. Finally, if you were to die as a result of my refusing to give you one of my kidneys, that would be you dying a natural death. Abortion is about as far from a natural death as one could imagine. It's invasive, it's brutal, and it's not like "pulling the plug" on someone who's on life support. Rather, it's like execution by drawing and quartering. Literally. Even if abortion were totally painless to the unborn victim, he or she is still being actively killed by his or her mother's decision to pay a doctor to do so, and by the doctor who does it. This denies the unborn their natural right to their parents' goods and resources, to say nothing of the injustice of taking their lives, period.

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          Ms. SSM

          So if the person who needed the kidney was the woman’s child they have to provide it? But if it’s a stranger they do not. Or if the person needing the kidney needed it because of a car accident. A car accident that was the potential donor’s fault. Do they have to give the kidney then? The law doesn’t require either of these circumstances. So it shouldn’t require birth.

          I think it’s important to make distinctions between what we morally expect and what we legally require. The two are not the same. The law doesn’t generally force service to another life with your body. Bodily autonomy is almost absolute and I don’t think we deviate from it by requiring some lives to work for other lives.

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        2. Todd.S.Boyce

          It would seem then that your decision tree rests on MORE than equality of position. In fact, you reveal that the decision is made because of an act the woman has engaged in—such that her rights are now subjugated because of it.

          Is that true for rape? Can’t be.

          Random stranger issues are dilatory. Your right isn’t dependent on whether you the other party. Murder cases get prosecuted (and the rights of the accused are honored) whether it is a stranger or a spouse.

          You can make the death of the other party worse than your wildest nightmare. That doesn’t mean that my rights are subjugated. Morally? Glad you are an organ donor. I am as well.

          Our system of governance does not allow for forced anything. Nothing. Challenge you to find a single solitary example. If the woman gets the abortion and it is illegal, our system does not allow forced impregnation and carrying of a child as a punishment. You can have the child and treat the living child horribly…..and your punishment is going to jail. Not forced “good” parenting.

          You may not like that. But it is accurate. If you don’t believe, find an example of where the government—by any lawful means—can MAKE you do a thing as a punishment for not doing it.

          You can argue morality. Sometimes you will be correct. All the time you will not be.

          Cheers

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      Ms. SSM

      What I find interesting about this is it acts as though the woman doesn’t factor in at all. You never mention the location of this other life. Just that it deserves to be born. But when this is the argument the subtext is that the other life matters MORE than the woman.

      Abortion will never be unthinkable. Because by your logic there are TWO lives involved. The woman’s and the other. And there will always be woman who chose their life over the other. That is their right. They do not have to serve another life. They do not have to save the other life. They do not have to carry around the other life for nine months unless the choose to do it. They can prioritize their own life. The analogy I’d use is forced organ donation or forced blood donation where you were hooked up to this other person for nine months. No one would dream of forcing such a thing even if it saved lives. This to me is no different. Pregnancy is not so easy that it can be forced. I’ve given birth and I’ve had an abortion. I have not one ounce of regret for either. The abortion was much much easier than the birth. I almost died giving birth. I was home in a few hours after the abortion.

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      1. Meggymish

        First of all, I'm not making the case that the unborn human being is more important than his mother, I'm making the case that he is as important. But you are exactly correct when you say that there are two lives involved with abortion. You are also correct when you say some women will choose themselves and their convenience over the continued existence of their unborn children. (The issue of life endangering pregnancy conditions and how I and other prolife people deal with it I've addressed in another reply, but I'm addressing your thoughts about elective abortion.)

        You give the analogies of forced organ or blood donation, or the familiar Judith Jarvis-Thomson analogy of hooking someone up to someone else. In her case, she used the example of an unconscious, famous violinist who needs to be hooked up to you, against your will, for nine months to save his life. All of these analogies fail. Pregnancy, contra organ donation etc., is natural: the natural outcome of an activity that by its nature sometimes produces new, dependent human beings. These dependent beings naturally develop in their mother's womb, and nowhere else. (Yet. Maybe one day we can use those artificial wombs to save some babies who would otherwise die. But the womb is still the only natural home of the unborn.)

        These dependent beings have a natural right to the goods and resources of their parents. This is why we go after deadbeat dads (or moms) for child support, even if they didn't want to be a father, even if they used multiple contraceptive methods. Our moral intuition and our laws tell us as a society that fathers must contribute resources to their own children's lives. Mothers have a similar obligation to their children, though their contribution over the first months of their children's lives is more intimate.

        I'm sorry you had a scary, dangerous delivery of one of your children. And I'm sorry for the loss of the other, even if you aren't. But that child had the same right to live as you and your surviving child. It doesn't matter from a moral reasoning standpoint how much easier the abortion was on you when you consider the permanent, total denial of every right that abortion inflicted on your child. It's like the saying about suicide, how it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. The pregnancy, while uncomfortable and inconvenient for the mother, is temporary. Death is forever.

        You would never say that a woman has a right to dispose of her born children, who are still dependent on her for their survival for many years, however she pleases. What is the difference between a dependent 3 month old born baby and that same baby six months ago? Her size? Her location? Her level of development? Her dependence on her mother for her very survival? What is it about the birth canal that imparts personhood and human rights to baby A, while baby B who is still in utero can be killed at will? There is none.

        Like Gandalf said to Frodo, "many who die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then don't be quick to hand out death in judgment."

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          Ms. SSM

          ‘ What is the difference between a dependent 3 month old born baby and that same baby six months ago? Her size? Her location? Her level of development? Her dependence on her mother for her very survival? What is it about the birth canal that imparts personhood and human rights to baby A, while baby B who is still in utero can be killed at will?”

          The answer for me is her location and dependence. A life that can not survive without using the body of another is dependent. Born babies are not. Separate them from their birth parents and they can live. This is not true until birth. As long as that remains scientifically true the life of the unborn lives at the mercy of the other life i.e. the woman. That’s it in a nutshell. I don’t much argue when life begins because for the purposes of my opinion it doesn’t matter. When does a life become independent from another life is my question. That’s birth. And I don’t think it much matters that birth is natural. Csections aren’t natural but they still confer personhood in your mind.

          Lastly Pregnancy that leads to death is not temporary. Nor is it known when a pregnancy will lead to death. Though my pregnancy was high risk it was fairly uneventful until the morning I gave birth. It is a statistical fact that a pregnancy is more likely to lead to a woman’s death than an abortion. The risks are small in either situation but I am not prepared to demand anyone take either risk. I don’t ask people to risk their lives involuntarily. Not even to save another life.

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        2. Aecrowder

          Oof. I appreciate that you seem to be trying to be respectful, but you don’t know anything about Ms. SSM and what having that baby might have done to her life, so it’s a bit of an assumption to talk about having a child as a “temporary problem.” Children are not temporary anything. It is not just the 9 months of pregnancy.

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          1. Meggymish

            No, I don't know a thing about any of the folks replying to me. I'm very much aware of the fact that a child isn't a temporary anything, as you say. I'm trying not to make these replies personal because I'm making an argument and appealing to sympathy is not a valid premise. However, I know from lots and lots of painful experience the difficulty of crisis pregnancy, of pregnancy by rape, of teen pregnancy, and much more. I get it. I really, really do. Maybe sometime I will tell my story, or (if it's allowed) link to an article I wrote about part of it. But not now.

            What I meant by saying the choice to abort and the choice to end one's own life are the same, "permanent solutions to temporary problems," is that there is another option besides abortion or parenting the child. Place the child in a loving home through a closed adoption. Then you never have to think about that child again. Or do an open adoption if you want to stay in touch and/or hear updates. Or you could surrender the child at a "safe surrender" point, at a hospital or a fire station or a police station.

            Death is permanent. Pregnancy is temporary. I fully, completely, personally understand that being pregnant has risks and burdens. But compare that to death. Death for your own child, whose life you actually paid to end. There's no comparison.

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    6. Avatar photo
      Dan Baldwin

      Madam, the problems I as a Pro-Choice person have with your position is that, in your extreme position:
      1) you place all women as a whole beneath the law in your zeal to ensure that all human life is sacred at every stage. I present the efforts by Idaho to restrict interstate travel for teenaged women suspected of pregnancy. If this goes through, the question of whether or not Idaho will restrict intra-state and international travel at its borders in order to test women will become a logistical possibility.
      2) you place all pregnant women into positions where if the pregnancy becomes incompatible with life and of potential risk to the mother, no one on Earth can save her. I present the current issues in Texas and Missouri with women being forced to carry potentially lethal pregnancies to term.
      3) you place women at greater risk of dying period from complications of pregnancy. I give you the hospitals in northern Idaho that are closing their obi-gyn wings.
      4) you force women to give up sexual autonomy and perversely incentivize them to wait until marriage. More women are choosing to not date as a result; the loneliness of our society and inability of men to find dates is getting a lot of attention in media outlets. Republican men and Trump supporters in particular are having a very hard time in the dating apps finding anyone.

      Your zeal for protecting human life is admirable. In your drive to avoid any and all evil, your beliefs actually make the experience of Life itself worse for everyone. Finally, I would ask you this: do laws make people righteous? If you force a man and a woman to behave righteously under the penalty of law, have you indeed made them righteous? Is it works alone that justifies salvation, or is it faith?

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      1. Meggymish

        Thank you for your polite reply! However, you are mistaken.
        Point by point:
        1) What do you mean, I "place all women beneath the law?" Do you mean that prolife laws, laws to protect the unborn boys and girls from death, affect only women and thus can't be just? It isn't morally relevant to the question at issue, which is this: is the unborn human boy or girl a subject of rights, i.e. a person? If the answer is yes, protecting the unborn from unjustified killing is what matters. Yes, only women can be pregnant. That doesn't mean a law protecting our offspring from death is thereby unjust, since for one thing, both genders are potential victims of abortion.
        2) Your second question is two separate issues. As for women who are pregnant with a baby who is incompatible with life outside the womb, it would be unjust to deprive that baby of what life he or she can have, life in the womb, to spare the mother emotional suffering. If we apply the same fact, a person who is incompatible with life without dialysis or a vent or some other life support but is still alive, that person can't justly be killed to spare their family the pain of seeing them suffer. The second half of your question is more complicated. If a pregnant woman's life is endangered by her pregnancy, and if her baby can't survive delivery because of his gestational age or because he has also been affected by whatever obstetric catastrophe is endangering his mother, it is morally justified (and to your point, LEGAL in every state) to save her life even if her baby dies as a tragic but anticipated result. This is called the principle of double effect. For example, the purpose of removing the fallopian tube of a woman with an ectopic pregnancy is not killing her baby but removing the pathological organ endangering her life. The fallopian tube would rupture if the baby is left where he is, likely killing his mother. In situations where the choice is one life or none, the moral choice is to save the only one it's possible to save. In the case of, say, eclampsia, the only cure is delivery, and if the condition is allowed to progress too far, the mother will die, and the baby would die with her. So if her life is in danger, the pregnancy must be brought to an end, since that is what's causing her disease. If the baby is too young to survive, but the mother will die unless the pregnancy ends, the baby must be removed to save his mother. But the purpose is not killing the child but saving the only life it's possible to save. A similar case but in reverse would be a perimortem cesarean, a c-section done on a dying or dead pregnant woman where the baby hasn't died yet. The mom can't be saved but the baby might live if you remove him from his dying or very recently deceased mother. It is legal everywhere to act in emergency situations to save lives, and in cases that have been in the news lately where there are new prolife laws and confused doctors (or malicious doctors trying to make a point other than demonstrating their idiocy) don't know if a particular procedure is legal, their hospital legal department has fallen down on the job. Every state with prolife laws allows life saving treatment for pregnant women, even when that treatment has the tragic but anticipated side effect of the baby dying.
        3) Women in Idaho are affected by the closing of the local maternal-fetal floors at their local hospitals, it's true. But that has nothing to do with the question of whether the unborn human being has the right to not be killed in their first months of life. There has been a severe shortage of medical professionals in rural parts of the entire country, not just Idaho. Most women would not be at risk of death just because of pregnancy, either. Pregnancy is not a disease! But high risk pregnancy does need close following. I hope the local nursing schools will start to incentivize their graduates staying and working in rural hospitals. FYI, the federal government offers a student loan forgiveness program for medical professionals who will commit to working in one of those places. I forget what it's called off the top of my head, but it was there back when I was in school. States have programs like that too.
        4) Your last point is that women must have a surgical procedure that ends their child's life in order to share sexual autonomous with men. I'm sorry, but women are worth more than that. We don't need to kill our own children to have equity with men. Our bodies are designed to carry our children, and designed to bond with our sexual partner in a different way than men. Women and men are equal, not the same. It's a little degrading, although I'm sure you intended no insult, to tell women that a) we should be sexually available to men we're just dating and b) if whatever contraception we're practicing fails and conception occurs to tell us that we must have an invasive surgery to end that child's life. Waiting to have sex, an activity that is ordered to procreation by its nature, until we are married is not something that's unjustified by the fallout from the hookup culture. Men and women both have a responsibility to the child they procreated when they chose to have sex. Marriage is the best way to ensure that women and our babies aren't treated as disposable, the way we are in the Tindr culture. Maybe the reason fewer women want to date is because they are sick of the current dating culture, where men expect (expect!!) sex in even casual relationships. This isn't the space to debate the question of sex before marriage, however. The main point is that sex by its nature leads to a new human being coming into existence, and that human has the same right not to be killed at the very least that every human has.
        5) I don't have any false sense that laws can make someone righteous, but sometimes laws have to be enacted and enforced to lead the populace to act justly even if the law isn't popular. The closest parallel is the Emancipation Proclamation. It certainly wasn't popular, but it was just: human beings are not chattel. That applies to ALL humans, including the unborn.

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          Ronnie B

          It’s almost humorous, watching these bullies who thought they’d take apart the Pro-Life lady with their snide little comments suddenly realizing they are out of their league arguing this subject with her.

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          Dan Baldwin

          Thank you for your response. I fundamentally disagree with all of your points; I do also respect most of them, except for your response to number 4. I appreciate your stance; I must also tell you that, as a widowed infertile man with a lot of female friends who's active in the dating scene and has friends who are active in the dating scene (and who has done his research on dating via proper mainstream dating coaches and thinkers) your logic is completely divorced from the reality of dating, relationships, and consequences save for one line. I do agree with you that it is insulting to tell women that they "should be sexually available to men". That is also not what I said--you put words into my mouth on that one and gave a false characterization.
          Marriage is *not* the best way, and I speak from both personal experience and socially observed experience.

          We are fundamentally at odds, and I do not foresee a way that either of us could convince the other. I do not know what to make of that, except an uneasy agreement that neither of us want but can at least somewhat abide by. I can be persuaded to the 15 week outline, though my preference is for the 22nd. But know--I will never, ever concede to or want to live in any world or society where your views are the mainstream. I will however accept a middle ground.

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          1. Meggymish

            Marriage is the safest and most respectful way to engage in sexual activity. I, too, speak from experience. Like you said, we fundamentally disagree. I put in point 4 because that was another response to you. I stand by it. I also stand by my central point that logic demands that either all humans are humans with rights or none are, in which case no one is safe from being summarily unpersoned, with all the consequences that follow. What makes the being at 15 weeks different than the same being at 22 weeks? Or 22 days postnatally? The birth canal isn't a magic rights-endowing passageway. There is no middle ground here, not with logical consistency anyway. Unless of course you follow the Peter Singer method of moral reasoning.

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        Ronnie B

        “ 4) you force women to give up sexual autonomy and perversely incentivize them to wait until marriage. More women are choosing to not date as a result; the loneliness of our society and inability of men to find dates is getting a lot of attention in media outlets.”

        It’s quite an interesting statement “we need be to able to kill unborn in the womb because after all, men need to get laid”.

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        1. Meggymish

          Yeah, that actually really got under my skin. Women are not here just to get under a man and give it up. And then kill any resulting children.
          Just...ew.

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          Reading451

          Not everyone sees a fetus as an unborn person.

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          1. Meggymish

            That, right there, is what's at issue. If being a person, a moral subject with rights, is not simultaneous with being human, what is it that you propose for when a human being becomes a person? I prefer clarity and an objective standard: "subject X is human, X is therefore a person." What qualifies a human being as a person in your moral reasoning? Is it their size? Their location? Their level of development? Be careful, or you could define yourself right out of personhood. If you find someone bigger than you, or with a more developed mind than you, or if you're outside in the winter and will die if you are not allowed indoors (i.e. you are non-viable relative to your environment, like a fetus or a neonate or any other human being could be) and someone else is inside who doesn't want to help, you could be unpersoned.

            What is your definition of personhood, if all humans don't qualify?

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      Ronnie B

      You are speaking to Nick as if he is a Pro-Choicer who doesn’t understand the mindset of Pro-Lifers. He is in fact an atheist Pro-Lifer, and has for years argued against the red herring that only “religious people who want to impose their religion on others” are against abortion. Just thought you should know that.

      https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2022/05/20/aoc-what-right-do-fundamentalist-christians-have-to-impose-their-theocratic-views-of-abortion-on-others-n470947

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      1. Meggymish

        Thanks, I actually did know that. My point to him was the electoral politics of the issue. Namely, that this is not an area where compromise is possible when it comes to choosing between candidates. Of course I understand that to get to a point where abortion is finally illegal again we have to work with people who do believe in exceptions for babies conceived by rape and incest or people who are willing to vote for a heartbeat bill or even a ban after the first trimester. Incrementally, you know. But the bottom line remains the same: these babies are human beings and therefore they have rights, particularly including the right to life. Hard to have other rights if you're dead.

        Happy Easter, if you celebrate.

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        1. David Smith

          You have a simplistic/childish view of this issue. The entire debate over abortion is regarding "at what point does a clump of tissue become a human person for legal reasons", and you just dismiss it with the stroke of your crayon.

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          1. Meggymish

            I'll take your "entire debate" and raise you this: you say the question is at what point does "a clump of cells" become a person "for legal reasons." The point at which that description, "a clump of cells," applies to the developing human is the very earliest part of pregnancy, from the zygote, when humans are single cell entities, to blastula, during which the totipotent cells rapidly divide, through the blastocyst stage to gastrulation, which is when the cells begin to differentiate into layers (which occurs around the same time as implantation) to neurulation, which is when the neural cord begins to develop and is enclosed. That is how humans look at that stage of our development, so I suppose you could say that those very young humans are clumps of cells, sure.

            But it strikes me as shallow, not to mention childish and simplistic, to claim that human personhood, human status as a moral subject with rights, depends on his or her size or appearance. We all were a single cell, a clump of cells, an embryo, a fetus, a neonate, a toddler, an adolescent, an adult, and we all will experience senescence. But we were never anything but human beings, and every human has rights. Foremost of which is the right to live.

            Most abortions take place well after the "clump of cells stage." Sometimes a conceptus cannot implant because some hormonal birth control changes the endometrium to make it hostile to implantation or because of IUDs that do the same. You could say those children were aborted when they were just "clumps of cells." I bring that up partly to note that the Hobby Lobby case was exactly because some birth control methods, either as a primary or secondary effect, are abortifacients.

            By the time most women know they are pregnant, their babies are already long past the "clump of cells" stage. By 6 weeks, there is cardiac and brain activity. By 7, the baby is clearly (visibly) a tiny human. By 8 weeks, he or she is at the fetal stage, and the only thing they have to do is grow more complex and bigger. They move in the womb long before their mothers can feel them. They can suck their thumbs, feel pain, taste things, dream, and have facial expressions like their parents long before birth.

            But fetal development is almost beside the point. The point is that these living, growing, developing humans ARE human. This makes them persons, rights-bearing moral subjects, by definition. Unless you want to define "person" in a way that does not include all humans. But be careful: the first time you meet someone bigger, stronger, more powerful, more rational, more sensible, older, or better looking (as a stand in for human looking) than you, she could kill YOU. If you define personhood down you are allowing all sorts of moral atrocities.

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          Joshua Heslinga

          This is nonsense. Your own comment recites ways to compromise and acknowledges the need to work with non-absolutists - i.e. it demonstrates that compromise is possible. But that misses even bigger points.

          Abortion has declined during Democratic presidents and rose during Trump. Why? Address the reasons, and you reduce abortion effectively in ways that can win wide support.

          In a world where pharmaceutical abortion is prevalent, do-it-yourself abortion devices are trivially made, abortion manifests medically just like miscarriage, at least a third of the population virulently opposes you even in red states (and often well over 1/3),and you can change exactly zero of these things, how exactly do you think state abortion bans solve anything?

          Serious, real policy leadership is what's needed. It's a shame you're not part of that.

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          1. Meggymish

            I believe I mentioned in my original comment, or at least in one of my multiple replies, that I understand I am in the minority. I don't much care, except that it shows just how much work is there for the prolife side to do to change people's minds on this. That's why I often comment on The Dispatch articles about abortion and the right to life, and why I engage with people who disagree with me. I have written elsewhere about the issue, too. I would link to my article and many twitter threads about it but I think that's frowned upon by the powers that be at The Dispatch.

            The right to life is the biggest civil rights fight there is. On the one hand, women should be able to decide when they will become mothers. But they already do have the right to take contraceptive measures, and the right to refuse to have unprotected sex during our fertile periods (on the days around ovulation, I mean). Once conception occurs, however, there is another party involved. That's the other hand: that human being, male or female, has the right to live.

            Abortion is the deliberate destruction of a living human. It victimized the baby in an obvious way, the baby is killed. But women are the second victims in an abortion. I think the Silent No More Awareness Campaign alone should demonstrate that, but I've encountered many women who have had abortions and their pain and their grief and their guilt, sometimes decades later, weighs on my heart almost as much as the fates of the unborn who are killed by abortion. Women deserve better than abortion.

            We don't need to have a surgery that destroys our children to be equal to men. What we do need, as you mentioned, are ways to help us in the event we get pregnant at a time in our lives that would make having a baby and parenting very difficult. I've written elsewhere about what would help reduce the number of abortions, but since you accuse me of being unserious, I'll go over a few of those policy ideas again.

            1) Mandate paid time off for maternity and paternity leave at all companies with over 50 employees.
            2) Expand FMLA.
            3) Expand access to WIC, and raise awareness of it.
            4) Fund crisis pregnancy centers with state taxes, since states have an interest in the life and health of mothers and their children, and expand ultrasound and prenatal vitamin programs so that low income and young mothers who otherwise would have difficulty getting prenatal care receive basic care and referrals to specialists as needed.
            5) Mandate child support beginning during pregnancy, after the first 12 weeks, when miscarriage becomes less common.
            6) Enforce the laws that ban coercion of women and girls into getting an abortion. It is an especially awful consequence of legal abortion that many women and girls are forced or coerced into abortion by their partners, or their parents, or their pimps. This is already illegal, but it's not enforced unless it becomes public and egregious. This could be done by sending undercover investigators to abortion clinics, like Lila Rose did when she founded Live Action and like David Daleidan did when he was investigating the practices of Planned Parenthood. (If you haven't seen those videos, don't eat before you see them. The full videos are available at the Center for Medical Progress website last time I checked but they may have been pulled down because of litigation.)
            7) Mandate education of the public on fetal development and exactly what abortion is and what it does to its victims.
            8) Mandate spousal consent, and parental consent.
            9) Offer women and girls who are afraid of the reaction of their family members support when they communicate to their families about their pregnancy. This could be done by social workers or nurses, since they have to do that kind of thing already.
            10) Expand shelters and maternity homes for women who are pregnant and have an abusive partner or family or who are threatened with being kicked out unless they abort their baby.

            I've got plenty more but 10's enough to go on with. Abortion is like suicide: a permanent solution to a temporary problem. But abortion kills not oneself but another. Nobody has the right to kill another unless in self defense or a just war.

            Regarding another issue you raised, I actually don't believe only surgical abortions should be banned, and like surgical abortions, chemical abortions can also have devastating effects on the women who procur them. They can hemorrhage, they can experience excruciating pain, and they can end up seeing their baby's body. Trust me, it's bad enough to see that when you miscarry. Seeing it after knowing you took the medication that ended that tiny human's life...I can't imagine how much more guilt and trauma the women this happens to must feel.

            Of course, how the women feel after they procur an abortion by whatever method is kind of beside the point when it comes down to it. The point is that these are living human beings who are being killed in abortion. Those humans may be small, they may look different because they're earlier in development, they may be the "wrong" gender, they may be disabled. But they have the right to live. Ending the killing will clearly take more time and more effort from my side, but my generation is missing far too many of our brothers and sisters. How many more have to die for the convenience of others

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          Ronnie B

          Happy Easter to you too

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    Soniak21

    The bit from Abe Greenwald seems pretty spot-on. Holy perverse incentives, Batman.

    But if that's really what's happening, I don't think it's sustainable for long. Why? Because it'll make the Left too happy. Dems have to LOVE facing opponents who care more about making a scene or profiting off some culture-war battle than winning elections. "Cool, man!" they might say. "You guys can make a bundle hawking MAGA gear on Steve Bannon's podcast, and we'll just settle for winning all the elections!"

    And if there's one thing today's Right can't stand, it's happy Libs.

    I'm not saying it'll happen instantly, but that's what almost has to turn the tide against this style of politics: Eventually, the Right just has to wake up to the fact that the Left is *delighted* with their electoral self-destruction, and that can't be allowed to stand.

    (Also you'd think they'd be a bit upset about the losing itself, but MAGA psychology is weird, and I feel like Nick—and Abe—already covered that issue.)

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  9. Matt Stanley

    This is a spot on, clear-eyed analysis from just about every angle. While I am a click or two to the left of AP on many issues, I always enjoy his thoughts on these types of issues and find myself almost always agreeing with his perspective.

    This sort of article is why I'm a happy member of this site.

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    1. Ken Motamed

      Now you start getting Nick's name right.

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  10. Russell J

    One of the small things that gets overlooked with our recent Presidents is how they make Obama look better by comparison. That guy is so annoying and condescending but how does anyone criticize the guy at this point? The nation was built on peaceful protest?

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      DougCLE

      Wasn’t the nation built on violent revolution and rebuilt on an equally violent civil war?

      But yes, our last two presidents - frankly, our whole political landscape since 2016 - does make me nostalgic for pretty much any of the politicians who preceded it. I would go back and live in 2012, when Mitt Romney could still win the Republican nomination, in a heartbeat.

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      1. J. Everett Schubert

        I know that's the truth. I have little use for Bill Clinton personally, but I'll acknowledge that life under his presidency was pretty sweet.

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        Ms. SSM

        It always annoys me when people including Obama say the peaceful protest thing. We didn’t protest our way to independence from England. Or like you mentioned the Civil War. Our history is littered with both peace and violence.

        As for the past. I remember when I bet 20 bucks on who’d win the Presidential election at work. Lost. Paid my 20, grumbled and then went to lunch with the Republican who took my 20. I realize now that I had no real worries when the other side won. I mean I had policy worries. But not existential ones. I miss those days so much.

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        1. Kittyecws

          I agree. I have voted for people in both parties but had no worries about their behavior once in office. I disagreed on some issues with W and with those I voted for, but I always had faith that they would uphold the basic tenets of our government, same goes for Biden. I do criticize him on some of his stances, and on his Afghanistan exit, but don’t question that he will uphold our government.

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