Gag Rule was an Unconscionable Attack on Women's Rights
The executive order overturning the Mexico City Policy, or Global Gag Rule as it is more commonly known, is tremendously encouraging. It marks the first step on President Obama’s journey towards restoring confidence in America and America’s foreign policy. It is especially fitting that the reversal takes place as we mark the 36th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion in the United States.
?For the past eight years the gag rule has represented an unconscionable attack on free speech and the rights of women to have access to information about abortion services. It could never have been imposed in the United States, where citizens enjoy the right to free speech. The gag rule has had a severe impact in the global south by gutting practical, life-saving programs and curtailing the effectiveness of many national and international family planning policies and organizations. The policy did nothing to reduce the need for abortion—it simply brought American development aid into disrepute.
Catholics in the United States and elsewhere support aid for international family planning programs and reject abstinence-only education. Catholics support access to safe and legal abortion services and back family planning and condom use to protect themselves against sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancies.
On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Obama has started to make good on his promise to renew the United States’ global leadership on sound, scientifically accurate health policies. There is much still to be done, notably on the restoration of funding to UNFPA and reforming existing policies on embryonic stem-cell research and abstinence-only sex education programs. The American public, including American Catholics, support reforms in these areas and we look forward to constructive discussions about what can be achieved in the coming period.”
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Whether one is 'right to life' or supports a 'right to an abortion ', there can be no sensible argument that citizens of foreign countries have a right which would compel the government to spend American tax dollars on family planning which includes promoting abortion. Frankly, those citizens do not have a right to any funding whatsoever. We provide funds as an act of charity. Our doing so is supererogatory. It is not the fulfillment of a duty. If we choose to fund aid efforts, then our donations should be allocated in a way that is consonant with the values of our people. When one takes into account that approximately half of the country opposes abortion, and a great many (which would feature prominently among this group [in spite of Mr. O Brien's protestations] American Catholics) would consider abortion to be the moral equivalent of murder, it becomes obvious that it was wrong to overturn the Mexico City Policy.
A member of the
Society for Pro-Life Agnostics and Secular Humanists
SplashForLife@gmail.com">/>SplashForLife@gmail.com
Those who abortion should never be allowed under any circumstance are in a significant minority. Although to be fair, numbers wise, usually so are those who think abortion should be legal in all circumstances. The majority of people allow much more wiggle room. So based on your premise of being "consonant with the values of our people" repealing the Mexico City act was correct.
My information was taken from this site which publishes all the major polls carried out by the various news and polling organizations.
http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm
Your remark raises a valid point- which is that opposing abortion with no exceptions (which is not a view that I take personally) is supported by a small percent of the population, as is support for abortion in any cricumstances. If you look at your own data, then 49% are clearly pro-choice and 47% are clearly pro-life. Given a 3-4% margin of error, I think that there is no reason to regard this as a contradiction of my original thesis regarding a country which is split pretty evenly in half.
The question raised by the Mexico City Policy (MCP) was whether or not we should give financial support abroad to groups that would counsel women to have abortions as a form of family planning. If half of the country would oppose this, then it cannot be consistent with our countries values. It is consistant with half of the country and opposed by half. Furthermore, poll data dealing specifically with the MCP shows that Obama's change in policy was supported by only about a third (35%) of the country- which makes it his least popular action to date. -see link to Gallup poll below-
http://www.gallup.com/poll/114091/Americans-Approve-Obama-Actions-Date.aspx
I read through all the polls and basically there is no clear majority for one extreme or the other which is exactly why I said the majority has more wiggle room. The only way repealing the MCP could not be seen as being in consonance with the will of the majority is if the default is given to one side or the other in the case of an equal split. When the MCP was legislated, it created a false majority for the pro life side by having their views be the default opinion representing the citizens of this country. Repealing the MCP just puts things back to where they should be: no legislative bias for either side.
Now, international groups from both sides of the issue can fairly petition for some of this aid.
If there is not a majority for either the pro-life or pro-choice position, then it does not make sense to say that the fair solution is to allow the government to spend American tax dollars on something which half of the country opposes. For the pro-life side, legal abortion is an approximate moral equivalent of legal slavery. (It treats human life as if it were the property of another.) If one disagrees and believes that a woman's control of her body is so important that it justifies destroying human life, then that person is free to support theses groups by making an individual contributions. It is absurd to suggest that there is no legislative bias either in favor or in opposition to abortion with the current policy when the current policy effectively compels everyone to underwrite the promotion of abortion. The MCP was the fair solution.
In what way is underwriting the views of the pro life side fair to the pro choice side? This is what the MCP did, said the default position should be the pro life, which ignores the view and rights of the pro choice side. Removing the MCP allows institutions in other countries on both sides of the issue to petition for aid. There is nothing implicitly stating that all the aid is going to institutions that only promote abortions, it simply allows them the same right which pro life entities have (exclusively under the MCP). the MCP was completely undemocratic by refusing any chance to ask for aid to those who promote abortion .
Besides the bad allegory of abortion to slavery, you start with a false premise that everyone agrees on when human life begins. This is not the case, where as with slavery there is no confusion about what is wrong (and even that is a contemporary lack of confusion, because the states of succession certainly held a different point of view during that time).
About individual contributions I agree that the same can be done for the pro life side as well. That's beside the point. If federal aid is being given out there is no reason that it should favor one side over the other, if done in consonance with how our country feels about this question than the aid money will be split fifty - fifty.
You wrote, "If federal aid is being given out there is no reason that it should favor one side over the other, if done in consonance with how our country feels about this question than the aid money will be split fifty - fifty."
That is an interesting position. It is one which frankly I've never thought of or heard before. I suppose it would be 'fair', in terms of representing the public will.
We could send money to groups abroad that counsel individuals to get abortions and campaign for pro-choice laws, and then send the same amount of money that tell women that they shouldn't get abortions and campaign for pro-life laws.
It is an interesting idea.
That would be even-handed and in a sense equitable. I think that the MCP's way of achieving neutrality is more practical.
Your suggestion would result in our money essentially 'balancing itself out'. It would also ratchet up the level of conflict- sort of like arming two warring factions equally. I'm not sure if that would be good (although I don't know if it would be bad either).
It probably would not be a good use of tax dollars though. It also would not be likely to further the humanitarian goals of our aid program.
You analysis is exactly backwards. Overturning MCP will only make a difference if money is given to people who will advise women to use abortion as a means of family planning and campaign for changes in foreign law which would make abortion easier to get. This is a de facto subsidy for abortion which is a way for the government to undermine the pro-life position of much of the population. The MCP precluded this. In other words, money was still given to family planning efforts (as a form of humanitarian aid) provided that it not support abortion, but it was not used to support a pro-choice agenda. You are falsely equating not supporting a pro-choice agenda with advocating for the pro-life position.
If the MCP had been designed so that it promoted campaigns to criminalize abortion and to advise women that they must not have abortions (or that abortion was immoral) then your point of view would make sense- but most of the groups that received funds under MCP were groups which merely stopped those activities which had been disallowed by the policy. In other words, the MCP did not say that funding was only supporting a pro-life agenda and pro-life groups. It funded groups that ceased advocacy of the pro-choice agenda. The idea that they then began advocating a pro-life agenda is just silly.
At any rate, your suggestion that only pro-life agencies received funds is just false on the face of it.
My use of the slavery analogy is not 'bad'. It is accurate. You can say that you disagree with people who say that the positions are analogous, which I am sure is true. The pro-choice makes almost the same comparison in reverse- by claiming that women are 'enslaved' when abortion is denied them. My statement was that, "For the pro-life side, legal abortion is an approximate moral equivalent of legal slavery." Whether abortion is morally equivalent to slavery in some abstract universal sense is open to debate. Whether or not those who are pro-life judge it equivalent isn't.
There is no false equation being made when the MCP prohibits money going to institutions that use and advocate for abortion . It makes the default position that of the pro life side (whether or not they actively campaign for it from here) and that is unfair since that view only represents half of the country's position.
The other part of the problem for both sides is that we rarely ever get to earmark our taxes for things we want individually. While I can understand the frustration about this, it's pretty much a mute point and is probably a more efficient way of getting things done.
By referring to international groups in a nomenclature that is very particular to this country, I was just simplifying for ease of discussion. I lived in Brazil for a decade and there is no pro-life agenda there because abortion is illegal. This also means that the MCP is a mute point in Brazil (and for that fact any other country where abortion is illegal) because no institution, public or private, would be allowed to continue operating if they tried to ask for money for the procedure. So the parts of the MCP that prohibited giving aid to institutions that use abortion can only be applied in countries where abortion is already legal and here is the reason that MCP should be repealed. If that country already has legal abortion, like we do, it is undemocratic to say they can't receive any of the aid money we are sending. It was de facto support of a pro life agenda since the principle difference between pro choice and pro life is the question of abortion.
I see better your point about the analogy. I still think it's not the best, no matter which side uses it, because since ancient times slavery was considered a normal way of life, it has only been in the last two centuries of world history that this moral shift in view has changed.
The reason why I find it a difficult analogy is because the pro choice side says the woman's life and personal rights take priority and the pro life says the fetus' life in potential and rights take priority. The question that will decide which one to give priority is defining when life begins and on this question there is no consensus. On the question of slavery, we were dealing with two similar lives that differed only in that one was master and the other slave. Even then it took more than two thousand years to see the moral problem.
I don't agree that there is not a scientific consensus on when life begins. I think that that is just an effective bit of propaganda. Biology looks at the life cycle of animals with sexual reproduction as beginning with conception for other animals- and I think that an honest scientist would admit that requiring a particular level of sophistication (whether it be a spinal chord or response to pain or brain activity) to be present before life has begun in the case of this one species is not scientific at all. Science is merely empirical and scientists shouldn't burden it with social values. After conception takes place, there is an living organism which is distinct from (although not "separate" in terms of location or dependence) which is a member of the human species.
The problem is that 'human life' gets invested with meaning such that it is a term used to convey moral significance. In other words 'when does human life begin' is taken by many to be equivalent to 'when does the organism attain "humanity"'. The former is a biological question. The latter is philosophical because "humanity" is not being used in terms of scientific taxonomy (like homo sapiens sapiens). It is being used to connote a sense of significance which is subjective and depends entirely upon what one considers to be significant about humans. It would seem silly to reason the same way about fruit fly. "When does fruit fly life begin? Is the larva a fruit fly?" It sounds silly even to say.
I think that it is fair to say that inasmuch as someone struggles with the complexity of 'when human life begins' because they see so many different and significant stages of development, but they are not troubled by the question of when other kinds of animal life begin, they are not approaching the question scientifically.
There are a few philosophers who agree with this point, Pete Singer is one that comes to mind. He present's that all life is precious be it animal or human. He is against abortion , war and the death penalty. He is a vegetarian (or maybe vegan) and he is also in favor of giving all primates a primate version of the Human Rights documents we have.
He is the definitive "pro life" person. However, not many follow his philosophy for a variety of reasons, most of which are based on how he frames the question of life and its intrinsic value, for many he is too inclusive, but no one can argue against his consistent and logically formulation of being in favor of life.
Who knows maybe one humanity will look back and see him as the forefather of a better world. I hope so.
However, in today's world, this question is tied up in our current political, religious and economic views and it is from this that we must deal with it.
And this is why science really doesn't have a answer as to when life begins. I would say that most scientists would go deeper than the pro life side who stops at the fertilization of the egg by sperm. For a scientist, life begins in the organism carrying the egg and the sperm. It's a continual process that doesn't stop. Your right that scientist can define life biologically but they can't define it socially and this where the problems occur.
The current definition of life for social use is after birth. Changing this to sometime prior to birth will have many legal and economic implications. For example, could people take out a life insurance policy on an unborn fetus? What about adding to the complications of an already very complicated area such as inheritance rights?
Of course none of these are in any way insurmountable once a definition is agreed upon. The problem is agreeing on the definition. understanding biology and the reproductive process is only one part of the equation (and even that is not understood by most people).
My final example about the interplay of society and science on this question has to do with the word abortion itself. The medical world has long understood abortion to mean the death and removal of the fetus, regardless if this occurred naturally or was induced. But because of the politicization of the word abortion, many women prefer to say they had a miscarriage instead of saying their fetus was naturally aborted. Today, those in the medical field are adopting this preferred terminology so as to not offend anyone. We can't even agree on scientific terminology!
I don't think his question can be solved scientifically, not unless we start to follow the example of Peter Singer.
"He present's that all life is precious be it animal or human. He is against abortion "
Actually, Peter Singer isn't in the least pro-life. He is not opposed to abortion. In fact he supports a form of infanticide for infants with severe health problems.
"No one can argue against his consistent and logically formulation of being in favor of life."
He is consistent and logical. He is not actually in favor of life. His philosophy deals most prominently with minimizing suffering. That means that pain and pleasure are the criteria for value, and not life or death. In fact he has argued that because of the amount of money being spent by humans who want to extend their lives even when they are infirm, it would be more ethical to let them die naturally and spend those resources bettering the quality of life for animals.
"Who knows maybe one humanity will look back and see him as the forefather of a better world. I hope so."
I hope not!
"And this is why science really doesn't have a answer as to when life begins. I would say that most scientists would go deeper than the pro life side who stops at the fertilization of the egg by sperm.
For a scientist, life begins in the organism carrying the egg and the sperm. It's a continual process that doesn't stop."
'Life' doesn't stop, but individual lives do. Likewise individual lives have starting points. The generation of a sperm or an egg is not the starting point for a new human life. The sperm and egg are haploid (only half of the chromosomes are present). Fertilization is the starting point for a new human life. Whether that new human life should have rights (and if so what rights) is not something that can be answered by science- but when it starts can be.
"Your right that scientist can define life biologically but they can't define it socially and this where the problems occur."
Exactly!
"The current definition of life for social use is after birth. Changing this to sometime prior to birth will have many legal and economic implications."
Current U.S. law does ascribe rights (de facto rights if not explicit de jure rights) prior to birth. Abortion isn't legal on demand. It is legal for any reason in the first trimester only. Viability of the fetus is sufficient to impose restrictions on the 'right to abortion' according to the law.
"Today, those in the medical field are adopting this preferred terminology so as to not offend anyone. We can't even agree on scientific terminology!"
Are they adopting it when speaking to patients, or adopting it formally? I'm a bit surprised if it is the latter. I understand completely the former. A close relative had a 'spontaneous abortion', and was inconsolable. While there is a clear distinction, I do think that it may have been upsetting for her to have heard that she had an abortion (of any kind) at the time.
I'd hasten to point out too that medicine is often less than scientific. For example, diagnoses of mental illnesses are decided upon by committees which often quarrel because they have conflicting academic and social agendas.
Science at least attempts to avoid this sort of nonsense.
I've only heard Peter Singer in a couple of interviews so if I misrepresented his views, I welcome the correction. He does frame the question very differently though, as I remember being struck by his placing value on the quality of life and not the religious moral people usually try to ascribe to life.
In general, here in the US, abortion is legal on demand. I tried to find something on the internet that would say otherwise but maybe you already have a link you could post.
About life, I'm still not so sure it's as simple as you present it. Nor the way I presented it either, but this is a different discussion that would be great to have, since there are many scientific and philosophical aspects to it.
The point about the terminology used was more about how small the influence of science is. I agree that your relative would have been upset by the word abortion but that is because of how the word is politically charged. The only real scientific distinction between natural abortions and induced ones is the method used.
Thankfully, in both the medical field and sciences in general, they still research, observe, think, reflect, argue different points and try to come to the best conclusion possible.
I also think science does its best to be objective. However, this is a social question.
I agree that the slavery analogy leaves much to be desired. Both sides reach for it merely as an example of a formerly legal policy which is both illegal and viewed as abhorrent. I think that it is fair, however to say that it is viewed as 'morally equivalent' if all one means by that is that (regardless of which slavery analogy you are referring to) people find it to be as morally objectionable as slavery.
I do find the pro-choice side irritating on this issue, however. The reason being that the pro-life side perceives the situation as one in which a human life is considered worthless unless someone else decides to ascribe value to it. That isn't slavery, but if you share that point of view then it is just as alarming. The pro-choice side perceives a situation in which women are denied their freedom (in cases where abortion is illegal) by a policy endorsed by the state. That is alarming too- but not as alarming as institutional slavery which denied /all/ freedom rather than merely one type (reproductive). Even without 'reproductive freedom', women have the right to vote, to own property, to free speech. Without a 'right to life', an unborn human has no rights at all.
For a pro-lifer, slavery and abortion can be seen as just as morally repugnant because of the absoluteness of the injustice they believe they oppose. For a pro-choicer, the comparison seems (to me- admittedly not an unbiased source [grin]) hyperbolic. At least I hope it is hyperbole, because otherwise, they are suggesting that women like my mother (who were around before Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton) that their circumstances were as morally offensive as the circumstances of slaves on plantations. I think that they'd be better served to say that there is (in their eyes) a moral equivalence to the Jim Crow south. They probably won't do that though, because then their moral equivalence is less powerful than ours.
It's all in how the question is framed isn't it. I too definitely have my bias, so I won't fault you yours.
But here's my take.
Pro Choice sees it like this: the personal and civic rights of slaves were taken away from them. Their body was a piece of property. If we list the things slaves were denied it was: rights to property, education, political voice, due process, fruits of their labor, control over their personal relationships and control over their reproductive rights. A slave mother had no say over who impregnated her or afterward what happened to her children. So in this sense, taking away a woman's control over her body and reproductive process is something they can identify with in slavery.
Moral repugnance in history is always wrong, so our mothers are safe. How can I criticize my great grandfather for having racist or misogynists ideas? With few exceptions, most people in his day didn't think there was anything morally wrong with that way of thinking. Morals and social views of morals change we can't condemn people of the past for not thinking or behaving in a way that we now consider appropriate.
Do you agree though, that while there are parallels to be drawn on either side- the pro-life side has a more complete analogy given that the slaves were treated as nothing more than property, and this is what pro-lifers see happening as happening to humans, whereas women without reproductive freedom aren't in the same situation. From a pro-choice position, women are seen as being deprived of their full measure of freedom, but not of their freedoms in their entirety.
I think control over your body is the most fundamental of those rights. I think the pro life side is mistaken in thinking that women who have abortions consider the fetus in their body as property in the sense that slaves were.
To say because a woman can get pregnant that when she does she has to have the baby, is to say that the biology of women is their destiny. I can see that you don't but I find it absurd to say you are free to do everything in this society but (and this is an enormous but) you can't control your body.
Control over this is fundamental to a women participating fully in society. Why should a woman be subject to the life time consequences of a contraceptive failure or even a momentary lapse of reason? A woman should have total freedom to decide at what point in her life she wants to have children if ever she does.
I really cannot escape the fact that the pro life side wants to impose their own sense of morals and attitudes about a good life on others. To me the pro choice side has the most democratic view - have one if you want and don't if you think its wrong. It's a personal choice each woman has to make in their own lives. And no one can make it for them, or even be allowed to make it for them.
I think that you are suggesting that if you live in a country where abortion is legal, and you have planning services, but do not counsel pregnant women in a way that would be approving of abortion, then you are being pro-life. Is that accurate? (I don't want to put words in your mouth.)
If you provide family planning that only focuses on contraception, then is that being pro-life according to your view? It strikes me as being neutral. Since I see it as neutral, I also don't consider MCP 'undemocratic'.
I think the terms pro life and pro choice are tied up with our particular history on the question and they don't apply to other countries experiences on how they arrived at their decisions one way or another. In general, when I talk about the pro life aspect of the MCP, I am referring to how it is viewed here not in other countries. This may help clarify why I argue the way I do.
I agree that family planning that focuses on contraception is neutral but it isn't upon that question that our country is divided. It's abortion .
When I refer to it as undemocratic, I am also referring to how it is perceived here and not in other countries. As I explained those countries where abortion is illegal, the MCP is simply a mute point. The reason why I think it's undemocratic is totally tied up with the restrictions it places on giving aid to institutions that include abortion as part of their services. If those against abortion only represent half of the country, why should their view be given the default position to act on?
If the MCP was worded to say that it gives aid to all those institutions that provide family planning, we would have nothing to discuss, but the pro life side (or their legislative supporters) here had to include the contractual exclusion of those institutions that also provide abortions. If they want aid they have to stop providing that service. That default for the side of pro life is what the pro choice side finds undemocratic.
Which if this is about where our tax money is spent, one side has no more right than the other to control what happens to it, especially in a case where it is a 50 / 50 split.
Repealing the MCP doesn't mean all the money will go to those places that provide abortions, it doesn't even mean they will get any at all. What it does mean is that now they have the same fair chance as any other family planning institution to petition for some of the aid. Nothing more and nothing less.
I assert that:
1. Giving money to a group which will use that money to counsel women to have abortions is not neutral. It supports a pro-choice point of view.
2. Giving money to groups which only deal with contraception, is in my view neutral on abortion. I thought that you agreed on that.
If you reverse the MCP, then you are not being neutral (#1). If you keep the MCP, then you are being neutral (#2).
If the MCP gave money to groups that campaigned against legal abortion and that counseled women that abortions were immoral, then that would be treating the pro-life position as if it were the default.
The MCP took a neutral position.
Your argument assumes a false dichotomy:
either you must
-let public funds go to groups that will recommend abortions to women
or you must
-supporting the pro-life side
This suggests that there is no neutral position.
I agreed that contraceptives are a neutral topic. When a piece of legislation includes aspects arguing against the political view of the half the country it is not being neutral. The Smith Amendments that helped get the MCP passed into law specifically argue against abortion : the organization petitioning for aid must certify that it will not promote or perform abortions (except in cases where the life of the mother is endangered or pregnancies that come from rape or incest); it must certify that it will not violate the laws of any foreign country or engage in any activity to alter the laws or governmental policies concerning abortion.
Not being allowed to do what must already be legal in other countries for the MCP to have any meaningful effect, is undemocratic. That is not how half the country feels here and that is not how the other country feels, especially since it is legal here and it must be legal there to even receive funds.
Here is an example of how it works in reality. A religiously backed family planning institution has to sign an agreement (just like the secular ones) that it will not actively campaign to change the laws on abortion. If this institution was in Mexico, for example, where elective abortions are legal, what happens is the institution truthfully agrees not to campaign against abortion. But the church where it gets it mission statement and the major part of its funding is not obliged to any such gag rule. The church can actively campaign against abortion while receiving USAID money for it family planning institution.
Like I said, it's all in the wording of the MCP itself, where we find a neutral position missing.
The MCP doesn't have to argue the immorality of abortion because it already argues against even speaking of abortion. This is why I say the MCP makes the pro life side the default.
I would even argue there really is not a neutral position on a question that equally divides the nation. No matter what the government does, it is going to alienate the other half. And politically this is basically how the MCP is used. Conservative Republicans instate it, liberal Democrats rescind it, we get roughly equal time on this question, which, looked at over the long view, reflects the way the country feels.
I know that you want to argue that giving funds to both kinds of groups is neutral, but it isn't.
Imagine the following scenario:
We are going to give out stimulus money to tourist attractions in order to try to save jobs in the tourism industry. One group considers gambling immoral and wants it to be illegal in all fifty states. Another group thinks that gambling is fine, and wants it legal in all 50 states.
1. Is it being neutral to make casinos eligible for the funding? I say 'no', because it would support gambling- even if money also went to theme parks.
2. Is it supporting the position which wants to abolish gambling by not giving any casinos stimulus money? I say 'no', because the government is neither supporting legalized gambling nor opposing it by choosing not to subsidize it.