Politics all the time

Been watching the run-up to Debacle '08 with increasing interest. Jon and I did a couple podcasts about Mitt Romney and religion in the upcoming election. I said at the time that he is the only viable candidate for the Christian Right. I assumed the Right would stick to their principles. Silly me. Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Giuliani last week. Now, you're welcome to quibble about whether or not Robertson actually speaks for anyone anymore, and you won't get a whole lot of argument from me that his voice has been marginalized, but for some reason the MSM still reports on his press releases as if they are relevant to the national debate. I hope they are not, but I've been wrong before.

His endorsement of Giuliani helps give the lie to the Right's insistence that they are people of deep convictions. Giuliani, whose shenaningans and lies in the wake of 9-11 will come to light if he emerges as the Republican candidate, used to be a liberal Republican. He was a pro-gun control mayor, and his stance on abortion sounds much like Bill Clinton's—and it's possible to argue, as the guys on Air America have been lately, that the Clintons are really Republicans. Whatever the case, there is no clear uber-conservative around whom the Right can rally; that's why I thought Romney was the clear choice, despite his rather moderate record in a pretty liberal state.

The religion question doesn't seem to bother Republicans who aren't Pentecostal or extreme fundamentalists. Romney talks about faith and family, and Republicans don't seem to care that his Jesus is somewhat different than the Jesus of evangelicals. One only has to utter the name of Jesus for evangelical Republicans to roll over like two-dollar whores—witness GWB's invocation of the name with no application of the principles. (I still have students who tell me that they believe GWB is a "man of God.") Until about two months ago, I thought the Democrats were no-brainers for the presidency, but I'm increasingly convinced they will find a way to blow the election. And yes, I think putting Hillary out there as the candidate is a certain way to blow the election; they will lose the entire middle of the country if they run her. She seems sane and capable in the primaries, but in a general election, she will receive the Rove treatment and come out looking like a shrill liberal.

I admit that I am enjoying the Right's duplicity here. With a man who clearly seems to be a man of faith and conscience on one side, and a black candidate on the other side who had an adult conversion in an historically black church, evangelicals are likely to ignore these two candidates and pick based on issues of economics and support for the war. The most recent administration has taught us that you can always call yourself Christian, and fundangelicals won't blink as long as you give them tax cuts, promise them an enemy to hate, and speak out against abortion.

Comments

[Dallas Tim]

One thing you've done for me Greg, has been helping me think outside of the "Evangelical box." On one hand you've forced me to examine why I believe what I belive (and I now am more convinced than ever that my faith is credible) but on the other I've had to reconsider what I believe about various topics in light of the original message.

I can't believe Robertson endorsed Giuliani (yes, I can). I sincerely believe it was only because Robertson thought him the best chance in '08 and everybody likes a (probable) winner. Robertson, though, has been the Evangelical "crazy uncle" for some time and I don't know anyone who really takes him seriously anymore (many still do, but they're numbers are fading fast). You're take on Hillary is dead on. Republican's are giddy with anticipation that she will win the Dem. nomination. She will collapse faster that the Mavericks in the playoffs when the real election rolls around.

I like Ron Paul. I don't need someone who says "Jesus." I (and this is where you've helped me out) want someone who makes the kinds of smart desicions Jesus would ask the leader of the free world to make. Stay out of other peoples business. Quit spending money. Protect our borders. Strengthen our own economy. Quit pissing off the rest of the world basically and take care of stuff at home.

Yes I'm against abortion, homosexual marriage, child porn, all the stuff liberals have given us in the last few decades, but the church will always have a battle to fight. I'd just like someone to run the country so we actually have a place to fight in the future.

[Jason]

Tim -

I'm going to try to assume your good faith, but for you to say that "liberals have given us" "child porn" is a scurrilous statement at best, not to mention downright false.

[emergentninja]

Jason, it seems to read "all the stuff liberals have given us," is part of the list of stuff that he is against, not the category that the previous list falls under. At least I hope that this is the case or else DT's lumping of homosexual marriage (which, unfortunately, has not yet been "given") w/ child porn is incredibly offensive. No wait... it still seems a bit offensive.

[Jeff]

I didn't know Liberals gave us abortion. Wow! I had mistakenly thought it was unwed adolescents scared to tell their fundie parents. To bad Liberals came along and gave us abortion, or all those aborted fetuses would have been safe from their grandparents.

[Jason]

And yes, I think putting Hillary out there as the candidate is a certain way to blow the election; they will lose the entire middle of the country if they run her. She seems sane and capable in the primaries, but in a general election, she will receive the Rove treatment and come out looking like a shrill liberal.

Greg, I was inclined to agree with you last year, but now, I'm not so sure. First, Hillary has her own Rove (Mark Penn) who can out-Rove anybody on the GOP side. Her campaign has also been flawless. And the swing voters seem to be giving her a second look (something I thought was impossible); the more she gets out there, the more people say, "why was it we're not supposed to like her?"

That being said, I don't think any of that is a positive development. I'm an Edwards man, but I think any of the serious Dems are far superior choices to Clinton.

[Dallas Tim]

Correction -

PEOPLE have given us those things I mentioned. The liberals are only trying to preserve their rights to continue doing so.

[cheek]

Name one serious leader in government who supports the rights of people to produce child porn, D-Tim. Democrats have legalized abortion, not given it to us. There has been abortion just about as long as there have been accidental pregnancies, and that includes the time of the Biblical record which is strangely silent on the issue.

Liberals will ensure the rights of all people to marry whichever consenting adult they choose if they can. I guess one for three is a good enough batting average, but come on. You are typically much less specious in your arguments than this.

I don't know if Senator Clinton could win the general or not. Her campaign to this point has made me more of a believer than I was, but I don't think she's really much different from the Republicans on the war. She'd be a bit more diplomatic than the current president, but we would never leave Iraq during her tenure. We would also likely continue to allow genocide in Darfur if her husband's despicable failure in Rwanda is any indication.

[greg]

Cheek,

Ah, yes, Rwanda. I showed Hotel Rwanda to my three classes this past week. The liberals were Shocked to see what a pussy Clinton was about the issue, not to mention how evil Albright was with her "acts of genocide" nonsense. One of the Air America shows, Young Turks, has been calling Hillary a Republican for quite some time now, primarily because of her pro-war stance.

Tim,

That was a cheap shot. I don't know any democrats who are in favor of child porn. The past few arrests here in Oklahoma City have been evangelical pastors, in fact, which probably makes them Republicans.

Jason,

I don't know who I'd vote for. I don't really see a good candidate in the whole mix. Again, Hillary looks okay right now, but the Republican lie machine hasn't started yet; although Fox News is beginning their guerilla tactics in advance of Rove's troops.

[Dallas Tim]

Cheek,

I try to sneak in one random, under-the-radar shot at the A.C.L.U.'s "anything goes" effort to make sure that the constitution allows anyone to do pretty much anything they want (unless, of course, you're a fetus and can't yet speak for yourself) and you have to very politely correct me with a tone that I have no choice but to agree with and thus amend my initial comment.

Thanks alot.

Greg,

Republican evangelical "pastors" aren't against illicit sexual behavior, they just against getting caught. And BTW, what do you think of Ron Paul?

[Dallas Tim]

I have a general question.

What are we to do in Darfur? No ulterior motives here, but one thing I'm finding more and more sensible is staying out of the affairs of other coutries. We tend to try to fix everything, everywhere. I'm not arguing that the effort in Rwanda isn't valid, but it seems like we argue to stay out of other countries business in one area and then fight to solve another problem somewhere else. Who gets to decide which problems are more appropriate to deal with? I'll agree that ending the genocide in Darfur seems like the most decent of causes, but often the details we don't hear about can make our attempts either useless or completely valid.

Just a question...

[greg]

Tim,

We have to do something in Darfur. I don't think it's conscionable to sit on our hands while genocide takes place. If military intervention is required, that's a far more noble goal than securing oil wells in Iraq.

[Jason]

Tim -

PEOPLE have given us those things I mentioned [including child pornography]. The liberals are only trying to preserve their rights to continue doing so.

Again, name one serious liberal who has defended a "right" to own, distribute, or produce child pornography. You cannot. As I said above, I was willing to presume your good faith before, but you're making it clear that you're maliciously making libelous statements against millions of Americans. I disagree with much if not all of the conservative agenda, but I would never make defamatory statements about them, then hide behind an "I-don't-have-to-be-politically-correct" shield.

I would also suggest you do two things. First, read up a bit on the actual ACLU, since you make clear time and time again that the organization you continually criticize does not exist, save for in the fiction of right-wing media figures. Second, take a look at the justices who decided Roe v. Wade; I believe you'll see that 5 of the 7-member majority were appointed by Republicans.

greg -

I'd encourage you to take another look at John Edwards. From Iraq to social justice issues, he is by far the most serious candidate out there.

[Leighton]

Ron Paul is probably a closet white/Christian supremacist, which is why David Duke, the Patriot Group and CofCC are some of his strongest backers. I'd peg him as the second worst mainstream candidate, after Giuliani. One of his crazy ideas (and there are quite a few) is eliminating the dollar (except for federal income taxes) in order to go to a system of 50 state currencies. Brilliant.

Romney's as much a tool and flip-flopper as any politician; Huckabee is a thin-skinned asshole who I wouldn't trust within 10 miles of foreign policy negotiations.

I'm not a fan of Hillary; she's too beholden to her energy and pharmaceutical industry special interest contributors. I've liked some of the things Obama says, but I can't get a fix on who he is or what he stands for. I like most of Kucinich's principles, but in our political environment, he (a) doesn't stand a chance, and (b) would probably not be as effective as a less principled candidate who will work within the system.

Edwards is the closest I can think of to a candidate I'd vote for, though I have days where my preference is "dust off and nuke the site from orbit...it's the only way to be sure."

(Note to Homeland Security agents: this is a joke. I do not now, nor have I ever, advocated any form of violence--nuclear or otherwise--toward politicians, even the ones who deserve it.)

[dr dobson]

The only candidate to win either his/her nomination and the general election will be the one who can carry Texas, California, Pennsylvania, NY, NJ, Ohio and Florida--the party that figures this out first will be far ahead of its opponent. Currently, I don't think there is any candidate outside of Rudy who can do this.

Second, there's not a whisper of difference in any of the candidates, full stop. You can argue this or that, but at the end of the day, each and every one of them is about the same thing: power, greed and self-promotion. The way to win at the game of American politics these days is exactly the same way to win in the American church--with fancy lights, smoke and mirrors. Simply woo the idiots into a trance and they'll follow hook, line and sinker.

When I lived in OK, I was on an aviation advisory board at OSU. One year, we (about a dozen of us) were lucky enough to spend some time with Sen. John Glenn, who was pimping his book about his 80 years on the planet (at that time). Regardless of your view of him or whether you agree/disagree with him, one thing he said will haunt me forever: one in our group asked him to opine on what he thinks is the biggest difference in politics now versus when he entered the fray. His answer was amazing. He said that in his day, people entered politics because a) they were sucessful at whatever they had done in life; b) they wanted to give something back; and c) they viewed service to others as the single most honorable thing anyone could do. He followed that up by stating that the Republicans were now better Democrats than the Dems ever dreamt of being and vice-versa. The practice of politics, he said, was to give back to the country that had blessed them. These days, he went on to say, the exact opposite is in play.

The way to have your horse finish first in the race is to hide the ball, play a game of deceit and deception and to press your opponents down into financial oblivion.

If our leaders are led by this method, which I truly think they are, then we are headed for a quick demise.

We have all named honorable candidates (some more than others) in this thread, but unfortunately, the honorable candidate no longer wins--the one who can outspend and hide the ball most effectively is the one who ends up on top.

Short-term success is all we care about anymore, which leaves our longevity in the balance.

[bobstevens]

As a wannabe anarchist in the school of Ellul, I don't really vote. But I have to admit that Ron Paul was sounding good until I noticed that he has supported multiple bills to prevent judicial review of stupid religious hot topics like the pledge and ten commandments.

Anyone who would pretend to uphold the constitution and still do something like that is even more lacking in integrity than your average politician, in my estimation.

Honestly I want Billy Crudrup's character from Waking the Dead to be president more than anyone who is actually running... and only because he and Jennifer Connelly were awesome in that movie.

[bobstevens]

You can argue this or that, but at the end of the day, each and every one of them is about the same thing: power, greed and self-promotion.

So... this is ridiculously correct. Excellent summary. The things that people have to sacrifice to get into power are the very things that would qualify them to wield it responsibly. Exceptions exist, but I'm not prepared to name any of the current candidates as one.

And I'm pretty sure the Democrats didn't legalize abortion. Roe v. Wade had only one dissenting vote, as I recall, and it didn't "legalize" abortion so much as strike down all existing state laws against it. It didn't prevent the construction of future laws limiting abortion, simply made stipulations which would ensured that poorly crafted ones would fail judicial review.

There's a lot of misinformation about Roe v. Wade out there, and I'm certainly not the best source on the issue... but I've read the entire decision and I walked away thinking that the actual facts would surprise a lot of people.

[Dallas Tim]

I suppose we could even parse down the details and claim that Hitler didn't really hate Jews, or that our government really was behind 9/11. The fact is that virtually all support for abortion comes from the democratic side. Are there Republicans who support it? Yes. Are there Republican who are homosexual? Yes? It's not that all are one or the other, but the consensus certainly seems so. The democrats have fought to preserve abortion on demand and have resisted most attempts to do the right thing (the Christian thing) and overturn a woman's ability to (for no other reason than convenience) kill her own living, genetically unique, child. Are there rare circumstances where it's either the child who dies or the mother? Rarely. Are those instances worth looking at and making a case by case decision when a doctor has decided that only one will survive? Absolutely. Unfortunately, that's not the system we have today. Our is a hedonistic, barbaric, selfish, and inhumane system of mutilation and death (often including the after-effects of horrific phsycological trauma to the women who decide to participate).

I watched the Frontline episode on Darfur last night. It was a shocking, series of facts and tragedy that we can't even be remotely aquainted with here in America. Hundreds of thousands murdered, raped, and starving and millions more forced from their homeland. We demand that the U.N. do something. We say it's a global disgrace. We demand action to protect the innocent.

Have we done any of that for our unborn children? No, in fact one contributer on this blog made the comment that he felt that the states should make their own individual decisions regarding abortion. Yeah, and why don't we just move on to more important issues and let the Sudan take care of Darfur?

[Leighton]

I've never in my life seen a complaint against abortion that isn't really a thinly disguised tirade against sex. If a cluster of cells has the potential to grow into a living infant by parasitizing the body of an actual living, breathing human (sorry, but this is what fetuses do), why not have the same outrage over menstruation, where a perfectly good egg cell is wasted for lack of being fertilized? Or male masturbation, which involves the premature death of millions of half-copies of the potential father's chromosome?

It's sex that is the dividing line for movement conservatives: people should not (should not, should NOT, SHOULD NOT) have the wrong kind of sex. In fact, the wrong kind of sex is the only possible reason for abortion. Anyone who needs an abortion is a filthy slut who should have kept her whoring legs shut.

Rape and incest victims don't exist. Nor do married women in families who already have all the children they can afford, and whose birth control failed. What do you do if you can't afford a kid, or if your mental health situation isn't stable enough to be a primary caregiver, or if you're stuck in a family and a town where you'll be exiled from the community for being so selfish as to want to fulfill one of your most foundational biological needs? Just don't have sex, say movement conservatives. The gospel of personal responsibility, handed down by Jesus Himself, clearly states that if you're not ready to be parent (again) RIGHT NOW, you're a lesser being who doesn't deserve sex or intimacy.

Never mind that throughout history, a fetus hasn't been considered alive until quickening, when the mother can feel it kick, and before that, specially prepared herbal teas to remove the "blockage" were commonplace and unremarkable. Never mind that Exodus 21's penalty for causing a miscarriage is a matter to be settled by financial means, while killing a child is a life for a life. Never mind that when John 3 has Jesus talk about people entering into a new life, it's by being born again, not by being conceived again, or brought to quickening again. No, it's sex that matters most. Never mind that if you're in a fertility clinic that's been bombed, and you see a two-year-old child sitting with his dead mother, everyone with a conscience takes that child to safety instead of going for the freezer where tens of thousands of Zygote-Americans are about to lose their ability to split into more cells. Sex is bad, unless it's the right kind of people having the right kind of sex.

[Dallas Tim]

Leighton,

First of all, if I don't hear from you again before tomorrow, happy Thanksgiving. I'll be leaving shortly for various familial engagements and probably won't have time for another tirade until next week. I hope you root for the Cowboys and get all your favorite foods in excess.

I think your agrument could be extrapolated to the argument that we should also able to do away with the mentally retarded, elderly, whatever.

If you're going to engage in "person creation" activities then be ready to give the child up for adoption if you're not ready to be a parent.
Many are too selfish and just decide to kill their children.

Maybe I can go into more detail later, but I'm running late and don't have time now.

[Leighton]

Tim,

Happy Thanksgiving (early). I've got snow here--how's the weather there?

First, the idea of legal, ethically sound abortion can't be extended to killing entally disabled and elderly people. They are alive and have full rights as humans and as citizens; clusters of cells growing in a uterus lack at least one of those criteria.

Second, being pregnant is a huge physical, financical, emotional, and social burden that not all women can handle; giving up a born child is even harder, especially not knowing, really knowing what kind of home the child would be given to. What on earth is selfish about not wanting to go through all this? You'd think pro-life people would support life that already exists over life that might exist if you give it a few months.

Third, fetuses are not children. Children are outside the womb breathing on their own, or with the aid of a respirator in extreme cases.

[Leighton]

If you're going to engage in "person creation" activities then be ready to give the child up for adoption if you're not ready to be a parent.

This is dishonest for at least two reasons. First, the primary function of sex is not procreation. Procreation is only occasionally a side-effect, sometimes wanted, sometimes not. The overwhelming majority of people who have sex--married or not, Christian or not, conservative or not--almost always do it because it feels good, and because it's our most powerful vehicle for intimacy. We call people who think couples should only have sex when they're trying to get pregnant "cult members," not people who actually have something to contribute to society's political discourse.

Second, this intimacy is a hardwired need for most people (probably 90%, depending on which statistic you use for the proportion of asexual people in the population), and a lot of people go through a good portion of their lives where they're ready to have sex without being ready for marriage, pregnancy or child-rearing. Telling these people to just shut up and avoid touching other people would be cruel, if it weren't ridiculous and ignored by everyone outside of churches and authoritarian subcultures.

People who want to carry unplanned pregnancies to term should. People who don't want to, shouldn't have to. It's possible for either choice to be the wrong choice, but the woman whose body it is has to be the one to decide--and both options have to be viable and safe. The alternative is turning everyone with a second X chromosome into a second-class citizen whose rights can be revoked on a moment's notice if society thinks she needs to become a cell incubator for 9 months.

And "But she chose to take the risk" is a petty, cowardly response. People are going to have sex, because sex is good, and we need it. That pressing need of living humans takes priority over the imagined rights of hypothetical future humans.

Many are too selfish and just decide to kill their children.

Just come out and say "Many women are too selfish..." and bring the misogyny of conservative views on sex and abortion into the open.

[bobstevens]

Pretty sure I was disagreeing with the comment "Dems have legalized abortion, not given it to us" rather than anything you were saying, Tim.

Leighton, your comments are interesting, but I disagree that abortion boils down to an argument about sex. I'm sure you're aware of how strawman-tastic that sounds.

Killing is wrong. Abortion is either killing or it's not, depending on the context and your understanding of when life begins. That should be the entire framework for the debate, should it not? The specifics of how the fetus came into being aren't too relevant to the choice of whether it deserves the chance to be born.

Masturbation and menstruation are pretty weak concepts to bring into the debate as arguments. Life begins at one of a) conception b) birth c) somewhere in between. No one anywhere believes that life begins pre-fertilization. I bet on c, personally, as both a and b are pretty ridiculous choices aside from any religious convictions.

Playing the misogyny card seems like a cop out. Pregnancy is a very real physical occurrence, sometimes unavoidable, and it prohibits us from awarding equal rights to men and women as a society. No one even wants equal rights, that I'm aware of. Some want to take away the mother's right to choose, others want to make the choice solely the mother's (correct me if I'm wrong there). It's a very charged discussion either way, but it should be focused on what is and what is not killing, rather than what is and is not a violation of the rights of the mother *or* the father.

I'll point out one more thing, I guess. I don't think I've ever seen an understanding of abortion that handles the potential for pregnancy due to rape well. It's worth noting that this is a ridiculously small number of abortions. I disliked how every ethical framework in college had to be tested against the ridiculously contrived "so you're hiding Jews and the Gestapo knocks on your door and asks if you're hiding Jews" question, and this feels like the same thing.

[bobstevens]

I'm double posting just because the discussion of whose right and whose choice carrying a pregnancy to term should be resulted in me mentally coining the term "the elephant in the womb", and I thought that was worth sharing, but I don't have any more energy to try to use it in context.

[Leighton]

Bob,

Happy Thanksgiving!

I spoke too strongly when I said I'd never in my life heard an anti-abortion argument that wasn't about sex. I should've said most, not all.

I do think, though, that in practice, more of the side-treks away from the ethics of abortion comes from the anti-choice side rather than the pro-choice side. People who honestly think fetuses have rights and privileges equivalent to adult humans and therefore think abortion is bad would do everything in their power to stop abortions. This doesn't mean trying to make abortion illegal, like Tim wants to; it means you do everything you can to make abortion unnecessary, by working to provide comprehensive sex and contraceptive education, and make sure everyone (including teenagers) has access to birth control. It also means you take care of the kids who are already born by making affordable health care available for kids and their parents (it's a lot easier to take care of a child when you're healthy yourself).

The reason movement conservatives (that is, people who regurgitate contemporary conservative political talking points, rather than thinking people whose views happen to be conservative) don't do this is that for most of them, abortion is really a strawman for their real agenda of dictating how people live their lives and when/why/with whom they have sex. (Sometimes this is an end in itself, but more commonly it's just a method of grabbing or consolidating power.) In particular, women have to be controlled and put back in their place as submissive housewives. I see this kind of thinking when people use language like selfish or hedonistic or slutty to describe--not the two people involved in causing conception, but the woman alone, who is now pregnant and is looking to not be pregnant. I think the reason abortion is so politicized is that figures to the right of the political spectrum have used it as a lightning rod to draw thinking people of good will into supporting their cultural agenda wholesale.

It all depends on how principles are connected: what issues are most closely conceptually related to abortion? Once in a great while, I find pro-life people (e.g. some folks at this blog) who want to talk about reducing abortion and expanding healthcare and stopping war. This at least makes sense; the issue is preserving life. Almost always, though, it's stopping abortion and increasing the burden of proof for rape and women need to stop being sluts (where the issue is putting women back in their place); or stopping white abortions and secure the borders and get rid of illegal immigrants (where the issue is white or cultural supremacism); or reduce abortions and 10 Commandments in every school & courthouse and put Muslims in camps the way we did the Japanese in WW2 (where the issue is pushing for an evangelical hegemony); or stopping abortion and abstinence-only sex ed and homosexuality is bad (where the issue is a cultural anxiety about sex exploited for the benefit of prominent religious leaders).

For me, it's reduce the need for abortions (but keep them available) and undermine institutionalized misogyny and ensure complete, affordable healthcare for everyone. The core issue is then making sure all people (not just the ones with penises) are treated like full human beings.

But I agree that sex is a strawman; I just don't think it's a pro-choice strawman.

I don't agree, though, that the ethics of abortion reduces to the question of life begins. This is a classic conservative framing that completely omits from its moral calculus the people who are most affected: pregnant woman. Even us talking about abortion rights is a little like sending half the world's population out of the room while we, their betters, soberly decide their fate without consulting them. Life is full of hard choices, but normally, you take into account all the consequences of a choice before you make it, not just for yourself, but for everyone else. Not so abortion. For movement conservatives, women lose their personhood and become little more than expendable incubators when a fetus enters the picture.

No adult human has the right (legally or ethically) to parasitize the body of any other human for nine months, even if it's the only thing in the world that would keep them alive. If my blood and bone marrow is the only thing in the world that would save someone's life, nobody--nobody--would argue that I should be strapped to a bed, against my will, two hours a day for nine months to have blood drawn and marrow extracted. A voluntary choice along those lines would be fine, of course.* I don't see how it's any different for something that hasn't yet developed consciousness or awareness. The "elephant in the womb" scenario is one where you look a woman in the eye and tell her the cluster of cells growing inside her body has rights greater than (not equal to) hers. She has the right to live (unless her life is in danger, in which case it's a crapshoot which one will take priority); her fetus has the right to live and to live off the blood and nutrients of an adult's body. If you can argue this to the women in your life and still sleep at night, that's your call. I can't.

Going back to my first paragraph where I talked about contraceptives, I don't see a substantial difference between making sure a fertilized egg doesn't continue to develop, and making sure no egg is fertilized to begin with. The end result--no conscious, aware entity coming into existence--is the same in both cases. Maybe this is intuitive because I'm a scifi geek and I've spent some time trying to build a coherent ethics of time travel, where going back in time to stop someone from being conceived is one of the trickier methods of assassination to detect (because people who have regular sex do it all the time). In the real world, though, it seems to me that the real factor in whether "life" (or, in less essentialist framings, "human offspring") develops is less stochastics in the timing of ovulation and lucky sperm, and more the continuing intent of the parent(s). They don't want a child, so they use birth control; birth control fails, so they deploy retroactive birth control.

Conservative Christian movements like Quiverfull argue that birth control is abortion, that women (i.e. conservative Christian wives) should be pregnant whenever it's biologically possible. I'm sure they don't speak for all nominally pro-life people, but they are at least a little more direct about their real goals of controlling women.

-------------
* You can even argue "higher moral standard of self-sacrifice" or something like that, but I don't need to tell you how dangerous it is to codify those different, "higher" standards into laws that are binding on everyone. Most people don't take up the higher standard, which is why ob/gyns old enough to remember pre-Roe v Wade days are some of the most vehemently pro-choice people you find--they remember trying to treat women coming in for emergency treatment after receiving botched self-abortions with wire coat hangers and the like.

[Leighton]

Playing the misogyny card seems like a cop out. Pregnancy is a very real physical occurrence, sometimes unavoidable, and it prohibits us from awarding equal rights to men and women as a society. No one even wants equal rights, that I'm aware of. Some want to take away the mother's right to choose, others want to make the choice solely the mother's (correct me if I'm wrong there). It's a very charged discussion either way, but it should be focused on what is and what is not killing, rather than what is and is not a violation of the rights of the mother *or* the father.

As far as I know, every pro-choice group advocates that the final (not necessarily only) choice of whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term has to belong to the pregnant women. She can (and with deliberate conception, does) bring the father in on the decision-making process. The rule is "Your body, your choice."

I don't think father's rights are relevant during pregnancy. If, when talking things over before sex, you disagree about what will happen if birth control fails, you either discontinue the relationship, or accept that you'll have to deal with the consequences when the time comes, whether that be an abortion or child support payments. (While there are certainly cases where one party or the other lies about their real intentions, the rule "Don't sleep with someone you don't trust" seems to work pretty well most of the time.)

The alternative, where men have veto power over abortions, leads to situations where men can use forced pregnancy as a method to control women, and when you read a lot of men's rights blogs and mainstream conservative sites like Powerline and Little Green Footballs, the misogyny inherent in the most politically active advocates of this position (with language like "putting those bitches in their place," and some threads where you barely go five words without seeing "slut," "cunt," or "cum dumpster") is pretty naked.

Partly because of this, I don't see a conflict between men and women having equal rights w/re pregnancy; you just have to understand it first in terms of bodily autonomy before applying other factors.