Re: Guest Post - em dash

1

I'm pro-choice, but I'm not a racist.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 5:35 AM
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The problem is that you can't know for sure which fetus is cuter.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 5:37 AM
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Selective twin oxidation is much healthier.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:00 AM
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Isn't it easy to come up with perfectly reasonable "I'm pro-choice but..." constructions simply by distinguishing what you would do and what you think that law should allow people to do.

"I'm pro-choice, but I would never have an abortion" is a fairly common one which makes perfect sense to me. I put it in the same category as "I'm vegetarian, but I wouldn't want to outlaw meat eating."


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:17 AM
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Sure, but other times people are actually saying "I approve of a woman's right to choose, until it makes me squeamish."


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:23 AM
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Indeed, Rob, those formulations are perfectly reasonable, but I was seeing a lot more of, "I'm pro-choice, but these women are disgustingly selfish, and I could never be friends with anyone who would do that."

There seems to be an implicit belief that once you enter fertility treatments, you're no longer entitled to the same abortion rights as everyone else.


Posted by: emdash | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:26 AM
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Sure, but other times people are actually saying "I approve of a woman's right to choose, until it makes me squeamish."

I suspect much more often people are actually saying "I approve of a woman's right to choose, until itbut this choice makes me squeamish." Are there really that many comments in your FB feed from allegedly pro-choice people suggesting this should be illegal?


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:28 AM
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6

There seems to be an implicit belief that once you enter fertility treatments, you're no longer entitled to the same abortion rights as everyone else.

Is selective reduction of twins common among people not in fertility treatment? Or not having read the article is there some medical reason for it peculiar to people in fertility treatments?


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:30 AM
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There seems to be an implicit belief that once you enter fertility treatments, you're no longer entitled to the same abortion rights as everyone else.

I think it's more that ostensibly liberal people still have ideas of Good Abortions and Bad Abortions, and wanting a kid but not that one is a bad abortion.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:33 AM
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I'm pro-choice, but these women are disgustingly selfish, and I could never be friends with anyone who would do that.

If I might venture an analogy, I don't think much of people who are all excited for the chance to vote for Michelle Bachmann. But I'm not in favor of outlawing doing so.

I think for each of us there's plenty of space between what we don't like and what we think should be outlawed, that maybe the belief really shouldn't be implied. Put another way, you have the right to an abortion. You don't have the right to demand that all your friends think you made the right choice in the circumstances.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:33 AM
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I'm pro-choice, but I would never have an abortion, because I'm a guy.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:34 AM
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Pwned. Off to work, and then to Babb.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:35 AM
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I approve of a woman's right to eat, but seeing pictures of Michele Bachmann eating a corndog makes me squeamish, and on facebook I will unfriend anyone who isn't squeamish about that picture. Because once a woman enters a state fairground, she isn't entiteld to the same eating rights as everyone else.

I ban myself.


Posted by: unimaginative | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:36 AM
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I'm pro-choice, but I'm not a racist.

O RLY?


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:39 AM
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Is selective reduction of twins common among people not in fertility treatment? Or not having read the article is there some medical reason for it peculiar to people in fertility treatments?

I suspect it's not common, because the context is so entirely different: you'd find out at an early appointment with your ordinary OB, not a fertility specialist who you've been working with for months. It's not a conversation that would occur to most people to have.

I think the medical difficulties of twin pregnancies are the same whether it's IVF or just happens.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:40 AM
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pictures of Michele Bachmann eating a corndog

Funniest image of the contest so far, though I'll note that Rick Perry is giving her a run for the money.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:48 AM
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Are there really that many comments in your FB feed from allegedly pro-choice people suggesting this should be illegal?

Not explicitly, but I'm pro-choice enough to take issue with the position that certain abortions should be legal but strongly condemned.

There's something about twin reduction that seems to squick people out more than other abortions. A reduction from three to two wouldn't be so appalling. And reducing from one to zero is a fairly familiar concept. It's going from two to one that seems to get people's hackles up.

As to the fertility treatment thing, some of our friends appear to be hung up on "intention." Here's what one friend said:

The key difference with abortion, for me, is the question of intent. Those who go through IVF, or IUI, or gestational surrogacy, hope and intend and want to have a baby. They go into it with their eyes wide open, and are aware of all the potentials. Therefore, though it may seem massively insensitive, a version of what I once heard a day care teacher say to the kids ran through my head when I read the story: You get what you get, and you don't get upset.

At which point I had to stop talking to her.


Posted by: emdash | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:51 AM
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I found the reasoning of the women profiled in that article quite sympathetic. Not that I have to be sympathetic to someone's abortion for it to be okay (i.e., emdash's 17.1).


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:55 AM
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Also, wow, those fake nails on Bachmann in the link from 16 are terrifying. I guess it's sexist to say that no one with fake nails like that should be president, but I pretty much think so.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:56 AM
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I guess it's sexist to say that no one with fake nails like that should be president

I think you'd feel the same way if they were on Rick Santorum though, right?


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:00 AM
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sometimes you need to help out the NYT with a shorter: some women pregnant with twins are aborting just one fetus. is this ok?

yes.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:01 AM
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Right! I guess if Hillary Clinton had them I might temper my pronouncement a bit, but I'd still wonder what the hell kind of a person thinks it's a good idea, and what that said about her.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:01 AM
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It's also interesting that this was emdash's "liberal twin-parent friends." There's a thing that happens with abortion where someone who didn't abort in a certain circumstance can get particularly weird about the possibility that someone else might choose abortion in that same circumstance.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:07 AM
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Okay, that ended up being pretty much a restatement of the original point. But also: anything from Down syndrome to 'I was single and none too wealthy and had the kid anyway.'


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:09 AM
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also, I think the squickiness comes from: a) everyone's having a vague feeling on the part of many that they've always wanted to have twins and b) it would be cool to be a twin. and some sense that "it could have been me, mom! as though you were the remaining fetus.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:10 AM
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I sort of envy the US political system now, because I think it would be funny to have a Ritual Humiliation Stage in British elections too, where all the candidates have to traipse round various bits of the UK pretending to enjoy haggis and Cullen Skink* and tripe and jellied eels and black pudding and colcannon and whatever it is that Welsh people subsist on.

(*no skink were harmed in the making of this dish.)


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:12 AM
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*no actual envy of the actual american electoral system was expressed in this comment.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:14 AM
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27: well, I sort of like its baroque complexity. It's like something out of a High Fantasy novel.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:18 AM
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You've already got a system where the only people who can lead a party are bloodless, out-of-touch elitists. Now you want your leaders to be limited to the terrifying subset who are actually bloodless, out-of-touch elitists but are so dead inside that they can, without hating themselves, submerge themselves in the role of a grotesque caricature of the common man whom they actually despise?


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:23 AM
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but I'm pro-choice enough

Some people have zero moral qualms with abortion. Other people have at least some moral qualms with at least some abortions (and may have significant moral qualms with most or even all abortions), but nevertheless don't think abortions should be illegal, because they understand that reasonable people disagree and don't their moral qualms should be legally imposed on other people. It seems like we need two separate terms for these different groups of people, because it's not some linear scale on which people are "more" or "less" pro-choice. They're separable concepts.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:26 AM
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31

There are also different reasons for being pro-choice. My thinking (for, say, the first two trimesters) is that a fetus isn't yet a person, so no one is being wronged or injured by an abortion -- that the fetus's interests aren't any kind of counterweight to the woman's desires, because it's not yet the kind of thing that has interests or rights. Thinking like I do, twin reduction just isn't wrong. It still seems kind of a strange thing to do, but people do all sorts of strange things, and most of them aren't any of my business.

The 'sick violinist' argument, OTOH, argues that even if a fetus has interests and rights up to those of a person, those aren't sufficient to override the interest of the pregnant woman in bodily autonomy. And this is a solid argument in most circumstances, but it gets kind of shaky and weird-feeling around twin-reduction. If you think that a fetus has a right not to be injured, but you're pro-choice because you think the woman's right to bodily autonomy overrides that, in the case of twin reduction it's murky: she's not asserting a right not to be pregnant, or not to give birth, she's (in a way that looks kind of whimsical) asserting a right to lend bodily support to one fetus but not another. Now, the burdens of twin pregnancy are generally greater than that of singleton pregnancy, the parenting demands are different, there's not nothing there. But if you're balancing the fetus's interests at all, the right the woman's exercising looks significantly less fundamental under these circumstances.

Hard cases make bad law and all that, but I understand why it makes some generally pro-choice people disturbed.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:27 AM
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32

Crossed with Urple, who's on the same wavelength I am here.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:27 AM
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33

I doubt anyone actually ever is driven by arguments like 31.1 and (especially) 31.2 except as post-hoc rationalizations for emotions that are driven by something else, but that's a broader conversation.

Anyhow, here's my lame attempt at post-hoc justifying a pre-rational intuition: Twins are a giant pain in the ass. Once you grant the premise that it's OK for people to have abortions to avoid giant pains in the ass (which is, practically, soeaking, where you need to be to be OK with almost all abortions) there's no reason to be upset about twin abortions. Since saying that it's not OK to abort based on having to deal with a giant pain in the ass would cause problems for abortions in other situations, it's important to slap down this argument when made specifically about twins.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:40 AM
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Now you want your leaders to be limited to the terrifying subset who are actually bloodless, out-of-touch elitists but are so dead inside that they can, without hating themselves, submerge themselves in the role of a grotesque caricature of the common man whom they actually despise?

Yes.

1) Zombies.
2)...
3) Revolution!


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:42 AM
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33.1: Am I misunderstanding you. or are you being really astonishingly unpleasant and dismissive?


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:42 AM
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33: Yeah, my thinking was along these lines. No one (pro-choice) bats an eye at idea of "I just can't have a child right now." I don't see why "I can't have two babies right now" is any different.
Heebie is right, anyway. Most of this is just variations on a theme of "I'm pro-choice, but abortion is icky." Thanks, Mr Saletan!


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:43 AM
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Both could be true! But I wasn't trying to be dismissive or unpleasant, just to register my general skepticism that moral reasoning of the 'sick violinist" hypotnetical type actually has anything whatsoever to do with the real world, even if they're fun to argue about. A variant of the longstanding Unfogged critique of trolley problems.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:45 AM
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I doubt anyone actually ever is driven by arguments like 31.1 and (especially) 31.2 except as post-hoc rationalizations for emotions that are driven by something else, but that's a broader conversation.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:48 AM
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39

31.2: Whimsical? Really?


Posted by: emdash | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:49 AM
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37: And I actually was misreading you -- on a first reading of the post, I thought you were identifying just the bit that I presented as my own thinking as a post-hoc rationalization, rather than the whole thing. That is, I thought you were saying, in effect, "Sure, I'm pro-choice, but everyone knows a fetus has rights, and no one could possibly sincerely disagree with that other than as a rationalization."

Then I reread it and caught the 31.2 reference, which changed the whole thing. I still think you're wrong (that is, I have a whole lot of emotional reactions and desires, but I do figure out which ones I think are okay to follow through a reasoning process, and sometimes I end up thinking that the inconvenient, undesirable option is the one I should be taking. The reasoning has an effect) but I'm not even slightly offended, and I am sorry I misread you. (And glad that I edited my initial version of 35 severely).


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:50 AM
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Whoops, hit post too soon: I think there are plenty of reasons other than whimsy to not want to carry a twin pregnancy to term and then, you know, have twins.

33/36 is where I am, except that I'm discovering how many of my ostensibly pro-choice friends really do have a problem with "I just can't have a child right now."


Posted by: emdash | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:52 AM
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Wasn't there a Times op-ed years ago about someone having a reduction from 3 fetuses to 2? The reasons why women choose to abort are their own and I trust them, but I was impressed by the hide-of-steel one must possess to write in the NYTimes that you don't want triplets because you don't want to be one of those people buying bulk in the Costco. (Was this the same piece that talked about how she chose single male fetus to abort because statistically it was more likely to be autistic?)


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:53 AM
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39: Describing an argument that I don't agree with here, so I'm not attached to any particular word at all. What I was trying to convey is the sense "If you're willing to be pregnant with this fetus, why not with that fetus? What's the difference?"

There's also some real weirdness in the moral reasoning front on the difference between pregnancy and parenthood. It's a lot easier to come up with fundamental rights to be defended when you talk about a right not to have one's bodily autonomy affected by pregnancy. A right not to be a parent, or to control the terms under which one is a parent, isn't something that's nearly as easy and clearcut to defend, but it's where some of the strongest interests of a person considering abortion lie.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:56 AM
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ostensibly pro-choice friends

Again, this is grating. 30 to this. Your friends are probably 100% pro-choice. I doubt they support any laws limiting women's rights to abort their pregnancies. That does not mean they have to approve of all abortions in all circumstances. You are measuring something other than their level of pro-choicity.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:57 AM
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25 gets it exactly right. I am unconditionally pro-choice but had an unbidden moment of "wait, but" when I thought about this, something I'd never given a thought to before. It was easy enough to dismiss, but odd to note this fleeting gut reaction I didn't think I'd have.

Um, ok "fleeting gut reaction" sounds like I drank some overinfused saffron vodka, it occurs to me.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 7:58 AM
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But twins, Basil! Twins!


Posted by: Opinionated Austin D. Powers | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:00 AM
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I doubt anyone actually ever is driven by arguments like 31.1 and (especially) 31.2 except as post-hoc rationalizations for emotions that are driven by something else, but that's a broader conversation.

I am completely in accord with 31.1 -- a first trimester fetus is like a tiny little tadpole or something, I don't regard it as human at all, and therefore there is no moral valence to getting rid of it. I mean, at the end of the third month the fetus is like 2-3 inches long and weighs less than an ounce. I tend to feel it's people who *do* see it as human who are doing the post-hoc rationalization.

On the other hand, 31.2 does strike me as related to the rationalizations people use who both feel really affectionate toward fetuses and want to justify abortion rights. I doubt they do it in terms of violinists though -- just more broadly that there is a tragic choice but the woman's right to bodily autonomy governs. The odd thing is that this justification actually turns out to be more liberal w/r/t abortion than the "it's not human yet" approach. E.g. I agree with Roe that there could be a moral issue with third trimester abortions because the fetus is recognizably an infant, but I have no problem with first trimester.

In other words, 31 is a really good post and Halford should lay off it.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:01 AM
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43: "If you're willing to be pregnant with this fetus, why not with that fetus? What's the difference?"

I think the difference is, roughly, one fetus. But, yes, I think the question about parenthood is really important here.

44: I disagree, but can't figure out why, so I'm just going to leave this annoying comment here until I can figure out a way to say what I mean.


Posted by: emdash | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:03 AM
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44: And I'm still with Urple on this.

Dismiss moral reasoning all you like, but if you're going to think about abortion, you really do kind of have to have an opinion about whether the fetus has rights/interests or something analogous to them.

If you don't (which is where I am) then any specific question is easy, and doesn't have much to do with how feminist you are. If you do think the fetus has something like rights or interests, then even if you're absolutely pro-choice in terms of what you think the law should be, then it almost has to be possible for you to think of a decision to abort that you'd reasonably disapprove of.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:04 AM
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Also, doesn't IVF create lots of embryos that are never used? Which no one has any problem with, implicitly confirming that people don't really have a moral issue with getting rid of microscopic fetuses? So aren't you implictly "aborting" way more than one kid?


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:07 AM
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That's probably what makes it commoner in IVF than in unassisted pregnancies, come to think -- that IVF parents are already in the mindset that 'embryos' are things that are obviously not all going to become babies, so there's no strong additional consideration in removing one at the pregnancy, rather than the pre-pregnancy stage.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:11 AM
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50 is a good point.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:12 AM
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Ok, 49.2 helps. Basically, I'm taking issue with the disapproval on, god help me, feminist grounds. But I'll cede the term "pro-choice."


Posted by: emdash | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:14 AM
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50: Right, which is why I'm put off by the idea of condemning a woman for selectively reducing one of two IVF-implanted embryos.


Posted by: emdash | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:16 AM
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Yeah, I agree that it's at least uncouth and probably unfeminist for a pro-choice person to be publically judgmental about almost any decision to abort. Because whatever the decision is, it's life-changing for the woman involved, and you in your living room don't know the details -- if you think that it's right for it to be her decision at all, then you should really butt out unless you have a thick understanding of all the circumstances, which you almost certainly don't.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:18 AM
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re: 55

How is this different from a blanket statement that no-one has any right to comment on anyone else's behaviour? For more or less any decision at all, made by more or less anyone, there's going to be information you lack.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:22 AM
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even if a fetus has interests and rights up to those of a person, those aren't sufficient to override the interest of the pregnant woman in bodily autonomy

I am one of these people. I don't think abortions should be illegal, but I do think there are moral issues surrounding it.


Posted by: CJB | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:23 AM
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56: Most decisions aren't that personal or lifechanging, and commenting in a hostile way on decisions that are personal and lifechanging, when you don't have much information, is a well-recognized way of being a jerk. That's all I meant.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:25 AM
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I'm with 55 100%.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:25 AM
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I'm with Peter Singer in thinking even newborns aren't persons. What follows from this isn't simple, though.

Is there a bit of class and race in reactions to the twin=>singleton reduction? "I can see how a poor woman of color might not want the hassle of having a kid. But these viable fetuses are expensive, white, and obviously going to be born to parents well-off enough to afford fertility treatments. What a shame!"


Posted by: Bave Dee | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:29 AM
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I used to babysit for a pair of twins, one of whom had had the other's umbilical cord wrapped around his neck for a crucial period, depriving him of oxygen. He was significantly developmentally disabled.

Bearing twins can present real complications.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:29 AM
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I'm pro-choice, but I believe that those who make the decision to murder womb babies should be shunned and pelted with rocks, as they have made an explicit bargain with Satan.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:29 AM
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56: the nature of being OK with abortion seems to me to involve a recognition that it's a uniquely difficult and personal decision, and that it's a space where we want to preserve a particularly large amount of space for women (and men) to make hard choices without harping on them. I don't think it's just equivalent to saying that you can't criticize anyone's behavior ever.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:36 AM
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Is there a bit of class and race in reactions to the twin=>singleton reduction? "I can see how a poor woman of color might not want the hassle of having a kid. But these viable fetuses are expensive, white, and obviously going to be born to parents well-off enough to afford fertility treatments. What a shame!"

Could be without being terribly wrongful. Try thinking of it like this: "I think a fetus is something with moral value/rights/interests, and so that abortion is only acceptable when childbearing/raising would be a significant hardship to the pregnant woman. For pretty much any singleton abortion, I'm going to trust her judgment on the hardship question, obviously unwanted parenthood is a huge hardship. But for rich people who want kids, the difference between one kid and twins? That's not enough hardship to override the fetus's rights."

You need to be thinking in terms of the fetus's rights, and you need to be rating the difference between one kid and twins as insignificant, but that reasoning doesn't seem to me to be wildly morally objectionable (although probably really ignorant about twin-parenting.)


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:38 AM
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I read an adoption blog where the couple adopting made plans with an expectant mother to parent her child but then the baby was born with significant medical conditions and a shortened life expectancy. The bloggers chose not to go ahead with the adoption and as far as I know the baby just went into foster care to die, not with biological family. This gave me that creeped-out gut reaction more than twin reductions do, but I don't mean this to actually be an analogy. It's just something I thought about when I first read the NYT article.

And if I am going to get closer to an illegal analogy, I know we've turned down the placement of kids whose needs we don't think we can meet, most recently just a week or so ago. That's often very hard emotionally, and I wonder if I'd feel the same way about reducing a multiple pregnancy to a single, which will never be anything I'll have to encounter anyway. I think for me both would feel different from rejecting a newborn, though.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:38 AM
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64: Sure, that's not a horrible line of reasoning. But I tend toward a Halford-type position that analytic ethical arguments, especially about emotionally charged issues like abortion, tend to be pretty epiphenomenal on more unconscious or visceral judgments. And while I think it's worth reasoning things out in the light of day, so to speak, it can be at least as productive, if not more so, to try to explore the less rational sources of our judgments. Philosophers and lawyers are pretty good at coming up with plausibly unobjectionable arguments to justify just about anything, but those arguments aren't always where the action is.


Posted by: Bave Dee | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:48 AM
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56: the nature of being OK with abortion seems to me to involve a recognition that it's a uniquely difficult and personal decision

I think it's more subtle than that, because that seems to suggest that there's something off about someone who decides to have an abortion without agonizing over it. If it's not a difficult decision for someone, I don't want to suggest that it should have been.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:48 AM
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pretending to enjoy haggis and Cullen Skink* and tripe and jellied eels and black pudding and colcannon and whatever it is that Welsh people subsist on.

Welsh people eat laverbread and Anglesey eggs.

Out of those 8, I like haggis, Cullen Skink (which I have only ever eaten in Cullen), black pudding, colcannon and laverbread. C made us eat Anglesey eggs twice, I don't really like it. I've never eaten tripe or jellied eels but they look gross.


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:49 AM
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I just read the "sick violinist" thing - the person being a violinist doesn't have any relevance to the hypothetical situation, right? I guess it's a bit of a mnemonic aid.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:49 AM
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67 is also correct.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:51 AM
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What people do with their rights tends inevitably to the unacceptable, or they wouldn't need rights at all.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:52 AM
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I'm with Bave. Humanity starts somewhere around 6 months (plus or minus 3 months). But in the interests of having a bright legal line, birth is the logical choice (especially because it's wise to err on the side of life). But killing someone else's newborn or fetus without their consent is wrong, because it wrongs the mother (or the parents if the mother is in a marriage-like relationship with another person).

Abortions can certainly be morally wrong without my thinking they should be illegal (sex selection is the obvious one here). Twin reduction doesn't seem morally wrong to me. My initial reaction was that it seemed unwise (that is, why are you doing risky surgery when you had such a hard time conceiving in the first place?) but the article suggests that this initial reaction was just wrong about the current state of medicine.

I do think "twin reduction" is the sort of abortion that I find hard to imagine myself having. Partly this is because it'd be hard to forget the road not taken. I'd think that under more typical circumstances (not ready to have a kid yet, not ready to have a kid at all) you'd more easily be able to forget what having that kid would be like. But imagining having a second kid the same age as the one you already have seems to me like it would just happen whether you wanted to or not.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:53 AM
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69: I think it's also supposed to make them sound reputable -- you're not just being asked to support anyone, this is a world-famous violinist! Shorthand for "good, decent, valuable person". But it's mostly a mnemonic.

71: I like that.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:55 AM
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I agree with 67; wasn't trying to imply that there's a requirement of moral agony before having an abortion. I do think this is an area where "get the fuck out of my face, these are my issues, not yours" is basically the right answer.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:56 AM
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OT: I am sort of surprised this hasn't happened before:
School bans 'anti-Mormon' Sherlock Holmes book


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:57 AM
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I'm a bit torn about whether it's morally wrong for doctors to refuse to do two-to-one reductions.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:58 AM
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Humanity starts somewhere around 6 months (plus or minus 3 months).

I'd be interested to read what the Unfoggeparents think, but I am inclined to disagree: I have often been struck by the vividness of the humanity and personality of even very small babies, when I expected them to be sort of unresponsive pooping machines. Of course, I am a sentimental fool.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:58 AM
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66: This is mostly stuff I agree with. But I always want to dig my heels in against attributing underlying unstated motives, particularly discreditable ones, to everyone espousing a certain public position, if there's a plausible way to think the same thing without the discreditable unstated motive. It's one of those things where yes, we should recognize that there's unstated stuff going on, but yes, we should also not attribute discreditable beliefs to broad classes of people without some significant evidence.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 8:59 AM
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Anyway, these aren't the cool kind of twins. They're just fraternal.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:01 AM
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77: My sense is more birth plus or minus 3 months. At birth, there didn't seem to me to be much of anything non-automatic going on. At six months, on the other hand, they were aware, interested people doing research on on how the world worked. I couldn't give you a date on the transition -- I was pretty spaced out and short on sleep at the time.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:02 AM
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77: I'm not trying to say there's no spark of "humanity" there. Just that there's less of it than in many many adult animals (certainly apes, elephants, and whales). I find it very hard to argue that a 3-month old is as conscious and emotional rich as a crow or parrot.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:02 AM
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Anyway, these aren't the cool creepy kind of twins. They're just fraternal.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:05 AM
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I have often been struck by the vividness of the humanity and personality of even very small babies monkeys.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:05 AM
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Racist.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:06 AM
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Also 15 months is a rough best-estimate of what our gestation length would be if we didn't have a weird hip-to-head ratio.

But given how huge our uncertainties are about what level of consciousness different animals have, probably I should have put bigger error bars.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:07 AM
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I swear this is not intentional: I keep reading "twink reduction."

"It just isn't the right time for me to have a twink. I can't afford the flirtinis."


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:07 AM
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There's a pretty striking phase transition from "newborn" to "baby" that's real and noticeable. at around 3 months.

I find argumets like UPETGI's tiresome and stupid, but that's probably just a matter of taste.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:09 AM
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Separated by a common language: In Samoa (and I assume in NZ) 'twink' means "Wite-Out". "Pass me the twink" was one of the many things I heard my students say that confused the hell out of me.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:10 AM
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I suspect it's not common, because the context is so entirely different: you'd find out at an early appointment with your ordinary OB, not a fertility specialist who you've been working with for months. It's not a conversation that would occur to most people to have.

I haven't read the thread past this yet, but: My partner and I raised this question with my OB/GYN at the same time as we were getting referrals for IVF. (Still not pregnant, let alone with multiples.) The doctor said that he personally would have a problem with reduction of twins, because "what you want is more babies". I was fucking irate. No, it isn't what we want, you presumptuous fuck.

I understand squeamishness about choosing which fetus to carry. I have no idea how we would face that choice. But squeamishness about reduction of twins, as some special extra bad sort of abortion? No.


Posted by: Grace Coolidge | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:11 AM
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I understand squeamishness about choosing which fetus to carry. I have no idea how we would face that choice.
Beyond thunderwomb!


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:17 AM
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I'm pro-choice (a strong opinion held weakly), but the first time I heard the "sick violinist" argument, it struck me as quite obviously a case where it is morally problematic to unplug, society might legitimately require you to stay plugged in, and I might well condemn those who choose to unplug. I still think that.

Did anyone else have this reaction?


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:19 AM
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77: I expect most parents would say, "while perhaps humanity starts later than birth for babies in general, my children were perfectly formed human beings with full moral status the moment they were born, the little cuddle-bunnies."


Posted by: emdash | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:22 AM
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44: You are measuring something other than their level of pro-choicity.

Right, you're measuring their commitment to reproductive freedom, the more libeatory goal.

I think I've made myself abundantly and explicitly clear on this subject before, but just to contribute my little all of extremism to the discussion: I think every woman should be free to have or not have any given embryo or fetus in her. The only way I could see an exception to this might be if we were talking about someone who was of diminished capacity and wanted to have, like, 30 goddamn embryos implanted in her uterus, 'cause that would just be really weird.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:28 AM
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you're measuring their commitment to reproductive freedom

No you're not. Unless you're defining "reproductive freedom" differently than I would.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:32 AM
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93 & 94: I promise I'll stop talking about my own life soon, but I've been surprised how many lefty, pro-choice people I've had tell me that people like Mara's mother (who's had several children and is not raising any of them) should be sterilized or forced onto birth control. I expected to get that from more conservative people who aren't anti-birth control activists like my mother, but that hasn't really been my experience.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:36 AM
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Well, perhaps I am. I'm in favor of total, 100% reproductive freedom. Not rights, not privileges, FREEDOM..


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:38 AM
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"A woman has a right to make any reproductive choice she wants to make" does not imply "any reproductive choice she makes is a correct one" any more than "a woman has a right to make any statement she wants to make" does not imply "any statement she makes is a correct one".

You may not think that's a fair comparison because you don't view any reproductive choices a woman could make as morally wrong. (I actually doubt the absolutism of that position, but I'm not interested in pushing it). But equating that view with "really" being pro-choice or really valuing reproductive freedom is just conceptually wrong. As demonstrated by the millions of people who say "I'm personally opposed to abortion, but I support a woman's right to choose." Which part of that sentiment do you view as incorrect?


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:41 AM
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how many lefty, pro-choice people I've had tell me that people like Mara's mother (who's had several children and is not raising any of them)

How many people do you meet that know that fact about Mara's mother?


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:52 AM
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98: People have asked, especially now that she's talking about her siblings all the time. But there are also people who haven't asked and just immediately comment on the assumption that anyone who's had a child go into foster care shouldn't be allowed to have any more children, which trusts the foster care system a hell of a lot more than I would.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:55 AM
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90 to 61.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 10:09 AM
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In the context in which they're hearing the news, don't you think it's largely an unthinking expression of solidarity with neglected kids? Someone who's neglected or abused children shouldn't be allowed to be in a position where they have the opportunity to continue to do it?

Dumb, and wrong, but it seems like a natural outcome of sort of 'picking sides' -- look, there's Mara, being adorable: anyone who's affected her life negatively must be demonized.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 10:09 AM
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101: If neglected, abandoned, or abused children would rather never have been born, they can fix that for themselves. I don't see how preventing them from existing in the first place makes them much better off.


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 10:53 AM
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If neglected, abandoned, or abused children would rather never have been born, they can fix that for themselves.

They can??


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 10:54 AM
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It does, however, help us, who are already privileged with life, avoid thinking about it.


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 10:55 AM
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103: Going forward, I mean.


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 10:55 AM
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Oh. But, that's different.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 10:56 AM
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106: Sorry to disappoint, my solution is less clever than promised.


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 10:58 AM
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LB, I think you're probably right about how it's an emotional response. "Some people just shouldn't be allowed to have kids!" is a pretty common thing to hear and it shouldn't have surprised me that I'd hear it a lot from people I'd expect to have thought through a consistent policy of reproductive rights/freedoms, but it did. That's all.

I mean, I hope for her sake that Mara's mother won't give birth to any more children until she's ready to parent them, though we've also committed to take them into our home if it comes to that. But I don't want to be the boss of who has children when or how.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 11:07 AM
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I've never eaten tripe or jellied eels but they look gross.

Jellied eels are foul, which is a shame because smoked eels are the shit. Tripe in England is traditionally boiled in milk with onions, which is as good as it sounds and represents the one occasion in my childhood where my mother, who thought she'd try some as an experiment, broke the "give it a fair chance before you decide you don't like it" rule and broke out the canned soup without being asked. OTOH Callos a la Madrilena, which basically tastes of garlic and paprika with some unidentifiable bits in the sauce, is pretty good and very filling.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:07 PM
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which is as good as it sounds and represents the one occasion in my childhood where my mother, who thought she'd try some as an experiment, broke the "give it a fair chance before you decide you don't like it" rule and broke out the canned soup without being asked.

But wait, that actually does sound good, or at least, potentially good.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:09 PM
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I mean pork braised in milk is good, and you can add some onions or garlic to that milk if you feel like it and it's still good. Why not tripe boiled in milk with onions?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:10 PM
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Tripe in England is traditionally boiled in milk with onions....

Why? Why on earth?


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:10 PM
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I admit that it looks vile.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:13 PM
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Has anybody tried filling an egg roll with it?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:17 PM
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Andouillette chinoise.

Something amusing: there is as much text in the Larousse gastronomique on random little regions of France as there is on all of China.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:19 PM
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re: 115

It's a great book to have around, just as entertainment, but it isn't (I find) actually very useful. I picked up the first English translation in a second hand shop, and while I've dipped into it to read now and again, other than that it's just a curio.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:22 PM
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Callos a la Madrilena

Is this the same as jellied madrilene? In the States circa 1950s, jellied madrilene was sophisticated continental cuisine, and persisted as WASPy club food through the 1970s.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:23 PM
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Is this the same as jellied madrilene?

Not even close.

116: I've gotten some use out of it on occasion cookingwise, but most of the use has come in the form of reading it for a pleasure not really connected to any actual kitchen ambitions. (I was delighted to discover that there's a kind of cookie called the "conversation".)


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:25 PM
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re: 118.last

Yeah. Elizabeth David, or the Cordon Bleu 'Techniques' book -- which is very handy for basic stuff -- get actual use.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:27 PM
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Jellied Madrilene is great. I wonder where I could get some. Probably non-paleo, I suppose.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:28 PM
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Is this the same as jellied madrilene?

How do you figure?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:31 PM
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I made a mistake with copying and pasting. I meant to ask Rob how he figures madrilene is non-paleo.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:32 PM
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Google tells me that jellied madrilene is consomme a la madrilene, which is great in itself. Callos a la Madrilena are hot, belly filling and full of spicy sausages and chick peas. TBH the tripe is basically optional.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:37 PM
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Probably the gelatin and canned consomme are too processed, plus does it SEEM like something a caveman would have eaten? Better than a loaf of bread, though.

And I just realized where I can undoubtedly get jellied madrilene should I wish it. Here, one of my favorite restaurants.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:38 PM
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120: Bailey's Beach.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:38 PM
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Doesn't "callos" mean tripe?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:38 PM
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Probably the gelatin and canned consomme are too processed

But if you made your own consomme with plenty of feet, you might be able to avoid that!


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:39 PM
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"Safe, legal, and rare" was a pretty decent formulation, but too many people took "rare" as a conversation-starter when it was supposed to be the opposite.


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:50 PM
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Also, doesn't IVF create lots of embryos that are
never used? Which no one has any problem with,

Except for my friend and her husband, who despite life-threatening complications with their first pregnancy, and the sanity-threatening effort of raising twins (particularly since he mostly thinks that's her job) nevertheless defrosted and has implanted the remaining kidcicles in the IVF freezer so as not to burn in hell. Luckily, God apparently agreed with my assessment of the wisdom of all this and the pregnancy did not take.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:52 PM
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Consomme can be cold, but it really can't be rare.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:52 PM
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130 to 128.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:53 PM
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I'm not going to have time to catch up with the thread, but I do want to say that it is perfectly consistent and reasonable to be pro-choice and not only say "I wouldn't have an abortion" but to distinguish between "good" and "bad" abortions. It is reasonable to say "I think it is wrong to have an abortion in circumstances XYZ, but I still don't think there should be a law banning abortions in those circumstances."

Many feminists don't like it when women start distinguishing "good" and "bad" abortions, even if they do not want to put the force of law behind it, because they don't like the idea of ever criticizing another woman's decision. But this is to slip too far into moral relativism--whatever a woman decides to do is right.

Also, many people have the sense that either you give the fetus the moral status of a person, or you give it no status at all. So it seems like you are either opposed to abortion in all but those cases where you will kill an adult human being, or you can have an abortion for any reason at all.

But most people give the fetus as sort of middling level of moral status, and are often confused about what that status is. So they are naturally going to be distinguishing reasons for abortion that seem to outweigh the moral status of the fetus and reasons for abortion that don't, even if they have trouble articulating what those reasons are.

I'm pro-choice, but I think it is unfair to expect a very high level of rationality in discussions about issues as fraught as human reproduction.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:55 PM
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"Safe, legal, and rare" was a pretty decent formulation, but too many people took "rare" as a conversation-starter when it was supposed to be the opposite.

How does "rare" not lead to a conversation about how we could have a somehow-preferable, smaller number of abortions?


Posted by: Mr. Blandings | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:56 PM
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Oh my god. It's a cookbook!


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 12:58 PM
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133: um... if everyone would just shut up and have fewer abortions? Oh fine.

Societies with freely available birth control and intelligent sex education have fewer abortions. My point is that once you establish that, you can achieve "rare" in the aggregate. The number of abortions you prevent in advance far outweighs the number you'll shame people out of with NYT mag articles questioning women's choices.

But you're right. I retract my pith.


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:04 PM
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133: um... if everyone would just shut up and have fewer abortions? Oh fine.

Societies with freely available birth control and intelligent sex education have fewer abortions. My point is that once you establish that, you can achieve "rare" in the aggregate. The number of abortions you prevent in advance far outweighs the number you'll shame people out of with NYT mag articles questioning women's choices.

But you're right. I retract my pith.


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:04 PM
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intelligent sex education

Not something I ever experienced personally.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:07 PM
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I retract my pith.

A little late now.


Posted by: Opinionated Biology Class Frog | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:08 PM
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whatever a woman decides to do is right

In terms of having a completely fucking legal medical procedure, sure, why not?


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:11 PM
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I was more fortunate than LB.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:13 PM
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139 gets it exactly right.


Posted by: Opinionated Jocelyn Wildenstein | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:13 PM
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I agree with you, but aren't you begging the question putting it that way? There are all sorts of completely legal things that are morally wrong -- if every bad thing I'd ever done were illegal, they'd never let me out.

I don't think abortion is wrong, but the fact that it's legal doesn't settle anything.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:15 PM
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139: This is completely offensive, but my thought was to wonder if that means we can't criticize women's plastic surgery either. Because that might shut down a large section of the internet.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:16 PM
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What if she wants to abort a plastic baby doll?


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:18 PM
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I don't think anyone is saying that you can't criticize someone's choice to have an abortion, just that if you do, you're probably an asshole.


Posted by: emdash | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:20 PM
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142: Are there legal medical procedures that one can choose for oneself that you think are morally wrong? I am asking honestly. I can cook up a wacky situation, but nothing straight-forward springs to mind. Jocelyn Wildenstein is a perfect example. She, in my opinion, looks bad. This isn't a moral failing.
In any event, though, sure -- leave legal out of it. I was just pointing out that in nearly all cases it's a safe and legal very minor surgical procedure.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:20 PM
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In terms of having a completely fucking legal medical procedure, sure, why not?

Since no one wants to talk anymore about consomme or the glory that is Musso & Frank, I guess I'll have to return to abortion. I think Oudemia is totally right.

I'm sure the moral philosophers can tell me why this is a crappy way to reason, but one thing I've been thinking about is that I can't imagine anyone justifiably barking at me (or anyone else) for not deciding to abort a kid, so I also can't imagine that it's my place to go around telling other people that they should or shouldn't have an abortion.* Let's just keep this whole sphere judgment-free.

*Yes, I realize that these positions are perfectly reconcilable if your view is hard-line pro-life "abortions are wrong." But if you are of the view "sometimes abortions are right, sometimes they are wrong, and I get to judge based on my own set of prejudices" doesn't that imply that sometimes you think that getting an abortion is affirmatively the right thing to do and you can judge those who choose to carry a kid to term? And that just seems despicable to me. I'm going to call my view the "get the fuck outta my face" position.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:23 PM
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I didn't realize I was pwned by 141 until I googled Jocelyn Wildenstein.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:23 PM
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But if you are of the view "sometimes abortions are right, sometimes they are wrong, and I get to judge based on my own set of prejudices" doesn't that imply that sometimes you think that getting an abortion is affirmatively the right thing to do and you can judge those who choose to carry a kid to term?

No, it doesn't imply that. There are some people who might feel that way (e.g., 95), but it's not at all odd for someone to think that sometimes abortions are morally permissible (and sometimes they're not) without thinking there are any circumstances in which abortions are morally required.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:30 PM
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And again I'm with Urple. Look, if what you believe about abortion is that a fetus is something that it is bad to injure or kill, but that a pregnant woman's right to control her body always or sometimes trumps the badness of killing the fetus, then that really doesn't lead you to "sometimes abortion is morally obligatory".

(Outside of silly ticking-bomb scenarios -- she's the only mining engineer who can plant the charges to destroy the asteroid, but if she's pregnant she won't fit in the spacesuit!)


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:37 PM
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it's not at all odd for someone to think that sometimes abortions are morally permissible (and sometimes they're not) without thinking there are any circumstances in which abortions are morally required

I get that this is true in theory, stated that way and put formally. I am less sure that this is true, broadly speaking, in practice. By which I mean, while you're right that people may not think an abortion is morally required, once you open up this sphere to judgment and stop granting a strong "it is up to the woman's assessment of her personal situation, full stop" people will ascribe to themselves the right to judge that abortion was the better choice in a better situation. I'm generally extremely uncomfortable with people taking that view who aren't the woman or couple involved, which is one of the reasons for the GTFOMF position.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:39 PM
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Also, re: "if you [criticize someone's choice to have an abortion], you're probably an asshole" and "I also can't imagine that it's my place to go around telling other people that they should or shouldn't have an abortion", I don't think anyone is disagreeing with those points. But the same conclusion would hold if we swapped out "have an abortion" for almost any other personal decision that's potentially morally questionable but extenuating circumstances might apply in a way that makes criticizing someone in the face of imperfect information assholish. That's a giant set. "Drive an SUV", "buy a 3,000 square foot home", etc. etc.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:42 PM
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I agree with you about the discomfort, but I think that's confusing not-being-a-jerk-about-very-personal-decisions-without-enough-information with there's-no-coherent-way-for-anyone-to-decide-that-it's-wrong.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:42 PM
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153 to 151.

To 152, I'd make the set of decisions not to be a jerk about much smaller -- I'll judge people for lots of stuff, regardless of possibly extenuating circumstances -- but (for those people who think abortion can be wrong) I think abortion should definitely be in that set if anything should.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:45 PM
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Well, insofar as it's a vastly more personal decision, the potential for assholishness is much greater (it increases exponentially as the personal-ness of the decision rises), but I think the basic analysis is the same.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:47 PM
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that's confusing not-being-a-jerk-about-very-personal-decisions-without-enough-information with there's-no-coherent-way-for-anyone-to-decide-that-it's-wrong

Maybe. As I say, I'm extraordinarily skeptical about the power and force of moral reasoning in general, and in this confusing area in particular, so I want to grant extreme deference to people making choices based on their individual circumstances, whether to have or not have a baby. That comes pretty close to saying that there's no coherent way for anyone to decide that abortion is wrong in a given circumstance, or at least I'm extremely cautious about granting that right to third parties in this sphere.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 1:58 PM
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"Wrongful life" lawsuits are often based on the claim that having an abortion was morally required. The wikipedia article says that these are recognized in four US states, but not England or Germany. I recall a big hoo ha in France where their Supreme Court upheld a wrongful life ruling, which then had to be overturned legislatively.

I think the situation here is actually perfectly symmetrical. I believe there are cases where an abortion is morally required. Tay Sachs comes immediately to mind. However I do not believe the state has the right to demand that people have an abortion in this situation.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 2:04 PM
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I think I'm mostly repeating what CharleyCarp, CJB, urple and peep have already said, but passing a moral or social positive or negative judgement on behavior described in a NYT article--the description of which behavior seems to be an endeavor entirely aimed at provoking the passage of said judgements--is a far cry from taking a legal or political stand for or against the behavior. I think adultery should be legal, would be horrified if we revived legal punishments of it outside of the contract-enforcement element of divorce, and would fight a government that tried to criminalize it. But I'm perfectly willing to a) describe it as morally wrong by my compass b) consider someone's adultery as a possible factor in my degree of respect or regard for them and c) discuss my reasoning and opinions for (a) and (b) in a public forum. Can I ever really understand why someone cheated on their partner. No. Is it really any of my business? No. Am I sort of a jerk for even indirectly letting them know I 'disapprove' of such behavior? Yes. Is it not part of human social interaction and the whole point of having socially provocative books and essays and articles to still go ahead and discuss these sorts of things with gusto and a variety of opinions, regardless of the previous three answers? Certainly. Will I contribute to an ACLU suit against any legislation that threatens to fine or jail adulterers? If I have the money, absolutely.

As I'm sure I've indicated before, I was raised very pro-life and came around to being willing to be politically pro-choice (and convincing my family to come along with me) as a college student, mainly because I decided that all my pro-life reasoning was fundamentally grounded in beliefs that were essentially religious: the existence of the soul, the nature of pain and suffering, the particular significance of human life, etc. etc. I also had my own personal squeamishness based on the fact that I was born at 2 trimesters on the dot, and had no medical problems. Since I more fundamentally believe in the freedom of religion and in the notion that political life should be conducted on a common ground of terms that can be held without religious belief, I decided that being politically pro-choice was the most consistent position. So I am willing to commit that all my abortion-related political actions--my votes, my signatures, my campaign dollars, my interest in how the government conducts itself--will aim to make sure that abortions are legal, safe, accessible and treated by the government and government-regulated insurance and medical professionals like any other safe, medical procedure. As a passive commitment, that was a big shift, and as an active commitment that is a *major* shift that still requires a lot of steeling of will. Slowly, over the years, I have increasingly shifted over to believing that there plenty---many, many--circumstances in which choosing an abortion is not just someone's legal right, not just the best choice for the woman, but in fact the best moral choice overall.

But now I have to give up all squeamishness? All ability to discuss the idea that some choices might be morally better than others? All ability to discuss the idea that sometimes people can be more selfish and careless than others, and if they broadcast their actions and decision-making process I'm going to mentally note that I hold them in lower personal regard than people who make different choices in as similar circumstances as I can measure? What is the meaning of 'judging' someone anyway? Outside of the context of legal action, isn't it really just noting who we respect and like more and who we respect and like less, based on their actions, and explaining why? I certainly don't object to being counterjudged based on my judgements. But I do cringe at the idea that if I want to say I'm pro-choice, and politically act pro-choice, I have to give up all ability to discuss abortion in this way in a non-legal, non-political setting, otherwise I'm not allowed to call myself pro-choice. I cringe on pragmatic grounds--because of course anyone is free to deride my lack of pro-choice fire or firm status as a feminist---because it is exactly this kind of label-inspection that kept me and many of my newly minted pro-choice friends from getting involved in any active form of political, abortion-oriented activism. I can think of at least a dozen times when I was *going* to go to the rally, or join the petition-proffering, or sit at a table, trying to deal with the real, *legal* challenges abortion faces, when I realized I would not honestly pass the interrogations of the evangelists, so I turned around and went home early. The fact is, there are a lot of people in this country who are very squeamish about abortion. The adjective 'squeamish' is used mockingly, but it also has a distinct connotation associated with nausea. It's a viceral, physical feeling that feels very real to someone. So if you want those people to join the proportionately shrinking camp that is willing to vote and act to keep it legal, it seems like it would help to a) not be so dismissive of the squeamishness and b) not discount them as 'counting' as pro-choice just because of it, if they're willing to lend their political weight to the rights aspect of it.


Posted by: Ile | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 2:38 PM
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Well said.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 2:45 PM
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158 -- I don't think anyone is saying that you or anyone else should be thrown off the pro-choice bus. I'm sure not. And I'm glad Urple and you are pointing that out. Better to be morally judgmental while supporting the right legal position, absolutely.

I do think the comparison of adultery to abortion is wrong, and that we'd all be better off butting out and being extraordinarily careful about imposing our moral squickishness on others in this area. GTFOMF! I realize that's being somewhat judgmental towards your position, but there you have it.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 2:53 PM
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I prefer to be judgmental about people's relationships as a whole, rather than focusing on specific features of it like fidelity.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 3:04 PM
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Actually, tbh, I have a pretty non-judgmental view of adultery, as well. That is, I can of course conceive of plenty of instances where it's obviously wrong, but I'm pretty reluctant to judge anyone involved in a specific case, since its so impossible to know what's going on in someone's relationship. That doesn't mean not supporting the victim, though.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 3:08 PM
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Maybe halford and I need to go listen to our Gainsbourg records while reading Baudrillard, because I agree with him about adultery, too.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 3:30 PM
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Fornication is wrong!

Finally after months of silent negotiation our mutual masters decided who cares about the fence between properties, dogs can run and poop where we may. Little female pitbull puppie next door is an annoying pest, but hey.

So late the other night we were let out and ran next door to poop and ask the possum to come out from under the shed and play, and young humans in the hot tub were twoback beasting and bouncing with lascivious intent. Well, we let them know what we thought of that loudly and at great length. They laughed and carried on carrying on, but a lesson was surely imparted.


Posted by: Bob's Judgemental Dogs | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 4:21 PM
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158: But I do cringe at the idea that if I want to say I'm pro-choice, and politically act pro-choice, I have to give up all ability to discuss abortion in this way in a non-legal, non-political setting, otherwise I'm not allowed to call myself pro-choice.

This is one reason many women who have had abortions rarely if ever disclose that fact.

I know quite a few people who are politically pro-choice but personally opposed to abortion (in, say, their own lives), and who have trouble avoiding feeling a sense of disapproval or loss of respect for those who have had them. It happens. It's exactly what privacy is made for.

The analogy ban is stopping me from making analogies to the phenomenon, though.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 5:40 PM
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I get where urple, LB, and Ile are coming from, but I'd like to join the Halford/oudemia fancy French club.

I like 161, too.


Posted by: emdash | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:11 PM
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I'm not sure it needs to be pointed out, but there's a reason the pro-choice movement calls itself pro-choice rather than pro-abortion: it welcomes those who still harbor a squeamishness about abortion, as long as they're on board with the legal right to have one. So I'm a little surprised at what Ile reports in 158 about pro-choice activists being judgmental. Making a move toward eliminating the shaming (voiced or unvoiced) attaching to women who choose abortion is a separate battle.

It mirrors gay rights activism in some ways, though there are distinct differences.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:37 PM
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I am genuinely mind-boggled that anyone here thinks newborns aren't humans. that someone who has been present at childbirth would think that seems impossible. "trailing clouds of glory we come." those little eyes were looking on something, inside, very different from the red darkness of flesh, another place, impossibly far, that they will forget and that they can't tell us anything about. I don't exactly know what to call this this they have except a soul, but at any rate it is self-evidently personhood.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 6:46 PM
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I agree with Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9), though he uses rhetoric that is more moderate than i Iike.

for instance, "77: I'm not trying to say there's no spark of "humanity" there. Just that there's less of it than in many many adult animals (certainly apes, elephants, and whales). I find it very hard to argue that a 3-month old is as conscious and emotional rich as a crow or parrot."

I find it absurd that people are against abortion without being vegans. sentimental aesthetic attachment to human looking things that have some capacity for pain isn't in itself bad, but don't start doing real life things like decide to be a parent because of it.

"I'm pro-choice (a strong opinion held weakly), but the first time I heard the "sick violinist" argument, it struck me as quite obviously a case where it is morally problematic to unplug, society might legitimately require you to stay plugged in, and I might well condemn those who choose to unplug. I still think that.

Did anyone else have this reaction?"

yes. I'm pro-abortion because fetuses aren't people. if fetuses could think and talk or whatever, killing them would be wrong and should be illegal. Since that isn't the case, there is not reason to make it illegal. The personhood of a fetus isn't in any way wrapped up in personal circumstances or contexts that outsiders just can't fully understand. I see little reason to connect it to the mother.

"If neglected, abandoned, or abused children would rather never have been born, they can fix that for themselves."

no, most people have an arational desire to keep on living, and optimism that this will turn out better in the future. Not that i think that 'prevent unhappy lives from happening' is a persuasive reason for abortions. but i don't really believe in 'freedom' to control someone else for 18 years.


Posted by: yoyo | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:12 PM
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I find it very hard to argue that a 3-month old is as conscious and emotional rich as a crow or parrot.

You don't get out much, do you?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:26 PM
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169: I think that's mostly what I think as well, though I am not sure how to deal with potential persons. It seems like they ought to be worth less than actual persons, but how much less?

I don't have a strong opinion about how many people lead lives to which they would prefer eternal oblivion. Mostly it just bugs me when people are so presumptuous that they think they know whether these kids' lives are worth living.


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:37 PM
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168: The only self-evident personhood I care about is my own.

It's much easier for me to believe that babies are intelligent animals on whom we project deep meaning and soulfulness, than it is to believe that there is real meaning to their actions that would be recognizable to us without the cute human face. Heck, I'm not even 100% person yet, I do sphexish things all the time. Let me know when a baby passes the Turing test.

Maybe if I ever have kids of my own I will acquire the ability to look into something's soul and determine whether it is a person.


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 08-16-11 9:48 PM
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166: Bienvenue, mon semblable, mon frère!


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 4:54 AM
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170: If you've ever had an extended interaction with one of the smarter breeds of parrot you might change your mind. The fact that their faces (and eyes in particular) don't convey emotion the way humans do makes it a little tricky to really connect, but their behavior leaves no doubt that they have rich inner lives. They play pranks on you, they get lonely, they take turns when playing games that require it, they sense your pain and respond by offering affection or sympathy. It's pretty intense getting to know one of these birds.

I have about the same amount of experience with three month old humans as with smart adult parrots, and I have to go with the parrot as having a richer inner life. Infants are cute and all, but our wiring for affection makes them seem much more complex than they are if you just go by behavior. Look into the eyes and you feel a connection soul to soul, but watch what they actually do and it's pretty much in the moment responses to immediate stimuli, or at best a window of awareness lasting a few tens of seconds.

None of this is to say the parrot has a higher moral value than the human - when it comes to humans vs anything else I'm pretty much a straightforward nationalist: We're better than them because fuck you that's why. Giving a moral weight to other species that is anywhere near the moral value of any human regardless of age or condition is engaging in profoundly stupid attempts to view one's own existence as if from a satellite in orbit. There's a limit to the degree to which we can abstract ourselves from our own circumstances, and while I don't know where exactly the tipping point lies it is just silly to imagine it is somewhere beyond the division between species.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 5:53 AM
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Giving a moral weight to other species that is anywhere near the moral value of any human regardless of age or condition is engaging in profoundly stupid attempts to view one's own existence as if from a satellite in orbit.

The honest sane answer is that this doesn't and shouldn't be done globally, with a general rule that fits any and all plausible cases. Baby or tree, tree or baby, all trees versus any baby is rarely how it works.

How it works is a 300-yr-old oak tree versus Rick Perry's desire for a dining room table, for instance. I am not required to come up with a overall ranking of species in order to have a preference. Additionally, I don't feel required to justify my preferences globally, as most people don't feel a strong need to justify the preference for their own children over the spawn of strangers.

These things always depend, don't they?


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 6:10 AM
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Giving a moral weight to other species that is anywhere near the moral value of any human regardless of age or condition

This seems to completely sidestep the issue--I thought the argument at hand was only about determining exactly what age or condition a developing humanoid becaomes "human".


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 6:20 AM
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Ok, so next someone will ask:"House burning down, you must choose one my baby or your dog, which which which you fucking sociopath" To which I answer fuck off the hypothetical tests of my social conditioning.

"Why should I care more about your baby? No shortage of babies, I got only two dogs."
"Inhuman monster!"

And as a matter of fact, I do spend $50 a month caring for my dogs that could save the life of a child in Bangladesh or something, so maybe it isn't all that hypothetical.

But we all do like this, don't we?


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 6:20 AM
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Look into the eyes and you feel a connection soul to soul, but watch what they actually do and it's pretty much in the moment responses to immediate stimuli, or at best a window of awareness lasting a few tens of seconds.

They don't do much because they really suck at moving. That time spent not interacting is often dedicated to developing motor skills or processing what was learned earlier.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 6:28 AM
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...determining exactly what age or condition a developing humanoid becomes "human".

I. don't. care.

Humans do not have an absolute or infinite value, and nobody believes they do. Each human has a relative value, to other humans and yes to other species in general and in particular. Exposure (marginal Japanese village) is a terrible and difficult decision, but I don't know if it is my place to choose the adults (plural because not only less food bit also less labor available) that die in the infant's place. And sure, the goal is to make that decision unnecessary, but there will always be decisions to be made. SUV's and McMansions vs polar bears.

Osama bin Laden or all penguins and polar bears is not at all a difficult decision.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 6:30 AM
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Penguins are the only bird that deserves to live outside of serving as food for people and mammals. They earned it the hard way.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 6:36 AM
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Polar bears have been a lot more active in the killing-people area than Osama in recent years.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 6:39 AM
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Polar bears have been a lot more active in the killing-people area than Osama in recent years.

But we've done far more to deserve being killed by polar bears than by Osama.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 6:42 AM
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I mean, if I was a polar bear I'd kill us, too. It would be irresponsible not to.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 6:42 AM
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Mostly it just bugs me when people are so presumptuous that they think they know whether these kids' lives are worth living.

I'm not advocating eugenics or anything but man is it hard to go to certain houses all the time and not start thinking that maybe certain crazies in the world should be offered an extra 100 bucks a month on their welfare to get Norplant.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 6:47 AM
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If I was a polar bear, I'd kill anything that didn't come from the ocean as I bet seal gets really old after a while.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 6:48 AM
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182: the optimum solution would be for polar bears to have killed Osama. Instead of which we have SEALs killing Osama and polar bears killing seals.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 7:04 AM
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180: Pushing someone into the water to see if there are Killer Whales around is kind of a dick move. Not that I'd do any different in the same situation, but I'd feel shitty about it if the other guy got eaten.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 7:36 AM
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187: They have a highly developed criminal justice system and that is their trial by ordeal.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 7:43 AM
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174:

Obligatory SMBC:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2340#comic


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 7:49 AM
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185: ARE YOU KIDDING???!!! SEAL IS ALWAYS AWESOME!!!! ALL BLOODY AND FATTY AND GOOD!!!! BUT THEY SWIM TOO FAST, SO YOU GOTTA EAT OTHER THINGS TOO!!


Posted by: OPIONATED POLAR BEAR | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 8:06 AM
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187: more leopard seals, I think, rather than killer whales.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-17-11 8:12 AM
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