Re: [Pen-l] McCain's veep candidate has Down Syndrome son

[ravi <ravi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Aug 29, 2008, at 10:11 PM, Doyle Saylor wrote:
> Greetings Economists,
> On Aug 29, 2008, at 6:17 PM, ravi wrote:
>
> > The problem with it, as I see it, is that in order to see it as a  
> > disability rights issue, I have to first see it as a foetus rights  
> > issue,
>
> Then the issue should be seen from a perspective that is divorced  
> from concepts of human being that churches came up with.
>
> First one must admit that abortion rights were a solution to the  
> injustices of women forced to have babies against their will.  The  
> absolutist principle then ignores the underlying eugenics thinking  
> that appears in aborting Downs Syndrome, and the sexist attitudes  
> that abort female fetuses.

I agree that these (selective abortion) remain problematic. As Carrol  
and I pointed out, the argument in favour of abortion rights is not  
based on one particular social injustice (women forced to have babies)  
-- I remember reading that at the turn of the 20th century, access to  
abortion was not troublesome and the procedure was not uncommon. The  
author of that piece suggested that the anti-abortion turn was a  
result of the alarm on the part of medical establishment which feared  
that midwives and others were muscling in on their territory. I am not  
a big subscriber of single bullet theories, but it is possible that  
this (attribution of cause) is somewhat true, if not entirely.  
However, if the data is correct, then this is not merely an issue of  
opposing age old Church edicts and control.

Rather, the argument is a fundamental one: the right of a woman to her  
body.

What then of the problem of selective abortion? We could argue that it  
will cease to be a problem if we achieve the primary goal of women's  
liberation. People might still perform selective abortion on the basis  
of gender, but biases will (I hope) cancel out at the population level.

Selective abortion on the basis of disabilities, on the other hand, I  
suspect, will only increase.


> The foundations of the thinking that the left assumes without debate  
> about abortion are the key issue.  It is possible and in my view as  
> well as necessary to advance a comprehensive view of the species and  
> it's place in the world.  And I turn to your many comments in recent  
> years about the need to re-examine the role of religion and the  
> often human centered thinking of left politics that cannot really  
> resolve the problems of people who cling to old views.  We must in  
> some sense have the ability to not just argue for unions, but the  
> for the deepest concerns all of us face.  We cannot any longer hope  
> by knocking down church towers think this meets what the vast  
> majority wants from the left.
>
> We must as it were recreate a sense of human meaning that is missing  
> from the 'principles' of abortion rights.


I believe you have stated/summarised my position/messages accurately  
(and I am flattered that you took notice!). But I am not sure how you  
see them, or your own argument, as running counter to the principle of  
abortion rights as stated by me and Carrol ... do you sense some sort  
of libertarianism in the argument, perhaps?

	--ravi




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