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Democrat Party Rethinking Abortion

  
  

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Ticker
17:27 / 20.12.06
Are people really horrified that someone sees humanity in terms of potentiality and becoming, rather than as a static binary state?

I'm not, but then I also allow for the chosen ending of a human life in a sacred manner.
Is it not possible in your world view that ending a life can be a constructive reaction to the potentiality and becoming?


If pregnancies occured spontaneously I'd be much more sympathetic to the pro-abortion rights position. As best I know, however, most pregnancies result from a conscious choice to engage in behavior in which the risk of pregnancy is known. Forgive me, but just as I have a problem with corporations shifting the costs of their behavior onto innocent third parties, so, too, do I have a problem with someone who has knowingly engaged in a behavior shifting the costs of that behavior onto another innocent third party, irrespective of whether that third party is yet capable of advanced mental states or has a functioning autonomic nervous system.


Again we as a species do not live in a vaccum. Sometimes the decision to abort can be a thoughtful choice about impacting third parties, namely the drain on natural resources, other humans, etc.


As for the more political side of the issue, it strikes me that if Roe were to go the way of the dodo, it would serve as a huge benefit to American politics, as it would -- I hope -- eliminate abortion as anational issue and take some of the knife fight aspects out of presidental campaigns. At present, the U.S.'s entire national political terrain is being distorted in large measure by a Supreme Court decision that tells the American people that they aren't to be trusted with a significant policy-making decision. If people want abortion to be legal, they can effect that result through the political, and not judicial, process: I won't like it, but I would at least acknowledge it as legitimate, and not an exercise at judicial overreach that's hamstrung both parties for over thirty years.



For myself I believe that if abortion is a given right of personal choice those who do not want it will not do it. Leaving only those who wish to have the procedure performed to do so.

I find much of the anti abortion stance based on the value of life overlooks that death can also be valued. Not everyone who terminates a pregnancy views it as disposing of unwanted cellular matter but specificly making a choice regarding the very issues of potentiality and becoming you bring up. It's not a black and white issue of sex resulting in an unwanted pregnancy the variations and complications of being human are far more complex.
 
 
Jack Fear
17:33 / 20.12.06
Haus: If you think your reality tunnels is all a 'splodin', wait til Lyons gets a load of some of the arguments in these Head Shop threads. Which is really where much of the hoo-hah herein should be shunted.

The question germane to this thread: Would selling out its pro-choice constituency be a good move for the Democrats? Well, let me ask you this: Where else are they gonna go?

Listen: there's a big brouhaha in political circles about what to do with the libertarians, now that they've abandoned their traditional allies (the Republicans) in droves, appalled by their fiscal recklessness and moralizing. Some are now hinting that maybe the Democratic party should reshape itself to be more "welcoming" to libertarian views. The obvious and sensible Democratic response, of course, is to tell the libertarians to get bent—and when that happens, the libertarians will take their 2% of the general electorate and crawl back to the GOP.

Now: realistically, what's going to happen to pro-choice Democrats if the party adopts a more restrictive attitude towards abortion? Are they gonna defect to the Republicans? Go third-party?

The Dems, right now, are taking the pro-choice vote for granted—as they have historically done with the black and labor votes; because no matter how bad the Dems are on choice, they're always gonna be better than the GOP. It's depressing as hell—but unless Democratic leadership starts hardlining and makes absolute support of a woman's right to choose a litmus test for who the DNC supports financially, we're likely to see continued erosion of that right.

And that's going to take an end-run around the Clintonista "New Democrat" / center-right / third-way party establishment, an unholy alliance between the remains of the Ted Kennedy-Old Democrat establishment and the Howard Dean/Dennis Kucinich upstart wing of the party, and the undoing of 30 years of damage.

It's a tall fucking order, but for my daughter's sake I hope we can pull it off.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
17:34 / 20.12.06
So, back to the politics. The rise of these anti-choice Democrats is clearly not a new thing - Reid and Pelosi are not exactly spring chickens - but one of the identifiable and easily pundited elements of the Rham revolution was to support conservative elements in states where a conservative candidate was seen as more likely to pull in votes. Harold Ford Jr, for example, was in many ways socially as conservative as his opposite number, although less deeply slimy.

However, Harold Ford Jr. lost. I wouldn't want to say that the only reason, or even the main reason for this was that the people who were attracted to his political conservatism already had the option of voting for a political conservative who was also white. However, I'm not ruling it out. I certainly think that one of the problems with this model is that if, for example, the Democrat candidate in Texas comes out against gay marriage, the Republican opposition can simply point out that although he individually may oppose gay marriage, the party to which he is beholden would make it compulsory for all heterosexual men. This would be a lie, of course, but that really isn't the issue. The point is that on anything more than a state level individual politics can be lined up against national politics. The midterms, after all, saw Republicans in some cases being punished for the stupidity, incompetence and corruption of their peers rather than themselves.

So, can you win over people who are, let's say, socially conservative by making gestures towards listening to their beliefs, repugnant as they may be? Personally, I'd say not, because you will pretty much inevitably never be as convincingly socially conservative as the party that is in the main socially conservative. You're gambling that there are lots of people like Lyons - who are economically aligned with a leftist project and would vote for you if you would just punish sluts a bit more, but will not vote for you until that time - and very few people like me - who would be unable to vote for a party which bargained the life and happiness of women and children for votes, and would thus be unable to vote for a Democratic party appealing to anti-choice sentiment. I don't think that's a good bet. It probably only matters on a few states, where you may be able to appeal by targetting your messages, and even then that targetting would be uncertain in the extreme. You would be better off depressing the turnout by relentlessly negative campaigning, if it came to it, rather than selecting a course that would be likely to keep your vote at home, and mobilise a vote that may or may not, ultimately, choose you at the ballot box.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
17:42 / 20.12.06
Ah, crosspost - good points all, Jack, but I don't know if one has to circumvent the Clintonistas - I think they can be brought on side if a clear case is made for the electorial advantage. As you say, cracking down on abortion won't really win over a significant number of libertarians. The Rovean strategy of mobilising the base has been shown to have holes, but I suspect that a clear position on abortion might help to motivate the well-off, well-educated, liberal-leaning but fiscally conservative post-boomers to get active also.

To put it another way - when LBJ signed the Civil Rights acts, he said that the Democrats had lost the South. That didn't mean that it was the wrong thing to do, though, and it didn't stop Carter, Clinton and Gore getting more votes and more electoral college seats based on those votes. In twenty years time, a majority Latino South might be far more interested in Democratic economics and cultural outreach than Republican economics and cultural outreach, and a mobilised group of middle-class democrats in those areas ready to devote time and resources to communicating with other communities could be vital to communicating the difference.
 
 
Jack Fear
17:55 / 20.12.06
Sorry to be unclear, Haus: I wasn't seriously suggesting that the socially-liberal subset of libertarians could bring the Dems back into line on this one. I was trying (albeit clumsily) to draw a comparison between the relationship between libertarians with the Republican party and that of pro-choicers with the Democratic party. It's a neglectful relationship, sometimes abusive, but in the end the libertarians stick with the GOP and the pro-choicers stick with the Dems.

I think the "socially liberal" aspect of libertarianism gets overplayed, to be honest; most libertarians I know are motivated primarily by a reluctance to let other people spend their money, and that's the beginning and end of it. They may give lip service to the notion of choice, but in practice they're more than happy to cut federal funding for women's health services (because that means lower taxes) and to leave it to the states to decide (which means less bureaucracy at the DOJ, which means lower taxes).

Therefore, I think they're unlikely allies for the Dems on this fight.
 
 
Jack Fear
17:59 / 20.12.06
To address the second part of our post; yeah, shifting demographics is going to play a big part in this. As I understand it, the Latino bloc (inasmuch as such a thing can be said to exist as a single entity) tends to be pretty culturally conservative, and falls overall to the anti-choice side of things.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:08 / 20.12.06
Which poses an interesting question, definitely - because it means you have to start asking along what lines the vote will split. Looking at the socially-conservative, often less well-off Latino vote, for example - is it more important that no women have the right to an abortion, and that other policies harmful to oneself and one's community can be endured if that is the endgame, or is at OK if some people can have abortions, as long as your community doesn't _have_ to have them, and other social policies beneficial to your community are maintained? Again, I think that's an imponderable, and perhaps there is a case for a Southern Democrat - like a Latino LBJ rather than like John Edwards - as a contestant in elections in the South. But as a presidential candidate, or as a decider of broader policy?

Hmmm. I need to think about that one. I'm kind of not _feeling_ it, you know?
 
 
grant
18:32 / 20.12.06
Here's some thinkfood -- it's an article condensing a lot of Latino political statistics, published after the 2004 election.

One of their conclusions: Latinos tended to vote for Bush rather than Kerry because he'd give speeches in Spanish (I don't remember this, but whatever) and would wear a cowboy hat. Oh ho.

This bit was sort of surprising:

Latino Catholics and Protestants both vote overwhelmingly Democratic, but Latino Catholics lean more toward the Democratic party than Latino Protestants. In the 2000 presidential election, Latino voting by religious affiliation and voting broke down this way:

* 76 percent of Latino Catholics voted Democrat, and 24 percent voted Republican.

* 67 percent of Latino Protestants voted Democrat, and 33 percent Republican.

Then in 2004, Latino voting by religious affiliation broke down this way:

* 69 percent of Latino Catholics voted Democrat, and 31 percent voted Republican.

* 63 percent of Latino Protestants voted Democrat and 37 percent voted Republican.

Like other immigrant groups, Latinos rally for the Democratic Party. Issues of economics, race, class, poverty and immigration historically play well with Democrats, and these are all concerns among Latinos.

Although the Catholic Church and the Republican Party share positions on abortion and other issues of morality, the social values of the church often work the opposite way of the Republican Party, Espinosa said. Latino political activism is in many ways influenced by Catholic values.


After mulling on that briefly, I'd be unsurprised if it turned out that Latino Democrats were very involved in moving the Democratic Party away from the pro-choice platform.
 
 
diz
18:40 / 20.12.06
Pretentious bitch:

I'm pro-abortion. Abortion is a method of emergency contraception that's saved a lot of women (and children) from a life in poverty.

I'm pro-abortion as well, for the same reasons. I think that we'd be better off as a society if the general consensus was something along the lines of "When in doubt, abort."

Furthermore, I agree with Fly Joe that couching this debate in terms of shame and regret hands the other side a major victory we don't want to hand them.

Mordant:

Diz: A poster known khorosho was pro forced pregnancy as well.

Isn't he the one who started an inflammatory atheist post in the Temple, as well? Or am I confused?

I guess you missed the Babygate post, where he hotlinked to several images of aborted fetuses.

I guess I did. I can't say that I regret it.

nighthawk:

If the Democrats do start weaseling seriously on abortion, their socially liberal supporters, and the socially liberal and libertarian population of the US unattached to a political party, will give up on them in disgust and simply stop voting.

Exactly. However, in attempting to look at this as an objective observer, I can see the need for them to do this in order to remain viable as a national party. The Dems currently have roughly as many voters as the Republicans do, but they're all concentrated in a few heavily populated states, which, because of the nightmarishly backwards electoral system of my country, makes things very tricky in the Senate and in presidential elections. The socially conservative tack they're taking saves them from extinction as a national party.

However, it also makes it so I no longer want them to win, because they no longer represent anything worth voting for. Further, as nighthawk points out, people like me will be shut out of the process entirely as neither party will represent our interests because the electoral costs are too high, which, of course, reduces our political influence further, despite our numbers.

xk:

In fact as I live in New England most of the Republicans I know are pro-choice/pro-child who are freaked out by the religious right's influence on the party. Many of them just voted Dem in the recent elections because of it. So if the Democrats swing more to the right on these issues they are likely to lose the vote of flexible Republicans more than courting any away.

The New England socially-liberal Republicans are a fluke of history at this point, and everyone on both sides of the aisle already concedes that they're going to switch sides sooner rather than later. No one especially cares about winning them or keeping them.

The big prize is the white working class of the South and especially the Midwest, which has a strong history of support for Democratic economic politics but have been moving to the Republicans because of social issues (the famous What's the Matter with Kansas? argument). They also, as Jack Fear notes, have one eye on the socially conservative Latino voting bloc, which is emerging as a major force.

Lyons:

As for the more political side of the issue, it strikes me that if Roe were to go the way of the dodo, it would serve as a huge benefit to American politics, as it would -- I hope -- eliminate abortion as anational issue and take some of the knife fight aspects out of presidental campaigns.

Well, gee, then it would all be worth it. I hate fighting so much that I'd rather just lose.

Jack Fear

Some are now hinting that maybe the Democratic party should reshape itself to be more "welcoming" to libertarian views. The obvious and sensible Democratic response, of course, is to tell the libertarians to get bent—and when that happens, the libertarians will take their 2% of the general electorate and crawl back to the GOP.

They already tried to be more welcoming to libertarians - it was called the DLC, and it wasn't enough to win elections without Clinton's personal charisma sealing the deal.

However, I think your argument about what the Democrats should do is severely discounting the potential importance of libertarians, because you're defining them too narrowly. There are a great number of people who would describe themselves as socially liberal and economically conservative in this country. DLC Democrats are basically in that boat, as are pro-choice Republicans, as are actual libertarians. That's a sizeable section of the electorate there. Not dominant, by any means, but sizeable, and they're probably starting to realize they have more in common with each other than anyone else. I don't think it's practical to think that they will actually go third-party, but wherever they land, it's going to make an impact.

My prediction, and I'll probably be wrong about this, is that the Democratic party will increasingly start rallying support around a socially conservative, economically protectionist platform, and will rule the Rustbelt for a generation and essentially lock up the emerging demographic powerhouse that is the Latino vote. The South will be a contested battleground. A lot of people in the Bible Belt agree significantly more with the economic politics of the Democratic party, but are turned off by their social politics, and once the Democrats ditch what remains of their lukewarm support for abortion rights and gay rights, the evangelical base of the Republicans will start deserting them in droves. The Republicans will get knocked around badly until they start reorganizing around a Western strategy, which will treat the libertarians as the base and will ditch the Christian right. Many DLC Democrats will defect to the Republican party as it starts becoming, against all odds, the socially liberal party.

That's what I see happening. I think fundamental realignments are beginning to happen.

I think the "socially liberal" aspect of libertarianism gets overplayed, to be honest; most libertarians I know are motivated primarily by a reluctance to let other people spend their money, and that's the beginning and end of it.

I think that's because you live back East. There's a huge and growing libertarian movement out here which is overall very young, very socially liberal, and very concentrated in the tech hubs (Bay Area, San Diego, Seattle, etc). There are a lot of affluent young people who make a lot of money writing code all day, and have kinky sex and do drugs on the weekends, and they very, very much want the government to just go away. It's kind of huge - it's hard to find educated, politically motivated, and financially stable people under 35 who have any regard whatsover for government intervention of any kind, and they're getting more involved in politics as they start to own homes and have kids, and as they start to expect to have their voices heard politically.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
19:05 / 20.12.06
I have a fuck of a lot to say, but it would all be WAY off-topic. I shall try to get my shit together to start a thread on Libertarianism in the next few days. I think we need one.
 
 
Jake, Colossus of Clout
19:11 / 20.12.06
There's a huge and growing libertarian movement out here which is overall very young, very socially liberal, and very concentrated in the tech hubs (Bay Area, San Diego, Seattle, etc). There are a lot of affluent young people who make a lot of money writing code all day, and have kinky sex and do drugs on the weekends, and they very, very much want the government to just go away. It's kind of huge - it's hard to find educated, politically motivated, and financially stable people under 35 who have any regard whatsover for government intervention of any kind, and they're getting more involved in politics as they start to own homes and have kids, and as they start to expect to have their voices heard politically.

And how do they vote, then? From your description, it would seem like the current Republican party would be anathema to that lifestyle. Are they anti-abortion? What's the deal?

At risk of further derailing this thread, I just have to say that I don't "get" people who "very, very much want the government to just go away." It seems like such a childish and poorly-thought-out point of view, especially from a privileged subset of people like the one you're describing. Just assuming that their happy code-writing, drug-taking and kinky-sex-having lifestyle would even exist or be able to perpetuate itself without the framework government allows them to live their lives in.
 
 
Jake, Colossus of Clout
19:12 / 20.12.06
Cross-post, there. Stoatie, that's an excelent idea. I have things to say as well.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
19:38 / 20.12.06
Damnit, some day we'll have a poster who is able to say that they believe abortion is wrong or mothers have an unfair advantage in court and be able to back the position up with reason. But not today.

I'm also confused as to why Lyons thinks that if abortion was banned (and I think to be fairer to hir than ze deserves considering hirs behaviour towards Haus, ze is in the position that I once asked about many year ago: if one is anti the death penalty doesn't that mean that you have to be against abortion to avoid being a hypocrite? I came down one way, Lyons another) that it would never be a political issue again.
 
 
diz
20:07 / 20.12.06
And how do they vote, then? From your description, it would seem like the current Republican party would be anathema to that lifestyle. Are they anti-abortion? What's the deal?

It goes either way. Some have no faith in social conservatives to actually be able to accomplish any of their cultural agenda, so they vote Republican because of the fiscal discipline. However, increasingly, they seem to be inclined to hold their noses and vote Democrat, because the cultural stuff and the violations of civil liberties are so odious, and the promised fiscal discipline never actually seems to materialize anyway.

Back in 2004, friend of mine put it this way "I'm voting for Kerry, because I figure the government's going to waste my money either way, and I'd rather they waste it on universal health care than on another war."

At risk of further derailing this thread, I just have to say that I don't "get" people who "very, very much want the government to just go away." It seems like such a childish and poorly-thought-out point of view, especially from a privileged subset of people like the one you're describing. Just assuming that their happy code-writing, drug-taking and kinky-sex-having lifestyle would even exist or be able to perpetuate itself without the framework government allows them to live their lives in.

I think it's reasonable to argue that such a lifestyle could sustain itself quite happily with a much lower level of everyday government intervention than is presently the norm. If the government existed only to protect its citizens from force and fraud, which is the usual libertarian formula, I think it would be rather easy for gated communities of tech industry folks to live however they pleased.

I don't know that it would be a good idea, and I would question anyone whose politics seem primarily concerned with the fate of affluent white-collar workers inside gated communities to the exclusion of all other concerns, but I don't think it's unworkable from their perspective.

if one is anti the death penalty doesn't that mean that you have to be against abortion to avoid being a hypocrite?

Nope. Criminals are people. Fetuses are not. They may, one day, under the right circumstances, become people, but until they do, they aren't.
 
 
Jake, Colossus of Clout
20:24 / 20.12.06
I think it's reasonable to argue that such a lifestyle could sustain itself quite happily with a much lower level of everyday government intervention than is presently the norm. If the government existed only to protect its citizens from force and fraud, which is the usual libertarian formula, I think it would be rather easy for gated communities of tech industry folks to live however they pleased.

Provided that the software industry will always have a place for well-paid white people from the West coast, yes. Of course, there used to be a lot of well-paid white people working for the auto industry and living happy lifestyles in the Great Lakes region. It's not so nice anymore.
 
 
Jack Fear
21:08 / 20.12.06
How interesting that I should find this quote today:

"Someone described a libertarian as being someone in favour of childless immortals."

It'll be interesting to see what happens to the young libertarians in the western tech hubs now that they're growing up and reproducing. The sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll will inevitably diminish with the responsibilities of parenthood, and they may rediscover the uses of well-funded government once their kids are old enough to start school... or when a few of 'em get laid off and go on unemployment.

Or maybe not. That whole mindset that would choose a gated community in the first place—brrrrrrrrrr. Just gives me the shivers deep in my soul, man.
 
 
Jake, Colossus of Clout
21:36 / 20.12.06
Indeed. It does seem to be a philosophy lacking in many human virtues.
 
 
Jati no Rei
08:52 / 21.12.06
Yeah, this thread is leading to about 6 different threads, but here's my comment on the actual topic:
Diz:
"However, it also makes it so I no longer want them to win, because they no longer represent anything worth voting for. Further, as nighthawk points out, people like me will be shut out of the process entirely as neither party will represent our interests because the electoral costs are too high, which, of course, reduces our political influence further, despite our numbers."

I feel basically the same way, for a variety of reasons. I Support neither party's platform wholeheartedly, and so many things I feel strongly about they are in common agreement against me, so I don't exactly feel "empowered" in our national elections. The electoral college removes my infintesimal voice in a presidential election, because my type of candidate is so far removed from my neighbors'. Basically, because I don't agree with the mainstream on 60%+ of what they take for granted, I'm guaranteed to be unhappy with the result.

That said, I'm lucky enough to live in a fairly small but politically active town (which happened to be one of 2-3 counties in our state to go for Kerry) where I actually get to feel like my vote matters occasionally. Moreso than in state or national elections, at least.

At risk of getting into another thread, I'd like to think a fundamental reworking of our electoral system would be very healthy. What if the two political parties were the Greens and Libertarians?
 
 
Jack Fear
09:50 / 21.12.06
Why stop at two parties?
Why have a winner-take-all system? Why not something that encourages coalition building?

But yeah, you're right; these are questions for about a half-dozen new threads.
 
 
Dead Megatron
16:13 / 21.12.06
How about a no-parties system? I mean, only independent candidates would run. I've been thinking about that possibility for the US' political system, bu I'm not sure how it would work. In small countryside towns - which are, I imagine, the "backbone" of USA - I think it would work fine (democracy was invented by the ancient greek people to work in "small" city-state communities anyway), but in larger cities, as well as in the State and Federal levels it may end up institutionalizing plutocracy for good, since it would take only really rich people to self-fund a campaign* (Ted Turner for prez?). But, hey!, isn't plutocracy the de facto system already in place at the United States?

*oh yeah, there should also be severe limitations to campaign donations for that idea to have any meaning, or else the big corps would simply remain in charge of the whole process

Opinions?
 
 
grant
17:27 / 21.12.06
Moderator hat:

Please put discussion of third parties here or here.

Please put discussion of libertarianism here (supposedly about Ayn Rand, but you know...) or here, or just start a new thread.

Please put discussion of abortion rights (except as a part of the Democratic Party platform) here or here or here.
 
  

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