Matthew Yglesias (October 18, 2007) - Safe, Legal, and More Common Than They Otherwise Would Be

"What I said is that making abortion illegal and dangerous makes it rarer"

All other things being equal ("ceterus parebus" as your econ teacher taught you) that would make logical sense. But all other things aren't equal. Criminalization of abortion goes hand in hand with repressive attitudes toward sex education, restrictions on availability of contraception, and harsh social attitudes toward unwed mothers and their children.

So when a country moves in the direction of making abortion illegal it also moves in the direction of increasing the number of unwanted pregnancies and increasing the stigma attached to unwed motherhood.

Even if the percentage of unwanted pregnancies that are terminated goes down, the absolute number of absolute pregnancies is likely to go up. A smaller percentage of a bigger number is about the same result.

That's what the data appear to show, but Matt, delving deep into the caverns of his own mind, thinks that the data must be wrong because they don't agree with his preconceived ideas.

Posted by Bloix | October 18, 2007 8:52 AM

"What I said is that making abortion illegal and dangerous makes it rarer"

All other things being equal ("ceterus parebus" as your econ teacher taught you) that would make logical sense. But all other things aren't equal. Criminalization of abortion goes hand in hand with repressive attitudes toward sex education, restrictions on availability of contraception, and harsh social attitudes toward unwed mothers and their children.

So when a country moves in the direction of making abortion illegal it also moves in the direction of increasing the number of unwanted pregnancies and increasing the stigma attached to unwed motherhood.

Even if the percentage of unwanted pregnancies that are terminated goes down, the absolute number of unwanted pregnancies is likely to go up. A smaller percentage of a bigger number is about the same result.

That's what the data appear to show, but Matt, delving deep into the caverns of his own mind, thinks that the data must be wrong because they don't agree with his preconceived ideas.

Posted by Bloix | October 18, 2007 8:52 AM

Criminalization of abortion goes hand in hand with repressive attitudes toward sex education, restrictions on availability of contraception, and harsh social attitudes toward unwed mothers and their children.

So you're suggesting that criminalizing abortion in the US will actually cause more repressive attitudes towards sex education, more restrictions on availability of contraception, and harsher social attitudes toward unwed mothers and their children? Because that's what would have to happen for criminalization in the US not to result in a marginal reduction in the number of abortions according to your theory. Whether that marginal reduction is worth the cost is a different question, and I agree with Matt that it isn't. But that study does not come close to showing what you think it shows. To attack Matt for substituting pre-conceived ideas for critical thinking on this particular issue is really rich, especially when he agrees with you on what the policy should be!

Posted by Led | October 18, 2007 9:22 AM

Great post we have some great Legal Resources over at The National Resource Journal you should check them out some time.

Posted by National Resource Journal | October 18, 2007 9:27 AM

Are you sure zuzu's post wasn't supposed to be some kind of feminist parody? Sure read like one.

Posted by Glenn | October 18, 2007 9:40 AM

Not sure why you take sexist caricatures like zuzu seriously. Anyone that disagrees with her is sexist, and any time a man says anything, it has to be disregarded because he comes from a place of privilege or whatever (according to her). Really, the way to combat sexism isn't by making overtly simplitic and blatantly sexist arguments.

Posted by Jay | October 18, 2007 9:50 AM

There are lots of countries that have criminalized and deciminalized abortion. The data is there as to what the effect on the abortion rate is. It doesn't have to be a matter of conjecture. Having said that, I'll conjecture that criminalizing abortion will obviously reduce the number of abortions, probably by a lot.

Posted by Jim W | October 18, 2007 9:54 AM

"making it safe, legal and affordable isn’t going to increase the number of abortions significantly (beyond any temporary increase due to pent-up demand from women who were not quite as sanguine about taking the risk of an illegal and unsafe abortion)."

So some women choose not to have abortions because they're unsafe and illegal, but all of them would have their abortions immediately (the "temporary increase due to pent-up demand"), and the future rate won't be significantly impacted because any future women who choose abortions would have had them whether they were legal/safe or not? It's only today's unwillingly pregnant women for whom safety and legality are factors?

Posted by aleks | October 18, 2007 10:04 AM

"What I said is that making abortion illegal and dangerous makes it rarer because for some women carrying a baby to term is worse than having a safe & legal abortion but better than having a dangerous & illegal abortion"

I thought the very conclusion of the recent cross-national study of abortion by the WHO and the Guttmacher Institute is that making abortions illegal made them dangerous, indeed fatal, but did not make them any rarer. As a theoretical matter, Matt might be right, but I thought the empirical evidence was otherwise. Am I right, or did the NY Times lie to me again: "A comprehensive global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it."
Times, Oct. 11. Or is Matt quibbling in an Econ 101 kind of way about the difference between "similar" and "the same?"

Posted by David in NY | October 18, 2007 10:07 AM

I've always wondered why Dems don't more strenuously dispute the labeling the Right pitches in this area. No one I know is "pro-abortion". Yet that term gets bandied about and scarcely refuted. Who says when confronted with a healthy woman experiencing an unplanned pregnancy they're unprepared and ill-equipped for, "You know, I think having it and putting it up for adoption or coming to terms with raising it are stupid things to do. Have it aborted"? Yes, Dems give speeches or interviews and state they'd like to see fewer abortions needed or performed. Yet I don't see Presidential candidates wade into the fray full throated and firmly declare "Abortion must remain legal. However, we all agree it's an unfortunate procedure to have to choose and all reasonable measures need taken to reduce it's occurrence." Is it really so radioactive, so sacrosanct a Dem/liberal/progressive issue that you can't suggest we'd be better off were none or nearly none performed? Isn't it just plain common sense no one WANTS an abortion performed on them?

Posted by steve duncan | October 18, 2007 10:09 AM

It says something about the heat raised by this issue that people seem to take the measure of the quality of an argument to be whether it supports their side. (Or maybe people just do this with every issue and it is more obvious with abortion.

As aleks notes, the quoted passage from zuzu acknowledges that there are women who are not having abortions because they are illegal. What else is the pent up demand? (unless the idea is just that there will be fewer abortions the month before the law passes and more the month after).

Similarly, Bloix seems to think that he or she is refuting Yglesias point, when in fact the Bloix' argument defends it. If David in New York wants to understand how it could be possible that making abortions legal could increase the number of abortions and yet the cross-national numbers stay the same he could look to Bloix for an explanation. Since legalization does not happen in a vacuum, legalization is likely to occur along with measures which decrease abortions, and so the data is explained.

Or perhaps not. I wouldn't go to far with the a priori account of what happens. But it is interesting that people arguing for different sides seem to miss that they are giving arguments for the other side.

Posted by Lon | October 18, 2007 10:20 AM

David in NY,

I think you need to look at rates within the same country before and after abortion is either criminalized or decriminalized. Otherwise, there are too many confounding variables. This is because we are interested in causation within a country, not correlation between countries.

Posted by Jim W | October 18, 2007 10:21 AM

What I don't get is why you just don't call these people what they are: a bunch of anti-intellectual thought police, hardly reality based, and hardly liberal.

Perhaps Matt, you will begin to question some of the more insane assumptions of us on the left. Progressive liberalism is where it's at, knee jerk liberalism, and politically repressed speech is not.

Posted by feh | October 18, 2007 10:32 AM

The main thing I learned from this exercise is that Ross Douthat is a sophistical asshole. Why does Matt even engage someone operating in such bad faith?

Posted by elle loco | October 18, 2007 10:34 AM

Jim W: That would be nicer, of course, but not necessarily so practicable. I thought that lots of good deterrence studies in the death penalty area had been done between jurisdictions with differing laws, not just in before-after comparisons of which there are few.

Posted by David in NY | October 18, 2007 10:42 AM

Most reality based bloggers will argue on the merits of the argument itself. But the modern feminist bloggers somehow feel that it is correct, laudable even, to make sure the argument against Matt is personal. Matt has his position because he is a privileged white male.

Zuzu says, But again, Matt does not have to think that way, so he does not.

And what sorts of things is Zuzu, because she is a women, incapable of thinking?

Matt, since you are the Big Media Matt, maybe you can begin to understand what us lesser beings face on a daily basis when we come in contact with modern feminists. Maybe you can understand why we try to remain anonymous or pseudonymous.

Maybe you want to reexamine Lawrence Summers and what the man actually said.

But again, Matt does not have to think that way, so he does not.

I am left to wonder, what sorts of things is Zuzu unable to consider on behalf of her being a woman?

Posted by feh | October 18, 2007 10:46 AM

Regardless of who is right, could Zuzu remove the stick lodged in her ass? Ok it's a disagreement made in good faith, but it's hardly like Matt has a reputation as a sexist, a misogynist or an opponent of reproductive rights. Matt's a big boy of course and can take care of himself but I'm at a loss as to why zuzu is arguing as if he's some kind of Reagan administration judge or something.

Posted by DRR | October 18, 2007 11:10 AM

RE:Criminalization of abortion goes hand in hand with repressive attitudes toward sex education, restrictions on availability of contraception, and harsh social attitudes toward unwed mothers and their children.

I posted about this in the other thread, perhaps you should take a look at it? Rates of unwed mothers tend to be very high in the countries where abortion is harshly cracked down on. Particularly in Africa and Latin America. El Salvador, which recently outlawed therapeutic abortion, has one of the highest rates of unwed motherhood in the world, at 73%.

And as far as the Latin American countries go, while the official Church obviously still frowns on contraception, few if any governments have a policy against it, and contraception is very widely used today.

It would be exceedingly hard to argue that, say, Brazil has repressive ideas about contraception, unwed motherhood or sex education, while also having a general prohibition of abortion.

Posted by Hector Dauphin-Gloire | October 18, 2007 11:14 AM

What I said is that making abortion illegal and dangerous makes it rarer because for some women carrying a baby to term is worse than having a safe & legal abortion but better than having a dangerous & illegal abortion.

Matt, you're still arguing from your gut rather than engaging with the study (and you're still not providing any data to refute the study's findings). The study, should you read it, actually deals with all of your questions. It may not seem logical to you, but as Bloix said, all things are not equal here.

So you're suggesting that criminalizing abortion in the US will actually cause more repressive attitudes towards sex education, more restrictions on availability of contraception, and harsher social attitudes toward unwed mothers and their children?

That's exactly what the pro-life movement is after. Not one major pro-life organization promotes better sex education, contraceptive use, or acceptance of unwed mothers. Not one. Instead, they have a radical anti-contraception agenda. All you need to do is look at Susan Orr, who was just appointed to head the office of family planning. She's overseeing funding for family planning, but she's anti-contraception as well as anti-choice.

I think you need to look at rates within the same country before and after abortion is either criminalized or decriminalized. Otherwise, there are too many confounding variables. This is because we are interested in causation within a country, not correlation between countries.

Jim W, the study did exactly that, with South Africa. It also discussed the variables. Did you read it?

Regardless of who is right, could Zuzu remove the stick lodged in her ass?

I'll take that under advisement. Meanwhile, perhaps you could explain what was so sexist about pointing out that Matt's perspective on this matter is a little limited, given that he's never going to face the choice of whether or not to abort.

Posted by zuzu | October 18, 2007 11:36 AM

Tell you what Zuzu, explain to me what thoughts you can't think because like, you are a woman, and I'll tell you what you said that was so sexist about Matt.

If you can't do that, I'll consider you a privileged feminist who doesn't understand, due to your privileges, what constitutes of sexist ad hominem and what consists of an argument based on its merits.

Posted by feh | October 18, 2007 11:42 AM

FYI, Jill responds here and explains why the methodology is sound and the concerns expressed by Matt are addressed within the study. Complete with detail from the study itself.

Posted by zuzu | October 18, 2007 11:53 AM

Re: "Jim W, the study did exactly that, with South Africa. It also discussed the variables. Did you read it?"

Of course not. I don't have the time. Thanks for responding to the points I made, though.

There are two cases I have read about. First, I've read that the abortion rate did go way up in the US after Roe v. Wade. Second, I've read that the abortion rate went way down in Romania after it was criminalized (admittedly, an extreme case given its totalitarianity).

Posted by Jim W | October 18, 2007 11:53 AM

Like Matt, Led looks at the facts and says, "These facts don't agree with what I think and therefore they can't be true."

My theory may be incorrect. But it's an attempt to explain the facts, which is what theories are for. The position you and Matt take is that if there's a contradiction between your theory and the facts, then the facts are wrong.

Led, I note by your use of the word marginal that you've taken Econ 101 - a great place to learn to ignore facts in favor of preconceived ideas.

Posted by Bloix | October 18, 2007 11:55 AM

Zuzu, I take it that since you will never be a father or a man, that we can discount any of your statements about how fathers or men feel, what their motives might be, why they may think as they do, what they are experiencing, why certain laws regarding custody would be good for everyone, because like, you're a woman and all and can never be a father, or a divorced father.

This would in fact explain a lot of the bullying and blatant strawman arguments that goes on at Feministe, Pandagon, Feministing, Shakes, etc.

Posted by feh | October 18, 2007 11:57 AM

What I said is that making abortion illegal and dangerous makes it rarer because for some women carrying a baby to term is worse than having a safe & legal abortion but better than having a dangerous & illegal abortion.

Looking at this again, and in light of your previous post, I think you're not giving due consideration to the safety issue and concentrating too much on the legality issue. If women are deterred from illegal abortion, it's not so much because it's illegal but because it's unsafe.

I can't speak for all countries, but in the US, there have been no criminal penalties for the woman seeking abortion, only for the providers. If you ask an anti-choicer how much time a woman who gets an abortion should serve, the response is usually none -- because they don't see women as moral agents, even as they claim that abortion is murder.

So really, in the US at least, whether or not abortion is legal vs. not legal isn't much of a consideration. Whether it's done under sterile conditions by a competent and licensed professional, or whether it's done on someone's kitchen table with a coathanger is.

Posted by zuzu | October 18, 2007 12:02 PM

First, I've read that the abortion rate did go way up in the US after Roe v. Wade. Second, I've read that the abortion rate went way down in Romania after it was criminalized (admittedly, an extreme case given its totalitarianity).

Well, I keep hearing about that first one here, but nobody's providing any links. However, if that was the case, it probably had to do more with safety than with legality. Women who might not have considered an abortion pre-Roe because it was too medically risky may very well have decided to terminate after because it was safer. So there may have been a spike, at least until contraception became more widely available, accepted, and safe (remember, the Pill was new and still causing a lot of blood clots, IUDs were still a bit scary (Dalkon shield), condoms were still kept behind the counter, and until Eisenstadt v. Baird came along, access was restricted to married couples).

Romania -- well, as you said, that's an extreme case, and the ban on abortion was part of a package of pronatalist policies. In any event, the reduction in abortions did not last long, and by 1985, the Ceaucescu regime was forcing women to undergo monthly gynecological exams to identify pregnancies:

Monthly gynecological examinations for all women of childbearing age were instituted, even for pubescent girls, to identify pregnancies in the earliest stages and to monitor pregnant women to ensure that their pregnancies came to term. Miscarriages were to be investigated and illegal abortions prosecuted, resulting in prison terms of one year for the women concerned and up to five years for doctors and other medical personnel performing the procedure. Doctors and nurses involved in gynecology came under increasing pressure, especially after 1985, when "demographic command units" were set up to ensure that all women were gynecologically examined at their place of work. These units not only monitored pregnancies and ensured deliveries but also investigated childless women and couples, asked detailed questions about their sex lives and the general health of their reproductive systems, and recommended treatment for infertility.

Posted by zuzu | October 18, 2007 12:19 PM

Steve Duncan- Are you actually paying attention on this issue? I'm pretty sure that default position for a pro-choice politician is: "I would never get an abortion, and I think its unfortunate that other people have to get them, but I support a woman's right to choose". Similarly, in private life, I always here, "I would never get an abortion, but I am still pro-choice". This despite the fact that 50% of women between the ages of 18 and 45 have had an abortion. Fact of the matter is, if you believe being able to have sex is worthwhile, people are going to get accidentally pregnant. Not everyone can be on birth control all the time and sometimes birth control doesn't work. Most people are pretty fertile. I think its best if people who were not planning on getting pregnant and don't want to be, just get abortions early in the first trimester. But I don't believe that's a view people are willing to frequently voice.

Posted by mpowell | October 18, 2007 12:27 PM

I'll take that under advisement. Meanwhile, perhaps you could explain what was so sexist about pointing out that Matt's perspective on this matter is a little limited, given that he's never going to face the choice of whether or not to abort.

I wasn't accusing you of sexism. But if your position is that Matt is wrong specically because he isn't a woman and hence, won't face a choice of whether or not to abort, this limited experience thereby compromising his ability to interpret and pass judgement on a study like this, I think you are incredibly mistaken. Not that Matt's not being a woman doesen't limit his ability to fully understand certain issues relating to women's, and women's reproductive issues, I just don't think it applies to this particular situation. At the very least, not enough to play the "It's a person with a uterus thing, you wouldn't understand" card. I've already seen a number of men so far, some with an understanding of the merits of the study and some with just the intuition/gut feeling that criminalization wouldn't slow the demand and hence the provision of abortions and I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to find women of the type who could conceivably "face the choice of whether or not to abort" for whom the prospect that criminalizing abortion, making safe abortion provision rare and something only the elite have access too, thereby reducing the overall abortion rate to be something that intuitively made sense.

And I have no quibble with the findings of the study nor do I have the information to refute it if I wanted to. It goes perfectly along with previous single country studies of the abortion rate in countries for which the procedure is criminalized or heavily resricted. If Mr. Yglesias is wrong, it's not because he lacks a uterus or his lack of experience as a woman prevent him from understanding it.

Posted by DRR | October 18, 2007 12:28 PM

Wow, check out how politically correct we all are. We mustn't step on Zuzu's petals after all.

I wasn't accusing you of sexism. But if your position is that Matt is wrong specically because he isn't a woman and hence, won't face a choice of whether or not to abort, this limited experience thereby compromising his ability to interpret and pass judgement on a study like this, I think you are incredibly mistaken.

Sentence one and sentence two are in complete contradiction with each other.

No, we mustn't say that modern feminists can be sexist because we'd hate for them to write nasty blog posts about us. Oh, and African Americans can't be bigotted, and Christans, Muslims, and Jews cannot harbor ill feelings toward other religions.

Posted by feh | October 18, 2007 12:33 PM

Question: "So you're suggesting that criminalizing abortion in the US will actually cause more repressive attitudes towards sex education, more restrictions on availability of contraception, and harsher social attitudes toward unwed mothers and their children?"

Answer: "That's exactly what the pro-life movement is after."

In what way does your answer go with the question? The question has to do with the effect of a particular change in policy. Your answer doesn't address that. Everyone agrees that the pro-life movement had bad goals, but that doesn't help demonstrate a causal relationship between abortion laws and restrictions on contraception.

Regarding the South Africa study, do you have a link to the particular study your thinking of? The 1998 Guttmacher study cites estimates from the 1975-1996 period that range from 45,000 to 250,000 abortions per year, and states that 30,000 abortions were performed in the year after the 1996 act, but it never asserts that these estimates can be compared on an apples-to-apples basis or draws any conclusions about the effects of the new law on the overall number of abortions. Given the clear disconnect in these numbers, I think its safe to say that one would have to know more about the basis of these numbers before one draws conclusions that the authors do not.

Posted by Leo | October 18, 2007 12:35 PM

I can't speak for all countries, but in the US, there have been no criminal penalties for the woman seeking abortion, only for the providers. If you ask an anti-choicer how much time a woman who gets an abortion should serve, the response is usually none -- because they don't see women as moral agents, even as they claim that abortion is murder.

I'm glad zuzu showed up to put her brilliance on display. There are plenty reasons a pro-lifer would not want the woman punished (desperate circumstances mitigate, or drug user v. dealer policy similarities, recognition that the 'murder' label is obviously in dispute). But no, it must be a denial of a woman's moral agency, because that's the only answer that allows zuzu and friends to dehumanize their opponents into moral monsters. (I think the otherwise very intelligent Scott Lemieux from TAPPED is one the worst offenders).

Political activists often have to oversimplify into us/them categories, but our public discourse doesn't have to be so crude and unenlightening.

Posted by nolaboyd | October 18, 2007 12:51 PM

But if your position is that Matt is wrong specically because he isn't a woman and hence, won't face a choice of whether or not to abort, this limited experience thereby compromising his ability to interpret and pass judgement on a study like this, I think you are incredibly mistaken.

I never said that MY couldn't interpret the study. I just said he missed something that was glaringly obvious to women because it's something that he doesn't have to give any real thought to, namely, that women will seek abortions come hell or high water, even if they're illegal and unsafe.

In any event, he dismissed the study out of hand and without having read it, simply because he felt it didn't make sense that illegality wouldn't be a deterrent.

Leo -- in the comment I left above with a link to Jill's post, there's a link to the study's discussion of South Africa.

Posted by zuzu | October 18, 2007 1:14 PM

I think the otherwise very intelligent Scott Lemieux from TAPPED is one the worst offenders

Absolutely. It makes the rest of his analysis questionable at best.

Posted by feh | October 18, 2007 1:14 PM

zuzu: Here's what the study Jill cites to says about South Africa:

"Legalisation of abortion can have a substantial effect on the safety of the procedure: in South Africa, the incidence of infection from abortion decreased by 52% after a more liberal abortion law went into effect in 1997."

That goes to the point that abortions are more safe when legal, but it doesn't show anything the total number of abortions.

Overall, the study suggests that legality isn't a major factor in the numbers of abortions, but I can't see how it supports the kind of absolutist point you've been making.

Posted by Leo | October 18, 2007 1:39 PM

This is from the link to Feministe that zuzu posted above:

The study says — and we’re saying — that when you look at abortion rates around the world, there is no correlation between illegality and incidents of abortion; there is, however, a strong correlation between safety and legality, and a strong correlation between access to contraception and incidents of abortion. That is not the same as saying that if one country outlaws abortion, there will be absolutely no change in the abortion rate for that country. So Matt & co are arguing against a contention that no one really made in the first place, which I think is important to point out.

This is a very important point and I would have no problem with decribing the results of the study in that way she(?) describes it above. However, people are, in fact, making (or at least strongly implying) the stronger claim that outlawing has zero effect on the abortion rate. That's what Matt and others are reacting to.

Posted by Led | October 18, 2007 1:56 PM

Like Matt, Led looks at the facts and says, "These facts don't agree with what I think and therefore they can't be true."

Bloix, I'm going to do you the favor of assuming you didn't read Matt's original post. If you did, then honestly, take a reading comprehension course or something. Matt never questioned the data, he only questioned the conclusion to be drawn from that data. There's obvious disagreement over whether he's right to do so, but saying Matt refused to believe the "facts" is just ridiculous.

Posted by Glenn | October 18, 2007 2:13 PM

However, people are, in fact, making (or at least strongly implying) the stronger claim that outlawing has zero effect on the abortion rate

No, they aren't. They're saying legality doesn't appear to effect the absolute # of abortions. They are refuting the ("stronger") claim that illegality will necessarily make abortion "rarer," and doing so with the best data at hand.

Posted by rb | October 18, 2007 2:15 PM

That goes to the point that abortions are more safe when legal, but it doesn't show anything the total number of abortions.

You're right. I wasn't able to access the study earlier, and so was working off apparently faulty memory. However, the study itself crunches the numbers:

An estimated 42 million abortions were induced in 2003, compared with 46 million in 1995. The induced abortion rate in 2003 was 29 per 1000 women aged 15–44 years, down from 35 in 1995. Abortion rates were lowest in western Europe (12 per 1000 women). Rates were 17 per 1000 women in northern Europe, 18 per 1000 women in southern Europe, and 21 per 1000 women in northern America (USA and Canada). In 2003, 48% of all abortions worldwide were unsafe, and more than 97% of all unsafe abortions were in developing countries. There were 31 abortions for every 100 livebirths worldwide in 2003, and this ratio was highest in eastern Europe (105 for every 100 livebirths).

Since safety and legality have a high correlation, and vice versa, and just shy of half the abortions in the entire world were unsafe, I think it's more than reasonable to conclude that criminalization of abortion is really pretty much a wash in terms of preventing abortion.

I recommend reading this description of abortion under Ceaucescu. It was criminal to obtain an abortion, and women were examined monthly for signs of pregnancy; miscarriages were investigated and childless people were fined. Women still obtained abortions, and a lot of them, after an initial drop-off right after criminalization.

Overall, the study suggests that legality isn't a major factor in the numbers of abortions, but I can't see how it supports the kind of absolutist point you've been making.

What absolutist point have I been making?

This is a very important point and I would have no problem with decribing the results of the study in that way she(?) describes it above. However, people are, in fact, making (or at least strongly implying) the stronger claim that outlawing has zero effect on the abortion rate. That's what Matt and others are reacting to.

I don't recall anyone saying that the effect was zero; I do recall saying that the effect of criminalization is pretty negligible, and that safety rather than legality is more of a deterrent.

Posted by zuzu | October 18, 2007 2:20 PM

I don't recall anyone saying that the effect was zero; I do recall saying that the effect of criminalization is pretty negligible, and that safety rather than legality is more of a deterrent.

Matt agreed with you. But you misread him, which is what started this pointless argument.

Posted by David Penner | October 18, 2007 2:36 PM

Actually, David, I was responding to Matt's out-of-hand dismissal of the Guttmacher study as "questionable" because it didn't fit with his preconceived ideas about how much weight someone would give illegality in the CBA.

Posted by zuzu | October 18, 2007 2:54 PM

I think it's more than reasonable to conclude that criminalization of abortion is really pretty much a wash in terms of preventing abortion.

Zuzu, I am sure that if a government wanted to be oppressive enough about it, a criminalization regime could substantially reduce the abortion rate. Indeed, my understanding is that is what is happening in El Salvador, and the results are quite tragic. Women are committing suicide because they can't get abortions (and unlike what pro-lifers advocate here, they throw women in jail down there for procuring abortions!).

What the study really shows is that reduction of abortions is only a secondary goal of the pro-life movement-- and that's the point we should be making, not the questionable emperical claim that prohibition can't deter abortion.

Posted by Dilan Esper | October 18, 2007 3:02 PM

nolaboyd,

I'm glad zuzu showed up to put her brilliance on display. There are plenty reasons a pro-lifer would not want the woman punished (desperate circumstances mitigate, or drug user v. dealer policy similarities, recognition that the 'murder' label is obviously in dispute).

You seem to be confusing the question of whether a particular woman should be punished in a particular case with punishment of women in general. It makes no sense to claim that abortion is a very serious form of wrongdoing, akin to murder or manslaughter or some other form of criminal homicide, and also to claim that women who have abortions should in general suffer no legal penalty for their action.

Posted by Mixner | October 18, 2007 3:13 PM

Why not make both points, Dilan?

I really don't understand why it's so hard to accept that prohibitions on abortion are worthless at doing what they're designed to do, which is prohibit abortion. Women are willing to risk injury, death and imprisonment to prevent giving birth.

Romania succeeded in reducing the abortion rate, but only for a short time, and only with utterly draconian methods.

Posted by zuzu | October 18, 2007 3:16 PM

Regardless of whether your position was absolutist, here's what you said:

"I think you need to look at rates within the same country before and after abortion is either criminalized or decriminalized. Otherwise, there are too many confounding variables. This is because we are interested in causation within a country, not correlation between countries.

Jim W, the study did exactly that, with South Africa. It also discussed the variables. Did you read it?

That simply isn't true.

Posted by Leo | October 18, 2007 3:26 PM

It makes no sense to claim that abortion is a very serious form of wrongdoing, akin to murder or manslaughter or some other form of criminal homicide, and also to claim that women who have abortions should in general suffer no legal penalty for their action.

I am not sure why, that historically in the US at least has been the exact history (at least since Roe V. Wade.) Pro-lifers believe abortion is murder and none of them demand women be jailed for that.

(Suicide is against the law too, and we rarely jail those that fail at it.)

I really don't understand why it's so hard to accept that prohibitions on abortion are worthless at doing what they're designed to do, which is prohibit abortion.

Because it is contrary to all other experiences. Pardon the Econ 101 speak which I know is just a tool of the Patriarchy to suppress us, but legalizing something and making something more available, and the whole supply and demand thing, and the whole experience with making activities illegal, all seem to suggest that availability, legality, safety are all directly related to consumption.

And the argument that making it illegal makes it dangerous and so acts to reduce it should not be some sort of heresy. Everyone agrees that illegal abortions are much much more dangerous. Why wouldn't a rational woman change her behavior understanding that the only abortions she can get are illegal and dangerous?

So where's the proof?

Outrageous claims require outrageous evidence. Mundane claims require only mundane evidence. If someone tells me that the Sun will appear to rise from the East in the morning, I am inclined to accept that possibility as all of recorded history provides evidence that it does in fact appear to rise from the East.

If someone tells me that a dead person ever got up and walked away, however, I would expect a great deal of evidence to support that position since all of recorded history shows that dead people are incapable of getting up and walking away. History does provide many examples of people thought to be dead becoming well enough to get up or fully recover. There was, in fact, a society some two hundred years ago which was specifically created to perpetuate information on how to bring people apparently dead "back to life." It's done on a daily basis in ambulances around the world today, in fact.

The differences between outrageous claims and mundane claims is clear: if a claim goes against the laws of nature, observed history, or is simply contradictory and unevidenced, outrageous evidence is required before I'll accept it. If someone tells me they ran over my cat with their minivan, I'll accept that mundane claim, probably with no evidence since if the cat fails to come home for dinner, I'll know that something happened to the damned thing.

You are making an outrageous claim. Matt's saying the study is questionable is not grounds for you to get into your own psychological analysis of Matt or other men.

And it's illogical. As a woman, you cannot state that Matt, as a man, cannot understand the issue, and then turn around and tell us that Matt thinks this way because he is a man.

Stay out of Matt's head. You have no business there.

The real question is not what Matt said, but whether you were way out of bounds in stating he must think this because of some sort of privilege. That you could even state this aloud and not be chewed out by all reality based individuals demonstrates the state of privilege and the bullying that have warped what Modern Mainstream Feminists consider a logical argument.

Posted by feh | October 18, 2007 3:36 PM

Zuzu, that Romanian study doesn't show what you say it shows.

It says that the birth rate increased (and abortions decreased) while they were enforcing the ban, but then they relaxed enforcement of the ban and abortions went back up. In other words, a ban that is enforced certainly can reduce the abortion rate.

The reason this is all such an ill-advised argumental path is because it substitues a contestable emperical claim that pro-lifers may well be able to refute for the strong principles that underly the pro-choice position.

Posted by Dilan Esper | October 18, 2007 3:47 PM

feh,

I am not sure why,

Because we believe that murder should be punished severely, that's why. If abortion is murder, or something close to murder, then abortion should be severely punished.

... that historically in the US at least has been the exact history (at least since Roe V. Wade.) Pro-lifers believe abortion is murder and none of them demand women be jailed for that.

I very strongly doubt it's true that "none of them" seek to punish abortion as murder. But the fact that so few of them seek to treat abortion as murder legally or socially obviously suggests that they don't really believe abortion is murder, regardless of what they say. Rhetoric is cheap.

(Suicide is against the law too, and we rarely jail those that fail at it.)

So what?

Posted by Mixner | October 18, 2007 3:57 PM

Free Speech Feminist Wendy Kaminer's blog post today is far more interesting, insightful, and useful than Zuzu's bullying.

But putting aside the differing outcomes in these cases, they each exemplify the same dangerous trend: The popular notion of hate speech is no longer generally limited to epithets, slurs, and schoolyard taunts; it is now broad enough to encompass substantive and unquestionably civil discourse on controversial policy issues. Desmond Tutu criticizes Israel, and the administration at St. Thomas College instinctively vetoes a proposal to invite him to speak, as they might veto a speaking invitation to David Duke. Larry Summers raises a question about natural cognitive differences between the sexes, (at a private, academic conference, no less) and feminist anti-libertarians put him on a blacklist with Larry Flynt.

It’s depressingly easy to imagine the degradation of inquiry and debate at a university that values inoffensiveness over intellectual provocation. Since it isn’t possible to engage in a spirited or thoughtful discussion of a heated controversy without offending some community or other, colleges and universities that do not vigorously defend the right to give offense, and the value of being willing to offend, risk transforming themselves into the sort of partisan echo chambers that dominate talk radio and cable tv, where hate speech is whatever speech the target audience hates to hear.

Congratulations Zuzu, you're officially part of the problem.

Posted by jerry | October 18, 2007 3:58 PM

The reason this is all such an ill-advised argumental path is because it substitues a contestable emperical claim that pro-lifers may well be able to refute for the strong principles that underly the pro-choice position.

It's especially ill-advised because there are some pretty much uncontestable empiracal claims that could be advanced in favor of choice, like the fact that way less women die from backalley abortions when they are legal.

Posted by Leo | October 18, 2007 3:59 PM

Because we believe that murder should be punished severely, that's why.

Is that true? I always thought that we had different degrees of murder, and allowed various extenuating circumstances to justify many departures from punishing murder severely.

Posted by feh | October 18, 2007 4:04 PM

I really don't understand why it's so hard to accept that prohibitions on abortion are worthless at doing what they're designed to do, which is prohibit abortion.

Because it is contrary to all other experiences. Pardon the Econ 101 speak which I know is just a tool of the Patriarchy to suppress us, but legalizing something and making something more available, and the whole supply and demand thing, and the whole experience with making activities illegal, all seem to suggest that availability, legality, safety are all directly related to consumption.
And the argument that making it illegal makes it dangerous and so acts to reduce it should not be some sort of heresy. Everyone agrees that illegal abortions are much much more dangerous. Why wouldn't a rational woman change her behavior understanding that the only abortions she can get are illegal and dangerous?

The argument isn't heresy, it's just not borne out by the evidence. And a rational woman wouldn't change her behavior if she perceives the result of not having the abortion as worse than the risk of injury or death. Also econ 101: if perceived benefit of abortion > (chance of bad result)*(cost of bad result), a woman will chose the abortion.

Posted by FashionablyEvil | October 18, 2007 4:06 PM

There are plenty reasons a pro-lifer would not want the woman punished (desperate circumstances mitigate, or drug user v. dealer policy similarities, recognition that the 'murder' label is obviously in dispute

These "reasons" work quite well to explain why pro-lifers don't think abortion should be illegal. Except for the drug user one. That's just retarded.

Posted by Barbar | October 18, 2007 4:11 PM

I always thought that we had different degrees of murder, and allowed various extenuating circumstances to justify many departures from punishing murder severely.

Right. Like if you're 16 years old and want to commit murder, it's not OK unless you get permission from your parents.

Posted by Barbar | October 18, 2007 4:16 PM

Is that true? I always thought that we had different degrees of murder, and allowed various extenuating circumstances to justify many departures from punishing murder severely.

We do have different degrees of murder, and we do recognize mitigating circumstances in some cases of murder. But murder is classified as a very serious crime and the penalties for murder are harsh--typically many years in prison, and in some cases life imprisonment or even execution.

I don't understand why you can't see the contradiction between the claim that abortion is more-or-less the same thing as murder or manslaughter and the claim that those who commit abortion should generally be treated as if they had done nothing particularly wrong, and be let off with a slap on the wrist, or no penalty whatsoever.

Posted by Mixner | October 18, 2007 4:16 PM

I'm not trying to defend the pro-life side, but obviously they first need to convince people that abortion is wrong and that it should be illegal, before they move on to thinking up what sort of devilish punishments those bad women deserve.

On the pro-choice side, there is one appeal I'm surprised they don't make: if you find out the child is going to be seriously deformed after an amnio, would you want the abortion option taken away? Given how many women have amnio's, there has got to be a large constituency for this option.

Posted by Jim W | October 18, 2007 4:25 PM

but obviously they first need to convince people that abortion is wrong and that it should be illegal, before they move on to thinking up what sort of devilish punishments those bad women deserve.

Really? I think if you ask people what the punishment should be if you commit a crime, they'll say, "You should go to jail, or maybe pay a fine (depending on the seriousness of the crime)." (How devilish!) Abortion opponents unequivocally declare that abortion is murder but you think going on to say that women who get abortions should be put in jail is a radical step that they may need a few more decades to take?

Posted by Barbar | October 18, 2007 4:38 PM

BTW, that whole "abortion skyrocketed after Roe" statement that keeps coming up bothered me, so I took a look at the actual data:

http://www.guttmacher.org/presentations/trends.pdf

The rate of LEGAL abortion skyrocketed, for what I hope are obvious reasons. Since there was no reliable data for illegal or self-induced abortion prior to Roe, you really can't argue with any certainty that legalization caused the overall abortion rate to rise dramatically.

Posted by zuzu | October 18, 2007 4:45 PM

I'm not trying to defend the pro-life side, but obviously they first need to convince people that abortion is wrong and that it should be illegal, before they move on to thinking up what sort of devilish punishments those bad women deserve.

It's not a matter of thinking up devilish punishments, it's a matter of formulating a position on abortion that is at least minimally coherent and consistent. If your position is "I think abortion is a terrible wrongdoing, more-or-less like murdering a baby, but if you have an abortion I'm going to let you off without any serious legal consequences" then people will probably be inclined to doubt you're being honest or that you've really thought your position through.

Posted by Mixner | October 18, 2007 5:04 PM

Since there was no reliable data for illegal or self-induced abortion prior to Roe, you really can't argue with any certainty that legalization caused the overall abortion rate to rise dramatically.

This is probably right, but then why imagine that the methodology of the latest Guttmacher/WHO report under discussion somehow can get around the inherent problems in measuring illegal activities?

Posted by frankly0 | October 18, 2007 5:15 PM

zuzu: Your last post, to me, hits the nail on the head. It may well never be possible to know the precise relationship between abortion laws and abortion rates because illegal abortions, inevitably, are hard to count.

Posted by Leo | October 18, 2007 5:15 PM

This is probably right, but then why imagine that the methodology of the latest Guttmacher/WHO report under discussion somehow can get around the inherent problems in measuring illegal activities?

Yes, zuzu now appears to be arguing against herself. If we can't really say what effect Roe had on the abortion rate in the U.S., because estimates of the number of illegal abortions are not reliable, then we can't really say that the conclusions of the Guttmacher study are reliable, either.

Posted by Mixner | October 18, 2007 5:24 PM

This is probably right, but then why imagine that the methodology of the latest Guttmacher/WHO report under discussion somehow can get around the inherent problems in measuring illegal activities?

The Guttmacher/WHO report stated its methodology for collecting data on unsafe abortions, and the adjustments they made for the unreliability of self-reported data. By contrast, pre-Roe data just wasn't kept in any consistent form.

I'd think that the inherent problems with self-reporting of illegal activities argue in favor of the rates being even higher than reported. In any event, I think the fact that Matt's relying on an incorrect interpretation of the post-Roe abortion data undermines his conclusion that criminalizing abortion would necessarily cause a drop in the abortion rate.

Posted by zuzu | October 18, 2007 5:24 PM

The rate of LEGAL abortion skyrocketed, for what I hope are obvious reasons. Since there was no reliable data for illegal or self-induced abortion prior to Roe, you really can't argue with any certainty that legalization caused the overall abortion rate to rise dramatically.

Well the range seems to be between 100,000 (which is what pro-lifers claim) to 1 million (which is what pro-choicers claim). The abortion rate rose to 1.6 million a year under Roe, and has since declined.

Posted by Dilan Esper | October 18, 2007 5:28 PM

zuzu,

The Guttmacher/WHO report stated its methodology for collecting data on unsafe abortions, and the adjustments they made for the unreliability of self-reported data. By contrast, pre-Roe data just wasn't kept in any consistent form.

Data on illegal abortions in other countries isn't kept in any consistent form, either. The fact that Guttmacher "stated its methodology" for guesstimating illegal abortion rates in other countries doesn't mean its conclusions are any more reliable than conclusions about the rate of illegal abortion in America prior to Roe.

In fact, I would say that the raw data from which an estimate of the illegal abortion rate may be made is likely to be of much higher quality in a wealthy advanced democracy like America than in a poor developing country in Africa or Asia.

Posted by Mixner | October 18, 2007 5:32 PM

In fact, I would say that the raw data from which an estimate of the illegal abortion rate may be made is likely to be of much higher quality in a wealthy advanced democracy like America than in a poor developing country in Africa or Asia.

Not if nobody even thought to gather statistics.

Anyhow, the reason I bring this up is that Matt has used this "skyrocketing abortions" bit of information to support his conclusion that when abortion is legalized, the abortion rate goes up, as in "Safe, Legal and More Common Than They Otherwise Would Be." But the bit of information he rests this conclusion on doesn't support it because it doesn't purport to measure the overall abortion rate.

The reliability of the Guttmacher/WHO data is an entirely separate point which affects this not at all.

Posted by zuzu | October 18, 2007 5:41 PM

Whether or not the abortion rate goes up is an empirical question. Simple logic dictates that it would go down, but sometimes simple logic does not accurately describe reality.

I think the title for Matt's post is a comment on the political-posturing component of the word "rare" in "safe, legal, and rare."

Is this really so complicated?

Posted by Barbar | October 18, 2007 5:49 PM

The Guttmacher/WHO report stated its methodology for collecting data on unsafe abortions, and the adjustments they made for the unreliability of self-reported data.

Does the study make any effort to isolate the effect of legal change on abortion rates? I don't think it does. I think that study shows pretty clearly that the effects of legal change are small compared to the effects of available contraception, cultural factors, economic factors, or any other thing you can think of, but the study doesn't seem to make any clear findings with regard to the effects of legal change in isolation.

To me, there's nothing counterintuitive about the study, which conforms to my expectation that abortion rates are not high in wealthy, contraception-freindly societies compared to poor, anti-contraception societies.

Am I missing some key point in the article where they make an effort to account for all the socio-economic variables that differ from South American to Europe?

Posted by Leo | October 18, 2007 5:57 PM

zuzu,

Not if nobody even thought to gather statistics.

Gather what statistics? No one is literally counting the number of illegal abortions. I assume that the illegal abortion rates in both pre-Roe America and in contemporary developing nations were estimated from polling data, hospitalization data, medical records, and so on. And this raw data is likely to be of much higher quality in America (even 40 years ago) than in poor developing nations that barely have the resources needed to keep any kind of medical records at all, let alone records as reliable and comprehensive as the ones we have in the U.S.

Anyhow, the reason I bring this up is that Matt has used this "skyrocketing abortions" bit of information to support his conclusion that when abortion is legalized, the abortion rate goes up, as in "Safe, Legal and More Common Than They Otherwise Would Be."

You specifically criticized him for questioning the reliability of the Guttmacher study.

Posted by Mixner | October 18, 2007 6:04 PM

Ugh, I just read zuzu's post. *This* is why diversity is important? If Matt could get pregnant then he wouldn't be able to think that the costs of abortion are related to its frequency? He explicitly says the case for reproductive freedom doesn't hinge on making abortions as infrequent as possible; what exactly does this have to do with male privilege?

Now I think Matt was being unfair to both Valenti and Lemieux in using them as foils to push his point (there's nothing wrong with their quotes in his original post, but he talks about "touting questionable statistics" and "going even stronger") but if you think this makes the case for diversity then you're telling me that you think diversity really doesn't matter at all.

Posted by Barbar | October 18, 2007 6:16 PM

The rate of LEGAL abortion skyrocketed, for what I hope are obvious reasons. Since there was no reliable data for illegal or self-induced abortion prior to Roe, you really can't argue with any certainty that legalization caused the overall abortion rate to rise dramatically.

There was bad record keeping thousands of years ago, but I believe it when people tell me the earth rotating on its access once every 24 hours.

When people ask me to believe there were times when the heavens stood still and the moon stopped as in Joshua, I ask for outrageous evidence to support their outrageous claim.

If the record keeping was so bad, why would you ask us to believe a behavior inconsistent with all other experiences?

Occam's Razor says that the simplest explanation is that the behavior fitted into the same pattern as all other examples, namely, making something illegal reduced its frequency.

Posted by feh | October 18, 2007 6:25 PM

Occam's Razor says that the simplest explanation is that the behavior fitted into the same pattern as all other examples, namely, making something illegal reduced its frequency.

Just like drug use! Fewer users every year!

Posted by rb | October 18, 2007 6:33 PM

ust like drug use! Fewer users every year!

yeah, and you know where your logic is faulty, and your comparison is wrong, right?

Posted by feh | October 18, 2007 6:58 PM

Yglesias wins. He isn't incorrect in a single of his statements in this post.

Here is the link that zuzu kindly provides:
http://www.guttmacher.org/presentations/trends.pdf

Here is the link of the same organization's estimate of illegal abortions prior to legalization:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/06/1/gr060108.html

Add to that the point that illegal abortions didn't end when abortion was legalized (referenced in the above publication) and the point is strengthened.

zuzu and her allies would have been better off to not have picked any bone with our host at all, but if she couldn't resist then a comment along the lines of, "It ought to be sobering to any pro-lifer that legalization increased abortion by as little as it did." Although "little" in this case is still well over 500 thousand.

Bloix neglects to mention that with illegality comes stigmatization, which works towards Yglesias' point and not zuzu's.

Posted by Matt | October 18, 2007 8:11 PM

Ugh, I just read zuzu's post. *This* is why diversity is important? If Matt could get pregnant then he wouldn't be able to think that the costs of abortion are related to its frequency?

No, you misread her post. She was using Matt as an example of how a largely homogeneous blogger/journalist/pundit community does us all a disservice because it has a tendency to drown out viewpoints that don't mesh with upper/upper middle class white men's view.

Posted by FashionablyEvil | October 18, 2007 8:55 PM

The argument isn't heresy, it's just not borne out by the evidence. And a rational woman wouldn't change her behavior if she perceives the result of not having the abortion as worse than the risk of injury or death. Also econ 101: if perceived benefit of abortion > (chance of bad result)*(cost of bad result), a woman will chose the abortion.

So illegal abortions result in like, death, and extreme harm to the reproductive system.

You're telling me that rational actors, when faced with an intimate evening with a partner won't consider the harm of an abortion and say, "let's just have oral sex instead?" or say "wrap it mister" or say "I know where I can get BC pills smuggled to me".

And you're telling me there are no women that once pregnant won't think to themselves, I really and truly don't want this baby, but I am awfully afraid of dying, so I won't have this abortion?

I am not saying any of this is either good or what anyone wants. I am merely saying that your argument that women won't change their behavior knowing that illegal abortions are terribly dangerous is not realistic and does not respect women for being rational actors.

Posted by feh | October 18, 2007 9:25 PM

The argument isn't heresy, it's just not borne out by the evidence. And a rational woman wouldn't change her behavior if she perceives the result of not having the abortion as worse than the risk of injury or death. Also econ 101: if perceived benefit of abortion > (chance of bad result)*(cost of bad result), a woman will chose the abortion.

So illegal abortions result in like, death, and extreme harm to the reproductive system.

You're telling me that rational actors, when faced with an intimate evening with a partner won't consider the harm of an abortion and say, "let's just have oral sex instead?" or say "wrap it mister" or say "I know where I can get BC pills smuggled to me".

And you're telling me there are no women that once pregnant won't think to themselves, I really and truly don't want this baby, but I am awfully afraid of dying, so I won't have this abortion?

I am not saying any of this is either good or what anyone wants. I am merely saying that your argument that women won't change their behavior knowing that illegal abortions are terribly dangerous is not realistic and does not respect women for being rational actors.

Posted by feh | October 18, 2007 10:03 PM

Gather what statistics? No one is literally counting the number of illegal abortions. I assume that the illegal abortion rates in both pre-Roe America and in contemporary developing nations were estimated from polling data, hospitalization data, medical records, and so on. And this raw data is likely to be of much higher quality in America (even 40 years ago) than in poor developing nations that barely have the resources needed to keep any kind of medical records at all, let alone records as reliable and comprehensive as the ones we have in the U.S.

Read the note. They had collected *no* data on illegal abortions pre-Roe, and had only contradictory estimates. Therefore, there was no baseline from which any increase in the total number of abortions could be measured.

Therefore, when Matt and Ross Douthat look at the data showing a dramatic increase in LEGAL abortions post-Roe and say that it shows a dramatic increase in ALL abortions, they're simply wrong. The conclusion doesn't follow from that data.

Which is an entirely separate question than the methodology used in the Guttmacher/WHO study, which is spelled out in the study.

You specifically criticized him for questioning the reliability of the Guttmacher study.

I criticized him for questioning the reliability of the Guttmacher study based on nothing more than a gut feeling about the way things ought to be. And he hasn't made any serious showing that the data is unreliable.

Posted by zuzu | October 18, 2007 11:49 PM

Matt, based on his experience, said the study seemed to have questionable results.

You, based on your privilege, said Matt couldn't be taken seriously because he has a penis.

One of you is a reality based thinker that examines claims against an observable reality.

One of you is a bigot that believes ad hominem and bigoted speech make for a logical argument.

Posted by feh | October 19, 2007 12:08 AM

feh, zuzu's last post demolishes you.

Here are two alternatives which nobody ever seems to propose in the abortion-legality debate:

1. Make abortion illegal but safe! (Impossible, for obvious reasons.)

2. Make abortion illegal but massively promote contraception! (Perfectly possible in principle, but for political reasons, has never actually been tried in any country in the world, because political opponents of abortion are also always political opponents of contraception.)

3. Make abortion legal only in the first 4 weeks -- the period before the fetus starts to have a head and generally look cute -- and institute a massive national pregnancy-awareness system to ensure that no unwanted pregnancies continue into the 5th week!

The fact that none of these options are realistically available must structure one's position on the legality of abortion.

Posted by brooksfoe | October 19, 2007 1:57 AM

Demolishes me? She sat back and excoriated Matt's privilege. Sorry, but attacking people because of their genitals is called sexism. And as I said, taking the position that making such an attack constitutes legitimate argument is called "female privilege." And it is certainly the result of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

But what the hell, Matt has been pandering and condescending to modern mainstream feminist bullies for as long as he has been blogging -- he is part of the problem, so fuck him.

Zuzu could have made her same points without the sexism, but ya know, actually Zuzu and Amanda and Jill and et. al., they cannot make any points without their sexism.

And that Brooksfoe is why most women flee from the label of feminist.

Posted by feh | October 19, 2007 2:37 AM

She was using Matt as an example of how a largely homogeneous blogger/journalist/pundit community does us all a disservice because it has a tendency to drown out viewpoints that don't mesh with upper/upper middle class white men's view.

Really? What viewpoint was that?

All Matt said that was that making abortion legal and safe was not the way to minimizing them. But of course no one who is pro-choice is especially interested in the goal of minimizing the number of abortions in and of itself. I sure as hell know I'm not.

zuzu's post is just an example of fuzzy thinking.

Posted by Barbar | October 19, 2007 7:02 AM

Why is it a desirable goal to to reduce the number of abortions? Seriously, I don't know what a pro-choicer's argument would be. Is it the whole "women feel bad about it later" argument? Is it because it's a waste of time and money? Is it just because abortions are icky?

Posted by miguel | October 19, 2007 7:51 AM

I criticized him for questioning the reliability of the Guttmacher study based on nothing more than a gut feeling about the way things ought to be. And he hasn't made any serious showing that the data is unreliable.

In a perfect world, here's what would have happened. Matt would have had a gut feeling that the numbers couldn't support your point and then gone and read the studies in question. At that point he would see that they don't even address your point, and he would have had to choose between calling you a) incompetant, or b) intellectually dishonest.

I'm sure you would have been happier with that result, right?

Posted by Leo | October 19, 2007 9:51 AM

All Matt said that was that making abortion legal and safe was not the way to minimizing them. But of course no one who is pro-choice is especially interested in the goal of minimizing the number of abortions in and of itself. I sure as hell know I'm not.

You've got to be kidding me. The lowest rates of abortions are in Western European countries which have extremely liberal abortion policies as well as widely-available contraception and top-notch comprehensive sex education. Pro-choice groups here do a hell of a lot of advocacy for medically accurate, comprehensive sex education, availability of contraception for anyone who needs it regardless of age, emergency contraception, and also work against bullshit, ineffective abstinence-only sex education.

The last two people appointed to head the office of family planning services at HHS, Eric Keroack and Susan Orr, have been anti-choice, anti-sex, anti-contraception wingnuts.

But as I said above, Matt's argument that legalizing abortion makes the rates skyrocket is based on an incorrect interpretation of a statistic about the increase in legal abortion, not all abortions.

Why is it a desirable goal to to reduce the number of abortions? Seriously, I don't know what a pro-choicer's argument would be. Is it the whole "women feel bad about it later" argument? Is it because it's a waste of time and money? Is it just because abortions are icky?

Because abortions are surgery, however minor, and they're second-best to preventing the pregnancy in the first place. But even with perfect use, birth control fails, so abortion is just one of the full range of options which needs to be available.

Posted by zuzu | October 19, 2007 10:17 AM

Please don't pretend that there are not many modern mainstream feminists that take great umbrage at "Safe, Legal and Rare".

Posted by feh | October 19, 2007 10:22 AM

It's notable Zuzu that you, Jill, and Amanda all made and emphasized the male privilege charge in your nice safe, comment deleting, user moderated, echo chambers, but here, you won't even address your personal attacks and bigotry.

Intellectually dishonest much?

Posted by feh | October 19, 2007 10:25 AM

But as I said above, Matt's argument that legalizing abortion makes the rates skyrocket is based on an incorrect interpretation of a statistic about the increase in legal abortion, not all abortions.

Contrary to your assertion, Matt didn't say what particular statistics he relied on. The 8:11 post in this thread by "Matt" links to the Guttmacher's statistics on the total number of abortions, legal and illegal, before Roe. Those statistics seem to support Matt's statement.

Posted by Leo | October 19, 2007 10:57 AM

zuzu,

Read the note. They had collected *no* data on illegal abortions pre-Roe,

And Guttmacher has *no* data on illegal abortions, if by that you mean actual counts of illegal abortions, in other countries. In both cases, the illegal abortion rate was estimated from other data. The quality of that other data is likely to be higher for the United States than for poor nations in Africa and Asia, and the illegal abortion rate estimate for the U.S. is therefore likely to be more accurate.

But the larger point is that for all countries the illegal abortion rate is just an estimate, not a reliable count. You cannot seriously argue that the estimate for the U.S. is not reliable and cannot be used as a basis for claims about the effect of Roe on abortion rates, but the estimates for other countries are reliable and that Matt is therefore unjustified in questioning the conclusions of the Guttmacher study. You can't have it both ways, zuzu.

Posted by Mixner | October 19, 2007 12:52 PM

zuzu,

You've got to be kidding me. The lowest rates of abortions are in Western European countries which have extremely liberal abortion policies

The abortion laws in most or all Western European countries are more restrictive than abortion law in the United States. The U.S. has just about the least restrictive abortion law in the world. It is entirely plausible that the lower abortion rates in western Europe are in part a result of its more restrictive laws.

Because abortions are surgery, however minor, and they're second-best to preventing the pregnancy in the first place. But even with perfect use, birth control fails, so abortion is just one of the full range of options which needs to be available.

Medical abortions are not surgical. They are induced through the use of drugs. Is it your position that the only reason for preferring the prevention of a pregnancy rather than the aborting of that pregnancy at, say, 8 months is the additional burden the latter places on the pregnant woman, and that there is no legitimate basis for preferring contraception on the grounds of the interests or rights of the fetus?

Posted by Mixner | October 19, 2007 1:06 PM

Nice shift there, Mixner, from zuzu talking about policies to you talking about laws. Some laws may be theoretically more restrictive, but the policies surrounding abortion are in practise much more liberal.

Policies include such things as how many clinics are available to women for the termination of pregnancies without them having to travel long distances etc. Throughout most of Western Europe, women can have a pregnancy terminated without having to travel more than an hour or two from home at most. That is simply not the case throughout large swathes of the USA, where women have to travel many hundreds of miles and interstate in many cases in order to access TOP.

Then you leap onto "surgery" as your next quibble. Medical abortions are still much more physically stressful than simply preventing pregnancy, so reducing unwanted pregnancy in the first place is still superior to terminating unwanted pregnancies.

As to the incredibly small number of terminations at 8 months gestation: you do realise that every such case I've ever heard of was the termination (due to severe complications) of an originally much-wanted pregnancy? So contraception is totally a red herring in discussing such cases.

Posted by tigtog | October 19, 2007 5:07 PM

You've got to be kidding me. The lowest rates of abortions are in Western European countries which have extremely liberal abortion policies as well as widely-available contraception and top-notch comprehensive sex education.

So what? The goal here is not to minimize the number of abortions, but to empower women (and men) to take care of themselves. There are much more pleasant methods of birth control out there, so educated people with access to these methods will prefer them to abortion.

Why are you so damn insistent that legalizing abortion reduces the abortion rate? This actually plays into the hands of the pro-lifers by maintaining the stigma on abortion. I see why the Clintons talk about keeping abortion rare, but they're politicians who need to posture and position. If abortion rates are lower in "civilized" places, it's because civilized people are empowered to control their lives and avoid abortion, which is less desirable from an individual perspective. It's not because the governments carefully crafted policies specifically designed to minimize the abortion rate.

And again, this diversity stuff? Give me a break.

Posted by Barbar | October 19, 2007 7:52 PM

tigtog,

Nice shift there, Mixner, from zuzu talking about policies to you talking about laws....

If you think you have evidence that abortion is generally easier to obtain for European women than for American women, despite the greater legal restrictions on abortion in Europe, then produce that evidence. Speculation is not evidence.

Then you leap onto "surgery" as your next quibble.

It's not a quibble at all. zuzu specifically made the claim that "abortion is surgery" to support her preference for birth control.

As to the incredibly small number of terminations at 8 months gestation:

The number is irrelevant to the question. I want to know if zuzu believes that even mature fetuses have no interests or rights that are relevant to her preference for contraception over abortion. The only reason she cited for that preference is her "abortion is surgery" claim. I want to know if thinks that even mature fetuses are just worthless tissue.

Posted by Mixner | October 19, 2007 8:06 PM

tigtog,

you do realise that every such case I've ever heard of was the termination (due to severe complications) of an originally much-wanted pregnancy?

Not surprisingly, since I don't know you, no, I don't "realize" anything about what you've ever heard of. What you've ever heard of isn't terribly relevant to the question of the circumstances surrounding late-term abortions.

Guttmacher estimates that around 1% of abortions in America are performed during the third trimester. That's about 10,000 abortions a year. It seems unlikely that every single one of them was performed due to severe complications.

Atul Gawande, an M.D. whole writes a column on medical issues for Slate, wrote about the reasons women have late-term abortions in his piece Partial Truths in the Partial-Birth-Abortion Debate:

Why do women wait so long before seeking an abortion? Sometimes, they have no choice. Women who abort because of a fetal abnormality don't find out about the problem until quite late: Amniocentesis to collect fetal chromosomes for analysis generally is done at 18 weeks. A few late abortions are done for the mother's health, to save her, for example, from possible disaster caused by an infected uterus or a newly diagnosed heart condition. Most of the time, however, they are elective. Often, the mother didn't know she was pregnant. "The power of human denial is unbelievable," one obstetrician told me. It's not at all uncommon, he said, to see women go through an entire pregnancy without realizing it, come to the ER with a stomachache, and turn out to be in labor."

I draw no legal conclusions about late-term abortion from this piece. I strongly support abortion rights, and strongly support Roe as law. But I also have a strong aversion to false and misleading factual claims about abortion, whether they come from fanatics of the right or fanatics of the left (like zuzu).

Posted by Mixner | October 19, 2007 8:31 PM

And Guttmacher has *no* data on illegal abortions, if by that you mean actual counts of illegal abortions, in other countries.

Mixner, darling, there's quite a difference between "nobody bothered to collect the data" versus "here are the adjustments we made for the well-known errors in collection of data in these various countries."

Do you have a serious critique of the data-collection methods? No, I didn't think so.

In fact, I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish, other than defending Matt against feminists by weeping and wailing that it's all so unfaaaaaaair.

And, no, despite your snark, tigtog is right: the on-the-books, pro-forma restrictions of Europe really present less of a practical obstacle to actually obtaining an abortion than does the fact that 98% of counties in America don't have an abortion provider, that even when you can find an abortion provider you often run into waiting periods or parental-notification laws. Because, yeah, Roe said that abortion should be unrestricted in the first trimester, somewhat restricted in the second, and rather restricted in the third.

And in any event, both pregnancy rates AND abortion rates are far lower in Europe, so what does that tell you?

Guttmacher estimates that around 1% of abortions in America are performed during the third trimester. That's about 10,000 abortions a year. It seems unlikely that every single one of them was performed due to severe complications.

Then you really have no understanding of abortion politics in America. Women don't abort in the 8th month on a whim, or to look good at the prom, or to have pedicures. I mean, have you heard of Phill Kline?

Women who have late-term abortions do so because they are in danger of losing their lives, or their health, or they just discovered that the fetuses they are carrying are incompatible with life. And if you had the shred of a clue, you might understand that many fetal abnormalities that are incompatible with life are not even discoverable until the third trimester.

In any event, there is NO, none, nada, no fucking chance, that any abortion in the US is conducted without several layers of judicial approval. And there is really no third-trimester abortion that's not conducted on a wanted pregnancy.

Oh, and one major reason for fetal "abortion" in the third trimester is to expel a dead fetus, which can turn septic and kill the mother. Because of Anthony Kennedy, those parents will no longer be able to hold an intact fetus in their arms and say goodbye.

Is that what you're after?

Posted by zuzu | October 19, 2007 10:27 PM

In any event, there is NO, none, nada, no fucking chance, that any abortion in the US is conducted without several layers of judicial approval.

By which I meant to say that no third trimester abortion in the US...

European countries that restrict abortion to the first trimester don't stand in the way of women getting them that early, so the situation of a woman in Dusseldorf facing a first-term abortion isn't quite the same as a woman in South Dakota.

Posted by zuzu | October 19, 2007 10:37 PM

zuzu,

Mixner, darling, there's quite a difference between "nobody bothered to collect the data" versus "here are the adjustments we made for the well-known errors in collection of data in these various countries."

zuzu, sugar, they didn't collect data on illegal abortions. Whatever adjustments they made to whatever data you're referring to, it's not illegal abortion data. It's data from which illegal abortion rates were estimated. And the quality of that data is likely to be higher in the United States than in poor developing countries, because the U.S. is much richer and has much more sophisticated record-keeping and communication systems. I keep pointing this out and you keep ignoring it.

on-the-books, pro-forma restrictions of Europe really present less of a practical obstacle to actually obtaining an abortion than does the fact that 98% of counties in America don't have an abortion provider, that even when you can find an abortion provider you often run into waiting periods or parental-notification laws.

Neither you nor tigtog has produced any evidence to support these claims. Do you have any evidence? The obvious implication of Europe's more restrictive abortion laws is that abortion is harder to obtain in Europe, not easier.

Women don't abort in the 8th month on a whim, or to look good at the prom, or to have pedicures. I mean, have you heard of Phill Kline?
Women who have late-term abortions do so because they are in danger of losing their lives, or their health, or they just discovered that the fetuses they are carrying are incompatible with life. And if you had the shred of a clue, you might understand that many fetal abnormalities that are incompatible with life are not even discoverable until the third trimester.

According to Atul Gawande in the Slate piece I quoted, based on his interviews with obstetricians and his own experience, most late-term abortions are elective. Some late-term abortions are done for health reasons, but those are the exceptions.

In any event, there is NO, none, nada, no fucking chance, that any abortion in the US is conducted without several layers of judicial approval.

Again, where is your evidence? Sorry, I mean your fucking evidence. Where is it?

Posted by Mixner | October 19, 2007 11:06 PM

Demands for evidence and requests to address what people are actually saying is just more crap from the patriarchy that is used to oppress wymyn.

Calling Zuzu by your pet names is also more patriarchal oppression, unlike Zuzu, who is free to address you however she feels.

HTH.

Posted by feh | October 20, 2007 1:34 AM

According to Atul Gawande in the Slate piece I quoted, based on his interviews with obstetricians and his own experience, most late-term abortions are elective. Some late-term abortions are done for health reasons, but those are the exceptions.

This use of the word "elective" to imply whimsical or capricious is misusing the word entirely: in surgery it has a technical meaning which is something else entirely. All surgery which is not right-this-second-or-the-patient-dies emergency surgery is elective surgery. It doesn't mean that the surgery is not essential for health, it doesn't mean that the surgery is not ultimately life-saving, it just means that the surgery is scheduled.

The removal of malignant tumours is elective surgery, as are most heart and neurosurgeries. Atul Gawande is either ignorant or maliciously misrepresenting technical terms.

Posted by tigtog | October 20, 2007 2:46 AM

tigtog,

This use of the word "elective" to imply whimsical or capricious is misusing the word entirely:

I see no indication that Gawande meant the term in any sense other than the usual one in which it is used in the context of abortion, meaning "non-therapeutic" or "not for reasons of health." Gawande's article flatly contradicts your and zuzu's assertion that most or all late-term abortions are performed to protect the pregnant woman from some serious threat to her health, or because the fetus is abnormal.

I see too that you still haven't produced a shred of evidence to substantiate any of your other claims.

Posted by Mixner | October 20, 2007 3:16 AM

Among her numerous other unsupported factual assertions, zuzu claims that abortion is easier to obtain in Germany than in the U.S. Here is Germany's federal abortion state. The statute criminalizes abortion with punishments of up to a year in jail for the pregnant woman and up to five years in jail for the abortion provider. The woman may escape punishment (though she is still guilty of the crime) only if the abortion is performed within 12 weeks of conception, and the abortion is performed by a licensed physician, and the woman has undergone mandatory counselling, and she has waited at 72 hours. The counselling is...

... guided by efforts to encourage the woman to continue the pregnancy and to open her to the prospects of a life with the child; it should help her to make a responsible and conscientious decision. The woman must thereby be aware, that the unborn child has its own right to life with respect to her at every stage of the pregnancy and that a termination of pregnancy can therefore only be considered under the legal order in exceptional situations, when carrying the child to term would give rise to a burden for the woman which is so serious and extraordinary that it exceeds the reasonable limits of sacrifice.

There is also a health exception, under which a woman can get an abortion after 12 weeks without being punished, but it is much, much more restrictive than the health exception under Roe. In Germany, the health exception applies only if:

the termination of the pregnancy is advisable to avert a danger to life or the danger of a grave impairment of the physical or emotional state of health of the pregnant woman and the danger cannot be averted in another way which is reasonable for her.

There are also various other severe restrictions on abortion, including a restriction on advertising and promotion of abortion services.

Posted by Mixner | October 20, 2007 3:33 AM

According to Wikipedia, in 1987 the Guttmacher Institute interviewed 420 American women who had abortions past 16 weeks and asked them why they had waited so long:

* 71% Woman didn't recognize she was pregnant or misjudged gestation
* 48% Woman found it hard to make arrangements for abortion
* 33% Woman was afraid to tell her partner or parents
* 24% Woman took time to decide to have an abortion
* 8% Woman waited for her relationship to change
* 8% Someone pressured woman not to have abortion
* 6% Something changed after woman became pregnant
* 6% Woman didn't know timing is important
* 5% Woman didn't know she could get an abortion
* 2% A fetal problem was diagnosed late in pregnancy
* 11% Other

If I may try to establish some comity here, it seems obvious to me that a society that placed less stigma on abortion could very well have a lower late-abortion rate, because educated women free to make their own decisions can more easily avoid this situation than ignorant women with vast amounts of social pressure weighing on them.

As far as I can tell, everyone in this thread at this point is very strongly pro-choice (except feh I think) and yet we seem to be having a proxy debate on the value of diversity by discussing the *empirical question* of whether restrictions on abortion reduce them. On one side we have people who are capable of isolating legal restrictions and policies from the general empowerment of women in a society, and on the other side we have people who insist these are logically and actually inseparable and that we need more writers with this particular point of view.

Posted by Barbar | October 20, 2007 6:29 AM

I see no indication that Gawande meant the term in any sense other than the usual one in which it is [mis]used in the context of abortion, meaning "non-therapeutic" or "not for reasons of health."

Fixed that sentence for you.

If Fawande did not make it clear to his interview subjects that he was planning on using colloquial meanings rather than technical terms, then he was either incompetent or deceptive.

If an obstetrician says that an abortion is elective, then s/he is most likely to be using "elective" in the technical sense of scheduled surgery vs emergency surgery. It is only those who seek to misrepresent late term abortion decisions who misuse "elective" in the way that you describe.

Cites:
Australian Government Dept of Health and Ageing

Some people might think that elective surgery means choosing to undergo some form of surgical procedure that is non-essential or purely cosmetic. In fact, it is any form of surgery that your doctor or health professional believes to be necessary but which can be delayed for at least 24 hours.

MedicineNet.com

For example, the time when a surgical procedure is performed may be elective. The procedure is beneficial to the patient but does not need be done at a particular time.

As opposed to urgent or emergency surgery.

Here's an article from MedicalNet citing the Mayo clinic referring to heart valve operations as elective surgery.

Posted by tigtog | October 20, 2007 11:11 AM

I am very strongly pro-choice too.

I am very strongly anti-political correctness and very strongly anti-modern-mainstream-feminist bullying. I am very strongly against collective punishment.

As First Amendment Feminist Wendy Kaminer said, "• But if the fallacy underlying much conservative opposition to sexual or racial preferences is the assumption that without them life would be a meritocracy, liberal advocacy of affirmative action often reflects another fallacy: the assumption that the use of group preferences is cost-free and that the socially desirable goal of racial and ethnic diversity can be met without harming individuals or violating fundamental liberties."

and

"My notions of justice require that we treat people as individuals and that we don't use sex as a predictor of character or behavior any more than we use race."

That Matt et. al., let's them get away with rhetorical murder shows that Matt does not respect these women as adults.

Posted by feh | October 20, 2007 12:26 PM

Safe, Legal, and More Common Than They Otherwise Would Be

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