Udo Schuklenk on the Murder of George Tilly

Colleague and friend Udo Schuklenk agreed to do a guest post/cross-link from his blog about the recent murder of physician George Tilly:

Another murder aimed at furthering the 'pro-life' agenda

It had to happen, the pro-life affirming loonies in the USA have taken yet another person's life. George Tiller, MD, a medical doctor specialising in reproductive health services, including medically indicated late-term abortions, was gunned down outside a church service in his home town. I'm probably as shocked about this killing as most reality based people. However, there's a deeper issue about this, at least to my mind.

The religious ideologies that triggered the murder of Tiller (and, in the past, others like him) want their adherents to subscribe to the view that from the moment of biological conception (marriage and all, you know the drill) the developing embryonic cell mass is of infinite value and should be treated as if it was a person. Well, persons - all other things being equal - are usually seen to have a right to life. At a minimum this is understood as a negative right, ie I must not interfere with such a person's right to life (by way of killing that person).

Let me be clear: I do think the view that something that has no central nervous system, that has no capacity to suffer, and that has no higher brain function has a right to life, makes no sense at all. What harm could possibly have been done to such a thing if it is destroyed? None at all, at least as far as I can see. It is for that reason that I reject the idea that we should treat the developing embryonic cell mass from the moment of conception as if it was a person. After all, it isn't a person, so why bother? It's a bit like saying that I should treat the leader of the opposition as if she was the leader of government. She might have the potential to be the next leader of government, but right now she is not. I surely cannot smuggle the right to be treated as if you were the leader of government into the potential to become the leader of government. A lot of potential things never eventuate (eg my potential to be an astronaut will not ever be realised).

However, and here is where I am troubled about this matter. IF someone really holds the barmy view that the embryonic cell mass after conception is infinitely valuable and should be treated as if it was a person from that moment onwards, it is only logical that you consider abortions murder. In turn it is perfectly reasonable for such a person to treat abortion providing health care professionals as if they were murderers. Surely it is not unreasonable (from such a person's perspective) to try to prevent further murders from happening. Ergo it should not come as a big surprise that Doctor Tiller was murdered by a 'good citizen' trying to prevent further murders at the hands of the good doctor.

So, the pro-life crowd's handwaving along the lines that the murderer is not one of theirs, makes not much sense. The ideology they propagate leads, to my mind inevitably so, to the killing of people like Tiller. Freedom of speech seemingly covers Catholic propaganda ministers freedom to spout lies about a supposedly ongoing 'genocide', whereby the deliberately and mistakenly refer to blobs of cells as 'children'. IF you really believe that propaganda, surely it's not unreasonable to conclude that in order to stop the genocide the perpetrators of the genocide must be stopped. Killing one person (eg Dr Tiller) is clearly seen by some of those on the pro-life side as the lesser of two evils. They are only able to reach this conclusion, however, because the church hierarchy continues to propagate outrageous nonsense about 'genocide' and 'holocaust' and whatnot when it comes to abortion. This is where the blame for Tiller's murder as well as that of others like him squarely belongs. You shouldn't be too surprised if some people at least do actually fall for your agitprop.

The Emotional Fallout No One Talks About

Hilde Lindemann, President of the ASBH and WBP Board member asks us to take a look at what some brave blogger just posted at Shakesville. Moved her (and me) to tears:

Breaking the Silence: On Living Pro-Lifers' Choice for Women

Here We Go Again...

[Hat tip to supporter Paul Root Wolpe and our colleagues at Bioedge for bringing our attention to this story]

As we blogged about before on several occasions, the debate over the personhood and the legal/moral status of embryos (as well as other entities) continues: Even though the 'personhood for embryos' amendment in Colorado was resoundingly defeated, North Dakota is next in line to attempt to create a law that would give full moral and legal status to embryos.

The Grand Fork Herald reports that [The] "measure approved by the North Dakota House gives a fertilized human egg the legal rights of a human being, a step that would essentially ban abortion in the state.

The bill is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that extended abortion rights nationwide, supporters of the legislation said.

Representatives voted 51-41 to approve the measure. It now moves to the North Dakota Senate for its review.

The two-paragraph bill declares that 'any organism with the genome of homo sapiens' is a person protected by rights granted by the North Dakota Constitution and state laws.

It says the Legislature may choose one of its members to help defend the new law if its constitutionality is challenged in court." Full article accessible here.

I don't know if there are any fertility clinics in North Dakota, but I don't believe there are any exceptions for IVF. Given that this is an attempt to ban abortion, I wonder what consideration, if any, has been given to victims of rape or incest or those families who are choosing PGD to avoid transmission of painful genetic disorders. Or those women whose health might be threatened by a pregnancy (e.g. women with certain forms of MS or Eisenmenger's Syndrome).
There are less coercive ways to discourage and reduce numbers of abortions; and different ways to approach the issue, like Aspen Bakers' Pro-Voice solution.

The Bitterly Unfair Truth of Sexuality

Caitlin Flannigan has an op-ed in the New York Times that uses the movie Juno as a starting point to discuss female sexuality. Specifically, she talks about the fairy tale nature of the film (don't read the op-ed if you've not seen the film and don't want the ending completely spoiled), and highlights what she calls

the bitterly unfair truth of sexuality: female desire can bring with it a form of punishment no man can begin to imagine, and so it is one appetite women and girls must always regard with caution.

She goes on to make some very interesting points: that abortion, adoption, or even keeping a child is not an easy decision for a single woman, let alone a single teenage girl, and that very few woman escape from any of these decisions unscathed and able to return to who they were beforehand. (A sentiment I strongly agree with. While I don't buy into the supposed grief and regret that wracks any and every woman who's had an abortion, I do strongly agree that the experience forces significant change in a woman.)

Flannigan continues,

Even the much-discussed pregnancy of 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears reveals the rudely unfair toll that a few minutes of pleasure can exact on a girl. The very fact that the gossip magazines are still debating the identity of the father proves again that the burden of sex is the woman’s to bear. He has a chance to maintain his privacy, but if she becomes pregnant by mistake, soon all the world will know.

Pregnancy robs a teenager of her girlhood. This stark fact is one reason girls used to be so carefully guarded and protected — in a system that at once limited their horizons and safeguarded them from devastating consequences. The feminist historian Joan Jacobs Brumberg has written that “however prudish and ‘uptight’ the Victorians were, our ancestors had a deep commitment to girls.”

And again, she makes a good point with a contemporary illustration - Jamie Lynn faces the burden of the pregnancy, the gossip, the everything. A guy can impregnant and run, emotionally distant if he so chooses - a girl doesn't have that option, no matter what choice she makes regarding her pregnancy.

It's hard to argue with the idea that pregnancy robs a teenager of her girlhood. Pregnancy forces a girl to start making decisions that affect her life, short and long term - and also to make decisions that will impact others (or at least potential others). Adolescence is the period of moving from a world revolving around self to a world of interacting with others, and anyone who's spent any amount of time around a teenager can tell you how rapidly they oscillate between the two. Pregnancy forces the hand; wild oscillations have to stop in the face of reality (at least, one hopes).

What then, is the answer, if any? As Flannigan also so rightly notes, it's not as though we have no deep commitment to our teenage girls. Unlike the Victorians, we place our emphasis on commitment elsewhere, not on safeguarding but empowering. We don't look at focusing on their chastity, but instead on empowering girls to believe that they can compete with boys, be better than boys, and don't need to be dependent on anyone but themselves. But to repeat Flannigan's question,

we have to ask ourselves this question: Does the full enfranchisement of girls depend on their being sexually liberated? And if it does, can we somehow change or diminish among the very young the trauma of pregnancy, the occasional result of even safe sex?

I don't know that there is a neat answer to this, at least not when the country itself is divided, in so many ways, about teen pregnancy. And maybe, ultimately, the answer lies not in how we empower or protect the girls themselves, but how we treat those whose values and opinions differ than our own. Maybe the ultimate solution is to move further away from the Victorians, who protected that chastity with shame, and forget the entire concept of shame and sex.

...it's either that or find some way to subject teenage fathers to the same ostracization and stigmatization that pregnant teens are subjected to, and that seems like a much more difficult proposition.
-Kelly

Quote of the Day: Being both pro-life and pro-choice

Anna Clark over at RH Reality Check wins the spot for "Quote of the Day" for the moving essay she has written about how she considers herself both pro-life and pro-choice -- She starts out:

"What if I told you that I used to call myself pro-life?

What if I said that I once believed abortion was murder, or that I suspected women used the procedure to bypass the consequences of sex?

If I told you, would I lose your respect? Would you be suspicious when I say that today I'm committed to the right to reproductive health, access, and choice?"

She then details her ambivalence, her journey and the realization of the complexity of the issue -- the quote that got me, though was this one:

"Pro-choice society, like democractic society, is predicated on space for those who disagree. When we play sides, we forget there are no enemies in the vision we pursue. Our inclusiveness of those who choose not to have abortions, and even those who judge abortion to be morally wrong, is our movement's power. When we approach anti-choicers as friends, not only do we act on the heart of our beliefs, but we create space for anti-choicers to become our allies."

What a poignant reminder -- Life -- it's a beautiful choice.