Abortion Advocate Speaks

[Bud Struggle]

Last surviving founder of NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) speaks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xfEoqGeliA

Seems he's changed his mind.

[JimmyJazz]

There's no such thing as an abortion advocate.

And this video is painfully scripted.

[Glenn Beck]

Good for him.

[Bud Struggle]

The man says what he has to say. Gotta give the guy credit.

[Glenn Beck]

The man says what he has to say. Gotta give the guy credit.

I give him credit for being squeamish and not properly thinking things out. From pulling up his wiki it seems he's had an extremely troubled past, and his 'change of heart' came from the invention of ultrasound confirming what I'm absolutely shocked an obstetrician in his position was not aware of: that a human fetus is human shaped.

He provides no argument for his claim that a fetus is "an existing human being" or explain what this may mean. He provides no evidence for his potentially slanderous claim that NARAL "knew" this "fact" and intentionally suppressed it in order to mislead people. I don't have much sympathy for him because his claims are blatantly dishonest, he is doing the opposite of setting the record straight.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I've changed my opinion on abortion in some respects. I'll give the fetus moral consideration once it can feel pain - not before. However, he seems to be talking about those cases, primarily.

The issue is that something just seems wrong about forcing a women to go through pregnancy. Justice is sometimes referred to as a "sixth sense." Something just doesn't seem right about restricting access to abortion even though abortion itself is undesirable.

Given that most people would save the life of a child over an adult, this argument almost entails forced pregnancies in all circumstances - including if the mother will die. While the pro-life perspective could theoretically provide some decent arguments, it generally fails to do so. The majority of its supporters are uneducated morons relying on religious nonsense to sway people.

[Bud Struggle]

He provides no evidence for his potentially slanderous claim that NARAL "knew" this "fact" and intentionally suppressed it in order to mislead people.

Who you going to get to refute his claim? ;)

[Glenn Beck]

Who you going to get to refute his claim? ;)

Have you stopped beating your wife yet? :rolleyes:

[Bud Struggle]

Have you stopped beating your wife yet? :rolleyes:

There's two sides to this debate. The arguement isn't over yet.
You Commies shouldn't get to thinking it's a done deal.

Will there be a RevLeft "regret" page in 30 years?

[Pogue]

There's two sides to this debate. The arguement isn't over yet.
You Commies shouldn't get to thinking it's a done deal.

Will there be a RevLeft "regret" page in 30 years?

There's two sides to this debate yeh, one of them is based on logic, freedom and science, and the other is based upon emotion, conservatism and 'holy' books. Unfortunately the argument isn't over yet because people such as yourself and our miserable friend in the video still continue to be drawn towards the latter side of the argument like moths to a flame.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

There's two sides to this debate. The arguement isn't over yet.
You Commies shouldn't get to thinking it's a done deal.

Will there be a RevLeft "regret" page in 30 years?

A person regretting something says nothing about the truth of the matter. I can find people who regret not killing the last black person they saw. It doesn't men there is something wrong with letting black people live.

Your post doesn't contain an argument. There is no reason to believe he is telling the truth simply because he is saying something. You should assume someone is lying first. If you believe what you're told simply because someone told you it, you're bound to have many false beliefs. You need to know when to trust a source. There is no reason to trust this person. You don't know them. I don't know them.

Furthermore, even if we assume he is being honest, he admitted to being part of an organization that supposedly lied for a "greater good." Why should we assume he is being truthful when he's an admitted liar? That's incredibly naive.

I'm sure some comrades won't debate you at all. Most of them will debate you when you present a real argument.

[h0m0revolutionary]

I can't believe on this forum this reactionary old man gets support.

Opposition to abortion can be an innate, personal and moral decision - that's fine. But this man isn't advocation personal oppsition to abortion, he's endorcing a state ban via Proposition 11 in S.Dakota - one of the biggest attacks on females reproductive rights the state has ever witnessed.

Anyone who tihnks this man has anything to contribute is supporting the right of the male-dominated state to dictate to some of the poorest women in america that they are not allowed to abort their child. This is a statist solution and moreover an uncompassionate, anti-working class solution.

[Bud Struggle]

I'm sure some comrades won't debate you at all. Most of them will debate you when you present a real argument.

I'm not presenting a debate--I'm presenting the word of a person that helped make abortion legal in the United States. I'm not arguing for him. He speaks for himself.

But if anyone thinks the ethical debate is over--he/she better think again. It's a LOOOOOOONG way from being over. Ethically, fairly, honestly--abortion is a long way from being over. Revolution or no Revolution--the debate isn't over.

Let the soviet decide. I'll make my case, you make yours. ;)

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I'm not presenting a debate--I'm presenting the word of a person that helped make abortion legal in the United States. I'm not arguing for him. He speaks for himself.

But if anyone thinks the ethical debate is over--he/she better think again. It's a LOOOOOOONG way from being over. Ethically, fairly, honestly--abortion is a long way from being over. Revolution or no Revolution--the debate isn't over.

Let the soviet decide. I'll make my case, you make yours. ;)

Even if we decided abortion restrictions were justified, I'm skeptical that they'd be effective. He doesn't have an argument, by the way. I already explained that. All he is doing is speaking his opinion.

Essentially he is saying that when the fetus can feel pain, it deserves rights. I already agree to that. I just don't see how that entails it gets "human" rights and that, whatever kind of rights it has, how that justifies restricting the right to choose?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violinist_(thought_experiment) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violinist_%28thought_experiment)

The violinist thought experiment illustrates my point. The pro-life individual has to argue why the choice to have sex makes someone legitimately accountable for the consequences even though they are "accidental."

[Decolonize The Left]

Here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violinist_%28thought_experiment%29) is the link to the violinist thought experiment. The above posted link is not functioning.

- August

[RGacky3]

and the other is based upon emotion

In my experience pro-abortion rights people are EXTREAMLY emotional, many times more so than anti-abortion rights people.

[Hiero]

Rights come from the barrel of a gun. When I see a fetus carrying a gun I will acknowledge its rights.

[Jazzratt]

In my experience pro-abortion rights people are EXTREAMLY emotional, many times more so than anti-abortion rights people.

Oh come on. This:
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s160/p0ke_me/no20u.jpg
Doesn't constitute an argument.

The fact is anti-choice dickheads (as this guy has clearly become) always rely on arguments like "it looks human" or "it might feel pain" - all sorts of shit designed to pull at the heartstrings. When someone turns up outside an abortion clinic with a placard displaying an aborted foetus are they really appealing to the reason of the women going in there?

Oh yeah no one is "pro-abortion" they are "pro-choice". Being "pro-abortion" implies being pro-unwanted pregnancy (as you cannot have an abortion without the unwanted pregnancy) which is fundamentally stupid. It's terms like this (and Bud's other one "abortion advocate") as well as pro-life that form one of the many semantic weapons the dishonest anti-choice lobby like to use.

[RGacky3]

Oh yeah no one is "pro-abortion" they are "pro-choice". Being "pro-abortion" implies being pro-unwanted pregnancy (as you cannot have an abortion without the unwanted pregnancy) which is fundamentally stupid. It's terms like this (and Bud's other one "abortion advocate") as well as pro-life that form one of the many semantic weapons the dishonest anti-choice lobby like to use.

I said pro-abortion rights, both the terms pro-life and pro-choice are misleading.

Saying anti-choice is a rediculous "and emotion based" term, because it implies that people who are against abortion as an option belive that BECAUSE they wnat to limit womens rights, which is rediculous.

Saying being an anti-abortion rights person = being an anti-woman, mysogonist sexist is just as emotion based as arguing "it looks human" which is also just as emotional based as saying its a "paracite" a "bunch of cells" and so on.


Rights come from the barrel of a gun. When I see a fetus carrying a gun I will acknowledge its rights.

I take it you have no problem with European Colonization then.

[thundertail19921]

This video is way too obviously scripted. Fail.

[Bud Struggle]

This video is way too obviously scripted. Fail.

Scripted or not--he was the man that made abortion possible.

[Qwerty Dvorak]

Isn't the Roe from Roe v Wade also now an opponent of abortion? Or is this the same guy?

[Hiero]

I take it you have no problem with European Colonization then.

It was more of a joke. But what you constantly fail to understand about Marxist politics is that is not about what I personal think. The fact the Europeans had the guns made it possible to extend their rights and sovergnity over others. The fact that the last hundred years the national oppressors were able to get their hands on guns made it possible to instate their rights against their oppressors.

But anyway the idea of a feutos carrying a weopon is absurd.

[SocialPhilosophy]

so.. if you support Womens rights to have an abortion, what are you then?

[BobKKKindle$]

Scripted or not--he was the man that made abortion possible. This doesn't make any sense. Abortion has always been possible, from the moment that it came into existence as a recognized medical procedure. The question is not whether abortions will always be carried out (they obviously will be, given that there will always be women who want to have abortions, as well as people who are willing to administer them, regardless of what the government's policy is on the matter) but whether they will be carried out safely, up to what stage of pregnancy, and at what financial cost. The 1973 decision to legalize abortion in the first trimester (or, to be more precise, the decision to disallow the banning of abortion in the first trimester) was not made as the result of a single individual or even a particular organization - it was something that resulted from the efforts of millions of women who made it clear to the political establishment that they were not willing to tolerate their reproductive rights and sexual freedom being violated by the state or any other institution. The fact that this individual has now changed his mind is irrelevant because even if he had never existed, or had always been a misogynist, abortion would still have been legalized, as long as women throughout the United States had still been willing to speak out. History is not made by individuals - it is made by working men and women in the streets.

[Bud Struggle]

This doesn't make any sense. Abortion has always been possible, from the moment that it came into existence as a recognized medical procedure. Alright legal in the USA.



History is not made by individuals - it is made by working men and women in the streets.

Nonesense. Your own Socialist history speaks differently. Communist history in the 20th centruy is a laundry list of "Glorious Leaders." Revleft is a Pantheon of Socialist heros filled by those that love them. What is Communism made of (in the real world) if not Leninists and Maoists and Cheist and Castroists and Stalinists and Trotskyists and, well you know the list?

[BobKKKindle$]

Communist history in the 20th centruy is a laundry list of "Glorious Leaders."This doesn't have much to do with how we go about understanding history, however. There are many people on this site who tend to idolize particular individuals, such as Stalin, because they see them as having made an important contribution to Marxist theory, or because they led a successful struggle against capitalist property relations - but there are numerous Marxist historians (or historians who are influenced by historical materialism) who argue that even in societies that appear to be completely dominated by a single individual, such as the USSR during the period 1927-1953, or the Third Reich, there were ultimately many centers of power apart from the individual in question, in the form of the state bureaucracy, the role of pressure from below, the influence of ideology, as well as the economic system on which these societies were based, such that the "glorious leader" was constrained in what s/he could do, and decision-making cannot be explained solely with reference to their psychology. See, for example, Arch Getty's work 'Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives', and historians such as Hans Mommsen who had adopted a structuralist perspective in their analysis of Nazi Germany. Even members on this site who you do see as being overly focused on a particular theorist generally understand history within this framework, because they see conflicts between individuals, such as the leadership contest between Trotsky and Stalin, as arising from underlying social and political processes. Seeing history as determined by the actions of individuals has nothing to do with Marxism, and there is no Marxist who gives primacy to individuals over class struggle and the development of the productive forces.


Alright legal in the USA.Not really, abortion was only restricted during the course of the 19th century, in the United States, and other countries, prior to which it was legal - so you're wrong again.


Abortion Was Legal
Abortion has been performed for thousands of years, and in every society that has been studied. It was legal in the United States from the time the earliest settlers arrived. At the time the Constitution was adopted, abortions before "quickening" were openly advertised and commonly performed.

Making Abortion Illegal
In the mid-to-late 1800s states began passing laws that made abortion illegal. The motivations for anti-abortion laws varied from state to state. One of the reasons included fears that the population would be dominated by the children of newly arriving immigrants, whose birth rates were higher than those of "native" Anglo-Saxon women.
http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/history_abortion.html#legal


Isn't the Roe from Roe v Wade also now an opponent of abortion? Or is this the same guy?

I think Roe was actually a woman.

[Bud Struggle]

This doesn't have much to do with how we go about understanding history, however. Maybe not Marxists--but for the people that don't assume that lifestyle identity, there are other options.



There are many people on this site who tend to idolize particular individuals, such as Stalin, because they see them as having made an important contribution to Marxist theory, or because they led a successful struggle against capitalist property relations - EXACTLY! They led the Revolutions. Lenin did, Castro did, etc. One could make a claim that the workers were just a supportiung cast of millions.


but there are numerous Marxist historians (or historians who are influenced by historical materialism) who argue that even in societies that appear to be completely dominated by a single individual, such as the USSR during the period 1927-1953, or the Third Reich, there were ultimately many centers of power apart from the individual in question, in the form of the state bureaucracy, the role of pressure from below, the influence of ideology, as well as the economic system on which these societies were based, such that the "glorious leader" was constrained in what s/he could do, and decision-making cannot be explained solely with reference to their psychology. You can't honestly say that Nazi Germany would have come into power without Hitler and a few other people. Same with Castro and che in Cuba. Now something would have eventually happened--but the Nazism on one case and Socialism in another were the work of select individuals. Latin America has revolutions all of the time--each under similar (though not identical circumstances) and so far Socialism has only occured once. It's because those individuals that caused the Cuban revolution wanted a Socialist revolution. The people that wanted revolutions in places like Argentina or Chile (for example) had their own plans.



See, for example, Arch Getty's work 'Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives', and historians such as Hans Mommsen who had adopted a structuralist perspective in their analysis of Nazi Germany. I haven't read these books--but I will look into them.



Even members on this site who you do see as being overly focused on a particular theorist generally understand history within this framework, because they see conflicts between individuals, such as the leadership contest between Trotsky and Stalin, as arising from underlying social and political processes. So you are saying I should look at Stalin and Trotsky as "types" rather than as individual people with particular drives and ambitions? That's a streach. I might be able to do that a bit for Trotsky, But Stalin while I seem them working in the general overarching plan of Communism I see him using that Communism as a tool for his own personal sociopathic ambitions. He would have worked equally well as a Tsar.


Seeing history as determined by the actions of individuals has nothing to do with Marxism, and there is no Marxist who gives primacy to individuals over class struggle and the development of the productive forces. I understand that--but I'm not wed to one particular view of history, I doubt there is any reason to be unless one has an ax to grind. I tend to see a variety of forces from all angles moving history from one way to another.


Not really, abortion was only restricted during the course of the 19th century, in the United States, and other countries, prior to which it was legal - so you're wrong again.

http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/history_abortion.html#legal

Here I was speaking generally that Nathenson was one of the contributors to the unrestricting of Abortion in the 1970s not the history of Abortion from the beginning of the world. But by wording was sloppy, so I'll concede the point.

[Revy]

Fetuses are not people.

Animal rights is more ethically valid than fetal rights. We know an animal is conscious, that it feels pain, that it has a mind, and feelings, and when you kill it, it screams.

Can fetuses do that? Nope. They're just lumps of developing tissue, as far as I'm concerned.

What's worse? 75,000 dead fetuses or 75,000 dead dogs? yeah. I'm pretty sure people would actually get all teared up about the dogs instead.

And please ,don't bring up the fact that fetuses are human. So is the zygote, the cluster of cells, that is also "human" and somehow worthy of personhood according to pro-life freaks.

[Revy]

This doesn't make any sense. Abortion has always been possible, from the moment that it came into existence as a recognized medical procedure. The question is not whether abortions will always be carried out (they obviously will be, given that there will always be women who want to have abortions, as well as people who are willing to administer them, regardless of what the government's policy is on the matter) but whether they will be carried out safely, up to what stage of pregnancy, and at what financial cost. The 1973 decision to legalize abortion in the first trimester (or, to be more precise, the decision to disallow the banning of abortion in the first trimester) was not made as the result of a single individual or even a particular organization - it was something that resulted from the efforts of millions of women who made it clear to the political establishment that they were not willing to tolerate their reproductive rights and sexual freedom being violated by the state or any other institution. The fact that this individual has now changed his mind is irrelevant because even if he had never existed, or had always been a misogynist, abortion would still have been legalized, as long as women throughout the United States had still been willing to speak out. History is not made by individuals - it is made by working men and women in the streets.

lol, pro-lifers view abortion as some kind of high-tech dystopian nightmare. Abortion actually existed in the ancient world. And most methods back then weren't surgical, they mostly involved stuff like taking herbs or potions, fasting, or strenuous exercise. The use of sharp objects was definitely not common, because it was a risk to the mother...

just a little historical footnote. I'm sure if pro-lifers think of abortion in the ancient world they imagine some knife being shoved up a woman's vagina, blood going everywhere, etc. they love to appeal to emotion - just look at how they describe modern abortion.