What is meant by "free abortion?"

[Endomorphian]

As a stipulation to remaining unrestricted, the RevLeft guidelines permit only users who believe in free and open access to abortion for all women. My question relates to the technicalities of this and other statements about "free" services," but only in situations where labor and the necessary components for performing a task are scarce. This last stipulation must be taken in consideration as any system not bound to scarcity, such as the higher stages of communism, will avoid this perplexing issue.

Currently "free" is a subject of colloquialism. What's "free" for one person derives from the income of another. For example, the United States guarantees free legal advice to those who can't afford a private practice lawyer, but this and all other rights can be easily exposed as a charade once one realizes that the state is promising only to match the incentive necessary to provide such a service. The state can't simply force someone to be a gynecologist or lawyer; it must generate revenue (either from fees, productivity, or taxation) and offer enough of a salary to involve a substantial amount of adults an incentive to work. If no one shows up, and no more revenue can be drawn to form such an incentive - there is no right. This holds true for all rights, both negative and positive.

So the question turns to the issue of abortion: can we ever truly make it a free right? Someone/thing has to pay, but who? In remote regions it can be very likely that no one wants to perform the operation. Does this right end on lack of proximity?

I'm trying to mentally wrestle with this issue of rights, so I'd love to hear opinions.

[jake williams]

Seriously?

You're actually asking the question?

Basic healthcare, including basic reproductive rights, are fundamental human rights. Absolutely everyone understands that there's a cost involved - it's usually an intentionally distracting waste of time to talk about the fact that "free healthcare" or "free education" has a cost because someone has to do the work. Of fucking course they do. Everybody knows that. That's not the question.

[Foldered]

I'm not even sure I understand what the issue is here. By free and open access, it means only that everyone has access to it, not a select few women that deserve it according to privilege or situation.
I always thought that was relatively straightforward and not even a very radical belief/concept. :mellow:

[Endomorphian]

I guess I'm just posing the question how you define rights non-arbitrarily when the premise is that you have a right to an (abortion, education, lawyer, health care practitioner). If transportation is a right, it begs questions about the extent it can be made possible. Does every person in the United States have a right to free transportation to anywhere else in the world? If so, what if the costs of that right are so egregious that it interferes with our ability to provide every women (who wants the option of) an abortion? It all seems rather flimsy.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm sorry, I have no idea what your argument around the meaning of rights is. Is the argument: how can any service be provided for free all the time? There are plenty of things that are provided to people at no cost to them - there is national health-care in many capitalist countries right now. In a hypothetical worker's state, it would be considered a right, but obviously if there was some kind of genuine shortage of something or not enough specialists, that is not a violation of rights just as it is not a violation of free speech if you hold a rally and the PA system breaks down.

As I see it, abortion should be part of free healthcare in general - including free care during pregnancies and after birth, free vaccinations, free medical exams... the works. "Free abortions and open access" as stated in the guidelines is a reform that all radicals should demand of our governments. Reproductive rights are a pre-condition to gender equality and so radicals should support easy access to birth control, maternity leave, abortion, and childcare for working parents.

It is also something that should be considered a right in a potential worker's society along with health care. If a remote town can't provide abortions, considering that the procedure isn't brain-surgery, then the real problem isn't abortion, it's that town's lack of access to health services. In a society based on our needs and wants rather than profit, I think people would see it as a priority to make sure that transportation or some other means of getting medical aid to that town was provided.

[Dean]

I guess I'm just posing the question how you define rights non-arbitrarily when the premise is that you have a right to an (abortion, education, lawyer, health care practitioner). If transportation is a right, it begs questions about the extent it can be made possible. Does every person in the United States have a right to free transportation to anywhere else in the world? If so, what if the costs of that right are so egregious that it interferes with our ability to provide every women (who wants the option of) an abortion? It all seems rather flimsy.
Your fundamental problem is the obsession with ascribing distinct rights to issues which are merely economic imperatives: we would like to create a system of free, wide scale transportation and abortion access. That's not to say we currently have the infrastructure (though our production and distribution power can easily be redirected to provide for these goals).

Socialist systems seek more expansive, inclusive economic production and distribution. "Rights" to these commodities occur insofar as we have achieved the sufficient level, expansiveness and mode of production for them.

[cska]

In a communist society acting according to the saying, "from each according to ability, to each according to need," the word "free" would be completely unnecessary. Of course, if in a poor region, abortion services are unavailable, then like any other "right," unfortunately, the woman will have trouble getting an abortion. This would have to be a country with rather poor healthcare though, so abortions would be the least of people's worries.

[gofatchix]

Abortion is murder.

[Honggweilo]

Abortion is murder.
restrictcannon loaded