Writing a defense of Richard Mourdock is a pretty thankless job. What it really comes down to is defending the position that any egg that is fertilized and implanted in a uterus is presumed to have a moral claim on the owner of that uterus because Jesus. What James Taranto doesn’t understand is that that clump of cells doesn’t just need the woman’s uterus. It needs her blood. It needs the calcium from her bones. It needs nutrition from the food she eats. And it needs her to care for it for roughly twenty years after it is born. You can see how blind James Taranto is to this symbiotic relationship in the following passage:
But what’s interesting about [Joe] Donnelly’s statement is that he claims to agree with Mourdock’s central premises: that God exists, and that unborn children are human beings worthy of legal protection (or, as the Hill puts it, Donnelly “is also against abortion rights”). Donnelly differs from Mourdock only in reaching the opposite conclusion on the specific question of a rape exception.
That position could be coherently defended on various grounds. One might, for example, conceive of abortion in such cases as akin to justifiable homicide. Or one might offer a purely pragmatic argument: that abortion is wrong in all cases, but only a law with such exceptions is politically attainable.
Defenders of abortion rights do not consider “homicide” to be an appropriate term for describing the termination of a early pregnancy any more than most people think an early miscarriage is a death of a person requiring a funeral and notification of kin. Trust me on this. I’ve been through it.
The defense of our position for rape victims is not that we can justify a homicide or that we are winning a political concession. The defense is that a woman is an autonomous being who has the right to decide whether she wants to continue a symbiotic relationship. If she is not mentally prepared for that relationship or if she isn’t healthy enough to have that relationship or if she in no way consented to begin that relationship, she should be free to end it up to the point that the symbiosis is no longer required.
Babies are not pop-tarts. Mothers are not toasters. But that is how men like James Taranto view pregnancy and childbirth and mothering. Ironically, it’s an infantile way of looking at things.
These men appear to come from a strange and backwards village, a kind of deeply isolated patriarchy where women and childrearing are confined to a taboo long house the men must never visit, but about which they have a variety of fanatical and magical beliefs. It’s as if this village doesn’t have a word for rape, and so they struggle mightily to articulate their beliefs in a language that does have a concept for forcible intercourse.
These men are self described small government and opposed to socialism and yet when it comes to women they want the state to control our means of production.
I am beyond disgusted at this point.
They want small government for themselves, but plenty of coercion for everyone else. It’s why they can make common cause with the Randians. It’s all about me, me, me, me, me.
I don’t see how this is a symbiotic relationship. In fact, gestation as such seems to me to be in an entirely different category from classifications such as parasitic or symbiotic.
A pregnant woman has a symbiotic relationship with her intestinal flora. I’m pretty sure she gains nothing from carrying a fetus necessary to life, or else we’d all have one.
She transmits her genes. And, you know, she gets to be a mother. It’s not symbiotic in a technical sense but it a dependent relationship.
I think this could bear more thought. In what way is the mother dependent on the fetus? I think none at all and that it in fact endangers the mother’s life from the very beginning. It is in fact a parasitic relationship and that any woman who choses to not risk her own health has the right to do so.
Of course using that word to describe a fetus would send many people right over the edge.
A parasite, in the biological sense, is “an organism that lives on or in an organism of another species, known as the host, from the body of which it obtains nutriment.” (emphasis added)
Gestation is gestation. There’s no sense muddying the waters by conflating it with relationships between organisms of different species. We can do better.
Thank you, I did not really pursue the definition that far but only so far as one body relying on another for sustenance.
It certainly sends me over the edge. Parasitic? Where are you getting this crap?
The parasite/host model is actually fairly accurate from a biological point of view. The embryo/fetus feeds off the mother, sometimes to her detriment (e.g. leaching calcium from her bones if there is insufficient supply in the bloodstream), and is dependent on her for survival. The embryo/fetus contributes nothing toward the health or survival of the mother/host. On the contrary, in fact, if the mother/host does not increase her nutrient intake enough to accommodate the fetus, she will suffer malnutrition. There are also other ways in which the fetus can endager the mother’s health and life, some of which have already been mentioned.
A “clever” parasite does not kill the host because if the host dies, it will die, but it can do serious damage.
In the biological sense parasite is a value-neutral term and should not engender such an emotional reaction when used in that manner.
Yes, there are certain superficial similarities, but the comparison misses the main point that a parasite is an invading species, harmful by definition, while a fetus is an essential part of the life cycle of the same species, not usually harmful although making great demands on the mother.
That is why the healthy body tries its best to fight off the parasite, but the healthy woman’s body nourishes and protects the fetus. The fetus, unless it miscarries or is aborted, becomes a child; there is nothing similar with a parasite.
These are biological facts and have no relevance to the question of reproductive choice.
If you want to push the metaphor too far, it won’t work. A woman can exist quite nicely all her life without ever being pregnant, and so you can’t say she is in a symbiotic relationship that sustains her existence.
However, the symbiotic relationship of a pregnant woman and her baby is stronger. First, the developing embryo and later fetus is in a wholly dependent relationship. And, while someone else pointed out the terms like parasitic and symbiotic are about two different species, a baby is actually treated like a foreign body by the mother’s immune system quite often. Usually, this is when they have different blood types.
And, once the fetus is of sufficient size, it’s actually quite dangerous to the woman if the fetus doesn’t survive. Of course, that’s not a one-way street. At the fetus gets bigger it also creates a bigger threat either through causing high blood pressure or through becoming so big that it cannot be delivered vaginally. And, at some point, the baby can survive outside the womb is not in a purely dependent situation anymore.
So, if you take my point about a symbiotic relationship too literally, it will fail. But I don’t mean for you to take it too literally.
Thank you. The same goes for the parasitic thing as well. The point being that the woman has the right to decide for herself.
It’s closer to parasitic than to symbiotic, but neither is really an accurate description of the condition.
I wasn’t objecting to what happens when you push the analogy too far, but rather that it’s an inapt analogy without any pushing at all. But it’s a trivial objection; I understood the point you were making.
As for the various things that can go wrong during a pregnancy, yeah, I’ve had a front-row seat to a bit of that.
Excellent.
A little typo that confused for a moment…
I don’t need to read this conservative male turd Taranto to know that every verbal thing he constructs, manufactured on wingnut welfare commission, is deeply intellectually dishonest.
None of the supposed “central premises” are what Mullah Mourdock actually said—which was that he personally “struggled” with what to believe, concluded that God “creates all life”, that “life begins at conception” and that rape pregnancies can only be “what God intended”. Mourdock concludes from this flawless “logic” that we sin-filled humans have no business “interfering” in God’s Plan (by allowing a rape exception in our civil laws relating to abortion.) QED.
The first problem here is that Mullah Mourdock is explicitly stating that American law should be based entirely on HIS religious conception of life beginning at conception because “God creates life” (Of course, that “God creates life” doesn’t necessarily mean that life begins at conception—that is Mullah Mourdock’s personal theological conclusion).
But this is an open statement that our laws should be determined by the Christian Dogma that Mullah Mourdock has “determined” after his “personal struggle”. This is un-American, a violation of the establishment clause and absolutely indistinguishable from the approach of the Taliban–whose (male) leaders engage in precisely the same “reasoning” using the Koran and Islam, and then govern all society accordingly.
The second problem is that Mullah Mourdock’s (and Taranto’s) entire argument depends entirely upon the (religious based) conclusion that “life begins at conception”, and that a zygote is therefore a “protectible” human being and “life”. Their absurd policy “conclusions” all flow from this dogma. But this is the extremist Christianist position, and many serious Christians do not subscribe to it, let alone believe that God (or “scripture”) has decreed it to be the case. So Taranto’s argument that Donnelly is precisely the same in his “central premises” and just comes to a different “conclusion” is false.
What we have here is naked American Talibanism, “conservative” white males who believe that their study and “struggle” with ancient religious texts allows them to base civil laws affecting all citzens on THEIR personal interpretations of “holy” scripture. That this is not commented upon by the corporate press (or most pundits, frankly) is just another sign of the deeply degenerate state of our democracy and its increasingly braindead citizens.
Booman makes rational, empirical arguments for why this decision should best be made by the pregnant woman, who is the actual human who has the biggest stake in the whole affair. And why perhaps, just perhaps, it is not just or wise for a woman to be required by law to bear the child of her rapist. But such rational humanist arguments are meaningless and abhorrent to Mullah Mourdock and his fellow American Talibaners. They have read the Holy Scriptures and insist that those divine “rules” (as interpreted by wise Christianist men like Mullah Mourdock after his “stuggle”) must be written into universal civil law. The Constitution be damned.
All while running around in tri-corn hats with drum and fife accompaniment, yapping about “restoring” The Illustrious Founders. All of whom would literally puke at the thought of Mullah Mourdock squatting his vile Christianist ass in the US Senate. As a result of the “conservative” movement we are a nation in severe mental, moral and intellectual decline, with a deeply degraded medieval citizenry, and our Illustrious Founders would frankly disown us.
Why did you need to turn this into a none-too-subtle attack on Muslims? The people who are trying to remove an American woman’s right to choose whether to conceive and bear a child are not Muslims, they are Christians. Why was your default choice to aim this at Muslims, and not the American Christians who are the ones causing the problem?
I was speaking of the Afghan Taliban—they were the example used, not all “Muslims” as you would have it. I did not use the word, nor did I equate all muslims with the Taliban as you seem to do.
As for the idea that this comment was actually aimed at “Muslims” and “not the American Christians who are causing the problem”, that seems quite a severe misreading of what was written.
First of all, the Afghan Taliban are not the ones attempting to remove an American woman’s right to choose whether or not to conceive or bear children. It is American Christians who are doing that. Why did you have to bring the Afghan Taliban into this? Why could you not aim your comments toward the groups that are causing the problem?
Second, a Mullah is a person learned in Islamic law, not a Taliban. So when you sarcastically refer to someone you dislike as Mullah so-and-so you are making a general attack.
Regardless, your use of the term Mullah in this context is inappropriate, inaccurate, and offensive. Next time you are complaining about a problem being created by Christians, please do not use it as an excuse to attack Muslims.
In case anyone missed it yesterday, there was a brilliant piece of work done by a user over on dKos.
I Was Just Shot in the Chest
Just perfect. Thanks for the link.
Interesting. It’s actually easier to defend unqualified abortion rights than it is to defend a rape exception if you’re otherwise anti-choice. If you insist that life begins at conception, it really is hard to make a distinction based on the circumstances of that conception.
At any rate, I appreciate that Mourdock is offering a view that is frankly religious rather than some fake science bullshit like Todd Akin. I sometimes wonder why people don’t defend abortion rights on First Amendment grounds. Because personally I just don’t see early-term abortion as a moral issue. Morality to me is a matter of how you treat others, and in the early stages of a pregnancy, there’s just nobody there. But the Mourdocks and Akins of the world want to government to tell me I should think otherwise. How is that not an establishment of religion?
There are definitely first-amendment issues involved. Actually, VP Biden raised one in his debate. Not allowing you to impinge your religious beliefs on others who do not follow your religion (e.g., re abortion) is NOT an impingement on your religious freedom.
From a theological perspective, these people have taken the most extreme possible position available within Christian theology, even including medieval theology, on when animate life begins and when HUMAN life begins. (Two distinct issues.) So it is debatable within a strictly Christian context.
Within a cross-religious context, different religions have different positions. For example, even the most orthodox Judaism allows abortion up to the 40th day, and abortion is not deemed murder, but the killing of the mother is. You must abort a foetus if it will endanger the mother’s life. Etc.
For the state to sanction the most extreme religious views against everyone else’s, sounds to me like an establishment of religion.
I’m feeling extra rape-y today. Thank goodness this Mourdock guy is going to protect my rights as a rapist to procreate.
(all snark)
You seem to have missed the logic of the comment. He is not addressing a pro-choice position, because Donnelly is not pro-choice. Therefore, responses in terms of the thinking of pro-choice people are a non-sequitor. He is addressing a pro-life position that makes an exception for rape. If you agree, and evidently Donnelly does, that a fetus from conception is a human being deserving of legal protection, why would rape change that fact? After all, we do not consider children produced by rape to be inferior in rights in any other respect. This is not a silly argument.
With abortion, there are two clear cut positions that do not require the drawing of an arbitrary line: there is a line, but it is not arbitrary. One is that life, and therefore personhood, begins at conception; the other is that life, or at least personhood, begins with the severing of the umbilical cord (actually, I suppose one could argue significance of implantation, but it is a convoluted argument). Both of those events demark a fundamental physical change to which one could attribute moral consequences. Anything in-between will be somewhat arbitrary. But we as a culture have made clear that we do not morally accept either of the extreme positions. So we’re going to have to live with a certain degree of arbitrariness. That is why murky positions like saying a fetus has a right to life, but not in all cases, don’t outrage people. It is not an exercise in logic; it is an attempt to find the moral compromise our culture can live with. That said, exceptions for rape are untenable for practical reasons. They condition abortion access on proof of a crime, which typically can take longer than the period for an abortion, unless all such accusations are to be presumptively accepted. However, a rape exception also creates a strong incentive for false accusations.
And I’m not so much addressing the logic of his argument against Donnelly as his lack of imagination in how thinks about the issue in general. My aim was not to defend Donnelly’s position because I don’t agree with Donnelly.
Well, you do seem to be insisting that he doesn’t understand the position you articulate. That may be true, but it is not demonstrated by the quote, as the quote is not addressed to the position you articulate.
Seriously, Taranto is a nobody and this women has been prominently on the national stage for over a decade. She’s not white. And she’s telling the womens that Rmoney/Ryan won’t hurt them.
Like Ann Coulter and others, Rice has a high-paying gig to soften the image of the bigots that seek to rule this country and turn most of us into an uneducated, underclass. She’s like Serena Joy, Marie St. Clare, and Cruella de Vil all rolled into one.
What I find most fascinating about the arguments from people like Mourdock is that the mother is never even mentioned in them. It’s like she doesn’t exist, or is, at best, an inanimate vessel that is regrettably necessary for an embryo to develop.
Most areas in the law that are difficult to resolve arise because two (or more) conflicting rights or interests come into play; in abortion, it’s the rights of the fetus vs. the rights of the mother. (With the father, or an underage mother’s parents, thrown in by anti-choice activists to additionally chip away at a mother’s autonomy.) The simplest way to argue the primacy of the fetus’ interests is to ignore the conflicting interest entirely. And that’s exactly what people like Mourdoch do.
It’s harder to imagine a purer expression of misogyny.