Usually, on this topic I come out four-square behind blackelk, whose colorful rhetoric sometimes comes across as more overblown than the principles behind it. I know blackelk for many years, and he is no holier than thou.
That said, I think papertyger has made an excellent point, but perhaps has unwittingly used needlessly a provocative to make it.
Actually, I believe that there are two separate arguments here, and that there is no need for this level of argument.
1. Papertyger does not think abortion can be banned, the society is too far gone. Blackelk disagrees.
2. Papertyger believes that the incidence of abortion, and the political momentum of the pro-abort movement can be curtailed by disengaging the ally of the feminist, the irresponsible sirer. PT proposes to do this by giving the sirer the ability to extinguish his rights (which are generally next to nil, anyway) and his obligations with what PT terms a “paper abortion.” BlackElk is not in favor of this.
I believe that these are two different issues. Being pro-life, and wanting abortion outlawed, is distinct from the question of whether it is a good policy to make the sirer able to shirk his responsibility.
A very good priest friend of mine told me that this was how the law used to be... with one exception. If the man in question was the woman’s husband, he is given both rights and responsibilities regarding his off-spring. Yes, a large number of abortions occur within marriage, many without the husband’s permission (whether it is his child or not), and many others without even his knowledge. If we limit the “paper abortion” to people who are not married to each other, and perhaps rename it to “unlilateral surrender of rights and obligations” (USRO), a number of things happen. the tomcats are off the hook, but the worst of them were never on the hook because you cannot get blood out of stone, and the possibility of that changing discourages them from EVER growing up. However, the girls and women in question, who typically do a lot more calculating, because they bear more of the results, now have a disincentive. Also, the feds lose one of the reasons they have for all the tracking they do on private citizens (the reasons usually being “deadbeat dads”, illegal immigration, drugs, and terrorism).
Historically, out-of-wedlock relations, pregnancies, and births are culturally tied to how the girls behave, not the boys. There are several reasons for this. But even if you have 99% choir boys, one tom cat among them can wreak a LOT of havoc.
This might put some of the onus on the women to think the responsible thing to do would be to get married first. We might have made the “A” a little too scarlet in centuries past, but a painting scarlet “V”s is even worse.
Note that this does not give the tomcat the ability to force or even request an abortion. Married men still would not have the right to force an abortion. Ideally, they would be able to prevent one, but that is almost as far away as overturning Roe.
Not that either of you asked for my opinion, but I will offer it anyway.
1. If we believe that there is no way within the system to criminalize the widespread slaughter of innocent babies, then the system is irrevocably broken, and the system MUST be changed by whatever moral means available to one where it is possible and a reality. Even the recent Supreme Court decision is useful, because for the first time it provided a tangible restriction on the act itself. Forty years seems like a long time. For some, it is how long it took to wander from Egypt to the Promised Land. For abolitionists, it was phase one. Heck, the Sodomites sure did not throw in the towel after Bowers v. Hardwick. And O’Connor stuck around long enough to reverse herself.
2. Those who work within the system or on its periphery to try to get good judges on the court, etc. do not undermine the effort of those who want to raze the whole system.
3. Our current system permnently marginalizes a bunch of men, some of whom might be persuaded to behave if given another shot. It definitely, provides more weapons than is needed for the girl or woman who wants a child but not the whole package of responsibilities that comes along with it.
4. I would be in favor of financial incentives to assist mothers who make their children available for an adopting family. (the money should not be put up by the adopting family, as that would give the appearance of buying the child.) If women can rent their wombs to gestate other people’s children for money, and they do, this is less offensive. Anything to encourage children to be raised by responsible parents would be a good thing, and necessary to break the cycle.
5. the opt-out clause would not apply to rape (including statutory). However, the statutory charge would have actually be entered and executed to get the guy on the hook.
I could go on. I guess, Elk, I just do not see a pro-abort agenda behind PT’s writing.
PT, I would only encourage you to make the ideal the goal, even if you cannot see when or how it can happen. Most of us did not see the Berlin Wall coming down in the ‘80s. Working intelligently towards the goal is productive even if the entire goal isn’t achieved. Or, as your parents probably pointed out, if you shoot for Cs you may wind up with Fs.
Don’t be surprised if by you saying “outlawing abortion isn’t possible” that some may reasonably surmise that you don’t care much if it is or isn’t. Half the stuff pushed by freepers of all stripes is VERY far from becoming close to reality. But the ideas still get put out and worked toward.
I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments. The problem is getting pro-lifers to shut up and listen long enough to realize we need to play this just like African-Americans did during the civil rights era.
Pro-lifers are Dr. King, those like me are Malcolm X.
We need both but these jackasses keep trying to shout down the "bad cop" instead of getting the "confession."
My rationale is workable because it is modeled on the pro-abort's own reasoning, catch-phrases, and philosophical infrastructure. (I just apply it to men instead of women, and maintain in a very matter-of-fact manner that nine months of carrying a child is nothing compared to eighteen years of servitude to a woman holding your child for ransom, thus dismissing the biological disparity) They have already agreed to all the principles in obtaining their goal; they can't very well renege on them now. But they haven't had to, because the pro-life contingent walks in lock step with killers and scream bloody murder if the possibility of cutting support for women raises its head.
His "paper abortion" is nothing more than fleeing from court-ordered child support payments. When the biodad abandons the child in utero, the child is still, to him, a mere abstract concept (the fictional status so cherished by the Sangerian mindset: "just a blob of tissues"). No child support payments and no relationship with or obligation toward the undefined child and lots more time and budget for the sports bar. If he really doesn't drink, he can order Diet Cokes. Thus PT proposes to financially reward the sexual hunter/gatherer male who wants a hit and run social life. He thinks of this as recruiting the wild oat sowers to the pro-life cause (apparently) as though that was a good idea.
I am pinging PT only as the customary courtesy and certainly not because I give a feather or a fig about such opinions as he may hold.
I think you are displaying unwarranted kindness to PT given his history on this thread. You are free to do so and I am free not to do so. As a movement, we have never been so hard up as to have to recruit those such as him without much better standardization of belief. Meanwhile, he can pursue the liberation of wild oat sowers, the impoverishment of women, the abandonment of babies who do manage to survive to be born to legally encouraged fatherlessness, yet another unnecessary and unwanted intrusion of superficial pop culture libertarianism into the prolife issue where it has no place and no discernible use.
It is better for the pro-life movement to harvest the flowers sown long ago than to regress to the stage of the Maoist slogan "Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom." We know what we want and what we want has no relationship to what PT wants.
Also the somewhat human tomcat has not been born who does not know how to press for that "liberating" abortion if he is aware of the pregnancy.
Dr. S.: God bless you and yours as ever.