Trends

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

An interesting finding in recent polling on social issues. I'll let this piece give the details:

Americans are now evenly split on same-sex marriage: 47 percent support marriage rights for gays and lesbians, and 47 percent oppose them. That stalemate won't last long—critics of gay unions are dying off. According to a new report from the Public Religion Research Institute, only 31 percent of Americans over age 65 support gays getting hitched, compared to 62 percent of Americans under 30.

But strong millennial support for gay marriage has not translated into an uptick in acceptance of other sexual freedoms, like the right to an abortion. The Public Religion Research Institute notes that popular support for keeping abortion legal has dipped a percentage point since 1999, and young Americans are not swelling the ranks of abortion rights supporters. Today, while 57 percent of people under 30 see gay sex as "morally acceptable," only 46 percent of them would say the same thing about having an abortion.

The institute calls this a "decoupling of attitudes." Support for same-sex marriage and abortion rights have traditionally gone hand-in-hand, and that's changing. Though young people today are "more educated, more liberal, and more likely to be religiously unaffiliated" than their parents—all factors traditionally correlated with support of abortion rights—they are not actually more likely to support abortion.

The article goes on to give some reasons as to why this decoupling is occurring, but I believe the issue is much more simple than that - gay marriage, as it is, has been a reality for millennials (folks ages 19-29) for most of their politically/socially aware lives now, and they see quite clearly how the issue really doesn't matter - gay people getting married doesn't impact their straight marriages, or their lives at all, really. There's no harm involved. The difference with abortion is that the harm involved remains self-evident - at the end of the day, we know how many abortions occur, and such "decoupling," as it were, likely reflects that difference. I also speculate that many do not see the abortion issue as one of "rights," but rather one of life. That those who self-identify as pro-life remains competitive ideologically with those who self-identify as pro-choice for the first time in a while may be a sign of that.

Why do you think these issues are separating? Should they truly be falling under the same social umbrella? What am I missing here?

Comments

[curseangel.livejournal.com]

IMO, the significant division between "person" and "not person" is, um, you've gotta be born. Excuse me for being a little brusque here, but I simply can't get through the argument that women's rights should be trampled until they no longer exist over a parasitic organism that cannot survive if removed from the woman's body. It's not a person at that point. It isn't sentient, it lives as a parasite, etc... no, that's not a person. In my opinion and that of nearly every other pro-choicer I know (which is a lot, as I refuse to associate with anti-choicers), a fetus becomes a person when it is born. Until then, it doesn't get rights.

[curseangel.livejournal.com]

I actually wasn't. But we're not supposed to insult people here iirc, so I got creative.

Seriously though, it was unnecessary to reference it and I do apologize, even if it still was heinous. It's been That Kind of Day. I'm gonna leave this thread pretty soon and go to Trader Joe's for some grocery-related retail therapy, so I'll check out.

[raichu100.livejournal.com]

also, jsyk, I'm not using your "tone" (i.e. being a jerk) to try to invalidate anything you are saying. so the "tone argument" thing is bullshit. I'm just using it to say that I find talking to you to be extremely unpleasant to talk to and I don't want to do it.

You can take that or leave it. If you want to talk to me, be nice. Give me a change to explain myself if I say something that you think is offensive rather than just jumping to conclusions about how I think. Try not to unleash all your RAEG on me when you don't really know much at all about the kind of person I am and how I see things. I get the feeling you and I could read totally different things into a statement spoken by someone entirely different. We just see things very differently. I'm not a rape-apologist, woman-hater, or slut-shamer. I'm just not. You are convinced that I am because of a single conversation over the internet (in which you took much of what I said in a completely different way than I meant it). You don't get to decide what I meant by what I say. You hardly know anything about me, yet are extremely judgmental.

Okay, I kind of went off on a rant there, I admit it. I just find the way you treat me to be very upsetting. So if you're going to continue along the path of "I am right, the end, your are wrong and evil and hateful because I said so," then I. do. not. want. to. talk. to. you.

tl;dr have an open mind; listen to me when I say I didn't mean something the way you took it, and respect that (and I will in turn respect you when you say the its common for people to interpret something a certain way when maybe I didn't know that); and don't lash out at the slightest provocation - or don't talk to me at all.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Which right is more fundamental, the right to bodily autonomy, or the right to bodily integrity, when the two conflict?

[raichu100.livejournal.com]

I understand. You might want to also look at my own reply to this comment (I tried to edit it in but by then you had already replied.)

I'm sorry you think the things I say are "heinous". But I don't have the same background with these issues that you and some other members here (such as blue_mangoes) have, so please try to understand that I don't see things the same way - I don't say something with the intention of it coming across as a "heinous" idea even if you are more likely to associate that idea with those words.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

I can't say your experience matches my own. And I do occasionally enter into discussions with the 'other side' so to speak because it helps me strengthen my own thoughts on issues.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

I guess I think human life is too precious to gamble on.

I'd rather protect the existing, confirmed person (the woman) than the potential, possible person (the fetus), because realistically speaking, in the vast majority of cases, if a woman gets pregnant and she's not ready to be a parent, forcing her to become a mother WILL fuck over both her own life and that of her child (and yes, there are inspiring Reader's Digest-worthy stories of moms and kids in such circumstances who bravely overcame the odds, but that's like saying that institutionalized economic inequity is okay because BOOTSTRAPS). Again, the reason I don't have kids is because any children I might father would literally be better off NEVER HAVING EXISTED than having me as a dad.

I'd rather see a cultural change than a political one, in this case.

I don't believe they're mutually exclusive. Tell kids that birth control and STD protection exist, at the same time that you provide abortion rights and morning-after pills for those who still get pregnant. In short, do preventive measures so that abortions themselves become less necessary, but don't rule out abortion itself. I commend you for your support of birth control, but I simply think you're a bit incomplete in your approach.

Yes, there are times when abortion is appropriate. I don't think "I don't feel like having a baby" is one of those times [...]

Why the hell not? That's why I'M not having kids RIGHT NOW! It's the same reason why, as a former military enlistee, I will NEVER support reinstating the draft, because I've seen enough of the problems that crop up even when people make a PREMEDITATED CHOICE to enter into a thing, so it can get a lot WORSE if they're doing something that they DIDN'T want to do to begin with. The fact that I don't WANT to have a kid is proof enough that I SHOULDN'T have a kid.

[curseangel.livejournal.com]

I read it. All I can really say is that I will try to refrain from a knee-jerk reaction, but I do ask that you pay more attention to what you are saying sometimes. Because a lot of times, the things you've said here have been extremely offensive to others, and may trigger people (especially when talking about slut-shaming, rape apologism, and such). And a lot of times the things you say are similar to, if not the same as the things that people who are rape-apologists, flagrant misogynists, and slut-shamers say. You have to be willing to accept that when you parrot those words, you are going to get the same reaction they would, because people are sick to death of dealing with that shit. Especially if you come in saying those things in posts that are already volatile and where similar arguments have been going on.

Further, I'd say having an open mind is important, certainly, but not so open that your brain falls right out. I am open-minded, but if someone sounds and acts like a misogynist, I'm... probably going to assume they're a misogynist. If someone says things that are slut-shaming, I'm going to assume they're slut-shaming.

And sometimes, with things like the "education = sexual assault" thing? The best thing to say is not "but I didn't mean it like that!" it's, "I'm sorry, I'll think more about my words next time." The former just made me more angry, because it smacks of "it's your fault if you're offended" and "I can say whatever I want and as long as I didn't 'mean it' you can't get angry". The apology, however, is actually productive. As I've said, intent isn't magic, and saying you didn't mean something the way it came off doesn't erase the fact that people got offended or hurt by what you said... and you are responsible for it, because they're your words, regardless of your intent.

I really, really think you should try to educate yourself on these issues, maybe by joining some actual feminist groups, like ontd_feminism or something similar.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

The woman is UNQUESTIONABLY a person, as opposed to the nebulousness of the fetus, so you don't get to tell the one who IS a person that their rights are trumped by the one that only MIGHT be a person."

A person who shoots blindly into the trees knowing that there's a chance someone amongst them and kills a human being he did not see there still has at least some responsibility for his actions.

In other words, to which side does one get to err when the possibility of life is threatened? Typically the responsibility is to err on the side of life unless it can be shown with certainty that it is not at risk.

[curseangel.livejournal.com]

The fetus has the right to "bodily integrity." I'm not talking about tearing it into tiny pieces or something. It totally has the right to live -- if it can, outside of the woman's body. But it does not have the right to take over a woman's body for nine months and risk killing her, regardless of whether you consider a fetus a "person" or not. As I said above, it would be tantamount to making it a law that you had to die and donate your heart to your sibling if they had a heart condition that necessitated a transplant, or that you had to give up your kidney. Fuck, at that point we might as well go the route of Never Let Me Go -- raise people solely for the purpose of harvesting their organs to save other people! After all, if a woman should be stripped of her rights to force her to provide for another being that is literally leeching all of her nutrients and living solely on her power and making irreparable changes to her body and might kill her, then why not just do that to loads of people, right?

Seriously, it's all bullshit. Women don't lose their rights when they get pregnant, no matter how much you want them to.

Re: Perhaps you may should call abortion a Human Rights issue

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

They were granted Personhood solely for determining representation in the House, not that they had 3/5's the rights of citizens.

Re: Perhaps you may should call abortion a Human Rights issue

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I'd need some evidence if someone wanted to argue the position that there's any kind of pre-existing rights.

Re: Perhaps you may should call abortion a Human Rights issue

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

People believe in all sorts of wack-ass shit, polling consistently shows that a solid 20% of the population will go along with anything from 9/11 being pre-planned by the W administration to faked moon landings.

It doesn't matter what some rube believes but instead it is the accumulated body of western law dating all the way back to the Code of Hammurabi that establishes rights for born, living humans.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Unless you live in a third world country where pregnancy might seriously be considered a death warrant, there is little need for this kind of hyperbole.

Yes, sometimes the occasion arises even in first world countries where a pregnancy threatens the life of the mother, and if we were discussing that and that alone then you would have a point. But the vast majority of abortions are not these cases. Pregnancy in a first world country is

The comparison to Never Let Me Go differs significantly in that the dependency in the film is orchestrated, an imposition of man, not of biological nature, which is a prima facie violation which does not exist in the case of naturally arising pregnancy. The existence of the dependency is not one of a malicious man-made artifice, and the justification for maintaining a dependency that is naturally arising cannot be transferred (with intellectual honesty on the part of anyone attempting to do so) to one that is. There is no slippery slope here.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

A person who shoots blindly into the trees knowing that there's a chance someone amongst them and kills a human being he did not see there still has at least some responsibility for his actions.

Except that you can't convict for murder based on a hypothetical. And in the absence of concrete evidence of personhood, that's pretty much what you're asking for. Which brings up the question: If abortion is illegal, do you support prosecuting and punishing the woman who terminates her own pregnancy? Because if not, you're simply going to encourage reputable doctors to stop treating those women, who will then turn to back-alley chop-shops or do-it-yourself methods, but if so, you're necessarily telling a woman what she can and can't do with her own body, which is as morally reprehensible to me as trying to prosecute someone who attempts suicide for breaking anti-suicide laws.

Typically the responsibility is to err on the side of life unless it can be shown with certainty that it is not at risk.

A whole LOT of laws would be VERY different if that were actually the case, from tobacco and alcohol permissions to speed limits and health care regulations.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Then there's the question of why an adult's rights trump that of a fetus, since we generally believe they do not trump the rights of a child or baby.

No, we 'generally' do.

[retrofire.livejournal.com]

Maybe they realize they can't control gay people
but still think they are entitled to control women

[curseangel.livejournal.com]

Oh yes (http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/usa-urged-confront-shocking-maternal-mortality-rate-2010-03-12), there is no danger (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/80743.php) of maternal mortality (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/12/amnesty-us-maternal-mortality-rates) or serious complications due to pregnancy (http://articles.cnn.com/2010-03-12/health/maternal.mortality_1_maternal-deaths-deaths-and-complications-pregnancy?_s=PM:HEALTH) in developed nations (http://www.medpagetoday.com/OBGYN/Pregnancy/19493) such as the United States (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/22/science/la-sci-maternal-deaths-20100523)!

P.S. A fetus still doesn't deserve more rights than the woman whose body it is hijacking. No matter what biology was involved in its creation. Saying a fetus's right to continue to leech nutrients and space and irreparably damage and change a woman's body trumps her right to, you know, not support that fetus is pure misogyny. Well, disgusting misogyny, actually.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

The distinction is rather straight forward.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Marriage and abortion are very different types of activities, so it is easy to see how people can favor one but not the other. Young people have more options for birth control than older people had when they were young. As we have seen with other issues, an opinion can easily change when it becomes a personal event rather than something that other people experience. That is, a young woman who is faced with a personal decision of her own may change her position.

An excellent argument against abortion was made by Nat Hentoff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Hentoff). His interview appears in Lake of Fire:



People who make "pro-life" arguments tend to support the taking of life in other cases. Hentoff is more consistent.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

It doesn't matter whether a vast majority of the abortions are for medical reasons or not, it's the same procedure, for the same reason. The only difference is whether people get to judge other's moral actions or not.

As for whether pregnancy is a life threatening condition I would urge you not to go down that argumentative road considering there are women in this very community for who this is a reality. Please do not be so dismissive of their situations.

That is prett cynical.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Fewer young people have been indoctrinated into the cult of control.

Re: "Rights" issues

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

This is why most of the people who oppose abortion also oppose war and the death penalty.

Re: Perhaps you may should call abortion a Human Rights issue

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

So, it wasn't that slaves deserved rights that were being denied them, it was out of the kindness and benevolence of the government that they let them in on the game at all.

You don't deserve something that's given or granted. Ergo, unless it's granted, it isn't deserved or to be expected.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'm going to repeat what I said in other threads: Polls suck as a barometer of public opinion. Period.