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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

I"m not diminishing it, I'm accentuating something that's not often pointed out, which is how rare those situations are and how safe we've been able to make pregnancy as a whole.

There are ways to deal with those situations that could satisfy pro-lifers and pro-choicers but that requires everyone lower their blood pressure. Sadly, I don't see that happening very soon.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

That's the thing. it's not that rare. It happens far more often than people think, and even if not every woman's pregnancy is life threatening, it still can cause major health problems for us. For every woman. And honestly, I don't see a solution that satisfies both sides regardless of whether we are able to discuss it calmly or not. It comes down to whose rights are more important, the fetus or the woman. Until a fetus can survive outside of the woman's body, there is no compromise on the issue.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

I was looking at the statistics here (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_mat_mor-health-maternal-mortality) as a point of reference.

For me, the answer has always been "neither" and "both", when it comes to the question of 'whose rights are more important?' I can't see anything but two patients in every pregnancy, from a biological standpoint, from a medical standpoint, and from the standpoint of simple human existence. I've heard every counter argument and I cannot argue that they don't come from a place of deep conviction, but it always comes down to these two elements: We exist or we do not. We are alive or we are not.

I refuse to, by default and regardless of circumstance, make one more important than the other, (or to accept the idea that by taking this stance means I'm taking the 'side' of fetus over the woman), any more than a doctor would make one kind of patient by default more important than another in going about the task of triage.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Well, given the number of pregnancies in the US every year those numbers are still worthwhile. Not to mention as I said it's not even death we need to only worry about, there are many serious side effects to pregnancy.

The unfortunate thing is you are by default taking a stance. Until a fetus can survive outside the host body, you are infringing upon the woman's rights to use her own body as she sees fit. And since we do not know when existence begins is it really fair for you, or for anyone to ask that of us? Should we not err on the side that we know has consciousness and rights? Especially considering the vast majority of pregnancies take place when the fetus in question is truly nothing more than a clump of cells.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

I would argue and actually have in other threads, that the metaphysical concept of personhood is, as you say, most definitely unknown, but modern developmental biology has narrowed down the emergence of the physical (non-metaphysical) existence to the few moments during and after conception.

Erring on the side of caution is part of my argument as well, though I do so from the perspective of the shooter who blindly aims into the woods knowing that a 'person' may or may not be among the trees he's shooting into. Just as whatever makes a person, a person is unknown in the early stages of life. It may be or it may not be, but at best it's unknown. To err on the side of caution means 'do not take the shot' because what we assume are important parts of what makes a human a 'person' has been checkered in the past at best. When it comes to understanding ourselves in that way, it's always been an incomplete lesson, and it seems it likely always will be.

[prog-expat.livejournal.com]

"...but modern developmental biology has narrowed down the emergence of the physical (non-metaphysical) existence to the few moments during and after conception."

Explain/expand.