Asymmetrical Information

With regard to your update: Yes, it seems weird for those who argue that government cannot "impose someone else's morality on me" to, in another context, claim that government must do X (prevent cruelty to animals, help the poor, provide aide to AIDS victims, etc.) because it's the moral thing to do. At it's bottom, most laws are enacted on moral grounds. To claim that ONLY one area of life should be offlimits to laws based on moral considerations is weird. It's also unworkable.

Abortion is justifiable killing. Like war. Necessary for survival. If I were a woman that's what I would both argue and believe. I can get rid off, kill this thing-not-a-human in my me because I control my body and what's in it. My life is more important than it.

Re: Update.

"But ALL of us believe the federal government...blah blah..."

So, the commenter is opposed to Roe v. Wade? After all, it was Roe that federalized the abortion debate. It was purely a state or local decision before, right?

(I'm a pro-life libertarian.)

Isn't abortion potentially a little different from saying mean things to your Grandmother? Surely if abortion is wrong (and I'm _not_ trying to start an argument about whether that is the case), then it is in the class of wrongs things that the government should be involved in stopping? Has anyone ever argued that abortion is wrong for reasons other than that there are two human beings (mother and child) involved?

To put it another way, I happen to believe that abortions should be avaiaable until some point between conception and birth, and closer to birth. I also wish that we were arguing about that point in time rather than the whole concept. But if someone were to convince me that abortion was just plain wrong from conception, then I would be firmly opposed any and all abortion rights.

But to repeat, I am not trying to argue the actual merits of abortion, just your particular proposal to make it wrong, but not stoppable.

There is, I think, a moral case to be made for allowing abortion. Shouldn't human beings with no desire to reproduce be allowed to terminate their own lines? They are pro-death, and for this reason, they should be allowed to die.

Isn't the stigmatization of abortion already happening? It seems to me that (at least middle-class) attitudes towards abortion have changed a lot in the last 10-15 years compared to the first 10-15 years post-Roe. An abortion is much more likely to be seen as a big deal and a traumatic event.

Much of this, I believe is self-fulfilling, and I think an abortion where one has to be escorted into the clinic past shouting protestors calling you a murderer is more likely to be traumatic than the same procedure without the external drama.

The position of the Democratic party needs to be "We are pro-choice. Some of us believe that abortion is morally acceptable. Some of us find it repugnant. Some of us just aren't sure. But ALL of us believe that the federal government, which is incapable of fairly and effectively policing traffic violations, has neither the right nor the ability to reach a binding decision on difficult moral issues such as this."
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But overturning Roe V Wade wouldn't make abortion a Federal issue, rather it would return the issue to the states. To me, the abortion debate has two main parts; 1) rights of Woman vs. rights of unborn child/fetus, and 2) federalism.

Women shown sonograms of their young fetuses for example, are about one-fifth as likely to have abortions as women who are not shown sonograms.

I simply don't believe this. Are you claiming that four out of five of women who have come into a clinic for an abortion leave without getting one when they are shown a sonogram? I do not believe you have any data supporting this.

I hate the topic of abortion. Its too contentious.
But, when it comes down to it, abortions done for the sake of convenience bother me. It's a selfish act, even more so when you consider the ridiculous waiting times for adoption (I have a sister who has waited 2+ years to adopt their 2nd child). The moral caculus of "I'd sooner kill it than give it away" reaks of selfishness, and that bothers me.
But, as I said, I hate the topic, so I generally avoid entering into discussions about it.

But overturning Roe V Wade wouldn't make abortion a Federal issue, rather it would return the issue to the states. To me, the abortion debate has two main parts; 1) rights of Woman vs. rights of unborn child/fetus, and 2) federalism.

Correct, a reversal of Roe would simply return us to the status quo ante Roe, in which a very few states had lax abortion laws, many banned it entirely, and most were in between. Between about 1950, when all state banned it entirely, and the early 1970s, there was a trend toward permissiveness, but it was not uniform or widespread.

Fundamentally, the issue is about homicide: whether abortion is homicide, and if it is, whether it should be legal, and under what circumstances. If this looks like a problem for plain old criminal law that the states enact through their general police power, it is.

Declaring abortion a constitutional right in 1973 was kinda like, oh, say, finding a constitutional right to gay marriage would be now, in terms of politics and public opinion. The difference is that there's a decent argument that gay marriage is a constitutional right (though I disagree), while there wasn't one for abortion.

As Chris points out, overturning RvW would not illegalize or criminalize abortion: it would simply make it more likely that people could live in a jurisdiction whose laws they agreed with.

When RvW was decided, several states (including, notably, NY and CA) had *already* voted to make abortion legal under most circumstances: indeed, President Reagan later said it was one of the great regrets of his career as governor, to have signed the country's most liberal (at that time) abortion law.

If the issue were returned to the states now, can anyone doubt that many states would vote to allow abortion anyhow? Heck, I read a story a few years ago that Connecticut had passed contingent legislation making abortion legal even if RvW were overturned.

There will never be a consensus in this country about abortion. Indeed, I am not convinced that--in the long term--a state-by-state solution is viable: any more than it was for slavery. But it would be a start, and it would take the focus off the Federal government and especially the judiciary, which could then be appointed on some more broad-spectrum basis than "RvW, pro or con?"

I simply don't believe this. Are you claiming that four out of five of women who have come into a clinic for an abortion leave without getting one when they are shown a sonogram? I do not believe you have any data supporting this.

You might restrain yourself to asking for the data first. Given that any sonogram taken at or after ten weeks will show something with the shape of a miniature baby, this wouldn't be a surprising outcome. Especially if the woman in question had previously heard any of the abortion industry's consolation rhetoric about the fetus being a "lump of tissue." Technically correct, but it doesn't invoke an accurate visual if the woman has never seen a sonogram image.

That said, a cite to the study would be nice...

The thing is, a fetus is not a _person_ in the eyes of the law. It was even that way in Biblical times; a man who accidentally caused a woman to miscarry was _not_ prosecuted for murder, as he would have been had the fetus been considered human.

And nobody has the right to live as an unwanted guest inside another person's body.

Chris, if the Democratic Party were to adopt your position, it would need to overturn a huge portion of it's philosophy of governance, which is entirely hostile to allowing states to rule themselves.

Eric:

And nobody has the right to live as an unwanted guest inside another person's body.

That argument works for the

LizardBreath:

Here is an article about links between viewing an ultrasound and deciding to carry one's baby to term. The author admits that not a lot of research has been done. But he notes that all the research that has been done points in the direction Ms. Galt suggests.

Had you performed the quick search I just did, you would have found this and many more articles on this topic. Many are by Christian groups -- hardly surprising, given the subject matter -- but one is from the New York Times.

Well, to play devil's advocate, when one creates the guest through consensual behavior, it can reasonably argued that one has a moral obligation to the guest. Having said that, I don't favor regulation of abortion, because in a technological age it is a difficult act to regulate on a non-discriminatory basis. Abortion may be a morally illegitimate act in many instances,but it is not the role of the state to end all morally illegitimate acts.

Lizard, it's a factoid I picked up; I can't provide a source, but I'll look around for it.

But the exact number is irrelevant. Say it's half of women who decide not to abort. Say it's a third. What rational reason is there for allowing--nay, encouraging--women to duck information that would cause them to change their minds? Even NARAL doesn't argue that abortion should be encouraged. Even if the number is smaller, mandatory sonograms would be a relatively unrestrictive way to make abortion rarer.

All of the conservatives trying to claim that it's not that bad if Roe is overturned because it would just return it to the states would have a bit more credibility if it weren't for the sterling conservative example concerning gay marriage. Do the leaders of the Republican party express any desire to leave it to the states? No, they want a constitutional amendment to pander to the Religious Right. What evidence is there that abortion would be any different? They would also have more credibility if a new growing part of their movement wasn't to allow Christian pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions not only for the morning after pill but for any form of contraceptives.

"there is an instinctive aversion among most pro-choicers to making women feel bad about having an abortion"

They also have an instinctive aversion to even admitting that the regret may come later, regardless of the actions of others. How many women (and girls) get an abortion because it's the easy way out, and then have to spend a lifetime asking themselves why they did it? Do we have evidence that we're helping young women and girls, long run, by making it easy for them to do this without thinking?

Jim S - You are wrong on the facts. What conservatives want with respect to abortion and gay marriage is exactly the same: for the courts to stay out of it. These are issues that properly are for the people to decide, not judges. If Vermont and Massachusetts had enacted same sex marriage via the legislature, there would not be a movement to amend the constitution. Same with abortion.

This is NOT to say that the courts got the public policy wrong in either case. It is to say that the courts are not the proper forum for setting out such public policies.

To the adamantly pro-"choice" (ie, the folks who strenuously object to the idea of sonograms before committing to abortion, but can't explain why), abortion is _necessarily_ the _right_ choice. Information is irrelevant. Anything which might tend to deter an abortion is necessarily _immoral_ on the sole basis that it tends to deter abortion.

This is, however, a politically nonviable position. The overwhelming majority of Americans would recoil from it in horror. Therefore, it cannot be admitted openly. Hence the hemming and hawing about just _why_ mandating sonograms for women considering abortion would be a bad idea.

I agree with the sonogram idea. I know many women who were strongly pro-choice (myself included) prior to having kids. Going through the process with the ultrasounds has made them question their position. At 12 weeks you can see a heartbeat - I think that would be powerful information to have while making a decision.

Perfect information is always best, but more information is not always better. If that additional information consists only of powerful argument for one side, with no counterbalancing arguments, it can and often does lead to making bad decisions.

I don't think that a fetus is human in any morally significant sense. But heck if it doesn't look human on the sonogram screen. If you simply show a pregnant woman a sonogram without giving her the arguments for why she doesn't really see what she thinks she sees, then she's only getting half the story. And that can lead her to make a bad decision.

I don't speak for anyone but myself, of course, but I am in favor of more abortions. When a young, unmarried woman has a child and tries to raise it herself, it's bad for her, it's bad for the child, and it's bad for those of us who will very likely have to subsidize them. Unless there's a married couple waiting to adopt the baby, I think that abortion is almost without exception the only responsible choice for a woman in that situation.

So while I wouldn't object to a woman considering an abortion getting a sonogram if she really wanted to and was willing to pay for it, I do vigorously object both to the government forcing her to sit through what amounts to anti-abortion propaganda, and to my being forced to pay it.

People take decisions with imperfect information in all sorts of circumstances. Indeed I happen to be reading Paul Ormerod's Why Most Things Fail (which I suspect would appeal widely to the AI readership) who stresses that all decisions of any consequence are taken with imperfect information. Of course that doesn't mean that getting more information is a bad thing, but it does very strongly suggest that mandating one particular piece of information as one to be imposed by the state is not a step to be taken lightly by those who otherwise believe in reducing rather than increasing state intervention.

That's not an abortion specific or sonogram specific argument. If someone wants to argue that the federal government should impose a general requirement on people not to make decisions without being in posession of some set of mandatory information, I would be very intersted to see it.

Sounds good to a libertarian . . . but it does seem that it would undercut much of the rest of the Democratic platform, no?

Much as the social statism of the religious right would seem to undercut the (ostensibly) deregulatory nature of the Republican platform. Until the social statists and economic deregulators of the Republican Party play a game of red rover with the social regulators and economic statists of the Democratic Party, each coalition is going to continue to marvel at the contradictory facets of the other side.

Although it appears that the ultimate evolution of parties in power is to become a statist in both aspects.

Ahem, social deregulators on the left.

How would people feel about requiring doctors to give women considering abortions a summary of statistics showing the economic disadvantages of carrying children to term, particularly as a single mother, and a survey of the emotional distress birth parents experienced when they gave up their children for adoption? How about studies showing that adopted children experiencing greater emotional and financial disabilities throughout their lives compared to biological children?

I'm playing devil's advocate here, because personally I am a great supporter of adoption and it has been an important part of my family experience. I think it is an interest angle on the "more information is always justifiable" point.

"When a young, unmarried woman has a child and tries to raise it herself, it's bad for her, it's bad for the child, and it's bad for those of us who will very likely have to subsidize them." - Brandon Berg -

Wow! Bad for the child? It's out of concern for the soon-to-be-baby that you support abortion? I can think of many adults who grew up in poverty and yet went on to lives they considered to be worthwhile. I seriously doubt any of them would, today, think they would have been better off having never lived.

"Unless there's a married couple waiting to adopt the baby, I think that abortion is almost without exception the only responsible choice for a woman in that situation." - Brandon Berg -

That "unless" qualification on abortion being the only responsible choice is kinda big, don't you think? There are lots of married couples who would gladly adopt a baby if they could. It can take years on a waiting list before an infant becomes available. (My wife and I have had close friends go through the process. We would have applied for adoption if not for the fact we have three children of our own and have been told that this would disqualify us from receiving a child.) So, given that there are many married couples who would adopt, does that make abortion almost always the irresponsible choice?

I can think of many adults who grew up in poverty and yet went on to lives they considered to be worthwhile. I seriously doubt any of them would, today, think they would have been better off having never lived.

If you take that argument to its logical conclusion, it follows that not only is it good for a pregnant, unwed teenager to give birth, but that it was good for her to get pregnant in the first place.

That "unless" qualification on abortion being the only responsible choice is kinda big, don't you think? There are lots of married couples who would gladly adopt a baby if they could. It can take years on a waiting list before an infant becomes available.

If you say so, I'll take your word for it. But then why is it--and I ask this out of curiosity, not as a challenge--that there are so many young, single women raising children on their own?

So, given that there are many married couples who would adopt, does that make abortion almost always the irresponsible choice?

Absolutely not. All it means is that it's not always the only responsible choice. Adoption's great, but if a woman decides that she wants to have an abortion to avoid the substantial discomfort and inconvenience of pregnancy, I think that's just fine, too. As I said before, I don't accept the premise that a fetus is human in any morally significant way.

Eric Oppen -- instead of reading just one verse in Exodus chapter 21, try reading four in a row:

(22) "If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide.
(23) "But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life,
(24) eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
(25) burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

I don't think that says what you claimed it says...

I'd go further than the sonogram. If I ran an abortion clinic, I'd approach the local leader of Operation Rescue (or whoever was the main anti-abortion activist group in the area) with the following offer: if you keep the protestors away from my clinic, I'll give your group an office there. Every woman who comes in for an abortion will be required to spend 30 minutes in that office. You can do whatever you like to change her mind, short of using or threatening physical force. Threaten her soul with eternal damnation. . . show her gruesome aborted fetuses. . . offer to help arrange an adoption. . . whatever you think will work.

Hopefully this would 1)reduce the number of women who went through with their original plan to abort, and 2)of those who did abort, reduce the number who later regret their decision (since they would have already stared in the face the arguments against it).

As a side benefit, the abortion foes might find by trial and error that they get better results being helpful and sympathetic than hostile and confrontational.

Do the leaders of the Republican party express any desire to leave it to the states? No, they want a constitutional amendment to pander to the Religious Right. What evidence is there that abortion would be any different?

Fatuous, and facile. That's why we have a process for ammending the constitution, including not-insignficant hurdles that prevent it from being left to mere whimsy. If enough of the country were to actually support an ammendment limiting abortion at the national level, then that would be the law of the land, and you could either live with it, or move to Canada.

On the other hand, what on earth is so threatening about the idea that "they" might -- shock and horror and awe! -- PROPOSE AN AMMENDMENT? (Unless you, too, actually believe all that nonsense about a vast right-wing conspiracy, in which case, you probably need to consult help more professional than what this forum can provide.)

Is your Grandma *really* Victorian (1837-1901)?

If so, God bless -- my grandmother lived to a bit short of 103. Such stories she could tell. I miss her.

"Sounds good to a libertarian . . . but it does seem that it would undercut much of the rest of the Democratic platform, no?"

Which, of course, makes it sound even better.

I have yet to see a compelling argument that a fetus is not a human being in any moral or ethical sense. I've heard people say it and I know people believe that. But the other position, that a fetus is morally a human being, has arguments in its favor, too.

In my mind, that is the heart of the matter. If a fetus is human, it shouldn't be aborted. If a fetus is not, then it can be aborted. Arguing about the inconvenience of carrying a child to term, the social stigma, the financial burden, etc... is missing the point.

Having said that, I would rather see the issue dealt with through legislation and don't like the fact that the Supreme Court issued a decree that hampers the debate.

As far as adoption goes, I find it ironic that it is so difficult to qualify for adoption when it is so easy for totally unqualified parents to have children of their own. While I don't want to place children with child molesters or in child slavery rings, we should only screen well enough to determine if a potential foster or adoptive family is better than an orphanage or the child's original parents, not to make sure they are perfect.

EI

Brandon Berg - The reasons there are so many young single mothers are complex, but they have little to do with a shortage of couples willing to adopt.

For a brief period I was responsible for counseling pregnant unmarried women. Most were unwilling to give their baby up. My experience was that the unwillingness to consider adoption was often born from a need to salvage something from a relationship that had been very important to the girl (and was less so to the man). Sometimes there was (an almost always vain) hope that the birth of the child would lead to a resumption of the relationship. In such cases the girl is trying to salvage something "good" from something that went bad. It's away of convincing herself she had not been too wrong to have bought all those lies, otherwise she would not have little Joey. And, little Joey is so sweet and special he could not have been the product anything wrong, could he? At the other extreme, some young women want to keep their baby in a misguided attempt to atone for their mistake. It's a desire to do something noble, to be a willing sacrifice in the service of her child.

Some young women manage to hold both conflicting views at the same time. Regardless, while we might understand them, the motives are selfish and short-sighted. Selfish because the focus is what's best for the soon-to-be mother, not what's best for the baby. Unless you are a rock star and can afford an around the clock nanny, it's very hard being a single parent. Adoption is almost always the best ending to an unfortunate circumstance.

Re: the sonogram issue, there's a bill in Michigan to require this, but Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm opposes it.

OTOH, there was a bill in Illinois supported by Planned Parenthood to limit ultrasounds (e.g., not allow pregnancy crisis centers to provide them) because there was a fear that women who see their sonograms are less willing to abort.

I have yet to see a compelling argument that a fetus is not a human being in any moral or ethical sense.

To be human, in the moral sense of the word, has very little to do with biology. If a spaceship were to land tomorrow, bringing with it a race of aliens bearing no physical similarity to humans but capable of reasoning and communicating and cooperating peacefully with us, I think most reasonable people would agree that they were "human" in the moral sense of the word--that is, that they would have all the rights which we accord to adult members of the species Homo sapiens.

Why is this? What are the specific characteristics that we must recognize in an entity before we grant it moral agency? And is there any evidence that these characteristics are present in a fetus?

But the other position, that a fetus is morally a human being, has arguments in its favor, too.

What are they?

EI and Brandon Berg,

I think it might be helpful to both your arguments if you didn't try to establish a single moral class called "human being" and then argue over who or what qualifies as members of that class.

In a legal sense it may be expedient to attempt to generalize rights, duties, obligations, and laws to apply to the broadest classes possible, e.g. "human being", "animal", "natural resource". But the moral argument undoubtedly has more dimensions - and the law would be wise to recognize this complexity in the abortion debate.

My take on structuring the moral argument is this:

1) that there are a variety of different classes that an entity may belong to (e.g. "human", "being", "person", "being that is capable of independent existence"), each of which brings with it a certain set of moral obligations, "rights" and value judgments in decisions of moral significance;
2) that class membership is not a simple IS or IS NOT relationship, but may run along a sliding scale (e.g. membership to class "human" may be absolute, but membership to class "person" is not - you become more of a person as you develop, and you may cease to be a person if you enter a permanent vegetative state);
3) that moral status is not simply a function of the class memberships of an entity, but that moral status describes a SPECIFIC relationship between one particular entity and another. e.g. the moral obligations of "mother" towards her own "fetus" are entirely different from that of "society as a whole", or "federal government" towards the same fetus.

Within this framework, I would argue that the unique status of the "mother" - "fetus" relationship, makes almost any generalisation or characterisation in terms of another type of relationship between entities fraught with difficulty. But that's what these arguments of EI and BB ultimately need to address.

I won't attempt to offer any of my own answers in this comment. I'm merely observing, that EI and BB could possibly make far more sophisticated arguments, that use congruent terminology, if they recognized the multi-dimensionality of what they're talking about in the first place.

As I see it, BB's argument in the previous comment centers on the moral significance of "personhood" versus membership to the "human species". It would have been very easy for him to justify why "personhood" is morally significant (or at least more so than merely being biologically human), and to show how it carries moral obligations with it. For instance: Personhood carries elements of self-awareness, and of the value that one's life, liberties and happiness has to oneself. It also carries a social "value" of that person - something related to the person's contribution to society, and the moral value of the emotional attachments that others have formed, or could potentially form to a person, but not to a non-person. This would also be a convenient place to add something about any implied "social contract" where intelligent beings afford rights to each other.

EI, OTOH, would need to show how membership of the human species itself carries moral significance. Or perhaps just define more precisely what moral obligations should rightly go along with membership to the species, and add perhaps the obligations that go with being a complete individual, as opposed to, say, just one limb with membership to the species. He might also consider deducting any privileges that go only with individuals capable of independent existence. But he should add the obligations that are tied to motherhood, and then perhaps discriminate between when that motherhood results from consensual vs non-consensual engagement in procreational activities.

Looking forward to seeing ever more productive discussion here.

Moral arguments concerning abortion are relevant only to moralists. There is no shortage of human beings. Nor is there a shortage of human beings who wish to reproduce. In a very few years, the abortion debate will be irrelevant via immigration.

I'd say a good compromise would be to keep abortion legal, yet subject everyone to incessant anti-abortion public service announcements.

Why not? It's exactly what we do with smoking...

Incidentally, I think Peter's compromise would be a great way to get rid of our repressive laws criminalizing the use and possession of certain drugs. But as Berg pointed out earlier, advocating directly against abortion may be considered entirely counterproductive and even harmful in many situations, so it wouldn't necessarily be prudent as a "public service". Addictive drugs, however, are undoubtedly harmful.

How come nobody spotted this little gem from Brandon Berg?

If you simply show a pregnant woman a sonogram without giving her the arguments for why she doesn't really see what she thinks she sees [emphasis added]

"All of the conservatives trying to claim that it's not that bad if Roe is overturned because it would just return it to the states would have a bit more credibility if it weren't for the sterling conservative example concerning gay marriage. Do the leaders of the Republican party express any desire to leave it to the states? No, they want a constitutional amendment to pander to the Religious Right. What evidence is there that abortion would be any different?"

I think it's an irrelevant comparison. I'm no legal scholar, but I think there's a damningly large piece of evidence that it would be different. Namely, can the courts, even the Supreme Court, find part of the Constitution itself unconstitutional? If they can, it would be a fantastically rare and difficult thing, because I can't recall ever hearing of it.

Ergo, the existence of Roe v. Wade, or abortion's current status (proper or not) as a federal issue, is irrelevant--amending the Constitution would "overturn" court decisions to the contrary, would it not? I would think that something legally in the Constitution--even if not a piece with the rest of the document--would be by definition "Constitutional."

If other words, if it wouldn't "be any different" from gay marriage, they'd be trying it now.

Is it really that much harder to pass an amendment in the face of a court decision contradicting the amendment's intent? I would think not--court decisions, it seems to me, have been the major impetus behind recent support for amendments.

My problem with the "show a pregnant woman a sonogram" issue is that the tendency to anthropomorphoisze is so strong, and most sonograms are so blurry that show the woman the sonogram of a cat or a dolphin at the same point in it's development and you may well get the same reaction.

(I know color sonograms are much easier to read, but still, how many of you have looked at a friend or relative's sonogram picture and smiled weakly because you can't tell if it's a fetus or the Greater Magellanic Cloud? And this is from someone who's wife had 5 or 6 sonos for each of her pregnancies.)

My problem with the "show a pregnant woman a sonogram" issue is that the tendency to anthropomorphoisze is so strong[....]

So you think looking at a sonogram of a human fetus and seeing it as a human form is "anthropomorphising" it? Now I've heard everything!

This is just laughable. Having seen a few sonograms myself, I can tell you that it didn't look like a cat and it was pretty obvious to me what I was seeing. You're really grasping at straws here, aren't you. Trust me, I would not react the same way to seeing a sonogram of a dolphin or a cat as seeing what was growing in MY body of MY flesh, alive and in real time. That insinuation is actually rather insulting.

Continuing chaoticmuse's thought, I got exactly ONE sonogram out of three pregnancies that actually looked like a baby, but in all cases I was able to watch the smeary thing on the screen shifting and moving around, count the pulse that I was assured was its heartbeat, see the circle of its skull when the tech was taking measurements, and know beyond a doubt that what I was watching was not a "lump of tissue" but a developing infant. True, I was not about to abort any of them, but as chaotic said, seeing whatever it is that you see, alive in real time, is powerful. Even seeing isn't altogether necessary:

My husband refused to attend the OB visit when I first heard my oldest's heartbeat. He knew the heartbeat was a "probable" for that visit, and he was afraid that once he heard it, once he was confronted with the undeniable reality of that fetus's development, he wouldn't have the reaction he "should" have - joy - but rather simply feel wearily resigned to his new responsibility, and would spend the rest of my pregnancy dreading the birth of our child. (He's a fantastic dad now, but before he became one he was deeply dubious of his own ability to pull it off.)

The 1/5 less likely stat on sonograms leaves out a lot more than it tells. For example, I could imagine this to be definitely the case if women were overwhelmingly more likely to request and receive sonograms *if they intended to maintain the pregnancy.* That is, it is not that seeing sonograms causes women to carry to term, but that desiring to carry to term causes women to see and seek sonograms. And that those who do have abortions afterwards do so only because the sonogram revealed birth defects.

I rather doubt that many woman who see their pregnancies as unwelcome are seeking sonograms at all.

If this is the case, a bill requiring women to have sonograms before getting abortions would not be likely to change many minds - but would certainly cause any women who are seeking abortion blithely to become more upset. Such a requirement starts with the assumption that women who seek abortions have no idea what they are doing.

Russ, a sonogram is highly unlikely to reveal fetal defects in the early stages of pregnany and even when done later, results are questionable and unreliable.

And contrary to your statement, I think that many women (and girls) who hve abortions don't realize just how well-formed a few week old fetus is. I didn't know jack about it until I got pregnant myself and started doing research both into pregnancy and abortion. I can honestly say I was shocked to tears. If I'd had an abortion as a younger woman, I think I would have been devastated to realize what I'd done.

If women know what they are doing, then yes, a sonogram will not likely change their minds. But for those who were less aware, why deny them the full information on which to base such a decision? I don't understand how anyone can be for uninformed consent and hiding the truth.

I don't think the truth necessarily has to involve gruesome photos of aborted fetuses but simply biological facts, which can include photos and illustrations of the different stages of a developing fetus. No rhetoric is needed and, in fact, the more you proslytize at people, the less they will listen. All you need are pure facts, and a sonogram does show the scientific fact that the fetus is alive and has a heartbeat and what have you.

Those who would hide the truth in an effort to push their agenda forward are dangerous indeed.

Eric,

You're right, no one has the right to be an "uninvited guest" in another person's body.

That's why I think women should be able to get an abortion in cases of rape.

However, when it's not rape, the sperm were invited in. They met an egg that teh mom had produced. An invited sperm met that mom-created egg, and together made a baby.

Now, if mom decides to carry that baby to term, then dad (the willing sperm donor) is liable for 18 years of child support, even if he wanted an abortion.

Please explain how it is that chosing to have sex creates unavoidable obligations for the father, but not for the mother. I'm really curious as to the logic you're using.

or, do you believe that a father who wants an abortion shouldn't have to pay child support?

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