Asymmetrical Information

Note this quote from the piece:

But I needed to meet my kids' school bus and, as I was pretty much out of options -- short of soliciting random Virginia doctors out of the phone book. . .

Let me get this straight--she's whining about the evil, evil GWB Administration not making the pills available over the counter, but she has a problem with picking a random doctor out of the phone book to prescribe them for her? You can't have it both ways--either it should require competent medical advice before receiving the pills or it shouldn't. Excuses for laziness--that's the bottom line of that WaPost piece: that and yet another excuse for the NARAL sycophants to unload on the hated Bushies.

Megan,

You obviously have a dangerously low narcisism threshold.

I mean, like, if you were more, like, "into yourself", you'd probably, like, understand.

Have you, like, gotten over yourself? Or did you, like, never get into yourself?

If it comes down to, "I want a sex life, but I don't want a baby," then YES, there is a degree of narcissism at work.

If it comes down to, "I want a sex life, but I don't want a baby," then YES, there is a degree of narcissism at work.

More like: "I want a sex life, but I want to be able to forget my birth control and encounter no inconvenience in avoiding a baby."

When you consider the plight of women in times past who only had the option of barring their husband out of bed to avoid one pregnancy after another, it's hard to work up any sympathy for a woman who, in the end, needed only several phone calls and a short day trip to achieve the desired end.

More like: "I want a sex life, but I want to be able to forget my birth control and encounter no inconvenience in avoiding a baby."

Or, "We're married, middle-class, in our forties, don't want any more kids, but can't be bothered to arrange for a vasectomy or tubal ligation, which would make the issue of irresponsible use of birth control moot." I think she'd find that there is no shortage of doctors willing to perform either procedure.

Agreed with Tina. The people Jane Galt cites are whiny brats who want to have their cake and eat it too.

John, are you seriously saying that only narcissists would be interested in sex without procreation? What century are you living in.

"Is this the best America's editors can come up with? Irresponsible whiners whose lackadaisical attitude towards birth control--and shock at the resulting pregnancies--makes one wonder how they manage to hold down a job, or indeed, cross the street without getting hit by a bus. Can't we find some women who responsibly used birth control, and are prevented from carrying the resulting pregnancy by something more compelling than an aversion to jumbo jars of mayonnaise?"

Maybe the editors are so in touch with the radical pro-choice ethos that they feel stories like these are all that is required to justify abortion. The problem for them is that such an ethos isn't really in touch with the more ambivalent general US understanding on abortion--lots of people see it as justifiable in extreme cases, but not so much in trivial cases.

Finally, I decided to check the Planned Parenthood Web site to see whether its clinics performed abortions.

Someone this clueless probably shouldn't be allowed to have kids. One would think that first she'd have made an anonymous on-line inquiry before subjecting herself to the indignity of discussing her situation with random doctors' offices.

And the same Planned Parenthood website says that they provide emergency contraception without an appointment, or it is available at hospital emergency rooms. I suspect she did not try further after the first two doctors turned her down only because she assumed she probably wasn't pregnant and couldn't be bothered to keep up the search.

I emailed the feedback on WAPO, in amazement.
It is over the top that people actually believe
what decisions they make in private should have
incoming repercussions knocking on some strangers
door and not theirs.
This woman is irresponsible and down right scary.

Sure, they're stupid, but I'm not particularly appalled. Either a fetus has a right to life, in which case practically nothing justifies an abortion, or it doesn't, in which case there's no need for a justification.

John, are you seriously saying that only narcissists would be interested in sex without procreation?

No, I think he was saying that only narcissists would be interested in sex without procreation and yet fail to use reasonable foresight in obtaining the former without risk of the latter.

As for the topic generally: People will tell themselves all kinds of strange things in order to avoid confronting the truth of an event, a series of actions, or a position held. No doubt the medical profession confronts these things in all kinds of circumstances, but my favorite example was a girl in high school who would vehemently insist that she was "personally pro-life, in that I would never choose to have an abortion, but what any other woman wants to do is her business and I don't think I have any right to interfere in that." Obviously, by this statement (and others), she was very much pro-choice; but her Catholic-chatechized conscienced wouldn't let her use that exact phrase, hence the logical pretzel.

Something of the sort may have been going on in the heads of the Times and WaPo editors who approved the two mentioned tales into print; the need to believe/defend "position x" completely drowned out the minority report which read, "these two women come across sounding like the most ditzy, selfish jerks ever to wander the pages of our publications, and at any rate, are clearly out of touch with the American mainstream viewpoint on abortion. Run something else today."

Well, I'm willing to cut "Dana L." a little slack, so to speak. After running into trouble getting a doctor to prescribe Plan B she probably decided to hope for the best. A form of denial, to be sure, but also the sort of thing most people will do from time to time.

As much as I abhor the crime of murder against the unborn, at least I can at take some small solace in the knowledge that these depraved and narcissistic creatures are in general a self-terminating phenomenon. They either don't have kids or abort the ones they do conceive.

Humanity will be better off without their genes.

Mr. Berg - While I can't say that I don't have any personal opinion on the matter, are you serious in thinking that there is an exclusive dichotomy between "right to life" and "licence to kill"?

It seem as if people miss something important when looking at this - it's simply silly to say that at the instant a baby is born, it magically switches status from being nothing to being a full human being. A fetus develops - that's why the law can differentiate between a morning after pill and a partial birth abortion - I mean, for a reason other than the fact that that people are squeamish. Deciding to prevent a fetus from developing the morning after conception is different from killing a two year old. Very few people disagree with that. However, that doesn't mean that the decision to abort a fetus has no moral significance at all. Of course, someone could claim it is such a small moral significance that simple inconvenience should outweigh it - though that is a point I (and many others) would not be comfortable ceding.

I say we give her a reward for not polluting the gene pool, cleaning up her spill before it became an environmental disaster. Geez.

And don't you love how her husband doesn't seem to have made the Saturday road trip to DC with her. I bet he stayed home, grabbed a Michelob, and watched some golf.

You'd lose that bet - he only drinks imported.

Peter

I'm willing to cut "Dana L." a little slack, so to speak. After running into trouble getting a doctor to prescribe Plan B she probably decided to hope for the best.

Oh, please. Dana made 3 phone calls. Three. What, about 30 minutes out of her day? If she needed her hair done for a Sunday evening cocktail party and her regular hairdresser was unavailable, how long do you think she'd have taken, how many phones calls would she have made, until she found an appointment?

Her whole article is one fraught with a "why bother" attitude to her own responsibilities; and when things aren't delivered up on a silver platter, then someone is to blame and Dana is damned sure it's not her!

Lord, what an example for her children.

Peter (answering this rather than identical post at Kevin Drum's site),

Well, I'm willing to cut "Dana L." a little slack, so to speak. After running into trouble getting a doctor to prescribe Plan B she probably decided to hope for the best. A form of denial, to be sure, but also the sort of thing most people will do from time to time.

Well, sure. Quite understandable. The difference between most of us and the estimable Dana L. is that most of us, finding that we were unintentionally pregnant because we'd forgotten to use birth control, wouldn't think first of writing a WaPo opinion piece about how it was really Bush's fault that the embryo got as far as the uterine wall.

Another squeamish aspect of this article is her forgotten use of a diaphragm: isn't it always inserted just before sex? So wouldn't she always be interrupting passionate moments to put it on?

No question, there is a sense of selfishness that pervades the piece. I can't tell if this is worthy of the WaPo (as the Richards piece was worthy of the NYT) because it is a typical story which should resonate with pro-choice readers or if it is an atypical episode which makes it worthy of mention. I hope the latter, but I suspect the editors and author think the former.

The fact that the column exists refutes Dana's main point. Doubtless it took many hours on her part to pitch the piece, write it, edit it, etc. When it really matters -- when there is an opportunity to knock Bush and the religious right -- watch how she clears her schedule and makes the time. When it comes to finding a sympathetic doctor to prescribe a prescription drug, 3 calls. And none of those calls was to Planned Parenthood (which Jane points out was easy to contact when it came time to schedule an abortion) or a emergency room.

I especially like how Dana was rankled at being subjected to a waiting period and being made to hear a lecture and get counseled. I assume she will now be joining the firearms advocacy groups who similarly rail against waiting periods and mandatory classes. After all, a right delayed is a right denied.

Dana made 3 phone calls. Three. What, about 30 minutes out of her day? If she needed her hair done for a Sunday evening cocktail party and her regular hairdresser was unavailable, how long do you think she'd have taken, how many phones calls would she have made, until she found an appointment?
Her whole article is one fraught with a "why bother" attitude to her own responsibilities; and when things aren't delivered up on a silver platter, then someone is to blame and Dana is damned sure it's not her!

My, we're all being holier than thou, aren't we?

Get real. What happened to Dana could very easily have happened to many people. After her attempts to get Plan B failed, she thought more about the situation and figured that her chances of pregnancy were so slim there was no real need to worry. Yes, she might've been a little careless, but so is just about everyone from time to time.

Peter - that's fine if she wants to be careless, but if she does, then she can't whine that it's all Bush's fault that she had to have an abortion.

I remember another article about a young couple who found themselves in need of emergency contraception - they camped out on a doctor's doorstep in order to ensure that they got it.

Look, I've never been to Planned Parenthood, but I do know that they started as a provider of birth control . I am sure that I could go to their website and find a clinic near me in five minutes that would provide emergency contraception if I needed it. That's Planned Parenthood's function - helping women plan parenthood. That would be the first place I stopped if I needed emergency contraception.

Further, I just googled emergency contraception. Found a website that gave me the name of several places that would give me emergency contraception in my region, including a website that will call in a prescription to a pharmacy in my area.

Further, Dana L. had access to a midwifery practice with no appointments open that day. So what do you do, if you really want to ensure that you don't want to get pregnant? You call someone ot pick up the kids, head over to the clinic, and BEG them to squeeze you in at six o clock before they leave for the day. Trust me, it is highly likely you'll get in.

Dana L. didn't think to go to the Planned Parenthood website. That's fine. But she knew her midwifery practice could prescribe it, and didn't go there, she didn't do a google search that could have provided her with the information she needed, she didn't care enough about not getting pregnant at 42 to decide to take permanent precautions against getting pregnant through sterilization, and she wasn't worried enough about it to get up and put in her diaphragm.

She assessed her risks, assessed the likelyhood she was going to get pregnant, weighed it against the difficulties it would take her to get emergency contraception and decided to risk it. Therefore, her pregnancy is on her, and her abortion is on her, not Bush, and not the FDA.

Thanks for this one, Jane. I'm pro-life myself, but I can come up with more persuasive pro-choice arguments than the ones advanced in these two articles. I'm deeply offended by the implication that grown women are victims of the current administration because we're incapable of taking responsibility for our own birth control. If Dana L didn't want more kids, she could have had her tubes tied; that's what my mother did. But that would have taken forethought and perhaps a little inconvenience, which no one should expect of any woman, apparently.

Besides, it drives me crazy when people think a right to do something should also guarantee that it be easy. You see that a lot with people who say something controversial and then complain that their right to free speech is at risk because there were social consequences, as if their neighbors don't have the right to express their own opinions. Are people that out of touch with reality?

Women who responsible use birth control don't write articles about their 2/3 abortions.

Anyway, Jane, what do you expect from some ridiculous NYT human interest story anyway?

She was online today to field questions: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/06/02/DI2006060200911.html

Some women should never reproduce and their genes should disappear from the pool. Abortion and Plan B are God's way of making sure at least some unworthy people never are untrusted with the life of an infant.

Perhaps the day will come when God will be as careful in placing babies as state adoption agencies are.

It's funny how everyone is disgusted by the confessional article as if it's excluseively a product of the left. Like there aren't 20 of these a week, from all points of view, every day. The increase of the confessional is a disgusting development but it's not exclusive to one ideology.

I don't see what the big deal is here. The author of the article has a Constitutional right to get an abortion, and a Constitutional right to write about it.

Anything that anyone does can be spun in such a way as to make the person appear to be "uncaring" about "important" matter.

If you don't like her article, no one's forcing you to read it.

Mostly, the pro-choice side has their own reasons why they want to keep abortion. And most of these reasons seem shallow or wrong to the pro-life side. (I am pro-choice)

Many pro-choice people hide behind the "life of the mother" excuse - but this is never the real reason.

MY OWN real "selfish" reason is that I don't ever want to have a severely handicapped child. I'd rather abort it as early as possible in the pregnancy. But then again, my religious views are different and don't view something like this as a "sin" but a great mercy.

This is, however, different than partial birth abortions or just shooting an ALREADY born person who is severely handicapped. If you can't tell the difference, there is nothing I can do to convince you.

But it is very hard for the pro-choice side to really justify their stance without someone on the pro-life side jumping out and yelling "selfish a-hole!"

My conclusion: pro-choice people will never be able to convince a pro-life person otherwise to change their mind, no matter what they say.

I don't see what the big deal is here. The author of the article has a Constitutional right to get an abortion, and a Constitutional right to write about it.

And we have a Constitutional right to mock her for it.

But seriously... the real point is why aren't we reading stories about someone who chose an abortion for reasons we might actually sympathise with.

Tina-

Hear, hear. I agree with you. I consider myself to be pro-abortion, and I don't consider a blob of cells "a human being." Why? Because it's not a human being, it's a blob of cells. Different.

That said, who the hell wants to read about anyone, male or female, discussing the whys and wherefores of this most personal choice? Who cares?

And if one's gonna write such a pile of nonsense, she'd better be prepared for mocking when she discusses not only the "inconvenience," but reveals herself as the shallow & superficial snob she is.

And I expect nothing less from the NYT. Bah.

> If you don't like her article, no one's forcing you to read it.

And no one is forcing you to read these comments and make self-evident observations. Yet here we all are.

Having taken my shots at the author of the article, I will say that I believe that any resemblance between her and Amy Richards is superficial. Richards' article revealed her to be deeply shallow and screwed up, with no visible concern for the effect that her decision would have on the child she picked to survive--not to mention revealing that the ethics of abortion doctors are apparently rather nonexistent. Dana L., on the other hand, has simply revealed herself as being willing to exploit her own laziness and lack of common sense to attack her political enemies. Pathetic, but not of the same level of appalling personal ethics as the Richards piece revealed.

Or, "We're married, middle-class, in our forties, don't want any more kids, but can't be bothered to arrange for a vasectomy or tubal ligation, which would make the issue of irresponsible use of birth control moot." I think she'd find that there is no shortage of doctors willing to perform either procedure.

I'd have thought so too, but the comments I've read on the feminist websites claim that doctors put you through a lot of hassle and delay if you want to get sterilized. (Still, her husband really should have had it done as soon as they decided they didn't want any more kids.)

I don't see what the big deal is here. The author of the article has a Constitutional right to get an abortion

Nope.

If she did, we would be talking about ammending the constitution; and by contrast, if the Supremes had not short-circuited the normal legislative process through bench legislation, the logic of which grates even many prochoice ConLaw scholars, people would be able to vent their spleens in their respective state legislatures instead.

And in the latter case, the last round of Gallup polling on the matter found that a majority of Americans wouldn't be automatically legalizing the kind of flippant convenience abortion that Amy Richards is talking about in her article.

Go figure, eh?

the real point is why aren't we reading stories about someone who chose an abortion for reasons we might actually sympathise with.

As another commenter ably pointed out, anti-abortion people will NEVER believe that there's any sympathetic reason to have an abortion, except maybe to save the mother's life or because she was raped, but how often does that happen?

All other abortions the anti-abortion people will call "convenience."

anti-abortion people will NEVER believe that there's any sympathetic reason to have an abortion

Well, maybe. But fence-sitters (like, say, me) are far more likely to be moved by "I was a dumb, irresponsible, penniless teenager, I thought you couldn't get pregnant the first time, and I regret my error even as I'm glad abortion is legal" or something similar. "I'm a mature, well-educated but lazy, self-obsessed twit who refuses to take responsibility for my own actions, and instead blames them on Bush" tends to push fence-sitters in the opposite direction.

Smart people don't aim to persade the extremes, they aim to persuade the squishy middle.

Smoov!

As much as I abhor the crime of murder against the unborn, at least I can at take some small solace in the knowledge that these depraved and narcissistic creatures are in general a self-terminating phenomenon. They either don't have kids or abort the ones they do conceive.

Humanity will be better off without their genes.

It has been opined that since 1973, abortion has shifted the politics of the country slightly to the right, by culling children who otherwise would have grown up to vote Democrat.

Apparently, Democrats are significantly (although not drastically) more inclined to have abortions. Since children frequently adopt their parents' politics, this means that abortion has reduced the Democratic vote count to a greater degree than it has reduced the Republican vote count.

The shift is a small fraction, but it doesn't have to be large to make a difference. From 1973 to 1982, abortion eliminated millions of people who would have been eligible to vote in the 2000 presidential election. That margin of victory in Florida was a small, small fraction of that.

So say it loud, say it proud: Abortion has kept Al Gore out of the Oval Office!

As another commenter ably pointed out, anti-abortion people will NEVER believe that there's any sympathetic reason to have an abortion, except maybe to save the mother's life or because she was raped, but how often does that happen? All other abortions the anti-abortion people will call "convenience."

It has been opined that since 1973, abortion has shifted the politics of the country slightly to the right, by culling children who otherwise would have grown up to vote Democrat. Apparently, Democrats are significantly (although not drastically) more inclined to have abortions. Since children frequently adopt their parents' politics, this means that abortion has reduced the Democratic vote count to a greater degree than it has reduced the Republican vote count.

Reminds me of the site called T-Shirt Hell which has a shirt for toddlers which reads ?I?m Pro-choice because now I?m Safe.?

Have those of you who oppose late term abortions ever seen an anencephalic child? No? There's a reason. They live maybe an hour after birth because they either have no brain whatsoever or merely a mass of undifferentiated cells. Otherwise they develop almost normally, meaning the condition is rarely caught before twenty weeks. Then there's various trisomies, extreme cardiac malformation due to Downs, and more that boils down to the same fate for mother and child. But while people imagine the rare picture of a "partial birth abortion," they rarely stop to imagine the horror of being visibly pregnant, congratulated at every turn, and having to explain over and over again that there's no baby. At least it ends in the ten times greater risk of death and injury that results from labor and delivery than from a straightforward late term abortion.

I'm troubled that I find myself lumped together with those who will self-select out of the gene pool, considering the majority of pro-choice individuals go on to have children, myself among them though we were all but scheduled for a late term abortion pending amnio results. A significant number of women who have abortions already have children and numerous studies have determined that women of conservative and liberal ideologies have abortions at roughly the same rate. Yet the stereotypes abound. Remember when feminists were told they would cease to exist in a single generation because no one would marry them and have children with them? How is this canard flung at liberals and pro-choice individuals any different? We seem to be doing as well as others, population wise, then again we don't rely on breeding our next generation but on educating any convenient offspring into it.

If anyone cared to read the Guttmacher Institute's study on the reasons women have abortions, they'd find "selfish" and "narcissistic" has nothing to do with it. Primary among the reasons women choose to have abortions are pre-existing responsibilities to prior children, elder dependents, and family. They opt to have abortions because they don't have medical insurance, are otherwise unable to afford to raise a child, or their job is too restrictive for them to raise a child while retaining a job, meaning they could have the child then be out of a job. Women opt to have abortions because they don't have a stable family life to raise the child in, such as the male responsible will leave if they have the child which would impose certain financial limitations on matters, as well. No one is having a late term abortion for "cosmetic" reasons, nor are women even thinking first of themself. Even Dana L, here lambasted, specifically named her duty to her already extant children among her reasons. Those of us who have better situations to raise our children in should count our blessings, for the rest of us an unplanned pregnancy can be as destructive to our own life, our family's life, and the life of the potential child as a crippling car accident that wracks up thousands of dollars of medical bills.

Or should we unexpectedly pregnant women see ourselves as incubators for the wealthy infertile couples of the world who would like to buy our child through an approved baby broker/adoption agency? It's amazing how the predators circle when you're a visibly pregnant, apparently unwed young mother. Fortunately, no one owes anyone a baby, and while the child is a potentiality, it's the right time to make such decisions.

TheGlimmering,

Assuming the Guttmacher Institute's research is sound (and it might well be, but then, the oil companies might be doing top-notch work on global warming, too), why don't some of those women write articles for major papers instead of Dana L. and Amy Richards? Why not find someone who has some semblence of contrition for a lapse in judgement, or who was a genuine victim of failed birth control? Why on Earth do editors pick these two deliberately irresponsible and self-centered types as spokeswomen for Roe?

And as an aside, why choose to care for your parents over your children? If we simply must kill someone off, why not kill someone who is on their way out anyway rather than someone just on the way in? I must say that if my grandchildren's lives hung in the balance, I'd be the first to point my motorized wheelchair and oxygen tank towards the ice floe. (This is a heartless and horrible thought, but it was you who suggested it, not me.)

No one is having a late term abortion for "cosmetic" reasons

That's certainly happening in Britain, even if it remains rare. And there is no legal obstacle to it here, which makes me think "no one" is a bit strong. Is it at all possible that women are not always entirely forthright with researchers about their reasons?

What's with all this bad-mouthing of narcissistic irresponsibility? Come on, it's what drives America's consumer economy these days.

TheGlimmering cites studies that claim most women have abortions for family, or other reasons.

I have a hunch that a lot of the "family" or "elder dependents" care has a lot to do with money. "How can I possibly afford another child, when I have to pay to take care of the curent ones and my mother?"

Unless I'm off base that seems to be usually what I hear.

And ultimately that comes down to sacraficing in many cases. Cable TV, Plasma TV, Movies, Dinner, Nice Car instead of an Old Beater.

No one said having kids and dealing with life is easy. But it seems like many people want it all to be on their terms. Sacrafice is not a dirty word, and usually it will make you a better person. Course, I can't require someone to believe that by law. But hopefully soon I can require someone to respect all human life, whether it's still developing or not. Too bad if your feelings are hurt about having to explain a pregnancy gone wrong. That's a terrible sad thing, but it never justifies destroying human life. Once that mass of tissue and cells changes into a human being with a heart beat leave it alone. Personally I'd prefer to prevent all abortions before even that stage, but at a bare minimum it's barbaric to destroy a developing human with clearly disernable feet, fingers, toes, eyes, heart, organs, etc.

"I consider myself to be pro-abortion, and I don't consider a blob of cells "a human being." Why? Because it's not a human being, it's a blob of cells. Different."

That's great circular reasoning. Do you have any other basis to conclude that a fetus is a mere blob of cells, not human?

You're griping about 2 newspaper articles that were written 2 years apart? I thought economists were supposed to be data driven. It's quite a leap to consider these viewpoints representative of the people that support abortion rights, therefore "exactly the reason abortion rights are having a tough time in this country." (And, I'd also question the validity of that statement - the last I checked most Americans do support some level of abortion rights). Two bad articles don't make up a movement.

Like there aren't 20 of these a week, from all points of view, every day. The increase of the confessional is a disgusting development but it's not exclusive to one ideology.

Yes.

BTW, some clips from the author's web appearance:

Hmm, the only one I can quote is:

Thanks for all the thoughtful discussion. I've enjoyed the online chat. Goodbye.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/06/02/DI2006060200911.html

A typical question/response in the chat listed above:

Washington, D.C.: Seems to me you blame everyone but yourself for your abortion. (Conservative policies of Bush, your doctor, your midwife, your internist, the FDA top Brass, even Religion). I am pro-choice - even more so than you - because I respect your choice to have unprotected sex with your husband - knowing the risks. What I don't respect is your reaction to the consequences. Basically you didn't care to be inconvenienced by your own unborn son or daughter - a child that could have found a loving home with your infertile college friend.

Dana L.: That is just so silly. Believe me, I thought about it. If society, and people like you weren't so judgmental, I would gladly have borne that child (assuming he/she could have been born healthy what with all the attendant Category X drug health risks) and given the baby to my friend to raise with all my heart.

Ah, so she doesn't have to take the responsibility for this fiasco; it's the rest of us that "silly" and "so judgemental." She also uses the word "rape" at least a dozen times, as in, "What if I had been raped? Huh? Huh?" It's all about Bush and his evil policies, y'see.

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