i truly don't understand why more dems don't make cost-benefit arguments such as scott is noting here: they seem like such an easy sell.

the dems ability to secure and maintain political leverage in the next few years will rely, to a large measure, on their ability to lure the class i call "honest conservatives" (whom i figure make up 3 - 6% of the voting age population).

that's a cohort that actually cares about costs and benefits....

Because Scott's writing is so confused half the time you can't even tell what it is he thinks he said.

Nothing but English Composition on the North American continent for the next 40 years. I think Diane Ravitch called it "bringing back the basics."

The horrible writing offered by "intellectuals" and "journalists" is a further indication that we are living through a post-civilization era. The same can well be said for their chaotic, cowardly, and nihilistic thinking. After the nadir has finally been reached, our descendents can then begin the process, incredibly laborious and slow though it be, of constructing a new and better civilization atop the ashes of what we have left behind. Please give it five or six hundred years.

I would suggest the term "forced pregnancy lobby" instead of "pro-life lobby." It's more accurate as to their desired outcomes.

(Sark irony alert:)
Doesn't "more dead women" lead to "less abortions"?

Dark irony alert:
Doesn't "more dead women" lead to "less abortions"?

Regarding the hideous phrase, "forced pregnancy", I will put to J. a question that I have previously put to Scott, who has not deigned to answer.

Can you name names and provide links to the writing of anyone (apart from the context of rape) who advocates forcing pregnancy upon anyone?

The right to obtain abortion services is critical to women's freedom and equality, but abortion should not be treated as the fundamental right that dare not speak its name. When George Orwell wrote that "the great enemy of clear language is insincerity", he was not composing a how-to manual.

Let those of us on freedom's side of the culture war be honest in our use of language. If the antecedent sex is unforced, the pregnancy which may result is not forced, even if it is unwanted or unintended.

John in Nashville,
Who cares what orwell thought about language? The question isn't whether anyone who is politically active is confused about their own motives but whether they are obscuring their own motives to make their political actions more palatable to other suckers. In this case the "pro life" monicker is not *obscuring* anything but simply shifting the frame away from the real *results* of *all the policies* that pro-lifer's support. The fact of the matter is that there is no "anti-abortion" lobby as such because "abortion" isn't something that only comes about through medical intervention--spontaneous abortions happen all the time. Right wing "pro-lifers" or, as I like to think of them "forced pregnancy lobby" actively oppose real world solutions to unwanted pregnancies and spontaneous abortions by

1) refusing to support comprehensive sex education
2) refusing to support widespread use of contraception and safe sex practices
3) refusing to support free and easy access to pre-natal health care for women during their reproductive years.
4) refusing to support family friendly work and health care policies.

If you were really anti-abortion that's what you'd do since all of those things would reduce the number of unwanted pregnacies and unwanted abortions and spontaneous abortions.

If you just wanted to punish women for getting pregnant and then
a) getting sick
b) losing their jobs
c) losing financial support
d) having other family members who suddenly need care
all things that can happen after a sex act and before fetal viability or birth

then you'd choose the policies supported by the anti-abortion crowd. These lead ineluctably to forced pregnancy in the sense that the continuation of the pregnancy is unwanted.

It is as absurd to say that that isn't "forced pregnancy" as it would be to say that if a person walks through a door voluntarily and then is locked up and forcibly restrained from leaving that that wouldn't constitute "kidnapping" or false imprisonment, under the law. Not allowing someone to choose what to do with their body is a serious infringement on individual human rights *regadless* of the antecedent history of the sex act that produced the pregnancy just as the crime of forced imprisonment can take place *after* a person has willingly entered a prison.

aimai

Professor B suggests that "pro-lifers" be renamed the "pro dead women" camp

Wow, nothing like throwing gas on the flames of an already smoldering issue. Politicians aside, all of the pro-lifers I know are completely sincere in their belief that having an abortion is killing a child. Certainly, most of us would agree that smothering a newborn is unacceptable. They simply draw the line earlier.

Most are completely open to the idea of preventing abortions through contraception, or education or adoption. There is common ground here.

You might think about using these studies to convince these people that the way to reduce abortions is to prevent unwanted pregancies,
instead of throwing invectives at each other.

Jinchi--Want to explain how the Catholic anti-choicers are completely open to contraception or education? And wow, they don't care whether the mother gives her baby away. Good for them!

bemused, have you met any Catholics?

Yes pro-life, Catholic mothers often get birth control for their teenage daughters, even if they hate to think that those girls might have sex.

And yes they put children up for adoption if they don't think they can raise them themselves. Churches even set up safe baby-drop boxes for mothers who might otherwise abandon them.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/26/news/babies.php

Who cares what orwell thought about language?

Aimai wins the thread as the best rightwing parody troll.

Wait, she's not pretending?

Well it's clear that modern feminists DO use Orwell as a manual.