And Cabbages, and Kings - Latest Comments

Re: Oppose HR 4970 – save the Violence Against Women Act

Mattir Om — Sat, 12 May 2012 23:33:04 -0000

We miss you on FB.

Re: In which John Sentamu loses my respect

David_Neale — Mon, 07 May 2012 16:06:23 -0000

Some more empirical evidence for you:

Race variations in jail sentences

Re: Suspects in criminal investigations should have a right to privacy

Guy Chambliss — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:13:48 -0000

This thin line separating freedom of the press and a person's right to privacy can be a dilemma. One possible solution to this is the strict enforcement of rules regarding responsible journalism. Strict and clear-cut guidelines within the broadcast media industry would go a long way in ensuring the rights of all individuals are protected.

Re: In which John Sentamu loses my respect

David_Neale — Wed, 02 May 2012 10:35:36 -0000

I'm actually rather curious as to why you would do that. I mean, I can
understand that you feel you have more in common with a liberal
Christian than an authoritarian or racist atheist; and that you'd rather
collaborate with the former to advance the cause of social justice,
which you see as being of more pressing moment than the cause
of atheism. But why actually attend their church services? Are they
aesthetically pleasing?

Bear in mind that Unitarian Universalism is not a Christian denomination, although it has historical roots in liberal Christianity. Rather, it's a non-creedal religious community in which non-theists are welcomed, as are people with a variety of different religious and spiritual beliefs.

See the Unitarian Universalist Association website, which explains more about the UU religious tradition.

Re: In which John Sentamu loses my respect

David_Neale — Wed, 02 May 2012 10:14:37 -0000

The downside of that happy ending is the
tsunami of black-on-white violence of recent years (much of it racially
motivated); the increasing grassroots white awareness of, and willingness to
speak about, this phenomenon; and the consequent contempt for the MSM's
deafening silence on this issue in favour of the official manufactured cult of
Trayvianity.

This is an absurd claim. Do you have any evidence for it,
besides right-wing scaremongering?

[quoting Derbyshire:] Here we are,
we're 50 years later, and we've still got these tremendous disparities in crime
rates, educational attainment, and so on.

Because of the
legacy of past institutionalized racist oppression, and the continuing effects
of present racism. This cartoon comes to mind. These
disparities do not exist in a vacuum, and they are not the result of a level
playing field.

Hmmm. Your use of the term "developing
world" suggests non-Western cultures were/are somehow "less
developed" than Western cultures and that it is urgently necessary for
their wellbeing that they "develop" along Western
lines

Perhaps it does; the terminology that we're all taught to
use may well unconsciously reflect the racist and colonialist assumptions built
into our discourse.

But you misunderstand me, I think. I wasn't saying that
evangelism for Christianity (or for any other religion) is inherently
an act of cultural imperialism. It obviously isn't. (That would be analogous to
Be Scofield's complaint that atheists are engaging in cultural imperialism by
promoting atheism; in both cases, it's a bad argument.) Trying to convince
someone else that your own religious worldview is the correct one isn't in
itself an act of imperialism.

Rather, I'm simply pointing out, as a historical matter,
that nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Western Christian evangelism in Africa
and Asia, specifically, was deeply intertwined with
imperialism, colonialism, racist ideology, and the paternalistic desire to
"civilize the natives". Christianity was far from the only factor, of
course – eugenicist theories about the "inferiority" of certain races
were also popular at the time. But it would be foolish to deny the historical
link, in the specific historical context we're talking about, between Christian
missionary work and imperialism. This isn't a judgment about Christianity as a
whole; it's a judgment about the way in which specific Christian movements, in a
specific historical context, served to reinforce existing oppression. (One could equally think of occasions in which
Christian movements have served as liberating forces for oppressed peoples,
like African-American churches in the American civil rights movement, or
liberation theology in Latin America.)

You're right, although I would say "current
clerical hierarchy" rather than "Church". Ditto
the current clerical hierarchy's opposition to the death
penalty.

A few weeks ago, I was at a rally in support of Noelia
Ramos, who was facing deportation to Honduras, despite having
two young children in this country who are American citizens. The rally was
also attended by a Roman Catholic priest, from her church in New Bedford, who
was participating in the campaign to save her from being deported. (Thankfully,
the campaign was successful; she has been granted a stay of deportation for a
year.) And the Catholic bishops have
also filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court opposing Arizona's SB
1070, the appalling anti-immigrant bill.

As much as I disagree with the Catholic clergy on most
things, they do, at least, recognize that immigration enforcement is tearing
apart families and communities, and have spoken out against deportations. As
they should. If you really believe in family values, you ought to be the first
to oppose laws which lead, quite often, to parents being forcibly separated
from their children; if you really believe that human life is sacred, you ought
to be the first to oppose deporting people to countries where they face death.

Of course many Catholics in the US are Latino and Latina
immigrants, and this no doubt makes a difference to the generally-pro-immigrant
positions of the US Catholic hierarchy; I haven't heard of the Catholic
hierarchy in Britain taking a strong position against our equally-grotesque
immigration laws. I'm not heaping praise
on Catholicism here, by any means. But I'm bemused that you can reconcile your
anti-immigrant stance with your Catholic beliefs.

Perhaps your opposition to immigration is restricted to
Muslim immigration. You've explained clearly enough why you
fear Islam, specifically. But if this is so, why do you never draw this
distinction? You've attacked "mass immigration", and made common
cause with right-wing opponents of immigration (including out-and-out racists
like John Derbyshire), without distinguishing according to the faith of the
immigrants concerned. If your fear is specifically of Islam and Islamic culture,
rather than being rooted in general xenophobia, why are you not supportive of
immigrants' rights with regard to Christian immigrants from
Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean, of whom there are plenty in both
Britain and America?

More seriously, it may well be the case
that an unjust economic system enriches country A at the expense of country B,
but I don't see how that imbalance is going to be corrected by
allowing unrestricted immigration from B to A.

In isolation, it won't. I think you're missing my point somewhat.
The point is that, as long as these vast disparities in living conditions
exist, as long as large parts of the planet are blighted by war and suffering
and poverty, people are going to migrate in order to escape suffering and build
a better life for their families. As any of us would do, given those
circumstances. But under the current regime of rigid immigration control, they
are often severely punished for doing so. Irregular migrants live with the
constant fear of being arrested, detained and deported. Many are locked up in
detention centres and treated as though they were criminals. Some are summarily
deported at the border and never get a chance to make claims for asylum. Some
die trying to cross borders illegally. Some are forcibly separated from their
families, with children being left without parents and, in some cases, whole
communities being torn apart. Some are subjected to appalling exploitation in
the informal labour market. I know you know this perfectly well, because I've
written about this extensively, with evidence and examples from multiple
countries, on this very blog, and you've never sought to deny the reality of
the suffering caused by immigration restrictions.

Would getting rid of exclusionary immigration laws magically
fix all the world's problems overnight? No. And no one claims that it would.
What it would do is free irregular migrants from the
violence, stigma and marginalization they currently face, and give them a
chance to live peacefully with their families and to build lives in the
countries they have chosen as their homes. That's important.

Of course it isn't enough on its own. Of course we also need
to work for global economic justice. But an open-door policy on immigration,
coupled with legalization for those already here, would help
to make a lot of individual people's lives a hell of a lot better.

The 'circles of obligation' are not
based on a denial of the principle of moral equality between individuals.
They are based on principles of practical rather than theoretical reason,
"prudential [rather] than moral" as you put it. On such
principle is the purely logistical one of opportunity and means.
In the normal course of events, my opportunity and means to directly and
effectively help others diminish the further removed those other people are
from my immediate circles of family and community.

It's obviously true that, on a purely practical level, we
all prioritize those moral causes which we actually have the opportunity to
affect. And for this reason it's obviously true that we tend to pay the closest
attention to events in our own states and communities.

But your conclusions don't follow from this premise. It's
undoubtedly reasonable to say that the British state has less moral responsibility
for the wellbeing of a Somali national in Somalia than for that of a British
national in Britain, because a state's responsibility for people's wellbeing must
be proportionate to its actual control over their lives. (Though less
responsibility doesn't mean no responsibility; I'd argue
that wealthy nations have a moral responsibility to spend money on foreign
development aid, for example.) But it doesn't follow that the British state has
less responsibility for the wellbeing of a Somali national in Britain than for that of a
British national in Britain. When both are equally within its territory and
under its control, your argument no longer holds. And it certainly doesn't
follow that the British state is justified in jailing said Somali national at
Campsfield House or Yarl's Wood, and forcibly returning her to Somalia against
her will, in order to protect some perceived national interest of British people.

A second practical principle is that of motive.
One of the insights of the Burkean conservative tradition is that
'prejudice' (call it natural emotional attachment) provides a stronger impetus
to effective action than mere intellectual assent to abstract principles.
Obviously this isn't to advocate irrationalism or elevate 'prejudice' to
the position of overriding moral arbiter. It's an experiential
observation of what spurs people to action in the real world of real
relationships. Any programme of policy that disregards these practical
principles is unlikely to be effective.

But this prejudice, I think, is something that can be
overcome. Most people, faced with the real harrowing human stories of the
individuals harmed by harsh immigration enforcement, would feel horror and
sympathy. Few people are likely to be unmoved by the experiences of the women
of Yarl's Wood, or by this
woman's testimony and the documentary of which it forms a part
(other clips can be found on YouTube). Faced with horrors like this, most
people will be emotionally motivated to do something about it – as I have been.
One doesn't have to rely on "intellectual assent to abstract
principles"; one can feel compassion for a fellow human being who has
suffered horrors at the hands of one's government.

The reason the public can muster little sympathy for
immigrants is, in part, because they don't know the truth; those members of the
public who get their news from Fox News or the Daily Express,
say, tend to internalize pernicious myths about immigrants and immigration. Most
people on both sides of the Atlantic are woefully unaware of the real
consequences of immigration laws, or the real lives of the people involved.

I think one can simultaneously hold to
the theoretical principle of universal moral equality/equivalence and the
practical principles of real-world effectiveness without prejudice to either.
So one can say that a British government has an obligation to put the
interests of British nationals before those of Somali nationals. At the same
time, if a Somali national were murdered on British soil, the British
authorities have an obligation to treat that as seriously as the murder of a British
citizen. If the Somali's murderer turns out to be a British citizen, he
should hang (or, if you prefer, undergo a therapeutic process of healing and
reconciliation with a view to his eventual rehabilitation).

But it seems that you're simply drawing an arbitrary line.
You think the British state should protect your hypothetical Somali national
against being murdered on British soil (with which I agree, obviously); yet
you're happy for the British state to lock her up and deport her to Somalia
against her will, where she may well face death or inhuman treatment, merely
because she happens to be Somali and not British. Why do you draw the line
where you draw it?

(You've never been very specific about what kind of
immigration control regime you'd prefer, but since you find the status quo too
permissive, I assume that you want to get rid of the Refugee Convention, the
protection of asylum-seekers and the non-refoulement principle. And you surely
have to recognize that if Britain stopped taking in asylum-seekers, the result
would be more people being deported to places where they would be murdered,
tortured, or both. I wish you'd pay more attention to the reality of what
immigration enforcement actually involves; I'll draw your attention to what I
said at Jadehawk's blog here. )

A while back on Pharyngula you derided my
"romantic neo-feudalism", emphasising the unprecedented prosperity
and freedom brought about by industrial capitalism. Maybe that was during
your libertarian phase. Now you seem more inclined to criticise Western
consumers' insatiable demand for "gadgets and fripperies". Well
then, direct your fire at hedonistic consumerism and the global economy that
fuels it rather than nativist sentiment – which, after all, is as much a victim
of the global system as the world's poor.

I certainly don't oppose international trade and commerce,
nor do I want to return to feudalism or to a pre-industrial era. What I oppose is the vast economic disparities
between the richest and the poorest, both within countries and between them. There's
nothing wrong, in themselves, with gadgets and fripperies; but I want the
people making them to be paid a living wage, to unionize, and to work in decent
working conditions.

And at the moment, while capital has virtually unlimited mobility,
labour does not. Businesses can move wherever they wish and trade wherever they
wish; but workers are tied to the places of their birth, and are labelled
"illegals" and faced with harsh sanctions if they cross a border
without permission in order to make a living. The solution to this is not to
make businesses less free to move, which would be a backward
step, but to make workers more free to move.

Re: In which John Sentamu loses my respect

Re_Actor — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 05:27:53 -0000

[contd]

If you agree that every human life is of equal value, regardless of race or nationality, then surely it follows that we all have an individual responsibility to act accordingly - not just in our capacity as private citizens, but in our capacities as voters, activists, government officials, and so forth. Governments, like all other institutions, are run by people, and people have an obligation to do justice, using the means available to them. The obligations that attach to people's social roles surely do not override their obligations as human beings. Most of us would agree, for instance, that a soldier can and should refuse to fight an unjust war; a police officer can and should refuse to enforce an unjust law; a teacher can and should refuse to teach a harmful falsehood; and so on. Likewise, I contend that a political actor should never put his or her loyalty to a particular nation-state before his or her obligation, as a human being, to do justice equally to all people.

Of course almost all of us do, in at least some contexts, naturally prioritize the welfare of our own family and friends before that of strangers. I'm not at all convinced that I can come up with a compelling justification for doing so, however. Indeed, I feel a moral obligation to share my own relative prosperity with strangers - whether through taxes, charitable giving, volunteering, and giving away change to people on the streets - and frequently feel guilty about not doing as much as I should. ... I'd also add that we do justly criticize those who elevate their own family's welfare above all other considerations

I don't think it's quite that simple. I wouldn't say the natural 'circles of obligation' to family and country override all other considerations. They certainly don't override the moral law. Christian teaching holds that an individual is morally obliged to obey his lawful superiors whether they be parental, secular or ecclesiastical. But Christian teaching also holds that an individual is morally obliged to disobey and resist those same lawful superiors if they order him to commit sin. So the proper loyalty due to family cannot be used to justify corrupt nepotism or participation in a criminal enterprise, for example. Proper loyalty to the state (or king) cannot be used to justify participation in a war of unprovoked aggression or the persecution of innocents.

The 'circles of obligation' are not based on a denial of the principle of moral equality between individuals. They are based on principles of practical rather than theoretical reason, "prudential [rather] than moral" as you put it. On such principle is the purely logistical one of opportunity and means. In the normal course of events, my opportunity and means to directly and effectively help others diminish the further removed those other people are from my immediate circles of family and community. A second practical principle is that of motive. One of the insights of the Burkean conservative tradition is that 'prejudice' (call it natural emotional attachment) provides a stronger impetus to effective action than mere intellectual assent to abstract principles. Obviously this isn't to advocate irrationalism or elevate 'prejudice' to the position of overriding moral arbiter. It's an experiential observation of what spurs people to action in the real world of real relationships. Any programme of policy that disregards these practical principles is unlikely to be effective.

I think one can simultaneously hold to the theoretical principle of universal moral equality/equivalence and the practical principles of real-world effectiveness without prejudice to either. So one can say that a British government has an obligation to put the interests of British nationals before those of Somali nationals. At the same time, if a Somali national were murdered on British soil, the British authorities have an obligation to treat that as seriously as the murder of a British citizen. If the Somali's murderer turns out to be a British citizen, he should hang (or, if you prefer, undergo a therapeutic process of healing and reconciliation with a view to his eventual rehabilitation).

Obviously, the real world being what it is, real-world situations are going to throw up ethical dilemmas which make it hard to strike the correct balance. We must strive to steer a course between self-centered cynicism and gullible naivety. Suppose I see an individual fleeing an angry mob. If I know that individual is innocent of any wrongdoing, I would say I am morally obliged to offer him shelter in my home, even though I might thereby put myself and my family in danger of incurring the wrath of the mob. (Whether I would have the courage to do so is another matter.) If I know the individual is a mass murderer, I would say I am morally obliged not to let him in my house under any circumstances. But of course, chances are I know nothing about the individual in question. What then should I do? All I can do is make a prudential decision (perhaps based on my perception of the individual's demeanour and that of his pursuers) which may turn out to be the wrong decision.

for instance, upper-middle-class types who agitate for lower taxes so that they can send their children to the best private schools, and who flee to gated communities so that their precious offspring won't have to mix with the great unwashed. This seems analogous to the selfishness that underlies protectionist immigration restrictions.

Since decades of liberalism have made the streets unsafe, I can't say I blame them. At least such people don't exhibit the hypocrisy of affluent upper-middle-class leftists with a regular column in the Guardian, a regular seat on the Question Time panel and regular holidays at their villa in Tuscany; who extol the principle of comprehensive education while sending their children to the local high-achieving CoE school (with regret, naturally, but one doesn't want one's precious offspring to suffer academically or worse); and who recoil in horror from those ghastly working-class racists while making sure they themselves live in a leafy enclave where they're less likely to run into the more vibrant London nightlife.

There is a large practical difference, though, between loyalty to one's family and friends on the one hand, and loyalty to a nation-state or ethnic group on the other. The former is composed of people with whom, by definition, we have a personal emotional bond, and whose suffering is directly present in our lives and impacts us emotionally. This is not true of the nation-state or of the ethnic group, both of which are abstract communities, composed of thousands or millions of individuals whom we do not, in most cases, know personally, and with whom we have no reason to have a particular special emotional connection. The traditionalist conservative conception of the nation-state as a great extended family has always been romantic metaphor rather than reality.

I agree that familial metaphors are just that – metaphors – but I disagree that nations/ethnic groups are therefore mere abstractions. Obviously, love for and loyalty to a nation isn't a matter of knowing every member of that nation personally or having an emotional connection with them as individuals. It's about identification with the culture and history of the nation, a culture and history that is manifested in a myriad concrete (not abstract) customs and artefacts.

Solzhenitsyn was a racist and anti-Semite.

I don't believe that's the case, but even if it were true it wouldn't mean he had nothing worthwhile to say. I'm told MLK had some very unsavoury aspects to his personality.

Re: In which John Sentamu loses my respect

Re_Actor — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 05:12:12 -0000

While I don't doubt the veracity of the anecdote, it isn't much of a defence; this reads like a more elaborate version of "Some of my best friends are black" or of the evangelical line that one should "hate the sin and love the sinner". Ultimately, if you argue that a minority group should be denied particular rights and privileges that the rest of us enjoy, you have to take responsibility for that; it does not matter whether or not you harbour conscious personal animosity towards the members of that group. Just as opposing same-sex marriage is inherently a homophobic position, for instance, even if (as is common) the opponent in question does not consider himself or herself a homophobe, and bears no conscious animosity towards the gay people he or she knows personally.

You misunderstand (I think). I didn't give the example of my Muslim acquaintance to "defend"or "excuse" my negative attitude towards Islam, as a way of acquitting myself of the charge of "Islamophobia". I'm quite willing to take responsibility for my views. Rather, I was trying to show that personal acquaintance or friendship has no bearing on the question of one's attitude to a particular culture. That's why I also gave the hypothetical example of ourselves. If you ever became friends with a Catholic (perhaps you already have Catholic friends), would that personal relationship make you more sympathetic to the Catholic worldview? Of course it wouldn't. You would still reject that worldview as false and on the whole pernicious (a fortiori in the case of traditionalist Catholicism). And would that be because you harbour a deep streak of irrational anti-Catholic bigotry ('Catholicophobia'), which you try to excuse or rationalise by pointing out that some of your best friends are Catholics? Of course not. It would simply be because you recognise that your acquaintance's worldview is essentially antithetical to your own, friendship notwithstanding.

It's a bit like the stock war movie character of the sympathetic Wehrmacht officer who is cultured, humane, not a monster but a good man, who nonetheless has to be fought, and maybe even killed, by the hero because he's the enemy, dedicated to fighting in a cause opposed to the hero's. If the suffering of innocents is the most horrendous thing about war, the most tragic thing is that you will always find good men on opposing sides, good men on the wrong side.

I'm also confused as to why you are so convinced that Islam and Islamic culture are "inimical" to the conservative Anglo Christian culture you seek to preserve. You've expressed on many occasions your personal respect for many Muslims and for aspects of Muslim faith and values, and have even acknowledged that you have more in common, when it comes to values and the place of faith in society, with many conservative Muslims than with many secular-but-culturally-Christian liberal Europeans.

That's absolutely true. I see a Muslim woman modestly clad in a sober yet beautiful hijab walking down the streets and compare her than to the throngs of pierced, tattooed fake-tan muffin-tops wobbling along with their arses hanging out of their shorts and obscene slogans on their T-shirts, and the shahada arises unbidden on my lips. (Well maybe not quite.) But the thing is, my reaction to the muffin-tops is not one of alienated hostility but of shame that they (or their parents or parents' parents) have thrown away the pearl of great price that they inherited from their Christian forebears and so humiliated themselves before the infidel. To ask why I, qua religious conservative, should be concerned about conservative religious Islam's impact on the liberal secular West is like asking the supporter of an unsuccessful football team why he doesn't transfer his allegiance to the more successful rival team since they keep on beating his team. To ask is to fail to grasp the nature of allegiance. (It goes without saying that I would very much like it if my team did win; if the West stopped being liberal and secular.)

Why, then, do you harbour such a specific fear of Islam as a threat? Of course it could be because Islam is a competitor of Catholicism, and you consider Catholicism to be the only true creed and are thus concerned to protect it from competition in the interest of saving souls.

In a nutshell, yes. Above and beyond all cultural loyalties, that is what finally matters.

But if that is so, why do you not harbour similar fears about, say, Evangelical Protestants, Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses - all of whom you must equally consider to be adherents of dangerous heresies? Why are you not arguing that the building of a Mormon temple in Preston, and the growth of door-to-door evangelism by Jehovah's Witnesses, are threats to British culture which ought to be forcibly suppressed? Why is it specifically Islam which frightens you?

Because Islam seems to me to be a far more formidable enemy than those sects. For all their occasional vigour, they lack deep intellectual or aesthetic roots; but Islam is more than just a religion or religious sect, it is a religious culture of great age and weight. And while its classical political expression, the Caliphate, currently appears as defunct as the old Holy Roman Empire, the religion has not experienced any corresponding decline in extent of practice (unlike Christianity), despite the best efforts of secularisers.

Now if one looks at Islam's history, one sees a consistent pattern of aggressive military expansion. It began in the 7th century by tearing great chunks from the Christian Byzantine Empire – first with the conquests of Syria and Palestine, then Egypt. At the same time its eastward expansion destroyed the ancient Persian Empire that had been Rome's old enemy, bringing it to the borders of India. In the 8th century, it expanded into Central Asia, including Afghanistan, reaching the borders of China. In the West, Muslim armies overran the rest of Roman North Africa, reaching the Atlantic, and from there surged north to destroy the Christian Visigothic kingdom of Spain. Penetration of southern France was only halted when Charles Martel saved Christian Europe by his victory at the Battle of Poitiers (AD732) – the first time the Islamic steamroller stalled.

Following this hiccup, succeeding centuries saw the conquest or penetration of Sicily, Asia Minor, Greece and the Balkans, Hungary, Indonesia, India and the Philippines. Pirate raids by Muslim corsairs operating out of North Africa seeking European slaves were a far-reaching menace until even the early 19th century.

Two things are noteworthy about this history – the extraordinary persistence of the Islamic military expansion over a very great span of time and space; and the fact that for the greater part of that time Christian Europe was on the defensive. Although Sicily, Spain and (for a time) parts of the Holy Land were retaken, there was a very real sense that Christendom was under siege and at times came close to extinction. Apart from the Battle of Poitiers, two dates can be seen as particularly providential: AD1571, when the defeat of Ottoman naval forces in the Battle of Lepanto prevented Muslim power from dominating the Mediterranean and so menacing Italy; and the Battle of Vienna where the Ottoman siege of that city was decisively repelled in AD1683 – less than a century before the American Declaration of Independence.

The Catholic historian Belloc called Islam simply "the most formidable and persistent enemy which our civilisation has had".

(All due proportion kept, of course. In the wider eschatological scheme of things, Islam is just a sideshow; it certainly won't be the final enemy the Church faces. It just happens to be a real and present danger at the current time.)

Even if white people as a whole are the privileged class ... what good is that to the isolated white child in an inner-city who is unable to access that supposed privilege?
He or she does still access a significant degree of white privilege, because, in the modern interconnected world, he does not exist in a bubble impervious to outside influence. She or he still lives in a wider society in which most of the wealth and power is held by white people, in which political, social and cultural discourse is dominated by affluent white people

That modern interconnected world ceases to exist when there's a knife in your ribs. Cultural discourse is irrelevant when you're running for your life. You might as well be in an impervious bubble.

and in which the mass media which saturates our everyday lives is dominated by white people and prone to promoting racist stereotypes

Agreed. The white-dominated mass media is very prone to promoting racist stereotypes, primarily anti-white ones.

He or she still lives in a society in which non-white ethnic groups have been historically disadvantaged and persecuted by centuries of institutionalized racism and violence, and in which the disparity thus created has barely even begun to narrow.

They're on the case.

While racism is present in every society, we also know from experience that the power of racism in a society can be reduced, albeit gradually, by anti-racist activism, laws and policies geared at reducing racial inequality, and campaigns aimed at educating people and changing attitudes. Culture is not immutable, and it can be changed for the better. The United States in 1950 was a society with legally-entrenched racial segregation, in which African-Americans were excluded almost entirely from political and economic power, and in which racial slurs and an open belief in the inferiority of particular racial groups were commonplace in everyday discourse among the white majority. The civil rights movement, decades of protest and activism and courage and civil disobedience and hard work, changed that. Today, the United States is still a deeply racist society in many ways; but it is a great deal better than in 1950. There is no longer a formal system of racial segregation; racial minorities are legally protected against discrimination in many contexts; and explicitly-racist discourse is no longer considered socially acceptable in most mainstream circles. This is a significant improvement.

The downside of that happy ending is the tsunami of black-on-white violence of recent years (much of it racially motivated); the increasing grassroots white awareness of, and willingness to speak about, this phenomenon; and the consequent contempt for the MSM's deafening silence on this issue in favour of the official manufactured cult of Trayvianity.

In many ways, the United States seems more racially polarised than ever. I am no apologist for white America's history of slavery, nor for the injustices of Jim Crow era, nor do I think the situation can be adequately explained merely by invoking 'race'. But neither do I think it can be explained merely by invoking 'racism'. At any rate, John Derbyshire's recent interview comments have the sad ring of truth:

"My own sense of the thing is that underneath the happy talk, underneath the dogged adherence to failed ideas and dead theories, underneath the shrieking and anathematizing at people like me, there is a deep and cold despair. In our innermost hearts,we don't believe racial harmony can be attained. Hence the trend to separation. We just want to get on with our lives away from each other. Yet for a moralistic, optimistic people like Americans, this despair is unbearable. It's pushed away somewhere we don't have to think about it."

"I am of a certain age, and I was around 50 years ago. I was reading the newspapers and following world events and I remember the civil rights movement. I was in England, but we followed it. I remember it, I remember what we felt about it, and what people were writing about it. It was full of hope. The idea in everyone's mind was that if we strike down these unjust laws and we outlaw all this discrimination, then we'll be whole. Then America will be made whole. After an intermediate period of a few years, who knows, maybe 20 years, with a hand up from things like affirmative action, black America will just merge into the general population and the whole thing will just go away. That's what everybody believed. Everybody thought that. And it didn't happen. Here we are, we're 50 years later, and we've still got these tremendous disparities in crime rates, educational attainment, and so on. And I think, although they're still mouthing the platitudes, Americans in their hearts feel a kind of cold despair about it. They feel that Thomas Jefferson was probably right and we can't live together in harmony. I think that's why you see this slow ethnic disaggregation. We have a very segregated school system now. There are schools within 10 miles of where I'm sitting that are 98 percent minority. In residential housing too, it's the same thing. So I think there is a cold, dark despair lurking in America's collective heart about the whole thing."

Through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for instance, Christian evangelism and missionary work in the developing world were often couched in terms of spreading "the Good News", along with the Western cultural norms and values which went with it, to "savage" and "barbarous" peoples who needed to be "educated" along Western lines; indeed, this was a common justification for imperialism and colonialism, and played into the racist mindset predominant at the time.

Hmmm. Your use of the term "developing world" suggests non-Western cultures were/are somehow "less developed" than Western cultures and that it is urgently necessary for their wellbeing that they "develop" along Western lines ... Reminds me of an amusing bit of dialogue from the movie Blackrobe, where the young Jesuit missionary meets an old priest with a hideously scarred face:

"The savages did this to me."

"The Indians? Why?"

"They are uncivilized – just as the English or Germans were before we came to them!"

A liturgically conservative Catholic blog recently posted some photos of a modern Tridentine Mass in Africa. One commentator complained: "... is it really necessary that a Mass in Gabon replicate something from 18th century Rome, even down to the lace collars around the altar boys' necks? I can understand when it comes to things that are actually part of the rite (chant, language, rubrics, vestments etc.), but why does there have to be such a rigid aesthetic in place that resists any of the organic adaptations Roman Christianity has made to West African culture? This might have worked in the days when every prelate in Africa was a white, but in the 21st century, it reeks of colonialism, even when the celebrant is African himself."

That comment brought forth this reply: "... your ignorant comment has made me furious. How dare you insinuate that 'rigid aesthetics' is not part of West African culture, or that it is not fitting to be incorporated in the liturgical life of the Church in Africa. What do you know about Africa for you to make such a statement? Should you not be happy that a few thousand miles away, in a culture that does not resemble anything in the West, we can surely identify ourselves as who we are? We are 'Roman' Catholics. What would you rather have us wear? Feathers and loin cloth? Or perhaps that is too base. What about a sheet of cloth with a cut out to fit over our heads? And what would you have religious people like the Franciscans and Dominicans wear to give them a more 'African' feel to them? Priests in my country of Nigeria where brought up by well meaning Irish priests. In poor villages that had nothing, people chipped in to provide the priests and other missionaries with whatever they needed to give us our own identity as CatholicsAnd so, we received our faith from the missionaries with much humility, accepting all that was given to us and rejecting nothing out of pride. The Church in the West brought to us this splendid gift and we took it--even with the Latin and vestments and the new order of things. I grew up with Latin and marvelous westernized vestments and our Cathedral was in Gothic style--do you have a problem with that too? It reminded me not of colonialism, but of the universality of our Church and our link even to the Pope himself. If an African prelate becomes pope, I suppose he should don a shaman attire more closely suited to the identity of his tribe too.
What stinks of colonialism is our civil government. It is what the English used to import its terrible democratic republic rule into our country by force and turned us into a country that would always be in turmoil. Subsidiarity was forced out as a principle and changed the way Africans conducted their lives--not the Church. The Church for us has always been the institution that gave us alleviation from the encroachment of colonialism."

Indeed, I'd venture to suggest that this is one respect in which the Church to which you profess allegiance is more liberal than you are.

You're right, although I would say "current clerical hierarchy" rather than "Church". Ditto the current clerical hierarchy's opposition to the death penalty. Ever since the 'Devil's Council' of the Sixties the RCC has been a sleeping giant, but there are a few hopeful signs Theoden might be awakening from his Wormtongue-induced stupor.

Indeed, I'm a persistent critic of organized atheism; though I continue to identify as a non-theist, I've chosen to attend a Unitarian Universalist church because of its strong commitment to social justice and inclusion.

I'm actually rather curious as to why you would do that. I mean, I can understand that you feel you have more in common with a liberal Christian than an authoritarian or racist atheist; and that you'd rather collaborate with the former to advance the cause of social justice, which you see as being of more pressing moment than the cause of atheism. But why actually attend their church services? Are they aesthetically pleasing?

the gross inequality produced by the legacy of Western imperialism and colonialism is still with us, and that that inequality continues to be reinforced by trade and immigration restrictions that privilege the Global North at the expense of the Global South. We have a moral duty to redress that inequality, even - especially - if it means surrendering some of our own artificially-maintained Western privilege. ... And in both countries, millions of the poor continue to live and work in appallingly exploitative conditions, making clothes, gadgets and fripperies for privileged Westerners. ... Western countries, the primary beneficiaries of the present inequitable world economic system, should be the first to dismantle their racist immigration laws.

I take it you believe in equality ... :D

More seriously, it may well be the case that an unjust economic system enriches country A at the expense of country B, but I don't see how that imbalance is going to be corrected by allowing unrestricted immigration from B to A. Country B will continue to be exploited – and perhaps even crippled economically by the exodus – while country A will suffer severe social strain as a result of the influx, which benefits neither natives nor immigrants. The root problem is not immigration controls but an exploitative economic system. And of course the whole issue is complicated by the rise of a so-called 'global economy' which floats above national boundaries. In the days of Empire, capitalism may well have involved country A directly exploiting country B. Nowadays a company nominally based in country A is quite happy to inflict economic and social hardship on that same country A by outsourcing its operations to country B, where cheap labour is plentiful.

A while back on Pharyngula you derided my "romantic neo-feudalism", emphasising the unprecedented prosperity and freedom brought about by industrial capitalism. Maybe that was during your libertarian phase. Now you seem more inclined to criticise Western consumers' insatiable demand for "gadgets and fripperies". Well then, direct your fire at hedonistic consumerism and the global economy that fuels it rather than nativist sentiment – which, after all, is as much a victim of the global system as the world's poor. (Indeed, it is precisely nativist sentiment in the non-Western world, whether nationalist, Islamic or both, which stands most in opposition to the inequities of the global economic order.)

Re: Reflections on atheism and the Reason Rally

David_Neale — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 22:32:01 -0000

I agree. I find I feel very comfortable with UU beliefs and practices, particularly UUs' strong commitment to social justice. In recent months I've been attending services at the UU First Parish in Cambridge, and have been involved with a local interfaith group called the Boston New Sanctuary Movement which works for immigrants' rights.

I strongly agree with the UU commitment to immigrants' rights (as will be apparent from many of my other blog posts), and I've been involved - alongside many UUs, Quakers and other progressive people of faith - in the recent campaign against SB 2061, an Arizona-style anti-immigrant law currently being considered by the Massachusetts state legislature.

Re: Reflections on atheism and the Reason Rally

joe — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 21:35:00 -0000

m an atheist and a unitarian universalist and agree with much of what
you wrote here. all i can say is that ive been using UUism to help
those "angry" atheists, like i myself was for a short while, to become
less "angry" and more understanding. we as UUs are usually good at
communicating, so use your tools to help build bridges. i know,
sometimes it feels like we ourselves are the bridges... straddling 2
viewpoints that we are passionate about. think about what UUism and the
atheist movement have in common.... not sure how you feel about it but
my congregation had a sermon a short while ago called " the dangers of
literalism and fundamentalism" seemed right on point with me.

also, don't forget you don't have to agree with everything every other
atheist says.... just be yourself and stand up for what you believe
in...

i'm passionate about UUism. i'm passionate about atheism. i dont think either is for everyone.

Re: The Republican war on women: late-term abortion bans

David_Neale — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 20:00:24 -0000

Happy Easter to you too!

Re: The Republican war on immigrants

David_Neale — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 19:59:46 -0000

Indeed! I strongly support Obama in the forthcoming elections, despite my disappointment. Romney has a terrible record on immigration; he's been cosying up to anti-immigrant hate groups like FAIR, opposes the DREAM Act, and thinks undocumented immigrants who have lived in this country all their lives should "self-deport". Not to mention his support for more tax cuts for the rich (including himself), his opposition to gay marriage and to reproductive rights, and so on.

So, to be clear, I strongly support Obama's reelection. He's still better overall than the alternatives, on immigrants' rights and on several other human rights issues. I might write more about this later on.

Re: The Republican war on women: late-term abortion bans

Re_Actor — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 19:22:24 -0000

Oh well. Happy Easter!

Re: The Republican war on immigrants

Kindly Katy — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 19:21:34 -0000

I posted a PM to Daniel Kowalski, immigration lawyer here in Austin, TX, including this part of your blog. I think even those of us who respect President Obama have been disappointed in some of his policies. At least he believes in evolution, however! He also has worked at a job in his lifetime: community organizer in Chicago. The upcoming sham election will see him pitted against Mitt Romney. I'd say "May the better man win"...but many of us doubt Romney is actually human! (LOL)

Re: The Republican war on women: late-term abortion bans

Re_Actor — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 19:16:27 -0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Re: The Republican war on women: late-term abortion bans

David_Neale — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:03:03 -0000

Just one more thing.

When you invoke the principle of 'self-defence' against the
encroachments of the foetus, are you thinking only of situations where
medical complications might endanger the mother's life?

Or is the 'right to bodily autonomy' so fundamental that a woman
ought to be able to abort her foetus at any stage of her pregnancy even
when there are no medical complications?

The latter. To continue with the same analogy, I'm entitled to defend myself against someone who wants to take my kidney by force, even if I have two healthy kidneys and could survive after the removal of one. (And of course even a healthy pregnancy carries some significant risks to physical and mental health, just as any kidney-removal surgery does.)

Re: The Republican war on women: late-term abortion bans

Re_Actor — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:15:03 -0000

Just one more thing.

When you invoke the principle of 'self-defence' against the encroachments of the foetus, are you thinking only of situations where medical complications might endanger the mother's life?

Or is the 'right to bodily autonomy' so fundamental that a woman ought to be able to abort her foetus at any stage of her pregnancy even when there are no medical complications?

Re: The Republican war on women: late-term abortion bans

David_Neale — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:39:03 -0000

I countered by pointing out that the issue of personhood was
inseparable from the question of a "right to bodily autonomy" since
rights are something only persons can possess. Computers don't have
rights; I can do what I please to my laptop's physical "body".

Sure. But this is circular. By definition, only juridical persons are capable of having rights (and of having duties, of entering into contracts, of being parties to lawsuits, and so forth). So what is a juridical person? An entity which the law recognizes as being capable of having rights. As a line of enquiry, this gets us nowhere.

Societies through history certainly have not had a single, consistent view of what does and does not constitute a "person". Historically, slaves were not regarded as juridical persons. Corporations today are regarded for certain limited purposes as juridical persons. There remains debate over whether non-human animals should be recognized for certain purposes as juridical persons (some ethicists think they should). And so on. The answer is not a self-evident one.

In saying this, I don't mean to suggest that the concept of personhood is itself purely arbitrary. Society could not function without a concept of personhood: it's fundamental to all social and legal relations. But personhood is a social construct, and its definition differs from society to society; and exactly where we should draw the line between "person" and "non-person" is not obvious.

To me, it's reasonably obvious that a blastocyst or an embryo - a bundle of cells with no brain stem, no ability to think or feel, and no identifiable human characteristics - cannot sensibly be regarded as a "person". It's human tissue, but it's no more a "person" than a sperm or an ovum is. But, on this analysis, it's not at all self-evident at what stage of development the line should be drawn between person and not-person. (Just as, for instance, it's obvious that the law should distinguish between adults and children for a variety of purposes, but whether we draw the line at sixteen or at seventeen or at eighteen is largely an arbitrary choice.) This question has no obvious answer.

I am arguing that there should be an unlimited right to abortion regardless of this, however, because the woman has a right to defend herself against the foetus' encroachment on her bodily autonomy, and this would be so even if the foetus were uncontroversially recognized as a person. This is helpful because it gets us out of arguing the largely-meaningless question of where the line should be drawn between "person" and "not-person". (I can also argue that abortion should be legal for the practical reasons I outlined above - bans on abortion do not actually reduce the rate of abortion, and lead to more preventable deaths and more suffering - but that's a different line of argument.)

Therefore, if the foetus was to be considered a person
(even if only in social/juridical terms), it too would surely have to be
accorded the same right to bodily autonomy as the mother. It would
have as much right to bodily inviolability in the womb as the mother had
not to have her womb violated by its body. And that would lead to an
ethical impasse when it came to the question of abortion.

No - because the foetus is, merely by its presence in her womb, placing a very heavy burden on the woman's body, a burden which ex hypothesi she does not want to bear. Assuming that the bodily autonomy of another can be legitimately violated in self-defence against an intrusion on one's own bodily autonomy, she has a right to defend herself against it. Bodily autonomy is thus not strictly absolute, and I shouldn't have described it as such; it's qualified by the right to self-defence.

If I refuse to have my kidney removed from my body and transplanted into another who needs it, I am condemning that person to death. If someone subsequently tries to strap me to a hospital bed and remove my kidney against my will, I can fight back, and might kill my attacker in the process of doing so. In both cases, I have taken another's life - quite plausibly, entirely innocent life. (Even my attacker may be attacking me because of a genuine, well-motivated desire to save the life of a loved one, say.) Yet few people would dispute that these are legitimate acts of self-defence on my part; that I am entitled to protect my bodily autonomy by force, using the minimum force necessary to do so.

However, while the foetus is certainly "encroaching" on the mother's bodily autonomy, it is not by any reasonable measure attacking her.)

What's the practical difference? It's intruding upon her bodily autonomy, and it's causing physical harm to her in the process, just as if she were being attacked.

Re: The Republican war on women: late-term abortion bans

Re_Actor — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:03:13 -0000

(To clarify, I do accept the principle of self-defence. I agree that:

deadly force may be used, if necessary, in order to protect one's own body against a physical attack. If my life is threatened by an attacker, few people would criticize me if I were compelled to use lethal force to protect myself. This is so whether or not the attacker is a person, and it is so regardless of the circumstances of the attack; whether I am being attacked by a human being or by, say, a rabid dog, our answer remains the same.

However, while the foetus is certainly "encroaching" on the mother's bodily autonomy, it is not by any reasonable measure attacking her.)

Re: The Republican war on women: late-term abortion bans

Re_Actor — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:16:54 -0000

I've come across the "after-birth abortion" argument before - Peter Singer has been making it for years, for instance. I don't propose to address it in detail here, but it irks me when anti-choicers use it as a kind of slippery slope argument against abortion rights.

I know you don't want to get into a discussion on infanticide, but I would just remark in passing that the mere fact that the issue is being discussed at all is strong evidence that fears of a "slippery slope" are far from unfounded.

If you'd told David Steel back in '67 that eminent scientists and bioethicists would be openly making the case for infanticide in 2012, he would have thought you were mad or indulging in irresponsible dystopian scaremongering.

Re: The Republican war on women: late-term abortion bans

Re_Actor — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:09:25 -0000

Let's have a quick recap.

You began by saying:

my support for abortion rights is not dependent upon the question of whether or not a foetus is "a person" ... "Personhood" is a socio-cultural construct, not an objective fact ... Rather, I have an entirely different reason to support abortion but oppose infanticide, and to use the time of birth as the dividing line between the two. Simply put, the difference is that a foetus in utero is inside a woman's body, whereas a newborn is not. If we believe that women have a right to bodily autonomy - and I do - then it follows that she ought not to be forced against her will to carry the foetus to term and to give birth to it.

You then reiterated that position:

My point is that if bodily autonomy is absolute, the result does not change even if the foetus is a person.

I countered by pointing out that the issue of personhood was inseparable from the question of a "right to bodily autonomy" since rights are something only persons can possess. Computers don't have rights; I can do what I please to my laptop's physical "body".

Therefore, if the foetus was to be considered a person (even if only in social/juridical terms), it too would surely have to be accorded the same right to bodily autonomy as the mother. It would have as much right to bodily inviolability in the womb as the mother had not to have her womb violated by its body. And that would lead to an ethical impasse when it came to the question of abortion.

Therefore it was essential for your pro-abortion case either that foetuses not be considered persons imbued with rights, or that Person A (the mother) somehow had a stronger right to bodily autonomy than Person B (the foetus). (All rights are absolute but some rights are more absolute than others.)

You now say:

... I acknowledge that "personhood" is a social and juridical construct, not an objective fact. I'm defining "personhood", and hence the right to bodily autonomy, as beginning at birth ...

The words "and hence" in that last sentence suggest that you do accept that the right to bodily autonomy rests on the fact of personhood. No person = no right to bodily autonomy or anything else.

But if, as you maintain, personhood is merely a social construct, a convenient fiction, then so is its corollary, the right to bodily autonomy. Therefore, a woman's "right to protect her body" is not absolute.

Re: The Republican war on women: late-term abortion bans

David_Neale — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:17:52 -0000

No. The woman is defending herself against the foetus' encroachment on her bodily autonomy. Her right to protect her body is absolute. And with current technology, she cannot, in most circumstances, protect her own body without causing the death of the foetus. (If it were technologically possible to remove foetuses without causing their death and to grow them in artificial wombs - as it may be one day - then this moral consideration would obviously differ.) She thus has the right to terminate the pregnancy, in the same way that anyone has the right to use whatever force necessary to protect their own bodily autonomy against an encroachment.

We generally accept that deadly force may be used, if necessary, in order to protect one's own body against a physical attack. If my life is threatened by an attacker, few people would criticize me if I were compelled to use lethal force to protect myself. This is so whether or not the attacker is a person, and it is so
regardless of the circumstances of the attack; whether I am being attacked by a human being or by, say, a rabid dog, our answer remains the same.

To be clear, I do also deny that the foetus should be regarded for legal purposes as a person or that it should be ascribed any rights. But in doing so, I acknowledge that "personhood" is a social and juridical construct, not an objective fact. I'm defining "personhood", and hence the right to bodily autonomy, as beginning at birth because this is a reasonable line to draw for all practical purposes.

Re: The Republican war on women: late-term abortion bans

Re_Actor — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 03:28:51 -0000

My point is that if bodily autonomy is absolute, the result does not change even if the foetus is a person.

Yes it does. Because if the 'foetus' is a person, it too has an absolute right to bodily autonomy which may not be violated even to save another's life.

So in the blue corner we have the mother's absolute right not to have her bodily autonomy violated by being denied an abortion. In the red corner we have the foetus' absolute right not to have its bodily autonomy violated by being aborted.

To justify abortion, you either have to deny the foetus personhood (and hence rights) or concede that the right to bodily autonomy is not absolute and argue that the mother's rights overrule her unborn child's in this case.

Re: The Republican war on women: late-term abortion bans

David_Neale — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 21:11:30 -0000

But I see you already had the same argument with Jadehawk. Lest there be any doubt, I entirely endorse what she said in that thread:

The specific boundary here is that of bodily autonomy and integrity. To
kill (or let die) in defense of one’s own physical self is an entirely
different matter than to kill (or let die) in defense of stuff I own.
It’s reasonable, legal, and ethical to legally demand that people
sacrifice some of their stuff to minimize harm to others. It is not
reasonable or ethical (and shouldn’t be legal) to legally demand that
one sacrifices one’s own body, in whole or in part, permanently or
temporarily, for another’s wellbeing. The right to control the fate of
my own physical self is probably the most basic of human rights.

Re: The Republican war on women: late-term abortion bans

David_Neale — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:39:36 -0000

No. My point is that if bodily autonomy is absolute, the result does not change even if the foetus is a person.

By analogy, we would consider it an unacceptable intrusion on liberty if the state were to tie me to a hospital bed and, say, force me to donate a kidney against my will - even assuming that the kidney is to be used to save a dying person's life, and even assuming that the kidney could be removed without killing me. The prospective recipient of the kidney is, in my hypothetical, undoubtedly a person. But my right to bodily autonomy supersedes even the state's desire to save another's life; because my body is mine alone.

If anything, forcing a woman to bear a pregnancy to term and to give birth, given that it takes a heavy physical and psychological toll and that it carries considerable risks, is a still greater intrusion on her liberty than forcing me to donate a kidney against my will would be on mine. Thus, applying the same principle of bodily autonomy, a woman should never be forced to continue a pregnancy against her will. We reach this conclusion a fortiori if the foetus is not a person; but, on my view, it would remain the correct conclusion even if the foetus were a person, because no person has a legitimate claim on another person's body.

Couldn't one say the same about "bodily autonomy" though? From birth to
death our bodies require a minimum of food, water and shelter to
survive and we all, more or less, depend on others to provide them. It
takes thousands of anonymous people all working flat out to keep you and
me alive. None of us is really autonomous.

No; I think bodily autonomy is a more specific and concrete concept. We all know, intuitively, that having our bodies invaded, in the form of physical violence, is a distinctive, and particularly serious, form of harm. Of course acts of bodily violence vary considerably in the severity of the harm inflicted; and of course there are other forms of harm besides bodily violence. But I don't think the distinction between bodily violence and other forms of harm is an arbitrary one; I think it's one which is deeply rooted in human experience. In any case, on any reasonable view, being forced to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth against one's will is an extraordinarily severe form of harm, with profound physical and psychological consequences (and the consequences are not, of course, limited to the physical act of giving birth). It's a very extreme intrusion into a person's liberty.

It is, of course, open to you to argue that bodily autonomy should not be regarded as a moral principle. But in reality, in other contexts, most of us demand and expect respect for our own bodily autonomy; I doubt you would be pleased if the state strapped you to a hospital bed and forcibly removed your kidney and a couple of pints of blood, so as to give them to a stranger. Yet women's autonomy in relation to their reproductive systems is not accorded the same consideration - because of a sexist double standard.

With regard to the latter point, it's also important to bear in mind the pattern of gendered oppression that forms the background to these debates. Men, qua men, are a privileged group in our society; women, qua women, are an oppressed group. There is a long history of men treating women's bodies as their property, in all kinds of contexts, and the forcible control of women's reproductive choices by men is an aspect of this historical pattern. The right to bodily autonomy, with regard to abortion, can't be discussed in the abstract without reference to this historical reality. The movement to proclaim bodily autonomy as a moral principle is thus, in part, about setting women, as a class, free from a pattern of gendered oppression, by freeing them from forcible state control of their reproductive systems.*

(*In making this point, I'm not meaning to imply that the possession or non-possession of a uterus is what defines gender; it isn't, and the existence of trans women and trans men shouldn't be disregarded in any discussion about gender inequalities. But, as a practical matter, restrictions on reproductive choice most frequently affect women as a group most severely, and the debate is usually framed in that way.)

Re: The Republican war on women: late-term abortion bans

Re_Actor — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 18:46:12 -0000

"Personhood" is a socio-cultural construct, not an objective fact

Couldn't one say the same about "bodily autonomy" though? From birth to death our bodies require a minimum of food, water and shelter to survive and we all, more or less, depend on others to provide them. It takes thousands of anonymous people all working flat out to keep you and me alive. None of us is really autonomous.

More importantly, I don't see how you can divorce the questions of bodily autonomy and personhood. To take the "right to bodily autonomy" as a moral baseline surely presupposes persons – persons who are endowed with this all-important right precisely because they are imbued with intrinsic value.

After all, a "foetus" has a body, does it not? And you did say:

... we respect the right to bodily autonomy, even where violating that right might save lives ... even if doing so were necessary to save another person's life ...

In this light, the question of whether or not a "foetus" is a person is very pertinent.