Why We Shouldn't Say "Abortion Accounts for only 3% of Planed Parenthood Services"

This post is based off of several articles that made the rounds over the summer concerning the investigation on Planned Parenthood's Services by the House of Representatives over the last few months, and is meant to be a response in part to Kasia's presentation "Evaluating Restrictions on Access to Abortion".

In Rachael Larimore's ""The Most Meaningless Abortion Statistic Ever", the author argues against the idea that abortion makes up only about 3% of the services provided by Planned Parenthood, as Planned Parenthood does not "separate" their services provide, as well as the fact that abortions count for about 1/3 on PP's revenue. However, I would argue that in arguments against defunding PP, this number should not even matter.

By emphasizing the fact that abortion makes up such a small percentage of the services provided by PP, I think activists are sort of implying that the fewer abortions that occur, the better. Activists are very quick to discuss all of the women's health services provided by PP that they often ignore the central issue at hand: PP provides safe and inexpensive abortions. Republicans are not attempting to defund PP because it provides cheap pap smears or breast health exams, but because it is the easiest and safest way to get access to abortion, which they find morally reprehensible. By shifting the argument away from abortion, activists for PP essentially concede to the notion accepted by Republicans and other pro-life groups that abortion is morally reprehensible and should be either completely prevented or drastically reduced, which is not what these activists believe.

It is with this in mind that that I argue that advocates for Planned Parenthood should instead embrace the fact that PP provides a safe and accessible space to get an abortion, mainly because of the activists' central argument that abortion is morally permissible.  If I thought that everyone had a moral right to play video games, I would not base my argument for keeping the local GameStop open at the mall around the statistical fact that only %20 of sales come from actual purchases of consoles, and abortion activists should not use this type of argument either. If PP advocates actually cared as little as they seemed to about access to abortion, they would be fine with the government continuing to fund PP provided that abortion services are no longer provided. However, I think that if this compromise was brought to the table, very few advocates would find it satisfactory. Advocates should not care either if PP performs 20 or 200,000 abortions a year, because to them, women have the right to an abortion. In summary, the emphasis on the statistics concerning abortion and PP removes the argument from moral debates, and therefore must be refocused.

The Social Contract

My topic for presentation (and also for my final paper for the course) is going to be on the idea of a social contract. I've thought about this concept in depth for years and feel it's extraordinarily important for people to be aware of and understand. For that reason, I wanted to put up a post explaining my thoughts and perhaps get other people's thoughts. I apologize in advance for the length of this post.

Also, it should be noted that I haven't done research into this as of yet. I have a line of research set up, but I wanted to do a post on here before hand with just my thoughts on it. I learned about it only briefly, but built on the basic concept myself to determine how I think it should work and what I think is right, and what its role is, etc. So, the following (as I already said) is a composition of my own thoughts exclusively.

It should be understood that the social contract is an implicit contract signed by two parties: the people of a society (society being defined as a group of people living under one government) and the government. Using the terms "ruler" and "ruled" would work, but I don't prefer them; they carry a connotation of one (ruler) being much more powerful than the other (ruled), and the social contract necessarily requires that this is not the case. This contract is expansive and means a lot, but I will try to compact it into a few central ideas and leave the rest to potential discussion/to be brought up later.

It needs to also be noted that just because this contract is implicit does not mean it is optional. Anyone part of either role is obligated to oblige by the contract.

So what is the contract exactly? The goal of the contract is to create a well-functioning, healthy society. Each role has very specific responsibilities to perform in order to make this happen. Each side has responsibilities to the society itself and to the other role. Without getting into too much detail, citizens stay involved in political processes and work to help the economy flourish and stay obedient to the laws set fourth by the government. The government listens to the people and responds to their demands/requests and works on building a better country in whatever ways they can; they are also responsible for creating just laws.

The contract gets more complicated as other real life situations are applied, and the responsibilities of each side are far more lengthy than what might be immediately evident above, but the general idea is as described. 

A lot of questions are raised from this, and I think the obvious one is what happens when someone breaks the contract? Well there are a few things that happen depending on how the contract is broken. The contract doesn't dissolve, it just sort of loses its equilibrium. Again, the contract always exists and is always obligatory. When a member of society breaks the contract by law, they face jail time. (This gets tricky when other transgressions are made, but I'll get into that later.) The other major consequence for members of the society is to have to be part of a society that isn't what it's supposed to be. For example many people complain about the state of the U.S., but political efficacy has been declining and is lower than its ever been. Our lack of involvement is a major reason why the state of affairs is as it is, and this is our consequence for not doing out duty or completing our responsibilities.

The consequence for a government is a little more radical, but a government that creates unjust laws and refuses to change or listen to its people can only be re-aligned through radical ways. The solution, of course, is revolution (this can happen at any degree of extremism, either simple political revolution or one that resembles the American one more).

This is the other transgression that makes everything tricky. There has to be an understanding laid out here that is taken without biases: We must understand perspective, and we must understand motive. The government will seek to have its rule obeyed; the people will seek to have their freedoms and rights honored. Both must be understood and accepted, and actions must not only be expected, but it is important that each side play their part and contribute to their role, even in the face of the consequences.

Now referring back to the jailing situation, let me expand. One might find a law unjust and choose to ignore it, whether in public to make a statement or just in their own life hoping to not get caught. There are PLENTY of laws in the U.S. that are unreasonable and upon closer examination should be gotten rid of. Some people move to get rid of them, others live as if they don't exist. The important thing to acknowledge its this: if you break the law, you are breaking the contract and must understand that the government will react as they are supposed and allowed to. That does not, however, mean you should not act out against wrongful laws, as the contract also entails a government that makes just laws. In this case, it's our job to make sure that when these unjust laws are made and not repealed, we stand against them until they are.

This will (and has in history) lead to jail and other consequences, but to fix an unjust society, acting justly is seen as wrong by the government, and thus we must work to set the society back to equilibrium.

The Social Contract is forever present and forever relevant in a society, and it seems as if a lot of things people are upset with today stem from a result of them breaking the contract in some way, and this is why I think it's so important. If more people understood the contract and held themselves and the government to it, then more political action would be taken and it seems we would be led (through a massive amount of changes, as this idea has implications that would force change across many, many aspects of society) to a better society, one more like what a modern day leading nation in the world should be.

The Heart of the Abortion Debate?

I am surprised no one has posted about abortion here yet, so I guess I will start, feel free to reply with anything, even if it's not directly related to the things I say :)

The example I gave in class involved a scenario in the distant future, in which there exists a machine, an "advanced incubator" as Steven coined it, which has the ability to fully develop an embryo to an infant state. In this case, an embryo can be extracted from the body with negligible impact upon the mother and embryo. Now, it is my assumption that in this "utopian" future, most people would deem it morally impermissible to kill the embryo after it was harmlessly extracted from the mother, or pursue an alternate plan in which the mother is also harmlessly rid of the embryo, but the embryo dies as a consequence of extraction.

So, it seems to me that what separates this utopian future from the present is that in the future, the embryo can be saved with negligible harm to the mother, so it should be saved. Since saving it doesn't harm anyone in any way, we are not permitted to kill it/let it die, even if pursuing an alternate abortion process, assuming the ideal method is readily available. So, it is my impression that, in the present, letting the embryo die is permissible because it causes harm/requires cost, and in the future, it is not permissible because it does not cause harm/require cost.

Thus, I am wondering if a purely consequentialist (utilitarian) approach might avoid a lot of the complexities with rights and personhood, getting to the heart of the debate more readily.

In the present, many people argue that abortion is permissible, especially in certain circumstances (rape, incest, etc.), because it causes trauma to the mother and infringes upon her rights to her body.

But are discussions on rights and personhood really necessary? What if the embryo can be saved with minimal impact on the mother? What if the mother arbitrarily decided that this still infringed upon her rights, and that the embryo must die? Well, you'll say that our rational society would never believe that, but then where do our "rights" come from and where are they based? Raith made the good point that many rights are based on a spectrum cemented in consequences and net utility. But then that would mean rights come from consequences, and thus a "simple" calculation of utility lies at the heart of the debate, not abstract notions of absolute rights.

Take the good Samaritan example - if I can save someone by simply letting them tap my nose, am I not morally obliged to let them do so? Contrast this with someone needing me to sacrifice my life to save theirs. One might argue these invoke the same concepts of rights, but I think most people would feel there is an intrinsic difference between these two cases in terms of morality. What is the root of this intuition? It seems obvious to me that it's the net consequences and costs in the two scenarios.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I recall that Kantian ethics, which is, in many ways, the foundation of rights-based ethics, describes that rights are absolute and have no regards to consequences. For example, according to Kant, it is never okay to lie or steal, no matter the consequences. The notion of treating "human beings" with respect and as ends is a specific case of this "universality" principle. However, I also seem to recall that the proofs for these maxims actually involved considerations of their ultimate consequences.

Thus, due to all the facts I have been exposed to, it is my impression that the true heart of the matter of abortion is net utility, and not some convoluted, multi-level, and possibly arbitrary logic game of rights. After all, the more specific and complex we make the system of rights, the more they approach rule consequentialism. This is not surprising, as the rights or "rules" themselves are often based on notions of net utility.

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Morality vs Freedom

A thought has been prevalent in my mind for a long, long time, and has been the source of some internal debate. I finally figured out how to phrase the problem, and I think it's a good question to ask, especially in relation to Humanity. It hasn't come up too explicitly in what we've read so far, but I think it will come up in the later parts.

My question is this:

Should the government be allowed to make laws outlawing things that morally corrupt a society or do moral damage to its peoples if it means infringing on their freedom?

It seems like from a law standpoint, this is overstepping boundaries. What, then, could keep people away from things that are morally corrupting (it does seem important to try to preserve morality.)? The problem with that is often things that corrupt our morality are addictive or pleasureful, so it seems as if an association or organization would be too weak and not hold enough authority to effectively keep us from them; people would ignore them. So, law? If not, then what?

Catholic Church and the Respect for All Opinions

I wanted to return to a point people seemed to be stuck on during Julia's presentation of Sexual Rights and the Catholic Church, mainly that the opinions of all persons ought to be listened to and included in conversation. A claim that was made was that (in essence) the opinion which opposes a current controversial law could not be respected. I disagree with this, as I believe that one can actually hold the belief that gay marriage is a sin while simultaneously not trying to make it illegal. There is a difference between possessing a belief and acting on said belief, and it is here that one can hold a sort of "cognitive dissonance". For instance, my mother is very religious, and believes that homosexuality is a sin. However, she does not campaign against gay marriage, as this does not "affect" her. In distinguishing difference types of harm, as Julia does, one can make an argument that the psychological harm towards Catholics caused by allowing gay marriage is less than the psychological and harm towards the rights of gay persons who wish to be married. One could also argue that because the US is a secular state, we ought to base all of our laws on principles of harm and respect towards individuals, not based on specific religious doctrine.

Getting back to respect for all opinions, I think that by choosing not to make laws based on religious principles is not harm towards the respect towards those religions at all. The government is not forcing Catholics to get married to another member of the same sex, and rights to practice religion are not being infringed upon either. There are certainly cases where the state interferes with the church, but more often, it is the church which attempts to interfere with the state. This is not a Christian, Muslim, or any other religious nation, so the refusal to make laws based on specific religious morals is not disrespecting that religion. America prides itself on tolerating all forms and practices of religion that do not harm other persons, and to attempt to limit the non-harmful practices of any religion would be wrong.

I think a similar case would be trigger warnings in academia. Many people see this as a way for more "controversial" beliefs to be censured by issuing a warning that they are indeed controversial. Using trigger warning "disrespects" certain beliefs and material by giving people who disagree with said belief a warning to "ignore" when said beliefs are discussed. However, I do not believe this is the case, as trigger warnings may actually serve more so as a caveat, letting people know that the material they are about to digest can cause certain trauma or harm, thus preparing them to read and analyze the material carefully and in a more productive way. Saying that a book has stories about rape in it does not serve to alienate the book from those who were victims of rape, but instead gives fair warning to these persons in order to give them time to prepare to engage with the material. In connection to the opinions of Catholics, simply because gay marriage exists does not mean that their beliefs are not respected.

Consent

Just a quick thought on consent from our class today.

When we were talking about the cat, consent was basically defined as whether the cat was receiving pleasure and did not try and stop us from continuing.  But from rape cases we know that this isn't sufficient to define consent.  Someone can not stop us and obtain pleasure from our actions but still not be consenting.  That's why we say that animals can't consent.  They cannot express themselves in a clear way that we can be sure of their consent.  What we perceive as consent maybe something else entirely, like fear.  And they may not fully understand our actions.  This is also why we can look at the case of animal consent similarly to that of children are those with a severe cognitive impairment.

ON COSMOPOLITAN EGALITARIAN CASE FOR OPEN BORDERS


I have a question inspired by Griselda’s presentation. Her first argument for opening borders is what she calls the “cosmopolitan egalitarian case”. The argument is essentially a lottery of birth argument, which comes down to: you didn’t do anything to have it therefore you don’t have a legitimate entitlement to the property in question (in this case a country).

My question is how far are we willing to push this principle? To what point are we not entitled to the things we are lucky to be born to. Consider this, suppose I was born with hair with an unusual but pleasant texture. This hair could help me make friends as people desiring to play with my hair act friendly towards me. As such I thus I benefit from something I never did anything to have except be lucky to be born with. Are we therefore willing to say everyone on this planet is equally entitled to playing with my hair and I don’t have any moral entitlement to it?

Freedom, Morality, and Property

I have been jarring my brain trying to think of a good way to present this.  So far, I haven't thought of one, so I'm going to do my best.

We have to start with the assumption that the original argument is a moral one, and not just a legal one.  The person who would argue this would believe it to be morally right to place freedom as the primary task of the government.

So let's pick up at 1*, which states that "Freedom is compromised by interference, unless that interference is to counter interference which isn't itself to counter interference."

So here we have interfering with freedom that is the primary concern.  The first question is, are there any moral circumstances that break this rule?  The notes used the money case, and I will reiterate my defense here and attempt to speak on the counter argument brought up (to the best that I understand it).

First, we have to accept that property rights are a moral freedom.  That someone can possess something to use as they wish (within established laws of freedom) and we have no right to use that thing or take it into our possession without their consent.  Their are cases where it is clearly not true that someone has a right to property, but these cases generally constitute the use of property to interfere with someone else's freedom. But in general, if we don't accept property rights as a moral freedom, what are the consequences?  It seems to depend on the interpretation.  Strict socialism doesn't believe in personal property (mostly).  But socialists still believe that somebody (the government) owns and controls that property, so they just change who has the right to the property.  A more extreme idea might be that nobody has any "right" to property.  This would make the idea of theft "obsolete".  Since you don't own the property, I can take it and use it just as much as you.  In this case, it might actually be morally wrong for us to prevent someone from taking something from us.  Because of this, I will continue with the assumption that property rights is a moral freedom.

So if property rights constitute a moral freedom, then by my theft of an apple at Walmart, I am violating the property rights of Walmart to own that apple, and use it as Walmart wishes (which includes selling the apple for whatever price they desire).  One could say "well Walmart still has a right to own the apple, even though I possess it" but I think that misses the idea of what ownership is.  How can I own something which I cannot possess and have any control over?  Once the apple is stolen, the thief can choose to eat the apple, or sell it, or do whatever they want to it, and Walmart no longer has any control over the use or fate of that apple.  This is a clear violation of Walmart's freedom to own that particular apple.

When we speak about trespassing, the only difference seems to be in the magnitude and length of violation.  If you own a computer (or land, it applies the same way), and I use it without your permission, I am infringing upon your right to control what happens to your computer.  You did not allow me to use it, but I used it anyways.  If you want to use it, and I refuse to let you, then it is even more clear that your possession is no longer under your control (even if the loss is temporary), and I have violated your freedom.  But it doesn't matter if you wanted to use it or not.  The fact is, it belongs to you, and not me, and so you have the freedom to choose who uses your computer and who doesn't, and I have just prevented you from doing so.  The magnitude in this case may be pretty low, but that doesn't negate that this is a violation of freedom.

So it seems to me that property rights easily fit under 1*, and this makes the idea of needing to present an argument of freedom plus property rights as incorrect.  Since 1* already covers restricting freedoms that would in themselves restrict freedom, and any violation of property rights is a restriction of freedom, then Cohen's second objection is already covered by 1*.

Interestingly, I don't see 1* as a very good "right" argument.  It would seem that a great many things that the "right" generally try to preserve are thwarted by this line of thinking.  Lack of gun control interferes with people's right not to have their lives taken by another.  Making gay marriage illegal seems like an obvious interference.  Preventing equal access to education and medical care seems to restrict people's freedoms to good education and opportunities for reasonable health care.  So I think the argument really stands on "what are moral rights?".  Do we have a moral right to good education and reasonable health care?  Do we have a moral right to not be dramatically undermined at birth in our pursuit of a good lifestyle by socioeconomic factors that were determined before we were born?  If we have these rights, then freedom from interference actually bolsters our claim to them, and we should embrace freedom for giving us the leverage to stand up and say that no, it's not OK for some people to have dramatically greater advantages in life that are independent of their own decisions while others suffer for the very same reasons.  Freedom from interference is our moral ally.

Please share your thoughts!  This is a rough thought cycle with very little research beforehand.  I would love to hear what I missed, or what you disagree with.