Maybe the Catholics should have a talk with God about why He aborts so many "unborn children."
Once the embryo reaches the blastocyst stage, approximately five to six days after fertilization, it hatches out of its zona pellucida and begins the process of implantation in the uterus.
In nature, 50 percent of all fertilized eggs are lost before a woman's missed menses.
https://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/conception_how_it_works/
15
The simple truth: Government, keep your dirty hands off women's bodies. Whether abortion is right or wrong, women have the jurisdiction given them by nature itself.
11
My god, the author's entire opinion piece rests on the assumption that society owns a woman's womb.
14
Except you left out two big points. One, women have no choice or control over their own bodies. They must have the baby wanted or unwanted. Two, they can be punished for trying to abort. Punished with prison up to 14 years for getting pills. Punished with the loss of their own life because a baby's life is more important.
Lets give women the choice over their own bodies , not the government or the Catholic Church.
15
The myth of the right is that women want to have an abortion.
I never met a woman who wanted to have an abortion.
They chose abortion as the least bad option.
They were young and never got sex ed and birth control.
They got pregnant in spite of using birth control.
Health of the mother.
Health of the fetus.
We can eliminate a lot of abortion with family planning, sex education and birth control.
But the right, at least in the US, really just wants to fight.
With that, they vote Republican and the Republicans give big tax cuts to their donor class.
This last Republican tax cut will add at least $10 Trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.
That is $67,000 put on the credit card of each taxpayer.
18
The Big Bang Theory Revised
What is the “Big Bang”? Well for some of us it was always taught that it was the start of the different galaxies that are found throughout space. It was supposed to be Time Zero, plus one. It was supposed to be the start of the evolutionary cycle which would eventually introduce life, as we know it, all the way to the introduction of the human animal to the one and only life chain known so far. But you know what? I have found out that this historical Big Bang Theory is wrong! Not the concept, but the term.
The real “Big Bang” actually relates to the genetic differences found between the male and female human animals. It really should be the theory that supports the fact that men and women are both contributors to the birth of children here on earth – by the way human children only and, at a minimum, they are supposedly equal contributors. Now, how can this be true? Well, it actually relates to the extremely powerful and little known chemistry of the powerful male only element, better known as sperm …
Visit my Facebook page for the rest.
Don’t worry, Ross. Once “progress” sets its course, it never looks back.
Nor does it ever admit it was wrong.
Looking forward to “Progress” ripping up more of society.
They’ve only just begun from the look of things!
This is such an easy one.
As different people have said for 50 years or more:
If men could get pregnant, abortion would be legal.
6
Perhaps Douthat missed a key moment in early elementary school when the difference between "here" and "there" was covered, and the following day when the difference between "choice" and "force" were described. His idolizing of the Irish solution to women having some freedom over their own bodies celebrates the Emerald Isle's cultural distance from England and its effective closeness for real access, except of course for the penalties attached to availing oneself of the opportunity.
Douthat appears to live in a fantasy land of freedom for himself and not for anyone else in religion, politics, abortion, and so forth. His perfection of experience seems to be worth the suffering of many in his isolated mind.
This like his screeds on he Catholic Church, and many on the Republican vision for America--more for the wealthy, less for the poor, and a celebration of Paul Ryan's dystopic Randian vision. Others must suffer for Douthat to enjoy his cerebral perfection of civilization.
5
It's tempting to argue against the banal nonsense that Ross preaches in his screed about Ireland & abortion. After all he is a conservative Catholic and they have dominated Irish society for so very long. But I think that we should defer to Maureen Dowd whose column addresses Ireland and the history of reproductive rights there with an eloquence that Douthat could only wish for. Besides both Ross and I are men and this is only a philosophical argument for either of us.
7
Your capacity for taking facts and randomly assigning causality is breathtaking. Of course the lengths Irish women must currently go to for an abortion has resulted in a sharply lower rate. And lower maternal mortality is due to their universal healthcare, not their abortion laws. It’s hard to take your column seriously.
10
That Ireland continues to react against the moralistic positions advocated by the Catholic Church (one of Mr. Douthat’s favorite sources of inspiration) should surprise nobody. The list of that church’s moral failures in Ireland- from the Magdalene Laundries to pedophile priests to the mass graves of infants supposedly “card for” by the church - is long and depressing. The church’s exalted position in that country under the constitution enacted under de Valera should serve as a cautionary tale regarding the respective roles of religion and government.
12
Mr Douthat would do well to acknowledge the role the Catholic Church establishment has played in this transformation in Ireland. The stories of abuse in church-run schools are horrific. It’s not a wonder to me that Ireland went from one of the most conservative nations in Europe to its present state in such a short time. I imagine this push for abortion rights coincides with that.
12
More moral proselytizing, do-this and don't do that, from uber Catholic Mr. Douthat.
He threads together a loose collection of data points into an intellectually undefendable and ridiculous proposition.
Ignores the fundamental women's human rights issue, my body, my choice. Avoids any discussion of the state/church's inappropriate intervention into a women's conversation with her doctor and family.
23
Your colleague columnist, Maureen Dowd, wrote today about her older relative, who was spirited away after impregnating a girl in the village, went on to become a well respected land owner; the girl committed suicide.
The sexual divide, or gap, is even more unequal than the gender pay gap or another other sexual divide. Men, even when married, who invest a few minutes (or less) in becoming a father frequently act that their role and duties are done as they literally and figuratively withdraw from the responsibilities of parenthood. To continue to pile on women who might choose a life different that that is a continuation of the paternal thumb on the scale.
To all the pro-life folks, realize that no one, or at least almost no one, is pro-abortion. Parents who love their kids and would do anything for them - I am one - still can see both sides of this complicated issue. At one extreme, should a well educated, well off, married woman who is pregnant get an abortion because she is concerned about her figure, while at the other end of the spectrum a poor, uneducated, teen who is pregnant by a predatory older male get one?
Complex problems never resolve at the bookends, but in the messy middle: to avoid abortions, let's focus on sex education, contraceptives, women empowerment, male empathy training. But mistakes will happen. Who better to correct them than the potential mom? Eggs/bacon for breakfast: chicken is involved, pig is committed.
24
Ireland clearly is a Catholic state, undeniably so. It is not really a secular state. The Catholic Church is the only political party. The fact that Ireland is slowly moving towards a more secular and liberal state is because the Catholics there want a change in their Church theology and thereby the cruelty meted out to exclude them, make them sinners and ostracize them from their community and society. Those who are going to vote 'yes' on Friday are Catholics, who want to stay catholic. But they do want a reformed Church attuned to the present, inclusive without just dogma. What's wrong with those aspirations of the Irish? All the facts and figures you state becomes moot when there is one maternal death due to the laws made by the Catholic Political Party. The low maternal death rate that you allude to is not because of the Church's edict. It is due to the fact Irish women get abortions elsewhere for which they live in fear for the rest of their lives.
5
https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/midwifes-memoir-reveals-the-horror...
This is your ideal world for women? When women are forced by law to carry children to term, regardless of their wishes or situation or health status, it looks rather like this. We can't even count how many women in Ireland died in the last 100 years, or how many of their children, because records are spotty. The abuse is stunning, and Ireland is only now coming to terms with the blood on its collective hands. The Catholic church never will.
So before you opine that Ireland is a paradise for women, recall that it is still painfully difficult and expensive for women to leave their country to gain access to an abortion. That women have died from complications after they begged to terminate their pregnancies. That women are told what they can and cannot do with their bodies.
Every sperm is sacred, indeed. Unfortunately, that isn't true when that sperm yields a woman, particularly if she's poor.
18
This is such a misinformed and superficial analysis of contemporary Ireland, no matter what your stance on abortion, that it makes you doubt the value of his other contributions. If you don’t have anything new today, please don’t share your opinion just because it’s sunday. Less is more.
18
Does Mr Douthat know which paper he writes for? The mob will eviscerate him, some will even use poetry! Can you imagine having your opinion piece critiqued by a limerick?
The Abortion debate is a manipulation of political parties to motivate their base. Their is a middle ground which most people could agree with (available but rare) - but it would cost money which parties that are run by millionaires and billionaires are not into.
4
Your comment unfortunately reflects the mistaken belief that late term abortions are common and readily available. To the contrary, 43 states currently ban abortions after the second trimester unless the woman's life is threatened by the pregnancy. Barely one percent of abortions occur after 21 weeks of pregnancy. https://reason.com/blog/2016/10/21/late-term-abortions-in-america-2016
2
The Catholic Church lost their over powering doctrine.
3
"If men could get pregnant abortion would always be legal."--Jimmy Breslin
10
I love to return to the comments several times and read how people try to school a (perhaps unconsciously) rigidly patriarchal man, Douthat. Not happenin' though.
7
This article ls blatant propaganda for a policy that has caused the death of many women and children in Ireland. How many unmarked graves of women and babies exist? The Catholic Church ruled a patriarchial hegemony that cruelly punished and exiled, caused death and disease, broke families. How easily Douthat writes about women having to leave their homeland to find help. since birth control and family planning was illegal as well. Douthat should be ashamed for his arrogance and insensitivity. The figures he uses are skewed. No one loves abortion. Irish women have suffered with things as they are.
13
If men could get pregnant abortion would be a scacrment.
6
"a two-party duopoly that hugs the center"
I would suggest that Mr. Douthat read some political histories of Ireland. Or even another newspaper. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ireland-elections-result...
1
Any regular reader of Mr. Douthat knows that his primary focus on Catholicism is upon the Church's teachings in matters of sexual morality. He calls for the wholesale rejection of the liberalization of Vatican II, and a return to the ancient practice of rigidly enforced rules in matters of divorce and abortion in particular. Positions on Church teachings in deeply personal aspects of life are one thing. To hold that the civil law must enforce those beliefs is something else entirely. In 1965, Cardinal Cushing issued a statement when Massachusetts's legislature was considering a change to the law prohibiting the sale of contraception. He said, “Catholics do not need the support of civil law to be faithful to their own religious convictions and they do not seek to impose by law their moral views on others of society.” I have never understood why Mr. Douthat thinks that his religious convictions require the support of the civil law. He seems to lack faith that his beliefs will not be persuasive to even his fellow Catholics. Perhaps he should reflect upon why that may be true.
25
You can quote as many statistics you like, I’m sure there are equally valid statistics proving the opposite. What’s true in the real world is that women have been ending pregnancies for thousands of years, often with horrific outcomes for the women. It’s not up to you or me or the Church or the government to decide what is best for an individual woman and her family.
I’ve given birth to three children - the wonder and joy of my life. I lost one when he was 12 and will mourn him for the rest of my life. I’ve also had one abortion, safely, legally in a hospital and without shame. It was the right thing for me at the time and I have never regretted it.
If abortion was illegal at the time I had mine — would I have continued the pregnancy or had an unsafe, illegal abortion? I don’t know but I know that either way would have hurt my family. I’m grateful for the women -and men- who fought for Roe v Wade and I’m disgusted by the people who want to overturn it. That includes you, Ross.
You cannot know the why’s of the decision to end a pregnancy - mine or anyone else’s, it’s none of your business. One way to have fewer abortions is to have more sex education and easier access to birth control. But your Church is against that as well.
Legal abortions save women’s lives. Period!
23
Douthat states that in 1983, Ireland became the first country in the world to constitutionalize “fetal rights.” The 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution, passed by a referendum of the People, resulted in constitutional protection for “the right to life of the unborn,” which was deemed “equal” to the right to life of the “mother. What Mr. Douthat does not say is that voter turnout for that Amendment was very, very low.
He does not mention the severe penalties administered to women who have the means to travel to have abortions.
As Fiona de Londras states in the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law: "The 1983 abortion referendum is widely regarded as one of the most brutish and bruising in the history of constitutional referenda in Ireland; the tone of public debate was intolerant to the extent that an editorial in the Irish Times described it as “the second partitioning of Ireland.” The anti- abortion campaign was astonishingly well-resourced. Furthermore, at that time, the Catholic Church remained a fiercely influential, if not dominant, social and political force, and priests across the country preached for a “Yes” vote."
It seems to me that Mr. Douthat leaves out the truly cruel aspects of Amendment 8, and doesn't make clear that the benefits to mothers is part of a very advanced, general policy of providing health care to Irish citizens.
99
Why should he care? It’s not like he will ever have to carry a pregnancy or give birth.
There are no people more enthusiastic than a convert.
28
When, as Douthat says about abortion, a moral issue is "straightforward," the state has no moral right to impose it generic moral judgment on individual who must live the actual consequences.
This is especially true in Ireland, where the government is largely functionally sectarian and the Catholic Church has a long, immoral horrific history of sexually abusing and exploiting unwed mothers and other women, orphans and other children.
It is beyond sickening to watch an institutional rapist forbid its victims to purge its violations of their bodies and souls.
12
Ireland is doing fine because of or despite its abortion restrictions?....that is the question.
Whether it is better to tell women they must bear unwanted babies or let them take their own decisions...
Protecting the 'unborn' is arcane, religiously inspired. If you accept the founding myth and are unwilling to depart from ritual and teachings then so be it. Organize your pregnancies accordingly. But imposing all of that on another who believes differently is oppression. It also prejudices the poor and non-believers.
The answer is clear. Ireland should allow choice and provide necessary medical facilities. It should endorse sexual education, broad access to the morning after pill and anti-conceptionals while working to remove the stigma and reduce the number of later term abortions. Pregnancy from rape, incest, damage and fetuses should be facilitated.
Ross Douthat is Catholic. Too Catholic. So Catholic as to be irrelevant to a growing number of Catholics and most of the rest of us.
The history of the Catholic Church is not a slippery slope but rather a story of adaptation to changing moral, ethical and political mores. The long line of popes is a rogues gallery of immorality and vested interests. It is the product of changing political and moral attitudes among the wealthy and powerful.
The slippery slope, Mr. Douthat, is the declining Church membership owing to its failure to adapt to a changing world. And you are abetting the decline of Catholicism.
12
I found this to be a very thoughtful and insightful, well worth the read. I wish there were more op-eds of this caliber offered in the public forum.
3
One thing Ross will never understand is how it feels to be pregnant and not want to be pregnant. He also won’t understand how it feels to choose to terminate a wanted pregnancy or any pregnancy. He won’t understand how it feels to read articles like this written by a man who has no idea about the female experience. Whenever I read these articles, I feel like I am in a strange dimension where up is down. Reading these articles is beyond frustrating for me, as someone Ross will never understand.
168
Your opinion about whether a woman should have control over her own body doesn’t count. Who cares what a man with nothing to lose in this case thinks. You are just Another man trying to control women, especially their reproduction. Shame.
15
Shame on you, NYT, for publishing that “pro-life laws reduce abortion rates” with a citation from a Catholic advocacy group (the Iona Institute). Opinions may vary, but facts don’t. Research clearly indicates that abortion restrictions do not decrease abortion rates; they only increase the rates of morbidity and mortality for women seeking illegal (and often unsafe) abortions. Consider having your columnists and editors brush up on facts before taking their opinions to the Op Ed pages:
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/world/12abortion.html?smprod=nytcore-...
Publications based on falsehoods are damaging not only to your brand of journalism, but more importantly, to women seeking safe and legal reproductive healthcare.
18
Unfortunately I hit a roadblock to really absorbing Mr. Douthat's thesis when he used the term "pro-life". This gussied-up sobriquet used for anti-abortionists always leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. They seem to me to be little concerned indeed for the lives of those actually in the world and suffering. Call it like it is. They are anti many things, and pro nothing except their own restrictive ideologies.
19
One would think that Roe vs. Wade had settled a lot of this but apparently not. The hypocrisy of the Republicans is appalling. They fight abortion tooth and nail but do nothing for the people already born. No social safety net, no healthcare, no anything of consequence other than the military.
13
Roe v Wade may have settled a lot of this in the US, but Mr. Douthat is writing about Ireland, where the US Supreme Court has no jurisdiction.
3
How disconcerting it must be for men like yourself, Mr Douthat, to discover that women are taking control of their own uteruses. For millennia, men have built highly complex social, religious and legal constructs around uteruses to guarrantee that the persons who inherit a man’s stuff have his DNA. What will happen to a man’s bid for immortality, when the uterus he thinks he controls, decides to go rogue?
15
An experiment? It's our lives.
It takes 4 years to get a divorce (which, may I add, was only legalised 2years years ago) so no wonder the rate is low. Makes it hard for women to get out of difficult situations.
The 8th amendment makes a woman a second class citizen as soon as she's pregnant.
And who is funding all those disgusting no posters and ads? The church and rich religious american groups who want to keep our country in the past. €3,000 a day was being spent on one youtube channel before ads related to the referendum were banned.
130
How about writing an article about the American Exception, Mr. Douthat?
That Exception is that the anti-choice so-called pro-lifers are the ones who are also pro-gun and pro death penalty.
So much for being "pro-life".
16
Catholics, the largest religious denomination in the US, are predominantly pro-life, pro-gun control, and are against the death penalty.
3
One might imagine a reasonable thoughtful middle ground that isn't based in either Catholic or Feminist extreme ideology, & which carefully considers each sort of circumstance.
It's not much mentioned how many abortions are actually pressured by the man, the same man who selfishly allowed immense biology to proceed in his pursuit of his moment of gratification.
It's not much mentioned how traumatizing an abortion can be for even the most pro-choice woman.
Viable or sentient unborn children do absolutely have rights, we'd be lying if we said they didn't.
Nothing about any of this is simple.
3
Sentience doesn't develop until after birth, because it requires the experience of autonomous life. How old were you before you understood yourself to be a participant in a culture?
Simplicity is you live your life and stop fussing over how others live theirs unless and until they infringe on your life.
8
Definition of sentient
1 : responsive to or conscious of sense impressions
2 : aware
3 : finely sensitive in perception or feeling
2
Gee, doesn't anybody actually read the Bible nowadays?
Certainly not those who claim that aborting a fetus is against God's Word - and that includes America's "evangelicals," Ross Douthat, the Vatican, and the anti-abortion groups. They do quote this from the Hebrew Bible (known to Christians as "the Old Testament"): "you knit me together in my mother's womb."
But they totally ignore what's in Exodus 21:22-25: If a man accidentally bumps into a pregnant woman and causes a miscarriage (or, as Steen would say, "kills an unborn child"), then the man must arrange a financial amount with the woman's husband. But if the man bumps into a pregnant woman and causes harm to her, such as breaking or arm or even killing her, then the man must have his arm broken or he must be killed himself.
Can Douthat and others not see the difference? The destruction of a fetus means just paying a fine; killing or damaging an actual live human being who has already been born means the person must be killed or damaged in the same way. Check out the verses in Exodus, please, all you holier-than-God's-Word anti-abortionists.
12
Their whole schtick as complete denial of the fact that humans are intensively cultural animals with highly complex interactions that are learned and understood only by living them.
2
The important factor is the "generous family policy" and, more important, getting rid of the "homes" run by nuns where women who were pregnant "out of wedlock" were shamed, forced to undergo childbirth without medication, made to work as virtual slaves and their children adopted out or kept in abusive situations. We've seen the movies and read the stories of the mistreatments and mass children's graves recently discovered. And your fellow Catholic columnist today admits of the sins of her own family in protecting the impregnator while casting out the mother-to-be.
In the meantime, in this country we are bringing back the shame of the single mother, even when they manage to support the child themselves, and cutting off help for those children you so desperately want to be born. Will you soon be promoting generous family policy in this country and encouraging people to sponsor poor children through the work of Child Fund? I used to sponsor poor children in foreign countries. Now I support one in that wealthy state of Texas!
6
I'm sure Irish women are relieved to have their choices about their own bodies clarified by an American man.
26
Some sins are not & should not be considered crimes.
3
Ross, let the women decide. Until you can carry and bear a child, your opinion is ill informed, repressive and misogynistic.
11
After all the misery, death, and destruction that religions have caused for centuries, they care about abortion? Hypocrisy and ignorance personified.
5
Mr. Douthat: For a different take on this issue, you might want to read Maureen Dowd's (your NYT colleague) op-ed running today opposite your own.
3
You tout a higher birth rate as though that's a good thing. It isn't. With 7 billion+ people on the planet, more babies is a negative, not a positive. Liberal immigration policy is the answer to those countries where the demographics look frightening for the aging population.
Furthermore, it's not just about equality, it's about opportunity. Equality can mean being able to open your own bank account or go to college. Opportunity means you can carve your path through life without the unexpected burden of an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy.
Lastly, while I applaud your support for increased social services, forcing a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term is a form of cruelty. Pregnancy is a strain on the body, comes with its own risks, and hard enough when you go through it by choice.
Here's to hoping Ireland votes to make abortion a woman's choice, and keep it so.
7
Ross, why do you feel compelled to use words like "abortifacients"?
3
Interestingly, no mention herein that Ireland's draconian Eighth Amendment outlaws abortions even in cases of incest and rape. I would suggest that after reading this column one turn to Maureen Dowd's ("Scarlet Letter In The Emerald Isle") for a decidedly different "human" perspective on the same topic, from the experiential vantage point of that gender most impacted by this patriarchal law.
2
Two words for this column:
Savita Halappanavar
How dare you make that choice of death for her.
12
Here's hoping for a yes vote on Friday. Mr. Douthat, before you pontificate further on how "wonderful" the Irish exception has been, might I suggest you read this week's column by Maureen Dowd?
5
An interesting analysis, but one that assumes cause and effect regarding the availability of abortion and purported low abortion rates.
Assuming the statistics are correct, one would expect lower abortion rates in a overwhelming Roman Catholic country (or one with Ireland's unique cultural attributes) regardless of whether abortion is legal.
After all, it's a choice, right?
3
My Irish Catholic mother once demanded that I "discuss" abortion with her. So I asked if she held that a fetus was a human being from conception. "Of course it is." I then asked if abortion was murder. "Well, of course it is." Did she then agree, I wondered, that access to birth control would reduce the "murder rate" for unborn children? "I imagine it would." So, I finished, you are of course in favor of cheap and easy birth control for everyone? "Oh no!" she objected. "That would be giving people license."
5
Lets take the case of a man who supports abstention but is keen to exercise his wish to procreate . So he performs natures calling which is flood the mate with live kicking sperm. 99.9% even 100% of those live sperms will perish in some disheartening and horrible environment. As far as nature is concerned even a successful sperm can come to a horrible end, and if it doesn’t it still has a certain lifespan. No word from Douthat that this is rather sad but it is natures way of saying life is not determined by a constitution but is really a statistical number. That is to say that nature will permit controlling the variables even to accepting that variables such as famine, global warming, ice ages , radiation, viruses and decease could wipe out humanity. Nature it seems is in favor of accepting that human nature can be used to intervene to better the chances or lessen the chances of procreation.
1
“Pro-family?” Savita Halappanavar died of sepsis after being denied an abortion. She was 31 years old. Give me a break.
9
Only Douthat would call America's Republican Party "officially pro-life and pro-family". His party recently announced a blanket policy of separating children (even babies) from their parents in cases of illegal immigration. This is one example, of too many, that proves the party is pro-family only if illegal immigrants are, as the head of that party claims, "animals", which would mean they have no families worthy of notice.
I notice that Douthat does not mention a large and critical part of the Irish government's policy on unwed mothers from the 18th to the late 20th century: Magdalena laundries and similar institutions. The recent Irish government investigation found that even just a few decades ago torture and slavery, sometimes for decades, were basic to the system. I have seen no complaints from Douthat, even though he has more than once covered the subject in this article.
6
You Evangelical extremists are so worried about controlling individual women's millions of eggs, and forcing them to choose which one should or should not be fertilized.
You pretend fertilization is God's will and shall not be interfered with.
Yet you never question why far more intentionally-fertilized eggs don't make it to term than the aborted ones.
Also God's will?
Is God omnipotent and omniscient or not?
5
Must women suffer so that men can get to Heaven?
5
Say what ??? This is not about family values, this is about women's health and right to self determination.
Sheesh...another guy's daft opinion.
11
Poverty is a kind of violence, the worst kind. - Gandhi.
Abortion is where poverty manifests itself upon the poor in many ways.
Abortion is an issue for poor women, often society’s weakest person - there is no way a young women or little girl should be forced to have their daddy’s or rapist’s babies.
If you are worried about morality, well its a middle class characteristic, the rich don’t need it, and the poor can’t afford it. If you want a more moral society you should not vote GOP who exist for the sole purpose of concentrating wealth and power on behalf of the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the poor and weak and everyone else.
Historically, the lowest abortion rates, year in and year out, have been in the Netherlands, where abortion is largely free and largely legal AND the highest abortion rates have been in Brazil where abortion is illegal, so your arguement that prohibition of abortion reduces abortion falls on its face, and thousands of Irish women travel to Britain each year to have an abortion.
Here’s a compromise: allow women to have abortions, while keeping it subject to criminal penalties - except have the convictions and the penalties be fall upon the impregnators instead of the impregnated, that is the would be father. This seems only fair and just.
Want peace? Work for justice - Paul VI.
6
To say that keeping abortion illegal is good because it helps prop up the birth rate in Ireland, is like saying slavery was good because there were people to work the cotton fields. Or pushing the Native Americans onto reservations was good so America could expand West. Or the expansion of settlements in the West Bank is good so there will be more plentiful housing for the Israelis. The end does not justify the immoral or discriminatory means.
10
this nonsensical argument brings to mind the scene in the subversivly brilliant “Legally Blonde” wherein the heroine posits that men’s masturbatory ejaculate equates to abandonment of incipient life! why is that not a “pre-abortion” discussion as well.
2
Unbelievable. Go back to the middle ages Ross.
8
Ah yes, the land of "U2" and "two-party duopoly". He may as well have added "saints and sinners" "St. Patrick" and "comely maidens dancing at the crossroads".
As an Irish person who spends quite a lot of time in the US, I would say that they "30 years behind" narrative is, well, about thirty years behind. When I was growing up in the early 80s, Ireland was a terrible depressing place, and the US really was a shining city upon a hill. But how the tables have turned!
Not our Taoiseach is the gay son of an Indian immigrant. Compared to the US, Ireland is caring place, a place where "society" still means something, where children do not cower in fear at school, where the vulnerable are cared for, and a place where the stranglehold of superstition has been somewhat broken, especially among the young. The idea that life begins at conception may make sense in a country where evangelical Christians govern, but it does make sense to a majority in Ireland, because evidence and science play a prominent role in policy making.
The 8th amendment to the constitution is incompatible with modern Irish values, requiring as it does rape victims and women with fatal foetal abnormalities to travel to the UK for an abortion. As for "not compromising women's health", tell that to Savita Halappanavar!
Together for "YES".
12
Such angels dancing on pins! Douthat struggles mightily to reconcile his religion and conservatism with a inevitable progressive secularism that is the only destination for rational mankind.
So many words, so little of interest.
4
You can't have a discussion about lowering abortion rates without discussing how to prevent pregnancies in the first place. Something the Catholic refuses to do. Trapped in the middle ages.
6
You're a Roman Catholic. I'm not. You think your religion gives you a right to determine what I may and may not do with my own body. It doesn't. There are many paths to enlightenment, Mr. Douthat. Learn to live with people who don't share yours, please.
12
There is no "pro-family" policy when families are legally compelled to make medical choices about reproduction against their will.
Period.
The Irish people obviously know this from experience.
6
the favorite subject for conservative catholic men: what women should do with their bodies. I have a suggestion: let women decide based on their individual sense of morality and personal responsibility. And men like the author can focus on what they do best: nothing domestically and start wars abroad.
5
Mr. Douhat needs to argue his POV face to face to the family of the Irish woman who was carrying a child not expected to live. And though she had sepsis, because her child still had a heartbeat they refused to abort. She died four days after her child did. It appears that the default for most right to life advocates is to prioritize the fetus rendering the mother to be nothing but a vessel.
6
Irish women have been taking the ferry or a cheap flight to Britain for abortions for the last 20 years. Don't kid yourself that having almost all abortions illegal in Ireland meant that they didn't happen- they were just outsourced.
120
Indeed, abortion will never be stopped. It will only become a cause of death for some.
12
There is nothing quaintly anachronistic about the Irish Constitution prohibiting a medical procedure for women.
3
Douthat, this will be a bitter pill for you to swallow, but if the Irish people vote yes, the Catholic Church has only itself to blame. It will be yet another vote that is less about the issue itself than it is about a repudiation of the Church, for the centuries of abuse of Irish children in the custody of Catholic orphanages, including sexual abuse, leaving sick children to die without medical help and burying their bodies in septic tanks. All for the "sin" and shame of out-of-wedlock birth that the church itself tried to stamp out from Irish society. When it comes to the matter of family and children, the Church has perhaps for all time lost credibility in Ireland, and the people will use every chance they get to reinforce that message.
6
If men could get pregnant this issue would have been cemented thousands of years ago.
5
Mr. Douthat appears to have neglected the important but easy to forget guideline “correlation does not imply causation,” a frequent error made by people with confirmation bias.
2
"...an attempt to combine explicitly pro-life laws and generally pro-family policy making with a liberalized modern economy and the encouragement of female independence and advancement."
How is a woman bearing a rapists child pro family?
How is a woman bearing a child of incest prof family?
How is laying in a hospital for 4 days dying of blood poisoning because you can't have a life saving abortion pro family?
Funny how conservatives love to ridicule Europe's extremely generous "cradle to grave" welfare system and the high taxes that support it UNTIL a convoluted and non sequitar argument can be made that it is really a good thing because it is "family friendly"?
4
Just curious: since Northern Ireland is a part of Great Britain, and is majority Protestant as well, is abortion available there under the same conditions as in England?
2
Dr. William Barber has the best quote about white conservative Christians: Barber said he's concerned with "people who say so much about what God says so little,(abortion, gays) while saying so little about God says so much." (poverty, oppression)
He nailed it.
6
Russ, when you can carry a baby to term, then you can write about it like you know what you’re talking about. Ireland has an absolutely horrific history concerning unwed mothers and their children, there is nothing in that past worth keeping nor protecting.
8
Anyone even slightly familiar with Irish politics and culture knows that abortion is widely available to Irish women... of sufficient wealth. As usual, the regressive anti-abortion law impacts poor women the most. The rich just do it for themselves.
If Irish women don't need better abortion provision, why has your compatriot Mara Clarke set up the Abortion Support Network to help disadvantaged women travel to England for abortions?
As for women's health, remember Savita Halappanavar? She was a Hindu Indian dentist who was allowed to die as a result of septic miscarriage.
5
You forgot a few things about the pro-life Catholic Church in Ireland. No mention of the unwed mothers whose children were taken from them and then abused and neglected to the point of death by Catholic nuns. No mention of the Catholic priests who abuse children and the church that ignores the abuse. No mention of the women who died in Irish Catholic hospitals when those hospitals refused to saved their lives because the women were pregnant.
The Catholic pro-life position is anything but pro-life. It is a catch phrase used to control, hurt and abuse women and children.
6
Germany has strict restrictions on abortion after the first trimester and, like Irelsbd, policing very family friendly and friendly to female success in the labor force. Why no German exeption? Mr. Douthat? Is first -trimester choice too onerous? Is Germany's conservative welfarism - pioneering since the 188Os-- insufficiently free market, despite Germany's capitalist dynanism?
Douthat, your portrayal of an Irish paradise is pure fantasy. Your contention that there exist "explicitly pro-life laws with...the encouragement of female independence and advancement" is untrue. Women are suffering and dying because they have no control over their own bodies. Your claims of female empowerment are specious. This is no marvelous and consensual social contract; it is pure tyranny. Even young girls are barred from leaving the country to get abortions after being brutally raped. The policies you champion killed a 31 year old Indian immigrant and dentist, Savita Halappanavar. She went to an Irish hospital in terrible physical pain. She had miscarried and her 17-week-old fetus could not be saved. All that was required to save Savita was for the fetus be immediately removed to keep its decomposition from poisoning her. It should have been simple, but as the fetus still had the remnants of a virtually undetectable heartbeat, Savita was refused an abortion under "Catholic" law. She suffered horribly for days begging the medical staff to save her life. By the time the fetal heartbeat vanished entirely, it was too late. Savita died a full week after entering the hospital from the most severe form septic shock and blood poisoning, her bloodstream was full of E. coli bacteria. Blood poisoning is a most horrible way to die. Ross, if sanctimonious men like you didn't just get to flap their gums, but had to suffer and die this way, things would certainly change.
12
Starting the last paragraph with the word ‘But’ was completely unnecessary.
1
Clearly, Ross, you have never been pregnant, nor will you ever be - this is the foundation from which you opine.
1
Ross, your "secularization" and "liberalization" are reified forces blowing across the land that somehow magically transform people. In fact, like everywhere else in the Western world, this is the Irish people themselves saying enough is enough to conservative, patriarchal, organized religion. It is not just the woman who died of sepsis. It is the mass graves of dead babies and toddlers in the sexual prisons of the Magdalene Sisters. It is the pedophilia scandals of the all-male priesthood. It is the crazy, irrelevant teachings on birth control. I say this as a Catholic myself, the Catholic Church has lost all moral authority in the realm of human sexuality and reproduction. How bad is it? You're actually losing Ireland.
5
Thank God we have Ross to tell the women of Ireland what to do. Well man-splained, sir, well man-splained.
1
The patriarchy is dead. You had a good run.
2
Wish you were right, friend. Wish you were right.
1
No not really, pro life is pro male which is regressive and oppressive. Maintain support for families and women's rights and then you would have something to cheer about, yes please throw away this law and join the rest of the liberal world...
4
Leave it to a devout Catholic upper middle class man to think all things against legal rights for women.
To decrease the incidence of abortion, birth control should be available and mandatory coverage in insurance-- (all time record low of teen pregnancies thanks to Obamacare) Women should have access to affordable, local, lifelong reproductive healthcare.
If you argue anything else, you are a baby killer by proxy.
3
Nothing explains the silliness of this article better than post hoc Propter hoc fallacy. I got up early this morning, and the sun came up a bit later. Clearly I caused the sunrise.
1
The penalty that a woman pays for society forbidding her to have an abortion that she desires is to be forced her to rear a child that is unwanted and to possibly create unmanageable financial difficulties and many other burdens. At the same time the the father of the child is often unburdened and unpunished. The only premise for restricting abortion is that it is a form of murder and that murder is "sinful" or immoral.
Add in suicide. So the following rhetorical questions have to be asked.
(1)What price does society pay for murdering innocent people sentenced to death for a crime they didn't commit?
(2) What is the justification for fighting wars and killing millions of innocent people?
(3) Why is the foundation for this view based on the two religions, Christianity and Islam, that butchered and killed millions in the name of God, the Holy Bible and the Quran?
The answer to these questions resides in the unremitting willingness of civilizations to "cast the first stone".
2
I hope Ireland resists to mimic our more "advanced" abortion laws which have given us an 'end of history population decline', rabid family undermining feminism, widespread sexual immorality, cultural destroying selfishness, and a politics of hate. Hopefully we in the United States can recognizing nature of our soul destroying abortion and sex obsesses culture.
Douthat probably thanks the lord every day that he is not a woman. Those evil creatures not really human daughters of Eve who brought down humanity with that apple. They must learn to suffer through childbirth and pain.This is what they deserve. No reason to empathize with these weak vessels.
3
Uhh, the only reason the Irish 'system' works this way is because Irish women have an outlet that is *relatively* cheap and *relatively* accessible by traveling to Britain. The alleged 'low rate' is also a piece of 'fake news'--an ideologically based piece of propaganda from the Iona Institute. See here for accurate statistics:
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/comparing-statistics-on-abort...
I see that you conveniently left out (Orthodox Christian) Russia, as it had a very high rate of abortion. Nice argument, pick and choose what examples work and ignore the rest.
2
Ross Douthat tries to correlate certain positive social factors to Ireland's ban on abortions. Here's another dubious correlation that a mirror image liberal Douthat would make: In the US states with the most restrictive abortion laws tend to have lower education level among the population. Not saying, but... OK Ross, I think the Irish weather correlates better to you your social factors than the lack of abortion availability. Prove me wrong, please!
I am not Catholic, I am not Irish but I do do know Irish history from the time of Oliver Cromwell.
"Christianity" has not been kind to the Irish! The Protestant zealotry of Cromwell, The Anglican Church of Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church of Rome have devastated all but the landowners both foreign and domestic and their functionaries.
If I was Irish I would be hard pressed to vote in any referendum that wasn't about banning any of the cults masquerading as Christianity.
The tragedy of Ireland has been the Irish's inability to differentiate the religion of Jesus Christ from those who have used his name to subjugate and murder those who believe Christ's message.
1
Boy oh boy, Ross Douthat just won't give up when it comes to his campaign against abortion, yet heaven forbid he consider any facts.
Which are, put simply, as follows:
1. Abortion rates in Ireland and everywhere else in the developed world are too low to have an impact on birth rates.
2. Abortion rates are low because of the widespread use of contraceptives.
3
Doubthat writes:
"Then if you turn to the arenas where the pro-choice vision assumes that anti-abortion laws prod a society toward Gilead, you see … a normal-seeming and sometimes more-feminist-than-average Western country."
Gee. Tell US about the existence of an abnormal, surging political presence of extremist Evangelical so-called Christians . . . in Ireland.
Pro-choice doesn't assume anything other than a woman should have the freedom to choose if or when one of her couple million eggs be intentiinally fertilized and carried to term.
Nobody is forcing anti-choice people to have abortions (except maybe their adulterous impregnators).
Likewise, stop trying to ruin a culture and country that was founded on a basic principle that allows US the freedom to follow and the freedom FROM following any religious beliefs, no matter how popular.
Stop trying to force your Bible fantasies on US.
4
First, part of your plea for keeping the eight amendment is akin to the one for keeping confederate statues and flags...
Second, with all the hoopla about AI - and adversarial networks and ensuing argumentative back/forth – a treasure-trove of mid-point data NYT is letting grow moss…e.g.:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/17/world/europe/judge-leaves-northern-ir...
Third, fewer people in Ireland than in Brooklyn and Queens – but more in Dublin than in Manhattan…So – one big city and the rest flyover country half the size of NYS…
With this, if you’ll admit the possibility that messengers may confuse their profundity and importance with the message they carry forward in time and outward in mindshare…
I’ll admit the possibility they may have a point…
Just about every intellectual niche had ever known with the - till recently - exception of physical sciences had basic truth, obvious fact, and disconcerting discordance…
FDA, which regulates everything – doesn’t meddle in what goes in tattoo ink…
Since 1500 looms gotta cut y’all to the chase…
A niche’s narrative has to be understandable by its powerful non-expert sponsors…
Except this gives us things like astrology over astronomy and alchemy over chemistry…
And philosophy, which tells the rich and powerful among us they - with their legacy - must be smart…Smarter than us…
They must be our narrative’s keeper…
And our body’s – to show they can…
We’re not to be trusted…
So says dogma...
What a shame that the Irish are permitting men to vote in this election. It's not our choice, at all.
2
This column is about as clear an example of "begging the question" as I have read in a while.
2
White christian guy, talking about abortion, I'm shocked. Christian-cult is obsessed with controlling women. I still do not understand why so many women still buy into the cult?
3
Mr. Douthart, you may not agree with your fellow columnist Ms. Dowd, but you should not pretend that Ireland's ban on abortion has had no consequences for women: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/opinion/sunday/ireland-abortion-refer...
One noteworthy passage from Ms. Dowd's article:
"Two of the most harrowing “hard cases” were the 1992 “X case,” when a 14-year-old girl who was raped by the father of a friend and became suicidal was barred from leaving the country to get an abortion, and the 2012 case of Savita Halappanavar, first reported by Kitty Holland in The Irish Times.
Savita, a 31-year-old Indian immigrant and dentist who was married to an Indian engineer, went to a Galway hospital in distress the day after her baby shower. She was told that her 17-week-old fetus could not be saved.
Over several days, she begged the medical staff to remove the baby to save her life as she developed every symptom of septic shock. But, because the staff members could still detect a heartbeat, they would not do it because, as one midwife told her, “This is a Catholic country.” Savita died four days after her baby girl, whom she named Prasa, was stillborn."
3
Still, after all these years, the Catholic Church and its patriarchal arrogance rules the lives of many women.
A woman's body is her own.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
6
While I am unwilling to outlaw abortion up to a certain point of gestation, society — yes, including men — may legitimately place restrictions on the procedure to prevent the killing of viable children during a partial-birth abortion.
This piece is a prime example of what I love about Ross Douthat's writing: He digs into the nuances of the issue and the many complexities of policy effects. I've been following the runup to the referendum via Irish podcasts and am convinced it's far less simple than one-side-good, other-side-bad. I love it that he points out that Ireland being "behind" on abortion has not resulted in massive anti-woman effects....
I'm also glad that Douthat is on the NYT staff, in the same way that I'm glad Juan Wilson is on the Fox Sunday morning news show with Chris Wallace.
Good on ya, Ross & NYT!
I notice Dothan has no concern for actual women to make their own choices.
5
The main reason so many of us dislike Douthat's opinions is his disparagement of "progressive optimism."
2
Douthat masquerades as reasonable, but the outcome of the Irish ban is vicious. One name refutes all of his soothing evasions: Savita Halappanavar.
See Maureen Dowd's column today for details.
4
Experiment in what? Casting off the yoke of British imperialism? Breaking the chokehold of medieval Catholicism? Getting past "the troubles?" Embracing the EU? Or maybe just trying to catch up with modern times and easing the massive diaspora of more Irish citizens living abroad than are resident on the Emerald Isle?
Ireland is to America as Las Vegas is to Los Angeles and as Disney World is to Orlando. It's the fantasy fulfillment of what the latter locales lack or lost. Like Douthat's imagined Irish iteration of a Scots Brigadoon where time stands still and a Modest Proposal is Apple's tax rate not infantile cannibalism.
Last time walking in Dublin I mentioned to an Irish friend that there seemed to be more diversity than before -- lots of mainland Chinese and African Blacks -- and at least on the street there seemed to be hip Irish nonchalance and friendly interaction. His response was that the Irish are the Blacks of Europe (he used a racial slur punctuated it with the Irish four letter exclamation point) and now that the Irish are their own people at home they can be more welcoming because the younger Irish can't be bothered with the psychological shackles of "exceptionalism."
Irish step dancing was what the British imperialists allowed in the way of cultural expression -- a wooden arm-by-the-side regimented clogging that inhibited the Irish from sensual abandon.
Now the Irish tango, dub step, and hip hop. The step dancing is for tourists like Douthat.
2
Funny, and, as someone born in Ireland, I think your take is astute and accurate.
But one thing. That wooden version of traditional Irish dancing was something foisted on us by our own religious conservatives, not the "British imperialists" (who wouldn't have allowed us any version of traditional dancing at all, or even to speak our own language; see the Statues of Limerick, etc.)
A cousin of mine was a celebrated traditional dancer in the Gaeltacht (the Gaelic-speaking part of Ireland where the old ways were never wiped out or watered down). And, having seen her dancing, I can tell you the energy and technique were closer to traditional, grass roots American tap dancing or even flamenco.
Hope you get a chance to catch that part of the culture sometime, though you're probably more likely to do so on West Coast rather than in Dublin.
1
Douthat fails to mention the most compelling reason that the Yes vote will win. The Catholic Church in Ireland was exposed in many ways as being a totally corrupt institution. From the sexual expoitation of children by the clergy and the inevitable cover up to the Dickens like institutions for unwed mothers and their infants and the church run 'Reform' schools for girls who seemed too overtly sexual.
Ireland is joining the rest of Western Europe by overcoming the theocracy it was for centuries.
5
I wonder if “pro-life” folks in Ireland are in favor of cutting children’s healthcare like “pro-life” “Christians” in the US.
3
The entire point of the article is that they are not. Ireland is relatively generous in support for families and there is no real movement to be less so. this is someone who has no sympathy for the "pro-life" movement anywhere.
What does Banal Progressive Optimism mean. Putting "Banal" in front of a thoughtful outlook on life by many, seems like an easy way to destroy any chance of open philosophical discussion. Shame on Mr Douthat.
4
Comparing Ms. Dowd's column on the same topic in today's NYT to Mr. Douthat:
Douthat:: "Irish women do obtain abortions, traveling to the United Kingdom or using chemical abortifacients. But even an expansive estimate for the Irish abortion rate places it .... at about a third the rate of England and less than half of the United States."
Dowd: "Anyone caught buying pills online to induce a miscarriage faces up to 14 years in prison."
Mr. Douthat, you somehow seem to have neglected to mention the criminal penalties, instead ascribing the lower abortion rate to " generous family policy".
Douthat: "Ireland seems to have achieved or maintained some notable pro-life and pro-family goals without compromising women’s health …"
Dowd: "Savita, a 31-year-old ... went to a Galway hospital in distress the day after her baby shower. She was told that her 17-week-old fetus could not be saved … Over several days, she begged the medical staff to remove the baby to save her life as she developed every symptom of septic shock. But, because the staff members could still detect a heartbeat, they would not do it because, as one midwife told her, “This is a Catholic country.” Savita died four days after her baby girl, whom she named Prasa, was stillborn."
Mr. Douthat is Savita's health being compromised to the point of death such a rare "hard case" not worth mentioning? Or just more of your cherry picking.
The picture you paint of Irelands "achievement" is not at all persuasive.
8
There is a serious problem of mistiming with this attempt to repeal human rights protection from children in their mothers’ wombs. Thirty years too late--it should be rejected as "old hat' .
Removal of legal protection for the unborn is to catch-up, we are told, with legislation in other countries.
But now is precisely the time for Ireland to hold its nerve—to keep in place legal protections for unborn children being nurtured in their mothers’ wombs.
For in doing so, the Irish people will be honoured for holding their stand and will find themselves in the lead of the return to a just restoration of the human rights of small daughters and sons at risk of procured abortion.
The Irish have always been more fortunate for they are endowed with a natural scepticism that makes them less susceptible to urgent winds of ideological propaganda. Not for them the easy embrace over the last 50 years of the absurd pro-abortion dogma that pregnancies are childless—that a stork named Reproductive Health brings the child fully formed by from some nearby cabbage patch to be granted instantaneous rights only from birth.
For ironically the tide is turning—the fierce pull of a 50 year old and rapidly aging extreme feminist ideology is beginning to falter as we all become better educated and able to see on ultrasound the humanity of each small human being in her/his mother's wombs , a human being who can be identified as a daughter or son, a ‘who’ not a generic ‘thing’.
11
Thank you for your excellent comment. Someone is finally speaking up for the unborn in the womb. How wonderful and refreshing this is.
2
https://www.rt.com/news/379365-mass-infant-grave-ireland-catholic/
Perhaps, if nations that bemoan the existence of abortion were as interested in the long-term well being and survival of the children - not to mention their education and upbringing - this would be a good point.
But we seem to have forgotten the horrific number of infant bodies found in the grounds of former material hospitals. We forget the work houses where pregnant women were locked up in shame. The abuse of children separated from their mothers. The neglect. The eternal pain. Some of these homes were open until the mid-1990s.
When women are both denied birth control AND access to safe and effective abortions, they and their children suffer. Bessboro, infant mortality rate of 68%. Kilrush, where 350 babies died in a 10 year period. Ireland needs to come to terms with the abomination that is the punishment and mistreatment of women who find themselves pregnant and cannot terminate their pregnancies.
DO NOT FORGET Savita Halappanavar, who died from complications of pregnancy after being denied an abortion, because the staff could detect a fetal heartbeat. Where was the compassion? Where was the desire to preserve life? Is this where Iowa will go? Will we someday send our daughters to Canada to get necessarily medical procedures?
Ireland needs to end the shaming and abuse of women, and trust them to MAKE THEIR OWN CHOICES.
38
Gosh you guys are smart in naming things for maximum effect.
There are NO unborn children, it’s a made-up term - there are fetuses in the womb and babies that grow into children once they are born.
And I am as PRO-LIFE as you are. I am also pro-choice. One does not diminish the other.
Being pro-choice gives women the right to make an important decision in a part of their lives you and I know nothing about. Being pro-choice gives women who choose to, a safe way to end a pregnancy. Being pro-choice saves women’s lives!
29
Social problems such as unplanned pregnancy are reduced in periods of economic prosperity. Families are less stressed, and unplanned pregnancies are one effect of economic stress. Ireland of course benefitted hugely from its inclusion in the EU. You seem to have left that part out. Therefore, this record of the past twenty to thirty years must be considered anomalous in relation to its overall economic history.
2
Russ, where were the generous pro-family benefits in the US before contraception?
You remember, the pre-Medicaid era? The pre-Children’s Health Insurance Program Days? The even-lower food stamps days? Or the mandatory sterilization to get even those “pro family” benefits some states imposed?
Oh wait, that’s the the current Republican agenda.
Maternity mortality, family leave... That’s why, Russ, so many women fight so hard for the full range of reproductive choice—the US is not pro-family.
11
How dare you call the existence of the 8th amendment an interesting "experiment". It is not an "interesting experiment" when it affects you personally by losing your rights to consent to medical treatment the second you fall pregnant. It is not an "interesting experience" when you see devastated friends having to leave family, children and home behind and go to England to terminate a much wanted baby that had fatal foetal abnormalities. It is not an "interesting experience" to be spat at by No-protesters because you, as a pregnant woman, have the audacity to walk down the street wearing a "Yes" pin. And Ireland's maternal death rate is not as low as is constantly claimed compared to other European countries as different parameters are used to calculate this. The high female work force participation you mention comes as a result not of family-friendly policies or encouragement but rather is a result of the high cost of living/very high property costs/extremely high child care costs, meaning that generally, two incomes are needed for a family to survive. Also, considering the very low in European terms female participation in politics/the national parliament, your comment that Ireland is more feminist than average actually made me laugh. This poorly researched article is written using cherry-picked "statistics" shoehorned into a world view that, once tested in your beloved "interesting experiment", does not function -- but why let reality come in the way of your beliefs.
15
The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, which has dominated the secular life of that unfortunate nation for centuries, had a vested financial interest in opposing birth control and in opposing the voluntary termination of a human embryo or foetus.
Why? Because then the poor lasses who became pregnant out of wedlock could be forced to give up their babes for adoption by rich, God-fearing couples from across the other side of the Atlantic. A fee was paid to the Church for this, you understand, very discreetly offered and ever so discreetly accepted by the nuns. Ching, Ching!
There was money to be made from adoption. There still is. Anything that might affect their gravy train will be bitterly fought by the Church of Rome to the bitter end. The love of money is the root of all evil.
11
At least the Irish are doing this the right way - letting the people decide whether abortion is a woman's right or if it is the murder of a human being. That's better than having unelected judges decide that abortion is a right based on the "penumbras and emanations" of the Constitution.
1
It appears that the Irish model is working. Why must we force our norms on them?
What a convoluted, over thought mess this is.
Most people who are pro choice see abortion as a basic right... Many people who are against abortion see it as akin to murder.
It's really that simple isn't it?
1
Irelands tragedy begins and ends with its unrelenting embrace of, perhaps even death grip on, Roman Catholicism. The pride of Ireland, as we have all heard over and over again, has been those fortified Irish Monasteries that preserved the records of Christianity(as interpreted by a state religion....Roman Catholicism) during the Dark Ages........
Todays Ireland still seems to be volunteering to be the front line soldiers of the Vatican fighting to preserve an ancient tradition. Many of our american ancestors were driven out of Ireland for adopting more recent "protestant" traditions. Despite being 110% irish, these folks dared to adopt a more fundamentalist, puritan ideal as expressed by heir English brethren....its true....there''s no real difference between English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, etc....other than a confusing ability to fight amoung themselves until such time as an outside agressor attacks one or the other....then its back to United Kingdom and woe be unto the agressor! But the outside agressor has often used the fierce defense of state religion in Ireland to break apart the Union.....Ireland unwittingly does itself harm by constantly doing Rome's bidding..
1
Mr. Douthat,
Your circular form of logic comes home, once again, to roost in this essay. In particular your statement: "...that pro-life laws reduce abortion rates." To put this in other words: "...anti abortion, that is forced birth, laws reduce abortion."
I would again call on the NYT to permanently put your column in a separate section devoted to religion.
10
This is an election where only women should be allowed to vote.
7
Why does Ross think women are inferior to men? Why does he think men should be able to dictate that which a women does with her own body? He must be quite the male chauvinist.
5
Why? The answer to your questions is that he’s a devout Roman Catholic.
1
Abortion is a medical procedure. As with other medical procedures, it should be based on medical necessity. Informed consent based on expected outcomes should drive the advice and decision. If the decision is based on outside factors (poverty, homelessness, long-term issues such as education and health care for the child, etc.), then the social environment must change to help remove the desire to have a medical procedure done for social environmental reasons.
It seems that many who claim to be "pro-life" are actually "pro-birth." They are unwilling to address (and pay the costs for improving) the social environment to reduce the desire for abortions. Rage on in your self-righteous zeal and don't address the real issues.
9
What an appalling tone deaf article.
27
Given Ireland's deep Catholic roots and influence throughout its culture, society and government, it appears to be the closest thing to a Western theocracy since King Henry the VIII made himself head of the Church of England. Republicans want America to model and exceed the Christian influence in Ireland. Because we are exceptional. In all we do.
Pence, Ryan, Cruz, Roberts and so many more right-wing religious fascists should emigrate to Ireland where they can fight to retain/restore the 8th Amendment, instead of forcing their Christian theocracy on a country that threw off the shackles of religious fundamentalism and bigotry long ago.
8
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" are just empty words when courts hold that nobody has standing to challenge faith based legislation because it supposedly hurts no one.
2
Father Douthat strikes again with banality and digressions of a male world long gone. Let Ireland Free of the women haters!
13
Abortion is a woman's choice. Everyone else, shut up and butt out. The religious hypocrites, myth believers and the like, should also shut up. Celibate priests. What a joke that is. Religion is the problem, not the answer.
13
On the West coast of Ireland, a friend from France has set up her clinic for the enhancement of Women's Well-being and their health choice as to whether they wish to have a family, or wait until they are ready; a productive program where science and nature work hand-in-hand and answer to biological rhythms.
She took her Catholic vows many years ago, and used to visit my parent in Paris who was in transit to another reality. A letter would arrive stating that my friend belonged to a 'Cult'. French Catholicism is different, and it was a horror to learn of the tragedy of The Children of Tuam, where French nuns had a role. I want to thank the courageous Irish woman again who made it her life measure and meaning to uncover these atrocities. The men in her town made it their business to remain silent and go to the local pub.
Placing religion aside, my Irish American father wrote of the 'indestructible' Irish, as being their own enemy, predicting that all Hell was going to break out in the early 60s.
I do not believe this is true. Women and men to unite on this vote. If Douthat appears to be sour on occasion, the author Brian Moore was far more dour when it came to Irish Catholicism, and less anguished than Graham Greene on religious affairs.
Daughters of Eve, you have the responsibility of Your Life to maintain and whether you wish to procreate or take another road on this Journey, you are not 'Rabbits'. The fiercest women I have met in a long life are Irish. Vote.
6
Republicans in America are well known for their stinginess, elevating it to a fine principle. So it's a wonder they pander to anti-abortion religiously motivated activists. The purpose is to disprove the correct notion that their stinginess goes hand in hand with a disregard for human welfare. How better to show this than to champion the lives of the unborn while doing less than nothing for families and children.
11
To turn your own argument back around at you, Ross: if the Irish to vote to repeal Amendment Eight and allow abortion under a wider range of circumstances, will that necessarily change the other practices and policies you wrote of that are extant now?
6
I can only conclude that this author believes there are zero societal benefits for women having choice over their own lives. After all, there are so many benefits repressing them. Oh, wait, it is not ALL women, as Ross admits in the column, only the poor ones.
13
"The bishops and priests of Ireland have spoken," said Dante, "and they must be obeyed."
"Let them leave politics alone," said Mr. Casey, "or the people may leave their church alone."
-- James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
That day seems nigh at hand, if it has not arrived already. See Liam Stack, "How Ireland Moved to the Left: ‘The Demise of the Church’" (NYT, Dec. 2, 2017).
3
The problem is that we have these patriarchal religions and their patriarchal leaders in our culture making life decisions for their subservient class.
Witness the recent U.S. Senate health care panel. ALL men.
9
The "encouragement of female independence" cannot exist without the freedom of a woman to choose whether or not a fetus should be carried to term.
Dan Kravitz
6
This opinion brought back memories of my Dad's first wife who languished for six days in labor. It not only killed both her and the child it deeply scared a wonderful man. During the tradagy his priest was adamant that their suffering and deaths were "God's will!"
15
Two points: First, laws restricting abortion are NOT under “strain”. They are under attack, yes. I don’t think casual abortion is morally correct, but I do think it’s not government’s role to deny that choice to women. Second, the right wing deceit of calling restrict laws “pro-life” and hijacking that phrase is an abomination and dishonesty that we’ve come to expect from the extremists. If they were “pro-life” they would respect all humans, not just unborn babies. If they were “pro-life” Donald Trump would be on the trash heap of history, not president.
11
The greatest Freedom the Founders provided was Freedom from Religion. I wish more folks would take advantage of it.
12
You are so right. Keep Religion out of my house , out if my public places, out of my government and in your own home.
Besides, I can never tell which Religion is really the Right one anyway...
2
You are missing one crucial fact that brings this whole argument down- it’s a 1 hour, $70 flight to England where abortions are legal. You’re not counting those.
5
Ross, both sexes have equal autonomy over the internal processes of own bodies, and I think of people who claim otherwise as rapists.
8
What Ross consistently tries to hide/obscure without overtly condemning as innately bad is a human's right to control over their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness and corporeal autonomy.
Now I know that in may phrasing above I invite sophistry against my premises implied.
That sophistry runs broadly like this: (1) your adult rights should not trump those of the fetus (supposition that the fetus is fully human and a citizen and thus fully invested as any adult citizen - I call that an obvious false equivalence) and (2) we don't let citizens just do as they please - rape, murder, child molest, etc. etc. (again an obvious false equivalence)
Most intellectually honest philosophers see my points and barring allegiance to some religious thought pattern that overrides what they technically know is sound would agree.
The basic thing that is important is this: abortion is statistically less dangerous than pregnancy to term and childbirthing.
Woman's body - woman's choice.
I could go on with many points but the above is that main obvious justification to allow woman their rights.
Late term arguments just red herring sophistry.
And life potential just bad biology - almost all of our cells could become another human in the right conditions and triggers. Where do we draw the line?
No - woman have the right to autonomy and final say when what we demand puts them in more risk than the alternative. Period!
6
Mr. Douthat is relatively young, and I think it's reasonable to expect some level of innovation from him. So I'm disappointed to see him continue the use of the expression 'pro life'. when referring to people who are against legal abortions. People in favor of abortion rights are also 'pro life'.
6
Mr. Douthat, we rarely see things the same way, and this is another instance, but I appreciate your thoughtful approach to issues and your willingness to air your views in a largely hostile setting.
The moral question at stake here turns on the government's definition of personhood, and whether it should be answered by religious belief or scientific evidence. The former is surely suspect in any modern society, but most especially in a consitutionally secular society like ours; the latter is settled beyond reasonable doubt for all but late stage abortions -- the kind that are rare and almost invariably lifesaving for the mother. Beating hearts and unique genomes have no more to do with the moral issue than placentas. Wouldn't you agree?
5
This was interesting, but I would have discussed trend lines. What is shocking to me at least is not that Ireland remains slightly more conservative on social issues than the rest of Western Europe, but how rapidly it has converged. The latest out of wedlock birth figures I saw were 36 percent. Now what these figures mean is always unclear, since a lot of couples refuse to get married even as they act as though they are married. The motivation for this is unclear, but presumably it represents some hostility to Christianity or perhaps what is considered bourgeois values. The adversarial culture has clearly triumphed. The real question is what will the future of Ireland look like. If the Western European countries can hold things together, then Ireland will presumably continue on the path towards a post-Christian society. If, however, this post-Christian experiment ends in failure, with rolling bankruptcy, civil strife among a burgeoning immigration population brought in partially to replace the children not born, then Ireland, perhaps, if just for demographic reasons, may be able to extricate itself earlier, and set out on again on a more sustainable path that rejects the revolutions of the 1960's, when all of this came to a head. We'll see. At this point, I would not be too optimistic.
Back at the end of the 19th Century, William James, the founder of American psychology, told us that the most common use of reason was to justify prejudice. Jonathan Haidt has told us the same more recently. Here we have a lovely example. Many of the "facts" and arguments marshaled by Mr. Douthat are of questionable validity or relevance. I'm not up on the Irish story, but five years after Roe, it was hard to make a case that the abortion rate here had gone up--admittedly the pre Roe stats were fuzzy--but it was clear that maternal deaths had gone done. An article in the Times in 1978 by the head of the ObGyn division of the AMA is available on the archives. Peoples' reactions to abortion may to affected by their religious training, education level, legal philosophy, whatever, but I suspect for most it comes down to intuition. There is no doubt that any abortion after conception ends a human life--that is a fact, not a talking point--and, I think, should be avoided, but I would not impose my thinking on others by force of law. I think the record is clear that legal restrictions on abortion do more harm than good. It is also clear that the drop in abortions we are seeing is due to contraception access and sex education that the anti abortion people tend to oppose. So much for reason.
6
"Irish women do obtain abortions, traveling to the United Kingdom or using chemical abortifacients" -- except that Irish women die when the ambiguity in the law prevents the medical establishment to induce abortion, when the mother's health is in danger. A case in point is Savita Halappanavar who died needlessly.
Also, it is quite unfriendly to working women: The latest Women in Work Index published by PwC ranks Ireland 25th out of 33 OECD countries when it comes to the position of women within organisations.
Also, despite little difference in educational qualifications, according to World Economic Forum (WEF) gender gap report Ireland ranks 49th in workplace parrticipation, due to lower female participation rates and lower average earnings for women. Childcare costs, lack of government support are some of the cited reasons.
There is no Irish exception. This article is not backed by facts, but by feelings.
7
Abortions can be made rarely necessary with the appropriate dispensing of sex education and birth control. Yet the anti-choice crowd generally opposes both education and birth control while ranting against abortion.
15
You see to be overlooking the fact that 78% of the people in Ireland are Catholic. I would argue that it is religious beliefs that lead to lower abortion rates, low out of wedlock births and a lower divorce rate -- not legislation that blocks a woman's choice. Choosing to follow the Catholic Church's teachings re: abortion, premarital sex and divorce is just that - a choice. Legislation related to these is unjustly removing that choice.
5
As a male commenting on women's health issues, what life-saving medical procedure are you willing to forgo in order to advance a social " experiment"?
17
I want to recommend this ten times!
1
Your rosy picture of women's rights in Ireland neglected to mention the scandal involving cervical cancer screening tests reported on in the NYT within the past two weeks <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/world/europe/ireland-cervical-cancer-...
Women were given incorrect results by the testing company. When informed of this fact by the company, the government neglected to inform these women of this fact. This delay, which still goes unexplained, resulted in the deaths of women who thought the tests had cleared them. This hardly seems a model for women's health care.
4
What Ross skims over is that in Ireland abortions are in practice available, but only to the rich who can afford to travel abroad. Anti-abortion laws functionally only apply to the poor. Since Ross is a conservative, it is perhaps not surprising that this outcome does not seem to bother him.
10
I am watching this vote very carefully that will take place on Friday as a pro life woman. I hope that the Irish people do the right thing and vote no and keep Ireland a country that does not allow abortions. The people on the pro life side have been protesting fiercely in the streets by the thousands against the killing of innocent human beings. It has been reported in the Catholic media and on the Internet. The Irish are a determined people (I know as I am from Irish stock) and do not give up easily. Those against abortion have put together a successful campaign and have even gone door to door to express the importance of life of the unborn. They have left no stone unturned and are not leaving anything to chance.
I am proud of these Irish pro life people and wish them the best in this very important fight. They have worked so hard to keep abortion illegal and I am praying for their success. They are doing this for the least among us
and want all to have a chance at life.
1
Ross, when will you ever make the connection between conservatism and abortion? The Conservative Revolution, with its relentless war on the Sermon on the Mount, is a walking, talking, braying path to abortion. Don't start pretending conservatism has anything to do with life, family, and Christianity.
6
All you can cite here in support of the current laws are statistics. You seem to be totally ignorant of the many cases of the laws' causing death and suicide. But since you use statistics to support your need to impose your own religious inspired beliefs on others, allow me to point out that in a society where abortions are illegal, it is obvious that the abortion rate would low. But, it is unreasonable to think that such statistics would in any way be reliable because illegal abortions do not get reported. Even the women who go abroad for abortions would not inform the collectors of data that they were going abroad for an abortion. In fact if they did that, they would be legally restrained from leaving the country. Any one who is swayed by your column, including its author should read Maureen Dowd's column in this same issue of the NYTimes.
6
You can't have a reasonable discussion if you disingenuously misuse and twist the meaning of words and ideas as Douthat does. The issue is PRO ABORTION VS. ANTI-ABORTION. If you call those in favor PRO CHOICE when discussing the issue you should also call those against ANTI CHOICE. Instead, calling those against abortion PRO LIFE implies, no smears, the other side as ANTI LIFE, an attempt to preclude and end further discussion. And so the estate tax becomes the death tax, liberals become socialists, social democrats become communists. These, like pro choice-pro life are shoddy, if effective rhetorical devices but sadly make me feel that Douthat has demeaned himself and his column and diminished much our respect for him.
4
“Female equality depends on abortion rights, the common pro-choice argument goes, and the post-1960s achievements of women in the professional arena are impossible without it.“ I almost choked on this sentence. We don’t go to work every day thinking “well, thank godness my ability to have an abortion is fueling my ambition”. Just leave women alone. Stop legislating our bodies. We can handle this. Leave us to our own lives and futures. Just because we are no longer dependent on men does not mean you can still impose your will.
8
No kidding. I nearly choked in astonishment at that line too. And I'm a male.
Female equality depends on human rights, not abortion rights. The same as one man's equality with another man, or woman.
What's going on here is Mr. Douthat keeps shifting between meanings of words. For example, with "equality" is he referring to outcomes in earning money or legal rights or (given his claims to religiosity) spiritual equality. There's too much swapping of apples and oranges in this essay when it comes to the definition of key terms.
This is sloppy pseudo-reasoning, built on facts that are selective at best, if not shaky or worse.
5
The influence of the Catholic Church Is waning. Over the period 1972-2011, weekly church attendance by Irish Roman Catholics fell from 91% to 30%. Gradually, Ireland is becoming like the rest of Europe. Birth control has been legal since 1980. In 2015, Ireland voted by a huge majority to legalise same-sex marriage. Abortion is the next taboo to go.
51
If a people is treated as a discrete and insular minority, they will identify with the others in the group against the super-culture.
It is in the education and socialization of our public schools that we teach children how to deal with others and respect cultural differences. Good restaurants help, too.
By the third generation, nearly all immigrant families are fully assimilated, having lost the language, culture and cuisine of their forebears.
And with our low national birth rate, we need immigration to provide the workforce to keep Medicare and Social Security solvent. It is entirely self-serving.
Anti-immigration is anti-american.
2
Being an Irish National by marriage and having my first child born in Ireland during the 1980s (my second child was born in the US after we emigrated),I can attest that while prenatal care for pregnant women was wonderful on some levels it was grossly lagging on many others.
What Douthat doesn’t seem to understand is the wording of The Amendment itself. It denies the primacy of a woman’s and mothers life and very humanity by equating it to a “fetus’”. Seriously, is a fetus equal to a grown man? So why would it be to a grown woman, especially the woman who’s carry it?!!
It’s not that I didn’t cherish my “fetus” when I was pregnant and consider it as my child... it’s that my life and health, mental, emotional and physical, must be the primary life valued in a society because that fetus was in NO WAY equal to me no matter how much I wanted it.
It’s profoundly offensive and destructive to women to suggest otherwise. This goes beyond the right to life...it is a misogynist and paternalistic ideology that treats women as though they are NOT full moral agents with god given “Free Will.” To deny a woman her gift of Free Will is to deny her humanity and deprive her of one of god’s first gift.., a gift that the Church seems to have fifteen about, unless it’s about punishing someone.
We are free morals agents, just like men and if abortion is a sin then let me deal with that with my personal god, because to women it’s personal!
191
I agree with your post and think you for saying it so eloquently.
Religious thinking seems not to respect the status, and therefore, lives of women. It’s all over the world and in just about every religion. Elevating the status of a fetus to the level of the woman carrying it is just another manifestation.
15
"without compromising women’s health or female opportunities relative to countries with abortion on demand." I suspect that many if not most women who read this article are going to find it deeply offensive (like so much of Mr Douthat's work). His logic is also questionable (repeat after me: correlation is not causation)
9
What you'll never see discussed here in the Upper West side Socialist Daily Worker is polling on how many people come to regret their involvements in abortions as time goes by.
As the man or woman sees their kids or others' mature, the inevitable comparisons of what that child would be doing now pop up for those with a habit of thought.
Once we had medicines to prevent conception, you'd think the USA might have hundreds of abortions a year, but certainly not the millions that give Plnned Parenthood so much political power. PP still nets half a billion from their abortion factories each year JUST from the U.S. government.
2
In the 1990's I used to go to a hospital in the DC area that did abortions. There was a vigil every day to protest abortion. On weekends there may have been 100 men women and children. On weekdays only 1 to 4 demonstrators who were never women it was always men. In the heat of pro-life one of the big organizations had a male leader and spokesman. Not long after that I saw the movie "The Magdalene Sisters" and found that it was mostly true. I listen to the debate about abortion being about saving lives while local non-fetus children go hungry and are not cared for or don't get medical or dental care.
There is a pattern here, it not abortion it is control of progeny. Like the "Droit du Seigneur", men want to control the fertility of women. It is a deep vestigial urge, but so is rape. There is no modern justification and no science to back it up. Social systems are not benefited from religious interpretations of procreation. Men might polemicize or rationalize, but for women this is the essence of their being. Most women I talk to don't like abortion, but can't accept the alternative. We have solved this in a poor fashion, but it it solved. Men should stay out of the discussion. Now Ireland may get it right.
12
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, "Abortion is the worst form of personal sexual life-choice, but is better than all the alternatives."
Ross, if you and your specific cadre of oh-so-pro-life anti-abortion unrealists had your way, all would be right with America without abortions.
Teenagers would magically no longer get pregnant, even though no funds are offered for sex-education;
Or the mother will take the child to term knowing that there is the money provided by pro-life forces to take care of that child until adopted;
Or the mother would happily take their baby to term knowing their love of the child will overcome the lack of money provided by pro-life forces to take care of that human life with dignity;
And the mother could bask in the glow of the pro-life driving policy to offer basic health care for she and her child.
Those fantacies don't exist and the only persons who care about unwed mothers, abused mothers, and incompetent mothers are Catholic nuns and some secular counterparts with little or no consequential financial help from pro-lifers who care more about lowering their taxes than quality of life for children.
9
"history’s direction is never morally straightforward" - that depends on the definition of "moral."
2
Mr. Douthat’s bias is clear in how he assigns positive and negative moral valences to his data as if assuming that his audience agrees with him. Lower abortion rate is good? Why? I’d only agree that it’s a good thing if it indicated that the incidence of unwanted pregnancies is lower in Ireland than in the US where it approaches the obscene 50 percent. Maybe Irish contraceptives are better or Irish women smarter in using them. But the article does not contain these data. More kids per family? Why is it a good thing? Isn’t the planet already overpopulated? Lower participation of women in the workforce? This is undoubtedly a bad thing. And finally, there is an unbridgeable moral gap between Mr. Douthat’s position and mine, which no manipulation of statistics will close. I believe abortion is a fundamental human right. Nobody has the right to force me to bear a child I don’t want to bear - neither the Church (which is not mine) nor the Parliament or the Congress. Nor do I have to explain to anybody why I don’t want that child. It is not because of economic hardship, threat to my health or any other frequently cited reason. My desire is the only thing that matters. If I choose to have a child, I have to bear the consequences of my decision and take care of it. But nobody has the right to rape my free will and force me to have a baby I don’t want. This is my moral position and there is no bridge between it and Mr. Douthat’s thinly disguised theology.
8
Brilliantly put, Mor. That anyone believes they have a right, with their vote or their theology, to breach a woman’s right to make a decision about her body and its use and destiny, defies logic. I find Douthat’s incessant clap-trap about this and other issues beyond tiresome, even as I am drawn to his column by some unexplainable, recurring desire to feel outraged. (I need to work on that.) Meanwhile, we need to encourage men to withhold their misplaced opinions about what a woman decides is best for her body and, at long last, to withhold their sperm. Signed, Mother of Three, Grandmother of Seven
2
Douthat would seem to want to link abortion restriction with a better situation for women. It seems more likely to me that the abortion restriction is an old Catholic heritage and the freedoms of Irish women more a cultural achievement. They may co-exist without being dependent on one another. The Irish vote will be interesting and instructive to watch. Where women are more politically powerful they may throw off an old vestige of male dominance. Perhaps the Catholic church will gradually become less male dominant and vindictive, more like Jesus of the Gospels--to the chagrin of Douthat.
7
I'm glad that families are supported in Ireland. Earlier this week, there was an opinion piece in the NYT about mothers in the workplace. Many of the commenters were unsupportive of family leave and sick leave policies that made more work for them. There was another recent artlicle that outlined how working families suffer economically compared to singles and couples without children. The cost of higher education is ridiculous. Chidren are not safe at school. No wonder that we read this week that the fertility rate is down in this country. Why don't we try supporting families first, and see if more people decide to have children.
5
Ross, let people make their own moral decisions.
If you want people to stop abortions, fight for alternatives, like birth control and a reduction in the cost of child care, and less impact on the family from loss of work and increased sick days.
Go ahead and fight the good fight about abortion being a moral sinkhole, and fight to get people to believe that they have personal responsibility. You will convert some and never others. The same goes for me when I try to point out that Jesus would not have taken children away from mothers because they were from a foreign land.
But if you are going to fight to get the government out of our shorts on economic policy, immigration policy, religious liberty - then you need to look at why you believe that the government gets to decide that a woman will give birth.
Abortion can be both immoral and legal. We do that a lot here in the USA, give people the freedom to be immoral without putting them in stocks and throwing stones at them.
Women are adults. They have what it takes to know what they need, and what they can do with their own uteruses.
155
" Ireland seems to have achieved or maintained some notable pro-life and pro-family goals without compromising women’s health ..."
Absolutely not true. Women have died in Ireland because of these restrictions on freedom of choice.
Ross's claim is a comforting self-deception employed by anti-choice people who are nagged by the obvious reality.
26
Ross Douthat after condemning simplistic moral tales from the abortion debate, goes on to make a moral paradigm of the Irish experience. However, he completely ignores the exact opposite example: Japan. Japan has very liberal abortion laws and abortion is often used as a contraceptive option by many Japanese women. Yet Japan has the lowest crime rates, longest iife expectancy for women, and national health insurance and in many ways is the paragon of a functioning post-industrial society. So perhaps it is cultural norms and religion (Ireland being Catholic historically, and Japan being non-Christian) that determines a country's attitudes towards abortion and its consequent restrictions (or not) and conseuquences, not policy itself?
14
Abortion is a personal decision. Opposition is usually based on religious objections and much of those objections are by men.
Ross, don't make me laugh. The State or the Church should have no say in the matter. It's simply not up to them to decide.
18
Yes, we should have universal healthcare. Ireland has low maternal mortality rates because all maternity services and child care up to six months of age are free of charge. And, while a low divorce rate might sound nice, it isn't good if accompanied by a relatively high rate of domestic abuse.
12
We need to understand that the American thoughts against abortion and birth control have at their core the need for sin to have a consequence. This is fundamental to both Catholics and Protestants. At the beginning of the sexual revolution, with the advent of the pill, critics were most vocal about the ability of women (not so much men) to have sex without the risk of the consequence of pregnancy. Roe made that even more so. Notice that most of the anti-abortion activists lose interest at the point the child takes its first breath. To them that isn't a child. It's a form of penance. The pregnancy after "sinful" sex is a consequence and preventing that consequence is wrong. There is no real avenue of compromise with people who think that way. You, Mr. Douthat are one of them.
31
To give the cliché in full, we used to say that it took decades for an idea to cross the English Channel and further decades to cross the Irish Sea. But we live in a digital age. Douthat again resorts to partisan clichés instead of rational analysis: for example “pro-life” is tendentious and actually a slander, implying that I and others are pro-death. What he misses is that the Roman Catholic Church has inordinate influence in Ireland—sure, isn’t he a good Catholic? The acceptance by many Irish of the Church was largely a tribal response to centuries of domination and persecution by English exploiters. Times change. Irish voters gave a big Yes to the referendum on same-gender marriage, 2015; church attendance has fallen dramatically, particularly among the young. And Brexit revives old animosities and the reality that Ireland has a border because of a cynical geopolitical and commercial decision by a king of England in the early 17th C. Yet, in country areas, as my grandkids complain, the Church still keeps a death grip on primary education. This too shall pass. Meanwhile, Douthat’s buddies across Red America go on restricting women’s rights to choose, and they call it “pro-life” in this era where facts don’t matter and ill-informed perceptions rule.
15
Legalized abortion in Ireland; well, here comes the opportunity for the Irish, and I'm one, born in that sometimes lovely sanctuary, in a very troubled world.
In my opinion, given that the population of the Republic of Ireland has increased by 1/3, one third, or 1.5 million people since 1981, it is more than likely that there are enough yes votes than not.
It seems, generally, throughout this over-populated planet, western religious beliefs are being relegated to being nothing more than a not very well informed set of archaic rules, manufactured in millennia long gone by, by men exclusively, all of whom regarded the wishes and desires of women as inconsequential, special emphasis on what men would allow women to do with their bodies.
If men had a womb there is no doubt whatsoever that the notion any entity would be endowed with the power to decide against the wishes of the male, in this regard, is laughable.
Each and every mentally competent human, has through being physically born, the right to freedom of choice, in all things affecting that humans entire life, and if mentally incompetent, other reasonable mentally competent individuals, with family being the first in line, have they right to decide for such incompetent.
It's as simple as that, and no one, and no group may presume to take away such freedom of choice, and when and if they try, the must be stopped, period.
12
As a thought experiment (since men can’t get pregnant) I tried to think of a comparable condition that men should suffer due to an unwanted pregnancy. How about this: all men who cause an unwanted pregnancy should have a kidney removed. It’s intrusive, painful, and may lead to long term health problems. But it would save a life! How many men would sign up for this?
22
Well, I've seen a few of these posts talking about my country in the New York Times and I've seen plenty of comments too but I've not once commented until here in this article where I want to note something.
Everyone so often seems to use the language of America to describe us and that is not who we are. There is no despicable battle between the right and the left over here and much of what divides America is totally removed. Our government serves us and the people are voting, but when I see Americans talk about this it is in a language of some massive war. Our "right-wing" government are the ones who brought this referendum up, they have brought to leadership not a white Christian demagogue but a reasonable doctor who is gay and half-indian. We voted to legalise gay marriage (by 66% majority) before it became a national law in America. I have strong faith the 8th will be repealed, and I hope it will, but when that happens you wont see politicians trying to come up with silly rules and laws to prevent the individual woman from access because the people will have spoken -- no waiting periods, no limited clinics, no lack of funding to people giving advice etc. Of course our people are still people but this war of conservatives and liberal in politics is not here. Yes we are behind a little in some areas but we are accelerating fast mainly because so many of our politicians accept democracy and this acceleration is the inevitable consequence of that.
242
Thanks for the reminder. I forgot in my earlier comment to mention Ross Douthat's encouragement of minding other people's business. I envy people who don't live in this country; it is like being serially abused these days.
29
Ireland. Thank you for your comments. It makes me proud to be an Irish American and a little embarrassed in being an American!
There was a time in our politics when our government and elected politicians represented us, but now with likes, we have in Washington at present it is a whole new story.
Takes the likes of Ryan and Pence who can trace their heritage back to Ireland?
Pence, in my opinion, is a real danger because of his ultra-conservative social and religious beliefs that are not in touch with our values. Give us time as we as a country has been here before and we survied.
5
D. - Well said. Do us a favor and comment more often.
7
Sorry, Mr. Douthat. But as someone who was born and actually grew up in Ireland, and saw how much institutionally licensed abuse women put up with there until quite recently, it's painfully obvious to me from reading your article that you've never spent much, if any, time in Ireland and have no real inside view or insight into the country, its (even recent) history or culture, from an experiential point of view.
For one thing, nowhere in your article does it ever occur to you to consider a relevant fact obvious to any Irish person, that the constant, large waves of emigration from Ireland were in no small part related to people wanting to get away from the theocracy that you so blithely assume was woman-friendly or socially palatable to those who lived there. This alone renders the comparison of Ireland to other countries you cite, eg the UK and the US, a case of apples and orange when making assumptions about statistics of the kind you put forward (no comparable percentages of outward bound emigrants from the UK or US, much less for such reasons). A great many Irish born people moved their life choices and related statistics to other countries precisely because that was the only way they could get away from the theocracy you so admire.
And do we really need to remind you of the well known, and ongoing (including in the pages of this newspaper), revelations of mass abuse of women and children by the same Irish theocratic institutions you seem so cheerfully trusting of?
44
With a history of "wonderful" treatment for women, you can pretty much bet gender will split the vote. Hopefully there'll be a sufficient number of women who risk their "husband's" wrath and vote YES.
Maggie, you come quite a long way from the laundries.
Take the next step.
16
Does Mr. Douthat seemingly ignore the homogenous context of Irish society in 1983 when the Eighth Amendment was passed? I think so. Ireland was still a poor, rural, and undeveloped nation, just ten years a member of the European Union. Catholic clerical opinion was still influential. And immigration into the nation, I do not think, was significant. Political parties did not stray from the common cultural attitudes.
Since the Celtic Tiger economy took hold in the 90’s, the Irish economy and people have become acquainted with varieties of cultures, experiences and people, many of them immigrants to Ireland, far different than they had previously known. The scandals of the Irish clergy diminished Catholic influence. Politically, as well, Irish parties have become less culturally consistent.
In societies that cease to be homogenous, that become heterogenous in cultures, religions, and backgrounds, the imposition of one set of moral standards on a whole society becomes untenable and also discriminatory. Is it moral relativism? I think not. Even people of the original cultural context evolve in their views and attitudes. As we have seen here in the USA, as Mr. Douthat has pointed out in many of his opinion columns, the “facts” have little to do with policy in many citizens’ minds.
9
Ross Douthat, more Catholic than the Pope, is always reliably in favor of keeping women down. Is he a woman? Is he a doctor? No. But he does think the he knows better than any of these, and he's quite sure he's right. I'd suggest he get rid of the top deadly sin, pride, reread the story of Jesus as told in the Gospels, and for once admit that he and his power-hungry brethren on the right (I hesitate to call them Republicans, I know some nice once-upon-a-time Republicans and they don't approve of this kleptocratic mean-spirited bunch who worship power and wealth uber alles.
Yes, this is fierce. I don't feel gentle. I'm tired of having reasonable humanity labeled evil "center left" when in fact we've been moving the goalposts rightward for decades. The tightwads at the top don't want to share.
And they don't care much about babies once they're born. They're too busy stealing pennies from the poor to notice that babies need healthy loving families.
33
For chapter and verse, I strongly recommend Maureen Dowd's column. Clearly we don't need to export our hate, there's plenty to go around: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/opinion/sunday/ireland-abortion-refer...
There are a range of stories, all of them horrifying. Here's one:
"In the 1930s, my grandmother spirited my father’s older brother out of Ballyvaughan in the middle of the night to a nearby village after he impregnated a neighbor. The young woman was sent into exile in America. She put the baby up for adoption in New York and killed herself a year later. My uncle went on to be a landowner, the pride of the village."
Ross Douthat, do you think it's fine for a young teenager raped by a family member or friend to be forced to give birth at risk to her own life?
17
@Susan Anderson: "Is he a woman? Is he a doctor? No." He isn't Irish, either. He doesn't know what he's talking about.
4
A man has a right to procreate and a woman has a right to choose who she procreates with. A woman’s choice should not undermine her mate. Consider legislation that gives the natural father the right to consent to abortion. A civil cause of action against the abortion provided (not the mother) would provide compensation to the father for loss of a fetus. Modern DNA testing would make the cause of action easy to prove by requiring that abortions done without paternal consent preserve a DNA sample for potential litigation.
The law imposes an obligation upon the father to support mother and child during pregnancy but lacks reciprocal recognition of men who welcome the natural relationship between intercourse and birth. Irish men should not abandon support for the family and their children because some women want an opportunity to destroy families if everything doesn’t turn out their way. Decriminalization of abortion, if it is the majority’s wish, need not end the traditional Irish male role as head of the family.
3
All too often the men walk away, because they can. The woman hasn't got that choice. All too often think their sexual pleasure is too important to use condoms. They are also focused on that moment of ecstasy (if that's what it is) but not on the consequences.
Equating the right to her own body does not make a woman a "family destroyer".
In an ideal world the man would take equal responsibility but that is all too rare.
17
Define families? Define head of the family?
How about the father of a child being public named as the parent of that child and responsible for, that is obliged to rear the child, financially support that child until adulthood no matter what impact on his health, future well being, career or other chances for a family and perhaps other children and all that with or without the mother’s optional involvement. What I mean is even if everything doean’t turn out his way.
11
A family is two or more people joined by love, not just for each other, but as a partnership that does no harm to others. The head of the family is the person(s) that makes sure all maintain the good and avoid every kind of evil. In some situations, adoption may be the best and most loving decision. I was placed for adoption back in 1952 and have enjoyed a very good life by every measure. My abortion would, at most, made life more convenient for my birth mother for a few months. She has my love and gratitude.
My Grandmother and Grandfather left Ireland in shame in the early 1900’s as 18 & 19 year olds was she was pregnant before marriage. It was a big scandal. She was going to be the school teacher in her town, but she’d fallen for the local farmers boy, and the shame of them pairing under those circumstance would not be tolerated. So, they married, then left Ireland and moved to NY to live with other relatives who’d also left Ireland years earlier. Luckily they had a place to go, some money to get them there, and family abroad to understand and support them. They remained married until their deaths, and leave a wonderful legacy of generations to follow. But my Grandmother never became a teacher. My Grandparents never returned to Ireland. They Never spoke much at all about the wonderful and mystic place and lovely people I also hope to visit soon. My own Mother, only went back to the country of her parents as a Grandmother herself, and we were never told this story until my mother returned to tell it to us 80 years or so after it happened. We never knew my Nanna’s pain, she never shared her story with us. She was 91 when she died. Much has changed a century later in Ireland, and here in the US, but much has not. This is not just about abortion, it’s about an individual woman’s freedom to decide, it’s about her health, and the right for her to make her own way in this world, and to live with her own decisions, right or wrong, as she sees fit.
28
As Irish-born people, we can thank the USA for this much. It gave your grandmother, your mother and you a far better place to be. Hopefully Ireland can keep on catching up, not so much with America, as with the aspirations (so long denied) of so many of its own people.
Thanks for sharing the touching (and all too common) story of your family's history. I'm sure, whatever the sadness and loss, there was a great deal of happiness and achievement in their lives too, not least for their own bravery in striking out on a better path.
4
@Peter Forester: I recently read a novel I think you'd love: Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan. It deals with some of the truths you mention in your moving comment.
Among the few decent remnants of Church control in Ireland are the social policies that Douthat seems to like. Such policies began to be enacted in the second decade of Irish freedom, such as it was. Church influence dictated that the government honor Papal Encyclicals like Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno, which were attempts by the Church to ward off creeping socialism. Social policies, like children's allowances, are part of the social fabric--attempts to abolish them would disastrous to any government.
1
Generations of women and children suffered abuse, sexual and otherwise, at the hands of the theocratic cabal in Ireland. Church influence dictated that to the government too. You need look no further than the archives of this newspaper to find plenty of examples of that phenomenon, sadly also many examples that were exported from Ireland to the US and many other countries (and I say that, with deep chagrin, as someone born in Ireland).
So please drop the Latin pontifications and try dealing with the facts of human cruelty and hypocrisy that have been rooted deeply in the Irish Church, especially on these issues. There were plenty of decent people in Ireland who worked for support of the family, mothers and children, but who weren't officials of the Church. (Ascribing chldren's allowances entirely to the Church, when in fact those you refer to as "creeping socialists" played a big role in winning and implementing those allowances, is a misrepresentation of history.) Beyond that, the notion that's what's decent in Ireland is a product of Church control would be laughable if it weren't so painful for those of us who lived through that period.
"Creeping" socialism? The biggest creeps in Ireland were not the socialists, but the predators among the ranks of the priests and other uniformed officials, along with their fellow travelers who turned a blind eye for their own benefit or convenience of conscience.
4
There's nothing like religion and male dominance to preserve control over people, especially women as it has been since the dawn of mankind apparently, according to those who belief in male Gods guiding our life.
We think of our world as fairly modern and developed having thrown off archaic ideas, and using science and reason to guide us, reality has proven to be far from this state of maturity.
Personally, I'm so tired of this debate, but as parts of our country turn to Christian law writing and legitimizing religious beliefs, there's little choice but to continue fighting against the derailment of our democracy by religion.
39
I posted a similar opinion in an alternate article yesterday. It IS tiresome, especially when we are also forced to endure the endless hypocrisy associated with not only this, but ALL other philosophies/endeavors of the mass delusion set. All throughout history, radicalized religion has been the plague of humankind. The infiltration 4 decades ago of "Christian" rot into our civic institutions was fatal. We're still pretending that this experiment can be revived. It cannot. It's over.
2
Bravo.
Monotheism concepts were the ultimate power-grabs. Convenient control through single-mindedness.
1
Er...the overturning of the constitutional ban on abortion in Ireland would be by definition a "Populist" measure. Douhat in his efforts sell Catholic doctrine is engaged in another piece of the semantic double talk that are a characteristic of columns. And given his pose as an intellectual his contempt for the intelligentsia as a class is an interesting comment on his own intellectual capacity...viz.
"an intelligentsia in thrall to banal progressive optimism"
33
It would just wonderful if the pro-life element in this country became more concerned with promoting existing life instead of being obsessed with women's (never men's) reproduction. Remember that many abortions are the result of the male partner's desire not to have a child, so it isn't solely a "feminist" issue although it is consistently framed that way.
Yes to better social support for women and children. In this country, having a child - long desired by some couples - is economically disastrous. Child care alone can equal one earner's pay and federal help is all but non-existent. Most "family friendly" legislation starts from a presumption that the couple can afford the upfront cost and will get the benefit from a lower tax later. That works for Ivanka, but not for millions of families just getting by.
As for Ireland's gender equality, well Irish women have always been strong and head of the household. Ireland was that way when England first invaded her.
46
I agree with duncanwhyte. Douthat is guilty of an ecological fallacy. He has done this before (as well as confusing causality with association) and I have used his columns in my high school epidemiology class as test questions.
The mortality rate of childbirth is still at least 15 times that of a safe, legal abortion (see Raymond, et. al 2012 Obstet Gynecol)
A law that denies a woman that choice puts her in a more precarious position with respect to her life. We had a term for this in medical school.
Malpractice.
49
high school epidemiology class!? I'm so envious -- maybe there's something to be said for living in a city after all.... :-)
The assumption in this article seems to be that the good things of Ireland rely upon its attitude towards abortion - might it not rather be that women have been fighting against their theocratic-assigned roles for decades and have won the benefits you cite, and that changing attitudes towards abortion is the next step in that battle.
32
There is a very important lesson that the US could learn from how Ireland handles this question.
First, we let the people decide. We do not base it on a dubious interpretation by the supreme court 50 years ago (abortion) or a phrase taken totally out of context from a 200-year-old Constitution (gun-rights) or whatever.
Now this has two important benefits:
First, it means that the law will necessarily be somewhat moderate, because it needs 50% support to pass, and the aim would be to get it much higher. So totally denying the rights of those who disagree is not a good strategy - instead an effort is made to incorporate their genuine concerns and constructive suggestions. Compare this to the US where some (current) positions are ultra-right-wing, others are ultra-left-wing.
Second, and far more important, we recognize that this is not a political question. We elect politicans based on their ability to run the country, we choose judges based on their ability to judge, we choose a president of whom we can be proud - we don't choose them based on their positions on conscience issues like abortion or gun-rights.
Imagine how nice that would be, if everyone were able to vote for the best candidate, rather than strategically wondering what they might do if they got the chance to influence the composition of the supreme court, who might then review some 50-year-old ruling.
There's no way Trump would be elected in a country where conscience issues were dealt with separately.
15
Good grief, the contortions that Douthat goes through on the abortion issue! Here's hoping the Irish indeed vote "Yes" next Friday. As for Ross' last sentence, I am heartened to read that somewhere in the world he agrees that there may be a "society better than ours." On a woman's right to choose, we are already on the right side. On many other issues, particularly with our current "backsliding" with Monsieur Trump on issues such as protecting the environment (Paris Accords, EPA regulations), our nation is indeed not the model society.
33
What I learned here is that the "Irish Exception" represents government policy that at least attempts to be morally and ethically consistent. There is support for the unborn life, and, in "considerable public spending in support of parents", support for the family of the born child.
The conservative view in the US is focused on preserving the unborn life, and then leaving the parent and child (and let's be clear, it is the mother that is often the single caregiver) to fend for themselves.
Perhaps if the conservatives in the US showed that they value families (children and mothers) with their policies as much as they value the unborn life, I would believe their intentions.
For now, I'd like to be able to make the call for myself.
44
Ireland has a long, bloody history of being bullied by the British in the houses of government and in the streets.
The Irish also have a long, guilt-ridden history of being bullied by the Catholic Church in the houses of worship and in the privacy of the bedroom.
Through all of this, the Irish have taken refuge in the loving comfort of family at home and in the boisterous exchange of political views in the pub.
On subjects as serious as abortion, gender equality and social safety nets, the Irish are cautious about a vengeful public authority and resolute in what each man and woman knows is the right thing to do.
Those values, together with living on an island, are why Ireland moves slowly on some issues and leads the pack on others.
The pace of the Irish is their pace, and if the rest of the world doesn’t like it, so what.
17
I wrote an entire comment about how the American language and discussions used to describe us dont work as well as our history and culture are different. You have wonderfully made it obsolete and inefficient! :)
3
The abortion conversation is almost universally posed in terms of individual rights and sovereignty, the right to live vs the right to choose. The moral reasoning is focused on the individual. The gun violence conversation is similar in that the gun lobby group reasons on the basis individual rights and sovereignty. What I appreciate about this column is that the moral landscape is broadened to include the notion of a Good Society both the consequences for and duties of the Commonweal.
4
Odd that the author sees Ireland as lagging; Ireland approved, by referendum, gay marriage well before the United States and most other EU countries. In addition, unlike the USA, it has never looked back and tried to chip away at those rights or the right to contraception.
Very strange conclusions overall in this article, not well thought out.
23
This op-ed piece would be an interesting set of ideas, except that the assumptions don't stack up. A low abortion rate doesn't equal a good fertility rate - Germany has an extremely low abortion rate (at about 6 per thousand women) and plenty of family friendly policies, but it also has a very low birth rate. Holland also has a very very low abortion rate, in tandem with a low birth rate. Sweden's rate of abortion is higher, and so is its birth rate.
Also note that talking about family break up is more difficult in Europe, where de facto relationships are more normative. Children can be born in very stable families, but will be reflected in the statistics as out-of-wedlock births.
19
Stop pretending that banning abortions has anything to do with a more humane society. It is all about imposing religious beliefs on a society. Abortion is not a procedure to be taken lightly but ultimately the decision must lie with the mother not with men who have no understanding of why some woman may not want to raise a child at this particular time in her life.
60
Actually, abortion is a procedure to be taken lightly. It isnt heart surgery. A semi-annual dental cleaning takes longer.
1
Amen.
Sorry, correlation, especially when a host of other variables are left out, is not causation.
22
I believe in Hillary Clinton's goal: to make abortion safe, legal, and rare.
Criminalizing abortion accomplishes none of the above. It just makes some self-righteous people feel good about punishing women and girls for having sex - consensual or not.
If you really want to reduce abortion - and make it truly rare - let's do what we know works, by the examples of northern Europe and some successful programs here in the U.S.: provide factual, shame-free sex education and free or low-cost contraception and education in how to use it. Then we'd see abortion rates plummet. And teen sexual activity and pregnancy rates drop as well.
All those who claim they want to "end abortion" just want to end LEGAL abortion. I'm old enough to remember never hearing a peep from the Church about abortion - until it became legal.
It's estimated there were many MORE abortions before the widespread availability of contraceptives and legalized abortion - something any medical professionals who worked in an ER or in ob/gyn can tell you. And that doesn't count all the women of means who traveled overseas to have abortions or whose private doctors did it discretely.
Making or keeping abortion illegal will never "end all abortions." Desperate women and girls will still have abortions - but they'll be dangerous, even deadly - unless they have the means to travel elsewhere.
61
You are a religious man, Mr. Douthat.
Stop telling me what to do because of your religious beliefs.
Republicans don't want to teach sex education in schools, don't want to pay for contraceptives, don't want women to have abortions, do want to teach teenagers about abstinence, even though it doesn't work (turns out, teenagers will still have sex).
A good case in point was a contraceptive program in Colorado for poor women and teenagers, who were offered low or no-cost contraceptive devices, including IUDs and implants, and trained providers in insertion and counselling techniques.
There were significant drops in the birth rate among teens and young adult women in participating counties.
In July 2014 the governor’s office issued a report, crediting the program with a 40% statewide drop in teen birth rates between 2009 and 2013 – and a 35% drop in abortions.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/06/colorado-contraception-f...
In May 2015, the Colorado Republican-controlled senate killed a bill that would sustain and expand these CFPI services.
This tells you everything you need to know about Republicans.
There is a weird religious fervor running through the Republican Party. For some reason they champion a thrice-married philanderer who pays off porn stars and Playboy bunnies to buy their silence for sex.
I don't tell you to stop believing in fairy tale religions and magic, Mr. Douthat.
Stop telling me what to do with my body.
220
Beyond ideology, ensuring future generations of cheap labor is the oldest of very far right strategies. The religious leaders are the first ones terribly fooled by the policy.
11
And plentiful soldiers so the state can play wars....
1
Outstanding!!!
4
Something never brought up in these discussions is global overpopulation and its effect on our planet's health. A sincerely pro-life philosophy is one that actively promotes the well-being of all living things on our planet, understanding that if women are denied access to contraception and abortion, our planet will become unlivable that much more quickly. It's in all of our interests to help women who want to limit the number of children they bear.
27
Legal contraception makes many abortions unnecessary; if the attitudes that support legal contraception will also support legal abortions, these attitudes make some abortions inevitable.
A pro-family orientation seems to be a polite way of saying that large families should be encouraged, even though we are also dedicated to doing away with the disease, famine, and warfare that made large families useful by reducing populations so they needed to be replenished. We know what happens when other species find conditions where they breed as much as they can -- population crashes.
If human intelligence is used, as it is, to enable our planet to support more humans, it should also be used to limit the number of humans to what the planet can support. If we are not going to allow limits on human population (and these limits seem to arise naturally without government action once a certain standard of living is reached, then we have to allow the natural methods of limiting population to function, ugly as they are. Otherwise we are creating an imbalance that will rectify itself in the ways it would rectify itself in Syria if people were not allowed to flee.
8
I'll tell you one thing I admire is the fact that Ireland lets the people vote on this issue. I wish we had that here. Like vote to abolish the electoral college, or any major issue to change the constitution.
47
Republicans would never allow a vote on abortion, for two reasons: one, they would lose - the majority of Americans would be very uncomfortable banning abortions; and two, by losing the GOP loses a fervent, uncritical source of votes. Without those votes, the GOP loses elections. So the GOP will never agree willingly to resolve the abortion issue by vote.
68
Roe v. Wade was not a popular vote.
People have been brainwashed since into supporting abortion even if it goes against their best interests.
Ever heard of a moot debate?
Abortion is the law of the land here, decided by one Justice MORE for the pros than the antis in 1973.
Befode thinking you know the mood of the American people, remember that gay marriage was turned down BOTH times it came up for proposition votes in our most socialist state, California.
I sometimes wonder if the institution of slavery could have been preserved, along with the diversification of the South's economy and the expansion of protections for labor, enslaved and free. It might have been an experiment that Mr. Douthat would applaud - the restriction of personal freedoms for a class, in exchange for more humane working conditions.
41
How would you enforce "more humane working conditions"? The owners would howl about the "nanny state".
1
We men, we do have the answers don't we?
Too bad we can't enjoy the pain and uncertainty of pregnancy, the concern of being responsible for another human being's first dozen and a half years of life, that we can't feel the suppression of our own thoughts with regard to our own bodies.
It must be a wonderful feeling to be guided by an imaginary deity that only speaks to men who in turn interpret the divine words into inspiration and guidance for the benefit of the lesser of our species, those who are so disturbed by the monthly cycles only they share
In particular it is a joy for me to be one of the superior class who know and understand the yearnings even the fears of those who whether welcomed or not must carry our so carefully placed seed.
Certainly a referendum, an open and free vote which includes those of us never burdened with the experience of carrying unwanted life, will provide the answer and settle the question which women cannot determine on their own.
After all, what can any woman know of her own feelings?
197
Thank you Ian! You are a smart man.
5
If you don't want to carry an unwanted life don't get pregnant in the first place. It's amazing how people want to play but don't want to pay. The same people who are for abortion wouldn't dare kill a dog, cat, flea or even a tree. But a human being still in the womb, no problem.
And how do we punish men who made these horrible girls get pregnant? Last I heard that someone got pregnant without having sex with a man is Mary, mother of Jesus. If we want to punish women for having an abortion we need to also punish men that make them pregnant. Is that fair Mike?
1
"Female equality depends on abortion rights, the common pro-choice argument goes"
Unless I'm missing something, I believe it was the widespread use of contraceptives and cultural shifts that is responsible for increased equality. Pro-life proponents think more women are getting abortions than is actually the case. I am just curious where they get these ideas that women actually want abortions. Women just want doctors that will do what is best for them.
90
Well...let's see. Women with hordes of children have career limitations in higher paying jobs. I'm a geologist. I work on an offshore oil rig. I'm away from home, literally, 10 months of the year. As I write this (from Ulan Bataar, Mongolia), I consider the numbers of single and married mothers of multiple children I have worked with in my higher paying field that gives me pay parity with men: ZERO.
So I do agree with this anti-choice author's statement. To be clear, its the only statement in the article Of which I agree.
3
In Mongolia, second trimester abortion is restricted and performed only by decision of a Medical Committee. Should the state or even the father have a say about the unborn? If your wages in your higher paying job were guaranteed would women need an abortion?
And Ireland also has single payer national health care system. So which country is 30-years behind. Because most hospitals are still run by religious organizations, it will be interesting to see if Catholic hospitals (the vast majority) will comply with a change in the Constitution, even though the government pays for health care.
35
It's not actually single payer - about half of people have private heath insurance. No-one pays massive bills or goes bankrupt though.
12
I think it’s pretty safe to say that doctors will not be performing abortions in Catholic hospitals.
to get an abortion one doesn't need to go to a hospital. without constitutional restrictions, new abortion clinics might fill the gap
The status and well being of women depends on multiple factors. Accordingly, it is not surprising to discover a group of women doing relatively well statistically in spite of one factor (restrictions on abortion) working against them. Other factors can overwhelm that factor in terms of the overall statistical outcome.
For a large proportion of Irish women, abortion is effectively legal. All it takes is the price of a trip to England. For those individual women without that option, however, Irish laws can impose a large cost. That cost is real, notwithstanding that women appear to be doing reasonably well in terms of aggregate statistics.
30
''There’s a cliche that the politics of Ireland have a way of lagging 30 or so years behind the Western times.''
Correction : the cliche is that it is religious leaders lag behind.
As soon as all governments around the world ( especially me home Isle ) are ''divorced'' from religious extremism, then we all can get on with living in modern times, with everyone having equal rights that are respected.
Especially those of a woman to have complete dominion over her own body and what cells grow there in.
119
You seemed to have missed both the fact that many women in Ireland opt for morning after and other self administered abortion options and that an unknown number get abortions in the UK without registering their names.
72
You're leaving out a very important part of the Irish experience regarding conservatism and the Church. The Irish have been grappling with repeated shocking revelations regarding the systematic abuse of children and young people in Church facilities like the Magdalen laundries for "promiscuous" girls and workhouses for children whose parents couldn't afford to keep them. If you watch Irish murder mysteries or crime shows, you'll see that they all get around to that newly-recovered past sooner or later.
This vote on abortion is going to be informed and influenced by that national experience of discovering just how badly the religious conservatives botched things up in the past when it came to taking care of the most vulnerable.
This is one of the big reasons why there is such a wave of progressivism in Ireland right now. They're leaving their religious conservative past behind because of all the scandal and horror when the truth about the laundries and workhouses finally came out.
117
Ireland is in the midst of a Renaissance, while America slides back to The Dark Ages, and there is precious little one can do about this, where men continue to rule supreme and white supremacists take the lead.
2
''There’s a cliche that the politics of Ireland have a way of lagging 30 or so years behind the Western times.''
Correction : the cliche is that it is religious leaders lag behind.
As soon as all governments around the world ( especially me home Isle ) are ''divorced'' from religious extremism, then we all can get on with living in modern times, with everyone having equal rights that are respected.
Especially those of a woman to have complete dominion over her own body and what cells grow there in.
13
There's some delicious irony here, having a conservative offer a European society as a role model for the U.S. Mr. Douthat, why don't you offer some other aspects of European society for us to adopt? How about:
1. Universal Health Care
2. Paid Family Leave
3. Progressive Tax Systems
4. More income Equality
How about it?
300
In my local parish the congregation is largely middle-class people of child bearing age. There are no large families with three children the norm. When I was a child the parish church I attended had a number of families with ten or more children and five children was the usual number. Read the statistics: US birthrate is low now. Why is that?
9
Back in those days the price of providing a Catholic Education to a large family was affordable. They were also mostly single income families where mom stayed home. Move forward 50 years and sadly, the economics no longer work. Gone also are the days when an individual could pay their way through college with a part time job. One need only look at the closing of parishes and catholic schools across this country to see how dire the situation has become for some. I believe sadly the Church has abandoned its obligations to many. Instead of promoting and financially supporting the value of a Catholic education, they have let their accounting ledger do the talking.
18
I actually think Ross is open to some of those policies as well. He's arguing the point that the case of Ireland suggests that genuinely and construtively family-friendly government policies can co-exist with a more conservative moral philosophy. I don't agree with his religiously-grounded moral outlook, but appreciative his policy eclecticism. We'd all be better off if the political spectrum encompassed more conservatives of Ross's ilk...
If Ireland's experience with women and abortion is to have any meaning for the rest of the world, then legalizing abortion has to be the first step. When the state usurps the right of people to make their own intimate decisions, it usurps their right to the moral debate itself. Prohibition doesn't take the moral issues of abortion seriously; it turns them into formulae like "rape & incest," and "life of the mother." Formulae that are inevitably reductive & distorting when applied to real life situations. Prohibition is moralism, not morality. It's a repression of the complexity of the moral questions, not responsibility to them. It's an experiment solely in power, from which there can be nothing to learn.
25
A pregnant woman who wishes to give birth is said to be bearing a child. A pregnant woman who does not wish to give birth is said to be carrying a fetus. If the first woman changes her mind, her unborn child becomes a fetus. An unborn child has legal rights; any rights a "fetus" may have depend on the wishes of the mother. When a pregnancy results from incest or rape and abortion is legal, any rights that the child/fetus may have depend on the mother's wishes and the father's identity. Someone kicking a pregnant woman can be charged with homicide, even if the pregnancy is in the first trimester and is unwanted. None of this is logical. Restricting abortion to cases where the mother's life would be endangered by continuation of the pregnancy or where continuation would result only in premature birth and inevitable death, or in stillbirth, is also logical. A truly liberal position is that which recognizes and protects rights of those least able to defend themselves.
9
Wrong. Even women who are carrying a wanted pregnancy make a distinction between early and late pregnancy. We generally don't tell friends or family before the first trimester is over. We don't mourn a 9 week miscarriage the way we do a late term stillbirth. We understand the child develops gradually from something somewhat impersonal and contingent into a baby we feel kicking and bond with.
Roe v Wade makes very similar distinctions in how the states interest in fetal life increases with gestation.
But how would you, a man, understand this? How many pregnancies have you carried? Im on my third.
8
The case of Savita Halappanavar, a woman from India, living in Ireland, who was trying to have a baby, but then died along with her already-dead baby (fetus), is what's sparking change. That doctors who were cowed by anti-abortion laws would passively allow a woman to die because they feared retribution or prosecution, speaks to anyone who has every been pregnant or considered having a baby. Why is Savita dead, even when it was known that her baby had already died in utero? Fear and passivity. So much for pro-family policies.
109
This tragic case has always puzzled me - seems more like a medical malpractice incident than an exemplification of the pro- life Position. The doctors had the duty to save life- they reneged on that mission when they chose to let nature take its course and Ms. halappanaar died. She could have been saved if the proper intervention were chosen.The unborn could not be saved - he or she was too young. It seems that case is not illustrative of Ireland's overall superb medical care.courts and society should be guided by the finest legal and medical opinion- referenda are less reliable than expert opinion in matters so controversial and troubling.
4
Thank you for bringing this up. This case is why I don't support any restrictions on abortion. I don't want my doctors thinking about anything but delivering the best care should the worst happen. It's why I refused to go to any countries or even states in the US that I think are hostile to abortion when I was pregnant.
6
Savita could have been me 35 years ago. Pregnant on the first try after 12 years of waiting till we could afford a family. At 10 weeks I began spotting, then hemorrhaging. An ultrasound showed that despite the bleeding I had still incompletely expelled "products of conception:" a blighted ovum that could not develop into a true embryo (couldn't even ascertain a gender), much less a fetus. I was rushed into emergency surgery for a D&C. Had I been forced to "let Nature take its course," I would likely have died of sepsis--or at best been rendered permanently infertile.
The difference? I live in Illinois, not Ireland. And after a year of trying, I gave birth the following year to a son who is now a wonderful young man.
7
The abortion debate is nearly impossible to solve, because both sides are right. A woman has a right to choose, and a fetus should be protected. Faced with this dilemna, most countries choose the correct path of compromise and regulation. One other argument in the debate cannot be defended. That is the argument that all forms of contraception are wrong. That is the position of the Catholic Church and a good number of non-Catholic pro-lifers. A drive by the Catholic Church to distribute contraceptives world-wide, would do more to reduce the number of abortions than any legislation.
60
That will never happen. The Catholic Church will never change its position on “artificial contrception”.
What is necessary is for people to separate church and state and start ignoring the nonsense of religion in general.
2
Father Douthat, I'm certain the Irish will vote to free women from the wretched religious shackles that have disrespected women for eternity and will intelligently turn the page toward modernity.
The more disturbing exception is the rural, religious, Republican, self-righteous exception that champions sexual ignorance and stupidity for a living to society's great detriment.
The states with the highest rates of live births among females age 15-19:
Mississippi
New Mexico
Arkansas
Texas
Oklahoma
Louisiana
Kentucky
West Virginia
Alabama
Tennessee
Conservative politics around sex education and contraception lead to high rates of teen pregnancy and birth, followed inevitably by Grand Old Poverty.
Think Progress reports "While teens across the country have largely been having less sex and using more contraception, teens in rural areas have actually been having more sex and using birth control less frequently. It’s not clear why that’s the case, but it could partly be because teens in rural areas still lack access to a range of comprehensive contraceptive services. There just aren’t as many sexual health resources in rural counties, where teens may have to travel farther to the nearest women’s health clinic. And deeply rooted attitudes about sex — including school districts that continue to cling to abstinence-only health curricula that don’t give teens enough information about methods to prevent pregnancy — plays a role."
Religion seems to love screwing up women's lives.
365
May the Ancient Gods bless you, Socrates, while listening to the joyous pipes of Pan this early May.
3
But Eve!!
2
"At the same time, it would put an end to an all-but-unique experiment in Western public policy: an attempt to combine explicitly pro-life laws and generally pro-family policy making with a liberalized modern economy and the encouragement of female independence and advancement."
Ross, I urge you to read Maureen Dowd today--her take on the "encouragement of female independence and advancement" seems to end with the Ireland's infamous 8th Amendment.
What about Savita? What about the poor woman impregnated by Maureen's uncle, who was banished to the United States where she committed suicide a year after putting her baby up for adoption, while uncle made out like a bandit with real estate investment?
Why is it that the most fervent pro-lifers always seem to be men?
Irish women have enough problems
without you weighing in from your conservative perch 3000 miles away on a decision that can't be compared to what we experience here in our supposedly "theocracy-free" republic.
68
If it is true that strict anti-abortion laws work, would strict anti-gun laws work against gun-related violence?
Or is it just selective conservative arguing.
109
Funny you should ask. Here's Douthat on that very point: "I am not a gun owner but I can imagine many situations and political dispensations in which a morally responsible citizen should own a weapon; I have encountered many communities where “gun culture” seems healthy and responsible rather than a bloodthirsty cult. And the claim, often urged on anti-abortion writers like myself, that guns and abortion should both be opposed on “life” grounds seems like a category error, since every abortion kills but guns sit harmless in millions of households and many deter violence or turn back evil men."
16
Ross should read about the Kevin Cooper case recently outlined by Nicholas Kristof. You might think whatever you want about the guilt of Cooper but what stuck out for me was that the victim family had a loaded pistol in a nightstand and a loaded rifle in a closet in the bedroom. Those guns stayed idle and the couple and their children were murdered. There is NO valid case for private gun ownership in urban households just as there is NO valid case for opposition to contraception.
1
Dear Ross,
Here's an analogy you may appreciate. Your car is a wonderful piece of engineering. The engineers who designed it created a quantity and quality of tolerances that make driving it such a great experience. A car with broader tolerances would not be half as good because nothing would fit as well. It's the same with human nature. Toleration provides for maximum efficiency of human resources and the lack of toleration creates holocausts. The tolerances of the mind allow for different points of view and should not seek to create uniformity by either edict or legislation or by elimination of choice. We ought to tolerate those that choose to think otherwise and not impose a particular viewpoint on half the population because that would be the height of intolerance.
16
All of the family supports that you describe and the attendant spending required can certainly continue to exist without also forcing women who wish to terminate their pregnancy to carry on to term.
Whatever the Irish experiment is, as you describe it, does not require women to live in mortal fear of an unintended pregnancy.
Does it?
50
I don't think the achievement of the Irish women are due to restriction of abortion. Clearly, abortion was banned for long time, but position of women in Irish women is only recently improved. So, clearly it is not due to the restriction but rather due to the women's fight against these restrictions. And the fight for control over their body is a part of this fight for improvement of women's lives.
44
"Ireland seems to have achieved or maintained some notable pro-life and pro-family goals without compromising women’s health.."
No compromise to women's health? Tell that to Savita Halappanavar, who died from sepsis due to a miscarriage. Or Michelle Harte, who died of cancer after she was refused cancer treatment because she was pregnant, and also refused an abortion. Or Sheila Hodgers, same situation. Or the anonymous woman who wrote about having to get on a flight to England seven weeks after her waters broke too early and almost died of sepsis. And these are just some of the women who have died. There are thousands of Irish women who have suffered in silence both physically and mentally because they lived in a country that was happy to turn a blind eye as long as their abortions happened in England, not precious Ireland.
Your ignorance on this issue is breathtakingly offensive, Mr Douthat. Keep your nose out of Ireland's business, please, it has absolutely nothing to do with you. This is a once in a generation chance for Ireland to finally say that we trust and value our women. I only wish I could be home to cast my vote.
534
You speak about my country as if it is yours but it is not. This isn't a man vs woman issue (men are more likely to vote to liberalise abortion than women: https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-lay-scientist/2014/apr/30/why-ar.... Heck my mom is the only one I know who will vote against this.
I know my country and dont see it from across the ocean as you do and yes we need to get the 8th repealed but you ignore so much! Catholicism is embedded into us and that became an identity because for so long we were a repressed nation. Our "right-wing" is currently in power and they called this referendum and they made our leader our first gay and half-Indian prime minister we've had. What will happen if this is legalised? The government will bring in abortion, they wont try so hard to fight it like conservatives over there, they wont reduce it, they will just accept it. (im liberal but not everything over there is like here)
Matters of identity, catholic control, oppressed history, etc come into it. If you are irish you've clearly lost touch outside the papers.
4
Well said Sarah.
16
Ross is the wiser.
Any Progressive knows you blast away at the exceptional case and make it a cause celebre.
The reactionary Progressive rolls the cameras. That wins the argument in the Facebook age.
Ross has data on his side.
The presence of a single case or several does not repudiate all logic.
Science tells us so.
One of the reasons Ireland's abortion numbers have been so low was the practice of shipping unmarried mothers & unmarried pregnant girls off to what were slave-labor camps, where the caretaker nuns didn't worry about whether either the girls or their infants survived: thus the discovery last year of all those mass graves.
Ross Douthat, in his earnest column carefully omits this history, hardly a surprise since the only "evidence" he considers is "evidence" that supports his anti-abortion views.
It helps to never forget that an anti-abortion zealot will seize any excuse to buttress his case--if there was research indicating that the grass in Ireland was greener than in a a country permitting abortion, Douthat would happily point to that, and every anti-abortion zealot near a keyboard would instantly post a comment seconding his ditsy reasoning.
The important thing to know about anti-abortion zealots is they believe abortion is murder. That is the inference in Douthat's piece, and that is the inference in every anti-abortion piece ever written.
93
camorrista: I just called Ross on that tragic Irish history too. One has to remember that past of combined Church/state child abuse and neglect when looking at Irish politics and feminism today. It's caused a deep enough pain for the country that their crime and detective shows keep returning to those awful places and events in case after case.
30
Why are men even allowed to write, comment or vote on this issue? Can I pontificate and legislate on vasectomies? Can I decide who gets to be a eunuch? Because as a woman I’ve got some ideas on the subject.
5
Ah yes, the good old days in Ireland of the Magdalene laundries for the "fallen women" who had no choice but to give birth, and were sent there to the laundries to do penance and provide slave labor. The good old days of the physical, sexual, or emotional abuse of unwanted children who ended up in state-admisered and church-run residential schools (which existed into the 1990's). Yes let's reminisce about the good old days of women dying in childbirth when hospitals refused to perform an abortion to save the woman's life, one glaring recent case comes to mind.
Religion has played a huge role in Ireland in women not having access to abortions. Imagine Mr. Douthat, not being able to have a procedure to save your life because of someone else's religious beliefs. Imagine being raped and forced to have your assailant's child because of someone else's religious beliefs. Imagine being a child who is the victim of incest and being forced to give birth, when your body is not fully developed because of someone else's religious beliefs. Imagine being told the fetus you are carrying has unimaginable brain damage, and will only have a life of pain, and not being able to terminate that pregnancy because of someone else's religious beliefs.
Having access to safe, legal abortions should always be an option for women. I hope the women of Ireland will soon be given the right to determine what is best for their own health needs.
298
I have an extended family member who is in her 80s and who became pregnant in rural Ireland more than 60 years ago. She went to a mother/ baby clinic in a city - sorry I cannot recall if it was Dublin or not - and gave her baby daughter up for adoption. Years later, after my friend emigrated to America, married, and raised a large and successful Irish brood, she was reunited with her lost daughter. Now they are extremely close. The friend Is reluctant to talk much about it, but when the Magdalene Sisters film was released, I heard her say that those stories were common in rural Ireland, sadly, but her own experience was very different. The sisters were kind and compassionate - not the vicious monsters we have heard so much about. Not every story had a sad ending - just for the record.
7
"Anti-abortion" does not conflate with "pro life". Never has, never will. When/if anti-abortionists become as concerned with "life" post birth as with "life" pre birth, then, perhaps, we can talk responsibly and sensibly.
81
So anti-abortionists think you should be allowed to kill people after they are born? That is shocking. Why is this not better known?
No matter how you feel about the life of a child post birth the answer isn't to kill the baby. Such insane thinking. I guess to some people it's better to kill a child than for them to live in a foster home. Why stop with babies? Let's kill the very old instead of having them live a horrible existence in a nursing home.
Ireland has much to be proud of. From the political stability they achieved, to their economic advancement, to their ethnic pluralism, to a beauty of people and place which wins over admirers the world over, to a remarkable shift in opportunities for women.
None of which precludes the benefits of abortion being legalized.
No woman, anywhere, should face being saddled with an unwanted pregnancy, having to secure the means to go abroad for a medical procedure, or risking an unsafe, illegal abortion.
The best outcome would be for easy access to contraception and thorough sex ed to reduce the need for abortion.
But problematic pregnancy will never disappear, and every woman, everywhere, deserves the dignity and protection of safe, legal abortion.
51
Ireland advanced when the people elected Mary Robinson president: she worked to end the civil conflict;she limited the power of the church hierarchy; she emphasized education and social justice; she welcomed membership in the EU; she distanced Ireland from dependency on England. See what happens when women gain political power? Would we could be as intelligent as the people of Ireland.
1
If anything, the Irish experiments shows that women want to have control over their body, and it is important for them the same as other aspects of progress and equality.
25
Douthat argues that the Irish anti-abortion amendment makes for a better society, This ignores the fact that the law is based upon an iron-age mythology dominated by costumed, celibate old men who will never know children or family, giving them control over the bodies of millions of women, many of whom do not belong to their cult. No society with such a grotesque imposition on individual freedom is healthy.
63
Even in name of solidarity of humanity, we do not force people to donate blood or organs. It is only fair for woman to have the right to decide if she wants to rent her body to fetus. At the end of the day, it is her body. By all means, help the pregnant women and mother's and children and anybody who needs your help, but please, don't take their right to control their own bodies.
29
Religion and politics do not mix will. Just look at the Middle East. If the church deems abortion a sin, they have a right to do so. The church should not have a say in whether it is a crime.
Police and courts have more important tasks than enforcing morality laws.
31
All of the criminal law is morality law. Should we abolish criminal law?
How "pro-life" is a country where the rich can go on a vacay to address any feminine procedure they want without any consequences a poorer family would feel? Pro-Rich is more like it. Like Conservatives in the US.
48
For too long liberals and progressives have allowed conservatives to label policy positions on both sides: “Pro-Life” is just a slick euphemism for “Anti-Choice.” Mr. Douthat won’t admit it, but the real objective of the Anti-Choice movement is to control women. As Mr. Douthat well knows, this is also a longstanding goal of the Catholic Church, which continues to exert a pernicious influence in Ireland and elsewhere.
29
Ireland has also had many preventable maternal deaths because of the 8th amendment, which I hope will be repealed on Friday. Beyond that there is the heartbreak of the way in which fatal foetal abnormality has been addressed, with women either carrying even stillbirths to term or traveling at great expense and heartache to Liverpool. The slogan for those who want to keep these restrictive policies is "love them both," although it is precisely these groups who have been against every child-friendly policy in the history of the Republic as well as those focused on maternal health.
45
Kate, same in the U.S. The same people here (Evangelicals and Conservatives) who claim to be pro-life are really just pro-birth. Once the child is actually born, they couldn't care less about it or the mother, as they vote continuously to strip away social programs and healthcare insurance for both the child and mother. They are adamantly opposed to the state having any involvement in anyone's personal life except, of course, what a woman can or cannot do with her reproductive organs. Their mantra is for government to stay "small"--ideally small enough to fit inside a uterus. They are an odious lot, indeed.
3
“Ireland has also had many preventable maternal deaths because of the 8th amendment”
The first sentance in this post is a lie. There have been no deaths due to the 8th. None. Zero. It’s been in place for nearly 35 years, the pro abortionists say so many deaths, yet they cannot come up with any in 35 years.
The lies from people who wish to bring death upon 20-25% of our children makes it all the more frightening.
Mr Douthat hopes to uncouple abortion laws from women's social and financial well being. In doing so, he deliberately misses the point. While the average Irish woman may be doing well despite the prohibition on abortion, it's the exception that tests the rule. His argument would give me no solace if I were the doomed woman who died an agonizing death because Ireland's laws prohibited the abortion of her non-viable fetus. Individual rights are just that - rights for every individual. Even in the case of a "normal" but unwanted pregnancy, women will continue to seek abortions no matter HOW much financial assistance the state may provide. Financial means are necessary, but hardly sufficient, to raising children. Mr. Douthat may discover this when he has children of his own, assuming he takes and active hand in their rearing and doesn't farm it out to his wife and / or nannies.
21
It's surprising that Mr. Douthat nowhere mentions the impact of the sexual assaults by Catholic clergy (including cover-ups by bishops) as shaping the current climate that will help determine the outcome on abortion. The scope and shock of those continuing revelations has shattered Ireland's once solid trust in the church and its doctrine more profoundly in a short time than in any other Western country. It would be logical to assume that this calamity has strengthened women's desire to choose for themselves and has cast a cloud of uncertainty around child bearing. Catholicism and its place in society is a primary concern elsewhere for Mr. Douthat so it's strange that its impact in this struggle isn't noted.
38
Here's hoping a "yes" on repealing this draconian and discriminatory amendment is the final nail in the coffin for the Catholic Church in Ireland, and that the amazing and resilient people of that island finally shake off entirely the yoke of such a cruel and oppressive tyrant. The farther away they have gotten, the better the economy and quality of life in Ireland has become. I don't think it's coincidental.
2
A truly 'pro-family' policy would acknowledge that women of childbearing age have the same right to bodily autonomy as other family members and should not be compelled by the state to carry and bear children against their will.
120
Our bodily autonomy is limited by respect for the rights of others and for the security of all.
Our right to autonomy cannot be lawfully separated from the natural context of responsibilities to other more vulnerable human beings in our power and under our care.
In human solidarity, the relationship between duties and rights remains valid for all human beings, including the distressed pregnant woman with specific problems.
Together we work her problems—we don’t kill her child. .
Our communities have a duty to provide these mothers and their children with ongoing care in a safe environment. These distressed mothers' personal needs and anxieties can and should be addressed by non-violent means.
5
Happy and Proud, stated as you have, the position sounds as though women of childbearing age do not have the alternate option, i.e., not conceiving children against their will. Women do have a choice.
1
@Rita J: Help "the distressed pregnant woman with specific problems" all you want. Just don't try to force her to give birth against her will.
1
This article's discussion of the support of women bring up the "blood from a stone" issue of forcing men to support their babies.
Many can't. A guy earning almost nothing cannot be made to pay a meaningful portion of the cost of a baby, child, and student for twenty years. He doesn't have it, and likely never will.
Pro-life must face up to this. Are we to support all the babies we force on women? If not, then we have a serious moral problem as to both that woman and later to the deprived child we forced on her.
Very few pro-life advocates want to do this. They are in that much like the unwed fathers they bemoan, wanting what they want without responsibility. They won't pay for what they want, they just want it.
The resulting cruelty is not just similar to those irresponsible fathers, it is the exact same thing as they people they so despise.
I want just the opposite as to both positions. I think that can better be advanced by asserting both liberal measures together -- both choice, and caring for children.
76
Mark Thomason,
"Are we to support all the babies we force on women?"
Your rationale makes it sound as though babies are conceived through no action by women. Or men. If such were the case, no one is responsible. If no one is responsible, abortion makes sense, since the whole matter is without morality of any kind.
3
You are missing the point (deliberately?).
Either we hold both men and women responsible or we don’t.
By not holding men responsible but forcing the women to give birth, regardless of circumstances, we ARE forcing these babies on women.
There are also some pregnancies where a woman is not a willing participant, but in your world, women should be forced to give birth and men can walk away.
We could force men to gove a dna sample when they register for the draft and force them to support any child produced but men would cry foul, my privacy, etc. (rightfully so)
Seems that many don’t have the same issues with forcing it on women.
In addition, women can die from a pregnancy, yet we tell them that the risk of death is just part of having sex, not a risk we would ever expect men to take.
3
@Dlud: So unwanted children are a deserved punishment for sex?
I have to wonder whether there is degree of ecological error in Mr. Douthat's reasoning on the quality of life of women in Ireland. He cites a number of statistics to support the argument that it does seem possible to have a "win-win" policy for women's rights and opportunities. However, these are largely statistics about groups of women. They cannot and should not be applied to address questions of the quality of life of individual Irish women, some of whom may feel just as trapped by the patriarchy as ever.
53
Unwanted pregnancies can trap women in relationships they might otherwise leave, cause them to drop out of school, and prevent them from enjoying career advancement. Yes it's wonderful that Ireland actually supports families with expanded social programs that we won't consider here in the US but it doesn't detract from the fact that the government not the woman is making very intimate decisions without allowing the woman any say in the matter. The government is treating women as second class citizens with no say over their own bodies.
Men have enjoyed patriarchy for so long they don't understand what it's like not to have any say in your own life. If you don't believe in abortions don't have one but stop denying women the right to control what happens to their own body.
Ireland may surprise itself and discover that with their strong support system for families that even once abortion is legal they might not have as many as other countries. Wouldn't that be a good example for US conservatives who don't support abortion or programs that make it easier to support a family.
133
“Men have enjoyed patriarchy for so long they don't understand what it's like not to have any say in your own life.”
I was born in mid-century America and raised working class.
During the Vietnam War I was subject to the draft. Fortunately I wasn’t drafted, but the possibility I might be cast a pall during high school; society reserved the right to exercise a lot of say over my life in ways that might cause me to harm or be harmed for reasons that seemed inadequate.
I was large and looked a little working class rough. I was taken at age 16 with other large rough looking guys to tour the Texas prison for first offenders. Though never arrested, I was rousted on average about once a year for nine years until age and gaining weight brought that to an end. Seemed to me like society asserting a say over my life.
By the 80s I thought it established that women also would have a career and men would share domestic duties. Accordingly, women shouldn’t have the sway over their husbands’ career choices they had when women’s career choices were artificially diminished. I think it took some women of my generation awhile to realize that.
The quoted claim is false as a factual matter.
3
Oh come on. Being raised in the working class is utterly different than being legally deprived of a right to determine whether your body gestates and bears a child.
You *toured* a jail and *could have been* drafted and that's your complaint that you feel like you didn't have full control over your own life!? HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA. Dude, wake up- we are talking about the ways in which MEN decided to take away women's LEGAL RIGHTS simply because they were women. They actually did it- they didn't simply "reserve the right to."
Marital rape wasn't entirely legally outlawed in this country in every state until 1989. 1989!!! It was legal to rape your wife until 1989 in certain states.
Women couldn't get credit cards or own property without their husbands' permission when you were a boy (or a young adult).
They were forced to gestate any baby they became pregnant with until 1973.
Tell me, when you were born in midcentury America, how many women were pursuing higher education?
Wake up.
2
Responding to C’s Daughter, I wouldn’t dream of laughing at or low-rating the burdens women face. You might consider whether, from a moral or political perspective, it’s good to laugh at or low-rate the burdens men face.
If the abortion debates become unpackaged, so that we consider contraception, infant and maternal mortality, serious birth defects, the life or health of the mother, and elective abortion separately, I’ll be weighing in on what most would consider a pro family, pro woman, liberal position in everything except elective abortion. As to elective abortion, I’m mainly concerned about how the debate has driven our politics too far to the right and how many on the left, rather than addressing the issue on its own merits, use the debate as an occasion to bash men.
As to the substance of the debate over elective abortion, I’m mainly content to sit back and let you debate that with other women. My guess is that those women who would oppose your position would be much more fierce about it than I would be.
Sure and why not bring slavery back as well. It fed its population, was non-inflationary, and provided cheap labor.
247
Every unborn child should be accorded a belonging--a recognition of being a family member and not be mistreated as a chattel of the child's 'owner' --her/his mother.
No mother has absolute ownership rights over the child being protected and nurtured in her womb.
In effect, abortionists reduce the child before birth to an object, a 'choice', a thing of less-than-human status, suspended in a slave-like state between life and death, pending an arbitrary decision by the 'owner' to abort or to keep the child.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly prohibits slavery "in all its forms". It is difficult to construe the condition or status of the child at risk of abortion as anything but a form of slavery, in which the concepts of 'ownership' and 'absolute power' over a dependant are used to violate human dignity and rights.
To accord ourselves as mothers the 'right' to abort our children is to allow us the most pernicious of all the powers attaching to the alleged rights of ownership and domination—powers of life and death.
The pseudo-right to abortion stands in direct contradiction to the long, hard-won tradition of human rights and freedoms, a tradition forbidding that any one human being should have ownership and disposal rights over any other human being, no matter how small or dependent or troublesome or unwanted.
5
slaves did not reside within the slaveowners body. If the fetus lived outside a woman's body your analogy might have merit (though at no point do women take a profit from the fetus so not really) but they don't. It is precisely because the fetus is laying claim upon the woman's body, enslaving it for the interests of the fetus and against those of the women, that women have the right to negate said use.
4
" It is difficult to construe the condition or status of the child at risk of abortion as anything but a form of slavery,"
This shows a remarkable misunderstanding of slavery.
6
Ross: to be fair, you could have at least mentioned that the spur to consider this change in law was not lefty activism, but rather a pro-(women's) life reaction to the tragic death of a beloved young woman:
"Her miscarriage went on for days, but saying they were bound by Irish abortion law, hospital staff would not provide any medical aid to speed up the end of her pregnancy.
A week after she was admitted to the hospital she was dead. She was 31 years old."
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/episode-390-how-conflict-helps-netanyahu-ha...
449
Savita died from sepsis, there were 13 counts of medical negligence, 9 doctors were disciplined.
Her death was not due to the 8th amendment.
5
Her sepsis was caused by the foetus not being removed, leaving her wide open for infections like sepsis. Saying that the 8th amendment didn't cause it is like saying that a person died from crush injuries but forgetting to mention that these crush injuries were as a result of a car crash.
2
Michael: Sepsis because her uterus contained a dead fetus that led to a systemic infection. A women's body generally is able to complete a miscarriage naturally, but to be safe, gynecologists in countries that do not prohibit such procedures will perform a D&C to clear the uterus. In Savita's case, the hospital refused to provide adequate medical care precisely because of the Catholic prohibition on anything that could be construed as resembling abortion, even though there was no live fetus left to abort. (Mrs. Rick Santorum had a similar experience, though luckily for her, in the U.S. where the hospital induced preterm labor. Sen. Santorum, blinded by his ideology, would deny that is what happened.)
2
It’s a shame that male political pundits can’t get pregnant. They might see those restrictive abortion laws in a different light if they could. They might also pay more heed to the desperation of women who have a medical need for an abortion, and think about the cases in which women have died or suffered permanent damage from those euphemistically-named restrictive abortion laws.
The religious conservative who reads his Bible knows that women aren’t exactly high in the pecking order. Men are far bigger peckers. The Invisible Man in the Sky has been pretty clear about that, so let’s not pretend that women have much say in the matter.
That’s how our conservative religious pundit can muse about the “achievement” of women being able to die in childbirth, or being forced to carry a rapist’s fetus to term, or requiring a woman who fears for her life or health to suck it up for the Lord and have the baby.
Mitch McConnell expressed it best for all conservative Republicans (in a somewhat different context, to Elizabeth Warren). Your government knows best about what goes on inside your abdomen. So sit down and shut up.
333
These people just do not get that their intrusions into other people's management of their own bodies is a form of rape.
6
I don’t doubt that extreme pro-life laws, in Ireland as elsewhere, result in fewer divorces and higher birthrates. But they also result in more miserable marriages, a higher incidence of live birth of dreadful genetic deformities and other life-threatening and –diminishing conditions and, oh yeah, the enslavement of women to atavistic biological constraints that relegate their lives to a role that they may not wish to play; and certainly strongly limit their most productive career-building years, rather than leaving them freer to become masters of the universe or Ann Coulter. If the statistic that Ross cites about excellent representation within management levels of women in Ireland is accurate, then you can bet that it’s among those women who can afford to jump to England for a quick abortion, or to engage underground medical supervision of abortifacient use.
The arc of history, in the West anyway and increasingly in the Middle East and Asia, as well, has been greater individual freedom, greater self-determination. However, we still have people who believe that the practice of self-determination should be limited to men. Because, apparently, God said so. Obviously, we’re not as socially evolved as we thought we were.
But it can’t be denied that the Irish are closely split on this issue, and you can’t merely disappear the religious. They should review Roe v. Wade, because compromise that acknowledges and protects the interests of ALL parties isn’t a bad way to go.
98
@Richard Luettgen: Extreme anti-abortion laws don't result in fewer divorces and higher birthrates in Ireland. This is a country dominated by a religion--Catholicism--which opposes both divorce and contraception. Ross grossly oversimplifies in making his anti-abortion argument today; he also grossly misunderstands Irish culture. He needs to read Maureen Dowd's contemporaneous column. She gives a much more accurate, nuanced portrayal of the situation in Ireland than he does.
25
Carson:
When I disagree with a columnist, I usually seek to refute his arguments assuming his facts are right. He makes assertions, possessing the resources he does, you make counter-assertions as a civilian, like me. And I have no intention of getting in the middle.
I believe I countered his arguments effectively while accepting his "facts". In the end, that's a lot more effective than arguing that his facts are wrong, in part because to do that would require a treatise, not 1500 characters (including spaces).
@Richard Luettgen: First of all, why do you assume Douthat's "facts" are right? He's an anti-abortion propagandist with a long history of selecting and distorting "facts" to support his religious arguments. He also commits a glaring offense in this column: equating correlation with causation. He incorrectly assumes causation where it doesn't exist and where other existing factors provide a more logical explanation.
I presume Ross read (or will read) Maureen Dowd's column on the same issue.
Although a well-worn cliché, I have little doubt that if Mr. Douthat could get pregnant, and was the victim of rape or incest, our most pious pontificator on the womb would run, not walk, to the nearest available abortion clinic.
403
There's a great bit of dialogue from The West Wing:
Sam: I flat-out guarantee you that if men were biologically responsible for procreation, there'd be paid family leave in every Fortune 500.
Ainsley: Sam, if men were biologically responsible for procreation, they'd fall down and die at the first sonogram.
11
I believe Irish law allows for abortion in the case of rape or incest.
To quote a relative of mine: If men could get pregnant, there'd be an abortion clinic on every corner.
7
There is no mention of some of the other side effects of the close ties between the Irish Republic and the Catholic church over the last century in addition to highly restrictive abortion laws. Virtual slave labor in church run work houses, sex abuse scandals maybe even worse than in other countries. And the abortion policy which Douhat praises have also lead to some tragedies and scandals. Hardly the poster for another path that Douhat claims. The death of Savita Halappanavar being exhibit A. I don't know if this vote is primarily about liberalized views on abortion or a more general vote against the pernicious effect that the church's power has had on Ireland. But either one is a step in the right direction for the 21st century.
159
I am unfamiliar with Ireland's Eight Amendment, but I am familiar with the Eleventh Commandment: "Thou shalt not compel."
Let Irish women decide for themselves; attempt moral persuasion where it is appropriate; but do not compel these most personal of decisions through the heavy hand of the state.
173
Well said, Ed Connor. This article speaks to perceived societal benefits but utterly ignores the woman's right to choose.
39
It is more complex than that glib phrase suggests. If Ireland permits abortion - even with carefully detailed guidelines limiting it to certain circumstances - it seems unlikely that a sizable portion of the country will want to support that decision financially. Repealing the 8th may lead go greater social and ideological conflict than ever before.
There are ten commandments, “Thou shalt not kill” featuring as one of them.