From: eeb1@ellis.uchicago.edu (e elizabeth bartley)
Subject: Re: A crack in the iron curtain?
Keywords: From: decay@
Reply-To: eeb1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 21:36:17 GMT

In article <Bt39C7.D54.1@cs.cmu.edu> garvin+@cs.cmu.edu (Susan Garvin) writes:
>In article <1992Aug16.154953.1952@midway.uchicago.edu>
>eeb1@midway.uchicago.edu writes:

>#Keegan apparently wants to resume our flamewar over whether or not I'm
>#a pro-choicer....

>I have no quarrel with you calling yourself anything that you want.

>I do have a problem with you defining "sides" and assuming that
>many people who support legal abortion share your beliefs.

Huh?  Most people around here support the right to abortion for
reasons totally unrelated to the reasons I support the right to
abortion.

>#In article <1992Aug16.134958.28706@crd.ge.com>
>#james g keegan jr <keegan@crd.ge.com> writes:
>##eeb1@midway.uchicago.edu writes to chaneyhall:

>##i believe mr. kaufman opposes legislation to restrict
>##abortion.  you support such legislation.

>#Why don't you post the rest of the facts, Keegan?

>#I support legislation to restrict third-trimester abortions to cases
>#where the mother's life or health is in danger and very major fetal
>#deformities.

>That's certainly legislation to restrict abortion.  

Yes.  Note that I didn't accuse Keegan of having his facts wrong; I
just objected that he'd told that little of it.  However, it's
legislation that restricts a sufficiently small number of abortions
that I think it's deceitful to and that I support legislation to
restrict abortion while leaving it unclear whether I support
legislation to restrict all abortion, all abortion except the IUD and
the Pill, all abortion after eight weeks, all abortions not in the
cases of rape and incest, or just what.  That's especially true in
talk.abortion, where I'm one of few (or the only?) person that
supports some restrictions on abortion but not restrictions that would
affect very many abortions.

>For many people, "pro-choice" means "I support a woman's
>right to terminate a pregnancy."  For you, it seems to
>mean "I support a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy
>as long as I approve of the circumstances."

This seems to be a frequent accusation leveled at me.  It is
sufficiently inaccurate as to be wrong.  I don't support a woman's
right to terminate a pregnancy as long as "I approve of the
circumstances."  I support a woman's right to terminate as long as the
fetus is not a person, or if she doesn't kill it in the process.
Dammit, I recognize that it's *wrong* to deny a woman an abortion, and
it takes more than my disapproval to be willing to do so.  I wouldn't
do so at all if I didn't think that allowing the death of the fetus
was the greater of the two evils.

>I doubt that many people would be willing to waste their
>time discussing this if you did not proudly proclaim
>your stance in your .sig.  Believe me, if Holtsinger or
>Chaney put "Pro-choice" in their .sigs, they would get
>a similar response.

I hope they'd get a louder resopnse, given that the legislation they
support would have a much broader impact.

>The broad definition of "pro-choice" is most commonly
>used to argue that >70% of Americans are "pro-choice."
>I wish that they would simply say that most Americans
>support abortions in some circumstances.
>If "pro-choice" includes people with opinions like yours,
>then it also includes people with opinions like George
>Bush.  

Here you're claiming that the word "pro-choice" can only mean two
things: either pro-completely-unrestricted-choice or pro-any-choice.
I don't think that's accurate.  I think the word "pro-choice" can -
and indeed should, in most contexts - mean "pro-most-choice" or
"pro-almost-all-choice".  Now, I admit to some variation in context
... I'd certainly think I'd misrepresented myself if in a discussion
about third-trimester abortions I called myself "pro-choice".  But in
a forum like talk.abortion, where the debate is largely between those
who would make almost no abortions legal and those that want no laws
whatsoever, I think the term "pro-choice" is fairly accurate when used
to describe me.

>##i don't believe mr. kaufman has ever posted that he
>##would punish women who have abortions. you have.

>#I would enforce said laws with penalties to parties that broke them.

>Again, that's certainly punishing women who had abortions
>under the laws that you desire.

It's another case of what he said being literally true but
sufficiently suggestive of positions I don't hold that I find it
deceitful.  In other words, the denotations are accurate, the
connotations most certainly are not.

>##i don't believe that mr. kaufman has ever suggested
>##that there should be fewer abortion rights for stupid
>##woman than for other women. you have.

>#I don't recall saying this.

>#I'd ask you to post the quote, which I'm sure you've saved.

>I didn't save the quote, either, but I do recall your statements
>about women who were too stupid to have an abortion within
>the time frame that you would dictate.  I really don't think
>that it's stupidity that you're punishing, I think it's
>poverty.  I fully understood from our discussion of waiting
>periods that you have no problem with punishing women for
>being poor.

I'm willing to support things that will the poor more than they will
the rich.  Pragmatically, how the hell can you *not* support some
things that will hurt the poor more than the rich?  I do not consider
thing "punishing" the poor and I most certainly don't "have no
problem" with it.

It is not a safe assumption that just because I support something I
"have no problem" with it.  I support many things that I consider the
lesser of two evils, but don't consider not wrong.  The Persian Gulf
war, for example....  I supported it.  Didn't mean I had "no problem"
killing the Iraqi soldiers; just meant that I thought it better than
letting Iraq keep Kuwait.

>#However....  Since I'm sure you're going to continue posting articles
>#like this, and I can't resist defending myself if I see them, and I
>#have *NO* intention of being caught in a permanent flamewar with you,
>#I'm creating a KILLfile just for you -- so I won't see it, anyway.

>#So, people, if Keegan attacks me and I don't respond, it's not because
>#he's right and I don't have a defense; it's because I didn't see the
>#attack in the first place.

>Forgive me if I don't believe you.  You responded to Keegan here,
>and you had no defense.  You agreed with him.

I agreed that what Mr. Keegan said was *literally* true.  I objected
to the implications that his vague description of my position created.

>Your multiple
>announcements of your new killfile would be more convincing if
>you hadn't accompanied them with an attempt to get in the
>last word

Oh, please.  Here you're just being silly.  Get the last word in a
discussion or flamewar with Mr. Keegan?  I'm smarter than that.  I
knew perfectly well he would respond to my posts (possibly he might
not if he sees this before he does, but I doubt it).  I'll live with
it.  I can tolerate believing that Mr. Keegan is posting negative
things about my position and imo misrepresenting it.  I *can't*
tolerate actually seeing him doing it without defending myself.

>(And, yes, I know, you'll killfile me now, too.

The thought literally hadn't crossed my mind until I read this.

>I'm sure that people who care will realize that they're not
>allowed to discuss your position.  I just doubt that many
>people will care about avoiding your killfile.)

I'm perfectly willing to *discuss* my positions.  I think such vague
descriptions of them are misleading, the last flamewar I had on this
generic subject with Keegan hurt considerably, and I'm not willing to
go through that with him again (especially what with Darcy around as
an example of someone who's been through a long-term flamewar with
Keegan).

>You're free to believe what you like and to label yourself
>what you like.  I wish that you were willing to admit
>that you are misleading people with your .sig, though.

>Susan

<sigh.>   But, Susan, if I thought I was misleading people with my .sig
I wouldn't *have* that .sig in the first place....  Especially not by
calling myself by a term I thought inaccurate.  I'm very fond of what
I consider the proper usage of the English language: I've gotten into
so many debates on exactly what words meant what, I have to grit my
teeth occasionally to stop from flaming spelling mistakes, and I just
like to see things written properly in general.

We have a disagreement on the meaning of the term "pro-choice".
You're asking me to admit an offense that never would have occurred if
I considered it an offense.  I explain my views fully when the subject
arises and I'm certainly not about to insist that *other* people call
me pro-choice (the last time this arose, people sent in suggested
name).  But I think the term is accurate in the context of
talk.abortion in general, and in that context I intend to continue
calling myself by that term.

When I entered talk.abortion, I had doubts about what I thought about
abortions in the *second* trimester (rather wanted restrictions but
couldn't figure out laws that eould enforce them and work well in
practice).  Back then, I called myself "middle-of-the-road".  When I
began to have doubts about whether or not I wanted restrictions in the
second trimester at all, I called myself "middle-of-the-road lending
to pro-choice".  But now that it's a matter of the third trimester
only and 100 abortions a year, I consider the term "pro-choice" to be
accurate and I use it accordingly.

--
Pro-Choice                 Anti-Roe                     - E. Elizabeth Bartley
            Abortions should be safe, legal, early, and rare.
Newsgroups: talk.abortion