I like the idea of a citizen's assembly. It's important to note that the Irish process took a year. I once participated in a process conducted under Quaker rules (lots of listening) that resolved a controversial issue about which beginning positions were entrenched and opposite. It took a full year. What emerged was a creative solution impossible to anticipate and eventually accepted by all. Too often activists, pros, and inspired fanatics dominate the discourse in this country and make reasonable, thoughtful action impossible. A random group of ordinary citizens would presumably include some on either extreme and most at various places in the middle. Common sense, listening, some imagination and good will would likely lead to a resolution, perhaps one already favored by the majority in most polls, perhaps something new. I personally support the 24-week fetal viability standard but feel it's much more important that women continue to have the right to choose abortion if they feel it necessary, even if the timeframe allowed is smaller. The catch I see is that before the random selection were even completed, the usual suspects on both sides would be shouting, "The fix is in!"
A good summary of the situation, professor -- thank you.
I don't support your suggestion of a citizen dialog to draft a national policy -- I don't believe that there's sufficient recognition of a middle ground on the subject for such an effort to succeed. This forum was founded to be a haven for just such middle ground discourse. But, I expect the reactions to your article to largely fall into two categories: a) it's not possible to compromise because [reasons], or b) yes, compromise is the answer ... and the only satisfactory compromise is [THIS RIGHT HERE!]. I hope I'm proven wrong -- that would be a nice sign.
In the absence of a nationwide consensus, though, our federal system is going to "solve the problem" -- to few peoples' total satisfaction. Roughly 1/3 of states will permit unrestricted abortions up till the moment of delivery. A smaller number will prohibit all abortions without exceptions for rape, incest, or health of the mother. The majority will end up somewhere in a continuum between those extremes. Everyone will have some choices available to them, but people who hold the strongest opinions on both sides will continue to be horrified. I think that the rest of us -- who I pray will be a majority -- will be relieved.
thanks for thoughtful comment. i hope that leaving the question to the states might lower the temperature, but I bet it won't. Indiana will prosecute its citizens for traveling to Illinois for an abortion; Illinois will announce a program to help women travel to the state to get an abortion. There will be lots of federalism fights.
I am perhaps naive in my belief that ordinary people can deliberate and come to some kind of common ground. There is lots of evidence for this on other issues; James Fishkin has been working on this for a long time and has a good book on it. The Irish case suggests that its possible even on abortion, but we're starting in a deep hole of polarization.
A one-size-fits-all policy acceptable to all 330M Americans would be wonderful. I’m skeptical, but hope that your “naïveté” might be rewarded with such a future success.
My own naïveté leads me to believe that a state-by-state regime could be better than you fear. I expect that the handful of 100% ban trigger laws that today await a Dobbs decision will not survive long after implementation - horror stories will surface, and those rules will quickly be relaxed to allow the usual exceptions. Unrestricted-abortion-on-demand-through-40-weeks statutes in other states may well survive longer - *unless* an opposing horror story emerges there. But over time, though, nasty partisan local politics will grind away at conflicting state statutes, moderating them and bringing them closer into alignment.
The system is supposed to work. If your citizen convention approach fails to produce a national consensus, then I'm optimistic that such “normal politics” can - *over time* - evolve a workable solution.
Thanks again for your thought-provoking article. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Democrats need it to be a "war on women" because Democrats are bankrupt of useful ideas for how to improve society and thus need these group wedge issues to fester and boil in order to inflame voters to support Democrats. And Democrats control the primary media channels. So we will never have any compromise... because compromise does not serve the political interests of Democrats.
And before I get this "yeah, but Republicans!" response... consider the "war on women" political wedge. So, any restrictions at all on abortion are evidence of a war on women. How can any compromise evolve from that?
Support individual constutional rights... that are just renumverated natural rights. Increase individual earned economic opportunity. Get more people working for a living. Get more people married. More having kids and raising a family. Be a productive member of your community and society. Stop stealing and lying. Enforce law and order. Reform the education system with more parent and student choice. Get CRT out of everything related to education. Control the border. Build the wall. Stop the flood of millions of poor and uneducated people that swell the ranks of needy and gridlock the social services that existing Americans need. Stop the flow of drugs over the border and through the ports. Reject all institutional forms of racism, including wokeism. Eliminate Title 230 protection for big tech. Reduce the trillion dollar a year trade deficit. Break up the largest corporations. Focus more on mainstreet and not Wall Street. Stop being involved in foreign conflict with our military. Stop sending money to other countries when our own country has problems to be solved. Drill baby drill... reduce the cost of energy instead of praying to the Gods of Global Warming and forcing inflation. Shrink the size of government to break up the corporatist cabal. Reduce regulations to help with small business starts and grown. Also eliminate environmental regulatory excess that prevents more housing being developed.
Except, it's not clear each one would improve society; some are not exclusive to Republics.; some aren't really GOP positions at all -- or are given lipservice at best. All of them require pesky details as to how they would get done. Have you not noticed that the GOP has no actual party platform anymore?
Mr. Lee, it seems that the tone of your comments contain just the type of dogmatism that the author suggests drowns out the majority views and thoughtful discourse. Here is what I wonder. What is so wrong with leaving the decision to the women who are pregnant up to a certain point (e.g. 22 weeks)? I’m not in their shoes, and neither are you. People in modern society can’t agree on when life starts. It is you certainly your right to disapprove of a decision of another, but not your right to make the decision for another.
I think 22 weeks is too extreme based on the development of the fetus, but personally I am in agreement that abortion should be safe, legal and rare up to maybe 15 weeks.
I think complete anti-abortion is disgusting and immoral. I think late term abortion is disgusting and immoral... probably evil.
You do know that there is this thing called the morning after pill?
Be careful what you wish for. Even with Germany's paternalistic oversights on abortion, the German abortion ratio is not *that* far off the USA's (129 abortions per 1000 live births vs 194 abortions per 1000 live births as of 2018-2019) . Germany is also an outlier among European major powers in having such oversights. However, public health insurance covers abortion due to rape and when the mother's life is seriously threatened. German state governments pay for abortions desired by low income women. So I'm not convinced your Germanic 'compromise' will satisfy either side.
The compromise was already achieved by Roe v. Wade. The 24 week viability standard is workable. Some may say that it isn't because we can remove the fetus earlier and earlier from the womb. However, the fact that the fetus can be relocated earlier to an artificially created environment does not accelerate its intrinsic development or capacity on its own to survive outside of the womb.
Viability seems a moving target. Brain development to the point of allowing consciousness seems a better dividing line. The brain doesn't even start to develop until week 3. The brain's neural network is developed enough to support consciousness until week 24-25 at the earliest. So it turns out Roe v. Wade was a good call after all.
Both viability and brain development are actually static as far as intrinsic fetal development is concerned. However, as Steven has just indicated, either way Roe v. Wade was a good guess. There is a book that addresses how relatively late the brain develops the capacity for consciousness: Abortion Rights and Fetal Personhood, by Edd Doerr, published by Centerline Press. It's available on Amazon.
Since viability date can be advanced 'extrinsically', it would be unrealistic to expect abortion opponents to confine their definition of viability to 'intrinsic'. By contrast, I know of no way of artificially speeding up brain development.
This is true of them, Steven. However, the accelerated rate at which a fetus can be relocated does not accelerate its actual pace of development. So, I have no problem arguing both viability and brain development. If we are speaking about a biological basis for rejecting bans on abortion at a given stage, they both work.
However, there are two issues here. One is advancing the best scientific arguments against banning abortion at various stages and making these arguments based on their technical strength, regardless of now they play out politically. The other is advancing the arguments most likely to lead to a compromise in a post Roe environment that will result in salvaging as much as we still can of the freedom that was enjoyed under Roe. Even if the brain development argument is the strongest, and incidentally this is the argument I used more than any other in my 20 years as the main speaker and debater for the California Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, anti choice advocates will still focus on heartbeat.
I see the only course of action as using all of the arguments in an attempt to give the public as much information as we can to persuade voters to contact their state legislators in opposition to the impending abortion restrictions.
What's important is that both the viability argument and the brain development argument, as Steven has pointed out, lead to the same timetable for arguing against any ban prior to 24 weeks.
Then, there is the whole other domain of arguing from the standpoint of how since this is uniquely a process unfolding inside a woman's body, her right of bodily autonomy should prevail.
I like the idea of a citizen's assembly. It's important to note that the Irish process took a year. I once participated in a process conducted under Quaker rules (lots of listening) that resolved a controversial issue about which beginning positions were entrenched and opposite. It took a full year. What emerged was a creative solution impossible to anticipate and eventually accepted by all. Too often activists, pros, and inspired fanatics dominate the discourse in this country and make reasonable, thoughtful action impossible. A random group of ordinary citizens would presumably include some on either extreme and most at various places in the middle. Common sense, listening, some imagination and good will would likely lead to a resolution, perhaps one already favored by the majority in most polls, perhaps something new. I personally support the 24-week fetal viability standard but feel it's much more important that women continue to have the right to choose abortion if they feel it necessary, even if the timeframe allowed is smaller. The catch I see is that before the random selection were even completed, the usual suspects on both sides would be shouting, "The fix is in!"
A good summary of the situation, professor -- thank you.
I don't support your suggestion of a citizen dialog to draft a national policy -- I don't believe that there's sufficient recognition of a middle ground on the subject for such an effort to succeed. This forum was founded to be a haven for just such middle ground discourse. But, I expect the reactions to your article to largely fall into two categories: a) it's not possible to compromise because [reasons], or b) yes, compromise is the answer ... and the only satisfactory compromise is [THIS RIGHT HERE!]. I hope I'm proven wrong -- that would be a nice sign.
In the absence of a nationwide consensus, though, our federal system is going to "solve the problem" -- to few peoples' total satisfaction. Roughly 1/3 of states will permit unrestricted abortions up till the moment of delivery. A smaller number will prohibit all abortions without exceptions for rape, incest, or health of the mother. The majority will end up somewhere in a continuum between those extremes. Everyone will have some choices available to them, but people who hold the strongest opinions on both sides will continue to be horrified. I think that the rest of us -- who I pray will be a majority -- will be relieved.
thanks for thoughtful comment. i hope that leaving the question to the states might lower the temperature, but I bet it won't. Indiana will prosecute its citizens for traveling to Illinois for an abortion; Illinois will announce a program to help women travel to the state to get an abortion. There will be lots of federalism fights.
I am perhaps naive in my belief that ordinary people can deliberate and come to some kind of common ground. There is lots of evidence for this on other issues; James Fishkin has been working on this for a long time and has a good book on it. The Irish case suggests that its possible even on abortion, but we're starting in a deep hole of polarization.
A one-size-fits-all policy acceptable to all 330M Americans would be wonderful. I’m skeptical, but hope that your “naïveté” might be rewarded with such a future success.
My own naïveté leads me to believe that a state-by-state regime could be better than you fear. I expect that the handful of 100% ban trigger laws that today await a Dobbs decision will not survive long after implementation - horror stories will surface, and those rules will quickly be relaxed to allow the usual exceptions. Unrestricted-abortion-on-demand-through-40-weeks statutes in other states may well survive longer - *unless* an opposing horror story emerges there. But over time, though, nasty partisan local politics will grind away at conflicting state statutes, moderating them and bringing them closer into alignment.
The system is supposed to work. If your citizen convention approach fails to produce a national consensus, then I'm optimistic that such “normal politics” can - *over time* - evolve a workable solution.
Thanks again for your thought-provoking article. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Democrats need it to be a "war on women" because Democrats are bankrupt of useful ideas for how to improve society and thus need these group wedge issues to fester and boil in order to inflame voters to support Democrats. And Democrats control the primary media channels. So we will never have any compromise... because compromise does not serve the political interests of Democrats.
And before I get this "yeah, but Republicans!" response... consider the "war on women" political wedge. So, any restrictions at all on abortion are evidence of a war on women. How can any compromise evolve from that?
Enumerate for us, oh wise one, the bounty of GOP ideas for improving society.
Support individual constutional rights... that are just renumverated natural rights. Increase individual earned economic opportunity. Get more people working for a living. Get more people married. More having kids and raising a family. Be a productive member of your community and society. Stop stealing and lying. Enforce law and order. Reform the education system with more parent and student choice. Get CRT out of everything related to education. Control the border. Build the wall. Stop the flood of millions of poor and uneducated people that swell the ranks of needy and gridlock the social services that existing Americans need. Stop the flow of drugs over the border and through the ports. Reject all institutional forms of racism, including wokeism. Eliminate Title 230 protection for big tech. Reduce the trillion dollar a year trade deficit. Break up the largest corporations. Focus more on mainstreet and not Wall Street. Stop being involved in foreign conflict with our military. Stop sending money to other countries when our own country has problems to be solved. Drill baby drill... reduce the cost of energy instead of praying to the Gods of Global Warming and forcing inflation. Shrink the size of government to break up the corporatist cabal. Reduce regulations to help with small business starts and grown. Also eliminate environmental regulatory excess that prevents more housing being developed.
Except, it's not clear each one would improve society; some are not exclusive to Republics.; some aren't really GOP positions at all -- or are given lipservice at best. All of them require pesky details as to how they would get done. Have you not noticed that the GOP has no actual party platform anymore?
You asked for the list and you got it. Now you want a detailed project plan so you can ignore that too and ask for more detail.
The GOP has a platform, you just don't like it.
The Democrats have nothing. They stand for nothing except to violently protest while calling everyone that disagrees with them a racist.
Mr. Lee, it seems that the tone of your comments contain just the type of dogmatism that the author suggests drowns out the majority views and thoughtful discourse. Here is what I wonder. What is so wrong with leaving the decision to the women who are pregnant up to a certain point (e.g. 22 weeks)? I’m not in their shoes, and neither are you. People in modern society can’t agree on when life starts. It is you certainly your right to disapprove of a decision of another, but not your right to make the decision for another.
I think 22 weeks is too extreme based on the development of the fetus, but personally I am in agreement that abortion should be safe, legal and rare up to maybe 15 weeks.
I think complete anti-abortion is disgusting and immoral. I think late term abortion is disgusting and immoral... probably evil.
You do know that there is this thing called the morning after pill?
Be careful what you wish for. Even with Germany's paternalistic oversights on abortion, the German abortion ratio is not *that* far off the USA's (129 abortions per 1000 live births vs 194 abortions per 1000 live births as of 2018-2019) . Germany is also an outlier among European major powers in having such oversights. However, public health insurance covers abortion due to rape and when the mother's life is seriously threatened. German state governments pay for abortions desired by low income women. So I'm not convinced your Germanic 'compromise' will satisfy either side.
The compromise was already achieved by Roe v. Wade. The 24 week viability standard is workable. Some may say that it isn't because we can remove the fetus earlier and earlier from the womb. However, the fact that the fetus can be relocated earlier to an artificially created environment does not accelerate its intrinsic development or capacity on its own to survive outside of the womb.
Viability seems a moving target. Brain development to the point of allowing consciousness seems a better dividing line. The brain doesn't even start to develop until week 3. The brain's neural network is developed enough to support consciousness until week 24-25 at the earliest. So it turns out Roe v. Wade was a good call after all.
Both viability and brain development are actually static as far as intrinsic fetal development is concerned. However, as Steven has just indicated, either way Roe v. Wade was a good guess. There is a book that addresses how relatively late the brain develops the capacity for consciousness: Abortion Rights and Fetal Personhood, by Edd Doerr, published by Centerline Press. It's available on Amazon.
Since viability date can be advanced 'extrinsically', it would be unrealistic to expect abortion opponents to confine their definition of viability to 'intrinsic'. By contrast, I know of no way of artificially speeding up brain development.
This is true of them, Steven. However, the accelerated rate at which a fetus can be relocated does not accelerate its actual pace of development. So, I have no problem arguing both viability and brain development. If we are speaking about a biological basis for rejecting bans on abortion at a given stage, they both work.
However, there are two issues here. One is advancing the best scientific arguments against banning abortion at various stages and making these arguments based on their technical strength, regardless of now they play out politically. The other is advancing the arguments most likely to lead to a compromise in a post Roe environment that will result in salvaging as much as we still can of the freedom that was enjoyed under Roe. Even if the brain development argument is the strongest, and incidentally this is the argument I used more than any other in my 20 years as the main speaker and debater for the California Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, anti choice advocates will still focus on heartbeat.
I see the only course of action as using all of the arguments in an attempt to give the public as much information as we can to persuade voters to contact their state legislators in opposition to the impending abortion restrictions.
What's important is that both the viability argument and the brain development argument, as Steven has pointed out, lead to the same timetable for arguing against any ban prior to 24 weeks.
Then, there is the whole other domain of arguing from the standpoint of how since this is uniquely a process unfolding inside a woman's body, her right of bodily autonomy should prevail.