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Sunday, March 19th, 2006

Decisions, Decisions

Amanda over at Pandagon has a comment on the abortion debate
that struck me as on the money and off by a few cents at the same time:

The problem with discussing “moral ambiguities” when
it comes to a choice that women can make independent of men–like abortion,
taking the pill, etc.–is that anti-choicers don’t accept that women have the
same moral agency as men and therefore aren’t particularly compelled by
arguments that women should be free to make their own moral choices.

I think there is an element of truth in the argument that
the anti-abortionist groups deny the pregnant woman the capability of making
her own decisions. But I’m not sure that it has anything to do with misogyny.
The more I think about it, the more I think that the problem is these people
don’t accept that anyone has a competent moral agency except themselves.

Think about it: the anti-abortion "family values"
crowd are the same folks who want to ban any hint of sex from public venues:
from the TV, the movies, billboards, magazines, the Superbowl halftime show,
whatever. Their reason? If "kids" find out sex exists, they’ll start
doing it. No one can simply decide not to have sex–that’s not possible. Other examples:

  • If single women have access to
    contraceptives, they’ll automatically become promiscuous.

    Homosexuals must be vilified and demonized, because if they
    aren’t, everyone will immediately become homosexual.

  • If we don’t prevent husbands from taking their vegetative
    wives off of life support, everyone will kill their relatives at the first sign
    of illness.

  • If we allow vibrators and dildos into the state or county,
    well, you all know what happens THEN.

These people don’t trust anyone to make a decision. Everyone
else in the country is too weak minded to have any kind of moral agency. And
because people will always make the wrong choice, society can’t allow them any
choices at all. (So how do they reconcile this world view with the fact that god specifically gave Adam and Eve free will so they had the capability to make the wrong choice? Anyone? Bueller?)

Meanwhile, the leaders of these movements get caught
lying, gambling, committing fraud, engaging in adultery, you name it.

Maybe that’s the problem. They can’t trust anyone’s moral agency because they have none of their own. They think no one else has a
conscience because they don’t. It would explain a lot.

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