What Happened to "Choice"?

A friend of mine is going to have breast-reduction surgery recommended by her doctor.  First, she has to have her husband's signed permission.  If my same friend were to have an abortion, no signed permission would be necessary.  The "choice" principle touted by the pro-abortionists, the claim to have a right to do whatever you wish with your own body, apparently doesn't apply when it actually does involve a woman's own body.  It only applies when it involves an innocent, unborn child's body.

Comments

[alan aronson]

Apples and oranges. The doctor is probably concerned about malpractice issues. His carrier may require this.

[Jim]

Alan,
Does your back ever ache from twisting so hard to avoid the truth?

[Steven Andrew Miller]

Why does the woman need to have her husband's permission for breast-reduction surgery? I've never heard of such a thing. Does the husband have power of attorney?

[Santos Berrios]

Jim, don't worry about Alan. He is just alergic to reason (a common malady in certain sectors today ;-)

Melinda is saying: If the common justification for abortion is a woman's right to chose, then why are these two cases treated different. Alan's answer: The law treats them different. Well, that is the problem, now, isn't it? Can you say circular reasoning?

[alan aronson]

Guys, guys, doctors are free agents and breast reduction surgery is usually elective. Rather then a reflexive hostility, try turning your minds on and consider what might be going on here.

This is from the 2000 NY State bar Exam:

"In the years after their marriage, Wanda and Harry failed to have children. On several occasions, Wanda sought the assistance of fertility counselors, and she was assured that she was capable of bearing children. In September 1998, Wanda discovered a medical report revealing that Harry had a vasectomy in 1982, which prevented him from fathering children. Wanda confronted Harry with the report, and Harry admitted that it was true and that he never really intended to have children. Wanda continued to cohabit with Harry for another month, at which point she consulted an attorney."

Also re: informed consent laws - "There are hundreds of cases of successful litigation against vasectomy providers won on grounds of violating informed consent due to lack of spousal notification (i.e. the law in action considers it to be a required component, even if the written law is ambiguous)."

I found this tidbit on a plastic surgery site:

"Recent research has shown that the operation most likely to lead to dissatisfaction is rhinoplasty or nose-job.

"Of all the law suits studied over a ten year period by one insurance company this operation accounted for over 22% of malpractice claims. Second was breast reduction with 17%."

Note that Melinda didn't indicate the reason for the requirement. Is there a law or is this a condition of the doctor having malpractice insurance? If it is the former, I would disagree with it; if it is the latter, it means that there is probably case law making such a requirement prudent.

Is this a reasonable application of the informed consent laws or not? We need more information.

The original post is pointless as one could just as easily argue that this shows that we need a law making such a requirement unnecessary, i.e. the rights afforded those seeking abortions should be extended to all.

[Sarah V.]

Good lord. I defy you to find me one pro-choicer who thinks this story is OK. Was this doctor living in the Dark Ages??

[Cary]

Melinda has made an excellent point. The arguments made by Alan are true of an abortion if the woman is married, are they not? It is elective surgery. There is risk of malpractice and the husband would certainly be in the picture in such a lawsuit.

BTW, Alan, that is exactly Melinda's point. You see the inconsistency in the thinking between the two surgeries. In other words, "choice" and the almighty "right" to do with one's body as they please, the husband's desire notwithstanding, does not apply here. This doctor has acknowledged that the husband has certain rights with respect to his wife's body, even if the requirement is only due to an insurance carrier's contract provision.

[alan aronson]

Cary, that is why there are laws relating to these matters. If the law excepts abortion then there need not be notification and a malpractice issue doesn't exist.

If there are no specific exemptions for plastic surgery then a suit is possible. I saw one informed consent form that didn't have a place for a spouse's signature so customary practice in this area may vary.

My point is that we don't have enough information to draw any conclusions. I find hanging a public policy issue on what may be an artifact of a litigious society to be somewhat problematic. That's all.

[Patrick, Holland MA]

Alan, really, you are starting to embarrass me. Please, put down the koolaid!!!

[alan aronson]

"First, she has to have her husband's signed permission."

Patrick, help me out. Is this about "permission" or "notification"? Is it a statutory requirement or an insurance company policy?

Without more information there is no way we can know if we have an on-point analogy or not.

[Patrick, Holland MA]

Alan:"Patrick, help me out. Is this about "permission" or "notification"? Is it a statutory requirement or an insurance company policy?"

For our present purposes, I think what is of interest is the double stanard, regardless of the specifics, and I cannot but help think that the "woamn's choice" (silly argument) issue re abortion is driving the insurance companies policies.
Patrick

[alan aronson]

Sigh, Patrick, listen carefully. The mere fact that notification (or permission, we still don't know which) is required in one case and not in another isn't necessarily indicative of a double standard in the society as a whole. That it is seen as such without other questions being raised is typical of your side's sloppy thinking on this issue.

On what grounds would a husband sue if his wife had an abortion and he wasn't notified? I can think of plenty should a cosmetic surgery procedure go south.

As a matter of fact the two situations are opposites of each other. A woman can get an abortion and her husband will likely never know. Notification laws raise very real privacy concerns. On the other hand it is impossible for a person to have a cosmetic procedure and keep it private from their spouse.

Hence if the issue revolves around expectations of privacy we have apples and oranges.

Alan:"On what grounds would a husband sue if his wife had an abortion and he wasn't notified? I can think of plenty should a cosmetic surgery procedure go south."

The question is what happens if the abortion goes wrong, the wife is laid up in a hospital for three days, etc. Your reasoning is flawed. It is you comparing apples to oranges, and there is noting sloppy about the thinking.
Patrick

[alan aronson]

Then she deals with it. Abortions are far less problematic than cosmetic procedures in terms of results, complications and malpractice suits. Also the courts and legislatures have removed the issue.

I notice you failed to respond to the privacy issue. Most problems with abortion when they do occur are minor and could be passed off as something else. There is no way one can conceal a breast reduction.

Alan:"I notice you failed to respond to the privacy issue. Most problems with abortion when they do occur are minor and could be passed off as something else. There is no way one can conceal a breast reduction."

My response is that no woman has a moral right to have an abortion without her husband being notified. It is not a privacy matter at all. We do not grant special privacy rights to people who want to end the life of an innocent but not tell anyone about it. In fact, this demonstrates how we all know implicitly that this is a human being. If it were just a clump of meaningless cells, there would be no need for privacy as such or nothing to hide. If the fetus were not human, this would not be an issue.

I agree, there is no coparison between a breast reduction and a human reduction. DUH!
Patrick

[Truth Seeker]

This is a very interesting post. It has made me sit back and think a bit. I do have to say that I see the double standard and here is why.

For permission of the husband by the doctor implies that their is moral obligation to include the husband in the decision process in this procedure. The same would be as when I went under for cosmetic corrective surgeries due to birth defect, I had to get parental permission even though the choice was in my hands to do it. Long story there!

In the case of an abortion there should laws demanding the consent and approval from both parties as both were involved in the creating of this life. In the case of where a wife has an affair and gets pregnant, the husband still should have the moral and legal right to consent to an abortion as other medical and financial situations deem it necessary as well.

This is not a apple and orange case. Both are medical procedures and both risk the life of the woman. There is a double standard here. The husband is being pushed out despite the fact that he was involved in the creating of this child. A husband is also to be involved in the surgery as it financially and emotionally involves him as well. There should be consent from both parties in both cases.

Blessings

[Dennis]

Alan,

I don't see how the marring of a man's wife would have anything to do with him, if the destruction of his child doesn't.

[alan aronson]

Dennis, a point seems to be missed here. My concern isn't for "shoulds". I find the assumption by everyone that the child being aborted was, in fact, the husbands to be touching and naive.

Wives of Godfathers excepted, of course, I would imagine one of the reasons for married women getting an abortion might well be that the husband isn't the father.

Do I have a problem with married women aborting their husband's children without the father/husband knowing? Well, yes. Does that trump privacy concerns for me? No.

Would I favor a law requiring women to notify their husbands if they are going to have a cosmetic procedure? No.

This, in practice, isn't an either/or
situation and the reality is that breast reduction surgery is the number 2 reason for malpractice suits.

My apples and oranges claim is based on there being different concerns involved in the two examples.

There simply can't be an expectation of privacy in the case of cosmetic surgery, while there can be in the case of abortion.

[Matt]

Alan, I would have to agree with others that your logic is very flawed for reasons already given. I'm sure your a smart man but the foundation for your moral views is your downfall.

[John]

"Apples and oranges" Holy Cannoli!

No sign-off on the abortion but hubby has OK a breast reduction?

Right to choose? Humbug.

Doesn't this fall under one of the points attributed to Dennis Prager in the "Breakdown" post?

[Patrick, Holland MA]

Alan:"Do I have a problem with married women aborting their husband's children without the father/husband knowing? Well, yes. Does that trump privacy concerns for me? No."

Alan, this is most telling and perhaps makes me a little more cautious to join you for lunch. Are you insisting that the right of the mother's privacy is more important than the life of the child> You obviously acknowledge that the unborn is a human child. How then does it follow that the mothers right to privacy supercedes the life? If your doctor discovered that your wife was going to rob a bank, would you want him to inform you, or do you prefer her right to privacy. Or is it just a matter of what is considered legal right now, in which case you think abortion os wrong but have no problem since it is legal. Or have I misunderstood and you still owe me lunch?
Patrick

[Dennis]

Alan, I suppose now I see the disconnect between our ways of thinking. In your view, there's not much moral weight attached to abortion, since nobody's being killed, and thus privacy concerns can be considered. In my view, there's a person being killed, and thus worrying about privacy is a bit like worrying about the harmful environmental effects of fire-fighting foam when there's an industrial fire.

As usual, I guess it all comes down to that question of "Is there a person in there?"

I guess just to say, I see your logic now.

[alan aronson]

Very good Dennis, what is a glaring double standard for most of you isn't for those of us who see aprocess not a person. I can see your POV but I believe that the reason for the form is a simple economic decision by an insurance company based on vague informed consent laws and a statistical analysis of malpractice claims. That's all; no statement of the value of a "person" or anything that dramatic.

John, over the years Dennis has made millions off that "moral breakdown" shtick (mazel tov!) but it is seriously deficient as a tool for actually dealing with anything - it's an analytical dead end as well as arguably being wrong.

[Patrick, Holland MA]

Alan:"Very good Dennis, what is a glaring double standard for most of you isn't for those of us who see aprocess not a person."

You say this as if you are right. You too are a process Alan - you are on a continuum of development and decay really. Are you the same person that was in your mother's womb? The question is that simple. If you were not you in your mothers womb, when did you become
you?

[alan aronson]

No patrick, I am not the same creature - I became a person (a legal term) when I was born. A morsel of lead, a gob of mercury, an errant gamma ray or a thousand other things from conception to well past birth and I would be a very different person today.

A friend's parents were both murdered when she was an infant. Was she the same person at 16 or 26 as she would have been had her parents not been murdered? No way.

The notion of an eternal soul is a theological "just so" story. Believing it is ok, of course, - this is still America - but using an ideologized version of it as a guide to public policy is not going to work very well.

[William Wilcox]

There is equivocation going on with the term "person". I can agree that Alan would not be the same person if his life had developed differently. On the other hand, I consider him to be the same person from the moment of his conception until now and would have been and is that same person regardless of events in his life. There is no contradiction just a different meaning of the word person.

[alan aronson]

True William, however the term "soul" covers the term "person" in the sense you mean and "soul" or "person" in that sense is a theological concept which may or may not be real (I say not).

[Patrick, Holland MA]

Alan, you may call it whatever you want. The point is that there is an immaterial aspect to you, an essence that coninues for your entire existence. Otherwise, you cannot say, "I graduated in 1975" or I grew up in such and such a town" or "I voted for Bill Clinton". For who is "I" in that case. Indeed, if there is any degree to which you believe that you have matured emotionally, intellectually etc over the years, then you cannot escape that there is a unity of the self that continues. Call it self, call it soul.

You have chosen to arbitrarily have personhood begin at birth. A person may be a legal term, but most people consider person to be more than that, indeed most people do not even think of person as a legal term. And as I have stated above, call it what you want. By the way, many states prosectute for fetal homicide. We protect persons in that regard, not "clumps".

Alan :"A friend's parents were both murdered when she was an infant. Was she the same person at 16 or 26 as she would have been had her parents not been murdered? No way."

Of course she is the same person, just with radically different experiences. She would be the same person in essence, though spiritually and emotionally and culturally formed differently. In fact, if she is not the same person now that she was as an infant, then her parents death would have no bearing on her whatever. Now suppose she was 10 and saw her parents murdered. Now she is 26. If memories of her parents death cause her emotional distress, then she is clearly in a foundational way, the same person.

Alan:"The notion of an eternal soul is a theological "just so" story. Believing it is ok, of course, - this is still America - but using an ideologized version of it as a guide to public policy is not going to work very well."

Wrong, laddy. Why then do you condemn people as is your glad habit to do? Are you condeming there brain chemistry? No - you are condemning them for thier thoughts etc. which they put into action. The soul is not a theological "just so", and I defy you to present a cogent arguement to that end. Naturalism fails to give us knowledge.

Patrick

[John]

"The notion of an eternal soul is a theological "just so" story. Believing it is ok, of course, - this is still America - but using an ideologized version of it as a guide to public policy is not going to work very well."

And the basis for this statement is....?

[William Wilcox]

There is an interesting post related to some of the comments in this thread concerning embryos and identity. Here is the link:

http://rightreason.ektopos.com/archives/2006/10/a_miscellany_of_1.html#more

[alan aronson]

John, I believe the most good would result if everyone got behind the "safe legal and rare" formula.

A solid safety net, national health care, realistic education, promotion of adoption, for example and a freah look at the first and third trimesters by both sides.

[Patrick, Holland MA]

Alan"John, I believe the most good would result if everyone got behind the "safe legal and rare" formula."

But this misses the point and makes the point at the same time. I have no problem with an incremental approach. You need to answer why abortion should be rare. Now of course we want to minimize any surgery. But the intimation here is much stronger. You want to keep it rare because you think taking just a few lives is better than taking many. Your position is immoral and unjustifiable. There is no need for anyone to look at first semester again. He or she is fully human. Period. Prove me wrong - I triple dog dare you.
Patrick

[alan aronson]

Busy with a project right now but the short answer is that I consider abortion to be a secondary or even a tertiary level issue that a group of enterprising pols and religious entrepreneurs have used to hijack a segment of Christianity and a major political party to the detriment of the Republic.

I am interested in a political solution that gets this behind us so we can deal with important issues. Clinton's formula seems to have legs so I am hoping there is a politician out there who can make it work.

[Aaron Snell]

I understand, Alan - it makes perfect sense why you view this issue as secondary or tertiary. But you must understand why we view it as primary - for the same reason you have repeatedly argued for the primary standing of the torture issue: it involves a human being and the deprivation of rights thereof.

[alan aronson]

Well Aaron, I might then wonder why you are willing to sacrifice the rights of post birth humans to the hope that Republicans are actually serious about creating a new status (with attendant rights) for two celled entities.

If you really wish to extend rights, it seems to me that you would want to begin by refraining from removing rights that we already have.

This is what I mean when I criticize you all for being ideologues. Your passion against abortion has led you into a very dark place.

Borrowing from Comrade Lenin, you are willing to break our Constitution in the hope that a better world will result.

Alan,

You stance on abortion puts you in a very dark place.

sincerely,
Todd

[alan aronson]

Todd, I would use social policies that would empower folks to not produce pregnancies and if pregnant not to get abortions and that puts me in a dark place?

You would use the police power of the state to "protect" an undifferentiated multi-celled entity in the mistaken belief that it has a soul and compel a woman to bear a child against her will from conception on. Where does that put you?

Would it be justified to prevent a woman who was pregnant from traveling?

Hi Alan

It puts me as a defender of human beings and you as a destroyer of them.

Here is my reason for opposing abortion.

Killing an innocent human being is wrong
Abortion kills an innocent human being
Therefore abortion is wrong

(note how you state that I would "compel a women to bear a child against her will." A what? The what is the real question of course and even you rightly called it a child.)

sincerely,

Todd

P.S. I didn't understand your last question.

BTW the "compeling" occurs when a doctor "compels" the unborn to die.

sincerely,
Todd

[alan aronson]

Todd, the problem with making public policy based on syllogisms is that one usually fails to consider the law of unintended consequences. We know we can live with abortion being legal. We know we can live with weakly enforced abortion laws. If we have a legal person from conception, we have no idea where that takes us. That's all. I have yet to see serious policy analysis on this issue. Feel free to show me some if you have any. Until then I will have a Burkean skepticism towards the Christianist version of social engineering.

BTW, Eschaton has an interesting post:

"Tucker to Evangelicals: Chumps

Here's what Tucker Carlson had to say on this weekend's Chris Matthews Show:

CARLSON: It goes deeper than that though. The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power. Everybody in...

MATTHEWS: How do you know that? How do you know that?

CARLSON: Because I know them. Because I grew up with them. Because I live with them. They live on my street. Because I live in Washington, and I know that everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals. And the evangelicals know that, and they're beginning to learn that their own leaders sort of look askance at them and don't share their values.

MATTHEWS: So this gay marriage issue and other issues related to the gay lifestyle are simply tools to get elected?

CARLSON: That's exactly right. It's pandering to the base in the most cynical way, and the base is beginning to figure it out

-Atrios 7:06 PM

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http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_10_08_atrios_archive.html#116043519597290227

[John]

I know that Tucker Carlson can't dance, but I'm not sure what is especially interesting about Carlson's exchange with Matthews. Alan, are you trying to say that the elites (whoever they are and whatever an 'elite' is) don't oppose abortion.

What is Christianist social engineering anyway?

I am not really certain where the last post is intended to lead.

It's intended to lead away from seeing the unborn as human beings.

sincerely,
Todd

[alan aronson]

I found the Tucker quote interesting as it has been crystal clear since the Schaivo affair that the folks at the top are playing the evangelical rank and file for fools. For people like Bush, Rove, Cheney, Dobson, Falwell, etc., it's all about power and money and all you and your issues are is a means to those ends. Remember Scanlon's famous quote, ""The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees,"

There is also this thoughtful commentary:
http://gcc.savvior.com/Mea_Culpa.php

Todd, all I want is some serious proposals. "There ought to be a law isn't a serious approach to public policy." The reality is that most people will never consider a clum of eight or so cells to be a person so you need to work within that reality.

[Candace Sargent]

WOW...that's wild!!!...I'm shaky my head in disbelief. I'm surprised the feminists overlooked this one, but actually, given the fact that women have become sexual objects in much greater numbers, in media everywhere, even to the point of making many more porn movies during their movement, maybe it's not so surprising that they missed this one.

[Fern R]

I'm sure if pro-abortion activists new that a husband's permission slip was required to get a breast reduction they'd be marching on Washington for that too.

Sorry Alan, that is not all you want.

What you really want to do is not deal with the reality that the unborn are human beings. (Human beings don't reproduce a different kind of being then themselves)

Since you have such good political knowledge you should be using it to defend the unborn. Instead you use your talent to promote their destruction.

sincerely,
Todd

Hey Alan
I can't let this go either: "We know we can live with abortion being legal."

How funny is that. Of course we can, we were born! It's the unborn that are being aborted that can't, you see, they die during an abortion.

How about putting yourself, right now back in a mothers womb and playing the odds on survival. I believe (I could be wrong about this) in the U.S., for every three live births there is one abortion.

Would you be willing to live with that?

sincerely,
Todd