[Erin] Modern day slavery

Aw, that's cute! An analogy to abortion. It fails, though, since slavery involves people and abortion involves unfeeling or all-but-unfeeling blobs of cells.

Also, the slaveholder has no valid rights, whereas the pregnant woman has the right to decide what biological processes she wants to occur in her body.

Gee, not a very good analogy at all, actually. :(

Interestingly, the Thirteenth Amendment's prohibition is not absolute:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

This is what happens when drafters of constitutional amendments crib the text from the Northwest Ordinance.

As for analogies between slavery and abortion...note that it took a bloody civil war to "evolve" a national consensus in favor of banning the former....

It's almost shocking to contemplate the continued existence of slavery in the twenty-first century. We tend to think of it as something that can only occur in backward nations far from our own

Snort. The only reason slavery has been outlawed is the advent of machines to do labor, making the "slave" pretty worthless and unproductive in modern times. It's all economic, and has got nothing to do with morality. For goodness sakes, we kill our own unwanted infants in this day and age. I think it's safe to say slavery of the "other" is small beer on the moral front.

Why the change? Modern man works with his brain, and we really can't enslave this sort of fellow with chains (if we could, we most certainly would have had slave ships of German and Japanese scientists on our shores in 1945, rather we had Operation Paperclip). Even despots like Hitler couldn't force Werner Heisenberg to build him an atomic bomb (when a genius just sits there and stares at paper, who can tell?). It's nigh impossible to use a lash on somebody you need to think creatively and productively.

Hence, we use a new, superior method: greed. And it's more efficient too. Isn't it so much nicer to sit back and watch the young slaves scurry about, desperately trying to find new ways to please you for sixty hours a week, rather than having to beat them into submission every day? Today, proles so much want to be your slave you can take down all the fences and lounge by the pool with your third wife and work on your tan. Sigh...stocks are so wonderful. You are magnanimous!

Mythologies change. Maybe slavery will make a comeback. Great great great grandpa Waldron (who helped General Sherman tear up Georgia, it howled very nicely thank you) would have a fit, but he's been dead a long time so we can pretty much ignore him.

And with cloning we can breed a slave species of human that will be perfectly tractible. In fact we will probably be able to manufacture them to fit specific needs with built-in short lifespans of say, 30 years, ten to grow to useful maturity (we can speed up that process) and 20 years of productivity but not living any longer so as to avoid the problem of obsolecense.

All in all it sounds like a good, long term investment once we solve the minor political problems.

I've never yet heard someone make the argument, "Look, people are going to keep practicing slavery no matter what we do, so we should figure out a way to make slavery safe, legal and rare."

So, Erin, I take it you'd rather not address my comments about the "pro-abortion" epithet directly.

The reason you haven't heard someone make that argument is because slavery and abortion are simply not the same thing. Surely even reflexive social conservatives can see the difference. Again, you've assimilated the "pro-abortion" cliche so thoroughly you don't recognize the fundamental lie you're repeating. No one is "pro-abortion." No one wants to have one or see others have one.

Again, I would love to see a world where no woman needed or wanted an abortion, where there was no rape, incest, crushing poverty, slavery, drug addiction, AIDS or any condition that takes, cheapens or diminishes human life. We don't have such a world. Until we do, I will continue to advocate for policies and culture that are more apt to make abortion vanishingly rare and legal.

No one Bob? That's demonstrably untrue. If you expect a complex view you really should demonstrate one.

"No one is "pro-abortion." No one wants to have one or see others have one."

Bob, abortion is called, by those who support it, a "fundamental human right."

Please explain to me how a fundamental human right can be something no one really wants to have for herself, or to have others obtain.

Daniel: "Arguably, the state telling a class of people that they are not free to make health decisions about their own bodies has its own parallels to the morality of slavery."

I have no problems with women making health decisions about their own bodies. I have a problem with women ordering the alive and developing body of the unborn human inside her torn to pieces and removed.

I have no problems with women making health decisions about their own bodies. I have a problem with women ordering the alive and developing body of the unborn human inside her torn to pieces and removed.

And I have a problem with the state standing guard at the door of a doctor's office telling women that they can't have a safe medical procedure. A state that is willing to control a woman's reproductive life is one step closer to the concerns you have over slavery. It's the state saying that women are not permitted to have autonomy over their lives and bodies.

Changing social values are complicated things. Slavery has a long tradition in Christian society. It was viewed in a blase/fact-of-life manner by the Scriptures, in the same way polgyamy and marriage to slaves was viewed. 1800 years of Judeo-Christian tradition supported slavery.

When one hears the of the statistic of modern slavery it kinda punctures the myth of human social/moral progress doesnt it?

It proves that very little really changes. The bad things that we thought we had killed off just go underground. While there are those who wouldn't engage in an illegal practice it because the potential downside is too high, there are always more than enough people out there willing to run the risk and operate under the table. That, of course, says nothing about those whole regions of the world where acceptance of slavery is an open secret. No one says a word.

Sig,
I don't think the intended analogy is between slaves and fetuses. The analogy is between the moral reasoning that sees one group of people as being ontologically/biologically/morally inferior and subject to the "needs" of the superior group.

forestwalker, I do see where you're coming from. But, respectfully, can you not see how one could see your phrasing, "one group of people as being ontologically/biologically/morally inferior and subject to the "needs" of the superior group" as applying very aptly to women rather than fetuses? It is the place of women to serve as vessels for the development of fetuses, with or without their consent. Women are ontologically and biologically designed for this purpose, hence it is not necessary for them to consent to pregnancy and giving birth. Really, you can find religious leaders who have said as much.

"You may be correct regarding the views of the "pro-choice (wo)man on the street", but that view is largely irrelevant."

That point of view is largely irrelevant only to armchair social conservatives, the same ones who find the deaths of people in foreign countries irrelevant.

In short, that POV is very relevant to me and millions who share the same perspective.

Bob, don't you see that there's a huge difference between saying that people may have rights they don't choose to exercise, and saying that you hope no woman ever has to have an abortion, that you wouldn't want her to destroy her unborn offspring but that you think she ought to have the right to do so anyway?

What other right is even remotely like this? What other right gets called a tragedy for women even by people who support it?

Abortion is the direct and intentional taking of the life of an innocent and developing human being. It is always a terribly evil thing to do.

"In the imperfect world in which we live, there's tons of things I want to see around that nobody wants to have to use. That indicates that there was a tragedy that made them necessary. That everyone would do everything in their power to prevent ever having to do, or be there.

Because sometimes they are needed. And when they are needed, they need to be available. "

What she said.

It's incredibly insulting and sad when people co-opt the issues of slavery and child rape to score talking points on abortion.

Aren't these issues "good enough" to stand on their own? Why is it every single time a post like this is made here, it must be linked to abortion, as though slavery itself should simply be breezed so we can move onto the REAL issues-- fetuses!

Give me a break.

"War is always a tragedy but still a right."

War is not an individual right. Self-defence, though is the right of individuals and states.

But abortion is not a "right." It is murder. Our system of government claims to protect as a right the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness... but with unborn children, it does nothing, and even cooperates in their murder. How's that for "rights" and "justice."

I have to agree with Jay here. Almost no one has addressed the issue at hand. Arguments can be made for and against abortion, but I don't buy the abortion analogies flying back and forth from both camps in here. They don't really parallel slavery very neatly. My college profs would dock you all points for not addressing the assigned topic sufficiently.

The story about the FBI breaking a child prostitution ring is an unalloyed good. As it stated in the article, these kids were victimized. Many came from broken homes, or were runaways for their own reasons. People preyed on them and convinced them there was no alternative and blocked them into a lifestyle that offers no forward progress or growth, regardless of your particular view on sexual morality. These kids are safe now, and have a chance to start new. It just makes me want to work for the FBI even more.

The FBI also tracks terrorists here in the States, and took exception to the harshest interrogation techniques used on enemy detainees in camps overseas. They save kids, hunt terrorists, AND have something of a moral compass, what's not to love? I'm submitting my resume just as soon as my new computer gets in (I broke my old one with a nice big Army rucksack. Oops.)

It is insulting for a women to read that men think that they have the right to force a women to bear a child . That is the ultimate form of breeding slavery and one I would think a true Chrisitan gentlemen would avoid. Til men can give birth the choice to give birth has to be the women's and any other viewpoint supports the view that a women is a object to be used for reproduction and not a human which in a sense makes her a reproductive slave. You create a world where it is not comman for males to force themselves on women or cause them to be economically dependent on them and I would be the first to jump on the right to life band wagon.

If taking innocent life is "always wrong," then war is always wrong. There is no war that doesn't take innocent life.

The obsessive focus on the fetus as "innocent life"--and well-nigh the only innocent life around--has raised a question in my mind. When does original sin kick in? Are the unborn subject to the Fall? Or do they become guilty in the eyes of God only after they're born? I realized that even as a cradle Catholic, I don't know the answer to that! I assume that the unborn are considered culpable for Adam's sin, since when I was a child, I heard many morbid stories about the importance of baptizing a baby before it died, lest it go to hell. But this is merely an assumption and may have been misdirection on the part of the zealous nuns.

Second question: is there an alternative to "innocent" other than "guilty"? Because the way this discussion is often framed, it certainly sounds as if all non-virgin women are considered guilty. The fetus is "innocent life." The woman who is its only source of life, who carries it embedded in her flesh and provides it with nourishment and oxygen, is apparently NOT innocent.

Regarding the Catholic Church's teaching on Baptism, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1213 to 1284.

I don't believe anything there specifies exactly when a soul is under the stain of original sin, but most likely, as the Church teaches that life begins at conception, original sin takes effect then, too.

The word "innocent" can have many connotations. A child, particularly one unborn, is seen as innocent because he has done nothing by his own choice to harm any other person. A mother, unless she is the victim of rape, has made a choice that she knows -- however unintended, unwanted or inconvenient -- may lead to the conception of a baby. Certainly there are alternatives to "innocent" other than "guilty." One of them is "experienced."

Well, freddy, I thank you for the catechism reference, but as you say, it is not really specific. Which leaves me with my original assumption that to whatever extent the fetus is considered as a person, it is considered as a person subject to damnation--not completely innocent in spite of the nullity of its actions so far.

Your second paragraph seems to me to assert the following propositions:

Having sex = consenting to have sex

and

Consenting to have sex = consenting to be pregnant.

I don't agree that either of these equivalences is valid.

It seems, too, that many people feel that, when it comes to women, "experienced" might as well be "guilty." And I think it is attitudes like these that help to explain why it is so easy to turn away from concern over the enslavement of women and children to focus on the unborn. Those women and children are suspected of having somehow, somewhere along the way, consented to having sex. This nullifies their innocence in the minds of many and makes them unsuitable objects for a rescue crusade.

I find it disturbing and surprising that people can simultaneously dwell on the "innocence" of the fetus and the "guilt" of the mother. They consider the fetus as perfect and pure, the woman as dirty and damaged. But the perfect and pure is not found physically embedded in the flesh and blood of the dirty and damaged. If you place such a high value on the fetus, you must value the mother equally. It is only through her that the fetus has any existence at all.

I think you've put your finger on a number of things where you and I would find much to agree about, freddy. Thanks for clarifying your understanding of rape. I really appreciate that. Too often I've heard people use the term so narrowly that it basically only covers underage nuns who are dragged into dark alleys by known pirates. I also agree strongly that the ideal way to deal with that situation is to offer protection and help to the pregnant woman--and I think that far fewer abortions would take place if this were the case. I think the prevalence of older boys/men preying on younger teen girls is an outrage, and like you, it makes me wonder about our attitudes!

Probably the only place I might differ with you is in believing that when all is said and done, the decision to continue the pregnancy or not has to rest with the woman herself.