Ezra Klein: Incentives

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April 19, 2005

Incentives

Jesse's got a great swipe at those who'd deny women the morning after pill:

Does anybody here know why the morning-after pill has a 72-hour window? Anyone? Well, you see, when the mommy half and the daddy half get together, it's a process called "fertilization". The problem is, however, that unless that fertilized mommy-and-daddy bit is implanted in the mommy's tummy, it can't ever become a baby nine months later. Unless it's implanted, it's a combined bit of regularly produced bodily secretions that in its then-current state cannot develop any further.

I'm not going to speculate on why there's a contingent of Americans dead-set against allowing women avoid pregnancy even before implantation has occurred; it's enough to simply say they're wrong. And while I know this stuff is supposedly icky -- particularly talk about fertilization! -- morning-after pills and condoms and the like are really quite popular.

American parents aren't running around worrying their daughters will abort, they're worried that they'll get pregnant. That, after all, is the last thing any parent wants to face. A wider variety of products that promise to forestall that conversation long before the talk turns to abortions and adoptions will be a political winner because, let's face it, the guardians are mainly interested in the continued viability of plausible deniability regarding their daughter's sex life. Anything that keeps the happy illusion whole will win the day.

April 19, 2005 in Politics of Choice | Permalink

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Comments

I'll say what I said over at Pandagon.

These people believe that life begins when the sperm joins with the egg. Therefore, any attempts to well...flush that out of the body, to them it mise' well be a late-term abortion.

And that sort of stupidity is why I'm not willing to comprimise with these people They're insane.

Posted by: Karmakin | Apr 19, 2005 12:29:34 PM

in case the flight from Las Vegas is delayed by weather...?

Posted by: daudder | Apr 19, 2005 12:41:08 PM

I dunno, I don't think it's insane to believe human life begins at fertilization. After all, the egg is alive, right? It needs plenty of sustenance, can't survive on its own, but same with bigger embryos or even newborns.

And unlike most organisms that have its level of intelligence (like maybe the amoeba or something), the fertilized egg contains the direct potential for full-fledged human life.

There's alot of room to disagree with that, but it's not insane.

The issue is whether the zygote's direct potential to grow into human life gives it significant moral status, or whether we need it to be more like an actual human first.

(By "direct potential" I mean there's a pretty high probability that it'd become a human if treated appropriately. Contrast that with, say, an unfertilized egg or isolated sperm, which generally have low probability. But I guess there still is a slippery slope here: is an egg surrounded by sperm trying to get in special, too? Why not, if one of those sperm is likely to get in?)

Posted by: mk | Apr 19, 2005 1:59:37 PM

"I'm not going to speculate on why there's a contingent of Americans dead-set against allowing women avoid pregnancy even before fertilization has occurred..."

You appear to be misunderstanding the physiology here, Ezra (although it doesn't really harm your larger point). Fertilization generally occurs in the fallopian tubes; the morning after pill works by blocking uterine implantation of the (already) fertilized egg. So the question isn't whether it's before fertilization has occurred but before uterine implantation.

Posted by: Nash | Apr 19, 2005 2:09:29 PM

You're right, I did miss that -- fixed.

Posted by: Ezra | Apr 19, 2005 2:13:05 PM

I highly recommend "Mourning My Miscarriage by Peggy Orenstein, published almost exactly three years ago in the NYTimes Magazine. I like the Japanese approach to abortion and when personhood starts much better than the U.S.'s.

"I had never previously considered that there is no word in English for a miscarried or aborted fetus. In Japanese it is mizuko, which is typically translated as ''water child.'' Historically, Japanese Buddhists believed that existence flowed into a being slowly, like liquid. Children solidified only gradually over time and weren't considered to be fully in our world until they reached the age of 7."

"The Japanese tend to accept both the existence of abortion and the idea that the mizuko is a form of life.... Mizuko kuyo [a farewell ritual for the mizuko] contains elements that would both satisfy and disturb Westerners on either side of the abortion debate: there is public recognition and spiritual acknowledgment that a potential life has been lost, remorse is expressed, yet there is no shame over having performed the act."

Posted by: Jade | Apr 19, 2005 3:11:16 PM

I'm not going to speculate on why there's a contingent of Americans dead-set against allowing women avoid pregnancy even before implantation has occurred; it's enough to simply say they're wrong.

Well, I'll speculate: it's because they're not pro-life, they're pro-consequences. That's the platform that has served the Republicans so well -- if you ever make a mistake, you should pay for it, preferably forever.

American parents aren't running around worrying their daughters will abort, they're worried that they'll get pregnant. That, after all, is the last thing any parent wants to face.

No, I think the death of their child -- e.g. from AIDS -- is lower on the want-to-face list. So one could argue that availability of the morning-after pill makes unprotected sex more likely. I don't believe for a minute that that's the reason people are fighting its availability, but it is an argument with some sense.

Posted by: Allen K. | Apr 19, 2005 3:48:24 PM

I don't have a problem with the morning after pill (except unprotected sex is stupid anyway) but there is, as has been pointed out, a logical consistancy for those who do.

I personnaly favor a viability model that would govern the legality of abortions (say 24 weeks or something) with exceptions for health of the mother, rape, incest, severe disability etc.

The caveat is though that health of the mother had better mean something. I don't know how often it occurs, but I understand that sometimes mental health reasons are given that basically translate to the woman doesn't want to have the baby. Tough to legislate this, I admit.

However, I think that though the legality of at least first trimester abortions should be preserved, people can themselves determine the morality of such things. I don't want everything that is legal to be automatically considered immoral and I certainly don't want everything considered immoral to automatically be considered illegal.

I have a tough time with requiring people to do things they consider immoral, there can be good cases made for that, and in many cases there are (people who think the American military is immoral and therefore don't want to pay taxes for example) but the case has to be made with seriousness. I don't think that letting pharmacists choose to not dispense RU-486 would do actual harm, there will be plenty of alternate pharmacies to go to (although if anti-abortion people started pressuring pharmacists to adopt this stance through boycotts etc. I might change my mind.)

Posted by: Dave Justus | Apr 19, 2005 4:09:22 PM

...there will be plenty of alternate pharmacies to go to (although if anti-abortion people started pressuring pharmacists to adopt this stance through boycotts etc. I might change my mind.

Get ready to change your mind, Dave. The first places this will happen is in the rural red-state areas due to political demographics. There, the pharmacy options will be severely limited, so the old "go to the pharmacy down the block" argument won't work. And in many towns the social pressure brought about from a strong local church or whoever will definitely be brought to bear on a small-town pharmacy owner.

I'm in feisty debate over at John Cole's on this topic. He had a nice post on this, and then the comments started flying... Check it out

Posted by: Mr Furious | Apr 19, 2005 4:51:55 PM

It's insane to think that pregnancy begins at fertilization, because it doesn't. That's the point. More than half of fertilized eggs don't implant anyway, which is the gray area that the right wing is exploiting here--if the morning after pill is taken post-fertilization and the egg does not implant, it's probably not because of the pill anyway. The morning after pill actually prevents ovulation in a woman who is not on the birth control pill. That is the other reason that time is of essence, because supressing ovulation is critical.

Posted by: Amanda | Apr 19, 2005 5:44:18 PM

It's insane to think that pregnancy begins at fertilization, because it doesn't. That's the point. More than half of fertilized eggs don't implant anyway.

It's not insane, Amanda (I'm putting aside the semantics of "pregnancy" and addressing the underlying ethical point). "More than half" doesn't have to be a decisive proportion. Willfully ending a zygote's chance of developing into a newborn is clearly still different from leaving it to develop or miscarry on its own.

You're right that if pro-lifers defend their turf in certain sorts of ways, this "more than half" argument may work against them. But ultimately what most pro-lifers are saying is simply "look, don't mess around with the creation of life." Such people are unlikely to respect the distinction between "Ending something which WILL develop into a child" and "Ending something which MIGHT with some substantial-but-less-than-half probability develop into a child."

And their refusal to draw this distinction is perfectly intelligible. It may be wrong, you may disagree, but it is not insane.

Posted by: mk | Apr 19, 2005 6:46:36 PM

You're wrong and Jesse's wrong about emergency contraception. The most likely mode is to delay ovulation, therefore fertilization never occurs. The "morning after pill" is not the same as RU-486, which can cause an abortion of an implanted embryo. Emergency contraception does not abort an already-established pregnancy. The fundies don't even have the basic science down straight.

From medlineplus.org:
"Emergency contraception has several potential effects on a woman's reproductive system that could help to decrease her risk of getting pregnant. Emergency contraceptive drugs appear to work primarily by preventing or delaying egg release (ovulation) from the ovaries. They may also slow egg or sperm transport in the fallopian tubes, and they may make the uterine lining less hospitable for implantation of a pregnancy. For example, IUDs are toxic to sperm and change the uterine lining so that implantation is less likely."

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/007014.htm

Arguing about how the contraception works is against the point, however. The important thing is these "pharmacists" are telling women they can't have the pills because the pharmacists oppose it. Why is it any of their business?

Posted by: Unstable Isotope | Apr 19, 2005 8:59:28 PM

Alas, the argument always concerned definitions. If you've already decided to ignore the work of pregnancy, this won't change your mind. Unless it works as an argument from authority, and sooneror later some conservative authority will point out the fallacy. (Now I'm picturing Court Fool Coulter reading a dictionary, puzzling over the words: "ad homey-nim?")

Posted by: Omar K. Ravenhurst | Apr 19, 2005 11:59:25 PM

American parents aren't running around worrying their daughters will abort, they're worried that they'll get pregnant. That, after all, is the last thing any parent wants to face.

Allen's right insofar as the last thing any parent wants to face is the grim task of burying their own child. But, at least for me, that means my daughter will be educated and prepared early on.

The folks that are against this form of prevention of pregnancy are the same folks that are pushing abstinence-only sex education, which has been statistically proven to do more harm than good, and in fact does more harm than not teaching them anything at all. That's the mystery to me, how any parent can look at those statistics, and then decide that their "discomfort" with children knowing the facts about sex and preventing STD's is justification for throwing the dice with their children's lives.

If you can get inside a mindset that justifies letting your child tiptoe around a minefield blindfolded because of your discomfort about removing the blindfold too early, you might be able to suss out the other contradictions.

Posted by: chiggins | Apr 20, 2005 10:52:13 AM

I don't know how it happens but mitosis plays a vital role during intercourse.

Posted by: Kim | Oct 12, 2005 6:54:33 AM

I don't know how it happens but mitosis plays a vital role in manufacturing baby's cells after intercourse.

Posted by: Kim | Oct 12, 2005 6:56:23 AM

Well It's really insane to think that pregnancy begins at fertilization, because it doesn't as more than half of the fertilized eggs don't implant anyway.

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