Secular Pro-Life has published an article of mine under their paid blogging program.

A sentence in the next-to-last paragraph reads:

Because even if the legality of abortion is morally neutral and abortion does not psychologically harm women, there is no question that reliance on the practice to solve various problems denigrates women’s femaleness, instead of honoring it and demanding that society accommodate it (remember the point about female functions above) . . .

But as I said in a main comment under the article, “I should have written ‘Because even if keeping abortion legal is not morally wrong and abortion does not psychologically harm women, there is no question that reliance on the practice to attain equality with men denigrates women’s femaleness, instead [etc.].'” The entire comment reads:

I wrote in the article, Because even if the legality of abortion is morally neutral and abortion does not psychologically harm women, there is no question that reliance on the practice to solve various problems denigrates women’s femaleness, instead of honoring it and demanding that society accommodate it (remember the point about female functions above) . . .

I should have written “Because even if keeping abortion legal is not morally wrong and abortion does not psychologically harm women, there is no question that reliance on the practice to attain equality with men denigrates women’s femaleness, instead [etc.].” I was trying to be brief, but I wasn’t very successful in being both brief and clear.

Early in the article I had written: Women will no longer have to live in a society that gives official sanction to the idea “. . . Often, the female sex can become equal to the male only by assaulting a female function . . .” There were a number of reasons that abortion was originally made legal in the US. The stated reason was “privacy,” but that does not mean that that was the actual main reason in the collective inner mind of society – or if it was, the main reasons might have shifted – and I don’t think that in popular belief that is now the main justification for the legality. Justice Ginsburg wrote in Gonzales v. Carhart, quoting from Planned Parenthood v. Casey, “[Women’s] ability to realize their full potential . . . is intimately connected to ‘their ability to control their reproductive lives.’ Thus, legal challenges to undue restrictions on abortion procedures . . . center on a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature…”

Ginsburg was talking about equal citizenship stature to be achieved by assaulting the normal bodily functioning of a female who has happened to get pregnant. She was giving official sanction to the idea that that is sometimes the price of equality and thus that women are by nature less than equal. (Which pro-life feminism disputes. Pro-life feminism blames society rather for not accommodating women’s nature.) If in the popular mind the reasons for the legality of abortion were other than such equality – for instance if people believed that it is legal because making it legal is, due to bodily rights or whatever, morally neutral or morally right, then the legality of abortion would not have the effect of denigrating women’s femaleness – but if people believe the reason to be equality, then the message they get from official quarters is that by nature, women are less than equal.

And in a reply to a commenter, I further wrote –

Suppose I had said, “there is no question that if a pregnant person allows her physiology, which scientific consensus calls female and not-male, to function unhindered, the result will be a born baby (or at least is much more likely to be a born baby than if she deliberately hinders the functioning)” — ? I think you would say, okay, there’s no question.

However, am I justified in equating unhindered female functioning with femaleness? Though I might think twice about how I use “femaleness” if I find that word has been used differently by pro-life feminist thinkers, I guess I would define it as “female anatomy/physiology (along with any inborn, hardwired female behavior traits, if there are any) as the ultimate basis of female identity.” Let me explain.

Suppose a person has typical male anatomy and physiology but identifies as female. Okay, so if you ask me the person’s gender identity, I will say “female”. But does that mean that anatomy is completely unrelated to identity, as some might claim? I don’t think so, because the fact that the person identifies as female means there is such a thing as a female. And what defines that concept of “female” that the person is using? It can only be what scientific consensus calls female anatomy and female physiology. Unless “female anatomy/physiology is the ultimate basis of female identity,” then there can be no such thing as feminism, there can be no meaning to “women’s struggle,” “women’s rights,” “Women’s March,” “women’s health.” Or even “equality of men and women.”

So, a few or many females (by identity) may have male anatomy, but still female anatomy/physiology is the ultimate basis of female identity. Take away that basis and female identity will become meaningless

You might be trying to tell me, “If women hinder their physiological functioning, that is not denigrating their female identity, because they don’t identify with their anatomy/physiology.” But they DO identify with it.

I wrote, “there is no question that reliance on the practice to solve various problems denigrates women’s femaleness.” I should have said “certain problems,” or more specifically “problems that jeopardize their equality.” If a woman’s problem is that the unborn has some cosmetic defect, that’s not a good reason to abort, but she is not aborting for the sake of equality with men. But if she aborts in order to compete with men at work,* then the abortion is a statement “If I allow my normal physiological functioning then I’m inferior to men.” An abortion for that reason denigrates her femaleness.

* The Justice Ginsburg justification for legal abortion — see the main comment that I made in this comments section.

Whereas if the woman said, “I’m going to go ahead and deliver the baby, maybe even raise it, and I demand that society reward me for doing that job as much as it rewards the men whom I will now lag behind at the office,” then she’s a pro-life feminist. PL feminists say No, I can have my normal physiological functioning without being inferior to men. But I will be different from men, and society has to accommodate me along with my difference . . .

– and to another commenter I wrote:

. . . The institution of legal abortion, as the article says, entails both benefits and losses for women, and most of those benefits and losses are primarily material, not moral. For instance, if abortion is legal, it will be a little safer — a benefit in terms of the health of aborting women, a material benefit. However, if the institution of legal abortion is morally wrong and if that institution exists, then the whole society becomes to that extent an immoral society and everyone (including women) will be polluted morally by having to live in it. Whereas if the institution of legal abortion is morally right and if that institution DOESN’T exist, then the whole society becomes to that extent an immoral society and everyone (including women) will be polluted morally by having to live in it. So though the article counts up mostly material benefits and losses that stem from making abortion illegal, there will also be a benefit or loss in terms of moral pollution BY THE VERY FACT that abortion is legal or illegal.

Though I think myself that the institution of legal abortion is morally wrong, some think it’s morally right, and I wanted all the benefits and losses to be undebatable, so as you may have understood, I did not (in this particular article) come to any conclusion about its morality.

But I did say that if the institution of legal abortion is not morally wrong, then as an institution (THE VERY FACT that it is legal), it doesn’t come in the “losses” column. But even if the institution of legal abortion is not morally wrong, that institution DOES send the message that femaleness is inferior — that institution denigrates women — which DOES come in the losses column. That’s what the sentence is saying.

That denigration is not exactly a material loss or a loss in terms of moral pollution. It’s an image loss . . .

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Some future posts:

Life Panels

A Trade-Off of a Sensitive Nature

Unborn Child-Protection Legislation, the Moral Health of Society, and the Role of the American Democratic Party

The Motivations of Aborting Parents

Why Remorse Comes Too Late

The Kitchen-Ingredients Week-After Pill

Unwanted Babies and Overpopulation

The Woman as Slave?

Abortion and the Map of the World